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  • Power restored to most in San Francisco after massive outage

    Power restored to most in San Francisco after massive outage

    Power was restored Sunday morning to the bulk of the 130,000 homes and businesses in San Francisco impacted by a massive outage a day earlier that caused major disruptions in the city.

    The Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s outage map showed more than 16,000 customers remained without power as of 12 p.m. PST. PG&E said earlier its crews were working Sunday to restore electricity in several neighborhoods and small areas of downtown San Francisco following Saturday’s outage.

    PG&E said it could not provide a precise timeframe for when the power would be fully restored.

    “The damage from the fire in our substation was significant and extensive, and the repairs and safe restoration will be complex,” the utility said, referring to the substation at 8th and Mission streets. That fire has been blamed for some of the blackouts. The outage remains under investigation.

    PG&E said it has mobilized additional engineers and electricians to help with restoration efforts.

    “This is a very complex work plan and will require the highest amount of safety focus to ensure safe work actions,” PG&E said. No injuries have been reported.

    The outage, which occurred shortly after 1 p.m. on Saturday, left a large swath of the northern part of the city without power that began to grow in size. At its peak, the outage represented roughly one-third of the utility company’s customers in the city.

    At about 4 p.m. on Saturday, PG&E posted on X that it had stabilized the grid and no further outages were expected.

    Social media posts and local media reported mass closures of restaurants and shops and darkened street lights and Christmas decorations on Saturday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

    The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management said on X there were “significant transit disruptions” happening citywide and urged residents to avoid nonessential travel and treat down traffic signals as four-way stops. Waymo, the operator of driverless ride-hailing vehicles, suspended its services. At least one video posted on social media appeared to show a Waymo vehicle stopped in the middle of an intersection.

  • Norman Podhoretz, 95, contentious and influential neo-conservative

    Norman Podhoretz, 95, contentious and influential neo-conservative

    NEW YORK — Norman Podhoretz, the boastful, hard-line editor and author whose books, essays, and stewardship of Commentary magazine marked a political and deeply personal break from the left and made him a leader of the neoconservative movement, has died. He was 95.

    Mr. Podhoretz died “peacefully and without pain” on Dec. 16, his son John Podhoretz confirmed in a statement on Commentary’s website. His cause of death was not immediately released.

    “He was a man of great wit and a man of deep wisdom and he lived an astonishing and uniquely American life,” John Podhoretz said.

    Norman Podhoretz was among the last of the so-called “New York intellectuals” of the mid-20th century, a famously contentious circle that at various times included Norman Mailer, Hannah Arendt, Susan Sontag, and Lionel Trilling. As a young man, Mr. Podhoretz longed to join them. In middle age, he departed. Like Irving Kristol, Gertrude Himmelfarb, and other founding neoconservatives, Podhoretz began turning from the liberal politics he shared with so many peers and helped reshape the national dialogue in the 1960s and after.

    The son of Jewish immigrants, Mr. Podhoretz was 30 when he was named editor-in-chief of Commentary in 1960, and years later transformed the once-liberal magazine into an essential forum for conservatives. Two future U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick, received their appointments in part because of essays they published in Commentary that called for a more assertive foreign policy.

    Despised by former allies, Mr. Podhoretz found new friends all the way to the White House, from President Ronald Reagan, a reader of Commentary; to President George W. Bush, who in 2004 awarded Mr. Podhoretz the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, and praised him as a “man of “fierce intellect” who never “tailored his opinion to please others.”

    Mr. Podhoretz, who stepped down as editor-in-chief in 1995, had long welcomed argument. The titles of his books were often direct and provocative: Making It, The Present Danger, World War IV, Ex-Friends: Falling Out with Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer. He pressed for confrontation everywhere from El Salvador to Iran, and even disparaged Reagan for talking to Soviet leaders, calling such actions “the Reagan road to detente.” For decades, he rejected criticism of Israel, once writing that “hostility toward Israel” is not only rooted in antisemitism but a betrayal of “the virtues and values of Western civilization.”

    Meanwhile, Mr. Podhoretz became a choice target for disparagement and creative license. New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani called World War IV an “illogical screed based on cherry-picked facts and blustering assertions.” Ginsberg, once a fellow student at Columbia University, would mock the heavy-set editor for having “a great ridiculous fat-bellied mind which he pats too often.” Joseph Heller used Mr. Podhoretz as the model for the crass Maxwell Lieberman in his novel Good as Gold. Woody Allen cited Podhoretz’s magazine in Annie Hall, joking that Commentary and the leftist Dissent had merged and renamed themselves Dysentery.

    Born to succeed

    Mr. Podhoretz never doubted he would be famous. Born and raised in a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, he would credit the adoration of his family with giving him a sense of destiny. By his own account, Mr. Podhoretz was “the smartest kid in the class,” brash and competitive, a natural striver who believed that “one of the longest journeys in the world is the journey from Brooklyn to Manhattan.”

    He would indeed arrive in the great borough, and beyond, thriving as an English major at Columbia University, from which he graduated in 1950, and receiving a master’s degree in England from Cambridge University. By his mid-20s, he was publishing reviews in all the best magazines, from the New Yorker to Partisan Review, and socializing with Mailer, Hellman, and others.

    He was named associate editor of Commentary in 1956, and given the top job four years later. Around the same time, he married the writer and editor Midge Decter, another future neoconservative, and remained with her until her death in 2022.

    In childhood, Norman Podhoretz’s world was so liberal that he later claimed he never met a Republican until high school. When Mr. Podhoretz took over Commentary, founded in 1945 by the American Jewish Committee, the magazine was a small, anti-Communist publication. Mr. Podhoretz’s initial goal was to move it to the left — he serialized Paul Goodman’s Growing Up Absurd, published articles advocating unilateral disarmament — and make it more intellectual, with James Baldwin, Alfred Kazin, and Irving Howe among the contributors. Subscriptions increased dramatically.

    But signs of the conservative future also appeared, and of his own confusion over a world in transition. He was a prominent critic of Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and other Beat writers, dismissing the upstart movement in 1958 as a “revolt of the spiritually underprivileged” and branding Kerouac a “know-nothing.” In a 1963 essay, Mr. Podhoretz admitted to being terrified of Black people as a child, agonized over “his own twisted feelings,” wondered whether he, or anyone, could change and concluded that “the wholesale merging of the two races is the most desirable alternative for everyone concerned.”

