🦠 Covid has now killed 4 million people worldwide, with developing nations like India and Brazil shouldering the biggest share of recent deaths. https://bloom.bg/3xrkbLF

🇭🇹 Four suspected killers of Haiti’s president were fatally shot by police and two others were arrested, AP reports. https://bloom.bg/3xsjLop

💰 Ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer just became the ninth person to join the exclusive $100 billion club. A rally in tech shares helped his fortune grow by $20.1 billion this year. https://bloom.bg/3AGkncf

🇦🇪 Dubai’s Jebel Ali Port, the largest in the Middle East, is operating normally again after an explosion at the facility around midnight on Wednesday. https://bloom.bg/2TEX029

₿ Billions are getting pilfered annually through a variety of cryptocurrency scams. The way things are going, this will only get worse. https://bloom.bg/3hQItZ9

🇬🇧 British travelers who have received both doses of a coronavirus vaccine will no longer need to isolate when they return home. https://bloom.bg/3xpJjm4

Hello 👋 Here’s what we’re following today:

📈 Hong Kong’s economy is finally recovering, but only for the rich. Growth has been led by resurgent trade and property prices while industries like tourism, which employ much of the city’s working class, are still constrained by pandemic restrictions. https://bloom.bg/3jY3BiI

🧐 Tencent launched a facial recognition system to ban gamers under 18 from playing between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. It’s the latest bid to curb video-game addiction in China. https://bloom.bg/3wqEMOT

📱 Beijing's shock crackdown on Didi shows that big data is quickly becoming the next battleground between the U.S. and China. https://bloom.bg/3k51n1f (You can follow the ongoing story on broader efforts to reign in tech giants here.)

🇨🇳 Didi’s listing in the U.S. last week came just as President Xi is looking for ways to control the vast reams of data held by China’s tech giants. Here’s the story behind Beijing’s crackdown. https://bloom.bg/3yI6HeG

🇮🇷 The U.S. is beginning to grapple with the possibility that the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran may be beyond saving. https://bloom.bg/3qW8cDH

🇿🇦 South Africa’s High Court rejected an application by former President Jacob Zuma to delay his sentence. https://bloom.bg/2TUKM5t

💸 It’s a landmark month for the space (tourism) race. Billionaire Richard Branson and five of his Virgin Galactic employees took a long-awaited test flight to space on Sunday. And in nine days, Jeff Bezos plans to fly on a rocket made by his space venture Blue Origin. https://bloom.bg/3k7qLDx

📊 China’s V-shaped economic rebound from the pandemic is slowing, sending a warning to the rest of world about the durability of their own recoveries. https://bloom.bg/3k8cDcY

🏥 A 90-year-old woman died after becoming infected with two different strains of Covid-19, revealing another risk in the fight against the disease, Belgian researchers found. https://bloom.bg/2TTHwaC

🇪🇺 Speaking to Bloomberg Television, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde told investors to prepare for new guidance on monetary stimulus within days. https://bloom.bg/36rqh30

🚀 China harvested its first batch of `space rice’ from seeds that returned from a lunar voyage last year. https://bloom.bg/3hxypVW

🇿🇦 Rioting that started with last week’s arrest of ex-South African President Jacob Zuma spread to the nation’s two richest provinces, shuttering businesses and halting transport networks. https://bloom.bg/3wyZOLm

🪓 Lumber has officially wiped out all its gains for the year. It’s one of the most dramatic examples of the easing in commodity prices — at one point futures more than quadrupled the level a year earlier. https://bloom.bg/3xBWHUm

💉 Johnson & Johnson’s Covid vaccine got an FDA warning about the risk of a rare immune disorder after about 100 reports of Guillain-Barré Syndrome among people given the shot. The agency said data was insufficient to definitively say the vaccine caused the illness. https://bloom.bg/36ADLtj

