National

A widespread and intense heatwave is roasting large portions of the U.S. and Canada, shattering daily and monthly temperature records. 

Why it matters: Winter is the fastest-warming season across the U.S., and the lingering warmth is shortening the snow season in places like Colorado and Montana, where mountain snowpack is a critical source of water during the summer months. 

The big picture: On Wednesday, British Columbia saw its highest temperature ever recorded during the month of December, with a high of 72.5°F recorded in Penticton, which is 250 miles east of Vancouver. This tied the country's all-time record high for the month. 

By the numbers: Temperatures across the Plains, portions of the Rockies and Central states are running as much as 35°F above average for this time of year. 

Four states have tied or broken records for the hottest temperatures seen during December: Washington, Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota, according to weather historian Maximiliano Herrera. 

In Denver, Colorado, which often picks up heavy snow at the start and end of winter, it has not yet snowed, setting a record for the latest measurable snowfall. The forecast high temperature on Thursday is in the mid-70s, about 30°F above average for this time of year. 

Records are expected to fall Thursday in Denver, Omaha, Oklahoma City and Kansas City, Missouri among other locations. According to Herrera, Hettinger, North Dakota, located just north of the South Dakota border, hit 71°F on Wednesday, setting a monthly record for the state.

In Cheyenne, Wyo., the temperature reached 70°F on Thursday, setting a state record for the month of December. A monthly record was also set in Nebraska, according to the National Weather Service.

The warmth, combined with powerful atmospheric river events rolling in off the Pacific Ocean has eaten away at the snowpack in the Pacific Northwest and Canadian Rockies, contributing to flooding at lower elevations. 

Context: The proximate cause of the warmth is a sprawling area of high pressure, or heat dome, parked across the West, with the clockwise flow of air around it pumping mild air across the region. 

This weather feature has been deflecting storminess far to the north, and prevented colder air — record cold currently lurks in Alaska, for example — from spilling south. 

Long-term trends also favor more frequent and intense extreme heat events. This ongoing event is likely to make the already lopsided balance between warm and cold records in the U.S. for 2021 even more in favor of the warm milestones, possibly by more than a 2 to 1 margin. 

If the climate were not warming, one would expect such records to have a ratio of about one-to-one, especially over the course of a decade or more, but those figures are skewed too. 

What's next: The National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center heavily favors continued milder than average conditions across much of the Lower 48 states during the next two weeks, after a temporary cool down this weekend. 

Beyond that point, however, there may be a pattern change in the works, thanks in part to a typhoon currently spinning across the northwestern Pacific Ocean.

Early winter heat shatters records in U.S., Canada

Temperatures have soared to more than 30 degrees above normal across a broad area.

Weather map showing temperature departures from average on December 2, 2021.

Temperature departures from average on Dec. 2, 2021, as depicted by the GFS computer model. (Weatherbell.com)

Heat waves

Climate change

Breaking climate science and policy coverage as extreme weather events reshape communities. Keep tabs on the race to a low carbon economy, which may be bumpy as governments, climate tech startups and major oil and gas companies race to find their niche amid the changing energy landscape.

Energy & Climate

Science

Axios Science

The start of the COVID-19 pandemic seems like a lifetime ago to some, and just yesterday to others. Scientists are beginning to unpack the way people processed the passage of time amidst the stress, uncertainty and isolation of the 1 year, 8 months and 21 days since WHO declared a pandemic. 

Why it matters: The pandemic's global effects on how people experience time could provide new insights into the brain's ability to perceive and predict time — a fundamental feature of life. 

The brain tells time at multiple scales — from tens of microseconds to hours, months and years. 

The mechanisms at the shortest and longest time scales are better understood than those behind the minutes, hours and weeks that tick by in between, says Rodrigo Laje, a neuroscientist who studies time perception at the National University of Quilmes in Argentina. It's those time scales that frame the pandemic experience.

