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National

Sears chairman Eddie Lampert reportedly submitted a $4.6 billion bid to buy the company and potentially save it from liquidation on Friday, hours before the deadline, according to CNBC and Reuters.

The big picture: Lampert, who has received at least part of the blame for the department store chain’s demise, heads the hedge fund that is the retailer’s biggest creditor and owns equity in the company. Investors have until Jan. 4 to determine whether his hedge fund, ESL Investments, is a qualified buyer. After that, the bid will be weighed against liquidation offers to determine whether the chain will be kept alive or closed down permanently. 

The retail giant filed for bankruptcy in October and announced Friday it would close an additional 80 stores in March — bringing the total number of closures to 260.

Editor's note: This piece was corrected to show Lampert reportedly submitted a $4.6 billion bid (not $4.6 million bid).

Sears reportedly staves off liquidation — for now

Chairman Eddie Lampert submitted a last-minute bid to buy the company hours before the  deadline.

Business

Sears

Future

Axios Pro: Deals

Top stories & latest news on the Federal Reserve, real-time data, plus the biggest shifts happening in the U.S. and global economy.

Economy

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

President Trump has not issued an order to the Pentagon directing U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan, White House National Security Council spokesperson Garrett Marquis told Bloomberg.

The backdrop: Multiple news outlets, citing defense and administration officials, reported that Trump had ordered about half of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to be withdrawn the same week he announced the U.S. would withdraw from Syria. On Sunday, the U.S. commander of international forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Scott Miller, told Voice of America that he hadn't received any such orders.

White House: Trump has not ordered military to withdraw from Afghanistan

Multiple news outlets reported Trump had directed the Pentagon to begin withdrawing troops.

Photo: Andrew Harrer/Pool via Getty Images

Politics

Military

World

Afghanistan

2024 will be an election year like no other, as President Biden seeks re-election amid economic uncertainty, two wars and questions about his age. His likely foe, former President Trump, faces felony charges and vows revenge on his political enemies. Meanwhile, Americans generally are dissatisfied with those choices and are divided over immigration, race, education and more.

Politics & Policy

While the U.S. military builds out a robot support force and debates how much autonomy those robots should be given, China and Russia seem to be having no such reservations.

Driving the news: "At stake is a contract worth almost half a billion dollars for 3,000 backpack-sized robots that can defuse bombs and scout enemy positions," the AP's Matt O'Brien reports.

"The Army’s immediate plans alone envision a new fleet of 5,000 ground robots of varying sizes and levels of autonomy. The Marines, Navy and Air Force are making similar investments."

"'My personal estimate is that robots will play a significant role in combat inside of a decade or a decade and a half,' the chief of the Army, Gen. Mark Milley, said in May."

Between the lines: "The big fight over small robots opens a window into the intersection of technology and national defense and shows how fear that China could surpass the U.S. drives even small tech startups to play geopolitics to outmaneuver rivals." 

"It also raises questions about whether defense technology should be sourced solely to American companies to avoid the risk of tampering by foreign adversaries."

"Concerns that popular commercial drones made by Chinese company DJI could be vulnerable to spying led the Army to ban their use by soldiers in 2017."

"And in August, the Pentagon published a report that said China is conducting espionage to acquire foreign military technologies."

"At a December defense expo in Egypt, some U.S. firms spotted what they viewed as Chinese knock-offs of their robots."

What's next: "It will be a while... before any of these robots become fully autonomous."

But the "military could soon feel compelled to develop fully autonomous systems if rivals do the same. Or, as with drones, humans will still pull the trigger, but a far-away robot will lob the bombs."

The U.S., China and Russia are in a big fight over small robots

The next global arms race will meld geopolitics with robotics.

Nerekhta military robot at the Army 2018 International Military and Technical Forum in Russia. Photo: Sergei Bobylev\TASS via Getty Images

Robots

Artificial Intelligence

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Technology

The impact of the government shutdown will continue to grow as members of Congress remain unable to reach a compromise over funding for President Trump's border wall.

