Workers at Chile's Andina copper mine, run by state-owned Codelco, downed tools after rejecting management's contract offer while workers at the Caserones mine, run by JX Nippon, also launched a strike. A strike at Escondida however, the world's largest copper mine, was averted, after workers accepted owner BHP's contract offer.
TODAY'S TOP HEADLINES
Boeing's Starliner Launch Could Face Delay of Several Months
Boeing Co.'s Starliner space capsule launch could be delayed several months as the company will likely need to remove it from atop a rocket for repairs, people familiar with the matter said.
Such a delay would be a setback for Boeing's space program. The company has spent years developing the Starliner and was supposed to launch it late last month to dock with the International Space Station, without crew on board-after a failed attempt a year and a half ago. Ultimately, the capsule is supposed to ferry astronauts to the space station.
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FDA Authorizes Covid-19 Boosters for Certain Immunocompromised
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized booster shots for certain people with weakened immune systems, likely the launch of broader efforts to better protect against evasive variants like Delta.
The agency on Thursday cleared giving a third dose of a messenger RNA Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and its partner BioNTech SE or from Moderna Inc. to immunocompromised people who had received a solid organ transplant or individuals who have been diagnosed with conditions that are considered to have an equivalent level of immunocompromise.
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VA Health System Won't Cover Biogen's Alzheimer's Drug
The Department of Veterans Affairs won't cover Biogen Inc.'s new Alzheimer's drug, the latest rebuke of the controversial treatment since it was approved earlier this summer.
The VA decided not add the drug, called Aduhelm, to its formulary list of available medicines because of the drug's risk of causing serious side effects and a lack of evidence that it improves cognitive function, an agency spokeswoman said.
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Nielsen Asks to Take a Break From Key Media-Industry Seal of Approval
Nielsen Holdings PLC has asked the Media Rating Council, the media industry's measurement watchdog, to pause accreditation for its national TV rating service, a move that would leave the measurement giant's core product without the organization's seal of approval for the first time since the 1960s.
The company chalked up the request to concerns regarding its panel, the group of people the company uses to assess ratings in the U.S., as well as efforts to modernize its national TV measurement product.
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CATL Plans $9 Billion Private Placement to Fund Capacity Expansion
Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. is planning to raise $9.0 billion via a private placement to boost production of lithium-ion batteries amid surging electric-vehicle sales.
The Tesla Inc. supplier said late Thursday that it aims to raise 58.2 billion yuan ($8.98 billion) by placing 232.9 million shares with institutional investors. That represents 10% of the company's total share capital.
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'Neobanks' May Not Be New, or Banks, But They Are Hot Stocks
Square's $29 billion acquisition of Afterpay earlier this month got lots of people talking about the future of finance. One buzzy term that kept coming up: neobanking.
The likes of Square, PayPal Holdings, Robinhood Markets and Coinbase Global are all sometimes talked about as players in neobanking. The basic idea behind the term is that a digital wallet holding cash or cryptocurrency can be linked to payments and other forms of commerce or financial services. It is a playbook used most notably so far in China.
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Eurozone Exports Fell Again in June
Eurozone exports fell in June for the sixth consecutive month, signaling that international goods trading remained on a weak footing despite the easing of most coronavirus-related restrictions.
The European Union's statistics agency said Friday that the currency area's exports fell by 0.7% in June compared with May, while imports remained flat, both adjusted for seasonal variations. The seasonally adjusted trade surplus was 12.4 billion euros ($14.54 billion) compared with EUR13.8 billion in May.
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Hong Kong Raises 2021 Economic Forecast After Second-Quarter Data Confirms Growth
Hong Kong raised its economic growth forecast for 2021 after revised data confirmed second-quarter expansion and a solid first-half performance as both consumption and exports improved.
Gross domestic product in the second quarter grew 7.6% in real terms from a year earlier, data from Hong Kong's Census and Statistics Department showed Friday. The result was in line with advanced GDP data showing a 7.5% expansion.
