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The World
President Biden has been briefed “on what his advisers see as a Chinese plan to build a military facility in Oman.” Biden was told that Chinese military officials “discussed the matter last month with Omani counterparts, who were said to be amenable to such a deal.” Oman “is sometimes referred to as the Switzerland of the Middle East given that it follows a policy of neutrality and regularly acts as a mediator.” (South China Morning Post)
Xi Jinping will attend a dinner with top U.S. business executives in San Francisco next week. “Hundreds of people are expected to attend the dinner, including chief executive officers of major U.S. companies.” Xi is traveling to the U.S. for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. (Bloomberg)
Western businesses flock back to Shanghai trade fair despite tensions: Growth hopes draw companies to China in face of economic worries and geopolitical concerns. (Financial Times)
China Vice President Sees ‘Positive Signals’ in Ties With US. (Bloomberg)
President Biden urged Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a three-day pause in military action in Gaza to allow progress in getting hostages released. According to a proposal being discussed between Israel, Qatar, and the U.S., “Hamas would release 10-15 hostages and use the three-day pause to verify the identities of all the hostages and deliver a list of names of the people it is holding.” (Axios)
G7 ministers discussed humanitarian pauses during their meeting in Tokyo, according to German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. (DW)
Blinken visits South Korea as North Korea, Russia deepen ties: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to arrive in Seoul on Wednesday for talks with his South Korean counterpart, as the allies step up cooperation in the face of growing concerns over North Korea's closer military ties with Russia. The two-day visit, the first by a U.S. secretary of state in two and a half years, is part of Blinken's broader Asia trip that has included meetings with G7 counterparts and bilateral talks with Japanese officials in Tokyo, as well as a later stop in India amid the Israel-Hamas conflict. (Reuters)
The European Commission will recommend that member states open EU membership talks with Ukraine, “a move seen as critical to Kyiv’s accession gaining support from the bloc’s 27 members.” Ukraine was granted candidate status last year. (Financial Times)
Portuguese Prime Minister António resigned hours after police raided government buildings as part of a corruption inquiry. Costa “said in televised remarks that he had been ‘surprised’ to learn that he would be the subject of criminal proceedings and that ‘no illicit act weighs on my conscience.’” (New York Times)
Room-Temperature Superconductor Paper Retracted by Journal Nature: In March, Ranga Dias and his team made the electrifying claim that they had identified a room-temperature superconductor—a discovery that, if true, would have been a step toward revolutionizing energy grids, battery technology, computer processors and a host of other electrical systems by making them work more efficiently. Instead, after months of public criticism from other physicists, a written request from eight of the study’s 11 authors and an internal investigation of its own, the journal Nature on Tuesday retracted the paper. (Wall Street Journal)
House Speaker Mike Johnson “urged the public on Tuesday to ‘trust us’ as he floated a plan to fund the government that is unlikely to pass the Senate, increasing the odds of a shutdown just 11 days before funds lapse.” The November 18 funding deadline “joins a to-do list on Capitol Hill that includes emergency aid to Israel and Ukraine, which also have no obvious path to passage amid fierce disputes among lawmakers.” (Washington Post)
“Nearly two-thirds of probable Black Friday/Cyber Monday shoppers (64%) are likely to buy items for themselves or their household on those special sale days.” (Gallup)
Economy
Foreign investment into China “turned negative for the first time on record in the third quarter.” The outflow of foreign direct investment “is a reflection of the sharp deterioration in China's economic prospects. The world's second-largest economy continues to struggle with a sluggish COVID recovery, a deterioration in consumer and business confidence, and ongoing de-coupling and de-globalization trends.” (Axios)
However, the International Monetary Fund has raised its forecasts for China’s GDP growth. The IMF now expects growth of 5.4% this year and 4.6% next year, up from the five percent and 4.2% projected last month. (South China Morning Post)
Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller says third-quarter economic growth “was a ‘blowout’ performance that warrants watching” as the Fed considers its next moves. Speaking at an economic data seminar at the St. Louis Fed, Waller said, “This was an outstanding quarter. … Everything was booming. So this is something we are keeping a very close eye on when we think about policy going forward.” (Reuters)
President Biden will meet with United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain in Illinois on Thursday, where they are “expected to highlight plans to reopen an auto factory that Stellantis wanted to close.” The event will be an opportunity for Biden “to publicly showcase tentative contract agreements that ended a nearly 45-day union strike” that targeted Detroit’s Big Three. (Associated Press)
UBS posted its first quarterly loss in nearly six years. The loss was expected as UBS “bears the costs of the takeover of its former rival Credit Suisse,” but the $785 million loss was much larger than the $444 million expected by analysts. UBS’s wealth management business did bring in $22 billion, “offering attractive interest rates as it fought to win back clients who had pulled their money in the immediate aftermath of the takeover.” (Financial Times)
Starbucks will raise hourly wages and benefits for most of its U.S. workers. Newer employees “will see at least a 3% incremental pay increase, beginning January 1. Employees with two to five years of service will get at least a 4% increase, and workers there for five years or longer will get at least 5%.” (USA Today)
Houston overtakes Miami as best place for foreign businesses in annual FT-Nikkei ranking: Houston has taken the top slot as the best US city for foreign multinationals to do business in the second annual ranking compiled by the Financial Times and Nikkei. It gained the top spot by offering business friendly policies, excellent logistics, affordable cost of living, and a diverse community for overseas companies. (FT-Nikkei)
Technology
“Americans rank the importance of regulating AI below government shutdowns, health care, gun reform, immigration and the war between Israel and Hamas.” Among 15 priorities tested in an Axios/Morning Consult poll, “regulating the use of AI ranked 11th, with 27% of respondents calling it a top priority and 33% calling it ‘important, but a lower priority.’” (Axios)
The CFPB wants to “regulate tech giants' digital payments and smartphone wallet services, saying they rival traditional payment methods in scale and scope but lack consumer safeguards.” The proposal “marks a long-anticipated and ambitious move by CFPB Director Rohit Chopra to assert the agency's full authority over Big Tech, a sector he has frequently criticized for privacy and competition issues.” (Reuters)
A CFPB official said the regulation “would capture about 17 companies accounting for 88 percent of market share.” (Financial Times)
Microsoft shares closed at an all-time high of $360.53 following partner OpenAI’s announcement of several new initiatives on Monday. Microsoft’s market value climbed to $2.68 trillion with Tuesday’s gains. (CNBC)
The tech-heavy Nasdaq notched its longest streak of gains in two years on Tuesday, as did the S&P 500. (Reuters)
A former Meta engineer told the Senate that the company “was aware of harassment and other harms facing teens on its platforms but failed to address them.” Arturo Bejar worked on Facebook’s Protect and Care team from 2009 to 2015 and on Instagram’s well-being team from 2019 to 2021. (Reuters)
Apple last week paused developing iOS 18, macOS 15, iPadOS 18, and watchOS 11 to fix bugs and improve performance, and plans to resume work this week. (Bloomberg)
WeWork, “the once-buzzy startup that was valued at $47 billion at its peak,” has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company listed about $15 billion in assets and more than $18 billion in debt. WeWork said 92% of its lenders “agreed to a restructuring plan that would allow WeWork to operate during the reorganization, with many dozens of locations expected to close.” (NPR)
Smart Links
IMF raises alarm over ‘contagion’ from private capital in life insurance. (Financial Times)
Yen sinks to near historic levels against euro and Asian currencies. (Nikkei Asia)
Cravath creates non-equity partner tier as it seeks to retain legal talent. (Financial Times)
Lavish Tax Credits and Trade Protections Lure Solar Firms to U.S. (New York Times)
IBM debuts $500 million enterprise AI venture fund. (Axios)
Why bitcoin ATMs are taking over malls and gas stations across the U.S. (CNBC)