WSJ What’s News - Hundreds of Marines Are Deploying to Los Angeles Area

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

P.M. Edition for June 9. Roughly 500 Marines are deploying to the L.A. area in the wake of protests over immigration. Plus, dozens of companies with no previous ties to cryptocurrency are snapping up bitcoin and other tokens. WSJ reporter Vicky Ge Huang discusses their strategy, and why it might expose crypto to new risks. And a new 50% tariff on imported steel went into effect last week and is pinching the canned foods industry. We hear from Bob Tita, who covers metals and manufacturing for the Journal, about why that could end up costing consumers more. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At Desjardins Insurance, we put the care in taking care of business. Your business to be exact. Our agents take the time to understand your company so you get the right coverage at the right price. Whether you rent out your building, represent a condo corporation, or own a cleaning company, we make insurance easy to understand so you can focus on the big stuff, like your small business. Get insurance that's really big on care.

Find an agent today at Desjardins.com slash business coverage. Marines are being deployed in Los Angeles in the wake of the weekend protests over immigration. Plus, why dozens of businesses are binging on cryptocurrency. Even just by announcing that a company is adopting the Bitcoin treasury strategy or a crypto treasury strategy, their stock oftentimes will have an immediate spike.

And rising steel tariffs are squeezing the canned food aisle. It's Monday, June 9th. I'm Alex Osela 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. Roughly 500 Marines are deploying to the Los Angeles area to protect federal buildings and personnel in the wake of weekend protests over immigration that have already led President Trump to federalize National Guard troops. That's according to defense

and congressional officials who said that the troops won't engage with protesters. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The decision to send active-duty forces into an American city marks an escalation of the use of military troops to quell domestic unrest and came over the objections of California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who has called the federal intervention an intrusion on state sovereignty. Earlier, in a video statement, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said California plans to sue the Trump administration over its decision to send in National Guard troops and put the blame on President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. With this order, Trump and Hegseth ignored law enforcement's expertise and guidance

and trampled over our state's California's sovereignty. In a news conference today, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass also said that the National Guard's presence was unnecessary. When you run armored caravans through our streets, you cause fear and you cause panic. And deploying federalized troops is a dangerous escalation, but we need to be real about this. This is about another agenda.

It's not about public safety. There's clearly no plan and there is clearly no policy. President Trump in return said Newsom and other city officials should be grateful for the National Guard and that Los Angeles would have been obliterated without the intervention. Warner Brothers Discovery has said it will split into two standalone publicly traded entertainment companies. One company will be home to CNN, TNT, TBS, and Warner's dozens of cable channels, as well as its international holdings. That entity, called Global Networks for now, will hold as much as a 20% stake in the second

entity, which will contain the company's HBO Max streaming service, movie studio, and TV production business, and which Warner is referring to as streaming and studios. It plans to use the earnings from that stake to pay off debt. The move effectively undoes much of Warner Media and Discovery Communications' 2022 merger, separating Warner's marquee film and TV from Discovery's reality and non-fiction fare.

Warner, like several other entertainment companies, has seen ratings and revenue decline in its once-powerful cable network operation as consumers ditch traditional pay television in favor of streaming. U.S. Retailers Are Taking Advantage of a Temporary Reduction in China Tariffs to Rush in Clothes, Electronics, and Seasonal Goods The National Retail Federation's Global Port Tracker said today that it forecasts that importers will bring in the equivalent of about 2 million ocean shipping containers

this month. That's up about 5% from May, when retailers had paused shipments because of a 145% tariff on Chinese goods. Retailers are expected to bring in similarly high numbers for July and August, as a temporary deal between the U.S. and China holds tariffs at a lower 30% rate through August 12. But the federation warns that imports are expected to drop sharply in September and through the rest of the year. US Stock Indexes Edged Higher Today US stock indexes edged higher today. The S&P 500 rose about 0.1%. US stock indexes edged higher today.

The S&P 500 rose about 0.1%. Chip stocks like Nvidia and AMD rallied, boosting the tech-heavy Nasdaq up roughly 0.3%. The Dow ended the day flat. A growing number of companies are buying Bitcoin because they believe digital assets can boost their stocks. According to Standard Chartered Bank, citing data from BitcoinTreasuries.net, about 60 companies with no previous ties to the market are now pursuing the Bitcoin Treasury Strategy. But some industry insiders say that this comes with a problem.

