The team at Neville's Garden Site: Phil Creaser, Karen Roberts, Liz Price, Sue Hand, Kenny Travouillon, Dr Mike Archer, Arthur White, and John Scan

Drought has collided with high demand for soybeans, lifting prices by around $500 a tonne, prompting warnings of a price hike for soymilk, tofu and tempeh.

MORNING BRIEFING: The average petrol price in Sydney is expected to jump to $1.66 by Thursday the highest level in more than a decade while a man dies in a house fire in Sydney's west.

It's not just stockbrokers who are watching the China and US trade war Australia's wool market has fallen to its lowest level in a year-and-a-half due to uncertainty surrounding tariffs.

The dairy industry has welcomed a surprise move, first by Aldi, then Woolworths and Coles, to raise the retail price of their home brand milk.

Despite prices in the overall wool market declining, non-mulesed wool is fetching premium prices due to the demand in Europe by retail brands looking for ethically produced wool.

An Australian record price of $160,000 has been paid for an Angus bull at a stud sale in central-western New South Wales.

Farmers and contractors rush to spend up to $350,000 for hay-baling equipment to make the most of grain crops and strong demand for fodder as the drought rolls on.

The decline in oil prices and the value of investment assets since the start of the coronavirus outbreak will have an adverse impact on the "financial solvency" of the state, Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah said on Saturday. "Kuwait is facing the big and unprecedented challenge of shielding our economy from the external shocks caused by this virus, specifically the decline in oil prices and the value of investments and assets, which will have a negative impact on the financial solvency of the state," the emir was cited by the state news agency KUNA as saying. It wasn't clear if the comment meant that Kuwait could delay the payment of government dues, or whether it was a general statement about the deterioration of the state's finance as a result of the economic impact of the health crisis.

As you might know, Livongo Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:LVGO) just kicked off its latest quarterly results with some very...

It's been a pretty great week for Morphic Holding, Inc. (NASDAQ:MORF) shareholders, with its shares surging 16% to...

It hasn't been the best quarter for MGE Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:MGEE) shareholders, since the share price has fallen 22...

A Colorado legislator has filed an ethics complaint against U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner over a Palm Beach party he attended in February that was hosted by a champagne company.

Looking for TV to watch while stuck at home? Catch Colorado contestants Joe Harrison and Natalie Hathcote on "The Price Is Right" and "Jeopardy!"

Fuel prices in Colorado dropped to an average of $1.85 per gallon, as people cut work commutes, vacations and other travel amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Analysts and industry officials were searching for new adjectives Monday to describe the cataclysmic fall of oil prices into sub-zero territory for the first time ever, prompting analysts to predict the idling of wells and bankruptcies.

Oil’s chaotic collapse deepened, and stocks around the world dropped on Tuesday as markets remain upside down amid the economic carnage caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

These two lovely ladies take the hot seat this week!

See what Queen Bey had to say to the "Juice" singer.

Miss Tina runs the Beyhive.

Plus, he says Malia would hold her own on campus.

You may recall in the early days of the pandemic, that pharma giant Gilead Sciences -- which has been accused of price gouging and (just last year!) charging exorbitant prices on drug breakthroughs developed with US taxpayer funds -- was able to sneak through an orphan works designation for its drug remdesevir for COVID-19 treatment. As we pointed out, everything about this was insane, given that orphan works designations, which give extra monopoly rights to the holders (beyond patent exclusivity), are meant for diseases that don't impact a large population. Gilead used a loophole: since the ceiling for infected people to qualify for orphan drug status is 200,000, Gilead got in its application bright and early, before there were 200,000 confirmed cases (we currently have over 1.3 million). After the story went, er... viral, Gilead agreed to drop the orphan status, realizing the bad publicity it was receiving.

After a brief dalliance with chloroquine, remdesivir has suddenly been back in demand as the new hotness of possible COVID-19 treatments. Still, a close reading of the research might give one pause. There have been multiple conflicting studies, and Gilead's own messaging has been a mess.

On April 23, 2020, news of the study’s failure began to circulate. It seems that the World Health Organization (WHO) had posted a draft report about the trial on their clinical trials database, which indicated that the scientists terminated the study prematurely due to high levels of adverse side effects.

The WHO withdrew the report, and the researchers published their results in The Lancet on April 29, 2020.

The number of people who experienced adverse side effects was roughly similar between those receiving remdesivir and those receiving a placebo. In 18 participants, the researchers stopped the drug treatment due to adverse reactions.

But then...

However, also on April 29, 2020, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) announced that their NIH trial showed that remdesivir treatment led to faster recovery in hospital patients with COVID-19, compared with placebo treatment.

“Preliminary results indicate that patients who received remdesivir had a 31% faster time to recovery than those who received placebo,” according to the press release. “Specifically, the median time to recovery was 11 days for patients treated with remdesivir compared with 15 days for those who received placebo.”

The mortality rate in the remdesivir treatment group was 8%, compared with 11.6% in the placebo group, indicating that the drug could improve a person’s chances of survival. These data were close to achieving statistical significance.

And then...

“In addition, there is another Chinese trial, also stopped because the numbers of new patients with COVID-19 had fallen in China so they were unable to recruit, which has not yet published its data,” Prof. Evans continues. “There are other trials where remdesivir is compared with non-remdesivir treatments currently [being] done and results from some of these should appear soon.”

Gilead also put out its own press release about another clinical trial, which seems more focused on determining the optimal length of remdesivir treatment. Suffice it to say, there's still a lot of conflicting data and no clear information on whether or not remdesevir actually helps.

