Political Commentator (3:03)

I want to be very clear this shutdown is a choice A deliberate decision by Donald Trump and the Republicans to abandon the very people they were sent to Washington to represent.

Caitlin McCabe (3:19)

Votes move especially affects Democratic congressional leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, both of whom represent New York. They've held firm in saying they won't support any government funding bill that doesn't include restoring billions of dollars in healthcare spending. In another move vote posted that $8 billion in Energy Department funds for climate projects would be canceled in more than a dozen Democratic leaning states. We are exclusively reporting that the US Will provide Ukraine with intelligence for long range missile strike Russia's energy infrastructure. Bojan Penchevsky is our chief European political correspondent and says it's a first for the Trump administration.

Bojan Penchevsky (4:05)

For the first time, the President has directed the special services as well as the military to help and support Ukraine in the so called deep strikes inside Russia. The goal is to hit energy infrastructure which is technically civilian target, but in reality it helps the war effort. So the idea is to damage the Russian economy, to put economic pressure on Vladimir Putin and to cut off the supply of oil, which is extremely relevant for running the kind of invasion, the war machine.

Caitlin McCabe (4:40)

The US Change in strategy comes as efforts to advance peace talks with Russia have stalled.

Bojan Penchevsky (4:46)

It would appear that the President has now soured a little bit on his Russian counterpart and now he's basically told his security apparatus to boost the help for Ukraine. And American officials are trying to select which missiles to send to Ukraine. We've been told that they are looking into a missile that will have a range over 500 miles. That's really a lot. And so it's a significant change and it will boost the morale and certainly the firepower of the Ukrainian defenders.

Caitlin McCabe (5:18)

And Boyan says it signals a larger shift in how NATO members are approaching Russia. As Moscow continues to test the bloc's.

Bojan Penchevsky (5:26)

Defense capabilities, incidents along the NATO eastern flank are multiplying by the day. We've got drone intrusions, we've got airplanes, jet fighters flying into NATO airspace. There's also the issue with the so called shadow fleet of Russia, ancient tankers that are flying under a so called flag of convenience essentially from third countries in Africa, South America or wherever else. But they are carrying Russian oil to circumvent all the sanctions. And so we've seen an incident like that off the coast of France now where a tanker like that seems to be accused of having hosted drones that were buzzing the airport of Copenhagen in Denmark. We'll see what comes out of it. But there's definitely a sense that Europe and America are increasing the pressure on Russian assets as Russia seems to be increasing the pressure on the borders of NATO and definitely on Ukraine.

Caitlin McCabe (6:26)

Looking to the Middle east now, Israeli forces have cut off a flotilla of around 40 boats carrying hundreds of pro Palestinian activists trying to sail to the Gaza Strip. Among them were Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, Nelson Mandela's grandson, as well as European lawmakers. Their aim was to deliver aid to the war ravaged enclave and break an Israeli naval blockade that has been in place since since 2009. There were no initial reports of injuries. However, activists reported communication disruptions and harassment before the interception by Israeli forces. Israel says the flotilla's clear intention is to breach what it says is a lawful blockade. Coming up, a high flying crypto strategy shows signs of cooling off. Plus, there's a sea of tech talent out there, but companies still say they can't find the workers they want. Those stories after the break.

Political Commentator (7:23)

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Caitlin McCabe (7:57)

Cryptocurrency prices have soared to new heights this year and so have a range of ideas to capitalize on the boom. One of the biggest trends, a so called crypto treasury strategy, which is basically just a fancy name for what happens when companies use corporate cash to load up on Bitcoin and other tokens. More than 200 companies have rushed into stockpiling digital currencies this year. But now markets reporter Vicky Ge Huang says the trend is showing signs of cooling.

