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Saturday, July 31, 2021

Vendors call weekly farmers' market a success - KSNB Local 4

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HASTINGS, Neb. (KSNB) - The weekly Highland Park Farmers’ Market returned Saturday morning and brought out quite the crowd. The event had been going on for a majority of the summer, and for a number of years prior. Vendors sold a variety of items ranging from jewelry, to juices, to fresh eggs, veggies and more.

Koob Borgeling, a vendor selling honey at the market for his son, said the day had been pretty successful.

“It’s been pretty good,” Borgeling said. “I enjoy coming out to the Farmers’ Market, just meeting everybody coming through and visiting with them... We’ve been coming back here since we moved here in 2006, 2007.”

The market had been going on since June this year, but it had been going countless years prior.

Alan Hoagland, a vendor selling produce, had been attending the event each Saturday in the summer for more than ten years.

“It’s been, and we keep growing, adding more stuff and we have quite a variety anymore,” Hoadland said. “It’s a fun time.”

The Highland Park Farmers’ Market will continue each Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon until fall 2021. The market should return again at the park next summer.

Copyright 2021 KSNB. All rights reserved.

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Duluth Farmers' Market Celebrates National Farmers' Market Week - FOX 21 Online

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DULUTH, Minn.- The Duluth Farmers’ Market celebrated National Farmers’ Market Week this morning with special treats products.

From fresh produce to raw honey vendors across the Northland showed up for a busy Saturday morning.

“My favorite part is actually being down here and selling and seeing the people we haven’t seen in a while,” said Lois Hoffbauer. “Farmer Doug and I have been down her for about forty years. So we know most of the customers that come in through the door.”

The farmers market is also incentivizing EBT shoppers with a matching $15 grant to be used at the market.

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Good Market benefits The Purple Door - KRIS Corpus Christi News

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CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — People were able to shop at the Good Market and also help victims of domestic abuse on Saturday.

The event was held at Nueces Brewing Company where visitors got the opportunity to see what different vendors had to offer while also helping the non-profit organization who helps victims of domestic abuse, The Purple Door.

People got to enjoy products from their favorite vendors, music and of course some very tasty food.

"It's a great opportunity for local vendors, for us to show what we have, to interact with the community," said local vensor Judith Perez.

Market goers had the opportunity to give a donation to The Purple Door and get free goodies.

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Trump political groups raised $82M in first half of 2021 - Politico

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Former President Donald Trump’s political committees raised $82 million during the first half of 2021 and have $102 million in the bank, according to federal filings to be made public Saturday evening.

The figures, shared first with POLITICO, underscore the profound reach of Trump’s fundraising power. While the former president is out of office and has been deplatformed on social media sites, he maintains a massive online donor network that he could lean on should he wage a 2024 comeback bid.

The scenario is virtually unprecedented: Never in history has a former president banked nine figures' worth of donations to power a political operation. Over the first six months of the year, Trump’s political groups whipped up supporters with baseless claims of election fraud to pull in more cash than the Republican Party’s House and Senate campaign arms. The Trump committees raised nearly as much as the Republican National Committee.

The former president’s fundraising was spread across three committees: Save America, a leadership PAC he launched shortly after losing the 2020 election; Make America Great Again PAC, his old campaign account which was converted into a PAC this year; and a joint fundraising outfit that sends its funds to the other two groups. Campaign finance disclosures filed late Saturday evening showed that Save Amerca took in the bulk of the funds — more than $62 million — and finished June with just over $90 million in its account.

Leadership PACs like Save America have a $5,000 donation limit per donor, per year, but there are few restrictions on how those groups can spend their money. Trump has spent little from the fund so far this year, but he can use it to pay for travel, events, advisers, ad campaigns, and supporting candidates and other political activities.

There is one notable restriction: The leadership PAC funds cannot be used to finance a presidential campaign.

Earlier this year, Trump also gave his blessing to a newly formed super PAC, Make America Great Again Action, which is allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money. The organization, which is helmed by former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, has already invested heavily to bolster Trump-endorsed candidates in a pair of special elections. The super PAC raised just over $5 million from its founding in early March through the end of June, according to a disclosure filed Saturday evening.

Trump briefly slowed his fundraising efforts following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot but resumed it this spring. Much of what Trump has raised is expected to be used ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, in which the former president is expected to play an active role, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“On behalf of the millions of men and women who share my outrage and want me to continue to fight for the truth, I am grateful for your support," Trump said in a statement.

Trump has been forceful in urging his supporters to route their cash through Save America, even at the expense of the Republican Party’s campaign organizations. During an appearance before the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this year, Trump said that that the “only” way to give to Trump-aligned candidates was through Save America. In the weeks after, Trump attorneys sent cease-and-desist letters to the party’s committees requesting that they stop using his name in fundraising appeals, which the party ignored.

Trump’s political operation has been sending out a daily battery of fundraising text messages to supporters, many of them reiterating his unfounded claims that the election was stolen. Trump has spent months lavishing praise on election audits taking place in states like Arizona, though a person familiar with Trump’s campaign finances said that none of his groups have donated money to fund those efforts out of a desire not to taint their independence.

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Frenetic real estate market exacerbating teacher shortage in Montrose - Montrose Daily Press

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Frenetic real estate market exacerbating teacher shortage in Montrose  Montrose Daily Press

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Institutional Investors Turn Bullish on US Stock Market - Bloomberg

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American exceptionalism is back! Or at least it is in the stock market. U.S. equities surged 16.7% in the first seven months of the year, trouncing the 5.90% gain in the rest of the world through late Friday as measured by the benchmark MSCI indexes. Not only that, but the U.S. outperformed by 4.06 percentage points this month, the most since April 2020.

Despite the heady performance, one critical ingredient had been missing: the backing of those with the most at stake. But that changed this month, when a State Street Global Markets index released Wednesday showed that institutional investors turned net bullish on the U.S. for the first time this year. The change in sentiment underscores how the outlook for the U.S. is only becoming stronger relative to the rest of the world, which is  a testament to the policies put in place by the government and Federal Reserve to support the economy as the pandemic lingers. It also suggests that maybe the “dumb money” has been smart all along. 

