After nearly a week of far-right Republicans blocking Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s bid for Speaker, the California lawmaker continues to look for an escape hatch. Day after day, McCarthy and his allies have been negotiating with the defectors to end the humiliating deadlock.

The House adjourned on Thursday soon after McCarthy fell short in the chamber’s eleventh round of voting. Yet if the concessions he has made so far ultimately help him end the impasse, they stand to radically reshape the next Congress, according to sources familiar with the matter.

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The concessions include changing the House rules to empower every lawmaker to call for a vote to oust the Speaker at any time; giving the House Freedom Caucus, of which most of the holdouts are members, four seats on the powerful House Rules Committee; and appointing some of the chamber’s most conservative lawmakers as chairs to a handful of subcommittees. The Washington Post also reported that McCarthy agreed to allow floor votes on a border security bill and a measure that would institute term limits on House members.

The moves constitute a significant overture to McCarthy’s adversaries, which would give them greater leverage to be disruptive during the next congressional term.

But while those offers haven’t ended the historic standoff, they could substantially affect the mechanics of the House over the next two years and create the conditions for perpetual dysfunction in the chamber if they are eventually adopted.

House members have always been able to make a so-called motion to vacate, which leads to a snap vote on whether the Speaker should be replaced. But as Speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi weakened the rule to allow only a party leader or a majority vote by one party to force such a vote. By returning to the old system where any member can make a motion to vacate, it will make it easier for McCarthy critics to throw a wrench into his ability to lead a governing coalition. The change, however, is more symbolic than anything else. There would still need to be the support of a majority of the House to ultimately remove the Speaker. And as the last week has shown, most of the chamber’s GOP conference is with McCarthy and haven’t been shy to express their disdain for the 20 Republicans who are standing in his way. In other words, even a handful of dissidents would still have a hard time pulling off a leadership coup.

While the motion to vacate has drawn the most attention, McCarthy’s concession related to the House Rules Committee may be the most impactful. Allowing more members of the House Freedom Caucus, most of whom seem to relish chaos and causing a spectacle, on the pivotal committee that determines which bills can make it to the House floor could make a concrete difference on legislators’ ability to perform basic functions.

“Those concessions are pretty huge,” Joshua Huder, a congressional expert with Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute, tells TIME. “You’re talking about some very real limitations on what McCarthy can do to manage the House floor.”

This might have the largest repercussions on the appropriations process, particularly when it comes time to fund the government later this year. Last month, Congress passed a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package that will keep the government’s doors open through September.

The Freedom Caucus members were among the most adamant in their opposition to the spending package, and have brought it up repeatedly this week. They say McCarthy is too willing to work with Democrats to contribute, in their view, to a bloated federal government. McCarthy tried to push back on that impression by voting against the omnibus, but it seemed to his detractors as too little, too late.

“Nothing can go to the floor without a rule,” a congressional Democratic aide tells TIME. “And the Rules Committee figures out how long debate is, whether you can add amendments. Giving Freedom Caucus members the ability to do that means they can send things to the floor, or block amendments from coming to the floor.”

“It really was a big win for them,” the aide adds.

Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina downplayed the significance of these changes, saying it was always going to be a tricky balancing act to pass spending bills when the GOP caucus had a slim 222-212 majority, with one vacancy. “That was going to be difficult anyway,” he tells TIME. “I think that we will be able to work together. I have faith in Kevin McCarthy that he could handle this.”

The House Freedom Caucus has long been a thorn in the side of House Republican leadership. In 2015, then-Speaker John Boehner resigned under pressure from the more conservative wing of his caucus. In his memoir, Boehner referred to the one of the group’s spiritual ringleaders, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, as a “political terrorist.” Jordan, for his part, has supported McCarthy for Speaker, even as many of his closest allies have done everything to torpedo McCarthy’s bid.

