- Greece is delaying the payment of a tranche of its debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that was due on Friday, and the government plans to pay all the four June tranches in a single, 1.6 billion euros ($1.8 billion) payment which is now due on June 30. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande spoke late on Thursday evening via conference call, according to a Greek government official, in a sign that all parties are intensifying their efforts to reach an agreement and unblock the funds from Greece's bailout.
- Vodafone (VOD) has confirmed it was in talks with Liberty Global (LBTYA) to exchange some of their businesses in Europe but said this did not amount to a merger and that the two companies were not discussing a merger, the Financial Times reports.
- U.S. officials suspect hackers based in China of stealing the details of as much as four million people in one of the most far-reaching breaches of government computers, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing the breach, detected in April at the Office of Personnel Management, which essentially functions as the federal government's human resources department.
- Oil prices fell for a third straight day as an OPEC meeting was under way in Vienna. OPEC is largely expected to keep output unchanged for the next six months.
- Inflation expectations in the U.K. increased to 2.2% in May from February's 1.9%, according to a Bank of England survey released on Friday. The pace of hiring in the U.K. slowed in May, data from recruitment agencies show. The rate of expansion sank to a four-month low and the number of vacancies rose at the slowest rate in 2015 so far, according to the survey from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and audit and tax firm KPMG. The British Chamber of Commerce cut its growth forecast for the U.K. economy to 2.3% for this year from a previous forecast of 2.7%.
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