SCHADENFREUDE

Canadian influencers who partied maskless on a plane are stranded in Mexico because airlines won't fly them home

Canadian airline companies have refused to take the partygoers home.

GEOFF ROBINS/AFP via Getty Images

• About 100 partygoers who threw a rowdy New Year's party on a plane now can't find a flight home.

• Airlines are refusing to accommodate them after videos of their maskless celebration surfaced.

• Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the partygoers "idiots" and said an investigation was underway.

A group of passengers who partied, drank, and vaped while maskless on a Canadian charter flight are now stuck in Cancun, Mexico, after multiple airlines denied them flights home, the party's organizer said.

Authorities were shocked this week by videos of the partygoers dancing in the aisle, downing vodka, and blowing e-cigarette smoke into the camera on a December 30 flight from Montreal. The clips were shared on Thursday by Le Journal de Montréal's Francis Pilon.

Pilon reported the 100 passengers — several of whom are reality-TV stars or social-media influencers — became so rowdy that flight attendants tried to avoid the cabin as much as possible.

The event's organizer, James William Awad, said the return trip was canceled by Sunwing, the airline that flew them to Cancun.

Other airlines, such as Air Canada and Air Transat, also declined to take them back to Montreal, citing safety issues for their crew and other passengers, CNN reported.

Awad said in a statement on Thursday that he spoke with Sunwing but that they "couldn't conclude on an agreement" because the airline wouldn't serve the passengers meals on their five-hour flight home.

Sunwing listed conditions for the partygoers' return flight, requiring them to be sober while on board, to remain seated unless using the bathroom, and to allow security staff to fly with them at Awad's expense, he said.

The organizer said he agreed to these conditions, except for the lack of meals on the flight. Sunwing and Awad did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.

The trip by his organization, 111 Private Club, a self-described "exclusive private group (by invitation only)," was Awad's first travel event, he said. According to him, everyone on the plane had been tested for COVID-19 before boarding the plane to Cancun.

"I have significantly learned, and I am still learning from this experience. Learning from them is what makes the difference," he said.

But the party plane's disregard for Montreal's pandemic rules has already summoned the fury of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who called the partygoers "idiots" and said the videos were "a slap in the face," The Associated Press reported. He pledged a full investigation into the event by Transport Canada.

Transport Canada said those found in violation of its rules could be fined up to $3,938 for every infraction, The AP reported.

One passenger, a real-estate broker, was suspended from his job after he was filmed with a loudspeaker in his hand while partying in the skies, Pilon reported\

Canada party plane influencer 'idiots' fly home to face music

Sat, January 8, 2022

The group was stranded in Cancun, Mexico, after airlines refused to fly them back to Canada

Canadian officials say a group of influencers whose rowdy behaviour on a flight led to their stranding in Mexico have flown home to face an inquiry.

In a briefing, a top health official said that 27 had returned and were screened at the airport. Some of the group could face stiff punishments.

Video shows a party on their charter plane without masks. Some were passing around bottles and vaping.

Their behaviour caused the airline to refuse to fly them home.

Sunwing Airlines cancelled a 5 January return trip for group of about 130 from Cancun and carriers Air Transat and Air Canada also said they would refuse to fly them.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the group's behaviour a "slap in the face" to citizens who have been following proper social distancing measures, as well as airline workers.

In French, Mr Trudeau referred to them as "idiots" and "barbarians".

Canadian Minister of Health Jean-Yves Duclos said in a briefing on Friday: "We know that this issue of Sunwing travellers having behaved irresponsibly, inexcusably, and unacceptably on a flight to Mexico [has] raised a lot of anger and frustration."

The 27 who have returned were tested for the virus, and "were checked with regards to whether they had obeyed and followed all of the health regulations they were supposed to follow throughout their trip".

They had to provide proof of vaccination against Covid-19, a negative PCR test, and a quarantine plan.

Mr Duclos said the Quebec police department was investigating the travellers.

Transport Canada is also investigating the group - they could issue fines of up to C$5,000 (£2,900) per offence.

Rebecca St Pierre, a 19-year-old student from Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, told the Canadian Press she had won the trip on Instagram.

She said she had tested positive for Covid on Wednesday, and was not sure how to pay for her hotel stay. She estimated that about 30 people from the plane had tested positive.

"I was expecting a relaxing week, where I was going to be careful,″ she said. "But this turns out to be an expensive trip for something that was supposed to be free." She is isolating in Tulum, south of Cancun, reports the Canadian Press.

Ms St Pierre added that some travellers had planned to put Vaseline up their nose for their return trip, in an effort to thwart Covid testing.

Other stranded passengers include local reality TV actors.

The trip organiser, identified as James William Awad, said in a statement on Thursday that Sunwing was being unreasonable over a "simple party".

"I will take a moment to sit down and rethink everything,″ he said on Twitter. "Especially how I can do things better next time."

Meet the musician behind the maskless influencer party flight who likens himself to James Bond

Sheila Flynn

THE INDEPENDENT
Sat, January 8, 2022

James William Awad, who performs under the name Senior, is an aspiring musician who organised infamous pandemic party flight from Canada to Mexico (YouTube/Senior)

The man behind a plane full of “private club” members so badly behaved in-flight that airlines refused to take them home has been revealed as an aspiring musician who’s already changed his name at least once and whose business dealings prompted warnings from the Canadian government.

