Bloomberg
WHO Says New Strain Is a Variant of Concern, Names It Omicron
The World Health Organization said that a strain of coronavirus recently discovered by South African researchers is a variant of concern, posing a threat that could confound countries’ efforts to slow the spread of Covid-19.
The WHO assigned the Greek letter omicron to the variant, which had been known as B.1.1.529, following a meeting by a panel of experts Friday.
Scientists say the variant carries a high number of mutations in its spike protein, which plays a key role in the virus’s entry into cells in the body. It’s also what is targeted by vaccines, so if the protein changes enough, it raises concern that the mutations could make immunizations less effective.
Black Friday Sale Comes to Wall Street as Pandemic Fears Return
Wall Street has had plenty to be grateful for this year: Sixty-six records for the S&P 500 Index. Stock funds luring more cash in 2021 than in the previous 19 years combined. One of the fastest profit recoveries in history.
Now American traders barely finished with Thanksgiving just got a reality check as global markets plunge on the discovery of a new coronavirus strain in southern Africa.
Treasuries headed for their sharpest rally since March 2020. Oil and industrial metals plunged. Speculative assets like Bitcoin extended its decline to more than 20% versus the all-time high notched earlier this month.
The Washington Post
In an effort to boost revenue and protect the environment, the Biden administration on Friday laid out plans to make fossil fuel companies pay more to drill on federal lands and waters.
The 18-page Interior Department report describes an “outdated” federal oil and gas leasing program that “fails to provide a fair return to taxpayers, even before factoring in the resulting climate-related costs.”
The document calls for increasing the government’s royalty rate — the 12.5 percent of profits fossil fuel developers must pay to the federal government in exchange for drilling on public lands — to be more in line with the higher rates charged by most private landowners and major oil- and gas-producing states. It also makes the case for raising the bond companies must set aside for cleanup before they begin new development.
Biden sees gains in supply chain battle, but the fight isn’t over
President Biden’s claim to have eased bottlenecks at a vital U.S. port complex marks an initial win in what is likely to prove a long campaign to free Americans from tangled supply chains.
The president in recent days cited progress in moving shipping containers off Southern California’s crowded docks and a decline in spot rates for ocean cargo as evidence that the administration’s push to ensure that store shelves are stocked for the holidays is paying off.
“Because of the actions we’ve taken, things have begun to change,” Biden said in a speech at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
NPR News
The butterflies are back! Annual migration of monarchs shows highest numbers in years
Every year, monarch butterflies from all over the western U.S. migrate to coastal California, to escape the harsh winter weather. In the 1980s and '90s, more than a million made the trip each year.
Those numbers have plummeted by more than 99% in recent years.
"The last few years we've had less than 30,000 butterflies," biologist Emma Pelton said. "Last year, we actually dropped below 2,000 butterflies. So really an order of magnitude change in a short time period."
Pelton works with the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and says pesticides and habitat loss play a role in that decline.
But this year, the numbers are starting to pick up. Biologists and volunteers across California have already counted more than 100,000 monarchs.
More veterans with PTSD will soon get help from service dogs. Thank the 'PAWS' Act
[…] A growing body of research into PTSD and service animals paved the way for President Joe Biden to sign into law the Puppies Assisting Wounded Servicemembers (PAWS) for Veterans Therapy Act. The legislation, enacted in August, requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to open its service dog referral program to veterans with PTSD, and to launch a five-year pilot program in which veterans with PTSD help train service dogs for other veterans.
Clark-Gutierrez, 33, is among the 1 in 4 female vets who've reported experiencing military sexual trauma (MST) while serving in the U.S. Armed Services.
MST, combat violence and brain injuries are among the experiences that put service personnel at greater risk for developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. The symptoms include flashbacks to the traumatic event, severe anxiety, nightmares and hypervigilance. Psychologists note that such symptoms are actually a normal reaction to experiencing or witnessing such violence. A diagnosis of PTSD happens when the symptoms get worse or remain for months or years.
India's farmers faced down a popular prime minister and won. What will they do now?
Every day for the past year, a sugarcane farmer in a bright-green turban has been chanting prayers inside a bamboo tent erected in the middle of a highway on the Indian capital's outskirts.
Ramkumar Pagdiwale, who is in his 50s, has built a little shrine in this sprawling protest camp, with jars of water from the Ganges River, soil from his farm about 30 miles away and an oil lamp that holds special meaning for him. It belonged to his ancestors.
"This is an eternal flame that's been burning continuously since 1947, during India's fight for independence," he explains. "It guides us during protest movements."