What they found: One study conducted with online questionnaires in April 2020 by Ruth Ogden, an experimental psychologist at Liverpool John Moores University, found more than 80% of participants felt that time was distorted.

For about half of the people in the study — those who were older, felt socially isolated or stressed, or had fewer tasks to accomplish — time slowed down. But it passed more quickly for those who tended to be younger and more socially satisfied.

"We don't have a simple, clear narrative of what is happening," Laje says.

He's part of a consortium of researchers using online questions and timing tasks to study how social isolation affected time perception in about 2,500 participants in 10 countries.

Early findings, not yet published, indicate time distortion was more affected by how confined people felt, versus how confined they were by measures limiting social interaction.

Weeks and months seemed to pass slowly for most people, but hours and minutes weren't affected. "It might be that confinement didn’t change our short-term functioning," says Laje. "We still had to go to the bathroom, still had to type or write, and still had to cook." 

The intrigue: Pandemic time has been distorted across cultures, but differences have emerged.

In Iraq, participants in a recent study by Ogden and her colleagues that is under peer review consistently reported that days and weeks passed slowly. 

In Argentina, slightly more people said time passed more quickly than slowly, she says. 

In France, time felt slower for participants in two recent studies, because of what the authors described as "a persistent feeling of boredom characteristic of a depressive state that has taken hold in the population." 

What else may drive those cross-cultural differences — from the stringency of public health measures in different countries to the way time is imagined and described by different cultures — is still being teased apart.

How it works: Memories play a key role in how people judge the length of a period of time, Ogden says. Make more of these markers of time and the brain assumes more time has passed.

Without memory-making trips, weddings, graduations and other events during the past two years, people may feel they've been robbed of the memories that moor the brain and expect time to feel like it is passing more quickly.

Yes, but: "It's more subtle," says Ogden. "We haven’t formed memories we want to form — we’ve built a whole new social structure and way of life. That has been taxing, and so it feels like a long time for lots of people."

The big picture: If people spend months in a cave or days in a bunker without sunrises, clocks or other cues, they will unsurprisingly lose track of time.

But Ogden says while we all had "watches and clocks" during the pandemic, "we still have lots of distortions."

The pandemic has underscored that time is attached to experiences, emotions and thoughts, she says, adding the large-scale, real-world studies of time perception during the pandemic could inform approaches to studying the neurobiology of time.

"Time is a facet of something else," she says. "It’s much more integrated with our sensory experience and our consciousness."

What to watch: A big question is whether the pandemic will still feel long years from now when many of the new social rules may be abandoned and forgotten, says Ogden. 

The bottom line: The pandemic has made us aware that how we’re using our time affects how we feel about time, she says. 

"There are real potential benefits for well-being, mental health and quality of life in asking, 'How does my time make me feel?'"

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect that the hours, days and months time scales are not medium time scales.

COVID time warp

The beginning seems like a lifetime ago to some, and just yesterday to others.

Psychology

News and analysis of the scientific advances fueling AI and quantum computing, revolutionizing biology and medicine, and tackling climate change. Science is changing the world and colliding with the global politics that shape it.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Thursday criticized billionaire Ray Dalio's investments in China, writing in a tweet that "his feigned ignorance of China's horrific abuses and rationalization of complicit investments there is a sad moral lapse."

Driving the news: Romney's comments come after Dalio's firm, Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world, raised $1.3 billion in November for a new private fund in China, Bloomberg reports.

When asked about his investments in China earlier this week, Dalio said: "I can't be an expert in those types of things," adding, "I look to whatever the rules are."

"So the guidance of the government is the most important thing," Dalio also told Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC's "Squawk Box."

Axios has asked Ray Dalio for a comment about the tweet, and will add it when received.

The big picture: Dalio's comments come as some sports figures and organizations — including the Women's Tennis Association and Boston Celtics' Enes Kanter — are taking on Beijing ahead of the Winter Olympics.

The women's professional tennis tour suspended tournaments in China and Hong Kong this week amid concerns over the treatment of tennis player Peng Shuai.

