Month: December 2020

Reside Market Updates: Shares Decline Amid Covid Restrictions and Rising Instances

Post author By Gloria Cote
Post date December 8, 2020

Goods are piling up at some British ports, as trucks and rail have failed to keep up with companies trying to stockpile ahead of Brexit.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Andrew Testa for The New York Times

Businesses in Britain and the European Union are bracing for the economic disruption of Brexit, which threatens to clog ports and disrupt trade across the English Channel on Dec. 31 if leaders do not reach a compromise to settle their future trading relationship.

But the economic breakup could have a relatively limited impact on trade with the United States, trade experts said.

Because the United States does not have a free-trade agreement with the European Union, Britain’s departure from the bloc will do little to alter its trading relationship with the United States. Following Brexit, the terms of trade between the United States and Britain will continue to be governed by the rules of the World Trade Organization, as they were before.

The direct effect on the two trade partners “should be minimal given there’s no change in tariffs,” said Christopher Rogers, a global trade and logistics analyst at Panjiva.

Still, he said, significant customs disruptions between Europe and Britain could have knock-on effects for supply chains, if, for example, it takes British businesses that are exporting to the United States longer to source components from abroad. Goods are piling up at some British ports, as trucks and rail have failed to keep up with companies trying to stockpile ahead of Brexit.

Britain’s trading terms with the United States may not get much worse, but they also appear unlikely to get better.

The two countries have been carrying out negotiations for a free-trade deal since May. But with the election of Joseph R. Biden Jr., the prospects for that agreement, which many Britons saw as a source of post-Brexit strength, have been greatly diminished.

The congressional authority that gives trade deals an easier path to approval by Congress, called trade promotion authority, is set to expire this summer, and Mr. Biden has promised not to enter into any major new trade agreements until the United States has made major investments at home.

Credit…Lindsey Wasson/Reuters

Gol Airlines, a Brazilian carrier, said it planned to start flights aboard the Boeing 737 Max on Wednesday, making it the first airline to fly passengers on the plane since it was grounded worldwide almost two years ago.

The first flights will be on domestic routes to and from Gol’s hub in São Paulo, with the company expecting all seven of the Max planes in its fleet to be updated and cleared to fly by the end of the month. A Gol spokeswoman declined to provide further details.

“Our first priority is always the safety of our customers,” Celso Ferrer, vice president of operations and a commercial pilot at Gol, said in a statement. “Over the past 20 months, we have watched the most comprehensive safety review in the history of commercial aviation unfold.”

The Max was banned worldwide in March 2019 after a total of 346 people were killed in two crashes aboard the plane. In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration last month became the first regulator to allow the plane to fly again, after required modifications are made. The agency was recently joined by regulators in Brazil, while the European aviation authority has suggested that it plans to lift its ban within weeks. Relatives of those killed in the crashes criticized the decision to allow the plane to fly again, arguing that it remains unsafe.

The lifting of the ban allows Boeing to restart sales and deliveries in earnest after its passenger airline business was pummeled by the grounding and the pandemic. The plane maker on Tuesday reported a net decline of 61 orders last month. Boeing’s backlog of orders, most of them for the Max, stood at 4,240, down more than a thousand from the start of the year after accounting for fulfilled orders.

Still, airlines are still interested in acquiring the plane. Last week, the company announced it had agreed to sell 75 Max jets to Ryanair, the low-cost European airline. Like RyanAir, Gol is among the biggest customers for the Max. The airline’s fleet is composed of 127 Boeing planes and it has an order for 95 Max jets scheduled for delivery over a decade starting in 2022.

Credit…Eric Risberg/Associated Press

A dirty secret of initial public offerings is that even the coolest ones may make only a handful of people rich — and it may not be regular people, employees or even fancy pre-I.P.O. investors who get a windfall.

DoorDash and Airbnb are expected to have spectacular first sales on public stock exchanges this week and start trading at far higher levels than anticipated even a few weeks ago.

But buying stock in relatively young and unproven companies — which usually describes technology companies selling their stock to the public for the first time — is often a coin-toss bet. Even the professional investors who buy stock in hot companies before they go public don’t always get rich, unless they throw their money around early and get lucky. Companies you might have heard of like Uber, Lyft, Snapchat and Slack were at best meh I.P.O. investments.

Look at Airbnb. Among the investors who got a special chance to buy Airbnb stock nearly four years ago, each $10,000 of stock they bought will be worth about $11,500 if Airbnb starts selling its shares to the public for $60 each. Nice!

But if your aunt had invested $10,000 nearly four years ago in a simple fund that mirrored the ups and downs of the S&P 500 stock index, she would now have $15,600. Even nicer.

The pandemic hurt business for Uber and Lyft, but their stocks were losers before then. Uber’s stock price has bounced back and is now up 30 percent since the spring, and still anyone who bought Uber shares in its 2019 I.P.O. — and even the professional investors who bought its stock in the four years before that — would have made far more money buying an index fund. Uber employees who were hired before the I.P.O. and were paid partly in stock also would have been better off getting paid in an index fund.

People who bought Snapchat’s stock in its 2017 initial public offering had to wait more than three years to not lose money on their bet. Slack just sold itself at a share price not much higher than its first public stock sale last year.

These are cherry-picked examples. There are companies whose stock prices have soared since their I.P.O.s and made people rich — Zoom Video is a prominent example in technology. And the people who have already bet on the restaurant delivery app DoorDash stand to make a big profit when the company goes public this week.

Will Airbnb be a winning I.P.O.? It depends. It definitely will be for the venture capital firm Sequoia, which bet on Airbnb early. And it’s certainly faring better than people expected when travel froze early this year. But no one can confidently predict whether its share price will shoot to the moon like Zoom’s has since its 2019 I.P.O. or will plunge as Lyft’s did after it went public.

That’s the lesson. Cool companies don’t always make good investments. The people screaming on Robinhood about their splurge on a hot I.P.O. may not know what they’re talking about.

By: Ella Koeze·Source: Refinitiv

Stocks were unsteady on Tuesday, as the spread of coronavirus cases and restrictions on people’s movement and businesses outweighed optimism about the rollout of a vaccine.
The S&P 500 was flat by midday after recovering from an earlier dip. The Stoxx Europe 600 and Britain’s FTSE 100 also recouped small losses and were slightly higher.
In the United States, rising numbers of virus cases has led California to impose new stay-at-home orders in large swathes of the state. In New York, the number of people hospitalized with the coronavirus is rising and could lead to another ban on indoor dining.
In Europe, countries are struggling to emerge from a second wave of the pandemic. The infection rate in France is threatening plans to ease restrictions before the holidays, and in Greece, the lockdown was extended until early January.
But on a brighter note, Britain on Tuesday started a mass vaccination campaign, delivering the first shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. “There is finally some clear light at the end of a very dark tunnel,” James Pomeroy, an economist at HSBC, wrote in a note to clients. “And that cheer should be seen in some of the economic data in the coming year too.”
Tesla said on Tuesday it would sell as much as $5 billion in shares, its third return to markets in 10 months, and use the money for more investments including factory construction. Tesla’s shares were down nearly 3 percent. This year, the electric carmaker’s shares have risen about 670 percent, and later this month, the company will join the S&P 500.

Credit…Ben Stansall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Governments around the world have been grappling with ways to crimp the power of the biggest tech companies. In the United States, the Justice Department recently filed an antitrust case against Google. The European Union has issued antitrust violations and enacted stiffer data-protection laws. The Australian government is pushing new rules to make Google and Facebook pay for certain content.

But many question whether the tactics are adequate, particularly if a lengthy enforcement and legal process slows down action against the fast-moving and deep-pocketed companies.

On Tuesday, Britain’s top antitrust regulator recommended a new approach. The Competition and Markets Authority released recommendations for creating a new regulator called the Digital Markets Unit that will focus on the biggest technology platforms. The regulator would be able to fine companies up to 10 percent of global revenue.

The idea of creating a tech industry regulator has gained momentum among academics and policymakers around the world. The aim is to treat giants like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft more like the biggest companies in banking and health care — with dedicated regulators that have the expertise in the subject matter to serve as a watchdog and act quickly to address wrongdoing, akin to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Food and Drug Administration.

Britain is perhaps the furthest along. The new regulator would be responsible for enforcing a legally binding code of conduct intended to prevent the biggest companies from using their dominance to exploit consumers and business, or to box out emerging competitors. Officials said only companies of a certain size would fall under the rules, which would be tailored to specific types of businesses. Google and Facebook may face certain restrictions related to digital advertising, while Amazon would have others related to e-commerce.

To improve competition, the regulator could force companies to share certain data with rivals, and it would review acquisitions.

The proposals build on recommendations made by a British panel of experts last year and are part of a process by the government to enact regulations for the digital economy by next year. Britain is preparing to leave the European Union, which next week will release its own draft laws to increase oversight of the tech industry across the 27-nation bloc.

British authorities have raised specific concerns about the digital advertising market dominated by Google and Facebook. In July, the Competition and Markets Authority published a 437-page investigation that concluded the two companies have such scale and unmatched access to user data that “potential rivals can no longer compete on equal terms.”

Goldman Sachs has reached a deal to buy out the minority partner in its Chinese securities joint venture, which could make it the first global bank to assume full ownership of its securities business in mainland China since the Communist Party took control of foreign-owned enterprises in the country in the 1950s.

In a memo to employees on Tuesday, the Wall Street bank said it had reached a definitive agreement to buy a 49 percent stake in Goldman Sachs Gao Hua still held by its local partner, Beijing Gao Hua Securities. Goldman Sachs did not disclose a price for the transaction.

The deal follows a pledge by Chinese leaders in 2017, amid worsening trade relations with the United States, to relax or remove limits on foreign bank ownership. The move was part of an unsuccessful effort by China to enlist Wall Street in heading off President Trump’s plans to impose tariffs on Chinese goods.

