Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - The war is over

More than one million Louisiana homes and businesses were without power a day after Hurricane Ida came ashore. The storm, which packed some of the most powerful winds ever to hit the area, drove a wall of water inland when it made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane about 60 miles south of New Orleans. As it lumbers north, Ida is unleashing a catastrophic amount of rain. Ida struck Louisiana on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which was the costliest cyclone in U.S. history and left much of New Orleans in ruins. Though the area’s levees, pumps and other infrastructure rebuilt after that 2005 storm have held up well so far, the threat isn’t over yet, as rainfall north of the city flows back down the Mississippi River. —David E. Rovella

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

The U.S. Department of Education opened civil rights investigations in five states asking whether bans on school mask mandates discriminate against students with disabilities at severe risk from contracting Covid-19. The agency’s Office for Civil Rights sent letters to state education leaders in Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah Monday notifying them of the reviews.

South African scientists said they identified a new coronavirus variant that has a concerning number of mutations. The so-called C.1.2. variant was first identified in May. By Aug. 13, it had been found in six of South Africa’s nine provinces as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritius, Portugal, New Zealand and Switzerland. The mutations on the virus “are associated with increased transmissibility” and an increased ability to evade antibodies, the scientists said. In the U.S., public health advisers are meeting to discuss booster shots, with the White House eager to start a nationwide rollout by Sept. 20. The number of U.S. Covid-19 fatalities in August is already the highest monthly total since March, and hospitalizations are now worse than in all but one of the four previous waves. European Union countries have responded to the American crisis by reimposing restrictions on non-essential travel from the U.S. Here’s the latest on the pandemic.

China’s big crackdown on its technology industry is now coming for junior’s video games. Beijing will limit the amount of time children can play online to just three hours per week, dealing a body blow to the world’s largest mobile gaming market. 

Ever since billionaire hedge funder John Paulson bet against the U.S. housing market more than a decade ago, people keep asking him about his next big trade. What he has right now are harsh words for the hottest investments on Wall Street. SPACs, on average, will be a losing proposition, he said, while cryptocurrencies are a bubble that will “eventually prove to be worthless.”

John Paulson Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Veteran investor Mark Mobius said investors should have 10% of a portfolio in gold as currencies will be devalued following the unprecedented government bailouts aimed at lessening the economic shocks of the pandemic.

Income inequality in the U.S. is usually measured by wages, but that’s far from the only way Americans accumulate more wealth. Income from assets like stocks, rental properties and interest now makes up one-fifth of total personal income in the U.S. Yet most Americans have few assets besides their primary residence and retirement account, and even those are usually out of reach for low-income workers. And it also turns out that the accumulation of asset wealth is concentrated geographically.

Landlords may evict residents in roughly 750,000 U.S. households by the end of the year, Goldman Sachs said, as a ruling by the Supreme Court and lapsing local bans—together with high demand for rental housing—prompt landlords to push tenants out onto the street.

• The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is complete: The war is over.
• Hurricane Ida’s wrath—in pictures.
• Cracks are emerging in the Fed’s floor as a key target rate slides.
• Need a PCR test for your next trip? That could run you $6,000.
• Pending U.S. home sales unexpectedly decline for a second month.
• But the stock market is heading for yet another record.
• Zambian debt is in record demand as investors bet on a recovery.

Wynn Resorts will spend more than $100 million this football season marketing its new sports-betting app, showing how seriously casino operators are now taking the fast-growing business of online wagering. The company on Monday debuted a new TV ad directed by and starring actor Ben Affleck and basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal, a brand  ambassador for the company’s app, WynnBet. 

Shaquille O’Neal Photographer: Michael Tullberg/Getty Images

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