aimed at allowing exits to continue beaming the u.s. has evacuated 1200 people from kabul over the last 24 hours. israel's prime minister is urging his predecessor to return . dozens of expensive gifts he received while serving in the nation's top job. the request comes as mr. netanyahu reportedly vacationed on a private island in hawaii owned by larry ellison. matt: it is 1:00 in new york 7:00 p.m. in berlin, and 1:00 , a.m. in hong kong. i'm matt miller. welcome to bloomberg markets.

here are the top stories we are following on the bloomberg and from around the world. we will bring you the latest on the aftermath of hurricane i do as it continues to ravage this out, leaving millions without power, clean water and causing damages that will cost into the billions. we will have the latest read on the health of the real estate market after pending home sales came in below expectations. philip white, president and ceo of sotheby's joins us to discuss. and caribbean -- riveon's road to a billion-dollar valuation. they have not produced a single car for we tell customers yet as the amazon backed automaker targets massive valuations. he s&p 500 on track for a new closing record. if it closes anywhere close to this level, 4533 and some

change, it will be the highest in history although the 53rd record we have seen this year. the euro-dollar. there have been some headlines crossing the terminal about the eu recommending to member states that they impose restrictions on non-essential travel from the u.s.. only a recommendation and each country has to decide on it, has not changed the euro at all. treating at 1.18. goal not moving much, down .4%. this is just about the level where john paulson bought in 10 years ago in a big bet on the precious metal that, for a time, went down quite a bit, but has not provided much of a profit. nymex crew treating up .6%. we will get into stories touching on all of those assets

throughout the program. oil specifically is flipping between gains and losses today. u.s. offshore producers assessing the damage from hurricane ida which slammed into the louisiana coast sunday putting refineries in the region at risk. let's bring in kona haque, head of research at ed&f man. let's talk about this and other commodity movements we see. how has hurricane ida affected your markets? kona: clearly this is one of these events that the markets are affected by. it was downgraded to a lower category, and i think markets are therefore -- right now it is a wait and see mode. the next few hours or days i would say would be a question of how quickly can the refinery -- refineries and capacity come back to resume production.

it is not just oil and oil products but also the agricultural exports, facilities that are also heavily impacted. it is wait and see mode. how quickly can those facilities be back up and running? that is the key now, assessing the damage, seeing how quickly we can get back to normal. matt: looking across the commodities universe, that which could be affected by the storm, where do you see the most price action, in the current contract, do you see it in futures, where does it hit? kona: right now this would be in futures because it is an immediate impact right now. if they assess damage has been more than we expect and therefore capacity will take longer to ramp up, then you could see some futures being impacted, later dated once. for now, this is very much a

spot contract issue. it could even be that, by monday and tuesday, things are back to normal. it really depends on the path of destruction, severity. matt: can you put into context how important this region is when it comes to gas, oils, and ag? kona: for oil, for the u.s., it is the biggest, 12% of refinery capacity. oil in the gulf itself, 95% of the entire region is now shut in. it is absolutely enormous. this is hurricane season, the time of season you see a risk premium being attributed to supply. it comes just after the demand season has finished.

normally by now prices would be trending lower, less demand from the driving season. this is exactly what we are seeing right now. august was a pretty weak month for crude. it is only the last couple of days that things have picked up. the dollar weekend after jackson hole, but this is definitely here for a couple of days. we will see how quickly things move up. for agriculture, we are talking 60% of exports from the united states. this comes at a time when the agricultural markets, whether corn, soybean, sugar, coffee, they are pretty tight. food and commodity prices have been rising quite substantially this year because there is essentially a supply-demand deficit. wheat prices are high. we all know the canadian crop has been suffering from events of drought.

demand from china is strong. there is a lot of demand, so there is a supply-demand deficit. we cannot really afford to lose export capacity. matt: do you see that inflation we are talking about as transitory? there is not much the fed can do to affect the supply demand equation in these markets, but do you see it as a temporary inflation spike? kona: i think it could be a little more than transitory. i know that is quite vague. inflation related to the pandemic, supply-side driver of the inflation, yes, that is temporary. but you have the demand side, crops will take a while to recover. we are talking at least a season before we start to get back up and running. in the meantime, demand for

basic raw materials is very high. post-covid, after a recession, the first demand is for raw materials. these foodstuffs are very important. it is a reality. unfortunately, freight rates are so astronomically high. my understanding is the container shortage, bulk commodity freight is also tied, so it will take a while before shipping rates come down. that will add a layer of price push inflation on top of commodity prices. matt: great to talk to you today. kona haque is the head of research at ed&f man. talking to us about the commodities impact of -- the impact of hurricane ida on commodities. interesting to hear about the inflationary outlook.

