Economy
BlackRock Raises $1 Billion for First Chinese Mutual Fund Run by Foreign Firm – WSJ
BlackRock Inc has raised roughly $1 billion for the first-ever mutual fund solely run by a foreign firm that is allowed to sell to Chinese individuals. The fundraising total, 6.68 billion yuan, marks a key milestone in U.S. and global asset managers’ yearslong quest for a bigger presence in the world’s second-largest economy.
Crypto exchanges struggle as El Salvador adopts Bitcoin – The Verge
Today, Bitcoin is becoming an official currency in El Salvador, and the markets and crypto exchanges seem to be struggling. On Tuesday morning, the price of Bitcoin plunged from around $50,000 down to under $43,000 according to Coinbase — it seems that the country’s official Bitcoin app also hasn’t been able to keep up.
CNBC reports that El Salvador’s official crypto app, Chivo, was unavailable for new users to install on Tuesday morning. The country’s president, Nayib Bukele, has since announced that the app would be reopening for signups, though he did call the new uptime a “test.”
Major exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken have also reported having issues with payments or transactions not going through or being delayed. Not everyone is having issues with trading, though: Cash App reports no problems with its Bitcoin services, and Robinhood hasn’t reported any problems trading crypto assets either.
A mobile money company is Francophone Africa’s first billion-dollar startup – Quartz
Mobile money is making money for companies riding the coat tails of its steady rise in Africa, and the latest beneficiary is Wave, a startup based in Senegal that has raised $200 million in a Series A round from investors at a $1.7 billion valuation.
Wave bills itself as being similar to PayPal in terms of offering easy money transfer between peers, but it works with mobile money accounts instead of bank accounts. Customers visit physical agent posts to make deposits and withdrawals without a fee, or use a smartphone app with a flat 1% cut of the money being sent.
Environment
The warming climate is causing animals to ‘shapeshift’ – Phys.org
Climate change is not only a human problem; animals have to adapt to it as well. Some “warm-blooded” animals are shapeshifting and getting larger beaks, legs, and ears to better regulate their body temperatures as the planet gets hotter. Bird researcher Sara Ryding of Deakin University in Australia describes these changes in a review published September 7th in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
In NYC after Ida, Biden calls climate ‘everybody’s crisis’ – AP
President Joe Biden declared climate change has become “everybody’s crisis” on Tuesday as he toured neighborhoods flooded by the remnants of Hurricane Ida, warning it’s time for America to get serious about the “code red” danger or face ever worse loss of life and property.
Avocados and vanilla among dozens of wild crop relatives facing extinction – Guardian
Wild relatives of some of the world’s most important crops, including potatoes, avocados and vanilla, are threatened with extinction, according to a study.
Vanilla, an orchid native to South and Central America, is facing the highest risk of extinction, with all eight wild species found in the region listed as endangered or critically endangered on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) red list of threatened plants and animals.
Wild cotton is the second-most threatened with 92% of species at risk of disappearing, according to the study. Three in five avocado species are at risk, while 23% of wild potato species are facing extinction.
Health
Detroit hospital system employees file lawsuit over COVID-19 vaccine mandate – The Hill
Around 50 health care employees are suing a Detroit hospital system over its requirement for all workers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, arguing that the mandate unconstitutionally infringes on a person’s bodily autonomy.
The complaint, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, said that the vaccine mandate from the Henry Ford Health System, which is scheduled to officially take effect Friday, violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of “personal autonomy and bodily integrity.”
Public-health experts say this year’s flu season could result in 3 times as many hospitalizations as usual, further straining medical resources – Business Insider
A team of public-health experts predict this year’s flu season could result in three times as many hospitalizations as a normal year, putting a further strain on the healthcare system during the coronavirus pandemic, NBC News reported.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the US has had 9.3 million to 45 million flu illnesses a year since 2010, and its most recent estimates indicate the country averages more than 200,000 flu hospitalizations a year.
New Details Emerge About Coronavirus Research at Chinese Lab – The Intercept
Newly released documents provide details of U.S.-funded research on several types of coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. The Intercept has obtained more than 900 pages of documents detailing the work of EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based health organization that used federal money to fund bat coronavirus research at the Chinese laboratory. The trove of documents includes two previously unpublished grant proposals that were funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as well as project updates relating to EcoHealth Alliance’s research, which has been scrutinized amid increased interest in the origins of the pandemic.
The post Daily Digest 9/8 — BlackRock Raises $1 Billion for First Chinese Mutual Fund Run by Foreign Firm; Warming Climate is Causing Animals to ‘Shapeshift’… appeared first on Peak Prosperity.
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