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What’s
News
Business & Finance
 Giant investment firms
are pushing into new busi-
ness areas, blurring the lines
that define who does what
on Wall Street and nudging
once-dominant banks to-
ward the sidelines. A1
 Salesforce’s talks to ac-
quire Informatica, which
could have been valued at
about $10 billion, have fiz-
zled after the companies
couldn’t agree on terms. B1
 Business leaders are send-
ing a warning to staff: Dis-
sent that disrupts the work-
place won’t be tolerated. A1
 Dozens of companies al-
tered descriptions of diver-
sity, equity and inclusion ini-
tiatives in their annual
reports to investors as DEI
programs come under legal
and political threat. B1
 Co-working space provider
WeWork plans to exit bank-
ruptcy without taking on
more loans to fund the rest of
its chapter 11 proceedings. B6
 The UAW win at a VW plant
in Tennessee is expected to trig-
ger fiercer battles in the South
between union organizers and
elected officials and others re-
sistant to their campaigns. A2
 The House on Saturday
easily passed a bill that
would force a sale or ban of
TikTok, which is owned by
China-based ByteDance. A4
World-Wide
 The House vote to approve
funding for Ukraine comes at
a desperate moment for the
country’s beleaguered de-
fenders and holds the pros-
pect of helping them stave
off a Russian onslaught at
the last possible moment. A1
 The passage of the foreign-
aid package came after Speaker
Mike Johnson put his political
career on the line to push the
measure past intense Republi-
can opposition. A5
 The Supreme Court will
hear arguments on how far
municipalities can go in pro-
hibiting camping on public
property, laws that police em-
ploy to clear homeless people
from parks and streets. A3
 The Senate has passed
legislation renewing a contro-
versial foreign spying power,
prevailing over objections
from privacy advocates. A6
 Hamas’s political leadership
is looking to move from its base
in Qatar, as U.S. legislators build
pressure on the Gulf state to
deliver on cease-fire negotia-
tions that look likely to fail. A8
 Niger has formally ordered
the U.S. to withdraw counter-
terrorism troops, derailing an
American strategy to defeat a
violent Islamist insurgency. A9
 Died: Terry Anderson, re-
porter abducted in Lebanon in
1985 and held hostage for al-
most seven years, 76. A2
JOURNAL REPORT
Alternative Energy:
The Ins and Outs of
Hybrid Cars R1-7
CONTENTS
Arts in Review.........A13
Business & Finance...B2
Business News.......B3,5
Closed-End Funds.........B8
Crossword....................A14
Heard on Street.......B10
s 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2024 ~ VOL. CCLXXXIII NO. 94 WSJ.com
NASDAQ 15282.01 g 5.5%
ANATOLII STEPANOV/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Ukrainian gunners, starved for ammunition, firing a howitzer on a Russian position in the Kharkiv region on Sunday.
Dirty Money Flies Under Radar
At World’s Busiest Airports
BY MARGOT PATRICK
Jo-Emma Larvin wheeled a
baggage cart piled with suit-
cases through London’s
Heathrow Airport in August
2020 and handed her passport
to an Emirates Airline agent
for a flight to Dubai.
Larvin was traveling busi-
ness class with another
woman and together they
heaved seven heavy suitcases
onto the conveyor belt. She
exchanged texts with her boy-
friend en route to the security
line.
“Do you feel ok?” he asked.
Bosses Funds Depose Banks as Wall Street Kings
Lose Their
Patience
With Staff
Activists
Business leaders are sending
a warning to staff: Dissent that
disrupts the workplace won’t
be tolerated.
By Vanessa Fuhrmans,
Miles Kruppa and
Lauren Weber
Google’s decision to fire 28
workers involved in sit-in pro-
tests against the tech giant’s
cloud-computing contract with
the Israeli government is the
most recent and starkest exam-
ple of companies’ stricter stance.
Rifts with employees have
spilled into public view at Na-
tional Public Radio, the New
York Times and other work-
places. Bosses are losing pa-
tience with staff eager to be the
conscience of their companies,
especially as employees pres-
sure them on charged issues
such as politics and the war in
Markets Digest.....B7 Gaza, executives, board mem-
Opinion............. A15-17
Personal Journal A11-12
bers and C-suite advisers said.
Sports....................... A14 The moves are a shift from
Technology.............. B4 the past several years, when
U.S. News........... A2-6 corporate leaders often brooked
World News..... A8-9
dissent and encouraged staff to
voice their personal convictions.
> On issues such as immigra-
tion policy and racial justice,
Please turn to page A8
 Pro-Palestinian activists
hold firm................................ A6
STOXX 600 499.29 g 1.2%
“Yes phew,” Larvin wrote.
The suitcases carried millions
of dollars worth of British
pounds wrapped with rubber
bands and bundled in plastic.
The money was headed to
an international money laun-
derer who charged a hefty fee
to clients to exchange cash for
gold or other currencies. His
preferred route was to Dubai
from Heathrow, Nos. 1 and 2
of the world’s busiest airports
for international passengers.
The U.K. requires passen-
gers to tell customs authori-
ties if they are leaving the
country with more than the
BY MATT WIRZ
Giant investment companies
are taking over the financial
system.
Top firms control sums ri-
valing the economies of many
large countries. They are push-
ing into new businesses, blur-
ring the lines that define who
does what on Wall Street and
nudging once-dominant banks
toward the sidelines.
Today, traditional and alter-
native asset managers control
twice as many assets as U.S.
banks, giving them increasing
control over the purse strings
of the U.S. economy.
The firms—such as Black-
stone, Franklin Templeton,
BlackRock and KKR—are be-
For Runners’ Friends, Marathon
Spectating Is a Sport of Its Own
i i
Serial watchers prep like athletes and race
to meeting points; inflatable banana as ‘beacon’
BY JULIA MUNSLOW
Marathon day is a whirlwind
for Steven Senzer, especially at
the big ones.
From unpredictable
weather to road clo-
sures and traffic, it
is a challenge. And
then there’s the big
inflatable banana he Ready to
schleps around.
Senzer isn’t a marathoner—
at least, not one who’s running
on the 26.2-mile course.
He’s a serious spectator. He
HHHH $5.
10-YR. TREASURY g 28/32 , yield 4.613%
equivalent of around $10,000,
but Larvin didn’t, risking ar-
rest. The seven suitcases en-
tered Heathrow’s baggage
handling system and slid
through a 3-D scanner that
checked only for explosives
and other potentially danger-
ous items.
The next morning, the
women collected their luggage
in Dubai without having too
much to worry about: Any
amount of cash is allowed to
enter the United Arab Emir-
ates, as long as it is declared.
The women followed signs to
customs and told authorities
$40trillion Assets
30
Banks
Fund Managers
20
10
0 institutions and the wealthy,
2008 ’10
Sources: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve (bank assets);
ICI/Preqin/HFR (fund assets under management)
coming more complex and
more similar to one another all
at once. Investors said this
creates risks markets have
never encountered before.
Fund-manager executives
i
and others like him fight surg-
ing crowds, unfamiliar public
transportation and glitchy
tracking apps to cheer on their
loved ones. He brings the giant
fake fruit so his wife can spot
him on the sidelines.
Senzer, 37, works at
a restaurant tech com-
pany and lives in
run Needham, Mass., with
his wife, Danielle Sen-
zer, 38, a speech therapist and
real-estate agent. As a true
trailing spouse, he’s followed
Please turn to page A10
OIL $83.14 g $2.52 EURO $1.0658 YEN 154.65
U.S. Aid
On Track
As Kyiv
Barely
Holds On
Bill expected to clear
Congress this week;
Zelensky says help is
desperately needed
BY DANIEL MICHAELS
AND JAMES MARSON
The House vote to approve
$60 billion in funding for
Ukraine comes at a desperate
moment for the country’s be-
leaguered defenders and holds
the prospect of helping them
stave off a Russian onslaught
at the last possible moment.
If approved by the Senate,
as is widely expected, and
then signed into law by Presi-
dent Biden as soon as Tues-
day, the bill will unleash a
flood of equipment that U.S.
forces have positioned for
quick deployment.
But given Ukraine’s dire
battlefield position and ad-
vances by Moscow’s forces
over recent months, the help
they had brought the equiva- is unlikely to dramatically re-
lent of $2.8 million. verse Kyiv’s fortunes.
Most airports worldwide, Ukraine faces severe man-
including in the U.S., don’t power shortages on the front,
scan passenger luggage for and President Volodymyr Zel-
cash, a costly undertaking in ensky said this month that
equipment and personnel. Russian troops are firing 10
Countries where all money is artillery shells for every one
welcome have no obligation to that his soldiers fire.
report about suitcases full of In a Sunday interview on
cash arriving from abroad. NBC, Zelensky thanked the
The loopholes allow billions of House and urged the Senate to
dollars worth of cash to fly Please turn to page A8
out of the U.K. and elsewhere
to countries with fewer rules,  Democrats seek lift from
law-enforcement officials said. pair of weekend wins..... A4
Money launderers surrepti-  Johnson pushes Kyiv aid
Please turn to page A10 past party objections...... A5
tive,” investing. Private equity
has minted more billionaires
than any other industry in re-
cent years, according to data
from Forbes.
Huge fund-management
companies are bulking up by
offering new types of products
to capture market share. The
biggest are evolving into finan-
cial supermarkets, mostly for
’15 ’20 but increasingly for middle-
class investors as well. Banks
consolidated similarly in the
decade leading up to the fi-
insist the expansion, as strik- nancial crisis.
ing as it is, remains in its early Private-equity and private-
innings. That is good news for Please turn to page A2
them because fast growth is
bringing them vast wealth, es-  JPMorgan Chase closes
pecially in private, or “alterna- historic branch .................... B1
INSIDE
ADAM SCHULTZ/THE WHITE HOUSE/ZUMA PRESS
DARRON CUMMINGS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
U.S. NEWS SPORTS
Behind the scenes as How Nike prevailed in
White House raced to the battle to land
ease tensions between Caitlin Clark shoe-
Israel, Iran. A6 brand contract. A14
 A2 | Monday, April 22, 2024
U.S. NEWS
Unions Eye Gains in the South After Tennessee Win
BY KRIS MAHER
AND ARIAN CAMPO-FLORES
The United Auto Workers’
first-ever victory at a foreign
automaker in the South marks
a momentous gain for unions
in a region that traditionally
has been hostile to organized
labor and is now in the midst
of a manufacturing boom.
The win, in the face of stiff
opposition from six Southern
governors who said unioniza-
tion would imperil jobs and fu-
ture investments, is expected
to trigger fiercer battles be-
tween organizers and elected
officials and others resistant
to their campaigns.
“The business community
in right-to-work Southern
states has largely been im-
mune to sustained, well-
funded organizing drives,”
said Michael Lotito, co-chair of
the Workplace Policy Institute
at Littler, a law firm that ad-
vises employers on labor is-
sues. “It seems those days may
be coming to an end.”
The UAW succeeded Friday
in organizing about 4,300
workers at a Volkswagen
plant in Chattanooga, Tenn.,
winning 73% of workers who
cast ballots. Union officials
said the win showed the
MARK DUNCAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former hostage and Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson rides in a parade in Lorain, Ohio, on June 22, 1992,
after his release from captivity in Lebanon. He was kidnapped and held for almost seven years by Hezbollah.
CORRECTIONS 
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UAW’s stronger position after
securing pay raises in last
year’s strike at the Big Three
automakers, as well as greater
receptivity to unions, espe-
cially among younger work-
ers.
Labor leaders said they
hope to capitalize on the mo-
mentum. A test will come next
month when about 5,000
workers at a Mercedes-Benz
plant near Tuscaloosa, Ala.,
are expected to vote on
whether to join the UAW.
“One of the things that his-
tory teaches us is that orga-
nizing is a little bit conta-
gious,” said Christian
Sweeney, deputy organizing
director with the AFL-CIO.
“Workers in the South are say-
ing, ‘Wait a minute, we’re
working for wildly profitable
companies.’ ”
Others cautioned that orga-
nizers still face substantial
hurdles in the South. The
UAW’s victory in Chattanooga
was its third try after initially
losing a vote there a decade
ago.
“The South has a very
strong tradition of indepen-
dence among workers,” said
Arthur Wheaton, director of
labor studies at the Cornell
University School of Industrial
U.S.WATCH
Big Funds
Supplant
Banks
Continued from Page One
debt funds, such as Apollo
Global Management and Black-
stone, mostly manage money
for institutions, but are in-
creasingly selling products to
individual investors. Mutual-
fund behemoths, including
BlackRock, are growing bigger
still by building or buying pri-
vate-fund operations.
Asset managers are also sup-
planting banks as lenders to U.S.
companies and consum-
ers and intertwining with the
insurance industry.
Top private-fund executives
said they require long-term cli-
ent commitments, making
them more stable than de-
posit-dependent banks such
as Silicon Valley Bank.
“We’re moving into a gray
area as asset-management busi-
nesses move into different silos
of financial services,” said Tyler
Cloherty, a managing director at
consulting firm Deloitte who ad-
vises fund managers. “The big
question I’m getting is ‘What do
we do around getting alterna-
tives to retail clients?’ There’s a
lot of complexity there.”
The growth spurt came out
of the 2008 financial crisis,
when new regulation curtailed
investing and lending by banks,
making room for fund managers
to expand. Central banks kept
interest rates low for most of
the following decade, driving in-
vestors out of savings accounts
and Treasury bonds and into
managed funds.
In 2008, U.S. banks and fund
managers were roughly neck
and neck at about $12 billion of
Union membership in 2023, by state
2% 5 7.5
Notes: Share of employees. Includes employee associations similar to unions.
Source: Labor Department
and Labor Relations.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and
five other Southern governors
warned in a letter that the
unionization drive would harm
the region’s economic growth
and lead to layoffs.
“We have a responsibility to
our constituents to speak up
when we see special interests
looking to come into our state
and threaten our jobs and the
values we live by,” the gover-
nors wrote. “A successful
unionization drive will stop
this growth in its tracks.”
Automakers invested bil-
assets. Today, traditional asset
managers, private-fund manag-
ers and hedge funds control
about $43.5 trillion, nearly twice
the banks’ $23 trillion, accord-
ing to a Wall Street Journal
analysis of data from the Fed-
eral Reserve, HFR, ICI and
Preqin.
Large banks have responded
by becoming more like fund
managers, beefing up invest-
ment teams. Goldman Sachs re-
ported this month revenue of
about $4 billion from asset and
wealth management in the first
quarter, twice the earnings from
its storied investment-banking
division.
Public-fund managers, mean-
while, became huge, mostly by
offering low-fee mutual and ex-
change-traded funds that track
indexes. Four of the biggest—
BlackRock, Fidelity, State Street
and Vanguard—control about
$26 trillion, equivalent to the
entire annual U.S. economic
output.
But over the past four
years, private equity and debt
fund assets doubled to almost
$6 trillion, far outpacing the
31% growth rate for public
funds. The firms began selling
private-credit funds to their
core clients—pension funds
and endowments that
had maxed out on private eq-
uity. The fund managers also
made inroads with new inves-
tors, such as insurance compa-
nies and individuals.
As the funds grow, their
founders make more money.
Private-equity fund managers
took 41 spots on Forbes maga-
zine’s list of U.S. billionaires
published this month, more
than any other profession. The
investors make up 5.5% of all
the country’s billionaires, al-
most twice the 3% they com-
prised just 10 years ago.
The surge could continue.
KKR Co-CEO Scott Nuttall—a
2022 addition to the Forbes bil-
10 15 25
R.I.
Conn.
N.J.
Del.
Md.
lions of dollars in new facto-
ries in states such as Georgia,
Kentucky and Tennessee, ac-
celerating the industry’s move
to the South. Hyundai Motor
revealed plans in 2022 to build
a $5.5 billion manufacturing
complex for electric vehicles in
Georgia. Ford said in 2021 that
it planned to create a $5.6 bil-
lion campus in Tennessee to
make EVs and batteries.
Southern states also at-
tracted EV battery factories,
semiconductor plants and
other manufacturing indus-
tries. Qcells, a unit of South
lionaires list—told shareholders
at a meeting this month that
KKR will double the money it
controls to $1 trillion by 2029.
Only 2% of wealthy individuals
currently invest in alternative
funds and that will jump to 6%
by 2027, he said.
Rival Marc Rowan, CEO of
Apollo Global Management, said
his firm will increase its roughly
$650 billion under management
to $1 trillion by 2026. Black-
stone, which crossed the $1 tril-
lion threshold in July, launched
this year its first private-equity
fund targeted at individual in-
vestors. The fund has raised
about $3 billion so far, the fast-
est start ever for a retail fund
by the firm, a person familiar
with the matter said. Blackstone
has raised more than $100 bil-
lion through private debt and
real-estate funds aimed at indi-
viduals.
Public-fund managers are
much bigger than their private
counterparts but also less prof-
itable after years of lowering
fees to gain market share. A
growing number, including
Franklin Templeton and T. Rowe
Price, are buying alternative
managers to boost profits.
The trend hit a fever pitch in
State Street
Germany
Franklin
Templeton
1.37
1.32
Indonesia
Blackstone 1.04
Netherlands 1.01
KKR 0.55
Note: Fund assets as of 2023. National GDP as of 2022
Sources: S&P Capital IQ (fund assets under management);
U.A.E. 0.51
* **** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Korean conglomerate Hanwha
Group, said last year it would
spend $2.5 billion to build an
entire solar-manufacturing
supply chain in Georgia.
The states have worked for
decades to lure manufacturers
by creating workforce training
programs, preparing land for
potential factory sites, touting
lower electricity rates—ap-
pealing to electric-vehicle
makers because of their large
energy needs—and offering ro-
bust incentive packages.
An additional draw: the
promise of lower labor costs in
Southern so-called right-to-
work states. Under such laws,
workers aren’t required to join
a union as a condition of em-
ployment.
The union membership rate
in Tennessee was 6% of work-
ers in 2023, compared with
10% overall in the U.S., accord-
ing to Bureau of Labor Statis-
tics data. In Georgia, the fig-
ure was 4.6%, while in South
Carolina, it was 2.3%.
Southern officials have ar-
gued that workers are better
off having direct relationships
with employers without inter-
ference from unions.
“The model down here is
working,” said Georgia Gov.
Brian Kemp last week in an in-
OBITUARY
Terry Anderson,
Was Held Hostage
Terry Anderson, the for-
mer war journalist who was
held hostage for almost
seven years after Hezbollah
members kidnapped him in
1985 in Lebanon, has died. He
was 76 years old.
Anderson was covering
Lebanon’s war with Israel as
the chief Middle East corre-
spondent for the Associated
Press at the time of his ab-
duction.
He was grabbed from a
street by Hezbollah, a Shiite
Muslim group.
In his 1995 memoir, “Den
of Lions,” Anderson detailed
his harrowing experience. He
was kept in chains and at
times beaten and threatened
with death.
Through it all, he said he
was determined to make it
home to reunite with his
then-fiancée, who was six
months pregnant when he
was kidnapped at gunpoint
while on his way to play ten-
nis with a colleague.
He died over the weekend
at his home in Greenwood
Lake, N.Y., according to the
family. No cause of death
was given.
—Ginger Adams Otis
January, when BlackRock struck
a deal to buy Global Infrastruc-
ture Partners for $12.5 billion,
the highest price ever for an al-
ternative-asset manager, ac-
cording to Dealogic. If the ac-
quisition goes through as
expected, it will mint another
six billionaires for the Forbes
list from among Global Infra-
structure’s founding partners.
Other traditional fund man-
agers have taken a slower—
and less expensive—approach,
building their own private-
fund businesses.
Neuberger Berman, a tradi-
tional fund manager born out
of Lehman Brothers’ collapse,
has about one-third of its $463
billion in investments in alter-
natives, up from about 10% a
decade ago. The employee-
owned firm raised the bulk of
the assets from institutional
investors.
“Much of the future growth
will be driven by individuals
who don’t have either the ex-
perience or professional staff
to help them,” said Neuberger
Chief Executive George Walker.
The onus is on fund managers
to educate the new buyers and
provide them with well-diver-
sified products to reduce risk,
$4.13 trillion
4.08
Fund assets compared with
the GDPs of select economies
World Bank (national GDP)
terview with CNBC.
One of labor’s biggest wins
in the South came in 2008
when the United Food and
Commercial Workers won a
contentious 15-year campaign
to organize 5,000 workers at a
Smithfield hog-processing
plant in Tar Heel, S.C. Last
year, the United Steelworkers
organized 1,400 workers at
Georgia bus manufacturer Blue
Bird and said it was the big-
gest win at a manufacturing
plant in the region in 15 years.
“It’s a different place here
to organize,” said Gay Henson,
a labor leader who lives in
Chattanooga, citing the strong
opposition from the state’s
governor and other politicians.
But she said she has noticed a
change in some workers’ views
about unions as they see their
counterparts at other compa-
nies win big pay raises.
“Workers are starting to
think for themselves,” said
Henson, who worked for many
years at the Tennessee Valley
Authority and is now secre-
tary-treasurer of the Interna-
tional Federation of Profes-
sional and Technical
Engineers.
 VW’s labor playbook
doesn’t cover UAW........... B1
TRUMP TRIAL
Man Who Set Self
On Fire Dies
The man who doused him-
self in an accelerant and set
himself on fire outside the
courthouse where Donald
Trump is on trial has died, po-
lice said.
The New York City Police
Department said early Satur-
day that the man was de-
clared dead by staff at an
area hospital.
The man was in Collect
Pond Park around 1:30 p.m. Fri-
day when he took out pam-
phlets espousing conspiracy
theories, tossed them around,
then doused himself in an ac-
celerant and set himself on fire,
officials and witnesses said.
The man, who police said
recently traveled from Florida
to New York, had not
breached any security check-
points to access the park.
The park outside the court-
house has been a gathering
spot for protesters, journalists
and gawkers throughout
Trump’s trial, which began
with jury selection last Mon-
day and resumes today.
Authorities said they were
also reviewing the security
protocols, including whether
to restrict access to the park.
—Associated Press
he said.
Neuberger launched in 2021
a product it calls Access that
pools dozens of private funds
and their investments to give
clients with low buy-ins a diver-
sified portfolio. The fund dou-
bled in size over the past year
to about $1 billion.
Bond-fund powerhouse Pa-
cific Investment Management
Co., which manages about $2
trillion, has increased alterna-
tive investments to $165 billion
from $10.7 billion in 2010, a
company spokeswoman
said. TCW, another bond-fund
manager, doubled alternative
investments over the past four
years to $20 billion, about 10%
of total assets, a person famil-
iar with the matter said. Both
firms hired portfolio managers
away from private-equity and
hedge-fund firms to help staff
the efforts.
Regulators are tackling ti-
tanic fund managers from sev-
eral angles. The Securities and
Exchange Commission ap-
proved in August new rules for
private funds requiring more
investor disclosures and pro-
scribing side deals with insti-
tutional clients.
Rising sales of private funds
to individuals come as lever-
aged buyouts by private equity
returned 8% last year, the low-
est level since 2011, according
to Preqin. Higher interest rates
have made it harder for the
funds to sell companies they
own and more expensive to
buy new ones.
Traditional fund managers
are being scrutinized over their
outsize influence in shareholder
votes. In November, an inter-
agency regulator passed a
rule allowing large fund manag-
ers to potentially be regulated
as systemically important insti-
tutions, as large banks are. Still,
the decision only reinstates an
Obama-era measure overturned
by the Trump administration.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, April 22, 2024 | A3

U.S. NEWS

Georgia Rules

CHRISTIAN MONTERROSA FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (3)

Don’t Deter
Some Migrants
Lured by the prospect of work, they choose
the state above some others with looser laws
BY ARIAN CAMPO-FLORES border in September with his Percentage of asylum case Hall County, Ga., new asylum tions of one,” said Jose Caldera,
AND ADOLFO FLORES three kids immediately made decisions resulting in denial, cases by nationality a 47-year-old Venezuelan who
his way on a friend’s recom- FY 2018–23* arrived eight months ago.
GAINESVILLE, Ga.—The mendation to Gainesville, north Venezuela Mexico Alex Cornejo, a local immi-
laws in this state are already of Atlanta, where the area un- 50% 60
Guatemala Colombia gration lawyer, said he has re-
70 80
among the least welcoming in employment rate is 2.3%. Honduras Other ceived a surge of calls from
the nation to people who en- “He said finding a job No immigration court migrants arrested for minor
2,000
ter the U.S. illegally. And offi- would be easy,” said the Vene- Hall Co. traffic violations since Riley’s
cials have been looking to zuelan, who entered the U.S. Atlanta killing. The Hall County Sher-
tighten them further since a illegally and is working with- GEORGIA iff’s Office declined to com-
Venezuelan migrant was out authorization. ment, but in remarks to a leg-
charged with killing a Georgia The self-declared “poultry islative committee in March,
1,500
college student in February. capital of the world,” Gaines- Sheriff Gerald Couch praised
But that isn’t stopping mi- ville is full of processing the department’s work helping
grants from coming. plants that hire immigrants to identify migrants in the U.S.
The reason: jobs. Georgia debone, cut and package Highest rates of denial illegally. An ICE spokeswoman
has plenty of them, and people chicken. Nebraska 89.9% said the agency has “seen an
1,000
entering the U.S. in the recent The man said he couldn’t increase of noncitizens arriv-
North Carolina 88.8
record waves of illegal border get a job at one because he ing in many Georgia counties,”
crossings say they want to doesn’t have a work permit. Yuliany Ramirez, above, is Georgia 88.6 which has had an impact on
settle in a place where they Instead, he drives a taxi in a among a smaller group of Missouri 85.9 its law-enforcement and re-
can earn money quickly. community where 36% of the Venezuelans who came to Florida 84.7 moval operations.
500
Georgia’s unemployment population is Hispanic and the Gainesville, Ga., area There is some tension in the
Tennessee 82.9
rate in March was 3.1%, com- some streets are lined with earlier. Top photo, chickens community between new arriv-
pared with 3.8% nationally. Like Mexican markets, Salvadoran await processing at the Mar- Louisiana 82.5 als and people who came in
other parts of the Southeast, restaurants and other Latino Jac poultry plant in Texas 81 years past, often from Mexico
the state is booming, with businesses. Gainesville, the self-declared Ohio 79.9 or Central America, and hold
0
growing investments in elec- Many in the newest wave of ‘poultry capital of the world.’ many of the jobs in poultry
tric-vehicle manufacturing and arrivals are, such as him, Ven- Top left, a statue of a Oregon 73.2 2015 ’17 ’19 ’21 ’23 plants.
data centers, along with tradi- ezuelans fleeing their home rooster at Poultry Park. *The federal fiscal year runs Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 Source: TRAC, Syracuse University Yuliany Ramirez is among a
tional manufacturing industries country’s economic and politi- smaller group of Venezuelans
such as poultry and carpets. cal instability. since 2022, according to data that requires some businesses he will sign it. It would man- who came to the Gainesville
Migrants who recently ar- “People were coming here from the Transactional Re- to check the legal status of po- date that local law enforcement area earlier. She and her hus-
rived in Georgia said they not necessarily because they cords Access Clearinghouse at tential employees using a fed- verify the immigration status band arrived about six years
weren’t familiar with recent had friends or family here,” Syracuse University. Georgia eral system called E-Verify. of people suspected of commit- ago, after which she started
proposals that would, among Santiago Marquez, chief exec- overall had the seventh-high- Federally run immigration ting crimes, detain those in the working as a waitress and he
other things, require police to utive of the Atlanta-based est number of new immigra- courts in Georgia denied the U.S. illegally and then hand as an Uber driver. Then she
verify the immigration status Latin American Association, tion cases in the federal gov- third-highest percentage of them over to federal authori- began making empanadas for
of those arrested. They said an advocacy and services or- ernment’s fiscal years 2022 asylum claims in the nation ties. sale at home, eventually open-
they were generally aware the ganization, said of the most and 2023, according to TRAC. during fiscal years 2018 to Hall County, a politically ing a restaurant in 2021. The
overall political situation was recent wave. “They were com- It ranks ahead of many 2023, just behind North Caro- conservative area, largely does couple now has three eateries,
becoming more adverse since ing because they heard there states with legal and political lina and Nebraska, according those things already. with plans for a fourth.
the killing of the college stu- was a lot of work.” climates more welcoming to to TRAC. Migrants in the region said “You have to take advan-
dent, Laken Riley, but they In Hall County, home to migrants, such as Illinois and The killing of Riley in Febru- the fervor around Riley’s kill- tage of what this country
nonetheless planned to stay Gainesville, Venezuelans have Colorado. Georgia is one of 31 ary prompted the legislature to ing made them feel scrutinized gives you to grow,” said
for economic opportunities. been the largest group start- states that don’t allow people pass an immigration bill now and wary, though none said Ramirez, 34, who has work
One 35-year-old Venezuelan ing new immigration cases—a in the U.S. illegally to get on the desk of Republican Gov. they were motivated to leave. authorization and has applied
who crossed the U.S.-Mexico proxy for migrant arrivals— driver’s licenses and one of 10 Brian Kemp, who hasn’t said if “We’re going to pay for the ac- for asylum.

Cities, Towns Seek Justices’ Help Evicting Homeless

BY JESS BRAVIN

A Supreme Court case on The ‘Appropriate Action’ Question

the limits of vagrancy laws is
making allies of rural towns According to a Depart- Providing housing and
and big cities at their wits’ ment of Housing and Ur- social services is the most
end over homelessness. ban Development report, effective way to address
The court on Monday will there are more than homelessness, U.S. Solici-
hear arguments on how far 650,000 unhoused people tor General Elizabeth Prel-
municipalities can go in pro- across the U.S. on a given ogar wrote in a court brief,
hibiting camping on public night—the highest number but sometimes officials
property, laws that police em- since federal officials be- must “take appropriate ac-
ploy to clear homeless people gan surveying the un- tion to prevent and redress
from parks and streets. A fed- housed population in 2007. the harms associated with
eral appeals court in San The Biden administration, encampments.”
Francisco has found such while agreeing that people That includes the fed-
measures unconstitutional shouldn’t be punished for eral city, she said. Last
JENNY KANE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

when enforced against those being homeless, is urging year, the U.S. Park Police
with nowhere to go, prompt- the Supreme Court to cleared a homeless en-
ing an appeal backed by many scale back the decision by campment from McPher-
cities facing housing crises. the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court son Square, a block-size
But the case originated in of Appeals being chal- park a short walk from the
Grants Pass, Ore., where in lenged in Monday’s case. White House.
March 2013, officials convened
a community roundtable over Volunteers in a homeless encampment in Grants Pass, Ore., where Monday’s case originated.
“vagrancy problems.”
“The point,” said one city fectively making homelessness cal government organizations. found that vagrancy law vio- was likewise unconstitutional is directing the litigation.
councilor, “is to make it un- a crime. The case has divided pro- lated the Constitution’s right of to punish people for the con- But her efforts to open a
comfortable enough for them But cities across the Ninth gressives. A coalition of Dem- due process by leaving individ- dition of being homeless. shelter, like one she saw in
in our city so they will want Circuit, which sprawls from ocratic-led states, many with uals uncertain over what con- In 2006, a Ninth Circuit nearby Medford, have met re-
to move on down the road.” Montana and Arizona to substantial homeless popula- duct was illegal while giving panel accepted the Eighth sistance, Bristol said.
That comment caught the Alaska and Hawaii, say the de- tions, says Grants Pass and its police too much discretion. Amendment argument in a “We have a fairly conserva-
attention of the Ninth U.S. Cir- cisions culminating in John- allies are exaggerating the re- Cities responded with suit against the city of Los An- tive community that has dif-
cuit Court of Appeals, which son v. Grants Pass have ham- straints imposed by the court. more-specific ordinances, pro- geles. Although the decision ferent ideas about how to re-
years later cited it when ruling strung efforts to address “State and local govern- hibiting public camping or was vacated after a settlement, move homeless people from
that Grants Pass violated the homelessness and transformed ments must maintain the free- storing property on the street. the court adopted the same the streets,” she said. “Lots of
rights of “involuntarily home- public spaces into dangerous dom to experiment with inno- So advocates for homeless reasoning in a 2018 decision people feel we shouldn’t help
less” people by outlawing and unsanitary campgrounds. vative solutions to the people looked for other consti- against Boise, Idaho, establish- them—they see it as enabling
camping on public property or “No one is criminalizing homelessness crisis as experi- tutional theories to challenge ing a sweeping precedent. their behavior.” Last year,
in vehicles when no shelter homelessness,” says Theane enced by local communities,” police crackdowns. They have Now blocked from evicting Bristol survived a recall elec-
beds were available. A court Evangelis, who will present Maryland Attorney General An- found success un the Eighth or arresting people unless tion prompted by residents ar-
injunction bars the city from the city’s argument before the thony Brown said in a brief Amendment’s ban on cruel shelter beds are available, guing she has been too lenient
expelling homeless people from court Monday. “This is about filed on behalf of states includ- and unusual punishment. some cities established facili- toward homeless people.
all but one of its 20 parks, says camping in public.” ing Illinois, Massachusetts and The Supreme Court in 1962 ties to house homeless people. Laura Gutowski, one of the
Mayor Sara Bristol. The case has made Grants New York. “But there is nothing cited the amendment as a ba- Not, however, Grants Pass, homeless people who lives in
A string of Ninth Circuit Pass the standard-bearer for innovative about using criminal sis for striking down a state where Mayor Bristol, who took the parks, says that years
decisions has found that ordi- local governments across the penalties to drive the marginal- law that made it a crime to office in 2021, says the tough ago—when she had a house
nances on loitering and sleep- country. “A town’s authority ized outside city limits.” “be addicted to the use of nar- policies have failed. Driving and raised her children in
ing in public places are cruel to keep its sidewalks clear and Historically, the law has cotics.” While drug possession homeless people out of town is Grants Pass—she might have
and unusual when applied parks open is not ordinarily a been hard on homeless people or use could be punished, the no answer, she said: “It’s not felt the same way.
against people without hous- controversial notion,” says a dating back to Colonial Amer- court said then, it was cruel fair to make our problem an- “I get the reason people are
ing. Advocacy groups say offi- brief the Seattle city attorney ica, when the poor could be and unusual to punish people other community’s prob- pissed off that there are tents
cials shouldn’t be able to filed on behalf of the National jailed or indentured into labor. simply for their status. Civil- lem.” At this point in the ap- and people camping in the
brush off a social crisis by ef- League of Cities and other lo- But in 1972 the Supreme Court rights lawyers argued that it peal, she said, the city’s insurer parks,” she said.
A4 | Monday, April 22, 2024 P W L C 10 11 12 H T G K R F A M 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 O I X X THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

U.S. NEWS

Democrats Seek Lift From Pair of Wins Legal Fees

Sapping
BY KEN THOMAS

WASHINGTON—President
of their strike last fall against
General Motors, Ford and
Chrysler parent Stellantis
Trump’s
Biden and Democrats scored
two significant—and unre-
lated—political wins in a span
when Biden became the first
president to join a picket line.
For Biden, the union vote
Campaign
of 24 hours, as the House gives him a fresh argument
passed a $95 billion foreign that his labor policies are BY JACK GILLUM
aid and weapons package Sat- working as he seeks to appeal AND ANTHONY DEBARROS
urday, a day after auto work- to blue-collar workers in
ers organized at a Volks- Michigan, Wisconsin and Donald Trump’s political
wagen plant in Tennessee, Pennsylvania. Biden met with money operation spent more
bucking decades of opposition members of the United Steel- than $4 million on legal-re-
in the South. workers in Pittsburgh on lated expenses in March, new
These victories leave Biden Wednesday and wrapped up data show, contributing to the
still facing numerous chal- the week with a speech to the tens of millions in attorneys

MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

lenges, including low approval International Brotherhood of fees and related costs he has
ratings. But the two long- Electrical Workers. spent so far as his first crimi-
awaited breakthroughs hap- The vote by the workers at nal trial begins in New York.
pened at the end of a week the VW plant came despite All told, Trump’s campaign
that saw former President opposition from six Republi- and outside political groups
Donald Trump seated inside a can governors in the South, have paid more than $66 mil-
New York courtroom in a and represented the first time lion in legal-related costs
hush-money trial that could the UAW was able to unionize since early 2023, according to
last well into May. Democrats President Biden pitched unions last week, including with a speech to electrical workers Friday. a foreign-owned auto-manu- a Wall Street Journal review
hope the criminal case will facturing plant in the U.S. The of new campaign filings made
provide voters with a visceral Trump told the crowd in a re- just not worth it.” rael’s war with Hamas in the union had struggled to orga- public Saturday. That trans-
choice between an active pres- corded message. He had held a The administration spent Middle East remains a divid- nize in the South previously lates to about $145,000 a day.
ident and an opponent facing fundraiser in Charlotte, N.C., months advocating the fund- ing point within his party, because of antiunion senti- The expenses mean Trump
criminal prosecution. earlier in the day. ing, warning that Ukraine’s with the president facing fre- ments and right-to-work laws. and his allies have less to
For Biden, who faces signif- The passage of the Ukraine forces were running out of quent protests around his The vote at the Volkswagen spend elsewhere in his bid to
icant headwinds in his re-elec- and Israel aid package in the ammunition and air defenses, events over the war. About plant also represented a vic- retake the White House. His
tion campaign against Trump, House—and the prospect of a which could allow Russia to three dozen House Democrats tory for UAW President Shawn legal costs have effectively
the two steps showed prog- Senate approval this week— turn the tide in the war. More voted against Saturday’s mea- Fain, who has emerged as one given President Biden,
ress in his separate pushes to showed the payoff from Bi- recently, Biden held a call with sure providing military aid to of Biden’s most valuable cam- Trump’s presumptive Demo-
aid Ukraine and revive labor den’s bird-dogging of the issue the four leaders of the House Israel and humanitarian relief paign surrogates despite cratic opponent, a financial
unions—and so make the case both in public and behind and Senate and then spoke to Gaza. meeting the president for the advantage as the two face a
for America’s global leader- closed doors. The president with House Speaker Mike Republicans supporting the first time only last year, ac- close contest in November.
ship and energize Democrats first proposed a $105 billion Johnson (R., La.) to offer his package said the conflicts are cording to Biden officials. In Saturday’s filings, the
and working-class voters. funding package for Ukraine, support of the plan to move driven by what they call Bi- Donna Brazile, a longtime Trump campaign reported
“This election is shifting Israel and Taiwan in October, the aid package this weekend. den’s weakness on the world member of the Democratic Na- ending March with $97.2 mil-
and it is shifting for the bene- using a prime-time address to Biden still trails Trump in stage, citing the need to coun- tional Committee, noted that lion in cash on hand. That in-
fit of President Biden,” said assert that the U.S. had a ma- several battleground states, ter Iran, China and Russia. Biden had supported the UAW cludes totals from the former
Democratic strategist Maria jor stake in pushing back including Georgia, Arizona “President Biden’s failed lead- workers in Tennessee who had president’s campaign commit-
Cardona. against terrorism and dicta- and Michigan, according to re- ership destabilized and weak- sought to unionize and tee, his Save America leader-
Trump, after spending torship around the globe. cent polling, and the surveys ened our global security, leav- pointed to Democrats’ help in ship PAC, several joint fund-
much of the week in court, “American leadership is show him struggling against ing the free world to a cruel speeding passage of the fund- raising committees and the
had planned an outdoor rally what holds the world to- the former president on key fate,” said Rep. Michael Bur- ing for Ukraine despite some Republican National Commit-
in Wilmington, N.C., Saturday gether,” Biden said, adding: attributes such as fighting in- gess (R., Texas). Republican opposition. tee.
night. But storms canceled it. “To put all that at risk if we flation and securing the U.S.- The UAW’s vote in Chatta- “Democrats have big mo- But more than two-thirds
“We’ll do it again and we’ll walk away from Ukraine, if we Mexico border. nooga, Tenn., followed the mentum heading into the of expenses paid by Save
do it bigger and better,” turn our backs on Israel, it’s And Biden’s response to Is- union’s successful resolution summer,” she said. America were for legal-related
bills last month. Save America
also spent nearly all of what it

Potential TikTok Ban Ups Ante Against China

BY MEGHAN BOBROWSKY buyer within that time, Tik-
Tok—which has 170 million
In the yearslong technology users in the U.S.—would be
fight between the U.S. and banned.
China, the Americans are The Senate could vote on
poised to land a major punch. the bill in coming days.
The House on Saturday eas- TikTok on Saturday reiter-
ily passed a bill that would ated a statement it gave when
force a sale or ban of TikTok, the package was introduced
which is owned by China- that called it “unfortunate
based ByteDance, bringing that the House of Representa-
closer to reality a law that tives is using the cover of an
could remove the popular app important foreign and human-
and deepen the internet divide itarian assistance to once
between the two countries. again jam through a ban bill.”
The measure, which passed The company has said the leg-
360-58 and was tied to a islation is effectively a ban,
sweeping aid package for Is- since completing a deal would
rael and Ukraine, would give be difficult.
ByteDance up to a year to sell Amid the drama in Wash-
the app—compared with the ington, Erich Andersen, gen-
six-month period proposed in eral counsel for TikTok and
a prior bill. ByteDance, told staff Sunday
If ByteDance can’t find a that he’s planning to leave the
took in, with other bills paid
for data processing, payroll
and air travel, according to
new data filed with the Fed-
eral Election Commission.
company, according to an in- TikTok says it has never been push foreign companies out. Many legal expenses are tied
ternal note reviewed by The asked to provide U.S. user “The direction is clear,”
Wall Street Journal. The time- data to the Chinese govern- said Dan Wang, a visiting Trump campaign legal bills
line is uncertain, according to ment and wouldn’t do so if scholar at Yale Law School’s $7million
people familiar with the mat- asked to. Tsai China Center. “The walls
ter. Andersen will help find Passage of the legislation are going up.” 6
his successor. comes as China steps up its Some lawmakers who sup-
“As I started to reflect longstanding campaign against ported the TikTok bill argued 5
some months ago on the U.S. and other foreign messag- that it’s fair game to ban the
stresses of the last few years ing and social-media services. app since U.S. social-media 4
and the new generation of Earlier this week, Beijing apps are banned in China.
challenges that lie ahead, I de- forced Apple to help close a China more than a decade
3
cided that the time was right loophole that some Chinese ago banned Facebook, Google,
to pass the baton to a new users had been exploiting to Twitter, YouTube and most 2
leader,” he said in the note. access already-banned ser- other sites on the mainstream
Andersen described his im- vices, including two of Meta’s Western internet. 1
pending exit as amicable. apps, WhatsApp and Threads.
Bloomberg and The Informa- To some experts, it was 0
tion earlier reported on An- seen as a small move—given Watch a Video
dersen’s coming departure that the country has already Scan the code Jan. 2023 ’24
from TikTok. banned many outside social- for a video on Note: Includes Trump's campaign committee,
Save America leadership PAC and the Trump
The Chinese government media services and messaging the potential Save America Joint Fundraising Committee.
has signaled it wouldn’t allow apps—but indicative of impact of a Source: Federal Election Commission
a forced sale of the company. China’s intentions to further TikTok ban.
to attorneys representing
Trump in various legal pro-

The 12 New Yorkers Who’ll Decide Ex-President’s Fate ceedings.

“Save America also covers a
very active and robust post-
Presidency office and other
A jury of five women and Originally from: Native New various expenses” not related
seven men has been selected Yorker to the legal cases, Trump
to hear the first criminal trial News sources: Google and spokesman Steven Cheung
of Donald Trump. The jurors, TikTok; “I don’t like news or said.
newspapers.” By comparison, Biden
By Erin Mulvaney, Hobbies: Photoshoots with ended last month with nearly
Corinne Ramey her friends in her spare time $193 million in the bank,
and James Fanelli which includes his campaign,
the Democratic National Com-
all of whom live in Manhattan, Juror 4 mittee and several other fund-
must be unanimous to either Gender: Man raising arms. (For its part, the
acquit or convict the former Job: Security engineer for 25 DNC also paid Biden attorney
president. years Bob Bauer more than $1 mil-
During the jury selection News sources: “Scattering lion amid a special counsel’s
process, the judge, Trump’s of all things here and there.” probe into alleged mishan-
lawyers and prosecutors asked Hobbies: Woodworking and dling of classified documents,
a series of questions to deter- metalworking which was reported earlier by
mine whether potential jurors Axios.)
could be fair, including their “The money we are raising
opinion of Trump. Here’s what Juror 3 is historic, and it’s going to
we learned about the jurors: Gender: Man the critical work of building a
JANE ROSENBERG/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Job: Lawyer winning operation, focused

Originally from: Oregon solely on the voters who will
Juror 12 News sources: The Wall decide this election,” Julie
Gender: Woman Street Journal and the New Chavez Rodriguez, Biden-Har-
Job: Physical therapist York Times ris 2024 campaign manager,
News sources: CNN, among Hobbies: Hiking and running said this month.
others; listens to sports and In Manhattan, Trump faces
faith podcasts 34 felony counts of falsifying
Hobbies: Paddleboarding with Juror 2 business records to cover up a
her husband and their dog A courtroom sketch of prosecutor Susan Hoffinger standing during jury selection Friday. Gender: Man hush-money payment to a
Job: Investment banker porn star on the eve of the
the New York Times.” Job: Retired, previously time outdoors with his chil- Likes: Hiking, music and 2016 election. Trump has de-
Juror 11 Fun fact: Likes animals worked in wealth manage- dren concerts nied wrongdoing and called
Gender: Woman ment News sources: He reads “ba- the case politically motivated.
Job: Product development at News sources: BBC, CNBC, sically everything,” and fol- But the trial’s conclusion
an apparel company Juror 9 among other outlets Juror 6 lows Michael Cohen, Trump doesn’t end Trump’s legal ex-
Originally from: California Gender: Woman Hobbies: Fly fishing, skiing, Gender: Woman and “anyone who might af- penses. The former president
News sources: Nightly news Job: Speech therapist yoga and meditation Job: Software engineer fect markets” on social me- also faces federal election-in-
Hobbies: Traveling, exploring Originally from: New Jersey Originally from: Native New dia terference charges brought by
New York and eating News sources: New York Yorker special counsel Jack Smith as
Times, TikTok and other so- Juror 7 News sources: TikTok, Face- well as another federal indict-
cial-media platforms Gender: Man book and the New York Times Juror 1 ment over his handling of
Juror 10 Hobbies: Likes to hang out Job: Lawyer Hobbies: Snowboarding Gender: Man classified documents. In Geor-
Gender: Man with friends, go to restaurants Originally from: North Caro- Job: Sales gia, he faces criminal charges
Employer: E-commerce com- and watch TV lina Originally from: Ireland for his alleged attempts to
pany News sources: New York Juror 5 News sources: New York subvert the 2020 presidential
Originally from: Ohio Times and The Wall Street Gender: Woman Times, Fox News and election.
News sources: Doesn’t follow Juror 8 Journal Job: Teacher at a charter MSNBC —Alex Leary
the news, “but if anything, it’s Gender: Man Hobbies: Enjoys spending school Hobbies: Anything outdoors contributed to this article.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, April 22, 2024 | A5

U.S. NEWS

Johnson Pushes Ukraine Aid

Past His Party’s Objections

DREW ANGERER/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

House speaker faces
a revolt on his right
flank after relying on
Democratic votes
BY NATALIE ANDREWS
AND SIOBHAN HUGHES
WASHINGTON—The
House’s passage of a $95 bil-
lion foreign-aid package Sat-
urday came after Speaker
Mike Johnson put his political
career on the line to push the
measure past intense Republi-
can opposition.
Lawmakers approved sepa-
rate measures for Ukraine, Is-
rael and Taiwan, and another
bill that would force the sale
of TikTok by its Chinese-con-
trolled owner. The vote on
ing their own backup plan to
force a bill on the floor, helped
Johnson move the bill through
procedural steps on Thursday
and Friday, more than making
up for Republican defections.
Johnson, who previously
had voted against Ukraine aid
before becoming speaker, said
he was motivated by intelli-
gence he had seen on the war.
House speakers are second in
line for the presidency and
privy to highly classified brief-
ings. He also warned that if
America doesn’t make an in-
vestment to stop Russia now,
the U.S. may find itself in-
volved in a deeper conflict
down the road.
Johnson traveled to Mar-a-
Lago this month to meet with
former President Donald
Trump, who has regularly
criticized foreign aid. Speak-
ing to reporters with Johnson
by his side, Trump didn’t criti-
cize the speaker, while insist-
ing that aid to Ukraine should
be in the form of a loan.
The success of the Ukraine
bill has come at a high cost to
Johnson, energizing critics led
by Greene. She filed a motion
to vacate last month but
hasn’t forced a vote. She has
been joined by two colleagues
on the measure, while others
say they are watching devel-
opments closely.
Johnson’s GOP critics ex- Speaker Mike Johnson walked with reporters at the Capitol
pect that pressure on him to ahead of votes Saturday on the foreign aid package.
resign from the speakership
will grow in the coming days Even Johnson’s loudest de- licans engineered the ouster
and weeks. “If we had the vote tractors are loath to re-create of then-Speaker Kevin McCar-
today in our conference, he the three weeks of speakerless thy (R., Calif.). There is also
would not be speaker today,” mayhem they experienced in the question of who would re-
Greene said after the vote. September when eight Repub- place him.

