Eyewitness News

  New York:  Global travel chaos that convulsed the Christmas weekend spilled into Monday with major flight cancellations impacting millions returning from holiday breaks, as Covid-19 cases surge to record levels in Europe and several US states. Some 11,500 flights have been scrapped worldwide since Friday and tens of thousands more delayed, during one of the year's busiest travel periods -- with multiple airlines saying spikes in cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant have caused staffing shortages. Effects rippled worldwide, with about 3,000 flights already cancelled Monday and 1,100 more on Tuesday, according to flight tracker FlightAware. Opening the way for more people to return to work sooner and minimizing the prospect of mass labor shortages, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday halved the isolation period for asymptomatic Covid-19 cases from 10 to five days in a bid to blunt mass Omicron-induced disruption. The guidelines, which are non-bindin...

  Plaintiffs who accused Alphabet Inc's Google of unlawfully tracking their internet use while on "Incognito" browsing mode can question Chief Executive Sundar Pichai for up to two hours, a California federal judge has ruled. In the lawsuit filed in June 2020, users accused Google of illegally invading their privacy by tracking internet use while Google Chrome browsers were set in "private" mode. The plaintiffs are arguing that Pichai has "unique, personal knowledge" of issues relating to the Chrome browser and privacy concerns, a Monday court filing showed. Google spokesman Jose Castaneda told Reuters the new requests were "unwarranted and overreaching". "While we strongly dispute the claims in this case, we have cooperated with plaintiffs' countless requests ... We will continue to vigorously defend ourselves," Castaneda said. Pichai in 2019 was warned that describing the company's Incognito browsing mode as "private...