Feed aggregator

Another potential coronavirus vaccine is moving along, with especially good news for the elderly.AstraZeneca announced Monday that its COVID-19 vaccine in development with the University of Oxford has produced a similar immune response in both younger and older adults. The vaccine also results in low adverse responses among older people, the pharmaceutical giant said. That's a standout response considering COVID-19 tends to be more severe in older patients.Several dozen coronavirus vaccines are in the works around the globe, with AstraZeneca's one of many undergoing clinical testing. It's unclear when AstraZeneca will publish the results of its large ongoing trial that will help determine its vaccine's safety, but it is expected to be one of the first vaccine candidates to seek regulatory approval, Reuters reports. This vaccine is expected to protect people from the coronavirus for about a year.More stories from theweek.com The very different emotional lives of Trump and Biden voters The 19 greatest and worst presidential campaign ads of the 2020 election The Trump administration has surrendered to the pandemic

US president stormed out of sit down after 38 minutes

James Blight was arrested in Haines City, Florida, for allegedly stealing a backhoe to dig up the yards and vandalize the homes of people displaying Joe Biden signs.

Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro said on Monday it would be easier and cheaper to invest in a cure for Covid-19 rather than a vaccine, in a clear sign the president is increasingly positioning himself against inoculation programs. "I'll give my personal opinion: Isn't it cheaper and easier to invest in a cure rather than a vaccine?" Bolsonaro told supporters outside the presidential palace in Brasilia. Bolsonaro, who caught and recovered from, Covid-19 in July, has repeatedly downplayed the gravity of the virus and continues to promote the anti-malarial chloroquine as a cure despite mounting evidence it doesn't work.

“It’s just a very tragic incident.”

In a last-ditch effort to unseat Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), a deep-pocketed Democratic group has begun airing ads backing the Libertarian candidate in Kentucky’s U.S. Senate contest.A new super PAC called True Kentucky Patriots started buying television and digital ads last week in support of Libertarian Brad Barron, calling him “Kentucky’s true conservative for U.S. Senate,” in the words of one thirty-second spot. “Barron is one hundred percent pro-Second Amendment, one hundred percent pro-life, and one hundred percent pro-term limits. Sorry Mitch, 36 years is too long.”The group is clearly designed to peel off conservative votes from McConnell, who faces a challenge from Democrat Amy McGrath. Federal Election Commission records show that True Kentucky Patriots is affiliated with one of the Senate race’s largest independent spenders, a pro-McGrath group called the Ditch Fund.True Kentucky Patriots also shares a treasurer with the Ditch Fund, and both groups have paid a Democratic firm called Beacon Media to produce and place their respective digital ads.It’s not uncommon for political operatives to attempt to boost third party candidates that they hope will act as spoilers, and split an opposing ideological coalition’s votes to the detriment of one major party candidate or the other. But it’s less common for groups doing so to disclose those efforts in publicly available campaign finance filings.True Kentucky Patriots hasn’t been around long enough to reveal any of its donors, and it won’t have to do so until nearly three weeks after election day. But pro-McGrath forces have already attempted to promote Barron’s candidacy through other means. Another anti-McConnell super PAC, Fire Mitch Save America PAC, has sent mailers promoting Barron’s Senate bid.FEC filings also show that Democrats have sought to boost Barron directly. At least five of Barron’s donors have also given to McGrath’s campaign. One of them, a New York-based Microsoft employee, even donated to both McGrath and Barron on the same day.Polling in the Kentucky Senate contest has shown McConnell with a consistent lead, though his margin has varied from as little as five points to as much as twelve. The most recent poll of the race has McConnell with a nine point lead over McGrath, and just four percent saying they support Barron’s candidacy, meaning the Libertarian likely will not draw enough votes to tilt the election. The race has nonetheless drawn massive investments from both parties. McConnell and McGrath have together spent nearly $115 million, with outside groups dropping another $26 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.Kentucky isn’t the only state where Democrats have attempted to boost a third party spoiler in a tight Senate contest. In South Carolina, Democrat Jaime Harrison’s campaign has run ads ostensibly attacking an obscure Constitution Party candidate by calling him too conservative for the state. It appears to be an effort to encourage support for the more right-wing contender among the state’s more conservative voters—to the detriment of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham.But the most famous would-be spoiler candidate of the 2020 election cycle is Kanye West. A number of Republican operatives have lined up behind his dead-end presidential campaign in an effort to draw votes from Democratic nominee Joe Biden in some key battleground states.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Thousands of psychotherapy patients in Finland risk having their most painful and intimate secrets made public, after one of the country's largest private psychotherapists was hacked. Current and former patients of Vastaamo, which runs 25 centres across Finland, began receiving blackmail emails from Friday, two days after the company first went public about the data breach. "What makes this case unique is the large number of victims and how sensitive and personal the information is which the blackmailers have obtained," Marko Leponen, the police commissioner leading the investigation into the breach, said at a press conference on Sunday. He said that police could not yet rule out the involvement of both domestic and international criminals. The blackmail emails, which include the victims' personal numbers, demand a €200 bitcoin payment, which doubles to €400 if not paid within 24 hours. If the victim does not then pay within a further 24 hours, the blackmailers threaten to make their notes public, including full transcriptions of psychotherapy sessions. One victim told Finland's state broadcaster Yle that he had found the email when he searched his junk folder after the breach was publicised. "This blackmail message caused floods of tears," he said. "The situation is really distressing." There were several things he had told his therapist that he would not want to be made public, he confirmed. "I told him all my bad feelings there, but after that I said that I could do it alone, and I didn't go on." Vastaamo said on Wednesday that it had been approached by the blackmailers and decided not to meet their demands. In a further press release on Sunday, it said that it "deeply regretted" the breach, which it said appeared to have taken place between November 2018 and March 2019. Security experts told the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper that a 10-gigabyte data file containing psychotherapists' notes on 2,000 patients had appeared on websites hidden on the so-called 'dark web'. Victim Support Finland, a support line run by the Red Cross and five other charities, said that the number of calls from worried crime victims had leapt eight-fold on Friday as Vastaamo clients received the mails. The Red Cross has now launched a special line for victims of the leak, together with the charity Mental Health Finland.