MAKING GOOD
long-stalled funding and
weapons for Ukraine—the
most contentious of the four—
passed 311 to 112 with all
Democrats in support and
more than half of Republicans
opposed, with one GOP law-
maker voting present.
The measures will be bun-
ON OUR
dled together and sent to the
Senate, which will begin con-
sideration of the bill on Tues-
day and is expected to quickly
$5 BILLION PLEDGE
approve the measures. Presi-
dent Biden also supports the
package.
The vote marked a pivotal
win for Ukraine and a defining
moment for Johnson.
Johnson had spoken in in-
creasingly urgent terms about
Ukraine and confronting
America’s global adversaries
but delayed any decision for
months, due to Republicans’
narrow majority and his own
precarious hold on the
speaker’s gavel. In finally put-
ting his measure on the floor,
he brushed aside objections
from GOP colleagues who de-
manded security provisions at
the southern U.S. border and
instead turned to Democrats
for critical votes to advance
and then pass the measure.
“The world is destabilized
and it is a tinderbox” that de-
mands American leadership,
Johnson said in subdued re-
marks after the vote, pointing
to threats from Russia, China
and Iran.
“I think we did our work
here, and history will judge it
well,” he said. He repeated
that he wasn’t worried about
losing his job. “Let the chips
fall where they may.”
Minority Leader Hakeem
Jeffries (D., N.Y.), said House
Democrats as well as tradi-
tional conservatives led by
Johnson “have risen to the oc-
casion” overcoming what he
termed extremists in the
House.
Critics said backers of the
bill were prioritizing a foreign
nation’s needs over domestic
demands.
“This is the sellout of
America today,” said Rep.
Marjorie Taylor Greene (R.,
Ga.), who has led the charge
to oust Johnson.
The vote was the latest ex-
ample of how Johnson has ef-
fectively had to form an alli-
ance with Democrats to
sideline his right flank and
pass critical legislation, rang-
ing from keeping the govern-
ment open to controversial
spying powers and now fund-
ing overseas allies.
The Senate passed its own
foreign-aid bill with bipartisan
support earlier this year, and
Biden, Republican defense
hawks and many Democrats
had urged Johnson to take it
up. But he put off making his
decision, as his hard-line Re-
publicans insisted that any aid
measure include a House Re-
publican proposal cracking
down on migration at the U.S.-
Mexico border, a nonstarter
for congressional Democrats.
ROBIN HENSON
Johnson had indicated in
recent weeks he was close to a
decision, and events prodded
him to move. Iran over a week
ago launched a wave of more Georgia Governor Brian Kemp opened
than 300 drones and missiles
toward Israel, putting the
package front and center once our newest 100% recycled box factory
again for members of Con-
gress.
Johnson last Monday said in Atlanta with Executive Chairman Anthony Pratt —
he would move ahead with not
only Israel aid, but a compre-
hensive foreign-aid bill. He ef-
the latest installment of our investment pledge to America.
fectively embraced the Senate
approach but broke it up into
four bills, with extra items
thrown in, giving lawmakers a
chance to vote for or against
different slices of aid. WWW.PRATTINDUSTRIES.COM
Democrats, who were craft-
A6 | Monday, April 22, 2024
How U.S. Helped Avert Wider Mideast War
Officials spent 19
days racing to ease
growing tensions
between Israel, Iran
WASHINGTON—President
Biden and his national-security
team watched with mounting
alarm on April 13 as monitors
in the White House Situation
Room showed 30, then 60, then
over 100 Iranian ballistic mis-
siles streaking toward Israel.
By Michael R. Gordon,
Warren P. Strobel
and Gordon Lubold
Iranian cruise missiles and
a swarm of drones were in the
air, timed to arrive at the same
time as the missiles—a mas-
sive barrage that Biden and his
aides feared could overwhelm
the strengthened defenses
they and Israel had spent more
than a week preparing.
The scale of Tehran’s first-
ever direct attack on Israel
matched U.S. spy agencies’
worst-case scenarios, U.S. offi-
cials said later. It threatened
not only a close U.S. ally, but
also Biden’s hopes of prevent-
ing a six-month Middle East
crisis from widening into an
all-out regional war.
Assembling in the Situation
Room that Saturday, Biden and
his aides couldn’t be sure that
Israel’s antimissile systems,
reinforced by the U.S. mili-
tary’s antimissile and counter-
drone deployments in the pre-
vious 10 days, would block
nearly 99% of Iran’s salvo.
“The results of the de-
fenses,” a senior Biden admin-
istration official in the Situa-
tion Room that day said,
“were unclear until all was
said and done.”
The agonizing wait was
Pro-Palestinian Activists Hold Firm, Plot Next Moves
BY SABRINA SIDDIQUI
WASHINGTON—As tensions
between Israel and Iran esca-
lated in recent weeks, spurring
Washington to rush to Israel’s
aid, pro-Palestinian activists
across the U.S. reacted with
new urgency to refocus atten-
tion on the humanitarian cri-
sis in Gaza.
The New York Police De-
partment arrested more than
100 people participating in a
pro-Palestinian protest at Co-
lumbia University on Thurs-
day. In Scranton, Pa., pro-Pal-
estinian demonstrators
gathered to protest President
Biden’s visit there on Wednes-
day. And Google said it fired
28 employees who protested
against the tech giant’s cloud-
computing contract with the
Israeli government.
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Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin hosted his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, in March.
among the tense moments in a
19-day crisis for Biden and his
national-security team.
The crisis erupted on April
1, when Israeli weapons
slammed into a building in
Damascus, killing senior Ira-
nian military leaders, includ-
ing Gen. Mohammad Reza Za-
hedi, who oversaw Iran’s
paramilitary operations in
Syria and Lebanon for the Is-
lamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps’ Quds Force.
Just minutes before the
strike, an Israeli official
alerted his U.S. counterpart
that it was under way.
The White House soon
learned of another unexpected
Israeli attack that occurred
the same day as the Damascus
strike: An Israeli drone strike
against an aid convoy in Gaza
killed seven workers from ce-
lebrity chef José Andrés’
World Central Kitchen charity.
Shortly after the Damascus
The fierce debates around
the Israel-Hamas war engulfing
college campuses, U.S. busi-
nesses and the 2024 election
are here to stay. Washington’s
swift pivot in recent days to-
ward more financial and mili-
tary support for Israel has only
emboldened calls among pro-
Palestinian groups to take to
the streets in the pursuit of a
permanent cease-fire and sus-
pension of U.S. aid to Israel.
“The reason you’re seeing
more direct action take
place—different ways to de-
fund projects and govern-
ments, disrupt businesses and
disrupt things the government
actually does care about—is
because they’re not listening
to us,” said Ashish Prashar, a
pro-Palestinian activist based
in New York and a former ad-
viser to Tony Blair, the former
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U.S. NEWS
strike, Israeli Ambassador Mi-
chael Herzog and the Israeli
defense attaché were at the
White House as national-secu-
rity adviser Jake Sullivan and
other top White House aides
held a video teleconference
with Israeli officials. In a side
conversation, Herzog explained
that Israel had targeted Zahedi
and other senior Iranian offi-
cers, U.S. officials said.
As officials in Washington
and Israel awaited Tehran’s
response, few Israeli or U.S.
officials anticipated it would
attack Israel directly, some-
thing it had never done.
American officials fretted
that the Israeli strike could po-
tentially trigger Iranian proxy
attacks against U.S. positions
in Iraq and Syria. U.S. officials
speculated that Iran might try
to attack an Israeli embassy.
After the Syria airstrike,
the Iranians asked Switzer-
land’s Embassy in Tehran to
Pro-Palestinian protesters gathered at Columbia University
on Thursday, when more than 100 people were arrested.
British prime minister who be-
came the Middle East peace
envoy representing the U.S.,
Russia, the United Nations and
Senate Extends Surveillance Measure
BY DUSTIN VOLZ
WASHINGTON—The Senate
passed legislation over the
weekend renewing a contro-
versial foreign spying power,
prevailing over objections
from privacy advocates who
warned the measure could
lead to a dramatic expansion
of government surveillance on
Americans.
In a 60-34 vote, senators
early Saturday approved a bill
to renew Section 702 of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveil-
lance Act for two years just as
it was due to expire, after sev-
eral amendments failed. The
legislation passed the House
earlier this month and was
signed on Saturday by Presi-
dent Biden, whose administra-
tion views the law as vital to
protecting national security.
The bill’s passage—by
reaching the required 60-vote
threshold without a vote to
spare—overcame a furious
last-minute lobbying effort by
both progressive and conser-
vative senators to derail it,
partially on grounds that an
amendment adopted by the
House was vaguely written
and likely to grant U.S. intelli-
gence agencies the authority
to compel ordinary Americans
to aid in government surveil-
lance.
The Biden administration
and the measure’s authors re-
jected those claims as merit-
less fearmongering, and said it
contained dozens of changes
that would enhance privacy
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
rael’s back against Iran. He or- and what the targets would be.
dered the Pentagon to step up By the time Biden arrived in
its efforts to protect Israel, Rehoboth Beach, Del., in the
and the U.S. military activated early evening on Friday, April
highly classified plans for as- 12, the Iranian attack plan had
sisting Israel in a crisis. come into focus. “We got bet-
As Biden hosted the Japa- ter, firmer intelligence and in-
nese prime minister at the formation about the specific
White House April 10, Defense timing” of Iran’s coming attack,
Secretary Lloyd Austin pulled White House national-security
him aside to get authorization spokesman John Kirby said.
ARIEL HERMONI/ISRAEL MINISTRY OF DEFENSE/ZUMA PRESS
to turn around the USS Carney, Biden returned to the capi-
a destroyer then heading west tal Saturday afternoon.
toward its home port in Flor- When the attack began Sat-
ida. It joined the USS Arleigh urday night, U.S. officials in the
Burke, another destroyer, in the Situation Room and at the Pen-
eastern Mediterranean, close tagon tracked the three waves
enough to Israel to track and of weapons that left Iranian
shoot down incoming missiles airspace, crossing Iraq and Jor-
with SM-3 interceptors that dan, racing toward Israel. Even
had never been used to down a with the advanced warning
ballistic missile in combat. they had received, the scale of
A team of U.S. military per- the barrage was a shock, ad-
sonnel secretly went to Tel ministration officials said.
Aviv to work out of a missile- The Iranians timed the
defense operations center launches so the weapons
with their Israeli counterparts. would arrive simultaneously.
send the U.S. a written mes- A bulked-up force of F-15E They avoided civilian targets
sage blaming it for the attack, jet fighters arrived in the re- in favor of military ones, like
U.S. officials said. Washington gion. Other F-16s based in the the Nevatim base in the Negev
denied involvement. region also participated in the Desert, where Israel’s ad-
The loss of the high-ranking operation. Plans were made vanced F-35 fighters are based.
IRGC personnel infuriated Ira- for Saudi and Jordanian planes A patchwork of defense
nian officials, who said the to defend their airspace. systems succeeded in defend-
building Israel hit was a diplo- The aircraft carrier USS ing the most formidable attack
matic facility, an assertion Is- Eisenhower was moved closer Israel had seen in decades.
rael denied to American offi- to Israel so it could be in posi- After Israel emerged almost
cials. After failing to secure a tion to launch jet fighters unscathed, the White House
U.N. Security Council condem- to intercept any drones shifted from defending its ally
nation of the Israeli strike, Teh- launched by the Iran-backed to restraining it. On April 13,
ran signaled it would retaliate. Houthis in Yemen. Biden and Netanyahu held an
In a tense April 4 call, Bi- Biden’s top aides worked intense call. Israel was now in
den told Israeli Prime Minister the phones, imploring other a different, better place strate-
Benjamin Netanyahu that in- governments to tell Iran not gically, U.S. officials argued. If it
ternational support was plum- to strike. CIA Director William responded rashly, it could once
meting after the World Cen- Burns asked intelligence coun- again lose newly regained inter-
tral Kitchen deaths. terparts in Europe, Mideast national support.
Israel needed to allow more capitals and Turkey to urge Early on April 19, Israel
humanitarian aid into Gaza Iran to de-escalate. struck back, targeting a single
and reduce civilian casualties, U.S. and Israeli intelligence military site in Iran’s Isfahan
and the U.S. would judge Is- officials determined that Iran province. While the attack was
rael by its actions, Biden said, was planning a direct attack narrow, it showed that Israel
according to officials. on Israeli territory and that it could overcome Iranian air de-
But he also told the Israeli would be massive. The ques- fenses and strike deep inside
leader that the U.S. had Is- tion was when it would come its adversary’s territory.
selves, because that’s where Israeli strike on an Iranian
they see the most influence diplomatic complex in Syria.
happening,” Prashar said. The situation near Colum-
The push is expected to bia appeared to deteriorate
only intensify as the election over the weekend, when vid-
KENA BETANCUR/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
nears. Pro-Palestinian organiz- eos circulated of an unidenti-
ers are planning mass protests fied man yelling antisemitic
in Chicago outside the Demo- slurs at Jewish students. It
cratic National Convention in was unclear if the man was af-
August. filiated with the university.
Israeli officials have de- This led a rabbi associated
fended their military operation with the university to warn
while citing some mistakes. certain students that they
The Biden administration ap- would be safer leaving campus
plied pressure on Israel to take until the situation was re-
civilian casualties into account solved.
in March and early April, a “While every American has
time when pro-Palestinian po- the right to peaceful protest,
litical activism seemed to be calls for violence and physical
swaying U.S. voters. intimidation targeting Jewish
That appeared to change on students and the Jewish com-
the European Union in 2007. April 13, when Iran launched munity are blatantly antise-
“That’s why the movement what it said were retaliatory mitic, unconscionable, and
is taking more direct action, strikes against Israel, in re- dangerous,” White House
directly to the citizens them- sponse to an earlier suspected spokesman Andrew Bates said.
protections for Americans. from U.S. technology providers Sen. Mark Warner, the
The result, ultimately, was such as Meta and AT&T and Democratic chairman of the
a sort of legislative Rorschach share intercepted conversa- Senate Intelligence Commit-
test, where the bill’s support- tions with other agencies like tee, rallied support for the law
ers said it contained the most the Federal Bureau of Investi- before its expiration.
significant reforms to FISA gation. “It is indispensable to the
since the law’s creation in The law authorizes collec- work of the men and women
1978 and its detractors said it tion of data belonging to for- of our intelligence commu-
legalized one of the largest ex- eigners overseas. But privacy- nity,” Warner said during a
pansions of American spying minded lawmakers for years Senate floor speech.
power on record. have viewed it skeptically for An amendment to require a
Section 702 is widely how it also scoops up an un- warrant to search the 702 da-
viewed as among the most
critical surveillance powers at
known amount of Americans’
communications without a
tabase using U.S. identifiers,
like an email address or tele-
the U.S. government’s dis- warrant, such as when they phone number, to hunt
posal, even by its critics, and
is credited with generating
text or call a foreign suspect
under surveillance. Past dis-
through intercepted conversa-
tions failed in the House this
prodigious intelligence used to closures, for example, have month on the thinnest of mar-
thwart terror plots, disrupt
drug trafficking, fend off
shown the tool being improp-
erly used to surveil George
gins in a 212-212 vote. A more
narrow warrant amendment
hackers and track spies. It al-
lows the National Security
Floyd demonstrators, partici-
pants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot,
offered by Sen. Dick Durbin
(D., Ill.) failed 42-50 Friday.
Agency to vacuum up reams of and 19,000 donors to a politi- The Senate had been ex-
electronic communications cal campaign. pected to easily pass the over-
all bill, but a new roadblock
emerged when privacy groups
began loudly objecting to a
provision expanding the defi-
nition of “electronic communi-
cations service providers.”
In essence, the new statute
broadens what qualifies as a
service provider to extend be-
yond traditional large technol-
ogy and telecommunications
firms that have been subject
to Section 702 in the past. The
intent of the edit was to allow
the government to acquire in-
BILL CLARK/ZUMA PRESS
formation from data centers
that facilitate cloud comput-
ing and are often maintained
by third-party firms that rent
out server space to other com-
panies, according to people fa-
Sen. Mark Warner called the FISA bill ‘indispensable.’ miliar with the matter.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. NY Monday, April 22, 2024 | A7

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A8 | Monday, April 22, 2024
Hamas Weighs Shift of Base From Qatar
Step could upend
talks to free dozens
of Israeli hostages,
institute a cease-fire
BY SUMMER SAID
AND STEPHEN KALIN
DUBAI—Hamas’s political
leadership is looking to move
from its current base in Qatar,
as U.S. legislators build pres-
sure on the Gulf state to de-
liver on cease-fire negotia-
tions that look likely to fail.
If Hamas left Qatar, the
move could upend delicate
talks to free dozens of Israeli
hostages held captive in Gaza
and likely make it more diffi-
cult for Israel and the U.S. to
pass messages to a group des-
ignated by Washington as a
terrorist organization. Hamas
leaders have lived in Doha,
the Qatari capital, since 2012
in an arrangement supported
by the U.S.
Arab officials said the
group has contacted at least
two countries in the region
asking if they would be open
to the idea of its political lead-
ers relocating to their capitals.
Oman is one of the countries
that was contacted, one Arab
official said. Omani officials
didn’t respond to a request for
comment. Arab officials said
Hamas believes the slow-mov-
ing hostage negotiations could
last for months, putting the
group’s close ties to Qatar and
its presence in Doha at risk.
“The talks have already
stalled again with barely any
signs or prospects for them to
resume any time soon, and
distrust is rising between
Hamas and the negotiators,”
an Arab mediator familiar
with the situation said.
Late Saturday, Hamas de-
nied the group was consider-
Ukraine Aid
Advances
Just in Time
Continued from Page One
quickly adopt the aid package.
He said Ukraine desperately
needs long-range artillery and
air-defense support from the
U.S., and that the aid will help
Ukraine recruit the manpower
it needs to fend off an ex-
pected Russian offensive in
the coming months.
“We want to get things as
fast as possible so that we get
some tangible assistance for
the soldiers on the front line
as soon as possible, not in an-
other six months, so that they
will be able to move ahead,”
he said through an interpreter.
“We did lose the initiative
there,” Zelensky said, adding
that the assistance provides a
chance to stabilize the situa-
tion. At most it has the poten-
tial to let Kyiv pin down Rus-
sian forces until European
allies can deliver more assis-
tance next year.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry
Peskov said after the House
approval this weekend that
the move “will further enrich
the United States of America
and further ruin Ukraine,
causing more Ukrainians to
die due to the fault of the Kyiv
Office
Activists
On Thin Ice
Continued from Page One
many chief executives publicly
expressed corporate solidarity.
Google, in particular, has long
prided itself on an open work
culture that fostered internal de-
bate, much like a college.
It is an open question as to
what rights workers really have
to speak out on the job. “None of
this is settled,” said Genevieve
Lakier, a law professor at the
University of Chicago.
Workers in the private sector
aren’t protected by the First
Amendment’s guarantees of free
speech, and “there is still a lot of
uncertainty about how much
free expression by workers is
consistent with the operations
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, left, greeted Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, center, in Doha in December.
ing leaving Qatar for another
country.
In recent weeks, mediators
from Qatar and Egypt have
pressured Hamas representa-
tives to get the group to
soften its conditions. At times,
Hamas leadership received
threats of expulsion if it failed
to agree to a deal releasing
hostages.
“The possibility of the talks
being upended entirely is very
real,” another Arab mediator
said.
Qatar, a Persian Gulf mon-
archy the size of Connecticut,
has long worked to end Gaza
wars and boost aid to Pales-
tinians, building trust with
the combatants and familiar-
ity with their negotiating tac-
tics. In the past six months, it
regime,” according to Russian
state news agency TASS.
CIA Director William Burns
said on Thursday that without
the new U.S. aid, “There is a
very real risk that the Ukraini-
ans could lose on the battle-
field by the end of 2024,” or at
least put President Vladimir
Putin of Russia in a position
to dictate terms of a political
settlement. With the aid, “the
Ukrainians are entirely capa-
ble of holding their own” on
the ground this year while
continuing to hit Russian air
and naval forces.
Since the Biden administra-
tion first proposed the current
package of supplemental aid
to Ukraine, the Pentagon has
been in contact with Ukrai-
nian forces regarding their
needs and delivery logistics,
Assistant Secretary of Defense
Celeste Wallander said in an
interview. “We already have
planned what capabilities we
would prioritize,” she said.
North Atlantic Treaty Or-
ganization Secretary-General
Jens Stoltenberg said Friday
that members at a virtual
meeting with Ukraine’s Zel-
ensky had pledged to supply
new air-defense systems, and
that the Czech Republic has
delivered about 500,000 artil-
lery shells. Ukraine’s Western
allies supplying arms plan
later this month to hold a vir-
tual meeting with the aim of
expanding commitments.
Resupplying Kyiv’s forces
is “already urgent,” Wallander
of the workplace,” she said.
Numerous workers reported
being fired from companies af-
ter writing contentious social-
media posts about the Oct. 7
Hamas attacks in Israel or the
war in Gaza.
At Google, leaders said the
protesting workers violated
company policy by taking over
office spaces and disrupting
work. While preserving the com-
pany’s open culture is impor-
tant, Google CEO Sundar Pichai
wrote to staff afterward, “we
also need to be more focused in
how we work, collaborate, dis-
cuss and even disagree.”
Hasan Ibraheem, a Google
software engineer who was ar-
rested and then fired after tak-
ing part in the protest at the
company’s New York office, said
the firings didn’t square with his
image of Google when he was
hired less than two years ago.
It was “the big company that
was still fun and vibrant. You
were allowed to express your-
self,” said Ibraheem, 23 years
WORLD NEWS
has brought those relation-
ships to bear on one of the
world’s thorniest diplomatic
crises, demonstrating its value
as a U.S. ally while raising its
profile as the Middle East’s in-
dispensable mediator.
But Sheikh Mohammed bin
Abdulrahman al-Thani, Qatar’s
prime minister and foreign
minister, recently said the
Gulf state was reassessing its
role as mediator between Is-
rael and Hamas. He cited what
he said was unfair criticism of
Qatar’s efforts to end the war
in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Ben-
jamin Netanyahu has said
pressure should be applied on
Qatar, which played a signifi-
cant role in mediating Novem-
ber’s truce and prisoner ex-
FROM PAGE ONE
Breakdown of the Ukraine package
Defense Department
Total: $48.43 billion
Ammunition
procurement
Operation and
maintenance
$34.24 B
State Department and USAID
Total: $11.62 billion
International
security
assistance
$2 B
$7.90 B
$1.6 B
Other bilateral
economic assistance
Source: the bill
said, citing recent congressio-
nal testimony by Army Gen.
Christopher Cavoli, the top
U.S. military officer in Eu-
rope, on the dire state of
Ukrainian defenses.
“It is going to come literally
old, who had been active in pro-
Palestinian demonstrations be-
fore joining Google. Though he
knew of a few co-workers who
had quit because of their opposi-
tion to the $1.2 billion Israeli
contract that Google shares with
Amazon.com, called Project
Nimbus, he said he had opted to
stay so he could protest the con-
tract from within.
Google had been responsive
to employee concerns about
government work before. In
2018, it decided not to renew a
separate Pentagon contract after
that work became the subject of
intense internal debate. The
company also pledged not to
make artificial-intelligence tech-
nology for military weapons and
adopted a set of AI principles to
guide its work.
A Google spokesman said
staffers complained the protest-
ers disrupted their work.
Other companies have found
themselves in clashes with dis-
senting employees. This month,
NPR suspended a senior editor—
change between Hamas and
Israel.
“There are limits to this
role and limits to the ability to
which we can contribute to
these negotiations in a con-
structive way,” the Qatari
leader said. “The state of Qa-
tar will make the appropriate
decision at the right time.”
Never before has Qatar’s
decadelong relationship with
Hamas, which is committed to
violent resistance to Israeli
occupation, come under such
scrutiny.
Some U.S. lawmakers and
Israeli politicians have for
months called on the White
House to force Qatar to cut
ties with Hamas.
Qatari and U.S. officials
deny the terrorism allegations.
Missiles
procurement
$5.61 B
$3.11 B
$4.59 B
Other
procurement
Other
Other
Economic
support fund
Other
Kara Dapena/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
in the nick of time,” said John
Nagl, a retired U.S. Army lieu-
tenant colonel who is now a
professor of warfighting at
the U.S. Army War College.
Russian troops, because of
their superior battlefield posi-
who subsequently resigned—af-
ter he published a critique of the
radio network’s news coverage
in another media outlet. The
New York Times, where divi-
sions over its Gaza war coverage
have roiled the newsroom, in-
vestigated
whether staffers
leaked confiden-
tial materials to Some workers
another outlet. were fired after
It closed the
probe last week posting online
without a con-
clusive finding.
about the Oct. 7
S t a r - Hamas attacks.
bucks sued the
union represent-
ing around 410
of its more than 9,700 U.S.
stores after local affiliates of
Starbucks Workers United
posted pro-Palestinian tweets
and reshared an image of a bull-
dozer breaking through the
fence encircling Gaza. The coffee
chain alleged the union’s use of
the Starbucks name and brand-
ing led people to misattribute
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Israel and Hamas have re-
jected various proposals made
through Egypt and Qatar fol-
lowing the end of the last
cease-fire on Nov. 30, though
they have previously largely
agreed on a framework that
includes several phases and a
potential long-term cease-fire.
Qatar’s ability to maintain
ties with Hamas—as it does
with other radical groups such
as the Taliban and states in-
cluding Iran and Venezuela—
reflects a difficult balancing
IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
act in a world in which the
U.S. increasingly demands that
its friends take unequivocal
stances with it and against an
array of enemies. This heredi-
tary monarchy hosts one of
America’s largest foreign mili-
tary bases.
Pressure from U.S. legisla-
tors has been building on Qa-
tar to extract more conces-
sions from Hamas or sever
ties with the organization.
Israeli officials have for
months been lobbying Egypt,
which communicates directly
with Hamas’s military wing
and often with its political
They say Qatar has coordi- leadership, to take a bigger
nated with Israel on its previ- role in hostage talks, citing
ous engagements with Hamas, concern that Qatar wasn’t
and Israel’s national-security putting enough pressure on
adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, has Hamas in Doha.
praised Qatar’s recent diplo- Rep. Steny Hoyer (D., Md.),
macy following the Oct. 7 at- the former Democratic leader
tacks. in the House, said in recent
The officials say Hamas po- days that Qatar should pres-
litical leaders are in Doha at sure Hamas to release the
Washington’s request and hostages by cutting off fund-
would otherwise end up in a ing to the group or kicking its
location where it is harder for political leaders out of Doha.
Western officials to communi- “If Qatar fails to apply this
cate with them, such as Iran pressure, the United States
or Syria. Qatar’s ability to en- must re-evaluate its relation-
gage with Hamas is crucial, ship with Qatar,” he said.
since U.S. and European offi- The Qatari Embassy in
cials are prevented from con- Washington responded by say-
tacting them directly by their ing Doha is “only a mediator”
governments’ classification of and that Israel and Hamas are
the group as a terrorist organ- entirely responsible for reach-
ization. ing an agreement.
tion, can concentrate barrages
at will. “The Ukrainians can
see them, but they can’t hit
cause of experience shipping
large amounts of military
equipment to Ukraine since
them,” Nagl said.
Wallander said that new
U.S. aid would make it much
Russia’s large-scale invasion.
U.S. funding approval, if
completed, could also prompt
more difficult for Russia to
launch such attacks and en-
able Ukraine to do so.
some hesitant NATO allies to
ship equipment for Kyiv, a
NATO diplomat said. Since
Potentially no less signifi- funding for Ukraine became a
cant, the aid could also boost political battle in Washington
Ukrainian morale. last year, many U.S. allies have
“Knowing this is coming hesitated to raid their armories
will help them dig a little for Kyiv, fearing waning U.S.
deeper until the rounds are in resolve, diplomats said.
guns,” Nagl said. Now, approval of the large
In a bunker outside the be- funding package by a biparti-
sieged eastern city of Chasiv san majority could reassure
Yar, four Ukrainian troops wary allies that the U.S. still
cheered when they heard on supports Ukraine against Rus-
Saturday night that the House sia and won’t let it fail.
had approved the aid package. Europe overall has eclipsed
“Finally,” said one 34-year- the U.S. as Ukraine’s largest
old drone pilot. “The longer benefactor in its fight, but
we’ve been here, the more we support varies widely among
felt the shortage of ammo.” European countries. Many in
Ukrainian troops in recent the continent’s south and west
weeks have been improvising have provided proportionally
by targeting advancing Rus- less than those that border
sians with explosive drones. Russia, such as Poland and the
More ammunition will allow Baltic states, or that have
Ukraine instead to use artil- taken a strong stance against
lery, which is more destructive Russian aggression, such as
and can hold Russian forces the U.K. and Germany.
off at a greater distance. NATO’s Stoltenberg re-
The boost in military sup- cently told members that if
plies can’t help Ukraine with they have in their warehouses
troop levels, though. The gov- equipment that Ukraine could
ernment is slowly moving to deploy, it would be of more
enact new laws to expand the use to the whole alliance
draft pool, but dithering over fighting Russia now than
politically unpopular decisions gathering dust in storage.
has left ranks thin. —Ian Lovett, Ann M.
Wallander said the U.S. will Simmons and Andy Duehren
be able to speed deliveries be- contributed to this article.
such sentiment to the company.
(The two sides have since said
they are working toward resolv-
companies should be to any is-
sue that doesn’t directly affect
business, some executives and
ing the litigation.)
Until recently, many company
leaders viewed speaking out as
corporate advisers said.
Many of them point to Dis-
ney’s now-resolved legal battle
less risky than appearing unre-
sponsive to calls
for social ac-
with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis,
a Republican, as a cautionary
tale. The fight stemmed from
tion—such as in Disney’s move in 2022 to pub-
the aftermath of licly oppose Florida’s Parental
George Floyd’s Rights in Education bill, as it
2020 murder, faced pressure from LGBTQ em-
when businesses ployees and advocacy groups.
voiced support Last year’s damaging boycott of
for the Black Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Bud
Lives Matter Light—after the brand’s market-
movement. ing promotion with a transgen-
But issues der influencer—has also made
that have boiled companies leery of moves that
over in workplaces since then— risk landing them in a culture
from state abortion bans to the war, they said.
war in Gaza—don’t lend them- Corporate leaders “are very
selves to simple pronounce- concerned about public backlash,
ments of solidarity or town halls especially boards of directors,”
where employees can share their said Jonathan Bernstein, chair-
personal experiences. man of Bernstein Crisis Manage-
The perils of being ensnared ment, which advises companies
in partisan politics is changing on corporate communications
the calculus of how responsive and reputation management.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. NY Monday, April 22, 2024 | A8A

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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. * * * * * * Monday, April 22, 2024 | A9

WORLD NEWS

Eviction by Niger Derails U.S. Plans WORLDWATCH

ECUADOR UNITED KINGDOM
BY MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS
Voters Back Leader Tribute to Fallen
NAIROBI—When Niger or- On Security Plan Marathon Winner
dered the U.S. to withdraw Ecuador’s fledgling presi- The London Marathon paid
counterterrorism troops and dent got a resounding victory tribute to last year’s winner
aerial drones from the coun- Sunday in a referendum that Kelvin Kiptum with a period
try, it drove the final nail into he touted as a way to crack of applause before the start
the coffin of American strat- down on criminal gangs be- of the men’s race on Sunday.
egy to defeat a violent Isla- hind a spiraling wave of vio- Kiptum was killed along
mist insurgency overrunning lence. with his coach in a car crash
the heart of western Africa. An official quick count in his native Kenya in Febru-
The decision to expel showed that Ecuadoreans ary. At 24, he was already the
American forces will likely ac- overwhelmingly voted “yes” marathon world record holder
celerate contingency plans to all nine questions focused and viewed as a top con-
that would pivot U.S. strategy on tightening security mea- tender for gold at the Olym-
from trying to defeat al Qaeda sures, rejecting only two pics in Paris this year.
and Islamic State where they more controversial economic Kiptum set a London Mar-
are strongest to trying to keep proposals. athon course record of 2
militants from infiltrating The count was announced hours, 1 minute, 25 seconds
neighboring countries along by the head of the Electoral in 2023—finishing nearly
the West African coast. National Council, Diana Ata- three minutes ahead of his
In meetings in Washington maint. closest rival.
this month, Nigerien Prime Among the measures ap- A video of his win was
Minister Ali Lamine Zeine told proved in the triumph for played before the start of the
Deputy Secretary of State Kurt President Daniel Noboa are men’s race, before a period of
Campbell that virtually all of his call to deploy the army in applause by the runners and
the 1,000 U.S. commandos and the fight against the gangs, the crowd at both the start
other personnel will have to to loosen obstacles for extra- area in Greenwich and the
leave, including those at a $110 diting accused criminals and finish in front of Buckingham
ISSIFOU DJIBO/SHUTTERSTOCK

million, U.S.-built drone base to lengthen prison sentences Palace.

in the desert town of Agadez. for convicted drug traffickers. Kenyan Alexander Mutiso
“Loss of basing in Niger Ecuador was traditionally Munyao won the men’s race,
complicates the Pentagon’s one of South America’s most finishing in 2 hours, 4 min-
ability to achieve U.S. security peaceful countries, but it has utes, 1 second.
objectives in the region,” a se- been rocked in recent years by It was a Kenyan double on
nior U.S. military officer said a wave of violence, much of it the day, with Olympic cham-
on Saturday. Protesters in Niamey fly Russian and Nigerien flags at a march for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. spilling over from neighboring pion Peres Jepchirchir pulling
Until last year’s military Colombia, the world’s largest away late to win the
coup, Niger had been the cor- the U.S. presence and began Insurgents control vast a heated exchange in March be- producer of cocaine. Last year, women’s race and cement her
nerstone of Washington’s coun- tilting toward Moscow. swaths of the Sahel, a semi- tween junta leaders and visit- the country’s homicide rate status as the favorite to de-
terterrorism strategy in the re- This month, anti-U.S. pro- desert region south of the Sa- ing American officials. During shot up to 40 deaths per fend her gold in Paris. She
gion, with U.S. Green Berets tests broke out in the capital hara. More than 35,000 people that meeting, senior U.S. State 100,000 people, one of the finished in 2 hours, 16 min-
advising local commandos dur- city, Niamey, days after Rus- have been killed in jihadist vio- and Defense officials accused highest in the region. utes, 16 seconds.
ing combat operations against sian military instructors lence in the region since 2017, the junta of secretly exploring a —Associated Press —Associated Press
what has become the world’s landed in the country. the overwhelming majority of deal to allow Iran access to its
most active Islamist insurgency. In a private diplomatic them in Mali, Burkina Faso and uranium reserves, Nigerien and
U.S. drones provided surveil- message to 15 West African Niger, according to the Penta- U.S. officials said. The Nigeriens
lance of insurgent activities. governments in March, the gon’s Africa Center for Strate- denied such plans, but a junta
Niger, with 1,000 American State Department signaled gic Studies, which analyzed spokesman called the American
personnel, is by far the largest that, once out of Niger, the figures collected by the Armed presence “illegal” and the U.S.
long-term U.S. position in U.S. would shuffle military aid Conflict Location & Event Data delegation “condescending.”
western Africa, and their de- and forces to assist local Project. Acled is a U.S.-based, The Biden administration
parture could leave just a few troops in a ring of countries nonprofit monitoring service. had hoped the generals would
dozen troops split between stretching around the perime- A planeload of Russian mil- walk back the expulsion
Benin and Chad. ter of western Africa. itary instructors and weapons threat, but last week’s meet-

ALEX DAVIDSON/GETTY IMAGES

The coup triggered U.S. “We know these countries arrived in Niamey this month, ings in Washington put an end
laws limiting security assis- have long been concerned Nigerien state television re- to those hopes.
tance. As the U.S. prodded the about the spread of extremism ported. “We’re here to train Campbell and other Ameri-
new regime to free ousted coming from the Sahel to these the Nigerien military,” said a can officials plan to visit Niger
President Mohamed Bazoum countries, and they’ve asked us man in camouflage fatigues, to hammer out details of the
and restore civilian rule, the for assistance,” a senior U.S. of- identified as a Russian mili- U.S. withdrawal, a senior U.S.
Nigerien generals, led by Pres- ficial said. “And so we’re look- tary instructor. defense official said. “We can-
ident Abdourahamane Tchiani, ing at those requests, and we’re The rupture between the not stay there against their Alexander Mutiso Munyao of Kenya crosses the finish line to
became more prickly about trying to see what we can do.” U.S. and Niger accelerated after will,” the official said. win the men’s race during Sunday’s London Marathon.

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A10 | Monday, April 22, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

FROM PAGE ONE

Marathon ger. She frets, unpacks and re-

packs for the big day ahead.
Van Ogtrop, 37, a physician
a.m., before cheering
together.
But these “Sunday
32-year-old real-estate broker.
Despite having a plan worthy
of a military general (a tracking
the Boston Marathon: six
times. Year one, Paige aimed for
three sightings. The result:

Spectators in Long Island, N.Y., is a self-de-

scribed “professional marathon
spectator.” She has tracked her
Fundays” aren’t en-
tirely a picnic for Van
Ogtrop. She’s navi-
app on her phone to follow him,
map studying, strategic meeting
spots and ample buffer time be-
Zero. Mom was too fast, trains
were too slow and Katherine
waited solo at the finish for 30

Train to Win husband, Tim Vassilakos, 37,

who works at a medical and
dental supply distributor, along
a whopping 22 marathon
Continued from Page One courses.
her to more than 20 marathons, “I have seen him every single
including Boston last Monday time,” Van Ogtrop said. “I re-
and London on Sunday. search these courses and the
The banana tradition began neighborhoods we go through.”
thanks to a friend whose hus- At the Boston Marathon, Van
band worked at Chiquita and Ogtrop faced a daunting chal-
had inflatable ones. Senzer even lenge: a point-to-point course
dressed as a banana once. “It’s with tight security. But did that
a huge pain in the ass,” Senzer break her flawless spectating
admits of carrying bananas streak? Not a chance.
while also coordinating their She planned to catch Vassila-
gating the course,
tracking her husband
and lugging a supply-
tween each) slow trains de-
railed Viswanathan’s strategy.
When she realized her hus-
minutes. Now, Paige is a spec-
tating ninja. Mom’s bib num-
ber? Check. Training updates?
stuffed bag; she’s band was going to beat her to Check. She takes a photo of
also herding a bois- their first planned point at mile Katherine’s outfit and tracks
terous, boozy adult 10, Viswanathan made a game- her religiously. This year’s plan:
bunch with varying time decision and hopped off catch her mother at mile 25.2
blood-alcohol levels. one stop early. She caught him and post-finish.
The couple got en- at 13.1 miles to deliver a fresh Paige and her twin, Spencer
gaged the day after shirt. “It’s kind of like an oasis Huggins, waited for about 30
the 2017 New York in the marathon,” said McHugh. minutes for a 20-second sight-
City Marathon. “I After another meetup, at ing, enough time to hug their
struggled to get mile 23, Viswanathan braved a mom, who was rocking a 8:08-
down on one knee,” 45-minute maze of closed-off minute mile. Then the twins
Vassilakos recalled. streets to find McHugh already went to their prearranged
Like marathoners, at the finish. meetup spot at Boston Com-

SENZER FAMILY
children and supplies. But he kos once, but she overper- spectators say each “Wasn’t her best. Wasn’t her mons, beyond the finish line.
happily continues his duties. “I formed. In the sea of more than course is a unique worst,” McHugh joked about his They beat their mom there. “A
know it serves as a beacon for 29,000 runners who entered, beast. New York wife’s spectating. “Pretty much personal best,” Paige said.
Danielle to keep her motivated.” she spotted her husband twice. City? Electric crowds, Danielle Senzer and her husband, just like the marathon for me.” “Marathoners train for the
“I’m always scanning the “The trains worked in my fa- but tough restaurant Steven Senzer, who brings the banana. “If this is a performance re- marathon, but spectators do not
crowd for the bananas,” agrees vor,” said Van Ogtrop, who used reservations. Tokyo’s view, I’m a 2,” Viswanathan train for the one-mile sprint,”
Danielle, who can spot them a public transportation to reach out-and-back is good for meet- trying to spot her husband, Nick agreed, laughing. “But there Paige said, clocking their mile
quarter-mile away. “I dart over viewing spots. ing runners, but the language McHugh, on the point-to-point was a history of good perfor- or so at 15:30.
to that side of the street.” For the couple, the New York barrier can complicate naviga- course, essentially a straight mances.” Katherine Huggins appreci-
Katlynn Van Ogtrop’s mara- City Marathon is an unofficial tion. line. “Nick is running a mara- Paige Huggins, a 28-year-old ates seeing her children
thon-eve ritual: set out water holiday. Family and friends hop In Boston recently, spectator thon, but I’m walking a half- attorney in Boston, is a sea- midrace. They “have to go
bottle, kinesiology tape, Tylenol, on the Long Island Rail Road, Arya Viswanathan, 30, played a marathon,” said Viswanathan, a soned pro at cheering on her against a crowd,” she said. “At
bandages and a portable char- popping prosecco as early as 8 version of “Where’s Waldo?” serial spectator for McHugh, a mom, Katherine Huggins, 53, in least I have a straight path.”

Dirty Money
CLOCKWISE: JASON ALDEN/BLOOMBERG NEWS; MIKE MARSLAND/WIREIMAGE/GETTY IMAGES; NATIONAL CRIME AGENCY

Moves Via
Airports
Continued from Page One
tiously introduce more than
$2 trillion in proceeds from il-
legal enterprises to global fi-
nancial systems every year,
according to estimates. Inter-
national airplane passengers
likely ferry hundreds of bil-
lions of dollars worth of that
in cash, according to figures
from the United Nations Office
on Drugs and Crime and the
Financial Action Task Force,
an intergovernmental agency
that develops anti-money-
laundering standards for
countries.
One reason for so much air-
line smuggling is that penal-
ties and scandals over cus- Travelers passing through Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport in London. Jo-Emma Larvin, top right in 2010, was found guilty of
tomers engaged in money- money laundering. Abdulla Alfalasi, right, pleaded guilty to money laundering. He allegedly orchestrated the operation.
laundering have prompted
more banks around the world money couriers, as well as in- Calzaghe, made the British operated by airport-security other member of the smug- pickups from clients around
to report suspicious transac- terviews with investigators tabloids after he started dat- agents, responsible for pas- gling group from a tattoo on the U.K., and managed the lo-
tions. “You just can’t walk into and people familiar with the ing his partner on the TV senger safety, not customs her forearm. gistics of counting and pack-
a bank with this much money matter. show “Strictly Come Dancing.” and immigration officials. Investigators searched the ing the cash. He charged
without being flagged,” said Abdulla Alfalasi started fly- The following month, Larvin and her travel com- phone of one of the women around 10% of the total. In
George Voloshin, of ACAMS, ing cash from Heathrow to Larvin sent Clarke a photo of panion settled into their busi- and from that information be- Dubai, he exchanged the ster-
an industry group for finan- Dubai around 2017 and ex- her passport and traveled by ness-class seats, and baggage gan piecing together how Al- ling notes into gold and local
cial crime-fighting profes- panded his operation during train to London’s King’s Cross handlers stowed their suit- falasi’s money-laundering op- currency through banks,
sionals. “You will be arrested the pandemic. station, on her way to Heath- cases below them in the hold. eration grew to 36 money changers and in park-
at the next branch.” On New Year’s Day 2020, row Airport. Her heart rate The trip, there and back, went international couriers. ing-lot transactions.
A U.K. government spokes- Alfalasi left Heathrow with 11 was going up, she texted her without a hitch. In December 2020, Clarke Truby, the senior investiga-
person said customs officers cases, weighing 463 pounds, new boyfriend, Jonathan was arrested with around $9 tor in the case, said he sus-
respond effectively with air- and reported the equivalent of Johnson, an executive re- million worth of gold on a pri- pected that Alfalasi and his
port security to smuggling $850,000 in Dubai. He told a cruiter. Cashed out vate plane in Zanzibar, off the operatives smuggled as much
risks. A Heathrow airport former business partner he “Please be careful,” he In October 2020, two other coast of Tanzania, said Truby, as $250 million from 2017 un-
spokesman declined to com- had connections with the wrote. “I’m beside myself women weren’t so lucky. They the senior investigating offi- til his arrest in December
ment on its security equip- royal family. His father-in-law here.” were questioned at a Heath- cer in the case. 2021. Prosecutors said the
ment and practices. An Emir- ran Dubai airport customs Larvin headed to a Star- row departure gate by officers U.K. authorities arrested cash came from criminal con-
ates Airline spokesperson said back when it was a shed and a bucks in an ex- of the Border eight more alleged couriers in duct. Alfalasi never identified
detecting cash smuggling was table. He developed the air- pensive shop- Force, the May 2021. Seven months later, his clients, according to au-
the responsibility of authori- port into a global hub as di- ping district agency in Alfalasi unexpectedly visited thorities.
ties where the cash originated. rector-general of aviation. and met her Airport security charge of U.K. London with his wife and chil- Alfalasi pleaded guilty in
A U.A.E. official said it was Later that month, Alfalasi traveling com- isn’t for crime customs and dren, staying at an apartment June 2022 to money launder-
working to combat illicit fi- texted Michelle Clarke, an ex- panion, a 25- immigration. owned by his wife’s family on ing and was sentenced to a 9-
nancial flows, including ecutive assistant looking to y e a r - o l d detection, only One of the an exclusive Belgravia square. year, 7-month prison term.
through shared intelligence relocate to Dubai with her woman from a women told of- One day around lunchtime, The government seized
and joint operations with the children and husband, a for- town outside
flight safety, an ficers she government investigators around £3.5 million of Al-
U.K. The U.A.E., a global desti- mer pro soccer player. She be- London. A officer said. checked five knocked on Alfalasi’s door. falasi’s assets, including a
nation for the rich, was re- longed to a fun-loving crowd driver picked suitcases to They seized three phones that Mercedes G63, Ford pickup
cently removed from a global in the northern city of Leeds, them up in a Dubai because revealed details of his opera- truck and three Rolex
financial watchdog’s list of where she worked for the pay black Mercedes she wasn’t sure tion, which later surfaced in watches. His lawyer said in
places needing more monitor- TV group Sky. and drove to an address what to wear. court documents. court that Alfalasi was a use-
ing. Alfalasi sent Clarke a ticket nearby to collect the suit- “Omg shel. We’ve been Before each trip, Clarke ful idiot for higher-ups, people
for an overnight flight from cases. held,” the woman texted sent Alfalasi photos of the whom Alfalasi never named.
Heathrow to Dubai, returning At the airport, they went to Clarke, who was in Dubai. travelers’ passports so he Clarke is under investiga-
Low risk the same day. She had a text Emirates Airline and put the “Wtf.” could buy their airline tickets. tion in Dubai for money laun-
Officials and industry with the photo of a letter au- seven suitcases on the con- The suitcases were un- He booked them in pairs in dering. U.K. authorities would
groups said smuggling cash thorizing her to carry the cash veyor belt. The luggage en- loaded from the plane. They Emirates business class to like to question her and others
via airline is a relatively low for a company Alfalasi tered the mouth of a 3-D scan- contained nearly £2 million in take advantage of the extra in Dubai about their alleged
risk for people hired to do the owned, lending a false sense ner that uses computed cash, around $2.4 million. baggage allowance. His couri- involvement. Clarke’s husband
job. Larvin and her boyfriend of legitimacy to the job. tomography, or CT, to find ex- They also had videos of bun- ers returned in economy class. launched a cryptocurrency
were among an alleged three After Clarke landed, Al- plosives. These images, unlike dled notes being dumped from Alfalasi paid with his credit company that sponsored box-
dozen smugglers working for falasi guided her in texts and at passenger security, aren’t shopping bags for repacking. card and collected the air ing matches at a Dubai arena.
a money launderer from the voice messages to report the watched by people unless the Investigators suspect that the miles. Three of the couriers were
U.A.E. It seemed like easy cash at an airport office, and software identifies an item timestamped videos were in- Clarke paid the couriers for sentenced to prison, and one
money. Authorities believe said he was waiting outside. that might set fire or explode. tended as proof of cash trans- the work, as well as some ex- was acquitted. A courier who
they transported $125 million, She flew three more times in The machines can be pro- fers for money-laundering cli- penses, such as Covid tests, flew $5 million in August
largely from July to October in February 2020 and Alfalasi grammed to find cash, but ents. Authorities identified a from her U.K. bank account. 2020 died by suicide. Authori-
2020. enlisted other couriers. they aren’t because they are woman in the videos as an- Alfalasi arranged for cash ties said his phone contained
“How the hell did they get In July 2020, Clarke texted texts with details about the
away with it—so much money a friend, saying she needed 12 operation.
in such a short space of people to work. The job crite- Larvin and Johnson were
time?” said Ian Truby, a se- ria: “Can’t talk, trust, and reli- found guilty of money laun-
nior investigating officer at able and fit!!!” A friend put dering last year. In court, they
the U.K. National Crime Clarke in touch with Larvin, sought to blame Heathrow,
Agency. One answer, he said, saying that Clarke worked for Emirates Airline and the
is that airport security isn’t the U.A.E. embassy. U.A.E. for failing to ask ques-
for crime detection, only flight The women met over a cof- tions. The couple and several
safety. fee. Clarke’s teenage son sat at other couriers received sus-
Three weeks later, Larvin a nearby table. Clarke showed pended sentences. Two other
left for Heathrow with her Larvin stamped certificates couriers were convicted in
boyfriend and a few million she would carry as a docu- January and are scheduled for
more dollars worth of cash in ment courier and offered sentencing later this month.
eight suitcases. Her boyfriend £3,000, around $3,750, to fly Johnson said in texts to
had worried about drawing the suitcases. Clarke also The Wall Street Journal that
undue attention with so much would pay for Larkin to stay he and Larvin were two ordi-
luggage. “It’s f—ing ridicu- at a resort until she returned nary people who got hood-
lous,” he texted. “Talk about home with the empty bags. winked, and he blamed cor-
conspicuous.” Larvin had worked in digi- ruption and politics for
NATIONAL CRIME AGENCY

This account of the Heath- tal marketing and done some allowing so much cash to pass
row cash-smuggling operation modeling and wildlife photog- through Heathrow Airport to
is based on documents and ev- raphy. She had acted in a Dubai without detection.
idence released by U.K. au- chart-topping British band’s If what they did was such a
thorities, court records that music video in 2008. Her 2009 big crime, Johnson said, why
included text messages and breakup with her world-cham- don’t airports scan luggage for
photos, court testimony by pion boxer boyfriend, Joe Bundles of cash found in a suitcase after an arrest at Heathrow Airport. cash?

