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The number of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. hit a grim record, as the nation simultaneously battled the Covid-19 pandemic. A total of 93,331 Americans died of a drug overdose in 2020, and that represents nearly a 30% increase from the year before, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” that she’s hopeful that the spike in drug overdoses will not be lasting. 

“One of the reasons why I’m optimistic … is that one of the factors that contributed to that increase in drug use was the isolation, social distancing, and that does not allow you to provide Narcan, which reverses overdoses,” said Volkow. “That despair that people felt, hopefully, will start to be mitigated.”

Volkow added that people will now be able to rebuild social support systems that existed before the Covid pandemic and that healthcare systems will be able to refocus on providing treatment for opioid abuse disorder. 

The U.S. also recorded the most deaths from opioid overdoses in 2020, and more than 60% of those deaths involved fentanyl. Host Shepard Smith asked Volkow why fentanyl played such a massive role in the drug overdoses. Volkow explained that it had to do with potency and pricing. 

“Fentanyl is a very potent drug, and it’s actually 50 times more potent than heroin, and so you need smaller volumes to produce the same effect,” Volkow said. “So it actually provides a big profit for the illicit drug market, and it’s been used to actually contaminate other drugs, and so when you mix fentanyl with drugs like methamphetamine or cocaine, you make them so much more lethal.”

People are seen aboard Dream Cruises’ World Dream cruise ship docked at Marina Bay Cruise Center in Singapore on July 14, 2021 after it returned to the city-state after a passenger tested positive for the Covid-19 coronavirus.

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Nearly 3,000 passengers and crew left a Dream Cruises ship on Wednesday after being locked in their cabins when a passenger tested positive for Covid-19.

All passengers and crew on board the three-day World Dream “Cruise to Nowhere” in Singapore had to isolate themselves in their cabins, with only the most important crew members being allowed to move around on the ship.

The guest had performed a rapid antigen test before boarding the cruise and it came back negative, but contact tracing found the guest was in close contact with a confirmed Covid-19 case. The guest was then immediately isolated and tested positive for the virus on Tuesday, Dream Cruises, owned by Genting Cruise Line, said in a statement.

According to a report by Reuters, other guests on the ship were confined to their rooms at 1 a.m. local time. The travelers began to leave the ship around 8:30 p.m.

The guest’s travel companions have all tested negative for the virus and, along with those who came into contact with the guest, will disembark from a route separate from other passengers. The passenger who tested positive disembarked hours before other guests and the crew.

Contact tracing was carried out by tracking guests’ wearable devices, key cards and CCTV footage.

All other guests must fill out contactless self-check-out forms before leaving their room and perform a rapid antigen test at Marina Bay Cruise Center Singapore upon disembarkation, the company said.

Dream Cruises said guests must remain in their staterooms until the crew instructs them to disembark.

There were 1,646 passengers and 1,249 crew members on board the ship, said Dream Cruises.

The shipping company also canceled a two-day World Dream cruise that was scheduled for Wednesday.

This is the first positive Covid-19 test by the cruise line since the resumption of departures from Singapore in November 2020. World Dream had 103 departures with over 130,000 guests as of July 11.

In December, almost 1,700 passengers on a Royal Caribbean Quantum of the Seas ship had to isolate more than 16 hours in their cabins due to a suspected Covid case.

Vermont State Police released this photo of the 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EV that caught fire in the driveway of State Representative Timothy Briglin, a Democrat, on July 1, 2021.

Vermont State Police

General Motors is instructing 2017-2019 Bolt electric vehicle owners who were part of a recent recall not to park their vehicles indoors or to charge them overnight unattended after two of the vehicles caught fire.

The two Bolt electric vehicles were repaired as part of a recall of nearly 69,000 of the vehicles marked for fire hazard. The recall was originally announced in November by GM and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

One of the fires occurred while the vehicle was being charged at a Vermont state legislature’s home earlier this month. The other fire occurred in New Jersey, a GM spokesman said, adding it was briefed earlier this week.

“General Motors was notified of two recent Chevrolet Bolt EV vehicle fires that were resolved as part of the safety recall announced in November 2020,” the company said in a statement it emailed. “Out of the utmost caution, we ask owners of 2017-2019 Chevrolet Bolt EVs who were part of the recall population to park their vehicles outdoors immediately after charging and not to charge their vehicles overnight while we are investigating these incidents.”

According to the automaker, customers who have not yet completed the repair should still go to their dealer for the recall while the investigation continues.

“Safety is a top priority at GM and we are acting as soon as possible to investigate this issue,” said GM.

