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U.K. becomes latest country to confirm omicron variant of the coronavirus

Health

Enspirers | Editorial Board

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November 27, 2021

U.K. becomes latest country to confirm omicron variant of the coronavirus

Two people in the United Kingdom have tested positive with the omicron variant of the coronavirus, a new contagious strain that has spurred governments to shut down travel from southern Africa.

U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid confirmed on Saturday that two people in the towns of Chelmsford and Nottingham have been infected with the variant. He said the two cases were linked and connected with travel to southern Africa.

“These individuals are self-isolating with their households while further testing and contact tracing is underway,” Mr. Javid tweeted. “As a precaution we are rolling out additional targeted testing in the affected areas — Nottingham and Chelmsford — and sequencing all positive cases.”

He added that Britain is also placing Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Angola to its travel “red list,” effective 4 a.m. Sunday. The U.K. on Friday named South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Namibia and Zimbabwe to its red list.

Those who are not U.K. or Irish residents who have been in one these countries in the last 10 days will be denied entry, said Mr. Javid. U.K. and Irish residents arriving from these countries from 4 a.m. Sunday will go into hotel quarantine. Anyone arriving before then should take PCR tests on day two and day eight even if vaccinated and isolate at home with the rest of their household, according to the health secretary.

“This is a fast-moving situation and we are taking decisive steps to protect public health,” Mr. Javid said.

Many countries including Canada, Brazil, Australia, the European Union, Iran, Japan, Thailand and the U.S. have placed restrictions on various African countries over the past couple of days to try and contain the variant’s spread, the Associated Press reported.

The omicron variant also has been detected in Belgium, Hong Kong and Israel with a suspected positive case in Germany. Dutch health authorities said on Saturday they found 61 COVID-19 cases among people who flew from South Africa on Friday and will perform further tests to see if the travelers are infected with the omicron variant, Reuters reported.

The Biden administration announced on Friday that it is restricting travel from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi in response to concerns about the omicron strain. The travel ban will take effect Monday.

No cases of this variant have been identified in the U.S. so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.

“CDC is continuously monitoring variants and the U.S. variant surveillance system has reliably detected new variants in this country. We expect Omicron to be identified quickly, if it emerges in the U.S.,” the federal health agency said in a statement.

The World Health Organization on Friday formally designated the omicron variant, first detected in South Africa, as one “of concern.” The strain, also known as the B.1.1.529 variant, was first discovered in a sample collected Nov. 9.

“This variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning. Preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant, as compared to other [variants of concern],” the WHO said Friday. “The number of cases of this variant appears to be increasing in almost all provinces in South Africa.”

Health, The New York Today

Bob Dylan artwork show opens in Miami, new cinema paintings

Entertainment

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November 27, 2021

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Bob Dylan artwork show opens in Miami, new cinema paintings

MIAMI (AP) — Bob Dylan has been telling stories through songs for 60 years. But recently America’s master lyricist has also captured moments in a new series of paintings that, just like his songs, are intimate and a bit of a mystery.

The most comprehensive exhibition of the Nobel laureate’s visual art to be held in the U.S. goes on display on Tuesday in Miami at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum. Forty new pieces by the 80-year-old songwriter will be showcased for the first time.

The exhibition with more than 180 acrylics, watercolors, drawings and ironwork sculptures will kick off the same week as Art Basel Miami Beach and will run through April 17 with no future stops announced yet. Tickets are $16 and are booked by hourly slots.

“Retrospectrum” includes some of Dylan’s works from the 1960s, starting with pencil sketches he made of his songs such as “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Like a Rolling Stone.” His pieces, loaned from private collections around the world, also include abstract sketches from the 1970s, and covers six large rooms. But the vast majority was created in the past 15 years.

“He was recognized in every possible way as a writer, as a composer, as a singer, as a performer and so on. It is now that the audience sees also the last element,” said Shai Baitel, who conceived the show as the artistic director of the Modern Art Museum Shanghai, where it debuted. “Dylan is able to express himself in so many ways.”

A breathtaking giant canvas of a sunset in Monument Valley on the Utah-Arizona line serves as an introduction to Dylan‘s newest works. He has mentioned his admiration of Western movie director John Ford, who used that same iconic landscape in many of his films.

Past the wall with the painting of the reddish buttes is a room with the new series called “Deep Focus,” named after a technique in cinematography where nothing is blurred out.

“All these images come from films. They try to highlight the different predicaments that people find themselves in,” Dylan is quoted as saying in one of the walls. “The dreams and schemes are the same – life as it’s coming at you in all its forms and shapes.

Dylan offers a lot of city life the way Ashcan School artists advocated when they depicted realistic images of people’s hardships at the turn of the 20th century.

A jazz band plays in a colorful club in one of the paintings; a gray-haired man counts wads of cash in another. He depicts two men fighting in a boxing match and portrays a woman sitting alone at a bar drinking and smoking with an intriguing look on her face.

Linking the images of Dylan‘s latest works to specific movies will take some internet sleuthing.

Richard F. Thomas is a Harvard University classicist who has studied and written about Dylan. He said in an essay for the exhibit that he found online references tying one of the paintings showing a man in a black leather jacket pouring sugar on his coffee to a scene at a diner in the 1981 film “The Loveless,” where actor Willem Dafoe embodies a biker.

Thomas found a scene from the 1971 movie ”Shaft” with actor Richard Roundtree ordering street food in Times Square. Other new works show cowboys, men in undershirts and barber’s poles, another recurring object used by Dylan.

“Just like the scenes he has been creating in songs for all these years, the scenes of ‘Deep Focus’ will keep Dylan scholars busy in the years to come,” Thomas wrote.

Besides the works in his new series, other works that will be shown in Miami have been previously exhibited in places such as the Halcyon Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Previous paintings reflect images of America from the point of view of a road traveler. Realistic depictions of diners, motels, marquees, gas stations and railway tracks appear frequently throughout his artwork.

“It’s almost like looking at a pamphlet of his memories,” Baitel, the artistic director, said.

Dylan has also experimented with perspective, seemingly imitating the work of Vincent Van Gogh in “The Bedroom” to paint corners of a New York City apartment. And he has done variations by drawing the same characters changing the color of the backdrops and their clothing, or just depicting them at a different time of the day, like Claude Monet’s Rouen Cathedral series.

The exhibit has some interactive displays for music fans. The 64 cards with words from the lyrics of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” that he flipped through in one of the earliest music videos ever made were framed and lined up in eight columns by eight rows, while the clip is played on loop.

It’s not yet clear whether Dylan, who is currently on tour for his 39th album “Rough and Rowdy Ways” will pay a visit.

Jordana Pomeroy, director of the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, said it will be its first ticketed event since the museum first opened in 2008. The Florida International University will be holding a symposium on Dylan inviting scholars to discuss the songwriter’s entire body of work.

“That’s the treatment we are going to give Bob Dylan,” Pomeroy said.

