Business

A high-tech development zone in the city of Wuhan has been abuzz since March, when the local government announced the creation of a 10bn-yuan ($1.5bn) investment vehicle. The Optics Valley Hi-Tech Venture Capital Guidance Fund aims to combine the animal spirits of private capital with the industrial objectives of the state. Its general manager, Li Yang, told state media in late May that more than 80 private investors had submitted formal proposals. Ten of these are already in the process of being approved. State cash is pulsing through China’s private-capital markets. Between 2015 and 2021 around 2,000 so-called “government guidance funds” collectively raised almost $1trn. Although the pace of fundraising has slowed since peaking in 2016, not least to let the vehicles deploy their copious dry powder, the government’s role has been entrenched. Last year the state (including local governments) accounted for a third of all capital raised in Chinese limited partnerships, making it by far the country’s biggest source of venture capital (vc) and private equity in the country (see chart 1). According to Bain, a consultancy, most big Chinese funds that completed fundraising rounds in 2021 were government-led. The Enterprises Reform Fund raised nearly $11bn; the National Green Development Fund brought in $13bn. Provinces set up 20 such vehicles last year, marshalling about 136bn yuan all told, four and a half times as much as they raised in 2020, according to Zero2ipo, a research firm. Cities and other local governments chipped in more (see chart 2).The dual aim of guidance funds is to counter the “disorderly expansion of capital” (Communist Party speak for China’s consumer-internet industry getting too big for its boots) and to fulfil President Xi Jinping’s desire for home-grown innovations in strategic areas such as artificial intelligence (ai), biotechnology and advanced manufacturing, notably of chips. On paper, combining patient capital from the state with the animal spirits and market savvy of private investors allows the guidance funds to avoid the pitfalls of conventional industrial policy. By the government’s own reckoning, failure to mobilise private capital would make the funds into just another state subsidy. In practice, the role of the private sector is fuzzy and constricted. As a result, many of the vehicles resemble old-school handouts, complete with oodles of waste and cronyism. And they bring fresh problems. Guidance funds are strange beasts. In a conventional vc or buy-out fund its originator acts as the general partner tasked with deploying the capital. A guidance fund, by contrast, often creates sub-funds in which it is a limited partner, and invites professional asset managers to be the general partner calling the shots. To limit the fund’s sway over the general partner’s investment decisions—and thus government meddling in where the money goes—many funds have rules dictating the maximum size of their investments. The Optics Valley fund’s stake in any one of its sub-funds must not exceed 25%, for example, and it can funnel no more than 100m yuan to any one of these sub-funds. In some cases these rules appear to work well enough. Shanghai Angel Guide Venture Capital, a 10bn-yuan vehicle originally launched in 2014, has created more than 65 sub-funds that invest small amounts in minority stakes at early-stage companies in partnership with non-state investors. A review by The Economist of a sample of 20 of these sub-funds shows that their general partners and most of their remaining limited partners are indeed private-sector funds. Judging by publicly available profiles, individual executives in charge of the sub-funds on behalf of the general partners have professional experience in investment.Beyond China’s largest cities, though, the situation is likely to look less like Shanghai and more like Shandong. In 2018 the eastern province set up the New Growth Drivers Fund. Since then the vehicle has launched more than 270 sub-funds and its cash has found its way into at least 1,000 provincial companies. Our analysis of 50 of these sub-funds reveals that about half are dominated by state capital with little private-sector co-investment. Instead, many of the other limited partners are other guidance funds, state-run firms or other government-linked entities. The people charged with managing these sub-funds also appear to have much less market experience than their counterparts in Shanghai.The Shandong example suggests that at least in some cases state cash is crowding out private capital rather than co-opting it. One reason is the sheer number of government investors seeking to deploy capital. By 2019 there were more than 1,300 city and district guidance funds. One city in central China has at least ten of them, according to the Centre for Security and Emerging Technology, an American think-tank. With all the government money sloshing around, private investors have fewer places to park their capital.The structure of the sub-funds, meanwhile, reduces their appeal to private investors. Many lock up capital for up to ten years, in line with Mr Xi’s exhortation to think long-term, but twice too long for the typical private limited partner. State guidelines for recognising investment losses are often stricter than venture capitalists or private-equity managers would like, and less patient towards struggling firms that could be tided over. Perhaps most frustrating, one lawyer notes, if a guidance fund with a small minority stake in a sub-fund decides to pull out, its preferential terms will cause the dissolution of the entire vehicle, leaving both the portfolio firms and private investors out to dry. The flood of state cash is leading to other distortions, too. One is to inflate company valuations. An analysis by The Economist of company ownership records shows that of the 56 unicorns based in six central and eastern provinces, 32 have received state funding. Some of them belong to the herd of consumer-internet darlings whose prospects—and therefore worth—have been dented by Mr Xi’s heavy hand. The local officials in charge of these investments have little incentive to recognise those losses, whatever their funds’ guidelines say. Frothy valuations are also a problem for the sort of startup Mr Xi approves of. Buy-out barons report that hot industries such as chipmaking and ai have absorbed record levels of guidance capital in the past two years. The resulting bubbliness in the market has made it even tougher to pick out the real innovators from a sea of wannabes, notes Scott Kennedy of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank in Washington. This problem is exacerbated by another, perhaps even more consequential distortion. Venture capital has traditionally plugged young firms into a network of talent and potential business partners. Guidance funds give them direct links to state-owned companies and other government bodies that can fast-track applications and help with regulatory problems. Both startups and private co-investors are therefore highly motivated to connect with government funds, says Catherine Chen of Zhong Lun, a law firm in Beijing. As Mr Xi’s state capitalism becomes more statist and less capitalist, such connections can make or break fledgling firms. This in turn gives startups and their private backers an incentive to curry favour with the government first and commercialise actual breakthroughs a distant second. Having for years tailored their business to qualify for local subsidies, cheap credit and land, young Chinese companies are now doing the same to attract guidance funds. They and their private backers often enlist former government officials to help them navigate the new vc bureaucracy. One prominent venture capitalist admits that his vc firm now bets not so much on the next big thing as on the next sector in line for handouts. This makes perfect investment sense in today’s China. It is not exactly a recipe for technological progress. ■ More

