Southwest Airlines has launched an internal probe after one of its pilots signed off with a viral phrase used to insult President Joe Biden, but Twitter warriors are calling for harsh measures to prevent such heresy in future.
“Southwest does not condone Employees sharing their personal political opinions while on the job serving our Customers, and one Employee’s individual perspective should not be interpreted as the viewpoint of Southwest and its collective 54,000 Employees,” the airline said in a statement on Sunday.
The controversy was caused by reports that a pilot on the Southwest flight from Houston, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Friday, said ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ though the loudspeaker – a recent conservative meme that has become code for ‘F**k Joe Biden’. Associated Press reporter Colleen Long who happened to be on that flight claimed she was almost “removed” after trying to ask the pilot about using the phrase.
@SouthwestAir, this pilot better be GONE by tomorrow. Intolerable.
The airline’s seemingly feeble response to the incident had many calling for the pilot to be publicly identified and fired, while others called for boycotts of the airline as a whole. Some went as far as to compare voicing anti-Joe Biden remarks to declaring allegiance with terrorists.
Southwest’s fresh promise to address the situation directly with the employee in question, following an internal probe, triggered even more backlash and demands for a much stronger statement and concrete action.
The LAST thing I want when I'm flying is to know that the pilot of my plane only cares about half of their passengers because of their political views. The Southwest pilot should be #FIRED immediately.
At the same time some noted that the same people now calling for the Southwest pilot to be fired, spent the last four years “tweeting nothing but F*** Trump.”
You’re making assumptions. It’s as big a deal as any Southwest customer wishes to make it. It was a stupid thing to say & deserves the scrutiny. But we share the country w/ assholes in every line of work. I recall DeNiro saying “Fuck Trump” on National TV & 1/2 of earth cheered.
French President Emmanuel Macron has accused Australian PM Scott Morrison of undermining mutual respect by lying about Canberra’s plan to scrap an agreement with Paris, in favor of the AUKUS nuclear sub deal with the US and UK.
“We will see what he will deliver,” Macron said at the G20 summit in Rome when pressed about whether he could ever trust Morrison again. “Do you think he lied to you?” a reporter asked directly.
I don't think, I know.
Macron did not go into particular details of the alleged lie, telling Australian journalist instead that he has “a lot of respect for your country” and its people. “I just say when we have respect… you have to behave... in line and consistently with this value,” he added.
I ask French President Emmanuel Macron whether Scott Morrison lied to him: “I don’t think, I know.” pic.twitter.com/3tcg4xrl90
Morrison denied lying, insisting at a separate press meeting that he had openly told Macron that conventional submarines offered by France do not meet Australia's needs.
“I was very clear that the conventional submarines were not going to be able to meet our strategic interests and we were going to have to make a decision in our national interest,” Morrison said.
Morrison also previously insisted that Canberra “kept the US administration up to date on the status of what the conversations and discussions had been with the French government.” Those comments however did not line up with the account offered by Biden, who apologized to Macron, saying he was “under the impression that France had been informed long before that the deal [with Canberra] was not going through.”
France was left stunned and even said it was stabbed in the back after the surprise announcement of the AUKUS deal by the leaders of the US, UK, and Australia in mid-September. The reaction was so harsh because the new plan to arm Canberra with a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines resulted in the Australian government unilaterally canceling the $90 billion diesel-electric submarine contract with Paris. France even recalled its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra, though they have both since returned.
On the sideline of the the G20 summit, Macron all but mocked Australia for throwing away a solid deal with a clear and reliable timeline, already negotiated under the previous government, in exchange for empty promises of an 18-months review of a roadmap into how Australia could potentially obtain nuclear submarines sometime in the future.
“Now, you have 18 months before a report,” Macron said according to the Sydney Morning Herald. “Good luck.”
The Taliban has long accused Washington of funding ISIS, and now they’re indirectly right, as a growing number of US-trained Afghan soldiers and intelligence officials are joining the terrorist group’s ranks to fight the Taliban.
The US spent a staggering $88 billion arming and training Afghanistan’s military, only for Afghan forces to crumble before the Taliban’s lightning fast reconquest of the country in August. Though the Taliban have promised amnesty to these personnel, stories of violent reprisals have circulated, and according to the Wall Street Journal, a “relatively small, but growing” number of former Afghan soldiers and spies are flocking to the only outfit currently resisting Taliban rule – Islamic State terrorist group.
Islamic State’s (IS, formerly ISIS) Afghan offshoot, IS-K, is eagerly absorbing these US-trained recruits. According to the former security officials and Taliban members the Wall Street Journal spoke to, some former government troops have joined for a paycheck, and others for lack of a better alternative to Taliban rule.
“If there were a resistance, they would have joined the resistance,” former spy chief Rahmatullah Nabil told the paper, adding that “For the time being, ISIS is the only other armed group.”
