FLORHAM PARK, NJ – Nathaniel Hackett walked into the Jets team auditorium and took one of the first seats he could find in the front row. He looked at the stage in front of him, lined with bushes, a lectern and a table with three microphones. Upstairs, there was a projector showing Aaron Rodgers’ career highlights, some of his best throws during his long tenure with the Packers.

Hackett shook his head and smiled. Minutes later, Rodgers walked into the room, coach Robert Saleh and general manager Joe Douglas sang “Something Just Like This” as Coldplay and the Chainsmokers played over the speakers.

Chorus: I want something like this.

The Jets dreamed of doing for them what Rodgers did for the Packers. They wanted matter, for the first time ever. That’s what Rodgers wants. When he walked through the main lobby of the Jets facility for the first time Wednesday, two days after the Packers agreed to trade him, he noticed a shiny object sitting alone on a trophy from Super Bowl III. The last time the Jets won it all was in 1969. Most of the last 54 years have been struggling to reach that standard, to reach relevance.

Wednesday was the first step back in that direction. The Jets dreamed big — and their dreams came true.

“That Super Bowl III trophy is a little lonely,” Rodgers said with a smile, playing Jets polo.

After his news conference, Rodgers wore a Jets jersey, no. 8, kept his name behind.

Yes, this is true.

“I love daydreams and nightmares,” Rodgers told reporters after his news conference. “It’s fun to take your mind to that place. That’s what I’m here for. I’m not here to have a hiatus and a normal season. I want the whole thing. There are some iconic owners in the league, a lot of great owners, but only a few are iconic. This is one of them. It’s because of players like Joe Willie Namath. … It’s time to get this team back to where it should be, which is competing for championships.

Rodgers was a spiritual person. He believes in following where the wind blows. He lets the universe tell him what to do, where to go, and how to be. He went on a four-day dark retreat earlier this year, cut off from the world and 90 percent sure he wanted to retire with the Bakers after 18 years. When he realized that Green Bay no longer wanted him, his mind wandered. How about wearing another uniform? The Jets hired Hackett, his close friend and former Packers coach, as offensive coordinator, which impressed him. Later, Saleh, Hackett, Douglas and owner Woody Johnson flew to California to meet with Rodgers. They talked for five hours, and then Rodgers clarified.

This is what he wanted – the New York Jets. Imagine that.

“Everything fell into place, and it was the Jets, and only the Jets, for me,” Rodgers said. “At that moment, I felt like this was where I was meant to be. I was really trying to listen to the signs and synchronicities that the universe was putting in our faces every day, and this was the direction everything was pointing in. There are a lot of reasons for that, but it’s exciting that it’s actually a reality now.”

In between, there was a negotiation that dragged on for longer than either side — the Packers or the Jets — expected, with a trade never completed more than a month after Rodgers publicly announced his desire to play for the Jets. No one on either side — Rodgers or the Jets — has wavered on a plan to acquire him. It never was No is going to happen.

“It was clear where we were going and what we needed to do, and we did it,” Johnson said.

Even when rumors of the 49ers’ involvement began to circulate, Saleh said he never feared it would fall through. When Rodgers first walked through the Jets’ doors, Saleh stopped himHe smiled as if he had won the lottery.

“When I saw him walk through the building, I was like: Wow, he’s here,” Saleh said, then pointed out how far the Jets have come since he was hired in January 2021.

“Two years ago if someone had asked if Aaron Rodgers could be your quarterback, I would have laughed in their face,” Saleh said. “We’ve come a long way. Now it’s up to us what we do with it.

Rodgers quickly made himself comfortable, entering a crowd and “walking barefoot,” Saleh said. Rodgers intends to participate in voluntary offseason workouts in the coming days and weeks, a sure sign that he is committed to his new team.

Maybe not just this year, as many have speculated. And the door is open.

“I think so, I really do,” Rodgers said. “They’ve definitely left some choices for me to be here, so it’s nothing in my mind. It’s a commitment. But it only starts this season. I want to be in the present, not talking about future things.

That would affect the cap in both 2023 and 2024 — another sign he might stick around.

The offense is built around his image – a true collaboration between Rodgers and Hackett. Rodgers called Hackett “one of my favorite offensive people”. And Hackett said, “We’re already close and we talk about football all the time … there’s a lot about the game that we love and we look at it through the same lens.”

