GIFT Nifty was trading nearly 807 points lower on late Tuesday, or 3% lower, indicating a weak start for Indian equities on Wednesday when markets reopen after the Holi holiday. Domestic markets were shut on Tuesday, leaving investors to digest fresh geopolitical developments and US President Donald Trump’s comments that the conflict with Iran could last up to four weeks.

When Indian equities last traded on Monday, they had already come under heavy pressure. The BSE Sensex had plunged over 2,700 points in early trade before recovering some ground to close 1,048 points lower at 80,238, down 1.29%. The Nifty ended near 24,850 after a volatile session. Investor wealth eroded by nearly Rs 6.6 lakh crore as risk aversion intensified.

The weakness in GIFT Nifty tracks a soft session on Wall Street. US stocks opened lower on Monday as the conflict in the Middle East widened and oil prices jumped. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.7% to 48,661.35 in early trade, while the S&P 500 declined 0.5% to 6,845.44 and the Nasdaq slipped 0.4% to 22,575.52.

The Israeli military said it had launched a fresh broad strike on Tehran, while Gulf monarchies signalled possible retaliation, and tankers were attacked near Oman.

Higher crude prices are a key concern for India, which relies heavily on oil imports. Analysts say a sustained spike could fuel inflation, pressure the rupee and complicate the interest rate outlook.

Siddhartha Khemka, Head of Research at Motilal Oswal Financial Services, said Monday’s selloff reflected a pronounced risk-off move. Markets reacted to US and Israeli strikes on Iran and regional retaliation by shifting towards safer assets, he noted.

Also read: After a brutal Monday crash, Trump says Iran war may last four weeks. How will the stock market react on Wednesday?Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Investments, said rising crude prices and a weakening rupee signal concerns about potential supply disruptions. He warned that higher oil prices could lift inflation, impact government finances and strain margins for sectors dependent on energy and chemicals. He added that the India VIX has moved higher, pointing to increased uncertainty, while foreign institutional investor selling has intensified.

From a technical standpoint, the market remains under pressure but appears oversold.

Shrikant Chouhan, Head of Equity Research at Kotak Securities, said benchmark indices are trading below key short-term and medium-term averages, with intraday charts showing a weak formation. However, he said a technical bounce cannot be ruled out, given the extent of recent losses.

Analysts see 24,750 on the Nifty and 80,000 on the Sensex as important support levels. As long as these levels hold, a pullback toward 25,000–25,075 on the Nifty is possible. A decisive break below 24,750, however, could open the door to 24,650-24,500.

Gaurav Udani, Founder of Thincredblu Securities, sees immediate resistance near 25,100 and support in the 24,550–24,600 band. He cautioned that a sustained breach of support could extend the downside, while reclaiming resistance is necessary for short-term stabilisation. Given the heightened geopolitical uncertainty, he advised traders to avoid aggressive leveraged positions.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)

The first primaries for the 2026 midterm elections are scheduled for early March. For Republican and Democratic state lawmakers still trying to redraw district maps for the U.S. House of Representatives, where Republicans have a razor-thin margin, there is not much time left.

While legal challenges remain — including a potentially seismic Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act — here is a breakdown of states where maps affecting November’s election have already been redone, or states have taken action to make changes.

These states have changed their maps

The first group to heed President Trump’s call last year to reshape Congress was the Republican majority in Texas.

Democrats staged a two-week walkout, arguing that the new districts would illegally dilute Black and Hispanic representation. But Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed the measure into law in August, and the Supreme Court upheld the map in December.

In response, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, persuaded the legislature in August, and voters in November, to counterpunch.

The Supreme Court, echoing its Texas order, upheld California’s new map in February, dismissing Republican claims that it illegally favored Latino voters.

Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican, in late September signed into law a new map that would split Kansas City, a Democratic stronghold, into rural and largely Republican districts.

Republicans hope to oust the longtime Representative Emanuel Cleaver, who was the first Black mayor of Kansas City. But lawsuits are in progress.

The Republican-controlled legislature approved a new map in October that imperils the re-election chances of Representative Don Davis, a Democrat, who represents the northeastern corner of the state.

Under the state Constitution, Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, cannot veto the new map.

Even before Mr. Trump’s push, Ohio was required, under its state Constitution, to redraw its congressional maps. So in October, a state commission approved plans to dilute Democratic-held districts near Toledo and Cincinnati.

