Alex Osola

After a roller coaster year for deals, we look at what's in store for 2026.

Plus, the heirs to A Texas Billionaire will pay $750 million in the biggest U.S.

tax fraud case ever.

And the electricity crisis in Ukraine has left some parts of the country in the dark for days.

It's Wednesday, December 24th.

I'm Alex Osella for The Wall Street Journal.

We're on a holiday schedule in your feed once a day.

And this is What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving the world today.

The estate of billionaire Robert Brockman has agreed to pay $750 million in back taxes and penalties, settling a case that arose from what the U.S.

government called the biggest tax fraud charges ever filed against a person.

The details were revealed in a U.S.

tax court filing yesterday.

The IRS had been seeking $1.4 billion, including interest, in the case.

Brockman was a wealthy Texas auto software entrepreneur who was known for his penny-pinching ways, staying at budget hotels and eating frozen dinners in his room.

He was indicted in 2020 on record-setting tax fraud charges.

The government accused him of using a web of offshore entities to conceal more than $2 billion in income.

He died in 2022 at age 81 while awaiting trial on the criminal fraud charges, and the civil case continued in tax court after his death.

The U.S.

said it won't allow a former European Union official to enter the country over his role in a European online content law that the Trump administration says censors Americans.

Yesterday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the U.S.