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This article is an on-site version of our FirstFT newsletter. Subscribers can sign up to our Asia, Europe\/Africa or Americas edition to get the newsletter delivered every weekday morning. Explore all of our newsletters here<\/p>\n
Good morning and welcome back to FirstFT. Here\u2019s what we are covering today: <\/p>\n
Donald Trump is struggling to contain a spiralling crisis over his administration\u2019s handling of the so-called Epstein files. Here\u2019s what you need to know.<\/p>\n
Why is Maga divided over Epstein?<\/strong> During last year\u2019s election campaign Trump promised to release files relating to the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein who had been at the centre of myriad conspiracy theories since his death in 2019, often at the hands of Trump\u2019s closest allies. Last week the justice department and the FBI published a two-page memo after what they described as an \u201cexhaustive review\u201d of material relating to the disgraced paedophile. The memo concluded there was no \u201cclient list\u201d and that Epstein died by suicide.<\/p>\n Why it matters:<\/strong> Before entering government, FBI director Kash Patel, deputy director Dan Bongino and attorney-general Pam Bondi were among the Trump supporters who publicly questioned whether Epstein killed himself or was murdered as part of a vast conspiracy to protect powerful people who had been associated with him. Bondi has become a target for Trump supporters unhappy with the results of the investigation. Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly labelled Bondi the \u201cvillain in this story\u201d in a speech to a conservative conference over the weekend.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what else we\u2019re keeping tabs on today:<\/p>\n Wall Street banks:<\/strong> JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup kick off second-quarter earnings season for the US\u2019s biggest banks. Our live blog will be covering the results announcements which also include BlackRock and Wells Fargo. <\/p>\n<\/li>\n Economic data:<\/strong> The US and Canada publish June consumer price indices. <\/p>\n<\/li>\n Monetary policy:<\/strong> Federal Reserve vice-chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman gives the opening remarks at a conference hosted by the Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Arizona primary:<\/strong> Voters pick candidates for a special election to fill the House of Representatives seat formerly held by Democrat Ra\u00fal Grijalva, who died in office in March. The Democrats are expected to hold the seat.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n 1. Donald Trump has privately encouraged Ukraine to step up deep strikes on Russian territory,<\/strong> according to people briefed on a July 4 call between the US and Ukrainian presidents. Trump even asked Volodymyr Zelenskyy whether he could strike Moscow if the US provided long-range weapons. Read this exclusive story.<\/p>\n 2. China\u2019s economy expanded 5.2 per cent year on year in the second quarter<\/strong> as the world\u2019s second-largest economy shrugged off the impact of Trump\u2019s trade war. The rate of growth, which beat analysts\u2019 expectations, shows how China has been able to keep growth on track through exports and investment even as it struggles with weak demand at home. <\/p>\n 3. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s government has been plunged into crisis<\/strong> after a Jewish ultra-Orthodox political party quit the ruling coalition. Seven parliamentarians from the United Torah Judaism party resigned in response to the government\u2019s efforts to conscript religious seminary students into the military, leaving Netanyahu\u2019s coalition with a one-seat majority in the Knesset. Read more on the political crisis.<\/p>\n 4. Yields on 10-year Japanese government bonds hit their highest level since the 2008 financial crisis and 30-year borrowing costs hit a record high<\/strong> earlier today as investors grow increasingly nervous ahead of Sunday\u2019s upper-house parliamentary elections. Polls suggest the ruling LDP will have to make concessions to high spending, populist parties after Sunday\u2019s vote.<\/p>\n 5. Calpers, the largest public pension fund in the US, has signalled an appetite for more exposure to private equity<\/strong> despite concerns that these assets could expose pensioners to too much risk. Stephen Gilmore, chief investment officer of the California Public Employees\u2019 Retirement System, said it was \u201creasonable to expect our private equity exposure will continue to increase somewhat\u201d. Read the full interview. <\/p>\n China\u2019s BYD is catching up with Tesla and is poised to overtake its US rival in electric vehicle sales for the first time. In the past three years, the Chinese auto group has narrowed the technology gap between the two carmakers, including in autonomous driving. Read what is powering BYD\u2019s headway in the EV market.<\/p>\n Insurers are selling so-called catastrophe bonds at a record rate as they seek to offload the growing risk from climate change on to investors eager for high returns. Issuance of the instruments, which transfer part of the risk for events such as wildfires, hurricanes and earthquakes to bondholders, has surged to $18.1bn this year from a previous record of $17.7bn for the whole of 2024. Read more on the growing appeal of \u201ccat bonds\u201d.<\/p>\n Would you trust an algorithm to make you a suit? Swedish brand Blugiallo, using clients\u2019 measurements, created a dataset of 1,000-plus unique sizes that could be turned into an algorithm to calculate a perfect fit for each customer \u2014 starting from \u00a3650. Is there a catch?<\/p>\n Blugiallo midnight-blue twill The Signature Cut suit, \u00a3511<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This article is an on-site version of our FirstFT newsletter. Subscribers can sign up to our Asia, Europe\/Africa or Americas edition to get the newsletter delivered every weekday morning. Explore all of our newsletters here Good morning and welcome back to FirstFT. Here\u2019s what we are covering today: Donald Trump is struggling to contain a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[4074,3703,3093,3027,4014],"class_list":{"0":"post-10906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-divisions","9":"tag-epstein","10":"tag-files","11":"tag-highlight","12":"tag-maga"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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