By Gloria Pazmino, CNN

(CNN) — Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who campaigned on a promise to tackle the affordability crisis in one of America’s most expensive cities, was sworn in as New York City’s 112th mayor early Thursday.

Mamdani, a 34-year-old immigrant from Uganda, makes history as the city’s first Muslim mayor, first South Asian mayor and the youngest mayor to hold the high-profile office in more than a century.

The former state assemblyman from Queens captured the world’s attention and stunned the political establishment with his win in the Democratic primary last summer, running a campaign focused on affordability: He promised to create a universal childcare program, freeze the rent for roughly two million rent-stabilized tenants and make city buses “fast and free.”

Mamdani was sworn just after midnight during a private ceremony alongside his wife, artist Rama Duwaji.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who Mamdani has described as a “political inspiration,” administered the oath of office.

The setting was symbolic. Mamdani was sworn in on the platform of the old City Hall subway station underneath City Hall Park in Manhattan – an architectural marvel where tiled, arched ceilings, colored glass skylights and brass chandeliers have laid dormant since the station was shuttered in 1945.

The location, which is closed to the public except for the occasional guided tour, is one of New York’s 28 original subway stations that opened in 1904, ushering in a new dawn of innovation and growth in New York City.

Mamdani has made public transportation a central focus of his agenda. In addition to proposing to make city buses free, he has said his administration would expand the city’s bicycle lane network and optimize streets for pedestrians.

A public ceremony will be held at City Hall Plaza on Thursday afternoon. At least 4,000 people are expected to attend, including high-profile leaders of the progressive movement: Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will introduce Mamdani, and the public oath of office will be administered by independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

A block party hosted by Mamdani’s transition team – dubbed the “Inauguration of a New Era” – will line Broadway, with supporters of the new mayor gathering outside the gates of City Hall.

Mamdani’s ambitious agenda has drawn some skepticism. He has proposed taxing the wealthy to pay for his proposals, something he can only do with the support of the state legislature and the governor. And while Mamdani is taking office at a time of general economic strength in the city, the high cost of living is squeezing working-class New Yorkers.

The dawn of Mamdani’s administration also comes as the national Democratic Party is wrestling with its identity and struggling to energize a divided base. Mamdani’s win has fueled debate about whether the party should move further to the left and focus on affordability as its primary issue in the upcoming midterm elections.

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The post Zohran Mamdani is sworn

By John Towfighi, CNN

New York (CNN) — The S&P 500 just completed a three-peat of double-digit gains. Will 2026 be a four-peat?

After three years of stellar gains, Wall Street widely expects the good times to keep rolling in 2026 — but with varied views on how much stocks will rally. Wall Street forecasts reviewed by CNN show a wide range of targets from strategists, though all estimate positive gains.

The S&P 500 ended 2025 at 6,845.5 points. Analysts at Bank of America expect the benchmark index to hit 7,100 by year-end 2026, suggesting a roughly 3.72% gain from now. Meanwhile, analysts at Deutsche Bank expect the S&P to hit 8,000 points by year-end, suggesting a gain of 16.87%.

When the S&P 500 has gained at least 15% in a year, the following year’s returns have averaged about 8%, according to Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist at LPL Financial.

The S&P in those years had an average decline of roughly 14% at some point before rebounding and climbing higher. It’s a reminder that stock market gains are not always straightforward, Turnquist said.

US stocks climbed higher in 2025 despite whiplash from tariff announcements, fraught geopolitical tensions, affronts to the Federal Reserve’s independence and nerves about an AI bubble.

The S&P 500 fell as much as 19% in April as President Donald Trump rolled out aggressive tariffs, but the index sharply rebounded, soaring higher after the most severe trade threats were paused. The index ultimately recorded 39 new record highs across the year and gained more than 16%.

Stocks were powered higher by enthusiasm about tech and AI, a detente in severe trade tensions, optimism about Fed rate cuts and robust corporate earnings growth.

Expectations for further Fed rate cuts in 2026 and resilient earnings from corporate America continue to support a strong outlook for stocks.

“This year’s gains have shown that the bull market is all gas, no brakes,” said Hardika Singh, economic strategist at Fundstrat. “And there are few solid reasons to believe this run can’t extend into the next year.”

Yet Wall Street analysts also note that uncertainty about Trump’s pick for Federal Reserve Chair as well as persistent geopolitical tensions and tariffs could create headwinds for stocks after such strong recent gains.

Valuations — a measure of how pricey a stock is relative to the company’s earnings — were a hot topic in 2025, with Wall Street analysts noting that US stocks are becoming increasingly expensive.

While not a market-timing tool, high valuations can often correspond with undersized future returns (unless earnings growth continues to exceed expectations). After three years of such eye-watering gains, some strategists are less certain that US stocks have significant upside potential.

“We remain constructive on equities for 2026 as earnings continue to grow, but forecast lower index returns than in 2025, amid a broadening bull market,” Peter Oppenheimer, chief global equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, said in a note.

The bull case for 2026

The bulls on Wall Street point to AI. The technology has unlocked a new era of growth for US stocks, analysts say, with opportunities for considerable profits in the future.

“The US is set to remain the world’s growth engine, driven by a resilient economy and an AI-

By Simone McCarthy, Rosa de Acosta, Joyce Jiang, CNN

Beijing (CNN) — Welkin Lei has been doing some paper-napkin calculations in his spare time.

As the 30-year-old from Beijing and his wife consider whether to have a second child, they face a question of resources. Caring for their three-year-old son requires hiring childcare while they’re at work, and the couple – both only children – are also looking ahead to when they’ll need to balance parenting with the cost and time of caring for their own aging parents.

