continues to spread. north carolina republican senator richard burr said conflicting guidance on issues such as boosters and testing have left the public confused on how to best protect themselves. he says he is not questioning the science, but the administration's communication strategies. you as has announced $308 million in new humanitarian assistance to ease the food and health care crisis in afghanistan. it brings the total assistance to the country to nearly $782 million since october of last year. the announcement comes as the united nations warns more than half of afghanistan's nearly 40 million people are facing acute hunger. and a million children could die as the winter sets in. gratis opposition politicians are calling on prime minister johnson to resign. it has to do with an alleged drinks party held at the downing street office while pandemic

restrictions were in place. it is the latest in a string of allegations about rule breaking parties. they are being investigated by a senior civil servant. global news 24 hours a day, on-air, and on bloomberg quicktake, powered by more than this is bloomberg. ♪ matt: it is 1:00 in new york, 6:00 in london, 2:00 in hong kong. i'm matt miller. welcome to bloomberg markets. here are the top stories we are following from around the world. fed chair jay powell has just wrapped up the senate confirmation hearing to be fed chair for a second term. we will bring you full reaction from the event. jamie dimon has a warning for unvaccinated staff.

we will not pay you to work from home. the latest on wall street's return to office. bitcoin at $100,000? why something to offend will not follow through with hiking rates, and how that is a boon for crypto. let's get a quick check on what is going on in the markets. a bit of a rebound on the s&p 500, .4%. yesterday, we breached through 1.80 for the first time since before the pandemic. the dollar index has not moved much as we see rates climbing. right now at 1173. we were closer to 1190 four the highs. nymex screwed up 4%.

expects from jay powell. let's talk about that confirmation testimony on capitol hill. listen to what jay powell had to say. chair powell: we and all other forecasters forecast that we would be seeing lower inflation. the economy no longer needs or wants the highly accommodative policies we have had in place to deal with the pandemic and aftermath. we will be normalizing policy. we will end our asset purchases in march. if we have to raise interest rates more over time, we will. at some point later this year, we will allow the balance sheet to run off. it is time to begin to move away from those emergency pandemic settings to a more normal level. it's a long road to normal from where we are. matt: let's bring in megan

greene, harvard kennedy school fellow. it's been a long time since we heard the fed talk about tightening financial conditions with three tools. they will taper the monetary accommodation they have got, the bond buying program, raise rates if needed, and they will let the balance sheet roll off, reduce their balance sheet. it is all this going to be able to happen with a simultaneously growing economy or will it hurt gdp growth? megan: the idea is to lean against inflation. that should dampen demand. there was not a whole lot new in chair powell's testimony. he said the fed should not have the pedal to the metal anymore, and that is right given the growth outlook we have. although weaker, it supports the idea that the fed doesn't need to be providing as much accommodation as possible. he also highlighted how far the fed has to go from here to normal. that's important to recognize as well. what investors have been surprised by is how aggressive the fed seems to be thinking on the minutes from the december fomc about running the balance sheet down. last time the fed shrank the balance sheet, it went fairly smoothly for the most part. this time around it's a different environment. we have a better outlook, higher inflation. the average weighted maturity on the fed balance sheet is shorter, so the rundown should go faster. the fed has set up a standing repo facility, so there is little chance the fed will shrink reserves, balance sheets too much to cause implications in the repo market, because you have this relief valve. it should go smoothly. matt: has the fed waited too long to get to this point? mohamed el-erian, in an op-ed today, said that they risk a fumble, interception, comparing it to pay football game, where a

team has fallen behind too far, only 2:00 left, and they have to pull off all of their place to make it happen. megan: that depends on what you think with inflation. he thinks we have higher sustained inflation. i am a member of team transitory. the question is how long is transitory? in the beginning of the year, supply chain disruptions should push inflation higher, but as we get into the second half of the year, we face weaker domestic demand than last year, weaker form demand than last year. and some of the structural drivers of lower inflation that we have had over the past 15 years should reinsert themselves, like higher market concentration, technological innovations. those have all been turbocharged by the pandemic. once the pandemic becomes more endemic, some of those trends

should reassert themselves. we will have higher inflation through the year but it should start to abate in the second half. matt: jamie dimon said for the first time in his life there is huge pressure on the u.s. labor market in terms of wages. is that the main concern? megan: the main concern is what is happening with the labor force participation rate. it is much lower than the pandemic. that is often the case after recessions, but there's a question about whether that is a permanent factor or if it too is transitory. i would guess those who retired early are probably not coming back to the labor force. that's about 3 million people based on survey data. what we saw from j.p. morgan data about household bank balances, stimulus measures benefited low income workers, but they burn through their savings much faster than high income workers.

