We’re masking the takeaways from the Biden-Xi assembly and the way Pfizer’s Covid capsule may assist poor nations.

A digital assembly between President Biden and China’s chief, Xi Jinping, produced no breakthroughs. The 2 leaders sought to keep the many disputes between their countries from escalating right into a broader battle.

On the finish of three and a half hours of talks, the 2 sides didn’t even cobble collectively a joint assertion. As an alternative, they issued their very own statements, every emphasizing the factors of longstanding competition.

Biden raised issues about human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong, and about China’s “unfair commerce and financial insurance policies” harming American employees, the White Home assertion mentioned.

Xi, in accordance with China’s personal readout, mentioned that American help for Taiwan was “enjoying with hearth,” and explicitly warned that the world risked slipping again into the superpower confrontations of a half-century in the past.

Lingering points: The commerce warfare that former President Trump began stays unresolved, and China shouldn’t be shopping for as many American merchandise. U.S. officers declined to debate what was mentioned about China’s rising nuclear arsenal.

Extra talks: The 2 sides did comply with talks amongst lower-level officers, elevating hopes that tensions may ease not less than a bit.

Xi’s energy: Hours after the assembly, the Chinese language Communist Celebration finalized a decision that anoints Xi one of its revered leaders.

The settlement follows the same one by Merck, and collectively the offers have the potential to vastly develop international manufacturing of two easy antiviral tablets that assist forestall extreme sickness from the coronavirus.

The capsule is urgently wanted in locations the place few folks have had the chance to be vaccinated. Advocates for well being fairness mentioned that the Pfizer deal did too little to handle the disaster that has been created by the large disparity in vaccine entry.

The U.S. is planning to pay greater than $5 billion for a stockpile of Pfizer’s new capsule, sufficient for about 10 million courses of treatment, after the corporate gears up manufacturing subsequent yr, in accordance with folks aware of the settlement.

Challenges: The influence of the tablets from Pfizer and Merck will rely upon whether or not sufferers have easy accessibility to Covid testing. The remedies have to be given inside just a few days after signs begin. Consultants predict that might be harder in international locations the place folks have much less dependable entry to well being care suppliers.

Listed here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.

In different developments:

Polish border guards mentioned they have been repelling an try by migrants on Tuesday to breach the closely guarded border with Belarus, the place tensions have been building for weeks.

The authorities in Poland mentioned that the guards on the border crossing had been assaulted by folks throwing “stones, bottles and logs” and firing “stun grenades.” (With journalists barred from the realm, it was unattainable to substantiate the Polish authorities’ claims.)

Russia’s international minister, Sergey Lavrov, referred to as the actions of Polish forces “completely unacceptable.” Moscow has stood by Belarus amid accusations that it’s utilizing migrants as a political weapon towards Poland, an E.U. nation.

On the opposite facet of the border, Belarusian guards started shifting tons of of migrants from the fetid and frozen camp to the shelter of a close-by warehouse. It was unclear what plans the Belarusian authorities had for the migrants they have been shifting.

Humanitarian disaster: A minimum of 11 folks have died on the border in current weeks. As freezing temperatures start to grip the area, there are fears of additional tragedy for 1000’s of males, girls and kids stranded on the border.

Information From Asia Pacific

Fifteen generations of the Indigenous Abrauw group in Indonesia have lived on Biak Island. Now, the group’s members fear they will be forced off their land as Indonesia pursues plans to construct a spaceport there and lure the SpaceX founder Elon Musk.

Final week, Taylor Swift unveiled “Red (Taylor’s Version),” her latest rerecorded album. First launched almost a decade in the past, “Purple” signified the start of Swift’s transition from nation to pop. And amongst true Swifties, the favourite observe was “All Too Effectively,” an “achingly rendered portrait of a breakup,” Lindsay Zoladz writes in The Instances. (There’s much speculation concerning the actor rumored to have impressed the music.)

So when Swift debuted the music video for a brand new 10-minute model of “All Too Effectively” — and performed the entire song on “Saturday Evening Stay” — followers went wild. Whereas the shorter model of the music featured “taut, streamlined storytelling,” Zoladz writes, the brand new model is “gloriously unruly and viciously seething.”

Swift started the rerecording challenge to maintain management over her songs, after her first six albums have been bought to traders. It’s a shrewd enterprise transfer: The rerecorded songs are outperforming the originals on streaming companies, The Wall Road Journal experiences.

However the prolonged lower of “All Too Effectively” reveals how the rerecordings can even improve the unique works. Essentially the most putting lyric within the new observe highlights the age hole between an older man and a youthful girl, and the video emphasizes the purpose with actors who’re greater than a decade aside. The end result, Zoladz writes, is a younger girl’s try and retroactively right an influence imbalance.

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