Raphael Stevens

LA clippers owner Steve Ballmer announced last week the team will move to a new arena in three years: the $1.2 billion Intuit Dome.
CNBC spoke with Ballmer about his eight years as a sports team owner and what lessons he carried over from his time as Microsoft CEO.

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer speaks onstage during the New York Times Dealbook event on November 1, 2018, in New York.
Michael Cohen | Getty Images | The New York Times

“Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.”
It’s a famous quote admired by Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO turned pro sports owner.

“Colin Powell taught us that,” said Ballmer in a sit-down interview with CNBC. Powell’s words relate perfectly to Ballmer’s new mission: taking a more significant piece of revenue in the basketball and entertainment market in Los Angeles.
On Friday, Ballmer broke ground on his new $1.2 billion arena, the Intuit Dome. The 18,000-seat complex will be vital in helping the Clippers capture underserved sports fans in Los Angeles. Ballmer labels them the “grinders” of the city, a term used to describe working-class sports fans.
Before discussing specifics around the Intuit Dome, the former Ballmer reflected on his time in his post-retirement role as a professional sports owner. Here’s what Ballmer said he learned about owning the Clippers and how it relates to his business past.
It starts with Powell, the former Secretary of State under President George W. Bush’s administration.

Ballmer’s optimism comes through

Ballmer, 65, entered a conference room at the Clippers downtown LA office, having conducted over four interviews, with more on his schedule. The discussion with CNBC lasted a little over 15 minutes, covering various topics from the arena and his previous life in business. Powell’s words helped explain the optimism around Ballmer’s vision for the Clippers, starting with the Intuit Dome.

“You have to be optimistic to take on a huge project when you don’t start with land,” Ballmer said. “Putting the land together is quite the circus of legal issues, resolutions. We had to buy the Forum as part of that process. You have to keep your optimism.”
Ballmer was referring to the $400 million in cash he paid Madison Square Garden Company, the previous owner of the Forum. The Lakers played there from 1967-1999, and the building mainly hosts concerts today. Ballmer needed to resolve legal issues with MSG, who complained Ballmer’s new arena would damage the Forum’s income. MSG purchased the Forum for $23.5 million in 2012 and cashed out in 2020, thanks to Ballmer.
The Clippers owner also paid the town of Inglewood $66.2 million for the land where Intuit Dome will sit. The Clippers will get some of that back, though. Intuit, the software company that makes Turbo Tax, will pay the team more than $500 million for a 23-year naming rights slot.
That deal only enhanced Ballmer’s optimism.
“This stadium is about being optimistic about our team,” Ballmer said.
“It’s about being optimistic about our fans. Get in the building, pump up, make energy,” Ballmer added, clapping his hands. “Your energy can feed our team to greater success.”
He then laughed when discussing the “weird, small world” and a key relationship that probably helped land the Clippers a record naming rights agreement. Ballmer flashed back to 1977, when he worked at Procter and Gamble. The person in charge of helping him settle in was Scott Cook, who later co-founded Intuit.
Asked about one of the lessons he learned at P&G that he stills using today as an NBA owner, Ballmer said: “It’s good to make consistent long-term bets. We took that to a whole other level at Microsoft.”

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in 2012.

Getting it right

Ballmer’s history as CEO of Microsoft had mixed results. But, while some will point out that Microsoft missed key tech breakthroughs like the modern smartphone and the search engine, Ballmer did help triple Microsoft’s sales during his 14-year run as CEO.
When discussing his time at Microsoft, Ballmer noted the long-term bets made, which positioned the company for its current $2.2 trillion market cap.
“There’s a reason why Microsoft is the second most valuable company in the world,” Ballmer said. “We got Windows and Office right. We got our back-end technology right, with servers. We got Xbox right, and I got my replacement [Satya Nadella] right. Succession is a huge part of it, and I left my successor with the infrastructure to go build a cloud business.”
Ballmer’s optimism shifted back to Intuit Dome, comparing the arena’s construction to the birth of Apple’s top product.
“When I think about this product – our new building – in a way, I do liken it to the way Apple thought about the phone,” Ballmer said. “They didn’t try to design the cheapest phone. They didn’t go in saying, ‘Let’s build a cheap product because it might sell a higher volume at a lower price.’
“They came in with a premium approach,” he added. “They came in thinking of new ways to do things. That’s what we’re doing here. This is a premium building, and our fans aren’t going to suffer for that.”

