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Disneyland Park has now hit 900 million visitors in the more than 70 years that it has been open. Since its opening in 1955, the iconic theme park has transformed California’s entertainment landscape.

The latest attendance figure was described in a new documentary called “Disneyland Handcrafted,” chronicling the creation of the theme park. The film, which includes footage from the Walt Disney Archives, will stream on Disney+.

In 2024 — the most recent year data was available — Disneyland’s attendance ticked up 0.5% to 17.3 million, according to a report from the Themed Entertainment Assn. Like many other theme parks, Disney does not release internal attendance figures.

Walt Disney Co.’s theme parks, cruise ships and vacation resorts have been a key economic driver for the Burbank media and entertainment company.

Last year, almost 57% of the company’s operating income was generated by the tourism and leisure segment, known as Disney’s “experiences” business. That sector reported revenue of $36.2 billion for fiscal year 2025, a 6% bump compared to the previous year. Operating income increased 8% to nearly $10 billion.

Disney has said it will invest $60 billion into its experiences segment, underscoring the importance of that business to the company. At Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, that could mean at least $1.9 billion of development on projects including an expansion of the Avengers Campus and a “Coco”-themed boat ride at Disney California Adventure, as well as an “Avatar”-inspired area.

Over its 70 years, Disneyland has undergone many changes and expansions. Though some of its original attractions still exist, including Peter Pan’s Flight, Dumbo the Flying Elephant and the Mark Twain Riverboat, the park has evolved to align more with its Hollywood cinematic properties and expanded in 2019 to include a “Star Wars”-themed land.

Jan. 13 (UPI) — The consumer price index showed inflation rising less than expected in December, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday.

The bureau reports that seasonally adjusted consumer prices grew by about 0.2% for the month, and about 2.6% for the 12 months ending in December. Both figures fall about 0.1% short of what was expected.

The biggest contributor to rising prices was the index for shelter, rising about 0.4%. The food index was 0.7% and energy’s index was 0.3% in December.

Tuesday’s CPI tracked several categories that were absent in October and November reports, including food, some energy items, shelter and other items like vehicles and medical care commodities. Federal reports were impacted by the 43-day government shutdown that began on Oct. 1.

The rate for all items increased by 2.7% for the year ending in December. This figure matched the Dow Jones estimate.

In total, prices remain elevated but the latest CPI indicates inflation has cooled some. The Federal Reserve is targeting an annual 2% rate of inflation before it brings interest rates down.

Last month, the Fed cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point to a range of 3.5% to 3.75%. It is the lowest its interest rates have been since November 2022.

US media reports say tariffs will be cut to 15 percent in exchange for TSMC investment.

Taiwan and the United States have reached a “general consensus” on a trade pact that would reduce US tariffs on Taiwanese exports, officials in Taipei have said.

Taiwan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said on Tuesday that the outlines of a deal had been reached following months of negotiations with US officials.

“The goal of the US-Taiwan tariff negotiations has always been to seek reciprocal tariff reductions without stacking tariffs, and to obtain preferential treatment under Section 232,” the office said in a statement, according to the AFP news agency.

The trade office did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

US President Donald Trump announced a 32 percent “reciprocal tariff” on Taiwanese exports in April, before lowering the rate to 20 percent in August pending further negotiations.

Countries have made pledges to boost investments in the US in exchange for tariff relief since Trump launched his trade war last year.

Japan and South Korea last year agreed to invest $550bn and $350bn, respectively, to see their tariff rates cut from 25 to 15 percent.

Taiwan’s trade office did not provide details on the deal, but Bloomberg and The New York Times reported that the self-governing island’s tariff rate would be lowered to 15 percent.

As part of the deal, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) would agree to build at least four more production facilities in the US state of Arizona, according to Bloomberg and The New York Times, which cited unnamed officials.

TSMC, the world’s largest chipmaker and supplier to companies such as Nvidia and Apple, said in March that it planned to spend $100bn on new fabrication and packing plants in the US, bringing its total investment in the country to $165bn.

Due to its strategic importance, the chipmaker has been under pressure from Washington since 2020 to expand production outside Taiwan.

The US fears that a blockade of Taiwan by China, which claims the island as its territory, could cut off access to TSMC’s chips.

While TSMC has agreed to build new production facilities in the US, Japan, and Germany, it continues to make its most advanced chips in Taiwan.

Jan. 12 (UPI) — Alphabet, Google‘s parent company, became the fourth company to reach a $4 trillion value Monday.

The company’s stock rose 2% Monday after Apple announced it chose Google’s Gemini to power its artificial intelligence features.

Nvidia and Microsoft breached the $4 trillion mark in July, and Apple crossed it in October. Alphabet passed $3 trillion in September. Since then, Apple and Microsoft have dropped below $4 trillion.

Analyst Deepak Mathivanan upgraded Alphabet’s stock on Jan. 8, CNBC reported.

“We believe the technological advantages of the Gemini assistant app — powered by Google’s ‘grounding’ assets — vs. ChatGPT (powered by Bing and partner integrations) are underappreciated,” Mathivanan wrote. Google “arguably, has the strongest footprint across several layers in the AI tech stack, and the company’s decade-long investments have enabled deep competitive moats.”

In November, Google released Ironwood, the seventh generation of its tensor processing units, a custom AI chip that rivals Nvidia. In December, Google introduced Gemini 3.

Apple and Google announced their Gemini partnership Monday in a joint statement.

“Apple and Google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google’s Gemini models and cloud technology. These models will help power future Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year,” the companies said.

“After careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google’s Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users. Apple Intelligence will continue to run on Apple devices and Private Cloud Compute, while maintaining Apple’s industry-leading privacy standards,” the statement said.

Citi analysts said 70% of Google Cloud customers use its AI products.

“Google has the chip, the infrastructure capacity, and the model amid growing demand,” CNBC reported Citi said.

Jan. 12 (UPI) — The European Union published new pricing guidelines Monday that could allow the relaxation of tough import “anti-subsidy” duties on Chinese electric vehicles of up to 35.3% imposed by the 27-country economic block in October 2024.

The framework deal prescribes how Chinese EV-makers will submit “price undertaking offers” under which they commit to a minimum selling price where, if accepted, the EU will waive the anti-subsidy duties, Brussels said in a news release.

The European Commission said the guidance, the result of 15 months of negotiations with the Chinese Commerce Ministry, covered sales channels, cross-compensation and future investment in the EU — in addition to the minimum price offer — and that every submission would receive a fair hearing.

“Each price undertaking offer is subject to the same legal criteria and the European Commission will conduct each assessment in an objective and fair manner, following the principle of non-discrimination and in accordance with World Trade Organization rules,” said the commission.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry hailed the agreement as an important step forward to resolving the long-running dispute over EU claims that the Chinese government is subsidizing its EV manufacturing sector, but which Beijing insists is overblown, unwarranted and manufactured from selective data.

“The progress fully reflects the spirit of dialogue and the outcomes of consultations between China and the EU. It shows that both China and the EU have the ability and willingness to properly resolve differences through consultation.

“This is conducive not only to ensuring the healthy development of China-EU economic and trade relations, but also to safeguarding the rules-based international trade order.”

The deal could offer relief for big producers like BYD, Geely and SAIC, which were slapped with tariff rates of 17%, 18.8% and 35.3%, respectively, beginning on Oct. 30, 2024, for five years following a year-long antitrust investigation into the EV market.

Tesla was given a rate of 7.8% following a “substantiated request” that its situation receive an individual examination.

However, the guidelines set a high bar for the Chinese to surmount, requiring offers to counterbalance the negative effects of the subsidies, with the EU claiming its EV industry is taking major hits, including being priced out of competing in the net-zero marketplace, with 2.5 million jobs under imminent threat and 10.3 million indirectly.

EU member states were split over the tariffs, with only 10 voting in favor in October 2024, with the sector itself, as well as economies with very large trade relationships with China, such as Germany, skeptical and fearful of Chinese retaliation.

Back then, Beijing accused the EU of protectionism, arguing Chinese EVs were cheaper because they were simply more efficient at making them.

“China’s competitive advantage in EVs is not due to subsidies but rather to a robust supply chain, developed through intense competition,” the Chinese Chamber of Commerce to the EU said.

Since then, the market share of Chinese-made EVs has risen steadily in Europe and around the world, with Tesla being toppled from its position as the best-selling brand by BYD sometime in 2025.

Jan. 12 (UPI) — Meta has removed more than half a million social media accounts belonging to Australians under the age of 16, the company said, as it announced its efforts to comply with the Oceanian nation’s new social media age ban.

The law, introduced in late 2024, went into effect Dec. 4, requiring social media services to remove accounts held by those under the age of 16 and younger and block the creation of new accounts for youth under 16.