    Liberal no more

    Making It, released in 1967, was a final turning point. A blunt embrace of status seeking, the book was shunned and mocked by the audience Mr. Podhoretz cared about most: New York intellectuals. Mr. Podhoretz would look back on his early years and conclude that to advance in the world one had to make a “brutal bargain” with the upper classes, in part by acknowledging they were the upper classes. Friends urged him not to publish Making It, his agent wanted nothing to do with it and his original publisher, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, refused to promote it (Mr. Podhoretz gave back his advance and switched to Random House). Even worse, he was no longer welcome at literary parties, a deep wound for an author who had confessed that “at the precocious age of 35 I experienced an astonishing revelation: It is better to be a success than a failure.”

    By the end of the decade, Mr. Podhoretz was sympathizing less with the young leftists of the 1960s than with the way of life they were opposing. Like other neoconservatives, he remained supportive of Democrats into the 1970s, but allied himself with more traditional politicians such as Edmund Muskie rather than the anti-Vietnam War candidate George McGovern. He would accuse the left of hostility to Israel and tolerance of antisemitism at home, with Gore Vidal (who called Mr. Podhoretz a “publicist for Israel”) a prime target. Echoing the opinions of Decter, he also rejected the feminist and gay rights movements as symptoms of a “plague” among “the kind of women who do not wish to be women and among those men who do not wish to be men.”

    “Tact is unknown to the Podhoretzes,” Vidal wrote of Mr. Podhoretz and Decter in 1986. “Joyously they revel in the politics of hate.”

    Mr. Podhoretz was close to Moynihan, and he worked on the New York Democrat’s successful Senate run in 1976, when in the primary Moynihan narrowly defeated the more liberal Bella Abzug. From 1981 to 1987, during the Reagan administration, Mr. Podhoretz served as an adviser to the United States Information Agency and helped write Kirkpatrick’s widely quoted 1984 convention speech that chastised those who “blame America first.” He was a foreign policy adviser for Republican Rudolph Giuliani’s brief presidential run in 2008 and, late in life, broke again with onetime allies when he differed with other conservatives and backed Donald Trump.

    “I began to be bothered by the hatred against Trump that was building up from my soon to be new set of ex-friends,” he told the Claremont Review of Books in 2019. “You could think he was unfit for office — I could understand that — but my ex-friends’ revulsion was always accompanied by attacks on the people who supported him. They called them dishonorable, or opportunists or cowards — and this was done by people like Bret Stephens, Bill Kristol, various others.

    “And I took offense at that. So that inclined me to what I then became: anti-anti-Trump.”

  • Gil Gerard, 82, TV’s ‘Buck Rogers’ star

    Gil Gerard, 82, TV’s ‘Buck Rogers’ star

    Gil Gerard, who played television’s hunky sci-fi hero William “Buck” Rogers soon after the Star Wars franchise took hold in the late 1970s, has died. He was 82.

    Mr. Gerard died Tuesday in hospice as a result of a rare, aggressive form of cancer, said his manager, Tina Presley Borek. His wife, Janet Gerard, posted a posthumous Facebook message he left behind for fans that read in part:

    “Don’t waste your time on anything that doesn’t thrill you or bring you love. See you out somewhere in the cosmos.”

    Mr. Gerard starred in NBC’s campy Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, which ran for two seasons from 1979 to 1981. A theatrical film based on the series also delighted youngsters and their parents alike. It was Buck Rogers’ second turn on TV after a show in the 1950s, a radio series, and a 1939 film serial.

    The story was based on Philip Francis Nowlan’s serialized 1928 pulp novella Armageddon 2419 A.D. Nowlan’s character was named Anthony Rogers. The name was changed when the story began running in newspapers as a comic strip.

    “My life has been an amazing journey,” Mr. Gerard wrote in his social media post. “The opportunities I’ve had, the people I’ve met and the love I have given and received have made my 82 years on the planet deeply satisfying.”

    As the TV story goes, Rogers was a 20th century NASA pilot who was placed in frozen animation when his ship was hit by a meteor storm. He pops awake 500 years later in the year 2491. He gazes upon a futuristic, domed Earth with all its threats, including aliens, space pilots, and the evil Draconians.

    He had helpers: the robot sidekick Twiki and a beautiful space pilot, Wilma Deering, played by Erin Gray.

    A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, Mr. Gerard worked steadily in TV commercials. He was featured in a number of other TV shows and movies, including starring roles in the 1982 TV movie Hear No Evil as Dragon and the short-lived Sidekicks in 1986.

    In 1992, he hosted the reality series Code 3, following firefighters responding to emergency calls around the U.S. There were many guest appearances in the 1990s, including on Days of Our Lives.

    Mr. Gerard and Gray were together again in 2007 for the TV film Nuclear Hurricane. They also returned to the Buck Rogers universe as Rogers’ parents in the pilot episode of James Cawley’s Buck Rogers Begins internet video series in 2009.

    Mr. Gerard spoke openly about addictions to drugs, alcohol, and compulsive overeating. He was the subject of a one-hour documentary, Action Hero Makeover, in 2007 after his weight ballooned to 350 pounds.

    Done by Adrienne Crow, then a longtime companion, for the Discovery Health Channel, the film documented his progress after gastric bypass surgery.

    Mr. Gerard was married and divorced four times before Janet. He had a son, actor Gilbert Vincent Gerard, with model and actor Connie Sellecca. Their divorce included a bitter custody battle for “Gib,” who was born in 1981. Sellecca was granted main custody.

    “My journey has taken me from Arkansas to New York to Los Angeles, and finally, to my home in North Georgia with my amazing wife, Janet, of 18 years,” Mr. Gerard wrote in the post put on Facebook after his death.

    “It’s been a great ride, but inevitably one that comes to a close as mine has.”

  • Ira ‘Ike’ Schab, 105, one of last remaining Pearl Harbor survivors

    Ira ‘Ike’ Schab, 105, one of last remaining Pearl Harbor survivors

    World War II Navy veteran Ira “Ike” Schab, one of the dwindling number of survivors of the 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, has died. He was 105.

    Daughter Kimberlee Heinrichs told the Associated Press that Mr. Schab died at home early Saturday in the presence of her and her husband.

    With his passing, there remain only about a dozen survivors of the surprise attack, which killed just over 2,400 troops and propelled the United States into the war.

    Mr. Schab was a sailor of just 21 at the time of the attack, and for decades he rarely spoke about the experience.

    But in recent years, aware that the corps of survivors was dwindling, the centenarian made a point of traveling from his home in Beaverton, Ore., to the annual observance at the Hawaii military base.

    “To pay honor to the guys that didn’t make it,” he said in 2023.

