(HELLA, Iceland) — Hotel Rangá in Iceland is looking for a photographer to chase the northern lights, also known as aurora borealis.
This dream job consists of three weeks chasing the lights from September to October.
The hotel is located in the Icelandic countryside, where temperatures typically average 40 to 50 degrees during the fall season.
The photographer chosen for the job will be required to provide high-quality photos and videos in order to receive travel to and from Iceland.
The requirements also include giving the hotel “unlimited license to mutually agreed-upon photographs and videos.”
“In exchange for providing content of the northern lights at the hotel, this seasonal employee will receive free room and board along with access to the hotel‘s stargazing observatory and hot tubs, not to mention the opportunity to explore the photogenic land of fire and ice on their days off,” the hotel wrote on its website.
The FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit concluded that the shooter who killed eight at a FedEx facility in April carried out the shooting as “an act of suicidal murder.”
“The shooter decided to commit suicide in a way which he believed would demonstrate his masculinity and capability of fulfilling a final desire to experience killing people,” FBI Indianapolis Special Agent in Charge Paul Keenan said at a press conference announcing the results of the investigation Wednesday.
In April, Brandon Scott Hole allegedly opened fire outside the building and in a locker room area of the FedEx facility just outside of Indianapolis.
Hole was “indiscriminate” at who he shot at both inside and outside of the facility, adding that he was outside for a total of three minutes before walking back into the locker room and taking his own life, Craig McCartt, deputy chief of investigations for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, said.
He was stopped from entering the facility by the physical security barriers put in place.
“It certainty could’ve been much worse had he gotten access to the back part of that facility where there was a lot of other employees,” McCartt said.
Acting U.S. Attorney John Childress said Hole was “exacerbated by mental health issues.”
The Behavioral Analysis Unit concluded that shooter “did not appear” to be motivated by the need to address any injustices, nor did the shooter “appear to have been motivated by bias, or desire to advance any ideology.” Four of the victims of the shooting came from the area’s Sikh community.
The FBI said that after examining over 175,000 files on his computer they found 200 files of “mainly German military, German Nazi things.”
“But there was no indication that there was any animosity towards the Sikh community or any other group for that matter,” Keenan said.
The FBI said there wasn’t any evidence to suggest he targeted the FedEx facility other than that is a location he knew well. Also, the FBI said 73% of mass shooters carry out an attack at a place with which they are familiar. Hole had worked at the facility from August to October 2020.
“He also incorrectly believed he had identified a vulnerability which would have given him unobscured access to many potential victims,” Keenan said.
McCartt also said that Hole’s mother reported him to the IMPD in March 2020, saying he might want to carry out suicide by cop after which the department confiscated a shotgun belonging to Hole. A police report from that incident showed that officers also observed white supremacist material on Hole’s computer.
“He never got that gun back in his possession, but then some months later he was able to buy more firearms,” McCartt explained.
The FBI said Hole started acquiring guns that were used in the eventual shooting in July 2020.
The shooter simply just stopped showing up for work and that is why he lost his job, McCartt explained, adding Hole acted alone in his efforts.
“In talking with other employees and FedEx personnel, he had never had any kind of issue there,” McCartt added.
(WASHINGTON) — Negotiators say they have a deal on bipartisan infrastructure.
A redo of last week’s failed test vote is expected Wednesday evening. Republican negotiators, all of whom blocked the procedural motion last week, said they’re ready to vote tonight, though a Democratic leadership aide said a time has not yet been set for the vote.
Negotiators also said they expect enough Republicans to support beginning debate.
Democrats called a special lunch to talk about the proposal behind closed doors this afternoon. Many say their support will hinge upon what is discussed during the meeting.
Details about the agreement are still emerging, but an aide close to the talks confirmed to ABC News that the topline value for new spending has decreased from $579 billion to $550 billion.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., the chief Democratic negotiator, told reporters that she expects some of the bill text to be available Wednesday, with further updates released as remaining details are worked out.
A “small tiny thing” related to transit and a “small thing” related to broadband must still be addressed, Sinema said.
