Good morning, today we are covering a racial discrimination claim against the NFL and taking a look at Putin’s modernisation of the Russian army. But first, a surprise announcement from Google’s parent Alphabet. The search engine has revealed only its second stock split since becoming a public company in 2004. The 20-for-1 split will make its shares more affordable for retail investors and fuelled an enthusiastic response from investors in after-hours trading, sending the value of the company back above $2tn.The last split was in 2014, when a new class of shares was created. Yesterday’s announcement would reduce the price of the class A shares to roughly $138, based on Tuesday’s closing price of $2,752.88, according to Bloomberg calculations. In after-hours trading, the shares rose above $3,000 for the first time, an increase of more than 9 per cent.The split was accompanied by an impressive set of results. Alphabet reported fourth-quarter revenues of $75. 3bn, a 32 per cent rise on the same period the year before. The growth was slower than the preceding three-month period but better than analysts had been expecting.The strong performance of internet search, in particular, raised hopes that planned changes to Google’s advertising cookies would not be as damaging to the business as previously thought. The replacement for the current cookies is known as Floc.Five more stories in the news1. Putin: US is trying to drag Russia into war Vladimir Putin has accused the US of seeking to hold Russia back and using Ukraine as a “tool” of its foreign policy. In his first public comments for several weeks, the Russian president said the US and Nato had disregarded his demand for a guarantee that Kyiv would not join the transatlantic alliance.Go deeper: Since the bungled invasion of Georgia in 2008, the Russian army has undergone a massive modernisation programme. The fruits of those reforms were seen in the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and operations in Syria.2. NFL sued for racial discrimination by ex-Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores, who was fired last month as coach of the Miami Dolphins, has accused the most popular US sports league of racism and likened its workings to a “plantation” in a discrimination lawsuit filed yesterday.3. GM’s Cruise launches robotaxi service in San Francisco General Motors’ driverless car unit has been operating fully driverless vehicles in the city for several months — but only for its employees. Yesterday it announced it would open up the service to the public of San Francisco but with some caveats.4. ExxonMobil reports highest profits since 2014 ExxonMobil capitalised on strong oil and natural gas prices as it reported a 2021 net profit of $23bn. That compares to a $22.4bn loss suffered in 2020 as fuel demand collapsed at the onset of the pandemic. After nearly a decade in the doldrums, the US supermajors have got their swagger back, writes Houston correspondent Justin Jacobs.5. Markets expect at least two ECB rate rises in 2022 Investors are betting that persistently high inflation will force the European Central Bank to raise interest rates more than once this year, challenging the ECB’s insistence that it expects to freeze rates at historical lows at least until next year.Coronavirus digestA total of 4.33mn Americans quit their jobs in December, just below the record 4.5mn the previous month, according to data released yesterday by the US labour department. The tight US labour market is changing worker attitudes, an FT editorial argues.Digital bank Monzo will offer three-month paid sabbaticals to its 2,000 employees, in the latest move by a British company to rethink how staff should balance their working lives after the pandemic.Volunteers aged 18-29 who were deliberately infected with Sars-Cov-2 were found to be highly infectious for a maximum of 12 days, a UK government study has found, confirming existing theories about the virus’s transmission levels. Countries whose citizens trusted their government and each other suffered far fewer Covid-19 infections, according to a new paper published in The Lancet.The day aheadMeta earnings The company formerly known as Facebook reports after Wall Street’s closing bell. Investors are likely to tune in for commentary about its latest project, the “metaverse” virtual world. Spotify, which has been caught up in a controversy surrounding popular podcaster Joe Rogan, also reports earnings. Brazil interest rate decision The Banco Central do Brasil is expected to raise interest rates, continuing a year-long policy of tightening to tame inflation. Analysts expect the bank to raise rates 1.5 percentage points to 10.75 per cent, the highest level since the first half of 2017.What else we’re reading The Fed is too late to remove the punchbowl In 1955, Federal Reserve chair William McChesney Martin remarked that the central bank “is in the position of the chaperone who has ordered the punch bowl removed just when the party was really warming up”, notes Martin Wolf. Today’s Fed, he argues, has not even started to remove a highly alcoholic punch bowl and risks inflicting a deep recession on the economy.
Donald Trump kicks off 2022 with $100mn war chest The former president started the year with a political war chest of more than $100mn, reinforcing his status as the Republican party’s most formidable fundraiser ahead of November’s midterm elections as he considers another run for the White House in 2024.How Noom handles vulnerable users A number of health coaches for the Silver Lake-backed weight loss app, speaking anonymously, raised concerns that Noom’s design and policies could lead vulnerable users to harm. Some messages read: “I’m bulimic”, “I binge-eat” and “I hate myself”.The reality of whistleblowing at work This week Working It takes a step back from day-to-day workplace life and explores the issue of whistleblowing. What drives people to speak up against their employers — and what happens to those staff? Does it necessarily end your career in that company? Work and Careers editor Isabel Berwick talks to Siri Nelson, executive director of the US National Whistleblower Center.Travel We asked readers to share their “happy places” around the world — and got whisked from an Alaskan ice-cream parlour to a Singaporean Eden, via a magical Roman ruin. Here’s what readers had to say. Tell us about the spaces that make you feel good in your city and we may publish the best ones, like this one from Agnes Crawford in Rome.“Not far from the Appian Way is this grotto surrounded by a sacred wood of holm oaks . . . It is the very picture of the Romantic ideal of the verdant and bucolic ruins of the ‘Campagna Romana’. And it’s a 15-minute Vespa ride from my apartment.”
The Nymphaeum of Egeria, Parco della Caffarella © Mauro Toccaceli/Alamy More