let's get something to something that caught my eye. the eu voted to subject the u.s. to fresh restrictions on non-essential travel amid a surge in new coronavirus cases in the u.s. what we know so far -- and it is important to me personally because i am getting married in spain in october. this is simply a recommendation from the european union to its member states. each country can then decide if and when to impose restrictions on u.s. travelers. those restrictions may consist of only requiring proof of vaccination for entry into european union member states. basically, we don't know when these restrictions will hit, we don't know what they will be yet, but right now, chances look pretty good you will still be able to get to spain for my wedding.

so, please, do not cancel your flight. coming up, we will take the temperature of the housing market as pending home sales drop, with the president and ceo of sotheby's. philip white joins us. this is bloomberg. ♪

matt: this is bloomberg markets. i'm matt miller. you was pending home sales unexpectedly fell for a second consecutive month as limited inventory and soaring prices deterred prospective buyers. for more on the health of the real estate are good, we welcome philip white, sotheby's president and ceo. this is one of the most

interesting stories, certainly one of the most interesting asset classes in the market over the past euro or two. how much of an asset classes this? it is not so much about living in a home anymore for americans. philip: that is right. i think about the market and i think about four things, the low interest rates, the great job the fed has done, which has propelled the stock market, and work from home. the third one which you are touching on is, people are viewing residential properties and more of an investment class manner. they have always thought about the price appreciation but they are literally seeing it almost every day. i don't think they want to be left on the sidelines. in this low rate economy, it makes a really compelling -- for them to invest in real estate. matt: i was talking today to

catherine hawkins. she runs vertical income capital fund, trading on the nyse, and they have residential mortgage loans. i thought, is there enough reward for the risk you are taking? in my mind, going through the scenarios of millennials going out to the suburbs and borrowing half $1 million to buy a house. she says a lot of the product that we have is investors who have bought homes to rent out. how much of that is this market? philip: that is certainly a part of it. i hear about people buying houses for rental. i don't hear about them doing it so much as an investment. they are renting them out until they can change their lifestyle enough to move into that property. i am really talking about more of the luxury and, high end of

the market. i am not sure that really impacts this part of the market. they may be renting it out for two or three years while they are able to move their family into that property. matt: so that market is aimed at maybe a lower price point than what you are dealing with at sotheby's international. i love to look at your website, i'm sure a lot of people do, even if we cannot necessarily afford the products we are looking at. what kind of pace are you seeing in that high-end of the market? philip: i have never seen it any stronger than this. we are seeing a resurgence of people moving back into the cities, looking at properties. on our website alone, searchers in san francisco were up 200%. up 173% in manhattan.

we are seeing a resurgence there across the board. los angeles as well. we are not seeing the migration out of new york city, which we did see to some degree last year. we are very excited about that part of the market. matt: this is not about somebody who was working on wall street or had to live in san francisco who decides, i would rather have a big ski chalet, and i can work remotely from there. you are not seeing that kind of exodus anymore? philip: we saw a lot of transactions. that is the work from home, and that spurred a lot of activity. again, what it did, it changed people's timelines. they may have been thinking about buying that property in five or eight years, but they really accelerated it. i think they felt like they

could work from home, they have more flexibility. also, people move to be closer to family when they could work from home. that dynamic has accelerated the real estate market in a significant way. matt: are the buyers you are looking at -- i remember when i bought my first tv, the salesman said by bigger than you think you will want because you will always want something bigger. the same thing when i bought my first house. you want to get the biggest you can get. even if the price doesn't continue to rise, it isn't likely to fall. are you seeing people stretch to buy the bigger house? philip: with this low rate, with the stock market, liquidity in the economy, people are able to buy a bigger house. clearly, with the pandemic, bigger is better. we saw that, and we are selling

bigger properties. ones that have all of the amenities, pools, zoom rooms, kitchen, amenities. those amenity-loaded properties are selling well. matt: what aboutspec builders? are you seeing that, anything close to where we did, 15 years ago? are people going out and buying land, tearing down a home to build a new one to sell? philip: that is happening. driving around, you can see that. i am in the hamptons this week. there were a lot of new builds going on here, almost every day. i see a new lot being cleared. i don't think we will get back