    For last year’s commemoration, Mr. Schab spent weeks building up the strength to be able to stand and salute.

    But this year he did not feel well enough to attend, and less than three weeks later, he passed away.

    Born on Independence Day in 1920 in Chicago, Mr. Schab was the eldest of three brothers.

    He joined the Navy at 18, following in the footsteps of his father, he said in a February interview for Pacific Historic Parks.

    On what began as a peaceful Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, Mr. Schab, who played the tuba in the USS Dobbin’s band, was expecting a visit from his brother, a fellow service member assigned to a nearby naval radio station. Mr. Schab had just showered and donned a clean uniform when he heard a call for fire rescue.

    He went topside and saw another ship, the USS Utah, capsizing. Japanese planes roared through the air.

    “We were pretty startled. Startled and scared to death,” Mr. Schab recalled in 2023. “We didn’t know what to expect, and we knew that if anything happened to us, that would be it.”

    He scurried back below deck to grab boxes of ammunition and joined a daisy chain of sailors feeding shells to an anti-aircraft gun above.

    His ship lost three sailors, according to Navy records. One was killed in action, and two died later of fragment wounds from a bomb that struck the stern. All had been manning an anti-aircraft gun.

    Mr. Schab spent most of the war with the Navy in the Pacific, going to the New Hebrides, now known as Vanuatu, and then the Mariana Islands and Okinawa, Japan.

    After the war he studied aerospace engineering and worked on the Apollo spaceflight program as an electrical engineer for General Dynamics, helping send astronauts to the moon.

    Mr. Schab’s son also joined the Navy and is a retired commander.

    Speaking at a 2022 ceremony, Mr. Schab asked people to honor those who served at Pearl Harbor.

    “Remember what they’re here for. Remember and honor those that are left. They did a hell of a job,” he said. “Those who are still here, dead or alive.”

  • U.S. envoy says talks with Russia ’productive and constructive’

    U.S. envoy says talks with Russia ’productive and constructive’

    A White House envoy said Sunday he held “productive and constructive” talks in Florida with Ukrainian and European representatives to end the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine.

    Posting on social media, Steve Witkoff said the talks aimed at aligning on a shared strategic approach among Ukraine, the United States, and Europe.

    “Our shared priority is to stop the killing, ensure guaranteed security, and create conditions for Ukraine’s recovery, stability, and long-term prosperity. Peace must be not only a cessation of hostilities, but also a dignified foundation for a stable future,” U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy said.

    The talks are part of the Trump administration’s monthslong push for peace. Trump has unleashed an extensive diplomatic push to end the war, but his efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv. Putin has recently signaled he is digging in on his maximalist demands on Ukraine, as Moscow’s troops inch forward on the battlefield despite huge losses.

    Florida talks press on

    “The discussions are proceeding constructively. They began earlier and will continue today, and will also continue tomorrow,” Kirill Dmitriev told reporters in Miami on Saturday.

    Dmitriev met with U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Telegram Sunday that diplomatic efforts were “moving forward quite quickly, and our team in Florida has been working with the American side.” This came after Ukraine’s chief negotiator said Friday his delegation had completed separate meetings in the United States with American and European partners.

    The Kremlin denied Sunday that trilateral talks involving Ukraine, Russia, and the U.S. were under discussion, after Zelensky said Saturday that Washington had proposed the idea of three-way discussions.

    “At present, no one has seriously discussed this initiative, and to my knowledge it is not being prepared,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said, according to Russian state news agencies.

    Trump has unleashed an extensive diplomatic push to end the war, but his efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv. Putin has recently signaled he is digging in on his maximalist demands on Ukraine, as Moscow’s troops inch forward on the battlefield despite huge losses.

    On Friday, Putin expressed confidence that the Kremlin would achieve its military goals if Kyiv didn’t agree to Russia’s conditions in peace talks.

    Possible French-Russian talks

    The French presidency on Sunday welcomed Putin’s willingness to speak with President Emmanuel Macron, saying it would decide how to proceed “in the coming days.”

    “As soon as the prospect of a ceasefire and peace negotiations becomes clearer, it becomes useful again to speak with Putin,” Macron’s office said in a statement. “It is welcome that the Kremlin publicly agrees to this approach.”

    The statement came after reports that Putin was open to holding talks with the French president if there was mutual political will.

    Macron’s office said any dialogue would aim “to contribute to a solid and lasting peace for Ukraine and Europe, in full transparency with President Zelensky and our European partners.”

    European Union leaders agreed on Friday to provide 90 billion euros ($106 billion) to Ukraine to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years, although they failed to bridge differences with Belgium that would have allowed them to use frozen Russian assets to raise the funds. Instead, they were borrowed from capital markets.

    Ukrainian civilians moved to Russia

    In Ukraine, the country’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, on Sunday accused Russian forces of forcibly removing about 50 Ukrainian civilians from the Ukrainian Sumy border region to Russian territory.

    Writing on Telegram, he said that Russian forces illegally detained the residents in the village of Hrabovske on Thursday, before moving them to Russia on Saturday.

    Lubinets said he contacted Russia’s human rights commissioner, requesting information on the civilians’ whereabouts and conditions, and demanding their immediate return to Ukraine.

  • Trump faces narrowing options on Venezuela action

    Trump faces narrowing options on Venezuela action

    The day after President Donald Trump declared he had ended 94% of all seaborne drug trafficking to the United States and reduced illegal migrant border crossings to “zero,” he announced an entirely new rationale for his escalating campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

    Venezuela had stolen “Oil, Land and other Assets” from the United States to finance those criminal activities, Trump said Tuesday in a social media post, an apparent reference to decades-old expropriations and the breaking of contracts with U.S. oil companies when Caracas began nationalizing the industry.

    Unless what he alleged was U.S. property was returned “IMMEDIATELY,” Trump said, the military juggernaut he has assembled in the Caribbean to blow up alleged traffickers and seize tankers transporting Venezuelan oil “will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before.”

    As Trump continues the boat strikes — now numbering 28, with at least 104 killed — and with the declaration of a “blockade” of all sanctioned vessels transporting Venezuelan oil, he has all but abandoned the public pretense that his goal is simply stopping migrants and drugs, rather than Maduro’s removal.

    His “days are numbered,” Trump told Politico in an interview published Dec. 9. Asked Thursday whether he was leaving open the possibility of war with Venezuela, Trump told NBC: “I don’t rule it out, no.”

