Canada reached an agreement in principle on Monday with both Novavax and Johnson & Johnson for millions of doses of their experimental coronavirus vaccines, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. Canada’s two agreements follow separate deals with Pfizer and Moderna announced weeks ago, and are the latest example of countries rushing to secure access to vaccines. Canada is also in “the final stages of negotiations” to secure AstraZeneca’s potential vaccine and is in talks to secure more doses of the Pfizer vaccine candidate, Procurement Minister Anita Anand said. “What we are trying to do is make sure that when a vaccine is developed, we are at the front of the line,” Anand told reporters. Canada has a population of about 38 million, and the four vaccine agreements signed so far “give Canada at least 88 million doses with options to obtain tens of millions more,” Trudeau said when he announced the deals in Montreal. More doses possibleAll four agreements announced so far have options to purchase more doses if needed, officials said. Trudeau also said the government will invest C$126 million ($96.7 million) over two years to build a biomanufacturing facility at the Human Health Therapeutics Research Centre in Montreal capable of producing up to 2 million doses of a vaccine per month by next year. Last week, Canada’s National Research Council said it had ended its partnership on a coronavirus vaccine with China’s CanSino Biologics because the company lacked the authority to ship the vaccine. Help for businessesSeparately, Canada extended to the end of October a program to provide loans of up to C$40,000 ($30,666), a quarter of which is forgivable, to small businesses struggling amid the pandemic. It had been due to expire Monday. Novavax said it expects to finalize an advance purchase agreement to supply doses of the vaccine, beginning as early as the second quarter of next year. Novavax has agreed to supply up to 76 million doses of its experimental vaccine, while Johnson & Johnson will supply up to 38 million doses of its vaccine candidate. Both agreements are subject to the vaccines obtaining licenses from Health Canada. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Shares of Novavax were up 1.7% at $109.59 and Johnson & Johnson shares were little changed at $153.72 on Monday afternoon. 
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Kobe Bryant. Rep. John Lewis. And now, Chadwick Boseman.So far, 2020 has been marred with bad news and tragedy with the deaths of several popular Black icons including Bryant, Lewis and recently Boseman, who died Friday. All three were viewed as leaders in their respective fields of sports, politics and film — places where people, particularly in the Black community, have often looked for inspiration during a year of racial tension and protests against the police brutality of unarmed Black people.But for many, the loss of another major figure such as Boseman is taking a toll. The actor, who starred in the blockbuster superhero Marvel film “Black Panther,” shockingly died at the age of 43 in his home in Los Angeles after he privately battled colon cancer for four years.The Rev. Al Sharpton arrives to speak at the “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks March,” in Washington, Aug. 28, 2020, on the 57th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech.”These are pillars in our community,” Rev. Al Sharpton said. “In times of instability, you depend on pillars. It’s bad enough when there’s a storm outside and you hear the lightning and thunder. It gets worse when the pillars that you’re building and standing on (are) shaking. It’s like they’re chipping away at our foundation. The very building is shaking down, because the things that undergird and protect us from the storms are being removed.”Sharpton called Boseman an important pillar that humanized several Black historical trailblazers in his roles — including color-line breaking baseball star Jackie Robinson, legendary singer James Brown and the first African American U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Boseman’s family said he endured “countless surgeries and chemotherapy” while portraying King T’Challa of Wakanda in the Oscar-nominated “Black Panther,” a film that proved a person of color could lead in a successful superhero film.”For him to pass at this time when we are disproportionately affected by COVID and have all of these attacks by law enforcement, and him being the symbol bringing us to Wakanda, it’s just a blow,” Sharpton said. “To hear that our superhero who projected a positive light was now gone, it was a gut blow.”The Los Angeles Clippers kneel to pay respect to the Black Lives Matters movement while a photo of actor Chadwick Boseman is displayed on a screen being the team before their NBA first round playoff game against the Dallas Mavericks, Aug. 30, 2020.Boseman was elevated to a stage that many Black actors don’t get the chance to occupy, said Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James. And his ability to be “transcendent” on that stage brought a comic book character to life for many in the Black community.”Even though we knew that it was like a fictional story, it actually felt real. It actually felt like we finally had our Black superhero and nobody could touch us. So to lose that, it’s sad in our community,” James said, lamenting on the loss of “the Black Panther and the Black Mamba in the same year.”In January, Bryant died in a helicopter crash involving eight others including his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna. Lewis died in July after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year.Other notable deaths this year include actress Naya Rivera, civil rights leader C.T. Vivian, music executive Andre Harrell and Hall of Fame Georgetown basketball coach John Thompson, who was the first Black coach to lead a team to an NCAA championship and prioritized academics to his athletes.”The year 2020 has been up and down for everybody,” Milwaukee Bucks player Giannis Antetokounmpo said, adding that Boseman left “so much behind.””It’s a lot to unpack,” said Oklahoma City Thunder guard Chris Paul. “Chadwick was a special guy. I think everyone took it hard, especially the Black community. That was one of our black superheroes. I think ‘Black Panther’ was something so powerful, for myself along with my kids to see a superhero that looks like them and the way that he played it with such class and elegance. That was tough.”Activist Martin Luther King III called Boseman’s death another “great loss.” But he encourages people not to lose hope even in a year of tumult.”We could easily say ‘Oh my God. This is the most terrible year that existed.’ But I choose not to say that,” said the son of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “Our ancestors had to go through so, so much. And yet, we’re still here. We are nowhere where we need to be, but we are always making progress and moving ahead.”Gil Robertson, the co-founder and president of the African American Film Critics Association, said Black people are at a critical crossroads of their survival in America.”We’re getting it from all sides of the fort,” Robertson said. “We’re losing these strong men. These men who operated with a level of integrity. A level of authenticity. I find all of this alarming. I hope that our community can really come together. … Not just for one cause. Just to make a consistent effort to rehabilitate our community.”