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DeSantis and other GOP 2024 prospects target public health officials with political attacks - CNN

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"It is very important that we say unequivocally no to lockdowns, no to school closures, no to restrictions and no to mandates," DeSantis told the crowd at a conservative state policy conference in Utah on Wednesday.
The approaches by DeSantis and other potential GOP 2024 contenders frequently mirror former President Donald Trump's downplaying of the pandemic and right-wing television networks -- poised to play a central role in the next GOP presidential primary race -- that have criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci, opposed government mandates and raised questions about the effectiveness of vaccines.
Ahead of his 2022 gubernatorial re-election -- and a potential presidential run in 2024 -- DeSantis is using Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease official, as a political punching bag, touting his opposition to Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
His comments followed the CDC issuing stricter mask-wearing guidelines as the more contagious Delta variant of Covid-19 ravages parts of the United States and President Joe Biden adopting a tougher approach to urging Americans to get vaccinated. "People are dying, and will die, who don't have to die," Biden said in a Thursday speech.
Florida reported on Wednesday its fourth-highest single-day spike in Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began, with 17,589 new cases. It is one of the 32 states to see an average number of new cases over the last seven days increase by more than 50% from the week before, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. But it is one of only two states in which every county in the state is listed as having high Covid-19 transmission.
In a Wednesday fundraising email, DeSantis said Fauci should be fired.
"The corporate media is Fauci's Praetorian Guard, and they are attacking me because I've been willing to hold Fauci accountable," DeSantis said.
The political team of the Florida governor, who is up for re-election next year, sent another fundraising email lambasting Fauci on Thursday.
"The Left's beloved unelected bureaucratic leader, Dr. Fauci, who assured us that vaccinated individuals no longer needed to wear masks, is now recommending vaccinated adults wear masks... again," the email said. "Fauci also wants to force 3-year-old kids to wear masks indefinitely."
And on Friday, DeSantis said at a press conference that he will sign an executive order barring schools from requiring students to wear masks -- a move that followed Broward County Public Schools opting to make masks mandatory. He also said his three young children don't wear masks.
"My wife and I are not going to do the mask with the kids. We never have, we won't. I want to see my kids smiling. I want them having fun," he said.
DeSantis and other potential Republican 2024 presidential contenders have begun competing over who has most proudly ignored federal public health officials' recommendations and condemned those officials and agencies.
"Has there ever been an institution in American public life that has more discredited itself more rapidly than the CDC?" Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said on the Senate floor this week.
The headline on a fundraising email Friday from Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul: "Fauci's lies are criminal."
The race to resist mask mandates, business closures and more is already playing out as the party's shadow presidential race -- one that might only burst into full view if Trump decides not to run again in 2024 -- begins to develop in early-voting primary states and at conferences with party activists.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has used early trips to Iowa and to conservative political gatherings to take implicit jabs at DeSantis, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republicans who mandated masks and closed some businesses during the pandemic.
"We've got Republican governors across this country pretending they didn't shut down their states; that they didn't close their regions; that they didn't mandate masks," Noem said at the Conservative Political Action Conference gathering in Dallas last month. "Now I'm not picking fights with Republican governors. All I'm saying is that we need leaders with grit. That their first instinct is the right instinct."
She bragged that South Dakota hadn't ordered a "single business" to close.
"We didn't mandate. We trusted our people and it told them that personal responsibility was the best answer," Noem said.
South Dakota has seen an increase in Covid-19 cases but isn't seeing the dramatic spike that other states -- particularly across the south -- have seen in recent weeks.
Abbott, in Texas, on Thursday signed an order prohibited vaccination requirements or mask mandates -- a step that also prohibited local governments from implementing their own policies.
Texas, which is seeing a dramatic spike in Covid-19 cases, has reported an average of more than 7,700 new cases per day over the last week. Hospitals there are bracing for a surge in Covid-19 patients, and an analysis of data from the Texas Department of State Health Services shows that 99% of the people who died in Texas since February because of coronavirus were unvaccinated.
Abbott also identified a new scapegoat for the surge of Covid-19 cases in Texas: Migrants.
He signed an executive order instructing state troopers to stop any vehicle if there is "reasonable suspicion" that it is transporting certain migrants who illegally crossed the US-Mexico border and were released from the custody of US Customs and Border Protection.
If the state officials confirm that migrants being transported fit that category, the agency then must reroute the vehicle to its point of origin, according to the order. The order also gives state troopers the authority to impound vehicles being used to transport the migrants in question.
"The dramatic rise in unlawful border crossings has also led to a dramatic rise in Covid-19 cases among unlawful migrants who have made their way into our state, and we must do more to protect Texans from this virus and reduce the burden on our communities," Abbott said in a statement about the order Thursday.

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Stock market faces elusive pullback as coronavirus, economic headwinds swirl - Fox Business

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A growing chorus of Wall Street strategists is warning the U.S. stock market is ripe for a pullback as the COVID-19 delta variant spreads across the globe amid the most difficult two-month stretch for investors. 

The S&P 500 has rallied 96% since bottoming on March 23, 2020, booking 61 record highs along the way. The benchmark index has throughout the rally avoided a correction, or decline of at least 10%, which happens an average of once a year. 

Ticker Security Last Change Change %
SP500 S&P 500 4395.26 -23.89 -0.54%

Strategists are growing more concerned that the elusive pullback is coming now that the delta variant has threatened to derail the economy's recovery.   

"At this incipient stage of the spread of the Delta variant and slowing of economic growth, there are enough red flags that prudent investors have to start considering de-risking," wrote Scott Minerd, global chief investment officer at Guggenheim Partners. 

FED'S PREFERRED INFLATION READING SHOWS PRICES JUMP 3.5% ANNUALLY

A report released Thursday by the Commerce Department showed the U.S. economy grew at a 6.5% annual pace during the second quarter, below the 8.5% rate that was expected. Economists say growth will slow from the current pace as rising prices and supply-chain issues continue to disrupt the economy amid a flare-up in delta variant infections.  

Minerd called recent data on the delta variant "extremely disturbing," noting that the R0, or number of people who will be infected as a result of another infected person’s actions, was six, meaning it is two to three times more transmissible than the original COVID-19 strain.

