KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Winter rain lashed the Gaza Strip over the weekend, flooding camps with ankle-deep puddles as Palestinians displaced by two years of war attempted to stay dry in tents frayed by months of use.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled for an expected meeting on Monday with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida about the second phase of the ceasefire. The first phase that took effect on Oct. 10 was meant to bring a surge in humanitarian aid for Gaza, including shelter.
Netanyahu made no public statement as he departed.
Nowhere to escape
In the southern city of Khan Younis, blankets were soaked and clay ovens meant for cooking were swamped. Children wearing flip-flops waded through puddles. Some people used shovels or tin cans to remove water from tents. Others clawed at the ground to pry collapsed shelters from the mud.
““Puddles formed, and there was a bad smell,” said Majdoleen Tarabein, displaced from Rafah in southern Gaza. ”The tent flew away. We don’t know what to do or where to go.”
She and family members tried to wring muddy blankets dry by hand.
“When we woke up in the morning, we found that the water had entered the tent,” said Eman Abu Riziq, also displaced in Khan Younis. “These are the mattresses. They are all completely soaked.”
She said her family is still reeling from her husband’s death less than two weeks ago.
“Where are the mediators? We don’t want food. We don’t want anything. We are exhausted. We just want mattresses and covers,” said Fatima Abu Omar as she tried to prop up a collapsing shelter.
At least 12 people, including a 2-week-old infant, have died since Dec. 13 from hypothermia or weather-related collapses of war-damaged homes, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government.
Emergency workers have warned people not to stay in damaged buildings, because they could collapse. But with much of the territory in rubble, there are few places to escape the rain. In July, the United Nations estimated that almost 80% of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged.
Since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began, 414 people have been killed and 1,142 wounded in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry. The overall Palestinian death toll from the war is at least 71,266. The ministry, which does not distinguish between militants and civilians in its count, is staffed by medical professionals and maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by the international community.
The Israel-Hamas war began with the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage,
The Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid said in the past week that 4,200 trucks with aid entered Gaza, plus eight garbage trucks to assist with sanitation, as well as tents and winter clothing. It refused to elaborate on the number of tents. Aid groups have said the need far outstrips the number that have entered.
Since the ceasefire began, around 72,000 tents and 403,000 tarps have entered, according to Shelter Cluster, an international coalition of aid providers led by the Norwegian Refugee Council.
“People in Gaza are surviving in flimsy, waterlogged tents and among ruins,” Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the top U.N. group overseeing aid in Gaza, wrote on social media. “There is nothing inevitable about this. Aid supplies are not being allowed in at the scale required.”
Ceasefire’s next phase
Though the ceasefire agreement has mostly held, its progress has slowed.
Israel has said it refuses to move to the next phase while the remains of the final hostage are still in Gaza. Hamas has said the destruction in Gaza has hampered efforts to find remains.
Challenges in the next phase include the deployment of an international stabilization force, a technocratic governing body for Gaza, the disarmament of the Hamas militant group, and further Israeli troop withdrawals from the territory.
Both Israel and Hamas have accused each other of truce violations.
JERUSALEM — Three months ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Donald Trump as the “greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House.” But that friendship — and Netanyahu’s powers of persuasion — will be tested on Monday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, where the Israeli leader will meet a U.S. president with increasingly diverging views on practically every Middle East hot spot.
For Netanyahu, the trip to Florida offers a crucial opportunity to convince Trump to take a tougher stance on Gaza and require that Hamas disarm before Israeli troops further withdraw as part of the second phase of Trump’s 20-point peace plan, Israeli officials say. On Iran, Netanyahu is seeking a green light for another strike against the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program, possibly as part of a joint operation with the United States — even though Trump forcefully demanded an end to the 12-day Israel-Iran war in June and declared that Iran’s nuclear program had been “totally obliterated” by U.S. stealth bombers.
On Syria, the Trump administration has bristled at actions by the Israeli military inside the country that undermine efforts by the new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to consolidate control, with Trump publicly warning Israel this month against doing anything “that will interfere with Syria’s evolution into a prosperous State.” And in Lebanon, Israel has repeatedly bombed Hezbollah targets while demanding that the militant group disarm in accordance with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, but the strikes have threatened to tip the region into another conflagration on Trump’s watch.
As they meet Monday for the fifth time this year, Netanyahu’s hawkishness will butt up against a U.S. president who has staked his own image and legacy on promoting peace, and Netanyahu may struggle to win Trump’s backing given how the relationship has deteriorated, according to people familiar with the thinking of the two leaders and political observers.
“This is an emergency summit,” said Dan Diker, president of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs think tank. “The context is a need to clear or purify the air, because there’s been tensions between the two sides. They have different timelines to get to the same destination, which is a Middle East that is liberated from the Iranian regime and its terror proxies, particularly Hamas.”
In recent months, Netanyahu has often appeared to undercut Trump’s self-congratulations for making peace in the region. Israel carried out additional airstrikes on Iran after the president had declared the 12-day war with Israel over last summer, prompting an expletive-laden warning from Trump on television.
Then, following Israel’s airstrike against Hamas negotiators in Qatar as the Gaza peace deal was being hammered out in September, Trump strong-armed Netanyahu into apologizing. “I think he felt like the Israelis were getting a bit out of control in what they were doing and that it was time to be very strong and stop them from doing things that he felt were not in their long-term interests,” Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and U.S. negotiator, said on CBS’s 60 Minutes in October.
Now, Israeli officials have indicated that Netanyahu wants to discuss what Israel sees as a dangerous expansion of Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and the possibility of new joint strikes by Israel and the U.S. This week, the prime minister’s office released an AI-generated video showing Netanyahu and Trump sitting side by side, co-piloting a B-2 bomber — the iconic stealth aircraft that the United States used in June to strike Iran’s nuclear facility at Fordow at Netanyahu’s urging.
But while Trump continues to see Iran near or at the top of his regional concerns, his administration has launched another attempt to negotiate with Tehran and first wants to see the effort play out, according to several people familiar with the president’s thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive issue. Morgan Ortagus, Trump’s deputy special envoy to the Middle East, told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that Washington “remains available for formal talks with Iran,” while repeating U.S. insistence that “there can be no [uranium] enrichment.”
