A round of internal Facebook emails produced in response to an FTC probe appear to show that the company’s “potentially problematic privacy practices” had filtered their way up to the very top of the social networking site—Zuck, himself—as early as 2012, right around the time of the company’s consent decree with the FTC – WSJ and Bloomberg

A “cooling” US inflation rate, which missed estimates for May, may help give the Federal Reserve some cover if it pivots away from holding rates and decides to cut them, as the White House has been demanding – Bloomberg and MarketWatch

Investment house KKR is pouring another $250 million into house flipping via an increased investment in Toorak Capital Partners, “which buys short-term loans made to real-estate investors who purchase, renovate and resell residential properties.” The new cash brings KKR’s total equity in Toorak to half a billion dollars – WSJ

Interestingly, KKR’s doubling down even as a slowdown in the flipping industry is worrying many in the industry, with average gross return on investment for flippers hitting an 8-year low in Q1 2019 – Bloomberg

A proposed class action suit filed in California state court this week accuses Amazon of violating state privacy laws by “recording and storing children’s voices without consent from children or their parents” on the company’s voice-activated Alexa speakers – Law360

Huawei’s close to opening a new front on its high-stakes battle with the US, reportedly telling US-based Verizon Communications that “the carrier should pay licensing fees for more than 200 of its patents.” Representatives from both companies met last week to “discuss some of the patents at issue.” Verizon is not a Huawei customer – WSJ

Oh, hey, by the way.  Social Security’s trust funds are in a state of crisis.  Just something to probably keep an eye on – NYTimes

Not a banner day for Exxon Mobil in New York state court yesterday, with Justice Barry Ostrager kicking several “key affirmative defenses” in a lawsuit “brought by the state attorney general’s office that accuses the energy giant of defrauding investors by hiding climate change risks from them” – Law360

FHFA director Mark Calabria is pushing Congress to respond to the White House’s demands to remove Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac from government control—where they’ve been since the 2008 financial crisis—or “he will do what he can on his own” – WSJ and Bloomberg

Up here in the North, we don’t have to head to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to hear corn growing.  But a new installation there is a good reminder for all of us to get out in the fields and take it all in way more often than we usually do – NYTimes