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The Transatlantic Wage Gap is growing and leaving Europeans poorer.

The average EU country is now poorer than every single American state except Idaho and Mississippi.

Plus more heat records from Seville to Athens as Southern Europe contends with a brutally hot week

and lead cable concerns add to long-standing troubles for American telecom companies.

It's Tuesday, July 18th.

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 with America's largest telecom operators who continue to see their value slide

following a journal investigation into toxic lid cables that they had abandoned across the United States.

AT&T shares dropped to their lowest closing price in three decades on Monday,

while Verizon pulled back 7.5% in its worst one-day performance since 2008.

AT&T and Verizon, along with frontier communications and Lumen technologies,

which own legacy Bell Telephone Network assets, have collectively lost about $36 billion in market value

since publication of the journal investigation.

And Journal Market's reporter Anna Hurtinstein says the sector could be in for more challenges.

Environmental liability is one issue, testing by my Wall Street Journal colleagues

found numerous cables that were leaching lead into soil and water at levels that exceed

the regulatory safety guidelines.

And we are seeing Wall Street analysts begin to pay attention, some have raised questions

...