美国极力控制疫情

本周一算是富有争议的转折点，由于美国挣扎着试图控制住疫情，这场疫情已经波及并致死许多美国人，比地球上任何一个国家都多。联邦政府由于对疫情反应拙劣，和逐渐暴露出的灾难性死亡率的失望，这次政府宣布，起初几百万的疫苗应该用在本土（on its soil）。这种方式从上一届政府开始实施，为之后拜登总统推举最有效的疫苗之一的举措，奠定基础（That approach, begun under the last administration, set the stage for President Joe Biden to advance one of the most successful domestic vaccination efforts in the world.）。但是，这也点燃了不公平感，由于有些国家可以自己生产疫苗，而有些做不到，并使全球对新冠疫情变化更加敏感，而新冠病毒也可能某天规避所有药物，继续肆虐。但是现在，随着美国许多地方的感染和疫苗需求的逐渐下降，白宫方面将其注意力放到了全球。拜登计划今年6月底，将额外的2000万剂疫苗送至全世，包括第一批输送的剂量。 David E. Rovella 报道。

女权、涉及墨西哥政治的交易、拜登表示尽量减少以色列冲突

美国最高法院考虑取消美国女性堕胎的宪法权利，并禁止密西西比关于（几乎）女性发现怀孕后15周之后堕胎的法令。这项举措，标志着法院6名共和党成员所任命的多数党，可能正准备撤回1973年以来、由Roe v Wade主导设立的标志性法案。当年Wade使得堕胎在全国范围内合法。第一个可能的冲突，来自于保守党组织党副Amy Coney Barret上任以来，第一起堕胎案件的争议。

这是华尔街的噩梦，其投资资产可能恶化。“你的在案交易价值数十亿美元，而你却无法变现。”这是高盛完成一宗交易后的感叹，该交易还可能面临被墨西哥主导的陷阱，主要由于标的公司受到墨西哥政客Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador的大力支持。这场交易的争议在于，华尔街认为这家公司欠了国家能源4亿美金，而且会因为2月份德州资金被冻结而变得更糟糕。

拜登说，他将尽量减少以色列与哈马斯（加沙）的暴力冲突，但是白宫却抵制全球对停战协议的呼吁，以色列领导人Benjamin Netanyahu说，他还不会停手。与此同时，哈马斯持续向以色列开火。这场冲突，部分由于巴勒斯坦人被要求离开他们长期居住的家园所触发，已经导致200人死亡，受害者大多数为巴勒斯坦人，据报道有很多小孩。以色列还毁坏了房屋、国际报社，包括美联社和半岛电视台（the Associated Press and AI Jazeera）。土耳其的Tayyip Erdogan证实，被他称为，拜登支持以色列在加沙地区的军事行动，进一步激化了土耳其与美国的紧张感。

加拉塔（The Jala Tower），为加沙地区为全球记者提供住宿的地方，被以色列军方空袭，于5月15日，并轰然倒塌。以色列称，他们已经证实哈马斯在塔内进行许多（后方）操作，现在只是让这件事情公之于众。 照片由记者Mahmud Hams提供。

视频网站Verizon剥离部分资产、美国银行加入区块链信托

一开始是Verizon（视频网站），现在是AT&T。两家通信巨头仅仅宣称，他们放弃了分销渠道和媒体资产。本月上旬，Verizon同意将媒体部门卖给阿波罗全球资产管理公司，价值50亿美金（sell its media division to Apollo Global Management for $5 billion），这项举措将许多20世纪著名公司推向市场，例如AOL或者雅虎。现在，AT&T紧接着打算剥离其媒体业务，并打算将其与Discovery合并。媒体行业假装出的完美持有和分销的共同作用究竟发生了什么变化？上述新闻就是答案。

（借款）条款是可怕的，一笔5000美金、每过几周就要还款的贷款，年利率竟然高达589%。尽管非常流行，向那些美国人要求天文价格的利息似乎合乎常理（charging galactic interest is de rigueur for these U.S. lenders），这些人的利润在疫情期间，一直获得创纪录的利润（who have been raking in record profits while America suffered a public health catastrophe）。

