Ford said it was the biggest investment in the company’s 118-year history, and would enable it to produce more than one million electric vehicles a year in the second half of this decade. The automaker said that it and a supplier plan to spend $11.4 billion on new battery plants and an electric-vehicle assembly factory in Kentucky and Tennessee. Yesterday, Fed officials said that the labor market needed more time to heal.įord will hire 11,000 workers in a big electric vehicle push. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Fed chair Jay Powell are testifying at the Senate today, and in prepared remarks they will warn about the risks of a resurgent pandemic. Top economic policymakers say that the Delta variant is slowing the recovery. Congressional Democrats are rethinking their approach to the structure and timing of bills as deadlines loom. Senate Republicans blocked a spending bill that would have funded the federal government through mid-December and raised the debt ceiling through the end of 2022. Washington edges closer to a government shutdown and debt default. SAG-AFTRA, the actors union, said it “welcomes any change that results in increased negotiating power for talent as they bargain individual deals with the multibillion dollar corporations that produce content,” but plans to “carefully scrutinize” the deal. (Hollywood is now essentially a two-agency town after the deal, since William Morris merged with Endeavor in 2009.) And combining star-powered, TPG-backed CAA with independent ICM has the potential for a culture clash. It’s not clear the deal will be good for all creatives, given that it means one less player to represent them at the highest levels. But ICM has value for CAA, namely in its sports assets and the intellectual property in its substantial books division. (Scarlett Johansson, a CAA client, is suing Disney over its move to release “Black Widow” on streaming the same day as in theaters.) That had made it tougher for a smaller agency like ICM to compete. The growing power of these companies and the economics of streaming have changed the way actors are paid, and made it harder to bargain on their behalf. Tech giants like Apple, Amazon and Netflix have muscled in on Hollywood, while traditional media companies like Disney and Discovery have bulked up. Talent agencies are competing with entertainment Goliaths as much as with other agencies. The deal was brokered by the agencies’ top executives, Bryan Lourd at CAA and ICM’s Chris Silbermann. CAA’s client roster includes Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Zendaya, Ava DuVernay, Ryan Murphy and Reese Witherspoon, while ICM represents Shonda Rhimes, Ellen DeGeneres, Samuel L. While the two agencies have flirted with a deal for some time, they became serious in July, at Allen & Company’s annual media retreat in Sun Valley. It’s the largest industry consolidation in more than a decade, and one that could have significant ripple effects in the worlds of entertainment and sports. Creative Artists Agency is buying its smaller rival, ICM Partners, for an undisclosed amount.