Businesses luring employees along with customers this season

Business

Enspirers | Editorial Board

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November 27, 2021

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Businesses luring employees along with customers this season

FOLSOM, Calif. (AP) — The Hampton Inn in Folsom, California, has 147 rooms, but General Manager Enid Baldock could only rent 117 of them recently because she did not have enough workers to clean them.

“I was turning people away with 30 rooms (available). Ridiculous,” she said while stuffing bedsheets down a laundry chute to help our her skeleton housekeeping staff.

At the Palladio, a nearby shopping center with 85 stores and restaurants just off a busy highway, businesses appeared more focused on attracting workers than customers as “now hiring” signs outnumbered Black Friday fliers. Mac, a cosmetic retailer, was advertising a $1,500 bonus for anyone who would agree to work full time.

Businesses struggled to get through the Great Recession more than a decade ago with minimal staff because low demand forced them to lay off workers. But the opposite is playing out in the pandemic, this time with lots of demand but fewer workers willing to return following government-imposed lockdowns.

Experts point to a number of factors, including the high cost of child care, more generous government benefits and lifestyle changes that have made workers less willing to accept the salaries and conditions of their old jobs. That has pushed up wages for some retail and restaurant jobs, but not enough to overcome the gap.

“It changes people’s behavior the longer that COVID persists,” said Roy Kim, deputy director for workforce development with the Sacramento Employment and Training Agency. “The longer people can survive and make adjustments that way, it becomes life altering.”

The labor shortage has played out in surprising ways across California, the nation’s most populous state with nearly 40 million residents that, were it an independent nation, would have the fifth largest economy in the world.

Folsom, an affluent suburb of Sacramento, has a mix of big-name retailers that cater to upper middle class consumers and locally-owned restaurants and shops that line a traditional downtown corridor to create a cozy atmosphere for a town with roots stretching back to the Gold Rush.

The city is filled with young tech workers for companies like Intel, Micron and PowerSchool. Many of those workers switched to working from home during the pandemic, keeping their jobs and paying taxes that contributed to the record state budget surpluses.

Sarah Aquino, the city’s vice mayor, had been focused on telling residents to spend money at local businesses. But now she’s telling them to take part time jobs at their favorite businesses, going on local TV comparing it to Uncle Sam recruitment posters during World War I and the “Rosie the Riveter” icon representing women who went to work during World War II.

For her part, Aquino – an insurance broker with a flexible schedule – has taken a part-time job as a hostess at Back Bistro, a restaurant offering casual new American/Californian cuisine at the Palladio shopping complex. She takes reservations, seats people, cleans tables and folds napkins all while earning minimum wage – which, in California, is $14 per hour and growing.

Aquino is careful not to call it “volunteer work,” since she is getting paid. But she now considers it her civic duty to cover four shifts a week to help one of her favorite restaurants stay open.

“Of course it’s not anything like, you know, asking people to fight in a war,” Aquino said, responding to some social media critics. “But (it’s) the idea of you’re doing it for somebody more than just yourself.”

Folsom gets about a third of its revenue from sales taxes, and Aquino said the city took a $3 million hit during the pandemic when many businesses were closed. Aquino feared the city could suffer more if businesses had to reduce their hours because of a lack of workers, a fear made plain when she couldn’t buy her husband a hamburger at a fast food restaurant that had to close at 2 p.m. because of a lack of employees.

California has added an average of about 100,000 new jobs each month since February, but despite that blistering pace the state is still tied with Nevada for the nation’s highest unemployment rate.

The state lost 2.7 million jobs in March and April 2020 after Gov. Gavin Newsom issued the nation’s first statewide stay-at-home order. Since then, California has added back about 1.8 million of those jobs, or just over 67%.

“We’re talking here about job recovery, not growth,” said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, a group consisting of business executives from the state’s major employers.

In September, California had more than 400,000 job openings – a 50% increase from that same month in 2019 before the pandemic. That’s why the state’s major employers believe California’s labor market likely won’t reach pre-pandemic levels until the end of 2023.

That’s a long time to wait for people like Kerri Howell, a Folsom city council member who is an engineer by training but opened a restaurant last summer at the height of the pandemic. Howell said she didn’t think the pandemic would last this long or that it would be this difficult to hire employees. She says they have six workers, but they need at least four more.

“The chef and I are partners and we are here basically every hour that the restaurant is open, unless I have to go to a City Council meeting,” she said. “The workplace for just about everybody has changed dramatically.”

Gaming it out: Inside the Pentagon’s preparation for a China clash

World

Enspirers | Editorial Board

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November 27, 2021

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Gaming it out: Inside the Pentagon’s preparation for a China clash

A surprise Chinese cyberattack or electromagnetic pulse takes out the U.S. military‘s communications systems, while a massive artillery bombardment targets American ships and fighter jets in the Pacific.

Within days or perhaps just hours, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has crippled the defenses of the U.S. and its regional allies and has laid the groundwork for a rapid amphibious invasion of Taiwan. Having studied the U.S. for years, Chinese military planners execute a near-perfect strategy that relies on simultaneous attacks in multiple domains — including hypersonic weapons traveling at mind-blowing speeds through space — to systematically compromise America’s defenses, limit access to crucial battlefield information, and leave Pentagon and White House leaders with few viable options to fight back.

Such nightmare scenarios play out routinely deep inside the Pentagon and at key military facilities across the country in the form of wargames — highly detailed, realistic exercises sometimes conducted in a single afternoon and sometimes stretching for a year or longer. They’re explicitly designed to expose vulnerabilities in Pentagon planning, as a “red team” of military personnel sets out to find holes in U.S. strategies for the defense of Taiwan, a Russian offensive into eastern Europe, or even a direct attack on the American homeland or military installations abroad.

Wargame exercises have a long pedigree, having been a part of military planning dating to the 1800s. But they’ve taken on new meaning and urgency in the 21st century as China‘s massive armed forces build up in the Pacific and Russia’s movement of troops along its border with Ukraine ratchet up the possibility of a major conflict. As the chances of conflict rise, so too does the importance of the lessons to be gleaned from wargames, which Pentagon leaders cite as arguably the single most important tool they have at their disposal to prepare for battle and an irreplaceable way to simulate the chaos and confusion of war.

“Sports teams get a chance to kind of understand their strengths and weaknesses because they play the game. They win, they lose, they get feedback, they go and watch the film. And they can make improvements to their team,” Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, the Air Force‘s deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements, told The Washington Times in a recent interview. “For obvious reasons, you don’t want to fight and get feedback and go change and fight again. We don’t want a season of fighting, so we have to figure out ways of probing ourselves, of testing ourselves, and trying to figure out where we have ideas that are working well, where our capabilities are coming together in the right way, and then where we need some improvement. Wargames are one of the things that help us with that.”

Key military leaders such as Gen. Hinote have become more outspoken in recent years about the successes and failures of wargaming exercises, particularly those that pit the U.S. against its chief global rival, China. Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Gen. John Hyten, for example, made headlines in July when he declared in a public speech that U.S. forces “failed miserably” in a simulated clash with China.

