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The World
President Biden and Democratic congressional leaders raced to strike a compromise on a domestic policy and climate package, pushing for a vote within days even as critical disagreements remained over health benefits, paid leave, environmental provisions and how to pay for the sprawling plan. Negotiators were closing in on an agreement that could spend around $1.75 trillion over 10 years. They have coalesced around a plan that would extend monthly payments to families with children, establish generous tax incentives for clean energy use and provide federal support for child care, elder care and universal prekindergarten. An array of tax increases, including a new wealth tax for the country’s billionaires, would pay for the initiatives. (New York Times)
Poland’s prime minister accused the EU of making demands of Warsaw with a “gun to our head,” urging Brussels to withdraw threats of legal and financial sanctions if it wanted to resolve the country’s rule of law crisis. In a move to ease tensions in the long-running dispute, which has raised fears of a Polish exit from the EU, Mateusz Morawiecki promised to dismantle by the end of the year a disciplinary chamber for judges that the European Court of Justice found to be illegal. But he warned that if the European Commission “starts the third world war” by withholding promised cash to Warsaw, he would “defend our rights with any weapons which are at our disposal”. (Financial Times)
The UK’s three spy agencies have contracted AWS, Amazon’s cloud computing arm, to host classified material in a deal aimed at boosting the use of data analytics and artificial intelligence for espionage. The contract is likely to ignite concerns over sovereignty given that a vast amount of the UK’s most secret data will be hosted by a single US tech company. The agreement, estimated by industry experts to be worth £500m to £1bn over the next decade, was signed this year. However, the details are closely guarded and were not intended to be made public. (Financial Times)
The largest police union in New York City asked a judge to allow unvaccinated police officers to continue working, despite the city’s recently imposed vaccine mandate, which requires all municipal workers to have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Nov. 1. (New York Times)
The number of coronavirus infections recorded so far in eastern Europe surpassed 20 million, as the region grapples with its worst outbreak since the pandemic started and inoculation efforts lag. Countries in the region have the lowest vaccination rates in Europe, with less than half of the population having received a single dose. (Reuters)
China locked down a county that has seen the most Covid-19 cases in the nation’s latest delta outbreak, as an initial flareup in the northwest quickly spirals into a nationwide surge. Ejin, a county in China’s Inner Mongolia region, asked its 35,700 residents to stay home from Monday and warned of civil and criminal liabilities should anyone disobey the order. (Bloomberg)
President Biden signed an order imposing new vaccine requirements for most foreign national air travelers and lifting severe travel restrictions on China, India and much of Europe effective Nov. 8. (Reuters)
Tesla crossed $1 trillion in market value. Investors pushed the electric-vehicle maker over the line after Hertz ordered 100,000 autos to be delivered to the rental-car company by the end of next year, a bulk purchase that promises to expose more mainstream drivers to Tesla’s technology. Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet are the only other U.S. companies worth more $1 trillion. (Wall Street Journal)
Mark Zuckerberg “has unilateral control over 3 billion people” due to his unassailable position at the top of Facebook, the whistleblower Frances Haugen told MPs as she called for urgent external regulation to rein in the tech company’s management and reduce the harm being done to society. Haugen travelled to London from the US for a parliamentary hearing. (The Guardian)
Inside the new plan to make Paris ‘100% Cyclable’: Paris announced a major upgrade of its cycling infrastructure that could make it one of the most bike-friendly major cities in the world. Between now and 2026, the city announced, Paris will gain 180 kilometers (112 miles) of new permanent segregated bike lanes. As part of the city’s new Bike Plan, the number of bike parking spots will more than triple, with 180,000 more added to the current total of 60,000. The city will pay particular attention to bike lanes and infrastructure around the connection points between the neighboring suburbs and the city to create better integration across the wider metro area. (CityLab)
As U.S. transit systems struggle with budget shortfalls and reduced ridership, Chicago is proposing fare cuts to lure customers back. Prices of multi-day passes would be permanently reduced an average of 34% and transfer fees eliminated under the Chicago Transit Authority’s 2022 budget plan. While one-way fares would be unchanged, the cost of a single-day unlimited ticket would be halved to $5. Unlimited monthly passes would be reduced from $105 to $75. (CityLab)
Kentucky has the highest rate of people quitting jobs in the nation, according to the inaugural release of state-level job openings and labor turnover data. The rate of job openings in Kentucky (8%) is among the country's highest (second only to Alaska, 9%). At a national level, it's 6.6%. (Axios)
Economy
CFOs plump salaries and perks to land elusive new employees. Amid the ‘Great Resignation,’ companies have to offer compensation that stands out in order to draw new workers—and hold on to the ones they have. (Wall Street Journal)
