Tuesday, December 28th, 2021
Quarantine Change, More Travel Troubles & Ozzy’s NFTs
All the news in about 10 min:
This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp.com/newsworthy and Schwab.com/plan
Story Summaries
All the news stories mentioned in today's episode are listed with links below, so you can spend as much -- or as little -- time as you want to read the latest happenings...
Biden Talks Covid Response with Governors
President Biden is now leaning on the nation’s governors to take the lead in the fight against Covid-19. Yesterday, he spoke about curbing the pandemic, saying it would get solved at the state level, not the federal level. That came as a surprise to many since the president campaigned on the federal government's ability to slow the spread of Covid-19. During a call, some of the governors pressed Biden about the shortage of Covid-19 tests. The president promised to step up production. President Biden also warned governors that local hospitals may soon be overwhelmed due to the latest surge. He told them to ask for help if they need it.
Read more: NY Times, CNBC, Fox News, Reuters, White House
CDC Shortens Recommended Isolation Time
Biden’s medical team changed some guidelines this week. The CDC now says people who test positive for Covid-19 but do not have any symptoms now only need to quarantine for five days instead of 10. It cited growing evidence that people are most contagious in the first few days of infection. Still, the CDC says people should be strict about wearing masks for the full 10 days, and as long as there are symptoms, people should isolate themselves.
Read more: Politico, WSJ, Axios, PBS News, CDC
Dr. Fauci’s NYE Recommendations
Federal experts are sharing new advice about New Year’s Eve this Friday. President Biden’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says it's still safe for vaccinated people to gather with their families, but larger celebrations are risky. Fauci also said he would cancel if you don’t know the vaccination status of everyone at your gathering. At this point, the CDC says about 62% of all Americans are fully vaccinated.
Read more: NY Post, The Hill, AP, Fox News
More Travel Problems
As expected, airlines are still dealing with the fallout from a holiday surge of Covid-19 cases. Remember, many people on flight crews have been calling out sick, so thousands of flights have had to be canceled in recent days. Plus, winter weather hasn’t helped. Yesterday, the flight tracker Flight Aware says more than 3,200 flights were canceled, and more than 1,600 are already canceled today. That number could keep rising through the New Year’s Holiday.
Read more: CNN, Fox Business, ABC News, NY Times, WaPo, FlightAware
CA Burlington Shooting Evidence Released
Los Angeles Police are under fresh scrutiny over a shooting that killed a suspect and a 14-year-old girl. This week, the LAPD released the 911 calls, surveillance camera footage, and body camera videos from the incident. In those, you can see a man attacking several women with his bike lock as they were shopping at a Burlington Coat Factory store in North Hollywood. Eventually, an officer opened fire inside the store, killing the man. One of those bullets went through a wall, hitting a 14-year-old who was in the dressing room. Sadly, she died. The officer is on paid leave during the investigation.
Read more: KTLA, KABC, CNN, WaPo, LAPD
Winter Storms Latest
Americans along the west coast are still dealing with heavy rain and snow, frigid temperatures, and some flooding. Portland and Seattle got a lot of snow and ice, making for a tough commute.
Officials are more worried about the extreme cold, though. In much of Washington and Oregon, temperatures are expected to rise above freezing until at least Thursday. Further south, a lot more rain and snow are falling in California and Nevada. Some places in the Sierra Nevada mountains have already picked up more than 100 inches of snow since last week. This storm system is expected to be out by this morning, but another one is coming tonight.
Read more: Weather Channel, Axios, AP, LA Times, NWS
Cost of 2021 Weather Disasters
A new report listed the world’s 10 most expensive weather disasters of 2021. A British aid group found they caused more than $170 billion in damages. That’s $20 million more than the year before. It’s on top of the more than 1,000 lives lost. The UK-based group called Christian Aid says the most costly weather event was Hurricane Ida. It caused $65 billion in damages when it lashed into Louisiana and the east coast in August. After that, catastrophic flooding in Germany and Belgium racked up $43 billion in damages. The third was the deadly winter storm that knocked out the state power grid in Texas. That one cost $23 billion.
Read more: BBC, The Guardian, Axios, The Hill, Christian Aid
Beef, Other Food Prices Rising
New research says food prices will continue to rise in 2022. Research firm IRI says food prices are expected to go up 5% in the first half of the new year. Several manufacturers, like General Mills, Kraft, and Campbell Soup, have confirmed they plan to raise prices on everything from coffee to mustard to mac-and-cheese and snacks. Also, some executives say produce and packaged goods that weigh more, like potatoes and celery, will go up because of higher freight costs. The consumer price index data from November shows meat prices are still the single biggest contributor to the rising cost of food.
Read more: NY Post, WSJ, CNET
Third-Generation Razr Coming
A new version of the iconic flip phone from 2005 is coming back, yet again. An executive from Lenovo, which now owns Motorola, revealed on Chinese social media that a third-generation Razr phone is coming in the new year. It reportedly will have a more advanced chip than the first rebooted Razr that came out in 2019. There are still plenty of details we don't know yet, like when exactly you can get your hands on one. It sounds like it may debut in China first.
Read more: CNET, 9to5Google, TechRadar, The Verge
Ozzy Osbourne NFT Collection
The heavy metal rocker Ozzy Osbourne is the latest celebrity to jump on the NFT trend, but he’s doing it a little differently than everyone else. Remember, NFTs are a type of digital asset. Each one is unique and can’t be duplicated. Ozzy’s collection is called CryptoBatz. It will be made up of nearly 10,000 unique “bats” that can mutate. Each CryptoBatz will be able to “bite” another NFT and mutate with it to create another unique token. The whole thing is a nod to his infamous moment in the 80’s when Ozzy Osbourne bit a bat on stage.
Read More: Rolling Stone, NME, Ozzy Osbourne
Box Office 2021 Totals
The movie industry has been doing a lot better this year compared to last. However, it still has a long way to go before fully recovering from the pandemic. Early estimates from the media analytics group Comscore say 2021 box office revenues in the U.S. are set to hit $4.4 billion. That’s a 91% increase from last year. That said, it’s a pretty low bar, considering ticket sales in 2020 sank to a 40-year low following theater closures and production delays. On the other hand, when you compare 2021’s numbers to 2019, 2021’s revenues are still down about 61%.
Read More: Variety, CinemaBlend, MovieWeb
Trivia Tuesday
Q: On every continent except Antarctica, there is a city named what?
Play along on today’s Instagram Stories quiz. We’ll also have the answer right here next week.
Last Week’s Trivia Tuesday Answer
Q: How much confetti is dropped in Times Square on New Year's Eve?
A: More than 1 ton
Read More: Times Square NYC, NY Times, Good Housekeeping, Secret NYC