Rodgers will have his fingerprints on the Jets’ new offense, what they do and how they perform. He jealously guards Zach Wilson and plans to take him under his wing. He’ll make sure the wide receivers and tight ends and running backs do what they do. Rodgers, he insists, isn’t just here to cash a paycheck and retire.

“He’s a player and he’s really a coach,” Johnson said. “He knows what he wants.”

Rodgers is all-in.

“I want to let the guys know what the offense, the locker room and the expectations are going to be,” Rodgers said. “It’s time we all set the right expectations about this team. Like I said last year after we played (the Jets): They’re not the ‘same old Jets.’

“This is a team that has a legitimate chance to do something great this year. Therefore, let us express our words with the desire of our hearts and the power to see each other. I’ll start doing that this week. I believe we have something special and now we all have to believe it. This is the first step to achieving your goals – you must first believe deeply in what you are doing and believe in the possibility.

Possibilities. Rodgers was excited about the opportunity, his first in the NFL outside of Wisconsin. He grew up in a small town in Northern California and lived in Green Bay for 18 years, wondering what it would be like to live in a big city. He recalls moving to Berkeley, Calif., for college in 2003, living in a dirty frat house. Even then, he had a sense of “a new chapter, a new adventure”. “Like the deep sigh you take when all is right with the world, adventure and travel are so unknown and mysterious. That’s the beauty in life because you never know what’s going to happen in the future.”

After arriving at his hotel in New Jersey on Tuesday night, he undressed, lay down and tried to sleep, distracted by “how special this new opportunity is, to enjoy it.”

If Rodgers could bottle what he felt, he would. Before he left the news conference room, he recited a line from his favorite show, “The Office.”

I wish they told you that you were in the good old days before you actually left them.

“There’s a lot of wisdom to it and enjoying how special this moment is today and what this journey is going to be like,” Rodgers said.

The Jets feel it too.

(Photo: Elsa/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, April 26 (Reuters) – Grammy Award-winning rapper Prakasrel “Brass” Michael pleaded guilty on Wednesday to criminal charges for conspiring with a Malaysian financier to orchestrate a series of foreign lobbying campaigns aimed at influencing the country. US government under two presidents.

His conviction in federal court in Washington followed a trial filled with political intrigue that featured high-profile witnesses including Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio and former US Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Michael faced cross-examination by attorneys while testifying in his own defense.

Michael was charged with 10 counts, including conspiracy, acting as an agent of a foreign government, witness tampering and falsifying campaign finance records. Prosecutors accused him of conspiring with Malaysian businessman Joe Low to influence the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

Low, who faces separate federal charges in New York for embezzling $4.5 billion from Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign wealth fund, remains at large.

Michael’s attorney, David Kenner, told reporters outside court that he was “very disappointed” by the verdict, but hoped the charges could be dismissed by a judge.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Koller-Cotelli set a July deadline for both sides to file briefs on several post-trial motions, including a request for an extended release.

“This case is far from over and I am very confident that we will ultimately prevail,” he added.

The Fugees won two Grammy Awards in 1996 for their best-selling album, “The Score.” But by 2012, according to prosecutors, Michael was in desperate need of cash and found a solution through Lowe, who was known to throw elaborate parties and pay big bucks to celebrities.

Prosecutors said Michael agreed to pay about $2 million from Lowe’s to Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign in exchange for receiving millions of dollars. Prosecutors said Michael hid the source of the funds because federal election law prohibits foreigners from donating to U.S. campaigns.

Michael is accused of trying to convince the Trump-era Justice Department to drop civil and criminal investigations into the 1MDB scandal, and of trying to persuade the US government on China’s behalf to extradite Chinese billionaire and dissident Guo Wengui.

On the witness stand, Michael said a small sum of $20 million over nine months in 2012 helped Lowe take photos with Obama. Michael admitted that he used some of the money to pay three of his friends to attend two political fundraisers for the Obama campaign in 2012, but denied doing so at Lowe’s direction.

“Once he gave me the money, it was my choice how I spent the money because it was my money,” Michael told the jury, describing the payment as “free money.”

