Wednesday morning news - January 5, 2022

For WORLD Radio, I'm Kent Covington. 

U.S. COVID–19 infections soar but severe illness steady » The United States once again shattered its record high for COVID-19 infections, recording more than a million new cases on Monday alone.

But those positive test results aren’t as scary as they once were.

The omicron variant accounts for most new cases. It spreads like wildfire, but it’s less severe. Many cases are mild or asymptomatic.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed said Tuesday…

BREED: The number of people in the hospital, while increasing, still remains below where we were last winter. And our hospital system has the capacity to handle what we expect to come in the next few weeks.

Hospitals are strained in some other areas. But the gap between the number of total infections and the number of those seriously ill continues to widen.

Almost 100,000 Americans are in hospitals with COVID-19, but that’s well below the peak last winter of 137,000. And some patients, though they tested positive, were admitted for reasons unrelated to COVID.

Daily COVID-related deaths stand at about 1,200. That’s on par with totals from about two months ago.

President Biden Tuesday urged Americans to keep it in proper perspective.

BIDEN: Be concerned about omicron, but don’t be alarmed.

But health officials do caution that the delta strain is still circulating.

A record 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs in November » A record 4.5 million American workers quit their jobs in November. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: Many analysts see the huge number of quits as a sign workers are confident in their ability to land better jobs as the job market continues to bounce back.

The Labor Department also reported Tuesday that employers posted 10.6 million job openings in November. That was down from 11.1 million in October, but still high by historical standards.

Nick Bunker is research director at the Indeed Hiring Lab. He said “Lots of quits means stronger worker bargaining power which will likely feed into strong wage gains.”

The Labor Department collected the numbers before the COVID-19 omicron variant spread widely in the United States. But most economists remain confident in the job market.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Winter weather kills 3, knocks out power and triggers overnight traffic jam » A major winter storm along the East Coast has killed at least three people. Among them, two women who died in Maryland after their vehicle ran into a snow plow.

The storm also knocked out power to more than a half-million customers.

Craig Carper with Dominion Energy said large portions of Virginia lost power.

CARPER: The hardest hit areas were in Northern Virginia, the Charlottesville-Albemarle region, and Richmond.

Snow fell as far south as the Florida Panhandle. It got a light dusting. But the heaviest snow fell in Northern Virginia, with 14 inches in some places. And the winter weather triggered a traffic nightmare.

Hundreds of motorists waited desperately for help Tuesday along I-95 south of Washington D.C. after being stranded all night in freezing temperatures.

Traffic froze, both literally and figuratively, along a 50-mile stretch of the interstate. That after tractor-trailers jackknifed, causing a chain reaction. Many other cars lost control and blocked traffic in both directions.

Virginia Senator Tim Kaine was among those stranded on the snow-covered highway.

KAINE: It was nerve wracking overnight, and I’ll tell you, I had two things: I had a heavy coat and I also had a full tank of gas. And the problem is, a lot of people, when you’re stuck that long, you know, between 5 miles from an interchange and the traffic isn’t moving, folks are running out of gas.

Around daybreak, road crews began helping drivers get off the interstate, but some were still stranded along the highway as of last night.

Tesla opens showroom in Chinese province known for genocide » Tesla is taking heat for its decision to open a new showroom in China’s Xinjiang region despite global outcries about China’s human rights abuses there. WORLD’s Leigh Jones has that story.

LEIGH JONES, REPORTER: The electric car company opened the showroom in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. That’s the province where world powers allege the Chinese Communist Party has detained a million members of the Uyghur ethnic minority in forced labor camps.

U.S. lawmakers and human rights groups are calling on Tesla CEO Elon Musk to close the showroom.

But China is one of Tesla’s biggest markets. And the company already has numerous showrooms in the country.

Chinese Communist officials have cracked down on businesses that question their human rights record in Xinjiang.

Intel, the world’s largest maker of computer chips, apologized for asking suppliers to avoid goods from Xinjiang after the state press attacked the company and called for a boycott.

The United States has banned imports from the region unless companies can prove the goods were not created using forced labor.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leigh Jones.

David Bowie music catalogue sells for $250 million » MUSIC: [Let’s Dance]

Another music catalogue sells for big bucks.

The music publishing arm of Warner Music Group has reportedly paid a quarter of a billion dollars for David Bowie’s entire music collection. That includes hits like Under Presser, Space Oddity, and the 1983 smash hit Let’s Dance.

MUSIC: [Let’s Dance]

Bowie released 26 studio albums during his lifetime, along with one posthumous release.

A growing list of artists have cashed in on their song collections, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Stevie Nicks.

Last month, Sony Music bought Bruce Springsteen’s catalogue for a half-billion dollars.

I’m Kent Covington. For more news, features, and analysis, visit us at wng.org. 

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