Archives for April 2021

Serbia cracks down on anti-vaccination activists

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbian police brought in a well-known Serbian doctor and other vocal anti-vaccination activists for questioning Thursday, saying they are jeopardizing the Balkan country’s successful coronavirus inoculation drive.

Serbian state TV said psychiatrist Jovana Stojkovic, a leading figure in the country’s anti-vaccination movement, was taken to a police station in Belgrade on accusations that she has been spreading “fear and panic” with her social media posts and public appearances.

Stojkovic, who leads a small far-right party, has frequently voiced anti-vaccination conspiracy theories.

At least five other people, including a former Serbian women’s basketball player, were reportedly questioned by police on Thursday in an apparent crackdown against Serbia’s growing anti-vaccination movement.

Serbian Justice Minister Maja Popovic said the Interior Ministry and state prosecutors were acting according to the law.

“All the perpetrators of criminal acts must be processed, especially when they threaten public health,” the statement said.

Dozens of supporters greeted Stojkovic as she was released by police in the afternoon, carrying a banner reading “Stop the COVID fascism.”

Stojkovic said she was arraigned because she shared articles about the vaccines, adding that her added comments were “based on scientific research and what doctors are saying.”

Serbia has one of the highest inoculation rates in Europe, mainly thanks to the government’s large purchases of China’s Sinopharm and Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines. The Balkan nation is also using the vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca.

Although over 2 million of Serbia’s 7 million people have so far received at least one vaccine shot, Serbia has seen a notable decline recently in the residents signing up for jabs. Officials and doctors link the drop-off to an increasingly vocal anti-vaccine movement.

Thousands of vaccine-seekers from countries neighboring Serbia last month flocked to Belgrade after authorities offered foreigners free jabs for all those who showed up. They all received AstraZeneca jabs that faced expiration because of the lack of interest for that vaccine among Serbs.

Serbia has seen over 5,300 deaths in the pandemic.

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Follow AP stories about the pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic.

Mortgage rates remain steady, 30 year loan edges up 3.18%

Mortgage rates were virtually unchanged this week, but signs indicate that the housing market is constrained by higher prices and low inventory.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday that the benchmark 30-year loan rate was 3.18% this week, up from 3.17% last week. A year ago, the rate was 3.33%.

The 15-year loan, popular among those who refinance their mortgages, was unchanged from last week at 2.45%. A year ago it was 2.82%.

“Although mortgage rates remain low, we are beginning to see a pullback by those looking to enter the housing market,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “In fact, homebuyer demand has gone from 25% above pre-COVID levels at the start of the year, when mortgage rates hit record lows, to 8% above pre-COVID levels today.”

While mortgage rates remain historically low, strong demand for homes has led to low inventory and higher prices.

Wednesday, the National Association of Realtors’ index of pending home sales tumbled 10.6% to 110.3 in February, its lowest level since May of last year. Combined with a 2.4% dip in January, contract signings are now 0.5% behind where they were last year after eight straight months of year-over-year gains.

In January, U.S. home prices increased at the fastest pace in seven years, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index. The pandemic has fueled demand for single-family houses even as the supply for such homes shrinks.

Economists have expected modest increases in home-loan rates this year, though they likely will remain low while the Federal Reserve keeps interest rates near zero until the economy recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.

Hogan, legislative leaders, outline $3.9B in federal relief

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland’s $3.9 billion in federal pandemic relief will be used to bolster the state’s unemployment insurance fund, fuel state recovery efforts, reopen schools and expand broadband technology, Gov. Larry Hogan announced in a bipartisan pact with legislative leaders Wednesday.

The Republican governor said $1.1 billion will be dedicated to stabilizing unemployment insurance tax rates for businesses for calendar years 2022 and 2023.

“This shoring up of the unemployment system will help us to continue helping those who need it most, while also ensuring that we can provide continuing tax relief for struggling businesses,” Hogan said, joined by Senate President Bill Ferguson and House Speaker Adrienne Jones at news conference.

Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat, highlighted $300 million in broadband technology investments. That will include $128 million to improve network infrastructure, $75 million for service fee and device subsidies and $45 million for municipal broadband grants.

Too many people have struggled from a digital divide worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic, Ferguson said, as more people worked from home and students tried to learn online because of closed offices and schools.

“For far too many Marylanders, this transition has not been easy and has not been possible, not to any fault of any individual Marylanders or lack of desire or initiative, but because the technical infrastructure, knowledge and access was simply not available,” Ferguson said.

All three officials emphasized bipartisan cooperation in what Hogan described as a “historic budget accord.”

“Together we will be able to invest an additional half a billion dollars in shovel ready construction projects to get Marylanders back to work,” said Jones, a Baltimore County Democrat.

The state will use $800 million of the federal funds to supporting existing state pandemic relief. The General Assembly, which is controlled by Democrats, passed a sweeping measure initially proposed by Hogan early in the legislative session.

More than $600 million will be used to support the reopening of schools. That includes $481 million to address pandemic-related costs, $80 million to support improved HVAC and ventilation systems and $46 million to focus on the long-term impact of learning loss over the last year.

