Biden will block metal merger: The outgoing president, who has about two weeks left in his time period, has determined to make use of his final vestiges of energy to inform U.S. Metal that it could’t be bought by Japanese firm Nippon Metal, placing the kibosh on a $14.1 billion deal.
The administration is anticipated to announce this determination later as we speak, in line with individuals inside. The justification will apparently be nationwide security-related, which is very odd as a result of the 2 corporations have beforehand talked up how this merger will “fight the aggressive risk” posed by China. For his half, President-elect Donald Trump has additionally mentioned he would block the deal if it landed on his desk. Be aware that each President Joe Biden and Trump are most certainly responding to strain imposed by steelworkers unions inside the U.S., which have been vocal in opposition to the deal.
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After all, U.S. Metal nonetheless desires to be acquired. The issue is that the choices are dwindling. “Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., based mostly in neighboring Ohio, pursued US Metal earlier than Nippon Metal gained the bidding,” notes Bloomberg, “but it surely has since purchased a Canadian producer and waffled on whether or not it might nonetheless need all or a few of US Metal.”
Be aware too the disturbing precedent this units, when it comes to the forms of flimsy justifications that can be utilized to dam offers between corporations which have agreed to them. In just about all areas of regulatory coverage—and financial coverage extra broadly—Joe Biden has been a nightmare. Good riddance.
Seattle minimal wage hike forces closures: Shock, shock! The very factor libertarians and conservatives have been warning about for years, which has been born out in locality after locality, is now taking place in Seattle, Washington.
Beginning on January 1, the minimal wage within the metropolis has jumped to $20.76, up from $17.25. However be aware that the minimal wage is at all times and in all places $0—the enterprise you are employed by may at all times flip to mud, and that is what some have executed prematurely of this wage hike taking impact. A well-liked waffle store simply closed, with proprietor Corina Luckenbach citing the excessive price of labor as the primary cause. “That is financially simply not going to make sense anymore. As a result of, only for me, the rise would price me $32,000 extra a 12 months,” Luckenbach advised Fox 13 TV. Anticipate extra closures to observe.
Hell is a warning label: The surgeon basic has a brand new pronouncement to make: With a rising corpus of analysis purportedly linking alcohol to most cancers, warning labels should be affixed so that individuals will drink with warning. After all, this could require an act of Congress, so it is not clear that such a factor shall be prioritized.
“Many individuals on the market assume that so long as they’re ingesting on the limits or beneath the bounds of present tips of 1 a day for ladies and two for males, that there isn’t a threat to their well being or well-being,” mentioned Surgeon Common Vivek Murthy. “The information doesn’t bear that out for most cancers threat.” (Full advisory right here.)
That is basic Public Well being Mind in motion: Colour me skeptical that warning labels do jack shit. Although cultural change—resembling shifts away from cigarette smoking—can occur over time as new analysis emerges convincing individuals of a substance’s hurt, the warning labels have at all times struck me as wholly foolish.
Scenes from New York: I’ve returned from almost three weeks in Texas simply in time to get all riled up about this New Yr’s Eve subway shoving, wherein 23-year-old Kamel Hawkins pushed a 45-year-old man onto the tracks whereas a prepare was coming, severely injuring him. The sufferer is prone to survive, however the suspect ought to have confronted penalties for his violent conduct way back: He has an extended rap sheet and was already going through assault fees for throwing bleach on a girl. (“He isn’t a foul child,” his father advised The New York Occasions, which virtually no person believes.)
On New Yr’s Day, there have been two subway system stabbings: One in Morningside Heights, and the opposite close to 14th Avenue and seventh Avenue.
Felony assaults inside the system are up 55 % in 2024 in comparison with 2019 statistics—earlier than the pandemic despatched a number of straphangers out of the subway system, and launched lots of chaos inside. There have been 10 murders inside the system this previous 12 months, and 25 shovings onto the subway tracks.
Should you wished to color a rosier image of subway crime, you may level to the truth that there’s only one assault per 2 million rides. However these stats do not seize the variety of loopy, erratic, and threatening individuals with whom a rider should routinely deal, the grisly backdrop of a dysfunctional metropolis that may’t clear up this drawback even with a price range of $4 billion dedicated to it.
QUICK HITS
- “South Korean anti-corruption investigators didn’t arrest impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol after an almost six-hour standoff along with his safety staff on Friday, displaying tensions stay excessive even after he has been suspended from his duties,” reviews Bloomberg. Yoon, you would possibly recall, briefly imposed martial legislation final month earlier than being stopped by fellow politicians and mass protests.
- “China’s property meltdown has since 2021 destroyed round $18 trillion of Chinese language family wealth, in line with an estimate by Barclays, eclipsing the losses suffered by Individuals within the monetary crash of 2008-09,” reviews The Wall Avenue Journal. “That hit, together with the trauma of Beijing’s heavy-handed response to the Covid-19 pandemic, helps clarify why Chinese language customers aren’t spending freely.”
- Sen. John Thune, the Republican from South Dakota, will serve as Senate majority chief. Thune’s first problem shall be “shepherding a number of baggage-laden Trump nominees to affirmation within the intently divided Senate, the place he can afford to lose not more than three Republican votes if Democrats maintain collectively in opposition” per The New York Occasions.
- Bernie Sanders, H-1B visa opponent:
Elon Musk is incorrect.
The primary perform of the H-1B visa program is to not rent “the perfect and the brightest,” however fairly to interchange good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from overseas.
The cheaper the labor they rent, the extra money the billionaires make. pic.twitter.com/Mwz7i9TcSM
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) January 2, 2025
- The author Milli Hill paperwork situations of the phrase lady being culled from content material associated to being pregnant and breastfeeding. Her newest dispatch is the 54th version of documenting this phenomenon; peruse her archive if you would like to see how pervasive that is.
