World News (2024)

07/03/2021

Sportblog
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are albatrosses weighing their clubs down
Juventus might overcome a 2-1 deficit against Porto in the Champions League. On Wednesday, Barcelona almost certainly won’t come back from 4-1 down to beat Paris Saint-Germain. Both clubs were comprehensively outplayed in the first legs, both are burdened by an ageing and expensive superstar, both have found the cracks in their financial planning exposed by the pandemic. At some point the narratives of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo will decouple, but not now, not yet.
Football deals badly with mortality. It can be brutal in dealing with those with whom it has finished. Bill Shankly couldn’t even tell Ian St John to his face when, after eight years, the time came to drop him. After 11 golden years, Nobby Stiles wasn’t given a testimonial by Manchester United. West Ham reneged on a deal to let Bobby Moore leave on a free transfer. As the former Coventry and Derby manager Harry Storer once told Brian Clough, in football “nobody ever says thank you”.

But, at the same time, there is a bizarre willingness to believe in the cult of the winner, the idea that because a player or manager has done something before, he will necessarily be able to do it again – see, for example, the recent career of José Mourinho.
Barça’s plight is worse than Juve’s, but it is probably more understandable. Messi is their player and has been for 21 years. How could anybody ever decide it was the right moment to sell somebody who was not just for a long time the best player in the world but was also family? But Messi is not the best player in the world any longer, far from it.
From 2017, when they lost 4-0 away to PSG and 3-0 at Juve, it was clear Barça had a fundamental problem. Against high-class opposition, their midfield became stretched.
Every year since there has been a reminder: 3-0 to Roma in 2018, 4-0 to Liverpool in 2019, 8-2 to Bayern Munich in 2020, 4-1 to PSG three weeks ago.

In part that is the result of an ageing and slowing midfield, but it is not just that, perhaps it is not even mainly that. It’s also to do with a forward line that puts almost no pressure on the ball, something that is integral to the Cruyffianism that underpins Barcelona’s identity.

07/03/2021

U.S. Government Scientists Skeptical of One-Shot Regimen for Pfizer, Moderna Covid Vaccines

WASHINGTON—U.S. government scientists are pushing back against calls for one-dose regimens for two Covid-19 vaccines designed to be administered with two shots, saying there isn’t enough evidence that a single dose provides long-term protection.
“It is essential that these vaccines be used as authorized by FDA in order to prevent Covid-19 and related hospitalizations and death,” Peter Marks, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s center that oversees vaccines, told The Wall Street Journal.

The FDA late last year approved a two-dose regimen for vaccines from Moderna Inc. and from a partnership of Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE. More recently it approved use of a one-dose regimen for a vaccine from Johnson & Johnson.
Some scientists and lawmakers have called for shifting to a one-dose regimen for all the vaccines, citing preliminary studies showing one shot can be effective. They contend shifting to one shot will allow the U.S. to accelerate the pace of vaccinations.
In a March 2 letter to acting Health and Human Services Secretary Norris Cochran, seven physician members of Congress urged the department “to consider issuing a revised emergency use authorization as soon as possible” that might lead to single-dose use of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

Last week, the U.S. passed a sobering milestone of over 500,000 deaths related to COVID-19,” said the letter, signed by lawmakers including Rep. Andy Harris (R, Md.) and Rep. Gregory F. Murphy, (R., N.C.). “These are staggering statistics, and anything we can do to help prevent further tragedy—to further protect the public health and safety of the American people—should be fully employed.”
In interviews, senior government scientists at the FDA and the National Institutes of Health said such a shift isn’t warranted, saying the evidence used to approve the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines was based on two doses.
These scientists said one dose may offer short-term protection, but the longer-term protection is a question mark.
“You would be flying blind to just use one dose,” said one senior scientist and adviser to President Biden. “If you’re going to do something else other than follow the studies shown to the FDA, show me that this one-shot effect is durable.”

07/03/2021

Hackers Breach Thousands of Microsoft Customers Around the World

A sophisticated attack on Microsoft Corp.’s widely used business email software is morphing into a global cybersecurity crisis, as hackers race to infect as many victims as possible before companies can secure their computer systems.