In the Sunday blog post, Meta, owned by Mark Zuckerberg, said that as of Dec. 11, it had removed access to almost 550,000 accounts of under 16-youth, including 330,639 on Instagram, 173,497 on Facebook and 39,916 on Threads.

Instagram, Facebook and Threads are all owned by Meta.

“Ongoing compliance with the law will be a multi-layered process that we will continue to refine, though our concerns about determining age online without an industry standard remain,” Meta said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese introduced what he described as the “world-leading” legislation to ban youth social media use in late 2024, saying the government came to the 16-year limit following consultations with experts, parents, organizations, advocacy groups and academics.

No exceptions were permitted for children already on social media or those with parental consent, making social media companies responsible for restricting children’s access to their services. No penalties are to be imposed against users, with the companies subject to hefty fines for violations.

The ban affects 10 internationally popular social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, X, Reddit, YouTube, Twitch, Kick and Snap. Others, such as Bluesky, Steam and WhatsApp, could be added if they gain significantly more users or are otherwise deemed social media instead of gaming or peer-to-peer communication sites.

Meta, which has argued against the ban, said it is committed to complying with the law’s obligations, while arguing that the prohibition is linked to isolating vulnerable teens from online communities and driving some to less regulated apps and alternative parts of the Internet.

“We call on the Australian government to engage with industry constructively to find a better way forward, such as incentivizing all of industry to raise the standard in providing safe, privacy-preserving, age-appropriate experiences online, instead of blanket bans,” it said.

According to researchers at the University of Queensland, teenagers on social media have increased exposure to harm, social isolation, depression, anxiety and cyber-bullying.

A 2024 study from Orygen, the world’s leading research and knowledge organization for youth mental health, found nearly all Australian youth reported daily social media use with nearly 40% spending three or more hours online a day.

Jan. 11 (UPI) — Wing and Walmart on Sunday announced plans to expand the retailer’s drone delivery service to more major metropolitan areas and more than 150 additional stores this year.

The expansion plans doubles the number of cities that where drone delivery service is available from Walmart, which the top 25% of customers have used three times a week as overall deliveries tripled in a six month period last year.

The new service areas include Los Angeles, St. Louis, Cincinnati and Miami, while service is already up and running in northwest Arkansas, the Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta metropolitan areas, is set to start in Houston on Jan. 15 and has already been announced for Charlotte, Orlando and Tampa, according to a press release.

“Drone delivery plays an important role in our ability to deliver what customers want, exactly when they want it it,” Greg Cathey, senior vice president of digital fulfillment transformation at Walmart, said in a press release.

“The strong adoption we’ve seen confirms that this is the future of convenience,” he said.

Walmart started experimenting with Wing’s drone delivery service in Bentonville in 2021, making about 150,000 drone deliveries, before announcing in June 2025 that service would be expanded to Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando and Tampa over the course of the next 12 months.

Initially, the service was available from 100 stores in northwest Arkansas and Dallas-Fort Worth to customers within a 6-mile radius of the store. Service launched from six Walmart stores in Atlanta at the beginning of December.

The June announcement included plans to offer drone service in all five metro areas from 100 stores by some time this year, with the four-city expansion adding another 150 locations.

In 2027, Wing said in the release, drone delivery will be available from more than 270 Walmart locations in cities coast-to-coast in the United States and be available to roughly 40 million people.

Jan. 10 (UPI) — If President Donald Trump has his way, credit card companies will limit their respective interest rates to no more than 10% for a year to make them more affordable.

Trump took to social media to call on all credit card companies to voluntarily lower their interest rates for one year, starting this month, to promote affordability.

“Please be informed that we will no longer let the American public be ‘ripped off’ by credit card companies that are charging interest rates of 20 to 30%, and even more, which festered unimpeded during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Friday.

“AFFORDABILITY! Effective January 20, 2026, I, as president of the United States, am calling for a one-year cap on credit card Interest Rates of 10%,” he said, adding that Jan. 20 is the one-year anniversary of his second term in office.

The Federal Reserve reported a record-high average annual percentage rate of nearly 23% and rising in 2023, the now-defunct Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said.

That’s up from an average APR of 16.4% in 2021 and 20.4% in 2022, according to the Federal Reserve.

While the average APR rate rose significantly under the Biden administration, Trump last year eliminated the Biden administration policy that limited credit card fees to no more than $8.

The average fee previously was $32 for late credit card payments and other fee-triggering activities.

Jan. 9 (UPI) — President Donald Trump and executives for several U.S. oil and gas companies discussed a potential $100 billion investment in Venezuela’s energy sector Friday after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro‘s capture.

Trump met with executives from Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and other U.S. oil and gas firms and encouraged them to invest $100 billion to refine and sell seized Venezuelan oil, CBS News reported.

The president offered to guarantee the security of oil and gas companies if they returned to Venezuela, which decades ago seized infrastructure owned and built by U.S. firms when former President Hugo Chavez nationalized the country’s oil and gas industry.

With the backing of the United States and security assurances, Trump said the oil and gas companies would “get their money back and make a very nice return,” as reported by CNBC.

He offered to make a deal with the oil and gas companies as soon as Friday and said it would help to lower energy costs for U.S. consumers.

Venezuela has an estimated 303 billion barrels of proven reserves of crude oil, which equals about 17% of the world’s supply, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

That amount is the most anywhere, but Venezuela’s nationalization of its oil and gas industry led to years of neglect and greatly reduced its daily output from 3.5 million barrels per day in the 1990s to about 800,000 per day now, according to the Kpler energy consulting firm.

For Venezuela to meet a 3 million barrels-per-day target, energy firms would have to invest more than $180 billion over the next 14 years, analysts with Rystad Energy said.

Such an investment level has U.S. oil and gas executives publicly expressing skepticism, although they do acknowledge the president’s proposal is an enticing offer.

Trump said a decision on the matter should be reached very soon, if not on Friday.

SEOUL, Jan. 9 (UPI) — South Korean President Lee Jae Myung flew to China this week for a summit with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, for the second time in two months. Lee is the first president of the country to visit Beijing since 2019.

Lee said that the two leaders should meet at least once a year, stressing the significance of shoring up the bilateral relationship between the two neighbors, whose ties at times have been strained.

Observers point out that Lee’s meetings with Xi showcases Seoul’s delicate position amid the intensifying rivalry between the United States and China.

“Despite its security alignment with Washington, South Korea relies heavily on China for trade, although the dependence has declined somewhat in recent years. As a result, Seoul is in a delicate position,” Myungji University political science professor Shin Yul told UPI.

“In the past, there was a simple formula — the U.S. for security and China for trade. But at a time when the world’s two most powerful countries are at odds and conditions are changing so fast, such an approach may no longer work,” he said.

Relations between Seoul and Beijing became worse in 2016 and 2017, when South Korea cooperated with the United States to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, missile defense system to tackle North Korea’s threats.

However, the decision provoked China, which feared the advanced radar system would provide a window into the communist country’s internal airspace.

Beijing eventually initiated with what Seoul described as unofficial economic retaliation, including restrictions on Korean cultural content, group tourism bans and regulatory pressure on Korean businesses operating in China.

Officially, however, Beijing has consistently denied taking retaliatory measures over the past decade. Against this backdrop, Lee expressed hope to deal with them during a meeting Tuesday with Chen Jining, Communist Party secretary of Shanghai.

“Korea-China relations will advance to an entirely new stage through this visit to China,” Lee said. “I believe this trip will serve as a valuable opportunity to resolve the minor frictions that existed in the past.”

Strategic ambiguity

Improved ties with China would offer short-term economic benefits for South Korea, as China is South Korea’s largest trading partner. Last year, South Korea’s exports to China totaled $130.81 billion, compared with $122.87 billion to the United States.

However, analysts caution that Seoul cannot prioritize relations with Beijing in isolation, as Beijing’s rivalry with the United States directly affects its core security alliance.

“We cannot closely collaborate with China in such sensitive industries as semiconductors and nuclear reactors,” economic commentator Kim Kyeong-joon, formerly vice chairman at Deloitte Consulting Korea, said in a phone interview.

“In addition, China is our competitor in many industries, including steel, automobiles, rechargeable batteries and petrochemicals. There have also been recurring conflicts over intellectual property issues between the two,” he added.

Concerns have grown among Korean corporations over technology leakage and imitation by their Chinese competitors, particularly in such high-tech sectors as semiconductors and displays.

In this climate, South Korea has little choice but to carefully balance its approach, said political commentator Choi Soo-young, who worked at the presidential house in the 2010s.

“We should shun a situation in which we are forced to single-handedly side with one of the two superpowers, the United States and China. That would be the worst-case scenario,” Choi said.

“In other words, we are required to maintain the so-called ‘strategic ambiguity.’ However, it is a tall task to achieve, as amply demonstrated by Japan’s case,” he said.

