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TV giant Nexstar agrees to acquire a rival, Tegna, for $6.2 billion
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Local TV colossus Nexstar said Tuesday that it had struck an agreement to acquire a rival TV company, Tegna, for $6.2 billion, a deal that would further consolidate station ownership across the United States. If the deal closes, Nexstar and its partners will oversee 265 television stations in 44 states and Washington, D.C., cementing its position as the largest owner of local TV stations in the country. The Irving, Texas, company says it controls or provides services to 201 stations, reaching roughly 39 percent of television households in the United States. The deal requires approval from the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the transfer of broadcast TV licenses. Tegna owns roughly 64 TV stations and overlaps with Nexstar in roughly 35 market areas. That overlap could invite regulatory scrutiny, as opponents of local TV consolidation have argued that fewer owners make for a less competitive market for viewers and advertisers. Perry Sook, the CEO of Nexstar, appeared to anticipate some of that criticism in a statement announcing the deal, saying the acquisition of Tegna would allow the company to better compete with tech giants like Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and Alphabet's Google. He also praised President Trump, whose choice for FCC chair, Brendan Carr, must authorize license transfers. — NEW YORK TIMES
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RETAIL
Home Depot's sales improve as customers stay focused on smaller projects
A customer at a Home Depot store in Chicago.
Scott Olson/Getty
Home Depot's sales improved during its fiscal second quarter as consumers remained focused on smaller projects amid cost concerns and economic uncertainty, but its performance missed Wall Street's expectations. The Atlanta-based company also said shoppers should expect modest price increases in some categories as a result of rising tariff costs, though they won't be broad-based. Company executives told analysts during the earnings call after the results were released that more than 50 percent of its products are sourced domestically and wouldn't be subject to any tariffs. In May, Home Depot said it didn't expect to raise prices because of tariffs, saying it had spent years diversifying the sources for the goods on its shelves. But Billy Bastek, executive vice president of merchandising at Home Depot, told analysts on Tuesday that tariff rates are significantly higher than they were when it released earnings results in May. Revenue for the three months ended August 3 climbed to $45.28 billion from $43.18 billion, but fell short of the $45.41 billion that analysts polled by FactSet were looking for. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
ECONOMY
D.C. unemployment rate is the highest in the US for the third straight month
Commuters crossed Pennsylvania Avenue near the US Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Al Drago/Bloomberg
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Washington, D.C., was the highest in the nation for the third straight month, according to new data released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. D.C.'s jobless rate reached 6 percent in July, a reflection of the mass layoffs of federal workers, ushered in by President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, earlier this year. An overall decline in international tourism — which is a main driver of D.C.'s income — is also expected to have an impact on the climbing unemployment rate in the District. Neighboring states also saw an uptick in unemployment rates in July — with Maryland at 3.4 percent (up from 3.3 percent) and Virginia at 3.6 percent (up from 3.5 percent), according to the state-by-state jobless figures. Since the beginning of Trump's second term, federal workers across government agencies have been either laid off or asked to voluntarily resign from their positions. Those actions have drawn litigation across the federal government by labor unions and advocacy groups. In July, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump administration plans to downsize the federal workforce further, despite warnings that critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be out of their jobs. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
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CRYPTOCURRENCY
Wyoming becomes the first to launch a state-issued stablecoin
Wyoming launched its long-promised stablecoin, designed to offer instant transactions and reduced fees for consumers and businesses, in the latest effort by the Cowboy State to attract digital asset businesses. The Frontier Stable Token, or FRNT, will be backed by dollars and short-term Treasuries and is meant to track the value of the US currency one-for-one. The Wyoming Stable Token Commission is working with LayerZero to issue the tokens and plans for the coins to be overcollateralized by 2 percent. The reserves backing FRNT are managed by Franklin Advisers with financial audit and monthly attestations provided by The Network Firm. The stablecoin will be available on the the Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, Ethereum, Optimism, Polygon, and Solana blockchains. Wyoming is the first state to issue its own stablecoin after announcing its plans last year. The launch comes shortly after President Trump signed the first federal bill to regulate stablecoins, a watershed moment expected to encourage everyone from large technology players to highly regulated firms like banks to consider launching their own coins. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
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TRADE
No tariff exemption for European wine and spirits, at least for now
Bottles of St-Remy French brandy sit on a store shelf on April 7 in Pasadena, Calif
Mario Tama/Getty
European Union negotiators have been arguing for weeks that America should not apply a 15 percent tariff to wine and spirits and instead maintain a long-standing tradition of keeping alcohol tariffs at zero on both sides of the Atlantic. But as the United States and the 27-nation bloc move closer to a final text of their recently struck trade agreement, it looks increasingly unlikely that alcohol will catch a break. Irish whiskey, Italian prosecco, French cognac, and all other alcohol imports from the European Union will still face tariffs for now, according to a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, adding that the two sides did not carve out those products in their initial deal. The written draft of the trade agreement is still under negotiation and isn't final. But this deep into the process, the reality that no exemption has been agreed to does not bode well for the alcohol industry. For many spirits producers in Europe, America has a major — if not the single most important — customer base. — NEW YORK TIMES
