1385: Flu Zone

Link

Apple claimed its TV+ service had less than 20 million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada as of July, allowing it to pay behind-the-scenes production crew lower rates than streamers with more subscriptions, according to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, a union that represents TV and movie workers who perform jobs like operating cameras and building sets.

Apple has never revealed subscriber numbers for its Apple TV+ streaming service, which launched in the fall of 2019. Analysts are reluctant to offer estimates, but many say that its scale pales in comparison to services like Netflix, which claimed 209 million subscribers as of Q2, and Disney+, which claimed 116 million.

The fact that Apple can pay a discounted rate despite being the most valuable publicly traded company in the world highlights some of the issues facing Hollywood workers as streaming supplants linear TV and movies, and is raising ire among union members who are deciding whether to strike for better pay and working conditions.

Under the current contract, high-budget productions intended for streaming can offer lower rates to workers if the streaming service has less than 20 million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada, which is determined on July 1 every year. Apple told IATSE that it had less than 20 million subscribers, a union spokesman said.

The union is currently in negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers over a new contract. Apple is a member of the alliance, but the alliance negotiates for all of its members, and doesn’t create carve-outs for specific companies, according to a spokesperson for the industry group.

An Apple spokesperson declined to comment on subscriber numbers but said the company pays rates in line with leading streaming services.

Under the current contract, productions made for streaming services are governed under less strict labor terms than traditional TV shows or movies because streaming profitability is “presently uncertain” and productions needed greater flexibility, according to a copy of the contract reviewed by CNBC.

But union leaders argue that streaming is no longer a particularly new form of media, and companies that bankroll streaming productions should pay rates closer to traditional media productions.

“Workers on certain ‘new media’ streaming projects get paid less, even on productions with budgets that rival or exceed those of traditionally released blockbusters,” an IATSE press release said this week, noting that negotiations had stalled.

Same reason Sears didn’t see Amazon threat

Same reason USA Shitzens don’t see the Chiners as their next rulers

Same reason Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette didn’t fear the gathering crowds and Robespierre’s rants.

The vested classes rarely see change until it’s too late. The have become too comfortable.

Those with nothing have nothing to lose as Bob Dylan would say. Watch what happens in 2022 when the socialists increase their power in DC.

That, in accordance with the foregoing, I hereby recommend to the Secretary of Defense that all pilots, crew and flight personnel in the military service who required hospitalization from injection or received any Covid 19 vaccination be grounded similarly for further dispositive assessment.

Link

IBV vaccines protect the chickens from infection for only about nine weeks. That‘s long enough for the chickens destined to be eaten, but those raised for their eggs require constant boosters. They receive two or three attenuated virus vaccines at first, and then periodic deactivated virus boosters thereafter, to maintain their protection. Adenovirus vector vaccines have been tried in chickens, with efficacy similar to that induced by the attenuated virus vaccines. This is very likely an unstated reason that vaccine vector and mRNA messenger technology were used for our own SARS-2 jabs. It was known from experience with animals that deactivated virus vaccines would not work nearly as well, and that attenuated viruses were too dangerous.

There are other interesting tidbits in the literature on IBV vaccines too. For example: „The basis of immunity to IBV is not well understood. Serum antibody levels do not correlate with protection, although local antibody is believed to play a role.“ In other words, all those studies crying to the heavens about higher blood antibody levels after dose 3 are dancing upon a likely irrelevant metric. And then there’s this, from the same 2003 paper, on the feasibility of a SARS vaccine in light of the experience with IBV:

"Of the players the Cowboys have had on the reserve/COVID-19 list so far this season, all have been vaccinated and none returned sooner than 10 days."

Link

TYFYC and answer.

Another paper exec Producer for the show sent me a dire warning, something about

having just gotten out of a meeting that he heard stuff he hasn't heard in 26

years in the industry. He said he would send me a detailed report. We shall see.

His main point though was a shortage of printer paper....

ITM Gents,

As you probably have heard about the Cargoships backed up in California's Port. 65 and counting.

The main reason is not enough trucks to deliver loads from the port.

Now can you guess why there are not enough trucks?

About 2 years ago California Ports put out new rules on what you can drive into the port as far as trucks go. Every truck had to be 2006 and newer.

Now drivers a cheap when it comes to their trucks. Most don't want to buy anything newer than 1999.

Why 1999? That is the year cut off for the ELD Electronic Logs. 2000 and newer must have the ELD.

Now as far as the Port goes it is more about environmental standards than ELD's. That one acted caused about a 50% in loss of trucks. So they fixed something that wasn't broken.

It won't be long before they lose more drives because of the new rules.

Over the road drivers hate the idea of the ELD's. To be tracked and log time doesn't sit well with them.

Later Gents.

Hi John and Adam,

I'm a millennial owner of a California brewery and I have some info about

the rise in CO2 prices. THEY ARE ASTRONOMICAL! 300% in some cases. I'm

friends with our CO2 sales rep and he tells me the CO2 used in dry ice,

welding tanks and in our case, carbonation, is a purified byproduct of the

oil refining process.

From what I understand, several oil refineries on the west coast shut down

because of the lockdowns and will not be reopened because of carbon tax

increases. While we used to get our CO2 from a plant in Stockton, they're

having to go to San Diego and even trucking it in from Oregon and

Washington to meet the demand.

There ARE machines that can pull CO2 out of the air or recycle the CO2

'saved or created' during the fermentation process but they seem a lot more

"green gimmicky'' than actually practical.

Cheers!

Bryan

Predator Security & Defense - PSD VIP Executive Protection Training & Facility > Application

Ok Adam, I’ll try to provide some addition information, now that I’ve had a

chance to process things a little more.

I know you’ve received a lot of commentary about the exploits of Victorian

Premier Daniel Andrews; better know to most as Dictator Dan (“DD”). I am

sure now that this guy is not just a political criminal; he is the true

definition of a madman. A psychopath really.

Melbourne in particular, is now being run by a regime of unelected health

bureaucrats, under DD’s strict control. Everything is being effectively

run through the Premier’s Private Office, and parliament remains

suspended. Under the State of Emergency - currently extended until 23rd

December - DD is using the provisions of s.199 & s.200 of Victoria’s Public

Health & Wellbeing Act 2008 (introduced by Andrews when he was the Minister

for Health) to use the virus as an excuse to exercise unrivalled power and

control over everything that happens here. This Act is so egregious, it

effectively allows the Premier to suspend all democratic process and rule

by decree.

This week, Melbourne took the mantle for being the most locked down city on

Earth. The current lockdown - number 6 - was touted as “a one week, short

sharp circuit breaker”. That was at the end of July. It is still going,

with no end in sight.

People here are desperate. Suicides are spiralling, businesses are being

destroyed in wholesale fashion, and the entire city now resembles something

out of a B grade, Hollywood end-of-the-world movie.

Under the current rules, people from greater Melbourne - around 5 million

people - are not allowed to travel any further than 10km from their homes,

and then only for 5 permitted reasons. Permitted work, shopping for

essentials (only one person from a house, and only once per day), two hours

of recreation, health care, and getting vaccinated. All schools are

closed. There is no sport allowed.

A 9pm-5am curfew is also in place, and is brutally enforced by the State’s

once great police force.

Those of us lucky enough to still be working have to carry travel papers

and work permits. And anyone caught trying to leave the Melbourne area and

travel into the regional parts of the state is slapped with a $5,400 fine,

and threaten with jail if they persist.

Under the provisions of s.199 of the Act, the government is required by law

to present the medical data underlying all of this to the Parliament each

month. Andrews refuses to do this, and since he’s suspended Parliament

anyway, he just goes on about his business without a care. Naturally, the

MSM plays this little attention.

Tension has been building for months, and rather than act like a real

leader and try to keep things calm, Andrews continues to use inflammatory

language. He’s aided in this by his taxpayer funded propaganda team - an

office of around 80 people using thousands of fake social media accounts.

The ruthless way this team operates would make even Josef Goebbels blush.

So with all of that background, we come to the events of this week.

Andrews is a member of the Labor Party here, and comes from their Socialist

Left faction. Probably the biggest supporter of he and his Party is the

construction union known as the Construction, Forestry, Mining & Energy

Union; or the CFMEU. Think perhaps the Teamsters on steroids. This union

controls every construction project in the state, in the best mafia style

traditions. I should have mentioned earlier that despite most industries

being shut down, the construction industry hasn’t stopped. Oh, there’s

been limits on workforce sizes on private industry sites, of course, but on

government projects, it has been business as usual and full steam ahead.

Like all good dictators, Andrews wants all his shiny new, Chinese funded

infrastructure projects delivered before the next election.

The CFMEU is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and they prop up the

Labor party finances handsomely, and since their members haven’t been

affected by any of the shutdowns, they kept nice and quiet.

Until this week.

Andrews and his Obergruppenführer, Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton,

announced an immediate vaccine mandate for all construction workers, and

that at least one dose would need to be delivered by the end of this week

to be allowed to work on-site. This did not exactly go down very well.

The leadership of the CFMEU was seen by many of their members as having

sold them out to Andrews. On Monday, around a thousand of them rallied

outside the union’s headquarters and it got pretty ugly. Protesting here

right now is illegal, but curiously, Victoria Police, now infamous for

their brutal suppression of all previous protests - protesters who oppose

the government - chose to stand back and do very little. Apparently its ok

to aggressively assault civilians on the street, even if they’re pregnant

women or elderly grandmothers, but its a different story when they’re

confronting thousands of very tough, fighting age men who also happen to be

members of the Andrews power base. Hardly coincidentally, the police union

here is also firmly held in Mr. Andrews back pocket, and are easily bought

off by offers of hefty pay rises and unprecedented, unchecked power.

Monday’s demonstration turned into a 12 hours event, with angry CFMEU

members marching on Parliament House, then through the city and out onto a

major freeway. By the end of that day, it had become ugly, and many

police, perhaps for the first time since the madness began, found

themselves unable to keep a lid of things.

In retaliation, Andrews shut down the entire industry, statewide, for two

weeks, using virus numbers as justification.

So on Tuesday they were back, and so were the police, this time in greater

numbers, their boss announcing new tactics and weapons would be deployed.

This, as it turned out, came in the form of teargas, flash bang grenades,

“less lethal” firearms, rubber bullets, and so-called “stinger” grenades

which can be rolled into crowds and fire nine projectiles at once.

I’d remind you that this isn’t Columbia. It isn’t Kabul. This is

Melbourne, Australia.

On Wednesday it kicked on again, and by this time, the more seasoned

anti-lockdown protesters swelled the CFMEU ranks.

Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patten promptly declared that the

anti-terrorist unit would be deployed. And he wasn’t kidding. In scenes

never, ever witnessed in Australian history, armoured vehicles began

rolling through Melbourne streets, and police troops (because that’s how

they act now) were sweeping in behind them, firing less-lethal rounds and

gas grenades indiscriminately into crowds. I’ve seen vision of people with

their skull fractures, bones broken, bleeding profusely, all for daring to

disagree with Daniel Andrews. Thousands of police swarmed the Melbourne

CBD and effectively chased everyone out. They pursued them all south, a

couple of kilometres to Melbourne Shine of Remembrance, where they holed up

and a standoff began.

Now, the Shrine is considered sacred ground, honouring our soldiers. For

the protesters to pick that as a place to set up was tactically stupid in

my opinion. It allowed the fawning MSM, who by now were totally operating

as DD’s extended propaganda arm, to completely denigrate the message of

freedom. And they haven’t stopped since.

That day also ended with more teargas and rubber bullets.

By Thursday it had kind of petered out. Andrews convinced social media

companies to geoblock live streaming in the Melbourne area, and you already

know about the TRA issued to aircraft. Those two orders were successfully

challenged in the Federal Court, fortunately.

What this all shows is that the people of Melbourne are finally starting to

crack. Where it goes form here is anyone’s guess. Andrews and his

propaganda team continue their tough talk, labelling anyone who opposes

them as “extremists” and “right wing terrorists”. This does nothing other

than to continue to fuel tensions in the community. Nothing good can

possibly come from that, but this is the kind of man Andrews is. He

doesn’t give a shit about any of us; only about basking in his self

appointed power.

As I type this on Saturday, police have been assaulting people again today,

this time attacking people walking in group on local beaches, and

aggressively targeting anyone that is dressed like a tradesman, presumably

because they may be CFMEU types looking for a fight.

Law and order here is broken. Democracy is broken. We are broken.

Just a separate point, before I sign off, on the quarantine camps being set

up. The one in Queensland, at Wellcamp, is named more as a coincidence

than anything else. There’s a large airport at Wellcamp, near Toowoomba,

south west of Brisbane, capable of handling the largest aircraft types. It

is predominantly used as a freight hub, and was built by the Wagner Group

several years ago. That’s the same group now building that quarantine camp.

Here in Victoria, its more comical, in terms of naming. The Feds are

building a quarantine centre here as well, out to the north of Melbourne

near the airport, which worryingly will be operated by the state

government. We’re told it’ll house up to 500 people.

It’s name……The Centre for National Resilience. How 1984 is that?

So I hope that help to give you some good, boots on the ground information

Adam. There is so much more I could tell you, but I know how much email

you get, so I won’t take up any more time.

My studio is out of action for a day or two, thanks to a much needed system

upgrade, but I’ll do what I can to get you some clips ASAP.

Good independent channels for now to watch on YouTube, show show raw

footage of the police violence and so on, would be “The Real Rukshan” and

Rebel News - Avi Yemeni.

Groetjes

Steve

baricitinib

combination of bamlanivimab and etesevimab

combination of casirivimab and imdevimab

regdanvimab

sotrovimab

Link

I listened 1385 and was surprised to hear that out of the nearly 4K participants in the study, >80% of them had miscarriages.

When I went to read the report, I found that out of the 4K participants, ~850 had delivered and that 13% of those were miscarriages which is in line w normal birth statistics according to the journal. I’m not sure if someone fed you this misinterpretation of the article but wanted you to know it does not present what was discussed in the podcast.

I’m a Baron and think you and John are national treasures. That doesn’t mean you or anyone is perfect. Wanted to share and give you a heads up.

I can just see someone quoting the initial stats without reading the source material and being thrown into the conspiracy theory / disinformation camp in 2 seconds.

Chase

NEJM original study

Your hard on for project veritas is really annoying. You come across like a jealous ex girlfriend

with all your consistent bashing of their sound quality. They’re doing more to get people to blow

the whistle from inside organizations than anyone else, so lay off them, or come up with something

better yourself. Monday morning quarterbacks are the worst, and I doubt a single person enjoys

hearing your predictable take on their reports. Also, maybe lay off the “ya know” every 5th word if

you’re gonna act like some kind of expert television producer. Get over yourself.

Sent from my iPhone

The Food and Drug Administration released the data from Pfizer, which outlined what side effects 300 participants felt during a trial of the booster stage. Here’s a quick breakdown.

63.7% had fatigue.

48.4% suffered from headaches.

39.1% felt muscle pain.

Link

The Testimonies Project was created to provide a platform for all those who were affected after getting the covid-19 vaccines, and to make sure their voices are heard, since they are not heard in the Israeli media.

We hope this project will encourage more and more people to tell their story.

Link

Link

Above 60 equal chance of getting it with or without vax

Still protects against 'severe morbidity'

How Does CDC Identify Severe Maternal Morbidity?

She bought a lot of Hunter's art

Link

SF Mayor and Police Chief reverse decision not to prosecute shoplifters under $1000.0. Possibly due to pressure from businesses threathening to close or move. This would lower city income from sales and property taxes. City income is possibly already down from lack of tourists.

Link

Link

Link to Article

Archived Version

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 13:55

The COVID-19 vaccine has been scientifically proven to save lives. But for a select group of people in the religious realm, a more important matter is at stake '' eternal salvation.

As the delta variant continues to spread, the rationale of many Americans resisting the COVID-19 vaccine has taken center spotlight. While the reasoning differs '' with some citing uncertainty of long-term side effects or lack of trust in the medical field '' one theory that has galvanized some vaccine resisters is the idea that the shot is the "mark of the beast."

The "mark of the beast" in the New Testament's Book of Revelation signals an allegiance to Satan or those who reject God's memorial of creatorship.

"Studies show that any conflict between religion and science are not about facts, they are more about values and morals," said John Evans, a professor of sociology and religious studies at the University of California-San Diego.

What does the 'mark of the beast' scripture in Revelation say?The apocalyptic biblical term comes form Revelation 13:16-18. Per the New International Version Bible, the apostle John speaks of an apocalyptic pair of beasts who will rule the earth with cruelty. Their evil reach '' which can be interpreted as hidden manipulation '' will require all people who require the transaction of commerce to wear the mark of the beast. The apostle John did not identify what the mark looks like, although some theologians translate scripture to reference the number "666" to be associated with it.

Pastor Darin Wood of First Baptist Church in the oil town of Midland, Texas, wrote an August op-ed for the Midland Reporter-Telegram that said: "One of my church family posed an honest question: 'Pastor, is the COVID vaccine the mark of the beast? I've been told it is.' Their question was an honest and heartfelt one, and clearly, they were anguished about it. In kindness, I answered, 'no' and thought little more about it. Until the question came again. And again. And again.

Fact check:Ivermectin is not a proven treatment for COVID-19

'A nightmare':Pregnant unvaccinated nurse and her unborn 'sweet baby girl' both die of COVID

"There's no indication that the vaccine matches the mark described by the Apostle John. I've been sent numerous articles and videos ... that (suggest) the vaccine represents a conspiracy of governmental control or that the vaccine contains some sort of marking agent to indelibly identify those foolish enough to receive the vaccine. It's just not reasonable or logical to presume such a wide conspiracy is even possible. The question then arises as to why this wide mistrust in medical treatment has come."

Why are people calling the COVID vaccine the 'mark of the beast?'Evans said that lack of trust in the government and medical field is a driving force behind the "mark of the beast" belief.

"(Former president) Donald Trump tapped into American populism and with that comes the disbelief of experts," Evans told USA TODAY. "There is a small group of people who believe in 'the mark of the beast' and I think what's driving that thought process is starting with various concerns about receiving the coronavirus vaccine that are not specifically religious."

Evans said he suspects that the "mark of the beast" popularity stems from an adherence to a social or political identity.

Peter Feaman, a top Republican National Committee official in Florida, said last month that vaccines are "the mark of the beast" and comparable to a "false god." Back in May, Feaman said of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer encouraging vaccines in the state of Michigan: "Diabolical Michigan Governor Whiter wants her citizens to get the Mark of the Beast to participate in society."

Evans said from his studies, a majority of the "mark of the beast" believers appear to be both conservative-leaning politically and of protestant Christian faith backgrounds.

"People with spiritual beliefs that all things are influenced by religion are more likely to believe 'mark of the beast,' which is in every Christian's bible, but people will focus on particular passages in the Bible to support their belief system," Evans said.

What are religious leaders saying?Harvest Christian Fellowship Pastor Greg Laurie said COVID-19 vaccines are not "the mark of the beast," but many Christians may believe it is due to believing the world is in the time the Bible calls "the last days."

"The Bible speaks of someone identified as the 'Antichrist' and he will require people have a 'mark' that people will receive to buy and sell," Laurie told USA TODAY in an email.

"The COVID-19 vaccine '-- or any vaccines '-- have nothing to do with any of this."

Laurie, who has been vaccinated, said the mark will be a pledge of loyalty to the Antichrist and no one will take the mark unknowingly.

"In Revelation 14, we learn that those who take the mark are doomed," he said. "God will not doom people for taking something unwittingly."

Misinterpretations of Revelation 13:16-18 can stem from social media where people can spread unreliable information, according to Laurie.

"People read erroneous comments and believe they are true," he said.

"Sometimes these statements are packaged to look like Bible Prophecy, but they are false and misapplied because many people do not understand what the Bible actually says about these things."

What are health care workers saying? Are people actually citing this as a reason to avoid the shot?Nicole Williams, a traveling intensive care unit nurse, said she has heard the "mark of the beast" as a reason not to get vaccinated many times.

"I get being hesitant because it is new and we don't know the long term effects but calling it the 'mark of the beast' is crazy," Williams told USA TODAY.

Williams has worked in hospitals in Texas, New York, California and Hawaii in her three years as a nurse.

She said the latest surge of COVID-19 cases has been "hell", with a lot of younger people dying. She said the vaccine is not a magical shot that cures all, but is one of the many tools to fight the virus.

"I understand that people want to get back to how things were but calling something you don't understand the 'mark of the beast' is extreme and harmful," she said.

"I'm exhausted and tired of seeing so many people die, but I will do my damnedest to try and keep my patients alive."

On the contrary, ER physician Stephen Smith at Hennepin Healthcare told USA TODAY that he hasn't heard the 'mark of the beast' as a reason to not get vaccinated, but a few other outlandish reasons.

Smith said one woman had brought her child in for a fever and cough, and he explained that the toddler might have COVID-19. When he asked the mother if she had been vaccinated, Smith said her response was, "Oh no that turns you into a zombie."

Other reasons Smith has heard for not getting vaccinated include: not wanting to get microchipped, outside of their world view, the vaccine was developed too fast, haven't gotten sick yet, not high-risk, they don't trust the government and reading that people have died from the vaccine.

"Social media plays a 100% role in the misconceptions about the vaccine," Smith said. " They get all their information off Facebook and get all this garbage."

"Anyone who is telling you not to get the vaccine is either lying to you or an idiot, or a combination of the two."

New COVID-19 variant:What we know about the mu variant and why Fauci is 'keeping a very close eye on it'

What we know about the COVID-19 vaccines?Peer-reviewed data has deemed the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccines safe and they demonstrated 94% to 95% effectiveness against the virus, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The same journal published that the Johnson & Johnson single dose shot provided protection against the virus and was effective against hospitalization and death.

On Sept. 20, Pfizer BioNTech released data that their vaccine was safe for children aged 5 to 11. The company received its full stamp of approval from the Food and Drug Administration late last month.

Moderna has begun the process of applying to get a full license and Johnson & Johnson plans to apply sometime this year.

The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control reports that 54.7% of Americans are vaccinated and 63.9% have received at least one dose.

By the end of September, 56% of people in the U.S. are projected to be fully vaccinated and 59% by January 1, 2022, according to data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 13:51

The COVID-19 vaccine has been scientifically proven to save lives. But for a select group of people in the religious realm, a more important matter is at stake '' eternal salvation.

As the delta variant continues to spread, the rationale of many Americans resisting the COVID-19 vaccine has taken center spotlight. While the reasoning differs '' with some citing uncertainty of long-term side effects or lack of trust in the medical field '' one theory that has galvanized some vaccine resisters is the idea that the shot is the "mark of the beast."

The "mark of the beast" in the New Testament's Book of Revelation signals an allegiance to Satan or those who reject God's memorial of creatorship.

"Studies show that any conflict between religion and science are not about facts, they are more about values and morals," said John Evans, a professor of sociology and religious studies at the University of California-San Diego.

What does the 'mark of the beast' scripture in Revelation say?

The apocalyptic biblical term comes form Revelation 13:16-18. Per the New International Version Bible, the apostle John speaks of an apocalyptic pair of beasts who will rule the earth with cruelty. Their evil reach '' which can be interpreted as hidden manipulation '' will require all people who require the transaction of commerce to wear the mark of the beast. The apostle John did not identify what the mark looks like, although some theologians translate scripture to reference the number "666" to be associated with it.

Pastor Darin Wood of First Baptist Church in the oil town of Midland, Texas, wrote an August op-ed for the Midland Reporter-Telegram that said: "One of my church family posed an honest question: 'Pastor, is the COVID vaccine the mark of the beast? I've been told it is.' Their question was an honest and heartfelt one, and clearly, they were anguished about it. In kindness, I answered, 'no' and thought little more about it. Until the question came again. And again. And again.

Fact check: Ivermectin is not a proven treatment for COVID-19

'A nightmare': Pregnant unvaccinated nurse and her unborn 'sweet baby girl' both die of COVID

"There's no indication that the vaccine matches the mark described by the Apostle John. I've been sent numerous articles and videos ... that (suggest) the vaccine represents a conspiracy of governmental control or that the vaccine contains some sort of marking agent to indelibly identify those foolish enough to receive the vaccine. It's just not reasonable or logical to presume such a wide conspiracy is even possible. The question then arises as to why this wide mistrust in medical treatment has come."

Why are people calling the COVID vaccine the 'mark of the beast?'

Evans said that lack of trust in the government and medical field is a driving force behind the "mark of the beast" belief.

"(Former president) Donald Trump tapped into American populism and with that comes the disbelief of experts," Evans told USA TODAY. "There is a small group of people who believe in 'the mark of the beast' and I think what's driving that thought process is starting with various concerns about receiving the coronavirus vaccine that are not specifically religious."

Evans said he suspects that the "mark of the beast" popularity stems from an adherence to a social or political identity.

Peter Feaman, a top Republican National Committee official in Florida, said last month that vaccines are "the mark of the beast" and comparable to a "false god." Back in May, Feaman said of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer encouraging vaccines in the state of Michigan: "Diabolical Michigan Governor Whiter wants her citizens to get the Mark of the Beast to participate in society."

Evans said from his studies, a majority of the "mark of the beast" believers appear to be both conservative-leaning politically and of protestant Christian faith backgrounds.

"People with spiritual beliefs that all things are influenced by religion are more likely to believe 'mark of the beast,' which is in every Christian's bible, but people will focus on particular passages in the Bible to support their belief system," Evans said.

What are religious leaders saying?

Harvest Christian Fellowship Pastor Greg Laurie said COVID-19 vaccines are not "the mark of the beast," but many Christians may believe it is due to believing the world is in the time the Bible calls "the last days."

"The Bible speaks of someone identified as the 'Antichrist' and he will require people have a 'mark' that people will receive to buy and sell," Laurie told USA TODAY in an email.

"The COVID-19 vaccine '-- or any vaccines '-- have nothing to do with any of this."

Laurie, who has been vaccinated, said the mark will be a pledge of loyalty to the Antichrist and no one will take the mark unknowingly.

"In Revelation 14, we learn that those who take the mark are doomed," he said. "God will not doom people for taking something unwittingly."

Misinterpretations of Revelation 13:16-18 can stem from social media where people can spread unreliable information, according to Laurie.

"People read erroneous comments and believe they are true," he said.

"Sometimes these statements are packaged to look like Bible Prophecy, but they are false and misapplied because many people do not understand what the Bible actually says about these things."

View | 185 Photos

What are health care workers saying? Are people actually citing this as a reason to avoid the shot?

Nicole Williams, a traveling intensive care unit nurse, said she has heard the "mark of the beast" as a reason not to get vaccinated many times.

"I get being hesitant because it is new and we don't know the long term effects but calling it the 'mark of the beast' is crazy," Williams told USA TODAY.

Williams has worked in hospitals in Texas, New York, California and Hawaii in her three years as a nurse.

She said the latest surge of COVID-19 cases has been "hell", with a lot of younger people dying. She said the vaccine is not a magical shot that cures all, but is one of the many tools to fight the virus.

"I understand that people want to get back to how things were but calling something you don't understand the 'mark of the beast' is extreme and harmful," she said.

"I'm exhausted and tired of seeing so many people die, but I will do my damnedest to try and keep my patients alive."

On the contrary, ER physician Stephen Smith at Hennepin Healthcare told USA TODAY that he hasn't heard the 'mark of the beast' as a reason to not get vaccinated, but a few other outlandish reasons.

Smith said one woman had brought her child in for a fever and cough, and he explained that the toddler might have COVID-19. When he asked the mother if she had been vaccinated, Smith said her response was, "Oh no that turns you into a zombie."

Other reasons Smith has heard for not getting vaccinated include: not wanting to get microchipped, outside of their world view, the vaccine was developed too fast, haven't gotten sick yet, not high-risk, they don't trust the government and reading that people have died from the vaccine.

"Social media plays a 100% role in the misconceptions about the vaccine," Smith said. " They get all their information off Facebook and get all this garbage."

"Anyone who is telling you not to get the vaccine is either lying to you or an idiot, or a combination of the two."

New COVID-19 variant: What we know about the mu variant and why Fauci is 'keeping a very close eye on it'

What we know about the COVID-19 vaccines?

Peer-reviewed data has deemed the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccines safe and they demonstrated 94% to 95% effectiveness against the virus, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The same journal published that the Johnson & Johnson single dose shot provided protection against the virus and was effective against hospitalization and death.

On Sept. 20, Pfizer BioNTech released data that their vaccine was safe for children aged 5 to 11. The company received its full stamp of approval from the Food and Drug Administration late last month.

Moderna has begun the process of applying to get a full license and Johnson & Johnson plans to apply sometime this year.

The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control reports that 54.7% of Americans are vaccinated and 63.9% have received at least one dose.

By the end of September, 56% of people in the U.S. are projected to be fully vaccinated and 59% by January 1, 2022, according to data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

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Sun, 26 Sep 2021 13:26

Application TermsCredential Policy: Predator Security and Defense Corporation requires applicants for training to submit documentation of responsibility before they are accepted as students. Each prospective student must submit the credentials applicable to the course of instruction desired and include with it a fully completed application form.

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Khaki Tactical Pants (2 each) Black Polo Shirts (2 each) Riggers belt Clothing appropriate to the climate and conditions Rain Gear Boots (2 pair) Backpack or equipment bag Ear and eye protection A water bottle or other hydration system GlovesTHE TUITION MUST BE PAID IN FULL NO LATER THAN COURSE CONVENING DATE UNLESS OTHER ARRANGEMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE

By submitting this application, I understand, represent and agree that:

I am a citizen of the country(ies) listed above. My enclosed credentials meet the requirements outlined by Predator Security and Defense Corporation and that at arrival at PSD, I will positively identify myself as the same person certified in the application. Range operations depend on careful control of deadly weapons by each student and if at any time during the course, my cooperation is not deemed satisfactory to PSD staff, my participation will be terminated. I will abide by any and all safety procedures required by PSD and I agree upon my arrival, to complete, sign and understand a ''Release and Indemnification Agreement'' releasing PSD from liability for any injury I may sustain or cause during my training. I will be at least 18 years of age at the time of training and of good moral character with no felony record. My only purpose for seeking the training, which I have requested PSD to provide me, is so that I may be better prepared to provide lawful service to my employer or in performing lawful acts for my own use. I consent to having PSD verify my identity and background as required under law, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and other applicable regulations. I acknowledge that this is an operator level course and will undergo PSD's SERE and other mental and physical demanding training iterations that are a required part of our top tier tactical training pipelines.NOTE: Predator Security and Defense Corporation is a US based corporation founded by prior service Special Programs, combat veterans and tactical law enforcement personnel. This training is intended for lawful defense purposes of its students only. Any anti US or Government affiliation is strictly prohibited and PSD Corporation reserves the right to restrict and or terminate training to such individuals and groups. PSD strives to provide the absolute best tactical training on the market today. Our goal is to ready students for high threat Executive Protection/Bodyguard and PSD Operations employment and give them the confidence to get the job done and come home safe to their families. It will give active and prospective high threat operations personnel the tier one level capabilities to provide protective operations in any environment.

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Sun, 26 Sep 2021 13:07

Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple Inc., smiles while speaking about Apple TV+ during an event at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Apple claimed its TV+ service had less than 20 million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada as of July, allowing it to pay behind-the-scenes production crew lower rates than streamers with more subscriptions, according to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, a union that represents TV and movie workers who perform jobs like operating cameras and building sets.

Apple has never revealed subscriber numbers for its Apple TV+ streaming service, which launched in the fall of 2019. Analysts are reluctant to offer estimates, but many say that its scale pales in comparison to services like Netflix, which claimed 209 million subscribers as of Q2, and Disney+, which claimed 116 million.

The fact that Apple can pay a discounted rate despite being the most valuable publicly traded company in the world highlights some of the issues facing Hollywood workers as streaming supplants linear TV and movies, and is raising ire among union members who are deciding whether to strike for better pay and working conditions.

Under the current contract, high-budget productions intended for streaming can offer lower rates to workers if the streaming service has less than 20 million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada, which is determined on July 1 every year. Apple told IATSE that it had less than 20 million subscribers, a union spokesman said.

The union is currently in negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers over a new contract. Apple is a member of the alliance, but the alliance negotiates for all of its members, and doesn't create carve-outs for specific companies, according to a spokesperson for the industry group.

An Apple spokesperson declined to comment on subscriber numbers but said the company pays rates in line with leading streaming services.

Under the current contract, productions made for streaming services are governed under less strict labor terms than traditional TV shows or movies because streaming profitability is "presently uncertain" and productions needed greater flexibility, according to a copy of the contract reviewed by CNBC.

But union leaders argue that streaming is no longer a particularly new form of media, and companies that bankroll streaming productions should pay rates closer to traditional media productions.

"Workers on certain 'new media' streaming projects get paid less, even on productions with budgets that rival or exceed those of traditionally released blockbusters," an IATSE press release said this week, noting that negotiations had stalled.

IATSE is gearing up for a strike, its spokesman said, and ballots allowing the union's 150,000 members to authorize a strike will be sent out on October 1.

While new media pay rates are one of the issues currently under negotiation, the most pressing issue is working conditions on set, including long working hours, which have gotten worse during the Covid-19 pandemic, the union spokesperson said. Celebrities and actors have started to post messages on social media supporting the IATSE union and potential strike.

Apple has reportedly spent up to $15 million per episode of shows like "The Morning Show" to try and bulk up its service with premium content. Apple also bundled free trials with the purchase of new phones or tablets, and those trials started expiring in July, forcing many users to decide whether it was worth $4.99 per month. Apple sold an estimated 206 million iPhones globally in 2020, which would amount to a lot of free trials.

NBCUniversal's Peacock and ViacomCBS' Paramount+ also have under 20 million subscribers, allowing them to ask for discounts on labor, the union spokesman said.

A ViacomCBS spokesperson said the company doesn't break out Paramount+ streaming numbers. NBCUniversal didn't have a comment by publication time.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal, which owns and operates Peacock, is also the parent company of CNBC.

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Sun, 26 Sep 2021 12:11

U.S. shipping operations remain clogged as ports, truckers and warehouses can't find enough workers or agree on 24/7 operations

Sept. 26, 2021 5:30 am ETNike Inc. doesn't have enough sneakers to sell for the holidays. Costco Wholesale Corp. is reimposing limits on paper towel purchases. Prices for artificial Christmas trees have jumped 25% this season.

Despite mounting shipping delays and cargo backlogs, the busiest U.S. port complex shuts its gates for hours on most days and remains closed on Sundays. Meanwhile, major ports in Asia and Europe have operated round-the-clock for years.

''With...

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Nike Inc. doesn't have enough sneakers to sell for the holidays. Costco Wholesale Corp. is reimposing limits on paper towel purchases. Prices for artificial Christmas trees have jumped 25% this season.

Despite mounting shipping delays and cargo backlogs, the busiest U.S. port complex shuts its gates for hours on most days and remains closed on Sundays. Meanwhile, major ports in Asia and Europe have operated round-the-clock for years.

''With the current work schedule you have two big ports operating at 60%-70% of their capacity,'' said Uffe Ostergaard, president of the North America region for German boxship operator Hapag-Lloyd AG . ''That's a huge operational disadvantage.''

The American supply chain has so far failed to adapt to the crush of imports as businesses rush to restock pandemic-depleted inventories. Tens of thousands of containers are stuck at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., the two West Coast gateways that move more than a quarter of all American imports. More than 60 ships are lined up to dock, with waiting times stretching to three weeks.

Participants in each link in the U.S. chain'--shipping lines, port workers, truckers, warehouse operators, railways and retailers'--blame others for the imbalances and disagree on whether 24/7 operations will help them catch up. All of them are struggling with a shortage of workers.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are managed separately and operate 13 private container terminals. Long Beach officials said last week they would try operating 24 hours a day from Monday to Thursday. Gene Seroka, executive director of the larger Port of Los Angeles, said his port will step more cautiously, keeping existing hours while waiting for truckers and warehouse operators to extend their hours.

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''It has been nearly impossible to get everyone on the same page towards 24/7 operations,'' Mr. Seroka said.

Truck drivers often don't show up at scheduled appointments to pick up boxes at the inundated container yards to make space for the next load to come in, say shipping and port executives. Truckers blame terminal congestion, saying delays at one appointment can cause them to miss the next, and that shipping lines aren't doing enough to clear out the towers of empty containers taking up space at the docks.

Before any changes this coming week, the longshore routine at the ports involve two shifts: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. An overnight shift of five hours is available, but it is up to 50% more expensive and rarely used, say liner and terminal operators who foot the bill. Cargo pickups on Saturday are also rare, being charged as premium shifts, and there is no work on Sundays.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents the dockworkers, said its members would work a third shift or on weekends, but the pileup of containers must first be fetched out of the port, so there is space to unload more from ships.

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''Congestion won't be fixed until everyone steps up and does their part,'' said Frank Ponce De Leon, a coast committeeman at the ILWU. ''The terminal operators have been underutilizing their option to hire us for the third shift,'' he said.

Federal safety regulations limit most commercial truck drivers to 11 hours of driving time in a 14-hour workday. Port truckers often prefer to start early in the morning so they can maximize the number of loads they move a day, said Tom Boyle, chief executive of Quik Pick Express LLC, a trucking and warehousing provider based in Carson, Calif., not far from the port complex.

Night shifts are less popular. Drivers who pick up loads late at night don't always have a place to put them. Truckers might have to park a box in a drop yard, and then deliver it later when the destination warehouse is open.

''The biggest issue it probably comes down to is labor,'' said Mr. Boyle, who said his company, like other fleets, is constantly looking for drivers.

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A shortage of labor is also causing significant delays in loading up freight trains, which move up to 30% of all containers to big distribution hubs like Chicago.

Union Pacific Corp. , one of two main railroads moving freight from the West Coast into the country, is primarily seeing delays, or dwell, when it picks up cargo from ports and hands it off to trucks at destinations, Chief Executive Lance Fritz said in a recent interview. ''Where we see dwell is on either end,'' he said.

Nike executives said Thursday that the amount of time it takes to move a cargo container from Asian factories to North America is now about 80 days, or twice as long as it was before the pandemic. Moving items such as paper towels or furniture within the U.S. is also a challenge, with Costco executives saying it can be difficult to find trucks or drivers on short notice.

''If you work a gate 24/7 it will improve your velocity'' only if all participants are involved, said Wim Lagaay, chief executive of APM Terminals North America, which operates a terminal in Los Angeles. ''Up to 30% of overall truck appointments are not met because there are not enough trucks, drivers or chassis.''

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Port truckers say some appointment slots go unused because of the lack of equipment, such as the chassis needed to haul containers, or because of restrictions on what drivers can do during that appointment, including returning empty containers.

''There is too much congestion from empty containers on terminals,'' said Matt Schrap, chief executive of the Harbor Trucking Association, which represents carriers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The shipping lines aren't moving the boxes out, ''which is preventing us from returning empties that we are storing in our yards,'' he said.

With such long delays, some cargo owners are no longer arranging to pick up their boxes. Mr. Seroka, the Los Angeles port director, said they use the containers as mobile storage units because it is cheaper to leave them at a port than to rent warehouse space.

''Even if [warehouses] were open 24/7, there is simply no space,'' said Jason Tolliver, an executive at real-estate firm Cushman & Wakefield PLC. About 98% of warehouses in Southern California's logistics-heavy Inland Empire region are fully occupied, and the entire Western U.S. has a 3.6% vacancy rate.

With scarce warehouse capacity, many truckers leave the boxes outside the facilities along with the chassis. Liner operators say that it normally takes three days to return the chassis to the port, but it now takes eight.

Los Angeles and Long Beach face different challenges than export or transshipment piers in Asia and Europe. Other ports haven't dealt with such high import volumes over the past year by so many operators while the inland part of the supply chain has stayed largely unchanged.

Overall container volumes at the Port of Los Angeles have grown 30% so far this year over 2020, but Mr. Seroka said trucking capacity has increased by only 8%. The warehouse development is equally challenging, he said, as there is an estimated minimum 25% less storage space than needed.

''It's impossible to effectively move such volumes if we don't move to 24/7 operations across the supply chain,'' said Mario Cordero, executive director at the Port of Long Beach. ''They do it in other parts of the world.''

'--Paul Ziobro and Paul Berger contributed to this article.

Write to Costas Paris at costas.paris@wsj.com and Jennifer Smith at jennifer.smith@wsj.com

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Sun, 26 Sep 2021 11:46

Decision By January 6th Commission to Ignore Oath Keeper Stewart Rhodes Just Unmasked Their Entire Investigation

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The January 6 commission expanded its fishing expedition still further last week with its request of phone records from President Trump's former Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows.

The Guardian:

The House select committee investigating the 6 January attack on the Capitol has instructed telecom and social media companies in recent weeks to preserve records of Donald Trump's White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, according to a source familiar with the matter. The move positions the select committee on the doorstep of the Oval Office as it pursues a far-reaching inquiry into whether Trump and his White House helped plan or had advance knowledge of the insurrection perpetrated by the former president's supporters. House select committee investigators signaled their intention to examine potential involvement by the Trump White House and House Republicans when they made a series of records demands and records preservation requests for Trump officials connected to the Capitol attack. In the records preservation requests, the select committee instructed 35 telecom and social media companies to avoid destroying communications logs of several hundred people, including the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and 10 House Republicans, in case it later issues subpoenas.

But the previously unreported inclusion of Meadows on the list of people whose records the select committee wants preserved suggests the panel will seek more information on the most senior aide in the Trump administration and could upturn every inch of the West Wing in its inquiry.

The former chief of staff is among several top White House officials who may hold the key to unlock inside information pertaining to the extent of the former president's involvement in the Capitol attack that left five dead and nearly 140 injured.

With this request, the Commission added Meadows to the never-ending list of individuals the Commission wants to investigate in its increasingly desperate attempt to preserve its flailing collusion narrative'--namely, that senior White House officials and/or Trump-aligned members of congress were somehow complicit in the events of January 6. The ever-expanding list already includes Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, Mo Brooks, Louie Gohmert and many others.

The commission, led by Bennie Thompson, a high-ranking Mississippi Democrat, has demonstrated no compunction over wielding its subpoena powers against hapless civilians with threadbare connections to January 6. In the past month, the commission has pursued a huge swath of innocent third parties with reckless abandon:

The commission demanded highly sensitive network and user data from social media sites and forums such as Gab, Parler, 4chan, 8kun and TheDonald.win. All phone records concerning the time, location and duration of calls'--including the content of texts'-- have been demanded from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. All communications and documents between White House staff and dozens of outside Republican influencers have been demanded . The level of obscurity of these contacts extends all the way down to gay rights activist Brandon Straka, InfoWars host Owen Shroyer and black MAGA rapper Bryson Gray. But the Commission's never-ending appetite for phone records of anyone remotely associated with 1/6 belies the fishiest and perhaps darkest aspect of this otherwise merely farcical fishing expedition.

That is, the Commission seems to have requested data from the communications devices of everyone who set foot in DC on January 6, except for Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the Oathkeepers, which is the largest militia group associated with the events of 1/6 . Stewart Rhodes looms so large over the Oath Keepers that he is said to effectively be the Oath Keepers. Given that the Oath Keepers are the most widely prosecuted organized militia group charged with carrying out a conspiracy to obstruct the Senate vote on January 6, the omission of Rhodes from the Commission's fact-finding expedition is quite strange, to say the least.

Under normal circumstances, of course, we might chalk this up to standard congressional incompetence.

However, the commission's seeming neglect of Rhodes must be considered in light of the fact that after more than eight months, the Feds have refused to indict Rhodes for a single charge related to his span of alleged activities leading up to, and on the day of, January 6. From our reporting on June 30th of this year:

The Justice Department argues that Stewart Rhodes both substantially organized and activated an imputed plan to use violence, on 1/6, in real-time, through a series of encrypted Signal messages beginning at 1:38 p.m., as Trump concluded his rally speech on the National Mall, and 62 minutes before Oath Keepers lieutenants allegedly formed a ''military stack'' to rush the Capitol doors. These facts alone, as alleged, are more than legally sufficient to secure an indictment of Stewart Rhodes. We will walk you through the mountains of direct and circumstantial evidence built on top of these allegations, but readers must understand this: the only reason Stewart Rhodes is not in jail *right now* is because of a deliberate decision by the Justice Department to protect him.

And yet, while protecting Rhodes, the Justice Department has used Rhodes's extraordinary breadth of January 6 activities to throw the book at his alleged underlings.

For example, while regime media and blue-check journalists (and Rhodes himself) have tried to justify Rhodes's strange protection by the Justice Department on grounds that Rhodes never went in the Capitol building, this fails to take into account the basic fact that several of Rhodes's indicted alleged lieutenants never went inside the Capitol either.

Somehow these underlings are being prosecuted on conspiracy charges, while Rhodes remains unscathed.

For example, 65 year old fully-disabled defendant Thomas Caldwell never went inside the Capitol. Yet, incredibly, the government argued in a public filing that Caldwell should have his bail denied on the grounds that he joined in ''a plan to use force'' activated by ''Person One,'' that is, Stewart Rhodes. The government began:

Evidence that the government will disclose to the defense this week'--a Signal chat called ''DC OP: Jan 6 21'''--shows that individuals, including those alleged to have conspired with the defendant, were actively planning to use force and violence. The participants in this chat include: Person One, Kelly Meggs, Jessica Watkins, and regional Oath Keeper leaders from multiple states across the country. To date, there is no evidence that Caldwell participated in the chat, but the investigation is ongoing. The chat discusses members and affiliates of the Oath Keepers coming to Washington, D.C., for the events of January 5-6, 2021, to provide security to speakers and VIPs at the events.

Yes, you read that right. In order to establish Caldwell's participation in a conspiracy to use force and violence, the government cites statements from a chat that Caldwell didn't even belong to! But Person One, i.e., Stewart Rhodes, did belong to the chat in question. The government has incriminated Caldwell on the basis of other people's statements'--principally those of Rhodes. The government continued:

There is no discussion of forcibly entering the Capitol until January 6, 2021. However, there is talk about being prepared for violence. Person One warns the group, ''DO NOT bring in anything that can get you arrested. Leave that outside DC.'' He goes on to say, ''We will have several well equipped QRFs outside DC. And there are many, many others, from other groups, who will be watching and waiting on the outside in case of worst case scenarios.'' Person One also says, ''Highly recommend a C or D cell flashlight if you have one. Collapsible Batons are a grey area in the law. I bring one. But I'm willing to take that risk because I love em. Good hard gloves, eye pro, helmet. In a pinch you can grab Mechanix gloves and a batters helmet from Walmart. Bring something to put on your noggin. Antifa likes brikes.''

Remember, these excerpts are not from an indictment of Person One (Rhodes)'--rather, they are from a government document attempting to deny Rhodes' alleged Oathkeepers underling Thomas Caldwell bail. The document continues to cite the statements and actions of Person One (Rhodes):

These messages echo the words of Person One in the call for action he posted to the Oath Keepers website on January 4, 2021, in which he stated: ''It is CRITICAL that all patriots who can be in DC get to DC to stand tall in support of President Trump's fight to defeat the enemies foreign and domestic who are attempting a coup, through the massive vote fraud and related attacks on our Republic. We Oath Keepers are both honor-bound and eager to be there in strength to do our part,'' including ''prepar[ing] to do whatever must be done to honor our oaths[.]'' (ECF No. 18 at 2.)

These statements and messages all show that the co-conspirators joined together to stop Congress's certification of the Electoral College vote, and they were prepared to use violence, if necessary, to effect this purpose. It does not matter whether they planned to use this violence to support the president when he invoked the insurrection act or to attack the Capitol if the vice president allowed the certification to go forward'--under either scenario, they were plotting to use violence to support the unlawful obstruction of a Congressional proceeding.

So far the document has leaned almost exclusively on Rhodes' statements in a chat group Caldwell didn't even belong to in order to link Caldwell to a conspiracy to use force and obstruct election certification on January 6. Person One is the star of the show here, and the government continues to use his statements to attempt to bury Caldwell:

The Signal chat referenced above shows that the group'--which included at least two individuals alleged to have conspired with Caldwell'--was activating a plan to use force on January 6. At approximately 1:38 p.m., Person One wrote, ''All I see Trump doing is complaining. I see no intent by him to do anything. So the patriots are taking it into their own hands. They've had enough.'' At 2:14 p.m., an individual leading the coordination of the security details run by the Oath Keepers on January 5-6 stated, ''The have taken ground at the capital[.] We need to regroup any members who are not on mission.'' Person One then reposted that message and instructed the group: ''Come to South Side of Capitol on steps'' and then sent a photograph showing the southeast side of the Capitol. At 2:41 p.m., Person One posted another photograph showing the southeast side of the Capitol with the caption, ''South side of US Capitol. Patriots pounding on doors[.]'' At approximately 2:40 p.m., the individuals in the ''stack,'' to include co-defendants Kelly and Connnie Meggs, Jessica Watkins, Graydon Young, Laura Steele, Donovan Crowl, and Sandra Parker, forcibly entered the Capitol through the Rotunda door in the center of the east side of the building. On the other side of the Capitol, at 2:48 p.m., Defendant Caldwell wrote to his Facebook contacts, ''We are surging forward. Doors breached.''

Some might argue that Rhodes' statements and actions are no big deal. There might be some validity to this claim in a world in which the Government and media alike weren't acting as though 1/6 were the new 9/11. Given the media and government's hyperbolic hysteria over 1/6, and given the associated indictments of all kinds of minor figures for trivial 1/6 related offenses'--it is a big deal, or at least a big question, that the founder and head of the main ''boogeyman'' militia group associated with 1/6 remains unindicted. The Feds' decision not to indict Rhodes is still more bizarre when one notes, as we have above, that the government is more than happy to cite Rhodes' statements as constitutive of a criminal conspiracy on the basis of which to incriminate, indict, and deny bail to alleged Oathkeepers underlings.

Perhaps even more bizarre than the Feds' protection of Rhodes from indictment is the fact that the FBI still does not appear to have searched Rhodes for evidence related to his own role in January 6. The search warrant for a single iPhone that Rhodes was served in May'--cited by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times as evidence of an investigation into him'--appears to be deeply misleading. According to statements made by Rhodes' attorney Kellye SoRelle to Mother Jones, that warrant, issued four months after January 6, was for dirt on other people indicted over the day's events. Not on Rhodes himself.

And for that matter, how do we account for the fact that the Feds haven't bothered to search Rhodes beyond a single cell phone taken four months after January 6? The Feds' lack of interest in Rhodes' communications is downright remarkable in comparison to the aggressive treatment visited upon major and minor figures alike, no matter how remotely associated with 1/6.

If you will recall, the Feds raided Rudy Giuliani's apartment and seized all electronics as part of a sham investigation into the mayor's activities regarding Ukraine.

Federal investigators in Manhattan executed a search warrant Wednesday at Rudy Giuliani's apartment as part of a probe into the former New York City mayor's activities involving Ukraine, his attorney told NPR.

