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With all the new music, what should you listen to? Stéphane Plante and Mélissa Pelletier from QUB musique point out 5 essential points!

Always flanked by his mad horses, the patriarch of Canadian-American folk rock is unwilling to store his enthusiasm in the veterans’ locker room. Going sluggish with the melancholic Quit in the opener, he shifts into second gear with Standing in the Light of Love, which could very well have landed on his 70s classics. Toast often refers us to this messy recipe from the more lazy – but oh so prolific, even hyperactive – still living pillars of rock. One does not always feel inspired to hear certain chord progressions. Along with just enough dirty and haunting riffs, Neil Young still nails his recognizable high vocal flights to perfection. The temptation to listen to a passage of Toast again and then dig through his old tunes will run through your head, that’s for sure. And that’s perhaps normal, knowing that this so-called last opus was recorded in 2000. In short, seven rivers of lament dripping with guitars, some like Timberline or How Ya Doin’? already sound like instant classics. (Stephan Plante)

LESBIAN WAKE UP ON THE AUTOTUNE – calamine ****

The rapper was inspired by an insult on social media for this title. Instead of turning everything into a reckoning, she preferred humor. Squeaky. Without ever diluting the denunciation of toxic behavior. In addition to sampling various media personalities, Calamine alternately quotes Alain Deneault, Hegel and… Roxane Bruneau! And the instrumentation isn’t just an erased prop for their sharp rhymes. They blend in perfectly with the tone. (Stephan Plante)

Formentera – Metric ***1/2

The Toronto band kick off their latest album with a 10-minute hymn to fallen love. Ten minutes, but they don’t last that long. Formentera thus offers a journey into electro territory without skimping on the guitars. Not even on piano ballads. The pop and introspective debauchery of Emily Haines is the main force of the nine tracks, supported by variable-geometry instrumentation. Enemies of the Ocean even reveals an irresistible arpeggio of sparkling guitars. (Stephan Plante)

tools down – pap***

Far from embarrassing their compatriots, the post-punk band hail from Leeds, England. On this third album that screams lightness, Dan Hyndman’s unconventional voice adds spice that could sometimes be lacking, despite the effective riffs, often straight out of ’90s rock, and the comical words thrown on them are based on everyday life. But vocal bragging for the sake of bragging can become boring in the medium term. Luckily, the group dares to break the tone with more authentic tracks like Group of Death and Dense Traffic. (Melissa Pelletier)

LOGGERHEAD – Wu Lu ****

I got curious about the music of the London-established artist via a remix of Seven Times by Wu-Lu’s Lianne La Havas… And wow, we were somewhere else! In LOGGERHEAD, the multi-instrumentalist throws his punk-bordering hip-hop tracks into our mouths, which put the left butt in the limelight. Transitioning from more contemplative atmospheres to wild ascents, the opus breathes, takes up space. It’s even a little slippery and thick at times due to the multiple sound textures, but it still hits its mark. And be careful, it goes inside. (Melissa Pelletier)

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US stock futures fell after the latest jobs data showed employers added more jobs than expected in June.

Futures for the S&P 500 fell 0.5%, a day after the benchmark index rose 1.5% and posted a fourth straight gain, its longest winning streak since March. Contracts for the Dow Jones Industrial Average trimmed their modest gains, falling 0.3%. Those on the tech-focused Nasdaq-100 lost 1.1%.

The June jobs report showed that rising interest rates and high inflation have so far had no impact on hiring, which remains strong. The US economy added 372,000 jobs in June, far more than the 250,000 expected by economists polled by the Wall Street Journal.

Still, the robust jobs report could add to inflation fears as companies hike wages as they compete for a limited pool of workers. Some analysts said the strong jobs report increases the likelihood that the Fed will go ahead with a 0.75 percentage point hike at its next meeting.

The US stock market rallied amid below-par trading volume this week, as weak economic data has prompted investors to wonder how aggressively the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates to fight inflation later. More recently, data has shown a slowdown in activity in industries ranging from manufacturing to housing, adding to concerns among traders that the economy is headed for a recession.

This week, US central bankers reiterated their commitment to fighting inflation, first minutes after the Fed’s June meeting and then again on Thursday when two Fed officials reiterated their support for another 0.75 percentage point rate hike later in the day month signaled. Both also suggested that recession fears may be overdone.

“I think there was this relief that central banks, particularly the Federal Reserve, are going to get a handle on inflation,” said Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. “Inflation and the pain it is causing and could cause in the future if it continues to spiral out of control is seen as the greatest risk to the financial stability of economies.”

