Anne Bradbury, chief executive officer of the American Exploration and Production Council said in a statement that oil and gas extracted from federal lands accounts for 20 percent of domestic energy production, arguing the administration should support it.
“Arbitrary leasing or permitting restrictions only serve to cause uncertainty for American businesses and strained budgets for state and federal governments as well as local communities,” she said.
Meanwhile, environmentalists said they were concerned that the Biden administration was backtracking on a central climate pledge.
“We expected the agency to do a programmatic review of the entire fossil fuel leasing program that takes into account not only the environmental harms of drilling at the local and landscape level, but also the impact on the global climate crisis that we’re in,” said Brett Hartl, director of government affairs for the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit group.
As a candidate, Mr. Biden promised to stop issuing new leases for drilling on public lands. “And by the way, no more drilling on federal lands, period. Period, period, period,” Mr. Biden told voters in New Hampshire in February 2020.
This month, he appeared at a global climate summit meeting in Glasgow to urge other world leaders to take bold action to cut emissions from oil, gas and coal. Mr. Biden has pledged to cut United States greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by the end of this decade. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is a former environmental activist and former member of Congress who had a campaign website that included this quote from her: “We need to act fast to counteract climate change and keep fossil fuels in the ground.”
But last week, the Biden administration offered up to 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for drilling leases — the largest sale since 2017. The administration was legally obligated to hold the lease sales after Republican attorneys general from 13 states successfully overturned a suspension on sales that Mr. Biden had tried to impose. Shell, BP, Chevron and Exxon Mobil offered $192 million for the rights to drill in the area offered by the government.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/26/climate/climate-change-drilling-public-lands.html
Updated 11:01 AM ET, Fri November 26, 2021
(CNN)The Milwaukee County district attorney whose office sought low bail leading to the release of the man accused of running over holiday paradegoers in a nearby suburb has been a longtime champion of efforts to reduce mass incarceration by using the discretion afforded prosecutors.
Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/26/us/waukesha-car-parade-prosecutor-bail-reform/index.html
A restored road connecting two ancient Egyptian temple complexes in Karnak and Luxor has been unveiled in a lavish ceremony aimed at raising the profile of one of Egypt’s top tourist spots.
The procession on Thursday to reopen the 1.7-mile (2.7km) road included a reenactment of the ancient Opet festival, in which statues of Theban deities were paraded annually during the New Kingdom era in celebration of fertility and the flooding of the Nile.
The Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, marched along the road at the start of the ceremony. Pharaonic chariots and more than 400 young performers dressed in pharaonic costumes paraded along the avenue.
The 3,400-year-old road linking the ancient centres of Karnak and Luxor, also known as Road of the Rams or Avenue of the Sphinxes, is lined with hundreds of ram- and human-headed sphinxes, though over the years many have been eroded or destroyed.
The road has undergone several restoration efforts since being discovered in 1949, and the latest began in 2017.
Tourism is a crucial source of jobs and hard currency for Egypt, which has made a concerted effort to lure back the travellers kept away by the coronavirus pandemic.
In April, 22 ancient royal mummies from Luxor and the nearby Valley of the Kings were paraded from Cairo’s Egyptian Museum to the new National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation.
Egypt’s tourism revenues plunged to about $4bn (£3bn) in 2020, down from $13bn in 2019.
Source Article from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/26/egypt-restores-ancient-road-linking-temples-of-luxor-and-karnak
Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/26/us/brian-laundrie-missing-gun/index.html
NANTUCKET, Mass. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday wished Americans a happy and closer-to-normal Thanksgiving, the second celebrated in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, in remarks welcoming the resumption of holiday traditions by millions of U.S. families — including his own.
“As we give thanks for what we have, we also keep in our hearts those who have been lost and those who have lost so much,” the president said in a videotaped greeting recorded with first lady Jill Biden at the White House before their trip to Nantucket, Massachusetts, for the holiday.
