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Top 5 US news stories

October 17 2025

Greg Loving

17 Oct 2025 • 7 min read

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro MIGUEL GUTIERREZ/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Zelensky to Meet Trump at White House as Trump-Putin Call Leads to Future Meeting

Once Criticized, Walmart's Gamble on Higher Wages Now Credited for Turnaround

Former Trump Adviser John Bolton Indicted for Mishandling Classified Information

New Credit Fraud Fears Rattle Regional Banks, Triggering Market Fall

Venezuela Mobilizes Troops and Militia in Defiance of U.S. Military Buildup

…US GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN ENTERS 17th DAY…

1. Zelensky to Meet Trump at White House as Trump-Putin Call Leads to Future Meeting

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine is set to meet President Trump at the White House on Friday to discuss arms deals and prospects for peace, a day after Mr. Trump said he plans to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in the coming weeks in hopes of ending the war. Mr. Zelensky is coming to Washington aiming to win more American support, as Mr. Trump has dangled the possibility that he would provide Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles capable of striking deep within Russia. But after a two-hour call with Mr. Putin on Thursday, Mr. Trump left unclear whether he might agree to provide the Tomahawks, suggesting that he is again banking on further talks with Mr. Putin to resolve the war.

NYT

2. Once Criticized, Walmart's Gamble on Higher Wages Now Credited for Turnaround

Bentonville, Ark.—A decade ago, the largest private employer in the U.S., Walmart , increased its starting wage to $9 an hour. Raising the salaries of nearly half of its more than a million U.S. hourly workers made it the biggest pay raise in history. Investors reacted by sending Walmart shares down 10%, destroying $21.5 billion in market value in hours. This fall, Walmart’s experience will be published as a Harvard Business School case study-—as a success. Hundreds of executives from Blackstone, Bank of America and other firms traveled to Bentonville, Ark., recently to learn about Walmart’s future workforce management and hear the story of the 2015 wage increase from Walmart’s chief executive. The move, he says, launched its current sales tear and online advance. When Walmart decided to raise pay for the hourly workers in its stores and warehouses, who now number 1.5 million, it wasn’t trying to be benevolent. Walmart was in the crosshairs of labor activists. Turnover was high, many workers were miserable and shopping at Walmart was often a bad customer experience. On top of all that, the world’s largest retailer was facing a dire business situation: it had grown so big that its own executives doubted that it could keep growing, and it faced a rival who wouldn’t stop growing, Amazon. As a result, the company had been focusing on improving profits by keeping down costs—including wages—while sales stagnated. But as McMillon started his new job and talked to workers he heard that they needed higher wages, steady schedules, less inventory clutter in backrooms, consistent low prices and more middle managers in the stores, he said. He crafted a plan to raise wages. He brought in a new crop of Walmart leaders including new U.S. chief executive and chief operating officers. Their proposal would reduce employee turnover, which would improve operations in the stores and warehouses. They could invest in more training to get workers to stick around with promotions. Stores would be more organized. Sales would increase, and Walmart would be better positioned for e-commerce, the argument went. Walmart shares more than doubled over the past five years. Its U.S. sales have grown each year since 2015 and global sales hit $681 billion last year, helping it maintain its spot as the country’s largest retailer by revenue.

WSJ

3. Former Trump Adviser John Bolton Indicted for Mishandling Classified Information

A. John R. Bolton, the national security hawk and former adviser to President Trump who became one of his most outspoken critics, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Maryland on Thursday on charges of mishandling classified information. The indictment against Mr. Bolton was 18 counts and accused him of using personal email and a messaging app to share more than 1,000 pages of “diary” notes about his day-to-day activities as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser in 2018 and 2019. The notes, which were sent to two family members who did not have security clearances, included national defense information, such as details classified as top secret, according to the indictment. President Trump and his former aide parted bitterly toward the end of his first term… While Mr. Bolton is part of a string of perceived enemies of the president to become prosecutorial targets, the federal investigation into him gained momentum during the Biden administration, when U.S. intelligence agencies gathered what former officials have described as troubling evidence.

NYT

B. Mr. Bolton said in a statement Thursday evening that “My book was reviewed and approved by the appropriate, experienced career clearance officials. When my e-mail was hacked in 2021, the FBI was made fully aware. In four years of the prior administration, after these reviews, no charges were ever filed. Then came Trump 2 who embodies what Joseph Stalin’s head of secret police once said, ‘You show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.’” There’s little doubt that the underlying motivation for this prosecution is retribution. The President has targeted Mr. Bolton at least since 2020 when Mr. Trump called for his prosecution after Mr. Bolton wrote his book.

WSJ OPINION

4. New Credit Fraud Fears Rattle Regional Banks, Triggering Market Fall

Regional banks came under renewed scrutiny Thursday after Zions Bancorp said it would take a large loss and revealed accusations of fraud against a set of borrowers who had ties to a number of other lenders in the industry. The disclosures helped send bank stocks reeling to their worst day since President Trump’s tariffs hammered the market in April, evidence of how on edge Wall Street is after the recent high-profile bankruptcies of auto supplier First Brands and auto lender Tricolor. It wasn’t clear how widespread any pain would be from the new allegations, which center on a set of investment funds that are now being sued by several banks.

WSJ

5. Venezuela Mobilizes Troops and Militia in Defiance of U.S. Military Buildup

Venezuela is moving troops into position on the Caribbean coast and mobilizing what President Nicolás Maduro asserts is a millions-strong militia in a display of defiance against the biggest American military buildup in the Caribbean since the 1980s. The strongman’s regime has cranked up its propaganda machine. On state television, radio and social media, announcers are telling Venezuelans that the U.S. is a rapacious Nazi-like state that wants to dig its claws into the country’s oil wealth but that the Venezuelan military, the National Bolivarian Armed Forces, are positioning to repel any invasion. Footage has shown militia members—men and women; often elderly, slightly plump Venezuelans—running obstacle courses, crawling under barbed wire and firing rifles. The Venezuelan armed forces, which military experts say on paper number 125,000 soldiers, are shown marching in formation, with troops mounting armored vehicles and moving boxes of munitions around. The country’s Russian-made jet fighters are featured in footage shooting across the skies. The regime’s aggressive posturing obscures the vulnerability of its armed forces against the world’s most powerful military. Experts say the U.S. buildup isn’t enough to support an invasion of Venezuela but would be sufficient to support sustained strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs to the U.S. or the bombing of targets on Venezuela’s soil, as President Trump has warned.

WSJ

October 17 1973: OPEC enacts oil embargo

The Arab-dominated Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announces a decision to cut oil exports to the United States and other nations that provided military aid to Israel in the Yom Kippur War of October 1973. According to OPEC, exports were to be reduced by 5 percent every month until Israel evacuated the territories occupied in the Arab-Israeli war of 1967. In December, a full oil embargo was imposed against the United States and several other countries, prompting a serious energy crisis in the United States and other nations dependent on foreign oil.

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