| Rail safety bill | Refilling SPR | U.S./China officials talk |Biden administration warns migrants wanting to cross the U.S./Mexico border. Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary, reiterated that the "border is not open" after Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that allowed the government to expel migrants before they could apply for asylum, expired yesterday.
Ukrainian forces have begun"shaping" operations in advance of a highly anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces, a senior U.S. military official and a senior Western official tell CNN. Shaping involves striking targets such as weapons depots, command centers and armor and artillery systems to prepare the battlefield for advancing forces. On the ground, Ukraine says its forces have pushed the Russians back 2 kilometers around Bakhmut over the past week.
Former National Basketball Association star Dwight Howard has triggered a wave of criticism on Chinese social media for calling Taiwan a country in a promotional video with Taiwan's vice president. Short sellers are making huge returns on regional bank stocks. These traders, who profit from the falling share price of companies they target, have made more than $7.5 billion in 2023 going after smaller lenders, according to S3 Partners, a financial data provider. They likely added to that tally yesterday as shares in PacWest, the most shorted regional bank, closed nearly 23% lower after it announced a new flight of deposits last week. The SEC isn't planning to ban short selling.
Mortgage rates ticked lower for a second straight week, to the lowest level in about a month. The average rate on the standard 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 6.35%, according to Freddie Mac. • Copper futures prices hit a 5.5-month low overnight. Less demand for copper, a leading global commercial construction component, also hints of a slowing world economy. Copper futures fell as signs of increasingly low demand outweighed evidence of tight supply. Economic data continually suggests that the reopening of the Chinese economy has not lived up to expectations of a sharper recovery.
• Top corn importer China could cancel more purchases of the grain from the U.S. because the country can get cheaper supplies from Brazil, while some local producers of hog feed are replacing corn with wheat in their rations. Supplies from Brazil about $30 a ton cheaper for delivery in the third quarter, traders told Bloomberg. Weak domestic demand for corn as animal feed is also a reason behind the cancellations.
POLICY UPDATE — White House meeting between President Biden and congressional leaders to discuss lifting the debt ceiling has been postponed to early next week. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was unable to attend the Friday meeting because of a scheduling conflict. The delay will allow more time for the White House and congressional staff to make progress in their closed-door spending talks.
Both sides must give. "My guess is the president would have to spend less than he'd like," Rep. Tom Cole said of the talks."We would have to spend more than we like. There's lots of provisions on permitting, work requirements, energy production that could be in the deal that produce more revenue over time." Meanwhile, Sen. Chris Coons said:"We're going to pass a clean debt ceiling.
The talks were described as"candid, substantive, and constructive," and the two sides agreed to maintain this strategic channel of communication, building on a previous engagement between President Joe Biden and President Xi in Bali in November 2022. Both leaders had agreed to set a"floor" under the relationship to ensure competition doesn't escalate into conflict, especially with ongoing tensions over Taiwan.
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