Go deeper: Courage vs. coddling with China

Mitt Romney calls Ray Dalio's China investments a "sad moral lapse"

Dalio's firm, Bridgewater Associates, raised $1.3 billion in November for a new private fund in China.

Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, walks to a Senate Republican caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021.

Sen. Mitt Romney walks to a Senate Republican caucus meeting at the Capitol on Oct. 7. Photo: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Mitt Romney

China

2024 will be an election year like no other, as President Biden seeks re-election amid economic uncertainty, two wars and questions about his age. His likely foe, former President Trump, faces felony charges and vows revenge on his political enemies. Meanwhile, Americans generally are dissatisfied with those choices and are divided over immigration, race, education and more.

Politics & Policy

Conflicts, policies and powers are intersecting and shaping the world. Breaking news and analysis of national security, foreign policy and global crises.

World

The Biden administration is accelerating efforts to fill nearly 600,000 vacant cybersecurity positions in the public and private sectors bogging down efforts to protect digital infrastructure.

Why it matters: Following a deluge of ransomware attacks targeting critical government and corporate infrastructure this year, clogs in the talent pipeline are leaving federal, cash-strapped local governments and Big Business even more susceptible to hacking.

The issue has emerged repeatedly in Senate and House hearings but received little public attention until recently.

What we're watching: Private companies like GuidePoint Security are trying one way to fill the void: training veterans leaving the military for careers in cybersecurity.

“It takes way too long to bring people into the federal government,” Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director Jen Easterly told the House Committee on Homeland Security this month.

She said it's necessary to consider those who have the right technical skills and attitude but may lack a traditional educational background, or years of formal experience in the industry.

Women hold only 20% of all cybersecurity jobs, and just 3% of the federal government's IT workforce is under the age of 30.

Government, nonprofit and private entities also are partnering with community colleges and historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to cast a wider net across a range of socioeconomic and academic backgrounds.

Microsoft, for instance, has pitched in by providing free cybersecurity curriculum to every public community college.

A nonprofit, Public Infrastructure Security Cyber Education Systems, provides university students hands-on experience: monitoring real-time data on local government networks.

"The only way that I was ever successful in finding and identifying talent has been to find someone who I thought had the raw talent and criteria, and to train them up on technical skills," said Simone Petrella, chief executive at workforce training and development company CyberVista.

Driving the news: A job-tracking database funded by the Commerce Department shows there are nearly 600,000 U.S. cyber job openings nationwide.

The Department of Homeland Security recently launched a federal recruiting tool aimed at courting young, diverse talent.

DHS currently has about 1,500 cybersecurity-related vacancies, affecting the agency's efforts to protect the homeland.

A Senate audit found key agencies across the federal government continue to fail to meet basic cybersecurity standards, with eight of them earning a C- in the report.

Be smart: Historically, local and federal government entities have struggled to compete with private sector companies, where bidding wars for talent are commonplace.

Government employees also can face special background, ethics and cooling-off periods posing additional challenges for recruiters.

"At the local level, it is challenging for a lot of these local agencies to hire because the salary requirements aren't there," said Sam Olyaei, a director at Gartner Research.

"People know that if they work for a local agency, they're going to have to do everything. 'I'm going to be the analyst. I'm going to be the engineer. I'm going to be the leader.' And, that is not always attractive."

What they're saying: "We're playing a game of chicken," said Petrella, the CyberVista chief.

She's sought out those with music and accounting backgrounds to help fill the void.

"You have people coming out of school, saying, 'No one will interview me because I don't have enough experience,'" Petrella said. "And [employers] are saying, 'I don't have any talent.'"

U.S. faces urgent anti-hacker crisis

Recent hacker attacks are propelling new and more diverse cybersecurity recruitment.

Cybersecurity

Axios AM

The women's professional tennis tour suspended tournaments in China Wednesday out of concern for Peng Shuai, on the same day that a top business voice made excuses for Beijing. 

