* * * * * * * * * SATURDAY/SUNDAY, DECEMBER 21 - 22, 2019 ~ VOL. CCLXXIV NO. 147 WSJ.com H H H H $ 5 . 0 0 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WEEKEND LONDON—Britain’s new Parliament voted overwhelm- ingly to back Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit accord, a significant step toward the country’s departure from the European Union on Jan. 31. The vote Friday wasn’t the final endorsement needed to pass the agreement into law— that is set to happen next month—but it symbolized the end of years of political in- fighting over Brexit. Mr. Johnson’s Conservative Party now has a majority of 80 seats in the House of Commons after his comfortable election win last week, and the cham- ber is packed with pro-Brexit lawmakers, making the vote for the divorce largely a formality. Lawmakers voted, by a tally of 358 to 234, in favor of the deal Mr. Johnson negotiated with the EU back in October, which stipulates how the U.K. will end its 46-year member- ship of the bloc. It covers issues such as citizens’ rights, a finan- cial settlement the U.K. has agreed to pay the bloc and an arrangement aimed at avoiding a physical border in Ireland. The law must still go B Y M AX C OLCHESTER rection. Results of a perfor- mance were generally visible only to skaters and judges be- fore being swept away. The reason for the ouster was obvious. Which is why it’s surprising to see a movement to bring figures back. A new generation of figures devotees, many too young to have witnessed the stupefying inaction of the earlier compe- titions, has formed a circuit for practitioners of the craft. They drill the old patterns alone, sometimes for hours, and find ever-more-fiendish ones to test their skills. Please turn to page A10 Thirty years ago, the Inter- national Skating Union made a crowd-pleasing change to fig- ure skating: It kicked out of competitions a segment known as compulsory figures, which required skaters to etch patterns on the ice with their blades, then trace them over and over again. Drawing a perfect circle, stopping and repeating can be very boring—and worse to watch. Figures events lasted up to eight hours. The most exciting physical move anyone might see was a change of di- B Y L OUISE R ADNOFSKY Who Needs Triple Axels—Give Us The ‘Compulsory Figures’ i i i Skaters revive event killed off long ago as hopelessly dull, even for competitors Nasdaq Biotechnology Index performance Source: FactSet 30 –10 0 10 20 % Jan. April July Oct. Nasdaq Biotechnology S&P 500 Boeing Co. botched the first demonstration flight of a long- awaited space capsule and said it would suspend taking major 737 MAX parts from its biggest supplier, setbacks that pushed the aerospace giant deeper into crisis Friday. The prolonged grounding of the MAX fleet and Boeing’s de- cision days earlier to suspend production of the jetliners were already weighing heavily on the company and Chief Ex- ecutive Dennis Muilenburg. The high-profile failure of the Starliner on Friday to reach the correct orbit under its own power—scuttling the capsule’s planned docking with the In- ternational Space Station—was a fresh blow to Boeing as well as to U.S. efforts to return as- tronauts to space using a do- mestic vehicle. No one was aboard the spacecraft. Following a flawless pre- dawn launch of the Starliner from Florida by a Russian-pow- ered Atlas V rocket, officials from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Boeing told reporters at a hast- ily convened press conference that a software or automation problem with the capsule stranded it in the wrong orbit without adequate fuel to ren- dezvous with the space station. The mistake, stemming from a basic error in setting an in- ternal clock on the spacecraft, raised new questions about Please turn to page A6 B Y DOUG C AMERON A ND A NDY P ASZTOR Misstep In Space Caps Bad Week for Boeing An Atlas V rocket, topped by Boeing’s Starliner capsule, lifted off successfully in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Friday, before a glitch kept the craft from reaching its planned orbit. Gene Tests Led to Surgery, Then the Odds Changed Seven women in one family feared breast and ovarian cancer The Securities and Ex- change Commission is investi- gating the listings of Slack Technologies Inc. and other major companies on the New York Stock Exchange, in a probe looking at how trading was handled on the first day, people familiar with the situa- tion said. SEC enforcement staff have recently sent letters including one seeking information from electronic-trading firm Citadel Securities LLC related to how it opened Slack’s stock for trad- ing on June 20 in the work- place-messaging app’s so-called direct listing, the people said. It also seeks information on other initial public offerings. Regulators asked Citadel Securities for messages such By Alexander Osipovich , Corrie Driebusch and Dave Michaels as emails sent just before the stocks opened for trading, as