Month: December 2020

The hacking group behind the SolarWinds compromise was able to break into Microsoft Corp. and access some of its source code, Microsoft said Thursday. In a blog post, Microsoft said its investigation into the SolarWinds breach had turned up irregularities with a “small number of internal accounts” and that one of the accounts “had been used to view source code in a number of source code repositories.” It added that the account had no ability to modify the code. The disclosure adds to the growing picture of the compromises associated with the SolarWinds hack, which used the Texas-based company’s flagship network monitoring software as a springboard to break into sensitive U.S. government networks and other tech companies. Microsoft had disclosed that, like other firms, it found malicious versions of SolarWinds’ software inside its network, but the source code disclosure is new. FILE – A woman walks in front of the Microsoft stand during the Cybersecurity Conference in Lille, northern France, Jan. 29, 2020.A company’s source code, the underlying set of instructions that run a piece of software or an operating system, is typically among its most closely guarded secrets. It is not clear how many or specifically which source code repositories the hackers were able to access or how long the hackers were lurking in Microsoft’s systems. A Microsoft spokesman declined to elaborate on the blog post. Modifying source code, which Microsoft said the hijacked account could not do, could have potentially disastrous consequences, but experts said that even just being able to review the code could offer hackers insight that might help them subvert Microsoft products or services. “The source code is the architectural blueprint of how the software is built,” said Andrew Fife of Israel-based Cycode, a source code protection company. “If you have the blueprint, it’s far easier to engineer attacks.” Both he and Ronen Slavin, Cycode’s chief technology officer, said a key unanswered question was which source code repositories were accessed. Microsoft has a huge range of products, from its flagship Windows operating system to lesser-known software such as social networking app Yammer and the design app Sway. Slavin said he was also worried by the possibility that the SolarWinds hackers were poring over Microsoft’s source code as prelude for something more ambitious. “To me the biggest question is, ‘Was this recon for the next big operation?’ ” he said. In its blog post, Microsoft said it had found no evidence of access “to production services or customer data.” “The investigation, which is ongoing, has also found no indications that our systems were used to attack others,” it said.  
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Health officials in the U.S. state of California said a patient there has been infected with a coronavirus variant first detected in Britain, and that it is likely more cases will be identified in the United States.California is the second state with the COVID-19 variant strain, following a case in Colorado earlier this week.As was true with the Colorado case, the California Department of Public Health said the person infected there also had no known travel history.California Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly called the development “concerning” and stressed the importance of known methods of preventing coronavirus spread, such as wearing masks, social distancing, staying home and avoiding travel.”It appears that this particular mutation does make the virus better at transmitting from one person to another,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease specialist.During an online discussion Wednesday with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Fauci said virus mutations are normal, and that he was “not surprised” additional cases of the COVID-19 variant would be found in the country.He also said the variant is not believed to cause more severe illness than earlier forms, and that vaccines already being deployed should be just as effective against it.The United States has begun vaccinations of frontline health care workers and high-risk populations such as those living in nursing homes using two vaccines given emergency use authorization.The vaccines will then be made available to other groups in the coming months.Fauci said if the vaccination program progresses as it should through May, June and July, then by early fall there will be “enough good herd immunity to be able to really get back to some strong semblance of normality – schools, theaters, sports events, restaurants.”The United States has recorded 342,000 COVID-19 deaths, including more than 3,700 on Wednesday, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
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Tough New Year’s Eve restrictions are being put in place as Australia’s biggest city struggles to contain growing coronavirus clusters.Sydney’s COVID-19 outbreak has been described by health officials as “a bit of a roller coaster ride.” Australia’s biggest city accounts for most of the estimated 204 active infections across the country.Parts of its northern coastal suburbs, where a cluster of cases emerged about two weeks ago, remain in lockdown. Infections have been detected in other parts of the city.The authorities have banned large gatherings on New Year’s Eve to “avoid super spreading events.” Sydney’s famous fireworks display will go ahead, but crowds won’t be allowed to gather around the harbor to watch.Gatherings have been limited, and visits to nursing homes banned for at least a week to try to curb the spread of the virus.