Israel has become the first country in the world to announce a second national coronavirus lockdown. Responding to a soaring infection and death rate, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed the decision in a late night TV news conference. The lockdown will last for three weeks and will come into effect at 2pm on Friday – coinciding with a major Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashana.
With its deadline to sell or be banned in the U.S. fast-approaching, Chinese tech giant ByteDance said it will not be selling its video-sharing app TikTok to either Microsoft or Oracle, according to China state TV. Before that report, Microsoft said in a statement that ByteDance informed the company its bid for TikTok’s U.S. operations had been rejected.
The embattled president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, is meeting his last ally standing Monday, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, less than 24 hours after more than 100,000 people took to the streets in the latest protest to demand his resignation. The pair are to hold a “working meeting” at the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi — their first face-to-face meeting since a protest movement emerged across Belarus after the contested Aug. 9
The World Health Organization (WHO) has recorded a record one-day rise in the number of new coronavirus infections, with 307,930 reported over 24 hours. The agency said that deaths rose by more than 5,500, bringing the global total to 917,417. The biggest increases in infections were reported in India, the US and Brazil. Worldwide there have been more than 28 million confirmed cases, half of which have been in the Americas.
Chipmaker Nvidia has agreed to buy Arm Holdings, a designer of chips for mobile phones, from SoftBank in a deal worth $40 billion, the companies announced Sunday. The deal will include $21.5 billion in Nvidia stock and $12 billion in cash, including $2 billion payable at signing. Softbank acquired Arm in 2016 for $31.4 billion in 2016 in one of its largest acquisitions ever.