Nippon Steel acquires US company

Japanese firm Nippon Steel completed its takeover of U.S. Steel on Wednesday, after agreeing to yield veto rights to the U.S. government and promise to make major investments.

Nippon Steel announced on Wednesday that it had finalized the 14.9-billion-U.S.-dollar purchase of U.S. Steel, turning the U.S. company into its wholly-owned subsidiary, according to Japan Broadcasting Corporation.

Before the acquisition was made, Nippon Steel signed a National Security Agreement with the U.S government. The Japanese company has also granted the "golden share" to the U.S. government, yielding rights to veto vital decisions, and promised to invest approximately 11 billion U.S. dollars in U.S. Steel before 2028.

To secure the deal, the Japanese company also agreed that U.S. Steel will maintain its headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Nippon Steel will make its promised amount of investments in U.S. Steel without retraction or delaying; and U. S. Steel will maintain capacity to produce and supply steel.

The plan, first announced in October 2023, was stopped by an executive order issued by then-U.S. President Joe Biden out of national security concerns. The two companies filed a lawsuit requesting the court to cancel the order and re-investigate the case. On June 14, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order to permit the merger under given conditions.

Nippon Steel acquires US company

The death toll from a landfill collapse in the central Philippine city of Cebu has risen to eight by Monday morning as search and rescue operations continued for another 28 missing people.

The landfill collapse occurred on Thursday as dozens of sanitation workers were working at the site. The disaster has already caused injuries of 18 people.

Family members of the missing people said the rescue progress is slow, and the hope for the survival of their loved ones is fading.

"For me, maybe I’ve accepted the worst result already because the garbage is poisonous and yesterday, it was raining very hard the whole day. Maybe they’ve been poisoned. For us, alive or dead, I hope we can get their bodies out of the garbage rubble," said Maria Kareen Rubin, a family member of a victim.

Families have set up camps on high ground near the landfill, awaiting news of their relatives. Some people at the site said cries for help could still be heard hours after the landfill collapsed, but these voices gradually faded away.

Bienvenido Ranido, who lost his wife in the disaster, said he can't believe all that happened.

"After they gave my wife oxygen, my kids and I were expecting that she would be saved that night because she was still alive. But the night came and till the next morning, they didn't manage to save her," he said.

Death toll in central Philippine landfill collapse rises to eight