“Please, the last thing we want is to welcome in 2021 with a super-spreading event,” said New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian. “2021, all of us are hoping, will be easier on us than 2020 and let us start the year off on a positive foot by doing the right thing, by respecting the restrictions that are in place, but also demonstrating common sense.”Experts are calling for the state government to impose a citywide lockdown as infections grow.In response, other Australian states and territories are restricting travel for residents from Sydney.In Victoria, six coronavirus cases have been reported in the past two days, which authorities have linked to infections further north in Sydney.Residents in Victoria are being urged not to travel to neighboring New South Wales, and masks will become mandatory indoors. Residents are not required to wear a mask inside their own homes, but they must if they visit friends or go shopping.Victoria’s Health Minister Martin Foley said a swift response to the outbreak is needed.“Now that we have got links to the New South Wales outbreaks here in Victoria, we are having to respond really quickly to get on top of that, and a part of that is to make sure that as the situation seemingly continues to deteriorate in New South Wales that we respond appropriately,” he said.Australia has recorded 28,380 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began. Its just over 200 active estimated COVID-19 cases is small by many international standards, but in the context of Australia, a country that has taken a very cautious approach to the virus, the number is cause for alarm.With fewer than 1,000 deaths related to COVID-19 since the pandemic, Australia has fared better than many other developed nations.Health officials in Sydney have blamed “an avalanche of complacency” for recent outbreaks.
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Does it spread more easily? Make people sicker? Mean that treatments and vaccines won’t work? Questions are multiplying as fast as new variants of the coronavirus, especially the one moving through England and now popping up in the U.S. and other countries.Scientists say there is reason for concern and more to learn but that the new variants should not cause alarm.Worry has been growing since before Christmas, when Britain’s prime minister said the coronavirus variant seemed to spread more easily than earlier ones and was moving rapidly through England. On Tuesday, Colorado health officials said they had found it there. And on Wednesday, California officials reported a case.Here are some questions and answers on what’s known about the virus so far.Q: Where did this new variant come from?A: New variants have been seen almost since the virus was first detected in China nearly a year ago. Viruses often mutate, or develop small changes, as they reproduce and move through a population.Most changes are trivial. “It’s the change of one or two letters in the genetic alphabet that doesn’t make much difference in the ability to cause disease,” said Dr. Philip Landrigan, a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientist who directs a global health program at Boston College.A more concerning situation is when a virus mutates by changing the proteins on its surface to help it escape from drugs or the immune system, or if it acquires a lot of changes that make it very different from previous versions.Q: How does one variant become dominant?A: That can happen if one variant takes hold and starts spreading in an area, or because “super spreader” events helped it become established.It also can happen if a mutation gives a new variant an advantage, such as helping it spread more easily than other ones that are circulating.Scientists are still working to confirm whether the variant in England spreads more easily, but they are finding some evidence that it does. The variant “out-competes the other strains and moves faster and infects more people, so it wins the race,” Landrigan said.The British variant was first detected in September, WHO officials said. A new South African variant also has emerged.Q: What’s worrisome about the British variant?A: It has many mutations — nearly two dozen — and eight are on the spike protein that the virus uses to attach to and infect cells. The spike is what vaccines and antibody drugs target.Dr. Ravi Gupta, a virus expert at the University of Cambridge in England, said modeling studies suggest it may be up to two times more infectious than the version that’s been most common in England so far. He and other researchers posted a report of it on a website scientists use to quickly share developments, but it has not been formally reviewed or published in a journal.Q: Does it make people sicker or more likely to die?A: “There’s no indication that either of those is true, but clearly those are two issues we’ve got to watch,” Landrigan said. As more patients get infected with the new variant, “they’ll know fairly soon if the new strain makes people sicker.”A WHO outbreak expert, Maria Van Kerkhove, said that “the information that we have so far is that there isn’t a change” in the kind of illness or its severity.Q: What do the mutations mean for treatments?A: A couple of cases in England raise concern that the mutations in some of the emerging new variants could hurt the potency of drugs that supply antibodies to block the virus from infecting cells.Studies on antibody response are under way, Van Kerkhove said.One drugmaker, Eli Lilly, said that tests in its lab suggest that its drug remains fully active.Q: What about vaccines?A: Scientists believe current vaccines will still be effective against the variant, but they are working to confirm that. On Wednesday, British officials reiterated that there is no data suggesting the new variant hurts the effectiveness of the available vaccines.Vaccines induce broad immune system responses besides just prompting the immune system to make antibodies to the virus, so they are expected to still work, several scientists said.Q: What can I do to reduce my risk?A: Follow the advice to wear a mask, wash your hands often, maintain social distance and avoid crowds, public health experts say.”The bottom line is we need to suppress transmission” of the coronavirus, said the WHO’s director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.”The more we allow it to spread, the more mutations will happen.”  
