Here are the headlines you Need2Know for Wednesday, June 9, 2021:
INFRASTRUCTURE TALKS COLLAPSE
President Biden’s infrastructure talks with Republican leaders fell apart Tuesday. After weeks of working toward a deal, both sides dug in on which types of projects should be included, whether to raise any taxes, and the total price tag of the potential bill. Democrats now face pressure to pass a sweeping package with a simple majority in the Senate. Meanwhile, Biden is on his first trip abroad since taking office as he heads to the G7 summit this week. NBC NEWS
COVID-19 LATEST
CRUISE CONTROVERSY: Cruise lines are planning to sail out of Florida this summer-- but the state’s ban on vaccine passports may throw a kink into passengers’ plans. Norwegian Cruise Line says their crew will be fully vaccinated, but they want to ensure that all guests are fully vaccinated. Royal Caribbean’s crews will also be vaxxed, while they “strongly recommend” passengers do the same. NYT
VAX FOR KIDS: Infants may be eligible for vaccines starting in the fall. Pfizer said it will begin testing their vax in infants as young as six months in the coming weeks, while it continues to test kids aged 5 through 12. In March, Moderna began testing varying doses of its vax in young children. Results from both companies’ trials will be ready in the fall. NYT
J&J DOSE EXPIRATION: Health officials in several states are warning that their supply of Johnson & Johnson vaccines could go to waste if they’re not used by their expiration dates at the end of this month. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is pleading with the state’s health department to use about 200K doses of the shots -- all of which expire June 23. Arkansas has over 60K doses that may not be used in time. Ten million J&J doses have been delivered to states, but not yet administered. NYT
ONLINE OUTAGE
Fastly, one of the world’s biggest content-delivery networks, appears ready to start the day strong after it became a household name for all the wrong reasons yesterday. Dozens of websites from The New York Times to Reddit were down Tuesday morning after a brief outage at the cloud computing service. But instead of causing huge headaches for Fastly, its quick action actually rallied investors. The company said in a statement the outage was a technical issue caused by a bug in its software and “not related to a cyber attack.” AP
CAPITOL RIOTS
The family of Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt is suing to force the city of Washington D.C. to hand over records revealing the name of the officer who fatally shot her during the Jan. 6 invasion, CNBC reports. This comes as the Senate released its first bipartisan report about the riots, faulting the acting Capitol Police Chief and other security officials for not sharing social media posts threats with command staff. A late December Capitol Police assessment said there was “no information” about specific threats-- which Senate leaders called a discrepancy and lapse in security planning. POLITICO
JOB OPENINGS BREAK RECORD
Job openings in the U.S. soared to a record breaking 9.3 million total in April-- but positions are not filling rapidly, or at all. Around 48 percent of small businesses said they could not fill open jobs this spring. Companies of all sizes are struggling to fill roles in spite of wage increases and other perks. Meanwhile, a record number of people are actually quitting their jobs-- there were nearly four million resignations in April alone. MARKETWATCH
EL SALVADOR’S NEW CURRENCY
In a supermajority vote, the El Salvadoran legislature officially adopted bitcoin as the central American country’s legal tender. President Nayib Bukele will sign the bill into law sometime today. It mandates that all businesses must accept bitcoin for products, but the government will act as a backstop for companies that aren’t willing to take on financial risk. COINDESK
HOW THE BILLIONAIRES PAY TAXES (OR NOT)
ProPublica obtained IRS information showing how America’s richest people -- Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, and others -- avoid paying taxes. Between 2014 and 2018, the 25 richest Americans paid very little or no income tax whatsoever. As their collective net worth increased by $401 billion, these execs paid $13.6 billion in federal income taxes -- just a fraction of their wealth. PROPUBLICA
2021 OLYMPICS
TRAVEL GUIDELINES: The CDC has revised their Japan travel guidelines, lowering the Olympic host country from the highly-prohibitive Level 4 risk assessment to Level 3. CDC officials say anyone traveling to the games should be fully vaccinated. CNET
YES, THEY’RE STILL HAPPENING (FOR NOW): Despite opposition from Japanese health officials and the public, plus a fourth wave of COVID and slow going vaccine rates, the International Olympic Committee says the 2021 games are taking place. The opening ceremony is a little less than 50 days away, and North Korea is still the only country to withdraw its athletes. ESPN
SPOTTED...
… French President Emmanuel Macron getting a slap in the face -- literally -- as he visited crowds at a meet-and-greet in the south of France. A man reached across the rope line to grab Macron’s hand… and, well, see for yourself: WATCH
… Jessica Alba shared a birthday Instagram celebrating her oldest daughter Honor -- who seems to be a spitting image of the actress and Honest Company founder. SEE IT
LEFTOVERS - CHIPOTLE PRICE HIKE
The cost of a burrito is going up again. Chipotle is raising menu prices by four percent in order to cover the cost of raising its workers’ wages. "We think everybody in the restaurant industry is going to have to pass those costs along to the customer," CFO Jack Hartung said. Chipotle is also dealing with rising ingredient costs, as demand roars back to life. BUSINESS INSIDER
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