#french sapper friday

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Chat it's French Sapper Friday

Happy french sapper(and lesbian sex) Friday

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Saturday, December 12, 2020

TIME’s 2020 Person of the Year: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (Today) President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have been named TIME’s Person of the Year for 2020. Biden, the Democrat who defeated incumbent President Donald Trump in the 2020 election to become just the 11th candidate in U.S. history to defeat a president seeking reelection, was part of a historic ticket with Harris, who will become the nation’s first female vice president and first one of color. Though Biden joins a long list of U.S. leaders who’ve been named Person of the Year (all but three presidents have been selected since the magazine’s creation of the title in 1927), Harris is the first vice presidential pick in the magazine’s history to be included.

US budget deficit up 25.1% in first 2 months of budget year (AP) The U.S. government’s deficit in the first two months of the budget year ran 25.1% higher than the same period a year ago as spending to deal with the COVID pandemic soared while tax revenues fell. The Treasury Department reported Thursday that with two months gone in the budget year, the deficit totaled $429.3 billion, up from $343.3 billion in last year’s October-November period. The government’s deficit for the budget year that ended Sept. 30 was a record-shattering $3.1 trillion, fueled by the trillion-dollar-plus spending measures Congress passed in the spring to combat the economic downturn triggered by the pandemic. The recession, which has seen millions of people lose their jobs, has meant a drop in tax revenues. Congress is debating another relief package that could total nearly $1 trillion, which would add to this year’s red ink.

Across US and Europe, pandemic’s grip on economies tightens (AP) The worsening of the viral pandemic across the United States and Europe is threatening their economies and intensifying pressure on governments and central banks on both continents to intervene aggressively. In a worrisome sign of the harm the virus is inflicting in the U.S, the government said Thursday that the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits jumped last week to 853,000—the most since September. The surge in jobless claims made clear that many companies are still shedding workers as states reimpose business shutdowns and consumers avoid shopping, traveling or dining out. The coronavirus “is having an impact on consumers, it is having a big impact on the labor force, it is having an impact on businesses,” said Gus Faucher, an economist at PNC Financial. “There are reasons to be concerned.”

Boris Johnson Once Mocked the Eurocrats of Brussels. They Haven’t Forgotten. (NYT) Three decades ago, an enterprising young foreign correspondent named Boris Johnson reported that the European Commission planned to blow up Berlaymont, its hulking, asbestos-riddled headquarters in Brussels. “Sappers will lay explosive charges at key points,” he wrote in The Daily Telegraph. On Wednesday, Mr. Johnson, now Britain’s prime minister, walked into Berlaymont, still very much standing after a costly renovation, for dinner with the commission’s current president, Ursula von der Leyen. To say the moment was rich in symbolism doesn’t begin to capture the dense layer-cake of metaphors: a journalist-turned-politician, who made his name by ridiculing and deriding the European Union—often bending the truth in the process—returning to the scene of his youthful journalistic escapades, in search of a trade agreement with the European bureaucrats he once mocked. Ms. von der Leyen served Mr. Johnson [dinner], but she sent him on his way without a breakthrough in the trade talks and served notice that the European Union was not likely to bend. He seemed to get the message: On Thursday he said there was a “strong possibility” that Britain would leave the European Union without a trade deal. “What goes around comes around, doesn’t it?” said Sonia Purnell, who worked with Mr. Johnson in The Telegraph’s Brussels bureau in the 1990s and later wrote a critical biography of him.

Doors open but nearly empty, French cathedrals count cost of epidemic (Reuters) France’s Chartres cathedral, a vast 13th century building with 18 staff on the payroll, is a costly place to run, and the one million a year who normally come to see its famous blue stained-glass windows are an essential part of balancing the books. This year, however, the COVID-19 epidemic has slowed that flood of visitors to a trickle, throwing the UNESCO world heritage site into a financial crisis. The Catholic church nationally has lost 90 million euros ($109 million) in revenue this year, the Conference of French Bishops (CEF) estimates. It has furloughed hundreds of staff and may have to close or sell some places of worship next year, CEF’s finance head Ambroise Laurent told Reuters.

An Unwelcome Silent Night: Germany Without Christmas Markets (NYT) Across the country, city and town squares stand empty of the usual huts, sounds, scents and lights, as the coronavirus has forced the country to skip its beloved annual Christmas markets. There are no groups of friends gripping mugs of steaming red wine spiced with cinnamon and cloves crowding Rothenburg’s medieval market square, or beneath Cologne’s towering cathedral. No brass bands play carols before Berlin’s Charlottenburg Palace. No stars shine from the eaves of Seiffen’s wooden huts. Germans have gathered at outdoor markets in the weeks before Christmas since the 14th century, when vendors first built their stands in city centers to sell their wares to people coming from church services. “They were always meeting places,” Margot Kässmann, 63, a former bishop of the Lutheran Church in Germany said of the Christmas markets, also called Advent markets. “Today, Christmas markets remain very social places where friends and family gather,” she said. “But even people who are alone will go there on their own to take in the smells, the lights and the music, which have something comforting about them.”

