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1. Thousands stranded at airports in Christmas holiday travel nightmareПт, 24 дек 2021[-/+]
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Dozens of flights have been canceled across the US on Christmas Eve due to Covid staff shortages with thousands of passengers stuck at the airports and others forced to cancel holidays altogether.

The nationwide spike in Omicron cases this week has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation. As a result, we’ve unfortunately had to cancel some flights and are notifying impacted customers in advance of them coming to the airport,” Chicago-based United Airlines said in a statement.

United did not specify how many flights have been affected by Covid-related issues, but according to media reports, about 120 got canceled, with Delta saying that it has canceled 90.

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Anthony Fauci (C) and other White House officials meet with President Joe Biden, in the White House in Washington, DC, December 16, 2021.
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The Atlanta-based Delta said that prior to this decision its teams “have exhausted all options and resources – including rerouting and substitutions of aircraft and crews to cover scheduled flying.”

This follows a call to US authorities by Delta CEO Ed Bastian, who asked to cut quarantine for fully vaccinated people to five days from the current 10. As a reason for his request, he cited Covid-related staff shortages. Earlier, JetBlue and the trade group Airlines for America addressed the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with similar requests.

According to an American Automobile Association forecast, more than 109 million people – almost 34% more than in 2020 – “will travel 50 miles or more as they hit the road, board airplanes or take other transportation out of town” between December 23 and January 2. Out of these 109 million, 6.4 million are going to travel by air.

Passengers affected by delays and cancellations took to Twitter to express their frustration over the unfortunate start to the holidays.

My international flight just got canceled 5 hours before I have to leave for the airport. Canceling my family Christmas reunification. The wait to speak to a cust serv rep is 3, 4 hours according to the machine. I need help now. Please,” wrote one of the users tagging Delta airlines.

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2. US congresswoman carjacked at gunpointЧт, 23 дек 2021[-/+]
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A Democrat member of the US Congress was carjacked and robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight in South Philadelphia. Representative Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pennsylvania) was not physically harmed, but her car and possessions were taken.

Scanlon was walking to a parking lot on Pattison Avenue on Wednesday afternoon, around 2:45pm local time, when she was approached by two armed men who demanded her car keys and personal effects. They took her personal and government-issued cell phones, and drove away in Scanlon’s 2017 Acura, spokesperson Lauren Cox told reporters.

“She’s physically OK, but her vehicle and possessions are gone,” Cox told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The congresswoman, first elected in 2018, was meeting with constituents at nearby FDR Park, over the proposed development plan. The robbery took place just down the road from the Wells Fargo Center, where the Democrats held their 2016 presidential convention.

Chief Inspector Frank Vanore of the Philadelphia Police Department said the two suspects were last seen driving the car toward the southbound I-95 interstate highway. The FBI is assisting the Philadelphia PD with the investigation.

Moments ago @RepMGS left South Detectives after she was carjacked at gunpoint in broad daylight at FDR park. Along with her car , her govt ID & cell phone were also taken. She was returning to her car after a tour at the park. @6abc pic.twitter.com/WdHZKlX7x6

— Annie McCormick (@6abcAnnie) December 22, 2021

Mayor Jim Kenney, a fellow Democrat, said in a statement he was “appalled to learn of this violent crime that was perpetrated against my friend and congresswoman.”

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“Everyone deserves to feel safe in our city, and sadly, as we know, that hasn’t always been the case this year. It’s disheartening, and quite frankly infuriating, that criminals feel emboldened to commit such a reckless crime in the middle of the day in what should be a place of tranquility and peace – one of Philadelphia’s beautiful parks,” Kenney added.

The attack on Scanlon comes amid a surge in violent crime in the city of some 1.5 million residents, where the 13 American colonies declared their independence from Britain in 1776. Philadelphia had recorded 521 homicides in 2021 earlier this month, shattering its previous record set in 1990.

Philadelphia elected Larry Krasner, a civil rights activist backed by Democrat mega-donor George Soros, as district attorney in 2017. Since then, Krasner has worked to abolish cash bail and prosecuted a record number of police officers for alleged misconduct, while “dramatically” reducing prosecution for “minor” crimes such as retail theft and prostitution.

Scanlon has campaigned with other congressional Democrats to “dismantle systems of hate, hold law enforcement officers accountable, and push for the adoption – and use – of unbiased policing practices,” according to her official website.

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3. Amazon limits Covid test kit purchases amid Omicron waveСр, 22 дек 2021[-/+]
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Amazon has announced a limit to the number of at-home Covid test kits per customer as demand surges amid a rise in cases since the discovery of the Omicron variant. Walgreens and CVS also introduced purchase limits.

Online retail giant Amazon revealed on Wednesday that the company and its vendors are experiencing inventory shortages for Covid tests as demand rises amid more people traveling for the holidays. Purchases will now be limited to 10 tests per shopper.

Testing kits sold through vendors have also been capped, though these decisions are made by the third-party sellers, Amazon said.

A surge in home testing for Covid infections amid Omicron fears has also led to Walgreens and CVS putting purchase caps on such kits. Shortages across the nation also led to President Joe Biden announcing recently that the federal government would be investing in making 500 million testing kits available to the public.

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(FILE PHOTO) © REUTERS/ Sumaya Hisham
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Walgreens announced this week that customers are limited to four test kits each, while CVS has capped purchases at six per customer.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky urged calm in a Wednesday interview when addressing the latest coronavirus variant, which she says has a “rapid” rate of transmission.

“We have vaccines. We have boosters, and we have all the science that demonstrates the prevention interventions like masking in indoor settings work to mitigate the spread of this virus,” she said, adding there “is really no need to panic.”

Omicron was first identified by scientists in South Africa last month and has since been confirmed in multiple countries, including the US, where it has become the dominant coronavirus strain.

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4. After Trump’s move, White House says Biden to speak on Jan 6Ср, 22 дек 2021[-/+]
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President Joe Biden will make a public statement on the anniversary of the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, the White House said. This comes after former President Donald Trump said he would hold a public event on that day.

“I think it's safe to say that the American people will hear from him on that day,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said at a news briefing on Wednesday, when asked if Biden would speak.

Psaki said last week that Biden wanted to commemorate “one of the darkest days in our democracy,” but could give no details at that point as to what specifically he might do.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) said on Monday she was planning a “solemn observance” of the anniversary, featuring a panel of historians, a “prayerful vigil,” and an opportunity for members of Congress to “share their experiences and reflections from that day,” even though the House is not scheduled to be in session.

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FILE PHOTO
Trump announces event on Capitol riot anniversary

On Tuesday, Trump said he would hold a news conference at his residence, the Mar-a-Lago Club, in Florida, to address what he called a protest against the “rigged election.” While the Democrats have called the January 6 events an “insurrection,” Trump said the actual insurrection “took place on November 3,” the 2020 election day.

On January 6, the House of Representatives and the Senate met in a joint session to certify the 2020 election results, according to which Biden won the presidency. Trump alleged irregularities and fraud, giving a speech outside the White House earlier in the day.

After a group of people urged his supporters to storm the Capitol, hundreds of people entered the building and disrupted Congress just as Republicans began objecting to the election results. Four of the protesters died in the ensuing riot – one of them fatally shot by a Capitol Police officer. When Congress reconvened later that evening, Republicans dropped their objections to the election results amid Democrat accusations of “insurrection.”

None of the participants in the riot have been charged with insurrection, which is a specific term in the 14th Amendment – adopted after the Civil War – under which those declared rebels against the government can be stripped of citizenship and voting rights.

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5. First Covid-19 pill treatment approved for emergency use in USСр, 22 дек 2021[-/+]
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Pfizer’s Paxlovid tablets against Covid have been given emergency use authorization by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The first pill treatment of this kind, it can be prescribed to high-risk patients aged 12 and older.

“Today’s authorization introduces the first treatment for [Covid]-19 that is in the form of a pill that is taken orally – a major step forward in the fight against this global pandemic,” said Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

The combination of nirmatrelvir and ritonavir packaged for oral use will be available to treat mild-to-moderate Covid-19 in people who test positive and are at “high risk for progression to severe” disease, including hospitalization or death, the FDA said on Wednesday.

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The drug is available by prescription only, and should be taken as soon as possible after diagnosis, and within five days of the onset of symptoms. It is not authorized for pre-exposure or post-exposure prevention, however, nor is it considered a substitute for vaccination.

According to the agency, the treatment is meant to last no longer than five days and consists of three pills: two tablets of nirmatrelvir and one of ritonavir taken twice daily. Nirmatrelvir is intended to stop the virus from replicating, and ritonavir slows the first drug’s breakdown to enable it to last longer.

While there are “no adequate, approved, and available alternatives” to Paxlovid, the FDA does warn that there are possible side effects. In addition to a risk of “impaired sense of taste, diarrhea, high blood pressure, and muscle aches,” there is potential for “significant” drug interactions with certain HIV medications. Paxlovid is also not recommended for people with liver and kidney impairments, as ritonavir may cause liver damage. The FDA has published a full list of potential drug interactions in a guide for healthcare providers.

The approval is based on a double-blind clinical trial of patients who had not been vaccinated or previously contracted Covid-19. According to the study, Paxlovid reduced Covid-related hospitalization or death by 88% compared to the placebo.

The White House has already announced it has purchased 10 million doses of the Paxlovid treatment, as well as three million doses of Merck’s Lagrevio, a molnupiravir-based pill, which is also expected to get the green light from the FDA this week.

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6. Twitter sued, accused of acting ‘on behalf’ of US govtСр, 22 дек 2021[-/+]
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Former New York Times reporter and outspoken critic of the US response to the Covid pandemic Alex Berenson is suing Twitter for suspending his account, claiming the platform “acted on behalf of the federal government.

In the lawsuit, filed this week in the Northern District of California, Berenson accused Twitter of breach of contract and of violating his First Amendment rights.

The alleged breach of contract stems from the fact that Berenson claims a Twitter executive had repeatedly assured him that he would be free to express his views on the platform without fear of retaliation.

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“Despite the controversy around his statements, a senior Twitter executive repeatedly assured Mr. Berenson that the company backed his right to free expression and that he would continue to enjoy access to the platform,” Berenson’s lawyers said in the suit.

The independent reporter and best-selling author was reportedly suspended from Twitter in August over a tweet questioning whether Covid vaccines could actually prevent infection and transmission of the virus, referring to them as “therapeutic” drugs. A Twitter spokesperson at the time said Berenson was permanently suspended for “repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules.”

In the tweet, Berenson wrote: “It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine. Think of it – at best – as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS.”

Berenson argues the platform acted on behalf of the Biden administration in censoring his posts, as the president himself had criticized “misinformation” about Covid spreading on social media only days before the author’s suspension.

He is also claiming in his lawsuit that a California law applying to “common carriers” applies to Twitter. The legislation, dating back to 1872, regulates companies that “offer to the public to carry persons, property, or messages.”

Berenson’s lawyers argue the legislation is relevant to the suit as the “courts have repeatedly applied the 1872 law to telephone companies and other technologies that did not exist at the time it was enacted,” adding that Twitter does not have the publishing freedom typically afforded due to the common carrier law.

Berenson has drawn the ire of some political activists and health officials for his views on the pandemic. The author has criticized media coverage of Covid-19 and its lethality, as well as government lockdowns and vaccine mandates. The Atlantic dubbed him “the pandemic’s wrongest man” in April.

Berenson is seeking unspecified monetary damages and a reinstatement of his Twitter account.

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7. Trump reveals why he didn’t pardon Snowden or AssangeСр, 22 дек 2021[-/+]
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Former President Donald Trump has said he was “very close to going the other way” on issuing a pardon for Julian Assange or Edward Snowden before he left the White House, ultimately deciding not to grant clemency to either.

During an interview with the Daily Wire’s Candace Owens this week, Trump was asked why he failed to issue pardons to WikiLeaks co-founder Assange and National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Snowden, which activists had been pushing for in the president’s final months in office.

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WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange leaves Westminster Magistrates Court in London, Britain January 13, 2020. © Reuters / Henry Nicholls
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“You have two sides of it,” Trump said. He described their separate situations as, respectively, a “sort of a spy deal going on” and “somebody that’s exposing real corruption,” but without indicating which description applied to which person, concluding only that he felt “a little bit more strongly about one than the other.”

Media reports earlier this year indicated Trump had been convinced by aides that an Assange or a Snowden pardon would upset Senate Republicans, who were gearing up to vote in his impeachment trial at the time. He also appeared to negatively reference Assange and “spying” at one point, though he did not elaborate.

“There [were] some spying things, and there [were] some bad things released that really set us back and really hurt us with what they did,” he said, according to the Daily Wire. It was alleged during the opening stages of Assange’s extradition hearing in London last year that the journalist had been offered a pardon in exchange for spinning the origin of hacked Democratic emails sent during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The White House denied the claim and said the president “barely” knew the Republican congressman through which the deal had allegedly been offered. The congressman, in turn, said he had made the proposal on his own initiative and the White House had not endorsed it.

Trump said he had ultimately decided to let the issue be handled in the courtroom. “I guess the courts are actually doing that,” he said.

Trump explains to Candace Owens why he started the prosecution of Assange and didn't pardon Assange/Snowden. pic.twitter.com/EknNzx4A4n

— V ? (@Vedthalegend) December 22, 2021

Assange is currently being held in a UK prison, from where it was recently ruled he can be extradited to the US to stand trial on espionage charges for having published documents related to alleged US war crimes during the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns. He faces up to 175 years in prison if convicted. His mental and physical health has deteriorated during his 20 months of incarceration, and he recently suffered a stroke.

Snowden, who has remained a fugitive from the US since whistleblowing on the NSA for unconstitutional spying on the American public in 2013, seemed a more likely candidate for a presidential pardon. The former president said last year he was “looking” at Snowden’s case, noting that many felt he had “not been treated fairly.” This about-face surprised many commentators, given that Trump had previously referred to the former NSA contractor as a “spy who should be executed.”

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8. The average Joe will lose 2 years of lifeСр, 22 дек 2021[-/+]
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US life expectancy in 2020 has suffered an almost two-year drop, with the pandemic being one of the main drivers of excess death, newly released official data has shown.

Life expectancy for the US population in 2020 was 77.0 years, a decrease of 1.8 years from 2019,” reads the report from US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.

Covid-19 became the third leading cause of death in 2020, with heart disease and cancer remaining the top two leading causes. According to CDC figures, coronavirus was “the underlying cause of death” of 350,831 people, the equivalent of 10.4% of the total number of deaths in 2020. Death rates in 2020 increased for all age groups over 15.

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In a separate analysis, based on historical censuses and annual population estimates, the US Census Bureau reported that the country’s population “grew at a slower rate in 2021 than in any other year since the founding of the nation”: by just 392,665, or 0.1%.

The year 2021 is the first time since 1937 that the US population grew by fewer than one million people, featuring the lowest numeric growth since at least 1900, when the Census Bureau began annual population estimates,” reads the report.

According to Census Bureau demographer Kristie Wilder, population growth “has been slowing for years” due to lower birth rates and decreasing net international migration, while mortality rates keep rising because of the aging of the population.“Now, with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, this combination has resulted in a historically slow pace of growth,” she added.

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9. Billionaire quits church over LGBTQ & women's rightsСр, 22 дек 2021[-/+]
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One of the wealthiest people in the US, the $5.2 billion-worth tech executive Jeff T. Green, has announced his split from the Mormon Church which, in his words, is “actively and currently doing harm in the world”.

In a letter to the church’s president Russell M. Nelson, Green claimed that the Mormon church had “hindered global progress in women’s rights, civil rights and racial equality, and LGBTQ+ rights.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, which broke the story, the 44-year-old billionaire and CEO of the Trade Desk advertising platform, had donated $600 000 to Equality Utah, with half of this grant aiming to support LGBTQ students in Utah. In November Green pledged to give at least 90% of his wealth to charities.

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FILE PHOTO: LDS Conference Centre in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S., January 11, 2018. © REUTERS/Mike Blake
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While I left the Mormon church more than a decade ago – not believing, attending, or practicing – I have not officially requested the removal of my records, until now,” Green stated in his letter to Nelson.The businessman cited the financial policy of the church as another reason for his increased antipathy.

He claimed that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormon Church, having accumulated more than $100 billion, “should be doing more to help the world and its members with its wealth” rather than to “build temples, build shopping malls” or to fund investment funds and “own mortgage-backed securities”.

After today, the only contact I want from the church is a single letter of confirmation to let me know that I am no longer listed as a member,” he wrote.

Green is joined in his move by 11 family members and by a friend.There has been no reaction from the church’s President Nelson so far.

The Mormon Church claims to have over 16.5 million members around the world, with almost 31 000 congregations.

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10. Military medics tout new vaccine to end Covid-19 pandemicСр, 22 дек 2021[-/+]
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A candidate vaccine that uses a novel platform and may be good enough to deal with existing and emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2 viruses, will reportedly be announced soon by researchers at the Walter Reed Army Institute in the US.

The unveiling may come “within weeks,” according to Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad, director of Walter Reed’s infectious diseases branch, who was interviewed by Defense One. According to the military publication, the candidate vaccine may offer a single-shot, wide-scale immunity from diseases caused by human coronaviruses, including from future mutations.

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The formula uses a novel Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle (SpFN) platform. Ferritins are natural proteins shaped like globular cages that are normally used by an organism to store iron. Its self-assembly properties have made it an interesting tool for nanofabrication applications.

In the case of vaccination, the protein’s 24 subunits can be fitted with protein spikes similar to those that viruses use to attach to living cells before infecting them. Such nanoparticles may be injected to train the immune system to fight against real viruses. With various kinds of spike proteins included in the same vaccine, it can immunize against a wide range of viruses, past and future, the researchers hope.

Modjarrad’s team says it has good expectations about the efficacy and other properties of their SpFN vaccine-in-waiting, after conducting clinical trials with animals. Their latest publication in Science Translational Medicine details experiments they conducted on rhesus macaques. A separate, Phase 1 human trial has been underway since April.

The challenge with the human trials, Modjarrad told Defense One, was and remains finding people who are still unvaccinated and never caught Covid-19 for the studies to be accurate. He added that his team also wants to evaluate their product “in the real-world setting” with people who were vaccinated or who’ve recovered from the disease.

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11. Shocking scale of Covid relief fraud revealedСр, 22 дек 2021[-/+]
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Nearly $100 billion in Covid-19 relief payments has been stolen by criminals since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the Secret Service, which has launched a campaign to recover the money.

Almost $100 billion of the $3.5 trillion given out by the US government in programs such as the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program has been fraudulently taken, with just over $2.3 billion recovered so far.

The Secret Service – which has more than 900 active investigations into the stolen funds – appointed Special Agent Roy Dotson as its National Pandemic Fraud Recovery Coordinator on Tuesday and the US government is now working with private companies, including PayPal, to recover the money.

Dotson told CNBC that it was “shameful to think that individuals would take advantage of these programs” and “target them for their own personal advantage.”

“I have been in law enforcement for over 29 years and worked some complex fraud investigations for 20+ years and I’ve never seen something at this scale,” Dotson insisted, noting that the loss is so high “because the pot was so big.”

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Man spent millions in Covid relief payments on luxury cars & private jets

“There’s no doubt that the programs were easily accessible online. And so, with that, comes the opportunity for bad actors to get into that mix,” he explained.

The bad actors allegedly include organized-crime groups, but also individuals who saw the relief programs as a get-rich-quick scheme.

One Texas man was arrested last week after he scammed the government out of $3.3 million in relief payments, which he spent on real estate, luxury vehicles, and private jets.

Another Texas man was sentenced to over nine years in prison in November for spending more than $1.6 million in relief payments on a life of luxury, including a $14,000 Rolex watch, a Lamborghini, and strippers.

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12. Elon Musk unveils ‘biggest threat to modern civilization’Ср, 22 дек 2021[-/+]
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Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has criticized ‘wokeness’ and mocked CNN in an interview with the conservative satire website the Babylon Bee, calling political correctness one of the greatest threats to civilization.

In the fiery interview, which aired on Tuesday evening, Musk protested attempts to cancel comedian Dave Chappelle and said the “woke mind virus” is “arguably one of the biggest threats to modern civilization.”

“It should be OK to be humorous. Wokeness basically wants to make comedy illegal, which is not cool,” the billionaire said, questioning, “Do we want a humorless society that is simply rife with condemnation and hate?”

“At its heart, wokeness is divisive, exclusionary, and hateful. It basically gives mean people… a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue.”

During the interview, Musk also took aim at CNN amid news that one of the network’s producers – John Griffin – was charged with a series of shocking underage sex crimes this month.

After one of the hosts suggested that Musk “could be on CNN right now,” which is “a real news organization” unlike the Babylon Bee, Musk responded, “I’m not perverted enough, I guess.”

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Tucker Carlson at the National Review Institute's 'Ideas Summit' in Washington, DC. March 29, 2019. © AFP / Getty Images / Chip Somodevilla
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Griffin was arrested just days after CNN fired host Chris Cuomo amid sexual misconduct allegations and a probe into his attempt to defend his brother from similar harassment accusations. CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was also placed on leave last year after he was caught masturbating during an online New Yorker company meeting.

The Babylon Bee mocked CNN's string of scandals this month with the headline, “CNN HR Department Considers Adding 'Are You A Creepy Pervert?' To Employment Application.”

On Tuesday, Musk also threw shade at fellow technology CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse, commenting, “I think we’re far from disappearing into the Metaverse. It sounds just kind of buzzwordy.

“I don’t want to be like some old codger dismissing the internet,” Musk said, adding, however, that he is currently “unable to see a compelling Metaverse situation.”

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13. New Yorkers offered holiday booster dealСр, 22 дек 2021[-/+]
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The New York City government has vowed to shell out $100 to any resident who receives a Covid-19 vaccine booster shot before the end of the year, unveiling yet another cash incentive program amid panic over the Omicron strain.

Outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the move during a Tuesday press conference, saying the cash-grab is a “limited-time opportunity” and will be “by far the biggest booster incentive program” created in the United States.

“We want everyone, right now, as quickly as possible, to get those boosters. And we're going to make it even better for you with a new incentive and an incentive that is here just in time for the holidays,” the mayor said, adding that the rewards will be offered at any city-run vaccination site and certain partnered locations.

“As of today, we're announcing a $100 incentive for everyone who goes out and gets a booster here in New York City, between now and the end of the year.”

The new program mirrors a similar initiative unveiled earlier this year, in which officials also offered $100 to residents who received their very first vaccine dose, though the prior attempt did not appear to have a major effect on immunization rates in the city.

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© REUTERS / Andrew Kelly
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In rolling out the cash offer, de Blasio and other city officials spoke in dire terms about the Covid-19 Omicron strain – the latest ‘variant of concern’ identified by the World Health Organization – citing it by name no less than 16 times during Thursday’s press event.

Despite the alarm, New York City – once a global hotspot for the virus – has seen a dramatic reduction in coronavirus fatalities and hospitalizations over the past year, even amid a spike in new infections. As of Monday, the Big Apple reported an average of 14 deaths per week, significantly lower than its peak of more than 800 in April 2020, while de Blasio himself noted the city’s hospital system is currently “doing very, very well.” Those more promising figures have done little to sway the grave warnings from city and state officials, however, as they continue to sound alarms over the Omicron mutation.

