Fort Worth Star-Telegram (February 16)
“Once again, Texans are suffering because of a failure of disaster planning and investment to prepare for the worst. First, it was the pandemic…. This time, it’s an unprecedented — but, importantly, not unpredictable — stretch of cold weather and storms blanketing the entire state.” The resulting power outages could have been prevented. “There must be accountability. People must be fired. Companies must be fined and required to do better. Winterization of power plants must be a priority.”
Tags: Accountability, Cold, Disaster planning, Failure, Fined, Fired, Investment, Pandemic, Power outages, Prepare, Storms, Suffering, Texans, Unprecedented, Weather, Winterization
Bloomberg (February 12)
“GameStop is only the most public manifestation of a trend that radically departs from all precedents. Some of the potential consequences are worrying…. The most heavily shorted stocks have been doing well ever since the recovery from the initial shock of the pandemic got under way last March.” This has created “a historic ‘black swan’ disaster for short sellers.”
Tags: Black swan, Consequences, Disaster, GameStop, Historic, Pandemic, Precedents, Recovery, Shock, Shorted stocks, Trend, Worrying
Financial Times (February 3)
“The pandemic’s devastating impact on Big Oil was illustrated yesterday when some of the world’s largest energy groups reported record annual losses, marking a brutal 12 months of an industry under mounting pressure to speed up a transition to cleaner fuels.”
Tags: Big oil, Brutal, Cleaner fuels, Devastating, Energy, Impact, Largest, Losses, Pandemic, Pressure, Record, Transition
Boston Globe (February 2)
“More than 10 months into a pandemic that has all but emptied downtown towers, the long-term future of offices in Boston remains unclear. Vacancy rates downtown are the highest they’ve been in a decade. There’s more than 3.5 million square feet available for sublease from companies holding long-term leases on space they’ve decided they no longer need. Rents, after climbing steadily for years, are starting to fall.”
Tags: Boston, Companies, Downtown, Emptied, Future, Leases, Long term, Offices, Pandemic, Rents, Sublease, Towers, Vacancy
Washington Post (February 2)
The emerging new strains of the novel coronavirus “are a powerful reminder that we must remain vigilant in fighting the virus, even as vaccines promise an end to the pandemic. And they are a warning that if the world doesn’t bring the virus under control everywhere, this nightmarish pandemic could continue for years longer than it needs to.”
Tags: Control, Emerging, Fighting, Nightmarish, Novel coronavirus, Pandemic, Strains, Vaccines, Vigilant, Warning
Wall Street Journal (January 29)
“You know political spin is at work when the economy grows by 4% in the fourth quarter but the headlines are that growth fell for the entire pandemic year. Everyone already knows the economy fell off the cliff in the first half of 2020. The news is that the economic recovery is continuing despite the winter Covid surge.”
New York Times (January 27)
“For months now, wealthy countries have been clearing the world’s shelves of coronavirus vaccines, leaving poorer nations with little hope of exiting the pandemic in 2021. But a fresh skirmish this week has pitted the rich against the rich — Britain versus the European Union — in the scramble for vials, opening a new and unabashedly nationalist competition that could poison relations and set back collective efforts to end the pandemic.”
Tags: Collective efforts, Competition, Coronavirus, EU, Nationalist, Nations, Pandemic, Poison, Poor, Relations, Rich, Skirmish, UK, Vaccines, Wealthy
Chicago Tribune (January 20)
In January 2020, “the U.S. recorded its first confirmed case of COVID-19.” President Trump “insisted, his administration had the virus ‘totally under control.’” Instead, “after a year of presidential denials of reality and responsibility, the pandemic’s U.S. death toll has eclipsed 400,000. And the loss of lives is accelerating.”
Tags: Administration, Confirmed, COVID-19, Death toll, Denials, Pandemic, Reality, Responsibility, Trump, U.S., Virus
Wall Street Journal (January 15)
“Rising temperatures last year capped the world’s warmest decade in modern times.” Moreover, according to the same NASA findings, 2020 tied with 2016 as the hottest year ever. This came “despite cooling ocean currents and a drop in greenhouse gas emissions” associate with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tags: 2016, 2020, Cooling, COVID-19, Emissions, GHG, NASA, Ocean currents, Pandemic, Rising temperatures, Warmest decade, World
MarketWatch (January 13)
“The U.S. set another grim milestone in the coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday, when more than 4,400 COVID-19 patients died, the most in a single day since the start of the outbreak, and experts said that with cases continuing to accelerate, the worst is still to come.” Simply put, the “vaccine program must speed up to avoid reaching 640,000 deaths by spring, equal to lives lost in the 1918 flu pandemic.”
