Time for your daily Deshaun Watson trade rumors update.
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And this one won’t go over well with Jets fans hoping for a deal with the Houston Texans.
SNY’s Ralph Vacchiano reports that “according to a source who has spoken with people close to Watson, the 25-year-old quarterback doesn’t have the Jets at the top of his wish list.”
On top of that, NFL scout Matt Miller says “No disrespect to other reporters, but I’ve been told the Jets are NOT his preferred destination should a trade take place. His no-trade clause makes this very important.”
But there a silver lining here. Even though the Jets are not atop Watson’s trade wish list, New York is one of the teams to which he would accept a deal. Vacchiano reports “the Jets are one of them, the source said, because of Watson’s affection for new Jets coachRobert Saleh. But the Dolphins might be just as attractive, if not more, because of Watson’s respect for Dolphins coach Brian Flores, their young core of talent, and the fact that there’s no state income tax in Florida.”
Watson, a three-time Pro Bowl selection, is disgruntled after being frozen out on Houston’s decision-making process when the Texans hired general manager Nick Caserio and head coach David Culley.
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Apple(AAPL) is set to introduce a new requirement for users to give explicit permission for apps to track them across the internet, a move that has roiled Facebook, which relies on data collection to target ads.
Now, Facebook plans to show a prompt “of our own, along with Apple’s” in an effort to show users how personalized ads “support small businesses and keep apps free,” the company said in an update Monday to an older blog post called “Speaking Up for Small Businesses.”
“As we shared in December, we disagree with Apple’s approach, but will be showing their prompt to ensure stability for the businesses and people who use our services,” Facebook said in the post.
For Facebook(FB), the stakes of Apple’s new privacy change couldn’t be higher. The social media company, which makes almost all of its revenue from advertising, has repeatedlywarned investors that Apple’s software changes could hurt its business if users reject tracking permissions.
In December, Facebook took out ads in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, saying the requirement could be “devastating” to millions of small businesses that advertise on its platform. It alsoheld a press event to trot out small businesses opposed to the change and debuted a new hashtag to discuss it.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO and cofounder, hammered a similar point on a conference call with analysts last month to discuss the company’s most recent earnings report.
“Apple has every incentive to use their dominant platform position to interfere with how our apps and other apps work, which they regularly do, to preference their own,” Zuckerberg said. “This impacts the growth of millions of businesses around the world, including with the upcoming iOS 14 changes. Many small businesses will no longer be able to reach their customers with targeted ads.”
While this latest move may seem like yet another shot fired atApple, Facebookis taking Apple up on its offer for any developer to explain why it wants certain permissions for tracking. “We feel that people deserve the additional context, and Apple has said that providing education is allowed,” Facebook said in the blog post.
On Apple’s privacy and data webpage, the company said developers are allowed to do this “so long as you are transparent to users about your use of the data in your explanation. … Apps must respect the user’s permission settings and not attempt to manipulate, trick, or force people to consent to unnecessary data access.”
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Apple declined to comment.
In a December tweet, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared an image of what Facebook’s app tracking transparency messaging could look like. Under the permissions prompt, the example language said: “Here, in addition to other screens, Facebook can explain why users should allow tracking.” Users can then “ask app not to track” or “allow.”
Black Ops Cold War is finally about to get a new Zombies map, but the leak of 2 additional maps might confirm a Season 2 launch.
Since launch, Black Ops Cold War Zombies fans have been a little lacking in content. Besides the Cranked and Jingle Hells modes, Treyarch’s latest Zombies mode has been somewhat neglected this time around.
But all that is about to change, as Firebase Z joins Die Maschine in the Cold War roster in a few days’ time. The second map looks like an incredibly interesting location, with a lot of new content to explore.
(Source: Activision)
And what’s more, there may actually be 2 more Cold War Zombies maps coming soon, as fans speculate about a new leak.
These maps were first teased in the Firebase Z official trailer, but you’ll have to look closely to spot them.
Leaked Black Ops Cold War Zombies Map Set in the USA?
Thanks to new information revealed in Firebase Z, we know the location of 2 new Zombies maps. One is a previously leaked Cold War location, Berlin, and the other Zombies map may well be set in the USA.
During the trailer, right when the Aether Reactor goes off, a map is visible on the wall monitors. And as YouTuber TheGamingRevolution points out, there are a couple of blinking lights to see.
These locations are both labeled as ‘Identified Outbreak Zones’ which appears to confirm that they are upcoming map locations.
(Source: TheGamingRevolution)
We’ve actually seen teases like this before, as a similar map in the Die Maschine intro and the Cold War Zombies menu also indicates an outbreak in Berlin.
Read More: New Firebase Z Gameplay Leaks for Black Ops Cold War Zombies
Given the location of the Berlin red dot, fans actually believe we know what’s coming to Cold War soon. Many users are predicting that Black Ops Cold War Zombies is getting a Kino Der Toten remake as DLC.
Of course, this Kino der Toten will likely use the old location and expand upon it, much like Die Maschine did with Nacht der Untoten. Regardless, we’re excited to see what comes of this leak.
Hopefully, this new map will come with yet another new Wonder Weapon like Firebase Z’s R.A.I. K-84.
Black Ops Cold War Zombies Alcatraz Leak?
However, the other map location is definitely set in North America, with fans believing it to be set in San Francisco. This could confirm that Cold War Zombies is heading to Alcatraz in a future update.
This location has already appeared in Blackout, Treyarch’s attempt at a battle royale mode. It wouldn’t be farfetched to imagine that the location could return, in the undead survival mode.
As for when these 2 new Zombies maps could release, TheGamingRevolution points out something interesting. At the end of a recent blog post, Treyarch indicated big plans for Zombies in Season 2.