The trend could expose crypto to new risks. Vicky Guihuang covers crypto for the journal and joins me now. So Vicky, how does this Bitcoin treasury strategy help these companies boost their stock? Essentially, the Bitcoin treasury strategy, it's been popularized by Michael Saylor, executive chairman of the software company Strategy, which he has turned into a warehouse for the digital currency,

loading up on Bitcoin for his company. And that has really done fantastic things for the stock of strategy. And just in the recent few months, a lot of companies have been following suit and they're also buying Bitcoin and even smaller cryptocurrencies to add onto their balance sheet as a so-called strategic asset. They want to use it as part of their treasury management strategy, which usually should be just US treasury bills and really stable and conservative assets. What do investors like so much about this? The most obvious and easy to find answer

is that it really turbocharges company stock. In a lot of instances, even just by announcing that a company is adopting the Bitcoin treasury strategy or a crypto treasury strategy, their stock oftentimes will have an immediate spike. Of course, cryptocurrencies are known for their volatility. How much of a risk is that to the strategy? The volatility of cryptocurrencies is certainly the biggest risk. When Bitcoin starts to drop or drop very sharply, very quickly, which can certainly happen and has happened in the past, the company would be stuck with at least on paper losses.

And then if the drop is severe enough, the company might be faced with the possibility of having to sell their bitcoins. And that could create further problems where investors in the company's stock could lose confidence and then you will see the company's stock starts to drop as well. That was WSJ reporter Vicky Guihuang. Thanks so much, Vicky. Thank you for having me. Coming up, how steel tariffs may make canned goods more expensive.

That's after the break. Get unlimited grocery delivery with PC Express Pass. Meal prep delivered. Snacks delivered. Fresh fruit delivered. Grocery delivery on repeat for just $2.50 a month. Learn more at pcexpress.ca. ["Dreams and Reality"] Last week, the Trump administration's new 50% duty

on imported steel went into effect. One industry that's gonna be feeling the impact? Canned food. And consumers will likely feel it in their wallet. Bob Tita covers manufacturing and metals industries for The Wall Street Journal. Bob, US companies that actually make tin cans have suddenly found it a lot more expensive

to buy the steel for those cans. What are they doing about this? Are there domestic manufacturers of steel that they can turn to? Well, there are, although they're becoming fewer. And so a lot of the companies that make cans have turned to overseas suppliers to buy what's called tin plate to make cans. So they'll be subject to

paying the 50% tariff on it. And how about for the companies that actually put the food into cans? How are things changing for them? Well it'll drive up their costs. A can is an important part of their production process because it gives food a long shelf life. It's also a fairly complicated product to make and somewhat costly part of their process as well. Is it just the rising prices of the cans themselves that they're contending with? Are there other factors here?

The food itself is more expensive because prices, food prices have been going up in recent years. The same with other costs of labor, other overhead costs. So their overall costs are higher than they were four or five years ago. Those higher costs get passed along to consumers and whether it's the tariffs on metal or higher prices for green beans or corn, eventually that shows up on the prices that we all pay for groceries. The Consumer Brands Association, which is the major trade group for food producers, estimates that the price of canned goods could go up anywhere from 18

to 30 cents on a $2 can of vegetables. That was WSJ reporter Bob Tieta. Thank you, Bob. Thank you. One of America's largest rooftop solar installation businesses, Sanova Energy International, filed for bankruptcy today. The company was once a poster child for America's residential renewable energy boom, with a market value above $5 billion and more than 400,000 customers at its peak.

Now a penny stock with almost $9 billion in debt, Sanova has recently struggled to take on new business, providing solar panel installations, energy storage, and financing for residential customers. It's a stark illustration of the strains haunting the U.S. clean energy sector as shifting federal policies shake investor confidence. Another place where sentiment on solar has soured is the American South. Its ample flat land and sunshine have made it a popular place for solar farms, which have replaced swaths of timber. Now, though,

landowners as well as communities are pushing back against projects in the works. WSJ Commodities reporter Ryan December told our tech news briefing podcast why locals in one such community in Perry, Georgia, are turning against solar farms. You're getting situations where people are saying, look, we like green energy, but maybe that's not the greenest use of this land. I traveled to a place called the Oakey Woods Wildlife Management Area. It's on the Okmulgee River south of Macon, Georgia, and it's a wildlife preserve. But now the landowners want to sell and solar developers want to build because there's a transmission line running right through the property.

The problem is the locals said if you hem in the wildlife, in particular the local blackbear population, you're going to hurt them more. They're already so restricted in their movement by highways and development in this fast growing area that they're starting to inbreed. And scientists from the University of Georgia are saying they're turning up with all sorts of alarming birth defects. No ears, no tails, not just like no ear flap, no ear canal, odd numbers of testicles in some of the males.

And that really swayed the public opinion locally to say, we don't want to rezone this timberland for power production even though this solar developer has a solar farm down the road that makes the county a lot of money. This isn't the place for it. To hear more from Ryan, listen to today's episode of Tech News Briefing. And that's what's news for this Monday afternoon. Today's show was produced by Pierre Bienamé with supervising producer Michael Kosmides. I'm Alex Osileff of The Wall Street Journal.

We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.