What you need to know today:

Politics

-- Vietnam is monitoring and assessing the effects of the U.S. recently removing the Southeast Asian country from a list of developing countries under Washington's countervailing duty laws, Doan Khac Viet, vice-spokesperson of the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday.  

-- Khanh Hoa Province, located in south-central Vietnam, will have a new chairman as local officials cast a vote on Friday morning.

Society

-- A 73-year-old Vietnamese American is set to be discharged from the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City on Friday, after 20 days of treatment for the novel coronavirus disease there. 

-- The Mekong Delta of Vietnam is suffering from salinization and a heat wave, according to weather forecasters.

-- Vietnam's conglomerate Vingroup announced on Thursday their funds totaling VND19.5 billion (US$840,000) for research to fight the new coronavirus that is hitting the country.

Lifestyle

-- The People's Committee of Da Nang has announced the cancelation of an annual fireworks display competition this year over the novel coronavirus diease.

Education

-- The chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, Nguyen Thanh Phong, signed a document on Thursday proposing that Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam, who is in charge of the Ministry of Health, Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha, and Minister of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung allow K-12 public schools nationwide to continue the current close-down until the end of March to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. 

Sports

-- Vietnam maintain their presence in the top 15 Asian nations in the latest FIFA World Rankings published on Friday.  

World News

-- China’s Hubei province, which is at the center of the global novel coronavirus disease, said it had counted 411 new cases as of Thursday, up from 349 a day earlier but still the lowest since January 26, Reuters reported, adding that the death toll in the province rose by 115 to 2,144, mostly in the provincial capital of Wuhan, a city of 11 million now under virtual lockdown.

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