Other Trump concerns include Lebanon, where a truce with Israel, brokered by the U.S. and France late last year, is teetering as Netanyahu’s government continues to carry out almost daily bombardments and maintains an army deployment in the southern part of the country, amid charges that Hezbollah has failed to disarm.
“There are mixed policy currents,” said another person familiar with U.S. administration deliberations. “There are those who believe only Israel [is capable of doing] something that can even begin to change Hezbollah’s calculations. … There are others that think you cannot trust what Israel might do as exploding the situation and creating broader chaos.”
Gaza takes center stage
For both Trump and Netanyahu, the most contentious issue will likely be Gaza, not only because of security implications but also its political significance for both leaders. Three months after Trump hailed the peace deal between Israel and Hamas as a “new dawn” for the region, implementation of his 20-point plan has bogged down after the first phase of a ceasefire plan, which has so far seen the release of hostages and prisoners and an increase in humanitarian aid.
Amid contentious conversations between the two governments over who will have final word on what happens in Gaza, none of the main elements of a second phase — a supervising Board of Peace, a committee of Palestinian technocrats to govern Gaza’s internal affairs, and an International Stabilization Force to oversee in part the demilitarization of Hamas — is yet in place, even as Israel frequently strikes at Hamas targets inside Gaza despite the ceasefire agreement.
Israel has been reluctant to advance to the deal’s second phase, which could also see Israel eventually withdraw further from the enclave’s interior, without Hamas first disarming. Israeli officials have also balked at the prospect that Turkey — a bitter rival of Israel but an ally of the U.S. — may gain a foothold in Gaza by deploying its troops there as part of the International Stabilization Force.
On Tuesday, tensions with Washington spiked after Netanyahu’s defense minister, Israel Katz, appeared to flout Trump’s peace plan by declaring that Israel will establish Jewish settlements inside the Gaza Strip, drawing a rebuke from U.S. officials. Two days later, Katz doubled down and reiterated that Israel would never fully withdraw from the Strip.
Earlier, after Israeli forces killed the Hamas commander Raed Sa’ad in Gaza on Dec. 13, Trump told reporters he was “looking into” whether Israel had violated the ceasefire agreement. U.S. officials, meanwhile, warned Netanyahu that “we won’t allow you to ruin President Trump’s reputation after he brokered the deal in Gaza,” Axios quoted a U.S. official as saying.
“I’m not sure the Americans will like [the Israeli perspective on] Gaza because it’s not working according to their plan,” said an Israeli government adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. “But for Israel, it has to be total demilitarization, no weapons, no [Hamas] tunnels. And it could take years. We cannot withdraw now.”
For Netanyahu, the trip to Palm Beach, Fla., is further complicated by his political need ahead of the 2026 Israeli elections to project strength and victory on every front, particularly Gaza. Since Oct. 7, 2023, when a Hamas attack left more than 1,200 Israelis dead and 250 taken hostage, Netanyahu has been lambasted by his political opponents for failing to protect Israel. He has also been criticized by Israel’s far right for not doing enough to destroy Hamas, even though the Israeli military carried out a withering, two-year campaign that left more than 70,000 Palestinians dead in Gaza and much of the Strip in ruins.
“There’s the potential for a significant clash on Gaza, because for both of them, it’s the most central issue,” said Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel. “For Trump, he wants to show that this grand deal he struck actually gets implemented, even if he has cut some corners. For Bibi, it’s a serious political risk to go into the election with an arrangement in Gaza that looks like Hamas will survive in some form.”
The Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign has led to a significant change in strategy, as federal officers shift away from focusing on arresting immigrants already held in local jails to tracking them down on the streets and in communities, according to a Washington Post analysis of government data.
The result has been a huge surge of such at-large arrests, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement tallying about 17,500 in September and on pace to exceed that in October. (The data the Post examined had been updated through the middle of that month.) That was far more than any other month included in the data, which dated back to October 2011.
Before this year, the highest number of at-large arrests came in January 2023, when the Biden administration made more than 11,500. ICE is making more than four times as many at-large arrests per week as it did in President Donald Trump’s first term, the analysis found.
The Post’s analysis highlights a broader pattern in how the Department of Homeland Security is approaching enforcement, even as authorities insist that immigration officers are focusing on violent criminals who they describeas “the worst of the worst.” Government data shows that more than 60% of the people detained in at-large arrests since June did not have criminal convictions or pending charges.
Former DHS officials said the effort demonstrates a less targeted approach and reflects mounting pressure from senior White House and DHS officials to boost deportation totals.
“That is consistent with their mandate to remove anybody in the country who doesn’t have authorization,” said Sarah Saldaña, who served as ICE director under President Barack Obama. “To me, that is a waste of resources.”
The administration’s new approach began to take shape in June, when federal immigration agents launched a large-scale enforcement operation in Los Angeles. In the ensuing five months, ICE’s at-large arrests in communities nationwide totaled 67,800, more than twice the total number during the previous five months.
In June,September, and October, such arrests — which include people detained in their homes, at work sites, during immigration check-ins,or in other public spaces — accounted for more than half of ICE’s total number of monthly arrests for the first time since April 2023.
Administration officials have set a goal of 1 million deportations in Trump’s first year of his second term, and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller has pressed for 3,000 immigration arrests per day.
Daily arrests are lagging well behind that number. The highest number of single-day arrests by ICE took place when its officers detained more than 1,900 on June 4.
The total number of overall arrests, however, rose by 60% in the period from June through mid-October, compared with the first five months of the Trump administration, the data showed. In September, ICE had 21 days in which it made 1,000 or more arrests, the highest number of such days in any month this year.
“The shift in tactics is related to the ongoing process from the White House to up numbers, and the easiest way to do that is to do broader-brush approaches,” said Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former senior ICE official in the Biden administration.
ICE is the lead federal agency in charge of immigration enforcement inside the United States, while U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) typically focuses on the border. Historically, ICE officers have detained most immigrants inside prisons or jails after they have been charged with a crime or completed their sentences.
Many local jails flag undocumented immigrants for removal and contact ICE directly. ICE also has the authority to monitor local arrests through a fingerprint-sharing program. The agency often files a detainer requesting that jails hold potential deportees for up to 48 hours for federal officers to take custody.
By comparison, at-large arrests typically require more human and financial resources to carry out, immigration experts said. ICE’s website says that such arrests “are unpredictable and can be dangerous to the public.”
