Iran Funeral and Regional Tensions

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It's Monday, july sixth. I'm Alex Osalef 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. Political drama rocking the World Cup just got a little more interesting. President Trump today confirmed that he called FIFA President Gianni Infantino and asked him to review US. striker Full Lauren Balligan's one game suspension. I asked for a review because I didn't think it was a foul You know, again, I'm good at this stuff. I didn't think it was a foul I thought it was two great athletes to crash into each other and got entangled. That Balligan had received a red card for stepping on an opponent's ankle FFa's decision to reverse Ballagan's suspension drew widespread backlash, including from Belgium, which the U.S. plays tonight at eight PM Eastern The Belgian soccer Association tried to appeal the decision FIFA rejected it, but Belgium has raised the prospect of further challenges if Balligan is part of the team for tonight's game Infantino today stressed the independence of FIFA's judicial bodies The president this morning also rang the opening bells for the NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange first time that the two exchanges were rung in at the same time and remotely from the Oval Office. Trump so to celebrate the fact that Trump accounts for kids are now available between individual contributions and the seed funds eight hundred million dollars in new capital will be invested in the stock market for America's children this week. Those are a new type of savings account called a custodial individual retirement account for kids, and they come with special rules until the year the child turns eighteen Gonalves has been covering the Trump accounts for the journal and is here to tell us more How do the Trump accounts differ from other accounts people might open for kids like a five twenty nine So Trump accounts are essentially retirement accounts that parents can open early on for their kids With a five hundred and twenty nine education investment account, parents can withdraw funds tax free as long as they're used for school expenses. The earnings from Trump accounts, on the other hand, are taxess income when you make a withdrawal When the child turns eighteen, they can start taking money out for college. There's like one specific stipulation where you can take money out for a down payment on a house, but all other payments, you'd have to pay an early withdrawal fee. One reason that listeners might have heard about Trump accounts already and they might be particularly appealing to some parents is that they come with one thousand dollars of seed money from the treasury Department for newborns for the next few years. Should parents open an account for kids even if they don't get the thousand dollars? So if your child doesn't get the thousand dollars, they may still be eligible for some additional contributions like those from philanthropists or employers. For one, Michael and Susan Dell already promised billions of dollars to the program for kids who don't qualify for the thousand dollars, and today, SpaceX' Gwyen Shotwell said she would contribute SpaceX talks to children between eleven and seventeen in less affluent areas. On top of that, employers can add up to two thousand five hundred dollars annually to the accounts, and philanthropists and companies still have the opportunity to add money to these accounts. That said, financial advisors say it doesn't make a ton of sense for most families to add their own money to these accounts. Things like a five hundred twenty nine c or a taxable custodial account can give families a better tax advantage That was the journal of Elise Gonolvves. Nice Elise. Thank you. In politics, Maine's Democratic nominee for Senate Graam Platner is reassessing his U. S. Senate bid. A woman he was romantically involved with publicly alleged that he sexually assaulted her, detailed in an article in Politico. Platner denied the allegation in a video this afternoon. I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false lner is running against Maine's longtime senator, Republican Susan Collins. He rose from political obscurity to win the Democratic nomination after drawing big crowds and donations He has called for taxing the wealthy to provide more government services like Medicare for all Maine is one of this year's battleground races that could determine control of the Senate. Platner said today that his campaign is reflecting on the best path forward Stock markets opened the week higher. The NASDQ led the gains and closed up just over one percent In other markets news, the uppstart stock exchange based in Texas known as, yes, the Texas Stock Exchange, or Texie, is now open for trading, sort of Today, it started trading a handful of test symbols. The first publicly traded stocks are expected to start trading on the live exchange as early as Friday Texi has some Wall Street heavyweights backing its challenge to the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAq It'll continue its rollout over the next few months. It plans to begin listing exchange traded products in the third quarter, corporate listings in the fourth quarter, and then new IPOs next year And Microsoft will cut more than three thousand jobs from its Xbox video games division. It's also selling or spinning off four game development studios and exploring strategic options for a fifth The video game industry has been pummeled by layoffs for the past few years after many companies, including Microsoft, expanded aggressively in response to a surge of business during the pandemic, a boom that stopped when the world reopened In a memo to staff today, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said its business was not healthy and that Xbox needed a reset Coming up, the shortage of anti missile systems leaves Ukraine vulnerable, and China tests its own long range missile, launching it from a submarine. That and more international news after the break Office workers can lose a full workday every week just looking for information Nurses can spend nearly forty percent of their time charting Sales reps can spend seventy