Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The U.S. escalates pressure on Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro with two Coast Guard interventions against oil tankers over the weekend. Plus, Charlie Kirk's empire backs JD Vance for 2028.
Chapter 2: How does the U.S. Coast Guard's intervention affect Venezuelan oil transport?
And lawmakers leave the fight over extending health care subsidies until the new year, putting many Americans in limbo.
As many as 20 million Americans could be in for a surprise with respect to the cost of their health care coverage in the next year.
It's Monday, December 22nd. I'm Daniel Bach for The Wall Street Journal. And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. U.S. officials say the Coast Guard is on the trail of another tanker ship involved in transporting oil from Venezuela, which comes after the U.S.
seized a second ship over the weekend as part of its campaign to block vessels moving the country's crude. The ship under pursuit has been identified by two officials as the Bella 1, which was sanctioned last year by the U.S. Its registered owner didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. On Saturday, the Coast Guard boarded a ship that had been docked in Venezuela.
The Centuries was flying a Panamanian flag, and according to shipping data provider Kepler, it wasn't on a U.S., EU, U.K., or United Nations sanctions list.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of Congress not renewing ACA subsidies?
In a social media post, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the ship was, quote, a falsely flagged vessel operating as part of the Venezuelan shadow fleet. Its registered owner also didn't immediately respond to calls seeking comment.
Back in the U.S., a top Justice Department official said the agency has temporarily removed some of the Jeffrey Epstein files that were released on Friday to address complaints from victims about the agency's failure to redact their images or details.
More than a dozen photos were removed on Saturday from the latest trove, which was criticized by lawmakers for not including all of the DOJ's materials and because some of the documents were heavily redacted. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch told NBC's Meet the Press that the agency was not redacting the names of famous people associated with the late sex offender.
Blanch, a former personal lawyer to President Trump, said the agency would re-release the images it pulled, along with additional material in coming weeks, to comply with a mandate from Congress.
You lead an incredible movement at Turning Point, and I will fight alongside you and President Trump and every patriot in this room to defend the country that we so dearly love.
Vice President J.D.
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Chapter 4: What are the potential impacts of rising healthcare premiums on Americans?
Vance speaking in Phoenix yesterday, closing out the first major event held by Turning Point USA since the death of founder Charlie Kirk. Vance's remarks came just days after Charlie's widow Erica Kirk endorsed his potential 2028 presidential run.
Vance hasn't officially declared his intent to run for president, but behind the scenes, Turning Point is already setting up infrastructure to boost a potential bid. That includes planning to put representatives in every county in Iowa ahead of the presidential primary to help secure the important early state.
CBS News is defending a decision to pull a planned 60-minute segment over the weekend, looking at the El Salvador maximum security prison where the Trump administration sent hundreds of Venezuelan migrants. In an email to colleagues seen by the journal, CBS correspondent Sharon Alfonsi said that the decision was, in her view, a political one rather than an editorial call.
A spokesman for CBS said in a statement that the story needed additional reporting and that it would run in a future broadcast. Well, after three straight interest rate cuts, Fed officials are divided over the path forward. So to help shed light on their thinking and how they're interpreting recent data, our colleagues on WSJ's Take on the Week sat down for an interview with Beth Hammack.
She's a former top banker at Goldman Sachs and now president of the Cleveland Fed. And as of next year, will also get a vote on the Fed's rate-setting committee. Hammock is a Fed hawk by reputation and said she doesn't see any need to change interest rates for several months, advocating instead for a pause to see how this year's cuts play out in the economy.
There'll be a lot of new variables coming to play. We have the recent... fiscal bill that was passed over the summer. There'll be some positive boost, I think, happening in the economy coming from that. And it'll be important to see how the tariff story plays out. We'll be nearly a year on by the time we get to March. And so I think by springtime, if it really is a one-time price level shift,
we should start seeing inflation coming back down again around that time towards the end of the first quarter. So I think it'll be pretty soon that we'll be able to see more how the economy is unfolding. And it'll give us good insights as to whether we need to lean in more to that labor side because that softening is continuing or whether inflation is really being persistent above our target.
And that's where we need to focus more.
Hammack also shared her take on the so-called neutral rate, AI, and the jobs market. And if you want to take a listen, you can check out the latest episode of WSJ's Take on the Week. We've left a link in our show notes. And in other news investors will be paying attention to, robotics guru Sterling Anderson has joined the race to run General Motors.
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