With an average of about 60,000 daily new cases that means that in six to eight weeks there is likely to be more than 200,000 new cases, like what was seen in December, he said.  

Concerns over the delta variant have caused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reinstate mask recommendations for so-called hotspots. 

Economists and business leaders worry a return of masking will weigh on confidence and result in lower sales, setting the stage for what is typically the worst stretch of months for the stock market. 

BIPARTISAN INFRASTRUCTURE PLAN IS THE ‘TROJAN HORSE’ FOR MASSIVE TAX INCREASES

"Risk is no doubt increasing as we head into the troublesome August and September months," wrote Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at LPL Financial. 

Source: Dow Jones Market Data

The difficult stretch for the stock market kicks off with investors having to navigate narrowing breath, or fewer listings participating in the rally, and valuations in some instances stretched to levels last seen during the 1999-2000 tech bubble.   

Michael Wilson, chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley, was among the first Wall Street analysts to voice concerns regarding the underwhelming market internals.

He believes investors should "focus on relative value within the market," preferring high quality versus low quality stocks, consumer staples over discretionary, health care over tech and defensives over cyclicals.

Wilson has a base-case yearend S&P 500 target of 4,225, 3.87% below Friday’s closing level. His bear case is for the S&P 500 to finish the year at 3,800. 

While their numbers are dwindling there are still bulls on Wall Street, but even they admit the stock market is facing headwinds at these levels. 

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This is a "very logical time for the market to slow down" as earnings catch up with prices, Brian Belski, chief investment strategist at BMO Capital Markets told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney on Friday. He has a yearend S&P 500 target of 4,500, or 2.39% above where the index closed on Friday. 

"We are not calling for a deep correction like everybody else and their mother, brother, sister, cousin and uncle," Belski said. "We think the market grinds higher, but still positive, very positive longer term."

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Investors Lost Hundreds of Billions on China in July - The Wall Street Journal

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American investors are asking whether China Inc. is still worth the risk following a widening series of regulatory crackdowns that have wiped some $400 billion off the value of U.S.-listed Chinese companies.

Investors ranging from pension fund Orange County Employees Retirement System in California to money manager William Blair & Co. are rethinking their portfolios following Beijing’s decision last week to curtail the operations of China’s for-profit tutoring industry along with its ongoing campaign to rein in tech companies. The moves fueled large declines across sectors of China’s stock markets and hammered Asia-focused funds stateside.

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The investor retreat sent tutoring firm TAL Education Group’s American depositary receipts down some 70% in a matter of days to $6.19 Friday morning. TAL traded above $90 in February. American depositary receipts, or ADRs, are certificates issued to U.S. investors that represent a specified number of shares in a foreign company.

New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. has fallen roughly 66% since July 22 and was at $2.24 Friday morning.

It was the latest of regulatory crackdowns that have hit the value of Chinese firms as large as Tencent Holdings Ltd. , even as U.S. indexes have risen to records. Earlier regulatory moves that had rattled companies such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. , its unlisted sister company Ant Group Co. and Didi Global Inc., which is considering going private again to placate authorities, had already caused concern among western investors.

U.S. regulators also added new pressure to stocks on Friday when U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler said the agency would require additional disclosures from Chinese companies before allowing them to sell shares.

So far this month, China ADRs have lost more than $407 billion dollars in aggregate, according to FactSet, more than double their losses in March 2020 when the U.S. market plummeted at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

China this week tried to reassure global financial firms that it wasn’t trying to decouple from U.S. markets. A top securities regulator told representatives of global banks and investment firms that Chinese authorities in the future would carefully consider the market impact of policy changes before making them.

Over the last decade, U.S. investors have been drawn to China because of its huge population, growing economy and booming tech industry. Despite tension between the Chinese and American governments, U.S. investors continued to see strong returns. Yet, the deteriorating political relationship between the two countries has bled into the markets.

The Trump administration blacklisted some Chinese companies from U.S. investments last winter and paved the way for several Chinese companies to be delisted in the U.S. The Biden administration is maintaining some of the Trump White House stances against Beijing.

Chinese regulators have cracked down on tutoring companies, including New Oriental Education & Technology Group, Inc., whose officers in 2020 celebrated the company's listing on the Hong Kong exchange.

Chinese regulators have cracked down on tutoring companies, including New Oriental Education & Technology Group, Inc., whose officers in 2020 celebrated the company's listing on the Hong Kong exchange.

Photo: Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images

The Wall Street Journal spoke with dozens of money managers, brokers and analysts on Wall Street this week on the fallout.

The selloff contributed to losses at New York hedge-fund firm Teng Yue Partners LP that were approaching 30% for the year as of earlier this week, said an investor. Teng Yue founder Tao Li is a protégé of Archegos Capital Management founder and former Tiger Asia manager Bill Hwang, and his fund previously lost nearly 30% in March amid the liquidation of Archegos’s portfolio.

Many U.S. investors remain bullish on China’s long-term prospects despite what skeptics say is the difficulty of anticipating Chinese President Xi Jinping’s moves. They say they can’t afford to miss out on the growth of an economy some investors think is on track last this decade to overtake the U.S. as the world’s biggest. Many on Wall Street think a country so intertwined with global supply chains and the financial markets is, for better or worse, too big to ignore.

But even some fans of China said its recent regulatory actions were capricious and would compel many investors to reassess the risks and rewards endemic to investing in a large, fast-growing but authoritarian state.

The Orange County Employees Retirement System has decided to take a more cautious approach to its exposure.

“We are staying kind of market-neutral on China,” said Molly Murphy, the pension fund’s chief investment officer, at a committee meeting earlier this week. “We don’t want to be actively seeking investments in China necessarily but we want to play it smart.”

Ms. Murphy says the pension fund plans to focus its Chinese investments in specific industries she views as having less risk of regulation, such as biotech.

After Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi made its Wall Street debut, Beijing said it plans to tighten rules for homegrown companies looking to raise money overseas. WSJ’s Yoko Kubota takes a Didi ride to explain what the crackdown means for China’s tech titans and investors. Photo illustration: Ang Li The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition

The $20.2 billion pension fund has $100 million invested in China, primarily through a William Blair fund.