“An aggressive red team that had been studying the United States for the last 20 years just ran rings around us. They knew exactly what we’re going to do before we did it,” he said, setting off alarm bells in national security circles and stoking fears that the world’s best military was losing its edge at a dangerously fast pace.

Exposing weaknesses

That red team typically faces off against a “blue team” representing the U.S. and in some cases allies such as Britain, Australia or Japan. Given the nature of wargames and the purpose they serve for medium- and long-term military planning, officials say the specific circumstances are often tilted toward the red side, in an effort to highlight the vulnerabilities of the home team.

“We don’t stack the deck,” Gen. Hinote said. “There’s a temptation when you’re doing these war games, you want to win. There’s a temptation to structure the game so that you can win. And we don’t allow that. If anything, we’re probably more hard on ourselves on the blue side, the friendly side, than hopefully we would be in the real thing.

“You lean toward ‘worst case,’” he said. “I’d rather do that than lean toward ‘best case’ and be surprised.”

The games themselves can range from old-school table-top exercises to computer simulations and other methods of creating a realistic battlefield scenario. They typically begin by laying out the broad strokes of a conflict, such as a Chinese military move on Taiwan or a North Korean attack on its southern neighbor.

Pentagon officials rely heavily on intelligence community estimates to give an accurate picture of an enemy’s capabilities. The U.S. capabilities are also laid out in great detail so everyone involved with the exercise is aware of the levels of manpower, equipment and weapons available to them.

Wargames naturally focus on future conflicts, and so some assumptions might be made about what the enemy’s military might be capable of several years down the road.

That type of planning is key, military insiders say, to ensure that the Pentagon keeps one eye on the battles of the future even as it is preparing for a potential current-day fight with China.

“You’re looking out 18 months in advance. You’re about to run this year’s wargame, and you’re already approving the objectives for next year’s wargame,” said Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The time frames are deeply important, he added, as the very essence of the wargame changes dramatically depending on how far into the future you’re projecting.

“If the time horizon is one or two years, or even three or four years, it’s about things,” said Mr. Montgomery, who previously served as policy director for the Senate Armed Services Committee. “If the time horizon is 15 or 20 years, it’s more about strategy.”

Once the scenario and timeline are established, the two sides essentially take turns, with each move helping to determine how the battle plays out. Referees are usually present to ensure that those moves are realistic; one side cannot simply obliterate the rival country’s capital with nuclear weapons on its first turn, for example.

Increasingly, U.S. military services rely on computer modeling to help make the game as realistic as possible.

“What we have invested in quite a bit is the modeling part of that,” Gen. Hinote said. “Because what we’d rather be able to do … is to go, ‘This capability got turned on at this time, and modeling shows that it has this effect.’”

“The modeling we do off of air-to-air fighting, it’s real world. It’s as close as you can get without actually flying the aircraft against each other,” he added.

That combination of human moves and computer modeling have taken wargame scenarios to an entirely new level of realism, and Defense Department officials say those cutting-edge wargames have helped the U.S. better prepare for coming battles.

The China problem

For obvious reasons, many of the Pentagon‘s key wargames focus on threats posed by China, what Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin routinely refers to as the U.S. military‘s “pacing threat.” Analysts say that budgetary decisions driven by the sequestration budget caps of last decade have eroded much of America’s advantage over its foe, while China‘s military has vastly upgraded its capabilities on land and sea.

Chinese strategists also have the advantage of being able to focus on a few, close-in priorities such as Taiwan and control of the South China Sea, while U.S. strategists are looking at a global order to defend on every continent.

“We recognize they have closed the gap significantly because of our distraction over the last 20 years in the Middle East,” Mr. Montgomery said. “It’s not just a matter of presence and posture, but it’s also that the Navy and the Air Force have had to make draconian decisions about force readiness vs. force modernization vs. next-generation equipment and procurement vs. research and development for the next generation.”

But wargame exercises can encompass far more than simply playing out whether the U.S. Navy or Air Force could beat its Chinese counterpart in a one-on-one battle. Real-world scenarios are much more complex and include a host of geopolitical questions, such as whether previously friendly nations might bow to Chinese economic pressure and deny flyover rights to U.S. bombers.

Some of the most insightful publicly available wargame exercises incorporate those vital questions of economics, alliances and political leverage. For example, a recent wargame produced by the think tank Center for a New American Security (CNAS) looked at what the U.S. and its allies could do if China seized Dongsha, part of the Pratas Islands off the southern coast of Taiwan — a clear violation of Taiwanese sovereignty but far short of a full-scale invasion.

Given that the U.S. and its allies would surely seek to avoid a full-blown world-war scenario with China, the wargame exposed serious problems with the options available to American strategists.

“Worryingly, the game found few credible options for pushing China to abandon Dongsha and return to the status quo,” CNAS said in a report that laid out the results of the exercise, which involved Taiwanese, American and regional experts.

“The teams representing the United States and Taiwan struggled to compel a Chinese withdrawal from Dongsha without escalating the crisis. The team representing China avoided further escalation given its first-mover advantage, constrained territorial gains and geographic proximity. In contrast, the U.S. team had to push its forces far forward in ways that were risky and would be difficult to sustain,” CNAS researchers wrote. “Punitive non-military options, such as economic sanctions or information campaigns, took too long to produce effects and appeared too weak to compel China to abandon its gains. More aggressive military responses risked escalation to war, which both the U.S. and Taiwan teams wished to avoid.”

Military planners are keenly aware of the myriad of factors at play, including many that stretch beyond the traditional realm of pure combat. Gen. Hinote told The Times that the most recent major Air Force wargame exercise with China incorporated a host of other elements.

“We were talking through questions like … Could we expect to be allowed to do these actions, maybe take a cyber action against the Communist Party [of China]? Maybe do something about shipping, a blockade, stopping up the Malacca Strait, asking the Malaysians to stop the Malacca Strait.

“It’s not just the military doing military stuff, because that would be a really bad use of time,” he said.

All of those factors are kept closely tied to reality. But specialists concede that as wargame exercises stretch further into the future, the scenarios grow in complexity.

“The level of fantasy is driven by … the time horizon,” Mr. Montgomery said. “Three to five years, not a lot of fantasy. Fifteen to 20 years, the aliens are assisting the Chinese.”

Stocks and Oil Drop Amid New Coronavirus Variant

Business

Enspirers | Editorial Board

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November 27, 2021

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Stocks and Oil Drop Amid New Coronavirus Variant

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“The pandemic and Covid variants remain one of the biggest risks to markets, and are likely to continue to inject volatility,” Keith Lerner, a strategist at Truist, wrote in a note to clients.

Mr. Lerner said a modest sell-off is hardly unexpected, given the heights at which stocks have been trading. “We are not making any changes to our investment guidance at this point,” he wrote, adding that consumers and companies are much more adept at dealing with virus restrictions now.

