"With major elections taking place around the world this year,...
Category:
International News
Latest
SEC stays climate disclosure rule amid legal challenges
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s first-of-its-kind...
Baltimore shipping set to resume by end of April with full capacity by end of May
The Port of Baltimore ranks first in the United States for the...
Drugmakers to hike prices for 2021 as pandemic, political pressure put revenues at risk
President-elect Biden has also vowed to reduce drug costs and to allow Medicare, a U.S. government health insurance program, to negotiate drug prices. He has support from Congressional Democrats to pass such legislation, which the Congressional Budget Office has said could cost the industry more than $300 billion by 2029.
U.S. COVID-19 cases surpass 20 million as deaths mount
A total of 345,000 have died of COVID-19, or one out of every 950 U.S. residents, since the virus first emerged in China late in 2019.
An analysis of Reuters data shows it took 200 days to reach the first 5 million cases, 93 days to go from 5 million cases to 10 million, 31 days from 10 million to 15 million cases and only 25 days to go from 15 million to 20 million cases.
California has the most total cases of any state, with about 2.28 million infections followed by Texas with 1.76 million cases and Florida with 1.32 million cases.
Have to assume pandemic is going to get worse: Fauci
Fauci’s comments on Tuesday came after the US registered a record high 65,000 deaths in the past 28 days, making December the worst month for coronavirus fatalities since the start of the pandemic.
December’s figure, roughly equivalent to over 1.6 Americans lost to the virus every minute, marked a significant surge from that in the entire month of November which registered 36,964 fatalities.
The country’s overall the overall death toll currently stood at 338,544, the highest in the world, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
US court shuts down fraud scheme targeting elderly Americans via India-based call centers
The pop-up messages fraudulently claimed that the consumer’s computer was infected by a virus, purported to run a scan of the consumer’s computer, falsely confirmed the presence of a virus and malware, and then provided a toll-free number to call for assistance.
The Justice Department said that when victims called the toll-free number, they were connected to India-based call centers participating in the fraud scheme.
Call center workers asked victims to give them remote access to their computers and told victims that they detected viruses or other malware on their computers.
Eventually, the call center workers would falsely diagnose non-existent problems and ask victims to pay hundreds of dollars for unnecessary services and software.
Brexit ends Britons’ right to live and work in EU
Under the divorce deal agreed by the two sides on Dec. 24, the roughly 1 million British citizens who are legal residents in the EU will have broadly the same rights as they have now. The same applies to more than 3 million EU citizens living in the U.K.
But British citizens will no longer have the automatic right to live and work in the EU, and vice versa. People who want to cross the border to settle will have to follow immigration rules and face other red tape such as ensuring their qualifications are recognized.
Chinese regulators reviewing Ant Group’s equity investments: Report
Reuters reported in early December that Ant was considering selling its 30% stake in Indian digital payment processor Paytm amid tensions between the two Asian neighbors and a toughening competitive landscape.
Paytm and Ant had at that time said the information was incorrect. Ant referred Reuters to its previous statement while Paytm did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Experts question U.S. Government’s mechanism to handle COVID-19 vaccine injury claims
Unlike the more established federal vaccine court, which decides cases of injury from most childhood vaccines and other common inoculations, the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program was created by a 2005 law specifically to deal with vaccines developed under emergency authorization. The idea was to allow pharmaceutical companies and government entities the freedom to develop and distribute vaccines to meet urgent public health needs without the threat of being overrun with expensive liability lawsuits. Under the program, drug makers can only be sued for “willful misconduct.”
UK insurer sells price comparison unit to Zoopla in $685 million deal
Under the deal, a unit of ZPG Ltd. will acquire Admiral’s Penguin Portals Group, which operates online platforms that help consumers compare the cost of services such as insurance products, mortgages, energy supplies and Internet connections. ZPG, which was bought by U.S. private-equity firm Silver Lake in 2018, will add brands including Confused.com and Rastreator.com to its existing platforms including Zoopla and Uswitch.
UK rolls out Astra/Oxford COVID vaccine after world-first approval
Crucially for countries with relatively basic health infrastructure, the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine can be stored and transported under normal refrigeration, rather than supercooled to -70 degrees Celsius (-94 Fahrenheit).
India is keen to start administering the new shot next month; Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s biggest producer of vaccines, has already made about 50 million doses. Chile is also interested.
California nurse tests Covid positive week after receiving Pfizer vaccine
Christian Ramers, an infectious disease specialist with Family Health Centers of San Diego, told the ABC News affiliate that this scenario was not unexpected.
“We know from the vaccine clinical trials that it’s going to take about 10 to 14 days for you to start to develop protection from the vaccine,” Ramers said.
“That first dose we think gives you somewhere around 50%, and you need that second dose to get up to 95%,” Ramers added.