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14. Harvard professor convicted over China & Wuhan university tiesСр, 22 дек 2021[-/+]
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The former head of Harvard University’s chemistry department has been convicted for lying to authorities about his connections to China and the Wuhan Institute of Technology.

Professor Charles Lieber, 62, was found guilty on Tuesday of making false statements to authorities, failing to disclose a Chinese bank account, and tax evasion in connection to his side role as a strategic scientist at China’s Wuhan Institute of Technology.

Lieber also aided China’s Thousand Talents Plan, which recruits foreign experts, while working for Harvard University – one of the most prestigious universities in the US.

Though his work with China was not a crime, Lieber’s decision to withhold information about his involvement violated several laws.

Lieber admitted that he “was not completely transparent with DoD investigators by any stretch of the imagination.” However, his attorney Marc Mukasey called the conviction “a game of gotcha” that relied on loose evidence.

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The professor was arrested in January 2020 under former President Donald Trump’s ‘China Initiative’, which was launched by the Department of Justice to identify “Chinese national security threats” and prosecute “those engaged in trade secret theft, hacking and economic espionage.”

Since Lieber had received millions of dollars in funding from US government bodies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Defense (DoD), the professor was required by law to disclose any “significant foreign financial conflicts of interest, including financial support from foreign governments or foreign entities.”

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15. 3rd-largest US city introduces intentionally ‘inconvenient’ vax mandateСр, 22 дек 2021[-/+]
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Only those who present proof of Covid-19 vaccination and ID will be allowed into Chicago bars, restaurants and gyms after the new year, Mayor Lori Lightfoot has announced, calling the mandate “inconvenient by design.”

Citing the surge in coronavirus cases in the largest Illinois city, the Democrat mayor said she had “no choice” but to impose the mandate, in order to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed.

“If you wish to live life as normally as possible, with the ease to do things that you love, you must be vaccinated in the city of Chicago starting January 3,” Lightfoot announced on Tuesday. “This health order may pose an inconvenience to the unvaccinated, and in fact is inconvenient by design.”

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US President Joe Biden speaks about the country's fight against Covid-19 at the White House, December 21, 2021.
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Under the mandate, anyone over the age of five who wishes to dine indoors, work out at a gym, or visit a Chicago entertainment venue where food or drinks are served, will have to show proof of vaccination. Those 16 and older will also have to show a driver’s license or another form of ID that matches their vaccination record.

Grocery stores without indoor dining sections, houses of worship, and restaurants and bars at Midway and O’Hare airports will be exempt from the mandate, as will charity kitchens, schools and daycare centers.

The order does not apply to employees, however. Establishments that wish to hire people who aren’t fully vaccinated will need to “ensure that those employees both continue to mask when interacting with patrons and provide proof of a weekly negative test” for Covid-19.

This exemption was the product of lobbying by retail and restaurant associations, which also persuaded Lightfoot to postpone the mandate until after Christmas and New Year’s celebrations, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Illinois Retail Merchants Association President Rob Karr pointed out the mandate won’t apply to anyone entering an establishment for less than 10 minutes – such as people picking up carryout, making deliveries, or using the restroom.

It will, however, apply to weddings and private parties where food is served, Lightfoot said at the press conference on Tuesday. The order will be enforced with progressively stronger penalties.

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First Omicron-related death in US reported

“I don’t want to have to go there. We should be way past that point where we see people... trying to put their profits over the health and safety of their patrons and their employees. And if we see that, then we’re gonna bring the hammer down. There’s no question,” she said.

Asked if “more extreme” measures may be needed down the road, Lightfoot said that will depend on “the unvaccinated.”

“Our future is gonna depend upon whether or not they stop being hesitant and get the vaccine,” she said.

Alderman Tom Tunney, who owns three Chicago eateries, said the mandate will make things “more burdensome” and raise costs for restaurants already struggling with a staff shortage, but is better than a lockdown.

“There’s no good coming out of this thing. But, given where we’re at and this latest surge, I guess it’s the prudent thing to do at this point. We certainly don’t want to be shut down,” he told the Sun-Times.

About 20% of Chicago’s 7,300-plus restaurants have folded so far during the pandemic.

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16. Trump announces event on Capitol riot anniversaryСр, 22 дек 2021[-/+]
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Former US President Donald Trump will hold a press conference on the anniversary of the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, he announced in a statement, blasting “weak” Republicans unwilling to investigate the 2020 election.

“Why isn’t the Unselect Committee of highly partisan political hacks investigating the CAUSE of the January 6th protest, which was the rigged Presidential Election of 2020?” Trump claimed on Tuesday in a statement posted on social media by his spokeswoman Liz Harrington.

It was a reference to the House Select Committee investigating what the Democrats have called an “insurrection.” The committee has only two GOP members – Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) – both of whom voted to impeach Trump.

The 45th president has previously denounced Cheney and Kinzinger as “RINOs” (Republicans in name only). In Tuesday’s statement he blasted “weak Republican RINOs” in the Michigan legislature, who refused to investigate claims of election irregularities. He insisted that “the insurrection took place on November 3rd” and January 6 was the protest against the “rigged election.”

“In many ways a RINO is worse than a Radical Left Democrat, because you don’t know where they are coming from and you have no idea how bad they really are for our Country,” Trump said.

I will be having a news conference on January 6th at Mar-a-Lago to discuss all of these points, and more.

Trump’s announcement follows the news that the Democrat-dominated Congress is planning a “solemn observance” of the anniversary at the Capitol. An email from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) to Democrats on Monday said her office is planning events that would include a “prayerful vigil,” a panel of historians, and “an opportunity for Members to share their experiences and reflections from that day,” even though the House will not be in session that week.

Last week, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said there was “no question” that President Joe Biden wanted to commemorate January 6, which he viewed as “one of the darkest days in our democracy,” but could not offer any details.

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17. Biden claims ‘almost all’ Covid victims in America were unvaccinatedСр, 22 дек 2021[-/+]
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Claiming that “almost all” of over 400,000 Americans who died of Covid-19 in 2021 were unvaccinated, US President Joe Biden demanded everyone get vaccinated and boosted as a “patriotic duty” amid the spread of the Omicron variant.

“We should all be concerned about Omicron, but not panicked. If you’re fully vaccinated, especially if you got your booster shot, you’re highly protected,” Biden told reporters at the White House on Tuesday afternoon.

“Almost everyone who has died of Covid-19 over the past many months has been unvaccinated,” he said, adding that those who got the vaccines and boosters have a “high degree of protection against severe illness.”

Biden urged Americans to get vaccinated if they haven’t already, and get booster shots if they have, so they can safely celebrate Christmas and the upcoming holidays. Everyone still ought to wear a mask in indoor public settings, the president added.

BIDEN: "If you're not fully vaccinated, you have good reason to be concerned...You're at a high risk of getting sick...Almost everyone who has died from COVID-19 in the past many months has been unvaccinated" pic.twitter.com/erDV7sLQuT

— VINnews (@VINNews) December 21, 2021

Repeating that “almost all” Americans who died of the virus were unvaccinated, Biden insisted his vaccination mandates were put in place “not to control your life, but to save your life, and the lives of others.”

400,000 of Americans died from Covid this calendar year, and almost all were unvaccinated, almost all were preventable.

In addition to the mandate, which he said was just upheld by courts, Biden said the White House was dipping into emergency management funding to deploy 10,000 more vaccination sites and pop-up clinics for boosters, as well as having FEMA send additional ambulances and build overflow hospitals in New York and Maine, where infections are rising the fastest.

In addition to mandating health insurance to reimburse Covid-19 tests, the federal government is buying 500 million additional tests that Americans will be able to order for free, delivered to their homes in January, Biden said.

He also took the unusual step of mentioning his predecessor by name, bringing up former President Donald Trump’s recent revelation that he took a booster shot, and giving his administration credit for developing the vaccines.

Time and again, Biden blamed the “unvaccinated” for dying, infecting others, and causing hospitals to be overwhelmed. Their choice not to take the jab is “fueled by dangerous misinformation on TV and social media,” he argued, calling it “wrong” and “immoral” and shouting that people doing this need to “stop it now.”

After his presentation, Biden turned to the White House press corps and answered several questions, before saying “I’m not supposed to be having this press conference right now.” He did answer a follow-up question about Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), then walked away.

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18. Bill Gates shares ‘good news’ on progress of Covid pandemicСр, 22 дек 2021[-/+]
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Billionaire Bill Gates has found little sympathy after saying he has canceled “most” of his holiday plans over the Covid variant Omicron, while also providing advice on how the pandemic can end in 2022.

“Just when it seemed like life would return to normal, we could be entering the worst part of the pandemic,” Gates wrote in a lengthy Twitter thread on Tuesday. In the posts, Gates claimed some of his friends have contracted Omicron and he has canceled “most” of his holiday plans due to the variant driving a spike in Covid cases.

Omicron was first discovered last month in South Africa and has since been detected in multiple countries. Texas reported what may be the first death linked to the variant this week. Though little is still actually known about the variant, Gates warned it must be taken “seriously” as it will drive the “worst surge” of Covid cases that we have seen yet because it’s “so infectious.”

If we take the “right steps,” including masking, avoiding big indoor gatherings, and getting vaccinated, Gates said, the pandemic could end sometime next year.

“If there’s good news here, it’s that Omicron moves so quickly that once it becomes dominant in a country, the wave there should last less than 3 months. Those few months could be bad, but I still believe if we take the right steps, the pandemic can be over in 2022,” the Microsoft founder tweeted.

Just when it seemed like life would return to normal, we could be entering the worst part of the pandemic. Omicron will hit home for all of us. Close friends of mine now have it, and I’ve canceled most of my holiday plans.

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) December 21, 2021

In the meantime, we all have to look out for each other, especially the most vulnerable, whether they live down the street or in another country. That means wearing masks, avoiding big indoor gatherings, and getting vaccinated. Getting a booster gives the best protection.

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) December 21, 2021

Gates has already drawn fire during the pandemic, with conspiracy theorists linking his name to numerous unfounded claims surrounding vaccines – possibly due to his charity work distributing doses to underdeveloped nations – while others have criticized him for his views on lockdowns and vaccines. His latest lamentation about not being back to a “normal” life and needing to cancel his holiday plans was met with little sympathy on social media.

"Stop transmission to get immunity levels up so that you get almost no infection whatsoever"
-Bill Gates
"Everyone who takes the vaccine is not just protecting themselves but reducing transmission too and allowing society to get back to normal"
-Bill Gateshttps://t.co/fOqJ1BzELV

— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.substack.com (@JordanSchachtel) December 21, 2021

Bill Gates has cancelled his Christmas holiday plans because of Omicron.

The world’s smallest violin plays.

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) December 21, 2021

Not at all sinister. ???? https://t.co/P7qnZ7Las4

— Yuri Bezmenov's Ghost? (@HotelLubyanka) December 21, 2021

“Announcing a sacrifice that means nothing while promoting more of the same fear and hysteria that is shutting down businesses, killing jobs & destroying sobriety & mental health,” Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce tweeted.

In a year-end blog post published earlier this month, Gates called 2021, in which he also got divorced, “the most unusual and difficult year” of his life. In that post, he also predicted the pandemic could end in 2022.

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19. First injectable HIV prevention drug gets FDA approvalВт, 21 дек 2021[-/+]
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The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first injectable prevention medication for HIV, offering an alternative to pre-exposure preventative tablets.

The new drug, Apretude, is administered to patients every two months via injection. In contrast, pills already on the market can prevent the risk of contracting HIV by 99% if taken daily.

“Today’s approval adds an important tool in the effort to end the HIV epidemic by providing the first option to prevent HIV that does not involve taking a daily pill,” Dr. Debra Birnkrant, director of the antivirals division at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in Monday’s announcement.

Health officials have warned daily pills can be a regimen that is difficult for some to stick to, making injections a more viable option to at-risk populations, and potentially increasing those taking prevention medication.

The approval comes after two FDA trials found Apretude was more effective in reducing risk to HIV than daily pills for 69% of “cisgender men and transgender women who have sex with men” and 90% of “cisgender women.”

Great news! @US_FDA approves long-acting cabotegravir injections -- brand name Apretude -- for #HIV prevention. More options will hopefully mean more people at risk for HIV will start and stay on #PrEP. @pozmagazine @ViiVUS @ViiVHC https://t.co/1sMj4FIQN5

— Liz Highleyman (@LizHighleyman) December 20, 2021

Adherence is a problem for at-risk people who are poor, depressed & who face stigma, so FDA recommends that cabotegravir #PrEP be targeted to these groups.

But I've talked with lot of people in these communities who say researchers are short-sighted. eg https://t.co/FTljqop195

— Amy Maxmen, PhD (@amymaxmen) December 20, 2021

The FDA ultimately found the injection to be 66% more effective in preventing HIV infections than a daily dose of Truvada, a leading HIV prevention drug. The two trials, taken across 13 countries, included one studying more than 4,500 “HIV-uninfected men and transgender women who have sex with men”, and the other including over 3,000 “uninfected cisgender women at risk of acquiring HIV.”

Apretude, which is a form of GlaxoSmithKline’s cabotegravir drug, has been approved for at-risk adults and adolescents in the US. It is initially given in two doses, administered one month apart, and then injections are given once every two months. The drug is only to be used by patients with confirmed HIV-negative tests.

Apretude will begin shipping to distributors next year. The FDA noted that preliminary data shows that in 2020, approximately 25% of the 1.2 million people recommended for pre-exposure HIV prevention were actually prescribed medication.

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20. Fauci wants Fox News host fired for ‘kill shot’Вт, 21 дек 2021[-/+]
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White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci has called for the firing of Fox News host Jesse Watters, after the conservative pundit told a crowd to target the health official with a “kill shot.”

A clip of Watters addressing a Turning Point USA Americafest event this week drew outrage, though the political commenter was speaking metaphorically when he referred to a “kill shot” against Fauci, referring to exposing what he called the doctor’s faulty credibility.

During an appearance on CNN on Tuesday, Fauci said Watters’ comments are a reflection of the “craziness” that goes on in society.

Watters, Fauci added, will likely be “unaccountable” for his statements, but “should be fired on the spot.”

Defending himself from criticism, the health official added that all he has done during the pandemic is “encourage people to practice good public health practices: to get vaccinated, to be careful in public settings, to wear a mask.”

“And for that, you have some guy out there saying that people should be giving me a kill shot to ambush me? I mean, what kind of craziness is there in society these days?” Fauci said.

"The guy should be fired on the spot," says Dr. Fauci about FOX News entertainer Jesse Waters.

Yesterday, Waters told a crowd to "ambush" Dr. Fauci with a "kill shot" so he "doesn't see it coming." pic.twitter.com/GEnuz1BzIO

— Nora Neus (@noraneus) December 21, 2021

Watters had criticized Fauci at the Turning Point USA event with accusations that echo criticisms long leveled at the medic, who has become a common political foe for conservatives who oppose pandemic lockdowns and vaccine mandates.

Watters recommended conservatives approach Fauci in public and go for the “kill shot” by asking him key questions the mainstream corporate media will not put to him during his frequent television appearances.

“This is where you say ‘Dr. Fauci you funded risky research at a sloppy Chinese lab. The same lab that sprung this pandemic on the world. You know why people don’t trust you, don't you?’” Watters said, referring to Fauci’s alleged funding of viral research in Wuhan. “Boom. He is dead! He’s dead. He’s done. You do that, 30 seconds, it’s all you need.”

Watters also urged anyone who does confront or “ambush” Fauci to do so respectfully, to identify yourself, and to later send the video on to a news organization like Fox News.

The incendiary, dangerous, violent rhetoric against Dr. Fauci continues at AmericaFest. Fox News host Jesse Watters tells them how to go after him to harass him in public: “Now you go in with the kill shot - deadly. Because, with an ambush, he doesn’t see it coming.” pic.twitter.com/V34YZwDdPD

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) December 20, 2021

While Fauci has earned his fair share of conservative and Republican doubters, he remains a popular figure for many liberals, some of whom expressed outrage similar to his own comments over Watters’ speech.

“Kill shot”. “Ambush”. “Deadly”. “He’s dead.” No acknowledgment of the danger those words hold. https://t.co/1Rhabf0wfn

— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) December 21, 2021

Fauci criticized Fox News earlier this month after contributor Lara Logan compared him to infamous Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele, and blasted the network for giving “no discipline” to Logan over the remark.

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21. Hollywood star sorry for outburst against ‘illiterate’ red stateВт, 21 дек 2021[-/+]
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Actress and singer Bette Midler has apologized after causing outrage for describing West Virginia as “poor, illiterate, and strung out” in a political tirade against Senator Joe Manchin.

Midler is one of many liberal activists to blast West Virginia’s Manchin since the Republican senator said he is refusing to support President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan, making it nearly impossible for the massive spending package to pass the Senate any time soon.

Manchin, according to Midler, represents a “population smaller than Brooklyn,” with the star then describing the Southern state as moving “backward.”

“He sold us out. He wants us all to be just like his state, West Virginia. Poor, illiterate and strung out,” Midler tweeted.

What #JoeManchin, who represents a population smaller than Brooklyn, has done to the rest of America, who wants to move forward, not backward, like his state, is horrible. He sold us out. He wants us all to be just like his state, West Virginia. Poor, illiterate and strung out.

— bettemidler (@BetteMidler) December 20, 2021

With a population of well over 2 million, the New York borough of Brooklyn has a population count higher than multiple US states.

Midler, no stranger to landing in hot water over political tweets, quickly issued an apology after numerous critics gave the ‘Hocus Pocus’ star a quick education on the red state she was belittling.

“I’m just seeing red,” Midler wrote in an attempt to explain her “outburst.”

I apologize to the good people of WVA for my last outburst. I’m just seeing red; #JoeManchin and his whole family are a criminal enterprise. Is he really the best WV has to offer its own citizens? Surely there’s someone there who has the state’s interests at heart, not his own!

— bettemidler (@BetteMidler) December 20, 2021

She went on to call Manchin and his family a “criminal enterprise.” In a later tweet, she also accused the senator of lacking a “conscience.”

Critics accused Midler of “angry flailing” and playing directly into “out of touch” stereotypes about Hollywood celebrities expressing scorn for red states.

Bette Midler said what most big city Democrats believe in their heart. If you don’t live where they live, and believe what they believe you are less than them, and they hate you to the core. https://t.co/0vYxPXb5Ac

— Matthew Kolken (@mkolken) December 21, 2021

There are 12 states with a smaller population than Brooklyn, represented by 13 democratic senators (including Bernie and Angus King) but only 11 republicans. DC has a third of the population of Brooklyn and you want to make it a state. This is just angry flailing. https://t.co/YgQCUgFSM7

— Noam Blum (@neontaster) December 21, 2021

The good thing about dumb liberal celebrities is that they don't know how to mask common liberal sentiments under that thin veneer of condescending intellectual compassion, so you get brute candor like this showing how they actually think: https://t.co/GQ130RP6RO

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 21, 2021

Manchin set off alarm bells with fellow Democrats after telling Fox News on Sunday that negotiations had broken down on Build Back Better. The White House and other Democrats blasted Manchin for his position, which he doubled down on in a later statement, blaming White House staff for driving him to his “wit’s end” during the negotiations.

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22. First Omicron-related death in US reportedВт, 21 дек 2021[-/+]
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The first death tied to the Omicron variant of Covid-19 has been reported in Texas, as the White House announces a handful of new initiatives to battle spiking virus case numbers.

Texas health officials in Harris County announced the death this week, noting it had occurred in an unvaccinated man with “underlying health conditions” aged between 50 and 60 who had previously been infected by Covid.

Some local officials have drawn on news of the death to encourage citizens to get inoculated against Covid-19.

“This is a reminder of the severity of Covid and its variants. We urge all residents who qualify to get vaccinated and get their booster shot, if they have not already,” Harris County Public Health Executive Director Barbie Robinson said in a public statement.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said the county’s Covid threat level has been raised to the second highest level.

“Omicron is spreading incredibly quickly,” she told local media.

Though the unidentified man tested positive for the Omicron variant, the announcement on his death notes that his underlying conditions had put him at a “higher risk of severe complications” from Covid-19.

Sad to report the first local fatality from the Omicron variant of COVID-19. A man in his 50’s from the eastern portion of Harris County who was not vaccinated. Please - get vaccinated and boosted.

— Lina Hidalgo (@LinaHidalgoTX) December 20, 2021

The Omicron variant was first identified by scientists in southern Africa last month and still very little is known about it. The strain, however, now makes up the majority of new Covid cases in the US, with approximately 73% of coronavirus infections linked to the variant, as of Monday.

Earlier in the month, the UK announced the first known death globally that was linked to Omicron.

The announcement of the Texas death comes as the US faces a rise in Covid cases. The Biden administration announced a new set of initiatives on Tuesday to combat rising cases, including the purchase of half a billion at-home testing kits.

Other measures announced include the mobilization of 1,000 US soldiers to help with staffing issues at hospitals, and increasing federal supplies to help with hospital capacities.

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23. Orthodox rabbis demand US universities abandon diversity effortsВт, 21 дек 2021[-/+]
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The managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values, which represents more than 2,000 Orthodox rabbis, told Fox News that US universities should end diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts over anti-Semitism concerns.

Speaking on Monday, the coalition’s representative, Rabbi Yaakov Menken, likened current programs to appointing “foxes to guard the proverbial hen house” after a report claimed DEI leaders often promote anti-Semitism.

“With anti-Semitic incidents rising at an alarming rate, using Israel as a convenient facade, universities must ensure their diversity efforts include protection of Jewish students,” Menken said, calling on US universities to immediately “suspend all DEI programs.”

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A general view of the snow covered Holocaust memorial in Berlin, Germany. February 10, 2021. © Reuters / Annegret Hilse
Third-grader told to portray Hitler & commit suicide – reports

Menken acknowledged DEI schemes are seeking to achieve a “noble goal” but backed a “comprehensive review” into them because, right now, those leading them are “harboring what should be obvious disqualifying biases.”

CJV’s request comes after a study by the Heritage Foundation stated that DEI staff at US universities “express anti-Israel attitudes that are so out of proportion and imbalanced as to constitute antisemitism.”

The Heritage Foundation report conducted an investigation into the Twitter feeds of nearly 750 DEI staff members across 65 universities, comparing their comments and treatment of Israel to China. 96% of the tweets shared about Israel were found to be critical, while 62% of tweets about China were supportive of the Asian nation.

“The overwhelming pattern is that DEI staff at universities pay a disproportionately high amount of attention to Israel and nearly always attack Israel,” the report argued.

While the Heritage Foundation study accepted that “criticism of Israel is not necessarily anti-Semitic,” it argued that the “inordinate amount of attention given to Israel” is a “central feature of a widely accepted definition of anti-Semitism.”

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24. Tucker Carlson rips into ‘pedo outbreak’ at CNNВт, 21 дек 2021[-/+]
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Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson has taken aim at CNN, alleging that its rival network had been hit by what he described as a “pedo outbreak” after two of its producers were embroiled in recent high-profile child sex abuse scandals.