Still, that hasn't stopped people from trying to figure out just how much Gilead will price gouge going forward:

The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), which assesses effectiveness of drugs to determine appropriate prices, suggested a maximum price of $4,500 per 10-day treatment course based on the preliminary evidence of how much patients benefited in a clinical trial. Consumer advocacy group Public Citizen on Monday said remdesivir should be priced at $1 per day of treatment, since “that is more than the cost of manufacturing at scale with a reasonable profit to Gilead.”

Some Wall Street investors expect Gilead to come in at $4,000 per patient or higher to make a profit above remdesivir’s development cost, which Gilead estimates at about $1 billion.

So... we've got a range of $10 to $4,500 on a treatment that we don't yet know works, and which may or may not save lives. But, given that we're in the midst of a giant debate concerning things like "reopening the economy" -- something that can really only be done if the public is not afraid of dying (or at least becoming deathly ill) -- the value to the overall economy seems much greater than whatever amount Gilead wants to charge. It seems the right thing to do -- again, if it's shown that remdesevir actually helps -- is to just hand over a bunch of money to Gilead, say "thank you very much" and get the drug distributed as widely as possible. Though, again, it should be noted that a decent chunk of the research around remdesevir was not done or paid for by Gilead, but (yet again) via public funds to public universities, which did the necessary research. The idea that it's Gilead that should get to reap massive rewards for that seems sketchy at best. But the absolute worst outcome is one in which Gilead sticks to its standard operating procedure and prices the drug in a way that millions of Americans can't afford it, and it leads to a prolonging/expanding of the pandemic.

We all need to tighten our belts

For the first time in over three decades, BT has suspended its dividend scheme as the former state-owned teleco grapples with the fallout from the novel coronavirus pandemic, and the financial uncertainty that'll inevitably ensue.…

For large electric power storage projects the cost of batteries has plummeted. 2008, when battery prices were 10 times higher than they are today. This advance is timely as photovoltaic electric power prices have dropped so far that in SoCal PV is causing a growing drop in mid-day demand and therefore a much bigger spike in evening demand. Therefore there's a growing need for a cheaper way to store power generated in mid day and deliver it in the evening. You can see how much solar power output surges each day in California by clicking on some of the Daily Renewables Watch links at the Cal ISO site (the organization that manages California's electric grid). The growing supply of wind...

IBM today announced it has reached agreement to resolve the patent lawsuit between IBM and The Priceline Group pending in the United States District Court for Delaware. As part of the confidential settlement, the parties will obtain patent cross-licenses to each company’s worldwide patent portfolio.

He’s standing in the dead middle of the meat section at Price Chopper screaming “HOW CAN THERE NOT BE ANY FUCKING STEAK?”  Someone comes out bearing chicken from behind the steel clad gates of the backroom where they cut meat and stage the cases. “Hey, you got any steak back there?” “Steak? No sir. None.” […]

Unite says BA staff are paying with their jobs

One of my visitors told me that a domain name registrar quoted a "ridiculous price" for a domain he wanted, and asked if there was any way around it. This article answers that question.

Some in Germany have the impression that the country can survive a long-term lockdown without suffering any grave consequences. That thinking is dangerous.

We explored two measures of inequality that described the full income distribution in cities. One measure is an income gini based on family incomes in 1929 for 33 cities and in 1933 for up to 48 cities in 1933 were spread throughout the country. We also estimated gini coefficients that made use of contract rents for renters and implicit rents for home owners for up to 955 cities throughout the country. We were able to expand to all counties when looking at a top-end inequality measure, the number of taxpayers per family. All three measures varied substantially across the country. We show the correlations between the various measures and also estimate the relationship between the measures and various relief programs developed by governments at all levels during the period.

A private island in Islamorada on the Florida Keys is for sale for $17 million. The island is called Terra's Key, after its owner John Terra, and has historical significance dating back to the 1800s.

CUNY students, whose median family income is $40,000 a year, say it’s the worst possible time to face additional expenses.

Humans could physically come together to confront the worst crises the last century offered. Not this one, however, and our isolation has consequences.

New Dodgers pitcher David Price has dealt with circulatory problems in his wrist and carpal tunnel syndrome for years. Surgery gave him back feeling.

The Dodgers beat the Rockies 7-1 on Saturday at Camelback Ranch to improve to 8-6 in Cactus League play.

We drove the 2020 Genesis G90, the latest flagship from Hyundai's luxury arm: It's rich on details and sophisticated systems and discounted on price.

California on Monday sued two gasoline trading firms, alleging they took advantage of a 2015 refinery explosion in Torrance to improperly drive up the price at the pump.

PGA Tour golfer Jeff Sluman has sold his waterfront home in Florida for $3.65 million, the same price he paid for it in 2017.

Here's a look at price-reduced properties that can be bought for $800,000 in Irvine, Anaheim and Aliso Viejo in Orange County.

Lakers superstar Anthony Davis is shooting for about $8 million for his Westlake Village home of two years.

Former Rocket Chris Paul has trimmed the price of his Houston mansion to $7.5 million.

Elon Musk's growth story is looking more like a fable as Tesla Inc. enters survival mode.

Of all the bizarre tweets Elon Musk let loose Friday morning, one stands out because it might violate a fraud-related consent decree he agreed to that's intended to control his social media behavior.

PROPERTY values in the UK don't yet appear to have been impacted by the Covid-19 crisis, although industry leaders are unsure as to how long the current status quo can be maintained. With thousands of residential transactions on hold, it's extremely difficult to gauge the effect the pandemic has had on the property market since lockdown measures were introduced on March 26th.