“Before we go, we’ll leave you with this: what we’ve talked about today is just a glimpse of what’s planned for Zombies in 2021. If you think you know what to expect in Season Two… thing again.”
With that in mind, we could well see both maps release in the coming season. After all, Cold War Season 1 brought us multiple Zombies locations, and Season 2 appears to be ramping up dramatically.
However, with one Cold War Zombies player recently crashing at Round 506, we hope the new maps are more stable than Die Maschine.
In the past, Treyarch confirmed a new Zombies map in Cold War Season 2. However, it’s also possible that the developer was talking about Firebase Z, which was pushed forward.
In the meantime, check out the full Firebase Z map layout ahead of the new update. It helps to prepare when dealing with the undead, after all.
Nearly a year into the coronavirus pandemic, as thousands of patients are dying every day in the United States and widespread vaccination is still months away, doctors have precious few drugs to fight the virus.
A handful of therapies — remdesivir, monoclonal antibodies and the steroid dexamethasone — have improved the care of Covid patients, putting doctors in a better position than they were when the virus surged last spring. But these drugs are not cure-alls and they’re not for everyone, and efforts to repurpose other drugs, or discover new ones, have not had much success.
The government poured $18.5 billion into vaccines, a strategy that resulted in at least five effective products at record-shattering speed. But its investment in drugs was far smaller, about $8.2 billion, most of which went to just a few candidates, such as monoclonal antibodies. Studies of other drugs were poorly organized.
The result was that many promising drugs that could stop the disease early, called antivirals, were neglected. Their trials have stalled, either because researchers couldn’t find enough funding or enough patients to participate.
At the same time, a few drugs have received sustained investment despite disappointing results. There’s now a wealth of evidence that the malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine did not work against Covid. And yet there are still 179 clinical trials with 169,370 patients in which at least some are receiving the drugs, according to the Covid Registry of Off-label & New Agents at the University of Pennsylvania. And the federal government funneled tens of millions of dollars into an expanded access program for convalescent plasma, infusing almost 100,000 Covid patients before there was any robust evidence that it worked. In January, those trials revealed that, at least for hospitalized patients, it doesn’t.
The lack of centralized coordination meant that many trials for Covid antivirals were doomed from the start — too small and poorly designed to provide useful data, according to Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. If the government had instead set up an organized network of hospitals to carry out large trials and quickly share data, researchers would have many more answers now.
“I blame myself to some extent,” said Dr. Woodcock, who has overseen the federal government’s efforts to develop Covid drugs.
She hopes to tame the chaos with a new effort from the Biden administration. In the next couple of months, she said, the government plans to start large and well-organized trials for existing drugs that could be repurposed to fight Covid-19. “We are actively working on that,” Dr. Woodcock said.
Brand-new antiviral drugs might also help, but only now is the National Institutes of Health putting together a major initiative to develop them, meaning they won’t be ready in time to fight the current pandemic.
“This effort will be unlikely to provide therapeutics in 2021,” Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the N.I.H., said in a statement. “If there is a Covid-24 or Covid-30 coming, we want to be prepared.”
Even as the number of cases and deaths have surged around the country, the survival rate of those who are infected has improved significantly. A recent study found that by June, the mortality rates of those hospitalized had dropped to 9 percent from 17 percent at the start of the pandemic, a trend that has been echoed in other studies. Researchers say the improvement is partly because of the steroid dexamethasone, which boosts survival rates of severely ill patients by tamping down the immune system rather than blocking the virus. Patients may also be seeking care earlier in the course of the illness. And masks and social distancing may reduce viral exposure.
When the new coronavirus emerged as a global threat in early 2020, doctors frantically tried an assortment of existing drugs. But the only way to know if they actually worked was to set up large clinical trials in which some people received placebos, and others took the drug in question.
Getting hundreds or thousands of people into such trials was a tremendous logistical challenge. In early 2020, the N.I.H. narrowed its focus to just a few promising drugs. That support led to the swift authorization of remdesivir and monoclonal antibodies. Remdesivir, which stops viruses from replicating inside cells, can modestly shorten the time patients need to recover, but has no effect on mortality. Monoclonal antibodies, which stop the virus from entering cells, can be very potent, but only when given before people are sick enough to be hospitalized.
Hundreds of hospitals and universities began their own trials of existing drugs — already deemed safe and widely manufactured — that might also work against the coronavirus. But most of these trials were small and disorganized.
In many cases, researchers have been left on their own to set up trials without the backing of the federal government or pharmaceutical companies. In April, as New York City was in the throes of a Covid surge, Charles Mobbs, a neuroscientist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, heard about some intriguing work in France hinting at the effectiveness of an antipsychotic drug.
Doctors at French psychiatric hospitals had noticed that relatively few patients became ill with Covid-19 compared with the staff members who cared for them. The researchers speculated that the drugs the patients were taking could be protecting them. One of those drugs, the antipsychotic chlorpromazine, had been shown in laboratory experiments to prevent the coronavirus from multiplying.
The doctors tried to start a trial of chlorpromazine, but the pandemic ebbed — temporarily, it turned out — in France by the time they were ready. Dr. Mobbs then spent weeks making arrangements for a trial of his own on patients hospitalized at Mount Sinai, only to hit the same wall. “We ran out of patients,” he said.
If doctors like Dr. Mobbs could tap into nationwide networks of hospitals, they would be able to find enough patients to run their trials quickly. Those networks exist, but they were not opened up for drug-repurposing efforts.
Many scientists suspect that the best time to fight the coronavirus is early in an infection, when the virus is multiplying quickly. But it’s particularly hard to recruit trial volunteers who are not in a hospital. Researchers have to track down people right after they’ve tested positive and find a way to deliver the trial drugs to them.