During a fiery segment on Monday, titled “CNN Pedo Outbreak,” Carlson noted that there was “something very strange going on” at the network. He quipped that there were “more accused pedophiles at CNN than Americans who have died of the so-called Omicron variant.”

The first scandal involved veteran producer John Griffin, who was arrested earlier this month and charged with three counts of attempting to lure underage victims to his house to engage in unlawful sexual activity.

A Justice Department statement revealed how Griffin used instant messaging apps to coax the parents of minor girls into “[allowing] him to train their daughters to be sexually submissive.”

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©Pxhere
CNN producer charged with shocking underage sex crimes

Describing the allegations as “horrifying,” Carlson said Griffin – who has been suspended by CNN pending an investigation – had bragged about “working shoulder-to-shoulder” with the network’s disgraced former host Chris Cuomo, who has also been hit by sexual misconduct allegations.

He then turned to the second scandal, which surfaced only days later, after Project Veritas “exposed another creep” at CNN “fantasizing about molesting a child” and allegedly seeking “explicit photographs” of the minor. Although noting that the details were “graphic,” Carlson stopped short of naming the producer.

Last week, Project Veritas released a video of a former sex worker who alleged that the CNN producer – later identified as Rick Saleeby, who works with network host Jake Tapper – had asked for nude pictures of her and her 15-year-old daughter, and opened up about his fantasies involving the 14-year-old daughter of his fiancee.

Noting that CNN did not return Fox’s calls to confirm whether Saleeby was an employee, Carlson said this sounded “like news” that the network “would be covering” but is not. He then pointed to CNN host Brian Stelter’s coverage about “embarrassing headlines” at Fox News, before breaking into laughter.

“Paging Dr. Freud. We point out lots of examples of transference – that’s when you take the sins you’ve committed and accuse others of them. Nothing better than this example. Ever,” Carlson said, repeating his earlier categorization of Stelter as a “eunuch.”

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25. Ex-RT host’s media company forced to register as foreign agent in USВт, 21 дек 2021[-/+]
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Maffick LLC, a California-based media company owned by former RT host Anissa Naouai, has been “bullied” into submitting a registration to the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

The FARA registration, which the company announced on Monday, came after its legal team concluded that any attempts “to prove its independence … would be unlikely to yield a positive result without costly and time-consuming litigation,” Maffick LLC said in a statement provided to RT. It added that it had been the target of “a powerful and pervasive political agenda to paint any tie with Russia … as something nefarious.”

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(L) © Redfish logo; (R) © Unsplash / Brett Jordan
Instagram page of RT’s Redfish project restored without explanation days after block by Facebook & complaint to Russian watchdog

Naouai, the sole owner of Maffick LLC, formerly hosted RT’s popular news commentary show ‘In the Now’. Maffick was originally a Germany-based company, Maffick Media GmbH, jointly owned by its founder-host and Ruptly, an RT sister company. Maffick Media GmbH has been non-operational since January 2020.

‘In The Now’ remains one of Maffick’s best-known productions, along with ‘Soapbox’, which focuses on political commentary.

“Our most well-known brand ‘In the Now’ was born out of a TV show that started at RT, and so we will never be seen as the independent media organization we truly are by the powers-that-be. This registration is acceptance of that truth and nothing more,” Maffick LLC said.

When they deal with politics, short videos produced by the company tend to be highly critical of US foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East and Latin America. Western mainstream media outlets have long branded Maffick an arm of Russian propaganda designed to evade being flagged as such and to appeal to left-leaning millennials.

In 2018, amid an investigation by CNN, Facebook suspended Maffick accounts. In the summer of 2020, when US-based social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook began the labeling of foreign media outlets and journalists, Maffick’s channels were designated as Russian “state-affiliated” or “state-controlled” media. Naouai insists she and her team have full editorial independence.

All four Maffick Facebook pages, including Soapbox and In the Now, are back online after being taken down by FB for 10 days. With no warning. No explanation. And no violation of any terms on our part.

This is our official response to censorship. @AnissaNow @RaniaKhalek pic.twitter.com/wCo27byo9g

— Soapbox (@soapbox_soapbox) February 27, 2019

“Maffick LLC will not succumb to bullying, even from the highest and most powerful establishment towers. More importantly, we will continue to do our purpose-driven work, cultivate compassionate, talented teams who give their all to their work, and we will focus on how grateful we are for that,” the company said in a statement.

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26. Biden staffer tests positive for CovidВт, 21 дек 2021[-/+]
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An aide to US President Joe Biden has tested positive for Covid-19 after spending time with the commander in chief days prior, the White House has confirmed, though Biden will continue his usual duties and forego quarantine.

A “mid-level staffer,” who was not identified by name, tested positive for the virus on Monday, according to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who noted that the individual is believed to have spent a brief period in Biden’s vicinity a few days earlier.

“On Friday, that staff member had spent approximately 30 minutes in proximity to the president on Air Force One,” Psaki said in a statement, adding that both Biden and the aide were fully vaccinated and boosted, and had tested negative before boarding the flight.

“After being notified of the staffer’s positive test, the president received a PCR test and tested negative. He will be tested again on Wednesday.”

White House releases statement after 'mid-level' staffer who was 'in proximity' to Biden for half an hour tests positive for Covid. pic.twitter.com/Vc6B0YZ207

— Byron York (@ByronYork) December 21, 2021

However, Psaki said President Biden will not self-isolate and would “continue with his daily schedule,” citing the current guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The agency does not recommend quarantine for those who are fully immunized, despite a number of ‘breakthrough infections’ seen among vaccinated patients around the world, including the boosted White House aide.

The unnamed staffer is not the first in the Biden administration to contract the illness, with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Psaki herself – both fully vaccinated – testing positive in October.

READ MORE: Washington, DC reimposes Covid emergency

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27. Omicron becomes dominant Covid variant in USВт, 21 дек 2021[-/+]
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The Omicron strain of the coronavirus now accounts for more than 73% of new US cases of Covid-19, up from 13% just a week ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported.

Figures for the week ending on December 18, which the CDC released on Monday, showed that Omicron has become the dominant Covid-19 variant in the US less than one month after it was first identified in South Africa. The Delta variant accounts for almost all other new Covid-19 infections, or around 27%.

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FILE PHOTO. Washington, DC © Getty Images / Win McNamee
Washington, DC reimposes Covid emergency

The Omicron statistics come on the eve of President Joe Biden’s speech on Tuesday, in which he is expected to announce new steps to fight the spread of Covid-19. Major US cities are already tightening pandemic restrictions. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu announced on Monday that the city will require proof of vaccination to enter indoor businesses, while Washington, DC reimposed a mask mandate and ordered city employees to get booster shots.

White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday predicted “a tough few weeks to months” as Omicron spreads rapidly across the US. Covid-19 infections have surged over the past few weeks, and Biden has warned of a “winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated.”

However, health experts in South Africa – where Omicron was first detected – have said the variant causes relatively mild symptoms. Even as the strain spread like wildfire in the country, Covid-19 hospitalizations didn’t increase. South Africa has had an average of 30 Covid-19 deaths daily over the past week, down from a high near 600 in January and around 400 in July.

South African Medical Association chairwoman Dr. Angelique Coetzee said on Monday that, with Omicron cases now declining in South Africa, the country is “over the curve” with the new variant. She has called international reaction to the new strain, including travel bans on southern African countries, “a storm in a teacup.”

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28. Trump sues NY attorney generalВт, 21 дек 2021[-/+]
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Former US President Donald Trump is suing New York Attorney General Letitia James, saying her “partisan” two-year investigation into his business dealings violates his civil rights. The Democrat AG has vowed to continue the probe.

Attorneys for the 45th president and Trump Organization filed the complaint before a federal judge in the Northern District of New York, multiple outlets reported on Monday.

“Letitia James targets President Trump with a callous disregard for the ethical and moral obligations she swore to abide by when she became attorney general,” attorney Alina Habba said in a statement. “She has shortchanged the state by commencing this partisan investigation and has forever tarnished the sanctity of her office.”

The lawsuit is intended “to not only hold her accountable for her blatant constitutional violations, but to stop her bitter crusade to punish her political opponents in its tracks,” Habba added.

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File photo: New York State Attorney General Letitia James speaks at a news conference in New York City, August 3, 2021.
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James, a Democrat, was elected AG in 2018 after campaigning on investigating Trump’s business dealings. She had her eyes set on the governor’s office as well, but on December 9 suspended her campaign and decided to run for re-election, saying there were “important investigations” she needed to finish. Earlier that day, her office had announced Trump was being summoned to give a deposition on January 7.

“The Trump Organization has continually sought to delay our investigation into its business dealings,” James said in response to the lawsuit. “Our investigation will continue undeterred because no one is above the law, not even someone with the name Trump.”

James is alleging that the Trump Organization lied about the value of their assets to either banks or tax offices, to gain favorable loan terms or minimize taxes. Trump’s real-estate business remains headquartered in New York, though the 45th president officially relocated to Florida during his term in the White House, citing Democrat “witch hunts” in his home state.

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29. Alex Jones sues Pelosi, US Capitol riot committeeВт, 21 дек 2021[-/+]
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Shock jock Alex Jones has sued US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the congressional committee that’s investigating last January’s US Capitol riot to block the panel from accessing his phone records and forcing him to testify.

The lawsuit, which was filed on Monday in US District Court in Washington, alleges that Pelosi and the investigative committee that she appointed are trying to suspend constitutional liberties “in coercive secret proceedings specifically designed to satiate a political witch hunt.”

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Owen Shroyer arrives at a protest against mandates in Austin, Texas, June 28, 2020 © Reuters / Sergio Flores
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The committee subpoenaed Jones in November, demanding documents related to his role in organizing an election-fraud protest that escalated into the Capitol riot, according to the lawsuit. The panel also ignored the radio host’s constitutional objections, insisting that he testify in Washington on January 10, and it sought to obtain his phone records through AT&T.

“The select committee’s members have made it abundantly clear that they are only interested in prosecuting political adversaries,” the lawsuit said, adding that Jones was put in the “unconscionable position” of facing imprisonment if he exercises his constitutional rights.

Jones claimed that the committee is violating his 1st Amendment rights as a journalist, his 4th Amendment right of privacy in his papers, and his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. The lawsuit noted that committee chairman US Representative Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi) showed his disregard for those protections when he suggested in an MSNBC interview earlier this month that invoking the 5th Amendment may show that a witness is “part and parcel guilty to what occurred.”

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FILE PHOTO: Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark at a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, U.S., September 14, 2020. © REUTERS/Susan Walsh
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Pelosi has flouted the requirements of the House bill that established the investigative committee, including provisions on the number of members and representation of the minority party, the lawsuit said.

Jones has told the committee that he will remain silent, invoking his 5th Amendment right, if forced to appear in person. According to the lawsuit, the committee has suggested that Jones and other witnesses may be granted immunity from prosecution to eliminate the threat of self-incrimination.

Steve Bannon, former adviser to then-President Donald Trump, was indicted in November for contempt of Congress because he refused to testify and provide documents to the House investigative committee. The House voted last week to recommend that former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows be charged with contempt for refusing to testify.

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30. Trump reveals his booster statusВт, 21 дек 2021[-/+]
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Former US President Donald Trump has urged his supporters to embrace Covid-19 vaccines, which he credited with preventing the pandemic from becoming as deadly as the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak.

“We did something that was historic,” Trump said on Sunday at an event in Dallas. “We saved tens of millions of lives worldwide.” He also revealed that he had received a vaccine booster shot, eliciting a smattering of boos from the audience, which Trump attributed to “a very tiny group over there.”

The former president has tried to walk a fine line between taking credit for fast-tracking the development of Covid-19 vaccines and appealing to a voter base that is largely skeptical of the jabs. He found common ground on Sunday by emphasizing that vaccines shouldn’t be mandated.

Trump argued that, if not for the vaccines, Covid-19 might have been as catastrophic as the Spanish flu, which is estimated to have killed at least 50 million people worldwide. The current pandemic has been blamed for more than 5.3 million deaths. The world’s population has more than quadrupled since 1918.

NEW - Trump: "You’re playing right into their hands" when you doubt the #COVID19 vaccines.pic.twitter.com/GXmxQVNezF

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) December 20, 2021

“This was going to ravage the country, far beyond what it is right now,” Trump said. “Take credit for it.” He added that, by discrediting the vaccines, “you’re playing right into their hands.”

“What we’ve done is historic. Don’t let them take it away. Don’t take it away from ourselves.”

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31. Pentagon’s new extremism rules extend to ‘likes’ – reportsВт, 21 дек 2021[-/+]
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The US military has updated its “extremism” policy, allowing commanders to punish service members for “actively participating” in banned activities – from supporting terrorism to liking a post deemed extremist on social media.

The new rules were rolled out on Monday, Department of Defense officials told AP, though the official document has not been made publicly available yet. It is the first update to the extremism policy since 2012.

The update focuses “exclusively on actions” as opposed to “any particular ideology or any political organization,” one DOD official told reporters at a background briefing. That means the prohibition on “participation” in groups that advocate any kind of “supremacist, extremist, or criminal gang doctrine, ideology, or causes” remains in effect, as well as groups that “advocate the use of force, violence, or criminal activity; or otherwise engage in efforts to deprive individuals of their civil rights.”

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What’s new is the definition of six broad categories of “extremist activities” and 14 definitions of what constitutes “active participation” in them. Under the new rules, a commander can penalize a service member if they actively participated in behavior that fits the definition of extremism.

As reported by AP, among the banned activities are advocating terrorism and supporting the overthrow of the government, fundraising and rallying on behalf of groups designated as extremist, and liking or reposting such views on social media.

In February, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a one-day “stand down” of the entire military to address “extremism” in the ranks in the wake of the January 6 riot at the US Capitol. Fewer than 100 service members were involved in “substantiated cases of extremist activity” over the past year, officials told AP on Monday, but added that the Pentagon fears that number may grow, particularly among veterans.

The new rules were based on the recommendations from the Countering Extremist Activity Working Group, led by the controversial activist Bishop Garrison. Former Acting Director of National Intelligence in the Trump administration Richard Grenell has denounced the policy as politically motivated.

“What this is really about is that Biden and the Democrats are demanding there be no dissent in the military – just like they’ve done on college campuses,” he said on Twitter.

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32. 6.2 quake strikes off coast of CaliforniaПн, 20 дек 2021[-/+]
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A strong, 6.2 earthquake has hit off the northern coast of California. Twitter has been flooded with reports of people describing the tremor, which reportedly came in waves.

The quake struck at 12:10 PST (20:10 GMT), approximately 38 kilometers west of the northern Californian community of Petrolia.

The earthquake was centered in the Pacific Ocean, according to reports, and state emergency services say they are monitoring any potential “secondary impacts.”

Weather services have warned that the quake has not made enough of an impact to issue any official tsunami warnings.

Strong #earthquake (#sismo) shakes Offshore Northern California 6 min ago. Map of eyewitnesses' felt reports: pic.twitter.com/shcxOtLpQp

— EMSC (@LastQuake) December 20, 2021

We just had a 5.5 #earthquake off the coast of Fortuna, California. It's about 30 miles away from us here in Eureka. There was a very strong initial wave and then a very weak second wave which I actually didn't feel. No damage. No tsunamis. But we are all awake now.

— Permanent Suspension (#7) (@PermSusLucky7) December 20, 2021

Witnesses have flocked to social media to describe the impact they felt, with many saying it was enough to wake them up.

Yes! I'm up in Klamath and whole room and building shook for a few seconds. Quite a surprise. #Earthquake

— Caspar Donnison (@CasparDonnison) December 20, 2021

Up in Eureka, the @MyShakeApp alerts worked perfectly! I had a nice 15 second warning. #Earthquake pic.twitter.com/m6UmR2k7I8

— James Kicklighter (@jameskick) December 20, 2021

Others heard ‘earthquake’ and ‘California’ and assumed for a moment it could be the massive quake across from San Andreas Fault that meteorologists have been warning about for years. This overdue earthquake, often referred to as ‘The Big One’ by Californians, could measure at least 7.8 in magnitude and cause massive destruction for the state.

I slept through it. This is what happens when you live in California for a long enough, particularly Northern California.

and then sometimes every little tremor you get the millisecond fleeting thought: is this the Big One? https://t.co/vKqPhle1wi

— Annie Anxiety || Support the #CBWU ?? (@fangirlsmash) December 20, 2021

People in Califronia anytime there’s an earthquake #Earthquake pic.twitter.com/qzxs7fRky3

— cesar (@jebaiting) December 20, 2021

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33. New US city requires proof of Covid vaccinationПн, 20 дек 2021[-/+]
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In response to rising Covid-19 cases, the city of Boston will soon be requiring both staff and customers of indoor businesses to give proof of their vaccinations against the virus.

Democratic Boston Mayor Michelle Wu announced the new mandate on Monday, saying it will go into effect for all indoor businesses in the city on January 15. It was part of what the mayor dubbed the ‘B Together’ initiative in response to a spike in Covid cases.

City workers will no longer be given the option of weekly testing and will instead be mandated to get inoculated amid an Omicron wave hitting the city. According to the mayor, over 90% of city employees are already vaccinated.

“The vast majority of Covid-related hospitalizations are of unvaccinated individuals, which is impacting our entire health care system and compromising the health of our communities,” she said at an event where she was reportedly met with anti-mandate protesters, some chanting, “Shame on Wu.”

Crowd of protesters interrupts @MayorWu news conference where she announces vaccine requirements for indoor spaces in Boston #wcvb Video ctsy @MarkT617 pic.twitter.com/9KpDFjoypC

— Sharman Sacchetti (@SharmanTV) December 20, 2021

Protesters in lobby of Boston City Hall as Mayor Michelle Wu announces newly strengthened COVID vaccination mandate for city employees, plus proof of vax requirement for customers & workers at restaurants, gyms, theaters, sports venues. #wbz pic.twitter.com/UdPGV1nb9U

— Christina Hager (@HagerWBZ) December 20, 2021

The city’s mandate will apply to indoor businesses like gyms, restaurants, theaters, recreation centers. etc. According to the mandate, all citizens ages 12 and up will need to show proof of at least one vaccine jab and, one month later, they will need to prove they are fully inoculated before entering a business. By May, everyone aged five and up will need to show proof of full vaccination.

Here’s the timeline we’re working with:

? 1/15: People 12+ must show proof of 1 vax dose
? 2/15: People 12+ must show proof of full vax
? 3/1: Children 5–11 must show proof of 1 vax dose
? 5/1: People 5+ must show proof of full vax

— Mayor Michelle Wu ?? (@MayorWu) December 20, 2021

One can prove their vaccination status either through a city sponsored app, a physical vaccination card, or a digital image of your vaccination card. The government will be offering webinars to local businesses on how to implement the new mandate.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health reported over 6,000 new Covid cases on Friday, plus 45 deaths, the highest rise in cases and deaths in months. Approximately 68% of Boston citizens are vaccinated right now, the mayor said.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker has said he is working with other states to take part in a digital vaccine card program, but has also said that he opposes mandates.

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34. FCC settles with phone companies over failed 911 emergency callsПн, 20 дек 2021[-/+]
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Four telephone companies have settled with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over failed 911 calls during ‘network outages’ in 2020, paying out over $6 million. The cause of the outages has not been made public.

AT&T, Intrado, Verizon, and CenturyLink (now known as Lumen Technologies) have reached settlements with the telecoms agency, the FCC announced on Friday. They have also agreed to comply with the FCC’s 911 availability rules in the future.

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The most important phone call you ever make may be a call to 911,” FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel declared in a press release accompanying the settlement announcements. “Sunny day outages can be especially troubling because they occur when the public and 911 call centers least expect it.

AT&T is on the hook for $460,000 regarding two different investigations into network outages taking place on September 28, 2020. The company was also investigated for failing to notify the affected 911 call centers of the outages in a timely manner and failing to “deliver number and location information” - another violation of FCC rules. Lumen and Intrado paid out $3.8 million and $1.7 million, respectively, to resolve investigations into outages taking place on the same day.

Verizon settled with the FCC over a May 7, 2020 outage for a total of $274,000. All four companies have agreed to implement an unspecified “compliance plan” to ensure they adhere to the agency’s 911 reliability rules going forward.

The September outage affected at least 14 states across the US, in some cases lasting as long as an hour and a half, forcing first responders to scramble to get alternate lines up and running - and inform the public about them before it was too late. No information was forthcoming about why the emergency line went down.

Wireless carrier T-Mobile agreed last month to settle with the FCC for $19.5 million following its own 911 outage in June 2020. That outage led to more than 23,000 dropped emergency calls, while an October FCC report revealed it also resulted in at least 250 million total failed calls and an inability to access data service in some places. The outage lasted over 12 hours.

Dispatch technology for 911 calls has increased in complexity in recent years, in some cases allowing emergency services technicians to stream audio and even video from callers’ phones. While this function ostensibly helps first responders understand what kind of emergency they are about to respond to, some have questioned the level of intrusion such systems would allow - especially given that some such systems don’t require the caller to sign off on whether they consent to being monitored via their smartphone’s camera and microphone.

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35. Washington, DC reimposes Covid emergencyПн, 20 дек 2021[-/+]
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Citing a “surge” in Covid-19 cases, the US capital has declared a public health emergency, reimposed the indoor masking mandate, and ordered all city employees to get both jabs and the booster as well.

The indoor masking mandate in Washington, DC will come back into effect on December 21, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced on Monday. Originally imposed in July, it was lifted on November 22 – just days before the World Health Organization designated Omicron a variant of concern.

All city employees, contractors, and grant recipients are now mandated to get fully vaccinated, as well as receive a booster shot, Bowser also announced. She did not name a specific deadline. The measure may well be the first time a US city has mandated boosters, as well as ruled out an option to remain unvaccinated while being subject to weekly tests.

Bowser also said the district was dramatically expanding testing, including providing a rapid antigen test for every student, teacher, and staff member in DC public schools. Schools will remain closed on January 3 and 4 so everyone can pick up their test and return “safely,” she added.

“It is critical that all eligible people are getting vaccinated and boosted,” the mayor said.

3) Institute DC Government vaccinate mandate, including boosters, with no test-out option. pic.twitter.com/07AxxpKpTY

— Mayor Muriel Bowser (@MayorBowser) December 20, 2021

Bowser called on DC residents to make sure everyone aged five and older is vaccinated, and stays home if they “feel sick.” She urged people to get tested and to self-isolate if they test positive.

“Choose your activities wisely and reconsider social events,” Bowser’s guidelines said, just days before the Christmas holidays. “Consider your own risk, the risk of people you’ll be around, or those you might see in the coming days.”

Fewer than 1% of the Covid-19 infections in DC have been attributed to the Omicron variant so far, but the authorities expect that number to rise, said Dr. Anjali Talwalkar, of the DC Department of Health. She added that hospitalizations are “holding steady” at 5% of cases, which she attributed to vaccines.

