'State Law'
What You Need To Know
Today’s posts that caught my eye:
Mayor says Louisville shooter’s rifle ‘will be back on the streets’ under state law: Kentucky law requires officers to send assault-style rifle used in shooting to state police officials to sell at auction.
Chinese spies buying citizenship to third countries and slipping into UK.
Office space available for lease in the U.S. is at a record high.
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The World
Mayor says Louisville shooter’s rifle ‘will be back on the streets’ under state law: Kentucky law requires officers to send assault-style rifle used in shooting to state police officials to sell at auction. (The Guardian)
1 in 5 adults say they’ve been threatened by a gun (21%) or a family member has been killed by a gun, including suicide. And 1 in 6 (17%) say they’ve seen someone get shot. Black adults (34%) are about twice as likely as white (17%) or Hispanic (18%) adults to say a family member was killed by a gun and about twice as likely as white adults to say they witnessed someone being shot (31% v. 14%); Hispanic adults are in between (22%). Meanwhile, about 4 in 10 adults (41%), and slightly more parents with children at home (44%) say that they live in a household with guns. Of those, 3 in 4 (77%) say they don’t store their guns using common gun-safety practices. (KFF Poll)
From Red Carpet to Doghouse: Macron Returns From China to Allied Dismay. President Emmanuel Macron landed in China to a red-carpet reception and all the pomp of a state visit, a three-day tour little short of a love-fest that he clearly hoped would further his ambitions for France to sit at the table of the great powers in a world changed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Beijing’s emergence as an arbiter of global conflict. But Mr. Macron’s reception on returning to Europe has been chilly. In short order in China, Mr. Macron managed to alienate or worry allies from Warsaw to Washington, with his embrace of what a Sino-French declaration called a “global strategic partnership with China.” He adopted the Chinese lexicon of a “multipolar” world, freed of “blocs,” liberated from the “Cold War mentality,” and less reliant on the “extraterritoriality of the U.S. dollar.” (New York Times)
Macron comments leave senior Taiwanese official 'puzzled': Taiwan parliament speaker You Si-kun, writing on Facebook late Tuesday above a screengrab of a report about Macron's comments on Taiwan, questioned the French commitment to freedom. "Are 'liberté, égalité, fraternité' out of fashion?," he wrote, referring to the official French motto of "liberty, equality, fraternity". (Reuters)
Chinese spies buying citizenship to third countries and slipping into UK: MI5 has warned ministers that Chinese spies are slipping into Britain by gaining citizenship through third countries and using their visa-free access to the UK, The Times can reveal. The concerns have led the Home Office to prepare new visa restrictions on a series of countries being exploited by the Chinese, senior government sources have said. (The Times)
U.S. defense industry plans first Taiwan trip in four years. Around 25 U.S. defense contractors plan to send representatives to Taiwan in early May to discuss joint production of drones and ammunition. The delegation will be led by Steven Rudder, the retired commander of the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific. This would be the first large group of envoys focused specifically on the defense industry to visit Taiwan from the U.S. since 2019. (Nikkei Asia)
Pakistan condemned India's decision to hold Group of 20 meetings in the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir next month, calling the move "irresponsible". Kashmir is claimed in full but ruled in part by the two nuclear-armed neighbors who have fought two of their three wars over control of the region. (Reuters)
India-Pakistan spat threatens Cricket World Cup: Both countries are refusing to play on each other's home grounds. (Nikkei Asia Review)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban named the U.S. as one of the top three adversaries for his Fidesz Party, according to a purportedly leaked Central Intelligence Agency assessment—underscoring the depth of a longtime rift between Washington and a NATO member that has increasingly defended its ties with Russia and China. The CIA intelligence update, dated March 2, said Mr. Orban’s inclusion of the U.S. as a top adversary in a Feb. 22 political strategy meeting “constitutes an escalation of the level of anti-American rhetoric.” The note listed the U.S. Embassy as the source for the information, raising the possibility of U.S. monitoring of the ruling party meeting. (Wall Street Journal)
