Retailers and technology companies powered stocks broadly higher on Wall Street on Thursday, extending the market’s record-setting run.

The Nasdaq composite climbed above 9,000 points for the first time as Apple led technology stocks higher. The Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index also climbed to new highs. The benchmark index is on track for its best year since 2013.

Thursday’s gains came as investors welcomed a report showing that a last-minute surge in online shopping helped lift holiday sales. The data gave a boost to shares of Amazon and big department store chains such as Macy’s and Nordstrom.

“That’s just a confirmation that the consumer is incredibly strong and resilient and helping to power the economy to better numbers,” said Jeff Kravetz, regional investment director for U.S. Bank Wealth Management.

The S&P 500 rose 16.53 points, or 0.5%, to 3,239.91. The index, which previously set a record high Monday, has finished with a weekly gain 10 of the last 11 weeks.

The Dow rose 105.94 points, or 0.4%, to 28,621.39. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite climbed 69.51 points, or 0.8%, to 9,022.39, extending its winning streak to 11 days.

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Smaller-company stocks lagged behind the broader market, leaving the Russell 2000 index essentially flat. The index slipped 0.34 points, or less than 0.1%, to 1,677.67.

Bond prices were little changed. The 10-year Treasury yield held steady at 1.90%.

Trading volume was lighter than usual Thursday as U.S. markets reopened after the Christmas holiday.

The major stock indexes are on pace to close out the year on a strong note after moving mostly higher since early October. Fears about a possible recession have faded since the summer after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates three times, and the central bank appears set to keep them low for a long time.

A “phase one” U.S.-China trade deal announced this month helped solidify investors’ optimism. The result has been a year-end market rally that has the 11 sectors in the S&P 500 on pace for solid to stellar gains.

Still, as traders turn their attention to 2020, fears about the outlook for the global economy remain, as do concerns over unresolved trade issues between Washington and Beijing. Next year also has the added complication of the U.S. presidential election.

“Trade will continue to be a factor that drives short-term market volatility,” Kravetz said. “But if you look at the other factors, the more fundamental economic factors — consumer and business sentiment — those are the ones which are really keeping investors in the game and more confident.”

The last five days of December and the first two of the new year have historically been a positive period for the market. Stocks have brought an average gain of 1.3% over that stretch since 1950, according to the Stock Trader’s Almanac.

Technology stocks continued to lead the way Thursday. The sector, which is on pace for its best year since 2009, is up 48.3% so far this year, well above the other sectors in the S&P 500. Apple was the sector’s biggest gainer for the day, climbing 2%.

Big retailers also rallied following a report from Mastercard SpendingPulse showing growth in holiday retail sales.

Amazon shares led the pack, climbing 4.5%, the biggest gain in the S&P 500. Macy’s shares rose 2.6%. Nordstrom advanced 1.8%, and Gap gained 1.6%

Healthcare stocks were the only decliners. Incyte fell 2.9%.

Other health-sector stocks fared better. Immunomedics climbed 5.7% after the biopharmaceutical company said that the FDA accepted its application for accelerated approval of a breast-cancer therapy.

Benchmark U.S. crude rose 57 cents to settle at $61.68 a barrel. Brent crude oil, the international standard, climbed 72 cents to close at $67.92 a barrel.

The rise in oil prices helped lift some energy-sector stocks. Diamondback Energy gained 1.3%.

Mining company stocks rose along with the price of gold, which climbed $9.60 to $1,514.40 an ounce. Newmont Goldcorp shares rose 1.2%, while Freeport-McMoRan shares advanced 1.4%.

There was only one job that robots could not do when Fast Retailing, the owner of Uniqlo, replaced 90% of its workers with robots at its flagship warehouse in Tokyo last year.

But now, with the help of a Japanese start-up called Mujin, the world’s third-largest retailer says it has cracked the final barrier to full automation, a priority for Uniqlo as Japan’s aging population creates labor shortages.

