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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The bid by Japan’s Nippon Steel to buy U.S. Steel may have a new lease on life after the Biden Administration extended a deadline for the Japanese steelmaker to abandon plans to acquire the storied Pittsburgh company after President Joe Biden blocked the deal.

The new deadline, now in mid-June, was viewed by U.S. Steel — and investors — as an opportunity for the companies to complete the acquisition, even though President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office in a week, also opposes the deal.

Biden nixed the acquisition this month citing a potential threat to national security, though the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS, failed to reach a consensus on the security issue.

“We are pleased that CFIUS has granted an extension to June 18, 2025 of the requirement in President Biden’s Executive Order that the parties permanently abandon the transaction,” U.S. Steel said in a statement Sunday. “We look forward to completing the transaction, which secures the best future for the American steel industry and all our stakeholders.”

Shares of U.S. Steel rose almost 7% when markets opened Monday.

The proposed deal kicked up an election year political maelstrom across America’s industrial heartland and quickly drew vows by Biden and Trump from the campaign trail in a critical battleground state to block the deal.

Even after the election, Trump wrote on social media in December that he is “totally against” U.S. Steel being bought by a foreign company and said he would block the deal as president. He reiterated that stance this month after it was blocked by Biden.

However, a CFIUS composed of Trump appointees and Trump himself may be free to allow the deal to go through, or negotiate new terms.

Dennis Unkovic, a Pittsburgh lawyer who works on international business transactions, including deals in which CFIUS approval was required, said a new CFIUS and a new president are not legally bound by Biden’s decision.

CFIUS giving the parties an extra six months to unwind the deal is unusual, Unkovic said. It wasn’t immediately clear why CFIUS extended the deadline, but Unkovic pointed to reports that Biden’s CFIUS was divided over whether it was a security threat.

“Extending this from the 30 days to the 180 days was a sign that there were people in the Biden administration that would like somebody to take a second look at this,” Unkovic said.

CFIUS’ job is to see if there are workarounds or modifications to a deal to allow it to go through, and rarely is a deal turned down, Unkovic said. After CFIUS takes another look at it, it could still be up to Trump to decide.

“Now how he comes down on it, who knows?” Unkovic said.

Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel have insisted that the deal presents no national security problem for the U.S., said Biden’s decision to block it was a violation of legal due process and a political calculation.

The two steel companies sued in federal court three days after Biden announcement and accused the head of the Steelworkers union and a rival steelmaker of working together to scuttle the buyout in a separate lawsuit.

The United Steelworkers have opposed the deal, concerned over whether the company would honor existing labor agreements or slash jobs, and questioned Nippon Steel’s status as an honest broker for U.S. national trade interests.

However, some union members have come out in favor of the deal. Nippon Steel — the world’s fourth-largest steelmaker — says its ability to invest in U.S. Steel’s aging blast furnace plants in Pennsylvania and Indiana will boost the ability of the U.S. to compete in an industry dominated by China.

U.S. Steel has warned that, without Nippon Steel’s cash, it will shift production away from the blast furnaces to cheaper non-union electric arc furnaces and move its headquarters out of Pittsburgh.

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Follow Marc Levy on X at: https://x.com/timelywriter.

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By Davide Barbuscia

NEW YORK (Reuters) -A recent surge in U.S. Treasury yields may gain even more momentum after a strong jobs report reinforced expectations that interest rates will stay high for longer and raised the spectre of benchmark 10-year yields hitting 5% — a level that some fear could rattle broader markets.

Friday’s jobs report revealed that employers added 256,000 jobs in December, well above economists’ forecasts, while the unemployment rate dropped, bolstering market expectations that the Federal Reserve will maintain elevated interest rates to curb economic overheating.

That news dashed investors’ hopes for some respite from a sharp rise in Treasury yields that has wobbled stocks since the beginning of the year. The data also re-ignited concerns about inflation, which remains stubbornly above the Fed’s 2% target.

“The report was obviously negative for inflation,” said Felipe Villarroel, partner and portfolio manager at TwentyFour Asset Management. “This is definitely not an economy that is decelerating.”

Traders are now expecting the central bank will wait until at least June to reduce its policy rate. Before the jobs data, they were betting the Fed would cut rates as early as May with about a 50% chance of a second cut before year end.

Both J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs pushed their Fed rate cut forecast to June, having earlier projected a cut in March.

Concerns over a rebound in inflation have also begun to raise the prospect that the Fed’s next move could be a hike – a scenario that would have been unthinkable a few months ago when investors expected interest rates would have declined to about 2.8% by the end of this year. They are now at 4.25%-4.5%. 

“Our base case has the Fed on an extended hold. But we think the risks for the next move are skewed toward a hike,” analysts at BofA Securities said in a note on Friday.

Longer-dated U.S. Treasury yields, which move inversely to prices, jumped to their highest levels since November 2023, with the 10-year hitting a high of 4.79%. Yields have gained 20 basis points since the beginning of the year amid a global government bonds selloff that has hit UK government bonds particularly hard, pushing 30-year gilt yields to their highest since 1998.

Many in the bond market fear further weakness lies ahead, as fiscal and trade policies under the upcoming Donald Trump administration could lead to more Treasury issuance and a rebound in inflation. A BMO Capital Markets client survey before the jobs report showed 69% of respondents expect 10-year yields will test 5% at some point this year.

Next week’s economic reports will feature December’s producer and consumer price inflation data, which could be key for the direction of yields. 

The yield curve comparing two-year with 10-year yields has steepened in recent weeks because 10-year yields have been rising while shorter-dated ones have remained flat, a so-called “bear steepening” dynamic, bad for long-term bond prices, indicating the market expects interest rates to remain high due to ongoing resilience in the economy.

But that could change should inflation rise again, warned Jack McIntyre, a portfolio manager at Brandywine Global.

“Look for Treasury market to shift to a bear flattening from its recent bear steepening trajectory,” he said in a note. Bear flattening occurs when short-term interest rates rise faster than long-term interest rates, which can happen when investors anticipate central banks will increase interest rates.

Outside of bonds, rising U.S. Treasury yields could dampen investor interest in stocks and other high-risk assets by tightening financial conditions and increasing borrowing costs for businesses and individuals.

Higher yields can also improve the attractiveness of bonds against equities, “with 5% still seen as a trigger point for asset allocation shifts,” said BNY in a recent note.

In late 2023, stocks declined when benchmark 10-year yields reached 5% for the first time since 2007, and while they largely shrugged off the increase in yields late last year as the move was linked to an improved economy, stocks tumbled this week as upbeat economic data propelled yields higher.

The S&P 500 was down 1% on Friday.

“The 10-year yield will remain above 4% this year and as a result it could be quite challenging for the stock market,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist of CFRA Research, after the jobs data. “We started the year on the wrong foot.”

(Reporting by Davide Barbuscia, additional reporting by Carolina Mandl; Editing by Megan Davies and Aurora Ellis)

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HONG KONG (AP) — Asian stocks retreated on Monday after U.S. stocks fell as good news on the job market raised inflation worries.

Markets in Japan were closed for a holiday.

U.S. futures dropped while oil prices surged more than $1 a barrel after President Joe Biden’s administration expanded sanctions against Russia’s critically important energy sector over its war in Ukraine. The Biden administration said the sanctions announced Friday were the most significant to date against Moscow’s oil and liquefied natural gas sectors, drivers of Russia’s economy.

U.S. benchmark crude oil surged $1.50 to $78.07 per barrel, while Brent crude, the international standard, rose $1.44 to $81.20 per barrel.

China reported its exports grew at a faster pace than expected in December, as factories rushed to fill orders to beat higher tariffs that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to impose once he takes office.

Exports rose 10.7% from a year earlier. Economists had forecast they would grow about 7%. Imports rose 1% year-on-year. Analysts had expected them to shrink about 1.5%. With exports outpacing imports, China’s trade surplus grew to $104.84 billion.

But the upbeat data failed to boost the region’s stocks. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.3% to 18,820.46, while the Shanghai Composite lost 0.5% to 3,154.37.

“Adding to the skittish sentiment is the uncertainty over how Asian economies, especially China, will fare under the shadow of the incoming Trump administration’s ‘America First’ trade policies,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dipped 1.5% to 8,166.40. South Korea’s Kospi shed 1.2% to 2,486.14.

On Friday, the S&P 500 tumbled 1.5% to 5,827.04, ending its fourth losing week in the last five. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.6% to 41,938.45, and the Nasdaq composite sank 1.6% to 19,161.63.

Stocks took their cues from the bond market, where yields leaped to crank up the pressure after a report said U.S. employers added many more jobs to their payrolls last month than economists expected.

Such strength in hiring is of course good news for workers looking for jobs. But it could also keep upward pressure on inflation by keeping the overall economy humming. That in turn could dissuade the Federal Reserve from delivering the cuts to interest rates that Wall Street loves. Lower rates can not only goose the economy but also boost prices for investments.

The Fed has already indicated it’s likely to ease rates fewer times this year than it earlier expected because of worries about higher inflation. That’s in part because some officials are taking seriously the possibility of tariffs and other policies coming from President-elect Donald Trump that could worsen inflation.

Friday’s jobs report might not have been as strong as it appeared, given weakness in manufacturing.

Markets have been deflating after traders sent U.S. stock indexes to dozens of records last year, banking on a stream of rate cuts coming from the Fed. If fewer cuts materialize than expected, stock prices would likely either need to fall, or profits at companies would have to rise more strongly to compensate.

Insurance companies were also under pressure as wildfires continue to burn in the Los Angeles area. Many of the homes that have been destroyed were in expensive areas where the typical price can top $3 million, and such high-priced damage could eat into insurers’ profit. Allstate fell 5.6%, Travelers dropped 4.3% and Chubb lost 3.4%.

Delta Air Lines was able to fly 9% higher because it delivered a stronger profit report for the last three months of 2024 than analysts expected. The airline said it’s seeing strong demand for travel, which accelerated through the end of last year, and it expects that to continue into 2025.

In other dealings early Monday, the U.S. dollar fell to 157.34 Japanese yen from 157.82 yen. The euro dropped to $1.0218 from $1.0244.

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By Ellen Zhang, Joe Cash and Ethan Wang

BEIJING (Reuters) -China’s exports gained momentum in December, with imports also showing recovery, though strength at the year-end was in part fuelled by factories rushing inventory overseas as they braced for heightened trade risks under a Trump presidency.

Exports have been a vital growth engine for the $18 trillion economy, which is still burdened by a prolonged property crisis and shaky consumer confidence. While policymakers can find solace in recent policy measures keeping the economy on track for an “around 5%” growth target, challenges such as potential U.S. tariff hikes cloud the outlook for 2025.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, set to return to the White House next week, has proposed hefty tariffs on Chinese goods, sparking fears of a renewed trade war between the two superpowers.

Adding to the challenges, unresolved disputes with the European Union over tariffs of up to 45.3% on Chinese electric vehicles threaten to hinder China’s ambitions to expand its auto exports and help address deflationary overcapacity concerns.

“Trade front-loading became more visible in December as a result of both Chinese New Year effects and Donald Trump’s inauguration,” said Xu Tianchen, senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit. China’s biggest festival runs from Jan. 28 to Feb. 4.

“Import growth could be underpinned by stockpiling of commodities like copper and iron ore, as part of (China’s) ‘buy low’ strategy,” he added.

Outbound shipments in December rose 10.7% year-on-year, customs data showed on Monday, beating 7.3% growth forecast in a Reuters poll of economists, and improving from November’s 6.7% increase.

Imports surprised to the upside with 1.0% growth, the strongest performance since July 2024. Economists had expected a 1.5% decline.

China’s trade surplus grew to $104.8 billion last month, up from $97.4 billion in November. Its trade surplus with the U.S. widened to $33.5 billion over the same period from $29.81 billion a month prior.

A Chinese customs spokesperson told reporters there was still “huge” room for China’s imports to grow this year.

Buoyed by a weakening yuan, Chinese manufacturers managed to find buyers overseas in 2024 to compensate for depressed domestic demand by continually reducing prices, analysts said.

As a result, China’s exports grew by an annual 5.9% last year, while imports increased just 1.1% over the same period.

“The double-digit rise in December exports (led by the U.S. and ASEAN), along with the increase in the PMI new export orders, supports our earlier judgement that the threat of tariffs could affect export patterns in the next couple of quarters, with a potential boost in shipments before the introduction of new tariffs, followed by a drop-off,” Barclays analysts said in a note.

“Overall, we think the modest increase in imports and easing CPI inflation suggest the recent domestic demand recovery is still too shallow and too weak.”

Market reaction was muted to the trade data. The yuan hovered near 16-month lows against the dollar, while key share indexes were down.

SIGNS OF RECOVERY

Signs of stabilisation have emerged following China’s recent stimulus push.

Factory activity remained in modest expansion for the third consecutive month, while services and construction recovered in December, an official survey showed.

South Korea, a key indicator of China’s imports, reported a 8.6% increase in shipments to China in December, suggesting resilience in demand for technology products.

China’s iron ore imports in 2024 rose for a second straight year to hit a new peak, as lower prices spurred buying and demand remained resilient despite the country’s protracted property crisis continuing to weigh on steel demand.

The world’s largest agricultural importer also bought a record amount of soybeans last year, after buyers concerned about U.S.-China trade tensions rushed to secure U.S. soybeans ahead of incoming U.S. president Donald Trump’s inauguration.

But crude oil imports fell last year, the data showed, marking its first annual decline in the last two decades outside the COVID-19 pandemic-induced falls, as tepid economic growth and peaking fuel consumption dampened purchases.

China’s top leaders have pledged to loosen monetary policy and adopt a more proactive fiscal policy in 2025, aiming to offset external pressures and revitalise domestic demand.

The government is targeting economic growth of around 5% for the year, a goal that had proved challenging to achieve at times in 2024.

(Reporting by Ellen Zhang, Joe Cash and Ethan Wang; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

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SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China stepped up its policy measures on Monday to defend a weakening yuan by relaxing rules to allow more offshore borrowing and sending verbal warnings as the Chinese currency hovered around 16-month lows against a strong dollar.

The yuan has faced renewed depreciation pressures, weighed down by a triple-whammy of a broadly stronger greenback, falling Chinese yields and rising trade tensions with other economies.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) announced on Monday that borrowing limits would be raised to allow corporates to borrow more from abroad.

The ratio under its macro-prudential assessments (MPA) – determining the maximum a company can borrow relative to its net assets – would be raised to 1.75 from 1.5, with immediate effect.

The move was to “further improve the macro-prudential management of cross-border financing, continue to increase the sources of cross-border funds for enterprises and financial institutions, and guide them to optimise their asset-liability,” the PBOC said in a statement jointly issued with the foreign exchange regulator.

Separately, the China Foreign Exchange Committee planned to resolutely keep the yuan exchange rate basically stable at reasonable and balanced levels, the central bank said in another statement.

The committee is a forum under the sponsorship of the central bank and the foreign exchange regulator.

The committee also said that monetary authorities will increase FX market resilience and strengthen market management. They will also correct pro-cyclical market activities, deal with behaviours that disrupt market orders and prevent exchange rate overshooting risks.

And in Hong Kong, PBOC Governor Pan Gongsheng told the Asia Financial Forum on the same day that “China has the confidence, conditions and ability to maintain stable operation of the foreign exchange market.”

China will keep the yuan exchange rate basically stable at reasonable and balanced levels,” Pan reiterated.

These measures are “sending a signal to stabilise the yuan,” said Ken Cheung, chief Asian FX strategist at Mizuho Bank.

“But the actual impact on capital flows and exchange rate is relatively limited, due to the low cost of domestic financing.”

Cheung said regulators will continue to mainly use the daily midpoint fixing to stabilise the currency and guide market expectations.

China’s onshore yuan traded at 7.3315 per dollar as of 0247 GMT on Monday, not far from a 16-month low of 7.3328 hit on Friday. It has lost more than 3% to the dollar since U.S. President-elect Donald Trump won the election in November.

The central bank has been setting its official midpoint guidance on the firmer side of the key 7.2 level and stronger than market projections since mid-November. Traders and analysts widely interpret this as a sign of rising unease over recent yuan declines.

The PBOC said last week that it will sell 60 billion yuan worth of six-month yuan bills in Hong Kong on Jan. 15, the most since the central bank started such bill sales in the financial hub in 2018.

Selling these yuan bills will mop up liquidity in the market to reduce speculative bets against the yuan.

(Reporting by Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Kim Coghill and Jacqueline Wong)

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SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Lithium prices are expected to stabilise in 2025 after two years of steep declines as shuttered mines and robust electric vehicle sales in China soak up an oversupply, although the potential for mines to reopen may cap gains, analysts and traders said.

A nearly 86% plunge in prices of the EV battery metal over the past two years from its peak in November 2022 forced companies to mothball mines across the world. But market participants say those closures mean buoyant demand should outpace supply this year as China intensifies policy support to boost sales in the world’s largest EV market.

The global lithium supply glut is predicted to shrink by half to around 80,000 tons equivalent of lithium carbonate (LCE) from nearly 150,000 last year, according to Antaike, China’s state-owned commodity data provider.

“We expect to see a price recovery for lithium in 2025 as the curtailments seen in 2024, and the possibility of further curtailments, will significantly reduce the market surplus,” said Cameron Hughes, battery markets analyst at CRU Group, referring to mine closures without giving further details.

China doubled EV subsidies in July and more than 5 million cars sold as of mid-December had benefited from the incentives.

China’s EV subsidies contributed to a lithium price rally late last year, and should continue supporting prices in 2025, three analysts and two traders said.

“The uptick in lithium trade business in the fourth quarter of 2024 can be undeniably attributed to the policy of providing subsidies,” a buyer at a mid-sized cathode material plant in China said on condition of anonymity as the buyer was not authorized to speak to media.

Any improvement in prices is likely to be felt towards the end of 2025 as inventories are used up and buyers return to the spot market, said David Merriman, research director at metals research company Project Blue.

Project Blue expects prices to stabilize around an average of $11,092 per metric ton in 2025. Guotai Juan, a Chinese broker, forecasts a price range of 60,000 yuan ($8,184) to 90,000 yuan ($12,276).

The most-traded lithium contract on the Guangzhou Futures Exchange traded between 68,250 yuan and 125,000 yuan per ton last year.

Analysts, however, cautioned that any significant price rise this year is likely to be capped as production can be swiftly scaled up at many closed mines if it proves profitable.

Merriman said that potential U.S. policy changes under the incoming Trump administration, including fresh tariffs on EV battery imports from China or slashing domestic EV incentives, may also pose risks to lithium demand.

($1 = 7.3312 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Shanghai newsroom; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

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By Sai Ishwarbharath B and Haripriya Suresh

BENGALURU/MUMBAI (Reuters) – India’s Tata Consultancy Services expects its retail and manufacturing clients in North America to step up spending on tech, following a similar upturn in its banking and financial services segment, a top executive of the nation’s No. 1 software-services exporter, said.

“We have heard about good holiday season sales (in the U.S.) that should boost consumer sentiment and manufacturing has some of the labour issues behind them,” CFO Samir Seksaria told Reuters.

“If these three verticals (along with banking) improve overall, we should see a good recovery,” he said.

Seksaria’s cautious optimism highlights broader global economic uncertainties and sticky inflation that have forced clients to keep a leash on tech spending.

The company’s revenue in North America, its largest market, declined for the fifth consecutive quarter even as banking and financial services posted their best performance since June 2023.

Retail and manufacturing are the second- and fourth- largest revenue contributors to the $29 billion behemoth.

Last month, Walmart Inc, Amazon.com, and fast-growing e-commerce sites Shein and PDD Holding’s Temu, saw record-breaking sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

U.S. online spending too rose nearly 9% to $241.4 billion during the recent holiday season.

TCS’ communications and media vertical, a capital-intensive segment that is currently one of the company’s laggards, will also see some pickup if interest rates start to go down, Seksaria said.

The comments echo CEO Krithivasan’s sentiment that the incoming U.S. administration is likely to remove policy uncertainty and boost client confidence to spend on discretionary projects.

On Friday, its Mumbai-listed shares closed up 5.6%, its highest single day rise since July 2024.

TCS also played down concerns over the rise in insourcing by multinational corporations through global capability centres (GCCs), potentially slashing work that would have been contracted to IT players in the past.

A growing number of global companies are increasing their local offices in India and expanding in-house teams, adding roles such as engineering, cybersecurity and accounting and finance. India’s GCC market size is estimated to reach $105 billion by 2030.

“Initially, there could a cost advantage, probably GCCs are right now being seen as global cost saving centers. But as things go into next year, maintaining cost and delivering cost productivity in a 3-year to 7-year period is where the cyclicality of opening and shutting of GCCs keeps coming,” said Seksaria.

In 2023, Infosys acquired the captive arm of Danske Bank and before that TCS acquired Post Bank AG’s unit of 1,500 employees in late 2020.

(Reporting by Sai Ishwarbharath B in Bengaluru and Haripriya Suresh in Mumbai.; Editing by Dhanya Skariachan and Shri Navaratnam)

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ALTADENA, Calif. (AP) — The sight of celebrity mansions and movie landmarks reduced to ashes can make it seem like the wildfires roaring through the Los Angeles area affected a constellation of movie stars.

But a drive through the charred neighborhoods around Altadena shows that the fires also burned through a remarkable haven for generations of Black families avoiding discriminatory housing practices elsewhere. They have been communities of racial and economic diversity, where many people own their own homes.

Some now fear the most destructive fires in California’s history have altered that for good. Recovery and rebuilding may be out of reach for many, and pressures of gentrification could be renewed.

Samantha Santoro, 22, a first-generation college student at Cal Poly Pomona, remembered being annoyed when the initial news coverage of the wildfires focused more on celebrities. She and her sister, who attends UC Berkeley, worry how their Mexican immigrant parents and working-class neighbors who lost their homes in Altadena will move forward.

“We don’t have like, ‘Oh, I’ll just go to my second home and stay there,’” Santoro said.

The landlord of their family’s two-bedroom house with a pool had never increased the $1,650 rent, making it possible for the Santoros to affordably raise their daughters. Now, they’re temporarily staying with a relative in Pasadena. The family has renters insurance but not much else.

“I think it’s hard to believe that you have nothing,” Santoro said, through tears, thinking of her parents. “Everything that they ever worked for was in that house.”

Altadena had been a mix of tiny bungalows and magnificent mansions. The community of 42,000 includes blue-collar families, artists, entertainment industry workers and white-collar ones. About 58% of residents are non-white, with one-fourth of them Hispanic and nearly a fifth Black, according to Census data.

During the Civil Rights era, Altadena became a rare land of opportunity for Black Americans to reach middle class without the discriminatory practices of denying them access to credit. They kept homes within the family and helped others to flourish. Today, the Black home ownership rate there is at 81.5%, almost double the national rate.

That’s impressive considering 92% of the 15,000 residences in Altadena are single-family homes, according to the 2023 Census American Community Survey. The median income is over $129,000. Just over 7% of residents live in poverty.

Victoria Knapp, chair of the Altadena Town Council, worries that the fires have irreparably changed the landscape for these families.

“Someone is going to buy it and develop who knows what on it. And that is going to change the character of Altadena,” Knapp said, adding that those with fewer resources will be disproportionately hurt.

The family of Kenneth Snowden, 57, was one of the Black families able to purchase a home in 1962. That house, as well as the one Snowden bought almost 20 years ago, are both gone.

He is challenging state and federal officials to help all fire-affected communities fairly because “your $40 million home is no different than my $2 million home.”

Snowden wants the ability to acquire home loans with 0% interest. “Give us the ability to rebuild, restart our lives,” he said. “If you can spend billions of dollars fighting a war, you can spend a billion dollars to help us get back where we were at.”

Shawn Brown lost not only her home but also the public charter school she founded in Altadena. She had a message for fellow Black homeowners who might be tempted with offers for their property: “I would tell them to stand strong, rebuild, continue the generational progress of African-Americans.”

She and other staff at Pasadena Rosebud Academy are trying to raise money to rebuild while looking at temporary sites in churches.

But even some churches have burned. At Altadena Baptist Church, the bell tower is pretty much the only thing still standing.

The Rev. George Van Alstine and others are trying to help more than 10 church members who lost homes with needs like navigating insurance and federal aid. The pastor is worried the fires will lead to gentrification, with Black parishioners, who make up half the congregation, paying the price.

“We’re seeing a number of families who are probably going to have to move out of the area because rebuilding in Altadena will be too expensive for them,” he said.

The 32-year-old photographer Daniela Dawson, who had been working two jobs to meet the $2,200 rent for her studio apartment, fled the wildfires with her Hyundai SUV and her cat, Lola. She lost almost everything else, including thousands of dollars of photography gear.

She did not have renter’s insurance. “Obviously now I’m thinking about it. Wish I had it,” she said.

Dawson plans to return to Arizona, where she lived previously, and regroup. But she likely won’t be returning to Altadena.

___ Tang reported from Sunnyvale, California. Kelleher reported from Honolulu. Associated Press deputy director Kim Johnson in Chicago and data reporter Angeliki Kastanis in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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ZURICH (Reuters) -UBS could be seen as being too big for Switzerland following its takeover of Credit Suisse, former Swiss Finance Minister Ueli Maurer said on Saturday, with measures needed to reduce the risks of the enlarged bank.

“If you look at the numbers alone and compare UBS with the Swiss economy, it is too big,” Maurer told newspaper Tages-Anzeiger. “Therefore, the risk must be reduced.”

At around $1.7 trillion, UBS’s balance sheet is double the size of annual Swiss economic output, giving the bank exceptional weight for a major economy.

Should the bank fail, there are no local rivals left to absorb it, while the cost of nationalisation could severely damage public finances, experts have warned.

Reducing risks was primarily the responsibility of shareholders via their choice of board members, Maurer said.

“They must take responsibility, not the taxpayers in the end,” said Maurer, who left office months before the final collapse of Credit Suisse in March 2023.

“Legislative measures must also be examined,” said Maurer, who also defended himself after a recent parliamentary report raised questions about his actions as the Credit Suisse crisis worsened at the end of 2022.

The Swiss government last year laid out plans for tougher capital requirements for UBS and Switzerland’s three other big banks in a bid to make the financial sector more robust after Credit Suisse’s demise.

Details of the exact capital requirements are yet to emerge, but the possibility that UBS could be made to hold $15 billion to $25 billion in additional capital has met resistance from the bank.

Maurer said if the capital requirements were too high, Swiss banks would no longer be competitive and may look to be based elsewhere.

“For the Swiss economy with its many international multi-nationals, a large bank is a locational advantage,” he said. “But risks must be minimized.”

UBS declined to comment on the interview. The bank’s CEO Sergio Ermotti earlier this month told Migros Magazine that UBS had enough capital to cover potential problems.

The bank supported many of the Swiss government’s proposals to improve banking regulation, but they had to be targetted and proportionate, Ermotti told the magazine.

(Reporting by John RevillEditing by Mark Potter)

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(Reuters) – Apple’s board of directors recommended investors vote against a shareholder proposal to abolish the company’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, according to a proxy filing from the company.

The National Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank, submitted a proposal that the company consider abolishing its “Inclusion & Diversity program, policies, department and goals.”

The proposal cited recent Supreme Court decisions, and made the argument that DEI poses “litigation, reputational and financial risks to companies” and could make Apple more vulnerable to lawsuits.

Apple responded that it had a well-established compliance program and the proposal was unnecessary. It added that the shareholder proposal was an inappropriate attempt to micromanage Apple’s business strategy.

“Apple is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in recruiting, hiring, training, or promoting on any basis protected by law”, the iPhone maker said in the filing. The news was first reported by TechCrunch.

Several major companies including Meta and Amazon are winding down diversity programs ahead of Republican Donald Trump’s return to the U.S. presidency as conservative opposition to such initiatives grows louder.

Conservative groups have denounced DEI programs and threatened to sue companies over them, emboldened by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2023 that struck down affirmative action in university admissions decisions.

The changes show how some of America’s biggest businesses have reacted to a larger conservative backlash against diversity initiatives, which multiplied after widespread protests following the police killings of George Floyd and other Black Americans in 2020.

(Reporting by Chandni Shah in Bengaluru)

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