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International News

Google, Apple roll out built-in COVID-19 exposure notifications to phones

The new system – called Exposure Notifications Express – will allow public health officials to submit a small configuration file to Apple and Google. The two tech companies will then use the file to set up systems that phone owners can opt in to in order to determine whether they have been near someone who has tested positive for the novel coronavirus

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Uber Vows Better Disclosure of Safety Data on Self-Driving Cars

The National Transportation Safety Board voted in 2019 that the probable cause of the crash was “the failure of the vehicle operator to monitor the environment and the operation of the automated driving system because she was visually distracted throughout her trip by her personal cellphone.”

The board also cited three shortcomings by Uber: the company’s inadequate safety risk assessment procedures; ineffective oversight of vehicle operators; and lack of adequate mechanisms to address complacency by operators as the cars drove themselves.Voluntary Approach

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Climate change bigger economic risk than Pandemic, ECB’s Schnabel says

With climate change posing an even bigger risk, the ECB must keep this issue high on its agenda as it reviews its policy framework, Schnabel told Reuters in an interview.

“Climate change is probably the biggest challenge we are facing, much bigger than the pandemic,” Schnabel said.

“Even though this health shock was entirely unrelated to monetary policy, it nevertheless has huge implications for monetary policy,” she said. “The same is true for climate change and this is why central banks cannot ignore it.”

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Global COVID-19 cases cross 25 million as India sets grim record

The official number of global coronavirus cases is now at least five times the number of severe influenza illnesses recorded annually, according to World Health Organization data.

Around the world, there have been more than 840,000 deaths, considered a lagging indicator given the two-week incubation period of the virus. That has exceeded the upper range of 290,000 to 650,000 annual deaths linked to influenza.

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2020 California wildfires may lead to further spikes in reinsurance rates

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly contributed to a hardening market, and given the current wildfire situation, reinsurers and alternate capital may demand significant rate hikes, which would result in higher reinsurance costs for primary carriers and make the risk-reward tradeoff to underwrite California wildfire risk a much more challenging decision going forward.

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