Tuesday - I Scooped USA Today By a Week.

A sad day for the US, but ultimately a good day for the world.

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Omicron could be more contagious, less dangerous. That would be 'good news for the human race.'

Early reports from South Africa seem to indicate the omicron variant of coronavirus is much more contagious than previous variants while causing milder disease, though experts there warn definitive data won't be available for weeks.

With Apologies to Charles Dickens Fans:

Whether Omicron shall turn out to be the hero of our life, or whether that station will be held by another variant, the future must show.

The Omicron variant of the coronavirus is weeks away from becoming the dominant strain in parts of Europe, government officials and scientists say, as authorities try to slow the spread of a variant that appears adept at seeding outbreaks among the vaccinated.

Emerging evidence from the U.K., Norway and South Africa suggests, however, that vaccines offer significant protection against severe illness with Omicron, adding impetus to government efforts to broaden vaccination coverage and offer booster shots.

Cases so far have overwhelmingly been mild. Officials in Norway say that is likely because so many of the infections have been in vaccinated people. Many cases are still only a few days old, however, and scientists say it is too soon to be sure whether the level of disease severity reported reflects some property of Omicron itself, or is a result of factors such as the protection afforded by vaccination or prior infection, or age.

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How the rise of electric cars endangers the ‘last frontier’ of the Philippines

A mine that supplies nickel for the batteries that power electric vehicles is on the verge of a major expansion into a pristine rainforest.

The raw nickel dug out of the ground here ends up in the lithium batteries of plug-in vehicles manufactured by Tesla, Toyota and other automakers, according to an NBC News review of company filings and shipping records.

With the demand for nickel skyrocketing, the Rio Tuba mine is now on the brink of expanding deeper into the rainforest, adding almost 10 square miles to its current footprint. Local environmentalists fear that it will wipe out the forest’s fragile ecosystem and increase toxic runoff into the rivers that flow past the farmland down below, jeopardizing the crops.

The oil extracted from Yasuní and the wider Amazon is exported around the world, but 66 percent goes to the U.S. on average and the vast majority of that to one state in particular: California, according to a new report shared exclusively with NBC News.

The report by the environmental groups Stand.earth and Amazon Watch found that on average 1 in every 7 tanks of gas, diesel or jet fuel pumped in southern California last year came from the Amazon rainforest. Among the top 25 largest corporate consumers are companies such as Costco, PepsiCo and Amazon, according to the report.

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A second woman who says Ghislaine Maxwell “groomed” her for sex with Jeffrey Epstein testified Monday that for one of the encounters she was pressed to wear a “schoolgirl outfit” while she served him tea.

“I didn’t know how to say no,” the woman, identified in court as Kate, testified at Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial in New York City. “I had never been to Palm Beach or Florida before. I had no idea where the house was. And I wasn’t sure if I said no if I would have to leave or what the consequence would be for not doing it.”

Kate, who says she was 17 when Maxwell recruited her in Paris to give Epstein massages that soon turned into sexual encounters, testified on day six of Maxwell’s much-anticipated sex trafficking trial.

Maxwell, Kate said, dazzled her with glamour and told her Epstein could help her with her musical career. She said Maxwell boasted that she was friends with future President Donald Trump and Britain's Prince Andrew.

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The Future of War and Terrorism?

Americans have become accustomed to images of Hellfire missiles raining down from Predator and Reaper drones to hit terrorist targets in Pakistan or Yemen. But that was yesterday’s drone war.

A revolution in unmanned aerial vehicles is unfolding, and the U.S. has lost its monopoly on the technology.
IMAGE: An AeroVironment operator prepares to launch the Switchblade drone at Utah’s Dugway Proving Ground.

Some experts believe the spread of the semi-autonomous weapons will change ground warfare as profoundly as the machine gun did.

They can leapfrog traditional defenses to strike infantry troops anywhere on the battlefield, and they cost just $6,000 apiece, compared to $150,000 for the Hellfire missile typically fired by Predator or Reaper drones. That capability could help save the lives of U.S. troops, but it could also put them — and Americans at home — in great danger from terrorists or nation-states that haven’t previously had access to such lethal and affordable technology.

“I think this is going to be the new IED,” or improvised explosive device, said Shaan Shaikh, a missile expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s something that we can see that is going to be a problem, and we have some defenses, but not enough.”

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If Income Inequality Leads to Po9litical Instability the World Is F---ed

The share of wealth owned by the world's richest people soared during the Covid pandemic, a major study on inequality has found.

The World Inequality Report said that 2020 saw the steepest increase in billionaires' wealth on record.

