Tag: SB001

The person who helms the Federal Reserve is one of the most powerful figures in the world. Their job is also one of the most impactful on the lives of ordinary Americans, not to mention others across the world.

The eye-popping sale price of US$69 million on March 11, 2021, for a non-fungible token created by the digital artist Beeple sent shock waves through the art world. More multimillion-dollar sales of these digital assets that exist on a blockchain and are maintained on networked computers soon followed.

In a two-week trial that reignited debate over self-defense laws across the nation, a Wisconsin jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse for shooting three people, two fatally, during a racial justice protest in Kenosha.

The protesters are a mix of groups, but the movement is riddled with far-right and alt-right extremists who, with their growing reach through social media and in the context of developments in the United States and Europe, pose one of the more significant challenges to Australian democracy in recent memory.

However, as we argue in our paper, with more and larger collaborations, and focusing on repurposing the right drugs, we could have developed effective COVID drugs at scale, earlier.

Days short of the first anniversary of the farmers’ protests, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a televised address the government had decided to repeal the three new farm laws. The prime minister also said a committee would be formed to address the farmers concerns. The committee would be ...

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) this week released a much anticipated policy document aimed at making the Olympics more inclusive for transgender athletes and athletes with sex variations.

The Women’s Leadership Institute Australia (WLIA) recently released its 2021 Women for Media Report, which I co-authored with academic and journalist Jenna Price.

For many of us it feels like there’s no going back – at least not full-time. We’ve had working from home foisted upon us. We’ve worked through it. We don’t want to give it all up.

Now, as restrictions are eased – and school, home and social lives return to something resembling normal – young people are having to make significant adjustments as they face new pressures.

COVID has only made matters worse. Health Secretary Sajid Javid is now warning that NHS waiting lists for non-emergency operations and procedures could grow to 13 million up from 5.3 million in July 2021 while increasing numbers of patients wait in ambulances outside hospitals.

The integrated rail plan brings forward local rail improvements by ten years, which means that passengers looking to travel from Leeds to Manchester or Sheffield, say, will indeed benefit from shorter journey times a lot sooner than they would have done if they’d had to wait for HS2 to reach ...

As winter sets in across Europe, COVID-19 cases are beginning to rise, despite the vast roll-out of mass vaccination programmes earlier this year. Austria’s government has pointed the finger of blame firmly at the unvaccinated, announcing a new lockdown only for those who have not had the jab.

Moderna recently offered to share ownership of its main patent with the government to resolve the dispute. Whether or not this is enough to satisfy the government’s claims, I believe the dispute points to serious problems in the ways U.S. companies bring drugs and vaccines to market.

Hydrogen has been touted as the fuel of the future, and the technology features prominently in the Morrison government’s plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

China’s dominance in manufacturing has made it the factory of the world. The subsequent economic growth enriched an ever-expanding middle class, and the country’s retail industry has quickly adapted to supply a growing appetite for consumption.

The impact created a cloud of space debris in an area of space through which the International Space Station regularly passes, and members of the ISS were forced to seek safety in their spacecraft in the immediate aftermath of the test.

Domestic food waste declined in the UK dramatically during the early pandemic lockdowns, with 30% using up more leftovers, but waste levels are increasing again as people go out more and have less time to cook.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law by President Joe Biden on Nov. 15, 2021, was hailed by the White House and advocates as a historic investment to improve internet access in America.

The Massachusetts data came from a number of large public events over a two-week period in July in Barnstable County, Massachusetts. From 469 COVID cases, 346 (74%) occurred in fully vaccinated people. Viral load was similar in both vaccinated and non-vaccinated groups.

It’s usually around this time of year you hear people complain about their phones slowing down. Apple and Google release new versions of their operating systems (OS) and suddenly there’s a slew of people claiming their old devices have started to lag – conveniently just before Christmas.

From 2020 each manufacturer’s cars are limited to an average emissions of 95 grams of carbon dioxide emitted per kilometre, and vans to an average of 147 grams emitted per kilometre.

Climate change is happening, and it’s mostly due to human activities that change the composition of the atmosphere, which in turn interferes with the natural flow of energy through the climate system.

New daily COVID cases in New South Wales decreased rapidly from a peak of over 1,600 in early September, and are now hovering at about 200–250 new cases per day.

American-Chinese summit diplomacy comes and goes, but there will not be a much more consequential meeting between two leaders than the latest of Joe Biden and Xi Jinping’s consultations.

