Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks at an event last summer with President Donald Trump. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
“The nationwide fight over coronavirus vaccine mandates gained intensity this week as top Republicans and their conservative allies escalated attacks on public health strategies aimed at curbing the pandemic, drawing corporate America into the center of a burgeoning cultural and political clash.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) sought to ban covid-related mandates in the country’s second-largest state, while Republicans seized on flight disruptions at Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, saying they were caused by employees protesting mandates. That assertion was disputed by company and union officials.
The anti-mandate cause is becoming increasingly central to pro-Trump Republicans, with figures such as Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis loudly promoting it, a development that complicates President Biden’s efforts to fight the pandemic.
The clash over mandates is playing out far beyond Texas. On Tuesday, a federal judge said New York state, which has imposed a mandate on health-care workers, must allow religious exemptions while the mandate works its way through the courts. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), an outspoken conservative, tweeted that ‘Ohio should ban all vaccine mandates.’
And the Brooklyn Nets basketball team told superstar guard Kyrie Irving on Tuesday that he must get vaccinated or he cannot play or practice with the team — prompting a tweet from Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s son, lauding Irving over what he had ‘sacrificed.’
This growing clamor over vaccine mandates — which public health experts say are the best way to end the nearly two-year pandemic, and which have proved effective in other countries — poses a direct challenge to Biden. After initial hesitancy, he has embraced vaccine requirements as he seeks to deliver on the central promise of his presidency to take the country past covid.” Read more at Washington Post
“Coronavirus cases are declining in the US. But the number of new infections in children remains "exceptionally high" -- with 148,222 cases reported in the week ending October 7, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. It said children represented nearly a quarter of weekly reported cases. Nationally, Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths have been dropping. In the past week, an average 87,676 people reported infections and 1,559 people died of the virus a day, data from Johns Hopkins University shows.The infection rate is still well above what's needed to get control of the pandemic, with Dr. Anthony Fauci saying it should be below 10,000 a day. And with winter sending more people indoors, experts worry cases could go back up again. Kids who are ineligible for vaccination face higher risks.” Read more at CNN
“WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. will reopen its land borders to nonessential travel next month, ending a 19-month freeze due to the COVID-19 pandemic as the country moves to require all international visitors to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Vehicle, rail and ferry travel between the U.S. and Canada and Mexico has been largely restricted to essential travel, such as trade, since the earliest days of the pandemic. The new rules, to be announced Wednesday, will allow fully vaccinated foreign nationals to enter the U.S. regardless of the reason for travel starting in early November, when a similar easing of restrictions is set to kick in for air travel into the country. By mid-January, even essential travelers seeking to enter the U.S., like truck drivers, will need to be fully vaccinated.
Senior administration officials previewed the new policy late Tuesday on the condition of anonymity to speak ahead of the formal announcement.” Read more at AP News
“DALLAS (AP) — When Southwest Airlines canceled more than 2,000 flights over the weekend, citing bad weather and air traffic control issues, unsupported claims blaming vaccine mandates began taking off.
Conservative politicians and pundits, including Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, alleged the flight disruptions resulted from pilots and air traffic controllers walking off their jobs or calling in sick to protest federal vaccination requirements.
The airline, its pilots’ union and the Federal Aviation Administration denied that.
‘The weekend challenges were not a result of Southwest employee demonstrations,’ Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz said Monday.
Still, Twitter posts claiming airline employees were ‘standing up to medical tyranny’ and participating in a ‘mass sickout’ amassed thousands of shares. Vague and anonymous messages on social media speculated that Southwest was hiding the real reason for its disruptions. And anti-vaccine rallying cries such as #DoNotComply, #NoVaccineMandate and #HoldTheLine were among the 10 most popular hashtags tweeted in connection to Southwest over the weekend, according to a report from media intelligence firm Zignal Labs.” Read more at AP News
“In documents released Tuesday, Moderna argued that the Food and Drug Administration should authorize a half-dose of its coronavirus vaccine as a booster shot for recipients at least six months after the second dose, citing evidence that the vaccine’s potency against infection wanes over time. The agency noted in its own analysis that, overall, available data show that Moderna and the other vaccines “still afford protection against severe COVID-19 disease and death in the United States.”