if people are on the sidelines because they don't feel pressure to get a job because they have a financial cushion, they should be burning through that cushion in the next couple of months, in which case they will have to get back into the labor market. that will address some of the labor supply issues we are seeing. it means the labor market may have more slack and we previously thought, which should take some of the upward pressure off of inflation. also if you have wage growth and productivity growth, it needs to be inflationary. we are seeing wage gains, but it doesn't mean prices will go up, if you think we have had productivity growth. there are reasons to think that we have. companies have used the opportunity of the pandemic to invest in technological innovation, automation. matt: what do you think about the argument that inflation is due to supply chain issues, and that the fed cannot really

affect it? megan: that is part of it, supply chain disruptions have been well documented, we have seen factories close in china this year because of the omicron variant. we should see those disruptions carry on a bit longer than they otherwise would have. but in the second half of this year, some of those issues should start to be ironed at as demand wanes, beef up some aspects of the supply chain. that should take some pressure off. matt: new york governor kathy hogle saying we are looking at a plateau with infections but omicron has hit the economy in the short term. last week, and estimate that 5 million people called in sick. do you see that having a serious impact on economic growth in this quarter? megan: in this quarter, absolutely. not only drags on demand, particularly for services, which has been dragging along in this

pandemic, but it also exacerbates the looper supply issues we have. if people can be willing to go out and go to restaurants, go to work, that should address the demand and supply factors that have been driving up inflation, weighing on growth. first-quarter data will not look fantastic, but as soon we get through this, we should be on the other side by the second quarter. matt: thank you for joining us, megan greene from the harvard kennedy school. now to something that caught my eye outside of the fed. covid continues to disrupt airline travel. united is reducing its flight schedule as the airline grapples with about 3000 of its workers currently positive for the virus. this comes after tens of thousands of flight cancellations across the holidays. we have also learned united and

american say that china has blocked some of their flights. regulators have confirmed. it is having a serious international effect as well. wall street confronts vaccine holdouts. we will break down the latest morning from j.p. morgan's jamie dimon who says you will not be paid for working from home this year. this is bloomberg. ♪ ♪

matt: this is bloomberg markets. i'm matt miller. j.p. morgan's jamie dimon issuing a warning to the company's vaccine holdouts, saying if they don't get vaccinated, they will not be

allowed in the office. and if they are not in the office, they will not be paid this year. let's bring engine ali bassett -- in sonali basak. some ultimatums from jamie dimon. >> we knew some of this was already true. if you are not in front of your boss, are you really working? there is a lot of that culture going on on wall street. jamie dimon was early to bring people back, but they fell short of what citi did, saying employees could be terminated if they are not vaccinated. we are seeing banks take a harder line. this is certainly a much harder line from j.p. morgan, but they are not consistent across geographies. they are following local rules and regulations about what needs to be done. matt: jamie dimon also saying he has never seen wages grow this quickly under this much

pressure, in terms of shortness in the labor market. better, though, then he says 50% unemployment. >> probably hiring significantly into next year alongside other banks. i went back and looked up, what is j.p. morgan's median pay? $80,000. there is a wide range of.payment bank of america is $95,000. there is room to bring that figure up even across j.p. morgan when you look at the range of employees it has. matt: j.p. morgan maybe has more international employees. we have to look deeper into those numbers. someone looking deeper into citadel security numbers, on a path to an ipo. >> they may or may not go public, but what we know, the

first outside investors, sequoia and paradigm, well-known crypto investor, founded by a former coinbase founder. citadel securities has been making a bigger push into silicon valley in recent years. they have a lot of ipo mandates, designated market maker on the stock exchange. imagine a future where you are deciding whether to tokenize or go public on the new york stock exchange? if you are citadel securities, you need to think about what market structure in the future looks like. some of these investments could help them do that. matt: some will go public on wall street the traditional way, some will choose acorn offering instead. a lot needs to be done in terms of regulation. what in terms of the value of citadel? dow jones says about $22 billion? sonali: i compared that with

