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* President Biden Delivers Remarks On The Costs Of Prescription Drugs
* Biden & Putin Head Into Ukraine Talks With Scant Room For Compromise
* New York Will Become The First U.S. City To Impose Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate On Businesses
* Trump's New Media Platform And Rumble Have Distribution Deal
* U.S. Will Not Send Diplomatic Representatives To 2022 Winter Olympics Games In Beijing
* Omicron Panic: How The Dumping Of 17,000 Positive Tests Skewed The Picture Of SA's Epidemic Trajectory
* Omicron Covid Cases Detected In At Least 17 States
* House Republican Rep. Devin Nunes To Resign
* Indonesia Volcano Erupts
* Intel To Launch IPO Mobileye Self- Driving- Car Unit 2022
* Update With Mama June- News & Conference Info
President Biden Delivers Remarks On The Costs Of Prescription Drugs
President Biden Delivers Remarks on How his Build Back Better Act will Lower the Costs of Prescription Drugs for Millions of Americans
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Biden And Putin Head Into Ukraine Talks With Scant Room For Compromise
MOSCOW/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin have a chasm of mutual distrust to bridge when they hold a virtual meeting on Tuesday in the shadow of what the United States believes is a threatened Russian invasion of Ukraine.
"A lamentable state," was how the Kremlin described relations ahead of the extended video conference call, which it expects to start around 1500 GMT/10 a.m. ET.
Washington has accused Russia of massing troops near the border with Ukraine to intimidate an aspiring NATO member, suggesting it could be a repeat of Moscow's 2014 playbook, when it seized the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine. It says the West is ready with tough sanctions if Russia invades.
The Kremlin has rejected the idea that its forces are poised to invade as fear-mongering and has said its troops move around its own territory for purely defensive purposes. Read More
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New York Will Become the First U.S. City To Impose Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate On Businesses
Mayor Bill de Blasio says all New York City employers will have to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for their workers by Dec. 27. De Blasio said Monday that the new mandate is aimed at preventing a spike in coronavirus infections during the holiday season and the colder months. He called it a "preemptive strike" to "stop the further growth of COVID." Vaccinations are already required for city employees including teachers, police officers and firefighters, and a vaccination mandate for employees of private and religious schools was announced last week. De Blasio said he expects the new mandate to survive any legal challenges.
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Trump's New Media Platform And Rumble Have Distribution Deal
Howard Lutnick, the CEO of Rumble's parent company Cantor Fitzgerald, stated on Monday that they have worked out a distribution deal with former President Donald Trump's planned "TRUTH" social media platform.
"Truth and the 45th president are going to use Rumble's infrastructure, their technology, their cloud distribution capability, so they are going to be a service provider, a tech provider to the president's Truth Social," Lutnick told interviewer John Bachman on his "John Bachman Now" show.
Rumble, a video-based, pro-free speech platform, works in a similar manner to other streaming services like YouTube, but promotes neutrality, refusing to censor its users like other Big Tech companies have been doing.
In direct competition with YouTube, Rumble has grown quickly, reaching a 15 percent market share among US users over the past year, according to Newsmax. Read More
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U.S. Will Not Send Diplomatic Representatives To 2022 Winter Olympics Games In Beijing
U.S. will not send diplomatic representatives to the 2022 Winter Olympics Games in Beijing over China’s “egregious human rights abuses,” White House press sec. Jen Psaki announces.
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Omicron Panic: How The Dumping Of 17 000 Positive Tests Skewed The Picture Of SA’s Epidemic Trajectory
An untimely dump of 17 718 historic Covid-19 cases on 22 November created the impression that South Africa had seen a dire spike in coronavirus infections - just as the country told the world about the Omicron variant.
Within hours of the announcement of the discovery on Thursday, the UK and other countries introduced travel bans which have been slammed by President Cyril Ramaphosa as "unjustified".
However, at the exact moment the announcement was made, coronavirus data available showed that South Africa had seen a major spike in cases – from 312 on 21 November, to 18 586 on 22 November.
In reality there were only 868 new cases while 17 718 of the cases introduced were historic cases – some as old as April 2020, according to data reviewed by News24. Read More
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Omicron Covid Cases Detected In At Least 17 States
Meg Tirrell joins 'Squawk Box' to provide an update on the omicron coronavirus variant in the U.S. For access to live and exclusive video
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House Republican Rep. Devin Nunes To Resign
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., will resign from Congress at the end of the year.
Fox News has confirmed that Nunes plans to leave, with a source saying the lawmaker "got a job offer that he can’t refuse" as CEO of a newly established Trump media organization.
"Trump Media & Technology Group today announced that Congressman Devin G. Nunes has been selected to join the Company as Chief Executive Officer," the organization said in a statement. "Mr. Nunes will be leaving the U.S. House of Representatives and will begin his new role as Chief Executive Officer of TMTG in January 2022."
Donald Trump, Chairman of TMTG, commented in the statement: "Congressman Devin Nunes is a fighter and a leader. He will make an excellent CEO of TMTG. Devin understands that we must stop the liberal media and Big Tech from destroying the freedoms that make America great." Read More
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Indonesia Volcano Erupts: At Least 15 Dead, Dozens Missing
Rescue crews in Indonesia are still searching for survivors two days after a volcanic eruption killed 15 people and left dozens more missing. Mount Semeru spewed thick columns of ash more than 40,000 feet into the sky on Saturday.
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Intel To Launch IPO Of Its Mobileye Self-Driving-Car Unit In 2022
Intel Corp. INTC, +3.53% is planning to publicly list shares in its Mobileye self-driving-car unit, the latest move by Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger to revive the semiconductor giant’s fortunes.
Intel said it would take the unit public in the U.S. in mid-2022 through an initial public offering of new Mobileye stock. The move, earlier reported by The Wall Street Journal, could value Mobileye at north of $50 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
There are no guarantees Intel will ultimately follow through with an offering.
Mobileye, an Israeli company Intel acquired in 2018 for around $15 billion, specializes in chip-based camera systems that power automated driving features in cars. Read More
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Update With Mama June - News & Conference Info