© 2024 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved.
ON THE
CLOCK
CALLUM
BORCHERS
S
o, what happens when
the boss tries ketamine?
At insurance broker-
age Frontier Risk, the
remote team of 12 gets
summoned to a weekly,
hourlong video call that mostly in-
volves watching each other work.
People are free to talk, but there is
no agenda.
The workers aren’t on drugs,
but Chief Executive James Whit-
comb hatched the idea for the ses-
sions during a $1,000 psychedelic
experience at a ketamine clinic in
Connecticut.
His sober self would have dis-
missed the notion of sitting in
shared silence as too woo-woo for
the workplace, he says. On ket-
amine, however, he figured it was
worth a try to spark unscripted
moments of collaboration.
There’s no magic pill for career
success, but an increasingly vocal,
if tiny, share of professionals
swear a capsule of psilocybin or
an infusion of ketamine comes
pretty close.
As the Journal has reported, a
vanguard of Silicon Valley leaders
and workers see psychedelics and
similar substances as a creativity
and productivity hack. And the le-
gal status of ketamine and decrim-
inalization of psilocybin, better
known as magic mushrooms, in
Oregon and Colorado, have less-
ened taboos around drug use.
Though data is difficult to
come by, psychedelics are begin-
ning to find some adherents be-
yond Silicon Valley who say the
drugs make them better at their
jobs by expanding imaginations or
taming doubts about their abili-
ties, though supporting research is
limited. The Food and Drug Ad-
ministration issued a warning last
fall about ketamine’s popularity as
an off-label mental-health treat-
ment, saying it “has not deter-
mined that ketamine is safe and
effective for such uses.” The FDA
also warned that using ketamine
without monitoring by a health-
care provider puts people at seri-
ous risk of adverse reactions, in-
cluding psychiatric events,
FROM TOP: SAM KELLY/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, ISTOCK (5); JOHANA LARA RODRIGUEZ; DANNY GABRIEL
increased blood pressure and uri-
nary problems.
Whitcomb says he initially
turned to ketamine to treat de-
pression and found it helped him
think more expansively
about work problems.
“It sounds very hippy-
dippy—it does—but I
really believe profes-
sional services firms
these days have to be
looking inwards to find
an edge in problem
solving,” Whitcomb
says.
 Juan Pablo Cappello
co-founded Nue Life
Health, a provider of at-
home ketamine
treatments, in 2021 but
sold the business two
years later.
Selling Gold Is Not
As Easy as It Seems
BY KATHERINE HAMILTON
C
ostco made buying a gold bar
as simple as tossing it in a
shopping cart. Selling it is a lot
more complicated.
Adam Xi, 33 years old, called five
different dealers to get a price he
could accept for the gold bar he
bought at Costco in October.
One dealer offered him $200 less
than the $2,000 he had paid. Taking
such a loss would thwart his plan
to rack up credit-card points buying
the gold and then quickly reselling
it. He kept at it, and eventually
found a local coin dealer near his
home in Philadelphia willing to pay
$1,960, or $20 under market price.
Costco shoppers are spending as
much as $200 million monthly on
gold, according to a Wells Fargo es-
timate. They are part of a new
wave of gold buyers, who have
taken an interest in precious metals
to protect their wealth against in-
flation and economic disaster.
When it comes time to cash out
their investment, many are learning
a hard truth: Gold isn’t the most liq-
uid asset.
Costco won’t buy back the bars
or accept returns. Gold changes
hands through online and storefront
dealers that charge fees or only buy
at discounts to market prices.
Online retailers, refineries and lo-
PERSONAL JOURNAL.
Drugs and the Workplace
Some workers swear ketamine and psychedelics can boost creativity and focus on the job
Cautionary tales
Some people are curious about
psychedelics, some skeptical. (Oth-
ers are just uninterested in hear-
ing about the boss’s latest trip.)
“I’m like, ‘How is this legal?’”
says Marcus Hutchins, a cyberse-
curity analyst in Los Angeles. He
abstains but says drugs that pro-
duce psychedelic effects are so
common at some big-name tech-
nology companies he consults with
that employees tell him they feel
pressure to join in to keep up.
“I don’t like the idea of work
culture getting to the point where
working insane hours is not
enough,” he said. “On top of that,
you now need to be doing drugs to
work even harder.”
A handful of companies’ bene-
fits plans now cover ketamine for
mental health. The drug is avail-
able through clinics and mail-or-
der businesses where doctors pre-
scribe it off-label to treat a range
of conditions.
Talking with more than a dozen
people who’ve used or administered
psychedelics, I heard about one
positive experience after another.
cal shops in New York City told The
Wall Street Journal that they would
typically offer between 1% and 5%
less than the market price for a ge-
neric 1-ounce gold bar like the ones
sold at Costco. None offered at or
above market value.
“It’s not like trading stocks,” said
Lark Mason, a New York-based ap-
praiser. “There’s a friction between
what you pay and what you actu-
ally get.”
Immediate loss
Gold is typically a buy-and-hold in-
vestment used to store value
through economic ups and downs,
like inflation. But after a more than
15% rise in gold prices this year,
more sellers are showing up to un-
load their bars and jewelry, pre-
cious-metals dealers said.
In March, customers at online
buyer JM Bullion sold twice as
much gold as the monthly average,
Chief Executive Robert Pacelli said.
There are more than 1,700 bul-
lion dealers in the U.S., according to
Bullion Directory. That doesn’t in-
clude jewelers, refineries and other
nonspecialized shops that buy gold.
Dealers will make offers based on
the current spot price, which fluc-
tuates throughout the day depend-
ing on supply, demand and futures
contracts.
As more sellers try to reap prof-
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
 Peggy Van de Plassche started
taking small doses of magic
mushrooms when her financial
advisory firm struggled early in
the pandemic.
Some true believers flagged the risk
of a bad trip with co-workers
(somewhat worse than getting
tipsy at the company Christmas
party) and concerns about over-
hyped expectations. Most—save
those working in or alongside the
psychedelics industry—didn’t want
their names used.
Juan Pablo Cappello, co-
founder of a Miami provider of
ketamine mental-health treat-
ments, Nue Life Health, said a
third of the roughly 50,000 people
who inquired about treatment
during his first two years in busi-
ness had no mental-health issues.
They were simply curious about
the drug’s potential to spark bril-
liant ideas.
Nue Life turned those folks
away. Cappello sold the business
last year because he says it
couldn’t compete financially with
its from rising gold prices, some
dealers say they are less inclined to
make competitive offers. When
asked about gold bars, a Money
Metals Exchange representative
said they had so many in inventory
that they had lowered their offers.
Selling gold online has additional
costs. Shipping fees can be as much
as $40 for an ounce of gold, accord-
ing to JM Bullion. Insurance on that
shipping is another $40 for a $2,000
gold bar, per the U.S. Postal Service.
Profits on gold held longer than a
year can also be taxed at a higher
rate than other long-term invest-
ments. The Internal Revenue Ser-
vice typically treats gold as a col-
other companies that
give out the drug more
freely.
Cole Butler, founder
of a mental-health
trade association called
the Integrative Care
Collective, recalls an
uncomfortable session
with a group of co-
workers at a ketamine-
assisted therapy clinic
where he used to work.
Participants reclined
with blankets, pillows
and eye shades as he
read poetry aloud to
create a soothing envi-
ronment. Next came
the injections. One
woman’s mind went to a dark
place, leaving her visibly emo-
tional and colleagues unsure how
to respond.
Finding focus
Peggy Van de Plassche started tak-
ing small doses of magic mush-
rooms—capsules containing about
5% to 10% of the psilocybin chemi-
cal that someone might consume
while partying—when her finan-
cial advisory firm struggled early
in the pandemic. She got her first
supply at a wellness clinic that she
visited for massages near her
home in Canada and found she
could focus on important tasks for
long stretches.
She quit her day job in 2022 to
turn her personal experience into
a program for others, which she
calls the Microdose Diet. (Her
book by the same name drops next
month from Simon & Schuster.)
Van de Plassche is quick to ac-
knowledge that medical research
to support the performance-en-
hancing effectiveness of psyche-
delics is limited and notes that her
template for microdosing involves
 Costco shoppers are spending
up to $200 million on gold, Wells
Fargo estimates.
lectible. This means the capital-
gains tax rate can be as high as
28%. The highest rate for a stock in-
vestment would be 20%, according
to the IRS. These rates don’t in-
clude the additional 3.8% surtax for
high earners.
Investors can expect their gold to
immediately lose around 5% of its
value, said Tom Graff, chief invest-
ment officer at wealth advising
company Facet. This is due both to
the premium buyers pay and the
fees needed to resell it.
Monday, April 22, 2024 | A11
journaling and meditation, too.
“This is the next level of bio-
hacking,” she says. “If I can be
more creative in two hours than
the person next to me is in eight,
that’s an advantage.”
Andrea Millen, a psychologist
and co-founder of an executive-
coaching business called Lead Em-
bodied, is organizing a three-day
off-site for female tech execs in
California this fall that includes
daily ketamine injections super-
vised by a doctor.
Millen says the participants
had to apply for one of the dozen
slots, answering written questions
about their management styles
and their interest in joining the
retreat. She is trying to manage
expectations, especially for people
who may assume that one trip will
radically change their life, by tell-
ing those who’ve signed up that
it’s unlikely they’ll emerge from
the $2,000 weekend with billion-
dollar ideas. More realistic, she
says, is that ketamine will help
them let down their guard and ac-
cept coaching more readily.
Tales of uninhibited brain-
storming make Chris Giuseppini, a
freelance marketing professional,
curious about ketamine.
He can be his own harshest
critic, he says, generating ideas
only to question whether they’re
any good. He often spends much
of the day pacing around his home
office, waiting for inspiration to
strike.
Several creative professionals
he admires have shared positive
experiences with ketamine dimin-
ishing their tendency to second-
guess themselves.
Giuseppini hasn’t experimented
yet, but he’s considering it.
“Is there another realm I could
unlock—a few more chambers of
my brain?” he wonders.
Gold investors de-
pend on price apprecia-
tion to recover those
costs. Though prices
have been climbing
lately, they haven’t his-
torically risen with the
same consistency as
stocks. “You need a
holding period that’s
long enough to over-
whelm that cost,” said
Graff of Facet.
A sea of options
Pawnshops and bricks-
and-mortar bullion deal-
ers are the primary op-
tions for face-to-face
deals. There are also
hundreds of online re-
tailers of varying sizes
and reputability. Sellers
can also sell directly to
peers through platforms
like eBay, Facebook
Marketplace or Reddit.
Luke Greib, of Southeast Michi-
gan, waited almost a decade to
make a profit on his gold bar. He
sold his 1-ounce Credit Suisse bar
for $2,350 in April after paying
$1,500 for it back in 2015.
He didn’t bother with local shops,
which he believes lowball sellers. He
compared offers from a range of on-
line retailers. He rejected those, too.
Instead, he sold the bar to some-
one he found on a Reddit page ded-
icated to trading precious metals.
He received the payment via Zelle,
without the tax or other fees asso-
ciated with many third-party sites.
“If you research online, you can
get a better price,” he said.
A12 | Monday, April 22, 2024
BY CORDILIA JAMES
D
ay by day, there’s
growing pressure at
the office. Do you re-
spond to all those cli-
ents—or let AI do it?
Do you attend that
meeting—or do you send a bot?
About 20% of employed adults
said they have used OpenAI’s
ChatGPT for work as of February
2024, up from 8% a year ago, ac-
cording to Pew Research Center.
The most popular uses for AI at
work are research and brainstorm-
ing, writing first-draft emails and
creating visuals and presentations,
according to an Adobe survey.
Productivity boosts from AI are
estimated to be worth trillions of
dollars over the next decade, say
consultants. Many companies are
encouraging their workers to em-
brace and learn the new tools. The
industries that will benefit most
are sales and marketing, customer
care, software engineering and
product development. For most
workers, it can make your day-to-
day a bit less annoying.
“If you’re going to use it as a
work tool,” said Lareina Yee, a se-
nior partner at the consulting firm
McKinsey and chair of its Technol-
ogy Council, “you need to think of
all the ways it can change your
own productivity equation.”
Using AI at work could get you
fired—or at least in hot water. A
judge last year sanctioned a lawyer
who relied on fake cases generated
by ChatGPT, and some companies
have restricted AI’s usage.
Other companies and bosses are
pushing staff to do more with AI,
but you’ll need to follow guidelines.
Rule No. 1: Don’t put any company
data into a tool without permis-
sion. And Rule No. 2: Only use AI
to do work you can easily verify,
and be sure to check its work.
ChatGPT is easy to play around
with. For one, version 3.5 is free—
though the $20-a-month ChatGPT
Plus (which includes GPT-4) deliv-
ers better results. Your company
might already pay for AI tools from
Google or Microsoft, so start there.
Whether you’re self-employed
or working at a Fortune 500 com-
pany, these are four areas where
AI can help. We’ve gathered the
best starting phrases (aka
“prompts”) and the neatest tricks
to try in each category.
Email
 Coolest Trick: Summarize
lengthy email threads.
 Do: Add your own touches to
drafts so they sound more natural.
 Don’t: Use vague prompts that
go nowhere—and don’t overdo the
proofreading tools.
Email is annoying, but it isn’t
going away. AI can make respond-
ing to messages easier.
Using a free version of Micro-
soft Copilot or Google’s Gemini
chatbots, prompt the tool to write
words of encouragement, a time-
off request or some other email
premise. In seconds, you’ll get a
workable, if bland, draft. Based on
our tests, ChatGPT Plus delivered
impressive results on the first try.
The free ChatGPT did fine, but
MY RIDE BY A . J. BAIME
A Kooky Connection
To Addams Family
Clint Moore, 53, a realtor living in
San Jose, Calif., on his 1932 Packard
903 Deluxe Eight, as told to
A.J. Baime.
M
y dad, Doug Moore, bought
his first Packard when I was
6, and I have been in love
with Packards ever since. My first
car, which I still own, was a 1948
Packard that I drove to James Lick
High School in San Jose in the ’80s.
My dad’s car, which he still owns,
is a 1946 Packard limousine. He was
president of the Packard Club na-
tionally, and our family would go to
meets all over the place. I would
see prewar Packards and they had
this next-level glamor to them. They
were built to compete with Rolls-
Royces and
Duesenbergs—the
height of what
money could buy.
I set my sights on
a prewar Packard,
and started set-
ting money aside
when I was in my
20s. I saved for
two decades.
One day, I real-
ized I had enough
money and I
made some calls.
My uncle knew of
a woman selling
her 1932 Packard.
PERSONAL JOURNAL.
Letting AI Do the Work
Generative AI tools can help you get ahead in the office—here’s a guide
gave less detail than its subscrip-
tion counterpart.
To get AI inside your email
service, you or your employer has
to pay. For $20 a month, Copilot
Pro lets Outlook users draft,
proofread and reply to emails, and
summarize long email threads. If
your company pays for Microsoft’s
enterprise version, Copilot can
reference files saved in your cor-
porate cloud.
The Google One AI Premium
plan, also $20 a month, integrates
Google Gemini in personal Gmail
accounts. Email thread summari-
zation is coming soon, but for
now, the Help Me Write feature
helps you draft and tweak emails.
We got better results entering
prompts in the stand-alone Gemini
chatbot.
For $30 a month, or $144 a year,
Grammarly’s premium generative-
AI service can appear in most text
windows on your Windows or Mac
computer. You can write prompts,
personalize your voice and set your
preferences for later.
SAMPLE PROMPT: Write an email
to my direct report, Steve, asking
him to find time on my calendar to
discuss the projects he’ll work on
while I’m away next week. Write
It was a lady I knew, who lived near
me, so I called her. She invited me
over, and when she rolled up her
garage door, I thought: “Wait a min-
ute! I know this car.”
To take a step back, when I was
growing up, my dad had an Addams
Family cartoon book that I remem-
ber reading. So, when the Addams
Family movies came out in 1991 and
1993, I went to see them. In the
movies, the family is driving this old
green Packard. When I saw this
1932 Packard, I recognized it. Sure
enough, it was the car. The owner
had purchased it in 1991, the year
the first Addams Family movie
came out and, at that time, as she
explained to me, it was already un-
der contract to appear in the sec-
in a friendly but assertive way
and keep it short, no more than
two paragraphs.
Presentations
 Coolest Trick: Turn your notes
into PowerPoints with Copilot for
Microsoft 365.
 Do: Include enough slide ele-
ments in PowerPoint for fun,
unique layout options.
 Don’t: Get discouraged by bad
PowerPoint images—Microsoft’s
Designer is better.
Copilot Pro helps users gener-
ate, organize and understand Pow-
erPoint presentations. While only
enterprise users can feed it files to
create richer presentations on the
fly, Copilot Pro users can still
prompt the bot to add images to
slides.
Caveats: You have to add images
one at a time, and you get better
results if you use Microsoft’s stand-
alone Designer to generate images,
then bring them over.
Designer in PowerPoint offers
unique slide layouts based on in-
formation in the presentation. If
you have a list of dates on a slide,
for example, Designer might sug-
ond movie. She had all these maga-
zine articles about it.
I thought, this is divine provi-
dence. How can it be that this is
the car? And that it was 10 miles
gest a timeline with those dates
already inserted.
Personal account users who
pay for Google Gemini can have
the bot generate unique back-
grounds and images within
Google’s Slides app. (Just don’t
ask for people since Google dis-
abled that feature following back-
lash over its inaccurate depictions
of race and ethnicity.)
Users of Gemini for Google
Workspace will soon be able to
prompt the bot to create slides
based on Gmail and Drive content,
a Google spokeswoman said.
ChatGPT won’t construct full
presentations, but it can provide
slide text based on prompts.
ChatGPT Plus can create slide
segments from uploaded docu-
ments. We asked it to turn a 25-
page PDF file into seven slides,
and it wrote text for each slide, in-
cluding two suggested titles and a
bullet list of key points.
SAMPLE PROMPT: Generate a wa-
tercolor image of a pink robot
dancing in the rain.
Summaries
 Coolest Trick: Get key points
from YouTube videos without hav-
ing to watch them.
from my house all this time?
The owner agreed to sell it to me
in 2017. I put some money into fixing
it up and have been taking it to car
shows ever since. I named the car
“Marlene the Dietrich,”
after Marlene Dietrich,
one of Hollywood’s big-
gest stars when the car
was built, but more im-
portantly, after the fa-
mous car designer Ray
Dietrich, who designed
this Packard’s body.
What I love most
about these old cars is
that you are really a
part of the driving ex-
perience. You don’t push
a button and let the car
drive itself, as you do in
new cars. Last year, I
was invited to show the
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
 Do: Ask chatbots to explain
complex topics or findings in a
way that you understand.
 Don’t: Overload the bot with
long videos or files.
Wordy, boring documents?
Chatbots love them. Free tools like
Copilot in Microsoft’s Edge
browser can summarize webpages,
articles, PDFs or other sources you
only have time to skim.
ChatGPT only allows Plus sub-
scribers to upload files. Other AI
tools such as Perplexity and An-
thropic’s Claude let you upload a
few limited-size files free. Turning
on the Google Workspace exten-
sion in Gemini chat lets you refer
to emails and files in Docs and
Drive, so you can ask it to summa-
rize information you already have
saved there. (Beware: In our test-
ing, it made some mistakes like
making up names for people.)
Copilot, Gemini and other bots
can summarize and provide time-
stamps for videos with tran-
scripts. Gemini users need to turn
on the YouTube extension in set-
tings. Copilot in Edge can answer
questions alongside open YouTube
or Vimeo pages. Video summari-
zation can be hit or miss, espe-
cially for longer clips.
SAMPLE PROMPT: List the five
key points discussed in this video
in a bulleted list.
Meetings
 Coolest Trick: Send your bot to
meetings for you.
 Do: Cross-check confusing notes
and ask bots about previous
meetings.
 Don’t: Use external monitoring
services in company meetings with-
out permission.
Otter.ai’s OtterPilot can join
meetings on Zoom or Google Meet
and take notes for you, even if you
can’t attend. The AI generates a
transcript and notes, which include
a brief summary, an outline and a
to-do list. Its chat function can
catch you up on what you missed if
you arrive late, and recall notes
from previous meetings. The free
version only gives you 300 tran-
scription minutes and 20 chat que-
ries a month. The premium starts
at $17 a month, or $110 a year.
In our test of the paid version,
Otter didn’t always know who said
what, and it forgot names and
misidentified people. You can re-
view recorded transcripts to check
on questionable points.
Zoom now has an AI Compan-
ion for paying users. It summa-
rizes meetings and lengthy chat
threads, brainstorms ideas, and
organizes meeting highlights.
RACHEL MENDELSON/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, ISTOCK
For Microsoft enterprise cus-
tomers, Copilot is embedded in
Teams and can take notes, sum-
marize chats and answer ques-
tions. Gemini for Google Work-
space accounts with the Gemini
Enterprise or AI Meetings and
Messaging add-on can also take
notes and summarize them.
If your colleagues notice you
missed the meeting and sent a bot
instead, your best response may
be: “Welcome to the future.”
Clint Moore drove a 1948 Packard
to high school in the ’80s. Now he
owns this 1932 Packard 903 Deluxe
Eight.
car at the Pebble Beach Concours
d’Elegance, which is like the Oscars of
car collecting. It’s a magical thing to
get to participate, and for me, I ful-
filled a lifelong dream.
KELSEY MCCLELLAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (3)
I am now director of the Northern
California Packards club and the ex-
ecutive vice president of the same
national Packard Club that my father
was president of. The national meet
this year is in June in Wisconsin, and
my father and I will be going. These
cars are rolling forms of artwork that
were a major source of our country’s
economy. We need to work to get
better visibility for these cars, to
make sure future generations value
them the way they should be.
 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
E
New York
ven the most decadent
denizens of Berlin in the
Weimar era—such as a
sinewy androgyne pre-
siding as the Emcee at a
nightclub where any-
thing goes, sexually speaking—
prove to be susceptible to the poi-
sonous seductions of the
ascendant Nazis in the theatrically
sizzling if emotionally tepid Broad-
way revival of “Cabaret.”
Most New York theatergoers
probably saw the last Broadway
production, which opened in 1998,
had a phenomenal six-year run,
and then returned in 2014. The
new version, directed by Rebecca
Frecknall, arrives on a tide of ec-
static reviews from London, bring-
ing along its marquee star, Oscar
and Tony winner Eddie Redmayne,
who plays that Emcee, and won an
Olivier Award for the performance.
It is styled as “Cabaret at the
Kit Kat Club,” with the theater re-
configured to resemble the night-
spot where the Emcee presides
over a gaudy floorshow starring
the British singer Sally Bowles,
played by Gayle Rankin, accompa-
nied by a small chorus flaunting
their flesh and their raw sexuality.
But didn’t that last revival take
a similar semi-immersive approach,
with some of the audience seated
at tables near the stage, where
they sipped cocktails while imbib-
ing the heady atmosphere, as they
can in the new version? And when
MARC BRENNER
it opened at the now-demolished
Henry Miller’s Theatre, that venue
was renamed the Kit Kat Club, too.
MUSIC REVIEW
Two Jazz Trumpeters in Tandem
BY WILL FRIEDWALD
C
het Baker and Jack Sheldon
didn’t have much in com-
mon. The two trumpeters and
occasional singers, who are heard to-
gether on the recently discovered,
newly released “In Perfect Harmony:
The Lost Album” (Jazz Detective,
out now), both emerged from the
West Coast jazz scene of the early
1950s, but that’s where the similarity
ends. Baker has come to be seen as
the ultimate moody
loner, the original jazz-
man without a coun-
try, wandering across A newly
the globe in an end- released album
less tour of one-night-
ers, generally staying documents a
one step ahead of
drug-enforcement po-
surprising 1972
lice. Sheldon became collaboration.
a mainstay in studio
orchestras, playing on
“The Merv Griffin
Show,” singing on “Schoolhouse
Rock!” and rarely leaving the West
Coast. Baker’s singing was quiet, re-
served and understated in a way
that many found irresistibly erotic,
whereas Sheldon was a figure of fun,
full of irrepressible humor and wise-
cracks galore—he even made an al-
bum of standup comedy. Baker was
unrepentantly self-destructive, lead-
ing to his death in 1988 under mys-
terious circumstances at age 58,
while Sheldon had a long, productive
K. ABE/CTSIMAGES
life and died at age 88.
And yet the two men were, in
fact, close friends. Sheldon, who
was two years younger, idolized
ARTS IN REVIEW
THEATER REVIEW | CHARLES ISHERWOOD
The Kit Kat Comes Back
The classic musical ‘Cabaret’ returns to Broadway in a decadent revival
True, the new production takes
the gambit further, adding pre-
show entertainment in three lav-
ishly redecorated bars, a sideshow
before the big-top attraction. But
Ms. Frecknall’s aggressively louche
production still feels like a more
saturated version of the prior one.
The musical is staged on a cir-
cular platform. The numbers per-
formed at the club—the celebrated
opener, “Willkommen”; “Don’t Tell
Mama”; “Mein Herr”—and the
scenes set in the boarding house
of Fraulein Schneider (Bebe Neu-
wirth) all take place on this largely
bare stage, suggesting the walls
between the nocturnal world,
where customers flout society’s
prevailing norms, and the increas-
ingly repressive culture outside
are more porous than one might
suppose.
Mr. Redmayne lives up to his
London acclaim, giving a savory,
seductive performance as the Em-
cee. Moving with an almost reptil-
ian slither, he presides over the
show with an air of preening in-
souciance, and sings in a sharp-
edged tenor that gives full due to
John Kander and Fred Ebb’s en-
duringly brilliant score.
The Emcee’s costumes, by Tom
Scutt, reflect a stylized, 21st-cen-
Baker, though he was careful not to
emulate the slightly older trum-
peter’s lifestyle.
In the late 1960s and early ’70s,
Baker was back in California, but
not by choice: In 1966, he had been
beaten and robbed, and his teeth
were decimated to the point that
he needed dentures and to relearn
how to play the trumpet. Other
than on a series of forgettable, pop-
oriented albums, by the summer of
1972 he had barely played or re-
corded in years.
It was Sheldon’s
idea that the two
should do an album
playing and singing
together, as a means
of easing Baker back
into full-time per-
forming. Sheldon ap-
proached the guitar-
ist and producer Jack
Marshall, who had
opened a recording
studio in Tustin, Calif. As Frank
Marshall, the producer’s son, writes
in the album notes, the two Jacks
then assembled an excellent rhythm
section with bassist Joe Mondragon
(who is playing electric on at least a
few tracks here), drummer Nick
Ceroli, and Dave Frishberg, the Min-
nesota-born jazz piano giant who
had only recently relocated from
New York. To make Baker feel even
more secure, Marshall himself also
played on the date, giving the trum-
peter something he virtually never
had the luxury of working with, a
full four-piece rhythm section. Shel-
don and Marshall prepared 11 songs,
tury sensibility—less 1920s Berlin
than contemporary fashion run-
way. Mr. Redmayne opens the
show wearing a knit vest with a
frilly tie and a blood-red leather
skirt, a tiny cone-shaped hat af-
fixed at a jaunty angle to his cop-
per-colored wig. The outfits grow
more outlandish, as when he
emerges in a skin-tight black en-
semble studded with silver but-
tons, a World War I helmet on his
head, and long, deadly-looking fin-
gernails. He looks like a horror-
movie monster.
Ms. Rankin’s Sally radiates a
defensive aggressiveness, as if she
feels always on the verge of having
the rug of life swept away from
beneath her—as it is when she is
fired, and forces herself on the be-
wildered good will of an American
writer, Cliff Bradshaw (Ato Blank-
son-Wood), whom she has only
just met, insisting on moving in
with him at Fraulein Schneider’s.
Their unlikely romance—Cliff is
attracted to men as well as
women—unfortunately feels en-
tirely artificial. Ms. Rankin’s some-
times shrill, peremptory Sally, ex-
uding the vulnerability of an
armored tank, and Mr. Blankson-
Wood’s stiff Cliff are a glaring
mismatch; they have all the chem-
totaling 35 minutes of mu-
sic: seven songbook stan-
dards, one Sheldon origi-
nal, two bossa novas, and
a blues.
The finished album is
excellent—though at times
there isn’t enough of it.
The most extreme example
is the opener, “This Can’t
Be Love,” which starts with
Sheldon singing the first
chorus rubato; then Frish-
berg subtly shifts it into
tempo and Baker sings an
uptempo chorus with Shel-
don playing behind
him. And that’s it. One
yearns to hear the two
trumpeters then start trad-
ing fours, but it ends there.
Elsewhere the album
seems just right, even on
the shorter tracks. “Just
Friends” is Baker singing
all the way through, here
getting to do a jazzier sec-
ond chorus, with Sheldon
again playing obbligatos;
although both tracks are
only two minutes and
change, “Friends” at least
feels complete. “But Not For Me” is
even better, opening with a charm-
ing intro in which Frishberg pays al-
legiance to Earl Hines and Teddy
Wilson, again with Sheldon playing
in support of Baker’s singing.
They never do actually sing to-
gether, but they play in tandem on
several numbers, such as “I Cried
for You” and Sheldon’s “Too
Blue”—a quasi-comedic novelty
istry of an empty test tube.
This leaves an emotional void
that is thankfully filled by the ro-
mance between Fraulein Schnei-
der and another boarder, the Jew-
ish fruit vendor Herr Schultz
(Steven Skybell), who woos her
with gentle courtliness. Both
bruised by life, they nevertheless
are increasingly drawn together.
Ms. Neuwirth renders her charac-
ter’s ambivalence but also her un-
deniable yearning for a refuge
from the world’s storms with ex-
quisite delicacy. Mr. Skybell’s
warmth and ardent devotion are
likewise affecting. The wry song
“Married” marks the show’s un-
likely emotional highlight—with
the terrific Natascia Diaz, as the
prostitute Fraulein Kost, another
boarder, haunting the stage as she
sings the woman’s verses, express-
ing her own desperate longing for
safe harbor.
Among Ms. Frecknall’s innova-
tions is an emphasis on dance,
with Julia Cheng’s choreography
making inventive use of the stage
space as the club performers
romp, stomp and shimmy around
Mr. Redmayne, engaging in ribald
movement that at one point in-
cludes such unlikely sexually
tinged props as a whisk and a toi-
 Chet Baker; his record with Jack
Sheldon, ‘In Perfect Harmony: The
Lost Album,’ is out now.
with allusions to the blues.
The two Brazilian songs, “Histo-
ria de un Amor,” sung by Sheldon,
and “Once I Loved,” where Baker
takes the lead, are satisfying vehi-
cles for the two. Throughout, the
presence of a second horn chal-
Monday, April 22, 2024 | A13
 Eddie Redmayne and the
company of ‘Cabaret,’ directed by
Rebecca Frecknall.
let plunger. Their thickly applied
makeup, skimpy costumes—a
green macramé bikini?—and mul-
ticolored hair are suggestive more
of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” than a
seedy European club of the period,
but they undoubtedly add to the
show’s arresting visual allure.
More provocative is the depic-
tion of the Emcee. Midway
through the first act he sings the
disturbingly lovely “Tomorrow Be-
longs to Me,” a coded celebration
of Aryan culture. This is a depar-
ture not just from the original but
from the aforementioned Broad-
way revival, in which Alan Cum-
ming’s Emcee was revealed, at the
close, wearing the uniform of a
concentration camp prisoner.
Whether Ms. Frecknall’s choice
makes sense may be disputed. In
any case, if the Emcee were moon-
lighting as a milquetoast-looking
Nazi sympathizer, when not
flouncing around the Kit Kat Club
with epicene abandon, his flawless
imitation of a social rebel would
be worthy of whatever the Wei-
mar equivalent of a Tony Award
might be.
Cabaret
August Wilson Theatre, 245 W.
52nd St., New York, $89-$594, kit-
kat.club
Mr. Isherwood is the Journal’s
theater critic.
lenges and inspires Baker to play
more aggressively than he later
would on most of his ’70s and ’80s
recordings. The longest track,
“When I Fall in Love,” finds Baker
singing and then playing
especially rapturously and
Sheldon offering equally
beautiful support.
“I’m Old Fashioned” and
“You Fascinate Me So” are
brief but highly copasetic
features for Baker and
Sheldon, respectively, each
playing agreeably behind
the other’s vocals. The set
ends with “Evil Blues,”
from the songbook of
Jimmy Rushing, with Baker
playing, Sheldon singing,
and Frishberg paying hom-
age to Count Basie.
We can’t be sure what
Sheldon and Marshall’s
plans were for the album—
to sell the master itself to
a label or merely to use it
as a demo. Ultimately, nei-
ther happened; about a
year later, Marshall died at
age 51, by which time
Baker, his chops and his
confidence restored, had
resumed his endless no-
madic trek around the
world. It remained for the
guitarist’s son to discover
the tape in a garage 50
years later. We can be very glad he
did; it’s a remarkable collaboration
by two uniquely gifted musicians,
Chet Baker and Jack Sheldon, so dif-
ferent and yet in harmony.
Mr. Friedwald writes about music
and popular culture for the Journal
and is the author of “Straighten Up
and Fly Right: The Life and Music of
Nat King Cole.”
A14 | Monday, April 22, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

SPORTS
How Nike Won Battle for Caitlin Clark
Some of the biggest shoe brands made a run at the Iowa superstar. The swoosh prevailed.

BY RACHEL BACHMAN der Armour made its pitch to

Clark, Stephen Curry participated,
according to The Athletic. The of-
It was NBA All-Star weekend in fer was $16 million over four years,
Indianapolis and executives from with a signature shoe.
the world’s leading shoe companies Under Armour and Curry knew
descended on hotel lobbies in the how hard it would be to take on
city to make their pitch to the big- Nike. Four years earlier, they had
gest stars in basketball. been in contention to land Sabrina
But the prize they were all after Ionescu, the Oregon triple-double
wasn’t anyone shooting out the phenom who is now with the
lights in the NBA. In fact, the WNBA’s New York Liberty, only for
player they all wanted hadn’t even her to sign with the swoosh.
turned pro yet. She was a 6-foot That deal, which expires at the
senior at the University of Iowa end of next year, was reported to
who was in the midst of rewriting be worth $24 million and included
the record books. a signature shoe, dubbed the Sa-
Everyone was asking the same brina 1. Ionescu, however, won’t
question: Which shoe company receive that much, according to
would land Caitlin Clark? someone familiar with the situa-
Two months later, it turns out tion. Though her shoe has sold
the answer is Nike. The biggest well, her visibility was dented by
name in women’s basketball is set injury and her early years in the
to sign an eight-year deal worth up WNBA coinciding with the pan-
to $28 million with the biggest demic. Like most shoe contracts,
name in sportswear, according to the potential value of Ionescu’s
people familiar with the situation. deal included numerous on-court
If that outcome seems inevita- incentives, along with bonuses for
ble, the reality is that Clark strik- shoe sales.

CAM POLLACK/WSJ, GETTY IMAGES (3), ISTOCK

ing a deal with Nike was far from
a slam dunk. In fact, the race to
tie her to a shoe contract ranked
as the most competitive in the his-
tory of women’s basketball, play-
ing out against the backdrop of
Clark lifting her sport to new
heights and unprecedented TV rat-
ings as she became a household
name across America.
Nike, which declined to com-
ment for this article, had already
signed Clark once before. But that
was in 2022, before she took over
the national sports conversation
with her prolific scoring, gravity-
defying 3-pointers and feisty-girl-
next-door persona. That original
deal was set to expire at the end of
the 2023-24 college basketball sea-
son—and everyone in the sneaker
business knew it.
So executives arrived in India-
napolis to meet with Excel Sports
Management, the agency that rep-
resents Clark along with Derek
Jeter and Tiger Woods, hoping to
convince her that her next shoe
deal should be with them.
By this point, Clark was un-
doubtedly a phenomenon. On Feb.
As Caitlin Clark heads to the WNBA, she is set to sign an eight-year deal worth up to $28 million with Nike.
15, the night before NBA All-Star
festivities began, she had broken
the NCAA women’s basketball ca-
reer scoring record.
As Clark was cooling off from
that 49-point performance, her
agents were turning up the tem-
perature on the shoe-company
reps. They informed the brands
courting her—which included Nike,
Adidas, Under Armour and Puma—
that winning her commitment
would take a historic offer: $3 mil-
lion a year at the very minimum.
Some of the brand reps were
shocked by the number. It was a
huge sum for a women’s basketball
player, few of whom ever receive
deals worth more than six figures.
By NBA All-Star weekend, how-
ever, it was clear that Clark had
burst into new territory. She was
no longer just generating crazy
highlight reels every time she
stepped on the court. She was a
crossover athlete transcending
college sports.
“She played herself into a posi-
tion where it wasn’t even contin-
gent on staying in college,” some-
one familiar with the situation
said. “People just wanted her.”
The only question was how
badly. Puma heard the $3 million a
When it came to Clark, Nike
looked even further into the fu-
ture. The duration of the proposed
contract, eight years, suggests
that the brand sees not only long-
term stardom potential, but truly
global appeal. The next eight
years, Nike executives reasoned,
would give Clark a chance to rep-
resent the U.S. at three Olympic
Games—this summer in Paris,
2028 in Los Angeles, and 2032 in
Brisbane, Australia. (The U.S. ros-
ter for Paris won’t be announced
year number and promptly until June or July.)
dropped out. The manufacturer al- Nike’s initial offer of $3.5 mil-
ready had deals with LSU’s lion a year, though an eye-popping
Flau’Jae Johnson and WNBA play- number, didn’t initially come with
ers including Breanna Stewart, last a signature shoe. One possibility
season’s league MVP who has her floated was that Clark would in-
own signature shoe. stead become the female face of
Adidas sent Clark some shoes, the Kobe Bryant line, which re-
and even prepared a prototype sig- launched in August 2023 to great
nature model for her. But the Adi- fanfare.
das bid fell far short of the mark: In its final offer to Clark, how-
$6 million over four years. ever, Nike upped its offer to in-
In the end, the closest con- clude a signature shoe. That would
tender for Nike was Under Armour, give her the most lucrative and at-
a company whose highest-profile tractive shoe deal in women’s bas-
ambassador happens to be another ketball—and yet another record for
long-shooting phenom. When Un- her collection.

The WSJ Daily Crossword | Edited by Mike Shenk

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 22 Stadium level
25 Local resident,
The NBA Brings Defense Back
14 15 16 to a college
BY ROBERT O’CONNELL hoist themselves up to ever- over the decades, rules have
student
17 18 19 more-outrageous stat lines. had to evolve with it. When
26 Proficient Midway through this sea- When Philadelphia’s Joel rugged, low-scoring play
20 21 22 27 Word of son, the NBA had a strange Embiid scored 70 points in dominated the game in the
warning problem: Its players were January, he made 21 of 23 2000s, for example, the
23 24 25 too good. Teams were scor- free-throws. When Dallas’ league did away with “hand-
28 Selectively ing more efficiently than Luka Doncic put up 73 of his checking,” allowing offensive
26 27 28 29 30 31 choose from ever, stars were putting up own four nights later, he players greater freedom of
what’s 60 and 70 points in a single made 15 of 16. movement. The change
32 33 34 available game and there was abso- Early that month, Mc- helped usher in the fast-
29 Funny bit lutely nothing that defenses Cutchen said, “We started to paced and free-flowing era
35 36 37 could do about it. realize we had gotten re- the league enjoys today.
31 Slangy So the league set about laxed,” often whistling legal Even though this season’s
38 39 40 41 42 “I swear!” fixing things. defensive position as a pen- shift didn’t involve any new
33 Buddy In early March, basketball alty. The solution wasn’t to rules being put on the books,
43 44 45 fans began to notice a subtle change the rules, he said, coaches had spent the first
34 Place a ball girl
but consequential shift in but to enforce the ones al- part of the year clamoring
46 47 48 might visit?
the sport. Referees forgave a ready on the books with for the adjustment they have
36 Garden little more contact from de- greater rigor. Defenders lately seen. In December,
49 50 51 52 53 section fenders. They were more couldn’t barge into the path Golden State head coach
39 Crossword suspicious of star players of an offensive player—but Steve Kerr complained that
54 55 56 57 who flopped and flailed on neither could scorers simply star players were being al-
solver’s
request their way to the rim. And in veer out of their way to lowed to “B.S. their way to
58 59 60 a mid-March memo to crash into an opponent and the foul line.”
40 Strong smell teams, the NBA confirmed earn a foul. Those coaches got their
61 62 63 that its competition commit- Commissioner Adam Sil- wish. In an April game, the
41 Microsoft
Word feature tee “continues to evaluate ver, addressing the skyrock- Boston Celtics and Milwau-
the state of offensive vs. de- eting point totals, credited kee Bucks combined to shoot
SOUND CHECK | By Alex Eaton-Salners 42 Maui’s fensive balance.” the skill and savvy of his just two free-throws—a re-
Across 32 National 57 Maintain 8 Fencing winding ___ Put simply: The NBA was league’s athletes. But behind cord low in an NBA game.
flower of weapon Highway making defense legal again. the scenes, the league office On Saturday, the Minne-
1 Cabbage side 58 Cravat’s The numbers show just was examining a situation sota Timberwolves didn’t
dish Mexico cousin 9 Request after 45 Entertain with
talk or food how much tougher it has that threatened to tip bas- have many complaints about
33 Reduce providing gotten to score. Between ketball out of balance. the new way NBA referees
5 One-liner, 59 Spanish
one’s address 47 Paddled February’s All-Star break “If a coach sees some- are doing things. Minne-
say 35 Days before greeting
10 Diet based on conveyance and the start of the playoffs, thing wrong in a game, for sota’s playoff opponent, the
9 Disney big days 60 Kitchen Stone Age 48 Jackson 5 scoring dropped leaguewide him not to call a timeout Phoenix Suns, had averaged
theme park 36 Container for cooker foods by eight points per game. and address it would be re- more than 118 points in
hairstyles
with a World groceries There were six 60-plus point ally poor management,” Mc- three regular-season wins
61 Comes to 11 Like some 50 Diamond
Showcase scorers before the break— Cutchen said. “We have to over the Wolves. In their
37 Ladder part 62 Tech help line tennis shots Head’s island
14 Booty and there has been only one live up to the rulebook as Game 1 loss, hounded by a
38 France’s caller or basketball
51 Rescue since. it’s currently written.” fearless Minnesota defense,
15 “Pronto!” equivalent of passes
63 Be up in the 52 Like 2, 4 or 6 Saturday’s opening slate As basketball has evolved they mustered just 95.
16 Comic/ Santa Claus air 12 “Yowza!” of playoff games continued
podcaster 41 Vegas casino 13 Blasted 53 Post the trend. In the first
Marc Down matchup of the day, the
with a Penn & letters? 54 Uncooked
Teller show 1 Staircase part Cleveland Cavaliers held the
17 Shallowest 21 “___, vidi, vici” 55 Simile words Orlando Magic to just 83
of the Great 43 Highway 2 Worm on a
Previous Puzzle’s Solution points—the lowest total for
Lakes sealant hook, say a Cavs opponent all season.
N A P S Y E S C A P I T A
18 Soaring toy 44 Like 1, 3 or 5 3 Site of F L AW A R T D I A D E M Across four games, three
19 Soaring Singapore and L I MA O H I O S O V I E T teams failed to crack 100
45 Processed, as Sri Lanka P H O N I C L E N T O points.
20 Bartlett, Bosc coffee beans U C B M O S C OW I D A H O “If the offensive player
and Anjou 4 In what other S I R E A M I had the ability to just go off-
46 Danish place? C A I R O I L L I N O I S
23 Causing astronomer G O T S O R E N C S T A T E path, create an ugly play and
shudders Brahe 5 Capital of A T H E N S G E O R G I A get to the free-throw line,”
Indonesia N G L Y A K S said Monty McCutchen, the
24 Disappointed 48 Ages and O D E S S A T E X A S S I T NBA’s head of referee devel-
post-game ages, in 6 Egyptian R E N E E H E F T E D opment, “it’s very hard to
England judge of the V I E N N A V I R G I N I A
cry I T W A S I E L I P A R K compete as a defensive
JASON MILLER/GETTY IMAGES