Pending home sales, a measure of signed contracts on existing homes, rose slightly in May, up 0.7% compared with April, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Buyers have been contending with rising mortgage rates since the start of this year, but rates actually pulled back slightly in May, and that may account for the sales gain.
Still, pending sales were over 13% lower than they were in May 2021.

A house’s real estate for sale sign shows the home as being “Under Contract” in Washington, DC.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

Pending home sales, a measure of signed contracts on existing homes, rose slightly in May, up 0.7% compared with April, according to the National Association of Realtors.
That broke a six-month streak of declining demand. Sales were still 13.6% lower than in May 2021.

Buyers have been contending with rising mortgage rates since the start of this year, but rates actually pulled back slightly in May, and that may account for the sales gain. More supply also came on the market, and total active inventory increased as well, as some homes sat on the market longer.
The average on the 30-year fixed mortgage hit a high of 5.64% in the first week of the month, but then fell to 5.25% by the end of the month, according to Mortgage News Daily. By mid-June it surged again to just over 6%.
“Despite the small gain in pending sales from the prior month, the housing market is clearly undergoing a transition,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors. “Contract signings are down sizably from a year ago because of much higher mortgage rates.”
The supply of homes for sale has finally begun to rise, up 21% now from a year ago, according to Realtor.com. It is still, however, about half of pre-Covid levels. The median listing price last week was also up about 17% year over year, holding steady for the third straight week.
Regionally, pending home sales rose 15.4% in the Northeast compared with last month and were down 11.9% from May 2021. In the Midwest sales fell 1.7% for the month and were down 8.8% from a year ago.

In the South, sales increased 0.2% month to month and were down 13.8% year over year. Sales fell hardest in the West, where homes are priciest, down 5.0% for the month and down 19.8% from the year before.
“While interest rates slid during the month, the costs of financing a home purchase remained elevated,” said George Ratiu, manager of economic research at Realtor.com. “At the midpoint of 2022, real estate markets are mirroring an economy reaching for its post-pandemic reality.”

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Check out the companies making headlines before the bell:
Spirit Airlines (SAVE) – Spirit Airlines lost 4.7% in the premarket after saying it would accept the latest improved takeover bid from Frontier Group (ULCC). The latest Frontier cash-and-stock bid is valued at $2.7 billion based on Friday’s closing prices, while the most recent JetBlue (JBLU) all-cash offer is worth $3.7 billion. Spirit believes it is unlikely regulators would approve a combination with JetBlue, a notion that JetBlue has disputed. Frontier lost 1.7% while JetBlue was unchanged.

