Some headlines covered tonight:
- Twitter's Jack Dorsey steps down as CEO
- Moderna COVID booster: Details about the new omicron variant, side effects, CDC rules
- Magdalena Andersson: Sweden's first female PM returns after resignation
- Omicron: What Covid rules are being toughened in the UK?
- Channel crossings are an English issue, says French minister
- Concerns over masks enforcement on public transport in England
- Capitol riot panel to vote for contempt charges against Trump DoJ official
- Trump’s ‘fact-free’ approach caused briefing challenges, CIA report says
- ‘Almost unprecedented’ spike in number of Australians who see racism as a problem, survey finds
- Palestine: Femicide highlights need for domestic violence law
- Honduras set for first female president as Castro holds wide lead
- Bangkok eateries to serve alcohol until 11pm
- WHO: Omicron variant underlines need for global 'pandemic treaty'
- Amazon warehouse workers get to re-do their union vote in Alabama
- The omicron variant is cause for concern — but not panic, Biden says
This is an open thread where everyone is welcome, especially night owls and early birds, to share and discuss the happenings of the day. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
C/NET
Jack Dorsey has stepped down as chief executive of Twitter, the social network he co-founded nearly 16 years ago, turning over the top spot to Parag Agrawal, the company's chief technology officer.
"I've decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders," Dorsey, who is also CEO of payments company Square, said in a statement Monday. "My trust in Parag as Twitter's CEO is deep."
Dorsey will remain on Twitter's board through the end of his term in 2022 to help with the transition. CNBC reported the move earlier Monday.
C/NET
The new omicron coronavirus variant has been identified in South Africa, and Moderna said it's taking a three-prong approach to help prepare and could have a COVID-19 vaccine tailored specifically for the new virus strain early in 2022, if needed.
The newest COVID-19 variant is raising alarm bells around the world with fears that the mutated virus could lead to a new surge of infections, much like the delta variant did over the summer.
If you're 18 years of age and older in the US, you now qualify for a Moderna booster shot. That goes for those fully vaccinated with the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, too, because you can now mix and match vaccines from approved drug-makers. Authorization for the Moderna booster -- along with Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson booster shots and Pfizer vaccines for kids -- comes at a time when the deadly and contagious delta variant has a lock on the US and as the new omicron mutation emerges.
BBC
Sweden's first female prime minister has been reappointed to the top job after political turmoil forced her to resign within hours of taking the post last week.
MPs backed Social Democratic Party leader Magdalena Andersson by a narrow margin in a new vote on Monday.
She will attempt to lead a one-party government until an election in September next year.
She stood down as PM last Wednesday after her coalition collapsed.
Just hours earlier, Ms Andersson had been elected as Sweden's first female prime minister by a single vote in parliament.
But the 54-year-old economist's plan for forming a new coalition government with the Green Party was thrown into disarray when her budget proposal failed to pass.
BBC
Covid rules are being strengthened once more, in response to concern over the newly identified Omicron variant.
The new restrictions includes changes to mask-wearing rules in England, as well as UK-wide measures.
What are the new measures?
The Guardian, UK Edition
Senior French ministers have accused the UK of operating a labour market akin to slavery and called on London to open safe routes for migrants, as the two governments continued to deflect blame for last week’s drownings in the Channel.
The criticism came hours after France’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, held a crisis meeting with European ministers and border agencies to discuss the migrant emergency around the Channel ports.
The UK home secretary, Priti Patel, was disinvited to the meeting after Boris Johnson riled President Emmanuel Macron by publishing a letter calling on France to accept people being returned, and calling for British troops or border police to patrol French beaches.
The Guardian, UK Edition
Transport operators, unions and passenger groups have backed the return of mandatory mask-wearing on buses and trains in England, but raised concerns about enforcement.
Passengers will need to wear masks on public transport across the country from Tuesday under measures to combat the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19, bringing England back into line with the rest of the UK.
Face coverings were made obligatory on public transport in England in June 2020, with fixed penalties of £100 for non-wearers. The new rules reinstate these penalties.
