Raphael Stevens

In this articleEBSJNJThe Emergent BioSolutions plant, a manufacturing partner for Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine, in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 9, 2021.Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty ImagesThe Food and Drug Administration has asked Emergent BioSolutions to temporarily stop producing materials for Covid-19 vaccines while U.S. regulators investigate its plant in Baltimore responsible for ruining millions of Johnson & Johnson shots, Emergent said in a regulatory filing Monday.It said the FDA initiated an inspection of the facility on April 12 and asked the company to halt manufacturing four days later, pending completion of the review and remediation. In a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company also said it quarantined all existing material manufactured at the facility.Shares of Emergent were down more than 9% on the news.In a statement to CNBC, J&J said it will work with Emergent and FDA “to address any findings at the conclusion of the FDA inspection.””Our goal remains ensuring all drug substance for our COVID-19 vaccine meets our high-quality standards and securing Emergency Use Authorization for drug substance manufactured at Emergent Bayview,” the company said. “At this time, it is premature to speculate on any potential impact this could have on the timing of our vaccine deliveries.”Earlier this month, the Biden administration put J&J in charge of the Baltimore plant after U.S. officials learned that Emergent, a contract manufacturer that had been making vaccines for J&J and AstraZeneca, mixed up ingredients for the two shots. Officials also stopped production of the AstraZeneca vaccine.CNBC Health & Science Read CNBC’s latest coverage of the Covid pandemic:FDA asks Emergent plant to pause manufacturing while it investigates botched J&J Covid vaccinesUK scientists launch human challenge trial to study Covid reinfection Chile has one of the world’s best vaccination rates. Covid is surging there anywayHalf of U.S. adults have received at least one Covid shot in milestone for vaccination campaignThe government’s move to have the facility make only the J&J single-dose vaccine is meant to avoid future mix-ups, The New York Times reported, citing two senior federal health officials.The pause of production of new materials is the latest setback for J&J. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised states to temporarily stop using J&J’s vaccine “out of an abundance of caution” after six women developed a rare but potentially life-threatening blood clotting disorder that left one dead and one in critical condition.The women developed the condition known as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis within about two weeks of receiving the shot, an official said. CVST is a rare form of stroke that happens when a blood clot forms in the brain’s venous sinuses. It can eventually leak blood into the brain tissues and cause a hemorrhage.J&J privately asked Covid-19 vaccine rivals Pfizer and Moderna to join a study looking into the risk of blood clots but the companies declined, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.–Reuters contributed to this report. More