Though IS-K and the Taliban are both Islamic fundamentalist groups, their ideologies differ. The Taliban are a predominantly Punjabi nationalist organization with no stated goals beyond Afghanistan’s borders, and a tolerance for the country’s other Muslim sects. IS-K, by contrast, view Shiites and other Muslim sects as apostates and aim to establish a worldwide Islamic caliphate, as IS attempted to do several years ago in Iraq and Syria.
Initially suppressed by the Taliban, IS-K mounted a resurgence amid the chaos of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, carrying out a suicide bombing outside Kabul Airport in August that killed around 200 Afghans and 13 US troops. For the US military, it was the deadliest day in Afghanistan since 2011.
It is unclear what “critical expertise in intelligence-gathering and warfare techniques” these new recruits will bring to IS-K, given that the supposedly 300,000-strong Afghan military they came from folded before the Taliban in a matter of weeks, with its members often fleeing or surrendering without firing a shot.
However, the fact that these US-funded fighters are signing up to a hardline terror group within months of the US leaving Afghanistan illustrates a problem that decision-makers in Washington evidently haven’t learned from in four decades of experience.
Just as the US-funded Afghan Mujahideen would eventually morph into the Taliban in the late 1980s and 1990s, and the Afghan military is on track to bolster ISIS-K’s ranks, the disaffected Iraqi soldiers left without a job following the US invasion in 2003 ended up providing a steady stream of recruits for ISIS several years later.
The US security establishment has already begun to sound the alarm about ISIS-K’s resurgence, with US Undersecretary of Defense Colin Kahl telling the Senate last week that the group could be in a position to attack the West from Afghanistan within six months.
The Taliban, at least publicly, are unperturbed. “We are not faced with a threat nor are we worried about them,” Mawlawi Zubair, a senior Taliban commander, told the Wall Street Journal. “There is no need, not even a tiny need, for us to seek assistance from anyone against ISIS.”
A new account of the Capitol riot on January 6 claims that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) at one point called for police to “use” their guns to “take back the Senate,” according to the Washington Post.
The report’s second chapter, entitled ‘Bloodshed’, recounts Graham being evacuated from his chambers to be taken to an undisclosed location after rioters had breached the Capitol.
“What are you doing? Take back the Senate! You’ve got guns. Use them,” the senator yelled at the Senate sergeant-in-arms, according to sources cited by the Post.
Graham then told police they are given guns “for a reason” and to “use them.” A gun was eventually used by a Capitol officer, leading to the death of Ashli Babbitt.
There could have been dozens of Ashli Babbitts. On January 6 Lindsey Graham called for law enforcement to shoot the rioters. He yelled at them, “Take back the Senate! You’ve got guns, use them. We give you guns for a reason. Use them!”. They didn’t, except once. pic.twitter.com/4vkst8bwA4
The US lawmakers, including Graham, were gathered on January 6, 2021 to certify Joe Biden’s presidential victory over Trump, with a massive crowd outside demanding the results to be overturned – before the rioters stormed the building. The riot followed a nearby rally featuring then-President Donald Trump continuing to refer to the election as fraudulent.
“What are you doing? Take back the Senate! You’ve got guns. Use them. We give you guns for a reason. Use them.” - Lindsey Graham on January 6th.
Lindsey Graham will still be all in on Trump, who incited the insurrection. That's how broken Lindsey is.
The Post goes on to claim that Graham was also in contact with Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, at the time and pleaded with her to have her father help “get these people out of here.”
"This thing is going south,” Graham said, insisting Trump tell them to “stand down.”
The former president would end up doing exactly that, releasing a video during the riot and telling anyone near the Capitol to “go home.” However, social media swiftly censored and limited its spread under the pretext of Trump sending supporters a “mixed message.”
Graham has had a rocky relationship with Trump, publicly breaking from him following January’s riot. “I hate it being this way. Oh my god I hate it... but today all I can say is count me out. Enough is enough. I tried to be helpful,” he said following the riot on the Senate floor at the time.
Since then, Graham has grown more supportive of Trump, even claiming last month that he wants Trump to run for president again in 2024. Trump, however, has trashed the South Carolina senator, recently saying he should be “ashamed” of himself over reports Graham investigated fraud claims into the 2020 presidential election and found no merit to them.
Critical race theorist Ibram Kendi may have inadvertently undermined his life’s work with a since-deleted tweet, and he turned to a familiar tactic when mocked for the gaffe, essentially calling one critic a racist.
The episode began with Kendi, the Boston University professor whose anti-racism institute was funded by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, reacting on Friday to a media report indicating that 34% of white US college applicants had lied about their race on applications to improve their chances at gaining admissions and financial aid. As Kendi’s tweet noted, more than three-fourths of the students who pretended to be non-white were accepted into their targeted college.
It seems to me that if @DrIbram is going to post, and then delete, something like this, he should explain why. Acknowledging error and changes of heart is important for constructive dialog. pic.twitter.com/B16B7jUErp
But that message apparently didn’t hit the intended mark. Online critics, such as authors James Lindsay and Chad Felix Greene, argued that Kendi accidentally admitted non-whites are favored in college admissions – contrary to his teachings. The professor has built a career on telling Americans that whites are systemically privileged and should be discriminated against to remedy past injustices.