AP News
Big flotilla of illegal gold miners splits up in Brazil
Hundreds of barges of illegal miners dredging for gold were navigating along the Madeira River in the Brazilian Amazon on Friday, and researchers said they posed a threat of pollution — including toxic mercury — for the broader environment.
The barges were spotted this week by the municipality of Autazes, some 120 kilometers (70 miles) from Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state.
Smaller gatherings of barges are common along rivers in the region, but the latest collection drew international attention this week when Greenpeace and news media published images of several rows of rafts.
Brazilian Vice President Hamilton Mourão announced an imminent police operation in the area, prompting the miners to depart early Friday and head elsewhere along the river.
Ukraine leader alleges Russia-backed coup planned next week
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday claimed that his country’s intelligence service has uncovered plans for a Russia-backed coup d’etat in the country set for next week that allegedly involves one of Ukraine’s richest oligarchs.
Both the oligarch and the Russian government rejected the allegations… President Joe Biden expressed concern at the coup talk and renewed U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and self-government.
At a news conference in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, Zelenskyy said he received information that a coup was being planned for next Wednesday or Thursday. He did not give many details to back up his allegation, but pointed to a suspected role of Ukraine’s richest oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov.
Reuters
U.S. says 'all options' on the table over Russian troop buildup near Ukraine
All options are on the table in how to respond to Russia's "large and unusual" troop buildup near Ukraine's border, and the NATO alliance will decide on the next move following consultations next week, the State Department's top U.S. diplomat for European affairs said on Friday.
"As you can appreciate, all options are on the table and there's a toolkit that includes a whole range of options," Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried told reporters in a telephone briefing. […]
"It's now for the alliance to decide what are the next moves that NATO wants to take," Donfried said. "Next week, we will talk about our assessment of what's happening on Russia's border with Ukraine and we will begin that conversation of what are the options that are on the table and what it is that NATO as an alliance would like to do together," she said.
Ethiopia restricts information sharing about war
Ethiopia has announced new restrictions on the sharing of information about the war in the north of the country which stipulate that battlefront updates can only come from the government. "Disseminating information on military maneuvers, war front updates and results via any medium is forbidden," except for information provided by a joint civilian-military command set up to oversee a state of emergency, the government's communication service said late on Thursday. The statement did not specify the implications of the new rules for journalists or media outlets covering the war, which broke out last November between the government and rebellious forces from the northern region of Tigray.
It did not, for instance, address the consequence of publishing information provided by unauthorized sources. Ethiopia's media regulator did not return calls from Reuters seeking clarification on the matter. The prime minister's spokeswoman, Billene Seyoum, told Reuters on Friday, "The state of emergency prohibits unauthorized entities from disseminating activities from the front via various channels including media." She did not elaborate.
BBC News
Russian coal mine: Dozens killed in Siberia accident
Fifty-one people have been killed in Russia's worst mining disaster in a decade, prompting three days of mourning in Siberia's Kemerovo region.
Among the dead were five rescue workers, although a sixth was found alive and taken to hospital in a serious condition. The blast happened at the Listvyazhnaya mine when coal dust caught fire in a ventilation shaft on Thursday.
Rescuers suffocated as they tried to reach dozens of missing miners. At the time of the accident early on Thursday there were 287 people in the mine, some 3,500km (2,175 miles) east of Moscow.
Channel disaster: Kurdish woman is first victim identified
A 24-year-old Kurdish woman from northern Iraq has become the first victim of this week's mass drowning in the Channel to be identified. Maryam Nuri Mohamed Amin was one of 27 people who died while attempting to cross to Britain on Wednesday.
Her fiancé, who lives in the UK, told the BBC she was messaging him as the group's dinghy started deflating. She tried to reassure him that they would be rescued.
But help came too late, and she and 17 men, six other women - one of whom was pregnant - and three children died after their inflatable boat sank into the sea off the northern French coast.
EuroNews
French anger after UK PM calls on Paris to 'take back' migrants crossing Channel
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin cancelled on Friday the visit of his British counterpart Priti Patel to a meeting on migration scheduled for Sunday.
The move comes after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson called on France to take back all migrants arriving in Britain in a letter sent to French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin cancelled on Friday the visit of his British counterpart Priti Patel to a meeting on migration scheduled for Sunday.
The move comes after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson called on France to take back all migrants arriving in Britain in a letter sent to French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday.
Los Angeles Times
‘We were like a football,’ Iraqi migrant says after Belarus odyssey
Sitting in a two-room apartment above his uncle’s office, 25-year-old Hussein Shumari said there wasn’t much left for him in Iraq. He had graduated from law school two years before but still had no job. He had lived through war and sectarian violence, but when his brother died of the coronavirus this year, it broke him.
