“We are prepared to move; we just need to make sure we have unanimity in our caucus and that’s what we are working on and we will start on that next week when we return,” Cardin told host Mike Emanuel.

The $1.7 trillion legislation included a wide range of policy items, including universal preschool, paid family leave, child nutrition assistance, and Medicare and Medicaid expansion. Clean energy measures were a significant part of the bill. The legislation would also make the current child tax credit permanent.

Emanuel asked Cardin if Democrats risked losing the support of progressives if they scaled the legislation back. The senator acknowledged that Democrats needed to find a “sweet spot” to get legislation through without losing votes from the Democratic caucus.

“We want to see it as comprehensive as possible, but we need to make sure we have the votes to pass it, so that means it will be different than some of us would like to see,” he said.

Cardin said Democrats are open to potentially passing some parts of the bill as standalone items.

“That’s a strategy decision that’s being negotiated. We are open to a way to reach the finish line,” Cardin said.

Speaking on the same show, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) made it clear that he still opposed the overall package, but said he assumed there were things in the bill that he could support as standalone items, citing an initiative he had been working on with Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.).

“Surely there is something in there that I would be for, Sen. Stabenow and I have worked for years to try to see that we treat mental health like all other health. That’s a relatively small item in this bill. I think it’s in there, but that’s an item if we put on the floor by itself, Republicans and Democrats would vote for,” Blunt said.

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/26/cardin-senate-build-back-better-526154

JOHANNESBURG, Dec 26 (Reuters) – Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and veteran of South Africa’s struggle against white minority rule, died on Sunday at the age of 90.

In 1984 Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent opposition to apartheid. A decade later, he witnessed the end of that regime and chaired a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, set up to unearth atrocities committed during those dark days.

The outspoken Tutu was considered the nation’s conscience by both Black and white, an enduring testament to his faith and spirit of reconciliation in a divided nation.

He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the late 1990s and in recent years was hospitalised on several occasions to treat infections associated with his cancer treatment.

“The passing of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated South Africa,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said.

“Desmond Tutu was a patriot without equal.”

The presidency gave no details on the cause of death.

Tutu preached against the tyranny of the white minority but his fight for a fairer South Africa never ended, calling the Black political elite to account with as much feistiness as he had the white Afrikaners.

In his final years, he regretted that his dream of a “Rainbow Nation” had yet to come true. read more

“Ultimately, at the age of 90, he died peacefully at the Oasis Frail Care Centre in Cape Town this morning,” Dr Mamphela Ramphele, acting chairperson of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu IP Trust and Co-ordinator of the Office of the Archbishop, said in a statement on behalf of the Tutu family.

A frail-looking Tutu was seen in October being wheeled into his former parish at St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, which used to be a safe haven for anti-apartheid activists, for a service marking his 90th birthday. read more

Dubbed “the moral compass of the nation”, his courage in defending social justice, even at great cost to himself, always shone through. He often fell out with his erstwhile allies at the ruling African National Congress party over their failures to address the poverty and inequalities that they promised to eradicate. read more

Tutu, just five feet five inches (1.68 metres) tall and with an infectious giggle, travelled tirelessly throughout the 1980s, becoming the face of the anti-apartheid movement abroad while many of the leaders of the rebel ANC such as Nelson Mandela were behind bars.

Although he was born near Johannesburg, he spent most of his later life in Cape Town and led numerous marches and campaigns to end apartheid from St George’s front steps, which became known as the “People’s Cathedral” and a powerful symbol of democracy. Known for punchy quotes, Tutu once said: “I wish I could shut up, but I can’t, and I won’t”. read more

1/11

Archbishop Desmond Tutu laughs as crowds gather to celebrate his birthday by unveiling an arch in his honour outside St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa, October 7, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings

‘A PROPHET AND A PRIEST’

Having officially retired from public life on his 79th birthday, Tutu continued to speak out on a range of moral issues, including accusing the West in 2008 of complicity in Palestinian suffering by remaining silent.

In 2013, he declared his support for gay rights, saying he would never “worship a God who is homophobic”.

Tributes poured in from around the world for the man fondly known as “The Arch”. read more

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby hailed Tutu as a “a prophet and priest” while Pope Francis offered heartfelt condolences to his family and loved ones.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama said Tutu was a “mentor, a friend, and a moral compass” who “never lost his impish sense of humor and willingness to find humanity in his adversaries”.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson noted Tutu’s “critical” role in the “struggle to create a new South Africa”, while his deputy Dominic Raab said Tutu’s adage of ‘Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument’ had “never felt more apt”.

Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere recalled “a great little man who showed the power of reconciliation and forgiveness”.

“We are better because he was here,” Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King, said.

In a letter to Tutu’s daughter Reverend Mpho Tutu, Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said the world had “lost a great man, who lived a truly meaningful life”.

Tutu and his long-time friend Mandela lived for a time on the same street in the South African township of Soweto, making Vilakazi Street the only one in the world to host two Nobel Peace Prize winners.

“His most characteristic quality is his readiness to take unpopular positions without fear,” Mandela once said of Tutu. “Such independence of mind is vital to a thriving democracy.”

At a Boxing Day service at St George’s, the Very Reverend Michael Weeder paid homage to Tutu from the Archbishop’s former pulpit, saying it was “once the celebrated point of command” before asking the handful of parishioners present to bow their heads in a moment of silence.

(This story corrects name of Mamphela Ramphele in paragraph 10 after Archbishop Desmond Tutu IP Trust rectifies spelling error)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africas-archbishop-desmond-tutu-dies-aged-90-2021-12-26/

But as the months went by, none of the people he had bought lunch for, or helped get funding for their organizations, stood up for him. A former military member whom he counted as a friend even joined the Enid Freedom Fighters. He felt as if he were living in a town that no longer recognized him.

The attention he did get was sometimes menacing. His daughter, 7 at the time, was picked on at school because of his stance. Military security on the base where Mr. Waddell now works as a civilian handling IT operations took him aside to tell him about threats against him, though noted it did not think they would be acted on. He began checking a security camera at his house through an app on his phone.

“There’s just this vitriol in this place that we chose,” said Mr. Waddell, who is 41. “We’re ostracized from the community that we chose. It’s kind of a surreal feeling.”

The city commissioner who introduced the mask mandate, Ben Ezzell, a lawyer and artist, got veiled warnings too — mostly via email and Facebook. Someone dumped trash on his lawn. At one City Council meeting, a man shouted that he knew where Mr. Ezzell lived. Another meeting got so tense that police officers insisted on escorting him to his car.

But Mr. Ezzell, who is 35, was not done arguing for the mandate. As summer turned to fall, and Covid cases began to spike, it seemed like the logical thing to do. So he kept bringing it up in meetings, prompting Ms. Crabtree and the Freedom Fighters to begin the process of trying to recall him to stop it. She also accused him of acting disrespectfully, for example, using profanity and doodling during people’s speeches. (He said he drew lemmings walking off cliffs to stay calm, particularly when comment sessions from emotional residents went on for hours.)

