Roundup: Oil and gas plans / Bird flu mutation / Supreme Court

Oil and gas giants: Big European energy companies that invested heavily in the clean energy transition found their share performance this year lagging U.S. rivals Exxon and Chevron, which had kept their focus on oil and gas. Against this backdrop, the likes of BP and Shell this year sharply slowed their plans to spend billions on wind and solar power projects and shifted spending to higher-margin oil and gas projects. Read more from Reuters.

A key and a lock: A genetic analysis suggests the bird flu virus mutated inside a Louisiana patient who contracted the nation’s first severe case of the illness, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week. Scientists believe the mutations may allow the virus to better bind to receptors in the upper airways of humans—something they say is concerning but not a cause for alarm. Read more from The Associated Press.

The highest court: Louisiana is at the center of two high-profile legal battles that could reshape the state’s political and cultural landscape. Both a contentious redistricting fight over congressional maps and the ongoing litigation against a law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms will be heard by the nation’s highest court. Read more from The Center Square.