President Biden Backs Waiver on Covid-19 Vaccine Patents
US President Joe Biden. Credit: White House
President Joe Biden threw his support behind a World Trade Organization proposal on Wednesday to waive patent protections for COVID-19 vaccines.
“This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures,” U.S. trade representative Katherine Tai said in a statement.
” width=”1080″>“The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines.”
These extraordinary times and circumstances of call for extraordinary measures.
The US supports the waiver of IP protections on COVID-19 vaccines to help end the pandemic and we’ll actively participate in @WTO negotiations to make that happen. pic.twitter.com/96ERlboZS8
2 American students found guilty of killing Italian policeman
Two college students from California were found guilty on Wednesday of killing an Italian policeman in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison.
Finnegan Lee Elder, 21, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 20, were accused of stabbing to death 35-year-old Vice Brig. Mario Cerciello Rega while they were vacationing in Rome. On the night of July 25, the men â friends from high school â had been ripped off by a drug dealer, and they stole the backpack of a middleman who gave them an over-the-counter pain medicine instead of cocaine. Elder and Natale-Hjorth set up a meeting to give the man his backpack in exchange for their money, but instead encountered Cerciello Rega and his partner, Andrea Varriale.
DOJ sends letter detailing concerns over Arizona election audit
The Justice Department s Civil Rights Division sent a letter to Arizona Senate President Karen Fann (R) on Wednesday detailing concerns it has over private contractors performing an audit of the November presidential election in Maricopa County.
Last month, the GOP-controlled state Senate used subpoenas to get the 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County during the election, as well as voting machines and private and public voter information. The Senate hired private contractors to conduct the audit, now underway in Phoenix, seeking a recount of all ballots and a review of the voting machines and voter information to search for evidence of potential fraud,