    Maduro is the “indicted head of a cartel, now designated as a foreign terrorist organization,” said a person familiar with administration thinking, one of several individuals and former U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about internal deliberations. The administration named Maduro, already facing a 2020 U.S. indictment for drug trafficking, as the head of the designated Cartel de los Soles, a network of senior Venezuelan political and security officials it says is involved in human and drug trafficking to finance terrorist attacks in the United States.

    “At the end of the day, that person is either going to stand trial or be given a chance to negotiate exile … in a third country,” the person said of the Venezuelan leader.

    But with Maduro still sitting tight, Trump’s options seem to be narrowing rapidly.

    In an emailed response to questions, White House deputy spokesperson Anna Kelly said, “Nothing is ‘narrowing.’” Trump, she said, “has already taken decisive action to stop the illegal migrant invasion, deport violent criminals, and defend our homeland against evil narcoterrorists — which is saving countless lives across the country. President Trump retains all options to keep Americans safe.”

    Airstrikes on land, which U.S. officials have said would probably target isolated encampments associated with cocaine trafficking or selected military assets and installations, are “going to start” happening, Trump said last week.

    If that doesn’t work in persuading Maduro to flee, regional experts and former officials say, there are only two U.S. choices left — withdrawal or regime change by force.

    The prospect of invasion and a military ground operation with the possibility of American deaths, however, may be unpalatable to a president who has vowed “no more wars” and has thus far limited overseas military involvement to standoff strikes by air and sea.

    “It’s conceivable to me that in a month, two months, the president … declares victory on grounds that maritime drug trafficking is way down,” Elliot Abrams, Trump’s first-term special envoy on Venezuela, said Tuesday on the School of War podcast. But “if Maduro survives and Trump walks away, it’s a defeat.”

    While some in Congress have sharply opposed ongoing U.S. military action in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific without legislative approval, let alone a ground invasion of Venezuela, others have called on Trump to move more decisively.

    “You cannot allow this man to remain standing after this show of force,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said of Trump’s Caribbean deployment of 15,000 troops and dozens of warships and aircraft. Graham, a retired Air Force legal officer, spoke after a closed briefing Tuesday for Senators by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on a controversial Sept. 2 airstrike that killed 11 people aboard an alleged trafficking boat — including two who initially survived and were hit again while flailing amid the wreckage.

    “Is the goal to take him out?” Graham asked about Maduro, saying he hadn’t received answers from the administration. “If it’s not the goal … I think it’s a mistake.”

    But as lawmakers continue to argue and the administration ups the ante, “the most interesting question is why is [Trump] doing all this at all,” Abrams said in an interview with the Washington Post.

    Trump’s fixation on Venezuela melds a number of his own domestic political aims and the priorities of senior officials around him. The administration’s new National Security Strategy, which shifts U.S. focus to the Western Hemisphere, promises to reward countries that comply with “America First” policies and punish those that do not.

    For Rubio — the son of Cuban immigrants who fled the island several years before the 1959 takeover by Fidel Castro and who made his political career in the anti-Castro cauldron of South Florida — the collapse of Cuba’s communist government has long been a prime goal.

    Cuba’s economy has been propped up by Venezuela under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, through a steady supply of oil despite heavy U.S. sanctions. In addition to economic ties and ideological affinity, Maduro’s personal safety is said to be provided by elite Cuban security forces. Many think that the end of Venezuelan aid would be a death knell for the government in Havana.

    “Rubio is the driving force behind the military buildup in Venezuela policy in the last several months, but he has not convinced the president yet to use military force,” said a second former official. Others, however, say it is Trump who wants to escalate.

    For White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s draconian anti-immigrant policy, the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who fled to the United States, during Trump’s first term and the Biden administration, provide an easy target. Miller has echoed Trump’s charges that most of the Venezuelans in the U.S. were sent by Maduro from prisons and mental institutions to terrorize and kill Americans.

    Those sentiments contrast with Trump’s first term, when the flow of what eventually would be millions of fleeing Venezuelans spread across the hemisphere was viewed more sympathetically. Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who traveled to the Venezuela-Colombia border to greet them in the spring of 2019, said they were escaping what he called the political and economic “horror” of Maduro’s corrupt and failing socialist economy and demanded they be allowed to leave.

    At the time, Trump also said that “all options” were on the table to oust Maduro, charging that in addition to abusing his own people, he had stolen the 2018 election that gave him a second term in office and had formed U.S.-threatening alliances with Russia, China, and Iran. Trump stepped up sanctions, sent U.S. warships to the Caribbean — although fewer than the current armada — and recognized legislative assembly leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate president.

    With Guaidó as his guest, Trump told Congress during his 2020 State of the Union address that Maduro was “a socialist dictator” and a “tyrant who brutalizes his people.” The amount of deadly fentanyl entering the country, primarily from China and Mexico, had begun to soar even before Trump took office, reaching its peak as the COVID pandemic waned and beginning an ongoing decline, along with overdose deaths, in 2024, according to U.S. government figures.

    During first-term debates in the Trump White House over what to do about Maduro, some advocated the use of military force to oust him, according to subsequent books by then-Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, who opposed it, and national security adviser John Bolton, who supported it.

    With his time in office winding down and Gen. Mark A. Milley, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and CIA Director Gina Haspel also advising against the use of force, according to Esper and others, Trump backed off.

    The number of arriving Venezuelans, many crossing the border illegally, increased sharply under the Biden administration. Many were allowed to stay legally under a temporary protected status that recognized the economic and political hardships Trump himself had said were the reason for their flight.

    Maduro, who reneged on agreements with the Biden administration to allow a fair election in 2024, was inaugurated for his third term in January, only 10 days before Trump was sworn in again. By then, Guaidó had long since faded from memory. A new opposition figure, María Corina Machado, came to the fore and — though barred by Maduro from running against him — led her party to a landslide win that was widely acknowledged to have been stolen.

    Trump lost little time moving on his campaign promise to expel migrants and end opioid deaths, touting crime statistics he wildly inflated and blamed on Biden. In one of his first second-term acts, he ordered the end of protected status for Venezuelans and other migrants, and began widespread deportations. Trump charged that Maduro controlled a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, and had sent it to the United States to wreak criminal havoc, allegations that were not supported by U.S. intelligence assessments.

    Tren de Aragua and Cartel de los Soles are among roughly two dozen foreign organizations that the administration has designated, under a February Trump executive order, as “narcoterrorists.”

    By summer, despite some early attempts at negotiations with Maduro that included an offer to expand U.S. oil operations in Venezuela, Trump had opted for a military path. Though Venezuela is not a source of fentanyl and is a trafficker but not a producer of cocaine, according to U.S. law enforcement, pressure against Maduro was seen as a visible reminder to drug-producing countries such as Mexico and Colombia of the consequences of noncooperation.