BioNTech (BNTX) – BioNTech added 2.1% in premarket trading after the drug maker and partner Pfizer (PFE) said their omicron-based Covid-19 booster shots generated an improved immune response against the variant.
Robinhood Markets (HOOD) – Robinhood rose 2.5% in premarket action after Goldman Sachs upgraded the trading platform operator’s stock to “neutral” from “sell” although it cut the price target to $9.50 per share from $11.50. The rise comes despite the release of a Congressional report detailing the trading platform’s difficulties in handling the meme stock frenzy of January 2021.
Digital World Acquisition (DWAC) – In an SEC filing, the SPAC linked to former President Donald Trump’s media company said additional subpoenas were issued in an ongoing probe of its registration statement regarding the proposed business combination. Digital World said the investigation could materially impede, delay or even prevent the combination from being consummated. The stock slid 5.8% in the premarket.
Coinbase (COIN) – The cryptocurrency exchange operator saw its stock slide 5.3% in the premarket after Goldman downgraded it to “sell” from “neutral,” pointing to the continued fall in crypto prices and slower industry activity levels.
Altria (MO) – Altria rose 1% in the premarket after Juul won a temporary stay of the FDA ban on its e-cigarette products. Altria holds a 35% stake in Juul.

Newmark Group (NMRK) – The commercial real estate firm’s shares rose 1.6% in the premarket after the New York Post reported on increasing talk of a possible merger between Newmark and rival Cushman & Wakefield.
Walgreens (WBA) – India-based conglomerate Reliance Industries is reportedly in talks with global lenders to raise $8 billion to finance the purchase of Walgreens’ Boots drugstore chain. Walgreens added 1% in premarket trading.
Chewy (CHWY) – Chewy jumped 4.1% in premarket action after Needham upgraded it to “buy” from “hold,” saying that price increases for the pet products retailer are sticking and that supply chain issues are improving.
AutoZone (AZO) – The auto parts retailer was upgraded to “buy” from “neutral” at Goldman Sachs, which called it a good defensive play as the vast majority of auto parts sales are non-discretionary and demand remains relatively inelastic. The stock gained 1.9% in the premarket.

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State of Freight

Vast container ships and chunky freight planes — essential in today’s global economy — can now be brought to halt by a new generation of code warriors.
“The reality is that an aeroplane or vessel, like any digital system, can be hacked,” David Emm, principal security researcher at Kaspersky, told CNBC.
In December, German firm Hellmann Worldwide Logistics said its operations had been impacted by a phishing attack.

Container cargo ships sit off shore from the Long Beach/Los Angeles port complex in Long Beach, CA, on Wednesday, October 6, 2021.
Jeff Gritchen | MediaNews Group | Getty Images

Armed with little more than a computer, hackers are increasingly setting their sights on some of the biggest things that humans can build.
Vast container ships and chunky freight planes — essential in today’s global economy — can now be brought to a halt by a new generation of code warriors.

“The reality is that an aeroplane or vessel, like any digital system, can be hacked,” David Emm, a principal security researcher at cyber firm Kaspersky, told CNBC.
Indeed, this was proven by the U.S. government during a “pen-test” exercise on a Boeing aircraft in 2019.

Hacking logistics

Often it’s easier, however, to hack the companies that operate in ports and airports than it is to access an actual aircraft or vessel.
In December, German firm Hellmann Worldwide Logistics said its operations had been impacted by a phishing attack. Phishing attacks involve sending spoof messages designed to trick people into handing over sensitive information or downloading harmful software.
The company, which offers airfreight, sea freight, road and rail, and contract logistics services, was forced to stop taking new bookings for several days. It’s unclear exactly how much it lost in revenue as a result.

Hellmann’s Chief Information Officer Sami Awad-Hartmann told CNBC that the firm immediately tried to “stop the spread” when it realized it had fallen victim to a cyberattack.
“You need to stop it to ensure that it’s not going further into your [computing] infrastructure,” he said.
Hellmann, a global company, disconnected its data centers around the world and shut down some of its systems to limit the spread.
“One of the drastic decisions we then made when we saw that we had some systems infected is we disconnected from the internet,” Awad-Hartmann said. “As soon as you make this step, you stop. You’re not working anymore.”
Everything had to be done manually and business continuity plans kicked in, Awad-Hartmann said, adding that some parts of the business were able to handle this better than others.