On the island, the Bidens visited the Coast Guard station at Brant Point to meet with personnel there and virtually with U.S. service members from around the world. “I’m not joking when I say I’m thankful for these guys,” the president said when asked what he was thankful for, referring to the Coast Guard members standing ramrod straight before him on the grounds as he departed.
Reporters were kept out of the room for Biden’s virtual remarks, apparently because of tight space in the building. Well-wishers waved and cheered as Biden’s motorcade navigated the island’s narrow paved and cobblestone streets to and from the Coast Guard compound.
Biden, whose late son Beau was a major in the Delaware Army National Guard, said he has watched U.S. service members in action around the world, from the South China Sea and Iraq and Afghanistan to South America. He said when foreigners wonder what America is, “they don’t see us here,” meaning civilians. “They see them,” he said of members of the Coast Guard and the other branches of the U.S. military. “It makes me proud.”
From Nantucket, the Bidens also called in to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, briefly bantering on air with NBC broadcaster Al Roker. Shut out a year ago, spectators again lined the route in Manhattan as some 8,000 participants joined the parade. Parade employees and volunteers had to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and wear masks.
The extended first family went traditional for their Thanksgiving menu: roasted turkey, stuffing using a grandmother’s recipe and other fixings. Dessert was three kinds of pie, and — in no surprise to those who followed Biden in and out of ice cream shops on the campaign trail — chocolate chip ice cream.
Biden and his wife started spending Thanksgiving in Nantucket since before they were married in 1977 because they were looking for a way out of choosing whose family to spend it with. They did not visit in 2015 following Beau’s death earlier that year from brain cancer at age 46, or in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic put the kibosh on big family gatherings.
Biden instead dined at home in Delaware last year with just his wife, daughter Ashley and her husband.
But this year, the president joined the millions of Americans who are celebrating the holiday with big groups of loved ones. Biden’s entire family flew up with him Tuesday night on Air Force One to resume the Thanksgiving tradition: his wife; son Hunter and his wife, Melissa and their toddler son Beau; daughter Ashley; and grandchildren Naomi, Finnegan, Maisy, Natalie and young Hunter, as well as Naomi’s fiance, Peter Neal.
The president has credited the roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines with helping ease the return of family gatherings this holiday season, although a resurgent virus has fueled an increase in new infections in the U.S. The president and first lady both have had their full vaccine dose, and a booster.
Naomi Biden and her fiance rode bicycles along on a local path just before her grandfather’s SUV departed the secluded home where the family is staying. The sprawling compound is owned by David Rubenstein, a billionaire philanthropist and co-founder of the Carlyle Group private equity firm.
Biden’s visit, his first as president, is markedly different from his previous holidays here when he was a U.S. senator and later vice president. Then, he might have been seen walking around downtown.
Biden lost much of his freedom to move around on his own when he became president and now travels with a large group of security personnel, White House and other officials, and journalists. His every public move is closely watched by the U.S. Secret Service and other law enforcement.
Jill Biden was heard telling the Coast Guard members she would see them again Friday night at Nantucket’s annual Christmas tree lighting, another Biden tradition.
“We’re all going together,” she said of her family. The tree lighting ceremony is where Beau Biden proposed to his wife, Hallie, in 2001. They were wed on the island the following year.
Biden is expected to return to the White House on Sunday.
___
Associated Press writer Calvin Woodward in Washington contributed to this report.
Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-joe-biden-health-lifestyle-thanksgiving-703aede19c8d6c9523511992fe1f638d
South African Health Minister Joe Phaahla said Friday that other countries’ decisions to impose travel restrictions amid concerns over the detection of a heavily mutated variant of Covid-19 in his country is “unjustified.”
“The kind of knee-jerk reaction, it really doesn’t make sense,” Phaahla said at a media briefing, adding that travel bans violate the norms and standards of the World Health Organization.
He slammed other nations for “wanting to put blame” and ascribing the variant to South Africa rather than working collaboratively to address the situation as guided by the WHO.
