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The World
Texas massacre is the second-deadliest school shooting on record: At least 19 students and two adults have been confirmed dead in the attack. The Uvalde shooting comes nearly a decade after a gunman killed 20 small children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., before taking his own life. As the deaths mounted on Tuesday, the Uvalde shooting outstripped the devastating 2018 massacre at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where 17 people were killed. (New York Times)
Chinese and Russian strategic bombers flew over the Sea of Japan as Joe Biden attended a Quad summit in Tokyo, in a joint exercise the Japanese government denounced as “unacceptable”. The nuclear-capable bombers conducted a joint flight on Tuesday that began over the Sea of Japan as the US president was meeting his counterparts from Japan, Australia and India, Japanese and US officials said. Moscow said the 13-hour flight was carried out “strictly in accordance with the provisions of international law” and was not directed against third countries. But Nobuo Kishi, Japan’s defense minister, condemned the exercise as “provocative” and “unacceptable”. (Financial Times)
North Korea launched two ballistic missiles toward the sea, South Korea’s military said. The missile firings came three days after the leaders of South Korea and the United States agreed to consider expanded military exercises to deter North Korean nuclear threats during President Joe Biden’s visit to Seoul. (Politico)
Viktor Orbán has declared a state of emergency, giving his government rights to rule by decree in response to an “economic crisis” caused by war in neighboring Ukraine and sanctions against Russia. Hungary’s prime minister will set out measures to be adopted on Wednesday after parliament — which is dominated by Orbán’s Fidesz party following his sweeping victory in last month’s election — approved an amendment to the constitution. (Financial Times)
A growing world food crisis is precipitating protectionist moves by countries which are likely to compound the problem and could lead to a wider trade war, business leaders and policymakers at the World Economic Forum said. In a sign of the escalating squeeze on food supplies and rising prices, a government source told Reuters that India could restrict sugar exports for the first time in six years to prevent a surge in domestic prices. (Reuters)
Beijing clamps down on elite students after lockdown protests: China’s elite universities have sealed their campuses and encouraged students to return home after the implementation of harsh restrictions to quash Covid-19 outbreaks sparked discontent and protests. Students at the country’s top two universities, Tsinghua and Peking, have been prevented from leaving their campuses for weeks as the schools enforce their own Covid bubbles. Parcels containing packaged food, alcohol or clothes bought online are first isolated and sprayed with disinfectants before students can pick them up. (Financial Times)
According to April 2022 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Population Survey, 7.7% of employed persons 16 and older in the U.S. had been working at home or remotely at some point in the past 4 weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic, the lowest point by far since Covid-19 hit the country in the spring of 2020. As the following chart shows, the share of employees working from home peaked early on in the pandemic as most offices and establishment were closed to break the first wave of Covid-19 infections. From then on the share remote workers trended downwards with brief uptick coinciding with the third and fifth wave in winter 2020/21 and 2021/22. (Statista)
Hubble reaches new milestone in mystery of universe's expansion rate: Completing a nearly 30-year marathon, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has calibrated more than 40 "milepost markers" of space and time to help scientists precisely measure the expansion rate of the universe -- a quest with a plot twist. Pursuit of the universe's expansion rate began in the 1920s with measurements by astronomers Edwin P. Hubble and Georges Lemaître. In 1998, this led to the discovery of "dark energy," a mysterious repulsive force accelerating the universe's expansion. In recent years, thanks to data from Hubble and other telescopes, astronomers found another twist: a discrepancy between the expansion rate as measured in the local universe compared to independent observations from right after the big bang, which predict a different expansion value. The cause of this discrepancy remains a mystery. But Hubble data, encompassing a variety of cosmic objects that serve as distance markers, support the idea that something weird is going on, possibly involving brand new physics. (NASA/Goddard)
Economy
