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The World
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan signaled that Ankara may agree to Finland joining NATO ahead of Sweden, amid growing tensions with Stockholm. "We may deliver Finland a different message (on their NATO application) and Sweden would be shocked when they see our message. But Finland should not make the same mistake Sweden did," Erdogan said. Sweden and Finland applied last year to join NATO following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and need all member countries' approval to join. (Reuters)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz doubled down on his rejection of demands by Kyiv to supply Ukraine with fighter jets on the heels of Berlin’s agreement to send battle tanks. “The question of combat aircraft does not arise at all,” Scholz said. (Politico EU)
China’s top nuclear-weapons research institute has bought sophisticated U.S. computer chips at least a dozen times in the past two and a half years, circumventing decades-old American export restrictions meant to curb such sales. A Wall Street Journal review of procurement documents found that the state-run China Academy of Engineering Physics has managed to obtain the semiconductors made by U.S. companies such as Intel Corp. and Nvidia Corp. since 2020 despite its placement on a U.S. export blacklist in 1997. (Wall Street Journal)
Top House Foreign Affairs Republican agrees with possibility of war with China: “I hope he's wrong as well. I think he's right, though, unfortunately,” Rep. Michael McCaul said in reference to a U.S. Air Force general who reportedly predicted war with China. (Politico)
Absence from work at record high as Americans feel strain from Covid: About 1.5 million Americans missed work because of sickness in December. Each month, more than a million people have called out sick for the past three years. About 7% of Americans currently have long Covid, which can affect productivity and ability to work. The last time the absentee number dipped below a million Americans was in November 2019. (The Guardian)
India's Adani Group issued a detailed riposte to a Hindenburg Research report that sparked a $48 billion rout in its stocks, saying it complies with all local laws and had made the necessary regulatory disclosures. The conglomerate led by Asia's richest man, the Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, said last week's Hindenburg report was intended to enable the U.S.-based short seller to book gains, without citing evidence. (Reuters)
Flood ravaged Auckland is expected to receive further heavy rain over the coming days, even as people start to count the cost of the flash floods that have hit New Zealand’s largest city since Friday. (Reuters)
Economy
Top Bankers in Asia See Pay Cuts of 50% After Drought in Deals: Top investment bankers in Asia ex-Japan at Wall Street’s biggest firms are having their worst payouts since the financial crisis more than a decade ago, according to people familiar with the matter. On average, managing directors at banks including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America have seen their total compensation drop by 40% to 50%, with payouts for senior MDs falling to between $800,000 to $1.5 million and for first-year MDs to $600,000 to $1 million. (Bloomberg)
Vehicle leasing—once a path for nearly one-third of American buyers to get behind the wheel of a new car—has faded since the pandemic. Now it is likely to be years before the U.S. lease market returns to normal, executives and analysts say. The leasing falloff is largely tied to the vehicle shortage that has plagued the car business for more than two years. Auto makers generally make more money selling cars outright, rather than leasing them, which typically involves a heavier subsidy from the manufacturer. With inventory constrained, car companies have significantly dialed back attractive lease deals that had been a staple of auto retailing. Auto makers are unlikely to revert to more-generous lease terms until vehicle availability rebounds closer to prepandemic levels, executives and analysts say. Even then, the relative dearth of people who leased cars in recent years will produce a lag effect, drying up what is normally a steady stream of customers returning to dealerships. It could take the better part of this decade for the lease market to normalize, some analysts say. (Wall Street Journal)
Florida startups raised $9.7B in 601 deals in 2022, up 25% YoY from $7.8B in 652 deals; VC funding fell 40%+ YoY in 2022 in California, Massachusetts, and NY. (Crunchbase)
The dollar firmed on Monday and distanced itself from an eight-month trough ahead of a slew of central bank meetings this week, including the Federal Reserve's, with traders keenly focused on guidance for the path of interest rate rises. (Reuters)
President Joe Biden and House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy will meet at the White House on Wednesday for talks in the standoff over the federal debt ceiling and prospect for a U.S. default. (Reuters)
Technology
ChatGPT Spotlights Microsoft’s Early Efforts to Monetize AI: As the breakout success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT triggers a tsunami of excitement over artificial intelligence, Microsoft Corp. is positioning itself at the forefront of what some see as the next wave of technological innovation. The challenge for Microsoft and other companies: turning this novel and still imperfect technology into a big business. The software company said last week that it was pouring billions of dollars more into OpenAI. (Wall Street Journal)
Chinese search giant Baidu planning to roll out an artificial intelligence chatbot service similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, potentially China’s most prominent entry in a race touched off by the tech phenomenon. China’s largest search engine company plans to debut a ChatGPT-style application in March, initially embedding it into its main search services, said the person, asking to remain unidentified discussing private information. The tool, whose name hasn’t been decided, will allow users to get conversation-style search results much like OpenAI’s popular platform. (Bloomberg)
Brain implant breaks speed records: A woman who cannot speak because of the paralysing effects of motor neuron disease was able to communicate at a rate of 62 words per minute — three times the previous best — thanks to a brain implant. The device, implanted into her motor cortex, detected how the woman was trying to move her mouth, tongue and vocal cords, and conveyed that information to a computer that displayed the words she was trying to say. “The performance in this paper is already at a level which many people who cannot speak would want, if the device were ready,” says Philip Sabes, a neuroscientist who was not involved in the study. “People are going to want this.” (MIT Technology Review)
Surgeon general: 13-year-olds too young to join social media platforms. "When we had dangerous vehicles on the road, we passed laws to make those vehicles less dangerous. We should make decisions to make [social media] a healthier experience that would make kids feel better about themselves and less alone,” said Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. (Axios)
Smart Links
Dollar General latest player to enter retail clinic arena. (Healthcare Dive)
Bed Bath & Beyond Customers Confront Empty Shelves Ahead of Looming Bankruptcy. (Bloomberg)
Wall Street Is Losing Out to Amateur Buyers in the Housing Slump. (Bloomberg)
Hungary’s soaring inflation puts squeeze on Viktor Orbán. (Financial Times)
San Francisco asked regulators to halt or scale back expansion of Cruise and Waymo, after repeated incidents with stopped and idle robotaxis. (NBC News)