“Covid-19 is a global health emergency. We must work together, not punish each other,” Phaahla said. “Witch hunts don’t benefit anyone. South Africa wants to be an honest player in the world, to share health info not just of benefit to South Africans and citizens of the world.”
The new variant, known as B.1.1.529, has been detected in small numbers in South Africa. The WHO on Friday assigned the Greek letter Omicron to the variant.
Phaala said preliminary studies suggest the variant may be more transmissible due to is genetic composition but noted that vaccines are still effective in preventing severe Covid from the variant.
Reports on Friday morning said cases of the new variant have been found in Israel, Hong Kong and Belgium.
Earlier Friday, the WHO urged countries not to hastily impose travel bans linked to the new variant of the virus, saying they should take a “risk-based and scientific approach,” Reuters reported.
However, several European and Asian nations have already reacted by imposing temporary travel bans on southern Africa.
On Friday, a committee of health experts from all 27 EU states “agreed on the need to activate the emergency break & impose temporary restriction on all travel into EU from southern Africa,” the Slovenian presidency of the EU said on Twitter.
The United Kingdom also announced Thursday it would temporarily suspend flights from six African countries, including South Africa, starting midday Friday. The decision was made without prior discussion with South Africa, Phaahla said.
Deputy Health Minister Sibongiseni Dhlomo said at the media breifing he believes indications are that the U.S. will divert from other nations and not impose a travel ban.
Earlier Friday, White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN’s “New Day” the U.S. will speak with scientists from South Africa to “get the facts” on the new variant. Fauci said the U.S. is in “very active communication” with South African scientists to get the molecular makeup of the variant.
Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/26/covid-omicron-variant-south-africa-health-minister-calls-travel-bans-unjustified.html
Belgium has confirmed a case of the new, heavily mutated variant of the virus that causes Covid-19, according to one of the country’s leading virologists.
Marc Van Ranst, who works with the Rega Institute for Medical Research, said a sample was confirmed as the novel B.1.1.529 variant in a traveler who returned from Egypt on Nov. 11. The patient first showed symptoms on Nov. 22.
Belgium is home to the capital of the European Union in Brussels.
The variant was first detected in a small number of samples in South Africa, according to the World Health Organization. There were also reports on Friday morning that cases had been found in Israel and Hong Kong.
The B.1.1.529 variant contains 30 mutations to the spike protein that allows the virus to enter the body, scientist Tulio de Oliveira said Thursday during a briefing held by the South African Department of Health. The new strain has roughly 50 mutations in total, including 10 to the part of the virus that first comes in contact with cells.
The highly contagious delta variant, which the WHO says accounts for 99% of the world’s Covid cases, has just two mutations to the receptor binding domain.
Health officials caution that many of these mutations could lead to increased antibody resistance and transmissibility, limiting the effectiveness of Covid vaccines. The WHO convened a meeting Friday to determine how Covid therapeutics and immunizations might be affected by the new variant.
The WHO’s virus evolution working group will determine whether to list the new strain as a variant of interest or a variant of concern. The variant of concern label is reserved for Covid mutations that are more contagious, more virulent and more skilled at evading public health measures, vaccines and therapeutics.
The emerging variant arrives in Europe amid an already devastating Covid surge linked to the delta strain. Europe saw more than 2.4 million new Covid cases over the week ended Nov. 21, an increase of 11% from the previous seven days, according to the WHO’s most recent epidemiological update.
Europe represented 67% of all Covid cases reported globally during that span, the WHO measured.
Austria started its fourth lockdown of the pandemic on Monday, with a nationwide vaccine mandate scheduled to take effect on Feb. 1. Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg has said that the lockdown will last for at most 20 days.
Slovakia followed suit Wednesday with a two-week lockdown, closing restaurants and select businesses in hopes of curbing the nation’s latest Covid outbreak, Reuters reported. The Netherlands entered a partial lockdown on Saturday as well, requiring some companies to shut early and preventing the public from attending sporting events for three weeks.