Robert Costello said the FBI conducted the raid at Giuliani's apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan at around 6 a.m. and seized electronic devices. He said the search warrants are connected to an investigation into possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act tied to Giuliani's Ukraine-related work. [NPR]

Recently, yet another innocent MAGA couple accused of no crimes had their homes raided and electronics confiscated with a search warrant. On August 10, more than seven months after 1/6, 40 FBI agents raided a Georgia family's home, held their 11-year-old daughter at gunpoint using laser sights, and seized 'every electronic device,' including cell phones, computers, and even the 11-year-old girl's tablet.

The FBI's reason? The couple had attended the 'Stop the Steal' protest on January 6, and even though they did not participate in any riot, they had been in ''frequent communication'' with a Georgia Three Percenter militia leader who was at a smaller protest at the Georgia State Capitol that day. Even though the couple were not involved in any illegal acts, and were not even members of the Three Percenter militia, their mere contact and association with an unindicted militia leader suspected of having ''other people do his dirty work'' was enough to have electronic and communications device in their house seized.

Such unnecessarily aggressive behavior on the part of the Feds is appalling. We do not wish this treatment on an 11-year-old girl, nor on Mr. Rhodes, nor anyone else for that matter. We cannot help but wonder, however, why the Feds seem more interested in the electronics of a random 11-year-old girl than in the communications of the founder and head of the militia group that features most prominently in the government and media's boogeyman narrative of 1/6. We will address this issue of search warrants further in a forthcoming investigative report.

Is the fact that the Feds seem to want to indict everyone but Rhodes, and raid everyone else's electronic devices except for Rhodes, connected to the fact that the January 6 commission now seems eager to seize communications from everyone in the MAGA universe but Rhodes?

Here, the ''congressional incompetence'' argument goes out the window. It's as though the Commission is unaware of Rhodes. In fact, they are acutely aware.

Remarkably, Rhodes plays a central role in the theory of the case personally advanced by the head of the January 6 commission itself: the aforementioned Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss).

Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson.

Five months before he was tapped as chairman of the Commission, Rep. Thompson filed a lawsuit in his personal capacity, with himself as lead plaintiff, against four parties: Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, the Oath Keepers organization, and the Proud Boys organization. In his complaint , Thompson alleges an ''Alley Oop'' theory of January 6. According to this theory, Trump and his agents on the inside conspired with the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and agents on the outside to incite a crowd to attack the Capitol:

The insurrection at the Capitol was a direct, intended, and foreseeable result of the Defendants' unlawful conspiracy. It was instigated according to a common plan that the Defendants pursued since the election held in November 2020 , culminating in an assembly denominated as the ''Save America'' rally held at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021, during which Defendants Trump and Giuliani incited a crowd of thousands to descend upon the Capitol in order to prevent or delay through the use of force the counting of Electoral College votes. As part of this unified plan to prevent the counting of Electoral College votes, Defendants Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, through their leadership, acted in concert to spearhead the assault on the Capitol while the angry mob that Defendants Trump and Giuliani incited descended on the Capitol . The carefully orchestrated series of events that unfolded at the Save America rally and the storming of the Capitol was no accident or coincidence. It was the intended and foreseeable culmination of a carefully coordinated campaign to interfere with the legal process required to confirm the tally of votes cast in the Electoral College.

The very first page of the Thompson v. Trump complaint has a big, fat ''ATTN: Stewart Rhodes'' on it, when targeting the Oath Keepers organization:

Yet now that the '' Thompson '' in Thompson v. Trump is chairman of the January 6 commission'--with total subpoena power to investigate Rhodes'--suddenly ''Attn: Stewart Rhodes'' has given way to ''pay no attention'' at all.

Could it be that this is because Rhodes, if later discovered to have an undisclosed relationship with a Federal intelligence or law enforcement agency, would demolish Thompson's entire ''Alley Oop'' theory, revealing the ''slam dunk'' to be orchestrated by the Feds themselves?

Thompson's commission has even sought communications and records relating to random low-level Oath Keepers like Kenneth Harrelson. Yet they made no requests for communications or records on Harrelson's boss in the Oath Keepers chain of command, Stewart Rhodes.

Ironically enough, Harrelson's mother challenged Rhodes in July to explain why he mysteriously abandoned her son as the dust settled on criminal charges all around Rhodes' lieutenants. Oddly, there seems to be greater scrutiny of Rhodes from friends and family of the Oath Keepers than there is from the FBI, the Justice Department, or the January 6 commission.

Rhodes' communications would seem to be among the single most important and revealing missives in the entire country for members of the Commission to review. If Thompson is hellbent on proving his ''Alley Oop'' case, Rhodes couldn't have been more clear that his men's actions on January 6 were about ''sending a message'' to Trump.

According to the Justice Department's indictment, the very night of January 6, Rhodes reassured his men that they had done the right thing, and they had ''helped to send a message'' by ''entering their own Capitol.'' At 7:41 p.m., three hours after the last protester left the Capitol, the Justice Department says Rhodes texted his exclusive Oath Keepers senior leadership chat:

We have one FINAL chance to get Trump to do his job and his duty. Patriots entering their own Capitol to send a message to the traitors is NOTHING compared to what's coming if Trump doesn't take decisive action right now. It helped to send that message to HIM. He was the most important audience today. I hope he got the message.

Rhodes's own words in this single text message alone go well beyond admissions from any individuals pursued to date by the Commission. But the Commission is going after MAGA gay rights activists and YouTube rappers instead?

The Commission's first hearing explicitly focused on the testimony of four Capitol Police and DC Metropolitan Police Officers. There is a serious ongoing investigation into whether, why and to what extent certain first-responding police officers appeared to coordinate with protesters. Last week, it was announced that at least six Capitol Police officers will face disciplinary action for complicity in the riots.

Yet Stewart Rhodes went on camera in a livestream two months ago and confessed to having armed police officers in DC who were secretly members of his Oath Keepers ''Quick Response Force'' for the January 6 operation:

How could the Commission hold a 3+ hour hearing on police response to January 6, allege complicity of Trump insiders with militia outsiders, and then stick their ostrich necks in the sand to avoid the chief militia leader saying he had cops on stand-by as a ''lethal force of last resort''?

Enter the Reuters ''FBI Leak'' Bombshell

One could give Bennie Thompson and his Commission the benefit of the doubt and argue that perhaps they simply have not yet gotten around to demanding Rhodes' communications and records. Just like the Justice Department hasn't yet gotten around to indicting Rhodes and the FBI hasn't yet gotten around to performing even a routine, basic check-the-box sweep of his personal and home electronics.

But chairman Thompson should have very good reason to be interested in Rhodes right now, after last month's bombshell Reuters report .

According to Reuters, four sources close to the FBI's investigation said that there was ''no evidence that [President Trump] or people directly around him were involved in organizing the violence'' that happened that day:

WASHINGTON, Aug 20 (Reuters) '' The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plo t to overturn the presidential election result, according to four current and former law enforcement officials.

Though federal officials have arrested more than 570 alleged participants, the FBI at this point believes the violence was not centrally coordinated by far-right groups or prominent supporters of then-President Donald Trump , according to the sources, who have been either directly involved in or briefed regularly on the wide-ranging investigations.

''Ninety to ninety-five percent of these are one-off cases,'' said a former senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation. ''Then you have five percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages.''

'...

Senior lawmakers have been briefed in detail on the results of the FBI's investigation so far and find them credible, a Democratic congressional source said

'... In public comments last month to the Democratic-led congressional committee formed to investigate the violence, police officers injured in the mayhem urged lawmakers to determine whether Trump helped instigate it. Some Democrats have said they want him to testify.

But the FBI has so far found no evidence that he or people directly around him were involved in organizing the violence , according to the four current and former law enforcement officials.

Reuters drew upon four FBI sources (albeit, anonymously) to tacitly undermine basically every aspect of the Bennie Thompson ''Alley Oop'' narrative. The single element of the ''Oop'' left intact was the FBI's belief that ''collusion'' appeared to occur among certain elements of militias groups that day, such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys:

FBI investigators did find that cells of protesters, including followers of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys groups, had aimed to break into the Capitol. But they found no evidence that the groups had serious plans about what to do if they made it inside, the sources said'...

Thus, one would think that chairman Thompson, were his commission truly focused on ''truth'' as we have been repeatedly told , would be laser-focused on Rhodes's role more acutely than ever before.

Such a focus on Rhodes and other mysteriously unscathed ''kingpins'' in the militia conspiracy cases would at least partially assuage regime-aligned ''disinformation'' reporters on the verge of a nervous breakdown from the Reuters report. Such journalists have been pushing the militia coordination narrative for months, and went apoplectic over the FBI leak to Reuters suggesting that Trump and in his circle had no ''collusion'' role in 1/6 whatsoever.

For example, Alan Feuer, the New York Times January 6 beat reporter, sputtered about how the Reuters report couldn't possibly be true. Alan nonetheless took solace in the Proud Boys indictment. The Proud Boys were coordinating to rile up ''normies'' and ''let them loose'':

This is the full exchange''made before the Capitol attack''about a desire among the Proud Boys for the "normies" to wreak havoc on Jan. 6. pic.twitter.com/cU18G3g7t4

'-- Alan Feuer (@alanfeuer) August 20, 2021

Here's a blow-up of that picture:

Lost on the hapless NYT reporter is that all of the people in his own yellow highlights'--most notably, the mysterious Person-1 and Person-2 doing the much-ballyhooed ''coordination'' and incitement'--are currently being protected by the Justice Department. There are no charges filed against these Proud Boys and nothing but total radio silence on whether any charges are pending. Could it be, as Revolver explained back in June , that as is typical in militia world, many of the very personalities aggressively cited as ''plotting'' the attack were Federal informants all along? Could that explain their present immunity?

Perhaps the loudest media meltdown over the FBI's 'no collusion' leak in the Reuters piece came from journalist Seth Abramson. Abramson is indisputably the Beltway's most prolific ''insurrection'' screed writer. He turned to 1/6 after penning a full trilogy of laughable Russiagate fanfic novels during the Trump era'--''NYT best-sellers'' Proof of Collusion , Proof of Corruption and Proof of Conspiracy . With nearly a million Twitter followers and daily retweets from Democrat Congressmen and NeverTrump Neocons alike, Abramson tweeted out a frantic 87-tweet thread as the Reuters report dropped. His thread linked 85 separate articles arguing the FBI's ''no collusion'' leak couldn't be true.

Reuters, the world's largest multimedia news provider , is regularly ranked by Regime media as having a perfect score for ''factual reporting'' and ''zero media bias.''

But in the space of a single article, Reuters had become a Threat To Democracy', according to our highly-fevered intrepid Twitter reporter hero:

Abramson and hundreds of others even amplified a narrative that Reuters, long a partner of US and UK intelligence services , had suddenly been taken over by the Russians. ''Serious'' thinkers on the left openly implied that Russians had planted four fake FBI sources in Reuters to protect Trump from the January 6 Commission:

It should go without saying how ridiculous and unhinged this narrative is. In order to fully understand how morally and factually bankrupt the media network cheerleading the January 6 Commission really is, one must learn their basis for labeling Reuters, the Regime's ''most trusted news source'' last month, as ''Russian disinformation'' this month.

Back in June 2020, Reuters allowed Russia's TASS News Agency to join its Reuters Connect platform. Reuters Connect gives paying customers deep cut access to region-specific news. TASS joining Reuters Connect made Russia its 18th country partner , alongside France, Spain, China, Turkey, Malaysia and others.

In the fevered minds of unhinged liberal regime apparatchiks like Seth Abramson, then, the entire Reuters FBI leak can be dismissed as Russian in origin.

Abramson, in a separate tweet thread , implored January 6 Commission representatives to come forward and repudiate the FBI leaks to Reuters immediately:

And reject it they did. Last week, Commission chair Bennie Thompson and vice chair Liz Cheney wrote in a joint statement that their anonymous sources in the government actually supersede Reuters' anonymous sources in the government. From CNN:

The top members of the select committee investigating the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill refuted recent claims by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy that former President Donald Trump has been cleared by the Justice Department of any role in the insurrection.

''(McCarthy) has suggested, based on an anonymous report, that the Department of Justice has concluded that Donald Trump did not cause, incite, or provoke the violence on January 6th,'' the statement read. ''When this anonymous report was first published, the Select Committee queried the Executive Branch agencies and congressional committees involved in the investigation. We've received answers and briefings from the relevant entities, and it's been made clear to us that reports of such a conclusion are baseless.''

What does this portend for the disgraced Commission? To know this, we must learn a bit more about its chairman Bennie Thompson.

Meet Chairman Bennie Thompson

Much of MAGA's antipathy for the January 6 commission has been trained on the vice chair of the January 6 Commission, Liz Cheney. And for good reason. Revolver has long argued that Liz Cheney is very much a driving force of the GOP coup against the America First movement.

But the limelight on Cheney has left in the dark the commission's actual Chairman: Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi). And it is from Thompson we may be able to deduce the roadmap of the months ahead.

One option is that Chairman Thompson will pay nothing but lip-service to the concerns of reporters like Seth Abramson and Alan Feuer that the Commission has abandoned any grand collusion narrative involving Trump and his inner circle. If there is no evidence of collusion with Trump and his inner circle, Thompson might revise his bizarre neglect of Rhodes and focus on the leaders of militia groups as a consolation prize. A serious inquiry into Rhodes, however, risks blowing the entire government and media narrative out of the water. Indeed, it would risk turning the great 1/6 insurrection into another orchestrated Fed job like the recent ''Michigan Kidnapping Plot,'' in which a whopping 12 out of the 18 ''plotters'' have been revealed to be Feds and/or informants.

The most likely course, then, is that the Commission pays lip service to the fevered conspiracy that Trump's inner circle colluded to sack the Capitol, and Rhodes will remain an untouched third rail. A brief review of Thompson's history and biography suggests this maximally compliant approach will be the case.

Thompson is a key component in the establishment DNC's merger with the national security state after 9/11, using the pretext of fake ''domestic terrorism''. As an untouchable incumbent in Mississippi with 28 years in Congress , Thompson was the chair of the Homeland Security Committee from 2007-2011 and has been back in charge again since 2019.

Essentially, whenever Democrats have a majority in the House, Thompson is put in as the hatchet man to control oversight of the Department of Homeland Security.

Bennie Thompson scratches the back of an ever-expanding US national security state. In turn, Thompson is rewarded with plush committee chair roles and an expanding DHS turf of his own .

Indeed, Thompson was tapped to serve as the Permanent Chair of the 2020 Democratic National Convention. In the 2020 election, Thompson presided over all official business of the convention that made Joe Biden the Democratic nominee for President.

Ironically, in 2004, Thompson was one of only 31 House Democrats who voted to overturn the results of the Bush-Gore election. But today, the vast Department of Homeland Security agency reports to him. And that agency now calls anyone who claims fraud in the 2020 election '' Potential Terror Threats .''

See how that works? When Bennie Thompson does it, it's democracy. When you do it, it's terrorism:

In 2007, Thompson's first act as chair of the Homeland Security Committee was to sponsor a bill that granted sweeping new police powers to DHS , using the pretext of 9/11.

But stopping foreign terror threats like a 9/11 attack'--you know, the reason DHS was supposedly created '-- never seemed to be the real priority for the Congressman actually overseeing the agency. Thompson has oddly always emphasized the ''domestic'' element of DHS's duty to ''defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic.''

As just one example, in the clip below from 2013, Thompson chastised the Republican-led Homeland Security Committee for its insufficient emphasis on homegrown domestic threats:

Perhaps Thompson's perennial crusade against average Joe Americans stems from a personal jihad based on race. In addition to being an aggressive attack dog for the US national security state, Thompson's other passion appears to be one-sided, full-throttle black racial activism. Racists are terrorists, according to Thompson, and everyone who disagrees with his agenda is a racist.

In 1975, Thompson filed a lawsuit that shook more than half a billion dollars out of the state government of Mississippi. Here's how Thompson's website describes it:

In 1975, having firsthand knowledge of the disparity between funding, equipment, and supplies provided to historically black universities and those provided to white colleges, Thompson filed a lawsuit to increase funding at Mississippi's historically black universities. With Thompson as lead plaintiff, the case was subsequently settled for an unprecedented $503 million .

Racial procurements and set-asides are a constant staple of Thompson's Congressional appropriations requests. Thompson's War on Domestic Terror speeches are padded with rhetoric about fighting racists in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and drawing inspiration from Medgar Evans .

From his cushy perch in Congress, Thompson openly called Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas an ''Uncle Tom'' for siding with Republicans. When questioned about the appropriateness of a Congressman using that slur, Thompson simply doubled down:

As we have reported extensively at Revolver, the biggest and most important trend in American politics is that the ruling class is repurposing the American national security state domestically in order to target Regime critics'--principally Trump supporters.

READ MORE: Dark New Dem Bill Uses ''Counter American Intelligence'' To Wage War on MAGA

On the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, President Bush, architect of the first war on terror made the transition explicit'--1/6 is the new 9/11. The national security infrastructure created in the aftermath of 9/11, which includes the DHS, now has a new purpose'--to target Trump supporters, especially in the wake of 1/6.

RELATED: Globalists Hijack 9/11 Anniversary, Trot Out Bush and Hillary to Unleash ''January 6 Domestic Terrorism Threat'' Narrative

Rep. Thompson hits the sweet spot for running the kangaroo court that is the January 6 Commission, satisfying both the Deep State and the Democratic establishment. He is a simp for the US national security state, and a pimp for racial crusades that dehumanize Trump supporters as punchable, criminal white supremacists.

In other words, we probably shouldn't hold our breath when it comes to Thompson doing anything to upset the FBI or other domestic intelligence equities. There seems to be nothing those government equities fear more than Thompson deciding to walk his talk and shine a Congressional spotlight on Person One aka Stewart Rhodes.

The January 6 Commission's Untouchable

The upshot of all of this is that disgruntled disinformation journalists like Seth Abramson and Alan Feuer will be left to marinate in a a stew of cognitive dissonance regarding the January 6 narrative. Indeed, the most efficient, elegant, and obvious explanation for both the Feds and Congress ignoring Rhodes is the one explanation these Regime apparatchiks simply cannot allow themselves to entertain.

But for those who can see clearly, a very different picture starts to emerge. If the Oath Keepers are a dangerous militia as we've been told, why is their kingpin still an untouchable figure to Congress'--a He Who Shall Not Be Named? And why is the government only interested in searching or pursuing Rhodes' alleged underlings, if the ''goldmine'' of evidence sits with Rhodes himself?

There may in the end be some exotic yet innocent explanation for the seeming protection the Feds have afforded Rhodes from indictment and from search and seizure. We maintain an open mind and are ready to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

But we have seen this movie before in the so-called Michigan Kidnapping Plot that occurred just months prior to January 6. In that ''plot'', at least 12 undercover informants were outed in the months after the initial arrests after accidental disclosures from the FBI. There, the Feds for months afforded virtually identical protection to Steve Robeson, the alleged leader of a Wisconsin Patriot Three Percenters militia group, as they seem to be giving to Rhodes in the wake of January 6. Robeson's inexplicable protection ended up having a very simple explanation in the end, which tied up all the strange loose ends surrounding the FBI's failure to either properly search or indict him. That explanation, as Revolver will cover in our next report, was that Robeson had been working with the Feds all along.

Given the weight of evidence in the case of Rhodes, the onus is now on the Justice Department, the FBI, or the Commission to come forward and either dispel or confirm this striking parallel immediately.

If the January 6 commission won't do its job and get to the bottom of this, we at Revolver News will. Our ground breaking, national-narrative shaping coverage of 1/6 is only getting started. Strap in and stay tuned, there's much more to come.

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Archived Version

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 11:22

Football fans had gathered at a gambling hall in the Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk to watch the 2009 Champions League semi-final between Barcelona and Chelsea.

But their evening turned to tragedy when a fire began in one of the dozens of slot machines installed in the arcade.

A lack of fire exits meant people struggled to escape the flames. Nine people were killed and a further 11 injured.

It sparked fundamental change: MPs banned casinos, halls with slot machines, bookmaking shops and internet gambling.

Yet fast forward 12 years and the industry is back. In the year since the sector was liberalised, the government has issued 40 licences.

In the capital Kyiv, betting-related adverts are plastered across billboards, public transport and television screens.

The government is hoping it will boost its coffers: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said it could bring in '‚¬160 million a year.

'It's a success story for Ukraine'Anton Kuchukidze, the chairman of the Ukrainian Gambling Council, said the country has the potential to become the biggest gambling market in Eastern Europe.

''The potential here is very high,'' Kuchukidze told Euronews. "It is a success story for Ukraine.''

Not everyone is convinced on that last point, but the new law is an improvement on the situation leading up to the 2009 blaze.

''It was awful before 2009," said Kuchukidze. "There was no social protection. Children and gambling addicts had access to the casinos, despite it being under government control. Slots machines were everywhere and the market was de facto not under government control.

''You can say that it was good that the sector was closed in 2009, but what came after was even worse. The market moved into the shadows and worked illegally, while the government received no revenue at all.''

He said illegal gambling halls sprang up, masked as lottery shops, which had been unaffected by the ban.

The new rules, introduced last year, limit who is allowed to open casinos both online and offline. Only certain hotels of a certain standard can open a casino and rules are also in place for preventing access to gambling addicts. The fines for breaking the rules are significant and Kuchukidze is confident it will keep people in check.

Sergey Potapov, CEO of online casino Cosmolot, said he is working with user data to identify early signs of gambling addiction.

''Hopefully, it will make it possible for us to predict who is likely to become addicted and stop it before,'' he said.

Illegal gambling hallsYet despite claims that Ukraine's gambling liberalisation has been a success, the industry still has problems to address.

Potapov, for example, complains taxes are too high and that this is stopping new companies from entering the market.

He said online casinos have to pay an annual fee of '‚¬170,000, regardless of their revenue. Gamblers will also have to pay a 19.5% tax on their winnings.

A new law is being discussed, which would substitute the yearly fee for a gross gaming revenue tax rate of 10%.

''We are willing to pay taxes and do so,'' said Potapov, ''But the tax system will need to change to be competitive to compete with Russia, Belarus, or other countries. I think that many companies are waiting to enter the market until the new law is in place. It is not sustainable as it is right now, and everyone understands that.''

Other critics claim the new legislation is not being implemented properly, pointing to the illegal gambling halls still operating in Ukraine.

In addition, Ukrainian police recently also arrested a member of Ukraine's Gambling and Lottery Regulatory Commission on suspicion of taking a bribe of $90,000 to grant a gambling licence.

Kuchukidze said he was working with police to shut down the illegal gambling halls and that a new tax framework is on its way to help the sector.

''More than ten foreign companies have demonstrated their interest in the Ukrainian gambling market when the tax draft passed its first reading,'' he said. ''And I think that when it is adopted, we will see more investors in Ukraine, and it is natural because Ukraine is the biggest gambling market in Europe and we will see that later.''

Every weekday, Uncovering Europe brings you a European story that goes beyond the headlines. Download the Euronews app to get a daily alert for this and other breaking news notifications. It's available on Apple and Android devices.

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Archived Version

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 11:12

There is nothing surprising about the failure of our vaccines. In fact it was totally predictable.

Coronavirus vaccines have been used in animals for years, with extremely unimpressive results. The problem is that coronaviruses infect the mucosal surfaces of the lungs, at what is basically the very edge of the reach of our immune systems. You could say that this their grand strategy. They work their way in from our least protected borders. Typically, nasal spray vaccines are preferred in animals to stimulate immunity in the mucosa. Unfortunately, even the sprays achieve immunity that 'žis often short-lived, requires frequent boosting, and may not prevent re-infection.'' This is after decades of vaccine development and the considerably reduced safety standards observed in veterinary medicine.

Our own SARS-2 vaccines, despite their fancy mRNA and virus vector technology, are entirely of a piece with veterinary standards. They have a poor side effect profile, they provide only temporary and partial protection against infection, and they are deployed on a vast scale with no regard for the evolutionary pressure they place on the virus or their broader consequences for infection dynamics. These are normal standards in the context of industrial livestock, where most animals are not raised to live very long in any event, and the risk of occasional accidents '-- inadvertently favouring or even causing lethal superstrains, or inflicting widespread vaccine injuries '-- can be weighed against the economic loss associated with mortality from infections.

Of all animal coronavirus vaccines, the most successful is that which prevents IBV, or infectious bronchitis virus, in chickens. IBV is mainly deadly to chicks, who are vaccinated almost immediately after hatching with a live, attenuated virus vaccine. These kinds of vaccines are preferred over deactivated virus vaccines in animals, because they elicit a better immune response. The reason is simple: The weakened vaccine virus actually infects you and your immune system remembers the event accordingly. Some SARS-2 attenuated virus vaccines are even in development for humans, but it is unlikely they will ever be used, because they are very dangerous. The attenuated virus, because it replicates in the cells of the vaccinated, can reacquire its prior virulence via mutations. This happened with early attenuated vaccines against poliovirus in humans. And there is an added danger, that the recently vaccinated might come into contact with the wild virus, and recombination events might then combine splice together the genomes of both, yielding unpredictable, potentially very lethal, mutant strains.

IBV vaccines protect the chickens from infection for only about nine weeks. That's long enough for the chickens destined to be eaten, but those raised for their eggs require constant boosters. They receive two or three attenuated virus vaccines at first, and then periodic deactivated virus boosters thereafter, to maintain their protection. Adenovirus vector vaccines have been tried in chickens, with efficacy similar to that induced by the attenuated virus vaccines. This is very likely an unstated reason that vaccine vector and mRNA messenger technology were used for our own SARS-2 jabs. It was known from experience with animals that deactivated virus vaccines would not work nearly as well, and that attenuated viruses were too dangerous.

There are other interesting tidbits in the literature on IBV vaccines too. For example: 'žThe basis of immunity to IBV is not well understood. Serum antibody levels do not correlate with protection, although local antibody is believed to play a role.'' In other words, all those studies crying to the heavens about higher blood antibody levels after dose 3 are dancing upon a likely irrelevant metric. And then there's this, from the same 2003 paper, on the feasibility of a SARS vaccine in light of the experience with IBV:

Application of a SARS vaccine is perhaps best limited to a minimal number of targeted individuals who can be monitored, as some vaccinated persons might, if infected by SARS coronavirus, become asymptomatic excretors of virus, thereby posing a risk to non-vaccinated people.

Emphasis mine.

At the extreme ends you are safe: Flu shots don't really do anything, so they don't matter one way or the other. And smallpox vaccines, because they are so effective at preventing infection, are an obvious benefit. But like the chickens, we are now in the world of a vaccine that only kind of works, and this is the most dangerous and unpredictable scenario of all.

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Archived Version

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 10:56

play Will the Eagles or Cowboys win their NFC East battle? (0:57)Ryan Clark says Dak Prescott and the Cowboys will continue to roll against the Eagles on Monday night. (0:57)

12:38 PM ET Todd Archer ESPN Staff Writer

CloseCovered NFL since 1997, Cowboys since 2003Previously covered Bengals and DolphinsLives in Dallas area with his wife and two childrenFRISCO, Texas -- Dallas Cowboys linebacker Keanu Neal will be out for Monday Night Football against the Philadelphia Eagles and is likely to miss the Oct. 3 game against the Carolina Panthers as well.

Neal was placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list at the start of the week as a close contact, which forced a five-day quarantine that is mandated only for unvaccinated players. On Saturday, coach Mike McCarthy said Neal had tested positive, which prompts a new 10-day isolation period.

If Neal's status was changed Thursday, he could be eligible to play against the Panthers if he is symptom-free. However, by that time, he will have gone two weeks without a practice. Of the players the Cowboys have had on the reserve/COVID-19 list so far this season, all have been vaccinated and none returned sooner than 10 days.

"He will not be available Monday, but we'll see how it goes," McCarthy said. "We definitely haven't ruled him out for Carolina yet."

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Neal's absence against the Eagles will likely mean more playing time for Leighton Vander Esch. Neal leads all linebackers in snaps in the first two games with 101, to go along with eight tackles and a tackle for loss. Vander Esch has played 51 snaps in the first two games and has 11 tackles, a sack, a tackle for loss and a quarterback pressure. He also drew three penalties against the Los Angeles Chargers last week.

"He has the ability to play different positions," McCarthy said of Vander Esch. "He's a great communicator, so I think he's definitely a good matchup for us."

Defensive end Bradlee Anae also tested positive and is on the reserve/COVID-19 list. The Cowboys will be without three defensive linemen Monday -- Anae, Dorance Armstrong (ankle) and Carlos Watkins (knee) -- likely requiring a call-up or two from the practice squad and the debut of third-round draft pick Chauncey Golston, who missed all of training camp with a hamstring strain.

Starting safety Donovan Wilson, who missed last week's game with a groin strain, also has been downgraded to doubtful for Monday night's game.

"I like the combination of last week's work and this week's work for Chauncey," McCarthy said. "I thought he had a really good day in pads. Hopefully, we'll see how the work wraps up [Sunday]."

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Archived Version

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 10:39

Dave Salove has watched his morgue fill with bodies. Covid-19 victims have poured into the funeral home he runs in Boise, Idaho, in recent weeks, as the state contends with an unprecedented spike in deaths driven by the delta variant of the coronavirus. His 16-slot refrigeration room is over capacity. Other funeral homes have neared a tipping point, too.

Intent on avoiding the makeshift morgues that cropped up in the Northeast during the pandemic's first wave, Salove this week brought in a refrigerated trailer to hold the growing number of dead. By Friday, there were seven corpses inside, up from two the day before. Six more were on their way from another facility.

''I'd barely gotten it installed, and we had to start using it,'' Salove said. ''Right now, we are seeing that spike.''

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As covid-19 deaths reach record highs in the state of 1.8 million, hard-hit areas are struggling to keep pace with the surge in victims. Some hospitals, funeral homes and coroners say they've been pushed to the limit. Some morticians have even started embalming bodies that wouldn't normally need the procedure so they don't have to refrigerate them, the Idaho Statesman reported.

The backlog is so bad in some places that people have had to wait weeks to cremate their loved ones.

''We're so far behind on cremations,'' said Lance Cox, owner of Bell Tower Funeral Home in Post Falls, Idaho. ''That's really how it impacts the families the most. You can bring in backup refrigeration options in an emergency, but you can't bring in a backup crematory.''

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The dire situation in Idaho, one of the least vaccinated states in the country, is another grisly illustration of what happens when a state fails to contain infections.

This intensive care unit went down to zero patients with covid-19. But once the delta variant hit, they've seen a return of patients with the virus. (Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)Others faced similar crises before the vaccines became widely available. Images of refrigerated trailers parked outside hospitals and funeral homes were seared into the nation's memory last spring when New York City, then America's disease epicenter, deployed them by the dozens to help make room for the victims. Nearly 18 months later, in Idaho, the containers are again becoming a visible sign of the mounting death toll as the state battles one of the country's worst outbreaks from the hyper-transmissible delta.

''Idaho is having its viral tsunami at the moment,'' said Robert Kim-Farley, a infectious-disease expert at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. ''I anticipate that we'll see even more deaths coming in the near future because of the fact that cases are still increasing. It's going to get worse before it gets better.''

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Statewide, hospitalizations have shot upward since early summer, leading officials to authorize rationing of medical care for the first time in Idaho's history. Intensive care unit admissions are at their highest level, exceeding the worst of the winter wave, data from the health department shows.

Unvaccinated patients account for the vast majority of the state's latest deaths, which have risen sharply since the beginning of September, according to tracking by The Washington Post. Idaho's rolling average for daily deaths peaked at 23 this month '-- a high number for the sparsely populated state, where just 41 hospitals have emergency rooms, according to the Idaho Hospital Association. The state is logging 68 new daily cases per 100,000 residents, the sixth-most in the country, The Post's analysis shows.

Neighboring Oregon and Washington state have grappled with their own viral resurgences as delta has taken hold. But high vaccination numbers have helped those states and others keep infection and death rates far below the levels Idaho is experiencing now, experts say.

For months, Republicans have blamed migrants at the U.S. southern border for spreading coronavirus, failing to account for their many unvaccinated constituents. (JM Rieger/The Washington Post)To combat the virus spread, Idaho Gov. Brad Little, a Republican, recently mobilized the National Guard to help overwhelmed hospitals. The state has also expanded access to monoclonal antibody treatment and sent money to providers to help alleviate staffing shortages.

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But Little has resisted issuing a statewide mask mandate '-- his lieutenant and political rival, Janice McGeachin, has tried to ban them entirely '-- and has threatened legal action against the Biden administration's vaccine requirements for businesses, even while describing the shots as ''our ticket out of the pandemic.'' His office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the state's major hospitals, the outbreak shows little sign of slowing.

St. Luke's Health System has seen a tenfold increase in covid-19 patients since the end of July, according to Frank Johnson, chief medical officer for St. Luke's in Boise, Elmore and McCall. The system is often recording a half-dozen or more deaths a day. Morgues at some facilities have exceeded capacity, prompting executives to turn to local coroners to take some of the bodies, he said.

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''It's a terrible situation,'' Johnson said in a call with reporters Thursday.

The crush of fatalities has fallen especially hard on Ada County, the state's most populous and home to the capital. Coroner Dotti Owens said her office handled 18 coronavirus deaths Wednesday, the most they've seen in a single day. September has already been worse for the county than the deadliest months last year, and it's weighing on her small staff.

''We're exhausted,'' Owens said. ''I have a feeling moving forward in the next couple weeks we're in trouble. I'm honestly afraid of what's coming.''

Owens's office is holding coronavirus victims in an external trailer she bought last fall to ensure they didn't run out of room during the previous covid-19 wave. Hospital officials around the region are now leaning on her for relief.

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On Friday morning, Owens said she got a call from a hospital telling her that their morgue was full and that they needed a place to store the bodies of 13 people who died overnight. At the end of the day, she was still trying to help work out a plan for moving the bodies to her facility or a nearby funeral home.

''It's taken us all day to facilitate all this,'' Owens said. ''If the funeral homes can't get them processed and cremated or buried quickly enough, or if they're full, we have to take them. We can't leave them at the hospital.''

Transporting the dead is a challenge farther north in Kootenai County, Idaho, as well.

Cox, the Bell Tower Funeral Home owner, runs a transport business that serves coroner's offices and other funeral homes in the region. He said his drivers have bounced from one facility to the other as the bodies have streamed in.

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''We're literally shuffling people from hospital to hospital to container to morgue because everybody's looking for space,'' said Cox, who tripled capacity in his morgue last year. ''We're getting lots of calls from other funeral homes asking me to store decedents. As long as I've got space, I say yes.''

During previous spikes in deaths, some states and D.C. received trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help hold the dead. So far, Idaho hasn't had to request them, according to Niki Forbing-Orr, a spokeswoman for the health department.

''Idaho has been supporting the sharing of existing mortuary capacity throughout the pandemic and would submit a request to FEMA after all resources in the state have been exhausted,'' she said in an email. ''We are monitoring the situation very closely.''

For Salove, managing partner of the Cloverdale Funeral Home in Boise, the lessons from earlier waves are impossible to ignore.

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In the winter, when the nation's daily death toll soared past 4,000, he saw the virus kill scores of seniors in his community. Now, he said, the dead passing through his building are skewing younger, with more victims in their 20s and 30s.

Salove said a recent call with a bereaved family convinced him to order the 53-foot trailer that sits outside the funeral home. The family members told him that Cloverdale wasn't their funeral home of choice, but said they'd been turned away elsewhere. Salove thought back to April 2020, during the initial explosion of cases, when one funeral home in Brooklyn stacked dozens of decomposing bodies into rented U-Haul trucks.

''I can't imagine putting someone's loved one in the back of a U-Haul for storage,'' Salove said. ''I was just determined that we were not going to be those places.''

Kyle Green contributed to this report.

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Archived Version

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 10:21

United Airlines reluctantly agreed to postpone its company-wide Chinese coronavirus vaccine mandate Friday until a federal judge is able to hold further hearings in a case brought by six of the airline's employees.

Evidently fearing it could lose Friday's court battle and be slapped with a temporary restraining order (TRO), the airline pivoted 180 degrees and agreed to postpone its mandate until October 15. United Airlines originally told its 67,000 U.S. employees they must be vaccinated against Chinese coronavirus (or secure an exemption) by September 27 or face termination. Instead, unvaccinated employees will now be able to continue working normally while the plaintiffs and the company gather what they need to proceed in court.

United Airlines employees wear masks as they walk through Terminal 1 at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2020 (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh).

Mark Paoletta, a partner at Schaerr Jaffe representing the plaintiff said in a statement:

We are pleased that under a threat of a Temporary Restraining Order, United Airlines postponed its heartless and unlawful vaccine mandate that would impose on approximately 2,000 employees the unconscionable choice of violating their religious faith, violating their doctors' orders, or essentially losing their job.

Six United Airlines employees are suing the company for its ''draconian'' Chinese coronavirus vaccine mandate, alleging the company has violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by discriminating against them based on their religious and medical exemptions.

The class action lawsuit, which powerhouse Washington, DC, law firm Schaerr Jaffe filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas on Tuesday, represents potentially at least 2,000 United Airlines employees. These workers have obtained religious or medical exemptions and will maintain employment, but they will be forced to live without pay and health benefits for up to six years while the company assesses the pandemic, according to the complaint.

''United's actions have left Plaintiffs with the impossible choice of either taking the COVID-19 vaccine, at the expense of their religious beliefs and their health, or losing their livelihoods,'' the complaint states. ''In doing so, United has violated Title VII and the ADA by failing to engage in the interactive process and provide reasonable accommodations, and also by retaliating against employees who engaged in protected activity.''

The complaint argues that ''indefinite unpaid leave is not a reasonable accommodation. Instead, indefinite unpaid leave is an adverse employment action.''

One of the plaintiffs, Kimberly Hamilton, has been with the company for 18 years and works as a station operations representative. She is the primary earner in her family and pays for her husband's cancer treatment, which she will be ''unable to afford if she is placed on unpaid leave,'' court documents show.

Another plaintiff, Seth Turnbough, has worked for the company for 16 years and is a pilot. He has relapsing/remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) and his neurologist recommended he forego the coronavirus vaccine ''due to a concern that it might trigger a ''cytokine storm'''--a condition in which an individual's immune system is over-stimulated and begins attacking healthy tissue and organs,'' the complaint states. His doctor is also concerned about his risk of blood-clotting, ''which is already an elevated concern for all pilots.''

His exemption was approved, but he also stands to be placed on unpaid leave. He could lose his health benefits and his ability to retire in good standing, court documents allege.

Plaintiff David Castillo has worked for the company for 22 years and is an aircraft technician. He submitted a request for religious exemption on September 17, several days after the August 31 deadline. He was subsequently denied, the airline citing his request as ''untimely.''

Castillo went to his supervisor directly to ask for a medical exemption, which is still pending. Castillo said he will be unable to afford his housing or his car if he is placed on unpaid leave.

''Unable to renew his lease without employment, he will become homeless on October 1, 2021,'' the complaint states.

He also reportedly has diabetes and will no longer be able to afford proper medical care.

''United's hostility to their own employees exercising their civil rights is stunning. United's CEO Scott Kirby previously disparaged those who might seek a religious accommodation and warned that those employees were putting their jobs on the line,'' Paoletta continued. ''Fortunately, for those seeking an accommodation, United's mandate has for now been stopped dead in its tracks.''

In a statement to Fox Business this week, a United Airlines spokesperson said the company believes the complaint is ''without merit'' considering the reportedly ''small'' number of employees impacted by the mandate:

The most effective thing we can do as an airline to protect the health and safety of all our employees is to require the vaccine '' excluding the small number of people who have sought an exemption, more than 97% of our U.S. employees are vaccinated. And we've been encouraged by the overwhelmingly positive response from employees across all work groups, since we announced the policy last month. We're reviewing this complaint in greater detail but at this point, we think it's without merit.

Given the urgent and potentially life-threatening situations several of the plaintiffs are facing, on Tuesday, Schaerr Jaffe asked the court for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to be placed on the company's mandate. A TRO means United Airlines would have to maintain the ''status quo'' '-- employees would show up to work and receive compensation '-- pending completion of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) administrative process. Instead of a TRO, United Airlines agreed to extend its mandate during litigation.

Paoletta concluded:

Now everyone can follow the court's decision to take the time and care needed to carefully consider the legitimate claims our clients have as we seek a solution that allows United to take necessary steps to combat COVID-19 while respecting the civil rights of valuable employees who have sincere religious objections or medical conditions that make them unable to take the vaccine.

Airline Employees 4 Health Freedom is an organization of airline workers, including the more than 2,000 United employees affected by the company's vaccine mandate, working to defend members' religious liberties and medical freedoms. The group reiterated its support for the lawsuit in a statement on Friday:

We stand strong with the Plaintiffs and all employees affected by United's unconscionable treatment of those bravely exercising their religious and medical rights to request an accommodation to the vaccine mandate. The thousands of EEOC claims we have seen thus far are hardly ''without merit,'' and we look forward to the facts regarding an anything but reasonable accommodation process coming to light.

United Airlines is reportedly the first airline to mandate vaccines for its employees. The case, which is to be heard by former President Donald Trump appointee Judge Mark Pittman, could arguably create a domino effect if successful and lead to other vaccine mandate cases across the country.

The case is Sambrano v. United Airlines, No. 4:21-cv-01074, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

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Sun, 26 Sep 2021 10:19

A nasty dry cough, sniffles and a thumping headache. Burning muscle pain. And, if you didn't feel miserable enough, everything you eat tastes like dust. It's a list of symptoms the British public have become all too familiar with over the past 18 months '' classic Covid. Or is it?

A fortnight ago, Mail on Sunday columnist Sarah Vine wrote about how she had been battling exactly this combination of ailments, but multiple tests '' both the gold-standard PCR and rapid lateral flows '' had come back negative.

Speaking on our Medical Minefield podcast, the 54-year-old mother-of-two described the phenomenon as 'spooky'.

'It's so very weird,' she said. 'I don't really get ill, and when I do it doesn't tend to stop me doing things. But this really stopped me in my tracks.'

And it seems Sarah isn't alone. Her original revelation triggered a deluge of letters from readers suffering in the same way and equally desperate for answers about their mystery illness.

FOR MORE ON THE COVID-NOT-COVID MYSTERY ILLNESS, LISTEN TO OUR MEDICAL MINEFIELD PODCAST

In an effort to get to the bottom of it all, Sarah Vine (pictured above) has given us a blow-by-blow account of her illness '' and we put it, and the accounts of our readers, to the experts

Some, like 23-year-old Mollie Whittaker, have been suffering, like Sarah, with lingering symptoms. 'It started with a continuous cough, loss of taste and smell and a slight temperature,' said the dental nurse from Southampton.

'I've done multiple Covid tests, PCR and lateral flow '' all negative. I am now, three weeks later, on a course of antibiotics but they are not helping. I'm only 23, supposedly fit and healthy, yet I am really struggling and not well at all.'

Another reader, Marie Morgan, 77, from Hove, wrote: 'I've never felt so ill in my life. For three weeks I experienced high temperatures, prolonged bouts of deep cold and shivering, but at night the sweats were so bad I was completely soaked two or three times.

'My breathing was so bad I couldn't speak or walk. My first Covid PCR test was negative but my second, two weeks later, was inconclusive '' the line on the kit was neither positive or negative.'

In an effort to get to the bottom of it all, Sarah Vine has given us a blow-by-blow account of her illness '' and we put it, and the accounts of our readers, to the experts.

It began, Sarah says, about a month ago, with an 'awful kind of summer cold'.

'It sort of went away. But then I started feeling really, really bad '' and that was it. It was a runny nose, terrible headaches and that feeling you've just been wrung out, everything aches.'

At the start of her illness, she didn't have any of the official Covid symptoms '' a cough, fever, or loss of sense of taste and smell '' but she took a DIY lateral flow test, to be safe. The result was negative.

Naomi Carpenter, a 20-year-old sports rehab student at Hull University, takes a swab for a lateral flow Covid-19 test at the campus sports facilities on January 4

She says: 'I thought, I'm just feeling tired, worn down or whatever.'

Another couple of days passed and the official Covid symptoms kicked in. She adds: 'I suddenly lost my sense of smell and taste, which is really weird. I've never had that before.

'It's not like when you have a cold, you can't taste things, and then if you blow your nose you can momentarily taste things. This was the absolute absence of smell and taste.

I've had every Covid symptom going... but still test negativeMystified: Mollie Whittaker, who was left unable to move from her sofa by a Covid-like illness

Mollie Whittaker, a dental nurse from Southampton, has suffered 'every Covid symptom going' on and off since the end of August.

It began as a severe lethargy, and days later, transformed into the Covid-type illness we all recognise.

'Within a day or so of feeling exhausted I took a rapid test because I was supposed to be going to a festival that weekend,' says the 23-year-old.

'I'd gone out for dinner at a local restaurant a couple of days before, so I assumed I'd caught it off someone there. But the test came back negative, so I figured everything was fine.'

By the end of the festival, Mollie, who has been fully vaccinated since January due to her job in healthcare, had acquired a 'non-stop' dry cough, a temperature and a loss of taste and smell.

Two days after she got home, Mollie ordered a PCR test from the Government website, which took a day and a half to arrive. She took it, sent it off, and two days later the results arrived: negative. But her symptoms gradually worsened, leaving her unable to move from her sofa and feeling as though she'd been 'thrown out of a building'. She's been unable to work since the end of last month.

After lateral flow tests came back negative, Mollie booked a telephone appointment with her GP, who said she couldn't possibly have Covid if she'd tested negative. She was given a prescription for antibiotics to treat a chest infection, which have yet to work. 'I'm sure it was Covid '' I know what a bad chest infection is like and this is definitely not that,' she says.

'The worst thing is, I worry my boss thinks the tests must be right, so I must be pulling a fast one. But all I want is for this illness to end so I can go back to work.

'As far as I'm concerned, I've had Covid. The tests must be wrong.'

'And this I knew was very specific to Covid.'

She tried, as an experiment, a glass of her favourite tipple, vodka and tonic, in the hope of reawakening her taste buds. 'Nothing. It tasted like water,' she says. 'Then my chest started to feel sore, and I developed a very nasty cough.'

It was then that Sarah, who had her two doses of the AstraZeneca jab at the beginning of this year, visited the Government website and ordered a gold-standard PCR test. It arrived a day later, and the result a day after that: negative. 'I took rapid lateral flow tests too, and have continued to do so regularly,' she says. 'Negative, negative, negative, negative. So I don't know, maybe the viral load is just not enough to show up.'

But as far as Sarah knew, she hadn't been in contact with an infected person.

'The only people it could have been are my children, but they didn't come down with anything.

'My daughter has been double vaccinated and my son has just had his first jab, because he is 16. And I think they both had Covid about a year ago. I guess I probably picked it up '' whatever it is '' at a supermarket or somewhere like that.'

Now, a month after the ordeal began, Sarah says the symptoms 'come and go'.

'It's very random. Some days I feel absolutely fine. Then sometimes I wake up and feel terrible.'

Her senses are yet to return: 'I'm still tasting things slightly differently. Before, I was really one of those people who could smell cigarettes at 200 paces. I can't smell things like that any more at all. Food is like dust in my mouth, so I've been eating a lot less. Salt comes through a little bit, but not completely. Now I like eating things that have textures, so I've become really obsessed with popcorn '' and toast. Toast has become very popular.'

Sarah's conundrum comes as experts warn of unusually high levels of other respiratory infections spreading rapidly across communities, due to the sudden return to social mixing. So is there a new, Covid-like virus striking us down?

According to the scientists, this is unlikely. Dr Peter English, a public health expert, was 'not surprised' by all the bizarre 'Covid, but not Covid' cases.

'I wouldn't worry too much if you have negative tests '' they are likely to be a false negative,' he says.

Even the most gold-standard test is known to be less than 100 per cent reliable at detecting true cases of Covid-19.

'If you take ten people who genuinely have Covid, the PCR tests will only pick out about seven of them as positive,' says Dr English.

Lateral flow tests are also not foolproof. There's a five per cent false negative rate in symptomatic people. In asymptomatic people, that figure is said to be roughly 40 per cent, according to an analysis in the British Medical Journal.

And the timing of the test is also key. Last year, University College London scientists analysed the reliability of PCR tests in 32 studies, and found the accuracy dropped from 89 per cent to 54 per cent when patients waited longer than four days after the onset of symptoms to get tested.

Experts say this is because, in most people, the viral load '' the amount of virus a person carries in their nose and mouth '' is easier to detect at high levels, which is typically at the very beginning of the infection.

Fully vaccinated people are even more likely to 'clear' the virus rapidly, says Dr English.

'Because the immune system has been primed, either by prior exposure to the vaccine or the disease, it can very quickly start producing antibodies and attack the virus,' he says.

All of this rings true in Sarah Vine's case: she took a PCR test over a week after she began feeling under the weather.

'I wouldn't worry too much if you have negative tests '' they are likely to be a false negative,' says Dr Peter English, a public health expert (file photo of a positive and negative test result)

COVID FACTSMore than a million Covid tests are carried out every day in the UK, according to the latest Government data.

But how could the tests continue to be negative, when her symptoms have long continued?

'Those who get more sick with Covid tend to clear the virus much quicker than those who don't have persistent symptoms,' says Dr Julian Tang, Professor of Respiratory Sciences at Leicester University. 'The severe symptoms aren't caused by the virus itself, but the immune system's extreme reaction to it.

'While this means the virus is cleared rapidly from the respiratory tract, the symptoms caused by the body's fighter cells attempting to eliminate an intruder will linger.'

Another layer of complication is the unique nature of the Delta variant, which has been the UK's most dominant strain for the past four months. According to the UK's biggest symptom-tracking study, which collects experiences of Covid from more than four million Britons who use the Zoe app, the Delta variant is more like a cold than the previous version.

The lead researcher, Professor Tim Spector, says the data suggested that Delta felt 'more like a bad cold', with most people reporting muscle aches, runny noses and sore throats. Cough, fever and loss of taste of smell and taste are also becoming less common, says Prof Spector.

'We know there are different common symptoms that arise with the Delta variant,' confirms Dr English. 'Yet the Government only tell you to get tested and isolate if you have a cough, fever or loss of sense of smell and taste.

While levels of flu remain 'very low' at the moment, rhinovirus '' the bug that causes the common cold '' rose from 5.9 per cent of the 100,000 samples that were tested, to 12.7 per cent between September 2 and 16 (file photo)

'I think this is a deliberate attempt to reduce the number of people who self-isolate when they should '' it's harder to get a PCR test if you don't have the classic symptoms.'

The other possibility, however, is that this infection is something entirely different to Covid.

In recent months, doctors have been warning of a surge in other serious respiratory viruses, particularly in young children and elderly adults.

Research by the Royal College of GPs, published in July, showed a dramatic increase in cases of bronchitis, the common cold and the severe infection that affects young children, respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.

COVID FACTSOne in 20 people with Covid suffer symptoms for three months '' long after they've stopped being infectious.