Why it matters: Ahead of February's Winter Olympics in Beijing, some sports figures are taking on the regime — while Big Business shrinks from confrontation with the world's second-largest economy.

What's happening: The Women's Tennis Association told AP that fears for the safety of Peng Shuai, the Chinese champion who accused a former Communist Party official of sexual assault, could result in cancellations beyond 2022. 

WTA President and CEO Steve Simon said: "This is ... about what’s right and wrong." 

In the NBA, the Boston Celtics' Enes Kanter, who changed his last name to "Freedom" this week after becoming a U.S. citizen, has used social media to relentlessly protest human-rights violations in China.

Contrast that with billionaire Ray Dalio — legendary investor and founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund — who told Andrew Ross Sorkin yesterday on CNBC's "Squawk Box" when asked about Peng Shuai and China's human rights issues: 

"I can't be an expert in those types of things," Dalio said. "I look to whatever the rules are."

"So the guidance of the government is the most important thing."

Context: The Wall Street Journal, calling Dalio a "longtime China bull," reported Nov. 24 that Bridgewater raised $1.25 billion for its third investment fund in China, making it one of the "biggest foreign managers of private funds in the world’s second-largest economy."

Dalio added on CNBC: "I look at the United States and I say: 'Well, what's going on in the United States, and should I not invest in the United States because [of] our own human rights issues?'"

"I'm not trying to make political comparisons. I'm basically just trying to follow the rules."

When Sorkin pointed out that the U.S. "isn't disappearing people" like the Chinese government, Dalio replied: "As a top-down country ... they behave like a strict parent."

"If I ... evaluated all approaches around the world in all countries, I'd be in a bind to try to find out ... where do I invest."

Zoom out: In Hong Kong, where Beijing has become increasingly heavy-handed, the Disney+ streaming service apparently censored the episode of "The Simpsons" with Homer visiting Tiananmen Square. (BBC)

Go deeper: Axios reported this week that Airbnb has more than a dozen homes available for rent in China's Xinjiang region on land owned by an organization sanctioned by the U.S. government. Read the investigation. 

Courage vs. coddling with China

"This is ... about what’s right and wrong."

Peng Shuai of China serves during the China Open in Beijing in 2017. Photo: Andy Wong/AP

Top stories & latest news on the Federal Reserve, real-time data, plus the biggest shifts happening in the U.S. and global economy.

Economy

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

Shifts in technology and media are changing the way we play, watch and understand sports. Business models are adapting and social change is forcing those in charge of teams and leagues to reconsider decades-old practices.

Sports

Hope you enjoyed the recent flurry of free-agent activity, because it's likely the last non-lockout-related MLB news for a while.

Driving the news: The owners locked out the players after the collective bargaining agreement expired at midnight last night, leading to MLB's ninth work stoppage — and first since 1995.

Past work stoppages: 1972 strike; 1973 lockout; 1976 lockout; 1980 strike; 1981 strike; 1985 strike; 1990 lockout; 1994-95 strike.

Lockout vs. strike: Either employers withhold work (lockout) or workers withhold services (strike). While neither is ideal, lockouts are far less intrusive. Those five strikes led to 1,720 canceled games. The three lockouts? Zero.

How it works: Everything aside from CBA negotiations is now halted. Contracts can't be signed, injured players can't work with team staff to rehab, zero communication between players and teams.

The CBA governs the relationship between the league and players' union, ranging from scheduling and playoff format to payment structure and drug testing.

The two sides must now negotiate a new deal before the business of baseball can resume. Neither side will get everything it wants; the question is how much either side is willing to concede.

The negotiating table comprises commissioner Rob Manfred and MLBPA executive director Tony Clark, each of their top lieutenants, the eight-player MLBPA executive board and seven owners on the league's labor policy committee.

Where it stands: The disagreements stem from money, and the various ways that money is — or isn't — spent.