Meanwhile, William Blair manager Vivian Lin Thurston is weighing her next moves.

“A private industry was just wiped out in a short time period,” said Ms. Thurston, portfolio manager of William Blair & Co.’s China A shares strategy, referencing China’s crackdown on tutoring companies. “We global investors probably need to rethink and reassess our framework and approach related to China investments in light of this development.”

San Mateo, Calif. hedge-fund firm Yiheng Capital Management LP lost 18% as of earlier this week, partly due to a large position in after-school tutoring company TAL, according to people familiar with the fund.

Yiheng, which invests in U.S. and Chinese stocks, managed roughly $4.9 billion at the end of the 2020 was flat for the year as of earlier this week. Founder Jonathan Guo has said he remains bullish about investing in the country, one of the people said.

Some U.S. managers said the recent episodes served as a harsh reminder that China remains an emerging market, where sometimes sudden policy decisions can matter more to a stock’s performance than that company’s growth prospects or its annual profits.

“The uncertainty of what is the regulatory endgame is weighing very significantly on the securities,” said Brendan Ahern, chief investment officer of Krane Funds Advisors.

One KraneShares exchange-traded fund, KWEB, which tracks an index of Chinese internet-related stocks, is down more than 27% in July so far. It has been one of the worst performing international stock funds this month, according to a Morningstar Direct analysis earlier this week.

The WisdomTree China ex-State-Owned Enterprises Fund is down more than 14% this  month to date. The ETF has investments in companies affected by the recent regulatory development including Tencent, Alibaba, Meituan and JD.com Inc.

Liqian Ren, a quantitative investment specialist at ETF firm WisdomTree Investments Inc., said investors needed to recognize that being in emerging markets like China always comes with political risks.

“If a private company makes a lot of money, is very profitable and operates in a sector the government feels in need to be the main service provider, regulators will pay attention," she said.

Money managers continuing to invest in China are trying to map out the impact of Beijing’s regulatory crackdown.

Derek Lin, co-manager of Columbia Threadneedle’s Columbia Greater China Fund, said the fund had sold some shares in Alibaba and other dominant tech companies this year in favor of their smaller rivals, including JD.com, that stand to gain as regulators focus on the top players. In April, China’s antitrust regulator fined Alibaba a record $2.8 billion.

China called a sudden halt last fall to Ant Group Co.’s record initial public offering, unsettling many Western investors.

China called a sudden halt last fall to Ant Group Co.’s record initial public offering, unsettling many Western investors.

Photo: sun yilei/Reuters

“We don’t view this as a broad-based attack on the internet,” Mr. Lin said.

Like many funds focused largely on China, the Columbia fund’s returns have suffered recently—dropping nearly 18% this month, according to Morningstar Direct. The pace of new developments, including the government’s recent crackdown on education companies, has been frenetic. “There’s so much back and forth,” Mr. Lin said, noting the flurry of regulatory changes announced last weekend.

Ali Akay, chief investment officer at London firm Carrhae Capital, is holding his positions in Chinese stocks, including those listed in the U.S., Shanghai and Shenzhen. He sees the current moment as an opportunity for his $750 million fund to invest more in Chinese businesses.

For some on Wall Street, however, navigating political uncertainty in China isn’t worth the risk.

On an investor call Wednesday, hedge-fund manager Daniel Loeb said Third Point had sold out of nearly all its exposure to China over the last several months on the chance that Mr. Xi would continue to exercise the government’s power over financial markets, according to an investor on the call.

Mr. Loeb became concerned last fall when China called a sudden halt to Ant Group Co.’s record initial public offering, another person familiar with Third Point said. Mr. Loeb worried the move could signal the start of a less investor-friendly regime in China. After buying new stakes in Alibaba and JD.com last year, Third Point’s only remaining exposure to China now consists of Didi, which it invested in when the ride-hailing giant was a private company, Mr. Loeb said.

At ARK Investment Management LLC, Cathie Wood’s flagship $25 billion fund exited Tencent in the past month. Her ARKK exchange-traded fund had more than $200 million in Tencent late June and had no investment in that company as of late July.

Ms. Wood cut the fund’s exposure to China to 1% in July from some 6.5% in March, according to FactSet data.

Some managers at T. Rowe Price Group Inc. also moved quickly to cut positions in Tencent and Alibaba following the events in late 2020. The primary reason for reducing those stakes, though, was the belief that intensifying competition would slow earnings growth, said Anh Lu, a senior T. Rowe money manager who focuses on Asia-Pacific markets.

Didi, the ride-hailing company, has been the subject of a recent cybersecurity probe by Chinese regulators.

Didi, the ride-hailing company, has been the subject of a recent cybersecurity probe by Chinese regulators.

Photo: JADE GAO/AFP/Getty Images

The trades helped reduce the firm’s exposure to this month’s declines. T. Rowe, however, hasn’t counted out investing in Chinese companies. “Is China becoming less investible? That’s definitely not my view,” Ms. Lu said.

Some investors now fleeing China stocks had been drawn to the growth prospects of specific companies, and may not have held those positions long enough to have been through past cycles. Investors with broader mandates may move on to sectors such as U.S. technology or other emerging markets such as Southeast Asia.

For hardened emerging-markets investors, sudden policy decisions have long been par for the course. “Whenever there are periods of stress in the market, it’s the tourists who sell first,” Ms. Lu said.

Write to Juliet Chung at juliet.chung@wsj.com, Justin Baer at justin.baer@wsj.com and Dawn Lim at dawn.lim@wsj.com

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Parcels flow along a conveyor belt at an Amazon packaging center.

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The stock market is falling because Amazon.com ‘s latest earnings left tech investors jittery, and because—separately—some fund managers could be selling certain stocks to reposition their portfolios. 

Losses in the main indexes moderated by mid morning, but the S&P 500 earlier fell by as much as 0.7% and the Nasdaq Composite lost as much as 1.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3%.

“Amazon is the culprit,” writes NatAlliance Securities’ Andrew Brenner.