Awad-Hartmann said the hackers had two main goals. The first being to encrypt Hellmann and the second being to exfiltrate data.
“Then they blackmail you,” he said. “Then the ransom starts.”
Hellmann did not get encrypted because it moved swiftly and closed down from the internet, Awad-Hartmann said.
“As soon as you’re encrypted, of course your restarting procedure takes longer because you may need to decrypt,” he explained. “You may need to pay the ransom to get the master keys and things like this.”
Hellmann is working with legal authorities to try to determine who is behind the cyberattack. There’s some speculation but no definitive answers, Awad-Hartmann said.

NotPetya attack

The notorious NotPetya attack in June 2017, which impacted several companies including Danish container shipping firm Maersk, also highlighted the vulnerability of global supply chains.
Maersk first announced that it had been hit by NotPetya — a ransomware attack that prevented people from accessing their data unless they paid $300 in bitcoin — in late June of that year.
“In the last week of the [second] quarter we were hit by a cyberattack, which mainly impacted Maersk Line, APM Terminals and Damco,” Maersk CEO Soren Skou said in a statement in Aug. 2020.
“Business volumes were negatively affected for a couple of weeks in July and as a consequence, our Q3 results will be impacted,” he added. “We expect that the cyber-attack will impact results negatively by $200 – $300 million.”
The ransomware attack took advantage of certain security vulnerabilities in the Windows software platform that Microsoft had updated after they leaked. 
“This cyber-attack was a previously unseen type of malware, and updates and patches applied to both the Windows systems and antivirus were not an effective protection in this case,” Maersk said.
“In response to this new type of malware, A.P. Moller Maersk has put in place different and further protective measures and is continuing to review its systems to defend against attacks.”

In a follow-up article, Gavin Ashton, an IT security expert at Maersk at the time, wrote that it’s “inevitable” you will be attacked.
“It is inevitable that one day, one will get through,” Ashton continued. “And obviously, you should have a solid contingency plan in place in case of the worst. But that’s not to say you don’t attempt to put up a damn good fight to stop these attacks in the first case. Just because you know the bad actors are coming, doesn’t mean you leave your front door open and make them a cup of tea when they walk in. You could just lock the door.”
Meanwhile, in February 2020, Japan Post-owned freight forwarder, Toll Group was forced to shut down certain IT systems after suffering a cyberattack. Toll Group did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

Disguising drug shipments

Sometimes the hackers aren’t necessarily looking for a ransom.
In 2013, criminals hacked systems at the port of Antwerp in order to manipulate the movement of containers so that they could conceal and move their drug shipments. 
Once the hackers were inside the right systems, they changed the location and the delivery times of containers that had the drugs in them.
The smugglers then sent their own drivers to pick up the drug-loaded shipping containers before the legitimate hauler could collect them.
The hackers used spear phishing and malware attacks — directed at port authority workers and shipping companies — to obtain access to the systems.
The whole scheme was uncovered by police after shipping firms detected something wasn’t right.
Awad-Hartmann said hackers have realized how important global supply chains are, and they now know what happens when they get disrupted.
“It impacts the whole world economy,” he said. “You see goods are not flowing. You have gaps in the supermarkets. Of course I think the hackers do see the dependency on this supply chain. And then of course a logistics company is a target for them.”
He added that logistics is in focus at the moment because global supply chains are in the news.
“But I think it’s a general threat,” he said.
“And this will not go away. It will increase. You constantly need to check. Are you still prepared? This is something which keeps us quite busy and costs us a lot of money.” More

Nearly 60% of Americans said they were worried about hidden cameras in Airbnb homes in 2019.
And 11% of vacation home renters said they had discovered a hidden camera during a stay, according to a survey by the real estate investment company IPX1031.