Goldman Sachs could be the first to take full control of its China securities business, depending on regulatory approval and how quickly the deal is completed.

JP Morgan Chase already has full ownership of its futures business in China, but still has a joint venture for other activities on the mainland. Other investment banks, like JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Nomura, are in various stages of raising their stakes in their Chinese securities operations.

Commercial banks, by contrast, have avoided raising their stakes in commercial banking operations in mainland China above 25 percent. Doing so would subject those operations to further global banking regulations.

Goldman Sachs had announced on March 27 that it had obtained regulatory approval to raise its stake in Goldman Sachs Gao Hua from 33 percent to 51 percent. Tuesday’s memo was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

Credit…Aaron P/Bauer-Griffin, via Getty

Last week, when Jason Kilar, WarnerMedia’s chief executive, announced that 17 more Warner Bros. movies would each roll out on HBO Max and in theaters simultaneously. To prevent the news of the 17-movie shift from leaking (and to make the move speedily rather than get mired in the expected blowback), WarnerMedia kept the major agencies and talent management companies in the dark until roughly 90 minutes before issuing a news release, report Brooks Barnes and Nicole Sperling.

The surprise move left agencies on a war footing. Representatives for major Warner Bros. Talk of a Warner Bros. boycott began circulating inside the Directors Guild of America. A partner at one talent agency spent part of the weekend meeting with litigators. Some people started to angrily refer to the studio as Former Bros.

The 97-year-old studio, the ancestral home of Humphrey Bogart (“Casablanca”) and Bette Davis (“Now, Voyager”), suddenly finds itself at the uncomfortable center of a Hollywood that is changing at light speed. Even before the pandemic, streaming services like Netflix, Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video were upending how movies get seen and their creators are compensated. Now, with theaters struggling because of the coronavirus and the public largely stuck at home, even traditional film companies are being forced to evolve.

It’s not that all actors and directors are against streaming. Plenty of big names are making movies for Netflix. But last week’s move by Warner Bros. raised fundamental financial questions. If old-line studios are no longer trying to maximize the box office for each film but instead shifting to a hybrid model where success is judged partly by ticket sales and partly by the number of streaming subscriptions sold, what does that mean for talent pay packages?

How studios compensate A-list actors, directors, writers and producers is complicated, with contracts negotiated film by film and person by person. But it boils down to two checks. One is guaranteed (a large upfront fee) and one is a gamble: a portion of ticket sales after the studio has recouped its costs.

If a film flops, the second payday never comes. If a film is a hit, as is often the case with superheroes and other fantasy stories, the “back end” pay can add up to wheelbarrows full of cash.

Credit…Jason Henry for The New York Times

Uber, which spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a self-driving car project that executives once believed was a key to becoming profitable, is handing the autonomous vehicle effort over to a Silicon Valley start-up, the companies said on Monday.

Uber will also invest $400 million in the start-up, called Aurora, so it is essentially paying the company to take over the autonomous car operation, which had become a financial and legal headache. Uber is likely to license whatever technology Aurora manages to create.

The deal amounts to a fire-sale end to a high-profile but star-crossed effort to replace Uber’s human drivers with machines that could drive on their own. It is also indicative of the challenges facing other autonomous vehicle projects, which have received billions in investments from Silicon Valley and automakers but have not produced the fleets of robotic vehicles some thought would be on the streets by now.

Aurora’s chief executive, Chris Urmson, said Aurora’s first product will not be a robot taxi that could help with Uber’s ride-hailing business. Instead, it will likely be a self-driving truck, which Mr. Urmson believes has a better chance of success in the near term because long-haul truck driving on highways is more predictable and does not involve passengers.

In a statement, the Uber chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, said he was looking forward to bringing Aurora technology to market “in the years ahead.” Uber declined to comment further on the agreement.

Rashida Jones, a senior vice president for news at MSNBC and NBC News, will become the first Black woman to take charge of a major television news network. Her promotion, announced by Cesar Conde, the chairman of NBCUniversal News Group, is another big shake-up in the network’s management ranks. She will succeed Phil Griffin, the MSNBC president whose left-leaning shows yielded big ratings in the Trump years and minted media brands like “The Rachel Maddow Show” and “Morning Joe,” will depart on Feb. 1 after a 12-year tenure, the network said on Monday.
The Japanese advertising giant Dentsu Group plans to cut roughly 6,000 jobs as it grapples with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. In a securities filing in Tokyo on Monday, Dentsu laid out details of its restructuring strategy, which will cost 88 billion yen (about $850 million) to carry out over two years and includes trimming its 48,000-person international work force by 12.5 percent. The timeline will vary by location, the company said.

Patrick Gaspard, a former aide to President Barack Obama, U.S. ambassador to South Africa and executive director of the Democratic National Committee, has emerged as the leading candidate to be nominated as labor secretary under President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

Mr. Gaspard announced last week that he would step down as the head of the Open Society Foundations, founded by the liberal megadonor George Soros, at the end of the year, fueling speculation in Washington that he was poised to join the incoming administration. He has a background in labor organizing, including a senior leadership position for the Service Employees International Union, which he held before joining the Obama administration.

His potential nomination would give Mr. Biden, who calls himself a “union guy,” a labor secretary with union roots. He would also add to the list of Black cabinet appointees, a key goal of Mr. Biden’s transition team as it seeks to fulfill Mr. Biden’s campaign promise of diversity in the top leadership of his administration.

Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo to Haitian parents, Mr. Gaspard immigrated to the United States in early childhood, grew up in New York and attended Columbia University before leaving to work on Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign. He worked for years in New York City politics and on Howard Dean’s 2004 Democratic presidential bid, and he was an aide to former Mayor David Dinkins. After Mr. Dinkins died last month, Mr. Gaspard wrote on Twitter, “He taught me that you don’t need to be loud to be strong.”

Mr. Gaspard worked for years as an organizer and rose through the Service Employees International Union to become its national political director before joining Mr. Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. In the Obama White House, Mr. Gaspard served as director of political affairs, before helming the Democratic National Committee and being confirmed as Mr. Obama’s ambassador to South Africa.

Allies of Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont and Mr. Biden’s chief rival for the Democratic nomination this year, had pushed hard for Mr. Sanders to be selected as labor secretary. But Mr. Biden’s short list for the job does not appear to include Mr. Sanders.

Tags cases, Covid, Decline, Live, market, Restrictions, Rising, Stocks, Updates

World News

Covid-19 Information: Dwell Updates – The New York Occasions

Post author By Gloria Cote
Post date December 8, 2020

Here’s what you need to know:

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‘Go for It’: U.K.’s First Vaccine Patient Encourages Others

Margaret Keenan, the first patient in Britain to receive the coronavirus vaccine, hopes to set an example for people hesitant to get vaccinated.

It was fine, it was fine. I wasn’t nervous at all. It was really good. “And what do you say to those who might be having second thoughts about this?” Well, I would say go for it. Go for it, because it’s free and it’s the best thing that’s ever happened, at the moment. So, do please go for it. That’s all I’ll say, you know. If I can do it, well, so can you.

Margaret Keenan, the first patient in Britain to receive the coronavirus vaccine, hopes to set an example for people hesitant to get vaccinated.CreditCredit…Pool photo by Jacob King

Britain’s National Health Service delivered its first shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on Tuesday, opening a mass vaccination campaign with little precedent in modern medicine and making Britons the first people in the world to receive a clinically authorized, fully tested vaccine for the disease.

Across the nation, vaccine centers are beginning the careful process of delivering vaccinations on a tight schedule, as the vaccine must be used or discarded within five days of being defrosted. “We’re doing it with military precision, and in fact, we have had the military helping with our planning too,” said Fiona Kinghorn, who oversaw the vaccine rollout at one site in Cardiff, Wales.

The effort marks a turning point in the remarkable race to produce a vaccine and the global effort to end a pandemic that has killed 1.5 million people worldwide. At one Welsh vaccination center, a retired nurse on the facility staff described the response by her most recent patient, another nurse. “She just cried and said this was such an emotional day,” she said, adding: “I think partly because she worked on a Covid ward, so she has seen the consequences and probably the outcomes. I presume she has seen a lot.”

At 6:31 a.m. Tuesday, Margaret Keenan, 90, a former jewelry shop assistant, rolled up the sleeve of her “Merry Christmas” T-shirt to receive the first shot, and her image quickly became an emblem of hope and resilience.

“I feel so privileged to be the first person vaccinated against Covid-19,” said Ms. Keenan, who lives in Coventry, in central England. “It means I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the new year after being on my own for most of the year.”

British regulators leapt ahead of their American counterparts last week to authorize a coronavirus vaccine, upsetting the White House and setting off a spirited debate about whether Britain had moved too hastily, or if the United States was wasting valuable time as the virus was killing about 2,200 Americans a day over the last week, as of Monday.

President Trump planned on Tuesday to issue an executive order proclaiming that other nations will not get U.S. supplies of its vaccine until Americans have been inoculated, a directive that appeared to have no real teeth but nevertheless was indicative of the heated race to secure shipments of doses.

For the people receiving vaccinations in Britain, among them doctors and nurses who have fortified the country’s National Health Service this year, the shots were an early glimpse at post-pandemic life. Besides Ms. Keenan, none attracted as much attention as William Shakespeare, who was second in line for a shot in Coventry and who, the National Health Service confirmed, really is named William Shakespeare. Twitter took the news of his vaccination as an opportunity for delighted wordplay, cracking jokes about the Taming of the Flu and the Gentlemen of Corona.

“Today is a great day for medical science, and the future,” Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, said on Tuesday. (An earlier version of this item mistakenly said he was the chief medical officer for all of Britain.)

The first 800,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for Britain were transported in recent days from a manufacturing plant in Belgium to government warehouses in Britain, and then to hospitals.

Fifty hospitals will be administering the shots until the government can refine a plan for delivering them at nursing homes and doctor’s offices. The vaccine must be transported at South Pole-like temperatures before it can be stored for five days in a normal refrigerator, Pfizer has said. First to receive the vaccine will be doctors and nurses, certain people aged 80 and over, and nursing home workers.