vertu, certainly a large company already, privately held company. but let's see what that means if they go public. citadel is closely held. the idea of them disclosing more financial information beyond their debt investors would be very interesting. this company handles more than a fourth of u.s. equity trading revenue. matt: the relationship with crypto is fascinating. thank you so much, sonali talking about the big stories. antoni trenchev joins us, cofounder of nexo. he says bitcoin will hit $100,000 by the end of june, and he doesn't believe the fed will tighten in the way that the market expects. we will talk to him about that forecast. this is bloomberg. ♪ bloomberg. ♪

matt: this is bloomberg markets. i'm matt miller. bitcoin has certainly seen a lot of volatility since its inception. now it is hitting a crucial point for a technical point, which is crucial for traders. it is known as the death cross. the measure shows up whenever an assets average price over the last 50 days dips below the 200-day moving average. an indication in the technical world that momentum is heading down, and maybe you want to get rid of it. has not occurred for bitcoin. some think it could hit that point later this week. we are not sure how much it matters. a death cross has been hit for bit point on many occasions but continues to come back to levels that many thought were not

possible. joining us now is somebody who is not a skeptic, antoni trenchev, cofounder of nexo. you and i have been talking for years and years about crypto, the market. you have been making predictions that always seem to come true, even if they sound outlandish at the time. i remember you told me 50,000 a few years ago, and it hit that a . now you are saying 100,000. when do you expect to see it? antoni: with bitcoins and predictions, i have a good ally. it is going to 100,000. we will see that level for sure. whether it happened by the end of june, my optimistic scenario, or the end of the year, ultimately it doesn't matter. the more bearish the consensus gets, and this appears to be happening now, the more bullish

i personally get. matt: i spend a lot of time here in new york with a very libertarian crypto crowd at the onset of this whole crypto universe, and they were always bullish bitcoin because the fed was doing quantitative easing, fiat currencies were being printed endlessly, but if we see that turnaround, if we see the fed raise rates, let the balance sheet runoff, isn't that bad for bitcoin? antoni: let's take a step back. tapering, reduction of the balance sheet, these are very harsh words with regard to fed action. i am a contrarian here to most analysts. as soon as the s&p and credit markets correct to the tune of

20%, 30%, we will be back to easing. i don't see the political will for anyone to power through what is necessary, to hike rates consistently and for an extended period. the s&p is down year to date 2.5%. everybody is pointing to the end of the world. i don't see that as a likely scenario. cheap money is here to stay. matt: four times is the latest the market is pricing in four 2022. what do you expect? antoni: i expect them to do one or two hikes, equities, bonds, pension funds will take a hit, and then we will be back to easing in no time. even if they taper, they certainly don't tell us the

amount, just the regularity and frequency of it. i just think the balance sheet is so huge, interest rates are such a vast amounts of money, raising rates ultimately hits the united states the most. matt: i wonder how inflation affects your business. what kind of return can i get if i am lending bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies with you, and how attractive does that look if we are experiencing cpi at 7%? antoni: for you, we would cut a special deal because you are such a crypto proponent, even when there were no such among tv anchors. kidding aside, you can get up to 8% on bitcoin, which will hopefully continue to cover inflation. that is why we have this huge influx. we went to 100 million, now

managing $11 billion at nexo. it just shows the use is out there and we are part of the solution rather than the problem, bringing normality into a space where in the traditional markets you would have to go deep into the junk bonds to cover inflation. matt: in terms of your business, you have over 3 million users, in over 200 jurisdictions. what kind of growth is nexo expecting, how does regulation play into that? antoni: regulation is a huge topic for us. we always welcome clear rules as to what we can and cannot do, how we can structure our businesses. we are happy regulators are taking note of the space, and hopefully something business friendly will come about, especially in the u.s. i don't think any country can afford to stay outside of the

whole cryptocurrency universe, especially with the metaverse slowly emerging. i choose to be optimistic with regard to regulation. we are proactively working with some of the regulators on that to help them build up. matt: thank you for taking the time to talk with us. antoni trenchev, cofounder and partner at nexo, saying bitcoin will hit $100,000 by june, and he doesn't expect the fed to continue its tightening. as soon as we see big dips, the production team runs in again and starts to ease. this is bloomberg. ♪