— James Lindsay, premium Halloween costume (NSFW) (@ConceptualJames) October 30, 2021
The tweet was soon deleted, which only fueled the social media fire. Twitter users peppered Kendi with questions as to why he deleted his post and suggested that removing the message proved that he realized the report “didn’t advance his argument that whites are privileged in every way.”
Race activist Ibram Kendi tweeted out a report claiming high numbers of white students falsely identify as people of color to reap benefits. He deleted the tweet after realizing it didn’t advance his argument that whites are privileged in every way. https://t.co/mNz0PBvO0vpic.twitter.com/XuCJf7tamp
Kendi responded by framing the ridicule as he frames everything that doesn’t fit his narrative: racist. When conservative journalist Jack Posobiec pointed out on Saturday that the professor had undermined his own arguments and deleted the tweet, Kendi replied, “They lie about what I said to defend the lying of white college applicants.” He ratcheted up the rhetoric on Sunday, after Posobiec bragged that he “broke Kendi,” likening the journalist to a slave owner.
“His broke reference has a long history within racist structures,” the professor said. “White enslavers boasted of breaking black people… The resistance never stopped then and it won’t stop today.”
Jack couldn’t deny his lies so this is how he responded. And his “broke” reference has a long history within racist structures. White enslavers boasted of *breaking* Black people (when they did not *break* Black people). The resistance never stopped then and it won’t stop today. https://t.co/PjTEgk1djO
When another observer argued that Kendi was using “broke” out of context, he likened Posobiec’s tweet to violence. “A white man is attacking a black person with lies, which are violence,” he said. “The black person resists. The white man keeps attacking until he declares he broke the black person. That’s the context. Seek a book about slavery.”
But that argument, too, seemed to flop, with observers saying Posobiec merely repeated Kendi’s own statement – hardly a lie – and the professor’s overheated reaction prompted the journalist to declare that he broke Kendi, as in breaking a machine. “That tweet has absolutely wrecked your grift forever,” one commenter tweeted.
Ibram Kendi now claiming that @JackPosobiec's tweets making fun of him are "violence" and that his own tweets battling a ratio are the equivalent of "resistance" to slavery. pic.twitter.com/HSqs7S54jb
Kendi, who has authored several books on anti-racism and maintains a heavy schedule of speaking engagements, still wasn’t giving up on his premise. “Here is their tortured line of thinking: When White applicants think they have an advantage by lying about being a person of color, then that means they do have an advantage, which then means structural racism doesn’t exist,” he said.
That notion flopped even with another anti-racism educator, Chloe Valdary. “I’m sorry, this makes no sense,” she said. “If you can get into a college by lying and saying that you’re black, then that means that being black equals a weighted advantage in this context.”
@DrIbram Im sorry this makes literally no sense. If you can get into a college by lying and saying that you’re black, then that means that being black = a weighted advantage in this context.
The majority of Swiss are reluctant to fund climate change goals from their own pocket, a new survey has shown. Younger people, and those living in rural areas, are especially unwilling to pay more for gas, heating and air travel.
The 2050 carbon neutrality goals, outlined by the Switzerland authorities, are out of step with the population's readiness to pay increasingly higher bills to fund them, according to a new survey. The poll, conducted among some 23,000 people, was commissioned by the Tamedia and 20 Minuten media groups early in October with its findings published Sunday.
The rejection of footing higher bills for fixing climate change turned out to be high across the entire Swiss society, with the exception of the supporters of the Green Party. Women have demonstrated somewhat better climate awareness, with the majority, however, still unwilling to spend significantly more.
Overall, some 67% of respondents either found fuel price hikes unacceptable, or were ready to pay a maximum of ten percent on top of their regular bills. Some 61% of polled women were against paying more for a tank of gas, while among young men between 18 and 34 a whopping 80% refused to spend more at the pump. People living in rural areas have demonstrated higher sensitivity to fuel prices.
The Swiss turned out a bit more welcoming towards climate-minded price hikes in aircraft travel and heating. The majority of the surveyed, however, are still against such moves: some 57% of the respondents either rejected plane ticket price hikes altogether, or agreed to no more than $44 in additional charges. A similar number of respondents – some 60 % – refused to pay significantly more for home heating.
Back in June, the Swiss narrowly rejected a proposed “carbon dioxide law” during a nation-wide referendum. The flopped legislation, which came as an additional package to the standing CO2 Act, envisioned new hiked fees and taxes on fuels that produce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. If adopted, the bill would have introduced additional taxes on all fossil fuels, including natural gas, as well as placed additional fees on airline tickets.
The bigwigs heading to Scotland for the COP26 climate summit – where they ostensibly aim to help save the planet from greenhouse gases – will generate outsized emissions themselves by employing private jets for the trip.
