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The World
U.S. officials warned that Russia has continued to ramp up its military activity around the Ukrainian border, despite a flurry of diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis. The White House and the Pentagon said Russia was increasing its military presence near Ukraine, even though Macron earlier this week said Russian president Vladimir Putin had assured him there would be no “deterioration or escalation” in the stand-off. (Financial Times)
On both sides, the dress rehearsal for war begins: Trailing scraps of white cloth and with conifer branches lashed to its main gun barrel for camouflage, a Challenger 2 tank roars through a 3ft bank of snow towards the enemy lines. To the right of the road, scout infantry fan out through the pines. (The Times)
The Department of Homeland Security is warning that U.S. truckers are potentially planning to block roads in major metropolitan areas in protest of vaccine mandates, and that the protest activity could impact the Super Bowl in Los Angeles this Sunday as well as President Biden’s State of the Union address March 1. The DHS warned that a convoy of protesting truckers will potentially begin in California as early as mid-February and arrive in Washington as late as mid-March. Truckers from Canada may potentially join the convoy as it travels eastward. (Washington Post)
Ottawa protests are copied round world: 12 days into the siege of Ottawa, copycat lorry-driver protests are springing up around the world as their cause threatens to trigger a broader anti-government movement. Hundreds of articulated lorries continue to block roads in front of Canada’s parliament. The blockade has spread to the Ambassador Bridge, the busiest border crossing in north America, handling 8,000 lorries a day and linking Windsor, Ontario to Detroit. Some 1,700 miles west, in Coutts, Alberta, protest vehicles have also blocked another significant US-Canada border crossing. Inspired by the Canadians, in recent days protesters have jammed roads in the capitals of Australia and New Zealand. In France, opponents of President Macron’s vaccine policy have called for vehicles to converge on Paris on Friday. Organizers claim to have thousands of supporters for the Convoy de la Liberté, which has ties to the yellow-vest movement that paralyzed France in 2018. (The Times)
Police arrest convoy protesters at New Zealand’s Parliament. (Associated Press)
North Korea has built a missile base close to its border with China that is capable of storing weapons with the range to strike the United States, satellite images show. A Washington think tank describes in detail the features of the Hoejung-ni base, whose reinforced underground bunkers are just 16 miles from the Chinese border. It quotes “informed sources”, likely to be in US intelligence, who believe that Pyongyang’s most powerful weapons, potentially capable of carrying nuclear warheads, are to be deployed at the base. (The Times)
The next supply chain mess is coming for your morning coffee: Disposable cups imported from China and elsewhere are stuck in ports along the mucked-up supply chain. American paper mills are short workers. And the U.S. hasn’t caught up from the extreme cold snap in Texas last year that suspended production of resins used to make plastic cups and the coating on paper cups. (Wall Street Journal)
Nancy Pelosi tasked Democratic allies with drafting proposals to ban members of Congress from buying and selling stocks, in a significant shift for the Speaker of the House amid growing calls for a clampdown. Pelosi’s support for tightening share trading rules marks a U-turn for the senior Democrat, who told reporters in December that lawmakers should be able to trade freely. But Pelosi, who is among the wealthiest members of Congress with an estimated net worth of more than $100MM, changed her tune, telling reporters that it “matters” what Democratic House members think. (Financial Times)
‘We are not there yet’: As states drop mask rules, the C.D.C. stands firm. The Biden administration said federal masking guidance would not change for now, but was seeking advice from public health experts on the way forward. (New York Times)
UK PM Boris Johnson will effectively declare the end of the pandemic in two weeks, scrapping compulsory isolation for people with Covid-19 and starting the winding-down of free tests. (The Times)
Sweden declares Covid-19 pandemic over. (South China Morning Post)
Americans are increasingly critical of the response to COVID-19 from elected officeholders and public health officials. 60% of U.S. adults say they’ve felt confused as a result of changes to public health officials’ recommendations on how to slow the spread of the coronavirus, up 7 percentage points since last summer. 49% say public health officials are doing an only fair or poor job and 50% say they are doing an excellent or good job. Positive ratings of public health officials have fallen 10 points since August and are well below ratings for their initial response to the outbreak in early 2020. (Pew Research Center)
People are spending a lot more time working remotely outside their homes. Airbnb surveyed 7,500 people across 5 countries about how they live and work. Turns out more workers are taking advantage of the flexibility in their jobs. Here are some of the highlights from the survey about how people are now using Airbnb rentals: (Protocol)
People are spending longer periods of time in vacation rentals. 45% of nights booked on Airbnb were for at least one week, up from 38% two years ago.
People are looking for places to stay that accommodate working remotely. Searches filtering for rentals with wifi, kitchens and pets were up 95% on the site, and long-term stay searches for homes with “laptop-friendly workspaces” was up 73%.
55% of survey respondents said they now plan to do more travel during off-peak times, signaling more flexibility.
37% of the people said they plan to embark on more “long-stay travel.”