Inside of LA Clippers new arena.
Source: LA Clippers

Inside Ballmer’s newest asset

Throughout sports, teams are bracing for a new way to leverage their product, especially after pandemic losses. Premium experiences never hurt, and the Intuit Dome will offer a one-of-a-kind experience in the NBA.
The 18,000-seat arena will feature 44,000-square feet of LED lights for its halo-shaped video board, plus technology that allows fans to purchase concessions and automatically be charged without using cash or cards. In addition, the Clippers will leverage four courtside cabanas, a concept Ballmer borrowed from the National Football League.
“We’re pioneering the feel of end-zone suites,” said Ballmer of the luxury offering.
The Intuit Dome will not host hockey games, so the building has “basketball geometry,” meaning it was built specifically to watch basketball games. The Clippers business operations will relocate to the Intuit Dome, and the team will also house their practice facility in the arena.
The Clippers estimate the Intuit Dome will generate roughly $260 million in annual economic activity for Inglewood, including over 7,000 full-time and part-time jobs. The Clippers also committed to a $100 million community benefits package.
“It’s a big market,” Ballmer said. “There’s plenty of fans that can be fans of the Clippers and Lakers. But we want to tell you who we are. I think there are many folks in LA who identify with this notion of being the underdog, the person who strides. It’s almost two LA’s. It’s not all showtime and movie business. Our fans are grinders.”
“I’m optimistic about our team,” added Ballmer. “I’m optimistic about our team success, and that optimism is a force multiplier. In many ways, the reason we did this is consistent with that optimism as a force multiplier approach.”

Paul George #13 of the LA Clippers talks to Owner, Steve Ballmer of the LA Clippers after the game against the Utah Jazz during Round 2, Game 5 of the 2021 NBA Playoffs on June 16, 2021 at vivint.SmartHome Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Adam Pantozzi | National Basketball Association | Getty Images

Key lessons

As the interview neared its conclusion, Ballmer explained the what he learned in his latest leadership role. After announcing his retirement from Microsoft in 2013, he purchased the NBA’s second LA team in 2014 for a then-record $2 billion. The team hit the market after the NBA banned former owner Donald Sterling for making racist remarks that became public.
In this world, wins and losses are critical. A new arena will only help the Clippers for some time. Ballmer is approaching his eighth season as Clippers owner, and the team is 346-208, including sixth playoff appearances and one conference finals appearance during that time.
Team president Gillian Zucker runs the business unit. Ballmer made one coaching change on the basketball side when the team parted with Doc Rivers last September, replacing him with Tyronn Lue. Ballmer also elevated executive Lawrence Frank to operate basketball operations.
Ballmer has also displayed his willingness to spend on talent. Next season, the Clippers will spend $166 million per season on player contracts, the third highest in the NBA. That brings an $88 million luxury tax bill and includes paying stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George an average annual value of $44 million per season until 2025. Those two deals will expire a year after the Intuit Dome is scheduled to open.
Asked to reveal the most challenging thing to deal with as a sports owner, Ballmer responded: “Injuries – they happen. We had an injury to Kawhi, and with this injury, we’re not sure how long he’s going to be out this year.”
Ballmer then pointed to improved “judgment and understanding of where and how I should be involved on the basketball side. I’m not deciding who is the 12th player on the roster. I’m not involved, and it was important to me to know I’m not involved. That’s not the way for me to add value. I add value by asking questions.”
Asked if he desires to own another team, as the NFL could have an opening in Denver, Ballmer said: “No –and my wife says, ‘You spend enough time on sports already.’ This is it for me in sports.”
Ballmer is three years away from opening the Intuit Dome, which is future-proof, allowing the Clippers to keep adding features as technology improves. That should align more revenue streams with sports betting and augmented and virtual reality experiences.
As Ballmer learned at P&G and applied at Microsoft, he said the plan is to continue making long-term bets as a pro sports owner.
“And you don’t blink,” he said. “We’re not blinking on the Clippers. We’re going to consistently invest and making our team as good as it can be. And in this new building, we’re going to invest.”
Ballmer then departed for another media interview, flaunting his perpetual optimism. 