The European Union’s executive branch recommended Friday that all 27 member states suspend travel from southern Africa. The U.K. has already halted flights from six countries in the region, while France and Italy have imposed their own temporary travel bans on southern Africa as well.
Singapore is also banning flights from southern Africa, with Japan increasing border controls for travelers from the region.
Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/26/belgium-confirms-case-of-new-heavily-mutated-covid-variant.html
JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Friday that Israel is “on the threshold of an emergency situation” after authorities detected the country’s first case of a new coronavirus variant and barred travel to and from most African countries.
The Health Ministry said it detected the new strain in a traveler who had returned from Malawi and was investigating two other suspected cases. The three individuals, who had all been vaccinated, were placed in isolation.
A new coronavirus variant has been detected in South Africa that scientists say is a concern because of its high number of mutations and rapid spread among young people in Gauteng, the country’s most populous province.
At a Cabinet meeting convened Friday to discuss the new variant, Bennett said it is more contagious and spreads more rapidly than the delta variant. He said authorities were still gathering information on whether it evades vaccines or is deadlier.
“We are currently at the threshold of an emergency situation,” he said. “I ask everyone to be prepared and to fully join in the work around the clock.”
The government later said that all countries in sub-Saharan Africa would be considered “red countries” from which foreign nationals are barred from traveling to Israel. Israelis are prohibited from visiting those countries and those returning from them must undergo a period of isolation.
The Israeli military will work to locate all individuals who have been to red countries within the past week and instruct them to go into isolation while testing is carried out, it said.
Israel launched one of the world’s first and most successful vaccination campaigns late last year, and nearly half the population has received a booster shot. Israel recently expanded the campaign to include children as young as 5.
But the country only recently managed to contain a wave of infections driven by the highly contagious delta variant.
Israel, with a population of more than 9 million, has reported at least 8,182 deaths since the start of the pandemic. It currently has more than 7,000 active cases, including 120 who are seriously ill, according to the Health Ministry.
Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-science-health-south-africa-middle-east-14b1419135057aaf96bfb495742e4ab1
Hollins University was founded in 1842 on the principle that “young women require the same thorough and rigid training as that afforded to young men.”
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Hollins University was founded in 1842 on the principle that “young women require the same thorough and rigid training as that afforded to young men.”
Melissa Block/NPR
Toward the end of Kendall Sanders’ first year at Hollins University, a historically women’s college in Roanoke, Va., the sociology major had a realization.
“My journey has been, ‘Girlhood does not define me,’ ” Sanders says. “My womanness, my femininity does not define me.”
Sanders, a senior now, is nonbinary and uses the pronouns they/them.
“I was like, I don’t think I care about being a girl,” they say. For someone who grew up in the Bible Belt region of Little Rock, Ark., that realization was a pretty big deal.
“I really just want to escape the binary in general, to do away with it,” Sanders says. “I don’t want to spend my life trying to prove that I am one gender. I want to wake up, put on some clothes, go out into my day. If you perceive me as one gender, that’s OK, too. But for me, it just is what it is.”
“I really just want to escape the binary in general, to do away with it,” says Kendall Sanders, a Hollins senior from Little Rock, Ark. “Girlhood does not define me.”
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“I really just want to escape the binary in general, to do away with it,” says Kendall Sanders, a Hollins senior from Little Rock, Ark. “Girlhood does not define me.”
Melissa Block/NPR
At a time when more young people, like Sanders, identify as nonbinary or transgender, admissions policies at historically women’s colleges have loosened to reflect that shift.
Hollins is among the latest schools to revise its policies, explaining that the 2019 change came “in recognition of our changing world and evolving understanding of gender identity.”
Yet, the school’s new policy still specifically excludes nonbinary applicants.
“That’s crazy,” Sanders says, a view echoed by many NPR spoke with on the southwest Virginia campus.
Under Hollins’ previous policy, dating from 2007 and revised in 2013 and 2016, if a student assigned female at birth began transitioning to male while enrolled, they were required to transfer out.
Now, according to the new rules set by the board of trustees, that trans male student can remain and graduate from Hollins.