President Joe Biden is also expected to announce new restrictions on Tuesday. The White House has warned unvaccinated Americans that they are “looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families, and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm.”

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36. Donald Trump Jr. explains why China’s not intimidated by US militaryПн, 20 дек 2021[-/+]
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Donald Trump’s eldest son has claimed Beijing is far from being intimidated by the US military, pointing, as evidence, to the air service’s latest guidelines on the equal treatment of transgender personnel.

Speaking at the America Fest 2021 conference in Phoenix, Arizona on Sunday, Trump Jr. threw a rhetorical question out to the audience, enquiring what the attendees thought America’s “enemies” were doing, and quickly retorting: “They’re laughing!”

“You think China is thinking, ‘We got to make sure we have plenty of trans pilots’?”

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The 43-year-old conservative was quick to add that he was “100% fine” with transgender airmen and women being appointed as long as they “were the best pilots.” However, he alleged that was not the “focus” of the air force, claiming the promotion of transgender pilots was “not about finding the best ones.”

Trump Jr.’s statement apparently referred to the new guidelines issued by the US Air Force in late April, which set out to ensure that “all service members and applicants for accession must be treated with dignity and respect, and afforded equal opportunity in an environment free from prohibited discrimination.” The updated guidelines mandate that no one can be “denied entry or continued service in the Air Force or Space Force because of their gender identity.”

The Air Force and Space Force blazed the trail in revising their policies following President Joe Biden’s decision to reverse a ban that had been imposed by his predecessor, Donald Trump, which had prohibited service members from seeking gender transition.

Under the new rules, a service member’s transition begins once they are diagnosed with gender dysphoria, which the American Psychiatric Association defines as “psychological distress resulting from an individual’s biological sex conflicting with their identity.”

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FILE PHOTO © Reuters / Shannon Stapleton
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The US Army has not only ceased to turn down transgender soldiers or deny them the right to be deployed, including overseas, but also took it upon itself to shell out for the hormone therapy, mental health care, and surgeries of service members with gender dysphoria, as outlined in a memo released in late July. Even so, critics insist there is still room for improvement in terms of diversity in the military, demanding it also provide assistance to non-binary and intersex service members who do not fit the male-female system currently employed by the army.

According to Trump Jr., the “pendulum has swung so far” in the US Army’s fight on discrimination, it has “overcorrected,” and the “mainstream left has lost their minds.”

Trump Jr.’s accompanied his Air Force comments with a swipe at the decision to let record-breaking American transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, who previously competed for men’s college teams, compete against female athletes. The controversial move has prompted the parents of members of the University of Pennsylvania women’s swim team to plead with the National Collegiate Athletic Association to change its rules. They claim “the integrity of women’s sports” is at stake.

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37. Biden pushes ‘aggressive’ green mileage standardПн, 20 дек 2021[-/+]
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The Biden administration is citing climate change to drastically raise the vehicle mileage standard to 55 miles per gallon by 2026. The White House expects this to result in doubling of electric vehicle sales in the coming years.

The rule, announced Monday, will see the standard raised to 40 mpg in 2023 and up every year from there. It is a 25% increase over the Trump administration standard of 36 mpg announced last year, and 5% above the 38 mpg the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed in August.

“We are setting robust and rigorous standards that will aggressively reduce the pollution that is harming people and our planet – and save families money at the same time,” EPA chief Michael Regan said in a statement.

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The rule was “a giant step forward” in delivering on President Joe Biden’s agenda to combat climate change, he added, “while paving the way toward an all-electric, zero-emissions transportation future.”

According to the EPA, the rule will help slow climate change, improve public health, and lower the cost of driving through improved fuel efficiency. The agency estimates it will lower the consumption of gasoline by about 360 billion tons, prevent the release of 3.1 million tons of carbon dioxide through 2050, and save drivers about $1,080 over the lifetime of their new vehicle.

The new standard would also help drive the sales of zero-emissions vehicles such as plug-in hybrids and electric cars, which are expected to have about 7% of the US market share in 2023. The Biden administration wants to see that reach 17% by 2026.

The new rules will start applying to 2023 vehicle models and ratchet up the emissions standard every year through 2026, much faster than previous rules. The EPA believes carmakers can meet the target by rolling out more electric vehicles.

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“Making cars cleaner is critical to address climate change,” the agency said.

Some former Obama administration officials think the rule doesn’t go far enough. It is “basically just recapturing the emissions cuts that we lost during the Trump rollback,” former EPA policy adviser Jeff Alson told the New York Times. “That’s good, but it’s not going to get us anywhere near the level we’ve got to get to reduce vehicle emissions enough to protect the planet.”

Dan Becker of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the Center for Biological Diversity said the rule isn’t up to addressing the “existential threat” of global warming.

“What we really need is an aggressive rule as soon as possible to phase out the gasoline-powered vehicles that are guzzling and polluting, and replace them with EVs that have no tailpipe,” he said.

Transportation accounts for 29% of US greenhouse gas emissions, according to AP. Trucks and passenger cars account for 58% of transportation-related emissions. The rule will affect almost all Americans, as there were over 286 million registered cars in the US as of 2020, and more than 72% of all freight in the country is transported by trucks, according to industry estimates.

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38. Manchin accuses White House staff of ‘inexcusable’ actionsПн, 20 дек 2021[-/+]
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Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, has said that “inexcusable” behavior by White House staffers has caused negotiations on President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better spending plan to stall.

“It’s not the president. It’s the staff. They drove some things that are absolutely inexcusable,” Manchin told the ‘MetroNews’ radio program in West Virginia on Monday.

The Senator did not specify what “inexcusable” actions he was referring to, but insisted that “they know what it is, and that’s it.” He also said he’d reached his “wit’s end” in negotiations with the White House.

Democrats have expressed outrage at Manchin since he revealed to Fox News on Sunday that he is a firm ‘no’ on the massive $2-trillion spending package. Supporters of the plan argue it is essential infrastructure spending, as well as offering needed financial assistance for Americans, while critics argue the plan is far too expensive.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) claimed “democracy is on the line” in a series of tweets targeting Manchin, and the White House released a scathing statement, accusing him of making an “inexplicable” decision in changing his support.

We, as always, are here to fight for this agenda. What matters most to us is that it gets done. But we cannot just shrug our shoulders and accept this as some Charlie Brown moment.

Our entire democracy is on the line. So we need to get back in there & get this sh*t done. Period

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 19, 2021

Manchin’s support is needed to help the Build Back Better plan pass the Senate, though the moderate Democrat shocked many on Sunday when he expressed that he has no plans to support the plan. He also did not indicate whether changes could make him support the plan, saying only it would need to go through committees first.

The senator said he opposes Democrats acting “as if you have 55 or 60 senators that are Democrats, and you can do whatever you want.”

Manchin described himself as a “Washington Democrat” and said if there is no place for him in the current party, then “they ought to push me where they want me.”

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39. Community sues noise polluting Navy and winsПн, 20 дек 2021[-/+]
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An anti-noise group and the Washington state attorney general have won a lawsuit against the US Navy regarding a cluster of ultra-noisy EA-18G Growler aircraft stationed at nearby Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.

Chief US Magistrate Judge J. Richard Creatura ruled that the Navy had deliberately “turned a blind eye” to the environmental and community impact of bringing more EA-18G Growler aircraft to the base. He further charged that the Navy had specifically selected methods of evaluating data that favored its goals of populating the station with more planes.

In his ruling last week, the judge accused the Navy of acting “at the expense of the public and the environment.

Not only do the aircraft flying overhead reach noise levels of a deafening 120 decibels (dB) outdoors and as high as 90 dB inside, but planes can be heard zooming by “about every minute or so, right in the middle of the day. It’s completely, absolutely unlivable outside,” one local told The Intercept.

Another suggested the military had unilaterally declared the area a “flight zone” without consulting anyone beneath and has subsequently ignored thousands of noise complaints and lawsuits. The Navy conducts more than 100,000 takeoffs and landings at Whidbey Island per year.

“The Navy created a flight zone. … And you’re like, no it’s not, this is a farm.”

U.S. communities are beset by deafening roars from a generation of louder military aircraft — and they are fighting back. https://t.co/34BR5GGbiR

By @ninaberman pic.twitter.com/4zfFV5U44H

— The Intercept (@theintercept) December 20, 2021

The Air Station and the city of Port Townsend, which lies beneath its flight paths, have been at odds since 2012, according to Mayor Michelle Sandoval, who thanked both AG Bob Ferguson and the Citizens of Ebey’s Reserve (COER) for the lawsuits, filed in 2019, that were ultimately rolled into the single suit that Creatura ruled on last week.

The judge specifically found that the Navy had violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by “failing to disclose the basis for greenhouse gas emission calculations, failing to quantify the impact of increased operations on classroom learning, failing to take a hard look at species-specific impact on birds, and failing to give detailed consideration to the idea of moving some operations to a base in El Centro,” according to local media.

The judge took the Navy to task for acknowledging that aircraft noise would impact children’s ability to learn but refusing to conduct further analysis on exactly how, lacking the means to quantify that impact. The Navy’s computer models indicated that Port Townsend was unaffected by the increased flights and louder noise from the larger number of planes but, like many computer simulations, they failed to take certain factors into account.

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The Navy was also accused of violating the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to adequately analyze the impact that an increased number of planes would have on both the community and the environment. Multiple studies have shown that such sustained loud noises can cause cardiovascular disease and increase the likelihood of dementia, anxiety, and depression, to say nothing of the obvious possibility of hearing loss.

Further charges against the Navy, including accusations of violating the Administrative Procedure Act and the National Historic Preservation Act, were dismissed.

The residents’ victory is only temporary, however. Both sides have 30 days to submit suggestions on how to remediate the problem. The Navy’s final decision may be overturned if it is found to have acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” and not taken a “hard look” at the consequences of bringing in more Growlers – electronic-attack planes created to disable enemy defenses and communications – to the skies over the state of Washington.

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40. Epstein’s ‘madam’ Maxwell is ‘sophisticated predator’ – prosecutionПн, 20 дек 2021[-/+]
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In their closing arguments, the prosecution in the sex trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell painted the accused as a “crucial” partner to the late Jeffrey Epstein, one who “preyed on vulnerable kids.”

Maxwell specifically targeted vulnerable young women when choosing victims for Epstein, Assistant US Attorney Alison Moe argued in court on Monday, following the defense resting their case on Friday with Maxwell refusing to testify.

“She caused deep and lasting harm to young girls. It is time to hold her accountable,” Moe said, labeling Maxwell a “sophisticated predator” and “dangerous.”

Maxwell has been charged with sex trafficking and accused by prosecutors and numerous alleged victims of helping Epstein to abuse young women. Epstein died in 2019 while in custody and awaiting trial on his own sex trafficking charges. His death was officially ruled a suicide.

Moe described Maxwell and Epstein, who were linked in business as well as romance, as “partners-in-crime” and showed a series of photos to the jury displaying years of the connection between the two. One photo even showed Maxwell “massaging Epstein’s foot with her breasts.”

Prosecutors introduced a flood of photographs over the years. Though undated, the photos show a range in time, the AUSA noted.

"They're getting older. Their haircuts change."

Moe: "That's Maxwell massaging Epstein's foot with her breasts. She's smiling." https://t.co/mgaDwAox4i pic.twitter.com/ekcxfDvMh2

— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) December 20, 2021

The prosecution recalled accusations against Maxwell, including charges that she was the “lady of the house” at Epstein’s Palm Beach home and was directly involved in abusing young women who were brought there. Two of the accusers said they were only 14 when they were first brought to the estate.

Maxwell, 59, is accused of grooming and abusing four women between 1994 and 2004. She has denied any involvement in abuse, and her defense has argued prosecutors are using Maxwell as a scapegoat in place of Epstein.

The defense will make their final summation later on Monday, and then the jury will begin their deliberations. If convicted, Maxwell could face up to 80 years in prison.

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41. Anti-vax group vows to open own clinicsПн, 20 дек 2021[-/+]
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America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) organization, which opposes vaccination and other government measures to stem the spread of Covid-19, has promised to open its own clinics, inviting medical staff and pharmacists to join.

AFLDS and its associated companies are currently under investigation by Congress, while the California medical board is looking into the right-wing organization’s founder, Simone Gold, after mounting calls to strip her of her license in the state.

However, all the pressure and legal woes don’t seem to have affected the group’s plans to further expand its operations in the US.

“AFLDS is opening its first medical clinic in the coming months, with many more planned shortly after,” Gold said in a newsletter, which was distributed among supporters last week. The location of the maiden clinic and the date of its opening were not mentioned in the email.

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FILE PHOTO. © RIA / Maxim Bogodvid
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She reiterated the claim that American medical workers are “having their rights stripped away by corrupt state and government actors” during the pandemic.

The newsletter included a special form so that doctors, looking to care for their patients “without interference,” and pharmacists, for whom “practicing good medicine means more… than bowing to corporate mandates,” could join AFLDS and work at its medical facilities.

Gold was among the Donald Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, and now faces several charges over those events. The emergency physician turned political figure has some 380,000 followers on Twitter.

Her account and the AFLDS page with over 200,000 followers are being used by the group to distribute videos and other materials relating to the supposed dangers of vaccination and coronavirus restrictions.

The probes into the activities of America’s Frontline Doctors and its founder were launched after media revelations in August and September. Time magazine and The Intercept reported that online healthcare companies associated with the group had earned millions of dollars after doctors who back the AFLDS cause prescribed hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19 in thousands of patients through a telemedicine service. It was done despite there being no peer-reviewed studies to prove that those drugs were effective against the virus.

Back then, the chair of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, James Clyburn, branded AFLDS “predatory actors… touting misinformation and using it to market disproven and potentially hazardous coronavirus treatments.”

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42. US Navy vessels fired on mystery drone swarms – mediaПн, 20 дек 2021[-/+]
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United States Navy vessels were forced to fire on unidentified drones off the coast of Southern California after they were swarmed by mystery UAVs in 2019, according to documents obtained by The Drive.

Throughout July 2019, the US Navy was reportedly plagued by mystery drone swarms that harassed vessels in the Channel Islands archipelago near California, according to ship log documents released through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.

On one day, July 20, 2019 the USS Russell, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, fired five shots at the drones, which, The Drive claims, could fly for 100 nautical miles at up to 45 miles an hour. Noted as a “counter” in the ship’s logs, the incident took place at 9:30am local time (1:30am GMT), with one misfire recorded.

Two days later, to protect the USS Russell, US naval officials deployed what’s called a ‘ghostbusters’ team, which counters unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by jamming radio frequencies.10 days after the initial incident, the USS Russell’s ships log, which was heavily redacted, showed another swarm terrorized the vessel, forcing another ‘ghostbusters’ team to be deployed to the region in the early hours of the morning.

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The documents reported by The Drive found that an unidentified admiral had boarded the USS Russell on July 22, 2019 and left the vessel days later, on July 31. It’s not clear if their arrival and subsequent departure was linked to the UAV incidents that were being experienced.

According to the FOI request, the Navy was already investigating concerns about drones near vessels, having spotted drones on July 14, 2019 with the reports passed to the Chief of Naval Operations four days later. That investigation failed to identify the drones behind that incident or who was responsible.

USS Russell’s problems were experienced by other vessels in the region around the same time. The USS Rafael Peralta, USS John Finn and USS Kidd all reported UAV activity or coming into contact with drones during operations.

The Channel Islands of California are owned and operated by the US Navy, which uses them as a home for Naval Base Coronado, believed to be used to conduct sensitive training operations.

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43. Third-grader told to portray Hitler & commit suicide – reportsПн, 20 дек 2021[-/+]
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An instructor at a Washington, DC elementary school has been suspended after reportedly making third-graders reenact scenes from the Holocaust, including pretending to dig mass graves for their classmates and simulating shootings.

The incident allegedly took place during a library class last Friday at the Watkins Elementary School in the US capital, according to a Washington Post report on Sunday that cited an email from the school’s principal MScott Berkowitz. The staff member is also thought to have used anti-Semitic slurs.

The children had been working on a self-directed project, when the instructor apparently told them to act out scenes that included a train journey to a death camp and people dying in gas chambers, the Post reported. One student was told to portray Adolf Hitler committing suicide.

Although it is unclear what prompted the staffer to conduct the re-enactment, one parent told the paper that when the children asked why the Germans committed these acts, she had replied that they were angry “because the Jews ruined Christmas.”

BREAKING: @dcpublicschools investigates after 3rd graders say they were forced to reenact Holocaust.

Lesson Fri. reportedly included simulated shootings, kids digging their own graves & a student playing Hitler. I spoke to a mom who didn’t want to be id’d. Latest on @fox5dc 1/2 pic.twitter.com/ysvY1bk4MC

— Lindsay Watts (@LindsayAWatts) December 20, 2021

The instructor, who has been placed on leave pending an investigation, reportedly told the students not to tell anyone about the exercise, but they informed their homeroom teacher. The entire class later met with the school’s mental health response team, according to a letter sent out by Berkowitz.

“I want to acknowledge the gravity of this poor instructional decision, as students should never be asked to act out or portray any atrocity, especially genocide, war, or murder,” Berkowitz said in the letter, adding that there were allegations the instructor used “hate speech” during the lesson.

Speaking to the local Fox News affiliate on condition of anonymity, one parent noted that there was a “lot of sobbing and crying and distress,” and described the incident as “traumatic.”

This is a terrible corruption of a historical trauma that was inappropriate for eight- and nine-year-olds to learn about in this way and I am outraged.

The TV station also apparently contacted the instructor – it identified her as the librarian – who said “somebody was misquoting what happened in the library that day.” She denied there was any Holocaust-related reenactment or hate speech.

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44. Retired generals warn of ‘lethal chaos’ in US military after 2024 voteПн, 20 дек 2021[-/+]
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Three retired US Army generals have argued that a civil war might break out if the Pentagon does not weed out “potential mutineers,” as there is a high chance of “another insurrection” if Republicans retake the White House.

In a scathing op-ed published in the Washington Post on Friday, retired US Army Major General Paul D. Eaton, retired US Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba, and retired US Brigadier General Steven M. Anderson called on the Pentagon to “war-game the next potential post-election insurrection or coup attempt to identify weak spots.”

Alleging that the US military ranks are brimming with potential mutineers, they demanded the Pentagon “identifies, isolates and removes” them from the force before it’s too late for purges, while pointing to the “disturbing number of veterans and active-duty members of the military” who were involved in the January 6 events at the Capitol.

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Assessing “the potential for a military breakdown” as “very real,” the generals wrote that they have been “increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military."

As an example of such “mutiny,” the generals referred to the Oklahoma National Guard’s standoff with the Pentagon over the Covid-19 vaccination mandate, calling it “perhaps [a] more worrying” sign of a brewing military breakdown than members of the military taking part in the Capitol riot. Brigadier General Thomas Mancino openly defied the military vaccination mandate, promising that Oklahoma National Guard members would not be punished if they refused to get the jab despite the Pentagon’s threat to withdraw funding from the force.

The generals appeared to suggest the denigration of the US military might only happen if Republicans claim victory in the next presidential race, seemingly ruling out the possibility that US President Joe Biden won’t be re-elected.

A doomsday scenario, as laid out by the generals, would see “competing commanders in chief — a newly re-elected Biden giving orders, versus Trump (or another Trumpian figure) issuing orders as the head of a shadow government.”

In a contested election, with loyalties split, some might follow orders from the rightful commander in chief, while others might follow the Trumpian loser

The generals also suggested that anti-Biden politicians “at state and federal level” might want to close ranks behind “a losing candidate” in an attempt to install them as president. The resulting chaos may pave the way for a “civil war” which will undermine US security and can be exploited by America’s “enemies” to carry out an “all-out assault” on US assets or that of its allies, the generals warned in their chilling message.

A crowd of supporters of ex-President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol on January 6, seeking to block the certification of the 2020 presidential elections results for Democrat Joe Biden. While hundreds have been arrested following the riot, none were charged with inciting “insurrection.” This week, Washington, DC filed a lawsuit against 31 alleged pro-Trump activists for “causing extensive damage to the District.”

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45. Texas restarts Trump’s pet projectПн, 20 дек 2021[-/+]
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Texas has begun building a wall on its border with Mexico, picking up where former President Donald Trump left off with the stated goal of stopping the trafficking of drugs and illegal aliens through its territory.

Governor Greg Abbott announced the start of construction on Saturday, saying crews are already putting up more than 100 yards of wall – made with the same 30-foot steel poles the Trump administration was using – each day. He noted that the state had made “unprecedented” progress in pushing forward with building work just six months after he announced the project.

“We have wasted no time in the six months since that promise was made...” Abbott said. “Today not only represents the first phase of the Texas border wall, but it also serves as a major milestone in our efforts to combat illegal immigration, stop the smuggling of drugs and people, and keep our communities safe.”

The wall is part of a $3 billion initiative that Abbott launched in June to address the effects of a US immigration crisis on Texas, where about two-thirds of illegal crossings at the southern border occur. Like other Republican governors, he has blamed President Joe Biden’s “open border” policies for record migrant traffic.

“Never before has a state of the United States of America had to step up and build its own border wall,” said Abbott, who also has deployed state troopers and Texas National Guard soldiers to help deter illegal immigration.

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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris at El Paso central processing center, near the border between the United States and Mexico in El Paso, Texas, U.S., June 25, 2021. © REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
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In addition to using the same building materials chosen by the Trump administration, Texas is employing some of the same crews. Abbott said progress is even faster than under the previous federal effort because Texas owns much of the land along its 1,254-mile border with Mexico. Private landowners have donated about 100 miles of right-of-way for the project, he added.

The state also might be in position to procure materials at bargain prices. The Biden administration is in the process of canceling wall construction contracts, meanwhile paying contractors millions of dollars a day to guard the steel, concrete and other materials that they had set aside near the border. In some cases, piles of steel poles have reportedly been abandoned.

Apprehensions of illegal border crossers nearly quadrupled in the federal government’s last fiscal year, which ended on September 31, to 1.73 million, according to US Customs and Border Patrol figures. The Biden administration has projected that more than two million apprehensions will be recorded in the 2021 calendar year.

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46. Former GOP vice president candidate on Covid-19 vaccine: ‘Over my dead body’Пн, 20 дек 2021[-/+]
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Former Alaska governor and controversial conservative Sarah Palin fired up a crowd of anti-vaxxers by promising to get a Covid vaccine “over my dead body,” a choice of words that has prompted massive backlash.

Appearing at Turning Point USA’s ‘AmericaFest 2021' in Phoenix, Arizona, Palin made her stance on coronavirus vaccines clear during a discussion with Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk over the weekend.

“It’ll be over my dead body that I’ll have to get a shot. I will not do that. I won’t do it, and they better not touch my kids either,” the former vice presidential candidate said, seemingly channeling late conservative actor Charlton Heston, who famously promised, at a National Rifle Association (NRA) convention, that his guns could only be taken if they were ripped from his “cold dead hands.”

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(Right) Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin © REUTERS/Tami Chappell
(Left) U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) © REUTERS/Gabrielle Crockett
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Palin argued she does not need a vaccine jab because she was previously infected with Covid-19.