to where we were prerecession where we did $1.2 million in new starts, but even if we can get recorders of the way back there, that would help inventory levels. i think that was one of the points you were trying to make. matt: great talking to you. much appreciated. philip white, sothebys international realty president and ceo, coming to us from the hamptons. our hyperdrive team took a look at rivian automotive. we will discuss what they found as rivian files for an $85 billion ipo. this is bloomberg. ♪

matt: this is bloomberg markets. i'm matt miller. rivian is among the most serious

competitors lining up to take on tesla. the auto company filed for an ipo last week seeking roughly an $85 billion valuation. ed ludlow is back in san francisco. he is digging into rivian. you broke some news on this company last week, and now you have written for hyperdrive with kyle stock on whether or not it is worth $80 billion. you cannot put a price on dreams, can you? ed: without getting into too much history, the easiest comparison is tesla. it took tesla 10 years as a public company to reach a market cap of $80 billion. the year before that, it had delivered almost 370,000 vehicles. in the year that followed a 2020, half a million. by comparison, rivian has delivered zero vehicles.

there are questions about what the valuation is based on. it is the name to back them. when you have that list of institutional investors and amazon and ford, they basically assign credibility from that. matt: we did see working prototypes on shows. this was a company started by an m.i.t. polymath super genius right around the same time elon musk was putting out his roadster. why has this taken 10 years to get a production model out the door? ed: we have written about this and i hear from sources, often, rj is the smartest person in the room. most people accept that.

but what i hear from tesla alumni who now work at rivian, rj takes a much more careful approach. he wants to learn from the lessons that tesla learned in 2018 with the model 3 production. he wants to do things deliberately slowly. they only unveiled a pickup truck in november 2018 at the l.a. autoshow. they have been in stealth mode seven years before that. in the last 12 months, they have definitely been hit by covid, supply chain issues. it has delayed in them numerous times from their initial target. matt: we are still looking to see maybe 100 deliveries next month, as i learned from your piece. i will recommend to our viewers that they go on bloomberg.com/h yperdrive and subscribe. there are a slew of trucks coming out next year, the tesla cyber truck, this rivian, f-150

lightning. there will be a lot of competition. ed: 75 percent of what americans buy are in the light truck category. most interesting is that ford is one of the biggest investors in rivian, yet, it will be a competitor. the f-150 lightning is a like for like, even though rivian says they are targeting adventurous sellers. matt: i will be excited to look at your review, your head to head when you get one of each. ed ludlow there. this is bloomberg. ♪

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mark: i'm mark crumpton with bloomberg first word news. americans may have to put out plans european vacations. european union countries have

voted to reimpose restrictions on non-essential travel from the u.s. amid a surge in new coronavirus cases. the curves had been lifted in june. eu officials say the u.s. have 580 eight new covid-19 cases per 100,000 residents in the past two weeks. that is well above the limit of 75 set out in eu guidelines. as german chancellor angela merkel prepares to leave office, the finance ministers says making the case that he is her rightful heir, and it appears to be working. a distant third weeks ago, the social democrats have moved level with the conservatives and even lead in several polls. if the momentum holds until next month's election, it would mark one of the most remarkable political turnarounds in german history. in china, regulators are cracking down on the gaming industry. miners will be limited to three hours a week of online gaming. the rules are aimed at gaming

excessive indulgence in games and protecting minors physical and mental health. the united nations says north korea may have resumed operations at its plutonium producing reactor in recent months. that could help kim jong-un's regime add to its stockpile needed to make nuclear weapons. the reactor used it turned out enough plutonium each year for one atomic bomb. in recent years, north korea has used uranium enrichment for nuclear warheads. global news 24 hours a day, on-air, and on bloomberg quicktake, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i'm mark crumpton. this is bloomberg. ♪

matt: i'm matt miller. we welcome our bloomberg and bnn bloomberg audiences. here are the top stories we are following for you from around the world. we were bringing the latest on the aftermath of hurricane ida as it continues to ravage the south, leaving millions without power, without clean water, and causing damage that could run into -- will likely run into the tens of billions of dollars. we will also bring you the latest on the virus front as the cdc meets to discuss the fda approval of the pfizer vaccine, and the eu recommends reimpose and travel curbs on u.s. travelers due to the rise in covid cases in america. dr. jonathan javitt, ceo of nrx pharmaceuticals, joins us.