Hollins’ guiding principle on admissions is that it will consider applications from those who “consistently live and identify as women.” (Other historically women’s colleges use virtually identical language, including Barnard, the College of St. Benedict, and Spelman.) That includes transgender women.
But the specific exclusion of nonbinary applicants seems for some to be an anachronism.
“My students at these colleges, they laugh at that, and they’re like, ‘What does [consistently living and identifying as women] even mean?’ ” says Megan Nanney, who studies gender policies at historically women’s colleges, and who taught at Hollins from 2020-21. “And I’m like, ‘Well, that is the question that gender studies scholars have always asked, right?’ “
Hollins students run across campus on Tinker Day, 1950. One of the school’s oldest traditions, the celebration is held on a surprise day each fall.
Hollins University
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Hollins University
Hollins is a small, tight-knit community — just about 700 undergraduates — with a campus set against the backdrop of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. The school has a proud history educating women, going back to 1842, and its reputation as a finishing school for southern debutantes is long gone.
According to a promotional school slogan, “Women who are going places start at Hollins.” Among the college’s illustrious graduates: writers Annie Dillard and Natasha Trethewey, and photographer Sally Mann.
Hollins is well-known for its equestrian program. Some students bring their own horses to board at the campus stable.
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Hollins is well-known for its equestrian program. Some students bring their own horses to board at the campus stable.
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The school is well-known for its equestrian team, and some students bring their own horses with them to board at the campus stable.
The equine program was a big draw for first-year student Diana Combs of Bethesda, Md., who considers it a plus that Hollins is a historically women’s college.
“I just feel safer overall,” she says. “Especially [since] we have no frats here, which is a lot better. So, yeah, horses and all women – yeah!”
For sophomore Willow Seymour, gender identity is “one of those things that can take a lifetime to figure out. So I’m just kind of going with the flow right now.”
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For sophomore Willow Seymour, gender identity is “one of those things that can take a lifetime to figure out. So I’m just kind of going with the flow right now.”
Melissa Block/NPR
For sophomore Willow Seymour, from Las Vegas, Hollins’ admissions policy doesn’t make sense.
“Personally, I think it’s pretty offensive to exclude nonbinary people,” Seymour says. “I know that historically it’s a women’s college, but a lot of people see it as, like, a refuge from patriarchal structures, and nonbinary people deserve to be as much part of that as anyone else.”
Seymour began identifying as genderqueer this semester. If that was who they knew themself to be in high school, Seymour says, they would have had to conceal that on the Hollins application.
“I think that’s a really messed up thing, having to hide a part of yourself just to go somewhere,” Seymour says.
As for the school slogan, “Women who are going places start at Hollins?”
Jaiya McMillan, a Hollins junior, is vice president of the student government. The wishbone charm on her necklace is a totem of how lucky she feels to be at Hollins.
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Jaiya McMillan, a Hollins junior, is vice president of the student government. The wishbone charm on her necklace is a totem of how lucky she feels to be at Hollins.
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“I think that’s something that should be phased out,” says Jaiya McMillan, a Hollins junior from Las Vegas, “because there are so many people here who are going places who are not just women, you know?”
McMillan is vice president of the student government and is the daughter of a Hollins alumna. Her mother graduated in the class of 1995.
“I know that she talks about it as a women’s college,” McMillan says, “and there are still professors here who only use she/her pronouns when talking about the student body, which obviously I don’t think really fits what Hollins looks like anymore.”
McMillan, who is cisgender, says Hollins should be a place that welcomes all nonbinary and transgender students, too.
“Absolutely. Absolutely! I think maybe a school with everything under the sun… except for [cisgender] men,” she says.
If it were up to Hollins professor LeeRay Costa, the college would change its admissions policy to include nonbinary students — anyone, she says, whose gender makes them marginalized in society.
LeeRay Costa, director of the Gender and Women’s Studies department at Hollins, has seen many changes in her 20 years there. “We see a lot more fluidity,” she says. “People moving along a spectrum.”
