Know someone who would like this newsletter? Forward it to them.
The World
Federal Reserve officials signaled they expect to raise interest rates by late 2023, sooner than they anticipated in March, as the economy recovers rapidly from the effects of the pandemic and inflation heats up. Their median projection showed they see lifting their benchmark rate to 0.6% from near zero by the end of 2023. In March they had expected to hold it steady through that year. (Wall Street Journal)
Treasury yields surged and U.S. stocks slipped after the Fed signaled they expected to lift interest rates in 2023. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose 0.09% to 1.58% following the decision from the U.S. central bank and comments from Fed chair Jay Powell, who struck an upbeat tone about the US economic recovery while also acknowledging the risk of higher inflation. (Financial Times)
A highly anticipated first summit meeting between Presidents Biden and Putin ended early on Wednesday and was described by both sides as a series of polite but adamantly stated disagreements about which country is the greater force of global disruption. In dueling news conferences on the edge of Lake Geneva, the two leaders committed to the creation of working groups to deal with urgent issues, starting with arms control and the proliferation of cyberattacks. They agreed to send ambassadors back to each other’s capitals, Putin said, and expressed interest in working in some areas of mutual interest, from the Arctic to Afghanistan. (New York Times)
Hong Kong’s national security police cited more than 30 Apple Daily articles as evidence of a conspiracy to collude with foreign forces in arresting the tabloid’s editor-in-chief, publisher and three other executives. Senior Superintendent Steve Li Kwai-wah of the national security unit also revealed that the assets of three companies – Apple Daily Limited, Apple Daily Printing Limited and AD internet Limited – amounting to HK$18 million (US$2.32 million) had been frozen. The articles, which were published in both Chinese and English, had called for other countries to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and China, he said. (South China Morning Post)
China launched a spacecraft carrying three astronauts on a mission to begin constructing its maiden space station. The Shenzhou-12 or "divine vessel" spacecraft left the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the country's northwestern Gobi Desert at about 9:22 a.m. Beijing time, state broadcaster CCTV reported. It is to rendezvous with the core capsule of the space station, which was launched in April. (Nikkei Asian Review)
Congress voted overwhelmingly to establish Juneteenth as a federal holiday, elevating the day marking the end of slavery in Texas to a national commemoration of emancipation amid a larger reckoning about America’s turbulent history with racism. It is the first new federal holiday created by Congress since 1983, when lawmakers voted to establish Martin Luther King Jr. Day after a 15-year fight to commemorate the assassinated civil rights leader. (Washington Post)
Gov. Greg Abbott announced that Texas is providing initial $250 million "down payment" for border wall. Abbott did not specify how long the wall would be or where it would be built. He directed the Texas Facilities Commission to hire a program manager to begin that research. (Texas Tribune)
Separately Abbott said that Texas’ main power grid “is better today than it’s ever been” — even as residents were on their third consecutive day of being asked to reduce electricity use. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the main power grid, is urging conservation through Friday, as a number of power plants were inexplicably offline at the same time as the state was experiencing record June demand for electricity. (Texas Tribune)
Americans welcomed back to Europe as restrictions ease: The European Union agreed to open the door to American tourists for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, giving a boost to the continent’s crucial tourism industry and Americans’ summer travel options. (Wall Street Journal)
Economy
Bipartisan infrastructure pitch gains steam on Capitol Hill as Biden weighs in from Europe: 21 senators — including 11 Republicans — now support the framework of infrastructure deal, and Biden says his chief of staff believes there’s ‘room’ for an agreement. (Washington Post)
The biggest U.S. companies sharply increased the number of new Black and Latino directors named to their boards this spring, a step toward diversifying boardrooms, a new study found. S&P 500 companies tripled the share of new directors who are Black and more than doubled the share who are Latino. The shift leaves nearly 80% of the companies’ board seats occupied by white directors and about 70% by men. S&P 500 boards added 456 new independent directors—those without strong ties to management—over the past year, many this spring, the highest number since 2004, according to an analysis of corporate proxy filings from Spencer Stuart. (Wall Street Journal)
