other european countries taking that step because of concerns of safety. regulators say there is no indication of any direct link between the vaccine and reports of serious blood clotting after not collation. the european union has launched legal action against the u.k. in a major escalation between both sides. less than three months after brexit was completed they delayed implementing a key part of the deal relating to northern ireland. the move could ultimately lead to financial penalties or tariffs being imposed on the u.k. there has not been a major u.s. federal tax hike since 1993. president biden wants to change that. he will call for higher taxes to pay for a long-term economic recovery program. that would include initiatives or infrastructure, climate, and expansion for poor americans. they will try to repeal some of

the donald trump tax law. global news 24 hours a day on air and on quicktake by bloomberg. powered by more then 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i am karina mitchell. this is bloomberg. ♪ >> it is 1:00 p.m. in new york, 6:00 p.m. in berlin and i am matt miller. welcome to "bloomberg markets." here are the top stories. has the pandemic really created opportunities in distressed real estate? we talked to blackstone real estate top advisor. germany, italy, and france the latest to suspend astrazeneca's covid-19 vaccine. we break down what that means the fight against the virus and

the education economy has changed drastically over the past year. we hear from the ceo of mcgraw-hill about the accelerated shift from publishing to the web. let's get a quick check on what is going on in the markets today. the answer for the most part is not a lot, at least in terms of equity indexes. you can see here the s&p 500 is basically unchanged. the nasdaq rising just a little bit as rates come down. the 10 year still at 160 and bitcoin at just over $56,000. it has lost $4000 since it reached $61,000 on saturday. let's get to that distressed asset discussion. focus on the commercial real estate market. one year since the beginning of the pandemic michael van konynenburg is eastdil secured

president. they are the go to advisor for blackstone real estate. also joining us is senior deals reporter ed hammond. michael, we start with you. you would have thought during the pandemic there would have been a number of distressed opportunities in the real estate sector. certainly now the low hanging fruit would have been gone, but is that in fact what we saw? michael: thank you for having me on. it is great to be with you as well. so far, we have seen limited amounts of distress. we look at our trading volume and we have traded $2.5 billion since i was added on in june. that is about 1%, 2% of our global trading volume. not a lot yet. that compares to the gfc where

we traded $95 billion. we are starting to see pockets of distress. you see it in places like traditional malls. we have $9 billion in default right now. you see the city center businesses or hotels or you have struggles given lack of travel. so far, the action has been in these innovative sectors that are working like life science studios and single-family and limited in the challenging sectors. ed: last time you are on with me in june, one of your observations was you saw this boom in single-family rental markets. a lot of people moving out of the city into the suburbs. is that beginning to cool off as we return to a more normalized economy? people start coming back to work and the allure of the suburbs fades somewhat? michael: it is still surprisingly strong. this migration to the sunbelt we

saw a recurring and this desire to have a bigger place to live, potentially at home office, that space single-family for rent -- i'm surprised it has legs reopening. i believe people will migrate back to the big cities, but we are not seeing that yet in terms of demand. ed: in terms of the availability, look, as you have said before there is going to be a lot of distress, in real estate. what i look out the window, and i am sure it is all over, there is construction going on and it will be there to soak up all the real estate. if the workforce does return, it will be in limited capacity. michael: i think the jury is really out on what that return to work looks like. i think most of us are finding it is very difficult to advance your culture, advance your shared consciousness, and train and mentor your next generation

if you do not have people congregated in a single place. clearly there is going to be sectors that have oversupply that will be more oversupply, but we believe -- particularly around the office space which is the biggest sector in artistry -- you will see more people return to work. one of the surprises from june until now is we would expect to see more distressed office situations. we have not seen any at all so far. matt: is that a result of -- we are looking at a chart here of big transactions in billions, but of course, we have seen the u.s. government inject big money in trillions. massive amounts -- if you put the fed and stimulus together, you are looking at $13 trillion over the last 12 months. how does that affect your outlook for 2021? how does that change your industry? michael: it is interesting.