percent of their week not selling. Gemini Enterprise makes work less work AI that understands your business, with agents that can actually help get stuff done is less work Gemini Enterprise from Google Cloud The journal has learned that the founder of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, is trying to make a comeback at the organization that hosts a meeting in Davos every year In documents viewed by the journal, he is asking for an advisory role that would grant him influence over the forum's leadership wab resigned as chairman last year after a public clash with the board for opening an investigation into a whistleblower's allegations of misconduct A Wall Street Journal investigation in twenty twenty four uncovered evidence of a toxic culture at the forum for women and Black employees. Mchwab denied any wrongdoing, and last year in a public statement, the forum said that it found no material wrongdoing Internal documents show that the forum kept the full findings of an investigation hidden, and those include instances of discrimination and bullying, misuse of corporate funds, and breaches of data integrity The forum didn't respond to questions about Schwab's latest demands. Schwab himself didn't respond to requests for comment In international news, Russia launched its latest volley of missiles at Kyiv early this morning, leaving twelve dead and almost fifty wounded Ukraine wasn't able to intercept any of the ballistic missiles. That exposed a grim reality. The country has virtually run out of patriot interceptors that stopped the missiles There's a global shortage of the U S. made anti missile system, which has been compounded by the U. S. war with Iran Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to ask Western countries to send more of their own supply of interceptors at the NATO summit this week and President Trump is set to meet with Zelensky on Wednesday China's military said today that it test launched a long range ballistic missile from a nuclear submarine spokesman for China's Navy said that the missile was fired just afternoon today and carried a simulated warhead to a designated area in the Pacific Ocean It wasn't clear where the test missile landed China tried to play down the event as uneceptional, even as the rare display of advanced capabilities set off concerns from U. S. allies across Asia and the Pacific In the Middle East, Iran is in the middle of a week of mourning for its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khammini, who was killed by the U. S. and Israel at the start of the war Today, supporters packed the streets of Tehran as a truck carrying Hamini's coffin, along with those of his family members also killed in the war, made its way slowly through the crowds For for more on the funeral and what it means for the conflict, I'm joined now by WSJ Middle East correspondent Benois Fokan Peanw while, this was quite an event today in Tehran. The regime predicts that over the six days of funeral events, twenty million people will turn out to honor Homini. But why is this happening now more than four months after Homini was killed The idea is that it had to be no longer in the war situation, but the messaging that is coming out of the rallies today is really that war could restart. It's a message of revenge. The red flags, religious symbol of revenge ards a banners saying, you know, we do not forget or forgive. And then a huge giant banner in Fasty that say, kill Trump. participants are throwing stones at a giant portrait of Trump. I mean, there is a sense that the wine in some ways is unfinished business And is this coming really from locals or from the regime or both It's coming from the regime, but it also comes from what looks like a very sincere feeling among the supporters of the suupreme leader. The question whether they were presresent the entire population, I was told by people in Tehran that actually a lot of inhabitants in Tehran actually left the city. They didn't want to be part of the funeral. They don't want to be there and show support for the regime So It's still a very divided population, I would say. the message of We're still ready for war essentially is pretty clear. It sounds like from the regime. What might that mean for the negotiations with the U.S, which are ongoing It does complicate matters. If you have a position where you're not ready for concessions and there's also a lot of mistress, you know, it does make the task of the negotiators much harder. So amid all of this projection of strength from the regime, there's been one person kind of missing which is Mushhab Aahameni, the Spreme leader's son and successor. What should we make of that It was expected that it would not turn out I had hear that potentially they would release some videos at one stage of him that it hasn't happened It's not surprising, even though it's obviously a question mark about how much he runs the country, how much he's even healthy enough to you know, to make decisions. But the fight didn't turn out is not surprising considering the fear that there could still be strikes or attacks on under the leadership We talked about what the funeral means for Iran's enemies What does it show its friends, its allies? It has been a clear message of solidarity for closest friends, whher the Hezbollah, the Houis called the Iraqi militia and to a lesser degree Hamas the statement were strongly committed to quote the cause of the Ais of resistance Then there was a more complicated situation of neighbourors like Saudi Arabia. You could see criticism in the way they were greeted by the Iranian authorities, quoting parts of the Quran that were critical of the Saudi leadership So that relationship is obviously damaged and that was evident in, you know, the kind of luckwarm reception they got once they arrived in Thran. That was WSJ Middle East correspondent, Benois Falkan. Thank you, Benis. Thank you. And that's what's news for this Monday afternoon. Aditional sound, courtesy, or Reiters. Todays show is produced by Anthony Banscy with supervising producer Tally Arbell I'm Alex Osala for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. 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