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Here are the headlines you Need2Know for Monday, December 6, 2021:
WAITING FOR OMICRON
Dr. Fauci says the early indications of the severity of the Omicron variant are “a bit encouraging.” Omicron has quickly become the dominant strain circulating in South Africa, but hospitalization rates there are yet to increase at an alarming rate -- suggesting the variant may be much more contagious than Delta but also less dangerous. While Omicron has now been confirmed in about a third of U.S. states, the Delta variant is still far and away the dominant strain circulating in the country and is driving a surge of hospitalizations in the North. AP
IN MEMORIAM: BOB DOLE
Bob Dole, the WWII veteran, longtime senator from Kansas and one-time GOP presidential candidate, has died. Over his long career as a Republican stalwart in Congress, Dole was known as a partisan-turned-skilled legislator who worked across the aisle with Democrats on issues like Social Security reform and the Americans with Disabilities Act. After he lost to Bill Clinton in 1996, Dole became something of a TV pitchman, cutting ads for Pepsi, Visa and, famously, Viagra. He was 98. OBIT
CRUMBLEYS LOCKED UP
The parents of the teenage boy who allegedly shot and killed four classmates at his Michigan high school are in custody. James and Jennifer Crumbley are being charged with involuntary manslaughter for allegedly providing their son with unfettered access to the gun he used in the shooting. They failed to appear for their initial arraignment, leading authorities on a manhunt that ended with their arrests at a warehouse in Detroit. All three Crumbleys -- the mother, father, and son -- are being held in isolation at the same jail, each under suicide watch. CNN
SUU KYI SENTENCED
A court in Myanmar has sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s former civilian leader, to four years in prison on charges of inciting public unrest and breaching Covid protocols. The sentence is the first of several expected to be handed down in the coming months against the Nobel laureate, which could keep her locked up for the rest of her life. Suu Kyi was deposed in a military coup in February that led to violence and protests across the country. AL JAZ
BITCOIN CRASH
Bitcoin is currently trading around $48,000, down from $57,000 on Friday morning. The cryptocurrency had an extremely volatile weekend, tumbling 20% to $43,000 before recovering some. The president of El Salvador, who recently adopted Bitcoin as a national currency, said the country bought 150 coins on the dip. The crypto market has been seeing wild swings as investors sell off riskier assets as they watch what the Omicron variant could mean for the markets. COINDESK
TWITTER POST-JACK
Twitter’s new chief executive is in the midst of a major shakeup of the social media company following the departure of Jack Dorsey. Twitter’s heads of design and engineering are out as part of the reshuffling, which CEO Parag Agrawal says is in the name of “operational rigor” and “faster execution.” The reorg comes as the platform has started a new policy on what kinds of images users can and can’t share. Going forward, Twitter will have the right to take down any photo or video taken of someone without their consent -- unless it’s in the public interest to keep it up. WASH POST
CFP SET
No. 1 Alabama will play No. 4 Cincinnati and No. 2. Michigan will play No. 3. Georgia in the College Football Playoff on New Year’s Eve. The winners of those two games will compete in the national championship game on Jan. 10 in Indianapolis. Cincinnati is the first school from a non-Power 5 conference to make the playoff since its inception in 2014. ESPN
CUOMO FIRED
Chris Cuomo will not be coming back to CNN. The network fired their top-rated primetime anchor over the weekend after an internal investigation into his efforts to help his brother, Andrew, uncovered “additional information.” It’s not clear what that additional information is, but Cuomo’s termination came after a separate anonymous allegation of sexual misconduct was made against him by a former colleague at another network. Cuomo has denied that allegation. THE WRAP
SPOTTED...
...Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, and their kids, catching a showing of Licorice Pizza in L.A.: SEE PICS
...the leaked cover of W magazine, featuring Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott, that was scrapped in the aftermath of the Astroworld tragedy: SEE IT
LEFTOVERS: MYSTERY ON THE MOON
China’s lunar rover has spotted a mysterious cube-shaped object on the horizon, and will spend the next couple months trying to get a closer look. The Yutu-2 rover has been exploring the far side of the moon since it landed in 2019, and recently snapped an image of what the Chinese space agency is calling a “mystery hut”: SEE IT
