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What you need to know about the coronavirus today

Canada in second wave
Canada has entered a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Wednesday, warning that the country was on the brink of a surge if people did not follow public health guidelines.
In a rare national address, Trudeau said the country "is at a crossroads" as a second wave emerges in four large provinces, adding that the government would do whatever it took to help the country recover from the pandemic.
Canada's COVID-19 cases have spiked in recent days, with an average of 1,123 new cases reported daily over the past week, compared with a daily average of 380 cases in mid-August.

Trump may block stricter FDA guidelines for vaccine
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he may or may not approve any new, more stringent FDA standards for an emergency authorization of a COVID-19 vaccine, saying such a proposal would appear political.
Trump has repeatedly said a vaccine could be ready for distribution ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election.

More contagious strain now dominates in Houston
The first study to analyze the structure of the novel coronavirus from two waves of infection in a major city found that a more contagious strain dominates recent samples, researchers from Houston Methodist Hospital said on Wednesday.
They examined more than 5,000 genomes from viruses recovered in the earliest phase of the pandemic in Houston, an ethnically diverse city of 7 million, and from an ongoing more recent wave of infections.

Madrid pleads for more doctors
Spain's Madrid region on Wednesday requested urgent help to hire hundreds of foreign doctors and reinforce police, as they registered 1,290 new coronavirus infections and considered extending a partial lockdown to more areas.
Spain's cumulative number of confirmed coronavirus infections has spiked since the end of a nationwide lockdown in late June and now stands at 682,267 - the highest in Western Europe.

Dogs used to detect virus
Dogs trained to detect the novel coronavirus began sniffing passenger samples at Finland's Helsinki-Vantaa airport this week, authorities said, in a pilot project running alongside more usual testing at the hub.
In the canine test, a passenger swipes their neck with a gauze, places it in a can which is then handed over to another room for a dog to sniff and to deliver an immediate result.

COVID-19 bootcamp
Vaccines and how your body uses them. See the Reuters interactive graphic.

From Breakingviews: Corona Capital - Italian banks, WeWork, Pet food
Read concise views on the pandemic’s financial fallout from Breakingviews columnists across the globe.

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Top Stories

Two police officers were shot and wounded late on Wednesday in Louisville, Kentucky, during protests of a grand jury ruling decried by civil rights activists as a miscarriage of justice in the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor in March.
The grand jury decided that none of the three white officers involved in the deadly police raid on Taylor’s apartment would be charged for causing her death, though one officer was indicted on charges of endangering her neighbors.

U.S. President Donald Trump declined on Wednesday to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the Nov. 3 election to Democratic rival Joe Biden and said he expected the election battle to end up before the Supreme Court.
The president, who trails Biden in national opinion polls, has repeatedly cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election, asserting without evidence that mail-in voting would lead to fraud and a “rigged” outcome

As businesses shuttered and millions hit the unemployment line last spring, the most dour predictions saw the United States heading for another Great Depression of spiraling collapse and years of massive joblessness.
The worst has been avoided. But new academic research and commentary this week from Federal Reserve officials suggest the path of the U.S. recovery remains much in doubt, and the programs approved last spring to buffer the economy from the pandemic may still be in for their stiffest test.

Obituary

Sir Harold Evans, a British-American editor whose 70-year career as a hard-driving investigative journalist, magazine founder, book publisher and author made him one of the most influential media figures of his generation, died on Wednesday at the age of 92.
His wife, Tina Brown, said Evans died of congestive heart failure in New York.
A former editor of Britain’s Sunday Times and, at his death, Reuters editor-at-large, Evans put a unique stamp on investigative journalism. Championing causes either overlooked or denied, he and his team uncovered human rights abuses and political scandals, and advocated for clean air policies.