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The World
The US is engaged in an increasingly frantic search to replace oil supplies lost from Russia as it tries to repair diplomatic rifts abroad and boost production at home to stop fuel prices from spiraling out of control. Jennifer Granholm, US energy secretary, told industry executives that the country was on a “war footing,” adding: “That means you producing more right now, where and if you can.” Her plea for domestic oil companies to boost supplies is a pivot for a Biden administration that has burnished its green credentials, underscoring the new political reality after the US this week banned oil and gas imports from Russia. (Financial Times)
The Pentagon pulled the plug on the idea of NATO members providing Soviet-built MiG-29 combat jets to Ukraine. The about-face from earlier support of getting planes to Ukraine came after days of intense lobbying by Ukraine for such aircraft and a spat between the U.S. and Poland over how such a deal might unfold. The incident marked the first significant tension within NATO as it provides support to Ukraine to fend off Russian forces. (Wall Street Journal)
Britain and the US fear Russia could be setting the stage to use a chemical weapon in Ukraine after Kremlin officials alleged without firm evidence that the US had been supporting a bioweapons program in the country. (The Guardian)
Russia is prohibiting citizens from using rubles to buy dollars and other hard currencies for the next six months. The central bank said it also will limit to $10,000 the amount of U.S. dollars that clients can withdraw from hard-currency accounts at Russian banks. Anyone wanting to withdraw more than that from a hard-currency account will have to take the balance in rubles. (Washington Post)
China’s biggest smartphone makers are slashing their shipments to Russia because of the rouble’s collapse and western sanctions despite pressure from Beijing to support Vladimir Putin after his invasion of Ukraine. The cutbacks, led by Huawei and Xiaomi, show that efforts by China’s president Xi Jinping and his counterpart Putin to build a close personal relationship are not shielding Chinese groups from the economic fallout of the war. The sanctions are also making it difficult for Chinese companies to exploit opportunities created by an exodus of western groups from Russia. (Financial Times)
Texas A&M’s Chancellor ordered school leaders to sever research ties with Russian entities, dissolving all agreements, especially those related to academics, research and intellectual property. (Texas Tribune)
Large law firms are cutting ties with Russian clients and even shuttering their Moscow offices. (Axios)
Sony stops sales of PlayStation consoles and software in Russia and shuts its PlayStation Store following Ukraine vice prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov's request. Amazon suspends access to Prime Video for customers based in Russia, and stops shipping retail products to customers in Russia and Belarus. (CNBC, Variety)
The White House unsuccessfully tried to arrange calls between President Biden and the de facto leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as the U.S. was working to build international support for Ukraine and contain a surge in oil prices. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the U.A.E.’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan both declined U.S. requests to speak to Mr. Biden in recent weeks, as Saudi and Emirati officials have become more vocal in recent weeks in their criticism of American policy in the Gulf. (Wall Street Journal)
House lawmakers approved a sweeping, roughly $1.5 trillion spending package that would fund the U.S. government and stave off a potential shutdown, while provisioning a slew of new humanitarian, economic and military assistance to Ukraine. Alongside it, Democrats and Republicans appeared poised to adopt a separate yet related measure to levy economic punishments against Russia for its invasion, including limits on its oil exports. Both bills still require a vote in the Senate. Already, the disputes have been fierce, even forcing House lawmakers to scrap their initial plans to include $15 billion in the package to augment the country’s response to the pandemic. (Washington Post)
Tectonic shift in S.Korea politics as conservative outsider elected president: Former prosecutor Yoon Suk-yeol emerged the winner of South Korea’s bitterly contested election, after a neck and neck race against ex-mayor and lawyer Lee Jae-myung. After close to all of the ballots had been counted as of 5.30am local time on Thursday, Yoon, the conservative opposition candidate, edged out Lee with 48.6% of the vote to 47.8%. A formal announcement is expected later. Lee of the ruling Democratic Party conceded defeat soon after. (Reuters, South China Morning Post)
South Korea's angry young men help propel Yoon to victory: Yoon Suk-yeol, of the conservative opposition People Power Party, snagged the narrowest of wins to become the next South Korean president by tapping the anger of young men squeezed by the wealth disparities that have widened during the five years of the Moon Jae-in administration. (Nikkei Asia Review)
France’s presidential election is one month from today. (Financial Times)
Disney CEO Bob Chapek finally came out swinging against Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, telling shareholders at the annual meeting Wednesday that the company had always opposed the legislation but opted to work behind the scenes to try to influence lawmakers not to pass it. However, Chapek’s statement has failed to satisfy many Disney employees, as a letter from Pixar staff to Disney leaders, obtained by popular[dot]info, details their anger and demands. (Deadline, popular.info)
The Education Department sent another sign that student loan payments may not restart in May, directing companies that service federal student loans not to send out notices about the payments resuming. (CNBC)
