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A snow “bomb” is poised to deliver more icy misery to the U.S. east coast. But Wednesday afternoon, a different kind of ordnance was dropped on Washington by former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. While the former may be meteorological in nature and the latter decidedly political, the two events do have one characteristic in common: they are being served very, very cold. David E. Rovella

 

here come the books

President Donald Trump denounced his former adviser, saying he “lost his mind” after leaving the White House. The comment came the same day New York magazine published excerpts of a new book in which Bannon criticizes Trump, his son, and the campaign. The Guardian published passages in which Bannon predicts Special Counsel Robert Mueller will “crack Don Junior like an egg” over a meeting with a Russian lawyer in which damaging information about Hillary Clinton was supposedly on offer, calling the meeting “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”

 
Here are today's top stories...
 

As America gets back to work, a week of bitter cold is about to get worse. A winter storm threatens to inflict snow, ice and even colder temperatures from Florida to Nova Scotia. And this one may exceed your average nor’easter. It could turn into a bomb, short for bombogenesis, a phenomenon that occurs when a system’s central pressure drops steeply in 24 hours. For New England, the news could get even worse as power grids strain and plants run short of fuel oil.

 

A hack off the old chip. A report that Intel Corp. chips are vulnerable to hackers was called a “potential PR nightmare” and knocked down the company’s stock. The Register, a technology website, said a bug allows access to parts of a computer’s memory set aside to protect passwords. All computers with Intel chips from the past 10 years appear to be affected, the report said, and patches to Microsoft Corp.’s Windows and Apple Inc.’s OS X operating systems will be required.

 

Don't count on a raise this year. Those much-publicized employee bonuses don't mean you should expect one. The White House has long said corporate tax cuts will trickle down to workers. But higher wages aren't around the corner. Even the Trump administration said it could take eight years for the recent tax overhaul to boost wages much. And for now, employers are in no hurry.

 

Curing blindness for $850,000. A genetic treatment for a rare, inherited form of blindness will come with a price tag of of $425,000 per eye, or $850,000 for both, said Spark Therapeutics Inc., the tiny biotechnology company that’s bringing the therapy to market. Since Luxturna was approved by the Food and Drug Administration last month, speculation over the price has grown as it became clear the therapy would be one of the first in a wave of medicines that yield remarkable results after a single treatment.

 

Shake Shack eyes some extra fries. Shares of the burger chain surged after a restaurant analyst said the Republican tax law will be a boon for the company. Tax reforms will help the broader restaurant industry, fueling same-store sales as consumers spend their savings on eating out, he wrote. The fast-food industry has been plagued by sluggish customer traffic, which has prompted intense competition on discounts and value meals.

 
 
 

playing it safe

Years after the first Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf zipped off assembly lines, the market for plug-in vehicles in America is dominated by leases, not owners. Drivers now lease almost 80 percent of battery electric vehicles and 55 percent of plug-in hybrids, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The lease rate for the country’s entire fleet hovers around 30 percent. One reason for this? Meager demand for battery-powered vehicles on the used market.

 

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