Some doctors and nurses have received invitations in recent days to sign up for appointments, with the first shots intended for those at the highest risk of severe illness. The government has indicated that people aged 80 and over who already have visits with doctors scheduled for this week, or who are being discharged from certain hospitals, will also be among the first to receive shots.

Nursing home residents, who were supposed to be the government’s top priority, will be vaccinated in the coming weeks, once health officials start distributing doses beyond hospitals.

Hundreds of people are still dying in Britain each day from the virus, and the country has made allowances for travel over the Christmas period that scientists fear will seed another uptick in infections.

“It is amazing to see the vaccine, but we can’t afford to relax now,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain said on Tuesday morning as he visited a London hospital. Trying to calm a recipient’s nerves about needles, he suggested, “I always try to think of something else — recite some poetry.”

Ms. Keenan, the first vaccine recipient, showed no such nerves. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said on Twitter that watching Ms. Keenan receive the shot gave her “a bit of a lump in the throat.”

“Feels like such a milestone moment after a tough year for everyone,” Ms. Sturgeon added.

Administering Ms. Keenan’s shot was May Parsons, a nurse who is originally from the Philippines and has worked for the National Health Service for 24 years.

“The last few months have been tough for all of us working in the N.H.S.,” she said, “but now it feels like there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

Credit…John Cairns/University of Oxford, via Associated Press

The University of Oxford published a much-anticipated paper on Tuesday detailing the findings of its coronavirus vaccine trials, echoing results first announced two weeks ago that showed the vaccine had 70 percent efficacy on average across two different dosing regimens.

But while it was the first peer-reviewed publication outlining late-stage results of a leading coronavirus vaccine, it did little to answer the most pressing questions facing the university and AstraZeneca, the drug maker, since they offered a glimpse at the same promising, if somewhat puzzling, results two weeks ago.

Among nearly 8,900 participants who received two full doses of the vaccine, it had 62 percent efficacy. But after a discrepancy over methods for measuring the concentration of viral particles in the vaccine created uncertainty over the dosage during an early stage of manufacturing, 2,741 participants were given a half dose of the vaccine followed a month later by a full dose. In that smaller group of participants, the vaccine had 90 percent efficacy.

The Oxford scientists said in the paper, published in the Lancet, a British medical journal, that “further work is needed to determine the mechanism of the increased efficacy.”

Both dosing regimens appeared to protect participants in the trials from hospitalization or severe disease.

The results combined data from a trial in Brazil with a trial in Britain. In the British trial, the researchers asked participants to swab their noses and throats weekly to test for asymptomatic infections, a way of determining whether the vaccine could protect not only against disease but also transmission.

The vaccine appeared to be more effective in protecting against asymptomatic infections in the low-dose, high-dose regimen, but the numbers were so small that it was difficult to be sure. The researchers wrote in the paper that the results “provide some hope that Covid-19 vaccines might be able to interrupt some asymptomatic transmission,” though they said “more data are needed to confirm.”

Credit…Rey Del Rio/Getty Images

Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser to President Trump, has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a White House official familiar with the situation. She is the latest in a string of officials connected to Mr. Trump who have tested positive.

Ms. Ellis has appeared in recent weeks alongside Rudolph W. Giuliani and other Trump lawyers — a group Ms. Ellis has described as an “elite strike-force team” — at public hearings where she amplified the president’s false claims of widespread voter fraud.

Mr. Giuliani, the lead lawyer for the president’s efforts to overthrow the results of the election, confirmed over the weekend that he had tested positive for the virus, and a person who was aware of his condition but not authorized to speak publicly said then that he had been hospitalized at Georgetown University Medical. At age 76, Mr. Giuliani is in a high-risk category. Mr. Trump said on Monday that he had spoken to Mr. Giuliani and he was doing “very well.”

Ms. Ellis was photographed last week, on Wednesday, sitting next to Mr. Giuliani during a hearing before the Michigan House Oversight Committee. It was not immediately clear whether she had any symptoms, or what kind of test she had taken. Ms. Ellis continued to post to Twitter throughout the day on Tuesday, including sharing a statement attributed to her and Mr. Giuliani about their legal efforts. She did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Ms. Ellis has been a frequent guest on cable news, where she aggressively defended Mr. Trump as he faced investigation and impeachment. She presents herself as a constitutional law attorney, but has never appeared in federal district or circuit court, where most constitutional matters are considered, according to national databases of federal cases. She does not appear to have played a major role in any cases beyond criminal and civil work in Colorado.

Ms. Ellis’s most recent work appears to have been largely in a public-relations capacity. The Trump campaign and its supporters have so far filed about 50 election-related lawsuits. She has not signed her name or appeared in court to argue a single one.

At least 40 members of Mr. Trump’s administration, campaign and inner circle have contracted the virus since late September. In early October, Mr. Trump was hospitalized for a few days after testing positive and developing symptoms of Covid-19.

Credit…Andrew Testa for The New York Times

The complicated logistics at one vaccination center offer insights into the challenges ahead for a mass rollout of the new inoculation program across Britain. While the country has been getting ready for a vaccine for some time, only now are the difficulties involved in a program of this scale being fully understood.

Fiona Kinghorn, executive director of public health for the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, who oversaw the vaccine rollout at one site in Cardiff, the capital of Wales, said setting up the center and delivering the first shots on Tuesday was a major undertaking.

“It’s not just this week, it’s been six months of work,” she said.

Work on a mass vaccination program began in earnest in June, long before it was clear which vaccine might be approved by the government and when. On Monday, the center received one batch of vaccine — a tray of vials containing 975 doses, five to each vial — that must be used within five days after being defrosted.

“We’ve had to prioritize and phase how we might bring people in,” she said. The center began with health care workers and social care staff.

Unlike flu vaccines, which come prepacked in syringes for easy use, the coronavirus vaccines must be prepared on site after they are defrosted, and then the prepared vials must be used within hours. The center was scheduled to provide 225 vaccinations on Tuesday and continue daily until they finish the tray. Any doses they failed to use in time would have to be discarded, creating a sense of urgency.

“We’re doing it with military precision, and in fact, we have had the military helping with our planning too,” Ms. Kinghorn said.

The center will receive its next tray of vaccine on Friday, and then will decide on the right time to defrost and begin using those.

Credit…Andrew Testa for The New York Times

Britain’s National Health Service began delivering shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Tuesday, opening a public health campaign with little precedent in modern medicine.

Here is a guide to some of the basics.

Should I be concerned about the safety of the vaccine in Britain?

Britain’s drug regulator is seen as a bellwether agency, and its decisions often have influence abroad. In the case of the Pfizer vaccine, the agency has said that it did not cut any corners and undertook the same laborious process of vetting the quality, efficacy and manufacturing protocols of the vaccine.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the United States’s top infectious disease expert, said last week that the British had not reviewed the vaccine “as carefully” as the United States was. But he walked back those comments the next day, saying: “I have a great deal of confidence in what the U.K. does both scientifically and from a regulator standpoint.”

Who in Britain will get the vaccine first?

Doctors and nurses, certain people 80 or over and nursing home workers.

When can I return to normal life after being vaccinated?

Life will return to normal only when society as a whole gains enough protection against the coronavirus. Once countries authorize a vaccine, they’ll be able to vaccinate only a small percentage of their citizens in the first couple of months.

Once enough people get vaccinated, it will become very difficult for the virus to find vulnerable people to infect. Life may start approaching something like normal by the fall of 2021.

If I’ve been vaccinated, do I still need to wear a mask?

Yes, but not forever. The two vaccines that will potentially get authorized this month protect people from getting sick with Covid-19. But the clinical trials that delivered these results were not designed to determine whether vaccinated people could still spread the virus without developing symptoms.

Will it hurt? What are the side effects?

The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is delivered as a shot in the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection won’t be any different from ones you’ve gotten before. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines, and none of them have reported any serious side effects. Some have felt aches and flulike symptoms that last less than a day.

Does the vaccine affect fertility?

There’s no evidence that it does, and there’s good reason to think that it does not.

Some claims have been floating around the web that coronavirus vaccines can harm a woman’s fertility. The supposed evidence rests on the fact that most coronavirus vaccines work by creating antibodies that attack the virus’s “spike” protein, and this protein has a minor resemblance to a protein crucial for the formation of the placenta.

But that does not mean that the antibodies generated by coronavirus vaccines would attack a pregnant woman’s placenta. The region of the placental protein that’s similar to spike is just too short to give the antibodies a grip.

Credit…Pool photo by Liam McBurney

The coronavirus vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech provides strong protection against Covid-19 within about 10 days of the first dose, according to documents published on Tuesday by the Food and Drug Administration before a meeting of its vaccine advisory group.

The finding is one of several significant new results featured in the briefing materials, which span 53 pages of data analyses from the agency. Last month, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that their two-dose vaccine had an efficacy rate of 95 percent after two doses administered three weeks apart. The new analyses show that the protection starts kicking in far earlier.

What’s more, the vaccine worked well regardless of a volunteer’s race, weight or age. While the trial did not find any serious adverse events caused by the vaccine, many participants did experience aches, fevers and other side effects.

On Thursday, the F.D.A.’s vaccine advisory panel will discuss these materials in advance of a vote on whether to recommend authorization of Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine.

Despite the early protection afforded by the first dose, it’s unclear how long that protection would last on its own, underscoring the importance of the second dose. Previous studies have found that the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine gives the immune system a major, long-term boost, an effect seen in many other vaccines.

Many experts have expressed concern that the coronavirus vaccines might protect some people better than others. But the results in the briefing materials indicate no such problem. The vaccine has a high efficacy rate in both men and women, as well as similar rates in white, Black and Latino people. It also worked well in obese people, who carry a greater risk of getting sick with Covid-19.