At the University of Kentucky, researchers began such a trial in May to test a drug called camostat, which is normally used to treat inflammation of the pancreas. The scientists thought it might also work as a Covid-19 antiviral because it destroys a protein that the virus depends on to infect human cells. Because camostat comes in pill form, rather than an infusion, it would be especially useful for people like the trial volunteers, many of whom lived in remote rural areas.
But the researchers have spent the past eight months trying to recruit enough participants. They have had trouble finding patients who have recently received a Covid diagnosis, especially with the unpredictable rise and fall of cases.
“This has been the source of the delays for essentially all of the trials around the world,” said Dr. James Porterfield, an infectious disease clinician at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine,who is leading the trial.
While doctors like Dr. Porterfield have struggled to carry out studies on their own, a few drugs have become sensations, praised as cure-alls despite a lack of evidence.
The first supposed panacea was hydroxychloroquine, a drug developed for malaria. Television pundits claimed it had healing powers, as did President Trump. Rather than start one large, well-designed trial across many hospitals, doctors began a swarm of small trials.
“There was no coordination, and no centralized leadership,” said Ilan Schwartz, an infectious disease expert at the University of Alberta.
Nevertheless, the F.D.A. gave the drug an emergency clearance as a treatment for people hospitalized with Covid. When large clinical trials finally did begin delivering results, it turned out that the drug provided no benefit — and might even do harm. The agency withdrew its authorization in June.
Many scientists were left embittered, considering all that work a waste of precious time and resources.
“The clear, unambiguous and compelling lesson from the hydroxychloroquine story for the medical community and the public is that science and politics do not mix,” Dr. Michael Saag of University of Alabama at Birmingham wrote in November in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Now another drug is becoming popular before there’s strong evidence that it works: the parasite-killing compound ivermectin. Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, who extolled hydroxychloroquine in April, held a hearing in December where Dr. Pierre Kory testified about ivermectin. Dr. Kory, a pulmonary and critical care specialist at Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center in Milwaukee at the time, called it “effectively a ‘miracle drug’ against Covid-19.” Yet there are no published results from large-scale clinical trials to support such claims, only small, suggestive ones.
Even if the federal government had set up a centralized trial network, as it is trying to do now, scientists would have still faced some unavoidable hurdles. It takes time to do careful experiments to discover promising drugs and then to confirm that they’re really worth investigating further.
“In drug development, we’re used to 10-to-15-year runways,” said Sumit K. Chanda, a virologist at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla, Calif.
In February, Dr. Chanda and his colleagues began a different kind of search for a Covid-19 antiviral. They screened a library of 13,000 drugs, mixing each drug with cells and coronaviruses to see if they stopped infections.
A few drugs proved promising. The researchers tested one of them — a cheap leprosy pill called clofazimine — over several months, doing experiments in human lung tissue and hamsters. Clofazimine fought off the virus in the animals if they received it soon after being infected.
Now, nearly a year after he started his research, Dr. Chanda is hoping he can get funding for the most difficult part of drug testing: large and randomized clinical trials that can cost millions of dollars. To complete this stage efficiently, researchers almost always need the backing of a large company or the federal government, or both — as happened with the large clinical trials for the new coronavirus vaccines.
It’s unclear how the Biden administration’s new drug-testing effort will choose which drug candidates to support. But if trials begin in the next few months, it’s possible they could reveal useful data by the end of the year.
Pharmaceutical companies are also beginning to fund some trials of repurposed drugs. A study published this week in Science found that a 24-year-old cancer drug called plitidepsin is 27 times more potent than remdesivir at halting the coronavirus in lab experiments. In October, a Spanish drug company called PharmaMar reported promising results from a small safety trial of plitidepsin. Now the company is preparing to start a late-stage trial in Spain to see if the drug works compared with a placebo.
The pharma giant Merck is running a large, late-stage trial on a pill called molnupiravir, originally developed by Ridgeback Biotherapeutics for influenza, which has been shown to cure ferrets of Covid-19. The trial’s first results could emerge as early as March.
Experts are particularly eager to see this data because molnupiravir may be effective in treating more than just Covid-19. In April, scientists found that the drug could also treat mice infected with other coronaviruses that cause SARS and MERS.
Any antivirals that may emerge in 2021 won’t save the lives already lost to Covid-19. But it’s possible that one of those drugs may work against coronavirus pandemics to come.
Noah Weiland and Katie Thomas contributed reporting.
Ahead of tonight’s game vs. the Boston Bruins, the Penguins have made a number of roster moves.
Defenseman Kevin Czuczman was recalled on an emergency basis and Sam Lafferty was recalled from the taxi squad.
Interim General Manager Patrik Allvin announced the news.
The Penguins have recalled defenseman Kevin Czuczman on an emergency basis and forward Sam Lafferty from the taxi squad.
Anthony Angello, Frederick Gaudreau, Will Reilly, and Yannick Weber have been assigned to the taxi squad.
More information: https://t.co/GejrMcdgqC pic.twitter.com/Ev7T95HM3S
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) January 28, 2021
Anthony Angello, Frederick Gaudreau, Will Reilly, and Yannick Weber were all assigned to the taxi squad.
Weber was signed to a one-year contract on Wednesday but was unable to make it to Boston and is expected to join the team in New York this coming weekend.
Some injury-related roster moves were also announced.
Zach Aston-Reese was placed on long-term injured reserve with a retroactive date of January 13.
Juuso Riikola was placed on long-term injured reserve with a retroactive date of January 19.
Evan Rodrigues was placed on long-term injured reserve with a retroactive date of January 24.
Marcus Pettersson was placed on regular injured reserve.
