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I saw the sentence like
Donald Trump to run for president next month.
in the newspaper on the internet.
But I don't know why we have to use to instead of will.
Is there any rule I don't know?
Can anyone tell me the reason why we should use to in the news?
With the future, the infinitive form expresses intention whereas will + <VERB> can express either an intention or the inevitable.
Consider this scenario:
Thousands of scientists worldwide agree that the polar ice cap will melt, based on their careful observations, unless measures are taken to dramatically reduce emissions of so-called greenhouse gases.
How might the headline read?
POLAR ICE-CAP TO MELT
POLAR ICE-CAP WILL MELT
Does the polar-ice cap intend to melt? No. So the verb would be will.
But let's say a government plans to cut the budget of its environmental watchdog agency. That is their intention.
GOVT TO CUT BUDGET OF ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY
GOVT WILL CUT BUDGET OF ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY
There, the choice is less clear. Probably the infinitive, but not necessarily.
Hard to say definitively without seeing the article in question, but often a newspaper headline will use the "to" phrasing as an abbreviation for "set to" or "plans to" or something similar. This is not something specific to news, per se, but rather indicates a slightly different meaning than will.
In this particular case, I'd guess that the headline is a shorter version of "Donald Trump plans to run for president next month." It's likely that if you compare the date of publication against the date Donald Trump either a) publicly announced his intention to run for president or b) filed the official paperwork necessary to run for president, you'll find that the article was published before either of those things happened.
Likely, the reporter writing the article had a source telling them that Donald Trump was planning to run for president, but Trump did not tell the reporter himself that he was going to run, nor did Trump make any sort of formal announcement that he would run, so the reporter did not want to say "will" because "will" would imply a certainty that the reporter did not have.
Alternatively, if the reporter did know for certain that Trump was planning to run for president, the use of "to" instead of "will" could simply be a style choice meant to keep the headline in present tense instead of future tense. Even with confirmation that something is officially set to happen, newspapers are still typically hesitant to use a "will happen" type of phrasing because you never know what could happen in the future. They simply report what the case is at the time of publication.
