DAILY DOSE: February 14, 2021
Posted on 02/14/2021
1. Carlos Menem, the former Argentine president, has died at the age of 90. Menem had been in frail health for some time. Menem was elected president in 1989 for the Peronist party.
2. Former U.S. President Donald Trump was acquitted by the Democrat-led Senate over his second impeachment. The controversial impeachment was constitutionally questionable by legal scholars as Trump was no longer in office and Chief Justice John Roberts did not bother presiding over the case.
3. Guinea declared a new Ebola outbreak on Sunday. Tests came back positive for the Ebola virus in which 3 people died. The seven patients fell ill after attending a burial in Goueke sub-prefecture.
4. Bitcoin (BTC) hit a new record high and approached $50,000 on Sunday
5. New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern declared a three-day lockdown in Auckland, after three COVID-19 cases emerged, the first local infections since late January 2021.
6. Japan’s Health Ministry said on Sunday it has officially approved Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine.
7. France reported 21,231 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Saturday, up from 20,701 on Friday.
8. Montana became the latest state to end its mask mandate.
9. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) manages the flow of electric power on the Texas Interconnection that supplies power to more than 25 million Texas customers. ERCOT has put all utilities across Texas on standby for rolling blackouts over the weekend because of the forecasted frigid temperatures. Texas utilities are asking people to conserve electricity if possible as ERCOT prices surge across the board above US$ 5,000 per Mw and hit the US$ 9,000 cap in many nodes.