T/24-by-section

U.S.

• Russia Asks United States to Stop Pursuit of Fleeing Oil Tanker. The tanker, which had been sailing to Venezuela to pick up oil, has claimed Russian protection, although the U.S. authorities say it is a stateless vessel.
• Trump Has Renamed the Kennedy Center, but a Satirist Owns the URL. A comedy writer bought the web domain TrumpKennedyCenter.org and the satirical site he created is drawing attention amid the backlash over the institution’s renaming.
• Minnesota Families Are Rattled by Threat to Cut Federal Aid for Child Care. After the federal government threatened to withhold funds for Minnesota’s child-care program, citing fraud concerns, parents and providers warned that the effects could be dire.
• A Year of Fires and Floods in Southern California. The floods that struck last week just before the first anniversary of the January wildfires show how extreme weather is defining life in the L.A. region.

World

• Search Is Suspended for Passenger Who Went Overboard From Cruise Ship. The U.S. Coast Guard said on Thursday that it halted its hourslong search for a 77-year-old woman who went overboard from a Holland America Line cruise ship near Cuba.
• How a Fire Ripped Through a Swiss Bar and Broke a Village’s Heart. It was a haven for the young, where they could find hot chocolate when they wanted quiet and affordable drinks when they did not. Then it turned into a place of death.
• Switzerland’s burn centers are so overwhelmed that fire victims are being sent to other countries.
• A Deadly Blaze in Switzerland. Plus, tips from our readers on how to stay informed without feeling overwhelmed in 2026.
• Fire in Swiss Alps Leaves Dozens of New Year’s Revelers Dead. About 40 people celebrating at a ski resort bar were killed, and 115 were injured, many of them young, the authorities said.
• Venezuela Frees Dozens of Political Prisoners. At least 80 people were released, including one with U.S. ties, though more than 800 remain detained in Venezuela for opposing President Nicolás Maduro’s rule, rights groups say.
• Bars, nightclubs and discos have been the sites of deadly fires. Over
• At one hospital, survivors and desperate friends press for news of the victims.
• What We Know About the New Year’s Fire in Switzerland. The fire at a bar in a popular ski resort killed around 40 people and injured more than 100, officials said. The cause was still unknown.
• Iran Protests Turn Deadly as Violence and Anger Spread. Financial pressures have fueled a fifth day of demonstrations around Iran, with at least one person killed in the protests so far, according to the authorities.
• Fire at Bar in Swiss Ski Resort Town Kills Dozens, Officials Say. Dozens of people were killed and more than 100 were injured after a fire broke out at a bar in a Swiss ski resort town during a New Year’s Eve celebration, the police said.
• Guinea’s Coup Leader Wins Election After Barring Leading Opponents. Col. Mamady Doumbouya, who seized power more than four years ago, took over 80 percent of the vote, according to a government-controlled agency that he set up.
• Crans-Montana Bar Fire Victims Transported Across Switzerland for Treatment. Patients were taken by helicopter and jet to bigger, specialized hospitals in Geneva, Zurich and Lausanne.
• Crans-Montana is a Historic Swiss Ski Resort Popular with International Tourists. Known for its gourmet food, luxury stores, and for hosting major sporting events, the high-end resort was acquired by Vail Resorts in 2024.
• How Two Powerful U.S. Allies Came to Blows in Yemen. Tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates burst into the open this week with an unusually direct confrontation that has global implications.
• A Monumental Church in Amsterdam Is Ravaged by Flames on New Year’s Day. Local residents were evacuated after a fire broke out at the Vondelkerk shortly after midnight. The cause of the blaze has not yet been confirmed.
• Another New Year at War: Ukraine’s Troops Doubt It Will Be the Last. After a year of Russian advances, the goal for 2026 is simply to survive, said one officer in eastern Ukraine. “It’s hard to make any plans,” he said.

