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The World
In a red-hot economy coming out of a pandemic and lockdowns, with unemployment still far higher than it was pre-Covid, the country is in a striking predicament. Businesses can’t find enough people to hire. Employers in sectors like manufacturing, restaurants and construction are struggling to find workers. Millions of adults say they aren’t working for fear of getting or spreading Covid-19. Businesses are reopening ahead of schools, leaving some parents without child care. Many people are receiving more in unemployment benefits than they would earn in the available jobs. Some who are out of work don’t have the skills needed for jobs that are available or are unwilling to switch to a new career. (Wall Street Journal)
President Biden said a corporate tax rate between 25% and 28% could help pay for badly needed infrastructure, suggesting he could accept a lower rate than what he has proposed in his search for Republican support for the funding. (Reuters)
Some CEOs suggest dropping degree requirements in hiring. Merck CEO and former IBM CEO say removing conventional requirements for some jobs can diversify talent pools. (Wall Street Journal)
Britain is on course for its strongest year of economic growth since WWII as households spend their lockdown savings and businesses step up investment, the Bank of England said. After contracting by 9.8% in the worst recession since 1709 last year, growth will bounce back to 7.25% this year. GDP is expected to be at pre-crisis levels by December, faster than forecasts for much of Europe. (The Times)
A chicken shortage is sending prices soaring, and restaurants can’t keep up. Spicy sandwiches, hot wings and a labor crunch push poultry prices to records. Boneless skinless chicken breast, the poultry industry’s flagship product, last year averaged around $1 a pound. Now boneless chicken breast is trading at $2.04 a pound. Over the past decade, the price averaged about $1.32 a pound. (Wall Street Journal)
China accused G7 leaders of meddling in its internal affairs after the group of leading industrialised nations backed participation by Taiwan at World Heath Organization forums and criticised Beijing’s record on human rights and erosion of democracy in Hong Kong. (Financial Times)
China's exports growth unexpectedly accelerated in April as the brisk U.S. recovery and stalled factory production in other countries hit by coronavirus propped up demand for goods made in the world's second-largest economy. Exports in dollar terms surged 32.3% from a year earlier to $263.92 billion. (Reuters)
Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Ukraine’s leaders in Kyiv that the country’s future is threatened by a two-front war: the battle against Russian aggression at its border and the fight against corruption within Ukraine. Blinken pledged to increase U.S. security assistance to Ukraine after what he called Russia’s “reckless and aggressive” buildup of troops along its border with Ukraine, and he condemned Kyiv’s notoriously corrupt political system. (Washington Post)
Angela Merkel expressed opposition to the Biden administration’s proposal to suspend intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines, saying it would have “serious implications” for vaccine production worldwide. The German chancellor said the limiting factors in vaccine supply were “production capacities and the high quality standards, not the patents.” (Financial Times)
Health experts criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government for allowing mass gatherings, including at political rallies, and for slipping into complacency earlier this year in the fight against Covid-19. They also highlighted the discrepancy between India’s vaccine production and its domestic supply. (The Lancet)
Nepal is struggling to contain an explosion in Covid-19 cases, as fears grow that the situation in the Himalayan country may be as bad, if not worse, than in neighbouring India. (The Guardian)
1 in 4 Georgians say they won’t get the coronavirus vaccine. (Atlanta Journal Constitution)
Chinese banks are the second largest financers of commodities implicated in tropical rainforest deforestation, according to research that casts doubt on Beijing’s ambitions to be a global leader in the fight against climate change. (Financial Times)
In a stunning announcement, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said she will not run for reelection this year. Bottoms announced she will not seek a second term during a private call with friends, staffers and allies. She released a statement and video around 10:30 p.m. elaborating on her decision and her record as Atlanta’s 60th mayor. (Atlanta Journal Constitution)
Economy
Citi weighs launching crypto services after surge in client interest. The bank says trading, financing and custody are all under consideration. (Financial Times)