dead player.”
26 Résumé duo 49 Reading aid S Y S T E M S E P S H E A
7 Swimmer The contest answer is PRAGUE. Each of the
At the peak of this high-
29 Ruby or 54 Wilson of Ledecky six American theme cities shares its name scoring season, NBA basket-
garnet “The Office” with seven with a city in another country: LIMA, Peru; ball could seem like a drasti-
MOSCOW, Russia; CAIRO, Egypt; ATHENS, cally uncompetitive game.
30 Dove’s 56 Like most Olympic gold Greece; ODESSA, Ukraine; and VIENNA,
murmur Libyans medals Austria. In order of the parenthetical numbers Players already gifted at
in the clues, the first letters of these six putting the ball in the basket
▶ Solve this puzzle online and discuss it at WSJ.com/Puzzles. countries spell the contest answer. used the free-throw line to Markelle Fultz attempts a shot in the Magic’s Game 1 loss.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
OPINION
Do Interest Rates Matter Anymore?
The Federal
Reserve hiked
interest rates
11 times be-
tween March
2022 and
J a n u a r y
INSIDE
2024. Short
VIEW
rates have
By Andy
gone from
Kessler
zero to 5.5%.
Meanwhile,
the economy is growing at
close to 3%. Unemployment
hasn’t surged. Commodities
are booming. Stocks hit an
all-time high at the end of
March. To borrow from
“When Harry Met Sally”
(1989), if that’s the outcome
of higher rates, “I’ll have
what she’s having.”
As late as December, fu-
tures markets were expecting
six rate cuts in 2024, accord-
ing to Barron’s. After three
monthly readings of more
than 3% of “hot” inflation,
Goldman Sachs now expects
only two cuts. Fed Chairman
Jerome Powell said it is
“likely to take longer than
expected” to have confidence
that inflation is slain and cut
rates. Former Treasury Sec-
retary Lawrence Summers
even thinks there’s a chance
for a rate hike this year.
For almost 18 months, the
yield curve has been in-
verted, which usually means
a recession is coming. Still,
the economy goes chug,
chug, puff, puff like the lit-
tle engine that could. Sadly,
it’s the same for federal
spending.
Thirty-year mortgage rates
are more than 7%, up from
The Biden-Trump Trade War With Mexico
Is Mexico re-
sponding to
U.S. pressure—
or maybe to
threats from
D o n a l d
AMERICAS T r u m p —
against Chi-
By Mary
nese electric-
Anastasia
v e h i c l e
O’Grady
manufactur-
ing south of
the border? That’s the take-
away from a Reuters report
Friday citing unnamed Mexi-
can officials who say that
Mexico is halting its practice
of giving incentives to vehicle
manufacturers and “putting on
pause any future meetings
with Chinese automakers.”
If Mexico pulls back on
subsidies designed to woo
Chinese investment in EVs, it
may provide a little goodwill
on the country’s balance
sheet with the U.S. But it’s
unlikely to satisfy powerful
American steel, aluminum
and auto interests lobbying
for greater barriers to free
trade in this election year.
While Mexico has the atten-
tion of the U.S. press, the
real spat is about the World
Trade Organization and the
protectionist catchall “na-
tional security.”
American politicians on
both sides of the aisle seem
eager to conflate Chinese EV
production in Mexico with the
U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agree-
ment, or USMCA. The idea is
to denounce anything made in
Mexico, as if the U.S.’s south-
ern neighbor and one of its
By Lou Weiss
M
Jerusalem
y wife and I have of-
ten been told that Is-
rael during Passover
is something special, so we’re
here now giving it a try.
We’ve been to Israel many
times, and something interest-
ing is always happening.
Sometimes it’s political, some-
times military. Sometimes re-
ligious, sometimes diplomatic.
Often it is a combination of
these.
When you’re traveling to
Israel, well-meaning people
invariably ask “Why are you
going?” and “Aren’t you
afraid?” No knock against my
hometown, but I feel much
safer walking around the
streets of Tel Aviv than down-
town Pittsburgh.
For the past 40 years, my
wife has prepared delicious
seders, but this year we
thought it best to be guests
rather than hosts. And where
better to invite yourself than
the place where the Passover
story ends? Rather than say-
ing “Next year in Jerusalem,”
roughly 3% at the start of
2022, so surely home prices
are down, right? Wrong. The
median home price was
$384,500 in March, up from
$350,000 at the start of
2022. Supply is limited be-
cause those with 3% mort-
gages are staying put with
low payments.
Retail sales were up big
again in March. Credit-card
debt is a record $1.3 trillion,
but note the Philadelphia Fed
reported that late last year,
credit-card delinquency rates
(30, 60 and 90 days past
due) were over 3%, numbers
not seen since 2012. Keep an
eye on that.
Global energy demand re-
mains strong. Oil is pushing
$85; I recently paid $6.39 a
gallon for premium gasoline.
Gold is shining. A side note:
As Iranian drones headed to-
ward Israel, Bitcoin prices
dropped 10%—not quite a
store of value. Auto sales
were up, year over year, in
March. Interest rates may
matter but not as much.
Some markets are getting
blasted. Commercial real es-
tate is a mess. An office
building in Baltimore is for
sale at $1.5 million. True, it’s
only Baltimore—but even
New York isn’t immune: A
Class A office space at 750
Lexington Avenue in Manhat-
tan was recently valued at
$50 million, down from $300
million in 2015. To be sure,
office problems are as much
from the nasty headwinds of
remote work as they are
from higher rates.
High interest rates used to
largest trading partners is an
enemy.
This is a sop to Big Labor
and to the grievance brigades
in swing states who pine for
the protectionism of the
1980s. It’s also dishonest and
dangerous and threatens to
drag the U.S. economy back
into the destructive 1930s era
of the Smoot-Hawley tariff.
In February Nikkei reported
that Chinese EV manufacturer
BYD was scoping out options
for a plant in Mexico. At a
March rally in Ohio Mr. Trump
took aim at the news.
“Mexico has taken, over a
period of 30 years, 34% of the
automobile manufacturing in
our country,” he said. “Think
of it. It went to Mexico. China
now is building a couple of
massive plants where they’re
going to build the cars in
Mexico and . . . they think that
they’re going to sell those
cars into the United States
with no tax at the border.”
It’s unlikely that Mr. Trump
believes this, because it was
his administration that nego-
tiated the rules of origin un-
der the USMCA, which re-
placed the North American
Free Trade Agreement. The
USMCA requires that 40% of
the content of duty-free autos
be made with a $16-an-hour
minimum wage, cutting out
Mexico’s lower-priced labor.
The USMCA also requires 70%
of the steel and aluminum in
duty-free cars be made in
North America. USMCA rules
of origin for autos require 75%
North American content.
This Year in Jerusalem
we thought we’d give “This
year in Jerusalem” a shot.
But this trip to Israel is un-
like any other we’ve made in
the past 50 years. Why is this
journey different from all
other journeys? When I did a
pre-departure Google Maps
search, instead of showing
My wife and I came
from Pittsburgh to
observe Passover
in a country at war.
subway stops, the map pre-
sented me with bomb-shelter
locations. This is also the first
time we’ve had to acquaint
ourselves with the shelter in
our hotel.
When we arrived in Tel
Aviv, where we spent the first
few days of our trip, the
front-desk staff told us we
would have about a minute to
get to the shelter—which is
down in the spa and exercise
room—so we decided to do a
dry run. I started the phone
cause recessions as carrying
inventory got more expensive
and orders halted. Most re-
tailers now use just-in-time
deliveries in their supply
chains to minimize inventory
costs. Autos are exposed, but
manufacturers often subsi-
dize dealer inventories and
offer cheap loans.
Aren’t banks at risk when
rates go up? Some. March
2023 saw a flurry of failures
at such regional banks as Sil-
icon Valley and Republic,
The economy may be
chugging along, but
usury could bring a
day of reckoning.
mainly those that didn’t
hedge their interest-rate risk.
Big banks hedge, so they
aren’t as exposed to rate
hikes. They mainly care
about the spread between
how much it costs them to
borrow vs. rates they can
charge to lend—the net inter-
est margin. Recent bank
earnings have been a mixed
bag, but it’s certainly no fi-
nancial crisis.
What about Amazon?
Facebook? Google? Apple?
Despite huge capital ex-
penses for data centers or
parts for phones, they are all
flush with cash. Meanwhile,
advertising is growing, al-
though on television I’m see-
ing fewer Chevy ads and
more plugs for Progressive
insurance—even though, or
Mr. Trump’s suggestion
that Chinese-made steel, alu-
minum and components will
be slapped together in Mexico
and qualify as duty-free under
USMCA unless he intervenes
is preposterous. But he isn’t
alone in trying to promote the
false narrative.
Democrats have endorsed
his trade tirade—even if they
aren’t giving him credit. In an
interview in March, Rep. Deb-
bie Dingell (D., Mich.) said, “I
really, really, really, really, re-
ally am going to be intense
The USMCA has
North American rules
of origin for which
China can’t qualify.
about ensuring that automo-
biles made by China aren’t
going to get any benefit from
trade agreements that we’ve
got. So, you know, producing
in Mexico and coming in
here.” If Ms. Dingell thinks
cars using Chinese-made steel
and components can “bene-
fit” from the USMCA, she is
guilty of a staggering level of
ignorance.
BYD’s entry into Mexico
isn’t about the USMCA. BYD
says it plans to make cars for
the Mexican market, where it
could presumably be competi-
tive. A BYD car is significantly
cheaper than a Tesla. Ameri-
can companies already use
production in China to com-
timer. It took me that long
just to put on my clothes, al-
though in fairness, a stuck
zipper took 30 seconds of
struggling. Finally, I gave up
and went as is. It took me
three minutes to get down to
the spa-shelter. My wife said I
was too slow, and she would
go without me. I’ll meet you
there, she said. Cold.
Knowing the capabilities of
the Israel Defense Forces, I
wasn’t too scared. What are
the odds that Iran takes me
out during my vacation? Don’t
answer that.
In the estimated time it
took Iranian drones, cruise
missiles and ballistic missiles
to cross over Jordan, we
started streaming episodes of
the war drama “Masters of
the Air”—perhaps not the
best choice of entertainment.
We waited in bed for the
siren to go off. It never did. At
first, I thought that maybe
our neighborhood wouldn’t be
targeted because we were in
Jaffa, which has a significant
Muslim population. But I later
read in the news that if Israel
hadn’t intercepted, a missile
maybe because, auto-insur-
ance costs are up 22% from
last year. The service econ-
omy is winning. Video is in-
creasingly streamed and less
about physically putting up
antennas or laying cable.
We are now an economy
of logistics, online sales and
electronic delivery. Manufac-
turing economies such as
China and much of Europe
are much more interest-rate-
sensitive than the U.S.
Higher interest rates may
matter, but for an increas-
ingly smaller portion of our
economy.
The Fed’s interest rates
are a blunt instrument any-
way. Bureaucrats now try to
control the economy by tin-
kering with the money sup-
ply and paying interest on
excess reserves—Treasury
uses reverse repos to soak up
liquidity. These are more be-
hind-the-scenes tools than
the headline Fed power inter-
est-rates moves we all focus
on.
There is an area in which
interest rates really do mat-
ter: federal budget deficits,
unnecessarily boosted by
electric vehicle subsidies and
other green goo. For perhaps
the first time, interest pay-
ments this year will be larger
than defense spending. This
is one reason recent Treasury
auctions have seen weak de-
mand, sending long rates
higher. Here’s a silver lining:
The economy might be fine,
but higher rates may finally
bring a day of reckoning to
rein in the tax-and-spenders.
Write to kessler@wsj.com.
pete in the Mexican market.
General Motors, a leader in
auto sales in Mexico, relies on
China as a key supplier. If the
U.S. wants to accuse China of
third-country dumping, it
should go to the WTO.
Slumping China is hungry
for export markets where it
can be competitive. But in the
near term that probably
doesn’t include the U.S., which
is already violating WTO rules
with a 27.5% tariff on autos
from China—25 points above
the “most-favored nation”
rate of 2.5%.
Mr. Trump says he’s ready
to make it 100% on China cars
made in Mexico. The Com-
merce Department has
launched an investigation into
what it calls the “national se-
curity risks of connected vehi-
cles, specifically PRC-manu-
factured technology in the
vehicles.” In following up on
the news from Mexico last
week, Reuters reported that
“a White House spokesperson
said [President Biden] will
not let Chinese automakers
flood the market with vehicles
that pose a threat to national
security.”
I don’t know about you, but
I can think of a lot of ways
that China can spy on the U.S.
and a car, which is today a
computer on wheels, is hardly
required. This is raw protec-
tionism. It’s bad for the inno-
vation and competition that is
good for Americans and none
of it has anything to do with
the USMCA.
Write to O’Grady@wsj.com.
might have hit the Al Aqsa
Mosque, a holy site in Islam.
Frankly, I was a little hurt
that the Iranians didn’t con-
sider me drone-worthy.
From conversations we’ve
had, Israelis seem as con-
cerned about who governs the
U.S. as about who governs Is-
rael. I don’t know how to re-
spond other than to shake my
head in sorrow. On the whole,
Israelis are going about their
daily lives with courage and
determination. Although Is-
raelis aren’t hysterical, our
friends did give extra-big hugs
to their kids who were home
on leave and heading back to
war.
As we approach Passover,
we can see parallels between
the Egyptians who enslaved
and killed us and the latest
sadists who showed they
would do the same. This year,
as we celebrate the ancient Is-
raelite idea of freedom, we
can marvel at the modern Is-
rael that demonstrates how to
defend it.
Mr. Weiss is a carpet sales-
man in Pittsburgh.
Monday, April 22, 2024 | A15
BOOKSHELF | By Allan Massie
Medieval
Migrations
A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages
By Anthony Bail
Norton, 368 pages, $29.99
O
ne thinks of the Middle Ages as a time when peasants
rarely moved more than a few miles from their huts
or monks from their monasteries—when people
generally, other than perhaps the well-to-do, were rooted in
place for lack of means or motivation.
But this was not the case. In “A Travel Guide to the
Middle Ages,” Anthony Bail describes a variety of medieval
commoners taking long journeys on foot and horseback and
by ship. They traveled as soldiers, pilgrims and traders and
sometimes found themselves in distant lands, not least the
Holy Land. “There is,” Mr. Bail writes, “only occasional
evidence in medieval Europe of Wanderlust”—of people
wanting to travel for its own sake. Yet there were
exceptions, such as wandering minstrels and students.
Pilgrims were the most
numerous travelers in the
Middle Ages, Mr. Bail says,
though not all their journeys
were long. Chaucer’s pilgrims,
in “The Canterbury Tales,”
went only from London to
Canterbury, about 60 miles.
That particular journey reads
like a holiday, but other
pilgrimages were more
arduous. Curiosity no doubt
played a part, but men and
women traveled to holy sites to
save their souls—it was a
serious business. Among their
destinations were Rome, of
course, as well as Aachen and Cologne (in Germany) and
Santiago de Compostela (in Spain).
And then there was Jerusalem. The English mystic
Margery Kempe, a mother of 14, traveled there in 1413-14,
weeping “for her own sins” and other people’s too. Along
the way, she worried about brigands and, as Mr. Bail puts
it, “rape and sexual harassment by strangers.” The
Jerusalem she arrived at was then controlled by the
Mamluk Turks and their sultanate, which had expelled the
Christian Crusaders two centuries before her journey.
Most pilgrims who were headed to the Holy Land went
first to Venice, the great sea power of the Mediterranean.
Travelers were overawed by its wealth and beauty and
astonished by its management of their expeditions. The
name of every visitor was recorded, and lodgings were
arranged, some luxurious, others wretched. Quarantine
islands were designated for travelers suffering from the
Black Plague. In Venice, travelers could change money and
buy provisions for onward travel. Even so, they might have
to wait for months, at the mercy of ship captains and the
weather. The dangers and hardships of the voyage, when it
began, make even today’s “extreme tourism” seem safe and
comfortable.
The journey from Venice to the Holy Land might take
six weeks, since ships called at several ports on the way to
Anatolia—at Rhodes and Cyprus, for instance. Life was no
easier when at last a traveler reached the Holy Land.
Though the Mamluks admired the pilgrim-tourists, they
resented them too, often fleecing them. As in Venice,
administrative rigor was evident in Jerusalem, with the
names of “visitors being logged into the efficient machin-
ery of the Mamluk government,” Mr. Bail writes. Many
holy sites were in poor repair, and pilgrims could be
roughly handled. Still, the Franciscan order provided
guides, and pilgrims walked in the steps of Christ’s
Passion. Many chipped bits of stone from the holy places,
fragments to be treated with “great devotion” and, on
being brought home, says Mr. Bail, “placed among the
chief relics of churches.” They were obviously more than
mere souvenirs, though that too.
European travelers on foot, horseback and ship
journeyed as soldiers, pilgrims and traders
to far-off lands—especially the Holy Land.
As Mr. Bail reminds us, people ventured beyond Europe
and the Holy Land. Merchants following the Silk Roads (for
there was more than one) traveled through the steppe
lands of Central Asia and the vast Mongol states or empires
as far as China. Marco Polo, traveling in the 13th century, is
the best-known though not one of Mr. Bail’s favorites: “the
voluble, if pedantic, prosaic and unreliable Venetian
merchant.” Traveling merchants were catered to in
caravansaries—the medieval equivalent of roadhouses or
motels, welcome if also dangerous.
The exotic nature of such travel led to alarming stories
of hazard and danger—for instance, tales of the Old Man
of the Mountain and his band of Assassins, a myth
grounded in the life of an 11th-century religious leader in
Persia but then elaborated fantastically until the myth
came to “supplant the historic reality,” as Mr. Bail writes.
Reality was marvelous enough, nowhere more so than in
the city we now know as Beijing, ruled by a Mongol
dynasty well into the 14th century. According to the
reports brought back to the West, the city was, Mr. Bail
says, “the matchless expression of the great khan’s power
and wealth, technological sophistication and love of
ordered beauty.” There was nothing to compare to it in
Europe, not even Venice.
If civilization flourished in the East, the West, before too
long, was spreading its wings—or rather, its sails. By the
end of the 15th century, the first glimmerings of European
empires were discernible. There was much ignorance, of
course. Europeans still had little knowledge of, for instance,
Japan, and their sense of Africa was speculative, to say the
least. Their knowledge of lands across the Atlantic was
sparse but would famously improve.
Part of the appeal of “A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages”
is its tendency to ramble, like more than a few of the
journeys it records. Mr. Bail, a professor of medieval studies
at the University of London, moves to and fro in time as
well as in geographical space. He dips into the accounts of a
wide range of travelers whose adventures are often
compelling but whose reliability can’t always be counted on.
Someone calling himself Sir John Mandeville, in the late
14th century, produced “The Travels of John Mandeville,” a
popular chronicle written with assumed authority about
cities and countries he had never visited. It is a repository
of wonderful stories, Mr. Bail concedes, though they defy
credulity. “The main place from which he departed,” Mr.
Bail observes of Mandeville, “was the realm of truth.”
Mr. Massie is the author of “The Royal Stuarts: A History
of the Family That Shaped Britain.”
A16 | Monday, April 22, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

OPINION
REVIEW & OUTLOOK LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The House Votes for a ‘Strong America’ Milton Friedman Left Us Tax Withholding

A
merica’s allies and enemies have started strategy in Ukraine within 45 days. Readers who The most pernicious effect of the pleaded with factory owners to hold
to wonder if the U.S. is too consumed have followed the war know the answer: The Bi- withholding tax (“Milton Friedman’s back 10% to 15% of their husbands’
Worst Mistake” by Jason De Sena wages because, after a night or two
with infighting to defend itself and its den Administration wants Ukraine to survive but
Trennert, op-ed, April 15) is that it of drinking after payday, there wasn’t
interests. So put down a not to defeat Vladimir Putin. anesthetizes the taxpayer to the enough money left over for the fam-
marker: Even a dysfunctional Large majorities vote for Whatever the Administration sting of taxation. Were taxpayers to ily to eat until the next pay period.
and narrowly divided Congress more U.S. weapons and produces will be instructive, receive their full pay, undiminished Other, similarly-situated women
perceives the world’s dangers and an opportunity for Repub- by the tax withheld, they would felt the same way, and in time a sys-
and has decided to meet the aid for Ukraine and Israel. licans to press the case that then have to write checks to the tem was implemented. My mother
occasion. Mr. Biden’s ambivalence has government. thought the Irish originated the with-
The House of Representa- failed. Taxpayers who must deplete their holding “tax.”
tives on Saturday passed separate bills to sup- The House bill also tries to compel the Biden bank accounts are much more likely Perhaps systematic efficiencies at
port Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. A fourth bill Administration to give the Ukrainians long- to hold their government to strict ac- the cost of “freedom” can save us
that cleared the House would seize frozen Rus- range fires known as the Army tactical missile count than taxpayers who never had from ourselves.
that money in their pockets at all. MICHAEL G. MURPHY
sian sovereign assets and force a sale of the Chi- system, which can strike Russian supply and lo-
Nothing sensitizes a taxpayer to the Seattle
nese-controlled social media app TikTok, among gistics lines. Mr. Biden denied Ukraine these cost of government than taking
other priorities. weapons for more than a year, fretting over Mr. money out of one’s own pocket and Friedman’s worst mistake was not
All four bills cleared the House with more Putin’s reaction, and lately has offered only a to- putting in the government’s. the withholding of taxes, but the
than 300 votes, albeit with shifting bipartisan ken few. The GOP can connect the dots for voters STANLEY NEUSTADTER withholding of randomly selected
coalitions. Support for partners in the Indo-Pa- between Mr. Biden’s weakness and the frozen New York American youth from the shared joys
cific attracted the highest tally at 385-34, a tes- front lines. and dangers of military service.
tament to the bipartisan consensus on the threat The substance of the bills has been drowned I understand and admire that the Along with economist Alan Green-
posed by the Chinese Communist Party. Thirty- out by the drama over whether Mr. Johnson will principle “cost” of withholding tax at span, and other distinguished mem-
seven Democrats and 21 Republicans opposed be deposed as Speaker. Rep. Marjorie Taylor its source tends to make a tax system bers of President Richard Nixon’s
opaque and less onerous. But I shud- “Gates Commission,” Friedman lent
weapons for Israel, and 112 Republicans voted Greene wields an assassin’s veto in the GOP’s
der to think of the inefficiency and his considerable intellectual heft to
against the Ukraine bill. thin majority. Yet she represents only a rump mi- collection cost of, for example, mil- Nixon’s 1968 campaign promise to
At the core of these bills is U.S. self-defense. nority: She was given the opportunity to offer lions of seniors paying for their end conscription.
Some $23 billion of the roughly $60 billion an amendment stripping out money for Ukraine, Medicare insurance in separate trans- Now, some 50 years later, I know
Ukraine bill will replenish U.S. weapons stocks and it commanded only 71 ayes. actions rather than via automatic de- Friedman’s worst mistake: the moral
with better equipment than what America has Her game is power, not policy, and she may ductions from their Social Security hazard of creating a throwaway mili-
given to Kyiv. Another $11 billion is marked for try to embarrass Mr. Johnson into relying on benefits. tary, leading to endless wars bereft
U.S. troops in Europe for ship and aircraft main- Democrats to save him in a motion to vacate. Yet I recall a story my mother would of strategic leadership. Our utopian
tenance and more. those who say Mr. Johnson betrayed the GOP are share of one Irish ancestor, genera- national experiment with an all-vol-
The Pacific bill includes $3.3 billion to help peddling a false history. tions ago. She was a housewife of a unteer military is a bust.
the U.S. pick up the pace on producing attack Mr. Johnson from his first days as Speaker re- poor, lower-class, factory-working MAJ. GEN. WALTER STEWART JR., USA (RET.)
husband with a large family, who Bernville, Pa.
submarines. That is crucial to deterring Xi Jin- vealed himself as a conservative in the mold of
ping and selling hulls to the Australians. The Ronald Reagan. “A strong America is good for
bills will expand U.S. weapons production—from the entire world,” Mr. Johnson said in October
155mm artillery shells to Patriot missiles. 2023 after winning the post, and soon after told
Credit is due House Speaker Mike Johnson, the press he didn’t want Mr. Putin to prevail in
Israel Is Right to Ignore Biden’s Advice on Iran
who in recent days explained the stakes in Ukraine. He worked to pass border security mea- Regarding your editorial “Iran’s in Syria working to terrorize Israeli
Ukraine with more clarity than President Biden sures both he and the conference wanted, hold- Ominous Attack On Israel” (April citizens. An Israeli response to these
has mustered. He had to defy some on the right ing out long after it became clear nothing could 15): After the April 13 attack on Is- attacks was needed to re-establish
who revealed their isolationism by opposing all pass the House. rael, President Biden reportedly the deterrence that the U.S. helped
four bills (see nearby). He needed Democratic “We have to stand for freedom and we have told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin dissolve.
votes to overcome these opponents and bring to be the beacon of light,” Mr. Johnson told re- Netanyahu to “pocket the win.” Es- DAVID KAUFMAN
sentially, Mr. Biden argued that Is- Potomac, Md.
the bills to the House floor, and Mr. Johnson was porters last week. “The only thing that has kept
rael should accept hundreds of
right to let the House work its will. terrorists and tyrants at bay is the perception drones, ballistic missiles and cruise Your editorial is right on target.
The 101 Republicans who voted to support of a strong America—that we would stand missiles launched at its territory Mr. Biden’s policy regarding Iran
Ukraine are giving a backbone to a weak Com- strong. And we will.” Saturday’s votes are a show since the resulting structural dam- has failed strategically and tacti-
mander in Chief. The House bill requires the Ad- of will from the United States that will reverber- age was limited. cally by failing to understand that
ministration to produce a document detailing its ate around the world. Absurd. So because Israel’s defen- we are dealing with a fanatical,
sive systems are effective, Iran and apocalyptic regime whose hatred for
its proxies can act with impunity? Israel and the Jews is at the core of
The GOP Isolationist Caucus This is pre-Oct. 7 thinking. Good
thing Israel didn’t listen.
its ideology.
Why did our government this

T
he U.S.—and the Republican Party—
dodged a geopolitical disaster on Satur-
day with the House passage of military
aid to allies in Europe, the Middle East and the
Pacific. But the moment shouldn’t pass without
noting the Members who voted against U.S.
help for any allies, anywhere, and against re-
plenishing American weapons stocks.
Fourteen Republicans voted against all four
bills on the House floor, including the one that
would force a sale of TikTok from Chinese own-
ership. Here’s the dishonor roll in alphabetical
order: Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Lauren Boebert
(Colo.), Andrew Clyde (Ga.), Elijah Crane (Ariz.),
Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Bob Good (Va.), Paul Gosar
(Ariz.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Andy Har-
ris (Md.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Troy Nehls
(Texas), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Matt Rosendale
(Mont.), Chip Roy (Texas).
These Members are in heavily Republican
districts, so they would be difficult for Demo-
A Judge-Made Right to Vagrancy
crats to defeat. But Ms. Boebert and Mr. Good
face competitive primaries that could end their
destructive Congressional careers.
The unavoidable meaning of the votes is
that these Members don’t believe the U.S.
should support allies threatened by authoritar-
ians on the march. Like Republicans in the
1930s who slept while Hitler and Tojo ad-
vanced, these Republicans apparently think
America can sit out these fights in splendid iso-
lation. But history suggests that if they prevail,
American sons and daughters would eventually
have to fight. Better to help allies who want to
help themselves.
The isolationist caucus lost this round, but
this GOP tendency is dangerous. Another 17
Members voted for arms for Israel but not for
Taiwan and Ukraine. Do they want to encourage
a Chinese invasion? Perhaps if Florida is at-
tacked, they’ll awaken to the reality of the
world’s growing dangers.
From a practical standpoint, Iran’s
attack cost Israel more than a billion
dollars for a single night of defense.
It’s unsustainable. How can the world
expect Israel to normalize closing its
airspace and shutting down its soci-
ety to prepare for an attack? Should
this be the norm?
The pre-Oct. 7 doctrine of allow-
ing these threats to metastasize on
Israel’s borders is over. Israel won’t
and shouldn’t tolerate Hamas in
Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
Voters Needed a Hero for the No Labels Ticket
In your editorial “No Labels, No
Alternatives, No Escape” (April 6), it
is understated that we are unen-
thused. Like Howard Beale, we
should all be “mad as hell” and “not
going to take this anymore!”
American two-party politics keeps
us from seeing the forest for the
trees. The emphasis on attacking the
month have to deny any involvement
in the killing of Brig. Gen. Moham-
mad Reza Zahedi, a senior com-
mander in the Quds Force of Iran’s
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps?
This past week the Biden administra-
tion announced in advance that the
U.S. wouldn’t retaliate militarily for
the attack on Israel. Why does the
administration feel the need to tell
our enemies that we aren’t going to
show force?
AARON COHEN
New York
cians are unwilling to change their
ways. They had their chance. Now
we have ours.
MIKE CARTER
Wapakoneta, Ohio
I was a No Labels delegate, and
the reason the movement was unable
to produce an alternative “unity

I
candidates’ character and age dis- ticket” was best summarized by the
s there a Constitutional right to camp on federal system of government leaves to the tracts us from judging them based on group’s national director, Joe Cun-
the streets? The Supreme Court will pon- democratic process.” bottom-line results. Neither party has ningham, when he said “No Labels
der this question on Monday in City of His persuasive dissent added that the deci- executed common-sense solutions for was looking for a hero, and a hero
Grants Pass v. Johnson. sion “never meaningfully en- major problems: drug addiction, ever emerged.”
Like thousands of cities, Will the Supreme gaged the text, history, and mass shootings, illegal immigration, JIM REDHEAD
Grants Pass, Ore., bans camp- public school education, Social Secu- San Diego
ing on public property. Of-
Court overturn another tradition of the Constitution.”
Since the Founding, state and rity insolvency, lack of long-term op-
fenses are punishable by a Ninth Circuit howler? local governments have re- erating budget and budget deficits.
$295 fine and short jail terms stricted camping on public
Democrats and Republicans have Can We Trust Government
had decades of rule to apply solutions
for serial violations. Home- property. The text of the to these problems. They have consis-
After Covid Disinformation?
less advocates argued in a class action that Eighth Amendment refers to methods of pun- tently let us down. Two-party politi- Regarding Karl Rove’s “Be a Wary
prohibiting public vagrancy violates the Eighth ishment and doesn’t prescribe what conduct cians care more about being re-elected Reader in the 2024 Election” (op-ed,
Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual pun- governments may prohibit. and playing a zero-sum political party April 18): After seeing how questions
ishment. A divided Ninth Circuit Court of Ap- The Ninth Circuit’s sweeping opinion could game than about what is in the best about Covid vaccines and origins
peals panel agreed. be extended to an array of purportedly involun- interest of the American people. were treated when the pandemic hit,
The majority leaned on the High Court’s tary acts such as kleptomania, pedophile pos- Please do not vote for any Demo- I’m more concerned with disinforma-
fuzzy Robinson (1962) decision, which held that session of child pornography, and public defeca- cratic or Republican candidate in tion coming from our own govern-
the Eighth Amendment forbids criminalizing tion. State and local governments across the future elections unless you really ment and media. If we can’t fix that
want the same old, same old. Politi- problem, how will we ever control
the “status” of being a drug addict, though gov- Ninth Circuit stress in friend-of-the-court briefs
what other countries do?
ernments could still punish drug use. This legal that its decision has made it harder to keep ANDREA ECONOMOS
distinction bore little practical difference. But streets clean and help the mentally ill and drug Biden’s Faith and Politics Hartsdale, N.Y.
the Ninth Circuit’s extension of this logic is addicts get treatment. San Francisco Mayor
causing enormous real-world harm. London Breed even led a protest at the Ninth In Raymond de Souza’s “Pope
Francis Shuts Down the Cafeteria”
According to the Ninth Circuit judges, Grants Circuit courthouse.
(Houses of Worship, April 12), Cardi-
Pepper ...
Pass unfairly punished the supposedly involun- Those Democratic urban leaders don’t get
tary status of being homeless, even though any sympathy from Illinois, New York and a
nal Wilton Gregory is being kind in And Salt
calling President Biden a “cafeteria
many vagrants rejected housing. One woman handful of other progressive states, which lec- Catholic.” The president does far THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
did so because her Rottweiler wasn’t allowed ture that punishing “homelessness tends to ex- more than quietly dissent from basic
in a shelter. Others may refuse to abide a shel- acerbate the problem” because “encampments church teachings. Mr. Biden is run-
ter’s minimal behavioral rules. Some simply often offer a level of security, stability, and ac- ning a national campaign on unlim-
prefer to live on the streets. cess to resources that homeless residents can- ited access to abortion, while trum-
Under the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, homeless- not find elsewhere.” peting his Catholic bona fides.
ness is considered “involuntary” as long as the These states suggest that local governments Father de Souza cogently explains
number of vagrants exceed the available beds. should use other means to clean up streets like the church’s teaching on life and so-
cial ethics. One would hope there are
When calculating the latter, the judges excluded giving vagrants gift cards to bag their trash and
real consequences for politicians who
religiously affiliated shelters as well as warm- placing them in housing “without the typical boast of their Catholicism yet pub-
ing and sobering centers. Is requiring the home- strings that trip up those struggling with sub- licly reject its fundamental teachings.
less to stay sober to get shelter a constitutional stance abuse”—i.e., a requirement to stay sober. FRANCES BROWN
violation? Cities in California have tried both. Homeless- Lafayette, Ind.
The Ninth Circuit declined to rehear the case ness keeps increasing.
en banc over the dissents of 13 active and four The Ninth Circuit decision handcuffs state
Letters intended for publication should
senior judges. Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain, and local officials who want to protect their cit- be emailed to wsj.ltrs@wsj.com. Please
joined by 14 judges, lamented that the court izens. Voters can hold them accountable for the include your city, state and telephone
was “paralyzing local communities from ad- results of their policies. Not so legislators in number. All letters are subject to
dressing the pressing issue of homelessness, robes. That takes a Supreme Court majority editing, and unpublished letters cannot “I can’t remember
be acknowledged.
and seizing policymaking authority that our that knows the Constitution isn’t a suicide pact. if I’m fed up or disgusted.”
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Protests
Turn Violent
At Yale
By Gabriel Diamond
A
New Haven, Conn.
nti-Israel protests escalated to
violence at Yale University this
weekend, and administrators
let it happen. Hundreds of protesters
flooded the main campus, pitched 40
tents, blocked Yale’s main dining
hall, chanted for the annihilation of
Israel, and denounced America.
Identifiably Jewish students
found themselves surrounded and
cornered by protest mobs. Sahar
Tartak, a sophomore who has writ-
ten for these pages, was poked in the
eye with a flagpole and needed hos-
pital treatment. On Friday night the
mob cheered as students ripped
down the American flag in front of a
memorial for fallen soldiers and
tried to burn it.
Students called Yale trustees and
senior administrators “terrorists.”
Their chants included “There is only
one solution, intifada revolution”
and “From the river to the sea, Pal-
estine is almost free.” They cornered
a man at the plaza for wearing a T-
shirt that read “F— Hamas.”
This protest is in clear violation
of Yale’s code of conduct, which ex-
plicitly forbids protesters from ob-
structing building entrances or
blocking students’ ability to observe
an event. But the administration sat
on its hands.
Administrators sit on their
hands as a Jewish student
is poked in the eye with a
flagpole and hospitalized.
Lt. Chris Halstead of the Yale Po-
lice told the Yale Daily News that of-
ficers planned to begin clearing the
plaza on Friday at 11 p.m., the Daily
News reported at 10:55. According to
an 11:36 update, Yale College’s Dean
Pericles Lewis promised the protest
leaders “he will meet with them if
they pack up their tents.” They
didn’t. An 11:51 update: “According
to Halstead and another officer, YPD
decided not to proceed with dispers-
ing the crowd in the plaza ‘based on
circumstances.’ The officers would
not elaborate further on what as-
pects of the circumstance influenced
that decision.”
The invaders slept on the plaza,
woke up, and spent Saturday chant-
ing and yelling. Fifty of them
marched up Prospect Street to the
Yale Divinity School to confront
President Peter Salovey and the
trustees, there for a Yale Corp.
meeting.
On Saturday, the Daily News re-
ported, Mr. Lewis and other school
officials told protesters that if stu-
dents remained at the plaza after
11:30 that night, they “may be sub-
jected to disciplinary action.” That
deadline passed, and hundreds more
poured in. The paper estimated the
size of the mob at “more than 500,”
which strikes me as low. Faculty and
dormitory leaders allegedly support
the students’ unauthorized occupa-
tion of campus. “Tonight, all 14
Heads of College agreed that they do
not want us removed,” the protest
organizers claimed in a Saturday
statement.
I spoke with several Yale police
officers on the site, asking if and
when they would start clearing the
plaza or arresting students. Each re-
plied: “That’s up to the higher-ups.”
For the police to step in, the Yale
administration has to give them the
green light, according to the offi-
cers. Some officers expressed frus-
tration that Yale wouldn’t allow
them to intervene.
Arresting students is a necessary
condition for restoring order and
quelling violence on campus. But it
won’t be sufficient. These students
won’t change their behavior unless
they pay a real price. Expulsion of
even a few of them would set an ex-
ample for the rest of the protesters.
Mr. Diamond is a senior at Yale
University studying political science
and a research assistant at the York-
town Institute.
PUBLISHED SINCE 1889 BY DOW JONES & COMPANY
Lachlan Murdoch
Executive Chairman, News Corp
Rupert Murdoch
Chairman Emeritus, News Corp
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Editor in Chief
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Elena Cherney, Senior Editor; David Crow,
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Step Up Pressure on Iran’s Proxies
By Seth Cropsey
I
ran’s April 13 attack on Israel
marked the death of a long-
standing regional paradigm: de-
terrence. The Biden administra-
tion—and Israel—must shift
from a policy framework that deters
Iranian escalation to one that imposes
costs on Iran’s actions and puts pres-
sure on its proxy network.
Although Iran’s bombardment did
little damage, with Israeli, American,
British and various Arab air defenses
intercepting all but a handful of
weapons, it was strategically conse-
quential. Iran has fought a shadow
war against Israel, the U.S. and the
Gulf states for decades, sponsoring
proxy groups, directly organizing op-
erations to kill Americans and Israe-
lis, and attacking Arab states di-
rectly, if deniably, with missiles and
drones.
Iran had never before directly at-
tacked Israeli territory with weapons
launched from its own soil. The April
13 bombardment therefore breached
an escalatory firebreak in Tehran’s
shadow war. Israel responded within
days, launching a narrow strike the
night of April 18 against the area
around the central Iranian city of Is-
fahan, host to nuclear facilities and
an air base. The Israelis, despite sev-
eral close calls in the 2010s, had
never before struck Iranian territory,
instead pursuing cyberattacks and
intelligence operations on Iranian
soil.
Iran’s actions demonstrate the
failure of American deterrence. On
April 12, President Biden warned
Tehran against a direct attack. His
administration has displayed aver-
sion to behavior it deems escalatory,
imposing red lines in Europe over
Ukraine, pursuing a cosmetic détente
with China in Asia, and refusing to
name Iran as behind any of the vio-
lence in the Middle East, while
threatening to condition aid to Is-
rael. This gave Tehran good reason
to flout Mr. Biden’s admonition and
to portray its bombardment as a re-
sponse to Israel’s April 1 attack on
an annex of Tehran’s Damascus em-
bassy, which killed Islamic Revolu-
tionary Guard Corps officers.
Iran’s attack was a signal of fu-
If You Give a College Student a Cookie . . .
How did our world,
culture and politics
become such a
mess? A simple ex-
planation can be
found in the best-
selling children’s
LIFE
picture-book series
SCIENCE
“If You Give . . .” by
By Allysia
Laura Joffe Numer-
Finley
off. In each story,
indulging a crea-
ture’s unreasonable requests—be it
for a cookie, muffin or pancake—
stimulates an appetite for more. So
it goes in real life:
• If college students ask for safe
spaces, you might give affinity
groups their own centers. Then
they’ll want to feel safe in class-
rooms and will ask for trigger warn-
ings to protect them from ideas they
don’t like. When you agree that cer-
tain ideas can be dangerous, stu-
dents will occupy buildings and de-
mand that speakers be canceled.
When you apologize and disinvite
speakers, students ask you to excuse
tardy and incomplete assignments
because they were busy protesting.
When you give them an A for no ef-
fort, they will graduate with honors
and think they don’t have to work
hard to succeed.
Then, when you give them a job,
they’ll ask to work only 30 hours a
week. If you say yes, they’ll use their
extra time to organize a union. If
you recognize their union, they’ll
ask for extra paid days off and eight
weeks’ vacation.
When they max out their credit
cards, they’ll ask for their student
loans to be forgiven. When you can-
cel their debt, they’ll quit their jobs
to get graduate degrees in commu-
nity organizing. When they can’t re-
pay their graduate loans, they’ll ask
for more debt forgiveness.
• If a hungry migrant shows up at
your border, he will ask for asylum.
When you let him into the country,
he will ask for a place to stay. When
Robert Thomson
Chief Executive Officer, News Corp
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Chief Executive Officer and Publisher
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EDITORIAL AND CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS:
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OPINION
From left, images of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Iran’s supreme
leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
ture behavior as much as a response
to Israeli actions. The main targets
were the Nevatim Air Base—which
houses the Israel Defense Forces’
three F-35I stealth strike fighter
squadrons, likely with a nuclear de-
livery mission, and electronic intelli-
gence and logistics units—and sites
in the Golan central to the IDF’s de-
fense against Hezbollah. Iran sought
Tehran’s direct attack
on Israel demonstrates
the urgency of defeating
the Axis of Resistance.
to make clear that any Lebanon war
would entail waves of strikes akin to
those Ukraine has endured for two
years. Israel is a much smaller coun-
try than Ukraine, enabling air-de-
fense concentration, but also in-
creasing an adversary’s odds of
hitting targets. Iran has multiplied
the missile threat Israel faces by
bringing its missiles and drones, and
those of its proxies in Iraq, Syria and
Yemen, to the fight.
Iran’s strategy is one of imposing
costs. It has correctly identified that
the core of Israel’s political-military
capacity is its relationship with the
U.S. Since Oct. 7, Iran has worked to
strain this relationship. Its attacks
you give him free room and board at
a Manhattan hotel, he will invite his
family and friends, too. When you
let them in, they’ll ask for a bus to
New York.
• If an electric-vehicle startup
asks for government support, you
might agree to fund the construction
of its first factory. Then it will want
tax credits for people to buy its cars.
Since drivers need to charge their
EVs, the company will ask you to fi-
nance charging stations. When it
keeps losing money, it’ll ask you to
subsidize its battery manufacturing.
When it produces more EVs than
people want to buy, it’ll ask you to
ban gasoline-powered cars so con-
sumers have no other choice. Then
it’ll ask for more money to build fac-
tories to make more EVs that people
are forced to buy.
• If you create a child-tax credit,
liberals will demand that it be made
more generous. When you increase
the credit, they’ll ask to make it re-
fundable so people who don’t owe
taxes can claim it. When some stop
working, they’ll ask to increase the
earned-income tax credit as an in-
centive to work. Then they’ll ask for
paid family leave to make it easier
for parents to take time off work.
Climate Advocates Must Use the Market
By Fred Krupp
C
limate action costs money. A
global transition to a cleaner fu-
ture requires companies to in-
vest—and many want to. But they’re
limited by overly rigid constraints on
market-based tools like carbon cred-
its, which allow businesses that can’t
currently remove all their emissions
to address them. The result is confu-
sion—and likely billions in deterred
climate investment.
On April 9 the board of the Science
Based Targets initiative, or SBTi, a
group that helps companies set goals
for reducing greenhouse-gas emis-
sions, took a step in the right direc-
tion. SBTi said it would consider al-
lowing companies to use certificates
that track the benefits of climate
projects in which they invest to cover
part of the businesses’ toughest chal-
lenges: reducing Scope 3 emissions.
Scope 1 includes emissions a company
directly produces and Scope 2 those
it indirectly creates by buying elec-
tricity. Scope 3 is everything else, in-
cluding supply-chain emissions and
those consumers generate with a
businesses’s product.
These usually account for a major-
ity of a company’s carbon footprint
and are the hardest to reduce. More
businesses are working to reduce
their climate pollution, but many get
their parts from around the world.
Monday, April 22, 2024 | A17
to freeze Israel, presenting threats
from the south (Hamas in Gaza), the
north (Hezbollah in Lebanon), and
east (via Syria and Jordan into the
West Bank). Any move Israel makes
in one direction leaves it vulnerable
elsewhere. The longer this war goes
on, whether in Gaza or Lebanon, the
more international pressure on Is-
rael will mount, and the more likely
ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH/SHUTTERSTOCK
a rupture between Israel and the U.S.
becomes.
Defeating Iran, not deterring it,
should be the objective for the U.S.
and Israel. That requires imposing
costs on the proxy network and
breaking the Axis of Resistance. The
axis functions because it can operate
relatively cheaply. Iran can direct the
financial support it provides to Iraq,
Syria and Lebanon to training and
equipment, while leaving the costly
on U.S. bases, proxy attacks on inter- tasks of civil administration and
national shipping, and media promo- public-service provision to Baghdad,
tion of supposed Israeli war crimes Damascus and Beirut.
in Gaza have all imposed domestic Israel should try to break this
stress on the Biden administration. strategic construct by forcing Iran to
Meanwhile, Iran’s April 13 bombard- take direct control of each proxy
ment demonstrates the likelihood of host state, or risk the collapse of the
U.S. involvement in a Lebanon war, axis. It can do this most efficiently
even if only to protect Israel from with airstrikes in Syria and a combi-
Iranian assaults. nation of airstrikes and intelligence
For Israel, launching a major operations in Lebanon. In Syria, the
strike seeking to cripple Iran’s nu- Assad regime is fragile and frac-
clear program would be imprudent. tured, despite its victory in the civil
The U.S. has said it won’t support an war. Hitting specific nodes would de-
Israeli strike against Iran. Without stabilize the system. In Lebanon, do-
U.S. assistance, the IDF would have mestic politics is reaching a boiling
to risk a big portion of its fixed-wing point following the murder of Chris-
combat fleet to suppress Iranian air tian politician Pascal Suleiman. Is-
defenses in Syria, Iraq and western rael can accelerate this restive trend,
Iran. Such an operation would be pressuring Hezbollah and its de
more challenging, and risk worse facto ally, the Lebanese armed
consequences, than Israel’s attack on forces, with airstrikes that erode op-
Iraq’s nuclear program in 1981. erational capabilities and reduce the
A strike on Iran’s nuclear pro- state’s ability to manage sectarian
gram, even if successful, wouldn’t unrest.
appreciably change the balance of Such actions deserve full U.S. sup-
forces. Iran would react with a larger port. Israel faces a threat in the
bombardment, while Washington north that Washington fully grasps.
might chide Israel for an “escala- Over time, Iran will need to direct
tory” action and limit its defensive more resources to maintaining the
response. Destroying Iran’s missile axis, drastically curtailing its own
arsenal is beyond Israel’s capabili- operational capacity.
ties, as all Iranian proxies also have
missiles and drones. Mr. Cropsey is president of the
The core of Iran’s political-mili- Yorktown Institute. He served as a
tary capacity is its proxy network of naval officer and as deputy under-
regional militias, called the Axis of secretary of the Navy and is author
Resistance. This network allows Iran of “Mayday” and “Seablindness.”
When inflation increases because of uranium. Then they’ll ask for the ab-
government spending, liberals will olition of Israel in return for not
ask for a bigger child-tax credit. launching a nuclear weapon.
• If Iranian mullahs ask for relief • If Israel removes its citizens
from economic sanctions, you may from Gaza, Hamas will take over and
go along because you want them to ask for humanitarian assistance.
agree to a new deal to limit their When you send aid, Hamas will use
nuclear-weapons program. When it for military purposes while impov-
erishing its people. Then it’ll use Ga-
zans as human shields after launch-
The children’s book series ing attacks on Israel. When Israel
tries to defend itself, innocent Ga-
helps explain the dangers zans will accidentally get killed.
of indulging unreasonable The United Nations will lambaste
Israel as the aggressor. Hamas will
requests around the world. smile and ask for more humanitarian
relief. When you give Hamas more
aid, it will launch yet more attacks
you give them sanctions relief, on Israel and take civilians hostage.
they’ll spend their bounty on manu- When you seek to negotiate their re-
facturing weapons, which they will lease, Hamas will ask for more aid
give to terrorist proxies to attack and a temporary cease-fire.
Israel. When you agree, it will regroup.
Then the mullahs will ask for Then when Israel accidentally kills
more sanctions relief, which you’ll Gazans while trying to eradicate
grant because you believe it will en- Hamas terrorists, radical leftists will
courage them to be less belligerent. block traffic on U.S. bridges and de-
Then they’ll manufacture more mand a permanent cease-fire. When
weapons, which their proxies will you agree, Hamas will escalate its
use to launch more attacks. attacks. When Israel fights back, col-
When you ask Israel to stand lege protesters will ask for safe
down, the mullahs will continue man- spaces for Hamas.
ufacturing weapons and enriching The list goes on . . .
While it’s vital that companies curb Some observers worry that car-
climate pollution at every step of the bon credits will lead companies to
supply chain, that’s a complex pro- shirk their responsibility to clean
cess that can take a lot of time. up their supply chains. The unfortu-
Policies like SBTi’s create space for nate reality, however, is that certain
companies to take meaningful climate industries can’t move quickly to
action now. As businesses work to- zero pollution. Carbon credits or
ward actually eliminating Scope 3 no, these businesses won’t be car-
emissions, they can use carbon credits bon-free anytime soon. And re-
and other tools to address the pollu- search from Intercontinental Ex-
tion they can’t yet prevent. These change and the environmental
group We Mean Business Coalition
shows that credits encourage com-
Constraints on flexible panies to take more ambitious cli-
solutions like carbon mate action. Blocking realistic path-
ways for voluntary climate action
credits limit investment. guarantees reckless inaction from
businesses.
Allowing carbon-credit flexibility
flexible approaches can benefit com- can’t mean a free pass for business
munities, conserve nature, and foster as usual. Any credits companies use
cleaner industry by unlocking desper- should be proven to reduce pollution
ately needed climate finance. and follow strong social and environ-
In a nation like Ghana, leaders say mental safeguards.
they see major value in these mar- Businesses have a critical role to
ket-based tools. As the Ghanaian play, but the climate community also
government prepares to sell high- faces an important decision: We can
quality carbon credits to support create the conditions companies
forest conservation, officials hope need to boost climate finance, drive
the international carbon market can sustainable development in emerging
deliver financial support for family economies, protect critical ecosys-
farms, deter deforestation, and re- tems, and cut pollution—or we can
duce carbon pollution. Under stick to inflexible positions that hin-
Ghana’s current plans to reduce de- der climate progress.
forestation from cocoa production,
the government will give 69% to lo- Mr. Krupp is president of the Envi-
cal communities. ronmental Defense Fund.
A18 | Monday, April 22, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