In a statement, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said 70% of the immigrants arrested by ICE have criminal convictions or pending criminal charges in the United States and that some have convictions or charges in their home countries.
The Post’s examination found that from Jan. 20, when Trump took office, through Oct. 15 about 36% of ICE detainees had criminal convictions and 30% had pending charges.
“This story only reveals how the media manipulates data to peddle a false narrative that DHS is not targeting the worst of the worst,” McLaughlin said. “Nationwide our law enforcement is targeting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens — including murderers, rapists, gang members, pedophiles, and terrorists.”
The DHS data for this story was obtained through a public records request filed by the Deportation Data Project,a group of academics and lawyers that collects and releases immigration enforcement data. The Post used to the data to conduct its own analysis.
The data does not include information on immigration arrests made by other federal departments, including CBP, whose Border Patrol division has taken on an increasingly prominent role in the Trump administration’s enforcement strategy in recent months. In Chicago, Border Patrol agents came under federal courtscrutiny for the deployment of tear gas in response to protesters.
As the overall number of arrests increased nationally, the number of people without a criminal record arrested by ICE since Junenearly tripled, according to the Post’s analysis. (That includes both at-large arrests and arrests at jails.) Since September, more than 40% of those arrested by ICE had no criminal records.
That trend is continuing. Nearly half of the 79,000 people ICE arrested and placed in detention between Oct. 1 and the end of November did not have criminal convictions or pending criminal charges, according to separate government data obtained by the Post. (Those arrests included CBP arrests, which make up a small percentage of the total.) Of the migrants who do have criminal convictions, nearly a quarter were traffic offenses, that data showed.
Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, said that the data showing relatively few detainees have committed serious crimes is not surprising.
“ICE is getting the worst of the worst,” she said. “But they’re also picking up a lot of people who either have no criminal charge … or convictions — or they have relatively minor convictions.”
Federal data suggests that the administration’s goal of boosting detentions was aided by high-profile targeted enforcement operations that lasted for weeks in large cities, including Los Angeles; Boston; Washington, D.C.; and Chicago; many of which drew significant public protests.
The District of Columbia experienced the largest spike in arrests, with the number increasing fivefold from June through October as compared with the previous five months, the federal data showed.
In Illinois, 428 people were arrested between Jan. 20 and May 31 who had no criminal records. That number more than tripled to 1,408 from June 1 through Oct. 15,a period that included a targeted enforcement campaign in Chicago titled Operation Midway Blitz.
Jason Houser, former ICE chief of staff in the Biden administration, said that the Trump administration is “trying to find the lowest bar of calling somebody a criminal.”
NEW YORK — When the MetroCard replaced the New York City subway token in 1994, the swipeable plastic card infused much-needed modernity into one of the world’s oldest and largest transit systems.
Now, more than three decades later, the gold-hued fare card and its notoriously finicky magnetic strip are following the token into retirement.
The last day to buy or refill a MetroCard is Dec. 31, 2025, as the transit system fully transitions to OMNY, a contactless payment system that allows riders to tap their credit card, phone, or other smart device to pay fares, much like they do for other everyday purchases.
Transit officials say more than 90% of subway and bus trips are now paid using the tap-and-go system, introduced in 2019.
Major cities around the world, including London and Singapore, have long used similar contactless systems. In the U.S., San Francisco launched a pay-go system earlier this year, joining Chicago and others.
MetroCards upended how New Yorkers commute
The humble MetroCard may have outlasted its useful life, but in its day it was revolutionary, says Jodi Shapiro, curator at the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn, which opened an exhibit earlier this month reflecting on the MetroCard’s legacy.
Before MetroCards, bus and subway riders relied on tokens, the brass-colored coins introduced in 1953 that were purchased from station booths. When the subway opened in 1904, paper tickets cost just a nickel, or about $1.82 in today’s dollars.
“There was a resistance to change from tokens to something else because tokens work,” Shapiro said on a recent visit to the museum, housed underground in a decommissioned subway station. “MetroCards introduced a whole other level of thinking for New Yorkers.”
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority launched public campaigns to teach commuters how to swipe the originally blue-colored cards correctly, hoping to avoid the dreaded error message or lost fares. Officials even briefly toyed with the idea of an quirky mascot, the Cardvaark, before coming to their senses.
The cards quickly became collectors items as the transit system rolled out special commemorative editions marking major events, such as the “Subway Series” between baseball’s New York Mets and the New York Yankees in the 2000 World Series. At the time, a fare cost $1.50.
Artists from David Bowie and Olivia Rodrigo to seminal New York hip hop acts, such as Wu-Tang Clan, the Notorious B.I.G., and LL Cool J, have also graced the plastic card over the years, as have iconic New York TV shows like Seinfeld and Law & Order.
“For me, the most special cards are cards which present New York City to the world,” said Lev Radin, a collector in the Bronx. “Not only photos of landmarks, skylines, but also about people who live and make New York special.”
Perfecting the correct angle and velocity of the MetroCard swipe also became something of a point of pride separating real New Yorkers from those just visiting.
During her failed 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton, a former U.S. Senator from New York, took an excruciating five swipes at a Bronx turnstile. In fairness, her chief Democratic opponent at the time, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a native Brooklynite, didn’t even appear to realize tokens had been discontinued.
Cost savings and lingering concerns
Unlike the MetroCard rollout, OMNY has required little adjustment.
Riders reluctant to use a credit card or smart device can purchase an OMNY card they can reload, similar to a MetroCard. Existing MetroCards will also continue to work into 2026, allowing riders to use remaining balances.
MTA spokespersons declined to comment, pointing instead to their many public statements as the deadline approaches.
The agency has said the changeover saves at least $20 million annually in MetroCard-related costs.
The new system also allows unlimited free rides within a seven-day period because the fare is capped after 12 rides. It’ll max out at $35 a week once the fare rises to $3 in January.
Still, new changes come with tradeoffs, with some critics raising concerns about data collection and surveillance.
Near Times Square on a recent morning, Ronald Minor was among the dwindling group of “straphangers” still swiping MetroCards.
The 70-year-old Manhattan resident said he’s sad to see them go. He has an OMNY card but found the vending machines to reload it more cumbersome.
“It’s hard for the elders,” Minor said as he caught a train to Brooklyn. “Don’t push us aside and make it like we don’t count. You push these machines away, you push us away.”