Credit…James Estrin/The New York Times

The Trump administration is requiring states to submit personal information of people vaccinated against Covid-19 — including names, birth dates, ethnicities and addresses — raising alarms among state officials who fear that a federal vaccine registry could be misused.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is instructing states to sign so-called data use agreements that commit them for the first time to sharing personal information in existing registries with the federal government. Some states, such as New York, are pushing back, either refusing to sign or signing while refusing to share the information.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York warned that the collection of personal data could dissuade undocumented people from participating in the vaccination program. He called it “another example of them trying to extort the State of New York to get information that they can use at the Department of Homeland Security and ICE that they’ll use to deport people.”

Administration officials say that the information will not be shared with other federal agencies and that it is needed for several reasons: to ensure that people who move across state lines receive their follow-up doses; to track adverse reactions and address safety issues; and to assess the effectiveness of the vaccine among different demographic groups.

At a briefing with a small group of reporters on Monday, officials from Operation Warp Speed, the government’s vaccine initiative, defended the plan. They said all but a handful of states had signed data agreements, and the rest would sign by the end of the week, though it is not clear how many states will submit personal information.

“There is no social security number being asked for, there is no driver’s license number,” said Deacon Maddox, who runs the operation’s data and analysis system. “The only number I would say that is asked is the date of birth.”

The hurried effort at data gathering, with delivery of vaccine doses expected to begin next week, is making many immunization experts deeply uneasy. At issue is the delicate balance between a patient’s right to privacy and the government’s right to invoke its expansive authority in the name of ending the deadliest pandemic in more than a century.

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William Shakespeare Receives Coronavirus Vaccine in Britain

In Coventry, England, on Tuesday, a man named William Shakespeare, 81, joined Margaret Keenan, 90, as a recipient of the new coronavirus vaccine.

“I hear your having an an injection then, OK?” “OK.” “I’ll speak to you soon. Do you want me to look after these?” “Yes.” “OK.”

In Coventry, England, on Tuesday, a man named William Shakespeare, 81, joined Margaret Keenan, 90, as a recipient of the new coronavirus vaccine.CreditCredit…Pool photo by Jacob King

The world may be a stage, but William Shakespeare from Warwickshire didn’t flinch or shy away from his task: As Britain started to roll out the coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday, Mr. Shakespeare became the second person in the country to receive the vaccine outside a clinical trial

“It could make a difference to our lives from now on, couldn’t it?” Mr. Shakespeare, 81, said with a smile shortly after being vaccinated at University Hospital Coventry, in central England, just 20 miles north of where the man for whom he was named was born in 1564.

That one of the first recipients of the vaccine bore such a famous name — a fact that was confirmed by the National Health Service — brought surprise and lighthearted jokes, at a time when Britain faces the daunting task of mounting the largest vaccination campaign in its history.

“Shakespeare gets Covid vaccine,” the BBC wrote as a headline. Shakespeare’s comedy “The Taming of the Shrew” became The Taming of the Flu. And “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” quickly turned into The Gentlemen of Corona.

In a reference to Hamlet, one user wrote on Twitter, “If Margaret Keenan is patient 1A for the vaccine, would William Shakespeare be 2B, or not 2B … ,” about the first two patients to receive the vaccine.

Even Britain’s theaters weighed in.

Casting director: So what would you bring to the role of second patient? We want a sense of real drama and patriotism here.

Auditionee: I’m literally called William Shakespeare.

Casting director: Fair enough, the part’s yours. https://t.co/phnYvq0SSh

— Is it the National Theatre? Oh yes it is (@NationalTheatre) December 8, 2020

Mr. Shakespeare, who has been hospitalized in Coventry for several weeks after a stroke, received the shot in his left arm on Tuesday morning, wearing a hospital gown and bright red socks. He felt a little frail and took a nap in the afternoon, according to his niece, Emily Shakespeare.

“He’s delighted with it,” Ms. Shakespeare said in a telephone interview about her uncle’s first injection. “He’s dying to come home.”

Countless families around the world have been unable to visit relatives in nursing homes or hospitals during the pandemic, leaving many patients to suffer loneliness, atrophy and depression. Others died alone, and families never got to say goodbye.

So Mr. Shakespeare’s vaccination brought a bit of heartwarming news for people in Britain, and for his family. Within a few hours on Tuesday, he and Ms. Keenan had become the face of the country’s resilience against a virus that has killed more people in Britain than anywhere else in Europe.

“He is fed up being in the hospital,” Ms. Shakespeare said of her uncle, “but today I just want to say that I’m proud that he’s leading the way.”

She said it was “highly likely” that her uncle was related to “the” William Shakespeare, who died in 1616; she has traced his lineage back to the early 1700s, she said, but had more research still to do.

Britain’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, appeared to shed some tears on ITV as he heard the name of the first man in the country to receive the vaccine, which surely made Mr. Shakespeare raise an eyebrow, his niece said. “He’s left-leaning, so I’m not entirely sure how he feels about it,” Ms. Shakespeare added about the reaction from Mr. Hancock, a conservative.

May Parsons, the nurse who vaccinated Mr. Shakespeare and Ms. Keenan, said the injections were a first step in giving more people a sense of normality. “This is really important for me, knowing that they’re going to be safe, that they’re going to be protected,” Ms. Parsons told Sky News.

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Shakespeare’s name has brought him little moments of fame before, like the time in the 1960s when he was pulled over for speeding in Stratford-upon-Avon and the police officer did not believe it was his real name, Ms. Shakespeare said. “But this one goes beyond what he’s seen in the past,” she said.

It is also likely that another William Shakespeare will be vaccinated next year: Mr. Shakespeare’s 41-year-old son is also called William.

Ms. Shakespeare said the family wanted to remind everyone that there was much more at stake than the ephemeral fame of “their” William Shakespeare.

“He wants to to see his wife, his children and his grandchildren, who can’t visit him at the moment,” she said. “But the outpouring of attention will surely give him a boost.”

Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

Before Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine was proved highly successful in clinical trials last month, the company offered the Trump administration the chance to lock in supplies beyond the 100 million doses the pharmaceutical maker agreed to sell the government as part of a $1.95 billion deal months ago.

But the administration, according to people familiar with the talks, never made the deal, a choice that now raises questions about whether the United States allowed other countries to take its place in line.

As the administration scrambles to try to purchase more doses of the vaccine, President Trump plans on Tuesday to issue an executive order that proclaims that other nations will not get the U.S. supplies of its vaccine until Americans have been inoculated.

But the order appears to have no real teeth and does not expand the U.S. supply of doses, according to a description of the order on Monday by senior administration officials.

The vaccine being produced by Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, is a two-dose treatment, meaning that 100 million doses is enough to vaccinate only 50 million Americans. The vaccine is expected to receive authorization for emergency use in the U.S. as soon as this weekend, with another vaccine, developed by Moderna, also likely to be approved for emergency use soon.

Britain plans to begin a vaccination drive on Tuesday using the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, making it the first Western nation to start mass vaccinations.

On Nov. 11 — two days after Pfizer first announced early results indicating that its vaccine was more than 90 percent effective — the European Union announced that it had finalized a supply deal with Pfizer and BioNTech for 200 million doses, a deal they began negotiating in months earlier. Shipments could begin by the end of the year, and the contract includes an option for 100 million more doses.

Asked if the Trump administration had missed a crucial chance to snap up more doses for Americans, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services said, “We are confident that we will have 100 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine as agreed to in our contract, and beyond that, we have five other vaccine candidates.”

The government was in July given the option to request 100 million to 500 million additional doses. But despite repeated warnings from Pfizer officials that demand could vastly outstrip supply and amid urges to pre-order more doses, the Trump administration turned down the offer, according to several people familiar with the discussions.

In a statement, Pfizer said that “any additional doses beyond the 100 million are subject to a separate and mutually acceptable agreement,” and that “the company is not able to comment on any confidential discussions that may be taking place with the U.S. government.”

The bulk of the global supply of vaccines has already been claimed by wealthy countries like the United States, Canada, Britain and countries in Europe, leading to criticism that people in low- and middle-income countries will be left behind. The United States has declined to participate in a global initiative, called Covax, that is meant to make a vaccine available globally.

The decision to issue the executive order was reported earlier by Fox News.

Global Roundup

Credit…The Vatican Media, via EPA, via Shutterstock

Pope Francis canceled the traditional Dec. 8 papal visit to a Rome landmark because of social distancing concerns, he said on Tuesday. The afternoon event, observing the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, normally draws thousands of people.

“The traditional homage” did not take place, “to avoid the risk of crowds, as ordered by civil authorities, who we must obey,” Francis told the faithful who gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the Angelus prayer. Instead, the pope went to the site unannounced at 7 a.m., and left a bouquet of roses at the base of a column near the Spanish Steps that is topped by a statue of the Virgin Mary.

Other than in September and October, when new coronavirus cases in Italy appeared to have dropped significantly, Pope Francis has canceled most of his regular public appearances during the pandemic, so that crowds would not gather to see him. In their place, he has been streaming events online from the Apostolic Library in the Vatican. But he still appears every week at a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square to pray with and bless socially distanced worshipers below in the square.

Late last month, though, the pope did meet with a delegation of five N.B.A. players and officials from the players’ association privately at the Vatican to discuss their efforts to address social justice and economic inequality.

In other developments around the world

Hong Kong said it would once again ban restaurant dining after 6 p.m., and close all gyms and beauty salons, to help curb a rise in virus cases, Reuters reported. Health authorities said on Tuesday that people arriving in Hong Kong, who already must be tested on arrival and toward the end of the mandatory two-week quarantine, would also be required to be tested a third time three weeks after arrival. Hong Kong recorded 78 new cases on Monday, raising its total for the pandemic to 6,976 — tiny figures compared with most large Western countries, but a sign that even places that have been able to keep a tight lid on the virus are facing problems now.

