WSJ What’s News - Commerce Secretary Lutnick Says He Visited Epstein’s Island on a Family Trip

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

P.M. Edition for Feb. 10. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is facing calls to resign over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, which a recent batch of files shows was more extensive than he previously revealed and included a visit to Epstein’s island. Plus, the U.S. is producing lots of natural gas, but American factories say they are increasingly cut off from fuel during the coldest winter days. Journal commodities reporter Ryan Dezember tells us why it’s a pipeline problem and how manufacturers manage when their gas supply is interrupted. And reporter Jasmine Li discusses the matchmaking algorithm that’s taking the Stanford campus by storm. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How are the U.S. businesses of Philip Morris International invested in America? We're invested in advancing science, giving adults who smoke better options. We're invested in American manufacturing, helping local economies thrive. We're invested in community, supporting military veterans and their families, disaster relief, and economic empowerment. Because we're proud to be invested in America. See how at uspMI.com. This year's breathing temperatures carry risks for U.S. factories that depend on natural gas.

Plus, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik faces calls for his resignation over ties to Jeffrey Epstein that were revealed in the latest batch of the Epstein files. I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with that person. Okay? And it's almost Valentine's Day. Would you let a matchmaking algorithm find a date for you? Thousands of Stanford students are obsessed.

It's Tuesday, February 10th. I'm Alex Oceloff for the Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. Paramount has sweetened its hostile offer to acquire all of Warner Brothers Discovery. Warner has chosen a rival offer from Netflix. WSJ Deputy Media editor Jessica Tungle

breaks down how the The latest move from Paramount raises the stakes in the Hollywood mega deal. So Paramount's enhanced offer today does address a lot of Warner's concerns, including Paramount has agreed to pay the $2.8 billion breakup fee if Warner terminates with Netflix. The sweetener they added today, it's called a ticking fee, which says for every quarter that they do not close, that goes past 2026, they will pay what amounts to around $650 million to shareholders. per quarter. The point of the ticking fee is they're saying we're putting our money where our mouth is. This deal will get regulatory approval in 2026. So that's their sweetener. Warner has said we will review it and we'll get back to you, but right now we're not changing our recommendation.

They still have a deal with Netflix. Jessica says she's spoken to some Warner shareholders and there's a sense that the new offer from Paramount isn't going to change minds. Even shareholders that do want this to change things think Paramount. has to up its bid overall right now for Warner's Board to engage. Target is laying off about 500 workers in district offices and supply chain sites and says that'll let it invest in more workers in its stores. The retailer also named a new head of merchandising and chief operating officer. Michael Fidelke, who officially started as CEO this month, wants to improve the shopping experience

and get sales growing again. New data out today from the Commerce Department show that U.S. retail sales were flat in December, disappointing economists who had expected growth and feeding into concerns about a fragile consumer economy. Speaking of the economy, whether you're hiring or firing or looking for work, we'd love to hear from you. To share your view on the job market or to ask a question of one of our reporters, email a voice note to WNPOD at WSJ.com, or leave us a voicemail on 212-416-4328. Make sure to include your full name and location so we can use your comments on the show. In U.S. markets, the S&P and NASDAQ both dropped, with the NASDAQ leading the losses and closing down 0.6%. The Dow edged higher. And in the latest AI worries, a financial technology firm said it had an AI tool that could interpret financial documents and create personalized tax strategies that weighed on financial firms with big wealth management businesses.

Shares of Charles Schwab, Raymond James, and LPL Financial all fell 7% or more. In earnings out today, Spotify reported better than expected earnings in the fourth quarter. Its premium subscribers grew 10% from the same quarter a year ago, beating the company's guidance. Shares closed up nearly 15%. Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, has a content partnership with Spotify. And Coca-Cola says it's selling products at different prices and sizes to respond to customers who are financially stretched. But there's no big shake-up of its pricing strategy in store. For the fourth quarter, higher prices and sales volumes lifted revenue by 2%.

But analysts expected stronger growth. Its shares fell about 1.5% today. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik says he visited Jeffrey Epstein's private island in 2012. Lutnik had previously said that he had cut off ties with a convicted sex offender years before that visit. During a Senate hearing today, Lutnik said he was on the island only briefly. My wife was with me, as were my four children. and nannies. I had another couple with, they were there as well, with their children, and we had lunch on the island. That is true for an hour, and we left with all of my children,

with my nannies and my wife, all together. We were on family vacation. The latest batch of Epstein files show that Lutnik, the former CEO of Wall Street firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, had a more extensive relationship with Epstein than he had previously revealed. As well as plans for the island visit, the files appear to show Lutnik emailing with Epstein, his former neighbor on Manhattan's Upper East Side, arranging calls and being scheduled for a drink in 2011. Several lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are calling for Lutnik's resignation. Lutnik said today that he's done nothing wrong. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt says that President Trump supports Lutnik. And we're exclusively reporting that the U.S. is sending 200 troops to help Nigeria fight Islamist militants in the coming weeks.

They'll help train Nigerian troops and provide technical guidance. A handful of U.S. military personnel were already in the country to help local forces identify targets for military strikes. Nigerian and U.S. officials said that the Americans wouldn't be in combat. The U.S. has become more involved in Nigeria's fight against Islamist militants, after sharp words from the White House. President Trump has accused Nigeria of failing to protect Christians from terror attacks. Coming up, when temperatures fall, why factories are finding themselves, frozen out of the flow of natural gas.

That's after the break. Sharpen your perspective on the future of technology and business in 2026. Take a look inside the new edition of ThoughtWorks Looking Glass and discover how business leaders can prepare their organizations for the future and make informed decisions that have a lasting impact. Find out more at ThoughtWorks.com slash Lookingglass. A big promise of the shale drilling boom was that natural gas, would be cheap and plentiful in the U.S.

