'Chaos & Queues'
What You Need To Know
Today’s posts that caught my eye:
As China celebrates the 100 year anniversary of the ruling Communist Party — and President Xi vowed to resolve the “Taiwanese issue,” the U.S. and Japan “have been conducting war games and joint military exercises,” the FT reports.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board called WI Sen. Ron Johnson “the most irresponsible representative of Wisconsin citizens since the infamous Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in the 1950s.”
The Donald Rumsfeld obits are very tough to read.
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The World
Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke Thursday at the celebration of the 100th anniversary of China’s ruling Communist Party. We will not accept “sanctimonious preaching from those who feel they have the right to lecture us,” Xi said. He did not name a specific country, amid growing tensions with the U.S. Xi said China would never allow any foreign force to bully it, and anyone attempting to do so would “find themselves on a collision with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion people.” Tens of thousands of people gathered in Tiananmen Square, where Xi declared that the party had achieved the first centenary goal of building a “moderately prosperous society” in all aspects — and vowed to resolve the ‘Taiwanese issue.’ (CNBC, The Times)
The US and Japan have been conducting war games and joint military exercises in the event of a conflict with China over Taiwan, amid escalating concerns over the Chinese military’s assertive activity. US and Japanese military officials began serious planning for a possible conflict in the final year of the Trump administration, according to six people who requested anonymity. The activity includes top-secret tabletop war games and joint exercises in the South China and East China seas. (Financial Times)
Groups representing Europe's largest airlines and airports have warned of chaos and hours-long queues unless countries better coordinate the roll-out of the EU's digital COVID-19 certificate and ensure passengers are processed before arriving at airports. The European Union's system of digital COVID-19 travel certificates is due to come into force on Thursday, but airports group ACI and airlines representative bodies A4E, IATA and ERA warned in a letter to EU national leaders of a "worrying patchwork of approaches" across the continent. (Reuters)
Coronavirus cases rise in Europe for first time in 10 weeks as delta variant spreads. (Washington Post)
Indonesia is set to tighten distancing measures to counter record numbers of Covid-19 cases as experts warn that south-east Asia’s largest country is on the brink of a “catastrophe.” (Financial Times)
Worker filings for U.S. jobless claims fell to 364,000 last week, reaching a new pandemic low as layoffs continue to recede. Jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, are down by more than 40% since the first week of April, but remain about double pre-pandemic levels. (Wall Street Journal)
Oil prices rose sharply ahead of a critical OPEC meeting in which the cartel is expected to weigh up how to meet surging demand from the industrialized world. U.S. crude rose more than 2% early Thursday, topping $75 a barrel for the first time since 2018. (Wall Street Journal)
More than 300 die suddenly in blistering Canadian heatwave, while causing at least 76 deaths in Oregon and Washington. Meanwhile, the village of Lytton, B.C. was evacuated, as the mayor says “the whole town is on fire.” (The Times, Wall Street Journal, CBC)
Police in Moscow raided the homes of journalists at an investigative website that has reported on alleged corruption involving President Putin and his allies. The raids came as the Proekt media outlet published an article accusing Vladimir Kolokoltsev, the powerful interior minister, and his son, Alexander, of illegal enrichment. (The Times)
As New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo gears up to campaign for a fourth term, a new poll found more than 60% of voters surveyed would rather see him resign immediately or not run for office again. A Siena College Research Institute poll of 809 voters between June 22 and June 29 found that 39% of respondents said Cuomo should finish out his term but not run again. 23% of voters surveyed said the governor should resign immediately, while 33% said he should run for re-election. (Wall Street Journal)
In the NYC mayoral race, Eric Adams leads Kathryn Garcia by just 14,755 votes, around 2 percentage points. Maya Wiley, who came in second place in the initial vote count, barely trailed Garcia after the preliminary elimination rounds were completed: Fewer than 350 votes separated the two. In reality, all of those candidates remain in contention, and those numbers could be scrambled again as the city’s Board of Elections tabulates ranked-choice outcomes that will include roughly 125,000 Democratic absentee ballots, with a fuller result not expected until mid-July. (New York Times)
Donald Rumsfeld obit: “Rumsfeld’s political prominence stretched back to the 1960s and included stints as a rebellious young Republican congressman, favored counselor to President Richard M. Nixon, right-hand man to President Gerald Ford and Middle East envoy for President Ronald Reagan. He also scored big in business, helping to pioneer such products as NutraSweet and high-definition television and earning millions of dollars salvaging large troubled firms. His greatest influence and notoriety came during a six-year reign as defense secretary under President George W. Bush. Mr. Rumsfeld was initially hailed for leading the U.S. military to war in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but his handling of the Iraq War eventually led to his downfall. In the invasion’s aftermath, he was criticized for being slow to draft an effective strategy for countering an Iraqi insurgency. He also failed to set a clear policy for the treatment of prisoners.” (Washington Post)
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board called WI Sen. Ron Johnson “the most irresponsible representative of Wisconsin citizens since the infamous Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in the 1950s.” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
After a year of living carefully, nearly half of Texas voters have returned to their pre-pandemic lives, UT/TT Poll finds. In the June poll, 47% of voters said they were coming and going as they were before the pandemic, while 39% said they were leaving the house but exercising caution. (Texas Tribune)