Kevin De Bruyne of Manchester City celebrates after scoring their team’s fifth goal with team mates Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez during the Premier League match between Manchester City and Southampton at Etihad Stadium on March 10, 2021 in Manchester, England.Clive Brunskill | Getty Images Sport | Getty ImagesLONDON — A new breakaway soccer competition known as the European Super League has been met with widespread criticism and resistance from former players, politicians, governing bodies, pundits and fans. Announced on Sunday, the ESL is designed to rival the UEFA Champions League format, which is currently Europe’s top annual club competition.Twelve of Europe’s wealthiest teams have signed up as founding members of the new league and it has been backed with $6 billion in debt financing from JPMorgan. Teams that have agreed to play in the league are as follows:England: Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea and Arsenal.Spain: Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Atletico Madrid.Italy: Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan.”I’m disgusted … absolutely disgusted,” said Gary Neville, a former Manchester United defender, in reference to the Super League during an interview on Sky Sports News on Sunday.Notable absences from the ESL include France’s Paris Saint Germain and Germany’s Bayern Munich. However, three more teams are set to join the league before the inaugural season, which will take place “as soon as it is practicable.”The ESL will eventually have 20 clubs in it and 15 of those will be permanent, meaning they can’t be relegated. That’s controversial because teams currently have to qualify for the Champions League each year and they can be promoted and relegated from England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, and Italy’s Serie A.”The idea that everybody has to fight for five places that rotate each year and these 15 clubs are always involved is crazy,” said Arsenal fan Julian Morrison. “It just means all the best players go to those 15 clubs and the rest have to scrap it out for survival. Kills the whole idea and spirit of competition.”Florentino Perez, the president of Real Madrid, has been appointed the first chair of the Super League.”We will help football at every level and take it to its rightful place in the world,” said Perez in a statement on Sunday. “Football is the only global sport with more than 4 billion fans and our responsibility as big clubs is to respond to their desires.”The ESL’s already-wealthy founding teams will collectively be given 3.5 billion euros ($4.2 billion) to spend on infrastructure investments. They’ll also get a welcome bonus of up to 300 million euros each for joining the Super League, according to The Financial Times.  At the same time, they plan to keep on playing and earning money in their existing leagues, where some other clubs have been struggling to remain in business.New York-listed shares of Manchester United were up 8% in the premarket off the back of the ESL announcement, while Juventus shares in Italy rose by nearly 14%.  ‘Anti-football pyramid scheme'”If fans stand as one against this anti-football pyramid scheme, it can be stopped in its tracks,” said former England striker Gary Lineker, who now presents the BBC’s “Match of the Day” TV highlights show.Neville, who is now a pundit and commentator on Sky Sports News, said he was particularly “disgusted” with Manchester United and Liverpool, who have long had strong connections to the working-class communities that surround their grounds in the north of England.”They’re breaking away into a league without competition that they can’t be relegated from,” said Neville. “We have to wrestle back the power in this country from the clubs at the top of this league and that includes my club.”The billionaire owners of the clubs that have signed up to be part of the ESL have been accused of being greedy.”They have nothing to do with football in this country,” said Neville. “There are 100-odd years of history in this country from fans that have lived and loved these clubs and they need protecting.”  An independent regulator should be put in place to ensure “checks and balances” are maintained in the English Premier League, he added.Liverpool fan Tom Cook told CNBC: “It’s turning football into a U.S. sports model where there’s no relegation/promotion and the biggest teams control broadcast rights.”As a result, they “get richer and richer — with a questionable amount of that wealth supposedly trickling down the football pyramid,” Cook added.UEFA to fight backUEFA said in a statement on Sunday that it is united with Europe’s top leagues in its “efforts to stop this cynical project, a project that is founded on the self-interest of a few clubs at a time when society needs solidarity more than ever.”It added: “We will consider all measures available to us, at all levels, both judicial and sporting in order to prevent this happening. Football is based on open competitions and sporting merit; it cannot be any other way.”The ESL was announced one day before UEFA was due to sign off on plans for an expanded and restructured Champions League. Planned changes reportedly include 100 more matches each season and more financial ties between top clubs.French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday that he supported the position of European soccer’s governing body UEFA in opposing the prospect of a breakaway Super League.”The president of the republic welcomes the position of French clubs to refuse to participate to a European football Super League project that threatens the principle of solidarity and sporting merit,” the French presidency said in a statement sent to Reuters.”The French state will support all the steps taken by the LFP, FFF, UEFA and FIFA to protect the integrity of federal competitions, whether national or European,” the Elysee added, citing the national, European and global governing bodies for soccer.U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote on Twitter that the Super League “would be very damaging for football and we support football authorities in taking action.” More

President Joe Biden greets Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry as he arrives to speak on climate change before signing executive orders in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC on January 27, 2021.Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty ImagesPresident Joe Biden will host a closely watched global leaders climate summit on Thursday and Friday, during which the U.S. is expected to unveil an updated carbon emission reduction target and urge cooperation with other nations to combat the climate crisis.The president has invited 40 world leaders to the virtual summit and is hoping to reach deals with some of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters. John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, has been meeting with officials in China and elsewhere to garner support for the summit.The summit is an opportunity for the U.S. to rejoin global efforts to address climate change after the Trump administration pulled the country from the Paris climate accord and dismantled environmental regulations. The U.S. is the world’s second-biggest carbon emitter, behind China.One of the expected actions from the White House is a new emissions reduction target for the Paris climate accord, the landmark agreement among 200 nations to reduce their emissions.Biden is expected to unveil the new target before or during the summit and pledge money to help less-wealthy countries combat climate change.Environmental groups and businesses have urged the president to set an emissions reduction target of at least 50% by 2030, which would double the country’s previous commitment and help limit global temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius below pre-industrial levels.The Obama administration made a goal to cut emissions 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025, but former President Donald Trump halted federal efforts to meet that target, pulled the U.S. from the Paris accord and implemented policies favoring fossil fuel producers.The Natural Resources Defense Council said in March that a 50% reduction target would “help pull the country out of the pandemic-induced recession by putting millions of Americans to work every year, avoid tens of thousands of premature deaths, and inspire more ambitious global climate action.”And more than 300 executives last week urged Biden to nearly double U.S. targets to reduce emissions ahead of the summit, a push signaling the private sector’s goals align with the administration’s climate policies.Biden’s climate agenda includes a major infrastructure package that invests in a clean energy transition, one of the country’s largest federal efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions that would be paid for largely by raising corporate tax rates.The president has also vowed new regulations on fossil fuel producers and executive orders to reverse Trump’s climate policy rollbacks on issues like clean water, air, chemicals and protection of land and wildlife.Still, a 50% reduction target would fall behind commitments by the U.K. and European Union, which have pledged to reduce emissions by 68% and 55% by 2030.CNBC PoliticsRead more of CNBC’s politics coverage:Climate change is a major factor behind increased migration at U.S. southern border, experts sayIsraeli general who helped destroy Iraq, Syria nuclear plants says stopping Iran is much harderRussia will face consequences if Putin critic Alexei Navalny dies in prison, White House warnsThe U.S. and China, the world’s two biggest carbon polluters, have agreed to cooperate on climate change but remain rivals on issues like trade, human rights, intellectual property and technology. Biden has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to the summit, though it’s unclear if Xi leader will join in.Kerry and his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, said in a joint statement recently that the countries “are committed to cooperating with each other and with other countries to tackle the climate crisis, which must be addressed with the seriousness and urgency that it demands.”Kerry also told CNBC earlier this month that the U.S., China and Europe, which account for about half of global emissions, must work together with other countries to deeply reduce emissions.”I think that this is a huge economic opportunity, not just for the United States, for people all around the world,” Kerry said.China announced last year a commitment to reach peak emissions by 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2060. Biden has pledged to put the U.S. on a track to reach a zero-emissions electricity sector by 2035 and a net-zero economy by 2050.”This is not about China, this is not a counter to China,” Kerry said. “This is about China, the United States, India, Russia, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Australia, a bunch of countries that are emitting a pretty sizable amount, the United States and China the most.”The April summit comes before the next major U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in November, where countries in the Paris agreement will provide updated emissions targets for the next decade. More