China’s market regulator has begun an antitrust probe into Didi Chuxing, just as the ride-hailing giant is pushing ahead with what could be the largest initial public offering in the U.S. this year. (Reuters)
Law schools scramble for deferrals: In the most competitive year in recent memory, some schools are offering incentives to ease their over-enrolled classes. (New York Times)
Ron Williams is the former chairman and CEO of Aetna and current CEO of RW2 Enterprises, as well as chairman of the Conference Board, chairman of agilon health, and operating advisor to CD&R Funds. Williams explains why “Business leaders shouldn’t—and can’t—avoid speaking out on voting rights: Voting legislation has now been introduced in many states and has received a tremendous amount of highly charged news coverage across the political spectrum. Few business leaders want to wade into the debate. But wade in they must. We are talking about the fundamental voting rights of all Americans, and some of the restrictions that have been introduced into law will absolutely and unfairly restrict the number and the kind of people who can vote… We sometimes hear that business executives or corporations should stay out of social issues. Voting is not a social issue, but a fundamental right for those who are affected: the elderly, the working poor, low-income individuals, and communities of color.” (Fortune)
Technology
Google’s next AI move: Teaching foreign languages: Google CEO Sundar Pichai last month previewed an artificial intelligence model that he said would enable people to have open-ended conversations with technology. But current and former employees who have worked with the language model say enabling coherent, free-flowing and accurate dialogue between humans and technology remains a tall order. As a result, Google is taking a more incremental step in conversational AI by preparing to teach foreign languages through Google Search. (The Information)
Facebook is planning to start rolling out its podcast product on June 22, and, eventually, add a feature that’ll allow listeners to create clips from their favorite shows. According to an email sent to podcast page owners and viewed by The Verge, hosts can link their show’s RSS feed up to Facebook, which will then automatically generate News Feed posts for all episodes published moving forward. These episodes will show up on a “podcasts” tab that doesn’t appear to be live yet. (The Verge)
Spotify launches its live audio app and Clubhouse rival, Spotify Greenroom. (TechCrunch)
A 24-year-old law degree dropout from south-west London who as a teenager started a popular podcast about tech investing has raised $140m in new funds to back start-ups. Harry Stebbings secured investment from the MIT and Rothschild-backed RIT Capital Partners, as well as the founders and early backers of Spotify, Calm and Atlassian, for his 20VC fund. Several of Stebbings’ investors have appeared on his podcast, The Twenty Minute VC, which has released hundreds of episodes since he started as an 18-year-old in 2015. He dropped out of studying law as an undergraduate the following year to focus on podcasting full-time, before moving into investing in 2017, aged 20. (Financial Times, The Twenty Minute VC)
Thrasio, an acquirer of Amazon third-party sellers, is in talks to go public via Churchill Capital V. Thrasio buys popular, third-party brands on Amazon for everyday products from small business owners. It then works to better the brands with marketing, product development, and supply chain marketing. The implied valuation could top $10 billion. This comes days after Congress introduced a bipartisan bill that would break apart Amazon’s control of its marketplace—benefiting the sorts of sellers that Thrasio rolls up. (Bloomberg)
Facebook develops new method to reverse-engineer deepfakes and track their source. (The Verge)
Smart Links
The return to the office is pushing even more women out of work. (Bloomberg)
Microsoft names CEO Satya Nadella board chairman. (Wall Street Journal)
Even 30% pay raises can’t stop the junior banker exodus in Asia. (Bloomberg)
World’s third largest diamond discovered in Botswana. (The Guardian)
Extreme heat bakes West, toppling long-standing records. (Washington Post)
Smart tires are rolling out to predict flats, blowouts. (Washington Post)
Researchers develop artificial intelligence that can detect sarcasm in social media. (University of Central Florida)
U.S. traffic fatalities climbed in 2020 despite the pandemic. (Statista)