Month: January 2022

Enlarge (credit: Leon Neal | Getty Images)

Amazon has halted a plan to ban customers using UK-issued Visa credit cards from this week, as the companies work on a “potential solution” to a rancorous dispute that threatened to severely disrupt shoppers.

The world’s largest online retailer announced the proposed ban in November, citing the “high fees Visa charges for processing credit card transactions,” and advised customers to find new payment methods.

However, on Monday Amazon said that “the expected change regarding the use of Visa credit cards on Amazon.co.uk will no longer take place on January 19.” The group added that it was “working closely with Visa on a potential solution that will enable customers to continue using their Visa credit cards on Amazon.co.uk.”

Enlarge / Logitech Signature M650 in the rose colorway. (credit: Scharon Harding)

Many mice offer very basic functionality—left-click, right-click, scroll wheel, and not much more. Others boast a range of programmable buttons, premium sensor specs, USB-C charging, and other features for power users. But what if you don’t need that extreme level of functionality but don’t want something cheap and bare-bones, either?

Released this past week, the Logitech Signature M650 wireless mouse is a middle-ground device that supports Windows, macOS, Linux, Chrome OS, iPadOS, and Android. It doesn’t have the most advanced features, but it isn’t basic, either. And by skipping some add-ons, like multiple Bluetooth profiles, the mouse is able to maintain an affordable $40 price point.

Logitech’s latest cord-free mouse also comes in three different versions: a standard size, a large size, and a large left-handed version, providing something for everyone—unless you have a smaller left hand, that is.

Enlarge (credit: Getty | Dmitry Rogulin )

Calendar year three into the pandemic, and vaccination coverage among pregnant people remains staggeringly low.

According to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of January 1, just over 40 percent of pregnant people in the United States between age 18 and 49 were fully vaccinated prior to pregnancy or during their pregnancy, compared with 66 percent of the general population over the age of 5. For Black pregnant people, the figure plummets to about 25 percent. Data for the United Kingdom is a little less up to date, but in August 2021 just 22 percent of women who gave birth were fully vaccinated.

And with Omicron running rampant, this is a problem. At the end of 2021, the UK’s vaccine watchdog, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization, announced that pregnant women would be made a priority group for vaccination, after reams of research has shown just how vulnerable the group is to Covid.