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Ex-Austrian chancellor set to promote ‘greater tolerance’

Sebastian Kurz joins Tony Blair in an NGO fighting against xenophobia despite past controversy

Austria’s former chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, has added a new role to his impressive portfolio – he has been appointed co-chairman of a prominent NGO that fights racism and anti-Semitism.

“I am honored to join the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation (ECTR) as co-chairman together with Tony Blair,” Kurz announced on Twitter.

The former chancellor added that the ECTR’s mission to fight against extremism and anti-Semitism, as well as promoting “greater tolerance across Europe,” have been “very dear” causes to him.

The Brussels-based NGO was established in 2008, with its mission dating back to the International Stockholm Forum on the Holocaust, which stated that the international community shares “a solemn responsibility to fight such evils as extremism, racism, antisemitism and xenophobia.”

The tolerance watchdog is headed by the president of the European Jewish Congress, Dr. Moshe Kantor, who called Kurz “exactly the right type of leader.”

Commenting on the appointment, Kantor said Kurz has had a “long-standing vision to fight extremism, racism and intolerance.”

However, Kurz, who resigned as chancellor of Austria in October amid allegations of corruption, which he categorically denied, has been criticized in the past for undermining this ‘vision’. In 2017, he entered into a coalition with the far-right Freedom Party, known for its anti-immigration views – a move which made Austria the only country in the Western Europe with far-right party members holding positions in the government. Kurz also famously took a tough stance on the issue of refugees.

His colleague on the ECTR board, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, has also found himself at the center of controversy following his recent knighthood. A petition calling on Queen Elizabeth to strip Blair of his knighthood for “causing the death of countless innocent, civilian lives and servicemen in various conflicts” has racked up more than a million signatures.

Despite the potential criticism, his senior role at the NGO marks another milestone for Kurz, 35, formerly the youngest foreign minister and chancellor in Austrian history. According to media reports, he has also landed a job as global strategist at US-based investment firm Thiel Capital, founded by PayPal’s billionaire co-founder, Peter Thiel, and will start working there this year. These career developments have come for Kurz along with life-changing personal events. He and his long-term girlfriend, Susanne, have recently become parents and are reportedly set to get married later this year.

California asks sick healthcare staff to come to work

The new guidance comes after the state issued a wide-ranging vaccine mandate

Less than a month after issuing a strict vaccine mandate for healthcare workers, the California Department of Public health is now calling on workers with Covid-19 to come to work regardless, in a bid to cover staffing shortages.

According to new guidelines issued by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) on Saturday, healthcare workers who test positive for Covid-19 will no longer have to isolate and can return to work immediately without a negative test, as long as they are not showing symptoms.

In a statement to NBC News, the CDPH described the new guidance as a “temporary tool” to mitigate staffing shortages and the increased demand being placed on healthcare providers due to a surge in Covid-19 cases. The CDPH added that hospitals should have workers with Covid-19 interact only with Covid-positive patients “to the extent possible.”

Healthcare workers and their unions have fiercely criticized the new policy.

“Healthcare workers and patients need the protection of clear rules guided by strong science. Allowing employers to bring back workers who may still be infectious is one of the worst ideas I have heard during this pandemic, and that’s really saying something,” Bob Schoonover of the California chapter of the SEIU trade union said.

Furthermore, the CDPH’s guidance also applies to workers in nursing homes, whose patients are most at risk of death from the virus. Nearly 10,000 residents of California nursing homes have died since the beginning of the pandemic, with deaths in these facilities accounting for 13% of the state’s total Covid death toll.

Before it was clearing the sick to return to work, the CDPH was asking hospitals to fire workers who wouldn’t get vaccinated or submit to twice-weekly testing. As of Friday, workers without a booster dose are considered unvaccinated by the CDPH. While a vaccine mandate has been in place in California since August, the CDPH said that it is “not aware of another state with such comprehensive requirements” after updating the order to require booster doses.

Though the CDPH said that its new booster requirement will not “take staff away from already busy hospitals,” California is not the only state suffering staffing shortages after issuing such rules. Rhode Island cleared infected staff to work in hospitals and nursing homes late last month after hundreds of employees were fired less than two months earlier for refusing to get vaccinated.