and we will hear from john paulson, best known for his big bet against the u.s. housing market more than a decade ago, about the risks he sees in the markets today and where he would invest $100,000, if he was a young investor starting out. amanda: of course, we have a lot of moving parts today but markets may still be focused on the word from the federal reserve, the withdrawal of stimulus will be gradual, so we are seeing market to pressurize. s&p heading for its wealth all-time high in august. we are looking for zoom after the bell. the stoxx took the market are moving higher today. apple with an almost 2.75% gain. everything but energy and financials is moving higher today for the markets as we see treasuries stay pretty quiet.

that comes at a time of interesting commentary. we know john paulson, as an investor, got a call very right. he spoke to david rubenstein about everything from crypto to spacs. he did get a pretty big call right one time. >> it is quite a bubble but clearly shows elements of a frothy market that is too much liquidity. i would say the spac market is overvalued. people that invest in spacs on general will be a losing proposition. >> what about cryptocurrencies, are you a believer? >> i am not a believer in cryptocurrencies. i would say cryptocurrencies are a bubble. i would describe cryptocurrency as a limited supply of nothing. so, to the extent there is more demand than the limited supply,

the price would go up. but to the extent the demand falls, the price would go down. there is no intrinsic value to the cryptocurrencies, except that there is a limited amount. >> based on what you said, why wouldn't you put a short on cryptocurrencies? maybe you have. you think that is a good short? >> the reason why we shorted subprime in size, it was asymmetrical. limited duration that trades at a 1% spread of treasuries, so you cannot lose more than the spread and duration. it it defaults, you can make the par amount. in crypto, there is unlimited downside. even though i could be right in the long term, in the short term, as is with bitcoin, i could be wiped out on the short side. it is too volatile.

amanda: a lot of attention paid to what big investors have to say about cryptocurrencies. he also had some interesting things to say about housing, playing off of this low rate environment, coming at a time when people are worried about that being a speculative market, maybe not as much as 2007, but a very frothy market. matt: i thought it was fascinating and slightly ironic. this guy made billions betting against a big housing bubble. you cannot understate how huge that trait was. when the big short came out, i expected it to be about john paulson. what a fascinating and incredible group of investors that he gathered around him to make that happen. now, he is talking about 10:1 leverage, investing in an asset

because it was up 20% over the past month. that seems a little ironic. i'm not saying that we are in the housing bubble that we were before. a lot of investment geniuses have been saying for decades, buy a house. if you have only a set amount of money, do that. even john paulson has been saying this for decades. it does make sense, but i also thought it was funny. i'm also not sure how much crypto investors really about a guy who has bought and held gold for 10 years. amanda: something to be said about crypto investors only want to hear good news. that would be another conversation that you may not agree with. matt: the same is probably true for gold bugs as well. amanda: probably right. people get a little dug in to

their positions. i thought it was interesting, he said you are really just buying a supply and demand picture. that is not really true of other crypto's, just bitcoin. but the question was well-made. if you believe that, why not sure it? --short it? a fascinating answer about why it is not easy to bet against. matt: imagine if he had bought it early. the whole interview is fascinating. it is pretty weird to watch john paulson. he is such a huge figure in wall street history. definitely want to watch at tuesday, 9:00 new york time on bloomberg well with david rubenstein. time for our stock of the hour. beijing toughens the rules on schoolkids and gameplaying, now restricting james to just a single hour a day on fridays,

saturdays, sundays, and holidays. dave also and is looking at the effect on chinese tech companies. dave: as you can imagine they are taking a hit. bear in mind, there have been restrictions in place for the last couple of years. they can only play 1.5 hours a days on most days. now you are talking about a bigger cut back. nothing on the weeknights. friday, saturday, sunday, holidays. 8:00 until 9:00 is when all this happens. it is a matter of more restrictions. the idea of even having an anti-addiction system, whatever that is, to keep children from spending too much time playing whatever games they like. this is something that is

