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- [00:04]
Pierre Bienname
Ukraine and Russia can't agree on who will meet where, if at all, for peace talks tomorrow. Plus, President Trump's firing of the librarian of Congress sets up a power struggle between the branches of government.
- [00:15]
Ken Thomas
There's just a real fear among some in Congress that this is an attempt by the executive branch to run roughshod.
- [00:24]
Pierre Bienname
Over the legislative branch and Saudi Arabia's national oil company Aramco signs deals with American companies with potential vast value of $90 billion. It's Wednesday, May 14th. I'm Pierre Bienname for the Wall Street Journal, filling in for Alex Osila. This is the PM edition of what's News, the top headlines and business stories that moved the world today. Diplomatic efforts to end Russia's war in Ukraine are rising as Kyiv and Moscow seek to demonstrate a desire for peace while portraying the other as an obstacle. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would be waiting in the Turkish capital Ankara tomorrow for Vladimir Putin. But the Russian president is sending a team of negotiators to Istanbul and the Kremlin won't say if he will be there. President Trump hasn't ruled out the possibility of joining any talks in Turkey, Turkish officials say. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump's top representative for talks with Russia, Steve Wytkoff and Special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg are all expected to reach Istanbul by Friday, but it isn't clear with whom they would meet and when. Meanwhile, German police have detained three men suspected of planning to mail packages with explosives in a Russian sponsored act of sabot. The arrests could shed light on explosions last year at logistics hubs in Germany and the UK Western security officials alleged these were part of one of the most audacious acts of sabotage ordered by the Kremlin, according to German officials. Investigators think the plot was at an early stage and that the suspects had yet to mail actual explosives. Saudi Arabia's national oil company Aramco said today it signed agreements with U.S. companies with a potential value of $90 billion co covering everything from liquefied natural gas purchases to artificial intelligence. Aramco's 34 memoranda of understanding and agreements involve major companies like ExxonMobil, Nvidia and Amazon and the oil field service groups SLB, Halliburton and Baker Hughes. The deals come after a US Saudi investment forum held in Riyadh yesterday during President Trump's four day visit to the Middle East. Aramco didn't break down the potential value of each deal. Meanwhile, US Crude oil inventories rose unexpectedly last week, according to Data by the U.S. energy Information Administration. Commercial crude oil stocks, excluding the Strategic Petroleum reserve, rose by 3.5 million barrels to about 442 million in the week ended May 9. Major U.S. indexes wandered aimlessly for much of the day, with some shares of economically sensitive stocks retreating after jumping earlier in the week. The The S&P 500 rose 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.7%. The Dow lost 0.2%, or about 89 points. You might remember the good old days for workers it wasn't long ago that bosses routinely praised workers as their most prized asset. Today, economic uncertainty and the rise of generative AI has shifted the power back into corporate hands. The Wall Street Journal's workplace and management reporter Chip Cutter said spoke with our your Money Briefing podcast about how many companies are now expecting more work and less complaining from their staff.
- [03:34]
Chip Cutter
We spoke with one job seeker who said that you look at the listings right now and it's just crazy what one job is asking for. It really could be multiple positions in that single job. And we've heard this from managers, too. You've talked to a lot of companies right now say they want to flatten their ranks. So what that means is pushing out the middle managers. But those managers that remain are now having to do the roles of multiple people. And what workers say is that companies just want it all right now and they can largely sort of do that. They can get away with it because the job market is cooling and it's a kind of a tricky time for workers trying to navigate all this and trying to figure out, you know, what can we say if we do complain? Will our bosses even hear us? There's some evidence no. I mean, there was a recent incident at Uber where the company rolled back its sabbatical policy, where up until now the company had given its corporate employees a paid one month sabbatical after five years of the company. Well, it's now going to be eight years and as you can imagine, that didn't go over all that well.
- [04:27]
Pierre Bienname
You can hear more from Chip in tomorrow's yous Money Briefing. Coming up, how President Trump's clash with the Library of Congress sets up a constitutional fight. That's after the break.
- [04:40]
Caroline Levitt
Save the date for the future of Everything and join the Wall Street Journal this May 28th and 29th, 2025 at the Glass House in New York City, the Journal's premier live event returns with leading voices across business, tech, sports and beyond to answer the most pressing question of the present day as human life expectancy increases? How will we work, spend and plan for an AI enabled future? As a podcast listener, enjoy 20% off current ticket rates with code PODCAST. Visit WSJ.com foepodcast to secure your spot.