More than 400 private jets carrying politicians and business executives to this week’s conference will belch out 13,000 tons of carbon dioxide, exceeding the emissions of 1,600 average Scots for a full year, according to an estimate by the UK’s Sunday Mail.
“Private jets are very prestigious, but it is difficult to avoid the hypocrisy of using one while claiming to be fighting climate change,” environmental activist Matt Finch told the newspaper.
Heads of states and other leaders from across the globe will be among the private jet-setters – from Japan to India to Israel to even the UK itself. US President Joe Biden is reportedly scheduled to arrive on Air Force One on Monday.
That trip will follow the American president’s flight from Washington to Rome for this weekend’s G20 summit, where leaders pledged “meaningful and effective” climate action but offered few specifics on how they will keep temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
It’s not clear whether Biden will again deploy a massive motorcade, such as the 85-car parade of gas-guzzling vehicles that chaperoned his visit to the Vatican on Friday to meet with Pope Francis. Biden is expected to tout more than $500 billion in proposed US spending on environmental programs when he gets to Glasgow.
Critics blasted the COP26 participants for professing to fight climate change while doing nothing to pare their enormous carbon footprints. “Every world leader or dignitary that arrives to COP26 by private jet is an eco-hypocrite,” former member of the European parliament Nigel Farage said on Sunday in a Twitter post.
Every world leader or dignitary that arrives to @COP26 by private jet is an eco-hypocrite. Fact.
Britain’s Prince Charles and Prime Minister Boris Johnson were among those targeted for criticism, inasmuch as they took private jets to Rome and Scotland. Johnson also drew political pushback in June, when he traveled to Cornwall by private jet for the G7 summit rather than taking a train from London.
Prince Charles will take a private jet to Rome to take part in the G20 conference before returning via private jet to the #COP26 summit in Glasgow to express his concern over climate change. Seriously. pic.twitter.com/Y7vS5lo0WZ
According to Finch’s Transport and Environment NGO group, CO2 output from private jets is soaring, which helps account for the fact that 1% of the population generates half of global aviation emissions. Flying by private jet emits about 40 times as much CO2 per passenger as commercial air travel, according to a study by Lund University.
Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, has been another alleged environmental hypocrite for globe-trotting by private jet while warning that “we cannot afford further delay” in solving the climate crisis. His family’s Gulfstream GIV-SP reportedly emitted an estimated 116 metric tons of CO2 in the 11 months leading up to Biden’s inauguration in January – equivalent to the annual emissions of 25 passenger cars.
Kerry’s explanation for traveling by private jet might resonate with many of the COP26 dignitaries. After traveling to Iceland by private plane to receive an environmental award in 2019, he said in an interview that there was really no other option for someone like him.
“The time it takes me to get somewhere, I can’t sail across the ocean,” Kerry said, without mentioning such options as commercial airlines. “I have to fly, meet with people and get things done.” He added, “If you offset your carbon, it’s the only choice for somebody like me who is traveling the world to win this battle.”
Two trains have collided inside a tunnel in the southwestern English city of Salisbury, with multiple fire trucks and ambulances working at the scene.
The incident reportedly happened after one train derailed and “knocked out all of the signalling in the area” after hitting an object on its approach to Salisbury station. Another train then collided with it.
British Transport Police:
Officers are continuing to respond to the incident at Fisherton Tunnel.
At least 12 people were injured in the incident, according to local media reports, “but thankfully no one has died,” British transport police said in a tweet.
Two trains have crashed between Salisbury and Andover. Our thoughts are with those affected.
A St. Petersburg court has released a 31-year-old Instagram model, detained over a bare backside photo session outside St. Isaac’s Cathedral. She is still facing a criminal case and may land up to one year in jail if convicted.
The model, Irina Volkova, was released by the court without any conditions on Sunday after spending about a day in detention. The court rejected the prosecution’s demands to impose some restrictions on her, dismissing its arguments as “hypothetical.”
Volkova landed in hot water earlier this week, after a photoshoot, posted to her small-time Instagram account of some 5,000-strong following, went viral. The photo in question, as well as a brief video produced over a year ago, shows the woman pulling up her skirt and exposing her heavily-tattooed rear with St. Isaac’s Cathedral in the background.
The media attention prompted a criminal probe, with Volkova accused of “insulting the feelings of religious believers.” The model’s bare buttocks allegedly insulted authorities, religion, the Orthodox Church, and society as a whole, the prosecution argued citing witnesses.
While in court, Volkova admitted her guilt, apologizing to anyone insulted by the photo shoot. “I apologize for taking such photographs, thereby offending the feelings of believers,” she stated. “Played an Instablogger a little bit too hard… I’ve already thought that over. Everything will be deleted and this will never happen again.”
Earlier, the blogger claimed she had fallen victim to loan sharks, who targeted her over unpaid debt bringing media attention to her controversial photoshoot. Volkova allegedly owes some 19,000 rubles ($270) to a micro-loan company.
