--:-- Caitlin McCabe: The crypto landscape changes daily. Keep up with some of the best launches and new tech all in one place on your commute. Join Ripple for a series of crypto conversations with some of the best in the business. Learn how traditional banking benefits from blockchain and crypto, or how our digital asset infrastructure enables 24-7 cross-border payments and settlements, or how you're probably already using blockchain technology without even realizing it. Join Ripple and host David Schwartz on Blockstars, the podcast. It's happening with Ripple.
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--:-- Caitlin McCabe: The Supreme Court extends a pause of food assistance payments as a bill to reopen the government works its way through the House. Plus, the Trump administration explores new rules that would upend shareholder voting. The proxy firms have become kind of these boogeymen for especially for investors with more of a right wing sensibility in terms of politics. And we take a look at whether Harvard is handing out too many A's. It's Wednesday, November 12th. I'm Caitlin McCabe for The Wall Street Journal, and here's the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: The Supreme Court has said the Trump administration can continue for now to withhold full food assistance benefits for November, extending a temporary order that came from Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson last week. The new order will expire just before midnight tomorrow. The House is set to vote as soon as today on a measure to reopen the government, which would then head to President Trump's desk. Once passed, the package would restore programs such as SNAP.
--:-- Ryan Sprankle: My store in Catanning, Pennsylvania gets 25 percent of its revenue from SNAP. We should be slammed right now, but I mean, you can see we're not. I mean, so sales not being there, you know, affects everybody's wages, affects everybody's hours. And let's face the facts too. The people that should be here buying the product, they're not buying the product, so they're going without the product. They're going without meals.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: Fast-moving court rulings have meant that food aid for Americans has been inconsistent across states. At least 16 states paid out SNAP benefits in full after a U.S. district judge ordered the government last week to do so. Others have drawn from state funding to disperse some money or increased aid to food banks, while another group of states has said they are waiting for the matter to be resolved in the courts.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: Now, we're exclusively reporting that the Fannie Mae watchdogs that were fired from their job have been probing if Trump appointee Bill Pulte had improperly obtained mortgage records of key Democratic officials, including New York Attorney General Letitia James. People familiar with the Matter say Fannie's Ethics and Investigations Group had received internal complaints alleging that senior officials had improperly directed staff to access the mortgage documents.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: The investigators were probing who made the orders whether Pulte had the authority to seek the documents and whether or not they had followed proper procedure. Since being installed at the top of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which is normally a sleepy administration post, Pulte has been investigating alleged mortgage fraud, including against some of Trump's political opponents.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: Letitia James, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, and Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California, have all been targeted for mortgage fraud investigations and have denied wrongdoing. Responding to a request for comment, a spokesman for the FHFA told us that, quote, the anonymous sources in the story are attempting to obstruct the criminal justice system by completely fabricating false and defamatory claims.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: The White House is exploring new measures to curb the influence of proxy advisors and index fund managers, something that has been a pain point for high-profile CEOs, including Elon Musk and Jamie Dimon. We're exclusively reporting that Trump administration officials are discussing at least one executive order that would restrict proxy advisor firms.
--:-- Alex Frango: That could include a broad ban on shareholder recommendations or an order blocking recommendations on companies that have engaged proxy advisors for consulting work. There's a broad range of criticisms of the proxy firms, but a couple of the areas tend to do with recommendations that the proxy firms make about corporate governance, meaning how a company is run, things like executive pay, whether a company should have a separate chairman from a CEO, but also things related to diversity on boards, environmental policies.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: And they, for instance, recently Elon Musk at Tesla, there was a vote whether to give him this potential $1 trillion pay package. Shareholders had to vote on it. And these companies basically provide a voter guide, a recommendation. And the reason for that is that a lot of shareholders are passive funds. They own lots and lots of stocks and they don't want to be held liable for voting the wrong way by their own shareholders.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: So they outsource this process of researching the proposals of these companies to these proxy firms who say, hey, vote this way. And then they just vote that way and get on with their day. Alex says officials are also exploring limits on how index fund managers are allowed to vote with the aim of limiting the power of Wall Street giants, including BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street.
--:-- Alex Frango: What the White House is looking at here is the incredible concentration of influence of these index funds. So you and I might own a S&P 500 index fund. We're not really paying attention. It owns all of these companies. The fund manager actually is holding on to the stock and gets to vote. And some of these companies have set up some processes so that individual investors like you and I can vote on, you know, a resolution that's going on at General Motors or Tesla or United Airlines or NVIDIA, but that it's cumbersome and there remains too much concentration of power.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: These index funds some of whom own you know 30 of a company if you put them all together and are able to kind of drive the agendas at the boards of these companies.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: After Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk struck a deal with the White House to expand Medicare coverage of their popular obesity drugs in exchange for slashing net prices, the pharma companies are looking at a mass market opportunity potentially worth billions of dollars. With Medicare and potentially Medicaid coverage, the number of people covered for GLP-1 drugs could roughly double over the next few years.