clearly having an effect on the companies in this business. netease being down 4%. tencent still gets about 30% of its revenue from gaming. down about 1%. this is an industry that has had challenges this month. you might remember, at one point, and editorial referred to online gaming as spiritual opium. calls for tax breaks to go away for the industry. rules on content so that games would be historically accurate. now the latest in terms of gameplaying. these companies have certainly been through the ringer over the past couple weeks. amanda: in the context of other regulatory crackdowns across the whole space, we had the signal from beijing. is it possible to look at the

various places in the market where this new regulatory effort may well be a chill on stocks? dave: we have seen a whole bunch of u.s. lifted chinese -- listed chinese companies take a hit over the past months. whether you think about alibaba group holding, baidu, a whole lot of other companies, didi global, the ride-hailing service, which became the subject of a data privacy investigation here in the u.s. there are specific industries that have issues. there is a food delivery service that has been in the crosshairs of regulators. you could point to a number of other industries like that. today, again, it is online games and center. matt: dave wilson talking to us

about the aftermath of the latest china regulatory decision. coming up, damage from hurricane ida could cost insurers $15 billion, not to mention the tragic human impact. we will discuss that. this is bloomberg. ♪

president biden: now i am here with my senior advisor and boy who knows louisiana very well. cedric richmond. i will make a brief statement and then go through and tell you what we are doing, and then hear from all of you. i know that you are busy as the double -- devil.

i know you have a lot to manage in your states, but i want to hear from you, we both want to hear from you. we know hurricane ida had the potential to cause massive damage. that is exactly what we saw. we already know there has been at least one confirmed death. that number is likely to grow. we have got one million people in louisiana without power. for a time, ida caused the mississippi river to literally change its direction. some folks are dealing with the storm surge and flash flooding. there are roads that are impassable due to debris, downed power lines. we need people to continue to shelter-in-place if it is safe for them to do so. for those through that have lost their homes, states working with the american red cross have already open 50 shelters in the

affected areas across the gulf coast. we have already begun search and rescue efforts. we are getting folks out there who need assistance. we are doing the best we can. more than 5000 members of the air national guard have been evacuated -- activated from louisiana, mississippi, and texas to support search and recovery efforts. fema has pre-positioned literally millions of meals and liters of water and other resources in the immediate area. we have deployed over 200 generators. they were moved in ahead of time. the administrator and her team at fema is working, getting more of those into the area. we are in close contact with local electric providers to see what they need. they are private providers, we don't control that, but we are doing all we can to minimize the amount of time it takes to get

power back up in the region. we have been working with the electric sector throughout the night and all day today to understand the full extent of the damage. to accelerate the process, i have asked the federal aviation administration to work today with louisiana and mississippi electric companies to authorize the use of surveillance drones to assess ida's damage to energy infrastructure, while ensuring those flights do not disrupt aerial search-and-rescue operations. i have also asked the pentagon and the department of homeland security to immediately make available any satellite imagery that can assist in assessing the damage in your states and cities and parishes. local utilities will soon begin restoration work, including prioritizing getting transmission lines into new orleans, get them back up and

running. a lot of them were taken down. more than 25,000 debris crews and linemen from at least 30 states are rolling into support you. some are pre-positioned and close and are hopefully already underway. but we need to be prepared. we are about as well prepared as we could be for the early stage of this, and there is more to do. we also know a lot of people lost their cell phone service. if there particular cell phone tower is down or damaged. this morning, the federal communications commission has worked with providers to initiate their cooperative framework agreement. this allows customers on one, with one provider to go to another provider if they are down. this allows customers to use roaming access. that means you should be able to get a signal no matter who your

carrier was or is. the main thing i want to make clear, we are providing the help that you need. i have got my senior advisor, cedric richmond, here with me. you all know him, was a congressman from louisiana, second district, for 10 years. he knows the area, the people. he knows how to get things done in government. matt: president biden they're talking with fema about how they are dealing with the aftermath of storm ida, trying to make clear they are doing everything they can, of course, after something like we saw years ago with katrina. a president wants to make clear he is meeting the needs of people in these situations. after that kind of disaster, you don't want that repeated. you can continue to watch

president biden on the bloomberg terminal. live go to watch the president. let's discuss here what that damage means for markets, what it means for insurers. let's bring in senior analyst matthew palazzolo. thanks for joining us. in this kind of situation, there is almost always unspeakable human tragedy. our hearts go out to those that are suffering down in that part of the country right now. let's talk about the financial damage that we are looking at. $10 billion, $20 billion? what kind of press are insurers looking at? matthew: when you have an event like this, what we try to do is triangulate with events that have happened in the past, different hurricanes, see how much of those cost, and try to