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 BUSINESS & FINANCE
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Last Week: S&P 4967.23 g 3.05%
Reports Omit Goals for Diversity
Dozens of firms
have changed the
way they report
annual initiatives
BY BEN GLICKMAN
AND LAUREN WEBER
Spending $1.2 billion with
diverse businesses. Doubling
Black and Latino leadership.
Increasing recruitment from
historically Black colleges and
universities.
Those diversity goals were
highlighted in companies’ an-
nual reports in 2022. A year
later, those references were
gone.
Dozens of companies altered
descriptions of diversity, eq-
uity and inclusion initiatives in
their annual reports to inves-
tors as DEI programs come un-
der legal and political threat.
The changes highlight the bal-
STREETWISE | By James Mackintosh
Big Stocks Win in Rally and Selloff
O
ne of the biggest
concerns amid the
run-up in stocks in
the first three
months of the year
was that the rally was domi-
nated by the biggest compa-
nies. As it sold off this month,
the market became even
more top heavy. Blame the
Federal Reserve and a change
in how investors react to it.
This isn’t how it was sup-
posed to be. For weeks now
Wall Street has been push-
ing the idea that the market
is broadening out beyond
the “Magnificent Seven”
tech stocks, helped by the
dismal performance this
year of Tesla (down 41%)
and Apple (down 14%).
It might be broader than
seven stocks, but bigger con-
tinued to be better in April,
with the notable exception
of Friday, when several of
the biggest stocks plunged.
Divide the S&P 500 up into
10 groups and there is an al-
most-perfect descent in per-
formance by size: from the
biggest 50 down just 4.5%,
to the smallest 50 down
8.6%. The pattern is more
regular than it was in the
first three months of the
year, when the big were so
obviously getting bigger.
This isn’t just about the
S&P. The Russell 2000 index
of smaller companies lagged
badly behind on the way up,
with its price rising less than
5% against 10% for the S&P
in the first quarter. Then on
the way down this month
the Russell 2000 has fallen
more, down 8.3% against a
5.5% decline for the S&P. The
Russell Microcap index rose
VW’s Labor Playbook
Doesn’t Cover UAW
BY WILLIAM BOSTON
B E R L I N — Vo l k s w a g e n
knows all about running a
business with union represen-
tatives at the table. But that
experience may not be a per-
fect guide for how to work
with the United Auto Workers
at its Chattanooga, Tenn.,
plant.
After workers at the plant
last week voted in favor of be-
ing represented by the UAW,
VW thanked employees for
participating in the ballot.
Now, under federal labor law,
the company must enter nego-
tiations with the UAW on an
agreement covering pay, work
hours, safety protocols and
other items.
VW may not have much
choice but to make the best of
it, analysts say, given the eco-
nomic benefits of making cars
near customers, especially be-
cause of tariffs and the possi-
bility of more of them.
“Union membership is the
price German manufacturers
will have to pay for building
* ** * *
S&P FIN À 0.81% S&P IT g 7.26%
ancing act companies face as
they navigate pressure from
both critics and advocates of
diversity efforts.
In general, companies say
they aren’t cutting back on
their programs or longer-term
goals. Lawyers and other ex-
perts say the disclosure
changes reflect uncertainty
about the legal parameters of
diversity programs along with
wariness of political backlash
following the Supreme Court’s
2023 decision overturning af-
firmative action in college ad-
missions.
The nature and degree of
the changes vary, according to
a Wall Street Journal analysis
of 10-K filings to the Securities
and Exchange Commission.
Some companies shortened de-
scriptions or removed entire
sections, while others changed
a few words or phrases to cut
mentions of race or specific
hiring or other targets.
even less and fell even more.
The main cause is interest
rates, plus fears about a wider
Middle East war. Both hurt
smaller companies far more
than bigger ones— for some
bigger companies, higher rates
boosted the bottom line.
The impact of higher
rates is part of the two-
speed economy that resulted
from sharp rate rises, and
then this year the evapora-
PERFORMANCE
tion of hopes for multiple
rate cuts. Big companies are
insulated from the impact of
higher rates because they
used their easy access to
bond markets to lock in su-
perlow-cost debt for a long
time when rates were low.
Many of the very biggest,
particularly big tech stocks,
are sitting on piles of cash,
which are earning more
thanks to rate rises.
S
maller firms find it
hard to issue bonds and
borrow far more at a
floating rate. As with poorer
consumers who borrow on
their credit cards, the cost of
this debt soared as the Fed
tightened, hitting the profits
of smaller companies. Gold-
man Sachs analysts calculate
that almost a third of Rus-
sell 2000 debt is at a float-
ing rate, compared with 6%
for the S&P 500. On top of
that, smaller companies as a
group have higher debt com-
pared with earnings and
more volatile earnings—
making them less appealing
when there is a flight to
quality amid war fears.
This all shows up as the
Russell 2000 moving
Please turn to page B6
JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES
cars where they sell,” said Fa-
bian Brandt, a senior consul-
tant at management consulting
company Oliver Wyman.
“I don’t believe that any of
the German players will reduce
investment in this region,”
Brandt said, adding that VW
might seek to offset potential
wage increases with higher
productivity. “The geopolitical
environment is too uncertain
and the risk of additional trade
barriers is too high…to risk ac-
cess to the lucrative U.S. mar-
ket.”
VW is in the midst of a multi-
year investment push to in-
crease its share of U.S. new car
sales, which analysts estimate
at about 4% last year, com-
pared with 25% in Europe and
14% in China. VW began its U.S.
reboot with a series of SUVs,
including the Chattanooga-
built Atlas. Alongside the Atlas,
VW builds its ID.4 electric
crossover SUV in the city.
The company is planning to
launch an EV range in the U.S.
over the next few years. VW
Please turn to page B2
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
DJ TRANS g 2.67% WSJ $ IDX À 0.30% 2–YR. TREAS. yield 4.969% NIKKEI 37068.35 g 6.21%
Monday, April 22, 2024 | B1
See more at WSJ.com/Markets
Wall Street
Banks
Additions to and subtractions from Kohl’s DEI program
description between its 2002 and 2023 annual reports
are “key to creating an envi-
ronment where our people feel
safe to be themselves, are em-
Abandon
powered to grow their careers,
are rewarded competitively,
and are challenged to do their
Street That
best work while embracing the
power of automation.”
People and interest groups
Made Them
along the political spectrum
are watching the companies’ BY ALEXANDER SAEEDY
words and actions.
Shortly after the affirma- America’s biggest bank is
tive-action decision, a group of calling it quits on the street
Republican attorneys general where American finance was
wrote a letter to Fortune 100 born.
companies warning them JPMorgan Chase closed its
Note: Kohl’s said its DEI strategy hasn’t changed and that its
annual ESG report includes more information. against race-based preferences branch Friday at 45 Wall St.,
Source: the company in hiring and promotion. Soon ending more than 150 years of
after, Democratic attorneys physical ties between the bank
Kohl’s no longer says it is “diversity and inclusion” from general wrote to the same and the street that is a catch-
cultivating “diverse leaders” a list of philosophy tenets for companies noting that corpo- all term for the global money
for advancement, as it had for its human-resources depart- rate diversity programs are es- business.
the past three years. The re- ment. sential to combating discrimi- The move won’t register for
tailer’s latest annual report Software company UiPath nation and encouraging firms most tourists visiting the area.
says its priority is to develop used to define DEI measures as to double down on their ef- The majority of the banks and
“leaders.” “a business priority and a forts. brokerages that once popu-
GameStop cut mention of moral imperative.” Now they Please turn to page B2 lated Wall Street are already
gone, finding new homes
across Manhattan or beyond.
The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks a few blocks away
spurred an exodus, which the
Covid-19 pandemic helped to
further speed along.
The final departure of the
mighty JPMorgan is a mile-
stone given its history in the
Larger S&P 500 companies have tended to outperform their smaller counterparts old neighborhood. It was
this year, both in the first-quarter rally and the April downturn. down the block at 23 Wall St.,
facing the New York Stock Ex-
S&P 500 companies, share-price performance vs. market value*
change, where J. Pierpont
20% Morgan and his son trans-
The largest 10% of companies
January–March
gained 13.2% in the first quarter...
formed the firm into one of
April the most powerful banks. In
15
the process, they helped turn
the U.S. into the center of the
global financial industry.
Today, a “Wall Street bank”
10 is defined as a financial insti-
tution with trading operations
that span the globe and in-
vestment bankers counseling
5
CEOs. An actual location on
the street doesn’t matter.
...while the smallest gained 2.8% Meanwhile, 23 Wall St. and
0 other historic buildings are
empty shells with vacant
storefronts and “for rent”
signs on their facades.
−5
“You used to see guys in
double-breasted suits, smok-
ing cigars, walking up and
−10 Please turn to page B6
2 4 6 8 10
S&P 500 MARKET VALUE DECILES
The biggest stocks beat the merely large
this year, while the Russell 2000 index
Bond yields have been having much more
effect on small stocks than on big stocks
Single Loan
of smaller stocks fell.
Index price change this year
this year, an unusual divergence.
Correlation† of 10-year Treasury yield with: For Co-op
15%
10
Russell Top 50
Russell 1000
Russell 2000
75%
50
Russell Top 50
Russell 2000 Led Bank
5 25 Into Crisis
0 0 BY JONATHAN WEIL
–5 –25 Amalgamated Warbasse
Houses, a sprawling apart-
ment complex blocks away
–10 –50
from the Coney Island board-
Jan. 2024 Feb. March April 2014 ’15 ’20 ’24 walk in New York, was an un-
*April data is through April 19. Dots show average performance in each decile.
likely spark for a near panic in
†100-day correlation of daily changes; negative correlation means stocks and bond yields move more strongly in opposite directions. the banking industry earlier
Sources: FactSet (share-price performance vs. market value); LSEG (index price change, correlation) this year.
Few people knew it at the
time, but the 1960s-era com-
INSIDE Salesforce’s Talks plex was a ticking time bomb
buried in the balance sheet of
New York Community Ban-
corp. When the bank revealed
On Tie-Up Collapse big losses on real-estate loans,
which included Warbasse and
another high-dollar property,
its shares fell 60%, pulling
Talks between Salesforce Shares of Informatica also down other lenders.
and data-management soft- fell sharply, down more than Regional banks have
ware firm Informatica have 6.5% that day. Informatica started to report first-quarter
fizzled after the companies stock had climbed 43% year- earnings, and investors are
couldn’t agree on terms, ac- to-date, racing ahead of the worried that more Warbasses
cording to people familiar price Salesforce had been will be revealed. Shares of
BUSINESS NEWS with the matter. planning to pay. these small and midsize
Chipotle keeps Salesforce had been dis- banks, which are stuffed with
drawing customers By Lauren Thomas, cussing a price for Informatica loans for office buildings,
Dana Cimilluca in the mid-$30s a share, about apartment complexes and
even after a series of and Laura Cooper where the stock closed Friday. other commercial properties,
price increases. B3 At the time of the report, it are near their lowest level in
The Wall Street Jour- had been trading at $38.48. five months.
nal reported earlier this Salesforce, which histori- NYCB’s $112 million charge-
month that Salesforce was cally has had a voracious ap- off on the Warbasse loan in
discussing a deal to buy Red- petite for deals, was already last year’s fourth quarter was
wood City, Calif.-based Infor- on a tight leash after a share- a surprise. Banks typically
matica, which could have been holder rebellion over its ac- don’t disclose the names of
valued in the neighborhood of quisition strategy, among their borrowers or how much
$10 billion. It would have other things. they owe, and NYCB didn’t
ranked among Salesforce’s A swarm of at least five ac- identify Warbasse by name in
largest acquisitions. tivist investors descended on its financial disclosures, ei-
After the April 12 report, the company this past year. To ther. Clues left behind by the
Salesforce shares traded appease the activists, Sales- lender and the sheer scale of
sharply lower. Salesforce stock force disbanded a committee the complex’s mortgage
HEARD ON fell 7.3% the first trading day focused on M&A and shifted helped unmask Warbasse.
THE STREET after the article ran, erasing its focus toward improving NYCB said the loan was for
more market value than the profitability. a co-op and had “a unique fea-
Peril for a deal between deal would likely have been San Francisco-based Sales- ture that prefunded capital ex-
the owners of Coach worth. Salesforce has a mar- force specializes in cloud- penditures.” In addition, Wall
and Michael Kors. B10 ket capitalization of about based software that helps Street stock analysts who had
$262 billion. Please turn to page B4 Please turn to page B2
 B2 | Monday, April 22, 2024 * **** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

INDEX TO BUSINESSES BUSINESS & FINANCE

These indexes cite notable references to most parent companies and businesspeople in

One Loan
today’s edition. Articles on regional page inserts aren’t cited in these indexes.
New York Community Bancorp
share price, year to date
A F Nvidia...............................................B6

Amazon.com...............................A8
Ameren...........................................R4
American Electric Power R4
To Co-op
$12
Flow...................................................B6 P
Ford....................................................A4 PPL.....................................................R4
G S 10

Shook Bank
Anheuser-Busch InBev.....A8
GameStop......................................B1 Salesforce............................B1, B2
Apollo Global
General Motors.......................A4 Southern........................................R4
Management..........................A2 8
Goldman Sachs........................A2 Starbucks..............................A8,B3
Apple..................................................B1

BING GUAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

H-I State Street................................A2
B Stellantis.......................................A4
Hermés.........................................B10 6
Bank of America....................B6 Continued from page B1
Informatica...................................B1 T
Best Buy........................................B2 spoken with NYCB manage-
J T. Rowe Price............................A2
BlackRock...............................A1,A2
Tapestry.......................................B10
ment said in their research re- 4
Blackstone.....................................A1 JPMorgan Chase.....................B1
Tesla...........................................B1,B4 ports that the unpaid princi-
C K pal balance was $275 million,
Toronto-Dominion Bank...B6 2
Capri Holdings........................B10 KKR......................................................A1 which is huge for a co-op loan.
U
Chipotle Mexican Grill.......B3 Kohl’s..................................................B1
UiPath...............................................B1 Those few details were
Consolidated Edison............R7 M 0
Costco.............................................A11 V enough to allow The Wall Street
Macy's...........................................B10 Jan. 2024 Feb. March April
D Valero Energy............................R4 Journal to identify the bor-
McDonald's..................................B3
Mercedes-Benz........................A2 Volkswagen.........................A2,A4 rower through a review of more Amalgamated Warbasse Houses in New York’s Coney Island. Source: FactSet
Dominion Energy...................R4
Dow....................................................R4 Microsoft.....................................A12 W than 70,000 NYCB real-estate
E N Walt Disney................................B4 loan records filed with the New ture’s assets from the Federal $1,700 a month, has a waiting that “the whole system was at
New York Community WeWork..........................................B6 York City Department of Fi- Deposit Insurance Corp. list to get in. the end of its life,” Michael Sil-
Eli Lilly.............................................B5
EQT.....................................................R4 Bancorp........................................B1 Workday.........................................B2 nance. Details about the large After its Jan. 31 earnings Warbasse’s age, its location verman, the longtime co-op
EverCommerce..........................B2 Nordstrom....................................B2 X capital spending at Warbasse release, NYCB changed chief near the ocean and damage board president, told the mag-
Eversource....................................R7 Novo Nordisk.............................B5 Xcel Energy.................................R4 were covered in the local real- executives twice. The panic from superstorm Sandy in azine. “We were one step short
estate press. The co-op’s iden- cooled after an investor group 2012 help explain the unusu- of a complete catastrophe.”
tity was also confirmed by a led by former Treasury Secre- ally large mortgage. Silverman and other co-op
INDEX TO PEOPLE person familiar with the matter.
NYCB spokesman Steven
tary Steven Mnuchin provided
a lifeline by injecting $1 billion
The co-op refinanced its
mortgage in 2014, borrowing
board members declined to
comment. Warbasse has un-
Bodakowski declined to com- of fresh capital. $200 million from NYCB. Half dertaken a major renovation
A Fugere, Danielle.......................R4 McCalla-Leacy, John............R4 ment. The other loan cited by Warbasse is practically a of that was set aside for capi- project since then, the maga-
Armistead, Bruce....................R2 G Musk, Elon............................B1,B4 NYCB was less unusual—a $40 small city unto itself. It has tal projects, according to a zine article said.
B Gates, Bill......................................R2 N million charge-off on a non- five 24-story towers, 2,585 September 2021 article about Property records show
Bergés, Mario............................R2 Gilliland, Douglas....................R7 Neumann, Adam.....................B6 performing loan for an office units, about 8,000 residents Warbasse by Habitat Maga- Warbasse refinanced again in
Borglum, Scyller......................R4 H Nuttall, Scott.............................A2 building. and its own power plant. It zine, which covers the New March 2022, when it took on
Borneman, John......................R4 P
There were times this year was built as affordable hous- York co-op scene. This ap- the new $275 million mort-
Hackenson, Elizabeth.........B4
Brandt, Fabian...........................B1 when it looked like NYCB ing for union families by the pears to be the “prefunded gage from NYCB.
Hibdon, Wendell......................R7 Porritt, Ben..................................R2
Bristol, Sara................................A3 could be on the brink and Amalgamated Clothing Work- capital expenditures” referred While the borrower and the
I Prelogar, Elizabeth................A3
might even trigger a new re- ers Union and the United to by the bank. charge-off on the loan are
Bruno, Nikki.................................R7
Buckner, Brittany....................B5 Ibraheem, Hasan....................A8 R gional banking crisis, less than Housing Foundation, accord- The article said the Atlantic known, there are still some
Buell, Alexander......................R7 J Roselli, Sarah.............................B6 a year after Silicon Valley ing to the co-op’s website. Ocean’s “corrosive salt air, mysteries behind it. NYCB said
C James, Jason.............................B4 Rothstein, Steven..................R4 Bank’s collapse. NYCB had Warbasse covers almost 27 punishing winds and occa- the borrower wasn’t in de-
Cardona, Maria........................A4 K S been one of the beneficiaries landscaped acres and has a sional floodwaters” had fault. But the way it accounted
Cary, Scott....................................R2 Spiro, Alex....................................B6
of last year’s brief flurry of big contingent of Russian im- wreaked havoc on the property for the loan loss made it clear
King, Bob.......................................B2
Cloherty, Tyler...........................A2 Stojanowski, Jaime...............B6
bank failures. It acquired most migrants. The complex, where over the years. that NYCB had determined the
Kondap, Kedar...........................B4
Coss, Sebastian........................R2 of Signature Bank’s deposits a two-bedroom apartment An engineering firm hired loan wouldn’t be fully collect-
Kreimer, Olga.............................R2 T and about one-third of Signa- with a terrace costs about by the board in 2017 found ible. The bank didn’t say why.
Cromer, Daryl.............................B4
L Trancik, Jessika........................R2
D
Lakier, Genevieve...................A8 U

Reports
Ducker, Michael.......................R4
Dyson, Mark...............................R2
Langford, John..........................R2
Umashanker, Devika............B5 company’s strategy and beliefs counsel for Wisconsin Institute representation in manager
Larcker, David............................R4 around DEI are still in place for Law and Liberty, a legal roles by 50%.
E Levine, Aron................................B6 V
and it routinely makes revi- group that has sued multiple Salesforce in its 2022 re-
M
Omit DEI
Evangelis, Theane.................A3 Von Ruden, Matt...................R2
sions to that section of its an- companies over their diversity port said it targets 50% of its
Evans, Karen..............................B5
Magavi, Zeyneb.......................R7 W nual report. She said addi- initiatives. He said companies workforce being from under-
F Maxwell, Brian..........................R4 Walker, George.........................A2 tional information about DEI recognize they “face tremen- represented groups and 40% of
Ferro, Jay......................................B4 Mayers, Brian............................R2 Washington, Paul...................R4
Targets at Kohl’s is on the com-
pany’s website and in its an-
nual ESG report.
dous liability for any program
involving race in any way,” a
concern that extends far less
employees being women or
nonbinary. The numbers are
gone from the latest report, in
War, Monsters Lead the Box Office Still, some companies are to programs based on gender. which the company says it
Continued from page B1 saying less. “Forget about any Some companies are signal- looks to advance representa-
“There’s been a re-evalua- ideological agenda. You’re just ing their attention to compli- tion and design systems with a
tion of the level of political risk trying to figure out, how do I ance. Software company Ever- focus on equality.
these companies are willing to follow the law? You don’t want Commerce in 2023 added A spokesperson for Sales-
take on,” said Lindsay Stewart, to overcommit or undercommit several sentences to its annual force said its “commitment to
BERNARD WALSH/UNIVERSAL PICTURES/ASSOCIATED PRESS

an analyst at Morningstar who or misdescribe where you’ll report saying it would pursue equality is unwavering.”
studies corporate reporting. eventually land,” said Jason only DEI efforts that were le- Workday in 2020 declared
The affirmative-action rul- Schwartz, a gally compliant. its commitments to increasing
ing, which struck down the partner with EverCommerce overall representation of Black
consideration of race in college Gibson Dunn didn’t respond and Latino employees in the
and university admissions, and a leader of Companies deal to requests for U.S. by 30% and doubling the
doesn’t directly affect compa- the law firm’s with pressure comment. number of Black and Latino
nies. But the ruling raised the DEI Task Force. Fear of legal leaders by the end of last year.
specter of more legal chal- Schwartz cur- from critics and repercussions is Those targets, added into the
lenges by people and groups rently repre- a major consid- 2022 form, were missing from
who see race- or gender-based sents the Fear-
advocates of eration, experts the 2023 version.
goals as discriminatory. less Fund, a diversity efforts. say. Certain Electronics seller Best Buy
Survey data suggest most venture firm programs or stopped listing its commit-
companies aren’t making sub- whose grants to commitments ments to spend at least $1.2
‘Abigail,’ with Alisha Weir as Dracula’s child, is a new release. stantive changes to their diver- Black female might be seen billion with diverse businesses
sity efforts. Around 93% of em- entrepreneurs have been chal- as more likely to draw scru- by 2025, as well as its progress
Estimated Box-Office Figures, Through Sunday ployers said their DEI lenged in court. tiny, such as putting numerical on hiring goals such as filling
Sales, in Millions commitments and activity in- The legal landscape shifted targets on racial or gender one in three salaried corporate
Film Distributor Weekend* Cumulative % Change creased or stayed the same be- again last week, when the Su- representation or maintaining positions with employees who
1. Civil War A24 $11.1 $44.9 -56 tween 2022 and 2023, accord- preme Court opened the door mentorship programs for un- are Black, indigenous or people
ing to a report published in to discrimination claims re- derrepresented groups. of color and filling one in three
2. Abigail Universal $10.2 $10.2 — January by employment law lated to a broader range of In its 2023 report, Nord- positions with women. The
Godzilla x Kong: The Warner firm Littler Mendelson. workplace actions. strom removed specific goals company instead said it is fo-
3. $9.5 $171.6 -39
New Empire Bros. UiPath, for example, says its Conservative legal activists around diversity that had been cused on employee engage-
The Ministry of commitment “has deepened in have taken aim at some hiring in filings with the SEC since ment, retention, representation
4. Ungentlemanly Lionsgate $9.0 $9.0 — the past year” and that it has programs and other initiatives 2020. That included the goals and creating a culture of be-
Warfare “strengthened our operating by companies, saying they are of delivering $500 million in longing.
procedures in talent acquisi- discriminatory. retail sales from brands All four companies provide
Spy x Family Code: Crunchyroll tion toward higher goals for a “There is a pullback from owned, operated or designed more details about their diver-
5. $4.9 $4.9 —
White /Sony more diverse workforce.” A any explicit mention of race,” by Black and Latino people and sity goals and actions in sepa-
*Friday, Saturday and Sunday in North American theaters Source: Comscore Kohl’s spokeswoman said the said Dan Lennington, deputy increasing Black and Latino rate reports.

VW Faces strengthen the union’s hand

broadly, said Bob King, who
was the UAW’s president in the
For much of the next de-
cade, VW faced continued la-
bor unrest at its Pennsylvania

Challenge early 2010s. Adding more car

companies should bolster the
union’s bargaining clout and
plant and struggled with slug-
gish sales of the Rabbit, the
U.S. version of VW’s Golf

With UAW lead to higher wages across the

industry, he said.
“This should both raise and
model, and the Jetta. VW shut
down the plant in 1988. In
2008, VW announced that it
level the playing field for ev- would build the Chattanooga
Continued from page B1 eryone,” he said. plant in a bid to revive its U.S.
executives have said they be- The potential impact from business. The plant began pro-
lieve the company can boost its the UAW’s expansion could be ducing Passat sedans in 2011
U.S. market share faster with a focus this week when Tesla, before shifting to the Atlas.
EVs because its rivals in the General Motors and Ford Mo- A new VW subsidiary, Scout
U.S. have been slower to de- tor are scheduled to report Motors, is building a factory in
ELIJAH NOUVELAGE/GETTY IMAGES

velop electric cars. first-quarter earnings. South Carolina that is slated to

VW’s American manage- In Germany, large compa- manufacture all-electric Scout
ment could face challenges nies are required by law to off-road vehicles. According to
replicating in the U.S. the gen- have labor representatives on people familiar with the com-
erally placid relationship it has their supervisory boards. Un- pany’s plans, the Scout vehicle
developed with unions in Eu- der the country’s two-tier gov- is based on EV technology cre-
rope, given the adversarial pos- ernance structure, these non- ated by Audi, the upmarket
ture the UAW has lately held executive directors monitor the VW brand. Audi plans to build
toward U.S. manufacturers. executive board that runs the Workers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga, Tenn., plant last week voted for UAW representation. an electric vehicle using that
At a celebration with VW company day to day. The IG same technology at the
workers after the vote, UAW Metall union, which has half for instance, on limiting pay in to boost profit and retool the hires with skills needed for EVs plant, these people said.
President Shawn Fain called the votes on VW’s supervisory exchange for job guarantees in workforce for the coming in- and batteries. As the Scout plant is in the
the decision a historic moment board, played a role on several tough times. vestment push into electric VW has less experience with early phase of construction, it
and the result of a decade of occasions in convincing the At the same time, decisions vehicles. U.S. organized labor, but Chat- is unclear whether its future
organizing and collaboration company’s directors to oust that affect large numbers of The move was approved by tanooga isn’t the first place workforce will also be orga-
with VW’s labor leaders, and CEOs who had fallen out of fa- workers, including layoffs or the supervisory board, with la- where it has had to work with nized by the UAW.
signaled the union’s pressure vor. the closure of uncompetitive bor support. There were no the UAW. VW also builds cars in Mex-
campaign for workers would But the German system also plants, must be negotiated strikes, no walkouts and little In 1978, months after VW ico, leaving it the option to
be fierce. encourages management and with unions and can end up protest. Instead, management, opened its first U.S. plant in shift some of its North Ameri-
“The real fight begins now,” labor to find common ground being delayed and watered unions and politicians agreed Pennsylvania, UAW workers at can production to its Mexican
Fain said. “The real fight is and avoid disruptive strikes down. Critics say this adds to phase out the jobs by not re- the plant staged a wildcat factories.
getting your fair share. The that can damage the broader costs and makes German in- placing workers set to retire in strike, demanding pay in- —Mike Colias
real fight is the fight to get economy—and profits. Given dustry less flexible and unable large numbers in the coming creases to put them on the contributed to this article.
more time with your families. labor’s board representation, to shed sluggish businesses years. same level as Detroit auto
The real fight is the fight for most strategic decisions re- quickly and move on to more Older workers were offered workers. The clash, which re-
our union contract.” quire a degree of trade-union promising enterprises. early retirement buyouts. sulted in better pay for VW’s Watch a Video
While UAW representation buy-in. This setup encourages A few years ago, VW man- Younger workers were offered U.S. workers, wasn’t sanc- Scan this code
could start to narrow the la- management and organized la- agement decided it needed to the option of being retrained to tioned by the UAW, which had for a video on
bor-cost gap between VW and bor to act as sparring partners. slash around 30,000 jobs work in fields related to elec- made more-moderate demands the UAW’s win
the unionized plants in Detroit German unions have been his- worldwide by 2025, most of tric vehicles. Thousands of the that were rejected by the rank at Volkswagen’s
and elsewhere, it also will torically open to compromise, them in its German factories, job cuts were offset by new and file. Tennessee site.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Price Boosts Don’t Slow Chipotle Diners
Burrito chain draws
customers with
higher incomes than
its competitors
BY HEATHER HADDON
Chipotle fans have been
tested lately.
Chipotle Mexican Grill has
increased prices six times
since 2021. It was among the
first restaurant companies to
say it would boost its menu
prices on delivery apps. And
its prices are set to rise fur-
ther in California, where
roughly 400 locations are
paying higher hourly wages in
response to a new state law.
Higher costs and inflation-
weary consumers are starting
to erode sales across much of
the U.S. restaurant industry.
Traffic last year, while 1%
higher than in 2022, re-
mained 8% below prepan-
demic levels, according to
market research firm Circana.
Many Chipotle customers,
though, are still willing to
pay. The California-based
chain’s same-store sales grew
8.4% last quarter, outpacing
rivals including McDonald’s
and Starbucks’s U.S. opera-
tions. Chipotle has reported
better-than-expected earnings
for four straight quarters, ac-
cording to FactSet. It is one
of the industry’s fastest-
THOMAS PHILLIPS
Thomas Phillips sees a chicken
burrito as a good value.
growing chains, with plans to
build around 300 new loca-
tions this year.
Chipotle’s stock has rock-
eted 59% in the past 12
months, while an S&P 500
subindex of U.S. restaurants
was flat.
Chipotle is benefiting from
a unique base of customers
who tend to be more affluent
and health-conscious than the
average diner—and loyal, ex-
ecutives and analysts say.
More than half the chain’s
customers say they actively
manage their health, accord-
ing to market research firm
Numerator, and they tend to
eat out several times a week.
“More than half of our cus-
tomers are millennial or Gen
Z,” said Chris Brandt, Chi-
potle’s chief brand officer.
“Our target audience priori-
tizes overall wellness.”
Some regulars say the
chain’s customization-friendly
assembly-line model lets
them tailor burritos and
bowls to their diets. Others
say that despite the rising
prices, Chipotle remains a
better overall value than fast-
food burgers.
Professional clients
Christopher Florentino has
been eating Chipotle since
high school. Now, the 24-
year-old accountant frequents
a Market Street Chipotle in
San Francisco and other city
locations for his preferred
chicken al pastor bowl.
It is a meal he says he can
get in minutes at a price that
compares favorably with fast
food. “In the kingdom of
quick eats, Chipotle sits at
the throne,” said Florentino.
Prices to eat out in March
were 29% higher than the
same period in 2019, accord-
ing to Labor Department data
released this month. Restau-
rant industry executives are
bracing for a harder year as
consumers, particularly those
with lower incomes, pull back
on spending.
Chipotle’s customers are
BUSINESS NEWS
Share-price and index performance over
the past year
60%
40
20
0 0
–20
May 2023
Share of customers who fall
into a high-income bracket*
Chipotle
McDonald's
Taco Bell
Wendy's
*Earning more than $125,000 a year
Sources: FactSet (performance); the company (comp-store sales); Numerator data from its panel of 150,000 U.S. households (customer income);
S&P Capital IQ (net profit)
20% more likely than the av-
erage U.S. consumer to earn
more than $125,000 a year,
according to Numerator data
from its panel of 150,000 U.S.
households. Fast-casual
chains typically charge more
than fast-food chains and
tend to attract higher-income
consumers, along with fami-
lies with children, market re-
search firms said.
Protein loading
Chipotle has a following
among bodybuilders who tai-
lor their orders to load up on
protein and minimize carbs—
skipping rice and adding ex-
tra meat, for example. Face-
book groups and Reddit
Chipotle
Mexican Grill
S&P 500 Restaurants
sub index
’24
Chipotle's quarterly net profit
$350 million
34%
300
250
27 200
150
26 100
50
0 fast food after his doctor pre-
26
2019 ’20
threads focused on fitness of-
ten include Chipotle ordering
tips, like a post on the “Gym
Rats” Facebook group dis-
cussing whether to include
beans in the chain’s bowls.
Zack Huhn, a 34-year-old
technology company execu-
tive from Tampa, Fla., said he
tends to eat Chipotle several
times a week after hitting the
gym, ordering a chicken bur-
rito with extra meat and
cheese to help build muscle.
“It’s cheap and easy and
healthier than most restau-
rant options, fast food or oth-
erwise,” said Huhn.
Sales at fast-casual restau-
rants such as Chipotle, Panera
and other eateries that focus
on fresh ingredients grew
Comparable store sales,
change from a year earlier
30%
4Q 2023
20
10
–10
2019 ’20 ’21 ’22
4Q 2023
$282M
’21 ’22 ’23
faster last year than at fast-
food chains, Circana data
show.
Huhn said he typically
spends $15 to $20 for his
meal. He hasn’t shied away as
Chipotle raised prices.
A budget crunch
Thomas Phillips, a 22-year-
old college student in Boone,
N.C., began eating Chipotle
while in elementary school
when his family would order
it in Greensboro. He now
views his go-to chicken bur-
rito as a good value. “If I can
spend $9 and get a filling
meal, that’s a great deal for
me,” Phillips said.
Some Chipotle regulars
Monday, April 22, 2024 | B3
said they make their money
go farther at the chain by or-
dering through the app to
amass points for future dis-
+8.4% counts and deals. Others be-
lieve that by ordering in the
store, workers will bump up
the rice and beans when a
customer is staring at them.
Some Chipotle fans say
they are feeling the higher
prices. Tevita Fusitua, a 37-
year-old designer from Bea-
verton, Ore., still goes to Chi-
potle several times a week
but now skips the chips, sav-
ing about $2.50 on each or-
der.
’23 In Angwin, Calif., 63-year-
old college professor Karl
Wilcox said he and his family
used to regularly eat bean
bowls with brown rice from
Chipotle, but stopped as
prices climbed after the
Covid-19 pandemic hit.
“With a family of four and
California’s sky-high gas and
utilities costs, we cook at
home,” Wilcox said.
Dietary guidelines
Mike Goldman said he
switched to Chipotle from
scribed the 64-year-old cho-
lesterol-lowering medication
around five years ago. The
pills’ harsh side effects led
Goldman to focus instead on
improving his diet, including
eating less meat.
Goldman, a retired engi-
neer in Goleta, Calif., said he
still has to mind the sodium
levels in Chipotle’s food but
enjoys his typical order of a
chicken burrito with rice,
beans, tomatillo green chili
salsa and guacamole.
He has noticed his orders
getting more expensive,
though: His meal in early
April cost $13.20 before tax
and tip, up 19% from $11.10 in
mid-February, according to
his receipts.
“My make-or-break point
would probably be $20,”
Goldman said. “At that price,
I might as well make my own
burritos at home.”
B4 | Monday, April 22, 2024 * **** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

TECHNOLOGY WSJ.com/Tech

TIM HIGGINS

Musk’s Talk Sours Democrats on Tesla

T
he biggest cohort Tesla vehicle deliveries, have to have all of the alter-
of Tesla buyers, quarterly natives.”
politically speak- 1Q 2024 Musk has said he is
–8.5% from a
ing, for years has against President Biden but
500,000 year earlier
been Democrats. has stopped short of saying
But when Elon Musk took a he will back Trump. “There
hard turn last fall, they is either a red wave this No-
400,000
didn’t follow him. vember or America is
The proportion of Demo- doomed,” Musk tweeted in
crats buying Tesla vehicles 300,000
March.
fell by more than 60%, ac- As for how his comments
cording to car buyers sur- might affect his businesses,
LI JIANGUO/XINHUA/ZUMA PRESS

veyed in October and No- 200,000 Musk has essentially

vember by researcher shrugged off the suggestion
Strategic Vision. that they could affect
Tesla has since made up 100,000 things.
ground with blue buyers, the “With respect to Tesla, we
research shows. But the dra- make the best cars—whether
matic drop highlights the 0 you hate me, like me or are
risk hanging over Tesla with 2019 ’20 ’21 ’22 ’23 ’24 indifferent,” Musk said in
an increasingly political chief Tesla’s sales fell in the first quarter, and it is cutting jobs. Source: the company November. “Do you want the
executive, at a time when best car, or do you not want
electric-car makers are al- even tougher position this commitments at his other makeup of Democrats fell to sales fell 44% in the period the best car?”
ready struggling to appeal to year as the market for EVs companies, including an arti- 15% while Republicans that ended in March com- And he might be right—if
many Republican buyers. has slowed. It doesn’t help ficial-intelligence startup jumped to 32% and indepen- pared with a year ago, ac- he can just keep from rock-
The fall contraction coin- EV makers that U.S. politics called xAI and social-media dents swelled to 44%. cording to the research firm. ing the boat too much.
cided with Musk’s being in- has polarized the technology, platform X. Those results show Tesla Model Y sport-utility vehi- While Democrats’ ranks
creasingly vocal about illegal which some Republicans Other surveys have cap- was losing sales among Dem- cles rose just 1.4%. fell at the end of the year,
immigration, amplifying a denigrated in their cam- tured a pullback in consum- ocrats, Alexander Edwards, Former President Trump, some came back in subse-
tweet promoting antisemitic paigns. ers’ consideration of Tesla president of Strategic Vision, the presumptive Republican quent surveys by Strategic
vitriol and publicly attacking Tesla sales fell in the first vehicles since Musk acquired said of the fall findings. nominee for the White Vision, rising to 35% of the
Walt Disney over his con- quarter, the first year-over- the social-media platform in In California, a solid-blue House, has made attacks on mix of buyers through late
tention that the entertain- year drop since the early late 2022 and held court on state, registrations of new electric cars a regular talk- February—still not what they
ment company had become days of the pandemic in contentious social issues. Tesla vehicles fell almost ing point during his cam- traditionally had been, but
too woke. (Musk has called 2020. Musk this past week But the mix of Democrats, 10% in the fourth quarter. paign, even as he and Musk better than last fall when
the troublesome tweet fool- rolled out widespread lay- who have been core constitu- That was a stunning reversal appear to have a bromance their share was weakening.
ish, and the Mouse House offs, and shares have fallen ents for the Tesla brand, had from the third quarter when in the works ahead of No- “Elon hasn’t been in the
CEO has defended its posi- 41% this year through Friday remained mostly steady—un- registrations rose 43%, and vember. press as much as he has pre-
tions.) as investors worry Tesla’s til last fall. perhaps a sign of things to Trump has conceded the viously,” Strategic Vision’s
In many ways, Musk was dramatic growth story is in Among 2022 model-year come nationally. two men have a schism on Edwards said. “This lack of
sounding a lot like Donald trouble. buyers, Democrats made up one topic. negative press and antics,

T
Trump, embracing billionaire 40% of Tesla customers and esla doesn’t release “We obviously have op- combined with EV [shop-

S
populism, and less like the ome investors are pin-
green hero he was once cele- ing for the old Tesla-
brated as. obsessed Elon, worried
Those controversies, it he has been distracted with
seems, have put Tesla in an his political posturing and
39% in 2023, according to
Strategic Vision’s surveys.
Things began to change in
the 2024 model year survey,
which began in October. The
U.S.-specific sales re-
sults. But Motor Intelli-
gence estimates Tesla’s U.S.
sales growth turned negative
this year. Model 3 sedan
posing views on a minor pers] today…shopping vari-
subject called electric cars,” ous EVs and they find that
Trump said during a CNBC the Model 3 and Y are still,
interview last month. “I’m in their opinion, the best de-
all for electric cars, but you cision based on value.”

Musk Postpones Highly Anticipated Visit to India

BY RAJESH ROY was due to meet with Prime
AND TRIPTI LAHIRI Minister Narendra Modi and
expected to unveil plans for
NEW DELHI—Tesla Chief the electric-car manufacturer’s
Executive Elon Musk post- entry to the country.
poned a highly anticipated Musk cited “very heavy
visit to India during which he Tesla obligations” for the
change in plans in a tweet on
X late Friday California time
and said he looked forward to
visiting India later in the year.
Musk is scheduled to an-
swer questions from investors
on an earnings call this week,
after the company told em- plans in India. Modi “really cares about In-
ployees it would lay off 10% of Musk’s change in plans dia because he is pushing us
its global workforce and re- marks a fresh setback for to make significant invest-
cently reported a year-over- long-running negotiations be- ments in India, which is some-
year decline in first-quarter tween India and the electric- thing that we intend to do,”
sales. car pioneer for its entry to the Musk told reporters at the
Tesla didn’t respond to a world’s third-largest automo- time. “We just have to figure
request for comment. tive market, and prompts out the right timing.”
The meeting with Modi had questions over Tesla’s India An announcement of a
been expected to take place on plans. Two Tesla factory in
Monday, according to Indian longtime top India would
officials. executives who have marked a
Musk had said in a tweet departed the Musk cited ‘very major win for
April 10 that he was looking company last heavy’ Tesla Modi, just as
forward to meeting the prime week included the country em-
minister in India. at least one obligations” for barks on na-
Indian officials familiar who traveled to tional elections
with talks between the gov- India for mar-
the change in that are ex-
ernment and the company had ket-entry talks plans. pected to de-
said that Tesla was expected with officials in liver a third
to lay out plans for a roughly New Delhi. term for Modi
$3 billion factory in the coun- Indian offi- and his ruling
try to make a lower-priced car, cials attributed the trip’s can- Bharatiya Janata Party.
and for imports of its cars to cellation to scheduling issues, Musk has said Tesla is
India later this year. without offering further de- likely to need roughly a dozen
Tesla stands to benefit from tails. factories to meet its produc-

THINK
a policy India announced last
month to attract global elec-
tric-vehicle makers. The new
policy slashes import duties
from 100% to 15% for cars with
import prices of $35,000 and
above for manufacturers who
invest at least $500 million in
a plant in the country, and
meet certain other conditions.
Tesla has long sought reduced
duties for its cars as a precur-
Since taking office in 2014, tion goals. Tesla currently
Modi has been pushing global makes vehicles in the U.S.,
players in high-tech sectors to China and Germany. The com-
set up factories in the country pany has invested heavily in
to boost manufacturing and China, where it faces stiff
generate jobs. His efforts to competition from domestic
bring Tesla to India began al- electric-car makers, most no-
most a decade ago, when the tably China’s BYD.
prime minister visited Musk’s The EV maker has been cut-
California plant in 2015. The ting prices to spur demand
two met again last year, when and focusing on developing
Modi was in the U.S. on a state autonomous cars. Analysts

Because small groups sor to firming up investment visit. have said a low-cost vehicle is
a key to the company’s near-
term business prospects.

do big things. Given India’s labor costs, a

factory there would be able to
produce a significantly lower-
priced EV car both for domes-
tic sales and for export.
About 95,000 electric cars
and SUVs were sold in India in
2023, about 2% of total car
INDIA’S PRESS INFORMATION BUREAU/REUTERS

and SUV sales, according to

Counterpoint Research. The
research firm sees that share
rising to about a quarter by
2030.
In addition to Tesla’s India
plans, Musk-led Starlink has
also been looking to launch its
satellite-based broadband ser-
vices in the country. That
Get hands-on with a destination. Collette has topic also was expected to
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi shakes met with with come up for discussion during
been leading the way for travelers like you since Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk in New York last June. Musk’s meeting with Modi.
1918. And our small group tours are kind of a

Salesforce
big deal. You’ll get to know locals, access places cluding Unilever, Toyota and sition ever.
beyond the guidebook, and get closer to culture. Deloitte as customers. Dealmaking in the U.S. is
Private-equity firm Permira off to a stronger start this

Deal Talks
It’s called Explorations for a reason. and the Canadian Pension year, but there are still factors
Plan Investment Board in keeping buyers on the side-
2015 took Informatica pri- lines. Stubborn inflation pres-

Collapse vate in a transaction valued at

Start planning your next adventure Continued from page B1
sales staff manage customer
today. Scan QR code to find out more. relationships.
Informatica helps compa-
gocollette.com/explorations nies manage their data across
cloud and on-premise systems,
allowing organizations to bet-
ter analyze the data they col-
lect. It counts companies in-
$5.3 billion after roughly 15
years as a public company.
sures persisted in March, de-
railing the case for the Federal
Reserve to begin reducing in-
The business went public terest rates soon. It is also an
again in 2021. election year, giving some
A deal for Informatica buyers pause to pursue big
would have ranked as Sales- transactions.
force’s biggest since it closed Exits for private-equity
the roughly $28 billion acqui- firms are also harder to come
sition of workplace-collabora- by, at a time when investors
tion products company Slack in investment firms are in-
Technologies in 2021. That creasingly asking for money
was Salesforce’s biggest acqui- back.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Ozempic Influencers Are Mum on Risks
Doctors’ voices are
lost as social-media
stars steer talks on
weight-loss drugs
BY PETER LOFTUS
AND SARA ASHLEY O’BRIEN
The friends and influencers
on Facebook, Instagram and
YouTube talking up drugs for
weight loss aren’t always giv-
ing the full story.
Social media is displacing
physicians as the trusted au-
thorities on whether patients
should take one of the medi-
cines. People are not only de-
ciding to take weight-loss
drugs—called GLP-1s—based
on posts by friends and influ-
encers, but sometimes also
skipping their doctor to go
with one mentioned online.
The virtual word-of-mouth
can come across as authentic
and accessible. But many in-
fluencers and friends on social
media play up all the pounds a
person lost while playing
down side effects that can be
nasty, such as painful head-
aches and bouts of vomiting.
Some omit the risks alto-
gether.
Unlike company drug ad-
vertisements, social-media
posts don’t have to describe a
drug’s side effects, suggest
other resources or tell people
to speak with their doctors.
Karen Evans posted a video
on YouTube that gave tips for
taking Ozempic, including for
managing the nausea. Since
the video went online in May
2022, it has 454,000 views and
more than 1,700 comments.
Evans hasn’t followed up with
a new video disclosing that
the vomiting became so bad
that she stopped using the
drug. “I was throwing up ran-
domly. It was destroying my
life,” Evans said in an inter-
view.
Brittany Buckner, a travel
influencer who usually posts
about plus-size clothing and
travel under the handle
@Plussizedandoutside, told
May 8-9, 2024 | London
PRESENTING SPONSORS
© 2024 Dow Jones & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. 6DJ0325
her more than 58,000 Insta-
gram followers about her use
of a weight-loss drug after
telehealth service Ro paid her
to promote its weight-loss pre-
scription program.
Buckner got the Ro partner-
ship after searching through a
site that connects influencers
with brands. Under the ar-
rangement, Buckner—who was
taking a GLP-1 at the time—
told followers that she didn’t
get the medication from Ro,
but “I wish I had gone through
them.”
Ro then paid Buckner to
film two videos, which it
posted months later on social
media. In one Facebook video,
she told viewers that Ro’s pro-
gram “makes it super conve-
nient” to access medication,
including helping find a phar-
macy that can fill prescrip-
tions. The posts sponsored by
Ro are marked as paid promo-
tions.
In reality, Buckner hadn’t
been able to fill her prescrip-
tion for Wegovy because of
supply constraints. She hadn’t
taken the drug for months,
and didn’t attempt to do so
through Ro.
Ro declined to comment on
Buckner’s experience. A of three and tarot-card reader
spokeswoman said the com-
pany only works with influenc-
ers who are on or have been
on GLP-1 medication and can
share their honest experi-
ences. Their stories are then
reviewed by clinical and legal
teams to ensure the posts are
medically accurate, the
spokeswoman said.
Social-media smash
The drugs used for weight
loss, Ozempic and Wegovy
from Novo Nordisk, along
with Mounjaro and Zepbound
from Eli Lilly, are the first
medicines to become social-
media sensations. (Ozempic
and Mounjaro are approved
for treatment of diabetes,
while Wegovy and Zepbound
are approved for weight loss.)
There have been more than
2.2 million public posts about
Monday, April 22, 2024 | B5
BUSINESS NEWS
million followers might get be-
tween $50,000 and $125,000,
according to Krishna Subrama-
nian, chief executive of influ-
encer marketing platform
Captiv8.
Influencers also can make
money through advertise-
ments accompanying their
YouTube videos or through af-
KRISTEN NORMAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
filiate links.
Evans is a 37-year-old
teacher in Michigan who usu-
ally makes videos about books
under the handle Roving
Reader. She started taking
Ozempic in late 2021 to treat
JACQUELINE CASTANEDA
Type 2 diabetes. The drug low-
ered her blood sugar and
helped her lose weight. Evans
posted the video in May 2022,
while she was still able to
Jacqueline Castaneda, left, got a prescription from a clinic she heard about on Instagram; manage the side effects.
Karen Evans, right, posted a video in 2022 that gave tips on taking Ozempic. In the video, she described
how she got “pretty sick” for a
the drugs during the past year drug was worth it despite the treatments. few days. One of her tips was
on YouTube, X and other so- vomiting because she has lost But “patients hearing about to take the drug on a Friday to
cial-media sites, according to more than 40 pounds. She has these medicines on TikTok or avoid dealing with nausea at
an analysis by consulting firm persuaded others to take the Instagram only want to be on work, which obesity-treatment
ZS of data provided by social- drug. “I influenced, like, four these meds, and are not inter- specialists said was reasonable
media tracker Brandwatch. of my friends,” she said. ested in the whole comprehen- advice.
Jacqueline Castaneda got an More than one-third of peo- sive approach,” Umashanker The video doesn’t capture
Ozempic prescription from a ple taking one of the drugs for said. Evans’s subsequent experi-
clinic she heard about on Insta- weight loss said an influencer, When she does prescribe ence. Three months after the
gram, rather than from her celebrity recommendation or one of the new drugs, Um- video went up, Evans quit
physician. Castaneda, a mother personal research was the top ashanker starts with the low- Ozempic because the vomiting
factor, according to a November est dose and monitors for dif- became unpredictable and was
in California’s Central Valley survey of more than 388 users ficult side effects. Nausea, stopping her from living her
who is in her early 40s, had by venture firm Coefficient diarrhea, vomiting and consti- life, she said. The final straw
first heard about Ozempic Capital and trends publication pation are the most common. took place when she was vom-
through TikTok. The testimoni- the New Consumer. Some 42% Some patients have experi- iting during a vacation, which
als of an Instagram plastic-sur- of those using the drug for enced more-serious condi- almost prevented her from
gery influencer whom Cas- weight loss said the main rea- tions, such as gallstones and meeting up with a friend.
taneda had long followed son was the advice of a doctor. pancreatitis. She is now focused, she
persuaded her to get the drug. Given the risks, doctors said said, on diet and lifestyle
One of the influencer’s fol- people need accurate informa- changes to keep weight off.
lowers recommended the Patients’ demands tion about the side effects, and Evans has mentioned in re-
clinic that Castaneda went to Dr. Devika Umashanker, people who aren’t obese plies to comments that she
for her prescription. medical director for obesity shouldn’t take one of the drugs. stopped taking Ozempic. This
The prescription cost a lot: medicine at Hartford Health- Both Novo Nordisk and Eli month, after The Wall Street
$1,300 a month, because her care in Hartford, Conn., said Lilly have criticized social me- Journal asked whether she
insurance wouldn’t cover the patients come to her office dia for portraying weight loss had done a follow-up video
drug. In addition, Castaneda vowing to go elsewhere if she as cosmetic and minimizing making clear she had stopped
spent many mornings throw- won’t prescribe one of the obesity as a serious disease. taking the drug, Evans posted
ing up, one of the drugs’ com- newer weight-loss drugs. an update in the text below
mon side effects. Umashanker prefers to start her video saying she had.
After seven months, she people on an older drug such Influencers get paid Influencers who have
asked her regular doctor for a as phentermine because they Influencers with fewer than posted about the downsides of
prescription, hoping her insur- are pills, rather than injections 100,000 followers might com- weight-loss drugs say follow-
ance would then pay for it. But like the latest medicines. The mand upward of $10,000 for ers aren’t as interested in the
he didn’t feel comfortable, she older drugs are also less ex- health, wellness and pharma- negatives and the posts don’t
said. He declined to comment. pensive if a patient’s health ceutical promotions, while in- get as many views as ones
Castaneda said she felt the plan doesn’t cover weight-loss fluencers with more than one talking up the drugs.
FEATURED SPEAKERS
Jon Abrahamsson Ring Adm. Rob Bauer
CEO, Inter IKEA Group Chair of the Military Committee, NATO
Ana Cabral Scott Galloway
CEO and Co-Chairperson, Sigma Professor of Marketing, NYU Stern
Lithium School of Business
David Miliband Alexis Nasard
President and CEO, International CEO, SwarovskI
Rescue Committee
Andrea Orcel Frank Ryan
CEO, UniCredit Group Global Co-Chair, Global Co-CEO, DLA
Piper
Jeff Zucker
CEO, Redbird IMI
OVERVIEW
The Wall Street Journal CEO Council will convene in
London on May 8 and 9, in a time of global upheaval.
With the war in Ukraine dragging into its third year and
conflict in the Middle East threatening supply chains,
business leaders are trying to plan for all eventualities,
including the prospect of a second Biden administration
or Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Concerns
about China’s economy, the growing pressure to quickly
adopt AI and the ever-changing workforce are among the
other key themes we’ll discuss throughout the summit.
We’ll also explore how the strong labor market, cooling
inflation and resilient consumer spending can present
opportunity in the midst of such uncertainty.
MEMBERSHIP IS BY INVITATION
CEOCouncil@wsj.com.
B6 | Monday, April 22, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

THE TICKER BUSINESS & FINANCE

WeWork Plans Chapter 11

MARKET EVENTS COMING THIS WEEK
Monday

Exit Without New Loans

Earnings expected
Estimate/Year Ago
Ameriprise Financial
8.20/7.25

SERGIO FLORES FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Brown & Brown
1.07/0.84
Cadence Design
Systems 1.13/1.29
Nucor 3.67/4.45 Amended revamp
Truist Financial filing doesn’t include
0.78/1.05
Verizon more financing for
Communications bankruptcy case
1.12/1.20
BY AKIKO MATSUDA
Tuesday Caterpillar is expected to post per-
share earnings of $5.15 on Thursday. Co-working space provider
New-home sales WeWork plans to exit bank-
Feb., previous 662,000 Refinan., prev. up 0.5% Freddie Mac mortgage ruptcy without taking on more
Mar., expected 670,000 survey loans to fund the rest of its
Earnings expected Previous weekly averages chapter 11 proceedings.
Earnings expected Estimate/Year Ago 30-year fixed 7.10% WeWork has been in talks
Estimate/Year Ago
AT&T 0.53/0.60 15-year fixed 6.39% with creditors holding roughly
Danaher 1.72/2.09 International Business
GE Aerospace 92% of its secured notes and po-
Machines Earnings expected tential new financiers about ad-
0.65/0.22

CYRIL MARCILHACY/BLOOMBERG NEWS

1.59/1.36 Estimate/Year Ago
PepsiCo 1.52/1.50 ditional financing for the re-
Lam Research Alphabet 1.51/1.17
Tesla 0.49/0.85 mainder of its bankruptcy case,
7.30/6.99 Caterpillar 5.15/4.91
Texas Instruments but they have yet to reach satis-
Meta Platforms Comcast 0.99/0.92
1.07/1.85 factory terms, according to an
4.32/2.20 Merck 1.90/1.40
Visa 2.44/2.09 amended chapter 11 plan the
ServiceNow 3.14/2.37 Microsoft 2.82/2.45
company filed Friday.
Thermo Fisher T-Mobile US 1.87/1.58
WeWork said it plans to seek
Wednesday Scientific 4.71/5.03 court approval in a combined
Short-selling reports Friday hearing for the amended plan
Ratio, days of trading volume Thursday Personal spending and an accompanying document WeWork said it may sell securities through a rights offering to support its reorganization.
of current position, at Mar 28
Feb., previous up 0.8% explaining to creditors its plan
NYSE 4.2 EIA report: natural-gas framework that would allow the senting Flow, Neumann’s new months to show my clients the completed talks for restructur-
Previous change in stocks in Mar., expected up 0.6%
Nasdaq 2.7 billions of cubic feet company to fund bankruptcy real-estate company, said “Flow books and now push forward ing 90% of its roughly 500
Personal income proceedings without additional and its financial partners are with an inferior deal with some- leases globally, which will cut
up 50 Feb., previous up 0.3%
EIA status report financing. prepared to offer 10% more than one who appears to have had an future rent expenses by about
Previous change in stocks in Mar., expected up 0.5% The company also said it any other offer that WeWork inside track.” 35%, or roughly $8 billion, and
millions of barrels GDP Deflator
4th qtr., final up 1.6% U.Mich. consumer may still sell securities through has received with a timeline to A WeWork representative that it aims to exit bankruptcy
Crude-oil stocks up 2.7 index a rights offering to support its complete diligence in just two said the company is “committed by the end of May. WeWork has
1st qtr. adv. est.
Gasoline stocks Apr., prelim 77.9 reorganization. weeks.” to emerging from Chapter 11 said it has reached lease
up 3.0%
down 1.2 Apr., final 77.9 Obtaining additional financ- Spiro said WeWork “is seek- next month as a strong and sus- amendments with 150 leases
Distillates Earnings expected ing for the reorganization “may ing to rush an insider deal with tainable company, and that is and it is rejecting or in the pro-
Gross domestic
down 2.8 Estimate/Year Ago be prudent so long as it is avail- a current technology and billing where our undivided attention cess of rejecting about 150
product:
Percentage change, annual AbbVie 2.26/2.46 able on acceptable terms” and provider who many landlords lies. Any new financial invest- leases, while another 150 leases
Durable-goods orders rate Chevron 2.95/3.55 WeWork and its advisers re- feel is uniquely conflicted based ment would serve to further are set to be assumed as is.
Feb., previous up 1.3% 4th qtr., final up 3.4% Colgate-Palmolive main open for negotiations, ac- on its insider information about strengthen the company as we WeWork also said it reached
Mar., expected up 2.8% 1st qtr. adv. est. up 2.2% 0.81/0.73 cording to a filing. WeWork’s ongoing perfor- exit from bankruptcy.” an agreement with holders of
Exxon Mobil 2.21/2.83 Friday’s filing comes in the mance, and also extensive pri- Once valued at $47 billion, 92% of its secured notes to con-
Mort. bankers indexes Initial jobless claims HCA Healthcare wake of WeWork co-founder vate information about other WeWork filed for bankruptcy in vert their bonds into equity,
Purch., previous Previous 212,000 5.06/4.93 and former Chief Executive landlords nationwide.” November facing a office real- wiping out about $3 billion in
up 5.0% Expected 215,000 Phillips 66 2.25/4.21 Adam Neumann renewing his Spiro also told The Wall estate market. The company has debt. The company had about
push to buy the co-working Street Journal on Friday that been renegotiating leases with $3.6 billion in secured debt in
* FactSet Estimates earnings-per-share estimates don’t include extraordinary items (Losses in paren-
theses) u Adjusted for stock split space company. “we cannot understand why its hundreds of landlords. Ear- principal, according to a court
Note: Forecasts are from Dow Jones weekly survey of economists Alex Spiro, a lawyer repre- WeWork would refuse for lier this month, WeWork said it filing in February.

