Chinese people, cut off from the rest of the world for three years by COVID-19 curbs, flocked to travel sites on Tuesday ahead of borders reopening, even as rising infections strained the health system and further roiled the economy.

Zero-tolerance measures – from shuttered borders to frequent lockdowns – have battered China’s economy since early 2020, fuelling last month the mainland’s biggest show of public discontent since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012.

His abrupt policy U-turn this month means the virus is now spreading largely unchecked across the country of 1.4 billion people.

Beijing’s statistics, however, show no new COVID deaths reported for the six days through Sunday, fuelling doubts among health experts and residents about the government’s data.

Doctors say hospitals are overwhelmed with five- to six-times more patients than usual, mostly elderly. International health experts estimate millions of daily infections and predict at least one million COVID deaths in China next year.

Nevertheless, authorities are determined to dismantle the last remaining vestiges of their zero-COVID policies.

In a major step towards easing border curbs cheered by Asian stock markets on Tuesday, China will stop requiring inbound travellers to go into quarantine starting from Jan. 8, the National Health Commission said late on Monday.

Data from travel platform Ctrip showed that within half an hour of the news, searches for popular cross-border destinations on had increased 10-fold. Macau, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, South Korea were the most sought-after, Ctrip said.

Data from another platform, Qunar, showed that within 15 minutes of the news, searches for international flights jumped seven-fold, with Thailand, Japan and South Korea at the top of the list.

China’s management of COVID will also be downgraded to the less strict Category B from the current top-level Category A from Jan. 8, the health authority said, as it has become less virulent.

The change means local authorities will no longer be compelled to quarantine patients and their close contacts and lock down regions.

But for all the excitement of a gradual return to a pre-COVID way of life, there was mounting pressure on China’s healthcare system, with doctors saying many hospitals are overwhelmed while funeral parlour workers report a surge in demand for their services.

Nurses and doctors have been asked to work while sick and retired medical workers in rural communities were being rehired to help, according to state media. Some cities have been struggling to secure enough supplies of anti-fever drugs.

“Just look at the funeral parlours in various cities. I heard that we have to queue for 3-5 days for cremation here,” one person in the eastern Shandong province complained on social media.

While the world’s second-largest economy is expected to see a sharp rebound later next year once the initial shockwave of infections fades away, it is in for a rough ride in the coming weeks and months as workers increasingly fall ill.

Many shops in Shanghai, Beijing and elsewhere have been forced to close in recent days with staff unable to come to work, while some factories have already sent many of their workers on leave for the late January Lunar New Year holidays.

“The concern of a temporary supply chain distortion remains as the labour force is impacted by infections,” JPMorgan analysts said in a note, adding that their tracking of subway traffic in 29 Chinese cities also showed many people were self-imposing mobility restrictions as the virus spreads.

The lifting of travel restrictions is positive for the $17 trillion economy, but strong caveats apply.

“International travel … will likely to surge, yet it may take many more months before volumes return to the pre-pandemic level,” said Dan Wang, Chief Economist, Hang Seng Bank China.

“COVID is still spreading in most parts of China, greatly disrupting the normal work schedule. Loss in productivity is significant and inflationary pressures in the coming months could be acute as the sudden spike in demand will outpace the recovery in supply.”

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Hyoung Chang/Getty Images

• Southwest Airlines won’t rebook any more flights until next year.
• Southwest canceled 2,890 flights and delayed 673 flights. 
• Southwest was impacted by Winter Storm Elliott.

If you are a stranded Southwest customer trying to get home after visiting family for the holidays, we sincerely hope you like your family — you may be forced to stay with them a bit longer.

Stranded Southwest customers can’t rebook their flights until after December 31, according to a Southwest Airlines official who spoke to the press at Hobby International Airport on Monday. 

This is a blow to customers who have been waiting to reach their final destination since late last week. 

Customers who already have a confirmed rebooking will not be affected by this.

Southwest Airlines canceled nearly 3,000 flights following Winter Storm Elliott — the highest count by far among airlines, according to FlightAware.

The fallout stranded travelers across the country over the weekend as airlines could not rebook customers quickly because of the nationwide impact of the storm. 

Hyoung Chang/Getty Images

• U.S. DOT tweeted Monday it will examine whether Southwest is abiding by its customer service policy.
• Southwest cancelled nearly 3,000 flights on the day after Christmas, the most of any U.S. airline.
• DOT called the cancellations and reports of delayed customer service “unacceptable.” 

The U.S. Department of Transportation tweeted on Monday night that it will look into whether Southwest Airlines is abiding by its customer service policy after the Dallas-based airline cancelled nearly 3,000 flights on the day after Christmas. 