John Sacchetti, another MetroCard user at the Port Authority stop, said he likes being able to see his balance as he swipes through a turnstile so he knows how much he’s been spending on rides.
“It’s just like everything else, just something to get used to,” he said as he headed uptown. ”Once I get used to it, I think it’ll be OK.”
Corporate bankruptcies surged in 2025, rivaling levels not seen since the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession, as import-dependent businesses absorbed the highest tariffs in decades.
At least 717 companies filed for bankruptcy through November, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. That’s roughly 14% more than the same 11 months of 2024, and the highest tally since 2010.
Companies cited inflation and interest rates among the factors contributing to their financial challenges, as well as Trump administration trade policies that have disrupted supply chains and pushed up costs.
But in a shift from previous years, the rise in filings is most apparent among industrials — companies tied to manufacturing, construction, and transportation. The sector has been hit hard by President Donald Trump’s ever-fluid tariff policies — which he’s long insisted would revive American manufacturing. The manufacturing sector lost more than 70,000 jobs in the one-year period ending in November, federal data shows.
Consumer-oriented businesses with “discretionary” products or services, such as fashion or home furnishings, represented the second-largest group. This contingent usually tops the list and includes many retailers, and its retrenchment is a signal that inflation-weary consumers are prioritizing essentials.
The S&P data reflects both Chapter 11 and Chapter 7 filings. In the former, also known as a reorganization, the business goes through a court-administered process to restructure its debts while it continues to operate. Under Chapter 7, the company closes down and its assets are sold off.
Economists and business experts say the trade wars have pressured import-heavy businesses, which are reluctant to raise prices by too much for fear of alienating consumers. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Though inflation is currently lower than many economists expected — prices climbed at an annual pace of 2.7% in November — many businesses still are eating new costs themselves to hold the line on prices for buyers, experts say. That’s leading to a certain culling of the herd as already-fragile companies struggle to keep up.
“These companies are acutely aware of the affordability crisis confronting the average American,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at Yale University’s School of Management. “They are doing their best to offset the cost of tariffs and higher interest rates but can only do so much. Those with pricing power will pass on the costs over time. … Others will fold.”
Among the total was a surge of “mega bankruptcies,” or filings by companies with more than $1 billion in assets, during the first half of 2025. According to the economic consultancy Cornerstone Research, there were 17 such bankruptcies from January through June, the highest half-year number since the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. Consumer discretionary businesses, including retailers At Home and Forever 21, accounted for several of those filings.
Matt Osborn, a principal at Cornerstone who wrote the September report, said these large companies cited high inflation and interest rates among the factors that have impinged on consumer demand and made it harder to raise capital. Changing federal policies around renewable energy and international trade also were contributors, he wrote.
Among industrials, bankruptcies spanned a mix of manufacturers and suppliers, as well as transportation-oriented firms and renewable energy companies. Many of those companies had specific preexisting problems unrelated to tariffs and the economy.
Louisiana-based PosiGen is among several residential solar companies that filed for Chapter 11, which it attributed to changes in renewable energy policy. The Trump administration has de-prioritized the tax incentives that make solar panels more affordable to homeowners, and imposed “steep tariffs on imported materials that are necessary to construct solar projects, including solar modules, inverters, racking, and structural steel,” the company said in a Nov. 25 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Texas.
The effective tariff rate for imported solar cells and panels climbed to roughly 20% after May 2025, compared with less than 5% in prior years, according to federal data analyzed by Jason Miller, a business professor at Michigan State University. U.S. solar importers paid close to $70 million a month in import duties in the second half of the year for the most common type of panel, Miller said.
“That places a lot of strain on cash flow, especially for smaller importers,” Miller said. “You then combine this with reduced federal incentives that have to be negatively impacting demand, and you have a perfect storm for elevated rates of bankruptcy.”
In late February, Nikola Corp., an Arizona-based maker of electric trucks, filed for Chapter 11 protection. It started producing battery-powered trucks in 2022 and scaled up to ship more than 200 vehicles last year. But a battery recall resulting from what it called a “battery pack thermal event” cost it an estimated $56 million, according to its February bankruptcy filing. It also agreed to pay an unrelated $125 million civil fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Spirit Airlines, the budget carrier known for its rock-bottom prices and bare-bones amenities, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August — its second such filing in less than a year. Verijet, a private jet company based in Florida, filed to liquidate.
Bankruptcies within this sector reflect the effect tariffs have had on imported raw materials, as well as broader consolidation within the transportation and freight sectors, said Meagan Martin-Schoenberger, senior economist at KPMG.
Though the government has made some tariff exemptions, they’ve primarily benefited the tech sector, specifically those connected to artificial intelligence, she said, leaving behind some lower-tech industries.
Surveys have shown consumer sentiment worsening throughout the year. A widely followed survey of consumer sentiment from the University of Michigan tumbled around 28% year over year in November. Many are reticent to spend on nonessentials.
Retailers have felt this acutely, especially those selling discretionary items such as costume jewelry, crafts, and furniture, which consumers often forgo to afford groceries, utilities, and rent. By one estimate, Americans will spend an additional $1,800 a year because of tariffs.
The Trump administration’s frequent tariff changes during the peak holiday-ordering period also left some companies off-kilter. Because many rely on imports from China and other Southeast Asian countries, some businesses ended up spending more than they’d budgeted to swiftly move manufacturing and materials to countries with lower tariff rates.
Others had to cut orders for fear of not having enough cash to pay the levies when their inventory arrived in the United States.
Claire’s, the mall chain known for its teen and tween accessories, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August and has moved to shutter hundreds of stores. It, too, faced tariff headwinds, with the majority of its products — including earrings, headbands, and key chains — coming from China, Cambodia, and Indonesia. In September, a private holding company acquired the chain’s North American operations for $140 million and said it would keep as many as 950 stores, or nearly 80% of the chain’s U.S. and Canadian locations.
Meanwhile, specialty retailers have been struggling for years to keep up with big box chains and online marketplaces as consumers look for convenience and a one-stop-shop for certain items. Fabric and craft chain Joann, for example, went out of business early this year, unable to keep up with online retailers offering lower prices.
Martin-Schoenberger, the KPMG economist, said the bankruptcies reflect contradictions in the economy. Government data released Tuesday showed the U.S. economy grew at the fastest pace in two years from July through September, with an annualized rate of 4.3%.
