— The Omicron variant of Covid-19 has prompted dozens of countries, including the U.S., to impose new travel restrictions targeting southern Africa.
— This year’s Thanksgiving travel looked a lot more like 2019 than 2020.
— DOJ is stepping up prosecutions against unruly airline passengers.
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IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE COVID: Countries around the world — the U.S. included — have clamped down on travel from southern Africa since the discovery of a new Covid variant in South Africa was announced on Wednesday. The Omicron variant appears to be spreading rapidly, and scientists worry it could be more prone than the Delta variant to “immune escape,” meaning the vaccines we have would be less effective against it.
The world has quickly started to respond. The World Health Organization classified it as a “variant of concern” on Friday — but even before that, countries around the world had begun restricting travel not just from South Africa but also from nearby Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini and Mozambique. (Pakistan included Hong Kong in its clampdown, as Omicron has also been detected there.) The Biden…