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Postal services operated by Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Belgium — Posten Bring, PostNord, and bpost — said they will suspend parcel shipments to the US ahead of the end of a customs exemption that allows low-value packages to enter the country duty-free. The conundrum facing postal operators comes as the Trump administration prepares to suspend the " de minimis" exemption starting on August 29. The exemption used to allow international shipments under $800 to cross the border with minimal paperwork and no duties. Now, these shipments will face tariffs, and not every operator can handle the customs declaration paperwork, have a payment mechanism in place, or be responsible for returns should a receiver refuse to pay tariffs. It's unclear when the temporary freeze on shipments will resume. "Due to the short timeframe to adapt to the new specific requirements, PostNord will temporarily halt shipments to the United States and Puerto Rico until a compliant solution has been developed and implemented," wrote the operator owned by the Swedish and Danish governments in a statement on Wednesday. Separately, Posten Bring, Norway's primary postal provider operated by the government, said in a statement that postal services have not been given clear instructions and solutions on how the duties will be paid or who would be responsible for returns. Therefore, Posten Bring sees suspension as the "only option." All three European postal services will suspend shipments starting August 23, which applies to all packages other than letters. This means that if you have a pending purchase that is not shipped by the deadline, your seller may need to cancel your order or arrange alternatives. But even if you're not purchasing from these specific European countries, your shopping options might still dwindle and become more costly. Etsy, the US e-commerce giant and a hub for independent crafters, posted a notice Wednesday that shipping label purchases for Australia Post, Canada Post, Evri, and Royal Mail for US-bound packages will be temporarily suspended starting August 25. Etsy wrote in a statement that these operators are unable to support prepaid duties at the moment, which may result in a large number of rejected packages due to unpaid duties and surprise costs for buyers not listed at checkout. Across social media platforms, many independent sellers based in the UK are also announcing that they can no longer support orders to the US, citing the introduction of an $80 flat fee plus handling charges for using Royal Mail to ship parcels to the US. "We hope to resume shipping as soon as we can, but we really don't want our customers to be hit with an $80+ fee," wrote the Citrine Circle, a UK-based crystal shop, on Instagram. "It feels like the world is getting smaller and smaller."
NBC News
5 minutes ago
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These little robots are changing the way solar farms are built, saving time and money
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New York Times
5 minutes ago
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How Trump Is Forcing Foes to Pay Up
Seven months into the second Trump administration, the president has picked fights with colleges, law firms, trading partners and private businesses, threatening them with investigations, tariffs or other consequences as he seeks to enact his agenda. And he has also offered them a simple way out of their Trump-instigated troubles, one that would hardly seem out of place in the clubby, mob-connected Manhattan he came up in: Pay up. And so they are. One by one, the president's foes — and even some of his purported allies — are agreeing to spend big on his terms, either so they can go about their business or avoid something worse. Some of the president's critics see it as nothing less than extortion. New reporting from my colleagues shows that Trump personally interceded as his aides negotiated with Columbia University, insisting they secure a $200 million payment on top of the policy changes it had already committed to make. And it's not just Columbia. Other colleges: Brown University agreed to pay $50 million to state work force development programs to keep its government funding in place, and an emerging agreement between Harvard and the government could see the university spending $500 million in a bid to maintain its federal funding and make a litany of federal investigations go away. Trading partners: The president has urged trading partners to show him the money in the form of investments as a way to avoid steeper tariffs, something my colleague Alan Rappeport described as directly injecting his 1987 autobiography, 'The Art of the Deal,' into trade policy. ('The dollar always talks in the end,' Trump and his co-author Tony Schwartz wrote in that book, which helped propel Trump to new heights of fame and cement his business-savvy image.) Private companies: The Trump administration said it would issue licenses to two companies wishing to sell A.I. chips in China, Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, only after those businesses took the unusual step of agreeing to give the federal government a 15 percent cut of those sales. It was a highly unusual agreement, my colleague Tripp Mickle wrote, but one the companies felt they had no choice but to make. The administration is also discussing taking a 10 percent stake in Intel, the struggling chip-maker, Tripp and Lauren Hirsch reported this week. Law firms: Elite law firms ponied up nearly $1 billion in pro bono legal services after they were targeted with punitive executive orders or other threats. Trump has hinted that he'll draw on it as a kind of personal legal war chest, and my colleagues reported today that two of the firms are said to be doing free work for the Commerce Department. It is not unusual for the federal government to reach settlements with entities it has investigated as they seek to avoid trials or other drawn-out proceedings. But it is unusual for a president to personally — and sometimes publicly — push for such payments himself with the full force of the federal government behind him. The approach, however, is consistent with the highly personalized and transactional approach Trump honed over his decades in New York. To him, leverage was everything, money is power — and he always looked for a way to come out on top. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
