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The World
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank was prepared to raise interest rates in half-percentage-point steps and high enough to deliberately slow the economy if it concluded such steps were warranted to bring down inflation. Powell’s remarks struck a tougher tone than he used just days earlier in a press conference after the Fed voted to raise its benchmark rate by a quarter point, and he signaled a stronger bias toward lifting rates until the central bank sees clear evidence that inflation is falling to its 2% target. Stocks fell on Powell’s comments: The Nasdaq lost 55.38 points, or 0.4%, while the Dow slipped 201.94 points, or 0.6%. Major U.S. stock indexes on Friday had finished their best week since November 2020. (Wall Street Journal)
The US government bond market is suffering its worst month since Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, as high inflation pushes the Fed to aggressively pull back monetary stimulus from the economy. Falling bond prices have lifted the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield 0.48 percentage points in March to 2.3%, its highest level since May 2019. A rise in yields of that magnitude was last registered in November 2016. (Financial Times)
President Biden warned of Russian cyberattacks against the U.S. — making his most prominent alert yet about what he called new intelligence concerning the Putin regime’s plans. “The more Putin’s back is against the wall, the greater the severity of the tactics he may employ … one of the tools he’s most likely to use in my view, in our view, is cyberattacks,” Biden said. “The magnitude of Russia’s cyber capacity is fairly consequential and it’s coming,” he continued. (Politico)
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it summoned U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan in Moscow to formally protest President Joe Biden’s decision last week to label Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal.” Sullivan was told that Biden’s accusation had put “Russian-American relations on the verge of rupture,” according to a statement from the Foreign Ministry. (CNBC)
A year after sanctions, EU-China ties face a new ‘defining moment’ on Russia. Beijing hit European diplomats, politicians and researchers with travel and business bans in response to sanctions over Xinjiang. Relations have worsened since then and a sterner test is to come amid suspicion over Beijing’s positioning in Moscow’s war in Ukraine. (South China Morning Post)
The Russian Foreign Ministry said it will withdraw from negotiations with Japan for a peace treaty to formally end World War II hostilities in response to sanctions over the war in Ukraine. (Nikkei Asia Review)
The U.S. is restricting the visas of Chinese officials accused of "repressive acts" against ethnic and religious minorities. The officials are believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, efforts to repress religious and spiritual practitioners, members of ethnic minority groups, dissidents, human rights defenders, journalists, labor organizers, civil society organizers and peaceful protesters both in and outside China. (Axios)
Lawmakers across the U.S. are pushing to pause the collection of gasoline taxes to give drivers a temporary break at the pump as fuel costs hover near record highs. Maryland and Georgia are temporarily cutting state gasoline taxes as fuel prices have surged world-wide amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which sent shock waves throughout the oil market. California is considering giving drivers a $400 rebate to help cushion the blow of high gasoline prices. Lawmakers in Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New York and Tennessee are also weighing whether to suspend their state taxes on gasoline. And at the federal level, some members of Congress are calling on the Biden administration to suspend federal taxes on fuel. (Wall Street Journal)
Walt Disney CEO Bob Chapek told employees that the company made a mistake by not taking a public stance against Florida’s recently passed Parental Rights in Education bill, a decision which infuriated many at the entertainment giant and has undercut faith in his leadership. In a hastily scheduled virtual town hall meeting with Disney leadership and employees, Mr. Chapek said he understood the pain the company’s initial silence on the bill—dubbed by opponents as “Don’t Say Gay”—has caused, according to people who attended the event. “I and the leadership team are determined to use this moment as a catalyst for more meaningful and lasting change,” Mr. Chapek said at the opening of the meeting. (Wall Street Journal)
Hot poles: Antarctica, Arctic 70 and 50 degrees above normal. Earth’s poles are undergoing simultaneous freakish extreme heat with parts of Antarctica more than 70 degrees (40 degrees Celsius) warmer than average and areas of the Arctic more than 50 degrees (30 degrees Celsius) warmer than average. Weather stations in Antarctica shattered records Friday as the region neared autumn. The two-mile high (3,234 meters) Concordia station was at 10 degrees (-12.2 degrees Celsius),which is about 70 degrees warmer than average, while the even higher Vostok station hit a shade above 0 degrees (-17.7 degrees Celsius), beating its all-time record by about 27 degrees (15 degrees Celsius), according to a tweet from extreme weather record tracker Maximiliano Herrera. The coastal Terra Nova Base was far above freezing at 44.6 degrees (Associated Press)
Nebraska and Colorado are fighting over water after 99 years of sharing rights. (Wall Street Journal)
Economy