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California on Wednesday announced the nation’s second confirmed case of the new and apparently more contagious variant of the coronavirus, offering a strong indication that the infection is spreading more widely in the United States.Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the infection found in Southern California during an online conversation with Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.”I don’t think Californians should think that this is odd. It’s to be expected,” Fauci said.Newsom did not provide any details about the person who was infected.The announcement came 24 hours after word of the first reported U.S. variant infection, which emerged in Colorado. That person was identified Wednesday as a Colorado National Guardsman who had been sent to help out at a nursing home struggling with an outbreak. Health officials said a second Guard member may have it, too.The cases triggered a host of questions about how the version circulating in England arrived in the U.S. and whether it is too late to stop it now, with top experts saying it is probably already spreading elsewhere in the United States.”The virus is becoming more fit, and we’re like a deer in the headlights,” warned Dr. Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute. He noted that the U.S. does far less genetic sequencing of virus samples to discover variants than other developed nations, and thus was probably slow to detect this new mutation.The two Guard members had been dispatched Dec. 23 to work at the Good Samaritan Society nursing home in the small town of Simla, in a mostly rural area about 90 miles outside Denver, said Dr. Rachel Herlihy, state epidemiologist. They were among six Guard members sent to the home.Nasal swab samples taken from the two as part of the Guard’s routine coronavirus testing were sent to the state laboratory, which began looking for the variant after its spread was announced in Britain earlier this month, Herlihy said. Samples from staff and residents at the nursing home are also being screened for the variant at the lab, but so far no evidence of it has been found, she said.The Colorado case announced Tuesday involves a man in his 20s who had not traveled recently, officials said. He has mild symptoms and is isolating at his home near Denver, while the person with the suspected case is isolating at a Colorado hotel while further genetic analysis is done on his sample, officials said.The nursing home said it is working closely with the state and is also looking forward to beginning vaccinations next week.Several states, including California, Massachusetts and Delaware, are also analyzing suspicious virus samples for the variant, said Dr. Greg Armstrong, who directs genetic sequencing at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said the CDC is working with a national lab that gets samples from around the country to broaden that search, with results expected within days.The discovery in Colorado has added urgency to the nation’s vaccination drive against COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, that has killed more than 340,000 people and sickened nearly 20 million in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University.Johns Hopkins said 3,927 people died Wednesday of COVID-19 in the U.S., a new daily record.Britain is seeing infections soar and hospitalizations climb to their highest levels on record. The variant has also been found in several other countries.Scientists have found no evidence that it is more lethal or causes more severe illness, and they believe the vaccines now being dispensed will be effective against it. But a faster-spreading virus could swamp hospitals with seriously ill patients.The discovery overseas led the CDC to issue rules on Christmas Day requiring travelers arriving from Britain to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test. But U.S. health officials said the Colorado patient’s lack of travel history suggests the new variant is already spreading in this country.Topol said it is too late for travel bans.”We’re behind in finding it. Colorado is likely one of many places it’s landed here,” he said. “It’s all over the place. How can you ban travel from everywhere?”Colorado public health officials are conducting contact tracing to determine its spread.Researchers estimate the variant is 50% to 70% more contagious, said Dr. Eric France, Colorado’s chief medical officer.”Instead of only making two or three other people sick, you might actually spread it to four or five people,” France said. “That means we’ll have more cases in our communities. Those number of cases will rise quickly and, of course, with more cases come more hospitalizations.”London and southeast England were placed under strict lockdown measures earlier this month because of the variant, and dozens of countries banned flights from Britain. France also briefly barred trucks from Britain before allowing them back in, provided the drivers got tested for the virus.New versions of the virus have been seen almost since it was first detected in China a year ago. It is common for viruses to undergo minor changes as they reproduce and move through a population. The fear is that mutations at some point will become significant enough to defeat the vaccines.South Africa has also discovered a highly contagious COVID-19 variant that is driving the country’s latest spike of cases, hospitalizations and deaths.  