Sinema said she spoke with President Joe Biden and said he is “very excited” about and “committed to” the plan.
Sen. Rob Portman, who has been the chief negotiator for Republicans on the bill, announced the agreement flanked by the four other Republicans in the core negotiating group.
“As of late last night and really early this morning we now have an agreement on the major issues we are prepared to move forward,” Portman said. “We look forward to moving ahead and having the opportunity to have a healthy debate here in the chamber regarding an incredibly important project to the American people.”
Democrats who are part of the negotiations confirmed that a deal had been struck.
Sen. Joe Manchin, asked if it was his understanding that a bipartisan deal had been reached, replied “That sure is.”
It’s still not clear if all Democrats are going to support the bipartisan deal. Democratic Whip Dick Durbin Wednesday morning said it was an “unanswered question” whether all Democrats back the deal.
“I don’t believe we certainly don’t have a whip or people signing on the dotted line,” Durbin said. “We need some assurances that we are all in this together.”
(NEW YORK) — Google plans to require any employee in its offices to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to an email sent by Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai on Wednesday.
“Even as the virus continues to surge in many parts of the world,” Pichai wrote, “it’s encouraging to see very high vaccination rates for our Google community in areas where vaccines are widely available.” He cites that high vaccination rate as being a key to the company re-opening some of its offices to employees who chose to return to work already.
“Getting vaccinated is one of the most important ways to keep ourselves and our communities healthy in the months ahead,” he continued.
The requirement will be rolled out “in the coming weeks,” in the United States, and is intended to expand to other regions in the next few months. Pichai notes that implementation of the requirement “will vary according to local conditions and regulations, and will not apply until vaccines are widely available in your area.”
The CEO also saying in his email that while the company has begun to reopen campuses, Google employees who choose to work from home will be allowed to do so through at least October 18.
“We recognize that many Googlers are seeing spikes in their communities cause by the Delta variant and are concerned about returning to the office,” Pichai said.
He also noted that the company is working to develop “expanded temporary work options” for employees with “special circumstances,” which would allow those employees to work from home through the end of 2021.
(NEW YORK) — As coronavirus cases in the U.S. begin a concerning climb upward and virus variants threaten a return to normalcy, a handful of businesses have announced COVID-19 vaccination mandates as they prepare to welcome workers back to the office.
The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission said employers can legally require COVID-19 vaccinations to re-enter a physical workplace, as long as they follow requirements to find alternative arrangements for employees unable to get vaccinated for medical reasons or because they have religious objections.
Still, the requirements have proven a hot button issue as business leaders mull over office reopening plans, in some cases sparking legal challenges and immense pushback from workers who refuse the shot. President Joe Biden said Tuesday that a mandate to require all federal employees to be vaccinated is now “under consideration.”
Tech giant Google announced a vaccine requirement Wednesday for those returning to its offices. The company has some 135,301 employees, according to SEC filings.
“Even as the virus continues to surge in many parts of the world,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in an email Wednesday, “it’s encouraging to see very high vaccination rates for our Google community in areas where vaccines are widely available.” He cites that high vaccination rate as being a key to the company re-opening some of its offices to employees who chose to return to work already.
“Getting vaccinated is one of the most important ways to keep ourselves and our communities healthy in the months ahead,” he continued.
The requirement will be rolled out “in the coming weeks,” in the United States, and is intended to expand to other regions in the next few months. Pichai notes that implementation of the requirement “will vary according to local conditions and regulations, and will not apply until vaccines are widely available in your area.”
The CEO also saying in his email that while the company has begun to reopen campuses, Google employees who choose to work from home will be allowed to do so through at least October 18.
“We recognize that many Googlers are seeing spikes in their communities cause by the Delta variant and are concerned about returning to the office,” Pichai said.
He also noted that the company is working to develop “expanded temporary work options” for employees with “special circumstances,” which would allow those employees to work from home through the end of 2021.
(LONDON, HONG KONG and JAKARTA) — A perfect storm with the coronavirus appears to be brewing across the Asia-Pacific region: surges in the highly contagious delta variant combined with slow vaccination uptake.