The significance of the Macron accusation is that it gave the media legal cover to call Morrison a liar by quoting the French president. Then Morrison’s predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull, said Morrison had lied to him often. This is all useful evidence.

A fresh fight has broken out between the national broadcaster and the Coalition government. This time, it is over a Senate inquiry, instigated by a Liberal senator, into the way the ABC handles complaints.

Mosquito populations naturally increase in spring, especially when there is plenty of water left around to complete their breeding cycle. So it’s a good time to start thinking about where water might be collecting around your backyard.

This week, Russia tested an anti-satellite missile on one of its own satellites, COSMOS 1408, and created a stream of debris that forced the International Space Station (ISS) crew to take shelter in their Soyuz and SpaceX Dragon capsules.

Chief Scientist Cathy Foley is leading an open access strategy for Australia. Foley estimates the Australian government invests A$12 billion a year of public money in research and innovation only for most of the publications that eventuate to be locked behind a paywall, inaccessible to industry and the taxpayer.

COP26, the recently concluded UN climate change conference in Glasgow, marked a critical turning point in global politics. From now on, the issue of climate justice will be unavoidable for rich countries.

Molnupiravir disrupts the replication of the virus. It mimics a building block of the virus’s genetic material, and so when the virus reproduces, gets incorporated into its RNA.

UK health secretary Sajid Javid’s plans for vaccination requirements for frontline NHS workers has reignited the political and ethical debate over COVID passes.

Cryptocurrencies have had an exceptional year, reaching a combined value of more than US$3 trillion (£2.2 trillion) for the first time in November. The market seems to have benefited from the public having time on their hands during pandemic lockdowns.

Victoria’s Pandemic Management Bill, designed to replace the current state of emergency powers in pandemic emergencies, has swiftly become one of the state’s most polarising pieces of legislation.

Households in most of Australia have been able to choose between electricity retailers for more than a decade. The main reason is to reduce their bills.

As the COP26 climate summit draws to a close, debate continues on one key issue in particular: a new rule book for global carbon trading to allow countries to purchase emissions reductions from overseas to count towards their own climate action.

The so-called quit rate – the share of workers who voluntarily leave their jobs – hit a new record of 3% in September 2021, according to the latest data available from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

The response to Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s announcement of an electric vehicle policy has focused on its inconsistency with his derisive statements in 2019 that the technology would “end the weekend”.

As part of a Halloween-inspired campaign, the Australian Federal Police has released a series of ill-advised memes attempting to highlight the “lesser-known impacts” of illicit drug use.

The COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow is drawing to a close. And despite high hopes, many young people may be feeling disappointed with the progress at these landmark talks.

After two hard-fought weeks of negotiations, the Glasgow climate change summit is, at last, over. All 197 participating countries adopted the so-called Glasgow Climate Pact, despite an 11th hour intervention by India in which the final agreement was watered down from “phasing out” coal to “phasing down”.

There has been much speculation that the community of bacteria living in the gut – known as the microbiome – may be different among people on the autism spectrum than the wider population.

At COP26 in Glasgow, the announcements came so fast there was barely time to give each proper scrutiny before the next arrived. I’ve attended many United Nations climate change conferences, but this fortnight felt different. The feeling of momentum was palpable.

Seven months after it was launched, the US robotic rover Perseverance successfully landed on Mars on February 18 2021. The landing was part of the mission Mars2020 and was viewed live by millions of people worldwide, reflecting the renewed global interest in space exploration. It was soon followed by China’s ...

Having led the delegates at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow to believe that the first draft of the final agreement would be published at midnight Tuesday, the UK presidency will not have made many friends by delaying it till 6am Wednesday morning.

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions come from two sources: using things (known as operational emissions) and making things (embodied emissions). For a familiar example of the first kind, your home probably burns natural gas for heating and uses electricity that fossil fuels may have generated.

The care sector in England is reportedly facing its worst staffing crisis ever. The UK government has launched a recruitment campaign to fill over 105,000 vacant posts.

The High Court of Australia has today refused to hear Volkswagen’s appeal against the record A$125 million fine imposed on it for deliberately deceiving regulators and customers about the environmental performance of its cars.

Google is being fined €2.4 billion (£2.1 billion) for hindering competition in the EU after a 2017 decision has been upheld on appeal by the general court of the European Union.