    Miller, current and former U.S. officials said, had first proposed striking Mexican cartels and traffickers as a way to stop drugs and migrants. But as the administration surged thousands of U.S. troops to the southern border and increased intelligence cooperation, Mexico began to curb cartel action. Miller and his team were left looking for another target.

    The administration sent warships to the Caribbean, and on Sept. 2, Special Operations forces struck an alleged drug-smuggling boat carrying 11 men with missiles. It had come from Venezuela, Trump said without providing evidence, and was carrying “bags” of fentanyl and cocaine for Tren de Aragua. The United States, he told Congress that month, was in an “armed conflict” with terrorists.

    On Dec. 10, U.S. forces in the Caribbean seized an oil tanker, the Skipper, that had just filled up in Venezuela and was headed to Asia. The ship, already under U.S. sanctions for carrying illegal Iranian oil, was to be hauled to a Texas port. Asked by reporters what would happen to the oil, Trump said, “Well, we keep it, I guess.”

    On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security said a second vessel carrying Venezuelan oil in the Caribbean had been “seized” in a joint operation by the Coast Guard and Defense Department. That ship, the Centuries, was not under U.S. sanctions and it was unclear whether it had merely been boarded by U.S. forces or taken under their control.

  • Israel’s cabinet approves 19 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank

    Israel’s cabinet approves 19 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank

    TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s cabinet has approved a proposal for 19 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, the far-right finance minister said Sunday, as the government pushes ahead with a construction binge in the territory that further threatens the possibility of a Palestinian state.

    That brings the total number of new settlements over the past few years to 69, a new record, according to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has pushed a settlement expansion agenda in the West Bank. The latest ones include two that were previously evacuated during a 2005 disengagement plan.

    The approval increases the number of settlements in the West Bank by nearly 50% during the current far-right government’s tenure. In 2022, there were 141 settlements across the West Bank. After the latest approval, there are 210, according to Peace Now, an anti-settlement watchdog group.

    Settlements are widely considered illegal under international law. Smotrich’s office said the cabinet approval came on Dec. 11 and that the development had been classified until now.

    Settlements are latest blow to Palestinian state

    The approval comes as the U.S. pushes Israel and Hamas to move ahead with the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire, which took effect Oct. 10. The U.S.-brokered plan calls for a possible “pathway” to a Palestinian state, something the settlements are aimed at preventing.

    The cabinet decision included a retroactive legalization of some previously established settlement outposts or neighborhoods of existing settlements, and the creation of settlements on land where Palestinians were evacuated, the Finance Ministry said. Settlements can range in size from a single dwelling to a collection of high-rises.

    The ministry said two of the settlements legalized in the latest approval are Kadim and Ganim, which were two of the four West Bank settlements dismantled in 2005, as part of Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. There have been multiple attempts to resettle them after Israel’s government in March 2023 repealed a 2005 act that evacuated the four outposts and barred Israelis from reentering the areas.

    Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem, and Gaza — areas claimed by the Palestinians for a future state — in the 1967 war. It has settled over 500,000 Jews in the West Bank, in addition to over 200,000 in contested east Jerusalem.

    Israel’s government is dominated by far-right proponents of the settler movement, including Smotrich and cabinet minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the nation’s police force.

    Settler expansion has been compounded by a surge of attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank in recent months.

    During October’s olive harvest, settlers across the territory launched an average of eight attacks daily, the most since the United Nations humanitarian office began collecting data in 2006. The attacks continued in November, with the U.N. recording at least 136 more by Nov. 24.

    Settlers burned cars, desecrated mosques, ransacked industrial plants, and destroyed cropland. Israeli authorities have done little beyond issuing occasional condemnations of the violence.

    2 Palestinians killed in West Bank clashes, ministry says

    The Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah said two Palestinians, including a 16-year-old, were killed in clashes with Israel’s military on Saturday night in the northern part of the West Bank.

    Israel’s military said a militant was shot and killed after he threw a block at troops in Qabatiya, and another militant was killed after he hurled explosives at troops operating in the town of Silat al-Harithiya.

    The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the Palestinian killed in Qabatiya as 16-year-old Rayan Abu Muallah. Palestinian media aired brief security footage of the incident, where the youth appears to emerge from an alley and is shot by troops as he approaches them without throwing anything. Israel’s military said the incident is under review.

    The Health Ministry identified the second man as Ahmad Ziyoud, 22.

    Israel’s military has scaled up military operations in the West Bank since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that triggered the war in Gaza.

    Cardinal celebrates Christmas Mass in Gaza City

    The top Catholic leader in the Holy Land visited Gaza’s only Catholic church and celebrated a pre-Christmas Mass on Sunday that included the baptism of a baby. Dozens of Palestinians gathered in the Holy Family Parish.

    Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa is on his fourth visit to Gaza since the war began, and said the Christian community aims to be a “stable, solid reference point in this sea of destruction” as rebuilding slowly begins.

    “It is different this time,” Pizzaballa said. “I saw the new desire for a new life.”

    The Holy Family compound was hit by fragments from an Israeli shell in July, killing three people in what Israel called an accident and expressed regret over. The parish has served as a refuge for Christians and Muslims, sheltering hundreds of displaced people.

    There was a mix of gratitude and grief as people at the church marked Christmas away from home. “They welcomed us with great love and respect,” said Nazih Lam’e Habashi, 78, who stays there with his family. “This is the third holiday we are marking since the war.”

    “God willing, life will improve,” added 67-year-old Najla Saba.

  • Top Trump official defends partial release of Epstein files as Democrats cry foul

    Top Trump official defends partial release of Epstein files as Democrats cry foul

    WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday defended the Justice Department’s decision to release just a fraction of the Jeffrey Epstein files by the congressionally mandated deadline as necessary to protect survivors of sexual abuse by the disgraced financier.

    Blanche pledged that the Trump administration eventually would meet its obligation required by law. But he stressed that the department was obligated to act with caution as it goes about making public thousands of documents that can include sensitive information.

    Friday’s partial release of the Epstein files has led to a new crush of criticism from Democrats who have accused the Republican administration of trying to hide information.

    Blanche called that pushback disingenuous as President Donald Trump’s administration continues to struggle with calls for greater transparency, including from members of his political base, about the government’s investigations into Epstein, who once counted Trump as well as several political leaders and business titans among his peers.