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LeeRay Costa, director of the Gender and Women’s Studies department at Hollins, has seen many changes in her 20 years there. “We see a lot more fluidity,” she says. “People moving along a spectrum.”
Melissa Block/ NPR
Costa, who has taught at Hollins for 20 years, has seen the name of her department change from Women’s Studies to Gender and Women’s Studies. She’s also seen the number of nonbinary students grow, especially within the last five years or so.
“We see a lot more fluidity,” Costa says, “so people moving along a spectrum, and not feeling like they have to be fixed in one place, and exploring.”
As to the fear that something will get lost, or diluted, if the door to women’s colleges is opened too wide?
“That question is to me, it’s rooted in this either/or binary of like, it’s either for women or it’s not for them. And I reject that binary,” Costa says. “I don’t think it needs to be an either/or kind of question.”
Em Miller, a nonbinary senior from Amelia, Va., often serves as a sounding board for younger students who want to try out new pronouns or a new name.
Em Miller is a senior from rural Amelia, Va. “It is very hard for people where I’m from to understand what it means to be nonbinary.”
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Em Miller is a senior from rural Amelia, Va. “It is very hard for people where I’m from to understand what it means to be nonbinary.”
Melissa Block/NPR
“There’s kind of this like wading pool area where you kind of just dip your toes in, and you see how you feel about it, and then you go further,” Miller explains, during a conversation outside the Hollins library.
Miller was a sophomore when the Hollins Board of Trustees updated its policy in 2019, loosening its rules on trans male students but adding the new language that specifically excludes nonbinary applicants.
Miller says once you’re on campus, Hollins feels inclusive: Students and faculty embrace gender diversity. But there’s a disconnect with the school’s admissions policy, Miller says, and that doesn’t sit well.
“It makes me feel ignored. And it almost feels like I’m battling against what Hollins’ board of trustees has kind of placed as this looming cloud over students at Hollins,” Miller says.
In an interview with NPR, the chair of Hollins’ board, Alexandra Trower responded: “I have a lot of compassion and empathy for those feelings. But we are a women’s institution.”
Not just a historically women’s college, Trower emphasized, but a present women’s college — which is important, she said, at a time when women have still not achieved equity.
“I very much appreciate that students may have a different definition or desire to have us be in a different place,” Trower said, “but we’re very clear and open about what our mission is. And people have a choice about where they go to university.”
Banners on the Hollins University campus urge students to “be open-minded,” “act with integrity,” and “value diversity and inclusion.”
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Banners on the Hollins University campus urge students to “be open-minded,” “act with integrity,” and “value diversity and inclusion.”
Melissa Block/NPR
Trower concedes that it’s possible the Board’s thinking on this will evolve. That’s the message, too, from Hollins’ president, Mary Dana Hinton, who took office in 2020, after the revised admissions policy was already in place.
“My heart aches at the thought of someone feeling unseen, unaffirmed, uncared-for,” Hinton says. “And I don’t think it’s unexpected that we will continue to listen and learn and reassess the policy as needed.”
Overshadowing this discussion is the fact that a dozen historically women’s colleges have either closed or gone coed in the past seven years — faced with declining enrollment, or financial trouble.
Each school, trying to figure out how to adapt in a more gender-fluid world.
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2021/11/26/1057254462/womens-colleges-nonbinary-admissions-policies
Updated 7:48 AM ET, Fri November 26, 2021
(CNN)Atlanta. Orlando. Las Vegas. Newtown. Parkland. San Bernardino.
Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/26/world/us-gun-culture-world-comparison-intl-cmd/index.html
A 2002 National Geographic article about Mr. McCurry’s search for her described the adult Ms. Gula: “Time and hardship had erased her youth. Her skin looks like leather. The geometry of her jaw has softened. The eyes still glare; that has not softened.”
In 2016, Ms. Gula was deported from Pakistan after being arrested on charges of obtaining false identity documents, a common practice among Afghans in Pakistan. Human rights groups condemned the Pakistani government for sending her back to Afghanistan. On her arrival, the Afghan president at the time, Ashraf Ghani, gave her a warm welcome and provided her with a government-funded apartment.
