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The World
The U.S. economy’s recovery picked up as consumers used stimulus checks to boost retail spending in January to its largest increase in seven months, a significant jump that comes as manufacturers continued to increase output and employers resumed hiring. The government said retail sales jumped a seasonally adjusted 5.3% in January from a month earlier, and manufacturing output neared pre-pandemic levels. (Wall Street Journal)
Biden’s next financial package could be far pricier than the $1.9 billion coronavirus bill. The plan’s expected to center on a major infrastructure investment, while also tackling other priorities such as clean energy, domestic manufacturing, and child and elder care. However, as the next must-pass bill in a divided Congress, it has unleashed a torrent of other demands, as advocates for issues from climate change to immigration push to get included. The cacophony of competing demands is already threatening to divide Democrats. (Washington Post)
With nearly 3 million Texans still without power, Gov. Greg Abbott doesn’t know when suffering residents will have water or power again. Abbott said he hasn’t been told which parts of Texas should expect power to return. Nearly 12 million Texans are also living under boil-water notices — and that number is expected to increase. Meanwhile, Texans running low on food are finding empty grocery store shelves. (Texas Tribune)
Abbott ordered a ban on natural gas exports from the state to try to speed the restoration of power. (Reuters)
The history: Texas leaders failed to heed warnings that left the state's power grid vulnerable to winter extremes, experts say. Texas officials knew winter storms could leave the state’s power grid vulnerable, but they left the choice to prepare for harsh weather up to the power companies — many of which opted against the costly upgrades. That, plus a deregulated energy market largely isolated from the rest of the country’s power grid, left the state alone to deal with the crisis, experts said. (Texas Tribune)
No, frozen wind turbines aren’t the main culprit for Texas’ power outages. (Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle)
Former Texas governor Rick Perry suggests that going days without power is a sacrifice Texans are willing to make if it means keeping federal regulators out of the state’s power grid. (Houston Chronicle)
The European Court of Human Rights ordered Russia to release Alexei Navalny, prompting an angry response from Moscow. The court ruled that Russia was unable to provide sufficient safeguards for the Kremlin critic’s life and health, citing the circumstances of his arrest. It warned that a failure to release him immediately would represent a breach of the European human rights convention, of which Russia is a signatory. (The Times)
More than a hundred thousand people poured on to the streets in Myanmar to voice their anger against the coup and reject an army claim that it has majority support. At a demonstration in Myanmar’s main city, Yangon, protesters marched with red flags signalling their loyalty to the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and carried signs denouncing the military. Mass demonstrations were also held in the second-largest city of Mandalay. (The Guardian)
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, long seen as a homogeneous redoubt of elderly men, now wants more women at its key meetings - provided they don’t do the talking. The party, in power for most of the time since 1955, has proposed allowing five female lawmakers to join its board meetings as observers in a response to criticism that its board is dominated by men. (Reuters)
The U.S. justice department accused three North Korean military intelligence officials of a campaign of cyber-attacks to steal $1.3bn in crypto and traditional currencies from banks and other victims. The three created malicious cryptocurrency applications, opening backdoors into victims’ computers; hacked into companies marketing and trading digital currencies like bitcoin; and developed a blockchain platform to evade sanctions and secretly raise funds, the department said. (The Guardian)
President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke on the phone, nearly a month after Biden entered office. Netanyahu was the first leader in the Middle East to get a call from Biden — but the 12th world leader overall. The “warm and friendly” conversation lasted for nearly an hour, the Prime Minister’s Office said. The long weeks of silence since Biden took office had led many to wonder whether the White House was snubbing its longtime ally, given Netanyahu’s frosty relationship with former Democratic president Barack Obama and his overwhelmingly warm ties with the more recent Donald Trump. (Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel)
Biden’s snub of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is a ‘warning’ signaling a relationship downgrade. (CNBC)
Saudi Arabia plans to increase its oil output in the coming months, reversing a recent big production cut, say advisers to the Kingdom, a sign of growing confidence over an oil-price recovery. (Wall Street Journal)
New research shows the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is effective against the South African, though the variant may reduce antibody protection from the Pfizer Inc/BioNTech SE vaccine by two-thirds. (Wall Street Journal, The Guardian)
55% of voters said states should wait to reopen schools until teachers have received the vaccine, while 34% said schools should be reopened as soon as possible, even if not every teacher has been vaccinated. (Morning Consult)
