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The World
U.S. President Joe Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are set to meet today at the White House. Issues on the agenda include the war in Ukraine, China, economic security and regulating artificial intelligence — an area in which Sunak is hoping to make the United Kingdom a world leader. (Associated Press)
Noxious Air Spreads Across U.S., but Conditions Are Expected to Be Better: Wide swaths of the Northeast, Midwest and South remained under air quality alerts on Thursday, as an exceptionally bad spell of pollution driven by wildfire smoke from Canada lingered over large parts of the United States for a third straight day. Major cities including New York, Philadelphia and Washington woke up to unhealthy levels of air pollution on Thursday, a day after the air quality in New York reached historically bad levels, climbing into the most severe tier of the Environmental Protection Agency’s six-tier index. Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York called the worsening air quality “an emergency crisis.” (New York Times)
Canada is on track to have one of its most destructive fire seasons in recent years. According to estimates by the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System, more than 3.5 million hectares of land have burned as of June — around 10 times higher than would be normal for the month — and almost on par with the entirety of the 2017 fire season. Fires are burning from coast to coast, with Quebec and Alberta among the hardest-hit provinces. As of Wednesday, around 160 fires were burning in Quebec — Canada’s second most-populous province — and Alberta faced another 64. Around 10,000 people were evacuated from their homes in Quebec, though that number is falling as some fires come under control. (Semafor)
China has reportedly agreed to pay Cuba several billion dollars to set up an electronic eavesdropping station on the island. The planned facility’s proximity to the U.S. mainland has sparked alarm in the Biden administration, as it would allow China to monitor electronic communications at military bases across the southeastern United States. (Wall Street Journal)
A majority of Europeans would prefer their countries to stay neutral if the U.S. and China go to war over Taiwan, a new study has revealed. Just 23 per cent of people across 11 countries would want to take the US’ side, with 62 per cent wanting to stay neutral. The poll was part of a study by the European Council on Foreign Relations, which shows that many European citizens (43 per cent) continue to view China as a necessary partner with whom they would like to cooperate – more than any other category. The study comes amid a lively debate about how the European Union should engage with China. In Brussels, policymakers are putting together an economic security strategy, to be proposed on June 20, which will recommend ways of weaning the European economy off Beijing in areas where dependencies are mounting. (South China Morning Post)
Chinese citizens seek to block Florida’s law banning them from owning property. Critics challenging a new Florida law that blocks some Chinese citizens and other foreigners from owning land in the state asked a federal court to block its implementation. They say the new law, which takes effect July 1, is too vague and risks creating “Chinese exclusion zones” across vast swaths of the state, including many of Florida’s largest cities. (Politico)
The Ukrainian military’s long-anticipated counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces has begun, opening a phase in the war aimed at restoring Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty and retaining Western support in the war. Ukraine’s troops intensified their attacks on the front line in the country’s southeast, according to four individuals in the country’s armed forces, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the battlefield developments. (Washington Post)
NATO and its allies will launch the largest-ever air-force wargames in the alliance’s history next week, in a show of strength to deter Russian aggression in Europe. The 25-nation Air Defender 23 exercise, led by Germany, will deploy nearly 250 aircraft—including B-1 strategic bombers, advanced F-35 jet fighters and long-range lethal drones—as well as more than 10,000 troops from nations as far as Japan performing around 2,000 flights. The lessons learned from the drills will enable allied air forces to better deploy in Europe and elsewhere to protect such partners as South Korea and Japan. (Wall Street Journal)
Russian Elite Is Souring on Putin’s Chances of Winning His War: Even some who support the invasion and want to intensify the fight against Ukraine have become deflated about Russia’s prospects. (Bloomberg)
Russia and Saudi Arabia’s Oil Partnership Shows Strain. For most of the last six years, the leaders of Russia and Saudi Arabia worked with each other to control the global oil market during times of war, pandemic and dizzying price gyrations. But their alliance appears to be straining in ways that could help the Biden administration, which was eager to head off another significant jump in energy prices just ahead of Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s visit to Saudi Arabia this week. At last weekend’s meeting of OPEC Plus, the oil cartel that the two countries lead, Saudi Arabia and Russia quietly parted ways. Saudi Arabia said it would reduce its exports by a million barrels of oil per day in an effort to prop up falling prices. But Russia made no new commitment to reduce its exports. (New York Times)
U.S. Agency for International Development is suspending food aid to Ethiopia after it uncovered a widespread scheme, purportedly coordinated within Ethiopia’s government, to steal donated food. The move comes as about 20 million Ethiopians struggle with food insecurity following a civil war, drought and persistent inflation. (Washington Post)
Security researchers have warned that North Korean government-backed hackers are impersonating journalists to gather strategic intelligence to help guide the country’s decision making. SentinelLabs researchers said on Tuesday that they had linked a social engineering campaign targeting experts in North Korean affairs to a North Korean advanced persistent threat (APT) group known as Kimsuky. The group, also known as APT43, Thallium, and Black Banshee, has been operating since at least 2012 and is known for using social engineering and targeted phishing emails and to gather sensitive information on behalf of the North Korean regime. Kimsuky’s latest social engineering campaign targeted subscribers of NK News, an American subscription-based website that provides stories and analysis about North Korea. (TechCrunch)