In August, Taliban leaders moved into the presidential palace that had been occupied by Mr. Ghani. Their takeover once again displaced hundreds of thousands of Afghans. Pakistan braced for as many as 700,000 refugees.
In the United States, more than 22,500 Afghan refugees have been resettled as of Nov. 19, including 3,500 in one week in October. About 42,500 more remain in temporary housing on eight military bases around the country while they wait for housing.
Until the Taliban takeover, the rights of Afghan women had been expanding. Afghan girls were going to school and getting college degrees, and more were participating in civic life. But under the first few months of the Taliban’s conservative rule, women have already faced new restrictions, like not being allowed to play sports. The Taliban have severely restricted education for women, and Taliban gunmen have gone door-to-door in some neighborhoods looking for anyone who supported the American efforts in the country.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/26/world/europe/afghan-girl-national-geographic.html
All flights from South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho and Eswatini are being suspended.
Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-59424269
All flights from South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho and Eswatini are being suspended.
Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-59424269
(CNN)Three men convicted Wednesday in the death of Ahmaud Arbery each faced nine possible charges that stemmed from their involvement in the 2020 shooting near Brunswick, Georgia. But the verdicts rendered by the jury on some of the allegations differed.
Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/25/us/ahmaud-arbery-killing-trial-malice-felony-murder/index.html
Supporters of Native Americans pause following a prayer during the 38th National Day of Mourning at Coles Hill in Plymouth, Mass., on Nov. 22, 2007. Denouncing centuries of racism and mistreatment of Indigenous people, members of Native American tribes from around New England will gather on Thanksgiving 2021 for a solemn National Day of Mourning observance.
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Supporters of Native Americans pause following a prayer during the 38th National Day of Mourning at Coles Hill in Plymouth, Mass., on Nov. 22, 2007. Denouncing centuries of racism and mistreatment of Indigenous people, members of Native American tribes from around New England will gather on Thanksgiving 2021 for a solemn National Day of Mourning observance.
Lisa Poole/AP
Members of Native American tribes from around New England are gathering in the seaside town where the Pilgrims settled — not to give thanks, but to mourn Indigenous people worldwide who’ve suffered centuries of racism and mistreatment.
Thursday’s solemn National Day of Mourning observance in downtown Plymouth, Massachusetts, will recall the disease and oppression that European settlers brought to North America.
“We Native people have no reason to celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims,” said Kisha James, a member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag and Oglala Lakota tribes and the granddaughter of Wamsutta Frank James, the event’s founder.
“We want to educate people so that they understand the stories we all learned in school about the first Thanksgiving are nothing but lies. Wampanoag and other Indigenous people have certainly not lived happily ever after since the arrival of the Pilgrims,” James said.
“To us, Thanksgiving is a day of mourning, because we remember the millions of our ancestors who were murdered by uninvited European colonists such as the Pilgrims. Today, we and many Indigenous people around the country say, ‘No Thanks, No Giving.'”
It’s the 52nd year that the United American Indians of New England have organized the event on Thanksgiving Day. The tradition began in 1970.
Indigenous people and their supporters will gather at noon in person on Cole’s Hill, a windswept mound overlooking Plymouth Rock, a memorial to the colonists’ arrival. They will also livestream the event.
Participants will beat drums, offer prayers and condemn what organizers describe as “the unjust system based on racism, settler colonialism, sexism, homophobia and the profit-driven destruction of the Earth” before marching through downtown Plymouth’s historical district.
This year, they’ll also highlight the troubled legacy of federal boarding schools that sought to assimilate Indigenous youth into white society in the U.S. as well as in Canada, where hundreds of bodies have been discovered on the grounds of former residential schools for Indigenous children.
Brian Moskwetah Weeden, chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council, said on Boston Public Radio earlier this week that Americans owe his tribe a debt of gratitude for helping the Pilgrims survive their first brutal winter.
