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| Today's newsletter covers: - 🌎 Brazilian President Lula's call for more countries to join the BRICS bloc
- 📈 The Bank of England's 14th consecutive rate hike
- 🐋 The discovery of a prehistoric whale that could be the heaviest creature in Earth's history
And much more! As always, your faithful IDB writer, Daniel
p/Dan-Smith | |
| 1 | | Former President Donald Trump is set to appear in federal court to be arraigned on charges that he and others conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump was indicted on four felony counts by special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading a federal investigation into alleged efforts by Trump and his Republican allies to undermine the integrity of the U.S. electoral system. More: - Trump is scheduled to arrive at the Washington D.C. courthouse at 4 PM and is expected to plead not guilty.
- He has continually questioned the legitimacy of the investigation and the Justice Department over the past two years.
- In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, former Vice President Mike Pence said Trump and his advisers had pushed him to "overturn the election."
- Pence, who is running against Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, said that before he was set to preside over the verification of the electoral college votes in Congress on January 6, 2021, Trump "and his gaggle of crackpot lawyers asked me to literally reject votes."
Zoom Out: - Trump has a substantial lead over other Republican presidential candidates, according to a recent NYT-Siena poll of likely GOP primary voters, indicating that his myriad legal troubles have not harmed his popularity.
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| 2 | | 
What the numbers say: Semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm's stock price fell 10% on Thursday after the company released its Q2 earnings report on Wednesday. Relevance: The company reported weaker-than-expected revenue of $8.44B relative to the $8.5B expected by industry analysts. It also lowered its guidance for the upcoming quarter. The semiconductor firm's net income was also down 52% from the same quarter a year ago, dropping from $3.73B to $1.8B. The company's phone chip sales continued to decrease, with handset chip sales falling 25% on an annual basis. | | | |
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| 3 | | Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said that more nations should join the BRICS group of developing economies. BRICS, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, will host a summit in Johannesburg later this month. More: - Lula said that BRICS members could determine which other nations could join the bloc during the meeting.
- He said that any countries that want to join that are willing to comply with the group's rules should be allowed to join.
- Brazilian Foreign Affairs Minister Mauro Vieira said that around 20 nations have formally applied to join BRICS, including Argentina, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Iran, and Venezuela.
Zoom Out: - Lula has been an outspoken critic of U.S.-led international organizations and the economic hegemony of the U.S. dollar.
- He has also advocated for the creation of a common regional currency among members of the South American Mercosur trade bloc.
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| 4 | | GOOD NEWS: Researchers in Peru who studied the partial skeleton of a prehistoric blue whale said it could have been the heaviest animal in Earth's history. The whale, which lived 38 to 40 million years ago during the Eocene era, weighed up to 340 metric tons. More: - The whale was named Perucetus, meaning "colossal Peruvian whale."
- Palaeontologist Giovanni Bianucci, the lead author of a study about Perucetus, said the extreme weight of the animal "suggests that evolution can generate organisms that have characteristics that go beyond our imagination."
- The research team unearthed 13 of the whale's vertebrae, four ribs, and a hip bone from the site in Peru's Ica desert region.
- The region was once underwater and is home to many marine fossils.
- Palaeontologist Olivier Lambert said the creature was not an active predator. Instead, it is believed to have fed near the bottom of shallow coastal waters.
- Lambert described Perucetus as a "peaceful giant, a bit like a super-sized manatee."
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| 5 | | The U.N. Refugee Agency has called for action to prevent more migrants from traveling through the dangerous Darién Gap migration route between Panama and Colombia. The group has urged governments to create new pathways for legal migration into the U.S. More: - The Panamanian government said that more than 250,000 migrants have traveled through the ~100-mile stretch of rainforest so far this year, more than in the full-year 2022.
- An estimated 400,000 are expected to cross the bandit-ridden Gap this year.
- At least 36 people died while crossing the Gap last year, with many more deaths going undocumented.
Zoom Out: - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched a program with the Colombian and Panamanian governments in April to discourage migrants from traveling through the Gap.
- The DHS also said that it would create new legal pathways to the U.S., but little progress has been made thus far.
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| 6 | | The Bank of England raised its key Bank rate by 25 basis points to 5.25%, the highest level since early 2008. This was the bank's 14th consecutive rate increase, and came as other central banks implemented additional rate hikes despite a marked slowdown in inflation. More: - The U.K.'s annual price inflation fell to 7.9% in June, down from the double-digit inflation seen earlier this year.
- Inflation has fallen rapidly in the U.S. and the EU, which registered annual inflation of 3% and 5.5% in June, respectively.
- The Bank of England said it may raise interest rates again if strong wage growth puts upward pressure on prices.
- In a new forecast, the central bank projected that inflation will fall below its 2% target in mid-2025 if rates reach 6%.
- Markets are pricing in a peak rate of ~5.7% by early 2024.
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| 7 | | QUICK HITS - AWS Cookbook - packed with practical insights and hands-on examples - is a must-have for your cloud toolkit.*
- A 93-year-old woman and her grandson achieved their goal of visiting all 63 U.S. national parks eight years after they embarked on the journey together.
- The two African-American Democratic state legislators who were expelled from the Tennessee legislature by the body's Republican majority earlier this year are likely to regain their seats in special elections scheduled for Thursday.
- Queen singer Freddie Mercury's personal piano could fetch up to $3.8M at a Sotheby's auction in London in September.
- A poll by the German Federal Environmental Agency found that 91% of Germans support making the country's economy greener.
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Term of the Day Warrants: Warrants are equity derivatives that give the holder the right to purchase equity in a company at a future date and at a specified price and quantity. Question of the Week Have you ever regretted a career decision? What would you have done differently? Join the conversation |
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 | Writer | | Dr. Daniel Smith is an Inside writer with a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Cambridge. Follow him on Twitter @DJS12321 or email him at Daniel@inside.com. | | This newsletter was edited by NO ACCOUNT ASSOCIATED WITH THE EDITOR | |
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