Amazon’s (ticker: AMZN) e-commerce growth was flat-out disappointing. While the company did post a profit of $15.12 a share, beating estimates for $12.30, sales came in at $113 billion, below expectations for $115.2 billion. Year-over-year growth in online store sales was 16%, below Wall Street’s expectations and lower than last year’s growth of 49%.

Last year’s growth, of course, got a big lift as people stuck a home during lockdowns shopped online rather than going to stores. Morgan Stanley analysts lowered their forecast for 2022 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization by 5%, saying the reopening has dragged on management’s financial forecasts.

The stock fell 7% Friday. 

That is is a problem for the broader stock market. Amazon’s $1.7 trillion market capitalization is about 4.5% of the total for the S&P 500. The index is market-cap-weighted, so moves in the stock weigh heavily on the market benchmark.

At the same time, the disappointing growth in e-commerce sales is a negative sign for other e-commerce companies. PayPal (PYPL), eBay (EBAY) and Etsy (ETSY) fell 1.4%, 4.2% and 5.6%, respectively. “There is concern that what Amazon is seeing is across the board in the tech sector,” says David Miller, chief investment officer of Catalyst Capital Advisors. There is “some carry over into PayPal,” Miller added. 

A separate issue is that portfolio mangers sometimes reposition their portfolios at the end of a month, a dynamic that may be at play Friday. Miller said that it is possible that fund managers are selling some tech shares, though that isn’t a certainty. To be sure, Bank of America data show $1.2 billion flowed into U.S. tech funds this week, indicating that investors remain eager for exposure to the sector. 

It was Amazon’s earnings doing most of the damage. 

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Dole stock slides 9% in public market debut on New York Stock Exchange - CNBC

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In this article

The New York Stock Exchange welcomes executives and guests of Dole (NYSE: DOLE), on July 30, 2021, in celebration of its Initial Public Offering. To honor the occasion, Johan Linden, Chief Operating Officer, Seamus Mulvenna, CEO Total Produce North America and Shane Power, Corporate Finance Director, joined by Chris Taylor, Vice President, NYSE Listings and Services, ring The Opening Bell®.
NYSE

Shares of Dole closed Friday down more than 9% as the company made its return to the public markets.

The stock opened at $15 per share, giving the company an implied market value of roughly $1.5 billion. However, the opening trade fell below its initial public offering price of $16, which was already on the lower end of Dole's expected range. The stock is trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "DOLE."

The IPO marks the completion of Dole's merger with Total Produce, creating the world's largest fresh produce company. The two companies announced the deal in February. The IPO raised $400 million in gross proceeds for the newly formed company. It intends to spend the money on the costs of the merger and paying down its debt.

In 2020, the two companies reported combined net sales of $8.97 billion, generating net income attributable to shareholders of $80.1 million. Dole Food accounted for a little more than half of the overall revenue.

"The big advantage that we have is a huge diversity of sourcing capability," said Dole CEO Rory Byrne, who served in the same position at Total Produce before the merger.

Byrne said the company doesn't expect to see any material impact stemming from the ongoing drought in California. As of March 31, it owns more than 109,000 acres of land around the world.

Founded in 1851, Dole has twice before been publicly traded. Billionaire David Murdock, who is now 98 years old, last took the company private in 2013 for $1.3 billion. Five years later, Total Produce bought a 45% stake in Dole for $300 million.

Despite a hot IPO market this year, Dole isn't the only stock to see a frosty reception from investors. Robinhood made its public market debut on Thursday, closing down more than 8%.

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Friday, July 30, 2021

Examining the role of cross-Strait relations in Taiwan’s politics - Brookings Institution

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Lev Nachman recently returned to the United States after living in Taipei for more than two years, where he was a Fulbright scholar and studied social movements and political parties in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Nachman who also previously lived in Taiwan, is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. In a conversation with Brookings Senior Fellow and Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies Ryan Hass, Nachman provides insights on the relationship between Taiwanese identity and support for Taiwan independence, factors that motivate Taiwan voters, and prospects for Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election.

RYAN HASS:
You have studied Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement and Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement. What do the results of these two social movements tell us about the political direction of developments in Hong Kong and Taiwan? And how — if at all — do you see developments in Hong Kong influencing political trends in Taiwan going forward?

LEV NACHMAN:
In 2014, both the Sunflower and Umbrella movements mobilized over fears of systemic changes that would give the PRC [People’s Republic of China] dangerous amounts of agency over their political systems. Both had lasting impacts on each other’s political systems. Both were important antecedents to Hong Kong’s 2019 anti-extradition protests. The most obvious impact Hong Kong activism had on Taiwan recently was during Taiwan’s 2020 presidential election. [President] Tsai Ing-wen made the Hong Kong protests a central frame of reference for her reelection campaign, and every political party (even the KMT [Kuomintang]) at least offered rhetorical support for the Hong Kong protesters.

With the introduction of Hong Kong’s National Security Law, Hong Kongers look to Taiwan as their ideal choice for a new home, which has created a new domestic political issue in Taiwan about how to address the large number of Hong Kongers looking to permanently emigrate to Taiwan. Ultimately, Hong Kong is a “canary in the coal mine” for Taiwanese people. The worse Hong Kong’s system becomes, the more it will push Taiwanese from the PRC.

RYAN HASS:
Taiwan will hold a series of referenda this year. Why have referenda become such a popular governance mechanism in Taiwan? What social forces do you anticipate will influence the outcome of these referenda?

LEV NACHMAN:
Referendums and recalls have become a popular political tool in Taiwan, but not necessarily in the most productive way. It started in 2017 when Taiwan pushed changes to laws that were championed by “pan-green” parties, including both the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and New Power Party. Their goal was to create a mechanism that would allow for civil society to push politicians to pass more progressively pro-Taiwan policy. The act significantly lowered the necessary signatures needed to put an issue to vote via a referendum.