James William Awad, who was known as Kevin Awad until 2019, is a 28-year-old from Montreal with a penchant for flashy clothes and self-promotion, his social media accounts reveal. He’s also a musician releasing songs under the name Senior; that Instagram account has 1million followers and consists mostly of clips from his music videos and photos of Mr Awad dressed expensively, counting money or posing broodingly in swanky locations.

He changed his name, he told The Independent in an email Saturday, “cause people always used to call me James. In reference to James Bond.”

Mr Awad was the mastermind behind a chartered Sunwing flight from Montreal to Cancun last week in which revelers were filmed drinking, vaping and dancing – all maskless. The flight was organised by Mr Awad’s members-only 111 Private Club, with passengers including influencers and reality TV personalities.

Footage from the flight sparked outrage, especially after many passengers allegedly later tested positive for coronavirus. The partiers were left stranded when Sunwing and other airlines, following their behaviour on the first flight, refused to take them back to Canada.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking in French, called the group “idiots” and “barbarians”. His government has launched an inquiry.

Footage from the hedonistic flight sparked outrage, especially after many passengers later tested positive for coronavirus. The partiers were left stranded when Sunwing and other airlines, following their behaviour on the first flight, refused to take them back to Canada (Twitter: FrancisPilon_)

“Most people left Mexico already and are back in Montreal,” Mr Awad told The Independent on Saturday. “Some stayed in in Mexico to enjoy the sun a bit more and some are waiting for the big plane to return home. I am working on the plane right now. Almost done negotiations (sic).”

Those negotiations have been going on for days. As headlines and controversy swirled regarding the group’s travel plans, Mr Awad on Thursday released a statement on a blog seemingly created just this month.

“The 111 private club is a dream and a vision that I poured my heart and soul into creating,” he wrote. “This was my first travel event. I have significantly learned, and I am still learning from this experience. Learning from them is what makes the difference.”

A video he posted to Twitter on Friday, however, was more defiant – and arguably tone-deaf during the pandemic that has killed millions across the globe.

Mr Awad – who has fewer than 4,000 Twitter followers – wrote that “trying to make this world a better place, is a death bed, i guess (sic).”

He continued: “Did a new years travel event to make every body happy and build a system where every one can enjoy entertainment safely and together, spent hundreds of thousands, only to get killed by media again in the end.

“Building a decentralized system where every one can work together to build projects and make life better for everybody, and I know, it could be my final death bed. I’m still gonna do it...,” he wrote, ending the post with a sad emoji.

The words were set to music, one of his own songs as Senior in which the lyrics mention police and a “covid party”.

The entire incident called to mind the disastrous Fyre Festival, organised in the Caribbean nearly five years ago by another smooth-talking self-promoter, Billy McFarland. While that debacle took place years before the pandemic, travellers were similarly stranded after plans and promises from organisers turned out to be little more than wishful thinking.

One Twitter user, @j_jaj23, on Friday responded jokingly to a statement from Mr Awad, writing: “Ja Rule, Billy McFarland and the entire Fyre Festival wants to talk to you for a possible collab.”



This isn’t the first time Mr Awad has attempted a major undertaking, however – nor the first time he’s landed in hot water.

According to a glowing press release issued in April 2020 about his business efforts, the 28-year-old first began programming at age 11, later becoming a freelance developer at 14 and lying about his age to get work.

He tells The Independent that, growing up in Montreal, “my dream was to build video games.”

His skills, however, got him “his first real project” for “a bank in Mexico,” according to the 2020 release. “He was tasked with fixing and creating features for a user management system. Luckily, they never asked to speak on the phone with him, as they easily could have guessed his age.

“James ended up making a couple thousand bucks while working on multiple projects. He took all this money to buy C++ coding books and pay his parents mortgage for the year.

“At the age of 15, James got serious about playing video games. He found a trick in an online game by generating coins. James then sold the coins to a company in China. That company would then sell them to players all around the world.”

The release claims he also went on to start a successful online clothing store before setting up TripleOne, a “decentralized company where users around the world work together to build and manage it ... James says that one day users of TripleOne will manage and operate e-commerce, real estate, and other businesses as a decentralized team.

“Each member will be paid out on a monthly basis based on the value brought to the table. Value such as coming up with business ideas, and fulfilling related work that comes with any business venture.”

The release calls the idea behind TripleOne “revolutionary” – but potential participants could be dissuaded by Mr Awad’s track record.

In a 2015 press release from Canada’s Financial Markets Authority, the body warned about the activities of Kevin Awad and KJRVS Inc., of which he is president and shareholder.

“Kevin Awad is not registered with the Authority,” the release said. “He cannot therefore solicit or act as a broker with Quebec consumers to invest. Kevin Awad reportedly approached people through his Facebook page claiming to offer a unique investment system.

“On his company’s webpage, investors could open an account that allowed them to submit securities proposals, determine the amount to invest in investment sessions, and more.

“Although it seems that the activities of the company KJRVS inc. have ceased and its website is no longer accessible, some information suggests that Kevin Awad could resume soliciting investors.”

Mr Awad, however, takes issue with the allegations.

“I lost only because I didn’t have money to pay lawyers,” he told The Independent. “Even the judge was surprised and asked me ‘where are your lawyers.’

“I am not guilty. I ended up having to pay a $2000 fine.”

In addition to his business and music dealings, however, the Canadian claimed on Twitter in November that his “book is coming out in 2025”. His personal website, james.com, and his LinkedIn page were both disabled for much of Friday, with Mr Awad citing high traffic volume.