The Penguins are set to square off with the Bruins at 7:00 p.m. at TD Garden.
Navalny appeared by video link at the court in the city of Khimki, on the outskirts of Moscow. He continues to be held at the Matrosskaya Tishina detention center, in the northeast of the capital.
He’d been detained a day earlier following his arrival from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from Novichok poisoning he blamed on the Russian government. The Kremlin repeatedly denied any involvement.
Navalny was placed on the country’s federal wanted list last month for breaching the terms of probation related to the 2014 fraud case, which he dismisses as politically motivated.
His next court date is currently scheduled for February 2, when a court will decide whether his three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence on fraud charges should be converted into a jail term due to what Russian authorities say is the violation of the terms of his suspended sentence.
The judge in Thursday’s appeal hearing ruled that Navalny’s detention was lawful and that the opposition leader would remain in detention.
Navalny’s reaction on hearing the decision suggested he was expecting it. “Everything was clear to me even before the hearing,” he told the court.
The politician had earlier complained about violations of legal procedures and a lack of opportunity to communicate with his lawyers since his detention on January 17.
“Everything is so amazing here that I don’t even know where to start. As usual it works: you take a court decision, look for violations of the law and speak about them when appealing. And here everything is one big violation of the law,” Navalny said.
In his final statement, Navalny urged protesters to keep coming out.
“They are the last barrier that prevents those in power from stealing everything. They are the real patriots,” he said. “You will not be able to intimidate us — we are the majority.”
Russian law enforcement conducted searches Wednesday at Navalny’s Moscow apartment and his team’s headquarters, according to his aides.
The raids came as Navalny’s allies called for a second round of unsanctioned nationwide demonstrations, planned for Sunday, to demand the activist’s release from detention.
Last weekend, tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets, resulting in nearly 4,000 detentions, according to monitoring group OVD-Info.
Tycoon urges US pressure on Putin
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former oil tycoon who was once Russia’s richest man, spent more than 10 years in a Russian jail after falling out with Putin.
Speaking to CNN from exile in London, he urged US President Joe Biden to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle to help save Navalny from a similar fate.
“Personal sanctions must be imposed by President Biden and others in the West on those closest to Putin,” he told CNN. “This would be extremely painful for Putin’s entourage and will affect the stability of his power.”
Khodorkovsky ran Russian oil giant Yukos until 2003. He was later convicted of tax evasion and fraud — charges he argued were politically motivated — and jailed.
“Looking back, I was one of the lucky ones. I lost a decade of my life in prison but others who challenge Putin have paid a far higher price,” he told CNN.
That list includes Anna Politkovskaya, one of Russia’s most prominent journalists and Kremlin critics. She was shot dead in 2006. There have been numerous arrests, two trials and five convictions, including of three Chechen brothers, but it is still unknown who ordered her murder. The Kremlin denies any connection with the killing.
In 2015, Russia’s former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov, then the most visible leader of the Russian opposition, was gunned down on a Moscow bridge within sight of the Kremlin. Five Chechen men were jailed for his killing in 2017.
Former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko died in 2006 after being poisoned with a rare radioactive isotope, polonium-210. A UK inquiry concluded in 2016 that Putin probably approved the operation by two Russian agents to kill the ex-spy. Russia dismissed the UK inquiry as politically motivated.
US has ‘deep concern’ for Navalny’
The US State Department has called on Russia to free all those arrested at protests in the country over the weekend and for the immediate and unconditional release of Navalny.
US Secretary of State Tony Blinken said Wednesday that the Biden administration was conducting a review of Russian “actions that are of deep concern to us, whether it is the treatment of Mr. Navalny and particularly the apparent use of a chemical weapon in an attempt to assassinate him.”
Biden spoke to Putin on Tuesday for the first time since becoming US President, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, and raised the poisoning of Navalny, among other issues.
“I don’t want to get ahead of where we are on those reviews,” said Blinken. “But as I say, we have a deep concern for Mr. Navalny’s safety and security, and the larger point is that his voice is the voice of many, many, many Russians, and it should be heard, not muzzled.”
Blinken told reporters he was “not ruling out anything but we want to get this full review done, and then we’ll take it from there.”
He also reiterated his comments from his Senate confirmation hearing that “it remains striking to me how concerned, and maybe even scared the Russian government seems to be of one man, Mr. Navalny.”
CNN’s Mary Ilyushina reported from Moscow and Laura Smith-Spark wrote in London. Anna Chernova contributed to this report.
Jerome Powell in December.Credit…Al Drago for The New York Times
The Federal Reserve meets in Washington on Wednesday, and while it is widely expected to leave interest rates near zero while continuing to buy about $120 billion in government-backed bonds each month, Chair Jerome H. Powell could stage an interesting news conference afterward.
Mr. Powell answered many of the urgent monetary policy questions of the day at an appearance on Jan. 14, making it clear that interest rates will rise “no time soon” and that the Fed will “let the world know” when it is starting to think about slowing down its mass Treasury and mortgage-debt bond buying.
“His goal will be to preserve the status quo — it’s too soon for the message to change,” Roberto Perli and Benson Durham at Cornerstone Macro wrote in a note previewing the meeting.
That could leave the door open for a suite of more thematic questions. The Fed’s policy statement comes out at 2 p.m., and the webcast question-and-answer session starts at 2:30.
Mr. Powell could be asked to give his assessment on whether a bubble is building in stocks, digital currency, house prices — everything, basically — and, if so, what the Fed can do about it. Low interest rates and bond-buying have the effect of pushing investors into riskier assets, and the Fed underlined in its revised policy framework last year that it keeps a wary eye on financial risks.
