India Hits One Billion Vaccine Doses
India has administered 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine, officials said Thursday, passing a milestone for the South Asian country where the delta variant fueled its first crushing surge earlier this year.
About 75% of India’s total eligible adult population have received at least one dose, while around 30% are fully immunized. The country of nearly 1.4 billion people is the second to exceed a billion cumulative doses after the most populous country China did so in June.
Coronavirus cases have fallen sharply in India since the devastating months at the start of the year when the highly transmissible delta variant, first detected in the country a year ago, was infecting hundreds of thousands daily, sending COVID-19 patients into overwhelmed hospitals and filling cremation grounds.
Officials have bolstered the vaccination campaign in recent months, which experts say have helped control the outbreak since. The country began its drive in January.
AP
Wow.
House to vote to hold Steve Bannon in contempt for defying subpoena
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives is expected to vote Thursday to hold Steve Bannon, one of former President Donald Trump's closest allies, in criminal contempt of Congress after he defied a subpoena from the committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
The action marks a significant escalation in how far the panel is willing to go to rebuke individuals who refuse to cooperate as it investigates the violent attack that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The vote by the full House to hold Bannon in criminal contempt of Congress will set up a referral to the Department of Justice, which would then have to decide whether to prosecute.
The passage in the full House comes after the committee formally approved holding Bannon in contempt on Tuesday night, setting up the House vote, which will stand as a warning to potential witnesses about the consequences of not cooperating with the investigation.
On Tuesday night, members of the committee blasted Bannon for refusing to cooperate with the panel's probe and warned that he is “isolated” in doing so as other witnesses are working with the panel.
“Our goal is simple: We want Mr. Bannon to answer our questions. We want him to turn over whatever records he possesses that are relevant to the select committee's investigation,” committee chairman, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said in his opening remarks.
CNN
Throw his ass in jail. Let him rot for a year. Then what? He still has to testify. LOL.
(I know this is a pipedream if the Dems lose the House majority.)
Facebook Oversight Board issues stern critique of the company’s collaboration in first transparency reports
The reports reveal the board is still negotiating its relationship with the social network and says its credibility depends on Facebook being more forthcoming.
Facebook’s Oversight Board issued a strong reprimand against the company in a set of quarterly reports Thursday, accusing it of not being “fully forthcoming” about a key program. The reports highlight the tense negotiations between the two entities, as the board attempts to force greater transparency from the social media giant, despite its limited power.
An experimental panel created by Facebook to oversee its most complicated content decisions, the board said the company “failed to provide relevant information” about the company’s “XCheck” program, which shields VIP users such as politicians and celebrities from its rules. On other occasions, the information Facebook provided to the board was incomplete, the reports said.
It was “not acceptable,” the board wrote, that Facebook didn’t mention the “XCheck” system when it briefed the entity about its enforcement policies on politicians when it was reviewing the company’s decision to ban former president Donald Trump.
WaPo
Imagine that: Facebook arbitrarily and haphazardly applying (or not) stupid rules to its users.
Moscow prepares for a return to lockdown as covid cases — and deaths — soar
MOSCOW — With Russia enduring its worst wave of the coronavirus pandemic, setting grim records in daily cases and deaths, Moscow announced a lockdown Thursday — a move the Kremlin had previously said it would avoid at all costs.
Russia joins other countries grappling with how to reintroduce restrictions after doing away with nearly all of them. Public health experts in Britain, for example, are calling on the government to bring back some restrictions as cases climb despite the country’s high vaccination rate.
Russia — Moscow, in particular — has in the past year regularly introduced measures when new cases have spiked, including a digital pass system for the vaccinated and a curfew for bars and restaurants. But those provisions were often quickly abandoned, in some cases after just a couple weeks. Mask-wearing compliance throughout the country remains low.
Washington Post
#TFG's go-to leader is locking down the country, again. Huh. I guess our little lockdown really wasn't that big of a deal after all?
Five military veterans advising Sen. Sinema resign, calling her one of the ‘principal obstacles to progress'
Five military veterans on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's advisory board resigned from their roles this week, slamming the Arizona Democrat as one of the “principal obstacles to progress.”
The veterans said they object to her refusal to change the Senate filibuster and her opposition to parts of the Democrats' sweeping budget reconciliation package that makes up President Joe Biden's agenda.
“You have become one of the principal obstacles to progress, answering to big donors rather than your own people,” the veterans wrote in a letter to Sinema. The letter will be in a new ad from the progressive veterans' activist group Common Defense, The New York Times reported Thursday.
“We shouldn't have to buy representation from you, and your failure to stand by your people and see their urgent needs is alarming.”
Sinema told the Times in a statement that she would “always remain grateful for these individuals' service to our nation,” and had valued their input to her work.
CNN
She needs to go away.
White House, intelligence agencies, Pentagon issue reports warning that climate change threatens global security
As the United States and nations around the world struggle to blunt the effects of rising temperatures and extreme weather, sweeping assessments released Thursday by the White House, the U.S. intelligence community and the Pentagon conclude that climate change will exacerbate long-standing threats to global security.
Together, the reports show a deepening concern within the U.S. security establishment that the shifts unleashed by climate change can reshape U.S. strategic interests, offer new opportunities to rivals such as China, and increase instability in nuclear states such as North Korea and Pakistan. The reports emerge as world leaders prepare to gather in Glasgow next month for crucial climate talks.
The new National Intelligence Estimate on climate, a first-of-its kind document by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, builds on other grim warnings from national security officials about how a changing climate could upend societies and topple governments.
WaPo
This seems like a “duh” moment.
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