By more than two-to-one, Americans say medication abortion should be legal in their state: 53% of adults say medication abortion – that is, the use of a prescription pill or a series of pills to end a pregnancy – should be legal in their state, while fewer than half as many (22%) say it should be illegal. About a quarter (24%) say they aren’t sure. A majority of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (73%) say medication abortion should be legal in their state, while fewer than half as many Republicans and GOP leaners (35%) say the same. (Pew Research Center)
Stockpiling misoprostol: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered the state health department to immediately start purchasing 150,000 doses of misoprostol, a five-year supply of the pill. Gov. Gavin Newsom said California has secured 2 million pills of misoprostol. In Massachusetts, Gov. Maura Healey announced that, at her request, the University of Massachusetts Amherst ordered roughly 15,000 doses of mifepristone last week — enough to supply the entire state for more than a year. Healey's administration is also chipping in $1 million from the Department of Public Health's budget to help other local health care providers buy even more mifepristone. (CNBC, WBUR)
North Dakota’s Republican Gov. Doug Burgum signed two transgender athlete bans into law, effectively prohibiting transgender girls and women from joining female sports teams in K-12 and college. (Politico)
Trump Crushes DeSantis In New Primary Poll: A new Morning Consult poll of “potential Republican primary voters” finds Donald Trump leading Ron DeSantis in a 2024 GOP primary match up, 56% to 23%. (Political Wire)
US life expectancy has declined two years in a row, meaning that babies born today are expected to live about 2.5 years less than those born in 2019, according to the CDC. Americans on average will now kick the bucket at 76, the lowest age in the 21st century — and more than six years earlier than the rest of the G-7. The biggest contributor to Americans’ shortening life spans is drug overdoses, especially from fentanyl. The US saw more COVID deaths than other G-7 nations, while fatalities from suicide and alcohol-induced liver failure skyrocketed. (GZERO Media)
Economy
Top Fed officials debate need for further rate rise amid bank stress: Austan Goolsbee, president of the Chicago Fed, called for “prudence and patience” in setting monetary policy, in prepared remarks ahead of a speech at the Economic Club of Chicago, saying it was unclear how much regional banks might pull back on lending following the implosion of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. In a discussion that followed his speech, Goolsbee noted that the jobs market, while “unbelievably strong” was “cooling a bit”, suggesting that the Fed’s efforts to damp demand were starting to have an effect. (Financial Times)
However… New York Fed President John Williams said that Fed officials still have more work to do to bring down prices, echoing remarks from his colleagues in recent days, and suggested they will stay the course despite new uncertainty from turmoil in the banking sector. (Bloomberg)
The IMF trimmed its 2023 global growth outlook slightly as higher interest rates cool activity but warned that a severe flare-up of financial system turmoil could slash output to near recessionary levels. Meanwhile, the UK is set to be one of the worst performing major economies in the world this year, according to the IMF. It says the UK economy's performance in 2023 will be the worst among the 20 biggest economies, known as the G20, which includes sanctions-hit Russia. (Nikkei Asia, BBC)
Wells Fargo’s Harvey Warns S&P 500 Is Set for a 10% Correction: The bank’s head of equity strategy expects the S&P 500 to suffer a 10% correction in the next three to six months. That would take the American stock benchmark to around 3,700, which is near the November lows. Wells Fargo maintained its year-end price target of 4,200 — or about 2% above Monday’s close. (Bloomberg)
Big US banks expected to report deposit flight in upcoming earnings. (Financial Times)
The price cap on Russian oil seems to be working: Russian oil and gas revenues dove by 45% in the first quarter, as its deficit exploded due to the costs of the war. The average price for Russia's Urals grade crude oil was $47.85 a barrel in March, down from $89.05 last March. In a sign of the economic stress Russia faces, the ruble just suffered its worst week of the year, hitting its lowest level against the dollar since April 2022. (Axios Markets)
Low-income countries will face their biggest bills for servicing foreign debts in a quarter of a century this year, putting spending on health and education at risk. Repayments on public debt owed to non-residents for a group of 91 of the world’s poorest countries will take up an average of more than 16 per cent of government revenues in 2023, rising to almost 17% next year. The figures — the highest since 1998 — follow a steep rise in global borrowing costs last year, when central banks sought to counter high inflation with rapid rate rises. (Financial Times)
