In a two-page letter, federal health officials and an independent panel of medical experts accused AstraZeneca of collecting data on the effectiveness of its Covid-19 vaccine.

The company had said that based on its US study, the vaccine appeared to be 79 percent effective in preventing Covid-19. However, the panel said its effectiveness could be anywhere from 69 to 74 percent and blamed AstraZeneca for an overly rosy description of the trial data.

AstraZeneca defended the data released Monday, saying the interim results appeared to be “consistent” with the more recent data collected during the trial. The company said it would release more complete results within 48 hours.

The results throw a wrench in efforts by elected leaders elsewhere to rebuild confidence in the shot. Confidence in the vaccine had already fallen across Europe after it was recently reported that a very small number of recipients had developed unusual blood clots.

Supply bottlenecks: The European Union is due to enact public emergency laws today that will allow it to curb the export of block-made Covid-19 vaccines for the next six weeks. The new regulations will make it harder for companies like AstraZeneca that make Covid-19 vaccines in the EU to export them and it will likely disrupt supplies to the UK.

Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.

Two exit polls as well as early results of the elections in Israel indicated a clear result on Tuesday evening. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his potential right-wing allies had only 60 seats, less than the 61 seats required to form a majority in the 120s. Seat of parliament.

A third poll gave an anti-Netanyahu bloc of parties a 61 seat head start, potentially blocking Mr Netanyahu’s path to victory and making the election too short to call them up. The uncertainty will likely lead to weeks, if not months, of negotiations and possibly more elections.

Mr Netanyahu campaigned to fight the coronavirus pandemic, including a vaccine rollout that the world will envy. Seeking re-election despite being on trial on corruption charges did not prove fatal to his chances.

Potential government: It was expected by many that Mr Netanyahu’s larger bloc would form a coalition with Naftali Bennett, a rival far-right who leaves Israel with one of the most conservative governments in its history, made up of ultra-Orthodox parties, ultra-nationalists, a group opposed to them fights, established gay rights and another whose leader supports the expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel who are considered unfaithful to the state.

Farmers from Punjab and other countries camped outside New Delhi for four months in protest. At the center of the dispute is a subsidy system that the government, economists and even many farmers all agree is broken.

The system was introduced in the 1960s to prevent famine by encouraging farmers to grow wheat and rice. It contained government-set minimum prices that helped farmers sell what they grow for a profit.

While the system is undoubtedly out of date, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rush to reshape it – his political party got new laws through parliament in a matter of days – could devastate large swaths of the country where farming remains a way of life. Our reporters looked at what went wrong and now they have taken stock of the protests.

Context: Almost 60 percent of India’s 1.3 billion people make a living from agriculture, although the sector only accounts for around 11 percent of economic output. For many, getting another job is not an option.

In 2017 a strange intruder came zooming through our solar system. Was it a comet? A cosmic iceberg? Or an alien space wreck?

This month’s astronomers offered the previously solid explanation: Oumuamua, as it is called, was a chip from a distant planet in another solar system. Long ago, a collision with an asteroid broke him off and sent him through space.

TikTok’s influence is selling thousands of books. Some avid readers – mostly teenage and 20 year old women – post videos of themselves reading or recommending novels. Occasionally they sob into the camera after a particularly devastating ending.

“It’s going to be this very emotional 45-second video that people instantly connect with,” the Barnes & Noble book director told The Times. “We haven’t seen these kinds of insane sales – I mean tens of thousands of copies a month – with other social media formats.”

An example: “The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller. Sales soared after a popular TikTok video last year, and the book now sells about nine times as many copies a week as it did in 2012 when it won a prestigious fiction award. The book currently ranks third on the New York Times bestseller list for paperback literature.

Some publishers saw the potential and started paying users with large fan bases or sending them free books. Fees range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per post. For now, however, the majority of these videos are not being sponsored and are running organically.

Crispy tofu with panko and sesame seeds goes well with a coconut and lime dressing in this vegetarian dish.

If you like the farce and fraternal conflict of “Frasier”, you might like the British comedy “Back”, which brings together more jokes and details in a single episode than some shows can manage in one season.

Lana Del Rey’s sixth major label album “Chemtrails Over the Country Club” thinks that the singer “went back to get more insights into the island,” writes our reviewer.

Here’s today’s mini crossword and a clue: Used Cars? (five letters).

You can find all of our puzzles here.

That’s it for today’s briefing. I wish you a good Wednesday. – Natasha

PS The Times unveiled its 2021-22 class of fellows hailing from the US, as well as the UK and Vietnam.

The latest episode of “The Daily” shows a food critic who has lost her sense of smell due to Covid-19.

Sanam Yar contributed to the coverage. You can reach Natasha and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

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