President Xi Jinping’s vision for a more equal China has spooked investors. The recent release of a fuller version of his August remarks contains important hints on what “common prosperity” really means. (Wall Street Journal)
Citi, led by CEO Jane Fraser, will be the first Wall Street bank to do a racial audit of itself in an attempt to understand how the bank may contribute to the racial wealth gap in the U.S. The bank says that "measurement and transparency" are important to its commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion. (Fortune)
Dow Chemical expects supply chain clogs that have slowed chemical and resin exports to last into 1Q22 amid continued high demand for plastics across various industries, CEO Jim Fitterling said. Dow's order backlog is about 30% higher than normal amid supply chain bottlenecks that decreased its inventory-to-sales ratio by about 10% in 3Q21. (S&P Global)
The buzz around Florida startup growth isn’t just hype: Florida companies have raised just over $1 billion in early-stage funding so far this year, our data shows. That’s nearly quadruple the sum raised in all of 2020, and comes as other investment stages are also posting gains. (Crunchbase)
Mastercard will offer crypto credit and debit cards, as the global payment network will soon expand its cryptocurrency services to customers in a partnership with digital asset firm Bakkt. (Blockworks)
How creator economy investments could hit $5 billion this year: The upswell of interest in people earning a living from their online followers means it has never been a better time for founders building startups that serve creators. New data show how successful these efforts have been. Some 101 U.S. startups focused on creators have raised more than $3.7 billion through mid-October. While funding dipped in the third quarter from the second, the two straight quarters of investments topping $1 billion put the sector on track to exceed $5 billion in new funds by the end of the year. (The Information)
Technology
Inside the big Facebook leak: Frances Haugen, the former Facebook product manager who shared company documents, led a meticulous media rollout. This piece explains the Haugen leak rollout: The Facebook Files, The Facebook Papers, 60 Minutes interview, Congressional testimony, and more: “First she handed her documents to The Journal for a boutique rollout. Then she opened the journalistic equivalent of an outlet store, allowing reporters on two continents to root through everything The Journal had left behind in search of overlooked informational gems. Her intention was to broaden the circle, she said. She added that she plans to share the documents with academic writers and publications from parts of the world where she sees the greatest peril, including India and parts of the Middle East.” (New York Times)
Facebook’s lost generation: The world’s largest social network is internally grappling with an existential crisis — an aging user base. Earlier this year, a researcher at Facebook shared some alarming statistics with colleagues. Teen U.S. users of the Facebook app had declined by 13% since 2019 and were projected to drop 45% over the next two years, driving an overall decline in daily users in the company’s most lucrative ad market. Young adults between the ages of 20 and 30 were expected to decline by 4% during the same timeframe. Making matters worse, the younger a user was, the less on average they regularly engaged with the app. The message was clear: Facebook was losing traction with younger generations fast. The findings, echoed by other internal documents and my conversations with current and former employees, show that Facebook sees its aging user base as an existential threat to the long-term health of its business and that it’s trying desperately to correct the problem with little indication that its strategy will work. (The Verge)
Facebook shares rose more than 1% in extended trading on Monday after the company reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings even as revenue missed analysts’ estimates. Facebook also said it’s increasing its share buyback program by $50 billion. (CNBC)
Facebook's metaverse spending will top $10 billion this year, though the company doesn't expect to generate significant income with AR and VR for many more years. (Protocol)
Apple so far has avoided the worst outcome in its U.S. legal battle with Epic Games, but its antitrust woes remain. In the last several months the U.S. Department of Justice has accelerated its two-year-old antitrust probe of the iPhone maker, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation, increasing the likelihood of a lawsuit. (The Information)
Epic Games employees are upset by the end of a pandemic-related policy of making every other Friday a vacation day. (Bloomberg)
Lyft names new head of healthcare: The ride-hailing giant wants to continue capitalizing on non-emergency medical transportation and said the transition will be instrumental in that expansion, along with finding new use cases in the sector. (Healthcare Dive)
Smart Links
Chief Executive names CEO Of The Year: Merck’s Ken Frazier. (Chief Executive)
Disneyland ticket prices go up as much as 8%, with parking rising 20%. (Los Angeles Times)
UN says world on course to warm 2.7°C based on current plans. (Bloomberg)
Polluting cars now have to pay to drive within 140 square miles of London. (Fast Company)
Which is more expensive: Charging an electric vehicle or fueling a car with gas? (Detroit Free Press)
Manhattan luxury apartment sales see biggest week since 2013. (Bloomberg)
U.S. SEC set to crack down on Stablecoins in new report. (Blockworks)