China puts Google, Nvidia, Intel in regulatory crosshairs as Trump trade dispute escalates

 China has opened an antitrust probe against Google – and Nvidia and Intel are also in Beijing’s crosshairs as part of a sweeping set of retaliatory measures after President Trump imposed a new 10% tariff on Chinese imports.

China’s antitrust regulator did not provide details about the Google probe or which part of the business it would target – but sources told the Financial Times that it would focus on the Android operating system and whether Google’s control of the software had harmed Chinese phone makers.

Chinese officials said in December they were investigating US computer chip supplier Nvidia for potential antitrust violations. That decision came shortly after the Biden administration further restricted China’s access to Nvidia’s high-end hardware.

Chinese regulators are also mulling a formal probe against Intel, according to the FT. Further details on a potential case against the chipmaking giant were not immediately clear.

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Google faces an antitrust probe in China.AP

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“This is all part of a bigger game of high stakes poker between the US and China when it comes to trade negotiations,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note. “In the midst of the AI Revolution there are many chips on the table with the first one being TikTok and the 75-day window under the clock to get a deal done.”

The Google probe will proceed despite the fact that the company’s search engine and other core services have been unavailable in China since 2010. China’s threats to take action against Google had been dormant for years before becoming a bargaining chip in the dispute over US-China trade relations.

Shares of Google parent Alphabet were up nearly 2%. The company will report earnings after the bell on Tuesday. Nvidia shares were up 1.6%. Intel shares were flat.

Trump has argued the tariffs are necessary to rebalance existing trade deals. The president imposed 10% duties on all imports from China and 25% on imports from Mexico and Canada – though he paused the latter two after speaking with the country’s leaders.

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President Trump and Xi Jinping were not expected to speak on Tuesday.AP

Trump and China’s leader Xi Jinping were not expected to speak Tuesday about the trade dispute, despite earlier reporting to the contrary.

In retaliation, China tightened export controls on five critical minerals – tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, molybdenum and indium – though experts say the move was unlikely to have a major impact on US businesses, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Beijing also added new tariffs on US coal and oil as well as some farm equipment makers and the owner of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger.

“These moves are warnings that China intends to harm US interests if need be, but still give China the option to back down,” Capital Economics said in a note.

“The probe against Google could conclude without any penalties,” the firm added.

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China’s leader Xi Jinping imposed retaliatory trade penalties on the US.AP

Despite pulling most products from China, Google still has offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen and maintains some operations related to its digital advertising business and Google Cloud.

Google derives about 1% of its global revenue from China.

The investigation in China is yet another regulatory headache for Google, which was determined last August to have a monopoly over online search in the US and is currently awaiting a judge’s decision on potential remedies, including a possible breakup.

A separate federal antitrust case targeting Google’s digital advertising business is also underway.

https://nypost.com/2025/02/04/business/china-puts-google-nvidia-intel-in-crosshairs-as-trump-trade-dispute-escalates/

DOGE Enters FBI Headquarters To Obtain Names Of 5,000 Agents Who Worked Jan. 6 Cases

 Update (1615ET): DOGE is at it again - kicking down the doors of FBI headquarters to obtain the names of roughly 5,000 agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases. This comes after the agency withheld specifics on those involved, such as their names.

Officials working for Elon Musk's DOGE were spotted by CNN entering FBI headquarters on Tuesday to collect the information.

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by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked for the names of thousands of FBI employees who worked on investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove in a Jan. 31 missive to Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll directed the FBI to provide the names of all bureau personnel who investigated Jan. 6 and an unrelated terrorism case, Senate Democrats said in a Feb. 3 letter.

Driscoll told FBI workers in a separate message to the FBI workforce that the request encompasses thousands of employees across the country, including himself, “who have supported these investigative efforts.”

Bove warned that “additional personnel actions” could follow, Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said.

The DOJ did not respond to requests for comment.

An FBI spokesperson confirmed that Bove has requested information about FBI personnel.

“The FBI is currently working to respond to a request for information from the Acting Deputy Attorney General about current and former FBI personnel assigned to certain investigations or prosecutions, including the events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,” the spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.

“The FBI will work within the law and policy to respond to official requests for information from the Department of Justice. To be clear, the FBI does not view anyone’s identification on one of these lists as an indicator of misconduct,” the bureau added.

Ed Martin, interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, previously launched an investigation into why federal prosecutors brought a felony obstruction charge against hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants. Trump, after taking office, pardoned many people who had been charged over Jan. 6.

The new request for information comes after acting Department of Justice leadership terminated officials, including prosecutors involved in prosecuting Trump before he was elected, and six FBI executive assistant directors.

“I do not believe the current leadership of the Justice Department can trust these FBI employees to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully,” Bove stated in his letter to Driscoll, Senate Democrats said.