Economy
Gasoline prices across the U.S. are surging to the highest level in eight years as the price of crude oil rises, spiked by worries about geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe. The average price of a gallon of gas hit $3.47, a jump of eight cents from the previous week. Gas prices this week are at their highest since October 2014. (CBS News)
Global commodity prices soar 50%, fastest pace in 27 years. (Nikkei Asia Review)
Higher black unemployment will test the Fed’s goal to be more inclusive: The Federal Reserve’s more inclusive approach to stewarding the US economy is undergoing a test as inflation rips through household budgets. Sharp declines in joblessness since the start of the pandemic have been unevenly distributed. While the US unemployment rate was 4% last month, it was 6.9% among black Americans — a reminder of historic economic disparities around the country. Some economists and progressive activists are urging the Fed to proceed carefully as it reins in stimulus programs and begins to tighten the money supply. “The Fed is playing with fire,” said William Spriggs, a professor of economics at Howard University and the chief economist of the AFL-CIO, the labour union group. “And if they get it wrong, we’re all in trouble.” (Financial Times)
Black business ownership is surging in the US despite the pandemic, with a rise in businesses owned by Black women. Between February and April 2020, Black business ownership dropped by more than 40%, the largest drop of any racial or ethnic group, according to a report from the House committee on small business. When government aid became available, Black business owners received fewer small business grants than white business owners, with paycheck protection program funds only reaching 29% of Black applicants versus 60% of white ones. But according to research from University of California Santa Cruz economist Robert W Fairlie, Black business ownership is now up by almost 30% on pre-pandemic levels. (The Guardian)
The Beijing Winter Olympics is giving Visa a run for its money. For decades, America’s largest card network has been the exclusive electronic-payments provider at the world’s largest sporting event. At this year’s Beijing Games, however, Visa finds itself having to share the spotlight with China’s new digital currency, the e-CNY. China has been at the forefront of digitizing payments, thanks in large part to the popular mobile networks Alipay and WeChat Pay, operated by Chinese internet giants Ant Group Co. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., respectively. The Beijing 2022 Olympics, a top political priority for leader Xi Jinping, is also the digital currency’s largest pilot to date. Conducted in a tightly controlled bubble that insulates athletes and tens of thousands of other event participants from the rest of the country, the Winter Games have been touted as a coming-out party of sorts for the e-CNY. (Wall Street Journal)
More US companies seeking fresh capital are turning to private investments or looking for potential buyers as volatile stock markets stand in the way of going public. Falling valuations and unpredictable market swings have led to a sharp drop in listings activity that experts think will take several months to bounce back, but private fundraisings are continuing at close to a record pace. (Financial Times)
After crypto's recent plunge, FTX and Crypto[dot]com seek new customers with Super Bowl ads. Meanwhile, iSpot[dot]tv data shows that $112.9M+ has been spent on US crypto TV ads since 2020. (Bloomberg)
Supply chain management companies raised $11.3B in 2021, up from $5.9B in 2020 and beating the previous record of $9.1B in 2019. (Crunchbase)
An office leased to WeWork is hitting the London market with a price tag of close to £1bn, the biggest test to date of investors’ faith in the strength of the co-working company since its initial public offering last year. One and Two Southbank Place, which also includes the London headquarters of Shell, is being marketed by developer Almacantar for £935mn. A deal at that size, representing a 4 per cent yield, would be among the largest in the UK capital since the coronavirus outbreak two years ago. (Financial Times)
Women MBAs still lag behind men in salary and career progression: Analysis of 15 years of data from the FT global MBA rankings shows slow progress towards equality. (Financial Times)
Technology
Microsoft pledged to ensure open distribution of its games as its senior management travelled to Washington to address regulators’ potential antitrust concerns over its $75bn takeover of Activision Blizzard. A delegation including Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, arrived in Washington this week to meet lawmakers three weeks after agreeing to buy the games developer, Microsoft’s largest deal yet. The pledge addresses what Microsoft deems to be the principal means of games distribution: app stores. It included keeping a less restrictive distribution system than the mobile app stores run by Apple and Google, measures Microsoft had already taken with its existing, though little-used, app store on Windows. (Financial Times)
The UK's CMA designates Amazon as a grocery retailer, subject to the same rules followed by supermarket chains, including strict regulations on vendor contracts. (Bloomberg)
Disney Plus ends 2021 with nearly 130 million subscribers, smashing growth forecasts. Disney Plus remains firmly in investment mode as it fights for share in the global streaming market. But it wasn’t just streaming that drove the surge. Disney’s parks and experiences segment got a boost after being decimated by COVID-19 restrictions for much of 2020 and 2021. (Variety)
Barry Diller’s media group is stopping print circulation of six of the magazines it acquired when it bought Meredith Corp. last year, part of an effort to turn these publications into digital-only brands. The company will stop publishing print editions for Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, EatingWell, Health, Parents and People en Español. The moves will result in about 200 job losses—which represents less than 5% of Dotdash Meredith’s total staff. (Wall Street Journal)
Everything announced at Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Unpacked event: At Samsung’s first Galaxy Unpacked event for 2022, the company introduced a new lineup of Galaxy S22 phones: the Galaxy S22 and Galaxy S22 Plus. Samsung also announced the Galaxy S22 Ultra with an included stylus. It is essentially a successor to the once-popular Galaxy Note line. Samsung claims the S22 Ultra has a faster response time for the S-Pen. The other changes are a bit more minor, including a slight redesign and updated night capabilities in the camera. The Galaxy S22 and the S22 Plus are also a bit iterative, despite being Samsung’s mainline flagships. These phones are very similar to the previous year’s models but are more durable and have better portrait mode capability. Finally, there’s also a new high-powered Android tablet with the Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S8 — which has a notch. (The Verge)
Smart Links
Car insurers rush to raise rates as inflation takes a toll. (Wall Street Journal)
Uber brushes off Omicron impact on food delivery strength. (Financial Times)
2021 Super Bowl could see 45 million more legal sports bettors. (Axios)
Super Bowl 2022 could be hottest on record. (Wall Street Journal)
The hidden failure of the world’s biggest privacy law: GDPR. (Gizmodo)