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The Morning Risk Report: Regulators Feel the Heat After FTX Collapse
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Good morning. After years of hardly any regulation of the cryptocurrency sector, the collapse of FTX has increased pressure on U.S. government agencies to step up their game.
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Content from our Sponsor: DELOITTE
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Tech Trends 2023: Eyes to the Sky, Feet Firmly on the Ground
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Deloitte’s 14th annual Tech Trends report dives into the ongoing evolution of six foundational IT forces and looks ahead to potentially transformational business applications on the next technological horizon. Read More ›
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Gamers at a competition for ‘Call of Duty,’ an Activision videogame, in Columbus, Ohio, in May. PHOTO: JOE BRADY/GETTY IMAGES
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Activision Deal Challenged. The Federal Trade Commission Thursday sued Microsoft Corp. to block its planned $75 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc., taking one of its biggest shots under the Biden administration at halting a merger of technology giants.
Antitrust experts initially expected the deal for the “Call of Duty” publisher would clear government scrutiny. But allegations that workplace misconduct was rampant in the past at Activision created trouble for the company in Washington—including with progressive senators who called on the FTC to thoroughly investigate the deal, along with its potential impact on workers.
The FTC also asked a judge to halt Meta Platforms Inc.’s planned acquisition of a virtual-reality startup, a case that represents a shift in U.S. antitrust enforcement and poses a challenge to the Facebook parent’s metaverse strategy.
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U.S. sanctions Turkish businessmen. The Biden administration levied sanctions against several Turkish businessmen and more than two dozen Turkish companies that officials said were selling oil worth hundreds of millions of dollars for Iran’s terror-listed military unit. The action is a part of a broader effort to increase pressure on Tehran as talks over Iran’s nuclear program flounder, according to analysts.
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A powerful House committee investigating the Washington Commanders’ workplace culture issued a scathing report detailing what it described as team owner Dan Snyder‘s efforts to cover up his own alleged wrongdoing and the National Football League’s complicity in preventing key facts from coming to light.
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Women’s basketball star Brittney Griner has been released from a Russian penal colony and is being returned to the U.S. through a prisoner exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, which culminated on Thursday with a Cold War-style handover on an airport runway in Abu Dhabi.
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A mural depicting health checks before entry to a restaurant in Beijing. China dropped many of its zero-Covid controls this week. PHOTO: NG HAN GUAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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China Covid restrictions loosened. China’s easing of its zero-tolerance Covid-19 restrictions is likely to open the door to a wave of infections that could cause chaos and upwards of a million deaths, public health experts said, with some warning of ramifications beyond the country’s borders.
“It will put unprecedented strain on the Chinese health system,” said Xi Chen, a public health scientist at the Yale School of Public Health, adding: “It is expected that at least in the next couple of months, things will get chaotic and painful.”
A letter from the founder of Foxconn Technology Group, the world’s largest iPhone assembler played a major role in persuading China’s Communist Party leadership to accelerate plans to dismantle the country’s zero-tolerance Covid-19 policies, according to people familiar with the matter.
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Amtrak is asking federal regulators to investigate Union Pacific Corp. over delays its freight trains have inflicted on the Sunset Limited, a long-distance passenger route from New Orleans to Los Angeles that is its worst-performing route in the country.
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Ukraine’s foreign minister called on the country’s allies not to fear a possible breakup of the Russian state as a consequence of the war, while defending Kyiv’s right to strike targets on Russian soil and vowing that Ukraine would never accept a peace settlement that leaves occupied lands, including Crimea, under Moscow’s control.
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U.S. unemployment filings rose slightly last week, a sign the labor market remains tight despite layoffs at some companies and broader economic uncertainty.
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GE Healthcare has about $18 billion in annual revenue, compared with GE’s total revenue of $74.2 billion in 2021. PHOTO: DANIEL ACKER/REUTERS
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Post-spinoff plans. General Electric Co.’s healthcare division plans to cut debt, bring down costs and pursue tuck-in acquisitions after its spinoff in early January, finance chief Helmut Zodl said Thursday at an investor event in New York.
The financial goals come after GE’s board of directors last month approved the planned transaction, which was first unveiled in November 2021. Industrial conglomerate GE will split into three separate public companies by 2024. The spinoff of the healthcare unit, which will cost about $200 million, will put it in more direct competition with Siemens Healthineers AG, Royal Philips NV and Fujifilm Holdings Corp., according to analysts.
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Transmission lines from a retired coal plant that Air Products and AES are using as the site for the new green-hydrogen facility. PHOTO: RALPH LAUER/ZUMA PRESS
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Green hydrogen gets a boost. Industrial-gas manufacturer Air Products and Chemicals Inc. and power company AES Corp. are planning to build a $4 billion renewable-powered hydrogen factory in North Texas, the latest large investment in green energy since Congress passed significant tax credits for such projects.
The passage of U.S. legislation in August that offers tax incentives for clean-power projects is changing those economics and starting to make low-carbon hydrogen commercially viable, the companies said.
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