 Omicron is now the dominant COVID-19 variant in the U.S., growing from 12.6% of all cases last week to 73% this week. CDC data also shows that omicron accounts for more than 90% of cases in New York, New Jersey, and Washington. More: - New York has been hit especially hard by omicron.
- The state is registering an average of 16,916 COVID-19 cases a day as of Dec. 20, an 81% increase from two weeks ago.
- The positive rate of COVID tests has reached 8%.
- New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said last week:
- "It is clear that the Omicron variant is here in New York City in full force"
- As of yesterday, Oklahoma and South Dakota were the only U.S. states that had not reported omicron cases.
- Dr. Anthony Fauci said the Omicron-fueled wave is likely to become "a significant stress on the hospital system" and urged people to get vaccine booster shots as soon as possible.
- Infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm said:
- "We are going to see 20%, 30% of health care workers getting infected, who will then be off of work in a health care system right now that is already stretched to the point of breaking."
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the Senate will hold votes on President Biden's $1.75T "Build Back Better" (BBB) reconciliation budget and a major voting rights bill in early 2022. The announcement came a day after Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) said he would not support the legislation, citing concerns about inflation and perceived insults from White House staff. More: - Schumer indirectly called out Manchin when he said that "every Member of this body [will have] the opportunity to make their position known on the Senate floor, not just on television."
- Without a vote from Manchin or at least one Republican Senator, Democrats won't be able to pass the BBB.
- To pass the voting rights bill without Republican support, Democrats will need to reform the filibuster rule.
- In a FOX News interview on Sunday night, Manchin indicated that he would not support reforming the filibuster rule.
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The Congressional Select Committee investigating the attack on the Capitol requested documents and an interview with Representative Scott Perry (R-PA) yesterday. Perry, who has been linked to attempts to overturn the election certification on Jan. 6, is the first sitting member of Congress that the Committee has summoned for an interview. More: - Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said the panel has received evidence indicating that Perry and other Congressional Republicans met with then-President Donald Trump to strategize over how to block the election certification.
- Thompson said former leaders in the Department of Justice identified Perry as having "an important role" in attempts to install DOJ official Jeffrey Clark as the acting attorney general.
- In early January, Trump is believed to have considered replacing then-Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Clark.
- After senior DOJ officials threatened to resign en masse, Trump decided not to sack Rosen.
- On Jan. 25, Perry acknowledged introducing Trump to Clark.
- In late December 2020, Clark approached senior DOJ officials with a draft letter that he had reportedly discussed with Perry.
- The letter said the DOJ had evidence that raised "significant concerns" about election results in multiple states, and it suggested that the state legislature of Georgia hold a special session to consider its appointment of Presidential Electors.
- The letter was never signed or sent by senior DOJ officials.
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 GOOD NEWS: Museum experts from France and the U.S. are helping to rebuild artifacts in Iraq's famed Mosul museum seven years after they were destroyed by ISIS fighters. A viral video from 2015 showed ISIS fighters using hammers to destroy pre-Islamic artifacts they deemed heretical. More: - Experts from The Louvre, the Smithsonian Institute, and the World Monuments Fund are all helping restore the Mosul museum building and its artifacts.
- One piece, the base of a throne belonging to an Assyrian king, was broken into more than 850 pieces.
- Museum official Choueib Firas said his team has reassembled two-thirds of the shattered throne.
- When the restoration is complete, an online exhibition will show off the reconstructed artifacts.
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The Pentagon has issued new rules to combat political extremism among servicemembers. The guidelines are being introduced after several current and former service members joined the far-right attack on the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6. More: - The policy defines extremist activities broadly, primarily focusing on outspoken support for the overthrow of the U.S. government or for the use of political violence.
- The new regulations outline six distinct types of extremist activity and provide fourteen definitions of behavior that constitutes active participation by a service member.
- Some of the "extremist activities" that are disallowed are: advocating terrorism or the overthrow of the U.S. government, fundraising to support extremist groups, and "liking" or reposting extremist content on a social media platform.
- Accountability is determined through a two-step process: a commanding officer must first determine whether the activity can be defined as an "extremist activity," and must demonstrate that the servicemember "actively participated" in the extremist activity.
- Under previous rules, extremist behavior was banned but poorly defined.
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Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison ruled out the possibility of a new lockdown after the country registered a record-high number of COVID-19 cases. Australia had severe social restrictions in place during the first year-and-a-half of the pandemic, but Morrison said that his country must move past "the heavy hand of government" despite the omicron surge. More: - Australia recorded 4,600 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, up from the previous record of 4,100 that was set last weekend.
- Over the weekend, Morrison said that although the high COVID-19 case count is worrisome, "what matters is hospitalizations, ICU, people on ventilators, and severe illness."
- Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said that "only a fraction" of new cases were ending up in hospitals.
- Morisson told Australian authorities to move beyond "a culture of mandates" and focus on implementing masking and social distancing rules.
- Australian states were allowed to reopen once more than 80% of their 16+ population was fully vaccinated, and Morrison urged states to reopen the hundreds of vaccination sites that shut down across the country after the 80% threshold was reached.
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- Data show that startups with Black and Hispanic founders are getting access to more venture capital funding this year. According to Crunchbase, these startups received 3.5% of the record $311B in U.S. venture funding issued in 2021 up until Dec. 16., which compares to 2.5% in previous years.
- The U.K. government is set to offer £1B in financial support to businesses in the hospitality and leisure industries. Executives are concerned that more lockdowns will affect their businesses.
- Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the U.S. is providing the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund, and five other aid groups with $580M to fight COVID-19.
- A Saudi-led military coalition bombed targets at the airport in Yemen's capital city, Sanaa. Saudi state media said the targets were connected to Houthi rebels.
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 Café Terrace at Night (Place du Forum, Arles) by Vincent Van Gogh. 1888
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UPCOMING EVENTS - December 21 - Growth in Crypto Security with AJ Yawn (ByteChek) (Register Here)
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 |  | Daniel Smith is an Inside Analyst who currently resides in Miami, Florida. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Daniel spent the last four years as a PhD candidate in Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. He is fascinated by tech, business, politics, venture capital, and everything in between. When he’s not writing for Inside he can be found kicking a ball on the nearest rugby pitch. Follow him on Twitter @DanSmithInside. |  | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is writing an illustrated book about climate change that will be published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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