Heads Begin to Roll Amid Epstein Fallout

0:02Japan's Nikkei notches a new record after the country's prime minister secures a powerful mandate in snap elections. Plus, Epstein Files revelations bring down the top aide to Britain's prime minister. What we're seeing in the UK, which is different to the US, is a very real fallout of the Epstein Files in terms of people having their professional careers curtailed. And SpaceX puts the red planet on hold, setting its sights on the moon. It's Monday, February 9th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

0:44Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock index has surged to a record high after Prime Minister Sanae Takeichi won a powerful mandate to deepen ties with the U.S. and rev up Japan's economy. The landslide victory in yesterday's elections gives Takeichi's government a more than two-thirds majority in Japan's lower house and the ability to overrule the smaller upper house to push through its agenda. Shares in weight loss drugmaker Novo Nordisk are rallying today after American telehealth company Hims & Hers dropped its plan to offer a knockoff version of WeGovi over the weekend. The move came after the Food and Drug Administration threatened to restrict access to the ingredients that compounding pharmacies need to copy popular GLP-1 medicines.

1:28In response, Hims & Hers said it's always operated in compliance with the law, while investors sent its shares down more than 15 % in off-hours trading. Soren Lontoft-Hansen is a senior equity analyst at Denmark's AL Sudbank and says hims and hers decision will give Novo Nordisk and competitor Eli Lilly some breathing room as pricing pressure mounts across the obesity drug market. I definitely think this is a tailwind for Novo Nordisk and also Eli Lilly. More than a million Americans are using compounding versions of a GLB-1 product. I think this will actually protect companies that do spend time and significant investments in new innovation.

2:14Talking about the Vigowi pill, this is very important for Nord Nordisk in order to get back to growth. So I guess the threatened to restrict a hems and hers compounding version of the Vigori pill will be a tailwind for Norbert Nordisk. Following a record-setting end to trading on Friday, U.S. stock futures are pointing to a more muted open today. Investors are in a holding pattern ahead of several key data releases this week, including the delayed January jobs report on Wednesday. It comes amid signs of a weakening job market as the efficiencies gained by AI begin to leave their mark. Well, as we try to suss out exactly what's going on, who better to weigh in than you, our listeners?

3:01So whether you're hiring, firing, happily or worriedly employed, looking for a promotion or a new job altogether, we'd love to hear your impressions of the labor market or help to track down an answer to a question on your mind. To weigh in, email us a voice memo to wnpod at wsj.com or leave us a voicemail at 212-416-4328. And however you get in touch, just make sure to include your full name and your location so we can use your comments on the show.

3:33A Hong Kong court has sentenced Jimmy Lai, a former newspaper publisher and an outspoken critic of China's Communist Party, to 20 years in prison. He has received the sternest sentence under the law. So they really, really went after Jimmy Lai. He was kind of public enemy number one from the eyes of Beijing. He was convicted over what were essentially speech crimes for calling for governments to sanction Hong Kong officials. He was also convicted of sedition for many of the critical things that were written in his newspaper and said about the authorities here. That's the journal's Hong Kong reporter, Austin Ramsey.

4:08He says the ruling adds further friction in U.S.-China relations after President Trump said last year he had asked Chinese leader Xi Jinping to free lie. Jimmy Lai, he's 78, and so it's clear a 20-year sentence is most likely a life sentence. So his family, his friends, his supporters are working hard to see if there is any way to get him released on some sort of health grounds. I had an opportunity to interview him in 2020, shortly before he was arrested for the last time, he saw it as sort of a calculation that one man's loss of freedom is worth it for the effort to try and achieve the freedom of the seven and a half million people of Hong Kong.

4:49And, you know, also potentially contribute to greater freedoms in China as a whole. So I think he was fully aware of the possibility or the likelihood even that he would be arrested, that he would spend a long period of time, perhaps the rest of his life in prison. And while he didn't welcome that, I think he had come to terms with it. Trump is expected to meet Xi in China in April. Iran is threatening missile attacks on American military bases and U.S. allies in the Middle East if President Trump orders an attack on the country.

5:23The threat from Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Arachi came after Washington and Tehran held indirect talks in Oman on Friday, aimed at heading off a conflict where the U.S. stuck to its demand that Tehran restrict its missile program. The U.S. is taking the threat seriously, worried about Iran's ability to target Israel and U.S. forces in the region, with the Pentagon moving more missile defense systems to the Middle East. President Trump is set to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss Iran on Wednesday in Washington. Well, back on the home front, Dr. Mehmet Oz is encouraging Americans to get the measles shot as outbreaks continue in some 20 states.

6:04Here was Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on CNN's State of the Union, speaking to Dana Bash. As a doctor, your message to people about the measles vaccine is... Take the vaccine, please. We have a solution for a problem. Not all illnesses are equally dangerous and not all people equally susceptible to those illnesses. But measles is one you should get your vaccine. According to the CDC, there have now been 733 total cases of measles across the U.S. this year, with 95 percent of cases occurring among those who are either unvaccinated or who have an unknown vaccination status.

6:38The Pan-American Health Association is set to meet in April to consider whether the U.S. still meets its definition of being measles-free, the status that it earned in the year 2000. Coming up, we'll look at how the fallout from the Epstein files is raising the political pressure on U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer. That story and more after the break.

7:23See you next time.

7:33more fallout from the epstein files the chief of staff to uk prime minister keir starmer resigned yesterday morgan mcsweeney played a role in appointing epstein acquaintance peter mandelson as uk ambassador to the u.s two years ago and said he took full responsibility for advising starmer on the move however journal correspondent max colchester told me that doesn't mean starmer is necessarily off the hook. So this has turned into a political firestorm for Starmer, who's now desperately trying to put it out by getting rid of his most trusted aide. Whether this actually draws a line under the scandal, let's see.

8:08Starmer's under a lot of pressure. He's really plummeted in the polls in the last year or so. And many of his lawmakers are actively considering whether they should get rid of their leader and replace him with somebody potentially more popular. All right, Max, so Labour's opponents seeming to smell blood in the water here. But a point of clarity about the British political system, in the event Starmer were to step down, his ruling party would be able to stay in power, right? Absolutely. It would be the same Labour party remaining in power, but there would be a new leader. It seems that many of the lawmakers would like to see a more further left opposition in the UK.

8:45This could have ramifications for the direction the country is headed in. We've already seen financial markets are moving on the back of this. British government borrowing costs are going up as investors fret that someone more left-wing could come in and borrow more to fund more state handouts. Though we should note that there isn't really a frontrunner at this stage. And I think one of the things that's keeping Starmer in office is the fact that there isn't an obvious challenger who presents an immediate threat to him.

9:16And SpaceX says it's putting off a planned mission to Mars this year and will instead shift its focus to a lunar voyage for NASA. The rocket company told investors it'll be targeting a March 2027 lunar landing without humans on board. The Texas-based company has used its billions of dollars in NASA funding to help develop Starship, a more than 400-foot-tall rocket designed to be fully reusable. The strategic shift comes as SpaceX doubles down on plans to launch AI data centers in space after acquiring Elon Musk's startup XAI. And that's it for What's News for this Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer and Daniel Bach.

9:56Our supervising producer is Sandra Killhoff. And I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.

10:10Thank you.