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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk helped achieve the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital fundraising goal of the Inspiration4 spaceflight, just hours after his company returned the crew from orbit.
“Count me in for $50M,” Musk said in a tweet on Saturday.
The main goal of the Inspiration4 mission, which launched on Wednesday and splashed down on Saturday, was to raise $200 million for St. Jude, and it had raised $160.2 million before Musk’s pledge.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk poses with the crew before launch on September 15, 2021.
John Kraus / Inspiration4

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk helped achieve the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital fundraising goal of the Inspiration4 spaceflight, just hours after his company returned the crew from orbit.
The main goal of the Inspiration4 mission, which launched on Wednesday and splashed down on Saturday, was to raise $200 million for St. Jude.

Inspiration4 commander Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur who purchased the flight from SpaceX, donated $100 million personally to St. Jude. The Inspiration4 mission had raised another $60.2 million in donations, before Musk pledged to contribute $50 million himself – pushing the campaign’s total raised to more than $210 million.
“Count me in for $50M,” Musk said in a tweet on Saturday.
The historic Inspiration4 mission with a private crew spent three days in space, carrying Isaacman, pilot Sian Proctor, medical officer Hayley Arceneaux and mission specialist Chris Sembroski. The crew orbited the Earth at an altitude as high as 590 kilometers, which is above the International Space Station and the furthest humans have traveled above the surface in years.
The spaceflight achieved multiple milestones, including: The first private SpaceX spaceflight, the first entirely nonprofessional crew to become astronauts, the first Black female spacecraft pilot, the youngest American astronaut to date, and the first person to fly in space with a prosthesis.

The Inspiration4 passengers pose in the crew access arm of Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. From left: Commander Jared Isaacman, medical officer Hayley Arceneaux, pilot Sian Proctor, and mission specialist Chris Sembroski.

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SpaceX returned its Crew Dragon spacecraft from orbit on Saturday, with the capsule carrying the four members of the Inspiration4 mission back to Earth after three days in space.
Crew Dragon capsule Resilience splashed down off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida in the Atlantic Ocean.
The historic private mission — which includes commander Jared Isaacman, pilot Sian Proctor, medical officer Hayley Arceneaux and mission specialist Chris Sembroski — orbited the Earth at an altitude as high as 590 kilometers.

SpaceX safely returned its Crew Dragon spacecraft from orbit on Saturday, with the capsule carrying the four members of the Inspiration4 mission back to Earth after three days in space.
Crew Dragon capsule Resilience splashed down off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida in the Atlantic Ocean.

“Thanks so much SpaceX, that was a heck of a ride for us and we’re just getting started!” Inspiration4 commander Jared Isaacman said from the capsule.
In less than an hour after splashdown, SpaceX loaded the capsule onto its recovery ship and the crew exited, each giving waves and thumbs up after disembarking. The crew will then be helicoptered from the ship to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, a short flight away from the splashdown site.
Inspiration4 mission director Scott Poteet joined a post-splashdown call with reporters, speaking from the SpaceX recovery ship.
“The group is in great spirits, they’re having a blast and everyone’s looking forward to reuniting with their families,” Poteet said.
Elon Musk tweeted his congratulations to the crew shortly after splashdown.

The historic private mission — which includes Isaacman, pilot Sian Proctor, medical officer Hayley Arceneaux and mission specialist Chris Sembroski — orbited the Earth at an altitude as high as 590 kilometers, which is above the International Space Station and the furthest humans have traveled above the surface in years. A free-flying spaceflight, the capsule did not dock with the ISS but instead circled the Earth independently at a rate of 15 orbits per day.
SpaceX human spaceflight programs senior director Benji Reed told reporters after splashdown that the company’s sales and marketing teams saw an “increased” number of inquiries from people interested in purchasing a private spaceflight. He said that SpaceX can fly “five or six” private missions per year.
“If demand is there, then we’ll want to look at what we can do to continue to grow that” capability, Reed said.
Reed also noted that there were “a couple of issues” that SpaceX resolved during the spaceflight, including with the waste management system, or toilet, onboard the spacecraft. Inspiration4 mission director Todd Ericson added that the toilet had “an issue with a fan that’s part of the system” but a workaround was implemented without significant trouble.
Inspiration4 shared photos from the crew’s time in orbit, giving a look at the expansive views from the spacecraft’s “cupola” window.
This is the third time SpaceX has returned astronauts from space, and the second time for this capsule – which previously flew the Crew-1 mission for NASA on a trip that returned in May.
Both prior SpaceX astronaut missions splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, making this the first that returned in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Inspiration4 crew inside Crew Dragon capsule Resilience after the hatch was reopened. From left: Mission specialist Chris Sembroski, pilot Sian Proctor, commander Jared Isaacman, and medical officer Hayley Arceneaux.