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Nine weeks from the national U.S. election, President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, sparred Monday over blame for street violence linked to racial injustice and police treatment of minorities that erupted in recent days. Trump tweeted Monday that he plans Tuesday to visit Kenosha, Wisconsin, where protests turned violent last week in the aftermath of a police shooting of a Black man as they attempted to arrest him. A white teenage vigilante claiming to protect businesses in Kenosha was accused of fatally shooting two people and wounding a third during a street demonstration. Referring to Biden, Trump said the Wisconsin violence, and unrest in Portland, Oregon, in the U.S. northwest, forced “Slow Joe” out of his basement at his home in Delaware, where he has campaigned for the November 3 election to avoid crowds during the unabated coronavirus pandemic.  Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at campaign event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 31, 2020.In a speech Monday in Pittsburgh, Biden blamed Trump for the violence that has erupted across the country as the United States deals with widespread and sometimes violent protests and counter-protests over police treatment of minorities and inequality in U.S. society. “This president long ago forfeited any moral leadership in this country,” Biden said. “He can’t stop the violence, because for years, he has fomented it.” “Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is re-elected?” Biden asked. Oregon Governor Urges End to ‘Cycle of Violence’ in PortlandPresident, Portland Mayor trade criticisms after clashes between Trump supporters and protestersWisconsin Governor Tony Evers urged Trump to skip his visit to the Midwestern city along the shores of Lake Michigan.  “I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together,” Evers said. Evers first ordered National Guard troops into Kenosha to quell the street violence after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back, leaving him partially paralyzed. Evers accepted more federal law enforcement assistance. But Trump took credit on Twitter. “If I didn’t INSIST on having the National Guard activate and go into Kenosha, Wisconsin, there would be no Kenosha right now. Also, there would have been great death and injury. I want to thank Law Enforcement and the National Guard. I will see you on Tuesday!” If I didn’t INSIST on having the National Guard activate and go into Kenosha, Wisconsin, there would be no Kenosha right now. Also, there would have been great death and injury. I want to thank Law Enforcement and the National Guard. I will see you on Tuesday!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) FILE – Mayor Ted Wheeler speaks to people gathered in downtown Portland, Oregon, July 22, 2020.Trump attacked Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democratic critic of the president, for the three months of sporadic violence in the city. “Portland is a mess, and it has been for many years,” Trump tweeted. “If this joke of a mayor doesn’t clean it up, we will go in and do it for them!” Portland is a mess, and it has been for many years. If this joke of a mayor doesn’t clean it up, we will go in and do it for them!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 31, 2020Trump also claimed, “The Radical Left Mayors & Governors of Cities where this crazy violence is taking place have lost control of their ‘Movement.’ It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but the Anarchists & Agitators got carried away and don’t listen anymore – even forced Slow Joe out of basement!” The Radical Left Mayors & Governors of Cities where this crazy violence is taking place have lost control of their “Movement”. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but the Anarchists & Agitators got carried away and don’t listen anymore – even forced Slow Joe out of basement!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) FILE – Oregon Governor Kate Brown speaks at a news conference in Portland, Oregon, March 16, 2020.Oregon Governor Kate Brown said in a statement late Sunday that everyone, including elected officials, law enforcement and community leaders, needs to come together to stop the cycle of violence in Portland, and that “real change will come from the hard work to achieve racial justice.” Brown announced the Oregon State Police will be sending officers to Portland to free up local investigators to “arrest and charge those engaging in violent acts,” and will hold a public forum with Wheeler, the Portland mayor, protest organizers and community leaders. She also criticized the actions of “armed right-wing vigilantes” who have confronted protesters in various U.S. cities. “The right-wing group Patriot Prayer and self-proclaimed militia members drove into downtown Portland (Saturday) night, armed and looking for a fight,” Brown said. “Every Oregonian has the right to freely express their views without fear of deadly violence. I will not allow Patriot Prayer and armed white supremacists to bring more bloodshed to our streets.”  