Moderna cited the rate of breakthrough infections, ‘real world evidence of reduced effectiveness against the delta variant,’ and falling levels of neutralizing antibodies from its vaccine six to eight months after a second dose. The company said its clinical trial studies showed that a third injection boosted antibody levels — one measure of the immune system’s response — higher than what they had been before the second dose.” Read more at Boston Globe
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Members of the House on Tuesday pushed through a short-term increase to the nation’s debt limit, ensuring the federal government can continue fully paying its bills into December and temporarily averting an unprecedented default that would have decimated the economy.
The $480 billion increase in the country’s borrowing ceiling cleared the Senate last week on a party-line vote. The House approved it swiftly so President Joe Biden can sign it into law this week. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had warned that steps to stave off a default on the country’s debts would be exhausted by Monday, and from that point, the department would soon be unable to fully meet the government’s financial obligations.
A default would have immense fallout on global financial markets built upon the bedrock safety of U.S. government debt. Routine government payments to Social Security beneficiaries, disabled veterans and active-duty military personnel would also be called into question.'
The relief provided by passage of the legislation will only be temporary though, forcing Congress to revisit the issue in December — a time when lawmakers will also be laboring to complete federal spending bills and avoid a damaging government shutdown. The yearend backlog raises risks for both parties and threatens a tumultuous close to Biden’s first year in office.” Read more at AP News
“Older people shouldn’t take aspirin to prevent a first heart attack or stroke, according to medical experts. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force found the risks of internal bleeding cancel out benefits for people 60 and older, according to a draft recommendation from the government-backed panel.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared inclined to revive an appeal of lower-court rulings that struck down a Kentucky antiabortion law as unconstitutional.
The legal question was procedural: Whether Kentucky’s Republican attorney general has the right to pursue additional litigation in defense of the statute, which outlaws most second-trimester abortions, following a loss before a federal circuit court that the Democratic governor’s administration declined to appeal further.
Most justices appeared to think the answer was yes.
It would be odd if appellate rules left nobody ‘there to defend Kentucky’s law, even though there are significant parts of Kentucky’s government that still want its law defended,’ Justice Elena Kagan said.
The Supreme Court’s term is rife with abortion cases. Last month, the justices cited procedural reasons to permit a Texas law prohibiting abortions after six weeks to take effect while legal challenges proceed. In a case set for Dec. 1, Mississippi is asking the court to end federal abortion rights by overruling the 1973 case that recognized them, Roe v. Wade.
There was no discussion of abortion itself at Tuesday’s argument, suggesting that the case centered on the peculiarities of Kentucky politics more than the future of reproductive rights.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Computer chip shortages. Epic port congestion. And a serious lack of truck drivers. The world's delicate supply chains are under extreme stress, and it's jacking up prices for consumers and slowing the global economic recovery. Experts warn the supply chain disruptions will get worse before they get better. ‘As the global economic recovery continues to gather steam, what is increasingly apparent is how it will be stymied by supply-chain disruptions that are now showing up at every corner,’ Moody's wrote in a report this week. ‘Border controls and mobility restrictions, unavailability of a global vaccine pass, and pent-up demand from being stuck at home have combined for a perfect storm where global production will be hampered because deliveries are not made in time, costs and prices will rise and GDP growth worldwide will not be as robust as a result.’ The report warned the ‘weakest link’ may be the shortage of truck drivers, an issue that has led to congestion at ports and caused gas stations in the United Kingdom to run dry.” Read more at CNN
“The Biden administration worked with private companies, port officials and unions to get the Port of L.A. running 24/7 to reduce the backlog of cargo ships floating in the Pacific, Axios' Hans Nichols reports.
Why it matters: The IMF yesterday cut its global growth forecast, citing supply-chain kinks. Shipping logjams are disrupting everything from retail to remodeling to rental cars.
President Biden will meet today with leaders from the ports of L.A. and Long Beach, and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, to discuss how to fix backlogs in Southern California.
Walmart, UPS, FedEx, Samsung, The Home Depot and Target will all be part of the effort, administration officials say.” Read more at Axios
“For the first time, the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday authorized an electronic cigarette to be sold in the United States, a significant turn in one of the most contentious public health debates in decades.
