Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - Russia’s deadliest month

Chinese companies listed in the U.S. rebounded Thursday after a five-day slump as investors piled back into stocks hurt by President Xi Jinping’s crackdown this year. Aluminum prices rose as investors weighed fresh signs of pressure on output, with Alcoa planning to shut a European plant and Beijing vowing to cut carbon emissions from China’s smelters. In the U.S., jobless claims fell and mortgages rose, returning to where they started earlier this month. Here’s your markets wrap. —David E. Rovella

Bloomberg is tracking the coronavirus pandemic and the progress of global vaccination efforts.

November was Russia’s deadliest month of the Covid-19 pandemic. There were a record 85,527 deaths associated with the virus last month, according to government officials. That was a 16% increase over the previous month, and raised total confirmed fatalities linked to the coronavirus in Russia to more than 625,000, though the actual number is likely higher. 

Two doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine slashed hospitalizations caused by the omicron variant first identified in South Africa by up to 85%, researchers there found, a critical development given the shot is being relied upon across the continent. South Africa is mulling lifting some precautions and says it may be past the worst of the current infection wave. Worldwide, more than 1.7 million new Covid-19 cases were recorded on Wednesday, a 32% increase from a day earlier and a new global record. And amid fury from the World Health Organization and developing nations that rich countries are doling out boosters while billions remain without a first dose, Israel is to become the first country to start administering a second booster shot. Here’s the latest on the pandemic.

Ethiopia’s finance ministry proposed an additional $2.47 billion budget to help counter the fallout of a civil war that’s destroyed infrastructure, displaced millions of people, eroded government revenue and deterred investment.  

Billionaire Peter Thiel has hired controversial former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz to be a global strategist for Thiel Capital. Kurz is the subject of several investigations tied to corruption allegations. He was touted as a pioneer of populist conservative politics in Europe before his downfall. His new boss is a longtime supporter and financier of right-wing candidates, including Donald Trump.

At least 20 guaranteed-income pilot programs have launched across the U.S. since 2018, and more than 5,400 families and individuals have started receiving between $300 and $1,000 a month. If all these programs complete their trials as planned, they’ll have given out at least $35 million. Once unthinkable in America, this was the year basic income programs moved toward the mainstream.

“Six years late and $2.8 billion over budget.” That’s what one senator called the Navy’s costliest warship. The aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford, built by prime contractor Huntington Ingalls Industries with systems suffering from a whole host critical defects, finally has all the elevators it needs to lift bombs from below deck. Now it can deploy.

The USS Gerald R. Ford  Photographer: U.S. Navy/Getty Images North America

For U.S. holiday travelers who thought Christmas cancellations would slow and airlines would catch up, think again. Scrubbed trips are still piling up, with 1,170 flights nixed as rising coronavirus cases continue to hobble staffing. Winter storms threaten to further disrupt travel this weekend. Happy New Year.

• T-cells primed by vaccines play an outsized role in fighting omicron.
• U.S. health agency says no one should take a cruise right now.
• Bloomberg Opinion: China’s water crisis is Asia’s water crisis. 
• Santander rushes to recoup $175 million it paid out by mistake.
• Republican-controlled states attack Nasdaq board diversity rule.
• Tesla recalls over 475,000 U.S. cars on camera and trunk issues.
• This is what happens when workers get a flexible hybrid schedule.

For Hawaii, as with many tourist destinations across the globe, the quietude of pandemic times has been “somewhat euphoric,” according to one local. But just like pre-Covid boom times, having no tourists at all isn’t sustainable, either. So what comes next is a radically transformed experience for Hawaii’s visitors—and residents. If you are aching for a trip next year to America’s tropical paradise, this is what that means for you.

Kihei, Hawaii Photographer: Mia Shimabuku/Bloomberg

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