    “The reason why we are still reviewing documents and still continuing our process is simply that to protect victims,” Blanche told NBC’s Meet the Press. “So the same individuals that are out there complaining about the lack of documents that were produced on Friday are the same individuals who apparently don’t want us to protect victims.”

    Blanche’s comments were the most extensive by the administration since the file dump, which included photographs, interview transcripts, call logs, court records, and other documents. But some of the most consequential records expected about Epstein were nowhere to be found, such as FBI interviews with survivors and internal Justice Department memos examining charging decisions. Those records could help explain how investigators viewed the case and why Epstein was allowed in 2008 to plead guilty to a relatively minor state-level prostitution charge.

    Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before the two had a falling out, tried for months to keep the records sealed. Though Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, he has argued there is nothing to see in the files and that the public should focus on other issues.

    Federal prosecutors in New York brought sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, but he killed himself in jail after his arrest.

    Democrats see a cover-up, not an effort to protect victims

    But Democratic lawmakers on Sunday hammered Trump and the Justice Department for a partial release.

    Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) argued that the Justice Department is obstructing the implementation of the law mandating the release of the documents not because it wants to protect the Epstein victims.

    “It’s all about covering up things that, for whatever reason, Donald Trump doesn’t want to go public, either about himself, other members of his family, friends, Jeffrey Epstein, or just the social, business, cultural network that he was involved in for at least a decade, if not longer,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union.

    Blanche also defended the department’s decision to remove several files related to the case from its public webpage, including a photograph showing Trump, less than a day after they were posted.

    The missing files, which were available Friday but no longer accessible by Saturday, included images of paintings depicting nude women, and one showed a series of photographs along a credenza and in drawers. In that image, inside a drawer among other photos, was a photograph of Trump alongside Epstein, Melania Trump, and Epstein’s longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.

    Blanche said the documents were removed because they also showed victims of Epstein. Blanche said that the Trump photo and the other documents will be reposted once redactions are made to protect survivors.

    “It has nothing to do with President Trump,” Blanche said. “There are dozens of photos of President Trump already released to the public seeing him with Mr. Epstein.”

    The thousands of Epstein-related records posted publicly offer the most detailed look yet at nearly two decades worth of government scrutiny of Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women and underage girls. Yet Friday’s release, replete with redactions, has not dulled the clamor for information given how many records had yet to be released and because some of the materials had already been made public.

    Blanche says DOJ has just learned of more potential victims

    Blanche said that the department continues to review the trove of documents and has learned the names of additional potential victims in recent days.

    The deputy attorney general also defended the decision by the federal Bureau of Prisons, which Blanche oversees, to transfer Maxwell to a less restrictive, minimum-security federal prison earlier this year soon after he interviewed her about Epstein. Blanche said that the transfer was made because of concerns about her safety.

    Maxwell, Epstein’s onetime girlfriend, is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for her 2021 conviction for sex trafficking crimes.

    “She was suffering numerous and numerous threats against her life,” Blanche said. “So the BOP is not only responsible for putting people in jail and making sure they stay in jail, but also for their safety.”

    Meanwhile, Reps. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R., Ky.) have indicated they could draft articles of impeachment against Attorney General Pam Bondi for what they see as the gross failure of the department to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

    “It’s not about the timeline, it’s about the selective concealment,” Khanna said on CBS’ Face the Nation, adding that the redactions in the released files are excessive. He said he believes there will be “bipartisan support in holding her accountable, and a committee of Congress should determine whether these redactions are justified or not.”

    House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said on ABC’s This Week that there needs “to be a full and complete explanation and then a full and complete investigation as to why the document production has fallen short of what the law clearly required,” but he stopped short of backing impeachment.

    Blanche dismissed the impeachment talk.

    “Bring it on,” Blanche said. “We are doing everything we’re supposed to be doing to comply with this statute.”

  • Trump’s return brought stiff headwinds for clean energy. So why are advocates optimistic in 2026?

    Trump’s return brought stiff headwinds for clean energy. So why are advocates optimistic in 2026?

    There were some highs amid a lot of lows in a roller coaster year for clean energy as President Donald Trump worked to boost polluting fuels while blocking wind and solar, according to dozens of energy developers, experts, and politicians.

    Surveyed by the Associated Press, many described 2025 as turbulent and challenging for clean energy, though there was progress as projects connected to the electric grid. They said clean energy must continue to grow to meet skyrocketing demand for electricity to power data centers and to lower Americans’ utility bills.

    Solar builder and operator Jorge Vargas said it has been “a very tough year for clean energy” as Trump often made headlines criticizing renewable energy and Republicans muscled a tax and spending cut bill through Congress in July that dramatically rolled back tax breaks for clean energy.

    “There was a cooldown effect this year,” said Vargas, cofounder and CEO of Aspen Power. “Having said that, we are a resilient industry.”

    Plug Power president Jose Luis Crespo said the developments — both policy recalibration and technological progress — will shape clean energy’s trajectory for years to come.

    Energy policy whiplash in 2025

    Much of clean energy’s fate in 2025 was driven by booster Joe Biden’s exit from the White House.

    The year began with ample federal subsidies for clean energy technologies, a growing number of U.S.-based companies making parts and materials for projects, and a lot of demand from states and corporations, said Tom Harper, partner at global consultant Baringa.

    It ends with subsidies stripped back, a weakened supply chain, higher costs from tariffs, and some customers questioning their commitment to clean energy, Harper said. He described the year as “paradigm shifting.”

    Trump called wind and solar power “the scam of the century” and vowed not to approve new projects. The federal government canceled grants for hundreds of projects.

    The Republicans’ tax bill reversed or steeply curtailed clean energy programs established through the Democrats’ flagship climate and healthcare bill in 2022. Wayne Winegarden, at the Pacific Research Institute think tank, said the time has come for alternative energy to demonstrate viability without subsidies. ( Fossil fuels also receive subsidies.)

    Many energy executives said this was the most consequential policy shift. The bill reshaped the economics of clean energy projects, drove a rush to start construction before incentives expire, and forced developers to reassess their strategies for acquiring parts and materials, Lennart Hinrichs said. He leads the expansion of TWAICE in the Americas, providing analytics software for battery energy storage systems.

    Companies can’t make billion-dollar investments with so much policy uncertainty, said American Clean Power Association CEO Jason Grumet.

    Consequently, greenhouse gas emissions will fall at a much lower rate than previously projected in the U.S., said Brian Murray, director of the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability at Duke University.

    Still, solar and battery storage are booming

    Solar and storage accounted for 85% of the new power added to the grid in the first nine months of the Trump administration, according to Wood Mackenzie research.