The attack, which Microsoft has said started with a Chinese government-backed hacking group, has so far claimed at least 60,000 known victims globally, according to a former senior U.S. official with knowledge of the investigation. Many of them appear to be small or medium-sized businesses caught in a wide net the attackers cast as Microsoft worked to shut down the hack.

Victims identified so far include banks and electricity providers, as well as senior citizen homes and an ice cream company, according to Huntress, a Ellicott City, Maryland-based firm that monitors the security of customers, in a blog post Friday.

One U.S. cybersecurity company which asked not to be named said its experts alone were working with at least 50 victims, trying to quickly determine what data the hackers may have taken while also trying to eject them.

The rapidly escalating attack drew the concern of U.S. national security officials, in part because the hackers were able to hit so many victims so quickly. Researchers say in the final phases of the attack, the hackers appeared to have automated the process, scooping up tens of thousands of new victims around the world in a matter of days.

“We are undertaking a whole of government response to assess and address the impact,” a White House official wrote in an email on Saturday. “This is an active threat still developing and we urge network operators to take it very seriously.”

Microsoft Server Flaws Raise Alarms at White House, DHS

The Chinese hacking group, which Microsoft calls Hafnium, appears to have been breaking into private and government computer networks through the company’s popular Exchange email software for a number of months, initially targeting only a small number of victims, according to Steven Adair, head of the northern Virginia-based Volexity. The cybersecurity company helped Microsoft identify the flaws being used by the hackers for which the software giant issued a fix on Tuesday.

06/03/2021

Elon Musk: Tesla is doubling the size of its Full Self-Driving beta program

Elon Musk says that Tesla is doubling the size of its Full Self-Driving Beta program with an upcoming new update.

Another one following it could see the size of the test fleet increase by a factor of 10

Back in October 2020, Tesla started to push a Full Self-Driving Beta release to owners in the “Early Access” program, a group of Tesla owners who test early versions of Tesla’s new features before a wider release to the fleet.
The software update was seen as a major step toward Tesla delivering on its longtime promise of making its vehicles “full self-driving” through over-the-air software updates.
While the update doesn’t result in a truly self-driving vehicle since the responsibility still lies with the driver, which Tesla still requires to stay attentive and be ready to take control at all times, it does close the gap with Tesla’s Autopilot highway driving features and enable Tesla’s driver-assist system to control the vehicle on city streets and through intersections.
Tesla owners using the FSD beta are able to give the car a destination and the vehicle will attempt to drive them there autonomously with the driver keeping their hands on the steering wheel and ready to take over.
Since the first beta release in early access, Tesla has released several new versions of the beta software and gradually opened up the beta release to more owners, but it has yet to have a wider release and the rollout of new versions has slowed down over the last month or two.
Earlier this week, Musk linked a wider release of the FSD beta to an updated version of the software coming next month.
Now the CEO said that the number of Tesla owners testing the Full Self-Driving Beta will double with a new update:

06/03/2021

Dripping in the blood of Jim Crow': Voting rights groups say GOP-backed bills in Georgia target Black voters

Voting rights groups led bus tours, knocked on 1 million doors and gave out food at community events to achieve an unprecedented Black voter turnout in Georgia. The organizations have been credited with helping Democrats win both the White House and control of the US Senate in the last election cycle.
Their efforts, however, could be reversed by Republican-backed bills advancing in the Georgia Legislature that activists say are reminiscent of tactics used to prevent Black people from voting in the South during the Jim Crow era.
"We know that their targets are Black voters," said Cliff Albright, co-founder of the Atlanta-based Black Voters Matter. "These (legislation) notes are dripping in the blood of Jim Crow."
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'Dripping in the blood of Jim Crow': Voting rights groups say GOP-backed bills in Georgia target Black voter
Atlanta(CNN)Voting rights groups led bus tours, knocked on 1 million doors and gave out food at community events to achieve an unprecedented Black voter turnout in Georgia. The organizations have been credited with helping Democrats win both the White House and control of the US Senate in the last election cycle.
Their efforts, however, could be reversed by Republican-backed bills advancing in the Georgia Legislature that activists say are reminiscent of tactics used to prevent Black people from voting in the South during the Jim Crow era.
"We know that their targets are Black voters," said Cliff Albright, co-founder of the Atlanta-based Black Voters Matter. "These (legislation) notes are dripping in the blood of Jim Crow."