Volkova’s legal troubles comes amid a string of other scandals involving the “feelings of believers” cases that occured in Russia in recent weeks. Earlier, an OnlyFans pornographic model, known under the alias ‘Lola Bunny’ was slapped with a criminal investigation over a video of her exposing her breasts outside Moscow’s iconic St. Basil’s Cathedral. Similarly to Volkova, the porn model claimed she was targeted by a third party that deliberately leaked her video, which was shot two or three years ago and was never intended for publishing.
Arguably the biggest similar scandal erupted over a photoshoot by a Tajik blogger Ruslan Bobiev (whose real name is Ruslani Murojonzod) and his Russian girlfriend Asya Akimova (Anastasia Chistova) outside St. Basil’s Cathedral. The couple imitated oral sex, with Akimova wearing a police jacket. The two were initially sentenced to 10 days in jail over disobeying police, but then were charged with “insulting the feelings of believers,” receiving 10 months behind bars each. Bobiev was also ordered to be deported back to Tajikistan after serving his term.
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US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg predicted on Sunday that supply chain issues plaguing multiple industries at the moment are going to continue as long as the coronavirus pandemic does.
Confronted about the supply chain issues by Fox News’ Chris Wallace – including the fact that standstills at the Port of Los Angeles have only worsened after it began operating on a 24/7 basis – Buttigieg could only say that businesses should expect relief from the issues when the pandemic ends as the problems are a “direct” results of the virus’ strain on the world.
Fox News’ Chris Wallace confronts Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Biden’s supply chain crisis getting WORSE, not better. pic.twitter.com/L7rtKS74Wk
“Look, there are so many things that are still happening in our economy – distortions, disruptions, things in our supply chain that are affecting prices that are clearly a direct consequence of the pandemic,” Buttigieg, who recently faced heavy backlash for taking months-long paternity leave amid the crisis, said.
The “best thing” to do for the economy, the former mayor said, is to “put the pandemic behind us” by getting more people inoculated.
“For the very short term, there are steps we can take in [and] around the ports that we think are helping. In the medium term, again at risk of repeating myself, if we really want to see all of these disruptions [end], we got to end the pandemic. That's what getting everybody vaccinated is all about,” he said.
Buttigieg has also touted Biden’s massive infrastructure spending bills that have been stuck in congressional negotiations as a way to partly relieve supply chain and inflation issues by pumping money into infrastructure and social programs like childcare that would help people get back to work. In a Sunday CNN interview, Buttigieg referred to “often outdated” infrastructure used to transport goods.
“Fundamentally, it's up to the producers, the shippers and the retailers and we're doing everything we can to help them move those goods across the infrastructure that's often outdated,” he said.
Police and witnesses say 17 people were injured in a stabbing spree on a busy Tokyo subway train. The suspect, who also set a fire on board the train, was reportedly dressed as Batman’s ‘Joker’.
The 24-year-old suspect was arrested on Sunday night after allegedly stabbing 17 people on a train heading toward Shinjuku, the world’s busiest train station. The Tokyo Fire Department told AP that three of the 17 victims were seriously injured. The suspect also doused parts of the train car with a flammable liquid and set it on fire, Japanese state-owned news organization NHK reported, citing witnesses.
Witnesses described the suspect as dressed in the purple suit and green shirt of ‘The Joker’, a villain from the Batman comic books. Several photos and videos shared by Japanese Twitter users purportedly showed the knife-wielding suspect smoking a cigarette on the train carriage shortly before his arrest.
The suspect reportedly told police that he wanted to commit murder and be sentenced to death, and that he drew inspiration from a previous train stabbing case, AP reported, citing Nippon Television.
The Halloween rampage came two weeks after a 45-year-old man was arrested for stabbing two men at Tokyo's Ueno Station. Both victims were hospitalized and the suspect – who was reportedly “rambling incoherently” and carrying a bloody knife – was soon apprehended by police.
Back in August, a 36-year-old man stabbed 10 passengers on a commuter train in suburban Tokyo, before fleeing the scene. He was arrested shortly afterwards, and according to NHK, told police that he wanted to murder women who "looked happy.”
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The largest US air carrier canceled an additional 841 flights on Sunday following more than 920 nixed trips the previous two days as weather-related disruptions exacerbated staffing struggles brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sunday’s cancellations equated to about 30% of American Airlines’ scheduled flights for the day, according to data from tracking service Flightware.com. A further 269 flights were delayed as of around midafternoon, following 435 such scheduling breakdowns on Saturday.
To put American’s latest disruptions in perspective, the second-biggest US airline, Delta, had zero cancellations and 59 delays on Sunday. Another major carrier, United Airlines, had zero flights canceled and 130 delayed.
American’s service disruptions made the airline’s Halloween Twitter message look ironic. The company posted a video of a passenger boarding a plane in a witch costume. The accompanying caption suggested that the airline could be relied upon to get its customers to their destinations, saying, “When you’ve got places to be and spells to cast and the broom can’t get you there.”
