This Podcast is brought to you by Alex Partners.

Read the results of the fifth annual Alex Partners Disruption. A major credit card tie-up as Capital One announces plans to buy Discover.

Plus, Israel gives Hamas a deadline to return hostages or face a ground offensive in Raffa,

and we'll go inside a recent bust in EV metals prices that's brought some new mining projects to a halt.

Now commodity prices go up and down.

What's unusual here is there was an expectation of a sustained boom on the back of electric cars.

And so given all of the hype around EVs in recent years, this has caught many people off guard.

It's Tuesday, February 20th, I'm Luke Fargis 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. Two of America's largest credit card companies are set to join forces in a deal worth more

than $35 billion.

That's after Capital One said it's buying Discover Financial Services

in an all-stock deal that will see Capital One shareholders

hold roughly 60% of the combined company.

The Journal's Ben Dummit says the deal represents a big bet by Capital One at a booming

time in the credit card sector.

Capital One particular is trying to take advantage of the move by more consumers to paying

with cards rather than using cash.

Partly, to take advantage of rewards programs

that card providers offer,

and it's also reflective of this transition

towards the digitization of commerce,

a transition that had been accelerated by the pandemic.

...