Here's your midday brief for Tuesday, April 14th. I'm Alex O'Sullough for the Wall Street Journal.

The International Monetary Fund warned in its latest set of forecasts out today that a prolonged war in the Middle East could trigger a deep global downturn similar to the worst recent recessions.

The IMF's chief economist said that if disruptions

continue into next year, world economic growth could fall about 2% for this year. That could force

central banks like the Federal Reserve to choose between fighting high inflation and supporting a fragile

economy. J.P. Morgan Chase today reported higher profit and revenue for the first quarter. Its Wall Street

operations were booming and the U.S. economy was resilient. The nation's largest bank said its profit

came to $16.5 billion, beating analyst expectations. CEO Jamie Diamond said the U.S. economy was

in pretty good shape, but faced risks like high asset prices

and geopolitical tensions. And Amazon is buying satellite operator Global Star, the biggest rival to Elon Musk's

Starlink internet service. It's a $10.8 billion deal. Amazon's satellite connectivity business

is far behind Starlink in getting satellites into orbit. Global Star's stock was up about 10% in midday trading, while Amazon's was up about 3%. Heads up, an artificial intelligence tool helped us make this episode by creating summaries that were based on WSJ reporting and then reviewed and adapted by an editor. We'll have more coverage of the day's

news on the WSJ's What's News podcast. You can add it to your playlist on your smart speaker

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