The state of play: Exactly one week since the shutdown began, it doesn't seem likely that the government will reopen anytime soon, with neither the Senate nor the House scheduled to hold votes until at least Monday. Democrats will take control of the House on Jan. 3, leaving even less leverage for Trump to get the funding he has demanded.

The big picture: The shutdown initially closed about a quarter of the government and delayed the pay of around 420,000 federal employees. Thousands of others were forced to stay home, including government contractors who will likely never see any compensation for having to take off during the shutdown.

A global weather conference with more than 4,000 attendees scheduled for January may be canceled if the government remains closed, Bloomberg reports. A ton of research and potential public/private contracts could be squandered as a result, per Axios science editor Andrew Freedman.

All Smithsonian Museums and the National Zoo will close January 2, per NPR.

The Environment Protection Agency is set to soon run out of money, and will furlough employees on Saturday if no funding deal is reached by the end of the day Friday, Bloomberg Environment reports. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture had announced payments for farmers who have been hardest hit by the U.S. trade war with China. But with the government remaining shut down for more than a week, some farmers may not receive their promised checks and won't be able to receive farm loans or disaster assistance, according to the AP. 

The Federal Trade Commission will need to suspend all investigations and litigation by Friday, including a high-profile investigation of Facebook.

The Office of Personnel Management released a template letter Thursday for furloughed government employees to use to request smaller payments from creditors or landlords. One version of the letter included the suggestion that employees offer "the possibility of trading services to perform maintenance...in exchange for partial rent payments."

Go deeper: What to expect from the partial government shutdown

The next casualties of a prolonged government shutdown

The EPA, the FTC and even Smithsonian museums will be forced to close shop.

Donald Trump with his arms crossed and talking but looking unhappy

Government shutdown

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who started 2018 out with a pledge to "fix" Facebook's myriad problems with data privacy, misinformation, content moderation and user trust, posted a year-in-review message Friday declaring he is "proud of the progress we've made."

Big picture:  "Addressing these issues is more than a one-year challenge," Zuckerberg now admits, but "we've now established multi-year plans to overhaul our systems and we're well into executing those roadmaps." In the meantime, as shown by a year that started with the Cambridge Analytica affair and ended with embarrassing revelations about security bugs and opposition research, Facebook continues to be a high-output generator of controversy and scandal. 

What they're saying: "We've fundamentally altered our DNA to focus more on preventing harm in all our services, and we've systematically shifted a large portion of our company to work on preventing harm," Zuckerberg wrote. "We now have more than 30,000 people working on safety and invest billions of dollars in security yearly."

By the numbers:  Zuckerberg said Facebook now has "more than 30,000 people working on safety." Rouglhy half of those are content reviewers, according to Facebook. 

Go deeper: The year Zuckerberg's Facebook fix failed

Zuckerberg says Facebook "altered its DNA" in 2018

The CEO ended the year on an upbeat note.

Mark Zuckerberg on stage with hand on heart

Facebook

Big Tech

Social Media

National Security Advisor John Bolton will arrive in Israel late next week for talks with Prime Minister Netanyahu on President Trump's decision to pull U.S. forces out of Syria, Israeli and U.S. officials said.

"We want to try to make lemonade out of those lemons."

Why it matters: Israel is very concerned the move will deepen Iranian influence and military retrenchment in Syria. Israeli officials tell me they want to discuss with Bolton the details and timetable of the U.S. withdrawal, and what can be done to use the move to create more pressure on Iran. 

Netanyahu was one of the few allies Trump spoke to about his Syria move before announcing it. He is currently visiting Brazil, and will meet on Tuesday in Brasilia with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The State Department issued today a special statement backing Israeli air strikes against Iranian targets in Syria, with the last one coming only a few day ago:

"Iranian support of and supply to terrorist groups in Syria and across the region that have the clear intent and capability to strike Israel are unacceptable. The United States fully supports Israel's right to defend itself against the Iranian regime’s aggressive adventurism, and we will continue to ensure that Israel has the military capacity to do so decisively. The commitment of the Trump Administration and the American people to ensuring Israel’s security is both enduring and unshakable."