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Britain became the first country to approve the coronavirus vaccine developed jointly by Oxford University and AstraZeneca Wednesday. Scientists say the vaccine could be a game changer in the global fight against the pandemic.   Regulators say the vaccine has shown around 70% effectiveness against COVID-19, a relatively high figure compared to vaccines for many other diseases.   “This vaccine, COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca, has been approved for use in people aged 18 years and older, with two standard doses, four to 12 weeks apart,” said Dr. June Raine, CEO of Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).   “As I’ve said before, and I will say again today, the safety of the public always comes first. The MHRA’s approval has been reached following a thorough and scientifically rigorous review of all the evidence of safety, of quality and of effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca,” Raine added, during a press conference Wednesday in London.   Earlier in December, Britain was the first of several Western nations to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which is around 95% effective. However, it is more expensive at around $20 per dose and must be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius.   In contrast, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine costs around $4 per dose and only needs to be stored at refrigerator temperatures.  In an interview with VOA, Dr. Simon Clarke, a microbiologist at the University of Reading in Britain, said those attributes make the drug particularly suitable for less well-funded health systems.  “Developing countries with a less sophisticated cold chain and with smaller budgets will be able to use this vaccine,” Clarke said. Research into the optimum dosing regimen for the AstraZeneca vaccine is ongoing. Britain plans to administer the first dose to as many people as possible, rather than focusing only on elderly and vulnerable groups. A second dose will follow up to 12 weeks later for longer-term protection. Wei Shen Lim, chair of Britain’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization, explained the decision.  “What is impressive about the vaccine studies is that after the first dose, individuals acquire a high level of protection shortly after the dose. Currently in the U.K., we know that COVID infection rates are very, very high. The immediate urgency is for rapid and high levels of vaccine uptake,” he told the press conference Wednesday.   Clarke said questions remain on the British government’s approach. “There is government pressure to increase the coverage of vaccination. And that’s understandable,” he said. “People want it done as quickly as possible. But if you end up putting more people in [the] hospital because they’re vulnerable and they didn’t get the regimen of the vaccine, then that means that our hospitals are still going to be under pressure.”   Matt Hancock, Britain’s health secretary, said the approval was a cause for great optimism.  “I’m confident … that the NHS will be able to deliver these shots into people’s arms at the speed at which it can be manufactured,” he told Sky News. “And I’m also now, with this approval this morning, highly confident that we can get enough vulnerable people vaccinated by the spring, that we can now see our route out of this pandemic.”   The road to recovery will be difficult. Britain is struggling with a surge of infections driven by a new variant of the coronavirus that doctors say is over 50% more infectious. There are record numbers of hospitalizations, with patients being treated in ambulances as hospital beds are running short.   “Control room staff are having to make incredibly difficult decisions to decide who gets an ambulance and in what order, quite often with huge numbers of people waiting for ambulances,” said Will Broughton, a trustee at Britain’s College of Paramedics. “And they have nobody left to send.”   Several cases of the new mutant virus have been found in other countries. Scientists say its spread makes the global rollout of vaccines even more urgent.       
