 Russia says it is still interested in negotiating with the U.S. and NATO allies, even as the U.S. releases intelligence indicating that Russia plans to invade Ukraine in February. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov seemed more optimistic than NATO officials about diplomacy, though he criticized the West's wholesale rejection of Russia's demands. Despite warnings from the U.S., Ukrainian officials have sought to downplay fears about an imminent invasion, and Russia says it does not plan to start a war in Ukraine. More: - The White House recently declassified intelligence showing the Russian buildup of troops around the country's border with Ukraine, and the U.K. has accused Russia of planning to overthrow Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and replace him with a pro-Russia government.
- Russia has rejected these claims and suggested evidence of an impending invasion was similar to U.S. intelligence mistakes regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2003.
- The head of Ukraine's security council, Oleksii Danilov, encouraged the U.S. and its allies to not "shout so much." He said it would be better to supply Ukraine with defensive weapons rather than create a panic.
- Russia wants NATO to guarantee that Ukraine will not become a member of the alliance, something the group has said is off the table.
- Lavrov says he believes the two sides can potentially agree on "secondary issues," such as a moratorium on deploying missile systems in Europe.
- U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he also hoped for a diplomatic solution and that "conflict is not inevitable."
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 Ten people were injured, though no fatalities were reported, after a bridge collapsed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Friday. The Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed just before 7 a.m. local time, only hours before President Biden arrived in Pittsburgh to talk about infrastructure. A Port Authority bus was trapped on the crumbled bridge, with several cars falling off and overturning. More: - The collapse caused a gas leak, though local crews isolated the rupture and turned off the gas without major service disruptions.
- The bridge has been rated in poor condition for the past decade, both by the National Bridge Inventory and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
- Biden is visiting Pittsburgh largely to tout his recently passed infrastructure package and to highlight how much an increase in funding will help repair ailing structures in the city. He visited the site of the collapsed bridge on Friday afternoon.
- Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh and its suburbs, has more bridges than any other county in the U.S. It also has the most bridges rated in poor condition, according to the Department of Transportation.
- Nationally, about 7.5% of the U.S.'s 617,000 bridges are considered to be in poor condition, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.
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 Angry mobs set fire to empty train cars in northeast India this week over joblessness and a police crackdown on protests. Young job applicants in the state of Bihar, in northeast India, say the entrance exams to work for the railroads are unfair and exclude many candidates. Protests began on Monday and grew rapidly; crowds blocked the tracks, burned effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and set rail cars on fire by the week's end. More: - Joblessness among young people is a growing problem in India. Millions of applicants have applied for only 150,000 available positions with India's railways.
- India's railways department is one of the world's largest employers, with more than 1.2 million workers.
- The employment crisis in India often sees many overqualified workers applying for menial jobs. People with advanced degrees will often apply for entry-level positions.
- India's unemployment rate is 8%; it's nearly double that in Bihar.
- No injuries were reported in connection to the train fires.
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GOOD NEWS: Guinea worm has been nearly eradicated worldwide, with only 14 global cases reported in 2021. Guinea worm is a result of drinking parasitic water; the parasites can ultimately grow to be up to three feet long before breaking out of the body through the skin. However, decades of public health efforts, supported in large part by former President Jimmy Carter, have decontaminated drinking water in much of sub-Saharan Africa and brought Guinea worm close to being a scourge of the past. More: - When The Carter Center launched its eradication effort in 1986, more than 3.5 million people contracted Guinea worm every year.
- Infections in animals also declined 45% in 2021 compared to 2020, considered another important tool in preventing the spread of Guinea worm to people.
- Guinea worm is not a fatal disease, but it can be painful and debilitating, preventing people from working or living a reasonable life until the worm is removed.
- The 14 cases in 2021 were discovered in Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, and South Sudan.
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More Americans now say they are "not too happy" than "very happy" for the first time in the 50-year history of the General Social Survey. Typically, more than 30% of respondents say they are "very happy" and between 10% and 20% say they are "not too happy." But, in 2021, 24% responded with "not too happy" and only 19% with "very happy." The percentage of people who said they were "pretty happy" remained relatively stable at 57%. Analyst Christopher Ingraham attributes the change in attitudes largely to the pandemic. More: - Both Republicans and Democrats saw happiness decline over the past few years, though there's a clear happiness gap between the two: Republicans, in general, have consistently been more likely to say they're "very happy" than Democrats.
- The survey also showed a widening partisan gap in trust for scientific institutions. Republicans began to trust the scientific community less starting in about 2006, but this gap has also increased dramatically since 2018, with only 34% of Republicans saying they have a great deal of confidence in the scientific community, compared to 64% of Democrats.
- The General Social Survey is conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. Look at the survey's full results and click "Life Satisfaction" for the sortable happiness data.
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 Joseph Maldonado-Passage, also known as Joe Exotic and the "Tiger King," was resentenced to 21 years in prison by a federal judge on Friday. Only one year was shaved off his sentence after a federal appeals court ruled in 2021 that improper sentencing guidelines were followed in his trial. Maldonado-Passage was convicted in a murder-for-hire scheme targeting animal rights activist Carole Baskin. Both Maldonado-Passage and Baskin were featured in the Netflix docuseries "Tiger King." More: - Maldonado-Passage's attorneys argue that he wasn't being serious and never intended to have Baskin killed.
- Some supporters sat in the courtroom during the resentencing with T-shirts reading "Free Joe Exotic."
- Baskin attended the hearing, saying she feared for her life if Maldonado-Passage were to secure an early release. "He continues to harbor intense feelings of ill will toward me," she said.
- A second season of "Tiger King" premiered on Netflix in November 2021. It focused on the owner who took over Maldonado-Passage's animal park in Oklahoma and further investigated the disappearance of Baskin's former husband Don Lewis.
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 |  | Jonathan Harris is a writer and editor who lives in Los Angeles. |  | | 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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Splinterlands is the world’s #1 most played blockchain game. Play Splinterlands for free today. | |
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