From the perspective of Seoul, strategic ambiguity refers to avoiding explicit alignment choices at a time when Washington and China have competing strategic interests, according to Choi.

China’s relationship with Japan has frayed in recent months amid geopolitical tensions, leading to economic standoffs with direct trade impacts.

For example, China imposed export restrictions on dual-use goods this month, targeting Japan. It also curbed exports of rare earth elements, which are vital to Japan’s electronics and automotive supply chains.

Meanwhile, the Seoul administration announced Friday that Lee is scheduled to visit Japan early next week for a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

Jan. 8 (UPI) — Officials for the Paramount Skydance Corp. said Thursday their offer of $30 per share to buy Warner Bros. Discovery is “superior” to a competing offer from Netflix.

The Paramount officials made the claim in response to a formal rejection of its offer by WBD officials earlier this week.

“Paramount’s offer is superior to WBD’s existing agreement with Netflix and represents the best path forward for WBD shareholders,” Paramount said in a news release.

“Netflix’s transaction, on the other hand, contains multiple uncertain components and has already decreased in total value,” Paramount said.

“When announced in December, the Netflix transaction offered WBD shareholders $23.25 in cash, $4.50 in Netflix stock and a share in the pending spin-off of Discovery Global,” Paramount added.

“Today, Netflix’s stock price is trading well beneath the low end of its collar, reducing the value offered to WBD shareholders.”

Paramount’s offer includes a guarantee from Larry Ellison, who is the majority shareholder of Paramount’s parent corporation, National Amusements Inc.

WBD officials say the Netflix offer would benefit shareholders the most, CNN reported, but Paramount Skydance might up its offer.

WBD on Wednesday said the Paramount Skydance offer is “inadequate” and “poses materially more risk for WBD and its shareholder” if that offer were to fall through, while the Netflix offer is more certain.

Paramount Skydance Chief Executive Officer David Ellison countered WBD’s comment, saying “our offer clearly provides WDB investors greater value and a more certain, expedited path to completion.”

Paramount and Netflix officials are embroiled in a de facto bidding war for WBD and HBO, which earlier accepted an initial offer from Netflix before Paramount Skydance made its competing offer.

As the impasse continues, Paramount Skydance officials are offering WBD shareholders $30 per share if they reject the WBD board of directors’ advice to stick with the Netflix offer.

In the last episode of The Envelope video podcast before the 2026 Oscar nominations, Joel Edgerton describes the transformative experience of making “Train Dreams.” Plus, our hosts share the names they’d like to hear called on nominations morning.

Kelvin Washington: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Envelope. Kelvin Washington, Yvonne Villarreal, Mark Olsen, and it’s great to have you both here as usual and especially when this is our last episode before Oscar nominations. So I’ll start with you, Yvonne. It could be a movie, a director, or some rising star or just anything that you hope once they read those nominations that morning, you’re gonna hear.

Yvonne Villarreal: I’m not going to say the usual suspects because that’s covered. I really want to see Chase Infiniti get nominated for her role in “One Battle After Another.” I just think she’s been such a revelation for me as somebody who watched “Presumed Innocent.” Seeing her in this role — and I don’t want to spoil anything, but she really finds herself in a hairy situation in this film and the way she sort of rises to the occasion and really has a moment of triumph for herself, I think it was just striking to watch. And she’ll be in “The Handmaid’s Tale” spin-off “The Testaments.” I’m really looking forward to see what she does there. But also I’ll say, as somebody who got thrown into the bandwagon of “KPop Demon Hunters” because of my 6-year-old niece, I wanna see that get some love in the animated category.

Mark Olsen: And in the music categories. Best song.

Washington: It better! Do you know how much I have to hear that song in my house with three daughters, 9, 7 and 4 [years old]? Like, I’m going to be “Golden.”

Villarreal: Are they memorized?

Washington: That’s an understatement. It’s to the point I got concerned. Is it like some robotic AI that’s taking over my daughter’s brain? Instantly. That and 6-7. I have to deal with that every day.

All right. Mark, swing it to you. What do you have?

Olsen: Well, you know, the actress Rose Byrne for the movie “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.” She won a lot of critics’ prizes leading up to the nominations. And I think it’d be so exciting if the filmmaker on that, Mary Bronstein, also got recognized either for the screenplay or as director. You know, Mary’s someone that she made her first film, “Yeast,” more than 15 years ago and had not gotten a second project going and had sort of been living a life and doing other things. And to see her sort of reemerge with this project in particular, which is so powerful and so specific, it would be really exciting — as great as it is to see Rose being rightfully recognized — to see Mary get some attention as well.

Washington: So I’m gonna jump in with a couple. One, because she’s been on the radar for years as just a multitude of things, she’s multifaceted: Teyana Taylor can dance, she can sing, she’s just all of that and now acting alongside Leonardo DiCaprio. Very impressive for her. And not a debut, but maybe for those who aren’t familiar. So I’d be interested to see, I have a feeling we’re gonna hear her name. And then I’m going super popcorn, Raisinets, Junior Mints, going to the theater. “F1,” for me, I know it was kind of —

Villarreal: Whoa, that’s a throwback.

Washington: I know, but hear me out. It was fun. It was just fun. And it’s kind of one of those movies like, you know, you forget that you go to the movies, it’s gonna be a little fun, maybe a little cheesy, but dang it, I’m here. I’ve got my popcorn. All of that. That for me was another one that was like, “Oh man, that’s kind of the moviegoing experience sometimes we’ve forgotten.”

Olsen: And it’s always good to see the Oscars recognize a film like that as well. I mean, it helps just for attracting audience to the telecast. But I think it is important that the Oscars recognize a breadth of filmmaking styles and one of the things that’s so exciting about the movies is that it can be so many different things, from like a really small personal story to some big high-tech film like “F1: The Movie.” And so I think, yeah, to see that recognized in some of the major categories would be really exciting.

Washington: You know why I like Mark? Because he tried to legitimize my choice. And I’m OK with that.

Olsen: There’s no try. You don’t need the help.

Washington: Look at how I look in the camera. You know, why? Because I know someone’s going to be highbrowin’ me right now. And I get it. And I am with you. However, as we know, we can get all the types of mergers and some things will happen. Are people going to be going into movies anymore? And I was sitting in it going, “Oh, yeah, this is kind of what that feels like.” So ha! Take that.

Villarreal: My reaction was more, it had been a while since I heard the title.

Washington: It felt the same.

Villarreal: Sorry!

Washington: I like what I like, OK? I enjoyed it. That’s all I have to say about that.

All right, Mark, coming to you now. We’re talking about Oscar buzz, and just buzz and a lot of traction that someone can get from a role. Talk about Joel Edgerton playing a logger in Netflix’s “Train Dreams.” What was that conversation like?

Olsen: It was a really terrific conversation. This is a movie that premiered at Sundance last year and was picked up by Netflix there. And even though it has that machinery behind it, there is still something that feels very organic about the success of this movie. It genuinely feels like it’s word of mouth that people have been discovering the film. And it has just a really quiet power too. And a lot of that comes from Joel’s performance. You know, he originally pursued the rights to this book himself and wasn’t able to get it, the rights were already taken. And so he sort of like thought, “Oh, well, that’s that.” And then years go by and the project comes back around and he’s offered this role that he’d been so interested in playing. And he feels like it’s hit him at a very specific time in his life.

The [story] is set in the early part of the 20th century. He plays a logger in the Pacific Northwest. And it really is just a portrait of a life. And the story deals with grief and family, and Joel, in the subsequent years, has become a father himself. And he said how, if he’d have played this a few years ago, he thinks it’d be totally different than the way that [he’s] playing it now. Also he is a guy who’s been in the business for a few years now. He has, I think, some really sharp opinions, views on like what this business is, what the industry is like right now and where it’s going. So it was a really terrific conversation to have with him.

Washington: It sounds like it. Let’s get straight to it. Here is Mark and Joel right now.

Joel Edgerton in “Train Dreams.”

(Netflix)

Mark Olsen: As we’re talking, the movie has been building this sense of momentum around it with reviews and awards. And while there is an awards campaign around the movie, there is something about it that feels very organic. This movie seems to be catching on through word of mouth, just people seeing it and responding to it. How do you feel about the response to the movie?

Joel Edgerton: It feels very good. Coming from an independent film background, I love it when small movies make a lot of noise. And I can’t really analyze or diagnose why, but I get this feeling with “Train Dreams” that it means different things for different people and it holds up a bit of a mirror to their own experience, being that the film is really this celebration of an ordinary life and shows the majesty in that. What my character goes through, they’re universal experiences and so people find something of their own experience in it and I think that’s part of the reason why. It’s a small movie but it’s also a very big movie.

Olsen: The other side of that, in a way, you were recently on a red carpet and you were asked about some comments that James Cameron had made regarding movies on streaming services and the awards race. And I don’t know if you want to say anything more about that, but also do you feel like people do somehow hold it against “Train Dreams” that it’s on Netflix?

