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What you need to know about the coronavirus today

Testing plan
Several large U.S. states are not heeding new federal health officials’ calls to reduce COVID-19 testing of some exposed to the virus, joining a broad rebuke of the Trump administration by public health leaders.

Track the spread of the virus with this state-by-state and county map.

Vaccine
Japan is making an aggressive move to grab enough coronavirus vaccine to inoculate its population four times over, a push the government hopes will instill confidence that it can host a delayed summer Olympics next year.

The World Health Organization will next week receive a raft of pledges of support for its plan for COVID-19 vaccines for all. But the agency has already had to scale back its ambition.

From Breakingviews: Corona Capital: Tests, Alibaba, Airlines, Equity
Read concise views on the pandemic’s financial fallout from Breakingviews columnists across the globe.

Reuters reporters and editors around the world are investigating the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Politics

A defiant President Trump accepted the Republican nomination for a second term with a scathing attack on rival Joe Biden, asserting that a Democratic victory in November would only exacerbate the racial strife and coronavirus pandemic besieging the nation.

Americans’ support for Trump’s management of the economy has slipped, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows, challenging a bedrock re-election argument laid out at the Republican National Convention this week.

The back-to-back presidential nominating conventions showed both sides intend to fight for the sliver of independent and moderate voters that will decide the election, each with a wildly different strategy in the final sprint to Nov. 3.

Top Stories

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving premier, announced his resignation because of poor health on Friday, ending a stint at the helm of the world’s third-biggest economy in which he sought to revive growth and bolster its defences.

Hurricane Laura tore through Louisiana on Thursday, killing six people and flattening buildings across a wide swath of the state before moving into Arkansas with heavy rains.

A day after the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, searches for the term “Black-owned businesses” began to surge on Google Trends, as social media users called out for suggestions on where to spend their money in a way that supported the Black community.

Business

In a luxury mansion in the Hollywood Hills, young TikTok influencers bounced around on a bright sunny morning this week trying out new ideas for zany short form videos that they hope will go viral.

Technology giants are increasingly dominating the stock market in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, even as they draw accusations of unfair business practices, and some investors fear the pump is primed for a tech-fueled sell-off.

At the height of the coronavirus pandemic last spring, the heads of U.S. banks including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Corp and others pledged not to cut any jobs in 2020 because it was the wrong thing to do. Layoffs are now on the table.