well as its policies for comply- ing with NYSE rules, some of the people said. GTS, another trading firm, received a simi- lar request, they added. “The direct listing of Slack was a tremendous success for the company, its shareholders and our nation’s capital mar- kets,” a Citadel Securities spokesman said. “From our vantage point, we stand firmly behind the in- tegrity and transparency of the listing and pricing process on this important transac- tion.” The SEC is probing IPOs over the past several years of other so-called unicorns, com- panies known for achieving high valuations while private, the people said. It couldn’t be learned who the investigation may be tar- geting and what types of mis- Please turn to page A2 SEC Probes Tech Debuts On Big Board Parliament Backs Johnson’s Push For January Brexit Christmas vs. The Secular World REVIEW W S J Chocolate: A-to-Z OFF DUTY through another vote in the House of Commons and win approval in the country’s up- per chamber, the House of Lords. Such is the govern- ment’s majority that this pro- cess is expected to be easily completed early next month, allowing the country to quit the EU at the end of January. The approval of the European Parliament will also be needed but isn’t in question. “This is the time when we Please turn to page A8 EXCHANGE New chief is chosen for the U.K.’s central bank.................. A8 Biotech Sector Bounces Back Shares of biotech companies have surged in recent months, powered by drug innovations and a flurry of mergers. B1 Ms. Mathes, who has one child, decided she would have no more. To reduce her can- cer risk, she underwent surgery to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes. So did her younger sister, their mother and four other relatives. Ms. Mathes and her sister also had double mastectomies. This year, their mother sat them down at the table of their parents’ winter home in Florida. Two weeks earlier, her genetic counselor had called. The lab was no longer sure the variant is a significant problem. A family with many members who thought they were at a high risk of cancer might not be after all. Myriad, a molecular diagnostics company based in Salt Lake City, now says the variant Please turn to page A12 When she was in her early 30s, Katy Mathes decided to check her cancer risk. A genetic test showed a mutation on a BRCA gene, which significantly raises a person’s lifetime risk of developing hereditary breast or ovarian cancer. Thirteen people in the family got tested— her mother, her sister, cousins and aunts. Eleven had the mutation. Almost all did their testing with Myriad Genetics Inc., which introduced the first BRCA tests in 1996. “I treated my test results like the Bible,” said Ms. Mathes, now 37, an elementary- school art teacher in Colorado. “There was no questioning the report.” B Y A MY DOCKSER M ARCUS GENE BLEVINS/ZUMA PRESS SUPER SELLER Walmart’s secret weapon for the digital era: stores B1 ROSS MANTLE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL The prime minister’s deal still needs to become law FRANK AUGSTEIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS The SEC is investigating the listings of Slack and other major companies on the NYSE, in a probe look- ing at how trading was handled on the first day. A1 Boeing botched the first demonstration flight of a long-awaited space capsule and said it would suspend taking major 737 MAX parts from its biggest supplier. A1 The Trump administra- tion is backing Bayer in the German company’s high-stakes court fight over Roundup weedkiller. A3 U.S. stocks closed at re- cords. The S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq gained 1.7%, 1.1% and 2.2%, respec- tively, for the week. B11 Care.com, an online marketplace for caregiv- ers, agreed to a sale to IAC for about $500 million. B1 U.S. regulators criticized a lawsuit brought by states that seeks to block the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint. B3 Shell joined a clutch of oil firms that have taken big financial hits because of a global glut of oil and gas. B10 U.S. Steel said it would idle most of a mill near Detroit, as losses mount in a weak domestic steel market. B3 ViacomCBS said it is ac- quiring a 49% stake in Mira- max for $375 million. B3 What’s News CONTENTS Books..................... C7-12 Food......................... D4-6 Heard on Street...B12 Markets..................... B11 Obituaries............... A10 Opinion.............. A13-15 Sports........................ A16 Style & Fashion D2-3 Travel...................... D8-9 U.S. News............ A2-6 Weather................... A16 Wknd Investor....... B5 World News....... A7-9 s 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved > B ritain’s new Parliament voted overwhelmingly to back Johnson’s Brexit ac- cord, a significant step to- ward the country’s departure from the EU on Jan. 31. A1 Andrew Bailey , a top U.K. financial regulator, was chosen to succeed Mark Carney as head of the Bank of England. A8 Trump’s impeachment moves next to the Senate, where questions remain about how a trial will be handled, and to the heart of the 2020 campaign. A4, A5 Facebook and Twitter have taken down a global network of fake accounts used in a coordinated cam- paign to push pro-Trump political messages. A6 Trump dropped a threat to levy tariffs on Brazilian steel and alumi- num after speaking with Brazil’s Bolsonaro. A9 The administration said that it had formally invited China to begin talks on arms control. A7 China’s control over on- line content is likely to tighten further with a com- prehensive set of rules to take effect in March. A9 The president signed the $1.4 trillion spending deal approved by Congress to fund the government and avoid a shutdown. World-Wide Business & Finance NOONAN Crazy Won’t Beat Trump A15 For personal, non-commercial use only. Do not edit, alter or reproduce. For commercial reproduction or distribution, contact Dow Jones Reprints & Licensing at (800) 843-0008 or www.djreprints.com For personal, non-commercial use only. A2 | Saturday/Sunday, December 21 - 22, 2019 * * * * THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. U.S. NEWS THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (USPS 664-880) (Eastern Edition ISSN 0099-9660) (Central Edition ISSN 1092-0935) (Western Edition ISSN 0193-2241) Editorial and publication headquarters: 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10036 Published daily except Sundays and general legal holidays. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y., and other mailing offices. Postmaster : Send address changes to The Wall Street Journal, 200 Burnett Rd., Chicopee, MA 01020. 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SUBMIT IT AT WSJ.COM/TIPS Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, at a news con- ference last week after the rate-setting committee voted to hold interest rates steady, said unemployment is at 50-year lows. A Dec. 12 Page One article about the Fed misquoted him as saying employment. DTE Energy Co. on Dec. 13 demolished its Conners Creek power plant in Detroit. A Dec. 14 U.S. News photo caption de- scribing the event failed to make clear that the plant was located in Detroit. There are 37 total resi- dences in the Twenty Grosve- nor Square development, about 75% of which have been sold. A Mansion article Friday about London incorrectly said 37 residences remain unsold. Casey Key, Fla. , is in Sara- sota County. A headline with a Mansion article Friday about voting for the WSJ House of the Year incorrectly implied that it is in the Florida Keys. Readers can alert The Wall Street Journal to any errors in news articles by emailing wsjcontact@wsj.com or by calling 888-410-2667. CORRECTIONS AMPLIFICATIONS THE NUMBERS | By Jo Craven McGinty Trains Still Aren’t Fast, and Other Updates This year, the Numbers examined top- ics ranging from the speed of ten- nis balls to the prevalence of sexually transmitted dis- eases. But by far, the most- read Numbers column of 2019 was about the math behind successful relation- ships. The second-most pop- ular? A column about di- vorce. Go figure. Here are a few updates of other col- umns that ran this year. Not So Fast : In January, the Numbers reported that the Federal Railroad Admin- istration would allow pas- senger trains capable of traveling up to 220 miles an hour to operate in the U.S. So far, none of the high- speed trains has rolled out, but Amtrak expects to have some operating between Boston and Washington, D.C., in 2021—although, be- cause of track limitations, they will top out at 160 miles an hour. The trains, whose con- struction is part of a $1.8 billion contract with the French manufacturer Alstom SA, are being built in a fa- cility in Hornell, N.Y., that is more than 160 years old. The first trains in an order for 28 will be ready for safety testing next year, Amtrak said. Haters Gonna Hate : The number of far-right extrem- ist crimes committed in the U.S. has climbed. When the Numbers wrote about this in April, 477 people had been killed in 214 attacks since 1990. Now, through mid-De- cember, 513 people have been killed in 219 attacks, according to the Extremist Crime Database. “The 2019 number of inci- dents is below average but they are more deadly than usual,” said Joshua D. Freil- ich, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and co-director of the database. “Also, this is the second year in a row with anti-Jewish attacks, an- other departure from the norm.” The database has docu- mented previous anti-Se- mitic attacks, Dr. Freilich said, but not in consecutive years. Among the recent at- tacks, a gunman targeted Mexicans in a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in August, kill- ing 22 people. And this month, three bystanders and a police detective died in a shootout in a Jewish grocery store in Jersey City, N.J. Downsizing : A woman who wore a size 16 in years past would wear a size 8 to- day—without shedding a pound, thanks to changes in sizing guidelines. To end the confusion, ASTM International, the group that publishes the guidelines, discussed in June having labels in women’s clothing include body measurements, in ad- dition to sizing codes such as 2 or 12. But don’t get your hopes up. “We’re not close to it happening,” said Debra J. Klensch, chair of the sub- committee on body mea- surement for apparel sizing. “This is what the consumer needs, but it’s just a little inkling.” Media Darlings : In July, the top five Democratic can- didates for president, based on media coverage, were Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, ac- cording to Signal AI, a U.K.