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UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEWYORK
I : GOL LInhas aéreas ) Cp 11
InteLIGentes s.a., et al.,1 ) C no.24-10118 (MG)
Dbo ) (Joily admiid)
NOTICE OF ENTRY OF BAR DATE ORDER
ESTABLISHING DEADLINES FOR FILING
CLAIMS AGAINST DEBTORS
PLEASE TAKE NOTICE THAT ANY PERSON OR ENTITY
THAT FILES A PROOF OF CLAIM IN THESE CHAPTER 11
CASES SHALL BE DEEMED TO HAVE SUBMITTED TO THE
JURISDICTION OF THE UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY
COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK. ANY
PERSON OR ENTITY WHO IS REQUIRED TO TIMELY FILE A
PROOF OF CLAIM BUT FAILSTO DO SOWILL BE (A) FOREVER
BARRED, ESTOPPED, AND ENJOINED FROM ASSERTING
BANKRUPTCIES
Abandons Are Always
d. Amended Schedules Bar Date: If y Dbo md
o upplm i scdul, ffcd clim i quid o
C (“C Wbi”) locd  p://c..koll.com/
GOL, o (ii) toug Public acc o Cou elcoic rcod
Wall Street Winning
fil  poof of clim o o md  pviouly fild poof of clim (“PaCer”)  p://cf.yb.ucou.gov. IF BY FIRST CLASS
i pc of uc mdd o ddd cduld clim by  MAIL: GOL Clim Pocig C, c/o Koll rucuig
l of ()  Gl B D d (b) iy (30) dy f  admiiio LLC, Gd Cl sio, PO Box 4850, nw Continued from page B1 Continued from page B1
d  oic of  pplicbl mdm i vd o uc
clim(“amddscdulBD”).
Yok, nY 10163-4850; IF BY HAND DELIVERY OR OVERNIGHT
SERVICE: GOL Clim Pocig C, c/o Koll rucuig
down the street, and limou- strongly in the opposite di-
ec po o iy ig  clim gi  Dbo ud admiiio LLC, 850 3d avu, sui 412, Bookly, nY sines would be waiting out- rection to bond yields. Mean-
cio 503(b)(1) oug (8) d 507()(2) of  Bkupcy 11232; Clk of  Bkupcy Cou (hand delivery only),
Cod (c, “admiiiv Clim”), gdl of w uc Uid s Bkupcy Cou fo  sou Diic of nw side of the big bank buildings while, there has been no link
clim o, ccud, o owi bcom du d pybl Yok,OBowligG,nwYok,nY10004. to pick them up,” said Peter between moves in bond
mu fil  admiiiv Clim Fom,cd o  Dbo’ a poof of clim will b imly fild oly if actuallysubmittedo
b d moio [Dock no.376]  exibi D o  i ig o  CWbi o PaCer o iactuallyreceivedby  GOL Clim Tuchman, a stockbroker at the yields and the top 50 stocks
 pym of uc admiiiv Clim. t ddli fo filig
admiiiv Clim will b blid l i  cp 11
Pocig C o Clk of  Cou o o bfo  pplicbl
B D. Poof of clim fom  by -mil,fcimil,lcopy,
NYSE. “It was an old school this year—an unusual split
c. o lcoiclly (o  oug  C Wbi o PaCer) Wall Street atmosphere that between the two indexes.
2. WHAT TO FILE. You fild poof of clim mu cofom willobccpd.
just has not been around for a

S
SUCH CLAIM AGAINST ANY OF THE DEBTORS AND (B) ubilly o Officil Fom no.410 vilbl  www.ucou. 4. CLAIMS FOR WHICH PROOFS OF CLAIM NEED NOT BE The building at 60 Wall St.
FOREVER BARRED FROM VOTING TO ACCEPT OR REJECT gov/fom/bkupcy-fom o  c-pcific poof of clim FILED.t B D Od povid  ci clim wo while.” has been vacant since 2021. urprisingly, the excite-
ANY PLAN OR PARTICIPATING IN ANY DISTRIBUTION IN fom povidd by  Dbo vilbl  p://c..koll. clim owi would b ubjc o  Gl B D d
THESECHAPTER11CASESONACCOUNTOFSUCHCLAIM. com/GOL. o fil poof of clim. to viw  copy of  B D Od, Banks occupy a couple hun- ment about artificial
O Juy 25, 2024 (“Piio D”), GOL Li a  ec poof of clim mu (i) b igd by  clim o by plviip://c..koll.com/GOL.
5. CONSEQUENCES OF FAILURE TO FILE A PROOF OF
dred thousand square feet on ery commercial city in the intelligence isn’t a
Ilig s.a. d  o bov-cpiod ii  uoizd g of  clim (poof of clim igd
(collcivly,  “Dbo”) fild voluy piio fo lif lcoiclly  ccpbl), (ii) iclud copi of y wiig CLAIM BY THE BAR DATE. anY entItY WhO Is reQUIreD tO the street, according to John world.” great explanation for the
ud cp 11 of il 11 of  Uid s Cod ( upo wic  d clim i bd (bu if  wiig upo tIMeLY FILe a PrOOF OF CLaIM as set FOrth InthIs nOtICe BUt Santora, chairman of real-es- Then the banks outgrew biggest stocks winning. Sure,
“Bkupcy Cod”) i  Uid s Bkupcy Cou fo  wic  d clim i bd  mo  100 pg i  FaILs tO DO sO WILL Be (a) FOreVer BarreD, estOPPeD, anD
souDiicofnwYok(“Cou”). ggg,ul owi gd wi  Dbo, clim- enJOIneD FrOM assertInG sUCh CLaIM aGaInst anY DeBtOr tate broker Cushman & Wake- the street. Mergers created giant chip maker Nvidia
O apil 9, 2024,  Cou d  od [Dock no.447]  my iclud i  li of  docum givig i o  anD (B) FOreVer BarreD FrOM VOtInG tO aCCePt Or reJeCt
(“B D Od”) bliig (i) June 14, 2024, at 11:59 clim o  ummy ig fo  bi fo  clim ciig o anY PLan Inthe DeBtOrs’ChaPter 11 Cases Or PartICIPatInG field’s New York operations. corporations with large trad- soared 91% this year to its
p.m.(prevailing Eastern time) (“Gl B D”)    pplicbl docum,id of filig  docum m- InanYDIstrIBUtIOnOnaCCOUntOFsUChCLaIM. As recently as 2000, that had ing operations that needed peak on March 25, but since
ddli fo ll clim (icludig idividul, pip, lv,d mk uc docum vilbl upo qu),(iii) b 6. THE DEBTORS’ SCHEDULES AND ACCESS THERETO.
copoio, joi vu, d u) o  govm- i egli o Pougu,d (iv) b domid i U.s.doll You my b lid   old of  clim gi o o mo been 5 million square feet. bigger floor plans than the then it is down 15%, includ-
l ui d (ii) July 23, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. (prevailing
Eastern time) fo govml ui ( “Govml B
(uigxcg,ifpplicbl,ofPiioD).2
I ddiio o  quim  fo i  immdily
of  Dbo i  Dbo’scdul of a d Libilii
d/o scdul of excuoy Coc d Uxpid L
Out-of-towners still come 1920s-era skyscrapers of Wall ing a plunge of 10% Friday.
D”) o fil poof of clim gi y of  Dbo lid pcdig pgp, y poof of clim ig  503(b)(9) (collcivly,“scdul”). to photograph historic build- Street could offer. Just as it dragged up the
blow: Debtor, Case Number, Tax ID Number: GOL Li Clim mu lo iclud, wi pcificiy: (i)  mou of  Copi of  scdul  vilbl fo ipcio o 
a  Ilig s.a.,24-10118 (MG),n/a;GOL Li a  503(b)(9) Clim; (ii)  picul Dbo gi wic  Cou’ wbi  p://www.yb.ucou.gov. a logi d ings and the nearby Fearless JPMorgan left 23 Wall St. performance of big stocks in
s.a., 24-10119 (MG), 98-0670124; GtX s.a., 24-10121 (MG), 503(b)(9) Clim i d;(iii)  d of pupod dlivy of pwod o PaCer  quid o cc i ifomio d Girl statue. (Wall Street’s fa- in the 1980s, then moved its the first quarter, it should
n/a; GaC, Ic., 24-10120 (MG), n/a; Gol Fic (Luxmboug),  good o  Dbo wii wy (20) dy bfo  Piio c b obid oug  PaCer svic C  p://
24-10117 (MG), n/a; Gol Fic (Cym), 24-10122 (MG), D; (iv) documio, icludig ivoic, cip, bill of www.pc.gov. Copi of  scdul  lo vilbl  mous Charging Bull sits blocks headquarters to Midtown have dragged them down
n/a; smil Fidlidd s.a.,24-10124 (MG),n/a; smil Vig ldig, d  lik, idifyig wi pcificiy  picul
good fo wic  503(b)(9) Clim i big d; (v) 
 C Wbi  p://c..koll.com/GOL. Copi
of  scdul my lo b obid by wi qu o
away on Broadway.) But bank- Manhattan in 2001. The bank this month—yet they still
 tuimo s.a.,24-10125 (MG),n/a;smil Fidlidd agi
s.a.,24-10126 (MG),n/a;smilVijytuimo,24-10127 (MG), idificio of wic good (if y) w ubjc o  dmd  Dbo’ Clim ag   followig dd: GOL Clim ers are few and far between. explored buying back 23 Wall beat their smaller brethren.
n/a; Cpiâi ai Fudo d Ivimo Mulimcdo C dio fo clmio d ud cio 546 of  Bkupcy Pocig C, c/o Koll rucuig admiiio LLC,
Pivdo Ivimo o exio, 24-10128 (MG), n/a; soio Cod,d,if pplicbl, d of y uc clmio dmd GdClsio,POBox4850,nwYok,nY10163-4850. “Nobody comes here any- St., according to executives, The pattern is surprising
Fudo d Ivimo m Co d Fudo d Ivimo imly ubmid puu o  Final Order Establishing and If you ly o  scdul, i i you poibiliy o more,” lamented Sunil Rally, but a deal never came to- for anyone who remembers
Mulimcdo C dio Pivdo Ivimo o exio, Implementing Exclusive and Global Procedures for Treatment of dmiyouclimicculylidiscdul.
24-10130(MG),n/a; GolequiyFic, 24-10131(MG),n/a. Reclamation Claims [Dock no. 172]; d (vi) documio t Dbo v  ig o () dipu, o o  who has run a newsstand on gether. It is now building a 2022 and suggests investors
t Gl B D d  pocdu  fo blow fo o o vidc   good wi pc o wic  off o df gi, y fild clim o y clim lid o Wall Street since 1991. glistening new bronze office are much more focused on
filig poof of clim pply o ll clim gi y Dbo  503(b)(9) Clim i big fild w old i  odiy cou of flcd i  scdul  o u,mou,libiliy,pioiy,
o pio o  Piio D,xcp fo clim lid i scio pplicblDbo’bui. clificio, o owi; (b) ubquly dig y Rally is thinking about tower for its headquarters on profits now. In 2022, big
4 blow, wic  xcludd fom  filig quim d Your proof of claim must not contain complete social cduld clim  dipud, coig, o uliquidd; d shutting down his stand be- Park Avenue, several miles tech and other growth
ddliblidbyBDOd. security numbers or taxpayer identification numbers (c) owi md o upplm  scdul. noig
1. WHO MUST FILE A PROOF OF CLAIM. If you bliv you (only the last four digits), a complete birth date (only the coidiinoicllpcludDbofomobjcig cause foot traffic has declined north. stocks were crushed as valu-
v  clim gi y Dbo  o pio o  Piio year), a name of a minor (only the minor’s initials), or a oyclim,wcduldofild,oygoud.
D, you MUst fil  poof of clim o b d   cdio i financial account number (only the last four digits of such YOU SHOULD CONSULT AN ATTORNEY REGARDING ANY by more than 50% since the For the banks who have ations collapsed, even
 c (i.e., vo o  cp 11 pl fo  Dbo o o financialaccount). MATTERS NOT COVERED BYTHIS NOTICE,SUCH ASWHETHER pandemic. Tourists help but stuck around, Wall Street is though profits were fine.
 i diibuio fom  Dbo’ bkupcy ), Wi  xcpio of y (i) m poof of clim (“tu YOUSHOULDFILEAPROOFOFCLAIM.
ul you clim i of  yp dcibd i scio 4 blow. M Poof of Clim”) fild by  lv idu u BYORDEROFTHECOURT don’t cover the loss from the home to a few retail branches, The argument—a good one—
Poof of y clim bd o c o omiio of y Dbo
 occud bfo  Piio D mu b fild o o
(c,  “tu”) fo y of  amoizig no, 2024 sio
excgbl no, 2025 sio no, d Ppul no
Dd: nw Yok, nw Yok, apil 9, 2024, MILBANK LLP, workers who were customers typically considered a “Main was that for growth stocks,
/s/ Evan R. Fleck , ev r. Flck, Lu C. Doyl, By V. Ulk,
pio o  Gl B D (o, if pplicbl, o of  o (c  dfid i Declaration of Joseph W. Bliley in Support of MILBANK LLP, 55 hudo Yd, nw Yok, nw Yok 10001, five days a week, he said. Street” business. profit is further in the future
ddli dcibd blow), v if uc clim i o culy the Debtors’ Chapter 11 Petitions and First Day Pleadings [Dock
fixd, liquidd, o ci o did o mu o bcom fixd, no. 11] d, collcivly,  “Idu”) i ccodc wi
tlpo: (212) 530-5000, Fcimil: (212) 530-5219 -d- Above him towered the JPMorgan had run the 45 than for cheap value stocks,
adw M. Lblc, ei e. Dx (dmid pro hac vice),
liquidd,ocibfoPiioD. pgp 9 of  B D Od, d (ii) y M Poof of MILBANK LLP, 1850 K s nW,sui 1100,Wigo,DC 20006, building at 60 Wall St., 55 sto- Wall St. branch since 2006, so higher long-term bond
t B D Od bli  followig b d fo Clim ( dfid i  Final Order (a) Authorizing the Debtors
filig poof of clim i  Cp 11 C (collcivly,  to Obtain Postpetition Financing, (b) Granting Liens and Providing
tlpo: (202) 835-7500, Fcimil: (202) 263-7586 -d- ries tall, built in the 1980s and but is moving several blocks yields should make those fu-
Ggoy a.By, MILBANK LLP,2029 Cuy Pk e,33d Floo,
“BD”): Claims with Superpriority Administrative Expense Status, (c)
Granting Adequate Protection to the Prepetition Secured Parties,
Lo agl, Ca 90067, tlpo: (424) 386-4000, Fcimil: occupied by JPMorgan, then away. “It kind of looked like a ture profits less valuable.
. General Bar Date: excp  owi  fo i i (213)629-5063, CounselforDebtorsandDebtors-in-Possession
noic,ll ii  old  clim gi y Dbo  o (d) Modifying the Automatic Stay, (e) Authorizing the Debtors to Deutsche Bank. It has been va- bowling alley,” said Sarah Ro- The difference this time is
UseCashCollateral,and(f)GrantingRelatedRelief [Dock no.207] 1
pio o  Piio D (w cud, ucud pioiy,
o ucud opioiy) mu fil  poof of clim by June 14, (“Fil DIP Od”)), ll po d ii ig clim
t Dbo i  cp 11 c, log wi  l
fou digi of c Dbo’ fdl x idificio umb,:
cant since 2021. selli, Chase’s market director that rates were high to start
2024, at 11:59 (prevailing Eastern time). Fo  voidc gi mo  o Dbo  quid o (i) fil  p GOL Li a  Ilig s.a.(n/a);GOL Li a  s.a. In the late 1800s, Wall for New York’s Financial Dis- with. The 10-year Treasury
of doub d wiou limiio,  Gl B D ppli o poof of clim gi c uc Dbo d (ii) idify o c (0124);GtX s.a.(n/a);GaC,Ic.(n/a);Gol Fic (Luxmboug)
clim d puu o cio 503(b)(9) of  Bkupcy poof of clim  picul Dbo gi wic  clim (n/a); Gol Fic (Cym) (n/a); smil Fidlidd s.a.(n/a); Street drove the U.S.’s evolu- trict. “We decided it was time lost almost 20% in price
Cod(“503(b)(9)Clim”). i d. ay clim  fil o idify  pcific Dbo will smil Vig  tuimo s.a.(n/a);smil Fidlidd agi tion from a rural nation into to move.” terms in 2022 as yields rose,
b. Governmental Bar Date: all govml ui,  b dmd fild oly gi GOL Li a  Ilig s.a.(n/a);smil Vij y tuimo s.a.(n/a);Cpiâi ai Fudo
dfid i cio 101(27) of  Bkupcy Cod, mu fil s.a. Wi  xcpio of y (i) M Poof of Clim fild by  d Ivimo Mulimcdo C dio Pivdo Ivimo the world’s pre-eminent finan- Two big banks, Bank of while this year it is down
clim gi y Dbo  o pio o  Piio D by
July23,2024,at11:59p.m.(prevailingEasterntime).
tu d (ii) y M Poof of Clim ( dfid i  Fil
DIP Od), if mo  o Dbo i idifid o  Clim
o exio (n/a); soio Fudo d Ivimo m Co
d Fudo d Ivimo Mulimcdo C dio Pivdo
cial center. New York usurped America and Toronto-Domin- 6%. Back then, investors sold
c. Rejection Claims Bar Date: all ii  old  Fom,  poof of clim will b dmd fild oly gi  Ivimo o exio (n/a);d Gol equiy Fic (n/a). t London as Wall Street banks ion, still keep branches on growth much more than
clim gi y of y Dbo iig ou of  jcio of  fi-lidDbo. Dbo’vic dd i Pç Comd Liu Gom,s/n,
xcuoy coc o  uxpid l puu o cio 365 3. WHEN AND WHERE TO FILE. excp  povidd fo Poi 3, Jdim aopoo, 04626-020 são Pulo, são Pulo, helped finance the U.S.’s rapid Wall Street. value, without much atten-
of  Bkupcy Cod mu fil  poof of clim by  l of (i) i, ll poof of clim mu b fild o  o b civd o FdivrpublicofBzil. industrial growth and later Bank of America renovated tion to size (the largest and
 Gl B D o (ii)  d  i iy (30) dy f o bfo  pplicbl B D: IF ELECTRONICALLY: (i) By 2
W  poof of clim  b domid i  cucy
 d of y of  od of  Bkupcy Cou uoizig followig iucio fo filig poof of clim o  wbi o  U.s. doll,  Dbo will cov  d lent billions to fund wars in its small bank branch at 95 smallest members of the
 jcio of uc coc o l (“rjcio Clim B
D”).
blid by  Dbo’ clim d oicig g, Koll
rucuig admiiio LLC (“Koll”), fo  Cp 11
mou of uc clim o U.s. doll bd upo  pplicbl Europe. Wall St. last year. Foot traffic S&P did badly). This year in-
covioofPiioD.
The street became synony- is down from prepandemic vestors bought growth more
mous with American finance levels, but the branch still than value, while size mat-
ANNOUNCEMENTS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE because of the stock exchange sees around 2,500 customers tered more.
at the corner of Broad Street monthly who come in to open This makes sense. As well
and Wall Street, as well as the checking accounts or transfer as rate changes having a
Your Book
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money, said Jaime Sto-
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smaller impact when rates
are high than when they are
Your Strategies for Success & Your CENTRAL FLORIDA Co., the Bank of New York and New York strategy, superlow, investors wised up
Wisdom & Advice Should Be in a MAKE YOUR MOVE! the National City Bank, the Chase’s closure down the to the varying effects of
Book. We Write/Publish Your Story. Sea-Share
e Great properties priced $595K to forerunner to Citigroup. street will likely help bring in higher rates on the bottom
BizSuccessBooks.com Marine “Wall Street today is the more customers, said Aron line. Valuations, while still
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(800) 366-3975 customers. daily transactions are tele- have to turn the street corner. for investors who keep hop-
wsj.com/classifieds
© 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. www.sea-up.life graphed to every city in the The entrances aren’t physi- ing that smaller stocks will
All Rights Reserved. Union and to the capital of ev- cally on Wall Street. one day prove their worth.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, April 22, 2024 | B7

MARKETS DIGEST
Dow Jones Industrial Average S&P 500 Index New to the Market
Last Year ago Last Year ago
37986.40 s 3.16, or 0.01% last week Trailing P/E ratio 26.52 22.65 4967.23 t 156.18, or 3.05% last week Trailing P/E ratio * 22.59 18.62 Public Offerings of Stock
High, low, open and close for each of P/E estimate * 18.22 17.97 High, low, open and close for each of P/E estimate * 20.65 18.92
the past 52 weeks Dividend yield 2.22 2.09 the past 52 weeks Dividend yield * 1.44 1.67 IPOs in the U.S. Market
All-time high 39807.37, 03/28/24 All-time high 5254.35, 03/28/24
Initial public offerings of stock expected this week; might include some
offerings, U.S. and foreign, open to institutional investors only via the
Current divisor 0.15221633137872 Rule 144a market; deal amounts are for the U.S. market only
39500 5100
Week's high Symbol/ Pricing
Expected primary Shares Range($)
DOWN UP pricing date Filed Issuer/business exchange (mil.) Low/High Bookrunner(s)
t

Monday's open Friday's close

38000 4900 4/24 3/26 Marex Group MRX 15.4 18.00/ Barclays,GS,Jefferies,Stifel,
Friday's close Monday's open Commodity brokerage. Nq 21.00 Citi, UBS, Piper
t

Sandler, HSBC
65-day moving average
36500 4700 4/24 4/1 Rubrik RBRK 23.0 28.00/ GS,Barclays,Citi,WellsFargo,
Week's low Software-Computer, N 31.00 Guggenheim
Traditional & Other. Partners, Mizuho,
65-day Software company Truist Financial
moving average engaged with cloud data Corp, BMO Cptl
35000 4500 management solutions. Mkts
4/25 4/2 Loar Holdings LOAR 11.0 24.00/ Jefferies,MS,Moelis&Co,Citi,
Holding company of a N 26.00 RBC Cptl Mkts
designer and
33500 4300 manufacturer of
aerospace components.
200-day moving average 200-day moving average

32000 4100
Lockup Expirations
None expected this week
Bars measure the point change from Monday's open
30500 3900 IPO Scorecard
AM J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A
Performance of IPOs, most-recent listed first
Primary % Chg From % Chg From
NYSE weekly volume, in billions of shares market Composite
t
t

Company SYMBOL Friday's Offer 1st-day Company SYMBOL Friday3s Offer 1st-day
Scan this code IPO date/Offer price close ($) price close IPO date/Offer price close ($) price close
36
24 Get real-time U.S. stock quotes and track Tungray Technologies 5.95 48.8 ... Zhibao Technology 3.48 –13.0 –5.9
most-active stocks, new highs/lows, mutual TRSG April 19/$4.00 ZBAO April 2/$4.00
12
0 funds and ETFs.. Centuri Holdings 23.95 14.0 3.5 Alta Global Group 3.13 –37.5 –25.2
CTRI April 18/$21.00 MMA March 28/$5.00
AM J J A S O N D J F M A Available free at WSJMarkets.com Ibotta 98.00 11.4 –5.1 Boundless Bio 10.09 –36.9 –29.2
*Weekly P/E data based on as-reported earnings from Birinyi Associates Inc.; † Based on Nasdaq-100 Index IBTA April 18/$88.00 BOLD March 28/$16.00
Junee 4.07 1.8 0.2 U-BX Technology 4.59 –8.2 12.0
Major U.S. Stock-Market Indexes Nasdaq Composite JUNE April 17/$4.00 UBXG March 28/$5.00
Latest Week 52-Week % chg t 893.08, or -5.52% Top Wealth Group Holdings 3.73 –6.8 92.3 IB Acquisition 10.01 0.1 0.2
High Low Close Net chg % chg Low Close (l) High %chg YTD 3-yr. ann. TWG April 16/$4.00 IBACU March 26/$10.00
last week
Dow Jones UL Solutions 33.85 20.9 –3.1 Auna 6.80 –43.3 –29.2
Industrial Average 38386.81 37611.56 37986.40 3.16 0.01 32417.59 • 39807.37 12.4 0.8 3.7
ULS April 12/$28.00
12.6
AUNA March 22/$12.00
2.0
Transportation Avg 15686.77 14921.95 15083.72 -414.39 -2.67 13444.01 • 16695.32 4.6 -5.1 0.6
16200
PACS Group
PACS April 11/$21.00
23.65 2.8 Black Hawk Acquisition
BKHAU March 21/$10.00
10.20 0.5

Utility Average 877.70 833.14 875.61 20.70 2.42 783.08 • 975.39 -9.7 -0.7 -1.7 Mobile-health Network Solutions 27.27 581.8 307.0 Reddit 40.88 20.2 –19.0
Total Stock Market 51384.06 49235.26 49376.46 -1563.46 -3.07 40414.80 • 52402.86 19.6 3.3 4.4 MNDR April 10/$4.00 RDDT March 21/$34.00
Barron's 400 1105.03 1089.48 1095.28 -20.49 -1.84 881.58 • 1166.53 18.4 2.1 3.2 15800 Contineum Therapeutics 15.42 –3.6 0.1 Astera Labs 64.49 79.1 4.0
CTNM April 5/$16.00 ALAB March 20/$36.00
Nasdaq Stock Market Massimo Group 4.25 –5.5 41.3 Intelligent Group 1.57 –60.8 –52.4
15400
Nasdaq Composite 16295.27 15222.78 15282.01 -893.08 -5.52 11799.16 • 16442.2 26.6 1.8 3.2 MAMO April 2/$4.50 INTJ March 20/$4.00
Nasdaq-100 18152.08 16973.94 17037.65 -965.84 -5.36 12725.11 • 18339.44 31.1 1.3 7.0 Sources: Dow Jones Market Data; FactSet
15000
S&P
500 Index 5168.43 4953.56 4967.23 -156.18 -3.05 4055.99 • 5254.35 20.2 4.1 6.1
12 15 16 17 18 19
April
Public and Private Borrowing
MidCap 400 2930.64 2818.01 2836.88 -62.84 -2.17 2326.82 • 3046.36 13.5 2.0 1.6 DJ US TSM Treasurys
SmallCap 600 1282.22 1238.53 1253.80 -16.25 -1.28 1068.80 • 1344.66 8.1 -4.9 -2.0
t 1563.46, or -3.07% Monday, April 22 Tuesday, April 23
Other Indexes last week Auction of 13 and 26 week bills; Auction of 2 year note;
Russell 2000 2016.66 1931.54 1947.66 -55.52 -2.77 1636.94 • 2124.55 8.7 -3.9 -4.4 announced on April 18; settles on April 25 announced on April 18; settles on April 30
NYSE Composite 17827.32 17336.80 17458.77 -180.27 -1.02 14675.78 • 18312.67 12.1 3.6 2.7 Wednesday, April 24 Thursday, April 25
Value Line 590.34 570.75 573.92 -11.29 -1.93 498.09 • 615.81 3.6 -3.4 -4.4 51100 Auction of 2 year FRN; Auction of 7 year note;
NYSE Arca Biotech 5086.97 4821.53 4865.67 -199.99 -3.95 4544.40 • 5511.46 -9.9 -10.2 -4.0 announced on April 18; settles on April 30 announced on April 18; settles on April 30
NYSE Arca Pharma 987.11 963.77 967.17 -7.21 -0.74 837.32 • 1029.37 8.9 6.3 10.8
50400 Auction of 5 year note; Auction of 4 and 8 week bill;
KBW Bank 100.74 96.31 100.08 1.99 2.03 71.71 • 104.85 20.7 4.2 -6.5
announced on April 18; settles on April 30 announced on April 23; settles on April 30
PHLX§ Gold/Silver 137.23 130.60 136.01 -0.10 -0.07 102.94 • 141.11 1.3 8.2 -2.7
Auction of 17 week bill;
PHLX§ Oil Service 91.72 85.84 87.74 -3.054 -3.36 69.29 • 98.76 10.3 4.6 19.2 49700
announced on April 23; settles on April 30
PHLX§ Semiconductor 4827.89 4288.00 4306.87 -438.18 -9.23 2906.29 • 5165.83 42.5 3.1 10.7
Cboe Volatility 21.36 16.26 18.71 1.40 8.09 12.07 • 21.71 11.6 50.3 2.7 49000
12 15 16 17 18 19

Nasdaq PHLX Sources: FactSet; Dow Jones Market Data April A Week in the Life of the DJIA
A look at how the Dow Jones Industrial Average component stocks
did in the past week and how much each moved the index. The DJIA
International Stock Indexes Commodities and gained 3.15 points, or 0.01%, on the week. A $1 change in the price of
Latest Week 52-Week Range YTD
Currencies any DJIA stock = 6.57-point change in the average. To date, a $1,000
Region/Country Index Close % chg Low Close High % chg
Last Week YTD
investment on Dec. 31 in each current DJIA stock component would
World MSCI ACWI 743.28 –2.92 629.46 • 783.58 2.2 Close Net chg %Chg % chg have returned $30,786, or a gain of 2.62%, on the $30,000
investment, including reinvested dividends.
MSCI ACWI ex-USA 314.98 –2.53 276.65 • 330.44 –0.5 DJ Commodity 1029.72 -1.20 -0.12 7.51
MSCI World 3255.62 –2.85 2731.99 • 3437.76 2.7 Refinitiv/CC CRB Index 298.15 0.28 0.09 13.01 The Week’s Action
MSCI Emerging Markets 1004.17 –3.60 910.91 • 1057.89 –1.9 Crude oil, $ per barrel 83.14 -2.52 -2.94 16.04 Pct Stock price Point chg
chg (%) change in average* Company Symbol Close
$1,000 Invested(year-end '23)
$1,000
Americas MSCI AC Americas 1877.61 –3.02 1537.95 • 1986.20 3.5 Natural gas, $/MMBtu 1.752 -0.018 -1.02 -30.31
14.10 61.93 406.86 UnitedHealth Group UNH $501.13 $956
Canada S&P/TSX Comp 21807.37 –0.42 18737.39 • 22361.78 4.1 Gold, $ per troy oz. 2398.40 42.20 1.79 16.29
5.88 12.84 84.35 American Express AXP 231.04 1,241
Latin Amer. MSCI EM Latin America 2399.38 –2.62 2152.77 • 2675.33 –9.9
U.S. Dollar Index 106.12 0.08 0.07 4.67 3.73 14.51 95.32 Goldman Sachs GS 404.00 1,055
Brazil Bovespa 125124.30 –0.65 101797.09 • 134193.72 –6.8
WSJ Dollar Index 100.50 0.30 0.30 4.87 3.24 1,029
Chile S&P IPSA 3504.87 –3.31 3048.00 • 3714.61 1.1
Euro, per dollar 0.9383 -0.0014 -0.15 3.57
1.89 12.42 Coca-Cola KO 60.17
Mexico S&P/BMV IPC 55862.85 –1.24 48197.88 • 58711.87 –2.7
Yen, per dollar 154.65 1.37 0.89 9.65
2.75 2.53 16.62 Nike NKE 94.53 874
EMEA STOXX Europe 600 499.29 –1.18 429.58 • 512.67 4.2
U.K. pound, in dollars 1.24 -0.0088 -0.71 -2.84
1.94 0.77 5.06 Verizon VZ 40.49 1,110
STOXX Europe 50 4338.79 –1.06 3783.73 • 4428.10 6.0
52-Week
1.81 2.81 18.46 Procter & Gamble PG 158.14 1,093
Eurozone Euro STOXX 504.63 –0.91 420.65 • 520.21 6.4 Low Close(l) High % Chg 1.72 4.60 30.22 McDonald’s MCD 271.99 923
Euro STOXX 50 4918.09 –0.75 4014.36 • 5083.42 8.8
DJ Commodity 930.59 l1030.92 2.54
1.65 3.01 19.77 JPMorgan Chase JPM 185.80 1,105
Austria ATX 3537.00 –0.50 3020.72 • 3592.33 3.0
1.05 0.96 6.31 3M MMM 92.27 1,026
Belgium Bel-20 3827.75 –0.58 3290.68 • 3872.45 3.2 Refinitiv/CC CRB Index 253.85 l 298.18 10.10
0.65 1,084
France CAC 40 8022.41 0.14 6795.38 • 8205.81 6.4 Crude oil, $ per barrel 67.12 l 93.68 6.77 1.04 6.83 Chevron CVX 160.00
Germany DAX 17737.36 –1.08 14687.41 • 18492.49 5.9 Natural gas, $/MMBtu 1.575 l 3.575 -21.54 0.62 1.65 10.84 Amgen AMGN 268.93 941
Greece Athex Composite 1392.62 –0.57 1085.11 • 1434.87 7.7 Gold, $ per troy oz. 1816.60 l2398.40 21.16 0.26 0.39 2.56 Johnson & Johnson JNJ 147.91 951
Israel Tel Aviv 1912.45 –1.07 1605.20 • 2010.41 2.5 0.16 0.27 1.77 Boeing BA 169.82 652
Italy FTSE MIB 33922.16 0.47 26051 • 34760 11.8 U.S. Dollar Index 99.77 l 107.00 4.22 0.03 0.04 0.26 Merck MRK 125.78 1,161
Netherlands AEX 860.01 –2.65 714.05 • 886.67 9.3 WSJ Dollar Index 94.60 l 100.92 4.78
–0.35 –0.17 –1.12 Cisco CSCO 48.32 972
Norway Oslo Bors All-Share 1563.68 –2.68 1347.84 • 1606.79 2.9 Euro, per dollar 0.8897 l 0.9555 3.13
–0.38 –0.69 –4.53 IBM IBM 181.58 1,120
Portugal PSI 20 6295.12 –0.67 5729.40 • 6609.90 –1.6 Yen, per dollar 133.67 l 154.73 15.29
–0.97 –1.90 –12.48 Honeywell HON 194.26 931
South Africa FTSE/JSE All-Share 73363.56 –2.59 69451.97 • 78977.89 –4.6 U.K. pound, in dollars 1.21 l 1.31 -0.55
–1.01
Spain IBEX 35 10729.50 0.41 8918.3 • 11111.3 6.2 –0.61 –4.01 Walmart WMT 59.53 1,137
Sweden OMX Stockholm 936.75 –1.12 753.35 • 971.52 3.8 Go to WSJMarkets.com for free –1.23 –1.40 –9.20 Walt Disney DIS 112.61 1,247
Switzerland Swiss Market 11296.40 –0.73 10323.71 • 11790.46 1.4 access to real-time market data. –1.79 –1.03 –6.77 Dow DOW 56.66 1,046
U.K. FTSE 100 7895.85 –1.25 7256.94 • 7995.58 2.1 –2.19 –7.51 –49.34 Home Depot HD 335.36 973
Asia-Pacific MSCI AC Asia Pacific 167.41 –4.51 150.1 • 178.1 –1.2 –2.24 –6.18 –40.60 Visa V 269.78 1,038
Australia S&P/ASX 200 7567.30 –2.83 6772.9 • 7896.9 –0.3 –3.00 –10.97 –72.07 Caterpillar CAT 354.66 1,209
China Shanghai Composite 3065.26 1.52 2702.19 • 3395.00 3.0
–3.18 –7.03 –46.18 Travelers TRV 214.07 1,129
Hong Kong Hang Seng 16224.14 –2.98 14961.18 • 20297.03 –4.8
–4.17 683
India S&P BSE Sensex 73088.33 –1.56 59655.06 • 75038.15 1.2 –1.49 –9.79 Intel INTC 34.20
Japan NIKKEI 225 37068.35 –6.21 28416.47 • 40888.43 10.8 –5.40 –22.78 –149.66 Microsoft MSFT 399.12 1,063
Malaysia FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI 1547.57 –0.22 1374.64 • 1559.98 6.4 –6.18 –11.50 –75.55 Amazon.com AMZN 174.63 1,149
Singapore Straits Times 3176.51 –1.26 3053.36 • 3373.98 –2.0 –6.54 –11.55 –75.88 Apple AAPL 165.00 858
South Korea KOSPI 2591.86 –3.35 2277.99 • 2757.09 –2.4 –8.14 –23.95 –157.34 Salesforce CRM 270.37 1,029
Taiwan TAIEX 19527.12 –5.83 15370.73 • 20796.20 8.9
*Based on Composite price. DJIA is calculated on primary-market price.
Source: FactSet; Dow Jones Market Data Source: Dow Jones Market Data; FactSet.

Consumer Rates and Returns to Investor Benchmark Yields and Rates

Selected rates Currencies
U.S. consumer rates Treasury yield curve Forex Race
A consumer rate against its Money Market/Savings Accts Yield to maturity of current bills, Yen, euro vs. dollar; dollar vs. U.S.-dollar foreign-exchange rates in late New York trading
benchmark over the past year notes and bonds major U.S. trading partners US$vs, US$vs,
Bankrate.com avg†: 0.48% Fri YTDchg Fri YTDchg
Federal-funds Country/currency in US$ per US$ (%) Country/currency in US$ per US$ (%)
Banesco USA 5.25% 6.00%
target rate Tradeweb ICE 16% Americas Thailand baht .02715 36.830 7.1
6.00% Coral Gables, FL (888) 228-1597
t Friday Close 5.00 Vietnam dong .00003930 25445 4.8
Argentina peso .0011871.3237 7.8
CFG Community Bank 5.25% t 8 WSJ Dollar Index Europe
4.00 t s Brazil real .1922 5.2023 7.2
Baltimore, MD 888-205-8388 4.00 Czech Rep. koruna .04220 23.698 5.9
Money market Canada dollar .7274 1.3749 3.8
One year ago .1428 7.0018 3.3
account yields 2.00 UFB Direct 5.25% 0 Chile peso .001047 955.21 9.2 Denmark krone
3.00 Euro area euro 1.0658 .9383 3.6
t San Diego, CA 877-472-9200 s Colombiapeso .000256 3907.50 0.8
0.00 –8 s Euro Ecuador US dollar 1 1 unch Hungary forint .002706 369.56 6.5
TAB Bank 5.27% 2.00
Yen Iceland krona .007081 141.23 3.8
Mexico peso .0585 17.0971 0.7
Ogden, UT 800-355-3063 Norway krone .0908 11.0179 8.3
–2.00 1.00 –16 Uruguay peso .02604 38.3980 –1.7
BrioDirect 5.35% Poland zloty .2473 4.0442 2.7
M J J A S ON D J FMA 1 3 6 1 2 3 5 7 10 20 30 Asia-Pacific
2023 2024 Sweden krona .0916 10.9227 8.1
2023 2024 Montebello, NY 877-369-2746 month(s) years Australiadollar .6419 1.5579 6.2 Switzerland franc 1.0984 .9104 8.2
Yield/Rate (%) 52-Week Range (%) 3-yr chg maturity China yuan .1381 7.2398 1.8 Turkey lira .0308 32.5041 10.3
Interest rate Last (l)Week ago Low 0 2 4 6 8 High (pct pts) Sources: Tradeweb ICE U.S. Treasury Close; Tullett Prebon; Dow Jones Market Data Hong Kong dollar .1277 7.8327 0.3 Ukraine hryvnia .0251 39.8500 4.5
India rupee .01198 83.470 0.3 UK pound 1.2371 .8083 2.9
Federal-funds rate target 5.25-5.50 5.25-5.50 4.75 l 5.50 5.25 Corporate Borrowing Rates and Yields Indonesia rupiah .0000617 16218 5.4 Middle East/Africa
Prime rate* 8.50 8.50 8.00 l 8.50 5.25 Spread +/- Treasurys, Japan yen .006466 154.65 9.7
Yield (%) in basis pts, 52-wk Range Total Return Bahrain dinar 2.6525 .3770 0.01
SOFR 5.30 5.31 4.80 l 5.40 5.29 Bond total return index Last Wk ago Last Low High 52-wk 3-yr Kazakhstan tenge .002240 446.42 –2.0 Egypt pound .0207 48.3379 56.3
Money market, annual yield 0.48 0.48 0.46 l 0.64 0.40 Macau pataca .1239 8.0715 0.2 Israel shekel .2659 3.7611 4.4
U.S. Treasury, Bloomberg 4.810 4.730 -1.50 -3.66 Malaysia ringgit .2090 4.7840 4.1 3.2423 .3084 0.4
Five-year CD, annual yield 2.84 2.83 2.76 l 2.87 2.37 Kuwait dinar
U.S. Treasury Long, Bloomberg 4.800 4.720 -9.71 -10.42 New Zealand dollar .5888 1.6984 7.3 Oman sul rial 2.5973 .3850 0.01
30-year mortgage, fixed† 7.55 7.56 6.85 l 8.28 4.46
Aggregate, Bloomberg 5.250 5.140 40 38 60 -0.24 -3.47 Pakistan rupee .00359 278.650 –0.9 Qatar rial .2747 3.641 –0.1
15-year mortgage, fixed† 6.94 6.91 6.16 l 7.42 4.56 Philippines peso .0174 57.486 3.8
Fixed-Rate MBS, Bloomberg 5.500 5.360 55 44 82 -0.89 -3.90 Saudi Arabia riyal .2666 3.7515 0.04
Jumbo mortgages, $766,550-plus† 7.62 7.66 6.89 l 8.33 4.54 Singapore dollar .7345 1.3615 3.2 South Africa rand .0523 19.1225 4.5
Five-year adj mortgage (ARM)† 6.66 6.56 5.70 l 7.16 3.52
High Yield 100, ICE BofA 7.844 7.608 289 243 443 8.376 1.556 South Korea won .0007275 1374.58 6.2
New-car loan, 48-month 7.83 7.83 6.93 l 7.88 3.79 Muni Master, ICE BofA 3.554 3.509 4 -9 9 2.057 -1.030 Sri Lanka rupee .0033107 302.05 –6.8 Close Net Chg % Chg YTD%Chg

Bankrate.com rates based on survey of over 4,800 online banks. *Base rate posted by 70% of the nation's largest EMBI Global, J.P. Morgan 7.590 7.464 286 270 411 7.761 -2.502 Taiwan dollar .03073 32.537 6.0 WSJ Dollar Index 100.50 –0.01–0.01 4.87
banks.† Excludes closing costs.
Sources: FactSet; Dow Jones Market Data; Bankrate.com Sources: J.P. Morgan; S&P Dow Jones Indices; Bloomberg Fixed Income Indices; ICE BofA Sources: Tullett Prebon, Dow Jones Market Data
B8 | Monday, April 22, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