Spy cameras are not a new problem. In South Korea, more than 30,000 cases of filming with hidden cameras were reported to the police between 2013 and 2018, according to the New York-based non-profit organization Human Rights Watch.
The number of hidden spy camera reports has proliferated because of the increasing accessibility and inexpensiveness of such cameras, combined with the public’s growing ability to detect them, said Kenneth Bombace, CEO of intelligence firm Global Threat Solutions.
Experts share simple methods to locate hidden spy cameras in hotel rooms and rental properties.

1. Conduct a physical search

A light switch with a hidden camera (middle) on display at a spy camera shop in South Korea on March 22, 2019.
Jung Yeon-je | Afp | Getty Images

Almost all covert cameras are concealed in household devices, such as lights, thermostats, and plugged clock radios, Bombace said.
“Look and see if anything looks like it’s out of the ordinary, and then inspect it closer,” he said.
Most spy cameras are connected to an electrical source or an electronic device, Bombace added.
He said the first thing he does in a bedroom is unplug the clock radios and put them in a drawer.
Michael O’Rourke, CEO of security consulting firm Advanced Operational Concepts, also said he does exactly that.
Even well-hidden cameras will have a small amount of reflective glass from the lens, Bombace said.
“If you use flashlights and shine them on something you think could possibly hide the camera, you will see a reflection in there, which is a pretty good way of detecting if there’s a camera,” he said.

A painting installed with a hidden camera on display at a spy camera shop on March 22, 2019. Even when a camera is hidden in another device like a thermostat or an outlet, there will be some glass in there that is reflective because there will be a lens, Bombace said.
Jung Yeon-je | Afp | Getty Images

But O’Rourke said care is needed to accurately locate hidden lenses.
“A lot of people will try to do amateur lens detection, which can work,” O’Rourke said. “However, if you don’t have a good search methodology — if you go too fast, if you’re impatient — you can miss quite a bit.”

2. Look at the Wi-Fi network

A hidden camera must be connected to a local Wi-Fi network in order to be viewed remotely, Bombace said.

Hidden cameras must be connected to a local Wi-Fi network to be viewed remotely, said Global Threat Solutions CEO Kenneth Bombace.
Hispanolistic | E+ | Getty Images

Wi-Fi scanning apps like Fing can identify devices on the network that are cameras, he said.
Those who hide cameras might use a separate Wi-Fi network to stream live video footage, but Wi-Fi scanning apps can also detect how many networks are in a residence, Bombace said.
But Kody Kinzie, a security researcher at data security and analytics firm Varonis, warned that a network scanner may not catch everything.
“The next thing you can do is look for devices that are broadcasting their own network name,” he said.
He recommended using apps like WiGLE to find devices that are “broadcasting some sort of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi network name,” Kinzie added.

3. Buy a spy camera detector

If all else fails, spy camera detectors can scan for radio frequencies connected to hidden cameras. These can be easily bought online from websites like Amazon or AliExpress.
But O’Rourke noted this method works only if the hidden camera is transmitting data.
“So many of them now have SD cards that just store data to be retrieved after someone leaves,” O’Rourke said. “And so these are much more difficult to detect.”
Bombace added that while it is possible to buy a radio frequency scanner, the cheaper ones are probably not that good.
“Like anything else, you get what you pay for — if it’s $30, it’s probably not that good,” Bombace said. “Better ones are going to cost hundreds or even over $1,000.”

What to do if you find a camera

After locating a camera, immediately disconnect it without damaging it because the camera’s firmware may contain identifying information, such as login credentials and the Wi-Fi network it was connected to, Kinzie said.

Disconnect hidden cameras but don’t damage them, said Varonis security researcher Kody Kinzie.
Krisanapong Detraphiphat | Moment | Getty Images

O’Rourke said hidden cameras found in hotel rooms should be reported to the front desk. He advised then moving to another hotel instead of requesting another room.
“Once you find a camera in a room, I wouldn’t trust any other room in that entire hotel,” he said.
Bombace also recommended reporting hidden cameras to the police, even if it is just for documentation purposes, in case litigation or criminal charges should follow.
“You could also provide [the report] to Airbnb so they can prevent this person from ever doing this again,” he said.
But ultimately, Bombace said, he would not avoid renting a home over fears of spy cameras.
“I would just take common sense steps to protect yourself. And realize you’re not in your own home,” he said. More

Traders on the floor of the NYSE, June 15, 2022.
Source: NYSE

U.S. stock futures fell on Sunday night following a major rebound last week from this year’s steep declines. Despite the bounce, Wall Street is preparing to wrap up the worst first half for stocks in decades.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 75 points, or 0.2%. The S&P 500 futures declined 0.2%, and Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 0.2%.