Still, economists caution that this growth is driven by more affluent consumers and corporate spending around artificial intelligence.
“We have an economy that looks strong on paper, but that might not necessarily be reflected in every single industry,” Martin-Schoenberger said.
PARIS — Brigitte Bardot, the French 1960s sex symbol who became one of the greatest screen sirens of the 20th century and later a militant animal rights activist and far-right supporter, has died. She was 91.
Ms. Bardot died Sunday at her home in southern France, according to Bruno Jacquelin, of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the protection of animals. Speaking to the Associated Press, he gave no cause of death, and said that no arrangements had been made for funeral or memorial services. She had been hospitalized last month.
Ms. Bardot became an international celebrity as a sexualized teen bride in the 1956 movie And God Created Woman. Directed by her then husband Roger Vadim, it triggered a scandal with scenes of the long-legged beauty dancing on tables naked.
At the height of a cinema career that spanned more than two dozen films and three marriages, Ms. Bardot came to symbolize a nation bursting out of bourgeois respectability. Her tousled blond hair, voluptuous figure, and pouty irreverence made her one of France’s best-known stars, even as she struggled with depression.
Such was her widespread appeal that in 1969 her features were chosen to be the model for “Marianne,” the national emblem of France and the official Gallic seal. Bardot’s face appeared on statues, postage stamps, and coins.
‘’We are mourning a legend,’’ French President Emmanuel Macron said in an X post.
Ms. Bardot’s second career as an animal rights activist was equally sensational. She traveled to the Arctic to blow the whistle on the slaughter of baby seals. She also condemned the use of animals in laboratory experiments, and she opposed Muslim slaughter rituals.
“Man is an insatiable predator,” Ms. Bardot told the Associated Press on her 73rd birthday, in 2007. “I don’t care about my past glory. That means nothing in the face of an animal that suffers, since it has no power, no words to defend itself.”
Her activism earned her compatriots’ respect and, in 1985, she was awarded the Legion of Honor, the nation’s highest recognition.
Turn to the far right
Later, however, she fell from public grace as her animal protection diatribes took on a decidedly extremist tone. She frequently decried the influx of immigrants into France, especially Muslims.
She was convicted and fined five times in French courts of inciting racial hatred, in incidents inspired by her opposition to the Muslim practice of slaughtering sheep during annual religious holidays.
Ms. Bardot’s 1992 marriage to fourth husband Bernard d’Ormale, a onetime adviser to far-right National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, contributed to her political shift. She described Le Pen, an outspoken nationalist with multiple racism convictions of his own, as a “lovely, intelligent man.”
In 2012, she supported the presidential bid of Marine Le Pen, who now leads her father’s renamed National Rally party. Le Pen paid homage Sunday to an “exceptional woman” who was “incredibly French.”
In 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Ms. Bardot said in an interview that most actors protesting sexual harassment in the film industry were “hypocritical,” because many played “the teases” with producers to land parts.
She said she had never had been a victim of sexual harassment and found it “charming to be told that I was beautiful or that I had a nice little ass.”
Privileged but ‘difficult’ upbringing
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot was born Sept. 28, 1934, to a wealthy industrialist. A shy child, she studied classical ballet and was discovered by a family friend who put her on the cover of Elle magazine at age 14.
Bardot once described her childhood as “difficult” and said that her father was a strict disciplinarian who would sometimes punish her with a horse whip.
Vadim, a French movie producer who she married in 1952, saw her potential and wrote And God Created Woman to showcase her provocative sensuality, an explosive cocktail of childlike innocence and raw sexuality.
The film, which portrayed Ms. Bardot as a teen who marries to escape an orphanage and then beds her brother-in-law, had a decisive influence on New Wave directors Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, and came to embody the hedonism and sexual freedom of the 1960s.
The film was a box-office hit, and it made Ms. Bardot a superstar. Her girlish pout, tiny waist and generous bust were often more appreciated than her talent.
“It’s an embarrassment to have acted so badly,” Ms. Bardot said of her early films. “I suffered a lot in the beginning. I was really treated like someone less than nothing.”
Ms. Bardot’s unabashed, off-screen love affair with co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant eradicated the boundaries between her public and private life and turned her into a hot prize for paparazzi.
Ms. Bardot never adjusted to the limelight. She blamed the constant media attention for the suicide attempt that followed 10 months after the birth of her only child, Nicolas. Photographers had broken into her house two weeks before she gave birth to snap a picture of her pregnant.
Nicolas’ father was Jacques Charrier, a French actor who she married in 1959 but who never felt comfortable in his role as Monsieur Bardot. Ms. Bardot soon gave up her son to his father, and later said she had been chronically depressed and unready for the duties of being a mother.
“I was looking for roots then,” she said in an interview. “I had none to offer.”
In her 1996 autobiography Initiales B.B., she likened her pregnancy to “a tumor growing inside me,” and described Charrier as “temperamental and abusive.”
Ms. Bardot married her third husband, West German millionaire playboy Gunther Sachs, in 1966, and they divorced three years later.
Among her films were A Parisian (1957); In Case of Misfortune, in which she starred in 1958 with screen legend Jean Gabin; The Truth (1960); Private Life (1962); A Ravishing Idiot (1964); Shalako (1968); Women (1969); The Bear and the Doll (1970); Rum Boulevard (1971); and Don Juan (1973).
With the exception of 1963’s critically acclaimed Contempt, directed by Godard, Ms. Bardot’s films were rarely complicated by plots. Often they were vehicles to display Ms. Bardot in scanty dresses or frolicking nude in the sun.
“It was never a great passion of mine,” she said of filmmaking. “And it can be deadly sometimes. Marilyn [Monroe] perished because of it.”
Ms. Bardot retired to her Riviera villa in St. Tropez at the age of 39 in 1973 after The Woman Grabber. As fans brought flowers to her home Sunday, the local St. Tropez administration called for “respect for the privacy of her family and the serenity of the places where she lived.”
Middle-aged reinvention
She emerged a decade later with a new persona: An animal rights lobbyist, her face was wrinkled and her voice was deep following years of heavy smoking. She abandoned her jet-set life and sold off movie memorabilia and jewelry to create a foundation devoted exclusively to the prevention of animal cruelty.
Depression sometimes dogged her, and she said that she attempted suicide again on her 49th birthday.