Amid a record US hiring wave, economists are watching for signs of a possible turnaround. WSJ’s Anna Hirtenstein examines how rising interest rates, high inflation, market sell-offs and recession risks are challenging America’s labor force growth. Photo: Olivier Douliery/AFP

Major indices are on course to end the week with gains. The S&P 500 ended Thursday up 2% for the week, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is up 4.4%.

Even with this week’s surge, the S&P 500 remains in a bear market, defined as a 20% decline from a recent high, and traders and strategists say they are bracing for more volatility in the future. Many are expecting the release of inflation data and the start of the second quarter earnings season next week to bring further volatility.

“It feels like neither the bears nor the bulls are convinced right now,” said Viraj Patel, global macro strategist at Vanda Research.

In premarket trading in New York, growth and technology stocks fell, giving back some of the gains the group made this week. Investors bought shares in struggling growth companies throughout the week as they assessed the risk of a recession.

Twitter fell 3.9% premarket after announcing Thursday it would lay off 30% of its talent acquisition team.

GameStop is down 5.4% premarket after the retailer also said it will cut staff and fire its chief financial officer.

US stocks recorded their fourth straight session of gains on Thursday.

Photo: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg News

A closely watched indicator of recession, the yield curve, remained inverted on Friday, with the two-year Treasury yield trading higher than the 10-year equivalent. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury bill rose to 3.065% after the monthly jobs report, up from 3.007% on Thursday.

The 2-year government bond yield traded at 3.115% versus 3.039% in the previous session. Yields fall when bond prices rise.

Elsewhere in the markets, Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, ticked lower. Earlier this week, oil prices plummeted amid recession fears. Brent was last up 1.2% to $105.90 a barrel.

The dollar rallied, with the WSJ Dollar Index, which measures the greenback against a basket of 16 currencies, gaining 0.2%. The euro fell 0.2% to around $1.0147, putting the common currency within striking distance of parity, or equal to the dollar.

Overseas, the pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 fell 0.1%. Trading in Asia was mixed. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.4% while the Shanghai Composite fell 0.2%. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 closed 0.1%, paring earlier gains after news that former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot dead during a speech. Mr. Abe later died.

Gunjan Banerji contributed to this article.

Write to Caitlin McCabe at [email protected]

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The economy added 372,000 jobs in June, a stronger-than-expected rebound in jobs that could ease worries of an impending recession but also complicates the Federal Reserve’s job as it seeks to quell inflation.

The jobless rate was 3.6 percent, unchanged from the month before, the Labor Department reported on Friday.

The figure represents the average gain over the past few months, including 368,000 in April and 384,000 in May. Employers have continued to scramble for workers in recent months, with initial jobless claims rising only slightly from their low in March.

The private sector has now regained its pre-pandemic job count, while the public sector remains 664,000 jobs below February 2020. With the exception of the public sector, no sector lost seasonally adjusted jobs in June.

However, there’s no guarantee the rapid growth will continue indefinitely as sky-high prices weigh on consumer spending. The labor force remains constrained by aging demographics, low levels of immigration and barriers to work that keep many people on the fringes.

“We didn’t want to sustain the job growth that we had seen — it had to stop,” said Julian Richers, vice president of global economic research at Morgan Stanley. He said it would take a while for America’s hunger for work to be exhausted, however.

“There is still a lot of pent-up demand for manpower,” said Dr. Richers. “It makes sense that as the economy slows, so should employment, once we’ve cleared the labor demand backlog.”

That backlog is reflected in the 11.3 million jobs employers had open in May, a number that remains near record highs and leaves almost two vacancies for every jobseeker. In this equation, any workers laid off when certain sectors come under pressure are likely to find new jobs quickly — at least for a period of time.

But a series of headwinds are creating a time limit on this seller’s job market. Business leaders are reporting that while domestic demand remains strong and some supply chain issues have eased, backlogs have stopped growing and savings accounts are shrinking. Wherever possible, employers automate tasks instead of hiring new employees.

“Employers are less concerned about filling these vacancies as they watch the economy slow down,” said Bill Adams, Comerica Bank’s chief economist. “I would expect companies to probably start filling vacancies slowly before actually pulling any vacancies.”

Vkousno i Tochka, the chain that acquired McDonald’s restaurants in Russia in June, is facing a growing shortage of French fries amid Western sanctions against Moscow, business news site RBK reported on Friday.

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The brand’s first restaurants opened in Russia on June 12, drawing many nostalgic visitors to McDonald’s, which halted operations at its 850 restaurants in March before finally leaving the country in May.

