A patchwork easing of the world’s toughest COVID-19 curbs sowed confusion across China on Monday, spurring hopes for more clarity as officials shift tone on the dangers posed by the coronavirus in the wake of last month’s unprecedented protests.

Three years into the pandemic, China’s zero-tolerance measures, from shutting its borders to stifling lockdowns, provide a stark contrast with the rest of the world, which has largely opened up in its efforts to live with the virus.

The strict approach has battered the world’s second-largest economy, put mental strain on hundreds of millions and last month prompted the biggest show of public discontent in mainland China since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012.

Although the protests largely petered out amid a heavy police presence across major cities, in their wake numerous regional authorities have announced some relaxations of lockdowns, quarantine rules and testing requirements.

Daily tallies of new COVID infections have also dropped in some regions as authorities row back on testing.

“The information at this stage will be a bit chaotic,” commentator Hu Xijin, a former editor-in-chief of state-controlled tabloid Global Times, said on the Twitter-like microblog Weibo on Sunday, flagging the risk that fewer tests could skew infection figures.

China is soon set to announce a nationwide easing of testing requirements as well as allowing positive cases and close contacts to isolate at home under certain conditions, people familiar with the matter told Reuters last week.

But until then, a lack of clarity has left some scared of being caught on the wrong side of fast-changing rules.

Yin, a resident of a small city near Beijing, the capital, said her in-laws had come down with a fever and she herself now had a sore throat, but they did not want to be tested.

She added that they feared the risk of being thrown into government quarantine facilities, described by many as shoddily built and unhygienic.

“All we want is to recover at home, by ourselves,” she told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Alongside the easing of local curbs, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, who oversees COVID efforts, said last week the ability of the virus to cause disease was weakening.

That change in messaging aligns with the position adopted by many health authorities around the world for more than a year.

As the virus weakens, conditions are improving for China to scale back management of COVID-19 as a serious contagious disease, state media outlet Yicai said late on Sunday, in comments that are among the first to float the idea.

Since January 2020, China has classified COVID-19 as a Category B infectious disease but has managed it under Category A protocols, giving authorities the power to put patients and their close contacts into quarantine and lockdown regions.

In recent days, major cities across China have continued to loosening the severest of those measures.

Authorities in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing urged local bodies not to test too much. “Do not repeat testing or increase testing,” they said.

The eastern province of Zhejiang said it planned to largely end mass testing, while the metropolis of Nanjing dropped COVID tests for use of public transport.

The capital, Beijing, has also dropped testing for public transport, but entry to many office buildings still requires negative tests, leaving workers confused.

The scrapping of the rule for showing negative tests to buy medicines for cold and fever in various cities, a step intended to deter people from using the drugs to disguise symptoms, has led to mass buying, some state media said.

Although the heat of last week’s protests appears to have died down as many wait for clarity on the future of COVID management, there remain some instances of frustrations boiling over.

In the central city of Wuhan, where the virus first emerged in late 2019, people under lockdown at a garment industrial park broke out of a COVID lockdown by pushing down barriers on Saturday, video clips posted on Twitter showed.

Reuters was able to verify that the incident happened in Wuhan.

On a rain-soaked Sunday, dozens of students gathered at a university in the city to protest its COVID policies, according to videos widely shared on Twitter.

The students, carrying umbrellas, chanted for “transparency” of information by university officials, the images showed.

Related Galleries:

Ukraine’s military said Russia had pulled some troops from towns on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from Kherson city, the first official Ukrainian report of a Russian withdrawal on what is now the main front line in the south..

* Spain has stepped up security at public and diplomatic buildings after a spate of letter bombs, including one sent to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and another to the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid, where an official suffered minor injuries.

* Air raid alerts were issued across all of Ukraine following warnings by Ukrainian officials that Russia was preparing a new wave of missile and drone strikes. “An overall air raid alert is in place in Ukraine. Go to shelters,” country’s border service wrote on Telegram messaging app.

* Ukraine’s military said it had found fragments of Russian-fired nuclear-capable missiles with dud warheads in west Ukraine, and that their apparent purpose was to distract air defences.

* The recently liberated Ukrainian city of Kherson has lost its power supply after heavy shelling by Russian forces, the regional governor said.

* European Union governments tentatively agreed on a $60 a barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil, with an adjustment mechanism to keep the cap at 5% below the market price, an EU diplomat said.

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on that big problems had accumulated in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), accusing the West of spurning the chance to make it a real bridge with Russia after the Cold War.

