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The World
The Bank of England said Britain’s economy could be back to pre-pandemic levels by early next year as the vaccine rollout leads to a sharp economic rebound in the second half of this year. In the U.S., new jobless claims dropped to their lowest level since November but held above 700,000, signifying the pandemic’s lingering impact on the labor market. The Biden administration is looking into whether it can use executive authority to cancel some portion of the $1.6 trillion in federal student loans owed by 43 million Americans. (The Times, Financial Times, Washington Post)
Senate Democrats maneuvered through a series of politically tricky amendments that Republicans wanted to attach to a virus relief package as lawmakers pressed forward with a budget plan that includes Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic aid proposal. The marathon session — known as a vote-a-rama and for which more than 800 amendments were drafted — was expected to stretch into the early-morning hours. Meanwhile, the administration’s elusive stimulus goal is full employment. Before the pandemic, low joblessness boosted prosperity without overheating the economy. Getting back there is the top economic aim of the Fed and White House. (New York Times, Wall Street Journal)
Morning Consult’s consumer sentiment data provides evidence of a phenomenon occurring in the economic sphere: American consumers’ responses to economic news and developments are increasingly a function of where they live, as the standard deviation in the monthly percentage change in the ICS across all 50 states more than doubled from January 2020 to January 2021. Businesses and policymakers face a tradeoff between adopting a single strategic or policy approach for the country as a whole and catering their strategies and policies to meet the unique needs of consumers in different states and regions. (Morning Consult)
The U.S. military must prepare for the “very real possibility” of a nuclear attack as China and Russia rapidly expand their arsenals, the head of America’s nuclear weapons has warned. The warning from Admiral Charles Richard, chief of the US Strategic Command, who added that the Chinese military could change its ‘no first use’ policy at any moment and that a conflict could escalate if a conventional loss were seen as threatening the state. Meanwhile, China said it is closely watching U.S. Navy movements after an American warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait, the first to do so since Biden’s inauguration — as Biden calls China the “most serious competitor” to the U.S. (South China Morning Post, South China Morning Post-2)
NATO must embrace a “global outlook,” forging new partnerships with democracies around the world to counter the rising challenge from China, the head of the military alliance has warned. Jens Stoltenberg said that while NATO would remain a regional alliance between Europe and North America, the evolving nature of military threats meant it should work “even more closely” with existing farther-flung partners, including Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. (The Times)
President Biden has stocked his China team with high-powered officials who have longstanding ties to one another but differing objectives. How they work together could determine whether the new administration has a unified China policy, or one riven with divisions that Beijing can exploit. Former Secretary of State John Kerry, now the White House’s climate envoy, is pursuing an international climate deal that requires the cooperation of China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, to be effective. The White House’s China coordinator, Kurt Campbell, meanwhile wants to push back hard on China. Both men sit on the National Security Council, led by Jake Sullivan, who worked with them during the Obama administration. Former Obama national-security adviser Susan Rice, now a Biden domestic policy adviser, may also weigh in on some China issues, say some of her former colleagues. Sullivan now needs to weave together their views along with those of the heads of the Treasury, State Department, Commerce Department and U.S. Trade Representative’s office, which often have diverging perspectives. (Wall Street Journal)
In a sign of the urgency Biden feels about Iran, the White House is convening a National Security Council principals committee meeting Friday focused on the country's nuclear program. (Axios)
Johnson & Johnson submitted an application seeking emergency use authorization for its single-dose Covid-19 vaccine candidate to the FDA. The company is ready to begin shipping upon authorization and expects to supply 100 million doses to the U.S. in 1H21. (Wall Street Journal)
Anger at the European Commission president over the slow rollout and vaccine shortage has boiled over in a cabinet meeting in Ursula von der Leyen’s native Germany. The usually mild-mannered Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrats’ candidate in the general election in September and part of the governing coalition, said the EU’s vaccine-ordering program had “gone really shit.” Meanwhile, Germany will not allow Liverpool into the country to play a Champions League game at Leipzig on Feb. 16 because of border restrictions imposed over new Covid variants. Separately, a study showed that in Western Europe, a million international arrivals was associated with a 3.4% increase in Covid-19 deaths during the first wave of the pandemic. Israel’s government voted to extend its lockdown through Sunday at 7 a.m. (The Times, The Guardian, The Guardian-2, Jerusalem Post)
WI Gov. Tony Evers issued a new statewide mask mandate an hour after Republican lawmakers eliminated it. (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