Edgerton: Look, the world we live in now is so in the hands of the audiences because of social media. I feel like in the old days, well before I was born, we were told who our movie stars were. The studios would make those decisions for us, and things were very narrow. And now people have the power to choose what they want to watch, who they want to watch, they choose the movie stars. They speak about the movies, and Letterboxd, for example, is such a big thing. And in that same vein, it’s really interesting to hear what people, regular people, moviegoers think of how movies should be exhibited, how they feel, regardless of whether they know about the business side of things or not, or why things are the way they are. They have feelings, sometimes very passionate points of view on where and how we should watch movies. And of course, for all of the business side, if we put it aside, I do believe people want to go to the cinema and watch movies.

My comments come from understanding now where I am in my life. I’m all about creativity and all about story, but I do understand business, and I feel like I emerged out of my bubble in Sydney and felt like the whole world of cinema had suddenly changed. My views on streaming had started to evolve just after we showed a movie at Cannes called “The Stranger.” Another very small movie we made down in Adelaide and Netflix picked up the movie and I remember thinking, “Should we go with them?” So many people saw that movie because it was on a streamer. And so my feelings are very mixed and they’re very much tailored to what the movie is — and therefore according to what the movie is and how big or small it is, where it should live. I’m all for pushing to fight for keeping cinema alive and I believe a younger generation feels the same thing. But I also feel like there are chances that some people have that are narrow as they get their start in the business, which means sometimes the first things you can do, you’re not necessarily going to get a 2,000-screen release on your very first movie. So I have many, many opinions about it. But I feel like we all need to fight for cinema. We also sort of hopefully don’t allow streaming, as great as it can be, to take over everything. That’s my feeling.

Olsen: You’re also a producer as well. This feels like we’re in the middle of a transformative moment for the industry. What is it like for you as a person in the middle of that tide, just trying to navigate that for yourself?

Edgerton: Again, it’s all about what is the story and where should it live. My feeling always is that if I ever get behind making something, I want as many people as possible to see it. I also want to have an exchange at the cinema. One of the great things about “Train Dreams” is I’ve done about 50 Q&As so far — I haven’t counted them up, but around that, and we’ll do a bunch more. We’ve been to a number of festivals and we have an exchange with the audience. We get to watch and see people’s reaction to the film in like an analog way. Sometimes the feeling with letting a movie go on streamer without any fanfare is that it feels like it disappears with a whisper, and you don’t get to have that exchange. And I think that’s very important.

My dream would be to make a film exhibited at the cinema, knowing that at some point it will end up on TV screens and in people’s lounge rooms all over the world. And finding the right way to get a balance of both. There’s nothing better than sitting in the cinema and watching a movie with a bunch of other people. The sad thing at the moment [is] it seems — and again, I don’t know the full diagnostics of it — you get a cinema release and you’re there for like two weeks and then you’re replaced by something else. I’m old enough to remember the days where a movie would sit in the cinema for six, seven, eight weeks if it was good.

Olsen: I don’t want to belabor the point, but I’m so curious about this. I’m assuming when you went to the Gotham Awards you were not thinking “I’m going to give James Cameron a piece of my mind tonight.” Do you find in the time that you’ve been doing this, now you may show up to something and you have no idea what someone’s going to ask you, you have to be ready to talk about just about anything?

Edgerton: You’re right, and I never expect a red carpet is a mine field. I do go home sometimes and think, “What did I say?” I knew what I said. And I also stand by what I said. What I don’t love is the process of reduction of someone’s comments. Someone had sent me this thing that said that I “lashed out” or used a word that was quite a violent one, like I was lashing back at James Cameron. I was like, “No, I wasn’t doing that at all.” I actually had a fair and balanced opinion about the fact that James is, excuse the semi-pun, a titan. He is a pioneer and an inventor and we’ve seen that he’s created technology that has made movies better. He can exhibit movies in this broad scale because he’s dared to dream big. And I feel like there’s a world where there are people who are never going to get their first film on 2,000 screens because it’s a small story, movies like “Sorry, Baby.” They’re not 2,000-screen release movies. There’s a world where they live somewhere, whether it’s in small art house cinemas or whatever. So I was like, “All right, don’t make it feel like I’m putting the gloves on and have a fight with James Cameron, because he’s probably going to win if that’s the case.” And that’s certainly not what I was doing at all. Just saying my point of view is slightly different. And I also understand his point of view. But [comedic wrestler voice] “I’ll meet you on the top oval, James. Let’s do it.” I’m not trying to start a fight. I’m a lover, not a fighter.

Olsen: To start talking about “Train Dreams,” you’ve talked a lot about how you read the book around 2018 or so and the rights weren’t available so you set that idea aside —

Edgerton: Sulked a bit.

Olsen: What do you feel like you were responding to then in that book?

Edgerton: I’ve heard the term neo-western, which I understand now, but it didn’t really make sense to me at the time. When I first read the book, we come into the story with this violent act towards the Chinese worker, for anyone who’s seen the film. And I didn’t know Denis Johnson’s work at all at the time. The book had been gifted to me as a wrap gift on “Boy Erased.” I thought, “If someone gives you a book, it means they think there’s some meaning in it for you, that it will resonate with you,” and it did. But I thought, “Oh, this is a western.” And then within a handful of pages, I realized it was a different kind of western. It would look and feel like a western, but it was a rumination on a life itself. Not that it was going to answer the big elusive question of the meaning of life, but swirling questions of what is the purpose of a life and what is in the extraordinary details of a life we may never care to remember because the person is not the great inventor, the great general, the great president or superhero. I love the ordinariness, I love the idea that it resonated with something that my parents had always instilled in me, which is that every single human being has a great story to tell and that we all shouldn’t be considered insignificant. And I just was so moved by the sort of glimpses of one man’s entire life. Wanted to get my hands on it, couldn’t, and I’m happy to say that it’s good that I didn’t get my big fat lumberjack hands on it then. Mostly because I think [director and co-writer] Clint [Bentley] is a remarkably sensitive, excellent filmmaker [and] has done a much better job than I ever would if I was in control of things. And because in the four years since he reached out to me to be in the film, I’d become a dad. And that was like everything to me. And if you’ve seen the film and you know what’s inside of the film, I really believe that my performance, I don’t know what my performance would have been like pre-Joel the Dad, but now that I am a dad, it’s like there’s stuff inside of me that makes this performance possible.

Olsen: But when it came back to you, do you feel like you responded to it differently? Did you recognize that difference right away?

Edgerton: One hundred percent. And I know it, there was a significant moment. Clint came to meet me in Chicago, I was shooting “Dark Matter” and I was very excited that this had somehow come around to me, knowing that I loved the book and the character so much. Then I watched “Jockey” and knew that he was a really solid filmmaker. His adaptation was extraordinary. And then when I met him, I realized as a filmmaker he was like a director version of the central character of the film — kind, honest, generous, a really great observer. And I went home and I spoke to my wife, and she obviously, her two big questions every time I want to do a project [are] when and where. Because it means moving us around, uprooting our family. I told her and Spokane didn’t exactly make her click her heels, because her life is about being plugged into big cities. She said, what’s the story about? And I started trying to tell her the story, and when I got to the stuff that happens to Robert in the middle of the film, and my 1 1/2-year-old twins are in the other room, I couldn’t even finish telling her the story. And I realized then how much the story now kind of terrified me. But also was so much more connected for me. And she watched me, my chin was quivering and and she was like, “All right, I guess we’re going to Spokane.”

Olsen: Have you done a project that felt this personal before? And did that have its own kind of anxiety attached? Did you have any reluctance to do this for the reason that you were connecting to it so strongly?

Edgerton: I feel like I learn something about myself on every job and every time I approach a new job, I always describe it in rudimentary terms, like a toolkit. What aspects of myself do I bring to this? Which parts do I leave behind? And how would I approach this? For example, “Gatsby” for me felt like, “This is about me turning myself up to 11 out of 10, bringing something bigger.” And with “Train Dreams” what I’ve really learned was how much in the past I’ve tried to hide from myself. And I feel like it’s a trap a lot of actors fall into, is thinking they’re not enough and you have to adorn a performance to be really seen or heard or impress. And I realized how much I’ve avoided playing characters that are very much like me. And though Robert’s a lumberjack, I’m putting all the trappings of it aside on an emotional level. How much is a character like you? And I’m constantly trying to play dress ups and really interested in being people that I’m not and I think that my favorite actors have often been transformative character actors. So I felt like my task in my mind was always to do something different and run away from the idea of just showing my own self really. And I realized that as a husband, as a father and as a guy who’s constantly guilty and struggling with the idea of being away from my family for work, these are all things that Robert is [dealing with], just doing a different job. A contract worker, which I am too except I’m not chopping down trees. And I have my greatest fears around my kids and the safety of my kids. So it felt to me like this was a chance to be very open about my own feelings and bring that to the work without feeling like I had to put too much garnish on things. And that’s a bit scary for me. But it now makes me realize it’s probably a better path in the future to do a bit more of that, just be a bit more open rather than hiding who I am, if that makes any sense.