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Національний банк України опівдні 31 серпня встановив довідкове значення курсу 27 гривень 57 копійок за долар, це на 9 копійок більше за офіційний курс на сьогодні.

На українському міжбанківському валютному ринку, за даними Finance.ua, станом на 12:50, котирування сягнули 27 гривень 55,5–58 копійок за долар.

«Поки попит на валюту перевищує пропозицію, що і відбивається на котируваннях», – відзначають експерти сайту «Мінфін». Вони прогнозували, що 31 серпня котирування долара на міжбанку залишаться в межах 27 гривень 40–65 копійок за долар.

 
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Forty percent of Americans back President Donald Trump’s threat to ban videosharing app TikTok if it is not sold to a U.S. buyer, according to a Reuters/Ipsos national poll, suggesting that many support the effort to separate the social media upstart from its Chinese parent.The poll published Monday, which surveyed 1,349 adult respondents across the United States, found that 40% backed Trump’s recent executive order forcing China’s ByteDance to sell its TikTok operations in the United States by Sept. 15. Thirty percent of the respondents said they opposed the move, while another 30% said they didn’t know either way.The responses were largely split along party lines, and many of those who agreed with Trump’s order said they do not know much about TikTok. Among Republicans, for example, 69% said they supported the president’s order while only 32% said they were familiar with the app. Twenty-one percent of Democrats also supported Trump’s order and 46% said they were familiar with TikTok.The figures suggest most Americans had only “a fleeting knowledge of the brand,” said Dipanjan Chatterjee, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. Chatterjee said the negative attitudes were likely the result of the public rhetoric around TikTok – and increasing tensions with Beijing.”Clearly there’s been a politicization of TikTok,” he said.TikTok users have captured the teenage zeitgeist with catchy song-and-dance videos in the United States and elsewhere, but its parent company’s ties to Beijing have been the subject of bipartisan concern as relations with China deteriorate.Those worries culminated earlier this month in a do-or-die order from Trump to ByteDance, with the Trump administration saying that TikTok is a potential national security risk due to the vast amount of private data the app is compiling on U.S. consumers. TikTok claims about 100 million monthly active users in the U.S.The Chinese company must now divest TikTok in the United States. Microsoft Corp and Oracle Corp are among U.S. companies fighting to snap up its assets.The Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 38% of respondents said they were either very or somewhat familiar with the app and 25% said they had watched a video on the platform. Thirty-five percent agreed with the statement that they had “heard of it, but that’s about it.”Americans also appeared to be more critical of the Chinese company than they were of American-based technology companies: 47% of respondents said they either held very unfavorable, somewhat unfavorable, or “lean towards unfavorable” attitudes toward TikTok. By contrast, just 11% said they had similarly unfavorable impressions of Seattle-based Amazon – the world’s largest online retailer which is facing allegations of monopolistic behavior from both sides of the U.S. political aisle. 