The NHTSA opened an investigation into three reported fires involving Chevrolet Bolt EVs in October. The automaker is cooperating with the Federal Vehicle Safety Office, said a spokesman.

Another Bolt electric vehicle that caught fire was reported by media reports in May, but not all recall repairs had been made to the vehicle.

GM said it bought back some of the recalled vehicles but declined to say how many. Automakers often buy back recalled vehicles to appease dissatisfied customers and to avoid triggering state lemon laws and litigation.

A passenger plane approaching Hannover Airport flies over a canola field.

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LONDON — The European Union detailed on Wednesday how it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years, with the plan potentially revolutionizing many sectors from air travel to shipping.

The 27-member bloc has vowed to become carbon neutral by 2050 and to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 from 1990 levels.

In a wide-ranging proposal, the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, outlined how that can be achieved.

“The fossil fuel economy has reached its limits. We want to leave the next generation a healthy planet as well as good jobs and growth that does not hurt our nature,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement as the blueprint was released.

The centerpiece

The main policy change is to expand the bloc’s Emissions Trading Scheme. Under the plan, businesses can trade allowances so that the total number of greenhouse gas emissions for installations and aircraft operators stays within a certain cap.

The commission wants to phase out free emission allowances for the aviation industry and to include shipping for the first time. Separately, the executive arm of the EU also wants a new emissions trading system for fuel distribution for road transport and buildings.

The autos sector is one of the hardest hit by the new rules, with the commission proposing a de facto ban on diesel and gasoline cars by 2035.

A senior EU official, who did not want to be named due to the sensitivity of the talks, said Wednesday that all new cars and vans would have to be zero-emission vehicles by 2035.

This means that charging points will need to be regularly available on major highways: every 60 kilometers for electric charging and every 150 kilometers for hydrogen refueling.

The same official added that while there will be incentives, these will be discontinued from 2030. “We will be monitoring (this sector) very closely,” the source said.

In addition, the latest plans aim to see EU nations producing 40% of their energy needs via renewable sources by 2030.

Environmental taxes

The commission wants to introduce a carbon border adjustment mechanism, which can be described as an environmental tax. It’s designed to stop goods made elsewhere, with less stringent emissions rules, then being imported into the EU.

It would force EU businesses to pay a carbon adjustment for importing goods from outside the bloc. The price tag would be the same as EU businesses would have paid if the goods had been produced under the EU’s carbon pricing rules.

The United States had previously raised concerns about Europe’s plan for a carbon border tax. John Kerry, the U.S. top climate envoy, told the FT in March that this border tax has serious implications for economies and trade and described it as a “last resort” tool.

The same senior EU official said Wednesday that the tax would target businesses and not individual countries.

The commission’s idea is to gradually introduce this levy. First, sectors in cement, iron and steel, aluminum, fertilizer and electricity would be following the new rules, and then other sectors would follow.

The commission also said it wants to update rules on the taxation of electricity, motor and aviation fuels and heating — known as the Energy Taxation Directive.

This has been in place since 2003, but the commission believes it is now out of sync with its green agenda.

In a document given to reporters on Wednesday, the commission said the current minimum rates are outdated. It said there is no incentive for cleaner fuels and there is no link between the level of taxation and environmental impact.

This will mean that airlines are likely to be paying more for fuel and could pass on those costs to consumers. The same could be true for households when heating their homes.

Financial support

The commission is aware that all these proposals will have a cost. Vulnerable and energy poor households will be exempt from taxation on heating fuels, and member states will receive funding to invest in energy efficiency.

One of the ideas is to use revenues from the Emissions Trading Scheme so that EU countries can compensate the transition costs to vulnerable citizens.

Implementation

Wednesday’s proposals kick off the discussions within the EU institutions. Getting every EU country and the European Parliament on the same page will take time and tough negotiations.

This is because the commission’s ideas will affect the different EU economies in various different ways. Countries such as Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary are particularly worried as they will have to undertake a massive transformation that will be costly.

In addition, officials will also remember widespread protests in France, which brought the nation to a standstill in late 2018 and early 2019, after French President Emmanuel Macron presented a green tax on fuel.

In this illustration, Oatly Oat Milk can be seen in Chicago, Illinois on May 20, 2021.

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Activist short seller Spruce Point Capital Management has accused Oatly of dubious accounting practices and misleading consumers and investors about its sustainability practices.

The company, which has taken a short position on the oat milk maker, called on Oatly’s board of directors to hire an independent forensic accountant to open an investigation into its claims.

The stock, which fell nearly 3% in pre-trading hours before the news, hit an all-time low of $ 19.84 per share on Wednesday. Shares rebounded slightly, falling just 2% in morning trading.

