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Meta is investing $600 billion in AI infrastructure, bringing jobs to communities across America. Phil a Meta building engineer in Las Lunas, New Mexico, says welcoming Meta into our community is creating more opportunities. Learn more@meda.com BuildingAmerica.
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Met's owner and billionaire investor Steve Cohen wins approval for one of the three new casinos in New York City. Plus, this North Carolina village is where some of America's richest people go to fly under the radar.
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Cashier only has 80025 year round residents and so to have four billionaires and to have this influx of wealth over the summer is just incredibly stark.
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And Goldman Sachs is buying a company that specializes in ETFs known as boomer candy. It's Monday, December 1st. I'm Sabrina Siddiqui for the Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of what's NEWS this the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. A years long effort to bring casinos to New York City resulted in state approvals for three in the city. Today. A gaming commission has approved bids from Mets owner Steve Cohen and two other developers, opening the door to high end gambling venues in a city that has long restricted them. Cohen, the billionaire investor and the entertainment company Hard Rock want their casino beside the Mets Citi Field in Queensland. Their $8 billion plan includes a hotel, an amphitheater and 25 acres of green space by a future soccer stadium. Also approved were Bally's $4 billion project that would be next to its Bronx golf course and a $5.5 billion plan from Malaysia's Genting Group to turn its queen slots operation into a full fledged casino. The state will collect a license fee of at least $500 million from each recipient. And the casino backers have said they'll lead to good jobs and boost tax revenue. Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Rudiger joins us now with more. Peter, the casino proposals got pushback from some residents, local politicians and community organizations who had worries about traffic and other concerns. Why did this politically tricky project appeal to Cohen?
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So Cohen it's talked about the land around Citi Field. And even if you've been to Citi Field, it's kind of the stadium and then it's just a huge parking lot. There's not a lot else out there besides kind of car repair shops. And Steve Cohen has said that the biggest complaint he gets from his fans is they come to the game and there's nothing else to there. So this kind of solves that problem, right? You have your venue for live music, you have a big park, you'll have shops and restaurants and a hotel casino bringing more people to Queens and hopefully more people to the Mets.
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You write this is a comeback for Cohen. His former hedge fund pleaded guilty to insider trading charges in 2013. How did he get from there to here?
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Sure, it's been a long road back. Steve Cohen was prevented from managing other people's money for five years. As part of his settlement that expired in 2018, he returned to the hedge fund business with a new fund called 0.72 Asset Management. Since then, it's grown to be one of the biggest hedge funds in the world. It has about $42 billion in assets under management and employs around 300 people. But really, it started in 2020 when he purchased a majority stake in the Mets. Steve Cohen used to be a pretty publicity shy figure. Didn't like having his picture taken or speaking to the public. And now you can find him on X. He has around 300,000 followers mixing it up with Mets fans and spending more money than anyone else in baseball to construct one of the priciest ro in Major League Baseball.
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That was Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Rudiger. Peter thank you, thank you. Goldman Sachs is making a bet on a kind of exchange traded fund often described as boomer candy. The investment bank is buying a company called Innovator Capital management for about $2 billion. Innovator oversees about $28 billion in assets across its funds and specializes in what are called defined outcome or or buffer funds. Those ETFs aim to protect investors from volatility in the stock market, ensuring against losses while capturing some gains. Baby boomers and people near retirement have gravitated to them as a way to stay invested in stocks with less risk. Goldman says the deal would make its asset management arm a top 10 provider of active ETFs. And starting February 1st, air travelers who don't have a Real ID compliant ID will have to pay a $45 fee to go through airport security. The fee has to be paid before the traveler gets to the airport. The requirement for Real ID compliant driver's licenses at the airport began in May. Officials say 94% of travelers have since presented an acceptable ID. Stock market slid, with the Dow leading losses and closing down 0.9%. Bitcoin continued its slump, falling 6.4% today in its steepest one day decline since March. Companies focused on crypto like Coinbase and Robinhood saw their stocks drop, too, while shares of Shopify, an E commerce platform, closed down nearly 6% after an outage interrupted transactions on a major shopping day coming up, why this village in North Carolina has become home to one of the country's highest concentrations of wealth. That's after the break.
