Comment on US prepares for bird flu pandemic with $176M Moderna vaccine deal - Ars Technica

Two people were killed and nine others injured, four critically, when a pickup truck drove into a group celebrating the Fourth of July holiday in New York City, authorities said. A Ford F-150 came down a street “at a high rate of speed” shortly before 9 p.m. Thursday. The truck went through an intersection and past a stop sign, drove onto the sidewalk and into Corlears Hook Park on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, New York Police Department Chief Jeffrey Maddrey said during a news conference. Two victims were confirmed dead at the scene, Maddrey said. Read More: Why the U.

Oppositions don’t win elections, received Westminster wisdom tells us. Governments lose them. And in Britain’s July 4 election, the ruling Conservatives lost big. After a 14-year governing streak defined by Brexit, a pandemic, and an astonishing period of political and financial turbulence that ushered in three Prime Ministers in just one year, the world’s most successful political party—which since 1945 has been in power twice as long as it’s been out of it—has been shunted back into opposition.

SAO PAULO — The indictment of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for money laundering and criminal association in connection with undeclared diamonds from Saudi Arabia marked the far-right leader’s second formal accusation with more potentially in store. Two sources with knowledge of the case confirmed Thursday’s indictment by Federal Police, which followed another formal accusation in May against Bolsonaro for allegedly falsifying his COVID-19 vaccination certificate.

Mexico’s incoming president announced her appointees for top posts Thursday, but hopes for a fresh approach were dashed by the re-appearance of old faces in the new cabinet. President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum announced that Rosa Icela Rodríguez, who headed outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s failed security strategy, will serve as the next interior secretary. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] That is Mexico’s top domestic political post, responsible for handling negotiations with protesters and Mexico’s 32 powerful state governors.

The parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue has signed a deal to buy upscale rival Neiman Marcus Group, which owns Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman stores, for $2.65 billion, with online behemoth Amazon holding a minority stake. The new entity would be called Saks Global, which will comprise the Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks OFF 5TH brands, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, as well as the real estate assets of Neiman Marcus Group and HBC, a holding company that purchased Saks in 2013. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] HBC has secured $1.15 billion in financing from investment funds and accounts managed by affiliates of Apollo, and a $2 billion fully committed revolving asset based loan facility from Bank of America, which is the lead underwriter, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, RBC Capital Markets, and Wells Fargo. The deal comes after months of rumors that the department store chains had been negotiating a deal.

In a new study, University of Colorado Boulder researchers found that if only one at-home test is available, the most accurate results for COVID start two days after the start of symptoms. For the flu and respiratory syncytial virus, however, it’s recommended to take a rapid test immediately after symptoms arise. The study used a mathematical model to answer questions about at-home rapid test timing and accuracy, not only for COVID but also for emerging tests for RSV, the flu and other infectious diseases. “You cannot use the same test in the same way and expect to get the same results for different pathogens, or even different variants,” said Casey Middleton, first author of the study and a doctoral student in the CU Boulder department of Computer Science and the IQ Bio program. For COVID testing, the reason it’s better to wait a couple days before testing lies in how the rapid tests detect disease, and their surprisingly high false negative rate when used too soon. “Especially really early on for COVID, when your symptoms first start, we find that if you take that one test right away, there is a 95% chance that a negative result is a false negative,” said Middleton. Waiting two days after symptoms brings that rate down to 70%.