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The World
The real yield on 10-year US Treasuries reached a record low in a fall that has had sweeping implications across global markets, falling further below zero on Monday as growing anxiety over the outlook for economic growth added fuel to a recent rally in bond markets. (Financial Times)
China has for the first time given the US a list of red lines and remedial action it must take to repair relations, including lifting sanctions and dropping its extradition request for Huawei financial chief Meng Wanzhou. Chinese foreign vice-minister Xie Feng told US deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman that US-China relations had reached a “stalemate” and faced “serious consequences.”, according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement. “The foundational reason is that some people in the US are treating China as an ‘imagined enemy’,” it quoted Xie as saying. China told the U.S. to stop “demonizing” Beijing, with Xie saying that the U.S. wants to “blame China for its own structural problems. China also asked the U.S. to remove visa restriction on Chinese students and Communist Party members. (South China Morning Post, BBC News, Reuters)
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will become the first member of Biden's cabinet to visit Southeast Asia, seeking to emphasize the importance Washington places on fortifying regional ties while pushing back against China. In a keynote speech in Singapore on Tuesday and meetings in Vietnam and the Philippines, Austin will call out aggressive Chinese behavior in the South China Sea and stress the importance of keeping the wider region free and open. (Reuters)
Afghanistan civilian casualty figures at record high: The heavy toll so far comes largely from battles in rural areas, according to the UN. If the conflict were to spill into more densely populated towns and cities, the consequences could be catastrophic, the UN says. (The Guardian)
South and North Korea have restored their once-severed hotlines as part of efforts by the two countries' leaders to rebuild strained ties. South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have exchanged multiple letters since April and agreed to reconnect the hotlines. (Reuters)
About 2,000 migrants are gathered in northern France, as record numbers of perilous crossings are made in small boats across the Channel. The number of migrants in the area has roughly doubled since March, with more than 9,000 having successfully reached British shores so far this year. About 8,000 people have been prevented from crossing. (The Times)
‘A tipping point’: Government officials, health groups move to require coronavirus vaccines for workers. New vaccine mandates are being rolled out at VA, in California, New York City, and the Mayo Clinic, among other places. Meanwhile, the U.S. will not lift any existing travel restrictions “at this point” due to concerns over the Delta variant and rising coronavirus cases. (Washington Post, The Guardian)
35% of French citizens support the protest movement against the country’s health pass. (Le Journal de Dimanche)
In the UK, the number of reported coronavirus cases fell for a sixth day in a row, offering further hope that the peak of a third wave has passed. (The Times)
The rapidly increasing rate of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations has forced AdventHealth in central Florida to defer new inpatient elective surgeries to avoid stretching resources too thin. (Healthcare Dive)
Americans' optimism about country's direction over next year drops nearly 20 points since May: A majority -- 55% -- of the public say they are pessimistic about the direction of the country, a marked change from the roughly one-third (36%) that said the same in an ABC News/Ipsos poll published May 2. In the early May survey, Americans were more optimistic than pessimistic by a 28-percentage point margin. Optimism is now under water by 10 points. Looking ahead to the next 12 months, fewer than half -- 45% -- now report feeling optimistic about the way things are going, a significant drop from about two-thirds (64%) in the May poll. (ABC News)
Senate infrastructure talks in political jeopardy as infighting spills out into the open: A bipartisan group of senators negotiating a massive infrastructure bill were on the verge of blowing another self-imposed deadline Monday as the Senate’s top Democrat threatened to keep the chamber in session over the weekend to advance the legislation. Although they appeared to be tantalizingly close, negotiators had yet to finalize a deal. The difference is that the patience from the highest levels of the Democratic Party was wearing thin. The dynamic reflected the tension between the desire among some in both parties, including Biden, to claim a bipartisan achievement, and the reluctance of many Democrats to wait too long for an agreement they fear may not materialize. (Washington Post)
Sen. Tammy Duckworth and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, both Democrats, introduced new legislation that would provide paid leave for people who experience pregnancy loss. It’s a new idea in the U.S., but one that’s already seen progress in other parts of the world; New Zealand’s parliament passed a bill providing bereavement leave after miscarriage in March and India was one of the first countries to implement a similar policy in the 1960s. (Fortune)
Water levels at the Great Salt Lake have hit a historic low, a grim milestone for the largest natural lake west of the Mississippi River that comes as a megadrought grips the region. On Saturday, the US Geological Survey announced average daily water levels had dropped about an inch below the previous record of 4,191.4ft (1,278 meters) above sea level, which was set in 1963. (The Guardian)
In aftermath of German floods, fires burn in southern Europe as rains drench London. (Washington Post)
Economy
Antitrust regulators are feeling their oats, after years of being viewed as little more than speedbumps on the path toward corporate consolidation. Insurance brokers Aon and Willis Towers Watson terminated their $34 billion merger agreement, just five weeks after the U.S. Department of Justice sued to block the deal. This had been the Biden administration's first major antitrust action, with the DOJ's complaint citing an unidentified Aon executive who crowed about how the merger would create an "oligopoly." And none of this has to do with Big Tech, which is expected to have critics running both the FTC (Lina Khan) and the DOJ's antitrust division (Jonathan Kanter, who still needs Senate approval). (Axios)
The next recusal fight in antitrust: Jonathan Kanter, President Biden's nominee to run the Justice Department's antitrust division, has been a favorite of progressives, Big Tech competitors and even some Republicans for his longtime criticism of companies like Google. But his prior work could mean he has to recuse himself from marquee DOJ's issues, like the case against Google and the Apple investigation. (Protocol)
Emboldened trustbusters aren't just a U.S. thing: (Axios)
Brazil's top competition regulator used the word "complex" when describing Oi SA's proposed $3.2 billion sale of its mobile network operations. That is not an adjective that either the seller or the buying group wanted to hear.