The two companies have invented a robot with two arms that can pick up soft T-shirts and place them neatly in boxes to be shipped to customers.

While it sounds easy, the ability to lift soft textiles has been a challenge for clumsy robotic arms. Add to this the need to sort through constantly changing seasonal clothes, in shades that are hard to distinguish and wrapped in various forms of packaging, and humans have always come out on top.

Even the most aggressive believers in automation, such as Amazon, still depend on human “pickers.”

“We’ve been putting off working with an apparel company because it’s so difficult,” said Issei Takino, co-founder and chief executive of Mujin. “But Fast Retailing’s strength is its ability to overhaul its entire supply chain to make it fit for automation. If we’re going to take on this challenge, we had to do it with Fast Retailing.”

Founded in 2011, Mujin develops robot motion and vision systems, such as 3-D cameras. After human operators set up a machine with Mujin controllers, it can see and move without having to be repeatedly programmed.

For Fast Retailing, which sells 1.3 billion items of clothing a year, the need for automation is urgent, given a shortage of workers and rising storage costs.

“It’s becoming extremely difficult to hire workers, and it’s a lot more than people think,” said Takuya Jimbo, a Fast Retailing executive in charge of changing the supply chain. “We have to be the front-runner and continue trial and error because only the companies that can update their business models can survive.”

The jointly developed robot, which was made by Yaskawa Electric Corp., is already operating in Fast Retailing’s main warehouse in Tokyo, but Takino admitted that the robot was not able to handle all of the facility’s products, and that it needed further development.

For instance, the plastic packaging of the thermal underwear in Uniqlo’s Heattech line is relatively simple for the robots to pick up, but this could become more difficult as Fast Retailing aims to switch to more eco-friendly paper bags.

The robots are able to pick up belts, but they typically become unbundled as they are dropped into boxes. One solution would be for Fast Retailing to ensure that belts are sold in bundled forms.

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YouTube spent 2019 answering critics with some of the most drastic changes in its 15-year history. With each step, it gave those activists, regulators and lawmakers more reasons to attack its free-wheeling, user-generated business model.

Susan Wojcicki, YouTube’s chief executive, announced her goals in April. “My top priority,” she wrote, “is responsibility.”

Her company spent the year trying to traverse an almost impossible tightrope: nurture a growing community of demanding creators, while pledging to police troubling videos and protect millions of underage users who officially shouldn’t even be watching. The efforts pleased almost no one and highlighted an existential quandary. Every time YouTube tries to fix something, the company, an arm of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, risks losing the neutrality that it needs to thrive.

“They know that every time they are successful catching problematic content or removing it, this just raises expectations,” said Mike Godwin, a senior fellow at think tank R Street Institute and a trustee of the Internet Society. “It’s a never-ending cycle of increasing demands for these dominant platforms to operate fairly.”

As 2020 begins, the largest online video service is being dragged deeper into political fights over privacy, copyright and content moderation. In response, YouTube is trying to preserve the sanctity of its status as an online platform with little liability for what happens on its site. Instead, that burden is increasingly falling on the shoulders of regulators, video creators and other partners.

Nowhere is that more evident than YouTube’s approach to kids. A landmark privacy settlement this year with the Federal Trade Commission is forcing YouTube to split its massive site in two. Every clip, starting in January, must be designated as “made for kids” or not. The overhaul puts billions of ad dollars at stake and has sparked panic among creators, who also now face new legal risk. The company isn’t offering creators legal advice or ways to salvage their businesses. It isn’t even defining what a “made for kids” video is on YouTube — and has argued to the government that it shouldn’t have to.

“Creators will make those decisions themselves,” Wojcicki said recently. “Creators know their content best.”

YouTube privately considered taking more control. Earlier this year, it assembled a team of more than 40 employees to brace for the FTC decision. The team was code-named Crosswalk — as in a way to guide kids across YouTube’s chaotic streets.