The DOT is “concerned by South Southwest’s unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays & reports of lack of prompt customer service,” the tweet read. 

—TransportationGov (@USDOT) December 27, 2022

The tweet also linked to Southwest’s customer service plan. 

As of 9:45 p.m. EST on Monday night, Southwest had canceled 2,893 flights, more than any other U.S.-based airline. Delta had the second-most number of cancellations, 267. 

Travelers in airports across the country complained of long lines to re-book flights and retrieve baggage and unanswered phone calls to customer service. 

Hans Larsson

• Paleontologist Hans Larsson found a small mammal foot in the rib of a dinosaur fossil. 
• The reptile was carnivorous and bird-like, according to McGill University.
• It’s one of only 21 dinosaur fossils ever found with its food inside of it. 

The key to a small, four-winged dinosaur species’ survival was not being fussy about what it ate, the examination of a rare fossil revealed. 

Paleontologist Hans Larsson, a professor at McGill University, was the first to notice a small mammal foot lodged in between the bones of a fossilized Microraptor, a carnivorous dino with birdish wings. The discovery shows the dino ate a long list of animals, including mammals, fish, birds, and lizards, the university announced in a December 21 press release. 

“These finds are the only solid evidence we have about the food consumption of these long-extinct animals – and they are exceptionally rare,” Larsson said in the release. The revelation that the animal was an “opportunistic” eater “puts a new perspective on how ancient ecosystems may have worked,” he added. 

Only 20 other fossils have been found with the fossilized bones of their meals inside, according to McGill, and this is the first time a fossil has shown that any dinosaur ate mammals,  the Economic Times reported. 

Microraptor fossils were first discovered in the early 2000s in Liaoning, China, located in the northeast part of the country along the Yellow Sea. Scientists have speculated that the species likely died out because it had four wings, and the two additional wings created drag when it moved.

Its ability to make a snack out of all kinds of animals may not have been enough for make up for two too many wings.

(Reuters) — The U.S. Transportation Department said late on Monday it would examine the large number of Southwest Airlines cancelled and delayed flights in recent days to determine if they were in the airline’s control, calling them “unacceptable.”

Southwest canceled 2,886 flights on Monday, or 70% of scheduled flights, after cancelling 48% on Sunday, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. It has also already canceled 60%, or more than 2,400, of its planned Tuesday flights.

“USDOT is concerned by Southwest Airlines’ disproportionate and unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays as well as the failure to properly support customers experiencing a cancellation or delay,” the department said.

It said it would “closely examine whether cancellations were controllable and whether Southwest is complying with its customer service plan as well as all other pertinent DOT rules.”

Southwest declined to comment late on Monday on the USDOT statement but pointed to a statement it issued earlier offering “heartfelt apologies” and said “with consecutive days of extreme winter weather across our network behind us, continuing challenges are impacting our customers and employees in a significant way that is unacceptable.”

The airline added it was working “to urgently address wide-scale disruption by rebalancing the airline and repositioning crews and our fleet ultimately to best serve all who plan to travel with us.”

Other major U.S. airlines suffered significant cancellations in recent days but not nearly at as high rates as Southwest and they have now largely recovered.

The Transportation Department on Monday pointed to the Southwest Airlines customer service plan, which notes the airline will provide meal or hotel vouchers for extended delays that are due to issues within the airline’s control but not for unforeseen issues like weather.

In August, major U.S. airlines including Southwest told the DOT they would commit to provide meals for customers delayed by three hours and hotel rooms for stranded passengers if prompted by issues under the airlines’ control.

Many airlines have previously offered vouchers or hotel rooms for delays they caused but did not spell out all commitments in customer service plans.

© Copyright Thomson Reuters 2022.

(NewsNation) — New York Republican George Santos who was elected to Congress last month has admitted to embellishing his resume after an investigation by the New York Times revealed several discrepancies.

In an interview with the New York Post, Representative-elect George Santos apologized for fabricating parts of his bio, including where he went to school and worked. However, he also said the controversy won’t stop him from staying in Congress.

“I am not a criminal,” Santos told the New York Post. “This [controversy] will not deter me from having good legislative success. I will be effective. I will be good.”

The New York Times reported about Santos’ misrepresentations earlier this month, and even before that, a local newspaper had questioned Santos’ background.

According to his website, Santos is the first-generation American son of Brazilian immigrants, born in Queens, New York and he is the first openly gay Republican to win the U.S. House seat. Santos, on his website, claims he is a seasoned Wall Street financier and investor. He claims to have had stints at Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and MetGlobal.