* Lavrov said that discussions with Washington about potential prisoner exchanges were being conducted by the two countries’ intelligence services, and that he hoped they would be successful.

* The European Union needs patience as it sanctions Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, as most measures will only have an impact in the medium and long term, Lithuania’s prime minister said in an interview at  the  Reuters NEXT conference.

* Switzerland has frozen financial assets worth 7.5 billion Swiss francs ($7.94 billion) as of Nov. 25 under sanctions against Russians to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said.

* Russia said the German parliament’s move to recognise the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine as a Soviet-imposed genocide was an anti-Russian provocation and an attempt by Germany to whitewash its Nazi past.

* Ukraine sacked a top engineer at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, accusing him of collaborating with Russian forces, and urged other Ukrainian staff at the plant to remain loyal to Kyiv.

* Russia must withdraw its heavy weapons and military personnel from the Zaporizhzhia plant if the U.N. atomic watchdog’s efforts to create a protection zone are to succeed, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

* In a grim sign of the energy crisis caused by Russian attacks on Ukraine’s electricity grid, nine people have been killed in fires over the past 24 hours as Ukrainians resorted to emergency generators, candles and gas cylinders in violation of safety rules to try to heat their homes after power outages.

* “Remember one thing – the Russians are afraid. And they are very cold and no one will help them, because they do not have popular support,” – Andriy Yermak, chief of Ukrainian presidential staff.

Related Galleries:

A Group of Seven (G7) price cap on Russian seaborne oil came into force on Monday as the West tries to limit Moscow’s ability to finance its war in Ukraine, though Russia has said it will not abide by the measure even if it has to cut production.

The G7 nations and Australia on Friday agreed a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian seaborne crude oil after European Union members overcame resistance from Poland. Russia is the world’s second-largest oil exporter.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the world had shown weakness by setting the cap at that level while Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday it was a gross interference that contradicted the rules of free trade.

“We are working on mechanisms to prohibit the use of a price cap instrument, regardless of what level is set, because such interference could further destabilise the market,” said Novak, the Russian government official in charge of its oil, gas, atomic energy and coal.

“We will sell oil and petroleum products only to those countries that will work with us under market conditions, even if we have to reduce production a little,” he said.

The G7 agreement allows Russian oil to be shipped to third-party countries using G7 and EU tankers, insurance companies and credit institutions, only if the cargo is bought at or below the $60 per barrel cap.

Industry players and a U.S. official said in October that Russia can access enough tankers to ship most of its oil beyond the reach of the cap, underscoring the limits of the most ambitious plan yet to curb Russia’s wartime revenue.

According to Zelenskiy, the $60 cap would do little to deter Russia from waging war in Ukraine. “You wouldn’t call it a serious decision to set such a limit for Russian prices, which is quite comfortable for the budget of a terrorist state.”

The United States and its allies have imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia since it invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 and sent billions of dollars in aid to the Ukrainian government.

French President Emmanuel Macron, however, drew criticism from Ukraine and its Baltic allies over the weekend for suggesting the West should consider Russia’s need for security guarantees if it agrees to talks to end the war.

Zelenskiy’s aide, Mykhailo Podolyak, said the world needed security guarantees from Russia, not the other way around.

In Ukraine, Russia has been pounding power infrastructure since early October, causing blackouts and leaving millions without heating as temperatures plummet.

Russia says the assaults do not target civilians and are meant to reduce Ukraine’s ability to fight.

Ukraine says the attacks are a war crime.

Zelenskiy, in a video address on Sunday, urged citizens to be patient and strong in resisting the rigours of winter.

“To get through this winter, we must be even more resilient and even more united than ever,” he said.

Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said on Telegram that blackouts would be confined from Monday to planned “stabilisation” cutoffs to get the grid working again, but added the situation remained “difficult”.

Ukraine’s largest power supplier, DTEK, said blackouts were planned for three other regions – Odesa, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine’s south and east.

In Kherson, largely without power since Russian forces abandoned the southern city last month, the regional governor said 85% of customers had electricity.

On the battlefront, Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces were holding positions along the front line, including near Bakhmut, viewed as Russia’s next target in their advance through Donetsk.

Ukraine’s military said Russian forces pressed for improved tactical positions to advance on Bakhmut and on the town of Avdiivka, just inside Ukrainian-controlled territory.