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The man who was fatally shot in Portland, Oregon, as supporters of President Donald Trump skirmished with Black Lives Matter protesters was a supporter of a right-wing group called Patriot Prayer, which doesn’t have a big national footprint but is well known in the Pacific Northwest. Patriot Prayer’s founder, Joey Gibson, has held pro-Trump rallies repeatedly in Portland and other cities since 2016. The events have drawn counterprotesters from around the region and had heightened tensions in Portland long before Black Lives Matter demonstrators began nearly 100 days of nightly protests over the police killing of George Floyd. The shooting victim was identified by Gibson as Aaron “Jay” Danielson of Portland. Photos taken of the body show he was wearing a Patriot Prayer hat. Police have released few details and pleaded with the public on Sunday to come forward with any information about the shooting. Danielson also went by the name Jay Bishop, according to a statement on Patriot Prayer’s Facebook page. Gibson, a one-time Senate candidate, founded Patriot Prayer in 2016. In past interviews with The Associated Press, Gibson has said he and his group are not a hate group and simply want to exercise their freedom of speech without interference from left-wing groups or protesters. FILE – Joey Gibson, left, founder of the Patriot Prayer group, argues with a bystander at right as Gibson’s group marched following a rally supporting gun rights, Aug. 18, 2018, at City Hall in Seattle.The group became a prominent presence in Portland in the summer of 2017, when Gibson organized a large rally in the city less than a week after a white supremacist fatally stabbed two men who had come to the defense of two Black teenagers — including one wearing a Muslim head-covering — on a light-rail train. The defendant Jeremy Christian, who was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences earlier this year, had attended a Patriot Prayer rally several months before, but was kicked out by organizers for flashing Nazi hand signs. FILE – Protesters gather before a rally by the right-wing Patriot Prayer group in Portland, Ore., Aug. 4, 2018.Patriot Prayer held several other marches and rallies in Portland in 2017 and 2018 and Gibson was arrested for felony rioting last summer on a charge related to a brawl that broke out between the group’s supporters and left-wing activists at a pub after a May Day march in the city. He has pleaded not guilty; a judge this week denied his motion for a change of venue at trial, according to court records. In a video that was live-streamed on Facebook last summer after he was released on bail, Gibson urged his supporters to “show up one hundred-fold” at a rally scheduled for the following day in Portland that was organized by the Proud Boys — a group that’s been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center — and other right-wing groups such as the Three Percenters and the American Guard. Supporters of President Donald Trump attend a rally and car parade, Aug. 29, 2020, in Clackamas, Ore., on the way to Portland.Gibson told the AP he was again present late Saturday in Portland when a caravan of about 600 Trump supporters drove through the city, sparking clashes in the streets with Black Lives Matter demonstrators. Gibson did not appear to have a part in organizing the caravan, however. In a video on Twitter, organizer Alex Kyzik said before the rally that those who attended should not openly carry their weapons. The same person organized a similar rally in Boise on Aug. 22. There were no public records available for a man named Alex Kyzik in Boise, Idaho, and it was unclear if that was his real name. Videos taken before the shooting show people squaring off for fist fights and Trump supporters firing bear spray and paintballs at counterprotesters, who in return throw objects at the trucks and attempt to block their progress by standing in intersections. Mayor Ted Wheeler said when Trump supporters want to come to Portland to rally, there is nothing the city can do to prevent them. “It’s no secret to anybody that I personally am not a Trump supporter, but I will defend to the death the right of a Trump supporter to stand outside my apartment and non-violently demonstrate in support of their candidate. That’s core to American democracy,” Wheeler said. “So when people say they want to come into the city in a caravan supporting their presidential candidate, we cannot tell them no. They have constitutional rights to be here — rights, which I embrace and support. The violence, however, is the problem.”  
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Japanese news outlets say Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga will seek to succeed Shinzo Abe as the country’s next prime minister.Suga is expected to announce sometime this week that he will seek the leadership of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Other candidates expected to vie for the post include former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida.Under Japan’s parliamentary system, the ruling party elects the person who will become prime minister, usually the party leader.An opinion poll of the general public taken by Kyodo News shows 34% of those asked want Ishiba to become the next prime minister, with Suga a distant second at 14%. Ishiba unsuccessfully challenged Abe for LDP president in the last intraparty race in 2018.However, analysts say Suga is likely to have more support among the party’s members of parliament and could come out ahead if the voting is restricted to them and the party’s officials.A leadership vote is expected to be held on September 14.Abe unexpectedly announced his resignation last Friday a year before his current term expires, citing the recurrence of ulcerative colitis, which has plagued him for much of his life. The illness forced him to cut short his first tenure as prime minister in 2007 after just one year in office.The 65-year-old Abe just became Japan’s longest-serving prime minister last Monday, breaking the record of his great-uncle, Eisaku Sato, who served 2,798 days from 1964 to 1972. 
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Israeli police on Sunday demonstrated a new laser system intended to intercept explosive-laden, wind-guided balloons launched from the Gaza Strip.The new system has an accuracy rate of 90%, Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld said, adding that the purpose of it is to protect communities, and prevent deaths and injuries.Israeli military said earlier Sunday that it hit militant targets in Gaza in response to explosive balloons constantly crossing over the border from the Hamas controlled territory.No casualties on either side have been reported.Hamas-linked groups have launched a significant number of incendiary balloons into Israel in recent weeks which have scorched wide swaths of farmland after exploding.Israel has so far responded with airstrikes and tank fire.  
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