A state judge in November tossed out a map drawn by the Republican-dominated legislature as being unfairly tilted against Democrats. The judge then adopted an alternative proposed by a centrist group that preserved a Democratic-leaning district surrounding Salt Lake City.

The Utah legislature has appealed to the Utah Supreme Court, while two of state’s congressional Republicans have filed a federal lawsuit to void the map.

These states are trying to change their maps

Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has proposed that a special legislative session be convened in late April on redistricting. Republicans, who control most of the state’s congressional seats, are eyeing a gain of two to four more in central and South Florida.

The Democratic legislature has passed a constitutional amendment allowing lawmakers to redraw congressional districts before the midterms. If voters say yes to a referendum on April 21, the Democrats could net between two and four seats under a proposed new map.

A state judge initially blocked the effort to change the map. But the Virginia Supreme Court has allowed the referendum to proceed, and says that it will rule afterward on whether the plan is legal.

A state judge has ruled that a district represented by Nicole Malliotakis, New York City’s only Republican member of Congress, disenfranchises Black and Latino voters. The judge has ordered an independent redistricting commission to come up with new maps for the district, which includes Staten Island and part of Brooklyn. Republicans are appealing.

In Maryland, a latecomer, the House of Delegates has approved a plan that would ask voters to ratify new congressional boundaries in November — while also choosing the candidates to represent those districts.

The State Senate appears reluctant, so far. But if the plan proceeds, Democrats could turn what is now a 7-1 advantage into 8-0.

Reporting contributed by Nick Corasaniti.

After years of largely predictable norovirus waves, the emergence of a new strain might have disrupted the seasonal pattern of outbreaks from this notorious stomach bug, suggests a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In previous years, the U.S. usually saw norovirus outbreaks increase around December. That marked the start of the season for the virus. But last year’s season started in October, as a new norovirus strain called GII.17 drove a record wave of outbreaks.

“Continued surveillance is needed to determine if this genotype remains the dominant genotype, as well as whether the norovirus season continues to start earlier than previous years,” wrote two of the CDC’s top norovirus researchers, in an article published this month by the agency’s Emerging Infectious Diseases journal.

Outbreaks have since slowed to usual levels. But with GII.17 now identified in more than 3 in 4 outbreaks in the U.S., its displacement of the GII.4 strain that had previously been dominant is raising questions about whether norovirus season could arrive early again.

“GII.4 viruses are the main driver for norovirus seasonality. With the decrease of GII.4 outbreaks since 2024, whether GII.17 viruses will continue to cause an earlier onset of the norovirus season cannot yet be determined,” the CDC researchers wrote.

Several other countries also saw unusually large or shifted waves of norovirus this past year, after GII.17 surged to dominance. 

In England, norovirus reports reached levels more than double recent seasons. GII.17 was the most frequently reported genotype of norovirus through April, far above GII.4.

In Japan, where GII.17 previously drove a wave of infections a decade ago, local health authorities in Tokyo reported a steep wave of infectious gastroenteritis — most from norovirus — that peaked weeks later than previous seasons and remains above recent years.

Miranda de Graaf, a scientist at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands coordinating the global NoroNet network of norovirus researchers, said the Dutch nation did not see an earlier start to its norovirus season. But the country did see higher numbers of norovirus outbreaks, including a few large outbreaks in between when the usual seasonal surges occurred.

GII.4 was still being detected around the world, meaning it was possible that GII.17’s dominance could be short-lived, de Graaf said. Researchers had previously wondered if GII.17 could permanently take over, only to see GII.4 cases continue to remain dominant. 

“GII.17 only replaced GII.4 last year, and there has not been another seasonal peak after that. Therefore it is not clear if these shifts will last, or if GII.17 will be the predominant strain next winter season,” de Graaf said in an email.

Benjamin Lopman, an epidemiology professor at Emory University who previously worked for the CDC’s viral diseases division, said shifts in norovirus strains happen “when new variants find ways around the immunity that people have built up” to previous strains. He said that new strains usually trigger more frequent outbreaks earlier in the season.

“I expect we’ll see outbreak patterns return to more typical levels and seasonal patterns in the coming years, though it’s always challenging to predict how these viruses will behave,” Lopman said in an email.

