USA

The US government's trade ban on Huawei was meant to bring the company to its knees both as punishment for its alleged cybersecurity crimes as well as a bargaining chip in trade talks with China. For the past 12 months, however, Huawei has found some ways to get around some of those restrictions to maintain its business. Over the weekend, the US Commerce Department dealt what could be the most crippling blow to the company, and, unsurprisingly, Huawei has responded with accusations that the US is attempting to strengthen its technology industry by crushing everyone else's.

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Some, especially governments, live by a "tit for tat" philosophy so it's really no surprise that China wants to hit the US back. The latter has not only extended Huawei's fate as part of the government's entity list, the US Department of Commerce has also made moves to deprive the phone maker of much-needed access to semiconductors for its processors. Since negotiations seem to have broken down, China is now threatening to respond in kind and put US companies on its own upcoming "unreliable entity list".

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Huawei will, for one more year, have to deal with the effects of remaining on the US' Entity List, effectively barring it from access to US products and technologies. All throughout last year's drama, Huawei remained proud in affirming its independence and its capability to make its own products, especially its own mobile processor via HiSilicon's Kirin. The US Commerce Department, however, has now seeking to block even the latter which could eventually leave Huawei with no processors to use for its new phones in the near future.

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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, more commonly referred to as TSMC, has announced plans to bring another semiconductor facility to the United States. The company plans to build and operate a $12 billion factory in Arizona, where it will use its 5-nanometer technology to produce 20,000 semiconductor wafers per month. The company plans to start construction on the new facility next year.

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Given everything that has happened in the past four months, it almost feels like Huawei's battle with the US government was so long ago. In reality, however, it was exactly last year that US President Donald Trump invoked a new law that empowered his government to ban US companies from doing business with Huawei. Given present circumstances, it's not surprising that the US is extending that ban for yet another year, putting Huawei's business as well as its customers in limbo yet again.

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As quarantine fatigue spreads across the planet, a second round of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is "inevitable" according to the USA's leading epidemiologist. If states lift restrictions on quarantine too early, the results could be dire. But if the USA makes significant progress in efforts to deal with the pandemic before the second wave, suggested Dr. Anthony Fauci, the USA should weather the storm

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A new study out of Columbia University warns that North America -- primarily the western US and northern Mexico -- is cruising toward a new potentially record-breaking megadrought fueled by climate change. The findings come amid a long series of drought years in these regions, building upon a body of evidence that North America may face an extreme long-term drought akin to those of the prehistoric period.

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T-Mobile USA and Sprint received approval for their merger after months of negotiations and legal hurdles, now they're combining their companies in practice. It's now been several weeks since the merger was closed officially, and today T-Mobile USA enumerated the ways in which the two companies are providing services to one-another's customers out in the wild. This begins with "broad and deep 5G" in parts of Philadelphia.

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A new website called 'COVID Act Now' uses mathematical models to estimate how quickly cases of the novel coronavirus may develop based on the actions taken by each individual state in the US. The model doesn't predict the future, but rather offers estimates of how the pandemic may play out across the US based on the steps each state takes to mitigate the spread of the virus.

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Two new bits of Guidance were released today by the FDA in order to get hand sanitizer back in the hands on people that need it the most during our current COVID-19 health emergency. "These guidances provide flexibility to help meet demand during this outbreak," said FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn, M.D. "We will continue to work with manufacturers, compounders, state boards of pharmacy and the public to increase the supply of alcohol-based hand sanitizer available to Americans."

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Novel Coronavirus, COVID-19 fallout has created a situation in which tax day in the USA needed a change. Generally the official filing deadline for all tax return documents is April 15. An announcement from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin today... made via Tweet... changed the date from April 15 to July 15, 2020.

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Days after its initial announcement, CVS has revealed that it is launching COVID-19 testing sites in the state of Massachusetts. The testing sites will be located at CVS facilities in the state where 'a limited population' can go and get tested for the new infectious disease. The testing sites are being launched in 'close coordination' with the US Public Health Service, US Department of Health and Human Services, and more.

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