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The World
U.S. consumer prices increased by the most in nearly 13 years in May compared to a year ago, as inflationary pressures continued to flare. The CPI was 5% higher last month compared with May 2020 — an acceleration compared to the 4.2% annual rate of increase in April, and its fastest pace since hitting 5.4% in August 2008. Core CPI — the underlying measure of inflation that strips out volatile items like food and energy — rose 3.8% in May on an annual basis, the most since 1992, after a 3% rise in April. (Financial Times)
However, the S&P 500 reached a record closing high, as economic data appeared to support the Federal Reserve’s assertion that the current wave of heightened inflation will be temporary. (Reuters)
Which higher prices are here to stay? (Wall Street Journal)
Restaurants: Prices for meals at full-service establishments rose 0.6% in May, and were up 4% from a year earlier. Grocery prices are rising more slowly this year than during 2020, when people shifted to eating more at home.
Travel: While these increases are dramatic, they are not necessarily a sign of lasting price pressures. Airfares are still down 12% from February 2020 levels, while prices for hotels and motels are off by 4.6%.
Vehicles: One-third of the monthly increase in CPI in May came from a jump in prices for used cars and trucks. A global shortage in semiconductor chips has held back production.
Furniture, appliances and other home goods: Prices for living room, kitchen and dining room furniture rose 9.8% in May.
Underneath the hood of the CPI numbers, it's clear that not all items moved in tandem. Cosmetics, perfume, bath, nail preparations and implements were down 0.7%. While beer, ale and other malt beverages increased 2.4% when consumed away from home, those same items enjoyed at home were up only 0.4%. Similarly, the cost of wine sipped away from home increased 1.8%; at home, it was up 1.2%. (Axios)
Boris Johnson sought to play down any differences with Washington over the way Brexit could affect Northern Ireland after talks with Joe Biden at the G7 summit, as he called the U.S. president “a breath of fresh air.” The pair also formally agreed a document called the Atlantic Charter, a restatement of common positions in areas including trade, science, human rights and the environment. (The Guardian)
Russia is preparing to supply Iran with an advanced satellite system that will give Tehran an unprecedented ability to track potential military targets across the Middle East and beyond. The plan would deliver to the Iranians a Russian-made Kanopus-V satellite equipped with a high-resolution camera that would greatly enhance Iran’s spying capabilities, allowing continuous monitoring of facilities ranging from Persian Gulf oil refineries and Israeli military bases to Iraqi barracks that house U.S. troops. The launch could happen within months. (Washington Post)
A bipartisan group of 10 U.S. senators said it reached agreement for a proposed infrastructure spending bill that would not include tax increases. The group of five Republicans and five Democrats gave no details, but a source said it would cost $974 billion over five years and $1.2 trillion over eight years, and includes $579 billion in new spending. (Reuters)
‘A slow, painful death’: Biden’s domestic agenda withers as he jets abroad. President Biden’s relentless focus on passing an infrastructure bill is increasingly dividing his party, as many Democrats fear the negotiations could derail the rest of Biden’s agenda and imperil what they see as the urgent need to protect voting rights. (Financial Times, Washington Post)
The number of children in child labor has risen to 160 million globally, an uptick of 8.4 million over the past four years, the International Labour Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund report. The report cautions that "global progress to end child labour has stalled for the first time in 20 years, reversing the previous downward trend that saw child labour fall by 94 million between 2000 and 2016."63 million girls and 97 million boys were in child labour at the start of 2020, accounting for roughly 1 in 10 children worldwide. Boys were more likely to work than girls across all age groups, per the report. (Axios, Unicef)
A group of Japanese scientists, including some of the nation’s most senior advisers on the COVID-19 pandemic, is warning that allowing spectators at the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics will help the virus spread domestically and internationally. Their recommendation to bar or limit spectators represents an increasingly outspoken challenge from scientists to the government and I.O.C, which remain adamant about going ahead just 6 weeks before the 23 July opening ceremony. (Science)
UnitedHealthcare delays controversial ER policy following backlash: UHC said it would delay a plan to stop paying for emergency room visits that it deemed nonurgent, at least until the pandemic has ended. (Healthcare Dive, New York Times)
Google has helped create the most detailed map yet of the connections within the human brain. It reveals a staggering amount of detail, including patterns of connections between neurons, as well as what may be a new kind of neuron. The brain map, which is freely available online, includes 50,000 cells, all rendered in three dimensions. They are joined together by hundreds of millions of spidery tendrils, forming 130 million connections called synapses. The data set measures 1.4 petabytes, roughly 700 times the storage capacity of an average modern computer. (New Scientist, Brain Map)