The mission also comes with multiple other milestones for Musk’s company, including: The first private SpaceX spaceflight, the first entirely nonprofessional crew to become astronauts, the first Black female spacecraft pilot, the youngest American astronaut to date, and the first person to fly in space with a prosthesis.
Inspiration4 was paid for by Isaacman for an undisclosed amount, with the main goal of the spaceflight to raise $200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur, donated $100 million personally, with the mission having raised another $53.8 million in donations as of Saturday evening, according to the mission’s website.

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A CNBC analysis shows a strong link between support for Gov. Gavin Newsom in the recall election and counties with high Covid vaccination rates in California.
People in counties with high vaccination rates overwhelmingly voted to keep him in office. Conversely, people in counties with lower vaccination rates voted to oust the governor. 
Many smaller, more rural California counties were also less likely to support Newsom and to get vaccinated. 

California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks to members of the media after meeting students at Melrose Leadership Academy during a school visit in Oakland, California on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021.
Stephen Lam | San Francisco Chronicle | Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called his decisive victory in this week’s recall election a win for vaccines and science. The data backs him up.
A CNBC analysis of county-level results — which are preliminary as mail-in ballots continue to be tallied — found a strong link between support for Newsom and counties with high Covid vaccination rates as of Election Day, Sept. 14.  

People in counties with high Covid vaccination rates overwhelmingly voted to keep him in office. Conversely, people in counties with lower vaccination rates voted to oust the governor. 

“‘No’ is not the only thing expressed tonight. I want to focus on what we said ‘yes’ to as a state,” Newsom said late Tuesday in Sacramento, thanking his supporters. “We said ‘yes’ to science, we said ‘yes’ to vaccines, we said ‘yes’ to ending this pandemic.” 
The analysis also reveals that people in many smaller California counties were less likely to support Newsom and get vaccinated. 
Of the 23 counties with fewer than 100,000 residents, 17, or about three-quarters, voted “yes” on the recall. Meanwhile, only 10 of the 35 counties with more than 100,000 residents voted in favor of the recall. 

Those small counties were also more likely to have lower vaccination rates. Eighteen of the 23 reported less than 50% of residents were fully vaccinated as of Election Day, according to a CNBC analysis of California Department of Public Health data.

Lassen County, for example, has an estimated population of about 30,600 as of 2019 and a current vaccination rate of nearly 22%. Roughly 84% of its voters voted “yes” on the recall.
Similarly, Modoc County has an estimated population of 8,800 as of 2019 and a current vaccination rate of 36.3%. Seventy-eight percent of its voters also favored the recall.
On the other end of the spectrum, Los Angeles County has an estimated population of over 10 million as of 2019 and a vaccination rate of 59.5%. Its voters strongly supported Newsom, with 70.8% voting “no” on the recall. 
The majority of counties that are classified as rural or mostly rural were also less likely to support Newsom and get vaccinated, according to the Census Bureau’s latest rural area data, from 2010. The Census Bureau defines rural as any population, housing or territory not within an urban area or areas with 50,000 or more residents.
Ten out of the 11 counties classified as rural or mostly rural in California voted “yes” on the recall. This includes Amador County, Calaveras County, Lassen County, Mariposa County, Modoc County, Plumas County, Sierra County, Siskiyou County, Tehama County and Trinity County, according to data from the California secretary of state.
As of Election Day, all 10 of those counties reported vaccination rates below 50%, according to CNBC’s analysis.