“My soul died with him,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine staying. I felt it was time to go and do something.”
When he heard in September that Belarus — a potential pathway to Europe — was granting visas to Iraqis, he sold what few belongings he had, borrowed money from a friend of his uncle’s and handed $3,500 to a Baghdad travel agency. By the end of October, he was on a plane to the Belarusian capital, Minsk, and, he hoped, “a better life ... a good life.”
Instead, he found himself on the front lines of the latest skirmish between Belarus and its European neighbors. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a despot facing increasing international isolation, retaliated against the European Union by funneling thousands of migrants and refugees mostly from Iraq, Syria and Yemen to his country’s borders with Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
A broken supply chain isn’t a problem for the logistics industry. It’s a moneymaking opportunity
Thirty thousand high-end snow globes are trapped in San Pedro Bay, split between two shipping containers on two ships in the idle flotilla offshore. […]
But Wan Hai Lines Ltd., the Taiwanese shipping corporation that owns those vessels, is making a record profit this year. So is every major ocean shipping company, trucking company and warehouse company, as consumer demand has led to a 20% jump in imports. […]
A look at San Pedro Bay, where dozens of ships have been idling for weeks, might give the impression that these companies are under duress. How can having $100-million ships tied up at anchor be good for the bottom line?
The shipping companies’ financial reports show that they’re finding a way. A.P. Moller-Maersk, the Copenhagen-based shipping giant, is on track to make more than $16 billion in profit in 2021 — three times as much money as its previous best year ever in 2014, and the most profit ever booked by any company in Danish history. Cosco Shipping, the Shanghai-based company that competes with Maersk for the top spot in the industry, made $12.6 billion in profit from container shipping in the first nine months of 2021, and reported that its revenue had doubled since 2020, thanks to the supply chain squeeze.
The Guardian
Ilhan Omar: Boebert is a ‘buffoon’ and ‘bigot’ for ‘made up’ anti-Muslim story
The Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar called the Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert a buffoon, a bigot and a liar for claiming to have joked about terrorism when sharing an elevator in Congress.
“Fact,” Omar wrote on Twitter on Thursday. “This buffoon looks down when she sees me at the Capitol, this whole story is made up. Sad she thinks bigotry gets her clout.
“Anti-Muslim bigotry isn’t funny and shouldn’t be normalised. Congress can’t be a place where hateful and dangerous Muslims tropes get no condemnation.”
Long fight for justice ends as New Zealand treaty recognises Moriori people
After more than 150 years of struggle for justice, truth and reparation, the Moriori people of Rēkohu, or the Chatham Islands, can turn a new leaf on the history book that rewrote their story and taught generations of New Zealanders they were an inferior race that was now extinct.
Moriori were the first settlers to the archipelago, 800 kilometres east of New Zealand, between 600 and 1,000 years ago and developed a distinct language, customs and culture before they were nearly wiped out.
On Tuesday, the New Zealand government enshrined in law a treaty between Moriori and the Crown, which includes an NZ$18m (£9.3m) settlement, the return of land, and an apology acknowledging the wrongs Moriori have suffered since the arrival of Māori and Europeans to their shores.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Census pointed to 6th District nip and tuck, but Republican maps turned into major surgery
When the U.S. census released a detailed population count in August, data showed the 6th Congressional District had nearly the exact number of people necessary for a congressional district.
The district in Atlanta’s northern suburbs — which Democrat Lucy McBath flipped from Republicans in 2018 — had 657 more residents than the 765,136 that were required for each district and was the closest of the state’s 14 congressional seats to being right on target.
Democrats said that should have made the 6th District the easiest one to redraw during the recently completed General Assembly special session.
Instead, the Republican-drawn map shifts about 45% of the district — or about 355,000 residents — from Democratic-leaning DeKalb and Fulton counties out of the district and brings in about the same number from Republican-leaning Cherokee, Dawson and Forsyth counties. The change takes it from a competitive district where McBath won with 55% of the vote in 2020 to a district that could safely favor Republicans.
Houston Chronicle / The Texas Tribune
Congressional gerrymandering by Texas Republicans cut out the heart of Houston’s Asian community
"Congressional gerrymandering by Texas Republicans cut out the heart of Houston’s Asian community" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
An invisible line now separates the Korean Community Center in Spring Branch from its people. When Texas lawmakers redrew congressional maps following the 2020 census, they split up Asian American populations in both Harris and Fort Bend counties. […]
“It’s like (lawmakers) don’t even know we are here,” said Hyunja Norman, president of the Korean American Voters League, who works out of the center that offers language and culture classes and is home to political groups that work out of its offices. “If they were thoughtful, they could’ve included the Korean Community Center in (our district). But it’s like they are ignorant of us, or they just don’t care.”