“People need to understand that you need to be thankful each and every day — that was how our ancestors thought and navigated this world,” Weeden said. “Because we were thankful, we were willing to share … and we had good intentions and a good heart.”
That wasn’t reciprocated over the long term, Weeden added.
“That’s why, 400 years later, we’re still sitting here fighting for what little bit of land that we still have, and trying to hold the commonwealth and the federal government accountable,” he said.
“Because 400 years later, we don’t really have much to show for, or to be thankful for. So I think it’s important for everyone to be thankful for our ancestors who helped the Pilgrims survive, and kind of played an intricate role in the birth of this nation.”
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2021/11/25/1059212893/native-american-tribes-are-gathering-in-plymouth-to-mourn-on-thanksgiving
President Biden phoned Al Roker on Thursday to land a cameo in NBC’s coverage of the 2021 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade — repeating his “America is Back” mantra to the weatherman even as inflation and sky-high gas prices have made this the most expensive turkey day ever.
Roker acted as though he was surprised, though the performance was unconvincing, as presidential aides typically notify journalists in advance of such calls and TV news anchors rarely answer their phones mid-broadcast.
Roker, standing on a New York street, said on live TV, “Hold on, my phone is ringing. Just a second. Oh my gosh, look at who’s calling! Hello, hello, Mr. President?”
“Hello, Al. How are you doing, pal?” said Biden, who is spending the holiday at a billionaire’s compound in Nantucket.
“Oh, Dr. Biden and Mr. President, thank you so much! Happy Thanksgiving to you!” Roker said.
Biden said, in apparent reference to a prior guest, “A New York firefighter —”
Roker said, “That’s right. We had a New York firefighter here. And it’s so good — good for you calling, we thank you so much. What’s your message to the American folks on this Thanksgiving day?”
Biden offered some positive spin, despite his own plunging approval ratings amid the highest inflation in 31 years and a resurgence of COVID-19 cases nearly two years into the pandemic.
This year, the classic Thanksgiving dinner of turkey and sides jumped 14 percent, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
“My message is, after two years, you’re back, America is back. There’s nothing we’re unable to overcome, Al. And you’re one of the reasons for that, pal. You’re always up, you’re always rooting,” Biden said.
Roker replied, “Well we appreciate it, Mr. President. Thank you so much. I hope you’re going to continue to watch the parade. Santa is coming. Santa is coming, Mr. President!”
“I’m waiting for Santa,” Biden joked.
Biden signed off the call saying, “wish we were there with you, Al. Nice to see you, pal.”
Roker then returned to his faux-surprise, exclaiming to viewers unfamiliar with presidential interview procedures, “How did he get my phone number? Well he’s the president of the United States, I guess he can do that!”
Roker fist-bumped Biden in January at the president’s inaugural parade in DC. And in 2013, he gave then-Vice President Biden a celebratory handshake at that parade.
Although the veteran NBC personality fired off just one question, it’s likely to count as one of Biden’s fewer than two dozen interviews so far as president — far fewer than his six most recent predecessors, including Ronald Reagan, who doubled Biden’s number of interviews despite being shot in the lung two months after taking office.
Source Article from https://nypost.com/2021/11/25/biden-tells-roker-america-is-back-in-surprise-parade-call/
(CNN)Three men convicted Wednesday in the death of Ahmaud Arbery each faced nine possible charges that stemmed from their involvement in the 2020 shooting near Brunswick, Georgia. But the verdicts rendered by the jury on some of the allegations differed.
Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/25/us/ahmaud-arbery-killing-trial-malice-felony-murder/index.html
French officials had previously said five women and a small girl were among the victims, but an investigation to identify the fatalities and their countries of origin was still ongoing. Two people, from Iraq and Somalia, survived and were being treated for hypothermia, according to Darmanin.
Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/france-migrants-english-channel-drowning/2021/11/25/e4d984f2-4d7f-11ec-a7b8-9ed28bf23929_story.html