President Joe Biden, who campaigned alongside Newsom on the eve of Election Day, echoed the governor’s sentiment about his victory.
“This vote is a resounding win for the approach that he and I share to beating the pandemic: strong vaccine requirements, strong steps to reopen schools safely, and strong plans to distribute real medicines — not fake treatments — to help those who get sick,” Biden said in a statement Wednesday.
While the preliminary results of the election suggest that the majority of Californians support the state’s pandemic measures, Newsom’s response to Covid was initially what put his political fate in jeopardy. 
Statewide mask mandates, stay-at-home orders and a maskless appearance by the governor at a high-end Napa Valley restaurant during the height of surging Covid cases helped the recall petition gain traction late last year, prompting nearly 1.5 million Californians to sign it. 
However, Newsom’s handling of the pandemic in recent months, including his rollout of vaccines and mandates, became one of his strengths in the recall election.
The governor introduced Covid vaccine requirements for state employees and health-care workers in late July, which took effect on Aug. 5. He also implemented similar vaccine requirements for teachers and other school staff, a first-in-the-nation measure that took effect on Aug. 12. 

California Governor Gavin Newsom attends a news conference to launch a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination supersite in San Diego, California, February 8, 2021.
Sandy Huffaker | Pool | via Reuters

In the weeks leading up to the election, Newsom’s campaign slammed conservative talk show host Larry Elder, the Republican frontrunner, for pledging to reverse such vaccine mandates and other pandemic measures. 
The governor’s vigorous campaigning also touted the state’s high vaccination rates in recent months. As of Friday, 59.23% of the state’s population is fully vaccinated, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. 
A September survey released ahead of the recall election showed that more than 3 in 4 Californians think the state government is doing an “excellent or good job” at distributing Covid vaccines. And roughly 6 of 10 said they approve of the way Newsom has responded to the pandemic overall, according to the survey, conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California. 
“While a small group of craven, venal con-artists in the Republican party try to get attention by undermining trust in science and public health, the vast majority of Americans haven’t been fooled —they understand that vaccinations save lives” and they “support common sense vaccine mandates,” said Los Angeles-based Democratic consultant Michael Soneff in an email.

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An influential FDA advisory committee on Friday rejected a proposal to distribute booster shots of Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine to the general public.
The panel pared back those plans to unanimously recommend the third shots to people age 65 and older and other vulnerable Americans.

An influential Food and Drug Administration advisory committee on Friday rejected a proposal to distribute booster shots of Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine to the general public, paring back those plans to unanimously recommend the third shots to people age 65 and older and other vulnerable Americans.
“It’s likely beneficial, in my opinion, for the elderly, and may eventually be indicated for the general population. I just don’t think we’re there yet in terms of the data,” said Dr. Ofer Levy, a vaccine and infectious disease specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital.

The panel voted 16-2 against distributing the vaccines to Americans 16 and older, before unanimously embracing an alternate plan to give boosters to older Americans and those at a high risk of suffering from severe illness if they get the virus. That’s previously included people with diabetes, heart disease, obesity and other so-called comorbidities.
Pfizer’s stock closed down 1.3%, while shares of BioNTech fell 3.6%.
The nonbinding decision by the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee comes as the Biden administration has said it wants to begin offering booster shots to the general public as early as next week, pending authorization from U.S. health regulators. While the agency hasn’t always followed the advice of its committee, it often does. A final FDA decision could come in a matter of hours. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention has scheduled a two-day meeting next week to discuss plans to distribute the third shots in the U.S.

“We are not bound at FDA by your vote, just so you understand that. We can tweak this as need be,” Dr. Peter Marks, the agency’s top vaccine regulator, reminded the panel after the votes. He asked the group for suggestions on what other populations the FDA should consider for boosters, like front-line health workers and other occupations that face more exposure to Covid.
The committee vote was expected to be a controversial one as some scientists, including two senior FDA officials who were involved in the meeting Friday, have said they aren’t entirely convinced every American who has received the Pfizer vaccine needs extra doses right now.

White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said he wasn’t surprised they didn’t recommend the shots for people 16 and older. Fauci, who has publicly backed boosters, hesitated in an interview Friday on “Closing Bell” to guess what the committee would ultimately decide.
“I don’t want to get ahead of the advisory committee at the time that they’re deliberating,” he said.