Olsen: Completely. Because a lot of reviews of the movie, I sort of said this myself, have noted how it feels almost as if your career has been building to this performance, leading to it somehow. Does it feel like that to you?

Edgerton: I know that in decades to come I’ll look back and say always that “Train Dreams” is one of the great experiences I’ve ever had. The process and the result. I think the movie’s fantastic, but what I got out of it personally, it was extraordinary. Look, I hope that I’m building towards something else extraordinary in the future, and it’s like a new mission with each film and each story and each character. But this one definitely feels special for me, and it feels like I use the word “suitable,” which feels so boring. But I played characters that are not suitable for me in the past, and I’ve really challenged myself to bend into shapes that are different from who I am, rhythms that are different from what I’m like, successfully or relatively unsuccessfully. I can’t really judge it for myself. But this felt really suitable. It felt like it belonged to me.

Olsen: You’re also a director, writer, producer. What is it like for you when you show up to a project and you’re just an actor? Does it allow you to focus more on your performance? Or are you always like, “I was thinking you could put the camera over there.”

Edgerton: It’s such a relief. I think directing is the best job in the world, but I wouldn’t want to be doing it every time I went to work, because there’s a lot of stress, a lot of responsibility. Many times I’ve described the difference between acting and directing. An actor is like a child. Literally you could turn up to work in your pajamas, somebody will put makeup on you, dress you, you have one — well, I don’t want to be reductive about it — but you have one job, to play your character and fit into the story, serve the story. As a director you’re running the household. You’ve got to do everything. You’ve got to stock the fridge, you’ve got to make all the decisions about everything in the household, and there’s so much responsibility to that.

I was curious after I directed my first film, how I would be walking onto another director’s set. And it would just be a sin to walk onto someone else’s set and start to look over their shoulder and check their homework and sort of impose yourself on that process. I realized the two things that fascinated me the most were what lens was being put on the camera according to what the shot was. So I just became like really quietly observant. Actors who direct get this sort of great luxury of visiting so many sets and watching other directors and learning from them, good and bad things. And behavioral stuff. It’s not just about how their craft works or how they apply themselves as filmmakers, but how they conduct themselves as people, how they treat their crew, how they elicit the best out of their heads of department and give them freedom or not. Like Clint, for example, on “Train Dreams” is amazing at deputizing his heads of department, giving them freedom, and I think that’s the greatest show of power as a director, the confidence of relinquishing control because you hired the great people and you’re trusting them to collaborate with you. So as an actor I love the freedom of just being there to serve the story. And then watching and putting little things in my ideas bag for next time if I’m lucky enough to be the director again.

Olsen: You were recently on [“Late Night With Seth Meyers”] and he said that he thought it was a very wonderful performance and he noted how you don’t have very much dialogue in the movie and you said you think it’s wonderful because there isn’t much dialogue. And you were kidding, but I wonder if you could unravel that a little bit. How do you think the lack of dialogue in the movie impacted your performance?

Edgerton: Words are there to confuse us in the world. There’s the things we say, what they actually mean, there’s so many layers to any conversation you have with any person. There’s something really interesting about people who don’t speak very much. There’s a mystery often to them. I think there’s a lot of mystery to men that I grew up with in my life. I find myself drawn to people that don’t speak very much because I’m wondering what they think, what do they think of me, what’s going on in their mind. As an actor, I guess I really cut my teeth on “Loving” with Jeff Nichols. He’s a character, again, a very good man who had a lot of feelings and a lot to say, but for whatever reason or for different reasons, with Richard Loving and with Robert, chooses not to say things or doesn’t know if he has the right to say certain things. As an actor I think what becomes the focus is knowing that the camera sees, is looking into your soul. The thought is the imperative, to put the thoughts in the right place, to just be present, knowing that the camera will read those things. And of course the story’s job is to help guide us along and we have a narration. But I was always hoping that the camera will see what’s on my mind and for me to then fill that with words would actually kind of be counter to what the character is, which is one of these very stoic nonverbal men that I think we can all identify with or that we’ve met in our lives. So it’s just putting the right thoughts in my head.

Olsen: It is remarkable how often in the movie it’s as if we’re just watching you feel, you’re sort of taking in your surroundings, you’re not really saying much, but it does feel like we’re in your head, that we can understand what the character is thinking and what you’re conveying as a performer.

Edgerton: Thank you. I was smiling because I was remembering the square root of eight. Do you know what I’m talking about? There’s an episode of “Friends” — is it Joey who’s the actor? — he’s like, “When you’ve got to act and you’ve got to look like you’re really trying to work something out, you’ve just got to think of the square root of eight.” It actually works. But I wasn’t using it in “Train Dreams.”

Olsen: The story does build to this scene with Kerry Condon where your character actually does explain himself. What was it like to flip the switch and have to be verbal and emotional in a more conventional way?

Edgerton: Talking about emotion was one of the tricky things with “Train Dreams.” Clint and I had many conversations, very cerebral conversations, theoretical conversations about story — and emotion was one of them. So Robert’s a character, one of these men who is not really willing to show his emotions. And when he does he’s very quick to put them down, or in the case of the film he apologizes for showing his grief. But it’s all building to this moment, and this is one of the things I love about the film, is that it illuminates the importance of human connection. Robert meets this character Claire that the audience feels like maybe there’s a romance about to happen, which I love that it doesn’t steer in that direction. These chance encounters with strangers that we maybe don’t know that we need to have met on our journey, that are a chance for us to express ourselves. And he has a chance to, whether he knows it or not, he’s going to tell her about his feelings of strange complicity in something he had no responsibility for. And we knew that we were building towards this and yet at the same time we’re still trying to keep a lid on the emotions, but finally Robert gets to speak and it makes so much more sense of his silence up until that point if he we finally hear him string more than a sentence together to try and talk about what’s inside of him and those scenes we shot them in a short one-and-a-half hour window of magic hour with Kerry, who’s just extraordinary. And it felt like time was standing still, even though you would think that there would be a sense that we were rushing. It felt like we had hours.

Olsen: As you’re making the movie, are you talking with Clint or William H. Macy or Felicity Jones, having these kind of big picture, thematic conversations? Because the movie invites these questions of, what makes a life? How do you define being a man? Are you having those conversations while you’re making the movie?

Edgerton: There’s something fascinating about “Train Dreams.” Something I say is so special about Clint is, I know this because I read so many screenplays and I think about story all the time, is this draw to tell an audience what to feel all the time. Whether it’s through words, the story itself, music. “Train Dreams” does this thing that as much as I can speak about it objectively, and it’s the same in the novella, these moments that aren’t telling you what to feel, they’re just layering on top of each other, and I feel like there’s some compression of all these things. It pulls something out of people in their own way. They find their own experience out of it, which can be quite emotional and quite cathartic in a good way. Particularly anyone who’s been through moments where they’re being knocked down in life. I think there’s some sort of hopefulness in watching Robert’s story. It’s hard to define, but there’s a confidence in the way Clint’s rendered it. It’s not telling you each time what to feel. Robert’s not telling you, it’s not screaming to the heavens. There’s nothing sort of overly melodramatic or cathartic about it. And yet these layers build and compress. I had a very similar experience watching “Into the Wild,” Sean Penn’s film. It’s another character isolating himself in in nature. The credits roll and something in me just was like it was like, “I needed to feel something.” I call them a happy cry movie. You know, you’re crying but also happy at the same time.

Olsen: There’s a a moment in the film that I find so haunting and I’ve been trying to unravel it for myself. It’s late in the film, it’s the 1960s, you’re portraying the character as an old man. And in the voice-over the narrator Will Patton says something like, “He never spoke on a telephone.” And there’s something about that I just find deeply moving and really haunting. And I’m struggling to even define for myself what it is about that idea that really gets me.

Edgerton: Because there’s these great things in the movie that I call little sidecars or whatever, this idea that the world is sort of moving so quickly it’s going to leave us behind. It reminded me of my grandmother, who when I pointed a video camera at her for the first time, she didn’t move because she was thinking I was taking a photo of her. And I was saying “It’s OK, this is a camera that’s gonna capture you moving.” She was like Robert. She never saw some of these things. She never experienced a lot of things. I think she went on an airplane, like a jumbo jet, once in her life. And there’s a great thing in the book actually, about Robert and his point of view on the world and as he’s aging, and it talks about his body and his spine and the way his shoulders moved. For example, that scene where Robert goes up to the window and realizes he’s staring at a man walking on the moon and he’s looking up at the sky, wondering, “How is that even possible?” There’s this sense of his physical dilapidation as he moves. It’s this guy that every time he turns his head has to move his entire body from all the hard work. But all this is sort of just a general sense of wonderment that I remember in my grandmother’s eyes when she would look at new things. But this sort of awe and childlike wonder at the world, which I found very special.