At a time of year where cases of RSV would usually be close to zero, and stable, Public Health England found positive samples had quadrupled in the five weeks to the end of July.

Last month, cases of RSV were at the highest August levels than they've been for 12 years. Experts have blamed the surge on the increase in social mixing, along with little opportunities to develop an immunity to common viruses, due to social isolation.

Dr English says: 'We would usually see the number of children exposed to RSV spread out over time.

'But most of them have not been exposed, so now there is no mitigation in schools, no requirement to wear masks, inadequate ventilation, all the things that we know spread diseases, they're all catching it at the same time.

'So what we're seeing is a big spike. Instead of infections spread out over a long period of time, they're all happening at once.'

And it would appear, from the limited data available, that the common cold is on the rise too. Each week the Government produces a flu surveillance report, based on thousands of randomly selected samples from patients with cold-like symptoms in GP surgeries and hospital departments across the country.

While levels of flu remain 'very low' at the moment, rhinovirus '' the bug that causes the common cold '' rose from 5.9 per cent of the 100,000 samples that were tested, to 12.7 per cent between September 2 and 16.

And what of the dreaded scenario '' a new Covid mutation that tests are failing to pick up?

Even the most gold-standard test is known to be less than 100 per cent reliable at detecting true cases of Covid-19. Pictured: an NHS testing centre in Bolton

'It's not impossible, but it is very, very unlikely,' explains Dr Tang.

'The tests work by looking for several target proteins within the virus and, even if one isn't present, you'll always spot another.

'It is very unusual for more than one of these targets to mutate at the same time.'

So what should someone do if they find themselves with Covid symptoms but without Covid? The Government only advises a period of self-isolation if you test positive for Covid-19 on a PCR test, or if you are told to by NHS Test and Trace.

But Dr English recommends those who test negative to continue to take precautions. 'If you are in a household with somebody who is vulnerable and may not have responded as well to the vaccine, I would definitely avoid contact with them until ten days after the onset of symptoms,' he says. 'And the same can be said for someone who is vulnerable that you might go and visit.'

Dr Tang says there are detailed tests that can determine exactly which virus a person is carrying, known as a 'full respiratory panel'. However, for this to be effective a patient would need to be seen in hospital while infectious, which, logistically wouldn't be easy. These tests are reserved for children and elderly people who are admitted to hospital with severe flu-like illness.

Otherwise, act as you would with any catchy illness, he adds: 'It's just common decency, when you have any type of cold or virus, to stay away from others so you don't pass it on. So work from home, don't go to social events and keep your distance. It's just about being considerate.'

Covid Q&A: What are the latest travel rules and are schools Covid hotspots? Q I'm confused about the new travel rules. What's allowed?

A From October 4, the Covid travel rules will be simplified. The three-tier traffic-light system will be scrapped. In its place there will be just two categories: the Red List and the Rest of the World. Those countries classed as 'Rest of the World' will be a combination of the formerly green and amber list nations and will have minimal travel restrictions.

This includes popular holiday destinations such as France, Greece and Spain as well as several previously red listed countries such as Turkey and the Maldives. Fully vaccinated travellers who head to these destinations will no longer have to take a pre-departure Covid test before returning to England.

From October 4, the Covid travel rules will be simplified. The three-tier traffic-light system will be scrapped. Pictured: Terminal 5's arrivals at Heathrow Airport

They will still need to take a gold-standard PCR test within two days of arrival, but from later in October this rule will change again and they will be able to use a cheaper and quicker lateral flow test instead.

People who are not fully vaccinated will still need a pre-departure test and a PCR test on days two and eight after they return from any country on the Rest of the World list. They will also have to self-isolate for ten days. All passengers returning from a Red List country will still have pay to quarantine in a hotel for ten days.

From November '' no date has been set but it's expected to be 'early' in the month '' fully vaccinated Britons can travel to the US, after Washington relaxed its border restrictions.

Q Lots of kids seem to be catching Covid. Has the return to school been a disaster?

A teacher holds a maths class at Whitchurch High School on September 14 in Cardiff

A Last week there were more than 100,000 children absent from school with confirmed or suspected Covid infections '' the highest number for England so far.

Dr Shamez Ladhani, a consultant paediatrician in infectious diseases at St George's Hospital, London, said: 'The data would suggest that a significant proportion of the confirmed cases are the effect of extra testing, which is picking up a lot of infections that we otherwise wouldn't have. A lot of these infections are likely to be asymptomatic or very mild.'

Former Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi hopes vaccinations for 12 to 15-year-olds will help to cut infection rates in schools.

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Sun, 26 Sep 2021 04:35

Elizabeth Holmes leaves the federal courthouse in San Jose, Calif., on Sept. 8. Nic Coury/AP hide caption

toggle caption Nic Coury/AP Elizabeth Holmes leaves the federal courthouse in San Jose, Calif., on Sept. 8.

Nic Coury/AP Selling an idea in Silicon Valley takes not only a grand vision but also swagger and bluster, says Margaret O'Mara, a historian of the tech industry.

"Being able to tell a good story is part of being a successful founder, being able to persuade investors to put money into your company," she said.

And Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO of Theranos, did just that. She was drumming up investment with a dream that bordered on the fantastical when she promised to transform health care. The company's portable blood-testing machine could analyze a finger-prick's worth of blood for thousands of diseases, she vowed.

In doing so, federal prosecutors allege, she and the No. 2 at Theranos, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, broke the law by deceiving investors about how well the business was doing and the capabilities of its testing machines, in addition to allegedly providing false or flawed test results to patients.

In Silicon Valley, the trial has launched a debate: Since Holmes was following a playbook used by dozens of tech CEOs, why is she the only one to face prosecution when a company becomes engulfed in a scandal?

To Ellen Pao, the former CEO of Reddit, who is a vocal critic of gender discrimination in tech, sexism is partially to blame.

"When you see which CEOs get to continue to wreak havoc on consumers and the market, it's people who look like the venture capitalists, who are mostly white men," Pao said.

She points to Adam Neumann, who drove WeWork into the ground; former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, who resigned after a sexual harassment scandal; and Juul's Kevin Burns, who stepped down amid questions over the company's role in stoking the youth vaping epidemic.

There were lawsuits, settlements and more fallout '-- but notably, Pao points out, no criminal prosecutions.

"That all these people continue to lead their lives and not be held accountable for all the harm that they've caused, it does send a message," she said.

What makes Holmes' case different?Former prosecutors who have tried white-collar crime say there are several reasons why Holmes stands out among disgraced tech CEOs.

First, the allegedly fraudulent behavior was egregious: Holmes told the world she had a miracle machine that would upend laboratory science. Prosecutors say, compared with her claims, the technology barely did anything at all.

Mark MacDougall, a former federal prosecutor who focused on fraud cases in the U.S. Justice Department, said Theranos' being a biotech company raised the stakes.

"It allows the government to contend, with some evidence, that the health of private citizens, the health of innocent people, was put at risk," MacDougall said.

Another reason Holmes was charged, according to former prosecutors, was that the government says it obtained evidence that she acted intentionally, which can be difficult to establish in fraud cases.

"That is frequently the most difficult part of a white-collar case to prove," said Hartley West, a former top prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California, which polices Silicon Valley.

"Occasionally you might find a case where there's an email that says, 'Boy, I hope we can defraud all these investors,' but that is very rare," West said.

Prosecutors have not presented such a document from Holmes, but through emails, text messages, witness testimony and other evidence, prosecutors say, they will be able to show that Holmes "knowingly and intentionally" defrauded investors and patients '-- something her defense team says is false. Her team argues that she is being wrongly prosecuted for being the CEO of a failed startup.

Proving that Holmes is guilty will turn on demonstrating her intent, since exaggerating a product's potential, missing financial forecasts and running a secretive company do not constitute federal crimes.

Prosecutors mulling charges against company executives need to be confident that, more likely than not, the person intended to break the law. And when the case goes to trial, the government has to show that the alleged crime happened beyond a reasonable doubt. But MacDougall said government lawyers also must be careful not to abuse their power to prosecute.

"If you begin to require everyone who is considering starting a company, expanding a company, developing a new product, to first think, 'Can I be prosecuted for this?' you're tinkering with something that's very fundamental to growth and the economy," he said.

Silicon Valley now says, "This isn't us"As a pitchwoman, Holmes called Theranos' device "the iPod of health care." She wore black turtlenecks in a not-so-subtle nod to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Investors responded by pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the company.

With Holmes now facing fraud charges and years behind bars if convicted, it has become common for tech leaders and venture capitalists to argue that her case is a one-off, not an indictment of the industry.

"The gap between what she and her colleagues were saying Theranos was doing and what it actually was doing was so vast," O'Mara said. "It's very easy for Silicon Valley to just say, 'This isn't us.' "

Pao disagrees, arguing that Holmes was encouraged by the high-risk, high-reward culture of venture capital. That said, Pao said she is not defending Holmes, saying her behavior warranted prosecution.

At the same time, Pao wants a broader discussion in Silicon Valley about why other CEOs accused of wrongdoing have not faced criminal consequences.

"Why aren't we holding other people accountable so we can avoid all the harm that is happening in the tech industry?" she asked.

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Archived Version

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 21:53

There is nothing surprising about the failure of our vaccines. In fact it was totally predictable.

Coronavirus vaccines have been used in animals for years, with extremely unimpressive results. The problem is that coronaviruses infect the mucosal surfaces of the lungs, at what is basically the very edge of the reach of our immune systems. You could say that this their grand strategy. They work their way in from our least protected borders. Typically, nasal spray vaccines are preferred in animals to stimulate immunity in the mucosa. Unfortunately, even the sprays achieve immunity that 'žis often short-lived, requires frequent boosting, and may not prevent re-infection.'' This is after decades of vaccine development and the considerably reduced safety standards observed in veterinary medicine.

Our own SARS-2 vaccines, despite their fancy mRNA and virus vector technology, are entirely of a piece with veterinary standards. They have a poor side effect profile, they provide only temporary and partial protection against infection, and they are deployed on a vast scale with no regard for the evolutionary pressure they place on the virus or their broader consequences for infection dynamics. These are normal standards in the context of industrial livestock, where most animals are not raised to live very long in any event, and the risk of occasional accidents '-- inadvertently favouring or even causing lethal superstrains, or inflicting widespread vaccine injuries '-- can be weighed against the economic loss associated with mortality from infections.

Of all animal coronavirus vaccines, the most successful is that which prevents IBV, or infectious bronchitis virus, in chickens. IBV is mainly deadly to chicks, who are vaccinated almost immediately after hatching with a live, attenuated virus vaccine. These kinds of vaccines are preferred over deactivated virus vaccines in animals, because they elicit a better immune response. The reason is simple: The weakened vaccine virus actually infects you and your immune system remembers the event accordingly. Some SARS-2 attenuated virus vaccines are even in development for humans, but it is unlikely they will ever be used, because they are very dangerous. The attenuated virus, because it replicates in the cells of the vaccinated, can reacquire its prior virulence via mutations. This happened with early attenuated vaccines against poliovirus in humans. And there is an added danger, that the recently vaccinated might come into contact with the wild virus, and recombination events might then combine splice together the genomes of both, yielding unpredictable, potentially very lethal, mutant strains.

IBV vaccines protect the chickens from infection for only about nine weeks. That's long enough for the chickens destined to be eaten, but those raised for their eggs require constant boosters. They receive two or three attenuated virus vaccines at first, and then periodic deactivated virus boosters thereafter, to maintain their protection. Adenovirus vector vaccines have been tried in chickens, with efficacy similar to that induced by the attenuated virus vaccines. This is very likely an unstated reason that vaccine vector and mRNA messenger technology were used for our own SARS-2 jabs. It was known from experience with animals that deactivated virus vaccines would not work nearly as well, and that attenuated viruses were too dangerous.

There are other interesting tidbits in the literature on IBV vaccines too. For example: 'žThe basis of immunity to IBV is not well understood. Serum antibody levels do not correlate with protection, although local antibody is believed to play a role.'' In other words, all those studies crying to the heavens about higher blood antibody levels after dose 3 are dancing upon a likely irrelevant metric. And then there's this, from the same 2003 paper, on the feasibility of a SARS vaccine in light of the experience with IBV:

Application of a SARS vaccine is perhaps best limited to a minimal number of targeted individuals who can be monitored, as some vaccinated persons might, if infected by SARS coronavirus, become asymptomatic excretors of virus, thereby posing a risk to non-vaccinated people.

Emphasis mine.

At the extreme ends you are safe: Flu shots don't really do anything, so they don't matter one way or the other. And smallpox vaccines, because they are so effective at preventing infection, are an obvious benefit. But like the chickens, we are now in the world of a vaccine that only kind of works, and this is the most dangerous and unpredictable scenario of all.

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 18:28

Vice President Kamala Harris has expanded her team with new senior advisors, including the brother-in-law of White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, as she faces public relations challenges over the border crisis.

Harris in recent months hired Lorraine Voles and Adam Frankel, both of whom worked with her transition team, to assist with 'organizational development, strategic communications and long-term planning,' a White House official told the Washington Post.

Frankel, who worked as a speechwriter for former President Barack Obama, is married to Psaki's sister Stephanie Psaki, a senior adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services.

The new public relations hires come as Harris, who is viewed as likely to seek the Democratic presidential nomination, faces falling approval ratings and criticism over her handling of the border.

Vice President Kamala Harris has expanded her team with new senior advisors, including the brother-in-law of White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki

Harris in recent months hired Lorraine Voles (left) and Adam Frankel (right) to assist with 'organizational development, strategic communications and long-term planning,'

President Joe Biden has handed Harris a number of complex and politically charged projects, including addressing the root causes of a surge in illegal border crossings, and spearheading a fight over US election laws.

These assignments have reportedly frustrated members of Harris' inner circle, who see them as political hot-potatoes with no easy wins, potentially damaging the vice president's further political ambitions.

Many Democrats view Harris as the leading contender for the party's presidential nomination either in 2024, if 78-year-old Biden does not seek a second term, or in 2028, if he chooses to run again.

Harris' approval ratings turned negative soon after her controversial trip to Mexico and Guatemala on June 8, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis of polling data.

The trip to address the so-called 'root causes' of migration came as illegal crossings at the southern US border approached a 20-year high, and Harris bristled at the time when questioned on why she had not yet visited the border itself.

Biden's approval ratings also began to sink around the same time, and have slipped further since, so it's unclear whether Harris suffered from a general decline in satisfaction with the administration.

A Haitian girl stands at a migrant camp at the U.S.-Mexico border on Tuesday in Del Rio, Texas. The large camp thrust border issues back into the spotlight this week

Meanwhile 19,000 mostly Haitian migrants are currently camped out in northern Colombia waiting for a boat to take to Acandi in hopes of crossing through the Darien jungle on the way to the US, despite 41 people dying in the jungle this year

Migrants boarding a boat to Acandi in hopes of getting to the Panama border on Thursday. Only 11,500 migrants were able to obtain boat tickets and some have been stranded in Colombia for weeks waiting to board by October 13

In the past week, border issues have been thrust back into the limelight, as a squalid camp of Haitian migrants in Del Rio, Texas swelled to 15,000 last weekend.

On Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas revealed that nearly 30,000 Haitian migrants have been encountered trying to enter the country illegally since September 9.

He revealed that 2,000 have been expelled on 17 flights, 8,000 have returned to Haiti voluntarily, 12,400 have been released into the US and 5,000 are being processed.

That leaves 2,600 missing. Officials have said some have crossed back into Mexico, where they may attempt to enter the US again.

The camp in Del Rio has now been cleared, but new reports indicate that 19,000 migrants, who are mostly Haitian, are congregating in northern Colombia with plans to journey to the Texas crossing.

Harris chimed in on the latest border crisis on Friday, compared images of US Border Patrol Agents seeking to push back Haitian migrants to the brutality of slavery.

She told The View that images of mounted Border Patrol agents confronting migrants, which were widely and falsely described as depicting them whipping the migrants, 'evoked images of some of the worst moments of our history' including tactics 'used against African Americans during times of slavery'.

'Human beings should not be treated that way and as we all know it also evoked images of some of the worst moments of our history,' VP Kamala Harris said on ABC's 'The View' when asked about border agents using horses to push back Haitian immigrants

She called images of what she saw 'horrible.' A border agents' union said the riders were using split reins, rather than whips, and the photographer said he did not see whipping

Photographer Paul Ratje, who took the controversial images, came forward on Friday to say that he did not see officers whipping migrants. Rather, the long reins of their mounts were swinging in the air as they tried to contain the crowd.

Harris' new hires will bolster her staff in terms of public relations and speechwriting capabilities.

Frankel worked on Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and then joined the White House as a speech writer until 2011.

He went on to work at speechwriting firm Fenway Strategies, Laurene Powell Jobs' organization Emerson Collective, and PepsiCo, where he was a vice president.

Voles previously worked as director of communications for former Vice President Al Gore and advised Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential bid.

She went on to serve as senior vice president for communications and marketing at Fannie Mae and vice president of external relations at George Washington University.

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 18:15

Fertilizer producer CF Industries Holdings Inc halted two fertilizer plants in the UK on Wednesday, according to a company press release.

CF Industries Holdings, a top manufacturer of hydrogen and nitrogen products, released a statement today indicating that its Billingham and Ince, UK, manufacturing facilities suspended operations "due to high natural gas prices." There was no timeframe on when the plants would reopen. But reasonably, one would suspect when gas prices come back down.

Jim Reid, the chief credit strategist at Deutsche Bank, told clients today that in the "26 years of having a Bloomberg terminal, I've never pulled up so many gas price graphs as I have over the last 24 hours."

Reid is looking at benchmark UK natgas front-month contract has risen almost 400% since March, from 40 pence per megawatt-hour to 194 pence intra-day, before closing around 164.

The credit strategist describes tight supplies as a significant driver in the melt-up of gas prices, stemming from dwindling Russian gas flows to Europe.

He also noted power prices are rising as Europe's transition to a low-carbon future hit a stumbling block as wind speeds in the North Sea are among the slowest in 20 years, idling turbines.

CF's plants produce ammonium nitrate fertilizers that are made from natgas.

"There's also a fight for supplies of liquefied natural gas, with Asia buying up cargoes to meet its own demand. Shutting down these plants, which largely produce ammonium nitrate, will cause the company to lose some production volume," according to Alexis Maxwell, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

The impact here will be supply destruction and may send fertilizer prices even higher:

"The market will read this as other European producers are likely to shut down, and nitrogen prices will continue to rise on the supply-side shortage," Maxwell said

Fertilizers prices are already high because soaring food inflation has pushed farmers to increase plantings, thus using more nutrients. Also, the latest price surges have been due to CF's Donaldsonville, Louisiana, plant declaring a force majeure last week after Hurricane Ida wreaked havoc on the US Gulf Coast.

All of this is feeding into inflation on a global scale and is getting out of hand. To curb out of control European natgas prices, Germany has to certify Russia's Nord Stream 2 to begin shipments - but as we noted earlier today, that could take months and may mean inventories on the continent aren't resupplied in time for winter.

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 16:49

Covid-19 is treated in the mass media as a very dangerous disease in the face of which mass vaccination and severe restrictions for the whole society are applauded despite few deaths beyond the risk groups. But in Norway, it has now been decided to treat it like other respiratory diseases, such as influenza or the cold virus, because according to the Norwegian Institute of Public Health it is no longer more dangerous than these.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health FHI has made the remarkable, but statistically supported, decision to classify Covid-19 as a respiratory disease that is as dangerous as the common flu. It is clarified that the pandemic is not over, but that it has entered a new phase where Covid-19 is now equated with a common respiratory disease, such as a flu or respiratory infection. This is done, among other things, due to the mutations that the Coronavirus has undergone, which makes it less dangerous, together with increased natural and vaccination-induced immunity that has been achieved in Norwegian society.

Geir Bukholm. Photo: FHI

Although the infection itself continues to circulate in the population, this does not mean an increase in hospital stays, which in itself means that the Coronavirus no longer creates a large burden on healthcare in Norway. This is because the vast majority of those at risk are protected. Those who are vaccinated also get severe symptoms and those who are not in the risk groups also usually only get ordinary mild cold symptoms. FHI thus makes the assessment that the Coronavirus now joins the ranks of other respiratory viruses such as the common cold and seasonal flu.

''It is something positive and sends out signals that at least in Norway, at the moment, they consider themselves aware of the situation,'' said Niklas Arnberg, professor of virology at Ume¥ University and chairman of the Pandemic Foundation to Aftonbladet.

More contagious but less dangerousThe FHI believes that the pandemic itself is not over because it is still out in the world and is spreading at the same time as the proportion of people vaccinated worldwide is low. As long as it spreads outside the territories of rich countries, it will be a continuing pandemic, it is said.

With fewer in the high-risk groups who are in need of healthcare, the burden on healthcare decreases sharply.

The second factor is one that is well known, namely that viruses with very few exceptions over time on purely evolutionary grounds develop towards becoming more contagious but at the same time less lethal. Sars-CoV-2 has undergone thousands of mutations and different variants have replaced each other in the rate of spread and degree of infection, but which have continuously proved less and less deadly. This spread also continues among vaccinated people as the degree of vaccine protection against this variant is lower than against previous variants, which also enables its continued spread, even in countries where the majority of the population has been vaccinated.

In the studies conducted by FHI, it has been found that both partially and fully vaccinated people who receive Covid-19 have a low risk of having to go to hospital for care, but that the same also applies to healthy people who do not belong to risk groups. In those who were partially vaccinated, it has been concluded that the degree of protection against the Delta variant is only 22 percent, which increases to 65 percent for those who received two doses of vaccine. There are still low degrees of efficacy compared with the Alpha variant of the virus, where the degree of protection was instead 55 percent and 84 percent for those vaccinated.

According to the latest statistics from FHI, 67 new patients have been admitted to hospital with Covid-19 as the main cause during week 37, which is a decrease from 95 cases the week before. But of the new cases in week 37, only 9 patients needed intensive care, a decrease from 22 from the previous week.

It is also believed that the risk of needing medical care increases for those who are completely unvaccinated, but this is otherwise dependent on the risk group you are in. Around 40 percent of those who needed to be admitted for care in Norway during the past week have, for example, been fully vaccinated but have then an overwhelming majority belonged to risk groups. Around 5 percent have been partially vaccinated and around 55 percent of those admitted have not been vaccinated at all. A total of 11 people died with Covid-19 during week 37, a decrease from 13 deaths the previous week. The average age of those who died in week 37 was 80 years and thus in the risk group.

In Norway, 90 percent of the population over the age of 18 have received their first dose and 83 percent have received their second dose and are thus considered fully vaccinated.

Influenza does not require mass vaccinationThe significantly improved situation in Norway means that they choose to classify Covid-19 as a respiratory infection of the same degree of danger as influenza. This does not mean that it is seen as harmless, but rather that just as in the case of influenza, it is believed that it can be managed and that the risks for patients with a Covid-19 or influenza infection are comparable and that it is for people in the risk groups.

''The total societal costs for virus-caused diseases can be tens of billions of kronor every year, without us having a pandemic,'' Arnberg told Swedish daily Aftonbladet. He cited common colds and stomach ailments as causes for this.

Every year, between 300 000 and 1,5 million Swedes fall ill with the flu, but few still die, only between 700 and 2000 annually, with fairly large annual variations within this range. As in the case of Covid-19, it is in the risk groups that the overwhelming majority of deaths occur, but no mass vaccinations are carried out at the societal level despite this.

More children aged 10-19, for example, die of the common flu each year, between five and ten children, which is more than what died with Covid-19 in 2020 and 2021, as according to the National Board of Health and Welfare's death register only four children who died with Covid-19 so far. In terms of this age group, the flu is more dangerous than Covid-19. This is interesting in itself, because in Norway, unlike Sweden, they have chosen not to vaccinate children under 12 years of age.

The future looks brightBy the winter, it is suspected in Norway that the hospitals will not be burdened with patients who have fallen ill with Covid-19, but instead there will be a mixture of Covid-19, other respiratory infections and common flu.

''I think we have reached the top this time. Then I think instead that we will get a winter wave that comes later. But we do not think it will be bigger than the healthcare system can handle,'' Geir Bukholm told Verdens Gang.

According to FHI's assessments, the infection is on the decline, fewer people become seriously ill, very few die and Norway's assessment that Covid-19 is no longer more dangerous than a common flu looks increasingly correct.

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 16:46

To give you a picture of who the new president ofPlanned Parenthood is, we scoured a number of sources and pieced together thistimeline:

1983 Born January27, 1983 (now 35 years old)

1996 EnteredCalifornia State University, Los Angeles (at age 13)

2001 Graduatedfrom Cal State LA Summa Cum Laude

2002 EnteredWashington University in St. Louis medical school

2005 Wentook a one-year leave of absence from medical school to serve as the nationalpresident of the American Medical Student Association.She was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services to serveon the Council on Graduate Medical Education, an advisory commission toCongress.

2007 GraduatedWashington University in St. Louis medical school

2009 Completed 2-years of Masters Programs (an Masterof Science in Economic and Social History and an Master of Science in ModernChinese Studies) at Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar)

2010 Wen served as chair of the YoungProfessionals Council, a global leadership network of medical, nursing, andpublic health professionals.

2010- 2013 Harvard Affiliated EmergencyMedicine Residency at Brigham &Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital'--wasin ER on day of bombings of the Boston marathon.

2013 St. Martin's Press published her book, When Doctors Don't Listen: How to AvoidMisdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests.

2013- 2014 Served as the Director ofPatient-Centered Care Research, Attending Physician in the Department ofEmergency Medicine, and Assistant Professor of Health Policy in the MilkenSchool of Public Health, at George Washington University. She also co-directedthe Residency Fellowship in Health Policy and co-led a new nationalcollaboration on health policy and social mission with Kaiser Permanente.

She served as a consultant to the Brookings Institution and the China Medical Board, and conducted international health systemsresearch including in South Africa, Slovenia, Nigeria, Singapore, and China.

2015 AppointedHealth Commissioner by mayor of the City of Baltimore

2016 Re-appointedas Health Commissioner by new mayor

2018 Will bepresident of PPFA effective November 12

She speaks around the world on patient empowerment, healthcarereform, and Who's My Doctor, a campaign she founded that aims fortransparency in medicine.

By all accounts, Dr. Wen is a truly smart professionalwho quickly moved up the ranks of healthcare professionals until she became the''Doctor for the City'' in Baltimore, MD. While there for the last two-plusyears, she launched many new efforts and was highly regarded. Perhaps it was anopportunity to head the organization she patronized during her high school andcollege years when she was relieved at a negative pregnancy test. Or, maybe itwas the lure of money. As Health Commissioner in Baltimore, Wen was paid$212,000 a year. Her predecessor at Planned Parenthood received total income of$744,833 in 2017. Of course, Cecile Richards had to oversee an organizationthat committed 321,384 abortions last year to get that much'--butmoney is money.

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 16:41

Physician, public health advocate, author, and president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Leana Sheryle Wen (Chinese: æ¸(C)éºŸè ; born Wen Linyan; January 27, 1983) is an American physician, an op-ed columnist with The Washington Post and a CNN medical analyst. She is a practicing physician, a former Health Commissioner for the City of Baltimore, and author of the books When Doctors Don't Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests and Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health.[1] Currently, she is a visiting professor of Health Policy and Management at the George Washington University, where she is a Distinguished Fellow in the Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity.[2] She is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.[3]

Wen previously practiced as an emergency physician at the George Washington University, where she also served as a professor in the School of Medicine & Health Sciences and professor in health policy at the Milken Institute School of Public Health.[4] Prior to this, she was an emergency physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was on the faculty of Harvard Medical School.[5] She also served as the national president of the American Medical Student Association and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine/Resident and Student Association.[6]

From December 2014 until October 2018, Wen served as the health commissioner for Baltimore City under two mayors.[7] She resigned when she was appointed head of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.[8][9] She was the first physician to serve as the organization's president in nearly 50 years.[9] Wen was asked to step down by Planned Parenthood's board of directors on July 16, 2019.[10]

In May 2020, Wen became a contributing columnist for The Washington Post, focusing on health policy and public health.[11] She has been a leading voice in the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, appearing frequently on CNN as an on-air medical analyst.[12][13] In June 2020, she testified in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis on racial disparities and COVID-19.[14]

Wen was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2019.[15]

Early life and education [ edit ] Born Wen Linyan (æ¸(C)éºŸè ) in Shanghai on January 27, 1983,[16] to Ying Sandy Zhang and Xiaolu Wen,[17] Wen moved with her parents to the U.S. when she was eight, by then having the English name Leana Sheryle Wen.[18] Granted political asylum, the Wen family lived in Compton and East Los Angeles in Southern California.[19][20][21] In 2003, Wen and her family became U.S. citizens.[20]

Wen's mother, who died of breast cancer in 2010, first worked as a hotel room cleaner and video store clerk before becoming an elementary school teacher.[21][22] Her father delivered newspapers and was a dishwasher, later serving as technology manager for The Chinese Daily News in Los Angeles.[5][21]

Attending the Early Entrance Program (EEP) at California State University, Los Angeles starting at age 13, Wen graduated summa cum laude at age 18 with a bachelor's degree in biochemistry, in 2001.[23][17][19] She received a Doctor of Medicine from Washington University School of Medicine and has two master's degrees, one in Economic and Social History and another in Modern Chinese Studies,[24] both from the Merton College, Oxford in England where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She also met her future husband, Sebastian Walker, during her time in England.[5]

In 2005, Wen took a one-year leave of absence from medical school to serve as the national president of the American Medical Student Association,[17] where she led campaigns to increase healthcare access, decrease health disparities, and combat conflicts of interest between physicians and the pharmaceutical companies who notoriously use attractive sales representatives and free gifts to influence doctors, especially young interns and medical residents.[25][26] Wen became involved in U.S. and international health policy during medical school, serving in Geneva, Switzerland as a fellow for the World Health Organization and in Rwanda as a fellow for the U.S. Department of Defense.[17] In addition, she advised the U.S. Congress on physician workforce and medical education through her appointment on the Council on Graduate Medical Education by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.[19][27]

Career [ edit ] Following medical school, Wen completed a residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General) and a clinical fellowship at Harvard Medical School in Boston. She is board certified in emergency medicine. Wen started working in emergency medicine at BWH and Mass General before moving to the ER at the George Washington University (GW) in Washington, DC,[24] where she became a professor in emergency and health policy, and the Director of Patient-Centered Care Research.[28] She served as a consultant to the Brookings Institution and the China Medical Board, and conducted international health systems research including in South Africa, Slovenia, Nigeria, Singapore, and China.[29]

As president of Planned Parenthood, Wen worked to expand non-abortion services like maternal health and mental health services and to rebrand Planned Parenthood from its image as an abortion rights advocate to a comprehensive women's health organization that serves women and families.[30] She spoke out about her own experiences as a cervical cancer survivor who struggled with infertility, and about a miscarriage she suffered while in the role.[31][32] Wen was named one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in 2019 and referred to by Cynthia Nixon in the magazine as a "fierce visionary" for reproductive rights and health care.[33]

In July 2019, she was forced out of her job as president of Planned Parenthood in a dispute over philosophical differences and the direction of the organization amid growing political and legal challenges to abortion.[34] On July 19, 2019, Wen published an opinion editorial in The New York Times which set forth the circumstances underlying her departure from Planned Parenthood. She stated her view that "As one of the few national health care organizations with a presence in all 50 states, Planned Parenthood's mandate should be to promote reproductive health care as part of a wide range of policies that affect women's health and public health."[35] Wen reportedly tried to de-emphasize abortion and to steer Planned Parenthood away from politics, which ran counter to the wishes of some board members and staff. [36]

Patient advocacy [ edit ] In 2013, St. Martin's Press published her book, When Doctors Don't Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests with coauthor Joshua Kosowsky. It is about how patients can take control of their health to advocate for better care for themselves.[37]

Wen wrote a blog, The Doctor is Listening.[38] She was a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and Psychology Today on patient empowerment and healthcare reform.[39][40] She was also an advisor to the then-newly established Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute,[41] and an advisor to the Lown Institute and the Medical Education Futures Study.[42] She was the founder of Who's My Doctor, an international campaign that called for transparency in medicine.[43][44]

Wen is a frequent keynote speaker on healthcare reform, education, and leadership, and has given several TED Talks. Her TED talk on transparency in medicine has been viewed over 1.9 million times.[28][45][46][47]

Baltimore City health commissioner [ edit ] In December 2014, Wen was appointed by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to serve as the health commissioner; in December 2016, she was reappointed by Mayor Catherine Pugh. In this role, she oversaw the Baltimore City Health Department, an agency of 1,100 employees and $130 million annual budget with wide-ranging responsibilities, including management of acute communicable diseases, animal control, chronic disease prevention, emergency preparedness, food service inspections, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, maternal-child health, school health, senior services, and youth violence issues.

She directed the city's public health recovery efforts after the 2015 Baltimore riots, including ensuring prescription medication access to seniors after the closure of 13 pharmacies, and developing the Mental Health/Trauma Recovery Plan, with 24-hour crisis counseling, and healing circles and group counseling in schools, community groups, and churches.[48][49]

Following the 2015 Baltimore riots, the Baltimore City Health Department team launched numerous campaigns, including a citywide trauma response plan, youth health and wellness strategy, violence prevention programs, B'Healthy in B'More blog, and B'More Health Talks, a biweekly town hall and podcast series on health disparities.[19][50][51][52][53]

In May 2016, she served as the commencement speaker for the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the Notre Dame of Maryland University, where she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.[54][55] She has also served as commencement speaker at Washington University School of Medicine and at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In 2017, Wen was named as one of Modern Healthcare's 50 Most Influential Physician Executives and Leaders and in 2018 as one of its Top 25 Minority Physician Executives.[56]

In March 2018, on behalf of Wen and the Baltimore City Health Department, the City of Baltimore sued the Trump administration for cutting teen pregnancy prevention funds, which resulted in a federal judge ordering the Trump administration to restore $5 million in grant funding to two Baltimore-based teen pregnancy prevention programs.[57] She wrote an opinion editorial criticizing proposed changes to the Title X program which would affect health clinics in Baltimore providing reproductive health care for low income women.[58] This court decision was later reversed by the 9th Circuit court, enabling the Trump administration to withhold Title X funding for abortion.

Opioid overdose epidemic response [ edit ] Wen has led implementation of the Baltimore opioid overdose prevention and response plan, which includes a blanket prescription for the opioid antidote, naloxone; "hotspotting" and street outreach teams to target individuals most at risk; training family/friends on naloxone use; and launching a new public education campaign.[59] Wen testified to the U.S. Senate HELP Committee and U.S. House Oversight Committee on Baltimore's overdose prevention efforts. She led a group of state and city health officials to petition the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on adding black box warnings to opioids and benzodiazepines.[60][61] In March 2016, she was invited by the White House to join President Barack Obama and CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta on a panel discussion, where she spoke about Baltimore's response.[62] She convened doctors and public health leaders to sign the Baltimore Statement on the Importance of Childhood Vaccinations[63] and to successfully advocate to ban the sale of powdered alcohol in Maryland and synthetic drugs in Baltimore.[64][65]

Congressman Elijah Cummings cited Wen's efforts to combat the opioid epidemic in Baltimore and sought her help in creating national legislation to change how the United States fights it.[66]

In 2018, the National Association of County and City Health Officials awarded the Baltimore City Health Department the Local Health Department of the Year.[67][non-primary source needed ]

Personal life [ edit ] Wen married South Africa native Sebastian Neil Walker in Boston in February 2012, after a blessing ceremony in Cape Town in November 2011.[5] They have two children: son Eli (born 2017) and daughter Isabelle (born 2020).[32][68]

References [ edit ] ^ "Dr. Leana Wen". Macmillan Publishers . Retrieved June 28, 2021 . ^ "Leana Wen Joins Milken Institute". GWU . Retrieved October 28, 2019 . ^ "Brookings Institution". Brookings . Retrieved October 26, 2020 . ^ "About Leana Wen". The GW Medical Faculty Associates . Retrieved April 14, 2016 . ^ a b c d Mallozzi, Vincent M. (February 12, 2012). "Leana Wen, Sebastian Walker '-- Weddings". The New York Times . Retrieved June 2, 2021 . ^ Tanner, Lindsay (September 2, 2013). "Forget Marcus Welby: Today's Docs Want a Real Life". AP News . Retrieved January 17, 2013 . ^ "Leana Wen Reflects on Four Years as Baltimore's Health Commissioner". Baltimore Sun . Retrieved June 8, 2020 . ^ Domonoske, Camila (September 12, 2018). "Planned Parenthood Chooses Baltimore's Health Commissioner As Its Next President". NPR.org . Retrieved September 13, 2018 . ^ a b "Dr. Leana Wen to Serve as President of Planned Parenthood" (Press release). Planned Parenthood Federation of America. September 12, 2018 . Retrieved September 14, 2018 . ^ Bernstein, Lenny (July 16, 2019). "Planned Parenthood Ousts Leader After Less Than a Year". Washington Post . Retrieved August 8, 2019 . ^ "Leana S. Wen joins Washington Post Opinions as contributing columnist". The Washington Post . Retrieved May 12, 2020 . ^ Galvin, Gaby (June 5, 2020). "Dr. Leana Wen: Public Health Depends on Public Trust". U.S. News and World Report . Retrieved June 8, 2020 . ^ Rogers, Kristen (October 27, 2020). "What you need to prepare for the Covid-19 surge this season". CNN . Retrieved October 26, 2020 . ^ "Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis". U.S. House of Representatives . Retrieved June 8, 2020 . ^ "Leana Wen: The 100 Most Influential People of 2019". TIME . Retrieved September 22, 2020 . ^ 美国è®å'ç--Ÿè‚²æ'ºæžä>>>>命华è£--åŒ>>ç--Ÿæ‹…ä>>>>新é†å¯¼äºº. Boxun News (in Chinese). September 14, 2018 . Retrieved September 14, 2018 . ^ a b c d "Wen Takes Rhodes Scholarship for Return to Oxford". November 27, 2006 . Retrieved January 17, 2013 . ^ Kristof, Nicholas D. (June 27, 2007), "Sheryl and Sheryle", The New York Times , retrieved September 13, 2018 ^ a b c d "The Atlantic: Working a million hours to heal a city" . Retrieved April 13, 2016 . ^ a b Zernike, Kate (September 12, 2018). "Planned Parenthood Names Leana Wen, a Doctor, Its New President". The New York Times . Retrieved September 13, 2018 . ^ a b c Wen, Leana S. (September 6, 2017). "Leana Wen: an immigrant's story". The Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on September 11, 2017 . Retrieved September 13, 2018 . ^ Wen, Leana, "Tribute to My Mother", DrLeanaWen.com , retrieved April 14, 2016 ^ "Leana Wen of Planned Parenthood Wants to Tackle the 'Fundamental Unfairness in Our System ' ". nytimes.com. May 2, 2019 . Retrieved May 9, 2019 . ^ a b Shesgreen, Deirdre (March 6, 2016), "Doctor wants overdose antidote in every medicine cabinet", USA Today , retrieved June 2, 2021 ^ McDonald, G (November 6, 2005), "Fighting the Freebies", TIME, archived from the original on March 6, 2008 , retrieved January 17, 2013 ^ Romano, Michael (January 30, 2006), "Fighting graft--it's academic", Modern Healthcare, 36 (5): 8''10, ISSN 0160-7480, PMID 16479773 ^ Council on Graduate Medical Education staff (2010), Twentieth Report: Advancing Primary Care (PDF) , retrieved April 14, 2016 ^ a b "What Your Doctor Won't Disclose" . Retrieved January 21, 2015 . ^ "Leana Wen, Baltimore City Health Commissioner, to Deliver Graduation Address to University of Maryland School of Medicine's 207th Graduating Class". somvweb.som.umaryland.edu . Retrieved June 12, 2016 . ^ Luther, Shefali (April 17, 2019). "Planned Parenthood's 'Risky Strategy' to Update Its Image". Kaiser Health News . Retrieved August 8, 2019 . ^ "Before I was President of Planned Parenthood, I Was Diagnosed with Cervical Cancer". self.com . Retrieved July 22, 2019 . ^ a b Wen, Leana S. (July 6, 2019). "Opinion: Leana Wen: My miscarriage has made my commitment to women's health stronger" . The Washington Post . Retrieved June 2, 2021 . ^ Nixon, Cynthia (2019). "TIME 100". TIME . Retrieved August 8, 2019 . ^ "Head of Planned Parenthood forced out after eight months". WashingtonPost.com . Retrieved July 16, 2019 . ^ Wen, Leana S. (July 19, 2019). "Opinion | Leana Wen: Why I Left Planned Parenthood". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved June 2, 2021 . ^ "Head of Planned Parenthood forced out after eight months". WashingtonPost.com . Retrieved July 16, 2019 . ^ Wen, Leana S.; Kosowsky, Joshua M. (2014). When doctors don't listen : how to avoid misdiagnoses and unnecessary tests. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9781250048486. OCLC 857982040. ^ Goldberg, Carey (January 11, 2013). 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"Judge orders Trump administration to restore $5M in funding to Baltimore teen pregnancy prevention programs". baltimoresun.com . Retrieved August 22, 2018 . ^ Wen, Leana S. "Trump's family planning dystopia". baltimoresun.com . Retrieved August 22, 2018 . ^ "Don't Die '' Get Naloxone. Save a Life". www.dontdie.org . Retrieved September 13, 2018 . ^ "Senate HELP Committee Testimony" . Retrieved March 8, 2016 . ^ Dennis, Brady (February 22, 2016). "Health officials push FDA to add 'black box' warnings about using opioids, benzodiazepines together". Washington Post . Retrieved March 8, 2016 . ^ Nadia Kounang. "Obama: Addiction is a preventable disease". CNN . Retrieved June 12, 2016 . ^ Wen, Leana; Czinn, Steven; Dover, George (November 12, 2015), "Vaccines are safe, effective and life-saving", The Baltimore Sun ^ McDaniels, Andrea K (March 26, 2015), "Health concerns spur ban on powdered alcohol", The Baltimore Sun ^ Barnett, Gigi. "New City Law Punishing Stores That Sell Synthetic Drugs" . Retrieved June 12, 2016 . ^ "Forging our National Response to the Opioid Epidemic | Afro". www.afro.com . Retrieved August 22, 2018 . ^ "Baltimore City Health Department Named Local Health Department of the Year". Baltimore City Health Department. July 17, 2018 . Retrieved August 22, 2018 . ^ "Dr. Leana Wen's top-5 tips for talking to kids about COVID-19". NBC News. May 14, 2020 . Retrieved June 2, 2021 . External links [ edit ] Appearances on C-SPANLeana Wen at TED

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 16:41

Deadly explosions during the 2013 Boston Marathon, and subsequent shooting and manhunt

"Boston attack" redirects here. For the incident in 1770, see

Boston Massacre.

"Boston bomber" redirects here. For the Douglas Boston bomber aircraft, see

Douglas A-20 Havoc.

The Boston Marathon bombing was a domestic terrorist attack that took place during the annual Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Two terrorists, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, planted two homemade pressure cooker bombs, which detonated 14 seconds and 210 yards (190 m) apart at 2:49 p.m., near the finish line of the race, killing 3 people and injuring hundreds of others, including 17 who lost limbs.[1][6][7]

Three days later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released images of two suspects,[8][9][10]. Following the identification of the suspects, they killed an MIT policeman, kidnapped a man in his car, and had a shootout with the police in nearby Watertown, during which two officers were severely injured (one of whom, DJ Simmonds, died a year later). Tamerlan was shot several times, and his brother Dzhokhar ran him over while escaping in the stolen car; Tamerlan died soon after.

An unprecedented manhunt for Dzhokhar ensued on April 19, with thousands of law enforcement officers searching a 20-block area of Watertown;[11] residents of Watertown and surrounding communities were asked to stay indoors, and the transportation system and most businesses and public places closed.[12][13] Around 6:00 p.m., a Watertown resident discovered Dzhokhar hiding in a boat in his backyard.[14] Dzhokhar was shot and wounded by police before being taken into custody.[15]

During questioning, Dzhokhar said that he and his brother were motivated by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that they were self-radicalized and unconnected to any outside terrorist groups, and that he was following his brother's lead. He said they learned to build explosive devices from the online magazine of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.[16] He also said they had intended to travel to New York City to bomb Times Square. On April 8, 2015, he was convicted of 30 charges, including use of a weapon of mass destruction and malicious destruction of property resulting in death.[2][17][18] Two months later, he was sentenced to death,[19] though in July 2020 this sentence was vacated and is to be reheard by a new trial.[3]

Bombing [ edit ] The blasts (red) occurred along the marathon course (dark blue), the first nearer the finish line than the second.

The 117th annual Boston Marathon was run on Patriots' Day, April 15, 2013. At 2:49 p.m. EDT (18:49 UTC) , two bombs detonated about 210 yards (190 m) apart at the finish line on Boylston Street near Copley Square.[20][21][22][23] The first exploded outside Marathon Sports at 671''673 Boylston Street at 2:49:43 p.m.[20] At the time of the first explosion, the race clock at the finish line showed 04:09:43[24] '' the elapsed time since the Wave 3 start at 10:40 a.m. The second bomb exploded at 2:49:57 p.m.,[21][25] 14 seconds later and one block farther west at 755 Boylston Street.[7] The explosions took place nearly three hours after the winning runner crossed the finish line,[25] but with more than 5,700 runners yet to finish.[26]

Windows on adjacent buildings were blown out, but there was no structural damage.[25][27] Runners continued to cross the line until 2:57 p.m.[28]

Casualties and initial response [ edit ] Rescue workers and medical personnel, on hand as usual for the marathon, gave aid as additional police, fire, and medical units were dispatched,[29][30] including from surrounding cities as well as private ambulances from all over the state. The explosions killed 3 civilians and injured an estimated 264 others, who were treated at 27 local hospitals. At least 14 people required amputations, with some suffering traumatic amputations as a direct result of the blasts.[6]

Police, following emergency plans, diverted all remaining runners to Boston Common and Kenmore Square. The nearby Lenox Hotel and other buildings surrounding the scene were evacuated.[23] Immediately after the bombing occurred and medically injured people were transported, the police closed a 15-block area around the blast site; this was reduced to a 12-block crime scene the next day.[23][27][31] Boston police commissioner Edward F. Davis recommended that people stay off the streets.[27]

Dropped bags and packages, abandoned as their owners fled from the blasts, increased uncertainty as to the possible presence of more bombs[20][32] and many false reports were received.[8][23][33][34][35][36][37] Simultaneously an electrical fire at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in nearby Dorchester was initially feared to be a bomb.

Emergency services at work after the bombing

The airspace over Boston was restricted, and departures halted from Boston's Logan International Airport.[38] Some local transit service was halted as well.[25]

The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency suggested people trying to contact those in the vicinity use text messaging instead of voice calls because of crowded cellphone lines.[25] Cellphone service in Boston was congested but remained in operation, despite some local media reports stating that cell service was shut down to prevent cell phones from being used as detonators.[39]

The American Red Cross helped concerned friends and family receive information about runners and casualties.[40][41] The Boston Police Department also set up a helpline for people concerned about relatives or acquaintances to contact and a line for people to provide information.[42] Google Person Finder activated their disaster service under Boston Marathon Explosions to log known information about missing people as a publicly viewable file.[43]

Due to the closure of several hotels near the blast zone, a number of visitors were left with nowhere to stay; many Boston-area residents opened their homes to them.[44]

Investigation [ edit ] This pressure cooker fragment was part of one of the explosive devices.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation led the investigation, assisted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Counterterrorism Center, and the Drug Enforcement Administration.[45] It was initially believed by some that North Korea was behind the attack after escalating tensions and threats with the U.S.[46][47]

United States government officials stated that there had been no intelligence reports suggesting such an attack. Representative Peter King, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said: "I received two top secret briefings last week on the current threat levels in the United States, and there was no evidence of this at all."[48]

After being identified, the father of the two suspects claimed that the FBI had been watching his family. He stated that they visited his sons' home in Cambridge, Massachusetts five times, most recently in 2011, as "preventive work... afraid there might be some explosions on the streets of Boston".[49]

Emptied fireworks from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's backpack, found in a landfill near the UMass Dartmouth campus

Evidence found near the blast sites included bits of metal, nails, ball bearings,[50] black nylon pieces from a backpack,[51] remains of an electronic circuit board, and wiring.[50][52] A pressure cooker lid was found on a nearby rooftop.[53] Both of the improvised explosive devices were pressure cooker bombs manufactured by the bombers.[54][55][56] Authorities confirmed that the brothers used bomb-making instructions found in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's Inspire magazine.[57][58] After the suspects were identified, The Boston Globe reported that Tamerlan purchased fireworks from a fireworks store in New Hampshire.[59]

On April 19, the FBI, West New York Police Department, and Hudson County Sheriff's Department seized computer equipment from the apartment of the Tsarnaevs' sister in West New York, New Jersey.[60] On April 24, investigators reported that they had reconstructed the bombs, and believed that they had been triggered by remote controls used for toy cars.[61]

April 18''19 shootings and manhunt [ edit ] Tsarnaev brothers shootings and manhuntSecurity camera images of Tamerlan Tsarnaev (front) and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev just prior to the bombings

[62]LocationShooting: Corner of Vassar Street and Main Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts[63]Firefight and manhunt: Watertown, MassachusettsDate Shooting: April 18, 2013 , 10:48 p.m. Firefight and manhunt: April 19, 2013, 12:30 a.m. '' 8:42 p.m. Attack type

WeaponsShooting: 9mm Ruger P95 semi-automatic pistolFirefight:Improvised explosive devices9mm Ruger P95 semi-automatic pistolStolen Mercedes-Benz M-Class SUVDeaths3 (including Tamerlan Tsarnaev and a police officer who died April 19, 2013[65])Injured16PerpetratorsDzhokhar Tsarnaev (sentenced to death; sentence overturned July 2020)[2]Tamerlan Tsarnaev (deceased)Release of suspect photos [ edit ] Jeff Bauman was immediately adjacent to one of the bombs and lost both legs; he wrote while in the hospital: "Bag, saw the guy, looked right at me".[66] He later gave a detailed description of the suspects, which enabled images of them to be identified and circulated quickly.[66][67][68]

At 5:20 p.m. on April 18, the FBI released images of two suspects carrying backpacks, asking the public's help in identifying them.[69][70] The FBI said that they were doing this in part to limit harm to people wrongly identified by news reports and on social-media.[71]As seen on video, the suspects stayed to observe the chaos after the explosions, then walked away casually. The public sent authorities a deluge of photographs and videos, which were scrutinized by both authorities and online public social networks.[70]

MIT shooting and carjacking [ edit ] Scenes and approximate times of events of April 18''19

Around 7:40 pm, a few hours after the photos were released, the Tsarnaev brothers ambushed and shot Sean A. Collier of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Department six times[72] in an attempt to steal his Smith & Wesson M&P45 sidearm, which they could not free from his holster because of its security retention system.[73] Collier, aged 27, was seated in his police car near the Building 32 on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus.[15][74] He died soon after.[15][75]

The brothers then carjacked a Mercedes-Benz M-Class SUV in the Allston-Brighton neighborhood of Boston. Tamerlan took the owner, Chinese national Dun "Danny" Meng[76] (Chinese: 孟盾 ),[77] hostage and told him that he was responsible for the Boston bombing and for killing a police officer.[15] Dzhokhar followed them in their green Honda Civic, later joining them in the Mercedes-Benz. Interrogation later revealed that the brothers "decided spontaneously" that they wanted to go to New York and bomb Times Square.[78]

The Tsarnaev brothers forced Meng to use his ATM cards to obtain $800 in cash.[79][80] They transferred objects to the Mercedes-Benz and one brother followed it in their Civic,[81] for which an all-points bulletin was issued. The Tsarnaev brothers then drove to a Shell gas station to fill up for a long ride to Times Square, New York City to set off more explosives. But while Dzhokhar went inside to pay for junkfood, Meng, fearing that the suspects would harm him during the long drive, escaped from the Mercedes and ran across the street to the Mobil gas station, asking the clerk to call 911.[82][83] His cell phone remained in the vehicle, allowing the police to focus their search on Watertown.[84]

Watertown shootout [ edit ] Shortly after midnight on April 19, Watertown police officer Joseph Reynolds identified the brothers in the Honda and the stolen Mercedes after overhearing radio traffic that the vehicle was "pinged" by Cambridge officers on Dexter Avenue in Watertown. Reynolds followed the vehicle while waiting for additional units to perform a high-risk traffic stop when the suspect vehicles both turned onto Laurel Street and stopped at the intersection of Laurel and Dexter.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev stepped out of the Mercedes and immediately opened fire on Officer Reynolds and Sergeant John MacLellan, who both returned fire and requested emergency assistance over their radios. A violent gun battle ensued between Tsarnaev, the aforementioned officers, and subsequent additional police responding to the "shots fired" radio transmissions from Reynolds and MacLellan in the 100 block of Laurel St.[15][85][86] An estimated 200 to 300 rounds of ammunition were fired, 56 of which were later determined to have been fired from the suspects, and at least one pressure cooker bomb and several "crude grenades" were thrown.[86][87]

The agencies involved in the nearly 7-minute long shootout included the Watertown Police Department, Cambridge Police Department, Boston Police Department, Massachusetts State Police (MSP), Boston University Police Department, and MBTA Transit Police Department. The majority of the officers involved in the shootout were equipped by their respective agencies with either the Glock 22 or Glock 23 .40 S&W-caliber pistols. MSP troopers were armed with Smith & Wesson M&P45 pistols chambered in .45 ACP; this led investigators to match the 9mm casings and projectiles found at the scene to the suspects' 9mm Ruger P95 pistol.