New York

• ‘I Will Govern as a Democratic Socialist,’ Mamdani Says at Inauguration. Mayor Zohran Mamdani was inaugurated as the mayor of New York City on Thursday in a ceremony attended by thousands outside City Hall. Flanked by progressive stars of the Democratic Party, he told New Yorkers his administration would “govern without shame and insecurity, making no apology for what we believe.”
• Amid Poetry, Song and the Cold, Mamdani’s Inauguration Evokes Hope. A communal spectacle, spilling out of City Hall into the streets of Broadway, conveyed how many New Yorkers see the promise in a Zohran Mamdani mayoralty.
• 7 Takeaways From the Inauguration of Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Mr. Mamdani reaffirmed that he would govern New York City as a democratic socialist and assured even those who had not voted for him: “I am your mayor.”
• Mamdani’s First Orders Focus on Housing and Undoing Adams’s Decisions. Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed a flurry of executive orders on his first day as mayor of New York City. They were aimed at protecting tenants and revoking some of ex-Mayor Eric Adams’s past orders.
• Images From the Dawn of the Mamdani Era. Thousands of New Yorkers packed the plaza ouside City Hall and the streets of Lower Manhattan to see Mayor Zohran Mamdani take office.
• Mamdani Pays Tribute to the Foods That Define and Sustain New York. In his inaugural address, Mayor Zohran Mamdani invoked the cuisines of New York as metaphors for the city’s diversity, ambitions and promise.
• Mamdani Vows to Govern ‘Audaciously’ and Protect New York’s Vulnerable. Zohran Mamdani gave his first public speech as mayor of New York City, after a public inauguration that drew tens of thousands of people.
• ‘You Are Worth It’: Jumaane Williams Delivers Powerful Inauguration Speech. Mr. Williams, New York City’s public advocate, teared up as he addressed a portion of his remarks to his younger self, captivating the crowd.
• The Full Transcript of Zohran Mamdani’s Inauguration Speech. New York’s new mayor challenged his supporters and his opponents to make the city better, and to hold him to account.
• In his invocation, an imam prays for the success of Mamdani and New York City.
• New York Magazine Put Mamdani’s Team on Its Cover. One Aide Was Erased. Catherine Almonte Da Costa was part of a photo shoot on the mayor-elect’s inner circle. The next day she resigned amid an uproar over antisemitic statements she had posted on social media years earlier.
• Rama Duwaji Gives ‘Statement Coat’ New Meaning at Inauguration. With her chocolate-brown princess-line coat, New York’s new first lady looked a little funky, a little vintage, a little Tolstoy, entirely proper and unlike anyone else on the stage.
• Here’s Why Lucy Dacus Chose ‘Bread & Roses’ for Mamdani’s Inauguration. The Grammy-winning singer, part of the supergroup boygenius, followed a performance by Mandy Patinkin, who sang “Over the Rainbow.”
• Ocasio-Cortez Urges New Yorkers to Celebrate Mamdani’s Inauguration as Their Own. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, speaking at Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration, said that his election represented New Yorkers’ choosing “prosperity for the many over spoils for the few.”
• A DJ, a Poet and Politicians Make Up Mamdani’s Inaugural Lineup. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will deliver opening remarks and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont will administer the oath of office.
• Mamdani’s Parents ‘Look Forward to a Joyous Time’ Mahmood Mamdani and Mira Nair will host an intimate dinner after the festivities following their son’s swearing in ceremony.
• Mamdani’s home borough of Queens is having its moment in the spotlight.
• His name is pronounced zuh-RON mom-DAH-nee. Not everyone gets it.
• Revisit our coverage of Mamdani’s upbringing, his activism, his record and his campaign.
• Mamdani trades a neighborhood that made him mayor for one that backed his opponents.
• Eric Adams spent his final hours as mayor out of sight and undermining Mamdani.
• Another first for Mamdani: using the Quran to take the mayoral oath of office.
• How to Watch Zohran Mamdani’s Inauguration. New York City’s new mayor was officially sworn in just after midnight on Thursday. A second public event will take place this afternoon.
• For a Youthful Mayor, a Team of Government Veterans. Zohran Mamdani has stocked his administration with seasoned officials, in part to allay concerns about his inexperience and left-wing stances.
• ‘This is our time’: The poet Cornelius Eady will read an original work at the inauguration.
• How New York City miscounted its mayors for more than 300 years.
• Mamdani’s rise was swift. Now he faces daunting challenges.
• Here’s the latest.
• Mamdani Names Transit Chief Tasked With Making Buses Fast and Free. As commissioner of New York City’s Department of Transportation, Michael Flynn will seek to implement one of the new mayor’s central campaign planks.

Business

• Repeat Moviegoers Help Hollywood Eke Out a Slightly Better 2025. Ticket sales in North America totaled $8.9 billion for the year, up 2 percent from 2024. But the box office remains far below prepandemic levels.
• How Japanese Scallops Became a Pawn in Diplomatic Tensions With China. Beijing is using a ban on the humble mollusk to punish Japan over its apparent willingness to defend Taiwan.

Technology

• Even the Sky May Not Be the Limit for A.I. Data Centers. Some tech leaders are concerned that the artificial intelligence race will exhaust available land and energy. The solution might lie in orbit.

Obituaries

• Janet Fish, Painter of Luminous Still Lifes, Dies at 87. From her student days, she stubbornly refused to follow popular artistic trends. Instead, she spent decades exploring the effects of light on glass.

Briefing

• Hope in a Time of Cynicism. At a moment when Americans are distrusting and fearful, we examine the psychology of hope.

Podcasts

• The Sexy, Multi-Dimensional Genius of Roberta Flack. The secret ingredient in her music was silence.