Olsen: Part of the story also deals with just how to know when your time has past. And you and I are about the same age and it’s something I grapple with a lot, wanting to be sure that I still have something meaningful to contribute. Do you worry about that for yourself? In a way it comes back to where we started this conversation, that there are people who would tell you that movies are on the way out.

Edgerton: Relevance is a weird thing. I always saw myself as the youngest person in the room. I started very young. I was young at drama school. I was always young, and now I’m not. The beauty of being an actor if we’re allowed to keep doing what we’re doing, if AI doesn’t mess everything up, as long as my brain keeps working, I can keep learning about the new versions of myself as I get older. You know, “Train Dreams” is a good chance for me to see myself in the middle of my life. But I wonder about relevance. I wonder about my character staring at a chainsaw in the movie and wondering how it’s going to affect his world. I wonder at that for myself, as I’ve never downloaded ChatGPT. I’m sort of terrified, but I also feel like I need to not turn a blind eye to it. I have young kids. I’ve got to accept this thing. But I do worry about what it’s going to do to movies. What I feel optimistic about [is] — I always evoke Jonathan Glazer’s film, “Zone of Interest.” Because I think the genius of that film is the beautiful human thought behind the point of view of setting a Holocaust film in the general’s house over the wall in an opulent setting. And I keep thinking, “I don’t think AI is going to come up with an idea like that, think outside the box.” I think it pushes us into more of a challenge of the unique thought, the unique piece of art, doing things that are bespoke. I don’t think we’ll ever want to stop watching human beings or listening to human stories told by humans, starring humans, music made by humans, paintings painted by humans. I hope. Yes, we can enjoy the wildness of what computers create for us. But I don’t think zeros and ones are going to entirely ruin our lives. But then I can be pessimistic too. I won’t rant on that.

Jan. 7 (UPI) — China is opening an anti-dumping investigation into Japan over a key chemical used in manufacturing semiconductors, the Ministry of Commerce announced Wednesday.

The investigation is set to last a year as China probes whether Japan has been selling the chemical dichlorosilane at an unfairly low price — dumping — harming its domestic producers.

Dichlorosaline is commonly used to manufacture computer chips.

The investigation stems from a complaint by the Chinese company Sunfar that submitted evidence showing a 31% decrease in prices on the chemical from Japan despite an increase in imports between 2022 and 2024.

A review of the complaint found that it met the criteria for further investigation under Chinese laws and rules set out by the World Trade Organization.

“The investigating authority will conduct the investigation in accordance with the law, fully safeguard the rights of all interested parties and make an objective and impartial ruling based on the investigation results,” the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement.

The ensuing investigation will dig into dichlorosilane imports from Japan from July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025.

Japan is home to the three leading producers of dichlorosilane, making it the top exporter of the chemical.

China’s top dichlorosilane producer has the fourth-largest market share of the chemical in the world. It relies heavily on imports from Japan, with Japanese products making up about 72% of China’s domestic market between 2022 and 2024.

On Tuesday, China banned the export of products to Japan’s military. Japan has warned China about pursuing control over Taiwan as China believes Taiwan to be part of its territory.

Wednesday’s announcement continues the escalating tension between the countries.

The United States Supreme Court is expected to rule on a case about the legality of President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The high court on Tuesday added a non-argument/conference date on its website, indicating that it could release its ruling, although the court does not announce ahead of time which rulings it intends to issue.

The challenge to Trump’s tariffs has been one of the most closely watched cases on the court’s docket amid the broader impact on the global economy.

In a social media post on Friday, Trump said such a ruling would be a “terrible blow” to the US.

“Because of Tariffs, our Country is financially, AND FROM A NATIONAL SECURITY STANDPOINT, FAR STRONGER AND MORE RESPECTED THAN EVER BEFORE,” Trump said in another post on Monday.

However, data on this is mixed. The US gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 4.3 percent in the third quarter of 2025, marking the biggest increase in two years. Meanwhile, US job growth has slowed, with sectors heavily exposed to tariffs seeing little to no job growth.

“Jobs in sectors with higher import exposure grew more slowly than jobs in sectors with lower import exposure, suggesting tariffs may have weighed on employment,” Johannes Matschke, senior economist for the Kansas City branch of the Federal Reserve, said in an analysis in December.

Legal arguments

Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) in February 2025 on goods imported from individual countries to address, what he called, a national emergency related to US trade deficits.

Arguments challenging the legality of the decision began in November. At the time, the court’s liberal and some conservative justices had doubts about the legality of using the 1977 act.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, whom Trump appointed during his first term, was among those sceptical.

“Congress, as a practical matter, can’t get this power back once it’s handed it over to the president,” Gorsuch said at the time.

Chief Justice John Roberts told Solicitor General D John Sauer, who argued on behalf of the administration, that imposing tariffs and taxes “has always been the core power of Congress”.

The act grants broad executive authority to wield economic power in the case of a national emergency.

The matter reached the Supreme Court after the lower courts ruled against the Trump administration, finding that the use of the law exceeded the administration’s authority.

Among the courts that ruled against the White House was the Court of International Trade. In May, the New York court said that Congress, and not the executive branch, has “exclusive authority to regulate commerce”. This decision was upheld in a Washington, DC, appeals court in August.

Legal experts believe it is likely that the high court will uphold lower court decisions.

“My sense is that, given the different justices’ concerns, the Supreme Court will decide that IEEPA does not provide the ability for the Trump administration to adopt the tariffs,” Greg Shaffer, a law professor at Georgetown University, told Al Jazeera.

If the Trump administration were to lose the case, the US would need to refund some of the tariffs.

“It [ruling against the administration] would mean that those who paid tariffs that were imposed illegally would have to be reimbursed. I would think that that would be the outcome,” Shaffer added.

In September, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said on NBC’s Meet the Press that the US would “have to give a refund on about half the tariffs”.

The Trump administration has said that if the Supreme Court does not rule in its favour, it will use other statutes to push through tariffs.

SACRAMENTO — A California lawmaker introduced a bill Monday to crack down on fake liens filed against politicians, court employees and businesses that can force victims to spend thousands of dollars in legal fees to clear their names and repair their credit.

The bill by Assemblymember Diane Papan (D-San Mateo) comes after a Times investigation in July found lien claims filed with the secretary of state’s office are used by antigovernment agitators, including so-called “sovereign citizens,” for conspiracy-laced demands and vendettas. The U.S. Justice Department and the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service have called fake liens a form of “paper terrorism.”

“This isn’t an exotic or onerous fix,” Papan said Monday after the state Legislature returned to the Capitol to begin a new session. “The fact is that someone can do irreparable damage to someone’s reputation and their ability to have good credit. And we can certainly do better in California.”

Liens are recorded in state Uniform Commercial Code databases across the country, with the public filings intended to standardize interstate transactions and alert creditors about business debts and financial obligations.

The Times’ investigation found that state databases of UCC liens, which were designed to be straightforward and quick to file, are inherently vulnerable to abuse. A single false filing can claim an individual or business owes debts worth hundreds of millions or even trillions of dollars. Others flood victims with repeated filings that make it appear they are entangled in complex financial disputes.

In California, a lien recorded with the secretary of state costs $5 to file, but removing a fraudulent one from the public database requires a court order, which can cost thousands in attorney and court fees. The state does not notify a person when a lien names them as the debtor, allowing fake filings to remain in California’s public database for years before a victim discovers them. Many politicians and government employees learned from The Times that they had been targeted with spurious filings.

Under Assembly Bill 501, the secretary of state’s office would be required to notify individuals within 21 days if they are named as a debtor in a lien filing. The legislation also would delay court fees until the end of judicial proceedings.

In cases where the lien is found to be fraudulent, the bill would make the guilty party liable to the victim for three times the amount of court fees paid. The bill would also increase the maximum civil penalty for filing a fraudulent lien to $15,000, up from $5,000. California law already makes it a felony to knowingly file a fake lien.

“Victims of these fraudulent filings often have no idea they’ve been targeted until real harm is done,” Papan said. “That harm can look like wrecked credit, failed background checks, or failed mortgage applications while the people committing the fraud face relatively little risk or consequence.”

The National Assn. of Secretaries of State said the vast majority of UCC filings are legitimate. But, in a 2023 report, the association said that “fraudulent or bogus filings” were a widespread and persistent problem across the country, warning that they “can create serious financial difficulties for victims.”

