* EU leaders offer Ukraine and Moldova candidate member status
* Recession risks for US and Europe have picked up sharply, warn economists
* China and India become Russia’s financiers to evade sanctions
* Copper, an economic bellwether, falls to 16-month low
* KC Fed Mfg Index shows further growth slowdown in June
* A $100 million crypto hack reported by Horizon, a so-called blockchain bridge
* US Energy Secretary asks oil firms to combat high gasoline prices
* US economic growth slows sharply in June via PMI survey data:

Fed Chair Jerome Powell asks a critical inflation/disinflation question. It’s going to take time for the answer. “The disinflationary forces of the last quarter-century have been replaced, at least temporarily, by a whole different set of forces,” he says in yesterday’s House testimony. “The real question is: How long will this new set of forces be sustained? We can’t know that. But in the meantime, our job is to find maximum employment and price stability in this new economy.”

Russia’s slow squeeze on Europe’s gas supplies conitinues. “I don’t think they are going to cut the gas overnight, especially as we are going into the summer and during the summer the gas is not a strategic weapon. But the winter could be difficult and we have to be prepared in Europe,” says Josep Borrel, EU’s top diplomat. “I don’t think they are going to cut the gas overnight, especially as we are going into the summer and during the summer the gas is not a strategic weapon. But the winter could be difficult and we have to be prepared in Europe.”