The Dallas Morning News
Democrats hope Beto O’Rourke helps down-ballot hopefuls, but analysts skeptical he’ll have an impact
Texas Democrats are hoping to win with Beto O’Rourke as their candidate for governor — even if he loses.
With his ability to raise large amounts of campaign cash, mobilize volunteers and target voters, Democrats are banking that O’Rourke will have long coattails that will help their down-ballot candidates.
That’s what happened in 2018, when O’Rourke’s close contest against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz helped make winners out of other Democrats on the ticket. That included victories by U.S. Reps. Colin Allred of Dallas and Lizzie Fletcher of Houston. Democrats also had a net gain of 12 seats in the Texas House, and they took control of the Fifth District Court of Appeals.
But analysts warn that Beto 2.0 won’t be the down-ballot influencer he was in 2018. It’s unclear whether he can generate that same excitement with voters, particularly after his failed 2020 presidential campaign. The thrill may be gone, critics say.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Shoppers are getting ruder, and grocery workers suffer the mental health impact
[…] Retail and service sector workers have been laboring to keep shelves stocked and customers happy from the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Life on the front lines has been exceptionally stressful for these employees. Suddenly, they found themselves identified as “essential workers,” providing critical services while working in close contact with customers and coworkers. But unlike health care workers, grocery store employees had no prior experience or training in combating infectious diseases. […]
We are a team of researchers from the University of Arizona with expertise in worker health, retail marketing, human development and public health. We have been following the impacts of the pandemic on grocery workers across the state of Arizona.
Our research and that of others show that rates of mental health distress among grocery workers are very high. In a newly published study, we reported that 20% of employees working in Arizona grocery stores in the summer of 2020 exhibited signs of severe anxiety and depression. And the mental health struggles of these workers do not show much improvement since we began our research in summer 2020.
UPI
Arctic Ocean started to warm decades earlier than scientists thought
The Arctic Ocean has been warming since the beginning of the 20th century, fueled by a process known as Atlantification, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.
The new research highlights the connection between the North Atlantic and Arctic between Greenland and Svalbard, a region known was Fram Strait, where warmer, saltier water from the south has been steadily infiltrating northern waters.
"Pinpointing the exact timing of the onset of Atlantification in the Arctic can give us some important clues as to the exact driving mechanisms behind this phenomenon," study co-lead author Francesco Muschitiello told UPI…
Report: Expansion of religious exemptions undermining law
A new report contends the right to religious exemptions from the law -- such as those that have allowed medical professionals to refuse to provide contraceptive healthcare and a calligraphy company to decline to sell wedding invitations to same-sex couples -- has expanded vastly in the past decade and is threatening the liberties of others.
The faith-based exemptions involve more than reproductive health and LGBTQ issues, according to the report by Columbia Law School's Law, Rights, and Religion Project in New York City. The report says some states have passed or proposed bills that include a broader right to religious exemptions than provided under the U.S. Constitution.
"By citing real cases, we demonstrate that nearly any law or policy, including those protecting crucial interests like workers' rights, public health, environmental welfare, emergency response and religious pluralism, may be limited and/or significantly undermined by religious exemptions," the policy think tank says in the report, released earlier this month.
Ars Technica
Humans have broken a fundamental law of the ocean
On November 19, 1969, the CCS Hudson slipped through the frigid waters of Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia and out into the open ocean… Along the way, the Hudson would make frequent stops so its scientists could collect samples and take measurements. […]
Life in the ocean, they discovered, followed a simple mathematical rule: the abundance of an organism is closely linked to its body size. To put it another way, the smaller the organism, the more of them you find in the ocean. Krill are a billion times smaller than tuna, for example, but they are also a billion times more abundant. […]
But now, humans seem to have broken this fundamental law of the ocean. In a November paper for the journal Science Advances, [Eric Galbraith, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at McGill University in Montreal] and his colleagues show that the Sheldon spectrum no longer holds true for larger marine creatures. Thanks to industrial fishing, the total ocean biomass of larger fish and marine mammals is much lower than it should be if the Sheldon spectrum were still in effect. “There was this pattern that all life seems to have been following for reasons that we don’t understand,” says Galbraith. “We have changed that over the last 100 years or even less.”