EU Authorizes AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine For People Over 18
Updated at 2:15 p.m. ET
The European Union will soon start administering AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine — the third vaccine it has endorsed. The European Commission gave conditional authorization to the vaccine on Friday, hours after regulators recommended the move.
The European Medicines Agency said the AstraZeneca vaccine will prevent the deadly coronavirus from affecting people who are at least 18 years old. The vaccine has been administered in the U.K. since early this month.
Pakistan's Vaccine Worries: Rich People And Conspiracy Theorists
Keeping an eye on vaccine snatchers. Turning dial tones into public health messages. Selling vaccines to the wealthy to make sure they don't elbow their way to the front of the line.
These are among the strategies being employed by Pakistan as it gears up for an extraordinary task – acquiring enough vaccines for its enormous population of 220 million.
What Indians Who've Known Poverty Think Of Netflix's 'The White Tiger' Movie
"Do we loathe our masters behind a façade of love, or do we love them behind a façade of loathing?"
This is just one of the questions that Balram Halwai, a poor, village-bred Indian boy and the central character of the movie The White Tiger, asks himself as he works as a chauffeur to a rich businessman in Delhi.
With Biden Team Focused On Other Crises, Experts Say Drug Epidemic Is Exploding
In the weeks after winning the November election, Joe Biden began naming officials to tackle the vortex of crises his administration would face on day one.
China Will No Longer Recognize British Hong Kong Travel Document
Two days before Britain is to begin accepting applications from Hong Kong residents for a visa offering a path to residency and citizenship in the U.K. for holders of British National Overseas citizenship, China announced it would no longer recognize the BNO passport.
Shell Ordered To Compensate Nigerian Farmers Affected By Oil Spills
A Dutch court has delivered a major victory to a group of Nigerian farmers in their 13-year-long effort to hold Shell's Nigerian subsidiary accountable for oil spills on their lands.
The Court of Appeal in The Hague sided with farmers and environmentalists on most of their legal claims, ruling that the Nigerian subsidiary owes the farmers financial compensation for the oil spill pollution in two villages.
Game Back On: GameStop Stock Rebounds As SEC Warns Against Market Manipulation
Updated at 4:32 p.m. ET
The GameStop stock-market roller coaster continued Friday as the video game retailer's shares shot up, the online broker Robinhood struggled for cash and securities regulators issued a stern warning for anyone trying to game the market.
Catapulted by seemingly unrelenting enthusiasm on Reddit, GameStop stock soared nearly 68%.
'Sea Prison': COVID-19 Has Left Hundreds Of Thousands Of Seafarers Stranded
On a chilly January morning, the Rev. Mary Davisson climbs up the stern ramp of the Tonsberg, an enormous ship bobbing in the murky waters at the Port of Baltimore. Davisson, the executive director and port chaplain of the Baltimore International Seafarers' Center, has spent much of her nearly two-decade career helping foreign crew members arriving in port, whether it is giving them a lift into town to buy personal items or just enjoying a coffee with them.
'Robin Hood' Groups Win New Fans, Thanks To GameStop Controversy
The Robinhood stock-trading app sparked outrage after it halted trading on GameStop and other companies at the center of a battle between small investors and hedge funds.
Suddenly, the World Wide Robin Hood Society noticed a flood of interest online – and the U.K. group politely clarified that it isn't the Robin Hood some commenters were looking for. It gained tens of thousands of new followers anyway.
"We started with 350 yesterday and we now have over 50k" followers on Twitter, the group said on Friday in a message to NPR.
Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Is 66% Effective In Preventing Moderate To Severe COVID-19
A global study of nearly 44,000 found that the COVID-19 vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson is 66% effective in preventing moderate to severe disease.
The study was conducted in the U.S., Latin America and South Africa. The vaccine did better at preventing disease in the U.S. – 72% — and less well in South Africa – 57% efficacy. The efficacy seen in Latin America was 66%.