it is so much different than any other recession we have been through. that massive amount of liquidity in the system looking for a home has continued to keep prices relatively strong in a lot of assets. you see a real rally in the more traditional sectors as we come into the year and have that return to work, that reopening trade picking up. the scale of the money is breathtaking. this last package that came out i think is going to be very bullish for the hospitality business, improve travel, people are going to want to experience retail and go out and shop for clothes. you will see people come back to restaurants, so the scale of the money in the fed and from congress is unprecedented and really has buoyed some of those sectors most challenged. matt: one of the sectors that got hit the hardest was hospitality, hotels, and casinos

had it rough. we talked to hilda perez from jll and she walked us through massive transactions, and yet, the u.s. is vaccinating more than 2 million people per day now. states are opening in full party mode. how quickly do you expect that to bounce back? michael: we are already seeing it in the leisure travel market. the consumer travel market, both flying to resorts and drive to resorts. we are seeing a massive amount of demand and optimism in the demand-side and the capital market side. that sector of the hospitality industry has really accelerated because people believe the consumer is going to have the money and want to get out and travel and spend time with family and friends. we see real tailwinds there. people are going to want to go to conventions in las vegas. they are tired of conventions on zoom and trying to meet people

through zoom. the one place you see the most pressure is that city center, business oriented hotel. that full-service hotel that catered to people traveling during the midweek for business. that is still one of the last ones to recover. ed: i would love to get back to full party mode. [laughter] michael, after the great financial crisis -- i will not call it dumb money -- but naive money was there to soak up the dealmaking. the big sovereign wealth funds were piling into real estate. what is the equivalent this time around? where that money going to come from if we do see that run-up of distress dealmaking? michael: a lot of money has been raised because of the liquidity in the market in hedge funds that are newer, various credit funds waiting for the opportunity to come. for example, we bring out an asset, even a defaulted loan of

$100 million on the hospitality property that is a resort property, so people can see the recovery. even defaulted loans, you are seeing space. it is a huge amount of money that has been raised and i think it is waiting to see when the opportunities hit. it is a significant amount of capital looking for a home. ed: just to wrap before we go onto the international peace, the u.s. has its own problems and opportunities, but europe traditionally has been a more boom and bust real estate market. i'm interested where the opportunities are and particularly in reference to london and brexit. michael: the opportunities in europe are similar to what people are seeing here. it is playing the opportunities and hospitality and betting on when that recovery occurs. i think you are seeing the same things in real demand for

logistics and life science. things like that accelerating as well as built to rent single-family in the u.k. i think the office demand, again, people are migrating because they feel if they are going to bring that workforce back, they want to be in good quality space. the market is hanging in better than people expected, particularly post-brexit. matt: thank you so much for joining us. pleasure to you talking us. michael van konynenburg of eastdil secured and ed hammond, bringing us that guest, thank you very much. coming up, we continue our look at the pandemic. it is march 15, the ides of march. not only is it the 256th anniversary of the assassination of julius caesar,

it is also the one year anniversary of lockdown. we focus on airlines next. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ matt: this is "bloomberg markets ." i am matt miller. it is time for the stock of the hour. united and other airline stocks have made almost the whole way back from the pandemic and the proof may be they have started talking about ending the year long cash burn. ritika gupta joins us. ritika: please see concrete signs there could be a turnaround for the aviation industry and united airlines coming up in a filing today saying it would be positive for

march and be if bookings stay on the current trajectory. that is huge because the united airline was one of the most pessimistic and now it can be one of the most optimistic coming out of the cash flow milestone. investors are liking that because shares are trading at their highest in more than a year. especially after the tsa numbers we got over the weekend. those screening levels the highest in a year. we had over 1.3 million people boarding flights in the u.s. on friday and sunday as well. that is huge. but i will point out still 20% below the numbers we had this time last year. still, pretty encouraging and airlines seem to be getting the biggest benefits from that reopening trade when you compare to the dow jones transportation average and the railroads and trucking index. matt: the tsa -- the best part

for me is going through the security checks. how bad did it get at the bottom? how few people were taking off their shoes for metal detectors at the worst of the pandemic? rikita: it is a stunning recovery. particularly because of how dire it got across the board. airlines, but also when we look at -- we get the board up -- the hotel industry and marriott not doing well. united taking the biggest hit. you can see revenue. the cruise lines getting the worst. when are you going to feel comfortable going on those holidays again? matt: i am so tired of lockdown i would feel comfortable yesterday. [laughter] i have never really been on a