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>> welcome to the bnn and bloomberg audience. i'm ed ludlow with the first word news. if current transmission rates

continue, have up your population may be infected with omicron in weeks. the official said the fast spreading variant represents a tidal wave sweeping across the region. the who is repeatedly warning against underestimating the omicron strain as mild. the justice department is redoubling its efforts to go up the homegrown extremism. the agency is creating a specialized unit focused on domestic terrorism. the doj says fbi investigations suspected of extremis have more than doubled since the spring of 2020. president biden travels to atlanta today to push for passage of voting rights legislation. senate republicans are bound to block the measure. even some of the president's allies complain he has not done enough to advance it. the bill would prevent states from curbing access to voting.

in chicago, public schools will reopen to students on wednesday. the teachers union leadership accepted a deal with city officials to restart classes in person. schools have been closed since last week when teachers voted to shift to remote learning. they demanded the city impose stricter restrictions against the coronavirus. 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 ed ludlow. this is bloomberg. ♪ jon: i'm jon erlichman. welcome to bloomberg markets. matt: i'm matt miller. here are the top stories from around the world. the s&p 500 rebounding from a five-day slide as chairman powell reassures investors that the fed will tamp down inflation, and they will do it well.

supply chain bottlenecks continue to hinder the economic recovery. we will talk to the starter project 44 as it got some new investors and helps untie these obstacles. the future of mobility. how we could be taking autonomous shuttles to get around the u.s. sooner than we think. we will talk about that and more. jon: just picking up on what you were talking about with the markets, if we continue on this path today, we will put to bed that five-day selloff for stocks. the tone from jay powell is seen as a less hawkish. getting more out in the air in terms of inflation, giving people the confidence to move back into stocks. you can see that evidence in the nasdaq, willingness to buy into technology stocks.

many of them beaten up even though coming off of yesterday. then there are broader stories out there like oil, helping out energy stocks on both sides of the border. talking about the global economic story and recovery, our what it is worth segment today. the world bank coming out with its latest global gdp forecast. they say growth will likely increase 4.1% this year, less than what they were forecasting in june at 4.3%. they cite a number of factors, the covid flareups, diminished policy support, which is the conversation we are having with central bankers, supply chain headaches that are sticking around. these are all seen as obstacles for the recovery. this after last year's expansion. maybe not the roaring 20's ahead

of us. matt: it will be interesting to see if it is the roaring 80's. we have not seen the 10 year, in total return terms, lose as much as last week. jim bianco pointed that out on his twitter account yesterday. we have not seen it lose that much in a week since 1980, when we had big-time inflation. we will be watching closely. jon: definitely. depends on which country we are talking about. we mentioned oil related countries, perhaps better suited for that rebound. let's get more perspective on that rebound, what is happening in the markets. there is some willingness to buy those energy stocks. katie greifeld is with us for more on the mood of the markets. what have you been hearing from people you are talking to? katie: yesterday you saw the

fastest rebound intraday since march 2020, going from a 2.7% drawdown back to unchanged. you are seeing that follow-through today. the nasdaq up about 1.2% at the moment. it helps that you have some soothing words from jerome powell that the fed will control inflation without hindering the job market recovery. we have a big test tomorrow with wednesday's cpi report. i was talking to an analyst yesterday about the rebound we are seeing. he says tech is held hostage to bonds tomorrow. it will take a big miss in the cpi report to see that tech trade get some legs again. it has like today but cannot wait to see what happens tomorrow. matt: in terms of tech stocks we have seen bouncing around, we see real volatility. we have seen this before. faith seems to have been lost,

by the dip comes back, and then we hit new records like we did at the end of last year, beginning of this year. what do investors need to see? katie: there was a great article last week on a terminal that went along the lines of, you are seeing this amazing valley rotation just like last year. it seems every few months you see treasuries selloff, tech that goes back to leading every index higher. in terms of what would make this different, you now have a federal reserve that, at every meeting this year, is expected to be live. tapering well wrap up in march, but when do they actually let it run off? that seems to be the real question for investors in deciding if this time is different, whether we will see that leadership switch off in the stock market. jon: we have been looking to the bond market for some directional