Wage growth for American women is increasing at a faster rate than for men, a stark shift from earlier in the Covid-19 pandemic. Female wages were up 4.4% in February from a year earlier, compared with a 4.1% rise in male wages, according to the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s wage tracker. That marks the sixth straight month that women’s wage growth outpaced men’s. Female wage gains exceeded male gains by 0.5 percentage point in December, matching the widest margin for records tracing back to 1997. But there remains a wide pay gap between men and women. Last year, median weekly earnings for full-time female workers amounted to 83.1% of men’s earnings. (Wall Street Journal)
Why Biden can't help Europe rid itself of Russian gas: The EU wants the United States’ help in kicking its addiction to Russian natural gas. But President Joe Biden faces big limits in what he can promise when he visits the continent this week. Europe’s main request is more liquefied natural gas from the U.S., whose output of the fuel has surged over the past five years. But American gas exporters are already shipping their LNG overseas nearly as fast as they can, with little new capacity due to come online during the next two years. And Biden cannot command the activities of private oil and gas companies — who will typically sell their product wherever in the world they can fetch the highest price. (Politico)
Oil prices increased by 7% to more than $115 a barrel as European leaders debated potential sanctions on Russian energy in response to the escalating war in Ukraine, intensifying fears of a supply crisis. Countries including Ireland and Lithuania suggested a move to target Russian oil was unavoidable to cut off the Kremlin’s income. However, Germany argued it was too dependent on Russian supplies to impose an embargo. (The Times)
Why is NYC's unemployment rate so high? Workers still aren’t flocking back to offices and unemployment is double the U.S. average, ratcheting up pressure to reinvent the city’s economy. Beyond New York City’s red-hot real estate market and bustling restaurant scene, much of the city’s economy is still stuck in a Covid-induced malaise, with unemployment double the U.S. average. The under-employment rate was 13.5% — and 19% for Black residents — as businesses in the service, hospitality and entertainment industries, in particular, are struggling to survive amid the slow return of office workers and tourists. Policymakers and business leaders now face pressure to reimagine New York City’s recovery, and diversify its economy to rely less on real estate, tourism and the five-day workweek. One potential policy prescription is to transform empty offices into cultural centers, biotech labs and startup incubators. (Bloomberg)
The herd of female-founded unicorn companies continues to grow: Last year was a blockbuster for private companies newly valued above $1 billion, and unicorn startups founded by women weren’t left out of the growth. We look at the dozens of highly valued startups co-founded by women that joined the unicorn ranks in 2021 and the start of 2022. (Crunchbase)
The SEC would force public companies to disclose their direct greenhouse gas emissions and have them verified by a third party, under long-awaited climate change risk rules proposed by the agency. (Financial Times)
Technology
Apple's Studio Display contains 64GB of onboard storage, but only 2GB are actually used by the display, a developer has discovered. The finding means that, overall, the Studio Display contains the exact same 2.65GHz A13 Bionic chip, 12MP Ultra Wide front-facing camera setup with Center Stage, and 64GB base configuration of storage as the ninth-generation iPad. It is also now clear that the Studio Display has better specifications than the second-generation Apple TV 4K, which sports an A12 Bionic chip and a base storage configuration of just 32GB. Last week, it emerged that the Studio Display runs the full version of iOS 15.4, with the exact same build used by the iPhone and iPad, meaning that updates to the display's functionality will come as part of iOS updates. (MacRumors)
Many Apple services were experiencing outages for a good chunk of early Monday afternoon. Services with confirmed issues, according to Apple’s system status page, included iMessage, some Apple Maps services, iCloud Mail, iCloud Keychain, the App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, and Podcasts. But after 3:45PM ET or so, every service again has a green light and says the problems have been resolved. Apple has not responded to a request for comment about what might have been going on. (The Verge)
Goldman Sachs executed its first over-the-counter crypto options trade; partner Galaxy Digital calls the move the first such transaction by a major US bank. (Bloomberg)
The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority issued new guidance for crypto ads, like disclosing that crypto is unregulated in the UK, and asks 50+ companies including Coinbase to comply by May 2
As Amazon's ad revenue passes YouTube's and US pay TV subscriptions drop, ad budgets will shift further to targetable spots and other customer-acquisition tools. Amazon’s ad business is bigger than YouTube and more profitable than AWS. Shein is the biggest fast-fashion retailer in the US, with no stores. US pay TV subscribers have fallen by a third. Where do ad budgets go, where does rent go, and how many brands will there be? (Benedict Evans)
Smart Links
Nike reports sales growth driven by North American demand, but delays outlook amid global unrest. (CNBC)
Sweetgreen rebuilds office delivery program as cubicles fill again. (Wall Street Journal)
The price of a lunch salad went berserk while you were working from home. (Wall Street Journal)
Meta employees look to ditch jobs amid stock crash. (New York Post)
Poor sleep linked to $44 billion in lost productivity. (Gallup)