As to whether he failed to register as a foreign agent, Michael told jurors that his attorney, George Hickenbotham, never told him that was required by law. Michael also said he passed on information to the FBI about China’s desire to extradite Guo amid China’s concerns that Guo was “a criminal rapist.”

Hickenbotham, who pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme, told jurors that he met with the Chinese ambassador in Washington at Michael’s insistence to assure the Chinese that the Trump administration was involved in Guo’s extradition.

Guo, who was never extradited, was indicted in New York on unrelated fraud charges.

Sarah N. The Lynch Report; Editing by Toina Chiaku

Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

It took less than 24 hours for the Los Angeles Clippers to exit the playoffs. Star forward Kawhi Leonard reportedly suffered a torn meniscus in his right knee, according to Shams Sarania of The Athletic.

Leonard’s injury was discovered before Game 3 and caused him to miss the final three games of the Clippers’ playoff series against the Phoenix Suns. The Clippers lost the series in five games.

Leonard put up strong numbers in the first two games of the series, scoring 38 points in a Game 1 win and 31 points in a Game 2 loss.

It’s unclear how long Leonard, 31, will be sidelined with the injury.

Kawhi Leonard has a history of problems with his right knee

Leonard’s right knee has given him problems many times in his career. In 2021, Leonard tore his ACL in the same knee. He will miss the entire 2021-22 NBA season while recovering from the injury.

Prior to that, Leonard was diagnosed with right quadriceps tendinopathy while a member of the San Antonio Spurs. The injury limited Leonard to nine games in the 2017-18 NBA season.

Despite his injuries, Leonard is a great player when healthy. In the three seasons following his tendinopathy diagnosis, Leonard averaged 26.2 points per game and made the All-Star team each year. He has looked strong in his return from an ACL injury this season, averaging 23.8 points and 6.5 rebounds per game.

TOKYO, April 25 (Reuters) – Japanese startup ISpace Inc ( 9348.T ) said the first private moon landing attempt failed after its Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) lost contact with the lander. On the lunar surface.

“We lost communications, so we have to assume that we were unable to complete the landing on the lunar surface,” founder and chief executive Takeshi Hakamada said in a company live stream.

It was the second setback for the private space developer in a week, after SpaceX’s Starship rocket spectacularly exploded minutes after liftoff from its launch pad.

A private company has yet to succeed in landing on the moon. The United States, the former Soviet Union and China are the only countries to have soft-landed spacecraft on the moon, with attempts by India and a private Israeli company in recent years failing.

Shares in IceSpace, which delivers payloads such as rovers to the moon and sells related data, were not trading Wednesday morning, but were indicated to fall by their daily range. The stock debuted on the Tokyo Stock Exchange two weeks ago and has since doubled in value.

Hirokazu Matsuno, Japan’s top government spokesman, said that even if the mission did not materialize, the country wanted space to “continue” because its efforts were significant for the development of the domestic space industry.

Japan, which has set a goal of sending Japanese astronauts to the moon by the late 2020s, has experienced some setbacks recently. The National Space Agency had to destroy its new medium-lift H3 rocket after it reached space last month after its second stage engine failed to ignite. Its solid-fuel Epsilon rocket also failed after launch in October.

Brakes on a ski slope

Four months after launching on a SpaceX rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the M1 lander appeared to touch down autonomously at 12:40 p.m. ET (1640 GMT Tuesday), an animation based on live telemetry data as close as 90 meters (295 feet) from the lunar surface.

By the time of the expected touchdown, mission control had lost contact with the lander and engineers were anxiously watching the live stream as they waited for signal confirmation of its fate that never came.

“Our engineers will continue to investigate the situation,” Hagamada said. “At this point, all I can tell you is that we’re very proud of the many things we’ve already accomplished during this Mission 1.”

The lander completed eight of the 10 mission objectives in space, which will provide valuable data for the next landing attempt in 2024.

About an hour before scheduled touchdown, the 2.3-meter-tall M1 began its descent phase, gradually tightening its orbit from 100 km (62 mi) to about 25 km above the surface, traveling at nearly 6,000 km/hour (3,700 mph). )

At such speeds, decelerating the lander to the right speed against the moon’s gravity is like applying the brakes on a bicycle at the edge of a ski-jumping slope, said Chief Technology Officer Ryo Ujie.