“We were led to believe that we wouldn't have to have the shot,” she said, accusing health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci of pushing “inconsistent” talking points. The government, Palin added, is “not serious” about Covid.

“If they were serious about this, our borders would be closed, and those [that] crossed the border, they'd be tested,” she said at one point during the talk. “That's evidence of what a joke this is.”

The Republican activist told the crowd that more people need to stand against mandates at their jobs and in schools.

“Enough is enough,” she said, encouraging conservatives to “stiffen your spine” against government mandates.

Palin’s remark has triggered a torrent of criticism and mockery, mostly from US liberals, suggesting that the words of the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee might prove prophetic.

Sarah Palin: Over my dead body will I get vaccinated.

Covid: That can be arranged.

— Amy Lynn?? (@AmyAThatcher) December 19, 2021

DEAR SARAH PALIN,

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!

Signed---
OMICRON https://t.co/n5GmJL67EH

— E. Jean Carroll (@ejeancarroll) December 19, 2021

A slew of prominent Republicans have been pushing against US President Joe Biden’s vaccination mandates. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has emerged as the most vocal opponent of the measure, signing legislation that barred private employees in his state from imposing vaccine mandates on their workers unless they allow a broad range of exemptions, including on the basis of religious beliefs and natural immunity.

Over two dozen lawsuits were filed by Republican-led states challenging the administration’s mandate for private businesses with at least 100 employees. While the legal battle is still ongoing, the Republican challenge suffered a setback on Friday after a federal appeals court reinstated the mandate in the states, pending a likely scrutiny by the US Supreme Court.

The Biden administration has argued that broad mandates are essential to stop the spread of Covid, with the president predicting “a winter of severe illness and death” for those unvaccinated.

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47. Twitter censors account that alleged another CNN pedophilia scandalВс, 19 дек 2021[-/+]
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Twitter has suspended an account linked to Project Veritas after the media outlet posted a video accusing a CNN producer of soliciting nude photos of an underage girl and fantasizing about molesting another child.

The account, called ‘@investigatecnn’, was suspended on Saturday for unspecified violations of Twitter’s rules. The move came two days after Project Veritas released a video in which former sex worker Janine Bonanni alleged that a CNN producer – later identified as Rick Saleeby – asked for nude ‘mother-daughter’ pictures with her 15-year-old child and spoke of the sexual things he wanted to do with the 14-year-old daughter of his fiancé.

Twitter suspended the account Project Veritas used to post their video exposing CNN and @jaketapper’s producer Rick Saleeby fantasizing about an underage girl pic.twitter.com/YldDYT5Bzk

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) December 18, 2021

Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe said the suspension came shortly after his investigative journalism outlet released Saleeby’s name – with the permission of his now ex- fiancé. The video of O’Keefe’s interview with Bonanni had been viewed about 1.3 million times.

Saleeby is a producer for CNN’s ‘The Lead With Jake Tapper’. O’Keefe said Tapper’s name was trending on Twitter at the time the social media giant suspended the account that posted the video. Saleeby’s ex-fiancé sent a note to Project Veritas thanking the outlet for having “saved us all from him.” She added that she was pushing for the producer to be criminally charged.

“The real question is, is CNN putting pressure on Twitter to take down this video?” O’Keefe said. “This is about potential pedophilia, potential abuse against an underage girl.” CNN is yet to comment on the case.

Bonanni, who claimed to have known Saleeby for more than a decade, showed text conversations and a recording of a telephone call purported to be with the producer to back up her accusations. In one of the texts attributed to Saleeby, the person asked Bonanni whether he would be given “mother-daughter nudes” for his help. Bonanni, now a case manager for sexual assault victims, said the ‘help’ reference was to money that Saleeby gave her.

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©Pxhere
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The allegations against Saleeby surfaced after CNN last week fired another producer, John Griffin, who was arrested on December 10 for allegedly trying to entice children to engage in sexual activity.

Bonanni said she spoke to Saleeby after Griffin’s arrest, and he reacted by calling his fellow producer a “pervert” and a “scumbag.” She added, “In my head I’m thinking, you’re doing the same thing.”

Ironically, Saleeby was caught up in another Project Veritas report in 2019, when he was shown on hidden camera speaking about allegations of sexual misconduct against another CNN producer.

Twitter permanently banned a Project Veritas account last February after the outlet posted a video of one of its staffers confronting a Facebook executive about his leaked comments regarding censorship tools.

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48. Retiring NIH director issues warning to ‘tired’ AmericansВс, 19 дек 2021[-/+]
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National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins has called holiday travel for unvaccinated Americans “not a great idea” and left a dire warning about Omicron cases in his final days on the job.

Whether vaccinated or not, those traveling for the holidays must do so “very carefully,” Collins told CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ on Sunday, amid a rise in Covid-19 cases, as well as the potential threat of the Omicron variant.

Collins admitted, however, that airplanes are a “fairly safe place” to be thanks to the numerous pandemic restrictions in place, including strict mask mandates.

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FILE PHOTO: Dr. Anthony Fauci during a press briefing at the White House. December 1, 2021. © Reuters / Kevin Lamarque
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“I think airplanes, now with required masking, probably being on an airplane is a fairly safe place to be. But think about how you're going to get there and how you can make sure you're safe along the way,” Collins said when discussing potential travel for the holidays.

Those who are “vaccinated and boosted,” Collins said, must still make sure to wear their masks while traveling and mixing with others, while unvaccinated Americans, the health official added, should likely refrain from travel altogether.

“I would say travel is really not a great idea because you are in a very vulnerable place now with Omicron,” he said.

Collins is departing from his NIH position this month. He previously announced his departure in October after more than a decade with the health agency.

He used one of his last days in office to issue Covid warnings to Americans feeling fatigued with pandemic restrictions and health officials’ continued promises.

“We cannot afford to let down our guard,” he told NPR in a Sunday interview, claiming without vigilance, Omicron and other variants could push the US to facing more than one million cases a day.

“I know people are tired of this. I'm tired of it too, believe me,” he said. “But the virus is not tired of us. It's having a great old time changing its shape every couple of months, coming up with new variants and figuring out ways to be even more contagious.”

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49. Trump says he had ‘a great relationship’ with ‘killer’ XiВс, 19 дек 2021[-/+]
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Former president Donald Trump has said that although he thinks Chinese President Xi Jinping is “a killer” who “destroyed the world” with Covid-19, he had a “great relationship” with China’s premier.

In an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, Trump said that “once Covid came along, or the China virus as I call it,” his “great” relationship with Xi nosedived.

Bartiromo, normally sympathetic in her coverage of the former president, interrupted Trump to claim that Xi “is a killer.”

“He is a killer,” Trump replied, “but I had a great relationship with him.

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Trump’s relationship with Xi was rarely described as “great.” Even before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump pushed a hardline stance on China, locking the US into a trade war with Beijing and describing China as a “foe,” while under his leadership the US’ National Defense Strategy elevated China to one of the US’ main “strategic competitors.”

However, the relationship well and truly soured following the Covid-19 outbreak. Trump from the outset insisted that the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, a theory since given credence by the revelation that the US funded so-called ‘gain-of-function’ research on coronaviruses at that lab.

“They’ve really destroyed the whole world,” Trump said, before hammering President Joe Biden for failing to follow through on his campaign promise and “shut down” Covid-19, despite “all of these vaccines and all of these incredible therapeutics.”

Asked why Biden has not pressed Xi on the origins of the coronavirus during several conversations this year, Trump replied “he’s afraid of him.”

Beijing has dismissed allegations that the coronavirus escaped the Wuhan lab. After a US intelligence report in October called the lab leak theory “plausible,” the Chinese Embassy in Washington questioned the US government’s use of “intelligence apparatus instead of scientists” to trace the virus’ origins.

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50. Joe Manchin to kill Biden’s signature billВс, 19 дек 2021[-/+]
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West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has announced that he won’t support the mammoth ‘Build Back Better’ bill. His refusal dooms the Democratic Party’s efforts to pass a key piece of President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda.

“I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation, I just can't. I tried everything humanly possible, I can't get there,” Manchin told Fox News host Bret Baier on Sunday, adding, “This is a no, on this legislation.”

"This is a no on this legislation" -- On Fox News Sunday, Manchin announces he won't vote for the Build Back Better bill. Game over. pic.twitter.com/p0rCu4kl7M

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 19, 2021

Democrats currently hold the thinnest of majorities in the Senate. With control of the upper chamber split 50-50 between both parties and Vice President Kamala Harris providing the tie-breaking vote, Manchin’s defection is enough to consign the bill to the dustbin, at least in its present form.

The bill itself would dramatically expand America’s welfare system and invest heavily in green energy. It would also include funding for immigration reform, healthcare, and childcare, among other provisions. The bill comes with a price tag of around $2 trillion, although the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that it would add some $367 billion to the federal deficit over the next decade, and conservative calculations say its programs could cost nearly $5 trillion if made permanent.

“My Democratic colleagues in Washington are determined to dramatically reshape our society in a way that leaves our country even more vulnerable to the threats we face,” Manchin said in a statement shortly after his Fox News appearance. Citing rising inflation, high gas and food prices, and the US’ “staggering” $29 trillion national debt, Manchin said he “cannot take that risk,” before accusing Biden and his fellow Democrats of trying to “camouflage the real cost” of the bill.

Manchin, who represents the second-largest coal producing state in the US, said that the bill’s climate provisions would “risk the reliability of our electric grid and increase our dependence on foreign supply chains.”

Now Manchin has released a statement saying he’s no. Crystal clear no

“My Democratic colleagues in Washington are determined to dramatically reshape our society in a way that leaves our country even more vulnerable to the threats we face. I cannot take that risk" pic.twitter.com/e2CjsrkEH6

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) December 19, 2021

The senator has for months met with Democrats all the way up to Biden in an attempt to bargain down the cost of the bill. Throughout this time, he has been hammered by op-eds in liberal news outlets, and hassled in public by climate activists. Now, with his opposition final, the bill has no clear route to becoming law.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki described Manchin’s decision not to back the bill as “inexplicable,” saying the West Virginian had been in discussion with Biden this week about a possible “compromise” bill.Just as Senator Manchin reversed his position on Build Back Better this morning, we will continue to press him to see if he will reverse his position yet again, to honor his prior commitments and be true to his word,” she said.

Together with a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill signed into law last month, the Build Back Better Act formed the core of Biden’s legislative agenda. Its failure to pass comes at the end of a dismal year for the Democratic president, who has overseen an economy wracked by inflation, Covid-19 death tolls exceeding those under Donald Trump, humiliation on the foreign stage after a botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, and rock-bottom approval rates.

The fact that Manchin could single-handedly torpedo such a key piece of legislation has also been a source of frustration for the Biden administration. Asked this week whether Joe Manchin or Joe Biden was the “real president of this country,” Vice President Harris snapped at TV host Charlamagne Tha God, accusing him of “talking like a Republican.”

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51. US Air Force embraces gender pronounsВс, 19 дек 2021[-/+]
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The US Air Force has authorized the use of gender pronouns in electronic signature boxes, further embracing the controversial woke lexicon that other branches of government were criticized for adopting earlier this year.

The military division authorized using gender pronouns in a piece of correspondence earlier this month, which was made public over the weekend. The document states that while the “use of pronouns (he/him, she/her, or they/them) in an email signature is authorized,” it is “not required.

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The signature block in Air Force email templates is otherwise restricted to name, rank, service affiliation, duty title, organization name, phone numbers, and social media contact information. Under the new rules, pronouns will be added to that list.

It’s unclear if there was a specific incident that provoked the move on behalf of the Air Force or if this was simply part of the US military’s onward march toward wokeness under President Joe Biden and his Pentagon chief, Lloyd Austin, who has pledged to cleanse the military of “deep-rooted racism and discrimination.”

Biden’s pick to lead the Defense Department has ruffled some feathers in the military, as Austin has repeatedly suggested that some of the nation’s worst enemies “lie within our own ranks.” That image hasn’t improved with the department moving to dishonorably discharge those service members who choose not to receive the Covid-19 vaccine.

The Biden administration is determined to roll out the red carpet for LGBTQ recruits, running ads featuring a lesbian wedding and a Pride parade as well as ones featuring new military members describing themselves in ‘intersectional’ terms. Another video, this one the animated story of a real person, illustrated the upbringing of an army corporal with “two mommies.

The administration’s embrace of woke-speak – especially gender pronouns – has attracted derision from political opponents. The State Department was mocked for celebrating ‘International Pronouns Day’ in October even as chaos seemingly broke loose around the world, from the ongoing failure to rescue Americans trapped in Afghanistan under Taliban rule to reports of China’s hypersonic missile launch.

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52. CNN closes offices to most workers over Omicron fearsВс, 19 дек 2021[-/+]
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CNN has announced it is closing its offices to non-essential staff amid a surge in Covid cases and not long after critics highlighted a ‘maskless’ holiday network party.

If an employee’s job does not require them to be in the office, then they should work “elsewhere,” network head Jeff Zucker said in a Saturday memo, first reported by the Wall Street Journal. The decision has been made out of “an abundance of caution.”

Changes are also being made to newsrooms to minimize the amount of people “in our spaces,” he said. The network will return to using smaller-scale studios and remote technology as it had previously done in response to the pandemic. A tentative return to office date has been set for January, according to the WSJ’s report.

Like other major media companies, CNN is making changes due to the new Covid surge. CNN offices are closing "to all employees who do not have to be in the office to do their jobs," per internal memo tonight. Back to 2020 protocols, essentially.

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 19, 2021

CNN has a “zero-tolerance policy” on vaccine requirements, and three staffers were fired after not getting inoculated and showing up at the office in August. CNN host Brianna Keilar, who is “double vaccinated and boosted,” recently announced she has “symptomatic Covid.”

I have symptomatic covid and am so thankful to have the protection of being double vaccinated and boosted. Please be careful about potential exposures and get tested before gathering with friends and family.

— Brianna Keilar (@brikeilarcnn) December 17, 2021

Masking is also required for employees, unless they are eating or drinking or by themselves.

The network has received criticism on social media since last week, with many poking fun at a slew of office holiday party pictures posted to social media by host Jake Tapper and his fellow employees that show maskless staffers (though Tapper and others insist this was only for pictures).

Some great entries for the annual CNN Christmas sweater contest! (Everyone is vaccinated and we took masks off for the photos) pic.twitter.com/CcO0SsPc5R

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) December 15, 2021

Not a single white elitist liberal here is wearing a mask and you are completely blind to the irony.

— Will Ricciardella (@WillRicci) December 19, 2021

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53. Emails reveal Fauci’s effort to ‘smear’ anti-lockdown scientistsВс, 19 дек 2021[-/+]
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Newly released emails show Anthony Fauci and his boss at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) wanted to conduct a “quick and devastating” take-down of health experts who proposed a lockdown-free Covid-19 control strategy.

The emails, released on Friday by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, show retiring NIH Director Francis Collins telling Fauci in October 2020 to discredit the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) – a statement that proposes working towards achieving herd immunity through “focused protection” of the most vulnerable.

Days after the GBD was released, Collins notified Fauci and other health officials about how the proposal from “three fringe epidemiologists” was getting a “lot of attention” and called for a “quick and devastating published take down of its premises.”

Thread summarizing what we've learned so far of the Fauci/Collins email dump on the Great Barrington Declaration:

It starts on 10/14/20 when Collins instructs Fauci and his staff to "take down" the GBD and the "fringe" scientists behind it. pic.twitter.com/XyTWINMOnG

— Phil Magness (@PhilWMagness) December 18, 2021

A short time later, Fauci emails Collins an op-ed from Wired magazine that “debunks this theory” and calls out the three scientists – Martin Kulldorff, an epidemiologist at Harvard University, Sunetra Gupta, an epidemiologist at Oxford University, and Jay Bhattacharya, a public health policy expert at Stanford University – for touting an approach without “following the scientific method” for peer-reviewed hypotheses.

After Collins lauds this “excellent” response, Fauci sends him another op-ed in The Nation magazine that “[refuted] the herd immunity approach.” Collins replies agreeing with article that the idea is a “deadly delusion.”

The next day, Fauci sends Collins an angry rant against the GBD in the @TheNation by @gregggonsalves.

Collins approves. pic.twitter.com/jstxmUb4Ay

— Phil Magness (@PhilWMagness) December 18, 2021

This part of the exchange was not included in disclosures by the subcommittee in its year-end report, but was posted in a series of tweets by Phil Magness, education director at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), a libertarian think tank that sponsored the GBD. Magness condemns the “smear campaign” later launched by Collins against the scientists through a Washington Post article in which he was quoted.

Fauci also emailed former White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Deborah Birx about taking a “very [strong]” public stance against the GBD.

On the morning of the Covid task force meeting, Fauci sends Deborah Birx this email alerting her about the need to oppose the GBD at the meeting. The unredacted part suggests they are preparing to attack @ScottWAtlas, who was perceived as the task force's champion of the GBD. pic.twitter.com/iqYbiTiZxo

— Phil Magness (@PhilWMagness) December 18, 2021

Following the release of the emails, Bhattacharya said he was the “subject of a propaganda attack by my own government” while Kulldorff tweeted that an “invitation” to a “public debate” on herd immunity was still open.

During a Fox News interview on Friday, Collins stood by his “take down” comment, claiming that the herd immunity approach “didn’t make sense” to him since adopting it would have led to “hundreds of thousands of additional deaths.”

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54. Rapper’s stabbing cancels LA music festivalВс, 19 дек 2021[-/+]
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Rapper Drakeo the Ruler was reportedly stabbed to death backstage at the Once Upon a Time in LA music festival. The festival, featuring artists like Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent, was canceled in response.

Drakeo, whose real name is Darrell Caldwell, was allegedly stabbed in a backstage brawl at Los Angeles’ Exposition Park on Saturday night. Video footage posted to Instagram showed a group of men fighting, while another shot showed Caldwell lying on the ground in a pool of blood.

Caldwell was rushed to hospital, where he died of his injuries, TMZ reported.

pic.twitter.com/3IkcusvbSv

— onceuponatimeinlafest (@onceinla) December 19, 2021

Snoop Dogg, who was due to headline the festival alongside such hip-hop heavyweights as Ice Cube, 50 Cent and The Game, left immediately after the brawl broke out, and the entire festival was canceled soon afterwards.

Described by Los Angeles Times journalist Jeff Weiss as "the most original West Coast stylist in decades,” Caldwell’s rise to fame has not been a smooth ascent. A stint in jail on firearms charges in 2017 was followed by an arrest in 2018 on charges of murder, attempted murder, and gang crimes relating to the shooting dead of a 24-year-old man in 2016. Facing life behind bars, Caldwell was acquitted of the first two charges in 2019 and freed from jail in 2020 after he took a plea deal on the gang offenses.

After releasing a mixtape partly recorded over the phone from Men's Central Jail in LA, Caldwell released his first studio album, ‘The Truth Hurts’, in February. He was 28 years old when he died.

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55. NYT investigation reveals ‘hundreds’ of civilian deaths uncounted in US strikesВс, 19 дек 2021[-/+]
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An investigation by the New York Times has found that the Pentagon severely downplayed the civilian death toll from its “precision” strikes in Syria and Iraq, while failing to investigate reports of potential civilian casualties.

The New York Times investigation, the first part of which was released on Monday, draws on over 1,311 casualty assessment reports that were previously kept under wraps by the Pentagon. Having reviewed the files and visited “nearly 100 casualties sites” in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, the Times reported that the US military often dismissed reports of civilian casualties as non-credible, despite failing to visit the sites or speak to the witnesses.

The Times revealed that in 216 instances in which the Pentagon found reports of civilian casualties credible, its investigators visited the actual site of the bombing in only one case. None of the investigations resulted in any penalties for those responsible for the strikes, and only one “possible violation” in mapping out a strike was identified by the Pentagon.

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FILE PHOTO. © AFP / Delil souleiman
The NY Times reports US forces ‘killed dozens in Syria.’ The reality is far worse

The Times investigation also revealed that trigger-happy US troops tended to rely on “incorrect or incomplete” intelligence to hit terrorist targets, sometimes killing dozens of civilians instead. Confirmation bias was said to play a role in troops interpreting scant intelligence in a way that affirms their “pre-existing beliefs” about the targets.

For instance, during a strike in Iraq in 2015, US forces killed a child after identifying him as “an unknown heavy object” who was being “dragged” to a supposed Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) position by an alleged militant.

Sloppy targeting practices resulted in around 120 Syrian villagers dying in a US strike on July 19, 2016, according to the investigation. At the time of the strike, the Pentagon apparently thought that 85 militants were killed in the bombing instead, even though it took place “far from the front line.” In another botched strike, a warplane killed an entire family escaping West Mosul in 2017, mistaking the civilian vehicle with two children for a car bomb.

Even in instances in which the US acknowledged civilian casualties, it was not in a hurry to pay compensation to the victims, with the Times reporting that “fewer than a dozen condolence payments were made.”

Read more
FILE PHOTO. © Getty Images / MARCUS YAM
China calls for ‘reckoning’ over US atrocity in Afghanistan

The Times points out that the multiple lapses in the US air campaign cannot be discounted as “outliers,” but rather represent a common trend in “a sharp contrast to the American government’s image of war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs.”

“Since 2014, the American air war has been plagued by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed and imprecise targeting and the deaths of thousands of civilians, many of them children.”

While the Pentagon claims that a total of 1,417 civilians died as result of the US bombing campaigns in Syria and Iraq, and 188 civilians were killed since 2018 in Afghanistan, the Times estimates the civilian death toll to be significantly higher.

“Many allegations of civilian casualties had been summarily discounted, with scant evaluation. And the on-the-ground reporting – involving a sampling of cases dismissed, cases deemed ‘credible’ and, in Afghanistan, cases not included in the trove of Pentagon documents – found hundreds of deaths uncounted.”

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56. ‘Covington teen’ settles with another US outlet over bogus hate crime storyВс, 19 дек 2021[-/+]
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Nicholas Sandmann has reached a settlement with US TV network NBC after suing the corporation for $275 million, charging the outlet had concocted a phony narrative that made him look like the aggressor in a viral video.

Sandmann announced the settlement via Twitter on Friday, noting that the terms were confidential. He has previously reached settlements with the Washington Post and CNN, whom he sued for $250 million and $275 million, respectively. Lawsuits against the New York Times, CBS, ABC, Rolling Stone, and Gannett are ongoing.

At this time I would like to release that NBC and I have reached a settlement. The terms are confidential.

— Nicholas Sandmann (@N1ckSandmann) December 17, 2021

The student was thrust into the spotlight when he was filmed demonstrating with several of his classmates from Covington Catholic High School as part of the March for Life event at the Lincoln Memorial in January 2019. Footage of him sporting a brand-new MAGA (Make America Great Again) hat and facing off with Native American elder Nathan Phillips went viral immediately after it was published.

Mainstream media outlets were quick to attach a racially-charged narrative to the footage, painting Sandmann as a bigoted, entitled white boy who was in some way victimizing Phillips with what many talking heads insisted was his “smirk.” However, there was no evidence of any such aggression on the part of Sandmann or his fellow Covington students, who were on their way to meet up with the bus that would take them back to Kentucky when they were waylaid first by a group of Black Hebrew Israelites shouting racist and homophobic slurs at them and then by Phillips.