Futures of West Texas Intermediate oil, the U.S. crude benchmark, plummeted more than 13 percent to $68.04 a barrel, the lowest since early September. The price of oil has been especially sensitive to virus restrictions that keep people at home. The drop comes just three days after the United States and five other countries announced a coordinated effort to tap into their national oil stockpiles, to try to drive down rising gas prices.

Brent futures, the European benchmark, fell 11 percent to about $73 a barrel. But Mr. Ganesh said UBS forecasts that the price will rise to $90 a barrel by March, partly in the expectation that the fears about new virus restrictions will be temporary.

Demand for the relative safety of government bonds jumped, pushing their prices up and their yields down. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury plunged 15 basis points, or 0.15 percentage points, to 1.48 percent, the biggest single-day drop since March 2020. The yield on Germany’s bund, Europe’s benchmark bond, fell 9 basis points to minus 0.34 percent.

In an echo of the market fluctuations of last year, stocks that flourished under lockdowns and quarantines rose, including Zoom and Peloton. Companies vulnerable to travel restrictions, like Carnival, the cruise company, and Boeing, the plane maker, fell.

In Asia, the Nikkei 225 in Japan closed 2.5 percent lower and the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong declined 2.7 percent.

South African scientists brace for wave propelled by omicron

World

Enspirers | Editorial Board

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November 27, 2021

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South African scientists brace for wave propelled by omicron

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — As the world grapples with the emergence of the new highly transmissible variant of COVID-19, worried scientists in South Africa – where omicron was first identified – are scrambling to combat its lightning spread across the country.

In the space of two weeks, the omicron variant has sent South Africa from a period of low transmission to rapid growth of new confirmed cases. The country’s numbers are still relatively low, with 2,828 new confirmed cases recorded Friday, but omicron’s speed in infecting young South Africans has alarmed health professionals.

“We’re seeing a marked change in the demographic profile of patients with COVID-19,” Rudo Mathivha, head of the intensive care unit at Soweto’s Baragwanath Hospital, told an online press briefing.

“Young people, in their 20s to just over their late 30s, are coming in with moderate to severe disease, some needing intensive care. About 65% are not vaccinated and most of the rest are only half-vaccinated,” said Mathivha. “I’m worried that as the numbers go up, the public health care facilities will become overwhelmed.”

She said urgent preparations are needed to enable public hospitals to cope with a potential large influx of patients needing intensive care.

“We know we have a new variant,” said Mathivha. “The worst case scenario is that it hits us like delta … we need to have critical care beds ready.”

What looked like a cluster infection among some university students in Pretoria ballooned into hundreds of new cases and then thousands, first in the capital city and then to nearby Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city.

Studying the surge, scientists identified the new variant that diagnostic tests indicate is likely responsible for as many as 90% of the new cases, according to South Africa’s health officials. Early studies show that it has a reproduction rate of 2 – meaning that every person infected by it is likely to spread it to two other people.

The new variant has a high number of mutations that appear to make it more transmissible and help it evade immune responses. The World Health Organization looked at the data on Friday and named the variant omicron, under its system of using Greek letters, calling it a highly transmissible variant of concern.

“It’s a huge concern. We all are terribly concerned about this virus,” Professor Willem Hanekom, director of the Africa Health Research Institute, told The Associated Press.

“This variant is mostly in Gauteng province, the Johannesburg area of South Africa. But we’ve got clues from diagnostic tests … that suggest that this variant is already all over South Africa,” said Hanekom, who is also co-chair of the South African COVID Variant Research Consortium.

“The scientific reaction from within South Africa is that we need to learn as much as soon as possible. We know precious little,” he said. “For example, we do not know how virulent this virus is, which means how bad is this disease that it causes?”

A key factor is vaccination. The new variant appears to be spreading most quickly among those who are unvaccinated. Currently, only about 40% of adult South Africans are vaccinated, and the number is much lower among those in the 20 to 40-year-old age group.

South Africa has nearly 20 million doses of vaccines – made by Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson – but the numbers of people getting vaccines is about 120,000 per day, far below the government’s target of 300,000 per day.

As scientists try to learn more about omicron, the people of South Africa can take measures to protect themselves against it, said Hanekom.

“This is a unique opportunity. There’s still time for people who did not get vaccinated to go and get the vaccine, and that will provide some protection, we believe, against this infection, especially protection against severe infection, severe disease and death,” he said. “So I would call on people to vaccinate if they can.”

Some ordinary South Africans have more mundane concerns about the new variant.

“We’ve seen increasing numbers of COVID-19, so I’ve been worried about more restrictions,” said Tebogo Letlapa, in Daveyton, eastern Johannesburg. “I’m especially worried about closing of alcohol sales because it’s almost festive season now.”

Caldwell-Pope, Beal help Wizards beat Thunder, 101-99

Sports

Enspirers | Editorial Board

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November 27, 2021

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Caldwell-Pope, Beal help Wizards beat Thunder, 101-99

OKLAHOMA CITY — Kantavious Caldwell-Pope scored a season-high 20 points, Bradley Beal also had 20 and the Washington Wizards beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 101-99 on Friday night.

The Wizards trailed by as many as 10 points in the first half before rebounding to snap a two-game skid.

Lu Dort led Oklahoma City with 21 points, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had 15. After winning four in a row, the Thunder have lost seven of eight.

The Thunder led 27-25 lead at the end of the first quarter, with Gilgeous-Alexander either scoring or assisting on 20 points.

Oklahoma City opened up a 52-44 lead late in the second quarter, but Caldwell-Pope scored seven straight points during a 12-0 run by the Wizards. Washington led 56-54 at the half.

Washington took a 76-68 lead heading into the fourth quarter. Oklahoma City made a late comeback attempt, but a 3-point attempt by Gilgeous-Alexander at the buzzer rimmed out.

TIP-INS

Thunder: Gilgeous-Alexander returned from a two-game absence due to a right ankle sprain. He also had nine assists and eight rebounds. … Kenrich Williams suffered a right ankle sprain in the fourth quarter and did not return.

Wizards: Montrezl Harrell scored 14 points in 20 minutes off the bench.

UP NEXT

Thunder: At Houston on Monday night.

Wizards: At Dallas on Saturday night.

LeBron James fined $15,000 for obscene gesture, warned about profane language

Sports

Enspirers | Editorial Board

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November 27, 2021

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LeBron James fined $15,000 for obscene gesture, warned about profane language

NEW YORK — LeBron James was fined $15,000 for an obscene gesture Friday by the NBA, which also warned the Lakers superstar about using profane language.

James made the gesture after making a shot late in Los Angeles’ 124-116 overtime victory in Indiana on Wednesday night.

He had missed a loss at New York a night earlier after he was suspended one game for hitting Detroit center Isaiah Stewart in the face and drawing blood last Sunday. He used profanity in his postgame interview after the victory in Indiana when discussing the suspension.

Also Friday, the NBA fined Portland’s Robert Covington $15,000 for throwing his facemask at a referee Wednesday. He was given a technical foul and ejected for that action, with 49 seconds left in the second quarter of the Trail Blazers’ 125-121 loss at Sacramento.