The Fed chair might also need to take on the question of inequality. As asset prices boom, the wealthy people who disproportionately own stocks are becoming paper millionaires, billionaires, multibillionaires and so on even as the working class struggles with high pandemic-era unemployment and cars continue to line up at food banks. Mr. Powell has typically pushed back on the idea that monetary policy — which also lowers unemployment and sets the stage for higher wages in the longer run — can be boiled down to having one simple effect on income and wealth distribution.
Finally, Mr. Powell might face queries about his own future. He was appointed chair by President Donald J. Trump, and his four-year term expires in early 2022. It is unclear whether President Biden will reappoint him or whether Mr. Powell will seek another term.
A $10 billion company, thanks to a gamma squeeze, delta hedging and Reddit.Credit…Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press
Why is Wall Street obsessed with GameStop, the video game chain that until recently was known for middling performance? The company’s stock has soared to scarcely believable levels — its market capitalization is now more than $20 billion — thanks to an army of small traders spurred on by a Reddit message board, the DealBook newsletter explains.
Traders on the Reddit message board, WallStreetBets, a community known for irreverent market discussions, made GameStock their cause du jour and rushed to buy out-of-the-money GameStop options, a bet on the company’s share price rising in the future. (A sample comment on the board: “PUT YOUR LIFTOFF DIAPERS ON ITS ABOUT TO START.”) Both Tesla’s Elon Musk and the billionaire tech investor Chamath Palihapitiya also egged on the crowd via Twitter.
The frenzy has forced market makers who sold the options to buy the underlying shares to hedge their risk. As more traders snap up options, the brokers have to buy up more shares. That squeeze is driving the astounding rise in the company’s stock price, which began the year at $19 and opened for trading on Wednesday at around $350, double the previous day’s close.
Gabe Plotkin, the hedge fund trader whose Melvin Capital was shorting GameStop — and who recently raised a $2.75 billion bailout from Citadel and his former boss, Steve Cohen, amid the short squeeze — confirmed to CNBC on Wednesday that he had exited his position. Though Mr. Plotkin’s other short bets appear to be suffering, possibly because they are being targeted by traders (Melvin and Mr. Plotkin are often pilloried on the message boards), he said that his firm had plenty of capital.
Officials at the Securities and Exchange Commission and elsewhere are closely watching internet chat rooms for signs of potential market manipulation, though they can do only so much without clear signs of fraud. If a big group of traders simply decides to buy options on a stock at the same time, out in the open, for the heck of it, proving malfeasance may be difficult.
U.S. markets
The S&P 500 fell more than 1.5 percent in early trading on Wednesday, ahead of the latest policy decision from the Federal Reserve and several earnings reports from large technology companies.
The central bank is widely expected to keep interest rates at low levels and continue its large bond-buying program. But investors will be eager to hear what the Fed chair, Jerome H. Powell, might say about concerns asset bubbles are building in markets.
Microsoft rose 0.7 percent after the company said profits were up 33 percent in the past quarter because of the increase in demand for its cloud services while so many people are working from home. Apple, Facebook and Tesla are among companies scheduled to report their results later Wednesday.
Boeing fell more than 3 percent after it reported a record loss of $11.9 billion for the year. The company recorded a $6.5 billion charge related to the development of the 777X, a wide-body plane that had been slated for delivery, next year but the company now expects to arrive in 2023.
‘Wall Street Bets’
GameStop’s shares continued to rocket higher, doubling in early trading after Elon Musk tweeted “Gamestonk!!” and linked to Reddit’s “Wall Street Bets” forum, which has hyped up buying the stock. Shares in the video game retailer, had risen from $19 at the start of the year to $148 on Tuesday.
Small-scale traders are now looking for other companies to promote, especially those that might have a large short position against them (a bet that the stock’s price will fall). Movie-theater chain AMC’s shares rose more than 200 percent. BlackBerry has also appeared on the forum and its shares are up more than 20 percent after gaining 185 percent already this year.
Europe
The Stoxx Europe 600 index dropped more than 1.5 percent Wednesday, with indexes falling in most countries. Europe’s vaccine rollout is struggling to ramp up amid supply issues, raising concerns about when an economic recovery will return. Recent surveys has shown business confidence dropping in Germany and France, the eurozone’s two largest economies.
On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund upgraded its outlook for the global economy this year but the recovery is expected to be uneven. The Washington-based institution downgraded its forecast for the eurozone because of the increase in coronavirus infections and lengthy lockdowns. It said the economy would grow 4.2 percent in 2021; three months ago it had predicted a 5.2 percent increase.
Shares in LVMH rose almost 2 percent in early trading after the luxury goods company’s earnings beat analysts’ expectations, particularly in the sales of its fashion and leather goods unit.
Asia
A Boeing 737 Max at Miami International Airport in December.Credit…Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Boeing lost more than $11.9 billion last year, its worst year ever, as it struggled to overcome the crisis surrounding its 737 Max jet as it also endured the disastrous slowdown in global aviation caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The company’s bottom line suffered especially during the final three months of the year, during which Boeing reported a loss of more than $8.4 billion. In that quarter, the company recorded a $6.5 billion charge related to the development of the 777X, a wide-body plane that had been slated for delivery next year but the company now expects to arrive in 2023.
Over the course of the year, Boeing brought in more than $58 billion in revenue, which was down 24 percent from 2019.
In a letter to staff, Boeing’s president and chief executive, Dave Calhoun, described 2020 as “a year of profound societal and global disruption, which significantly impacted our industry.”
The financial results were announced on Wednesday morning, shortly after aviation regulators in Europe approved the 737 Max to fly again, joining counterparts in Brazil, Canada and the United States. The Federal Aviation Administration became the first regulator to allow the Max to return to service in November, ending a global ban that had been in place since March 2019, after 346 people were killed in two crashes involving the plane.
Five airlines have resumed Max service, racking up more than 2,700 flights, according to Boeing. In the United States, only American Airlines is flying the Max, though United Airlines is expected to start using the jet next month, followed in the second quarter by Southwest Airlines.
Boeing has started making deliveries and collecting payments on the Max again, a huge relief for its commercial airplane business, which rests heavily on the 737 line. Still, the steep decline in travel caused by the pandemic has hurt Boeing’s airline customers, muting hopes for a recovery this year.
The U.S. Federal Reserve in November last year.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times
Top Federal Reserve officials downplayed the chance that they would use their power as bank overseers to actively discourage investment in carbon-heavy companies, setting out a boundary line in an evolving conversation about what role the central bank should play in dealing with the fallout from global warming.
“We would note that it has long been the policy of the Federal Reserve to not dictate to banks what lawful industries they can and cannot serve, as those business decisions should be made solely by each institution,” Jerome H. Powell, the Fed’s chair, and Randal K. Quarles, the vice chairman for supervision, wrote in a letter this month.
Their comments came in response to a letter sent by Representative Andy Barr, Republican of Kentucky, and several of his colleagues that raised concerns about the central bank’s recent attention to climate change.
Mr. Powell and Mr. Quarles said the Fed makes sure the institutions it oversees are well-prepared to handle risks they face, including climate-related risks. But they indicated that they were not rolling out climate stress tests or using their supervisory powers to pressure banks to meet climate-related goals — big concerns among Republicans.
“We have seen banks make politically motivated and public relations-focused decisions to limit credit availability to these industries,” the lawmakers said in their letter, specifically referencing coal, oil and gas. “It is possible that the introduction of climate change stress tests could perpetuate this trend, allowing regulated banks to cite negative impacts on their supervisory tests as an excuse to defund or divest from these crucial industries.”
The Fed said its research into climate financial risks was in the “early stages,” and noted that directly addressing climate change was not one of its congressional mandates. America’s central bank is behind its peers when in coming up with a framework for dealing with climate risks.
House Republicans, in December calling for the extension of the Paycheck Protection Program.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times
The restarted Paycheck Protection Program allows hard-hit small businesses to get a second government-backed relief loan, but thousands of business owners who are trying to apply have been ensnared by what the Biden administration said are significant errors in the program’s loan records.
P.P.P. loans are guaranteed by the government but made by banks and other lenders. For months, lawmakers and government watchdogs — including the Small Business Administration’s inspector general — have raised alarms about signs of fraud and mistakes that allowed potentially ineligible borrowers to obtain billions of dollars from the aid program.
Those reviewing the program’s loan records, which were released in December after a court ordered they be made public, have also noted that they are rife with errors, like inaccurate loan amounts or loans that were canceled before being disbursed.
The S.B.A. said on Tuesday that it had found “anomalies,” which it described as “mostly data mismatches and eligibility concerns,” in 4.7 percent of the 5.2 million loans made through the program in its initial round of lending, which ended in August.
Those errors have complicated efforts by some borrowers to obtain second-round loans, which the agency began approving two weeks ago, using $284 billion in fresh funding provided by Congress last month to restart the relief program. The S.B.A. said it would provide lenders with additional guidance and resources for resolving troubled cases.
The problems came to light in part because of new fraud checks the agency imposed before it began approving applications for the new funding round.
The agency “is committed to making sure stringent steps are put in place on the front-end and compliance checks address issues more efficiently moving forward so we are ensuring fair and equitable access to small businesses in every community,” said Tami Perriello, the agency’s acting administrator. (President Biden’s nominee to lead the agency, Isabel Guzman, is awaiting her confirmation hearing.)
The S.B.A. said Tuesday that it had approved 400,000 loans, totaling $35 billion, in the new lending round.
Lenders said the new process has generally been working, with some glitches. Some banks have had high numbers of applications rejected because of formatting issues and other technical challenges in getting through the S.B.A.’s new automated vetting system, said Dan O’Malley, the chief executive of Numerated, a software company that is handling P.P.P. applications on behalf of more than 100 lenders.
Shelly Ross, the owner of Tales of The Kitty, a cat-sitting business in San Francisco, said she applied last week for a second loan, but was caught in a holding queue. She tried three other lenders, with results ranging from no response to cryptic replies telling her she did not qualify.
“I’m ready to bang my head against a wall,” she said. But others have had better luck: Ms. Ross said a friend of hers got a quick approval on her own loan application through PayPal.
Richard Zaro started his sandwich shop in a hotel kitchen to save on expenses.Credit…Landon Nordeman for The New York Times
The hotel industry, where occupancy rates are still down 30 percent from a year ago, is getting in on the ghost kitchen trend.
Ghost kitchens, also called digital kitchens, are cooking facilities that produce food only for delivery or takeout. Demand for the concept is booming, Debra Kamin reports in The New York Times.
The pandemic has opened the business model to more entrepreneurs. To turn his chicken cutlet sandwich concept into a business, Richard Zaro started renting space in July at the Four Points by Sheraton Midtown near Times Square, paying $6,000 a month for a fully outfitted catering kitchen. Average restaurant start-up costs for brick-and-mortar locations, in comparison, can run from $200,000 to more than $1 million.
Within four months, he had generated enough revenue — and created a large enough base of loyal customers — to move to a stand-alone location. His new business, Cutlets, opened in a former Tender Greens restaurant near Gramercy Park on Dec. 1, and has plans to expand.
Mr. Zaro found his rented kitchen space through Use Kitch, an online commercial kitchen marketplace that likens itself to an Airbnb for the restaurant industry.
Testing from a base at a Times Square hotel was the ultimate risk reduction, Mr. Zaro said, adding that the hotel benefited, too: “It was nice for them to have incoming revenue.”
(Update: adding video, comments from Deschutes County Health Dept.)
Residents 75 and older can now make an appointment to get vaccinated
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) — Central Oregon is one of the only areas in the state to gain approval to start vaccinating all residents age 75 and older. That puts the region well ahead of schedule, as the Oregon Health Authority’s latest distribution plan said that group was not scheduled to become eligible until Feb. 14.
That’s largely thanks to a successful vaccination event at the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center in Redmond. From Wednesday through Sunday of last week, 4,600 people were vaccinated, mainly educators and child care providers – a group that, according to OHA, was not supposed to be able to receive vaccines until this week.
Officials said 10,000 more vaccines are due at the fairgrounds this week. Moving forward, vaccinations will be administered there Tuesdays through Saturdays.
The supply is on a week-to-week basis, so Central Oregon might not always be faster than the rest of the state.
Morgan Emerson, public information officer with the Deschutes County Health Department, told NewsChannel 21 more than 12,600 people have been vaccinated in the county as of Tuesday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the department has opened up its vaccination interest form for all residents in Central Oregon. So people who live in Jefferson and Crook counties can start filling it out.
Since its launch last Saturday, Emerson said about 28,000 people have signed up. Once people become eligible, they’ll get a notification from the health department that says they can schedule a vaccination appointment at www.stcharleshealthcare.org.
In less than 24 hours after Monday’s announcement, more than 6,000 Central Oregonians in Phase 1B – Group 3 (75+ years old) received the notification.
“When we sent out that notification, we had thousands of vaccine appointments available for Central Oregon residents age 75 years or older,” Emerson said. “Appointments are still available, and people can schedule online.”
Emerson aid there is no set date for when people in Phase 1B – Groups 4 and 5 will become eligible. As of now, OHA says people 70 and older will qualify the week of Feb. 21, while those 65 and older qualify the week of Feb. 28.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has been quickly thrown into a high-wire balancing act with Russia as he seeks to toughen his administration’s stance against Vladimir Putin while preserving room for diplomacy in a post-Donald Trump era.
The relationship is sure to be different than the one Putin enjoyed with Trump, who was enamored of the Russian leader and sought his approval, casting doubt on Russian interference in the 2016 elections and involvement in a massive hack last year. Despite this conciliatory approach, his administration toed a tough line against Moscow, imposing sanctions on the country, Russian companies and business leaders for issues ranging from Ukraine to energy supplies and attacks on dissidents.
Unlike his immediate predecessors, Biden has not held out hope for a “reset” in relations with Russia but has instead indicated he wants to manage differences with the former Cold War foe without necessarily resolving them or improving ties. And, with a heavy domestic agenda and looming decisions needed on Iran and China, a direct confrontation with Russia is not something he seeks.
When Biden first speaks with Putin, he’s expected to call Putin out for the arrest of opposition figure Alexei Navalny and the weekend crackdown on his supporters, raise charges that Russian security services were behind the recent massive cybersecurity breach, and press allegations that Russia offered the Taliban bounties to kill American troops in Afghanistan.
At the same time, Biden must be mindful of his own proposal to extend for five years the last remaining U.S.-Russia arms control treaty that is due to expire in early February.
On Monday, Biden told reporters that he had not yet decided how to respond to the Navalny situation but expressed hope that the U.S. and Russia could cooperate in areas where both see benefit.
“I find that we can both operate in the mutual self-interest of our countries as a New START agreement and make it clear to Russia that we are very concerned about their behavior, whether it’s Navalny, whether it’s SolarWinds or reports of bounties on heads of Americans in Afghanistan,” Biden said.
Biden has already ordered the intelligence community to launch reviews of each of those issues, according to the White House, which on Friday said the U.S. proposal to extend New START would be accompanied by a reckoning on the other matters.
That approach has met with approval from some former U.S. diplomats who have dealt with Russia and are looking forward to how Biden’s team, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his nominee to be the No. 3 at the State Department, Victoria Nuland, delineate the contours of Russia policy.
Nuland, in particular, is reviled by Putin and his aides for her support of pro-Western politicians in Ukraine and held the Europe portfolio at the State Department in President Barack Obama’s second term. She and Sullivan are said to share opinions about how to deal with Moscow, taking a tough line on human rights and Russia’s intentions in eastern and central Europe while keeping an open channel to the Kremlin on other matters.
But their starting position is complicated, they say, particularly given Putin’s experience in dealing with Trump, who frequently undercut his own administration’s hawkish stance on Russia by privately trying to cozy up to the Russian leader.
“It’s hard but it’s doable,” said Daniel Fried, a U.S. ambassador to Poland and assistant secretary of state for European affairs in the George W. Bush administration. “They’re going to have to figure this out on the fly, but it’s important to pursue New START without hesitation and push back on the Navalny arrest and other issues without guilt.”
“They need to do both and not let Putin tell them he won’t accept New START unless they drop Navalny, SolarWinds or Afghanistan,” said Fried, who is now with the Atlantic Council. “You have to push back and you can’t let Putin set the terms.”
Putin, however, may be cautious given his uncertain domestic standing in the aftermath of the pro-Navalny protests that took place in more than 100 cities over the weekend.
Biden’s team has already reacted strongly to the crackdown on Navalny supporters over the weekend in which more than 3,700 people were arrested at the demonstrations across Russia, including more than 1,400 in Moscow.
Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner and Putin’s fiercest critic, was arrested Jan. 17 as he returned to Russia from Germany, where he had spent nearly five months recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities deny the accusations.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki and State Department spokesman Ned Price have urged the immediate and unconditional release of Navalny, as well as those who were detained in the crackdown.