In greenlighting a device and tobacco-flavored cartridges marketed by R.J. Reynolds under the brand name Vuse, the agency signaled that it believed that the help certain vaping devices offer smokers to quit traditional cigarettes is more significant than the risks of ensnaring a new generation.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Humans have been trying to kick their tobacco habit for longer than previously assumed following the discovery of the plant’s charred seeds during an archeological dig at an ancient camp in the Utah desert. The 12,300-year-old discovery eclipses what was once thought as the earliest use of tobacco—a smoking pipe found in Alabama—by 9,000 years.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“VAN HORN, Texas (AP) — Actor William Shatner counted down Wednesday to his wildest role yet: riding a rocket into space, courtesy of ‘Star Trek’ fan Jeff Bezos.
Best known for his role as Captain Kirk, the 90-year-old Shatner joined three other passengers for the planned launch from West Texas.
Bezos’ space travel company, Blue Origin, invited Shatner on the brief jaunt to the fringes of the final frontier, which will make him the oldest person in space.
It will be Blue Origin’s second passenger flight, using the same capsule and rocket that Bezos used for his own launch three months ago. The trip should last just 10 minutes, with the fully automated capsule reacing a maximum altitude of about 66 miles (106 kilometers) before parachuting back into the desert.
Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson kicked off the U.S.-based space tourism boom on July 11, riding his own rocketship to space. Bezos followed nine days later aboard his own capsule. Elon Musk stayed behind as his SpaceX company launched its first private flight last month, sending a billionaire, cancer survivor and two ticket winners into orbit.” Read more at AP News
“RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for Virginia governor, on Tuesday called on leaders in Washington from both parties — including President Joe Biden — to ‘get their act together,’ while pushing Senate Democrats to scrap the filibuster if needed to enact the party’s priorities on infrastructure spending and voting rights.
The harsh words from McAuliffe during an interview with The Associated Press come just three weeks before Election Day in Virginia. The former governor is facing Republican newcomer Glenn Youngkin in a race that represents a critical early test of the Democrats’ political strength in the first year of Biden’s presidency.
Polls suggest the race is close, adding to McAuliffe’s sense of urgency to campaign on a robust list of his party’s accomplishments. The McAuliffe campaign confirmed Tuesday that Biden and former President Barack Obama would rally voters in the state later in the month at separate events.” Read more at AP News
“There's now a clearer picture of what happened to Gabby Petito after a coroner ruled that she died by strangulation. But many questions remain. The coroner in Wyoming had previously ruled her death a homicide but declined to provide details about the autopsy or a potential suspect, saying he was limited in what information he could legally release. Who killed Petito, when she was killed and what happened leading up to her death remain a mystery. There were more than 90,000 active missing person cases in the US at the end of last year, but few have received as much national attention as Petito's. She was reported missing on September 11 and her remains found over a week later in Bridger-Teton National Forest. Authorities are still searching for her fiancé, Brian Laundrie, who returned to Florida without her after their trip across the western US.” Read more at CNN
“During an emergency summit, the G20 promises humanitarian aid for Afghanistan but draws a line at acknowledging the Taliban government.” [Vox] Read more at Guardian / Patrick Wintour
“A nonprofit shows what 180 locations across the globe will look like if sea level rise continues unchecked.” [Vox] Read more at Guardian / Aliya Uteuova
“When Philippine journalist Maria Ressa won the Nobel Peace Prize this year alongside Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, it was only the 59th time a Nobel Prize had gone to a woman, out of nearly 1,000 Nobel laureates in the history of the awards.
Since its inception in 1901, the Nobel Prize has honored intellectual achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace — and winners have been largely white, male, and American. (One outlier was scientist Marie Curie, an early recipient who was honored twice.)
Despite calls to redress historical gender and race gaps, the head of the academy that awards the science prizes said issuing quotas has been ruled out….
But critics say the selection process fails to take into account how systemic sexism and racism have historically favored white men and prevented many women and people of color from rising to the top of their fields.
Hansson acknowledged that the process has not always been fair.
‘It's sad that there are so few women Nobel laureates, and it reflects the unfair conditions in society, particularly in years past, but still existing,’ he said. ‘And there's so much more to do.’
A quota to redress the imbalance, however, would not be ‘in line with the spirit of Alfred Nobel’s last will,’ he said.
Nobel, a Swedish industrialist and chemist, laid out the founding rules for the prizes in his will, written a year before his death in 1896. He specifically stated that the committee should not consider a nominee’s nationality when awarding the prize.
In the years since, the prize has become synonymous with the pinnacle of professional achievement. But the achievements of many women and people of color have not been part of this history.
The gender gap has been particularly stark in the sciences. Only four of the more than 200 winners in the history of the physics prize have been women.