It would have used a two-wheeled, baseball-sized rover made by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Tomei Co Ltd ( 7867.T ) and aimed at a landing site on the edge of Mare Frigoris in the moon’s northern hemisphere. Sony Group Corp (6758.T). It also planned to send a four-wheeled rover called Rashid from the United Arab Emirates.

The lander carried an experimental solid-state battery made by Niterra Co Ltd ( 5334.T ) among other devices to evaluate their performance on the moon.

The work was insured by Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co, a unit of MS&AD Insurance Group ( 8725.T ), and Ispace said it may receive some indemnification.

Report by Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Sang-Ron Kim and Stephen Coates

Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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‘Confidential Treaty’

(CNN) Western diplomats lashed out Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Without the prompting of his country Attack on Ukraine During a face-to-face meeting held by Moscow’s top diplomat United Nations Security Council on Monday.

Lavrov took charge of the meeting, which was titled “Maintaining International Peace and Security,” as Russia currently holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council. Russia last chaired the Security Council in February 2022, when it launched its invasion of Ukraine.

The UN ambassadors to the US, UK and Switzerland all used their speeches at the meeting to condemn Russia’s invasion. The three women — Linda Thomas-Greenfield of the United States, Barbara Woodward of Britain and Pascale Bariswill of Switzerland — have all voiced strong, direct criticism of Russia and Lavrov, at times pointing directly at Russia’s top diplomats.

“Today our hypocritical inviter, Russia, invaded its neighbor Ukraine and struck at the very heart of the UN Charter. This illegal, unprovoked and unnecessary war is in direct opposition to our most shared principles of aggression and territorial aggression. It will never be acceptable,” said Thomas-Greenfield. .

“As we sit here, that aggression continues. As we sit here, Russian forces are killing and injuring civilians. As we sit here, Russian forces are destroying critical infrastructure in Ukraine. As we sit here, the next Bucha, “The next Mariupol, the next Kherson, the next war crime, the next atrocity,” he added.

Speaking at the opening of the meeting, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned Russia’s actions.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in violation of the United Nations Charter and international law, is causing massive suffering and devastation to the country and its people and adding to the global economic displacement triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said. Next to Lavrov.

Russian diplomats have been largely cut off from various international conferences since Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. However, the leadership of the UN’s most powerful body, the Security Council, rotates alphabetically among its 15 member states. China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States have five permanent seats on the Council. The remaining 10 members are elected by the UN General Assembly for two-year terms.

Russia assumed the presidency on April 1, an event many diplomats described as an “April Fool’s joke.”

They attended the meeting held on Monday Elizabeth Whelan, His brother Paul Whelan has been detained in Russia for more than four years. The US believes Whelan was wrongly detained. The U.S. government was unable to secure Whelan’s release last year when it brought home two other Americans the U.S. said were wrongfully detained in Russia — Trevor Reed in April and Brittney Griner in December.

EU countries issued a joint statement ahead of the meeting, condemning Russia’s actions in Ukraine and criticizing Lavrov’s appearance at the meeting.

“Russia is trying to portray itself as a defender of the UN Charter and multilateralism. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is cynical,” said Olaf Skoog, EU representative to the UN. “We all know that when Russia destroys, we build. When they violate, we defend.”

In his opening remarks, Lavrov made unsubstantiated accusations against Ukraine and its Western allies, blaming the conflict on them.

“As during the Cold War, we have reached a dangerous, perhaps even more dangerous threshold,” Lavrov said, charging that “the United States and its allies” must “abandon diplomacy and clarify relations on the battlefield.”

Lavrov has repeatedly described the Ukrainian government as “monarchists” and the “Nazi Kiev regime”, which Russia has repeatedly claimed to justify its illegal occupation. Lavrov criticized the West for not recognizing the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea as Russian territory “despite the fact that a referendum was held there”.

Russia forcibly annexed Crimea in 2014 by holding a fake referendum. Ukraine and its Western allies consider Ukrainian territory occupied territory. The UN overwhelmingly rejected the referendum as illegitimate and the annexation illegal.

