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The World
Top Russian army general Sergei Surovikin has been detained as Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin cracks down on Wagner sympathizers following the militia’s failed mutiny last week. Surovikin, a senior Russian general known to have a good relationship with Wagner’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, has not been heard from for several days and has been detained, according to sources in Russia’s elite and western government officials familiar with the matter. It remains unclear whether Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russia’s invasion force in Ukraine and head of its aerospace forces, has been charged as a plotter in the uprising or simply detained for interrogation, and where he is being held. (Financial Times)
The Chinese spy balloon that floated over the U.S. early this year was loaded with American-made equipment that helped it collect photos, videos and other information, U.S. officials said, citing preliminary findings from a closely held investigation. The FBI analysis found the balloon was crammed with commercially available U.S. gear, some of it for sale online, and interspersed with more specialized Chinese sensors and other equipment to collect photos, video and other information to transmit to China, the officials said. Those findings, they said, support a conclusion that the craft was intended for spying, not weather monitoring as Beijing has said. (Wall Street Journal)
The United States and the Netherlands are set to deliver a one-two punch to China's chipmakers this summer by further restricting sales of chipmaking equipment, part of the countries' ongoing effort to prevent their technology from being used to strengthen China's military. While the Dutch are planning to curb certain equipment from national champion ASML, and other companies, the U.S. is expected to go one step further and use its long reach to withhold even more Dutch equipment from specific Chinese fabs. (Reuters)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would drop the most controversial part of his plan to remake the country’s court system, which sparked large-scale unrest earlier this year. Netanyahu will push ahead with legislation but will strip it of a provision that would have given the national legislature the power to overturn rulings by the Supreme Court. “It’s out,” Netanyahu said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that also touched on relations with the U.S., his decision not to supply weapons to Ukraine and his concerns about deepening ties between Russia and Iran. His initial judicial-overhaul plan was opposed by many secular and liberal Israelis who said they feared the measures would give the government too much power and lead to a rollback in civil liberties. (Wall Street Journal)
France saw unrest spread to major cities in a third night of riots as President Emmanuel Macron fought to contain a mounting crisis triggered by the deadly police shooting of a teenager of Algerian and Moroccan descent during a traffic stop. Forty thousand police officers were deployed across France - nearly four times the numbers mobilised on Wednesday - but there were few signs that government appeals to de-escalate the violence would quell the widespread anger. (Reuters)
At least 100 people have died over the past two weeks in Mexico due to heat-related causes as temperatures climbed close to 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in parts of the country. A three-week-long heat wave this month strained the energy grid with record demand, forced authorities to suspend classes in some areas and left many Mexicans sweltering. (Reuters)
Hate crimes soared in California in 2022, with year-over-year rises recorded in crimes targeting virtually every demographic group. All told, there were 2,120 reported hate crimes, a 20.2% jump from the year prior, figures from the California Department of Justice show. (Los Angeles Times)
‘It burns wild and free up there’: Canada fires force US crews to shift strategy. (The Guardian)
Economy
Oil and gas will remain leading sources of energy for decades to come, major industry players echoed during the inaugural Energy Asia conference. “Energy transition is going to take a lot longer, it’s going to cost a lot more money and need new technologies that don’t even exist today,” said Hess Corporation’s CEO. (CNBC)
China’s Economic Woes Are Multiplying — and Xi Jinping Has No Easy Fix: It was meant to be the year China’s economy, unshackled from the world’s strictest Covid-19 controls, roared back to help power global growth. Instead, halfway through 2023, it’s facing a confluence of problems: Sluggish consumer spending, a crisis-ridden property market, flagging exports, record youth unemployment and towering local government debt. The impact of these strains is starting to reverberate around the globe, impacting everything from commodity prices to equity markets. The risk of Fed hikes tipping the US into recession has also heightened the prospect of a simultaneous slump in the world's two economic powerhouses. (Bloomberg)
China manufacturing PMI falls for third straight month in June: Analysts downgrading economic forecasts for nation over rest of 2023. (Nikkei Asia Review)
Lina Khan’s Federal Trade Commission has already filed three cases against Amazon. Now she’s gearing up for the Big One. In the coming weeks, the agency plans to file a far-reaching antitrust suit focused on Amazon’s core online marketplace, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg and three people familiar with the case. The main allegation is expected to be that Amazon leverages its power to reward online merchants that use its logistics services and punish those who don’t. (Bloomberg)
Technology
Google tells Canada's government it will remove Canadian news links from Search, News, and Discover and close Google News Showcase when Bill C-18 takes effect. (Google)
Tech’s Latest Layoff Wave: Suddenly, layoffs are back, as media and tech firms continue to trim costs where they can. Most of these companies have already gone through waves of layoffs over the past 12 months or so. But these new rounds of cuts, while relatively small in the scheme of things, suggest that companies are continuing to look for ways to reduce spending. Just today reports emerged that: (The Information)
Stripe laid off 40 people.
Insider Intelligence unit cut 20 people (see here).
Pokemon Go’s maker, Niantic, cut 230 employees, according to TechCrunch.
Zapier said it would shrink its team by 10%.
Plex laid off more than 20% of its staff, The Verge reported.
A couple of days ago, Google laid off people in its Waze unit, CNBC reported.
Robinhood laid off about 7% of its staff earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Niantic lays off 230 employees, closes its Los Angeles studio, and moves away from in-house game development, saying its expenses grew faster than its revenue. (Kotaku)
People Hire Phone Bots to Torture Telemarketers: AI software and voice cloners simulate distracted saps willing to stay on the phone forever—or until callers finally give up. Whitebeard has a bad habit of talking in circles. That is by design. Whitebeard is a digital contraption that only sounds human. He is the creation of Roger Anderson, a real-life 54-year-old in Monrovia, Calif., who employs chatbots and AI to frustrate and waste the time of telemarketers and scammers. (Wall Street Journal)
Disinformation generated by AI may be more convincing than disinformation written by humans, according to a new study. It found that people were 3% less likely to spot false tweets that had been generated by AI than real-life examples collected from Twitter. Why is that? The researchers aren’t exactly sure. But the way in which GPT-3 orders information could have something to do with it, as AI-generated text tends to be more structured and condensed in comparison to how humans write. AI models can generate incorrect text that appears convincing, which could be used to generate false narratives quickly and cheaply for conspiracy theorists and disinformation campaigns. In theory, this could be spread further and faster than online disinformation networks manned by humans. (MIT Technology Review)
Scientists Are Gene-Editing Flies to Fight Crop Damage: The spotted-wing drosophila is a threat to fruit growers across the US and Europe. Scientists at the company used the DNA editing tool Crispr to knock out two essential genes in fly embryos—one involved in male reproduction and another with female development. As a result, only sterile males hatch while the females die. “You don’t want to release females into the population, because those are the ones that are doing the damage,” says Stephanie Gamez, director of research and development at Agragene. (Wired)
Smart Links
Inflection AI Raises $1.3 Billion From Reid Hoffman, Bill Gates and Nvidia. (Bloomberg)
Moderna Billionaire Set to Score 3,000% Gain on Tiny Biotech. (Bloomberg)
WHO's cancer research agency to say aspartame sweetener a possible carcinogen. (Reuters)
House hunting is already tough. Guess what? It’s about to get harder. (CNBC)