Australia, where coronavirus cases are low, extended for another three months its ban on residents leaving the country, official said Tuesday. The country, which has some of the tightest restrictions anywhere, also extended its ban on cruise ships until March.
Chile announced new measures for Santiago, the capital, this week that are meant to avoid a total lockdown, the authorities said. The new restrictions include a full lockdown on weekends and lesser limitations during the week. The capital region reported an 18 percent increase in new cases last week, which “is shocking and worries us a lot,” said Enrique Paris, the health minister.
Four lions at the Barcelona Zoo have tested positive for the coronavirus, officials in Barcelona said Tuesday. The lions — three females and a male — were tested after showing symptoms, and were treated with anti-inflammatory drugs. Two employees also tested positive, officials said. It is the second known instance involving large felines: several lions and tigers at the Bronx Zoo in New York tested positive in April.

Credit…Leon Halip/Getty Images

One of the biggest rites of college football — the annual Michigan-Ohio State game — is off for this weekend because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Michigan said Tuesday that it would be unable to play at fourth-ranked Ohio State on Saturday because of the number of virus cases inside its football program.

“The number of positive tests has continued to trend in an upward direction over the last seven days,” Warde Manuel, Michigan’s athletic director, said in a statement. “We have not been cleared to participate in practice at this time. Unfortunately, we will not be able to field a team due to Covid-19 positives and the associated quarantining required of close contact individuals.”

The cancellation raised the possibility that Ohio State (5-0) would prove ineligible for the Big Ten championship game on Dec. 19 because it had not played enough games this season. But conference officials have said that the Big Ten policy requiring teams to play at least six games to qualify for the title matchup could be adjusted.

Ohio State struggled with the virus toward the end of November and canceled its Nov. 28 game at Illinois. The Buckeyes had earlier missed out on a game when Maryland canceled because of its own virus troubles.

Credit…Jane Stockdale for The New York Times

On Tuesday, a handful of people across Britain — mostly those 80 and over, health care workers and those working in nursing homes — began receiving the newly approved Pfizer vaccine. It was the first day that the inoculations were being administered in any Western nation.

Hilary Nelson, 45, an intensive care unit nurse in Scotland’s Forth Valley Royal Hospital who is also a nurse’s union representative, said it was important to get vaccinated as soon as possible.

“I want to get the vaccine to protect my colleagues, my family, but most of all the patients that we look after,” she said.

She hopes to serve as an example to others in the country, particularly those who may be doubtful of the vaccine’s safety, because she knows the heavy toll the disease has taken.

“I’ve sat with dying patients and had to call their loved ones on the phone,” she said.

“I’ve asked my questions, and I’m satisfied that it is safe.”

John Pollard, 90, was surprised to find out he was among the first patients in Britain to be offered the vaccine.

“Over the years, I’ve had all sorts of vaccinations,” he said. “I’ve never given it any thought really, all I thought was that I would like to not get Covid.” He lives on his own, so his daughter will be bringing him in for the vaccine at a hospital near his home in Brighton.

He plans to spend this Christmas at his daughter’s house, with his family around him and has high hopes for the new year: “If and when I feel if I feel fit enough, I might make a trip to Australia.”

Dr. Matt Morgan, 40, who works in the I.C.U. at University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, has an appointment booked on Tuesday afternoon. He admitted the first Covid-19 patient to his hospital 38 weeks earlier to the day, and said things have come full circle. He was feeling “proud that science, humanity, the power of globalization, reason and truth” have produced a vaccine, ahead of his appointment Tuesday. “It’s been a very long year.”

His hospital is still dealing with new coronavirus patients on a regular basis, and he described the second wave of infections from this fall as more like a marathon than a sprint.

While he was hopeful about the new vaccine, he worried people may mistake the start of vaccination as the end of the pandemic.

“There’s still certainly going to be people who die between now and spring,” Dr. Morgan said. “There’s still going to be families who spend Christmas alone. So, you know, this won’t in one day make everything OK.”

Credit…Andrew Testa for The New York Times

At a newly created vaccine center on the outskirts of Cardiff, the capital of Wales, there was a small but steady flow of people coming in on Tuesday morning. Most were health care workers who entered the Cardiff and Vale Therapy Center — a former gymnasium used for rehabilitation therapy — wearing masks.

Betty Spear, a retired pediatric nurse, pulled back the blue curtain from the small cubicle she was working in after having administered the vaccine to a fellow nurse.

“She just cried and said this was such an emotional day,” Ms. Spear said of her most recent patient. “Generally, I think people are extremely happy that the day is coming, that the day has come that they are getting this vaccination.”

She added: “That last lady was very emotional, I think partly because she worked on a Covid ward, so she has seen the consequences and probably the outcomes. I presume she has seen a lot.”

Ms. Spear said she herself was “slightly anxious because it’s a different area but we’ve had a lot of training over the last few days.”

Nearly all of the people vaccinated here were health care workers, and many have experienced the virus’s horrors first hand. They expressed excitement and relief that there was some hope on the horizon for an end to pandemic.

Dr. Chris Hingston, 45, who is an I.C.U. consultant at the University Hospital of Wales, said he initially felt almost guilty for being among the first to receive the shot, pointing to the nurses in Covid wards as among the most in need. But after speaking with colleagues, he decided it was important to be inoculated as soon as possible to provide wider protection for his colleagues and patients.

“From my point of view, well, I’ve no fear of it. But you know, a lot of people out there, I think, are quite worried,” he said. “I don’t feel it’s for myself necessarily, having the vaccine. It’s really for others in many ways.”

When he received his vaccine on Tuesday morning, he likened it to having the flu shot.

“I didn’t even feel it,” he said as he chatted casually with Lynne Cronin, 60, the acting lead nurse at the center who delivered the vaccine.

“You’re exactly the people we need to come through,” she said, after learning that he is an I.C.U. doctor. Ms. Cronin said it had been a huge undertaking to get the site up and running for Tuesday, just days after the vaccine received emergency approval from the British government, but she lauded the local health authorities for their work.

“It’s been a huge ask to get everybody ready to vaccinate,” she said. “We’re still trying to train people up. We needed today and the next few days to sort any teething problems.”

She said other than a few early technical hiccups in the system being used to document the vaccinations, the roll out had been smooth.

“We just need to make sure it’s safe for people, and for my staff to make sure they are comfortable,” she said.

Credit…Alex Brandon/Associated Press

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. appeared on Tuesday to formally name members of his health team, and vowed to change the course of the Covid-19 pandemic during his first 100 days in office.

The senior officials Mr. Biden will appoint — including Xavier Becerra, a former congressman who is now the California attorney general, as his nominee for secretary of health and human services — will face the immediate challenge of slowing the spread of the coronavirus, which has already killed more than 283,000 people in the United States and has taken a particularly devastating toll on people of color.

In making his announcement, Mr. Biden asked Americans to wear masks for the first 100 days of his presidency, and pledged to run “the most efficient mass vaccination plan in U.S. history” — including getting 100 million “vaccine shots into the arms of the American people” in his first 100 days. He also said he would set a “national priority” to get children back in school during that time period.

“My first 100 days won’t end the Covid-19 virus — I can’t promise that,” Mr. Biden said. But he added, “I’m absolutely convinced we can change course.”

Mr. Biden’s announcement, in Wilmington, Del., — where he appeared without wearing a boot on the ankle he twisted last month — started around the same time that a “virus summit” hosted by President Trump began at the White House.

In introducing Mr. Becerra, Mr. Biden stumbled a bit, mispronouncing the California attorney general’s last name. Mr. Becerra, 62, a Democrat who had carved out a profile more on the issues of criminal justice, immigration and tax policy, was long thought to be a candidate for attorney general, and he emerged as Mr. Biden’s clear choice for health and human services secretary only over the past few days, according to people familiar with the transition’s deliberations. It was a surprise ending to a politically delicate search that brought complaints from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus about a lack of Latinos in the incoming cabinet.

Other health officials included in the event today:

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, replacing Dr. Robert R. Redfield
Dr. Vivek Murthy as the surgeon general
Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith to lead the Covid-19 equity task force
Jeff Zients as coordinator of the Covid-19 response.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, whom Mr. Biden has recruited to be his chief medical adviser in addition to continuing in his role as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is not expected to appear in-person at the event, but he is expected to make a video appearance.

Credit…Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

The new Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna seem to be remarkably good at preventing serious illness. But it’s unclear how well they will curb the spread of the coronavirus.

That’s because the Pfizer and Moderna trials tracked only how many vaccinated people became sick with Covid-19. That leaves open the possibility that some vaccinated people could get infected without developing symptoms, and could then silently transmit the virus.

If vaccinated people are silent spreaders of the virus, they may keep it circulating in their communities.

“A lot of people are thinking that once they get vaccinated, they’re not going to have to wear masks anymore,” said Michal Tal, an immunologist at Stanford University. “It’s really going to be critical for them to know if they have to keep wearing masks, because they could still be contagious.”

In most respiratory infections, including the new coronavirus, the nose is the main port of entry. The virus rapidly multiplies there, jolting the immune system to produce a type of antibodies that are specific to mucosa, the moist tissue lining the nose, mouth, lungs and stomach. If the same person is exposed to the virus a second time, those antibodies, as well as immune cells that remember the virus, rapidly shut down the virus in the nose before it gets a chance to take hold elsewhere in the body.

The coronavirus vaccines, in contrast, are injected deep into the muscles and are quickly absorbed into the blood, where they stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies.

Some of those antibodies will circulate to the nasal mucosa and stand guard there, but it’s not clear how much of the antibody pool can be mobilized, or how quickly. If the answer is not much, then viruses could bloom in the nose — and be sneezed or breathed out to infect others.

This is why mucosal vaccines are better than intramuscular injections at fending off respiratory viruses, experts said.

The next generation of coronavirus vaccines may elicit immunity in the nose and the rest of the respiratory tract, where it’s most needed. Or people could get an intramuscular injection followed by a mucosal boost that produces protective antibodies in the nose and throat.