Science

• This Diminutive Reptile Plays Rock-Paper-Scissors. Side-blotched lizards probably don’t call the game that, but they play a version of it anyway. A new study explains the hidden biology that makes this possible.
• New York to Phase In Protections for Horseshoe Crabs. Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation that will ultimately ban the catch and biomedical use of the crabs.

Climate

• Take a tour of the Antarctica-bound icebreaker. It has a gym.
• Encountering Our First Iceberg. For Antarctic veterans and novices alike, the first sighting of an iceberg on an expedition stays “closest to your heart.”

Opinion

• Our Duty to Call Out Bigotry in America. Readers challenge a Republican politician’s views on prejudice and intolerance in the conservative movement. Also: The harm caused by organ transplant tourism.
• The Global Economy Must Adapt to Avoid Tumult This Year. The new year will pose numerous problems that won’t be so easily overcome.
• How Did We Get to Such a Bad Question? How did we get here? I don’t want to know.
• For 2026, There’s a Better Way to Be Hopeful. Hope is a virtue to be practiced, not an aspiration to be managed.
• Here’s What MAGA Gets Wrong About Testosterone. Testosterone neither ensures dominance nor acts as a straightforward trigger for aggression.
• A Trump Security Is Empty, Mr. Zelensky. Ukraine’s president should stop pressing for U.S. security guarantees and pursue more effective means of self-protection.
• Welcome to the Mamdani Era, New York. The new mayor is an entirely familiar type of New York politician.

Arts

• Art Gallery Shows to See in January. This week in Newly Reviewed, Will Heinrich covers Jana Euler’s delightful absurdity, Lotty Rosenfeld’s portraits of the Pinochet dictatorship and Erich Heckel’s eerie dream world.
• Review: Singers Come First in the Met Opera’s New ‘Puritani’ Charles Edwards’s deceptively traditional, exceptionally sung production of Bellini’s “I Puritani” makes space for its stars.
• ‘Stranger Things’ Has Ended. What Happened in the Series Finale? There was a lot to tie up after five seasons and nearly 10 years, and the show gave itself another two hours to do it. Here are the major events.
• He’s Chevy Chase, and He’s Still Like That. The famously prickly comedian found a sympathetic adversary in the director of a CNN documentary about him. Their conversation with a reporter was … spirited.
• 24 Things to Do in N.Y.C. in January. Welcome to a new year. It promises Ian McKellen, fresh jazz, free exhibitions, restored films and comedy with latkes.
• 8 Things Our Critics Are Looking Forward to in 2026. Christopher Nolan goes (even more) epic, Lisa Kudrow makes another “Comeback” and Marcel Duchamp gets an overdue retrospective.
• Evoking John le Carré in ‘The Night Manager’ Season 2. After nearly a decade, a second season to the popular spy show is out this month. The showrunners explain how they created a sequel without a novel to draw from this time.
• For Some Nazi Loot, Value Is Measured on a Different Scale. Heirs of families that suffered in the Holocaust have gotten back precious items: not treasured art, but the keepsakes of dead relatives.

Books

• 8 Books We Love This Week. Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times.
• Oyinkan Braithwaite Would (Nervously) Invite Charlotte Brontë to Dinner. “Fingers crossed she isn’t racist — it was a different time,” says the author of “My Sister, the Serial Killer” and the recent “Cursed Daughters.”

Movies

• ‘We Bury the Dead’ Review: A Down Under Twist on the Zombie Flick. Daisy Ridley plays a woman who hopes her husband will spring back to life after a tragedy annihilates the population of Tasmania.
• ‘The Mother and the Bear’ Review: Dating for Her Daughter. This Korean Canadian soap opera is a moderately charming, if blandly earnest, drama about the dissonance and frictions between immigrant parents and their children
• ‘The Dutchman’ Review: André Holland Is Lost in New York. The actor stars along side Kate Mara in a psychological thriller that goes deep into the Black Arts archives.

Food

• Green Soups for Gray Days.
• A Vegetarian Cooking Resolution Starter Pack. This simple and reliable collection of vegetarian staples — beans, pasta, tofu, salads and soups — will help you cook confidently all year long.
• I Start Every New Year With This Soup. Ozoni — Japanese mochi soup — is soothing and sustaining, a grounding meal for the first day of the new year.
• What Our Food Staffers Eat in the New Year to Reset. After the holidays, we’re reaching for dishes that feel comforting, easy and restorative.

Style

• Tiny Love Stories: ‘Am I Too Old to Experience Butterflies?’ Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.
• What’s Trending in Weddings for 2026? We asked the experts for their forecast on what will be shaping nuptials next year. Here’s what they said.
• They Want to Influence You to Do … Nothing. Boredom, or an approximation of it, is an online trend for young people trying to sharpen their attention spans.