Powerful, low-frequency sound waves could be used to trigger rainfall in areas that suffer from drought, according to a study by researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing. In a weather manipulation experiment conducted on the Tibetan Plateau last year, the researchers said they recorded increases in rainfall of up to 17% by pointing a giant loudspeaker at the sky. (South China Morning Post)
Most U.S. managers are not fully prepared to talk about race: 42% of U.S. managers (42%) strongly agree that they are prepared to have meaningful conversations about race and equality with their teams, which means the majority feel less than fully prepared. This shortfall is evident among U.S. managers regardless of their race, age or gender. However, those who strongly agree that their organization is committed to improving racial justice and equality in the workplace are more than three times as likely to express preparedness for these conversations (73%) as managers who do not strongly agree that their organization is committed to improving racial justice (21%). (Gallup)
Economy
A sell-off in 30-year Treasuries has pushed the US yield curve — which shows the difference between short- and long-term government bond yields — to its steepest level in more than five years. Investors said the development reflected the prospects of a large additional injection of economic stimulus from the Biden administration, along with the stronger global growth expected as vaccination drives gather pace. (Financial Times)
Samsung Electronics is considering Austin, TX, as one of the sites for a new $17 billion chip plant that the South Korean firm said could create 1,800 jobs. The tech giant is seeking combined tax abatements of $805.5 million over 20 years from Travis County and the city of Austin, among other tax breaks. If Austin is selected, the company would break ground on the site in 2Q21 and that the plant will become operational in 3Q23. (Reuters)
A blank-check firm, backed by Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson, is taking consumer DNA-testing firm 23andMe public in a deal that values the merged entity at $3.5 billion. (CNBC)
Peloton is raising its supply chain investment after product delays. Peloton pledged it would spend $100m on air freight and expedited ocean freight to improve its “longer than acceptable wait times” over the next six months. (Financial Times)
Shares of GameStop crashed another 42%, the third plunge in four trading sessions for the stock. Shares closed at $53.50, almost 90% below their peak of $483 on Thursday morning last week. (New York Times)
Robinhood is expected to air a 30-second commercial during Super Bowl LV with the message that anyone can invest. The ad features a montage of ordinary people going about their lives—a young man going for a jog, a dad taking care of his infant, a woman dying her hair. (Wall Street Journal)
Technology
Sen. Amy Klobuchar advanced a plan for how Congress could update antitrust laws to give enforcers better odds and more ammunition for taking on Big Tech and other industries dominated by a handful of mega-corporations. Klobuchar will lead the Senate Judiciary antitrust panel, putting her in position to take the lead on rewriting competition laws. Her new bill aligns with proposals from House Democrats and some populist Republicans, upping the chances she can get it passed. (Axios)
The New York Times ended 2020 with more than 7.5m paying readers, riding out a boom in digital subscriptions. Through 2020 alone, the New York Times amassed 2.3m digital subscriptions, more than the paying online readership of almost all other news publishers in the world. The publisher added 627,000 new digital subscribers 4Q20. Meanwhile, Snap said revenues were off to a slower start in 2021 after some brands curbed digital advertising spending in January amid US political turmoil. (Financial Times, Financial Times-2)
The iPhone 13 is now more likely to feature an upgraded Ultra Wide camera with significantly improved low-light performance, thanks to lens verification improvements and intensified competition in Apple's camera supply chain. (MacRumors)
Microsoft Viva is Microsoft’s new push for helping businesses with remote work and a big bet on this new way of life becoming the norm. It’s designed to act as a portal for both employees and businesses to navigate the complexities of working from home. Microsoft is launching Viva today, with parts of the platform rolling out throughout 2021. (The Verge)
The Inside Story of How the Lowly PDF Played the Longest Game in Tech: When is the last time you downloaded, opened, printed, or created a good old-fashioned PDF? Probably pretty recently. By one estimate, there are at least 2.5 trillion PDFs in existence today. But when is the last time you actually thought about PDFs? The tempo of digital culture is set by fast-paced, head-snapping novelty. So it’s probably been a while — or more likely, never — since you stopped to think where the ubiquitous PDF came from. The Portable Document Format that essentially strives to replicate paper in digital form has been around since the early pre-Web 1990s. Thoroughly lacking in glamor or sizzle, the PDF has not only persisted for decades, but prevailed. Even stalwarts like Microsoft Word or PowerPoint get challenged by rival offerings from Google or Apple. But no PDF-killer has emerged. (Marker)
Smart Links
Hershey tracked Covid trends after s’mores demand rose as cases grew; chocolate sales 40-50% higher in areas with increased cases. (CNBC)
Starbucks pilots completely plant-based menu. (Specialty Food)
Apple Watch can help track Parkinson’s disease symptoms. (STAT News)
Home buyers face more competition, shortage of listings this spring. (Mansion Global)
How the Pandemic is affecting the first weeks of the Texas legislative session. (Texas Monthly)
Payment wearables are getting a boost from the pandemic. (Axios)
Study: College football concussions happen mostly during practice. (Inside Higher Ed)