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U.S. Steel shares plummet amid questions over the fate of its merger with Nippon Steel
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.
CBS News
Russia arrests suspected members of infamous Colombia cartel, seizes $55 million of cocaine bound for Europe
Russia said Friday it had arrested suspected members of a Colombian cartel trying to smuggle tens of millions of dollars worth of cocaine into Europe.
The suspects were caught loading 570 kilograms (1,250 pounds) of the illegal substance into a container intended for shipment to the European Union, according to Russia’s FSB security services.
The FSB said the smugglers brought the drugs into Russia from Peru hidden in a vehicle, and that they were members of Colombia’s infamous Cali cartel.
“570 kilograms of cocaine were seized, the wholesale value of which on the Russian black market is 1.5 billion rubles, the retail value exceeding 5.5 billion rubles ($55 million),” the FSB said in a statement on its website.
Colombia is 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 the drug is made from.
Russia has a zero tolerance policy towards drug use and smuggling, handing heavy sentences to those convicted of trafficking small amounts of narcotics.
Russian customs seized almost three tons of cocaine in the first nine months of the year, according to authorities.
“This is already the fifth batch of Latin American cocaine seized by security agencies this year on Russian territory, intended for further transit to EU countries,” the FSB said.
The Cali cartel controlled up to 80 percent of the cocaine trade to the United States at its peak in the mid-1990s, according to U.S. authorities. In 2022, the former head of the Cali cartel died in a prison in North Carolina.
The seizure of Europe-bound drugs by Russian authorities was announced one day after Portuguese police said they had dismantled “one of the largest” cocaine laboratories in Europe as part of an operation that led to seven arrests and the seizure of some 1,500 kilograms of the drug. The investigation was launched a year ago following information from Colombian, Spanish and U.S. authorities.
Last week, police in the Balkans arrested 11 alleged members of a criminal syndicate responsible for smuggling cocaine from South America to Europe. Among the people arrested was a suspect who is also wanted for his alleged membership in the notorious “Pink Panthers” jewel heist gang.
CBS News
Who is Daniel Penny? What we know about the man charged in Jordan Neely’s death
NEW YORK — Daniel Penny is standing trial in New York City in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely on the subway last spring.
Jury deliberations are underway, as five men and seven women weigh whether Penny is guilty of second-degree manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide in Neely’s death.
If convicted on the manslaughter charge, he faces up to 15 years in prison.
Here’s everything we’ve learned about Penny over the course of the case.
Daniel Penny, a Marine veteran
Penny served four years with the U.S. Marine Corps, and his platoon sergeants testified at trial. They spoke about the Marine Corps values of honor, courage and commitment, saying if a member does not uphold those values, they will not be promoted.
Penny’s attorneys asked if he had a reputation of being “calm and peaceful,” to which one sergeant replied, “absolutely.”
“You have to be someone who displays empathy above reproach,” he said.
Another sergeant added if you “give him a task, I know it’s going to be completed and done right.”
Penny’s martial arts instructor from the Marine Corps, Joseph Caballer, also testified about the chokehold he used on Neely, saying Marines are trained not to hold a choke longer than five seconds. On cross examination, the instructor said five seconds is not applicable in the real-world and each “situation dictates.”
Caballer said properly applying a choke would “render your aggressor unconscious,” then Marines are told to release pressure immediately, otherwise it “could lead to injury or death.”
He went on to testify about the differences between a “blood choke” and an “air choke,” and walked the jury through video of the chokehold that was used, frame by frame. In one particular shot, Caballer said it appeared Penny’s forearm was pressing against Neely’s trachea.
“Is this an improper blood choke?” prosecutors asked.
“Yeah,” Caballer said.
“Is it potentially lethal?” prosecutors asked.
“Yes, absolutely,” Caballer said.
On cross, Caballer said it was hard to tell if pressure was being applied at certain times and that during a struggle, arm placements can shift. Caballer added he couldn’t tell from the video whether Penny was ever applying a “full” blood or air choke.
Going to school for architecture
After leaving the Marines, Penny took time to travel and then applied to colleges, his mother, Gina, said on the stand. He was 24 years old at the time of the incident.
His mother said he was pursuing a degree in architecture from the New York City College of Technology and planned to later transfer. He was living at an apartment in the East Village, teaching swim lessons at a gym and working at a restaurant in Brooklyn.
She also said he was taught honesty, humility and kindness growing up, did well in school and sports, and played the bass in a couple Long Island orchestras. She looked at him while testifying, saying she loved him with all her heart.
“Of course I would be here for my son,” she said.
Penny spoke in a video statement after the incident
Penny released a video statement through his attorney in the days following the deadly encounter. He said he was acting in self-defense as Neely acted erratically on an F train in SoHo.
“The three main threats that he repeated over and over was, ‘I’m going to kill you,’ ‘I’m prepared to go to jail for life,’ and ‘I’m willing to die,'” Penny said in the video. “I was scared for myself, but I looked around, I saw women and children. He was yelling in their faces … I didn’t want to be put in that situation, but I couldn’t just sit still and let him carry out these threats.”
He said he was not trying to kill Neely and race was not a factor.
“Some people say I was trying to choke him to death, which is also not true. I was trying to restrain him. You can see in the video, there’s a clear rise and fall of his chest,” said Penny. “I didn’t see a Black man threatening passengers. I saw a man threatening passengers, a lot of whom were people of color.”
Penny was charged 11 days after the incident and released on $100,000 bail. An online fundraiser was set up to help with his legal expenses, garnering more than $3,222,053 to date.
Who was Jordan Neely?
Neely was a 30-year-old subway performer known for his Michael Jackson impersonations.
Records show he struggled with homelessness and mental illness after his mother was murdered in 2007.
“When they choked Jordan, they put their arms around all of us. All of us have the right to live,” Rev. Al Sharpton said at his funeral.
His death sparked days of protests and questions about how New York City responds to people in mental health crisis.
“Jordan was not annoying someone on the train. Jordan was screaming for help,” Sharpton continued. “We keep criminalizing people with mental illness.”
“Jordan was a New Yorker. He was loved. He was cared for. He was seen by this community. He contributed to this community,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“We can’t just say you’re allowed to choke someone to death, and that Jordan Neely’s life mattered,” Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said. “We gotta talk about how he died, why he died that way, and also the failures that happened long before that.”
CBS News New York learned Neely agreed to out-patient mental health treatment as part of a plea deal in a prior arrest, but he left the program within a matter of weeks. As a result, a bench warrant was issued for his arrest.
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