Economy
Private equity firms have had their busiest six months since records began four decades ago, striking deals worth more than $500bn and helping to propel global mergers and acquisitions activity to an all-time high. Buyout groups have announced 6,298 deals since the beginning of January, worth $513bn even before counting a $34bn megadeal for the medical supply company Medline, the strongest half-year result since at least 1980. (Financial Times)
Lumber prices tanked more than 40% in June, the biggest monthly drop on record: The building commodity is down more than 18% in 2021, headed for the first negative first half since 2015. The quick reversal of lumber’s monthslong rally came as Americans started to go on vacations again instead of taking on renovation and building projects. Many who are fearful of persistent inflation also took comfort in the drastic decline in prices in the face of cooling demand. (CNBC)
Elevated inflation will compel the Federal Reserve to raise US interest rates at least twice by the end of 2023,according to a new poll of leading academic economists for the Financial Times. The inaugural survey points to a potentially more hawkish path for monetary policy than indicated by the Fed’s chair, Jay Powell. (Financial Times)
Investors still diving into US equities with valuations at record highs. (Financial Times)
The UK is poised to secure an exemption for financial services from new global rules on taxing multinationals, in a move that would ensure the City of London’s largest banks do not pay more tax on their profits in other countries. The talks, which are due to conclude on Thursday, have accepted Britain’s case that the financial services industry be carved out of the proposed new global tax system. But UK chancellor Rishi Sunak’s victory in haggling over the details of new corporate levies came at a cost, said these people. He had to make concessions to the US on dismantling Britain’s digital services tax that is focused on American technology companies. (Financial Times)
ESG screening key for most private equity investors: 72% of private equity investors and managers always screen potential portfolio companies for environmental, social and corporate governance risks and opportunities before making the investment, results of PwC survey show. Another 56% of those surveyed have refused to enter general partnership agreements or declined investments for ESG reasons. (Pensions & Investments)
Technology
Amazon is pressing for the recusal of FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan from ongoing antitrust probes of the e-commerce giant, citing her past criticisms of the company’s power. In a 25-page motion filed with the FTC, Amazon argued that Khan has made public comments about Amazon and its conduct, including that the company is “guilty of antitrust violations and should be broken up,” suggesting she lacks impartiality in antitrust investigations into Amazon. (CNBC)
Suppliers that want to land Amazon as a client for their goods and services can find that its business comes with a catch: the right for Amazon to buy big stakes in their companies at potentially steep discounts to market value. The technology-and-retail giant has struck at least a dozen deals with publicly traded companies in which it gets rights, called warrants, to buy the vendors’ stock in the future at what could be below-market prices. Amazon over the past decade also has done more than 75 such deals with privately held companies. (Wall Street Journal)
Maine has enacted the country’s strongest statewide facial recognition law. Maine’s law prohibits the use of facial recognition technology in most areas of government, including in public schools, and for surveillance purposes. It strictly regulates how law enforcement officials may use facial recognition technology. (ACLU)
Goldman Sachs leads $32M Series A in Entera, a SaaS provider helping real estate investors find, buy, and manage single-family homes in 24 markets across the US. (Bloomberg)
Three Weeks with iOS and iPadOS 15: For the past three weeks, I’ve been running the developer beta of iOS and iPadOS 15 on my iPhone 12 Pro Max and M1 iPad Pro, respectively. Common wisdom says you’re not supposed to install early developer builds of iOS and iPadOS on your primary devices; I have to ignore that since work on my annual iOS and iPadOS reviews starts as soon as the WWDC keynote wraps up, which means I have to get my hands on the latest version of the iPhone and iPad operating systems as quickly as possible. Let me cut to the chase: I don’t think iOS and iPadOS 15 are massive updates like iOS and iPadOS 13 or 14 were. There are dozens of interesting new features in both updates, but none of them feels “obvious” to demonstrate to average users like, say, dark mode and iPad multiwindow in iOS and iPadOS 13 or Home Screen widgets in last year’s iOS 14. And, for the most part, I think that’s fine. The wheel doesn’t have to be reinvented every year, and the pandemic happened for everyone – Apple engineers included. (MacStories)
Smart Links
Tim Berners-Lee sells an NFT for $5.4M that represents time-stamped files of the source code for the world wide web and other items. (BBC News)
Venus doesn’t have enough water in its clouds to sustain life. (MIT Technology Review)
Switch to more home working after Covid ‘will make gender inequality worse.’ (The Guardian)
To bridge the digital divide — and close the homework gap — cities are tapping their own infrastructure. (The 74 Million)
Amazon acquires podcast hosting and monetization platform Art19. (The Verge)
Teamsters votes to support and fund Amazon workers. (Reuters)
AR can improve the lives of older adults, so why are apps designed mainly for youngsters? (Science Daily)
Populist leaders in Eastern Europe run into a little problem: Unpopularity. (New York Times)
‘Happiness scholar’ cites three ways to start healing rifts. (Harvard Gazette)
In time for July 4, C-SPAN announced its Historians Survey of Presidential Leadership. (C-SPAN)
Good News
Racism kept a Black WWII vet from a Purple Heart, he says. At 99, he got the award. For more than three-quarters of a century, Osceola “Ozzie” Fletcher was not formally recognized for being wounded in action in World War II. (Washington Post)
He found a 2.2-carat diamond in an Arkansas park. Then he proposed to his girlfriend. Christian Liden said he suddenly spotted something reflecting light in the gravel: a shiny pebble that was a bit larger than a pea. It was a diamond. (Washington Post)
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