After the legal requirement ended last July, ministers said masks were “expected” in crowded transport settings. Transport for London said coverings remained compulsory for travel, but there was little deterrent against not wearing them.
The Guardian, US Edition
The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack announced on Monday that it will vote to recommend the criminal prosecution of top former Trump justice department official Jeffrey Clark after he defied a subpoena seeking his cooperation with the inquiry.
The Guardian, US Edition
Donald Trump’s “fact-free” approach to the presidency created unprecedented challenges for intelligence officials responsible for briefing him, according to a newly released account from the CIA.
The 45th president’s chaotic and freewheeling style, which included rarely reading anything put in front of him, resulted in the presidential daily briefing, or PDB – a crucial security update including information about potential threats to the US – being delivered more regularly to Vice-President Mike Pence instead, the report states.
By the middle of Trump’s term in office, his briefings were reduced to two weekly sessions of 45 minutes each. Briefings were discontinued altogether following the deadly insurrection of 6 January, which was sparked by Trump urging his supporters to march on the US Capitol in a failed attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.
The Guardian, Australian Edition
Australians are increasingly aware that racism is a problem in their country, while positive sentiment about immigration and multiculturalism has also increased over the past 12 months, according to an authoritative survey on social cohesion.
The annual Mapping Social Cohesion Report from the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute, released on Tuesday, has charted a 20 percentage point increase in 12 months in response to the question “How big a problem is racism in Australia?”
Back in 2020, 40% of respondents thought racism in Australia was either a very big or fairly big problem. But in the 2021 survey of 3,572 respondents, 60% held that view.
The survey authors note “an increase of 20 percentage points in response to a general question of this nature is almost unprecedented in the Scanlon Foundation surveys”, which have been conducted annually since 2007. But they say there is no clear trigger or cultural catalyst explaining such a large shift.
The Guardian, International Edition
As Barbados removes the Queen as its head of state and becomes a republic, the monarch has sent her congratulations on the nation’s “momentous” day.
Prince Charles arrived on the Caribbean island on Sunday to join the inauguration ceremony of the president-elect, Sandra Mason, who replaces the Queen as head of state overnight as Barbados sheds the vestiges of a colonial system stretching back 400 years.
In a message to Mason, the Queen wished all Barbadians happiness, peace and prosperity in the future.
Al Jazeera
Ramallah, Occupied West Bank – In the early hours of November 22, Sabreen Yasser Khweira, 30, was allegedly stabbed to death by her husband in a small Palestinian village on the outskirts of occupied Ramallah.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) police found Khweira’s body inside her home in the village of Kufr Ni’ma.
Her husband also attacked his own mother, 75, who suffered injuries and was transferred to the nearest hospital in Ramallah. She sustained injuries, but is in stable condition.
The suspect, identified as Amer Rabee, fled the scene but was arrested later that same morning, while Khweira’s body was transferred for a forensic medical examination as part of an investigation into the killing.
Al Jazeera
Former Honduran first lady and leftist opposition candidate Xiomara Castro appears set to become the country’s first female president, a result that would put the left back in power 12 years after her husband was overthrown in a coup.
With more than half the votes counted, Castro had at least 53 percent support and held a commanding lead of almost 20 percentage points over the ruling National Party’s Nasry Asfura, according to a live count from Honduras’s National Electoral Council (CNE) on Monday.
Bangkok Post
The Finance Ministry may consider lowering the import duty on electric vehicles (EVs) as part of the measures to promote the use of EVs, says a ministry source who requested anonymity.
Thailand's EV import tax rates vary. EVs imported from China enjoy a 0% tax rate under a bilateral agreement between Thailand and China.
Some EVs imported from Japan are subject to a 20% tax rate under the Japan-Thailand Economic Partnership Agreement. However, the source said most EVs imported from Japan are not entitled to the 20% rate and instead face an 80% rate as their Japanese content exceeds the level required for the lower rate.
Bangkok Post
Bangkok eateries that meet disease control standards can serve alcohol until 11pm from Wednesday, and pub owners can convert their premises to restaurants if they also want to reopen, the Bangkok governor said on Monday.
