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The World
U.S. Ambassador to China Hacked in China-Linked Spying Operation: Hackers linked to Beijing accessed the email account of the U.S. ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, in an attack that is believed to have compromised at least hundreds of thousands of individual U.S. government emails, according to people familiar with the matter. Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia, was also hacked in the cyber-espionage attack, the people said. The two diplomats are believed to be the two most senior officials at the State Department targeted in the alleged spying campaign disclosed last week, one of the people said. Burns and Kritenbrink are the second and third senior Biden administration officials to be identified in news reports as having their emails hacked. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo’s email account was also compromised in the breach, U.S. officials have said. (Wall Street Journal)
The White House expressed regret that Henry Kissinger was able to get more of an audience in Beijing than some sitting U.S. officials, after the former top diplomat held talks in China. The White House said it was aware of the trip but that it was a private visit by a citizen. As part of those meetings, Kissinger, 100, also met with China's top diplomat Wang Yi and with defense minister Li Shangfu, who has declined direct talks with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. (Reuters)
In the most detailed public account yet given by a U.S. official, the director of the C.I.A. offered a biting assessment of the damage done to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia by the mutiny of the Wagner mercenary group, saying the rebellion had revived questions about his judgment and detachment from events. Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, an annual national security conference, William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, said that for much of the 36 hours of the rebellion last month, Russian security services, the military and decision makers “appeared to be adrift.” “For a lot of Russians watching this, used to this image of Putin as the arbiter of order, the question was ‘Does the emperor have no clothes?’” Mr. Burns said, adding, “Or at least ‘Why is it taking so long for him to get dressed?’” (New York Times)
Russia jolted world grain markets with an escalation in the Black Sea, mounting a third straight night of air strikes on Ukrainian ports and issuing a threat against Ukraine-bound vessels to which Kyiv responded in kind. At least 27 civilians were reported hurt in the air strikes on the ports, which set buildings ablaze and damaged China's consulate in Odesa. The United States said Russia's warning to ships indicated Moscow might attack vessels at sea following Moscow's withdrawal on Monday from a U.N.-brokered deal to let Ukraine export grain. The signal that Russia was willing to use force to reimpose its blockade on one of the world's biggest food exporters set global prices soaring. (Reuters)
India’s rice export ban could send decade-high prices spiking even further: India has banned the exports of non-basmati white rice with immediate effect, the latest in the government’s effort to rein in high food prices. India is the world’s leading rice exporter, accounting for more than 40% of the global rice trade. (CNBC)
Leading Nasa climate expert says July likely to be hottest month on record: July will likely be Earth’s hottest month in hundreds if not thousands of years, Gavin Schmidt, the director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told reporters on Thursday, as a persistent heatwave baked swaths of the US south. The meeting came during a summer that has put the climate crisis on full display. Deadly floods have struck New England. Canadian wildfire smoke has choked US cities. And tens of millions of people have been placed under heat advisories, with areas across the US south and west breaking temperature records. “We are seeing unprecedented changes all over the world,” Schmidt said. (The Guardian)
Jet stream pattern and ‘heat domes’ fuel soaring temperatures around globe: Simultaneous heatwaves and flooding in swaths of the US, Europe and Asia are being fueled by a specific jet stream pattern that creates a series of “heat domes” which in turn drive up temperatures, scientists say. The fast-moving band of air that is a key driver of global weather systems has been locked for weeks in a pattern characterized by five large U-bend shapes, dubbed “wavenumber 5”. Scientists say such a pattern was also behind the extreme weather seen around the world last year. (Financial Times)
U.S. Investigating Why Delta Passengers Were Kept on Plane in Extreme Heat: The flight, from Las Vegas to Atlanta, was stalled at Harry Reid International Airport, leaving passengers sweltering in triple-digit temperatures, the department said. (New York Times)
Economy
Dow Notches Longest Win Streak Since 2017: The Dow rose about 160 points, or 0.5%, to clinch its longest winning streak since September 2017. The S&P 500 declined 0.7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq pulled back 2.1%. The Dow outperformed the Nasdaq by the widest one-day percentage-point margin since March 2021. Though the 2023 stock-market rally has been broadening in recent weeks, most of this year’s gains have been driven by a small group of megacap tech stocks, including Tesla. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are weighted by market cap, so the biggest companies have a greater influence on index performance than the smallest ones. That makes the major indexes vulnerable to a pullback if a few heavyweights fall. (Wall Street Journal)
The Nasdaq Composite had its biggest one-day drop in more than four months as investor disappointment with results from Netflix and Tesla called into question the strong, months-long rally in the tech sector. (Financial Times)
A $500 Billion Corporate-Debt Storm Builds Over Global Economy: Concerns of a credit crisis have receded. But a wave of corporate bankruptcies is building now that an era of easy money has come to an end. (Bloomberg)
Housing’s Recession Already Happened: Builders are sounding less downbeat than they were a year ago. The National Association of Home Builders on Tuesday reported that its index of industry sentiment rose to 56 in July from 55 a month earlier—still a depressed reading, but up from the low of 31 recorded in December, and the highest level since June last year. On Wednesday, the Commerce Department reported construction started on 1.44 million homes in June at a seasonally adjusted, annual rate. That brought the second-quarter average to 1.45 million up from the first quarter’s 1.39 million homes started, marking the first quarterly increase since the beginning of last year. (Wall Street Journal)
Technology
The US Federal Trade Commission paused its in-house trial against Microsoft Corp.’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc., opening the door to potential settlement talks. The step is a win for Microsoft and Activision as they seek to close the largest-ever gaming deal despite regulatory challenges in the US and the UK. On Thursday, two days after the companies asked the FTC to withdraw the case, the agency said in a filing that it’s suspending an administrative challenge that had been scheduled for trial in August before an in-house judge. (Bloomberg)
Amazon to launch pay-by-palm technology at all Whole Foods stores by year-end: Amazon One lets users enter and pay for items in stores by swiping their hand over a kiosk. The company is increasingly marketing the technology to third parties. (CNBC)
Google co-founder Sergey Brin is back at work: The multibillionaire has been visiting the tech giant’s Mountain View, Calif., offices in recent months generally three to four days a week, working alongside researchers as they push to develop the company’s next large artificial-intelligence system. Brin participated in meetings about AI at Google’s offices late last year, but the frequency and intensity of his involvement has picked up, said people familiar with the matter. His new stance is a notable change from the relatively hands-off approach he adopted after stepping down from an executive role at parent company Alphabet GOOG -2.65%decrease; red down pointing triangle in 2019. He has worked closely with a group of researchers building Google’s long-awaited AI model Gemini. (Wall Street Journal)
YouTube increases YouTube Premium's price in the US from $11.99 per month to $13.99 per month and YouTube Music from $9.99 per month to $10.99 per month. (9to5Google)
TSMC Delays Start of First Arizona Chip Factory, Citing Worker Shortage: Semiconductor maker forecasts sales drop this year but predicts boom in AI-related business. (Wall Street Journal)
Apple threatens to remove services like FaceTime and iMessage from the UK rather than weaken their security under a proposed Investigatory Powers Act amendment. (BBC News)
Smart Links
United to reduce flights at Newark airport after recent disruptions. (Financial Times)
Apple Struggling With Manufacturing Larger Screen for iPhone 15 Pros. (The Information)
Fed launches real-time payments system in first big upgrade since 1970s. (Financial Times)
AMC Drops Plan to Charge More for Better Seats. (Wall Street Journal)