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The World
U.S. representatives and NATO members emerged from several days of high-stakes discussions with top Russian officials with warnings that the situation along the Ukraine border is getting worse. “The drumbeat of war is sounding loud and the rhetoric has gotten rather shrill,” U.S. diplomatic official Michael Carpenter said. Moscow’s intentions remain unclear. “There are close to 100,000 troops on the Russian side of its border with Ukraine,” he said. (CNBC)
Europe is nearer war than it has been in 30 years, Poland's foreign minister warned. Addressing envoys from the 57 members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Zbigniew Rau did not name Russia, but listed a string of conflicts in which Moscow's involvement has been alleged. (Reuters)
China’s increasingly muscular efforts to isolate Taiwan internationally have paid off in Washington after a foreign naval association caved to Chinese pressure and reversed course on letting Taiwanese officers join the group. Several people familiar with the dispute said the Washington-based Naval Attachés Association rescinded an invitation for Taiwan to join the organization, which includes officers from US allies, after China strongly objected. (Financial Times)
British MPs have been warned by MI5 that a Chinese agent has been “engaged in political interference activities” in parliament for the Chinese Communist party, including donating more than £420,000 to one Labour member. Christine Ching Kui Lee, a solicitor who runs her own law firm in London, Christine Lee & Co, has been accused of “facilitating financial donations to serving and aspiring politicians” on behalf of foreign nationals based in Hong Kong and China. (Financial Times)
‘Crypto colonizers’ in Puerto Rico try to sell locals on the dream: With generous tax breaks drawing wealthy day traders, hedge fund managers and pandemic remote workers along with crypto millionaires, a debate is raging around the question of who benefits from the booming $3 trillion industry. Home prices are soaring in parts of San Juan, the island’s graceful seaside capital, and applications nearly tripled in 2021 under a law that lets newcomers profit from crypto and other investments tax-free. Amid allegations that the beneficiaries are failing to create jobs or otherwise help the local community, members of Puerto Rico’s leftist independence party are pressing for the tax break to be repealed. (Washington Post)
Delta executives predict that corporate travel will return in the spring at a similar level to where it had rebounded before the omicron variant. It’s wait-and-see right now, but 80% of corporate travel survey respondents thought they would travel the same or more in 1Q22 than they did in 4Q21, before office reopening delays pushed that out. “When we get to spring and summer, that we’ll see a robust demand for business travel,” said Delta president Glen Hauenstein. (CNBC)
Spain's tourist sector seen reaching 88% of pre-pandemic size in 2022. (Reuters)
The Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers, dealing a blow to a key element of the White House’s plan to address the pandemic as coronavirus cases resulting from the Omicron variant are on the rise. But in a modest victory for Biden, the court allowed a more limited mandate requiring health care workers at facilities receiving federal money to be vaccinated. The employer decision undercut one of Biden’s most significant attempts to tame the virus and left the country with a patchwork of state laws and policies, largely leaving companies and businesses on their own. (New York Times)
President Biden will nominate Sarah Bloom Raskin, a former top Treasury Department official, to serve as the Federal Reserve’s top banking regulator. If confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Raskin, a former Fed governor, would become the central bank’s vice chairwoman of supervision, the government’s most influential overseer of the American banking system. (Wall Street Journal)
Economy
Mastercard’s CEO said spending trends look ‘relatively positive’ so far in 2022 after holiday spending jumped 8.5% compared with last year. Mastercard expects spending this year will be aided by built-up savings accumulated during the Covid pandemic, noting that even if Covid-19 cases surge and consumers don’t feel comfortable going into a store, they will just shift spending to online channels. (CNBC)
55% of CEOs expect higher prices to last until mid-2023 or beyond next year. (Forbes)
Google is betting on a return to office with $1bn purchase of London building: The Silicon Valley giant is making the move even though it is also building a huge new headquarters in nearby King’s Cross because it believes in the office “as a place for in-person collaboration and connection.” When put together with its other offices across the UK, the purchase of Central St Giles will give Google the capacity to host 10,000 workers. (Financial Times)
