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The World
Joe Biden warned Vladimir Putin that the U.S. would respond to “malign actions” by Russia during their first phone call. According to the White House’s account of the call, Biden and Putin discussed a five-year extension of the New Start arms control treaty, agreeing “to have their teams work urgently to complete the extension” before its expiry on February 5. Biden also “reaffirmed” America’s “strong support” for Ukraine’s sovereignty, and addressed the SolarWinds hack, the bounties placed on US soldiers in Afghanistan, interference in the 2020 election, and the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the White House said. Meanwhile, Navalny supporters called for fresh protests across Russia this weekend, as a woman kicked by police becomes a symbol of opposition. (Financial Times, The Guardian)
Biden’s commerce secretary pick backs tariffs and export limits against Chinese firms: “I intend to use all those tools to the fullest extent possible,” Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, said at her confirmation hearing. She held off committing to maintaining current sanctions against Huawei Technologies. Meanwhile, Apple is ramping up the production of iPhones, iPads, Macs and other products outside of China — to India and Vietnam — accelerating its production diversification. (South China Morning Post, Nikkei Asian Review)
The UK became the first European country to record more than 100,000 coronavirus deaths. Britain is the fifth nation in the world to reach six figures, after the U.S., Brazil, India and Mexico. Meanwhile, all Ireland arrivals face up to two weeks of mandatory quarantine after the government announced stricter measures and extended the lockdown until March. (The Times, The Times-2)
The CDC found scant spread of coronavirus in schools with precautions in place. Separately, a Columbia University model shows that even once Covid-19 vaccinations are well underway, other mitigation strategies like masking and physical distancing will likely still be necessary until at least mid year. (Washington Post, New York Times)
France's top medical adviser said a third national lockdown would probably soon be needed. A strict curfew was implemented last weekend, but cases continue to climb. (BBC News)
44% of U.S. adults said their view of their favorite brand would improve if it provided employees with a financial incentive for receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, while 11% would view it less favorably, creating a net favorability rating of 33 points. 49% of the public thinks inoculation should be mandatory for essential workers to return to the workplace. (Morning Consult)
EU citizens are being offered financial incentives to leave the UK, months before the deadline to apply for settled status. Payments can include flights and up to £2,000 resettlement money. The scheme is designed to help some migrants in the UK to leave voluntarily. (The Guardian)
Israel’s top general said that its military was refreshing its operational plans against Iran and that any U.S. return to a 2015 nuclear accord with Tehran would be “wrong.” Meanwhile, the U.S. announced it’s renewing relations with Palestinians, seeking 2-state solution, as the Biden Administration will reopen Palestinian diplomatic offices and restore aid. (Reuters, Times of Israel)
The Federal Reserve’s first meeting of 2021: five things to watch. 1) Economic turning point? 2) Additional aid forthcoming. 3) Taper talk. 4) New faces. 5) A new Treasury secretary. (Financial Times)
Parents of school-age children who spend part or all of their time taking classes from home are less likely to be employed full-time, in the latest indication of the toll school closures take on working parents. About 47% of parents with children who are learning entirely remotely or are in hybrid situations are working full-time, compared with 71% of parents whose children are physically back in school buildings. About 24% of parents whose children are attending school virtually aren’t working at all compared with 15% of parents whose children are attending school in person every day. (Wall Street Journal, Gallup)
Senate Republicans rallied against trying former President Trump for “incitement of insurrection” at the Capitol, with only five members of his party joining Democrats in a vote to go forward with his impeachment trial. By a vote of 55-to-45, the Senate narrowly killed a Republican effort to dismiss the proceeding as unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office. (New York Times)
Common App data show that applications to large and selective colleges and universities drove a 10% year-over-year increase in the volume of submissions sector-wide to 5.6 million as of mid-January, according to data from Common App, whose application more than 900 schools use. The number of individual applicants rose only 1% during that period, to around 989,000. And fewer first-generation and low-income students applied to college compared to a year ago. (HigherEd Dive)
