US President Donald Trump threatened a “massive increase” of tariffs on China on Friday, arguing it was necessary to “financially counter” new rare earth export controls that China has imposed on America.

Posting on Truth Social, Trump said that there was no way that China “should be allowed to hold the World “captive”″ over its export policies. He added that Beijing’s new policy meant that there was “no reason” to hold a planned meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea later this month.

Stocks dropped on the announcement, with the S&P 500 falling as much as 1.7%.

The White House criticized the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday after it awarded the 2025 peace prize to the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.

“President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives,” White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung said on X. “The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace.”

The committee rewarded Machado for her work as a central opposition figure to a “a brutal, authoritarian state” under President Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chávez. In 2024, Machado’s candidacy was blocked, she was prevented from leaving the country, and she has been forced to live in hiding.

In other years, Machado’s victory might be uncontroversial, but US President Donald Trump has openly campaigned for the prize: “I deserve it,” Trump said back in February, “but they would never give it to me.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James was indicted following pressure from US President Donald Trump on charges critics said were politically motivated.

The indictment alleging mortgage fraud came after former FBI Director James Comey pleaded not guilty to lying to Congress. The president had urged the Justice Department to bring charges against both: James had brought a civil suit against Trump during the 2024 campaign, Comey initiated an investigation into Trump’s links to Russia ahead of the 2016 election.

Trump is likely to pursue more adversaries: Semafor reported that his former National Security Adviser John Bolton could face charges, though convictions in any of the cases may be tricky.

US President Donald Trump’s unorthodox foreign policy approach was crucial to securing the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, analysts said.

Israel’s cabinet ratified the agreement last night, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu notably defying his hard-right coalition allies in supporting the deal. Both Netanyahu and Hamas have been under significant pressure from Trump, who has gambled that “no one, including hard-liners on both sides” would defy him, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Trump even forced Netanyahu to apologize to Doha after Israeli strikes on Qatar. But his strategy of “declaring victory first and forcing others to fill in the details” may not secure the longer-term goal of disarming Hamas and introducing a multinational peacekeeping force in Gaza.

Peruvian lawmakers impeached President Dina Boluarte and removed her from power, ending an unpopular presidency during which crime rates soared and the economy sputtered.

During Boluarte’s time as leader — which she inherited after a former president was removed over a coup attempt — the homicide rate rose by almost 40%, while economic growth cooled to the lowest level in years apart from a pandemic rebound, bringing her approval rating to around 3%. (No, that’s not a typo.) To replace her, Congress elected Jose Jerí, a 38-year-old conservative lawmaker and Peru’s seventh president since 2016. Jerí vowed to take a severe approach on crime in the run-up to the elections in April.

Sanae Takaichi’s bid to become Japan’s first female prime minister was put at risk by a split in the governing coalition.

Takaichi was appointed head of the Liberal Democratic Party, and since the LDP has been in government for most of the last 70 years, she appeared likely to become premier. But the party’s coalition partners said they were ending their 26-year alliance with the LDP, citing a disagreement over political donations. The break means the LDP lacks the parliamentary votes to appoint Takaichi and must court opposition parties.

Takaichi is a self-declared fan of Margaret Thatcher, but if confirmed is expected to revive the late premier Shinzo Abe’s strategy of loose monetary policy and structural reforms.

Cameroon’s President Paul Biya looks set to prolong his four-decade rule in elections this weekend, likely ensuring the world’s oldest leader can run the country until he is almost 100.

Despite heightened instability in the central African nation, the 92-year-old autocrat has benefited from a fractured opposition: Nine contenders will try to unseat him.

His unwillingness to name a successor is fueling fears of impending political chaos, World Politics Review said, and arguably holding back progress in the country. Biya and other long-serving African leaders are blocking “the fresh thinking that could unlock economic development” in the world’s youngest continent, Semafor’s Africa managing editor wrote.

Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of a ceasefire deal, driving cautious optimism that a permanent end to their brutal two-year conflict could be near.

The agreement, brokered by US President Donald Trump, calls for the release of all Israeli hostages taken during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack, as well as the freeing of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and the withdrawal of Israeli troops.

Israel and Hamas are set to exchange hostages and prisoners within days, US President Donald Trump said Thursday.

Hamas’ top negotiator said the agreement would “end the war,” a sentiment Trump echoed, while Israel’s cabinet met to ratify the accord.

The deal feels “like a new beginning” for a region deeply scarred from two years of conflict, but negotiations were rushed and the pact leaves critical questions unanswered, including how Gaza will be governed in future and what long-term monitoring mechanisms may be in place, Haaretz wrote: “Beyond the first phase, there is no political horizon.”