The new SEC chairman told lawmakers that regulators were scrutinizing the marriage of social media and online trading that caused gyrations in shares of GameStop this year. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said Wall Street’s top regulator was studying whether to impose new restrictions on brokerage apps that use technology to nudge people to trade more stocks and other securities. (Wall Street Journal)
Stanford became the first U.S. college or university to issue bonds carrying dual climate and sustainability designations for financing campus construction and renovation. The bonds reflect commitments to environmental stewardship and social responsibility. (Stanford University)
The Language of Gender Bias in Performance Reviews: How negative stereotypes about men and women creep into a process intended to be meritocratic. A take-charge attitude at work typically earns men positive performance reviews, but for women, assertiveness only gets them so far. Although workplace evaluations are supposed to be merit-based, gender bias too often influences how supervisors rate employees, resulting in women having to meet a higher bar than their male colleagues to advance professionally. These are the findings of a new study coauthored by Shelley J. Correll, a professor of organizational behavior (by courtesy) at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Published in the American Sociological Review, Correll’s paper pinpoints how and when managers’ beliefs about gender creep into their evaluations of workers. (Stanford Business School)
U.S. mothers working full-time, year-round make an average of just $0.75 for every dollar paid to full-time working fathers, according to a new analysis from the National Women’s Law Center. As a result, the average working mom has to work an additional five months into the new year to reach the same pay fathers earned the previous year. (CNBC)
The amount of time a CMO spends at a job declined again in 2020. The average tenure of a chief marketing officer at 100 of the top U.S. ad spenders slipped to 40 months last year, down from 41 in 2019, the new study found. That was the lowest average since 2009. The median tenure for CMOs was 25.5 months, sliding from 30 months in 2019. (Wall Street Journal)
Marketers are planning a study to shine light on the murky business of automated ad buying. The study will focus on billions of dollars that marketers say are unaccounted for in the automated ad-buying process, as well as other transparency concerns. (Wall Street Journal)
VCs may find workarounds for cap gains: The Biden administration’s proposed capital gains tax hike is big — but its effect on venture capital may not be as straightforward as it appears. While it’s possible VCs could change aspects of how they invest, there also are ways around the tax, particularly for smaller, earlier stage deals. (Crunchbase)
Inside rounds hit record $30 billion as investors double down. The number of inside rounds, or VC deals in which only a startup’s previous investors participate, reached a high of over 1,000 in the U.S. last year and could top that record by the end of 2021, according to data provided to The Information by research firm PitchBook. In total, VC firms invested a record $30 billion in inside rounds in 2020, up 15% from 2019. (The Information)
Technology
Inside the Facebook Oversight Board’s Trump decision: Facebook Oversight Board director Thomas Hughes spoke with Protocol for a live event shortly after the board's announcement. Here is a lightly edited transcript of that conversation. (Protocol)
The New York attorney general’s office confirmed that some of the US’s largest broadband providers engaged in a massive campaign to flood the F.C.C. with fake comments in the run-up to the commission’s 2017 order to roll back net neutrality. The AG’s multi-year investigation found that fake comments accounted for the vast majority of comments received in response to the order — nearly 18 million, out of a total of 22 million. (The Verge)
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna joined the White House and bipartisan members of Congress in endorsing the Endless Frontier Act, which would direct $100 billion in spending to the National Science Foundation as the U.S. looks to get ahead in competition against China. (Protocol)
How to stop AI from recognizing your face in selfies. (MIT Technology Review)
Smart Links
Twitter introduces Tip Jar, allowing users to send money to their favorite tweeters. (CNBC)
Obit: David Swensen, Yale endowment chief who changed the course of institutional investing, dies at 67. (Wall Street Journal)
Robotic solution for disinfecting food production plants wins agribusiness prize. (MIT News)
Medical schools are getting flooded with applicants. (Wall Street Journal)
Public 4-year schools and community colleges are becoming less affordable. (Higher Ed Dive)
When will your elevator arrive? Two physicists do the math. (Science Daily)
Paul McCartney gets own set of Royal Mail stamps. (Reuters)