| Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy predicted that Donald Trump’s nomination of Matt Gaetz as attorney general will be rejected by the Republican Senate next year. The appointment rammed home a key factor in the president-elect’s choices: Subservience to Trump is the main qualification for a job. Speaking of controversial picks: here’s our guide on the new Department of Government Efficiency (aka DOGE).
Sticking with the crypto (kind of), the Department of Justice is said to be investigating betting platform Polymarket for allegedly accepting trades from US-based users. Opponents of political prediction markets said massive bets ahead of the election potentially skewed public perception. Bloomberg reported in August that US users continued to find ways to trade on the unregistered exchange. The premiere of Disney and Pixar's Inside Out 2 at El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, on June 10.Photographer: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Corporate roundup: Disney reported results this morning, with blockbusters Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine underscoring the comeback of its studio business. Cisco shares fell premarket after the networking company gave a tepid annual forecast. And Exxon plans to lay off almost 400 employees from Pioneer after purchasing the Permian Basin driller for $63 billion earlier this year.
Manhattan apartment rents climbed in October to the highest in three months, hitting levels normally seen during the market’s busier months—probably because the surge in borrowing costs is putting a floor under prices. Still, there’s some relief thanks to the measure passed by the New York City council yesterday, requiring landlords who hire real estate agents to pay the fees themselves instead of passing them on to tenants. A spate of violent killings in China, culminating in a mass murder by a motorist, is challenging Xi Jinping’s state surveillance apparatus. As part of an effort to erase all traces of the carnage, workers have removed flowers from a makeshift memorial to the victims. The veil of silence is descending again. | 