When you've got places to be and spells to cast and the 🧹 can't get you there. Happy Halloween! 🎃 pic.twitter.com/8Twd7CrPz0
High winds earlier this week in Dallas, American’s largest hub, triggered this weekend’s cascade of flight disruptions, according to a statement issued by the airline on Saturday. “With additional weather throughout the system, our staffing begins to run tight as crew members end up out of their regular flight sequences,” the carrier said.
And with staffing already stretched thin, the airline didn’t have a cushion to absorb the weather blow. US air carriers are operating with little margin for staffing error as they adjust to rising ticket demand as the travel industry recovers from the pandemic. For instance, when American had a high number of employees call in sick in June, it was forced to cancel more than 300 flights and delay about 1,100 others on one weekend.
The company said it’s still awaiting the return of employees who were previously put on leave, including 1,800 flight attendants who are due back by the end of December. More than 600 newly-hired flight attendants will go into service within the same timeframe.
One potential hindrance to the staffing recovery is a Covid-19 vaccine mandate. A union representative in Tulsa, Oklahoma reportedly said earlier this month that hundreds of American Airlines workers in her city alone may be forced to quit because of their refusal to take the jab by a November 24 deadline.
CEO Doug Parker told CNBC on October 21 that no workers would leave American over the mandate because the company would “continue to work with” those unvaccinated employees who don’t qualify for a religious or medical exemption. But hundreds of current and former staffers protested outside the carrier’s headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, the next day, demanding “freedom over force” and warning that passengers would be next to face a vaccine mandate.
Also earlier this month, Southwest Airlines backtracked on plans to put employees on unpaid leave if they fail to get vaccinated against Covid-19 by November 24 and are awaiting a ruling on their exemption request. The decision came after days of worker protests outside Southwest’s Dallas headquarters and alleged sick-outs that may have contributed to thousands of flight cancellations, including over 1,000 on October 17 alone.
Southwest continues to face service disruptions. The carrier had 192 flight cancellations on Sunday and 510 delays. It had a whopping 774 delays and 87 cancellations the previous day.
American said its operations should return to normal soon, but tracking data shows that the carrier has already canceled 53 flights that were scheduled for Monday.
Barcelona striker Sergio Aguero has been reported as "stable but worried" after having to leave the pitch during a game on Saturday night with chest pain while later diagnosed with a heart rate rhythm disorder.
The scare occurred approaching half time in a 1-1 draw with Alaves at Camp Nou.
Signaling that he wanted to be taken off by interim manager Sergio Barjuan, the Argentine then laid on the turf and was attended to by medical staff who raced onto the pitch.
Well enough to at least rise to his feet and exit play to applause, Aguero was later filmed leaving the scene in an ambulance.
🚨⚽️ | NEW: Sergio Agüero has left the Camp Nou in an ambulance
Hospital cardiac exams have reportedly discovered that the 33-year-old suffered chest discomfort because of an undiagnosed cardiac arrhythmia, or heart rate rhythm disorder.
Because of this, he is expected to remain in medical care on Sunday and Monday while further examinations are carried out, and will therefore miss Tuesday's vital Champions League clash with Dynamo Kiev.
Meanwhile, local newspaper SPORT has claimed that family members have told them Aguero is trying to keep calm but is "a bit worried".
"This is all new to him," they added, with the developments hitting him "like a jug of cold water".
Everyone at Manchester City wishes you a speedy recovery, @aguerosergiokun.
With Barca languishing near mid-table and nine points behind La Liga leaders Real Sociedad before kick-off, Aguero reportedly assured those closest to him that his team had to win against Alaves and that he felt "very good" and "very involved" in the action.
He saw himself playing "many more minutes" with a "greater intensity", but at the end of the opening 45, "he felt his pressure rise and his heart rate increase".
Separately, Barjuan has said: "He told me he was a little dizzy", but added that he didn't "know any more" about Aguero's case.
More concrete details have emerged since, but the Copa America winner has no set return date with Barca's next game after Kiev a November 6 meeting with Celta Vigo before the two-week international break.
After that, the Blaugrana's following outing is in the derby against Espanyol on November 20.
Russian world number two Daniil Medvedev has rejected calls to reveal his Covid vaccination status, saying the issue is private and that it would effectively become clear by the time of the Australian Open.
Medvedev, 25, is currently in France as he prepares to defend his Paris Masters title.
The Russian was pressed on the issue of vaccination in a Zoom call with journalists on Sunday.
The issue has become an increasingly contentious one for some tennis players in light of ongoing uncertainty surrounding the Australian Open in January, where officials have given mixed messages as to whether unvaccinated stars will be allowed to feature.
Even if they are, they would be subject to a two-week period of hard quarantine on arriving in Australia – something many believe would effectively make it untenable for unvaccinated players to compete.
"Look I want to play there," US Open champion Medvedev said on Sunday, the AFP reported.
