What the End of the DOJ Investigation Means for the Next Fed Chair

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0:33The Justice Department drops its probe of Fed Chair Jerome Powell. We'll get into what that means for Trump's pick for the next head of the Fed. Plus, U.S. officials are heading to Pakistan for more talks with Iran. And it may have had a rocky start, but now the Las Vegas sphere is the highest-grossing arena in the world. This idea of building a giant 17 ,000-seat dome near the Strip puzzled a lot of people. It turns out it works just because the technology is so immersive. It's Friday, April 24th. I'm Alex Oseleff for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.

1:18The Justice Department said today that it would end its criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The probe involved Powell's testimony to Congress about cost overruns on the renovation of two historic Fed buildings. Trump was insisting on the investigation just a few days ago during an interview on CNBC. We have to find out why is a job that should have cost$25 million costing billions and billions of dollars? Trump has also threatened to fire Powell, who has said the investigation was actually about pressuring the Fed over interest rates. Our chief economics correspondent Nick Timuros joins me now to talk about the end of the investigation and what it means for President Trump's pick for the next Fed chair, Kevin Warsh.

2:01Nick, this announcement comes just days after U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said publicly she intended to press on with the case. Why the reversal? It's because Donald Trump's choice to run the Federal Reserve beginning in three weeks was not going to get confirmed by the United States Senate until this happened. Either Tom Tillis, the Republican senator who has said he will not vote for any Fed nominee until this probe goes away, or Donald Trump, who had been happy to see this probe continue, one of them was going to have to back down, And today we saw that it was going to be Donald Trump. As you say, the probe had been the main obstacle for Kevin Warsh to be confirmed as Fed chair to succeed Powell.

2:39Is his confirmation now essentially a guarantee? It's not clear because Jeanine Pirro, the federal prosecutor, did two things. First, she said she was closing the probe and allowing an already-in-the-works review by the Fed's inspector general to take the place of what she had been doing. But then she also said that she wouldn't hesitate to restart a criminal investigation should the facts warrant doing so. And there was that disclaimer that has led some people to say, well, wait a minute. Is this really over? And so we're just going to have to wait and see what everybody has to say about how final this truly is.

3:20That was WSJ chief economics correspondent Nick Timmeros. Thanks, Nick. Thanks so much. A Fed spokeswoman today declined to comment.

3:33Iran's foreign minister arrived in Islamabad today to meet with Pakistan's senior leadership. An Iranian state news agency said that he doesn't currently plan to hold talks directly with American delegates. Still, the White House is sending Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to Islamabad for talks with Iranian officials. Here's White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. The Iranians want to talk. They want to talk in person. And so the president is, as I've said many, many times to all of you, always willing to give diplomacy a chance. So Steve and Jared will be heading to Pakistan tomorrow to hear the Iranians out.

4:08Vice President J.D. Vance will stay in Washington. But if talks make progress, Levitt said the president may send him, too. The vice president, I understand, is on standby and will be willing to dispatch to Pakistan if we feel it's a necessary use of his time. Coming up, defense companies have been making money selling missiles during the Iran war. But to keep making it, they may have to spend more, too. That's after the break.

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5:11Given that there's a war going on, you'd think it would be a good time to be a weapons manufacturer. Demand for sophisticated missiles and other weapons has risen. boosting sales for defense contractors. But that's not winning over investors. Shares of major aerospace and defense companies RTX, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin have all fallen more than 10 percent since the war with Iran began, including a sell-off this week as they reported earnings. Drew Fitzgerald covers the defense industry for the journal and joins me now. Drew, we've reported that the U.S. is burning through its weapons stockpile.

5:45That seems like it would be great news for weapons makers who are needed to help restock. But you're reporting suggests the situation is more of a double-edged sword. What's the concern here? A lot of these defense-focused companies are hybrids of commercial and military technology. Even if they're selling a lot of hardware to the U.S. military and to its allies, they're also selling maintenance services, parts, all sorts of things to airlines. And that is a market that is threatened not only by direct conflict in the Middle East, but by high jet fuel prices. And another factor is that in some cases, Northrop Grumman and others have been selling off a bit on concerns that the companies themselves will need to make big investments to adequately serve the programs that they're addressing.