What the players want: More competitive integrity (tanking and revenue sharing among owners both disincentivize spending); earlier paydays (to ensure prime playing years coincide with prime earning years); no service-time manipulation

What the owners want: Mostly, for things to stay the same. MLB set new revenue records for 17 straight years through 2019, while average player salaries have dropped 4.9% since 2016. They'd also like to further pad their wallets with expanded playoffs.

Plus: On-field changes, like a universal DH or pitch clock, could also be written into the new CBA.

Between the lines: In the 26 years since the last work stoppage, immense distrust has been sown between the league and players; recently, it's only gotten worse.

First came steroids — now it's sign-stealing, sticky stuff and juiced balls. Just this week, MLB admitted to secretly using two different balls last season, per Business Insider (subscription).

Add in the months of bad-faith negotiations during the spring of 2020, and it's not hard to understand how we got here.

Go deeper: Everything you need to know about the lockout (ESPN)

Editor's note: The headline has been corrected to reflect that it's not the first lockout since 1995.

What to know about the MLB lockout

The disagreements stem from money, and the various ways that money is — or isn't — spent.

Major League Baseball (MLB)

The race to figure out just how dangerous the Omicron variant is will likely be a global effort, but some experts are skeptical that the U.S. will play a dominant role. 

Why it matters: The CDC has repeatedly come under fire for inadequate data collection throughout the pandemic — and figuring out how to respond to Omicron requires a lot of data that doesn't currently exist.

Where it stands: There are way more questions than answers when it comes to Omicron. 

We don't know whether it can outcompete the Delta variant, which is currently dominant around the world. 

We don't know whether it makes people sicker than Delta does. 

And we don't know how well vaccines or prior infections protect a person against it, or how well current treatments work against it. 

What we're watching: "What matters is whether you see over time a significant fraction of U.S. infections become Omicron rather than Delta in areas where there's a head-to-head competition," said Cornell virologist John Moore. 

That would suggest Omicron will replace Delta as the most common COVID variant.

The other huge data point to look for, Moore said, is how many vaccinated people are hospitalized with Omicron. If there's "a significant number of infected Omicron people in hospital, that would be a significant grounds for concern."

The intrigue: The CDC has been under fire for months for its lackluster tracking of breakthrough infections, and the U.S. was reliant on other countries for real-time data on waning vaccine effectiveness as Delta became dominant over the summer.

The U.S. may once again be reliant on data from other countries when it comes to understanding Omicron, although that's at least in part because more cases have been detected elsewhere so far. 

The Biden administration talks to South Africa regularly, but doesn't expect basic neutralization data until the end of next week at the earliest. That will give us a much better idea how well vaccines protect against Omicron. 

What they're saying: "To the extent we’re constantly relying on Israel, Britain and now South Africa ... that is the definition of flying blind," said Zeke Emanuel, vice provost for global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania. 

"We're not going to be the first to determine whether vaccine works, what the breakthrough rate is, et cetera, and that's not because we don’t have [Omicron] here," he added.

Some experts also say that the U.S. still isn't doing enough genomic sequencing, and Emanuel said it's "geographically unrepresentative."

Yes, but: The CDC has drastically improved its genomic sequencing capabilities this year, and is now sequencing one of every seven positive cases found by a PCR test, CDC director Rochelle Walensky said this week. 

The agency is sequencing ten times as many samples each week as it was earlier this year, Walensky said. 

The other side: Where data comes from may not matter very much, as long as it's reliable, Moore said.

"If something is seen in a major European country or Israel or wherever it is, it's going to be the same in the United States ... you've got the global aspect of this to fall back on," Moore said.   

The bottom line: We won't understand Omicron until it spreads more, providing more data, and until enough time passes for current infections to translate into hospitalizations. 

In the longer term, the U.S. may need to improve its data collection methods. 

"I think with every passing month, we see more and more glaringly the data deficiencies," Emmanuel said. Congress or the administration "need[s] to set a very clear standard for the data infrastructure we're going to create, and make sure it's real-time data and not modeling." 

America probably won't lead the effort to understand Omicron

But understanding the variant is a global effort.