Durbin and the other senators told Acting Attorney General James McHenry and Driscoll that the terminations, and reassignments that have also taken place, “deprive DOJ and the FBI of experienced, senior leadership and decades of experience fighting violent crime, espionage, and terrorism.” They asked for details about the actions.

Leaders of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Agents Association told members of Congress on Feb. 3 that the Department of Justice’s actions are threatening the jobs of thousands of FBI agents and “risk disrupting the bureau’s essential work.”

“Any review of Special Agents should follow established disciplinary procedures that provide the necessary due process and transparency to our nation’s law enforcement officers,” the group said.

McHenry and Driscoll are serving in acting positions as the Senate considers the nominations of Pam Bondi and Kash Patel to become, respectively, the attorney general and FBI director.

Patel said during his confirmation hearing that he would not act against FBI employees solely due to their work on probes into Trump.

“All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution,” he said.

“I will not politicize that office,“ Bondi said during her confirmation hearing. ”I will not target people simply because of their political affiliation.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/doj-seeks-information-fbi-employees-who-investigated-jan-6

Amgen stock falls as profit outlook disappoints investors

 Amgen Inc (NASDAQ:AMGN) reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter results on Tuesday, but its shares fell 2.5% in after-hours trading as the company's profit outlook for 2025 fell short of analyst expectations.

The biotechnology giant posted adjusted earnings per share of $5.31, surpassing the analyst estimate of $5.04. Revenue for the quarter came in at $9.1 billion, exceeding the consensus estimate of $8.85 billion and representing an 11% increase YoY.

Despite the strong quarterly performance, investors appeared to focus on Amgen's guidance for fiscal year 2025. The company projects earnings per share between $20.00 and $21.20, with the midpoint of $20.60 falling below the analyst consensus of $20.82.

Robert A. Bradway, chairman and CEO of Amgen, commented on the results: "Robust growth in sales and earnings throughout 2024 reflects the momentum of our business. With strong performance globally, we are investing heavily in our rapidly advancing pipeline to deliver innovative therapies across our four therapeutic areas."

The company's fourth-quarter product sales grew 11%, primarily driven by 14% volume growth. Excluding sales from the recently acquired Horizon Therapeutics (NASDAQ:HZNP), product sales increased 10%, fueled by 15% volume growth. Ten products, including Repatha, BLINCYTO, and TEZSPIRE, delivered at least double-digit sales growth in the quarter.

For the full year 2024, Amgen's total revenues increased 19% to $33.4 billion compared to 2023. Product sales grew 19%, driven by 23% volume growth, partially offset by 2% lower net selling price.

The company generated $10.4 billion of free cash flow for the full year, up from $7.4 billion in 2023, driven by business performance and timing of working capital items.

https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/amgen-stock-falls-as-profit-outlook-disappoints-investors-3848829

FDA Dysfunction Rewards Chinese Black Marketeers at the Expense of Kids

 If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), he has vowed to reform the agency. His work is cut out for him: HHS’s size and scope are matched only by its dysfunction.

Mr. Kennedy has singled out the Food and Drug Administration for attention. Let’s hope he doesn’t overlook the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP). CTP is responsible for licensing the sale of all nicotine products in the U.S., a job it doesn’t want to do and is quite successful at avoiding. As of June 2024, the CTP hadn’t authorized the sale of an e-cigarette or vaping system during the entire Biden-Harris administration. It had authorized just 1/1,000^th of one percent of the applications it’s received and had a backlog of 557,000 pending applications for new products. That’s impressive inaction. Meanwhile, the U.S. market is flooded with illicit Chinese-made vapes.

The FDA has been so resolute in refusing to approve flavored vapes in particular that the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court in January 2024 decided against it in a case brought by a manufacturer. The judge writing the opinion for the court pulled no punches:

[FDA] sent manufacturers … on a wild goose chase. First [giving] manufacturers detailed instructions for what information [it] needed to approve e-cigarette products … [and saying] manufacturers’ marketing plans would be “critical” to the success of their applications. [It] promulgated hundreds of pages of guidance documents, hosted public meetings, and posted formal presentations … all with the (false) promise that a flavored-product manufacturer could, at least in theory, satisfy FDA’s instructions. The regulated manufacturers dutifully spent untold millions conforming …. Then, months after receiving hundreds of thousands of applications predicated on its instructions, FDA … pretended it never gave anyone any instructions about anything, imposed new testing requirements without any notice, and denied all one million flavored e-cigarette applications for failing to predict the agency’s volte face. Worse … FDA candidly admitted that it did not read a single word of the one million [marketing] plans … [and] denied that its voluminous guidance documents and years-long instructional processes meant anything.