💸 China’s two largest investment banks are asking senior bankers to fly coach. The cuts are another way policy makers are pressuring state-owned financial firms to help support the country’s recovery. https://bloom.bg/3kfhSaS

₿ Chinese bitcoin miners forced to leave behind the country’s cheap electricity from coal have found themselves thrust into a wild and extreme world of crypto power-hunting. https://bloom.bg/2TXKIlC

🇿🇦 Violent protests in South Africa have dealt a body blow to the nation’s efforts to rebuild the economy in the wake of the pandemic. https://bloom.bg/3hB2fJf

🇺🇸 🇨🇳 The Biden administration is mulling a digital trade agreement covering Indo-Pacific economies in a bid to check China’s influence in the region. https://bloom.bg/36wKBjl

💰 U.S. Senate Democrats have agreed to a $3.5 trillion package that would carry most of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda into law without Republican support. https://bloom.bg/3wxUWpW

📱 Apple has asked suppliers to build as many as 90 million next-generation iPhones this year, a 20% increase from its shipments last year. Updates to the new models will be more incremental, emphasizing improved performance. https://bloom.bg/3hArifu

✂️ Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment is selling Chinese tech stocks, with weighting in its flagship ETF falling to less than 1% from 8% in February. “I do think there’s a valuation reset,” she told investors. https://bloom.bg/3rg1jNG

🇿🇦 South African civilians are stepping up to protect their businesses and communities following days of rioting and looting. https://bloom.bg/3hDyQOB

💉 The Covid vaccine was just the beginning: Moderna is building mRNA shots for HIV, cancer and the flu. But can it keep ahead of its competitors? https://bloom.bg/3yWibLX

🇨🇳 China has dealt another blow to its beleaguered cryptocurrency industry, with Anhui province becoming the latest to pledge to crack down on the practice of using power-hungry machines to mine Bitcoin. https://bloom.bg/3AVJurD

🇨🇳 China’s economy slowed in the second quarter, with GDP expanding 7.9% from a year earlier, in line with estimates, and down from 18.3% in the prior quarter.

The country’s V-shaped recovery has shown signs of plateauing in recent months, as exports and industrial activity rose but consumers remained cautious.

China’s still on track meet its growth target of more than 6% for the year. But there are signs its economy is more reliant on policy support than before the pandemic — a warning to other economies as they ponder an exit from stimulus. Read more: https://bloom.bg/3kgJ0q4

✈️ European governments are growing increasingly frustrated with President Joe Biden for refusing to lift rules preventing most of their citizens from traveling to the U.S. https://bloom.bg/36BROif

😷 Covid-19 has accelerated research to stoop the next pandemic. AI, apps and big data could be key. https://bloom.bg/3yZ79W7

💵 U.S. money managers couldn’t stop the march toward exchange-traded funds, so they decided to join it instead. https://bloom.bg/3z4Ru7X

Hello 👋 Here’s what we’re following today:

🇭🇰 Joe Biden said the U.S. will issue a warning to companies about the risks of doing business in Hong Kong because of “what may happen” as China continues to tighten control. The advisory won’t order them to leave, but officials worry multinational businesses haven’t yet come to grips with the risks. https://bloom.bg/2VNGNZ3

🍸 Alcohol-related deaths spiked by 21% in Britain during the pandemic. An extra 12.6 million liters of alcohol were sold in shops and supermarkets in the year through March. https://bloom.bg/2VP0OOU

🇨🇦🇺🇸 Canada may allow all vaccinated travelers to enter by early September, but a new survey shows most Canadians want a travel ban to stay until 75% of the country is fully vaccinated. https://bloom.bg/3wH2qH1

Covid cases are rising in many regions of the world, including at the Olympic Village. Here’s what you need to know:

🇯🇵 With just days until the opening ceremony in Tokyo, new virus cases are testing Olympic organizers’ assurances. U.S. tennis player Coco Gauff didn't travel to Japan after testing positive, and several members of South Africa's team who are already there also tested positive. https://bloom.bg/3hLX74T

