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The World
Cuba’s Communist government stepped up its crackdown against demonstrators and activists, cutting off most communications with the outside world, deploying security forces across the country and arresting more than 100 people, many of whose whereabouts remain unknown, activists said. Meanwhile, Cuba blamed historic protests that took place over the weekend on U.S. "economic asphyxiation" and social media campaigns by a minority of U.S.-financed counter-revolutionaries, while President Biden said he stood with the Cuban people. (Wall Street Journal, Reuters)
The Department of Justice said it will assist in the Haiti police investigation into the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and examine whether "there were any violations of U.S. criminal law" concerning the case. Meanwhile, two of the politicians competing for power in Haiti are close to an agreement that they hope will stabilize the embattled Caribbean nation and lead to fresh elections, one of the politicians involved said. Ariel Henry, a neurosurgeon who was appointed Haiti’s prime minister a little more than a day before Moïse’s death, said that he and Claude Joseph, the interim prime minister who asserts he leads the country, are in talks to cut a deal “in the coming hours.” He wouldn’t provide details of the possible agreement. (Axios, Wall Street Journal)
U.S. sanctions on China will continue but Beijing is ‘unlikely to escalate’ amid decoupling fears. The Biden administration sanctioned 23 more Chinese entities for suspected Xinjiang abuses, military and business ties last week, but experts say Beijing will be cautious about retaliating under its new anti-sanction law as it is reluctant to encourage technology decoupling. (South China Morning Post)
An analysis of the genomes of more than 100,000 people found a dozen or so genetic variants that have a strong statistical association with a person’s chances of developing severe COVID-19. The genetic associations increase risk by only a small amount — but it’s comparable to the increase in risk due to factors such as obesity, diabetes and other underlying health conditions. The findings might shed light on biological mechanisms of the disease, and suggest which drugs to test. (Nature)
Pfizer’s push for health regulators to authorize a third dose of its COVID-19 shot is not yet backed by evidence, despite the fast-spreading Delta variant, vaccine experts said. In interviews with Reuters, some leading vaccine experts questioned Pfizer's rationale and said that more data was needed to justify a booster, especially as many countries struggle to administer the initial vaccine doses needed to protect their citizens. (Reuters)
California to bar K-12 students from campus if they refuse to wear a mask. (Los Angeles Times)
Only people who are vaccinated or recently tested negative for Covid-19 will be allowed in bars, restaurants and malls in France starting from August, President Emmanuel Macron said, as the spread of the virus increases across the country. The new restrictions will also apply in trains, domestic flights, theaters, amusement parks, concert halls, hospitals and nursing homes. (Wall Street Journal)
UK Covid-related hospital admissions could surpass those seen last winter if Britain rushes back to normality, government scientists warned today as Boris Johnson approved lifting the last remaining lockdown restrictions. (The Times)
Downing Street strongly rejected Labour claims that Boris Johnson had given cover to racists who targeted online abuse at members of the England team following their Euro 2020 final defeat against Italy. At the start of the tournament Johnson declined to condemn fans who booed England players “taking the knee”, the anti-racism gesture, while home secretary Priti Patel said fans had a right to boo. Following England’s defeat in a tense penalty shoot-out, racists singled out Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka on social media for missing their penalty kicks. Johnson and Prince William condemned England fans who sent racist abuse on social media. (Financial Times, The Times)
Shortly after landing in Washington D.C. in an effort to deny the Texas House a quorum to block a voting restrictions bill, House Democrats indicated they plan to remain out of state until the end of the special legislative session that ends Aug. 6. Democrats’ Monday departure from the state will bring the Legislature’s work to a halt just days into a 30-day session that was called largely to advance GOP-backed legislation that would enact new restrictions on voting. (Texas Tribune)
Many nonprofit hospitals are not living up to their obligations for tax-exempt status by investing in the communities they serve, according to a new survey of nearly 2,400 hospitals by the Lown Institute. some 72% of the hospitals surveyed had what Lown called a "fair share deficit" — shortfalls in providing community benefits such as local investments and charity care — ranging from a few thousand dollars to as much as $261 million. Cleveland Clinic, New York-Presbyterian were among the hospitals with the biggest charity care, community benefits deficits. (Healthcare Dive)
Death Valley had the planet’s hottest 24 hours on record Sunday amid punishing heat wave at an average of 118.1 degrees for the day. Meanwhile, the U.S. West endured a fourth day of scorching heat on Monday as temperatures again threatened to shatter records, major wildfires burned nearly unchecked in drought-stricken Oregon and power grids strained under the pressure. (Seattle Times, Reuters)
Economy
After G7 pledge, EU seeks to rival China's 'Belt and Road' with own infrastructure plan. The EU foreign ministers agreed to launch a global infrastructure plan linking Europe to the world, its latest step after deals with India and Japan and a similar pledge by the Group of Seven richest democracies. (Reuters)
