Download our app!
Everyone’s talking about our pretty iOS and Android apps. It is the easiest way to read your daily splainer—with lots of features, including the ability to bookmark the stuff you like. We only send one notification per day, and don’t use or sell your personal information in any way. So be sure to download it here.
The great pandemic: A quick update
- A small-scale study out of South Africa has found that vaccines are not good at fighting the variant: “Essentially, because of the mutations, the neutralizing antibodies generated by the vaccines don’t recognize this version… which is what Covid vaccines currently target.” But the results also suggest previous infection plus vaccination—or a booster dose—could be very effective. (Stat News)
- OTOH, Glaxo says its monoclonal antibody treatment called sotrovimab works just as well in treating people infected by Omicron. (Wall Street Journal via Mint)
- Singapore will stop paying medical costs for people who are unvaccinated. (Wall Street Journal via Mint)
- Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin is facing flak for going clubbing in Helsinki— just hours after her foreign minister tested positive. (BBC News)
- Also facing the heat: Boris Johnson—for a Christmas party that was held last year at Downing Street during the lockdown. Johnson insists the party never happened, but a leaked video of a mock press briefing confirms it did. In other words, the PM lied—and the British public are furious at him. Watch the leaked clip below:
BCCI sacks Virat Kohli
He will no longer be India captain in any white ball format—including T20 and ODI. Kohli has been replaced by Rohit Sharma, who will serve as Kohli’s vice captain for the test cricket team. That’s bad news for Ajinkya Rahane who has been fired for bad form. All this bad news was delivered via a press release. Scroll has more on team inclusions and exclusions. The Telegraph reports on Kohli’s sacking.
A list of lists
One: Forbes’ list of the 100 most powerful women in the world includes four Indian women: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman who came in at #37—along with HCL CEO Roshni Nadar Malhotra, Biocon chief Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and Nykaa founder Falguni Nayar. At #1: Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife and now leading philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, followed by Kamala Harris. Check out the list at Forbes.
Two: Google released its annual report on the top search trends of the year. Sports-related terms aced the global top five: ‘Australia vs India’, ‘India vs England’, ‘IPL’, ‘NBA’ and ‘Euro 2021’. The top overall searches in India: ‘Indian Premier League’, ‘CoWin’, ‘ICC T20 World Cup’, ‘Euro Cup’ and ‘Tokyo Olympics’. You can check out the global list here, and the Indian one here. Google also has a handy list of takeaways here.
Three: Here are 2021’s most mispronounced words—that Americans totally botched this year: Billie Eilish, Cheugy and, of course, Omicron. FYI, that’s EYE-lish, CHOO-gee and AH-muh-kraan / OH-mee-kraan. (Time Magazine)
Three tech giant stories
One: The Information’s exclusive report shows Apple CEO Tim Cook signed a five-year $275 billion deal in 2016 to keep Beijing happy—and fob off regulatory threats that would have crippled its devices and services in the country. And that paved the way for the company’s extraordinary success in China. The Information piece is behind a paywall, but The Guardian has the key details.
Two: Speaking of Apple, its AirTags—which it proudly unveiled in April—are being used to track and steal high-end cars. The AirTags can be attached to any misplaced item—keys, purses or other stuff—so you can track and find them. Clever thieves in Canada instead secretly place them on cars parked in public places—then track those cars back to their homes. They break in to steal the keys and… well, you can imagine the rest. Apple has since scrambled to adapt:
“Apple has also rolled out security measures, including notifying iPhone users if an AirTag is in their vehicle. An alarm will also go off about eight to 12 hours after it has been in the vehicle if the owner does not have an iPhone.”
Three: Amazon Web Services was hit by multiple outages—which in turn took out vast swathes of the internet. Websites went down mostly in the US—and included Amazon.com, Disney Plus, Netflix etc. We don’t know why this happened as yet. (Wall Street Journal)
French arrest the wrong Arab
The French police arrested a 33-year-old man at Paris airport, claiming he was one of the killers of Jamal Khashoggi—who was brutally killed by a Saudi team of assassins in Turkey. Turns out he just shared the same name, Khalid Alotaibi, as a former member of the Saudi Royal Guard. Why this matters: a Saudi court held a closed-door trial, but names of the five men convicted were never made public—and human rights groups called it a sham. If this person had indeed been one of the killers, he would have been extradited to Turkey—and become the first suspect to face trial outside Saudi Arabia. (Al Jazeera)
Speaking of wrongful detention: A Reporters Without Borders report revealed that China is “the world’s biggest captor of journalists”—and has currently detained at least 127 reporters. (BBC News)
Yet another billionaire in space
This time it’s the turn of Japanese fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa who—unlike Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson—will be spending days not minutes in outer space. He is headed on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station where he will spend 12 days carrying out 100 tasks—which include playing golf, blowing bubbles and throwing a paper airplane. Yes, it’s hard work being a space tourist. BBC News has all the details you need.
On a far less happy note: Scientists are building something called the “Earth’s Black Box” to record the end of humanity. The plan: to install a gigantic and indestructible steel monolith—kinda like a plane’s black box—in a remote location in Tasmania. It will capture climate data such as CO2 levels, sea temperatures, and energy consumption levels—and news headlines and social media posts. This way, aliens or any species that follows will know exactly how and why humanity was destroyed. That’s dark. Check out the project here. (Futurism)
Four animal stories of note
One: US wildlife officials are taking “a once unthinkable step” of feeding wild manatees—which are starving to death off the coast of Florida. More than 1000 manatees—which is 15% of the population—have been killed due to algae pollution. These toxic blooms have devastated the seagrass they feed on. The plan is to deliver heads of lettuce and cabbage as the manatees gather in their traditional warm-water wintering spots. (Washington Post)
Two: Critically endangered orangutans in Indonesian sanctuaries face a new peril: The risk of catching Covid from selfie-loving tourists who refuse to socially distance themselves. Reminder: orangutans are now only found on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. (Times UK)
Three: Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit died from a heart attack suffered after a workout. The horse’s death is raising questions about the high toll of racing. Medina Spirit’s trainer Bob Baffert—touted as the industry’s “most successful and embattled trainer”—has had 75 horses die under his care since 2000. And this marks the 20th death at the Santa Anita track just this year. Los Angeles Times has more details.
Four: Researchers are delighted to have captured a series of strange sounds—“whoops to purrs, snaps to grunts, and foghorns to laughs”—at the coral reefs in Indonesia. The reason: These fish ‘songs’ show that the reef—destroyed by blast fishing, i.e. using explosives to kill animals—is coming back to life. Also: Sound is vital for survival because babies of reef dwellers use it as a homing beacon to return to safety. (The Guardian)
Two things to see
One: The Natural History Museum in London got into the Christmas spirit—and decked out its T-Rex in a suitably hideous holiday sweater. And it wasn’t easy:
“The entire process of knitting a sweater that would fit a dinosaur took about 100 hours to complete… the first sweater was too large. Getting a turtleneck over the head of the dinosaur was also a problem… They ultimately decided to add a zipper to the sweater’s back.”
But hey, Mr Dino looks mighty fine! (New York Times)
Two: Speaking of less pleasant bones-related stories, archeologists in the UK have uncovered “world’s best example of crucifixion”—the remains of a young Roman slave with a two-inch iron nail driven through his heel bone. Why this is noteworthy: “Physical evidence of crucifixion—rather than documented descriptions of the practice—tends to be rare, as the victim's remains were usually unceremoniously disposed of and the nails removed for their 'magical' properties.” (Daily Mail)