CLOSED-END FUNDS
Listed are the 300 largest closed-end funds as 52 wk Prem12 Mo Prem12 Mo 52 wk Prem12 Mo
measured by assets. Closed-end funds sell a limited Prem Ttl Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld Prem Ttl Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld
number of shares and invest the proceeds in securities. Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret
Unlike open-end funds, closed-ends generally do not BS St Cr 2027 Tm BGB 12.79 11.76 -8.1 9.5 BR MuniHoldngs MHD 13.31 11.51 -13.5 4.0
buy their shares back from investors who wish to cash NuvDow30DynOverwrite DIAX 15.97 13.72 -14.1 0.4 Eagle Point Credit ECC NA 9.96 NA 16.6 BR MuniVest Fd MVF 7.86 6.82 -13.2 4.0 GS Real Est Div Inc:W 8.27 NA NA -8.8 Apollo Diversified Cd:A NA NA NA 9.1
in their holdings. Instead, fund shares trade on a stock
exchange. NA signifies that the information is not NuvCorEqAlpha JCE 13.72 13.33 -2.8 20.7 Eagle Point Income EIC NA 15.57 NA 12.6 BR MuniVest 2 MVT 12.13 10.41 -14.2 4.1 Private Opps A NA NA NA NS Apollo Diversified Cd:C NA NA NA 8.4
available or not applicable. NS signifies funds not in NuveenNasdaq100DynOv QQQX 24.95 22.43 -10.1 2.2 EtnVncFltRteInc EFT 13.35 13.35 0.0 10.6 BR MuniYield Fd MYD 11.91 10.65 -10.6 4.5 Private Opps I NA NA NA NS Apollo Diversified Cd:F NA NA NA 11.8
existence for the entire period. 12 month yield is Nuv Real Est JRS 7.98 7.15 -10.4 5.2 EV SenFlRtTr EFR 13.08 13.09 +0.1 10.3 BR MuniYield Qlty MQY 12.95 11.90 -8.1 4.7 Private Opps SDR NA NA NA NS Apollo Diversified Cd:I NA NA NA 9.4
computed by dividing income dividends paid (during
the previous 12 months for periods ending at month- NuvS&P500DynOvFd SPXX 16.52 14.91 -9.7 3.9 FT/Sr Fltg Rte Inc 2 FCT 11.02 10.20 -7.4 11.1 BR MuniYld Qlty2 MQT 11.44 9.88 -13.6 4.5 NexPointRlEstStrat;A 16.82 NA NA -5.6 Apollo Diversified Cd:L NA NA NA 8.8
end or during the previous 52 weeks for periods NuvSP500BuyIncFd BXMX 14.11 12.47 -11.6 2.4 Highland Oppty & Income HFRO NA 6.37 NA 11.5 BR MuniYld Qly 3 MYI 12.32 10.98 -10.9 4.7 NexPointRlEstStrat;C 17.02 NA NA -6.3 Apollo Diversified Cd:M NA NA NA 8.6
ending at any time other than month-end) by the
latest month-end market price adjusted for capital
ReavesUtilityIncome UTG 25.72 25.88 +0.6 -1.7 InvDYCrOpp:AX VTA 11.02 NA NA NA BNY Mellon Muni Bd Infra DMB 11.79 9.99 -15.3 4.1 NexPointRlEstStrat;Z 17.04 NA NA -5.4 Opprtnstc Crdt Intrvl;I 11.70 NA NA 12.0
gains distributions. Depending on the fund category, Tortoise Enrgy Infra Crp TYG 38.00 31.33 -17.6 15.3 InvSnrIncTr VVR 4.06 4.25 +4.7 11.5 BNY Mellon Str Muni Bond DSM 6.57 5.58 -15.1 3.9 PIMCO Flexible REI;Inst 10.48 NA NA 10.0 PIMCO Flexible Cr I;A-1 6.87 NA NA 10.4
either 12-month yield or total return is listed. Tortoise Midstream Enrgy NTG 46.69 38.08 -18.4 23.6 Nuveen Credit Strat Inc JQC 5.86 5.41 -7.7 11.0 BNY Mellon Strat Muni LEO 6.87 5.87 -14.6 4.0 PREDEX;I 23.96 NA NA -13.1 PIMCO Flexible Cr I;A-2 6.87 NA NA 10.4
Source: Lipper
VDivInt&PremStr NFJ 13.94 11.75 -15.7 7.9 NuvFloatRateIncFd JFR 9.25 8.58 -7.2 11.2 DWS Muni Inc KTF NA 9.32 NA 3.5 PREDEX;T 24.06 NA NA -13.3 PIMCO Flexible Cr I;A-3 6.87 NA NA 10.1
Friday, April 19, 2024 V Art Int&Tech Opps AIO 20.41 18.76 -8.1 23.2 High Yield Bond Funds EVMuniBd EIM 11.24 10.04 -10.7 4.3 PREDEX;W 24.06 NA NA -13.3 PIMCO Flexible Cr I;A-4 6.87 NA NA 10.1
52 wk Income & Preferred Stock Funds
Prem Ttl abrdn Inc Credit Str ACP 6.81 6.68 -1.9 17.7 EVMuniIncm EVN 11.17 9.87 -11.6 4.7 Principal Real Asst A 25.04 NA NA 0.8 PIMCO Flexible Cr I;Inst 6.87 NA NA 10.9
Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret Dividend and Income BXSY 19.76 NA NA NA AllianceBernGlHiIncm AWF 10.96 10.05 -8.3 7.6 EVNatMuniOpp EOT 18.24 16.34 -10.4 4.5 Principal Real Asst Ins 25.15 NA NA 1.2 Other Domestic Taxable Bond Funds
CalamosStratTot CSQ 15.65 15.29 -2.3 18.4 Allspring Income Oppty EAD 7.14 6.32 -11.5 8.9 InvAdvMuIncTrII VKI 9.63 8.19 -15.0 4.5 Principal Real Asst Y 25.41 NA NA 1.4 AFA Private Credit;Fndr 9.45 NA NA 7.8
General Equity Funds CohenStrsLtdDurPref&Inc LDP 20.80 19.07 -8.3 18.4
Adams Diversified Eq Inc ADX 21.56 18.39 -14.7 26.4 Barings Glb SD HY Bd BGH 15.45 13.89 -10.1 10.0 Invesco MuniOp OIA 6.26 6.18 -1.3 4.9 Redwood Rl Est;I 25.17 NA NA NS AFA Private Credit;Inst 9.48 NA NA 7.8
CohenStrsSelPref&Income PSF 20.54 18.77 -8.6 14.7 BR Corporate HY HYT 9.44 9.45 +0.1 9.5 InvescoMuOppTr VMO 10.76 9.27 -13.8 4.3 The Private Shares;A 39.51 NA NA -3.2 Alternative Credit Inc:A 9.67 NA NA 7.2
Central Secs CET 49.49 40.11 -19.0 20.1 CohenStrsTaxAvPreSecs&I PTA 20.14 18.38 -8.7 17.3
CohenStrsCEOppFd FOF 11.03 11.11 +0.7 14.0 BlackRock Ltd Dur Inc BLW 13.79 13.41 -2.8 8.8 InvescoMuTr VKQ 10.81 9.22 -14.7 4.4 The Private Shares;I 40.17 NA NA -3.0 Alternative Credit Inc:C 9.79 NA NA 6.4
FirstTrIntDurPref&Inc FPF 18.57 17.06 -8.1 22.6 BNY Mellon Hi Yield Str DHF 2.64 2.30 -12.9 7.5 InvescoQual Inc IQI 10.86 9.28 -14.5 4.6 The Private Shares;L 38.87 NA NA -3.5 Alternative Credit Inc:I 9.69 NA NA 7.4
EVTxAdvDivIncm EVT 25.05 22.32 -10.9 5.3 JHanPrefInc HPI NA 15.68 NA 12.6 Brookfield Real Asst Inc RA 14.45 12.47 -13.7 6.7 InvTrInvGrMu VGM 11.13 9.49 -14.7 4.3 Thirdline Real EstateI 10.04 NA NA 6.5 Alternative Credit Inc:L 9.67 NA NA 6.9
GabelliDiv&IncTr GDV 26.10 21.59 -17.3 8.8 JHPrefIncII HPF 15.52 16.29 +5.0 15.1 CrSuisHighYld DHY 2.15 1.98 -7.9 9.2 InvescoValMunInc IIM 13.27 11.37 -14.3 4.5 USQ Core Real Estate:I 23.01 NA NA -15.7 Alternative Credit Inc:W 9.67 NA NA 7.2
Gabelli Equity Tr GAB 5.23 5.21 -0.4 2.4 HnckJPfdInco III HPS 13.97 14.74 +5.5 14.0
GeneralAmer GAM 55.11 44.59 -19.1 21.7 DoubleLine Inc Sol DSL 12.22 12.11 -0.9 9.97 MAINSTAY:MKDEFTRMUNOP MMD 16.78 16.11 -4.0 4.8 USQ Core Real Estate:IS 23.08 NA NA -15.6 Angel Oak Str Crdt:FI NA NA NA 8.0
J Han Prm PDT NA 10.92 NA -4.3 DoubleLine Yld Opps DLY 15.82 15.11 -4.5 9.1 NeubrgrBrm NBH NA 10.10 NA 4.3 Versus Cap MMgr RE Inc:I 24.50 NA NA -8.3 Angel Oak Str Crdt:Inst NA NA NA 8.0
JHancockTaxAdvDiv HTD 21.39 18.99 -11.2 -2.4 LMP CapInco SCD 15.62 14.34 -8.2 27.2 First Tr Hi Inc Lng/Shrt FSD 12.39 11.35 -8.4 10.5 Nuveen AMT-Fr Mu Val NUW 15.16 13.39 -11.7 3.6 Versus Capital Real Asst 27.54 NA NA 2.2 BR Credit Strat;A 8.54 NA NA 8.2
Liberty All-Star Equity USA 6.63 6.54 -1.4 18.6 Nuveen Pref & Inc Opp JPC 7.78 6.85 -12.0 16.9
Liberty All-Star Growth ASG 5.52 5.00 -9.4 6.1 First Trust HY Opp:2027 FTHY 15.24 14.06 -7.7 10.7 Nuveen AMT-Fr Qlty Mun I NEA 12.47 10.66 -14.5 4.2 Wildermuth:I 7.33 NA NA -38.8 BR Credit Strat;Inst 8.51 NA NA 8.9
Nuveen Pref & Inc Term JPI 19.28 18.76 -2.7 17.1 Franklin Univ FT 7.50 6.47 -13.7 7.6 Nuveen AMT-Fr Mu CI NVG 13.48 11.53 -14.5 4.5 Income & Preferred Stock Funds
Royce Micro-Cap Tr RMT 10.01 8.64 -13.7 11.4 BR Credit Strat;U 8.53 NA NA 8.2
Nuveen Var Rate P&I NPFD 19.62 16.87 -14.0 15.9 KKR Income Opportunities KIO NA 13.32 NA 10.7 Nuveen Dyn Muni Opp NDMO 10.90 10.71 -1.7 6.8 Alpha Alternative Assets 6.22 NA NA 1.2
Royce Value Trust RVT 15.97 13.85 -13.3 14.2 BR Credit Strat;W 8.54 NA NA 8.2
TCW Strat Income TSI 4.99 4.60 -7.8 2.8 NeubHgYldStrt NHS 7.76 7.90 +1.8 13.4 Nuveen Mu Crdt Opps NMCO 11.51 10.16 -11.7 5.4 Calamos L/S Eqty and DI CPZ 17.92 15.24 -15.0 10.8
Source Capital SOR 44.39 41.60 -6.3 18.8 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;A NA NA NA 8.5
Convertible Sec's. Funds New Amer Hi Inc HYB 8.00 7.04 -12.0 6.7 Nuv Muni Credit Income NZF 13.57 11.76 -13.3 4.6 Carlyle AlpInv Pvt Mkt:A NA NA NA NS
Sprott Focus Trust FUND 8.82 7.65 -13.3 1.4 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;C NA NA NA 7.8
AdvntCnvrtbl&IncFd AVK 11.82 11.36 -3.9 9.8 Nuveen Global High Inc JGH 13.16 12.27 -6.8 9.7 NuvMuniHiIncOpp NMZ 11.03 10.18 -7.7 5.0 Denali Strctr Rtrn Strat 10.00 NA NA NS
SRH Total Return STEW 18.56 14.37 -22.6 17.8 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;I NA NA NA 8.8
CalamosConvHi CHY 10.17 11.13 +9.4 15.8 PGIM Global High Yield GHY 12.73 11.26 -11.5 10.5 Nuveen Muni Val NUV 9.26 8.51 -8.1 3.9 Flat Rock Opportunity 19.39 NA NA 20.3
Tri-Continental TY 33.47 29.27 -12.5 14.7 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;L NA NA NA 8.3
CalmosConvOp CHI 9.61 10.81 +12.5 13.2 PGIM High Yield Bond ISD 13.50 12.32 -8.7 9.7 Nuveen Quality Muni Inc NAD 12.90 10.96 -15.0 4.3 Lord Abbett Spec Sit I:A 9.27 NA NA 13.9
Specialized Equity Funds CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;U NA NA NA 8.0
V Conv & Inc NCV 3.52 3.04 -13.6 0.6 PGIM Sh Dur Hi Yld Opp SDHY 17.12 15.03 -12.2 8.4 Nuveen Sel TF NXP 14.46 14.02 -3.0 4.0 Lord Abbett Spec Sit I:I 9.27 NA NA 14.7
abrdn Glb Prem Prop AWP 3.76 3.60 -4.3 2.4 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt:U2 NA NA NA 8.0
V Conv & Inc II NCZ 3.13 2.70 -13.7 1.5 PioneerHilncm PHT 8.01 7.32 -8.6 8.6 PIMCO MuniInc PMF 9.35 8.92 -4.6 5.4 Variant Altrntv Inc:Inst 28.44 NA NA 9.7
abrdn Global Infra Inc ASGI 19.86 16.92 -14.8 2.8 V Div Inc & Conv ACV 20.47 21.92 +7.1 28.3 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;W NA NA NA 8.3
Adams Natural Resources PEO 27.89 23.37 -16.2 19.0 WstAstHIF II HIX 4.52 4.37 -3.3 13.1 PIMCOMuniIncII PML 8.68 8.30 -4.4 5.5 Variant Impact;Instl 28.17 NA NA 12.6 CNR Select Strategies 14.50 NA NA 0.0
V Eqty & Conv Inc NIE 23.87 21.38 -10.4 18.5 Western Asset Hi Inc Opp HIO 4.12 3.75 -9.0 10.2 Pimco Muni III PMX 7.99 7.25 -9.3 5.3
ASA Gold & Prec Met Ltd ASA 20.29 17.48 -13.8 5.0 Versus Capital Infra Inc 10.06 NA NA NS First Eagle Crdt Opps A 23.50 NA NA 10.5
World Equity Funds Western Asset Hi Yld D O HYI 12.05 11.68 -3.1 9.5 PioneerHilncAdv MAV 9.01 7.82 -13.3 4.2
BR Enh C&I CII 20.02 18.30 -8.6 9.4 Convertible Sec's. Funds First Eagle Crdt Opps A2 23.42 NA NA 10.2
abrdn Emg Mkts Eq Inc AEF 5.68 4.85 -14.6 3.2 Other Domestic Taxable Bond Funds PionrMuniHiIncOppty MIO 12.54 11.02 -12.2 4.5
BlackRock Energy & Res BGR 15.25 13.19 -13.5 15.4 Calmos Dyn Conv and Inc CCD 18.42 21.20 +15.1 6.6 First Eagle Crdt Opps I 23.37 NA NA 11.0
abrdn Glbl Dyn Div AGD 10.76 9.15 -15.0 4.2 Allspring Multi-Sector ERC 9.80 8.83 -9.9 8.4 PioneerMunHiIcm MHI 9.78 8.54 -12.7 4.0
BlackRock Eq Enh Div BDJ 8.96 7.88 -12.1 2.3 abrdn Tot Dyn Div AOD 9.29 7.82 -15.8 3.7
World Equity Funds First Trust Private Cr;A NA NA NA NS
BlackRock Enh Glbl Div BOE 11.67 9.87 -15.4 5.0 Apollo Tactical Income AIF 14.83 14.40 -2.9 10.6 Putnam Mgd Inc PMM 6.62 5.90 -10.9 3.3 ACAP Strategic:A 20.71 NA NA 29.3 First Trust Private Cr;I NA NA NA 8.7
Allspring Gl Div Oppty EOD 5.21 4.42 -15.2 11.3 Ares Dynamic Crdt Alloc ARDC 14.50 13.87 -4.3 9.7 Putnam Muni Opp PMO 11.25 9.82 -12.7 3.9
BlackRock Enh Intl Div BGY 6.02 5.13 -14.8 0.5 BlackRock Cap Alloc Term BCAT 17.21 15.27 -11.3 12.9
ACAP Strategic:W 15.56 NA NA 30.2 Franklin BSP Pvt Cr:A 10.39 NA NA 6.9
BlackRock ESG Cap All T ECAT 17.92 16.05 -10.4 15.4 BlackRock Mlt-Sctr Inc BIT 14.28 15.13 +6.0 9.3 RiverNorth Flx Mu Inc II RFMZ 15.34 13.66 -11.0 7.4 CalamosGlbTotRet CGO 10.68 9.67 -9.5 15.7 Franklin BSP Pvt Cr:Adv 10.41 NA NA 7.3
Calamos GloDynInc CHW 6.98 6.14 -12.0 14.9 BlackRock Tax Muni Bd BBN 17.09 15.58 -8.8 6.9 RiverNorth Mgd Dur Mun I RMM 16.21 14.68 -9.4 7.3
BlackRock Hlth Sci Term BMEZ 17.09 14.44 -15.5 -4.0 Cantor Fitzgerald SI:A 10.98 NA NA 7.2 FS Credit Income;A 12.26 NA NA 7.3
EV TxAdvGlbDivInc ETG 19.42 17.05 -12.2 13.0
BlackRock Hlth Sciences BME 42.11 38.80 -7.9 -2.5 DoubleLine:Oppor Crdt Fd DBL 14.99 14.72 -1.8 4.9 Western Asset Mgd Muni MMU 11.53 9.96 -13.6 4.5 Cantor Fitzgerald SI:C 10.87 NA NA 6.3 FS Credit Income;I 12.30 NA NA 7.6
EtnVncTxAdvOpp ETO 26.17 23.64 -9.7 13.6
BlackRock Innov&Gro Term BIGZ 8.48 7.05 -16.9 1.9 EVLmtDurIncm EVV 10.36 9.37 -9.6 9.6 Single State Muni Bond Cantor Fitzgerald SI:I 10.99 NA NA 7.4 FS Credit Income;T 12.29 NA NA 7.1
Highland Global Alloc HGLB NA 7.08 NA -12.2
BlackRock Res & Comm BCX 10.65 9.09 -14.6 1.5 Franklin Ltd Dur Income FTF 7.02 6.13 -12.7 11.3 BlackRock CA Mun BFZ 12.73 11.55 -9.3 4.3 Primark Priv Eq Inv:I 12.80 NA NA 13.2 FS Credit Income;U 12.24 NA NA 6.9
India Fund IFN 18.24 17.64 -3.3 26.8 FS Credit Opportunities FSCO NA NA NA 11.2 BR MH CA Qly Fd Inc MUC 12.36 10.68 -13.6 4.2
BlackRock Sci&Tech Term BSTZ 20.38 17.01 -16.5 9.6 Japan Smaller Cap JOF 9.18 7.55 -17.8 11.9 Sweater Cashmere 21.97 NA NA 6.6 FS Credit Income;U-2 12.34 NA NA 7.1
BlackRock Sci&Tech Trust BST 33.96 32.97 -2.9 16.1 J Han Investors JHI NA 13.06 NA 6.7 BR MH NJ Qly MUJ 12.89 11.15 -13.5 4.3 Thornburg Inc Bldr Opps TBLD 17.80 15.39 -13.5 9.1 GL Beyond Income 0.39 NA NA 0.0
LazardGlbTotRetInc LGI 17.50 14.90 -14.9 6.1
BlackRock Utl Inf & Pwr BUI 21.52 20.78 -3.4 -4.0 MFS Charter MCR 6.70 6.10 -9.0 0.0 BR MH NY Qly MHN 11.85 10.24 -13.6 4.1 VirtusTotalRetFd ZTR 5.97 5.32 -10.9 -6.9 KKR CREDIT OPPTY;D NA NA NA 8.8
Mexico MXF 22.31 17.68 -20.8 13.8
CLEARBRIDGEENGYMDSOPP EMO 43.56 40.32 -7.4 53.0 NuvCorePlusImpact NPCT 11.56 9.95 -13.9 9.7 BR MuniYld MI Qly MIY 12.81 11.10 -13.3 4.0
Miller/Howard High Inc E HIE NA 10.70 NA 8.6 Prem12 Mo KKR CREDIT OPPTY;I NA NA NA 9.0
CLEARBRIDGEMLP&MDSTMTR CTR 44.40 40.82 -8.1 45.5 Nuveen Taxable Muni Inc NBB 16.17 14.58 -9.8 5.3 BR MuniYld NY Qly MYN 11.48 10.11 -11.9 4.1 Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld
MS ChinaShrFd CAF NA 12.03 NA -11.7 KKR CREDIT OPPTY;T NA NA NA 8.3
ClearBridge MLP & Midstm CEM 48.87 45.45 -7.0 49.0 PIMCO Corp & Inc Oppty PTY 11.10 13.71 +23.5 9.5 BlackRock NY Mun BNY 11.78 10.31 -12.5 3.9
MS India IIF 28.40 22.71 -20.0 34.2 U.S. Mortgage Bond Funds KKR CREDIT OPPTY;U NA NA NA 8.3
ChnStrInfr UTF 22.00 22.22 +1.0 3.6 PIMCO Corp & Inc Strat PCN 11.40 12.85 +12.7 9.6 EVCAMuniBd EVM 10.22 9.24 -9.6 4.0
MS CBRE Gl In Mg Term MEGI 13.56 11.65 -14.1 -10.5 Arca US Treasury NA NA NA 2.8 NIAGARAINCOMEOPPORTNTS NA NA NA NS
Cohen&SteersQualInc RQI 11.43 10.76 -5.9 1.9 PIMCOHilnco PHK 4.56 4.74 +3.9 11.6 Eaton Vance NY Muni Bd ENX 10.55 9.52 -9.8 3.9
Nuveen Multi-Asset Inc NMAI 13.26 11.68 -11.9 11.8 Ellington Inc Opp:A 8.88 NA NA 12.3 Palmer Square Opp Inc 17.94 NA NA 9.6
CohenStrs Real Est and I RLTY 14.53 13.16 -9.4 9.1 PIMCO IncmStrFd PFL 7.90 8.15 +3.2 11.5 InvCaValMuIncTr VCV 11.13 9.62 -13.6 4.0
Nuveen Rl Asst Inc & Gro JRI 12.82 10.95 -14.6 3.4 Ellington Inc Opp:M 8.75 NA NA 13.1 World Income Funds
Cohen&Steers TotRet RFI 10.78 10.91 +1.2 1.1 PIMCO IncmStrFd II PFN 6.97 7.16 +2.7 11.5 InvPAValMuIncTr VPV 11.49 9.94 -13.5 3.6
Templeton Dragon TDF 9.31 7.80 -16.2 -20.8 Loan Participation Funds BlueBay Destra Itl E:A 24.11 NA NA 7.4
CohenStrsREITPrefInc RNP 19.25 19.50 +1.3 12.0 Putnam Prem Inc PPT 3.76 3.46 -8.0 8.0 InvTrInvGrNYMu VTN 11.82 10.45 -11.6 3.7
Templeton Em Mkt EMF 13.22 11.20 -15.3 4.8 1WS Credit Income;A2 18.81 NA NA 7.4 BlueBay Destra Itl E:I 24.13 NA NA 7.7
Columbia Sel Prm Tech Gr STK 28.91 29.56 +2.2 18.5 Western Asset Dvsfd Inc WDI 15.41 14.22 -7.7 10.4 Nuveen CA AMT-F Qual MI NKX 12.97 11.97 -7.7 4.3
Prem12 Mo 1WS Credit Income;Inst 19.20 NA NA 7.3 BlueBay Destra Itl E:L 24.08 NA NA 7.2
DNP Select Income DNP 7.73 8.80 +13.8 -8.1 World Income Funds Nuveen CA Val NCA 9.26 8.65 -6.6 3.8
Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld Axonic Alternative Inc 20.05 NA NA 8.8 BlueBay Destra Itl E:T 23.97 NA NA 7.0
Duff&Ph Uti&Infra Inc Fd DPG 10.68 9.23 -13.6 -21.5 abrdn AP IncFd FAX 2.93 2.57 -12.3 11.7 NuveenCAQtyMuInc NAC 12.51 10.74 -14.1 4.3
U.S. Mortgage Bond Funds Axonic Alternative Inc;A 20.00 NA NA NS Calamos-Aksia ACI:A 10.48 NA NA NS
EtnVncEqtyInc EOI 17.91 17.70 -1.2 23.8 MS EmMktDomDebt EDD NA 4.47 NA 3.7 NuvNJ Qual Muni Inc NXJ 13.48 11.79 -12.5 3.2
BlckRk Income BKT 11.81 11.37 -3.7 8.8 Blackstone FR EI D 22.01 NA NA 9.5 Calamos-Aksia ACI:C 10.47 NA NA NS
EtnVncEqtyIncoII EOS 20.25 19.36 -4.4 26.7 PIMCO Access Income PAXS 14.85 14.82 -0.2 11.4 Nuveen NY AMT/Fr Qual MI NRK 11.84 10.62 -10.3 4.1
Investment Grade Bond Funds Blackstone FR EI I 21.98 NA NA 9.8 Calamos-Aksia ACI:I 10.47 NA NA NS
EVRskMnDvsEqInc ETJ 8.87 8.22 -7.3 14.0 PIMCO Dynamic Inc Strat PDX 23.65 21.17 -10.5 4.3 Nuveen NY Qual Muni Inc NAN 12.31 10.69 -13.2 4.3
Angel Oak FS Inc Trm FINS NA 12.39 NA 9.9 PIMCO Dynamic Income PDI 16.86 18.61 +10.4 13.7 Nuveen PA Qual Muni Inc NQP 13.24 11.49 -13.2 3.2 Blackstone FR EI T 21.94 NA NA 9.3 Calamos-Aksia ACI:M 10.48 NA NA NS
ETnVncTxMgdBuyWrtInc ETB 14.32 13.08 -8.7 9.4
BlRck Core Bond BHK 10.30 10.31 +0.1 8.2 PIMCO Dynamic Inc Opp PDO 12.48 12.70 +1.8 11.6 Nuveen VA Qlty Mun Inc NPV 12.27 10.61 -13.5 3.8 Blackstone FR EI T-I 22.48 NA NA 9.3 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:A NA NA NA 9.8
EtnVncTxMgdBuyWrtOpp ETV 13.37 12.54 -6.2 9.2
BR Credit Alloc Inc BTZ 11.08 10.10 -8.8 9.4 PIMCO Stratg Inc RCS 4.31 5.61 +30.2 10.0 Blackstone FR EI U 22.91 NA NA 9.3 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:I NA NA NA 10.1
EvTxMnDvsEqInc ETY 13.30 12.84 -3.5 20.0 PIMCO CA PCQ NA 9.11 NA 4.6
Insight Select Income INSI 17.00 16.22 -4.6 4.7 Templtn Glbl Inc SABA NA 3.71 NA 11.1 PIMCOCAMuniII PCK NA 5.68 NA 4.4 Bluerock HI Inst Crd:A NA NA NA 13.0 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:L NA NA NA 9.7
EtnVncTxMgdGlbB ETW 8.95 7.84 -12.4 5.3
InvescoBond VBF 15.84 15.33 -3.2 5.1 Templeton Em Inc TEI 5.93 5.15 -13.2 10.3 Bluerock HI Inst Crd:C NA NA NA 13.0 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:M NA NA NA 9.6
EVTxMnGblDvEqInc EXG 8.88 7.79 -12.3 9.0 52 wk
Ecofin S&S Impact Term TEAF 14.36 11.41 -20.6 -5.3 J Han Income JHS NA 10.96 NA 3.7 WstAstEmergDebt EMD 10.41 8.96 -13.9 9.8 Prem Ttl Bluerock HI Inst Crd:F NA NA NA 13.0 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:N NA NA NA 10.3
First Trust Energy Inc G FEN 16.66 16.50 -1.0 37.1 MFS Intmdt MIN 2.80 2.57 -8.2 0.0 Western Asset Gl Cr D Op GDO 12.48 12.00 -3.8 9.7 Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret Bluerock HI Inst Crd:I NA NA NA 13.0 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:U NA NA NA 9.6
First Tr Enhanced Eq FFA 18.95 17.89 -5.6 14.4 Western Asset Inf-Lk Inc WIA 9.20 7.94 -13.7 9.8 National Muni Bond Funds BNYM Alcntr Glb MS Cr Fd 91.55 NA NA NA Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:Y NA NA NA 10.0
General Equity Funds
FirstTrEnergyInfra FIF 18.33 18.05 -1.5 31.2 Western Asset Inf-Lk O&I WIW 9.86 8.43 -14.5 9.7 AllBerNatlMunInc AFB 12.24 10.47 -14.5 3.5 CliffwaterClFd;I 10.66 NA NA 13.7 Fid MS Cr;A NA NA NA NS
Alternative Strategies:I 16.17 NA NA -7.0
FirstTrMLPEner&Inc FEI 9.82 9.68 -1.4 34.3 Westn Asst IG Def Opp Tr IGI 17.12 16.69 -2.5 4.7 BlckRk Inv Q Mun BKN 12.78 11.88 -7.0 4.3 First Trust Hdg Strat;A 10.51 NA NA CliffwaterElFd;I 10.86 NA NA 13.5 Fid MS Cr;C NA NA NA NS
N
Gabelli Healthcare GRX 11.47 9.34 -18.6 -3.3 Loan Participation Funds BlackRock Muni 2030 Tgt BTT 23.69 20.41 -13.8 2.9 First Trust Hdg Str;I 10.54 NA NA N
CNR Strategic Credit 7.39 NA NA 23.0 Fid MS Cr;I NA NA NA NS
Gab Utility GUT 2.78 5.54 +99.3 -5.3 Apollo Senior Floating AFT 15.06 14.51 -3.7 10.8 BlackRock Muni BFK 11.28 9.96 -11.7 4.3 Specialized Equity Funds Floating-Rate Opps;A 10.22 NA NA NS Fid MS Cr;L NA NA NA NS
GAMCOGlGold&NatRes GGN 4.08 4.08 0.0 20.0 BR Debt Strategy DSU 10.75 10.53 -2.0 10.0 BlackRock Muni II BLE 11.88 10.35 -12.9 4.4 Accordant ODCE Index;A 9.46 NA NA NS Floating-Rate Opps;I 10.21 NA NA NS Jackson Credit Opps:I 10.15 NA NA NS
J Han Finl Opptys BTO NA 27.16 NA 2.9 BR F/R Inc Str FRA 13.12 13.00 -0.9 11.0 BlckRk Muni Inc Qly BYM 12.42 11.06 -11.0 4.4 Accordant ODCE Index;I 9.47 NA NA NS Floating-Rate Opps;U 10.22 NA NA NS Lord Abbett Cred Opps Fd 8.84 NA NA 9.1
Neuberger Brmn Enrgy I&I NML 8.49 7.33 -13.7 23.8 BlackRock Floatng Rt Inc BGT 12.77 12.81 +0.3 10.6 BR MuniAssets Fd MUA 11.33 11.03 -2.6 4.9 Accordant ODCE Index;Y 9.48 NA NA NS Equalize Community Dev 9.15 NA NA 3.6 Lord Abbett Cred Opps Fd 8.85 NA NA 9.8
Neuberger Nxt Gen Conn NBXG 13.18 11.37 -13.7 28.3 BS SFR 2027 T BSL 14.89 14.29 -4.0 9.4 BR MH Qly 2 MUE 11.39 9.74 -14.5 4.0 Apollo Diversified RE:A 24.17 NA NA -6.2 FedProj&TrFinanceTendr 9.96 NA NA 7.5 Lord Abbett Crd Op:U 8.85 NA NA 9.1
Apollo Diversified RE:C 22.65 NA NA -6.9 Flat Rock Core Income NA NA NA 9.2 Oaktree Dvsfd Income;D 8.98 NA NA 8.6
Apollo Diversified RE:I 24.70 NA NA -6.0 Flat Rock Enhanced Inc 21.60 NA NA 9.3 PIMCO Flexible EM I;Inst 8.28 NA NA 7.1
ARK Venture 25.67 NA NA 34.6 InvDYCrOpp:A 11.02 NA NA 10.5 National Muni Bond Funds
Insider-Trading Spotlight ArrowMark Financial Corp BANX NA 18.32 NA NA InvDYCrOpp:R6 11.03 NA NA 10.8 Ecofin Tax-Exempt Prv Cr 8.40 NA NA
Lind Cap Pt Mun Cred Inc 8.73 NA NA
3.8
CBRE GlbRlEst IGR 5.19 4.76 -8.3 -2.5 InvDYCrOpp:Y 11.02 NA NA 10.7 6.1
Trading by ‘insiders’ of a corporation, such as a company’s CEO, vice president or director, potentially conveys MainStay MacKay Mu IO;A1 9.94 NA NA NS
CIM RA&C A 23.64 NA NA 0.1 Invesco Sr Loan A 5.85 NA NA 9.6
new information about the prospects of a company. Insiders are required to report large trades to the SEC CIM RA&C C 22.95 NA NA -0.5 Invesco Sr Loan C 5.87 NA NA 8.8 MainStay MacKay Mu IO;A2 9.94 NA NA NS
within two business days. Here’s a look at the biggest individual trades by insiders, based on data received by CIM RA&C I 23.87 NA NA 0.4 Invesco Sr Loan IB 5.85 NA NA 9.8 MainStay MacKay Mu IO;A3 9.94 NA NA NS
Refinitiv on April 19, and year-to-date stock performance of the company CIM RA&C L 23.39 NA NA 0.0 Invesco Sr Loan IC 5.85 NA NA 9.7 MainStay MacKay Mu IO;I 9.94 NA NA NS
KEY: B: beneficial owner of more than 10% of a security class CB: chairman CEO: chief executive officer CFO: chief financial officer Clarion Partners REI D 11.86 NA NA 2.4 Invesco Sr Loan Y 5.85 NA NA 9.8 Nuveen En HY Muni Bd:A1 7.37 NA NA 5.2
CO: chief operating officer D: director DO: director and beneficial owner GC: general counsel H: officer, director and beneficial owner Clarion Partners REI I 11.87 NA NA 2.7 Lord Abbett FR Hi Inc:A 10.24 NA NA 10.0 Nuveen En HY Muni Bd:A2 7.38 NA NA 5.4
I: indirect transaction filed through a trust, insider spouse, minor child or other O: officer OD: officer and director P: president UT: Clarion Partners REI S 11.86 NA NA 1.8 Lord Abbett FR Hi Inc:I 10.24 NA NA 10.5 Nuveen En HY Muni Bd:I 7.37 NA NA 5.9
unknown VP: vice president Excludes pure options transactions Clarion Partners REI T 11.84 NA NA 1.7 Monachil Credit Income:I 10.02 NA NA 7.9 PIMCO Flex Mun Inc;A-3 10.16 NA NA 3.5
Forum RE Income;I 9.64 NA NA 14.7 Nomura Alt Inc;I 10.01 NA NA 5.1 PIMCO Flex Mun Inc:A1 10.16 NA NA 3.7
GS Real Est Div Inc:A 8.12 NA NA -8.7 OFS Credit Company OCCI NA 7.01 NA 21.2 PIMCO Flex Mun Inc;A2 10.16 NA NA 3.7
Biggest weekly individual trades GS Real Est Div Inc:C 8.11 NA NA -9.5 SEI Alternative Income:F 10.25 NA NA NS PIMCO Flex Mun Inc;Inst 10.16 NA NA 4.2
Based on reports filed with regulators this past week GS Real Est Div Inc:I 8.56 NA NA -8.6 SEI Alternative Income:Y 10.26 NA NA NS Single State Muni Bond
GS Real Est Div Inc:L 8.12 NA NA -9.0 Yieldstreet Alt Inc NA NA NA 8.8 PIMCO CA FMI;A-1 10.14 NA NA 2.8
No. of shrs in Price range ($) $ Value GS Real Est Div Inc:P 8.57 NA NA -8.6 High Yield Bond Funds PIMCO CA FMI;Inst 10.14 NA NA 3.3
Date(s) Company Symbol Insider Title trans (000s) in transaction (000s) Close ($) Ytd (%)

Buyers Borrowing Benchmarks | wsj.com/market-data/bonds/benchmarks

Apr. 15 Ashford AINC M. Bennett CEO 200 4.91 982 4.80 30.4
Apr. 11 America's Car-Mart CRMT A. Peterson BI 14 57.87 784 58.24 -23.1 Money Rates April 19, 2024
Apr. 15-17 BRT Apartments BRT J. Gould CEOI 37 16.89-17.00 625 17.37 -6.6 Key annual interest rates paid to borrow or lend money in U.S. and international markets. Rates below are a
Apr. 15-17 M. Gould ODI 37 16.89-17.00 625 guide to general levels but don’t always represent actual transactions.
Apr. 11 M. Gould ODI 12 16.89 206 Week —52-WEEK— Week —52-WEEK—
Inflation Latest ago High Low Latest ago High Low
Apr. 11 J. Gould CEOI 12 16.89 206
March index Chg From (%)
Apr. 15-16 Expensify EXFY S. Mclaughlin BI 325 1.43-1.46 467 1.64 -33.6 level Feb. '24March '23 Federal funds Other short-term rates
Effective rate 5.3300 5.3300 5.3500 4.8400
Apr. 16-17 Lovesac LOVE A. Heyer D 22* 18.74-20.24 434 20.80 -18.6 U.S. consumer price index Week 52-Week
High 5.6500 5.6500 5.6500 5.1500 Latest high low
All items 312.332 0.65 3.5 ago
Apr. 12 Science Applications International SAIC T. Townes-WhitleyCEO 3 125.78-125.97 378 124.94 0.5 Low 5.3100 5.3100 5.3300 4.8000
Core 317.088 0.53 3.8
Apr. 12 V. Difronzo O 0.8 126.04 100 Bid 5.3100 5.3100 5.3300 4.8200 Call money
Apr. 10-11 Longeveron LGVN J. Hare H 149 2.35 350 1.92 -85.9
International rates Offer 5.3300 5.3300 5.3700 4.8400 7.25 7.25 7.25 6.75

Apr. 10-11 R. Soffer D 138 2.35 325 Week 52-Week Treasury bill auction Commercial paper (AA financial)
Latest ago High Low 4 weeks 5.280 5.270 5.840 3.190 90 days n.a. 5.34 5.54 5.02
Apr. 17 Fastenal FAST D. Johnson D 3 68.38 229 67.57 4.3
13 weeks 5.250 5.225 5.345 5.060
Prime rates Secured Overnight Financing Rate
Apr. 10 Postal Realty Trust PSTL A. Spodek CEOI 10 13.75 138 13.76 -5.5 26 weeks 5.155 5.120 5.350 4.840
U.S. 8.50 8.50 8.50 8.00 5.30 5.31 5.40 4.80
Apr. 16-18 A. Spodek CEOI 10 13.50 135 Canada 7.20 7.20 7.20 6.70 Secondary market Value 52-Week
Apr. 17 Neogen NEOG D. Jones CO 10 12.36 124 11.61 -42.3 Japan 1.475 1.475 1.475 1.475
Latest Traded High Low
Fannie Mae
Apr. 16 WD-40 WDFC S. Brass CEO 0.43 232.22 100 229.85 -3.9 Policy Rates 30-year mortgage yields DTCC GCF Repo Index
Euro zone 4.50 4.50 4.50 3.50
Apr. 11 Oncocyte OCX A. Arno D 34 2.95 100 2.50 unch. 30 days 6.765 6.623 7.495 5.739 Treasury 5.329 23.250 5.504 4.819
Switzerland 2.00 2.00 2.25 2.00
60 days 6.777 6.633 7.554 5.739 MBS 5.330 25.500 5.689 4.830
Britain 5.25 5.25 5.25 4.25
Sellers Australia 4.35 4.35 4.35 3.60
Notes on data:
Apr. 10-12 Ares Management ARES A. Ressler HI 429 131.80-135.07 57,377 129.53 8.9
Overnight repurchase U.S. prime rate is the base rate on corporate loans posted by at least 70% of the 10 largest U.S. banks,
and is effective July 27, 2023. Other prime rates aren’t directly comparable; lending practices vary
U.S. 5.33 5.38 5.48 4.82
Apr. 15-16 A. Ressler HI 255 128.46-132.40 33,101 widely by location; Discount rate is effective July 27, 2023. Secured Overnight Financing Rate is as
of April 18, 2024. DTCC GCF Repo Index is Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.'s weighted average for
Apr. 15 JPMorgan Chase JPM J. Dimon CEO 178 184.18 32,825 185.80 9.2 U.S. government rates overnight trades in applicable CUSIPs. Value traded is in billions of U.S. dollars. Federal-funds rates
are Tullett Prebon rates as of 5:30 p.m. ET.
Apr. 11-12 DoorDash DASH A. Fang D 132 138.38-140.60 18,418 127.18 28.6 Discount Sources: Federal Reserve; Bureau of Labor Statistics; DTCC; FactSet;
Apr. 16 T. Xu CEO 132 132.93-134.38 17,664 5.50 5.50 5.50 5.00 Tullett Prebon Information, Ltd.

Apr. 12 Workday WDAY D. Duffield BI 56 263.76-267.43 14,834 252.22 -8.6

Apr. 15 Cencora COR R. Mauch CO 58 235.09 13,533 239.13 16.4 Cash Prices | wsj.com/market-data/commodities Friday, April 19, 2024
Apr. 12 Take-Two Interactive Software TTWO K. Slatoff PI 91 147.60-149.54 13,495 140.60 -12.6 These prices reflect buying and selling of a variety of actual or “physical” commodities in the marketplace—separate
Apr. 12 S. Zelnick CEOI 91 147.60-149.54 13,495 from the futures price on an exchange, which reflects what the commodity might be worth in future months.
Apr. 12 TransDigm Group TDG K. Stein CEOI 10 1206.74-1227.19 12,162 1187.70 17.4 Friday Friday Friday
Copper,Comex spot 4.5020 Wheat,No.2 soft red,St.Louis-u 5.4275
Apr. 16 Salesforce CRM M. Benioff CEOI 41 273.12-280.00 11,411 270.37 2.7 Energy Iron Ore, 62% Fe CFR China-s *117.8 Wheat - Hard - KC (USDA) $ per bu-u 6.2050
Coal,C.Aplc.,12500Btu,1.2SO2-r,w 77.350 Steel, HRC USA, FOB Midwest Mill-s *830.0 Wheat,No.1soft white,Portld,OR-u 5.7000
Apr. 10 Arista Networks ANET K. Duda OD 36* 288.18-294.09 10,442 246.09 4.5
Coal,PwdrRvrBsn,8800Btu,0.8SO2-r,w 13.650 Battery/EV metals Food
Apr. 11 Apple AAPL J. Williams COI 59 172.22 10,189 165.00 -14.3 BMI Lithium Carbonate, EXW China, =99.2%-v,w 15250
Metals BMI Lithium Hydroxide, EXW China, =56.5% -v,w 13650 Beef,carcass equiv. index
Apr. 11 L. Maestri CFO 53 173.19-175.02 9,262 BMI Cobalt sulphate, EXW China, >20.5% -v,m 4485 choice 1-3,600-900 lbs.-u 280.68
Gold, per troy oz
Apr. 16 Fair Isaac FICO W. Lansing CEO 8 1132.24-1151.41 9,124 1130.06 -2.9 Engelhard industrial 2379.00 BMI Nickel Sulphate, EXW China, >22%-v,m 4192 select 1-3,600-900 lbs.-u 273.95
Handy & Harman base 2379.70 BMIFlakeGraphite,FOBChina,-100Mesh,94-95%-v,m 485 Broilers, National comp wtd. avg.-u,w 1.3208
Apr. 5-15 Zurn Elkay Water Solutions ZWS A. Jalazo BI 250 31.96-32.24 8,019 31.69 7.8 2641.47 Butter,AA Chicago-d 2.9200
Handy & Harman fabricated Fibers and Textiles Cheddar cheese,bbl,Chicago-d 166.00
Apr. 5-15 A. Katz BI 250 31.96-32.24 8,019 LBMA Gold Price AM *2379.85
LBMA Gold Price PM *2382.70 Burlap,10-oz,40-inch NY yd-n,w 0.8000 Cheddar cheese,blk,Chicago-d 168.00
Apr. 12 Pure Storage PSTG S. Dietzen DI 147 53.49 7,863 49.46 38.7 Krugerrand,wholesale-e 2478.84 Cotton,1 1/16 std lw-mdMphs-u 0.7677 Milk,Nonfat dry,Chicago lb.-d 112.00
Cotlook 'A' Index-t *87.35 Coffee,Brazilian,Comp-y 2.3119
Maple Leaf-e 2502.68
* Half the transactions were indirect **Two day transaction Hides,hvy native steers piece fob-u n.a. Coffee,Colombian, NY-y 2.5537
American Eagle-e 2502.68
p - Pink Sheets Wool,64s,staple,Terr del-u,w n.a. Eggs,large white,Chicago-u 2.4150
Mexican peso-e 2881.79
Flour,hard winter KC-p 16.85
Austria crown-e 2339.31 Grains and Feeds Hams,17-20 lbs,Mid-US fob-u n.a.
Austria phil-e 2502.68
Insider buying and selling by sector Silver, troy oz. Bran,wheat middlings, KC-u,w 75 Hogs,Iowa-So. Minnesota-u 90.04
Corn,No. 2 yellow,Cent IL-bp,u 4.0900 Pork bellies,12-14 lb MidUS-u n.a.
Based on actual transaction dates in reports received this past week Engelhard industrial 28.3500 Pork loins,13-19 lb MidUS-u 1.2473
Corn gluten feed,Midwest-u,w 89.7
Handy & Harman base 28.6420 Corn gluten meal,Midwest-u,w 398.9 Steers,Tex.-Okla. Choice-u n.a.
Sector Buying Selling Sector Buying Selling Handy & Harman fabricated 35.8030 Cottonseed meal-u,w n.a. Steers,feeder,Okla. City-u,w 290.75
LBMA spot price *£22.8200 Hominy feed,Cent IL-u,w 115
Basic Industries 20,950 456,663 Finance 2,951,139 57,249,890 (U.S.$ equivalent) *28.4700 Fats and Oils
Meat-bonemeal,50% pro Mnpls-u,w 320
Coins,wholesale $1,000 face-a 22219 Oats,No.2 milling,Mnpls-u 4.2875 Degummed corn oil, crude wtd. avg.-u,w n.a.
Capital Goods 346,672 19,459,721 Health care 1,049,890 66,921,826 Other metals Rice, Long Grain Milled, No. 2 AR-u,w 36.25 Grease,choice white,Chicago-h 0.4100
Consumer durables 433,746 447,977 Public Utilities 12,647 142,100 LBMA Platinum Price PM *942.0 Sorghum,(Milo) No.2 Gulf-u n.a. Lard,Chicago-u n.a.
Platinum,Engelhard industrial 935.0 SoybeanMeal,Cent IL,rail,ton48%-u,w 357.70 Soybean oil,crude;Centl IL-u,w 0.4438
Consumer non-durables 188,251 6,752,790 Technology 1,139,630 237,267,853 Palladium,Engelhard industrial 1020.0 Soybeans,No.1 yllw IL-bp,u 11.2800 Tallow,bleach;Chicago-h 0.4350
Aluminum, LME, $ per metric ton *2600.0 Wheat,Spring14%-pro Mnpls-u 8.1700 Tallow,edible,Chicago-u n.a.
Consumer services 82,435 22,495,294
KEY TO CODES: A=ask; B=bid; BP=country elevator bids to producers; C=corrected; D=CME; E=Manfra,Tordella & Brookes; H=American Commodities Brokerage Co;
Energy 0 2,945,084 K=bi-weekly; M=monthly; N=nominal; n.a.=not quoted or not available; P=Sosland Publishing; R=SNL Energy; S=Platts-TSI; T=Cotlook Limited; U=USDA; V=Benchmark
Mineral Intelligence; W=weekly; Y=International Coffee Organization; Z=not quoted. *Data as of 4/18
Sources: Refinitiv; Dow Jones Market Data Source: Dow Jones Market Data
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, April 22, 2024 | B9

Alex Hussey

“My victory is removing ‘can’t’ from my vocabulary.” Alex was hit by an IED in
Afghanistan. He lost both legs, his left hand and has a traumatic brain injury.
With support from DAV, Alex is taking on mountains. DAV helps veterans of all
generations get the benefits they’ve earned—helping more than a million veterans
each year. Support more victories for veterans®. Go to DAV.org.
B10 | Monday, April 22, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

HEARD STREET ON
THE
FINANCIAL ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY

Bag Tie-Up India’s Ambitions Hit

Brings Educational Obstacle
Antitrust
Concerns
India kicked off the world’s big- Labor force participation rate
gest election in human history on among emerging economies
Friday. Prime Minister Narendra
LANNA APISUKH FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Modi is favored, but whoever wins Vietnam

has a big challenge ahead: India ur- 73.1%
gently needs jobs for its millions of
Tapestry, Capri deal young people, but its education
Indonesia
is far from assured system often produces the wrong 67.0
kind of graduates.
If that can’t be remedied, India’s
Coach owner Tapestry’s quest ambition to become a second Brazil
63.4
to become an American luxury gi- “world’s factory floor” to rival
ant is turning out to be quite the China could unravel before it prop-
uphill battle. erly begins. India
The Federal Trade Commission Coach owner Tapestry plans to acquire Capri, owner of Michael Kors. There are some lessons to be 57.9
is reportedly preparing a lawsuit learned from India’s software and
to block Tapestry’s proposed ac- limits. Tapestry has turned Coach price), has shed 29% since that outsourcing boom of the 2000s. In- Source: Morgan Stanley Research
quisition of Michael Kors owner around by getting more customers peak. The decline reflects inves- dia’s famed information technology
Capri Holdings, according to a re- to pay full price and preventing tors’ skittishness about the FTC sector did a stellar job training ambitions to become a manufac-
port on Wednesday from the New products from ending up on clear- blocking the deal as well as wors- students in software engineering turing heavyweight, unless it
York Times. ance racks. ening prospects for Capri, which and allied fields. changes quickly.
Whether the deal creates mar- In a November earnings call, badly missed Wall Street expecta- India churns out around 10 mil- Generous agricultural subsidies
ket-share concerns depends on the the company said the Coach brand tions on earnings in its past two lion postsecondary graduates a also artificially inflate demand for
definition of the market in ques- has increased its average pricing quarterly reports after the deal year, according to Morgan Stanley. farm laborers. In other words,
tion. Coach and Michael Kors com- by more than 30% over three announcement. As India reorients its economy to- many educated graduates don’t
bined had a 17% share of the years. Surely one of the compel- Besides antitrust risk, some of ward manufacturing, those grads have the skills they need, while
North American bag market in ling rationales for Tapestry’s ac- the Capri discount could reflect a won’t necessarily be the kind of many young workers with less edu-
2022, according to a report from quisition is to pull off a similar chance that Tapestry gets cold workers it needs. Only 3.8% of In- cation have strong incentives to
Bernstein, citing Euromonitor feat at Michael Kors, which is suf- feet. dia’s total workforce had under- stay in the countryside.
data. Narrow that down to luxury fering from the same problem that So far, Tapestry seems unde- gone formal vocational training as Improving paltry budgetary allo-
bags and the two brands’ com- Coach had years ago. But being in terred. A representative for Tapes- of mid-2023, according to govern- cations to education and skill de-
bined market share rises to 26%. the “affordable luxury” segment is try said it has “full confidence in ment data. velopment and creating better tie-
Whittle that further to “afford- precisely what creates a natural the merits of this transaction and India scores decently well on ba- ups with industry to impart up-to-
able” luxury bags, and the FTC ap- price ceiling for Coach and Mi- in our legal arguments, should we sic metrics such as literacy. But date vocational training would
pears to have a stronger case: chael Kors: Neither can afford to need to make them.” digging deeper into the figures, es- help. India’s central government
Coach and Michael Kors command push up prices too much for fear At current prices, holders of Ca- pecially for postsecondary educa- currently spends below 3% of gross
a 53% share in North America. of losing out to more exclusive pri can expect to make a 48% re- tion, raises concerns. domestic product on education.
The narrow definition might be luxury brands. turn if the deal successfully closes. The 2023 India Skills Report, And while the Indian govern-
hard to justify. Bernstein says it Moreover, fashion has a rela- What’s the downside? If inves- compiled by online testing firm ment has taken steps to rope in the
defined “affordable” luxury not by tively low barrier to entry and a tors assume that Capri’s share Wheebox in partnership with the private sector, skills training re-
a specific price tier but “manu- consumer looking for a midtier bag price—as a multiple of expected Confederation of Indian Industry mains largely government-driven.
ally,” by excluding certain luxury still has plenty of choices. A search future earnings—will revert to and others, showed only a modest That dependence adversely affects
houses like Hermès. Both Coach on Macy’s website for bags priced predeal levels, they can expect to improvement in “employability” the number and quality of trained
and Michael Kors have products from $100 to $500 yields results lose about 45%. But that might be among young graduates—increas- candidates, according to the Na-
with pricing that overlaps with for more than 70 brands. Impor- a conservative reading: Capri’s ing to 50.3% in 2022 from 46.2% in tional Skill Development Corp set
high-end luxury brands such as tantly, scale alone hasn’t helped disappointing results mean the the previous year. up by the Ministry of Finance.
Louis Vuitton and Gucci, as well as Tapestry and Capri. Data from Eu- stock could settle at even lower Wheebox’s test measures basic India doesn’t have forever to
nonluxury bag brands such as romonitor shows both companies’ levels. skill sets such as numeracy and solve these problems: Factory auto-
DKNY and Cole Haan. Coach’s se- market share of the North Ameri- The FTC’s antitrust case doesn’t English competency, among oth- mation is becoming ever more so-
lection ranges from a $150 cross- can luxury leather goods market seem like a slam dunk. But the ers. Only 28% and 34% of poly- phisticated, and India’s own fertil-
body pouch bag to a $10,000 lim- shrunk from 2018 to 2022. huge potential swings in Capri’s technic and industrial institute ity rate is heading down, which
ited-edition alligator bag. Capri stock, which jumped to stock price mean an awful lot is grads, respectively, were employ- will eventually start chipping away
Will the combination lead to $53.90 on the deal announcement riding on the definition of afford- able in 2023, according to Morgan at its demographic dividend.
higher prices? Possibly, but within in August (shy of the $57 offer able luxury. —Jinjoo Lee Stanley. That bodes ill for India’s —Megha Mandavia

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 JOURNAL REPORT

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
© 2024 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved. THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, April 22, 2024 | R1
RYAN GARCIA

Should You Buy a Hybrid?