cruise holiday, but i ready to try anything. ritika gupta, thank you. the stock of the hour focused on airlines. i want to get to something that caught my eye. speaking of holidays, there was a news story about the goldman sachs ceo david solomon about his use of the corporate jet. goldman did not used to have a corporate jet. when he was way late and almost missed a meeting at one point, apparently the ceo decided it was time and got a plane that he has flown on seven out of the last seven weeks to exciting destinations in the caribbean. but knowing david solomon those were not really vacations. even if he was kite surfing, or djing, i'm sure the other hours of the day he was working. goldman sachs has been cutting costs and boosting revenue to

the highest level in a decade. if you actually look at the chart of goldman stock versus all of the other big banks in the u.s., david solomon has outperformed every single one of them, save morgan stanley. apparently employees are concerned with the changing culture but shareholders are very happy with the rising returns. still ahead, why the astrazeneca vaccine is causing concern with many suspending its use, including europe's largest economy. we speak to dr. amesh adlja of johns hopkins next. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ matt: this is "bloomberg markets ." i am matt miller. we are going to focus in on fighting the pandemic. it has been a year. it is the ides of march and this is when it kicked in for the western world last year.

vaccines seem to be the answer and some countries, like the united states and u.k., are moving along at a fairly impressive pace. in europe that is not the case and up until today we saw 12 countries suspending the use of astrazeneca's shot. germany, italy, and france have joined that growing cabal. >> the decision, which was taken in accordance with our european policy, to suspend vaccinations with astrazeneca as a precaution. hoping to resume them quickly if the opinion of the ema allows it. matt: joining us is dr. amesh adalja from johns hopkins. i wonder first off, looking at the evidence, should we have concerns about the astrazeneca vet vaccine?

up until now medical professionals have been saying, take whatever vaccine is given to you and don't worry about it. should that be the case for astrazeneca as well? dr. adalja: i do think that should be the case. we are seeing people taking actions out of an abundance of caution with blood clots that occurred postvaccination. when you look at the data it does not appear this is higher than the background rate. we need to study this to make sure that is not the case, but i don't think we should be pausing vaccinations in the midst of a pandemic when it has been given to tens of millions of people successfully. the united kingdom are curbing the pandemic, all of that adds up to this being just association and these pauses are not coming at the best time for europe when they are going back into lockdown in certain countries. the solution is getting more vaccine into people's arms. matt: i feel like we have never

been out of lockdown here in europe's largest economy. we are having real problems still vaccinating the elderly and infirm. our senior politicians have not even gotten the shots and they are in their 60's. why then would a country like germany, which needs vaccines wherever it can get them, suspend the use of the astrazeneca vaccine just because of blood clotting that is similar to the background rate? dr. adalja: it is puzzling to me. because we are in an emergency countries are nervous about what is going to increase vaccine hesitancy or question the safety, because we want high uptake. i can only speculate that is what is motivating them. they want to make sure the population will take the vaccine so they have to go through these steps to make sure there is no

unsafety. we worry about people and concerned about the safety and in that influencing the decision. then maybe one consideration, but we have to explain to the public not everything that happens after a vaccine is caused by the vaccine and there are going to be many spurious associations that have no causal connection. we have to talk to the public and i think they will understand that. matt: it is hard to convince the public when you have major economies shutting down the vaccine. i want the pivot to the u.s. there was a story in "the new york times" about florida. its economy has been open this whole time and yet, although the situation is tragic in the case of deaths, it does not seem that much worse than other states

that have more serious restrictions. how do you see it breaking down after one year? total lockdowns versus countries or states that have had more liberal policies. dr. adalja: what i think is happening is you really cannot just look at estate. look at the mitigation measures and read with the trajectory is going to be. there are many other factors involved and there are some states that probably did better than we thought they would do despite the fact they did not have mask mandates. we do not quite understand whether it was the weather, the protected nursing homes well. this is an important thing we are going have to do at the end of the pandemic is look at the mitigation measures and figure out which ones work and which didn't, which backfired. in general i think blanket rules were not the way to go.

it is going to take time for all the dust to settle to know which states fared the best. but i would say florida did not do as bad as people predicted it would. matt: that is a fair point. "the times" said the governor was quick to protect the senior care homes. thank you for your time. really appreciate it. dr. amesh adalja a johns hopkins coming from the iron city. the johns hopkins school of bloomberg health is supported by michael bloomberg, founder of bloomberg lp and bloomberg philanthropies and this television channel. coming up, president biden's tax overhaul plans. who may get hit by the first major tax hike in nearly 30 years. this is bloomberg. ♪

