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Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said worries about hiring in the private sector have driven his call for the central bank to cut rates this month. “The private sector is not doing as well as everybody thinks it is,” Waller said Friday in an interview on Bloomberg Television.

A monthly employment report for June, published on July 3, showed a sharp slowdown in private-sector job growth and a deceleration in wage growth, even as the unemployment rate ticked lower.

His comments follow a speech he delivered Thursday in New York in which he argued that with inflation risks limited, the US central bank ought to lower borrowing costs before the labour market begins to deteriorate.

Meta Platforms Inc. said it won’t sign the code of practice for Europe’s new set of laws governing artificial intelligence, calling the guidelines to help companies follow the AI Act overreach.

“Europe is heading down the wrong path on AI,” Meta’s head of global affairs Joel Kaplan said in a post on LinkedIn. “This code introduces a number of legal uncertainties for model developers, as well as measures which go far beyond the scope of the AI Act.”

The European Union published the code of practice earlier this month. It’s a voluntary framework meant to help companies put processes in place to stay in line with the bloc’s sprawling AI Act, and includes copyright protections for creators and transparency requirements for advanced AI models.

It also requires developers to provide documentation to describe their AI models’ features. Agreeing to the code can give companies more legal protection if they’re accused of falling foul of the act.

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will be required to wear an electronic ankle monitor after police carried out search warrants against him on Friday, local press reported.

Bolsonaro, who is about to stand trial over an alleged coup attempt, will also face restrictions on social media use, local media said. His lawyer didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The federal police said in a statement that they carried out two search and seizure warrants, “in addition to precautionary measures other than imprisonment.” The statement didn’t mention Bolsonaro by name but referred to the case he is involved in before the Supreme Court. Brazil’s Supreme Court didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The UK government sanctioned 18 people it named as spies from Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency who it said were responsible for conducting cyber and hybrid warfare operations against Britain and Ukraine.

One of the sanctioned GRU units carried out online reconnaissance to help target missile strikes against Mariupol in Ukraine, enabling a 2022 attack that destroyed a theater in the city killing hundreds of civilians, the Foreign Office said in a statement.

Russia’s military intelligence officers also targeted the device of Yulia Skripal, the daughter of former spy Sergei Skripal who Russian agents tried to kill in the UK in 2018, according to the statement. That operation involved using malware known as X-Agent five years before the assassination attempt, it said.

Porsche AG warned its employees to brace for further cost reductions as the luxury-car maker seeks ways to offset declining sales in China and the escalating cost of US tariffs.

The manufacturer will start negotiations on additional reductions in the second half of this year, Chief Executive Officer Oliver Blume wrote in a memo to employees seen by Bloomberg. Management is following through on its pledge to find more savings after taking steps to reduce headcount earlier this year. “Our business model, which has served us well for many decades, no longer works in its current form,” Blume said in the memo.

Porsche is grappling with lower-than-expected demand for EVs and weak luxury sales in China, where the market for battery-powered cars is fiercely competitive. In the US, Porsche’s single biggest market, where it relies solely on imports, President Donald Trump’s trade moves are weighing on margins.

US Treasuries pared some of their weekly losses on Friday while the dollar fell at the end of a week dominated by debate about the trajectory and leadership of the Federal Reserve.

Yields on 10-year US government bonds inched lower to 4.45% — just three basis points higher on the week — while 30-year yields were on track to finish below 5% for the first time since Monday. A gauge of the dollar dropped 0.2% after a Fed policymaker publicly pushed to cut interest rates later this month.

It’s been a volatile week for Treasuries. The 30-year yield breached 5% for the first time since May as enduring inflation pressures prompted traders to pare odds of a September rate cut, while speculation that President Donald Trump might fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell also unnerved markets.

“Even with President Trump denying any near-term plans to remove Powell, uncertainty remains elevated, likely contributing to a lingering discount in long-term Treasuries,” wrote JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists led by Jay Barry.

Threod Systems, the Estonian drone company, is exploring a sale to tap the explosive demand for uncrewed aircraft amid the war in Ukraine, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company is working with advisers to gauge interest among potential buyers, said the people, who asked not to be identified because discussions are private. Defense companies, including large European manufacturers, and private equity firms are looking at the business, they said. Threod did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Founded in 2012, the Estonian dronemaker posted €38 million ($44 million) in sales for 2024, up 87% from the year before. Its customers include Ukraine and seven NATO countries, among them the UK, Poland and Lithuania. The company says Ukraine regularly uses its surveillance drones on the battlefield.

