Two wounded in shooting outside mosque in western France

PARIS (Reuters) – Two people were shot and wounded outside a mosque in Brest, western France, on Thursday, police said.

Brest Prosecutor Jean-Philippe Recappe said the gunman opened fire as people left the mosque in the city’s Pontanezen neigbourhood.

It was not immediately clear whether the shooting was religiously motivated, a settling of scores, or motivated by other unknown factors, Recappe told Reuters.

Public broadcaster France 3 reported the gunman was on the run.

Murphy Abandons Push for N.J. Millionaire’s Tax in Next Year’s Budget

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said his proposed millionaire’s tax won’t be part of the budget for fiscal 2020.

Murphy said he will meet the state’s constitutional deadline to pass a budget by July 1.

“Between now and Monday there will not be” a millionaire’s tax enacted, Murphy said. He said, though, that he’ll continue to press for “tax fairness” in the next fiscal year.

“If anything, our megaphone will get louder,” he said.

The governor told reporters he will not shut down the government over his disagreements with fellow Democrats in the legislature over the spending plan.

“Closing state beaches and parks only punishes the innocent,” Murphy said to reporters on Thursday in Secaucus.

Details of the budget he will sign are still to be determined, the governor said.

The spending plan Murphy had initially proposed included a tax on millionaires. The budget sent to him by the legislature omitted that levy.

Two wounded in shooting outside mosque in western France

PARIS (REUTERS) – Two people were shot and wounded outside a mosque in Brest, western France, on Thursday (June 27), police said.

Brest prosecutor Jean-Philippe Recappe said the gunman opened fire as people left the mosque in the city’s Pontanezen neigbourhood.

It was not immediately clear whether the shooting was religiously motivated, a settling of scores, or motivated by other unknown factors, Recappe told Reuters.

Public broadcaster France 3 reported the gunman was on the run.

Bitcoin Almost Wipes Out Its Mega Gain Just as Swiftly as It Came

Bitcoin’s rise was meteoric this week — and its decline has been just as swift.

It’s easy come, easy go in the crypto world, where a frenzy over Bitcoin pushed its price to nearly $14,000 on Wednesday, its highest level since January 2018. The largest digital asset then reversed course in a matter of minutes after a prominent cryptocurrency exchange reported an outage. That’s put the coin’s price back to nearly the same level as just five days ago.

The quick reversal prompted one its biggest proponents, Mike Novogratz, to lament on not having taken enough profits off the table before the coin lost nearly all its gains. Bitcoin dropped as much as 17% on Thursday and was trading around $10,640 as of 1:22 p.m. in New York. Volatility is near the highest levels since early 2018, when the crypto bubble was bursting.

“It seems the crypto market got a bit too hot yesterday and is now cooling down,” wrote Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at trading platform eToro, in a note. “What an incredible market where the price can crash about 15% in less than an hour and bring us back to the highs of the previous trading day.”

White House is considering indexing capital gains to inflation and bypassing Congress: report

The White House is considering a plan to index capital gains to inflation — and do so in a way that bypasses Congress, according to a Bloomberg News report. Such a move would likely draw legal challenges over whether it has such authority. The top 1% would receive 86% of the benefit from such a move, according to a simulation by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, and would cost $102 billion over a decade.

Fed’s Daly says not sure if interest rates need to be cut

San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said Thursday she is not sure the central bank needs to cut its benchmark interest rate in July. "It is too early to know if we should use the tool [interest rates] at all," Daly said. The San Francisco Fed president, who is not a voting member of the Fed’s interest-rate committee this year, said she was watching to see if the slowing data, seen over the past six weeks, "sticks." There is no evidence trade tariffs have slowed the economy or caused inflation to rise, she said. But the tension surrounding trade has caused businesses to become more cautious. "It is the uncertainty that is holding back the economy," she said, in an interview on Bloomberg Television.

CenturyLink shares rally after Wells Fargo upgrades to lead S&P 500 gainers

CenturyLink Inc. shares CTL, +7.33% soared 7% on Thursday to lead S&P 500 gainers, after Wells Fargo upgraded the stock of the communications infrastructure company to outperform from market perform. The company is an interesting moment in its evolution, analysts led by Jennifer Fritzsche wrote in a note to clients. "We believe the messaging and evolution of the org structure at CTL is showing more of the "fiber roots" that came from the Level3 side of the house and will continue to include both dark fiber and wireless in its approach," the analysts wrote. "We view this move positively -and believe it is underappreciated by the Street." They emphasized that the call is not about the company’s second quarter, for which Wells is below consensus on revenue, but rather about the fact that Wall Street is giving CenturyLink no credidt for a back half improvement "which we believe is achievable given the intense fiber centric focus it is now undertaking," said the note. Wells is raising its stock price target to $14 from $12, equal to 28% above current levels. CenturyLink shares have fallen 23% in 2019, underperforming the S&P 500 SPX, +0.44% which has gained 17%.