- [05:18]
Pierre Bienname
The Library of Congress, though typically non controversial, is the latest battleground in President Trump's power struggle between the branches of government. On Saturday, Trump fired the Librarian of Congress and has sought to install members of his administration at the institution, which serves members of Congress and the U.S. supreme Court and is also home to the U.S. copyright Office and Congress's research arm. Here to tell us more is our national politics reporter, Ken Thomas. So, Ken, what's the controversy here?
- [05:45]
Ken Thomas
Well, the controversy really stems from this push by the Trump administration to basically clean house within the Library of Congress, as you mentioned. And President Trump fired Carla Hayden. She has been the Librarian of Congress for the last nine years. And then they also moved to remove some of her deputies as well, including the person who runs the U.S. copyright Office within the Library of Congress. Now, this has really touched a nerve with some members of Congress who would argue that this is an institution that serves us and it also serves the Supreme Court, and that the president is trying to do what he's done in other agencies during the start of his administration, which is put in place his people and try to fundamentally change the institution.
- [06:42]
Pierre Bienname
What's at stake when you consider who has sway over the Library of Congress?
- [06:46]
Ken Thomas
Well, this is the largest library in the world and it has just a huge repository of information. And the fear that you hear from people who work inside the library and who have worked there previously is what happens if, say, a DOGE like operation has access to this information. One of the officials who was dismissed had a report that went out recently that talked about how AI might be able to use some of this data and what would be the consequences of that in terms of using copyrighted materials to train AI systems. And so there are members of Congress who say that it's not the right of the president to be able to fire a Librarian of Congress, and the Congress should be the ones who have the power to handle this. So there's just a real fear among some in Congress that this is an attempt by the executive branch to run roughshod over the legislative branch. And Senator Alex Padilla of California told me it's the Library of Congress, not the Library of the President.
- [08:03]
Pierre Bienname
What has the White House had to say about their decisions regarding the Library of Congress?
- [08:07]
Ken Thomas
White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt was asked about this last week, and she said, look, it's within his rights to do this. They felt that Hayden did not fit the needs of the American people, as Levitt put it, and their position is that President Trump can remove this person if he sees the need. So what we have here is a standoff, and we'll have to see which side backs down. Does Congress ultimately allow this to happen, or is there pushback on a bipartisan basis?
- [08:45]
Pierre Bienname
That was Wall Street Journal national politics reporter Ken Thomas. Ken, thanks so much.
- [08:49]
Ken Thomas
Thank you.
- [08:53]
Pierre Bienname
The Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk has signed a deal with US Biotech company Septerna to develop pills to treat obesity, type 2 diabetes and other cardiometabolic diseases. Under the terms of the agreement, Septurna is eligible to receive around $2.2 billion from Novo Nordisk. The US company will also receive research, development and commercial milestone payments on top of tiered royalties on global Net sales of marketed products. Novo Nordisk will cover all research and development costs. Warner Bros. Discovery is rebranding its streaming service to HBO Max again, returning to its original moniker from its 2020 launch. There has long been a debate inside the company and across the industry about the decision to drop HBO from the name of the streaming service, given how well established that brand had been. At the end of last year, the streaming service had 117 million subscribers worldwide, and Werner projects it will top 150 million at the end of 2026. And we exclusively report that Apple is embracing the world of brain computer interfaces, unveiling a new technology that would allow people to control their iPhones with neural signals. Wall Street Journal reporter Rolf Winkler talked to our Tech News Briefing podcast about how Apple plans to work with startup Synchron on new brain computer interfaces to assist people with disabilities.
- [10:15]
Rolf Winkler
There's a number of companies that are working on these next generation brain implants. They're called brain computer interfaces because they're an interface between your brain and a computer, basically electrodes that are implanted inside your skull and that read neural signals. And the way they work is those neural signals are relayed to a chip, which then relays the data to a decoding device. And that device, you basically train this whole apparatus to understand which neural signals translate to actions in the real world. The first use of these devices is is really to interact with technology. So the first company to do this was Synchron. Morgan Stanley thinks that commercial approval won't come before 2030. Synchron says they can beat that.
- [11:05]
Pierre Bienname
For more from Rolf, check out tomorrow's episode of our Tech News Briefing podcast. And that's what's news for this Wednesday afternoon. Today's show was produced by Anthony Banci with supervising producer Michael Kosmides. I'm Pierre Biennime for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.