Oveckin’s hat trick gives Capitals a 4-3 win over Panthers

Sports

Enspirers | Editorial Board

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November 27, 2021

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Oveckin’s hat trick gives Capitals a 4-3 win over Panthers

WASHINGTON — Alex Ovechkin scored two of his three goals over 56 seconds in the second period and the Washington Capitals beat the Florida Panthers 4-3 on Friday.

Ovechkin has 18 goals, most through 21 games in a season by a player in at least his 17th season. He’s 19 goals from passing Jaromir Jagr for third on the career list following his 28th hat trick.

Washington has won eight of 10 and ended Florida’s four-game winning streak. Ilya Samsonov stopped 19 shots for the Capitals.

Sergei Bobrovsky allowed Tom Wilson’s eighth goal, which tied it at 1 at 1:34 of the second, and Ovechkin’s first goal. Bobrovsky left after Ovechkin’s goal at 2:50 but returned after Ovechkin scored against Spencer Knight at 3:46.

Ovechkin’s third goal came at 4:02 in the third period.

Evgeny Kuzentsov had three assists for Washington.

The Panthers’ Sam Reinhart scored his fourth goal at 6:49 of the second, and Bobrovsky left again, and returned with 2:42 to play in the second.

Bobrovsky stopped 19 of 22 shots and Knight made six saves in seven chances.

Jonathan Huberdeau’s seventh goal gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead with 32 seconds to play in the first.

Carter Verhaeghe scored at 5:36 of the third to cut Washington’s lead to 4-3.

NOTES:

Panthers: F Anthony Duclair was a late scratch. … F Alexsander Barkov missed his fourth straight game with a lower-body injury. … Huberdeau has four goals in six games and scored in six straight games.

Capitals: D Justin Schultz was out after injuring his upper body in Wednesday’s game against Montreal. He was replaced by Dennis Cholowski, who played in his second game this season. … F T.J. Oshie (lower body) is on injured reserve for the second time this season. … F Conor Sheary (upper body) missed his third straight game. … F Lars Eller, who hasn’t played since November 14, is out of COVID-19 protocols but not ready to play.

UP NEXT

Panthers: Host Seattle Kraken on Saturday.

Capitals: Visit the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday.

Gift Guide 2021: Best of Blu-ray, 4K UHD and DVD movies

Entertainment

Enspirers | Editorial Board

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November 27, 2021

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Gift Guide 2021: Best of Blu-ray, 4K UHD and DVD movies

Here’s a selection of top gift ideas for the DVD, Blu-ray and 4K UHD-loving, cinema connoisseurs in the family.

Middle-Earth: The Ultimate Collector’s Edition (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, 2,290 minutes, Rated: PG-13 and R, 2.39:1 aspect ratio, $249.99) — Filmmaker Peter Jackson’s grand gift of his Academy Award-winning adaptation of author J.R.R. Tolkien’s seminal work arrives to fans with this 31-disc, ultra-high definition collection packed with extras and goodies.

First and most importantly, the films included are both the theatrical and coveted extended versions in Blu-ray and 4K of “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (2012); “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” (2013); “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” (2014); “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” (2001); “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” (2002); and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (2003).

Covering the adventures of hobbit Bilbo Baggins and his nephew Frodo, the films take viewers deep into Middle-earth as humans, elves, hobbits and more battle the return of the Dark Lord Sauron as he attempts to rebuild his empire before Frodo and buddy Samwise Gamgee can destroy Sauron’s ring in the fires of Mount Doom.

Thanks to the 2160p resolution, high dynamic range, color enhancements and Dolby Atmos sound mixes, the results are breathtaking with numerous reasons to stop the films and enjoy their exquisite New Zealand landscapes, costuming and massive battle scenes.

An all-star cast brings the saga to life, including Ian McKellen as the wizard Gandalf; Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins; Sean Astin as Samwise Gamgee; Orlando Bloom as Legolas; Martin Freeman and Ian Holm as Bilbo Baggins; Cate Blanchett as Lady Galadriel; Christopher Lee as the wizard Saruman; and Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn (the heir to Gondor), just to name a few.

Suffice it to report, this is a set of films to embrace and pass on to generations.

Best extras: The film collection comes packaged in a gorgeous multi-brick-sized (7 inches tall by 11 inches wide), magnetically connected puzzle-box slipcase container that can be fully opened to display the film artwork collages almost 2 feet across or folded into a bulky container (7 inches tall by 6 inches wide).

Besides the discs, all housed in a cardboard slipcase and plastic clamshell, the package includes a 64-page, soft-cover mini-booklet (7 inches by 6 inches) focusing on costuming through sketches, photos and production notes of the main characters.

Also, owners get seven stylish trading-card-shaped art cards showcasing some of the key locations throughout Middle-earth including The Shire, Lake-Town, Erebor, Anduin, Rohan, Minas Tirith and Rivendell.

Most viewers will feel satisfied with the saturation of extras that first and foremost offer a total of 15 optional commentary tracks and a new bonus disc that includes a 27-minute-long rare Cannes presentation reel (teasing the incomplete films in May of 2001); and an over 90-minute, Zoom-style reunion with most of the cast and Mr. Jackson covering “The Lord of the Rings” film series and hosted by Stephen Colbert.

However, despite the innovative and attractive packaging, once again, and much to my chagrin, Warner Bros. has not put forth the one set “to rule them all” on the discs.

Hours of extras are missing that were found in the Blu-ray sets of “The Lord of the Rings” extended film trilogy from 2011 and “The Hobbit” extended film trilogy released in 2015.

Columbia Classics Collection: Volume 2 (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, not rated to R, 815 minutes, 1.85:1 to 2.39:1 aspect ratio, $164.99) — One of the oldest of Hollywood’s revered movie studios taps into its vast archive to deliver a select group of six films representing some of its finest work over its more than 80 years of production history.

Remastered from original camera negatives or digital intermediates to the 4K format, the set features:

• Otto Preminger’s 1959 black-and-white courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Murder” starring James Stewart and George C. Scott.

• Carol Reed’s multiple Academy Award-winning 1968 musical “Oliver” starring Oliver Reed and Jack Wild.

• Martin Scorsese’s 1976 seminal drama “Taxi Driver” starring Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster.

• Ivan Reitman’s 1981 screwball comedy “Stripes” with Bill Murray and Harold Ramis.

• Ang Lee’s 1995 multiple Academy Award-nominated period romantic comedy based on Jane Austen’s novel “Sense and Sensibility” starring Emma Thompson (Academy Award winner for Best Adapted Screenplay), Kate Winslet and Alan Rickman.

And, the weakest of the bunch:

• David Fincher’s 2010 biographical drama “The Social Network” starring Jessie Eisenberg as Facebook’s co-founder and resident megalomaniac Mark Zuckerberg.

Suffice it to report, the collection makes a great gift for any cinephile in the family.