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Head of WHO Team Investigating Origins of Covid-19 Calls For Closer Look at China Lab
The Danish head of a World Health Organization-led team that traveled to China earlier this year to probe the origins of Covid-19 called for closer scrutiny of a laboratory near the site of the first known cluster of cases at a market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
In comments broadcast by Denmark's state-owned TV 2 and confirmed to The Wall Street Journal, Peter Ben Embarek, a food-safety specialist, said investigators should seek more information about the lab, a research facility run by the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Taliban Seize Kandahar, Prepare to March on Kabul
KABUL-The Taliban completed the seizure of Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city and the Islamist movement's birthplace, and took into custody a warlord who organized the failed defenses of the western city of Herat.
Combined with other advances, including the capture of the provincial capital of Helmand, the fall of these two major cities has given the Taliban full control of southern and western Afghanistan, allowing the insurgent movement to pool its forces for a final march on Kabul.
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Supreme Court Rejects Request to Block Indiana University's Vaccine Mandate for Students
WASHINGTON-Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett on Thursday rejected an emergency request by a group of Indiana University students who were seeking to block the school from enforcing a Covid-19 vaccine requirement for the coming semester.
The school is requiring students to be vaccinated unless they are exempt for religious or medical reasons, and in those circumstances, individuals must wear masks and be tested for the virus regularly.
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Supreme Court Lifts Part of New York's Eviction Moratorium
WASHINGTON-A divided Supreme Court on Thursday lifted part of New York's eviction moratorium, saying the state had gone too far in protecting tenants at the expense of landlords.
The high court, in an unsigned written order, blocked a state measure that made it easy for tenants to invoke eviction protections by self-certifying that they were facing financial hardships during the Covid-19 pandemic. Landlords generally couldn't challenge such certifications.
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Pacific Northwest Faces Another Extreme Heat Wave as Much of U.S. Bakes
Sweltering heat gripped swaths of the U.S. as forecasters predicted the potential for record-breaking temperatures in the Pacific Northwest and as cooling stations were set up for residents to find some relief in cities across the nation.
More than 145 million Americans on Thursday lived in areas under excessive-heat advisories from the National Weather Service. Warnings spanned the Pacific Northwest, the Northeast and parts of Missouri and Illinois while advisories blanketed parts of the Northeast, Midwest and South. Over one million residents were in areas under various fire-weather advisories, which indicate hot, dry and windy conditions that could quickly spread wildfires, according to the National Weather Service.
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Minneapolis Is Testing a New Approach to Public Safety
MINNEAPOLIS-On a street corner in south Minneapolis, where heroin addicts gathered in the shadow of an abandoned building, Tyrone Allen, a 48-year-old former gang member, dashed across a busy street and ordered 10 tacos from a stand. He handed the bag to one of the addicts to distribute.
"That's my thing is feeding people," said Mr. Allen, a worker with the Agape Movement, a local anti-violence group. "If I can help somebody in some way, shape or form, I'm good with that."
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Census Data Show Sunbelt House Districts Saw Biggest Population Gains
Twenty-three congressional districts mostly concentrated in the suburbs and exurbs of Sunbelt cities grew by more than 20% since 2010, leaving other parts of their states far behind, new census figures show.
That uneven growth across the country, laid out in the 2020 census figures released Thursday, highlights the areas where boundaries are likely to change the most in redistricting this fall. Districts in the outlying areas of Houston, Austin, Dallas, Orlando, Las Vegas and Atlanta will have to be redrawn to shed population. Other districts in the same states as those high-growth areas, however, will have to expand to rebalance the proportional representation of the U.S. House.
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Migrant Border Arrests in July Surge to Highest Level in 21 Years
The Border Patrol made about 200,000 arrests at the southern border in July, marking the busiest month at the border in 21 years and a 12% increase over the previous month, according to new figures released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Thursday.
The number marks a departure from seasonal trends that would typically see fewer migrants attempting the dangerous journey at the peak of the summer heat.
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More School Districts in Texas Sue Governor Over Mask-Mandate Ban
AUSTIN, Texas-More school districts in Texas are pushing back against an executive order banning mask mandates, joining districts in other states filing lawsuits over the issue.
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08-13-21 0605ET