But ironically, those who have taken advantage of such rule changes have been largely opposition “pan-blue” forces such as the Kuomintang (KMT) Party, who use referendums to attack or disrupt the DPP’s agenda. The specifics of the referendums this year are particularly complicated and are fraught with the DPP and KMT switching stances. For example, ractopamine meat imports and building an energy pipeline on an algal reef are both opposed by the KMT and supported by the DPP. But 10 years ago, the DPP was against the same policies and the KMT was for them. The ractopamine vote is particularly fraught because allowing the import of ractopamine-treated pork was considered necessary for Taiwan to begin bilateral trade talks with the United States, so if it passes, it will be a bad look for future trade talks.

RYAN HASS:
What does public opinion survey data actually tell us about Taiwan’s preferences on managing cross-Strait relations and on evolving views of Taiwanese identity?

LEV NACHMAN:
There is reliable polling data that demonstrate the number of Taiwanese identifying as exclusively Taiwanese, not Chinese, is rising, while the number of people identifying as exclusively Chinese, not Taiwanese, remains at a negligible number. But this does not translate into the number of Taiwanese voters supporting immediate independence increasing at the same rate.

One longitudinal study at National Chengchi University shows that the vast majority of Taiwanese support some version of the status quo, not immediate independence. “Status quo” like independence or unification is of course a spectrum — for example, one can be status quo and independence later, or status quo and unification later. This at the very least tells us that Taiwanese voters are far more pragmatic than we typically assume in light of an increasing number of “Taiwanese only” identifiers. Taiwanese live in a context in which any immediate independence path will likely lead to deadly conflict with the PRC, so it is unlikely that a push for formal independence will happen any time soon — precisely because Taiwanese voters value living in a conflict-free status quo.

RYAN HASS:
Looking ahead to presidential elections in 2024, what issues do you predict will drive the political debate? Do you have any expectations of which politicians might be best positioned to speak to the moment?

LEV NACHMAN:
We know from extensive political science research that the dominant political factor in every Taiwanese election is the China factor. All other issues are secondary or filtered through the China factor lens. It’s no secret the two front runners in the DPP are current Vice President William Lai and Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan. From the KMT, Hou You-yi is in a strong position as the New Taipei mayor, but given the KMT’s current internal strife over its next party chair, we are still a year off of knowing who their real frontrunner will be. We also have the unknown variables of Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je and businessman Terry Gou, who may run again in 2024.

RYAN HASS:
Richard Bush and Maggie Lewis have each written and spoken of the need for Taiwan to nurture and strengthen its vitality, including by forging political consensus to address internal challenges like job creation, energy, etc. How optimistic are you that Taiwan’s leaders will be able to overcome partisan divisions to address these internal challenges?

LEV NACHMAN:
This remains the biggest challenge for a contested state like Taiwan whose political spectrum is defined by its relationship with China — how to mobilize voters and politicians to take action on critical political issues that may not win them votes or matter during election times. It is difficult to convince the KMT and DPP to work together (as it is with most two-party dominant political systems) but increasingly so on contemporary social issues that have little to do with the PRC.

One recent example is the treatment of Southeast Asian migrant workers during the COVID-19 spike, who were banned from leaving their factory dorms. Some DPP politicians spoke out against such treatment, but ultimately little was done to fix any of the repressive rules governing Southeast Asian migrant workers. There is little incentive to do so — only politicians who recognize the moral obligation to improve the livelihoods of Taiwan’s growing workforce will push for policy changes.

Until China becomes less important for Taiwan’s domestic politics, which unfortunately will not happen any time soon, I struggle to see voters calling for major social reform on these kinds of issues.

This does not mean Taiwanese do not care about social reform. But, when it comes to national elections, voters vote on China, not domestic performance.

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Stock market keeps rising despite spread of delta variant - The Washington Post

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There is one place in the United States that appears all but immune to the delta variant of the coronavirus.

Wall Street.

Over the past month, even as the more infectious strain of the respiratory virus spread faster than gossip in a high school hallway, stocks continued their steady climb.

Covid-19 cases quadrupled, prompting public health authorities to recommend that vaccinated people resume wearing masks indoors in high-risk areas. Yet, the Dow Jones industrial average closed at a record high five times this month and is up nearly 15 percent so far this year.

On Thursday, the Dow rose nearly 154 points to close at 35,084.53, just below the 35,144.31 record set three days earlier.

The market’s defiance of the delta variant reflects the power of the Federal Reserve’s near-zero interest rates, robust corporate earnings, and Americans’ ability to adapt to the pandemic. The specter of renewed business closures, disrupted school reopenings — and their implications for the labor market — and divisive fights over private-sector vaccination mandates are proving no match for the 16-month-old bull market.

“The spread of the delta variant is just not as significant as all the positives that are impacting markets right now, including incredibly accommodative monetary policy and effective vaccines,” said Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist for Invesco. “It’s still a positive outlook. I don’t think much has changed because of the spread of the delta variant.”

Perhaps the biggest spur to stocks is the absence of any real alternative for most investors. The Fed’s decision to keep rates near zero since the start of the pandemic in March 2020 all but snuffed out returns on bonds, leaving stocks as the only game in town.

One measure of how unattractive bonds have become: globally, there are more than $16 trillion worth of assets offering a negative yield. An investor purchasing such a bond would actually lose money by holding it to maturity.

To fight the pandemic, the central bank also purchased more than $4 trillion worth of government and mortgage-backed securities. Flooding the economy with money indirectly lifted asset values at the same time.

Over the past year, the Dow jumped more than 32 percent, while the technology-rich Nasdaq gained 40 percent. The U.S. gains are part of a broader upswing that has nearly doubled global stock values to more than $115 trillion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

But stocks may have room to run, given the amount of cash that individuals and institutions still have in reserve. Americans have almost $4.5 trillion parked in risk-free money market mutual funds, more than twice the long-term average. Personal savings as a share of disposable income also are well above pre-pandemic norms.

“There’s not a lot of other places for people to go,” said Mike Lewis, head of U.S. equities cash trading for Barclays. “There is no alternative [to stocks] and there is a lot of cash.”

When the pandemic shaved roughly one-third off the Dow during three brutal weeks in March 2020, few people predicted the market was ready to take off. But after that astonishing collapse, stocks roared back to close out the shortest bear market in U.S. history, ending the year in positive territory.