According to Watertown Police Chief Edward Deveau, the brothers had an "arsenal of guns".[88] Tamerlan eventually ran out of ammunition and threw his empty Ruger pistol at Watertown PD Sergeant Jeffrey Pugliese, who subsequently tackled him with assistance from Sergeant MacLellan.[89][90]

Tamerlan's younger brother Dzhokhar then drove the stolen SUV toward Tamerlan and the police, who unsuccessfully tried to drag Tamerlan out of the car's path and handcuff him;[89][90] the car ran over Tamerlan and dragged him a short distance down the street, narrowly missing the Watertown officers. Watertown Sgt. MacLellan later stated that the younger brother had thought they were doing CPR on another officer and tried to run them over.[15][89][91][92] Dzhokhar abandoned the car half a mile away and fled on foot.[15][84][93][94] Badly wounded, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was taken into custody, and died at 1:35 a.m. at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.[95]

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Police Officer Richard H. Donohue Jr.[96] was critically wounded in the leg[97] in crossfire from other officers shooting at the fleeing vehicle, but survived.[98] Boston Police Department officer Dennis Simmonds was injured by a hand grenade and died on April 19, 2014.[65] Fifteen other officers were also injured.[85] A later report by Harvard Kennedy School's Program on Crisis Leadership concluded that lack of coordination among police agencies had put the public at excessive risk during the shootout.[99]

Only one firearm was recovered at the scene, Tsarnaev's Ruger P95, which was found to have a defaced serial number.[100][101]

Identification and search for suspects [ edit ] Records on the Honda left at the scene identified the men[102] as two brothers whose family had migrated to the United States seeking political asylum around 2002: 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev and 19-year-old Dzhokhar "Jahar" Tsarnaev.[103][104] The FBI released additional photos of the two during the Watertown incident.[105] Early on April 19, Watertown residents received automated calls asking them to stay indoors.[106] That same morning Governor Patrick asked residents of Watertown and adjacent cities and towns[107][108][109] to "shelter in place".[110] Somerville residents also received automated calls instructing them to shelter in place.[111]

A 20-block area of Watertown was cordoned off and residents were told not to leave their homes or answer the door, as officers scoured the area in tactical gear. Helicopters circled the area and SWAT teams in armored vehicles moved through in formation, with officers going door to door.[112] On the scene were the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Diplomatic Security Service, HSI-ICE, the National Guard, the Boston, Cambridge, Watertown Police departments, and the Massachusetts State Police. The show of force was the first major field test of the interagency task forces created in the wake of the September 11 attacks.[113]

The entire public transit network and most Boston taxi services[a] were suspended, as was Amtrak service to and from Boston.[74][115] Logan International Airport remained open under heightened security.[115] Universities, schools, many businesses, and other facilities were closed as thousands of law enforcement personnel participated in the door-to-door manhunt in Watertown. Others followed up on other leads, including searching the house that the brothers shared in Cambridge, where seven improvised explosive devices were found.[116]

The brothers' father spoke from his home in Makhachkala, Dagestan, encouraging Dzhokhar to: "Give up. You have a bright future ahead of you. Come home to Russia." He continued, "If they killed him, then all hell would break loose."[117] On television, Dzhokhar's uncle from Montgomery Village, Maryland pleaded with him to turn himself in.[118]

Post-capture celebrations in Boston's student-heavy

Mission Hill neighborhood

On the evening of April 19, two hours after the shelter-in-place order had been lifted, David Henneberry, a Watertown resident outside the search area, noticed that the tarp was loose on his parked boat.[119][120] Investigating, he saw a body lying inside the boat in a pool of blood.[121] He contacted the authorities, who surrounded the boat. A police helicopter verified movement through a thermal imaging device.[85][122] The figure inside started poking at the tarp, prompting police to shoot at the boat.[123]

According to Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis and Watertown Police Chief Deveau, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was shooting at police from inside the boat, "exchanging fire for an hour".[124] A subsequent report indicated that the firing lasted for a shorter time.[125] Despite this, the suspect was found to have no weapon when he was captured.[126]

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was arrested at 8:42 p.m.[127][128] and taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he was listed in critical condition[129] with gunshot wounds to the head, neck, legs, and hand.[130] Initial reports that the neck wound represented a suicide attempt were contradicted by him being unarmed.[131] The situation was chaotic, according to a police source quoted by The Washington Post, and the firing of weapons occurred during "the fog of war".[125] A subsequent review by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts provided this more specific summary: "One officer fired his weapon without appropriate authority in response to perceived movement in the boat, and surrounding officers followed suit in a round of 'contagious fire', assuming they were being fired on by the suspect. Weapons continued to be fired for several seconds until on scene supervisors ordered a ceasefire and regained control of the scene. The unauthorized shots created another dangerous crossfire situation".[132]

These confusions were caused in part by a lack of clearly identified and coordinated law enforcement command of the thousands of officers from surrounding communities who self-deployed into the Watertown area during the events.[133]

Legal proceedings [ edit ] Interrogation [ edit ] United States Senators Kelly Ayotte, Saxby Chambliss, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain, and Representative Peter T. King suggested that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a U.S. citizen, should be tried as an unlawful enemy combatant rather than as a criminal, potentially preventing him from obtaining legal counsel.[134][135] Others said that doing so would be illegal, including prominent American legal scholar and lawyer Alan Dershowitz, and would jeopardize the prosecution.[136][137] The government decided to try Dzhokhar in the federal criminal court system and not as an enemy combatant.[138]

Dzhokhar was questioned for 16 hours by investigators but stopped communicating with them on the night of April 22 after Judge Marianne Bowler read him a Miranda warning.[78][139] Dzhokhar had not previously been given a Miranda warning, as federal law enforcement officials invoked the warning's public safety exception.[140] This raised doubts whether his statements during this investigation would be admissible as evidence and led to a debate surrounding Miranda rights.[141][142][143]

Charges and detention [ edit ] Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in a court holding cell on July 10, 2013

On April 22, 2013, formal criminal charges were brought against Tsarnaev in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts during a bedside hearing while he was hospitalized. He was charged with use of a weapon of mass destruction and with malicious destruction of property resulting in death.[2] Some of the charges carry potential sentences of life imprisonment or the death penalty.[144] Tsarnaev was judged to be awake, mentally competent, and lucid, and he responded to most questions by nodding. The judge asked him whether he was able to afford an attorney and he said no; he was represented by the Federal Public Defender's office.[145] On April 26, Dzhohkar Tsarnaev was moved from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to the Federal Medical Center at Fort Devens, about 40 miles (64 km) from Boston. FMC Devens is a federal prison medical facility at a former Army base[146] where he was held in solitary confinement at a segregated housing unit[147] with 23-hour-per-day lockdown.[148][149]

On July 10, 2013, Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty to 30 charges in his first public court appearance, including a murder charge for MIT police officer Sean Collier.[150] He was back in court for a status hearing on September 23,[151] and his lawyers requested more time to prepare their defense.[152] On October 2, Tsarnaev's attorneys asked the court to lift the special administrative measures (SAMs) imposed by Attorney General Holder in August, saying that the measures had left Tsarnaev unduly isolated from communication with his family and lawyers, and that no evidence suggested that he posed a future threat.[153]

Trial and sentencing [ edit ] Jury selection began on January 5, 2015, and was completed on March 3, with a jury consisting of eight men and ten women (including six alternates).[154] The trial began on March 4 with Assistant U.S. Attorney William Weinreb describing the bombing and painting Dzhokhar as "a soldier in a holy war against Americans" whose motive was "reaching paradise". He called the brothers equal participants.[155]

Defense attorney Judy Clarke admitted that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had placed the second bomb and was present at the murder of Sean Collier, the carjacking of Dun Meng, and the Watertown shootout, but she emphasized the influence that his older brother had on him, portraying him as a follower.[156] Between March 4 and 30, prosecutors called more than 90 witnesses, including bombing survivors who described losing limbs in the attack, and the government rested its case on March 30.[157] The defense rested as well on March 31, after calling four witnesses.[158]

Tsarnaev was found guilty on all 30 counts on April 8.[159] The sentencing phase of the trial began on April 21,[160]and a further verdict was reached on May 15 in which it was recommended that he be put to death.[161] Tsarnaev was sentenced to death on June 24, after apologizing to the victims.[162] In 2018 Tsarnaev's lawyers appealed on the grounds that a lower-court judge's refusal to move the case to another city not traumatized by the bombings deprived him of a fair trial.[163]

On July 30, 2020, Tsarnaev's death sentence was reversed by the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which found that the District Court did not properly screen jurors on how much they had heard of the case during jury selection. The First Circuit vacated the death sentence and three of the other thirty convictions against Tsarnaev, and ordered a new penalty phase jury trial with fresh jurors, leaving the decision of a new change of venue to the District Court. Tsarnaev's remaining convictions still carried multiple life sentences, assuring that he would remain in prison regardless of the results of the new trial.[3] The United States government appealed this ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which granted certiorari in the case United States v. Tsarnaev in March 2021, which is expected to be heard in the 2020''2021 term.[164]

Motives and backgrounds of the Tsarnaev brothers [ edit ] Motives [ edit ] According to FBI interrogators, Dzhokhar and his brother were motivated by Islamic beliefs but "were not connected to any known terrorist groups", instead learning to build explosive weapons from an online magazine published by al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen.[16] They further alleged that "Dzhokhar and his brother considered suicide attacks and striking the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular on the Fourth of July";[165] but ultimately decided to use remotely-activated pressure cooker bombs and other IEDs. Fox News reported that the brothers "chose the prestigious race as a 'target of opportunity' ... [after] the building of the bombs came together more quickly than expected".[166][167]

Dzhokhar said that he and his brother wanted to defend Islam from the U.S., accusing the U.S. of conducting the Iraq War and War in Afghanistan against Muslims.[138][168][169] A CBS report revealed that Dzhokhar had scrawled a note with a marker on the interior wall of the boat where he was hiding; the note stated that the bombings were "retribution for U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq", and called the Boston victims "collateral damage", "in the same way innocent victims have been collateral damage in U.S. wars around the world".[5] Photographs of the note were later used in the trial.[170][171]

Some political science and public policy writers suggest that Islam may have played a secondary role in the attacks.[172] These writers theorize that the primary motives might have been sympathy towards the political aspirations in the Caucasus region and Tamerlan's inability to become fully integrated into American society.[172] According to the Los Angeles Times, a law enforcement official said that Dzhokhar "did not seem as bothered about America's role in the Muslim world" as his brother Tamerlan had been.[58] Dzhokhar identified Tamerlan as the "driving force" behind the bombing, and said that his brother had only recently recruited him to help.[138][173]

Some journalists and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's defense attorney have suggested that the FBI may have recruited or attempted to recruit Tamerlan Tsarnaev as an informant.[174][175][176][177]

Backgrounds [ edit ] Tamerlan Tsarnaev was born in 1986 in the Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, North Caucasus.[178] Dzhokhar was born in 1993 in Kyrgyzstan, although some reports say that his family claims that he was born in Dagestan.[179] The family spent time in Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan, and in Makhachkala, Dagestan.[80][180]They are half Chechen through their father Anzor, and half Avar[181] through their mother Zubeidat. They never lived in Chechnya, yet the brothers identified themselves as Chechen.[179][182][183][184]

The Tsarnaev family immigrated to the United States in 2002[15][182][185][186] where they applied for political asylum, settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[104] Tamerlan Tsarnaev attended Bunker Hill Community College but dropped out to become a boxer. His goal was to gain a place on the U.S. Olympic boxing team, saying that, "unless his native Chechnya becomes independent", he would "rather compete for the United States than for Russia".[188] He married U.S. citizen Katherine Russell on July 15, 2010, in the Masjid Al Quran Mosque. While initially quoted in a student magazine as saying, "I don't have a single American friend. I don't understand them," a later FBI interview report documents Tamerlan stating it was a misquote, and that most of his friends were American.[189][190] He had a history of violence, including an arrest in July 2009 for assaulting his girlfriend.[191]

The brothers were Muslim; Tamerlan's aunt stated that he had recently become a devout Muslim.[183][184] Tamerlan became more devout and religious after 2009,[192][193] and a YouTube channel in his name linked to Salafist[192] and Islamist[194][195] videos. The FBI was informed by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in 2011 that he was a "follower of radical Islam".[194] In response, the FBI interviewed Tamerlan and his family and searched databases, but they did not find any evidence of "terrorism activity, domestic or foreign".[196][197][198][199][200][201] During the 2012 trip to Dagestan, Tamerlan was reportedly a frequent visitor at a mosque on Kotrova Street in Makhachkala,[202][203][204] believed by the FSB to be linked with radical Islam.[203] Some believe that "they were motivated by their faith, apparently an anti-American, radical version of Islam" acquired in the U.S.,[205] while others believe that the turn happened in Dagestan.[206]

At the time of the bombing, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth with a major in marine biology.[207] He became a naturalized U.S. citizen on September 11, 2012.[208] Tamerlan's boxing coach reported to NBC that the young brother was greatly affected by Tamerlan and admired him.[209][210]

Tamerlan was previously connected to the triple homicide in Waltham, Massachusetts, on the evening of September 11, 2011, but he was not a suspect at the time.[211][212] Brendan Mess, Erik Weissman, and Raphael Teken were murdered in Mess's apartment. All had their throats slit from ear to ear with such great force that they were nearly decapitated. The local district attorney said that it appeared that the killer and the victims knew each other, and that the murders were not random.[213] Tamerlan Tsarnaev had previously described murder victim Brendan Mess as his "best friend".[214] After the bombing and subsequent revelations of Tsarnaev's personal life, the Waltham murders case was reexamined in April 2013 with Tsarnaev as a new suspect.[211] Both ABC and The New York Times have reported that there is strong evidence which implicates Tsarnaev in this triple homicide.[214][215]

Some analysts claim that the Tsarnaev's mother Zubeidat Tsarnaeva is a radical extremist and supporter of jihad who influenced her sons' behavior.[216][217] This prompted the Russian government to warn the U.S. government on two occasions about the family's behavior. Both Tamerlan and his mother were placed on a terrorism watch list about 18 months before the bombing took place.[218]

Other arrests, detentions, and prosecutions [ edit ] People detained and released [ edit ] On April 15, several people who were near the scene of the blast were taken into custody and questioned about the bombing, including a Saudi man whom police stopped as he was walking away from the explosion; they detained him when some of his responses made them uncomfortable.[219][220][221][222] Law enforcement searched his residence in a Boston suburb, and the man was found to have no connection to the attack. An unnamed U.S. official said, "he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time".[34][223][224]

On the night of April 18, two men who were riding in a taxi in the vicinity of the shootout were arrested and released shortly thereafter when police determined that they were not involved in the Marathon attacks.[225] Another man was arrested several blocks from the site of the shootout and was forced to strip naked by police who feared that he might have concealed explosives. He was released that evening after a brief investigation determined that he was an innocent bystander.[226][227]

Ibragim Todashev [ edit ] On May 22, the FBI interrogated Ibragim Todashev in Orlando, Florida, who was a Chechen from Boston. During the interrogation, he was shot and killed by an FBI agent who claimed that Todashev attacked him.[228] The New York Times quoted an unnamed law enforcement official as saying that Todashev had confessed to a triple homicide, and had implicated Tsarnaev as well.[229] Todashev's father claimed his son is innocent and that federal investigators are biased against Chechens and made up their case against him.[230]

Dias Kadyrbayev, Azamat Tazhayakov, and Robel Phillipos [ edit ] Personal backgrounds [ edit ] Robel Phillipos (19) was a U.S. citizen of Ethiopian descent living in Cambridge who was arrested and faced with charges of knowingly making false statements to police.[231][232] He graduated from high school in 2011 with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.[233]Dias Kadyrbayev (19) and Azamat Tazhayakov (20) were natives of Kazakhstan living in the U.S.[234][235] They were Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's roommates in an off-campus housing complex in New Bedford, Massachusetts, at which Tsarnaev had sometimes stayed.[231]

Phillipos, Kadyrbayev, Tazhayakov, and Tsarnaev entered the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in the fall of 2011 and knew each other well. After seeing photos of Tsarnaev on television, the three men traveled to his dorm room where Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov retrieved a backpack and laptop belonging to Tsarnaev, while Phillipos acted as lookout. The backpack was discarded, but police recovered it and its contents in a nearby New Bedford landfill on April 26. During interviews, the men initially denied visiting the dorm room but later admitted their actions.[231][236]

Arrests and legal proceedings [ edit ] Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov were arrested by police at the off-campus housing complex during the night of April 18''19. An unidentified girlfriend of one of the men was also arrested,[234][235] but all three were soon released.[231]

Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov were re-arrested in New Bedford on April 20 and held on immigration-related violations. They appeared before a federal immigration judge on May 1 and were charged with overstaying their student visas.[237][238][239] That same day, Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov were charged criminally with:

willfully conspir(ing) with each other to commit an offense against the United States'... by knowingly destroying, concealing, and covering up objects belonging to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, namely, a backpack containing fireworks and a laptop computer, with the intent to impede, obstruct, and influence the criminal investigation of the Marathon bombing.[240][241]

Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov were indicted by a federal grand jury on August 8, 2013, on charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice for helping Dzhokhar Tsarnaev dispose of a laptop computer, fireworks, and a backpack after the bombing. Each faced up to 25 years in prison and deportation if convicted.[242] Tazhayakov was convicted of obstruction of justice and conspiracy on July 21, 2014.[243]

Kadyrbayev pleaded guilty to obstruction charges on August 22, 2014,[244] but sentencing was delayed pending the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Yates v. United States.[245] Kadyrbayev was sentenced to six years in prison in June 2015.[246] He was deported back to Kazakhstan in October 2018.[247]

Tazhayakov pleaded not guilty and went to trial, arguing that "Kadyrbayev was the mastermind behind destroying the evidence and that Tazhayakov only 'attempted obstruction.'" Jurors returned a guilty verdict against him, however, and he was sentenced to 42 months in prison in June 2015, which equated to three and a half years. U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock gave a lighter sentence to Tazhayakov than to Kadyrbayev, who was viewed as more culpable.[246] Tazhayakov was released in May 2016 and subsequently deported.[248]

Phillipos was arrested and faced charges of knowingly making false statements to police.[231][232] He was released on $100,000 bail and placed under house confinement with an ankle monitor.[233] He was convicted on October 28, 2014, on two charges of lying about being in Tsarnaev's dorm room. He later acknowledged that he had been in the room while two friends removed a backpack containing potential evidence relating to the bombing.[249]

Phillipos faced a maximum sentence of eight years' imprisonment on each count.[250] In June 2015, U.S. District Judge Douglas P. Woodlock sentenced him to three years in prison.[251] Phillipos filed an appeal, but his sentence was upheld in court on February 28, 2017.[252]

Phillipos was released from prison in Philadelphia on February 26, 2018, and must serve a three year probation upon his release.[253]

Khairullozhon Matanov [ edit ] A federal indictment was unsealed against Khairullozhon Matanov on May 30, 2014, charging him with "one count of destroying, altering, and falsifying records, documents, and tangible objects in a federal investigation, specifically information on his computer, and three counts of making materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements in a federal terrorism investigation". Matanov bought dinner for the two Tsarnaev brothers 40 minutes after the bombing. After the Tsarnaev brothers' photos were released to the public, Matanov viewed the photos on the CNN and FBI websites before attempting to reach Dzhokhar, and then tried to give away his cell phone and delete hundreds of documents from his computer. Prosecutors said that Matanov attempted to mislead investigators about the nature of his relationship with the brothers and to conceal that he shared their philosophy of violence.[254][255]

Matanov was originally from Kyrgyzstan. He came to the U.S. in 2010 on a student visa, and later claimed asylum. He attended Quincy College for two years before dropping out to become a taxicab driver. He was living in Quincy, Massachusetts, at the time of his arrest, and was a friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev.[255]

In March 2015, Matanov pleaded guilty to all four counts.[255][256] In June 2015, he was sentenced to 30 months in prison.[255]

Victims [ edit ] Deaths [ edit ] Three people were killed as a direct result of the bombings. Krystle Marie Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager from Medford, Massachusetts, was killed by the first bomb.[257] L¼ Lingzi (Chinese: 吕ä>>¤å­ ),[258][259] a 23-year-old Chinese national and Boston University statistics graduate student from Shenyang, Liaoning,[260][261][262][263] and 8-year old boy Martin William Richard from the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, were both killed by the second bomb.[264][265]

Sean A. Collier, 27 years old, was shot and killed by the bombers as he sat in his patrol car on April 18, at about 10:48 p.m. He was an MIT police officer, and had been with the Somerville Auxiliary Police Department from 2006 to 2009.[266] He died from multiple gunshot wounds.[267]

Boston Police Department officer Dennis Simmonds died on April 10, 2014, from injuries that he received during the Watertown shootout a year before.[65]

Injuries [ edit ] According to the Boston Public Health Commission, 264 civilians were treated at 27 local hospitals.[6][268] Eleven days later, 29 remained hospitalized, one in critical condition.[269] Many victims had lower leg injuries and shrapnel wounds,[270] which indicated that the devices were low to the ground.[271] At least 16 civilians lost limbs, at the scene or by surgical amputation, and three lost more than one limb.[272][273][274][275]

Doctors described removing "ball-bearing type" metallic beads a little larger than BBs and small carpenter-type nails about 0.5 to 1 inch (1 to 3 cm) long.[276] Similar objects were found at the scene.[50] The New York Times cited doctors as saying that the bombs mainly injured legs, ankles, and feet because they were low to the ground, instead of fatally injuring abdomens, chests, shoulders, and heads.[277] Some victims had perforated eardrums.[271]

MBTA police officer Richard H. Donohue Jr. (33) was critically wounded during a firefight with the bombers just after midnight on April 19.[96] He lost almost all of his blood, and his heart stopped for 45 minutes, during which time he was kept alive by cardiopulmonary resuscitation.[citation needed ] The Boston Globe reported that Donohue may have been accidentally shot by a fellow officer.[97]

Marc Fucarile lost his right leg and received severe burns and shrapnel wounds. He was the last victim released from hospital care on July 24, 2013.[278] Courtney Kelleigh who ran for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society suffered hypothermia with no permanent damage.[279]

[ edit ] Law enforcement, local and national politicians, and various heads of state reacted quickly to the bombing, generally condemning the act and expressing sympathies for the victims.[51][280] Spontaneous, improvised temporary memorials appeared at the sites of the deaths in Boston and Cambridge. Over the next few years, permanent memorials were constructed and dedicated at these locations.

Aid to victims [ edit ] The

Prudential Tower lit up with a large "1" for the One Fund Boston a week after the bombing

The One Fund Boston was established by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Boston mayor Thomas Menino to make monetary distributions to bombing victims.[281][282] The Boston Strong concert at the TD Garden in Boston on May 30, 2013, benefitted the One Fund, which ultimately received more than $69.8 million in donations.[283] A week after the bombing, crowd funding websites[284] received more than 23,000 pledges promising more than $2 million for the victims, their families, and others affected by the bombing.[285] The Israel Trauma Coalition for Response and Preparedness sent six psychologists and specialists from Israel to help Boston emergency responders, government administrators, and community people develop post-terrorist attack recovery strategies.[286]

[ edit ] The

Boston Red Sox wore this patch on their uniforms in memory of the victims.

Victims of the bombing are remembered at Copley Square in Boston.

A monument memorializing the victims of the bombing was installed on Boylston Street, at the location of the explosions, in 2019

[287]Numerous sporting events, concerts, and other public entertainment were postponed or cancelled in the days following the bombing.[288][289][290][291] The MBTA public transit system was under heavy National Guard and police presence and it was shut down a second time April 19 during the manhunt.[74][115][292]

In the days after the bombing, makeshift memorials began to spring up along the cordoned-off area surrounding Boylston Street. The largest was located on Arlington Street, the easternmost edge of the barricades, starting with flowers, tokens, and T-shirts.[293][294][295][296][297] In June, the Makeshift Memorial located in Copley Square was taken down and the memorial objects located there were moved to the archives in West Roxbury for cleaning, fumigation, and archiving.[298]

Five years after the bombing, The Boston Globe reported all of the items from the memorials were being housed in a climate controlled environment, free of charge, by the storage company, Iron Mountain in Northborough, Massachusetts. Some of the items are also being stored in Boston's city archives in West Roxbury.[299]

Boston University established a scholarship in honor of L¼ Lingzi, a student who died in the bombing.[300] University of Massachusetts Boston did the same in honor of alumna and bombing victim Krystle Campell.[301]

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology established a scholarship, and erected a large abstract environmental sculpture outdoors called the Sean Collier Memorial, both in memory of slain MIT Police officer Sean Collier. The open-arched monolithic stone enclosure was proposed, designed, funded, fabricated, and installed on campus in less than two years after the bombing, and formally unveiled on April 29, 2015.[302][303]

One study conducted by the Institute for Public Service at Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts, recorded the mental health and emotional response of various survivors, for three years following the bombing. In doing so, it reviewed the kinds of aid that were available in local hospitals and offered advice on how a person or community may be healed.[304] This study also mentions that after recognizing the downgraded media coverage of people in the city being killed or injured on a daily basis, the city of Boston "applied for and received a grant from The Rockefeller Foundation to be part of their 100 resilient cities network and to develop a cross cutting resilience strategy".[citation needed ]

However, there was rising anti-Muslim sentiment online and locally in the weeks following the bombing, causing distress in the local Muslim community and making some afraid to leave their homes.[305]

Three stone pillars lit by abstract sculptural bronze lighting columns memorializing three victims were installed at the two separate bombing sites on August 19, 2019.[287] Two bronze sidewalk bricks were installed to memorialize police officers killed in the aftermath, and cherry trees were planted nearby to bloom each April.[287]

[ edit ] President Barack Obama addressed the nation after the attack.[306] He said that the perpetrators were still unknown, but that the government would "get to the bottom of this" and that those responsible "will feel the full weight of justice".[307] He ordered flags to half-staff until April 20 on all federal buildings as "a mark of respect for the victims of the senseless acts of violence perpetrated on April 15, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts".[308]

Moments of silence were held at various events across the country, including at the openings of the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, and NYMEX on the day after the bombing.[309] Numerous special events were held, including marathons and other runs.[310][311][312][313]

[ edit ] Flag flying at half staff at the American consulate in

Milan, Italy

The bombing was denounced and condolences were offered by many international leaders as well as leading figures from international sport. Security measures were increased worldwide in the wake of the attack.[314][315][316][317]

In China, users posted condolence messages on Weibo in response to the death of L¼ Lingzi.[318][319] Chris Buckley of The New York Times said "Ms. Lu's death gave a melancholy face to the attraction that America and its colleges exert over many young Chinese."[261] Laurie Burkitt of The Wall Street Journal said "Ms. Lu's death resonates with many in China" due to the one-child policy.[320]

Organizers of the London Marathon, which was held six days after the Boston bombing, reviewed security arrangements for their event. Hundreds of extra police officers were drafted in to provide a greater presence on the streets, and a record 700,000 spectators lined the streets. Runners in London observed a 30-second silence in respect for the victims of Boston shortly before the race began, and many runners wore black ribbons on their vests. Organizers also pledged to donate US$3 to a fund for Boston Marathon victims for every person who finished the race.[321][322][323]

Organizers of the 2013 Vancouver Sun Run, which was held on April 21, 2013, donated $10 from every late entry for the race to help victims of the bombing at the Boston Marathon. Jamie Pitblado, vice-president of promotions for The Vancouver Sun and The Province, said the money would go to One Fund Boston, an official charity that collected donations for the victims and their families. Sun Run organizers raised anywhere from $25,000 to $40,000. There were over 48,000 participants, many dressed in blue and yellow (Boston colors) with others wearing Boston Red Sox caps.[324]

Petr Gandalovic, ambassador of the Czech Republic, released a statement after noticing much confusion on Facebook and Twitter between his nation and the Chechen Republic. "The Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very different entities '' the Czech Republic is a Central European country; Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation."[325]

Security was also stepped up in Singapore in response to online threats made on attacking several locations in the city-state and the Singapore Marathon in December. Two suspects were investigated and one was eventually arrested for making false bomb threats.[326]

[ edit ] The Russian government said that special attention would be paid to security at upcoming international sports events in Russia, including the 2014 Winter Olympics.[327] According to the Russian embassy in the U.S., President Vladimir Putin condemned the bombing as a "barbaric crime" and "stressed that the Russian Federation will be ready, if necessary, to assist in the U.S. authorities' investigation".[328] He urged closer cooperation of security services with Western partners[329] but other Russian authorities and mass media blamed the U.S. authorities for negligence as they warned the U.S. of the Tsarnaevs.[330] Moreover Russian authorities and mass media since the spring of 2014 blame the United States for politically motivated false information about the lack of response from Russian authorities after subsequent U.S. requests.[citation needed ] As proof a letter from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) was shown to the members of an official U.S. Congressional delegation to Moscow during their visit. This letter with information about Tsarnaev (including his biography details, connections and phone number) had been sent from the FSB to the FBI and CIA during March 2011.[331]

Republican U.S. Senators Saxby Chambliss and Richard Burr reported that Russian authorities had separately asked both the FBI (at least twice: during March and November 2011) and the CIA (September 2011) to look carefully into Tamerlan Tsarnaev and provide more information about him back to Russia.[332] Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) secretly recorded phone conversations between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his mother (they vaguely and indirectly discussed jihad) and sent these to the FBI as evidence of possible extremist links within the family.[citation needed ] However, while Russia offered US intelligence services warnings that Tsarnaev planned to link up with extremist groups abroad, an FBI investigation yielded no evidence to support those claims at the time. In addition, subsequent U.S. requests for additional information about Tsarnaev went unanswered by the Russians.[333]

[ edit ] On April 19, 2013, the press-secretary of the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, issued a statement that, inter alia, read: "The Boston bombing suspects have nothing to do with Chechnya".[334][335] On the same day, Kadyrov was reported by The Guardian to have written on Instagram:[336]

Any attempt to make a link between Chechnya and the Tsarnaevs, if they are guilty, is in vain. They grew up in the U.S., their views and beliefs were formed there. The roots of evil must be searched for in America. The whole world must battle with terrorism. We know this better than anyone. We wish recover [sic] to all the victims and share Americans' feeling of sorrow.

Akhmed Zakayev, head of the secular wing of the Chechen separatist movement, now in exile in London, condemned the bombing as "terrorist" and expressed condolences to the families of the victims. Zakayev denied that the bombers were in any way representative of the Chechen people, saying that "the Chechen people never had and can not have any hostile feelings toward the United States and its citizens".[337]

The Mujahideen of the Caucasus Emirate Province of Dagestan, the Caucasian Islamist organization in both Chechnya and Dagestan, denied any link to the bombing or the Tsarnaev brothers and stated that it was at war with Russia, not the United States. It also said that it had sworn off violence against civilians since 2012.[338][339][340]

Criticism of the "shelter-in-place" directive and house-to-house searches [ edit ] During the manhunt for the perpetrators of the bombing, Governor Deval Patrick said "we are asking people to shelter in place". The request was highly effective; most people stayed home, causing Boston, Watertown, and Cambridge to come to a virtual standstill. According to Time magazine, "media described residents complying with a 'lockdown order,' but in reality the governor's security measure was a request". Scott Silliman, emeritus director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke Law School, said that the shelter-in-place request was voluntary.[341]

The shelter-in-place directive was criticized by some commentators. Michael Cohen of The Observer said that Americans have little experience with daily terrorism compared to some countries and "are more primed to '... assume the absolute worst". Cohen wrote that it was not the first time dangerous murderers have been on the loose in a large American city (citing Christopher Dorner in 2013 and the Beltway sniper attacks in 2002), but noted that "lockdown" measures were not used in those cases. Former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, criticized what he described as a "military-style takeover of parts of Boston" during the investigation and wrote that "this unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself".[343]

Haaretz ' s Chemi Salev wrote that "in terms of cost-benefit analysis, from the evil terrorist's point of view, the Boylston Street bombings and their aftermath can only be viewed as a resounding triumph" since the "relatively amateurish" terrorists managed to intimidate a vast number of people and got a maximum amount of publicity.[344] Responding to Salev in The New York Times, Ross Douthat commented that the massive manhunt operation might deter other amateur terrorists, but not hard-core terrorists such as Mohammed Atta.[345] Douthat argued that out-of-the-ordinary measures can only be used when terrorism itself is out-of-the-ordinary: if attacks started to occur more often, people would not be as willing to comply with shelter-in-place commands, yet once a terrorist has been hunted with such an operation, it is hard to justify why such measures should not be taken the next time.[345]

The National Lawyers Guild and some news outlets questioned the constitutionality of the door-to-door searches conducted by law enforcement officers looking for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.[346][347][348]

One Boston Day [ edit ] On the second anniversary of the Boston Marathon Bombings, Mayor Marty Walsh established April 15, the day of the bombings, as an official and permanent holiday called "One Boston Day", dedicated to conducting random acts of kindness and helping others out.[349] Over the past eight years, some examples of acts of kindness being done have been donating blood to the American Red Cross, donating food to the Greater Boston Food Bank, opening free admission in places like the Museum of Science and Museum of Fine Arts, donating shoes to homeless shelters, and donating to military and veteran charities.[350][351]

Conspiracy theories [ edit ] A number of conspiracy theories arose in the immediate wake of the attacks and after more information about the Tsarnaev brothers came to light.[352] This can be common in the aftermath of acts of domestic terrorism, especially the September 11th attacks.[353] In the days following the attacks, some conspiracy theories arose on the internet claiming they were false flag attacks committed by the United States government.[354] As more information about the backgrounds of the Tsarnaev Brothers came to light, further conspiracy theories were disseminated. One claim, made by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's defense attorney as well as some journalists, was that the FBI had tried to recruit Tamerlan Tsarnaev as an FBI informant in 2011.[179][180][181][182] The FBI denied this claim in a press release, stating that "the Tsarnaev brothers were never sources for the FBI nor did the FBI attempt to recruit them as sources".[355] The FBI is not required to release information on informants, and classified information on sources of intelligence constitutes an exception to the 25-year declassification window established by Executive Order 13526.[356]

In 2011, a friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev was murdered in Waltham, Massachusetts, along with two others.[357][358][359] After the 2013 attacks, the investigation was reopened with Tamerlan Tsarnaev as a new suspect.[360] The failure of the 2011 investigation to identify Tamerlan Tsarnaev as a major suspect led to claims among conspiracy theorists that the investigation of the 2011 Waltham triple murder had been suppressed by the FBI in order to maintain Tsarnaev's informant status. Theorists also cite the fact that the FBI has been criticized for an alleged practice under former director James Comey of encouraging confidential informants to attempt terrorist attacks.[361][362] This alleged practice, combined with disputed claims of connections between the Tsarnaev brothers and intelligence services,[179][363] have given rise to a conspiracy theory that the United States government had foreknowledge of the Tsarnaev brothers' plans to commit a terrorist attack, or that the attack was made at the direction of intelligence services.[352] The Tsarnaev brother's uncle, Said-Hussein Tsarnaev and other members of the Tsarnaev family have repeated this theory, as well as claiming neither brother actually committed the attacks.[364] This claim also formed an element of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's legal defense.[365] No evidence or further claims supporting this theory have been confirmed by any US government agencies.[352]

Conflicting reports [ edit ] On the afternoon of the bombing, the New York Post reported that a suspect, a Saudi Arabian male, was under guard and being questioned at a Boston hospital.[366] That evening, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said that there had not been an arrest.[367] The Post did not retract its story about the suspect, leading to widespread reports by CBS News, CNN, and other media that a Middle Eastern suspect was in custody.[368] The day after the bombing, a majority of outlets were reporting that the Saudi was a witness, not a suspect.[369]

The New York Post on its April 18 front page showed two men, and said they were being sought by the authorities. The two men in question, a 17-year-old boy and his track coach, were not the ones being sought as suspects. The boy, from Revere, Massachusetts, turned himself over to the police immediately and was cleared after a 20-minute interview in which they advised him to deactivate his Facebook account.[370][371] New York Post editor Col Allan stated, "We stand by our story. The image was emailed to law enforcement agencies yesterday afternoon seeking information about these men, as our story reported. We did not identify them as suspects." The two were implied to be possible suspects via crowdsourcing on the websites Reddit[371] and 4chan.[372]

Several other people were mistakenly identified as suspects.[373] Two of those wrongly identified as suspects on Reddit were the 17-year-old track star noted above and Sunil Tripathi, a Brown University student missing since March.[374][375] Tripathi was found dead on April 23 in the Providence River.[376]

On April 17, the FBI released the following statement:

Contrary to widespread reporting, no arrest has been made in connection with the Boston Marathon attack. Over the past day and a half, there have been a number of press reports based on information from unofficial sources that has been inaccurate. Since these stories often have unintended consequences, we ask the media, particularly at this early stage of the investigation, to exercise caution and attempt to verify information through appropriate official channels before reporting.[377][378]

The decision to release the photos of the Tsarnaev brothers was made in part to limit damage done to those misidentified on the Internet and by the media, and to address concerns over maintaining control of the manhunt.[71]

Film adaptation [ edit ] A film about the bombing and the subsequent manhunt, Patriots Day, was released in December 2016. Another film, Stronger, which chronicles the experience of survivor Jeff Bauman, was released in September 2017.

See also [ edit ] 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt, an attempted bombing in New York City using a pressure cooker bomb and other explosive devices2011 Waltham triple murder, a triple homicide to which Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been connected2013 Bat Yam bus bombing, the bombing of a public bus in Israel using a pressure cooker bombCentennial Olympic Park bombing, a 1996 terrorist attack which also targeted a public eventList of Islamist terrorist attacks [ edit ] ^ Taxi service was restored before the manhunt ended and transit service resumed.[114] References [ edit ] ^ a b Straw, Joseph; Ford, Bev; McShane, Lawrence (April 17, 2013). "Police narrow in on two suspects in Boston Marathon bombings". The Daily News. New York . Retrieved May 15, 2013 . ^ a b c d "United States vs. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Case 1:13-mj-02106-MBB" (PDF) . United States Department of Justice. April 21, 2013. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 23, 2014 . Retrieved April 22, 2013 . ^ a b c Monge, Sonia (July 31, 2020). "Appeals court vacates Boston Marathon bomber's death sentence, orders new penalty trial". CNN . Retrieved August 1, 2020 . ^ Cooper, Michael; Schmidt, Michael S.; Schmitt, Eric (April 23, 2013). "Boston Suspects Are Seen as Self-Taught and Fueled by Web". The New York Times . Retrieved April 11, 2015 . ^ a b "Boston bombings suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left note in boat he hid in, sources say". CBS. May 16, 2013 . Retrieved April 11, 2015 . ^ a b c Kotz, Deborah (April 24, 2013). "Injury toll from Marathon bombs reduced to 264". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on March 31, 2019 . Retrieved April 29, 2013 . Boston public health officials said Tuesday that they have revised downward their estimate of the number of people injured in the Marathon attacks, to 264. ^ a b "What we know about the Boston bombing and its aftermath". CNN. April 19, 2013 . 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Lessons Learned from the Boston Marathon Bombings: Preparing for and Responding to the Attack . Hearing Before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, United States Senate. One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, First Session. July 10, 2013. S. Hrg. 113''226. The Boston Marathon Bombings, One Year On: A Look Back to Look Forward . Hearing Before the Committee on Homeland Security, House of Representatives. One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, Second Session. April 9, 2014. Serial No. 113''64. Lessons Learned from the Boston Marathon Bombings: Improving Intelligence and Information Sharing . Hearing Before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, United States Senate. One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, Second Session. April 30, 2014. S. Hrg. 113''444. Coordinates: 42°20'²59.2'"N 71°4'²44.1'"W >> / >> 42.349778°N 71.078917°W >> / 42.349778; -71.078917

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 15:22

National Situational Awareness Day comes up on September 26, every year. The holiday helps create more awareness about the importance of personal safety. Since we are all responsible for our personal safety most of the time, it is important to be reminded of general safety tips. National Situational Awareness Day was created for this purpose.

History of National Situational Awareness DayIn 2016, National Situational Awareness Day was approved and September 26 was chosen as the holiday. The holiday was submitted for consideration a year prior by Pretty Loaded, an enterprise that is concerned with training individuals and groups to be more mindful of their surroundings.

The founder of Pretty Loaded, Beth Warford, recounted the story that inspired the enterprise. It was an incident that involved a stalker, in which she and her children were almost attacked. She recalls being unaware of the situation until it was almost too late and was lucky enough to have a family member interfere timeously. That event made her realize that many of us are totally unaware of our surroundings. Thus, we do not immediately notice the dangers that might be lurking.

The term 'situational awareness' denotes an exercise that has been described in several military texts. The concept is said to be portrayed in Sun Tzu's ''The Art of War.'' Also, during the first World War, the practice seemed to be adopted, especially by pilots.

Situational awareness has helped many stay alive in very dangerous situations. It also teaches many people to avoid potentially dangerous situations, like walking alone in a dark alley. Countless firms now offer lessons in situational awareness, especially on National Situational Awareness Day. Organizations and institutions have also helped their employees get necessary training that would help them be more mindful of their surroundings.

National Situational Awareness Day is observed to acknowledge the importance of situational awareness and also encourage more people to learn basic survival tips for their own personal safety.

National Situational Awareness Day timeline1910s

Situational Awareness Becomes Popular

During the First World War, Oswald Boelcke promotes the practice of situational awareness for soldiers, especially pilots.

1980s

Practical Model for Situational Awareness

Psychologist Mica Endsley proposes a model of situational awareness.

2015

Pretty Loaded Proposes the Holiday

In November of 2015, Pretty Loaded LLC suggests a national holiday for situational awareness.

September 2016

First Situational Awareness Holiday

September 26 is chosen to celebrate National Situational Awareness Day.

National Situational Awareness Day FAQsWhat is situational awareness? Situational awareness is knowing what is happening around you and also knowing what decisions to make based on the circumstances.

Why is National Situational Awareness Day on September 26? The day was chosen to celebrate the birthday of Dru Sjodin, who inspired the founding of Pretty Loaded.

Why is situational awareness important? Situational awareness is important because it helps people to ensure their own personal safety in potentially dangerous situations.

How to Observe National Situational Awareness DayRegister for a training classIt is good to be prepared for sudden, distressing situations. Situational awareness lessons can help you be more mindful.

Spread the messageUse social media to create awareness about mindfulness. It is important that everyone ensure their personal safety.

Educate your children and young onesOn National Situational Awareness Day, you can educate little kids on the importance of situational awareness. This will help them be more mindful of their surroundings.

5 Facts About Situational AwarenessSituational awareness concerns everyoneIt is important that everyone, including children, be mindful of their surroundings.

It helps keep you from dangerSituational awareness can keep you from going to dangerous places unknowingly.

Situational awareness was formerly a military practiceBefore becoming a societal requirement, situational awareness was commonly taught in military circles.

Situational awareness is indispensableSeveral experts agree that everyone requires the skills involved in the mindfulness that comes with situational awareness.

It helps us to act fasterIn sudden dangerous situations, situational awareness can help you act faster.

Why National Situational Awareness Day is ImportantWe learn more about our surroundingsOn this holiday, there are several opportunities to learn more about our immediate surroundings. We learn to avoid dangerous situations.

You can organize classesOn National Situational Awareness Day, you can organize situational awareness lessons. This can be at work or even at home.

We learn more about self-defenseIt is always fun to learn new tricks and tips. National Situational Awareness Day is all about personal safety and mindfulness.

National Situational Awareness Day datesYearDateDay2021September 26Sunday2022September 26Monday2023September 26Tuesday2024September 26Thursday2025September 26Friday

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 15:03

Italian priest is arrested for 'stealing more than £85,000 from church funds to buy drugs for gay sex parties in his home'Father Francesco Spagnesi, 40, is under house arrest as investigations continuePolice have spoken to 200 people said to have attended parties over two yearsPolice began investigation after reportedly finding priest's flatmate had imported a litre of 'date-rape' drug GHBParish accountant discovered £85,000 had been withdrawn from bank account Spagnesi also allegedly solicited donations from wealthy parishioners Lawyer said priest had confessed to supplying drugs and would confess to theftNeither Spagnesi nor his flatmate have been charged with any crimes By Charlotte Mitchell For Mailonline

Published: 10:42 EDT, 23 September 2021 | Updated: 10:42 EDT, 23 September 2021

A charismatic Italian priest has been arrested for allegedly stealing more than £85,000 from church funds to pay for gay sex parties at his home.

Father Francesco Spagnesi, 40, from Prato near Florence, is under house arrest on suspicion of theft.

Police are in the process of interviewing hundreds of people said to have attended his drug-fuelled orgies over the last two years.

The parties typically involved the priest, his drug-dealing flatmate and at least one other person, whom they would find through gay dating sites, according to detectives.

However, on occasion, the weekly parties would involve much larger groups of up to 20 or 30 participants.

Father Francesco Spagnesi, 40, from Prato near Florence, is under house arrest on suspicion of theft

Investigations into Spagnesi began after police reportedly discovered that his flatmate had imported a litre of GHB from The Netherlands. The drug is often referred to as a 'date-rape' drug as it has been used to incapacitate victims of sexual assault.

Raids on the shared flat revealed bottles thought to be adapted to function as crack pipes.

In recent months, a parish accountant found that £85,000 had been withdrawn from the parish's bank account - money which police suspect was used by Spagnesi to buy drugs.

The local bishop stopped access to the funds, prompting Spagnesi to allegedly begin pocketing money from the church collection plate and soliciting funds from wealthy parishioners ostensibly to go to low-income families.

The Times, citing investigators, reported that the priest was so successful at drumming up donations that he was soon bringing in hundreds of euros. Some parishioners made individual donations of as much as £1,281.00.

The priest had initially claimed that the missing money had gone to families in need, but later admitted he suffered from a drug addiction

The priest had initially claimed that the missing money had gone to families in need, but later admitted that he suffered from a drug addiction.

Local media reported that parishioners had begun legal action to get their money back after hearing of Spagnesi's arrest.

The priest's lawyer told The Times that his client had confessed to supplying drugs at the parties and was due to confess to taking church funds.

Neither Spagnesi, nor his flatmate have been charged with any crimes.

The priest had been ordained in 2007 and made a parish priest in 2009.

Bishop Giovanni Nerbini has appointed a new administrator for the parish who has been working with the faithful to help them to deal with the shock of the allegations against Spagnesi.

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 15:01

Port Houston handled its highest month ever for total twenty-foot equivalent units at 320,086 in August, an increase of 29% compared to the same period last year.

The port also recorded the highest monthly loaded imports on record at 159,791 TEUs during August, a 37% increase compared to August 2020.

''We embrace our position as a centrally located port serving a large region of consumers,'' Roger Guenther, Port Houston's executive director, said in a statement. ''Providing efficient and predictable cargo movement through our port during an unprecedented surge in global imports continues to be a top priority for us.''

Guenther said the increase in cargo volumes can be attributed to new importers in the area that have realigned their gateway strategy and distribution center networks, along with increased consumer spending and retailers building up inventory for the holiday season.

''We expect elevated levels in the supply chain to continue well into 2022 and will continue to explore opportunities, including accelerating an already aggressive capital investment strategy for our terminals to stay in front of the demand,'' Guenther said.

Port Houston's largest gains in tonnage during August came from a 666% year-over-year increase in exports of steel at 6,545 tons. Import tonnage of steel increased 159% to 340,531 tons.

General imports during August increased by 129% year-over-year to 929,111 tons, and container imports increased 16% to 1.3 million tons.

The port handled 8,642 TEUs in empty import containers during August, down 28% year-over-year and down 4% from July. Exports of empty containers jumped 208% in August from a year ago to 65,983 TEUs and declined 13% from July.

Year-to-date, Port Houston has surpassed the 2 million-TEU mark, with 2.2 million TEUs compared to 1.91 million TEUs in 2020, a 16% year-over-year increase.

Vessel calls for August declined about 3% YoY to 636, and down 10% from July. Barges calling on Port Houston were up 4% YoY to 353, and increased 14% from July.

Click for more FreightWaves articles by Noi Mahoney.

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 14:57

New York's first female governor Kathy Hochul, who took the reins in the Empire State after her predecessor and former boss, Andrew Cuomo, finally resigned, is showing the state's recalcitrant healthcare workers just how understanding and progressive she can be.

