Mojo in the Morning: Screwed up sleep during the pandemic

Mojo in the Morning: Screwed up sleep during the pandemic

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  • Biden reportedly considering a retired four-star general to lead US military, would be first Black defense secretary if confirmed

    If confirmed, Ret. US Army Gen. Lloyd Austin would be the first Black defense secretary for the United States.

  • Swedish government sidelines epidemiologist who steered country's no lockdown experiment as deaths rise

    The high-profile epidemiologist who led Sweden's no lock-down strategy in the spring appears to be being sidelined by the government after his prediction that greater immunity would mean a lighter second wave proved badly wrong. Anders Tegnell's biweekly press conference was on Thursday pushed into the shade by an overlapping press conference fronted by Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, where new scenarios prepared by the Public Health Agency were announced. "There's certainly a split, and I'm pretty sure that many in the government have rather lost faith in the Public Health Agency," said Nicholas Aylott, an associate politics professor at Stockholm's Södertorn University. "By some counts, we've now got exactly the same level of spread of the virus that we had in the spring, and that's about as clear a refutation of Tegnell's strategy as you could wish for." Dr Tegnell has always insisted that his Public Health Agency has never pursued a herd immunity strategy, but he repeatedly suggested in the summer that his counterparts in Norway, Finland and Denmark would face a tougher task over the winter because of lower levels of immunity in their populations. This month, though, the number of deaths in Sweden has again begun to soar above that of its Nordic neighbours, with 630 deaths so far registered as a result of Covid-19. That is about ten times the per capita death rate in Norway -- where just 30 Covid-19 deaths were registered between October 28th and November 25th.

  • Honduran ex-president Zelaya stopped at airport with bag of money

    TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) -Former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya said on Friday that he had been "unjustly" detained at the Central American nation's Toncontin international airport for carrying $18,000 in cash, which he said was not his. Zelaya, who led Honduras from 2006 to 2009 and was an ally of late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, was deposed by the military in a June 2009 coup as he was preparing to hold a referendum on presidential re-election, which his opponents said was a ploy to stay in power.

  • Pictured: A doctor hugged a distraught elderly coronavirus patient on Thanksgiving, after warning the public America is headed for its 'darkest days' over Christmas

    Dr. Joseph Varon, of Houston's United Memorial Medical Center, has worked 251 days in the COVID-19 ICU. He said the 'darkest days' are to come.

  • Biden's win hides a dire warning for Democrats in rural U.S.

    Democrats once dominated Koochiching County in the blue-collar Iron Range of northern Minnesota. “We’ve got to see if we can get the Democratic Party to moderate and accept the fact that rural Minnesota is not getting more conservative,” said Bakk, who announced last week that he would become an independent after serving 25 years as a Democrat. The party lost House seats in the Midwest, and Democratic challengers in Iowa, Kansas, Montana and North Carolina Senate races, all once viewed as serious threats to Republican incumbents, fell, some of them hard.

  • Six US oil executives jailed for corruption in Venezuela after being lured to business meeting

    Men plead innocence following arrest in 2017 as State Department demands release

  • Trump's national security advisor and his entourage were said to be treated as 'human petri dishes' in Vietnam, as the US COVID-19 outbreak worsens every day

    Robert O'Brien's airplane crew was also not allowed to enter Vietnam and had to spend the night in Thailand, Bloomberg reported.

  • White rice spikes blood sugar levels and 'has almost the same effect as eating pure table sugar,' according to Harvard Medical School

    White rice contains less fiber, protein, and other key nutrients compared to brown rice. As a result, white rice has fewer health benefits.

  • Former US election security chief says Trump team's fraud allegations are 'farcical'

    The top US cybersecurity official fired by Republican President Donald Trump for saying the November 3 election was the most secure in American history said on Friday that voter fraud allegations made by Mr Trump and his allies are "farcical". Chris Krebs, the former director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told the CBS 60 Minutes program that allegations of US voting machines being manipulated by foreign countries were baseless. Sidney Powell, a Trump attorney cut loose by the Trump legal team this week, had put forward a conspiracy theory that election systems created in Venezuela at the behest of the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez helped tip the US election to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden. She and others have also alleged that voting machines had flipped votes from Mr Trump to Mr Biden and some US voting information was stored on servers in Germany.

  • El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala stage mass raids on gangs

    The Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have rounded up hundreds of suspected street gang members as part of a U.S.-backed effort known as “Operation Regional Shield.” The attorney general’s office in El Salvador has taken the lead, reporting that it obtained arrest warrants for 1,152 suspects, of whom 572 had been arrested by Friday. The U.S. Department of Justice noted that authorities in El Salvador and Honduras arrested three dozen suspected immigrant traffickers.

  • Florida governor accused of ‘killing spree’ after extending ban on cities from imposing own mask mandates

    Miami-Dade mayor Daniella Levine Cava calls decision ‘deeply frustrating’

  • Facing the first loss of their voting lives, young Republicans are surprisingly hopeful, but want the GOP to work for Gen Z

    Five leaders of college Republican groups told Business Insider what they thought of President Donald Trump's election loss.

  • Buried under a Serbian cornfield, Roman military headquarters slowly sheds its secrets

    Buried under a Serbian cornfield close to a coalmine, the well-preserved remains of a Roman legion's headquarters are being excavated by archaeologists who say its rural location makes it unique. Covering an estimated 3,500 square meters, the headquarters - or principium - belonged to the VII Claudia Legion. There are over 100 recorded principiums across the territory of the Roman empire, but almost all are buried under modern cities, said Miomir Korac, lead archaeologist of digs there and at the Roman provincial capital Viminacium that the compound served.