--:-- David Wehner: Lilly and Novo Nordisk are essentially trading price for volume. They're accepting smaller margins in exchange for a much bigger, more stable market. Analysts expect net prices to fall by about 25 to 30 percent once rebates and government discounts are factored in. The deal raises the bar for everyone else. Rivals like Pfizer, Roche and Amgen will have a harder time catching up because Lilly and Novo Nordisk can afford to sell cheaper and still make money at scale.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: It could also squeeze out compounders and telehealth startups that have been thriving on the fact that these drugs are being sold for really high prices and that many people lack insurance coverage for the branded drugs. Once you have these drugs being sold at slightly lower prices, that makes it less worthwhile for someone to say, go to him's and hers and get the compounded version of the drug rather than buying it directly from the manufacturer where they know the drug is for sure FDA inspected.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: The timing of the deal is favorable for the drug companies as well, with both Novo Nordisk and Lilly preparing to launch oral versions of their drugs. The Trump administration is also granting the company's special priority review vouchers through the Food and Drug Administration, intended to speed up the agency's decision process.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: Coming up, Trump moves to drill baby drill off the coast of California And is Harvard doling out too many A's? Find out after the break.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: When you're an exec, you need accurate employee data fast. Introducing IWANT from Paycom, the industry's first command-driven AI engine in a single database and your shortcut to smart work. Learn more at Paycom.com.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: The U.S. Navy's largest aircraft carrier has arrived in waters near Latin America as the Trump administration continues to turn up the heat on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. While the president has expressed reservations about taking military action against Venezuela, the firepower of the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group means the U.S. could attack targets in the country, including Venezuela's air defenses.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: That goes well beyond what is needed to strike the small boats that the Trump administration says are being used to smuggle drugs. In response, Venezuela has started extensive military exercises with the aim of safeguarding its airspace. Speaking on state television, the country's defense minister, Padrino Lopez said the military is prepared to defend their homeland, whatever the threat or intensity of an attack is.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: To date, the U.S. has carried out 19 strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and in the eastern Pacific Ocean killing 76 people The Trump administration is poised to unveil a plan that would allow oil drilling off the California coast We reporting that the announcement could come later this week and is expected to include a proposal for drilling around Alaska and the eastern Gulf of Mexico too.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: The push to expand oil production offshore is part of President Trump's campaign pledge to drill baby drill and follows a concerted phase out of federal tax incentives for renewable energy. Julia Petroni covers energy markets for Dow Jones Newswires. She says Trump's campaign against green energy is even stretched to the International Energy Agency.
--:-- Julia Petroni: The IEA's influential annual report has several models for future energy demand. And crucially, this morning's outlook reintroduced a scenario that had been scrapped years ago. The IEA has repeatedly estimated oil demand will peak before 2030. 2030, but this new scenario suggests that growth could persist well into the middle of the century.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: The reason why we care is that peak oil consumption has been a key issue in energy discussions, with different views across the industries on when that might happen. Now, this scenario assumes a slowdown in the adoption of electric vehicles, largely due to a lack of policy support in some regions. As a result, oil demand is expected to keep growing into the 2030s and beyond.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: Under the scenario where the growth of renewables is much slower, global temperatures are projected to rise by nearly three degrees Celsius by the end of the century, which is obviously well above the international target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: And finally, Harvard University has built a reputation for being one of the hardest American universities to get into. But as it turns out, once you're in, you've got a good chance of getting an A. A recent internal report found that about 60% of grades were A's during the 2024 to 2025 school year, up from about 25% in 2005 to 2006.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: The median GPA upon graduation is now 3.83, up from 3.29 in 1985. Meanwhile, the average time students spend studying outside class has barely changed, hovering around six hours a week. The report includes recommendations to curb grade inflation, and Harvard is considering introducing a limited number of A-plus grades.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: It's not going down well on campus, prompting uproar from students who say they already study a lot, sleep very little, and face immense stress to perform academically. Grade inflation has drawn scrutiny from President Trump, who earlier this year asked schools to, quote, commit to grade integrity when he asked colleges to sign sweeping agreements about their operations in exchange for federal funding advantages.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: And that's it for What's News for this Wednesday morning. Today's show is produced by Daniel Bach. Our supervising producer was Sondra Kilhoff. And I'm Caitlin McCabe for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening. Thank you.
