President Donald Trump is a businessman who became a politician. Now he's both. Trump will have "unique influence," said ABC News, over the operations of U.S. Steel under a new arrangement to allow Nippon Steel to complete its multibillion-dollar takeover of the iconic American company.

The federal government was given a "golden share" in U.S. Steel as a condition of a deal that was originally rejected by the Biden administration, said ABC. The new company will not be able to change its name, move its headquarters or transfer production outside the U.S. without the president's consent. The unusual arrangement demonstrates the White House is "willing to insert itself aggressively into a private company's affairs."

What did the commentators say?
The collision of White House control and private money "could change the nature of foreign investment," said The New York Times. The government usually only entangles itself in companies when they are "under financial duress or play a significant role in the economy" and only temporarily. But this golden share will last "in perpetuity." And it raises questions about whether Trump will demand a similar share in other businesses, like TikTok, that require government acquiescence to survive.

Republicans "justifiably objected, loudly and frequently," when the government under President Barack Obama temporarily took a stake in General Motors during the Great Recession, said Jim Geraghty at the National Review. Republicans who criticized that and are staying silent now are effectively saying that a government takeover of private business is "socialism, communism, economic foolishness" under a Democratic president but "perfectly fine" under Trump.

Trump "just quasi-nationalized" U.S. Steel, and "some progressives are smarting over the fact that a Republican did it first," said Matthew Zeitlin at Heatmap News. But while Trump's policies have discouraged green steel, he has put the government in the "driver's seat of a major player" of the steel industry for a future Democratic president.

What next?
The combined U.S. Steel-Nippon Steel company will be the "world's second-largest steelmaker," said Bloomberg. It will be better poised to compete in areas where American steel has "lagged."

But the golden share "could scare off foreign investors," said Reuters. The structure is "risky and unprecedented," said Jim Secreto, a former Treasury and Commerce official. Trump's involvement "introduces uncertainty for global investors" and could "complicate future cross-border deals."

Scientists fighting the ever-growing threat posed by antibiotic-resistant superbugs are floating a potential solution: poop pills — that is, fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) in capsule form. And if preliminary trials are successful, these pills could even play a role in recovery from cancer and depression, too. 

How do they work? 
They contain carefully screened freeze-dried feces samples, taken from healthy donors, that are packed with "good bacteria." Once swallowed by a patient whose gut has been colonized with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the pills dissolve and the "good bacteria" flush out the "bad bacteria," stopping them from lurking in the patient's bowels and potentially escaping elsewhere in the body to cause hard-to-treat infections. A recent small-scale trial, published in the Journal of Infection, showed "really promising signals" that the pills could entirely eliminate the superbugs or "reduce them down to a level that doesn't cause problems," said study lead Dr. Blair Merrick of Guy's and St. Thomas' hospitals in London. 

The idea "isn't as far-fetched as it might seem," said the BBC. Fecal transplantation (sometimes called transpootion) is already approved by the FDA for treatment of adults who have had repeat infections of Clostridium difficile, a bacteria that can cause severe diarrhea and is notoriously resistant to most antibiotics. These transplants are often delivered via enema, colonoscopy or nasogastric tube, but pills are sometimes used instead. 

How big a problem are superbugs? 
"Superbug" is a term used for different strains of bacteria that have developed resistance to most known antibiotics, mainly through misuse and overuse of antibiotics over the years. Resistance to antibiotics has led to at least a million deaths globally since 1990, according to a study by the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance Project published in The Lancet last year. Increasing rates of drug-resistant infections are expected to claim more than 39 million lives by 2050. 

Could they help to fight other diseases? 
Several studies are being carried out on other uses for fecal transplants, including for treating cancer and mental health issues. But some new research suggests these transplants can alter the intestinal environment in less helpful ways, said The Independent. Studies on mice, outlined in the journal Cell, showed shifts in liver metabolism and the genes involved in immune function.