His YouTube channel as Senior has fewer than 10,000 subscribers.

Serbia may suspend lithium deal with Rio Tinto - PM Brnabic


FILE PHOTO: Protest in Belgrade against Rio Tinto's plan to open lithium mine

Sat, January 8, 2022

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Serbia may soon decide to annul all contracts related to mining group Rio Tinto's $2.4 billion lithium project in the country, Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said on Saturday, as green groups blocked roads across Serbia protesting against the plan.

Rio Tinto wants to develop the mine near Loznica in the western Jadar valley, but the local municipality has already scrapped a plan https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/rio-tinto-pause-lithium-mine-serbia-after-protests-report-2021-12-23 to allocate land for it.

The development is part of Serbia's efforts to bring in investment and boost economic growth. But environmentalists have staged protests and blocked roads to press authorities to end the project, which they say would cause irreparable damage to the area.

Rio has said any development would meet domestic and European Union environmental standards.

The protests have caused a political headache for the ruling coalition loyal to President Aleksandar Vucic ahead of April elections.

"We have neither brought them (Rio Tinto) in, nor have we made promises, nor have we done anything that the people did not know about," Brnabic told television channel Pink, saying the government was close to accepting all requests from environmentalists.

"We have worked in a transparent way, we have listened to the people," Brnabic said, adding the government needed to see how much it would have to pay out if the deal is annulled.

Brnabic also said the government wanted to win agreement for any decision from President Aleksandar Vucic, who she said was against the fulfilling of "requests by foreign services and agencies".

Vucic has repeatedly said that opening the mine would dependon the outcome of an environmental study and a referendum.

The protesters who blocked roads including in the capital Belgrade want the government to ban the extraction of lithium not only by Rio Tinto but any other company.

(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by David Holmes)

Serbia: Lithium mine opponents block roads in bad weather

Via AP news wire
Sat, January 8, 2022, 

Serbia Environmental Protest (Copyright 2022 

The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Hundreds of people in Serbia spent part of a holiday weekend blocking roads Saturday to protest plans for lithium mining in the Balkan country.

The protests came a day after Orthodox Christians in Serbia and many other countries celebrated Christmas. The demonstrations took place in the capital, Belgrade and several other locations.

Anti-mine activists have organized weekly gatherings to keep pressure on the populist government of President Aleksandar Vucic to scrap the possibility of lithium excavations in western Serbia.

Thousands have joined protests in the past and ecology groups have vowed not to stop until the mining proposals are rejected.

Prime Minister Ana Brnabic told the pro-government Pink television on Saturday that her government was “close to annulling” any deals with multinational mining company Rio Tinto which has explored the area and wants to extract lithium.

“We listen to our people,” Brnabic said.

Experts have warned that mining for lithium, a material used for car and other batteries, would destroy the region’s farmland, ecosystem and water.

Serbia faces numerous environmental problems following decades of neglect. The country is swamped with garbage and has very poor air quality.

Improving environmental protection is one of the criteria Serbia needs to fulfill to advance on its path to joining the European Union.

Rio Tinto Is Building Its Lithium Business. The Move to Green Energy Will Boost the Stock.


JANUARY 7, 2022

A hefty dividend and a strong pivot toward clean-energy products should make United Kingdom-based diversified miner Rio Tinto a good bet for investors. Experts say that those with a heavy appetite for risk can expect total returns to reach 30% within 12 months.

In December, the company — which currently derives three-quarters of its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or EBITDA, from iron ore — announced that it would buy Argentina-based Rincon. Lithium Project for $825 million. The deal, which requires regulatory approval, would make Rio Tinto a major battery-grade lithium producer.

“What’s interesting is that they consistently went out and found this deal, and they will continue to look for similar opportunities,” said Sophie Lund-Yates, a senior equity analyst at UK-based broker Hargreaves Lansdowne. baron’s, “Not everyone has the firepower to make those changes.”

In other words, Rio Tinto (ticker: Rio) has the willingness and financial strength to close the Green Switch.

Sure, mining and caring for the environment seemed like an odd pairing a few years ago. but growing special mineral requirements Requirements for decarbonization have changed.

In particular, the need for materials needed for clean energy is now increasing, and this will help ignite the company’s already better-than-average mining image. Unlike some other miscellaneous miners, Rio Tinto does not produce any fossil fuels such as coal.

The Rincon project adds more green: Lithium is used to make electric-vehicle batteries. Industry experts say the demand for the metal is expected to nearly triple to 1.5 million metric tonnes by 2025. Last year, lithium carbonate prices more than quadrupled, up 413% to $32,600 per metric ton, according to S&P Global, due to increased demand. And a forecast deficit this year means prices could rise even higher.

The increased bet on meeting the Green Goals is only part of the story. According to Morningstar, RIO’s American Depository Receipts has recently outperformed its peers, producing an annualized return of 22.9% in the three years to January 3, up from the industry average of 20.2%. The company is valued at an average forward multiple of 9.3 versus 6.7 times forward earnings over the past five years.

Research organization CFRA has a target price of 58 pounds sterling ($78.50) on shares listed in the UK, or about 18% higher than its recent price of £49.36. “We like Rio for its best leverage profile among peers [with net cash since the middle of last year],” said a recent CFRA report. “An improved balance-sheet profile will provide support to the company in the face of macro uncertainty.”

The cherry on top is the 10% projected dividend for 2022. With potential stock price gains, investors can walk away with a 28% gain this year.