Growth in the U.S. and global economies slowed in May as high inflation and rising interest rates dented demand, business surveys said. Business activity at services businesses in the U.S., eurozone, U.K. and Australia all grew more slowly in May amid rising prices, according to S&P Global surveys. Separate U.S. figures pointed to slower growth in a segment of the housing market. The Commerce Department said purchases of newly built single-family homes declined in April for the fourth straight month, dropping 16.6% in April from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 591,000. That marked the slowest pace of sales since April 2020 at the start of the pandemic. (Wall Street Journal)
Amazon shareholders will challenge the company on executive pay, tax transparency, working conditions and unionization, as chief executive Andy Jassy faces his first annual meeting at the helm of the ecommerce and cloud computing giant. The $1tn tech company is opposing all 15 of the shareholder proposals, the most it has faced since 2010, according to regulatory filings. In that time, no proposal has secured 50 per cent support and voting has historically followed the board’s recommendations. Founder and former chief executive Jeff Bezos himself controls 12.7 per cent of the overall vote. Still, the strength of opposition could force the company to alter its policies and practices, as Big Tech companies are increasingly challenged by investors who want them to become more responsive to public controversies. (Financial Times)
Walmart pulled “Juneteenth ice cream” from its freezers and apologized after a social media backlash and accusations of commercializing a holiday meant to commemorate the end of American slavery. The retail giant was set to sell “swirled red velvet and cheesecake” ice cream in a container adorned with Pan-African colors and an image of two Black hands high-fiving each other. “Share and celebrate African American culture, emancipation and enduring hope,” the label read. But the product drew swift online condemnations from users who accused the retailer of treating a solemn day as a moneymaking vehicle. (Washington Post)
Safety consultant goes viral for leaving Shell after a decade, says ‘core business’ is dangerous: At 8:27 a.m. on Monday morning, May 23, Caroline Dennett emailed 1,400 executives at the oil and gas conglomerate, Shell, to announce her resignation after 11 years working as a safety consultant. Dennett, who is based near London, asked executives and management at Shell “to look in the mirror and ask themselves if they really believe their vision for more oil and gas extraction secures a safe future for humanity.” Dennett later posted a screenshot of her resignation email, a one minute and 12 second video in which she speaks directly into the camera explaining her decision, and a written explanation of her decision on the professional networking site LinkedIn. In the time since, her LinkedIn post has gotten almost 10,000 reactions and more than 800 comments, some supportive of Dennett and some supportive of Shell. (CNBC)
Technology
Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark expects 6G mobile networks to be in operation by the end of the decade but he doesn’t think the smartphone will be the most “common interface” by then. Speaking on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos Tuesday, Lundmark said he expects 6G to hit the commercial market around 2030, which coincides roughly with when Huawei expects to see the technology on the market. “By then, definitely the smartphone as we know it today will not anymore be the most common interface,” he said. “Many of these things will be built directly into our bodies.” (CNBC)
Employees cause more cyber breaches in healthcare than other industries, a new Verizon research report finds. Employees were responsible for 39% of healthcare breaches last year. That's compared to 18% across all industries. (Healthcare Dive)
Apple says that starting on June 30, 2022, all App Store apps that offer account creation must also offer an in-app option to let users delete their account. (9to5Mac)
As Snap's growth warning sends its stock down 43.04%, other tech stocks drop too: Meta by 7.62%, Pinterest by 23.64%, Alphabet by 4.95%, and Twitter by 5.55%. (CNBC)
Support for more regulation of tech companies has declined in U.S., especially among Republicans. 44% of Americans think major technology companies should be regulated more than they are now, down from 56% in April 2021. Conversely, the share of Americans who say they want less government regulation of major technology companies has roughly doubled, from about one-in-ten (9%) in previous years to one-in-five today. (Pew Research Center)
Smart Links
Germany orders 40,000 vaccine doses as precaution against monkeypox spread. (Reuters)
Lyft to pause some hiring and trim budgets, citing economic slowdown. (Wall Street Journal)
Shares in UK energy groups tumble as Treasury plans windfall tax. (Financial Times)
NFL renews its sponsorship deal with Pepsi, but without the Super Bowl halftime show. (CNBC)
Walmart expands its drone-delivery service to reach 4 million households. (CNBC)