In this articleMCDBTS attend Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest 2020 on December 31, 2019 in New York City.Astrid Stawiarz | Getty ImagesMcDonald’s is teaming up with another global powerhouse: K-pop megastars BTS.Fans of the band will be able to buy its favorite McDonald’s order in almost 50 different countries. This is the first time that the fast-food giant will highlight a celebrity’s favorite order in more than one market. The promotion will start rolling out on May 26.McDonald’s has been using its Famous Orders promotions to reintroduce consumers to its core menu items, like the Quarter Pounder burger, and to stay culturally relevant. The company kicked off the marketing strategy in September by teaming up with rapper Travis Scott. His order was so popular that it caused Quarter Pounder shortages for some McDonald’s locations, and McDonald’s executives told investors that the company hit multiple records across its social media accounts when the collaboration was announced. A follow-up deal with reggaeton singer J. Balvin also boosted sales.But McDonald’s could surpass its prior success with the BTS collaboration. The band is known for its diehard supporters, who call themselves the Army and have helped make K-pop mainstream outside of Asia. BTS’ record company Big Hit Entertainment went public on the Korea Exchange in October, and BTS fans joined retail investors in helping shares pop during the stock’s first day trading.BTS’ signature order will include either a nine- or 10-piece Chicken McNuggets, depending on the market, as well as medium World Famous fries, a medium drink and Sweet Chili and Cajun dipping sauces inspired by recipes from McDonald’s South Korea. More

The shadow of NASA’s Ingenuity is seen on the surface of Mars as the helicopter hovered during its first flight on April 19, 2021.NASA/JPL-CaltechNASA successfully conducted the first flight of an aircraft on another planet, as the space agency’s helicopter Ingenuity completed a historic feat on Mars on Monday that it called a “Wright brothers moment.””Now, 117 years after the Wright brothers succeeded in making the first flight on our planet, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has succeeded in performing this amazing feat on another world,” NASA associate administrator for science Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen said in a statement. “While these two iconic moments in aviation history may be separated by time and 173 million miles of space, they now will forever be linked.”NASA rover Perseverance captured imagery of the flight after rolling a short distance away, with one of its navigation cameras showing a sequence before, during, and after the helicopter’s flight.Video from NASA rover Perseverance shows helicopter Ingenuity spinning up its rovers, hovering, and then landing on Mars.NASA/JPL-CaltechIngenuity, which weighs four pounds, successfully flew autonomously for 39 seconds.NASA’s Perseverance rover captured helicopter Ingenuity on the surface of Mars on April 18, 2021 before its first flight.NASA/JPL-CaltechA camera on NASA’s Perseverance rover shows helicopter Ingenuity flying above the surface of Mars on April 19, 2021.NASA/JPL-CaltechNASA helicopter Ingenuity back on the surface of Mars after its first flight on April 19, 2021, captured by a camera on the Perseverance rover.A camera on NASA’s Perseverance rover shows helicopter Ingenuity flying above the surface of Mars on April 19, 2021.NASA announced after the flight that the area on Mars’ Jezero Crater where Ingenuity flew will be known as Wright Brothers Field.Scientists and engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California work with Ingenuity during its development, a years-long process that was aided by some of the agency’s experts in rotor dynamics.NASA/JPL-CaltechThe helicopter stands just over 19 inches tall, and was delivered to the surface of Mars by NASA’s rover Perseverance.The Perseverance rover, with the Ingenuity helicopter visible attached underneath, prepared for launch.NASA/JPL-Caltech More