Vicky Ge Huang (8:27)

The cooldown came about because there's so many companies doing this. It's just sort of overwhelmed the market because when they decide to switch gears to becoming a so called crypto treasury company, one of the first steps that they need to take is to raise cash from investors to fund their crypto acquisitions. By raising cash, they have to do something called a private stock offering. These companies often issue a lot of shares to institutional investors or wealthy investors at a discount so that they can raise the money in a really fast and efficient way and use them to immediately go buy crypto because there have been so many shares issued to institutional investors, it caused an oversupply of shares in the market. And at the same time, a lot of these institutional investors have the option to sell their shares. So that also creates a kind of selling pressure on these stocks.

Caitlin McCabe (9:29)

And so, Vicki, where are we seeing this slowdown showing up? Is it in the share prices of these companies?

Vicky Ge Huang (9:35)

A lot of the stocks have really enjoyed sort of just stunning stock surges. When they announced their adoption of a crypto treasury strategy, a lot of the stock prices of these companies have really plunged as much as 90%. And another way this slowdown has manifested is when the market cap of your company trades at a discount to the tokens that you hold. It kind of shows that investors are losing confidence. And what's happening now is that that a lot of These companies, about 25% of them, are trading at a discount of the total values of the bitcoins they hold. So that kind of illustrates how maybe there's not enough room for all of them to do well.

Caitlin McCabe (10:24)

And so, Vicki, one thing that seems like it's not an issue here is the price of bitcoin and other tokens themselves. Right. Bitcoin has done pretty well this quarter. What happens for these companies if that changes?

Vicky Ge Huang (10:39)

Yeah, so bitcoin has risen about 6% this quarter. However, when bitcoin starts to fall sharply, which it has done many times before, it could really weigh on these bitcoin treasury companies. And it's the same case with other cryptocurrencies and other crypto treasury companies that buy these cryptocurrencies. If the price goes down sharply, it could really weigh on the stock performance of these crypto treasury stocks. That could mean that the companies themselves will potentially have to sell some of their holdings just to cover operational costs or make payroll just to sort of survive in a downturn. And that could potentially even impact the prices of the tokens.

Caitlin McCabe (11:27)

Vicky, this is all super interesting. Really appreciate you joining us today.

Vicky Ge Huang (11:31)

Thank you for having me.

Caitlin McCabe (11:38)

And finally, there has rarely been more tech talent available in the job market, and yet many companies say good help is hard to find. U.S. colleges more than doubled the number of computer science degrees awarded from 2013 to 2022. And then came layoffs from the likes of Meta, Google and Amazon. But despite such a huge supply of capable and eager computer programmers looking for work, Callum Borcher says that companies feverish pursuit of AI supremacy is meaning roles are being left unfulfilled.

Viking Cruise Narrator (12:09)

A lot of businesses, they often hold out for a dream candidate who has a deep background in machine learning. We're talking about people with uncanny intuition, genius level smarts. And so businesses are paying through the nose. Sometimes multimillion dollar pay packages are for folks like that, whereas folks who have more general tech skills are viewed as a dime a dozen. The trouble for a lot of tech workers is that unless they have a lot of experience in artificial intelligence, they're often seen as commodities. And so you have this dynamic where because companies can automate a lot of low level tasks and even replace some entry level engineering roles, it frees up more money that they can throw at the really high end talent. And so what we have now is a few handsomely paid hacks haves and a whole lot of have nots in the tech job market.

Caitlin McCabe (13:02)

And that's it for what's news for this Thursday morning. Today's show is produced by Kate Bullivant and Daniel Bach. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff. And I'm Caitlin McCabe for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with the new show. Until then, thanks for listening.

Political Commentator (13:24)

Foreign.

Fiona Gregg (13:27)

We've reached what's called the Silver tsunami moment when 4.2 million people will turn 65. Top of mind for them is avoiding shortfalls in retirement income. Here's Fiona Gregg, global head of investor research and policy at Vanguard on some important steps to take.

Caitlin McCabe (13:42)

You have these small pots strewn across the earth at these different employers, Social Security, how do they all add up? A first order upgrade opportunity is consolidate and simplify.

Fiona Gregg (13:51)

Get more insights from Vanguard on how you can navigate an uncertain market@vanguard com.