But while the agency was playing “switcheroo” with regulated companies, black-market manufacturers weren’t inactive. Chinese companies rake in $3.5 billion a year here with illegal and potentially more harmful products while regulated U.S. manufacturers’ scientifically researched products sit in CTP limbo. What’s more, those black-market manufacturers don’t scruple at selling flavored e-cigarettes with kid-attractive names and packaging.

That’s the public price of the FDA preference for prohibition of all nicotine products. The other price – the one tobacco companies pay in “user fees” to submit products for FDA approval – it would rather you didn’t know about.

Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) submitted FOIA requests in early 2023 for documentation on how the agency spends those user fees but was forced to sue later that year to access the documents. Even after we sued, FDA dragged its feet and acted as if it didn’t understand what we wanted. Now we know why. The CTP’s statutory mandate is to regulate the tobacco industry in an efficient, lawful, and objective manner. But it turns out the CTP is taking user fees from tobacco companies and handing them over to anti-tobacco special interests who want to ban all nicotine products.

FDA gave $472,756 to The Truth Initiative. It gave $195,600 to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and it gave $145,068 to the Michael Bloomberg-affiliated Bureau of National Affairs for tobacco prohibition activism. And its ties to these groups go deeper than money. As reported last June, CTP official Cathy Crosby allegedly improperly solicited gifts in the form of tickets to a gala hosted by the Center for Tobacco-Free Kids. Shortly after chatting at that event with a board member of The Truth Initiative, she left CTP to become its CEO.

Of the $1.235 billion in user fees the FDA has expended during the previous four fiscal years the agency awarded a whopping 41 percent to a single entity – a communications company. So, while a million applications were languishing in FDA purgatory, while “regulated manufacturers dutifully spent untold millions conforming,” and while Chinese black-market manufacturers were raking in nearly $15 billion off the illegal U.S. market, FDA spent over a half-billion dollars trying to tell the American public what a great job it’s doing.

Every dollar sent to prohibitionist activists or spent on self-promotion is a dollar that could be used to get potentially dangerous illegal Chinese products off the shelves and out of the reach of kids. But FDA acts like just another of the anti-nicotine special interest groups uninterested in harm-reduction. It shares money and an active revolving door with activist groups, at the expense of its statutory responsibilities and ultimately of kids

The FDA’s prohibitionist zealotry is more than just wrong-headed. Mr. Kennedy should take note.

Michael Chamberlain is the Director of Protect the Public’s Trust.

https://www.realclearhealth.com/articles/2025/02/03/fda_dysfunction_rewards_chinese_black_marketeers_at_the_expense_of_kids_1089041.html

Novo Partner Omega Waves Bankruptcy Flag

 

Just over a year after striking an obesity deal with Novo Nordisk, an SEC filing shows Flagship Pioneering spinout Omega Therapeutics is days away from bankruptcy and will lay off up to 17 employees.

Despite a 2024 collaboration with obesity giant Novo Nordisk, Omega Therapeutics appears to have reached the end of its rope, with bankruptcy looming just ahead. As its cash runway fizzles, the epigenomic medicines company has entered into a restructuring support agreement with its founder, Flagship Pioneering.

According to an SEC filing dated Jan. 29, Omega has until Feb. 10 to commence bankruptcy proceedings and go through a sale process with Pioneering Medicines, an affiliate of Flagship Pioneering, to potentially wind down operations. The company will provide a bridge loan of about $1.4 million upon the signing of the agreement. Up to 17 employees are to be laid off effective immediately.

Omega had previously warned investors of its cash concerns in a November SEC filing which stated the company had only enough capital to take it into the second quarter of 2025. Omega attempted to cut costs last March when it laid off 35% of its workforce, representing more than 30 staffers based on its headcount at the end of 2023.

In another sign of trouble, Nasdaq sent a written notice to the company in late January after its stock price sat below $1 for 30 consecutive days, according to the Jan. 29 filing. Year to date the stock has dropped 55% to around 35 cents.

Struck in January 2024, Omega’s deal with Novo—worth up to $532 million—focused on creating an mRNA therapeutic to treat obesity. In contrast to most obesity therapeutics which focus on regulating appetite, Omega’s unique approach worked to boost thermogenesis, a natural metabolic function of the body’s innate ability to produce heat within tissues.

While the filing makes no mention of the collaboration with Novo, a spokesperson for Flagship told Endpoints News in an emailed statement that the company is “committed to ensuring the continuity of Omega’s program in obesity management.”

The arrangement with Flagship will provide Omega cash to continue operations for a short time and provide a path for selling assets, according to the filing. Both the company’s CEO and senior vice president will receive a retention bonus to stay aboard the sinking ship through at least the end of June.

https://www.biospace.com/business/novo-partner-omega-waves-bankruptcy-flag-from-sinking-ship