There are some significant risks with this investment. Iron-ore demand is heavily dependent on demand from Chinese steelmakers, who require the ore. The bursting of China’s real estate bubble could further plummet iron-ore demand and prices. According to TradingEconomics, iron-ore prices have fallen recently to $116, up from $225 per metric ton in May.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Tyler Broda says that if the price falls further, profits could drop dramatically, putting pressure on the company’s dividend.

Still, China’s economic troubles are widely acknowledged by investors, who suggest that concerns about a drop in iron-ore demand may already be reflected in Rio Tinto’s stock price, prompting the stock to bet. will be worth.

A SEA MYSTERY
Families of crew from sunken fishing vessel get nearly $1M

Fri, January 7, 2022
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A judge has awarded nearly $1 million in damages to the families of four fishermen who died when their boat mysteriously sank off Massachusetts in 2020.

The 82-foot (25-meter) Portland, Maine-based Emmy Rose went down early Nov. 23, 2020, as it was heading to port after a seven-day fishing trip, the National Transportation Safety Board said. Authorities had previously said it was heading to Gloucester, Massachusetts.

A total of $960,000 in insurance proceeds from the boat owner, Boat Aaron & Melissa Inc., was distributed among the families by U.S. District Judge John Woodcock in an order Wednesday, The Portland Press Herald reported.

The families agreed to accept the money in exchange for an order releasing the owner from further liability. The judge also exonerated the owner.

Woodcock wrote that each man died “an unspeakably tragic and terrible death.”

“Again, there is no evidence about how the vessel went down and it is possible that it sank suddenly and without warning, but it is more likely that there was some period of panic as the seamen worked in horrific conditions to avoid its and their awful demise,” Woodcock wrote.

The vessel made no distress calls. The Coast Guard searched more than 2,200 square miles over a 38-hour period, yet found nothing more than a debris field, diesel fuel odor, an emergency beacon and an empty life raft.

The crew — Capt. Robert Blethen Jr., of Georgetown, Maine; Jeffrey Matthews, of Portland, Maine; Ethan Ward, of Pownal, Maine; and Michael Porper, of Gloucester, Massachusetts — was never found.

The Emmy Rose was found in May, in an upright position with its outriggers deployed, in about 800 feet of water on the seafloor about 25 miles off Provincetown, Massachusetts, the NTSB said.

Federal authorities partnered with the National Science Foundation and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in September to survey the sunken vessel using a remotely operated vehicle. The vehicle yielded videos and high-resolution photos that are being used by investigators trying to determine why the vessel went down.

Ashley Gross, Porper's fiancee, said in a statement provided by her attorney that she felt the judge did a fair job of dividing the limited insurance between the four families.

“There is no amount of money that will bring my friends and fiance back,” she said Thursday. “The judgment doesn’t bring us closure but does bring some peace of mind that Michael was able to contribute to his daughters’ future.”

An email was left Friday for the attorney who represented the Emmy Rose’s owner.

Exclusive-Baby lost in chaos of Afghanistan airlift found, returned to family after long ordeal

Mica Rosenberg, Jonathan Landay and James Mackenzie
Sat, January 8, 2022

KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) - An infant boy handed in desperation to a soldier across an airport wall in the chaos of the American evacuation of Afghanistan has been found and was reunited with his relatives in Kabul on Saturday.

The baby, Sohail Ahmadi, was just two months old when he went missing on Aug. 19 as thousands of people rushed to leave Afghanistan as it fell to the Taliban.

Following an exclusive Reuters story https://www.reuters.com/world/exclusive-baby-handed-us-soldiers-chaos-afghanistan-airlift-still-missing-2021-11-05 published in November with his pictures, the baby was located in Kabul where a 29-year-old taxi driver named Hamid Safi had found him in the airport and took him home to raise as his own.

After more than seven weeks of negotiations and pleas, and ultimately a brief detention by Taliban police, Safi finally handed the child back to his jubilant grandfather and other relatives still in Kabul.

They said they would now seek to have him reunited with his parents and siblings who were evacuated months ago to the United States.

During the tumultuous Afghan evacuation over the summer, Mirza Ali Ahmadi - the boy's father who had worked as a security guard at the U.S. embassy - and his wife Suraya feared their son would get crushed in the crowd as they neared the airport gates en route to a flight to the United States.

Ahmadi told Reuters in early November in his desperation that day, he handed Sohail over the airport wall to a uniformed soldier who he believed to be an American, fully expecting he would soon make it the remaining 5 meters (15 feet) to the entrance to reclaim him.

Just at that moment, Taliban forces pushed the crowd back and it would be another half an hour before Ahmadi, his wife and their four other children were able to get inside.

But by then the baby was nowhere to be found.

Ahmadi said he searched desperately for his son inside the airport and was told by officials that he had likely been taken out of the country separately and could be reunited with them later.

The rest of the family was evacuated - eventually ending up at a military base in Texas. For months they had no idea where their son was.

The case highlights the plight of many parents separated from their children https://www.reuters.com/world/when-are-my-parents-coming-1300-afghan-children-evacuated-us-limbo-2021-11-10 during the hasty evacuation effort and withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country after a 20-year war.

With no U.S. embassy in Afghanistan and international organizations overstretched, Afghan refugees have had trouble getting answers on the timing, or possibility, of complex reunifications like this one.

The U.S. Department of Defense, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday.

