Jobs Report Friday again. Yes, it’s been another month already, and yes, we’re still in desperate need of some signs of strength in what appears to be a flagging U.S. economic comeback from the spring lockdown – NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch
Meanwhile, US weekly jobless claims fell to their lowest level since March but still eclipsed the million+ mark for the 20th week in a row – WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch and Marketplace and NYTimes
Dramatically escalating the growing tension with China (despite considerable ambiguity in its language), the White House issued executive orders that would “ban all ‘transactions’” with ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, within 45 days. The EOs—which also target WeChat—cites national security concerns for the action yet appears to leave room for Microsoft to negotiate the purchase of the popular video-sharing app – Law360 and Bloomberg and NYTimes and WSJ and MarketWatch and Marketplace
NBCUniversal has “pushed out the leader of its network entertainment group,” Paul Telegdy, “amid a pending investigation into claims of workplace harassment.” The shakeup comes as “Hollywood and the broader media industry has started to face a reckoning over entrenched racism and gender discrimination on studio lots and in network boardrooms” – NYTimes
Top banking regulators, including the OCC and the Fed, have fined Capital One $80 million over the 2019 cyberhack that “compromised the personal information of about 106 million card customers and applicants” – WSJ and Law360
Case in point: a trio of Bon Appetit video stars of color announced that they won’t be returning to the magazine or its channel after months of contract renegotiation efforts (following the resignation of BA EIC Adam Rapoport over accusations of presiding over a culture of racial insensitivity) failed to produce what they deemed an equitable deal – NYTimes
Bausch Health announced plans on Thursday to spin off its “faster-growing eye-care business from its core pharmaceutical operations, breaking apart a company previous management had built through such acquisitions” – WSJ
More on former Calpers’ chief investment officer’s sudden departure from the massive pension fund – Bloomberg
Stuck-at-home gamers around the world clamoring for distraction helped drive a billion-dollar Q2 profit for Nintendo – WSJ
Bit of central bank innovation, anyone? The Fed’s rolling out FedNow, the real-time payments system that it hopes will play “a key step in improving the nation’s financial infrastructure” by “provid[ing] infrastructure to promote ubiquitous, safe, and efficient instant payments in the United States” – Law360
The Times on the collapse of the fashion industry as we know it, a not-entirely-virus-driven event – NYTimes
California’s Labor Commissioner’s Office has filed suits against Uber and Lyft for “allegedly committing systemic wage theft by misclassifying drivers as independent contractors,” the latest in the series of threats to the ride-hailing companies’ interpretation of the gig economy – Law360
Can the USPS merch its way to financial stability? Yet another “who knew” question courtesy of 2020 – NYTimes
The New Yorker gives us this fascinating profile of recent examples of Millennial Maximalism (as seen in the Instagram and Architectural Digest-shared homes of Gigi Hadid and Drake, respectively)—a far cry from ascetic modernism that appears driven by the celebs’ millennial desire for “credit for curating their total environments” – NewYorker
Stay safe, and have a great weekend.