- based media-monitoring company. Since then, Sen. Harris has ended her campaign. Former New York Mayor Mi- chael Bloomberg has launched his. And Mr. Biden, for reasons he might not relish, continues to show up in more articles than anyone else. “Biden has been men- tioned close to three times more often than any other Democratic candidate since the start of September,” said Ben Moore, a senior an- alyst at Signal AI. “This is indicative of impeachment having become a more cov- ered topic than the prima- ries.” Overall, Sens. Warren’s and Sanders’s ranks in the Signal data are unchanged. But when Mr. Bloomberg an- nounced his candidacy in November, he moved into second place—at least tem- porarily. Burned : In August, the Numbers reported that a proposed rule from the U.S. Food and Drug Administra- tion would require sun- screen manufacturers to show how much of the over- the-counter drugs make it into the bloodstream, and what happens to the body when they do. The rule was to be finalized in Novem- ber...but it wasn’t. According to an FDA spokeswoman, the agency is still reviewing approxi- mately 15,000 public com- ments on the proposal, and a new timeline for complet- ing the rule has yet to be determined. Advocates aren’t happy. “This process has dragged out for decades,” said David Andrews, a se- nior scientist with the Envi- ronmental Working Group, a nonprofit research organiza- tion that rates sunscreens and other products. “Wholesale reform is needed, particularly for the safety information for these ingredients. Finalizing the monograph is important from a public health per- spective.” Holy Cow : In November, the Numbers wrote about traditional milk companies competing with high-protein milks, plant-based options and other beverages. Two weeks later, Dean Foods Co., the biggest milk company in the U.S., filed for bank- ruptcy. “Dean has been strug- gling for a while now,” said John Crawford, a vice presi- dent at Information Re- sources who analyzes the dairy sector. “A few years back, its stock traded in the 20s. It went down in the past couple of years to $10. Then it actually went below a dollar.” The plunge occurred as the company rebranded its regional dairies with the na- tional DairyPure label, raised its prices and lost its Walmart business when the retailer decided to manufac- ture its own milk. “All of that combined to cause them to really start to hemorrhage,” Mr. Crawford said. Previous data Joe Biden continues to receive more media coverage than other Democratic candidates for president, in part because he is frequently mentioned in the impeachment proceedings against President Trump. Media accounts mentioning presidential candidates, 2019 Source: Signal A.I. 2.5 0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 million J F M A M J J A S O N Biden Other Democrats All Democratic candidates combined Trump as underwriters like in a stan- dard IPO. Banks do play a more limited role as advisers, helping guide buyers and sell- ers to an opening price. Spo- tify Technology SA also used the process to debut on NYSE last year. Direct listings allow compa- nies to save on underwriting fees and bypass some restric- tions that come with IPOs, such as limits on promoting the stock to the public and avoiding some lockups that prevent insiders from selling for a certain period. But they are only feasible for a relatively small number of cash-rich companies be- cause under current exchange rules, the process can’t be used to raise new capital. In both the Spotify and Slack deals, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. acted as financial advisers while Citadel Securities was named the designated market maker, or DMM. Often called specialists, DMMs agree to ensure smooth trading in shares of NYSE- listed companies, especially in IPOs and at the daily openings and closings of stocks. Under the exchange’s rules for direct listings, the DMM must con- sult with the financial adviser to open the stock in a “fair and orderly” way. On the morning a company the morning, because the banks may be able to privately give mutual funds and other investors a more accurate in- dication of the opening price, current and former floor bro- kers said. Due to such