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The World
Confidence in the Supreme Court sank to its lowest point in at least 50 years in 2022 in the wake of the Dobbs decision that led to state bans and other restrictions on abortion, a major trends survey shows. The divide between Democrats and Republicans over support for abortion rights also was the largest ever in 2022, according to the General Social Survey. The long-running and widely respected survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago has been measuring confidence in the court since 1973, the same year that Roe v. Wade legalized abortion nationwide. In the 2022 survey, just 18% of Americans said they have a great deal of confidence in the court, down from 26% in 2021, and 36% said they had hardly any, up from 21%. Another 46% said they have “only some” confidence in the most recent survey. (Associated Press)
The tightest job market in generations is transforming the employment prospects for Black Americans in ways that could be more long-lasting than in past economic expansions. The unemployment rate for Black workers fell to a record low 4.7% in April. That was still above the national average, but below 5% for the first time in Labor Department records of employment for Black Americans, which began in 1972. About 1.1 million more Black Americans held jobs last month than in February 2020, just before the pandemic took hold. That increase accounts for nearly half the total gain in employment during that time. (Wall Street Journal)
European natural gas prices fell back into their normal trading range for the first time since the start of the energy crisis on Thursday, falling below €30 per megawatt hour to reach the lowest level since June 2021. (Financial Times)
The 27 European Union countries formally adopted new rules that should help the bloc reduce its contribution to global deforestation by regulating the trade in a series of products driving the decrease in forested areas across the world. Under the legislation, companies trading palm oil, cattle, wood, coffee, cocoa, rubber and soy will need to verify that the goods they sell in the EU haven’t led to deforestation and forest degradation anywhere in the world since 2021. The regulation also covers derived products such as chocolate or printed paper. (Associated Press)
G7 countries are preparing new sanctions against Russia, covering ships, aircraft, individuals and diamonds, officials say, as they seek to increase economic pressure on the Kremlin’s war machine. The plan to curtail imports of diamonds from Russia — which comes as G7 leaders meet in Hiroshima, Japan — targets one of Moscow’s few remaining export industries still relatively unscathed by western sanctions. (Financial Times)
China banks on stability with Kabul belt and road agreement: experts. Expansion of US$60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor into Afghanistan ‘a win’ for the war-torn country, but China’s yields less certain. Observers said Beijing will be hoping to reduce instability in the region while building its influence. (South China Morning Post)
The Supreme Court handed Silicon Valley a massive victory as it protected online platforms from two lawsuits that legal experts had warned could have upended the internet. The twin decisions preserve social media companies’ ability to avoid lawsuits stemming from terrorist-related content – and are a defeat for tech industry critics who say platforms are unaccountable. In so doing, the court sided with tech industry and digital rights groups who had claimed exposing tech platforms to more liability could break the basic functions of many websites, and potentially even create legal risk for individual internet users. (CNN)
A fleeting but intense pocket of frigid air crashed south over the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic midweek, toppling long-standing cold records and delivering a killing frost to many places where the growing season was already underway. Parts of New England even reported low-elevation snow amid the late-season visit from Old Man Winter. On Tuesday, a strong cold front surged south across the Great Lakes, dropping the temperature by 20 degrees in 20 minutes in Milwaukee. The chilly weather then progressed into the eastern United States, with temperatures falling low enough to set dozens of record lows Thursday morning. (Washington Post)
Economy
Disney Pulls Plug on $1 Billion Development in Florida: “Does the state want us to invest more, employ more people, and pay more taxes, or not?” Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, said on an earnings-related conference call with analysts last week. On Thursday, Mr. Iger and Josh D’Amaro, Disney’s theme park and consumer products chairman, showed that they were not bluffing, pulling the plug on an office complex that was scheduled for construction in Orlando at a cost of roughly $1 billion. It would have brought more than 2,000 Disney jobs to the region, with $120,000 as the average salary, according to an estimate from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. (New York Times)
Fed Officials Consider Skipping a Hike in June — But Don’t Call It a Pause: Federal Reserve officials are sounding increasingly split over whether to raise interest rates at their meeting next month or pause their credit tightening campaign. A compromise some have suggested: a skip, where they put off a rate increase next month only to return to it at their following meeting in July. (Bloomberg)
Fed's hawks make a pitch against a rate-hike pause. (Reuters)
Sales of previously owned homes fell in April from the prior month and prices declined from a year earlier by the most in more than 11 years. U.S. existing home sales, which make up most of the housing market, fell 3.4% in April from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.28 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. April sales fell 23.2% from a year earlier. The national median existing-home price fell 1.7% in April from a year earlier to $388,800, the biggest year-over-year price decline since January 2012, NAR said. Median prices, which aren’t seasonally adjusted, were down 6% from a record $413,800 in June. Home prices have fallen the most in the western half of the U.S., while prices continue to rise from a year earlier in many eastern markets. (Wall Street Journal)
NYC Skyscrapers Sit Vacant, Exposing Risk City Never Predicted: City says vacancy rate won’t dip below 19% before 2026; office vacancies hit a record 22.7% this year amid remote work. (Bloomberg)
Why Wealthy Homebuyers Are Flocking to Puerto Rico: Favorable tax policies, warm weather and a shift to remote work has transformed the island into a full-time destination. (Wall Street Journal)
Technology
ESPN is laying the groundwork to sell its channel directly to cable cord-cutters as a subscription-streaming service in coming years, according to people familiar with the matter, a shift with profound implications for the company and the broader television business. Executives at ESPN and its parent Disney for years have said it was inevitable that the sports-TV channel would one day be available as a stand-alone streaming service. Now, as consumers increasingly cut the cable-TV cord, the company is actively preparing for that shift under a project with the internal code name “Flagship,” the people said. The company has set no firm timeline for the change. (Wall Street Journal)
Meta pulls the curtain back on its A.I. chips for the first time: Meta announced the computer chips amid an AI infrastructure event pitched as the first time it has publicly detailed its internal silicon chip project. Investors have been closely watching Meta’s investments into AI and related data center hardware as the company embarks on a “year of efficiency” that will result in the firing of 21,000 employees and major cost cutting. (CNBC)
OpenAI is launching ChatGPT on Apple’s app store as the company pushes forward with plans to expand its popular artificial intelligence chatbot to a wider consumer audience. The new app will mirror the ChatGPT website, allowing users to ask questions and receive AI-written answers on their mobile devices. The app also incorporates OpenAI’s voice recognition technology called Whisper, allowing users to prompt the AI engine by speaking to it. (Financial Times)
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said revenue rose to $40 billion, boosted by subscriptions, in the 12 months that ended March 31. (The Information)
Smart Links
Rafael Nadal withdraws from French Open due to injury, says ‘next year is my last year’. (CNN)
More than half of the world's large lakes are drying up, study finds. (Reuters)
UC regents take groundbreaking step toward hiring immigrant students without legal status. (Los Angeles Times)
China’s foreign direct investment is falling as overseas businesspeople fret. (South China Morning Post)
Global chipmakers to expand in Japan as tech decoupling accelerates. (Financial Times)
Instacart’s revenue totaled about $740 million last year, up 30% from 2021. (The Information)