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JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An Israeli resident of Jerusalem has been arrested on suspicion of being in contact with Iranian intelligence agents as part of a plot to carry out an attack in Israel in return for payment, Israeli security forces said on Tuesday. The 23-year-old man was activated by an Iranian agent known as “John” in October and arrested in November on suspicion of committing security offences, said a joint statement from spokeswomen for the … Read more…

By Emma Farge GENEVA (Reuters) – A U.N. refugee agency official said on Tuesday that some 1 million Syrian refugees are expected to return to the country in the first six months of 2025, asking states to refrain from forcing them to do so. A lightning rebel advance swept Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad from power this month, shocking the world and raising the prospect that some of the millions of people who fled the country … Read more…

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and its top pollster over their poll earlier this year that showed him trailing in the state, Fox News said on Tuesday. The lawsuit, which Fox said was filed Monday night, comes after Trump on Monday vowed to pursue more defamation claims against the media following a settlement with ABC News over the weekend. Trump ultimately won Iowa in the … Read more…

By Sarupya Ganguly BENGALURU – U.S. Treasury yield forecasts from bond strategists have marched higher for a second month amid expectations of limited remaining Federal Reserve rate reductions and rising inflation risks in 2025, a Reuters survey found. Having kicked off its easing cycle with a jumbo half-percentage point cut in September, the central bank has lowered its fed funds rate by 75 basis points and looks set to trim another 25 bps on Wednesday … Read more…

By Jonathan Cable LONDON (Reuters) -The decline in euro zone business activity eased this month as the bloc’s dominant services industry bounced back to growth and offset a long-running contraction in the manufacturing industry, a survey showed on Monday. HCOB’s preliminary composite euro zone Purchasing Managers’ Index, compiled by S&P Global, rose to 49.5 in December from November’s 48.3 but was still shy of the 50 mark separating growth from contraction. A Reuters poll had … Read more…

By Laura Matthews NEW YORK (Reuters) – Exchange operator Nasdaq is on track to beat the New York Stock Exchange on listings for the sixth straight year in 2024, as Wall Street looks for a bumper crop of initial public offerings in 2025. Companies raised approximately $22 billion across 160 initial public offerings at Nasdaq in the first 11 months of this year, outpacing the nearly $17 billion in 34 listings for NYSE, according to … Read more…

By Manya Saini (Reuters) -Berkshire Hills Bancorp and Brookline Bancorp have agreed to merge in an all-stock deal valued at about $1.1 billion, the regional lenders said on Monday, in yet another sign of increasing consolidation within the industry. Regional lenders that were at the heart of the banking crisis in 2023 have been cutting more deals this year to expand their geographic foothold and better compete with rivals, extending a wave of deals. The … Read more…

By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bond investors, expecting the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, are bracing for the central bank to scale back its easing in 2025 in anticipation of higher inflation under the Trump administration. Market players are staying out of longer-dated Treasuries with U.S. inflation already looking stickier, preferring to hold notes on the front end to the middle of the … Read more…

By Andrew Chung and David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) – TikTok made a last-ditch effort on Monday to continue operating in the United States, asking the Supreme Court to temporarily block a law intended to force ByteDance, its China-based parent company, to divest the short-video app by Jan. 19 or face a ban. TikTok and ByteDance filed an emergency request to the justices for an injunction to halt the looming ban on the social media app … Read more…

(Reuters) – Shares of health insurers operating pharmacy benefit managers fell on Monday after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump called them middlemen who drive up costs and said he plans to eliminate their role. CVS Health’s Caremark, Cigna’s Express Scripts and UnitedHealth Group’s Optum control the majority of the U.S. pharmacy benefit market, with their parent companies also operating health insurance and pharmacy businesses. Pharmacy benefit managers negotiate drug costs with pharmacies and drug manufacturers and … Read more…