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Britain approved another vaccine for the coronavirus Wednesday, this one developed by Oxford University and the pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, scientists say the vaccine could be a game changer in the global fight against the pandemic.Camera: Henry Ridgwell   Produced by: Henry Hernandez 
 
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The year 2020 is ending with good news about two more potential vaccines that could slowly bring an end to the global COVID-19 pandemic that has killed nearly 1.8 million people out of a total of nearly 82 million infections.   Britain’s medical regulatory agency announced Wednesday that it has granted emergency authorization of a coronavirus vaccine developed jointly by British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and Oxford University. Late-stage clinical trials of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine revealed it to be 70% effective against COVID-19. The vaccine had a 62% efficacy rate for participants given a full two doses, but tests of a smaller sub-group revealed it to be 90% effective when given a half-dose followed by a full dose weeks later.   The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine is the second to be approved by Britain for its mass inoculation effort, which began earlier this month with the vaccine developed by U.S.-based Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech.  The new vaccine will be distributed across the country within days, with Britain having already ordered 100 million doses.   Unlike the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which needs to be stored in super-cold refrigerators at temperatures below 70 degrees Celsius, the newly approved vaccine can be stored at normal temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius, making it easier to transport and administer to people in poorer and remote nations.   But the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine has come under intense scrutiny over the number of people who took part in the smaller sub-group, which was just 2,741, and whether it is effective for people over age 55.   In a related development, Chinese state-owned drug maker Sinopharm is seeking regulatory approval for its COVID-19 vaccine after it was found to be 79.3 percent effective against the disease in a final large-scale clinical trial. The vaccine, developed by Sinopharm’s subsidiary Beijing Biological Products Institute, is one of five vaccines developed by Chinese companies that have already been administered to more than one million people in China under its emergency use program while still undergoing Phase 3 clinical trials.   The United Arab Emirates granted emergency use approval for a Sinopharm-developed vaccine earlier this month after it was shown to be 86% effective in preventing moderate and severe cases of the virus in a late-stage clinical trial back in September.   Wednesday’s vaccine news comes just days after several European Union countries began inoculating its citizens after receiving a first shipment of 10,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.  Vaccinations also began Wednesday in Singapore, with a 46-year-old nurse the first in the city-state to be inoculated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.  The nurse is one of more than 30 staffers at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases to receive the first dose of two-shot vaccine, with the second dose to be delivered sometime in January.  Singapore, which has one of the lowest rates of total infections with just 58,569, including 29 deaths, is the first Asian nation to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.  It expects to have enough vaccine doses for all its 5.7 million people by the third quarter of 2021. Meanwhile, another potential COVID-19 vaccine developed by U.S.-based drug maker Novavax has begun final-stage testing in the United States. The trials involving 30,000 volunteers will focus on high-risk older adults, as well as people from Black and Hispanic communities who have been disproportionately affected by the virus.    
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Parents now have an extra reason to say no to candy, cake and ice cream for young children. The first U.S. government dietary guidelines for infants and toddlers, released Tuesday, recommend feeding only breast milk for at least six months and no added sugar for children under age 2. “It’s never too early to start,” said Barbara Schneeman, a nutritionist at University of California, Davis. “You have to make every bite count in those early years.” The guidelines stop short of two key recommendations from scientists advising the government. Those advisers said in July that everyone should limit their added sugar intake to less than 6% of calories and men should limit alcohol to one drink per day. Instead, the guidelines stick with previous advice: Limit added sugar to less than 10% of calories per day after age 2. And men should limit alcohol to no more than two drinks per day, twice as much as advised for women. “I don’t think we’re finished with alcohol,” said Schneeman, who chaired a committee advising the government on the guidelines. “There’s more we need to learn.” The dietary guidelines are issued every five years by the Agriculture Department and the Department of Health and Human Services. The government uses them to set standards for school lunches and other programs. Some highlights: Infants, toddlers and moms Babies should have only breast milk at least until they reach 6 months, the