The incoming congressman-elect previously said he worked at Citigroup after college, rising to an associate asset manager in the company’s real estate division. But The New York Times reports that a Citigroup spokeswoman said they could not confirm that Santos ever worked there. She reportedly said she was unfamiliar with the job title Santos claimed to have held since Citigroup sold its asset management operation in 2005, before the years he claimed to have worked there.

A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs also told The New York Times there is no record of Santos working for them, either.

Santos told The New York Post that he never worked directly for the Wall Street firms, but instead worked for a company called Link Bridge that did business with Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.

“I will be clearer about that. It was stated poorly,” Santos said.

He also claims to have graduated from Baruch College in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance, but the Times found that the school could not find any records of anyone matching his name or date of birth.

Santos now admits that he never graduated from any college.

He’s also accused of lying about his family background. He stated on his campaign website that his mother was Jewish and his grandparents fled the Nazis during World War II.

Santos told the New York Post his grandmother told stories about being Jewish and later converting to Catholicism.

“I never claimed to be Jewish,” Santos said. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was ‘Jew-ish.'”

Two people who knew Santos previously appeared on NewsNation’s “Dan Abrams Live” to discuss the Times report.

Democrat Robert Zimmerman lost to Santos in the midterm. He said the report was “validating” to many questions and issues that were raised during the campaign.

“A lot of the questions and information were out there. The Times had, of course, the ability to take it to another level with their excellent investigative journalism,” Zimmerman said.

Grant Lally serves as the attorney for the North Shore Leader, which broke parts of the story on Santos in September.

“He (Santos) makes up stories and just looks people in the eye and lies to them. And he did that to local elected officials, local Republican activists. People smelled this and they caught him in his lies. A lot of the local Republicans, and I’m a Republican, refused to have pictures with him because he was such a, as one elected official put it, a pathological liar,” Lally said.

NewsNation writer Caitlyn Shelton and anchor Dan Abrams contributed to this report.

(NewsNation) — Arizona Governor-elect Katie Hobbs is asking a court to sanction her Republican opponent Kari Lake for filing a lawsuit challenging the election results, arguing Lake’s claim was a “frivolous pursuit.”

Lake, a conservative candidate who echoed former President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud in 2020, challenged the results of the midterm election after she lost by 17,000 votes. In her lawsuit, she claimed election officials in Maricopa County intentionally tampered with printers on Election Day causing the ballots to be unreadable. A judge threw out eight of the 10 counts and on Saturday ruled against Lake on the other two counts following a trial last week.

Hobbs joined a motion by Maricopa County Monday for sanctions on Lake and her attorneys in which the county’s deputy attorney Thomas P. Liddy wrote Lake filed a “groundless” lawsuit, according to court records.

“Enough really is enough,” Liddy wrote in the motion. “It is past time to end unfounded attacks on elections and unwarranted accusations against elections officials.”

Prior to the election, Lake refused to say she would accept the results and has accused Maricopa County officials of being incompetent. She had asked the judge to declare her the winner or order a revote.

Maricopa County officials say everyone had a chance to vote and all ballots were counted since ballots affected by the printers were taken to more sophisticated counters at the elections department headquarters. They are in the process of investigating the root cause of the printer problems.

Lake’s attorneys also claimed the chain of custody for ballots was broken at an off-site facility, where contractors scan mail-in ballots to prepare them for processing. They claim workers at the facility put their own mail-in ballots into the pile, rather than sending their ballots through normal channels. Lake also claimed the paperwork documenting the transfer of ballots was missing. The county disputes the claim.

Maricopa County’s motion for sanctions had “no basis in law or fact,” Lake’s lawyers wrote in a response filed Monday evening, asking the court to deny the request for sanctions.

“Trust in the election process is not furthered by punishing those who bring legitimate claims as plaintiff did here,” the court document filed by Lake’s lawyers said. “In fact, sanctioning plaintiff would have the opposite effect.”

Along with sanctions, Maricopa County is also asking the judge to award it $25,050 in attorneys’ fees incurred during the two-day trial.

Lake, a former local TV news anchor, was one of the most high-profile politicians to embrace Trump’s false rhetoric about 2020 election fraud. She was also one of the most prominent Trump endorsees to lose in a battleground state.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

(NewsNation) — The top prize in the Mega Millions lottery game has reached more than half a billion dollars for the third consecutive time this year.

The jackpot for Tuesday night’s drawing will be at $565 million, two months after two lucky winners split a $503 million prize on Oct. 14. Before that, two people in Illinois claimed the game’s second-largest jackpot of $1.337 billion for the July 29 drawing.

The July jackpot was, at the time, the third-largest in U.S. history. It grew so large because no one had matched the game’s six selected numbers since April 15, which was 29 consecutive draws without a jackpot winner.

