The Wall Street Journal: What's News.

"Azerbaijan Airlines says 'external interference' caused deadly crash."

Views expressed in this geopolitical news and analysis are those of the reporters and correspondents.  Accessed on 27 December 2024, 2302 UTC.

Content and Source:  https://www.wsj.com.

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Russ Roberts (https://trendsingeopolitics.blogspot.com).

 

Good afternoon. Here’s what you should know today, Dec. 27: A MAGA civil war erupts over immigration Are selfies the next health-assessment tool? Say goodbye to celebrity activist investors By Zlati Meyer Thanks for reading What’s News! Look for the 🔐 to enjoy a free article on us—and share the link with a friend (or forward the whole newsletter!). The site of the Azerbaijan Airlines crash this week. PHOTO: THE ADMINISTRATION OF MANGYSTAU REGION/AP 1. “Physical and technical external interference” caused the plane crash that killed 38 people flying to southern Russia, Azerbaijan Airlines said. That’s the closest officials have come to confirming mounting suspicions that a Russian air-defense system (🔐 read for free) downed the jet. Russia’s aviation authority said that the plane had tried to land in Grozny in Russia’s Chechnya region amid difficult conditions during a Ukrainian drone strike. Missiles are now the biggest killer of airline passengers, aviation safety data show. 2. Mexican officials are worried that Donald Trump will order military strikes against drug cartels. The country’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, is cracking down on organized crime to blunt criticism from the incoming U.S. administration. Separately, Trump's team is looking at using military bases to detain migrants and military planes to boost deportations, incoming border czar Tom Homan told WSJ. 3. The fight over immigration is cracking the populist-tech bro alliance. Elon Musk’s argument to welcome high-skilled immigrants is stoking worries among MAGA supporters about foreigners taking U.S. jobs. Columnist Tim Higgins explains why. 4. Your so-called face age can tell doctors important information about your health. Scans of face photos can estimate people’s “biological age.” A study found that an AI-trained model did a better job than doctors of predicting how long cancer patients will live. Researchers hope that one day the tool could be a standard part of assessing health. MEMBER MESSAGE: MANSION GLOBAL BOUTIQUE Challenge Your Inner Agent: Play HomeShuffle Now The daily game for avid real estate watchers lets you test your knowledge of home pricing and has you competing for the top of the leaderboard. Play Now The Number ~⅔ The share of agreements between companies and activist investors in the last two years that have been private, according to FTI Consulting. They also got settlements much quicker after publicly demanding board seats than in 2023. An era of big-name activists with fiery personalities who wage noisy proxy battles and use brash tactics to force change (think Carl Icahn, Nelson Peltz and Bill Ackman) is over. Catch Up Fallen Crypto Tycoon Do Kwon to Be Extradited to U.S. (Read) Germany Opened Its Doors to Migrants. Now It’s Struggling to Cope. (Read) Iran Detains Prominent Italian Journalist Cecilia Sala (Read) The Epic Mess at TGI Fridays (Read) What the Record Wave of New 65-Year-Olds Means for Wall Street (Read) Their Decisions Make or Break Your Holiday Travel at the Trickiest U.S. Airport (Read) Live Better ILLUSTRATION: KIERSTEN ESSENPREIS How to avoid costly tax blunders in 2025 If you’re planning to make IRS-related New Year’s resolutions, check out reporter Laura Saunders’s list of smart moves, from penalty avoidance to understanding the difference between your effective and top rates. Read More Reporter's Journal The past 12 months were jam-packed with news—everything from wars, interest rates and AI to natural disasters, Wall Street records and, of course, the presidential election. Bill Power, deputy editor of the topical weekly Journal Reports section, assembled a look back at the biggest stories of 2024. I spoke with him about the highs and lows as well as what he anticipates in 2025. Write to him at bill.power@wsj.com. Q:  What stories stood out this year? A:  We knew AI and the election would be big. But if anyone predicted the twists and turns of the election, that person should go to Vegas! We anticipated the Middle East and Ukraine would make news, and they did. We couldn’t have predicted some of those high-tech attacks that Israel came up with, like the exploding pagers. And as usual, there were natural disasters that made the timeline. Our great photo editors who work on the project, Johnny Simon and Joe Fornabaio, always know there are startling photos. But we also try not to be relentlessly depressing, so we decided late in the game to add the amazing Northern Lights photo. Q:  WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich was freed from a Russian prison in August as part of a multinational prisoner swap. What does his ordeal mean beyond the newsroom? A:  Our colleague made the timeline both in 2023 and 2024, which shows how long the ordeal was, and the photo editors picked the great shot of his mother jumping into his arms after the release. I think the whole world got a reminder on the risks that foreign correspondents take, and also how people can become pawns in the agendas of countries like Russia. Q:  What news surprised you the most? A:  It has to be the arc of the election. Even though I lived through it, I was amazed to see that within a little over five months, we had these three banner front-page headlines in print: “TRUMP CONVICTED,” then “Biden Drops Out, Endorses Harris” and finally “TRUMP TRIUMPHS AGAIN” on Nov. 7. It could have been a movie, but it might have been rejected as unrealistic. Q:  What do you expect in 2025? A:  It’s going to be Ukraine and the Middle East again, and we’ll read a lot about the new administration but we’ll have to see what rises to historic status. Maybe we'll have more spectacular news in the arts. I felt kind of bad that this year's timeline didn't have much in that area, aside from the Taylor Swift item about the end of her history-making “Eras” tour. But politics kind of took over as the country’s entertainment, good and bad, for the year. Take a Break ILLUSTRATION:ALEXANDRA CITRIN-SAFADI/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL; ISTOCK Does listening to a book count as reading it? The debate is roiling the literary world. Read More Beyond the Newsroom Buy Side from WSJ: It's worth the effort to compare high-yield savings accounts and get the best rate. Today's newsletter was curated by Zlati Meyer in collaboration with Jennifer Hicks in New York. Follow Zlati on X at @Zlatimeyer. Sign up for WSJ newsletters on markets, tech, careers and more. 📰 Enjoying this newsletter? Get more from WSJ and support our journalism by subscribing today with this special offer.   Access WSJ‌.com and our mobile apps. Subscribe

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