The Chinese-backed Orange Line will cut journey times across the notoriously congested city.

President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is facing some sharp criticism over what his detractors believe was a textbook example of a lack of self-awareness.During a Fox News interview on Monday, Kushner, speaking about Black communities in the United States, said his father-in-law's policies "are the policies that can help people break out of the problems that they're complaining about, but he can't want them to be successful more than they want to be successful," before claiming there has been a groundswell of support for Trump among Black voters.Kushner's comments were understood by his critics to imply that some Black Americans don't strive for success, and he was quickly rebuked. Obsevers pointed out that Kushner comes from a wealthy family, and married into another one, and, therefore, was able to jump over hurdles faced by many other Americans throughout his life. > When I first met Jared, we were college students and he owned $10 million worth of residential rental properties in Somerville based on money he got from his dad.> > More Black people should try that. https://t.co/z13KwvXUKf> > -- Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) October 26, 2020> "he can't want them to be successful more than that they want to be successful," is a thing said by Jared Kushner, whose father bought him into Harvard and NYU, then gave him a real estate fortune, before he got his current job from his father in lawpic.twitter.com/iAp4yAs8va> > -- Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) October 26, 2020More stories from theweek.com The very different emotional lives of Trump and Biden voters The 19 greatest and worst presidential campaign ads of the 2020 election The Trump administration has surrendered to the pandemic

