Wall Street’s new rival

Dallas saw three of Wall Street’s largest banks start on new campuses this year, cementing bets on one of the fastest-growing US metros in one of the fastest-growing states. The industry’s rapid expansion in Texas means the area now has more finance workers than Chicago or Los Angeles—trailing only New York. The bank build-outs are helping solidify Dallas’s status as the financial mecca of the South, overshadowing competitors like Atlanta and Miami. Finance workers in Texas, however, tend to be paid a lot less than those in New York, even for similar jobs. Moreover, a greater portion of the finance-employee base there is made up of back-office operations. Then there are concerns that red state politics may eventually kneecap the nascent boom. Ken Paxton, the state’s Republican attorney general, has been reviewing whether financial companies including Bank of America and JPMorgan violate a state law that punishes firms for limiting work with the fossil fuel industry because of its leading role in the climate crisis. Texas officials have also probed financial firms over a 2021 law that restricts public contracts for companies that “discriminate” against gunmakers. —David E. Rovella

Norway’s largest pension manager, KLP, just blacklisted a dozen companies listed in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. The divestments mostly reflect what it called an “unacceptable” risk of contributing to human rights abuses, with Saudi Aramco targeted separately for what it deemed the oil giant’s negative impact on the environment. The excluded firms also included companies in the real estate sector, where KLP says migrant workers from Africa and Asia have faced discrimination and human rights violations. The Norwegian pension fund, which oversees $70 billion, targeted telecom as well, where it cited the development of artificial intelligence as reinforcing surveillance and censorship risks.

This spring, Nir Bar Dea finally got the role he’d been working toward: sole chief executive of the world’s biggest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates. His goals? Keep clients and revamp the quirky internal dynamic of a company founded almost five decades ago by Ray Dalio. Yet the tight-knit, insular nature of the firm was about to cause trouble for the new boss. Within weeks of Bar Dea’s promotion, a previous romantic relationship with a colleague burst back into view. What followed offers a rare window into the distinctive culture that evolved under its iconoclastic founder.

One of Cathie Wood’s funds has executed a massive shake-up to its Bitcoin-related holdings, selling off its remaining position in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust because of uncertainty over whether it will be able to successfully convert into an exchange-traded fund. The shuffling of holdings comes amid an industry race to get US regulatory approval for the first ETF to invest directly in the biggest cryptocurrency.

Francoise Bettencourt Meyers has become the first woman to amass a $100 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The reclusive Bettencourt Meyers, 70, is vice-chair of the board of L’Oréal, a globe-spanning $268 billion company in which she and her family are the single biggest shareholders. The firm was founded in 1909 by Bettencourt Meyers’ chemist grandfather to produce and sell a hair dye he had developed. For her part, Bettencourt Meyers shuns the glitzy social life sought by many the world’s wealthy. She has written two books—a five-volume study of the Bible and a genealogy of the Greek gods—and is known for playing piano for hours every day.

Earlier this week, Turkey took a step toward approving Sweden’s accession into NATO—as requested by US President Joe Biden. A timely backing of the Nordic nation’s membership was a US condition attached to the sale of new military aircraft and equipment. Now, Turkey is asking the US for permission to co-produce GE Aerospace engines used in its F-16 jets, with an aim to deploy them for its own domestically produced fighter plane.

President Javier Milei is to face his first general strike little more than a month after taking office. Argentina’s top unions are calling for a nationwide labor action against his plans to deregulate the economy, change the voting system and reduce social safety nets. Workers are to walk out across the country on Jan. 24, according to an announcement Thursday from the CGT, one of Argentina’s oldest and most powerful union groups. They plan to take to the streets around congress in Buenos Aires to fight what the unions call an “illegal” decree signed by Milei last week.

China’s Xiaomi Corp. unveiled its first electric vehicle Thursday. The SU7 rolled onto a stage at the China National Convention Center in Beijing as the finale of a presentation by billionaire chief executive and co-founder Lei Jun. Xiaomi’s EV foray is a $10 billion wager by Lei that his company can shake up the transport sector much as it did smartphones a decade ago. Lei, a prolific venture investor, has called it his final entrepreneurial bet. “Xiaomi’s goal is to make a dream car that is as good as Porsche and Tesla,”he said.

Squeaks, creaks and the occasional sight of a shadowy figure scampering away are reminders that humans are not alone in the city. Rats, raccoons and foxes have thrived alongside their human neighbors for as long as cities have existed. But things like land-use decisions and human-induced global warming are changing how we coexist. As cities sprawl further out, encounters between humans and urban wildlife are increasing—often to the detriment of the animal. And hotter temperatures in urban areas are making life harder for not only people but urban critters that depend on built environments for refuge and resources. Still, there are growing efforts to protect these fragile ecosystems.

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