DAILY DOSE: May 29, 2021
Posted on 05/29/2021
1. “Friends: The Reunion”, the reunion show on HBO Max, was viewed by an estimated 29% of U.S. streaming households on May 27, 2021. That day was the first day of its release, as measured by connected-TV analytics provider TVision.
2. UBS Group AG initiated a wide range of job cuts across its largest divisions as part of a restructuring plan intended to save the bank US$ 1 billion over the next three years. Staff reductions will be in the investment bank, Swiss corporate office, and the wealth management unit.
3. Disney’s new live-action origin story Cruella, which stars Emma Stone and Dame Emma Thompson, is a film is a prequel to 101 Dalmatians.
4. HYBRID VARIANT OF COVID – Vietnam Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long informed the public they found a new coronavirus variant that is a combination of the Indian and UK COVID-19 variants. This hybrid variant spreads quickly by air.
5. EMPLOYEE RIGHTS – TAKE THE EMERGENCY-ORDER SHOT OR GET FIRED? Around 117 staffers at the Houston Methodist Hospital sued their employer in Texas state court, arguing the hospital’s policy of refusing the COVID-19 shot would lead to losing a job. The COVID shots remain under emergency-use order only and have not had the time-tested scrutiny compared to other vaccines. The plaintiffs argue the hospitals rule violates the Nuremberg Code, which is a set of research ethics principles for human experimentation created by the USA v Brandt court as one result of the Nuremberg trials at the end of the Second World War. The hospital says most of the employees are in compliance with the COVID shot mandate.
6. The Philippines resumed sending immigrant workers to Saudi Arabia. This is after a day when Filipinos were being asked to pay for COVID-19 quarantine and insurance costs. Saudi Arabia is the Philippines’ key destination for migrant labor.
7. The SEC sued five individuals for helping BitConnect, a cryptocurrency exchange platform, raise more than US$ 2 billion from retail investors in an offering that wasn’t registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “We allege that these defendants unlawfully sold unregistered digital asset securities by actively promoting the BitConnect lending program to retail investors,” said Lara Shalov Mehraban, an associate regional director for the SEC’s New York office.
8. Rivian Automotive Inc. is an electric-truck startup backed by Amazon.com Inc. Rivian has selected underwriters for an initial public offering that could come later in 2021.