Top 5 US news stories

FDA approves first pill version of weight-loss drug GLP-1, broadening obesity treatment access beyond injections

Soaring vehicle costs force Americans into risky, decade-long auto loans to manage monthly payments

Trump orders creation of massive “Trump Class” battleships to overhaul Navy fleet he deems obsolete

Perceived impossibility of homeownership prompts younger workers to reduce job effort and halt long-term saving

Deadly crash forces Chinese regulators to freeze mass production plans for self-driving vehicles

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FDA approves first pill version of weight-loss drug GLP-1, broadening obesity treatment access beyond injections

U.S. regulators approved the first GLP-1 weight-loss pill—a tablet formulation of Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy—ushering in a new era of the obesity-drugs revolution that is expected to broaden their use. Novo Nordisk said Monday it plans to start selling the new pill in the U.S. in early January, with a cash price of $149 a month for the starting dose. The Food and Drug Administration approval is a milestone because weekly shots such as Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound have dominated the anti-obesity market to date. Yet many people with excess weight don’t take the shots due to cost, spotty insurance coverage and fear of needles. Shares in Denmark-based Novo Nordisk rose more than 7% in European trading early Tuesday.

WSJ

Soaring vehicle costs force Americans into risky, decade-long auto loans to manage monthly payments

The price of new cars and trucks in the U.S. has increased 33% since 2020, and consumers are piling on interest as they stretch out loan terms to eight, nine and nearly 10 years. David Kelleher, who runs a Dodge and Jeep dealership in Glen Mills, Pa., 27 miles west of Philadelphia, said many American families can’t comfortably take on a new-car payment these days. “We don’t have $300 monthly payments any longer in new vehicles,” he said. “It’s a thing of the past.” The average price of a new car broke the $50,000 barrier this fall, according to Kelley Blue Book. That is up from less than $38,000 in early 2020 before the pandemic hit. As sticker prices marched higher, so did monthly payments. For a few years, car shoppers were undeterred. Many needed new vehicles after putting off buying during Covid when supply chains were upended and dealer lots were empty. Others, feeling flush, opted for luxury vehicles at much higher price points. Fast forward to November of this year and the average monthly payment for a new car was estimated to be $760, according to J.D. Power, an industry-research firm. The hefty cumulative inflation is starting to weigh on consumers, and now some Americans are falling behind on their car payments. The struggle to keep monthly payments in check is so tough that the typical 48- to 60-month car-loan term has given way to 72-month terms, and longer, industry officials say. In the third quarter, a third of all buyers took out loans that stretched at least six years, or 72 months, according to Experian data. A year ago, 29% of buyers did so. The volume of loans with 85 to 96 months to repay, or up to eight years, rose as well to 1.61% of car buyers through October. Some loans now reach 100 months, or more than eight years, especially for the purchase of larger pickups, Experian data show. One problem is that automakers aren’t making models with a sticker price under $30,000, which, in theory, should present a real opportunity for the car companies, said Heath Byrd, chief financial officer of Sonic Automotive, a publicly traded dealership chain. He recently told investors and analysts that until buyers have better options, affordability will become an even bigger problem.

WSJ

Trump orders creation of massive “Trump Class” battleships to overhaul Navy fleet he deems obsolete

President Trump announced on Monday the construction of a new “Trump class” of warships that would anchor what he called a “golden fleet” for the U.S. Navy, fulfilling a long-held goal to give a personal makeover to a fleet of ships he described as “old and tired and obsolete.” The ships will augment the Navy’s more than five dozen Arleigh Burke-class destroyers — 9,000-ton vessels that are currently a mainstay of the Navy fleet but that Mr. Trump has disparaged as failing to compete with the vessels of foreign fleets, according to a Pentagon official speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plans for the ships. Navy officials said that the new vessel, which Mr. Trump described as “a battleship,” would displace more than 35,000 tons — more than twice the size of the largest surface combatant ships the Navy currently fields — and that it would notionally have the ability to launch hypersonic missiles and nuclear-armed cruise missiles, and carry more munitions overall than current Navy vessels.

NYT

Perceived impossibility of homeownership prompts younger workers to reduce job effort and halt long-term saving

With home affordability increasingly out of reach, many young adults are making choices that are reshaping the economy — and mostly for the worse — a new research paper says. They don’t think they’ll ever be homeowners. So they stop trying, and focus on the here and now. That’s the interpretation put forth by economists Seung Hyeong Lee and Younggeun Yoo — doctoral candidates at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, respectively — who built a mathematical model of consumer behavior. When people conclude they will never be able to afford a home, they put less effort into their jobs, tend to spend more on luxuries and do less long-term saving, and are more likely to invest in riskier assets such as cryptocurrencies, the economists’ findings suggested. While 84 percent of the people born in 1950 became homeowners at some point in their working lives, the researchers estimated that only 74 percent of 1990 babies will follow suit. Relying on a complex model they designed that attempts to take into account factors such as mortgage debt, volatile investments and homeowners’ desire to leave an inheritance to their children, the researchers charted behavioral patterns across generations. By the time 1990’s millennials turned 30 in 2020, they wrote, 15 percent of them had already given up on ever buying a house.

Washington Post

Deadly crash forces Chinese regulators to freeze mass production plans for self-driving vehicles

Early this year, Chinese automakers enthusiastically announced that they would soon be mass-producing and selling self-driving vehicles. Most of those plans have now been delayed after a deadly crash that drew broad public attention. China’s regulators finally gave the go-ahead last week to only two of the nine automakers that had submitted plans to sell self-driving cars. And the approvals by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology were narrowly tailored to allow little more than further testing, not mass production. Beijing Automotive Group and Changan Automobile in Chongqing will be allowed to operate self-driving taxis on three stretches of highway in each company’s hometown, the ministry said, and the taxis will not be allowed to change lanes while under computer control. On any other road, the taxis will need to be under the control of a driver. The limited programs represent a recognition by the Chinese government that objectives set nearly five years ago, to begin mass production for sale to the general public by the end of this year, were too ambitious. China’s regulators began to pull back after a crash of a Xiaomi SU7 in late March killed three women, all university students. News of previous accidents involving assisted driving had been suppressed by China’s censors. But news of the crash in March, on a highway in central China’s Anhui Province, spread quickly and widely. Questions swirled over whether drivers or automakers could be held legally responsible for such crashes. According to Xiaomi, the car was moving at 72 miles per hour in assisted-driving mode when it detected that its lane had been closed because of construction. The car issued an audible warning: “Please be aware of obstacles ahead.” The driver took control of the vehicle, which crashed one second later into a concrete barrier, according to the company. The public discussion of the tragedy prompted China’s Ministry of Public Security to get involved. The ministry issued a statement warning that the assisted-driving technology currently available on mass-produced cars in China was not the same as fully automated driving. It warned motorists against having conversations that might distract them.

NYT

December 23 1888: Vincent van Gogh chops off his ear

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Sources

1. https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/pill-version-of-wegovy-is-approved-for-use-in-the-u-s-6d6a6f2d?mod=hp_lead_pos3
2. https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/car-payments-now-average-more-than-750-a-month-enter-the-100-month-car-loan-fcd7d284?mod=hp_lead_pos6
3. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/us/politics/new-trump-class-warships.html
4. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/12/23/giving-up-homeownership-affordability/
5. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/business/china-autonomous-cars-driving.html