USA Today (July19)
“A doubling of COVID-19 cases in the past two weeks suggests the USA has entered a fourth wave of the pandemic.” Deaths and hospitalization rates may stay lower than previous waves and instead of ravaging “entire communities,” this wave “is likely to target the unvaccinated, including children, and if rates are high enough, the most vulnerable of the vaccinated—the elderly and the immunocompromised.”
Tags: Children, COVID-19, Deaths, Doubling, Elderly, Fourth wave, Hospitalization, Pandemic, Ravaging, U.S., Unvaccinated, Vulnerable
Wall Street Journal (July 19)
“As China’s factory-gate prices soared this year, investors worried the country would become a new source of inflation for the rest of the world. Instead, the world’s second-largest economy has helped alleviate some price pressures caused by the pandemic.” Many Chinese factories have been “absorbing higher costs for raw materials like copper and iron ore themselves.” It appears this will continue “at least for a while.”
Tags: Absorbing, Alleviate, Copper, Factories, https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-china-is-helping-to-damp-global-inflation-11626616802?cx_testId=200&cx_testVariant=cx_10&cx_artPos=5#cxrecs_s China, Inflation, Investors, Pandemic, Price pressures, Prices, Raw materials, Worried
Chicago Tribune (July 19)
“When the race for coronavirus vaccines started, health officials knew the competition between rich and poor countries would be lopsided. But few expected poor countries to be at the mercy of donations from the rich, or that the inequity would be bad for so long. Poor countries have vaccinated 1% of their population, compared with 55% in the U.S. and about 25% globally.”
Tags: Competition, Coronavirus, Donations, Health officials, Inequity, Lopsided, Mercy, Poor, Race, Rich, Vaccines
Financial Times (July 18)
“With just over two months to go until polling day, the devastating floods that swept through western Germany this week have catapulted climate change to the heart of the German election campaign.” Most parties blame global warming “for a catastrophe that has left at least 140 people dead,” but the “dramatic scenes could prove of huge benefit to the Greens, who even before this week were set to make big gains in the September poll.”
Tags: Catastrophe, Climate change, Devastating, Election, Floods, Germany, Global warming, Greens, Parties, Poll, Polling
US News and World Report (July 17)
“Just as the European Union was announcing plans to spend billions of euros to contain climate change, massive clouds gathered over Germany and nearby nations to unleash an unprecedented storm that left death and destruction in its wake.” Both politicians and weather forecasters were left “shocked at the ferocity of the precipitation that caused flash flooding that claimed more than 150 lives.”
Tags: Climate change, Death, Destruction, EU, Euros, Ferocity, Forecasters, Germany, Politicians, Precipitation, Shocked, Storm, Unprecedented, Weather
LA Times (July 16)
“The financial crisis created by the pandemic prompted executives at hundreds of America’s largest publicly traded companies to voluntarily lower their own base salaries. They made a point of announcing these cuts in news releases and earning calls with analysts.” In many cases, this was a gimmick. In one egregious case, Christopher Nassetta, Hilton’s Chief Executive “opted to forgo his entire base salary for the rest of the year,” amid furloughs and job cuts, but his “compensation package more than doubled to $55.9 million in 2020, compared with $21.4 million in 2019.”
Tags: Analysts, Earning calls, Executives, Financial Crisis, Gimmick, Hilton, Nassetta, News releases, Pandemic, Publicly traded, Salaries
Houston Chronicle (July 15)
“The $3.5 trillion budget proposed by top Democrats represents the biggest move yet by President Joe Biden to attack climate change, including provisions such as clean energy standards for power grids, fees on methane emissions from oil and gas drilling, and increased incentives for electric cars.” If enacted, the legislation, “would set in motion a historic shift from fossil fuels and deliver a blow to the oil and gas producing regions across Texas, which have powered the nation’s economy for a century.”
Tags: $3.5 trillion, Biden, Clean energy, Climate change, Democrats, Drilling, Emissions, EVs, Fees, Fossil fuels, Gas, Historic, Methane, Oil, Power grids, Shift, Texas
Boston Globe (July 14)
“The Boston-Cambridge economy may never be the same after the COVID-19 pandemic.” Throughout the region, a “long-term acceptance of remote work and changes in commuting and travel habits” are expected to continue. As employees spend less time in the office, “demand for office space could drop by up to 20 percent, and commuter rail usage could fall between 15 and 50 percent from pre-pandemic levels.”
Tags: Acceptance, Boston, Cambridge, Commuter, Commuting, COVID-19, Economy, Employees, Office, Pandemic, Remote work, Travel habits
MarketWatch (July 13)
“U.S. stock indexes on Tuesday morning edged slightly lower from Monday’s record closes, as investors assessed a hotter-than-expected consumer inflation report for June, which suggests to some that the Federal Reserve may need to consider removing some of its monetary policy measures to avoid an overheated post-COVID economy.”
Tags: Consumer inflation, Economy, Fed, Investors, June, Monetary policy, Overheated, Post-Covid, Record closes, Stock, U.S.
San Francisco Chronicle (July 14)
“With nearly half of California residents still not fully immunized against COVID-19 and the highly infectious delta variant in wide circulation, the state could be facing a surge up to two-thirds the size of last summer’s wave of infection despite generally high vaccination rates.” Any new surge will likely prove “far less deadly and disruptive than what the state endured over the winter when more than 22,000 Californians died between Thanksgiving and the end of January and the state was largely shut down for several months.”
Tags: California, COVID-19, Deadly, Delta variant, Disruptive, Immunized, Infectious, Shut down, Surge, Vaccination rates