put a price tag on something like this. the early numbers are coming out to be about $15 billion, but there are some places that you can only get to with drones and you cannot see how much damage is done there. the damage to energy infrastructure could push that number two $30 billion for insurance companies. amanda: tragically, as we know, this region has dealt with this kind of catastrophe before. give us some context around how much is insured? some of these losses may be uninsurable and may be in the future. how do we price that, the difficulty of restoring economic value? matthew: after hurricane katrina, new orleans put i believe over $10 billion into protection and infrastructure. the region was much better protected now than in 2005. that said, in an event like this, if i say $20 billion insured, the actual economic

damages may be double that. you could see $40 billion in terms of total economic damage. usually half of it is insured. the insured penetration is about average in the state. it would be a normal event, in terms of how much insurance would cover. matt: what happens to pricing here? do insurers raise premiums as soon as something like this happens? not like it is terribly unusual in this area, so what has to be, in some cases, unaffordable to ensure against hurricane damage in these areas. matthew: historically, insurance stocks might rally thinking prices may go up dramatically. in an event like this, it is probably not as much of a dramatic impact. prices have already been going up for commercial insurance, so you will not see a sharp shift. in other parts of the country like california and florida, probably less insurable than

louisiana, with the hurricane risk in florida, wildfire risk in california. louisiana is hanging in there. the protection they have put in have made the state more insurable. amanda: matthew, so good to have you with us. appreciate it. we are, of course, waiting for the cdc. it's debate will continue on the approval of the pfizer vaccine for use, as well as the booster shot that is now being widely debated, may well be implement and globally. joining us now is dr. jonathan javitt, ceo of nrx pharmaceuticals, a company working on covid-19 treatments. thank you for being with us. i want to start with this notion of the booster and whether we are embarking on, in your view,

a long period of recurring shots, vaccines in booster form, as far as the eye can see? dr. javitt: i hope it is not the same vaccine because it has less and less effectiveness as the virus continues to mutate. i got the third shot. while i encourage people to do so, unless we develop vaccines that are able to stay ahead of mutations of this virus, we will be in serious trouble. matt: i know we are pretty deep into it for this kind of question, but i recently read more than half of the atp tour, professional tennis players association, is not vaccinated. i cannot think of why. wealthy, resourceful, well-educated people, would not get the vaccine? can you think of any credible

reasons not to get this vaccine? dr. javitt: i think people, historically, have incorrectly balanced medical risks when it comes to their own health. yes, there are certainly risks to this vaccine. athletes in particular are afraid of myocarditis. but the risk of contracting and dying from covid far out risks anything from the vaccine. amanda: despite the fact that we think the vaccine could be successful, there is resistance, and it is slow to deploy. nrx is working on treatment for covid. can you give us some context around your treatments for covid, and whether that will be the next leg of this? we are increasingly here that covid will be here to stay in some form or another. will we see more emphasis on the treatment of this? dr. javitt: we have two programs underway. one is a treatment that is under

review by fda for emergency use. that is a treatment that will hopefully help people who are already in the icu, who have already developed covid, and who are struggling to survive. no question, no matter how good the vaccines get, the virus will always try to stay ahead of us, and we need something for people who suffer from breakthrough infections. at the same time, we are working on a vaccine in partnership with the government of israel, israel institute of biological research, targeting these covid variants that are bypassing the first generation vaccines. the virus is mutating every day. with each mutation, the vaccines that we all lined up for last year are less and less able to keep up. matt: really appreciate your time. sorry we got cut a little short as president biden came on to

talk about the response to ida. we hope that we can get you back on. dr. jonathan javitt, the ceo of nrx pharmaceuticals talking about the vaccination and treatment for covid-19. for amanda lang, i'm matt miller. this is bloomberg. ♪

mike: the number of americans dying from covid-19 is on the

rise, the highest since march. more than 24,000 deaths, according to data compiled by johns hopkins university and bloomberg. confirmed cases 3.8 million, the highest since january. analysts start assessing the data from one of the most powerful storms to strike louisiana and the gulf coast. wells fargo analysts say it could be as high as $20 billion. another call it a good start. still evacuating people out of afghanistan. a tuesday deadline lose -- looms. the u.n. plans on taking up a