Best extras: Each film has an abundance of featurettes and commentary tracks highlighted by a new 4K, 45-minute retrospective on “Stripes” starring Mr. Murray and Mr. Reitman; a 41-minute Tribeca Film Festival 40th anniversary session on “Taxi Driver” with key cast and Mr. Scorsese; a new 28-minute 4K, 25th anniversary reunion with cast and crew for “Sense and Sensibility”; and a new optional commentary track with film historian Foster Hirsch for “Anatomy of a Murder.”

And, just to show the breadth of Columbia‘s work, the studio tosses in a bonus Blu-ray disc offering more than three hours from its short films library.

The collection includes the Three Stooges 1936 classic “Disorder in the Court,” the 1955 cartoon “Stage Door Magoo” starring the voice of Jim Backus as Mr. Magoo and the 2017 toon “Puppy! A Hotel Transylvania Short” directed by Genndy Tartakovsky.

Viewers find all of the entertainment in a burgundy cardboard package (almost a foot long, 7 inches tall and 2.5 inches wide) that opens through a pair of winged panels outward to reveal three films encased on each panel and also showcases the familiar lady of Columbia Pictures holding her torch.

Behind the lady is a slot containing an over 80-glossy-page hardback book offering essays and images about the films as well as the restoration process.

Mad Max Anthology (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Rated PG-13 to R, 415 minutes, 2.39:1 aspect ratio, $89.99) — Filmmaker George Miller’s acclaimed post-apocalyptic universe highlighting the four punishing adventures of premiere survivor Max Rockatansky arrives on a four-disc UHD set perfect for movie-lovers looking for a jolt of high-octane, vehicular action.

Viewers can now appreciate the best available digital resolution for “Mad Max” (1979), “Mad Max The Road Warrior” (1981), “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” (1985) and “Mad Max Fury Road” (2015).

Of course, Mel Gibson helped define his career as Max and starred in the first three films while Tom Hardy took over the lead in the fourth, arguably the most eye-popping of the bunch.

Most notable for cinephiles the new UHD presentations for “Mad Max The Road Warrior” and “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” are derived from meticulous scans of the original camera negatives.

Best extras: Well, the good news is the films look great and maintain their grizzled visual style, always looking like a dust storm was kicked up in a home entertainment room, while the included digital codes offer an easy way to add the classics to a streaming library.

Unfortunately, all of the extras available on previous releases over the years are missing with the collection only offering extras on “The Road Warrior.”

Specifically, viewers get an optional commentary track with Mr. Miller and cinematographer Dean Semler, an introduction to the movie by venerable film historian Leonard Maltin and a new 50-minute documentary on the making of the film.

Audrey Hepburn: 7-Movie Collection (Paramount Home Entertainment, Rated G to PG, 940 minutes, 1.85:1 to 2.20:1 aspect ratio, $55.99) — Viewers can appreciate the life of Academy Award-winning actress, fashion icon and humanitarian Audrey Hepburn in this eight-disc Blu-ray set.

Highlights of the set include … let’s get serious, all of the works of this actress’ career are pretty much highlights.

Lucky gift receivers get the romantic comedy based on Truman Capote’s novella “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” with George Peppard (1961); the legendary musical adaptation of “Pygmalion,” “My Fair Lady” with Rex Harrison (1964); the musical romantic comedy “Funny Face” with Fred Astaire (1957); a Cinderella tale reimagined in “Sabrina” with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden (1954); another rom-com in “Paris When It Sizzles” reuniting her with Holden (1964); King Video’s monstrous adaptation of “War and Peace (1956); and, of course, her Academy Award-winning performance in “Roman Holiday” with Gregory Peck (1953).

Hepburn’s charm, infectious style and stage presence made her one of the most well-known actresses of the era, and the set delivers a high definition smorgasbord of nearly all of her best moments on screen.

Best extras: Paramount basically rereleases in a sturdy clamshell case all of the previous Blu-ray discs of these movies (including the two-disc “My Fair Lady” set) sans the debut of “Paris When It Sizzles” to the format.

That effort also equals an overly generous supply of previously released bonus content found on the discs.

Specifically, that’s hours and hours of features that range from an optional commentary track with producer Richard Shepherd on “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”; an hourlong documentary on the making of “My Fair Lady” with a focus on Hepburn and Holden during their Paramount years (30 minutes each); a remembrance of the actress from her son Sean (12 minutes); and multiple featurettes spread out across the discs covering her influence on fashion and style.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Rated G, 100 minutes, 1.85:1 aspect ratio, $41.99) — The 1971 musical fantasy that adapted Roald Dahl’s classic children’s novel to the big screen debuts in UHD to offer a magical evening of entertainment for the entire family.

Gene Wilder, in arguably the finest performance of his career, starred as the eccentric candymaking tycoon Willy Wonka.

When he allows five lucky children who find golden tickets hidden within special Wonka Bars to visit his factory and learn some of its secrets, the wild adventure turns into one of the most fun and twisted series of morality lessons ever presented on screen.

Not only is the film remembered for Wilder’s performance, the Oompa Loompas and the hit song “The Candy Man,” but the eclectic group of children who included Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum), Veruca Salt (Julie Dawn Cole), Violet Beauregarde (Denise Nickerson), Mike Teevee (Paris Themmen) and Augustus Gloop (Michael Böllner).

The 4K, screen-filling presentation does not disappoint with a tasty collection of saturated colors especially present in Wonka’s wild realms stuffed with every sort of candy-fied hues.

Best extras: Viewers will find a complete set of goodies culled from the 2011, 40th anniversary, high definition release and found on the included Blu-ray version of the film.

They range from an optional commentary track with the Wonka kids (also on the 4K disc); a 30-minute production documentary with the director and most of the key cast and crew; and four karaoke-style singalongs.

Apocalypse Now: 40th Anniversary Steelbook Edition (Lionsgate Home Entertainment, Rated R, 196 minutes, 2.39:1 aspect ratio, $27.99) — One of the most revered war dramas in the history of cinema returns to the UHD format encased in illustrated steel as a Best Buy exclusive and sure to make a perfect gift for lovers of this classic film.

Cinema auteur Francis Ford Coppola gives viewers the expansive final cut of his Academy Award-winning movie from 1979 offering a smothering and explosive tale set during the Vietnam War.

Amid the violence and camaraderie of warfare, burned-out U.S. Army Capt. Benjamin Willard (Martin Sheen) is sent on a mission to terminate the life of rogue U.S. Army Special Forces Col. Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), stuck in the jungles of Cambodia and fighting his own vicious war with the enemy by using a fiercely loyal platoon of soldiers.

Epic scenes in the production (reference the helicopter attack set to Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”) are brought to eye-popping life, thanks to the UHD definition remaster from the original negative.

Equally impressive, the film offers a cavalcade of stars including Robert Duvall as Lt. Col. William Kilgore, Laurence Fishburne as Gunner’s Mate 3rd Class Tyrone Miller, Dennis Hopper as an American photojournalist, Harrison Ford as Col. G. Lucas and Scott Glenn as Capt. Richard M. Colby.