Yet even after these concessions were made, McCarthy made no progress on moving the holdouts. Their intransigence has mystified some of their own colleagues who can’t get their minds around what the defectors really want. “There’s no clarity,” says Rep. Glenn Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican.

“A lot of this is driven by a desire to humiliate McCarthy,” a senior Democratic Congressional aide tells TIME. “They view him as a symbol of things they hate. They want to humiliate him and they don’t want to elevate him. In the end, politicians are transactional creatures and they want to cut deals and get something and be liked. But I think there’s a big element of sadism here.”

The standstill has led to speculation on Capitol Hill over a range of “nuclear options,” including adopting a resolution to allow the Speaker to be elected by a plurality instead of a majority. Such a maneuver could potentially result in the Democratic leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, being elected Speaker, though that is an unlikely scenario. Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska has proposed working with Democrats on elevating a moderate as a consensus choice, but that also does not appear to be in the offing.

Democratic sources, however, said that may be the only way to block one of McCarthy’s other concessions to the defectors: effectively gutting the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent panel that was preparing to investigate lawmakers who participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Without Democratic House members getting directly involved in the outcome, most of the concessions McCarthy has agreed to are likely to be part of the rules package that the Republican-controlled chamber will approve after a Speaker is elected.

Be that as it may, Republicans are still trying to find a resolution to the imbroglio, a process that may include McCarthy giving up even more leverage to the most disruptive members of his caucus. “In order to gain power,” the Democratic Congressional aide says, “he keeps relinquishing the power that being Speaker is supposed to give him.”

Southwest Airlines (LUV.N) on Thursday said it would carry out a thorough review of the disruption from a winter storm that forced it to cancel nearly 16,000 flights.

In a video message, posted on the company’s website, Chief Executive Bob Jordan said the review is expected to be completed “swiftly”. The airline has asked its union to participate in this review effort as well, he said.

“Restoring the trust of our customers and employees is everything to us,” Jordan said.

His comments came hours after a top pilots union official said the Dallas-based carrier has yet to work out how to avoid a meltdown like the one it had last week.

Tom Nekouei, a vice president at the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, told Reuters that he and other union leaders had a conference call with Jordan on Monday to discuss the issue.

On the call, details of which have not been reported before, Nekouei said the company offered no immediate solutions.

“They don’t know what it is that they’re going do in terms of corrective action because they haven’t sat down and run the post-mortem on it,” Tom Nekouei, a vice president at the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, told Reuters.

Nekouei said the union’s calculations suggest the latest debacle could result in an up to $1 billion revenue hit for the carrier. Some analysts have estimated the meltdown could shave as much as 9% off Southwest’s fourth-quarter profits.

The pilots union, which is in heated contract negotiations with Southwest, on Dec. 31 published a letter signed by Nekouei, denouncing company leadership as a “cult” that has spent the last 15 years destroying the airline’s legacy. Before the recent crisis, Southwest had cultivated a reputation for reliable customer service, humorous flight crews and low-cost flights.

Southwest canceled the flights in the week ended Dec. 29 due to bad weather and meltdown of its crew scheduling system, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.

Jordan said Southwest is taking immediate steps to address the issues that contributed to the disruption.

He said the airline has made “great progress” in processing tens of thousands of refunds and reimbursements a day. It had also delivered the vast majority of bags, which went missing, to customers.

The White House has said Southwest “failed its customers”. Citing the carrier’s meltdown, lawmakers have been pressing the Biden administration to hold airlines accountable for mass flight cancellations.

Southwest unions have blamed the company’s “outdated” technology and processes for the biggest operational meltdown in its five-decade history.

Nekouei said the company’s failure to revamp its dated scheduling system that sends crews around the country as passengers for their flying assignments left it vulnerable to “more frequent and more severe” meltdowns. The pilots union has called that so-called “deadheading” practice fatiguing and inefficient.

Nekouei said the same issues led to a major meltdown at Southwest after a thunderstorm in Florida in October 2021 that cost it $75 million.

