“More than 50 people are feared dead after a catastrophic outbreak of tornadoes that ripped through Kentucky and other states late Friday and early Saturday, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said.” Read more at NBC News
“WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Friday said that clinics challenging a Texas ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy could continue that fight in lower federal courts but once again permitted the law to remain in place for now.
The move, which sends the underlying controversy back to a lower court, came more than a month after the justices heard arguments in a pair of challenges to the law, including one from the Biden administration and another from abortion clinics who said the measure effectively outlawed abortion in Texas.
Writing for the court, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch said that eight justices agreed that the clinics' lawsuit could continue against one set of defendants: State officials who license the clinics and who would have to determine if those facilities violated the law.
After months of frenzy around the Texas law, the decision Friday was unlikely to fully satisfy either side. Instead, the legal battle over the law will continue.” Read more at USA Today
“HOUSTON — A state district court judge in Texas ruled Thursday that the unique enforcement scheme of a restrictive abortion law violated the state constitution by allowing any private citizen to sue abortion providers or others accused of breaking the law.
In a 48-page opinion, Judge David Peeples found that the approach, which had been seen by anti-abortion groups as its greatest strength, unconstitutionally granted standing to those who were not injured, denied due process, and represented an ‘unlawful delegation of enforcement power to a private person.’
The decision came in response to a number of lawsuits brought in Texas state court by abortion providers and others against Texas Right to Life, an anti-abortion group that had lobbied for the law. The group immediately filed a notice of appeal Thursday.” Read more at Boston Globe
“U.S. inflation reached a nearly four-decade high in November. Strong consumer demand has collided with pandemic-related supply constraints, leading consumer prices to rise 0.8% in November and 6.8% from a year ago. It was the sixth straight month in which inflation topped 5%.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“WASHINGTON — The pharmaceutical industry relies on drug-pricing practices that are ‘unsustainable, unjustified and unfair,’ according to findings from a nearly three-year investigation by the House Oversight Committee.
The findings, released Friday, show that companies studied by the committee raised prices of common brand-name drugs during the past five years by nearly four times the rate of inflation. The report seeks to debunk industry contentions that companies’ price strategy is needed to plow money back into researching and developing new medicines, finding that revenue is substantially greater than those investments.
The 269-page report is the work of the committee’s Democratic majority. The panel’s chairwoman, Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said in a preamble that the report grows out of a review of 1.5 million pages of internal company documents and five congressional hearings, yielding what she called a ‘rare glimpse into the decision-making of many of the world’s most profitable drug companies.’
In a counterpunch, the Oversight committee’s Republicans issued their own drug-industry report, based on a less exhaustive look at companies known as pharmacy benefit managers, which act as go-betweens to manage drug benefits on behalf of private insurers, Medicare drug plans, and other payers. The pharmaceutical industry and other critics have contended for years that PBMs, as they are known, are a major reason for the growth of drug spending because they receive undisclosed payments — called rebates — based on a medicine’s list price, so the higher the price the greater the payment.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Covid-19 vs. the world
“Covid-19 is still wreaking havoc throughout the world as the pandemic enters its third year. Despite that, global vaccinations are still lagging.” [Vox] [CNN / Rob Picheta]
“South Korea recorded its third straight day of more than 7,000 Covid-19 cases Friday, prompting Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum to warn that the nation will ‘have no other choice but to employ extraordinary anti-virus measures,’ like ‘strong social distancing,’ should the case count not subside soon. Though the government said it will try to avoid a lockdown, restrictions on business hours and social gatherings may be implemented, according to Deputy Health Minister Lee Ki-il.” [Vox] [AP / Kim Tong-Hyung]
“In Switzerland, officials warn of a limited lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus, which has infected about a tenth of the population of the country and its neighbor Lichtenstein. Officials have discussed limiting gatherings; closing indoor areas of bars, restaurants, and gyms; requiring negative tests — even for vaccinated people — to access certain events and venues; and expanding proof of vaccination requirements.” [Vox] [Reuters]
“Despite surging cases, even in highly vaccinated countries, Covax — the UN’s vaccine-sharing program charged with delivering doses to low-income countries — won’t deliver even half the doses of the Covid-19 vaccines promised for 2021. Initially, the program was supposed to deliver 2.3 billion doses; it will struggle to deliver even 800 million.” [Vox] [Washington Post / Adam Taylor]
“From the Great Resignation to Lying Flat, Workers Are Opting Out
Around the world, millions of people are quitting their jobs after decades of stagnating incomes and eroding job security. Take a look at our deep diveinto the Great Resignation, in which people around the world rethink how they work and live.” Read more at Bloomberg“Merkel Has Earned Her Place in History for Better and for Worse
After 16 years Merkel exited the stage just shy of the record for Germany’s longest-serving chancellor since World War II. While during that time she became known as the nation’s ‘Mutti’ (German for mom), she leaves behind a more complicated legacy.” Read more at Bloomberg“Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday defended congratulating President Biden on his win in the 2020 presidential election, saying doing so ‘was important’ given the prominence of the U.S.-Israel alliance, Axios reported.