Residents of Gaza — where a humanitarian disaster has unfolded, with 67,000 killed and famine taking root — and the families of Israeli hostages welcomed the deal. “Finally,” the deputy Palestinian envoy to the UN said.

Huge obstacles could hinder any lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, despite the announcement of the first phase of a ceasefire deal, analysts said.

Israel’s hard-right, nationalist finance minister said he would vote against the agreement, and though the deal is expected to pass, his remarks underline domestic opposition.

Later phases of the agreement also include numerous requirements that are unlikely to be fulfilled, such as the disarmament of Hamas, meaning that while the narrower hostage deal is laudable, the prospects for the wider truce “are very, very limited,” a Biden-era security official told the Financial Times. Much work also remains on rebuilding Gaza: France is hosting Arab and European talks on the issue today.

Shares of US rare earth companies jumped Thursday after China tightened export controls on crucial minerals, reopening a front in the countries’ trade war.

The surge stemmed from speculation that the new restrictions would spur the US government to invest more deeply in the country’s domestic rare earth industry. Beijing’s move, Nikkei wrote, raises the stakes in a “US-China power game” that previously showed signs of cooling.

It is now heating up ahead of the APEC summit in three weeks, where Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are set to meet. US executives aren’t taking Beijing seriously enough over its willingness to weaponize regulations to tighten the screws on Washington, an analyst argued in CNBC.

Russia’s war economy is facing a new set of headwinds as the conflict in Ukraine drags on.

Several Russian industrial giants in the transportation and mining sectors are furloughing or cutting staff as domestic demand and exports slip. The World Bank downgraded the country’s growth outlook this week, saying Russia is heading toward stagnation rather than a “managed slowdown.” Investors and ordinary Russians are increasingly pessimistic. Experts have warned for years that Moscow’s economy is vulnerable and over-dependent on its war with Kyiv. But for President Vladimir Putin, “these are concerns for another day,” an economics professor wrote in Project Syndicate.

The economy is yet to fully collapse, and, for now, the Kremlin cares more about making gains in Ukraine.

North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea marks its 80th birthday Friday, with major celebrations expected.

Leader Kim Jong Un will join a host of foreign dignitaries, including Chinese Premier Li Qiang and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev: Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and Beijing’s tensions with Washington have boosted Pyongyang’s ties with its fellow authoritarian regimes. Kim will also likely oversee a military parade, showing off the country’s latest weaponry.

Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-Sung, was among the key figures in the WPK’s 1945 founding, and played a role in the decision to invade South Korea in 1950, leading to the northern state’s continuing isolation.

The Bank of England warned that an AI-fueled bubble could burst and that a “sharp market correction” could be approaching.

The UK central bank said that valuations of US stocks resembled the peak of the 2000s dot-com craze, and that 30% of the S&P 500’s total value came from just five AI-focused companies, the most concentrated the index has been in 50 years.

The BoE also warned that threats to the US Federal Reserve’s independence could cause a run on the dollar.

There are other warning signs: Investors are increasingly piling into alternative assets such as gold and crypto, The Wall Street Journal reported, hedging against a possible collapse.

French President Emmanuel Macron will name a new prime minister this week, likely ruling out snap parliamentary elections that threatened to drive the country deeper into political chaos.

France has been mired in protracted budgetary deadlock, resulting in multiple governments being unseated. The outgoing premier — Macron’s seventh — told French television that a path out of the morass was “still possible,” but would be “difficult.” Though a definitive resolution still looks distant, the euro gained on the news.

The longer-term ramifications of the entrenched crisis could be significant, though: “Deep disagreement about a societal project [creates] revolutionary situations,” a leading French historian told Le Monde. “Revolutions happen because the elites are not up to the task.”

Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai won the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday, for what the Swedish Academy called “his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”

Known for his winding sentences and dystopian themes, Krasznahorkai has frequently been compared to Kafka and Gogol. His debut novel, Satantango, published in 1985, followed the collapse of a rural community in Hungary, while more recent works, including the novels The Prisoner of Urga and Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens, were inspired by the author’s travels to Mongolia and China.

Krasznahorkai joins last year’s winner, the South Korean author Han Kang, as well as Bob Dylan, Harold Pinter, and Toni Morrison, in receiving what is widely regarded as literature’s highest honor, which comes with prize money of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1.2 million).

The global economy has held up “better than feared” despite tariff-induced turbulence, but risks remain, the head of the International Monetary Fund said Wednesday.