First Republic (ticker: FRC ) said it had $104.5 billion in deposits at the end of the first quarter, including $30 billion in deposits it received from major U.S. banks last month as First Republic’s lifeline. According to a company press release.

“If you subtract the $30 billion they got from those big banks they probably lost $100 billion in deposits,” said Morningstar analyst Eric Compton. It’s huge. “

The bank’s chief financial officer, Neil Holland, said the deposit outflow was “unprecedented”.

The company said layoffs have slowed and is taking steps to right the ship, including “significant reductions” in executive compensation, reductions in corporate office space and layoffs. The First Republic expects to reduce its workforce by approximately 20-25% in the Second.
Leg.

It’s a surprising turnaround in fortunes for First Republic, a regional bank that found success by focusing on providing private banking and wealth management services to wealthy clients in coastal urban areas.

Things changed in March following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which sent regional bank stocks into a tailspin and prompted customers at other banks to pull deposits. Morningstar’s Compton said the First Republic was an innocent bystander. Nevertheless, it is mired in crisis, and its stock is far from recovered. As of Monday’s close, the stock is down 87% so far this year.

Its shares rose 12% to close at $16 during the regular session on Monday before the bank reported results, but they slumped in after-hours trading and were recently down 18%.

On Monday, First Republic reported diluted earnings per share of $1.23, down 38.5%. According to FactSet, analysts were expecting EPS of $0.95.

The San Francisco-based bank had $176.4 billion in total deposits at the end of the fourth quarter, making it the 12th largest bank in the U.S. at the time, according to the company’s annual report.

But a tough first quarter took its toll. First Republic ended the quarter with net income of $269 million, down 33% year over year. Total revenue was $1.2 billion, down 13.4%.

Morningstar’s Compton reports that banks will struggle to turn a profit in the second quarter. “I don’t see how they are profitable in Q2.”

First Republic says the lifeline it received from major US banks helped it weather the storm.

When the deposit outflow is in hand, you can access other sources of liquidity, such as First Republic Federal Home Loan Bank loans. But this is an expensive solution. Short-term borrowings from the Federal Reserve Bank, securities sold under repurchase agreements and short-term and long-term FHLB advances totaled $106 billion, the bank said. First Republic said it has access to more liquidity, including $13.2 billion worth of cash and cash equivalents.

Total loans rose to $138.1 billion on March 15, according to the bank. Total deposits as of April 21 were $102.7 billion, down 1.7% from the end of the first quarter.

However, the company’s total interest expense rose from $525 million in the fourth quarter to $974 million at the end of the first quarter. As a result, net interest income decreased 19.4% to $923 million.

Speaking during the company’s earnings call, CEO Mike Roeffler said the bank’s deposit base has stabilized and First Republic will focus on rebuilding it. “Going forward, uninsured deposits will remain a much smaller portion of total deposits than in the past,” he said.

The company has taken other steps to boost its business. For example, in March, CEO James H. Top executives, including Herbert, II, elected to have their annual bonuses reduced to zero through 2023. Herbert also elected to waive his salary as acting chairman effective March 12.

On April 6, the Board of Directors of the First Republic Suspended Payment of quarterly cash dividend on bank preference shares “as a measure of prudential supervision” Regulatory filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

How much these moves help remains to be seen. “How do you find growth when you cut 20-25% of the workforce?” said Morningstar’s Compton. “It’s a very bad situation.”

First Republic’s earnings call lasted about 12 minutes, and the bank’s executives did not take questions from analysts.

First-quarter earnings for other regional banks have been a mixed bag so far. For example, Zions Bancorp (ZION) missed quarterly earnings estimates. The SPDR S&P Regional Bank ETF (KRE) is down 25% so far this year.

Of course, the depository of the First Republic was not the only one under pressure. The regional bank has seen advisers leave its wealth management division since the crisis erupted. In recent weeks, First Republic has decommissioned more than a dozen groups or individual consultants to other firms.

An advisory group that oversaw $13 billion in assets left on Monday Left to join Cresset Asset ManagementA private wealth management firm based in Chicago.

The full impact of the adviser’s departure was not shown in Monday’s earnings report. Wealth management assets totaled $289.5 billion at the end of the first quarter, an increase of 5.6% year-over-year, First Republic said. Roeffler said on the earnings call that the exiting advisor groups represent less than 20% of total assets, and First Republic expects the advisors to retain a portion of the money they manage.