    That’s because the economics remain strong, demand is high, and the technologies can be deployed quickly, said Mike Hall, CEO of Anza Renewables.

    Solar energy company Sol Systems said it had a record year as it brought its largest utility-scale project online and grew its business. The energy storage systems company CMBlu Energy said storage clearly stands out as a winner this year too, moving from optional to essential.

    “Trump’s effort to manipulate government regulation to harm clean energy just isn’t enough to offset the natural advantages that clean energy has,” Democratic U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said. “The direction is still all good.”

    The Solar Energy Industries Association said that no matter the policies in Washington, solar and storage will grow as the backbone of the nation’s energy future.

    Nuclear, geothermal had a good year, too

    Democrats and Republicans have supported investing to keep nuclear reactors online, restart previously closed reactors, and deploy new, advanced reactor designs. Nuclear power is a carbon-free source of electricity, though not typically labeled as green energy like other renewables.

    “Who had ‘restart Three Mile Island’ on their 2025 Bingo card?” questioned Baringa partner David Shepheard. The Pennsylvania plant was the site of the nation’s worst commercial nuclear power accident, in 1979. The Energy Department is loaning $1 billion to help finance a restart.

    Everyone loves nuclear, said Darrin Kayser, executive vice president at Edelman. It helps that the technology for small, modular reactors is starting to come to fruition, Kayser added.

    Benton Arnett, a senior director at the Nuclear Energy Institute, said that as the need for clean, reliable power intensifies, “we will look back on the actions being taken now as laying the foundation.”

    The Trump administration also supports geothermal energy, and the tax bill largely preserved geothermal tax credits. The Geothermal Rising association said technologies continue to mature and produce, making 2025 a breakthrough year.

    Offshore wind had a terrible year

    Momentum for offshore wind in the United States came to a grinding halt just as the industry was starting to gain traction, said Joey Lange, a senior managing director at Trio, a global sustainability and energy advisory company.

    The Trump administration stopped construction on major offshore wind farms, revoked wind energy permits and paused permitting, canceled plans to use large areas of federal waters for new offshore wind development, and stopped federal funding for offshore wind projects.

    That has decimated the projects, developers, and tech innovators, and no one in wind is raising or spending capital, said Eric Fischgrund, founder and CEO at FischTank PR. Still, Fischgrund said he remains optimistic because the world is transitioning to cleaner energy.

    More clean energy needed in 2026

    An energy strategy with a diverse mix of sources is the only way forward as demand grows from data centers and other sources, and as people demand affordable, reliable electricity, said former Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu. Landrieu, now with Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future, said promoting or punishing specific energy technologies on ideological grounds is unsustainable.

    Experts expect solar and battery storage to continue growing in 2026 to add a lot of power to the grid quickly and cheaply. The market will continue to ensure that most new electricity is renewable, said Amanda Levin, policy analysis director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

    Hillary Bright, executive director of Turn Forward, thinks offshore wind will still play an important role too. It is both ready and needed to help address the demand for electricity in the new year, which will become increasingly clear “to all audiences,” she said. Turn Forward advocates for offshore wind.

    That skyrocketing demand “is shaking up the political calculus that drove the administration’s early policy decisions around renewables,” she said.

    BlueWave CEO Sean Finnerty thinks that states, feeling the pressure to deliver affordable, reliable electricity, will increasingly drive clean energy momentum in 2026 by streamlining permitting and the process of connecting to the grid, and by reducing costs for things like permits and fees.

    Ed Gunn, Lunar Energy’s vice president for revenue, said the industry has weathered tough years before.

    “The fundamentals are unchanged,” Gunn said, ”there is massive value in clean energy.”

  • U.S. tariffs take a bite out of Germany’s iconic nutcracker industry

    U.S. tariffs take a bite out of Germany’s iconic nutcracker industry

    MARIENBERG, Germany — In a workshop tucked into the rolling hills of eastern Germany’s Ore Mountains, rows of wooden soldiers stood at attention. Their red coats gleamed and their square-jawed mouths — designed to crack nuts but mostly decorative — formed the trademark stiff grin of Steinbach Nutcrackers.

    For decades, these handmade figures have sailed across the Atlantic and into American homes, filling mantels and collectors’ shelves and appearing in countless Christmas card photos. Alongside gingerbread houses and fir trees with all the trimmings, they are one of the most recognizable German exports of the holiday season.

    This year, however, tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump have given the stern-faced ornaments a new reason to grimace: About 95% of sales by the family-founded manufacturer, Steinbach Volkskunst, come from the United States, and the company’s most reliable market has become its biggest bureaucratic headache.

    Under a deal between Trump and the European Union reached earlier this year, most exports to the U.S. are subject to a 15% tariff. Separately, the Trump administration also ended the “de minimis” exemption — a rule that had allowed small parcels under $800 to enter duty-free.

    The move was aimed at curbing low-cost imports from Chinese e-commerce giants such as Temu and Shein. But for niche businesses that rely on direct-to-consumer shipments, like Steinbach, that change hit even harder than 15% tariff.

    “The biggest concern wasn’t price — it was instability,” CEO Rico Paul said, standing in front of a glass cabinet filled with colorful nutcrackers. “Policies changed depending on political mood. For us, planning ahead is essential. One day, the rules were one way, the next day they changed.”

    For six months after Trump’s inauguration, confusion reigned. Initially, the president threatened tariffs of 30% or more on most goods, prompting the E.U. to ready plans for retaliation. The deal on 15% tariffs, reached in late July, ended that uncertainty.

    But in late August, Trump issued an executive order ending the de minimis exemption, meaning a slew of new paperwork and bureaucracy.

    Costs rose and delays mounted as Customs and Border Protection grappled to keep up with the surge in new parcels requiring clearance. With the holiday season approaching, Steinbach faced the possibility of its nutcrackers getting stuck in customs warehouses.

    More than half of Steinbach’s business comes from online orders shipped directly to American doorsteps, and customers soon felt the increase. Prices are up roughly 25% compared to last year, because of the tariffs and customs costs, as well as rising wages.

    “In the United States, our name is extremely well known,” Paul said. “We’re practically synonymous with the word nutcracker.” The outsize U.S. demand for Steinbach products, he added, “was always an advantage — until the tariff dispute.”

    American affection for Steinbach’s products seems undiminished by the price increases. “We were worried Americans wouldn’t pay more,” Paul said, pulling up a fresh order from Monticello, Fla., on his phone. “But the loyalty is incredible. They’re still buying, even if it’s more expensive.”

