☕ Good Monday morning. Today's Smart Brevity™ count: 1,186 words ... 4½ minutes.
⚡ Elon Musk is funding a $100 million innovation contest to find effective, economical ways to remove and store carbon dioxide. Go deeper.
☕ Good Monday morning. Today's Smart Brevity™ count: 1,186 words ... 4½ minutes.
⚡ Elon Musk is funding a $100 million innovation contest to find effective, economical ways to remove and store carbon dioxide. Go deeper.
Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios
No matter how hard you squint, or what angle you look at it from, the coronavirus vaccines are a triumph, Axios health care editor Sam Baker writes.
The big picture: The pandemic isn’t over. There are still big threats, and big problems to solve. But for all the things that have gone wrong over the past year, the vaccines themselves have shattered even the most ambitious expectations.
Developing a vaccine takes an average of 10 years — if it works at all. Despite years of well-funded research, there are still no vaccines for HIV or malaria.
Most importantly, all the leading vaccines work extremely well.
The catch: South Africa yesterday halted distribution of the AstraZeneca vaccine because it appeared not to work against the dangerous variant discovered there — which is spreading across the world.
The bottom line: "Once the history of this is written, they are going to be referred to as some of the greatest achievements of science," Zeynep Tufekci, a UNC sociologist with a track record of prescience on the coronavirus, told the N.Y. Times' Ezra Klein (subscription).
Photo: "Axios on HBO"
On "Axios on HBO," Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told me what it was like to be sworn in as the first openly gay U.S. Cabinet member to be confirmed by the Senate — with the oath administered by Vice President Kamala Harris, and his husband, Chasten, holding the Bible:
Her husband, Doug, and Chasten have become good friends. And just think about that sentence — that the vice president's husband is friends with the secretary of transportation's husband. That's not a sentence you could have said very long ago. And it's a reminder of the changes that are underway and a reminder that we've got some work to do as a country ... so that one day that's unremarkable.
On ways that the pandemic has changed transportation forever, Buttigieg said the department will be thinking more about the "micro": "We think trains, planes and automobiles. But what about bikes, scooters — wheelchairs, for that matter? And getting around in a way that's a little closer to home."
🎞️ Also on last night's episode ... Jonathan Swan interviews AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who said it was a mistake for President Biden to cancel the Keystone pipeline, and that it will cost U.S. jobs. See a clip.
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
An estimated 12 million kids still don't have the connections they need for distance learning, Axios' Margaret Harding McGill writes.
Photo: "Axios on HBO"
In an interview with Dion Rabouin on "Axios on HBO," World Bank president David Malpass, a nominee of former President Trump, discusses his surprisingly outspoken stances on global warming and economic inequality:
Tom Brady, during a regular weekly radio appearance on WEEI sports radio in Boston, in September of 2014 — six years and five Super Bowls ago:
When I suck, I’ll retire. But I don’t plan on sucking for a long time.
ACLU National Conference in Washington in 2018. Photo: Paul Morigi/Getty Images
The ACLU will announce today it's embarking on an aggressive racial justice agenda that includes support for a reparations bill, expanding resources into Southern states, and pushing for rural post offices to adopt basic banking services, Axios race and justice reporter Russell Contreras writes.
Vanderbilt University, in the red state of Tennessee, today launches the Project on Unity & American Democracy, seeking to counter America's drift from evidence and reason, toward ideological certitude and reflexive partisanship.
Meacham tells me this matters because Vanderbilt is devoting a lot of resources to making a case — showing, not telling — that evidence and reason have been essential to create just enough unity in America to give us our finest hours.
On Jan. 9, 1985, Secretary of State George Shultz (center) walks with President Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush upon arriving at the White House after two days of arms talks with the Soviet Union in Geneva. Photo: Barry Thumma/AP
In December, when he turned 100, former Secretary of State George P. Shultz — who died Saturday at his home on Stanford's campus — published a WashPost op-ed, "The 10 most important things I’ve learned about trust over my 100 years":
One day, as secretary of state in the Reagan administration, I brought a draft foreign policy speech to the Oval Office for Reagan to review. He read the speech and said, "That’s fine," but then began marking it up. In the margin on one page, he wrote "story." I asked what he meant.
"That’s the most important point," he said. Adding a relevant story will "engage your readers. That way, you’ll appeal not only to their minds but to their emotions." ... A story builds an emotional bond, and emotional bonds build trust.
Real fans amid cardboard fans. Photo: Patrick Smith/Getty Images
Tom Brady dispelled any question about whether he was merely a product of the Patriots or Bill Belichick — and proved that he's the greatest quarterback to ever walk the planet, Axios Sports editor Kendall Baker writes:
Brady, 43, has more Super Bowl wins than any NFL team:
Fun facts: Brady's 19-year span between championships (2001-2020) is a North American major sports record — not far off Jack Nicklaus' golf record of 24 years between majors (1962-1986).
Kendall Baker's hot links:
📬 Thanks for starting your week with us. Please invite your friends to sign up for Axios AM/PM.