Among its proposals was a radical one, at least by the standards of Silicon Valley: YouTube would screen every video aimed at kids younger than 8 in its YouTube Kids app, ensuring that no untoward content crept into the feed of millions of tots around the world. A news release was even drafted in which Wojcicki said professional moderators would check each clip, according to people familiar with the plans. Yet at the last minute, the CEO and her top deputies ditched the plan, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.

The rationale was clear to some at YouTube, one person involved in the project recalled. Hand-picking videos, even for kids, made YouTube look too much like a media company, not a neutral platform. A YouTube spokeswoman denied the idea was turned down because it put the company in charge of programming, but she declined to comment further on the decision. In a recent interview, Wojcicki made it clear that her content-moderation push only goes so far, telling CBS News that even being liable for video recommendations would destroy the essence of the service.

“If we were held liable for every single piece of content that we recommended, we would have to review it,” she said. “That would mean there would be a much smaller set of information that people would be finding. Much, much smaller.”

YouTube’s balancing act between media publisher or hands-off internet bulletin board has sparked intense debate internally. For some business partners and employees, this year’s decisions leave them with the impression that the company is unable to take a serious stand.

“What is the mission of this company? People don’t even know,” said Claire Stapleton, a former YouTube marketing manager who left this year after clashing with Google over employee protests. “YouTube is so ill-equipped to manage these massive challenges.”

The YouTube spokeswoman said the company has made significant investments to better protect its online community. Over the last 18 months, the results of this effort include an 80% reduction in views of videos that violate its policies. YouTube also increased viewership on videos from “authoritative news publishers” by 60%, according to the spokeswoman.

“While there will always be healthy debate around this work, we’ll continue to make the hard decisions needed to better protect the openness of the YouTube platform and the community that depends on it,” she added in a statement.

No episode in 2019 typified YouTube’s arduous search for middle ground more than the Maza affair. In June, gay journalist and YouTube creator Carlos Maza accused Steven Crowder, a conservative YouTuber, of repeated harassment. The Vox reporter put together a montage of clips from Crowder’s YouTube channel to highlight what Maza said were homophobic and racist insults.

After saying it would review Maza’s complaints, YouTube concluded the comments were not in violation of its policies, angering some of its own employees. YouTube staff held a private call to explain its rationale to Maza, who remained unconvinced. “It was very awkward,” he recalled.

Crowder, meanwhile, devoted a 21-minute video rehashing his comments. After days of criticism, YouTube removed ads from his videos, angering him.

At a conference about a week later, Wojcicki apologized to the LGBTQ community, but defended YouTube’s decision to keep Crowder’s videos on the site. Removing his clips, or banning him from YouTube, would have put the company in an untenable situation, with millions of viewers asking “what about this one?” for hundreds of comedy, hip-hop and late-night TV-show videos, the CEO said.

Two months later, a group of LGBTQ YouTube creators filed a class-action lawsuit accusing the company of discrimination. The case mirrored similar charges from across the ideological aisle — a filing from PragerU, a conservative video channel, which has accused YouTube of censorship. In fact, the lawsuits were brought by the same attorney. “It just looks like YouTube is taking the maximum amount of time for a solution that pleases no one,” said Stapleton, the former employee.

YouTube spent the months after the Maza episode rewriting its harassment policy. The update, announced earlier this month, set new rules that would now treat Crowder’s videos as violations subject to removal. Like clockwork, the decision riled other creators. Felix Kjellberg, YouTube’s biggest star, who posts as PewDiePie, declared he was leaving the video site and blamed the new policy.

“We have this anarchy system, okay,” he said. “If YouTube knows what’s good for them, they’ll keep their [expletive] hands out… Don’t come and ruin it for us.”

While criticism comes from all sides, YouTube’s challenge is practically insurmountable: More than 500 hours of footage are uploaded every minute. And the company’s software is still unable to gain a thorough understanding of the content before people start watching.

