Alex Osola

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.

would impose visa restrictions on five people it said were, quote, agents of the global censorship industrial complex.

One of those people is Thierry Breton, a French citizen who served as an EU commissioner until last year.

The other four people targeted work for organizations that focus on disinformation and hate speech.

The European Commission said it condemns the U.S.

decision and has requested clarifications.

Breton said the U.S.

was engaging in a quote, witch hunt.

And in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would be willing to pull troops out of the eastern region of Donetsk and create a demilitarized free economic zone as part of a potential peace deal, as long as Russia took similar steps to withdraw from areas it controls.

Zelensky said yesterday that there would be a referendum on the proposal and other parts of the peace plan, giving the Ukrainian people a vote on the deal.

And for Ukrainians, Christmas threatens to be dark as the country deals with its most severe energy crisis since 2022.

Moscow has been attacking the grid on a greater scale, leaving some parts of the country without power for days at a time.

Markets will close early today.

U.S.

stock markets will shut at 1 p.m.