Jan 26, 2017

Report tags Peter Thiel as Trump’s man on antitrust

Venture capitalist Peter Thiel is in charge of the search for officials to be the nation's new competition regulators, according to BuzzFeed News' Will Alden and Hamza Shaban. They cited an earlier report from Global Competition Report in addition to their own sources. They echo two names that have emerged as consensus contenders to chair the FTC:

  • Joshua Wright, a former commissioner who has been involved with Trump's transition and is close to Google. BuzzFeed News reports that his selection is "unlikely."
  • Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, who previously said the FTC should consider reopening a probe into the search giant.

The key question: Will the new permanent FTC chair and the top antitrust official at the Justice Department agree with President Trump, who has called for aggressive antitrust enforcement in some cases?

And then there's this: Thiel actually doesn't have a big problem with a company dominating the competition. "All happy companies are different: Each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem," he wrote in 2014. "All failed companies are the same: They failed to escape competition."

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Rashaan Ayesh
1 hour ago - Politics & Policy

Pelosi, Schumer demand postmaster general reverse USPS cuts ahead of election

Schumer and Pelosi. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sent a letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Thursday calling for the recent Trump appointee to reverse operational changes to the U.S. Postal Service that "threaten the timely delivery of mail" ahead of the 2020 election.

Why it matters: U.S. mail and election infrastructure are facing a test like no other this November, with a record-breaking number of mail-in ballots expected as Americans attempt to vote in the midst of a pandemic.

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Alison Snyder
2 hours ago - Science

CRISPR co-discoverer on the gene editor's pandemic push

Photo illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Photos: Brian Ach/Getty Images for Wired and BSIP/UIG via Getty Images

The coronavirus pandemic is accelerating the development of CRISPR-based tests for detecting disease — and highlighting how gene-editing tools might one day fight pandemics, one of its discoverers, Jennifer Doudna, tells Axios.

Why it matters: Testing shortages and backlogs underscore a need for improved mass testing for COVID-19. Diagnostic tests based on CRISPR — which Doudna and colleagues identified in 2012, ushering in the "CRISPR revolution" in genome editing — are being developed for dengue, Zika and other diseases, but a global pandemic is a proving ground for these tools that hold promise for speed and lower costs.

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Axios
Updated 2 hours ago - Politics & Policy

Coronavirus dashboard

Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios

  1. Global: Total confirmed cases as of 5 p.m. ET: 18,912,947 — Total deaths: 710,318— Total recoveries — 11,403,473 — Map.
  2. U.S.: Total confirmed cases as of 5 p.m. ET: 4,867,916 — Total deaths: 159,841 — Total recoveries: 1,577,851 — Total tests: 58,920,975 — Map.
  3. Politics: Pelosi rips GOP over stimulus negotiations: "Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn" — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine tests positive.
  4. Public health: Majority of Americans say states reopened too quickly — Fauci says task force will examine aerosolized spread.
  5. Business: The health care sector imploded in Q2 — More farmers are declaring bankruptcy — July's jobs report could be an inflection point for the recovery.
  6. Sports: Where college football's biggest conferences stand on playing.
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