ALONE AT THE AIRPORT

On the same day Ahmadi and his family were separated from their baby, Safi had slipped through the Kabul airport gates after giving a ride to his brother's family who were also set to evacuate.

Safi said he found Sohail alone and crying on the ground. After he said he unsuccessfully tried to locate the baby's parents inside, he decided to take the infant home to his wife and children. Safi has three daughters of his own and said his mother's greatest wish before she died was for him to have a son.

In that moment he decided: "I am keeping this baby. If his family is found, I will give him to them. If not, I will raise him myself," he told Reuters in an interview in late November.



Safi told Reuters that he took him to the doctor for a check-up after he was found and quickly incorporated the child into his family. They called the baby Mohammad Abed and posted pictures of all the children together on his Facebook page.

After the Reuters story about the missing child came out, some of Safi's neighbors - who had noticed his return from the airport months earlier with a baby - recognized the photos and posted comments about his whereabouts on a translated version of the article.

Ahmadi asked his relatives still in Afghanistan, including his father-in-law Mohammad Qasem Razawi, 67, who lives in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, to seek out Safi and ask him to return Sohail to the family.

Razawi said he traveled two days and two nights to the capital bearing gifts - including a slaughtered sheep, several pounds of walnuts and clothing - for Safi and his family.

But Safi refused to release Sohail, insisting he also wanted to be evacuated from Afghanistan with his family. Safi's brother, who was evacuated to California, said Safi and his family have no pending applications for U.S. entry.

The baby's family sought help from the Red Cross, which has a stated mission to help reconnect people separated by international crises, but said they received little information from the organization. A spokesperson for the Red Cross said it does not comment on individual cases.

Finally, after feeling they had run out of options, Razawi contacted the local Taliban police to report a kidnapping. Safi told Reuters he denied the allegations to the police and said he was caring for the baby, not kidnapping him.

The complaint was investigated and dismissed and the local police commander told Reuters he helped arrange a settlement, which included an agreement signed with thumbprints by both sides. Razawi said the baby's family in the end agreed to compensate Safi around 100,000 Afghani ($950) for expenses incurred looking after him for five months.

"The grandfather of the baby complained to us and we found Hamid and based on the evidence we had, we recognized the baby," said Hamid Malang, the chief area controller of the local police station. "With both sides in agreement, the baby will be handed over to his grandfather," he said on Saturday.

In the presence of the police, and amid lots of tears, the baby was finally returned to his relatives.

Razawi said Safi and his family were devastated to lose Sohail. "Hamid and his wife were crying, I cried too, but assured them that you both are young, Allah will give you male child. Not one, but several. I thanked both of them for saving the child from the airport," Razawi said.

The baby's parents told Reuters they were overjoyed as they were able to see with their own eyes the reunion over video chat.

"There are celebrations, dance, singing," said Razawi. "It is just like a wedding indeed."

Now Ahmadi and his wife and other children, who in early December were able to move off the military base and resettle in an apartment in Michigan, hope Sohail will soon be brought to the United States.

"We need to get the baby back to his mother and father. This is my only responsibility," his grandfather said. "My wish is that he should return to them."

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York, Jonathan Landay in Washington and James Mackenzie in Kabul; Editing by Kieran Murray and Daniel Wallis)

SCHADENFREUDE

QAnon influencer who spread conspiracy theories and misinformation about COVID-19 dies after contracting the virus

Morgan Keith

Sat, January 8, 2022

skaman306/Getty Images

• Cirsten Weldon was a QAnon influencer who spread conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines.

• Weldon said she felt exhausted and unwell in the final videos she posted before her hospitalization.

• Following her death, a QAnon influencer threatened the medical professionals who cared for Weldon.

QAnon influencer Cirsten Weldon used her streaming service and conservative social media platforms to spread misinformation and conspiracy theories about a variety of topics, including the "deep state," chemtrails, and COVID-19, which she ultimately succumbed to on Thursday, the Daily Beast reported.

Weldon, who was vehemently opposed to COVID-19 vaccination efforts, had previously recorded herself yelling at individuals waiting in line to get vaccinated and stated in a video that Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, "needs to be hung from a rope," according to the Daily Beast.

In the weeks leading up to her death, Weldon posted several short livestreams and clips of her show, "The True Cirsten W," where she coughed and stated that she felt exhausted and unwell.

"Good morning patriots, I didn't think I was going to make it. I'm sorry. I'm exhausted and I have no, I'm very, very weak. I have no strength. I haven't eaten in four days," Weldon said in a Facebook video on December 27.

Her last video was posted on the same account the next day.

Weldon, an avid social media user who typically posted several times a day, was not heard from again until December 31, when she posted a photo of herself wearing an oxygen mask in a hospital bed to her Telegram account.

She said in a subsequent post that she had been in the hospital for two days with what she claimed was "bacteria pneumonia," although she wrote that she had refused "Dr Fauci's Resmedervir (sic)" treatment after being tested for COVID-19.

Her posts became increasingly incoherent and filled with typos throughout her hospital stay. "Praying God takes me out of here soon," Weldon said in the final post on her Telegram account.

Following her death, other prominent QAnon influencers said they were too late at staging an intervention to get Weldon out of the hospital and also threatened the lives of the medical professionals who cared for her, according to the Daily Beast.

Weldon is one of several conservative vaccine skeptics who have died from COVID-19 during the pandemic, including Phil Valentine, Marc Bernier, Doug Kuzma, and Pressley Stutts.

