Nearly two-thirds of small and medium-sized businesses in Canada plan to make COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for their employees, according to a new survey.

A full 62% of businesses that were polled said they would implement a plan requiring immunization.

Another 84% of business owners surveyed said vaccinations were key to avoiding another lockdown, and 84% also agreed that vaccine passports should be required to enter certain places or perform certain jobs…read more.

China’s bubbling tech sector has been hit with a massive regulatory storm ever since Alibaba Group Holdings (NYSE:BABA) founder Jack Ma criticized his country’s government last year for what he called excessive regulations. Beijing hit back by cancelling the much-anticipated IPO of Ma’s Ant Group–the world’s largest fintech–before putting the company through a “rectification” process and announcing it would henceforth “prevent the disorderly expansion of capital.”

Well, it turns out that Beijing authorities were not bluffing, if ongoing developments are any indication.

Over the past few months, sweeping crackdowns across diverse sectors of the Chinese economy have been sending shockwaves across global financial markets, with American investors finding themselves in the firing line of some of the hottest sectors.

First off, Beijing cracked down on the crypto space, curbing bitcoin mining due to concerns of excess speculation and warning financial institutions against offering crypto services.

Regulators then turned their sights on Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Global Inc. (NYSE:DIDI) for alleged data security violations before China’s antitrust administrator ordered Tencent Music Entertainment (NYSE:TME)) to give its exclusive music licensing rights for online music.

And now Beijing has cracked the whip over China’s expansive online gaming sector.

On Tuesday, American depositary receipts of Tencent Holdings (OTCPK:TCEHY) and XD Inc.(OTCPK:XDNCF) fell 7.3% and 5.3%, respectively, while those by their U.S. videogame peers Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI), Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) and Take-Two Interactive Software (NASDAQ:TTWO) plunged 4.6%, 3.9% and 9.6%, respectively, after a publication controlled by the Chinese government described online games as “spiritual opium” and ‘‘electronic drugs’’according to multiple reports…read more.

Ever since the first Covid-19 vaccine was approved for use in the United States about seven months ago, most Americans have dreamed of the day when the virus will be vanquished and life gets back to normal.

But according to the Bloomberg Covid-19 tracker, only 50% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated, despite states being flush with supply of the vaccine. To make matters worse, the vaccination campaign appears to have stalled.

In fact, more than 20 nations now boast higher vaccination rates than the United States despite the latter once being the envy of the world for its swift rollout. The gap between the most and least vaccinated counties in the U.S. has been widening, leaving many communities vulnerable to continued outbreaks.

And now U.S. employers are stepping up to the plate and issuing the ultimate ultimatum to employees: No Jab, No Job.

Broadening mandates for Covid-19 inoculations have been coming fast and swift as the newer Delta variant has sent cases soaring across the United States, all because tens of millions of Americans have refused to get free and effective shots whose safety has been scientifically established beyond reasonable doubt.

Big Business is now in the front line: Facebook, Google, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock and Saks Fifth Avenue are amongst the notable blue-chip companies that are leading the charge. Netflix now requires vaccines for actors and anyone who wants to do business with them at its studios…read more.

Twitter announced today it’s partnering with news organizations The Associated Press (AP) and Reuters to expand its efforts focused on highlighting reliable news and information on its platform. Through the new agreements, Twitter’s Curation team will be able to leverage the expertise of the partnered organizations to add more context to the news and trends that circulate across Twitter, as well as aid with the company’s use of public service announcements during high-visibility events, misinformation labels and more.

Currently, the Curation team works to add additional information to content that includes Top Trends and other news on Twitter’s Explore tab. The team is also involved with how certain search results are ranked, to ensure that content from high-quality searches appear at the top of search results when certain keywords or hashtags are searched for on Twitter.

The team may also be involved with the prompts that appear in the Explore tab on the Home Timeline related to major events, like public health emergencies (such as the pandemic) or other events, like elections. And they may help with the misinformation labels that appear on tweets that are allowed to remain visible on Twitter, but are labeled with informative context from authoritative sources. These include tweets that violate Twitter’s rules around manipulated media, election integrity, or COVID-19…read more.