Bhinneka News Online: Thursday Morning Briefing: FDA widens safety inquiry into AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine

What you need to know about the coronavirus today

FDA widens safety inquiry into AstraZeneca vaccine
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has broadened its investigation of a serious illness in AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine study and will look at data from earlier trials of similar vaccines developed by the same scientists, three sources familiar with the details told Reuters.
AstraZeneca's large, late-stage U.S. trial has remained on hold since Sept. 6, after a study participant in Britain fell ill with what was believed to be a rare spinal inflammatory disorder called transverse myelitis.
The widened scope of the FDA probe raises the likelihood of additional delays for what has been one of the most advanced COVID-19 vaccine candidates in development.

No clear link between school opening and COVID surge Widespread reopening of schools after lockdowns and vacations is generally not linked to rising COVID-19 rates, a study of 191 countries has found, but lockdown closures will leave a 2020 "pandemic learning debt" of 300 billion missed school days.
The analysis, by the Zurich-based independent educational foundation Insights for Education, said 84% of those 300 billion days would be lost by children in poorer countries, and warned that 711 million pupils were still out of school.

Germany lifts world travel warning
Germany lifted its blanket warning against traveling to all countries outside the European Union, although little is likely to change for most travelers under the new regulation.
The cautious reopening, agreed by the German cabinet three weeks ago, comes as Europe faces an uptick in COVID-19 cases, with many warning the continent is facing a second wave.

New York restaurants reopen for dine-in patrons
New York City restaurants reopened indoor dining at 25% capacity on Wednesday, welcoming patrons hungry for food and company in the pandemic with tight safety measures in candle-lit rooms and behind kitchen doors.
At Il Gattopardo, an upscale Southern-Italian restaurant on Manhattan's Upper East Side, owner Gianfranco Sorrentino said extreme health precautions were essential to pull his eatery through one of his toughest times in the business in 30 years.

Scorsese and Eastwood say movie theaters may not survive
Oscar-winning film directors James Cameron, Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese joined forces with movie theater owners on Wednesday in an appeal for financial help, saying they feared for the future of the industry.
In a letter to the leaders of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, they said the pandemic had dealt a devastating blow to movie theaters and that without funds "theaters may not survive."

From Breakingviews: Corona Capital - H&M, Commuting
Read concise views on the pandemic’s financial fallout from Breakingviews columnists across the globe.

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U.S.

More than 50 Republican former national security officials will endorse Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Thursday, joining one of several Republican organizations opposing the re-election of President Donald Trump.
The group, called Former Republican National Security Officials for Biden, launched in August with 70 members.
The new endorsements will bring it to nearly 130 individuals who have publicly broken with the Republican president, including seven who served under Trump, people familiar with the effort said.

U.S. presidential debate organizers vowed on Wednesday to change the rules to rein in unruly behavior after President Donald Trump repeatedly interrupted rival Joe Biden and the moderator in the candidates’ taunt-filled initial prime-time encounter.

The Trump administration has proposed including a $20 billion extension in aid for the battered airline industry in a new stimulus proposal to House Democrats worth over $1.5 trillion, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said on Wednesday.
American Airlines and United Airlines, two of the largest U.S. carriers, said they were beginning furloughs of over 32,000 workers on Thursday as hopes faded for a last-minute bailout from Washington.

The Russian group accused of meddling in the 2016 U.S. election has posed as an independent news outlet to target right-wing social media users ahead of this year’s vote, two people familiar with an FBI probe into the activity told Reuters.
The latest operation centered around a pseudo media organization called the Newsroom for American and European Based Citizens, which was run by people associated with the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, the sources said.

WORLD

The European Union on Thursday launched legal action against Britain’s new Internal Market Bill on the grounds that it undercuts London’s earlier legal commitments under its Brexit divorce treaty, the head of the bloc’s executive said.
Such so-called infringements could lead to hefty fines being imposed by the EU’s top court but that takes years, leaving plenty of time for the UK to change tack.

Russia and France stepped up calls for a ceasefire between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces on Thursday as the death toll rose in the heaviest clashes around the Nagorno-Karabakh region since the 1990s.
Russia has also offered to host the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan for talks on the flare-up of their decades-old conflict in the volatile South Caucasus region.

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny told a German magazine he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind his suspected poisoning, but said he was not afraid and would return to Russia to resume campaigning.

Night flight from Belarus: How a disgruntled policeman defected. On Aug. 12, Ivan Kolos posted a video denouncing Belarus’s veteran leader, Alexander Lukashenko, and urging fellow police officers to stop using violence against demonstrators and to side with the people.
Hours later, Kolos fled Belarus under cover of the night for fear of arrest.

BUSINESS

Amazon and Big Tech cozy up to Biden camp with cash and connections

Joining Amazon, Alphabet's Google and Microsoft are among the top five contributors to Joe Biden's candidate campaign committee in the 2020 cycle, according to data from OpenSecrets, a website which tracks money in politics and campaign finance records.
The firms are prohibited by law from donating themselves.

8 min read

TV networks to reap ad windfall from U.S. election chaos

Television news networks will benefit from a U.S. presidential race that may not be decided on election night.
With few sporting events and a captive audience due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a drawn-out, nail-biter of an election could appeal to marketers like the finance, technology, retail, social media and entertainment companies that have bought debate and election night ads.

6 min read

How the year 2020 confounded Wall Street strategists

Bank of America's strategists cut their year-end forecasts for the S&P 500 index twice this year, trailing the U.S. stock market as it plummeted in a coronavirus-induced panic. Then, as the market rallied past those revised targets in the ensuing months, the strategists followed by increasing their estimates.

8 min read