One of the newest airlines in the US is tackling the pilot shortage by paying them more and hiring from Australia


Thomas Pallini
Sat, January 8, 2022

The inaugural flight of David Neeleman's Breeze Airways.

Thomas Pallini/Insider


Breeze Airways is one of many airlines bracing for the global shortage of pilots as air travel ramps up.


The startup airline is looking to fill about 280 open pilot spots as more aircraft are delivered.


Hourly pilot wages are being increased and Australian nationals can also fly for Breeze under the E-3 visa program.

The airline industry is returning to normal, and that means once again contending with a global shortage of pilots.

Airlines moved quickly to lean their pilot workforce's but hiring at many airlines has restarted and for others, it never ended. Regional airlines and new startups in particular have been feeling the crunch.

Breeze Airways, the startup airline launched by JetBlue Airways founder David Neeleman, has been steadily hiring pilots throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and is expanding its efforts as it grows its fleet of aircraft.

About 280 pilot spots need to be filled for Breeze's Embraer E190, Embraer E195, and Airbus A220 aircraft, and the airline is pulling out all the stops to attract talent.
Higher pay for all pilots

Breeze is raising pilot pay with new pay scales for pilots taking effect in January.

Pay scales on each aircraft are different with Airbus pilots earning slightly more than their Embraer counterparts given the "additional revenue-generating capability" of the aircraft, Christopher Owens, Breeze's vice president of flight operations, told Insider.

First-year pay for A220 first officers is $68 per flight hour, up by $13, while first-year pay for Embraer first officers is $61, up by $6.

Breeze Airways is raising pilot pay as of January 2022.Breeze Airways

"The reason for that was the overwhelming feedback that we received back from the pilots," Owens. "Their three top priorities were: pay rates, pay rates, and pay rates."

Embraer pilots fly what are known as "out and back" trips that will see them return to their home base every night. Airbus pilots will help induct Breeze's A220-300 fleet later this year and fly longer flights and multi-day trips comparable to traditional airline pilots.
Alternative solutions to the pilot shortage

Australian pilots will be able to work as Breeze pilots under the E-3 work visa program in a little-used but not unprecedented solution to the pilot shortage. Skilled Australian nationals can apply to legally work in the US and regional airlines including CommutAir and ExpressJet Airlines have used the program to recruit pilots from the country.

"It's an opportunity to give good, hardworking, well-qualified folks jobs who want to live in the US [and] want to be a pilot for a US airline," Owens said.

Breeze already has around 120 applicants for the program, with the majority of pilots living in Australia and some who are already in the US. Pilots from Down Under will, however, incur travel and visa costs before being able to fly for Breeze.

Other solutions include establishing a pipeline program with a major US flight school and Breeze may also join the likes of United Airlines in starting an ab initio program for would-be pilots with no flight time.

Breeze is also seeking airline pilots that retired during the pandemic but still have a few years left before reaching the Federal Aviation Administration's mandatory retirement age of 65. "Anybody who has three years left would be great because they bring in maturity, discipline, and lots of experience," Owens said.

Shaking off a reputation for low pay

The labor shortage also has a way of holding airlines accountable as pilots can seek opportunities elsewhere given that airlines across the country have been raising pay and lowering requirements to ensure a steady supply.

"We've been operating for seven months and we simply can't be as competitive as pilots would like us to be right now," Owens said. "Pilots just need to have a little bit of patience, see the forest through the trees, and see Breeze for what it can be."

Astronomers breathe a sigh of relief after Webb Telescope unfolds its mirror in space


Alan Boyle
Sat, January 8, 2022

NASA’s Bill Ochs and John Durning bump fists in celebration at the Space Telescope Science Institute after the James Webb Space Telescope’s deployment. (NASA Photo / Bill Ingalls)

Two weeks after its Christmas launch, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope finished unwrapping itself today, delighting astronomers in the process.

The deployment of JWST’s 18-segment, 21.3-foot-wide primary mirror marked the end of the riskiest portion of the $10 billion telescope’s mission.

It’s still more than 300,000 miles from its destination, a gravitational balance point known as L2 that’s a million miles from Earth. It still has to fine-tune the orientation of the mirror’s gold-and-beryllium segments, and cool its instruments down to a temperature just a few degrees above absolute zero. But mission controllers at the Space Telescope Science Institute were able to tick off nearly 300 potential points of failure without a hitch.

“We have a fully deployed JWST observatory,” Northrop Grumman’s Paul Reynolds, who led the mission’s deployment operations team, declared during a widely watched webcast.

JWST is designed to be 100 times more sensitive than the 32-year-old Hubble Space Telescope, which is near the end of its longer-than-expected life. Once JWST begins science operations, as early as May, it should bring new revelations about mysteries ranging from the habitability of alien planets, to the nature of black holes and quasars, to the origins of the universe.

Today’s mirror deployment, coming after years of developmental delays and billions of dollars’ worth of cost overruns, was hailed as a signal success by astronomers in the field as well as NASA’s top officials.

“NASA is a place where the impossible becomes possible,” said Bill Nelson, the agency’s administrator.

Mark McCaughrean, senior adviser for science and exploration at the European Space Agency, harked back to Winston Churchill’s wartime aphorisms to describe the moment. “To quote Mr. Churchill, now this is not the end,” McCaughrean tweeted. “It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. Five months of cooling, aligning and commissioning remain, hard work for the teams involved, before science begins. But today is a big step.”