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File photo © Reuters / Mike Blake
NBC Law & Order episode slammed for Covington teen & Ilhan Omar similarities

The lawsuit against NBC argued the network had “created a false narrative by portraying the ‘confrontation’ as a ‘hate crime’ committed by Nicholas,” adding that the teen was an “easy target for NBCUniversal to advance its anti-Trump agenda” due to his being a “white, Catholic student” at a pro-life march wearing a Trump hat he’d bought earlier in the day “as a souvenir.”

Sandmann and his classmates were harassed both online and in real life following the wave of media coverage that centered on the false reading of the footage, which was played over establishment networks for several days. Accused of “disrespecting an indigenous elder”, “taunting” and “mocking a veteran” Sandmann was threatened with expulsion by the local diocese. An independent investigation launched by the diocese which hired a private detective agency, however, later found that the students did not start the confrontation. Moreover, the Diocese of Covington Bishop Roger Foys commended the boys, calling their reaction “expected and one might even say laudatory."

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57. US military causes ‘sonic boom’ by accidentВс, 19 дек 2021[-/+]
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An Air National Guard unit in Oregon has apologized after one of its aircraft “inadvertently” caused a sonic boom that raised concerns that the state was being rocked by an earthquake.

The incident occurred on Tuesday, just a week after Oregon was shaken by a swarm of nearly 100 offshore earthquakes. A day later, the 142nd Wing of the Oregon Air National Guard confessed that it was to blame for the shocking boom.

A training flight “inadvertently went supersonic” while operating off the Oregon coast, the unit said in a Facebook post. “We understand that this caused concern from our coastal residents and for that we sincerely apologize.”

Sgt. Steven Conklin said Air National Guard pilots are allowed to cause such booms when flying at least 15 miles away from the coast, but the nose of the aircraft should be pointed away from land. In Tuesday’s incident, the jet was located more than 15 miles offshore, but its nose was pointed “slightly toward the coastline,” he said.

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Snow in Moulin, Scotland, Dec 3, 2020 © Reuters / Russell Cheyne
‘Like a bomb’: Edinburgh residents wake up terrified after ‘explosions,’ Met Office confirms it was just ‘THUNDERSNOW’

Sonic booms are triggered by the shock waves that are created when an object travels through the air at faster than the speed of sound, or about 760 miles per hour. The booms sound similar to an explosion and can damage eardrums and shatter windows.

The US Air Force and Navy have paid out hundreds of damage and injury claims stemming from sonic booms over the years. In one case that the Air Force settled for $26,000 in 1982, a Tennessee family alleged that the boom killed 61 pigs, knocked out a woman’s dental fillings and picked up a house from its foundation. The woman also claimed to have suffered blurred vision, earaches and dizzy spells for weeks.

The Federal Aviation Administration has banned supersonic civilian flight over land since 1973. The Air National Guard unit didn’t identify the type of jet involved in Tuesday’s incident. Some US military jets can fly at more than double the speed of sound.

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58. CDC’s miscalculated jab data poses risk as winter loomsВс, 19 дек 2021[-/+]
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The US Centers for Disease Control has overcounted the number of Americans who have received Covid-19 vaccines, recording numerous second doses and boosters as first shots, state officials told Bloomberg.

While the CDC’s data suggests some 240 million Americans have received at least one shot, the statistics claim just 203 million are fully vaccinated, a statistic which would suggest 37 million Americans started - but did not finish - their course of injections.

However, state and local officials who spoke to Bloomberg on Saturday found those numbers “improbable,” suggesting instead that the government had incorrectly recorded Americans’ vaccine data on a grand scale, mis-counting second doses and booster shots as first doses and thus overestimating the number of vaccinated Americans altogether.

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© Reuters / Dado Ruvic
Pfizer documents reveal variety of vaccine side effects

As a result, both the completely-vaccinated and the completely-unvaccinated are overcounted in the CDC’s statistics. According to the article, state health departments have been quietly tweaking their statistics in the hope of coming up with more realistic numbers over the last month, measuring those against the national figures and adjusting accordingly, but it’s difficult to know what the real numbers are.

Not only does each individual state maintain its own numbers, but some have several repositories of data and all state health departments receive input from health insurers, federal programs, and pharmacies. The national vaccine rollout took place not just at pharmacies and doctors’ offices but also at pop-up sites, with everyone from public transit agencies to school districts setting up spaces to maximize the amount of shots entering arms. Further complicating matters, many patients received their second or booster shots at different locations, with some even receiving different brands of vaccine - and nothing but a paper vaccine card to tie the fragments together.

Many state health officials were pessimistic about the ability to reconcile national numbers with their own data, noting that the mismatched figures made it “really difficult” to “target our booster messaging.

We don’t have any faith in the numbers on the CDC website, and we never refer to them,” Philadelphia Department of Public Health spokesman James Garrow told Bloomberg. The state of Pennsylvania lowered its estimate for adults who’d received one shot from 98.9% to 94.6% last month, and plans to submit another round of revised figures by the end of the year.

The state of Illinois found it had overcounted both the unvaccinated and the fully-vaccinated - with 540,000 more unvaxxed over the age of 12 and 730,000 totally vaccinated who had somehow been skipped in previous counts.

While the official statistics appear to indicate the US - with 72.5% of its population having received at least one shot but just 61.3% fully-vaxxed - is a major outlier compared to other Group of Seven countries, the discrepancy is more likely to be due to the fragmentation of recordkeeping.

According to Bloomberg's statistics, the European Union has just a 2.6% gap between the singly-vaxxed and the fully-jabbed, and while the US has the largest disparity at 11%, the UK is second among G7 nations with a 6.7% gap.

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59. PETA tells New Yorkers how they should treat ratsВс, 19 дек 2021[-/+]
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Animal-rights group PETA is alarmed that New York City is combatting its surging rat population by employing a clever new trap baited with Oreo cookies, saying the creatures are “simply trying to live their lives.”

The Italian-made traps in question have been endorsed by Mayor-elect Eric Adams and are reportedly being used increasingly by New York businesses to help stop an infestation that has been blamed for rising cases of the bacterial infection leptospirosis. Reports of rat sightings are up about 40% this year, at more than 21,000 as of last month.

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A firefighting helicopter gets water in the ocean to fight the Alisal fire, on the Gaviota coast near Santa Barbara, California, US, October 14, 2021
California votes to drop 3,000 pounds of poison from helicopters

Enter the new trap, a battery-controlled device housed in a green metal box. Rats are lured through holes into a top compartment – US distributor Rat Trap Distribution recommends peanut butter Oreos and sunflower seeds as the best bait – then dropped into a catch basin filled with an alcohol-based formula that knocks them unconscious.

The system is getting rave reviews from restaurateurs and other users, as reported by the New York Times on Friday, and about 175 traps have been installed in the city. Rat Trap Distribution boasted this week of finding 17 rats in a single catch basin. Customers lease the traps for $250 a month.

However, PETA has taken issue with the rat-trapping effort, telling the Times that the city should focus on cleaning up garbage and sealing entry points, “not finding new ways to torment and kill small animals who are simply trying to live their lives, just like any other New Yorker.”

17 Rats ? in the trap pic.twitter.com/3H84hTfJqn

— Rat Trap Distribution Inc. (@RatTrapUSA) December 15, 2021

PETA’s personification of New York’s thriving rodents apparently spurred little sympathy on social media. “Excuse me, PETA, but the rats I see on the subway never pay the fare,” one Twitter user said.

Could Oreo Cookies Solve New York’s Rat Problem? https://t.co/QQlNQGS7Gu @nytimes

Excuse me PETA but the rats I see on the subway never pay the fare. ? pic.twitter.com/GoR9s2TE8F

— Howard Sherman (@hsherman) December 17, 2021

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60. Program could see felons evade prosecution for sexual battery & assault – mediaСб, 18 дек 2021[-/+]
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Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon has reportedly rolled out a new ‘restorative justice’ initiative that will enable teenagers who commit such crimes as sexual battery and arson to escape prosecution.

A leaked memo obtained by Fox News reporter Bill Melugin shows that Gascon is expanding a diversion program for juvenile offenders to include more serious crimes. The prosecutor, who was elected last year after getting more than $2.5 million in campaign funding from billionaire George Soros, cited such “qualifying felonies” as burglary, assault and robbery.

NEW: Leaked memo reveals Los Angeles D.A. @GeorgeGascon to implement “restorative justice” pathway that will expand diversion to juveniles arrested for certain felonies including, not limited to:
Sexual battery
Robbery
Arson
Grand Theft Person
Vehicle theft
Assault @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/rSfkIsvTTy

— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) December 17, 2021

Prosecutors say that under the new policy, a 17-year-old could be spared punishment after following you home, pulling a knife on you, threatening to kill you, and forcibly robbing you, Melugin noted.

Diversion programs are commonly used in the US to allow first-time offenders to avoid prison time and keep their criminal record clean by completing various requirements, such as undergoing treatment and performing community service. In many cases, the suspects are required to enter a guilty plea and admit responsibility, then complete their requirements to avoid having the conviction go on their record. Diversion is typically limited to non-violent offenses, such as drunk driving and marijuana possession.

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George Gascon, then DA in San Francisco, is shown speaking at a 2012 press conference.
Soros-funded Los Angeles DA stokes more outrage by calling family of murder victim too uneducated to ‘KEEP THEIR MOUTH SHUT’

Gascon last month adopted a broader diversion initiative, modeled after a similar program he implemented when he was DA in San Francisco, partly to reduce “racial disparities” in the criminal justice system. The policy allows suspects aged 13-17 to avoid charges being filed against them if they abide by the terms of a contract with the prosecutor's office, such as going through mental health or substance abuse treatment and meeting with their victims.

“Our prosecutorial approach should be biased toward keeping youth out of the juvenile justice system, and when they must become involved, our system must employ the lightest touch necessary in order to provide public safety,” he explained in a campaign statement last year.

However, public safety has been deteriorating amid surging crime this year in Los Angeles, (like in many major US cities), just as it did when Gascon was the top prosecutor in San Francisco from 2011 to 2019. The DA has also helped lighten the punishments of then-juveniles who were previously tried and convicted as adults, including gang members who committed murder, allowing them to be resentenced as juveniles. As a result, young felons who were in the middle of long prison terms have been set free.

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61. US hypersonic weapon test fails third time in a rowСб, 18 дек 2021[-/+]
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The US military didn’t succeed in conducting a test of a hypersonic missile prototype, with the munition failing to decouple from its carrier aircraft. This is the third failure in a row for the US ARRW hypersonic weapon program.

The unsuccessful attempt to test the new missile prototype was made by the US Air Force on Wednesday. The munition failed to leave its carrier aircraft for an unspecified reason, returning safely back to the ground.

“On 15 Dec. 2021, the Department of the Air Force attempted a booster test flight of the AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) from a B-52 Stratofortress,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Heath Collins told The War Zone magazine in a statement.

The launch sequence was aborted before release with an unknown issue. The missile will return to the factory and analysis of the telemetry and onboard data will begin immediately. The program will seek to resume flight test as quickly as possible.

The ARRW is one of the US’ programs to develop hypersonic weaponry, with the Pentagon hoping it will beat competition from Russia and China. The stated goal of the program is to reach initial operational capability with the missile in September 2022, yet underwhelming testing progress might push that objective further into the future.

The new unsuccessful test of the AGM-183A missile is the third failure for the US hypersonic weapons program this year. Two previous tests, conducted back in April and July were also unsuccessful.The April test appeared to be similar to the new flop, with the missile failing to separate from the carrier aircraft. During the second test attempt in July, the missile decoupled from the plane yet its engine failed to ignite, with the projectile plummeting to its doom. The failure was described as a ‘partial success’ by the US military back then, as the testing team was able to collect some data related to the missile’s launch procedure.

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62. Suspected ‘Shopping Cart Killer’ arrested after gruesome murdersСб, 18 дек 2021[-/+]
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Police in Virginia are investigating a man they believe to be a serial killer dubbed the “Shopping Cart Killer,” because he used carts to transport his alleged victims’ remains after doing “unspeakable things” to them.

During a press conference on Friday, Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said the suspect, Anthony Robinson, 35, was in custody on suspicion of killing four women. Robinson allegedly found his targets on dating sites – with Davis stating that he “preyed on the weak [and] vulnerable.”

“After he inflicts trauma to his victims and kills them, he transports their bodies to their final resting place literally in a shopping cart – and there’s video to that effect,” Davis said, adding that Robinson would meet his victims at motels.

Robinson was arrested last month and charged with first-degree murder for the killing of two women in Harrisonburg whose bodies were found in a deserted lot, police said. He is also a “person of interest” in the murder of two more women. Their remains were discovered on Wednesday in a large plastic container near a shopping cart, local outlets reported.

Three of the victims have been identified, with Davis noting that the fourth body was in an advanced state of decomposition. Authorities also said they are “working backwards” to investigate the murders and find other victims along the East Coast, where Robinson has lived at multiple locations.

We have a serial killer. The good thing is he’s in custody. The challenge that remains is identifying other victims.

“There is no doubt in my mind that these are not the only women,” said Davis. He added that Robinson had lived in New York, Maryland, and Washington, DC. The suspected serial killer is currently housed in Rockingham-Harrisonburg Regional Jail.

The three identified victims had all gone missing in the last few months. Since Robinson had met them via dating apps, police believe delving into his relationship history could provide clues into other potential victims.

“That’s what worries us. He didn’t suddenly turn into who he is three months ago,” Davis said

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63. Will the real president please stand up? Harris bristles at suggestion Biden isn’t itСб, 18 дек 2021[-/+]
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US Vice President Kamala Harris lashed out at TV host Charlamagne Tha God after he jokingly asked her whether the real leader of the country was President Joe Biden or West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin.

Asked which “Joe” was the “real president of this country,” Harris insisted at first in a resigned tone, “Come on Charlamagne, it’s Joe Biden,” talking over his attempted replies – “I can’t tell sometimes” – with a torrent of patronizing no’s.

WATCH: Kamala staffer tries to shut down interview when Harris is asked if Biden/Manchin is in charge.

Then she gets shouty and belligerent and accuses the interviewer of sounding like a Republican (revealing she only expects interviewers to be leftists) pic.twitter.com/pGjmef0adE

— Raheem J. Kassam (@RaheemKassam) December 18, 2021

It’s Joe Biden,” she repeated, growing increasingly heated and accusing Charlamagne of “talking like a Republican about asking whether or not he’s president” as she lapsed into an increasingly self-congratulatory monologue regarding the pair’s plans for their presidency.

Manchin, a thorn in the side of the Democratic Party for his refusal to drop everything and toe the party line, remained unmentioned by the VP, though Charlamagne attempted to derail Harris’ monologue by asking once more, “Do you think Joe Manchin is a problem?” He had repeatedly attempted to draw out Harris’ opinion of Manchin earlier in the show.

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US President Joe Biden speaks during the South Carolina State University graduation ceremony at Smith Hammond Middleton Memorial Center in Orangeburg, South Carolina, US December 17, 2021. © REUTERS / Elizabeth Frantz
Biden calls VP ‘President Harris’ again

Harris instead reminded Charlamagne of her name and position, waving her finger condescendingly as if speaking to a child. “And the reality is that because we are in office, we do the things like the child tax credit which is going to reduce black child poverty by 50%,” she said, admitting the administration was “on track” to do that rather than actually accomplishing it.

We do things that are about saying that our Department of Justice is going to do these investigations and require that we end choke holds and have body cameras,” she continued, seemingly prizing talk over action. Removing lead from pipes and increasing the “dignity” of those who ride public transit were also on the list, as was bringing down prescription drug costs and reducing black maternal mortality rates. While most of the issues remain unaddressed one year into the presidency as the administration has focused on Covid-19 aid and vaccine mandates, the debt ceiling, attempting to slay the filibuster, and other partisan issues, they remain key priorities.

Charlamagne managed to rescue the segment from that tangent by praising her for her ferocious, if unrelated, delivery. “I just want you to know that Madam Vice President, that Kamala Harris, that’s the one I like … that’s the one I’d like to see more often out here in these streets.”

While he later tried to convince Harris to blame the Democrats’ issues on Manchin, she refused to do so, instead blaming the problems on elected officials “all over” and even dredged up the specter of the January 6 Capitol riot.

Manchin’s refusal to back Democratic voting-rights initiatives, which would require overhauling the filibuster – a legislative move that allows a slim majority to block the passage of a bill – or embrace a massive combination infrastructure-social spending package have rankled his party. He has accused the Democrats of hiding the true costs of the $1.75 trillion package, and pointed out that should the filibuster be dismantled, the consequences if Congress falls back into the hands of the Republican Party would be disastrous.

Harris has suffered from plummeting approval ratings as the Biden administration has failed to deliver on many of its promises, leaving the nation mired in inflation and economic catastrophe on top of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. A Suffolk University poll last month found just 28% approved of Harris’ handling of her job, with 51% disapproving.

Charlamagne Tha God hosted Biden while he was on the campaign trail last year as the Democrat delivered a now-infamous line declaring that any black voter who had trouble deciding between himself and Trump “ain’t black.” Despite what could have been a show-stopping line, the host was able to keep the conversation moving with admirable poise, later eliciting an apology from Biden.

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64. Trump claims Israel had ‘absolute power’ over CongressСб, 18 дек 2021[-/+]
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Donald Trump is facing backlash after sounding off about what he called the “dangerous” apathy of American Jews towards Israel and claiming that the country once had “absolute power” over the US Congress.

During a recent interview with Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, Trump said that Jewish people in the US “either don’t like Israel or don’t care about Israel.” Audio excerpts from the sit-down were played on an episode of the podcast ‘Unholy: Two Jews on the news’, released on Friday.

I must be honest, it’s a very dangerous thing that’s happening. There’s people in this country that are Jewish [who] no longer love Israel.

Trump said that at one point, Israel had “absolute power over Congress,” adding that he thought it was “the exact opposite” today. He held Barack Obama and Joe Biden responsible for this supposedly diminishing support for Israel in Washington.

New quotes from Trump to @BarakRavid: Most US Jews don't love Israel. Exclusive for Unholy podcast
@Freedland pic.twitter.com/Hv4joYkbCN

— Yonit Levi (@LeviYonit) December 17, 2021

“I’ll tell you, the evangelical Christians love Israel more than the Jews in this country,” said Trump, who referenced his years in New York City to note how “many Jewish friends” had a “great love for Israel, which has dissipated over the years for people in the US.”

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Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands with US President Donald Trump after signing the Abraham Accords, September 15, 2020
‘F**k him’: Trump rips former ally Netanyahu for disloyalty

The fact that Jewish people still voted for Obama and Biden was evidence that they don’t like or care about Israel anymore, he said.

Trump held up the New York Times as an example of anti-Israel attitudes, claiming the paper “hates Israel,” despite being run by “Jewish people.” He pointed directly to the Sulzberger family, who have operated the paper for more than a century.

The former president’s comments quickly came under fire from Jewish groups, with the American Jewish Congress criticizing Trump for repeating “radioactive antisemitic tropes” and “fueling dangerous stereotypes” while “[peddling] unfounded conclusions about the unbreakable ties that bind American Jews to Israel.”

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65. Court reinstates Biden vaccine mandateСб, 18 дек 2021[-/+]
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A US federal appeals court has reinstated the Biden administration’s Covid-19 vaccination mandate for large private businesses, reversing an injunction by another court last month to pause the vaccine and testing requirement.

In its ruling on Friday, the Sixth US Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio upheld the authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to enforce the mandate, which it called an “important step” in curtailing coronavirus transmission.

Vaccination and medical examinations are both tools that OSHA historically employed to contain illness in the workplace, Judge Julia Gibbons wrote in her majority opinion. She said the mandate was therefore “not a novel expansion of OSHA’s power” but an “existing application of authority to a novel and dangerous worldwide pandemic.”

The mandate, introduced in November, applied to private businesses with at least 100 employees and would have affected 80 million workers. Under threat of fines, businesses were told to ensure their staff were fully vaccinated by January 4 or have them submit weekly Covid-19 tests in order to work. Unvaccinated workers would also have had to wear masks indoors from December 5.

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Anti-mandate protesters are shown demonstrating earlier this month in Boston.
Biden administration suspends vaccine mandate for businesses

However, the Biden administration was forced to suspend the enforcement of the rules after a court halted the order on November 12, citing “grave statutory and constitutional issues.” That ruling described the policy as “staggeringly overboard” and “fatally flawed.”

More than two dozen lawsuits were filed by Republican-led states, industry associations, and individual businesses to fight the mandate. They argued that the OSHA was not authorized to impose such rules and said fines for non-compliance – starting at nearly $14,000 per violation – would hurt businesses.

The Cincinnati court said such claims were “speculative.” Judge Jane Stranch wrote that the “harm to the Government and the public interest outweighs any irreparable injury” to individuals and businesses.

In the lone dissenting opinion, Judge Joan Larsen, a Donald Trump nominee, said Congress had not authorized the OSHA to make this sort of rule and argued that vaccinated workers “do not face ‘grave danger’ from working with those who are not vaccinated.”

The mandate – which was repealed by the Senate earlier this month – will likely face scrutiny from the Supreme Court next.

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66. Actor sacked from popular sitcom over Capitol riot – mediaСб, 18 дек 2021[-/+]
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Actor and comedian Jay Johnston was fired from animated sitcom ‘Bob’s Burgers’ over his alleged role in the storming of US Capitol in January, the Daily Beast reported.

Johnston will not be allowed to continue voicing Jimmy Pesto Sr., a recurring popular character on Fox network’s animated sitcom ‘Bob’s Burgers’, the Daily Beast reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter.

One source described the step as a “ban,” while another said that Fox and the show's cast and crew were not looking to make “a big deal” about Johnston’s alleged blacklisting.

A spokesperson for Fox, as well as a spokesperson for Disney, the show’s distributor, declined to comment on the matter to the Daily Beast.

Johnston, who appeared on ‘Arrested Development’ and ‘Anchorman’, had voiced Pesto in 43 episodes over the course of the show's 11 seasons.

Although the actor never publicly confirmed his presence at the Capitol during the January riot, some people familiar with Johnston, including comedians Tim Heidecker and Kathy Griffin, as well as actress Cassandra Church, claimed Johnston was the rioter pictured on ‘photo 247’ from FBI’s wanted posters. The person in the photo is wearing a leather jacket and a camouflage neck gaiter.

The #FBI is still seeking information on people who took part in the violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. If you know this individual, visit https://t.co/iL7sD5efWD. Refer to photo 247 in your tip. pic.twitter.com/CetMHzU190

— FBI (@FBI) March 4, 2021

I know him. We all do. Folks from LA comedy scene, that is. That's Jay Johnston. He's a well known comedic actor. I haven't seen him in many years, but knew him back in the day. Since the late 90s. Mutuals say he's "on the lamb" now. I can't believe I'm writing these words. https://t.co/aKehHpVmta

— Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) May 5, 2021

In March, fact-checking website Snopes rated the claim that Johnston may have participated in the riot as “unproven.”