"I always said I really like Novak's [Djokovic] answer which is I want to keep my medical [records], no matter if it is a head or leg injury, private.”
Serbian 20-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic said during the earlier stages of the pandemic that he did not plan to get vaccinated, but has since not commented on his status.
On his own stance, Medvedev added on Sunday: “That is for a reason as tennis is such a brutal sport where you are always one on one with your opponent and any information you give him can go against you.
“I decided at one point to keep my medical information private unless it is obvious.
“So for example if you are playing Australia you are clearly vaccinated.
“I am willing to play in Australia, but I won't say if you will see me there in January.”
A leaked email shared with women’s WTA stars last week suggested that unvaccinated players would be allowed into the country but only under stringent quarantine circumstances, while fully jabbed stars would have complete freedom of movement.
However, the premier of the state of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, has since asserted that he will not be applying for exemptions for unvaccinated players to appear at the Melbourne showpiece, meaning they would be barred.
Canberra had kept Washington updated on its dealings with France, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison insists, despite US President Joe Biden earlier saying that he thought Paris knew about the AUKUS pact beforehand.
France was left stunned and even said it was stabbed in the back after the surprise announcement of the AUKUS deal by the leaders of the US, UK, and Australia in mid-September. The reaction was so harsh because the new plan to arm Canberra with a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines resulted in the Australian government unilaterally canceling the $90 billion diesel-electric submarine contract with Paris. France even recalled its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra, though they have both since returned.
When addressed on the trio’s falling out with Paris during the G20 Summit in Rome on Saturday, Morrison told reporters that Canberra “kept the US administration up to date on the status of what the conversations and discussions had been with the French government.”
“We worked closely with the US and the UK. We kept them up-to-date – the administration – as to where we were at in our various discussions with France,” he told the media.
The prime minister again defended the decision to abandon the French contract, saying the Australian government needed to “ensure we had the right submarine capability to deal with our strategic interests.”
“There was never an easy way for us, I think, to get to a point where we had to disappoint a friend and partner – it was a difficult decision, but for Australia, it was the right decision.”
However, Morrison’s comments didn’t line up with the account offered by Biden to French President Emmanuel Macron during their talks in Rome a day earlier.
The US president apologized to Macron, saying he was “under the impression that France had been informed long before that the deal [with Canberra] was not going through.”
“What we did was clumsy,” Biden said of the treatment of Paris regarding AUKUS. “It wasn’t done with a lot of grace.” It’s not clear if the remark was made in reference to his own administration or both the US and the Australian governments.
During the summit in Rome on Saturday, Morrison and Macron got together for the first time since the diplomatic scandal erupted. It was a brief and informal meeting ahead of the official photograph of the G20 leaders.
OPEC+ is ready to risk prices going higher and affecting demand rather than add more supply to curb the upward potential of benchmarks, Reuters’ John Kemp wrote in a column this week.
According to Kemp, OPEC+, like US shale oil drillers, tend to put more weight on the downside risks for prices than on upside risks. Indeed, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Abdulaziz bin Salman earlier this week said OPEC+ was in no rush to boost production in response to calls for more barrels as the cartel didn’t take anything for granted.
“We don’t take things for granted,” the official said.
“We still have Covid, there are still lockdowns,” and jet fuel supply remains constricted.
“So, we’re not yet out of the box and we’re not out of the realm of Covid.”
His Nigerian counterpart echoed the sentiment in separate comments.
“We have to look at the situation closely before we take action,” Timipre Sylva told Bloomberg in an interview.
“It’s still very fragile. We must be very cautious before we take the next move.”
“We’ve seen the slow down in China,” Sylva also said. “A lot of people are calling for more oil, but we’re looking at problems in some economies. We know that we haven’t completely opened up yet.”
US shale drillers, for their part, are focused on keeping shareholders happy even if prices are high enough to make most shale oil profitable. While smaller, private players are ramping up production, the big fish in the shale pond are still practicing restraint.
Interestingly enough, Energy Aspects’ Amrita Sen suggested this week higher oil prices are actually to be embraced as enablers of the energy transition. In an opinion piece for the Financial Times, Sen argued that “higher prices are the most effective catalyst of changes in demand-side behaviour.” In other words, the longer fossil fuel prices stayed high, the more likely demand would start to shrink.
Supplies of Russian agricultural products abroad have risen since the beginning of the year, totaling $26 billion as of October 24, data by the AgroExport division of the country’s Ministry of Agriculture shows.
The figure is 19.5% higher than during the same period of last year. Exports of grain increased 11.6% to over $8 billion, while sales of fish and seafood soared 21.1% to $5.1 billion. Deliveries of fat and oil products jumped 47.5% to $5.35 billion. Exports of products from the food processing industry rose by 8.9% to $3.5 billion, while meat and dairy products grew 29.9% to more than $1 billion.
The European Union and Turkey were the major importers of Russian agricultural goods, accounting for 13% and 11.8% of the total exports respectively. China has also increased imports of Russian produce since the beginning of the year by 36.4% to more than $3 billion.