Russia’s defence ministry said its troops were conducting successful operations in the area of Bakhmut and had pushed back Ukrainian attacks in the Donetsk direction.

Russian forces also shelled 25 settlements along front lines in the south, including Kherson and Nikopol – on the Ukrainian-held side of the Kakhovka reservoir, opposite the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Anatoliy Kurtev, the secretary of the Zaporizhzhia city administration, said on Monday that Russian forces had overnight hit industrial and energy infrastructure with rockets.

Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports.

The head of U.S. intelligence said fighting in Ukraine was running at a “reduced tempo” and that militaries on both sides were looking to refit and resupply to prepare for a counter-offensive after the winter.

Related Galleries:

(NewsNation)  — The home where four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death is a complicated scene for investigators. With the killer not captured and the murder weapon not yet found, every bit of evidence could be the key piece that could crack the case wide open.

Considering the unimaginable amount of blood and the complexity of a bustling home with plenty of visitors, the forensics team is working on a case like few others.

Jacksonville State University Forensics Professor Joseph Scott Morgan has taken note of the intricacy of the investigation and how the murderer slipped into the home on Moscow’s King Road leaving behind no broken windows and no broken doors.

“It’s so very complex. We’re not talking about a person that just randomly walks up on the street and stabs somebody and walks away,” Morgan said. “We’re talking about four individuals here.”

Morgan pointed out that is a big piece of information for investigators.

“If you’re looking at a potential suspect, what level of familiarity did they have with this environment?” he asked. “Did they feel comfortable in it? Did they know their way around?”

The case also carries a complicated stew of DNA from the roommates since the property was a hopping college house to many guests.

NewsNation got an exclusive look inside the Idaho State Crime Lab outside Boise ready for the complexity of this case and others. The lab demonstrated for NewsNation how elimination fingerprinting works for cases with a crowded home or in a car with passengers.

But, Idaho’s Director of Forensic Services reminded the public that speedy and slick TV evidence processing is not the real deal.

“We call it the CSI effect. Some people think, well, we should be able to do this. But the technology doesn’t exist for that yet,” Laboratory Director Matthew Gamette said.

Meanwhile, time is certainly moving slowly back in Moscow with the decision to tow the victims’ vehicles weeks after the murders.

“Wherever it is they’re storing them, I hope that it would be at the Idaho State Crime Lab because at crime labs, they have actual evidence processing garages,” Morgan said. “At that scene, what did they have? They had a piece of yellow tape that was providing security.”

The careful processing of one single clue left behind could serve as the best hope to find justice for the lives of Ethan Chapin, 20; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Kaylee Goncalves, 21.

Idaho State Police say its crime lab has already finished some testing and forwarded their detailed analysis to detectives. Still, more test results are due back.

Investigators are still looking for context and clues surrounding the quadruple murder case. Information can be submitted to detectives in the following ways:

Tip Line: 208-883-7180

Email: tipline@ci.moscow.id.us

Digital Media: fbi.gov/moscowidaho

(NewsNation) — The unsolved murders of the four University of Idaho students have re-engaged the online sleuthing community, which gained notoriety and membership during the search for Gabby Petito in 2021.

We’re talking about those who scroll through social media — turning in their day jobs to become armchair detectives by night. In the vacuum of information from Moscow Police, their voices are louder than ever.

NewsNation host Ashleigh Banfield has been all over this case since the beginning and has taken a hard look at what’s helpful, and what may go too far.

From the start, amateur “investigators” shared their theories on the Moscow, Idaho, quadruple murders.

The case has gripped the nation.

People are craving as much information as possible, trying to put the pieces together themselves. It’s been partly fueled by a lack of information from police.

“Everyone has an opinion, and they want to come out and say it. So, what that does is it detracts from the public’s ability to trust the information that is out there,” said Aaron Snell, a spokesman for the Moscow Police Department. “We want to be the source.”

Police have always had to work around rumors. They sift through leads, discarding the hoaxes and the hearsay to get to the credible tips.

But the sheer volume of tips in this case could take a toll on police resources. They could also crack the case.

Nearly 500 “digital media” tips have come into an FBI page dedicated to the case.

The Moscow Police are on rumor control, both on their website and during their news conferences.  Often the rumors get started on social media.

Social media sites are seizing the moment, setting algorithms to gain traction on the Idaho case.

On TikTok, posts with the hashtag #idahomurders have more than 90 million views.

Reddit has forums with 27,000 members, and private Facebook groups, each with tens of thousands of people; all are talking about the Idaho murders and are ripe with wild speculation. Many are delving into the victims’ own social media accounts.

