Bloomberg Businessweek-Europe Edition September 5, 2022

● Worldwide, there have been more than 601.5m Covid-19 infections, 6.5 million people have died, and about 12.6 billion vaccine doses have been administered. In the US, the FDA authorized two boosters targeting the dominant BA.5 variant of omicron. ● Ukraine has undertaken an offensive in the region around Kherson. The southern city was one of the first to fall to Vladimir Putin’s forces as the war began. Russian tourists, meanwhile, face tougher hurdles to enter the European Union after the bloc agreed to suspend a visa facilitation agreement with Russia. ● Following torrential rain, Pakistan suffered unprecedented flooding that’s forced almost 500,000 people into relief camps. The damage is estimated at more than $10 billion, according to Finance Minister Miftah Ismail. ● Germany agreed to pay relatives of the victims in the 1972…

With a new school year getting under way, public school districts in the US are sounding alarms about a looming teacher shortage. In response, some states have loosened rules to bring more workers, including those who haven’t yet earned a college degree, into the profession. These efforts are worthwhile, but they’re addressing only half the problem. Although reports of a nationwide “exodus” of teachers are exaggerated, acute shortages have persisted for years in certain regions, especially in low-income and rural areas (page 44). District leaders have also reported increased difficulty filling vacancies in math and science, and at the high school level. For the most part, money isn’t the issue: Over the past two years, districts have tapped federal relief funds to ramp up hiring of substitutes and remote-learning instructors who…

▶ The European Central Bank sets interest rates on Sept. 8, following estimates by economists of another major increase to help fight persistently high inflation. ▶ Gastech 2022, on Sept. 5-8 in Milan, is the largest meeting for the natural gas, LNG, and hydrogen industries. It returns as the world clamors to source more of these fuels. ▶ General elections take place in Sweden on Sept. 11. The right-wing opposition has a narrow lead to unseat Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson’s Social Democratic government. ▶ More than 150 UK universities open strike ballots on Sept. 5. Employees are seeking better pay and working conditions and are trying to avoid pension cuts. ▶ Russia holds regional elections on Sept. 11. Vladimir Putin’s firm grip on power, particularly after his attack of Ukraine, means protest votes or…

About 10 minutes after stepping to the podium of the Roosevelt Room on Aug. 24—having already regaled reporters with stories of wearing baseball spikes to his father’s workplace in Newark, Del., and driving a “nice used car” to his high school prom—President Joe Biden got around to the topic at hand. His administration planned to grant student loan forgiveness to more than 40 million Americans, with at least half seeing their debt wiped away. “We’ll provide more breathing room for the middle class so they’re less burdened by student debt,” he said. “And, quite frankly, fix the system itself.” Biden turned to his secretary of education, Miguel Cardona. “When we came in, we both acknowledged [it] was broken, in terms of… ” The president paused, considered whether to delve into…

For the past four decades, Western automakers have enjoyed a welcome lift from Chinese car buyers, who were drawn to the foreign brands’ quality and cachet. That allowed sales in the Asian nation to become a sizable piece of European and US automakers’ revenue and growth plans. But as China’s car buyers quickly shift away from traditional gasoline- and diesel-powered cars and toward electric vehicles, that could be changing. Homegrown auto manufacturers now command the lion’s share of new-energy vehicle (NEV) sales, leaving global giants such as Volkswagen AG and BMW AG at risk of being left behind in the world’s biggest EV market. Domestic automakers accounted for almost 80% of EV sales through the first seven months of 2022, according to data compiled by the China Passenger Car Association (PCA).…

When a drug is recalled because there’s something in it that shouldn’t be, it’s scary but often traceable: Foreign objects such as shards of metal or microorganisms might infiltrate medications through dirty factories or lax manufacturing practices. But recently a more insidious—and difficult to eradicate—form of contamination has surfaced among makers of some of the world’s best-selling pharmaceuticals. They’re called nitrosamines. Rather than poisoning drugs through unsanitary conditions, nitrosamines—a group of organic compounds that animal studies have linked to cancer—stem from chemical interactions that are only now becoming understood and have proven complicated to fully avoid. That complexity could cost Big Pharma big time. A recent report from Morgan Stanley says trial judgments over nitrosamines against the makers of Zantac, including GSK and Sanofi, could reach $45 billion alone. But other…