Liesl Eibschutz, a medical student from Dartmouth University, loads a syringe with Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine before giving it to people on the first day that people ages 16 and up can receive the vaccine at Kedren Health on Thursday, April 15, 2021 in Los Angeles, CA.
Allen J. Schaben | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

In a paper published days before the advisory committee meeting, a leading group of scientists said available data showed vaccine protection against severe disease persists, even as the effectiveness against mild disease wanes over time. The authors, including two high-ranking FDA officials and multiple scientists from the World Health Organization, argued Monday in the medical journal The Lancet that widely distributing booster shots to the general public is not appropriate at this time.
In outlining plans last month to start distributing boosters as early as next week, Biden administration officials cited three CDC studies that showed the vaccines’ protection against Covid diminished over several months. Senior health officials said at the time they worried protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death “could” diminish in the months ahead, especially among those who are at higher risk or were inoculated during the earlier phases of the vaccination rollout.
Before the vote, some committee members said they were concerned there wasn’t enough data to make a recommendation, while others argued third shots should be limited to certain groups, such as people over age 60 who are known to be at higher risk of severe disease. Some members raised concerns about the risk of myocarditis in younger people, saying more research is needed.
Dr. Hayley Gans, a voting member, said she was “struck” that the FDA was asking the committee to look at the totality of the evidence presented Friday because some data, including on safety, was still insufficient.
Another member, Dr. Paul Offit, said he would support boosters for people over 60, but had trouble backing third shots for younger groups due to a higher risk of myocarditis.
Before the vote Friday, the committee listened to several presentations on data to support the wide distribution of booster shots, including from health authorities from Israel, where officials began inoculating the nation’s population ahead of many other countries and began offering third shots to their citizens in late July.
Phil Krause, an FDA vaccine regulator and a co-author of The Lancet paper, was critical of the findings presented Friday, saying much of the data had not been reviewed by the federal agency or had not been peer-reviewed. He said the models used were complex and scientists have to ensure it “is giving you the correct results.”
“That’s part of the difficulty at looking at this kind of data without having the chance for FDA to review it,” he said.
In documents made public by the FDA on Wednesday, Pfizer said an observational study in Israel showed a third dose of the Covid vaccine six months after a second shot restores protection from infection to 95%. The data was collected from July 1 through Aug. 30 when the fast-spreading delta variant was surging throughout the country.
In a presentation Friday, Dr. Sharon Elroy-Preiss of Israel’s Health Ministry argued that if officials there had not begun distributing boosters at the end of July, the nation likely would have exceeded its hospital capacity. Health officials began to see a trend, she said, of individuals in their 40s and 50s who were fully vaccinated become critically ill with Covid.
“We didn’t want to wait to see those results and we knew that we needed to vaccinate a larger portion of the population in order to get the numbers down quickly,” she told the committee. Israeli health authorities expected severe cases to average 2,000 by late August, she said. “We were able to dampen that effect and our severe cases are roughly 700 or less and have stayed stable, even though we still have days at 10,000 confirmed cases.”
She also said the booster shots were well tolerated by many people, citing data that showed there was only one case of myocarditis, a rare heart inflammation condition that’s been linked to mRNA vaccines, out of roughly 2.9 million people who received the extra doses.
Pfizer’s booster side effects are also comparable with those that emerge after receiving the second vaccine dose, Dr. Joohee Lee, an officer at the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review, said during the meeting.
Of the 289 booster recipients ages 18 to 55 monitored in Pfizer’s phase three trial, 63.8% developed fatigue, 48.4% had headaches and 39.1% experienced muscle pain. The FDA studied side effects in 2,682 recipients of Pfizer’s second Covid dose, ranging from 16 to 55 years old, reporting fatigue among 61.5% of patients, headaches among 54% and muscle pain among 39.3%. One adverse event — swelling of the lymph nodes — occurred in 5.2% of booster recipients but just 0.4% of those who received their first two doses.
“The majority were mild to moderate and they did resolve,” Lee said of the lymphadenopathy cases. “Although one is reported to be ongoing at this time.”