But these crowdsourced investigations can also ruin lives as people track down so-called suspects on their own.

First, it was a young man in a hoodie seen at a food truck in a video that surfaced days after the murders. Police were flooded with questions about who he was.

Kaylee Goncalves’ sister, Alivea, helped find that video and gave it to police.

“I think there were a lot of people who were curious about that person. We were able to identify him and as far as I know he has cooperated with police,” Alivea Goncalves told NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo.

Police have since cleared that man.

But online sleuths soon turned their attention to a new suspect — a neighbor of the victims named Jeremy Reagan. He’s a third-year law student at the University of Idaho and gave a TV interview about the comings and goings at the house where the kids were murdered.

He admits that he’d given a nervous smile while talking about the crime. Some viewers took issue with that and made him a target. Soon, he moved from “target” to “suspect” and it was open season on the internet.

“People online have been ruthless,” Reagan said recently on “Banfield.” “Partially because of everything, of all the reports everyone sent in.”

Reagan has spoken with police and even volunteered his DNA, but when he didn’t hear back from the officers, he simply went to the station himself and gave police a sample.

As amateur investigators continue to dig deep into Reagan’s personal life, contacting his friends and family. He is now so concerned he carries a pistol for protection.

Amateur detectives have had some success before, and it has put wind in their sails.

During the Gabby Petito case, social media hashtags exploded with billions of views. Petito had documented her cross-country travels with her fiancé on social media, but when she went missing and he went silent, it was social media users who put many of the pieces together and gave police strong clues as to where to look.

Petito’s body was eventually found in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, and after a manhunt for her fiancé, Brian Laundrie’s body was found in the woods near his parents’ home in Florida. He had shot himself.

Back in Moscow, Idaho, with every day that the four murders go unsolved, the online investigative community is sure to grow, each member wanting to be the cybersleuth who unlocks the mystery and solves the crime

But at what cost to the professional investigators and to the public?

(NewsNation) — NewsNation’s Brian Entin confirmed Sunday that University of Idaho stabbing victim Kaylee Goncalves’ injuries were “significantly more brutal” than the other three victims.

According to Entin, Goncalves’ injuries were significantly more brutal than her best friend Madison Mogen, which may end up being a very important piece of evidence when it comes to determining who the target was in the attack.

Three weeks ago, the unthinkable happened in Moscow, Idaho, when four university students were brutally murdered.

Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20 and Ethan Chapin, 20, were stabbed to death in a rental home near the University of Idaho campus. 

Two of the victims, Goncalves and Mogen, were close friends and sleeping in the same bed when they were killed.

The two were in an upstairs room in the house, so the killer had to specifically go upstairs.

Goncalves’ parents are saying the way the two victims were killed on Nov. 13, “don’t match.”

Former CIA and FBI agent Tracy Walder discussed the possibility the killings were a “targeted attack” during an appearance on NewsNation’s “Prime.”

“Some of the ways that we can know that this is a targeted attack is in the manner in which some of these victims were killed,” Walder said. “And I want to be sensitive, obviously, to these parents and to their friends and family. But what you might see in a situation like this is sort of a gross overkill of one victim versus the others who may be simply just gotten in the way and I believe that that’s what her father is referring to.”

The father and family of Goncalves also questioned if police were too quick to clear some of the people connected to the case.

Speaking to NewsNation’s Brian Entin, the family says since the Nov. 13 killings, police have ruled out a number of people as potential suspects, something they would like more information on. 

The family is asking for clarity to help them understand why authorities were able to clear some persons involved so quickly. 

“I don’t know what would prevent you from sharing someone’s alibi,” said Steve Goncalve, Kaylee’s father.

Many remember the Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas hearings. They were a long time ago but some of us were around for them. Recently Anita Hill spoke to CNN Anchor Chris Wallace, formerly of Fox. And she spoke not about Clarence but about his wife. Ginni Thomas.

In case you didn’t know, Ginni had, at one time, years after these hearings, phoned Anita Hill demanding she (Hill) apologize to her husband. Like THAT would ever happen. Hill spoke out about that surreal moment on Who’s talking to Chris Wallace.

It happened in 2010. Ginni left a strident voicemail saying it was time for Hill to apologize. Hill says she was utterly stunned to receive that message. And at first, she thought it was a joke — that someone was pretending to be Mrs. Thomas. But then she saw the caller ID.

