Germany’s economy will need much of 2026 to emerge from its multiyear recession, the country’s central bank has said, frustrating hopes for a quick growth spurt sparked by Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s €1-trillion-plus spending splurge on infrastructure repair and military readiness.
In October, industrial production across the 20-country Eurozone grew 0.8 percent from September, which had shown a 0.2-percent gain, the European Union’s statistics agency reported on 15 December.
For the first time since the COVID War, hedge funds, insurance companies, money market funds, mutual funds, private equity firms, and other financial institutions that are not banks hold more than half of the world’s financial assets, according to the intergovernmental Financial Stability Board (FSB).
The death toll in Gaza reached 70,942, and more than 171,000 have been wounded. Israel has violated the so-called ceasefire at least 875 times since it was implemented on 10 October 2025, Al Jazeera reported, citing Gaza’s Government Media Office.
This winter heating season, Americans will pay about 9.2 percent more for the electricity and natural gas that heat more than 90 percent of U.S. homes, bringing the cost of keeping warm this winter to about $1,000 per household, The New York Times reported.
Jared Kushner, who has vowed to try to help “move” Palestinians out of Gaza after saying the enclave’s waterfront property could be “very valuable,” has pitched “Project Sunrise” to regional governments that would essentially make good on this vision and turn the destroyed enclave into a tech hub dotted with resorts, according to The Wall Street Journal.
By the end of this year’s second quarter, the U.S. trade deficit stood at 3.3 percent of GDP, close to its level a year earlier, according to an analysis by the Financial Times.
Israel took another step in assuring that there will be no Palestinian state on Sunday when the country’s Cabinet approved another 19 settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Last month, sales of existing U.S. homes edged up 0.5 percent from October’s total but fell 1 percent short of the figure in November 2024, the National Association of Realtors reported.
The U.S. Consumer Price Index increased by 2.7 percent in November, down from 3.0 percent in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported.