Justice Dept. sues to stop AT&T’s $85B Time Warner deal
NEW YORK — The Justice Department is suing AT&T to stop its $85 billion purchase of Time Warner, setting the stage for an epic legal battle with the telecom giant.
The government claims consumer cable bills will rise if the merger goes through, saying the deal would “substantially lessen competition, resulting in higher prices and less innovation for millions of Americans.” AT&T would be able charge rival distributors such as cable companies “hundreds of millions of dollars more per year” for Time Warner’s networks, the Department of Justice charged in a press release.
Those payments are ultimately passed down to consumers through their cable bills. The government also said the combined company would use its power to slow the TV industry’s shift to new ways of watching video online. Web TV services are cheaper than traditional cable.
In an emailed statement Monday, AT&T general counsel David McAtee said the lawsuit is a “radical and inexplicable departure from decades of antitrust precedent” and that the company is confident that a court will reject the government’s claims.
The government’s objections to the deal have surprised many on Wall Street. AT&T and Time Warner are not direct competitors; “vertical” mergers between such companies have typically had an easier time winning government approval than mergers of rivals.
Nebraska gives long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline new life
LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska regulators Monday approved a Keystone XL oil pipeline route through the state, breathing new life into the long-delayed $8 billion project, although the chosen pathway is not the one preferred by the pipeline operator and could require more time to study the changes.
The Nebraska Public Service Commission’s vote also is likely to face court challenges and may require another federal analysis of the route, if project opponents get their way.
“This decision opens up a whole new bag of issues that we can raise,” said Ken Winston, an attorney representing environmental groups that have long opposed the project.
Environmental activists, American Indian tribes and some landowners have fought the project since it was proposed by TransCanada Corp in 2008. It would carry oil from Canada through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska to meet the existing Keystone pipeline, where it could move as far as the U.S. Gulf Coast. Business groups and some unions support the project as a way to create jobs and reduce the risk of shipping oil by trains that can derail.
President Barack Obama’s administration studied the project for years before finally rejecting it in 2015 because of concerns about carbon pollution. President Donald Trump reversed that decision in March.
Trump promises Americans ‘huge tax cut’ for Christmas
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday promised a tax overhaul by Christmas, a day after the White House signaled its willingness to strike a health care provision from Senate tax legislation if it’s an impediment to passing the tax bill.
Speaking before a Cabinet meeting, Trump said: “We’re going to give the American people a huge tax cut for Christmas — hopefully that will be a great big, beautiful Christmas present.”
At issue is a provision that would repeal a requirement that Americans have health insurance or pay a fine. The provision is not in the version of the tax overhaul passed last week by the House. It is in the bill the Senate Finance Committee has approved.
Repealing a central mandate of the Obama health law has emerged as a major sticking point for Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, whose vote the White House needs. Collins said Sunday that the issue should be dealt with separately.
Striking the health care provision would blow a big hole in the senators’ tax cut plan, leaving them $338 billion short of their revenue goal over the next 10 years.
Germany faces uncertainty after coalition talks break down
BERLIN — Germany, Europe’s largest economy and anchor of stability, is facing the prospect of months of political uncertainty after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives were unable to form a coalition with two smaller parties, raising the likelihood of new elections.
Merkel said Monday that she was “very skeptical” about trying to forge ahead with a minority government — a setup that has never been tried in post-World War II Germany — after talks with the left-leaning Greens and pro-business Free Democrats broke down hours earlier. Her current coalition partner, the center-left Social Democrat party, has remained adamant it will go into opposition after a disastrous result in September’s election.
Even if it comes to new elections, a poll Monday for the broadcaster RTL indicated little change in support for the various parties, suggesting there would be similarly difficult prospects in forming a coalition.
Immediately after the talks broke down just before midnight Sunday, Merkel pledged she would do everything possible to ensure Germany would continue to be well led. Later she said that while the situation was regrettable, “we nevertheless have stability in our country.”
Her comments came after President Frank-Walter Steinmeier appealed to political leaders to rethink their positions and try again to form a new government.
Charles Manson dead at 83
LOS ANGELES — Charles Manson, the hippie cult leader who became the hypnotic-eyed face of evil across America after masterminding the gruesome murders of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and six others in Los Angeles during the summer of 1969, died Sunday night after nearly a half-century in prison. He was 83.
Manson died of natural causes at a California hospital while serving a life sentence, his name synonymous to this day with unspeakable violence and depravity.
A petty criminal who had been in and out of jail since childhood, the charismatic, guru-like Manson surrounded himself in the 1960s with runaways and other lost souls and then sent his disciples to butcher some of L.A.’s rich and famous in what prosecutors said was a bid to trigger a race war — an idea he got from a twisted reading of the Beatles song “Helter Skelter.”
The slayings horrified the world and, together with the deadly violence that erupted later in 1969 during a Rolling Stones concert at California’s Altamont Speedway, exposed the dangerous, drugged-out underside of the counterculture movement and seemed to mark the death of the era of peace and love.
By wire sources