‘I highly appreciate President Trump’s big contribution to Israel and its security. I also appreciate the importance of the strong alliance between Israel and the U.S. and therefore it was important for me to congratulate the incoming President,’ Netanyahu said in a statement on Friday, according to the news outlet.
Netanyahu’s comments come after Axios reported that Trump was upset with Netanyahu, now his country's opposition leader, after he made a video message congratulating Biden.” Read more at The Hill
“Biden Assures Zelenskiy of U.S. Support in Russia Standoff
Biden underscored U.S. support for Ukraine in its standoff with Russia during a call with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Justin Sink and Daryna Krasnolutska explain what’s at stake.” Read more at Bloomberg“MOSCOW — The two journalists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Maria Ressa and Dmitri A. Muratov, used their acceptance speeches Friday to express alarm about the threats to democracies and call for greater accountability for social media companies that Ressa said are dividing and radicalizing societies.
The speeches by the two journalists contained dire warnings that the world is headed toward more violence and misery without a renewed commitment to democracy and the values connected to it: truth, peace, and human rights.
Ressa, 58, the first Nobel laureate from the Philippines, is the chief executive of Rappler, a digital news organization that is known for its investigations into President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal five-year war on drugs. In her speech, she said social media companies still operated with impunity.
‘Silicon Valley’s sins came home to roost in the United States on Jan. 6 with mob violence on Capitol Hill,’ she said.
‘These American companies controlling our global information ecosystem are biased against facts, biased against journalists,’ she said. ‘They are — by design — dividing us and radicalizing us.’
Muratov, 60, has been the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s most fearless national newspaper, for more than 25 years.
He made an impassioned plea against an escalation of violence, condemning the ‘militaristic rhetoric’ prevalent in Russian state controlled media.
His remarks — coming as Russia has massed nearly 100,000 troops across Ukraine’s borders, raising concerns of an invasion — were meant to serve as an urgent warning.
‘The powerful actively promote the idea of war,’ he said. ‘Aggressive marketing of war affects people and they start thinking that war is acceptable.’
At the same time, he said, the ideas of liberal democracy are under threat.
‘The world has fallen out of love with democracy,’ Muratov lamented in his speech. ‘The world has become disappointed with the elites in power. The world has begun to turn to dictatorship.’
Ressa has long been an outspoken critic of the authoritarian leader in her homeland, Duterte, whose government has filed seven criminal charges against her, including for cyber libel and tax evasion. She also has been critical of social networks for spreading disinformation and hatred.
‘Our greatest need today is to transform that hate and violence, the toxic sludge that’s coursing through our information ecosystem, prioritized by American internet companies that make more money by spreading that hate and triggering the worst in us,’ Ressa said in her speech.