Black Voters Matter, the Georgia NAACP, the New Georgia Project and other civil rights groups are now in a battle to protect Black voting power, launching a campaign this week to stop the voter restrictions from moving forward.
They are also demanding that Congress pass federal voting rights legislation that would roll back the state-level laws.
On Wednesday, the House took a step toward that by passing HR 1, also known as the For the People Act, which is a sweeping ethics and election bill that expands voting access.
The controversy over voting rights comes as the civil rights community honors the 56th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" this weekend for the first time without voting rights icon John Lewis, who died last year. Lewis has been lauded as a hero who fought tirelessly for equal voting rights for Black people. Voting rights leaders have vowed to keep his legacy alive.

06/03/2021

Juventus’ priorities as the Old Lady stumbles out of the Scudetto race

Abdication is never fun.
I remember playing board games with my younger brothers when I was a kid, games like Risk or Lord of the Rings Risk or Axis & Allies or, I think just once or twice, Settlers of Catan. I was never very good, but each game would bring a renewed sense of hope, the faint glimmer that maybe this was the time I’d exact my vengeance. Inevitably, however, at about the halfway point of the campaign, I’d start to see the cracks, the little mistakes I’d made, the weaknesses. And two-thirds through, I’d see my end a long ways off.
The end is here for Juventus. Unlike me and board games, though, this club should, in theory at least, always be in position to avenge its losses.
On Christmas Day, I wrote that Juventus predicted that Juventus would not win the Scudetto. I made the statement not so much because of where the race was in terms of points, but because the same old problems that have existed for several years now still existed, in some cases festering quite badly, and also because of outside factories like injuries to key players — I wish I hadn’t been as prescient.
We can now see the end for Juventus: after nine straight years of being crowned champions of Italy, that streak is over. The Champions League, even if the Bianconeri stage a comeback against Porto, is, frankly, a pipe dream. Perhaps a Coppa Italia victory will be just a tiny morsel of joy.

06/03/2021

EU reportedly seeks access to U.S. produced AstraZeneca vaccines

The European Union will urge the United States to permit the export of millions of doses of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine as it scrambles to bridge supply shortfalls, the Financial Times reported.
The 27-nation EU also wants Washington to ensure the free flow of shipments of crucial vaccine ingredients needed in European production, the FT report on Saturday said.
"We trust that we can work together with the U.S. to ensure that vaccines produced or bottled in the U.S. for the fulfilment of vaccine producers' contractual obligations with the EU will be fully honoured," the FT quoted the European Commission as saying.
EU countries started inoculations at the end of December, but are moving at a far slower pace than other rich nations, including former member Britain and the United States.Officials blame the slow progress in part on supply problems with manufacturers.
The European Commission and Italy this week blocked a shipment of AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine destined for Australia after the drug manufacturer failed to meet its EU contract commitments.
The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker has been under fire in the EU for its delayed supplies of shots to the 27-nation bloc, which ordered 300 million doses by the end of June.

06/03/2021

Senate passes $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill, including $1,400 stimulus checks, with no Republican support

WASHINGTON — The Senate passed a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package Saturday, capping off a marathon overnight session after Democrats resolved internal clashes that threatened to derail President Joe Biden's top legislative priority.
The far-reaching legislation includes $1,400 stimulus checks, $300-per-week jobless benefits through the summer, a child allowance of up to $3,600 for one year, $350 billion for state aid, $34 billion to expand Affordable Care Act subsidies and $14 billion for vaccine distribution.

The Senate set a record Saturday for its longest recorded vote — 11 hours and 50 minutes.

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