Meanwhile, 100 million people sank into extreme poverty, the report from the Paris-based World Inequality Lab said.

The richest 10% of the population now takes 52% of global income and the poorest half just 8%, it said.

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A Saudi man suspected of involvement in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi has been arrested in France, reports say.

Khaled Aedh Alotaibi was arrested at Charles-de-Gaulle airport on Tuesday, French media report.

He is one of 26 Saudis wanted by Turkey over the journalist's killing.

The 33-year-old former Saudi royal guard was travelling under his own name and was placed in judicial detention, RTL radio said.

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Zoom Off to The Unemployment Office

The boss of a US firm has been criticised after he fired around 900 of his staff on a single Zoom call.

"If you're on this call you're part of the unlucky group being laid off," said Vishal Garg, chief executive of mortgage firm Better.com, on the call, later uploaded to social media.

Comments on social media said it was "cold", "harsh" and "a horrible move", especially in the run up to Christmas.

Mr Garg said staff performance and productivity, and market changes lay behind the mass-firing of what he said was 15% of Better.com's workforce.

He did not mention the $750m (£565m) cash infusion Better.com received from Softbank, the Japanese firm and key investor, last week.

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Almost 70 medics who attended a large Christmas party in southern Spain have since tested positive for Covid-19, authorities say.

Most of the 68 infected are doctors and nurses working in the intensive care unit at Málaga's regional hospital.

Health authorities said they were all at a party attended by about 170 people last Wednesday.

All guests returned negative antigen tests before the event but more than half are now isolating.

The infected staff were all fully vaccinated and are showing no symptoms, health authorities said.

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What Can Biden Do To Russia?

The bond market

In April, the US issued a ban on US financial institutions buying new issues of Russian government bonds, which had negligible effect. Washington could go much further and sanction the secondary market in Russian bonds, where they are resold and packaged with other investments.d

Nord Stream 2

The gas pipeline from Russia to northern Europe has been completed, but it has not been certified for use by the German energy regulator. Members of the new German government coalition have expressed scepticism about the project, and it is possible it would be cancelled altogether in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Sanctions on Russian corporations and banks

“The Biden administration could impose full-blocking sanctions on large Russian banks, energy companies, or defense firms … or impose sweeping prohibitions on investment and provision of services to conventional Russian oil projects,” Fishman said. Two possible financial targets are the huge VTB Bank, and Gazprombank.

Sanctions on oligarchs and their families

The US treasury has been hesitant to impose sanctions on Russian oligarchs, after measures taken against Oleg Deripaska had an impact on the activities of his aluminum company, Rusal, in Ireland, causing a major rift with Dublin. In the wake of an invasion, Congress is likely to add more Putin-friendly oligarchs to a blacklist to be appended to the defence budget. Family members of Putin’s circle could also be more extensively targeted.

Swift

The biggest stick in Biden’s arsenal is the threat to have Russia excluded from the global electronic payment system, Swift, based in Belgium. It was one of the most crippling measures used against Iran, and would make Russia a pariah in international finance. Åslund described the weapon as “the sledge hammer”, possibly to be used as a last resort.

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Delay, Obstruct, Stall

The former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows will now not cooperate with the House committee investigating the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, an attorney for the former Trump aide told Fox News on Tuesday.

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Some of Those Green Jobs the Democrats Keep Talking About

Toyota will invest $1.3 billion to build an electric vehicle battery “megasite” near Greensboro, North Carolina, a facility that is set to employ 1,750 workers when it opens in 2025, the automaker announced Monday.

Automakers, initially dependent upon overseas suppliers, are shifting their strategy, ramping up production of electric vehicles and localizing battery production. The shift means U.S. capacity could grow enough to power 10 million vehicles or more by 2030.

While the move reflects a measure of political pressure, manufacturers also want to sidestep the logistical nightmare they have faced this year with shortages of mostly foreign-made semiconductors.

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U.S. coronavirus cases approach 50 million. 60% of the Population is Fully Vaccinated (although only around 24% has been boosted.)

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China has told the United States it will "pay" for its diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics on human rights grounds.

The White House on Monday announced it would not send any government officials to the Games in February 2022, due to "ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses."

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This prompted a stern response from Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian, who told a press conference Tuesday: "The U.S. will pay for its wrongdoing. You can wait and see."

Zhao accused the U.S. of hypocrisy and called Western allegations of a cultural genocide of Uyghur Muslims a "fabricated" lie.

"The U.S. side attempts to disrupt the Beijing Winter Olympics," he said.
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