More than half of Americans, 53%, now see the disruption due to COVID-19 lasting past the middle of 2021, up from 33% who said the same in late December. This is largely due to a shift away from perceptions that the disruption would be over by mid-year, with 37% of the U.S. public now saying the situation will have improved by then -- a substantial drop from the 55% who previously said so. Relatively few Americans expect the disruption to last a few more months or less. (Gallup)
When the Perseverance rover sets down on Mars today at 3:55 pm ET, another NASA spacecraft already there will be listening for the thump-thump that will result when the newcomer arrives. The hope is that these thumps will create enough shaking to be detected by InSight, a stationary NASA probe that arrived in 2018 to listen for marsquakes with an exquisitely sensitive seismometer. The InSight lander sits more than 2,000 miles to the east of where Perseverance is to land. (New York Times)
Economy
Household debt climbed to a record in the U.S. amid a surge in mortgages: Total debt rose by $206 billion in 4Q20, bringing the annual increase to 3% to set a record of $14.56 trillion. Home loans, which increased 5% last year, crossed the $10 trillion threshold for the first time. Credit-card debt rose slightly in 4Q20, but ended the year down 12% from 2019, the largest annual decline ever. (Bloomberg)
The SEC is weighing whether to require more transparency of short selling and the opaque network of stock lending and borrowing that facilitates it. Meanwhile, the day trader at the center of the short squeeze on GameStop stock — Keith Gill, known as Roaring Kitty on YouTube — urged a House committee to investigate “potentially manipulative shorting practices” on Wall Street, ahead of a hearing in which he will appear alongside the hedge fund manager who lost billions on the other side of the bet. (Wall Street Journal, Financial Times)
In China, Lunar New Year holiday consumption jumped to more than 800 billion yuan, a 28.7% increase from 2020. However, the spending is still below the 2019 amount, which was over 1 trillion yuan. Meanwhile, Chinese stocks hit high as investors rush in after long holiday. (South China Morning Post, Nikkei Asian Review)
Grocery giant Kroger plans to close two stores in Seattle after the city passed a $4-an-hour hazard pay mandate for grocery workers, drawing sharp rebukes from local officials and worker advocates who point to the company’s booming sales as the pandemic continues to claim more than 2,000 lives a day. (Washington Post)
Bitcoin traded just shy of the new record high of $52,640 reached overnight. Meanwhile, Bitcoin could rise to $1 million over the long term to become a reserve currency for the world, according to one asset manager. But JPMorgan warned of risks ahead as the cryptocurrency continues to rally. (Reuters, CNBC)
Technology
Facebook has defied Australia’s push to make Big Tech pay for news by banning the sharing of content on its platform in the country, the most far-reaching restrictions it has ever placed on publishers in any part of the world. The extreme step to remove Australian news came as Google separately struck a global deal with News Corp. The dramatically different approaches mark a watershed moment for the media industry, which had hoped Australia’s tough regulatory approach would help reset its terms of trade with Google and Facebook worldwide. (Financial Times)
Facebook: “The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content. It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter.” (About Facebook)
Australia’s Treasurer: “Facebook was wrong. Facebook’s actions were unnecessary. They were heavy-handed and they will damage its reputation here in Australia.” (Sydney Morning Herald)
News Corp & Google: News Corp announced an historic multi-year partnership with Google to provide trusted journalism from its news sites around the world in return for significant payments by Google. Among the News Corp publications joining Google News Showcase will be The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch, and the New York Post; in the UK: The Times and The Sunday Times, and The Sun; and in Australia a range of news platforms, including The Australian, news.com.au, Sky News, and multiple metropolitan and local titles. (News Corp)
Google introduced a suite of updates for its online education tools whose adoption and further development have been accelerated by the pandemic, including Google Classroom, Google Meet and the next generation of G Suite for Education, now rebranded as Google Workspace for Education. In total, Google is promising more than 50 new features across its education products, with a focus on meeting educators’ and admins’ needs, in particular, in addition to those of the students. (TechCrunch)
A researcher found one of the first examples of malware written to run natively on Apple's M1 chips; the GoSearch22 adware installs itself as a Safari extension. (Vice)
The games group behind Fortnite has escalated its fight with Apple by lodging a complaint about its app store policies with the European Commission. Epic accused the iPhone maker of orchestrating a series of “carefully designed anti-competitive restrictions” that have “completely eliminated” competition in app distribution and payments. (The Times)
Google Maps will now let you pay for public transportation and parking through its app: Fill your meter or get a train ticket. (The Verge)
Smart Links
BeGreatTV to offer MasterClass-like courses taught by Black and brown innovators. (TechCrunch)
Top colleges in the south for academic resources (Vandy’s No. 1). (WSJ/THE Rankings)
Amazon launches a program like Kickstarter that lets people vote on new products to build. (CNBC)
73.2% of the U.S. is covered by snow. (Chicago Tribune)
More wealthy fliers are looking to buy their first private jet. (Barron’s)
San Diego Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis signed a $340 million, 14-year contract — the longest in MLB history. (San Diego Union-Tribune)