Tight vaccine supplies are a major factor and experts caution that unless most of the global population is vaccinated, and richer countries share more of their vaccines, the world will face a far longer bout with the coronavirus than anticipated.
The issue extends from countries at the center of the current surge, like Indonesia, to those that fared relatively well with the disease early on in the pandemic, like South Korea.
Even as countries like the U.S. and U.K. face rising cases despite their largely vaccinated populations, hospitalizations and deaths have not yet risen to the same levels as 2020 due to the success of vaccination efforts, public health experts say. Yet the vast majority of the global population remains unvaccinated (just 3.7 billion out of 10-12 billion recommended doses have been distributed).
More people have died of COVID-19 since Jan. 4, 2021 than the whole of last year, according to an ABC analysis of WHO data.
The pandemic is not just far from over — it is in a “critical moment where we are all under threat,” due to rising new variants and vaccine inequality, according to WHO spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris. The course of the virus, she said, is that it is likely to become “endemic” — meaning it will not disappear, but eventually could become manageable like the other coronaviruses in circulation.
But a true end to the pandemic will likely only happen with the artificial immunity conferred by mass vaccination, according to Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“You have countries that are making good progress toward building an immunity shield,” he told ABC News. “When you look at the rest of the world, a very small percentage of the population [is] being vaccinated.”
The stark vaccine disparity is far from lost on people in Indonesia, who in the last few months have seen the delta variant rip through their communities, overrunning hospitals, filling graveyards and leaving family and friends who’ve lost loved ones in anguish.
In scenes reminiscent of when India was at its devastating peak earlier this year, there is a clamor for oxygen canisters in Indonesia — now the coronavirus epicenter of the region. Afflicted families, turned away from hospital wards, are taking treatment into their own hands. For two weeks, Defitio Pratama, 27, a marketing salesman based just outside Jakarta, took care of his sick mother at home.
“We had no idea what to do at that time since we did not have oxygen tank at hand,” he told ABC News in Jakarta, where there are long lines for scarce oxygen cylinders. “I started contacting friends and families for oxygen tank, I even went all the way to other city when I found my mother’s friend offering to lend theirs. We could not take my mother to hospital because they kept rejecting us, we had no choice but to treat her at home.”
While Pratama has received one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, his mother, who is asthmatic, remains unvaccinated. In the week ending July 19, 9,696 deaths were recorded, an increase of 36% from the week before, according to the WHO. Just under 16% of the population has received at least one dose of vaccine.
In Indonesia, a combination of a lack of supply, vaccine hesitancy and concerns over the Chinese manufactured Sinovac have contributed to the slow rollout, but the country is by no means alone in the region.
Thailand, Australia, Vietnam and South Korea — all countries that were praised last year for their swift containment strategies — have reintroduced restrictions to deal with outbreaks of the Delta variant, which is estimated to be 60% more transmissible than the alpha variant, in recent months. According to Harris, the world’s richest countries are “basically holding the rest of the world hostage by not insisting that their manufacturers share.”
“This is why you’ve got massive outbreaks going on around the world,” she told ABC News. “But people don’t seem to hear it. What they’re hearing is possibly what they want to hear is ‘I’m vaccinated, now, I can go back to normal.’ You can’t. Not until you sort it out in the rest of the world.”
The Biden administration has pledged to donate more than 80 million doses to countries in need, with 23 million going to Asia. Some 3 million doses of Moderna arrived in Indonesia from the U.S. on July 11 — but the rollout needs to significantly increase in order to meet the WHO’s target to vaccinate at least 10% of every country in the world by the end of September.
For the pandemic to end and the virus to become manageable on a global level and COVID-19 to become manageable as with other coronaviruses, between 10 and 12 billion doses need to be administered around the world, Huang said, ideally with high effectiveness. That number currently stands at around 3.7 billion, according to the WHO.