🇬🇧 Boris Johnson’s plan to get the U.K. back to normal is in disarray, with infections soaring and a public outcry over the prime minister’s perceived attempt to dodge coronavirus isolation rules. https://bloom.bg/3BhpBve

🎤 And cases in Singapore rose to an 11-month high with infections emerging from a karaoke cluster. Thailand reported its highest single-day increase since the pandemic began. Follow the latest updates: https://bloom.bg/3isDXAt

🇬🇧 London is open again, as most legal curbs to stop the spread of Covid-19 in England are lifted — but don't expect an end-of-pandemic celebration. This is what life is like in the city on "Freedom Day." https://bloom.bg/3hLZnJC

💰 The question of who controls more than $1 billion of Venezuelan gold stored in the Bank of England's vaults has reached the U.K.’s top court. https://bloom.bg/3xS2rt8

📱 And a bored ex-Lehman trader has built a $6.7 billion fortune with a hot app, Revolut. Here's how he did it. https://bloom.bg/36NHa82

💻 The U.S., U.K. and their allies formally attributed the Microsoft Exchange hack to actors affiliated with the Chinese government. https://bloom.bg/3kyrIVB

💊 A secretive medical body that advises Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is making questionable Covid decisions. Critics say its recommendations have benefited the pharma industry rather than patients. https://bloom.bg/2Uwqrn8

💪 And just about everyone could benefit from a financial tune-up. Here are seven habits of highly effective investors: https://bloom.bg/2TkotWq

🇺🇸🇦🇪 Tom Barrack Jr., a former top fund-raiser for Donald Trump, was arrested on charges of illegally lobbying for the United Arab Emirates. Prosecutors say he and two others sought to influence the foreign-policy positions of the Trump campaign and his administration. https://bloom.bg/36PKhfQ

🚀 Jeff Bezos and three other passengers pulled off Blue Origin’s first crewed flight to space. They touched down Tuesday morning in Texas after a 10-minute flight to 65 miles (105 kilometers) above Earth. “Best day ever,” the Amazon founder said. https://bloom.bg/3wOdpyA

📈 No one disputes that inflation is here. The question is where it’s heading. We pulled together 35 key measures that tell you how much to worry. https://bloom.bg/3wRFZPt

🦠 More Covid variants are coming, and the U.S. isn’t ready to track them. Now the people hunting for mutations want the country to fix its virus sequencing mess. https://bloom.bg/3kF7l9b

🏙️ London office life will never return to the way it was before the pandemic, according to Natwest Chairman Howard Davies. https://bloom.bg/2W9SGZD

🏡 And Europe’s frothiest housing market has united nervous politicians in the need to remove a controversial tax perk — if only they could agree on how. https://bloom.bg/3wWyXsK

📦 China and the U.S. are shipping goods to each other at the quickest pace in years — making it look like the trade war and pandemic never happened. https://bloom.bg/3eIRrad

📊 India’s actual Covid death toll may be up to 10 times higher than the official data suggest. Overwhelmed crematoriums and floating corpses in the Ganges have cast doubt on the government count of about 420,000. https://bloom.bg/3BqaiAp

🦠 Just because you’re vaccinated doesn’t mean you’re not at risk from Covid. Here’s what you need to know about “breakthrough” infections: https://bloom.bg/3eIRseh

🛢️ Saudi Arabia's prince of oil has vowed to drill "every last molecule." Meet Abdulaziz bin Salman, the man trying to bend the oil market to his will. https://bloom.bg/3eJK56c

🇬🇧 The European Union is set to hand Britain a final warning about its commitments under the Northern Ireland Protocol, with the two sides back on a collision course about their post-Brexit relationship. https://bloom.bg/3eK5egJ

👫 And an Indonesian man with Covid managed to board a plane disguised as his wife, wearing a niqab covering his face. His cover didn't last long. https://bloom.bg/36Ud0Ag