Last year, scientists Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna were the first two women to ever win the Nobel Prize in chemistry without a male collaborator, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
Recipients also remain overwhelmingly white. Just over a dozen Nobel Prize winners have been Black, and no Black person, male or female, has won in a science category, according to Smithsonian.
Hansson said he and his colleagues have tried to close these gaps by encouraging more diversity in the nomination process.
‘We made sure that we know about the problem and also about subconscious bias, etc., in the [prize-awarding] committees and academies,’ he said. ‘We've had lectures by sociologists, we've had group discussions, we have put quite a lot of effort into it.’
Part of the problem, he said, is that ‘only about 10 percent of the professors in natural sciences in Western Europe or North America are women, and even lower if you go to East Asia.’” Read more at Boston Globe
“SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — ‘Squid Game,’ a brutal Netflix survival drama about desperate adults competing in deadly children’s games for a chance to escape severe debt, hit a little too close to home for Lee Chang-keun.
The show has captivated global audiences since its September debut on its way to becoming Netflix’s biggest hit ever. It has struck raw nerves at home, where there’s growing discontent over soaring personal debt, decaying job markets and stark income inequalities worsened by financial crises in the past two decades.
In the dystopian horrors of ‘Squid Game,’ Lee sees a reflection of himself in the show’s protagonist Seong Gi-hun, a laid-off autoworker coping with a broken family and struggling with constant business failures and gambling problems.
Seong gets beaten by gangster creditors into signing off his organs as collateral, but then receives a mysterious offer to play in a series of six traditional Korean children’s games for a shot at winning $38 million.
The South Korea-produced show pits Seong against hundreds of other financially distressed players in a hyper-violent competition for the ultimate prize, with losers being killed at every round.
It is raising disturbing questions about the future of one of Asia’s wealthiest economies, where people who once crowed about the ‘Miracle of the Han River’ now moan about ‘Hell Joseon,’ a sarcastic reference to a hierarchical kingdom that ruled Korea before the 20th century.” Read more at AP News
“ROME — A European court agreed Tuesday that the Vatican couldn’t be sued in a local court for sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests, affirming that it enjoys sovereign immunity and that the misconduct of priests and their superiors can’t be attributed to the Holy See.
The European Court of Human Rights dismissed a case brought by two dozen people who said they were victims of abusive priests in Belgium. The 24 had argued the Holy See was liable because of the “structurally deficient” way the Catholic hierarchy had handled cases of priests who raped and molested children, covering up the crimes rather than reporting them.” Read more at Boston Globe
“The Taliban have allowed some girls to resume studies in parts of Afghanistan. Even in areas where schools have reopened, however, not all female students have returned to class, fearing harassment and retaliation from the Taliban. Elementary schools have reopened for all, with boys and girls being taught separately.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“LONDON — Britain set itself on course for a new confrontation with the European Union on Tuesday by demanding the replacement of one of the most complex and vexing components of Brexit: the status of Northern Ireland.
In a speech to diplomats in Lisbon, Portugal, David Frost, the Conservative government’s Brexit minister, asked for an overhaul of an agreement on post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom but shares a politically sensitive land border with Ireland, an EU country.
The move is a serious escalation in a simmering dispute over how Northern Ireland fits into the British withdrawal from the EU. Frost’s proposed new text for the trade rules, called the Northern Ireland protocol, discards some elements that Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed to less than two years ago and contains ideas the EU has already rejected.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Standing against a backdrop of missiles, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said weapons are needed to defend the country against a ‘hostile’ United States, state media reported. ‘The US has been frequently sending signals that they are not hostile towards our country, but there is no single evidence that they are not hostile,’ Kim said, accusing the US of causing instability in the Korean Peninsula. Photos of the exhibition, released by state media KCNA, appeared to show what analysts believe is the Hwasong-16 -- one of the world's largest ballistic missiles. Also pictured is a hypersonic glide vehicle, which allows missiles to theoretically fly as fast as 20 times the speed of sound and can be very maneuverable in flight -- making them almost impossible to shoot down, experts said. Kim described the missiles as ‘our precious (weapons)’ and said every country should maintain strong military power, even in peaceful times.” Read more at CNN
“Lives Lived: Ruthie Tompson was among a cadre of indispensable but anonymous women at Disney. She worked on animated features including ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,’ released in 1937 and ‘The Rescuers,’ released in 1977. She died at 111.” Read more at New York Times