A prominent supporter of the recall effort was Ms. Crabtree’s pastor, Wade Burleson, whose church, Emmanuel Enid, is the largest in town. Enid has a substantial upper middle class, with large homes and a gated community near a country club and a golf course, and many of those families are part of the church’s 3,000-strong congregation.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/26/us/oklahoma-masks.html

(CNN)It’s been 25 years since the murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey riveted the nation, and now Boulder, Colorado, investigators say they have analyzed almost 1,000 DNA samples to find the killer.

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    Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/26/us/jonbenet-ramsey-25th-anniversary-dna/index.html

    The caller who ended a conversation with Joe Biden with the rightwing meme “Let’s go Brandon” – which means “fuck Joe Biden” – has insisted he was joking and meant no disrespect to the president.

    “At the end of the day I have nothing against Mr Biden,” Jared Schmeck, 35, told the Oregonian newspaper. “But I am frustrated because I think he can be doing a better job. I mean no disrespect to him.”

    Schmeck, from Central Point, also said he was not a “Trumper” but rather a “free-thinking American and follower of Jesus Christ”.

    On Christmas Eve, the president and his wife, Dr Jill Biden, took calls to the North American Aerospace Defense Command Santa Tracker, which each year purports to follow the progress of Santa and his reindeer.

    A traditional duty for American presidents, in 2018 it was nearly upended when Donald Trump told a seven-year-old belief in Santa Claus was “marginal” at that age.

    Biden and Schmeck discussed presents Schmeck’s four children were hoping to receive, and how one, Hunter, shared a name with the president’s son and grandson. Schmeck said he was hoping for a “quiet night”.

    Biden sad: “Lots of luck, dad.”

    All on the call laughed.

    At the end of the call, Schmeck said: “Merry Christmas and Let’s go Brandon.”

    “Let’s go Brandon, I agree,” Biden said, as his wife winced.

    Biden also said: “By the way are you in Oregon? Where’s your home?”

    But the call was disconnected.

    “Let’s go Brandon” originated in an interview with a racing car driver by a TV reporter who may have misheard a crowd’s obscene chant.

    It has flourished in rightwing and pro-Trump circles – even being promoted by Republican congressmen and the Texas senator Ted Cruz.

    Schmeck and his wife promoted the remark on social media. But they met with a tide of opprobrium, including a tweet in which the California congressman Eric Swalwell pointed to Biden’s painful personal history.

    “I refuse to believe we are this indecent as people,” the Democrat wrote. “Not on Christmas Eve. And not to a person who lost his wife and daughter at Christmastime. We are better than this. Be kind and Merry Christmas.”

    Schmeck, a former police officer, told the Oregonian he was “being attacked for utilising my freedom of speech”.

    He also said he had received some potentially threatening phone calls of his own.

    “I understand there is a vulgar meaning to ‘Lets go Brandon’ but I’m not that simple-minded, no matter how I feel about him,” Schmeck said.

    “[Biden] seems likes he’s a cordial guy. There’s no animosity or anything like that. It was merely just an innocent jest to also express my God-given right to express my frustrations in a joking manner.”

    Schmeck said subjects stoking those frustrations with Biden included vaccine mandates and supply chain problems.

    He also insisted: “I love him just like I love any other brother or sister.”

    Source Article from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/26/lets-go-brandon-santa-tracker-caller-joe-biden

    One year ago, we were looking forward to a safer and sounder 2021.

    The Food and Drug Administration had granted emergency authorization to the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines against COVID-19.

    A new presidential administration was poised to take office in the next month, armed with a commitment to bring together a nation cleaved by four years of divisive policymaking.

    It was not to be.

    For the unvaccinated, you’re looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families, and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm.

    White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain

    Instead of unity and immunity, this year has brought us stupidity and insanity on an unimaginable scale. In the categories of public health, education policy, fiscal policy and investment options, we appear to have taken leave of our collective senses.

    Certainly there are other years or periods in which stupidity or heedlessness brought civilization in general close to eradication.

    Consider 1914, when most of Europe dived hellbent to war for no discernible reason. (Read Barbara Tuchman’s book “The Guns of August” for the full horrific picture.) The Dark Ages were a period benighted by scientific ignorance.

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    Some individual countries and national leaders stand out for tempting fate, to their and their citizens’ misfortune. Britain in 1938 under Neville Chamberlain. Russia’s warmongering with Japan in 1904-1905. Louis Napoleon poking a stick into the Prussian bear’s cage in 1870-1871. Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait in 1990.

    The perpetrators of some of these errors might assert in their defense that they were brought low by circumstances they didn’t know at the time.

    But America in 2021 can’t plead that it didn’t know. Didn’t know that vaccines representing stupendous scientific achievements were the solution to the COVID-19 pandemic?

    Didn’t know that Donald Trump wasn’t joking when he demanded that government officials overturn a fair presidential election? Didn’t know that bitcoin, NFTs, SPACs and meme stocks were destined, even designed, to take unwary investors to the cleaners?

    Of course we knew, and know. We don’t seem to care.

    In reviewing the most intellectually demoralizing events of 2021, I’ll leave aside a few discrete outbursts of asininity.

    So I won’t go into detail about the conservative movement’s lionizing of Kyle Rittenhouse, the self-confessed but acquitted killer of two unarmed men at a protest rally in Kenosha, Wis. Or the openly antisemitic ravings by former President Trump. Or the ugly, dishonest attacks that forced the withdrawal of Saule Omarova, one of the most qualified nominees for a federal banking regulatory job in memory.

    The job-gain narrative is competing with the inflation narrative in assessments of the economy, and the inflation narrative is winning.

    Or the shameful behavior of congressional Republicans, who cowered in safety during the Jan. 6 insurrection, pleading with Trump to help quell the riot, only to claim ever since that the violence of the crowd was no big deal.

    Or the posting of Christmas cards by politicians showing their families hoisting assault weapons, as Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) did just four days after a gunman killed four students at a Michigan high school. He was followed by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.).

    Instead, we’ll focus on a few of the bigger pictures. So, as Virgil said to Dante before guiding him into the Inferno, “Let us descend now into the blind world.”

    COVID-19

    The pandemic is surely the focus of the most obtuse and ignorant public reactions and state and local policy responses to any crisis in American history. It’s as if the grown-ups have all been beamed up, and we are left in the hands of people like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. (I am paraphrasing a line from the great pandemic movie “Together.”)

    In any rational world, the refusal or failure by some 50 million adult Americans to take a vaccine of known efficacy against a deadly disease would be inexplicable. But this is not a rational world, and the situation is even worse.

    Vaccine refusal is seen in many benighted corners of the United States not merely as the exercise of personal choice for personal reasons but as a means of showing moral superiority over the vaccinated.

    A conservative critic of anti-pandemic measures writing from rural southwest Michigan for the Atlantic bragged absurdly and selfishly, “I am now closer to most of my fellow Americans than the people, almost absurdly overrepresented in media and elite institutions, who are still genuinely concerned about this virus.”

    Are inflation fears unreasonable? It depends on how you’re spending your money.