Economy
Is it a ‘skip’ or a ‘pause’? Federal Reserve won’t likely raise rates next week but maybe next month. When the Federal Reserve meets next week, it is widely expected to leave interest rates alone — after 10 straight meetings in which it has jacked up its key rate to fight inflation. But what might otherwise be seen as a “pause” will likely be characterized instead as a “skip.” The difference? A “pause” might suggest that the Fed may not raise its benchmark rate again. A “skip” implies that it probably will — just not now. The purpose of suspending its rate hikes is to give the Fed’s policymakers time to look around and assess how much higher borrowing rates are slowing inflation. Calling next week’s decision a “skip” is also a way for Chair Jerome Powell to forge a consensus among an increasingly fractious committee of Fed policymakers. (Associated Press)
The euro zone economy was in a technical recession in the first three months of 2023, data from European statistics agency Eurostat showed, after downward revisions of growth in both the first quarter and the final quarter of 2022. GDP for the 20-country euro zone fell by 0.1% in the first quarter compared with the fourth of 2022 and was 1.0% up from a year earlier, Eurostat said in a statement. (Reuters)
Turkey’s lira has plunged 7% to a record low in its biggest daily selloff since a historic 2021 crash, as the newly elected government appeared to loosen currency stabilizing measures in its switch to more mainstream policies. The lira has come under pressure since President Tayyip Erdogan was re-elected on May 28. It touched a record low of 23.16 against the dollar on Wednesday, bringing its losses this year to more than 19%. Erdogan announced his new cabinet at the weekend and named Mehmet Simsek, a former deputy prime minister who is well-regarded by foreign investors, as finance minister. Simsek later said economic policy needed to return to “rational” ground. Markets are also waiting for the appointment of a new central bank governor to replace Sahap Kavcioglu, who spearheaded interest rate cuts under Erdogan’s unorthodox policies. (CNN)
The CFPB worries that banks or loan-servicing companies may cut back on human customer service employees and push an increasing number of routine tasks to AI. Further, the regulator says poorly designed chatbots could run afoul of federal laws that govern how debts are collected or how personal information is being used. Banks are getting ready to roll out even more advanced AI-like services. JPMorgan Chase is reportedly developing plans to use ChatGPT and artificial intelligence to help customers pick appropriate investments. Bank of America bankers can use Erica to build customer profiles and potentially recommend products to those customers. (Associated Press)
China’s yuan seen as ‘new choice’ for RCEP, may match pound and yen in 10 years, report says. China should further capture growing interests in using the yuan through regional trade pact and offshore trading centres, according to a Bank of China report, as Beijing presses on to increase global use for the currency in an “orderly” manner. Members of the 15-nation Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) accounted for 18.9 per cent of yuan-denominated remittances in China last year, compared with 15.9 per cent in 2021 and just 7.1 per cent in 2020. There is also strong intention to expand the cross-border use of yuan in the China-backed RCEP that involves the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), plus China, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia and Japan, it added. (South China Morning Post)
Technology
Hundreds of small aerospace businesses will receive grant funding from NASA to accelerate their technologies, as part of a wider government program to seed cutting-edge American enterprises. A total of 249 small businesses and 39 research institutions received Phase I grants under the space agency’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. Each award includes $150,000 for a total investment of $45 million. Among the awardees are a handful of space startups that have also pursued venture capital to fund their businesses. (TechCrunch)
Bard, Google’s beleaguered AI-powered chatbot, is slowly improving at tasks involving logic and reasoning. That’s according to a blog post published today by the tech giant, which suggests that — thanks to a technique called “implicit code execution” — Bard is now improved specifically in the areas of math and coding. As the blog post explains, large language models (LLMs) such as Bard are essentially prediction engines. When given a prompt, they generate a response by anticipating what words are likely to come next in a sentence. That makes them exceptionally good email and essay writers, but somewhat error-prone software developers. (TechCrunch)
Google DeepMind’s game-playing AI just found another way to make code faster. DeepMind’s run of discoveries in fundamental computer science continues. Last year the company used a version of its game-playing AI AlphaZero to find new ways to speed up the calculation of a crucial piece of math at the heart of many different kinds of code, beating a 50-year-old record. Now it has pulled the same trick again—twice. Using a new version of AlphaZero called AlphaDev, the UK-based firm (recently renamed Google DeepMind after a merge with its sister company’s AI lab in April) has discovered a way to sort items in a list up to 70% faster than the best existing method. (MIT Technology Review)
Sequoia Capital’s U.S. Partners May Reap China Gains Even After Split. Sequoia Capital on Tuesday told investors that by the first quarter of next year it would fully separate its U.S. and China venture capital operations, ending an 18-year run during which Sequoia Capital China became China’s most successful VC firm and drove outsize returns for Sequoia’s global investors. But the separation, anticipated for years and related to a growing geopolitical conflict between the U.S. and China, won’t stop Sequoia’s U.S.-based investment partners and institutional investors from reaping rewards from stakes in high-profile Chinese startups such as TikTok’s owner, ByteDance. (The Information)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is showing no interest in compromising with Meta and Google over a Liberal bill that would make them pay for Canadian journalism that helps the companies generate revenue. (Toronto Sun)
Smart Links
Amazon Plans Ad Tier for Prime Video Streaming Service (Wall Street Journal)
Clarence Thomas receives extension for annual Supreme Court financial disclosures (Axios)
Need to charge your EV? Apple Maps will show open spots near you. (TechCrunch)
Los Angeles Times to Cut More Than 10% of Newsroom. (New York Times)