** Thomas Matthew Crooks was one of several students who appeared in the background of the 2022 ad and was unpaid, BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, said in a statement.tthew Crooks, the 20-year-old gunman who shot and injured former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally, briefly appeared in an advertisement for BlackRock Inc., the company said on Sunday.
** Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen dismissed any notions of sticker shock in U.S. grocery stores — despite prices soaring by 25% in over four years. “Have you been to the grocery store lately?” Yahoo Finance senior reporter Jennifer Schonberger asked the Treasury Secretary during an interview in June.
** A portion of $1.7 billion in newly announced federal electric vehicle manufacturing funding includes $334 million to reopen a Stellantis plant in Illinois to produce EVs and parts. (CBS Chicago)
** U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm says a key driver behind the $1.7 billion is to reshore auto manufacturing jobs and help the U.S. better compete with China.
** The cost to ship a standard 40-foot container of toys, auto parts or other goods from Shanghai to New York has jumped to nearly $10,000, fueling frustration among importers and prompting some experts to say the market is in a bubble. The Drewry World Container Index’s spot rate for such a shipment hit $9,387 on July 11.
** The California High-Speed Rail Authority just received environmental approval to connect downtown Los Angeles to the Bay Area with a bullet train capable of reaching speeds of up to 200 miles per hour, KTLA5 reported.
** North Dakota officials are monitoring an 84,000-gallon oil spill that leaked from a storage tank late last week.
World
** First, Europe that was socked in by record levels of dust from the Sahara Desert in Africa. The Atlantic appears to have now taken the lead, with dust levels not seen in years across parts of the basin. Satellite measurements indicate intensive plumes of dust, called the Saharan Air Layer, across much of the eastern Atlantic. Traces of dust have even made the more than 4,000-mile journey to Florida and the Gulf Coast.
** Vietnamese electric vehicle (EV) maker VinFast is delaying the launch of its planned $4 billion factory in North Carolina to 2028 and cutting its delivery forecast for this year by 20,000 units amid uncertainties in the global EV market.
