Daily Archives: June 11, 2021


Google Pledges to Resolve Ad Privacy Probe with UK Watchdog

Google has promised to give U.K. regulators a role overseeing its plan to phase out existing ad-tracking technology from its Chrome browser as part of a competition investigation into the tech giant.     The U.K. competition watchdog has been investigating Google’s proposals to remove so-called third-party cookies over concerns they would undermine digital ad competition and entrench the company’s market power.     To address the concerns, Google on Friday offered a set of commitments including giving the Competition and Markets Authority an oversight role as the company designs and develops a replacement …


European Soccer Championship Begins Friday After 1-Year Delay

The first match of soccer’s European championship gets underway Friday at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, with Turkey taking on Italy.The 2020 UEFA European Football Championship was postponed for a year because of the coronavirus pandemic that brought many of the world’s activities to a halt.It is notable that Friday’s opening match will be played in Italy, the first country outside of Asia to get hit by the pandemic and the world’s first to impose a nationwide lockdown.Euro 2020 was suspended last March as countries worked to contain virus outbreaks …


Hong Kong Censors to Vet Films for National Security Breaches

Hong Kong censors are to vet all films for national security breaches under expanded powers announced on Friday, in the latest blow to the financial hub’s political and artistic freedoms.Authorities in semi-autonomous Hong Kong have embarked on a sweeping crackdown to root out Beijing’s critics after huge and often violent democracy protests convulsed the city in 2019.A new China-imposed security law and an official campaign dubbed “Patriots rule Hong Kong” has since criminalized much dissent and strangled the democracy movement.The latest target is films. In a statement on Friday, the government …


British PM Urges G-7 Leaders to Donate COVID Vaccines

The G-7 nations announced Friday that they will donate a billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to low- and medium-income nations.  The U.S., as previously announced, will donate 500 million shots, while Britain will donate 100 million.  “I hope my fellow @G7 leaders will make similar pledges so that, together, we can vaccinate the world by the end of next year,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson posted on Twitter Friday.  G-7 Will Donate 1 Billion COVID Vaccines to WorldUS shots will begin shipment in August President Biden says; Britain will donate 100 …


Kenya Strives to Eradicate Blindness-Causing Trachoma

Kenyan authorities are working to eradicate trachoma, an infectious disease that is a leading cause of blindness in Africa.  About 7 million people in central Kenya are at risk for the disease.As Elizabeth Partoti, sits outside a clinic in Kajiado county in Kenya, she stares, unseeingly, into the dry and brittle spaces outside the health facility. In a few minutes a surgeon will carry out a corrective eye operation and allow the more than 70-year-old woman to see clearly for the first time in over a decade.She is one of …


Fight Over Canadian Oil Rages on After Pipeline’s Demise

The Keystone XL is dead after a 12-year attempt to build the oil pipeline, yet the fight over Canadian crude rages on as emboldened environmentalists target other projects and pressure President Joe Biden to intervene — all while oil imports from the north keep rising.Biden dealt the fatal blow to the partially built $9 billion Keystone XL in January when he revoked its border-crossing permit issued by former President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, sponsors TC Energy and the province of Alberta gave up and declared the line “terminated.”Activists and many …


The Unanswered ‘Jeopardy!’ Question: Who’s the New Host?

Jeopardy! needed a host, and Lucille Ball had an enthusiastic suggestion for creator Merv Griffin: The smooth-voiced, debonair emcee of the High Rollers game show.That was 1984. Decades later, filling the void left by the late Alex Trebek involves sophisticated research and a parade of guest hosts doing their best to impress viewers and the studio that’s expected to make the call before the new season begins taping later this summer.Think of Sony Pictures Television as clutching the rose, and Mayim Bialik, Anderson Cooper, Katie Couric and Jeopardy! champs Ken …


Biden Says US Will Donate 500 Million COVID Vaccines to World

On Thursday, the eve of the G-7 summit in Cornwall, England, U.S. President Joe Biden formally announced what had been disclosed a day earlier — that his administration would donate 500 million doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to 92 low- and middle-income countries. Here’s the latest from White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara, who is traveling with the president. …