President-elect Donald J. Trump is assembling the cast of characters who will serve in his cabinet and in other senior positions during his second term. The cabinet always comprises at least 16 positions — the vice president and the heads of the 15 executive departments — and presidents have discretion to elevate other officials, like the White House chief of staff, to the cabinet level. This page will be updated as new announcements are made.

Senate confirmation required

3 of 24 announced

Mr. Ratcliffe is a former Texas congressman who served as director of national intelligence during Mr. Trump’s first term.

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A former congressman from Long Island who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022, Mr. Zeldin is an avid supporter of Mr. Trump who voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election. During Mr. Zeldin’s tenure in the House of Representatives, he voted against clean water legislation at least a dozen times and clean air legislation at least half a dozen times, according to a scorecard from the League of Conservation Voters.

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Ms. Stefanik, who represents an upstate New York district in the House and is a member of the Republican leadership in the chamber, has been a vocal supporter of Mr. Trump. She emerged as a key ally during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment proceeding. She has minimal experience in foreign policy and national security.

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No confirmation required

4 named

Mr. Vance, a former venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, is a relative political newcomer. He rose to fame in 2016 after the publication of “Hillbilly Elegy,” his best-selling memoir about his experiences growing up in Appalachia. He previously criticized Mr. Trump as “reprehensible,” but won Mr. Trump’s backing when he ran successfully for Senate in 2022 by embracing Mr. Trump’s politics and his lies that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

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Ms. Wiles, the political tactician who managed Mr. Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, has worked in Republican campaigns and administrations, at both the federal and state levels, since the Reagan era. She was the only campaign manager to survive an entire campaign working for Mr. Trump, and will be the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff.

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Mr. Homan, who served as a senior immigration official in Mr. Trump’s first administration, will manage Mr. Trump’s campaign promise of widespread deportations of undocumented immigrants and the tightening of measures that allow some of them to stay in the country legally. He has decades of experience in immigration enforcement.

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A former Green Beret and current Florida congressman, Mr. Waltz is widely regarded on Capitol Hill as a hawk on China and Iran. He served multiple combat tours in Afghanistan and opposed President Biden’s withdrawal of troops from the country.

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Transition officials

2 named

Mr. Lutnick is the chairman and chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial services firm. A longtime registered Democrat, he has said that the party moved away from his interests and that he is now a Republican. He donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inauguration in 2017 and appeared on an episode of “The Apprentice” while Mr. Trump was the show’s host. He has no known experience in the federal government.

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Ms. McMahon is a major donor to Mr. Trump, a onetime Senate candidate from Connecticut and a former executive of a professional wrestling empire that she founded with her husband. She served in Mr. Trump’s first cabinet as the head of the Small Business Administration.

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Mass shooting victims come together to call for change

Laws taking effect Monday in California and Tennessee highlight the nation’s stark divide over guns: While the former is looking to help banks track potentially suspicious gun purchases in hopes of thwarting mass shootings and other firearm-related homicides, the latter is seeking to prohibit the practice. 

Major credit card companies as of today have to make a merchant code available for firearm and ammunition retailers to comply with California’s new law to aid banks in monitoring gun sales and flag suspicious cases to authorities. The law requires retailers that primarily sell firearms to adopt the code by May 2025.  

Democratic-led legislatures in Colorado and New York this year also passed measures mandating firearms codes that kick in next year. 

The idea behind a gun merchant code is to detect suspicious activity, such as a person with no history of buying firearms suddenly spending large sums at multiple gun stores in a short period of time. After being notified by banks, law enforcement authorities could investigate and possibly prevent a mass shooting, gun control advocates contend.

On the other side of the issue, gun-rights advocates are concerned the retail code could impose unfair scrutiny on law-abiding gun purchasers. During the past 16 months, 17 states with Republican-controlled legislatures have passed bills banning a firearms store code or curtailing its use. 

“We view this as a first step by gun-control supporters to restrict the lawful commerce in firearms,” Lawrence Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told the Associated Press. 

California’s measure coincides with a separate state law in Tennessee that bans the use of firearm-specific merchant codes, with the National Rifle Association lauding it as protecting the financial privacy of gun owners. 

Mastercard, Visa and American Express worked to comply with the new California measure, as CBS News reported earlier in the year. The credit card networks had initially agreed to implement a standalone code for firearm sellers, but put that effort on hold after objections from gun-rights advocates. 