During a press briefing with reporters in Rochester Wednesday, Hochul told a group of reporters that she hoped all unvaccinated workers would meet Monday's deadline to get the jab, or lose their jobs.

For those who continue to resist - including nearly 20% of the state's hospital and nursing-home workers - they will be replaced. Possibly by foreign workers.

Faced with this, it makes sense to wonder how NY State, which has no immigration-related authority, could even credibly make such a threat? But Hochul says there have been conversations with the Department of State (albeit on a "limited basis") about the possibility of doling out emergency visas to foreign workers.

"To those who won't, we'll be replacing people. And I have a plan that's going to be announced very shortly," she said.

"We've identified a whole range of opportunities we have to help supplement them."

Hochul said state officials were ''working closely with various hospital systems to find out where we can get other individuals to come in and supplement places like nursing homes."

"We're also reaching out to the Department of State to find out about visas for foreign workers, on a limited basis, to bring more nurses over here," she said.

Per the Department of Health's records, 19% of the state's hospital workers remained unvaccinated as of Sept. 15, and 18% of nursing home employees remained unvaccinated as of Wednesday.

Starting Monday, employers can fire unvaccinated workers who don't have a "valid medical exemption" (though employees who claim religious exemption are also immune until Oct. 12 due to a temporary injunction issued by a federal judge in Utica).

The plaintiffs in that case, almost all of them Catholic, oppose vaccines because they "employ aborted fetus cell lines in their testing, development, or production."

Though the US Conference of Bishops says it's okay for Catholics to take these vaccines if no alternatives are available, and Pope Francis has of course spoken out in favor of vaccination.

Circling back to the situation in New York, while Hochul is probably reveling in her first opportunity to play "hardball" - a game for which her predecessor was famous - New York health workers can probably rest easy - at least when it comes to the foreign worker threat.

The State Department couldn't process all those SIVs for Afghan collaborators in a timely manner. What makes you think they'll be able to dole them out to foreign workers, who probably also haven't been vaccinated. Where does Hochul think these foreign workers are going to come from? Europe?

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 14:48

Commentary By Christine Favocci September 22, 2021 at 12:41pm Former President Donald Trump may have tweeted mean things about his political enemies, but he never ''unpersoned'' them the way the Biden administration allegedly has.

Jerome Adams, the former surgeon general under Trump who has criticized President Joe Biden's handling of COVID-19, is alleging he was denied the opportunity to refinance his mortgage after the government refused to verify his previous employment in the high-profile role.

''Real email I just received while trying to refinance my mortgage,'' Adams tweeted Tuesday with a screen shot presumably from the financial institution where he is seeking a new home loan.

''I'm having an issue verifying your employment as the US Surgeon General. I used both addresses provided and the US Dept of Health and Humans Services was unwilling to provide the verification,'' the unidentified party wrote.

Real email I just received while trying to refinance my mortgage'... pic.twitter.com/79OeVPAVEf

'-- Jerome Adams (@JeromeAdamsMD) September 21, 2021

Adams followed up with a screen shot of his Wikipedia entry showing that he held the position in the Trump administration from Sept. 5, 2017, to Jan. 20, 2021 '-- the day Trump left and Biden took office.

Adams humorously noted that ''they won't accept Wikipedia as a reference.''

This is what I sent them back. Apparently they won't accept Wikipedia as a reference'... pic.twitter.com/21IQ6jSlG1

'-- Jerome Adams (@JeromeAdamsMD) September 21, 2021

This lighthearted take underscores the absurdity of the government's resistance to providing that information when it's a matter of public record and easily verifiable.

It's possible this is one of the many bureaucratic blunders that happen every day, like when living people are declared legally dead through a paperwork mixup.

But if what Adams is being told is true, this sounds very much like another ominous sign of what's to come for anyone who holds the wrong political views '-- complete ostracization from society.

This had already begun on a small scale when Trump was banned for life from some social media platforms and two of his multimillion-dollar bank accounts closed following the incursion into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

It happened recently to retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who was dropped from Chase Bank as a credit card customer for ''reputational risk'' to the institution, though the company later claimed it was done in error.

Flynn had pleaded guilty to charges of lying to the FBI, but later revelations about investigational misconduct made it clear he was railroaded, and Trump eventually pardoned him anyway.

Sure, private companies can do what they wish when it comes to serving customers (well, as long as they don't refuse to bake a cake to celebrate sexual perversion), but these instances seem like part of a troubling trend toward blocking ideological undesirables from society.

With the modern world full of passive surveillance nearly everywhere already, Americans have gotten used to being watched, recorded and tracked without putting up much of a fuss.

Are you worried that you will suffer for your viewpoints in the near future?

Yes: 87% (2519 Votes)

No: 13% (368 Votes)

Americans grumbled but didn't resist governments taking away their autonomy by keeping them locked in their houses during the COVID-19 pandemic, again conditioning the population to see free movement in society as a privilege to be revoked or reinstated at will.

And now the idea of requiring a vaccine passport to work at or patronize certain businesses has been normalized '-- and even championed '-- by people so eager to end the government restrictions that they will submit to medical treatment and produce their papers when prompted.

All of this would facilitate exactly the kind of crackdown that may have been imposed on Adams and certainly was on Trump and Flynn.

When those passports become part of a government registry that could be cross-checked with other data from a proposed IRS measure to monitor bank accounts over $600, it will become an invitation for the party in power to punish adversaries and push them out of society with just a few keystrokes.

And it seems the framework is already being constructed right under everyone's nose in the U.S. for exactly that, and before long we could see the kind of social credit system China already has.

We're already witnessing these high-profile individuals being forced to suffer for their ideology, though the possibility seems remote for the average person at first glance.

However, if this can happen to people in high places with large platforms and lots of political clout, what's to stop companies or even the government from doing this to ordinary citizens who can easily be silenced?

The frightening answer is that there is little any of us can do except sound the alarm that these things are happening already while pushing back against measures that seek to divide society and grant privileges based on political viewpoint.

What happened to Adams could be a glitch, or it could be part of a more sinister scheme that will come for everyone on the right, and chances are we won't know until it's too late if it's the latter.

We soon could be living under the thumb of an oppressive, vengeful, powerful government with no way to defend ourselves '-- and we'll long for the days when political opponents were simply insulted on Twitter instead of being ''unpersoned'' in society.

SummaryMore Biographical Information Recent Posts ContactChristine earned her bachelor's degree from Seton Hall University, where she studied communications and Latin. She left her career in the insurance industry to become a freelance writer and stay-at-home mother.

Christine earned her bachelor's degree from Seton Hall University, where she studied communications and Latin. She left her career in the insurance industry to become a freelance writer and stay-at-home mother.

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 14:02

Sept. 24, 2021, 4:30 AM EDT

By JoNel Aleccia, Kaiser Health News

Within a day of testing positive for Covid-19 in June, Miranda Kelly was sick enough to be scared. At 44, with diabetes and high blood pressure, Kelly, a certified nursing assistant, was having trouble breathing, symptoms serious enough to send her to the emergency room.

When her husband, Joe, 46, fell ill with the virus, too, she really got worried, especially about their five teenagers at home: ''I thought: 'I hope to God we don't wind up on ventilators. We have children. Who's going to raise these kids?'''

But the Kellys, who live in Seattle, had agreed just after their diagnoses to join a clinical trial at the nearby Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center that's part of an international effort to test an antiviral treatment that could halt Covid early in its course.

By the next day, the couple were taking four pills, twice a day. Although they weren't told whether they had received an active medication or a placebo, within a week, they said, their symptoms were better. Within two weeks, they had recovered.

''I don't know if we got the treatment, but I kind of feel like we did,'' Miranda Kelly said. ''To have all these underlying conditions, I felt like the recovery was very quick.''

The Kellys have a role in developing what could be the world's next chance to thwart Covid: a short-term regimen of daily pills that can fight the virus early after diagnosis and conceivably prevent symptoms from developing after exposure.

For full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic

''Oral antivirals have the potential to not only curtail the duration of one's Covid-19 syndrome, but also have the potential to limit transmission to people in your household if you are sick,'' said Timothy Sheahan, a virologist at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill who has helped pioneer the therapies.

Antivirals are already essential treatments for other viral infections, including hepatitis C and HIV. One of the best known is Tamiflu, the widely prescribed pill that can shorten the duration of influenza and reduce the risk of hospitalization if it is given quickly.

The medications, developed to treat and prevent viral infections in people and animals, work differently depending on the type. But they can be engineered to boost the immune system to fight infection, block receptors so viruses can't enter healthy cells or lower the amount of active virus in the body.

At least three promising antivirals for Covid are being tested in clinical trials, with results expected as soon as late fall or winter, said Carl Dieffenbach, director of the Division of AIDS at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who is overseeing antiviral development.

''I think that we will have answers as to what these pills are capable of within the next several months,'' Dieffenbach said.

The top contender is a medication from Merck & Co. and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics called molnupiravir, Dieffenbach said. That is the product being tested in the Kellys' Seattle trial. Two others are a candidate from Pfizer, known as PF-07321332, and AT-527, an antiviral produced by Roche and Atea Pharmaceuticals.

They work by interfering with the virus's ability to replicate in human cells. In the case of molnupiravir, the enzyme that copies the viral genetic material is forced to make so many mistakes that the virus can't reproduce. That, in turn, reduces a patient's viral load, shortening infection time and preventing the kind of dangerous immune response that can cause serious illness or death.

So far, only one antiviral drug, remdesivir, has been approved to treat Covid. But it is given intravenously to patients ill enough to be hospitalized, and it isn't intended for early, widespread use. By contrast, the top contenders under study can be packaged as pills.

RecommendedSheahan, who also performed preclinical work on remdesivir, led an early study in mice that showed that molnupiravir could prevent early disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid. The formula was discovered at Emory University and later acquired by Ridgeback and Merck.

Clinical trials have followed, including an early trial of 202 participants last spring that showed that molnupiravir rapidly reduced the levels of infectious virus. Merck Chief Executive Robert Davis said this month that the company expects data from its larger phase 3 trials in the coming weeks, with the potential to seek emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration ''before year-end.''

Pfizer launched a combined phase 2 and 3 trial of its product Sept. 1, and Atea officials said they expect results from phase 2 and phase 3 trials later this year.

If the results are positive and emergency use is granted for any product, Dieffenbach said, ''distribution could begin quickly.''

That would mean millions of people soon could have access to a daily orally administered medication, ideally a single pill, that could be taken for five to 10 days at the first confirmation of Covid infection.

''When we get there, that's the idea,'' said Dr. Daniel Griffin, an infectious diseases and immunology expert at Columbia University. ''To have this all around the country, so that people get it the same day they get diagnosed.''

Once sidelined for lack of interest, oral antivirals to treat coronavirus infections are now a subject of fierce competition and funding. In June, the Biden administration announced that it had agreed to obtain about 1.7 million treatment courses of Merck's molnupiravir, at a cost of $1.2 billion, if the product receives emergency authorization or full approval. The same month, the administration said it would invest $3.2 billion in the Antiviral Program for Pandemics, which aims to develop antivirals for the Covid crisis and beyond, Dieffenbach said.

The pandemic kick-started a long-neglected effort to develop potent antiviral treatments for coronaviruses, Sheahan said. Although the original SARS virus in 2003 gave scientists a scare '-- followed by Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, in 2012 '-- research efforts slowed when the outbreaks didn't persist.

''The commercial drive to develop any products just went down the tubes,'' Sheahan said.

A challenge in recruiting participantsWidely available antiviral drugs would join the monoclonal antibody therapies already used to treat and prevent serious illness and hospitalizations caused by Covid. The lab-produced monoclonal antibodies, which mimic the body's natural response to infection, were easier to develop but must be given primarily through intravenous infusions.

The federal government is covering the cost of most monoclonal products at $2,000 a dose. It's still too early to know how the price of antivirals might compare.

Like the monoclonal antibodies, antiviral pills would be no substitute for vaccination, Griffin said. They would be another tool to fight Covid. ''It's nice to have another option,'' he said.

A challenge in developing antiviral drugs quickly has been recruiting enough participants for the clinical trials, each of which needs to enroll many hundreds of people, said Dr. Elizabeth Duke, a Fred Hutch research associate overseeing its molnupiravir trial.

Participants must be unvaccinated and enrolled in the trial within five days of positive Covid tests. Any given day, interns make 100 calls to newly Covid-positive people in the Seattle area '-- and most say no.

''Just generally speaking, there's a lot of mistrust about the scientific process,'' Duke said. ''And some of the people are saying kind of nasty things to the interns.''

If the antiviral pills prove effective, the next challenge will be to ramp up a distribution system that can rush them to people as soon as they test positive. Griffin said it will take something akin to the program set up last year by UnitedHealthcare, which sped Tamiflu kits to 200,000 at-risk patients enrolled in the insurer's Medicare Advantage plans.

Merck officials predicted that the company could produce more than 10 million courses of therapy by the end of the year. Atea and Pfizer haven't released similar estimates.

Even more promising? Studies evaluating whether antivirals can prevent infection after exposure.

''Think about that,'' said Duke, who is also overseeing a prophylactic trial. ''You could give it to everyone in a household or everyone in a school. Then we're talking about a return to, maybe, normal life.''

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JoNel Aleccia, Kaiser Health News

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 14:00

At the end of the 90-day deadline to file an appeal to a Minneapolis jury's conviction on all three charges he faced in the May 2020 death of George Floyd, Derek Chauvin made official his appeal on Thursday.

Chauvin was found guilty in late April on the three counts he faced: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. In late June, the former Minneapolis police officer was sentenced to 270 months in prison, but now Chauvin is seeking to appeal all of those decisions.

According to breaking coverage of the appeal Thursday night on Twin Cities affiliate FOX 9, he's so far moving forward with this appeal on his own.

"Derek Chauvin had 90 days to file this appeal after his sentencing date '-- tonight, we are at exactly 90 days," explained FOX 9's Amy Hockert. "Chauvin lays out about 14 different arguments among them, he said he was denied a fair trial because he had asked for a change of venue and didn't get it. He also claims he was at a disadvantage because the jury wasn't sequestered during the entire trial."

A copy of Chauvin's appeal documents shows the 14 issues he seeks to raise on appeal:

The District Court abused its discretion when it denied Appellant's motion for change of venue or a new trial;The District Court abused its discretion when it denied Appellant's motion for a continuance or a new trial;The District Court abused its discretion when it denied Appellant's motions to sequester the jury throughout trial;The State committed prejudicial prosecutorial misconduct;The District Court prejudicially erred when it concluded that the testimony of Morries Hall, or in the alternative Mr. Hall's statements to law enforcement... was not a violation of Appellant's constitutional confrontation rights;The District Court prejudicially erred when it permitted the State to present cumulative evidence with respect to use of force;The District Court abused its discretion when it ordered the State to lead witnesses on direct examination;The District Court abused its discretion when it failed to make an official record of the numerous sidebar conferences that occurred during trials;The District Court abused its discretion when it failed to allow Appellant to exercise several cause strikes for clearly biased jurors during voir dire;The District Court abused its discretion when it permitted the State of amend its complaint to add the charge of third-degree murder;The District Court abused its discretion when it strictly limited and undercut the admissibility of George Floyd's May 6, 2019 arrest;The District Court abused its discretion when it submitted instructions to the jury that materially misstated the law;The District Court abused its discretion when it by denying Appellant's motion for a Schwartz hearing;The District Court abused its discretion when it denied Appellant's post-verdict motion for a new trial due to juror misconduct.Interestingly, there's no direct mention of the situation that occurred as Chauvin case jurors deliberated when Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) showed up in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, and told gathered protestors, some of whom became violent as they looted the area, that "we are looking for a guilty verdict."

At the time, the judge in Chauvin's case admitted that "Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned."

FOX 9's reporting also noted the recent Minnesota Supreme Court decision that overturned a third degree murder charge for another former Minneapolis police officer found guilty of the charge by a jury. Mohamed Noor was convicted on a third-degree murder charge in 2019, but Minnesota's highest court threw that out, and ordered a lower judge to adjust Noor's sentence accordingly.

Minnesota's top court vacated the murder conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor on grounds that there was insufficient evidence to prove ''depraved-mind murder,'' which is required for such a charge to stand.https://t.co/lHiDduGDei

'-- New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) September 16, 2021A legal analyst told FOX 9 that Noor's overturned conviction could impact Chauvin's appeal and, if his third-degree murder conviction is also overturned, result in a reduced sentence from the 22.5 years he's currently serving.

Notably, Chauvin is pursuing this appeal on his own and without any legal representation. As Hockert explained, "court documents show that he has actually been denied representation by a public defender in this appeal and he says he doesn't have the means to hire a private attorney."

As a result, Hockert said, "Derek Chauvin is asking for a series of delays in this appeals process so that he can get his legal representation together" although "the court is not obligated to give him legal representation and there's a very good chance that Derek Chauvin will be appealing this on his own."

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 13:58

Dr. Anthony Fauci warned this week that the U.S. could be in for a ''dark, bad winter'' if more people do not get vaccinated '-- an eerily similar sentiment he held last year. At the time, he said he was looking forward to Christmas in 2021.

''You know, if we don't get people vaccinated who need to be vaccinated, and we get that conflating with an influenza season, we could have a dark, bad winter,'' the White House medical adviser said during an appearance on The Takeout podcast, although he previewed a potential way out.

''We could also avoid a dark, bad winter if we get people vaccinated to a very high degree over the next several weeks to a month or two,'' Fauci added.

Last November, Fauci held a similar position, warning of a bleak winter and explaining that he planned to forgo his traditional holiday plans because of fears of the virus.

''For my own family, I'm saying we had a really great Thanksgiving and Christmas last year. We're looking forward to a really great Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2021,'' he told USA Today at the time.

Then, President Biden in January warned of a ''dark winter'' of coronavirus spikes and fatalities.

''We didn't get into this mess overnight and it's going to take months for us to turn things around,'' he said at the time.

But now, vaccines have been available for months, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 55 percent of the U.S. population is considered fully vaccinated.

But instead of focusing solely on vaccine rollout, the Biden administration is now cutting off the ample supply of lifesaving monoclonal antibody treatments to southeastern states, such as Florida and Alabama, because of concerns of ''equitable distribution.''

''There's going to be a huge disruption and patients are going to suffer as a result of this. And so we're going to work like hell to make sure we can overcome the obstacles that HHS and the Biden administration are putting on us,'' Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) vowed.

Medical workers wearing personal protective equipment PPE tend to a patient infected with Covid-19 (OLGA MALTSEVA/AFP via Getty Images).

This week, he announced the state successfully found a workaround, securing ''approximately 3,000 doses of the GlaxoSmithKline antibody treatment product, sutrovimab,'' as Breitbart News reported.

A GSK employee is at work at the factory of British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in Wavre on February 8, 2021, where the Covid-19 CureVac vaccine will be produced (KENZO TRIBOUILLARD/AFP via Getty Images).

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 13:37

I, Lieutenant Colonel Theresa Long, MD, MPH, FS being duly sworn, depose and state as follows:

1. I make this affidavit, as a whistle blower under the Military Whistleblower Protection Act, Title 10 U.S.C. § 1034, in support of the above referenced MOTION as expert testimony in support thereof.

2. The expert opinions expressed here are my own and arrived at from my persons, professional and educational experiences taken in context, where appropriate, by scientific data, publications, treatises, opinions, documents, reports and other information relevant to the subject matter and are not necessarily those of the Army or Department of Defense.

Experience & Credentials

3. I am competent to testify to the facts and matters set forth herein. A true and accurate copy of my curriculum vitae is attached hereto as Exhibit A.

4. After receiving a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas Austin, completed my medical degree from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Medical School in 2008. I served as a Field Surgeon for ten years and went on to complete a residency in Aerospace and Occupational Medicine at the United States Army School of Aviation Medicine, Fort Rucker, AL. I hold a Master's in Public Health, and I have been trained by the Combat Readiness Center at Ft. Rucker as an Aviation Safety Officer. Additionally, I have trained in the Medical Management of Chemical and Biological Causalities at Fort Detrick and USAMIIRD.

5. I am board certified in flight Aerospace Medicine and board eligible in Occupational Medicine.

6. I am currently serving as the Brigade Surgeon for the 1st Aviation Brigade Ft. Rucker, Alabama and am responsible for certifying the health, mental and physical ability, and readiness for all nearly 4,000 individuals on flight status on this post.

7. My appended curriculum vitae further demonstrates my academic and scientific achievements by me over the past thirteen years.

8. Prior to the outset of the pandemic, I received specialized military training from Infectious Disease doctors from the Army, Navy and Air Force on emerging infectious disease threats, FEMA training, Emergency preparedness training, Medical effects of Ionizing Radiation, OSHA, Aerospace Toxicology, Epidemiology, Biostatistics, medical research and disaster planning. More recently I have functioned as a medical and scientific advisor to an Aviation training Brigade seeking to identify risk mitigation strategies, and bio statistical analysis of SARS- Cov-2 (''Covid 19'') infections in both vaccinated and unvaccinated Soldiers. In so doing, I have identified, diagnosed and treated Covid 19 pathogenic infections. I have observed vaccine adverse events following the administration of EUA vaccines, and followed the success of Soldiers who obtained various Covid 19 therapies outside the military. The majority of the service members within the DOD population are young and in good physical condition. Military aviators are a subset of the military population that has to meet the most stringent medical standards to be on flight status. The population of student pilots I take care of are primarily in their 20s-30s, males and in excellent physical condition. The risk of serious illness or death in this population from SARs-CoV-2 is minimal, with a survival rate of 99.997%.

9. In observing, studying and analyzing all the available data, information, samples, experiences, histories and results of these treatments and inoculations provided, I have formulated a professional opinion, which requires me to report those findings to superiors in the chain of command and colleagues in the military. I have done so with mixed results in terms of acceptance, rejection and threats of punishment for so sharing.

10. The application of risk management is critical to the safety and success in both medicine and aviation. Aerospace Medicine is a specialty devoted to safety of flight by the aeromedical dispositioning and treatment of flight crew members, as accomplished by the consistent and careful application of risk mitigation and management strategies. ATP 5-19, 1-3. Risk Management (RM)1 outlines a disciplined approach to express a risk level in terms readily understood at all echelons.

1 adminpubs.tradoc.army.mil/regulations/TR385-2withChange1.docx 4

Case 1:21-cv-02228-RM-STV Document 17 Filed 09/24/21 USDC Colorado Page 7 of 269

11. 1-6. States, ''A risk decision is a commander, leader, or individual's determination to accept or not accept. The risk(s) associated with an action he or she will take or will direct others to take. RM is only effective when specific information about hazards and risks is passed to the appropriate level of command for a risk decision. Subordinates must pass specific risk information up the chain of command.''

12. ''When the specific information about hazards and risks is passed to the appropriate level of command for a risk decision. Subordinates must pass specific risk information up the chain of command. Conversely, the higher command must provide subordinates making risk decisions or implementing controls with the established risk tolerance'--the level of risk the responsible commander is willing to accept. RM application must be inclusive; those executing an operation and those directing it participate in an integrated process''.

13. 1-7. States, ''In the context of RM, a control is an action taken to eliminate a hazard or to reduce its risk. Commanders establish local policies and regulations if appropriate''.

14. The five steps of Risk management include; 1. Identify the hazards, 2. Assess the hazards, 3. Develop controls and make risk decisions, 4. Implement controls, 5. Supervise and evaluate.

15. It is therefore my responsibility and that of every leaders to apply the steps of risk management to the current pandemic and countermeasures used. The CDC and the FDA are civilian agencies that do not have the mission of National Defense that the DOD has. Guidance and recommendations made by these civilian agencies must be filtered through strategic perspective of national defense and the potential risks recommendations may have on the health of the entire fighting force. Ensuring that the health of the fighting force is not compromised is a strategic imperative, for which every military physician is responsible to of the entire fighting force. Ensuring that the health of the fighting force is not compromised is a strategic imperative, for which every military physician is responsible to ensure.

16. Step 1: Identify the hazards: As defined by FM 1-02.1 Operational Terms, pg. 1- 48, hazard is a condition with the potential to cause injury, illness, or death of personnel; damage to or loss of equipment or property; or mission degradation.

17. Step 2: Assess the Hazards: There are numerous therapeutic agents that have been proven to significantly reduce infection and therefore provide protection from the harmful effects of SARs-CoV-2.

18. Literature has demonstrated that natural immunity is durable, completed, and superior to vaccination immunity to SARs-CoV-2. mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna both have been linked to myocarditis, especially in young males between 16-24 years old,2 The majority of young new Army aviators are in their early twenties. We know there is a risk of myocarditis with each mRNA vaccination. We additionally now know that vaccination does not necessarily prevent infection or transmission of SARs-CoV-2Therefore individuals fully vaccinated with mRNA vaccines have at least two independent risk factors for myocarditis after vaccination. Additional boaster shots add more risk. It is impossible to perform a risk/benefit analysis on the use of mRNA as counter measures to SARs-CoV-2 without further data'... Use of mRNA vaccines in our fighting force, presents a risk of undetermined magnitude, in a population in which less than 20 active-duty personnel out of 1.4 million, died of the underlying SARs- CoV-2.

19. Aircrew Training Program (ATP) 5-19, 1-8. Accept No Unnecessary Risk, states, ''An unnecessary risk is any risk that, if taken, will not contribute meaningfully to mission accomplishment or will needlessly endanger lives or resources. Army leaders accept only a level of risk in which the potential benefit outweighs the potential loss.

20. Research shows that most individuals with myocarditis do not have any symptoms. Complications of myocarditis include dilated cardiomyopathy, arrhythmias, sudden cardiac death and carries a mortality rate of 20% at one year and 50% at 5 years. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, ''despite optimal medical management, overall mortality has not changed in the last 30 years''.

21. Step 3: Develop controls and make risk decisions: Because vaccination with mRNA increase the risk of myocarditis, a comprehensive screening program should be implemented immediately to identify individuals who have been affected and attempt to mitigate immediate risks and long-term disability.

22. Step 4: Implement Controls: Send out clear guidance to all DOD healthcare professionals on risks of-vaccination myocarditis. Compulsory SARs-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination program should be immediately suspended until research can be done to determine the true magnitude of risk of myocarditis in individuals who have been vaccinated. We must evaluate and immediately implement alternatives to mRNA vaccines, to include Ivermectin (FDA approved 1996), Remdesivir (FDA approved 2020), Hydroxychloroquine (FDA approved 1955), Regeneron (FDA EU approved 2020). Review VAERS data for deaths from COVID for age-matched data and data from active duty COVID deaths within the DOD to perform a risk/benefit analysis.

23. Step 5: Supervise and evaluate: We must establish a screening program to identify those at increased risk of myocarditis, i.e. those that have, received mRNA vaccinations with Comirnaty, BioNTech or Moderna, or have any of the following symptoms chest pain, shortness of breath or palpitations They should have screening tested performed in accordance with the CDC recommendations prior to return to flight duties. Per the CDC guidelines the initial evaluation of individuals identified according to the above criteria include; ECG, troponion level, inflammatory markers such as the C-reactive protein and erythrocyte sedimentation rate. It should be noted that the gold standard for diagnosis of myocarditis is end myocardial biopsy (EMB).

24. Given that the labels for Comirnaty and BioNtech clearly state that the vaccination should not be given to individuals that are allergic to ingredients. I have noted that one of the primary ingredients of the Lipid Nanoparticle delivery system is ''ALC 1035'' (two attachments, parts highlighted) in the Pfizer shots. The forth attachment is the toxicity report on ALC-1035, which comprises between 30-50% of the total ingredients.3 The Safety Data Sheet, (attached as Exhibit B) for this primary ingredient states that it is Category 2 under the OSHA HCS regulations (21 CFR 1910) and includes several concerning warnings, including but not limited to:

Seek medical attention if it comes into contact with your skin;If inhaled and If breathing is difficult, give cardiopulmonary resuscitationEvacuate if there is an environmental spillthe chemical, physical, and toxicological properties have not been completely investigatedCaution: Product has not been fully validated for medical applications. For research use only25. Other journals and scientific papers also denote that this particular ingredient has never been used in humans before.4 To be abundantly clear, one of the listed primary ingredients of these injectables is Polyethylene glycol (''PEG'') which is a derivative of ethylene oxide. Polyethylene Glycol is the active ingredient in antifreeze. While it is hard to believe this is a key ingredient in these vaccines, it would explain the increased cardiovascular risk to users of the BioNTech or Comirnaty shots. I cannot discern what form of alchemy Pfizer and the FDA have discovered that would make antifreeze into a healthful cure to the human body. Others seem to agree my point per recent scientific studies that caused a group of 57 doctors and scientists to call for an immediate halt to the vaccination program.5 In short, this antifreeze ingredient is being studied for the first time in human injectables. According to the VAERS data, which admittedly underreports by as much as 100 times the actual SAE's, there are well more than 600,000 documented Serious Adverse Events (ones requiring medical attention) alone and more than 13,000 fatalities directly linked to this particular vaccine. I cannot understand how this vaccine remains on the list of available options to treat Covid, when there are so many other non-deadly or injurious options available.

26. As such, I believe it is reasonable to conclude that many humans are allergic to these dangerous and deadly toxins and therefore should not take vaccinations with either Comirnaty or BioNtech. Again, I have identified an agent that possess a significant hazard to Soldiers, which would fall under DA Pam 385-61 Toxic Safety Standards cited in 2-11.

27. My assessment is that ALC 0315 is a known toxin with little study, specifically restricted to ''research only'' and effectively has no prior use history, with the SDS designation of (GHS02), listed as H315 and H319, in other words, hazardous if inhaled, ingested or in contact with skin and a health hazard with the designation (P313). A review of the SDS outlines that it is not for human or veterinary use,

28. I have not taken significant time to delineate the risks of other Covid 19 Vaccines other than the Safety Data Sheet of Moderna's key ingredient, SM-102 (attached as Exhibit C). Suffice it to say that SM-102 is significantly more dangerous than the Pfizer ALC 3015 and it appears that the DOD is not actively acquiring or distributing this IND/EUA. If the DOD were to undertake use of the Moderna vaccine, one can expect a much higher Serious Adverse Event and fatality rate given that SM-102 carries an express warning ''Skull and Crossbones'' characterized under the GHS06 and GHS08. In other words, this Moderna ingredient is deadly.

29. Given that these Covid 19 Vaccines were both Investigational New Drugs and Emergency Use Authorization vaccines, I have taken considerable time to understand potential risks, hazards and dangers these and any new drug or Investigational New Drug will may have on the health, safety and operational readiness or ability of pilots under my care and at this post. I have sought to research military records and track systems for recording events and Serious Adverse Events and fatalities associated with vaccines, new vaccines and Emergency Use, investigational vaccines in computer data systems recommended by the General Accounting Office in 2002 and ordered to be developed and implemented by the Secretary of Defense in 2003.

30. A weekly MEDSITREP report fails to report the CDC data from VAERS or internal data regarding vaccine adverse events. Despite recommendation made by the Government Accountability Office in the GAO's survey of Guard and Reserve Pilots and Aircrew GAO-02-445, published Sep 20,2002, in which it was recommended that the Secretary of Defense should direct the establishment of an active surveillance program (unlike the passive VAERS) to identify and monitor adverse events, was not implemented. I have been unable to locate, access or asses any data, data base or internal system to track, store, evaluate or research the effects of vaccines on our military members or pilots.

31. I have also reviewed scientific data and peer reviewed studies that discuss, analyze results and conclude that natural immunity is at least as good if not far superior to any Covid Vaccine available at this time. I have also reviewed Dr. Peter McCullough's sworn affidavit in support of and in relation to the Complaint filed in this case and have reviewed its supporting data. An additional peer-reviewed study not referenced in Dr. McCullough's materials also supports the same conclusions drawn and reports that natural immunity provides a 13 fold better protection against Covid 19 infections than any currently available Covid 19 Vaccine6. More recently, in a meeting of the FDA Advisory Committee on September 17 of this year, fourteen of seventeen members voted against the authorization of any Covid booster vaccines in the juvenile age group having noted that the vaccine program has breached the defining test under the EUA statute as to whether the experimental treatment benefits outweigh the risks; in fact, they found the shots are far more dangerous than helpful in this age group and some voiced concerns that this would apply generally to all age groups.7

32. I am also aware of the Secretary of Defense Austin's order in relation to Covid Vaccine mandates made this week. In an information paper, it was stated that, ''Unit personnel should use only as much force as necessary to assist medical personnel with immunizations.'' The use of force to administer a medical treatment or therapy against the will of a mentally competent individual constitutes medical battery and universally violates medical ethics. Currently, I am not aware of the Comirnaty available within the DOD. Emergency Use Authorized vaccines, despite the attempt to characterize some of them as approved despite such approved versions not being available and regardless of a military member's prior immunity to Covid 19; even where it may be demonstrated with a recent antibody test.

33. Finally, I have reviewed a recent study entitled ''US COVID-19 Vaccines Proven to Cause More Harm than Good Based on Pivotal Clinical Trial Data Analyzed Using the Proper Scientific Endpoint, All Cause Severe Morbidity,'' by J. Bart Classen, MD and published in Trends in Internal Medicine; August 25, 2021. Attached as Exhibit D.

34. I have also seen policies, memoranda and guidance as it relates to exemptions for vaccinations as fully detailed in Army Regulation 40-562, which purport to eliminate any exemption for prior immunity by our military personnel.

Opinion

35. I have reviewed the Motion for a Preliminary Injunction which discusses the issue

of prior immunity benefits outweighing the risks of using experimental Covid 19

Vaccines, together with proposed exhibits and materials cited therein. In opinion on this subject matter, I am also drawing my own conclusions that will be put into practice in my current role as an Army flight surgeon knowing full well the horrific repercussions this decision may befall me in terms of my career, my relationships and life as an Army doctor.

36. I personally observed the most physically fit female Soldier I have seen in over 20 years in the Army, go from Colligate level athlete training for Ranger School, to being physically debilitated with cardiac problems, newly diagnosed pituitary brain tumor, thyroid dysfunction within weeks of getting vaccinated. Several military physicians have shared with me their firsthand experience with a significant increase in the number of young Soldiers with migraines, menstrual irregularities, cancer, suspected myocarditis and reporting cardiac symptoms after vaccination. Numerous Soldiers and DOD civilians have told me of how they were sick, bed-ridden, debilitated, and unable to work for days to weeks after vaccination. I have also recently reviewed three flight crew members' medical records, all of which presented with both significant and aggressive systemic health issues. Today I received word of one fatality and two ICU cases on Fort Hood; the deceased was an Army pilot who could have been flying at the time. All three pulmonary embolism events happened within 48 hours of their vaccination. I cannot attribute this result to anything other than the Covid 19 vaccines as the source of these events. Each person was in top physical condition before the inoculation and each suffered the event within 2 days post vaccination. Correlation by itself does not equal causation, however, significant causal patterns do exist that raise correlation into a probable cause; and the burden to prove otherwise falls on the authorities such as the CDC, FDA, and pharmaceutical manufacturers. I find the illnesses, injuries and fatalities observed to be the proximate and causal effect of the Covid 19 vaccinations.

38. I can report of knowing over fifteen military physicians and healthcare providers who have shared experiences of having their safety concerns ignored and being ostracized for expressing or reporting safety concerns as they relate to COVID vaccinations. The politicization of SARs-CoV-2, treatments and vaccination strategies have completely compromised long-standing safety mechanisms, open and honest dialogue, and the trust of our service members in their health system and healthcare providers.

39. The subject matter of this Motion for a Preliminary Injunction and its devastating effects on members of the military compel me to conclude and conduct accordingly as follows:

a) None of the ordered Emergency Use Covid 19 vaccines can or will provide better immunity than an infection-recovered person;b) All three of the EUA Covid 19 vaccines (Comirnaty is not available), in the age group and fitness level of my patients, are more risky, harmful and dangerous than having no vaccine at all, whether a person is Covid recovered or facing a Covid 19 infection;c) Direct evidence exists and suggests that all persons who have received a Covid 19 Vaccine are damaged in their cardiovascular system in an irreparable and irrevocable manner;d) Due to the Spike protein production that is engineered into the user's genome, each such recipient of the Covid 19 Vaccines already has micro clots in their cardiovascular system that present a danger to their health and safety;e) That such micro clots over time will become bigger clots by the very nature of the shape and composition of the Spike proteins being produced and said proteins are found throughout the user's body, including the brain;f) That at the initial stage of this damage the micro clots can only be discovered by a biopsy or Magnetic Resonance Image (''MRI'') scan;g) That due to the fact that there is no functional myocardial screening currently being conducted, it is my professional opinion that substantial foreseen risks currently exist, which require proper screening of all flight crews.h) That, by virtue of their occupations, said flight crews present extraordinary risks to themselves and others given the equipment they operate, munitions carried thereon and areas of operation in close proximity to populated areas.i) That, without any current screening procedures in place, including any Aero Message (flight surgeon notice) relating to this demonstrable and identifiable risk, I must and will therefore ground all active flight personnel who received the vaccinations until such time as the causation of these serious systemic health risks can be more fully and adequately assessed.j) That, based on the DOD's own protocols and studies, the only two valuable methodologies to adequately assess this risk are through MRI imaging or cardio biopsy which must be carried-out.k) That, in accordance with the foregoing, I hereby recommend to the Secretary of Defense that all pilots, crew and flight personnel in the military service who required hospitalization from injection or received any Covid 19 vaccination be grounded similarly for further dispositive assessment.l) That this Court should grant an immediate injunction to stop the further harm to all military personnel to protect the health and safety of our active duty, reservists and National Guard troops.40. I am competent to opine on the medical and flight readiness aspects of these allegations based upon my above-referenced education and professional medical, aviation and military experience and the basis of my opinions are formed as a result of my education, practice, training and experience.

41 As an Aerospace Medicine Specialist, and flight surgeon responsible for the lives of our Army pilots, I confirm and attest to the accuracy and truthfulness of my foregoing statements, analysis and attachments or references hereto:

_______________/S/__________________ LTC Theresa Long, MD, MPH, FS

I, Lieutenant Colonel Theresa Long, MD, MPH, FS, declare under the penalty of perjury of the laws of the United States of America, and state upon personal knowledge that:

THERESA MARIE LONG, MD, MPH, FS LTC, MEDICAL CORPS, U.S. Army

Medical Education

United States Army School of Aviation Medicine Aerospace/Occupational Medicine Residency University of West FloridaGraduate Student -MPH

06/2019-6/2021

Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center, Fort Hood, Texas Family Medicine Internship06/2008-11/2010Unrestricted Medical License, IN

09/2003 '' 06/2008University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Houston, Texas 06/2008 M.D.

08/2001 '' 08/2004Undergraduate '' University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 05/2004 B.S. Neurobiology

Research Experience

08/2018 '' 5/2020School of Aviation MedicineUniversity of West Florida MPH programhttps://tml526.wixsite.com/websitePerformed a cross-sectional study on Intervertebral Disc Disease Among Army Aviators and Air Crew

08/2002 '' 05/2003

University of Texas at Austin, TexasResearch Assistant, Dr. Dee SilverthornPerformed academic research in effort to update medical facts and the latest research information for the publication of the fourth edition of Human Physiology

09/2000 '' 11/2000

Neuropharmacology Research, TexasLab Tech, Dr. SilverthornAcquisition of rat cerebellums for research in gene sequencing. The focus of the project was to determine the DNA sequence of the receptor in the developing fetal brain that binds to ethanol and induces apoptosis leading to fetal alcohol syndrome.

Publications/Presentations/Poster Sessions Presentations/Posters

Poster: Intervertebral Disc Disease Among Army Aviators and Air Crew, presented during the 2021 American Occupational Healthcare Conference.Long, Theresa M., Sorensen, Christian, Victoria Zumberge. (2003, May). Sodium dependent transport of Chlorophenol red uptake by Malpighian tubules of acheta domesticus. Poster presented at: University of Texas at Houston; Austin, TX.

Volunteer Experience

08/ 2005 '' 09/2005University of Texas '' Houston, Health Science Ctr, TexasMedical Student -Provided medical aid and support for Acute Care and triage of Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

Work Experience

06/2021- Present1st Aviation Brigade TOMS SurgeonServe as the Medical Advisor to the 1st Aviation Brigade Commander regarding health and fitness of over 3600 officers, warrant officers and Soldiers. The Brigade is comprised of three aviation training battalions, responsible for initial entry rotary wing/ fixed wing flight training, advanced aircraft training. as well as Specific duties include ensuring safety of flight in Army Aviation operations by functioning as Flight Surgeon, while ensuring the health and fitness of military police, firefighters and military working dogs that support Ft. Rucker. Tasked with conducting epidemiological and biostatistical analysis of injuries and illnesses (SARs CoV-2) and medical trends that occur during training and identify and implement strategies to mitigate delays or lost training time.

05/2018-06/2021Aerospace and Occupational Medicine Resident

Graduate Medical Education training in Aerospace and Occupational Medicine while obtaining a Master's in Public Health. Specialty training included the Flight surgeon course, The Instructor/Trainer course, Space Cadre Course, Medical Effects of Ionizing Radiation, Medical Management of Chemical and Biological Casualties course at USAMIIRD, Ft. Detrick, NASA, 7th Special Forces, Aviation Safety Officer Course, Global Medicine Symposium, OSHA, Dept of Transportation, Textron Bell Helicopters, Brigade Healthcare Course, Preventative Medicine Senior Leaders Course, Joint Enroute Critical Care Course, Army Aeromedical Activity, research on Intervertebral Disc Disease.

05/2015-05/2018

Department of Rehabilitation ServicesGeneral Medical OfficerAssigned to Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center Physical Medicine clinic with special duties Function as General Medical Officer, to mitigate the number of high risk patients get referred off-post to Pain management and PM&R clinics. Functioned as the Performance Improvement officer for PM&R, the Chiropractic Clinic OIC, and the MEB/IDES Subject Matter Expert to IPMC multi-disciplinary team. Significantly increased access to care to the Physical Medicine clinic. Was instrumental in leading the hospital transition for the Chiropractic clinic, contributing to the subsequent successful Joint Commission inspection. Increased access to care in the Chiropractic clinic by 500%.

9/2013- 5/2015

Department of Pediatrics/ Department of Deployment & Operational MedicineGeneral Medical OfficerAssigned to the Carl R. Darnall Army Medical center Pediatric Clinic with special duties within the Department of Deployment & Operational Medicine. Provided acute and routine medical care for newborn to age 18 and collaborated with Lactation Team Leader to develop research matrix to ensure effective use of resources to meet Perinatal Core Measures PC-05 for Joint Commission Accreditation. Demonstrated initiative by providing emergency medical care to one of the victims of the April 2, 2014 FT Hood shooting.

10/2012-9/2013

Department of Deployment Medicine/ Emergency MedicineGeneral Medical OfficerAssigned to the Department of Deployment & Operational Medicine at Carl R Darnall Army Medical Center (CRDAMC) with specific duties directed by the CRDAMC DCCS. Supported soldier deployment/redeployment from combat, while also performing clinical rotations within the Emergency and Internal Medicine Departments to increase access to care for acutely ill patients. Improved productivity of the SMRC by conducting ETS, Chapter, Special Forces, Airborne, Ranger, SERE, and OCS/WOCS physicals. Ensured DODM success with 90% CRDAMC staff compliance of their annual PHA's. Selected to become an ACLS instructor.

06/2012-10/01/2012

Department of the Army Inspector General AgencyDisability Medicine Subject Matter Expert (SME) '' Temporary Dept of the Army Inspector GeneralAssistant Inspector General on Medical Disability (Subject Matter Expert)Selected above my peers, from across the Army AMEDD as one of three medical NARSUM Subject Matter Experts to function as a temporary assistant Inspector General, in a SECARMY directed inspection of the MEB/IDES system. Planed, coordinated, and conducted inspections of agencies/commands and to gather required data and perspectives relevant to the inspection topic. Developed inspection concepts, objectives, methodologies while coordinating inspection site requirements with major Army Commands ASCC, DRUs, Installations and Components. Identified trends, analyzed root causes to systemic problems and proposed solutions to the IG, Army Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Army for service-wide implementation.

06/2011-06/2012

Carl R. Darnall Army Medical CenterIntegrated Disability Evaluation SystemIncreased patient access to care by conducting 203 acute care appointments in four months. Increased productivity by 25% by completing 202 NARSUMs, 12 TDRLs, 42 Psychiatric addendums in nine months with only a single case returned from the PEB. Performed duties of MEB chief and QA physician in their absence by performing QA on seven NARSUMS, and reviewing 13 cases for initial intake. Functioned as IDES Physician Training officer, applying PDA training to develop a comprehensive training program for new MEB/IDES NARSUM physicians.

11/2010-05/2011

Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center, Hospital Operations, Clinical Plans and Medical Operations Officer

Served as Clinical Plans and Medical Operations Officer for Hospital Operation (HOD), responsible for the synchronization of external and internal MEDCEN operations supporting over 3,000 MEDCEN employee as well as the DoD's largest military installation and surrounding civilian population; assisted in development and execution of medical plans supporting Installation, Garrison, MEDCEN and Civilian AT/FP and MASCAL events

06/2005 '' 07/2005

United States Army, Texas, Officer Basic Course '' Class 1st Sergeant

Supervised 306 medical, dental, and veterinarian HPSP scholarship recipients for Officer Basic training. 10/2002 '' 08/2003

United States Army '' Texas National Guard, Texas Flight Medic ''EMT/BCLS Instructor Training

10/2001 '' 10/2002

United States Army Reserve, Texas, Instructor/Trainer

Link to Article

Archived Version

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 13:35

Boris Johnson is set to U-turn on visas for lorry drivers to allow 5,000 foreign hauliers into the UK after panic-buying gridlocked petrol stations across the country overnight.

Motorists ignored Government pleas for calm as they jammed roads and police had to be called in to marshal drivers amid fears that fuel shortages could bring the economy to its knees.

The Prime Minister is expected to buckle and grant visas for thousands of foreign drivers in a bid to tackle the shortages, while soldiers will also be drafted in to help at HGV testing sites to clear a backlog of drivers trying to get licences.

But Britain is said to be short of more than 90,000 drivers, partly the result of coronavirus which cancelled the training and testing of tens of thousands of workers, and there are concerns an additional 5,000 may be too little, too late to halt the chaos.

Photographs show desperate motorists queuing for petrol at 5.45am this morning at Sainsbury's Alperton station as the hunt for fuel continued overnight. Meanwhile, around 400 stations owned by the EG Group is limited customers to £30 worth of petrol to give everyone a 'fair chance to refuel'.

Driver shortages are hitting every part of the economy, creating gaps on supermarket shelves, leaving pubs and restaurants short of key produce and jeopardising the supply of key chemicals to water firms.

Parents on the school run on Friday could not get to the pumps, while the elderly and traders were among the many thousands of motorists caught up in the frenzy.

The problems were triggered after BP and Esso admitted on Thursday that a lack of tanker drivers was hitting deliveries. The news led to a race to the petrol pumps with the result that hundreds ran out of some fuel types and dozens closed altogether.

And Transport Secretary Grant Shapps' appeal for drivers to 'carry on as normal' went ignored on Friday and throughout the night, leading to long jams and angry scenes at filling stations.

Meanwhile on Friday, a private equity-backed haulage firm specialising in chilled deliveries to Asda and Sainsbury's went bust, adding to concerns about gaps on shelves.

As the crisis deepened:

Police were called to forecourts to manage queues, head off confrontations and keep traffic moving; Three cars were involved in a crash when tempers flared at a petrol station in Gosport, Hampshire; Motorists in queues complained about greedy customers filling their tanks and then jerry cans; Small petrol stations raised prices to cash in on the panic and experts warned of further increases; Bosses of major fuel firms warned they will have to start shutting petrol stations because there are not enough lorry drivers to effectively distribute to all of its petrol stations; A private equity-backed haulage firm specialising in chilled deliveries to Asda and Sainsbury's went bust, adding to concerns about gaps on shelves; A shortage of natural gas causing a spike in gas bills for millions of Britons and the closure of fertiliser plants, which produce the CO2 used in fizzy drinks and the meat industry; Bank of England warned yesterday that surging household energy bills would send the cost of living spiralling by more than 4 per cent this winter - the highest rate of growth for a decade The average price of a pint of beer was set to pass £4 as inflation soared; Care homes warned they could be forced to close amid spiralling gas bills. Drivers queued throughout the night to fill their cars with petrol. Pictured, queues at Sainsbury's Alperton petrol station at 5:45am as the issue continued

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps' appeal for drivers to 'carry on as normal' went ignored on Friday and throughout the night, leading to long jams and angry scenes at filling stations. Pictured, Sainsbury's Alperton at 5.45am

Boris Johnson is set for a foreign visas U-turn to allow in 5,000 lorry drivers amid frenzied buying and flare ups (pictured, an argument between staff and customers at a Londis in London) at gridlocked filling stations

Motorists ignored Government pleas for calm as they jammed roads to panic buy petrol into the night on Friday amid fears that fuel shortages could bring the economy to its knees

Cars were seen in snaking queues outside petrol stations as people rushed to buy petrol despite Transport Secretary Grant Shapps' appeal for drivers to 'carry on as normal'

Petrol stations remained gridlocked into the evening Friday as Boris Johnson prepared to U-turn on visas for 5,000 foreign HGV drivers in a bid to tackle fuel shortages

Frenzied buying has caused flare ups at gridlocked filling stations today (pictured in Tonbridge) as motorists ignored Government pleas for calm

The chaotic scenes (pictured in Southport) came as Boris Johnson prepared U-turn on demands to change visa rules to offer visas to 5,000 foreign lorry drivers in a bid to tackle the shortage and stop the economy grinding to a halt.

A BP at Hampton Court says 'Sorry we're out of diesel' after frenzied buying saw stations swamped by panicked customers

Parents on the school run could not get to the pumps, (pictured in Hampshire) while the elderly and traders were among the many thousands of motorists caught up in the frenzy

Driver shortages are hitting every part of the economy, creating gaps on supermarket shelves, leaving pubs and restaurants short of key produce and jeopardising the supply of key chemicals to water firms (pictured, people queueing for fuel in Rochdale)

The problems were triggered after BP and Esso admitted on Thursday that a lack of tanker drivers was hitting deliveries (pictured, gridlock at a petrol station in Tonbridge)

The news led to a race to the petrol pumps (pictured in Cardiff, Wales) with the result that hundreds ran out of some fuel types and dozens closed altogether

Many forecourts in London and other cities were closed or running low on both unleaded and diesel (pictured, handwritten signs warning there was no fuel available at a station in Manchester)

The Prime Minister is expected to buckle and grant visas for thousands of foreign drivers in a bid to tackle the shortage, while soldiers will also be drafted in to help at HGV testing sites to clear a backlog of drivers trying to get licences

Police officers have been pictured standing among cars to ensure queues didn't block roads at one Esso station in Northwood, London, after a day of panic buying.

The EG Group has limited customers to £30 worth of fuel to try to manage the sudden demand in supply.