6:35Investors would prefer that a lot of free cash go to stock buybacks and to dividends. So can defense manufacturers meet the demand that the U.S. military is asking for? Well, it really depends on the type of weapon that you're talking about. There's been a lot of focus on the massive amount of very high-end tactical missiles and defensive interceptors that the U.S. and its Gulf allies have expended just over the past few weeks. These are very expensive weapons. They take more than two years to make, and it requires a lot of investment and a lot of time to address the American demand for those weapons, not to mention allies overseas.

7:13Another thing I'd mention is that big defense companies make most of their revenue from very, very expensive platforms like fighters, bombers and the like. And even though spending appears to be rising on some of those programs, there's pushback in Congress to this massive$1.5 trillion military budget that the Trump administration has proposed. So that's also in investors' minds as they think about where these defense companies will be going for the long haul. That was Journal Reporter Drew Fitzgerald. Thanks so much, Drew. Thanks for having me. The Nasdaq climbed 1.6 % today and closed at a record high.

7:50It got a big boost from Intel, which soared 24%. It was a huge day for the chip company, which closed at a record high, Intel's first since 2000, more than two decades ago. Intel yesterday afternoon reported higher sales and raised its outlook. Other trading was mixed, with the S &P rising 0.8 % and closing at its own record, while the Dow slipped 0.2%. And we have several updates related to AI today. Shares of X Energy closed up 27 % in the company's stock market debut. The nuclear energy company is benefiting from AI's big need for electricity. But X Energy is still years away from completing a nuclear reactor.

8:30Speaking of AI, Alphabet's Google plans to invest as much as$40 billion in Anthropic. Anthropic has secured up to$65 billion in new funding commitments this month ahead of its own potential IPO. And the Chinese AI lab DeepSeek has released a new open-source AI model. How well it performs could affect how investors value the startup. It's been seeking its first round of external funding. But in San Francisco, the Giants baseball team has a new investor in VC firm Thrive Capital. Thrive, founded by Joshua Kushner, Jared Kushner's brother, has a new strategy and wants to make investments in franchises and cultural institutions that can't be replicated by AI.

9:12Separately, we're exclusively reporting that Ford and Chinese automaker Geely held talks as recently as this year about a U.S. deal. Discussions involved Ford potentially licensing Geely's technology in the U.S., but they've stalled in recent months. The two sides instead are focused on a deal to share technology and manufacturing capacity in Europe. Geely is eager to expand in the U.S. market, where Chinese automakers are effectively banned. But it faces major hurdles to doing so.

9:43When the Sphere opened in Las Vegas three years ago, it had all the signs of impending disaster. Its construction was nearly$1 billion over budget and years behind schedule. When it finally did open, some drivers complained that it was creating hazardous driving conditions, either because people were stopping to take pictures of it or because the images distracted them. But now the sphere is the highest grossing arena in the world. According to Polestar, it sold$379 million worth of tickets last year. Our Catherine Sayre covers entertainment and joins me now. Okay, Catherine, I'm going to level with you.

10:16I don't get it. I don't understand the obsession with the sphere. Why are people so into it? Well, I think you're not the only one who didn't get it at first. This idea of building a giant 17 ,000 seat dome near the strip puzzled a lot of people. It turns out it works just because the technology is so immersive. This dome envelops you. There's a screen that's one of the highest resolution screens in the world. The sound is designed to go directly to your ears. And so people just enter a whole different world. So now it looks like Sphere Entertainment, the public company behind Sphere, is expanding and potentially building some other spheres across the world.

10:59What are some places they're considering and why are they looking at this? The sphere is so expensive to run. Now that they have this model, they can bring the same content to all of these other spheres they have in mind. So they have a deal in Abu Dhabi to bring essentially a replica of the Las Vegas location there. And they have announced plans for a smaller scale, 6 ,000-seat Sphere at National Harbor outside of D.C. Sphere's CEO, James Dolan, has said they could handle as many as five or six construction projects at a time. And that they're pursuing just basically as many as they can. That was Wall Street Journal reporter Catherine Sayre.

11:43Thanks, Catherine. Thank you. And that's what's news for this week. Tomorrow, you can look out for our weekly markets wrap-up, What's News in Markets. Then on Sunday, we'll be talking with a certified divorce financial analyst about what it takes to plan for your divorce before you even get married. That's in What's News Sunday. And we'll be back with our regular show on Monday morning. Today's show is produced by Danny Lewis and Pierre Bien-Aimé with supervising producer Tali Arbel. Michael LaValle wrote our theme music. Aisha El-Muslim is our development producer. Chris Zinsley is our deputy editor.

12:14And I'm Alex Osula. Have a great weekend and thanks for listening.

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