To be sure, the airline has been upgrading its technology in phases.

In 2017, it replaced its entire reservations system, and four years later it enhanced technology at its maintenance department. Recently, it has made investments in digital scanners to make its baggage handling system more efficient.

Jordan said the company spends about $1 billion a year on technology and will continue to upgrade the tools and processes its employees use to deliver “reliable and low-cost air travel.”

Union officials, however, have called the pace of investment too slow.

“Every meltdown that we’ve had, it’s gotten more severe,” Nekouei said. “It’s become more frequent now and it takes longer and longer to recover from them.”

Pay ranges compiled on new website Comprehensive.io help identify some of the most popular roles open in tech right now and how much you can expect to make in them.

Morsa Images / Getty Images

• A new website compiles salaries at 700 top tech companies, including industry giants like Amazon and Google.
• Using pay data from Comprehensive.io, Insider identified some of the most popular tech jobs available and what they pay.
• From software engineers to product managers, here are some of the most popular tech roles companies are currently hiring for, along with their average pay.

A new website could help tech workers better estimate their market value — and also help those hoping to land tech jobs see what their best bets are, and how much they stand to make.

The website, Comprehensive.io, launched Thursday. It tracks salaries at 700 top tech firms and startups, compiling pay ranges for various jobs based on figures that many companies are now required to list in job posts thanks to pay transparency laws in tech hubs like New York City and California. Using pay data aggregated on the site, Insider identified some of the most popular tech jobs right now, measured by the number of openings currently listed for a particular role, as well as their average pay ranges.

Note that each pay range listed is an average of the pay ranges provided on all of the job posts that Comprehensive.io found for that particular role, across companies. The figures below were accurate as of the time of publication, but they may fluctuate, as the salary tracker updates daily as more job posts become available.

Without further ado, here’s a sampling of the most popular jobs available in tech right now, along with average estimates of how much you could make in them:

Senior Software Engineer: $147,000 – $210,000 (based on 405 job posts at 80 companies)

Software Engineer: $132,000 – $200,000 (based on 285 job posts at 53 companies)

Senior Product Manager: $152,000 – $208,000 (based on 151 job posts at 50 companies)

Staff Software Engineer: $175,000 – $226,000 (based on 137 job posts at 35 companies)

Engineering Manager: $173,000 – $234,000 (based on 83 job posts at 36 companies)

Product Manager: $130,000 – $197,000 (based on 72 job posts at 38 companies)

Account Executive: $111,000 – $150,000 (based on 59 job posts at 23 companies)

Technical Program Manager: $147,000 – $201,000 (based on 43 job posts at 14 companies)

Senior Product Designer: $141,000 – $200,000 (based on 43 job posts at 28 companies)

Product Designer: $123,000 – $188,000 (based on 43 job posts at 16 companies)

Principal Software Engineer: $207,000 – $282,000 (based on 38 job posts at 14 companies)

Enterprise Account Executive: $178,000 – $242,000 (based on 31 job posts at 17 companies)

Senior Product Marketing Manager: $147,000 – $199,000 (based on 32 job posts at 19 companies)

Data Scientist: $154,000 – $212,000 (based on 21 job posts at 13 companies)

Site Reliability Engineer: $120,000 – $175,000 (based on 21 job posts at 10 companies)

Account Manager: $75,000 – $101,000 (based on 19 job posts at 15 companies)

Sales Development Representative: $54,000 – $63,000 (based on 18 job posts at 14 companies)

Senior Financial Analyst: $92,000 – $128,000 (based on 18 job posts at 12 companies)

Security Engineer: $150,000 – $180,000 (based on 17 job posts at 11 companies)

Senior Data Analyst: $125,000 – $174,000 (based on 17 job posts at 11 companies)

Ski lift at resort in Lake Tahoe.

stasvolik/Getty Images

• California has faced heavy precipitation in recent weeks, leading to a high snowpack.
• The snowpack provides a third of California’s water needs, but it’s too soon to assess the impact on the drought.
• Ski resorts are also benefitting from the snow, with one resort recording 7 inches per minute.

