Following the latest set of global economic news, most notably a mediocre set of Chinese Official and Caixin PMIs, coupled with a mix of lackluster European manufacturing reports and an abysmal Japanese PMI, European, Asian stocks and U.S. stock index futures have continued yesterday's losses. Oil slips for 4th day, heading for the longest run of declines since April, as OPEC ministers gather in Vienna ahead of a meeting on Thursday to discuss production policy.
A U.S. appeals court has ruled against privacy, in a landmark case that will allow authorities to obtain a person’s cellphone location without a warrant. The ruling marks a major setback for privacy advocates who claim that the U.S. government can now effectively track any citizen without their knowledge or permission. The full 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, voted 12-3 that the federal government can access the user data due to the fact that it had already been disclosed to a third party.
A U.S. woman diagnosed with the Zika virus has given birth to a baby with microcephaly at a New Jersey hospital on Tuesday. The unnamed visitor to the U.S. is thought to have contracted the disease internationally, according to officials at Hackensack University Medical Center. This marks the first case of a baby being born with microcephaly as a result of the Zika virus in the United States.
As we reported last week, a looming Trump presidency has generated a surge in immigrants trying to cross the southern border of the United States.
From October 2015 to March of this year, the US Border Patrol apprehensions averaged 330 Central Americans a day, an increase of 100 percent over the same period a year earlier according to the Pew Research Center. The issue has even prompted Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to travel to Central America to remind everyone in person that the US border is not open.