“You are trying to keep free speech going and, at the same time, you’re trying to make sure crud doesn’t get in, and trying to make sure that people who watch aren’t getting affected. It’s a really, really, really hard problem,” said Diya Jolly, a former YouTube executive who left in 2017. “Susan is doing an awesome job.”

Wojcicki’s task is set to become even more difficult. The European Parliament has approved rules that make YouTube liable the moment anyone uploads a video that violates a copyright. That could force YouTube to take down content from popular creators, while hiking its legal bills and hurting ad sales. Wojcicki used Google’s political muscle and invited creators to lobby against the regulation, but she has failed to stop it. According to one former senior employee, the fight often claimed as much of the executive team’s attention in 2019 as the more-public battles over children’s privacy and inappropriate content.

Even in the U.S., the walls are closing in around YouTube. Republican and Democratic lawmakers have proposed peeling back protections that have shielded internet companies from liability for decades. YouTube’s dominance may draw antitrust scrutiny. Lawmakers are also considering tougher copyright laws, egged on by YouTube’s rivals in media and music. “That’s where there is a lot of money at stake, and people have valid objections,” said Jeff Kosseff, an assistant professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and an expert on internet law.

For now, though, YouTube’s biggest challenge is kids’ privacy. In September, the FTC fined Google for illegally tracking children for its ads business, forcing significant changes to YouTube’s operations. On Nov. 13, YouTube sent an email to tens of thousands of creators about the coming “made for kids” designation. If marked as “made for kids,” videos will lose lucrative personalized ads and other valuable features, including user comments. If clips aren’t labeled this way, and the government decides the footage is indeed reaching children, creators can be fined thousands of dollars.

“We know this won’t be easy for some creators, and that this required change is going to take some getting used to,” the company wrote in the email. YouTube has also advised many of them to “lawyer up,” according to partners. A recent regulatory filing went further, with Google estimating the changes will mean YouTube creators “who make mostly child-directed content will likely lose a majority of their revenue.”

In contrast, YouTube itself emerged relatively unscathed. Google paid a $170 million fine, a tiny sliver of its profit. The FTC settlement on the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, focused on YouTube, not other parts of Google. The internet giant worked hard to limit any broader effects on the rest of its businesses, according to one former executive. Best of all for YouTube, it doesn’t need to screen clips before they go up, nor is it liable for any infringing videos.

The FTC is now rewriting its COPPA rules and has invited public comment. In a filing, Google told the agency it was worried about any laws forcing it to “identify and police” videos aimed at kids. The company was, in effect, arguing it couldn’t know for sure the age of its audience and shouldn’t be punished for that.

Critics were appalled. Lindsey Barrett, a staff attorney at Georgetown Law’s Communications & Technology Clinic who worked with complainants in the FTC case, found it hard to imagine the contortions required for Google to make this argument. “Our entire business is based on being able to slice and dice our audience, and see who’s watching what,” she said. “But we couldn’t possibly tell you if there’s a child here!”

The YouTube spokeswoman said the company has done its best to comply with its COPPA obligations, as it understands them, and has asked the FTC for more clarification on the rules.

The company is “not answering the questions everyone wants,” said Greg Alkalay, chief executive officer of BatteryPOP, a children’s media company. “YouTube’s success comes from its creators. They built a beast and don’t know how to wrangle it.”

Bergen and Shaw write for Bloomberg.

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JERUSALEM — 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has won a landslide victory in a primary election for leadership of the ruling Likud party, giving the embattled leader an important boost ahead of the country’s third election in less than a year.

Official results announced early Friday showed Netanyahu capturing 72% of the votes, compared with 28% for challenger Gideon Saar.

The strong showing by Israel’s longest-serving leader could give him another opportunity to form a government following the March election, after falling short in two previous attempts this year. The apparent victory over Likud lawmaker Saar also keeps alive Netanyahu’s hopes of winning immunity from prosecution after being indicted last month on a series of corruption charges.