    The author may think he’s remote from virus concerns, but that’s not the case at a hospital visited by CNN in Lansing, Mich., which can’t be much more than 100 miles from his location and where “the latest COVID-19 surge is as bad as healthcare workers there have seen.”

    How did it come to pass that Americans, who almost uniformly are inoculated against at least a half-dozen serious diseases in childhood, chose this moment to refuse a spectacularly effective shot against one of the most dangerous diseases to arise in their lifetimes, out of pure ignorance?

    Its effectiveness is scarcely disputable: The Commonwealth Fund estimates that the vaccine averted about 1.1 million American deaths from COVID-19 and more than 10.3 million hospitalizations this year.

    The answer lies in politics.

    Trump drew the line first, dismissing social distancing steps and refusing to speak up for vaccination. He established these steps as partisan choices, and his political acolytes followed him over the cliff.

    DeSantis has been a leader in this descent into the Inferno. He’s chosen to make Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and America’s most respected authority on the pandemic, a target of partisan calumny. He’s appointed a vaccine doubter as his state’s top public health official.

    What is the outcome? Florida currently ranks eighth-worst among states in its COVID-19 death rate, with more than 62,000 Floridians having perished from the virus. Of the seven states with worse records, six are red states like Florida.

    Corporate America has not showered itself in glory. On Dec. 18, Boeing announced that it was dropping its requirement that all U.S. employees be vaccinated. Its explanation was that a federal judge had blocked the enforcement of a federal executive order that employees of government contractors be vaccinated.

    This is absurd. Nothing in the ruling required Boeing to drop its requirement. The company announced its step back just as the Omicron variant was about to produce a surge in infections. The pusillanimity of American corporations on this subject continues to astound. (The Times, which is owned by a physician and biomedical entrepreneur, is requiring all employees to be fully vaccinated by Jan. 31.)

    Banks and the right wing know Saule Omarova may be an effective regulator, so they’re absurdly attacking her as a communist.

    To its credit, on Dec. 17 the Biden White House issued an uncompromising warning about the dangers of remaining unvaccinated.

    “For the unvaccinated, you’re looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm,” White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said. “So, our message to every American is clear…. Wear a mask in public indoor settings. Get vaccinated, get your kids vaccinated, and get a booster shot when you’re eligible.”

    Investment follies

    In May, I asked whether we were experiencing a peak in investment absurdity. The examples then were bitcoin, dogecoin and nonfungible tokens (NFTs), as well as meme stocks, the prices of which were not tied to sober reflections about their issuers’ business prospects but to internet-fueled speculation.

    Assets like these, which are priced in accordance with the “greater fool” theory (they have no intrinsic value beyond what you can cadge from a bigger fool than yourself), have only proliferated since then. Or perhaps it’s only the absurdity that has ballooned.

    NFTs, for instance, are tradable digital files that confer no ownership to anything but the digital file, which may be an image of an object that is actually owned by someone else. Someone has parodied the NFT market by purporting to sell NFTs of images of individual Olive Garden restaurants, but it’s the kind of parody that gets at the essential truth of the target.

    You don’t get to own the restaurant or the photo. You don’t get a discount on menu items or a guarantee that the photo is even accurate. You supposedly get to own something on the Non-fungible Olive Garden Metaverse, whatever that is, and you can try to find a greater fool to sell it to.

    NFTs generally don’t confer ownership of the underlying asset or even the digital representation of the asset. The market doesn’t exist for any reason except to produce activity to suck in greater fools.

    The best clue that there’s something hinky about these markets is that the Trump family is going all in. A purported media company started by Donald Trump, for instance, is merging with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.

    Wall Street is enticing investors with SPACs — funds that won’t say what they’re buying.

    As I reported, the deal promptly came under the scrutiny of financial regulators. In any case, no discernible business plan of any substance has emerged for the Trump company. People appear to have invested because of his name.

    Now Melania Trump has gotten into the act, hawking NFTs of paintings of her eyes—”an amulet to inspire,” the pitch says, though obviously you don’t get to own the eyes or even the original watercolor.

    Software developer Stephen Diehl, an established skeptic of these things, writes that we are entering upon “a hustler’s paradise … where the market now provides a financial token game for every meme, every celebrity, every political movement, and every bit of art and culture.” The old saw applies about how if you’re looking around the poker table and can’t identify the mark, it’s you.

    Inflation and Build Back Better

    Republicans and conservatives have never cottoned to spending on programs that assist the middle and working class. President Biden’s Build Back Better program was destined to get their backs up.

    How could they attack a program that provides for universal prekindergarten education, assistance with child care, caps on the price of drugs such as insulin and better access to healthcare? Simple: Raise the old bugaboo of inflation.

    That’s been the approach of Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who recently announced — via Fox News, of course — that he couldn’t support the plan in any way. He’s since backed off a bit from his adamantine opposition, but the core of his position was concern that the measure would add to inflation.

    As we’ve reported, that’s just wrong. Not even former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, who sounded an inflation alarm about the pandemic relief package enacted this year, thinks it applies to this measure. The provisions of Build Back Better are paid for and represent investments in the economy, so they’re anything but inflationary.

    The SPAC craze may have peaked with Trump’s bizarre pitch for a right-wing media company.

    Indeed, Wall Street views Manchin’s resistance as an economic negative. According to MarketWatch, Goldman Sachs cut its growth forecast for the first quarter of next year to 2% from 3%, for the second quarter to 3% from 3.5% and for the third quarter to 2.75% from 3%.

    That’s not counting the direct impact of Build Back Better on Manchin’s own state, which is among the poorest in the nation and one in which government programs are crucial. That’s well understood on the ground: The United Mine Workers union publicly urged Manchin to reconsider his opposition to a program that would have “a meaningful impact on our members, their families, and their communities.”

    Much more happened in 2021 that prompts one to hold head in hands. To be fair, however, there were also glimmers of hope.

    Biden on Dec. 21 announced steps to strengthen the country’s response to the Omicron variant, including mobilizing troops to help staff overwhelmed hospitals, opening thousands of vaccine sites and sending 500 million free testing kits to households. The Build Back Better plan is not entirely dead, and a revival effort will start in January.

    Whether 2022 will be as stupid and insane as 2021 won’t be known until we can view it in a rearview mirror 12 months from now. We can only hope.

    Source Article from https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-12-26/farewell-to-2021-the-stupidest-year-in-american-history

    Asked to specify what such Moscow’s response could be, he said in comments aired by Russian state TV Sunday that “it could be diverse,” adding without elaboration that “it will depend on what proposals our military experts submit to me.”

    The U.S. and its allies have refused to offer Russia the kind of guarantee on Ukraine that Putin wants, citing NATO’s principle that membership is open to any qualifying country. They agreed. however, to launch security talks with Russia next month to discuss its concerns.

    Putin said the talks with the U.S. will be held in Geneva. In parallel, negotiations are also set to be held between Russia and NATO and broader discussions are expected under the aegis of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

    In remarks broadcast Sunday, Putin said that Russia submitted the demands in the hope of a constructive answer from the West.

    “We didn’t do it just to see it blocked … but for the purpose of reaching a negotiated diplomatic result that would be fixed in legally binding documents,” Putin said.