Travel

• 36 Hours in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. A snowy playground for the conspicuously wealthy and a co-host of the 2026 Winter Olympics, this tiny Dolomite town is ready for its close-up.
• Help! Bedbugs Attacked Us, and Our Luxury Hotel Won’t Admit It. A country resort near Paris refused to cover $800 worth of medical and cleaning bills for a couple who woke up covered in bites. They’d like their stay comped, too.

Real Estate

• Life Led Them to Brooklyn, but to Which Two-Bedroom Condo? A couple moved up from Asheville, N.C., to be closer to their children and grandchild. On the checklist: a newer building and fun things to do.
• Homes for Sale in Manhattan and Brooklyn. This week’s properties are on the Upper West Side, in Carnegie Hill and Cobble Hill.
• Homes for Sale in New York State. This week’s properties are a four-bedroom in Great Neck and a three-bedroom in Briarcliff Manor.
• Why Is It So Expensive to Cut Down a Tree? The rising costs of labor and equipment are trickling down to homeowners who need to call “timber!”
• Los Angeles Ends Strange Rite of Passage With New Fridge Law. Starting today, landlords must provide tenants with working refrigerators.

Well

• 90 Minutes to Give Baby Luna a New Heart. After eight years of training, Dr. Maureen McKiernan made her debut as the lead surgeon on an infant heart transplant — an operation on the edge of what’s possible.

Corrections

• Quote of the Day: Keys to City of New York Hop Hudson to Honorees. Quotation of the Day for Thursday, January 1, 2026.
• Corrections: Jan. 1, 2026. Corrections that appeared in print on Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026.

Gameplay

• Dance Move. Adam Wagner and Rafael Musa’s puzzle is a lovely parting gift for this columnist.
• Connections Companion No. 936. Scroll down for hints and conversation about the puzzle for Friday, Jan. 2, 2026.
• Wordle Review No. 1,658. Scroll down for hints and conversation about the puzzle for Friday, Jan. 2, 2026.
• Strands Sidekick No. 670. Scroll down for hints and conversation about the puzzle for Friday, Jan. 2, 2026.
• Solve the January Bonus Puzzle. This month’s grid game show themed grid was constructed by Rena Cohen.
• Spelling Bee Forum. Feeling stuck on today’s puzzle? We can help.

En español

• Lo que sabemos sobre el incendio de Año Nuevo en Suiza. El fuego en un bar de una popular estación de esquí mató a unas 40 personas e hirió a más de 100, dijeron las autoridades. La causa aún se desconoce.
• Venezuela libera a decenas de presos políticos. Al menos 80 personas fueron excarceladas, entre ellas una con vínculos con Estados Unidos. Más de 800 personas siguen detenidas por oponerse al gobierno de Nicolás Maduro, dicen ONG.
• Rusia pide a EE. UU. que detenga la persecución de un petrolero en fuga. El barco, que navegaba hacia Venezuela para recoger petróleo, ha reclamado protección rusa, aunque las autoridades estadounidenses afirman que se trata de un buque apátrida.
• Las mejores películas de 2025, según los lectores del Times. Les pedimos que votaran por las mejores cintas del año, y el resultado fue una mezcla de grandes éxitos de taquilla y joyas del cine independiente.
• 10 consejos para ponerte en movimiento este 2026. Convierte tu caminata en un mejor entrenamiento, gana fuerza sin pesas y descubre recomendaciones de ejercicio para el año que viene.
• Estas son las predicciones gastronómicas para 2026. Los analistas del sector prevén un año de sabores más tranquilos: pequeñas oleadas de placer, restaurantes menos estridentes y alimentos sanos dignos de la abuela.
• Así mapean el sentido de lo que ocurre en nuestro cuerpo los científicos. Los expertos están aprendiendo cómo sabe el cerebro lo que ocurre en todo el cuerpo, y cómo ese proceso puede fallar en algunos trastornos psiquiátricos.
• La fuerza de voluntad está sobrevalorada. En lugar de intentar resistir las tentaciones, muchas personas de éxito organizan sus vidas para minimizar, en primer lugar, la necesidad de fuerza de voluntad.
• De ‘guerrera’ a ‘traidora’: así se gestó la ruptura de Marjorie Taylor Greene con Trump. Cómo la congresista por Georgia pasó de ser la mayor aliada del presidente a ser su más notoria crítica republicana.
• ¿Cómo será la vida en 2026? Aquí te dejamos 10 predicciones. Los ‘teléfonos tontos’ como símbolos de estatus, una guerra contra el contenido de baja calidad creado por IA y las apuestas por ‘The Real Housewives’ deberían hacer que el próximo año sea interesante.
• Líderes del Departamento de Justicia habrían presionado para acusar a Abrego Garcia. La publicación de una serie de correos electrónicos suscitó dudas sobre si el departamento había engañado a un juez al decirle que los fiscales locales habían actuado solos al acusar a Abrego Garcia.