疫情也正在考验加州著名的高房价（The pandemic is also burnishing California’s reputation for costly housing）。美国房价今年4月首次超过80万美元。最新的中位数数字为81.398万美元，自今年早期上涨34%，封城举措大多使得房市回落（个人理解，这里没说清楚，是与其他州比较，还是与其他国家比较，读者需要增加信息判断）。



美国银行加入Paxos 信托（基于区块链形成的资金信托），将交易提到分钟级别，而非天数级别，通过区块链的方式，华尔街最近的信息表示，采用了该公司技术。

本篇新闻来自彭博新闻邮件递送，由李静怡翻译，百度翻译校对（文中划线部分）。

Bloomberg News Original

Monday was arguably a turning point in the U.S. fight to tame the coronavirus, which has infected and killed more Americans than citizens of any other country on the planet. Desperate to right its botched pandemic response and slow a calamitous death toll, the federal government claimed almost all of the first several hundred million vaccine doses produced on its soil. That approach, begun under the last administration, set the stage for President Joe Biden to advance one of the most successful domestic vaccination efforts in the world. But it also fueled inequities between nations that can produce their own shots and those that cannot, and left the world vulnerable to ever-more variants of Covid-19 that could one day circumvent existing drugs. But now, with infections and demand for shots declining in many parts of the U.S., the White House turned its attention outward. Biden plans to send an additional 20 million doses of U.S. vaccines abroad by the end of June, including, for the first time shots that have been authorized for domestic use. Here is the latest on the pandemic. —David E. Rovella

Bloomberg is tracking the progress of coronavirus vaccines while mapping the pandemic globally and across America.

Here are today’s top stories The U.S. Supreme Court will consider gutting the constitutional right of American women to seek an abortion, agreeing to hear Mississippi’s bid to ban the procedure in almost all cases after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The move suggests the court’s six-member Republican-appointed majority could be ready to roll back the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which legalized abortion nationwide. The clash will be its first abortion case since the controversial, last-minute appointment of conservative Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett in the weeks before the 2020 election.

It’s a Wall Street nightmare. You score hundreds of millions of dollars on a trade and you just can’t get paid. That’s what Goldman Sachs faces in a transaction pitting it against Mexico’s dominant power company, one championed by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. At issue: roughly $400 million the Wall Street giant believes it’s owed from a natural-gas trade that went wild when a deadly deep freeze hit Texas in February.

Biden says he wants to de-escalate the violence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, but the White House is resisting global calls for a cease-fire and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu says he’s not done yet. Hamas meanwhile continues to fire rockets into Israel. The conflict, triggered in part by the threatened removal of Palestinians from their longtime homes, has killed more than 200 people, with the victims mostly Palestinians and reportedly including dozens of children. (Israel also destroyed a building housing international journalists, including the Associated Press and Al Jazeera). Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized what he described as Biden’s support for Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip, further straining ties with the U.S.

The Jala Tower, housing international media outlets in Gaza City, was hit by an Israeli air strike on May 15 and then collapsed. Israel says it has evidence Hamas operated inside the tower, but has yet to make it public. Photographer: Mahmud Hams/AFP First Verizon. Now AT&T. Two telecom giants have just called it quits on owning distribution and media assets. Earlier this month, Verizon agreed to sell its media division to Apollo Global Management for $5 billion, a move that kicked a few famous 20th century names (AOL and Yahoo) to the curb. Now, AT&T followed along with a plan to spin off its media business and merge it with Discovery. What happened to the ostensibly perfect synergy of owning and distributing media? This is what happened.

The terms were frightening: A $5,000 loan with payments due every few weeks with annualized rates as high as—wait for it—589%. Despite the pandemic, charging galactic interest is de rigueur for these U.S. lenders, who have been raking in record profits while America suffered a public health catastrophe.

The pandemic is also burnishing California’s reputation for costly housing. Home prices in the state shot past $800,000 for the first time in April. The new median value of $813,980 is up 34% from a year earlier, when lockdowns mostly froze the housing market.

Bank of America joined the network created by Paxos Trust to settle stock trades in minutes rather than days by using blockchain, the latest sign of Wall Street’s growing adoption of the technology.