Storms that have pummeled California with heavy precipitation in recent weeks could be a win-win for skiers and the state’s water supply — but the increase in water is not yet enough to compensate for years of severe drought.

Officials in California announced Tuesday the state’s snowpack — snow that falls and does not melt for months due to freezing temperatures — measured 55.5 inches of snow, or 174% of the average for this time of year, marking the best start to the snowy season in 40 years.

Although the storms have caused severe flooding in some parts of California, the snowfall was a good sign for a state that has experienced years of drought and low levels in its water reservoirs, with the past three years being the driest ever recorded.

“We’re very excited to see storms coming through, but we can’t talk about impact until March or April,” Andrew Schwartz, the lead scientist at the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab, told Insider. The snow lab is located near Tahoe in Soda Springs, one of the snowiest places in the US, and has been tracking snowpack for decades.

The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, the mountain range that runs along the eastern part of the state, is often called California’s “frozen reservoirs.” It typically supplies about a third of California’s water needs, which is why officials closely monitor it for water management and planning.

Though the high snowpack this early in the season is promising, if the precipitation doesn’t continue, it may not be enough to significantly address the drought.

“It’s just far too early to tell. Last year, we had a record-breaking December,” Schwartz said. “Everyone was celebrating that the drought was over and then we had the driest January to March on record.”

If the “faucet shuts off in January,” it could be another similarly dry year, he added.

The California Department of Water Resources said Tuesday the snow survey this year was similar to those in January 2013 and 2022, “when the January 1 snowpack was at or above average conditions, only for dry weather to set in and lead to drought conditions by the end of the water year (September 30).”

“Big snow totals are always welcome, but we still have a long way to go before the critical April 1 total,” Sean de Guzman, who manages DWR’s snow surveys and water supply forecasting, said in a statement Tuesday, adding: “If January through March of 2023 turn out to be similar to last year, we would still end the water year in severe drought with only half of an average year’s snowpack.”

Two skiers in the Sierra Nevadas.

John P Kelly/Getty Images

Great for California and great for skiing

In the meantime, the heavy snowfall is a welcome sight for the state’s ski resorts. Palisades Tahoe’s homepage boasts “NEARLY 5 FEET OF SNOW” with more in the forecast, urging visitors to plan their trip. 

“We’re really getting tons of precipitation out here and couldn’t be more stoked,” Patrick Lacey, a spokesperson for Palisades Tahoe, told Insider.

There are some drawbacks to the storms and heavy snow, including an increased risk of avalanches in the backcountry, according to Schwartz. Chair lifts can also be temporarily shut down due to high winds or other storm-related factors. The snow doesn’t all come down perfectly for skiing, with wet conditions bringing icy snow — or “Sierra cement,” as some locals call it — in addition to powder. 

Lacey said the resort is temporarily closing lifts and managing for avalanche safety as needed, and that all-in-all it’s brought lots of skiers to the mountain. He said the resort measured a record 7 inches of snow per hour on New Year’s Day, which was one of their busiest days of the season so far.

“We’re going to have months and months of skiing on bluebird days because of these storms,” Lacey said, referring sunny days with blankets of fresh snowfall. He added that it’s not unusual for Tahoe to get a bunch of snow all at once rather than a few inches per day.

“Lately we’ve been getting feet and feet each day, which is absolutely fabulous for the snowpack,” he said. “It’s great for the state of California to get out of this drought, and it’s great for skiing.”

Schwartz, who is a snowboarder himself, was also stoked about the start to the season, but hopes it can continue: “It’s really exciting and fantastic that we’ve been set up this way this early in the season. We’ll just cross our fingers that the water keeps coming in. “

Have a news tip? Contact this reporter at kvlamis@insider.com.