Her activism knew no borders. She urged South Korea to ban the sale of dog meat and once wrote to U.S. President Bill Clinton asking why the U.S. Navy recaptured two dolphins it had released into the wild.
She attacked centuries-old French and Italian sporting traditions including the Palio, a free-for-all horse race, and campaigned on behalf of wolves, rabbits, kittens, and turtle doves.
“It’s true that sometimes I get carried away, but when I see how slowly things move forward … my distress takes over,” Ms. Bardot told the AP when asked about her racial hatred convictions and opposition to Muslim ritual slaughter,
In 1997, several towns removed Bardot-inspired statues of Marianne after the actor voiced anti-immigrant sentiment. Also that year, she received death threats after calling for a ban on the sale of horse meat.
Environmental campaigner Paul Watson, who was beaten on a seal hunt protest in Canada alongside Ms. Bardot in 1977 and campaigned with her for five decades, acknowledged that “many disagreed with Brigitte’s politics or some of her views.”
“Her allegiance was not to the world of humans,” he said. “The animals of this world lost a wonderful friend today.”
Ms. Bardot once said that she identified with the animals that she was trying to save.
“I can understand hunted animals, because of the way I was treated,” Ms. Bardot said. “What happened to me was inhuman. I was constantly surrounded by the world press.”
A powerful winter storm was sweeping east from the Plains on Sunday, driven by what meteorologists describe as an intense cyclone, setting off a chain reaction of snow, ice, rain, and severe weather expected to affect much of the country.
Snow and strengthening winds spread across the Upper Midwest on Sunday, where the National Weather Service warned of whiteout conditions and possible blizzard conditions that could make travel impossible in some areas. Snowfall totals were expected to exceed a foot across parts of the upper Great Lakes, with up to 2 feet possible along the south shore of Lake Superior.
In the South, meteorologists warn of severe thunderstorms expected to signal the arrival of a sharp cold front — sometimes referred to as a “Blue Norther” — bringing a sudden temperature drop and strong north winds that will end days of record warmth across the region.
The snowy holiday season in the Upper Midwest and Northeast comes as springlike warmth continues in much of the nation’s midsection and South, where record high temperatures had Santa sweating in recent days.
The high temperature in Atlanta was forecast to be around 72 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday, continuing a warming trend after climbing to 78 F to shatter the city’s record high temperature for Christmas Eve, the National Weather Service said. Numerous other record high temperatures were seen across the South and Midwest on the days after Christmas.
But that record heat is quickly coming to an end, forecasters say.
A cold front was expected to bring rain to much of the South late Sunday night into Monday, bringing much colder weather on Tuesday. The abrupt change will drop the low temperature in Atlanta to 25 F by early Tuesday morning. The colder temperatures in the South are expected to continue through New Year’s Day.
Over the next 48 hours, the cyclone is expected to produce heavy snow and blizzard conditions in the Midwest and Great Lakes, freezing rain in New England, thunderstorms across the eastern U.S. and South, and widespread strong winds.
The storm is expected to intensify as it moves east, drawing energy from a sharp clash between frigid air plunging south from Canada and unusually warm air that has lingered across the southern United States, according to the National Weather Service.
It follows thousands of flight delays and cancellations across the Northeast and Great Lakes regions over the weekend due to snow, as thousands took to the roads and airports during the busy travel period between Christmas and New Year’s.
On the other side of the country, California was experiencing a fairly dry weekend after powerful storms battered the state with heavy rains, flash flooding, and mudslides. At least four people were killed including a man who was found dead Friday in a partially submerged car near Lancaster, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reported.
An acute global shortage of memory chips is forcing artificial intelligence and consumer-electronics companies to fight for dwindling supplies, as prices soar for the unglamorous but essential components that allow devices to store data.
Japanese electronics stores have begun limiting how many hard-disk drives shoppers can buy. Chinese smartphone makers are warning of price increases. Tech giants including Microsoft, Google, and ByteDance are scrambling to secure supplies from memory-chip makers such as Micron, Samsung Electronics, and SK Hynix, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
The squeeze spans almost every type of memory, from flash chips used in USB drives and smartphones to advanced high-bandwidth memory (HBM) that feeds AI chips in data centers. Prices in some segments have more than doubled since February, according to market-research firm TrendForce, drawing in traders betting that the rally has further to run.
The fallout could reach beyond tech. Many economists and executives warn the protracted shortage risks slowing AI-based productivity gains and delaying hundreds of billions of dollars in digital infrastructure. It could also add inflationary pressure just as many economies are trying to tame price rises and navigate U.S. tariffs.
“The memory shortage has now graduated from a component-level concern to a macroeconomic risk,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, CEO of Greyhound Research, a technology advisory firm. The AI build-out “is colliding with a supply chain that cannot meet its physical requirements.”
This Reuters examination of the spiraling supply crisis is based on interviews with almost 40 people, including 17 executives at chipmakers and distributors. It shows industry efforts to meet voracious appetite for advanced chips — driven by Nvidia and tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Alibaba — created a dual bind: Chipmakers still can’t produce enough high-end semiconductors for the AI race, yet their tilt away from traditional memory products is choking supply to smartphones, PCs, and consumer electronics. Some are now hurrying to course-correct.
Details of the global scramble by tech firms and price increases described by electronics retailers and component suppliers in China and Japan are reported here for the first time.
Average inventory levels at suppliers of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) — the main type used in computers and phones — fell to two to four weeks in October from three to eight weeks in July and 13 to 17 weeks in late 2024, according to TrendForce.
The crunch is unfolding as investors question whether the billions of dollars poured into AI infrastructure have inflated a bubble. Some analysts predict a shakeout, with only the biggest and financially strongest companies able to stomach the price increases.
One memory-chip executive told Reuters the shortage would delay future data-center projects. New capacity takes at least two years to build but memory-chip makers are wary of overbuilding for fear it could end up idle should the demand surge pass, the person said.
Samsung and SK Hynix have announced investments in new capacity but haven’t detailed the production split between HBM and conventional memory.
SK Hynix Inc. 12-layer HBM3E memory chips and a LPDDR5X CAMM2 memory module. MUST CREDIT: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg
SK Hynix has told analysts that the memory shortfall would last through late 2027, Citi said in November.