Prizes have been growing ever larger in recent years following changes to the game that decreased the odds of winning, which is now 1 in 302 million. It’s the first time the Mega Millions jackpot has eclipsed $500 million three consecutive times dating back to Mega Millions’ launch in 2002, according to a history of winners.

There was also a record-breaking jackpot in the Powerball this year when a player in California won a $2.04 billion prize during the Nov. 7 drawing. The drawing actually occurred on the morning of Nov. 8 because of a technical issue encountered by the Minnesota Lottery.

The California winning was the largest jackpot in U.S. history and broke the previous Powerball high of $1.586 billion that was won in 2016. There have only been three billion-dollar jackpots in Mega Millions history: one in 2018, one in 2021 and one in 2022.

Both Mega Millions and Powerball are multi-state lotteries offered in 45 states plus Washington, D.C. and the Virgin Islands. Powerball is also available in Puerto Rico.

Mega Millions numbers are drawn at 11 p.m. ET on Tuesday and Friday.

“Punish the sinners!” That is the name of a great horror novel. It is also exactly what the Republican party is talking about doing. Those horrible sinners! The “sinners” in this case are the FBI. You read that right. And the ones who want to hear the confessions of said sins? Who might they be?

They are Gym Jordan, Kevin McCarthy, and a whole lot of other House GOP members. Apparently the sins of the FBI are so great they need to be looked into. In recent weeks, there has been an increasing amount of chatter from republicans about creating a “Church-style” committee . How lovely for them! This is in reference to the Senate’s 1975 Church Committee, named after Frank Church. But do Republicans know that? Will they have actual priests on this committee?

Nope. Just folks like Gym Jordan, anxiously hoping to turn America against the FBI. This committee will be “church-style,” and if they do this, they plan to investigate the FBI for just about everything. Here are some of the FBI’s greatest sins, according to republicans:

Snooping on Congress.

Inaccurate warrants.

Hunter Biden (you KNEW that would be there, did you not?)

Violating the civil liberties of insurrectionists.

This last one interests me greatly. Will they ask for testimony from the actual terrorists? Will they hear complaints for example that the mean police and FBI dared to arrest them after they crapped in the Capitol, erected gallows and beat up the Police?

The church is on the case! Gym Jordan appears very excited about this, saying, “We’ve been looking at a Church-style committee to look at this.” THIS apparently encompasses a great deal — at least in the delusional minds of these Republicans it does.

If the GOP does this, it should be easier for us to win in 2024. Once again, I am amazed at the cluelessness of the GOP. Do they really think the American people CARE about this? Probably not. But you can bet, they will be speaking of FBI sin, right and left. I look forward to writing about this “church committee” if it actually happens.

The post Jim Jordan’s come to Jesus moment appeared first on Palmer Report.

The U.S. Transportation Department (USDOT) said late on Monday it would examine the large number of Southwest Airlines (LUV.N) cancelled and delayed flights in recent days to determine if they were in the airline’s control, calling them “unacceptable.”

Southwest canceled 2,886 flights on Monday, or 70% of scheduled flights, after cancelling 48% on Sunday, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. It has also already canceled 60%, or more than 2,400, of its planned Tuesday flights.

“USDOT is concerned by Southwest Airlines’ disproportionate and unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays as well as the failure to properly support customers experiencing a cancellation or delay,” the department said.

It said it would “closely examine whether cancellations were controllable and whether Southwest is complying with its customer service plan as well as all other pertinent DOT rules.”

Southwest delayed 48% of flights on Sunday and 16% on Monday.

Southwest declined to comment late on Monday on the USDOT statement but pointed to a statement it issued earlier offering “heartfelt apologies” and said “with consecutive days of extreme winter weather across our network behind us, continuing challenges are impacting our customers and employees in a significant way that is unacceptable.”

The airline added it was working “to urgently address wide-scale disruption by rebalancing the airline and repositioning crews and our fleet ultimately to best serve all who plan to travel with us.”

Other major U.S. airlines suffered significant cancellations in recent days but not nearly at as high rates as Southwest and they have now largely recovered.

USDOT on Monday pointed to Southwest Airlines customer service plan, which notes the airline will provide meal or hotel vouchers for extended delays that are due to issues within the airline’s control but not for unforeseen issues like weather.

In August, major U.S. airlines including Southwest told USDOT they would commit to provide meals for customers delayed by three hours and hotel rooms for stranded passengers if prompted by issues under the airlines’ control.

Many airlines have previously offered vouchers or hotel rooms for delays they caused but did not spell out all commitments in customer service plans.