Oatly was founded in Sweden in the 1990s but only reached the US five years ago. Since then, it has contributed to the surge in demand for oat-based milk substitutes, especially among coffee drinkers, and made its public debut in the U.S. about two months ago. The stock is up 4.5% since it went public, bringing it to a market value of $ 12.5 billion as of Tuesday’s close.

However, the Spruce Point report claims that Oatly misled investors by omitting or manipulating key facts in its prospectus and an investor presentation in June, arguing that the company will never achieve profitability.

“We don’t think any of that is in the narrative right now,” said Ben Axler, Spruce Point’s founder and chief investment officer, in an interview. “We think this is a strong sell and the stock price could be 70% overvalued.”

Axler has previously taken short positions on other consumer goods companies such as Church & Dwight and Boulder Brands. Short sellers borrow stocks and then sell them by betting that the stock will go down. According to S3 Partners, about 1% of Oatly’s float, or the number of stocks available on the market, will be sold short as of Tuesday.

When an Oatly spokesman was reached by CNBC, he had no immediate response to Spruce Point’s allegations.

Accounting allegations

Spruce Point claims that Oatly overstated both its earnings and margins to investors.

The short seller’s report cites the company’s latest investor presentation, which showed estimated U.S. sales of $ 12 million for 2018. The company said that both Nielsen and Swedish Umgas Magazine reported that Oatly’s net sales in the U.S. were only $ 6 million in 2018.

Spruce Point also cited the company’s filings with Companies House, the UK agency that stores information on limited liability companies.

“At Oatly, we have seen periods of wide variation in sales and receivables growth rates,” the report said. “This is a classic sign of potential accounting gimmicks and is often cited as a warning sign for predicting accounting scandals.”

Additionally, Spruce Point claims that Oatly is overvaluing its gross margin. The company does not include outbound shipping and handling costs in its calculations and does not state that its gross profit presentation is inconsistent with that of other food companies. The report claims that Oatly’s gross margin is actually 6.4% lower when logistics and shipping are factored in.

The company also claimed to find anomalies in Oatly’s capital expenditure between its cash flow statement and its balance sheet additions.

Spruce Point argued that the company was not transparent to investors about the key metrics involved in accounting and auditing. For example, Oatly allegedly went through three chartered accountants in six years, a fact that was not disclosed in its filing for publication.

“In our experience, this is highly unusual,” the report says. “… While the rotation of auditors is positive, we think three auditors in six years are excessive given the accounting anomalies we have identified in terms of sales, gross margins, inventories and capital expenditures.”

Oatly’s current auditor is Ernst & Young, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The report found that CFO Christian Hanke’s biography on the company’s investor relations website made no mention of his role as head of financial reporting for Stratus Technologies from 1999 to 2005. During this time, the company had to report its financial results for fiscal 2004 and the first quarter of fiscal 2005. Hanke announced the position on its LinkedIn page.

In addition, Oatly appointed Frances Rathke to chair the Audit Committee. During her tenure as Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer, and Chief Accounting Officer of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, the SEC investigated the company’s accounting practices and forced the company to reissue its financial results. Rathke’s biography on Oatly’s website does not include her previous role as the coffee company’s chief accounting officer. Her LinkedIn page describes her time with the company.

Claims about greenwashing

Oatly has also branded itself to consumers and investors as a more sustainable option than cow’s milk or other dairy-free alternatives. But Spruce Point claims the company gave a misleading impression of its green credentials known as greenwashing and put its global expansion ahead of its mission.

Examples include the company’s June 2021 investor presentation, which uses data based on a 2013 study that was updated three years later. The data does not include the impact of the company’s expansion into Asia or the United States.

Spruce Point also claims that Oatly plucked the data by omitting that its water usage is higher than that of making cow’s milk. The company’s 2019 sustainability report also showed that the New Jersey plant used 55% more water per liter of oat base than its plants in Sweden and the Netherlands.

For several quarters, the New Jersey facility has been violating the environmental protection agency, according to the report. The infringement or infringements are not disclosed on the EPA website

In addition, through a request under the Freedom of Information Act in Millville, New Jersey, the hedge fund received documents showing issues with the facility’s wastewater in 2019, but the company has not yet opened a treatment plant.

“They had very high volumes of wastewater as a by-product, but they have known since 2019 and they are still in the process of dealing with it,” said Axler.

The report also points to Oatly’s transportation as the main source of its environmental impact. According to Spruce Point, the company sources its oats from western Canada and then ships them to its New Jersey facility. For the expansion into Asia, Oatly sources its oats from Sweden.