Credit cards are used to facilitate gun crimes all across America, according to Guns Down America, which argues at retail codes could prevent violence stemming from cases of straw purchases, gun trafficking and mass casualty events. 

A report by the nonprofit advocacy cited eight mass shootings that possibly could have been prevented, including the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater shooting and the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, because each perpetrator used credit cards to mass arsenals in a short period of time. 

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy last week decried gun violence to be an escalating public health crisis, with more than 48,000 Americans killed with firearms in 2022.

—The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The most valuable resource for any presidential campaign is a candidate’s time. That has never been more true than in the contest between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, whose rematch is testing their ability to make the traditional appearances on the trail that voters have come to expect.

Biden

May

A calendar showing the 40 events in May that Joe Biden participated in.

1. Su
2. Mo
3. Tu
4. We
5. Th
6. Fr
7. Sa

1. 1
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4
5. 5
6. 6
7. 7

   2

8. 8

   3

9. 9
10. 10

    3

11. 11
12. 12
13. 13
14. 14

    3

15. 15

    3

16. 16
17. 17
18. 18

    2

19. 19

    3

20. 20
21. 21

    4

22. 22

    2

23. 23

    4

24. 24
25. 25

    3

26. 26
27. 27
28. 28
29. 29
30. 30
31. 31

Trump

May

A calendar showing the 45 events in May that Donald Trump participated in.

1. Su
2. Mo
3. Tu
4. We
5. Th
6. Fr
7. Sa

1. 1

   2

2. 2

   2

3. 3
4. 4
5. 5
6. 6

   2

7. 7

   3

8. 8
9. 9

   2

10. 10

    2

11. 11
12. 12
13. 13
14. 14

    3

15. 15

    2

16. 16

    3

17. 17
18. 18
19. 19
20. 20
21. 21

    3

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    3

23. 23

    2

24. 24
25. 25
26. 26

    2

27. 27
28. 28
29. 29

    2

30. 30
31. 31

Mr. Trump’s campaign has been hampered by his required presence at his New York hush-money trial. Mr. Biden has been forced to juggle campaign visits with trying to manage two wars. And both men face competing interests as they look to remain in the public eye, visit the battleground states, map out competing agendas and raise money for what is expected to be one of the most expensive races ever.

Our reporters are cataloging the candidates’ public events, speeches, court appearances, fund-raisers,and interviews. What emerges is a window into the decision-making and strategy of the two campaigns.

Mr. Trump’s schedule largely reflects his court dates, while Mr. Biden’s is a mix of public appearances and fund-raisers.

Number of events in each state

Biden

Calif.

Del.

Ga.
3

Ill.

Mass.

Mich.

N.H.

N.Y.

Pa.

Va.

Wash.

Wis.
3

D.C.
15

Trump

Fla.

Mich.

Minn.

N.J.

N.Y.
16

N.C.

Ohio

Texas
3

Wis.
2

D.C.

For obvious reasons, Mr. Biden’s appearances and events are largely in Washington, while Trump’s are mostly in New York. Mr. Biden has also focused on attending fund-raisers in West Coast states like California and Washington.

Day by day

Wednesday, May 29

Trump

• Court appearance in New York City

  Manhattan trial

• Interview

  Interview on The Dan Bongino Show, a conservative radio host

Tuesday, May 28

Trump

• Court appearance

  Manhattan trial

Sunday, May 26

Trump

• Public appearance in Concord, N.C.

  With Gold Star families at NASCAR race

• Public appearance in Concord, N.C.

  With Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer and family of a slain officer

Saturday, May 25

Biden

• Speech in West Point, N.Y.

  Commencement address at West Point

• Public appearance in Wilmington, Del.

  St. Joseph on the Brandywine, a Catholic Church

• Public appearance in Wilmington, Del.

  Shopping at a Jos. A. Bank clothing store

Friday, May 24

Trump

• Interview

  “Fox & Friends”

Thursday, May 23

Biden

• Public appearance in Washington

  Photos at meeting with Kenyan President William Ruto

• Press conference in Washington

  News conference with Kenyan President

• Public appearance in Washington

  Greeting of Kenyan President

• Public appearance in Washington

  Remarks at state dinner for Kenyan President

Trump

• Rally in New York City

  In Crotona Park in the Bronx

• Interview

  Local TV interview with News 12, New York

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