Governor Aswin Kwanmuang on Monday issued his latest order on the closure and reopening of business premises.
The order allows eateries in Bangkok that meet the Amazing Thailand Safety & Health Administration (SHA) standard of the Tourism and Sports Ministry and the Thai Stop Covid Plus standard of the Health Department to serve alcoholic beverages until 11pm, starting on Dec 1.
Deutsche Welle
German police had to close down an unauthorized event billing itself as a vaccination center on Saturday after a doctor began administering COVID-19 vaccine shots he had invented himself, German media reported.
The jab, which was developed without any official recognition, was being administered as a vaccination drive at Lübeck airport in the north of Germany.
Police said that some 50 individuals appeared to have received the mystery shot, while over 200 more people were in line when the authorities showed up.
They seized the liquids, syringes and lists recording who had already been vaccinated that day, as well as the personal data of those present.
Deutsche Welle
As concern grows over the omicron variant, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday the panicked reactions by world leaders showed the urgent need for a global accord on pandemics.
"The emergence of the highly mutated omicron variant underlines just how perilous and precarious our situation is," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the start of a three-day World Health Assembly meeting.
He said scientists around the world are "urgently" working to determine whether the omicron variant, first identified in South Africa, is more infectious or whether vaccines are effective against it.
The UN health agency chief, however, emphasized that the 194-member World Health Assembly needs to ensure that the groundwork is laid for an accord that can prevent future pandemics.
"We shouldn't need another wake-up call," Tedros said.
NPR
Amazon warehouse workers in Alabama are getting a new vote on whether to form the company's first unionized warehouse in the United States.
A U.S. labor-board official is ordering a re-vote after an agency review found Amazon improperly pressured warehouse staff to vote against joining a union, tainting the original election enough to scrap its results. The decision was issued Monday by a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board. Amazon is expected to appeal.
The news puts the warehouse in Bessemer, outside Birmingham, back in the spotlight as a harbinger of labor-organizing efforts at Amazon, which is now America's second-largest private employer with over 950,000 employees.
NPR
President Biden said Monday that while travel restrictions imposed on travelers from several southern African nations would slow the entry of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, "it cannot prevent it."
"Sooner or later, we're going to see cases," he said in an address to the American people.
Biden added: "This variant is a cause for concern — not a cause for panic."
He reiterated his plea for Americans to get vaccinated as a way to protect themselves against COVID-19.
"The best protection against this variant or any of the variants out there is getting fully vaccinated and getting a booster shot," he said.
McClatchy
A federal judge in St. Louis halted enforcement Monday of the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for most health care workers in Kansas and Missouri, a week before the deadline for staff to get their first shot under the rules.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, along with officials of eight other states, sought the injunction in a lawsuit filed earlier this month targeting directives issued by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
The rules require health care providers participating in Medicare or Medicaid, including nursing homes and hospitals, to ensure their workers are fully vaccinated against COVID by Jan. 4. The rule is expected to cover some 76,000 facilities and 17 million employees nationally.
USA Today
Bill Cosby's Pennsylvania prosecutor may get another chance to put the formerly convicted sex offender back behind bars.
Kevin Steele, the Montgomery County district attorney who prosecuted Cosby and obtained a conviction in 2018, petitioned the nation's high court on Monday to review the ruling that overturned Cosby's conviction.
On June 30, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed Cosby's conviction on constitutional grounds, turning on whether he received a fair trial and whether his due process rights were violated. The reversal argued that a previous prosecutor's decisions years earlier precluded Cosby being criminally prosecuted on allegations he molested a woman in his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.
Prosecutors used damaging evidence that Cosby turned over in a civil case to convict him of criminal offenses, even though former District Attorney Bruce Castor years earlier told him and the public that those charges were off the table.
The crew of the Overnight News Digest consists of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Rise above the swamp, Besame and jck. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.
Ed. note: I add this as a bonus since my daughter is on the right in this photo. I am, after all, a proud momma.
The Guardian
Photograph: Marit Hommedal/EPA