Beijing imposed sanctions on Friday against 20 U.S. defense-related companies and 10 executives, a week after Washington announced large-scale arms sales to Taiwan.

The sanctions entail freezing the companies' assets in China and banning individuals and organizations from dealing with them, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.

It's been a rollercoaster of a year for U.S. trade policy.

President Donald Trump launched a barrage of new tariffs in 2025, plunging the U.S. into trade wars with nearly every country in the world. Volley after volley of threats and steeper import taxes often arrived erratically — with Trump claiming that such levies needed to be immediately imposed to close trade imbalances and take back wealth that was "stolen" from the U.S.

California, soaked from days of relentless rain and recovering from mudslides in mountain towns, was hit with another powerful storm Christmas Day that led to evacuation warnings and high surf advisories.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department in Southern California issued an evacuation warning for Wrightwood, a mountain town about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northeast of Los Angeles, a day after rescuing people trapped in cars during a mud slide.

Pope Leo XIV during his first Christmas Day message on Thursday urged the faithful to shed indifference in the face of those who have lost everything, such as in Gaza, those who are impoverished, such as in Yemen, and the many migrants who cross the Mediterranean Sea and the American continent for a better future.

The first U.S. pontiff addressed some 26,000 people from the loggia overlooking St. Peter's Square for the traditional papal "Urbi et Orbi" address, Latin for "To the City and to the World,'' which serves as a summary of the woes facing the world.

Turkish authorities said Friday that they have apprehended a suspected member of the extremist Islamic State group who was planning attacks on New Year's celebrations.

State-run Anadolu Agency reported that Ibrahim Burtakucin was captured in a joint operation carried out by police and the National Intelligence Agency in the southeastern city of Malatya.

A bombing at a mosque located in the Syrian city of Homs during Friday prayers killed at least six people and wounded 21 others, authorities said.

Images released by Syria's state-run Arab News Agency showed blood on the mosque's carpets, holes in the walls, shattered windows and fire damage. The Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque is located in a predominantly Alawite area of the Wadi al-Dhahab neighborhood in Homs, Syria's third-largest city.

Iran seized a foreign oil tanker as it traveled the strategic Strait of Hormuz, state media said Friday.

Mojtaba Ghahramani, a provincial chief of the justice department, said the oil tanker was carrying some 4 million liters, or 25,000 barrels, of smuggled fuel when the Revolutionary Guard naval forces seized the vessel, the official IRNA news agency reported.

A man was arrested after stabbing eight people and injuring seven others with what was believed to be bleach at a tire factory in central Japan on Friday, officials said. There was no immediate explanation of his motive.

Eight people were taken to hospitals after being stabbed by the man with a knife at a factory of the tiremaker Yokohama Rubber Co. in the city of Mishima, in the Shizuoka prefecture, west of Tokyo, according to the Fujisan Nanto Fire Department.

Mohammad Bakri, a Palestinian director and actor who sought to share the complexities of Palestinian identity and culture through a variety of works in both Arabic and Hebrew, has died, his family announced. He was 72.

Bakri was best known for "Jenin, Jenin," a 2003 documentary he directed about an Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank city the previous year during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising. The film, focusing on the heavy destruction and heartbreak of its Palestinian residents, was banned by Israel.

A meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump will happen "in the near future," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday, signaling progress in talks to end the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine.

"We are not losing a single day. We have agreed on a meeting at the highest level – with President Trump in the near future," Zelensky wrote on X.