“Oh crap. We don’t have enough people,” one hospital worker told the Providence Journal as the post-mandate shortages became apparent.

Bosnian Serbs hold nationalist celebration despite ban, sanctions

Constitutional Court has declared the holiday illegal as it discriminates against Muslim Bosniak and Catholic Croats.

Blinken rules out pulling back US troops, restricting NATO in Russia talks

Secretary of State Antony Blinken tells CNN’s Jake Tapper that pulling some troops back from eastern Europe and refusing to allow Ukraine to join NATO are not on the table in negotiations with Russia this week.

The West has a rare window to put Putin in his place

Next week may see one of the most significant and defining moments in relations between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Russia since the break-up of the Soviet Union.

New law allows non-citizens to vote in US

Unless a judge blocks the bill, New York will be the first US city to enfranchise non-citizens

Incoming New York Mayor Eric Adams has allowed a bill giving the vote to non-citizens to become law automatically. That’s after the City Council passed it last month.

Non-citizen New Yorkers who have lived in the city for at least a month may legally vote in city elections as of next year, according to a bill which became law through the mayor’s inaction on Sunday. Adams, while expressing reservations with certain aspects of the bill, did not choose to veto or otherwise challenge it, allowing the City Council’s passage of the legislation to stand after what he called “productive dialogue” with others in city government.

While there are more than a dozen communities in the US that allow non-citizens to vote, New York – with more than 800,000 non-citizens calling the city (at least a temporary) home – is by far the most populous to pass such a measure. Eleven towns in Maryland and two in Vermont have done the same, but their populations amount to only a fraction of the country’s largest urban area.

Legally-documented voting-age non-citizens reportedly make up one in nine of New York’s 7 million adult residents. If the new law goes unchallenged, non-citizens who have been lawful permanent residents of New York for at least 30 days, as well as those with US work authorization and ‘Dreamers’, will be allowed to vote in elections for the city’s mayor, borough presidents, comptroller, public advocate, and city council members. They will not be allowed to vote in national or state elections.

The Board of Elections is responsible for deciding how the division will work, and must create a functional voter registration system that will prevent non-citizen voters from also casting ballots in national and state elections. Given the Board’s troubled history with simpler issues like sending the proper ballots to city residents during the 2020 elections, some missteps are likely, but an implementation plan must be submitted by July in order for non-citizens to vote in the 2023 city elections.

Adams, who was inaugurated as mayor as part of the city’s New Year’s celebration, initially expressed concern with the 30-day residency requirement, but rather than challenging the bill, he allowed the month-long period in which he would have been able to halt its passage to expire without incident.

While a legal challenge is said to be likely, it’s unclear whether it would have enough support in the heavily Democratic city to overwhelm support for the measure.

Other states, including Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, and Florida, have preemptively passed measures to prevent similar laws from being passed in their own cities.

WATCH: Buffalo smashes into restaurant, sends customer flying

The massive animal is believed to have escaped the butcher before fleeing into an eatery

Shocking footage from a CCTV camera in China has emerged online, showing a buffalo charging into a restaurant and attacking one of the customers.

In a video that was apparently filmed on the last day of December and has since gone viral on social media, two men can be seen standing inside a restaurant. While one of them is opening a drink and another is busy with his smartphone, a huge and apparently ravaged buffalo emerges through the entrance with its horns down, and sends one of the customers flying out of view of the camera.

Around 20 seconds later, the buffalo returns through a different entrance, smashing furniture with its horns and hooves. It then leaves through the door where it initially entered.

🚨🇨🇳Meanwhile a buffalo smashed its way into a restaurant and threw a man into the air in eastern #China. pic.twitter.com/DHQXYQAXUR

— Terror Alarm (@terror_alarm) January 6, 2022

A rope can be seen dangling from the animal, leaving commenters to wonder whether it escaped slaughter by a butcher.

The incident reportedly took place in the city of Taizhou in eastern China. The man who was attacked was hospitalized with leg injuries.