Muslims in the Middle East and beyond on Monday broadened their calls for boycotts of French products and protests, as a clash over depictions of the Prophet Muhammad and the limits of free speech intensified. Kuwaiti stores pulled French yogurts and bottles of sparkling water from their shelves, Qatar University canceled a French culture week, and calls to stay away from the Carrefour grocery store chain were trending on social media in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Protests have been held in Turkey and the Gaza Strip and are being planned in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Chicago Public Schools on Friday pushed back against the Chicago Teachers Union, which filed an unfair labor practice charge last week accusing the city's school district of illegally refusing to negotiate with the union on how to safely resume in-person classes amid health concerns.The union has "refused to even discuss" returning to in-person classes, school district spokeswoman Emily Bolton said in a statement.“We are disheartened that CTU continues to obstruct and mislead the public about the necessary planning measures needed to prepare for a potential return to safe in-person learning,” Bolton said. “While the district is doing everything in its power to plan for all possible scenarios, the CTU refuses to even discuss a return to in-person learning, even as hundreds of private schools in Chicago are open.”Chicago's public schools are scheduled to start in-person classes in phases for pre-K students and some special education students during the school year's second quarter, which begins in two weeks on November 9.“We don’t know what the health situation will be in a couple of weeks' time, but it would be irresponsible not to plan ahead while thousands of students miss out on valuable learning," Bolton added.However, CTU has accused the city's public school district of violating the union’s collective bargaining agreement by neglecting to negotiate the start of in-person learning.“We all want to return to our students. We don’t want to die doing our jobs, and we don’t want to be vectors for spreading illness or death to our students and their families,” CTU vice president Stacy Davis Gates said in a statement. “Yet the mayor and CPS simply refuse to lay out and discuss their plan for returning to classrooms, when we know from their own facilities records that these buildings aren’t safe.”The union has demanded that its certified industrial hygienists be allowed to inspect school air quality in the district's buildings. CPS meanwhile has said it has hired state-certified environmental hygienists to perform inspections, the results of which the district says it will release to the public before schools are opened. The district argued that CTU does not have any legal or contractual right to demand its own inspection.Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations have increased in the Chicago area, the city's positivity rate ticking up to 7.5 percent over the last week.Last week, Chicago ordered all non-essential businesses to close at 10 p.m., and more restrictions could be set in motion if cases of the virus continue to rise.

Anger was growing in Italy Monday over harsh new coronavirus restrictions brought in to "save Christmas", while other hard-hit countries enforced curfews in a bid to avoid fresh national lockdowns.

Florida’s government could undergo a seismic shift it hasn’t seen in more than a quarter century.

Turkey's president has called for a boycott of French goods as his stand-off with counterpart Emmanuel Macron over Islam and free speech escalated sharply. Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the French president of leading a hate campaign against Muslims and accused unnamed Western leaders of being fascists for championing Islamophobia. "You are in a real sense fascists, you are in a real sense the links in the chain of Nazism," he said. “Muslims are now subjected to a lynch campaign similar to that against Jews in Europe before World War II." The spat comes after years of strained relations between Paris and Ankara and follow Mr Erdogan's earlier jibes that Mr Macron had a problem with Muslims and needed checks on his mental health.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s staff said the former vice president misspoke in saying that the government cost to provide four-year college education would be $150 billion, when in fact it would cost nearly twice as much. The comment came during an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes that aired on Sunday, in which Biden said he could send “every single qualified person” to four-year college if he made “significant institutional changes” that would include a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations. The Democrat claims the tax will raise more than $400 billion, though experts, including those at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, have raised doubts that the tax could yield that much."I can send every single qualified person to a four-year college in their state for $150 billion," Biden said. "I can make sure every single person who qualifies for community college can go and we still have a lotta money left over. That's what I mean by significant institutional changes.”> Joe Biden confuses his agenda in 60 Minutes interview: "Biden's staff told us he misspoke"https://t.co/GBHsiavgvV pic.twitter.com/q65vp6fgz2> > -- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 26, 2020Biden’s staff later told 60 Minutes his $150 billion figure was incorrect."After our interview, Mr. Biden's staff told us he misspoke, and that the cost of free public college could be twice as much as he said," CBS' Norah O'Donnell said in a voice-over during Sunday’s episode.

Trump and Biden are fighting over suburban votes and identity, but their debate ignores a strange fact: The suburbs are everywhere, and nowhere.

Wearing camouflage and holding Kalashnikov rifles, volunteer villagers patrol a winding river in a Nagorno-Karabakh valley, defending a strategic area between the disputed region's capital and Armenia.

169 arrests were made during the October mission.

Study highlights ‘global trend’ in ruling parties in major democracies becoming more illiberal