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The World
The U.S. will ask Israel “to agree to a series of brief cessations of military operations in Gaza to allow for hostages to be released safely and for humanitarian aid to be distributed.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken will call for “humanitarian pauses” when he arrives in Israel today. (New York Times)
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa will also arrive in Israel today to call for a temporary humanitarian cease-fire. (Nikkei Asia)
Harvard, Yale Warned by Top Law Firms About Antisemitism: More than two dozen top US law firms sent a letter to more than 100 law school deans telling them to take an “unequivocal stance” against antisemitic harassment on their campuses. The letter, which was signed by firms including Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP and Wachtell Lipton Rosen and Katz LLP, comes after some law students saw their job offers rescinded for comments made about Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,400 Israelis. Israel’s retaliatory bombing of Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, has fueled protests across the country. (Bloomberg)
Vladimir Putin “ratcheted up nuclear tensions with the West on Thursday by signing Russia’s deratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The move comes as the Kremlin denied it had reached a stalemate in its war on Ukraine, promising once more to achieve all its objectives in the country.” Putin pointed out that the U.S. has never ratified the treaty and said Russia would not resume testing unless America does first. (Times of London)
The U.S. has increased sanctions against Russia, “targeting companies and individuals in Turkey, China and the United Arab Emirates for supplying Moscow with goods that can be used for military purposes.” (Financial Times)
North Korea has reportedly shut down its embassies in Angola and Uganda and plans to do so in Hong Kong and Spain as well. Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who defected in 2016, “said the recent closures mark the first time Pyongyang has shut multiple embassies, adding that the regime appears to have decided that overseas operations are no longer financially viable.” (Nikkei Asia)
Trade groups representing banks are adding “legal threats and public attacks to the more usual lobbying efforts that once took place behind closed doors on Capitol Hill.” The sector is “increasingly frustrated” with its federal regulators, accusing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and other agencies of overreach. (New York Times)
What to Watch in Friday’s Jobs Report: How Long Can Labor Market Keep Booming? Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal estimate employers added 170,000 jobs in October, down from a surprisingly strong 336,000 new jobs in September. The strike against Detroit automakers could account for some of the decline because striking workers aren’t counted on payrolls. Economists see the unemployment rate holding steady at 3.8%. Wage growth has trended down since early last year. Economists estimate average hourly earnings rose 4% in October from the previous year, down from 4.2% in September. On a month-to-month basis, they see wage growth ticking up slightly. (Wall Street Journal)
Economy
Mortgage rates fell for the first time in eight weeks but remain “close to a two-decade high. The average for a 30-year, fixed loan was 7.76%, down from 7.79% last week.” A borrower with a $600,000 mortgage would pay about $1,702 more per month than at the start of 2022. (Bloomberg)
Holiday shopping season sales are expected to rise at their slowest pace in five years. The National Retail Federation “said holiday sales, including e-commerce and non-store sales, would rise between 3% and 4% to $957.3 billion and $966.6 billion during November and December,” compared to a 5.4% increase last year and a 12.7% rise in 2021. (Reuters)
Consumer confidence “fell to a five-month low of 102.6 in October amid worries about inflation, rising interest rates and fighting between Israel and Hamas.” The Commerce Board index is down from a revised 104.3 in September. (MarketWatch)
Detroit’s Big Three agreed to pay striking UAW members for their time on the picket lines. The move “is an unusual one in the union’s history of negotiating with the car companies, according to people familiar with the talks.” (Wall Street Journal)
“Autoworkers at the first Ford factory to go on strike have voted overwhelmingly in favor of a tentative contract agreement reached with the company.” Members of UAW Local 900 at the Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan, voted 81% in favor of the contract. (Associated Press)
Japan's Cabinet has approved a $112 billion stimulus package “as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida grapples with persistent inflation and falling approval ratings.” Japan's core consumer price index climbed 2.8% in September, “but prices for food, excluding fresh items, rose sharply by 8.8%.” (Nikkei Asia)
Technology
Apple said sales fell for the fourth consecutive quarter, including a decline in China that came as the company faces a broad economic slowdown in the country and new competition from rival Huawei Technologies. The September quarter marks the fourth straight period in which Apple reported year-over-year declines in total revenue, the longest such slump in years. Apple sales were $89.5 billion, down less than 1% from the previous year and largely in line with analyst estimates, even as net income of about $23 billion exceeded expectations. (Wall Street Journal)
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced an agreement that will let “like-minded governments” test eight companies’ AI models before they are released. Closing out his two-day AI summit, “Sunak announced the agreement signed by Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Singapore, the U.S. and the U.K. to test leading companies’ AI models.” He said, “Until now the only people testing the safety of new AI models have been the very companies developing it. That must change.” (Politico)
Elon Musk tells Rishi Sunak AI will render all jobs obsolete: UK prime minister and billionaire entrepreneur exchange views at conclusion of global summit on the technology. (Financial Times)
Uber will pay $290 million, and Lyft $38 million, into two separate New York settlement funds that will be distributed to current and former drivers. The companies will also provide sick leave and better pay to drivers in the future. The New York Attorney General’s office says it is the largest back-pay settlement in the office’s history. (Ars Technica)
Jeff Bezos “instructed Amazon executives to allow more inaccurate search results to increase advertising revenue,” according to previously redacted portions of the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Amazon made public on Thursday. The suit reads in part, “Amazon has increased not only the number of advertisements it shows, but also the number of irrelevant junk ads, internally called ‘defects.’” (Washington Post)
Amazon is shutting down its brick-and-mortar clothing stores less than a year and a half after the first one opened. The two Amazon Style stores, located in Glendale, California, and Columbus, Ohio, will close within a week. (Bloomberg)
The Walt Disney Company will purchase the remaining third of Hulu from NBCUniversal for at least $8.61 billion. The price is based on a 2019 valuation of Hulu, and Disney anticipates paying more. The company “has owned two-thirds of Hulu since it bought 21st Century Fox in 2019 for $71 billion.” (Ars Technica)
Budgeting app Mint is shutting down. Intuit, which owns Mint, said the app “will get absorbed into Intuit’s other service, Credit Karma, when it officially goes away on January 1.” But it is “still not clear whether Credit Karma will get the budgeting features that Mint is known for.” Intuit acquired Credit Karma three years ago. (The Verge)
“Direct-to-consumer brands — a staple category for startup investors a couple years ago — have mostly disappeared from the ranks of funded companies today.” Investment in DTC brands is down 97% from the 2021 peak. (Crunchbase)
Smart Links
Dow jumps more than 550 points for best day since June as bond yields recede. (CNBC)
Macquarie profit slips to three-year low. (Financial Times)
Bond markets rally as investors dial down interest rate expectations. (Financial Times)
Goldman Sachs’s Managing Director Class Shrinks 5% From 2021 Level. (Bloomberg)
National Association of Realtors CEO quits earlier than expected after federal lawsuit loss. (CNBC)
Starlink achieves cash flow breakeven, says SpaceX CEO Musk. (Reuters)
Energy Harvesting for Wearable Technology Steps Up. (IEEE Spectrum)