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U.S. Steel shares plummet amid questions over the fate of its merger with Nippon Steel

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Pittsburgh-area union members throw support behind Harris as she opposes sale of U.S. Steel


Pittsburgh-area union members throw support behind Harris as she opposes sale of U.S. Steel

02:45

U.S. Steel shares plunged on Wednesday as Wall Street questioned whether its $14.1 billion deal with Japan’s Nippon Steel is at risk of derailing.

Shares of U.S. Steel plunged as much as 25% in afternoon trading after the Washington Post reported President Joe Biden is preparing to formally block the proposed acquisition. As of 2:35 p.m., shares of U.S. Steel were down $7.12, or 20%, to $28.48. 

At an afternoon briefing, a White House official downplayed the Washington Post report, which cited three people familiar with the president’s plans. In a statement, the White House cited a process of review by the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, or CFIUS, a panel chaired by the Treasury Secretary. 

“CFIUS hasn’t transmitted a recommendation to the President, and that’s the next step in this process,” a White House official stated.

—This is a developing story and will be updated.



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Biden to participate in final White House Christmas tree lighting of presidency

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President Biden will participate on Thursday in the annual Christmas tree lighting on the Ellipse, his last time taking part in the annual tradition before he departs the White House next year. 

Mr. Biden returned to the White House on early Thursday after spending the beginning of the week in Angola. Before he left, he ignited a firestorm when he issued a sweeping pardon for his son, Hunter, who had been convicted on federal drug and gun charges, and pleaded guilty to tax charges. When asked about the pardon earlier this week, the first lady, who attended every day of Hunter Biden’s Delaware trial, said “of course I support the pardon of my son.”

This year’s Christmas tree is a 35-foot Red Spruce from the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests in Virginia. A collection of 58 smaller trees are adorned with student-designed ornaments from every state and territory.  

The 102nd Tree Lighting Ceremony will be hosted by Mickey Guyton featuring performances by Adam Blackstone, Stephen Sanchez, James Taylor and Trisha Yearwood. Viewers can watch the full ceremony on CBS on Dec. 20

2024 White House holiday decorations 

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The State Dining Room of the White House is decorated for the holidays, Sunday, December 1, 2024. 

Official White House Photo by Erin Scott


The tree lighting is the last part of the White House holiday transformation, with this year’s theme being “A Season of Peace and Light.”

First lady Jill Biden unveiled the holiday decor in the East Room on Monday, speaking to volunteers who made the winter wonderland come to life. 

“As we celebrate our final holiday season here in the White House, we are guided by the values that we hold sacred: faith, family, and service to our country, kindness toward all of our neighbors, and the power of community,” she said.   

It takes over 300 volunteers from across the country along with about 9,810 feet of ribbon, 28,125 ornaments and 2,200 paper doves to deck the halls of the White House. 

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The State Dining Room of the White House is decorated for the holidays, Sunday, December 1, 2024. 

Official White House Photo by Erin Scott


The White House expects to welcome over 100,000 visitors during the holiday season. The first lady on Tuesday welcomed families of National Guard members to be the first to view the decorations. Upon arrival, visitors will see a Christmas tree dedicated to Gold Star families with six stacked stars representing all six branches of the military. Down the East Colonnade guests will be surrounded by bells “symbolizing the peaceful sounds of the holiday season.” In the East Room, a reflective canopy twinkles next to the chandeliers like snowfall as two large Christmas trees guard the main door. 

The first known Christmas tree inside the White House was in 1889 during the Benjamin Harrison administration, according to the White House. It was a much smaller affair with only a Christmas tree in the Second Floor Oval Room decorated with candles by President Harrison’s grandchildren. 

The annual gingerbread White House manages to combine 25 sheets of gingerbread dough, 10 sheets of sugar cookie dough, 65 pounds of pastillage, 45 pounds of chocolate, 50 pounds of royal icing, and 10 pounds of gum paste into the form of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

First Lady Jill Biden Previews The White House's Holiday Decor
The Gingerbread White House is displayed in the State Dining Room during a media preview of the 2024 holiday decorations at the White House on December 2, 2024 in Washington, D.C. 

Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images


Volunteers who bring the decorations to life 

Alisa Cooper de Uribe, a first-grade bilingual teacher at the New Mexico International School in Albuquerque and the 2021 New Mexico Teacher of the Year, was one of the volunteers who assembled the thousands of doves. She traveled to Washington, D.C., with her family to be part of the White House decorations team. 

“It’s a sisterhood, a brotherhood. It was a very collegial atmosphere,” Cooper de Uribe told CBS News. “And that was one of the things that I was really impressed by was how so many people who were gathered together without any knowledge of each other before, how well these people work together.” 

The holiday volunteers are teachers, military families, nurses, and small business owners from across the country who all apply before being selected for decor duty. Bright and early the day after Thanksgiving, the volunteers arrived at the White House to begin full days of glitter and garland before the first lady unveiled all their work. The Office of the First Lady sent out special invitations to State Teachers of the Year winners like de Uribe to join the holiday volunteer tradition. Some volunteers formed text chains and Facebook groups, intending to keep in touch long after the ornaments are taken down.

Centerpiece of the holiday decor 

The centerpiece of the holiday decor inside the Blue Room is a 18 ½ foot Fraser Fir that traveled from the Cartner Family of Cartner’s Christmas Tree Farm in North Carolina. The tree was one of the survivors as thousands of others were devastated when Hurricane Helene hit the Blue Ridge Mountains. The owners named it “Tremendous” as a tribute to the resilience of North Carolina communities affected by Hurricane Helene.

In the state dining room, there are ornaments on the Christmas tree that feature self-portraits of students, including four of de Uribe’s first graders. 

“It was an opportunity for the students to see themselves reflected in the White House and in this season, and that it’s their place, and it’s their opportunity to have their individual and unique selves and their culture shine out through their portraits,” de Uribe said.  



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Legendary Colombia cartel drug lord released from U.S. prison after 25 years: “He won’t be retiring a poor man”

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One of Colombia’s legendary drug lords and a key operator of the Medellin cocaine cartel has been released from a U.S. prison and is expected to be deported back home.

Records from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons show Fabio Ochoa Vásquez was released Tuesday after completing 25 years of a 30-year prison sentence.

Ochoa, 67, and his older brothers amassed a fortune when cocaine started flooding the U.S. in the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to U.S. authorities, to the point that in 1987 they were included in the Forbes Magazine’s list of billionaires. Living in Miami, Ochoa ran a distribution center for the cocaine cartel once headed by Pablo Escobar.

Although somewhat faded from memory as the center of the drug trade shifted from Colombia to Mexico, he resurfaced in the hit Netflix series “Narcos” true to form as the youngest son of an elite Medellin family into ranching and horse breeding that cut a sharp contrast with Escobar, who came from more humble roots.

Ochoa — who also went by the nicknames “Julio” and “Pepe,” according to the U.S. Justice Department — was first indicted in the U.S. for his alleged role in the 1986 killing of Drug Enforcement Administration informant Barry Seal – whose life was popularized in the 2017 film “American Made” starring Tom Cruise.

Cocaine Cowboys Early Release
This undated file photo shows Fabio Ochoa Vasquez. 

/ AP


He was initially arrested in 1990 in Colombia under a government program promising drug kingpins would not be extradited to the U.S. At the time, he was on the U.S. list of the “Dozen Most Wanted” Colombia drug lords.

Ochoa was arrested again and extradited to the U.S. in 2001 in response to an indictment in Miami naming him and more than 40 people as part of a drug smuggling conspiracy. Of those, Ochoa was the only one who opted to go to trial, resulting in his conviction and the 30-year sentence.

At the trial, the jurors were driven back and forth to court in vans with tinted windows to protect their anonymity, the BBC reported, and their identities were even kept from prosecutors and defense lawyers.

The other defendants got much lighter prison terms because most of them cooperated with the government.

