___
Cooler hiring in June could help the Fed achieve an elusive ‘soft landing’ for US economy
WASHINGTON (AP) — Another month, another solid gain for America’s job market. The pace of hiring by businesses and government agencies in June — 209,000 added jobs — was the smallest monthly gain in 2 1/2 years. Yet it was still a healthy increase, enough to reduce the unemployment rate from 3.7% to 3.6%, barely above a half-century low. And it amounted to further evidence of an economy that has defied persistent forecasts of a recession. The latest sign of economic strength makes it all but certain that the Federal Reserve will resume its interest rate hikes later this month after having ended a streak of 10 rate increases that were intended to curb high inflation.
___
Stock market today: Wall Street drifts after jobs report comes in warm but hopefully not too hot
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street drifted to a mixed close after data suggested the U.S. job market is still warm enough to keep the economy growing but maybe not so hot that it stokes inflation much higher. The S&P 500 gave up a midday gain and ended 0.3% lower Friday. The Dow fell 187 points, or 0.5%, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.1%. Small-company stocks rose. A lot is riding on whether the economy can navigate the narrow pathway to avoid a long-predicted recession. Friday’s report showed that employers added fewer jobs in June than in May, not far off economists’ expectations. Treasury yields were mixed.
___
US Treasury chief Yellen and China’s No. 2 aim for improved communication after trade disputes
BEIJING (AP) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Chinese Premier Li Qiang are expressing hopes for better communication as Yellen appeals to Beijing not to let frustration over U.S. curbs on technology exports disrupt economic cooperation. Both governments used positive terms on Friday to describe Yellen’s visit to China’s capital and stressed the importance of U.S.-China economic ties. Several senior U.S. officials are expected to travel to Beijing to encourage Chinese leaders to revive interactions between the governments of the world’s two largest economies. Disputes over technology, security and other respective irritants have disrupted contacts between China and the U.S. Yellen appealed on Friday for “regular channels of communication” and “healthy economic competition.”
___
Food delivery services sue NYC over minimum pay rates for app-based workers
NEW YORK (AP) — Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub have sued New York City to block its new minimum pay rules for food delivery workers. The recently announced rules could nearly triple average earnings for app-based delivery workers in the coming years. An increased pay rate of $17.96 an hour is set to take effect July 12. In the lawsuits filed Thursday, food delivery services are seeking a temporary restraining order in state Supreme Court in Manhattan to stop the changes from going into effect on July 12. The companies claim the changes would result in higher costs for consumers. An email seeking comment was sent to city officials.
___
Twitter threatens legal action against Meta over its new rival app Threads
NEW YORK (AP) — Twitter has threatened legal action against Meta over its new text-based app called Threads. The offering launched this week as a rival to Elon Musk’s social media platform and has drawn tens of millions of users. In a letter Wednesday to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, an attorney for Twitter accused Meta of unlawfully using Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property by hiring former Twitter employees to create a “copycat” app. The move ramps up the tensions between the social media giants as Threads targets people seeking out Twitter alternatives amid unpopular changes Musk has made to the platform. A Meta spokesperson wrote on Threads that “no one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee.”
___
Elevated mortgage rates are leading to sharply higher monthly payments even as home prices ease
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Would-be homebuyers are willing to take on sharply higher mortgage payments, even as home prices have begun to pull back this year. The median monthly payment listed on applications for home purchase loans jumped 14.1% in May from a year earlier to an all-time high $2,165, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The May figure also represents a 2.5% increase from April. The size of the mortgage and the interest rate on the loan influence how large the monthly payment on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage will be — two housing market variables that have ballooned in recent years.
___
Countries agree to slash shipping emissions but not enough to stay within warming limits
Maritime nations agreed Friday to slash emissions from the shipping industry to net zero by about 2050 in a deal that many experts and some nations say falls well short of what’s needed to curb warming to agreed temperature limits. Negotiators at the meeting of the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization in London, seen as key to curb global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, rubber-stamped a deal for shipping emissions to reach net zero “by or around” 2050.
___
Biden launches a new push to limit health care costs hoping to show he can save money for families
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has rolled out a new set of initiatives to reduce health care costs. The initiatives out Friday include a crackdown on scam insurance plans, new guidance to prevent surprise medical bills and an effort to reduce medical debt tied to credit cards. Biden’s remarks will build on previous initiatives to limit health care costs. The Department of Health and Human Services is releasing new estimates showing 18.7 million older adults and other Medicare beneficiaries will in 2025 save an estimated $400 a year in prescription drug costs because of the Democratic president placing a cap on out-of-pocket spending as part of last year’s Inflation Reduction Act.
___
Ant Group fined $985 million by Chinese regulators in signal that tech crackdown may end
HONG KONG (AP) — Chinese regulators are fining Ant Group 7.123 billion yuan ($985 million), claiming the financial technology provider broke laws related to corporate governance and consumer rights. The People’s Bank of China imposed the fine on Friday. Ant Group said in a statement that it would comply with the terms of the penalty “in all earnestness and sincerity and continue to further enhance our compliance governance.” The fine comes over two years after regulators pulled the plug on Ant Group’s $34.5 billion IPO — which would have been the biggest of its time — in 2020. Since then, the company had been ordered to revamp its business and behave more like a financial holding company, as well as rectify unfair competition in its payments business.
___
The S&P 500 fell 12.64 points, or 0.3%, to 4,398.95. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 187.38 points, or 0.6%, to 33,734.88. The Nasdaq composite fell 18.33 points, or 0.1%, to 13,660.72. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 22.43 points, or 1.2%, to 1,864.66.
