Economy
The US is ready to pay for broadband like the essential service it is – Quartz
President Biden has compared the need to get internet access to all Americans as essential as delivering electricity to the entire country during the Great Depression. The country’s digital divide—the gap between those who have reliable high-speed internet access and those who do not—is one of the nation’s great inequalities. An estimated one in eight Americans is unable to purchase broadband internet according to BroadbandNow, a group that collects data on internet providers in the US.
US policymakers have earmarked 7% of the $1 trillion infrastructure bill making its way through the Senate for greater broadband access, nearly as much as it’s investing in the nation’s railways. It’s a priority because of the wide-reaching impacts that internet connection has on Americans’ education, employment, and health prospects, something highlighted by remote schooling and telehealth medicine during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Booster shots and a big jump in market value: 3 takeaways from Moderna’s Q2 earnings – Fortune
In December 2018, what was then an eight-year-old biotech named Moderna had a record-setting Nasdaq IPO. It was the biggest public offering in the biopharma space in history, raising more than $600 million for Moderna and valuing it at a mammoth $7.5 billion—all without a single approved drug on the market and a highly experimental mRNA-based tech platform that had legions of skeptics among the investor and life sciences crowd.
Fast-forward to summer 2021 and how quaint those early milestones seem with Moderna’s COVID vaccine slinging its financial fortunes into the stratosphere. The drug maker easily bested Wall Street expectations in the year’s second quarter, according to Moderna’s Q2 2021 earnings report released Thursday, with $4.4 billion in total revenues over the three-month period ended on June 30 versus $67 million over the same period last year. The company also reported net income of $2.8 billion.
Pune: Indian poultry industry seeks GM feed import – The Indian Express
For the first time, India might have to import genetically modified (GM) deoiled soyabean oil cake (DOC) due to the historically high price of soyabean, which threatens to put Indian poultry farmers out of business. With the new crop months away, the feed industry is strongly lobbying for imports.
Since the start of the 2020-21 oil year (October- September), soyabean has been trading well above its government-declared Minimum Support Price (MSP) of Rs 3,880 per quintal. A global shortage due to crop failure in the main producing nations of Brazil and Argentina has propelled an increased demand for the oilseed, which has resulted in the price run.
Environment & Energy
Biden just announced the most significant regulation of carbon emissions in US history – Quartz
The Biden administration announced on Aug. 5 that it will re-instate fuel efficiency standards for cars that were first rolled out by Barack Obama and then rolled back by Donald Trump. Biden also said he will sign an executive order mandating that half of all vehicles sold in the US be electric by 2030, up from just 2% today.
The proposed rules amount to the most significant federal regulation on greenhouse gas emissions in US history, and aim to cut the country’s annual carbon footprint by one-third by 2026. They could also be one of the last nails in the coffin for internal combustion vehicles in the US.
Town burns to ashes in raging Northern California wildfire – AP
Eva Gorman says the little California mountain town of Greenville was a place of community and strong character, where neighbors volunteered to move furniture, colorful baskets of flowers brightened Main Street, and writers, musicians, mechanics and chicken farmers mingled.
Now, it’s ashes.
As hot, bone-dry, gusty weather hit California, the state’s largest current wildfire raged through the Gold Rush-era Sierra Nevada community of about 1,000, incinerating much of the downtown that included wooden buildings more than a century old.
Thousands more flee fires in Greece amid heat wave – New York Post
Thousands of people in Greece fled to safety from a wildfire north of Athens early Friday as firefighters waged an overnight battle to stop the flames from reaching populated areas, electricity installations and historic sites.
Health
Moderna Recommends Covid-19 Vaccine Booster to Protect Against New Variants – Wall Street Journal
Moderna Inc. said Thursday it expects people who received its two-dose Covid-19 vaccine to need a booster shot in the fall to keep strong protection against newer variants of the coronavirus.
The company said its vaccine remains 90% effective against preventing Covid-19 disease for at least six months, but said it sees a decline in antibody levels after six months, especially against newer strains of the coronavirus including the Delta variant. In a Phase 2 study, a third shot of the original formulation showed robust antibody responses against Covid-19 variants of concern, Moderna said.
Why so many Americans are refusing to get vaccinated (Opinion) – TrailSiteNews
Anthony Fauci says he doesn’t understand why so many Americans are refusing to get vaccinated.
Recent news articles have looked at the issue of vaccine hesitancy. A New York Times front page article, Who Are the Unvaccinated in America? There’s No One Answer (Aug 1, 2021), examined why people refuse to be vaccinated. A recent MIT study found that the people who refuse vaccination are among the most well informed people in America.
Today, with so many organizations considering or adopting mandatory vaccination policies and the FDA working to give formal approval to the vaccines before Labor Day, it is now more important than ever that the decision makers creating these invasive policies understand why nearly half of America is against vaccination with the current COVID vaccines and why these policies are extremely dangerous both to their employees and society at large.
We wanted to explain to other Americans (especially those in Congress, the mainstream media, and US government agencies) our reasons for refusing to get vaccinated. Our position is based on facts, scientific evidence, and making reasonable estimates.
