Farmers forge ahead as cold snap freezes US Midwest

Bloomberg While many Americans in the frozen Midwest hunker down indoors, central Iowa farmer Ethan Crow has been outside lining his barn and fences with extra bales of hay and corn stalks to break the wind hitting his cattle. He checked on his roughly 50-head herd every few hours to make sure they had feed and he chipped ice off ...

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Trump’s venom for allies could take a toll this year

After two years under rhetorical assault from the president, US alliances have somehow held up. This year, however, the constraints on Trump’s anti-alliance instincts are falling away, and a mix of internal and external pressures are endangering several key alliances at once. This trend is most visible with respect to Nato. The transatlantic alliance has been a target of Donald ...

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The US debt is still out of control

At the start of every year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) publishes its annual “The Budget and Economic Outlook,” a tome full of statistics, tables and charts. Frankly, it’s easy to get swamped by the numbers. To make sense of the report, I’ve selected five takeaways that capture the main points. (1) The US economy is in the midst of ...

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Caterpillar comes back down to earth in China

All Caterpillar Inc. said was that demand in China would be flat this year. That only scrapes the surface. The US industrial bellwether blamed China for the 4 percent slide in its Asia-Pacific sales for the fourth quarter. The mainland market constitutes 10 percent to 15 percent of the company’s construction-segment sales and 5 percent to 10 percent of the ...

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In Brexit talks, May opts for dithering and delay

On January 29, the UK sent a resounding message to the European Union: “We demand that you give us what we want.” Don’t expect the audience to be receptive. Parliament was considering changes to Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, which it rejected by a spectacular margin two weeks ago. One measure that carried the day, and which May supported, ...

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Germany shouldn’t rush to abandon coal by 2038

Policy decisions about climate change are among the toughest a government can make: Any change in direction is practically guaranteed to displease the stakeholders. A commission set up by the German government to work out how the country will phase out coal called for ending the fuel’s use by 2038. Energy companies, labor unions and environmentalists are all unhappy. The ...

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Anbang Insurance is not that ‘toxic’

Foreign firms eager for a $119 billion slice of China’s insurance market might just want to give Anbang Insurance Group Co.’s assets a closer look. You’d be forgiven for wanting to steer clear of a firm that’s become the face of China’s toxic debt binge. But the timing could be right: It’s been almost a year since Beijing seized temporary ...

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ECB’s Mario Draghi is searching for the crash mats

Like Nadia Comaneci at the 1976 Olympics, Mario Draghi might have hoped for a perfect 10 from anyone judging his performance as president of the European Central Bank. But an incipient slowdown in the euro zone risks spoiling his routine just months before he bows out. The ECB’s decision to end its net asset purchases at the end of 2018 ...

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Apple plans new 3D camera for 2020 iPhones

Bloomberg Apple Inc. plans to launch iPhones with a more-powerful 3-D camera as soon as next year, stepping up the company’s push into augmented reality, according to people familiar with the plans. The rear-facing, longer-range 3-D camera is designed to scan the environment to create three-dimensional reconstructions of the real world. It will work up to about 15 feet from ...

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Nokia slumps over ‘bumpier’ 5G outlook

Bloomberg Nokia Oyj forecast a stagnant market for phone equipment this year, sending shares down the most in six months as investors looking for signs it could benefit from a crackdown on Chinese rival Huawei Technologies Co. were disappointed. Nokia also projected weaker-than-expected 2019 earnings as carriers delay buying the 5G systems that are key to its growth, including in ...

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