“In some Vkusno i totchka (tasty, contemporary) restaurants, there will be no more fries,” one of the favorite dishes of the chain’s Russian customers, the RBK website said, citing the group’s press service.

According to the group, the 2021 harvest in Russia of potatoes destined for the production of french fries was poor, leading to shortages and “importing from foreign markets (…) became impossible” due to western sanctions imposed on Moscow were the Russian offensive against Ukraine, he said.

The spokesman said the group hopes to see french fries back on the menu of all Vkusno i Totchka restaurants in the fall, when the new harvest begins in Russia.

Contacted by AFP, the group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Russia is one of the world’s largest potato producers, a safe haven for the country’s population in times of crisis. But the last harvest suffered badly from the weather conditions.

Adding to this fries problem, once their supplies run out, Russian McDonalds will be deprived of all beverages made by American giant Coca Cola, which has also withdrawn from the Russian market because of the attack on Ukraine.

In addition to McDonald’s and Coca Cola, dozens of other companies, some of which have existed for decades, have left Russia because of the Ukraine conflict.

In March, Canadian company McCain Foods, the world’s largest French fries maker, announced that it was halting construction of its factory in Russia and suspending shipments of its products to the Russian market.

Starlink’s Internet-from-Space service continues to expand to new use cases with the launch of Starlink Maritime. What started at home before expanding to stationary RVs is now available for boats on the go at a price of $5,000 per month. SpaceX is targeting merchant ships, oil rigs and wealthy superyacht owners with the service.

Starlink Maritime also requires a one-time purchase of two heavy-duty, $10,000 Starlink dishes that ship in about two weeks, according to the US order site. In comparison, the hardware for Starlink’s home and RV services costs $599 and includes a single (smaller) “Dishy McFlatface” (as the dish is known to fans) with monthly subscriptions of $110 for the home and Service or $135 for Vanlifers. Importantly, using the RV service while driving is not allowed and will void the warranty.

As with Starlink RV, a Starlink Maritime subscription can be paused during the months you don’t need it. It’s also offered with no data cap like all Starlink subscriptions, but SpaceX warns against “overusing network services.”

SpaceX released a head-to-head comparison of live video footage captured on a SpaceX drone ship. To the right is footage taken via Starlink Maritime versus an unnamed service that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk claims costs $150,000 a month for “a much worse connection.”

Maritime subscribers can expect mixed performance compared to Starlink Residential and RV services. Sea speeds of 100-350Mbps down and 20-40Mbps up are slightly faster than residential areas thanks to these dual terminals, but latency is <99ms worse than other 20-40ms. Even then, according to the fine print, these are just “performance targets.” When you pay SpaceX $5,000 a month for Maritime, you might expect a guaranteed level of service, but at least you don't have to deal with trees blocking the sky.

Starlink Maritime coverage. Screenshot: Starlink

Starlink Maritime coverage includes the coastal waters around the United States (including the Great Lakes), European waters from the Mediterranean to the North Sea, the waters around New Zealand and most of Australia, and parts of South America. It will continue to expand in the fourth quarter with the launch of more satellites. SpaceX currently has more than 2,400 Starlink satellites in low to medium Earth orbit supporting 400,000 users.

The Starlink Maritime launch comes a week after the FCC approved the use of Starlink for vehicles in motion. The Maritime service includes an FCC statement regarding possible interference when operating in the 12.2-12.7GHz band – the workhorse frequencies used by Starlink, which Dish Network plans to use to offer 5G services.

“The ongoing operations of Starlink, including for ships, must accept any interference received from both current and future in-band authorized services – even if such interference causes undesired operations for Starlink Services and its customers.”

That’s pretty ominous given the current disputes between SpaceX and Dish. SpaceX says Dish’s plans for 5G over 12GHz “would render Starlink unusable”. Dish says SpaceX is lying.

COVID. The word is also gradually being forgotten. Those of governments and, by ripple effect, ours too. However, according to many experts, the reality is far apart. The pandemic is persistent and ongoing.

With its increasingly contagious variants. his dead. Its recurring increase in hospitalizations. Its reinfections multiply, leaving serious physical or neurological consequences in more and more people.

If the pandemic continues, it will also be because in the West most policy and health policy makers have limited themselves to minimal services for the past few months.

Get out of the precautionary principle. They lift the hygiene measures. So that so-called normal life and the economy can resume. Even if this normality is only apparent.

Minimal service

Minimal service also means talking less and less about the pandemic.

Except briefly when another wave shows up.