“A giant victory,” Netanyahu tweeted early Friday, just over an hour after polls closed.

“Thanks to the members of Likud for the trust, support and love,” he said. “God willing, I will lead Likud to a big victory in the coming elections.”

In a tweet, Saar congratulated Netanyahu and said he would support the prime minister in the national election. “I am absolutely comfortable with my decision to run,” he added. “Whoever isn’t ready to take a risk for the path he believes in will never win.”

The result of the primary will also prolong Israel’s political uncertainty. Despite Likud’s strong position, the March vote was expected to leave the party and its main rival, the centrist Blue and White, unable to form a government on their own, and Netanyahu’s lingering legal troubles could again scuttle efforts to form a unity government.

Israeli TV stations, reporting partial results from polling stations across the country, estimated that Netanyahu had received 70% to 80% of the votes cast. Turnout was just under 50% of the party’s 116,000 members, with many voters apparently staying home because of cold, rainy weather.

Netanyahu, who has led the country for the last decade, has maintained his position atop the political right by cultivating an image as a veteran statesman with close ties to U.S. President Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other world leaders.

His refusal over the last decade to make any concessions to the Palestinians was rewarded after Trump took office, as the U.S. began openly siding with Israel on several key issues, validating Netanyahu’s approach in the eyes of many Israelis and adding to his mystique.

Netanyahu’s hard-line approach to Iran has also proved popular. He was a staunch opponent of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which has unraveled since Trump withdrew from the agreement. A wave of Israeli strikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq has burnished Netanyahu’s claims to having protected Israel from its enemies.

His fortunes have nevertheless waned over the last year after he was unable to form a government following unprecedented back-to-back elections in March and September. His party came in second place in September’s elections, leading many observers to view the vote as the beginning of the end.

In November, Netanyahu was indicted on charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes, the culmination of three long-running corruption investigations. The Blue and White party, led by former army chief of staff Benny Gantz, has refused to sit in a government led by an indicted prime minister.

Netanyahu has vowed to remain in office, dismissing the indictment as an “attempted coup” by hostile media and law enforcement.

Opinion polls have forecast a similar outcome in the March vote, with Likud and Blue and White leading the pack and Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party emerging as the kingmaker. Lieberman has refused to endorse Netanyahu or Gantz, saying he will serve only in a unity government. That could signal months of paralysis after the next election.

Reuven Hazan, a political science professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said a victory for Netanyahu would have no effect on the general election.

“It just means that the faithful have circled the wagons. It means nothing for the elections except that he looks good. He looks strengthened,” Hazan said. “It simply means that he’s managed to maintain control of the party.”

Netanyahu appeared rejuvenated in recent weeks as he hit the campaign trail, doing several live events a day in which he rallied supporters in small gatherings and face-to-face meetings.

“The Likudniks have witnessed an astonishing event play out in the past two weeks, in which a 70-year-old leader who has had his fill of terms in office has thrown himself at every last registered party member,” Israeli columnist Ben Caspit wrote in the Maariv daily.

The approach appears to have paid off and may serve as a template for a more effective general election campaign. In the meantime, Israel will remain in limbo for at least two more months.

Netanyahu is desperate to remain in office, where he is best positioned to fight the corruption charges. Israeli law does not require a sitting prime minister to resign if indicted. Netanyahu hopes that the coming election will deliver him a majority of lawmakers in favor of granting him immunity from prosecution.

“His game is not to get seats. His game is to be prime minister because that is a shield from indictment,” Hazan said.

Despite the apparent victory, Netanyahu has many hurdles ahead.

The Supreme Court is set next week to begin considering whether an indicted member of parliament can be tasked with forming a new government. Its decision could potentially disqualify Netanyahu from leading the next government. It’s not clear when a ruling would be handed down.