  • French face three-year jail term for 'accent discrimination' in victory for regions versus Paris

    French people who discriminate against compatriots due to their accent face a maximum three-year prison term under a new bill seen as a victory for the country’s maligned provincial twangs over well-educated Parisian speech. The law, which was passed after its first reading on Thursday night, places discrimination due to accent on a par with race, gender or handicap. Those who flout it also face a €45,000 fine. Tabled by MPs in President Emmanuel Macron's centrist political party, the law notably seeks to counter prejudice in the workplace against regional and lower-class accents. The issues of “accent discrimination” came to a head in recent months after the appointment in July of Jean Castex, the new prime minister, who is a rarity among senior politicians in having retained his thick southwestern accent. Christophe Euzet, MP for the Mediterranean port of Sète and lead sponsor of the bill, said he had been appalled at the way Mr Castex, a former top civil servant and mayor of Pyrenean town Prades, had been mocked for his accent after taking the top government job. Northern French often equate southern accents with sun, aperitifs and idleness. Mr Euzet, a native of Perpignan with similar southwestern tones to Mr Castex, said it was time to end stereotypes in which a southerner is seen as "a fun guy ... not there to talk about serious things.” “Accents have no right of place in radio and television channels, in the world of politics and the helm of high office, administrations and French public businesses,” he added. Unlike in Britain, French media, in particular, has made no visible effort to employ newscasters and other prominent personalities with provincial twangs. During debates, MPs complained that TV personalities with southwestern accents were “relegated to the rugby column or the weather”. Patricia Mirallès, a Macron MP, whose parents were French from North Africa, recounted “painful” memories of being mocked for her pied-noir accent. Maina Sage, an MP from French Polynesia, denounced what she called “a form of racism” every time she opened her mouth in parliament. “Our nation, which often prides itself on the great diversity of its regions, paradoxically disappoints through the toned-down uniformity of public speech,” said Mr Euzet. The dominance of the Parisian accent is often equated with France notoriously centralised and urban administration whose failure to take into account the provincial mindset fuelled the “yellow vest” revolt two years ago.

  • Trump campaign caught sharing fake newspaper cover on election result

    In a now-deleted tweet, Tim Murtaugh attempted to mock the media for projecting Joe Biden as president-elect by sharing a doctored headline declaring ‘President Gore’ in 2000

  • I captured Obama's favorite photo of the 2008 election. It's a reminder of what we've lost.

    The Lincoln Memorial was the obvious place to go on the night America elected its first Black president. There, I found quiet contemplation.

  • ‘I’d rather come here than die there': Ethiopians return to Sudan camp they lived in decades ago

    For a brief moment when he saw the tree his father had planted in the Sudanese refugee camp many decades ago, the old man forgot the knives and explosions which had forced him to flee Ethiopia a second time. “My father planted this tree when we lived here before,” said Gebrehiwot Gidey. “It was 10pm when we arrived at the camp, but I could see the tree in the dark. I went up to it and kissed it. I was so happy to see it was still here.” In the Eighties, tens of thousands of people like Mr Gidey fled a ruthless Marxist dictatorship and a vast famine in Ethiopia across the mountains into the scraggy wasteland of Eastern Sudan. Mr Gidey, a 60-year-old man from the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia, lived for years with his family near the border in Um-Rakoba camp. He built a house for himself there and married his wife under the tree his father planted to provide shade from the harsh desert sun. Eventually, when it was safe, Mr Gidey returned to his home in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region. But now the weathered farmer has had to flee to Um-Rakoba once again.

  • Alleged police beating of Black man angers French

    French authorities have suspended police officers accused of assaulting and racially abusing a Black man in Paris, after CCTV footage of the incident was released and caused an outcry. The music producer, who has identified himself as Michel, was beaten at the entrance to his studio. French President Emmanuel Macron was quoted by France's BFM TV as being "very shocked" by the CCTV and mobile phone images, which were obtained by the LoopSider news outlet and made headline news on French channels. The officers involved were suspended pending investigation at the interior minister's request. Michel told reporters he'd been walking in the street without a face mask, against French COVID-19 rules. When he saw a police car he went into his studio to avoid getting a fine. But the police followed him inside and arrested him, violently. The video purports to show them kicking and beating him, and he says they hurled racial abuse at him too. They then leave, and throw a tear gas canister into the studio. As anger grew, French soccer stars added to the chorus of condemnation. Kylian Mbappe tweeted that the video was "intolerable" and his fellow Les Bleus striker, Antoine Griezmann wrote: "My France is hurting." The alleged attack on Michel risks inflaming racial tension, and fuelling criticism of a draft law that would limit journalists' ability to show images of French police officers at work. The prime minister's office said on Thursday (November 26) it would set up an independent commission to propose a new draft of the legislation. Some "BlackLivesMatter" protests broke out in Paris in June, a month after the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in the United States. The movement resonates in France, in particular in deprived city suburbs, where rights groups say accusations of police brutality, often against people with immigrant backgrounds, remain largely unaddressed. And Paris police were already under fire this week after social media photos and videos showed officers hitting protesters as they cleared out an illegal migrants campsite in a central Paris square.

  • U.S. appeals ruling that barred Postal Service changes before election

    The U.S. Postal Service (USPS), Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and President Donald Trump late Friday appealed a federal judge's ruling suspending service changes and requiring aggressive steps to ensure ballot deliveries ahead of the November presidential election, the Justice Department said. The government said it was appealing U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan's preliminary injunction orders issued in late September in a pair of legal challenges.

  • Los Angeles orders more restrictions as coronavirus surges

    Los Angeles County announced a new stay-home order Friday as coronavirus cases surged out of control in the nation’s most populous county, banning most gatherings but stopping short of a full shutdown on retail stores and other non-essential businesses. It came as the county of 10 million residents confirmed 24 new deaths and 4,544 new confirmed cases of COVID-19.