Chief Executive Officer Arno Vaik said in a November 2024 interview that the company wants to reach €100 million in revenue in a few years. The company has about 160 employees, and makes fixed-wing and vertical takeoff and landing drones and related systems such as launchers and optics.

The Group of 20 finance ministers are expected to agree on a communique at their meeting on Friday, achieving a rare consensus despite strains caused by US President Donald Trump’s trade war. The statement will likely include language on economic uncertainties and trade issues that have been sticking points in the past, said several officials who requested anonymity to discuss the talks.

“At a time when the world is more uncertain, we need more engagement not less, we need more robust and resilient and reliable markets for our exports,” said Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers. “That’s the spirit which has guided people’s contribution here – probably the main reason we’ve been able to get a communique,” he told Bloomberg at the event in South Africa’s eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.

HSBC Holdings Plc is disbanding a team of staffers that was focused on identifying and managing geopolitical risk, even as the possibility of such threats has ratcheted up since US President Donald Trump returned to power.

The move will impact fewer than 10 roles across Asia, Europe and other regions, according to people familiar with the matter. Some of those staffers have been given the opportunity to apply for other jobs within the lender, they said, asking not to be identified discussing personnel information.

The London-headquartered firm is the world’s largest trade bank and an anchor of commerce between the Asia Pacific region and the rest of the world. As the largest non-US clearer of dollars, it has become highly sensitive to the political jostling between Washington and Beijing, who have engaged in a tit-for-tat trade war this year prior to a truce that has appeared to stabilise ties for the moment.

While rival media companies are unloading assets and cutting costs, Netflix Inc. continues to thrive. The owner of the world’s most popular paid streaming service on Thursday reported second-quarter results that exceeded investor expectations in every major metric, saying revenue grew to $11.1 billion and earnings jumped to $7.19 a share. The company also raised its forecast for full-year sales and profit margins.

The second quarter is historically slow for Netflix, which typically adds more customers at the beginning and end of the year. But the company released a steady slate of popular shows, including two of the most-watched titles of the year — the third season of Ginny & Georgia and the final season of Squid Game. The company also benefited from a weaker dollar. More than two-thirds of its customers live outside the US.

Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc agreed to sell most of its homecare business to private equity firm Advent International for an enterprise value of up to $4.8 billion as the UK consumer goods company focuses on faster-growing operations.

Reckitt said it will retain a 30% stake in the business, whose brands include Air Wick air fresheners and Cillit Bang cleaners. The enterprise value includes up to about $1.3 billion of contingent and deferred consideration, the company said Friday.

Shares of Reckitt rose as much as 2.3% in early London trading before paring back some of the gains. The stock is up nearly 14% in the past 12 months through Thursday’s close.

Hess Corp. won its arbitration battle with Exxon Mobil Corp., clearing the way for it to be bought by Chevron Corp. more than 20 months after the $53 billion deal was announced.

The decision is a major victory for Chevron, ending a period of strategic limbo that hurt its stock and prompted questions over the quality of the company’s due diligence when it agreed to buy Hess in October 2023. Chevron Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth said he would walk away from the deal if they lost the case.

A representative for Exxon confirmed Hess and Chevron prevailed, and the company said in a statement that “we disagree with the ICC panel’s interpretation but respect the arbitration and dispute resolution process.”

Chevron and Hess didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Hess shares surged as much as 8.8% before the start of regular trading. Chevron rose 3.9%.

Investors are piling into stocks that offer high dividends, drawn by the lure of chunky payouts in the often-underperforming group ahead of expected interest-rate cuts later this year.

Flows into the five largest exchange-traded funds focused on dividend payers hit $17.5 billion last week, a nearly 10-fold increase from the start of 2024, according to data from Purpose Investments Inc.

Part of the funds’ popularity rests on expectations that the Federal Reserve is getting closer to cutting interest rates, pushing income-seeking investors to look for yield opportunities outside of bonds.

The group has also lagged broader markets in recent years, magnifying the per-share dividend payout companies offer: This week, there were 45 members of the S&P 500 Index offering dividend yields in excess of the 4.33% rate on three-month Treasuries, compared to 14 members beating that yield last year.

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