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An appeals court ruled today that Alina Habba can't serve as the Acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey. It's another blow to the Trump administration's efforts to place preferred candidates in top prosecutor jobs without Senate approval. The court's opinion says that a workaround used by the government to put Haba in the job wasn't allowed under the law. Two of the panel's three judges were appointed by Republicans and one by a Democrat. While U.S. attorneys are typically confirmed by the Senate, the attorney general can name people to posts temporarily. When Habba's temporary term ended, the district's judges picked her deputy to lead the office. The administration fired that deputy and appointed Habba as a special attorney and first assistant U.S. attorney, allowing her to serve as acting U.S. attorney while the post was vacant. The Justice Department can now ask the Supreme Court to hear the case. The DOJ didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Meanwhile, Britain has agreed to spend more on new medicines in return for avoiding tariffs on UK Pharmaceutical exports to the US it's the first big win in President Trump's effort to get other countries to pay more for drugs he says are unfairly subsidized by American consumers. The US Says the UK Government will raise the net price it pays for new patented medicines by 25% and cut attacks on drug companies. The UK was already facing pressure from pharmaceutical companies. Some have said they were pausing new investments in the country because of what they say are uncompetitive drug pricing controls. And in Africa, we're exclusively reporting that Sudan's military government has offered Russia what would be its first naval base on the continent. It would give Russia an unprecedented seat overlooking critical Red Sea trade routes. The deal, if completed, would pose challenges for the US which has aimed to block Russia from controlling African ports that could be used to rearm warships or disrupt key shipping routes. Sudanese officials say that in the deal its military government would get Russian air defense systems and other weapons at discounted prices as it continues its civil war against the rebel rapid support forces. The US estimates that as many as 150,000 people may have been killed in that conflict. There's a village in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains with no mayor, no central public water supply, just a handful of sidewalks and one supermarket. Cashers has just 80025 year round residents and four billionaires who also have homes there. Data from Altrada, a wealth intelligence firm, shows that this gives the village one of the highest concentrations of wealth in the country. E.B. solomont, who covers residential real estate for the Journal, spoke with what's News host Alex Osola about what makes this under the radar spot a destination.
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EB who are some of the billionaires with homes in Cashiers and what are they like?
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Some of the billionaires with homes in Cashiers are Ken Langone, a co founder of Home Depot, Martha Ingram of Ingram Industries and several members of her family. There's also members of the McElhinney family that have been making Tabasco in Louisiana since the 1800s. One thing that draws all of these billionaires and affluent homeowners to Cashers is the fact that it has an incredible climate. It's beautiful and it's very low key. It's not even a town, it's unincorporated and it's really a place where people can relax and unwind and just stay under the radar.
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You visited Cashers as part of your reporting for this story. What was it actually like on the ground? Could you tell that there were billionaires in the vicinity?
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I went to get coffee at Buck's Coffee Cafe. The parking lot had a few Porsches, a few pickup trucks. So you knew this is a place where there were affluent people. But it is people in jeans and flannel. Not flashy, not blingy, very kind of normal. There's half a dozen, mostly golf communities that have been largely developed since the 1980s. And so life in Cashiers largely revolves around the clubs. And owning real estate in the clubs is often a prerequisite to membership. And initiation fees can be $100,000 or more plus annual dues.
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What do year round residents think of these billionaires hanging out?
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You know, Cashiers has a really interesting dynamic because it's unincorporated and there is no government. There are a lot of infrastructure needs, water and sewage, supporting the local civic organizations, the local Boys and Girls Club, even second homeowners and cashiers really open their checkbooks to support these organizations in a significant way. That said, affordable housing is an issue. When I was there, I spoke to a few people who work in cashiers and they're not able to live in town. Traffic has become a problem over the past few years. I spoke with one woman who told me that traffic is bad. It can be hard to have an influx of affluent people over the summer, but she also knows that her livelihood depends on their being there. Cashiers only has 825 year round residents and so to have four billionaires and to have this influx of wealth over the summer is just incredibly stark.
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That was my colleague Alex Osola speaking with EB Solomon and that's what's news for this Monday afternoon. Today's show was produced by prbiename with supervising producer Tali Arbel. I'm Sabrina Siddiqui for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.
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