The astronauts soon to return to Earth aboard SpaceX Endeavour were asked to explore “other means” to dispose of their bodily fluids, following a toilet leak incident during a historic billionaire-funded all-civilian flight.
NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Meghan McArthur, as well as Akihiko Hoshide of Japan's JAXA and Thomas Pesquet of the ESA, were asked to “limit the system’s use during the Crew-2 return, downhill portion of the mission,” NASA's Commercial Crew program manager, Steve Stitch, said on Friday.
We have other means to allow the crew to perform the functions they need to do… Anytime the crew is suited they use an undergarment in that suit, and it's a short mission coming home.
The malfunction of the space toilet was detected during the historic Inspiration4 mission, which saw American billionaire Jared Isaacman and three other civilians spend three days in orbit inside the Resilience spacecraft. Upon its return, technicians discovered that one glued joint in the waste tank somehow disconnected during the flight, causing urine to leak into a fan system.
“We’ve fixed this problem in the tank by essentially making it an all-welded structure, with no longer a joint in there that can come unglued and become disconnected,”said SpaceX vice-president William Gerstenmaier. The incident was the only reported malfunction during the flight, and allegedly did not cause much trouble.
While the toilets have since been redesigned on the Resilience and the Endurance was even cleared for the upcoming Crew-3 flight – the waste tank in the Endeavour, currently in orbit, has yet to be fully repaired. The astronauts found a pool of urine beneath its floor panels, although a smaller one because they had only spent one day inside the capsule during their trip up to orbit back in April. The spacecraft was nevertheless deemed totally safe for the return flight, if the toilet is not used.
The Crew-2 mission is scheduled to return back to Earth early November, a few days after the replacement mission arrives at the International Space Station. However, due to poor weather the Halloween launch was postponed until 1:10am ET November 3, so their return flight date might shift as well.
Brazilian-American UFC veteran Glover Teixeira declared he is inspired by the sight of blood on the canvas after producing a stunning upset to become the UFC's oldest first-time champion.
In the headline bout of an action-packed UFC 267 card in Abu Dhabi on Saturday, 42-year-old Teixeira started as a heavy underdog as he challenged Jan Blachowicz, the feared Pole and winner of his previous five fights.
Nine years after his UFC debut and seven since his previous shot at the title, when he lost to Jon Jones on a unanimous decision at UFC 172, Teixeira looked the stronger fighter from the outset.
The irrepressible veteran took Blachowicz to ground in a successful first round, then weathered shots before downing his opponent again on the way to a shock second-round victory via rear-naked choke.
"Twenty years, baby," Teixeira said afterwards, sounding somewhat surprised himself at the Etihad Arena.
"I have no words to describe it. I'm breaking the rules at 42 years old and I'm going to keep breaking those rules. I love this – this is my house. I look at the blood [on the canvas]."
Blachowicz and Teixeira had traded words of respect in the build-up to the fight, and the winner reiterated his admiration for his opponent following his victory.
"He is a tremendous champion," said Teixeira. "A great champion. He beat everybody to get here. He is a hardworking man, I love this man. He has my respect forever."
The dethroned title holder was succinctly scathing of his performance. "Everything was wrong with me," he admitted.
"But this is not the end of the story, this book is not closed. I am not a quitter and I will come back, for sure."
A former international footballer has claimed that racism has "always been a political construction" which is "designed to smash the ties of solidarity", calling on the public to move away from concepts of gender and skin color.
Lilian Thuram, who played a key role in France's famously multicultural squad winning the World Cup in 1998, has combined his political activism with authoring a new book, 'White Thinking: Behind the Mask of Racial Identity'.
The 49-year-old critic of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy believes it is "hypocritical" that players who suffer racism during matches are asked for solutions, which he says is a situation positioning victims as "the problem."
"It is up to white players, who are usually in the majority, to refuse to play on," the ex-defender told the Guardian.
"When we understand history, we understand that racism has always been a scam.
"It has always been a political construction designed to smash the ties of solidarity between human beings in order to exploit certain people so that a minority can get rich."
According to the outlet, Thuram calls for “race suicide” and an end to “identity prisons” in the book.
“To be able to change, we have to lift ourselves out of categories: men, women, black and white, and so on," the former Juventus and Barcelona defender argued.
"We have to promote the idea that we are human beings before anything else. Generally speaking, the majority don’t want change because they have settled into their habits. So a minority has to be able to instigate change."
Thuram strongly believes in the value of the taking of the knee by players before matches, which has become widespread as part of the Black Lives Matter campaign but is seen by some as divisive and has been the subject of booing in stadiums and ensuing political rows.
“It’s very important that players continue to take the knee before matches to condemn the injustices that affect people of color,” urged the 142-cap Bleus hero.
“English football has to be congratulated for continuing to do this; they are really pioneers in developing awareness, at least in football. What they are doing encourages people to reflect.”