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cases of covid-19 rose 1.25% sunday. the slowest increase since the beginning. it was the second straight week in which cases had a record low. there were 362,000 new cases last week. two men have been charged with assaulting a capitol police officer after he died fighting off the mob that stormed the capital january 6. they are accused of attacking officer brian sicknick, but they did not charge the man with the death saying circumstances remain uncertain. sicknick returned to his station after the right and collapsed. an attorney for the former minneapolis police officer charged in george floyd's death says he is greatly concerned to the announcement of $27 million in settlement for the family and

makes it impossible for his client to get a fair trial. the defense attorney raise the possibility of renewing his attempt to move derek chauvin's trial to another city. he is charged with murder and manslaughter in the death of floyd. much of china including the capital of beijing was enveloped today and the worst sandstorm in a decade. the storm forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights, skyscrapers appeared to drop from sight. they used to be more common in the springtime, but massive planting of trees and fragile areas has reduced the effects of the storms. global news 24 hours a day on air and on quicktake by bloomberg. powered by more then 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i am karina mitchell. this is bloomberg. ♪

amanda: this is bloomberg markets. matt: i am matt miller. we are joined by audiences and here are the top stories we are following for all of you from around the world. the tax man cometh. we talk about the latest details on president biden's plan for the first major tax hike since 1993. plus, college enrollment drops amid the pandemic. we discuss how the crisis is shaping the future of education with mcgraw-hill's ceo simon allen and $35 billion worth of high-grade debt is expected to be issued this week as nine companies, nine companies, consider bond sales. amanda? amanda: one of those will be a

canadian company, presumably rogers communication's. that has got some stocks moving here, but overall it is a slap picture. that s&p 500 has been about breakeven all day long. it is mixed on the internals. energy and financials are weak, but we are seeing rate sensitives moving higher. tech shares are in positive territory and the 10 year is at the 160. it is a time to be thinking about bringing debt to the market while you can as the ceo of rogers said, capital markets are supportive. when the ducks are quacking, you feed them. that could be with the sense that the fiscal situation, if not the monetary one, may be coming easier. laura davidson is with us now

and a great story about this. there is a sense of inevitability about this, but we can be specific about where president biden might start. laura: biden really campaigned on this idea of raising taxes for those making more than $400,000 per year. this infrastructure bill is where they see the opportunity to do this. they are far away enough that political precautions may not follow in the need to pay for the infrastructure, health care, energy priorities they are trying to push. looking at higher taxes on business and rolling back the trump tax cuts. also looking at new taxes, particularly targeting capital gains to raise a lot of new revenue. matt: i just wanted to illustrate how long ago the clinton tax package was. i found a picture of me with my

mom after the 1993 tax increase. i was leaving the country because i could not stay any longer up to the algonquin provincial park to live for a while. that is how long it has been. do you think americans are ready for tax increases having lived for three decades without it? laura: this is really interesting. in the past 10, 15 years we have seen a shift about how americans think of tax increases. what we have seen is about two thirds of people say wealthy individuals and companies should pay more in taxes. when you look at the things people say it aligns well and it could be a popular thing. that is totally different when you talk about the members of congress. republicans are universally against anything biden is talking about. democrats have tight margins but they will need to stick together to get this through.

amanda: let's talk through that process and timing. governments everywhere are going to have to figure out how to pay the bills they have incurred through covid and the ones they came into it with. how supportive will this congress be? laura: that is the question. the house committees are getting down to work right now in the next weeks putting together plans. there might be some real product moving forward, may add looking to move this through by early fall. september is a target date. it is going to be tricky. matt: did we lose laura? amanda: go ahead, laura. matt: i am losing audio but laura, if you are still with us, rather than raising rates -- which a lot of people feel are

already high enough if people actually pay the rate at which they were taxed -- why not close loopholes and try to keep everybody to his or her fair share? laura: that is the other thing they're looking at. their art so many loopholes -- there aren't simply loopholes, but they look to give more money to the irs for audits. that shows to have a good return on investment. for every dollar you give them, they can get another three or five dollars with that money. but there is a limit. you cannot give them to trillion dollars and expect them to get $10 trillion. matt: i remembered -- amanda: is there a -- matt: sorry, you could get $1.4 trillion if you close loopholes