State Rep. Quentin Williams, D-Middletown, applauds during Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont’s state of the state address, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023, in Hartford, Conn.

Brian O’Connor/Connecticut House Democrats via AP

• A Connecticut lawmaker died hours after being sworn in as state representative.
• He was involved in a traffic collision that left one other person dead.
• Lawmakers mourned state Rep. Quentin “Q” Williams following the announcement of his death.

A Connecticut lawmaker died after being involved in a late-night traffic collision following the inaugural ball on Wednesday night, according to The New York Times.

The collision occurred around 12:45 a.m. local time just outside of Middletown, Connecticut, on Route 9 in a town called Cromwell. One other individual, whose identity is currently unknown, died.

The crash was a result of a vehicle going in the wrong direction on the highway. It’s unclear in which direction the state lawmaker’s vehicle was going, but the southbound vehicle had been “fully engulfed in flames,” police told The New York Times.

The 39-year-old lawmaker, state Rep. Quentin “Q” Williams of Middletown in the 100th District, a Democrat serving in the Connecticut General Assembly, had been sworn in on Wednesday. He was first elected in 2019 and was the first Black state representative to serve Middletown, according to his bio on the Connecticut House Democrats website.

—Jim Himes 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@jahimes) January 5, 2023

 

According to his biography, he graduated from Bryant University with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration, from Villanova University with a Master’s in Public Administration, and received a Diversity and Inclusion Certificate from Cornell University. Williams was a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. Beta Sigma Lambda Chapter, Hartford.

Williams had been involved in Middletown Racial Justice Coalition, Cross Street Zion A.M.E.Church, and Middletown Young Democrats, his bio added.

Lawmakers mourned Williams and spoke of his positive energy in statements following the announcement of his death.

“Rep. Williams truly embodied the phrase larger than life. His laugh, smile, and presence were felt in every space shared with him. His passing is a true loss for our community. A light has been dimmed today. His dedication to fighting for equity, education, worker’s rights, and justice in all its forms is irreplaceable, and while we are heartbroken, the community he loved so much—and where Q was loved so much in return—will continue the fight,” the Mayor of Middletown Benjamin Florsheim said in a post on Facebook.

“This is devastating news, and I am incredibly saddened by this tragedy,” Gov. Ned Lamont said in a statement according to NBC Connecticut. “Quentin had an infectiously optimistic personality, and he absolutely loved having the opportunity to represent his lifelong home of Middletown at the State Capitol. Public service was his passion, and he was always advocating on behalf of the people of his hometown. He was a genuine person with a genuine soul, and he will be missed. My prayers are with his family, including his wife Carrissa and his mother Queen, as well as his friends and colleagues in the General Assembly.”

Williams is survived by his wife, Carrissa.

The Connecticut State Police and Williams’ office did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment. 

Concerns are rising around Capitol Hill as the two-day impasse among Republicans over who should serve as Speaker effectively keeps the chamber in limbo. 

Republicans have signaled some signs of progress within the party as talks remain ongoing; however, it remains unclear if House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) can cobble together enough votes to take the Speaker’s gavel. 

Frustrations are running high on both sides, as members say the stalemate is keeping Congress from performing basic functions. Below are just a few of those operations.

Swearing-ins

One of the biggest hang-ups lawmakers point to is the effect the delay has had on the ceremonial swearing-in of new members.

Experts say lawmakers are stuck effectively until the House accepts a Speaker — a delay that is also keeping Congress from installing heads of its various committees.

The historic stalemate marks the first time in a century that a Speaker was not determined in the initial ballot. But with six ballots down and the path to resolving the impasse uncertain, it remains unclear when Republicans will be able to find a solution.

Rep. Brendan Boyle (Pa.), who is set to become the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said he hasn’t been able to meet with his “Republican counterpart because that hasn’t been chosen yet.”

“​​They’re not going to choose committee chairs like contested races until after the vote for Speaker,” he said. 