concerns, floor brokers at Slack’s direct listing alerted NYSE’s in-house regu- latory unit, people familiar with the day’s events said. Their complaints may have fueled the SEC’s inquiries into direct listings and other IPOs. Others familiar with the IPO process dismiss the floor brokers’ concerns and say it is normal for indications to be- gin well below the price where a stock will eventually open, or for the stock to take a long time to begin trading. That can reflect robust demand for the new shares in question, these people say. Trading data shows that at 10:18 a.m. Eastern time on June 20, Citadel Securities in- dicated that Slack would open between $30 and $34. Just over half an hour later, the firm adjusted its indication to a range of $32 to $34. Following a half-dozen more adjustments, the stock opened at $38.50, in a giant trade shortly after noon in which $1.75 billion worth of Slack shares changed hands. The stock has since fallen, closing Friday at $21.51. conduct the SEC may suspect. It is possible the investigation won’t lead to any allegation of wrongdoing—public or pri- vate. “NYSE places a premium on transparency, fair access and robust price discovery in help- ing companies access the pub- lic markets,” said a spokesman for the exchange, a unit of In- tercontinental Exchange Inc. More large companies have gone public in recent years following big capital infusions from venture capitalists that allowed them to stay private far longer than was common in the past. Companies that have gone public on the NYSE in recent years include Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Snap Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc. Slack’s debut represented a new breed of public offering. The workplace-messaging company went public via a di- rect listing, in which a com- pany lets its shares float on an exchange without hiring banks Continued from Page One SEC Probes Handling Of Listings goes public, DMMs release price ranges called indications that show where they expect the stock to open at a given moment. The DMM’s lead trader for the deal shouts out the indica- tions to a crowd of brokers on NYSE’s floor and the numbers are also broadcast over elec- tronic data feeds whose con- tent is regulated by the SEC and seen by traders around the country. The day Slack went public, some floor brokers felt Citadel Securities’ initial indications were too low and didn’t reflect accurate supply and demand for the stock, according to people familiar with that day’s events. NYSE floor brokers have complained for years that banks working on big IPOs push DMMs to issue indica- tions that are too low while taking unnecessarily long to open the stocks. That could al- low banks to poach clients from rivals over the course of Direct listings allow companies to bypass some restrictions that come with IPOs. RAISE AWARENESS, TRANSMIT OUR PASSION, HELP PROTECT THE OCEAN www.blancpain-ocean-commitment.com ©Photograph: Laurent Ballesta/Gombessa Project Villeret C O L L E C T I O N NEW YORK · 697 FIFTH AVENUE BETWEEN 54 TH & 5 5 TH S T R E E T · 2 1 2 3 9 6 1 7 3 5 LAS VEGAS · T HE FORUM SH O P S AT C A E S A R S PA L A C E · 7 0 2 3 6 9 1 7 3 5 For personal, non-commercial use only. Do not edit, alter or reproduce. For commercial reproduction or distribution, contact Dow Jones Reprints & Licensing at (800) 843-0008 or www.djreprints.com For personal, non-commercial use only. THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. * * * * * * * * Saturday/Sunday, December 21 - 22, 2019 | A3 sity of Pittsburgh, said Penn- sylvania investigators should look at residents’ potential ex- posures to chemicals and radi- ation from natural-gas sites. She said they also should look at the sealed waste site of the defunct uranium-processing plant, area farms where pesti- cides are used, other indus- trial sites and even gas sta- tions. “I don’t think you should assume it’s one thing,” said Ms. Talbott, who grew up in Washington County and whose grandfather worked at the uranium-processing facility. The state’s three main oil- and-gas industry associations said, in a joint statement, they supported research that evalu- ates all potential factors. “The concerns in these communities are shared with our industry,” the Marcellus Shale Coalition, the Associated Petroleum In- dustries of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association said. Concern about a potential fracking link grew this past March when the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published an ar- ticle citing the six Ewing’s sar- coma cases and reporting that 10 children in the Canon- McMillan School District also had some other form of can- cer. In May, the Post-Gazette published another article de- tailing 27 cases of Ewing’s sar- coma in the four counties from 2008 to 2018. Since Pennsylvania’s first Marcellus Shale well was drilled in Washington County in 2003, more than 1,800 wells have been fracked