Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - Elon’s latest gamble

Electric cars. Space launches. Solar roofs. Now broadband. Elon Musk’s Starlink network is on track to beam internet service almost everywhere in the world by August, the billionaire entrepreneur proclaimed. His rocket company SpaceX has lofted skyward more than 1,500 of the necessary satellites while Starlink has established operations in about a dozen countries. As usual with Elon, there’s a big spend at the frontend: SpaceX’s total investment in the network could be as much as $10 billion before the cash flow turns positive. —David E. Rovella

Bloomberg is tracking the progress of coronavirus vaccines while mapping the pandemic worldwide. 

Here are today’s top stories  

For the first time in five years, North America beat the Asia-Pacific region in the growth of incredibly wealthy individuals—and in how quickly their riches grew.

Intel shares dropped after it said a new version of a key chip would be delayed, the latest in a series of missteps that have cost the company its tech leadership in the chip industry. Rival Advanced Micro Devices rose.

Steven and Mitchell Rales, the billionaire brothers behind industrial conglomerate Danaher Corp., shifted $3.3 billion in shares to their charitable foundations—one of the largest ever transfers of its kind. The move allocates billions of dollars for future donations from two of the world’s wealthiest people, who’ve eschewed the limelight while building a high-tech manufacturing empire.

When it comes to who is vaccinated against Covid-19 in America, the gap between the “haves” and the “don’t wants” is widening precipitously. And while a new study showed the effectiveness of existing vaccines against the more dangerous and much more easily transmitted delta variant, others show this to be one of the worst times to be unvaccinated. In Namibia, which has Africa’s fastest-growing Covid-19 outbreak, vaccines are running out, hospitals and mortuaries are overwhelmed and the blame game has begun. The U.S. government warned this week against travel to the United Arab Emirates, citing rising cases there. Here’s the latest on the pandemic.

The rare and powerful heat wave shattering records across the U.S. Northwest is taking a bruising toll on the region’s infrastructure, buckling highways, hobbling public transit and triggering rolling power outages. 

The White House is moving from saving a bipartisan Senate infrastructure bill to trying to unify House Democrats behind both that bill and a follow-on, multitrillion dollar economic package expected to pass on a party-line vote.

U.S. Senator Joe Manchin’s alternative to the For the People Act leaves no excuse for Republican intransigence, Bloomberg’s Editorial Board writes, urging Congress not to let the voting-rights compromise go to waste.

What you’ll need to know tomorrow 

• Commodity traders are raking in billions while prices rise for the rest.
• U.S. home prices just jumped the most in three decades.
• Goldman Sachs is making a bigger bet on its Texas operations.
• Bitcoin keeps ignoring all the bad news, rising for a third straight day.
• John McAfee’s death is making it hard for the U.S. to collect.
• New York City mayoral race narrows between Adams and Garcia.  
• Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen take equity stake in crypto firm FTX.

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The Family Behind the Covid Bleach Cure  

When Donald Trump suggested injecting bleach as a way to stave off Covid-19, the Genesis II Church had just the “sacrament,” and the cash came tumbling in. That is, until “Operation Quack Hack” landed four of its elders in jail, Bloomberg Businessweek reports.

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