The political uncertainty has led the Trump administration to delay the release of its long-anticipated Mideast peace plan.

The Palestinians have already rejected the plan, saying the administration is hopelessly and unfairly biased toward Israel. They point to Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, to cut off virtually all aid to the Palestinians and to reverse long-standing opposition to Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 war.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu has said Israel is on the cusp of securing U.S. support for the annexation of large parts of the occupied West Bank — but only if he remains in power.

That would virtually extinguish the Palestinians’ hopes of one day establishing an independent state, but it would cement Netanyahu’s legacy as perhaps the most successful right-wing leader in the country’s history.

HOUSTON — 

A 41-year-old Congolese woman died Wednesday in U.S. government custody shortly after she entered a border station in south Texas, Customs and Border Protection said Thursday.

The agency said the woman, whom it did not identify, had arrived at an official port of entry in Laredo, Texas, early Tuesday afternoon. The woman came with paperwork that documented a “previous medical condition,” Customs and Border Protection said. The agency’s medical personnel cleared her to be detained overnight.

According to the agency, the woman told officers early Wednesday that “she was suffering from abdominal pain and had vomited.” The agency says it contacted emergency personnel “immediately” and had her taken to a hospital.

“The subject’s health declined rapidly and she passed away at the hospital,” a statement said.

Customs and Border Protection did not disclose the woman’s preexisting medical condition or whether she had tried to enter the U.S. previously. Agents at official crossings between the U.S. and Mexico have stopped tens of thousands of asylum seekers from entering the country under policies enacted by the Trump administration, limiting crossings at many ports to just a few people daily and forcing others to wait in Mexico.

The agency says the Webb County medical examiner “has determined that the death is not suspicious, as the individual had a preexisting medical condition.”

Customs and Border Protection declined to answer follow-up questions about the case. The medical examiner’s office and the embassy for the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Washington did not return messages Thursday.

At least 11 people died this year after entering CBP’s custody, according to statements posted on the agency’s website. Those people include a 16-year-old teenager from Guatemala who died of the flu inside a Border Patrol cell in Weslaco, Texas, in May. Surveillance video later showed Hernandez had been lying unresponsive for several hours despite the agency’s claims that it did regular checks on him.

The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general last week cleared CBP of any wrongdoing in the deaths of two children last December, 7-year-old Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin and 8-year-old Felipe Gomez Alonzo. Both cases raised questions about whether the children received medical care quickly enough.

Jakelin was not transported from a remote border outpost to a larger Border Patrol station for seven hours. Felipe was taken to a hospital in New Mexico with a fever, released, than taken with his father to a holding facility at a highway checkpoint. Several hours later, after agents had helped clean up his vomit, he was taken back to a hospital where he soon died.

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TOKYO — 

Japan on Friday approved a contentious plan to send naval forces to the Middle East to ensure the safety of Japanese ships transporting oil to the energy-poor country that heavily depends on imports from the region.

The Cabinet’s decision reflects tensions that have escalated between Iran and the U.S. since President Trump withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal.

”Taking into consideration the escalating tension in the Middle East, it is necessary to strengthen our information-gathering effort,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said during a news conference. Citing Japan’s heavy dependence on oil imports from the region, Suga added that “it is extremely important to secure the safe navigation of Japan-affiliated ships.”

Despite being a U.S. ally, Japan’s troop dispatch is not part of a U.S.-led coalition protecting Middle East waterways, apparently an attempt to maintain neutrality in a show of consideration to Iran.

Under the plan, Japan will send about 260 Maritime Self-Defense Force personnel with a destroyer and a pair of P-3C reconnaissance aircraft, mainly for intelligence-gathering in the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait connecting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Defense Minister Taro Kono issued an order for the troops to start preparing for the operation, which is planned for one year beginning early next year.

