European Midday Briefing: Caution Dominates Ahead -2-

Foreigners Will Benefit From U.S. Climate Subsidies, and That Is Good News

Foreign firms are shaping up to be some of the biggest beneficiaries of America's new climate-focused industrial policy law, the Inflation Reduction Act. Japan's Panasonic, for example, estimates it could reap $2 billion a year from tax credits associated with battery plants in Nevada and Kansas.

Is that a problem?

China Probed Covid-19 Policy Leaks by Ex-Government Officials

China's heightened scrutiny of the expert-network firms that investors and international businesses rely on for information about the country began much earlier than is commonly believed.

Last autumn, in a previously unreported investigation, national-security agents showed up at some of those firms looking to track down leaks around China's highly sensitive Covid policies and vaccine strategy. The investigators asked people at one consulting firm in Shanghai if they had arranged meetings or calls with experts who had inside knowledge of the country's healthcare policy, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Ron DeSantis Shifts Strategy After Staff Cuts, Drop in Polls

Ron DeSantis and his allies are shifting gears as his struggling presidential campaign faces questions about whether he has veered too far to the right and failed to tell a positive story about himself and his vision for the country.

The Florida governor is slipping in polls, and his second-place status to front-runner Donald Trump is now under threat. On Tuesday the DeSantis campaign laid off nearly 40 staff members, roughly the total number employed by Trump's campaign. It also plans to slash travel and event costs as it seeks to reassure supporters of his readiness for the national stage.

Meta's Threads Isn't Labeling Propaganda Accounts From Russia, China State Media

State-backed news outlets from Russia and other authoritarian governments have rushed to join Meta Platforms' new Threads microblogging service, posting propaganda such as a fake video purporting to show President Biden in a store perusing books on dementia.

Unlike on Facebook and Instagram, their verified accounts on Threads aren't labeled as state-controlled media, raising questions over how the Facebook parent intends to police content on its Twitter rival that launched this month. Twitter, now being rebranded as X, in 2020 began applying labels to state-run news organizations; under Elon Musk, it removed them in April.

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This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 26, 2023 05:28 ET (09:28 GMT)

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