It took two weeks to unfold the primary mirror — and JWST’s other components, including a sunshield and the rigging for the secondary mirror — because the telescope was too big to fit in its fully deployed configuration inside the nose cone of the European Ariane 5 rocket on which it was launched.

The sunshield, consisting of five layers of ultra-thin coated plastic, had to be unfurled in space to protect the telescope from solar radiation, in what was considered the riskiest part of the deployment. Then the left and right sides of the telescope had to be drawn up and latched like the sides of a drop-leaf table. The left side was set in place on Friday, and the right side was taken care of today.

“This has been, arguably, the most challenging deployment program ever done by NASA,” NASA mission systems engineer Mike Menzel said during a post-deployment briefing at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.

The mission team had made contingency plans for potential glitches, including a procedure for shimmying the spacecraft in space if necessary. But none of those plans had to be used.



“It was not as easy as it looks, but the easiness that you saw … is just a tribute to the folks,” said Bill Ochs, the mission’s project manager. “We went through what I feel now is the exact right amount of testing, the exact right amount of engineering audits, the exact right amount of tweaks to the design.”

Before launch, mission managers said JWST would face 344 potential single points of failure. And because the telescope was destined to operate far beyond Earth orbit, there’d be no opportunity to send out a repair team to fix any flaws — as was the case for Hubble.

Although the riskiest part of the mission is over, some risks remain. The spacecraft will have to fire its thrusters on Jan. 23 to settle into its orbit around the L2 gravitational balance point, and then settle into a routine for the years ahead.

“There are 49 single-point failures out of the original 344 that are not retired, and will not be retired for the duration of the mission,” Menzel said. “These 49 are typical of all missions — things like propulsion tanks.”

The good news is that things have gone surprisingly smoothly so far. So smoothly, in fact, that the telescope has enough surplus propellant to last much longer than its originally expected five to 10 years of operation.

“Roughly speaking, it’s around 20 years of propellant,” Menzel said.. 

Research points to missing piece of India's Covid puzzle: Millions of uncounted dead


Denise Chow
Fri, January 7, 2022

Several million Covid-19 deaths have most likely gone unreported in India, according to a series of recent studies that suggest the country's death toll from the virus is far higher than what has been officially tallied by the government.

A team of researchers in Canada, India and the United States estimated that roughly 3 million Covid deaths during the country's first and second waves of infection remain unaccounted for by Indian officials. The findings, released Thursday in the journal Science, appear to confirm long-held suspicions among epidemiologists that India's official record of 483,178 Covid deaths may have significantly undercounted the virus' true devastation.

"Earlier in the pandemic, we had this 'Indian paradox,' where there was widespread infection but not many deaths," said Dr. Prabhat Jha, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Toronto in Canada, who led the research. "It was a bit of a puzzle as to why that was happening, but when we started looking into it, there were obviously missing deaths."

India has confirmed more than 35 million cases of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to the country's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Jha and his colleagues found that as many as 3.4 million Covid deaths were probably undercounted from June 2020 to July 2021. Many of those deaths occurred last spring, Jha said, when India was hit especially hard by the delta variant.

As such, cumulative deaths in the country as of September 2021 may be six or seven times higher than official reports, the scientists concluded.

India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the country's Covid death toll.

Image: Indian Covid-19 Death Toll (Abhishek Chinnappa / Getty Images file)

Jha, who is also director of the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, said the discrepancy is largely because of the uneven reach of India's death registration systems. It's a problem that predates the pandemic, he added.

"If someone dies in North America, they usually die in a hospital or nursing home, or if they die at home, a coroner has to issue a death certificate," Jha said. "In India, especially in rural India, many deaths occur and they simply cremate the body in a field or bury them with no official registration of the death."

Indian officials also typically counted Covid deaths only in cases that were confirmed through lab testing, according to the study. This means that during the delta wave, in particular, when testing resources were in short supply and health care systems were overwhelmed, many suspected Covid deaths likely fell through the cracks.

Jha said roughly 10 million deaths occur on average each year in India, which provided a baseline to measure what's known as excess deaths, or the number of reported deaths higher than what would be expected over the same time period.

Relatives and volunteers carry the body of a Covid victim at a crematorium in Srinagar, Indian, controlled Kashmir, last May. (Dar Yasin / AP file)

The researchers used a nationally representative survey from CVoter, an Indian polling agency, to gauge how many Covid deaths were being overlooked by official counts. The survey included 140,000 randomly selected people who were contacted over a 15-month period about whether a Covid death had occurred in their household.

"Because almost all Indians have a cellphone, you actually get a good snapshot of the country," Jha said.

The researchers then compared the results to the number of deaths that would be expected in the country without the influence of Covid.

Jha said the survey revealed that during the spring delta wave, India's average death rate of 3 percent doubled over the course of only three months.

The researchers calculated that during the first two waves of infection, India experienced a 29 percent increase in excess deaths. The scientists used two other data sources — the government's own figures on hospitalizations up to June 2021 and records from civil registration systems in 10 Indian states — to confirm and refine their estimate.

The results are in line with other research that similarly suggests India's Covid death toll has been vastly undercounted.

A study published Dec. 22 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases found a 41 percent increase in deaths from all causes from March 2020 through June 2021 in the district of Chennai, on India's southeastern coast. During the delta wave, the number of deaths was roughly five times higher than normal rates of death in this region over that period of time in pre-pandemic years, said Joseph Lewnard, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the research.

