For You This Banana Costs $1, For Her It's $1.50

The Supreme Court helps to clear the way for President Trump's restrictions on mail-in voting, plus more companies prepared to join Wall Street's IPO bananza, and will speak to a pair of congressmen pushing to end so-called personalized dynamic pricing in grocery stores. People are feeling crushed right between their utility bills, their food prices, their childcare prices, and when they feel like the system is rigged against them right because, like, something beyond their control, which is what happens when they're being surveilled. It's Tuesday, August 25. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. We begin in Washington, where the Supreme Court has cleared a legal hurdle for President Trump's mail-in voting restrictions ahead of November's midterms. The court ruled that a trial judge was wrong to block provisions from a March executive order, which the administration said it aimed to safeguard election integrity. That order asked the Department of Homeland Security to draw up lists of eligible voters, and suggested that the Postal Service should refuse to deliver mail ballots in states that don't comply with the new rules. One really important development occurred just last Friday. The Postal Service issued a 95-page regulation implementing much of the executive order. That's James Ramoser, who covers the Supreme Court for the journal, and he said there are concerns the new rules could disenfranchise some voters. Trump has repeatedly railed against mail-in voting. The states that are challenging these policies and voting rights groups say that the Postal Service has never before taken on such a direct role in monitoring ballots, and so trying to roll out such a massive new and untested policy on such a tight time frame is bound to create all sorts of errors. James says the court's decision is unlikely to be the final word on the matter. And so I would expect further rulings on the substance of the Postal Service regulation. If I were a betting man, I would bet in the coming weeks that this issue might rush right back up, right back to the Supreme Court. The Trump administration is certainly trying its hardest to implement these policies before the midterms. Election day is just 10 weeks away, and well before that, states really need to start mailing out their ballots. So we're under an incredibly compressed timeline here. It's runoff day in South Carolina where Trump aligned Super PAC MAGA Inc is spending big to boost Senator Darlene Graham, the sister of the late Lindsey Graham, as she tries to fend off a late push by Representative Ralph Norman. MAGA Inc's $800,000 spent on get out the vote calls and text messages ahead of the GOP Senate runoff comes as the president looks to avoid an embarrassing loss by a candidate that he'd encouraged to enter the race and campaign for last week. The real Republican Party is 100 percent make America great. But they're only fighting, Darlene, because they want me to lose, which is unfair. Meanwhile, Norman is receiving help from the Freedom Caucus Fund, which ran this ad highlighting Graham's recent debate stumble when she was pressed on America's national security interests in Taiwan and the South China Sea. I'm not that informed on national security. Darlene Graham is a nice lady way out of her lead. Ralph Norman's the proven Freedom Caucus Conservative South Carolina needs now. We'll get you the results from that race tomorrow's pod. And the Trump administration is planning what could be the largest mass visa revocation in US history, targeting up to 200,000 foreigners who had applied for asylum. Under the proposal, the State Department and Department of Homeland Security are reviewing all B1 business and B2 tourism visas to revoke them from individuals who enter the country for short-term visits and then filed for asylum. The plan follows a slate of other moves to tighten asylum rules and crack down on immigration, including a higher H1B visa fee we reported on yesterday and the revocation of over 175,000 visas earlier this month. Bitcoin has hit a more than three month high to crest $80,000. A milestone that follows months of subdued valuations for the world's largest cryptocurrency. Reporter Alexander Osipovich says the rally is being partly fueled by mounting interest in the so-called debatement train. Bitcoin is doing really well right now. It wasn't doing much over the summer and then suddenly it is up nearly 25% over the past week. Last week's news about the US Treasury Department's intervention in the bond market to suppress interest rates was seen as bullish for Bitcoin. As investor you can put money into a safe bond that yields you a predictable interest rate or you can put it into something risky that could give you a higher return but could also collapse in value and so to the extent that you're worried about the dollar losing its value and looking for other alternatives to put your wealth into Bitcoin has often been a destination that's talked about. Well so much for a quiet end to summer because the IPO push is heating up. We report that smart ring maker aura is now weighing a September or October public offering. Meanwhile data center operator switch and SP energy which develops and powers data centers are considering offerings by years end along with Duncan and Arby's owner inspire brands. And the list goes on. Setting up with deal-making reporter Ben Dumbit says is on pace to be a record IPO year. Essentially the success of SpaceX has really set the stage for this point IPO market this year. You know in June they raised 86 billion and we're awaiting the possibility of AI giant andthropic raising even more in its offering which is being teased to investors now alongside you know a heavier smaller listings that you mentioned. Another key reason for this IPO market is private equity. They are loaded with a backlog of companies that they need to sell and the market for actually selling assets has been proven difficult so that's encouraging PE firms to look to the IPO market to sell some of these holdings. Furthermore, IPOs tend to fare well when the overall markets are buoyant and that's the case despite the macro backdrop which is uncertain to say the least equity markets have done well. And South Korean car maker Hyundai has reached a wage deal with its labor union ending months of sporadic walkouts that had disrupted production and culminated in a full day labor strike on Friday. The deal which still needs union member approval includes a salary