Covid Nation: Facing a surge of Covid cases among students, Cornell University is going on “alert level red,” shutting down its campus in Ithaca, New York and putting the last classes and final exams of the semester online. The libraries are closed and athletics cancelled.

  Cornell has nearly 22,000 students, both graduate and undergraduate.

  As of Tuesday afternoon, the school reported 469 active student cases of the coronavirus and that, positive tests of students ran at three percent for the week of December 6th. They also say they have detected the highly contagious Omicron variant “in a significant number of Monday’s positive student samples.” 

Because of the closures across campus, Pollack said all final exams for the fall semester will be moved online and all campus activities, including campus athletics, are canceled. The school’s libraries are also closed for students.

  Across the country, new cases are up 40 percent over the past two weeks and deaths are up 34 percent. Apple computer, for one, is delaying its plan for everyone to return to the office by February 1^st.

  In the department of cure and treatment, booster doses of both the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccines are likely to offer increased protection against the Omicron variant, the nation’s pandemic doctor  Anthony S. Fauci said yesterday. He said there doesn’t seem to be a need for a specific Omicron booster. 

Two Faces of Eve: Back in August when the Senate approved a $1 trillion national infrastructure improvement bill, Republican Sen Josh Hawley of Missouri voted against it, calling it “a woke leftist bill that has been hijacked by the left, and it is full of left-wing politics.” 

  Now Hawley is telling his voters how vital that money is going to be for his state.

  With barrels of federal money coming to their states, Republican politicians who opposed President Biden’s infrastructure bill are lining up at the feeding trough. At her annual budget address South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem  slammed the “giant handout” of federal stimulus money and claimed she had considered refusing the money, as if any politician would ever do that. Now she says she’ll use the nearly $1 billion marked for South Dakota to pour into water projects, affordable housing, and new day care centers. 

Royalty Pain: A New York State ethics board has ordered disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo to return the $5.1 million specified in his contract for a book on how he handled the Covid pandemic. The board says Cuomo improperly used state help and staff time to write it. 

  The resulting memoir, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic,” was intended to give him a financial pad for his post-political life. Now it’s messy. Cuomo paid taxes on the money, gave half million to charity, and put $1 million in a trust for his kids. 

The Spin Rack: As many as 13 tornadoes touched down, mostly in eastern Nebraska and Iowa, The National Weather Service reports.  Dozens of tractor-trailers were knocked over by the high winds. — Former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin, who’s serving 22 years for the murder of motorist George Floyd, pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday to also violating Floy’s civil rights. If the prosecutor gets his way, Chauvin’s sentence would be extended by 2 ½ years. — Puerto Rican music producer Flow La Movie, his long-time girlfriend, and their 4-year-old son were among nine people killed when the small plane they were aboard crashed in the Dominican Republic. — Five children died in Australia when high winds picked up an inflated bouncy castle they were playing on. — The White House announced that President Biden plans to nominate former Olympic skater Michelle Kwan, a two-time Olympic medalist, to serve as US ambassador to Belize. He also nominate President John F. Kennedy’s daughter Caroline Kennedy, a former ambassador to Japan, to serve as ambassador to Australia.

Stolen Election: At last, there’s proof of former President Trump’s claim of voter fraud in the November election. Three residents of the giant retirement community The Villages in Florida have been charged with felony vote fraud.

  Two of them are Republican men who voted twice and one is an independent. No word on who they voted for, but they are retirees living in Florida.

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