Kono is to visit Djibouti on the eastern coast of Africa and Oman this weekend to discuss Japan’s mission. Japanese troops have been based in Djibouti as part of an international antipiracy effort off the Somali coast, and a P-3C unit currently in that operation will be shifted to the new mission in January, he said.

Japan will stay away from the Strait of Hormuz, where the U.S.-led coalition is operating.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe explained the plan to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani when Rouhani visited Tokyo last week.

Japan, which has friendly ties with both Iran and the U.S., also seeks to serve as a mediator between the two and play a greater role in restoring stability in the region, officials said.

The Middle East supplies more than 80% of Japan’s oil needs.

Sending warships to areas of military tension is a highly sensitive issue in Japan because its pacifist post-World War II constitution limits the use of force by the military strictly to self-defense. Abe, however, has gradually expanded Japan’s military role in recent years.

In June, a Japanese-operated tanker was attacked in the Gulf of Oman. Washington said Iran was responsible and urged Japan to join the U.S.-led military initiative.

Takashi Tsukioka, chairman of the Petroleum Assn. of Japan, welcomed a troop dispatch in a statement: “The Middle East situation continues to be uncertain and we believe it will contribute to the safety of ship navigation in the Middle East.”

MOSCOW — 

Russia’s defense minister reported to President Vladimir Putin that a new hypersonic weapon of intercontinental range became operational Friday following years of tests.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu informed Putin that the first missile unit equipped with the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle entered combat duty, the Defense Ministry said.

Putin unveiled the Avangard among other prospective weapons systems in his state-of-the-nation address in March 2018, noting that its ability to make sharp maneuvers on its way to a target will render missile defense useless.

The Russian leader described the Avangard’s creation as a technological breakthrough comparable to the 1957 Soviet launch of the first satellite.

Earlier this week, Putin emphasized that Russia is the only country armed with hypersonic weapons. He noted that for the first time in history Russia is now leading the world in developing an entire new class of weapons, unlike in the past when it was catching up with the United States.

The military said that the Avangard is capable of flying 27 times faster than the speed of sound.

Russian media reports indicated that the Avangard will first be mounted on Soviet-built RS-18B intercontinental ballistic missiles, code-named SS-19 by NATO. It is expected to be fitted to the prospective Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile after it becomes operational.

The Defense Ministry said last month that it demonstrated the Avangard to a team of U.S. inspectors as part of transparency measures under the New Start nuclear arms treaty with the U.S.

The U.S. has mulled new defense strategies to counter hypersonic weapons developed by Russia and China.

U.S. officials have talked about putting a layer of sensors in space to more quickly detect enemy missiles, particularly the hypersonic weapons. The administration also plans to study the idea of basing interceptors in space, so the U.S. can strike incoming enemy missiles during the first minutes of flight when the booster engines are still burning.

The Pentagon also has been working on the development of hypersonic weapons in recent years, and Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in August that he believes “it’s probably a matter of a couple of years” before the U.S. has one. He has called it a priority as the military works to develop new long-range fire capabilities.

Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto says that handing this year’s Singapore Grand Prix to Sebastian Vettel was all about boosting the German driver’s confidence.

Charles Leclerc had dominated the early stages of the race at Marina Bay, leading Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and his Scuderia teammate until the latter undercut both drivers during the event’s single pit stop rotation.

However, Ferrari refrained from swapping its drivers, leaving Vettel to lead Leclerc to the checkered flag and collect his first – and only – win of 2019.

Mercedes’ Cowell concedes Ferrari engine superiority

The decision deprived Leclerc of a third consecutive triumph after Spa and Monza, but for Binotto, the win delivered something more important to team and driver.

“In the first part of the season he [Vettel] has been put under a lot of pressure,” explained Binotto. “I think he reacted very well in the second half.

“The victory in Singapore has been key for him, not only for the victory itself, but for the trust in the team. He knew that he could count on the team for help, if necessary.

“But I think it was right, it was the right choice and time to let him win.”

©Ferrari