Credit…Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

As some New York City school buildings reopen this week, Mayor Bill de Blasio has found himself presiding over a starkly unequal school system in which many white families have flocked back to classrooms while most families of color have chosen to learn from home indefinitely.

That gulf is illustrated in a startling statistic: There are nearly 12,000 more white children returning to public school buildings than Black students — even though there are many more Black students than white children in the system overall.

In New York and across the country, politicians and education officials have found that many nonwhite families are not ready to send their children back to classrooms, despite their struggles with remote learning, in part because of the disproportionately harsh impact the virus has had on their communities.

But the fact that so many students of color have chosen remote over in-person learning is raising alarms that existing disparities in the nation’s largest school system will widen, since remote learning has been far less effective.

New York’s issues with remote instruction begin with a lack of basic infrastructure for students learning from home. Many low-income students, including some living in homeless shelters, cannot even log on for classes because they do not have devices or Wi-Fi.

Educators also said they were scrambling to make lessons more engaging for students without much helpful guidance from the city. So while individual teachers and schools have honed creative strategies to improve online instruction, there is no citywide plan to do the same.

Latino students make up the largest share of students returning to classrooms, at about 43 percent, roughly proportional to their overall representation in the school system. But white children, who are less likely to be low-income than many of their peers, make up a quarter of students back in classrooms, even though they represent just 16 percent of overall enrollment.

Black and Asian-American families are significantly underrepresented in reopened classrooms. Just under 18 percent of Black families have chosen to send their children back to school, though those students make up nearly a quarter of the system. Asian-American children, who represent about 18 percent of the overall school system, make up the smallest share of children in classrooms this week, at just under 12 percent.

Credit…Pool photo by Gareth Fuller

When Britons receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine shots, they also get a wallet-size vaccination card showing that they have received the first of two required doses.

They are not ID cards; they do not contain any personal information, not even the person’s name. Even so, there are worries that they could be the beginning of a “passport” system that would divide society into two tiers, granting cardholders access to some services and businesses, like boarding a plane or eating at a restaurant, while others are excluded.

British health officials have argued that the cards are merely meant as a reminder of when a patient received the first shot and when they are scheduled to get the second, three weeks later.

The blue-and-white vaccination card, seen in images released by health officials, has spaces to record the vaccine name, dates of the injections and batch numbers. “Don’t forget your Covid-19 vaccination,” it reads. “Make sure you keep this record card in your purse or wallet.”

Britain faces tremendous logistical and security challenges to vaccinate millions of its citizens, and other countries will face them as well when they begin vaccination programs. The authorities have highlighted the need for a reliable record of who has been vaccinated, and have discussed the idea of issuing people documents certifying that they have received the vaccine or recovered from the disease, and thus presumably have some immunity.

But ministers in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government have brushed off the idea that the vaccination card will become a so-called immunity passport, and it remains unclear whether such a system will ever exist in Britain. Scientists are skeptical about the idea as well.

Two experts at the University of Birmingham noted in an article published on The Conversation that data on protected people following vaccination had not yet been published. “This is important because if we don’t understand the key ingredients for protection, we can’t monitor immunity effectively,” the experts — KK Cheng, a professor of public health and primary care, and Zania Stamataki, a lecturer in viral immunology, wrote on Monday.

They argued that while the vaccine greatly reduces the chance that the recipient will become severely ill, vaccinated people could still transmit infection to others, limiting an immunity passport’s usefulness.

“Being personally protected following successful vaccination does not absolve us of social responsibility,” they said.

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Health

For a Nation on Edge, Antacids Turn into Exhausting to Discover

Post author By Gloria Cote
Post date December 8, 2020

For a Nation on Edge, Antacids Become Hard to Find

At first it was toilet paper. Then it was meat.

Now it’s antacids.

People who search for over-the-counter belly pacifiers online or in stores are finding that parts of the country cannot simply buy antacids like tums, pepcid, and the generic version famotidine. A few weeks ago Wegmans Food Markets took the step of restricting buyers to two packets of famotidine products per trip.

During a hoarding pandemic, this can be the most unexpected.

Americans are stressed out. They are concerned about the rising number of coronavirus cases. They care about their work. Distance learning is a nightmare, and grocery shopping is no walk in the park. Not to mention the elections. And now the holidays are coming. The result is that some people are experiencing “pandemic stomach,” acid-generating episodes that increase the demand for over-the-counter and prescription antacids.

And antacids are also popular with people who are new to indigestion or heartburn. People started stocking up on them after preliminary studies suggested that famotidine could relieve symptoms of the coronavirus. Another wave of purchases hit this fall when President Trump was under treatment for coronavirus and White House officials said he was given famotidine along with zinc and vitamin D.

For those in need of relief, the bottlenecks are insane.

When 24-year-old Maia Callahan, a young early education graduate who teaches families and teaches distance learning in Greenfield, Massachusetts, attempted to put her usual order of Pepcid in her online Stop & Shop shopping cart in early September, it said again and again that the product is out of stock.

“I thought, OK, I’m going to place an order through Amazon,” said Ms. Callahan, who has an autoimmune disease and has been taking medication to treat her heartburn since she was 17. “That was the worst. One of the heartburn drugs was three times as expensive as usual. I took Tums for two weeks.”

Doctors said when the quarantines were lifted this spring, they noticed more patients reporting symptoms of heartburn and acid reflux.

“I think part of that is the stress of everything that’s going on in the world,” said Dr. Lauren Bleich, a gastroenterologist in Acton, Massachusetts, about 25 miles northwest of Boston, who said she saw a 25 percent increase in patients reporting heartburn and similar symptoms.

But she also said that the coronavirus, which has uprooted people’s normal lives and forced many to work from home, has led to many “dietary indiscretions” that trigger these symptoms.

“We are more relaxed than before with alcohol, sweets or our comfort food,” said Dr. Pale. “And then there is a lack of activity or movement. Weight gain definitely contributes to heartburn and acid reflux. “

Another perpetrator appeared in early November.

“We had many people with upset stomachs, heartburn and indigestion related to the elections,” she said.

Dr. Atul Maini, the medical director of the Heartburn Center at St. Joseph’s Health in Syracuse, NY, said that while the specialized center did not see an increase in patients, it did see a huge difference between the patients it has treated since the coronavirus quarantines have been lifted.

“The heartburn patients were now very anxious and depressed,” he said. “Something else had changed.”

Companies that make over-the-counter drugs are trying to meet demand.

“We are aware that there may be supply shortages,” said a spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline, which manufactures Tums, in an email.

However, for some antacids, the surge in demand may be linked to various preliminary studies suggesting that famotidine, the main ingredient in Pepcid, may reduce symptoms of the coronavirus.

In the spring, some patients with Covid-19 at Northwell Health in the New York City area received intravenous famotidine as part of a clinical trial following reports of use in China. The study was halted in May as patient volumes decreased and no conclusions were drawn. An observational study published earlier this fall by Hartford Hospital in Connecticut found positive results were also seen in coronavirus patients given famotidine.

Of the roughly 900 Hartford Hospital patients treated for coronavirus this spring, 83 were given famotidine at some point during their hospital stay. Those who received famotidine had lower hospital death rates and needed less help breathing a ventilator, the hospital said in its research report.

Still, the medical community is cautious about early results. In late June, the Infectious Diseases Society of America recommended the use of famotidine unless it was done in a clinical trial due to insufficient data.

Even before the preliminary research reports were published, demand for famotidine and Pepcid had risen sharply after the Food and Drug Administration asked companies to stop selling all forms of the heartburn drug Zantac in April and recommended consumers take it over the counter have version known as ranitidine, stop that. Small amounts of a carcinogenic chemical have been found in samples of the drug.

As consumers and doctors switched from Zantac to generic famotidine and pepcid, drug makers struggled to keep up. Some manufacturers reported drug shortages to the FDA earlier this year.

Johnson & Johnson, makers of Pepcid, did not respond to a request for comment. In July, company executives announced that US over-the-counter drug sales rose 30 percent in the second quarter, driven by strong demand for Tylenol, Pepcid, and other adult products.

For those who have taken Pepcid or generic versions of Famotidine, the past few months have been a struggle.

“I got a bottle in February but haven’t had one since,” said Mackenzie Doyle, a 21-year-old student at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln who is taking Pepcid with prescription strength to treat her immune disease. It will also be difficult to find over-the-counter Pepcid this spring, she said. When she visited her parents in Alabama during the spring break, Pepcid was sold out in the four stores she visited.

“When the first round of panic buying went on, it was impossible to find Pepcid,” said Ms. Doyle, who eventually found a generic famotidine at Walgreens and took double the dose to reach her prescription strength.

Ms. Doyle admits she has mixed feelings about the pre-studies on famotidine and coronavirus. While assisting the research, she wonders if the names of the drugs used could be withheld until more became known.

And then there are the just-in-case hoarders.

“They make me a little angry,” said Ms. Doyle. “There are so many people who have my immune disorder and who are worse than me and who need these drugs to stay alive. Having people buy it and keep it in their bathroom cabinet and never open the bottle makes me nervous. “

Tags Antacids, Edge, Find, Hard, Nation

Politics

Texas sues 4 battleground states in Supreme Court docket over ‘illegal election outcomes’

Post author By Gloria Cote
Post date December 8, 2020

Texas sues four battleground states in Supreme Court over 'unlawful election results'

Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Tuesday a lawsuit in the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate the results of the presidential election results in four major swing states that helped defeat Democrat Joe Biden President Donald Trump secure.

The unusual lawsuit, filed directly with the Supreme Court, alleges that “unlawful election results” in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan – all won by Biden – should be declared unconstitutional.

Legal experts were quick to dismiss the case as a political theater with no precedent in American history.

The filing argues that these states used the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to unlawfully change their electoral rules “through executive fiat or amicable lawsuits which weakened the integrity of the ballot papers”.

“All electoral college votes cast by such presidential voters appointed” in these states “cannot be counted,” Texas urges the Supreme Court to rule.

