| Finland and Sweden get green light for NATO membership. Donald Trump's violent outbursts revealed. Asia stocks set to fall. Here's what you need to know today. Finland and Sweden took a major step on their way to NATO membership after Turkey dropped its opposition to their bids, all but ensuring the military alliance's expansion on Russia's doorstep. The move "sends a very clear message to President Putin that NATO's door is open," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. Turkey agreed to support inviting the two Nordic countries into the military alliance, after receiving pledges from them addressing security concerns. Read more here on how the expansion shores up the alliance's weakest flank. The news came after Russia defaulted on foreign debt for the first time since 1918 and as Russian President Vladimir Putin embarked on his first foreign trip since the invasion of Ukraine began. A former White House aide offered a vivid portrait of a violent, out-of-control Donald Trump in his presidency's final weeks. Cassidy Hutchinson, then an assistant to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, gave the most gripping testimony yet in a House committee's hearings on the Capitol riot. She told how Trump grabbed a steering wheel and lunged at a Secret Service agent when he wasn't permitted to travel to the Capitol to join the insurrectionist mob on January 6, 2021; suggested he agreed with rioters' cries to hang Mike Pence; and smashed dishes against a wall when his attorney general wouldn't back election-fraud claims. Get the full story here.  | A rout in big tech weighed heavily on stocks, with gains in the broader market sputtering and Asia facing losses Wednesday, as a report showed Americans growing more downbeat about prospects for the economy. Those concerns overshadowed China's surprise move Tuesday to reduce quarantine times for inbound travelers, which had lifted markets on hopes of a shift away from a strategy of stamping out Covid. Meanwhile Federal Reserve officials played down the risk that the US economy will tip into recession, even as they raise interest rates with another 75 basis-point hike on the table next month. Singapore is forging ahead with a $40 billion project to build the world's biggest automated port by 2040 — one that will double existing space and feature drones and driverless vehicles. The city-state started operations at two new berths last year, and construction work is continuing on the next phase. The plan, set in place long before the onset of supply-chain upheaval, offers a strategy for easing global congestion.  Tuas Port Phase One with automated guided vehicles in operation. In Tokyo's financial circles, the trade is known as the widow-maker. And while it has done nothing but saddle young, cocksure investors from London to New York with crippling losses over the past two decades — ergo the name — they're lining up once again to take a shot. The bet is simple: that the Bank of Japan, under growing pressure to stabilize the yen as it sinks to a 24-year low, will have to abandon its 0.25% cap on benchmark bond yields and let them soar, just as officials already have in the US, Canada, Europe and across much of the developing world. The stakes are high for financial markets around the world. Equities sagged overnight on Wall Street but they are still noticeably above their recent nadir. While there is some chatter that inflation may be peaking, it seems more likely that investors in risk assets are responding more directly to the peak in expectations for Federal Reserve interest-rate increases. After this month's 75-basis-point hike from the US central bank — and the ensuing tumble for yields and stocks — swaps traders dramatically downgraded their expectations for the pace and scope of further tightening. Forward OIS contracts now show traders expect the Fed's target rate to peak at about 3.5% in six months' time — a far cry from the 4.61% peak seen occurring a year forward just two weeks ago. That's still plenty tighter than conditions now, but investors may be hoping that light ahead is the end of the tunnel. Garfield Reynolds is Chief Rates Correspondent for Bloomberg News in Asia, based in Sydney. | 
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