Economy
Unemployed Supertankers Are About to Get Junked on Asia’s Beaches
Covid-19 is destroying the market for supertankers that deliver about a fifth of the world’s crude oil. The result is likely to be booming trade on the beaches of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, where obsolete ships go to get blow-torched and sold for scrap.
Last week, the 1,200-foot vessels plying the industry’s busiest trade route — from the Middle East to Asia — effectively had to subsidize the delivery of cargoes because of how large the surplus of ships has grown.
New COVID-19 therapy could be ’30 times more potent than Remdesivir’
A UCSF-led science team may have found another breakthrough drug treatment to fight COVID-19, as first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. Studies have shown that small concentrations of Aplidin, a drug created using an extraction from a marine creature called Aplidium albicans, killed the virus in both infected human lung cells and analogous cells from monkeys.
The study, which has been published in the journal Science, shows that the “sea squirt” found off the coast of Ibiza could be “almost 30 times more potent than Remdesivir,” the Chronicle reported. While not yet approved to treat patients with COVID-19, if proven effective this treatment would be a welcome addition to the still small amount of antiviral drugs available to treat the disease.
Health Workers Still Face Shortages Of Critical Medical Supplies
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, personal protective equipment, or PPE, has been in short supply. Exam gloves currently top the ever-changing list. What’s holding up the supply?
Over 8M Americans have fallen into poverty as COVID-19 relief benefits expired
More than 8 million Americans fell into poverty over the past six months as social safety measures put into place at the start of the coronavirus pandemic expired, according to a new study published this week.
The report, released by economists at the University of Chicago and University of Notre Dame, found that the nation’s poverty rate increased by 2.4 percentage points between June and December, surging from 9.3% to 11.8%. An additional 8.1 million people are now considered poor.
President Biden‘s Commerce Secretary nominee, Gina Raimondo, vowed to take a tough stance to protect American interests, including taking “aggressive” measures to combat Chinese practices that she believes hurt American workers.
At her confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee on Tuesday, Raimondo was quick to discuss her approach to China, addressing the issue in her opening remarks.
Powell, With Year to Run at Fed, Aims to Avoid Past QE Mistake
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell heads into what could be his last year atop the central bank determined not to repeat the mistake he made when he was a neophyte monetary policy maker seven years ago.
Then a Fed governor, Powell was among those leading the charge to scale back the central bank’s quantitative-easing program — a stance that led to the economically debilitating and market-wrenching taper tantrum of 2013.
They Found a Way to Limit Big Tech’s Power: Using the Design of Bitcoin
Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, publicly wrestled this month with the question of whether his social media service had exercised too much power by cutting off Donald J. Trump’s account. Mr. Dorsey wondered aloud if the solution to that power imbalance was new technology inspired by the cryptocurrency Bitcoin.
When YouTube and Facebook barred tens of thousands of Mr. Trump’s supporters and white supremacists this month, many flocked to alternative apps such as LBRY, Minds and Sessions. What those sites had in common was that they were also inspired by the design of Bitcoin.
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