bump, new annual bonuses and one-time payment of around $9,000. Hyundai also suggested that in the union had discussed the deployment of humanoid robots on some assembly lines in the coming years though it didn't elaborate. Coming up as AI helps retailers experiment with dynamic pricing, a growing number of Americans are worrying their data is being used against them at checkout. After the break we'll be joined by a pair of congressmen who've introduced a bipartisan bill to put an end to a summer calling surveillance pricing. Stick around. Equipped with digital price tags, a number of retailers are embracing dynamic pricing, enabling them to shift what they're charging for items day by day, hour by hour, or even minute by minute. And add to that the potential that those same businesses can use AI and piles of information that they have about shoppers for so-called "surveillance pricing" where two people checking out the same product at the same time and maybe even in the same store might be charged differently depending on who a business thinks could pay more. Last week, the Federal Trade Commission issued a warning to retailers telling them that they needed to disclose if they were using detailed info about people to personalize prices. But since the FTC lacks the authority to ban that practice outright, a pair of lawmakers of our taking matters into their own hands introducing a bipartisan bill that would ban dynamic pricing by grocery stores and the service providers that deliver for them. Its co-sponsors are New Jersey Democrat Josh Gottheimer and New York Republican Mike Lawler and we're pleased to have both of them with us here on what's news. Congressman, what's the genesis of this bill? How did either of you hear about this in the first place? Well Luke, this is Josh and you said it best. Mike and I were talking about this issue and we thought it was absolutely outrageous that you could literally walk into a grocery store at the same time, go toward the shelf and it would charge one, the store would charge one person, one price and somebody else, a higher price and obviously we have a problem with that as the FTC announced that they do as well. And so we put a piece of legislation together called no rigged grocery prices act to say, I don't think so, you can't do that. We think it's not exactly what people bargain for. Congressman Lawler, I just want to make sure I understand this distinction, which is between personalized dynamic pricing and then I guess regular dynamic pricing, just a grocery store or any sort of retailer for instance, just simply changing prices in response to supply and demand. Correct, which is, look, technology has changed and to be able to update your prices in a timely and efficient manner versus having to, you know, relabel every product on the shelves. We understand that. Businesses, you know, are going to look for ways to reduce, you know, time and efficiencies. But the fact is, that they should not be doing it in a way that gouges customers. And that's why the bill doesn't, you know, outright ban digital prices. But it does say that you can't use it for the purpose of surveillance pricing. >> Yeah, and just adding to that, of course, if you have a rewards card or something else where they give you a benefit, you know, there's a lot of good data that's using a good way. And as Mike said, AI can be very helpful and beneficial if you use the right way. I think the problem is when it's used in a predatory way, or as Mike said, even it gouges you, that's the kind of thing, you know, we're not looking for predatory pricing. And we think that there's a line to be drawn there when you take advantage of somebody. They buy a banana every week, you know, they buy bananas. So you decide, I know, they're going to come in and buy bananas this week. Oh, we can nail them for a little bit more because we've learned that about them. And that's the kind of thing where you want to draw the line and say, this is not how this should be used against people. Since you took the lead in crafting this, why start with grocery stores? I mean, it's obviously kind of the quintessential kitchen table issue. But isn't this happening in airfare and in all sorts of other things? Listen, there's a big difference between, you know, market price and creating a price solely to target an individual. You know, if we're all on the, on the open market and we can look at the competition and we can make choices based on, you know, where a product may be cheaper, that's one thing. It's another thing when I'm going into the store and the store all of a sudden says, Oh, Mike's coming in. I'm going to raise the prices 25% on the things I know Mike previously bought. That's crazy. And I think most Americans are adamantly opposed to that and would support this legislation overwhelmingly. You've both mentioned that you believe people are on your side here that they're behind efforts to reign in dynamic and surveillance pricing. What are your colleagues saying about this bill? Is there momentum to deal with this in Congress? I think this is certainly an issue that is becoming more in focus. Exactly. I think as, you know, both Josh and I are out in our districts, you know, people are concerned about AI. They're concerned about data centers. These are, these conversations are happening and I think voters are becoming more acutely aware. And obviously the cost of living continues to be a major focus and priority for voters, especially around everyday essentials like groceries. I think more and more this conversation is going to increase. And I think there will be pressure on Congress to act and to actually implement this bill. And again, what we're trying to do is we're not against dynamic pricing. We're not saying that's not, you know, reasonable. And we're not against digital, you know, use of digital prices. What we're saying is they cannot be surveilling people for the purpose of raising prices and gouging them and engaging in predatory behavior. And that's what this bill seeks to prohibit. I've been speaking to Congressman Mike Lawler, Republican from New York and Josh Godheimer, Democrat from New Jersey Congressman. Thank you both so much for being with us on What's News. Thanks for having us. Great to see you. And that's it for What's News. For this Tuesday morning, today's show was produced by Habby Moir and Daniel Bach. Our supervising producer is Sandra Killhoff and I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with the news show. Until then, thanks for listening. [MUSIC]