Know someone who would like this newsletter? Forward it to them.
The World
EU leaders have struck a deal to ban most Russian oil imports as they seek to deprive Russia’s president Vladimir Putin of revenues to fund his war in Ukraine. The embargo, which was agreed after weeks of difficult negotiations, will include oil and petroleum products but contains a temporary exemption for oil delivered from Russia by pipeline. This was intended to grant Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic extra time to wean themselves off crude oil supplies from Russia. The agreement signed late on Monday night paved the way for the EU to enact a heavily delayed sixth package of sanctions, which includes measures to hit Russian banks and individuals. (Financial Times)
Joe Biden said the US would not send Ukraine long-range rocket systems that could be used to attack Russian territory, dealing a blow to Kyiv, which has repeatedly asked for such weapons. “We are not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia,” the US president said in response to a question on whether Washington would consider sending long-range systems to the country. (Financial Times)
China and the U.S. are working to finalize what would be the first face-to-face meeting between their top defense officials on the sidelines of a conference in Singapore in June amid rising tensions over Taiwan, according to people familiar with the situation. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said he will travel to the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual defense conference to be held this year June 10-12. The attendance of Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe hasn’t been announced, but he intends to participate in person. (Wall Street Journal)
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government introduced legislation that would put a freeze on importing, buying or selling handguns. “We are capping the number of handguns in this country,” Trudeau said. The regulations to halt the growth of personally owned handguns is expected to be enacted this fall. “It will be illegal to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada,” the prime minister said. (Associated Press)
French officials continued their centuries-long battle to preserve the purity of the language, overhauling the rules on using English video game jargon. While some expressions find obvious translations – “pro-gamer” becomes “joueur professionnel” – others seem a more strained, as “streamer” is transformed into “joueur-animateur en direct”. The culture ministry, which is involved in the process, told AFP the video game sector was rife with anglicisms that could act as “a barrier to understanding” for non-gamers. (The Guardian)
Truck Bloat: Oversized pickups and SUVs are exacting a deadly toll on urban streets. The District of Columbia is poised to require owners of vehicles weighing over 6,000 pounds to pay an annual $500 vehicle registration fee], almost seven times the cost to register a modest sedan. No other US jurisdiction has created such a forceful financial disincentive against the biggest, heaviest car models. “You can’t ban sales of these things,” says Mary Cheh, a D.C. councilmember who developed the new fee structure, “but you can make them pay their own way.” (City Lab)
Economy
President Biden will hold a rare Oval Office meeting today with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell amid the highest inflation in decades, which has angered Americans and hurt his standing with voters. The two will discuss the state of the American and global economy, according to a White House statement. It’s the first meeting between the two since Biden in November announced his intention to nominate Powell for a second term at the helm of the US central bank, according to a record of the Fed chief’s public schedule which is available through March. (Bloomberg)
A senior Federal Reserve official has called for the US central bank’s main interest rate to rise to a level at which it starts to stunt economic growth by the end of the year, brushing off concerns that a sharp monetary tightening would hurt the labour market. In a speech at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany on Monday, Christopher Waller, a Fed governor, said he backed increasing interest rates by another 50 basis points “for several meetings” and would not stop that pace “until I see inflation coming down closer to our 2 per cent target”. “By the end of this year, I support having the policy rate at a level above neutral so that it is reducing demand for products and labour, bringing it more in line with supply and thus helping rein in inflation,” Waller said. (Financial Times)
Oil rose higher than $120 a barrel as increasing prices for fuels, such as petrol and diesel, combined with lingering concerns over supplies from Russia to propel crude to its highest level in two months. (Financial Times)
Lumber prices have come crashing down in a new sign of how rising interest rates are deflating markets that boomed during the pandemic. Wood prices were a leading indicator of the supply-chain problems and inflation that followed pandemic lockdowns. Prices shot up in the summer of 2020 as cooped-up Americans remodeled en masse and demand for suburban houses soared. By last spring, lumber cost more than twice the prepandemic high. Now, two-by-four prices are flashing caution. (Wall Street Journal)
China economy: manufacturing, services activity outlook improves but remains in contraction. The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose to 49.6 in May, up from 47.4 in April. Official non-manufacturing PMI, which measures business sentiment in the services and construction sectors, rose to 47.8 from 41.9 in April. (South China Morning Post)
Analysts downgrade China's annual GDP outlook to 3-4% range, with lockdowns seen as pushing down growth to far below official 5.5% forecast. (Nikkei Asia Review)
South Korea's auto production sinks to 17-year low of 3.46m. (Nikkei Asia Review)
Japan's jobless rate falls to 2.5% in April. (Reuters)
N.Y.C. Companies Are Opening Offices Where Their Workers Live: Brooklyn. As workers return to the office, some companies have relocated to ease the commute. (New York Times)
Technology
First she documented the alt-right. Now she’s coming for crypto. Molly White, a veteran Wikipedia editor, is fast becoming the cryptocurrency world’s biggest critic. A 28-year-old software engineer who writes Wikipedia articles for fun, White is an odd figure to make the crypto industry cower. On her website, “Web3 is Going Just Great,” White documents case after case of crypto malfeasance: investments that turn out to be scams, poorly-run projects that collapse under mismanagement and hacks that drain supporters’ money. (Washington Post)
Productivity app ClickUp laid off 7% of its employees, despite having just raised a massive funding round. Grocery delivery startup Gorillas is laying off half its corporate staff, or about 300 employees. (Protocol)
Nuclear fusion is already facing a fuel crisis: It doesn’t even work yet, but nuclear fusion has encountered a shortage of tritium, the key fuel source for the most prominent experimental reactors. (Wired)
The (possibly dystopian) rise of the automated video interview: Companies are embracing automated video interviews to filter through floods of job applicants. But interviews with a computer screen raise big ethical questions and might scare off candidates. (Protocol)
Statista has worked with the Financial Times to produce the ranking of 'Europe's Climate Leaders'. The 2022 edition comes at a time when companies "are being pushed to raise their game even further on climate change", as the FT reports. The companies which made it to the top of the list are those which implemented the largest reductions in the emissions resulting from their own operations as well as from generating the energy they used. Overall, Statista measured the respective decreases in the tonnes of emissions of CO2-equivalent per €1m of revenue (core emissions intensity) from 2015 to 2020. (Statista)
Smart Links
France apologizes for botched security at Champions League final. (Financial Times)
The state of Massachusetts is officially in a drought. (WBUR)
Healthcare employers must urgently address burnout, surgeon general warns. (Healthcare Dive)
After 17 years, Peter Thiel has officially left Meta's board. (Protocol)
U.S. gasoline hit new record on Memorial Day weekend. (Axios)