In a statement, a spokesperson said: 'Due to the current unprecedented customer demand for fuel and associated supply challenges we have taken the decision to introduce a limit of £30 per customer on all of our grades of fuel.

'This excludes HGV drivers and emergency services due to their vital role at this time. This is a company decision to ensure all our customers have a fair chance to refuel and to enable our sites to carry on running smoothly.

'We kindly ask everyone visiting our sites to treat our colleagues, supply chain partners and customers with respect during these very challenging times.'

Many forecourts in London and other cities were closed or running low on both unleaded and diesel on Friday evening. The capital's South Circular road was at a standstill at one point. The Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association asked that its members should go on an emergency fuel register, giving them priority access to fuel.

BP said: 'We are experiencing some fuel supply issues at some of our retail sites in the UK and unfortunately have therefore seen some sites temporarily close due to a lack of both unleaded and diesel grades.

'We are prioritising deliveries to sites with largest demand and seeking to minimise the duration of stock outs.'

Jane Smithson, 62, a retired carer who was stocking up on fuel in Eltham, south-east London, said: 'I'm gobsmacked, the world's gone mad, I just cannot believe it.'

Charlie Mansfield, a 34-year-old paramedic, was worried she would not be able to start her shift if she could not get petrol.

'They should put a limit of the amount of litres you can buy, because people are just filling it up and taking it all,' she said.

Trafford councillor Mike Freeman described Manchester as 'bedlam'. He said: 'I witnessed two motorists not just satisfied with filling up their cars but filling large jerry cans as well '' people have clearly been spooked.'

Early yesterday, Mr Shapps urged motorists to 'carry on as normal' and insisted there was no danger of fuel pumps running dry.

Britain is said to be short of more than 90,000 drivers, which is partly the result of coronavirus, which cancelled the training and the testing of tens of thousands of workers.

Other factors include the long-standing issue of poor recruitment linked to poor pay and conditions, as well as Brexit, which saw thousands of EU drivers go home.

The Government has set up a taskforce run by the former Brexit secretary Stephen Barclay to address supply chain issues.

Howard Cox, founder of the FairFuelUK Campaign, blamed the Department for Transport for not tackling the driver shortage. He added: 'Pump prices will rise in direct relation to the 'don't panic' scaremongering messages from this clueless Government.'

A Downing Street spokesman said last night: 'We have ample fuel stocks in this country and the public should be reassured there are no shortages.'

SIDCUP, KENT: Queues of cars spill out on the road from a Kent forecourt today after fuel bosses warned of rationing and petrol station closures

Drivers wait in line for fuel at a petrol station near the M4 in Coryton, Cardiff today as concerns grow

Vehicles bumper-to-bumper in Harpenden as they try to get into a BP garage today

Desperate motorists wind their way into a choc-a-bloc petrol station at a supermarket today

Officials have insisted a visa rule change, which Johnson appears poised to announce, would be 'very short-term' with the Government adamant that the industry needs to adapt to prevent future crises.

A source said: 'We believe in British workers being paid properly and we will not give in to big businesses who want to change immigration rules to drive down wages.' Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said early yesterday that he was wary about importing cheap foreign labour to solve the issue.

'We've started to see people come into the sector to alleviate this problem and what I don't want to do is undermine that in any way as we bring people in, attracted by higher salaries and wages,' he told the BBC.

'What I don't want to do, and I've been hinting at this, is undercut with, as has happened before, cheaper European drivers and then find our drivers drop out because they are being undercut.

'That doesn't solve the problem, it just creates a new problem.'

Ministers held crunch talks on Friday afternoon to thrash out a solution to the shortage. It came as retailers on Friday warned ministers they have just 10 days to save Christmas from 'significant disruption' due to the lack of drivers.

The British Retail Consortium said that disruption over the festive period will be 'inevitable' unless the shortfall of an estimated 90,000 drivers is addressed.

Ministers have reportedly discussed contingency plans for the Army to be brought in to drive petrol tankers to station forecourts but it is thought they would only be enacted as a last resort.

Tory MP Marcus Fysh said that bringing in the Army would 'not be an unreasonable way to think about dealing with an issue'.

He said: 'If there is a problem that needs to be fixed in the near term then that might be a way of fixing it.'

But ministers have been accused of dooming Britain to a Winter of Incompetence. The Government has been lambasted for failing to see the problems coming, with fears rationing might even be needed.

Environment Secretary George Eustice is thought to have been pushing for a move to grant temporary visas to EU nations to shore up the number of HGV drivers along with Cabinet Office minister Steve Barclay. Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng is also seemingly lowering objections to a time-limited change.

But critics question why it has taken so long to address the problems, as companies have been raising alarm for months about the brewing crisis. The driver shortage has been exacerbated by a huge backlog in HGV tests due to Covid, as well as foreign drivers returning home amid the pandemic and Brexit.

There have also been huge pressures on global supply chains with economies getting up and running after the effective coronavirus shutdown - as well as factors like the Suez canal having been blocked months ago.

The scenes of queues outside petrol stations - which for some will stir up memories of the 1973 Opec Oil Crisis and the 2000 fuel shortage - come amid fears of a 1978-style 'winter of discontent' for the UK, with skyrocketing energy prices, food shortages and fuel rationing.

On Thursday BP announced plans to ration fuel and a 'handful' of its petrol stations, along with 'small number' of Tesco refilling stations, while supermarkets warned of food shortages and more energy firms went bust amid rising gas prices - sparking fears of a new 'winter of discontent'.

And in a particularly unhelpful addition to the problem, eco-mob Insulate Britain returned to the roads today to block off a route to Port of Dover - Europe's busiest port and the UK's main gateway for trade from the EU.

On Thursday night the Petrol Retailers Association added to the rising sense of carnage by urging motorists to 'keep a quarter of a tank' of fuel in their vehicles in preparation for potential closures of local petrol stations.

BRIGHTON: Customers queue for fuel at a supermarket petrol station in Brighton this morning . Some BP and Shell petrol stations have had to temporarily close because of a shortage of HGV drivers in the UK

LEEDS: Queues at a Sainsbury's Petrol Station in Colton, Leeds. Drivers are being urged by the Government to 'buy fuel as normal', after the lorry driver shortage hit supplies

SIDCUP: LONDON: Huge queues formed at a Tesco petrol station in Sidcup, south east London, as people rush to get petrol

Long queues snaking down the road outside an Esso Petrol Station in Maghull, Liverpool, today

MAIDENHEAD: BERKSHIRE: There were closed pumps at a Co-op Texaco garage in Maidenhead, Berkshire on Friday as the HGV shortage continues to bite

A graphic illustrating how the three issues are currently affecting the UK and the problems it is causing. The People's Energy Company (bottom, middle) is one of the energy suppliers that have already gone bust

UK needs nearly TWO MILLION workers: Active job posts reveal bosses crying out for 55,019 care staff, 36, 471 chefs, and 32,615 sales assistants UK job advert numbers have reached the highest figure in at least a year, with almost two million positions currently being offered, newly released figures have revealed.

Job market data from September 13 to September 19 shows more than 220,000 new job adverts were posted, bringing the total number of active job adverts to 1.9million.

According to the figures, there were 36,000 new adverts appeared for chefs, around 32,000 for sales assistants and 6,500 for bar staff in that period.

The figures for hospitality jobs are likely to reflect the country opening back up in the wake of Covid-19 rules being lifted.

But the job advert figures also show more than 7,500 job adverts have been posted for HGV drivers in the UK in the last week. Some offer salaries upward of £50,000-a-year.

The flurry of job adverts comes amid a shortage of lorry drivers across the UK.

The Road Haulage Association estimate the UK to be short of 100,000 HGV drivers.

Here are the number of new job adverts posted in the UK from September 13 to September 19, according to data analysed by Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC):

Care workers: 55,019

Chefs: 36,471

Primary school teachers: 32,942

Metal workers: 22,956

Cleaners: 28,220

HGV drivers : 7,513

Bar staff: 6,557

Sales assistants: 32,615

School secretaries: 2,678

Lollipop men and women: 2,478

Postal workers: 2,251

*The figures are for jobs posted between September 13 - September 19. In total there are more than 1.9million active job adverts.

Mr Shapps on Friday stressed that transport firms were offering huge salaries in a bid to entice drivers who have left the industry to come back - with one 'top milk firm' apparently offering as much as '£78,000-a-year'.

Meanwhile, one vegetable firm in Lincolnshire is currently advertising a broccoli picker role for £30-per-hour - equivalent to around £62,000-a-year.

Nerves are growing in Downing Street over the prospect of a 'winter of discontent' - with Christmas potentially ruined by soaring energy bills, shortages and Universal Credit cuts.

Ministers are said to have drawn up plans to put soldiers on standby in case they are required to drive petrol tankers in case of severe crisis.

When questioned on BBC Breakfast, Mr Shapps said: 'If it can actually help, we will bring them in.'

But he urged people not to panic buy, telling Sky News: 'The advice would be to carry on as normal, and that's what BP are saying as well.'

Shadow business secretary Ed Miliband said: 'Families and businesses across the country are facing a looming cost of living crisis because of the government's triple whammy of rising energy costs, tax rises and the cuts to Universal Credit. In addition supply chain disruption is harming businesses and hitting consumers in their pockets.

'It is Government complacency that has left us in this exposed and vulnerable position. Ministers were warned about the risk of energy supplier failure and did nothing to prepare. They were warned about supply chain disruption and they sat on their hands.'

He added: 'The Government pretends to be on the side of businesses and families but dismisses the concerns of businesses and is doubling down on decisions that will plunge families into deep financial difficulty and hardship '

Labour Party chair Anneliese Dodds conceded that other countries were also experiencing shortages of HGV drivers.

'I have to say, however, that there have been big failures in planning for this situation and the additional red tape that has been created, which was not inevitable, it was not an inevitable result of Brexit in many cases, but that hasn't been tackled by Government,' she said.

'I talk to advanced manufacturers in my patch for example, and they tell me that now they have got to fill in dozens of pages of paperwork and that is quite a tall order for a HGV driver if they have got to be dealing with all of that, as well as getting goods from one place to another.

'So undoubtedly the Government's method of implementing Brexit has had an impact overall on the system, but there are other factors that are in play here.

'And I think their failure to consider whether they need to ask that Migration Advisory Committee about a different approach to shortage occupations '' I really do think they should be engaging with business on this and listening to them.'

UK Hospitality chief Kate Nicholls tweeted warning that narrow attempts to free up fuel supply chains will not be enough.

'The HGV crisis is merely the most obvious and prominent sign of a labour market running too hot and too tightly - over 1 million vacancies across the economy and a 10% vacancy rate in hospitality impacting on ability to trade and -16% hit to revenues. We need broader measures,' she said.

It comes as Mr Eustice indicated that the government is preparing to extend a seasonal worker scheme to tackle labour shortages across food production. The scheme could also be extended to include other industries suffering from labour shortages.

Yesterday BP said it will restrict deliveries of fuel because of a lack of HGV drivers, which has also impacted supermarkets and raised fears of food and even toy shortages over the Christmas period.

The oil giant is understood to have informed the Government that its ability to transport petrol and diesel from its refineries is being heavily impacted by the supply chain crisis.

BP's Head of UK Retail, Hanna Hofer, told the Cabinet Office on Thursday last week that it was important that the Government understood the 'urgency of the situation' which she branded 'bad, very bad'.

Ms Hofer warned that the company had 'two thirds of normal forecourt stock levels required for smooth operations' and that levels were 'declining rapidly'. The restricting of deliveries is expected to begin 'very soon'.

Meanwhile, there have been reports of Tesco petrol stations closing or running out of fuel in Dorset, the Isle of Wight and Devon, however it is believed that the incidents of shortages are only affecting two sites. ExxonMobil, which operates Esso, added that some of its 200 Tesco Alliance sites were affected.

A Tesco spokesperson said supermarkets still had a 'good availability of fuel, with deliveries arriving at our petrol filling stations across the UK every day.'

However one petrol station owner told BBC Radio 4 she had already run out of fuel once. Lisa Stevenson, owner of the Tolladine Service Station in Worcester, told the Today Programme: 'My order was supposed to come on Thursday last week, it didn't arrive.

In a particularly unhelpful addition to the problem, eco-mob Insulate Britain returned to the roads on Friday to block off a route to Port of Dover - Europe's busiest port and the UK's main gateway for trade from the EU

A stacked up Asda garage in Brighton as the panic buying of fuel continued to escalate on Friday

READING: While it was misery from some petrol stations, this Esso petrol station in Emmer Green in Reading received a delivery of fuel this morning

Job market data from September 13 to September 19 shows firms in the UK need, in total, more than 36,000 chefs, around 32,000 sales assistants and 6,500 bar staff

UK job advert numbers have reached the highest figure in at least a year, with almost two million positions currently being offered, newly released figures have revealed. Pictured: A graph showing the number of job adverts being offered in the UK

LIVERPOOL: An out of use sign on a petrol pump at a BP garage on Speke Hall Road, Liverpool. The HGV driver shortage has hit oil giant BP with deliveries of petrol and diesel to forecourts across the UK set to be reduced

ELY: CAMBRIDGESHIRE: An aerial view of the queue of cars outside a Tesco petrol station in Ely, Cambridgeshire on Friday, as panic buying begins despite the Government saying there is 'no shortage of fuel in the UK'

LIVERPOOL: Lines of queues at Tesco Extra, Kew, in Southport on Friday after BP announced yesterday it would be closing a handful of petrol stations due to the HGV crisis

ELY: CAMBRIDGESHIRE: Queues for fuel at the Tesco petrol station in Ely, Cambridgeshire, on Friday morning as the panic buying starts

'My distributor said it would be delivered on Friday, he then phoned me back said 'unfortunately we have a lack of drivers' and that it won't be delivered until Monday.'

Asked if she had run out of petrol at that point, she said: 'We did indeed yes.' Asked if it would happen again, she said: 'Most definitely, as we come into the winter.'

Meanwhile, at the Shell garage on A12 near Marks Tey, Essex, the forecourt was said to be completely out of diesel on Friday morning.

Further down the A12, at the BP garage at Rivenhall, near Kelvedon, Essex, cars were queuing three deep at every pump on Friday morning and staff at the garage said it was almost out of diesel.

They were hoping for a delivery today or tomorrow but were not sure if they would get one, and said they had never seen the garage as busy

'People are definitely packing it in', one driver said.

One woman in Surrey told the Sun she had witnessed an 'old guy' squeeze £2.65 worth of fuel into his tank 'before it overflowed onto the floor'.

Retailers have warned that significant disruption to Christmas preparations will be 'inevitable' unless the Government finds a solution to the HGV driver shortage in the next 10 days.

Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium (BRC), said: 'HGV drivers are the glue which hold our supply chains together.

'Without them, we are unable to move goods from farms to warehouses to shops.

'Currently, the UK faces a shortfall of around 90,000 HGV drivers and it is consumers who ultimately suffer the consequences.

'Unless a solution can be found in the next 10 days, it is inevitable that we will see significant disruption in the run up to Christmas.'

However motorists and shoppers have been urged not to panic buy fuel and goods, with a Government spokeswoman saying: 'There is no shortage of fuel in the UK, and people should continue to buy fuel as normal.'

Gerald Ronson, owner of almost 300 Rontec - BP, Texaco and forecourts across the country, told The Telegraph he expects fuel court disruption to last for more than four weeks.

He said: 'With everybody coming back to work - more cars on the road because people don't want to use buses or trains - this has drained a lot of fuel.'

The news is the latest sign of the UK struggling to cope because of an ongoing shortage of HGV drivers which comes alongside a worsening energy crisis.

Mr Shapps said he hoped the issue would 'smooth out very quickly' after the Government introduced changes to tests.

Are panic buyers already queuing up at your local petrol station? Or has your petrol station already run out of fuel and been forced to close?

**Contact me with your pictures: james.robinson@mailonline.co.uk**

He told Sky News: 'The problem is not new there's been a lack of drivers actually for many months during this pandemic because as your report said during the lockdown drivers couldn't be passed through their lorry/HGV tests and that's what's been the problem.

'But many more tests are being made available now so we should see it smooth out very quickly.

On short term visas, he said: 'I'll look at everything we can and we'll move heaven and earth to make sure shortages are alleviated.'

Meanwhile, he told BBC Radio 4 that former drivers were being offered huge salaries in order to entice them back to the industry.

He said: 'A lot of people are coming into to the market, I don't have to do that, salaries are doing that.

'For example there's a milk distributor, the largest one, offering £78,000 to drive a lorry. There's a lot of additional pressure for drivers, and the market is responding by paying higher salaries.

'But the principle bottleneck is making sure they can get tests.'

It comes as Avro Energy and Green yesterday became the latest energy firms to go out of business as soaring gas prices continued to batter the sector.

Wholesale prices for gas have increased 250 per cent since the start of the year, and 70 per cent since August, meaning firms are buying energy for more than they sell it to customers.

Nine firms have now ceased trading this year, with the head of regulator Ofgem warning more are likely to follow suit, leaving 'well above' hundreds of thousands of customers in limbo.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng yesterday suggested people should be hoping for a warm autumn to ease gas prices as he said the weather is the 'single most important determinant' of costs.

Food supply chains have been placed under intense stress in recent weeks because of the shortage of around 100,000 HGV drivers - with empty shelves across many UK supermarkets as a result.

Supply chains were further disrupted after two plants that produce 60 per cent of the UK's CO2 were shut down amid the rising gas prices. CO2 is used for everything from the humane slaughter of chickens and pigs, to putting the fizz in soft drinks and creating packaging that keeps foods fresh.

Now, there are fears that shortages could bite households in the run-up to Christmas. The classic Christmas dinner could be decimated, with turkey, pigs in blankets, potatoes and brussel sprouts all at risk.

SAINSBURY'S: LONDON: Food supply chains have been placed under intense stress in recent weeks because of the shortage of around 100,000 HGV drivers - with empty shelves across many UK supermarkets as a result. Pictured: A shortage of fruit at a Sainsbury's store in London on Friday

TESCO: LONDON: Along with the potential of empty food shelves, toys, vinyl and books could also experience shortages - with experts even warning of Christmas tree issues. Gaps in the shelves of a Tesco freeze aisle in London

SAINSBURY'S: LONDON: Bottled water shelves in a Sainsbury's store in London were low on stock on Friday as the HGV driver crisis continues

TESCO: LONDON: A cleaner worker wipes an area of shelves of a cleaning aisle at a Tesco store in London today as the HGV driver shortage continues

TESCO: LONDON: One freezer area at a Tesco store in London was almost completely empty today as the HGV driver crisis continues to bite

Supply issue threatens Christmas: The classic Christmas dinner could be decimated, with turkey, pigs in blankets, potatoes and brussel sprouts all at risk by ongoing supply and distributions issues, as well as a potential CO2 crisis. Meanwhile, toys, vinyl and books could also experience shortages - with experts even warning of Christmas trees not being available

More than 500,000 over-50s have withdrawn from UK labour market since Covid, says employment expertMore than 500,000 over-50s have withdrawn from the UK labour market since the start of the Covid pandemic, according to an employment expert.

The sudden withdrawal of hundreds of thousands of staff, plus a drop in the number of migrant workers and an increase in the number of students has led to record numbers of job vaccancies, according to Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme: 'It's right (that there are fewer workers around). The labour market is much smaller than it was before the pandemic began.

'We estimate that there is about a million fewer people in the labour market now than there were before the crisis began and probably about a quarter of that is explained by lower migration and that's mainly lower immigration since the pandemic rather than higher emigration.

'About 500,000 of that is explained by more people over 50 who have withdrawn from the labour market. That's compared with what we would have expected to happen, because over 50s employment and labour market participation has been growing for decades, but that growth has now reversed.

'So it's about half a million is explained by over 50s, while 300,000 is explained by young people in full time education '' so more young people more in education.'

'And there is a little bit which is furlough, which is ending next week, but it looks like that may only be between 200,000-300,000 workers, so it could be around one million workers.'

Asked what the sudden spike in over-50s dropping from the labour market, he said: 'It's a combination of factors. A lot will be the pandemic. It will be people who will have been furloughed, who have taken time away from the labour market and simply aren't returning.

'Some of it will be people who feel they can't go back to work, they may have been shielding for example and may come back in the future.'

The Government's seasonal worker scheme could be extended and its focus 'changed' as part of a plan to tackle labour shortages in food production.

Mr Eustice has indicated that the government is preparing to extend the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS) this year to help tackle the UK's HGV crisis.

Mr Eustice also said ministers were looking at 'changing the focus' of the scheme to push for more HGV drivers.

The scheme is mainly used by seasonal workers who are picking fruit and vegetables in the UK.

Speaking at the Balmoral Show in Northern Ireland, he said there was 'an acute labour shortage at the moment right across the UK economy'.

He also said the government would be trying to encourage EU workers with settled status to return to the UK.

One thing that might entice workers to take up vegetable picking is a boost in salaries.

H Clements and Son Ltd, based in Boston, Lincs posted one job advert calling for broccoli pickers - who they say can earn up to £30-per-hour.

This works out at £240-per-day or £1,200-per-week. The monthly pay for doing it full-time is £4,800 and an annual salary of £62,400-a-year - based on an average working week.

The job advert reads: 'We are looking for Field Operatives to harvest our broccoli. Excellent piecework with potential to earn up to £30-per-hour. All year round work available.'

Along with the potential of empty food shelves, toys, vinyl and books could also experience shortages - with experts even warning of Christmas tree issues.

Despite the Government agreeing a deal to restart production at the CO2 plants, industry bodies have warned that consumers may still see a hike in food prices, particularly if the cost of carbon dioxide rises.

The Government's deal with CF Industries is only in place for three weeks - leading to fears that the issues could start up again in the run-up to the festive period.

The Prime Minister's Official Spokesman insisted there is no shortage of fuel and urged people to continue to fill up their vehicles 'as normal'.

The spokesman stressed the UK has 'very resilient and robust' supply chains, but the admission of challenges ahead is likely to spark fears of potential disruption.

Asked if Boris Johnson is concerned at petrol station closures, the PM's spokesman said: 'I think the first thing to say is that there is no shortage of fuel in the UK and people should continue to buy fuel as normal.

'We obviously recognise the challenges faced by the industry and are taking steps to support them.

'You will be aware DfT recently announced that they are streamlining the process for HGV drivers and have increased the number of tests that they have made available.

'But obviously we will work closely with industry, we recognise there are issues that many are facing. This is a problem that many countries around the world are tackling.'

Asked if the PM accepts the UK is facing a tough winter, the spokesman said: 'We acknowledge there are issues facing many industries across the UK and not just in terms of HGV drivers but we have obviously seen the increase in wholesale gas.

'That is why you have seen Kwasi Kwarteng speaking and working incredibly closely with industry over the course of this week and we will continue to do so.'

The spokesman said the fuel and food sectors have a 'very resilient and robust supply chain' and people should continue to shop as normal.

A BP spokesman said today: 'We are experiencing some fuel supply issues at some of our retail sites in the UK and unfortunately have therefore seen a handful of sites temporarily close due to a lack of both unleaded and diesel grades.

'These have been caused by some delays in the supply chain which has been impacted by the industry-wide driver shortages across the UK and there are many actions being taken to address the issue.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps suggested adding HGV drivers to the skilled worker list for immigration purposes would not solve the problem, although he insisted he nothing had been ruled out

Agricutlure Secretary George Eustice has indicated that the government is preparing to extend the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS) this year to help tackle the UK's HGV crisis

T H Clements and Son Ltd, based in Boston, Lincs posted one job advert that read: 'We are looking for Field Operatives to harvest our Cabbages' The job is advertised at up to £30-per-hour

According to the Road Haulage Association (RHA) the UK is short of around 100,000 HGV drivers. In a survey earlier this year the RHA asked drivers what was behind the shortage. Brexit came out on top, joint with drivers retiring. Pay and conditions were also among the reasons for drivers leaving, along with issues surrounding the Covid pandemic

'We continue to work with our haulier supplier to minimise any future disruption and to ensure efficient and effective deliveries to serve our customers. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.'

The planned restrictions will mean running 80% of services levels to 90% of BP's forecourt network and that most locations, as a result, will not be restocked for one-and-a-half days a week.

However petrol stations on motorways will be prioritised and restocked as normal.

Seasonal worker scheme 'could tackle food labour problem' The Government's seasonal worker scheme could be extended and its focus 'changed' as part of a plan to tackle labour shortages in food production.

Agricutlure Secretary George Eustice has indicated that the government is preparing to extend the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS) this year to help tackle the UK's HGV crisis.

Mr Eustice also said ministers were looking at 'changing the focus' of the scheme to push for more HGV drivers.

The scheme is mainly used by seasonal workers who are picking fruit and vegetables in the UK.

Speaking at the Balmoral Show in Northern Ireland, he said there was 'an acute labour shortage at the moment right across the UK economy'.

He also said the government would be trying to encourage EU workers with settled status to return to the UK.

Like hundreds of firms across the country, BP is struggling amid the shortage of truck drivers.

The company outsources drivers through haulier firm Hoyer, and while it has 45 drivers coming through training, it is struggling to keep hold of them.

In the week beginning September 6, for example, 10 drivers joined and six left.

While BP hopes stocks will stabilise at some point in October, Ms Hofer warned: 'We are are expecting the next few weeks to be really, really difficult'.

It is now calling on the Government to make it easier to recruit drivers from abroad.

Meanwhile, eco-mob Insulate Britain today made matters even worse, with an unhelpful protest at the Port of Dover this morning.

More than 40 activists across two groups have blocked the A20 road in Kent which provides access to the Port of Dover.

The port is the busiest ferry port in Europe and is the UK's main gateway for trade from the EU.

A spokesperson for Insulate Britain outlined why the group, which wants the Government to insulate and retrofit homes across the UK, blocked Europe's busiest ferry port on Friday morning.

They said: 'We are blocking Dover this morning to highlight that fuel poverty is killing people in Dover and across the UK.

'We need a Churchillian response: We must tell the truth about the urgent horror of the climate emergency. Change at the necessary speed and scale requires economic disruption.

'We wish it wasn't true, but it is. It's why the 2000 fuel protests got a U-turn in policy and gave Blair his biggest challenge as Prime Minister.'

The spokesperson added: 'We are sorry for the disruption that we are causing. It seems to be the only way to keep the issue of insulation on the agenda and to draw attention to how poorly insulated homes are causing ill health, misery and early death for many thousands of people.

'We are failing the country's cold hungry families and the elderly and placing an enormous burden on the NHS.

'Insulating our leaky homes is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce carbon emissions and it has all these additional benefits - reducing fuel poverty, creating jobs, reducing the burden on the NHS and protecting people from overheating during future heat waves. It's a no-brainer. Boris just needs to get on with the job.'

Protest group Insulate Britain say more than 40 supporters across two groups have blocked the A20 road in Kent which provides access to the Port of Dover

The port is the busiest ferry port in Europe and is the UK's main gateway for trade from the EU

HGV driver shortage caused by Brexit and Covid pandemicThe well-documented shortage of lorry drivers has created gaps on supermarket shelves.

Britain is currently facing its own 100,000 shortfall of HGV drivers, which retail bosses have partly blamed on changes to migration rules post-Brexit and EU employees returning home.

The Road Haulage Association said the total number of people in the UK with HGV licences this summer is 516,000.

But the latest Department for Transport data shows 278,700 HGV drivers were employed in 2020, equivalent to 54 per cent of the total.

They put the shortage largely down to Brexit and the pandemic, which led to 14,000 European drivers going home and just 600 of those returning.

Since last year, the industry has also seen large numbers of drivers retiring, while lockdown has hit the training of new drivers with 40,000 HGV driver tests cancelled.

The average age of a UK lorry driver is put at 56 to 57 and not enough young people have joined the industry due to its long hours, unattractive conditions and poor pay.

Drivers' median hourly pay has risen 10 per cent since 2015 to £11.80 - below the 16 per cent average across other sectors, with new tax changes also not in their favour.

Lorry drivers can only drive for nine hours each day, but many are away from home up to 15 hours a day - putting off many young people who do not want such hours.

Last week, Tesco drivers and warehouse workers at four distribution centres rejected the offer of a 2.5% pay increase.

If members vote for strike action then the supermarket giant could see empty shelves this winter which could potentially affect the Christmas period.

Unite said its members voted against a 2.5 per cent offer, arguing it was lower than the RPI rate of inflation so represented a real-terms pay cut.

It comes as social media users claim their local BP garages were out of fuel this week.

'No petrol on Monday 20th,' wrote one, 'Assistant did not know when they would get any and fed up of abuse from angry would be customers.'

Another added: 'I suggest you come to Kent, my two local petrol stations have no petrol (but I think one has diesel).'

Another simply said: 'My local garage, no petrol, no drivers...'

Minister for small business, Paul Scully told ITV News: 'We are concerned about BP and other sectors where we are hearing those stresses coming to bear.

'This is why we are having regular conversations to see what government can do to increase testing, to increase the supply of drivers and bring drivers back. We also want to see what the industry/ sector can do for themselves.'

Trade association Logistics UK has called on ministers to provide up to 10,000 temporary work visas for trained EU drivers to paper over the cracks.

The Government has so far rejected these calls, instead insisting firms recruit from a pool of British workers.

It comes as shorter, fast-track HGV tests have been mooted as a potential solution to help plug the spiralling vacancies in the haulier industry.

Industry experts say better pay and improved working conditions are needed to help improve staffing levels - and put the shortage largely down to Brexit and the pandemic, which led to 14,000 European drivers going home and just 600 of those returning.

The Road Haulage Association said the total number of people in the UK with HGV licences this summer was 516,000.

But the latest Department for Transport data shows 278,700 HGV drivers were employed in 2020, equivalent to 54 per cent of the total.

It comes as it was more than 500,000 over-50s have withdrawn from the UK labour market since the start of the Covid pandemic, an employment expert today revealed.

The sudden withdrawal of hundreds of thousands of staff, plus a drop in the number of migrant workers and an increase in the number of students has led to record numbers of job vaccancies, according to Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme: 'It's right (that there are fewer workers around). The labour market is much smaller than it was before the pandemic began.

'We estimate that there is about a million fewer people in the labour market now than there were before the crisis began and probably about a quarter of that is explained by lower migration and that's mainly lower immigration since the pandemic rather than higher emigration.

'About 500,000 of that is explained by more people over 50 who have withdrawn from the labour market. That's compared with what we would have expected to happen, because over 50s employment and labour market participation has been growing for decades, but that growth has now reversed.

'So it's about half a million is explained by over 50s, while 300,000 is explained by young people in full time education '' so more young people more in education.

'And there is a little bit which is furlough, which is ending next week, but it looks like that may only be between 200,000-300,000 workers, so it could be around one million workers.'

Asked what the sudden spike in over-50s dropping from the labour market, he said: 'It's a combination of factors. A lot will be the pandemic. It will be people who will have been furloughed, who have taken time away from the labour market and simply aren't returning.

'Some of it will be people who feel they can't go back to work, they may have been shielding for example and may come back in the future.'

Asda and Sainsbury's food distributor goes BUST leaving 1,000 workers unemployed amid HGV driver chaos A private equity-backed haulage firm specialising in chilled food deliveries to Asda and Sainsbury's has gone bust, adding to concerns about gaps on shelves as Britain heads for a 'winter of discontent'.

EVCL Chill, a subsidiary of EV Cargo, filed for administration yesterday, adding to speculation that the two supermarkets will need to take-over the business to safeguard deliveries.

The company had a number of major contracts for supermarkets and employed around 1,000 workers in warehousing and HGV driving roles.

It comes amid worry that Britain will be faced with severe food shortages this winter due to a lack of lorry drivers and an ongoing energy crisis.

EVCL Chill operated depots in Penrith, Rochdale, Crick, Alfreton, Daventry and Bristol, and employed around 1,000 workers serving many of the nation's Sainsbury's and Asda supermarkets.

EVCL Chill was responsible for delivering 10,000 pallets of food and drink a day into the two retailers, who according to The Grocer have been in talks with administrator PwC for several weeks in a bid to safeguard a significant proportion of their chilled operations.

Unite the union, which has over 500 members at the company, is seeking to ensure that the workers employed directly on the Asda and Sainsbury's contract will be transferred to work directly for the supermarkets as part of a rescue package.

It is owned by venture capitalists Emergevest which, as a separate company, will avoid picking up the cost of the collapse, such as redundancy payments.

Unite national officer Matt Draper said: 'The collapse of EVCL Chill at a time when there is huge demand for lorry drivers in particular, further calls into question the role and involvement of venture capitalists in UK industry.

Sainsbury's said it is putting in place measures to secure deliveries.

A spokesman said: 'We are in close contact with EVCL Chill Ltd. We have continuity plans in place to ensure operations continue to run smoothly and are confident customers will be able to buy what they need when they shop with us.'

The news came just hours after several of Britain's largest retailers warned ministers they have just 10 days to save Christmas from 'significant disruption' due to the lack of HGV drivers.

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 13:35

Prince Charles launches new climate change TV channel in deal with Amazon Prime after Harry and Meghan's £75 million contract with rival NetflixRE:TV will feature a direct plea from the Prince of Wales for people to 'act now'It is understood Charles is not being paid for his curation of the new channelIt will feature films on sustainability, the natural environment and innovationBy Tom Pyman For Mailonline

Published: 20:56 EDT, 24 September 2021 | Updated: 20:59 EDT, 24 September 2021

Prince Charles has launched a new climate change TV channel in a deal with Amazon Prime.

The channel, named RE:TV, will also feature a direct plea from the Prince of Wales to 'act now' in addressing issues facing the future of the planet.

It comes as Amazon looks to boost its eco credentials amid concerns over its carbon footprint.

The move comes just months after Harry and Meghan announced their £75 million contract with streaming rival Netflix.

Prince Charles has launched a new climate change TV channel in a deal with Amazon Prime

RE:TV highlights projects from across the world working on initiatives that can help transform how business is done, helping people make a cleaner and more sustainable economy.

It is understood Charles is not being paid for his curation of the channel, which will feature new films as well as air existing material.

Films include topics such as sustainability, the natural environment and innovation, with a focus on industries such as coffee production and fashion.

Charles said: 'I've spent a lot of my lifetime trying to engage people and businesses with the issues and solutions of the climate crisis.

'RE:TV was therefore set up with the aim of capturing the will and imagination of humanity and to champion the most inspiring solutions for sustainability from around the world.'

Amazon launched a Climate Pledge in 2019, in which it announced plans to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement a decade early.

Initiatives such as electric vans have been launched in response to concerns over the impact the company and its operations have had on the planet.

Back in April, it was revealed that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had secured their first TV series with Netflix - a documentary series about the Invictus Games.

The programme, Heart of Invictus, will follow competitors around the world training for the Games at The Hague which had been expected to take place in 2020 but were delayed until next year due to the pandemic.

Harry and Meghan's Archewell Productions are working with director Orlando von Einsiedel and producer Joanna Natasegara on the series which will follow both the athletes and organisers as they prepare for the event.

The move comes just months after Harry and Meghan announced their £75 million contract with streaming rival Netflix

Netflix said the couple would be producing 'content that informs but also gives hope,' from documentaries and scripted series, to features and children's programming.

Another project as part of the deal is an animated show Meghan has been working on with Sir Elton John's husband as far back as 2018.

The Duchess is teaming up with David Furnish to work on the project which follows a '12-year-old heroine who finds inspiration in influential women from history'.

Sources claimed to Page Six that talks about this new programme have been 'active' for three years '' but they also told the website that the project started as a charitable venture when Meghan was a working royal.

Its report claimed the show was 'originally just one of a number of one-off advocacy projects that Markle started work on while a working member of the royal family'.

Husband Harry told Oprah Winfrey in March that they only thought of their big deal with Netflix after leaving the UK for North America early last year.

It is therefore possible that the Netflix deal is something altogether separate from this newly-announced show, which Meghan could have been working on for years.

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 12:46

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 04:39

''The View'' co-host Ana Navarro Ana Violeta NavarroCuba fallout threatens Biden's prospects in Florida Don Lemon defends Tucker Carlson amid confrontation video Here's the strong, unapologetic conservative to replace Meghan McCain MORE said Friday evening that she has tested negative for COVID-19 after testing positive earlier in the day ahead of an interview with Vice President Harris.

Navarro confirmed on ''CNN's Anderson Cooper 360'' that she's since taken a rapid antigen test and a PCR test, both of which have returned false positive. She said she is waiting for a third test so that she could fly home to Miami.

Navarro applauded Harris's team, the Secret Service and the team at "The View" for how the situation was handled.

''It takes so much work to do an interview like this,'' Navarro said. ''We were very proud to have the vice president come on 'The View' and then it turned into an episode of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' it was surreal.''

"The View" guest host Ana Navarro breaks down the awkward moment she and her co-host learned they had tested positive for Covid-19 while on-air. She has since tested negative."This is in the middle of live TV," says Navarro. "As you know, Anderson, the show must go on." pic.twitter.com/mlpp9hEO6L

'-- Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) September 25, 2021Navarro and co-host Sunny Hostin Sunny HostinWhoopi Goldberg signs four-year deal with ABC to stay on 'The View' 'The View' plans series of conservative women as temporary McCain replacements Meghan McCain predicts DeSantis would put Harris 'in the ground' in 2024 matchup MORE both tested positive earlier on Friday, causing Harris to appear virtually for the interview rather than in person as planned. Fellow host Joy Behar Josephine (Joy) Victoria BeharWhoopi Goldberg signs four-year deal with ABC to stay on 'The View' 'The View' plans series of conservative women as temporary McCain replacements Meghan McCain predicts DeSantis would put Harris 'in the ground' in 2024 matchup MORE announced that the two had tested positive after they were ushered off set and the program went to a commercial break.

In explaining the moment the two were rushed off stage, Navarro said that she and Hostin had been told of the positive COVID-19 tests while on air.

''We learned about these positive COVID test ... while we're sitting there on the air,'' Navarro said.

Navarro further said that Behar, who was on the other side of the table, likely couldn't see what was going on when Navarro and Hostin were informed of their positive tests.

''This is in the middle of live TV,'' Navarro said. ''And as you know, Anderson, the show must go on.''

Navarro said that she and Hostin were sent to another room. Neither of the women had contact with Harris for the entire day.

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 00:28

Finally, a secure digital currency just for globalist cucks.Do you believe that all people should be treated equally? Do you believe we can improve the world through empathy and empiricism? That fair and transparent government should exist?

Then according to alt-right Twitter users, you're a cuck.And this is the cryptocurrency for you.

Like Bitcoin, but with the stability of Canada.Unlike Bitcoin, which has changed price by ±$3,000 since you started reading this sentence, cuckbucks are designed to be perfectly stable. How? The value of one cuckbuck is tethered to exactly one billion Canadian dollars.

This bulletproof system makes cuckbucks the most stable way to destroy your life trying to acquire fake internet money.

Learn More Mining FAQ

The TechnologyCuckbucks is a cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, which is that confusing crap they occasionally talk about on NPR.

Here's how cryptocurrencies work:

*In this step, "money" means "not money".Cuckbucks uses an even newer and harder-to-understand technology than Bitcoin '' the same unproven technology that's behind Bytecoin and Monero.

Handmade, Homegrown, Community-OwnedThere's nothing like the satisfaction of growing your own tomatoes to feed your family. Your own hemp to clothe them. Your own weed to soothe their glaucoma.

Now you can grow your own money too.

Every cuckbuck is locally grown, gluten-free, and can be used in fair trade around the world.

Central Banking Gets a SpankingRemember how Bernie Sanders said something or other about how banks are bad? What he meant was that he envisioned a completely deregulated shadow financial system that's difficult to use and understand.

Also, if there's no central banking you don't have to pay taxes. The IRS isn't smart enough to use computers, and they're well known for giving up easily on tax evasion.

Frequently Asked Questions How can I get my hands on some cuckbucks?You can mine cuckbucks by overheating your computer, or you can exchange real money for them from someone who already has some.

Where can I exchange real money for cuckbucks?I have no idea.

What is the smallest fraction of a cuckbuck called?The minimum unit of a cuckbuck (0.000000000001 CUK) is called a quinoa.

The current value of a quinoa is $0.001 USD.

How are cuckbucks cryptographically tethered to Canadian dollars?Exchanges buying or selling cuckbucks at a different price will recieve a cryptographically signed notice of censure.

What's $1 USD in cuckbucks?At the current exchange rate, $1 USD is equal to 0.0000000001287 CUK, if you can get somebody to exchange it.

That also works out to 0 quinoa, which may be more useful in day-to-day life.

What genius created cuckbucks?Cuckbucks were created by the reclusive Satoshi Nakamoto.

Isn't cuck a sex thing?Words are fungible.

Is cuckbucks a beta?That's good. We'll use that.

Are cuckbucks a coin? A currency? A token? A security?Important question! They are whatever they need to be to avoid burdensome government regulation. Whatever the SEC can regulate, they are something else.

I am not a leftist, can I still use cuckbucks?Yes, but they are worth half as much.

Were any cuckbucks pre-mined?No! All cucks earned their bucks.

Is there a limit to how many cuckbucks can be mined?Yes, approximately 18 million.

If each cuckbuck that could ever be mined was the size of a penny and you laid all the pennies out next to each other how long would the line be?A little over twice as long as the world's longest tunnel.

The Thirlmere Aqueduct?Yes.

When, not if, all the cuckbucks are mined, what will be the total value of them all?Easy. $N USD.

Isn't that an impractically large amount of money?I do not give a shit.

I'm sorry, do you understand economics?Do you?

Using CuckbucksIf you've ever experienced the pain of using cash, a credit card, or an app to make a purchase, you'll be amazed how much easier cryptocurrency can be:

Installing the Cuckbucks SoftwareThis software will let you synchronize your computer with the cuckchain. It'll also let you create your purse to store your cuckbucks. There's also a mining program so your computer can toil away creating cuckbucks.

Download the command-line interface for your computer's operating system.You're a cuck, so probably macOS.

Enter the directory of the tools you downloaded:

Create a config folder:

Download the cuckbuck configuration:

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Archived Version

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 19:06

image source, Getty Images

image caption Nearly 95% of those over 60 and 84% of those under 60 have been vaccinatedA third of people with confirmed Covid cases in Wales in the past week were unvaccinated, according to new figures released by Public Health Wales.

The figures also showed 99% of people who tested positive for Covid in the past week in Wales were under 60. Of these, 37% were unvaccinated.

Nearly 13% of hospital patients with confirmed Covid were unvaccinated.

PHW said the vaccines had helped keep Covid hospital numbers much lower during the third wave.

Although 80% of patients have been double-dosed with a vaccine, public health officials said this is not evidence that the vaccine is not working - and that vaccines keep 95% of people out of hospital.

Without its protection, the numbers in hospital would be far greater, they added.

Why are so many vaccinated people in hospital?

The sheer numbers of people vaccinated - nearly 95% of those over 60 and 84% of those under 60 - mean that statistically, double-vaccinated people will still be a significant proportion of hospital patients.

But, without the vaccine, those hospital numbers might be even higher.

Last winter, when Covid cases in the community were similarly high but the vaccine programme had only just started, there were four times as many Covid patients in hospitals in Wales.

Vaccines, while helping protect many of us from serious illness, do not stop us catching Covid.

Many will get mild symptoms but for those in vulnerable groups, who may have other conditions or diseases, catching Covid could still lead to a complication.

Given the huge numbers of vaccinated people, especially among the older and vulnerable groups, it means statistically they will still appear in hospital figures.

Dr Chris Williams, consultant epidemiologist for PHW, said: "A large majority of adults in Wales have now received two doses of coronavirus vaccine, so it is to be expected that a significant proportion of people in hospital will be fully vaccinated.

"Also, the majority of people in hospital are older.

"This group is more likely to be vaccinated, but also are more likely to be hospitalised because of underlying health conditions, reduced immune response, and because they are more clinically vulnerable."

What else do the figures show?

The hospital admissions rate is 53 per 100,000 of the population in those unvaccinated compared to 32 per 100,000 in those fully vaccinated, in the past monthBroken down, the hospital admissions rate for the under 60s is 3.5 times higher for unvaccinated, compared to those vaccinated. It is also 1.9 times greater for those unvaccinated who are over 60 and those who have been vaccinated.23% of Covid patients are under 60 - the median age is 75.Of 19,140 positive tests in the past week, PHW said 33% were among unvaccinated people - that's 6,321 people. 4.5% had one dose and 41.2% two doses, the rest were unknown.The case rate amongst the unvaccinated population is far higher - 1,026 cases per 100,000, compared to 348 cases per 100,000 in those who have been double-dosed with a vaccine. The median age of someone testing positive is 34.Dr Williams said studies consistently showed that vaccines reduced transmission, serious illness, hospitalisation, and death from Covid - and much lower rates of these in the third wave was evidence.

"The single best thing you can do to protect yourself, your loved ones and your community from Coronavirus is to take up the offer of a vaccine," he said.

"The incidence of hospitalisation is around two-thirds lower in vaccinated under 60s compared to unvaccinated, and about 40% lower in vaccinated over 60s than unvaccinated."

What else have we learned today about Covid cases?

The Wales case rate has risen to 582 per 100,000.There were an average of 2,621 daily cases - up from 2,198 a week ago.The "doubling time" is 32 days - the time it would take for cases to double at this rate, which indicates a slow-down.62% of daily cases were under 30 and 43% were aged 10 to 19.The positivity rate is 15.3% - not much changeThe case rate in Neath Port Talbot has risen to 898 cases per 100,000. This is the highest case rate in the UK, while Merthyr Tydfil is second and another five Welsh council areas are in the highest 10.There are now 31 local community hotspots, with case rates above 1,000 cases per 100,000.A slight rise in estimated infections

It is estimated 50,700 people have Covid-19 in Wales, according to the latest weekly swab survey by the ONS.

That is the equivalent of one in 60 people or 1.67% of the population.

This is a slight increase on the previous week's estimate that 49,100 people had Covid but the ONS said the trend was uncertain.

Latest modelling from scientific advisory body Sage, covering the next three weeks, estimates hospital admissions in Wales will fall from around 60 a day to 40 a day and deaths will fall to around five a day.

Modelling by Imperial College estimates that into early October, six out of Wales' local authority areas are likely to have case rates above 500 per 100,000.

Meanwhile, the R-number - the transmission rate - has fallen to a range between 0.8 and 1 for the first time since early August, indicating a slight fall or flattening of infections.

Other figures out on Friday showed:

Numbers of patients with confirmed Covid in hospital has fallen for two days running. The average number of confirmed Covid-19 patients was 486 on 23 September. This is compared to 474 a week ago, just a 2% rise across Wales, indicating a slow-down. Covid admissions are at an average of 38 a day, about the same as a week ago (40) and in a similar range over the last couple of weeks.Two deaths were reported by Public Health Wales. They occurred on Tuesday and Wednesday in Betsi Cadwaladr and Hywel Dda health board areas.There have been 39 deaths in the last seven days - when figures are counted up to Wednesday. That's six deaths a day (5.6 average). It was eight times higher at this point in the second wave.The total of first doses of vaccine has risen to 2,403,572 (75.8% of the total population) and 2,214,247 (69.9%) have been fully vaccinated.The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 15:20

Late-night TV's kings and queen of comedy took on climate change on Wednesday night. It was a concerted effort to raise awareness. (Though at this point we need less awareness, more action .)

Earther had, shall we say, some reservations about sequestering climate comedy to one night and how certain hosts might approach it given their past work. But we put those trepidations aside and pulled out our reporters' notebooks to see how Samantha Bee, Stephen Colbert, James Corden, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and Trevor Noah handled the topic.

We wanted to see who aimed their jokes at the systems that have caused the climate crisis and who went for the cheap laughs. Watching the hosts' opening monologues and climate-focused segments, it became clear who the posers were and who spent time grappling with how to use Wednesday's unified front to go after the powerful people and corporations that are responsible for the mess we're in and consider the future we could have if we kicked them to the curb.

Here, we present a total and complete ranking of the hosts who understood how comedy can be a powerful tool to galvanize the public and the hosts who are just here for the lols.

7. Trevor Noah

Screenshot: Gizmodo

Our first thought after watching this was, ''what the fuck was that?'' Noah started off his Daily Show monologue with a tired, strangely gendered joke about Climate Week (''it's where all the men in my office fight with all the women in my office over who controls the thermostat for the rest of the year''). He then said he was committing his segment to the ''weird little things'' that climate change is doing to our world.

Weird things are fine and good to focus on since they matter and can show how wide-ranging the impacts are. But Noah decided to trot out a super long bit about how sea turtles are producing more females with more sexist jokes and how some studies have shown hotter temperatures will lead to humans having less sex and fighting more. The latter included jokes about a ''backed-up dick.'' There was also a bit about how ''the Taliban won in Afghanistan because of climate change'' where Noah used a fake Arabic accent to imitate an Afghan person asking the Taliban if they're allowed to wear shorts in hot weather.

The monologue was not just offensive. It also lacked innovation and smart humor, which is a real shame, given The Daily Show's storied history. At least he had Greta Thunberg on as a guest. Maybe Noah should've asked for her help with the climate part of his monologue.

Hot Burn: ...

Cringe line: ''We could be facing a future where your sex-starved husband gets killed by space junk on his way to join the Taliban.''

6. James Corden

Screenshot: Gizmodo

The Late Late Show with James Corden was divisive generally among our judges. One of us (Brian) derives joy from the escapism of carpool karaoke. The other (Molly) would rather be forced to watch the Cats butthole cut Clockwork Orange-style.

Corden did not do carpool karaoke in a Tesla with guest Bill Gates where he asked him about Jeffrey Epstein in addition to his love of carbon capture , which was the first sign things were not going to go great. Instead, he used his opening monologue to tell viewers he wouldn't ''hammer you with scary stories.''

''Instead, we're going to focus on some positive news stories about how people and companies are stepping up to confront this climate challenge,'' he continued. Which immediately set off Earther's local bullshit alarm.

We love solutions, of course, but Corden proceeded to spend the next five minutes talking about the individual choices band leader Reggie Watts and sidekick Ian Karmel have made. (Watts has low flow showerheads and invests in cobalt batteries. Karmel drives an old Prius. ) Then Corden talked about electric boats, how the show doesn't have plastic bottles thanks to Watts, and an 11-year-old girl in Malaysia battling food waste. All great, sure. Not exactly the stuff of systemic change needed and only very loosely related to climate change.

Hot Burn: ''They are completely green. Just when you thought Amsterdam couldn't get more green.'' (It should tell you how bad the monologue was that this is the best burn we could find.)

Cringe line: ''What's a little change you're making to have an impact on climate change?''

5. Jimmy Fallon

Screenshot: Gizmodo

Like Corden's show, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon also had a bit tailormade for climate change that he didn't use. Fallon has done a few Hot Ones segments, a comedy series where celebrities eat increasingly spicy hot wings. (YouTuber Sean Evans is the creator and regularly does the series on his own.) But sadly he did not roll out a Hot Ones segment. Too bad, it would've been a perfect chance to sit down with noted climate guy and Southerner Al Gore or perhaps Stacey Abrams or even guest Jane Goodall.