Bringing legislation to the floor

Republicans lament the hold-up the fight has had on legislation that House GOP leadership had hoped to bring up at the start of the new Congress.

“People care about real issues like border security, like inflation, like energy reliability, oh, like defining the 87,000 IRS agents — which is what we would’ve voted on today,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) said late Tuesday. 

Crenshaw is referring to legislation Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) said the newly GOP-led House is supposed to vote on that targets funding aimed at bolstering the IRS — part of a sweeping economic bill Democrats passed without GOP support last year.

The GOP-backed legislation faces a tough road ahead in the Democratic-led Senate. But it is among a list of ambitious bills spanning hot-button issues such as abortion, immigration and crime that are key to the party’s agenda. 

Committee operations 

The longer the fight drags out, the longer members on both sides say it will take for the chamber’s various committees to begin their work.

“Committees can’t hire their staff members as well because there are no committee chairs and ranking members,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), the incoming chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. 

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who previously chaired the House Intelligence Committee, told The Hill on Wednesday that the Intelligence panel is among those that would likely see the biggest impacts from the hold-up, noting, “Nobody on our committee can go down and get briefed on things.”

“The committee will need to be reconstituted. And most of the materials are only accessible to members of the committee and until reconstituted there are no members of the committee,” he told The Hill. “So Intel is more impacted really than probably just about any other committee.”

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) raised similar concerns. “I sit on the House Intelligence Committee. We oversee all 19 intelligence agencies. We are currently offline,” he told CNN.

“We have a third, one of our three branches of government, offline right now. That is a very dangerous thing for our country, and it cannot continue much longer,” he also said. 

Rep. Mike Gallagher (Wis.), who serves on the Intelligence panel and the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters on Wednesday that he also ran into problems, pointing to a planned meeting with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“I’m a member of the Intel Committee. I’m on the Armed Services Committee, and I can’t meet in the SCIF [sensitive compartmented information facility] to conduct essential business. My point is we have work to do that we can’t do right now,” he said at a press conference.

Pay for certain staff

Boyle also said lawmakers might not have until even mid-January to resolve the issue before some staff could see issues with pay.

“I believe there’s a date of Jan. 13, regarding pay for committee staff,” Boyle said. “So that’s one date to look at if this dysfunction were to continue that long.”

In a guidance from the House Administration Committee first reported by Politico last month, committees were warned of the risk a delay in installing a Speaker would have on pay for certain staff.

“Committees need to be aware that should a House Rules package not be adopted by end of business on January 13 no committee will be able to process payroll since the committee’s authority for the new Congress is not yet confirmed,” the memo stated, according to the report.

Al Weaver contributed.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Southeast Asia’s tourist economies are set to be leading beneficiaries of China’s scrapping of travel bans as they have steered clear of the COVID-19 tests before entry that Europe, Japan and the United States have imposed on Chinese visitors.

Even as the virus tears through its 1.4 billion people, the world’s second largest economy is opening its borders from Sunday, a move that promises to unleash a wave of travellers eager for diversion after three years of strict curbs at home.

Such newly mobile Chinese tourists will opt for “minimal hassle” and head for destinations that do not demand testing, which in turn stands to benefit Southeast Asia, said CIMB economist Song Seng Wun.

“The busier regional airports are, the better it is for their economies,” he added.

While Australia, Britain, India, Japan and the United States are among the nations that require a negative COVID-19 test from inbound Chinese, Southeast Asian countries, from Cambodia to Indonesia and Singapore, have all declined such requirements.

Except for airplane wastewater testing by Malaysia and Thailand for the virus, the region’s 11 nations will treat Chinese travellers like any others.

“We are not taking the stance of discriminating (against) any countries,” said Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Interest in the region waxed high even before news of its lack of test requirements.

As many as 76% of Chinese travel agencies ranked Southeast Asia as the top destination when outbound travel resumed, according to a survey released in December by trade show ITB China.