there. Com- pressor stations, processing plants and pipelines have fol- lowed. Some residents worry that pollutants such as ben- zene from air emissions or ra- dium from wastewater could affect people’s health. Mr. Blanock’s son Luke was diagnosed with Ewing’s sar- coma in 2013 and died in 2016. From his living room couch, Mr. Blanock pointed toward three other homes, including two about a mile away, where young people have received the same cancer diagnosis. Curtis Valent was diag- nosed in 2008, at age 20, and died in early 2011. Kyle Deliere was diagnosed in 2011, at age 25, and died two years later. Then Mitchell Barton, in a nearby township, was diag- nosed in late 2018, at age 21. He is currently undergoing treatment. “Something is going on here,” Cindy Valent, Curtis’s mother, said. “We all lived within a mile or so of each other.” Ms. Valent never worried about gas drilling before her son and the others got their diagnoses, she said. She re- called watching from her back- yard as flares would light up the sky and wondered if natu- ral-gas drilling might be linked to the cancers. Dr. Kelly Bailey, a pediatric oncologist at UPMC in Pitts- burgh, said cancers can group together by chance, like pen- nies dropped onto a map. “That’s not a very satisfying answer when you have a com- munity where those pennies have fallen together,” she said. CECIL TOWNSHIP, Pa.—An increase in the number of teens and young adults diag- nosed with a rare cancer in the southwest corner of Penn- sylvania has caused the state to look for a link between fracking and the disease. The investigation was sparked by a spate of Ewing’s sarcoma cases in and around Washington County, which has more Marcellus Shale gas wells than any other county in the state. In April, the state Department of Health found that the cases didn’t consti- tute a statistically significant cancer cluster. But affected families and other residents lobbied the governor for an in- vestigation. “We’re not pointing a fin- ger,” said Kurt Blanock, whose teenage son died of Ewing’s sarcoma three years ago. His wife, Janice Blanock, was one of the parents who pushed for the study. Mr. Blanock said he isn’t opposed to fracking but is glad Gov. Tom Wolf ap- proved the investigation. The region is home to coal mining, oil drilling, chemical plants and a former uranium-pro- cessing facility, he said. “We want them to look at every- thing.” Each year, about 250 chil- dren in the U.S. are diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare cancer of the bone or sur- rounding soft tissue, according to the National Institutes of Health. In four counties in south- west Pennsylvania, 31 people were diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma from 2006 through 2017, according to state cancer data. That is a roughly 40% in- crease from the period from 1995 through 2005, when 22 people in the same area were diagnosed, according to state data. Residents point to two additional cases in 2018. Most troubling to many residents is that the six cases in Washing- ton County since 2008 oc- curred in one school district. “We want to do a study to see if there is a link,” said Dr. Rachel Levine, Pennsylvania’s secretary of health. “The big- gest challenge is that a corre- lation doesn’t necessarily prove causation.” Scientists have identified exposure to substances such as arsenic and benzene as in- creasing the risk of developing cancer. But linking exposures to specific cases is difficult and occurs more often in B Y K RIS M AHER Harrisburg PENNSYLVANIA Pittsburgh Pittsburgh WASHINGTON COUNTY Number of active unconventional wells, by county 2,000 1,000 500 100 The state of Pennsylvania is funding a study to look for a potential link between fracking and a spate of rare bone cancers in the southwest corner of the state. Source: Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection workplaces than in communi- ties where people live. About 1,000 suspected can- cer clusters are reported to state health departments each year, according to the Ameri- can Cancer Society. A scien- tific review of more than 500 such investigations found an increase in cancer rates in one of eight investigations, while a cause was identified in only a single case, according to the organization. Pennsylvania plans to spend $3.9 million over the next three years and will select an academic institution to carry out the research. There is cur- rently no known environmen- tal cause for Ewing’s sarcoma. A second study will look at potential associations between Marcellus Shale development and conditions such as asthma, headaches and pre- term births. Prior studies by Johns Hopkins University re- searchers in the state have found such associations. Evelyn Talbott, a professor of epidemiology at the Univer- ‘Something is going on here,’ said the mother of one resident who died. U.S. NEWS Cancer Cases Raise Fracking Fears Pennsylvania probes potential industrial links to rare Ewing’s