The world's largest automobile markets suffered significant sales declines in 2020, with the Chinese market furthest along on the road to recovery. (Statista)
Economy
A pandemic-fueled triple-whammy in 4Q20 lifted Microsoft revenues and earnings far above expectations. A boom in PC sales, surging demand for video gaming, and increased usage of its cloud services combined to produce a 17% surge in revenue, to $43.1bn. Wall Street had been expecting its growth rate to slow to below 10%. Microsoft also pointed to signs of a return to more normal IT buying patterns. (Financial Times)
Britain suffered the deepest recession of all G7 leading nations last year and the economy will not return to pre-pandemic levels until next year, the International Monetary Fund has said. In a more optimistic global outlook than its October update, the IMF upgraded world growth, but singled out the UK as the only G7 economy to downgrade in 2020. (The Times)
Five of the largest U.S. banks publicly committed to mandating a diverse slate of applicants when hiring employees, part of a push to diversify an industry whose top ranks remain largely white and male. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and U.S. Bancorp said they would either adjust policies for considering job candidates or disclose the ones they already have in place. (Wall Street Journal)
The World Economic Forum announced that 48 companies joined a coalition committed to improving racial and ethnic justice in the workplace. 13 tech companies joined: Cisco, Cognizant, Facebook, Google, HP, Infosys, LinkedIn, Microsoft, PayPal, Salesforce, SAP, Tata Consultancy Services and Uber Technologies. (Protocol, WEF)
Some of Europe’s largest banks are phasing out trading services for the export of oil from the Ecuadorean Amazon, a move that reflects the growing focus of global banks on climate change and their shift away from increasingly risky fossil fuels. (Wall Street Journal)
Fifth Third Bancorp CEO Greg Carmichael says despite investments in new technology, traditional banks are competing on an uneven playing field vs. lightly regulated and less-restricted FinTechs. (American Banker)
Technology
YouTube has paid out more than $30 billion to creators, artists, and media organizations over the last three years. The number of new channels that joined the company’s Partner Program, which allows creators to earn advertising revenue, more than doubled in 2020. YouTube also “contributed approximately $16 billion to the U.S. GDP in 2019, supporting the equivalent of 345,000 full time jobs,” according to an Oxford Economics report. (The Verge, Oxford Economics, YouTube)
Google is reviving plans to launch its own news website in Australia within weeks, as the search giant fights world-first proposed laws on content payments. (Reuters)
Twitter says it will no longer require researchers pay for premium or enterprise developer access and will instead make the “full history of public conversation” — what the company refers to as its full-archive search endpoint — available to any researcher or developer who applies as part of the launch of a new academic research track. Twitter also acquired Revue, a newsletter platform for writers and publishers, marking Twitter's first step into building out long-form content experiences, and its first foray into subscription revenue. (The Verge, Axios)
Calendly, a popular meeting scheduling service, raised $350M from OpenView Venture Partners and Iconiq at a $3B+ valuation. (TechCrunch)
Using CRISPR technology, researchers are tracking the lineage of individual cancer cells as they proliferate and metastasize in real-time. “These events are typically impossible to monitor in real time,” says Jonathan Weissman, MIT professor of biology and Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research member. Weissman’s lab treats cancer cells the way evolutionary biologists might look at species, mapping out an intricately detailed family tree. By examining the branches, they can track the cell’s lineage to find when a single tumor cell went rogue, spreading its progeny to the rest of the body. (MIT News)
Smart Links
U.S. News & World Report’s best online Bachelor’s program rankings. (U.S. News & World Report)
How Israel secured more vaccines than it can use. (Financial Times)
Best malls in America have seen their value tumble 45% from 2016. (CNBC)
Houston home prices rose 12%, the greatest year-over-year increase in more than seven years. (Houston Chronicle)
Twin Cities, Duluth home prices surge. (Star Tribune, Star Tribune-2)
Goldman Sachs slashes CEO’s pay over 1MDB. (Financial Times)
No one elected to Baseball Hall of Fame for first time since 1960. (ESPN)
Learn More (Today, 11 a.m. ET): U.S. Foreign Policy Challenges: Views From Abroad. The panelists include experts from around the globe who will address US foreign policy through the lens of their respective regions: Israel, China, India, and Mexico. The panelists each served as distinguished Robert E Wilhelm fellows at the MIT Center for International Studies (CIS). (MIT Registration)