    He reaffirmed that NATO membership for Ukraine or the deployment of alliance weapons there is a red line for Moscow that it wouldn’t allow the West to cross.

    “We have nowhere to retreat,” he said, adding that NATO could deploy missiles in Ukraine that would take just four or five minutes to reach Moscow. “They have pushed us to a line that we can’t cross. They have taken it to the point where we simply must tell them; ‘Stop!’”

    He voiced concern that the U.S. and its allies could try to drag out the security talks and use them as a cover to pursue a military buildup near Russia.

    He noted that Russia published its security demands to make them known to the public and raise the pressure on the U.S. and its allies to negotiate a security deal.

    “We have just one goal — to reach agreements that would ensure the security of Russia and its citizens now and in a long-term perspective,” he said.

    The Kremlin presented its security demand amid the tensions over a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine in recent weeks that has fueled Western fears of a possible invasion. U.S. President Joe Biden warned Putin in a video call earlier this month that Russia will face “severe consequences” if it attacks Ukraine.

    Russia has denied an intention of launching an invasion and, in its turn, accused Ukraine of hatching plans to try to reclaim control of the territories held by Moscow-backed rebels by force. Ukraine has rejected the claim.

    Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and shortly after threw its support behind a separatist rebellion in the country’s east. Over more than seven years, the fighting has killed over 14,000 people and devastated Ukraine’s industrial heartland, known as the Donbas.

    Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/26/putin-russia-ukraine-nato-526153

    JOHANNESBURG, Dec 26 (Reuters) – Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and veteran of South Africa’s struggle against white minority rule, died on Sunday at the age of 90.

    In 1984 Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent opposition to apartheid. A decade later, he witnessed the end of that regime and chaired a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, set up to unearth atrocities committed during those dark days.

    The outspoken Tutu was considered the nation’s conscience by both Black and white, an enduring testament to his faith and spirit of reconciliation in a divided nation.

    He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the late 1990s and in recent years was hospitalised on several occasions to treat infections associated with his cancer treatment.

    “The passing of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated South Africa,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said.

    “Desmond Tutu was a patriot without equal.”

    The presidency gave no details on the cause of death.

    Tutu preached against the tyranny of the white minority but his fight for a fairer South Africa never ended, calling the Black political elite to account with as much feistiness as he had the white Afrikaners.

    In his final years, he regretted that his dream of a “Rainbow Nation” had yet to come true. read more

    “Ultimately, at the age of 90, he died peacefully at the Oasis Frail Care Centre in Cape Town this morning,” Dr Ramphela Mamphele, acting chairperson of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu IP Trust and Co-ordinator of the Office of the Archbishop, said in a statement on behalf of the Tutu family.

    A frail-looking Tutu was seen in October being wheeled into his former parish at St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, which used to be a safe haven for anti-apartheid activists, for a service marking his 90th birthday. read more

    Dubbed “the moral compass of the nation”, his courage in defending social justice, even at great cost to himself, always shone through. He often fell out with his erstwhile allies at the ruling African National Congress party over their failures to address the poverty and inequalities that they promised to eradicate. read more

    1/8

    Archbishop Desmond Tutu laughs as crowds gather to celebrate his birthday by unveiling an arch in his honour outside St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa, October 7, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings

    Tutu, just five feet five inches (1.68 metres) tall and with an infectious giggle, travelled tirelessly throughout the 1980s, becoming the face of the anti-apartheid movement abroad while many of the leaders of the rebel ANC such as Nelson Mandela were behind bars.

    Although he was born near Johannesburg, he spent most of his later life in Cape Town and led numerous marches and campaigns to end apartheid from St George’s front steps, which became known as the “People’s Cathedral” and a powerful symbol of democracy. Known for punchy quotes, Tutu once said: “I wish I could shut up, but I can’t, and I won’t”. read more

    ‘A PROPHET AND A PRIEST’

    Having officially retired from public life on his 79th birthday, Tutu continued to speak out on a range of moral issues, including accusing the West in 2008 of complicity in Palestinian suffering by remaining silent.

    In 2013, he declared his support for gay rights, saying he would never “worship a God who is homophobic”.

    Tributes poured in from around the world for the man fondly known as “The Arch”. read more

    The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby hailed Tutu as a “a prophet and priest” while flamboyant British billionaire Richard Branson said “the world has lost a giant” and Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere recalled “a great little man who showed the power of reconciliation and forgiveness”.

    UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson noted Tutu’s “critical” role in the “struggle to create a new South Africa”, while his deputy Dominic Raab said Tutu’s adage of ‘Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument’ had “never felt more apt”.

    “We are better because he was here,” Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King, said. Palestine Liberation Organisation official Wasel Abu Youssef said Tutu was “one of the biggest supporters” of the Palestinian cause.

    In a letter to Tutu’s daughter Reverend Mpho Tutu, Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said the world had “lost a great man, who lived a truly meaningful life”.

    Tutu and his long-time friend Mandela lived for a time on the same street in the South African township of Soweto, making Vilakazi Street the only one in the world to host two Nobel Peace Prize winners.

    “His most characteristic quality is his readiness to take unpopular positions without fear,” Mandela once said of Tutu. “Such independence of mind is vital to a thriving democracy.”

    At a Boxing Day service at St George’s, the Very Reverend Michael Weeder paid homage to Tutu from the Archbishop’s former pulpit, saying it was “once the celebrated point of command” before asking the handful of parishioners present to bow their heads in a moment of silence.

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

    Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africas-archbishop-desmond-tutu-dies-aged-90-2021-12-26/

    An Oregon dad who told President Biden “Let’s go Brandon” during the annual White House NORAD Santa-tracking phone call claims he used the coded vulgarity as “a joke,” according to a report.

    The anti-Biden phrase has become popular in conservative circles as a stand-in for “F— Joe Biden,” but Jared Schmeck, 35, said he meant “no disrespect” to the president when he snuck the slogan in during the final seconds of the Friday call.

    “At the end of the day, I have nothing against Mr. Biden, but I am frustrated because I think he can be doing a better job,” the father of four told the Oregonian.

    “Merry Christmas and Let’s go Brandon,” Schmeck said at the end of the call.

    “Let’s go Brandon, I agree,” was the president’s cringeworthy answer.

    Schmeck posted video of his end of the call on YouTube, during which it appeared the connection was breaking up at the end of the exchange.

    “Let’s go Brandon” is a tongue-in-cheek insult of President Joe Biden epithet used in conservative circles.
    Elizabeth Frantz/REUTERS

    “I thought it would be automated. We just waited on hold and then they answered,” he told the Oregonian. “And I thought, ‘wow, this is real.’”

    The dad smiled throughout the exchange, laughing when the president asked what he wanted for Christmas.

    “Maybe a quiet night,” he said, chuckling as he sat in what appeared to be a child’s bedroom.

    “Lots of luck, Dad,” Biden replied.

