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The World
President Biden “wants to re-establish military-to-military ties with China, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday.” Biden and Xi Jinping will meet in person for the first time in a year on Wednesday during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. (Reuters)
Biden and Xi “have no shortage of difficult issues to discuss when they sit down” this week, “even if expectations are low that their meeting will lead to major breakthroughs.” Differences persist on export controls, Taiwan, the war in Ukraine, and other issues. (Associated Press)
What It Took to Get Biden and Xi to the Table. (Wall Street Journal)
House conservatives are expressing opposition to Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan for a “two-step” temporary spending plan to prevent a federal shutdown at the end of the week. Johnson “said his plan ‘will stop the absurd holiday-season omnibus tradition of massive, loaded-up spending bills introduced right before the Christmas recess.’” But Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and others say the plan is a continuing resolution by another name and are demanding significant budget cuts. (USA Today)
Moody’s has revised its outlook “on the U.S. government’s ratings to negative, while affirming the long-term issuer and senior unsecured ratings at Aaa.” Moody’s said the revision was due to “its assessment that downside risks to the nation’s fiscal strength have increased ‘and may no longer be fully offset by the sovereign’s unique credit strengths.’” (Wall Street Journal)
The U.S. is taking aim at Russia’s ability to export liquified natural gas for the first time. European countries continued importing Russian LNG even after the invasion of Ukraine, and “until recently, the U.S. has sought to avoid disrupting flows so as not to increase the pressure on allies battling a shortage.” But the State Department has now “announced sanctions on a new Russian development known as Arctic LNG 2 — in effect blocking countries in Europe and Asia from buying the project’s gas when it starts producing next year.” (Financial Times)
The U.S. and India will jointly produce Stryker armored vehicles “in a bid to strengthen Indian ground forces amid a tense border dispute between New Delhi and Beijing.” Primarily used to move soldiers in and out of battle, the Stryker “can also carry medium- and large-caliber weapons to attack enemy troops.” (Nikkei Asia)
Turbine manufacturers say the Biden Administration’s plan to increase offshore wind generation capacity by 2030 will not be met. The White House has set a goal of installing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030, enough to power 10 million homes. But recent project cancellations and soaring costs have “thrown the entire strategy into peril, said executives. The 2030 target was ‘widely and regretfully acknowledged’ to be unrealistic, said Josh Irwin, senior vice-president of offshore wind at Vestas, the world’s largest offshore wind manufacturer.” (Financial Times)
Delegates from around the world are meeting in Nairobi this week for “another round of talks this week on creating a first-ever treaty to contain plastic pollution.” They anticipate “tough negotiations over whether to limit the amount of plastic being produced or just to focus on the management of waste” in the drafting of “what eventually would become a legally binding treaty by the end of 2024.” (Reuters)
Fire under 10 Freeway in downtown L.A. upends traffic with no reopening in sight: Investigators are looking into the cause of a major fire that has shut down the 10 Freeway in downtown L.A. Officials said to expect “significant” traffic issues. (Los Angeles Times)
“Americans are more negative about U.S. progress in dealing with the problem of illegal drugs than at any prior point” in Gallup’s 50 years of tracking the issue. For the first time, “a majority of U.S. adults, 52%, say the U.S. has lost ground in coping with the illegal drug problem, while a record-low 24% say it has made progress.” (Gallup)
Economy
“FOMO in the stock market is back.” With the S&P 500 up 7.2% over the past two weeks, “many investors are betting the rally has legs. Some have piled into funds tracking U.S. stocks, while others have abandoned trades that would profit in times of market turmoil.” (Wall Street Journal)
A Big Bond Rally Needs a Recession With Fed Wary of ‘Head Fakes’: Up and down Wall Street, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the US bond market won’t see a sustained rally unless the economy surprises even the Federal Reserve by falling into a deep recession. Over the past three years, Treasuries staged several false rebounds from the deepest rout in decades, only to reverse course, sending yields higher again and burning those who had bet big on the swing. (Bloomberg)
“Investors are shaking up the venture capital market by raising money to buy out start-ups that have been shunned by venture capitalists.” VCs have pulled back from investing in new businesses due to steep rises in interest rates, so “new investment groups are raising tens of millions of dollars in funding with the intention of acquiring majority ownership and operational control of start-ups in order to turn the businesses around.” (Financial Times)
“The Marvels” took in just $47 million in its opening weekend “to land the worst debut in MCU history. Initial tracking was closer to $75 million to $80 million, but those projections shrank dramatically in recent weeks to $60 million to $65 million. With bad buzz and actors like Brie Larson unable to promote the film due to the SAG strike (which finally ended on Friday), ‘The Marvels’ didn’t even match those disappointing estimates and became the MCU’s rare flop.” (Variety)
India considers slashing EV tariffs to lure Tesla: Officials are in talks with Elon Musk’s carmaker to set up a plant in the country. (Financial Times)
Technology
A Delaware federal court has ordered Amazon to pay $46.7 million for infringing on four patents belonging to VB Assets, a Nuance Communications-owned company. The lawsuit claimed that VB Assets had “already invented a circular speaker that could connect to the web and answer voice-dictated prompts with a female, robotic voice.” (Ars Technica)
While it used to be quick and easy to get help repairing an iPhone, since 2017, “iPhone repairs have been a minefield. New batteries can trigger warning messages, replacement screens can disable a phone’s brightness settings, and substitute selfie cameras can malfunction. The breakdowns are an outgrowth of Apple’s practice of writing software that gives it control over iPhones even after someone has bought one.” New iPhones “are coded to recognize the serial numbers for original components and may malfunction if the parts are changed.” (New York Times)
Apple Is Taking Extra Care With ‘Ambitious’ iOS 18 Update (Bloomberg)
Violent extremist groups are experimenting with generative AI “in order to create a flood of new propaganda. Experts now fear the growing use of generative AI tools by these groups will overturn the work Big Tech has done in recent years to keep their content off the internet.” Tech Against Terrorism Executive Director Adam Hadley said, “Our biggest concern is that if terrorists start using gen AI to manipulate imagery at scale, this could well destroy hash-sharing as a solution. This is a massive risk.” (Wired)
One Dose of Lilly’s Novel Heart Drug Cut Risk Factors for a Year: A single dose of an experimental drug from Eli Lilly & Co. cut by 94% a risk factor that signals heart disease for almost a year, a first-in-human study found. Lepodisiran, given at the highest dose, reduced a form of lipoprotein that has been linked to clogged arteries to undetectable levels for 48 weeks. The research, presented Sunday at an American Heart Association meeting in Philadelphia, raises the hope that an annual vaccine-like shot could eliminate so-called Lp(a) in people whose genes put them at high risk, said Steve Nissen, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, who led the study. (Bloomberg)
Smart Links
Oil traders are flocking to sanctions-free Venezuela. (The Economist)
Iceland declares state of emergency as it braces for volcanic eruption. (Financial Times)
Tencent-backed online broker sets its sights on Japan market. (Nikkei Asia)
How artificial intelligence will transform fame. (The Economist)
TSMC Jumps After Posting First Monthly Sales Gain Since February. (Bloomberg)
Boeing close to Emirates deal for more 777 jets, reports say. (CNBC)