U.S. to Sanction Turkey over Russian Air Defense System (Foreign Policy) The Trump administration is set to sanction Turkey over its purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system. The move was threatened for months but now appears imminent. The measures are to be imposed under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which includes a provision that allows for sanctions on entities that do business with Russian defense companies. The United States fears that Russia will gain access to the F-35 fighter jet’s stealth technology if paired with the Russian system. As recent U.S.-brokered peace deals between Israel and Arab nations have made clear, weapons purchases are a sure way to curry favor with the Trump administration. The United States announced a $23 billion weapons sale to the United Arab Emirates following its normalization deal with Israel, and just yesterday it was reported that the U.S. was negotiating a sale of advanced drones to Morocco—the same day U.S. President Donald Trump announced the North African country had signed a normalization deal with Israel. By buying from Russia, Turkey diluted the favor it had gained in purchasing 100 F-35 fighter jets—ultimately having its pilots kicked off the program as a result. The move comes as Western nations adopt a more aggressive posture against Turkey.

Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai charged under security law (AP) Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been charged under the city’s national security law, amid a widening crackdown on dissent, according to local media reports. Lai, who founded the Apple Daily tabloid, was charged on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces and endangering national security, local broadcaster TVB reported Friday. He is the most high-profile person out of more than two dozen charged under the law since it was implemented in June. He could face a maximum punishment of life imprisonment. His newspaper, Apple Daily, criticized the law on its front page on July 1, calling it the “final nail in the coffin” of the territory’s autonomy. Lai has advocated for other countries to take a harsher stance on China, and last year he traveled to the U.S. to meet with Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss the proposed extradition bill. He was also arrested in February and April on charges of taking part in unauthorized protests. He also faces charges of joining an unauthorized vigil marking the anniversary of the June 4, 1989, crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

Aid groups say staffers killed in Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict (AP) International aid groups said Friday that at least four staff members have been killed in the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, while Ethiopia and a frustrated United Nations aired differing views on a growing humanitarian crisis as food and other supplies run out for millions of people. The Tigray region remains largely sealed off from the outside world as worried humanitarian organizations warn of growing hunger, attacks on refugees and dwindling medicine and other supplies more than a month after fighting erupted between Ethiopia’s government and the now-fugitive Tigray one after a months-long struggle over power. “We have hundreds of colleagues on the ground and urgently call on all parties to the conflict to protect all civilians in Tigray,” U.N. humanitarian spokesman Saviano Abreu tweeted after the deaths were announced. Ethiopia’s government has made clear it intends to manage the process of delivering aid to Tigray, and it has rejected “interference” as fighting is reported to be continuing despite its declaration of victory.

The coronavirus is ravaging the world. But life looks almost normal in much of Africa. (Washington Post) The top headline last week on a popular Kenyan news website could barely contain its sarcasm: “America, with 270K deaths, 13M infections, warns citizens not to travel to Kenya over high risk of COVID-19.” To many here, American fears of catching the coronavirus in Africa seem particularly ludicrous. Almost every one of the continent’s 54 countries, while home to some of the least developed health-care systems in the world, have registered fewer deaths from the virus in the last nine months than the United States now suffers per day. While testing has been comparatively limited, the continent appears to have bucked the doomsday predictions of global health experts. The telltale signs of severe outbreaks seen elsewhere—crowded hospitals and a spike in deaths—have emerged in only a handful of African countries. Surveys done by the World Health Organization have found negligible excess mortality rates in most African countries, reducing suspicion that many covid-19 deaths are going uncounted. Almost 60 percent of people in sub-Saharan Africa are younger than 25, and only 3 percent are over the age of 65, the age group in which illness and death from the coronavirus are most common.

Scientific research at its best (Iowa State University, Science Daily) The foods we eat may have a direct impact on our cognitive acuity in our later years, according to new research. The study is the first of its kind to connect specific foods with cognitive decline. The findings show cheese protected against age-related cognitive problems and red wine was related to improvements in cognitive function.

Covid-19 Is Creating a New Kind of Financial Midlife Crisis (Bloomberg) The Covid-19 pandemic has created such a shock to people’s lives, it’s prompted a financial reckoning akin to a midlife crisis. In the public imagination, these lead to men buying sports cars and having affairs, but often their effects are more common and muted. Brought on by health scares, behavioral shifts or job losses, people start to question their life choices and ponder the realization that no one’s immortal. And while the phenomenon became associated with people between 35 and 50 years old, psychologists say it isn’t tied to an age, but simply a jolt similar to what the pandemic has brought.      Covid-19 has disrupted professional trajectories, forcing people to focus on other areas of life—perhaps for the first time in years, said David H. Rosmarin, PhD, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and founder of the Center for Anxiety, in Manhattan. “Having more time for sleep, friends, family and just thinking can be wonderful if one has an identity outside of their career,” he said. “But it can be hell on earth if they don’t.”      The conditions created by the pandemic are putting people to the test. Joblessness is one factor. This has come along with intense despair. Americans’ view of their mental health declined significantly in 2020, with 23% describing themselves as having fair or poor mental health, up from 17% last year, according to a Gallup poll released this week. And about 30% of American adults now have symptoms meeting criteria for an anxiety disorder, compared to 19.1% pre-pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control says. It’s hard to stay positive when your life’s work is upended.      Just ask Stacy Small, 51. The Maui resident’s profitable high-end travel business had allowed her to buy her dream beach house and drive a Porsche Cayenne. On March 20, she was forced to cancel a year’s worth of bookings, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in income. Around the same time, three close friends were diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, while others battled Covid. And then she had a near-fatal car accident on April 21. “Covid killed the travel business I spent 15 years building,” she said. “The car accident could have killed me. It truly was a wake-up call to make a lot of huge changes.”