guidelines say. If breast milk isn’t available, they should get iron-fortified infant formula during the first year. Babies should get supplemental vitamin D beginning soon after birth. Babies can start eating other food at about 6 months and should be introduced to potential allergenic foods along with other foods. “Introducing peanut-containing foods in the first year reduces the risk that an infant will develop a food allergy to peanuts,” the guidelines say. There’s more advice than in prior guidelines for pregnant and breastfeeding women. To promote healthy brain development in their babies, these women should eat 8 to 12 ounces of seafood per week. They should be sure to choose fish — such as cod, salmon, sardines and tilapia — with lower levels of mercury, which can harm children’s nervous systems. Pregnant women should not drink alcohol, according to the guidelines, and breastfeeding women should be cautious. Caffeine in modest amounts appears safe, and women can discuss that with their doctors. Alcohol and men In July, the science advisers suggested men who drink alcohol should limit themselves to one serving per day — a 12-ounce can of beer, a 5-ounce glass of wine or a shot of liquor. Tuesday’s official guidelines ignored that, keeping the advice for men at two drinks per day. Dr. Westley Clark of Santa Clara University said that’s appropriate. Heavy drinking and binge drinking are harmful, he said, but the evidence isn’t as clear for moderate drinking.  Lowering the limit for men would likely be socially, religiously or culturally unacceptable to many, Clark said, which could have ripple effects for the rest of the guidelines. “They need to be acceptable to people, otherwise they’ll reject it outright and we’ll be worse off,” he said. “If you lose the public, these guidelines have no merit whatsoever.” More careful scientific research into the long-term effects of low or moderate levels of drinking is needed, he said. What’s on your plate? Most Americans fall short of following the best advice on nutrition, contributing to obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Much of the new advice sounds familiar: Load your plate with fruits and vegetables, and cut back on sweets, saturated fats and sodium.  The guidelines suggest making small changes that add up: Substitute plain shredded wheat for frosted cereal. Choose low-sodium canned black beans. Drink sparkling water instead of soda. “It is really important to make healthier choices, every meal, every day, to develop a pattern of healthy eating,” said Pam Miller of the Agriculture Department’s food and nutrition service. There’s an app to help people follow the guidelines available through the government’s My Plate website. Read labels The biggest sources of added sugars in the typical U.S. diet are soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages, desserts, snacks, candy and sweetened coffee and tea. These foods contribute very little nutrition, so the guidelines advise limits. There’s information on added sugar on the “Nutrition Facts” label on packaged foods. Information on saturated fats and sodium is on the label too. 
 
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Argentina was on the cusp of legalizing abortion Tuesday over the objections of its influential Roman Catholic Church, with the Senate preparing to vote on a measure that has the backing of the ruling party and already has passed in the lower house. 
 
If passed, the bill would make Argentina the first big country in predominantly Catholic Latin America to allow abortion on demand. The vote is expected to be close after what was expected to be a marathon debate, beginning at 4 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) and likely to stretch into Wednesday morning. 
 
Demonstrators both for and against the bill came from around the country to stand vigil in front of the Senate building in Buenos Aires. Argentine senators attend a session to debate an abortion bill in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec. 29, 2020.”Argentina is a pro-life country,” one woman, who said she was from Cordoba province, told local television as she sat in a folding chair under an umbrella sheltering her from the Southern Hemisphere summer sun. She and others who knelt in prayer nearby said they were against the proposed change in law. 
 
Maria Angela Guerrero of the Campaign for Legal Abortion activist group, speaking to reporters in front of the Senate, said she was “cautiously optimistic” the bill would pass. 
 
On the other side of the debate is the Catholic Church, which is calling on senators to reject the proposal to allow women to end pregnancies up to the 14th week. Argentina is the birthplace of Pope Francis. 
 
Argentine law now allows abortion only when there is a serious risk to the health of the mother or in cases of rape. 
 A woman against an abortion bill prays as Argentina’s Senate prepares to vote on a measure that has the backing of the ruling party and has already passed the lower house, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec. 29, 2020.Legal abortion is extremely rare in Latin America because of the long history of opposition by the Church. Across the region, abortions are available on demand only in Communist Cuba, comparatively tiny Uruguay, and some parts of Mexico. 
 
The change in law has been rejected by Argentina’s Congress before, but this is the first time such a bill is being presented to lawmakers with support from the ruling government. In 2018, before center-left Peronist Alberto Fernandez was elected president, a similar bill was rejected by a slim margin. 
