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The EU is conflicted about Palestinian aid. An announcement by the European Commission about an immediate suspension of €691 million ($730 million) in development aid to Palestinians was reversed as the war, declared by Israel after an attack by the terrorist group Hamas, continues. This is a developing story.
The Kaiser Permanente strike ended with no resolution. Negotiations between the US healthcare workers’ unions and their employers will still take place on Thursday, with future walkouts a possibility.
The Fed may just leave interest rates where they are. Two officials made comments yesterday that indicated that the next meeting might conclude with unchanged rates.
The Nobel economics prize went to a workplace gender gap researcher. In receiving the prize, Claudia Goldin herself narrowed a gender gap within that particular part of the Nobel franchise.
What the Israel-Hamas war could mean for oil
The war between Hamas and Israel that was formally declared this weekend, claiming more than 1,000 lives on both sides, has had no immediate effect on the world’s oil supply, but prices have begun to rise.
Israel and Palestine are not big oil producers, but as the conflict worsens, so does the strain on the outlook for the entire Middle East region, which contributes a third of the global oil supply. Quartz’s Ananya Bhattacharya explains why Iran calling the attack on Israel by Hamas an act of “self-defense” could send big ripples throughout the oil barrel.
Person of interest: Nelson Peltz
Once upon a time, eight months ago in fact, there was an activist investor named Nelson Peltz, who dropped his bid to join Disney’s board. Now Peltz is back (though boomerang CEO Bob Iger wouldn’t call him a Prince Charming), and he’s got a stronger weapon: an increased stake in the entertainment giant that now tops $2.5 billion.
Disney, whose stock has been on a downward trend this year, has roundly opposed Peltz’s inclusion on the board, arguing that the co-founder of Trian Partners doesn’t understand the business.
But with Disney’s weakened share price and Peltz’s quadrupled shareholding, will Iger be able to keep his latest villain at bay?
ESG ETF returns still aren’t anything to write home about
A new study that looks at 10 years of portfolio data that include exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that follow environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing strategies showed that they didn’t perform any better than regular ol’ standard index funds. If anything, ESG ETFs slightly underperformed by an average of 0.2% on an annual basis.
What is a socially conscious investor to do? Quartz’s Grete Suarez talked to some experts.
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Surprising discoveries
Chicago’s buildings are directly in the path of migrating birds... It’s all just a really sad and preventable story.
…and cities of the future are directly in the path of heat. Gizmodo has partnered with Grist to show what forward-thinking cities can do to counter rising temperatures.
US zoo visitors most likely won’t get to see pandas in person anymore. Scientific loans from China have kept Americans transfixed by cute (or terrible, depending on your view) black-and-white bears for decades, but they’re on their way out.
Autopaying credit card bills winds up costing us more. It leads to a tendency to make minimum payments, which means interest piles up.
There’s a new Atari game. You read that right.
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