“These days, we’re receiving requests for memory supplies from so many companies that we’re worried about how we’ll be able to handle all of them. If we fail to supply them, they could face a situation where they can’t do business at all,” Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Hynix parent SK Group, said at an industry forum in Seoul last month. OpenAI in October signed initial deals with Samsung and SK Hynix to supply chips for its Stargate project, which would require up to 900,000 wafers per month by 2029. That’s about double current global monthly HBM production, Chey said.
Samsung told Reuters it is monitoring the market but wouldn’t comment on pricing or customer relationships. SK Hynix said it is boosting production capacity to meet increased memory demand.
Microsoft declined to comment and ByteDance didn’t address questions about the chip strain. Micron and Google didn’t respond to comment requests.
‘Begging for supply’
After ChatGPT’s release in November 2022 ignited the generative AI boom, a global rush to build AI data centers led memory makers to allocate more production to HBM, used in Nvidia’s powerful AI processors.
Competition from Chinese rivals making lower-end DRAM, such as ChangXin Memory Technologies, also pushed Samsung and SK Hynix to accelerate their shift to higher-margin products. The South Korean firms account for two-thirds of the DRAM market.
Samsung told customers in May 2024 that it planned to end production of one type of DDR4 chips — an older variety used in PCs and servers — this year, according to a letter seen by Reuters. (The company has since changed course and will extend production, two sources said.) In June, Micron said it had informed customers it would stop shipping DDR4 and its counterpart LPDDR4 — a type used in smartphones — in six to nine months.
ChangXin followed suit in ending most DDR4 production, one source said. The firm declined to comment.
This shift, however, coincided with a replacement cycle for traditional data centers and PCs, as well as stronger-than-expected sales of smartphones, which rely on conventional chips.
In hindsight, “one could say the industry was caught off-guard,” said Dan Hutcheson, senior research fellow at TechInsights. Samsung raised prices of server memory chips by up to 60% last month, Reuters has reported. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who in October announced deals awith Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee during a trip to South Korea, acknowledged the price surge as significant but said Nvidia had secured substantial supply.
Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta in October asked Micron for open-ended orders, telling the company they will take as much as it can deliver, irrespective of price, according to two people briefed on the talks.
China’s Alibaba, ByteDance, and Tencent are also leaning on suppliers, dispatching executives to visit Samsung and SK Hynix in October and November to lobby for allocation, the two people and another source told Reuters.
“Everyone is begging for supply,” one said.
The Chinese firms didn’t address questions about the chip crunch. Nvidia, Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI didn’t respond to requests for comment.
In October, SK Hynix said all its chips are sold out for 2026, while Samsung said it had secured customers for its HBM chips to be produced next year. Both firms are expanding capacity to meet AI demand, but new factories for conventional chips won’t come online until 2027 or 2028. Shares in Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix have rallied this year on chip demand. In September, Micron forecast first-quarter revenue above market estimates while Samsung in October reported its biggest quarterly profit in more than three years.
Consultancy Counterpoint Research expects prices of advanced and legacy memory to rise by 30% through the fourth quarter and possibly another 20% in early 2026.
Smartphone sticker shock
Chinese smartphone makers Xiaomi and Realme have warned they may have to raise prices.
Francis Wong, Realme India’s chief marketing officer, told Reuters the steep increases in memory costs were “unprecedented since the advent of smartphones” and could force the company to lift handset prices by 20% to 30% by June.
“Some manufacturers might save costs on imaging cameras, some on processors, and some on batteries,” he said. “But the cost of storage is something all manufacturers must completely absorb; there’s no way to transfer it.”
Xiaomi told Reuters it would offset higher memory costs by raising prices and selling more premium phones, adding that its other businesses would help cushion the impact.
In November, Taiwanese laptop maker ASUS said it had about four months of inventory, including memory components, and would adjust pricing as needed.
Winbond, a Taiwanese chipmaker with around 1% of the DRAM market, was among the first to announce a capacity expansion to meet demand. Its board of directors approved a plan in October to sharply boost capital expenditure to $1.1 billion.
“Many customers have been coming to us saying, ‘I really need your help,’ and one even asked for a six-year long-term agreement,” Winbond’s President Pei-Ming Chen said.
Traders rush in
In Tokyo’s electronics hub of Akihabara, stores are restricting purchases of memory products to curb hoarding. A sign outside PC shop Ark says that since Nov. 1 customers have been limited to buying a total of eight products across hard-disk drives, solid-state drives, and system memory. Ark declined to comment.
Clerks at five shops said shortages had pushed prices sharply higher in recent weeks. At some stores, one-third of products were sold out.
Products such as 32-gigabyte DDR5 memory — popular with gamers — were over 47,000 yen, up from around 17,000 yen in mid-October. Higher-end 128-gigabyte kits had more than doubled to around 180,000 yen.
The hikes are driving customers to the secondhand market — benefiting people like Roman Yamashita, owner of iCON in Akihabara, who said his business selling used PC parts is booming.
Eva Wu, a sales manager at component trader Polaris Mobility in Shenzhen, said prices are changing so rapidly that distributors issue broker-style quotes that expire daily — and in some cases hourly — versus monthly before the crunch.
In Beijing, a DDR4 seller said she had hoarded 20,000 units in anticipation of further increases.
Some 6,000 miles away in California, Paul Coronado said monthly sales at his company, Caramon, which sells recycled low-end memory chips pulled from decommissioned data-center servers, have surged since September. Almost all its products are now bought by Hong Kong-based intermediaries who resell them to Chinese clients, he said.
“We were doing about $500,000 a month,” he said. “Now it’s $800,000 to $900,000.”
Often found hidden behind two or three levels of locked doors, accessible only to a chosen few with the right credentials, they’re expansive, well-lit, and full of wonder. Mood boards filled with fashion photos, pictures of landscapes and architectural iconography inspire the team. Models of cars sculpted from clay — in various shapes and sizes — fixate the designers.
Then you smell the sulfur.
Traditional modeling clays contain sulfur, a reliable binding agent for the waxes and oils used during the sculpting process, and exudes a pungent smell of rotting eggs. For decades, designers just dealt with the smell until their computers started failing.
“Over 15 years ago, all computer circuit boards switched to a silver compound from lead solder,” said Mark Malewitz, president at Clay Warehouse. “They found out pretty quickly, as any modeler that wore silver jewelry already knew, that sulfur corrodes silver.”