Kristalina Georgieva said the US economy in particular has softened, but has avoided the recession that many feared earlier this year when President Donald Trump unveiled his steep import duties. Other global financial chiefs have similarly pointed to unexpected resilience, with nations skirting an escalating, tit-for-tat trade war that threatened to hobble markets. Still, uncertainty looms over the economy, which has performed “worse than we need… Buckle up,” Georgieva said.

She cautioned about ballooning stocks on the back of AI optimism, stressing that a sharp correction threatens to drag down growth.

China is quietly investigating and detaining executives in the country as part of a ballooning corruption crackdown, The Economist wrote.

Authorities have gone after dozens of bosses at publicly listed companies — and likely more at private firms — this year through the liuzhi system, in which detainees’ rights are restricted and targets can be held for months without court approval. While global attention has focused on foreign business sentiment toward operating in China, the detentions are contributing to a worsening corporate atmosphere among Chinese companies.

Fear of being added to a credit blacklist “is real,” The Economist wrote, “and may lead companies to take fewer risks.”

The Taliban foreign minister’s visit to India starting Thursday reflects a shift in New Delhi’s posture toward Afghanistan, as other regional powers also look to grow their influence in Kabul.

India does not officially recognize the Taliban, but the thawing ties could be a response to China’s efforts to mend relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, analysts said. For the Taliban, the visit projects “legitimacy for their domestic constituents,” and signals they are no longer over-dependent on Islamabad, experts wrote in NDTV.

The Taliban is pushing for more international acceptance — Russia recently became the first country to formally recognize its government, and other nations, including in Central Asia, could soon follow suit.

The European Parliament voted to restrict the use of words such as “steak,” “burger,” or “sausage” to describe only meat products.

Meat consumption in the EU is down, thanks to high costs and concern over animal welfare and meat’s environmental impact, while plant-based alternatives are on the rise. German producers made 126,500 tons of alternative meat products last year, more than double the 2020 figure.

But a growing backlash from meat producers is influencing politicians worldwide. Several US states have banned lab-grown meat, while the German chancellor this week declared “sausage is not vegan.” Linguists may differ: The terms “veggie burger” and “veggie sausage” have been widely used since the 1980s.

Russia is sharing important battlefield lessons it has gleaned from its Ukraine invasion with China, Iran, and North Korea, a leading analyst argued in Foreign Affairs.

The assessment contradicts Western conventional wisdom that Moscow has approached the conflict more as a meat grinder than with strategic nous. “Russia realizes that warfare is changing, so its military must change, as well,” the piece said.

It comes amid mounting evidence of cooperation between what Washington hawks have dubbed the “Axis of Upheaval”: China is reportedly helping Iran evade US sanctions with a barter-like trading system, and is an increasingly critical investor in Russia, while Beijing’s premier is due in Pyongyang this week.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is leading a business delegation to India, part of efforts by London to court a fast-growing economy and reduce its vulnerability to protectionism from its biggest trading partners.

Britain has in recent months been hit by US tariffs targeting key export sectors and now faces the prospect of its steel sales to the EU — a major market — being curbed.

The trip won’t be smooth sailing, though. Starmer faces domestic pressure over immigration, and easing visa restrictions is one of India’s key demands. The British leader will also likely ask his counterpart about New Delhi’s seemingly deepening ties with Moscow: India’s prime minister wished Russia’s president a happy birthday this week.

The 2025 Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded for the creation of metal-organic frameworks, molecular structures that can capture CO₂, filter pollutants from water, or trap moisture from desert air.

Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar Yaghi discovered that copper ions could be used to create a crystal with large cavities within it, which was porous to smaller atoms and molecules but blocked larger ones.

The materials act as customizable molecular sponges: The cavities can be made in different forms, allowing the sponges to capture or process different substances, and opening up enormous possibilities for environmental and industrial applications.

Protesters in Ecuador attacked a car carrying President Daniel Noboa, the latest demonstration of increasingly violent discontent against his government.

A minister said around 500 people threw rocks at Noboa’s motorcade, while reports suggested bullets may have been fired, too. Noboa faces a mounting array of challenges since securing reelection in April, with murder rates in once-peaceful Ecuador rising to among the highest globally, fueled in part by cocaine trafficking from neighboring Colombia.

In a bid to tame brewing unrest, Noboa recently walked back the scrapping of a fuel subsidy: The entitlement had been draining government coffers, but ending it sparked widespread anger amid cooling economic growth that has left millions struggling to get by.

AI firms signed major deals with chipmakers, but the agreements raised concerns that industry funding is increasingly circular — and possibly concealing a bubble.