Hill maintained she had no intention of apologizing and just wanted Mrs. Thomas to stop calling her. So she called campus security. Hill also did say we need to find out everything about her(Ginni’s) involvement on January 6 and anything that “puts our democracy at risk.”

It’s good to see Anita Hill speaking out, I do wonder what on earth made Mrs. Thomas call her. Could Ginni have possibly been arrogant that where she believed she or her husband would get an apology? If so, she should check her ego. Because Anita Hill is doing just fine, and the only one who really needs to apologize is Ginni Thomas herself.

The post Ginni Thomas has yet another scandal brewing appeared first on Palmer Report.

Dear Palmer Report readers,

We came together to keep Donald Trump in check and then defeat him in 2020. We’ve since come together to support a Democratic agenda for two years. And now we’ve come together to win the Senate majority, defeat Mitch McConnell for the second time in a row, keep the House close, and win many of the most crucial races for Governor and Secretary of State around the nation. We’re getting pretty good at this, aren’t we? I’d like to think we’re just getting started.

I want to keep Palmer Report going forever, through 2024 and beyond. In these uncertain times I need your help. All of our content is always available for free, with no subscriptions or paywalls. But if you can afford to, we do need your help:

Send $5 to Palmer Report:

Send $25 to Palmer Report:

Send $75 to Palmer Report:

Sincerely,

Bill Palmer and the Palmer Report team

The post Save Palmer Report! appeared first on Palmer Report.

Actor George Clooney, singer-songwriter Amy Grant, singer Gladys Knight, composer Tania León and rock group U2 were celebrated on Sunday for their contributions to the arts at a White House reception and at the Kennedy Center Honors show.

The Kennedy Center event, now in its 45th year, recognizes stars from music, stage and screen for their contributions to American culture.

At a reception for the five honorees at the White House beforehand, President Joe Biden addressed each personally, praising their individual talents and saying they embodied the spirit of the country.

“To see each other, to see ourselves in one another, to unite in common cause – tonight we celebrate a truly exceptional … group of artists,” Biden said.

The room was packed with celebrities, the White House’s second star-studded event in recent days.

Actors Julia Roberts and Matt Damon were seated next to each other, in front of journalist Katie Couric. Former Washington, D.C. police officer Michael Fanone, who was beaten defending the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was seated next to singer Eddie Vedder in the front row.

Inside the Kennedy Center opera house where the show was later held, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband, Paul, who has been recovering after he was attacked in October in their San Francisco home, got a standing ovation when the appeared on a balcony.

The show highlighted the five artists’s work, and represented a return to the times before the coronavirus pandemic began; on Sunday night, there was no requirement for testing or masking to attend although hundreds died of the disease in the United States last week.
Clooney, an actor and filmmaker who played a doctor on the popular NBC television show “ER” before launching a movie career that earned him two Academy Awards, said becoming a Kennedy Center honoree was a little daunting.

“I grew up in a little town in Kentucky and I watched it on TV,” Clooney told reporters about the Kennedy Center Honors, referencing previous winners Jimmy Stewart and Robert Redford. “That’s an exciting fraternity to be a part of.”

Roberts and Clooney’s father, Nick, along with actors Damon, Don Cheadle and Richard Kind appeared on the Kennedy Center stage to honor the filmmaker. “George’s best and most important work is still ahead of him,” his father said.

Roberts, who has co-starred in multiple films with Clooney, wore a floor-length gown to the awards with framed images of him on it.

Grant rose to prominence as a contemporary Christian music singer who later crossed over to pop stardom, amassing six Grammy Awards.

“I feel giddy,” she said on the red carpet at the Kennedy Center before the show. “Mostly I feel a debt of gratitude,” for all the people who have worked with her for four decades, she said. “Everything takes a village.”

Singers Sheryl Crow, Brandi Carlile, CeCe Winans and BeBe Winans were among the artists who celebrated Grant with a selection of her songs.

Knight, who has won seven Grammy Awards, is famous for hit songs including “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and “Midnight Train to Georgia” as the lead singer of The Pips, which became Gladys Knight & The Pips in 1962.

“She connects with you on a deeper, spiritual level,” said actor LL Cool J, speaking onstage about Knight. Singers including Garth Brooks and Patti LaBelle performed some of Knight’s songs.

Cuban-born León is a conductor as well as a composer, whose orchestral piece “Stride” won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music.

Irish band U2, with members Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr., has won 22 Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.

Related Galleries: