Raphael Stevens

The at-home testing market is bigger than just Covid tests, and it’s bigger than over-the-counter pregnancy tests.
In fact, the emerging marketplace of consumer-initiated lab testing may be worth more than $2 billion by 2025, according to Quest Diagnostics.

“We have experienced over 100% growth in 2021 over 2020,” Everly Health CEO Julia Cheek told CNBC. Everly Health provides at-home lab testing through Everlywell.
New entrants, like Everlywell, coordinate testing to get it directly into the consumer’s hands.
Tests can calculate anything from fertility to STDs using the same testing infrastructure built by the likes of diagnostics companies as well as some of the top laboratories in the nation.
“We are a wellness test. We do not diagnose any conditions. We give you information so that you can go have an informed conversation with your doctor,” Modern Fertility co-founder Afton Vechery told CNBC.
Vechery started Modern Fertility after realizing getting her own fertility information proved more difficult than she thought it would be. Her OB-GYN wouldn’t order a panel of hormone testing.

“They said, ‘No, Afton, you’re not trying and failing to conceive right now. We’re not going to order that for you,'” she said. When Vechery eventually got these tests done, she received a bill in the mail for $1,500.
“That was totally unexpected to me, and so we really wanted to bring this to market in a way where we could provide access for as many people with ovaries as possible,” she explained of her experience and Modern Fertility’s mission.
Seventy percent of all health-care decisions are based on diagnostic testing services, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Watch the video above to learn more about how this business model works, the start-ups fueling the market and how costs compare with the traditional lab model. 

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

The WNBA on Thursday announced it completed its first-ever capital raise, bringing on investors including former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The Women’s National Basketball Association did not disclose how much money it raised from investors as it seeks to accelerate growth.
However, the league in a press release called it “the largest-ever capital raise for a women’s sports property.”

The WNBA on Thursday announced it completed its first-ever capital raise, bringing in a host of big-name investors including Nike and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, as the league looks to accelerate growth.
The Women’s National Basketball Association did not disclose how much money it raised from investors, which also include Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell and Laurene Powell Jobs, philanthropist and the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. However, the league in a press release called it “the largest-ever capital raise for a women’s sports property.”

“We’ve all seen the reports that less than 5% of all sports media coverage and less than 1% of all sponsorship dollars go to women’s sports, so access to this capital … when you’re trying to grow a business is really going to help us move the needle,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in an interview Thursday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
The WNBA’s fund-raising round is the latest indication of the momentum and investor attention toward women’s sports at both the professional and collegiate level. It also comes roughly three months before the 12-team league is set to begin its 26th season, in May. Free agency is underway now.
The league’s milestone 25th season, which concluded in October, saw a large jump in TV viewership, according to Disney-owned ESPN, which broadcasts some regular season games and the entire postseason.
Regular-season viewership increased 49% compared with the 2020 season and 24% compared with 2019 before the Covid pandemic, according to ESPN. The postseason and WNBA Finals both saw their highest viewership figures in years.

LAS VEGAS, NV – JULY 27: WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert addresses the media before the AT&T WNBA All-Star Game 2019 on July 27, 2019 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Brian Babineau | National Basketball Association | Getty Images

Engelbert, former CEO of consulting giant Deloitte, said the WNBA plans to use its cash in a variety of ways to help the league establish an economic model that’s “sustainable for the future.”

“We have so much opportunity to globalize the game, expansion,” said Engelbert, who has led the WNBA since July 2019. “We have opportunity to blow up our digital footprint and think about what direct to consumer means.”
“It’s really a lot of growth initiatives,” Engelbert added, including sports betting as more states around the U.S. legalize it and “marketing our stars into household names both here in the U.S. and globally.”
Nike, which has sponsored the WNBA’s jerseys since 2018, made “a significant equity investment” in the league, the release press release said.
Other noteworthy investors include Carnival Chairman Micky Arison, who also owns the NBA’s Miami Heat; Clara Wu Tsai and Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai, owners of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and WNBA’s New York Liberty; and three-time WNBA champion Swin Cash, who now is vice president of basketball operations for the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans.
Cash, who played in the WNBA from 2002 to 2016, said her participation as an investor also signals support for current players as they further establish the league.
“Outside investors are great, and that’s important, but the women who have also helped build this league , it’s important for us to stand alongside this next generation,” said Cash, who appeared on “Squawk Box” alongside Engelbert.
Metropolitan Capital Advisors co-founder and CEO Karen Finerman, a regular trader on CNBC’s “Fast Money,” also participated in the WNBA’s investment round.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

The Biden administration on Wednesday attempted to halt the U.S. Postal Service’s plan to spend up to $11.3 billion to replace its delivery fleet with thousands of gas-powered vehicles.
The EPA and the White House Council on Environmental Quality, in a letter to the Postal Service, urged the Postal Service to conduct a new technical analysis and hold a public hearing on its plan.
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.

A postal worker loads a delivery truck on October 01, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Olson | Getty Images

The Biden administration on Wednesday attempted to halt the U.S. Postal Service’s plan to spend up to $11.3 billion to replace its delivery fleet with thousands of gas-powered vehicles, arguing that the vehicles will worsen climate change and public health.
The EPA and the White House Council on Environmental Quality, in a letter to the Postal Service, urged the Postal Service to conduct an updated and more detailed technical analysis and hold a public hearing on its plan.

The Postal Service’s plan would blunt the president’s pledge to replace its federal fleet of 600,000 cars and trucks to electric power and slash the government’s carbon emissions by 65% by 2030. The administration has also committed to cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions nearly in half by the end of the decade and transition the economy to net-zero emissions by midcentury.
“The Postal Service’s proposal as currently crafted represents a crucial lost opportunity to more rapidly reduce the carbon footprint of one of the largest government fleets in the world,” Vicki Arroyo, associate administrator of policy for the EPA, wrote in a letter.

“The Postal Service’s proposal also has significant implications for the nation’s air quality and public health,” Arroyo wrote. “The cleaner the Postal Service vehicles that are deployed in communities across the country, the more air quality and public health will be improved.”
The news was first reported by The Washington Post.
Despite a rise in electric vehicles sales in the U.S. in recent years, the transportation sector is one of the largest contributors to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. It represents about one-third of emissions every year.

The Postal Service operates about 230,000 vehicles, which is roughly one-third of the government fleet. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who was nominated to the board by former President Donald Trump, last year committed to a plan to convert only 10% of its new trucks to electric power.
“This action will lock in highly polluting vehicles for at least 30 more years (beyond 2050) and is inconsistent with national, and many state and local goals for GHG emissions reductions,” Arroyo wrote.
Some of the Postal Service’s major competitors, including Walmart and FedEx, have committed to achieving all-electric fleets by 2040. Additionally, Amazon and UPS have committed to net-zero emissions by 2040 and 2050, respectively.
“We are carefully reviewing EPA’s most recent letter, to determine if any new matters have been raised that have not already been thoroughly addressed in our prior responses to the EPA, and that might therefore warrant further consideration,” Kim Frum, a Postal Service spokeswoman, said in a statement.
Environmental groups have sharply criticized the Postal Service’s plan not to purchase an all-electric fleet.
Katherine García, direct of the Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All campaign, praised the administration’s push against the plan and called the shift to an all-electric Postal Service fleet a “no-brainer.”
“Electric mail trucks will reduce noise, air and climate pollution in communities across the nation, while slashing fueling costs,” García said. “There’s no reason USPS should be locking in decades of fossil fuel consumption by considering a fleet of 90 percent gas-powered trucks.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Airlines and other travel-industry groups are pushing the Biden administration to drop Covid testing requirements for inbound international air travelers.
The testing requirements were first ordered by the Trump administration days before Biden took office.

A traveler wears a face mask while checking their phone on the arrivals level outside the Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT) at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) amid increased Covid-19 travel restrictions on January 25, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images

Airlines and other travel-industry groups asked the Biden administration on Wednesday to drop Covid test requirements for vaccinated passengers before U.S.-bound flights, a bid to invigorate the sluggish recovery in international travel.
“Doing so is justified by the pervasiveness of COVID cases in all 50 states, increased immunity and higher vaccination rates as well as new treatments,” said an industry letter to White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeffrey Zients, which was seen by CNBC. “Removing the requirement will greatly support the recovery of travel and aviation in the United States and globally without increasing the spread of COVID-19 and its variants.”

The letter was signed by Airlines for America, a lobbying group that represents Delta, American, United, Southwest and others, along with more than two-dozen other industry associations representing airlines, hotels, airports and aircraft manufacturers.

The Trump administration in January 2021 established a policy requiring inbound air travelers, including U.S. citizens, to show proof of a negative Covid test taken within three days of departure.
The Biden administration in December tightened rules to require travelers to show tests taken within one day of departure after omicron cases surged. That change came a month after the U.S. ended a broad travel ban on visitors from Europe, China, Brazil, India and the U.K.
International travel demand, however, continues to lag domestic leisure, which helped airlines recover from record losses in 2020.
The groups argued in their letter that testing requirements for vaccinated individuals is too onerous and deters travel. The U.K., starting Feb. 11, will drop its Covid testing requirement for vaccinated arrivals.

International inbound air travel won’t likely recover to pre-pandemic levels until 2024, Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, an industry group, said during a call with reporters earlier Wednesday. That is “leaving a tremendous amount of ground to make up.”
Throughout the pandemic, airlines and travel groups have repeatedly pressed both the Trump and Biden administrations to loosen restrictions that they have said prolonged a slump in long-haul international travel.
European countries began lifting entry bans on visitors from the U.S. and other countries last spring, a move that wasn’t followed by the U.S. until November.
The White House didn’t immediately comment on the letter.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Monday – Friday, 6:00 – 7:00 PM ET

Waste Management CEO and President Jim Fish on Wednesday expressed confidence in the company’s 2022 prospects.
“Our guidance that we just gave for 2022 is pretty darned robust,” Fish said in an interview on “Mad Money.”
Fish said the company is both investing in technology and new facilities, while rewarding shareholders with a dividend increase and stock buyback program.

Waste Management CEO and President Jim Fish on Wednesday expressed confidence in the company’s 2022 prospects, despite the continued presence of inflationary pressures.
“Our guidance that we just gave for 2022 is pretty darned robust,” Fish said in an interview on “Mad Money,” referring to projected organic revenue growth of 6% and adjusted operating EBITDA growth of roughly 7%.

“That’s at the very top end of the range that we gave a couple of years ago at an investor day, and that’s in the face of still a pandemic out there and still this high inflation,” Fish told CNBC’s Jim Cramer. “It’s all organic,” he added. “We really haven’t bought anything of size in the last 12 months.”
Waste Management is focused on investing in technology that automates certain positions within the company that have high turnover and its renewable natural gas facilities, Fish said, while also returning capital to shareholders.
Waste Management said earlier Wednesday that its board intends to increase its annual dividend by 30 cents to $2.60. The board in December also authorized a $1.5 billion stock buyback program.
“The business is throwing off a ton of cash, and we’re giving a lot of it back to shareholders,” Fish said.
Shares of Waste Management fell 1.1% Wednesday, ending the session at $148.12, off its lows of the day. Before the market opened, Waste Management reported adjusted earnings of $1.26 per share, which was in line with Wall Street’s estimates.

Sign up now for the CNBC Investing Club to follow Jim Cramer’s every move in the market.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More