Elon Musk’s xAI raised $20 billion, a chunk of which comes from Nvidia, with the expectation that it would be used to buy Nvidia chips; Nvidia also recently backed OpenAI with up to $100 billion to build data centers filled with Nvidia semiconductors.

Separately, OpenAI agreed a partnership with AMD, buying both stock and chips: The deal boosted AMD’s share price, and thus covered the price of the chips, Bloomberg’s Matt Levine noted.

The insularity of the various deals could “overstate the robustness of the AI ecosystem,” The New York Times reported.

Chinese censors are ramping up their crackdown on online dissent as internet users become increasingly vocal over the country’s economic slowdown.

Authorities have punished numerous bloggers, including one who observed that China still lags far behind the West in terms of quality of life. The campaign looks to silence “excessively pessimistic sentiment,” according to a government agency. Young people in China face tough prospects: Youth unemployment reached 19% in August, with more than 12 million new college graduates every year competing for too-few jobs.

Meanwhile, thousands have complained of a recent decision by Beijing to attract high-end foreign talent. “We’ve got plenty of talent here already, so I don’t really get it,” one social media user wrote.

Tesla unveiled lower-cost versions of its most popular models in order to boost flagging sales in the face of Chinese dominance in the global EV sector.

The end of US subsidies has hit the industry, and carmakers around the world are “falling back in love with petrol,” the Financial Times reported.

Ford, General Motors, and Honda are all betting on a longer future for internal combustion engines, while calls are growing for an EU ban on petrol by 2035 to be relaxed. Only China continues to go all-in on electric cars, raising fears that the West could fall behind: Tesla’s moves left investors underwhelmed.

The price of gold topped $4,000 per ounce for the first time on Tuesday, a reflection of the unease plaguing both investors and central banks.

Gold is widely seen as a safe haven asset during turbulent times, and analysts attribute the latest surge to a desire among financiers to move away from US assets, even as stocks have hit new highs: The country’s government shutdown, delaying the release of official government economic data, has particularly heightened anxiety. Billionaire investor Ray Dalio compared the current environment to the inflation-heavy early 1970s, calling gold an “excellent diversifier,” although Bank of America warned of “uptrend exhaustion.”

Jewelry companies have begun raising the alarm over possible price increases afflicting already-weary consumers.

This year has been defined by global trade turbulence, yet more goods are set to move across borders in 2025 than in 2024, according to new World Trade Organization estimates.

After US President Donald Trump unveiled sky-high tariffs in April, the WTO forecast that global trade would contract by 0.2%; but many duties have since come down, while purchases of AI-related equipment — semiconductors, computers, cloud servers — have propped up cross-border commerce.

The world’s trading system “has been knocked, it’s been battered, but it is showing very strong resilience at the core,” WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said at a recent Semafor event. Still, the organization slashed its 2026 outlook, forecasting the world’s economy will cool.

Israel marked the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks that triggered the conflict that has reshaped the Middle East.

The country has won since major victories against regional enemies, including Iran and Hezbollah, but at a huge cost: 67,000 Palestinians have been killed, famine has taken hold in Gaza, and Israel is increasingly isolated.

Other countries’ politics have been affected, too. Zohran Mamdani is likely to be the next mayor of New York City in large part because of his support for Palestinian rights, while governments across Europe have accelerated support for a Palestinian state.

A truce may finally be close, with Israeli and Hamas leaders nearing a ceasefire at talks brokered by US President Donald Trump.

US President Donald Trump met Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Tuesday, with the countries at loggerheads over trade and Trump’s comments about annexing the country’s northern neighbor.

Canada is the only G7 country not to have reached a trade deal with the US this year; a North American free trade agreement protects Ottawa from some tariffs, but it is still subject to punishing steel duties, among others.

Carney promised to be tough on Trump but Canadian firms are shedding jobs and exports are down. The Canadian leader must walk a tightrope: Trump is deeply unpopular north of the border after repeatedly suggesting making Canada the “51st state.” Polls found that 60% of Canadians say they can never fully trust the US again.

AI-powered science is advancing so quickly that it may soon make a discovery worthy of a Nobel Prize without human intervention, scientists predicted.

The Nobel Turing Challenge was established in 2016 to offer a prize for a machine that can achieve a discovery equivalent to the most cutting-edge human research. For a discovery to count, the AI has to oversee the entire project, from hypothesis generation to experiment design to data analysis. Machines are already assisting human researchers in almost every step of that process, but being truly autonomous is still a leap forward.

“It’s almost certain” that AI will reach that level eventually, one researcher told Nature: “The question is if it will take 50 years or 10.”