Scoop: Netanyahu rejected Russian plan to work with U.S. on Syria, Iran

Israel to hold early elections amid Netanyahu corruption cases

Expert Voices: Risks of sudden U.S. troop exit from Syria

Bolton will travel to Israel for talks on Trump's Syria pullout

Bolton and Netanyahu in Jerusalem last August. Photo: Sebastian Scheiner/AFP/Getty Images

Israel

Conflicts, policies and powers are intersecting and shaping the world. Breaking news and analysis of national security, foreign policy and global crises.

Reproduced from JAMA Network Open report "US National Trends in Pediatric Deaths From Prescription and Illicit Opioids, 1999-2016"; Chart: Axios Visuals

The death rate of children and teenagers from opioid poisoning almost tripled between 1999 and 2016, with nearly three quarters of them from prescription medicines, an analysis of national data published in JAMA Network Open Friday shows.

By the numbers: Almost 9,000 people in the U.S. under 20 died over the 18-year period — including a surprisingly large number of 0-5 year olds and a growing number of 15–19 year olds, study author Julie Gaither tells Axios. 

"This study really speaks to how all segments of U.S. society have been affected. No one has been spared. And, there's no sign to date that this is going to change."

Julie Gaither, instructor, Yale School of Medicine

What they did: The researchers examined death certificates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for children and adolescents who died from opioid poisonings with prescription and illicit drugs during that time period. While certificates can sometimes misclassify deaths, Gaither says the numbers are likely underreported.

What they found: "About 500 children per year are dying from opioid poisoning," Gaither says, and that number is growing. This tracks the same team's findings in a 2016 study on opioid-related hospitalizations for youth.

Children are dying from opioids prescribed for pain relief and those designed to help people addicted to opioids recover, like methadone, a popular medication-assisted treatment (MAT). 

"An opioid is an opioid, whether if it's to treat an addiction or not, children are at risk of poisoning," Gaither says.

One problem, Gaither notes, is that some MATs and prescribed opioids are not child-proofed. "One of them looks like brightly colored strips of paper, like Listerine strips, that are attractive to children," she says.

Out of the total 8,986 deaths, 73% (6,561) are linked to prescription opioids.

Teens 15–19 had the highest death rate, mostly linked to heroin, which alone showed a 405% growth over that period.

Deaths in children aged 10–14 accounted for 4% and those ages 5–9 were 1%.

Children younger than 5 experienced almost 7% of the deaths — about 25% of which were from deliberate homicide, Gaither says. This finding needs further research, she adds.

38% died at home — a finding that Gaither says "surprised" her. 

Non-Hispanic white males experienced the highest mortality but in recent years non-Hispanic black children accounted for a larger proportion.

The big picture: "The epidemic is evolving in ways that we haven't been able to keep up with," Gaither says.  Children's deaths track the overall epidemic waves, she says, with a spike from prescriptions in the late 1990s, showing a decline in 2008 as physicians became more careful in prescribing. But this was followed by increased usage and deaths from heroin and synthetic opioids, Gaither says.

What's next: Lawmakers, public health officials, clinicians and parents must implement protective measures to address the growing epidemic, Gaither says — such as efforts to make opioids and MATs more child-proof, and consideration of the family context when physicians write prescriptions. 

Axios

Friday's top stories

Sears reportedly staves off liquidation — for now

White House: Trump has not ordered military to withdraw from Afghanistan

The U.S., China and Russia are in a big fight over small robots

The next casualties of a prolonged government shutdown

Zuckerberg says Facebook "altered its DNA" in 2018

Bolton will travel to Israel for talks on Trump's Syria pullout

Children and teens are dying from opioids at alarming rate: study

Immigrant boy who died in U.S. custody had influenza

McKinsey executive detained, beaten in Saudi Arabia

Yes, some companies actually want to be regulated

Fury and fear ahead of Congo's suspect elections

America's great foreign policy divide