The region is home to many tourism-reliant economies in which Chinese used to make up the bulk of visitors to beach paradises, luxury malls and casinos that have all been hit hard by their absence in the last few years.

Now, their tourism industries are gearing up to welcome Chinese travellers back.

In 2019, 155 million Chinese travelled abroad, spending $254.6 billion, or close to the GDP of Vietnam, said Citi, whose researchers expect “meaningful recovery” in mass tourism to start in the second quarter of 2023.

In Vietnam, almost a third of the 18 million foreign arrivals in 2019 were from China, while about a fifth of Singapore’s international arrivals were Chinese who spent S$900 million ($671 million).

Thailand already expects to welcome 5 million Chinese travellers this year, or about half of the 10.99 million of 2019. Neighbouring Malaysia projects 1.5 million to 2 million Chinese tourists this year versus 3 million before the pandemic.

And the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents is preparing for a road show in Chinese cities to woo visitors, said its vice president, Ganeesh Rama.

Officials have downplayed health worries aired by other countries, such as the United States’ concern over insufficient information and fear that more cases in China could spawn new variants of the virus.

Singapore said it had high population immunity, as about 40% of its people had been infected with coronavirus and 83% had been vaccinated, while it has bolstered healthcare capacity.

Karen Grépin, a public health professor at Hong Kong University, agreed with that approach, adding, “Everyday, countries import thousands of cases of COVID-19 from around the world.”

In Bali, Ida Bagus Agung Parta, the chair of the resort island’s tourism board, said it would “increase our defence”, as workers take a second booster dose of vaccine this month.

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen, an ally of Beijing, described other countries’ testing requirements as “propaganda” designed to “scare people”.

“Whatever other country wants to do anything, it’s their right,” Hun Sen said in a recent speech. “But for Cambodia, it’s an invitation to Chinese people: Chinese tourists, come to Cambodia.”

($1=1.3411 Singapore dollars)

“That’s an attack plane, Dad,” said one of David Tellez’s young children as they spotted Mexican military aircraft touching down alongside their Aeromexico passenger plane early on Thursday.

Then the gunfire began.

“As we were accelerating for take-off, we heard gunshots very close to the plane, and that’s when we all threw ourselves to the floor,” Tellez said after the incident in the northern city of Culiacan.

Violence broke out on Thursday throughout Culiacan after the arrest of Ovidio Guzman, the son of the notorious drug lord known as El Chapo, and a senior member of the Sinaloa cartel.

Aeromexico said nobody on Tellez’s flight had been hurt. The Culiacan airport closed shortly after, as security forces patrolled the city, which was strewn with burned vehicles, attempting to contain the violent backlash.

Tellez, 42, was traveling with his wife and children, aged 7, 4 and 1, after spending Christmas with family.

He told Reuters he had reached the airport for his 8:24 a.m. flight without incident, despite encountering road blockades set up after overnight shootouts. Although Guzman’s arrest had not yet been confirmed, nervous security guards urged travelers to enter quickly.

“Authorities were not saying anything,” he said by phone.

Tellez hid in an airport bathroom with his family after hearing that gang members were in the airport. The rumor turned out to be false, and the Aeromexico travelers boarded quickly.

Yet, just as flight AM165 to Mexico City was about to take off, a succession of military planes landed on the airstrip.

Tellez took out his cellphone, recording several videos that show two large air force transport aircraft, smaller, fighter-like attack aircraft and military trucks on the tarmac. Then gunshots began to echo in the distance.

A video circulating on social media, appearing to capture the same incident, showed passengers crouching low below their seats as a child cried.

A flight attendant said the engine had been hit, triggering a leak. The crew directed passengers to disembark, moving them to a windowless waiting room in the airport.

It is not clear who was shooting at whom.

Tellez’s family plans to board another flight on Friday, but until then, is staying put.

“We prefer to stay at the airport until it’s safe to leave,” he said. “The city is worse. There is a lot of shooting and confusion.”