Raphael Stevens

The U.S. Postal Service on Wednesday completed a final regulatory requirement on its plan to replace its delivery fleet with thousands of gas-powered vehicles.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump ally who was nominated to the position in 2020, pledged last year to convert just 10% of its new trucks to electric power.
The decision has drawn strong opposition from the Biden administration and environmental groups.

A U.S. Postal Service worker prepares packages for delivery during Cyber Monday in the SoHo neighborhood of New York, on Monday, Nov. 29, 2021.
Angus Mordant | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The U.S. Postal Service on Wednesday completed a final regulatory requirement for its plan to replace its delivery fleet with thousands of gas-powered vehicles, forging ahead with a decision that’s drawn strong opposition from the Biden administration and environmental groups.
The Postal Service operates roughly 230,000 vehicles, making up one-third of the country’s entire federal fleet. Earlier this month, the EPA and the White House Council on Environmental Quality urged the Postal Service to conduct an updated and more detailed technical analysis and hold a public hearing on its plan.

The organization has now completed the evaluation, which puts it on track to deliver the first of the new vehicles next year, which will include at least 5,000 electric-powered vehicles.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump ally who was nominated to the position in 2020, pledged last year to convert 10% of its new trucks to electric power.
“Our commitment to an electric fleet remains ambitious given the pressing vehicle and safety needs of our aging fleet as well as our fragile financial condition,” DeJoy said in a statement on Wednesday.
DeJoy added that the Postal Service can purchase more electric vehicles under the plan if additional funding “from either internal or congressional sources becomes available.”
The Postal Service’s plan would blunt the Biden administration’s pledge to replace its federal fleet of 600,000 cars and trucks to electric power and cut the government’s carbon emissions by 65% by midcentury.

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Despite a recent rise in electric vehicles sales in the U.S., the transportation sector is one of the largest contributors to the country’s climate-changing emissions, comprising roughly one-third of total emissions each year.
By reversing course on its plan and electrifying the new mail trucks, the Postal Service could prevent the government from burning 110 million gallons of fuel each year, according to the environmental nonprofit Earthjustice.
“DeJoy’s plans for the postal fleet will drag us back decades with a truck model that gets laughable fuel economy. We may as well deliver the mail with Hummers,” Adrian Martinez, senior attorney on Earthjustice’s Right to Zero campaign, said in a statement.
“DeJoy’s environmental review is rickety, founded on suspect calculations and fails to meet the standards of the law,” Martinez said. “We’re not done fighting this reckless decision.” 
“Neither rain, nor sleet, nor financial good sense will stop the leaders of the U.S. Postal Service from trying to buy dirty, polluting delivery trucks,” Patricio Portillo, transportation analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement.”For the sake of clean air and cost savings, it’s time to return this plan to sender,” Portillo said.

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The CDC said males ages 12- to 39-years-old should consider waiting eight weeks between the first and second doses of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines.
Public health authorities in Canada found that the risk of myocarditis is lower for younger men when they wait eight weeks.
The risk of myocarditis is low after vaccination. U.S. health authorities have said Covid infection poses a higher risk of heart inflammation.

A healthcare worker prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at a vaccination clinic in the Peabody Institute Library in Peabody, Massachusetts, on Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022.
Vanessa Leroy | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week that younger males should consider waiting longer between doses of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines to reduce a rare risk of heart inflammation.
The CDC said males ages 12- to 39-years-old should consider waiting eight weeks between the first and second doses of their primary Covid vaccination series. Public health authorities in Canada found the risk of myocarditis in men ages 18- to 24-years-old was lower when they waited eight weeks for the second dose of Moderna or Pfizer.

CNBC Health & Science

The CDC recommends that other eligible individuals wait three weeks between Pfizer shots and four weeks between Moderna doses, particularly the elderly and those with compromised immune systems.
Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle than can result in serious health problems, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Myocarditis most commonly occurs after viral infections, but the CDC has also found a link with between Moderna’s and Pfizer’s shots and myocarditis, particularly after the second dose.

The risk of myocarditis among men ages 18 to 39 is about 1.5 times higher after a second Moderna dose than with Pfizer’s vaccine. Men in this age group report about 68 myocarditis cases per 1 million Moderna second doses administered, compared with 47 myocarditis cases per 1 million Pfizer second doses administered.
Most patients who develop myocarditis after Covid vaccination respond well to medicine and recover fully, according the CDC. People face a much higher risk of developing myocarditis after Covid infection than from the vaccines, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

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Molson Coors Beverage reported annual revenue growth for the first time in more than a decade.
The company’s fourth-quarter earnings fell short of Wall Street’s expectations, but its revenue topped analysts’ estimates.
Molson Coors is in the middle of a turnaround that involves expanding its portfolio beyond beer and focusing on higher quality drinks.

Bottles of Coors beer are displayed on a shelf at a liquor store in Fairfax, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Molson Coors Beverage’s Miller Lite and Coors Light saw sales growth in 2021 as the company’s turnaround plan began bearing fruit.
Shrinking beer consumption in the U.S. has put pressure on brewers, like Molson Coors, whose top brands are Miller Lite and Coors Light. But CEO Gavin Hattersley credited the beers’ marketing campaigns for working to buck that trend.

“On a volume basis, we were narrowly down,” Hattersley said in an interview. “Volume” strips out the impact of currency and price changes. “We came really close to actually growing those brands in 2021, mostly [hurt] — in my view — because of the surge of omicron in the last six weeks of the year.”
After the company reported its fourth-quarter results, shares of Molson Coors rose as much as 5% in Wednesday trading.
For the first time in more than a decade, the Miller Lite owner reported annual revenue growth. Net sales rose 6.5% to $10.28 billion in 2021, a dramatic turnaround from 2020 when net sales declined 8.7% as pandemic restrictions weighed on demand.
Hattersley credited the company’s turnaround plan, which involves expanding its portfolio beyond beer, focusing on higher quality drinks and discontinuing brands that weren’t selling. More than a year ago, the company even swapped “Brewing” for “Beverage” in its name as part of its shift in strategy.
For the fourth quarter, Molson Coors’ net sales grew 14.2% to $2.62 billion, beating Refinitiv estimates of $2.55 billion. But its quarterly profits were under pressure as freight and commodity costs ticked higher. The company reported adjusted earnings per share of 81 cents, falling short of Wall Street’s estimates of 86 cents per share.

“We’re not immune from them, just like anyone else,” Hattersley said, adding the company does hedge against higher input costs.
To combat higher costs due to persistent inflation, Molson Coors raised prices in January and February, earlier than its usual springtime price hikes. The increases were also a little higher than normal levels, he said.
Hattersley said the Covid omicron variant hit demand for drinking at bars and restaurants in the U.K., Canada and U.S. through January. The month also saw weaker demand due to Dry January, a challenge that involves abstaining from alcohol for the month.
In 2022, Molson Coors is forecasting net sales growth in the mid-single digits, excluding currency fluctuations. And before income and taxes and excluding currency changes, it’s predicting non-GAAP income growth in the high-single digits. It also raised its quarterly dividend by 12% to 38 cents a share.
The company also said it’s ahead of its goal to hit $1 billion in sales by 2023 for its emerging growth categories, which includes nonalcoholic drinks, craft beers and Latin American business. Its nonalcoholic portfolio includes Zoa, an energy drink created by actor and former wrestler Dwayne Johnson; La Colombe ready-to-drink coffee; and CBD-infused drinks sold in Canada.

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Neighborhood qualities such as income and safety influence life outcomes, according to the Census Bureau.
Residential areas with low levels of incarceration and more relaxed racial attitudes produce more upwardly mobile Black children.
Roughly 5% of U.S. neighborhoods have features that are improving economic conditions for the average African American male, according to the study.

Families have long sought to move toward better neighborhoods and schools to put their kids on the pathway toward success. A study from the Census Bureau is providing fresh insight on where to look.It revealed significant racial disparities between demographic groups. For example, white families have strong rates of upward mobility in high-income neighborhoods. But in many cases, Black families are losing wealth generation by generation.Low-income Black boys had the most success in neighborhoods that had low incarceration rates and a large adult male population. Another key factor is low racial discrimination, measured using tests for implicit bias and racial animus using Google search results.An interactive map based on a collaboration by researchers at the Census Bureau, Harvard University and Brown University shows which neighborhoods are most likely to produce children who move into higher tax brackets. The dataset contains 35 years of anonymized tax filings from 20 million Americans.
Ellora Derenoncourt, an economics professor at Princeton University, told CNBC the findings raise big questions: “Should we blame poverty on people and individuals and the choices they’ve made? Or are there external factors that are really determining their life course?”In select neighborhoods of Maryland, Virginia and New York, Black households produced children who went on to out-earn the national median as they matured into adulthood. Neighborhoods in Houston and Atlanta have results that show where targeted improvements are having a big impact.Improving conditions for the Black labor force is a key issue for businesses. Federal labor statistics often reveal that Black workers bear the brunt of economic recession. “The reasons for that basically boil down to lack of mentorship and a lot of Black workers being tied up in jobs that don’t provide a clear pathway up,” said Shelley Stewart III, a partner at McKinsey & Company.Watch the video above to learn more about the most successful neighborhoods for Black families today.

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