sarcoma diagnoses Mitchell Barton was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma in 2018 at age 21. The disease has been identified among young local residents. KRISTIAN THACKER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (2) Cindy Valent’s son Curtis was diagnosed with the rare form of cancer in 2008, at 20 years old, and died in early 2011. The Trump administration is backing Bayer AG in the German chemical maker’s high-stakes court fight over the world’s most widely used weedkiller. The Environmental Protec- tion Agency, working with the Justice Department, filed court papers Friday support- ing Bayer’s argument that gly- phosate, the active ingredient in the company’s Roundup herbicide, poses no cancer risk. The filing backs Bayer’s appeal in federal court of a $25 million verdict in the case of a California man who blamed Roundup for causing his non-Hodgkin lymphoma, one of tens of thousands of similar cases. Lawyers for both govern- ment agencies argued the ver- dict should be overturned be- cause it would have been illegal for Bayer to print can- cer-risk warnings on Roundup labels. They said Congress granted the EPA the sole au- thority over safety labels on chemical products, and the agency wouldn’t have ap- proved a cancer warning for Roundup. While it isn’t the first time a regulator has weighed in on such a case, legal scholars said the filing would likely catch the appeals court’s attention. The federal government will often weigh in on cases when the interpretation of a federal statute is involved, they said. Several Roundup trials have been postponed in recent months as Bayer and plain- tiffs’ attorneys try to negotiate a settlement as part of a court-ordered mediation over- seen by Ken Feinberg, who helped divvy up compensation to victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2010 Deepwa- ter Horizon oil spill. Bayer is under pressure to resolve the litigation after the company’s shares dropped 23% since the first verdict in Au- gust 2018, with the company since then divesting itself of several businesses and laying off thousands of staff world- wide. Bayer acquired Mon- santo Co., Roundup’s maker, in June 2018 for $63 billion. The government’s filing re- iterates the agency’s long-held view that glyphosate doesn’t represent a cancer risk, most recently upheld in a December 2017 EPA review. “EPA has a longstanding position—It’s not just this ad- ministration which determined that this pesticide does not cause cancer,” said Jeffrey Clark, the assistant attorney general of the Environment and Natural Resources Divi- sion at the Justice Depart- ment, in an interview. “EPA should be in control. Congress set it up that way.” That view is being chal- lenged in U.S. courtrooms, where farmers and residential gardeners have pointed to the International Agency for Re- search on Cancer’s 2015 classi- fication of glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to hu- mans,” while criticizing com- pany-funded studies that the EPA and other regulators have included in their glyphosate assessments. Bayer rejected the IARC’s link between glyphosate and cancer, saying the agency cherry-picked some studies and ignored others that regu- lators have used to establish the chemical’s safety. Three consecutive juries ruled in favor of plaintiffs over the past year and a half, awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. The EPA’s brief comes in the case of plaintiff Edwin Hardeman in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the only one of the three trials so far to take place in federal court. Aimee Wagstaff, Mr. Harde- man’s attorney, called the ap- peal a “Hail Mary” and said courts have previously re- jected the argument made by the company and the govern- ment that federal regulations should negate the civil suits. “We are confident the Ninth Circuit will also reject Mon- santo’s argument and rule in favor of Mr. Hardeman,” she said. —Sara Randazzo contributed to this article. B Y J ACOB BUNGE AND TIMOTHY PUKO U.S. Backs Bayer in Weedkiller Appeal S O H O 1 1 8 P R I N C E S T R E E T 2 1 2 . 3 4 3 . 9 0 0 0 N E W Y O R K ∙ M I A M I ∙ H O U S T O N L A S V E G A S ∙ L O S A N G E L E S ∙ C O S TA M E S A For personal, non-commercial use only. Do not edit, alter or reproduce. For commercial reproduction or distribution, contact Dow Jones Reprints & Licensing at (800) 843-0008 or www.djreprints.com For personal, non-commercial use only. A4 | Saturday/Sunday, December 21 - 22, 2019 P W L C 10 11 12 H T G K R F A M 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 O I X X * * * * THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. POLITICS WASHINGTON WIRE Dispatches from the Nation’s Capital B Y G ABRIEL T R UBIN very difficult for our caucus because we represent a very diverse spread of this coun- try,” she said. “Other folks are Democrats who won Re- publican districts, and we have to all kind of get that huge spread to