Economy
The Biden administration told federal agencies that more employees can return to their offices as the pandemic threat ebbs, but it also laid out a permanent work-from-home expansion that will drastically alter the federal government’s workplace culture. (Washington Post)
Goldman Sachs will demand that its U.S. bankers disclose whether or not they have been vaccinated against Covid-19 ahead of a planned return to the office next week. Goldman told employees that responses were required by 12 pm U.S. eastern daylight time on Thursday. (Financial Times)
Hong Kong’s biggest listed companies added women to their boards in 2020 at their highest level in four years. The top 50 companies on the Hang Seng Index filled 24% of their 42 open director seats with women last year, compared with just 6% in 2019, 5% in 2018, and 20% in 2017. However, 37% of Hong Kong boards were all-male last year. (South China Morning Post)
Bill Gates is the nation’s largest farmland owner: Bill and Melinda Gates are deeply invested in American agriculture. The billionaire couple, in less than a decade, have accumulated more than 269,000 acres of farmland across 18 states, more than the entire acreage of New York City. The farmland was purchased through a constellation of companies that all link back to the couple’s investment group, Cascade Investments, based in Kirkland, Washington. (NBC News)
As grocery prices rise, alt-meat takes a bigger bite of Big Meat’s burger. Far from cooling the alt-protein trend, the pandemic has seen a surge in offerings and drop in prices. (Washington Post)
Stanford statistician Maya Marthur recently conducted a study assessing what motivates people to cut meat and other animal products out of their diet. She found that giving people information on animal welfare can have positive effects, while forceful interventions, like telling the consumer to completely go cold turkey, had negative results. Instead people respond better to interventions that ask the participant to reduce the amount of meat they eat over time. (Stanford Med)
British Airways is to put thousands of its staff on full-time furlough and thousands more on reduced hours — what it is calling “flexi-furlough” — in the latest setback in the opening up of aviation markets. (The Times)
Three industry associations that represent underwriters, law firms and asset managers in Europe, the U.S. and Asia revised their sustainability-linked loan principles last month. They now say borrowers must obtain independent, external verification of their performance against the targets, a change driven primarily by the investors who buy the loans and the lenders who arrange them, according to the London-based Loan Market Association. The changed guidance was prompted by developments across the wider loans market but it has coincided with private equity's move into sustainability-linked loans. (Reuters)
Technology
TikTok is selling its most valuable real estate for $2 million. The short-form video app is asking for more than $1.4 million for a takeover of its home page in the U.S. during 3Q21. That figure will jump to more than $1.8 million in 4Q21 — and more than $2 million on a holiday. (Bloomberg)
Amazon adjusted its return-to-work plans for corporate employees, issuing new guidance that will allow for a mix of remote and in-person work. The tech giant said that it is “learning and evolving as we go” as it relates to the pandemic, and the new plan backs away from communication in March which touted a “return to an office-centric culture” as its baseline. Amazon told employees that its new baseline will be three days a week in the office and the option to work remotely up to two days a week. (GeekWire, Amazon)
Hackers broke into gaming giant Electronic Arts, the publisher of Battlefield, FIFA, and The Sims, and stole a wealth of game source code and related internal tools. In forum posts the hackers said they have taken the source code for FIFA 21, as well as code for its matchmaking server. The hackers also said they have obtained source code and tools for the Frostbite engine, which powers a number of EA games including Battlefield. The hackers say they have 780gb of data, and are advertising it for sale in various underground hacking forum posts viewed by Motherboard. (Vice)
Startups may see boost as adtech world adjusts to Apple’s changes: Apple’s recent privacy changes allow users to opt out of a system allowing advertisers to track their activity across apps. The changes are forcing adtech companies to rely on new tech and innovation to effectively target and engage customers, which could be a boost to startups. (Crunchbase)
Smart Links
U.S. household wealth jumps to record $136.9 trillion, Fed says. (Reuters)
Rush to buy second homes slows in U.S. with offices reopening. (Bloomberg)
Third member of U.S. FDA advisory panel resigns over Alzheimer’s drug approval. (Reuters)
'Miraculous' mosquito hack cuts dengue by 77%. (BBC News)
International Olympic Committee's executive board will submit Brisbane's bid to host the 2032 Summer Olympics for approval in July. (Nikkei Asian Review)
Airbnb seeks 12 people to live anywhere for one year. (Airbnb)
"Revenge travel" fuels hotel sector's speedy comeback. (Axios)