Good morning. Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan is taking on the world’s biggest technology companies—and losing.

Khan failed Tuesday in her latest effort to block a big-tech deal when a federal judge denied her agency’s bid to block Microsoft from closing its purchase of videogame publisher Activision Blizzard. The FTC suffered a similar setback earlier this year when it tried to thwart Meta Platforms’ purchase of a virtual-reality gaming company.

Khan, who gained prominence as a critic of Amazon.com, entered office in 2021 vowing to stiffen antitrust enforcement. Past enforcers were too cautious about bringing tough cases, she has said, and failed to confront the rise of companies such as Facebook owner Meta that gained monopoly-like power in digital industries, she said.

“I’m certainly not someone who thinks success is marked by a 100% court record,” Khan said last year in remarks at the University of Chicago. “If you just never bring those hard cases, I think there is severe cost to that, that can lead to stagnation and stasis.”

• FTC Chair Lina Khan, Republicans to Face Off Over Twitter Probe

Microsoft’s court win puts U.K. regulator in challenging spot over Activision deal.

The U.K.’s competition regulator said Wednesday that it would need to conduct a fresh investigation into any changes made to Microsoft’s $75 billion Activision acquisition aimed at winning approval for the deal.

Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority didn’t say how long such an investigation would take, but any probe could make it difficult for Microsoft to complete its acquisition of Activision ahead of the companies’ self-imposed July 18 deadline.

The statement from the CMA points to the delicate spot the agency has found itself in after a U.S. federal judge cleared a path for the merger Tuesday. The U.K. authority, which rejected the acquisition in April, is now the only major regulator currently standing in its way.

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted 3-2 Wednesday to change the rules governing money-market funds, which the Federal Reserve had to backstop with emergency lending facilities in 2008 and 2020. Two previous overhauls by the SEC failed to stop investors from fleeing certain funds en masse when markets faced extreme stress.

• Negotiators trying to hammer out a global deal to change how and where large tech companies are taxed failed to reach an agreement this week.
   
• The EU fined Illumina about $476 million for proceeding with its acquisition of cancer-test developer Grail before the bloc’s antitrust watchdog had decided whether to approve the deal.

Record-breaking heat waves set to bake South and Southwest.

A dangerous heat wave was building across Southwestern states this week as millions of people there and in the South brace for record-breaking, and potentially deadly, temperatures.

Southwestern states are preparing for temperatures in the triple digits, joining Texas and Oklahoma which are in the middle of a continuing heat wave, the National Weather Service said. Areas including Arizona, Nevada and Central and Southern California are forecast to be under a heat dome that could trap warmth in the region for up to two weeks.

• NYC to Consider Indoor Air Quality Regulations

• Hours after Russian paramilitary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin began a short-lived march on Moscow, the country’s domestic security service detained several high-ranking military officers, people familiar with the situation said.
   
• Ukraine’s leaders came to Vilnius seeking hard security guarantees, more weapons and a clear road map to membership in NATO. Instead, they got mostly reassuring words and loose pledges to help Kyiv defend itself.
   
• A series of public revelations about alleged Chinese government meddling in Canadian politics has roiled the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
   
• The world’s largest meatpacker, Brazil’s JBS, said it plans to restart its yearslong efforts to list its shares publicly in the U.S.

• U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and senior officials at the State Department were victims of a newly discovered Chinese hacking campaign, American officials said.
   
• FBI Director Christopher Wray strongly defended his workforce Wednesday in testimony before Congress, where he faced hours of combative questioning by Republicans.
   
• Saudi Arabia is set to fall below Russia as the largest oil producer in the OPEC+ alliance as its production cuts begin to bite.
   
• Abortion providers filed a challenge to a newly passed Iowa bill that would ban the procedure after about six weeks of pregnancy, setting up a new legal battle just weeks after the state’s highest court stalemated over a similar law.
   
• Elon Musk has launched his new artificial-intelligence business, xAI, as the tech industry races to develop new AI initiatives.
   
• “Succession,” a drama about a cutthroat media mogul family that this year ended a four-season run on HBO, led nominations for the 75th Emmy Awards with 27 nods.

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