Jake Heggie's version of “Dead Man Walking” reaches the Metropolitan Opera for the season’s opening night in a production by Tony and Olivier Award winner Ivo van Hove starring mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato as Sister Helen Prejean

Markets tipped toward losses ahead of a holiday-shortened session with little corporate news or economic data coming until later in the week

America is heading close to the brink of a self-imposed economic disaster with the Republican-led House refusing to pay the country's debts unless President Joe Biden agrees on cuts to current and future spending and new curbs on social programs.

Vivek Ramaswamy has failed to move up in the 2024 Republican primary race and is increasingly risking becoming an afterthought

Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) called on Republican donors to force candidates who have little to no chance to win the Republican nomination for president out of the race to prevent Donald Trump from winning. The 2012 Republican presidential nominee-turned-chief critic of the former president within the GOP wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that any candidate had a shot of beating Mr Trump if the contest became a two-person race. “For that to happen, Republican megadonors and influencers – large and small – are going to have to do something they didn’t do in 2016: get candidates they support to agree to withdraw if and when their paths to the nomination are effectively closed,” he said. Mr Romney set the deadline of 26 February, which would be after the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire primary, the Nevada caucus and the South Carolina primary. He said plenty of Republican candidates with no chance of winning benefit greatly from their candidacies. “Left to their own inclinations, expect several of the contenders to stay in the race for a long time,” Mr Romney noted. “They will split the non-Trump vote, giving him the prize. A plurality is all that is needed for winner-take-all primaries.” Mr Romney also cited the presidential candidacy of his father, the late George Romney, when he ran in 1968 and how many moderate Republicans got behind him before the elder Romney dropped out and they pledged their support to Nelson Rockefeller to stop Richard Nixon. But Mr Romney said such circumstances don’t exist today because of the rise of super PACs, which allow for unlimited fundraising. “A few billionaires have already committed tens of millions of dollars,” he said. “They have a responsibility to give their funds with clear eyes about their candidate’s prospects.” Mr Romney is the only Republican Senator who voted to convict Mr Trump for both of the former president’s impeachments in 2020 and 2021. The former Massachusetts governor said donors who back a candidate with a slim chance should receive a hard pledge that they will drop out and back the candidate with the best chance of beating Mr Trump by 26 February. “Donors may think that party leaders can narrow the field,” he wrote. “Not so. Candidates don’t listen to party officials, because voters don’t listen to them either. And the last people who would ever encourage a candidate to withdraw are the campaign staff and consultants who want to keep their jobs for as long as possible.” Polling in early states showed Mr Trump continues to hold a commanding lead in many of the early states, including Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. “Our party and our country need a nominee with character, driven by something greater than revenge and ego, preferably from the next generation,” he said. “Family, friends and campaign donors are the only people who can get a lost-cause candidate to exit the race. After Feb. 26, they should start doing just that.” Read More Trump news – live: Trump shares QAnon post on Truth Social as ex-NYPD boss hands evidence to Jan 6 probe Watch: Jill Biden meets France’s first lady to celebrate US rejoining Unesco Hunter Biden's guilty plea is on the horizon, and so are a fresh set of challenges Judge vacates desertion conviction for former US soldier captured in Afghanistan Putting a floating barrier in the Rio Grande to stop migrants is new. The idea isn't.

At least 51 people, including a child, were killed in Thursday's Russian missile strike, Ukraine says.

Cricket's more than 100-year Olympic exile moved closer to ending after the sport was approved for inclusion at the 2028 Los Angeles Games by the...

A deal could be struck within months - but sources say difficult areas of negotiation remain.

'RHOA' star Monyetta Shaw unveiled on a podcast that the breakup with Ne-Yo ensued from his frequent involvement in 'threesomes'

By Sheila Dang X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter, said Tuesday it would now allow

Is it better to do nothing or to do something many people are positive will be struck down by courts?

The Bank of Japan’s decision to stick with its ultra-easy monetary policy points to increasing appetite for shorter-tenor