Fallon went the cheap joke route and was generally meh. Cheap jokes are still an improvement over pretending random electric boats being tested in the Netherlands will save us and doing sexism, though. The bottom three confirmed all our fears about how the late-night shows would handle climate change.

Hot Burn: ''Some people are sad summer is over. But good news, thanks to climate change, it's not.''

Cringe line: ''Some people are sad summer is over. But good news, thanks to climate change, it's not.''

4. Jimmy Kimmel

Screenshot: Gizmodo

This bit, this bit . It went from tired to wired so quickly that it's impressive and also frustrating. The first half of the Jimmy Kimmel Live! monologue would have been right at home in 2013. The show started with some primo vintage clips of climate deniers, many of them dating from the early 2010s. Giving some classics like James Inhofe's snowball moment more airtime is good to show the absurdity of deniers, but it is telling that this stuff is fresh for late night comedy.

He mined consumer staples for humor, including the threat climate change poses to chocolate that's been reported on for years. He also messed up words from the teleprompter'--he said ''wild flires'' at one point, and did a serious stumble over the ''IPCC'' (''I can't even say their name, that's how serious it is''). Seems like someone isn't really used to talking about climate.

But things picked up halfway through. Kimmel roasted the Biden administration for earmarking fossil fuel projects (props!) and critiqued fossil fuel companies. It almost feels like a younger writer took over here because the tonal shift was marked. The segment then transitioned into a fake ad for ConocoPhillips describing their bravery in destroying the world that is really good and deserves to be viewed as a standalone apart from the opening mess.

Jimmy! You could be running incredible bits like this all the time, not just during Climate Week! Think outside the box more when it comes to climate, and give this sketch's writer a raise.

Hot Burn: ''We build a humongous impenetrable dome over our drills, and move inside with all our money.'' (From the ConocoPhillips ''ad.'')

Cringe line: ''Imagine a world where you get a carrot cake for your birthday'--it's a nightmare.''

3. Stephen Colbert

Screenshot: Gizmodo

Colbert spent years doing great work on climate during his tenure at The Colbert Report, so he gets how to do this'--even if he seemed a little out of practice on Wednesday night. He started off The Late Show with some zingers about the lack of international action from world leaders, then segued into some bits about age and making older people care, ending with some jokes about consumer products ( insect-based pet food , white paint that could eliminate air conditioning ).

Colbert even seemed to have some awareness that he and other hosts could be doing more on a regular basis, and made a meta critique of Wednesday's united comedy front. ''Okay!'' he exclaimed. ''Crisis solved'--just as surely as when all those celebrities sang Imagine and ended covid.''

Watching his very good monologue, it's a little frustrating that he didn't cover the IPCC report when it came out, or that his writers' room seems to have saved up all this great climate material just for this week. We want more from him!! Do climate more, Stephen!!

Hot Burn: ''Hundreds of world leaders are meeting with climate activists to attempt the one thing to fight climate change that no industrialized nation has done before: anything.''

Cringe Line: ''This paint is so white it has a favorite Jimmy Buffet song.'' (Not a bad line, by far, just the easiest to predict in a very solid monologue.)

2. Seth Meyers

Screenshot: Gizmodo

While we enjoyed Colbert's zingers more, we're actually ranking Seth Meyers above him because Meyers actually seems more practiced at covering climate on his show on a more regular basis'--and it shows in his decision of what to talk about.

Meyers doesn't have a traditional monologue; instead, he structured the start of the show around his ''A Closer Look'' segment, where he sits at a desk and goes over the news, ''Weekend Update''-style. This monologue covered Hurricane Ida and its impacts on the East Coast (including tornadoes in New Jersey and flooding in New York ), then segued into the infrastructure bill and renewable energy, with lots of pop culture sideroads sprinkled in for good measure. He didn't try to hold the audience's hand on climate, and it was nice to see him trust his viewers. What's more, he also called out Sen. Joe Manchin's ties to fossil fuels, which is doubly nice.

Were his jokes funnier than Colbert's? Not really. But did it seem like Meyers's writing room actually cares about making climate jokes up-to-date and not just relying on the same old bits about not having coffee or chocolate anymore? Sure did.

Hot Burn: ''I love that Bernie takes on Republicans like someone just stole his spot in the airport parking lot.''

Cringe line: ''You know it was a New Jersey tornado because it was in a velour tracksuit shaking down a restaurant owner for protection money.'' (This is, admittedly, funny, but Molly is from New Jersey and feels compelled to defend its honor.)

1. Samantha Bee

Screenshot: Gizmodo

Full Frontal With Samantha Bee is no stranger to doing impactful comedy, so is it really any surprise she tops the list here? Her first climate segment looked at the foul problem of our busted-ass water infrastructure and managed to describe combined sewage overflow in terms both helpful and funny. (At least as funny as shit backing up into people's houses can be.) This instantly won over the hearts and minds of Earther.

But Bee's segment further bestilled our hearts by linking it to climate change and the fact that heavy downpours are increasing. She also rightfully pointed out that ''racism plays an unfortunate role in our sanitary system dysfunction,'' highlighting the plight of Lowndes County, Alabama, and the sewage overflows that regularly occur in the predominantly Black community there . It's a grave injustice, and Bee mentioning it, in the context of climate change, opening the segment with a NowThis clip of activist Catherine Flowers shows Bee and her team put in the work.

Hot Burn: ''Even if we stopped clogging our sewage systems with rat kings of human grossness, our sewage system would still be in trouble because it wasn't designed for our changing climate.''

Cringe line: ''That's led to catastrophic flooding and sewage overflows around the country. And not just in the liberal urban hell holes you'd expect, but also in the red states that God doesn't hate.'' (Even this line was pretty solid to be honest. The segment was just that good.)

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 14:55

Ministers fear a second Winter of Discontent '' and with good reason.

A chill wind beckons, with fuel shortages and runaway inflation added to a list of woes that already included empty supermarket shelves, spiralling energy bills, a tax rise in the spring and an extraordinarily badly timed cut to Universal Credit for the poorest families.

Economists predicted a hike in interest rates, and with it the prospect of higher mortgage repayments.

On Thursday, senior ministers, speaking on condition of anonymity, warned of the "collision of a Winter of Discontent'".

Paul Scully, the minister in charge of small businesses, admitted the Government was "preparing for the worst" as firms face the triple whammy of soaring fuel bills, wage inflation and a rise in National Insurance payments.

The economy '' and life in general '' is about to get very ugly.

Looming petrol crisisBP began closing petrol forecourts on Thursday after being hit by fuel shortages caused by a lack of lorry drivers. Esso said a "small number" of forecourts it operated for Tesco were also affected by driver shortages.

Downing Street responded by urging motorists to buy fuel "as normal", fearful of a panic buying spree that would threaten supply and raise the spectre of queues at petrol stations.

BP admitted it was struggling to transport unleaded petrol and diesel from refineries to its 1,200 forecourts. A handful were forced to shut temporarily, and about 100 are believed to be suffering from fuel shortages. The oil giant issued a warning to the Government that fuel stocks were "declining rapidly" and the next few weeks would be "really, really difficult".

It emerged on Thursday that the looming crisis had been flagged to ministers by Hannah Hofer, BP's head of retail, at a specially convened meeting a week ago, organised by the Cabinet Office.

BP admitted it was struggling to transport unleaded petrol and diesel from refineries to its 1,200 forecourts Credit : Lee Smith/ReutersIn a statement, BP said: "We are experiencing fuel supply issues at some of our retail sites in the UK and unfortunately have therefore seen a handful of sites temporarily close due to a lack of both unleaded and diesel.

"These have been caused by delays in the supply chain, which has been impacted by industry-wide driver shortages across the UK, and we are working hard to address this issue. We continue to work with our haulier supplier to minimise disruption and to ensure efficient and effective deliveries to serve our customers."

BP has called on the Government to urgently relax restrictions on recruiting drivers from abroad.

ExxonMobil, Esso's parent company, said a small number of its 200 Tesco Alliance retail sites in the UK had also been impacted. "We are working closely with all parties in our distribution network to optimise supplies and minimise any inconvenience to customers," it said.

A spokesman for Boris Johnson said: "There is no shortage of fuel in the UK and people should continue to buy fuel as normal. We obviously recognise the challenges faced by the industry and we're taking steps to support them."

The spectre of inflationOn Thursday, the Bank of England issued a warning of a jump in inflation to more than four per cent in time for Christmas '' and with it the prospect of a rise in interest rates.

The Bank said the cost of living was being ratcheted up by a combination of surging gas prices, shortages of key goods such as semiconductors and a lack of lorry drivers.

The inflation forecast is more than double the Bank's two per cent target, giving policymakers the headache of trying to rein in prices but not undermine the post-Covid and post-Brexit economic recovery. Economists anticipate that interest rates will rise from the current all-time low of 0.1 per cent to 0.25 per cent in February and potentially 0.5 per cent next August.

"In the recent unprecedented circumstances, the economy has been subject to some of the largest shocks it has faced in centuries and economic activity has been exceptionally volatile," Andrew Bailey, the Bank's Governor, wrote to Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor.

Much of the turmoil is global, on the back of a recovery from the pandemic that has seen economies, effectively mothballed, reopening and causing ructions in supply and demand.

Mr Bailey listed shipping problems as a key factor pushing up inflation, while a lack of semiconductors is hitting the supply of consumer goods including electronics and cars. He noted that second-hand car prices were up more than 18 per cent in August compared with the same month last year.

The Bank still expects "that current elevated global cost pressures will prove transitory", he said '' but that increasingly depends on the extent to which wages rise, as spiralling pay can feed back into higher prices in a dangerous cycle.

Furlough comes to an end next week, so officials will track whether or not the 1.6 million workers who were still using the scheme in the middle of the summer go back into jobs or end up unemployed.

Empty supermarket shelvesJust when ministers thought they had solved the problem of a lack of CO2 threatening the food chain, along came the food and drink industry with a dire warning of its own.

Minette Batters, the president of the National Farmers' Union (NFU), wrote to Mr Johnson warning him that the food and farming sector remains on a "knife edge". This time, a continued shortage of workers, rather than gas to preserve the food, threatens to hit supplies to supermarket shelves in the run-up to Christmas. Panic buying was likely, the union warned.

The National Farmers' Union has warned that panic buying is likely in the run-up to Christmas Credit : Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty ImagesThe letter, signed on behalf of 12 food and drink trade bodies, urged the Government to introduce a Covid recovery visa that would open up new jobs to migrant workers and warned: "Without it, more shelves will go empty and consumers will panic buy to try to get through the winter.

"That is why we must have an urgent commitment from you to enable the industry to recruit from outside the UK over the next 12 months to get us through the winter and to help us save Christmas."

The NFU said a lack of workers meant food was being left to rot because it could either not be picked, processed or packed.

"Every day there are new examples of food waste across the industry, from chicken to pork, fruit and vegetables, dairy and many other products," Ms Batters said. "The food is there, but it needs people to get it to the consumers."

Tesco has warned the Government that it has a shortfall of 800 drivers and is fearful of panic buying in the run-up to Christmas if the nationwide HGV crisis is not addressed. The Road Haulage Association and Logistics UK estimate that there is a need of between 75,000 and 100,000 lorry drivers.

Energy bills heat upDomestic households will first feel the heat of rising gas prices when energy bills start to hit doormats from Oct 1.

The increase in the price cap '' designed to keep costs down '' will see average dual fuel bills rise by £139 to £1,277, an increase of 12 per cent. It is likely to be increased again in April when the current soaring wholesale costs are taken into account. Cornwall Insight, an energy consultancy, estimates it could go up in April by 14 per cent, to £1,455.

Senior Tories put Mr Sunak under pressure to use his budget next month to scrap the five per cent VAT charge on household energy to soften the blow of surging bills.

Robert Halfon, the chairman of the Commons education committee, said the UK should take advantage of leaving the EU to slash VAT on energy bills. Abolishing VAT on bills completely would cost the Treasury in the region of £1.6 billion.

For about 1.5 million consumers whose energy supply companies have gone bust, there may be bigger bills ahead. The collapse of so many smaller energy supply companies will force consumers into the arms of the "big six" and the prospect of higher bills on less favourable tariffs.

Speaking in the Commons on Thursday, Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, said the Government had "categorically" ruled out handing subsidies or grants to the larger energy companies.

Mr Kwarteng said it was "a consistent feature" of the energy market that suppliers failed, adding: "I can categorically say to this House we will not be giving any grants or subsidies to larger companies."

Wholesale gas and power prices have been soaring due to a global crunch on natural gas supplies, amid claims Russia is manipulating the market and destabilising the economic recovery from the pandemic.

Demand for gas is high as economies reopen, and supplies are tight. The wholesale price of gas in Britain is now above 180 pence per therm, compared to 30 pence per therm a year ago. The cost has climbed 70 per cent since August.

The wholesale cost threatens to have a catastrophic effect on industry. The Government has bailed out a fertiliser company that made carbon dioxide as an offshoot, crucial in the food industry.

British Steel has said the "colossal" rise in energy prices made it "impossible to profitably make steel at certain times of the day.

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 14:52

Our HistoryPredator Security and Defense (PSD) started our company with the modern war-fighter in mind. Our Founders are experts in fundamental Kung Fu San Soo. This is an ancient Chinese martial art used on the battle field of the time. We have taken their art and combined it with the modern Warfighter's operational footprint to create PTUCS. Predator tactical unarmed combat system. We have been working on this system since 2008 and have developed the most effective tactical unarmed combat system ever devised. Giving operators the ability to inflict immediate disabling and deadly force if warranted. In any situation from t shirt and shorts all the way to full tactical loadout. And specifically built to be taught in a short amount of time.

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Your browser does not support the video tag.Master Dennis (Bear) Kirby and Master Frank Woolsey two of the best there has ever been!

About Us and Our Core BeliefsMilitary veterans who share more than 50 combined years of experience, founded Predator Security and Defense in 2013. These veterans have extensive training backgrounds, research and practical expertise.

Predator Security and Defense offers comprehensive instruction to the military, various federal and local law enforcement agencies. As well as personal and private security for combat and peacekeeping situations.

Our method of training offers knowledge on countering terrorism, guerrilla warfare and crime. This type of training is one of the most advanced, fully practical and hands-on methods available.The reason that Predator makes such effective and dangerous security operations personnel lies in our ability to rewire the students limbic brain function with our proprietary training giving them an enhanced ability to learn and react instinctively and immediately in high threat situations. We feel we have the best in the business and can provide our clients the best in-depth training that is available. PSD and its instructors pride themselves on the fact they have not lost a single student to a hostile environment that has undergone our training.

Our staff consists of retired, honorably separated or disabled veterans from the US Military and Special Operation Forces of differing specialties. In addition our tactical law enforcement personnel bring with them a variety of experience. Because of our talented professional staff, we offer a wide range of courses. This includes: Tactical Unarmed Combat, SERE (Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape), Protective Security Details, Threat Assessments, and Tactical Shooting.

We at Predator Security and Defense pride ourselves with professionalism and integrity. We will be more than happy to answer any questions you might have about training or your protection or the protection of your loved ones.

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 14:11

Privacy

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 13:28

By Chris Liakos and Hanna Ziady, CNN Business

Updated 5:02 AM EDT, Fri September 24, 2021

London(CNN Business) BP is temporarily closing some of its UK service stations because of a shortage of truck drivers caused in part by Brexit.

"We are experiencing some fuel supply issues at some of our retail sites in the UK and unfortunately have therefore seen a handful of sites temporarily close due to a lack of both unleaded and diesel grades," the company said in a statement shared with CNN Business on Thursday.

BP ( BP ) blamed "industry-wide driver shortages across the [United Kingdom]" for the supply chain crunch. "We are prioritizing deliveries to motorway service areas, major trunk roads and sites with largest demand and seeking to minimize the duration of stock outs," it added.

BP declined to comment on how many gas stations would be affected, but a person familiar with the situation said that "tens" of sites were experiencing fuel shortages.

This is the second time in as many months that BP has had to temporarily shutter some UK locations because of problems distributing fuel due to a lack of truck drivers. According to the Road Haulage Association, the United Kingdom is short around 100,000 truck drivers, 20,000 of whom were EU nationals that left the country after Brexit.

Esso owner ExxonMobil ( XOM ) said Friday that a "small number" of the 200 fuel stations it operates with supermarket chain Tesco ( TSCDF ) have also been affected. "We are working closely with all parties in our distribution network to optimize supplies and minimize any inconvenience to customers," the company added in a statement.

Worker shortages are a growing problem in Britain, which had a record 1 million job vacancies between June and August, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The UK government has announced some measures to increase the number of driving tests for truck drivers. But a spokesperson for the government said last month that "most of the solutions" will be driven by industry.

"We want to see employers make long term investments in the UK domestic workforce instead of relying on labor from abroad and our Plan for Jobs is helping people across the country retrain, build new skills and get back into work," the spokesperson said.

However, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps did not rule out issuing short-term visas to EU drivers on Friday.

"I'll look at everything and we'll move heaven and earth to do whatever we can to make sure that shortages are alleviated with HGV [Heavy Goods Vehicle] drivers," he told Sky News in an interview.

It's not just truck drivers. The food and farming sector estimates that there are 500,000 vacancies across the industry, which is leading to food waste because there are insufficient workers to pick, pack, process and transport fresh produce.

Groups representing the food and farming sector on Wednesday called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to implement a "Covid Recovery Visa" to alleviate what they described as "crippling labor shortages across the supply chain."

'-- Charles Riley and Lauren Gunn contributed reporting.

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 13:03

The group that protested in support of Nicki Minaj and against Dr. Anthony Fauci is planning another demonstration outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Headquarters in Atlanta this Friday '-- and hopes Trump supporters will join them.The 'Fraud Fauci Friday' protest will be taking place this Friday from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. '-- and every week until what they hope to be their biggest on November 22.

The protest was set up by the anti-capitalist Black Hammer Organization's Commander-in-Chief Gazi Kodzo, who spoke to the Gateway Pundit about how they hope to put political differences aside to fight together against vaccine mandates.

Kodzo told the Gateway Pundit that ''this is such a human issue that we can't let things that used to separate us continue to separate us. A real core value of our humanity is literally being ripped from us '-- the ability to say what goes inside of our bodies.''

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''If we do not make that choice that this administration tells us to make, we are no longer capable of working,'' Kodzo continued. He said that he is willing to stand with ''anyone who is willing to go side by side with me to fight for that core value.''

According to Kodzo, while he is a fan of Nicki Minaj's music, their reason for protesting was because they believed in what she was saying. He said that the iconic performer was aware of the protest and that she was ''liking'' tweets from other people about it.

''She did catch wind of what we are doing, she liked a few tweets,'' Kodzo said. He said that there is a lot of pressure on her, and that the liberal media has been trying to create scandals surrounding her because of her refusal to bow down and play ball.

Kodzo said that the way the people attacked Minaj for agreeing with Tucker Carlson is part of an effort from the liberal media to make people ''subscribe to this belief that the right is totally evil Nazis '-- people that you can't talk to, agree with, or be around. It's just a really vile place they have created.''

What happened to Minaj really resonated with Kodzo because he, like Minaj, had been censored on social media for posting a story about a relative who had an adverse reaction to the vaccine. He said his posts were deleted and he was placed in Facebook jail for daring to discuss it and ask questions.

WOW: Nicki Minaj Fans Protest Outside CDC HQ in Atlanta, Chant ''Fauci Lied to Me!'' (VIDEO)

''I had made a post asking for prayers for my aunt who was having side effects from the vaccine. It was taken down,'' he explained. ''Even on Instagram, I couldn't go live for a week. I can't voice my opinion online, so where else do I do it, other than outside the CDC's gates?''

The highly animated and charismatic organization leader continued on to say that ''I've had these liberals, these leftists, and Communists who talk about the 'rights of the worker' literally threatening me saying 'how dare you protest with Trumpers, how dare you protest with them and not with us,' but they are pushing the vaccine.''

''All these Socialist organizations, all of them, are pushing the vaccine. I mean, they were even pushing it back in the day when only old people could take it,'' he explained. ''They are telling me that it's okay for Joe Biden to say that my people can't work if we do not take this vaccine. If you can't agree with me that my people have the right to decide what goes into their body, and that if they make a choice you disagree with, that they still have a right to earn money and be able to eat '-- if you can't agree with me on that, there's nothing else for me to talk to you about. I don't care about Marx. I don't care about your hammer and sickle. You don't want me to have a right not to have an injection into my body?''

''Even with all the politics that I believe in, like anti-colonialism and the white power system, I do not agree with white people not being able to feed their children. I don't want that type of world. If you say you're a freedom fighter, how much more to the base of freedom can you get than this issue?'' Kodzo continued.

Kodzo said that when they were outside the CDC they were praying and singing with their signs '-- not being aggressive or causing any trouble '-- but that employees from the agency were being highly confrontational and disrespectful towards them. Some, Kodzo says, were even throwing things at them from their luxury vehicles.

''The people that work at the CDC started flicking us off and started trying to get out of their cars to attack us,'' he said. ''Homeland Security came and they were protecting us from the CDC employees! It was wild.''

Kodzo said that the Homeland Security agents had to tell CDC employees that the protesters were not doing anything wrong or breaking any laws. The diverse group who had gathered included a Trump-supporting nurse and a scientist, he said, but the media did not report on that aspect of it.

''I was there asking questions. We have done nothing but be their slaves for 18 months. We have had to do whatever they said for 18 months and nothing has changed '-- but they're surprised we're there? You're surprised people are upset with you?'' Kodzo said of the CDC employees that were angered by the protesters' presence.

The organizer said that while his group wears masks, he does not understand why people get mad at those who choose not to. He pointed out that Dr. Fauci had originally said that masks do not work, but keeps changing his story.

''Fauci never went back and said, 'you know what? I was wrong.' If Fauci had to go on TV and tell everyone each time he was wrong, he wouldn't be 'America's Doctor' anymore,'' Kodzo said.

Kodzo asserted that these days, it seems like the unelected Dr. Fauci is the one who is actually running this country and calling all the shots. He also noted that the doctor had originally claimed that there would not be any kind of vaccine mandate placed upon the American people, which was obviously untrue.

''Ever since Joe Biden has been 'the president' he has been a puppet for whatever Fauci says. Dr. Fauci is the freaking president. I don't know what Kamala is doing, every time you ask her a question she's just giggling,'' Kodzo said, adding that every issue she tries to fix she just seems to make it worse.

When asked if there was anything else Kodzo would like to say to Gateway Pundit readers, he urged people to ''keep asking questions.''

''Do not let this propaganda machine tear you away from your core values,'' Kodzo said.

** For more information about the protest, you can join their March on the CDC Facebook group.

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 12:55

Last Updated: Sept. 23, 2021 at 7:32 p.m. ET

First Published: Sept. 23, 2021 at 4:16 p.m. ET

A previous version of this report said $1.35 billion. It's trillion.

The New York Federal Reserve Bank's popular reverse repo program set a record Thursday for overnight demand, a same day the central bank doubled the limit for individual user to $160 billion.

The program, which allows banks, money-market...

A previous version of this report said $1.35 billion. It's trillion.

The New York Federal Reserve Bank's popular reverse repo program set a record Thursday for overnight demand, a same day the central bank doubled the limit for individual user to $160 billion.

The program, which allows banks, money-market funds and other financial firms to park cash overnight at the Fed, while earning 5 basis points, has become increasingly popular with Wall Street firms flush with cash, who are looking for save, short-term havens to stash it.

Thursday's operation saw a record $1.35 trillion parked in the facility from 77 counterparties. The Fed doesn't immediately disclose the names of individual users, but provides additional historical data on a delayed basis.

Expectations have been for demand to ramp higher heading into year-end, given the typical volatility and liquidity woes that can plague financial markets, but also this year because of the unresolved debt-ceiling issue in Washington, a Treasury-bill market that's been shrinking this year and expected wrangling in Congress over President Biden's proposed $3.5 trillion spending bill.

Read: Fed opens overnight repo spigot as Wall Street stares down barrel of U.S. debt-ceiling fight

U.S. stocks climbed Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA closing up 500 points, a day after the Fed said it may announce in November a plan for tapering its $120 billion in monthly Treasury TMUBMUSD10Y and mortgage-backed securities, and potentially raise benchmark policy rates at a quicker pace than initially expected.

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 12:53

Linda Evangelista files $50M lawsuit over disfiguring cosmetic treatment

beautyPublished 24th September 2021

Former supermodel Linda Evangelista has filed a $50 million lawsuit over cosmetic procedures that she says left her "brutally disfigured" and turned her into a recluse.

The Canadian model, one of the biggest figures on runways and magazine covers in the 1990s, said in an

Instagram post that she had undergone treatment to reduce fat some five years ago.

"To my followers who have wondered why I have not been working while my peers' careers have been thriving, the reason is that I was brutally disfigured by Zeltiq's CoolSculpting procedure which did the opposite of what it promised," she wrote in the posting on Wednesday.

'The Supermodels' charts the rise of four of the most famous women in fashion

She said she suffered a rare side effect called paradoxical adipose hyperplasia (PAH) after the procedures, which causes people to develop a swelling in the areas that were treated.

"PAH has not only destroyed my livelihood, it has sent me into a cycle of deep depression, profound sadness, and the lowest depths of self-loathing. In the process, I have become a recluse," she said.

Model Linda Evangelista pictured at the launch of Ralph Lauren's Spring 1996 collection at New York Fashion Week. Credit: JON LEVY/AFP/Getty Images

Zeltiq Aesthetics, a unit of Allergan Aesthetics and parent company AbbVie, did not return a call for comment.

Evangelista filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in New York federal court against Zeltiq for negligence, misleading advertising and alleging that the company failed to warn customers of the possible side effects.

From ancient Egypt to Beverly Hills: A brief history of plastic surgery

The lawsuit says Evangelista underwent multiple procedures between 2015 and 2016 to reduce fat on her thighs, abdomen, back, flanks and chin. Corrective surgery had not worked to fix the PAH.

She is seeking $50 million in damages for lost income and emotional distress, saying she was now unemployable as a model and has not earned anything from modeling since 2016.

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 12:47

A healthcare worker walks down stairs at the Kings Park townhouse complex locked down in response to an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Melbourne, Australia, June 16, 2021. REUTERS/Sandra Sanders

Australia passes 50% double-dose vaccine markTwo million doses administered in a weekSeeing 'pleasing declines' in NSW casesSYDNEY, Sept 24 (Reuters) - More than half of Australia's adult population were fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of Friday, authorities said, as they step up inoculations in hopes of easing restrictions while cases linger near daily record levels in Victoria.

Australia is grappling with a third wave of infections from the highly infectious Delta variant that has led to lockdowns in its two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, and the capital, Canberra, affecting nearly half the country's 25 million people.

These tough curbs and a decision to shut construction sites for two weeks over the rapid spread of the virus among workers triggered anti-lockdown protests in Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city, during the week. read more

Police arrested more than 200 on Friday for theft, drug offences and breaching stay-at-home orders, authorities said, as small groups of protesters gathered throughout the afternoon at various locations.

As most of Australia's southeast remains under strict stay-at-home restrictions, virus-free Western Australia is gearing up to host the Australian Rules Football Grand Final for the first time, in front of 60,000 fans at Perth Stadium on Saturday.

Melbourne, which had hosted every Grand Final since 1898, was the sport's spiritual home until the pandemic forced a shift to Brisbane last year.

Victoria on Friday reported one new death and 733 new infections, its second biggest daily rise in the pandemic, down from the record high of 766 on Thursday. Most cases were detected in Melbourne.

Both New South Wales (NSW) and Victorian leaders have pledged more freedom to residents once full vaccinations in people older than 16 reach 70%, expected next month. So far, 57% have been fully vaccinated in NSW, above the national average of 50.1%. Two million doses were administered in country in the last seven days.

Daily cases may have stabilised in NSW, the epicentre of the country's worst outbreak, as it reported 1,043 new infections, down from 1,063 on Thursday.

"We are seeing pleasing declines ... hopefully we will see numbers decrease in coming days and weeks," state Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said during a media briefing in Sydney.

But officials flagged any easing of curbs in NSW would be done "cautiously and moderately" when the state hits its 70% dual-dose target, around Oct. 6, to avoid spikes in cases that could overwhelm its health systems.

Even with the fast-moving Delta outbreak, Australia has largely avoided high numbers seen in many comparable countries, with some 94,000 cases and 1,208 deaths, and the death rate is lower than last year because of higher vaccination rates.

Reporting by Renju Jose; Editing by Gerry Doyle and Tom Hogue

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 12:22

Guest Essay

Sept. 24, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET

Credit... The New York Times; Photograph by Mike Blake/Reuters By Shelley Ross

Ms. Ross is a veteran television journalist and former executive producer at ABC and CBS.

I was Chris Cuomo's boss at ABC News nearly two decades ago, and I am a regular viewer of CNN today, so I've long watched how he communicates on camera and witnessed at times how he behaved behind the scenes. This year, as he escaped accountability for advising former Gov. Andrew Cuomo during his sexual harassment scandal, two moments crystallized for me how Mr. Cuomo performs.

The first was on March 1, two days before Governor Cuomo publicly addressed the sexual harassment allegations made against him by three women and apologized for acting ''in a way that made people feel uncomfortable'' but denied touching anyone inappropriately. On ''Cuomo Prime Time,'' Mr. Cuomo explained to his CNN viewers that because of the sexual harassment scandal, he would no longer be covering or interviewing his brother, as he frequently did during the first Covid-19 surge. With an expression of great sincerity, he said, ''I have always cared very deeply about these issues and profoundly so. I just wanted to tell you that.''

The second moment came this Labor Day weekend, after Governor Cuomo had resigned and as his loyal confidants and outside advisers were losing their own influential jobs in the fallout. There was Mr. Cuomo in the Hamptons, appearing in a photo wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the word ''Truth.''

For me, his statement of profound concern about sexual harassment and his ''Truth'' T-shirt were provocations in this era of personal accountability.

So here's another moment involving Mr. Cuomo, the one that stands out most in my experience with him.

''Now that I think of it '... I am ashamed,'' read the subject line of a 2005 email Mr. Cuomo wrote me, one hour after he sexually harassed me at a going-away party for an ABC colleague. At the time, I was the executive producer of an ABC entertainment special, but I was Mr. Cuomo's executive producer at ''Primetime Live'' just before that. I was at the party with my husband, who sat behind me on an ottoman sipping his Diet Coke as I spoke with work friends. When Mr. Cuomo entered the Upper West Side bar, he walked toward me and greeted me with a strong bear hug while lowering one hand to firmly grab and squeeze the cheek of my buttock.

''I can do this now that you're no longer my boss,'' he said to me with a kind of cocky arrogance. ''No you can't,'' I said, pushing him off me at the chest while stepping back, revealing my husband, who had seen the entire episode at close range. We quickly left.

Soon after, I received the email from Mr. Cuomo about being ''ashamed.'' He should have been. But my question today is the same as it was then: Was he ashamed of what he did, or was he embarrassed because my husband saw it? (He apologized first in his email to my ''very good and noble husband'' and then to me for ''even putting you in such a position.'') Mr. Cuomo may say this is a sincere apology. I've always seen it as an attempt to provide himself with legal and moral coverage to evade accountability.

Image Credit... Shelley Ross Now, given Mr. Cuomo's role as a supporter of and counselor to his brother, I am left again wondering about his relationship with truth and accountability. Has this man always cared ''deeply'' and ''profoundly'' about sexual harassment issues? Does he believe enough in accountability to step up and take some meaningful actions?

I have no grudge against Mr. Cuomo; I'm not looking for him to lose his job. Rather, this is an opportunity for him and his employer to show what accountability can look like in the #MeToo era. Accountability has been the cornerstone of the #MeToo movement, leading to tangible results and even justice, consequences for harassers and the possibility of real change. Accountability has been clear in the wake of the New York State attorney general's investigation into Governor Cuomo, which not only outlined instances of sexual harassment and mistreatment of at least 11 women by him but also identified an inner circle of advisers who helped guide him through this political and legal crisis. I call them the enablers. The official report documented the inner workings of these people, including Mr. Cuomo, and laid out their strategies and tactics to protect the governor.

Mr. Cuomo's name shows up in an email thread with other advisers the weekend Governor Cuomo's second accuser, Charlotte Bennett, came forward. The attorney general's report says that he was part of ''ongoing and regular discussions about how to respond to the allegations publicly'' and that he appeared to counsel the governor ''to express contrition.'' The Washington Post also reported that Mr. Cuomo urged his brother to take a defiant position early in the scandal and not resign. We all know that Mr. Cuomo was being consulted by his brother; what has never come to light, and what Mr. Cuomo has not been held to account for, is the full scope of the advice he gave his brother and whether his advice and his role in helping shape the defense of a sitting governor (one who was being investigated by Mr. Cuomo's own network) were in keeping with CNN's standards and values. (In May, Mr. Cuomo apologized for taking part in strategy calls with the governor and his staff, calling it ''a mistake.'' CNN called those conversations ''inappropriate.'')

After Governor Cuomo resigned, it didn't surprise me that attention turned to the enablers. A number of them have been fired or forced to step down from their high-powered jobs. It did surprise me to learn that Roberta Kaplan, the chairwoman of Time's Up, a nonprofit created at the start of the #MeToo movement to fight sexual harassment, was involved in efforts to defend the governor. She quickly resigned, followed by the group's president and chief executive, Tina Tchen.

Finally, during the Labor Day weekend, as Mr. Cuomo was walking around in his ''Truth'' T-shirt, the entire 71-person Global Leadership Board of Time's Up was dissolved, including Reese Witherspoon, Natalie Portman, Janelle Mone, Brie Larson, Tessa Thompson, Laura Dern, America Ferrera, Kerry Washington, Tarana Burke, Alyssa Milano, Gretchen Carlson and Amy Schumer. The members were reportedly notified Sept. 5 via email from a co-founder of Time's Up, informing them, ''There is no need for your individual resignations, as the group no longer exists.'' I cannot recall any organization ever acting so swiftly and comprehensively to hold itself accountable after top leaders veered from their founding mission.

While the fallout has continued across Governor Cuomo's circle of advisers '-- two former staff members resigned from outside jobs, and the president of the Human Rights Campaign was summarily fired '-- Mr. Cuomo and CNN seem to have moved on. As recently as last month, he was suggesting that he did not cross a line in aiding Governor Cuomo, telling his CNN viewers, ''I'm not an adviser. I am a brother.'' A brother calls to privately console you after hours. An adviser is looped in on staff emails and crisis conference calls, gives talking points and helps shape the narrative.

I worked in television news for 30 years. I came up through the ranks as a producer at ''Primetime Live,'' an executive producer of ''Good Morning America,'' an executive producer of ''Primetime Live'' (where Mr. Cuomo was one of several anchors) and a senior executive producer of ''The Early Show,'' where I was painfully forced out after my managing came under attack in what I considered a toxic work culture. If Mr. Cuomo and CNN management don't think he crossed a serious line, one that warrants consequences, I know he crossed a line with me. At one point in his 2005 email to me, he referred to how ''Christian Slater got arrested for a (kind of) similar act (though borne of an alleged negative intent, unlike my own).'' Mr. Slater was arrested after a woman reported that he had grabbed her buttocks as she walked down the street. Police charged him with third-degree sexual abuse. (The charges were dropped.) Mr. Cuomo, a former lawyer, appeared to use his short apology to legally differentiate the two incidents. He suggested Mr. Slater had ''negative intent'' while he, Mr. Cuomo, did not. He seemed to have a keen understanding of what accountability might look like back then; today we have no clear idea if either he or CNN is interested in accountability.

I never thought that Mr. Cuomo's behavior was sexual in nature. Whether he understood it at the time or not, his form of sexual harassment was a hostile act meant to diminish and belittle his female former boss in front of the staff.

(Asked for comment, Mr. Cuomo said on Thursday night, ''As Shelley acknowledges, our interaction was not sexual in nature. It happened 16 years ago in a public setting when she was a top executive at ABC. I apologized to her then, and I meant it.'')

I have fought sexual harassment in the workplace for 40 years now, and it can feel exhausting at times. In 1981, Roger Ailes insisted to me that we have a ''sexual alliance'' or my pending job offer at NBC's ''Tomorrow'' show would be withdrawn. I called a lawyer and worried it might be the end of my budding television career. To my surprise, Mr. Ailes never denied it. He apologized profusely for what he called ''middle age craziness'' and persuaded me to accept the job, promising we'd never have another problem. I accepted it, na¯vely thinking I could help reform the workplace one predator at a time.

Decades later, there is still a need to explain the many faces of sexual harassment in the workplace. It's not just inappropriate touching, pressure to consent or drunken overtures after hours. Most sexual harassment is invisible to outsiders, as are the scars. It may be someone ''accidentally'' brushing up against you, or engaging in uncomfortable sexual innuendo with you, or asking you to spin around so they can look at your rear end. It's all got to stop. You can't have a sliding scale in which asking permission for a kiss is OK and a hand on the back is harmless. Who gets to draw the boundaries?

We must continue to hold the enablers accountable, both men and women. Time's Up has already presented one remedy: the clean sweep. But I see another way forward.

I'm not asking for Mr. Cuomo to become the next casualty in this continuing terrible story. I hope he stays at CNN forever if he chooses. I would, however, like to see him journalistically repent: agree on air to study the impact of sexism, harassment and gender bias in the workplace, including his own, and then report on it. He could host a series of live town hall meetings, with documentary footage, produced by women with expert consultants. Call it ''The Continuing Education of Chris Cuomo'' and make this a watershed moment instead of another stain on the career of one more powerful male news anchor.

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 12:18

CNN's Chris Cuomo has been accused of sexual harassment by his former ABC boss who claims he squeezed her buttock upon greeting her in a bar - before he later apologized saying he was 'ashamed' of his behavior.

Shelley Ross, former executive producer at ABC and CBS, penned an op ed for the New York Times detailing the alleged incident at a going-away party for an ABC colleague back in 2005.

Ross, who has spoken out in the past about being sexually harassed by serial predator Roger Ailes, said Cuomo gave her a 'bear hug' in the bar and grabbed and squeezed her buttock.

Cuomo, whose brother Andrew Cuomo resigned as governor of New York over a flurry of sexual harassment allegations last month, later sent her an email apologizing for his actions, she said.

The CNN anchor has not denied the allegations, telling the Times Thursday 'it happened 16 years ago' and 'was not sexual in nature.'

'As Shelley acknowledges, our interaction was not sexual in nature. It happened 16 years ago in a public setting when she was a top executive at ABC,' he said.

'I apologized to her then, and I meant it.'

CNN's Chris Cuomo has been accused of sexual harassment by his former ABC boss who claims he squeezed her buttock upon greeting her in a bar

Shelley Ross, former executive producer at ABC and CBS,(pictured in 2015) said the alleged incident took place at a going-away party for an ABC colleague back in 2005

At the time of the alleged incident, Ross had recently moved jobs from executive producer at ABC's 'Primetime Live' - where Cuomo was an anchor - to becoming the executive producer of an ABC entertainment special.

Ross said Cuomo explained his actions away on the night as being okay because she was 'no longer my boss.'

'I was at the party with my husband, who sat behind me on an ottoman sipping his Diet Coke as I spoke with work friends,' she wrote in the op ed.

'When Mr. Cuomo entered the Upper West Side bar, he walked toward me and greeted me with a strong bear hug while lowering one hand to firmly grab and squeeze the cheek of my buttock.'

Cuomo told her 'I can do this now that you're no longer my boss,' she claimed, adding that it was said 'with a kind of cocky arrogance'.

Ross said she pushed Cuomo away from her, with her husband witnessing what had happened.

''No you can't,' I said, pushing him off me at the chest while stepping back, revealing my husband, who had seen the entire episode at close range. We quickly left,' she wrote.

Ross said she received an email from Cuomo one hour later telling her she was 'ashamed' of his behavior.

The email, dated June 1 2005, first apologized to Ross's 'very good and noble husband' for having to witness his wife 'patted as such' - and apologized to her second.

'Now that I think of it'... I am ashamed,' read the subject line of the email.

Chris Cuomo is seen wearing a shirt emblazoned with the phrase 'Truth' during a Labor Day getaway to the Hamptons earlier this month

'though my hearty greeting was a function of being glad to see you...,' the email began.

Cuomo then went on to compare his actions to that of Hollywood actor Christian Slater, who one month earlier had been arrested for allegedly randomly grabbing a woman's buttocks while she was walking through a street in Manhattan, New York City.

Slater was charged with third degree sexual abuse but the charges were later dropped.

'Christian Slater got arrested for a (kind of) similar act (though borne of an alleged negative intent, unlike my own)...and as a husband i can empathize with not liking to see my wife patted as such...,' the email read.

'so pass along my apology to your very good and noble husband...and i apologize to you as well, for even putting you in such a position...

He closed out the email with: 'next time, i will remember the lesson, no matter how happy i am to see you...'

In her op ed, Ross said she questioned whether Cuomo was 'ashamed' of 'what he did, or was he embarrassed because my husband saw it?'

Andrew Cuomo left and Chris Cuomo right. The CNN anchor has come under fire for his handling of his brother's sexual harassment scandal

She added: 'Mr. Cuomo may say this is a sincere apology. I've always seen it as an attempt to provide himself with legal and moral coverage to evade accountability.'

Ross pointed to the comparison Cuomo - a former lawyer - made with Slater, saying she believes he was attempting 'to legally differentiate the two incidents.'

She added that she did not believe his actions were 'sexual in nature' but rather an attempt to 'diminish and belittle his female former boss.'

'I never thought that Mr. Cuomo's behavior was sexual in nature,' she wrote.

'Whether he understood it at the time or not, his form of sexual harassment was a hostile act meant to diminish and belittle his female former boss in front of the staff.'

Ross said she was speaking out about the incident after watching Cuomo's handling of the sexual harassment scandal surrounding his brother.

The governor stood down in disgrace in August when a damning investigation by the New York attorney general found he had sexually harassed at least 11 women.

The allegations began surfacing in December when the first of multiple women - many of them current and former aides in the governor's office - came forward to accuse him of sexual harassment.

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 11:59

8:26 PM "This is a tragic incident and we are saddened by it": Kroger official says counseling is available to employeesTeresa Dickerson, head of public affairs for Kroger's Western Tennessee division, said the company will offer counseling services for all employees. Police Chief Dale Lane confirmed that 44 employees were in the store at the time of the shooting.

"We stand with our team here at the Collierville store," she said. "We're saddened and heartbroken by what happened here today."

She also thanked the first responders and added that the store will remain closed until further notice.

"This is a tragic incident and we are saddened by it," she said.

It is not clear how many of the victims were store employees.

8:04 PM Authorities received active shooter training just a few months agoThe Collierville Police Department hosted an active shooter training less than three months prior to the shooting, Chief Dale Lane said Thursday. Lane said the training helped victims quickly receive medical assistance.

As a result of the training, local fire and police departments were more integrated and therefore able to respond quickly to the scene and the victims, Lane said.

Douglas Korneski, FBI special agent in charge of the Memphis Field Office, applauded the first responders, saying, "the rapid response here today was commendable."

No officers were injured in the shooting.

5:43 PM / September 23, 2021 Kroger is "deeply saddened" by the shooting and "cooperating with local law enforcement"Kristal Howard, a spokesperson for Kroger, sent a statement to CBS News following Thursday's shooting:

"We are deeply saddened by the incident that occurred at our Kroger store located on New Byhalia Rd. in Collierville, TN - a suburb of Memphis. The entire Kroger family offers our thoughts, prayers and support to the individuals and families of the victims during this difficult time.

We are cooperating with local law enforcement, who have secured the store and parking lot. The store will remain closed while the police investigation continues, and we have initiated counseling services for our associates. To protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation, we are referring questions to the Collierville Police Department."

5:27 PM / September 23, 2021 Tennessee senators express support for victimsTennessee Senators Bill Hagerty and Marsha Blackburn are sharing support for the victims on Twitter.

Tragic news out of Collierville, TN, that I'm closely monitoring. I'm grateful to law enforcement & first responders for their heroic actions. Chrissy & I are praying for the victims & this TN community that is hurting. My office is available to anyone needing assistance.

'-- Senator Bill Hagerty (@SenatorHagerty) September 23, 2021 Our office has been in contact with ATF, TBI, and local authorities on the ground, and we are closely monitoring the situation in Collierville. We are praying for all of the victims.

'-- Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) September 23, 2021 5:09 PM / September 23, 2021 "It sounded like a balloon popping": Kroger employee who was inside the store speaks out Kroger employee describes deadly shooting 06:48 A woman who was working at a register inside the Kroger said she never would have believed this would happen at the place where she works.

"It sounded a bit like a balloon popping," Brignetta Dickerson told CBS affiliate WREG.

Dickerson, who commutes from Mississippi, said a man opened fire as soon as he walked into the front of the store. She said she did not get a good look at the shooter, saying she wanted to play dead. Police have not released any details about the shooter's identity.

One of her coworkers, she said, was shot in the head. He was alert and asked her to call his mother.

Dickerson said she led a group of people to the back of the store to hide.

"It seemed like I never believed it would happen here where I work," she said, describing the Tennessee town as "beautiful," "peaceful," religious and diverse.

4:48 PM / September 23, 2021 FBI responds to shooting sceneThe FBI is at the shooting scene and assisting local police with the investigation, an FBI official told CBS News. The Collierville Police Department is the lead investigative agency.

In the past, the FBI has done evidence collection and processing, but it's unclear what role the bureau will be in this shooting.

Police believe the shooter's vehicle is in the Kroger parking lot, but officials are waiting for more machinery so they can safely inspect the vehicle, said Chief Dale Lane. "This scene is horrific. I've been involved in this for 34 years and never seen anything like it," Lane said.

Authorities are expected to provide another update around 7 p.m. ET.

Emergency personnel respond to a shooting at a Kroger supermarket in suburban Memphis, Tennessee, on September 23, 2021. Joe Rondone/The Commercial Appeal/USA Today via REUTERS

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 11:57

The Facts Inside Our Reporter's NotebookBorder patrol agents will be banned from using horses in Del Rio, Texas, the Biden administration announced Thursday, after viral photos showed agents on horseback capturing immigrants who crossed the border illegally.

Initial reports indicated agents were using whips on the migrants, though that was later debunked. But conerns over the photos came up during the White House press briefing this week.

"One, we feel those images are horrible and horrific," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday. "I can also convey to you that [Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas] conveyed to civil rights leaders earlier this morning that we will no longer be using horses in Del Rio."

Psaki said there is now an investigation into the issue.

"Separately ... it is important for people to understand what our process and our immigration process is, and what the steps are that are taken," she added.

The decision drew backlash from Republicans, who say Biden should be doing more to address the border crisis. The National Republican Congressional Committee lodged an attack against Biden Thursday, saying he acted faster against horses than the border crisis.

''The Biden Administration needs to fix the border crisis it created," NRCC spokeswoman Torunn Sinclair said.

The ban on horses comes as border patrol agents struggle to keep up with the surge in illegal immigration at the southern border. Federal data showed that more than 200,000 illegal immigrants were encountered by border patrol agents in the month of August alone.

In September, agents have been pressed even harder by nearly 15,000 Haitian immigrants who encamped at the Texas border town of Del Rio.

The encampment has been a major source of controversy for the Biden administration and has strained border patrol resources.

In an interview this week, the head of the Border Patrol union, Brandon Judd, told The Center Square that the majority of detained immigrants are later released into the U.S.

Judd said that of the approximately 200,000 apprehensions made by border patrol, ''they are probably dealing with 120,000 people because sometimes the same person or people are apprehended more than once. Of those, it's right about 60-68 percent are being released [into the community] ... The vast majority are not being expelled or deported. The majority are being released into the United States.''

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 11:56

Hunter Biden's business contacts touted his access to his father, ''State, Treasury,'' his relationship with then-Secretary of State John Kerry's stepson, as well as his ties to the ''highest level'' in China, as they weighed whether to work with him on a potential Libya deal in 2015, newly uncovered emails show.

The two emails '-- published by Insider on Thursday '-- date back to 2015, when Joe Biden was vice president, and reference getting Hunter's help on a deal regarding billions in Libyan assets frozen by the Obama administration.

The emails are unrelated to Hunter's infamous laptop.

In the first email, dated Jan. 28, 2015, Democratic donor Sam Jauhari repeatedly referred to Hunter as ''#2 son'' '-- an apparent reference to Joe Biden's VP role at the time '-- and noted that Hunter had requested a $2 million retainer.

Chris Kerry (left) with his mother, Teresa Heinz Kerry, and brother Andre Heinz (right) at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Ralf-Finn Hestoft/Corbis via Getty Images President-elect Joe Biden (right) embraces his son Hunter Biden on stage after delivering remarks in Wilmington, Delaware. ANDREW HARNIK/POOL/AFP via Getty ImagesThe business contact listed a string of positives to working with Hunter, including his business relationship with Kerry's stepson Chris Heinz and Hunter's apparent self-proclaimed high-level access in China.

According to new emails, Hunter Biden's business contacts touted the political access Biden had to the president and several other offices within the White House. Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images for World Food Program USA''Per phone conversation I met with #2 son. He wants $2 per year retainer +++ success fees. He wants to hire his own people '' it can be close circle of people for confidentiality. His dad is deciding to run or not,'' the email said.

Biden's access to Chris Heinz, stepson of ex-secretary of state John Kerry, was a major plus to his business partners. Paul Warner/WireImage''His positives are he is Chairman of UN World Food Program, son of #2 who has Libya file, access to State, Treasury, business partner SofS [Secretary of State] J. [John] Forbes K [Kerry] son and since he travels with dad he is connected everywhere in Europe and Asia where M. Q. [Muammar Qaddafi] and LIA [Libya Investment Authority] had money frozen. He said he has access to highest level in PRC [China], he can help there.''

That email, which was sent to fellow Democratic donor Sheikh Mohammed al-Rahbani, also flagged the ''negatives'' to enlisting Hunter's help.

''He is alcoholic, drug addict '' kicked [out] of U.S. Army for cocaine, chasing low-class hookers, constantly needs money-liquidity problems and many more headaches,'' the email said. Hunter was actually discharged from the US Naval Reserve in 2014, not the Army as the email suggested.

Hunter and Heinz founded Rosemont Seneca Partners, a billion-dollar private equity firm, back in 2009. Their business dealings soured when Hunter opted in 2014 to join the board of a gas company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch.

Biden's partners also commented that he was riddled with scandals and was more a headache to work with.The second email was sent to the two business contacts by Washington lawyer John Sandweg on Feb. 26, 2016, regarding the same deal.

''I spoke with HB's team yesterday. They are interested in the project, but emphasized that for them to get involved, the team (lobbyists, lawyers and PR) would need to be a small group of folks they have a tight relationship with,'' Sandweg wrote.

''They do not want a large group involved and they only want people with whom they have a close relationship with due to the sensitivities surrounding their involvement.''

