Luke Vargas

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Europe overcomes some, but not all, divisions in its bid to support Ukraine's war effort, plus a test for open AI as it plans to tap investors for up to $100 billion to fund its growth plans.

And attention, American wine buyers, tariffs are about to jack up the price of your favorite old world bottles.

It's Friday, December 19th.

I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

EU leaders have agreed to lend Ukraine around $105 billion to help it continue fighting Russia.

It is a vital lifeline.

By April, the EU had expected Ukraine to exhaust funds for its budget and weapons purchases.

Now, according to IMF estimates, the loan will cover two-thirds of financing needs for 2026 and 2027.

Reaching agreement wasn't easy, though, with leaders notably failing to agree on tapping a massive pot of frozen Russian assets in order to fund Ukraine.

Much of that money is held in Belgium, where Prime Minister Bart De Wever expressed concern about ending up on the hook financially should the loan face successful legal challenge.

Failing to tap Russian assets will shift costs to EU taxpayers and deny Europe further resources for future funding.

But De Wever said failing to agree on any loan would have been worse.

The loan could give Ukraine more leverage in its negotiations with the U.S.

as Washington tries to end the war.

Without additional funding, European officials said Kiev might have had little choice but to accept U.S.

demands, including withdrawing from eastern regions that its troops still hold.

The man suspected of killing two Brown University students on Saturday and an MIT professor near Boston on Monday night has been found dead in New Hampshire.

Authorities say 48-year-old Portuguese national and former Brown student Claudio Neves Valenti fatally shot himself inside a storage unit.