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Here’s what you need to know
The US Senate unveiled a plan to combat China strategically. The bill includes measures to improve US supply chain competitiveness and to defend human rights with allies. Separately, the commerce department blacklisted seven Chinese supercomputing outfits.
A partial count of Alabama’s union vote favors Amazon. Preliminary results show two-thirds of the tallied votes going against unionizing. Counting could be completed as soon as today.
France’s AstraZeneca recipients will be steered to a different second dose. Its health regulator is expected to advise administering Pfizer or Moderna for the follow-up jab for under-55s amid concerns about rare blood clots. Meanwhile, the African Union reversed plans to buy the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Djibouti’s president Ismail Omar Guelleh is a shoo-in for a fifth term. The opposition is sitting out voting in the coastal African country, which is home to both a major US and Chinese military presence.
Japan plans fresh social restrictions for Tokyo. The move is likely to further sour the local mood around the rescheduled Olympics, now less than 100 days away.
Procter & Gamble joined forces with a Chinese trade group to thwart Apple’s privacy policies. An upcoming iPhone software update will make it harder for brands to collect data for targeted ads.
What to watch for
NASA hopes that its Ingenuity helicopter, pictured above on the surface of Mars, will take its first flight on Sunday, April 11. The tiny rotor-winged aircraft was dropped from the belly of the Perseverance rover on April 3, and survived a freezing overnight stay on the grounds of an ancient lakebed. After it flexes its wings and practices rotating them, Ingenuity’s first flight will be more of a hop up to 10 feet above the ground, before returning for a careful landing. If all goes well, the interplanetary drone will be able to fly further around Jezero Crater.
Charting US teens’ favorite shopping sites
China-based online fast-fashion retailer Shein has twice ranked second only to Amazon as the favorite shopping site of upper-income US teens in a biannual survey by Piper Sandler, an investment firm.
While still well behind Amazon in the most recent installment, Shein came in ahead of household names such as Nike and Urban Outfitters. For the first time it also broke into the top-10 favorite clothing brands listed by teens, writes Marc Bain.
India faces a raging second wave
India’s second Covid-19 wave is proving to be a big nightmare. In the past week, the country has consistently recorded the highest daily new infections of the novel coronavirus in the world, clocking multiple days of more than 100,000 new cases. And there are other reasons for concern, notes Manavi Kapur:
🦠 On April 4, Mumbai reported a test positivity rate of roughly 25%, and the rate has been hovering between 20% and 25% since then.
💉 The central government is standing firm on its vaccine eligibility timeline, despite pleas from some states to remove age limits to stem the rate of infection.
💊 Delhi’s health minister continues to push Covid-19 treatments that have proven to be ineffective.
🤒 Some Indians are faking Covid-19 test results—both negative and positive—in order to travel or skip exams.
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You asked about vaccine card protection
What’s the best way to protect my vaccine card?
In the US, everyone who gets a vaccine also receives a standardized card from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). While it’s not necessarily an official document and it’s not clear whether or where it will be required (for instance, to travel), the CDC recommends keeping the card and bringing it to all future medical appointments.
While you may be tempted to laminate yours, we don’t yet know whether there will be a need for booster shots next year and if they will have to be added on the card. For now, better to invest in an inexpensive plastic sleeve, if you’re so inclined. The CDC also encourages patients to take a photograph of their vaccination card and keep it for their records.
If heaven forbid, you lose your card, first try and contact the site where you got your vaccine, and follow their instructions about getting a card or replacing it. If you’re not able to speak directly with the vaccination site, you can contact your state’s Immunization Information System (IIS).
Handpicked Quartz
⚰️ The death of Yahoo! Answers is the death of a collegial vision of the Internet
🤡 How online scammers fooled one of Africa’s biggest fintech startups
🤫 Silence is the most misunderstood negotiation superpower
🏢 Indian IT’s mega offices will outlive the pandemic
💰 Uganda’s social media tax failed so now it wants to tax internet access
Surprising discoveries
Japanese surgeons performed the world’s first lung transplant from a living donor. Make that two donors: the son and husband of the patient, a Covid survivor.
A painting suspected to be a Caravaggio original was almost sold for a song. The work was priced under $2,000 at a Spanish auction, but it might be worth about $60 million.
New research raised the question: When is a podcast not a podcast? An audio marketing agency found 26% of the 2 billion titles in Apple’s catalog feature only one lonely episode.
A Polish teenager built a fake beauty site to fool abusers. Victims of domestic violence can safely “shop” for cosmetics, while secretly speaking with volunteers from the Centre for Women’s Rights.
The #MilkTeaAlliance has its own emoji. Twitter created a symbol for the pro-democracy, pan-Asian online activists who drown out pro-Beijing tweets with their own jokes and memes.
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