and larry summers a couple years ago argued you could get close to $1 trillion but more than aoc and elizabeth warren. it seemed like you could get a lot more, amanda, out of the rich who are somehow getting lower rates than they should or corporations who seem to work there rates down. i want to apologize for interrupting and the audio issues and thank laura davidson, our bloomberg news tax reporter. someone was saying this morning you could choose m&a, you could choose to cover autos, the banks, and she chose to cover tax policy. god bless her. amanda: god bless her. matt: coming up, the pandemic one year in today on the ides of march. we discuss how covid has reshaped education. how hasn't it reshaped education? we hear next how mcgraw-hill has changed along this accelerated shift from the ceo, and for what

it's worth, an interesting nugget in the u.s. labor data that bloomberg businessweek highlighted. in february 75% of men 25 and older with only a bachelors degree were employed while 73% of men with advanced degrees were employed. more degrees does not necessarily mean more jobs. amanda, what do you think? amanda: i think they call that the law of diminishing returns. if you're trying to decide if you want that phd, is being employed is your goal, it may not add anything extra. it may give you other things. people have to call you doctor. matt: i think that is worth seven years of extra schooling. i guess it depends. [laughter] i probably would take a little longer. this is "bloomberg markets." ♪

♪ matt: this is "bloomberg markets ." i am matt miller with amanda lange. college saw the emergence of covid-19 vaccines not helping kids go back to college. or maybe it is something else. i think a drop of 5% for enrollment for the most fun time they will ever have in life is pretty shocking. amanda: it is although what is telling is that the biggest decline came from international students. it is really difficult for

students at the moment to travel. i think -- it may be another year before you get broad spread enough vaccines it is an easy thing to do. but 16% drop in international students. the question is do they stay away and learn online or do they come back. ? you have got to be there to get the most out of your college experience. i think they come back as soon as they can. matt: you have to be there and you cannot go backpacking through europe right now. i don't think the hostels are even open. what else could you possibly do? i guess you could work as a lift operator at a ski resort? they are open in the u.s. i cannot think many other gap year experiences that are around. let's get to the business of education with simon allen, ceo of mcgraw-hill. simon, it is fair to say last year must've been an absolutely

earthshaking change in the education economy. how did it affect your business? simon: it was an earthshaking change, that is a great way to put it. it affect our business very well because as you imagine most of the emergency -- and it was an emergency -- was for professors and university professors in the k-12 institutions to go fully remote. what we found is we were helping them through the emergency exactly one year ago. that lasted a good long three or four months until we got through to the summer. that spell was manic but very successful, because thankfully i mcgraw-hill, we have great platforms -- thankfully, at mcgraw-hill, we have great platforms.

we were able to transfer everybody very quickly. we worked closely with the online consortium and we then trained faculty and helped them move all the courses online so they could flourish and survive in a hybrid environment. which is where we still are a year later with very much in that hybrid zone with our focus to make sure that we help that transformation happened. amanda: as they say necessity is the mother of invention. the question for your business and educators and parents everywhere is how much of this will be a re-think of how it is done and how much do we snap back to all the ways we have done it for generations? is there a permanent change here? simon: there is, amanda. we are sure of that. what we have discovered, and i think what everyone discovered,

is that once you make a significant transformation, it is the way you study and teach -- you realize this works very well. we have seen a 32% increase in our student activations around the world so far through 2020. we are seeing a 53% growth in occlusive access use across the u.s. when you have that kind of shift in behavior you do not go backward. you stay with what you know works, you get used to what is a very, very good way of learning, and we make sure we put all of our well-known and somewhat traditional textbooks all embedded with the learning management systems on connect. it allows students to do so much more than just read the material with all the interactive exercises, virtual labs that are hugely successful for the life science students.

all of our adaptive programs to help the k12 community understand where institutes have lost and to quickly help them understand how they can make up the gap. that is what we are seeing in droves quite honestly across the world. there is no way that is going away. i am confident this environment will continue. matt: it is a lot more than just kids, you know, schooling from home and people following along university lectures online. what changes do you think are still to come? what innovations have you made at mcgraw-hill that you still need to introduce and have accepted? simon: i think what we have seen in the last year is probably what we would have expected in five years.

