RBI unlikely to extend EMI moratorium on repayment of loans beyond August 31. Know why https://ift.tt/3igh6GC

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is unlikely to extend the moratorium on repayment of bank loans beyond August 31 as an extension could impact the credit behaviour of borrowers without resolving the issues being faced by them following the outbreak of the COVID-19, sources told PTI.

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Vaccine nationalism will not shorten COVID pandemic, warns WHO chief https://ift.tt/3oqykEN

The World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called for solidarity in the rollout of future coronavirus vaccines. In a video address at the opening of the three-day World Health Summit in Berlin, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted that it was natural for the countries to want to protect their own citizens first but, he urged, "we must also use it effectively".

Black doctor dies of COVID-19 after racist treatment complaints https://ift.tt/3nR3RiK

A Black doctor who died battling COVID-19 complained of racist medical care in widely shared social media posts days before her death, prompting an Indiana hospital system to promise a “full external review" into her treatment.

New top story from Time: Pfizer-BioNTech Have Started Testing Their COVID-19 Vaccine in Children Under 12

https://ift.tt/3vWOQjL Alejandra and Marisol Gerardo are nine years old but already making a little bit of history. The twin sisters are among the first young children to get vaccinated with a COVID-19 shot in Pfizer-BioNTech’s study of its vaccine in kids under age 12. Alejandra and Marisol had their blood drawn in the morning on March 24, then got their first dose of the two-dose vaccine later that afternoon. “Their primary concern was, ‘is it going to hurt,’” says their father, Dr. Charles Gerardo, chief of emergency medicine at Duke University School of Medicine. “They’re not too worried about the long term side effects; they’re looking at the moment, not the future.” Testing the vaccine in younger children will answer critical questions about how much immunity the shots can provide, and potentially give parents and education officials more confidence in re-opening schools. While it appears that younger children don’t get as sick with COVID-19 as older teens and adult...

New top story from Time: I Found a Rainbow At the End of My Hunt For a Vaccine Appointment

https://ift.tt/3dt1i2v A version of this article also appeared in the It’s Not Just You newsletter. Sign up here to receive a new edition every Sunday. CHASING RAINBOWS (AND VACCINES) We humans are notoriously unreliable, superstitious narrators, always scanning the horizon for signs that validate what our hearts have already told us. Take me, for example. I keep telling people I was vaccinated at Hogwarts’ Manhattan campus under the waxing moon (it was a gibbous moon to be exact). How auspicious! Ok, so my COVID-vax site was really The City College of New York . But stepping through its big old gothic gates to receive a blessing of science was wondrous, maybe a little spiritual. There was even a rainbow-y halo around that big moon, another lucky omen if you’re hungry for such things. I started digging for lore on moons and rainbows and learned that the physics of rainbows doesn’t detract from the mythical place they have in our cultural imaginations. In fact ...

New top story from Time: ‘Garbage Freaking Everywhere’ as Americans Venture Outdoors After a Year of Lockdowns

https://ift.tt/31mr3M8 Across the country, as the weather improved and pandemic lockdowns were lifted, Americans ventured outside and noticed that their neighborhoods looked a little different. A little. . . dirtier. They saw mattresses piled outside cemeteries and disposable masks clogging the gutters. Vacuum cleaners left in the woods, fast food wrappers blowing on the highway, piles of tires. Neighborhoods that had been relatively clean before the pandemic were now full of litter. “There is garbage freaking everywhere,” says David Biderman, the executive director and CEO of the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA). In Portland, Ore., the city picked up more garbage in 2020 than any other year on record: 3,000 tons, 50% more than the previous year. Additionally, requests to clean up trash and remove graffiti were up 300% over 2019. Norfolk, Va., is seeing “historic highs” in litter and illegal dumping, according to Sarah Sterzing, the program manager of Ke...