    Jared Schmeck says he doesn’t have anything against Biden but thinks he could be doing a better job.
    GriffinhunterTCG /YouTube

    “I understand there is a vulgar meaning to ‘Let’s go Brandon,’ but I’m not that simple-minded, no matter how I feel about him,” Schmeck insisted to the newspaper. “He seems likes he’s a cordial guy. There’s no animosity or anything like that. It was merely just an innocent jest to also express my God-given right to express my frustrations in a joking manner … I love him just like I love any other brother or sister.”

    Schmeck said he “stood 100% behind what I did and what I said,” adding he’s not a supporter of former President Donald Trump but is frustrated with Biden policies such as federal vaccine mandates, along with issues like inflation.

    President Biden replied “I agree,” when he heard Oregon dad Jared Schmeck say “let’s go Brandon.”
    Elizabeth Frantz/REUTERS

    “And now I am being attacked for utilizing my freedom of speech,” he griped.

    The substitute curse first came into use in October, when a TV reporter mistakenly claimed a NASCAR crowd was chanting “Let’s go Brandon” when they were actually saying “F— Joe Biden.”

    Source Article from https://nypost.com/2021/12/25/oregon-dad-claims-lets-go-brandon-during-norad-call-was-a-joke/

    QUAKERTOWN, Pennsylvania (WPVI) — A Christmas morning house fire in Bucks County, Pennsylvania claimed the lives of a father and his two children, officials said.

    Quakertown Police Chief Scott McElree said early indications are that the fire started in the family’s Christmas tree.

    “Three family members are deceased as a result of the fire,” McElree said. “We are looking at the Christmas tree that may have ignited as a result of Christmas lights on that Christmas tree.”

    Investigators said the fire took the lives of Eric King, 40, his sons, Liam, 11, and Patrick, 8, and their two dogs.

    Eric’s wife Kristin and their oldest son Brady managed to escape before the fire destroyed their entire home, officials said. They were transported to Lehigh Valley Hospital for further evaluation.

    “It is with unbearable sorrow that I share with you this Christmas Day the tragic news that the King family, in a house fire early today, lost their father and two children, Richland Elementary School students, Liam, a fifth-grader, and Patrick, a third-grader. Mom and Brady, an eighth-grader at Strayer Middle School, thankfully survived,” Quakertown Community School District Superintendent Bill Harner said in a letter to the community Saturday evening.

    The incident happened around 1:30 a.m. Sunday inside a two-story home located on Essex Court.

    When firefighters arrived, officials said they quickly worked to put out heavy flames that were coming from the home.

    At one point, firefighters were able to get inside the home, but were pushed back out by the intense flames.

    Officials said firefighters made several attempts to rescue the victims trapped inside the home, but could not make it in time.

    “I couldn’t see anybody, so I thought that they got everyone out, but it was sad to realize that not everybody was saved,” said neighbor Wilson Martinez who went to school with the oldest son.

    The impact of the fire spread to a neighboring home, which also was destroyed. A family of four inside that home was able to escape without injury, officials said.

    The local fire marshal and Pennsylvania State Police Fire Marshal were also called to assist in this investigation.

    The fire was placed under control around 2:30 a.m., but the damage it had cost was already unimaginable and irreplaceable.

    Members in the Quakertown community launched a GoFundMe page to help the King family. As of Sunday morning, it had raised over $387,000. The goal was $20,000.

    “This news is devastating to the school district community and the Quakertown area at large. Eric and Kristin and their boys are very active in our community. The School District sends its heartfelt sympathy to the King family and their many friends and relatives. Please keep them in your prayers,” Harner said.

    Harner said the district will hold a series of supports for students, parents and staff starting Sunday.

    “We are truly blessed to be a part of a wonderful community that is rich with faith, hope and love. It is certainly a day to remember these blessings and time to hold close those we love,” Harner said.

    Another Christmas morning fire claimed the lives of two people in Trenton, New Jersey. The victims’ identities have not been released and there was no word of a cause in the fire.

    ONLINE: Read the full statement from Superintendent Bill Harner

    Source Article from https://6abc.com/quakertown-house-fire-father-and-sons-killed-christmas-tragedy-bucks-county-investigation/11386706/

    Last year was a lonely Christmas for Michi Chang and her family. The coronavirus kept them from celebrating the holiday with family and friends.

    But the COVID-19 vaccines brought some sense of normalcy into their lives this year. They celebrated Christmas with family and friends and drove from their Walnut home to Wrightwood so that her two girls, ages 11 and 5, could go tubing.

    “We’ve been stuck at home for too long because of COVID,” she said. “We’re working from home, they’ve been studying from home, everything has been from home, so we wanted to come out and spend time with friends.”

    But none of that meant Chang wasn’t thinking about the highly contagious Omicron variant that has been spreading across the state.

    “I’m worried about it, but I still want to do normal things like hanging out with friends,” Chang said, adding that she and her family are vaccinated.

    Nearly two years into the pandemic, Southern California families are navigating another holiday season with the COVID-19 pandemic touching every aspect of their lives, including last-minute cancellations or disruptions as the Omicron variant leads to a surge in COVID-19 cases.

    There were nearly 10,000 cases of COVID in Los Angeles County as of the most recent count Friday. As of Saturday afternoon, 83 flights at Los Angeles International Airport were canceled, disrupting holiday travel for hundreds of families.

    “We put ourselves through so much for two years, I would just hate to blow it now.”

    Beverly Grove resident Danielle Peters

    Some families have sought to create new traditions or have clung to familiar ones. Others have opted to cancel gatherings altogether because of uncertainty or a positive COVID test result, while still others closed their celebrations off to a small group as they await test results.

    At Danielle Peters’ Beverly Grove home, the pies, macaroni and cheese, and whole ham were ready to go for Christmas Day.

    But just two days before, she and her husband were still struggling to secure COVID tests to take before they had more than a dozen guests over. When they found it impossible to secure tests, they decided on Friday to cancel the gathering.

    “We put ourselves through so much for two years, I would just hate to blow it now,” Peters said. Instead of having family and friends over, they opened presents in the morning and were planning to head to Big Bear on Sunday to enjoy the Christmas feast, she said. A family gathering will need to wait.

    “When the weather’s better and things aren’t surging, we’ll do some form of Christmas,” Peters said.

    In Wrightwood, Franky Ortega and his family were preparing to start on their next activity of the day: building a snowman.

    “My son wants to do two,” he said. “We got shovels, carrots, scarfs and we’re going to use rocks or twigs for the eyes.”

    He said that planning activities last year around COVID-19 restrictions was difficult. He was grateful that this year was less restrictive, in part because people were getting vaccinated. He said he and everyone in his family, with the exception of his 7-year-old son, was vaccinated. He also tries to take precautions while doing outdoor activities with family. Despite COVID-19 still posing a threat, he said he has noticed people more at ease about gathering.

    “This year I see people pushing hard for holiday get-togethers even from people you wouldn’t have expected,” he said.

    Life in 2021 returned to something resembling normal, with stadiums again full, lockdowns eased and kids back in class. But there were also events to remind us that true normal still remains a way off.

