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GM to invest in Missouri plant

WENTZVILLE, Mo. (AP) — General Motors will invest $1.5 billion to make what it calls the “next generation” of mid-sized pickup trucks at its plant near St. Louis, the company’s president said Friday.

GM will use the money to upgrade its Wentzville Assembly and Stamping Plant in preparation for the new products, GM President Mark Reuss said at a news conference inside the plant, about 40 miles west of St. Louis. The company already produces the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon pickups there.

Reuss said the investment is expected to help retain 4,000 jobs at the plant. The company has about 4,300 total workers in Wentzville and any job losses will come through attrition, said Glen Kage, president of United Auto Workers Local 2250, which represents the workers.

A GM spokeswoman confirmed that no jobs will be cut.

GM will invest about $1 billion to upgrade the plant itself. The rest of its investment is expected to be used for things such as machinery for outside companies that supply parts to the plant.

T-Mobile CEO offers price warning

NEW YORK (AP) — T-Mobile CEO John Legere said if his company’s $26.5 billion deal to buy Sprint fails, it may have to raise prices to slow user growth and relieve stress on the T-Mobile network. He said that would be his “worst nightmare.”

Legere’s testimony came on the fourth day of a high-profile antitrust trial. Fourteen state attorneys general are suing to block the combination of T-Mobile and Sprint. They say the deal would cost consumers billions.

The trial with the states is a major hurdle for T-Mobile, but federal regulators have already cleared the merger. The Justice Department approved it after T-Mobile and Sprint agreed to set up satellite TV provider Dish as a new wireless competitor. The states say that’s not enough.

Legere’s testimony regarding T-Mobile’s potential pricing strategy Thursday stemmed from a September 2019 T-Mobile document that made projections about T- Mobile’s future as a standalone company in 2020.

A lawyer for the states, Glenn Pomerantz, laid out evidence that T-Mobile had options beyond acquiring Sprint that would let it obtain more spectrum, the airwaves that signals travel over and the lifeblood of a wireless network. Adding spectrum would shore up the network from the strain of its growing user base watching Netflix and uploading cat videos to Instagram.

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