The Lone Star State’s attempt to devalue other states’ electoral votes follows a series of long-term legal challenges with similar goals that have been brought to court by Trump’s campaign and other lawyers. These lawsuits have repeatedly failed to invalidate the ballots cast for Biden.

The allegations in the Texas lawsuit “are false and irresponsible,” Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs said in a fiery statement shortly after Paxton announced legal action.

“Texas claims that there are 80,000 forged signatures on postal ballots in Georgia, but they don’t bring up a single person to whom this happened. That’s because it didn’t,” Fuchs said.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel called the suit a “publicity stunt” and “below the dignity” of Paxton’s office. Josh Kaul, the Wisconsin attorney general, said in a statement the case was “really embarrassing.”

Suffrage experts also quickly dismissed the likelihood that the nine Supreme Court justices would open the case. Paul Smith, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center who argued over proxy cases in the Supreme Court, said the case was “insane”.

“Pennsylvania and the rest of the world have a whole system of voting through the election – that’s all,” said Smith, who also serves as vice president of litigation and strategy for the Justice Center for Impartial Campaigns. “I don’t think the Supreme Court will be interested.”

The professor added that Texas may have difficulty proving that it has grounds for action that are legally known as “standing”.

“It is completely unprecedented for any state to claim in the Supreme Court that other states’ votes were cast incorrectly – that never happened,” he said. “What is the violation of the state of Texas because Pennsylvania’s votes were cast for Mr. Biden instead of Mr. Trump? There is no connection there.”

Rick Hasen, an electoral law expert at the University of California at Irvine, wrote on his popular legal blog that the lawsuit was “utter rubbish,” and also denied the idea that Texas stood, noting that “it has no say like other states vote for voters. “

Paxton wrote in the letter that Texas stands because of its interest in which party controls the Senate, which it says “represents the states”.

“While Americans are probably more concerned with who is elected president, states have a clear interest in who is elected vice president and who can thus cast the decisive vote in the Senate,” he wrote.

“This violation is particularly acute in 2020, when a Senate majority often maintains a tie for the vice president as the balance between the Georgia elections in January is nearly the same – and may be the same depending on the outcome of the Georgia runoffs.” political parties, “added Paxton.

The lawsuit against the four states ends with a critical deadline in the electoral certification process known as the “Safe Harbor” threshold. Thereafter, Congress is forced to accept the states’ certified results.

Six days later, the electoral college voters will cast their votes, marking Biden’s victory. The lawsuit also calls on the Supreme Court to extend the December 14 deadline “so that these investigations can be completed”.

In most cases, the Supreme Court hears only lower court cases that have been appealed. In cases between two or more states, however, the court originally has jurisdiction. Usually four judges have to agree to hear a case.

The lawsuit comes when Paxton faces a criminal investigation by the FBI into alleged efforts to help a wealthy campaign donor. The investigation was confirmed by The Associated Press after seven senior lawyers in Paxton’s office accused authorities in September that Paxton was guilty of abuse of his office.

All seven have since been fired, on leave or resigned, which has led several of them to file whistleblower lawsuits. Paxton has denied wrongdoing.

The case is not the first on election to reach the judges, although the court has not yet made a substantial decision on either side. In another lawsuit that the court may soon weigh, Pennsylvania’s Republican Representative Mike Kelly, an ally of Trump, is challenging virtually all of the state’s postal ballot papers and asking the court to nullify millions of votes.

Biden is expected to win 306 electoral college votes – 36 more than needed to beat Trump, who is said to receive 232 such votes.

But Trump refuses to allow Biden. The president, more than a month after election day, continues to falsely insist that he has won the race while promoting a wide range of unproven conspiracy theories allegedly pointing to election or election fraud.

The president is also pressuring swing state officials to take action to discard the results of their elections. Trump has heavily criticized Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, furiously demanding that he convene a special session of the Peach State Legislature to appoint pro-Trump voters.

Trump has personally reached out to Kemp and Pennsylvania House spokesman Bryan Cutler, according to Washington Post reports. In November, Trump received Michigan Republican lawmakers for a meeting at the White House. These lawmakers said after the event that they had no plans to replace Biden’s voters.

Even ahead of the election, Trump predicted that the Supreme Court would likely rule the results of the race and urged the GOP-controlled Senate to bank Justice Amy Coney Barrett in time.

However, in recent weeks, Trump has admitted that he is unlikely to turn the 2020 election results in court on its head as his legal challenges have stalled.

“Well, the problem is that getting to the Supreme Court is difficult,” Trump told Fox News last month in his first full interview since his November 3rd defeat.

“I have the best lawyers in the Supreme Court, attorneys who want to discuss the case when it gets there. They said, ‘It’s very hard to get a case up there,'” Trump added. “Can you imagine Donald Trump, President of the United States, filing a case and I probably can’t get a case.”

Tags battleground, Court, election, results, states, sues, Supreme, Texas, unlawful

Business

Ford F-150 ‘Tremor’ pickup introduced with new off-road provides

Post author By Gloria Cote
Post date December 8, 2020

2021 Ford F-150 tremor

ford

Ford Motor is expanding its highly profitable truck range with a new “Tremor” off-road model for the F-150 pickup.

The 2021 F-150 Tremor announced on Tuesday offers several new features in a revised version of the pickup, which is arriving at dealerships across the country, and improvements to the off-road equipment. According to Ford, the tremor model will go on sale next summer.

2021 Ford F-150 Tremor interior

The new edition of the F-150 is Ford’s latest attempt to grow its loyal truck customers and increase profits by taking advantage of increasingly popular off-road models. It complements the current Tremor models that are offered for its larger Super Duty pickups as well as for the Ranger mid-range pickups.

Ford’s F-Series trucks are a cash cow for the company, according to a study commissioned by Ford from the Boston Consulting Group. They generate much of the automaker’s bottom line and have annual sales of around $ 42 billion. Ford’s automotive sales were $ 143.6 billion in 2019.

2021 Ford F-150 tremor

ford

The F-150 Tremor has special badge and design elements, as well as additional off-road capabilities, including improved suspension and shock absorbers and a “bash plate” to protect the vehicle’s chassis. It also adds 33-inch off-road tires mounted on matte 18-inch wheels, 1-inch width and all-wheel drive as standard. The vehicle is powered by Ford’s 3.5 liter V6 engine and 10-speed automatic transmission.

Ford hasn’t released pricing for the F-150 Tremor, but it could be somewhere between a similarly-featured model with its current off-road package of around $ 45,000 and Ford’s 2020 F-150 Raptor Performance Truck which sells at $ 53,455 Dollar starts.

Tags adds, announced, F150, Ford, offroad, pickup, Tremor

Health

Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is protected and efficient, researchers

Post author By Gloria Cote
Post date December 8, 2020

Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is safe and effective, researchers

In this September 9, 2020 image, a vaccine marked with a test tube can be seen in front of the AstraZeneca logo.

Given Ruvic | Reuters

LONDON – Developed by UK pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca in partnership with Oxford University, the coronavirus vaccine is the first whose late-stage study results have been independently reviewed and published in a medical journal.

The interim results from the Phase 3 studies with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine were published in the Lancet on Tuesday. Peer review means that articles or studies are reviewed by other experts in the field before they are published and serve as an additional quality control measure on the results.

The study replicated the vaccine study results published a few weeks ago, which showed an average of 70% effectiveness in protecting against the coronavirus.

The two dosage regimens used were also repeated, with the two full doses showing 62% effectiveness and 90% effectiveness shown with the half-full dosage regimen.

This is breaking news. Please try again later.

Tags effective, OxfordAstraZeneca, researchers, safe, Vaccine

Business

As His Time period Ends, Trump Faces Extra Questions on Funds to His Resort

Post author By Gloria Cote
Post date December 8, 2020

As His Term Ends, Trump Faces More Questions on Payments to His Hotel

Ms. Trump wrote to Mickael C. Damelincourt, the hotel’s general manager, asking him to call Mr. Gates to negotiate a better offer for the opening committee. “It should be a fair market price,” Ms. Trump said in a follow-up email that soon resulted in a new offer of $ 175,000 a day.

Even so, Ms. Wolkoff expressed concerns.

“In my opinion the maximum rental fee should be $ 85,000 per day,” she replied to Mr. Gates and Ms. Trump in an email in which she also stated that other properties such as Union Station had offered their rooms for inauguration in free .

This series of emails filed on court documents as part of the lawsuit is at the center of the case that Democrat Racine is pursuing.

The opening committee paid $ 220,000 for rooms in the hotel, including $ 75,259 for renting what is known as the Trump Townhouse, marketed as an ultra-luxury suite.

There were no events that took advantage of it on two days the opening committee paid the hotel $ 175,000 to rent the ballroom, the lawsuit said. And on a third day that the ballroom was actually used for lunch – again, $ 175,000 – another nonprofit group had paid just $ 5,000 to rent the same President’s ballroom for a housewarming event that morning.

The committee also paid the hotel for the cost of a “friends and family” event for Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. that their father was not supposed to attend. The inauguration staff were so uncomfortable that they tried to cancel the meeting, court documents showed. But Mr. Damelincourt disagreed.

“Rick… just heard that the Friday night reception was canceled. Is it accurate “Mr. Damelincourt wrote,“ Hard for us if it’s like it’s a lot of sales. ”The event was then postponed and took place the night Mr. Trump was sworn in.

Tags Ends, Faces, Hotel, Payments, Questions, Term, Trump

Entertainment

Bob Dylan Sells His Complete Songwriting Catalog to Common Music

Post author By Gloria Cote
Post date December 8, 2020

Bob Dylan Sells His Entire Songwriting Catalog to Universal Music

Bob Dylan’s memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, opened in 1962 with the signing of his first music publishing deal – an agreement on the copyrights of the aspiring songwriter’s work. The terms of this agreement, brokered by Lou Levy of Leeds Music Publishing, were approved by the young Dylan.

