Know someone who would like this newsletter? Forward it to them.
The World
The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress. The shift by the Energy Department, which previously was undecided on how the virus emerged, is noted in an update to a 2021 document by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s office. The new report highlights how different parts of the intelligence community have arrived at disparate judgments about the pandemic’s origin. The Energy Department now joins the FBI in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided. The Energy Department made its judgment with “low confidence,” according to people who have read the classified report. (Wall Street Journal)
A spike in flu cases is fueling a shortage of antivirals at Chinese pharmacies, with empty shelves reminiscent of the drug frenzy triggered by the explosive Covid outbreak that accompanied the country’s reopening. (Bloomberg)
Russia’s struggles to seize and keep territory in Ukraine over the past year has likely fueled doubts by Chinese leader Xi Jinping that China’s military could successfully invade Taiwan later this decade, CIA Director William Burns said. “I think our judgment at least is that (Chinese) President Xi and his military leadership have doubts today about whether they could accomplish that invasion,” Mr. Burns said Sunday on CBS. “As they’ve looked at Putin’s experience in Ukraine, that’s probably reinforced some of those doubts.” (Wall Street Journal)
Kyiv and Moscow might be thousands of kilometers from Africa, but the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been felt across the continent – from Khartoum to Cairo. The war has worsened food crises in African countries including Egypt, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea and Kenya that are heavily dependent on wheat imported from Russia and Ukraine because it has disrupted supply chains and cut access to affordable wheat and fertilizer from the Black Sea region. As the war enters its second year, tensions between China and Russia on the one side and the United States on the other have increased, with observers saying Africa has been turned into a geopolitical battleground. (South China Morning Post)
Tens of thousands of people filled Mexico City’s vast main plaza to protest President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s electoral law reforms that they say threaten democracy and could mark a return to the past. The plaza is normally thought to hold nearly 100,000 people, but many protesters who couldn’t fit in the square spilled out onto nearby streets. The marchers were clad mostly in white and pink — the color of the National Electoral Institute — and shouted slogans like “Don’t Touch my Vote!” (Associated Press)
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un kicked off a meeting of ruling party officials to discuss improving the country's economy and agricultural sector, as fears of food shortages and a humanitarian crisis grow. International experts say food insecurity has worsened in the isolated nation amid sanctions and COVID-19 lockdowns. (Reuters)
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will meet the president of the European Commission today to sign off on their Brexit deal for Northern Ireland. Downing Street said the two leaders had “agreed to continue their work in person towards shared, practical solutions for the range of complex challenges around the protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland”. No 10 sources said they did not expect the Democratic Unionist Party to back the agreement but hoped that they and other unionists in Northern Ireland would not reject it outright. (The Times)
The UK government has quietly withdrawn £1.6 billion (US$1.9 billion) from the country’s research-and-development budget after it failed to come to an agreement with the EU over the country's participation in large European research projects. But the government says that the money is not lost to UK science. “Funding remains available to finalize association with EU programs, but we have been clear that we will only pay for the periods of association,” said a government spokesperson. (Nature)
Measures to make prices more transparent were good steps in the drive to create more competition in health care. But they don’t do what is necessary to create a vibrant consumer market in which patients would actively shop around for the best prices. Four additional steps that would make a big difference include: (1) force care providers to specify their prices for a list of standardized, consumer-focused bundles of services tied to full episodes of clinical interventions; (2) require all providers to participate in this bundled pricing system; (3) mandate that the prices posted for these services be available to all patients, irrespective of their insurance status; and (4) ensure that consumers who select service providers that charge prices that are below what their insurance plans will pay can keep the savings. (Harvard Business Review)
Economy