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter on April 7, 2021 as it prepared to fly.NASA/JPL-CaltechNASA on Monday successfully conducted the first controlled flight on another planet — its Mars helicopter Ingenuity flew a short flight in what the agency described as “a Wright Brothers moment” in space.”Ingenuity is reporting having performed spin up, takeoff, climb, hover, descent, landing and spin down,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory flight control said on a webcast.Video from NASA rover Perseverance shows helicopter Ingenuity spinning up its rovers, hovering, and then landing on Mars.NASA/JPL-CaltechNASA flew the 4-pound craft for 39.1 seconds to an altitude of about 10 feet above the surface. The helicopter’s rotors spun to more than 2,500 revolutions per minute, far faster than a helicopter on Earth due to the thin atmosphere of the Martian environment.The flight was autonomous, given the 15-minute delay in communication’s between NASA’s location in California and the surface of the red planet.The helicopter carried a tiny piece of fabric from the wing of Flyer 1, the Wright brothers’ aircraft that in 1903 made the first powered flights on Earth.”Like the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, we know that our time to make a difference at Jezero Crater, Mars is not yet over – this is just the first great flight,” JPL’s MiMi Aung, the Ingenuity’s project manager, said on the webcast.The helicopter arrived on Mars with NASA’s rover Perseverance, which landed Feb. 18 after a six-month voyage. Perseverance deployed the helicopter from underneath the rover earlier this month, with NASA performing a long list of preflight checks during the past two weeks. Perseverance captured Ingenuity’s flight while parked about 211 feet away, and acted as a communications relay between JPL’s mission control and the helicopter. More

With storms intensifying, rainfall increasing and sea levels rising, waterfront property owners have to get more creative. For some, that means moving to higher ground, but for others, it’s just moving the house higher.House lifting has long been a strategy for waterfront real estate, but it is now becoming a far bigger business due to climate change.”The more that things flood, the more there’s going to be a need for it,” said Mike Brovont of Wolfe House and Building Movers. He’s been in the house-lifting business for more than two decades.Brovont points to flooding hot spots like Houston, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. “Of course, New Jersey and Connecticut shoreline are always susceptible to that as well,” he added. “And then you get those high tides, what they call king tides in some areas. You get that combined with a storm coming in, and that can just do tremendous damage.”New Jersey tops the list of states with the most homes that are expected to see at least one major flood per year by 2050, based on projected sea-level rise. Some 74,165 homes in the state will be affected, according to Climate Central. Next are Florida (57,865), California (36,845), Louisiana (33,372) and North Carolina (33,334).Santo Siciliano and his wife adore living by the water. “I grew up on the shore. So for me, it’s a no-brainer,” he said.The flood risk to their Oceanport, New Jersey, home is increasing, however, so to stay in their home, they had to lift it.The Sicilianos in front of their home.Oscar Molina | CNBC”It’s just something that unfortunately we’re faced with,” he said. “You know, whether it’s climate change or anything else.” The Sicilianos lifted their home to comply with new local flood zone building codes. Their home is now one of several houses on the street that was lifted. “It’s fairly safe. It’s down to an art,” said Wolfe’s Ryan Hess, the foreman on the Sicilianos’ project.Hess said he has lifted all kinds of homes, from bungalows to 7,000-square-foot mansions.”We’ve had a lot of work from Hurricane Sandy,” Hess said. The superstorm slammed the Northeast Coast in 2012, causing widespread catastrophic destruction along the Jersey Shore, Long Island and New York City.And as storms increase in frequency and intensity, it’s likely this kind of devastation will continue. There were 22 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters across the U.S. in 2020, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That crushes the previous annual record of 16 events, which occurred in 2017 and 2011. The 22 events cost the nation a combined $95 billion in damages. The U.S. saw a record 30 named hurricanes last year, and 12 made landfall, also a record. As the water rises, so too must the real estate. House lifting can cost anywhere from $10,000 for a small home to more than $1 million for a large, historic building.While the danger from rising water is high, the risk of lifting the house is actually not. Experts in the field say it is a precise, gentle, almost delicate practice that happens very slowly and carefully. In some cases, homeowners can leave their furniture inside the homes. “There’s always risk but over the years, we’ve definitely come up with ways to mitigate that risk quite a bit,” said Brovont. “Now, really, most houses can be lifted without any expectation of damage. A lot of times we can even lift them without any cracks in the drywall.” Companies like his carry special insurance, of course — a cargo or a rigger’s insurance that specifically covers the house for damage caused by the house mover. For some, the flood risk is all part of the waterfront reward, and so they try to rise above it.”We’re shore people,” said Siciliano. “You know, something about not being able to get to the beach in less than 10 minutes … it’s not something I want to do.” More