Illustration of person looking up at large viruses

Omicron variant COVID

Coronavirus

The U.S. health system faces critical questions about cost, access and equity. Technological advances and new discoveries about diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s are transforming patient care and reshaping public health.

Health

Republicans are on the brink of achieving a decades-long conservative project — overturning abortion rights — but some strategists worry that the party isn’t ready for the political dangers of this monumental victory.

Why it matters: The GOP has the best political environment in a decade leading into the midterms — and the last thing top party operatives want is for the Democratic base to become energized if the Supreme Court narrows or overturns Roe v. Wade. 

As one longtime GOP political operative put it to Axios, it's one “big flare-up” that could “derail what could be a 2010-level victory next year for the party and the movement." 

"Republicans and operatives in the party, I don’t think they’re ready. They better get ready before this decision comes out," the operative said.

What they’re saying: Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who represents a district that includes suburbs of Charleston, acknowledged that overturning Roe would bring the issue front and center and urged Republicans to handle such an event cautiously.

“We’ve got to have compassion on both sides of the aisle and recognize at some point, this is an infant and this is life, and also on my side, recognize that we've got to be advocates for women who've been raped,” she told Axios.

The details: Despite the entrenched red state/blue state divide, overturning Roe could persuade suburban women who would have otherwise likely voted for Republicans to vote for Democrats, two operatives told Axios. 

A Republican campaign strategist said such a ruling would be a messaging challenge for GOP candidates, and said they should calibrate their statements differently for general election voters than they would for primary voters.

“In primaries, the issue will be a talked about as a huge victory, and in general elections it will be about giving people a voice in their state’s abortion policies,” the strategist said. 

States would be able to ban or severely restrict abortion access if the Supreme Court strikes down Roe, which seemed to be a real possibility during oral arguments yesterday. In that situation, operatives say, Republican-led states may want to tread lightly, to avoid a political backlash to especially stringent restrictions.

By the numbers: A November poll by Quinnipiac University found that 63% of Americans agree with the 1973 Roe decision, including 87% of Democrats and 65% of independents but just 37% of Republicans. 53% of Republicans disagreed with the ruling.

One Republican operative pointed to suburbs surrounding smaller cities like Charleston and Des Moines as places to watch if Roe falls. 

Former Republican Rep. Tom Davis, who chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee, said there’s "no question that if this happens, it will be a front and center issue for voters.”

While he doesn’t believe Republicans would lose the House over the issue, Davis said “there’s no question that in higher-income districts, it could have an effect.”

But, but, but: History is on Republicans’ side, as the party in power tends to lose seats in Congress. That history, coupled with redistricting and a slew of Democratic retirements, means Democrats would need to defy the odds to keep the House. 

Other operatives believe that pocketbook issues will continue to be the more salient issue.

“[Democrats] are desperate to find anything to talk about other than skyrocketing inflation and the President’s plummeting approval ratings, and think a couple Supreme Court cases will do the trick. But they won’t,” Kevin McLaughlin, former NRSC director, told Axios. 

Some Republicans fear Roe win could backfire

A win at the court could energize Democrats in the midterms.

Illustration of an elephant’s trunk holding a gavel.

Abortion

Future

Axios Future

The travel bans and border closures prompted by the Omicron variant likely won't fully prevent its spread, but that won't stop countries from leaning on the measures.

Why it matters: The rapid speed at which countries turned to travel bans with the emergence of Omicron indicates border controls will increasingly become a weapon against infectious disease — whether or not public health experts agree they are effective.

Where it stands: 56 countries were reportedly implementing travel measures as of Nov. 28 in response to the Omicron variant, the World Health Organization reported on Tuesday. 

That includes the U.S., which banned travel from South Africa — where the variant was first identified — and seven other countries in southern Africa.

Omicron travel bans are sign of what's to come

While travel bans can't fully stop a contagious disease, expect governments to keep deploying them

Axios

Thursday's top stories