Asked about the email, Sandweg told Insider that Jauhari ended up hiring a different law firm.

Neither Hunter nor the White House has commented on the newly emerged emails.

The outlet said the emails, as well as other documents it had obtained, appeared to suggest the Libya deal did not go ahead.

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 11:42

After American rap icon Nicki Minaj expressed skepticism regarding the controversial COVID-19 vaccines, and urged her fans to pray about whether to take one of the vaccines and not be bullied into making a health decision, fans rallied behind her and formed a near-spontaneous protest outside the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.Now, the left wing luminaries behind this protest have planned several more, and have invited conservative Trump supporters to join them in solidarity against the vaccines.The protests have been organized by the ''anti-capitalist Black Hammer Organization's Commander-in-Chief Gazi Kodzo,'' wrote Cassandra Fairbanks for The Gateway Pundit. Kodzo spoke to Fairbanks at length about their goals for the protest, their decision to invite supporters of 45th President Donald Trump, and their hope for Americans to ''put political differences aside and fight together against the vaccine mandates.''

Kodzo told Fairbanks that the vaccine passports and mandates represent ''a human issue'' that should break down traditional political barriers. ''A real core value of our humanity is literally being ripped from us,'' Kodzo told The Gateway Pundit, before adding that ''he is willing to stand with 'anyone who is willing to go side by side with me to fight for that core value.'''

Fairbanks noted that Kodzo has been ostracized by other communist and socialist groups for protesting with trump supporters but that ''he thinks standing against mandatory vaccines is a fundamental issue that is more important than anything else right now.'' According to Fairbanks, Kodzo believes ''there is nothing more important than people in his community having to choose between putting something they don't want inside their bodies and being able to feed their families.''

It was actually a pretty interesting conversation.

'-- Cassandra '-- Peta Kills Animals (@CassandraRules) September 23, 2021

and that power is kept by keeping people from uniting on issues they do agree on.

'-- Cassandra '-- Peta Kills Animals (@CassandraRules) September 23, 2021

Nicki Minaj became the target of online racist abuse from left wing activists after she shared a clip of Fox News host Tucker Carlson defending her right to speak freely last week, with many corporate journalists accusing her of secretly being a ''white supremacist.''

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 11:29

Medical personnel adjust their personal protective equipment while working in the emergency department at NYC Health + Hospitals Metropolitan in New York. John Minchillo/AP hide caption

toggle caption John Minchillo/AP Medical personnel adjust their personal protective equipment while working in the emergency department at NYC Health + Hospitals Metropolitan in New York.

John Minchillo/AP NEW YORK (AP) '-- Hospitals and nursing homes in New York are bracing for the possibility that a statewide COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers could lead to staff shortages when it takes effect Monday.

Doctors and nurses '-- and also support staff, like food service workers and cleaners '-- have been given until Sept. 27 to get at least their first vaccine shot in one of the nation's most aggressive plans to protect patients.

With just days left to go before the deadline, many still hadn't. That left the prospect of potentially thousands of health care workers being forced off the job next week.

With no sign of Gov. Kathy Hochul backing down, hospitals and nursing homes were preparing contingency plans that included cutting back on elective surgeries and, at one hospital, halting maternity services. Nursing homes were limiting admissions. The state's largest health care provider, Northwell Health, was keeping thousands of volunteers on standby.

"We would like to see some more time to be able to comply and implement the vaccine mandate, because at the end of the day it's a situation where we're very concerned about our ability to care for the patients," said Tom Quatroche, CEO of the Erie County Medical Center Corporation, which operates a busy 573-bed hospital in Buffalo.

It anticipates that about 10% of its workforce, or 400 staff members, might still not be vaccinated by Monday. Under a contingency plan, the hospital said it would suspend elective inpatient surgeries, temporarily stop accepting ICU transfers from other institutions and reduce hours at outpatient clinics.

Hochul, a Democrat, held firm on the deadline Thursday, telling reporters at a news conference that there were "no excuses" for those refusing to abide by the mandate, announced this summer.

"Every single person who is in your care has the right to know that there is no chance they will be infected by the person in charge of protecting them and their health," she said Thursday.

New York is not the only state to require health care workers to get vaccinated. But it has been especially aggressive in pushing for wider vaccinations to help limit the spread of the virus in a place that was once the center of the ongoing global pandemic.

Earlier this week, a judge refused to halt New York City's plan to require teachers in the country's largest public school system to get vaccinated, a mandate that is also to begin Monday.

That looming deadline was also raising concerns about potentially thousands of teachers and school staff being suspended Monday.

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew on Thursday asked the city to delay the rule, saying "our schools are not ready."

Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, said he was confident holdouts would get the shot this weekend rather than face a loss of pay. And if not, he said, "we have thousands and thousands of vaccinated experienced substitute teachers ready to go."

The mandate for health care workers comes as hospitals are already reeling from staff shortages due in part to rising demand, workers retiring and weary employees seeking other jobs after 18 months of the pandemic.

There is one option for workers who don't want to get the shot, which is to apply for a religious exemption. That would buy them until at least Oct. 12, while a federal judge considers a legal challenge arguing that such exemptions are constitutionally required.

With time ticking down on the health care mandate, Northwell Health was trying to persuade thousands of holdouts to get vaccinated, including individual meetings with staffers. The system's personnel chief, Maxine Carrington, said they're seeing a lot more appointments being scheduled.

"I've had personal conversations with team members, and I was asked by one: 'Are you really going to fire us on the 27th?' And I said, let's put that aside for a minute and let's talk about saving your life. Why don't you want to get vaccinated?" Carrington said.

She said staff that refuse the inoculations will "no longer be qualified for employment."

As of Thursday, about 90% of Northwell's 74,000 active personnel had been vaccinated. Still, the hospital system acknowledged that it did not expect full compliance and had more than 3,000 retirees, volunteers and health care students on standby, should they be needed Monday.

The University of Rochester Medical Center, in the state's fourth largest city, announced a two-week pause in scheduling new elective procedures at its Strong Memorial Hospital beginning Monday. It also is temporarily closing two urgent care centers this week.

One wild card is no one knows if a burst of health care workers will simply wait until the last minute to get a jab.

One hopeful sign: New York-Presbyterian, one of the state's largest hospital systems, had imposed an earlier vaccination deadline on its workers '-- midnight Wednesday '-- and reported fewer than 250 of its 48,000 staffers had failed to comply.

Spokesperson Alexandra Langan said in an email: "For those who chose not to comply, they will not continue to work at NYP."

New York state has been averaging just under 5,000 new COVID-19 cases per day with around 2,300 people hospitalized. That's far worse than in late June, when around 300 people were testing positive each day statewide.

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 03:50

New emails from Hunter Biden business associates reveal he asked for $2million retainer PLUS 'success fees' to help them unfreeze $30billion in Libyan assets while his father was VPEmails from Democratic donors Sam Jauhari and Sheikh Mohammed al-Rahbani indicated that Hunter Biden had offered to help free frozen Libyan assets Jauhari was frank about the kind of access they believed Hunter Biden might have, as well as his issues involving alcohol and drug useThe two were working to unfreeze billions of dollars in assassinated Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi's foreign assets for the new Libyan governmentThey stood to gain 5 percent of whatever they were able to free up for Libya, which could potentially mean hundreds of millions of dollars By Peter Belfiore For Dailymail.Com

Published: 13:47 EDT, 23 September 2021 | Updated: 17:37 EDT, 23 September 2021

A pair of emails from business associates of Hunter Biden reveal he offered to help them unfreeze Libyan assets for a $2million retainer plus 'success fees', while they also discussed their misgivings over his drug and alcohol use.

The email exchanges were between mid-level Democratic donors Sam Jauhari and Sheikh Mohammed al-Rahbani, who in 2015 were both working on behalf of the new Libyan government to free up $30billion in state foreign assets. They had been frozen by the Obama administration under the deposed Muammar Gaddafi regime in 2011.

The emails are unrelated to those on his laptop, which outlined a number of his other business dealings. The computer was found at a repair shop in Delaware.

In the first email dated January 28, 2015 sent by Jauhari to al-Rahbani, and obtained by Business Insider, Jauhari discusses what he believes the younger Biden might bring to the table in their efforts.

Emails from mid-level Democratic donors Sam Jauhari (left) and Sheikh Mohammed al-Rahbani indicated they sought to hire Hunter Biden to help them free up billions in Libyan assets frozen by the Obama administration

Jauhari said Hunter might give them access to a number of high level officials in his role as chairman of the UN World Food Program and through his relationship with his father Joe Biden. Hunter is seen at the World Food Program Annual McGovern-Dole Leadership Award Ceremony in 2016

He outlines the number of connections Hunter has, including his role as chairman of the UN World Food Program, and the relationship he has with then-Secretary of State John Kerry and his then-vice president father, which in turn could provide access to Obama's file on Libya.

'Since he travels with dad he is connected everywhere in Europe and Asia where M. Q. [Muammar Qaddafi] and LIA [Libya Investment Authority] had money frozen,' Jauhari writes, adding that Hunter has also said he has high level access in China, and that, 'he can help there.'

China at the time had been blocking the release of roughly $15billion in Qaddafi's assets that Obama ordered frozen amid a bid to increase its influence in Africa.

Jauhari wrote that Hunter wanted '$2 per year retainer +++ success fees.' Sources familiar with the effort told Business Insider that $2 meant $2million, and that Jauhari and his associates stood to gain 5 percent of whatever Libyan money they were able to free up.

Jauhari was frank about how Hunter's issues with alcoholism and drug abuse might pose problems for their endeavor

Jauhari is frank, however, about how Hunter might pose problems for their endeavor.

'His negatives are that he is alcoholic, drug addict - kicked [out] of U.S. Army for cocaine, chasing low class hookers, constantly needs money-liquidity problems and many more headaches,' he wrote.

In the second email, dated a little more than a year later on February 26, 2016, talks with Hunter Biden over his role in the Libyan project appeared to still be ongoing.

In it, John Sandweg, a lawyer who served as Obama's acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, sends Jauhari and al-Rahbani a report on his talks with Hunter, according to Business Insider.

The pair had been part of a group trying to unfreeze assets of Assassinated Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi (pictured left) Obama had frozen in 2011

'I spoke with HB's team yesterday. They are interested in the project, but emphasized that for them to get involved, the team (lobbyists, lawyers and PR) would need to be a small group of folks they have a tight relationship with,' he wrote.

The talks came as Joe Biden was weighing his run for president, and in both emails they report that Hunter had requested secrecy over his involvement.

'They do not want a large group involved and they only want people with whom they have a close relationship with due to the sensitivities surrounding their involvement,' Sandweg wrote.

Ultimately, Jauhari ended up hiring neither Sandweg nor Hunter to help with the effort to free up the funds, but Sandweg confirmed to Insider that he had been in contact with an associate of Hunter Biden. 'They indicated they would consider it and I passed the message back,' he told the outlet.

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Sun, 26 Sep 2021 13:49

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg received harsh criticism from former Obama administration officials following Donald Trump's political rally in Georgia.

When Trump complained about Zuckerberg at the rally, the crowd began chanting "lock him up."

"Well, they should be looking at that, Trump said.

Trump's comments came less than one week after a new report claimed the Facebook CEO cut a deal with Trump to avoid fact-checking political posts. In return, the Trump administration would not impose regulations on the social media behemoth.

"Facebook sold its soul and got a 'lock him up' chant in return. While doing its part to destroy democracy around the world," former Obama Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said.

"This speech is a real indictment of the entire strategy employed by the Facebook public policy team. Years of twisting themselves into a pretzel to appease Trump only to have him through Zuck into imaginary Gitmo," former White House senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer said.

"Guess those ass-kissing sessions at the White House and letting him break Facebook's rules didn't protect you Mark," former Obama spokesperson Tommy Vietor said.

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Sun, 26 Sep 2021 12:29

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Sun, 26 Sep 2021 11:31

Top tags German election 2021SportGermanySan MarinoWomen's rightsAngela Merkel Europe World Business Sport Culture Green Next Travel Video All Programmes Coronavirus Cry like a boy Podcasts Visit Petersburg Here we grow: Spain Climate Angola 360 Destination Dubai German election Mobility Week Depth of Field The New Uzbekistan Total Ron Barcel" Japan Moving Forward Live Newsletters All views Bulletin Just In All Weather Games

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Sun, 26 Sep 2021 11:23

Germany is heading towards a highly uncertain future as federal elections see the country draw a line under the Angela Merkel era.

The likeliest outcome is several months of turbulent negotiations in Europe's leading economy as parties try to form a coalition government, with several combinations possible and no single party standing out.

Polls suggest that none of the main candidates to replace Angela Merkel as chancellor seem particularly convincing to the country's voting base of 62 million, who will be casting their ballots on September 26.

However, under the German system the top job is not elected directly by the people, but via the federal parliament, the Bundestag.

Now that Germany's imperturbable leader is bowing out after 16 years in office, Euronews takes a look at the leading candidates.

A gaffe too far for the 'nice Mr Laschet'?Armin Laschet portrays himself as the natural successor to Angela Merkel. Often praised for his ability to unite people, the president of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) shares the outgoing chancellor's centrist, pro-European instincts.

Leader of Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, the 60-year-old has put forward a vague but reassuring manifesto and has stayed true to Merkel's belief in abstaining from risk-taking during the campaign.

And not without good reason: the CDU candidate has an unfortunate reputation for being gaff-prone. Often written off, he has however also won recognition for a canny ability to survive knocks.

Laschet was one of Merkel's rare supporters in the wake of her decision in 2015 to allow in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Syria and Afghanistan, although relations have since cooled amid differences over the handling of the pandemic.

His integrationist policies as a regional minister 10 years earlier earned him the nickname "Armin the Turk" among CDU ranks. Later, his backing for immigration and sympathy for the Greens earned him the tag "the nice Mr Laschet".

The son of a miner-turned-teacher, Laschet grew up and still lives in Aachen, Germany's westernmost city close to the Belgian and Dutch borders. A devout Catholic, the former altar boy met his future wife in a youth church choir. After studying law, he worked as a journalist before going into politics.

Three months after winning the CDU presidency last January, he survived a ferocious power struggle to beat off the challenge from Markus S¶der, the popular head of its Bavarian sister party the CSU, to become the centre-right candidate.

Briefly led in the polls by Green candidate Annalena Baerbock, Laschet has since overtaken his rival, although a recent survey brings cause for concern. According to INSA, only 12% of German voters would choose the conservative as chancellor.

The floods in western Germany in July, which left at least 190 people dead including some 50 in his home area, severely put to the test Laschet's ability to manage a crisis.

He drew a barrage of criticism on social media for a condescending reply to a journalist when challenged over measures to tackle climate change.

"Excuse me young woman. It's not because we're experiencing such a day that we should change policy," was his response.

A photo of Armin Laschet laughing in the background while German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier paid tribute to the victims was equally damaging. On a subsequent visit to the flooded areas, he was taken to task by afflicted residents.

In a TV interview in July, the election hopeful claimed not to be worried by the fact he has often been underestimated during his political career. "Many have in any case been mistaken," he said.

Can the 'Scholzomat' spring a surprise?If the German chancellor was elected directly by the voters instead of the Bundestag, there seems little doubt that the number two figure in Angela Merkel's government would win.

An INSA poll in early August asked respondents who would be their preferred choice. The social democrat Olaf Scholz came top with 27%, more or less double the score for Laschet (14%) or the Greens' Annalena Baerbock (13%). It is telling, however, that more than a third said they did not want any of the trio.

Last month the Social Democratic Party (SPD) moved ahead of Angela Merkel's CDU in polling for the first time in 15 years.

Vice-chancellor and finance minister in Angela Merkel's coalition government, the moderate but uncharismatic 63-year-old dreams of springing a surprise and taking the reins of power, 16 years after his mentor Gerhard Schr¶der.

It would be a triumph for the once long-haired student who joined the SPD, one of Europe's oldest parties, at the age of 17.

His crown now distinctly barer, Scholz is often mocked for his austere appearance and monotone speeches that have seen him nicknamed the "Scholzomat" -- "emotionality is not his thing", a colleague reportedly said. But the former mayor of Hamburg could find himself propelled to the top job if the coalition cards are dealt in his favour.

The former labour minister has long backed causes such as social housing and raising the minimum wage -- again a key theme under his campaign slogan #ausrespekt ("out of respect").

Since he replaced the fiscally conservative Wolfgang Scha¼ble as finance minister in 2018, Scholz has distanced himself from the gruff, moralising tone of his predecessor, especially towards the perceived laxity of much of southern Europe.

At the same time, Scholz has been careful not to unravel Scha¼ble's rigorous discipline. As in other countries, similar positions adopted by politicians from traditionally left-wing parties have not always gone down well with the rank-and-file. In Germany, labour market liberalisation and budgetary austerity have shellshocked many on the left.

As finance minister, he faced allegations of being asleep at the helm during the Wirecard scandal, as the German financial service provider cooked the books.

Yet Scholz has also won plaudits for being ready to throw the kitchen sink at the pandemic-ravaged economy. Presenting his coronavirus aid package, he made headlines with talk of pulling out the "bazooka" to haul Germany out of the crisis with "oomph".

The result is that after years of budget surplus, the country now has billions of euros of debt. "All that is expensive, but to do nothing would have been even more costly," he said.

In 2019 Scholz was passed over for the SPD chairmanship, the party choosing instead a relatively unknown duo much further to the left. But despite years of internal party turmoil, his tenure in government could help him win vital backing among the public at large.

Die WELT has described him as a "lone fighter who has citizens behind him, but not his backward-looking party".

Baerbock seeks to bounce back"There's a lot at stake with these elections! Our future is at stake, and the future doesn't happen on its own, it must be built!"

Annalena Baerbock's call to electoral arms earlier in August came on the day that UN climate experts published a particularly alarming report on the acceleration of global warming.

It provided more ammunition for the Greens' hopeful for the top job in Berlin as she proclaimed her party "are ready" to govern. The environment had already leapt back to centre stage in the public debate following July's devastating floods.

The chancellorship briefly seemed a real possibility in April, as the party raced to a shock lead in the polls in April, in the wake of Baerbock's anticipated nomination for the election to replace Angela Merkel.

The dynamic 40-year-old, who says she stands for a "fresh start" in Germany, seemed to embody renewal in a country keen for change after 16 years of Merkel's conservative stewardship. But Baerbock's credibility has since taken a hit with accusations -- unfair ones according to her backers -- of plagiarism and an overdressed CV.

The internet has often not been kind either, to say the least. One hoax story claimed that she once took nude photos; another said she wanted to ban dog ownership to protect the climate. But neither has the relative political newcomer been spared by political rivals. A leading member of the CDU-CSU group described Baerbock's asylum programme as a "bomb in the framework of our welfare state".

Her candidacy was even called into question as the Greens fell back behind the other main parties in public opinion, although one political analyst told Euronews the party's lead was only ever likely to be a blip.

Growing up near Hanover, Baerbock describes her upbringing as politicised. Her parents took her to anti-nuclear protests. A sporty teenager, at first she wanted to be a war reporter and only went into politics in her twenties via internships in Brussels.

European politics -- she describes herself as a "passionate European" -- turned out to be a springboard for a political career that in 2018 saw Baerbock elected co-leader of the Greens with Robert Habeck.

The party's core theme is clear: the next federal government must go further than the last and make climate protection the benchmark in all policy areas, in order to meet the demands of the Paris climate agreement.

Annelena Baerbock also has ideas for advancing the rights of children and asylum-seekers, and to relieve the tax burden for those on low pay.

Were she to win the election, Baerbock would be the first Green Chancellor, the first mother to hold the post, and the first German head of government to openly call herself a feminist. She highlights the fact that she is the mother of two small children, in the mould of New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern or Sanna Marin of Finland.

Her nomination to run for chancellor brought a rush of new party members. But the polls suggest winning the election will be an uphill struggle to say the least.

Who else is in the running?The other candidates in the race to be German chancellor are:

Christian Lindner of the centrist Free Democratic Party (FDP), which promotes the free market and backs social and economic reform.Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla of the populist, hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. It has fallen away since doing well in 2017 but remains popular in the former communist east.Janine Wissler and Dietmar Bartsch of the Left (LINKE) party, which promotes state control of the economy and withdrawal from NATO.

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Sun, 26 Sep 2021 11:19

The British government announced on Saturday it will deliver more than 10,000 temporary visas to lorry drivers and poultry workers to help ease supply chain issues in the lead-up to Christmas.

The Department for Transport said that it will issue three-month visas to 5,000 lorry drivers to provide "short-term relief for the haulage industry" and another 5,500 to poultry workers "to avoid any potential further pressures on the food industry during this exceptional period."

It also aims to train 4,000 people as new heavy goods vehicle (HGV) drivers with the help of examiners from the Ministry of Defence.

Some petrol stations have had to close in recent days because there are not enough qualified drivers to distribute fuel around the country. There have also been reports of empty supermarket shelves due to supply issues.

The industry says it's short of tens of thousands of lorry drivers.

The COVID pandemic, an ageing workforce and an exodus of foreign workers following Brexit have all been cited as reasons.

New immigration rules introduced after Brexit mean EU citizens can no longer live and work visa-free in the UK.

The Road Haulage Association had urged the government in June to ease visa rules to help improve the situation.

Britain's farming and food processing industries, which are short of fruit-pickers and meat-packers, have made similar requests.

Westminster resisted, saying British workers should be trained up to take the jobs. It has stressed that Britain is not short of fuel, but that has not stopped motorists forming lines at petrol stations to fill up just in case.

The package of measures unveiled on Saturday by the Department for Transport also includes a scheme to train 4,000 people as new HGV drivers.

The government is unblocking £10 million ('‚¬11.7 million) to create "skills bootcamps" to train 3,000 people during "free, short, intensive" courses. The other 1,000 people will be trained in local courses funded by the government's adult education budget.

To hasten the process, Defence Driving Examiners will be deployed to increase the country's testing capacity over the next 12 weeks.

Sporadic supply chain issues at supermarkets and other shops over the past few weeks were also attributed to a lack of delivery drivers.

BP and Esso shut a handful of their stations in Britain this week because there were not enough truckers to get gas to the pumps. EG Group, which operates about 400 UK petrol stations, said it was limiting purchases to £30 ( '‚¬35).

In a statement, the government said Britain had ''ample fuel stocks.''

''But like countries around the world, we are suffering from a temporary COVID-related shortage of drivers needed to move supplies around the country,'' it said, not acknowledging Brexit as a factor.

The head of the Confederation of British Industry, Tony Danker, said the driver shortage was in part ''a Brexit hangover''

''We had several drivers go home that we wouldn't have wanted to go home, and I think there is this bigger question of the immigration system, and it's a complicated one,'' he told the BBC.

Danker said easing visa rules would be ''a huge relief''.

''It's a shame the government needed queues at the pumps to move, but move I hope they have, and it will help,'' he said.

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Sun, 26 Sep 2021 11:03

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Sun, 26 Sep 2021 10:41

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Sun, 26 Sep 2021 10:38

Op 25 september 2021 wordt medische apartheid ingevoerd in Nederland en brengt Ukes for Freedom (Ukelele's voor Vrijheid) haar lied 'Vaccinatie, GEeN-Et(h)isch Experiment' uit.

We zijn in de kerk. Hugo de Jonge is voorganger en 'iedereen doet mee aan dit experiment'? Het voelt alsof we de kerk van Hugo in zijn gedreven. Ben je kritisch, dan gedraag je jezelf als een ongelovige.

In de video bij het vaccinatieliedje lopen we na het eerste stukje in de kerk, met opgestroopte mouw een prikbus in. Een plaatje van de Prikpooier met zijn spuit en frikandel versieren de bus. Deze cartoons komen van 'speld van je held' die meer dan vijftig verschillende speldjes maakten, waaronder van Hugo en van Potkaars.

'Je weet toch ook niet wat er in een Frikandel zit?' zei de Jonge over de corona vaccins, wat hem de bijnaam Minister Frikandel opleverde. Het liedje zingt ondertussen 'samen voor elkaar, een heel klein prikje maar'. Na de prikbus delen we vanuit een opblaasbootje met een pijl en boog een eigen prikje uit: we enteren priklocatie SS Rotterdam.Dit lied is geschreven door Wijnand Schippers als protestliedje voor op demonstraties. We hebben het voor de studio bewerkt en opgenomen bij Dennis Spaanstra van Police for Freedom, die het gebruikte als eindopdracht voor zijn opleiding. Meewerkende muzikanten: Wijnand Schippers - zang, ukelele. Rico Brouwer - zang, bas. Nippy Noya - percussie. Ron Baggerman - orgel. Dennis Spaanstra verzorgde de opname en mix. Videoclip camera en montage: Renko.

Dank aan 'team Potkaars', 'team Ukes for Freedom', 'team Police for Freedom' en alle andere mensen die met liefde voor vrijheid, gezondheid en democratie hebben meegewerkt aan het maken van dit lied en de videoclip!

Het liedje is uitgebracht onder creative commons licentie. Creative Commons BY-NC-4.0

Iedereen doet mee aan dit experimentJe krijgt allemaal een brief als je aan de beurt bentIn ruil voor een prikkie werd ons vrijheid beloofdIk ben heel erg benieuwd wie dat nu nog geloofd

Hugo blijft maar steeds stellig beweren - samen voor elkaarHet enige dat helpt is vaccineren - een heel klein prikje maarHCQ met zink, ivermectine - vaccinatie maakt je vrijDaar valt geen droog brood mee te verdienen - geproikt hoor je erbij

Vaccinatie, geen ethisch experimentWat het doet is nu nog onbekendWat zit er in en gaat het niet te snelWat maakt het uit zegt minister frikandel

Zit gezondheid dan alleen in spuiten - het is de enige manierNee ik ga gewoon lekker naar buiten - de uitweg naar vertierEet gezond en ook genoeg bewegen - vaccinatie maakt je vrijDan kan mijn immuun systeem ertegen - geprikt hoor je erbij

Vaccinatie, geen ethisch experimentWat het doet is nu nog onbekendWat zit er in het gaat mij veel te snelMij niet gezien, nee ik zeg dank je wel

Dansen met Jansen en ook weer op reisJe grijpt toch je kansen maar betaalt ook de prijsNieuwe varianten, ze komen er aanEn zonder pardon je vrijheid van de baan '' aan

Vaccinatie, ge(e)n-ethisch experimentWat het doet is nu nog onbekendWat zit er in en gaat het niet te snelMij niet gezien nee ik zeg dank je wel

Vaccinatie, ge(e)n-ethisch experiment - een groot experimentWat het doet is nu nog onbekend - wordt steeds meer bekendWat zit er in het gaat mij veel te snel Mij niet gezien nee ik zeg dank je welDank je wel

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Sun, 26 Sep 2021 10:25

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Sun, 26 Sep 2021 09:46

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 22:10

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 20:12

Prepare Today And SAVE $50Off A Full 4-WEEK SUPPLYMy Patriot Supplyhttp://preparewithx22.com

Today's Guest: Dr. ZelenkoWebsite: https://zstacklife.com

Dr. Zelenko Board Certified Family Physician with over 20 years experience. Dr. Zelenko was nominated for the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Nobel Prize , Dr. Zelenko's team was one of the first in the country to successfully treat thousands of Covid-19 patients in the prehospital setting. Dr. Zelenko developed his now famous ''Zelenko Protocol,'' which has saved countless lives worldwide. Dr. Zelenko recommended that President Trump take hydroxychloroquine. Dr. Zelenko explains how and why he decided to use HCQ and how he has create success in curing over 7000 patients who had covid. Cures already exist, and Dr. Zelenko believes that HCQ might even cure the flu and this is why the medical community is pushing back so hard, it would eliminate the flu shot.

All source links to the report can be found on the x22report.com site.

Most of artwork that are included with these videos have been created by X22 Report and they are used as a representation of the subject matter. The representative artwork included with these videos shall not be construed as the actual events that are taking place.

Intro Video Music: YouTube Free Music: Cataclysmic Molten Core by Jingle Punks

Intro Music: YouTube Free Music: Warrior Strife by Jingle Punks

Fair Use Notice: This video contains some copyrighted material whose use has not been authorized by the copyright owners. We believe that this not-for-profit, educational, and/or criticism or commentary use on the Web constitutes a fair use of the copyrighted material (as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Fair Use notwithstanding we will immediately comply with any copyright owner who wants their material removed or modified, wants us to link to their web site, or wants us to add their photo.

The X22 Report is "one man's opinion". Anything that is said on the report is either opinion, criticism, information or commentary, If making any type of investment or legal decision it would be wise to contact or consult a professional before making that decision.

Use the information found in these videos as a starting point for conducting your own research and conduct your own due diligence before making any significant investing decisions.

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 18:16

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 17:57

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 17:06

Evelyn Rae : According to our health officials over here in Australia, we are never going back to normal. https://t.co/9mxNJc5t73

Sat Sep 25 10:09:25 +0000 2021

'•¸ Cranker ðŸ‡(C)🇰🇨ðŸ‡... : @_evelynrae https://t.co/yupNpEQCnH

Sat Sep 25 17:03:48 +0000 2021

thomas polino : @_evelynrae covid it only a cold.

Sat Sep 25 16:58:21 +0000 2021

ZKB : @_evelynrae Leave Australia while u still can

Sat Sep 25 16:55:05 +0000 2021

Lindsay : @_evelynrae Idc what anyone says, she's NOT human.

Sat Sep 25 16:54:12 +0000 2021

toxic ðŸª' : @_evelynrae Ofc not you are slaves now!

Sat Sep 25 16:51:50 +0000 2021

CryptoMac// : @_evelynrae Last I checked 38% there are vaccinated. And am guessing the way they are handling it. That won't chang'... https://t.co/TYyFeQvN3m

Sat Sep 25 16:44:55 +0000 2021

Landon : @_evelynrae @CryptoParadyme That a weird looking man. Wats he sayin? Lol

Sat Sep 25 16:42:11 +0000 2021

JÅ' K : @_evelynrae Remember. She used the words ''New World Order.'' Her own words from her mouth. Get out if you can

Sat Sep 25 16:37:42 +0000 2021

Choose Freewill #VotePPC : @_evelynrae The People's Party of Canada @peoplespca is the only party that can prevent this over here, and we only'... https://t.co/hPWaWcWead

Sat Sep 25 16:37:12 +0000 2021

more pro-choice than you : @_evelynrae This could have also easily been discerned from Victoria's roadmap, lol https://t.co/7ek515rT3m

Sat Sep 25 16:35:07 +0000 2021

Er0k.0ne1 : @_evelynrae These fucking psychopaths got so many people buying the Kool aid is crazy

Sat Sep 25 16:33:48 +0000 2021

Cols : @_evelynrae At least they're honest about it lol

Sat Sep 25 16:29:41 +0000 2021

Michael : @_evelynrae Who's voting for these people?

Sat Sep 25 16:24:54 +0000 2021

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 16:39

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 16:37

Co-authors of the new book ''Peril'' Bob Woodward and Robert Costa discuss the documents, memos, and private conversation behind what amounts to a coup plot by the former president and the measures military leaders took to protect the country from him Sept. 22, 2021

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 16:23

DeLo73 : Huh?? What??ðŸ¤ðŸ¤ https://t.co/7ClpflLn7k

Fri Sep 24 13:34:04 +0000 2021

Brayton : @DeLo1973 That is so ridiculous!

Sat Sep 25 16:21:41 +0000 2021

TessaðŸ§...ðŸ' : @DeLo1973 https://t.co/yIeKyhYi42

Sat Sep 25 16:18:30 +0000 2021

Sin City RAIDERS : @DeLo1973 99.98%

Sat Sep 25 16:18:15 +0000 2021

Jin''¨ðŸ—£ðŸ'› : @DeLo1973 Now people may begin to wonder and believe it's a bio-weapon

Sat Sep 25 16:16:19 +0000 2021

theCallOut : @DeLo1973 So you F'd up and got jabbed but it's our fault still'... ok got it! Thanks for playing betch. ðŸ¤

Sat Sep 25 16:15:13 +0000 2021

RED_PILL_FITNESS : @DeLo1973 She just described vaccine shedding

Sat Sep 25 16:14:16 +0000 2021

Hockeyguy77 : @DeLo1973 Clown https://t.co/eGDhkBvQfC

Sat Sep 25 16:13:48 +0000 2021

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 16:03

ron9898 Published September 19, 2021 357 rumbles

Rumble '-- The Testimonies Project was created to provide a platform for all those who were affected after getting the covid-19 vaccines, and to make sure their voices are heard, since they are not heard in the Israeli media.

We hope this project will encourage more and more people to tell their story. to view all the testimonies:https://www.vaxtestimonies.org/en/

10sPuppy can't decide if he wants to sleep or drink watergoldenpoodleharleyeuna$10.87 earned

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10sWe Caught SO MUCH Bait!BlacktipH

1h07m18sNew Proof Emerges About the Hunter Biden Laptop: a Definitive Account of the CIA/Media FraudGlenn Greenwald

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2m28sExcited Great Danes wait for their owner to come homeMaxandKatietheGreatDanes$10.85 earned

6sHungry Fish BITES my Hand!BlacktipH

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 15:51

The week of Valentine's Day, 2021, the temperature dropped below zero.

Nobody could remember it being this cold for this long.

This was Texas, not Siberia.

But Texas is the energy state. There was nothing to fear. Just go home, turn on the heat, and hunker down.

That's how it should have gone.

Instead, over five days, four million Texans lost power during what turned out to be the coldest winter storm in a half a century. Hundreds died, including an 11-year-old boy who froze to death in his sleep.

The state's electric grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, ERCOT, later reported the state was just four minutes away from total grid collapse.

The media was quick to blame the state government for not being fully prepared and not acting fast enough.

This may be true, but ERCOT's mistakes were symptoms, not the cause, of the problem.

The real cause is decades of misguided policies that have left the Lone Star State with an unreliable energy infrastructure.

It's a cautionary tale that the rest of the country needs to learn from.

From 2010 to 2020, the population of Texas increased by 4 million people, and the state's economy grew 35%. But while all this growth was happening, the state's reliable energy capacity was actually shrinking. Meanwhile, its unreliable energy capacity was surging. In fact, it almost tripled.

Let's break this down.

Reliable energy is fossil fuels'--coal and natural gas'--and nuclear. These fuels produce a near-constant flow of electricity. Unreliable, or variable energy, is renewable energy'--wind and solar. They're unreliable because they depend on the whims of Mother Nature.

In 2020, Texans got 25% of their energy from renewables. During the February storm, however, that fell to 8%, at one point reaching a deadly low of just 1.5%.

The reason? Renewable energy only works when the weather cooperates, but it's useless when it doesn't'--like when it conjures up a giant snowstorm. Solar panels don't capture sunlight and wind turbines don't spin when covered in snow and ice.

Given renewables' unreliability, how is it that Texas, of all places, became so dependent on them?

That story begins in 1999, when Texas politicians on the left and the right fell in love with the idea that they could turn the state into a green energy powerhouse. It sounded like a great idea at the time: Instead of passing any new mandates, they would do it by offering massive subsidies, marketed as "incentives," to produce wind and solar power. This ended up working out great for wind and solar companies, but not so great for reliable energy providers.

To illustrate this, imagine that you own a restaurant. One day you learn that your competitor down the street is getting government support. He gets so much help that, instead of charging his customers, he can pay them to eat his food. Not surprisingly, your customers abandon your restaurant for his. Your competitor prospers off the taxpayers' backs while your business withers.

Let's apply this analogy to the real world of renewable energy. Wind and solar get so much in subsidies they're guaranteed a profit. And unlike fossil fuel producers, they're not even required to provide reliable power. It's no wonder fossil fuel plants are closing, and nuclear plants are not being built.

The wind and solar companies are protected from the laws of supply and demand. They can't lose, and the fossil fuel plants can't compete. That's how out of whack the Texas electricity market has become.

Since 2006, the state has subsidized renewable energy to the tune of $19 billion. All of this came right out of Texans' wallets, courtesy of ever-increasing electric bills and rising property taxes. And what does Texas have to show for it? An electric grid that failed when Texans needed it most.

Unfortunately, this scenario is playing out across America.

Over the past decade, the federal government has spent over $230 billion on energy subsidies, and that doesn't even include subsidies the states give away.

It's true that Uncle Sam also grants favors to fossil fuel companies. Renewable energy advocates love to point this out, but here's what they neglect to mention: compared to fossil fuel companies, for every unit of electricity generated, Washington subsidizes wind 17 times and solar 75 times more.

Yet, despite all this aid, renewables provide just 4 percent of the country's total energy supply.

The verdict is in: renewable energy is expensive and unreliable. And if it can render America's leading power producer powerless, it can do the same to your state.

Government meddling got us into this mess. It's time for politicians to step aside and let the free market get us out of it.

I'm Jason Isaac from the Texas Public Policy Foundation, for Prager University.

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 15:27

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 15:04

Doconomy is a ''credit card'' endorsed by Klaus Schwab's World Economic Forum.

But there is more!

It tracks the ''environmental impact'' of everything you buy (including food) and cuts you off when you ''used up all your carbon credits.''

That's right, it's the first credit card ever to stop you from overspending based on the level of CO2 emissions generated by your consumption. It's presented as an ''educational effort,'' according to one of the founders.

Now Mastercard will ''team up'' with Doconomy, as announced in a Tweet recently.

If you like to eat meat, better don't ever consider this credit card at all:

Welcome to the ''Great Reset'' in the world of credit cards:

Doconomy also emphasizes gender and racial equality, with 50% of their board being female, and a woman of color serving as their CEO.

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Sat, 25 Sep 2021 13:58

The nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says the U.S. could be facing another "dark winter," though this can be avoided if Americans get vaccinated to a "very high degree" in the coming months.

On "The Takeout" podcast this week, chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett recalled that in late 2020, President Biden had warned that the U.S. was headed for a "very dark winter" because of the rising COVID cases. He asked Fauci if the prevalence of the Delta variant and the 70 million Americans still refusing a vaccine could result in the same forecast this winter.

"You know, if we don't get people vaccinated who need to be vaccinated, and we get that conflating with an influenza season, we could have a dark, bad winter," Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Biden, said.

However, "we could also avoid a dark, bad winter if we get people vaccinated to a very high degree over the next several weeks to a month or two," Fauci also said, adding that there's "no room" for politicization of vaccines in a public health crisis.

Recently, the Biden administration imposed new limits on orders of monoclonal antibody treatments after demand spiked in states that are still heavily unvaccinated and that are seeing high daily rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations. Since then, a debate has ensued about the ethical implications of the use of monoclonal antibodies to treat the unvaccinated '-- versus those who have been vaccinated but get a breakthrough case of the virus.

Major Garrett interviews Dr. Anthony Fauci on "The Takeout." September 2021. screen grab CBS News Fauci said monoclonal antibody treatments should be made available to people who get infected with COVID-19 "whether or not they're unvaccinated or vaccinated."

Treating patients equally, regardless of vaccination status, is paramount, Fauci told Garrett.

"You should make monoclonal antibodies available to people who get infected, whether or not they're unvaccinated or vaccinated, you don't discriminate against somebody because of their choice of getting vaccinated or not," Fauci said. "You treat each person who gets infected as an individual who deserves the best possible care."

As the government moves toward expanding the authorization of booster shots for Pfizer vaccine recipients, Fauci said he "doesn't recommend" getting the boosters unless people are in eligible categories. But despite the fact that over 2 million have gone ahead and gotten a third shot. Fauci showed little concern.

"Since we have enough vaccines to not only vaccinate everybody, but boost everybody, I don't think it hurts the larger system," Fauci said.

Fauci, who has worked with seven U.S. presidents, also talked about the differences between the current one and his predecessor. He said he became a "bogeyman" for Trump supporters, while the Biden administration has an "entirely different approach" to COVID-19.

"One of the things that was a bit disturbing in the prior situation was anecdotal things were given almost as much weight as scientifically proven things. That I think was something that I had to speak up against," Fauci said. "I became sort of the bogeyman for people, you know, who were very much pro-Trump and very much against me. And it was silly because it isn't me against the president. I was not against the president at all."

Fauci also addressed largely Republican accusations of "flip-flopping" on mask guidance and other coronavirus protections.

"I know there are detractors who push that aside and say, 'No, no, no, no, you just fli- flop.' Well, flip-flop is do you change your mind when nothing else has changed. But when the science changes and you change with the science, that's not flip-flopping," Fauci said. "All of a sudden it was me who flip-flopped when it wasn't. The entire system changed based on the science."

HighlightsFauci on another "dark winter" in 2021-2022: "Are we going to have a dark winter? You know, if we don't get the people vaccinated who need to be vaccinated and we get that conflating with an influenza season, we could have a dark, bad winter, but we could also avoid a dark, bad winter if we get people vaccinated to a very high degree over the next several weeks to a month or two."Working for Trump v. Biden: "One of the things that was a bit disturbing in the prior situation was anecdotal things were given almost as much weight as scientifically proven things. That I think was something that I had to speak up against. And unfortunately, that triggered a degree of animosity towards me that, you know, well, we don't need to really hash that animosity not only within the environment of the White House, but among the numerous followers of the president. So I became sort of the boogeyman for people, you know, who were very much pro-Trump and very much against me. And it was silly because it isn't me against the president. I was not against the president at all, not at all."Biden's declaration of independence from the virus on July 4 '-- premature? "Well, I don't think so'... And then all of a sudden comes this Delta variant and bingo. All your plans are turned upside down. That happened."Ethics of rationing monoclonal antibodies: "You know, you should make monoclonal antibodies available to people who get infected, whether or not they're unvaccinated or vaccinated, you don't discriminate against somebody because of their choice of getting vaccinated or not'... You treat each person who gets infected as an individual who deserves the best possible care."For more of Major's conversation with Fauci, download "The Takeout" podcast on Art19, iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher. New episodes are available every Friday morning. Also, you can watch "The Takeout" onCBSN Friday at 5pm, 9pm, and 12am ET and Saturday at 1pm, 9pm, and 12am ET. For a full archive of "The Takeout" episodes, visit www.takeoutpodcast.com. And you can listen to "The Takeout" on select CBS News Radio affiliates (check your local listings).

Producers: Arden Farhi, Jamie Benson, Jacob Rosen, Sara Cook and Eleanor WatsonCBSN Production: Eric Soussanin and Julia Boccagno Show email: TakeoutPodcast@cbsnews.comTwitter: @TakeoutPodcastInstagram: @TakeoutPodcastFacebook: Facebook.com/TakeoutPodcast

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RNC Research : WATCH: President Biden, during meeting with Indian PM Modi:''The Indian press is much better behaved than the Amer'... https://t.co/AkiwizPsFm

Fri Sep 24 17:56:00 +0000 2021

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Just unlock the doors to the BB&T Center... : @RNCResearch A free press'...

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Pete Kumar : @RNCResearch @GOP PM Modi does not mess around.

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Bharat Kalyan : @RNCResearch HilariousðŸ‚. Obviously he never watched any Indian news channel.

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 14:57

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated teacher shortages in public schools across the United States, forcing some to return to remote learning.

Teacher shortages and difficulties filling job openings have been reported in Tennessee, New Jersey, and South Dakota, which saw one school district begin the year with 120 teacher vacancies.

In Texas, Houston, Waco, and a number of other districts saw hundreds of teaching vacancies unfilled at the start of the year.

In one California school district, staff are reportedly sending flyers home with students to let parents know the district is ''now hiring.''

The shortage comes amid a spike in retirements and resignations of teachers prompted by the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, schools are already under pressure to hire tutors to make up for lost learning time, while more positions need to be filled in order to run online learning classes for those who aren't ready to return.

According to a June poll that surveyed 2,690 members of the National Education Association between May 19 and May 26, one-third of members reported plans to leave education sooner than they had initially planned as a result of the pandemic, which could further exacerbate the existing teacher shortage.

A separate survey conducted by the RAND Corp. in January and February found that nearly one in four teachers said that they were likely to leave their jobs by the end of the 2020''21 school year, compared with one in six teachers who were likely to leave prior to the pandemic.

The survey noted that a higher proportion of teachers had reported experiencing frequent job-related stress and symptoms of depression when compared to the general population, citing pandemic-era teaching conditions, such as technical problems while teaching remotely, as just some of those job-related stresses.

Public schools across the United States were already suffering from teacher shortages, particularly in math, science, special education, and languages, prior to the pandemic. But several of them have now been forced to shut down and return to remote learning amid further unfilled vacancies.

Remote learning works well when it's thoughtfully planned and voluntary for both students and teachers. (Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock)Linda Darling-Hammond, president of California's State Board of Education, said the shortage was ''really a nationwide issue and definitely a statewide issue.''

The shortages could potentially lead to some schools, particularly those in low-income communities, hiring under-qualified teachers as they race to fill vacant positions while class sizes expand.

One school, Mount Diablo Unified School District, which serves 28,000 students east of San Francisco, has filled several of its elementary classrooms at the maximum capacity of 32 students'--even while social distancing rules remain in place'--in an effort to relieve pressure from remote teachers.

Initially, around 150 children had signed up for distance learning. But that number soon spiked to 600 during the pandemic.

As a result, some schools'--including Mount Diablo district'--are now offering sizable bonus schemes for some of their teachers in an effort to fill vacancies.

Adam Clark, superintendent of Mount Diablo Unified, said the district is offering $5,000 signing bonuses for speech pathologists and $1,500 bonuses for paraeducators who help students with learning needs.

Another California school district, San Francisco Unified, is offering a similar bonus scheme for 100 paraeducator jobs, while nearby West Contra Costa County Unified School District is providing $6,000 signing bonuses for teachers, with a third of that paid out after the first month.

And the teacher shortage isn't just a problem facing U.S. schools. In New South Wales (NSW), Australia, the alarming shortage of teachers led to numerous occasions of combined classes of up to 45 students and minimal supervision throughout regional and intercity schools.

''This is an example of the very real impact teacher shortages are having on students and teachers in schools from the inner west of Sydney to the Far West of NSW,'' NSW Teachers Federation President Angelo Gavrielatos said in a statement. ''As we prepare for schools to go back next term, it is a stark reminder of why teacher shortages must be addressed as a matter of urgency.''

Rebecca Zhu and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Katabella Roberts is a reporter currently based in Turkey. She covers news and business for The Epoch Times, focusing primarily on the United States.

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Fri, 24 Sep 2021 14:45

The shots will become available for millions more Americans as soon as Friday.

September 24, 2021, 7:06 AM

' 8 min read

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has endorsed an independent advisory panel's recommendation for seniors and other medically vulnerable Americans to get a booster shot of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, six months after their second dose.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, also partially overruled her agency's advisory panel in a notable departure by adding a recommendation for a third dose for people who are considered high risk due to where they work, such as nurses and teachers -- a group which the panel rejected in its recommendation. Some panelists said that without further data, they weren't comfortable with automatically including younger people because of their jobs.

In a statement announcing her decision late Thursday, Walensky pointed to the benefit versus risk analysis she had weighed, and data rapidly evolving.

"In a pandemic, even with uncertainty, we must take actions that we anticipate will do the greatest good," Walensky said. "While today's action was an initial step related to booster shots, it will not distract from our most important focus of primary vaccination in the United States and around the world."

With Walensky's final sign-off, booster shots will now quickly become available for millions more Americans at pharmacies, doctors' offices and other sites that offer the Pfizer vaccine as soon as Friday.

The CDC's independent advisory panel voted unanimously on Thursday to recommend Pfizer boosters for people aged 65 and older, along with long-term care facility residents and people as young as 18, if they have an underlying medical condition.

People younger than 49, however, should only get that third dose if the benefits outweigh the risks, the panel said -- a personal consideration to discuss with their doctor.

Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Rochelle Walensky testifies during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, May 19, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

Walensky's endorsement at least in part buttons up what has become a seething scientific debate after the Biden administration announced "boosters-for-all" ahead of any reviews from the regulatory bodies, or their independent groups. While the White House's political appointees had endorsed Biden's timeline, some of their career scientists and advisers vehemently objected to the incomplete data they were being asked to assess.

Ahead of Thursday's vote, Walensky addressed the panelists and thanked them for "leaning in" to the complex issue at hand and "trying to put the pieces together."

"You're tasked with difficult decisions, weighing the risks and benefits extrapolating from sometimes a wealth and sometimes a paucity of data available," Walensky said, but reminded them that despite the complex and contentious debate they share the goal of pulling the nation out of the pandemic.

"We all recognize that the science and data of COVID-19 are moving faster than any data we've ever seen before. And while I recognize a tremendously heavy lift of the past year, we all know that the pace is unlikely to let up anytime soon," she added. "We will continue this dialogue, you will have more data to review and more recommendations to make and I will be here with you."

Not every panelist was excited about the idea of boosters, insisting the vaccines still provide remarkable protection and that it was unvaccinated Americans who remained most at risk.

"I feel like we're putting lipstick on hogs. This is not going to solve the pandemic," said Dr. Keipp Talbot, a voting panel member and infectious diseases professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

The panel's vote narrowed Wednesday's authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, which did agree to make the shots available to frontline workers.

The vote also followed weeks of a contentious back and forth among top health experts over who should get a booster dose and when -- and whether it's still premature to be asking the question.

Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines await administration at a senior living facility in Worcester, Pa., Aug. 25, 2021. Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE‚ are seeking full U.S. approval for a Covid-19 booster shot for people 16 and older, asking regulators to sign off on athird dose to quell a rise in infections among vaccinated people.

Scientists agreed that while vaccine protection is waning slightly, on the whole, vaccines are still working to dramatically reduce the risk of hospitalization. And many feared endorsing booster doses for most would imply vaccines are no longer working.

"I feel that we're getting too much ahead of ourselves and that we have too much hope on the line with these boosters," said voting member Dr. James Loehr of Cayuga Family Medicine in Ithaca, New York. "Having said that, you shouldn't let the perfect be in the way of the good."

Panelists initially pushed back on the proposals that American adults, 18 to 64, who are at risk for severe COVID-19 infection due to underlying medical conditions, or due to their occupation and setting receive a Pfizer booster dose. Many members stressed that in order to truly "move the dial" on the pandemic, more people need to complete the initial vaccination series.

"I think two and three are fraught with peril," said member Dr. Oliver Brooks, chief medical officer of Watts HealthCare Corporation in Los Angeles, California. "They'll be superfluous and they'll create great inequities and problems within the implementation, so I'm really concerned about the data for boosters in general."

One repeated sticking point for the CDC's panelists during deliberations on Thursday: the still-open question over whether boosting with mixed vaccines might be permitted -- since for those who received the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, there is no third dose protection currently available.

The FDA's vaccine chief, Dr. Peter Marks, addressed the CDC's panelists ahead of Thursday's vote and acknowledged their frustrations.

"I think we understand at FDA the relative urgency here of trying to have a solution for anyone who has been vaccinated with any of the authorized or approved vaccines," Marks said. "Unfortunately, we're not in a place right now which I can give you an exact timeline, but I can tell you that we will proceed with all due urgency to try to get there as rapidly as possible."

ABC News' Eric M. Strauss contributed to this report.

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