    That loyalty stretches back to the 1950s, when U.S. service members stationed in postwar Germany discovered the nutcrackers and brought them home as souvenirs. They quickly became a cultural shorthand for an authentic European Christmas.

    The nutcracker legacy itself is older. In Saxony’s Ore Mountain region, miners began carving these wooden figures in the 1600s, meant to bring protection and keep evil spirits at bay during the darkest months of winter.

    French author Alexandre Dumas’ adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s 1816 story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” later inspired Tchaikovsky’s 1892 ballet The Nutcracker. The ballet, initially a flop in Russia, became an American holiday institution in the mid-20th century — catapulting the nutcracker to global fame as a Christmas icon.

    On a late November morning at the Steinbach factory, about 40 artisans carved, sanded, and painted wooden limbs, while sewing machines upstairs stitched miniature outfits. Outside, snow settled on fir branches as workers packaged the finished products for their long journey.

    One detail is new: a bright yellow sticker on every box, addressed to the person who will decide if the toy enters the United States smoothly: “Dear U.S. Customs Officer,” it says, “Thank you for keeping the trade flowing.”

    It may be wishful thinking. In October, U.S. news outlets reported that thousands of packages had stalled in customs hubs under the new rules. Some carriers reportedly disposed of abandoned shipments.

    “Because of changes to U.S. import regulations, we are seeing many packages that are unable to clear customs due to missing or incomplete information,” UPS, the shipping company, said in a statement. “Our goal is to speed every package to its destination, while complying with federal customs regulations.”

    In late November, UPS said that its brokerage team was clearing more than 90% of packages on the first day — but not without complications.

    Still, Steinbach nutcrackers continue to sell well, particularly those with pop culture and political themes.

    Last year, Steinbach introduced a pair of nutcrackers dubbed “Republican” and “Democrat,” bearing more than a passing resemblance to Trump and Kamala Harris. The Republican model sold out before Election Day.

    Prices for the smallest nutcrackers start at about $150, while the largest and most intricate figures cost more than $700. Alongside traditional soldiers and Santas, Steinbach has embraced the American appetite for nutcrackers in all forms, including Star Wars stormtroopers, Wizard of Oz characters, and even Pope Leo XIV.

    But the tariffs and customs delays have prompted Steinbach to seek a work-around. “We are building a warehouse in Pennsylvania and hiring staff,” Paul said.

    The nutcrackers will still be made in Germany — local craftsmanship remains a central selling point — but preshipping and storing finished goods in the United States stands to insulate the business from further regulatory whiplash. The tariffs and additional costs of maintaining and staffing the warehouse will be passed on to customers, but the move should eliminate paperwork and delays for shipments to individual buyers.

    Steinbach is not alone. Across Germany, exporters large and small are recalculating.

    “The escalation of U.S. import duties — now effectively averaging 15% on key industrial goods — has hit Germany particularly hard,” said Andreas Baur, foreign trade expert at the Munich-based Institute for Economic Research. “If you take January to September and compare it to the previous year, we have a decline [in exports] of about 8%, and for cars around 14%.”

    But beyond automakers, chemical giants, and heavy industrial goods, the regulatory shift has quietly reshaped the fate of artisans whose exports trade more in memories than volume.

    On the outskirts of Dresden, a 90-minute drive northeast of the nutcracker workshop, the sweet smell of raisins and butter filled Bäckerei Gnauck in the district of Ottendorf-Okrilla.

    Bäckerei Gnauck is one of about 100 bakeries permitted to bake true Dresdner Christstollen — a dense fruitcake that is tightly regulated by the Dresden Stollen Protection Association.

    Here too, the lifting of the de minimis rule has left fifth-generation baker Marlon Gnauck kneading frustration into this year’s cake loaves.

    Stollen, another German Christmas tradition that has gone global, has deep roots in and around Dresden, where it first appeared in the 14th century as a simple, butter-free loaf made under strict Advent fasting rules.

    That changed in 1491, when Pope Innocent VIII issued the “Butter Letter,” allowing bakers to enrich the dough. Spices, candied fruit, and almonds followed and, by the 18th century, Dresden bakers were presenting enormous loaves to royalty, securing the bread’s vaunted holiday status.

    Today, mass-produced versions fill German supermarkets, but only a small group of certified bakeries may call their loaves Dresdner Stollen. Dotted with raisins, and carefully folded together before being baked and doused in confectioners sugar, Stollen is supposed to represent the image of a swaddled baby Jesus.

    Every holiday season since 1999, Gnauck, a fifth-generation baker in his family, has shipped some of his stollen to Americans — half as corporate gifts, he estimates, and a quarter to families with German ancestry.

    He has enjoyed hearing from happy customers, even those who make him wince with their “American innovations” such as toasting stollen or spreading it with peanut butter.

    “Just a good slice of stollen, with a cup of coffee — that’s it, ” he said. “That’s how it should be enjoyed.”

    But now a single two-kilogram shipment, with postage and duties, costs more than $170, he said as he attached the required documents to parcels bound for Dorchester, Mass.; Raleigh, N.C.; and Houston.

    “You’re looking at paying between $60 and $70 in import charges for a two-kilo stollen,” Gnauck said. “The product costs 50 euros [about $59]. Shipping is almost another 50. And then roughly $70 of customs and administrative fees.”

    Only about 2% of Gnauck’s sales are to the United States, but the time required for paperwork and the additional costs for longtime customers have tainted the festive cheer. Gnauck’s verdict: “The Grinch lives in the White House,” he said. “Because what he’s actually doing is completely ruining the gifts.”

    In October, after the first seasonal orders were shipped across the Atlantic, Gnauck temporarily stopped shipping to the U.S. after customers complained about unpredictable costs.

    “We called the next 50 customers who had placed an order,” he said. “A quarter of them canceled. Another quarter of them reduced their order to a 1 kg, and the rest said they’d pay no matter what.”

    Sending stollen to America was never economically logical, he said. “It was emotional. A gesture. And now that gesture is expensive.”

    Some Dresden bakeries have stopped exporting to the United States altogether. But like Paul, the Steinbach CEO, Gnauck isn’t ready to quit. Both men said they simply want one thing from Trump: predictability.

    Paul said a limited-edition nutcracker resembling Trump at the Resolute Desk — with a price tag of $399 — has nearly sold out. “The president is sitting at his desk and is signing a declaration, granting the Steinbach company duty-free status for all eternity,” he quipped.

    For now, that remains fantasy: a wooden wish for stability in a season built on nostalgia — and customs logistics.