Each International Women’s Day, photos of smiling women appear in a steady stream on social media alongside testimonials from brands eager to show their support for gender equality. This week, however, the stream was disrupted by a Twitter account that spat back pay gap data of companies, schools and nonprofits. The account, @PayGapApp, targets companies in Britain, where the public has access to mountains of data about employers’ pay disparities and men working full time earned 7.9 percent more than women as of April 2021. Each time a university or hospital in Britain promoted International Women’s Day on Twitter this week with certain keywords or hashtags, including #IWD and #BreakTheBias, the pay gap account automatically retweeted the message with a note about how the median hourly pay for women employed at the organization compared with that of men. (New York Times)
Economy
Citigroup is ‘running out of options’ in its push to sell its Russian bank, as Western sanctions imposed on Moscow raise odds that the operation will be wound down. The situation risks pushing Citi closer to a costly writedown, dealmakers and sanctions experts said. (Financial Times)
Pimco stands to lose billions if Russia defaults on its debt. The fund manager is exposed to derivatives bet of at least $1.1bn and holds $1.5bn of sovereign bonds. (Financial Times)
Bitcoin’s price rose after President Biden announced an executive order to study digital currencies, a move the industry welcomed and skeptics decried as delaying needed regulation. As details from the executive order leaked overnight, the price of bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, rose almost 9%. Bitcoin’s price was $41,910 Wednesday evening. Crypto advocates welcomed the absence of any imminent federal action in the order and its acknowledgment of the positive elements of the industry, such as fostering innovation and financial inclusion. (Wall Street Journal, CoinDesk)
Some of the biggest names in the hedge-fund world are betting on crypto. Firms founded by veterans including Alan Howard, co-founder of Brevan Howard Asset Management LLP, and Paul Tudor Jones, the billionaire who runs Tudor Investment Corp., are expanding their crypto trading. The embrace of crypto by more veteran hedge-fund traders—which are often wagering on the direction of a token’s price, much as they do with stocks—is the latest sign of Wall Street’s warming to digital currencies. “More funds see crypto as a fifth asset class,” in addition to stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities, says Robert Bogucki, co-head of global trading at Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd. (Wall Street Journal)
Funding to EV startups hit a 10-year high: Both legacy automakers and startups are focused on the electric vehicle space, which brought in record amounts of capital commitments and private investment last year. Venture-backed EV startups raised upward of $20 billion in 2021, more than double the nearly $10 billion raised by companies in the sector in 2020. (Crunchbase)
Paid family leave contributes to family and child health alongside well-being outcomes but not as clearly to women’s careers. To date, only 19% of American workers have access to PFL from their employers, often touted as a silver bullet. (Stanford News)
Technology
The Apple-TSMC Partnership: The TSMC-Apple partnership has been one of the defining relationships of the mobile computing era. Without Apple as a predictable, high volume and demanding customer, it is unlikely that TSMC would have been able to catch up to Intel on advanced node semiconductor manufacturing. Similarly, without the support of the TSMC ecosystem, it is unlikely that Apple would have been able to become a pre-eminent chip design house, let alone support the massive manufacturing scale required for its products. This post takes a closer look at how Apple helped TSMC become the leader in advanced node semiconductor manufacturing. (Bits and Bytes)
A U.S. congressional committee is asking the Justice Department to investigate Amazon and some of its executives for what lawmakers say is potentially criminal obstruction of Congress. The letter accuses the Seattle-based tech giant of refusing to provide information that lawmakers sought as part of an investigation by the body’s Antitrust Subcommittee into Amazon’s competitive practices. The letter alleges that the refusal was an attempt to cover up what it calls a lie that the company told lawmakers about its treatment of outside sellers on its platform. (Wall Street Journal)
Amazon board approves 20-for-1 stock split and a $10 billion share repurchase. The tech giant says the split will make the share price more accessible for potential investors, and allow employees more flexibility in managing stock-based compensation (Wall Street Journal)
Disney plots sports betting push in bid to revitalize ESPN: The push into betting, Disney chief executive Bob Chapek said, was “driven by the consumer, particularly the younger consumer that will replenish the sports fans over time and their desire to have gambling as part of their sports experience”. He added that the future of sports programming will extend to “sports betting, gaming and the metaverse”. Sports betting has exploded in the US since a 2018 Supreme Court decision ended Nevada’s hold on the market, opening the door to more than 30 states to legalize it so far. This has fueled the rise of online sports books — virtual spaces where gamblers can place bets — and companies providing data and other services. Goldman Sachs has projected that the US sports betting market will reach $39B by 2033, from $900MM today. Jessica Reif Ehrlich, an analyst at Bank of America, said one of the appeals of sports betting for Disney was that it gives fans a reason to stay tuned into games at a time when many are choosing to skip the whole match and watch highlights on social media instead. (Financial Times)
The SEC is skeptical that Elon Musk is actually adhering to his 2018 agreement to have all of his texts pre-approved. (Protocol)
Amazon is expected to win unconditional antitrust approval from the European Commission for its $8.5B MGM acquisition, which was announced in May 2021. (Reuters)
Smart Links
4.3 million people quit their jobs in January as the Great Resignation shows no sign of slowing down. (CNBC)
Major League Baseball cancels second week of season. (ESPN)
TikTok struggles to find footing in wartime. (Wall Street Journal)
Rutgers to provide free tuition to undergrads from low-income families. (The 74 Million)
We’re going to need a lot more grid storage. New iron batteries could help. (MIT Technology Review)