    In South Pasadena, Denise and her family — for privacy reasons, she asked not to use her last name — had planned to celebrate her husband’s birthday on Friday with champagne and oysters and have guests over for Christmas the next day to open presents and enjoy a meal. But on Christmas Eve morning, her husband woke up sneezing, and a COVID test confirmed he was positive, she said, derailing their plans. Denise and their two children tested negative.

    Instead of a family celebration, her husband ate oysters at home alone while she took their 1-year-old and 5-year-old out of the house. Denise said she and her husband are both vaccinated and received COVID booster shots last week and that his symptoms have been mild. Still, on Christmas morning, her husband stood in the corner of their apartment wearing a mask and face shield as their children opened presents.

    “It was very bizarre,” Denise said. The experience has been emotionally draining for the family, she said. She is waiting to get tested again on Monday.

    In Culver City, Eileen Dorn met up with other instructors at Alliance Culver City for a Christmas Day workout tradition. For nine years, Dorn, who is Jewish, said she and other trainers have met for a workout session that is usually followed by a trip to a Chinese restaurant and a movie in a theater. This year, Dorn is sticking to takeout with her family and a movie at home, but she said it was nice to hang on to a familiar tradition.

    “We all anticipated that this year would be different, and it’s proving to not be that way, so it’s nice to kind of hold on to one little bit that is still normal and safe,” she said.

    Times photographer Irfan Khan contributed to this report.

    Source Article from https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-12-25/omicron-the-unwelcome-guest-at-this-years-socal-christmas

    “Don’t suffer like me, get the vaccine immediately. It’s not only protecting yourself, its protecting people like me,” says 72-year-old Joel Croxton. Croxton was fully vaccinated but had a weakened immune system. He died of COVID on September 14.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina


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    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    “Don’t suffer like me, get the vaccine immediately. It’s not only protecting yourself, its protecting people like me,” says 72-year-old Joel Croxton. Croxton was fully vaccinated but had a weakened immune system. He died of COVID on September 14.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    Alan Hawes pulls up images on his computer that are raw and intimate, like the anguished eyes of a 72-year-old man in a hospital bed, trapped behind a mask.

    “He was extremely scared, and I think that comes across in the photo,” says Hawes.

    “He’s just kind of looking into the lens like, ‘help me.’ “

    A photojournalist for nearly two decades, Hawes, 57, is used to taking pictures of people when they’re most vulnerable.

    Alan Hawes, formerly a photojournalist and now a nurse at the Medical University of South Carolina, documented daily life for patients and hospital workers in the hospital’s intensive care unit.

    Sarah Pack/Medical University of South Carolina


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    Sarah Pack/Medical University of South Carolina

    Alan Hawes, formerly a photojournalist and now a nurse at the Medical University of South Carolina, documented daily life for patients and hospital workers in the hospital’s intensive care unit.

    Sarah Pack/Medical University of South Carolina

    Now he works as a registered nurse at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, and the man in the picture was a patient.

    “He told me, ‘I don’t ever want anyone to have to go through this.’ “

    Neither does Hawes. That’s why he got the idea to start photographing his daily experiences with health-care workers and COVID patients in the critical care unit.

    “If the public was more educated and could see what was going on and feel some of those emotions that I hope my photos show, I felt like it would make a bigger difference,” says Hawes, whose photographs have been published by the Chicago Tribune, Sports Illustrated and the Associated Press.

    Hawes especially hopes the images can change the minds of the unvaccinated. To the frustration of health-care workers, most new patients turning up at his hospital’s emergency room have not been vaccinated, he says. And as the nation braces for another deadly wave due to the omicron variant, he expects the number of people seriously ill with COVID to go up.

    With the permission of hospital officials, health-care workers and COVID patients, Hawes began taking photos on his own time. Many of the images are showcased on the hospital’s Facebook page and have been featured in local news.

    Respiratory therapist Miriah Blevins peers out a window looking for assistance as she cares for a patient. When staffers are wearing personal protective equipment in a sealed room, they often need help.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina


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    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    Respiratory therapist Miriah Blevins peers out a window looking for assistance as she cares for a patient. When staffers are wearing personal protective equipment in a sealed room, they often need help.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    Left: Patient care technician Kelly Burchette comforts intensive care unit nurse Andrea Crain as she breaks down in tears after calling a patient’s wife to tell her to come to the hospital because her husband is dying. “Everybody is dying and it just makes me so sad,” Crain said. Right: A patient’s prayer cloth is attached to an IV pole at the request of the patient’s family.

    Alan Hawes/ Medical University of South Carolina


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    Alan Hawes/ Medical University of South Carolina

    Left: Patient care technician Kelly Burchette comforts intensive care unit nurse Andrea Crain as she breaks down in tears after calling a patient’s wife to tell her to come to the hospital because her husband is dying. “Everybody is dying and it just makes me so sad,” Crain said. Right: A patient’s prayer cloth is attached to an IV pole at the request of the patient’s family.

    Alan Hawes/ Medical University of South Carolina

    Those images include a respiratory therapist peering through the blinds from inside a patient’s window. She is trying to get another health-care worker’s attention. She needs help to care for the patient but can’t leave the room because she is in full protective gear. Dawes says he took this shot because “it just kind of shows how isolated we are when we’re in those rooms.”

    Another is a close-up of a prayer cloth sealed in a plastic bag marked “do not throw away,” attached to an IV pole. The cloth was made by a family member to provide comfort and spiritual strength to their mother, a COVID patient. The woman died in October.

    Another photo captures a nurse crying after calling a patient’s wife, urging her to come quickly because her husband is dying.

    These are images fellow nurse Sarah Bucko, 40, knows all too well.

    “I look at these pictures and I can tell you their names. I can tell you whether they lived or died, and how my coworkers were feeling that day,” she says.

    Bucko has worked at the hospital for nearly 20 years. She says she loves caring for people. But like millions of health-care workers across the country, she is exhausted — physically, mentally and emotionally.

    Hospital staff roll a COVID patient into the intensive care unit at the Medical University of South Carolina after being intubated in the emergency room. The patient’s wife was also hospitalized with COVID.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina


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    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    Hospital staff roll a COVID patient into the intensive care unit at the Medical University of South Carolina after being intubated in the emergency room. The patient’s wife was also hospitalized with COVID.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    Left: registered nurse Crystal Foster dons her protective gear. She has had two mild COVID infections herself, the second time after being fully vaccinated. Right: ICU nurse Lauren Harfield writes information about blood oxygen levels on the window of the patient’s door so it can be easily seen by medical staff.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina


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    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    Left: registered nurse Crystal Foster dons her protective gear. She has had two mild COVID infections herself, the second time after being fully vaccinated. Right: ICU nurse Lauren Harfield writes information about blood oxygen levels on the window of the patient’s door so it can be easily seen by medical staff.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    A team of nurses, patient care technicians and a respiratory therapist prepare to return a COVID patient to their back after 24 hours of lying on their stomach. That posture makes it easier to breathe and is a critical part of treatment for COVID patients in hospitals.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina


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    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    A team of nurses, patient care technicians and a respiratory therapist prepare to return a COVID patient to their back after 24 hours of lying on their stomach. That posture makes it easier to breathe and is a critical part of treatment for COVID patients in hospitals.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    Even after she’s helped save a loved one’s life, she says, some family members have told her they’re still not sure they’ll get vaccinated – and that the coronavirus is a hoax.