Since it started in January 2012, Rappler has become one of the Philippines’ most popular and influential media platforms, mixing reporting with calls for social activism. Rappler’s reporters, most of whom are in their 20s, have investigated Duterte’s extrajudicial campaign to kill people suspected of dealing or using drugs, documented the spread of government disinformation on Facebook, and reported on malfeasance among his top advisers.
Muratov has dedicated the prize to his slain colleagues at Novaya Gazeta. Six of the paper’s journalists or contributors died under his watch, including Anna Politkovskaya, whose 2006 murder in the elevator of her apartment block has never been solved. When the award was announced, he also said that opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who was poisoned last year and has been in jail since January, deserved to have received it.
Muratov is the third Russian to win the Nobel Peace Prize, after the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the physicist and dissident Andrei D. Sakharov, who won in 1975 for his human rights advocacy.” Read more at Boston Globe
“China Moves to Redefine Democracy to Justify Authoritarian Rule
As Biden hosted the democratic summit, Beijing went into overdrive seeking to convince the world that the Communist Party operates a superior democracy. While the propaganda was ridiculed, for China it’s part of a bigger goal.” Read more at Bloomberg“Dubai has become a pandemic boomtown.
This year, thousands of millionaires have relocated to the city and the wider United Arab Emirates, drawn by zero income tax and relatively relaxed pandemic policies. With a vaccination rate of 90%—one of the highest in the world—and broad compliance with mask mandates indoors and in some crowded outdoor settings, authorities have seen little need for additional public-health curbs. As a result, the city’s bars, restaurants and hotels are packed, real-estate prices have surged, workers are returning to offices and the Expo 2020 world fair is reeling in foreign tourists. On Tuesday, the U.A.E. government said it was switching its workweek to Monday through Friday, instead of the Middle East’s standard Sunday through Thursday, the latest change designed to attract more foreign businesses and expats. Daily Covid-19 cases have been below 100 for weeks in the U.A.E. after reaching peaks of nearly 4,000 during January, the worst stretch of the pandemic there.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Why War With Taiwan Would Be a Huge Gamble for China’s Xi
For all the talk of Chinese President Xi’s desire to invade Taiwan, one counterpoint is often overlooked. As Iain Marlow reports, many Chinese worry that a war could erase four decades of peace and prosperity.” Read more at Bloomberg“Chile’s Polarized Presidential Election Promises a Shake-Up
One is a strict Roman Catholic father of nine, a free-market absolutist who praises the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The other is a tattooed, unmarried leftist out to battle inequality. As Matthew Malinowski and Ethan Bronner write, a victory by either on Dec. 19 will shake Chilean politics.” Read more at Bloomberg“THE HAGUE — A human rights group has called on the International Criminal Court to open an investigation into the crackdown on dissent by Myanmar’s military rulers, alleging that the leader of the February coup in the Southeast Asian nation is responsible for widespread and systematic torture.
The Myanmar Accountability Project said in a statement on Friday that there was sufficient evidence to open an investigation into the head of the country’s military-installed government, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.” Read more at Boston Globe
“The football world came together to show love and support following the death of former NFL wide receiver Demaryius Thomas, who was found dead in his Georgia home on Thursday night.
Former teammates and peers shared stories and personal admiration for Thomas, who played with the Denver Broncos, Houston Texans and New York Jets in his 10-season career. A first-round pick in 2010, Thomas won Super Bowl 50 with the Broncos and made the Pro Bowl five times.” Read more at USA Today
“Have a look at our best political photos of 2021, as Alan Crawford takes us through a year that started out with the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and only got more dramatic from there.” Read more at Bloomberg
The U.S. Capitol was placed under lockdown on Jan. 6 as hundreds of protesters stormed the building where lawmakers were debating Biden’s victory.
Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg
“Earlier this year, as Twitter raced to roll out Spaces, its new live audio chat feature, some employees asked how the company planned to make sure the service didn’t become a platform for hate speech, bullying and calls to violence.