One high-profile California public official who was unaware he had been named in a UCC claim until contacted by The Times said he was alarmed to find that the filing contained his home address. The Times identified hundreds of other UCC filings with no apparent legal basis that also listed the home addresses of government officials and prominent power-brokers, effectively turning the state’s public database into a doxing tool.

In the debt claims, individuals falsely allege government officials owe them money or property, in some cases claiming ownership of the victim’s home. Other fake filings target businesses with claims of being owed cash and cars. In some cases, individuals file dozens or hundreds of fake liens. Paid online classes associated with fringe antigovernment ideologies teach people how to record UCC liens, often promoting the filings as a way to pressure perceived adversaries or falsely claiming that the filings can erase debts.

Michael Rogers, a San Diego attorney who represents auto dealers targeted by fake filings, said AB 501 would “greatly curb some of the systemic abuses used by the sovereign citizen movement and others” who file unsupported or fraudulent lien notices.

Consumer credit expert John Ulzheimer said in July that liens can complicate a person’s ability to obtain a mortgage or a company’s chances of securing lines of credit. In some cases, he said, the filings can derail job applications for positions that require thorough background checks.

Papan said her bill would restore “balance and accountability” to the UCC system, ensuring it remains a trusted commercial tool while adding protections for Californians targeted by fraudulent filings.

“We can’t allow the Uniform Commercial Code to be used as a weapon,” Papan said. “The fact that these forms are being used to damage the integrity of commercial transactions is very troubling.”

Seoul shares jumped more than 1.5 percent Tuesday to close at above the historic milestone of 4,500 on the back of a rise in semiconductors, brokerages and shipbuilders. The Korean won fell against the U.S. dollar.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) climbed 67.96 points, or 1.52 percent, to finish at a new record high of 4,525.48, breaking the 4,500-point mark for the first time.

The index broke through the 4,400-point threshold the previous session on continued gains in technology stocks.

Trading volume was heavy at 492.84 million shares worth 25.27 trillion won (US$17.4 billion), with losers outnumbering gainers 482 to 394.

The index opened lower, bucking overnight gains on Wall Street, but later turned higher as retail investors scooped up technology and other large-cap stocks.

Individuals bought a net 597.55 billion won worth of shares, offsetting net selling by foreigners and institutions totaling 618.83 billion won and 68.93 billion won, respectively.

Foreign investors turned net sellers Tuesday after purchasing more than 2.8 trillion won worth of shares over the past two sessions.

“Technology stocks remained weak on profit taking in the morning session, but turned higher on retail buying in the afternoon trading. Individual investors also purchased defense and shipbuilding stocks on expectations of strong earnings results in 2025,” said No Dong-kil, an analyst at Shinhan Securities Co.

Technology, defense, brokerage and shipbuilding stocks led the gains.

Market behemoth Samsung Electronics rose 0.58 percent to 138,900 won, while chip giant SK hynix jumped 4.31 percent to 726,000 won.

Leading shipbuilder HD Hyundai Heavy Industries soared 7.21 percent to 550,000 won, and Korea Aerospace Industries surged 9.41 percent to 136,100 won.

Defense giant Hanwha Aerospace gained 0.99 percent to 1,022,000 won, and Mirae Asset Securities jumped 12.55 percent to 28,700 won.

Among decliners, No. 2 carmaker Kia slipped 0.08 percent to 122,500 won, and national flag carrier Korean Air declined 0.44 percent to 22,500 won.

No. 2 steelmaker Hyundai Steel shed 1.33 percent to 29,650 won, and leading chemical firm LG Chem dropped 0.45 percent to 328,500 won.

The local currency was quoted at 1,445.50 won against the greenback at 3:30 p.m., down 1.7 won from the previous session.

Bond prices, which move inversely to yields, ended mixed. The yield on three-year Treasurys rose 1.5 basis points to 2.948 percent, while the return on the benchmark five-year government bonds fell 0.5 basis point to 3.244 percent.

SEOUL, Jan. 5 (UPI) — Korea Land and Housing Corp. said the state-run company selected several private-sector enterprises as preferred bidders for a large-scale city development project in Vietnam.

Among them were the country’s leading contractors, Hyundai E&C and POSCO E&C, along with JR Asset Management. Public-sector involvement is also expected through the Korea Overseas Infrastructure and Urban Development Corp.

The Vietnamese government is seeking to attract investment to move forward with a multibillion-dollar project to construct a new city in the fast-growing Southeast Asian country.

The initiative is designed to transform a 2,000-acre site in Bac Ninh Province, about 12 miles northeast of Hanoi, into a self-sufficient urban center capable of accommodating more than 100,000 residents.

Midway through 2024, LH signed a memorandum of understanding with Bac Ninh Province to pursue the development. Last August, it asked the provincial government to issue an investment policy approval.

Once the approval is secured and related administrative procedures are completed, LH plans to establish a special purpose company with Vietnamese partners to implement the 50-year phased initiative, which is scheduled to conclude in 2076.

Early last year, LH estimated the project’s value at $4.1 billion, but the company noted that the figure would be subject to change depending on project scope and other factors.

The Seoul administration has expressed high hopes for the initiative. For example, President Lee Jae Myung cited it during a meeting with To Lam, general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party, in Seoul last August.

“We will provide full support to advance cooperation on the Bac Ninh new town development,” Lee said at the time.

United States President Donald Trump has promised to “take back” Venezuela’s oil reserves and unleash them onto the global market after abducting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

But exploiting the Latin American country’s vast reserves would face a host of big hurdles, from decrepit infrastructure and legal obstacles to leadership uncertainty in Caracas and an excess supply of oil in the global market, experts say.

Venezuela possesses the world’s largest known oil reserves – estimated to be some 303 billion barrels – but currently produces only a tiny fraction of global output. Its estimated output was 860,000 barrels per day (bpd) in November, less than 1 percent of the world’s total, compared with 3.7 million bpd during peak production in 1970.

The oil sector’s decline has been blamed on the combined effects of US sanctions and years of underinvestment, mismanagement and corruption under Maduro and his left-wing predecessor, Hugo Chavez.

While the Trump administration could boost supply in the short term by lifting sanctions, restoring Venezuela’s output to anything near peak levels would require huge investment and likely take years, according to energy analysts.

‘Venezuela’s oil infrastructure is in poor shape’

Oil prices moved only slightly in trading on Monday amid market expectations that output would remain largely unchanged for the foreseeable future.

“Venezuela’s oil infrastructure is in poor shape overall, due to lack of maintenance for both equipment and oilfield wells,” Scott Montgomery, a global energy expert at the University of Washington, told Al Jazeera.

“The state oil company, PDVSA, is well known to suffer from corruption and lack of expertise – many well-trained people have left the country to work elsewhere – and has been unable to invest in the country’s petroleum sector,” Montgomery added.

Thomas O’Donnell, an energy and geopolitical analyst based in Berlin, Germany, estimated that Venezuela could return to peak production in five to seven years in the “absolute best” circumstances, including a peaceful transfer of power.

“Longer term, if things are sorted out, yes, Venezuela can become one of the world’s biggest producers of oil. As far as how long that takes, that has all to do with the transition and what is put in place to manage that – both the country’s security and also to manage the investments,” O’Donnell told Al Jazeera.

Mixed messaging from Trump administration

Trump’s administration has provided conflicting messages on Washington’s exact plans for Venezuela and its oil reserves.

On Saturday, Trump said the US would “run” Venezuela and that US oil companies were ready to invest billions of dollars to build up the country’s dilapidated infrastructure and “get the oil flowing”.

In interviews with US media on Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sought to downplay Trump’s remarks about controlling the country, saying the president was referring to “running policy” and his plans related to spurring private investment, “not securing the oilfields”.

Trump later on Sunday said Washington was “in charge” of the country and was “dealing with” members of the acting administration without providing details.

Under international law, the US has no claim of ownership over Venezuela’s oil reserves, as sovereign states possess the right to control and use their natural resources under the United Nations-endorsed Principle of Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources.

Foreign investors, however, can claim compensation when authorities seize their assets.

ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips were awarded $1.6bn and $8.7bn, respectively, in international arbitration following the Chavez government’s 2007 nationalisation of the oil sector. Caracas did not pay out in either case.

US oil giants, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, and ConocoPhillips, have not commented directly on Trump’s claims about planned investments in Venezuela.

Chevron is the only large US oil company currently operating in Venezuela, the result of an exemption to US sanctions first granted by the administration of former President Joe Biden.

Consultancy Rystad Energy, based in Oslo, Norway, has estimated that Venezuela’s oil sector would need about $110bn in capital investment to return to its mid-2010s output of about 2 million bpd.

Patrick De Haan, an analyst at energy price tracker GasBuddy, said companies may be reluctant to commit to large investments in the country when global oil prices are hovering around $60 a barrel due to a glut of supply.

“It will take a longer amount of time than many likely realise. Oil companies in a low-priced environment of today would likely be cautious investing billions with oil prices already low,” De Haan told Al Jazeera.