Over the years, some companies such as Chavant and Staedtler have created different formulations without sulfur to try to eliminate the concomitant odor, but new technology such as augmented and virtual reality is significantly reshaping the auto development process. Virtual reality headsets, when combined with digital modeling software, allow designers and engineers to collaborate more quickly and easily. Besides saving money, the technology also reduces the need to sculpt full-size models of cars with clay.
“Before we had virtual reality we were building, for a major project, let’s say a new architecture, around about 80 to 100 vehicles,” said Karsten Garbe, plant director at GM’s Artisan Innovation Center in Warren, Mich. Today, that number is closer to 30 or 40 vehicles, and virtual reality is used in the development of every new car.
From gaming headsets to 3D printing
Like many other auto manufacturers, General Motors first started experimenting with the computer-gaming-focused HTC Vive headsets in the late 2010s. Today, manufacturers use everything from consumer-grade headsets, like Meta’s $499 Quest 3, to more professional units like the Varjo XR-4, which can cost more than $10,000.
Garbe’s team is responsible for piecing GM’s prototype cars together for brands such as Chevrolet and GMC, making sure not only that everything fits but that it can be assembled and serviced in a safe, repeatable way. It’s a little like assembling the world’s most complicated model kit, long before the instructions get written.
Before GM invested in virtual reality, engineers had to wait for prototype components to be manufactured and delivered. Now, they can work from early digital 3D models, checking fit and feasibility months before the first part is cast. Garbe said that this identifies problems early, flagging components that can’t physically be maneuvered into place or that don’t fit properly, dramatically reducing the number of prototype vehicles needed. This process was used to develop GM’s latest electric vehicles, including the Chevrolet Blazer EV and Cadillac Escalade IQ.
When it comes to visual design — the outright style and appearance of the car — there are considerable advantages, too.
Jim Conner, director of 3D process delivery at Ford Design, cited the important task of finding the right wheels. He said designers might go through as many as 35 potential wheel designs for a major model like the Mustang. In the old days, all 35 would have to be crafted by hand from plastic, foam, and paint for evaluation.
Using augmented and virtual reality, designers can narrow it down much more quickly, changing colors, finishes, and shapes instantly. “We’re really getting down to five or six critical ones that really resonated. And then we’ll actually make very nice prototypes of those,” Conner said
Other technologies, like 3D printing, are changing the game, too, speeding up prototyping and the creation of parts out of plastic, resin, or even metal that previously would be meticulously hand-sculpted. “We used to hand model, in clay, seats, including stitches,” Conner said. “You can imagine the technique and the expertise it takes to model a stitch on a seat in clay.”
Larger digital designs can also be brought into reality via milling machines that hone giant slabs of clay into a rough shape. The artisan modelers then come in to finesse the final shapes and details.
“The ability to rapidly mill full-size physical models provides significant advantages in the product development process, primarily by enabling a more dynamic approach to design iteration and validation,” said John Krsteski, senior chief designer for Genesis North America.
“We still do hand modeling, but we’ve taken our clay modelers and put a lot of technology in their hands now, and basically given them different tools,” Ford’s Conner said. “We’re trying to not say that people are clay modelers. They’re actually a model maker where clay is one thing they’re using.”
“A lot of the studios were saying, ‘Let’s just go digital,’” Malewitz said. But the results, he continued, weren’t good, with plenty of “angular lines that don’t have the human touch.”
While the engineers can create near-photo-realistic renderings of objects in augmented and virtual reality, a key part of the process was missing: “The one thing you cannot replace with virtual reality is sunlight,” Malewitz said, echoing a common sentiment among designers that, while they may be investing in fewer models than before, nothing beats a real, full-size clay sculpture for final approvals.
“Virtual and augmented reality are really fantastic developmental tools, but I do believe there will always be a point where you’re going to see a physical thing,” Conner said. “I don’t think virtual reality will replace that.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Ethan Grunkemeyer threw for a career-high 262 yards and two TDs, including a 73-yard strike to Trebor Pena early in the fourth quarter, and Penn State beat Clemson 22-10 on Saturday afternoon in the Pinstripe Bowl.
Both teams struggled at times with the frigid conditions at Yankee Stadium following a snowstorm. The temperature at kickoff was 28 degrees and the wind chill made it feel like 19, while the snow from Friday’s storm was piled in the right and left field corners.
In his seventh start since Penn State lost Drew Allar to an injury, Grunkemeyer completed 23 of 34 passes, setting career bests for completions and attempts.
His best throw was to Pena, who caught the ball at the Penn State 44, ran by Clemson safety Ricardo Jones and rumbled untouched down the left side for a 15-3 lead with 12:51 left in the fourth.
Grunkemeyer also made a 35-yard throw to Devonte Ross to get the Nittany Lions deep into Clemson territory that set up an 11-yard TD toss to Andrew Rappleyea with 4:56 left for a 22-10 lead.
Pena finished with five catches and 100 yards.
Penn State’s defense held Clemson to just 10 points and 236 total yards.
Before connecting with Pena, Grunkemeyer moved the Nittany Lions into field goal territory three times for Ryan Barker. Barker made a 22-yard field goal on Penn State’s first possession, along with a pair of 40-plus-yard kicks.
Penn State (7-6) won its final four games under interim coach Terry Smith, who took over for James Franklin following a 22-21 loss to Northwestern on Oct. 11. He will be succeeded by Matt Campbell, who was hired on Dec. 8.
Clemson’s Cade Klubnik completed 22 of 39 passes for 193 yards in his final collegiate game while getting sacked four times. He also had eight passes broken up by Penn State defenders.
The Tigers scored their lone touchdown on Adam Randall’s 2-yard plunge with 8:47 left to slice Penn State’s lead to 15-10.
Clemson (7-6) saw a four-game winning streak stopped and was held to its fewest points in a bowl game since a 24-6 loss to Alabama in the 2018 Sugar Bowl.
Takeaways
Penn State: Top running back Kaytron Allen did not play because of injury after being listed as questionable, leaving Quentin Martin as the best of the team’s remaining rushers. Martin entered the game with 32 career rushing yards and finished with 101 yards on 20 carries.
Clemson: The Tigers struggled to get any traction with their ground game and were held to 43 rushing yards. It was their second-lowest total of the season behind a 31-yard showing in their season-opening loss to LSU.
Up next
Penn State: Open the Campbell era next season at home against Marshall.
Clemson: Open the 2026 season at LSU with a new quarterback after the departure of Klubnik.