CEO Survey: Expect Salary Increases To Stall In 2023. Pay increases among almost every class of worker are likely to slow dramatically in 2023, an abrupt U-turn from recent trends. Compared to 2022, smaller proportions of workers in all seniority levels are projected to see salary increases of 5 percent or more, with companies instead opting to increase salaries at more modest rates, if at all. According to our research, some 52% of middle managers saw a salary increase of at least 5 percent in 2022. That proportion is expected to drop to just 26 percent this year, according to CEOs we surveyed. Only 20 percent of other senior executives are projected to see a 5 percent or more raise to their salary in 2023, down sharply from the 34 percent who got a raise of that size last year. For front-line and back-office employees, 57 percent saw raises of 5 percent or more in 2022. Just 32 percent can expect a similar gain this year. (Chief Executive)
‘Expectation gap.’ Young women expect less pay than men before they even enter the workforce. A new study shows that women in the graduating class of 2023 expected to earn an average of $6,000 less a year than their male counterparts. The finding further undercuts the notion that the gender pay gap is only caused by the motherhood penalty. (Fortune)
Female entrepreneurs founded more than 150,000 UK firms in 2022, double the level in 2018, as the government looks to make it easier for women-led companies to prosper. There were 151,603 incorporations in 2022 with 100% female directors. That’s up from 145,271 in 2021 and 56,269 in 2018. (Bloomberg)
Companies are shedding some workers without imposing layoffs. Amid a wave of job cuts hitting U.S. white-collar workers, a number of employers are taking other approaches to manage their workforces. Some are adding new restrictions on remote work, stepping up scrutiny in performance reviews or requiring staffers to relocate across the country to keep their jobs. The moves, though not labeled as layoffs, can at times have a similar effect in thinning a company’s ranks, human-resources specialists and corporate advisers say. It is also a sign that bosses at white-collar firms are back in charge after struggling to retain workers in recent years amid a tight labor market. (Wall Street Journal)
HSBC to halve space for head office: HSBC is looking for a new London office that is less than half the size of its skyscraper at Canary Wharf, as the enduring shift towards flexible working takes its toll on the capital’s office market. HSBC, which has embraced home working to a greater extent than Wall Street peers JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, is on a global drive to slash its office space by 40% compared with pre-pandemic levels. (The Times)
Technology
Apple is famous for keeping its future products under wraps, but even by those standards the company’s Exploratory Design Group (XDG) is secretive. Beyond the glucose work, XDG is working on next-generation display technology, artificial intelligence and features for AR/VR headsets that help people with eye diseases. The team originally came together under Athas to work on low-power processor technologies and next-generation batteries for smartphones, efforts that continue. Like Alphabet’s moonshot team — and those at other Silicon Valley companies — the XDG staff is given vast financial resources and headroom to explore countless ideas. The members have a different remit than the engineering teams churning out new iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches annually. Instead, they’re instructed to work on projects until they can determine whether or not an idea is feasible. (Bloomberg)
Warner Bros. Discovery is informing the professional-sports teams whose games are carried on three of its regional sports networks that it wishes to cease operating the channels and exit the business, according to people familiar with the matter. The three regional sports networks were inherited by Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. when it acquired control of the WarnerMedia assets from AT&T Inc. T -0.57%decrease; red down pointing triangle The channels—which are still branded as AT&T SportsNet—serve teams in Pittsburgh, Houston, Colorado and Utah—and carry baseball, basketball and hockey. (Wall Street Journal)
Hong Kong courts crypto industry as other governments crack down. Times are tough in the global cryptocurrency business. Following a series of industry disasters capped by November's collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX exchange, regulators around the world have been cracking down on the sector. But there is one intriguing exception to this trend in Asia. In recent months, Hong Kong, a financial center seeking to maintain its prominence in the face of growing competition from Singapore, has been mounting an aggressive campaign to become a crypto hub. (Nikkei Asia)
LinkedIn scammers step up sophistication of online attacks: Fraudsters pose as recruiters on professional social network to take advantage of remote working and tech lay-offs. (Financial Times)
Smart Links
Billionaire Ackman donates $3.25 million for ambulances in Ukraine. (Reuters)
Snowfall tops 6.5 feet and rainfall tops 5 inches across southern California (CNN)
Amazon Expands Same-Day Delivery, With Fees, While Battling Slow Growth. (Wall Street Journal)
Google changed work culture. Its former hype woman has regrets. (New York Times)