Morning Coffee is a robust blend of links to news around the internet concerning the Naval Air Station Patuxent River economic community. The opinions expressed here do not reflect opinions of the Leader’s owners or staff.

Bipartisan support grows for a bill to prevent anyone who has visited Syria or Iraq in the past five years from traveling to the US on a visa waiver and requires those who can use the visa waiver program to have passports with e-chips that store their biometric data, reports the Washington Times, calling it a major shift from just a few months ago.

The Washington Post reports, Senator Barbara Mikulski has proposed legislation to overturn new regulations  imposing new economic demands on employers of foreign, seasonal workers. The visas impacted by this bill are used by oyster shuckers and workers in other seafood industries. “Maryland’s seafood industry is critical for jobs on the Eastern Shore and for our way of life,”  Sen. Mikulski said in a statement. “Our seafood businesses deserve a government on their side.”

Army General John Campbell says that no nation does more to prevent civilian casualties than the US, reports Military.com, but that we failed to meet our own standards in bombing the wrong target in Kunduz, Afghanistan.

More than 100 heads of government and 40,000 attendees launch a two-week United Nations conference on climate change today, Nov. 30. Negotiations are likely to be contentious, Time reports, developed nations versus developing nations will seek a way to apportion the global bill over global warming.

Pope Francis warns of the cost of failure at the climate talks, urging leaders to work together for an agreement to cut green house gasses, and asking science and business to partner to protect the environment, reports UPI.

The US economy grew at a healthier clip in the third quarter than initially thought, reports Reuters. The Commerce Department on Tuesday said the nation’s gross domestic product grew at a 2.1 percent annual pace, as businesses reduced an inventory bloat less aggressively than previously believed.

Over the Thanksgiving Holiday season, more than 103 million people shopped online. Online shoppers outnumbered their brick and mortar counterparts by a million according the National Retail Federation, reports Bloomberg.

Fattest-ever US cattle herd signals an end to the seven-year run of record beef prices. Boomberg reports, cattle futures have plunged 23 percent from an all-time high a year ago.

The Marine Corps selected BAE Systems and SAIC to move into the engineering and manufacturing development phase of the Amphibious Combat Vehicle Phase 1 Increment 1 (ACV 1.1) program. The two companies were selected from five competitors, reports USNI.org, and each was awarded a contract to build 13 vehicles now, with an option to build three additional vehicles each at a later date. BAE Systems’ contract is for $103.8 million, while SAIC’s is for $121.5 million.