The US House of Representatives Thursday passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which sets appropriations for the defense budget for fiscal year 2023. In total, the 3,854-page NDAA authorizes $857.9 billion in expenditures. Controversially, the bill would lift the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for members of the armed services. The Biden administration implemented the mandate [...]
US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor Thursday rejected a bid to prevent New York City from enforcing its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for teachers, firefighters and police officers. Sotomayor was unwilling to grant the emergency request, received on November 4, to block the policy. Petitioners brought the emergency request alongside their ongoing appeal of a lower [...]
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Thursday released a statement announcing “good progress” following meetings with Ghana representatives discussing a new IMF program for the African nation. The parties also held talks on the subject in Ghana this fall. Ghana received previous financial assistance from the IMF through an extended credit facility arrangement from 2015 to [...]
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) Tuesday charged 47 defendants for their alleged roles in a $250 million fraud scheme during the COVID-19 pandemic. Minnesota nonprofit Feeding Our Future allegedly stole money from the Federal Child Nutrition Program intended to feed children during the pandemic. The defendants are charged with “conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, and [...]
Moderna filed suit in the US and Germany Friday against Pfizer and BioNtech for three claims of patent infringement. Moderna claims that Pfizer and BioNtech used the company’s patented mRNA technology in COVID-19 vaccines without Moderna’s permission. Moderna alleges that before the pandemic, they had over a decade of research on mRNA in coronaviruses, with [...]
The second phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in India has highlighted the coronavirus’s unpredictability. It spares no one, from the rural to the urban, Hindu to Muslim. Although the virus is identity-blind, the central government’s plan of action engenders economic and social discrimination. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare declared in a press release that beginning from May [...]
Many state governors’ actions related to quelling the COVID-19 in Brazil appear to neglect constitutional provisions. So much so that many states’ Governors of the Brazilian Federation decided to adopt lockdown, despite the fact that the World Health Organization itself has already concluded that lockdown is not the primary measure aimed at combating the terrible [...]
Governor Cuomo is in hot water on three fronts: the COVID-19 limitation of liability for nursing homes order he did, the undercounting/reporting of nursing home deaths, and the sexual harassment in the workplace and otherwise. This note will focus on the hypocrisy with respect to the first of these: the COVID-19 limitation of liability for [...]
The Brazilian Supreme Court delivered a very important decision related to compulsory vaccination to immunize the population against the coronavirus (Direct Actions of Unconstitutionality #6586/6587). During the judgment, Justice Lewandowski stated that “collective health cannot be harmed by people who deliberately refuse to be vaccinated, believing that they will still selfishly benefit from herd immunity”. [...]
As of the second week of February 2021, there have been a total of 466 COVID-19 cases registered in Cambodia, 443 recoveries and 0 deaths. Cambodia is managing the COVID-19 pandemic well in comparison to global superpowers. This achievement can be contrasted with the United Kingdom, where there have been a total of 3,817,176 cases, [...]