Another $500 million will support the Maryland Department of Transportation and the Maryland Transportation Authority in improving services and infrastructure.

About $300 million will be dedicated to state residents in need, including $140 million to support the higher-then-estimated caseload cost in the Temporary Cash Assistance program and $50 million to support state efforts to aid people struggling with utility bills.

The General Assembly, which is scheduled to adjourn on April 12, is nearing final votes on the state’s roughly $50 billion budget for the next fiscal year. Lawmakers have described how the enormous amount of federal aid reshaped what looked like a developing budget crisis last year at the start of the pandemic into the ability to address projected deficits through fiscal year 2024.

US allows 2 more over-the-counter COVID-19 home tests

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health officials have authorized two more over-the-counter COVID-19 tests that can be used at home to get rapid results.

The move by the Food and Drug Administration is expected to vastly expand the availability of cheap home tests that many experts have advocated since the early days of the outbreak. The announcement late Wednesday comes as U.S. testing numbers continue to slide, even as the number of new coronavirus infections is rising again.

The FDA said Abbott’s BinaxNow and Quidel’s QuickVue tests can now be sold without a prescription. Both tests were first OK’d last year but came with conditions that limited their use, including prescription requirements and instructions that they only be used in people with symptoms.

The home tests allow users to collect a sample themselves with a nasal swab that is then inserted into a test strip. Results are usually available in 10 to 20 minutes. Most other COVID-19 tests require a swab sample taken by a health worker at a testing location.

The agency authorized an over-the-counter COVID-19 test from an Australian company in December but it is still not widely available.

Abbott said its test would be priced in the “single digits” per test and should be available in “coming weeks” at pharmacies, supermarkets and other chains. The company can produce about 50 million tests per month. Quidel did not disclose pricing for its test.

Both companies said they would sell their tests in two packs. Repeat testing is important to reduce chances of false results. Both tests can be used by adults to test children 2 years and older.

Frequent self-testing is considered key to help reopen schools, universities and offices as vaccinations ramp up.

Dr. Michael Mina of Harvard said the expanded testing options would be critical as new virus variants spread and researchers study how long protection from vaccines lasts.

“Vaccines are incredibly important but they are not the end-all, be-all to this pandemic,” Mina said. “We need other tools in our arsenal and the widespread availability and rapid scale up of tests for people to use in the privacy of their homes is going to be an extraordinary gain.”

Last month, the FDA eased its standards for reviewing rapid screening tests, after months of criticism from Mina and other experts that they were delaying the introduction of increased testing.

Also on Wednesday, federal officials announced a pilot testing program to study use of rapid home testing to slow infections in U.S. communities. The program will provide free home tests to as many as 160,000 people in two counties in North Carolina and Tennessee.

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Follow Matthew Perrone on Twitter: @AP_FDAwriter

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Report: Animation company got $49M in excessive tax credits

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Blue Sky Studios, the company behind “Ice Age” and other animated films, received $49 million more in Connecticut state tax credits than it should have, state auditors said in a report released Wednesday.

The Disney-owned company, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, is set to close in April and lay off its more than 450 employees. Disney, which also owns animation powerhouses Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios, announced the closure in February, citing difficult economic conditions amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Connecticut auditors said Blue Sky received about $94.4 million in state film production tax credits from the 2017 through 2019 state fiscal years. Auditors said the company instead should have received state digital animation tax credits, which are capped at a total of $15 million per year for all companies combined. That resulted in the company receiving $49.4 million more than it should have, auditors said.

“The way they did this doesn’t appear to have followed the spirt of the law,” state Auditor John Geragosian said. “If the legislature had intended for them to be eligible for both tax credit programs, it would have been in the statutes.”

The economic development agency issued the $15 million in maximum annual tax credits under the digital animation program to Blue Sky during the 2016 fiscal year, then switched the credits for the company to the film production program beginning in the 2017 year, the report said.

Under the film production credits program, companies that incur more than $1 million in production expenses are eligible for a credit equal to 30% of such expenses.

The Department of Economic and Community Development, or DECD, disagrees with the auditors’ findings, according to an agency response included in the auditors’ report. An agency spokesperson would not comment beyond the written response Wednesday.

“A digital animation production company is eligible for film production tax credit under … Connecticut general statutes,” the response said. “The company produces motion pictures, which is a statutorily qualified medium.”

No one answered the phone at Blue Sky Studios on Wednesday afternoon.

Messages seeking comment were left for Disney officials and Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont’s office.

State Rep. Holly Cheeseman, ranking member of the legislature’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, said she was concerned by the auditors’ report and would be asking DECD officials about the Blue Sky credits.

“If these are tax credits that shouldn’t have been spent and we’re never going to see that money again and those are dollars that could have gone to another program or another company, then obviously it concerns and disturbs me,” said Cheeseman, a Republican who represents East Lyme and Salem.

Blue Sky was founded in 1987 by several employees of MAGI, the company that produced scenes for the movie “Tron.” 20th Century Fox bought Blue Sky in the late 1990s, and it produced the “Ice Age” franchise of movies and other animated features including “Ferdinand,” “Rio” and “Robots.” Disney acquired 20th Century Fox in 2019.

Archives for April 2021

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