Axios Closer

September 06, 2023
🐪 Hump day ✅.
Today's newsletter is 681 words, a 2½-minute read.
🔔 The dashboard: The S&P 500 closed down 0.7%.
- Biggest gainer? Dexcom (+6.5%), the maker of continuous glucose monitors, after the company allayed concerns that weight-loss drugs would reduce usage of its devices.
- Biggest decliner? Organon (-5.6%), the pharmaceutical company. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
1 big thing: Bidenomics for the rest of the world
Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
What's worked for us can work for others, is the argument behind President Biden's agenda for this weekend's G20 summit, Hope writes.
Driving the news: Biden will spend three days in India starting Friday for the annual gathering of the world's largest economic powers.
- Atop the White House's list of priorities is bringing Bidenomics to the rest of the world. Namely, helping developing countries invest in infrastructure and climate change projects.
- "We think countries around the world, too, can benefit from a similar type of approach" that the U.S. has taken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a briefing yesterday.
Zoom in: The White House is asking Congress for $3.3 billion in new funding to help expand World Bank financing, as well as authorization to lend to two IMF trust funds.
- Those actions would "support the mobilization of $200 billion of new financing for developing countries" backed by allies, the administration estimates.
Zoom out: Infrastructure investments can tackle global climate goals and economic growth simultaneously.
- But the administration's proposals are also aimed at maintaining "strong global opposition" to Russia's war and creating "a credible alternative" to China's Belt and Road initiative.
- "We believe that just as the United States would benefit from a more stable, more capable set of low- and middle-income countries being able to deal with their own problems with help from the World Bank and the IMF, China would benefit from that too," said Sullivan, noting that China is a shareholder in the World Bank.
What to watch: Biden will travel to Vietnam after the G20 to elevate the country's partnership with the U.S.
2. Charted: Saudi power


Markets and politics are never far apart, Axios' Ben Geman writes.
- Saudi Arabia's extension of oil production cuts until the end of 2023 or longer helps ensure energy prices will become an election 2024 debate.
Catch up fast: The kingdom yesterday said it's keeping the current reduction of 1 million barrels per day in place for another three months, subject to monthly review.
- The news helped push Brent crude prices above $90 per barrel yesterday (see above), their highest since November 2022.
4. Drone deliveries take big step
Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios
The promised future of widespread doorstep drone deliveries took a step closer to reality today.
Driving the news: The FAA has authorized three companies for "beyond visual line-of-sight" (BVLOS) operations, Axios' Joann Muller writes.
The big picture: It's a big step forward in the effort to safely integrate unmanned aircraft systems into the country's existing airspace.
- One of the companies that got the nod from the FAA is UPS Flight Forward, which had applied to operate initially in North Carolina, Florida and Ohio from a remote operations center.
What we're watching: Companies that can replicate the three companies' operations are expected to see quick authorizations, an FAA spokesperson told Joann.
- This is expected to open the door to widespread drone deliveries from companies like Zipline, Wing and FedEx.
5. Duolingo adding music and math
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
After finding success by gamifying the process of learning languages, Duolingo is extending that model to two other areas.
- Starting next month, the app will add hundreds of bite-sized music and math lessons, Axios' Ryan Heath reports.
💭 Ryan's thought bubble: If Duolingo can match the success it's had in the language field, it could disrupt more tutoring business models.
- Music and math tutoring services start from around $20 per hour, but they can cost upward of $100 an hour for in-person individual tutoring.
- Access is also a problem with music education. Around 1 in 10 U.S. students don't have access to music education, according to the first-ever study on the topic by the Arts Education Data Project.
6. What they're saying
"Isn't it all in here?"— What Bob Chapek reportedly asked Bob Iger while holding up a binder of prep material, and declining a conversation, ahead of his first annual meeting as Disney chief. The incident is one of many in CNBC's piece on the chasms between the two men.
Today's newsletter was edited by Pete Gannon and copy edited by Sheryl Miller.
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