European VC funding drops as seed takes a hit, US investors retreat: This year is off to a bleak start for the startup ecosystem in Europe. Startups raised $10.6 billion in funding, down 18% quarter over quarter and a whopping 66% year over year, per Crunchbase data, as American investors pulled back. (Crunchbase News)
Ernst & Young has axed its plan for a split of its auditing and consulting arms, marking a dramatic and costly retreat from a proposal that was meant to reshape the accounting profession but ended amid bitter infighting at the firm. Rather than creating two dynamic firms, EY is now left with a potential leadership vacuum, thousands of angry partners, a split between its U.S. and overseas partnerships and confused clients. EY spent more than a year and over $100 million on the effort only to see it upended by a small group of senior U.S. executives. “This is the beginning of a real period of nastiness,” said an EY U.S. partner who favored the deal. (Wall Street Journal)
Technology
Garry Tan’s First Big Move as Y Combinator CEO Roils Founders. The first big change made by Y Combinator’s new CEO and president Garry Tan—to shutter a fund investing in mature startups so it could sharpen its focus on much younger companies—has set off an uproar among founders backed by the esteemed startup accelerator. Ten startups, including YC graduates such as payroll provider Deel and credit card startup Brex, said they were “surprised and deeply disappointed” with YC’s recent decision to suddenly eliminate its late-stage Continuity fund last month, according to a letter sent to YC March 14 and viewed by The Information. (The Information)
Elon Musk's Twitter is working on generative AI after buying ~10K GPUs and reportedly poaching DeepMind researchers; source: the work involves an LLM. (Insider)
Ford said it will spend $1.34 billion (C$1.8B) to turn its 70-year-old Oakville facility in Canada into an assembly plant for its next-generation of electric vehicles. The campus, which first opened in 1953, will be renamed Oakville Electric Vehicle Complex. The company said Tuesday it will begin modernizing the 487-acre site in the second quarter of 2024. The upgrade includes completely retooling the facility that currently produces the internal combustion engine-powered Ford Edge and Lincoln Nautilus to own that only produces EVs. This is the first time that Ford has completely retooled an existing plant for EVs in North America. (TechCrunch)
Office space available for lease in the U.S. is at a record high: Remote work is already crushing the office market, and the data is a sign that the distress is going to get worse — vacancies, already at historic highs, will likely go higher. Looking at office availability is different from looking at office vacancy rates. Availability doesn't just look at empty offices. It includes occupied office space where the tenant notified the landlord they won't be renewing. And, crucially, availability takes into account leased office space where a tenant is trying to sublet the office. And, crucially, availability takes into account leased office space where a tenant is trying to sublet the office. (Axios Markets)
Smart Links
Top Colleges for High-Paying Jobs in Finance (Tl;dr: MIT is no. 1). (Wall Street Journal)
Chicago selected as site of 2024 Democratic National Convention. (Chicago Tribune)
Google drops global vaccine requirement to enter buildings, says ‘world is in a very different place’. (CNBC)
Television viewing is associated with increased risks of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. (Harvard Medical School)
Walmart says it’s never made money in Chicago, closes 4 stores, halving its footprint in the city. (Bloomberg)
77% of nonprofit hospitals evaluated spent less on charity care and community investment than the estimated value of their tax breaks. (Lown Institute)
YouTube says NFL Sunday Ticket packages will cost between $249 and $489 depending on the user's subscription. (The Verge)
4 in 10 say next vehicle may be electric (Associated Press)
Healthcare private equity deals hit $90B in 2022. (Healthcare Finance)
The hottest new climate technology is bricks. (MIT Technology Review)
Michael Jordan’s signed sneakers sell for record $2.2mn at Sotheby’s auction. (Financial Times)
Good News
Her car died, so she walks to work. One day on the walk, she found $15,000. Dianne Gordon’s regular walks are usually uneventful — except the day she spotted a Ziploc bag filled with $14,780 — which she promptly gave to police. Stacy Connell, whose husband was the police officer that responded to the initial call, was touched by Gordon’s act and set up a GoFundMe page for her. In the first one week, more than $60,000 has been donated from strangers near and far. (Washington Post)
The Ocean Cleanup has now removed 200,000 kg from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. (The Ocean Cleanup)
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