Like Health Minister Christian Dubé and Dr. Luc Boileau, National Director of Public Health, yesterday in their first joint press conference since February.

In the West, minimal service is simply advising people to be careful. Wearing the mask if they “personally” feel it is necessary. Good luck to the weakest.

We suggest that they wear a mask and do not go to restaurants, cinemas, etc.

In short, to put yourself under a glass bell because hygiene measures are no longer mandatory for everyone.

The minimum benefit is to offer those infected with COVID the opportunity to isolate themselves for a few days without financially supporting less well-off workers.

It is proposed to receive another dose of vaccine based on a ‘decision tree’.

The situation is “under control for the time being”. However, the emergencies are overcrowded.

operations are cancelled. Thousands of healthcare workers are missing because they are contaminated in the same community where sanitation is no longer in place. Not to mention the importance of ventilation, which nobody talks about.

Responsible and supportive

After all, the minimum service is to congratulate Western policymakers on making the same mistakes in unison. Not surprisingly, their own fatigue fuels ours and vice versa.

As soon as we lifted the mask requirement in transport and closed public places, almost all people removed them immediately. How can you blame them for doing what they have the right to do? Non-binding, only a tiny minority wears it.

While this simple measure is not infallible, it has been shown, along with others, to help slow the spread of COVID. In the West, on the other hand, decision-makers judged that voters no longer wanted it. This is where the anti-mask movements have had a following.

However, we cannot imagine that the same governments would abolish seat belts because they restrict our “freedom”.

They don’t do it because it saves a lot of lives.

Given COVID, the same logic should still apply to known measures.

Policymakers are urging us to learn to ‘live with COVID’. So why abandon measures that are not only simple, but would allow it to be done in a more responsible and consistent way?

Rogers’ mobile and internet network collapsed in several regions of Canada, most notably Quebec, on Friday morning.

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If the company hadn’t communicated on the matter by morning, a website monitoring telecom services revealed multiple glitches, particularly in the Montreal area.

According to the same tool, Rogers has been having problems since 2am.

Toronto has also been affected by this service cut, so much so that the city’s police force reported on Twitter that some people connected to this network were unable to reach 911 around 6:30 a.m. Friday morning.

Elon Musk may be preparing for the next chapter in his Twitter takeover journey: court.

A $44 billion deal was struck between Mr. Musk and Twitter in April, and the two sides have been working to finalize the deal ever since. Mr. Musk asked for information on how many Twitter accounts are bots, and Twitter has granted Mr. Musk access to his “fire department,” or tweet stream. It has continued to share additional information with him.

On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that the deal was in jeopardy and that Mr Musk’s team “are expected to take potentially drastic action.” The article’s claims, which the DealBook newsletter could not confirm, surprised Twitter and its advisors, who did not see the deal as in jeopardy at any point in recent months.

Mr Musk did not respond to a request for comment. Twitter reiterated its intention to “complete the transaction and enforce the merger agreement at the agreed price and terms.”

There are many “drastic” actions Mr. Musk could take, but as far as the deal goes, there are two clear options: He could send a letter to Twitter saying he’s ending the deal, and he could Twitter Sue. These two actions would most likely, but not necessarily, occur simultaneously.

There is no clear reason for Mr. Musk to try to break the deal as Twitter has publicly stated that about 5 percent of its users are bots since it went public. But he might try to claim that this disclosure is intentionally misleading, a very high bar that must be legally met.

In that case, Twitter might counter. Twitter firmly believes the deal contract is on its side and that it would be an uphill battle for Mr. Musk. The deal has a “specific performance clause” that gives the company the right to sue him and force him to complete the deal as long as the debt financing he’s cooped up remains intact. And even if that 5 percent estimate is off, Twitter warns in its regulatory filings that the figure is an estimate and that it “could be higher than what we currently estimate.” The bar for using this as a reason for exiting a deal is high.

A case could be tried in Delaware, where Twitter is registered. Given the size of the deal, Twitter would almost certainly aim for an accelerated fall. One possible judge is Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick, who is also overseeing the Orlando Police Pension Fund’s lawsuit over the deal.

It’s about a lot. The most valuable part of Twitter right now is the acquisition agreement with Mr. Musk. Shares are down about 24 percent since April and are trading well below the price agreed with Mr. Musk. Twitter shares fell 4 percent in premarket trading on Friday.

Twitter sees pressure on its advertising business, has frozen hiring and laid off some employees. Accepting less than the price originally negotiated with Mr. Musk could put Twitter out of shareholder lawsuits. So while litigation can be costly, losing the deal can be even worse.