The daily business briefing: July 8, 2019

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1. Deutsche Bank to cut 18,000 jobs by 2022
2. Stocks under pressure after job gains dampen rate-cut hopes
3. CannTrust shares fall after Canadian regulators find cannabis greenhouse 'non-compliant'
4. Tempe police union 'encouraged' by Starbucks apology for officers' treatment
5. Financier Jeffrey Epstein due in court on sex trafficking charges

published 8 July 2019

1. Deutsche Bank to cut 18,000 jobs by 2022

Deutsche Bank announced Sunday that it planned to cut 18,000 jobs by 2022, about a fifth of its work force. The German bank said the reorganization would include reduced operations in New York and London, with investment banking taking a hard hit. The company is struggling to come back from a series of scandals and management mistakes that have derailed its effort to rival U.S. megabanks such as JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. Chief executive Christian Sewing telegraphed the move at a May shareholder meeting, when he said, "I can assure you: We're prepared to make tough cutbacks." "We are returning to our roots and to what once made us one of the leading banks in the world," Sewing said Sunday in a statement.

U.S. stock futures fell early Monday, extending modest losses that came on Friday after an unexpectedly strong jobs report lowered expectations that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates soon. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 fell by just under 0.3 percent, while those of the Nasdaq dropped by 0.4 percent. On Friday, the Dow and the S&P 500 fell by just under 0.2 percent, and the Nasdaq lost 0.1 percent. The Labor Department reported Friday that the U.S. economy added 224,000 jobs in June, far exceeding expectations of a 165,000-job gain. Traders had been betting the Fed would lower rates in late July to fulfill its promise to "act as appropriate" to keep the record-long economic expansion going, but the strong employment data suggested the economy might not need the boost.

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Shares of cannabis company CannTrust Holdings plunged by 11 percent on Monday after one of the Canada-based business' greenhouses was found to be "non-compliant." Regulators found that the company's Pelham, Ontario, facility violated rules "regarding the growing of cannabis in five unlicensed rooms and inaccurate information provided to the regulator by CannTrust employees," the company said in a statement. Health Canada reportedly put more than 11,000 pounds of dried pot on hold, and the company held another 16,500 pounds on hold. CannTrust said customers and medical-marijuana patients will face temporary product shortages due to the moves.

The Tempe Officers Association said Sunday that it was "encouraged" by Starbucks' apology for a Fourth of July incident in which police officers were asked to leave an Arizona Starbucks. The officers were asked to leave because a customer didn't feel safe with them there. The police union said it anticipated "a welcome dialogue" with the coffee-store chain. "We would like to thank the public for the overwhelming support shown to our officers in the aftermath of this unfortunate incident," Sgt. Rob Ferraro, president of the Tempe Officers Association, said on Sunday. "We are encouraged that Starbucks has reached out to our organization and to the Tempe Police Department to apologize and to further express their support of law enforcement."

Billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein is expected to be formally charged in a Manhattan court on Monday following his arrest over the weekend on charges of sex trafficking of underage girls. Federal agents arrested Epstein, a convicted sex offender, at a New Jersey airport on Saturday evening, and raided his Manhattan home an hour later. The charges, which reportedly allege that Epstein sexually exploited underage girls in his Upper East Side and Palm Beach homes, are expected to be at least partly revealed on Monday. Epstein, 66, served 13 months in a Florida jail under a heavily criticized 2008 plea deal signed by Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, then U.S. attorney in Miami.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.