With Omicron, everything is sped up. The new variant is spreading fast and far. At a time when Delta was already sprinting around the country, Omicron not only caught up but overtook it, jumping from an estimated 13 to 73 percent of U.S. cases in a single week. We have less time to make decisions and less room to course-correct when they are wrong. Whereas we had months to prepare for Delta in the U.S., we’ve had only weeks for Omicron.
Clinical trials showed that Merck’s pill reduced the risk of hospitalization and death from the virus by 30 percent.
The Pentagon has announced new rules to slow the spread of extremism in the military, one of which will discipline soldiers for liking or resharing white nationalist and other extremist content on social media. The Pentagon announcement comes just two weeks before the first anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, where more than 80 of the 700 individuals charged with the attack had ties to the U.S. military.
In a major victory for labor rights, 1,400 unionized Kellogg’s workers have ended their nearly three-month strike across four states after approving a new contract that provides a wage increase and enhanced benefits for all. The prior agreement that Kellogg’s tried to bargain only offered wage increases and improved benefits to longtime workers, whereas the new agreement ensures newer workers have a guaranteed option to receive the same improvements.
A new report titled “How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On COVID” reveals how a right-wing network linked to billionaire Charles Koch has played a key role in fighting public health measures during the pandemic, including mask and vaccine mandates, contact tracing and lockdowns. The groups include the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), Donors Trust, the Hoover Institution and Hillsdale College.
Oxfam America has accused Moderna of misleading its investors about an ongoing dispute over whether it needs to share vaccine patent rights with the U.S. government. Oxfam filed a shareholders complaint against Moderna with the Securities and Exchange Commission over the company’s resistance to recognizing the role played by three scientists with the National Institutes of Health in developing the vaccine.
As Omicron strikes, families lack a full picture of how well homes for elderly veterans have adapted to Covid risks.
The initiatives come as Omicron blankets the U.S. and amount to a redeployment of emergency defenses seen last year.
Nearly the entire increase came from the burst of federal spending as the government mobilized to contain the spread of the virus.
The Fed plans to cease its bond buys entirely by March, rather than its earlier target of June to give itself room to begin raising interest rates as early as the second quarter of next year.
Costs for key goods and services soared 0.8 percent for the month and 6.8 percent for the year, the highest since 1982, the Labor Department reported Friday.
The middle class is facing serious economic hardship with little of the workplace flexibility now afforded to the well-off. Here’s how employers — and government — can help.
Powell’s comment came after the Fed already announced earlier this month that it would slow the pace at which it buys U.S. government debt and mortgage-backed securities.
The United States Navy is facing growing calls to permanently shut down one of their fuel storage facilities in Hawaii after a petroleum leak contaminated the water supply that serves over 90,000 families around the naval base of Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu.
In the news today: Quite a bit of good, for a change! The U.S. economy continues to boom, and the supply chain surge that saw major U.S. ports clogged with more imports than they could handle is waning after prompt federal and state action. A new pill believed to be effective in reducing COVID-19 symptoms has been approved for emergency sale—hopefully in time to help mitigate what’s expected to be a very large surge of omicron-infected patients.
There are a lot of people who think Attorney General Merrick Garland is a 98-pound weakling. In their eyes, the lack of any action against Donald Trump and others who incited the Jan. 6 insurrection suggests that Garland isn’t willing to bring justice to those responsible for that day’s horror.
A quick read of recent events shows Garland is anything but a weakling.
I’m having a real hard time understanding how a civil war between liberals and conservatives would actually play out in this country. Would we have to wear uniforms to mark ourselves as part of the vast progressive horde, or would the conspicuous lack of misspelled MAGA neck tattoos be sufficient?
Our nation is terribly divided these days, but I don’t really fear a second civil war for the mere fact that it would be far too confusing.
Though there are a handful of billionaires whose names we know from their frequent media coverage, there are plenty of ultra-wealthy folks who mostly live under the radar. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have an impact—for better or for worse. One example is Jeff T.
The high court announced late Wednesday that it would hear arguments in the cases on Jan. 7.
The couple cited “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for the split.
A small town in Texas is seeing firsthand what happens when a couple of their own decide to dress up in Ku Klux Klan outfits for Halloween and tase one of their classmates.
The incident made headlines in November when two teen boys from Woodsboro, Texas—Rance Bolcik, 17, who is white, and Noel Garcia Jr.,17, who is Latino—dressed in Klan outfits and targeted one of their football teammates, who is Black.
K-pop is made to be listened to. But it’s also made to be watched. When a group releases a song, it’s just one part of a package that typically includes a visually arresting music video and several live performances of complex dance choreography paired with inventive outfits and hairstyles. The best-looking members of groups are literally known as “visuals” in the industry.
The mayor said the White House should invoke the Defense Production Act.
The Senate minority leader made his move public after the West Virginia Democrat’s split with the White House over the Build Back Better package.
It’s the second time this week the committee publicly sought to interview a sitting member of Congress.
Danny Rodriguez was identified in a HuffPost story as the Capitol rioter who drove a stun gun into Officer Mike Fanone’s neck on Jan. 6.
South Carolina congressman Tom Rice said that “in retrospect I should have voted to certify, because President Trump was responsible for the attack on the Capitol.
Updated at 7:30 p.m. ET on December 22, 2021Sign up for Conor’s newsletter here.This week there’s new information in a long-running debate.For more than a decade I’ve opposed U.S. drone-war policies. Calling drone strikes “surgical” was Orwellian propaganda, I argued. I later urged a drone-strike moratorium due to repeated massacres of innocents, among other reasons.
The pill, called Paxlovid, will provide the U.S. with another tool to help fight the virus as the more infectious Omicron variant surges.
Much of 2021 has been filled with a dull sense of déjà vu as the coronavirus pandemic has continued to shrink social worlds and batter morale. Many of the books our writers and editors were drawn to investigated failure, grief, apocalypse—resonant themes at a time of constant rupture and regression. Others helped jolt readers out of routines, and stretched the imagination.