By Alice Seeley On March 17, Moderna announced that it requested emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for a second COVID-19 booster shot for all adults. Currently, a single booster dose of Moderna's mRNA vaccine is only authorized for emergency use. The two-dose Moderna vaccine was granted emergency use approval in December 2020 and received full [...]
By Alice Seeley Economists warn that another recession may be right around the corner, as the Federal Reserve is expected to begin increasing interest rates this week. This will be the first time that the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates in three years. The Fed is expected to raise its benchmark federal funds rate by [...]
By Alice Seeley President Joe Biden issued an executive order on March 11 banning U.S. imports of key Russian products and exports of high-end goods to Russia, including seafood, alcohol, nonindustrial diamonds, and any other products of Russian Federation origin. President Biden's order also bans the export of high-end American products such as expensive watches, cars, and clothing to Russia. [...]
By Alice Seeley United Airlines announced it would allow employees who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 due to religious or medical reasons to resume work on Monday, March 28. Kirk Limacher, United’s vice president of human relations, stated the decision is based on the decline of COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. “Of course, if another variant emerges or [...]
By Alice Seeley Google announced on March 8 an agreement to acquire Mandiant, Inc., a cybersecurity firm, for $23 per share, in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $5.4 billion. This is the largest acquisition in Google's history. Once the transaction is completed, Mandiant will join the Google Cloud. The goal of the acquisition is to better help companies [...]
By Alice Seeley Abbott Laboratories has issued a recall for its Similac, Alimentum, and EleCare infant formulas made at an Abbott factory in Sturgis, Michigan after receiving reports of four infants who were hospitalized with cronobacter sakazakii and Salmonella Newport infections after consuming the formula. Abbott did not recall the infant formula immediately after receiving [...]
By Alice Seeley Amazon announced on March 2 that it is closing all of its 68 brick and mortar bookstores in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. Amazon will refocus the company's physical retail efforts into building department stores such as Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market, Amazon Go, and Amazon Style stores. It is unclear how many [...]
By Alice Seeley On March 3, Twitter announced it will be expanding Birdwatch, a crowdsourced fact-checking program, and selecting "a small and randomized group of people on Twitter in the US to see Birdwatch notes directly on some Tweets." Users will now be able to rate notes on if the information is helpful or not by rating the note [...]
By Alice Seeley ExxonMobil announced on March 1 that it will end its decades-long involvement in Russia because of the country's invasion of Ukraine. Exxon is now the latest Western oil company to announce that it is leaving Russia. "We deplore Russia's military action that violates the territorial integrity of Ukraine and endangers its people," [...]
By Alice Seeley On Wednesday, March 2, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall of the Fitbit Ionic Smartwatch. None of the company's other devices are affected. More than 1 million Ionic Smartwatches have been sold to consumers in the U.S., in addition to another 693,000 sold internationally. Fitbit issued this recall after receiving 174 reports of the lithium-ion [...]
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