Daily Dozen | Forbes: Supersonic Travel Boom; CDC’s Pandemic Reboot; Harvard’s Helping Hand

TikTok is banning paid political content from influencers ahead of the midterm elections to nip misinformation in the bud. Homes are the least affordable they’ve been in 33 years, igniting recession fears. Americans can’t get clear on whether weed is good or bad for society.

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In The News Today

• Major changes are coming to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Director Rochelle Walensky said after admitting the agency made “pretty dramatic, pretty public mistakes” in its Covid-19 response. The overhauls include plans for hiring more staff to respond to public health emergencies; reevaluating how the CDC’s annual $12 billion budget is spent; and ensuring public messaging is easy to understand.
• The Federal Reserve isn’t likely to ease off of raising interest rates just yet, officials said during the central bank’s latest policy meeting, noting it will “take some time” before changing course on monetary policy. The Fed emphasized that slowing demand—such as via its most recent 75-basis-point interest rate hike—is crucial to ultimately reducing inflation.

Top Take-Aways

Details were slim when ousted WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann announced his forthcoming residential real estate venture Flow earlier this week, but Forbes discovered the company intends to launch a digital wallet that can store crypto.

Harvard Business School will award full need-based tuition and fee scholarships to MBA students with the greatest financial hardship, representing about 10% of the Ivy’s student body. A two-year MBA at the university costs $76,000 each year, and roughly half of students currently receive need-based scholarships averaging $42,000.

TikTok banned influencers from creating paid political content ahead of the midterm elections as part of its larger strategy to fight misinformation as November approaches. The plan comes as major tech platforms including Facebook and Twitter grapple with stamping out the spread of false information, which they’ve been criticized for amplifying during past elections.

The stock market fell on Wednesday, reversing gains seen earlier in the week. The Dow dropped 0.5% and the S&P 500 lost 0.7%, while the Nasdaq took a 1.3% dip. The decrease erased some of the gains from positive Walmart earnings yesterday after its big-box rival Target revealed a groaning mountain of excess inventory contributed to disappointing second quarter results.

Mortgage applications fell 2.3% to the lowest level since the turn of the century, despite falling mortgage rates. Homes are the least affordable they’ve been in 33 years, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The data stokes fears that a cooling housing market will contribute to a recession.

American Airlines will purchase 20 supersonic Overture planes from Boom Supersonic, which is developing the jet to cruise skies at a higher-than-typical 60,000 feet at twice the normal speed. Boom is targeting business travelers, saying passengers could pay up to $5,000 to fly from New York to London in three-and-a-half hours.

Today’s Must-Read

Oil’s New Bible-Thumping, Biden-Bashing Billionaire

Tim Dunn’s CrownRock kept the pedal to the metal throughout the pandemic and doubled its output in time for oil’s spike to $100. Now the new billionaire is pumping his opportunistic windfall into his church and his state—but not his government.

In Case You Missed It

Americans are pretty much divided evenly on whether marijuana has a positive or negative impact on society, though 68% of adults still think cannabis should be legal. Americans also view weed and its effects more positively than alcohol, which 75% of adults say negatively impacts society.

Tips You Can Trust

• Over 70,000 workers have been laid off this year, yet CEOs and other top executives are often immune to the cuts—even when their decisions are the root cause. From temporary furloughs to hiring freezes, here’s what CEOs should do instead of resorting to knee-jerk mass layoffs.
• Something stands out about this year’s annual ranking of the world’s best places to live: not a single U.S. city landed in the top 25. That’s largely due to shortcomings in healthcare access and overall stability, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. In case you’ve got relocation on the brain, see which locales did make the cut, from Vienna to Toronto.

Must-Watch Video

Inside The Next Billion Dollar Startups List 2022

Forbes’ Next Billion Dollar Startups list pegs startups most likely on their way to achieving unicorn status. This year, the average revenue for those on the list was about $24 million, while the ranking included companies from the weed and semiconductor industries for the first time. Here’s a full look inside the making of the 2022 list.

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