Your Evening Briefing
Your Evening Briefing
(Bloomberg) --
The global death toll from the coronavirus has exceeded 360, with almost 17,400 confirmed cases worldwide. China’s stock market opened the week with the most extreme wave of selling in years. As the virus spreads, thousands of businesses are trying to figure out how to stay open, resulting in the world’s largest work-from-home experiment. Even the partial U.S.-China trade deal has been affected, with the nations exchanging insults over their response to the virus. China has rushed to start human trials of a new antiviral drug, but drugmakers say a vaccine could take a year or more. Here’s the latest.
Here are today’s top stories
The Iowa Caucuses are being held right now, but determining who the winner is may take longer than expected, thanks to some technical difficulties. The state is the first to decide who the 2020 presidential party nominees might be, and Senator Bernie Sanders was the late Democratic favorite. Things are tighter in New Hampshire, which is coming up next week.
Democratic impeachment managers made their final arguments for the conviction of President Donald Trump. Representative Adam Schiff told senators that Trump endangers the 2020 election and “betrayed his oath to protect and defend the Constitution.” The Republican-controlled chamber is expected to acquit Trump on Wednesday after voting to bar witnesses from his trial. Trump is to deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
Moving fast usually breaks things, and those in the rocket industry are loathe to do so, with the notable exception of Astra. The small company is preparing to launch satellites into orbit in record time.
Climate models—which have successfully projected global warming for half a century—are running red hot and scientists don’t know why. The question now is how bad will climate change get, and how soon?
Alphabet reported revenue from the holiday quarter that missed Wall Street estimates, suggesting the company’s Google advertising business is struggling to maintain growth in the face of rising competition.
What’s Joe Weisenthal thinking about? The Bloomberg news director says while many agree that policymakers will need to lean more heavily on fiscal policy during the next downturn, the conversation usually ends right there. This leaves all kinds of questions unanswered, like what should the government spend money on? When should the government spend it? On the latest episode of Odd Lots, Joe and co-host Tracy Alloway spoke with former Federal Reserve economist Claudia Sahm about the best way for the government to start cutting checks to prevent and minimize downturns.
What you’ll need to know tomorrow
- WeWork appointed a new CEO over the weekend. Wish him luck.
- Tesla’s rally continued for a fifth straight day.
- Disney is making a " Hamilton" film with the original Broadway cast.
- Rush Limbaugh revealed he’s been diagnosed with lung cancer.
- U.S. antitrust officials move to block a big razor deal.
- Apple’s push into TV is "failing to resonate" says one analyst.
- Not born into nobility? No worries: you can buy your way in.
What you’ll want to read tonight
When Elon Musk secured $1.3 billion from Nevada in 2014 to open a gigantic battery plant, Jeff Bezos noticed. And so, when Amazon launched a bakeoff for a second headquarters in September 2017, the company made plain that it was looking for government handouts in exchange for a pledge to invest $5 billion and hire 50,000 people. The splashy, reality-television-style contest generated breathless media coverage, attracted fawning bids from 238 cities across North America and ended with Amazon deciding to split the so-called HQ2 between New York and Virginia. Then progressive politicians attacked the $3 billion in incentives offered by New York, and Bezos pulled out. This is the inside story of that failure.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Rovella at drovella@bloomberg.net
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