In fact, there was no plan. In a presentation to colleagues shortly before its public launch in May, a top Twitter executive, Kayvon Beykpour, acknowledged that people were likely to break Twitter’s rules in the audio chats, according to an attendee who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal matters. But he and other Twitter executives — convinced that Spaces would help revive the sluggish company — refused to slow down.
Fast forward six months and those problems have become reality. Taliban supporters, white nationalists, and anti-vaccine activists sowing coronavirus misinformation have hosted live audio broadcasts on Spaces that hundreds of people have tuned in to, according to researchers, users and screenshots viewed by The Washington Post. Other Spaces conversations have disparaged transgender people and Black Americans. These chats are neither policed nor moderated by Twitter, the company acknowledges, because it does not have human moderators or technology that can scan audio in real-time.” Read more at Washington Post
“When Charnetta Barnes first heard the concept, she thought it seemed too good to believe.
The 32-year-old mother of four was in the midst of moving from one part of the District to another when a friend mentioned a Facebook group where people were giving away everything from plants to pianos. A post might ask to borrow a ladder or offer leftovers from a holiday dinner.
She signed up for the Buy Nothing group in her neighborhood, Petworth, and soon found the couch, bedroom furniture and kitchen supplies she couldn’t afford, but really couldn’t do without. And she went back — ‘basically, every time I needed something’ — embracing an ethos that’s both novel and old-world: humans sharing what they have, getting what they need and letting go of what they don’t.
At a time when many Americans are scrambling to snap up the perfect toy or gadget on their holiday shopping lists, Barnes is part of a growing movement built on a simple premise: Buy nothing.
What started in 2013 as a hyperlocal network of “circular gift economies” in Bainbridge Island, Wash., has ballooned into a constellation of Buy Nothing groups with 4.3 million members in 44 countries. Members can request or offer any item or service as long as it’s legal; however buying, selling and bartering are prohibited. The groups are well-represented on social media, particularly Facebook, Reddit and Nextdoor. The Buy Nothing app, launched on Black Friday, has been downloaded more than 125,000 times.
For devotees, Buy Nothing is less a statement about consumerism than an antidote to some of the social ills and financial pressures of the moment. It’s a way to spend less at a time when inflation is near a 40-year high. It’s a means of reducing waste in one of the world’s most wasteful countries. And it’s a form of connection during a pandemic that has left many wrestling with isolation.” Read more at Washington Post
“Michael Nesmith, guitarist of the '60s pop group The Monkees, has died at the age of 78.
The famed singer-songwriter, who composed some of the band's catalogue, including tracks such as ‘Papa Gene's Blues,’ ‘You Told Me’ and ‘You Just May Be the One,’ died of natural causes Friday morning, according to statement released by his family.” Read more at USA Today
“A man attacked by a pack of otters in a Singapore park has said that he thought he was going to die during the ordeal.
Graham George Spencer, a British citizen living in Singapore, said he was chased, pinned down and bitten ‘26 times in 10 seconds’ by a family of otters while out for an early morning walk in the botanic gardens.
Spencer told The Straits Times he was approaching the gardens’ entrance on 30 November when he spotted about 20 otters crossing a path in front of him.
The animals were moving quietly but ‘went crazy’ after another man ran towards them, Spencer told the paper. The runner was able to avoid the animals but Spencer was not as lucky.
He said they lunged at him, biting his ankles, legs and buttocks and causing him to fall over.
‘I actually thought I was going to die – they were going to kill me,’ he added….
The island is believed to be home to 10 families of otters, or about 90 in total. Driven away by pollution in the 1970s, they have returned as the country’s waterways have been cleaned up in recent years. The Washington Post reports the animals are common sights in hospital lobbies and condominium pools, and have even been seen drinking from public fountains.
Although river otters appears benign, the animals have been known to attack people in the past. In May, a 77-year-old man reportedly was bitten on the legby an otter while exercising near Kallang River in Singapore.
Residents of Anchorage, Alaska, were confronted by a pack of aggressive otters in September. A spate of reported incidents saw the group attack dogs, children and adults near creeks, rivers and lakes in the area.” Read more at The Guardian