The ascent continued this year, as the market braved drama over the Biden administration’s free-spending economic rescue, the fastest inflation in more than a decade, and the pandemic’s stubborn hold on American life. Investors piled into financial, technology and oil industry stocks, in particular.

Still, in recent weeks, as public and official concern about the delta variant percolated, investors grew skittish about industries that would be the first to suffer if renewed outbreaks cause consumers to hunker down. Over the past month, an index of five major airline stocks lost more than 5 percent, even as the broader market gained.

The spread of the highly infectious strain of the virus, which drove hospitalizations and deaths higher in states such as Florida, Missouri and Arkansas, coincided with the economy growing in the second quarter at an annual rate of 6.5 percent.

The fourth consecutive quarter of expansion meant impressive financial results for banks, manufacturers and consumer goods companies. Industrial giants’ second-quarter earnings are expected to rise by more than 368 percent compared with the same period last year, when the pandemic forced widespread closures, according to analysts for S&P Global.

On Thursday, automaker Ford reported an unexpected $511 million profit on revenue that topped analyst expectations. That came one day after Apple reported better-than-anticipated results.

“So far, the earnings season is going great,” said Liz Young, SoFi’s chief investment strategist. “So the market doesn’t have a huge reason to turn in the opposite direction.”

News of the bottom-line gains, which reflect what happened over the three months ended June 30, arrived as the outlook for the next few months was darkening.

The mutating virus prompted President Biden to maintain travel restrictions barring visitors from Europe, disappointing U.S. allies. Officials in Orange County, Fla., home to Walt Disney World, said they were in “crisis mode” as new cases of covid-19 reached levels seen during the worst days in 2020. And employers such as Google and The Washington Post began requiring their employees to get immunized.

Yet even an intense flare-up of the delta variant is unlikely to trigger the blanket restrictions on businesses that battered the economy last year, analysts said.

Americans might withdraw from face-to-face activities, such as dining out, and the scheduled fall reopening of schools could be interrupted in some communities, Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell said Wednesday.

But the pandemic has caused less economic disruption with each succeeding wave of infections, as Americans got vaccinated and learned how to work around the health risks. “It seems like we’ve learned to handle this,” Powell told reporters. “It doesn’t seem as though the effects will be very large.”

While the economy’s 6.5 percent second-quarter growth rate fell below expectations, the outlook for the remainder of the year remains solid. Business inventories are 10 percent below pre-pandemic levels, representing a $275 billion shortfall to be made up in coming quarters, Goldman Sachs economists wrote in a research note.

Automakers and retailers revving up production to restock depleted inventories should boost the economy’s annualized growth rate by 2.5 percentage points, Goldman said.

In recent earnings calls, major companies struck a tone of watchful optimism. Oil field services company Schlumberger told analysts last week it anticipates continued growth, despite the new coronavirus strain. United Airlines predicted “unabated” growth, noting that 84 percent of its Mileage Plus customers were fully vaccinated.

Gary Kelly, CEO of rival Southwest Air, echoed those sentiments.

“We are very well prepared to manage and muddle our way through if the delta variant affects our business.” he said. “And so far, we’re not detecting any impact at all.”

In the sometimes perverse logic of the financial markets, any larger-than-expected economic fallout from the delta variant could contain a silver lining. If renewed concern about the virus causes the economy to slow, the Fed would likely delay the monetary policy tightening that investment managers fear.

The Fed is waiting until it sees “substantial further progress” toward full employment and 2 percent-plus inflation before it begins reducing its monthly asset purchases, Powell said this week. That “tapering,” which would start a shift to a more challenging environment for investors who have grown accustomed to having a Fed backstop for their risk taking, is now expected early next year.

But Nancy Davis, founder of Quadratic Capital Management in Greenwich, Conn., said a deterioration in the pandemic could rewrite that schedule.

“If the delta variant becomes more of a risk,” she said, “that might just result in looser policy.”

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Analysis: White House dominance of pandemic message might feed political divides - CNN

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Just as former President Donald Trump owned the first year of the pandemic, Biden owns the second year. And while it's important to have the White House and President out front in a national emergency of this magnitude, it's likely the near total White House domination of the response is widening the unhelpful political divides that are making it harder than it needs to be to fight coronavirus.
The briefings are the most evident example.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, give brief comments about the latest statistics, predict where the pandemic is heading, and discuss a piece of research or two that help explain the latest understanding of Covid-19.
Overseeing all of it is White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients. It's a White House sponsored event, coordinated by White House staff, and attended by political reporters as well as specialist health reporters.
Although the briefings follow the science -- as President Joe Biden pledged when he took office in January -- they are short and include frequent references to the federal government's involvement. They are deeply branded with the White House stamp.
This past week was an exception - to a degree. On Thursday, Biden spoke alone about the government's new push for vaccine and mask requirement.
On Tuesday, Walensky released new guidance about masks -- saying even fully vaccinated people should wear masks indoors if they are in areas with significant or high levels of coronavirus transmission. She cited the science as backing the CDC decision and didn't mention politics.
And she briefed alone, in a CDC-organized teleconference. It was the first CDC briefing that did not originate from the White House since April 23, when the CDC and US Food and Drug Administration held a joint briefing on vaccines.
But by the time she spoke, the White House had already upstaged her, leaking news of the updated guidance hours before the briefing. White House officials made it clear they had taken part, if not in the actual decision to change the guidance, at least on deciding how and when to announce it.
It's a deliberate and understandable move. The White House wants to be seen as leading an "all-of-government response."
"It was never not political," said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
Biden himself, and political appointees, are front and center. And under most circumstances, it might even be desirable to see a president flanked by science and medical advisers, leading the country through a pandemic.
But in 2021, it's an approach that may be helping feed the deep political divisions that have characterized this pandemic like no other event in living memory.
The pandemic has worsened the sense that there are two Americas -- one in which people trust what science and the federal government is telling them, and another in which people subscribe to "alternative facts" and reject anything that might come from the Biden administration.
There's little opportunity for people to accept the science without accepting that it's what the administration wants, too. There's no "out" for conservatives to accept the science without also accepting direction from people they see as liberals bent on ruining the country.