"This confirms that a substantial proportion of Covid infections are never ascertained to begin with, which means a cause of death then cannot be attributed," he said.

Lewnard added that Chennai has a more robust health care system compared to many other parts of India, which means the difference between actual Covid deaths and what has been officially reported could be even more pronounced elsewhere in the country.

A separate study published in July 2021 by researchers at the Center for Global Development found 3.4 million to nearly 5 million excess deaths may have occurred in India from the start of the pandemic through June 2021.

Lewnard said it's important for India and other countries to have an accurate tally of Covid deaths in order to understand the true cost of the pandemic.

"We make our decisions moving forward with Covid-19, as we do with other diseases, in part by understanding what burden they exact on our society," he said.

In that way, accurate Covid death tolls can indicate where resources and public health interventions were lacking, and how these tools could be better disseminated in the future. This kind of information may be especially useful now, as cases in India are spiking because of the omicron variant.

"It's about making sure the dead get their due respect and are not forgotten," Jha said. "But counting the dead actually helps the living, because it gives you a roadmap as to whether all the things that we're doing to fight Covid, and the trillions of dollars that we're spending, are actually having an effect."

Omicron: Natural immunity idea ‘not really panning out,’ doctor explains

Adriana Belmonte

·Senior Editor

Sat, January 8, 2022

The Omicron strain of the coronavirus is fueling a rapid surge in confirmed COVID-19 cases — including among vaccinated and even boosted Americans — and a new rise in hospitalizations among unvaccinated Americans is further weakening the notion that natural immunity alone provides adequate protection amid the evolving pandemic.

“This idea of natural immunity is not really panning out with this virus,” Dr. Hilary Fairbrother, an emergency medicine physician based in New York City, said on Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “I think part of that is because Omicron has so many mutations, and there’s really no way to know what the next variant will have.”

The U.S. is nearing 60 million confirmed cases and is averaging more than 500,000 new confirmed cases a day over the last week, raising new questions about whether the U.S. will be able to reach herd immunity.

“I think the problem with herd immunity is that is really taking into account that this virus won’t mutate significantly and we might not have a very significant variant roaming around that has nothing to do with omicron that really doesn’t see any natural immunity from people who have been sick with omicron,” Fairbrother said, adding that "that's kind of what we saw with" previous variants.

'Next to no immunity' with omicron

When it comes to natural immunity, relying on prior natural infection over vaccination can come at a cost — and it doesn't seem to work currently given the evasive capabilities of Omicron. 

Millions of Americans are suffering from long COVID (long-term effects of coronavirus), which can range from mild symptoms like loss of taste and smell to more serious problems like tachycardia and extreme fatigue, and unvaccinated Americans are 20 times as likely to die from the virus.

“For patients who had alpha or delta [strains of coronavirus], they seem to have next to no immunity when it comes to omicron,” Fairbrother said. “There is some evidence that there’s slightly less severity in disease, and other people have certainly seen patients who are very sick with omicron who have already had COVID. So the best protection that we have is vaccination.”

Currently, 62.4% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, 74% have received at least one dose, and 35.3% of the fully vaccinated have been boosted, according to CDC data.

'We're in a tough place'

Natural immunity, like immunity provided by vaccines, also wanes over time. 

That means a person can get reinfected and then spread the virus to others, further endangering those who are immunocompromised or not yet eligible for booster shots, such as children.

“Unfortunately for children under five, that’s not an option,” Fairbrother said. “So we’re really seeing this younger child group pay the price of continued coronavirus sweeping our country. Such a large volume of cases means that some of those children are going to get very sick and that they’re going to need hospitalization. That’s really tragic.”

A protester, who identified herself as a school teacher, demonstrates against the mandate that teachers and staff in the NYC Schools system be vaccinated against COVID, in New York City, October 4, 2021. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, nearly 7.9 million children have tested positive for COVID, with over 325,000 cases for the week ending Dec. 30., a 64% increase from the week prior.

“Since those children [under 5] aren’t eligible by age to be vaccinated yet, they really have no other protection except for all of us, hopefully protecting ourselves and decreasing the spread of this very contagious disease,” Fairbrother said.

And aside from protecting children from getting the virus, increasing vaccination uptake also means decreasing the risk of those children spreading it to others in schools, like teachers or other administrative employees.

“Certainly, I’ve heard of schools having to shut down because there aren’t enough teachers and administrators to keep them open,” Fairbrother said. “So I think we’re in a tough place. And there are some communities that really might have to go to virtual learning, which is terrible for everyone, and I think really should only be used as a last resort option when everything else has failed."

The “no-brainer” way to prevent this, she said, is to ensure that all students and teachers are masked up in schools. As of September 2021, 17 states mandate masks to be worn in schools while eight states have outright banned school mask mandates.

“If children aren’t wearing masks and we’re not doing everything with testing that we can do to mitigate any outbreaks that occur within our school systems, I don’t know how we can even expect there to be teachers or other staff to keep schools open, period,” Fairbrother said.

All things considered, according to Fairbrother, the best protection is to follow the core public health guidelines: get vaccinated, social distance, wash your hands, and wear a mask in public.

“Then from there, hopefully with the next variant, things will keep being mild,” she said.

Adriana Belmonte is a reporter and editor covering politics and health care policy for Yahoo Finance. You can follow her on Twitter @adrianambells and reach her at adriana@yahoofinance.com.