Best extras: The one piece of bonus content on either of the 4K or Blu-ray disc is an introduction to the film by Mr. Ford Coppola.

The extra is really the slipcover and metal case that features a fiery red-and-orange, hellish color scheme with new artwork from Ken Taylor.

The slipcover offers a close-up of Willard’s face with a silhouetted soldier in front of him.

Remove the cover to get on the front a profile of Willard smoking a cigarette while on the back a menacing face of Kurtz with a pair of soldiers silhouetted in the foreground.

The interior of the case offers a group of helicopters flying in the jungle and past the setting sun.

This latest release is certainly a worthy gift for any Steelbook collector in the family, although the lack of digital goodies (abundantly available on previous releases) is disappointing.

Note: Gift givers looking for other ideas to complement the “Apocalypse Now” bounty should consider a couple of other newly arrived war dramas presented in the UHD format.

First, the Mel Gibson-directed Hacksaw Ridge: Steelbook Edition (Lionsgate Home Entertainment, 139 minutes, $27.99) stars Andrew Garfield as World War II field medic and conscientious objector Desmond Doss who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for single-handedly saving 75 men during the Allies’ attempts to secure Okinawa Island in the famous 1945 battle.

The metal case boasts new artwork from artist Krzysztof Domaradzki and includes the 4K and Blu-ray versions of the film in the two-disc set.

Next, the meticulously restored World War II action blockbuster from 1961 “The Guns of Navarone” (Sony Picture Home Entertainment, 161 minutes, $30.99) starred Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn as a specialized team of Allied soldiers on a dangerous to infiltrate a Nazi-occupied fortress and disable two long-range field guns to help rescue thousands of trapped British soldiers.

The two-disc set offers a 4K and Blu-ray disc and a bunch of extras including two optional commentary tracks and a look at the restoration process.

The Ultimate Richard Pryor Collection: Uncensored (Time Life, not rated, 1,584 minutes, 1.33:1, 1.78:1 and 2.39:1 aspect ratio, $99.99) — One of the greatest comedians in the history of the galaxy gets celebrated through a 13-disc DVD set covering his theatrically released concerts and appearances on television shows.

For those uninitiated, Richard Pryor helped set the bar for dissecting social and cultural taboos as well as the complexity of race relations through his innovative style of raw and edgy humor.

The discs first include his four full-length filmed concerts — “Live & Smokin” (1971), “Live in Concert” (1979), “Live on the Sunset Strip” (1982) and “Here and Now” (1983) — and they pretty much offer a template for any stand-up comedian to succeed and provide more than enough testaments to his brilliance.

Next, viewers get “Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling,” a semi-autobiographical film covering many moments from the comedian’s life that were actually written, produced and directed by Pryor.

On the television front, let’s start with his 1977 NBC-TV special and the only four episodes in existence of the controversial “The Richard Pryor Show.” It featured Robin Williams, Sandra Bernhard and even a skit where Pryor played a bartender in the “Star Wars” cantina bar.

Also, the set contains five episodes of his second, ill-fated, TV series “Pryor’s Place.” The Saturday morning show ran for one season in 1984 and included famous guests such as Sammy Davis Jr., Willie Nelson and Lily Tomlin.

Additionally, and most fun for me, are seven of his appearances on talk shows hosted by Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin and Dick Cavett. These are pure gems and complete episodes to boot.

Finish off your immersion in the world of the comic-turned-legend with two documentaries “Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic” and “I am Richard Pryor” (2019).

Expect big, gut-busting laughs from the set tailored mainly for only the maturest of gift receivers.

Best extras: Spread out on the discs are current interviews with the likes of his wife Jennifer Lee Pryor, Mel Brooks, Whoopi Goldberg and Miss Tomlin as well as raw footage from his final stand-up appearances at the Comedy Store and footage from his first film “Uncle Tom’s Fairy Tales.”

Owners also get a slick 40-page, full-color booklet filled with collages of his life and words, from his scribbled notes for set lists to his arrest record and loaded with personal quotes from Pryor.

Of course, the only miscue from Time Life is making viewers watch all of the madness in a woefully antiquated DVD format and not at the very least in high definition.

Dune: Special Edition (Arrow Video, Rated PG-13, 137 minutes, 2.39:1 aspect ratio, $49.95) — Back in 1984, director David Lynch accepted the impossible task of bringing Frank Herbert’s seminal science-fiction opus to the big screen.

His smothering and murky screenplay, twinned with opulent visual effects and production design, debuts in the 4K format, meticulously remastered from the 35mm camera negative.

The dry adaptation took viewers to a universe mired by a cutthroat geopolitical climate ruled by the control of a hallucinogenic drug called Spice.

Paul Atreides (Kyle MacLachlan), heir to the House of Atreides, must battle rivals House of Harkonnen to become the “chosen” one and lead a group of warriors on the coveted desert spice planet Arakkis against the galactic emperor to free their world.

The film will probably be most remembered not as a “Star Wars” for adults but for its cavalcade of pop culture stars, including Patrick Stewart (“Star Trek”) as warrior Gurney Halleck; Brad Dourif (“Chucky”) as Piter De Vries, the Harkonnen Mentat, a human computer; Virginia Madsen (“Candyman”) as Princess Irulan; Max von Sydow (“Flash Gordon”) as Doctor Kynes; Kenneth McMillan (“Salem’s Lot”) as the disgusting Baron Vladimir Harkonnen; and Sting, the famed lead singer of The Police, as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen’s nephew Feyd-Rautha.

However, the clean, crisp and faithful visuals and colors will not disappoint and bundled with a vast collection of extras make the perfect gift for those fans of Mr. Lynch and his complex translation.

Best extras: Overwhelming would be an understatement as Arrow Video completely deconstructs the film: first with a pair of optional commentary tracks with film historian Paul M. Sammon and “The Projection Booth” podcaster Mike White, then followed up with a 40-minute, vintage, 2003 documentary on the production.

Also, on the 4K disc are featurettes on the special effects, costuming, miniature models as well as deleted scenes.

Next, go to a Blu-ray bonus disc to first watch a thoroughly entertaining, 22-minute look at the marketing of the “Dune” action figure and toy lines explored by toy expert Brian Stillman.

Also, viewers get current interviews with make-up artist Giannetto de Rossi, special make-up effects artist Christopher Tucker, production coordinator Golda Offenheim and actor Paul Smith (Baron Harkonnen’s older nephew Rabban).

The cardboard slipcase also contains a 60-page, color, bound, heavy paper stock book with five essays on the film (three new); definitions of key terminology in the “Dune” universe; and a double-sided, fold-out poster (16 inches by 20 inches) with new artwork from Daniel Taylor.

And, the plastic slipcase holding the discs also contains six, full-color, double-sided, postcard-sized reproductions of theater lobby cards.

A Clockwork Orange (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Rated R, 138 minutes, 1.66:1 aspect ratio, $33.99) — Legendary director Stanley Kubrick brought Anthony Burgess 1962 dystopian crime novel to shocking life on the big screen back in 1971.