European antitrust regulators reportedly are launching a full investigation into Facebook's proposed $1 billion purchase of enterprise customer service company Kustomer, which was first announced last November.
Westpac Banking Corp. of Australia was blocked by antitrust regulators in Papua New Guinea from selling a A$420 million stake in its Pacific operations to Kina Securities. That deal was announced last December.
An Indian court denied Amazon and Flipkart's appeals to slow down an antitrust investigation into their business practices.
The chief executive of Man Group, the world’s largest listed hedge fund manager, says cryptocurrencies have “no inherent worth” but are creating trading opportunities for his company because of their wild price swings. “If you look at cryptocurrencies as a whole, it is a pure trading instrument. There is no inherent worth in it whatsoever. It is a tulip bulb,” Luke Ellis said, referring to the flower that became the focus of a 17th-century Dutch financial mania. (Financial Times)
Bitcoin jumps to a six-week high: Investors attribute rally to short positions being liquidated and speculation Amazon may be venturing into digital currencies. (Wall Street Journal)
Disney will get a $580-million tax break from Florida while moving 2,000 employees from its California offices to Orlando. (Los Angeles Times)
Red-hot demand for used cars is turning the auto-lending world upside down. Prices are so high that some lenders are coming out ahead on defaulted auto debt. And far fewer borrowers are underwater on their car loans, meaning they don’t owe more than the car is worth when they trade it in. It is a tricky time to buy a car, but a pretty good time to owe money on one. (Wall Street Journal)
Technology
China's tech crackdown is spreading. In the crosshairs this time are the edtech, online food delivery and music streaming sectors, sparking stock selloffs as investors wonder what might be next. (Source Code)
China’s tutoring ban hits TikTok owner ByteDance, and puts Tencent’s $3 billion stake in danger. (The Information)
It's a big week for earnings: Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, Tesla, Shopify, PayPal, Samsung, Qualcomm, ServiceNow, Twilio, Atlassian, Spotify, Pinterest and Zendesk all report this week. Tesla’s quarterly profit soared to a record $1.1 billion. (Protocol, Wall Street Journal)
Tech M&A is having a big year: (Refinitiv)
Study finds surprising source of social influence: To promote your new product or trigger a shift in thinking, steer clear of the influencers. New research found that social influencers are unlikely to change a person's behavior by example. To stimulate a shift in people's thinking, target small groups of people in the outer edge or fringe of a network. (University of Pennsylvania)
TikTok has created viral dances and instant stars, but it's also helping small businesses cash in. Here's how 4 of them successfully leveraged the unique algorithm. When Jeremy Kim and John Dalsey started their hard-seltzer company, Nectar, late last year, they went door to door to 200 stores in Los Angeles looking for someone to carry their product. "Seven months ago, we had zero customers and followers," Kim said. "Today we are in 100 stores self-distributed across California. We ship direct across the entire state of New York. We did this with no distributor, no publicist, no marketing budget." (Insider)
Smart Links
The Remote Work Czar is the new short cut to the c-suite. (Bloomberg)
New student-visa data paint an optimistic picture for fall enrollments. (Chronicle of Higher Ed)
Supply-chain woes come to school cafeterias. (Wall Street Journal)
Sparked by pandemic fallout, homeschooling surges across U.S. (Associated Press)
Tokyo Olympics opening draws 16.7 million U.S. TV viewers, a 33-year low. (Reuters)
New algorithm may help autonomous vehicles navigate narrow, crowded streets. (Carnegie Mellon)