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The World
Latest: Russian troops enter Kyiv as Moscow pushes topple Ukraine’s government. President Vladimir Putin said he was open to talks after Kyiv said it would discuss adopting “neutral status.” Earlier, Russia’s foreign minister said Moscow would not negotiate until Ukraine stopped fighting. And Putin has called for regime change in Ukraine before peace talks. (New York Times, Axios)
EU prepares to freeze assets of Putin and Lavrov: The EU is preparing to freeze the assets of Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov under a new sanctions package. Foreign ministers hope to approve the sanctions package this afternoon, along with a number of measures against Russian banks and industry. Putin and Lavrov will not be subject to a ban on traveling under the measures, underlining the EU’s willingness to keep symbolic diplomatic possibilities open. (Financial Times)
Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged Vladimir Putin to resolve the conflict with Ukraine “through negotiations” as the Russian army intensified its invasion. Xi told his Russian counterpart to use “balanced negotiations” in a phone call on Friday, the first publicized meeting between the two leaders since Putin’s visit to Beijing during the Winter Olympics. The Chinese president reiterated that Beijing respects all countries’ sovereignty and territorial integrity, without elaborating on whether Russia’s invasion of Ukraine violated these principles. (Financial Times)
What is Swift: Swift, or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications to give it its full name, went live in 1977. It’s owned by banks and based in Belgium. Each of the 11,000-plus financial firms that’s a member has a Swift terminal to communicate with the other banks in the network, as well as its own Swift code. It’s not actually a payments system, but a messaging platform. However, the relative strength of its security features and the breadth of its usage (financial intermediaries in every country bar North Korea are now members) mean that it enables banks to send trillions of dollars’-worth of money across borders daily. It’s also used for foreign exchange settlement and trade finance. Access to Swift matters primarily because it enables Russian energy companies to get paid for selling their oil or gas globally without too much hassle. (Financial Times)
Oil, gas and commodities aren’t being weaponized — for now: The West each day continues to buy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of resources from Russia, indirectly financing the Ukrainian crisis. (Bloomberg)
Multiple international sports organizations have pulled events out of Russia. Formula 1 canceled the Russian Grand Prix, saying it was "impossible" to hold the race, which was scheduled for Sept. 25. The International Ski Federation said Russia will not host additional World Cup events this winter after attempts to hold ski cross races Friday in the Ural Mountains failed when dozens of racers refused to take part. UEFA became one of the first organizations to move toward a boycott of Russia. European soccer's governing body moved the 2022 Champions League final, one of the world's most prominent sports events, away from St. Petersburg after the invasion. (Axios)
While a wide-ranging embargo of Russian energy exports would certainly hurt the country, which has been overly reliant on its natural resources for a long time, it wouldn’t be without consequences for the rest of Europe either. By cutting off oil and gas imports from Russia, the European Union would be cutting into its own flesh, as many EU members are heavily reliant on Russian fossil fuels. As the following chart shows, the EU’s energy trade deficit was already near record highs at the end of 2021, as oil and gas prices surged back from their historical pandemic lows. Considering that the crude oil price averaged $74 in December, hit $100 following the Russian attack and will likely rise further as the crisis unfolds, it looks all but certain that the EU’s energy deficit will grow further, weighing heavily on the bloc’s economic growth prospects. (Statista)
President Biden has selected Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill a Supreme Court vacancy, according to a person familiar with the decision, a history-making choice that would make her the first Black woman to ascend to the high court. Biden is expected to announce the nomination later today. Jackson, 51, a U.S. appeals court judge in Washington, had been the front runner for the Supreme Court seat ever since Justice Stephen G. Breyer, 83, announced he was retiring. (Los Angeles Times)
The CDC is set to significantly loosen federal mask-wearing guidelines today, meaning most Americans will no longer be advised to wear masks in indoor public settings. (Los Angeles Times)
China orders Hong Kong to get Covid-19 under control before Xi’s July visit. A top Chinese official expressed Beijing’s frustration over the city’s response to the Omicron outbreak at a recent meeting on the mainland. (Wall Street Journal)
The EU has warned that more than one in 10 expatriates from its member states have left Hong Kong because of its tough Covid-19 controls, as western consulates mount a diplomatic campaign to persuade the Asian financial centre to ease the restrictions. The warning, contained in an EU diplomatic letter to the government, follows panic among many expatriates in Hong Kong over an official policy of separating some Covid-positive children from their parents, as well as plans for mass testing and the continuation of harsh travel restrictions. (Financial Times)
Iran will continue to enrich uranium to 20% purity even after sanctions on it are lifted and a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers is revived, Iranian news agencies quoted the country's nuclear chief as saying. "(Uranium) enrichment ... continues with a maximum ceiling of 60%, which led Westerners to rush to negotiations, and it will continue with the lifting of sanctions by both 20% and 5%," the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Eslami, was quoted by the semi-official news agency Fars as saying. (Reuters)
Almost 200 countries will convene next week to draw up a blueprint for the first-ever global agreement on plastic pollution. Negotiators will attend the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA), in person and remotely, in Kenya. They will aim to set the groundwork for a final deal, which will be hammered out in detail over the following years. A draft resolution, modeled on the United Nations’s climate treaty, suggests a legally binding commitment to address the full lifecycle of plastics. (Science)
