Rao a few years before as well, when his business was just starting to expand and he needed $50,000 to set up a supply chain. “If I’d gone to a bank at that point, they would have ignored me,” he said. China was a trailblazer in figuring out novel ways of getting money to underserved people like Mr. Rao. Tech companies like Alipay’s owner, an Alibaba spinoff called Ant Group, turned finance into a kind of digital plumbing: something embedded so thoroughly and invisibly in people’s lives that they barely thought about it. And they did so at colossal scale, turning tech giants into influential

...

AUGUSTA — This year’s virtual Trek Across Maine raised $360,500, according to the American Lung Association. The funds are to be used to save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease through research, education and advocacy. A portion will anchor also be used for COVID-19 research. This year, more than 600 cyclists from California to Maine registered for the 37th annual event that was held virtually for the second year in a row because of COVID-19 safety precautions. In going virtual, event registration from new participants increased by 16%. The association used new fund

...

The state Senate approved $150,000 in funds earlier this year for the work by Cyber Ninjas and other firms, an amount that was quickly eclipsed by the donations from private groups which critics said taints any findings of what they have called a “sham” audit. “#RealAuditorsDon’t take a dollar, much less $5.7 million, to chase debunked conspiracies and discredit hard-working public servants with false claims about phantom ballots and deleted files,” Maricopa County said on its official Twitter account late Wednesday, July 28. The funding announcement comes as officials with the Maricopa County Recorder’s

...

Air Canada sees higher bookings as COVID-19 travel curbs ease Air Canada planes are parked at Toronto Pearson Airport in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada April 28, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Osorio/File Photo July 23 (Reuters) - Air Canada (AC.TO) forecast increased bookings for domestic and U.S.-bound flights in the winter as travel restrictions ease after reported a bigger-than-expected quarterly loss on Friday. Canada's largest carrier predicted slower cash burn as travel comes back, although bookings overall remain below pre-pandemic levels. "We are seeing steadily increasing bookings for the d

...

Scientists developing inhalable COVID-19 vaccine spray New strategies would be easier to manufacture, do not require cold storage In this rendition, a phage particle displays a region of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Scientists at Rice University are part of an effort to develop an inhalable COVID-19 vaccine. The project, led by scientists at Rutgers University and Rice and Northeastern University, has produced two vaccine strategies. Both are scalable and adaptable and can be transported and stored at room temperature. One strategy employs modified bacteriophage particles, also known as

...

There are rules that Maricopa County election administrators must follow, and there are far less demanding rules for the Cyber Ninjas conducting Fann’s audit. Here are examples: Maricopa County: After every election, Maricopa County is required by law to oversee a hand-count audit of a statistically significant number of votes. For the November 2020 election, the hand-count of 47,000 votes matched the machine count 100% – the machines clearly worked. The volunteers who do the hand count are selected by the political parties, not the county. The volunteers work in groups of three, and all of the groups are required by law to be bipartisan. Cyber Ninjas: The Cyber Ninjas have recruited their hand-counters almost exclusively from the Republican Party. The Cyber Ninjas counting

...