Here’s What You Need to Know
As sales of electric vehicles fail to live up to some expectations,
hybrids have taken off. Here are answers to the questions many car buyers have.

J
BY BART ZIEGLER UST A YEAR AGO, the car industry was
nearly unanimous in its message: Electric vehi-
cles are the future and will take over the mar-
ket sooner than you think.
Now that optimism seems to have been pre-
mature. Though carmakers continue to roll out
new EV models—those that run entirely on bat-
teries and lack a gas-powered engine—their sales growth
has slowed dramatically as consumers aren’t snapping
them up as quickly as the industry expected. Unsold EVs
are piling up on dealer lots despite price cuts.
What happened? Many people worry that the shortage
of public charging stations and limited EV driving range
could leave them stranded with a dead battery. Once you
find a charger, it takes vastly more time to refill batteries
than a gas tank. And most EVs still cost more than similar
gas-engine cars, especially since many models lost their
Please turn to page R6

become a key part of our ev-

Are Battery-Powered Home
Appliances in Our Future?
These appliances are designed to keep
working when the power goes off
BY HEIDI MITCHELL
still cook, do laundry and keep
your refrigerator going, while
also recharging your smart-
eryday energy ecosystem.
These researchers say
groups of appliances with
storage-enabled batteries
eventually could provide
backup power to homes and
help modulate demand on the
electrical grid, allowing it to
withstand ever-harsher
weather events and prevent
rolling blackouts. Such appli-
ances, they say, also could
help stave off grid upgrades
Inside
CLEANER HEATING AND COOLING
As the U.S. seeks to reduce
buildings’ carbon emissions,
thermal energy networks are
attracting support. R7
PLANES, TRAINS AND BUSES
It isn’t just cars that are being
electrified. States and cities
are converting some mass
transit, and even plane makers

I
MAGINE THAT your ma-
jor home appliances run
on batteries. Using regular
cords that plug into stan-
dard 120-volt outlets, the
appliances charge themselves
when power is cheapest and
store enough energy so that
during a blackout, you can
phone and ensuring your Wi-
Fi router never loses connec-
tivity.
That future isn’t here yet
but it’s moving closer to real-
ity, say some researchers,
who believe that heavy appli-
ances equipped with battery
storage have the potential to
by enabling homeowners to are exploring designs. R2
reduce their energy use dur-
ing periods of peak demand,
instead drawing power when A NEW STORAGE SOLUTION
it is least costly and most Scan this code to
clean, and ultimately support- Storing solar and wind energy
see how AI may help
ing the use of electricity in for later use can be challenging. fight climate change
place of gas and oil to heat, Salt caverns are emerging as a through optimization
Please turn to page R2 possible solution. R4 and efficiency.
R2 | Monday, April 22, 2024
Appliances
That Run on
Battery
Power May Be
In Our Future
Continued from page R1
cool, clean, cook and connect.
“This future is definitely in
view for many of us,” says Mario
Bergés, a professor of civil and
environmental engineering at
Carnegie Mellon University.
“This is a technology that could
provide us with an additional
way of making the grid more ro-
bust, more amenable to integrat-
ing more renewables and to bet-
ter deal with the shocks that we
expect, like higher temperatures
and storms.”
Smaller battery-powered ap-
pliances are on the market al-
ready, including kettles, blenders
and microwaves, but they have
Planes, Trains and Buses: What Gets Electrified Next?
Billions of dollars are available for states and cities
to electrify their public-transportation systems
BY JACKIE SNOW
I
T’S NOT JUST cars that are
getting electric motors. Elec-
tric-powered public transit is
also generating new interest
across the U.S.
The infrastructure bill that Con-
gress passed in November 2021
offers billions of dollars for states
and cities to expand public trans-
portation and electrify their sys-
tems. That could help cities over-
come some of the hurdles that
have slowed the transition to
electrified mass transit—like the
high cost of new electric vehicles,
building the necessary charging
stations and retraining workers.
Here’s a look at some of the
places where public transit is get-
ting electrified and some of the
ideas on the drawing board.
Ferries
Washington State Ferries, the na-
tion’s largest ferry system, is tran-
sitioning its vessels from diesel to
fully electric and hybrid propulsion
over the next decade.
In the initial phase through
2030, three of the largest existing
ferries will undergo conversions,
removing some diesel engines and
adding battery packs to enable
hybrid operation. “Having the die-
sel engine on board but trying not
to use them very often is the
goal,” says Matt Von Ruden, who
heads the ferry agency’s system-
electrification program.
The agency projects the three
ferries will use 95% less diesel
fuel and save $60 million over
their life cycle, based on the lower
cost of electricity versus diesel
fuel and reduced maintenance
needs thanks to the streamlined
electric propulsion systems. Six-
teen ferry terminals are slated for
charging-infrastructure installation
and the agency is taking bids for
more hybrid ferries.
New York Harbor will also be a
bit quieter when the Governors Is-
JOURNAL REPORT | ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
limited storage capacity and are
often used for camping or short-
term usage.
By contrast, only a handful of
heavy appliances with battery
storage have been developed—
and they are pricey. What’s
more, most American homes
aren’t set up to allow appliances
to supply stored energy to each
other or to the power grid. Still,
some experts say such appli-
ances eventually could become a
viable alternative to the whole-
house batteries that are starting
to emerge alongside solar panels
and electric vehicles.
“These appliances could be
simpler to purchase for some
consumers than installing a
larger-scale battery like
a Tesla Powerwall and solar pan-
els, and they’re currently an eas-
ier ask of consumers, since the
battery is integrated at the fac-
tory and the appliance already
serves another function,”
says Jessika Trancik, a professor
in the Institute for Data Systems
and Society at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. That
land ferry is replaced with a hy-
brid this summer. According to
Sebastian Coss, director of plan-
ning and real estate for the Trust
for Governors Island, the ride not
only will be quieter and smoother
but also hopefully will demon-
strate what’s possible for electric
transit.
“Part of the ethos of the island
is to showcase leading-edge tech-
nology that is focused on climate
change and adaptation,” he says.
Buses
Electric city buses have become
common in much of the country,
with a total of 1,873 buses on the
road in 43 states in 2022, accord-
ing to data from the Federal Tran-
sit Administration. That was a
21% increase from the number of
buses in 2021.
The Missoula Urban Transpor-
tation District in Montana re-
ceived its first six electric buses in
2019 and another six in 2021.
They drive more than a quarter of
all the miles covered on the dis-
trict’s bus routes, according to dis-
trict spokeswoman Olga Kreimer.
The district has committed to a
fleet with zero emissions by 2035.
The buses are more expensive
to buy than diesel models but
start to make up for the cost with
said, she doesn’t see a clear eco-
nomic case for the appliances
yet. “You may save a bit on elec-
tricity, but probably not enough
to offset the costs,” she says.
Early entrants
Among the startups in the area
is Channing Street Copper, which
has received more than $3 mil-
lion in funding from the Energy
Department and private inves-
tors. The company has developed
an induction range, called Char-
lie, which has four burners plus
a convection oven, along with a
brick-like lithium iron phosphate
battery that can be charged from
a standard 120-volt outlet. The
stored energy in the battery al-
lows the range to deliver a high-
powered cooking experience
without the need for a 240-volt
outlet, and it can keep the range
running so owners can cook and
boil water when the power is
out. The $5,999 range, which the
company estimates will cost
around $4,000 after tax credits
and rebates, will start shipping
each mile driven, according to Kre-
imer. In 2023, electric buses aver-
aged 53 cents a mile to run, while
diesel buses averaged 83 cents.
More than a million miles were
driven by the fleet last year.
The district had to make some
upgrades, like building enough
chargers, and its mechanics also
had to learn new skills. But Kre-
imer says these issues have
mostly been overcome.
The main difference between
diesel and electric buses is how
long they can stay on the road. In
the winter, when temperatures dip
below 10 degrees, the first gener-
ation of electric buses lose 30% to
40% of their range. In less frigid
weather, a bus can go up to 150
miles on a full charge, compared
with 300 miles for a bus with a
full tank of diesel.
But the electric buses offer a
quality-of-life bonus in the winter,
when Missoula commonly experi-
ences weather inversions that
trap vehicle exhaust and other
this summer.
Another startup, Impulse
Labs, offers a $5,499 battery-em-
bedded induction stove (around
$3,299 after tax credits and re-
bates) that can boil a liter of wa-
ter in 40 seconds and allow the
user to cook for a time during
power outages. The company’s
founders say the stove’s bidirec-
tional inverter also could make
the stove’s custom battery
packs useful tools to power
other home appliances.
Both companies expect their
ranges to qualify for tax credits
under the Inflation Reduction
Act because each has more than
three kilowatt-hours of battery-
storage capacity, enough to cook
roughly two-to-four meals. But
even without the tax credit, they
likely would cost less than in-
stalling a whole-house battery
like the Powerwall (which in
some areas can cost more than
$15,000 including installation
but before any rebates or cred-
its.) The ranges also might be
cheaper than the cost of pur-
chasing and installing a conven-
tional induction stove—if doing
so would require an upgrade to a
home’s entire electrical panel to
allow the flow of 200 amps into
the residence, some experts say.
“For some customers, one big
advantage of these devices is
just enabling customers to enjoy
the benefits of electric appli-
ances without incurring signifi-
cant costs to upgrade their
panel,” which is the metal box
containing a home’s circuit
breakers, says Mark Dyson, man-
aging director of the electricity
program at RMI, a nonprofit fo-
cused on clean energy.
But the real cost savings to
consumers would come from
programming these devices to
charge when energy is cheapest,
says Dyson. He estimates that a
network of energy-storage-
equipped appliances—which also
might include water heaters and
clothes dryers, both of which re-
quire big, short bursts of en-
ergy—aggregated into virtual
pollutants in the valley.
Meanwhile, some cities also are
moving to transition their school-
bus fleets to electric, with more
than 3,800 electric school buses
delivered or operating across the
country, according to the World
Resource Institute.
Trains
Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor route
between Boston and Washington,
D.C. is the biggest electrified pas-
Electra’s EL-2 Goldfinch aircraft
takes flight, above. An electric
bus, left, in Missoula, Mont.
senger-railroad line in the country,
but new efforts are under way.
Caltrain, a service between San
Francisco and San Jose, is testing
a new electric train that has a
battery but relies on overhead
wires for power during sections of
the trip.
California is building an electri-
fied high-speed railroad line that
would connect San Francisco to
Los Angeles with trains that can
reach 242 miles an hour. There
are 119 miles of rail under con-
struction, with the first section to
be completed by 2035, according
to Bruce Armistead, the California
High-Speed Rail Authority’s chief
of rail and operations delivery.
Meanwhile, Brightline, a private
company, plans to build a line for
electric trains that will connect
Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga,
Calif., about 40 miles east of
downtown Los Angeles. Brightline
expects construction to take four
years, according to Ben Porritt, se-
nior vice president of corporate
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
power plants could cut “between
10 and 20% off our country’s
overall peak electricity demand
during those hours when de-
mand is at its highest,” such as
on very hot days when air condi-
tioners are cranking.
Challenges ahead
To be sure, a future of battery-
powered appliances faces many
hurdles, says Carnegie Mellon’s
Bergés.
He says the value proposition
of such pricey appliances might
not be clear to average home-
owners unless they are trying to
live off the grid. He also be-
lieves they need better software
to allow them to talk to one an-
other and efficiently coordinate
their power usage. That, he says,
might require standardization in
appliance design and the com-
mands to which they respond.
Brian Mayers, a partner at
Breakthrough Energy Ven-
tures, an investment firm
founded by Bill Gates that seeks
to finance companies working to
eliminate greenhouse-gas emis-
sions, says he likes battery-inte-
grated appliances as a concept,
but thinks their benefits are rel-
atively limited for now because
of their cost.
“I wouldn’t expect these types
of appliances to scale broadly or
universally, short of major regu-
latory or government incentives
like we see with heat pumps or
HVAC today,” he says.
There is also the question of
whether placing lots of little bat-
teries around a home will lower
overall emissions, he says, since
mining and making the batteries
can be an energy-intensive pro-
cess. “If they are used to offset
natural gas, or to firm up renew-
ables, they could have a positive
impact,” he says. “If they end up
just used as backup power, they
will not have positive impact.”
Heidi Mitchell is a writer in
PETE RYAN
Chicago and London. She can be
reached at reports@wsj.com.
affairs for the company.
Porritt says the company is
also investigating about a dozen
other possible lines across the
country, like Atlanta to Charlotte,
N.C., and Chicago to St. Louis or
Indianapolis. “Once you build the
first, you can build more and im-
prove each time,” he says.
More electrification will come
in California if the EPA approves
the state’s new railroad pollution
law, which would go into effect in
2030. The law would require rail-
road companies operating in the
state to replace their oldest trains
with cleaner diesel models and
eventually zero-emission options.
Planes
Electric-plane makers envision a
role for their planes making short
flights from airfields close to
homes and businesses. For in-
stance, the Downtown Manhattan
Heliport is seeking Federal Avia-
tion Administration certification
and working on building the
charging infrastructure needed for
electric aircraft by 2025.
Many of the new electric-plane
initiatives are exploring designs
that don’t work well with internal
combustion engines, according to
Scott Cary, a ports and airports
project manager at the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory. “It
allows options for aircraft design
that may not have existed before,”
he says.
One approach gaining traction
is “blown lift.” Rather than relying
on long runways to reach high
speeds to generate lift for takeoff
and landing, blown-lift aircraft use
rows of propellers to blow air over
the wings, allowing short-takeoff
capabilities. While inefficient for
combustion engines, this design is
well suited for electric propulsion,
according to John Langford, CEO
of Electra, a hybrid-airplane maker
that uses an electric blown-lift
system for its short-takeoff-and-
landing aircraft.
The Virginia-based company
started testing its nine-seat hy-
brid planes in November, targeting
FROM TOP: ELECTRA.AERO; MOUNTAIN LINE
trips between 50 and 500 miles.
The planes need about a tenth of
the runway distance that tradi-
tional planes require, according to
Langford.
Jackie Snow is a writer in Los
Angeles. She can be reached at
reports@wsj.com.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, April 22, 2024 | R3
R4 | Monday, April 22, 2024
Companies Look to Huge Salt Caverns
To Store Solar and Wind Energy
Renewable power is used to produce hydrogen,
which is stored until it is needed for green energy
BY PHRED DVORAK
O
N A PLAIN in
western Utah,
two massive
caverns—each
roughly big
enough to
house the Em-
pire State
Building—are being hollowed out
of rock salt a mile underground.
Salt caverns like these are
emerging as one possible solu-
tion to the question of how to
store solar and wind energy for
later use.
It’s a three-step process. First,
electricity from solar and wind
farms is used to produce hydro-
gen. Then the hydrogen is stored
in caverns like those scheduled to
be completed next year at the
Advanced Clean Energy Storage
project in Delta, Utah. Finally, the
hydrogen can be used as a green
substitute for climate-warming
fossil fuels in uses ranging from
power generation to steel manu-
facture and shipping.
A number of companies in the
U.S. and Europe have started to
invest in or seriously study salt-
cavern projects in the past few
years, with government subsi-
dies for clean energy spurring
them on.
Cost considerations
Countries around the globe are
building huge amounts of wind
and solar energy capacity. The
problem is that renewable power
generation can fluctuate a lot de-
pending on the time of day or
year. Solar-panel output, for in-
stance, stops when the sun sets,
and in California can roughly
halve in winter versus summer.
Utilities are building big bat-
tery installations that can suck
up some of that renewable elec-
tricity when it’s plentiful during
How to Make Progress in Achieving
Climate Goals: Tie It to CEO Pay
More company boards
are doing just that. But
the key is to do it right.
BY CHERYL WINOKUR MUNK
S
HOULD CORPORATE
executives’ pay be tied
to climate-related
goals?
More company
boards think so, as awareness
grows that climate change could
have an impact on corporate bot-
tom lines. Some 54% of S&P 500
companies incorporated climate-
related metrics into their execu-
tives’ compensation plans in
2023—more than double the fig-
ure from two years earlier, accord-
ing to a January report from the
Conference Board and ESGauge, a
data analytics firm.
But experts say how a com-
pany ties pay to climate is crucial,
with some methods more effec-
tive than others. Here’s a look at
some of those approaches.
Use science-based metrics
For starters, climate-related goals
have to be firmly rooted in sci-
ence, says David Larcker, a profes-
sor and director of the Corporate
Governance Research Initiative at
the Stanford Graduate School of
Business.
Companies that are serious
about rewarding for climate goals
should also break down their long-
term targets into smaller, clearly
achievable and measurable goals,
says Larcker, who is also a distin-
guished visiting fellow at the Hoo-
ver Institution, a public-policy
think tank. Companies should be
JOURNAL REPORT | ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
the day, and release it for a few
hours in the evening. But the
lithium-ion batteries most com-
monly used today are too small
and expensive to absorb the mas-
sive amounts of power needed to
balance out grids over months or
seasons, energy-industry execu-
tives say.
Deep Storage
Hydrogen storage caverns are hollowed
out of layers, pillars or mushroom-
shaped domes of rock salt, which
has the right properties to
seal in hydrogen gas.
Such caverns can be more
than a mile underground.
Capturing that renewable
power by making hydrogen with
it and storing the gas under-
ground isn’t cheap. Industry ex-
ecutives say the cost to make a
salt cavern could easily exceed
$100 million, on top of expenses
for the equipment needed to pro-
duce the hydrogen. But trying to
provide similar storage with bat-
teries is much pricier.
sure to audit reported metrics for
accuracy, he adds.
The metrics will differ by com-
pany, depending on where the big-
gest impact can be made, says
John McCalla-Leacy, head of
global ESG at KPMG International.
He has clients, for instance, that
focus heavily on reducing emis-
sions within their supply chain,
while others focus more on re-
ducing emissions within their own
operations.
“We believe that the best met-
rics for sustainability initiatives
have a clear tie to the underlying
business model and strategy,”
says John Borneman, managing
director of compensation consult-
ing firm Semler Brossy. So, for ex-
ample, an energy or distribution
company will have a significant
focus on carbon emissions, while
a real-estate company will focus
on energy efficiency, or a con-
sumer-products company on sus-
tainable sourcing and waste re-
duction, he says.
Quantitative, not qualitative
Once goals are set, compensation
should be tied directly to them,
not to some vague broader aspira-
tion beyond the metrics, compen-
sation experts and climate advo-
cates say. Offering incentive pay
for goals like “adhering to the
company’s climate plan” can risk
rewarding executives who don’t
take any action.
As You Sow, a nonprofit foun-
dation that promotes corporate
social responsibility, scored 100 of
the largest U.S. companies by
market capitalization, across 11
sectors of the economy, on their
climate-rewards programs. It gave
its highest grade, a B, to Dow. The
company moved up from a D-mi-
Green Hydrogen International,
a company planning a cavern
project in South Texas, estimates
it would take around 38,500 Tesla
Megapacks—a type of battery
popular for large-scale utility in-
stallations—at an estimated cost
of $59 billion to store the amount
of energy it is hoping to keep in
its caverns, which it estimates
will cost $150 million to make.
And just one of the ACES
Delta caverns in Utah will be
able store more than three times
Salt
as much energy as all of the util-
ity-scale batteries the U.S. had
online at the end of 2023.
Those economics were good
enough to attract the interest of
Japanese oil-and-gas company
Inpex, which is joining GHI in a
feasibility study of the Texas
project. “What we’re trying to do
is take renewables and make
them oil-and-gas scale,” says
nus in 2022 by replacing an “un-
measurable climate-related met-
ric” with a quantitative emissions-
reduction metric in its CEO’s long-
term compensation package,
according to the foundation. A
Dow spokesperson says the com-
pany’s long-term compensation
program is aligned with its emis-
sions-reduction targets.
Think long term
It’s more common for companies
to build incentives into executives’
annual compensation plans rather
than their long-term plans. About
86% of companies in the Russell
3000 index that incorporated ESG
performance metrics in incentives
used annual incentives in 2023,
according to data from the Con-
ference Board and ESGauge. Only
about 8% put ESG measures in
their executives’ long-term plan
last year, and about 5% did both.
Some critics say annual incen-
Brian Maxwell, GHI’s chief execu-
tive.
Salt caverns have been used
since at least the 1940s to store
fossil fuels. The U.S. keeps a
good portion of its natural gas
underground, as well as its
emergency crude-oil reserves.
The caverns are typically hol-
lowed out of deposits of rock
salt, formed from the remnants
of ancient seas that have hard-
ened into layers or been
squeezed into pillars or mush-
To create a cavern,
engineers drill down into
a salt deposit, then flush
it with massive amounts
of water, which slowly
erodes the salt to form a
tubelike hole.
Caverns in salt domes
can run from 1,000 to
2,000 feet in height,
in some cases taller
than the Empire State
Building.
room-shaped domes of salt un-
derground.
Salt deposits are more leak-
proof than other types of rocks
used for storage sites—a feature
especially important for hydro-
gen, which is the smallest mole-
cule in existence. And the rock
salt doesn’t react with hydrogen,
which can be corrosive to tanks
when it is stored above ground.
tives aren’t enough, since long-
term incentive programs typically
represent the majority of CEOs’
variable pay. Climate incentives
should be a significant part of
long-term compensation, they say.
As You Sow recommends that
companies aim to make at least
5% of the total “performance
shares” in their CEO’s long-term
incentive plan relate to climate
goals. Performance shares are an
incentive-based form of stock
compensation paid to executives
for meeting certain benchmarks.
“It can’t be so small in comparison
to other payouts that it would not
incentivize action,” says Danielle
Fugere, president and chief coun-
sel of As You Sow.
Of the 100 companies studied
by As You Sow, Xcel Energy stood
out with the highest weighting of
climate-related long-term incen-
tives, at 30% of total incentives.
Three other companies—PPL, Dow
and Valero Energy—assigned a
weight greater than 10% to cli-
mate metrics, while five compa-
nies—Ameren, Southern, Ameri-
can Electric Power, Dominion
Energy and EQT—gave climate in-
centives a 10% weight.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
To create a cavern, engineers
drill deep down into a salt de-
posit, then flush it with massive
amounts of water, which slowly
erodes the salt and forms a long,
tubelike hole, a process that can
take two or three years.
Some rock-salt domes in the
U.S. are more than a mile in di-
ameter and are capable of hous-
ing more than a hundred storage
caverns, says Scyller Borglum,
vice president for underground
storage at engineering firm WSP
Global, and deputy project man-
ager for salt-cavern construction
at ACES Delta.
That scale will be necessary if
hydrogen becomes a significant
energy source, versus its current
main use in fertilizers and refin-
ing.
Storage starts next year
Michael Ducker, board director
of ACES Delta and an executive
at a unit of Japan’s Mitsubishi
Power, says he got involved in
the project in 2019, when the In-
termountain Power Agency,
owner of a big Utah coal-power
plant that supplies electricity to
southern California, approached
Mitsubishi Power with a plan to
replace the plant with one pow-
ered by natural gas and hydro-
gen. The idea was to use the bal-
looning amount of excess
electricity generated by West
Coast solar and wind farms—en-
ergy that is now unused—to run
electrolyzers, equipment that
produces hydrogen by separating
it out of water. Mitsubishi Power
decided to invest in the project
and supply turbines for the new
plant.
ACES Delta started drilling for
its hydrogen caverns in 2022 and
pumping in water last year. It
will begin replacing the water in
the caverns with hydrogen next
year, Ducker says.
When completed, ACES Delta
will be the biggest hydrogen-
storage site in the world, and
one of the few large-scale green
hydrogen projects to get off the
ground so far. In a sign of the in-
tense interest the project has
generated, U.S. energy giant
Chevron bought one of the proj-
ect partners last year, and now
holds a majority stake.
OWEN POMERY
Phred Dvorak is a Wall Street
Journal reporter in Houston. Email
her at phred.dvorak@wsj.com.
Build in flexibility
Even companies that are moving
toward their climate targets can
have setbacks due to reasons be-
yond their control, so there needs
to be some flexibility built into
compensation plans, says Paul
Washington, executive director of
the Conference Board ESG Center.
He offers the example of an ac-
quisition in which the target com-
pany has significant greenhouse-
gas emissions. As a combined
company, overall emissions will be
elevated, at least temporarily. In
such cases, companies could ex-
clude the acquired company’s
emissions for compensation pur-
poses, allowing execu-
tives to be paid for the
things within their con-
trol, he says.
Companies can also
be flexible by giving ex-
ecutives partial rewards
for efforts that fall short
of the established goals.
For instance, a compen-
sation plan could call for
an equity bonus of
100,000 shares for a
10% reduction in the
company’s carbon foot-
print but fewer shares
for a smaller reduction,
Larcker says.
Forge ahead
Some advocates of cor-
porate action on climate
issues urge companies
to at least start feeling
their way toward tying executive
compensation to climate metrics.
“We don’t think you should let
perfect get in the way of good,”
says Steven Rothstein, managing
director of the Ceres Accelerator
for Sustainable Capital Markets.
“If they have a good plan, but it’s
not a perfect plan, we think they
should start implementing that
plan and update it as necessary.”
Cheryl Winokur Munk is a writer
ROB DOBI
in West Orange, N.J. She can be
reached at reports@wsj.com.
 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, April 22, 2024 | R5

JOURNAL REPORT | ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

Let’s See How Much You Really

Know About Electric Vehicles
First question: Which country leads the way in EVs?

the grid is produced from renew- wear out faster. How much 7. In the third quarter of 2023 less than 0.2% of the electricity
BY SIMON CONSTABLE able resources? faster? there were about 160,000 public consumed in the country, accord-

E
charging stations for electric ing to a study by the Argonne
A. 1% A. 10% vehicles in the U.S., according to National Laboratory. What
LECTRIC vehicles B. 21% B. 20% the National Renewable Energy percentage of the country’s
are increasingly C. 51% C. 30% Laboratory. What percentage of electricity does the Electric Power
popular, despite D. 71% D. 40% visits to public charging stations Research Institute estimate EVs
some bumps in the E. 91% E. 50% end without the vehicle being will consume in 2030?
road. But how charged?
much do you really A. Up to 2%
know about them— 3. EVs are one of several green 5. What percentage of the light A. 10% B. Up to 5%
about their history, technologies whose growing vehicles (under 8,500 pounds) on B. 15% C. Up to 8%
or their impact on the energy grid popularity is putting a strain on the road in the U.S. in 2022 were C. 20% D. Up to 11%
and mineral supplies? It’s time to global copper supplies. How much wholly electric or plug-in hybrids? D. 25% E. Up to 15%
find out with our quiz. copper does an electric vehicle E. 30%
contain compared with a gaso- A. 5% or more
line-powered one? B. About 4% 10. When were the first small-
1. Which country/region had the C. About 3% 8. What is the target date under scale electric vehicles developed?
most fully electric and plug-in hy- A. About the same D. About 2% Environmental Protection Agency
brid vehicles on the road in 2022? B. About 1½ times as much E. About 1% rules for the U.S. to ban the sale A. 1770s to 1780s
C. More than two times as of new gasoline/diesel light vehi- B. 1820s to 1830s
A. U.S. much cles? C. 1880s to 1890s
B. Europe D. About 3½ times as much 6. Which company overtook D. 1930s to 1940s
C. China E. More than four times as Tesla to become the largest seller A. 2032 E. 1980s to 1990s
D. India much of fully electric vehicles for the B. 2033
E. Japan last quarter of 2023? C. 2034
D. 2035 Simon Constable is a writer
4. Electric vehicles are generally A. Ford E. There is no such target date. living in the Occitanie region of
KLAUS KREMMERZ

2. A charged-up EV will have heavier than gasoline-powered B. General Motors France. He can be reached at
zero emissions on the road, but cars and light trucks, largely C. Volkswagen Group reports@wsj.com.
that’s not the whole story. What because of the weight of their D. Toyota 9. In 2021 fully electric and plug-
percentage of U.S. electricity on batteries. That means their tires E. BYD in hybrid vehicles in the U.S. used

ANSWERS world, according to data

1. C.
China had 13.8 million EVs
and plug-in hybrids on the
road, by far the most of any
country and more than half
of all such vehicles in the
(L-R) TINGSHU WANG/REUTERS; BRANDON BELL/GETTY IMAGES
from the International En-
ergy Agency. Europe was
second with 7.8 million, then
the U.S. with three million.
The rest of the world com-
bined had 1.6 million.
2. B.
According to data from the
U.S. Energy Information Ad-
ministration, about 21% of
electricity in the country
came from renewables last
year. Sixty percent was pro-
duced by fossil fuels, mainly
natural gas and coal.
3. C.
An average electric vehicle
uses more than twice as
much copper as the average
gasoline or diesel-fueled ve-
hicle, according to the In-
ternational Energy Agency.
Some analysts have warned
of a copper supply shortage
over the next decade.
tires can impact an EV’s
driving range.
5. E.
A mere 1.2% of light vehi-
cles registered in the U.S.
that year were either EVs
or plug-in hybrids, according
to data from the Energy In-
formation Administration.
6. E.
China-based BYD sold more
than 526,000 EVs in the
quarter.
7. C.

4. B. One in five visits to a public

Electric-car tires degrade
20% faster than those on
cars with internal combus-
tion engines, according to
Kelley Blue Book, a Califor-
nia-based vehicle-valuation
and automotive-research
company. Tires are made
specifically for EVs to deal
with the extra weight, but
there are fewer choices in
the marketplace, and they
tend to be more expensive.
Growth in EVs is putting a strain on global copper supplies. Failure to use the correct
station ends without charg-
ing, mostly because the
chargers aren’t working,
sometimes for other rea-
sons including long lines, ac-
cording to a J.D. Power
study released last August.
8. E.
There is no EPA target date
for a total emissions ban
that would effectively re-
quire all new cars to be
fully electric. Last month
How EVs will affect the power grid is a growing concern.
the agency released its
toughest tailpipe-emissions
rules ever but gave auto-
makers more time to com-
ply than under previous pro-
posals.
9. D.
The institute estimates EVs
will consume 7% to 11% of
the electricity generated in
the U.S. in 2030. The pro-
jected growth of EVs in the
U.S. has sparked some con-
cerns about the effect on
the power grid.
10. B.
The first workable electric
cars were built in the period
1828 to 1835, according to
the Energy Department.
R6 | Monday, April 22, 2024
What You
Need to
Know Before
Buying a
Hybrid Car
Continued from page R1
tax incentives this year.
Instead, more buyers seeking
to trim their gas bill or lower
their contribution to greenhouse
gases are turning to a quarter-
century-old technology: hybrid
vehicles, which combine batter-
ies and an electric motor with a
conventional internal-combus-
tion gas engine. U.S. sales of hy-
brids topped those of EVs in
2023, about 1.4 million to 1.2 mil-
lion, according to Cox Automo-
tive, an information and technol-
ogy provider for the vehicle
industry. In response, carmakers
plan to turn out more hybrids.
But how practical are these
models? Will buyers save
money? And which hybrid varia-
tion is best? Below, we answer
these questions and others.
How do hybrid cars work?
In most hybrid vehicles, both the
gasoline engine and an electric
motor or motors can power the
wheels. The engine also turns a
generator that creates electricity.
The electricity feeds into a bat-
tery pack, which in turn provides
juice to the motor.
In addition, most hybrids re-
charge the battery in another
way: When you take your foot
off the accelerator or hit the
brakes, the car reverses the di-
rection of the electric motor,
which both slows the vehicle and
turns the motor into a generator
to create electricity. This process
U.S. market share by alternative-fuel type, quarterly
20.0%
17.5
15.0
12.5
10.0
7.5
5.0
2.5
0 A few qualify for a federal tax
2019 ’20 ’21
Source: Cox Automotive
is called regenerative braking.
But this type of hybrid, the most
common variation, can’t be
plugged in to refill the battery.
Sophisticated electronics fig-
ure out whether the engine or
motor—or both simultaneously
in some models—should propel
the vehicle at any time.
That sounds complicated.
What’s the point?
Hybrids get more miles per gal-
lon of gas because they aren’t
burning fuel all the time—the
engine can shut off while the
battery and electric motor do the
work, typically when traveling at
lower speeds, coasting on the
highway or in stop-and-go driv-
ing. Moreover, because the mo-
tor can assist the gas engine, the
engine can be less powerful than
in a similar gas-only car and
thus more fuel-efficient.
How much better mileage
does a hybrid get than a
regular gas-powered car?
It can be dramatically better,
about 40% more on average than
gas-only vehicles, according to
Consumer Reports.
The most efficient Toyota
Camry hybrid sedan gets 52
miles a gallon in combined city
and highway driving, according
to the Environmental Protection
Agency—nearly 63% more than
the most efficient nonhybrid
Camry’s 32 mpg. The hybrid
Hyundai Tucson Limited SUV
gets a combined 37 mpg, 32%
better than the nonhybrid’s 28
mpg.
The Energy Department offers
a tool to compare the mileage of
hybrid and nonhybrid versions of
the same model.
JOURNAL REPORT | ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
Are there other advantages
to hybrids?
Many accelerate more quickly
than their gas-powered equiva-
lents. And they are quieter in
low-speed driving when they run
only on battery power. “They
tend to drive a little nicer than
their gas-only counterparts,”
says Alex Knizek, manager of
auto testing and insights at Con-
sumer Reports. And despite their
more complicated innards they
can be more reliable than similar
gas-powered vehicles, Knizek
adds.
Moreover, unlike with an EV,
“there is no change in the con-
sumer experience,” says Stepha-
nie Valdez Streaty, director of
industry insights at Cox Automo-
tive. “I don’t have to worry
about charging, or range anxi-
ety.”
So what’s not to love about
a hybrid?
Most cost more than gas-engine
models, up to 20% more, accord-
ing to car-shopping site Ed-
munds, though they are less ex-
pensive than fully electric cars.
For example, the base price of
the Honda CR-V Hybrid, $34,050,
is about 15% higher than that of
the gas-only CR-V. Honda doesn’t
make an electric CR-V, but a sim-
ilar-size electric SUV, the Volks-
wagen ID.4, starts at $39,735.
But that price premium is fall-
ing as the cost of hybrids’ bat-
teries and other components has
declined. “I think we will con-
tinue to see hybrid premiums
shrink,” says Valdez Streaty.
However, there are no federal or
state tax incentives for these
non-plug-in hybrids.
Any other disadvantages to
hybrids?
This isn’t necessarily a disadvan-
tage but a quirk: They get better
mileage in city driving than on
highways—the opposite of gas-
engine-only cars. For instance,
Plug-in hybrid
Hybrid
EV
’22 ’23
the Lexus RX hybrid gets 37 mpg
in the city, but just 34 mpg on
the highway. So if most of your
daily driving is on an interstate,
you won’t see the same effi-
ciency benefit as people who do
mostly stop-and-go drives.
What’s behind the lower
highway efficiency?
The engine usually runs most of
the time on the highway, burning
gas, since the electric motor by
itself isn’t powerful enough to
maintain high speeds.
Can I earn back a hybrid’s
price premium through gas
savings?
Many owners can, depending on
how long they keep the car and
particularly if they do a lot of
Vehicle types
Conventional
Engine
Gas
Fuel Gasoline
Source: Electric Power Research Institute
stop-and-go driving. Consumer
Reports says the average pay-
back period is four years when
gas costs $3.35 a gallon and the
vehicle is driven 12,000 miles a
year. The more miles you drive
or the more expensive the gas,
the sooner the payback.
So should I consider a
hybrid even if I do mainly
highway driving?
Possibly, because most of them
get better highway mileage than
a similar gas-only vehicle. But
your payback period could be
much longer than for other types
of drivers.
I’m confused by the “plug-in
hybrids” some carmakers
sell. What are they?
Plug-in hybrids, which the indus-
try calls PHEVs, also combine a
gasoline engine with an electric
motor or motors. But their bat-
tery pack is much larger and so
holds more electricity. And un-
like a regular hybrid, you can
plug them into a wall outlet or
public charger to refill the bat-
tery, just as with an EV.
What’s the advantage of
plug-in hybrids?
The added battery capacity
means they can travel a certain
distance on the electric motor
only, ranging from 15 to 50 or so
miles depending on the model.
So around town or on short trips
it can seem like driving an EV,
with its silent ride and no tail-
pipe emissions. Once the battery
is nearly depleted, the gas en-
gine takes over and they operate
like a regular hybrid, so there’s
no worry about getting
stranded.
The electric driving range
means they can get greater gas
mileage during a trip than an or-
dinary hybrid, but that depends
on the length of the trip—a
shorter drive takes more advan-
tage of the gas-free range before
the engine starts up—and
whether it’s city or highway
driving. Plugging them in at pub-
lic chargers from time to time
while on the road also boosts the
mileage.
That efficiency is one reason
carmakers plan to build more of
them—plug-ins help their mak-
ers meet federal and state regu-
lations.
What else might entice me
to buy a plug-in model?
credit, up to $7,500, while some
states also subsidize plug-ins.
Models eligible for a federal
credit include the Ford Escape
Plug-In Hybrid and Jeep Grand
Cherokee 4xe. However, there
can be income restrictions for
these credits. Leasing a plug-in
can be another way to get the
value of the federal tax credit,
since the leasing company gets
the credit and can apply it to
your lease cost.
Are there drawbacks to
plug-in hybrids?
Yes. Absent a tax break, most
cost more than regular hybrids—
Toyota’s RAV4 Prime plug-in
SUV has a base price of $43,690,
compared with $31,725 for the
regular RAV4 Hybrid. And
in very cold weather, a plug-in is
likely to run out of battery
power faster than the stated
range, the same shortcoming
that affects EVs.
Plus, once you deplete the bat-
tery, you might get lower mile-
Hybrid electric Plug-in hybrid electric
Engine Engine
Electric Electric
motor Gas motor
Battery
Battery
Gas
Gasoline Gasoline and/or
electricity from grid
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
fuel than an ordinary hybrid
when in gas-engine-only mode.
Top-selling
hybrid vehicles in What else should I know
about plug-ins?
the U.S., 2023 The plug-in feature brings the
same charging issues EV owners
face: You need at least a stan-
dard, 120-volt electrical outlet
near where you park. And if you
don’t spring for installing a 240-
volt outlet at home, which can
cost hundreds of dollars to well
over $1,000, filling the battery
could take 12 hours or so.
Moreover, you have to remem-
ber to plug it in—anecdotal evi-
dence suggests that some plug-in
Honda owners don’t bother, since the
CR-V Hybrid cars run fine on gas. Of course,
191,294
that means you won’t see the
full gas savings, so the price pre-
mium you paid might have been
UNITS SOLD wasted.
Given their higher price,
who should consider a plug-
in hybrid?
It depends on several factors. Do
you have a place to plug one in
where you live or work? Does
your daily car use generally fall
within the battery-driving range,
Toyota or close to it, which will speed
up the payback of the added
RAV4 Hybrid
sticker price? And do you live in
145,895 UNITS SOLD
an area with moderate electricity
prices but high gas prices, which
also makes the return on your
investment come quicker?
The EPA offers a calculator
that helps consumers figure out
how much they would save on
gas and spend on electricity with
a plug-in.
So which type of vehicle
power system provides the
lowest fuel costs?
Generally an EV does, though
Honda there are variables including the
Accord Hybrid prices of gas and electricity and
91,064
your driving habits.
Here’s a comparison from the
EPA of average annual fuel costs,
UNITS SOLD based on 15,000 miles of driving,
for several versions of Toyota’s
RAV4 SUV: for the gas-engine
version, $1,700 to $1,750; for the
hybrid version, $1,300; and for
the plug-in hybrid version, $950.
There is no fully electric
RAV4, but the similar-sized
Volkswagen ID.4 AWD costs $750
a year in electricity, the EPA es-
timates.
Toyota
Some carmakers offer “mild
Sienna
hybrids.” What are they?
48,443
These vehicles have a smaller
electric motor and battery pack
than regular hybrids, which they
UNITS SOLD use almost entirely to supple-
ment the power of the gas en-
gine rather than propel the car
independently. Some can shut off
the engine while you slow the
car and run briefly on the bat-
tery, and use regenerative brak-
ing to recharge the battery, like a
hybrid. And in vehicles with a
start-stop feature that cuts the
engine while at a stoplight, the
car resumes driving on battery
Ford power for a short period before
Maverick Hybrid the engine restarts. These fea-
46,527
tures can raise the vehicle’s mpg
rating, another boost to carmak-
ers’ efforts to meet government
UNITS SOLD requirements.
Note: Most models also come in gasoline-only versions. What are the downsides of
Source: Cox Automotive mild hybrids?
They can’t drive solely with the
motor except intermittently,
age than a regular hybrid, espe- which means they don’t offer the
cially in highway driving. That’s quiet and lively driving of a reg-
because the extra batteries that ular or plug-in hybrid in battery-
plug-ins carry weigh hundreds of only mode. And they don’t pro-
pounds more, eating up more vide anywhere near the gas
efficiency of these hybrids.
So what is better for the
environment, driving any
Electric type of hybrid or an EV?
It’s complicated. While hybrids
Electric motor
use less gas overall than regular
gas-only cars, and thus put out
fewer greenhouse emissions,
they still pollute while in gas-en-
gine mode. Some environmental
groups have pushed back on car-
Battery makers that promote the green
advantages of hybrids.
EVs, by contrast, emit no pol-
lution themselves. But the elec-
tricity used to charge their bat-
teries could come from coal- or
gas-fired power plants that con-
tribute to global warming, so in
effect they aren’t totally clean,
either, in those cases.
Electricity from grid Bart Ziegler is a former Wall
Street Journal editor. He can be
reached at reports@wsj.com.
 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, April 22, 2024 | R7

JOURNAL REPORT | ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

BY DIETER HOLGER

S
TEPHANIE
Farinelli and her
husband never
thought they
would buy their
first home in a
subdivision.
Then they found
Whisper Valley, an enclave
nearly 20 miles outside down-
town Austin, Texas.
All of the houses in Whisper
Valley have solar panels, heat
pumps—and a geothermal bore-
hole around 350 feet below
ground. They are connected to a
communitywide geothermal grid
that pulls heat from the ground
to warm buildings in cold
weather and pumps heat out of
buildings and back to the ground
to cool them in hot weather.
Drawn to the environmental
appeal and promised energy sav-
ings, the couple bought a home
in the community last year.
Farinelli, a 54-year-old software
developer, says they pay a flat
$70 a month for the geothermal
system and around $60 a month
on average for electricity for a
roughly 2,000-square-foot home,
50% less than what they paid for
electricity at a smaller rental
apartment in Austin. Another
plus: There are no noisy outdoor New England utility Eversource is building a geothermal network in Framingham, Mass., linking together some residential and commercial buildings..
air-conditioning condensers.
“It’s just so quiet,” she says.
“You can hear the cows mooing

Thermal Energy Networks May

down the street. It’s crazy.”
Whisper Valley is part of a
new wave of projects linking
buildings together in so-called

Be About to Have Their Moment

thermal energy networks. These
systems, which offer a reliable,
efficient and climate-friendly al-
ternative to fossil-fuel-based
heating and cooling, haven’t
been widely deployed in the U.S.
yet. But as the U.S. moves to-
ward a goal of achieving net-
zero emissions by 2050, some
states, cities, utilities and devel-
opers are taking a closer look,
attracted by the technology’s po-
tential to reduce greenhouse-gas
emissions, cut heating bills, ease
strain on the electrical grid and
provide gas utilities with a new
business model in a cleaner en-
ergy future.
Momentum grows
Systems like the one in Whisper
Valley harness the relatively sta-
ble temperature below ground to
provide heating and cooling to
buildings. On cold days, fluid
flows through a closed under-
ground pipe loop, absorbing heat
from the earth and moving it to
and from connected buildings,
where a heat pump concentrates
(L-R) EVERSOURCE ENERGY; CITY OF FRAMINGHAM
These climate-friendly heating-and-cooling systems are drawing support
from states, cities, utilities and developers
networks they can become even
more so, allowing buildings to
share heat with each other and
store it underground for future
use.
Many thermal networks rely
on geothermal energy, but they
can be designed to exchange
heat with other sources, too,
such as sewer systems, data cen-
ters and bodies of water.
Thermal networks are sprin-
kled throughout the U.S., includ-
ing on some college campuses.
Now, fueled in part by federal
and state incentives encouraging
the expansion of low-carbon en-
ergy, utilities are starting to ex-
plore the feasibility of replacing
some of their natural-gas infra-
covering more than 40% of U.S.
natural-gas customers, have
joined the Utility Networked
Geothermal Collaborative, an in-
formal industry group exploring
how they can function as geo-
thermal providers, the decarbon-
ization coalition says.
The Framingham project, the
first of its kind in the U.S.,
strings together a neighborhood
of 31 residential buildings and
five commercial buildings and
will serve around 140 customers
to start. Eversource, the New
England utility behind it, says
the project has estimated costs
of $14 million after federal and
state clean-energy tax credits.
In New York, meanwhile, Con-
air out of the units and into the
network to cool them.
Data centers make sense as an
energy source because more are
getting built and they usually
run 24/7, supplying “very high-
quality waste heat” that is de-
pendable and at a high tempera-
ture, says Alexander Buell, Con
Edison’s director, portfolio plan-
ning and analysis.
New York is among a few
states that have passed legisla-
tion mandating that large utili-
ties propose thermal-energy-net-
work projects.
The business case
Eversource is still determining
high upfront costs, which can
vary, depending on geological
conditions for drilling, how
many geothermal wells are
needed, the energy efficiency of
the connected buildings, the cli-
mate and other considerations.
Generally, the balance of with-
drawing and depositing heat
might not be optimal in climates
where you need the heat or cool-
ing constantly throughout the
year, says Rob Best, an associate
at engineering consulting firm
Arup. It’s like a battery, he says,
in that “you are taking some out
and putting some back.”
The networks also are better
suited for more energy-efficient
buildings constructed in the past
20 years, he says, as heat pumps
don’t have to work as hard.
How quickly larger-scale proj-
ects will pay off in energy sav-
ings remains to be seen, but col-

and converts that energy into
hot air or hot water. On hot
days, the system works in re-
verse, pulling out heat from
buildings and storing it under-
ground.
Ground-source heat pumps,
which run on electricity, are the
most efficient heating-and-cool-
ing option on the market. And
when they are configured into
Earth Energy
Thermal energy networks rely on a closed-loop water pipe that circulates fluid throughout
the system. While designs vary, here's how a system like this might work.
A closed-loop water Excess heat from data centers,
pipe circulates fluid which usually run 24/7, can
throughout the system. add heat to the system.
Geothermal boreholes hundreds of
feet deep use the relatively constant
temperature of the earth to supply
heat to the system on cold days or
to store excess heat on hot days.
structure with thermal energy solidated Edison has three pilot
networks. projects that are approved for
Proposals for utility-scale pi- full design, including one in
lot projects are in the works in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighbor-
Massachusetts, New York and hood that would use excess heat
Minnesota, according to the from a data center to provide
Building Decarbonization Coali- hot water to 372 apartments,
tion, with one project, in Fra- and heating and cooling for 72
mingham, Mass., scheduled to apartments in four nearby multi-
come online in June. At the same family housing developments. On
time, around 24 gas utilities, hot days, the system can pull hot
A utility building Heat pumps serving the
pumps the fluid homes and businesses
through the loop. extract and amplify heat to
warm them or transfer heat
to the fluid to cool them.
In some systems, local bodies of water can cool
or heat the flowing water in the loop via a heat
exchanger, a device that uses a combination of
convection and conduction.
how rates would look under
thermal energy networks. For
now, it plans to charge custom-
ers a flat rate of $10 a month for
residential heating and cooling,
says Nikki Bruno, vice president
of clean technologies at Ever-
source. Customers also will have
to pay for electricity to power
the heat pumps, which the utility
installed.
Bruno says geothermal net-
works make business sense for
gas utilities because they require
similar skills for installing and
managing long-lived infrastruc-
ture. The pipes, made out of
plastic and metals, have 40- to
50-year lifespans, and the geo-
thermal boreholes can last up to
100 years or more. There are
currently fewer safety require-
ments compared with natural
gas, but regulations are still be-
ing developed.
“[When] we saw the pipe for
the network go in the ground, it
felt very, very familiar,” she says.
Unions representing pipe fit-
ters see the potential, too.
“Geothermal energy will not
only help us reach a net-zero
economy, it will create good-pay-
ing union jobs in the process,”
says Wendell Hibdon, director of
energy and infrastructure for the
United Association of Union
Plumbers and Pipefitters.
It isn’t often that you see gas
utilities, unions and environmen-
talists on the same page, says
Zeyneb Magavi, executive direc-
tor at HEET, a nonprofit pushing
to replace natural-gas infrastruc-
ture with geothermal networks.
When it happens, “you just
get a kind of momentum we are
not used to seeing,” she says.
Challenges remain
Still, getting a geothermal net-
work off the ground faces a
number of challenges, including
lege campuses that have
networked geothermal give some
idea. Colorado Mesa University,
which deployed a geothermal
network in 2008 that it is in the
process of expanding, says the
system produces $1.5 million en-
ergy savings a year and paid for
itself within 11 years. In addition
to geothermal, the university’s
system stores and withdraws
heat, as needed, from an Olym-
pic-size swimming pool.
In Whisper Valley, new homes
sell for around $300,000 to
$600,000, and home buyers can
get a one-time tax credit of
$10,000 via the 2022 Inflation
Reduction Act, according to
Douglas Gilliland, managing di-
rector at Taurus Investment
Holdings, the developer. He says
there is around $25,000 to
$35,000 worth of clean-energy
investments per home, including
for geothermal and solar.
The community, which sits on
around 2,000 acres, is still in its
infancy with around 500 houses
currently. Within 10 years, devel-
opers plan for 5,000 single-fam-
ily homes, 2,500 multifamily
units and 3 million square feet of
commercial space, such as gro-
cery and convenience stores.
Taurus aims to build more
geothermal communities across
the U.S., including an apartment
complex in Florida, according to
Gilliland, who says he is talking
with developers, state govern-
ments and cities nationwide who
are interested in the model.
“Builders have been trying to
find ways to make their homes
more and more efficient,” he
says. “By using geothermal, it re-
ally takes the pressure off the
builder in coming up with expen-
sive ideas.”
Dieter Holger is a writer in
Santa Cruz, Calif. He can be
reached at reports@wsj.com.
R8 | Monday, April 22, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

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