The 2021 Atlas® Van Lines Migration Patterns Study found that 20 U.S. states were found to be balanced in nature, meaning the inbound and outbound moves were relatively equal. The 10 U.S. states with the highest percentage of inbound and outbound moves in 2021 are included in order below, with Maine ranking as the study’s inbound leader for the first-time following Idaho’s two-year run as the country’s inbound leader. New York was once again the country’s outbound move leader in 2021, a designation it has now held for three years running. Holding its inbound status for a second consecutive year, Utah has earned a spot on the top inbound list for the first time. In 2021, Arkansas, Hawaii, Montana and Florida achieved inbound status for the first time since 2002, 2003, 2013 and 2016, respectively. Alternatively, California earned an outbound status for the second consecutive year, after holding a balanced status from 1995 to 2019. In addition to New York, states with a consistent presence on the leading outbound list include New Jersey, Louisiana, Indiana, Illinois and West Virginia. (Atlas Van Lines)
Economy
Fed inflation gauge heats up, raising pressure on officials to tighten policy. Core PCE index climbed 5.2% annually in January in its quickest gain since 1983. (Financial Times)
Nearly nine in 10 adults say they are at least somewhat concerned about inflation. Worry about rising prices cut across generational, racial and partisan lines — 85 percent of Democrats and 96 percent of Republicans said they were concerned. Fear of inflation is weighing on people’s view of their own finances and the economy overall. About 75 percent of respondents rated the economy as fair or poor, and only 28 percent said they expected their own finances to be better off a year from now, the lowest share in the five years Momentive has conducted the survey. Asked to identify the most important issue facing the country, dozens of respondents volunteered inflation, which wasn’t offered as an option. (New York Times)
U.S. consumer sentiment remains at a decade-low on inflation woes. And the survey responses were collected prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which pushed up fuel prices. (Bloomberg)
Coinbase reported revenues of $2.5 billion for 4Q21, compared to $585 million a year earlier. Free cash flow hit $3 billion, bringing the total cash production for the year 2021 to $10.7 billion—more than triple 2020’s figure. (The Information)
The Great Resignation generation: Gen Z wants to job hop. Gen Z is changing jobs at a rate 134% higher than they were in 2019. Millennials are switching 24% more, and boomers 4% less, per LinkedIn data. And they plan to keep job-hopping: Some 25% of Gen Zers say they hope or plan to leave their employers within the next six months, LinkedIn found. Compare that with 23% of millennials, 18% of Gen X and just 12% of boomers. (Axios)
The Great Resignation has forced employers to start getting creative with benefits in efforts to retain and attract the best talent. The latest frontier: fertility trackers and home sperm-testing kits. Fertility benefits like IVF and egg-freezing have long been common in the tech industry, with companies like Facebook offering employees access to IVF assistance as part of their benefits packages since 2014. Just as tech companies are offering apps like Calm and Headspace as part of a push towards mental health support, they’re also offering newfangled fertility-tracking kits as part of the company’s benefits package. (Protocol)
Hue surveyed just under 3,000 professionals in roles ranging from HR and product development to engineering. The findings reveal many BIPOC workers believe companies still have a long way to go to create equitable environments, and HR professionals frequently have a different view on progress. Here’s what you need to know from the report: (Protocol)
40% of underrepresented employees responded that they’ve experienced race- or ethnicity-related discrimination at work in comparison to 12% of white respondents.
82% of HR professionals said their industry “does a good job of implementing diversity-related initiatives.”
In comparison, 84% of people said they’ve observed a lack of “meaningful progress” toward creating a more equitable environment for employees of color in the past six months.
80% of HR professionals responded that their companies have implemented diversity initiatives.
Technology
Tech companies in the U.S. and around the globe that have for years relied on Ukraine as a source of cheap and reliable tech talent are now rushing to evacuate employees and keep services online as Russia’s assault on Ukraine continues. Companies including Lyft, Grammarly and ride-hailing startup Bolt are offering financial assistance to help workers temporarily relocate, while others are giving bonuses and extra time off. (The Information)
Large chip companies said they expected limited supply chain disruption for now from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, thanks to raw material stockpiling and diversified procurement, but some industry sources said there could be an impact longer term. (Reuters)
Chip supplier to Apple and Intel warns of tight capacity till 2027. (Bloomberg)
Meta Platforms has broken up a group of more than 300 employees working on operating systems for its virtual and augmented reality devices. In the process, the company dispersed the team that had been working on a new OS from scratch, code-named XROS, to power the company’s VR headsets and upcoming AR glasses. The reorganization marks another nail in the coffin for the four-year project after Meta halted its development late last year. The move also suggests Meta is trying to limit some costs and move faster as it charts a risky and expensive course toward a digital future it calls the metaverse while its Facebook-based advertising business struggles. (The Information)
Jensen Huang interview: Nvidia’s post-Arm strategy, Omniverse, and self-driving cars: “Omniverse for enterprise is being trialed and being tested in about 700 or so different companies around the world. We have entered into some major licenses already. And so our numbers are off to a great start. People are using it for all kinds of things. They’re using it for connecting designers and creators. They’re using it to simulate logistics warehouses, simulate factories. They’re using it for synthetic data generation because we simulate sensors physically and accurately. You could use it for simulating data for training AIs that are collected from LiDAR, radars, and of course cameras. And so they’re using it for simulation part of the software development process. You need to validate software as part of the part of the release process. And you can put Omniverse in the flow of robotics application validation. People are using it for digital twins, too.” (Venture Beat)
Smart Links
Goldman Sachs wants its bonuses back as punishment for jumping ship. (Bloomberg)
Morgan Stanley discloses twin probes into big stock transactions. (Financial Times)
Big tech makes a big bet: Offices are still the future. (New York Times)
Faced with a shortage of qualified workers and fierce competition, tech companies are offering candidates money to interview and plush perks if they stay. (Wired)
Rising household expenses crowd out discretionary spending. (Morning Consult)
LinkedIn debuts its own podcast network. (Engadget)
Why the U.S. Postal Service ended up with gas-guzzling trucks. (Bloomberg)
Beyond Meat hit by slower supermarket sales of plant-based foods. (Wall Street Journal)