European Central Bank unity on its new inflation target could dissolve into division as early as next week when policymakers meet to discuss changing its guidance on raising interest rates, its president Christine Lagarde has warned. The bank’s rate-setters are due to meet next Thursday for their first discussion since they last week launched a unanimously agreed new strategy, which changes the way the bank sets monetary policy for the first time since 2003. (Financial Times)
Lumber wipes out 2021 gain with demand ebbing after a record boom: Lumber was among the world’s best-performing commodities. (Bloomberg)
Goldman Sachs’ QuickPoll found that investors expect the Fed to hike rates sooner. Around 58% of investors believe rates will hike in 1H22 and 37% believe rates will hike in 2H22. (Goldman Sachs)
A new Conference Board survey finds a notable shift in employees’ return-to-work concerns: 43% of respondents questioned the need to return to the workplace at all. In January, that number was 31%. The greatest difference lies between lower level employees and CEOs: Only 18% of CEOs question the need to return to the workplace, while 56% of individual contributors question it. (The Conference Board)
McDonald’s owners are adding emergency child care and other benefits, as many U.S. restaurants are struggling to hire enough workers to run their businesses. U.S. franchisees of the burger giant aim to boost hourly pay, give workers paid time off and help cover tuition costs to draw enough workers and improve the Golden Arches’ image as an employer. (Wall Street Journal)
After more than 16 months of working from home, some Twitter employees in SF & NY returned to the office on Monday as the company reopened its corporate campuses at 50% capacity in the two cities. (Reuters)
TikTok told employees they will be expected to come into the office three days a week, and work remotely the other two days of the work week. (The Information)
The uneven odd for promotions with hybrid work: Those who prefer—or need—to work from home may find co-workers in the office benefiting more; here’s how employees and managers should handle any disparities. (Wall Street Journal)
Cryptocurrency trading volume plunges as interest wanes following bitcoin price drop. Trading volumes at the largest exchanges, including Coinbase, Kraken, Binance and Bitstamp, fell more than 40% in June, according to CryptoCompare. In June the price of bitcoin hit a monthly low of $28,908; a daily volume maximum of $138.2 billion was down 42.3% from the intra-month high in May. (CNBC)
Cryptocurrency miners flee China as clampdown intensifies: Those in the business of mining cryptocurrencies are rushing to leave China, which had accounted for 60% of global bitcoin mining, as the nation tightens restrictions on such activities. (Nikkei Asian Review)
As investors pour record-breaking sums of money into North American startups, three firms are taking the lead: Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global Management and Insight Partners are leading or participating in 257 funding rounds in 1H21. Collectively, the numbers have come in at around $16.8 billion. (Crunchbase)
After two consecutive months on the decline, CEO optimism roared back in July to 2018 levels as strong demand and progress battling the pandemic fueled an ever-brighter outlook that business—and society—are returning to normal. CEOs’ confidence in the current business environment rose to 7.4 out of 10 —the highest level since May 2019. The outlook for business conditions 12 months from now climbed to 7.3 out of 10, back to levels on par with May 2018. (Chief Executive)
Technology
Silicon Valley’s longtime voice in D.C. is in disarray. The Internet Association has been shedding staff, losing influence on Capitol Hill and shrinking to near-obscurity in media coverage of tech policy debates in Washington, even as the industry faces controversies ranging from alleged monopolization to privacy to how it treats its legions of workers. (Politico)
Netflix’s June Top 10 data shows the value of picking up canceled broadcast series: The drama series “Manifest,” which was canceled by NBC in mid-June, was the third-most popular show on Netflix last month, spending 20 days in the U.S. Top 10. “Lucifer,” which ended its run on Fox in 2018 before becoming a Netflix original series, ranked fourth, appearing in the U.S. Top 10 for 19 days. Other canceled broadcast shows, such as “Good Girls” and “The Baker and the Beauty,” have also landed in the U.S. Top 10 for stretches this year. (Morning Consult)
AI voice actors sound more human than ever—and that’s because they are. There is a new wave of startups on the horizon using deep learning to build synthetic voice actors for digital assistants, video game characters, and corporate videos. Deep learning only needs a few hours of feed to turn one’s voice into an algorithm that can learn those patterns on its own. But the rise of hyper realistic fake voices may pose larger consequences for human voice actors, as deep Fake voices are cheaper and getting easier to use than human voice actors. (Technology Review)
AT&T removes high-speed data throttling from its most expensive unlimited plan. (The Verge)
Smart Links
Telehealth use stabilizing at 38 times pre-COVID-19 levels: McKinsey. (Healthcare Dive)
Central London rents tick up for the first time in a year. (Mansion Global)
Elon Musk has a ticket to space, too… with Richard Branson’s Virgin. (Wall Street Journal)
Virgin Galactic plans to take a tourist to space every day, says chief. (Financial Times)
Exposure to light with less blue before sleep is better for energy metabolism. (Science Daily)
Scientists discover a new class of memory cells for remembering faces. (Rockefeller University)
Chip shortage sees smugglers cling-filming CPUs to their bodies. (PC Gamer)
Authenticated brand logos in Gmail will roll out over the coming weeks: They’re like a verified badge, but for emails. (The Verge)