Those moves followed a major comeback week that saw the Dow industrials jump more than 800 points, or 2.7%. The S&P 500 popped 3.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite surged 3.3%.
Those gains helped the major averages post their first positive week since May. The Dow climbed 5.4% last week. The S&P 500 increased 6.5%, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 7.5%.
Market participants continued to assess whether stocks have found a bottom, or are briefly rebounding from oversold conditions. Stocks could continue to get a lift in the near term this week, as investors rebalance their holdings for the quarter-end.
“In a sense, the equity market is likely to be… in a go-nowhere-fast mode for the foreseeable future,” Terry Sandven, chief equity strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management, told CNBC on Friday.
“Inflation is running hot, sentiment is subdued, liquidity is evaporating, and earnings are both a bright spot and a wildcard. So, in aggregate, to us, that implies that we’re probably in a sideways trending mode for a while,” Sandven added.

On the economic front, Wall Street is expecting the latest reading of durable goods orders to come out Monday before the bell.
Traders are also watching for the pending home sales report, which is expected at 10 a.m. ET on Monday.

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The Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade is splitting anti-abortion states that must decide whether to allow exceptions and how to enforce the law.
Some states, such as Texas, are pursuing aggressive measures, including encouraging surveillance of women and prosecuting doctors.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said the state will not file charges against women, but will debate how to handle women who travel to other states for the procedure.

Thousands take to the streets to protest in New York City.
Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

The Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade is not only splitting the country into states where abortion is legal and illegal. It is also illustrating sharp divisions between anti-abortion states on whether to allow exceptions and how to enforce the law.
Nearly half of the states had “trigger laws” or constitutional amendments in place to quickly ban abortion in the wake of a Roe v. Wade ruling. Yet lawmakers and governors on Sunday illustrated how differently that may play out.

Some states allow exceptions, such as legal abortions to protect the life of the mother. Others are pursuing aggressive measures, including prosecuting doctors, looking into the use of abortion medications and travel to other states for the procedure and encouraging private citizens to sue people who help women obtain abortions.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, said the state will not file criminal charges against women who get the procedure. She said the state also does not plan to pass laws similar to Texas and Oklahoma, which urge private citizens to file civil lawsuits against those accused of aiding and abetting abortions.
“I don’t believe women should ever be prosecuted,” she said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “I don’t believe that mothers in this situation ever be prosecuted. Now, doctors who knowingly violate the law, they should be prosecuted, definitely.”
She said the state has not decided how to handle what will happen in the event a South Dakota resident travels to another state to get an abortion, saying “there’ll be a debate about that.”
It will be up to each state and state legislators to decide what laws look like closer to home, she added.

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, said the state allows for one exception: saving the life of the mother. He has directed his Department of Health to enforce the law, but focus on providing resources to women who have unwanted pregnancies.
The Arkansas law does not include an exception for incest, which would force a 13-year-old raped by a relative to carry a pregnancy to term. Hutchinson said he disagrees with that.
“I would have preferred a different outcome than that,” he said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “That’s not the debate today in Arkansas. It might be in the future.”
Hutchinson said the state will not investigate miscarriages or ban IUDs, a form of contraception that some anti-abortion activists consider abortion because it can stop a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus.
“This is about abortion, that’s what has been triggered, and it’s not about contraception. That is clear and women should be assured of that,” he told “Meet the Press.”
In Texas, a state law takes a more sweeping approach. It enforces an abortion ban through lawsuits filed by private citizens against doctors or anyone who helps a woman get an abortion, such as a person driving the pregnant woman to a medical center.
Oklahoma has a similar ban, which is enforced by civil lawsuits rather than criminal prosecution.
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, and Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said on Sunday that all of those state bans have the same outcome: stealing women’s freedoms and jeopardizing their lives.
Ocasio-Cortez pointed to Arkansas’ public health record, noting that it has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country and a high rate of child poverty.
“Forcing women to carry pregnancies against their will kill them,” she said on “Meet the Press.” “It will kill them, especially in the state of Arkansas where there is very little to no support for life after birth in terms of health care, in terms of child care and in terms of combatting poverty.”
— CNBC’s Jessica Bursztynsky contributed to this report.

