Widespread winter storm disrupts travel and power across US
Thousands of Americans were left stranded in airports and shivering in their homes Thursday by a sprawling winter storm reaching from North Texas to upstate New York, which brought freezing rain and more than 1 foot of snow to a wide stretch of the country. More than 5,000 flights had been canceled — the worst day for cancellations since April 2020 — and hundreds more delayed by early afternoon, according to FlightAware, a tracking website. As of 3 p.m. Eastern time, nearly 130,000 customers in Tennessee, more than 45,000 customers in Texas and over 20,000 in Arkansas had lost power, according to PowerOutage.us, a website that aggregates data from utilities.
Medicare will soon provide free at-home coronavirus tests
Medicare, which covers roughly 60 million Americans, will provide free over-the-counter rapid coronavirus tests beginning in the spring, according to the federal government’s Medicare and Medicaid agency. The policy would “allow Medicare beneficiaries to pick up tests at no cost at the point of sale and without needing to be reimbursed,” the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Thursday, adding that it would be the first time Medicare covered the whole cost of an over-the-counter test. The announcement followed weeks of clamor from lawmakers and health care advocates, who argued that Medicare recipients had been passed over in the administration’s push to require private insurers to cover the tests.
Hate crimes trial to proceed after failed plea deal with Arbery’s killers
Gregory McMichael, one of Ahmaud Arbery’s three killers, reaffirmed his plea of not guilty in a federal hate crimes case Thursday after his proposed plea deal was rejected by a judge, court records show. McMichael’s decision virtually ensures that he will be subject to an upcoming trial that may highlight ugly expressions of racism that were not brought up in the state murder trial. McMichael, 66, his son Travis McMichael, 36, and their neighbor William Bryan, 52, were found guilty in November of murdering Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, in February 2020. The three men, who are white, were each given life sentences in January.
Chicago officer who killed Laquan McDonald leaves prison early
When Jason Van Dyke, a former Chicago police officer, was convicted in 2018 of the murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, some Chicagoans saw a promise of justice: Van Dyke would serve time in prison for shooting the Black teenager 16 times, an act that was captured on a dashboard camera and widely viewed by the public. Three years into a nearly seven-year sentence, Van Dyke, who is white, was released from prison, Illinois corrections officials said Thursday. Van Dyke’s early release came under Illinois rules that give credit to prisoners for good behavior. Activists had long criticized the original sentence — 81 months — as too lenient.
IS leader dead after US commandos raid housein Syria
A predawn raid by U.S. special operations forces that resulted in the death of the Islamic State group’s leader Thursday was set in motion months ago with a tip that the terrorist was hiding out on the top floor of a house in northwest Syria. President Joe Biden said the decision to send about two dozen commandos to capture or kill the leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, was made to minimize the risk of civilian harm. “We made a choice to pursue a special forces raid, at a much greater risk than our — to our own people, rather than targeting him with an airstrike,” Biden said. “We made this choice to minimize civilian casualties.”
Deluge of medical waste is swamping the globe, UN report says
A new report from the World Health Organization has highlighted the overabundance of medical waste around the world caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The thousands of tons of extra garbage — discarded syringes, old test kits and used vaccine vials — has strained waste management systems and is threatening both human health and the environment, the World Health Organization said this week. The agency, which is part of the United Nations, said that most of the estimated 87,000 tons of personal protective equipment and supplies for coronavirus testing and vaccinations — distributed to countries from March 2020 to November 2021 through a U.N. emergency initiative — has ended up as waste.
By wire sources