On January 6, a crowd of former president Donald Trump’s supporters broke through police barricades and briefly overran the Capitol compound, attempting to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 US presidential election. One rioter was fatally shot by police, and several people died on the Capitol premises from health emergencies.

Nearly 730 people have been arrested and charged with crimes for their role in the riot.

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67. Leading cause of death among 18-45yo Americans revealed, and it is not Covid-19Сб, 18 дек 2021[-/+]
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Fentanyl overdoses have become the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45, according to a new report which shows deaths related to the drug overtaking Covid-19 and suicide.

Between 2020 and 2021, 78,795 adults in the age bracket died from the drug, with 2021 deaths rising by nearly 4,500 over the year before, according to a report released by the organization Families Against Fentanyl this week.

Fentanyl now kills more 18- to 45-year-olds than suicide, Covid-19, and car accidents, with the number of deaths experiencing a particularly sharp rise since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Fentanyl is tied to 64% of all US drug fatalities.

“Fentanyl fatalities have increased by 49.4% in just 12 months, surpassing 64k deaths as of April 2021,” the organization claimed, calling for lawmakers to designate the drug as a weapon of mass destruction (WMD).

The U.S. has faced dangerous chemicals before. There is a solution: Designate Fentanyl a WMD

“A WMD designation can empower the US to shift from a policy of mass incarceration of Americans with substance use disorder and low level drug dealers to an all of government approach to stop the flow of this poison into our country and stop the poisoning of our people,” Families Against Fentanyl said.

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A full syringe, empty syringe and spoon sit on the roof of the car in the US. © Reuters / Brian Snyder
New opioids spark deadly wave of overdoses in US

The US imposed sanctions on four Chinese drug companies this week after accusing them of trafficking fentanyl into the country. Beijing denounced the “erroneous” decision and encouraged the US government to “look for causes of the abuse of fentanyl from within.”

Some analysts have linked the rise in overdose deaths to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has kept vulnerable addicts away from aid, and distant families from seeing each other.

However, overdose deaths, particularly those caused by opioids, were rising before the coronavirus pandemic, and the over-prescription of opioid painkillers has also been blamed as a contributing factor to America’s drug problem.

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68. California votes to drop 3,000 pounds of poison from helicoptersСб, 18 дек 2021[-/+]
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The California Coastal Commission voted 5-3 this week to drop nearly 3,000 pounds of poison onto the Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge in a controversial effort to stop invasive mice.

The vote passed on Thursday evening, giving authorities initial approval to drop the poison onto the islands in a bid to stop the mice, which are threatening rare bird populations. The plan will now have to be approved by the Pacific Southwest regional director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, however, before action can take place.

“To protect and preserve the native, endemic species and habitats of the South Farallon Islands, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service proposes to eradicate the non-native, invasive house mouse from the islands through the use of bait pellets treated with the rodenticide brodifacoum,” read the proposal to the commission, explaining that the poison would be “deployed from a specialized bait spreading bucket slung beneath a helicopter.”

Some mice would be captured and fitted with “radio collars” to ensure that the eradication measures are successful, the proposal added, while gulls would be dispersed from the area and prevented from returning until all of the poison is consumed or washed away by rain.

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© Pixabay / sandid / 1642 images
Sudden toad invasion threatens humans and pets

The mice reportedly threaten rare seabirds on the islands, including the endangered ashy storm petrel, and refuge manager Gerry McChesney said on Thursday that poisoning the mice would be “necessary” and “the right thing to do to stop the ecosystem carnage done by mice,” which is a “human-caused problem” due to the pests arriving via ships.

However, the proposal has proved extremely controversial, and the California Coastal Commission received heavy criticism this week for approving the plan.

In a statement on Friday, wildlife protection organization WildCare said it was “very disappointed” the commission had approved something so “potentially catastrophic,” warning that “it is impossible for anyone to ensure that the massive load of poison” would “remain on the island alone, only affecting the rodents it is intended to kill.”

Poison will end up in the water and kill marine life. It will also be in the bodies of birds leaving the islands. These poisons travel up the food chain

“We know that this poison drop, when it occurs, will likely bring a large number of poisoned animals needing care to our Wildlife Hospital, and we will be ready to provide that care if necessary,” WildCare said.

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69. Governor reveals if she plans to shut NYC down amid record spike in casesСб, 18 дек 2021[-/+]
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New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced she would not shut down New York City despite the spread of the Covid-19 Omicron variant, arguing that the “health of the economy” needs to be considered alongside the health of the people.

After being asked whether she would encourage businesses to shut down to stop the spread of the variant, Hochul told MSNBC on Friday that the data shows Omicron “spreads quickly” but is “not as dangerous.”

“So while primarily my number one goal is to protect the health of all New Yorkers, I also want to protect the health of the economy, because our economy – the epicenter of this pandemic 21 months ago – took such a hard hit,” the governor declared, claiming that people who are “vaccinated, boosted, and wear a mask” are “very safe to go out and continue their normal lives.”

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FILE PHOTO. © AFP / Angela Weiss
New York massively expands vaccine mandate

Hochul – who replaced Governor Andrew Cuomo in August after he resigned amid sexual harassment allegations – said New York authorities would continue to monitor the variant to see if anything changes and people become more sick. But she added, “I don’t want this economy to shut down again, it was just so painful and I want kids to stay in school. I want people to go back to their universities.”

“I don’t want to have this artificial suppression based on fear when we are in a far better place than we were so many months ago,” she concluded.

On Friday, the state surpassed its previous all-time record for the number of daily cases, recording 21,027 new infections. Cases of Covid-19 in New York City have risen by 155% in the past two weeks, while hospitalizations have risen by 48%. The city has recorded 172 Covid-19 deaths in the same time span.

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70. Pfizer to test Covid booster dose on infants, young kidsСб, 18 дек 2021[-/+]
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Pfizer will start testing Covid-19 vaccine booster doses in children aged six months to five years old after finding that its lower-dose shot may not provide enough protection in one age group.

The pharmaceutical giant announced on Thursday that it would start testing a third dose on young children “at least two months after the second dose” in an effort “to provide high levels of protection in this young age group.”

Explaining its decision, the company cited clinical data showing that the smallest ‘baby’ dose administered to children under five does not appear to be effective in protecting those in the 2-to-5 age bracket.

Vaccine doses vary across different age groups involved in the study. Children aged 5-12 received two 10-microgram doses – one-third of the adult 30-microgram dose. Children younger than five, including infants, were vaccinated with three-microgram shots.

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FILE PHOTO: A girl receives the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in Pennsylvania. December 5, 2021. © Reuters / Hannah Beier
Heart inflammation cases confirmed in kids after Pfizer jabs

Pfizer claimed that no safety concerns were identified during the trial, and said it would seek emergency authorization of the new three-dose vaccination regimen for young children next year, provided the three-dose study is a success.

The announcement comes after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this week reported eight cases of myocarditis, a potentially deadly heart inflammation, in children aged 5-11 years old after they received the Pfizer vaccine.

As of November, everyone in the US aged five and above is eligible to be vaccinated for Covid-19. Americans who are at least 16 are also eligible for a Pfizer booster, while those 18 and above can receive a booster from Moderna or Johnson & Johnson.

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71. California mayor declares state of emergency to tackle drugs, street poopingСб, 18 дек 2021[-/+]
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San Francisco Mayor London Breed declared a state of emergency in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood just days after she announced a war on crime, drugs, and public defecation and the culprits behind them.

In a statement on Friday, the Mayor’s Office announced that Breed had declared an official state of emergency in the Tenderloin to allow the city “to waive certain laws to quickly address the crisis of people dying of drug overdoses on the streets.”

“Similar to the City’s COVID-19 Declaration of Emergency, this action will eliminate bureaucratic barriers, allowing the City to quickly respond to the conditions relating to the health and safety of the people in the Tenderloin,” the statement declared, claiming that the ongoing opioid crisis in the area “puts the lives of San Franciscans in serious risk.”

Some of the rules that can be waived under the state of emergency include contract procurement and planning codes, allowing the mayor to open temporary facilities to tackle the city’s drug problem.

However, the declaration will have to be confirmed by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors and will not be able to last for more than 90 days.

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People walk around the Tenderloin district amid an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in San Francisco, California, U.S. April 1, 2020
California mayor wants to expand police surveillance & funding in war on crime

Breed said on Friday that the situation in the Tenderloin “calls for an emergency response” and that tough action was necessary “to make the Tenderloin a safer, more livable place for the families and children who call the neighborhood home.”

The mayor delivered a fiery speech on Tuesday, vowing to “take the steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement” and “less tolerant of all the bull**** that has destroyed our city.”

Breed claimed that the Tenderloin’s “nasty streets” had been getting worse and that they were “full of feces and urine that the Department of Public Works is cleaning every single day, but it comes back just a few hours later.”

“It’s time the reign of criminals who are destroying our city to come to an end,” Breed said at the time, urging prosecutors to get “on board” with the agenda and make sure repeat offenders are not back on the streets “again and again.”

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72. House Covid committee assigns blame for ‘botched’ pandemic responseСб, 18 дек 2021[-/+]
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Former US President Donald Trump and his administration undermined America’s Covid-19 response for the sake of political gain, a Democrat-led House committee involving some of the ex-president’s fiercest opponents said.

The Trump administration’s “persistent political interference” is to blame for the botched coronavirus response that has seen more than 800,000 Americans dying from the disease so far, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis said in a report on Friday. It placed the blame for what it called “one of the worst failures of leadership in American history” squarely on the 45th president and his administration.

The report published by the Democrat majority on Friday is a year-end review of the lengthy inquiry, which saw the subcommittee reviewing hundreds of thousands of pages of various documents, conducting a dozen interviews with “key officials,” and holding 14 hearings and public briefings to supposedly get to the bottom of America’s shortcomings in fighting the pandemic.

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US President Joe Biden meets with members of the White House Covid-19 Response Team in Washington, December 16, 2021.
Biden predicts 'winter of death' for unvaxxed

The document focused almost entirely on the “failures” of the Trump administration, while also naming companies that “profited during the pandemic” at the expense of public health. The list of alleged failures ranges from blocking public briefings of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and sidelining the CDC in finalizing certain Covid-19 health guidance, to pressuring the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) into authorizing “ineffective” treatments like hydroxychloroquine.

The ex-president and his administration were also accused of favoring a “dangerous herd immunity strategy” and taking steps to limit Covid-19 testing to supposedly conceal the speed with which the virus spread throughout the US.

Another allegation directly accused Trump and his administration of “neglecting the pandemic response” to fully focus on his re-election and “the Big Lie that the election results were fraudulent.”

Republicans denounced the report as a partisan product of a “sham subcommittee” aiming to “politicize the pandemic.”

“President Biden promised to ‘shut down the virus,’ but more Americans have died this year from COVID than the previous year. He promised to follow the science, but he allowed union bosses to dictate policy that tags parents as domestic terrorists and effectively keeps schools shuttered,” Rep. Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana), who sits on the panel, said in a statement on Friday.

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FILE PHOTO: © REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
CDC urges Americans to embrace mRNA vaccines

The subcommittee was led by Rep. James Clyburn (D-South Carolina), a prominent Democrat, who accused Trump of attempting to start a “race war” in the wake of the US Capitol riot on January 6. Clyburn was also one of the key supporters of the current president, Joe Biden, whose emotional endorsement during the primaries led to him being branded 'kingmaker' in the race.

Other Democrats on the panel are also known to be among Trump’s most vehement critics, including Maxine Waters of California, Trump’s “lead impeachment manager” Jamie Raskin of Maryland, and active impeachment supporters Bill Foster of Illinois and Carolyn B. Maloney of New York.

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73. NYC vaccine-checker caught in her own trapСб, 18 дек 2021[-/+]
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A New York City health inspector charged with checking restaurants’ compliance with the city’s vaccination mandate was denied entrance to a bar she was auditing after allegedly refusing to show her vaccination card.

Maggie Koronilian, the manager of Big Nose Kate’s Saloon and Eatery in Staten Island, told the New York Post on Friday that she had no choice but to send the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene employee on her way, as she was not compliant with the Covid-19 rules she was sent to enforce.

NYC COVID inspector booted from bar for failing to show own proof of vaccination https://t.co/7QxIEbHcPC pic.twitter.com/eQljUlUweb

— New York Post (@nypost) December 17, 2021

Koronilian said that New York City health inspector Benedicta Opara showed up at the bar with her official identification on display on Tuesday, but when asked to show proof of vaccination required to enter bars, museums, music venues, theatres, or most other public space under the city’s vaccination mandate, Opara was not forthcoming.

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© Getty Images / Martin Harvey
Thong-wearing mask flouter says he’s making history

While Koronilian repeatedly asked to see Opara’s vaccination card – “as we do for anyone who comes here,” the manager pointed out – Opara just said, “No. That’s what I’m here checking for,” explaining that she “wasn’t there to stay and eat.”

Koronilian told the Post that she asked Opara to step outside the bar so she could check the paperwork without flouting the rules she was sent to enforce. The city agent apparently was not happy with being shown the door, and reportedly referred to the ubiquitous vaccination notices on the bar’s door and windows as “this bulls***”

The story had a happy ending for Big Nose Kate’s, as the bar was found to be in compliance with the regulations, a spokesperson for the health department later confirmed to the Post.

Bars and restaurants in New York City are subject to thousands of dollars in fines if they are caught allowing unvaccinated patrons inside, and if Big Nose Kate’s had let Opara in, they could have been on the hook for a hefty fine – $1,000 for the first offense and up to $5,000 for the second. The steep penalties for disobeying the order have courted criticism from the industry professionals. Many bar and restaurant owners in New York City have complained the vaccination mandates have cut into their business, especially as the weather gets colder and the unvaccinated are unable to merely eat or drink outside.

The city’s vaccination mandate, initially imposed in August, has since been expanded to cover all private sector employees in addition to those working in the public sector. US President Joe Biden’s administration has been pushing to roll out a similar mandate nationwide.

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74. Ghislaine Maxwell says ‘no need’ to testify at trialСб, 18 дек 2021[-/+]
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Jeffrey Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell said there was “no need” for her to testify in her defense, as her attorneys wrapped up their case. The trial originally expected to last for weeks now moves to closing arguments.

“Your honor, the government has not proven the case beyond a reasonable doubt and so there is no need for me to testify,” Maxwell told US District Judge Alison Nathan on Friday.

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Ghislaine Maxwell speaks with Bobbi Sternheim as defense witness Cimberly Espinosa is questioned by lawyer Christian Everdell during the trial of Maxwell, the Jeffrey Epstein associate accused of sex trafficking, in a courtroom sketch in New York City, December 16, 2021. © REUTERS / Jane Rosenberg
‘False memory’ expert called to testify in Ghislaine Maxwell’s defense trial

Shortly afterward, the defense rested their case, choosing to call no further witnesses.

Maxwell, 59, faces eight counts of sex trafficking and other crimes, allegedly committed as an aide to Epstein over a ten-year period. Closing arguments are scheduled to begin on Monday.

The trial opened on November 29 and was expected to last for about six weeks. Instead, it is wrapping up after only 16 days. Prosecutors brought forth four women who testified that Maxwell groomed them for abuse by Epstein. Her defense called up a psychologist specializing in “false memories” to cast doubt on their credibility.

They also suggested Maxwell is being scapegoated for the crimes committed by Epstein, since he is not available. The former financier was found dead in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019, while awaiting trial on federal charges of sex crimes.

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75. US national security advisor says Putin ‘hasn’t yet decided to invade Ukraine’Пт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the US is prepared for dialogue with Russia “in the appropriate format,” and claimed to know that Putin is plotting – but hasn’t decided on – an invasion of Ukraine.

“We're prepared for dialogue with Russia," Sullivan said on Friday at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in Washington, DC.

"We've had dialogue with Russia on European security issues for the last 20 years. We had it with the Soviet Union for decades before that. That has sometimes produced progress, sometimes produced deadlock, but we are fundamentally prepared for dialogue," Sullivan continued. He added that any discussions with Russia would be held “in the appropriate format.”

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© Global Look Press / Konstantin Kokoshkin
Russia reveals security proposals to West

Relations between Russia and the West, which have been deteriorating for around a decade, are at an historically low ebb, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov describing them this week as essentially nonexistent. Russia’s recent movement of troops within its own borders has prompted the US to accuse Moscow of plotting an invasion of Ukraine, accusations written off as “hysteria” by the Kremlin.

With no moves toward invasion taking place for several weeks, Sullivan claimed on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin “has not yet made a decision” on military action. Sullivan claimed that US intelligence agencies believe that Putin is “giving serious consideration” to an invasion.

Despite the supposed invasion’s failure to materialize thus far, the alleged threat of war has brought the US and Russia to the negotiating table, albeit not without conditions.

As Sullivan spoke, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the US was coordinating with its NATO allies to respond to a set of proposals laid out by Moscow earlier this week, which it wants the US and the alliance to legally bind themselves to before relations can be normalized.

The Kremlin asked the US to join Russia in committing to not using the territory of other states to prepare or launch attacks on each other, to refrain from deploying nuclear weapons in other countries, and to take back any already abroad. The latter proposal would involve the US withdrawing its nuclear arsenal from friendly countries in Europe.

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FILE HPTO. US and Ukrainian troops during a military exercise in the Lviv region, Ukraine. ©REUTERS / Gleb Garanich
Russian proposals to US & NATO ‘not a menu to choose from’ – Moscow

The text delivered to NATO focuses mainly on the movement of military personnel and material, including a promise that all signatories will not station their forces in European states that were not members of NATO in 1997, meaning former Warsaw Pact states.

The White House has already rejected any halt to NATO expansion. Psaki told reporters that the US would not block these states’ “right to decide their own future and form policy free from outside interference.”

Russia – which sees NATO’s encroachment on its borders as a national security threat – is asking for legally binding assurances as the US and NATO have previously reneged on promises not to expand the bloc eastwards. In the closing stages of the Cold War, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was assured that the alliance would not swallow up any of the Soviet Union’s former satellite states. However, these promises were broken in 1997 when Hungary, Poland, and then-Czechoslovakia were invited into the military bloc.

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76. Google under fire for treatment of black female employees – ReutersПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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Google is under investigation for mistreating its black female employees, according to members of the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DEFH). The agency reportedly received formal complaints about harassment.

Lawyers and analysts hailing from the California DEFH have interviewed a number of black female Google employees regarding their work experiences, according to documents and sources cited by Reuters in a report published on Friday. The interviews were allegedly conducted in the wake of multiple incidents of harassment and discrimination.

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© Reuters / Annegret Hilse
Google doesn’t like being shown inconvenient problems, ex-ethical AI co-lead ‘fired’ by the tech giant over her research tells RT

While there have been no mentions of charges being filed against Google, the rumors themselves have highlighted growing unease at the firm, where just 1.8% of the workforce is black and female, according to a ‘diversity report’ released earlier this year. The company supposedly has “room for improvement” regarding holding onto “underrepresented talent,” according to the report. Meanwhile, seven black female employees told Reuters they had been marginalized and not taken seriously due to their racial, ethnic or gender backgrounds.

Google was sued earlier this year by four female employees who claimed to have received lower bonuses and salaries than their male colleagues. The DEFH has also filed lawsuits against fellow tech firms Riot Games (a subsidiary of Tencent Holdings) and Activision Blizzard, in both cases alleging extensive discrimination and harassment.

AI ethicist Timnit Gebru was allegedly fired by Google last year for asking the company to be more transparent with the process by which it published papers, claiming the tech giant had retaliated against her for her work criticizing language models. Her firing appeared to have triggered a sort of domino effect in which another female AI team worker claimed she was fired after merely searching her email for “evidence” of discrimination against Gebru, and workers identifying as “Black+ female” left the company at the highest rate of any demographic in the company last year other than “Native American+ female.”

Google has responded to the claims by insisting that it is focused on “building sustainable equity” and saying it has hired its largest number of “Black+” employees yet, with the firm defining “Black+” as inclusive of “people belonging to multiple races.

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77. Biden calls VP ‘President Harris’ againПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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US President Joe Biden once again referred to his VP as “President Harris,” during a graduation speech at South Carolina State University honoring a leading congressional Democrat, whose endorsement helped both get the nomination.

Speaking at the historically black school in Orangeburg, South Carolina, on Friday, Biden told a joke about Delaware State University – another historically black college – and followed up with “all kidding aside, of course President [Kamala] Harris is a proud Howard alum,” a reference to yet another HBC in Washington, DC.

The White House later edited the transcript of the speech to say “[Vice] President Harris,” but videos from the event show that is not what Biden actually said.

Joe Biden refers to Kamala Harris as "President Harris" pic.twitter.com/1z6EwWIEQR

— X Strategies LLC (@XStrategiesLLC) December 17, 2021

This isn’t the first time Biden has slipped up about Harris. He called her “president-elect” in December, and “President Harris” during a press conference in mid-March. By the end of that month, the White House would change all of the official headers to refer to the “Biden-Harris Administration.”

The former California senator had made a similar slip-up herself, referring to “a Harris administration, together with Joe Biden as the president of the United States,” at a campaign event in September 2020.

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US President Joe Biden meets with members of the White House Covid-19 Response Team in Washington, December 16, 2021.
Biden predicts 'winter of death' for unvaxxed

Biden was in Orangeburg to give a graduation speech at SCSU and hand a diploma to its prominent alum Congressman James Clyburn (D-South Carolina). Clyburn graduated from SCSU in 1961, but received his diploma in the mail, as the institution did not hold December ceremonies at the time.

It was Clyburn’s endorsement of Biden in February 2020 that helped him win the state primary and recover from early defeats to other Democrat challengers.

“My buddy Jim Clyburn, you brought me back!” Biden told Clyburn in a victory speech, before going on to sweep the Super Tuesday primaries.

Harris also has Clyburn to thank for her post. She was the first on his list of running mate endorsements published in a March 2020 Washington Post article, with Clyburn insisting it “needs to be a black woman.” Though Harris had dropped out of the race three months prior, before the first primaries were held, Biden would eventually name her his running mate.

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78. Thong-wearing mask flouter says he’s making historyПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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A man who was removed from a plane for wearing a bright red thong as a face mask has since compared himself to history-making civil rights activists like Rosa Parks.

Florida resident Adam Jenne told NBC2 that he does not wear masks in airports “at all,” but feels he was following United Airlines’ rules on the plane by having his mouth covered with the undergarment.

LEAVE IT TO THE #FLORIDAMAN! This guy from Cape Coral tried wearing a #thong as a #mask on a United flight in Fort Lauderdale today. He was kicked off the plane. TSA and sheriff were called but passengers remained peaceful. #airtravel #Florida #aviation #travel pic.twitter.com/kUnkXrgTY8

— Channing Frampton (@Channing_TV) December 16, 2021

Jenne explained his unusual choice of face covering, saying that “the best way to illustrate absurdity is with absurdity.” He added that he has pulled off the same trick multiple times throughout the pandemic and faced a “different reaction” every time.

