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The World
Oil prices jumped above $70 a barrel for the first time in 14 months after Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, said its energy facilities had been attacked on Sunday, targeting “the security and stability” of global supplies. A drone attack from the sea on a petroleum storage tank at Ras Tanura, one of the largest oil shipping ports in the world, took place on Sunday morning, the kingdom said. (Financial Times)
South Korea will increase its contribution to the cost of U.S. forces stationed in the country under an agreement reached with the U.S., easing an irritant in ties between the two allies. A U.S. spokeswoman said the agreement included a "negotiated meaningful increase in host nation support contributions," but gave no further details. There are about 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea. More than 90% of Seoul's contributions under the previous agreement went directly back into the South Korean economy. (Nikkei Asian Review)
President Biden is planning to host Japan’s prime minister at the White House as soon as this April, the first in-person foreign leader visit of his presidency. An invitation to Yoshihide Suga would telegraph to allies and potential adversaries, including China, that the U.S.-Japan alliance will remain the linchpin of the post-World War II security framework in the Pacific. (Axios)
China is trying to pacify India and Japan as US reaches out to regional allies. China’s foreign minister says new coastguard law is not aimed at any one country, and Tokyo should keep eye on the longer term — while downplaying the military confrontation with India along the Himalayan border. (South China Morning Post)
Russian intelligence agencies have mounted a disinformation campaign to undermine confidence in Pfizer’s and other Western vaccines, using online publications that question the vaccines’ development and safety. An official with the State Department’s Global Engagement Center identified four publications that he said have served as fronts for Russian intelligence. The websites played up the vaccines’ risk of side effects, questioned their efficacy, and said the U.S. had rushed the Pfizer vaccine through the approval process, among other false or misleading claims. (Wall Street Journal)
Large employers, from the meatpacking industry to airlines and pharmaceutical companies, are getting permission from public-health officials to administer Covid-19 vaccines, hoping to speed up inoculations of their employees. Many businesses see giving vaccine doses to employees at work as a way to efficiently vaccinate staff but, in doing so, are joining a race for scarce shots. (Wall Street Journal)
Natural disasters in Central America, economic devastation, gang wars, political oppression, and a new administration are all driving the sharp rise in U.S.-Mexico border crossings — a budding crisis for President Biden. Circumstances in foreign nations are forcing migrants to leave (push factors) while the situation in the U.S. draws them (pull factors.) (Axios)
In a potentially crippling defection in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s efforts to maintain control amid a sexual harassment scandal, the powerful Democratic leader of the New York State Senate Andrea Stewart-Cousins declared that the governor should resign “for the good of the state.” The stinging rebuke — along with a similar sentiment from the Assembly speaker, Carl E. Heastie, who questioned the “governor’s ability to continue to lead this state” — suggested that Cuomo had lost his party’s support in the State Capitol, and cast doubt on his ability to withstand the political fallout. Cuomo responded: “There is no way I resign.” (New York Times)
Economy
Tech billionaires swap the valley for Miami and hit the Silicon Beach: Like so many modern movements, this one began with a tweet. In December, the Silicon Valley investor Delian Asparouhov took to social media to wonder whether it might be time for the tech community to relocate en masse to Miami. Francis Suarez, the city’s charismatic, hyperactive and Twitter-obsessed mayor, immediately jumped in. “How can I help?” (The Times)
Bank of America gained hundreds of millions of dollars in trading revenue when the Texas electric grid failed in a winter storm last month, highlighting the upside for Wall Street from mayhem that knocked out power and heat across the state, industry executives and traders said. The bank’s Houston-based energy trading group had electricity contracts that soared in value when wholesale Texas power prices rose 10,000 per cent to a cap of $9,000 a megawatt-hour the third week of February. (Financial Times)
General Electric is nearing a deal to sell its aircraft leasing business to Irish group AerCap for more than $30bn, the latest move by the US industrial group to restructure its business. A deal, which would combine GE Capital Aviation Services (Gecas) with leasing company AerCap, could be announced as early as today. (Financial Times)
The Yum Model: When one of the biggest fast food brands in the world spun off its China operations, naysayers warned it would miss out on massive growth potential. But the setup’s success since could serve as a reality check for U.S. companies. (The Wire China)
Technology
Americans are learning to wean themselves off of news — and especially politics. Nearly every big news site saw its traffic decline in February, compared to a tumultuous January that included the Capitol insurrection and Biden's inauguration.Publishers' traffic was down across the board, and many major sites saw traffic dip more than 20%, according to data from traffic analytics company SimilarWeb. Politics consumption dropped most dramatically, tumbling 28%. (Axios)
Annual index finds AI is ‘industrializing’ but needs better metrics and testing: China has overtaken the United States in total number of AI research citations, fewer AI startups are receiving funding, and Congress is talking about AI more than ever. Those are three major trends highlighted in the 2021 AI Index, an annual report released today by Stanford University. A major trend also identified in the report is the industrialization of AI. (VentureBeat, AI Index)
Streaming, both ad-supported and subscription-based, accounted for 83% of music industry revenues in the U.S. last year, up from less than 10% in 2010, according to recent figures published by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). At $7.0 billion, paid subscriptions accounted for the lion’s share of streaming revenue in 2020, which in total amounted to $10.1 billion. To put that in perspective, all physical music sales combined amounted to just $1.1 billion last year, with downloads adding another $674 million to the music industry’s total haul of $12.2 billion. Interestingly, the streaming revolution hasn’t been the first complete shift in music consumption over the past 30 years. (Statista)
Smart Links
California bill would ban boys’ and girls’ toy sections in big department stores. (Los Angeles Times)
Apple to stop selling iMac Pro base model, which is listed as available ‘while supplies last.’ (The Verge)
How Google will target ads without singling users out. (One Zero)
Power grids are failing all over America. (Gen)
Early stage travel startups could see more investor interest. (Crunchbase)
CNN and NY Times plan documentary series on Murdoch. (Bloomberg)
The right '5-a-day' mix: 2 fruit and 3 vegetable servings for longer life. (American Heart Association)