BEIJING SUSPENDS MAJORITY OF SCHOOLS IN BID TO CURB SPREAD OF COVID-19
BEIJING: Beijing on Tuesday suspended majority of schools for a week as the city authorities attempt to stamp out a growing Covid-19 outbreak by consecutive rounds of mass tests, banning restaurant dining during the ongoing Labour Day holidays and making negative nucleic acid tests mandatory to enter public venues.
The city reported 62 infections reported on Tuesday for the day before - 11 of them showing no symptoms, up just slightly from about 50 per day over the weekend. Beijing has reported about 450 cases in the two-weekold outbreak.
Li Yi, a government spokesperson, on Tuesday said that students of kindergartens, primary and middle schools would delay return date for a week to May 11 and hold online courses during the period of time.
“The exact return date will be decided based on the epidemic situation,” Li said.
The city has implemented some restrictions, ordered mandatory tests and isolated a few communities but, has so far, not put in place sweeping citywide measures seen in Shanghai.
The outward calm in the city reflects the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) desire not to let the outbreak in Beijing spiral into a Shanghai-like situation which has seen hundreds of thousands of cases and over 400 deaths.
It is also important for the CPC to maintain a sense of control in a year when President Xi Jinping is seeking a groundbreaking third five-year term as party leader.
Agencies
WASHINGTON: Elon Musk is in talks with large investment firms and high net-worth individuals about taking on more financing for his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter and tying up less of his wealth in the deal, people familiar with the matter said.
Musk is the world’s richest person, with Forbes estimating his net worth at about $245 billion. Yet most of his wealth is tied up in the shares of Tesla Inc, the electric car maker he leads. Last week, Musk disclosed he sold $8.5 billion worth of Tesla stock following his agreement to buy Twitter.
The new financing, which could come in the form of preferred or common equity, could reduce the $21 billion cash contribution that Musk has committed to the deal as well as a margin loan he secured against his Tesla shares, the sources said.
The banks that agreed last month to provide $13 billion in loans based on Twitter’s business balked at offering more debt for Musk’s acquisition given the San Francisco-based company’s limited cash flow, Reuters reported last month.
Musk has also pledged some of his Tesla shares to banks to arrange a $12.5 billion margin loan to help fund the deal. He may seek to trim the size of the margin loan based on the new investor interest in the deal financing, one of the sources said.
Musk said on Monday he wants to expand the reach of Twitter beyond the current “niche” until most Americans use the social media platform.
He told reporters gathered on the red carpet at the annual Met Gala in New York that an important measure of success would be whether Twitter could expand its audience significantly.
“Right now it’s sort of niche. I want a much bigger percentage of the country to be on it, engaging in dialogue,” said Musk.