“In addition, Trump seizing Maduro could lead to loyalists sabotaging efforts to increase output. A lot would have to go right to yield the most optimistic timelines.”

US companies are likely to carefully weigh political developments in Venezuela following their experiences with the Chavez government’s expropriation of their assets.

“Oil companies are not likely to rush into a situation where the state is in turmoil, security is lacking, and no clear path forward for political stability exists,” the University of Washington’s Montgomery said.

Maduro due in court in New York

Interim President Delcy Rodriguez, who was Maduro’s deputy, is now leading the country following a ruling by Venezuela’s Supreme Court.

Maduro is scheduled to appear in a New York court on Monday to face charges related to alleged drug trafficking and working with criminal gangs.

Venezuela’s government has condemned the Trump administration over Saturday’s bombing and overthrow of Maduro, labelling his capture a “cowardly kidnapping”.

Russia, China, Iran and Brazil, among other countries, have accused Washington of violating international law, while nations including Israel, Argentina and Greece have welcomed Maduro’s forced removal.

OPEC, which sets limits on production for its 12 members, including Venezuela, is another factor in the Latin American country’s potential oil output.

“Venezuela is a member of OPEC, and like many countries, may become more actively subject to quotas if output climbs,” De Haan said.

Phil Flynn, a market analyst at the Price Futures Group, said reviving Venezuela’s oil production would face “significant challenges”, but he was more bullish about the near-term prospects than other analysts.

He said the market could conceivably see a couple of hundred thousand more barrels a day coming online in the coming months.

“We’ve not had a free Venezuela, and sometimes the US energy industry has the capability to do a lot more than people give them credit for,” Flynn told Al Jazeera.

Jan. 4 (Asia Today) — Corporate lending at South Korea’s five largest commercial banks grew at about half the pace of the previous year, despite government calls for “productive finance” aimed at steering money toward businesses, industry data showed.

Outstanding corporate loans at KB Kookmin Bank, Shinhan Bank, Hana Bank, Woori Bank and NH Nonghyup Bank totaled 844.7 trillion won (about $650 billion) at the end of December, up 2.94% from a year earlier, the data showed. The increase of 24.1 trillion won (about $18.5 billion) compared with 2024’s 6.95% rise, when balances increased 53.3 trillion won (about $41.0 billion).

The lending trend diverged between the first and second halves of the year. Corporate loan balances rose 9.1 trillion won (about $7.0 billion) in the first half as banks prioritized asset quality amid higher rates and more financially strained firms. Growth accelerated in the second half, rising 15.0 trillion won (about $11.5 billion), as the government that took office in June pushed banks to expand credit to companies and advanced industries while tightening household lending.

Even so, growth in loans to small and medium-sized firms slowed sharply. SME lending at the five banks increased 12.2 trillion won (about $9.4 billion) last year, down from 31.3 trillion won (about $24.1 billion) in 2024, the data showed. Loans to large companies rose 11.9 trillion won (about $9.2 billion), down from 22.0 trillion won (about $16.9 billion) the prior year, but large-company loan growth still outpaced SME growth, with rates of 7.52% and 1.84%, respectively.

Loans to the self-employed declined. Balances fell 1.2 trillion won (about $915 million) to 324.4 trillion won (about $249.6 billion) from 325.6 trillion won (about $250.5 billion) a year earlier, according to the data.

Bankers cited higher delinquency risks among SMEs and the self-employed and said lenders have leaned toward higher-quality corporate borrowers to protect capital, including common equity tier 1, or CET1, ratios.

Authorities are expected to intensify pressure this year to expand corporate credit. Banks have said they broadly agree with the policy direction but want regulatory relief, including lower risk weights on corporate loans, to increase supply while meeting capital rules.

In September, financial authorities said they would adjust capital regulations, including raising the minimum risk weight on mortgage loans and lowering risk weights on banks’ stock holdings. The move could expand corporate lending capacity by up to 73.5 trillion won (about $56.5 billion), the report said.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Jan. 4 (UPI) — A far-left activist group sent police a letter taking credit for setting fire to part of a power plant near Berlin, leaving nearly 50,000 customers in the dark, as a protest against the fossil fuel industry.

The German activist group Vulkangruppe, or Volcano Group, acknowledged in a 2,500-word letter that it set a fire on Saturday near the Lichterfelde heat and power station, damaging high-voltage cables to “cut the juice to the ruling class,” The Guardian reported.

On Sunday morning, Stromnetz Berlin, the power company that owns the station, reported that roughly 45,000 homes and 2,200 businesses had lost power in the outage, Deutche Welle reported.

The power company said that while some connections have been turned back on in small waves, some customers may not have their electricity until as late as Thursday afternoon.

Some schools may also be closed for the part of the week because they do not have power, The BBC reported.

“We are expecting damage costing millions to plants and machines and owing to high losses in revenue,” Alexander Schirp, director of the regional business associations in Berlin and Brandenburg, said of the arson.

“This is a serious problem and stokes a feeling of insecurity in the business world,” he added.

Early Saturday, cables near the power plant were spotted burning and incendiary devices were later found to have caused the inferno.

In the aftermath, several hospitals and health care facilities received emergency generators, but many people had to be moved from either facilities or their own homes because there was no power.

Vulkangruppe said in the letter, which police have said is credible, that they set the fire in an “act of self-defense and international solidarity with all those who protect the Earth and life.”

The group condemned “greed for energy” by burning fossil fuels for the ever-growing electricity needs of humanity, and specifically called out the massive, and exponentially growing, use of electric for artificial intelligence computing.

“We are contributing to our own surveillance and it is comprehensive. The tech corporations are in the hands of me with power, which we give them,” the group wrote, calling the fire an “action in the public interest.”

Vulkangruppe previously took credit for a fire that was set at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Berlin in March 2024.

That arson included deliberately setting fire to a high-voltage electric pole, which damaged the electric line and cut power to the surrounding area, including the plant, officials said at the time.

BUENOS AIRES, Jan. 2 (UPI) — Argentina’s government has enacted the so-called Fiscal Innocence Law, which changes tax evasion thresholds and seeks to encourage declaring and depositing undeclared U.S. dollar savings, commonly known locally as “dollars under the mattress,” into the formal financial system.

Official data show Argentines held about $254 billion outside the banking system as of September, slightly below the $256.5 billion reported at the end of 2023.

The phenomenon reflects decades of mistrust in the financial system after repeated economic crises, bank account freezes and successive currency devaluations. Under previous administrations, the volume of undeclared dollars grew sharply amid restrictions on access to the official foreign exchange market.

The initiative is part of President Javier Milei’s economic agenda. It aims to bring undeclared savings back into the formal economy, broaden the tax base and support economic activity.

The law introduces two main changes.

First, it seeks to protect taxpayers by shifting the legal standard from “guilty until proven innocent” to “innocent until proven guilty.”

Second, it simplifies the tax system by sharply raising the thresholds for pursuing tax evasion, which had not been updated for years. Simple tax evasion will now be investigated starting at $100,000, up from about $1,500, while aggravated tax evasion will apply from $1 million, compared with a previous threshold of about $15,000.

The reform also shortens the statute of limitations for tax crimes from five years to three. Taxpayers who receive a notice of irregularities will be able to normalize their situation by paying what they owe without facing criminal penalties.

The government stressed that the measure is not a tax amnesty, as individuals still must pay taxes owed on previously undeclared income.

“This law is probably one of the most important in Argentina’s recent history,” said Manuel Adorni, the government’s chief spokesman, during a press briefing. He said the reform overturns a legal paradigm in place for more than a century.

“Instead of being treated as suspects, all citizens are presumed innocent until the courts prove otherwise,” Adorni said.

He added that bringing these funds into the formal system could boost investment and deepen capital markets.

Private sector credit in Argentina currently amounts to about 9% of gross domestic product, well below the regional average, which ranges between 60% and 120%. The new law, Adorni said, creates an opportunity to channel savings into investment projects.

Economist Elena Alonso, co-founder and chief executive of Emerald Capital Global, told UPI the reform represents a profound shift in the relationship between the state and taxpayers.

“The core idea is to stop treating everyone as a suspect by default and move to a system where people are considered compliant unless the tax authority proves otherwise,” Alonso said.

Previously, she said, the system placed the burden on taxpayers to prove they had done nothing wrong even in the absence of evidence.

“This does not mean taxes will go unpaid or debts will be forgiven,” Alonso said. “It simply means wrongdoing must be proven first and only then can the state make a claim.”

She said the change would lead to more targeted requests for clarification, focused on proven cases rather than minor or formal errors.

For citizens, Alonso said, the benefits include greater predictability, less fear of administrative mistakes and a more balanced relationship with the state. “That also encourages compliance because the system feels fairer,” she said.