    “I’ve been told by patients’ families [who can’t come to visit] that we are making this up to drum up business at the hospital,” says Bucko.

    “If anything,” she adds, “I think these pictures show this is real.”

    Left: Tala’Shea Foster uses Facetime to see her newborn son, delivered by emergency cesarean section because her COVID was so severe. Foster says she didn’t know the vaccine was available for pregnant women. Right: Charles Roberts had a tube inserted in his nose to improve oxygen flow shortly after his hospital admission for COVID. By the end of the night, he was intubated.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina


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    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    Left: Tala’Shea Foster uses Facetime to see her newborn son, delivered by emergency cesarean section because her COVID was so severe. Foster says she didn’t know the vaccine was available for pregnant women. Right: Charles Roberts had a tube inserted in his nose to improve oxygen flow shortly after his hospital admission for COVID. By the end of the night, he was intubated.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    Steven Lavender recovers from COVID in the ICU after spending weeks isolated in a specialized COVID unit on a ventilator until he was no longer contagious. Lavender was unable to talk due to a tracheotomy, so his fiancée Mary Moore made a page in her journal that he could use to point to his needs. According to Moore, Lavender said he was “too busy” to go for a vaccine prior to getting COVID.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina


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    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    Steven Lavender recovers from COVID in the ICU after spending weeks isolated in a specialized COVID unit on a ventilator until he was no longer contagious. Lavender was unable to talk due to a tracheotomy, so his fiancée Mary Moore made a page in her journal that he could use to point to his needs. According to Moore, Lavender said he was “too busy” to go for a vaccine prior to getting COVID.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    But there are some people who have changed their minds about the COVID vaccine and have allowed Hawes to document their stories.

    Steven Murray is one such patient.

    Murray, who was not vaccinated, believed he could fight off COVID like the flu when he reluctantly went to the emergency room just before Labor Day.

    Hawes photographed him sitting in a chair with tubes up his nose.

    “I was like no, not me. I’m tough. I’m 37 years old. I’m not going to die,” he says.

    Steven Murray did not get the vaccine. “I thought that if I got COVID, I’d be able to fight it off like the flu. Boy was I wrong. There is nothing you could have told me to make me get the vaccine. After this experience, I’m telling everyone I know to get it now. The grim reaper was reaching out for me. I was scared.”

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina


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    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    But within an hour of being admitted, Murray says doctors told him he would likely not leave the hospital alive if he didn’t get intubated — inserting a tube into the trachea to maintain an airway.

    Stubbornly, he refused and now admits he was scared he would die if put on a ventilator.

    He survived.

    When health care staffers asked he’d decided against getting vaccinated, Murray says he told them, “because I’m a dumbass.”

    Murray says he bought into what he calls the misinformation and politics surrounding the pandemic. He goes out of his way to share his story whenever he can and “when I tell them, I’m like please, please, please get the vaccine. If you haven’t gotten it, please.”

    “We need to give these people a break because eventually they are going to break,” says Murray.

    Dr. Denise Sese (left) discusses a patient’s plan of care with nurse Ericka Tollerson in the COVID intensive care unit.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina


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    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    Dr. Denise Sese (left) discusses a patient’s plan of care with nurse Ericka Tollerson in the COVID intensive care unit.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    The COVID ICU has a red zone that’s sealed with negative pressure air to keep the airborne virus particles from leaving the room. Staff are required to wear full PPE, including N-95 respirators and eye protection, for most of their 12-hour shifts.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina


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    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    The COVID ICU has a red zone that’s sealed with negative pressure air to keep the airborne virus particles from leaving the room. Staff are required to wear full PPE, including N-95 respirators and eye protection, for most of their 12-hour shifts.

    Alan Hawes/Medical University of South Carolina

    Hawes doesn’t know how people will react to his photos, but he hopes the images will be educational.

    “The more people see, the more they understand, and the better decisions people make,” says Hawes.

    “That’s what journalism is about.”

    Victoria Hansen covers the Charleston community for South Carolina Public Radio.

    Source Article from https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/26/1066395049/intimate-portraits-of-a-hospital-covid-unit-from-a-photojournalist-turned-nurse

    A 70-mile stretch of Interstate 80 in the Sierra was closed Saturday when a powerful storm that dropped nearly 2 feet of snow on some ski resorts around Lake Tahoe overnight got its second wind.

    A winter storm remains in effect until 10 a.m. Tuesday at Lake Tahoe, where the National Weather Service said more snow is on its way — 1 to 2 feet more at lake level and up to another 3 feet (91 cm) at elevations above 7,000 feet where winds could gust in excess of 100 mph (160 kph).

    I-80 connecting Reno to Sacramento was closed in both directions due to poor visibility from the Nevada-California state line to Colfax, California.

    “The worst part of the storm is here so expect long delays,” the California Highway Patrol in Truckee tweeted Saturday afternoon.

    The storm warning was set to expire at 10 p.m. Saturday in Reno-Sparks and Carson City.

    Twenty inches (50 centimeters) of snow fell Friday night into Saturday at Homewood on Tahoe’s west shore. About a foot (30 cm) was reported at Northstar near Truckee, California and 10 inches (25 cm) at the Mount Rose ski resort on the southwest edge of Reno.

    Source Article from https://ktla.com/news/california/winter-storm-shuts-down-i-80-in-sierra-more-snow-on-way/

    Gass said the cold front expected to drop on Sunday night into Monday morning will bring “much colder” temperatures across the Bay Area starting on Monday, with those temperatures settling potentially into the middle of next week. Cities in the North Bay won’t see temperatures warmer than the 40s, San Francisco is expected to see temperatures hovering around 50 degrees. Interior valleys in the North Bay, East Bay and South Bay — such as the southern portions of Santa Clara County — could see freezing temperatures, in the low 30s, Gass said.

    Overnight temperatures will drop into the 30s starting Monday into Tuesday, even in cities like San Francisco, Gass said.

    Pedestrians walk along a water-clogged path on San Francisco’s Crissy Field on Christmas Day.

    Stephen Lam/The Chronicle

    Sunday’s weather system is bringing the potential for snow fall in higher elevations of the Bay Area, Gass said, particularly in areas over 2,500 feet. Gass said places such as Mount St. Helena, Mount Diablo and Mount Hamilton could see snow fall, with the latter already seeing a “little bit of snow” as of Saturday afternoon, Gass said.

    “There is a possibility that the Bay Area residents are likely to be able to look out into the hills and see some snow on those peaks,” Gass said. “It won’t be uncommon to see some snow in those peaks.”

    Gass said it’s difficult to pinpoint the expected snow fall totals for those high elevation peaks and ridges, saying that “All of the moisture and the cold air has to really just align right to see that occur.” Mount Tamalpais may see “a little bit of snow mixing,” Gass said.

