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Today’s Top Stories from NBC News

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2021

Good morning, NBC News readers.

We have the latest on the fast-moving Covid-19 situation, where a new variant is causing global alarm, a busy schedule for Congress before the end of the year, and a library book returned more than a century late.

Here's the latest on that and everything else we're watching this Monday morning.

WHO warns omicron poses 'very high' global risk as variant spreads and countries close borders

The global risk of the new omicron variant of Covid-19 is “very high,” the World Health Organization said Monday, as more countries reported cases amid worldwide concern that there is more pandemic suffering ahead.

An increasing number of nations are tightening their borders despite pleas for caution and expressions of dismay from some.

The variant is in North America, Canadian officials confirmed Sunday, while Dr. Anthony Fauci said Saturday on NBC’s “Weekend TODAY” that the variant could already be in the U.S.

In advice to its member states Monday, the WHO urged them to accelerate Covid-19 vaccination coverage “as rapidly as possible.”

“If another major surge of Covid-19 takes place driven by omicron, consequences may be severe,” the U.N. agency said in its report.

Read more here.

Plus:

Monday's Top Stories

Congress faces jampacked end to 2021

Lawmakers are back this week to weigh plans to fund the government, authorize military spending, extend the debt limit and pass President Joe Biden's Build Back Better Act.

Barren forests, dirty rivers, unbreathable air: Inside an Arctic city's vast pollution problem

A smelting company has poisoned rivers, killed off forests and belched out more sulfur dioxide than active volcanoes. Now it wants to produce more metal for the “green economy.”

9 months after the Texas freeze, the power grid remains vulnerable

Energy experts say new regulations allowed too much wiggle room for companies to avoid weatherization improvements.

OPINION

Covid isn't over. Texas schools pretend it is, and leave students to fend for ourselves

"With no mask or vaccine mandates, my classmates are often sick. I want to protect myself, but I get judged if I cover up," writes Zoe Yu, a high school junior.

Also in the News

Prolific fashion designer Virgil Abloh dies at 41

Extremely strong magnitude-7.5 earthquake hits northern Peru

Carrie Meek, pioneering Black former congresswoman, dies

Merriam-Webster chooses vaccine as the 2021 word of the year

Dutch police arrest couple attempting to flee quarantine for Spain

Editor's Pick

A new arms race? Putin's friend leads Russian effort to sell weapons to U.S. allies

Russia — the world’s second-largest arms exporter, behind the United States — is targeting traditional clients and allies of its old rival.

Select

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One Fun Thing

Overdue book returned anonymously to Idaho library 111 years later

A children's book checked out from the Boise, Idaho, public library in 1910 vanished for 111 years only to be returned anonymously, library officials said.

A copy of “New Chronicles of Rebecca” by Kate Douglas Wiggin, still in good condition, was recently returned to the Garden Valley District Library, about 51 miles outside of Boise, city library officials said.

“The checkout desk noticed that it was rather old and it didn’t have any current markings, so they looked into it,” city library assistant Anne Marie Martin told NBC affiliate KTVB of Boise.