While those considerations are not uncommon around the world, they’re also uniquely at the heart of one of the biggest long-term domestic challenges facing China’s leaders: spurring the country’s young people to have more children after decades of stringent, state-enforced birth control that skewed its demographics.

And Lei believes more could to be done, specifically when it comes to the government offering more financial support to families. “If we want to encourage people to have more kids now, we need to put in the same, if not more, effort and commitment to make it happen,” he said.

January 1 marks 10 years since China scrapped its notorious “one-child” policy, after the government realized that a falling birth rate threatened to derail the growth of the world’s second-largest economy.

But the landmark change – and a raft of other measures to encourage couples to have more kids – have failed to boost the population.

China’s headcount shrank in the three years to 2024. A slight uptick in births that year was still not enough to outpace the number of deaths, and is not expected to be a lasting trend.

Over-60s now account for more than 20% of the population of 1.4 billion people and could make up a staggering half the population by 2100, according to United Nations projections – a reality with potentially far-reaching implications, not only for China’s economy but also its ambitions to rival the United States as a military power.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has evoked the need for “population security” and made the “development of a high-quality population” a national priority. Analysts expect more policies or incentives to support births and marriage in the year ahead.

But many in China say boosting birth rates means addressing core issues like high youth unemployment, the high cost of raising children, and what’s seen as an unfair burden of child-raising on women.

And then there’s the direct legacy of the “one-child” policy, which left China with a gender imbalance and a generation of siblingless children now solely responsible for caring for elderly parents in a country where the social safety net remains weak in many places.

That’s why Lei said that – despite a stable job at a financial firm – he’s deeply concerned about the future.

“I know that no matter how much I save for the future, I have to buy the labor of someone else’s children to support (my parents) in their old age,” he said. “Given how society is developing, I doubt I’ll be able to afford that in the future.”

‘A drop in the bucket’

For decades, Beijing quashed “excess” births with a vast and ruthless government apparatus that monitored citizens and pressured them to have fewer children, including by using a deluge of propaganda, harassment and heavy fines, as well as forced abortions and sterilizations.

The goal of the “one-child” policy, officially enacted in 1980, was to rein in China’s runaway population growth, which officials at the time feared could imperil

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By Associated Press

(AP) — Keionte Scott returned an interception 72 yards for a touchdown, Carson Beck threw a scoring pass and No. 10 Miami shocked defending champion Ohio State 24-14 on Wednesday night at the Cotton Bowl in the first College Football Playoff quarterfinal.

The Hurricanes (12-2, CFP No. 10 seed) have won two playoff games to get into football’s final four after needing an at-large berth to make the 12-team field, even without playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game. One more win and they will get to play for a national championship in their home stadium.

Next for Miami in coach Mario Cristobal’s fourth season is a CFP semifinal at the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 8 against No. 3 seed Georgia or No. 6 seed Ole Miss, the SEC teams in the Sugar Bowl on Thursday night.

There hasn’t been a national title for “The U” since 2001. The Hurricanes were denied a repeat the following season with a double-overtime loss in the Fiesta Bowl to Ohio State, the only other time the teams met in a bowl game.

Now it’s third-ranked Ohio State (12-2, CFP No. 2 seed), which went into the game as a 9 1/2-point favorite according to BetMGM Sportsbook, that won’t be able to win back-to-back national titles for the first time in program history.

The Buckeyes hadn’t played since a 13-10 loss to now-No. 1 Indiana in a Big Ten championship game matchup of undefeated teams on Dec. 6. They still got a first-round bye, then lost just like all four teams that went directly to the quarterfinal round in the inaugural 12-team playoff last season.

Scott’s second pick-six this season came when he jumped a quick screen pass to the left thrown by Heisman Trophy finalist Julian Sayin, then had a wide-open field to sprint untouched to the end zone for a 14-0 lead with 11:49 left in the first half.

That came only 1:42 after Beck’s quick pass to Mark Fletcher Jr. coming out of the backfield for a 9-yard score.

Beck, who was part of Georgia’s national titles in 2021 and 2022 when Stetson Bennett was the starter, completed 19 of 26 passes for 138 yards. The TD throw to Fletcher, who also ran 19 times for 90 yards, was the seventh of 13 consecutive completions for Beck to set a record in the Cotton Bowl, which was played for the 90th time.

Sayin, a freshman backup behind Will Howard for Ohio State’s championship run last season, was 22 of 35 for 287 yards with two interceptions and a TD to Jeremiah Smith. Sayin was sacked five times.

AP All-America receiver Smith, the Miami native, caught seven of those passes for 157 yards, including a 14-yard TD on a fourth down in the fourth quarter.

Carter Davis added a 49-yard field goal in the third quarter and ChaMar Brown ran for a 5-yard TD in the game’s final minute for the Hurricanes, whose 24 points were the most Ohio State gave up this season.

The takeway

Miami: The Hurricanes have won six games in a row since an overtime loss Nov. 1 at SMU, less than 25 miles from AT&T Stadium, where the Cotton Bowl is played. They also made their CFP debut in the Lone Star State, winning 10-3 at No. 7 Texas A&M in the first round on Dec. 20.

Ohio State: All-America safety Caleb Downs, who started in the CFP for the third season in a row, became the first player to force two fumbles in a CFP game. … The Buckeyes had gone four consecutive quarters — the equivalent of a full game — until Bo Jackson’s 1-yard TD run to cap its opening drive of the second half.

Up next

Miami waits to see who it will play in the Fiesta Bowl. Ohio State is schedu