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The WHO did not activate its highest alert level in response to the global monkeypox outbreak, called a public health emergency of international concern.
Currently, only Covid-19 and polio are considered global health emergencies.
There are at least 3,000 monkeypox cases across more than 50 countries.
The WHO said the current outbreak raises serious concerns and it is monitoring the situation closely.

Pavlo Gonchar | Lightrocket | Getty Images

The World Health Organization on Saturday said the rapid spread of monkeypox across dozens of nations does not represent a global health emergency at this time.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described monkeypox as an evolving health threat, however, and urged governments around the world to step up surveillance, contact tracing, testing and to make sure that people at high risk have access to vaccines and antiviral treatments.

The WHO convened its emergency committee to determine what level of threat monkeypox currently poses to the international community. At least 3,000 monkeypox cases across more than 50 countries have been identified since early May, according to WHO data.
The committee weighed whether or not to activate the WHO’s highest alert level in response to the outbreak, called a public health emergency of international concern. Covid-19 and polio are the only other virus outbreaks considered international public health emergencies by the WHO.
Although the WHO did not activate its highest alert level, Tedros said the outbreak raises serious concern because it is spreading rapidly in countries where the virus is not normally found. Historically, monkeypox has spread at low levels in remote parts of West and Central Africa. In the current outbreak, 84% of cases reported worldwide are in Europe, which is very unusual.
“What makes the current outbreak especially concerning is the rapid, continuing spread into new countries and regions and the risk of further, sustained transmission into vulnerable populations including people that are immunocompromised, pregnant women and children,” Tedros said in a press release Saturday.
The WHO director said research on the circulation of monkeypox in Africa has been neglected, which has put the health of people there and around the world at risk.

Monkeypox primarily spreads through close physical contact with a person who is infected or contaminated material such as shared clothing or bedsheets. The virus can spread through respiratory droplets if an infected person has lesions in their throat or mouth. This requires sustained face-to-face contact, however, and monkeypox is not believed to spread through aerosol particles.
Respiratory droplets fall to the ground quickly, while aerosol particles linger in the air for a longer period of time. Covid-19 spreads through aerosol particles, which is one of the reasons it is so contagious.
Monkeypox is in the same virus family as smallpox, but it has milder symptoms. Most people recover in two to four weeks without specific medical treatment.
The monkey outbreak is primarily affecting gay and bisexual men who said they’ve had sex with new or multiple partners, according to the WHO. Of the 468 monkeypox patients that disclosed demographic information, 99% are men. Most of them identified as men who have sex with men and had a median age of 37, according to the WHO.
The U.S. has reported 142 confirmed or suspected monkexpox cases across 23 states and Washington D.C., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health officials in the U.S. sought to raise awareness ahead of Pride month about how the virus spreads and what the symptoms look like so people can protect themselves from infection. Although men who have sex with men are at higher risk right now, anyone can catch monkeypox through close physical contact regardless of their sexual orientation.
Monkeypox often begins with symptoms similar to the flu, such as fever, headache, body aches, chills, exhaustion and swollen lymph nodes. A rash that looks like pimples or blisters then appears on the body. People are most infectious when they have the rash.
Some patients in the current outbreak have developed a rash only on the genitals or anus before showing any flulike symptoms, however, indicating it’s spreading through sexual contact in those cases, according to the CDC. In other cases, patients developed the rash without any flulike symptoms at all.
The U.S. has stockpiled two different vaccines and an antiviral treatment to fight smallpox and monkeypox. Jynneos is a two-dose vaccine approved for people ages 18 and older. The CDC generally recommends Jynneos over the one other option, ACAM2000, an older generation smallpox vaccine. Jynneos is considered safer than ACAM2000, which can have serious side effects.
The WHO has said mass vaccination is not recommended at this time to stop monkeypox. The U.S. is offering vaccines to people who are at high risk of exposure to the virus.
The international health agency has only applied the emergency designation six times since the rules were implemented in the mid-2000s. The last time WHO declared a global health emergency, before Covid, was in 2019 for the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo that killed more than 2,000 people. The agency also declared global emergencies for the 2016 Zika virus, the 2009 H1N1 swine flu, and the 2014 polio and Ebola outbreaks.

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