Flagship

New Orleans attack kills 15

At least 15 people died in a New Year’s Eve attack in New Orleans that US President Joe Biden said was inspired by the Islamic State group. A man drove a rented pickup truck into crowds before opening fire and being killed by police. The FBI named Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a US Army veteran from Texas, as the suspect: An IS flag and explosives were found in the vehicle. Police were investigating whether a second explosion, in Las Vegas, was related. Though violent crime has fallen in the US in recent years, the issue was a hot election topic and President-elect Donald Trump said the New Orleans attack demonstrated that his comments decrying worsening crime “turned out to be true.”

US debt ceiling in spotlight

The US debt ceiling was reinstated, again raising the specter of the world’s biggest economy defaulting on its borrowing, all in the fractious run-up to President-elect Donald Trump’s return to office. The Treasury Secretary said that officials will soon have to start taking extraordinary measures to avert such a default, which analysts have warned — on the multiple prior occasions the US has neared its debt ceiling — could throw the global economy into turmoil. Given Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress, a resolution should be attainable, but as Politico noted, “the fiscal time bomb illustrates the struggle Trump and Republican leaders face,” as they grapple with whether to court Democrats or acquiesce to harder-line conservative demands.

China’s economic unease

Chinese authorities outlined a focus on economic growth for the year ahead, with national leader Xi Jinping insisting the country “must be confident.” Officials eased monetary policy and raised civil servant salaries, part of efforts to bolster flagging domestic consumption and accelerate economic growth: Analysts at Rhodium Group estimated that China grew in 2024 by only about half as much as its official 5% target, and said the country is unlikely to meet that goal this year either. Of Xi’s biggest challenges in 2025 — anemic growth, the need for broader structural reforms, and geopolitical risks amplified by US President Donald Trump’s return to office — “first, and most obviously, is the state of the economy,” a China scholar warned.

Russia’s gas flow through Ukraine stops

Russian gas stopped flowing through Ukraine for the first time in decades. Moscow has delivered gas to Europe via a trans-Ukrainian pipeline since 1991, and continued despite the war, but the latest five-year deal just expired. The fact that Europe will not immediately suffer is a sign of how much the continent’s energy market has changed: Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 40% of the European Union’s gas came from Russia. By 2023, that had dropped to 10%. Still, several EU members, notably Austria and Slovakia, continued to import significant quantities. Vienna said it had sufficient reserves and did not anticipate disruption, but Bratislava — whose president is sympathetic to Russia — earned significant fees piping the gas on.

France’s African retreat

Ivory Coast said French troops will withdraw from the nation, part of Paris’ wider retreat from its former colonies. France’s forces also left Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger in recent months, after a series of military coups. France’s exit was seen as an opportunity for Russia. But the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria revealed Moscow’s underlying weakness, an analyst wrote in Foreign Policy: It “was unable to defend its strongest ally in the Middle East,” and as a result lost a key staging base for its Africa operations, meaning Russia’s access to gold and diamond reserves, a vital source of hard currency in the face of international sanctions, could be severely restricted.

Syria’s charm offensive

Syria’s foreign and defense ministers visited Riyadh while the country’s new leader met with minorities, part of efforts to win over groups that will be key to its reconstruction. The Saudi trip comes amid a wider reset of ties since last month’s overthrow of longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose rule was marked in later years by heavy dependence on Riyadh’s regional rival, Iran: Saudi Arabia wants to take advantage of Tehran’s setback, while Syria’s rulers hope to court investment and support. In particular, they have called for sanctions imposed during Assad’s rule to be lifted, with International Crisis Group analysts warning in Foreign Affairs that delays to doing so “could push the country toward collapse.”

Latam’s hydropower shortfalls

Ecuador has endured power outages for as long as 14 hours a day as the country’s hydroelectricity-reliant grid is pummeled by an extraordinary drought. Abnormally dry weather has blighted grids across much of Latin America, which generates almost half of its electricity from hydropower. Countries are scrambling for responses, including importing energy and reopening fossil fuel-burning facilities, but the turnarounds are costly and time consuming. The region may be a global bellwether: More than a quarter of the world’s hydroelectric dams are in regions at risk of water scarcity by 2050, a 2022 study showed.

Join us for our largest convening at Davos yet, featuring a world-class lineup of live journalism at the World Economic Forum 2025. Semafor editors will engage with industry leaders to discuss key themes, including global finance, blockchain, AI in the Gulf, Africa’s growth trajectory, and much more.

Fashion uncertainty in 2025

The global fashion industry will be defined by major geopolitical shifts in 2025, a new report warned. Some 80% of respondents to a recent survey by Business of Fashion and McKinsey said they expected conditions to worsen or stay the same this year, and predicted sector-wide changes would be shaped far more by trade, economics, and demographics than factors that could be controlled by any one company. Rising protectionism will likely increase costs, and demand will move from China to other Asian giants such as India and Japan, while a so-called Silver Generation of spenders will account for an ever-greater share of spending. “The most common sentiment among fashion leaders for 2025,” BoF said, “was ‘uncertainty’.”

LA looks to boost cycling

Los Angeles wants to drop its car-crazy reputation and become cycle-friendly ahead of the 2028 Olympics. LA is “the capital of American car culture,” the BBC reported, famous for its gridlocked freeways and endless urban sprawl. Only about 1% of commuters use bikes and 7% public transit, low even by US standards. But with hundreds of thousands of spectators expected in 2028, the city has adopted a plan to boost cycle uptake, building miles of bike lanes: Along Hollywood Boulevard, car traffic is now limited to one lane in each direction, with the rest given to cyclists. The project is behind schedule and hitting opposition from car groups, but LA voters backed the move in a ballot measure.

The history of New Year’s resolutions

Promised yourself you’ll go to the gym more in 2025? You’re part of a grand tradition: New Year’s resolutions are millennia old, an academic told National Geographic. The concept of the turning of the year goes back to Babylonia, where as early as 1000 BC the king would vow to be a better ruler in the coming year. Ancient Romans also liked to start the year by paying off debts and returning borrowed items. Resolutions can be great: One writer in The Guardian said her pledge to read a book a week changed her life. But if the tradition of making resolutions is 3,000 years old, the tradition of breaking them is at least 2,999.

• Tesla announces its latest sales figures, while South Korea’s Hyundai Motor and sister company Kia Corp unveil their 2025 targets.
• Priests from the Afro-Cuban Santeria religion in Havana make predictions for the new year.
• The World Darts Championship semi-finals take place in London.

The value of all the coins thrown into Rome’s Trevi Fountain every year. The money had been collected by Caritas, a charity run by the Roman Catholic Church, but a recent cleanup project of all the city’s public fountains has drastically reduced the number of coins — thrown by tourists to ensure their return to the Eternal City, according to legend — collected, hurting the charity’s operations. “Poverty doesn’t go on holiday,” the head of Caritas’ Rome operation told The New York Times.

Lockerbie: A Search for Truth. The drama stars Colin Firth playing a doctor whose daughter was on the Pan Am Flight 103 that exploded over Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people. “It’s gripping, well crafted, and sensitively told,” The Guardian wrote, but “there’s no escaping the palpable dread” in the opening episode, which begins with the night of the bombing. Watch the trailer for Lockerbie: A Search for Truth, out today on Paramount in the US, or Sky and NOW in the UK.

According to financial disclosures, newly elected members of Congress own between $3.8 and $9.1 million in key tech stocks, Semafor’s Rachyl Jones reported. Though divestment is not a requirement for lawmakers, Joe Biden said in a recent interview that “nobody in the Congress should be able to make money in the stock market while they’re in the Congress.”