one point to- gether, and that’s the speaker’s main priority.” House Republicans were united against the impeach- ment of Mr. Trump and said Mrs. Pelosi’s record of han- dling the issue was nothing to be proud of. “I think this will be a stain on Speaker Pelosi’s leg- acy, because it’ll be the first time in history where im- peachment was pushed through on a partisan vote,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R., La.) said before Wednesday’s votes on the ar- ticles of impeachment. Throughout the year, the number of Democrats calling to impeach Mr. Trump grew, but Mrs. Pelosi held off. When special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was released in April, more Democrats called for impeachment. Mrs. Pelosi resisted, saying the House was conducting investiga- tions into Mr. Trump’s ad- ministration as well as his fi- nances, and she wanted to see how courts ruled on cases the House Democrats brought against the administration. She said she wanted an impeachment investigation to have bipartisan support, but Republicans remained united in opposition. When news emerged that Mr. Trump had pressed Ukraine to investi- gate Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, the dam broke. Mrs. Pelosi decided it warranted an impeachment inquiry. She assembled a team of lawmakers and advisers who met daily, sometimes more. She discussed the case and the process, down to the minute detail, according to people familiar with the pro- cess. When Democratic law- makers wanted to hear more Republican voices supportive of impeachment, the speaker’s office created a video for members to share on social media that quoted former GOP lawmakers criti- cizing the president, accord- ing to aides. The Wall Street Journal/ NBC News poll released this week found the nation evenly split, and divided along party lines, on the question of whether Mr. Trump should be impeached and removed from office. Notably for swing-district lawmakers, the survey showed 50% of inde- pendents in favor of removal, and 44% opposed. Separately, 56% of independents said they approved of the con- gressional impeachment in- quiry, while 41% disapproved. Republican leaders said that, by impeaching the president, Democrats had given away their majority and that lawmakers had signed their own “pink slips.” In an interview, Mrs. Pelosi said that wasn’t the case and that she was confi- dent Mr. Trump would keep formidable Republican chal- lengers from running in swing districts. “I don’t see too much of an A-team coming up on their side,” she said. “When your president’s under 50% and the incumbent is solid and well-funded and grounded both in terms of grass roots and values, you’ll probably want to wait a year or two before you run.” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) said this week that Republi- cans have more candidates running for office than they did at this time in the 2010 cycle, when they won the majority, including many women and veterans. After two years of a Re- publican-led Congress that avoided fights with Mr. Trump, the president met a Democratic speaker who was decidedly liberal but had previously worked with Re- publican President George W. Bush. She said she wanted to get things done, but she and the president have ended up sparring in letters and tweets and in person. On Thursday, Mrs. Pelosi said she still hoped to work with Mr. Trump on legisla- tion next year, even as the president will be campaign- ing for re-election and she will be defending her House majority. The House has passed more than 400 bills this year. More than three- fourths of those aren’t likely to pass the GOP-controlled Senate and become law. Still, Democrats likely facing tough races next year and heading home for the holi- days can talk about bills that did become law, such as paid family leave for federal workers and funding for re- search on gun safety. “I got a long way to go before I’m considering who I’m voting for as speaker,” should Mrs. Pelosi vie for the speakership again, said Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D., Va.), who didn’t support Mrs. Pelosi at the start of 2019. Last year, Mrs. Pelosi agreed to a deal with her de- tractors to limit her time as speaker to one term beyond this one, provided she wins the support of two-thirds of her caucus. But Ms. Span- berger did compliment Mrs. Pelosi for the way she nego- tiated the trade agreement with Canada and Mexico. “You know not everybody wanted to get to yes,” Ms. Spanberger said. “And she said, we’re going to get to yes, and she meant it.” Key moments of Speaker Pelosi’s year included, above, gaveling the close of a vote formalizing the impeachment inquiry on Oct. 31; applauding President Trump before the Feb. 5 State of the Union; and, at bottom, speaking to Mr. Trump at the White House on Oct. 16. WASHINGTON—Nancy Pelosi is ending the first year of her second stint as House speaker with more support from her caucus and