 
The measure is accompanied by side legislation aimed at assisting women who want to continue their pregnancies and face severe economic or social difficulties. 
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The western U.S. state of California are expected to extend strict stay-at-home orders Tuesday for residents in two major areas of the state as it struggles with increasing numbers of new COVID-19 infections.  Governor Gavin Newsom said Monday it was “self-evident” that the restrictions first imposed three weeks ago for central San Joaquin Valley and Southern California will be extended as intensive care units in hospitals are filled or nearly filled to capacity.  San Joaquin Valley is home to California’s vital agricultural sector, while Southern California includes the major cities of Los Angeles and San Diego. FILE – An ambulance crew waits with a patient outside the Coast Plaza Hospital emergency room during a surge of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in Los Angeles, California, Dec. 26, 2020.The situation has become so dire that hospitals in those regions have been turning away patients seeking emergency care and erecting tents as makeshift treatment rooms to treat the overflow of COVID-19 patients.   California has become the latest epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.  According to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Center, the state has 2,192,694 total confirmed COVID-19 infections, including 24,419 deaths.  Governor Newsom warned Monday that the state was about to undergo a “surge on top of a surge, arguably on top of another surge” as many Californians ignored urgings from health experts not to travel during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. An airline worker in Christmas themed attire assists travelers at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, Dec. 28, 2020.U.S. officials said nearly 1.3 million people went through U.S. airports on Sunday following the Christmas holiday, the highest level of air travel in more than nine months.  India is the latest nation to report discovery of a new variant of the novel coronavirus scientists say is far more contagious than the initial strain.  The Health Ministry says six people who returned to India from Britain in recent weeks have tested positive for the new strain.  The six patients and their close contacts have been placed in isolation, and the ministry says it has tracked down their fellow travelers.  India has suspended all flights from Britain until the end of the month, joining such countries as South Korea, Finland, Japan and Saudi Arabia.   The head of the World Health Organization is calling for an increase in genomic sequencing of the coronavirus after new variants have been detected in Britain and South Africa. FILE – World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a news conference in Geneva.WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at an online news conference Monday from Geneva that “only if countries are looking and testing effectively, will you be able to pick up variants and adjust strategies to cope.” He said WHO is working closely with scientists worldwide to “better understand any and all changes to the virus” and their impacts, and he called on countries to share any genetic information with WHO and other countries. A person walks past a roadside public health information sign, amidst the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, near Oxford, Britain, Dec. 28, 2020.British authorities are expected to approve the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine this week.  If approved, AstraZeneca’s vaccine will become the fifth to have been rolled out to fight the virus. Early tests showed that the vaccine was 70% effective for preventing illness, compared to 95% reported by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech. Russia and China also have their own vaccines. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency is reporting that U.S. pharmaceutical firm Moderna has agreed to supply 20 million doses of its new COVID-19 vaccine to the Asian nation.  Yonhap says the South Korean presidential office confirmed the agreement had been reached after a videoconference Monday between President Moon Jae-in and Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel. The agreement comes as South Korea reported 40 new COVID-19 fatalities, its highest single day figure since the start of the pandemic, raising its total death toll to 859.  Health officials also confirmed 1,046 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 58,725.   Also Monday, another COVID-19 vaccine candidate is beginning its final-stage testing in the United States. The testing for the vaccine candidate, made by Novavax, will involve 30,000 volunteers to determine whether the vaccine is effective and safe.FILE – A researcher lifts a vial with a potential COVID-19 vaccine at Novavax labs in Gaithersburg, Maryland, March 20, 2020, one of the labs developing a vaccine for the coronavirus.The trials will focus on high-risk older adults, as well as people from Black and Hispanic communities who have been disproportionately affected by the virus. The latest vaccine on the horizon comes as the world reached the grim milestone of 81 million people worldwide infected by the virus with 1.7 million world deaths globally, according to Johns Hopkins University.  The United States leads the world in both the number of total infections with 19.2 million and deaths with over 334,000 people. 
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