    Another, weaker cold front is expected to drop into the region on Tuesday going into Wednesday, which will bring less rainfall than what residents have experienced in the past few days, Gass said.

    Across the Bay Area region, Gass said residents may expect to see another .75 to 1.25 inches of rain over the next few days. In the past 24 hours, San Francisco has seen between .3 to .6 inches of rain, portions of the East Bay have seen three quarters of an inch to 1 inch of rain, San Jose has recorded about a tenth of an inch to a quarter of an inch, and areas in the North Bay have seen between a quarter of an inch to half an inch, Gass said.

    Lauren Hernández is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: lauren.hernandez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ByLHernandez

    Source Article from https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Snow-in-the-Bay-Area-Another-cold-front-to-bring-16728982.php

    The New York State Department of Health is urging parents to get all children who are 5 and older vaccinated, citing a jump in pediatric hospitalizations associated with the coronavirus.

    Beginning the week of Dec. 5 through the current week, there has been a fourfold increase in Covid hospital admissions among children in New York City, where the Omicron variant is spreading rapidly, the department said in an advisory on Friday. About half were under the age of 5, and not eligible for vaccination.

    The advisory did not give the specific number of New York City’s pediatric Covid hospitalizations, but state data shows that more than 50 children under the age of 5 were hospitalized with Covid across New York as of Thursday.

    The jump in pediatric cases is evident in other states as well. The American Academy of Pediatrics reported last week that Covid cases were “extremely high” among those under the age of 18 across the country. Citing data as of Dec. 16, the academy said cases among those under 18 had risen by 170,000 for the prior week, an increase of nearly 28 percent since early December. Pediatric cases are higher than ever before in the Northeast and Midwest, the data show, and all regions of the country have significantly more such cases since schools reopened for in-person instruction this fall.

    The New York State advisory reported that during the week that preceded Dec. 19, none of the 5- to 11-year-old Covid patients admitted to the hospital had been fully vaccinated. In the same period, one-fourth of the 12- to 17-year-old hospitalized Covid patients had been fully vaccinated. As of Friday, only 16 percent of the state’s children aged 5 to 11 were fully vaccinated, the advisory said, a proportion that rose to 64 percent for those aged 12 to 17.

    “The risks of Covid-19 for children are real,” Dr. Mary T. Bassett, the acting state health commissioner, said in a statement. “We are alerting New Yorkers to this recent striking increase in pediatric Covid-19 admissions so that pediatricians, parents and guardians can take urgent action to protect our youngest New Yorkers. We must use all available safe and effective infection control, prevention and mitigation strategies.”

    Overall, cases in the state have spiraled upward this month, driven by the fast-spreading Omicron variant. The new variant made up 92 percent of new cases in New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate released Monday that grouped the four areas together. There were 32,591 new cases reported in New York on Friday, according to a New York Times database, a stark increase from the 6,644 reported on the last day of November.

    Some public health officials are predicting a continued steep increase in Omicron cases over the next few weeks, followed by a steep decline, similar to South Africa’s experience with the variant.

    Dr. Bassett said that parents could help shield children too young to be eligible for vaccination by ensuring that those around them have been vaccinated and received boosters, as well as by wearing masks, avoiding crowds and taking tests.

    The department encouraged parents and guardians to be aware of common Covid symptoms in children, including fatigue, headache, trouble sleeping, muscle aches, a cough that becomes productive, sore throat, chills, nasal congestion and a new loss of taste or smell. If a member of the household is exposed to the coronavirus, the advisory said, children should also undergo testing, social distancing and quarantining.

    Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/25/world/omicron-covid-vaccine-tests

    Austin police shot a man who was waiving a rifle on a highway Friday, the Austin Police Department said. The man is in stable, but serious condition. His injury is not believed to be life-threatening.

    Police were on their way to the scene of a two-car crash on U.S. Highway 183 a little after 10:30 p.m. Friday when they received a call that a man was bleeding from his face, Austin Police Chief Joseph Chacon said during a news conference Saturday about the incident.

    Within moments of that call, 911 received several calls about a shirtless man waving a black rifle while walking around the intersection where the crash was, Chacon said.

    Other calls came in minutes later that the man was pointing the weapon at people and was firing it into the air.

    An APD sergeant reported over radio that he heard a gunshot in the area. Another officer then located the man minutes later, according to police.

    The officer then exited his car with his shotgun and instructed the individual to drop his rifle. The individual did not comply and continued to walk toward the officer while holding the rifle, police said.

    The officer shot one bullet, which struck the individual. Other officers then arrived on the scene and were able to disarm the man and began lifesaving measures.

    EMS arrived and treated the individual briefly on scene then transported him to a local hospital.

    Chacon said that Austin police are still investigating whether there was a connection between the man carrying the rifle and the car crash, but police believe this was an isolated incident and there is no further danger to the public.

    The officer will be placed on administrative duty while an investigation into the shooting is conducted, as per police protocol, Chacon said. Criminal and administrative investigations are also pending.

    Footage of the incident was captured on police body cam and police vehicle video and will be released within 10 working days, Chacon said.

    Austin police did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

    Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/US/austin-police-shoot-man-reportedly-waving-rifle-highway/story?id=81940506

    A frontal boundary is pushing across the region on Christmas Day, delivering periods of heavy rain and the potential for hail and thunderstorms. 

    “We had one lightning strike up in Santa Rosa in Sonoma County,” said Cindy Palmer, a meteorologist with the weather service. “We’ve had quite a few strikes off the coast. There is the potential for small hail with these thunderstorms, and heavier showers as well. I think most people will see rain throughout the majority of the day today. We knew we were going to be wet today, and it’s working out that way.”

    With soil saturated, trees could come down on Saturday, and nuisance flooding on roadways is also highly likely.


    “We’re going to likely see ponding of water on roads,” Palmer said. “If you have to get out and travel today, have patience. Don’t cross areas typically prone to flooding.”

    Streams and creeks may see rapid rises in water levels, but they should should remain below flood stage, Palmer said.

    Forecasters are closely watching rainfall rates over wildfire burn scars such as the CZU Lightning Complex burn scar in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties. 

    “Thankfully, nothing has reached the threshold for debris flows so far,” Palmer said.

    A blast of cold air will push into the region Monday and Tuesday, and low-elevation snow is possible, mainly above 1,500 feet but the fresh powder could fall in the North Bay and East Bay valleys. 

    “We’re going to stay pretty showery behind this Christmas system,” said Palmer. “We get a bit of a break late evening tonight and Sunday morning, and then Sunday afternoon and evening the next wave comes, more rain. This system that’s coming in tomorrow evening and into Monday is going to bring significantly colder air with it, so we could see a dusting of snow on our higher elevations. I know I’ve seen a little talk of low-elevation snow in the North Bay. I think it will be a question of will the moisture still be there by the time the cold air arrives.”

    Wet weather remains in the forecast through Wednesday. Conditions may finally dry Thursday, Friday and Saturday of next week, but another storm is in the forecast just after the new year.

    Source Article from https://www.sfgate.com/weather/article/San-Francisco-Bay-Area-weather-forecast-rain-16728597.php