“The best case scenario is that through these vaccination efforts that by the end of next year we have produced enough vaccines that can vaccinate a majority of the population worldwide, and that vaccination is effective in terms of preventing severe cases of death,” Huang said. “Previously I was more optimistic about how and when the pandemic is going to end. “But now, with that divide in terms of vaccine access, in terms of the strategies adopted by countries, in terms of the continued emergence of the new variants, I’m not that optimistic anymore.”
(LONDON) — Beginning next month, the United Kingdom will allow fully vaccinated U.S. citizens to enter the country without quarantining.
In a statement, the U.K. Department for Transport says the policy will apply to travelers from countries on their “green” and “amber” lists, but not for those from several dozen nations on the “red list.” It will go into effect on August 2, and will cover vaccines that have been approved by the European Medicines Agency, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or the Swiss vaccination program.
Those arriving in the U.K. will still be required to complete a pre-departure test before landing in England, as well as a PCR test for COVID-19 within their first two days there. Separate rules apply for those entering the U.K. from France.
The plan is expected to help the British economy, as well as enable fully vaccinated people from other nations to reunite with family and friends.
“We’ve taken great strides on our journey to reopen international travel,” said U.K. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps. “Whether you are a family reuniting for the first time since the start of the pandemic or a business benefiting from increased trade – this is progress we can all enjoy.”
More than 70 percent of adults in the U.K. have received both shots of a COVID-19 vaccine. Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid credited that fact with helping to build “a wall of defence against this virus so we can safely enjoy our freedoms again.”
(NEW YORK) — New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday announced that all patient-facing health care workers in hospitals run by the state will be required to get vaccinated. He said, “There will be no testing option.”
Additionally, as of Labor Day, all state employees must either be vaccinated or get tested on a weekly basis.
Governor Cuomo said the decision was made due to the “dramatic action” needed to control a surge in COVID-19 cases linked to the Delta variant. He said school districts in areas of high transmission should also consider taking a more aggressive approach.
“I understand the politics, but I understand if we don’t take the right actions, schools can become super-spreaders in September,” Cuomo said.
Calling on private sector businesses, Cumo said they should incentivize vaccinations by only allowing vaccinated people in.
75% of adults in New York state have been vaccinated.
(BENTONVILLE, Ark.) — America’s largest private employer announced on Tuesday that it will pay for college tuition and books for associates, in full.
In a press release, Walmart says it will also eliminate the $1 per day fee from its Live Better U education program, which provides workers with access to training or a degree. The company says with these changes, “approximately 1.5 million part-time and full-time Walmart and Sam’s Club associates in the U.S. can earn college degrees or learn trade skills without the burden of education debt.”
Lorraine Stomski, the company’s senior vice president of learning and leadership, said the move would create “a path of opportunity for our associates to grow their careers at Walmart, so they can continue to build better lives for themselves and their families.”
The company also noted it will add four academic partners, bringing the total number of institutions it works with to ten. The new partners include Johnson & Wales University, the University of Arizona, the University of Denver, and Pathstream.
Earlier this year, Walmart announced it would raise its starting pay to $11 per hour. That move, which affected approximately 425,000 employees, brought the company’s average pay to $15 per hour.
(AURORA, Colo.) — Two Colorado officers from the Aurora Police Department are facing charges after body camera footage purportedly shows one hitting a suspect in the head and then choking him.
Officers John Haubert and Francine Martinez responded to a reported trespassing, attempting to arrest 29-year-old Kyle Vincent and two other adult men.
Martinez learned that they all had felony warrants, and the officers tried to take them into custody. When two of the men fled, Haubert drew a pistol and directed it at Vincent.
Haubert grabbed the back of his neck and pressed the gun against Vincent’s head.
The man denied having a warrant and attempted to avoid being handcuffed. Police say Haubert came on top of the man and grabbed the side of his neck, hitting him with the gun 13 times.
Haubert is facing three felony charges; attempted first-degree assault, second-degree assault and felony menacing. There is also misdemeanor charges of official oppression and official misconduct.
“This is not the Aurora Police Department, this is criminal,” said Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson.
Officer Martinez faces criminal charges for not intervening.
