14 May 2020
By Luke Harding and Kim Willshire
...Paul Hudson, the British chief executive officer of Sanofi, (click here) said any vaccine would go to the US first since it had done the most to fund the company’s research. “The US government has the right to the largest pre-order because it’s invested in taking the risk,” Hudson told Bloomberg.
The European commission and health experts responded furiously, pointing out that Paris-based Sanofi has received tens of millions of euros in the form of research credits from the French state in recent years.
The French government described Hudson’s remarks as unacceptable, while the German press pasted the firm as a soulless and disloyal multinational willing to blackmail governments to extract lucrative subsidies.
Last week Britain, China, Canada, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and numerous African countries took part in a global Covid-19 summit. The virtual meeting raised more than $8bn for a potential vaccine. The Trump administration refused to send a representative, however, and appears determined to pursue its own unilateral vaccine path.
In a report published on Thursday, Brown pointed out that a second or third wave of Covid-19 infection could come from poor countries with undeveloped health systems. The solution to the problem was global, he said, adding that the pandemic would end only when the virus was “eradicated in every continent”...
Trump and his family never pay for their rooms.
May 14, 2020
By Christina Zhao
U.S. Taxpayers have now paid properties (click here) owned by President Donald Trump's company the equivalent of over four years worth of room rentals, totaling nearly $1 million since he took office in January 2017, according to federal records.
The government has paid at least $970,000—including $340,000 since March—to Trump's company for room rentals at hotels and clubs, as well as other expenses, according to the records obtained by The Washington Post. The payments made since March were mostly related to trips taken by the president, his family and other White House officials.
While it appears the government did not pay for rooms occupied by Trump and his family, payments were made for rooms occupied by Secret Service agents and other staffers that joined the president on his trips. The total figure of more than $970,000 includes 950 nights at Trump's Bedminster golf club in New Jersey and 350 nights at Mar-a-Lago in Florida....