cues, but i know that you look at everything, options market, etf flows. is there anything out there giving you a sense of which weighs the markets could be headed in the days ahead? katie: i would go to the etf flows. the long treasury etf, 20 years plus on treasuries. it has seen some massive outflows. the biggest outflows since march 2020 last week. you are also seeing big outflows from high-yield funds, investment-grade funds. it is across the fixed income landscape. there seems to be some conviction behind the selloff we are seeing in the bond landscape. you are definitely seeing that in the fund flows as well. matt: thanks for joining us, katie greifeld. talking about the rebound we have seen in today's market action. coming up come the likes of tpg, goldman sachs invests into

supply chain visibility startup project 44. we will discuss how the company plans to put the capital to work with the ceo, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

matt: this is bloomberg markets. i'm matt miller. with jon erlichman. project44 is a startup that enables company to track shipments across the supply chain. it has reached a $2.4 billion valuation. it has raised $240 million from an equity group included some really prestigious names. let's bring in the ceo of

project44, jett mccandless, to discuss. in terms of supply chain, how helpful can you be to alleviate the problems that have because the inflation and held that growth over the past couple of years? jett: i think we can be incredibly helpful. seven out of the top 10 retailers use project44. the supply chains are a mess. there are bottlenecks everywhere. they will continue to be bottlenecks, whether from the suez canal, covid, labor shortages. when companies can move from reactive to proactive, it really starts to change the customer experience, starts to change how they manage their inventory, just provide a lot of better internal and external customer. jon: that suez canal example was a great opportunity for your

business, but to matt's point, we look at the supply chain issues, the world bank updating its reality check for the year because of the supply chain. we were just showing the audience some of the big businesses you work with. that includes amazon and others, companies that i would imagine have invested a huge amount of money in tracking around the world. what is it about the technology that you have been building that has attracted some of those high-profile clients? jett: what we have built is the connective tissue. we have connected every truck, train ,boat, barge, any asset that can deliver product. we operate in 170 different countries. every time one customer comes on board, they bring their carrier network, supplier network, makes it that much more valuable for the next customer. when you take all of that over a

billion shipments in a year and apply machine learning and ai, you can come up with some amazing analytics products. predictive etas. the suez canal, we were able to tell the customers which shipments would be impacted. that really helps these companies understand what needs to be put on a plane, what they should reset expectations with their customers. matt: i see all of these modes of transportation. i get excited to watch trucks and trains, big ships and planes, but it has an effect on the climate as well. can companies use your product to be more efficient and cause less damage in terms of the earth? jett: yes, absolutely. sustainability is something that me and my company and our customers are passionate about. 50% of our revenue comes from

europe. we know how much more aggressive they are from a governing standpoint and what we see in the u.s. our customers are asking for alternative shipping routes, transportation providers, emit less carbon. what is the most direct route that they can get the product? definitely a huge opportunity to have a positive impact on the planet. i know that is a reason a lot of the team members come to project44. logistics, about $8 trillion globally, moving about $70 trillion worth of goods. if we can pull out a few percentages of admissions from that -- emissions from that, that has a massive impact on the planet. jon: as you grow, you have been no stranger to acquisitions. i imagine you are thinking about more potentially as you grow around the world. what is the integration process like when you are bringing in new partners, technology, and

what you have learned from that so far? jett: we have made several acquisitions, always looking for the category king. we acquired ocean insights in germany. all category winners in last mile, ocean visibility, or european over the road. we continue to look for category kings, modern tech stacks. we are the largest generation 2 logistics tech company in the world. when we can buy these other network businesses, we can create more value for the customer faster. we will continue to look for those opportunities. jon: appreciate the time today, thank you very much. jett mccandless, the project44 ceo joining us on the supply chain situation. time for our stock of the hour.

shake shack in the spotlight, soaring after saying fourth-quarter results will be king-sized. kriti gupta has been tracking the details. kriti: a pretty positive story when it comes to the restaurant, when many restaurants are struggling with that less foot traffic. shake shack coming out with some pretty strong fourth-quarter earnings, not only showing a beat in revenue but also operating margin, as well, and on top of that,comp sales. i want to get back to the omicron variant in particular. from a stock perspective, you have restaurants, cruise lines, the travel index dropping quite a bit. a lot of this has to do with pricing in the impact of the omicron variant, reversing some of that progress that came for a good chunk of 2021. if you don't have the federal

aid, how can these restaurant chains continue to make a bottom line? let's talk about why shake shack is higher on the day. it has everything to do with comp sales. it came in at 20 8% quarter over quarter. compared to estimates, 17%. in historical context, that is still far less and what you have seen since the first quarter of this year. matt: it is tough to make comps. there were so many shutdowns and lockdowns last year. how does shake shack's fourth quarter compared to 2019? are people comparing to 2019 rather than 2020? kriti: they are. airlines are great example. shake shack is doing a lot better. comp sales up to .2% compared to the quarter, really emphasizing just how good the earnings are. matt: kriti talking about shake shack.

