Lebanon has detected its first case of the new variant of the coronavirus, which has been spreading rapidly in parts of Britain, on a flight arriving from London, it said on Friday. “The detection of the first case of the new variant of Covid-19 on Middle East Airlines flight 202 coming from London on Dec. 21,” the country’s caretaker health minister said on Twitter, urging all passengers on the flight and their families to take precautionary measures. A surge in coronavirus infections is straining Lebanon’s healthcare system, which was already struggling amid a financial crisis and following the huge port explosion in August which damaged hospitals in Beirut. <br/>
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A Labor Department ruling determined that before becoming head of the Federal Aviation Administration, Steve Dickson participated in efforts by Delta management to wrongly use a psychiatric evaluation to retaliate against a pilot who raised safety concerns. The lengthy decision by a department administrative law judge concluded that Mr. Dickson, as Delta’s senior vice president of flight operations, knew about and approved punitive moves against veteran co-pilot Karlene Petitt, who was deemed unfit to fly in December 2016 after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The diagnosis eventually was reversed and she resumed flying. The ruling supported Petitt’s claims that she was singled out for special scrutiny to try to keep her quiet about safety issues. Scott Morris, the judge who presided over the long-running litigation, determined that Delta punished and discriminated against a federally protected whistleblower without any evidence indicating her “performance as a pilot was deficient in any way.” According to the decision, “not a single witness questioned her flying acumen.” The ruling says that “in this case, the squeaky wheel did not get the grease.” Instead, “it got unlawfully discriminated against in the form of a career defining” mental-health evaluation. Petitt has four decades of flying experience and a doctorate in aviation safety. <br/>