Your Evening Briefing
Your Evening Briefing
(Bloomberg) --
During the last scheduled day of public hearings in the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, a former National Security Council official testified how Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland hijacked American foreign policy in Ukraine to benefit Trump politically. Acting at Trump’s direction, they were “involved in a domestic political errand,” said Fiona Hill. She reminded Congress that the “fictional narrative” pushed by some Republicans, that Ukraine somehow interfered with the 2016 elections instead of Russia, isn’t only false, but a favorite of Russia’s security services. Wall Street has, so far, tuned the hearings out.
Here are today’s top stories
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will stand trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, an unprecedented development that could end his political career. It’s a first for a sitting Israeli prime minister.
The world may have a bigger problem than a potential recession. Systemic issues such as climate change and a shifting geopolitical order may require a revolution in policies.
Trump is expected to sign legislation supporting Hong Kong democracy protesters, setting up a confrontation with China that could imperil a long-awaited partial trade deal.
Apple is overhauling how it tests software after a swarm of bugs marred the latest iPhone and iPad operating systems.
In America’s most unequal city, the top 5% of households make more than $663,000, while those in the bottom half earn less than $65,000.
A case before the U.K. Supreme Court could establish whether Barclays is responsible for sexual assaults alleged to have taken place decades ago—and set a precedent for today’s gig economy.
What’s Sid Verma thinking about? The Bloomberg cross-asset reporter caught an interesting story you might have missed: Some 11 people have left Hague-based NN Investment Partners, a $313 billion manager, due to “diverging views” on the direction of its responsible-investment strategy. NN has a policy of making environment, social and corporate governance criteria a “standard component” of all allocation processes—making some people fret about how that would impact emerging-market performance.
What you’ll need to know tomorrow
- WeWork on Thursday began cutting 2,400 employees globally.
- Here’s everything candidates discussed at the Democratic debate.
- Boeing 747 production for freight clients may be winding down.
- The world’s best-performing stock just crashed after soaring 3,800%.
- Henry Kissinger says U.S.-China tensions could be worse than WWI.
- Trump pledged to help small farms, but help is going to big ones.
- We loved frequent-flyer programs so much that we killed them.
What you’ll want to read tonight in Businessweek
There was a time when Google might have worn its unpopularity in Washington as a badge of honor. But the company is hitting middle age now, with $140 billion in annual revenue and a desire to expand into new lines of business. That’s made military contracts enticing to Google’s leadership, which sees defense work as an important stepping stone to more business in the $200 billion market for cloud services. Google’s more idealistic employees are alarmed by this, and see the company drifting from its old “don’t be evil” ethos. The clash is spilling into public view.
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