CHICAGO (Jan. 24, 2021) – USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter has chosen a 25-player roster in advance of USA-Trinidad & Tobago on Jan. 31 in Orlando [TICKETS]. Coverage from Exploria Stadium for the USA’s first match of 2021 begins at 7 p.m. ET on FS1, UniMás and TUDN.
The group was selected from an initial list of 12 senior team players and 26 U-23 MNT players that began training on Jan. 9 at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. The team traveled to Orlando on Sunday afternoon.
LAFC defender Tristan Blackmon suffered a concussion in training Saturday and will return to Los Angeles today.
At the start of a crucial year for the U.S. Men’s National Team that includes the Concacaf Nations League Final Four, the Gold Cup and the start of 2022 World Cup Qualifying, the tilt against the Soca Warriors gives the players an opportunity to stake their claim for spots.
“These last two weeks have been an absolute pleasure. The hard work and determination demonstrated by the entire group confirms that the player pool is headed in the right direction,” Berhalter said. “As we transition to Orlando, we switch gears and focus on competing as we prepare to face Trinidad and Tobago.”
A total of 15 MLS teams are represented, with hometown Orlando City SC contributing a league-high four players. Sixteen players are age-eligible for the 2021 Concacaf Olympic Qualifying Championship to be played from March 18-30 in Guadalajara, Mexico.
USMNT DETAILED ROSTED BY POSITION (Club; Caps/Goals):
GOALKEEPERS (3): Matt Freese (Philadelphia Union; 0/0), JT Marcinkowski (San Jose Earthquakes; 0/0),Matt Turner (New England Revolution; 0/0)
DEFENDERS (9): Julian Araujo (LA Galaxy; 1/0), George Bello (Atlanta United FC; 0/0), Kyle Duncan (New York Red Bulls; 1/0), Aaron Herrera (Real Salt Lake; 0/0), Aaron Long (New York Red Bulls; 18/3), Mauricio Pineda (Chicago Fire FC; 0/0), Miles Robinson (Atlanta United FC; 2/0), Sam Vines (Colorado Rapids; 2/0), Walker Zimmerman (Nashville SC; 13/2)
MIDFIELDERS (7): Kellyn Acosta (Colorado Rapids; 24/2), Sebastian Lletget (LA Galaxy; 17/4), Benji Michel (Orlando City SC; 0/0), Andrés Perea (Orlando City SC; 0/0), Cristian Roldan (Seattle Sounders FC; 19/0), Tanner Tessmann (FC Dallas; 0/0), Jackson Yueill (San Jose Earthquakes; 8/0)
FORWARDS (6): Jozy Altidore (Toronto FC/CAN; 115/42), Paul Arriola (D.C. United; 34/6), Daryl Dike (Orlando City SC; 0/0), Jesús Ferreira (FC Dallas; 1/0), Jonathan Lewis (Colorado Rapids; 6/0), Chris Mueller (Orlando City SC; 1/2)
USMNT ROSTER NOTES
As of Jan. 31, the average age of the roster will be 23 years, 302 days
The roster also averages 10 caps
A total of 15 MLS clubs are represented and Sunday’s match hosts Orlando City SC lead the way with four selections: Daryl Dike, Benji Michel, Chris Mueller, Andrés Perea
MLS club representation: Orlando City SC (4), Colorado Rapids (3), Atlanta United FC, FC Dallas, LA Galaxy, New York Red Bulls, San Jose Earthquakes (2 each), Chicago Fire FC, D.C. United, Nashville SC, New England Revolution, Philadelphia Union, Real Salt Lake, Seattle Sounders FC, Toronto FC (1 each)
Sixteen players are age-eligible for the 2021 Concacaf Olympic Qualifying Championship to be played from March 18-30 in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Forward Jozy Altidore (115 caps) is the most senior player, followed by Paul Arriola (34), Kellyn Acosta (24), Cristian Roldan (19), Aaron Long (18) and Sebastian Lletget (17)
Twenty players hold 10 or fewer caps, while 10 will seek their international debut: George Bello, Daryl Dike, Matt Freese, Aaron Herrera, JT Marcinkowski, Benji Michel, Andrés Perea, Mauricio Pineda, Tanner Tessmann, Matt Turner
Six players made their USMNT debuts during a January camp friendly: Kellyn Acosta (Jan. 31, 2016 vs. Iceland), Jesús Ferreira (Feb. 1, 2020 vs. Costa Rica), Jonathan Lewis (Jan. 29, 2019 vs. Panama), Sebastian Lletget (Jan. 29, 2017 vs. Serbia), Sam Vines (Feb. 1, 2020 vs. Costa Rica), Walker Zimmerman (Feb. 3, 2017 vs. Jamaica.
A total of 10 players took part in the USMNT’s 6-0 win against El Salvador last month: Julian Araujo, Paul Arriola, Sebastian Lletget, Aaron Long, Chris Mueller, Sam Vines, and Jackson Yueill started the match, while Kellyn Acosta, Kyle Duncan and Walker Zimmerman entered as substitutes.
Mueller debuted in the El Salvador match, becoming just the sixth player to score two goals in his first USMNT appearance. Mueller also provided an assist in the 6-0 win.
Arriola opened the scoring against El Salvador with his sixth international goal, while Lletget found the back of the net for the fourth time and his second consecutive USMNT match.
Lletget was also the lone USMNT player to appear in all four matches in 2020.
Though he took part in some of last year’s January Camp, Seattle Sounders FC midfielder Cristian Roldan will seek his first cap since the 4-0 win against Cuba in Concacaf Nations League group stage play on Nov. 19, 2019.
