Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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The DOJ turns to a fraud law to target corporate DEI efforts. Plus, Lululemon's founder launches a proxy fight to shake up the struggling retailers' board. And facing new and evolving threats, Western militaries prepare to spend big on new defense technology.
We track and monitor incidents of suspected Russian hybrid warfare. And so these are acts of sabotage, subversion, provocations, disinformation, cyber attacks. And we've seen a significant increase
It's Monday, December 29th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal, and this is What's News, in your feed once a day over the holidays with top headlines and business stories moving the world today. We are exclusively reporting that Google and Verizon are among the targets of Justice Department investigations into DEI initiatives in the workplace.
The civil probes are being carried out under the False Claims Act. While the law is typically used in health care fraud cases, the DOJ contends that holding a federal contract while still considering diversity in hiring and promotions is in effect fraud against the government. Google and Verizon declined to comment.
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Chapter 2: What investigations is the DOJ launching against corporate DEI initiatives?
Copper's had an incredible year. Part of that is the AI boom, which requires all these data centers, which require a lot of power, which requires a lot of copper, because copper wire is so important to generating electricity and transmitting electricity. You then have possibility of tariffs coming into effect on copper, which would raise the price of copper coming into the US.
And then in general, when interest rates are being cut, as the Fed is doing, that tends to boost metals prices because Investors see metals as more attractive. They're a bit of a hedge against inflation. I mean, it really is the year of metals. You look at gold and silver, both had spectacular records and just surging into the end of the year.
People are riding these things higher and pushing them higher and higher.
All right, Alex. So multiple medals closing out the year here on a high note.
Chapter 3: How are evolving security threats impacting defense spending?
We've even had stories about people buying up silver coins to try and profit off of this rally, though it sounds like there's an effort underway to try to cool things down a bit.
People are trying to cash in on the frenzy and the prices. They're taking in grandma's silver to the silver dealers and At a market level where people trade these futures contracts, that's been going on as well. So today we have one of the biggest exchanges where contracts connected to gold and silver get traded.
The CME raised margin requirements on traders, meaning how much money they have to put down in order to trade these contracts. The money's there in case someone doesn't deliver on one of their contracts. And they raised the requirement to keep the exchange safer. And that's caused prices to reverse quite a bit. So it's a wild ride.
Stocks are slipping in early U.S. trading. Big tech stocks including Oracle, Tesla, and Nvidia are leading the early losses, though indexes remain near all-time highs. Among today's gainers is Lululemon, up around 1% at midday.
President Trump is touting progress toward ending the Ukraine war after a weekend call with Russia's Vladimir Putin and meeting with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky at Mar-a-Lago.
We had a terrific meeting. We discussed a lot of things. As you know, I had an excellent phone call with President Putin that lasted for over two hours. We discussed a lot of points. And I do think we're getting a lot closer, maybe very close.
Trump was light on specifics, though, and offered no signs of a breakthrough amid Russian objections to a ceasefire and its insistence that Ukraine cede certain occupied areas currently under Moscow's control. And today, Zelensky said differences remain over U.S. security guarantees meant to prevent Russia from attacking Ukraine again.
He says Trump has offered 15 years of guarantees, which Kyiv wants at least doubled. China staged major military exercises around Taiwan today, describing them as a stern warning against those interfering in Chinese affairs. The drills follow this month's approval of billions of dollars in U.S. arms sales to the island. Beijing promised more drills tomorrow.
And Thailand and Cambodia have agreed to a ceasefire to end three weeks of deadly clashes over their disputed border. That flare-up in fighting over the border and one earlier this year were the deadliest ever in the century-old conflict. It's unclear from the text of Saturday's truce if it will permanently end fighting, given no mention of the withdrawal of troops.
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Chapter 4: How does the False Claims Act relate to DEI programs?
Recently, China has also grown bolder in its approach to neighbors like Japan. And as if to highlight this new and more aggressive reality, the U.S. now has a rebranded Department of War. All the while, fighting raged on in Ukraine and for much of the year in Gaza, battlefields that served as laboratories for military experimentation.
And developments there are likely to continue in the year to come. Joining me now with more is Wall Street Journal defense industry reporter Alistair McDonald, as well as Matt Ince, strategic intelligence manager at geopolitical and security intelligence firm Dragonfly, which, like the Wall Street Journal, is part of Dow Jones.
Matt, looking back at this past year, what is standing out in terms of either the emergent threats or just changes we've seen among the world's largest militaries that are likely to shape global stability next year and beyond?
global and regional powers are increasingly prepared to use hard power. I'd also mention hybrid warfare, and particularly within the European context. We track and monitor incidents of suspected Russian hybrid warfare. And so these are acts of sabotage, subversion, provocations, disinformation, cyber attacks.
So last year, we saw a six-fold increase in the number of incidents recorded compared to the previous year. And as of October this year, we've seen the number of incidents recorded surpass that for the whole of last year.
And Alistair, the Ukraine war has been really a laboratory of military innovation, no?
Indeed, Western military tech companies are literally desperate to give their products away to frontline units and then be able to say, of course, they've been tested on the battlefield. The key tech being watched closely from around the world is obviously drone warfare, but that's in the air, land, and sea. Electronic warfare, by which, of course, I mean things like signals jamming and spoofing.
And air defense. And clearly what Ukraine has shown from the start is the need for cheap mass produced drones. So it used to be that militaries had precision and expensive missiles and mass and cheaper artillery. What drones have joined is to give both precision and mass.
And where you have cheap ways of attack, of course, you need cheap ways to defend rather than using a Pac-3 missile to bring down a drone. You want something a lot cheaper, which the Ukrainians have been quite good at perfecting.
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