“We retain almost 90% of our wealth management professionals,” Roeffler said.

Employee retention will be a key figure to look forward to.

“If things don’t go well, do you start losing private bankers or wealth managers?” Compton said. “It seems like it’s already started happening, I don’t know how you solve it.”

Write to Andrew Welsch at [email protected]

People in at least 30 states, including Illinois, were able to catch a glimpse of the northern lights Sunday night, and Monday brings another chance to see them.

According to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, a “full halo” CME — a large ejection of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun’s corona — occurred Friday, which could cause a “small” to “moderate” geomagnetic storm Sunday. and Monday.

As a result, dancing waves of light, also known as the aurora borealis, appeared across the United States on Sunday night. Those opportunities could extend into Monday night, according to NOAA officials.

SYDNEY, April 24 (Reuters) – Asian shares were mostly lower on Monday after a week packed with economic data and central bank meetings, with earnings from technology companies underperforming the S&P 500 so far this year.

Market action was muted after Friday’s surprisingly strong survey of business activity strengthened the case for higher interest rates.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) fell 0.4%, while Japan’s Nikkei (.N225) rose 0.2%. Chinese blue chips (.CSI300) fell 0.4%.

In Australia, mining stocks ( .AXJO ) saw some weakness as Chile moved to increase state control over its lithium industry, which has the world’s largest reserves of the battery metal.

Both EUROSTOXX 50 futures and FTSE futures were little changed. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures were down 0.3% ahead of a busy week of earnings.

Apple Inc ( AAPL.O ) and Microsoft Corp ( MSFT.O ) alone accounted for half of the S&P 500’s gains through March, so there is more riding on their outlook.

Despite the recent noise in the market, we believe Microsoft, Amazon and Google should deliver cloud results that meet Street1Q expectations this week,” analysts at Wedbush Securities said.

“We believe the key narrative of the tech earnings season will be the AI ​​arms race, with each big tech player updating investors on their own AI ambitions/monetization strategy, as Redmond battles Google and other tech giants for the AI ​​trophy.”

The U.S. House of Representatives could vote this week on a Republican plan to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for spending cuts. Weak tax receipts mean the government will run out of money earlier than expected.

Data on US wages and economic growth due this week will strengthen the case for further tightening. The Atlanta Fed’s influential GDP Now tracker showed the U.S. economy grew at an annualized rate of 2.5% in the first quarter, down just a shade from the previous quarter.

Boj gets a new boss

Markets are pricing in an 86% chance the Federal Reserve will raise rates by a quarter point at its meeting in the first week of May, and fully expect a similar hike from the European Central Bank. ,

Central banks in Canada and Sweden meet this week, but most of the focus will be on the first meeting chaired by the Bank of Japan’s new governor, Kazuo Ueda.

Ueda said on Monday that policy easing should continue as inflation is still below 2% on a trend basis.

Only three of 27 economists polled by Reuters expect the BOJ to start scaling back its yield curve control (YCC) policy soon, but there are reports that the central bank is considering conducting a comprehensive review of the impact of its easing.

“The media backdrop suggests the YCC should not expect changes, but the writing is on the wall and the risk could be a more substantial change at the next meeting,” said Tabas Strickland, NAB’s head of market economics.

By contrast, the head of Belgium’s central bank warned in an FT article on Monday that investors are underestimating how much eurozone borrowing costs will rise.

The divergence in policy between Japan and other developed countries has seen the yen weaken steadily over the past few weeks, especially as the euro hit six-month highs.

The single currency traded at 147.56 yen against the dollar on Monday at 134.35.

The euro held at $1.0980, off its recent one-year high of $1.1075.

A higher dollar and bond yields weighed on gold, which fell 1.2% last week to $1,979 an ounce.

Chicago wheat rose nearly 1% after Russia threatened to scrap a grain deal allowing Ukrainian exports.

Oil prices also fell last week, although planned production cuts from OPEC provided some support.

Brent was down 66 cents at $81.00 a barrel on Monday, while U.S. crude was down 67 cents at $77.20 a barrel.

Report by Wayne Cole; Editing by Christopher Cushing

Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.