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California firefighters are desperately trying to protect the Sequoia National Park by wrapping the bases of several large sequoias in aluminum blankets, including the 275-foot General Sherman, the world’s largest tree.
Sequoia National Park shut down earlier this week after the week-old KNP Complex Fire was ignited by lightning strikes and began to burn through steep canyons.
The blaze was one of several to ignite across the western U.S. as wildfire season began earlier than usual due to climate change.

This photo provided by the Southern Area Blue Incident Management Team on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2021, shows the giant sequoia known as the General Sherman Tree with its base wrapped in a fire-resistant blanket to protect it from the intense heat of approaching wildfires at Sequoia National Forest in California.
Southern Area Blue Incident Management Team via AP

California firefighters are wrapping fireproof aluminum blankets around the bases of several giant trees in Sequoia National Park, including the 275-foot General Sherman, the largest tree in the world, to protect them from the rapidly worsening KNP Complex Fire.
The park shut down earlier this week, after the fire, sparked by lightning strikes, began to burn through steep canyons. The western U.S. has suffered several large fires this season, including the Dixie Fire, California’s second-largest ever, and scientists and firefighters say climate change is extending the fire season and helping those fires burn faster and hotter than in previous decades.

“Crews are preparing the Giant Forest before the fire reaches that area, by removing fuel and applying structure wrap on some of the iconic monarch sequoias that characterize the most famous area of Sequoia National Park,” the National Park Service said in a statement. “The fire continues to grow in all directions.”
Crews also used fireproof wrapping to cover the Ash Mountain Entrance, the park’s entrance sign that invites travelers into Sequoia National and is carved out of blocks of sequoia wood.

Firefighters cover a sign at Sequoia National Park, California, U.S., in this picture obtained by Reuters on September 17, 2021.
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National | via Reuters

Crews are also prepping to conduct burnout operations in areas at risk. Prescribed burns involve igniting ground fires that reduce the amount of fuel available near the area in order to protect the land from larger, less-controlled blazes.
The KNP Complex Fire had burned 11,365 acres and was zero percent contained as of Friday, according to the federal InciWeb incident information system. At least 28 fires have ignited in California and 129 across other western states since June, according to data from Inciweb.
While California’s endangered giant trees are adapted to withstand wildfires, record heat and drought are threatening the sequoia population.
Last year, the Castle Fire scorched Sequoia National Park and destroyed at least one-tenth of the world’s sequoia trees, according to a draft report by scientists with the National Park Service.

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SpaceX broadcast a livestream from orbit on Friday, with the crew of the historic Inspiration4 mission giving an update during their second day in space.
The company noted that it is targeting Saturday at 7:06 p.m. ET for splashdown of the Crew Dragon capsule Resilience, after the crew’s third day in or
“We’re really proud to share this experience with everyone. We know how fortunate we are to be here,” Inspiration4 commander Jared Isaacman said from space.

[This webcast has ended. A replay is available above.]
SpaceX broadcast a livestream from orbit on Friday, with the crew of the historic Inspiration4 mission giving an update during their second day in space.

The company noted that it is targeting Saturday at 7:06 p.m. ET for splashdown of the Crew Dragon capsule Resilience, after the crew’s third day in orbit.
Commander Jared Isaacman, pilot Sian Proctor, medical officer Hayley Arceneaux and mission specialist Chris Sembroski are orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 585 kilometers (363.5 miles), which is above the International Space Station and the highest altitude humans have traveled in years.
“We’re really proud to share this experience with everyone. We know how fortunate we are to be here,” Isaacman said from space.
Inspiration4 shared photos from the crew’s first day in orbit, giving a first look at how the four passengers were doing and a glimpse at the expansive views of Earth from the spacecraft’s “cupola” window.
SpaceX modified the top of Crew Dragon capsule Resilience to add a massive window for the astronauts, replacing the docking hatch that is under the spacecraft’s nose cone with the cupola.

The first look at the crew in orbit, from left: Jared Isaacman, Hayley Arceneaux, Chris Sembroski, Sian Proctor.
Inspiration4

Inspiration4 was paid for by Isaacman for an undisclosed amount, with the main goal of the spaceflight to raise $200 million for St. Jude.

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