coming up, talking about the future of mobility. we will speak to martin fischer about how we could see autonomous shuttles in the u.s. soon. and i look at the low down on some of the best transmissions in the world. this is bloomberg. ♪

jon: this is bloomberg markets. i'm jon erlichman. with matt miller. with autonomous vehicles being the future of mobility, we could be seeing self-driving shuttles in the u.s. soon. joining us is martin fischer, member of the management board at zf group. certainly some cool things we have already gotten a glimpse of this year courtesy of the ces show in las vegas. talk more about your own company's push into the world of

shuttles. martin: that was one of our major announcements. we are now starting to bring autonomous shuttles to the u.s. it has been a project for us for a little while in europe, and now we feel it is the right time to enter the market here. matt: what kind of timeline are we expecting? will we see autonomous shuttles going to the airport city centers next year or is this like a five-year timeline? martin: somewhere in between is realistic. we are in conversation with some customers. airports, major industries, campuses could be an application. we can also lighten the traffic and city centers. all of that work is beginning with our u.s. partners. in two or three years, it is realistic that we see these vehicles on the road. jon: do you feel, to a certain

extent, because i know a lot of companies are also curious about where all of this goes, that the timing works out because of their interests? martin: it is a big push in the overall markets. for years, major investment has gone into the field of autonomous driving. traditional carmakers are pushing for robo taxis, for instance. at zf, we favored shuttles. we think there is a use case and business case that creates value for the consumer. you mentioned the tech partners, we work with them. microsoft is our cloud partner. when we connect these autonomous shuttles to the cloud and world, that is happening through the microsoft cloud. on the other hand of our ecosystems, we also work with a lot of smaller companies, startups, that bring these channels to the road. matt: i was wondering about the

automakers that you work with. a number of them have their own systems. gm and ford have blue cruise. you can drive 300,000 miles on u.s. highways, hands-off, autonomous driving. i have been in an audi that was autonomous driving about 10 years ago. do you work with these automakers and work with their infrastructure? martin: absolutely. we are all transforming into tech companies. we do work with the oe's as well where we automate commercial vehicles. what you buy today, what you have driven, those are driver systems that we did together with our oem's. when it comes to full autonomy, shuttles or robo taxis, we are also in good exchange with

sensors, components, software. jon: how will you judge the success on this big shuttle push? how does it inform or help your existing business down the road? jon: how does it help to existing business? we are in a tech transformation. the shuttle for us is a lighthouse program where we combine so much of our current technology and the future ones as well. electrically driven, steer and break by wire, and a virtual driver to maneuver. you can see how all of the tech trends are being combined in the shuttle. it will develop step-by-step, answerable our approach. we start with dedicated lanes, and then going into full traffic situations. matt: a quick question about transmissions. you make the world famous pdk for porsche.

no longer making manual transmissions, but what does the future look like when it comes to electric car transmissions? anything cool coming out for zf? martin: we are proud of our heritage, and that comes from years of experience in transmissions. that will continue. in our electric motors, we have one or two speed gearboxes, but as a company, it's important that we transform into electric drivetrains. we will take our force into that new era. jon: a lot to watch for, martin fischer, from zf group. for matt miller, i'm jon erlichman. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> ed ludlow with the first word news. new york governor kathy hochul has some encouraging news about

the covert outbreak in the state. speaking today, she said the omicron covid surge in new york appears to be cresting over the peak as the rate of increases slows. she says covid rates are plateauing. the biden administration is coming under fire today for its pandemic response as the omicron variant continues to spread. speaking at a senate hearing, richard burr says conflict and guidance on issues such as boosters and testing have left the public confused about how to protect themselves. he says he is not questioning the science but the administration's communication strategy. the u.s. senate is set to vote to impose tough new sanctions on the nord stream 2 pipeline. there is broad congressional opposition for the pipeline that stretches from russia to germany.