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Hard Numbers: US' COVID U-turn, India green-lights J&J vaccine, Huawei's revenue dip, Riyadh targets Hamas

Seen through a protective glass door, Dustin Evans, a critical care nurse, attends to a COVID-19 patient in the intensive care unit on the fourth floor of Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne, Fla., on May 12.

100,000: After boasting of a successful vaccine rollout in the spring, the US is now recording more than 100,000 new daily COVID cases on average. States with a high percentage of vaccine resistant people — like Louisiana, Florida, Arkansas, and Mississippi — have experienced some of the biggest surges in infections over the past two weeks.

11: With just 11 percent of its population vaccinated, India has now approved the Johnson & Johnson one-shot COVID vaccine for emergency use. This is the second foreign-produced vaccine Delhi has approved to date, but the bad news is that J&J says it can't commit to a timeframe for delivery of the jab.

38: Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, recorded a 38 percent revenue drop in the second quarter of this year, in large part because of US sanctions imposed by the Trump administration in 2019. President Biden has shown little indication that he will lift the measures, which block Huawei from accessing US-made microchips.

69: Saudi officials have sentenced 69 Palestinian and Jordanian residents of the kingdom to prison, for alleged support of the Hamas militant group based in the Gaza Strip. Those sentenced include veteran Hamas representative Mohammed al-Khoudary, who managed the relationship between Hamas and Riyadh for two decades. Some say the Saudis' recent crackdown is due to warming ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

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Microsoft recently published its latest Global AI Diffusion Report, showing continued growth in AI usage worldwide. In the first quarter of 2026, global usage increased from 16.3% to 17.8%, with 26 economies now exceeding 30% adoption. As adoption expands, regional gaps are also becoming clearer. The report highlights faster growth in parts of Asia and a widening divide between the Global North and South. It also points to advances like multilingual AI and coding capabilities, driving increased usage and software development globally. Read the full blog here.