Know someone who would like this newsletter? Forward it to them.
The World
The Biden administration’s first faceoff with China began in Alaska with a testy exchange between Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who chided Beijing for “cyberattacks on the United States” and “economic coercion toward our allies,” and China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, who detailed the United States’ own human rights problems, citing recent Black Lives Matter protests. The world’s two remaining superpowers presaged the meetings with elaborate public posturing, unveiling dueling agendas that appeared to offer little space for common ground amid disagreements over trade, Tibet, Hong Kong, the western Xinjiang region and the coronavirus pandemic. (Washington Post, South China Morning Post)
Vladimir Putin said that he and Joe Biden should hold live online talks after Biden said he thought the Russian leader was a killer and diplomatic ties sank to a new post-Cold War low. In his first comments on Biden’s interview, Putin responded with a Russian schoolyard expression suggesting that Biden’s accusations revealed more about him than the Russian president. The phrase can be roughly translated as, “I know you are, but what am I?” (Reuters, Washington Post)
Germany, France, Italy and Spain said they would resume using the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine after the EU drugs regulator said there was a “clear scientific conclusion” that the jab was “safe and effective.” Meanwhile, the U.S. plans to send millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Mexico and Canada, a notable step into vaccine diplomacy just as the Biden administration is quietly pressing Mexico to curb the stream of migrants coming to the border. (Financial Times, New York Times)
Paris and several other regions went under strict lockdown for a third time as hospitals run out of intensive-care beds for Covid-19 patients. The new rules for 16 French departments represents a hardening of the 6pm-6am curfew that has been in place since January. Most stores will close save for those selling food and other necessities, travel between regions will be banned, but schools will remain open — a key government priority. (Financial Times, LeMonde)
How Israel delivered the world’s fastest vaccine rollout: More than half the country of nine million has gotten the shot in a mass mobilization by a network of health-management organizations serving every resident. (Wall Street Journal)
Corporate donations fizzle post-Jan. 6: The U.S. Capitol attack had a larger impact than previously known on corporate political giving, new campaign finance filings indicate. The immediate political fallout over the insurrection pushed scores of companies to announce a pause or end to political donations. New numbers suggest an even larger chilling effect, with companies that had been quiet publicly also forgoing donations. (Axios)
George W. Bush on Capitol insurrection: "I was sick to my stomach" (Texas Tribune)
Homelessness across the U.S. increased by 2.2% in 2020 compared to 2019, making it the fourth straight year that the nation's population of homeless people grew. The uptick, based on a once-a-year count in January 2020, does not reflect the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. (Axios)
Don’t Underestimate the Power of a Walk: Walking is one of the simplest and most strategic things you can do for yourself. It takes little preparation, minimal effort, no special equipment, and it can contract or expand to fit the exact amount of time you have available. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a single bout of moderate-to vigorous activity (including walking) can improve our sleep, thinking, and learning, while reducing symptoms of anxiety. When we go for a walk, we perform better on tests of memory and attention; our brain cells build new connections, staving off the usual withering of brain tissue that comes with age; we can actively change the pace of our thoughts by deliberately walking more briskly or by slowing down; and our attention is left to meander and observe, helping us generate new ideas and to have strokes of insight. (Harvard Business Review)
Economy
More than half of U.S. consumers plan to buy apparel in the coming months, making it the top category of anticipated spending, followed by footwear and beauty products, according to NPD Group. Consumers are buying — or at least browsing for — clothing and shoes, signaling growing optimism as life begins inching toward normal. Madewell and Anthropologie are seeing a resurgence in dress sales, while Bonobos reports rising demand for suits, dress shirts and tuxedos. Other retailers say they’ve noticed growing interest in trendy tops, wide-leg jeans, even resort wear and swimsuits. (Washington Post)
Lyft said that last week was its biggest since March of last year, and yesterday it saw growth for the first time in a year. Meanwhile, New York will allow people to attend concerts at a limited capacity starting April 1, while rules around sports events will be relaxed. And starting today, 98% of AMC movie theaters in the U.S. will be open. (The Information)
Tourists trickle back to New York City. (Wall Street Journal)
How Japan might work after COVID-19: Some companies talk of change yet lots of jobs revolve around a fixed workplace. (Nikkei Asian Review)
Chubb, the largest US non-life insurer by market capitalization, has approached rival Hartford Financial Services Group with an unsolicited $23.2bn takeover offer, in what could be the first mega-deal in an industry battered by losses stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. (Financial Times)