When supporting Trump means rejecting vaccines

Thus, the same people who supported Trump are often turning their noses up at vaccines, refusing to wear masks and piling into parties, crowding into restaurants and sitting shoulder to shoulder at sporting events.
"As you have probably seen, the vaccination rates track very closely with the 2020 election results," said Brendan Nyhan, a professor of government at Dartmouth College who specializes in political communication.
And, with the exception of California, states where infections are increasing the most are all states where most voters supported Trump, including Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Missouri.
"What we are seeing playing out now with the surges and the checkerboard vaccination rates between the states has been going on from the very beginning," said Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown Law School.
"Whether it was ventilation or PPE or lockdowns, it's all been highly politicized. And after two years, I don't see that changing."
The Biden administration is reaching out to the vaccine-resistant states, and encouraging Republican elected officials to speak in favor of vaccines, with mixed results. The federal government is also spending money on local pandemic communications and vaccination campaigns that make use of trusted local leaders in churches and community groups.
And it's letting the scientists talk -- but mostly from the White House platform. This gives a national boost to what the CDC director or Surgeon General is saying, but it can also taint how their advice is viewed.
"Under Trump there was a widespread sense -- somewhat justified -- that he was forcing the CDC and FDA to do his bidding. Under Biden there is a widespread sense -- also somewhat justified -- that he doesn't have to force them; they want to do his bidding," said risk communications expert Peter Sandman.
Biden goes to great lengths to deny this.
"I do not tell any scientists what they should do. I do not interfere," Biden said during a CNN town hall last week.
And there doesn't seem to be much White House interference in the wording of CDC guidance, for example -- in sharp contrast to what happened under the Trump administration. But that's a low bar to beat.

Following the science - but does science follow policy?

"It is indisputably true that President Biden listens to his agency heads and other expert advisers more than President Trump did. But it also seems to be true that the agencies are marching to the presidential drumbeat voluntarily under Biden at least as much as they marched to Trump's drumbeat because they had no choice," Sandman said.
"And like Trump, Biden prefers making pandemic-related announcements from the White House, with his agency heads and pandemic advisers in supporting rules, whether mute or voluble."
The effect is the people who are holding out against what the White House and federal agencies are asking them to do don't trust that the US Food and Drug Administration isn't colluding with the administration to rush out vaccines that don't work, aren't safe or that might even contain tracking chips. They don't trust that the CDC advice for unvaccinated people to mask up in public or in groups is really in their best interest.
"I would love to see a public health response that's separated as much as possible from the politics of the White House," said Nyhan.
"We need every American to get vaccinated, and if people see Tony Fauci and the head of the CDC as allies of the Biden administration, that could be counterproductive for precisely the people who so far haven't gotten vaccinated."

A polarizing figure

And while many of the mistrustful Americans might be wary of federal agencies anyway, current efforts to keep the administration firmly in the forefront are backfiring.
"The president is an inherently polarizing figure in our politics," Nyhan said.
"They want to take credit for the vaccinations, but the best way to get people vaccinated is to get out of the way and let the public health community take the lead. And hopefully reduce the political temperature. I don't think it's too late," Nyhan added.
"I think of course they are trying to get credit," agreed Gostin. "And the all-of-government response is important. But I think they could have taken credit for allowing CDC to take the lead on the science and the messaging."
During past health emergencies -- whether it was the arrival of H1N1 influenza in 2009 or the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana in 2005 -- the CDC held its own briefings in Atlanta, led mostly by career public health service scientists and doctors who were independent of any administration.
These briefings were lengthy and held several times a week during emergencies. They were meant to convey detailed medical and scientific information and to clear up questions and confusion. They led to well-informed reports in the media. They stopped under Trump when the pandemic started, and the Biden team has not restored them.
"The tradition has always been that Atlanta took the lead and the press briefings were coming out of Atlanta," Gostin said.
"I think that would be a wise thing to happen now. It would re-establish CDC's credibility. It might boost the public's trust in the agency. And it might take the politicization down a notch."
Was Tuesday's CDC briefing on mask guidance a start? Only if the White House doesn't continue to bigfoot them.
That should hold for other agencies, also, said Sandman.
"When the CDC has something new to say in the way of pandemic-related scientific information or science-based advice, it should say it in Atlanta. When the FDA has something new to say about vaccines or medicines to fight the pandemic, it should say it in Silver Spring," Sandman said. FDA is headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Instead, the FDA has been nearly silent about its decision making, with only occasional brief statements from acting director Dr. Janet Woodcock. Other FDA officials are reluctant to speak on the record because the White House has imposed a system of permissions that is ostensibly aimed at making sure the agencies' messages are aligned. But the layers of red tape mean few people want to take the time to get clearance to speak.
CNN sought interviews with CDC, its parent Health and Human Services Department and the White House. None agreed to speak on the record -- perhaps another sign the Biden White House is concerned about keeping tight control over the message.
It's important for Americans to see the White House paying attention and not spreading misinformation as Trump so often did. But there also needs to be space between the politicians and the scientists, said Nuzzo.
"I would love to see CDC be out front and center, even if it means having all the other entities stand behind the director," she said. "I think it's really critical that we continue to assert the credibility of the CDC and the authority of the CDC as the top subject matter experts."
The CDC has not fully explained the controversial surprise decision to say that vaccinated people were safe under almost all circumstances to go mask-free. It's also not reporting data about how many vaccinated people have breakthrough infections caused by the virus -- making it almost impossible to tell people the truth about how well the vaccines work.
Walensky has promised the CDC will publish more -- and did publish a startling study Friday that showed 74% of people infected in a large outbreak in Massachusetts had been fully vaccinated. But the failure to release the information alongside or even ahead of new guidance can create the appearance of cherry-picking only the most favorable data.
With vaccination rates lagging, case and hospitalizations headed upward again, and more people certain to die, the White House will have to act quickly to change these perceptions.
"We only have so many bites of the apple to get people to change their behavior," Nuzzo said.
Nyhan summed it up. "We live in an America where whatever the President touches becomes political, and everyone at every level of government needs to be thinking about how to get the tinge of politics off this vital lifesaving public health measure," he said.

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