Twitter's “work from anywhere” policy helped increase the share of US Black and Latinx employees to 9.4% and 8% in 2021, from 6.9% and 5.5% in 2020. (Bloomberg)
China's trade surplus in 2021 reached $676.4 billion, the largest ever and up about 30% from the previous year. China’s exports grew by 29.9% in 2021 compared to the previous year, while imports last year grew by 30.1% over the same period In December, exports grew by 20.9% from a year earlier, while imports rose by 19.5%. (Nikkei Asia Review, South China Morning Post)
Block (formerly known as Square) is building an open-source bitcoin mining system to make mining more “distributed and efficient,” after Jack Dorsey teased the idea in October. (CoinDesk)
How Bolt makes a 4-day work week work: Startup unicorn Bolt just announced that it would be making its four-day workweek a permanent fixture moving forward. The company sees the shortened workweek as more than an incentive to recruit employees: Everyone works the same four days each week. Monday through Thursday. Jennifer Christie, Bolt’s new chief people officer, said this decision was made so no one feels like they’re missing anything. Bolt still observes organization holidays. That means if a holiday falls on a weekday employees still get Friday off. Leadership is also continuing to encourage workers to take advantage of their unlimited vacation days. They don’t think of Fridays as another vacation day, it’s simply a four-day workweek. Fridays are for whatever employees deem necessary. Bolt encourages employees to use the fifth day of the week for whatever they’d like. Whether that be catching up on deep work or spending time with family. There are no rules, just no meetings. (Protocol)
The highest-paid female athletes score a record $167 million: Naomi Osaka leads the top ten with $57 million, but the presence of a gymnast and a WNBA player shows sponsors are starting to cast a wider net. (Forbes)
Technology
Taiwanese chip firm TSMC expects strong growth to accelerate in coming years due to booming semiconductor demand, as the tech giant reported a record quarterly profit and said it plans to spend at least a third more than last year. Soaring demand for semiconductors used in smartphones, laptops and other gadgets during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an acute chip crunch, forcing automakers and electronics manufacturers to cut production but keeping order books full at TSMC and other chipmakers. (Reuters)
A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced the TLDR Act, which would require sites and apps to offer easy-to-digest, nutrition label-like summaries of their terms of service (TOS). (Washington Post)
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol subpoenaed Reddit, Twitter and the parent companies of Google and Facebook after their "inadequate responses" to requests for information about what they did and didn't do in the lead-up to the deadly attack. (NBC News)
These TikTok stars made more money than many of America’s top CEOs: Charli and Dixie D’Amelio, Addison Rae are among TikTok stars who outearned leaders of many S&P 500 companies. Charli D’Amelio, who started posting videos of herself dancing on TikTok in 2019, brought in $17.5 million last year, according to Forbes, which recently ranked the highest-earning TikTok stars of 2021. With 133 million followers on TikTok, she makes her money from a clothing line and promoting products in TikTok videos and other ads. By comparison, median pay for chief executives of S&P 500 companies was $13.4 million in 2020. Ms. D’Amelio’s compensation was higher than several CEOs of big publicly traded companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp. ’s Darren Woods ($15.6 million in 2020), Starbucks Corp. ’s Kevin Johnson ($14.7 million), Delta Air Lines Inc. ’s Ed Bastian ($13.1 million) and McDonald’s Corp. ’s Chris Kempczinski ($10.8 million). (Wall Street Journal, Forbes)
Smart Links
With its Alzheimer’s drug in turmoil, Biogen eyes a list of potential acquisitions. (STAT News)
Tesla delays initial production of Cybertruck to early 2023. (Reuters)
No more sashimi? Covid-19 rules create looming supply shortage for Hong Kong. (South China Morning Post)
Citi to sell consumer banking units in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam to UOB Group. (CNBC)
Asset manager Pimco teams with BMG to join song copyright investment frenzy. (Financial Times)
As Alphabet and others tie execs’ pay to climate and diversity goals, shareholders scrutinize their approach. (The Information)