the acceleration into our platforms where we are using ai enabled material to make sure that the instructors can understand how the students are learning, they can recognize where there are problems in their education, so it is rather like a personalized learning plan for students of math, business, biology, chemistry, you name it. we can understand and guide the instructor about how these students are performing, where they are going wrong, so it means the time the instructor has with the student is very focused to direct them into where we know success will come. we have seen through using our platforms, we have seen a 20% growth increase in student performance. that is why people love to stay with these platforms. amanda: not a lot of time here. do your margins hold up as you

go digital or is it a different game on the profit side? simon: i would say our margins increased quite honestly. what you are seeing with students, particularly those using inclusive access through the institution of the university level, what we are seeing is these students are buying more of our titles. they are using more of our materials. we are able to offer them, because volume is higher, at a lower price point. that keeps the student happy, it keeps the instructors happy, and with that increased volume and not needing to buy used books they are coming to us directly for the materials because of the extra activities they get at the learning tools they get through the connections. it is a very good picture from a financial perspective for us. amanda: simon allen, great to have that update. simon allen is ceo of mcgraw-hill.

good financial picture for the bond market. up to nine considering bond issues today. we look at the health of that market coming up next. ♪

♪ amanda: i am amanda line with matt miller. rogers communication's looks to link up with shaw communications. if the deal should pass scrutiny will come with a mountain of debt, and rogers will have to raise the cash. the ceo saying capital markets are supportive. in other words we can do it so we will. that makes their leverage ratios a little out of whack for a while, but the market may have faith. matt: read one analyst says a

weaker company would be downgraded to junk by the ratings agencies, but rogers can handle it. i was looking at the product, when i think of cable i wonder, are there still people out there that have over-the-top boxes and subscribe to cable services? but i guess much of the revenue now -- amanda: there are people right here. matt: really? that is amazing. i have not been plugged into a cable box for almost a decade now. but i imagine the revenue has to come from broadband. that is where the growth is. amanda: yes. that's right and wireless. big players and wireless which is a huge part of profitability. one of the big signs of the times though is where we are in the debt cycle. bloomberg had great reporting and up to nine u.s. companies may be looking to raise investment-grade debt.

molly sims is with us. what is the say about the state we are at that you have that number of companies looking to hit up the market? molly: we actually only had this come forward today but nine were looking this morning. it has been really a lot of heavy issues lately as the treasury yields have been rising. a lot of companies are having these calls with bankers in the morning and the sense is that the treasury yields are only going higher for the most part, at least in the near term. that is driving the issues right now. borrowing costs are still relatively low and companies are trying to get in now before it rises further. matt: the forecast at one point 7%. but i had an investor recently tell me the whisper number is closer to 3%. is this kind of a last effort? are we going to see issuance

over the next few weeks for people who do not want to miss the window? molly: i think it has already been playing out. you almost have to wonder how much is more left. you see what they rogers yield today there is clearly more in the pipeline somewhere and we have heard there is a jumbo deal in the works for later this week. telecom has been driving a lot of the issuance lately. we saw verizon last week with a $25 billion deal, the largest of this year, six the biggest of all time. at&t has taken out a similar loan to help it buy refinance with bonds. rogers really just fitting in quite nicely in the bond market, financing this 5g expansion. matt: that is definitely what we are facing when we infrastructure. molly, thank you for joining us. molly smith is the corporate

finance reporter talking about a delusion -- never know if i'm pronouncing that right. is it delugue or del-uge? amanda: del-uge works for me. matt: amanda lank, thank you for spending this half-hour with us. we always appreciate being with you. i am matt miller. ♪

♪ karina: i am karina mitchell with first word news. astrazeneca, or problems over there vaccine.

germany, italy, and france have suspended use of their vaccine. they are joining a dozen or so other countries taking the precautionary step because of concerns over safety. regulators say there is no indication of any direct link between the vaccine and reports of serious blood clotting. the european union has launched legal action against the u.k. a major escalation attention between both sides less than three months after brexit was completed. it follows britain's unilateral decision to delay implementing a deal with ireland. this could lead to trade tariffs being imposed on the u.k. the number of people flying in the u.s. has eclipsed the year ago level for the first time in the pandemic. the transportation security administration says 1.3 million people passed through checkpoints on sunday. the fourth straight day they saw more than one