“Lou paid me a hundred dollars in future royalties to sign the paper,” he wrote, “and that was fine with me.”

Fifty-eight years, more than 600 songs, and a Nobel Prize later, the cultural and economic value of Dylan’s songwriting corpus has grown exponentially.

On Monday Universal Music Publishing Group announced that it had signed a landmark deal to purchase Dylan’s entire songwriting catalog – including world-changing classics like “Blowin ‘in the Wind,” “The Times They Are A-Changin” and “Like.” “a Rolling Stone” – in what is perhaps the largest takeover of the music publishing rights by a single songwriter.

The deal, which spanned Dylan’s entire career from his earliest songs to his latest album, “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” was made directly with Dylan, 79, who has long controlled the vast majority of his own songwriting copyrights.

The price has not been disclosed, but is estimated at more than $ 300 million.

“It’s no secret that the art of songwriting is the fundamental key to all great music, and it’s no secret that Bob is one of the greatest practitioners of the art,” said Lucian Grainge, executive director of Universal Music Group in one Opinion.

The deal is the newest and most recognizable in this year’s music catalog market as artists young and old have sold their songs while publishers and investors have raised billions of dollars from public and private sources to encourage writers to say goodbye to their creations .

Last week, Stevie Nicks sold a controlling interest in their songwriting catalog for an estimated $ 80 million to Primary Wave Music, an independent publisher and marketing company. Hipgnosis Songs Fund, a UK company that quickly gained a foothold in just two and a half years, recently announced that it spent approximately $ 670 million from March to September seeking rights to more than 44,000 Blondie songs , Rick James, to acquire. Barry Manilow, Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders and others.

However, Dylan’s catalog is a special gem, revered in ways that perhaps no other popular musician has achieved. His song book has changed folk, rock and pop, and he has an almost mythical status as a contemporary bard. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 “because he created new poetic forms of expression within the great American singing tradition”.

To a degree that still amazes and shocked his audience, Dylan has long been aggressive about marketing his music, including pursuing licensing agreements to get his songs on television advertisements.

In 1994, Dylan had the accounting firm Coopers & Lybrand – predecessor of the current giant PricewaterhouseCoopers – use Richie Havens ‘rendition of his 1964 protest hymn “The Times They Are A-Changin'” in a television commercial. Fans, media commentators, and even other artists reacted in horror; Time magazine headlined the controversy, “Just in case you haven’t heard, the 60s are over.”

The Coopers & Lybrand spot was a long way from Dylan’s last commercial license: he made a prominent deal for a Victoria’s Secret TV spot in 2004 and later worked with Apple, Cadillac, Pepsi, and IBM. Two years ago he started a high-end whiskey brand, Heaven’s Door.

With Universal now in control of his work, Dylan will no longer have a veto over how his songs are used. After the deal was announced early Monday, users on Twitter had a field day of hackneyed puns hinting at how Dylan’s work could be used. “Pay Lady Pay,” quipped one user. “Involved in Blue Cross / Blue Shield,” wrote another.

Even so, Universal insisted that using Dylan’s work it would be tasteful.

Jody Gerson, general manager of Universal’s publishing division, said, “It is both a privilege and a responsibility to represent the work of one of the greatest songwriters of all time – whose cultural significance cannot be overstated.”

Dylan is the kind of writer whose music publishers tend to calm down. Not only has it proven itself, but most of its songs were written by Dylan alone and frequently covered by other artists – each use generating royalties. According to Universal, Dylan’s songs have been recorded more than 6,000 times.

Music publishing is the side of the business that deals with songwriting and composition copyrights – the lyrics and melodies of songs in their most basic form – that are different from what is required for a recording. Publishers and authors collect royalties and royalties when their work is sold, streamed, broadcast on the radio, or used in a film or commercial. (The recent sale of Taylor Swift’s first six albums only covered recording rights for that material. Swift signed a separate release agreement with Universal in February.)

Streaming has helped boost the entire music market – US publishers raised $ 3.7 billion in 2019, according to the National Music Publishers’ Association – which attracted new investors from the steady and growing revenue from music rights get dressed by.

Dylan’s deal includes 100 percent of his rights to all songs in his catalog, including the income he receives as a songwriter and his control over the copyright of each song. In return for paying Dylan, Universal, a division of the French media conglomerate Vivendi, will collect all future revenue from the songs.

Dylan had no comment on the deal.

Music publishing has been a little-known cornerstone of Dylan’s career. The songs he recorded with the band in 1967, for example, which were widely available at the time and were later collected in Dylan’s 1975 album The Basement Tapes, were intended as demos to be passed on to other recording artists.

Much of Dylan’s business empire is run by the Bob Dylan Music Company, a small New York office that manages its publishing rights in the United States. (Elsewhere in the world, his catalog was managed by Sony / ATV, which will remain so until his contract expires in a few years.)

The deal includes more than 600 songs spread across a number of publishers that Dylan had over the years. With the exception of his original Leeds Music deal, which included seven songs, including “Song for Woody” and “Talkin ‘New York,” Dylan eventually took full control of all of his copyrights from these catalogs. Leeds was sold to MCA in 1964, which became Universal.

The Universal deal also includes Dylan’s interest in a number of songs he wrote with fellow songwriters. Of the more than 600 tracks included in the deal, there is only one that Dylan is not a writer on but still owns the copyright: Robbie Robertson’s “The Weight” as recorded by the band.

However, the agreement does not include any of Dylan’s unreleased songs. It also doesn’t cover work that Dylan will write in the future, leaving open the possibility that he might choose to work with another publisher on that material.

Tags Bob, Catalog, Dylan, Entire, Music, Sells, Songwriting, Universal

Entertainment

Natalie Desselle, Comedic Coronary heart of ‘BAPS’ and ‘Eve,’ Dies at 53

Post author By Gloria Cote
Post date December 8, 2020

Natalie Desselle, Comedic Heart of ‘BAPS’ and ‘Eve,’ Dies at 53

“She loved it – it was one of her favorite roles,” Ms. Robinson recalled the actress. “She must be in a fairy tale that was changed from white to black.”

“It is such a message for young black children to see stories that contain them, even fairy tales. I said I belong and I am in this world too,” said Ms. Robinson.

Natalie Desselle Reid was born on July 12, 1967 in Alexandria, La.,. Her father, Paul Desselle, was the senior groundskeeper at England Air Force Base in Alexandria. Her mother, Thelma, was a cafeteria attendant who later became an administrative assistant at Peabody Magnet High School, where Natalie, her sisters Paula and Calisa, and her brother Sherman graduated.

On April 6, 2003, Ms. Desselle married Leonard Reid. The couple had a son, Sereno, 23, and two teenage daughters, Summer and Sasha. Ms. Desselle took her husband’s surname but continued to work as Natalie Desselle.

She is survived by her husband, three children, two sisters, brother and father.

Like her character in BAPS, Ms. Desselle, who Ms. Robinson said was inspired by the 1950 film All About Eve, went west to become a star. She coldly called Ms. Robinson, one of the few black women working as a manager at the time, and asked her to meet with her.

“I wasn’t exactly happy to have too many black clients because it was just too difficult to get them to work,” said Ms. Robinson. “And being black yourself is quite a statement.”

Tags BAPS, Comedic, Desselle, Dies, Eve, Heart, Natalie

Entertainment

The Dancer Who Made Beethoven’s Ninth Occur

Post author By Gloria Cote
Post date December 8, 2020

The Dancer Who Made Beethoven’s Ninth Happen

Beethoven’s secretary Anton Schindler also began secretly to negotiate with the suburb of Vienna. There was talk of the Burgtheater, the other imperial family, and the small country hall as an alternative.

At the end of March, Schindler visited Duport to ask the Great Hall in the Hofburg or the Imperial Palace for a repeated Beethoven concert. (This hall was also under Barbaja’s administration.) With the plans for the first concert still in progress, Duport may have been confused, but he agreed. It was an unsettling time for him. Barbaja was under house arrest in Naples and was charged with trying to burn down the Teatro di San Carlo to hide accounting irregularities. He was eventually exonerated, but Duport, who had spent the past year in Karlovy Vary to take the water because of an unknown illness, was undoubtedly distracted.

For this planned repetition, Duport was only able to offer Beethoven the smaller hall of the Hofburg, which prompted the composer to threaten to abandon the concerts. At the first event, Schindler still pushed for the Theater an der Wien, but Beethoven wanted Schuppanzigh as concertmaster. When the musicians refused to use external workers, An der Wien was outside. The Kärntnertor was there again.

On April 24, Duport received a letter from Schindler with a long list of demands. Beethoven wanted the concert to be on either May 3rd or 4th and expected an immediate response. The situation was “urgent”. One can only imagine what Duport must have been thinking about; he had confronted Napoleon and now had to deal with the confident Schindler. However, Duport had great respect for Beethoven and agreed to hold the first concert in the Kärntnertor and the second in the Great Hall of the Hofburg.

The Ninth required an 82-piece orchestra and 80 singers, which were breathtaking for the time and offer more than twice as much as Duport could offer. As a result, Beethoven had to supplement the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde with amateurs. And since Beethoven wanted full power on stage, Duport also had to approve the construction of scaffolding and risers. The solo singers complained that the high notes were out of their reach. Government censors disrupted the planned excerpts from the “Missa Solemnis”. Beethoven wanted to open the concert with his overture “Consecration of the House”, but could not find the score.

With the concert only a week away, Duport still had to give Beethoven a formal contract. One of the composer’s friends suggested reporting the manager to the police superintendent. But on the evening of May 7, a large crowd began to enroll in the thousand-seat theater. Although Beethoven had received invitations to the members of the court by hand, the imperial box was empty; The nobility had already left the city for the summer. With only two complete rehearsals and little time to study the score, conductor Michael Umlauf – with Beethoven by his side – made the sign of the cross before giving the downbeat.

Tags Beethovens, Dancer, Happen, Ninth