Now, even more visceral in a new release in the UHD format, the story finds Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell in the role of a lifetime), leader of an ultra-brutal gang dubbed the “droogs,” paying for his crimes of torture and rape in one of the more unusual ways possible.

He agrees to become a subject of an experimental treatment to cure his ultra-violent ways. Treated like a lab rat, he’s exposed to a nonstop, multimedia sensory overload of horrors and violence all played out to the music of Beethoven.

With any thoughts of impurity now making him viciously ill, he is released to the world as a rehabilitated man but also, leaving him defenseless to his previous victims.

The 4K mastering stuns by the chance to admire the stark existence of a research facility against the wild colors of 1960s decor and the droogs’ bloody criminal acts in a world concocted by cinematographer John Alcott and Kubrick as they bend the rules in both composition and lighting.

Best extras: First watch the film in 4K with an optional commentary track with Mr. McDowell and filmmaker Nick Redman, then dive over to Blu-ray for bonus content culled from the 2011 DigiBook high definition release.

The best include three retrospectives on the film (more than 90 minutes in total) deconstructing the production and its legacy with help from filmmakers such as William Friedkin, Sydney Pollack and Steven Spielberg.

Unfortunately, missing are two meaty retrospective documentaries (almost four hours in total) covering Kubrick and Mr. McDowell, included in the 2011 release, that would have made this package the ultimate “A Clockwork Orange” release.

The Shawshank Redemption (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Rated R, 142 minutes, 2.39:1 aspect ratio, $33.99) — Director Frank Darabont’s 1994 multiple Academy Award-nominated adaptation of a Stephen King novella makes its debut on UHD to offer a new generation of home theater audiences the chance to appreciate one of the best films in the history of cinema.

The prison drama centers around the woeful existence of mild-mannered Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a banker wrongly convicted of killing his wife and her lover and serving two life sentences in Shawshank State Prison.

He befriends Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding (Morgan Freeman) and forms a lifelong friendship beyond prison as each learns about life, survival in the harshest of environments and that dreams can actually come true.

The screen-filling presentation pays homage to the grizzled and often sterile source material, sometimes set awash in a bluish tint amid the shadowy existence of the trapped prisoners, but by far, it’s the best digital version of the movie to date.

Best extras: Found on the included Blu-ray disc are all of the goodies originally released on the 2008 DigiBook, high definition version of the film.

Don’t miss the optional commentary track with Mr. Darabont (his directorial debut by the way) and a vintage roundtable discussion with Mr. Darabont, Mr. Robbins and Mr. Freeman on a 2004 episode of the “Charlie Rose” talk show.

Inglourious Basterds (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, Rated R, 153 minutes, 2.39:1 aspect ratio, $29.98) — Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 World War II revenge fantasy finally debuts on UHD for fans of the director and extreme war dramas.

With eight Academy Award nominations, the film covers the adventures of an American team of soldiers nicknamed “the Basterds.” Led by Lt. Aldo “the Apache” Raine (Brad Pitt), they stick it to the Third Reich while ultimately on a mission to take down Der Fuhrer.

Most notable is the Academy Award-winning performance of Christoph Waltz as a quirky, ruthless and sinister SS officer, Standartenführer Hans “The Jew Hunter” Landa. Mr. Waltz pretty much steals the show.

The 4K release takes full advantage of the format adding crisp detail and high dynamic range to showcase the period costuming, the production design and, of course, the stomach-churning violence.

Best extras: Universal ports almost all of the production featurettes from the 2009 Blu-ray release led by a 31-minute roundtable discussion with Mr. Tarantino and Mr. Pitt, moderated by film critic Elvis Mitchell.

Additionally, viewers get a new extra, an over hourlong chat with Mr. Tarantino from 2009 as a part of The New York Times’ “TimesTalks” series, moderated by journalist Lynn Hirschberg.

Star Trek: The Original Four Movie Collection (Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment, Rated PG, 585 minutes, 2.39:1 aspect ratio, $90.99) — Paramount boldly takes the most beloved of USS Enterprise crews into UHD realms with the release of their first four films in this eight-disc set featuring 4K remastering of each from original film elements.

In a befuddling release for the studio, it offers the first four films — “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (1979), “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Director’s Cut” (1982), “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” (1984) and “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” (1986) — starring Capt. James T. Kirk (William Shatner), Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley), chief engineer Montgomery Scott (James Doohan), security officer Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig), helmsman Hikaru Sulu (George Takei) and communications officer Lt. Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) but leaves out their final two films “The Final Frontier” and “The Undiscovered Country.”

No matter, each of the 4K discs offers the best available version of the films to ever be released and by far the gem of the lot is “The Wrath of Khan,” which has Capt. Kirk and the Enterprise crew face-off in a cat-and-mouse game with archenemy Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban).

Obviously, fans of Gene Roddenberry’s universe will be smitten with a visually fresh look at these classic sci-fi films.

Best extras: Although each of the 4K discs offers optional commentary tracks (seven in total with the fourth film spotlighted by a track with Mr. Shatner and Nimoy, no less), the bulk of the goodies are found on the four Blu-ray disc versions of the films (also remastered).

The outstanding highlight among the hours of production featurettes is an encyclopedic “Library Computer” viewing mode for each film stuffed with pop-up facts on topics such as culture, life forms, science, people and ships.

Randolph Scott Western Collection (Mill Creek Entertainment, not rated, 968 minutes, 1.85:1, 2.39:1 aspect ratio, $75.99) — Although perhaps not as familiar as John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, Randolph Scott was one of the hardest-working and equally endearing leading men in Hollywood.

He gets celebrated in this Blu-ray collection of a dozen films sampling just some of his 60 performances as a quiet, weathered cowboy.

Specifically covering his Westerns for Columbia Pictures from the 1940s to 1960, the collection includes “The Desperados” (1943), “The Nevadan” (1950), “Santa Fe” (1951), “Man in the Saddle” (1952), “Hangman’s Knot” (1952), “The Stranger Wore a Gun” (1953), “A Lawless Street” (1955), “The Tall T” (1957), “Decision At Sundown” (1957), “Buchanan Rides Alone” (1958), “Ride Lonesome” (1959) and “Comanche Station” (1960).

Most notable from the films, besides the panoramic views of the Southwest, are the appearances of many Hollywood legends such as Glenn Ford, Angela Lansbury, Lee Marvin, Maureen O’Sullivan and Donna Reed.

Don’t expect any remastering here, but the visuals using technologies of the day such as Technicolor and CinemaScope hold up and deliver some colorful adventures in the Old West.

Best extras: Viewers get five optional commentary tracks from historians and critics for the films “The Desperados,” “The Tall T,” “Buchanan Rides Alone,” “Hangman’s Knot” and “The Stranger Wore a Gun” and an 11-minute brief overview of Scott’s work at Columbia.

Also, the package includes a 12-page, full-color booklet showcasing posters and a synopsis of each movie and some Scott trivia.

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Gift Guide 2021: Best of Blu-ray, 4K UHD and DVD movies

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