The BBC reported that after Ochoa was arrested in 1999, he erected billboards in Medellin and Bogota declaring: “Yesterday I made a mistake. Today I am innocent.”

Richard Gregorie, a retired assistant U.S. attorney who was on the prosecution team that convicted Ochoa, said authorities were never able to seize all of the Ochoa family’s illicit drug proceeds and he expects that Ochoa will have a welcome return home.

“He won’t be retiring a poor man, that’s for sure,” Gregorie told The Associated Press.

Richard Klugh, a Miami-based attorney for Ochoa, declined to comment.

But in years of litigation, he argued unsuccessfully that his client deserved to be released early because his sentence far exceeded what was appropriate for the amount of seized cocaine that authorities could attribute to Ochoa.

Colombia remains the world’s biggest cocaine producer and exporter, mainly to the United States and Europe. Last year, the South American country set a new record for cocaine production and cultivation of the coca leaf it is made from.

Just last week, the Colombian Navy said authorities from dozens of countries seized over 225 metric tons of cocaine in a six-week mega-operation where they unearthed a new Pacific trafficking route.



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House task force to hold final hearing on Trump assassination attempts

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Washington — Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe is set to testify Thursday before the bipartisan House task force investigating the assassination attempts against President-elect Donald Trump as the panel prepares to wrap its investigation into the incidents that sent shockwaves through the country in the lead up to the presidential election. 

The panel, which the House voted to establish earlier this year, is tasked with looking into the security failures during the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, and the foiled attempt in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sept. 15. The lawmakers will also make recommendations to prevent future attacks. Thursday’s hearing will begin at 9:30 a.m. on Capitol Hill.

The Secret Service came under intense scrutiny in the wake of the initial attack, and its director at the time, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned in July after a bruising day of testimony before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. Rowe’s testimony on Thursday marks his first public appearance before the task force, which heard testimony from local law enforcement and a former Secret Service agent at a hearing earlier this year. Rowe appeared before other congressional committees after he took control of the agency.

Made up of seven Republicans and six Democrats, the panel is expected to submit a report of its findings in the coming weeks. Following Thursday’s hearing, the panel will hold a business meeting to consider the final report, the task force said. 

Rep. Madeleine Dean questions witnesses during the first hearing of the Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump in the Longworth House Office Building on Sept. 26, 2024, in Washington, D.C.
Rep. Madeleine Dean questions witnesses during the first hearing of the Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump in the Longworth House Office Building on Sept. 26, 2024, in Washington, D.C. 

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images


The committee released a 53-page interim report in October focused on the July 13 incident, deeming it “preventable,” while outlining communication and planning shortcomings. The investigation “clearly shows a lack of planning and coordination between the Secret Service and its law enforcement partners,” the task force said at the time, noting that the findings were preliminary. 

Trump was speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13 when a gunman opened fire, with a bullet grazing the former president’s ear. Secret Service snipers shot and killed the gunman, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks

The panel outlined in the interim report that “fragmented lines of communication” allowed the gunman to “evade law enforcement,” climb onto the roof of a nearby building and fire eight shots. The report claims that “federal, state, and local law enforcement officers could have engaged Thomas Matthew Crooks at several pivotal moments.”

The task force also alleged in the report that responsibilities were not “effectively” confirmed by the Secret Service with local partners ahead of the shooting. Witnesses who participated in a walkthrough of the area days before the assassination attempt called it disorganized. 

When the interim report was released, the panel said it had received relevant information from other House committees, conducted 23 transcribed interviews with witnesses from state and local agencies, and obtained evidence in response to three subpoenas to federal, state and local agencies. Last month, the panel also issued subpoenas to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for testimony from two ATF employees. 

The panel has also sought information from federal agencies regarding the Sept. 15 incident. On that day, Trump was golfing at his course in West Palm Beach when the Secret Service arrested a man with an AK-47-style weapon who was within a few hundred yards of the president-elect. The man, Ryan Wesley Routh, has been charged with attempted assassination of a political figure in addition to firearms charges. 



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