The face of European private equity and venture capital is still overwhelmingly white, a ground-breaking study, which mapped the industries' ethnic diversity for the first time, reveals. The analysis by the British Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (BVCA) and charity group Level 20 has found that Black, Asian and other ethnicities account for only 20% of the workforce today. At the same time, more than half (54%) of PE and VC firms have all-white investment teams. (Private Equity News, BVCA)
Grocery-delivery app Instacart recently discussed waiting until 4Q21 for its stock market debut, or at least several months after the vast majority of American adults are vaccinated. That will make it easier for investors to gauge how fast Instacart’s business may grow following the pandemic. Instacart had been previously expected to go public early this year. (The Information)
Junior Goldman Sachs bankers complain of 95-hour week: A group of first-year investment banking analysts at Goldman Sachs presented management with a slide deck describing arduous working conditions last month, shining a rare spotlight on the stresses faced by young people working in investment banking. Based on a survey of 13 analysts, the slide deck reported an average work week of 95 hours, with five hours of sleep a night starting at 3 a.m. The respondents said the long hours were taking a toll on their physical and mental health, with three-quarters reporting that they felt they had been “victims of workplace abuse.” (Financial Times, Slide Deck)
Technology
Google announced that it plans to spend $7bn this year on expanding its network of US offices and data centers, saying it still saw value in employees “coming together in person to collaborate.” The additions to Google’s physical presence came as part of the search and advertising group’s plan to create at least 10,000 full-time jobs in addition to its current US workforce of 84,000. (Financial Times)
Zoom, Amazon hired at fastest clip during pandemic. (The Information)
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he is confident the social media company “will be able to manage through” Apple’s upcoming planned privacy update to iOS 14, which will make it easier for iPhone and iPad users to block companies from tracking their activity to target ads. “We’ll be in a good position,” Zuckerberg said in a Clubhouse room. (CNBC)
The NFL finalized its new 11-year media rights agreement with a pact that will run through 2033 and could be worth over $100 billion. The league is adding Amazon Prime Video as an exclusive partner for its Thursday Night Football package, the first time a streaming service will carry a full package of games exclusively. Amazon is paying about $1 billion per year, according to people familiar with the matter. Amazon’s deal runs 10 years and begins in 2023. (CNBC)
Chat service Discord hired its first finance chief, a move that comes after a year of pandemic-fueled growth in users and revenue. Tomasz Marcinkowski took over as chief financial officer on March 9, joining from Pinterest. The venture-backed startup Discord operates a free online platform where people form mostly private groups for communicating by text, audio or video. (Wall Street Journal)
France’s privacy watchdog probes Clubhouse after complaint and petition. (TechCrunch)
New internet rules reveal China’s vision for cyberspace control: Just six months after US President Bill Clinton’s famous speech in 2000 comparing China’s efforts to control online speech with “nailing Jell-O to the wall”, Beijing took a bold step aimed exactly at achieving that seemingly futile goal. In September that year, Premier Zhu Rongji enacted the Regulation on Internet Information Service, giving authorities a legal basis to manage all companies that provide online users with information, such as news or blog posts. Now Beijing is prepared to further tighten its grip. More than 20 years after it came into force, the internet regulation is poised for a complete overhaul. A set of new rules, unveiled by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) in January, is slated to replace the original regulation this year, fortifying Beijing’s iron grip on the internet and extending its control on domestic tech companies beyond the Chinese border. (South China Morning Post)
62% of U.S. adults who said they plan to watch at least some of this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament said they will do so via a cable or satellite TV package. That figure marks a roughly 30% decline since 2017, when 89% of expected tournament viewers said they would watch via a pay-TV package. (Morning Consult)
Smart Links
Twitter begins testing a way to watch YouTube videos from the home timeline on iOS. (TechCrunch)
USC to hold in-person graduations this spring for classes of 2020 and 2021. (Los Angeles Times)
Astronomers have detected a moving supermassive black hole. (Harvard Gazette)
Astronomers can’t hear signals from space because Earth is too loud. (Wall Street Journal)
Three previously unknown strains of bacteria are discovered growing on the International Space Station. (CNN)
Hand sanitizer demand will stay ‘exponentially higher’ than 2019 levels, CEO of Purell parent says. (CNBC)
The best cities in the world 2020. (Conde Nast Traveller)
Live Events
Today, 10:30 am ET: A Strong Handoff in U.S.-India Relations. A conversation with Kenneth I. Juster, former U.S. Ambassador to India and HKS alumnus, about the U.S.-India relationship. Ambassador Juster will discuss major achievements in the U.S.-India partnership in the areas of diplomacy, defense, economic relations, energy, and health over the past four years as well as issues on the horizon such as the rise of China and trade policy. (Register: Harvard Kennedy School)
Today, 7 pm ET: Harvard Science Book Talk: Walter Isaacson, in conversation with David Liu, "The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race." (Ticketed event: Harvard University)