New top story from Time: The World’s First Malaria Vaccine—and What it Means for the Future of Pandemic Response

https://ift.tt/3uQFdD3 On Oct. 6, the World Health Organization recommended use of the first vaccine to fight malaria . The decision is momentous and highly anticipated for many reasons: among them is that this is the first vaccine to help reduce the risk of deadly severe malaria in young children in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the disease remains a leading killer. The vaccine offers hope that there can be a circle of learning from one pandemic to the next. Malaria, our oldest pandemic, may offer insights on how we can survive contemporary scourges like COVID-19. Malaria evolved at least 2.5 million years ago and first infected humans in rural parts of Africa. It then spread to all continents save Antarctica—notably, killing off armies ranging from those trying to conquer ancient Rome to those battling to control the Pacific in World War II. Malaria, according to historians, may have killed more people than any other pandemic. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Malaria changed ...

New top story from Time: I Interviewed Hundreds of New Yorkers. Here’s What They Taught Me

https://ift.tt/3cgW6zl In 2014 I was given a unique assignment: move to New York and talk to people, hundreds of them, and then somehow create a book using their words to describe the experience of living in New York right now. I spoke to New Yorkers in all five boroughs, in coffee shops, in pizzerias, in elevator shafts, on job sites. At one point, when the book was nearly finished, I began to recognize a by-product of the interviewing process. Something happens when you ingest so many stories from so many New Yorkers. I learned a few things. I learned about express trains and egg creams, the route of the New York marathon and the strange naming protocols of the streets of Queens. I was taught how to steal a car in Manhattan, how to move properly on a sidewalk. Next came a list of specifics: best bagels, best pupusas, best baked clams (Donovan’s in Woodside). But I had no idea that speaking to New Yorkers would mean more important, subtle lessons would be shared from some of...

New top story from Time: Megacities Are Not the Future. They Are Inhumane and Unsustainable

https://ift.tt/2YGe72M All cities have gone through the ebb and flow of social distancing and lockdowns, with regulations repealed as cases decline and hurriedly re-imposed when cases return. But few urban residents likely feel as dislocated as those living in Manila. The capital of the Philippines went through a three-month lockdown, starting in mid-March and ending in early June. Then, as residents started to return to work, a spike in cases in early August led the government to reimpose lockdown measures. Yet these measures were repealed merely two weeks later, as the economic pain of shutdown began to take hold—evidenced in a record 45.5% adult unemployment rate. Manila is just one example of how the economies of megacities—cities with large and growing populations, often exceeding ten million—in developing countries have struggled to protect their residents and keep their economic engines running. It is an indication of the flaws inherent in an economic model focused ...

New top story from Time: U.S. Appeals Court Lets Texas Resume Ban on Most Abortions

https://ift.tt/30cFSna AUSTIN, Texas — A federal appeals court has allowed Texas to resume banning most abortions, just one day after clinics began racing to serve patients again for the first time since early September. A one-page order by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued late Friday reinstated the nation’s strictest abortion law, which bans abortions once cardiac activity is detected , usually around six weeks. It makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest . “Patients are being thrown back into a state of chaos and fear,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents several Texas clinics that had briefly resumed normal abortion services. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] She called on the U.S. Supreme Court to “step in and stop this madness.” Clinics had braced for the New Orleans-based appeals court to act fast after U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, an appointee of President Barack Obama, on Wednesday suspended...

New top story from Time: Biden Must Keep U.S. Operatives in Afghanistan To Enable the Counterterrorism Mission

https://ift.tt/3grj9ci In his April 14 speech , President Joe Biden stated that despite withdrawing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, his administration will continue to do two things from over the horizon: First, it will “reorganize our counterterrorism capabilities…to prevent [the] reemergence of …the threat to our homeland.” Second, it will “keep providing assistance to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Even though no one in the administration has officially said it yet, the second goal is assumed to be off the table now for the simple reason that a national Afghan army no longer exists. With the Taliban taking over the government , many Afghan soldiers have surrendered , some have joined the Taliban, while others have fled to neighboring countries. The first goal, which relates to our ability to hit counterterrorism targets in Afghanistan from a distance, is feasible, but it requires a U.S. presence on the ground. ...

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