Now, 15 years later, there's record amounts of gas production, but there's a problem. Manufacturers say they can't get gas when they need it to power their factories, especially when it's freezing out. Ryan DeSember covers commodities for the journal and joins me now. Ryan, you write that factories are getting squeezed

out when there's a lot of demand for natural gas, like when it's really cold. Why is this plentiful supply not getting to the factories that need it? Well, the simple answer is we don't have enough pipelines, and we don't have them in the right places. The country's natural gas plumbing was really set up in an era when we were bringing it from the coasts, from the Gulf of Mexico, down by Louisiana and Texas.

The shale boom opened up all these gas fields in Appalachia and other places, and we haven't really caught up the infrastructure necessary to deliver it where it's needed. So we have a ton of gas, and then in periods of high demand, some people, mostly factories, can't get it. So it's getting to homes. It's getting to the places. where it's exported, why isn't it reaching manufacturers? So the problem manufacturers have is that they're sort of last in line. If you think about utilities or your gas provider, they keep it flowing to your home and to, you know, grocery stores. You don't want food spoiling. You don't want grandma freezing to death

or overheating in the summer. And then you have the exporters who are taking an increasing share, shipping it overseas. Because of the nature of their business, they get long-term contracts to match with pipelines and utilities that send them the gas, manufacturers can't really guarantee that they're going to sell X amount of products 10, 15 years from now. They go sort of year by year. It just doesn't really line up with the contracting system for the pipelines, and it sort of leaves them squeezed out when demand is high, and the pipe is full of gas that's been reserved,

and so manufacturers are getting shut off. In your story, you quote a trade group executive saying that pipelines restricted the flow of gas to manufacturers more than 40 times last year. Why is an interruption in their gas supply a problem for manufacturers? Interruption is sort of two things, one, where you physically go out, close the valve into your factory, you're not allowed to have gas right now. And then there's pricing mechanisms where you're used to getting gas for $3.50 a million British thermal units.

Well, because of the situation, you're going to have to go to the spot market, and it's over $100 for the same amount. So the price goes so high that you can't run your factory profitably that day. And that's a big problem. International paper, which makes the cardboard boxes we get all our deliveries in, they use that to dry the cardboard, the paper that makes boxes. So without that, they just have to shut down. Not only do you have the lost sales and production of those days,

but you have expense stopping the facility, starting it back up, making sure equipment doesn't freeze by bringing in, like, emergency heaters. That was WSJ reporter, Ryan December. Thanks, Ryan. Thank you. We're exclusively reporting that Blackstone CEO Steve Schwartzman is expanding his philanthropic efforts. The billionaire and his team expect to grow his foundation into one of the 10 largest private foundations in the U.S. It focuses on education, culture, medical innovation, and the impact of AI. And it's not just investors who are getting pulled into the height for a SpaceX IPO.

Michael Grimes, the longtime Morgan Stanley Rainmaker and Elon Musk's go-to banker, is returning to Morgan Stanley as chairman of investment banking. He had left the bank for a job at the Trump administration a year ago, and the question on Wall Street was if he'd be content remaining in government and missing out on the IPO. The IPO is expected to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in fees for banks. And finally, there's a new obsession taking over the Stanford campus, a matchmaking. platform called Date Drop. Created by graduate student Henry Wang, DateDrop has students answer 66 questions, like what their top five core values are, or whether they think having no social media is a green flag. These responses are fed into an algorithm that pairs compatible students. Every Tuesday night at 9 p.m., new matches drop. And the kids are into it. More than 5,000 Stanford

students have used it. DateDrop just raised about $2 million in venture capital funding and has spread to 10 other colleges. Journal reporter Jasmine Lee described DateDrops appeal to our colleagues at Tech News Briefing. So what I hear from college students about dating culture on campus is that you're not really going up to people and asking them out anymore. Some students are on mainstream dating apps, but some students also think they can be a little overwhelming. When students use a platform like DateDrop, the hope is that if they put in the work, answer all these questions, the algorithm is going to know them well enough to pair them with somebody that's high quality. That's going to be a good match.

These students are crowding around in their dorm rooms, you're seeing who they're matching with, who their friends are matching with. It's just a fun social thing for some of these students. But is DateDrop actually helping students find love? Students who Jasmine talked to said they'd gone on some dates or gotten a few more LinkedIn connections, but no earth-shaking love stories yet. To hear more about DateDrop, listen to this Friday's episode of our Tech News Briefing podcast. And that's what's news for this Tuesday afternoon.

Today's show is produced by Pierre Bietamé with supervising producer Tali Arbell. I'm Alex Ocelo for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with the new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening. Enterprises are already creating efficiencies with agenic AI, particularly in areas like finance, HR, and IT, says Jason Gersadis, CEO of Deloitte U.S. Those will continue to proliferate and strengthen. And it'll change the work that gets done. And work will increasingly be delivered through agenetic capabilities.

Garzadas believes the most transformative impacts of agentic systems are still to come. It will fuel innovation. It will fuel the pivot into market creation, market diversification strategies that will open up new markets to clients and to organizations who are looking for growth and looking for differentiated access to new markets, which I think is the most exciting thing. Visit Deloitte.com to learn how your enterprise can help successfully leverage agentic AI. The views and opinions expressed by podcast speakers and guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Deloitte or its personnel, nor does Deloitte advocate or endorse any individuals or entities featured on the episodes. Custom content from WSJ is a unit of the Wall Street Journal advertising department.

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