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Boxer Amir Khan complained about his treatment from American Airlines. © Reuters / Twitter @amirkingkhan
‘Not all terrorists’: Boxer Khan furious at ‘disgusting’ American Airlines after being booted off flight in ‘face mask row’

However, on December 15, his flight from Fort Lauderdale to Washington DC finished before it even started. After a brief discussion with crew members, the thong-wearing Jenne was asked to disembark.

In his interview with NBC2, the 38-year-old even compared himself to famous civil rights activists, saying that all major changes in the United States started with “everyday people” taking a stand. He pointed to Rosa Parks, who “changed the course of history” by refusing to give up her place on a segregated bus to a white passenger in 1955.

In a statement to the New York Post, United Airlines backed its crew’s decision to boot Jenne off the flight, saying that he was violating the federal mask mandate and that the staff “addressed the issue on the ground prior to takeoff” to avoid any disruptions in the air.

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79. Poll reveals how many Americans think media pushes own agenda over factsПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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More than three quarters of all Americans from across the political spectrum think the news media’s primary goal is “advancing their own opinions or political agendas,” according to a new poll.

A Trafalgar Group poll published this month found that 76.3% of Americans agree that the primary focus of the mainstream media is “advancing their own opinions or political agendas,” with 23.7% saying the media’s focus is “finding and reporting the facts.”

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RT
Trump challenges ‘fake news media’ to public debate

Republicans were the most cynical group surveyed, with more than 90% believing that the media pushes its own political agenda. 76% of independents felt the same.

Democrats were the most trustful of the media, but only just, with 37.3% trusting news outlets to deliver the facts and with 62.7% accusing them of pushing partisanship.

"Thanks to the decentralization of the news through the internet and social media, the mainstream press outlets no longer have a monopoly on controlling the news,” Convention of States Action President Mark Meckler said in a statement to the Daily Caller, a conservative news site.

"Unfortunately, the mainstream media has been slow to adjust to this reality and don’t seem to realize that the average American can now see in real time the difference between the actual facts of a story versus what the mainstream media says.”

The hyper-partisanship of the Trump administration - which saw the president treated to scathing coverage by liberal outlets and adulation by the comparatively fewer conservative ones - has not done the media any favors in terms of public trust. A poll by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism this summer found that out of 46 countries surveyed, the US ranked last in media trust.

Another Gallup poll in October found that only 36% of the American public expressed “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in the news media, the lowest figure since 2016 and nearly 20 points lower than at the turn of the millennium.

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80. Thieves steal entire bridge in OhioПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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Police in Akron, Ohio are baffled by the theft of an entire 58-foot bridge. The bridge had been sitting in a field awaiting restoration, but the bandits managed to make off with the entire structure over several days.

Once used by pedestrians to cross the Cuyahoga River in Akron’s Middlebury Run Park, the bridge had sat unused in a nearby field since 2004, when a wetlands restoration project got underway in the park. However, police discovered in November that someone had cleared the brush that had grown around the bridge and made off with its treated lumber deck boards, the Akron Beacon Journal reported.

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FILE PHOTO. A horse-drawn carriage is pictured on a street in Dragomiresti, Dambovita county, Romania.
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A week later, the entire structure – 58 feet long, 10 feet wide, with six-foot sides – was gone.

What motivated the thieves is a mystery. Police spokesman Lt. Mike Miller told Fox 8 that as the structure is made out of almost all polymers, it would have little value on the scrap market.

However, Miller said that the bridge was mostly held together with bolts, meaning anyone with a basic socket set and the time and inclination could dismantle and steal it. The bridge could then “be used for a variety of different things to include as simple as landscaping or they could use it for some other engineering project, some other large scale project.”

The city of Akron wasn’t planning on reinstalling the bridge over the Cuyahoga. Instead it was due to be used in a parking lot project in aid of a battered women’s shelter. City officials say that the bridge was valued at between $30,000 and $40,000.

The cops have appealed to the public for help finding the bridge. Among other lines of inquiry, they are quite literally looking for someone with a bridge to sell.

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81. Fauci wants Covid mandate to be rebrandedПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said that he can get more Americans to comply with vaccine mandates if they’re rebranded as “requirements.”

Asked by CNBC whether coronavirus vaccine mandates are “counterproductive,” and might make Americans more hesitant to take future vaccines, Fauci said on Friday that dropping the word “mandate” seems to make people more willing to get jabbed.

“Mandates – that's a radioactive word,” he said. “‘Requirements,’ people seem to respond better to that. They work.”

"Mandates-that's a radioactive word. Requirements people seem to respond better to that. They work," says Dr. Fauci. "We are never going to get out of this outbreak if we still have 50 million people who for reasons that are very difficult to understand refuse to get vaccinated." pic.twitter.com/4378v2pzNe

— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) December 17, 2021

Fauci then praised companies like United Airlines for requiring or mandating employees to get vaccinated, and boasted that the federal government’s vaccine mandate has led to a 97% vaccination rate among employees.

In addition to rebranding mandates as the friendlier-sounding “requirements,” Fauci also suggested that the definition of “vaccinated” could be changed from meaning anyone who’s received two doses of Pfizer’s or Moderna’s vaccine, or one dose of Johnson & Johnson’s shot, to someone who has received this initial dose plus a booster shot.

“There’s no doubt if you want to be optimally protected, you should get your booster,” Fauci stated.

Fauci’s shifting positions on vaccines and masking throughout the pandemic have angered conservatives. After initially advising people not to wear masks, Fauci then became a proponent of mask mandates. Likewise Fauci promised Americans last year that ‘herd immunity’ to the coronavirus could be reached if 70% of them got vaccinated, before admitting that this was a lie to boost uptake of the vaccine.

With the new Omicron variant of the virus spreading in the US, Fauci has stuck by vaccination and booster shots as the most effective way of stopping the spread of Covid-19, as President Joe Biden predicts a “winter of death” for the unvaccinated. However, preliminary studies, including one from South Africa where the variant originated and another by Columbia University, show that the current crop of vaccines are markedly less effective against Omicron.

Despite being highly transmissible, data suggests that the Omicron variant causes mild to moderate symptoms in most patients, and is less likely to hospitalize those it infects.

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82. Schools ramp up security over shooting ‘threats’ on TikTokПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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Schools across the US are either canceling classes or tightening security measures after widespread concerns that vague school shooting and bombing threats circulating on TikTok could turn out to be real.

Education authorities in a number of states, including Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Montana, New York and Pennsylvania, stated on Thursday that there would be heightened police presence in schools. Meanwhile, districts in California, Missouri, Texas and Minnesota have canceled classes for the day.

According to various media outlets, a number of police and school officials have dismissed the threats as not “credible.” The Associated Press reported that the “vague, anonymous posts” had warned about threats to “multiple schools,” but tech news outlet The Verge noted there was “little evidence” that the threats “even exist.”

Although the alleged threats have been reported as being part of a new TikTok “trend” and “challenge,” their origins are unclear. However, several videos on the popular social media platform reference December 17 and school violence – with some users “praying” for those going to school to “be safe.”

Videos like these warning of school violence are going viral on TikTok. Several local police departments and school districts say there are no credible threats. We’re separating rumor and fact starting at 5. #wfsb pic.twitter.com/fOfVTbVT7R

— Matthew Campbell (@mgmcampbell) December 16, 2021

Officials in Tooele County School District in Utah said in a statement on Wednesday that the “original threat” began as a “way for students to skip school,” but has since “morphed into something much more disturbing.” Several school districts and law officials have warned of penalties to any mischief-makers.

In a tweeted statement on Thursday, TikTok said it was handling the issue with “utmost seriousness” and working with law enforcement to look into “warnings about potential violence” at schools. But the app also noted that it did not find “evidence” of these “rumored threats” originating or spreading via its platform.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy tweeted that although there are “no known specific threats” against any schools in the state, law enforcement would “monitor the situation and remain prepared.”

While there are no known specific threats against New Jersey schools, the safety of our children is our highest priority and we will work closely with law enforcement to monitor the situation and remain prepared.

— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) December 16, 2021

The FBI has also reportedly issued a statement to media outlets regarding the threats, noting that it was continuing to “monitor intelligence” nationwide, but was “not aware” of any “specific ... or known credible” warnings to schools in the Los Angeles region.

According to the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, US schools have been subjected to nine active and 235 non-active shooter incidents this year. The purported TikTok threats have come weeks after school shootings in Michigan and Colorado.

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83. MSNBC host hits back at Musk in ‘Karen’ rowПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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TV host Joy Reid dunked on Elon Musk for what she called a misappropriation of the supposedly ‘black’ term ‘Karen’ to attack Senator Elizabeth Warren, prompting the billionaire to wonder if Reid moonlighted as a lobbyist.

The MSNBC host lashed out at the billionaire on Thursday for the way he snapped back at the lawmaker from Massachusetts this week. Warren said the newly-honored TIME person of the year should “actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else.” Musk fired back a barrage of tweets, calling her a ‘Karen’ who was trying to call the manager on him.

Weighing in, Reid called Musk “the absolute worst” for insulting Warren. Surprisingly to some viewers, she also accused him of “misappropriating black vernacular for misogynistic purposes,” suggesting the term ‘Karen’ can only be used by black people.

MSNBC’s Joy Reid says Elon Musk “misappropriated black vernacular for misogynistic purposes” pic.twitter.com/XGkiPo1Oy3

— Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) December 16, 2021

Responding to a video of Reid’s rant, Musk called her “a lobbyist for Sen Karen.” He also reacted with a monocle emoji to a sarcastic tweet by a GOP politician from Tennessee, who brought up the MSNBC host’s 2018 attempt to blame old homophobic posts on her blog on mysterious hackers.

Both Musk and Reid are well-known for often abrasive behavior and for launching public attacks against people they don’t like with the help of their respective online fan bases.

Reid supporters, for example, recently targeted comedian Sarah Silverman, after she called out the host over an incendiary tweet slamming a proposal from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to create a state civil defense force as “fascisty bananas.”

Please read the article before you post this stuff you’re a news outlet. The truth has to matter

— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) December 3, 2021

After being accused by Reid defenders of being a racist, the leftist entertainer vented anger at the situation on her podcast, saying Democrats were making it impossible to raise legitimate criticism of their own.

“I cannot believe I need to say this, but I did not criticize Joy Ann because she’s black, but because she’s a Harvard-educated journalist with the responsibility, ideally, of showing the whole picture and not just a piece of a picture,” she added.

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84. Heart inflammation cases confirmed in kids after Pfizer jabsПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported eight cases of myocarditis, a potentially deadly type of heart inflammation, in elementary school students who received the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.

As of December 10, the CDC said it had received 14 reports of myocarditis among children aged 5-11 years old who received the shot. Of these, it said eight reports – involving four boys and four girls – met the agency’s “working case definition” for the inflammation.

Five of the 14 cases reported are still being followed up on. Of the eight accepted by the agency, six came after receiving the second dose of the Pfizer shot – the only vaccine available for the age group.

The reports were highlighted on Thursday among 3,233 other post-vaccination adverse events reported to the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

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FILE ILLUSTRATION © REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine given emergency use approval by FDA for kids aged 5-11

While noting that the cases had a “mild clinical course,” the CDC did not confirm if it believes there is a direct link between the myocarditis incidents and the vaccine. It also did not disclose the frequency of myocarditis occurrence among those in the age group that have not been vaccinated.

The agency said there had been over 7 million vaccine doses in the 5-11 age group by December 9. It also reported two deaths of children with “complicated medical histories,” but noted that the majority of adverse events reported were “non-serious.”

Last week, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said the agency had not “seen anything yet” about myocarditis cases following vaccination, and said the vaccine was safe for young children. But a recent poll found nearly two-thirds of parents of elementary schoolers were unwilling to take the risk.

When approving Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine for the age-group in October, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had noted concerns over myocarditis and pericarditis – an inflammation of tissue surrounding the heart – among males 12-17 years of age. But the FDA’s benefit-risk assessment model predicted that the vaccine’s benefits for children aged 5-11 years “would outweigh its risks.”

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85. Judges mull Harvey Weinstein retrial – reportsПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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Several US appellate judges expressed concerns during a hearing on Wednesday over how the 2020 trial of disgraced former film producer Harvey Weinstein was handled, according to media reports from the courtroom.

The disgraced Hollywood mogul was sentenced to 23 years in jail last year after a jury found him guilty of rape and sexual assault. He currently faces additional charges of sexual misconduct, with a maximum penalty of 140 years behind bars.

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Ghislaine Maxwell speaks with Bobbi Sternheim as defense witness Cimberly Espinosa is questioned by lawyer Christian Everdell during the trial of Maxwell, the Jeffrey Epstein associate accused of sex trafficking, in a courtroom sketch in New York City, December 16, 2021. © REUTERS / Jane Rosenberg
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Weinstein’s legal team believes he did not receive a fair trial because the judge wrongfully permitted excessive testimony, whose sole goal was to defame his character. They argued that the judge should not have allowed the testimony of three women who claimed that Weinstein had sexually assaulted them, because their allegations were not part of the case.

The defense also said Weinstein declined to personally testify in court partly because the judge allowed prosecutors to ask him about as many as 28 incidents unrelated to the charges he was facing at the time.

Three of the five justices on a New York appeals panel that examined the defense's arguments during a hearing on Wednesday appeared to share these concerns, according to media reports from the courtroom. Judge Sallie Manzanet-Daniels was quoted as suggesting the testimonies were “overkill” and a “pile-on with three uncharged complainants, three uncharged victims.”

“Let’s inflame the jury's heart by telling them that he beat up his brother during a meeting,” she said. “I don’t see how there's a balance there on that.”

In a similar vein, Judge Angela Mazzarelli asked prosecutors why it was permitted to question Weinstein about the time he supposedly threw a table at an employee in the late 1980s, and allegedly threatened to cut off someone’s genitals.

Judge Judith Gische said that the jury’s verdict should be based on the charges, and “not based on the fact that this is just a horrible person.”

“He doesn’t get convicted because he’s a bad guy. He gets convicted for these particular crimes,” Gische said, noting that the prosecution's arguments were “rubbing me the wrong way.”

The judges expressed interest in a retrial or a conviction reversal, according to Newsweek.

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(L) Harvey Weinstein. © Getty Images / Alexander Koerner; (R) Angelina Jolie. © AFP / Daniel LEAL-OLIVAS
‘Clickbait publicity’: Harvey Weinstein denies assaulting Angelina Jolie in 90s, accuses actress of trying to sell book

Assistant District Attorney Valerie Figueredo defended the handling of the 2020 trial, saying that the judge in that case “reached a fair compromise” and “did not allow general brutish behavior.” She argued that the permitted testimonies were necessary because they were “indicative of how the defendant lived his life,” calling the jury's guilty verdict “fair and appropriate.”

The ruling on the appeal is expected next spring, according to Deadline. Newsweek reported that the panel is expected to decide whether to call for a retrial in January. One of Weinstein’s lawyers, Damon Cheronis, said the defense was “hopeful” after Wednesday’s hearing.

The allegations of rape and sexual assault against Weinstein, a longtime producer and the co-founder of a now-defunct film studio, were brought to light in 2017. The case is one of the most famous examples of the #MeToo movement, a campaign to expose sexual misconduct by public figures.

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86. Mr. Big ad canned by Peloton after sexual assault claimsПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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Exercise and media company Peloton has pulled its viral advert featuring ‘Sex and the City’ actor Chris Noth after sexual assault allegations from 2004 and 2015 surfaced on Thursday.

“Every single sexual assault accusation must be taken seriously,” Peloton said in a statement explaining the decision on Thursday evening. “We were unaware of these allegations when we featured Chris Noth in our response to HBO’s reboot” of the popular 90s sitcom, ‘Sex and the City’.

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“As we seek to learn more, we have stopped promoting this video and archived related social posts,” the statement continued.

Allegations that Noth committed sexual assault on two occasions emerged on Thursday in an article by The Hollywood Reporter. It is claimed that the two women approached the publication separately and do not know each other. One of the incidents allegedly dates back to 2004 in Noth’s Los Angeles flat; the other purportedly took place in his New York apartment in 2015.

The Hollywood Reporter, which gave the women pseudonyms to protect their privacy, claimed that the recent revival of the ‘Sex and the City’ reboot and the associated promotions brought back painful memories of the incidents.

Noth, who has also starred in ‘Law & Order’ and ‘The Good Wife’, denies assaulting the two women, saying the “encounters were consensual.”

“It’s difficult not to question the timing of these stories coming out,” he said in a statement. “I don’t know for certain why they are surfacing now, but I do know this: I did not assault these women.”

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said on Thursday evening that there was no current investigation into the allegations. “There is no record of a report being filed at this time. Without a report, there is no investigation,” LAPD Sergeant Bruce Borihanh said.

Earlier in December, Noth’s character, ‘Mr. Big’, was killed off in the HBO revival of “Sex and the City.” He suffered a heart attack after a Peloton bike ride during the first episode. Within 48 hours of the premiere, Peloton released an advert titled, ‘He’s Alive’, featuring Mr. Big, the premise being he faked his death to run off with his Peloton instructor.

“He’s alive.” And Just Like That…Peloton quickly hires Chris Noth and pushes out new ad to show he’s fine and restore their image, after Mr. Big suffered a heart attack from riding a Peloton. pic.twitter.com/27lgnQvGuC

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) December 13, 2021

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87. ‘Cyber-mercenaries’ spied on Facebook usersПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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Meta has banned accounts linked to seven entities for conducting ‘surveillance-for-hire’ operations against some 50,000 users. One of the purged firms is the Israeli-run Black Cube, hired by disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein.

The US tech giant that owns Facebook and Instagram, among other services, says it has busted massive surveillance operations that violated its terms of use. They used Meta platforms to passively spy on users, engage them directly to trick them into revealing sensitive information, and plant malware on their devices, the company reported on Thursday.

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FILE PHOTO ©Jaap Arriens ZUMA Press via Global Look Press
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The seven entities are just part of a burgeoning “surveillance-for-hire” industry brought to life by the connectivity of social media, the company said. Such firms conduct “indiscriminate surveillance” on behalf of their clients, targeting dissidents, journalists, human rights activists and others, it said. Identified after a “months-long investigation,” the seven now-banned actors operated in over 100 countries and targeted around 50,000 people. Meta said it will alert people affected.

“To help disrupt these activities, we blocked related infrastructure, banned these entities from our platform and issued Cease and Desist warnings,” Meta said. “We also shared our findings with security researchers, other platforms, and policymakers so they too can take appropriate action.”

Six of the targets for Meta’s punitive action were identified as private security firms: Cobwebs Technologies, Cognyte, Black Cube, Bluehawk CI, BellTroX and Cytrox. Hundreds of accounts linked to each of them were blocked, the company said.

The Isreali-based Black Cube agency gained notoriety after being accused of going after victims of sexual harrassment at the hands of former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Black Cube rejected Meta’s claims of malicious activities.

As he was presenting Meta’s findings, security chief Nathaniel Gleicher also brought attention to a recent investigation by Citizen Lab, which accused the previously little-known North Macedonian firm Cytrox of infecting the phones of Egyptian dissidents with its Predator spyware.

13/ Important to call out the remarkable investigative work of @jsrailton and the entire team at @citizenlab, who are releasing a deep dive report into one of these cases today and shared information with us that enabled us to identify and share IOCs. https://t.co/WFbE8E7NKM

— Nathaniel Gleicher (@ngleicher) December 16, 2021

Cytrox is reportedly part of an alliance of firms created to compete against Israel-based NSO Group, the producer of spyware tool Pegasus. NSO made headlines this year over its alleged unethical work for oppressive governments worldwide and was sanctioned by Washington in November.

Reporting about another banned entity was highlighted by Mike Dvilyanski, the head of cyberespionage investigations at Meta, who co-authored the report with Gleicher and David Agranovich, Facebook’s global threat disruption lead. Bluehawk CI, an Israeli firm, allegedly posed as a Fox News correspondent and a journalist working for Italian newspaper La Stampa to help the ruler of one of the UAE’s emirates in a litigation, according to a Daily Beast report.

Another of the firms targeted by Meta today, Israeli firm Bluehawk-CI, was first identified by The Daily Beast with help from FB security back in April when we found the company posing as Fox News and spying on critics of the UAE's Ras Al Khaimah Emirate. https://t.co/ycrzYik0g1

— Adam Rawnsley (@arawnsley) December 16, 2021

The seventh target of Meta’s purge was described as an “unknown entity” that was accused of deploying “malware tools” against minority groups in China’s Xinjiang region and Hong Kong as well as Myanmar. The entity, according to Meta, was allegedly involved in “domestic law enforcement” in China.

Meta investigators expressed hope that the report will help people better understand “the harms this industry represents worldwide” and called on “democratic governments to take further steps to help protect people and impose oversight on the sellers of ubiquitous spyware.”

Gleicher specifically welcomed a recent joint statement from his former colleagues at the White House and America’s allies Australia, Denmark, and Norway, who decried electronic surveillance by “authoritarian governments.” Before joining Meta’s team, Gleicher worked at the US National Security Council, as did Agranovich. Dvilyanski, the third author of the report, is a former FBI cybersecurity agent.

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88. Cause of deaths at Travis Scott festival revealedПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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A medical examiner has confirmed that the death of 10 people at rapper Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival in November was due to accidental asphyxiation.

Ten festival attendees aged between nine and 27 were asphyxiated by a stampede, which injured another 300 people on November 5; 50,000 people attended the festival and many of the victims found themselves crushed against the weight of the crowd.

One of the 10 people killed also had cocaine, methamphetamine, and ethanol in his system according to the medical report, which said the combination of the drugs were an additional “contributory cause” of death.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said on Thursday that the medical report “re-opens a fresh wound for many families who are still trying to make sense of what happened,” while attorney James Lassiter – who is representing the family of 22-year-old victim Bharti Shahani – said the results “confirm [the] Bharti’s family’s worst fears.”

Videos of the festival show emergency services in the crowd as Scott continued performing, making it harder for authorities to reach people in need.

Scott’s partner, Kylie Jenner claimed following the tragedy that they were unaware of the situation in the audience until after the show had ended and that they would have shut down the festival had they known what was happening.

However, lawsuits have been filed against Scott and organizers of the festival, accusing them of putting profits over people and ignoring safety concerns.

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89. Judicial nominee refuses to say if crimes should be forgiven ‘in name of social justice’ (VIDEO)Пт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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One of President Joe Biden’s district judge nominees repeatedly refused to answer whether some criminal acts should be overlooked on the grounds of social justice when grilled by a Republican lawmaker.

Anne Traum – Biden’s nominee to serve as US district judge for Nevada – would not give a definitive answer to Republican Louisiana Senator John Kennedy at a confirmation hearing on Wednesday, dodging the yes-or-no question for an entire five minutes.

After Kennedy asked Traum a total of nine times whether she believes “that a criminal act should be forgiven in the name of social justice?” she argued that such a question was a “policy issue” and that law is a “highly individualized and fact-specific process for all who are involved.”

Though she noted that forgiving illegal acts in the name of social justice was “not a view that I have taken in my work,” Traum refused to denounce such a stance, instead telling Kennedy that she did not have “a viewpoint to share.”

Amid the verbal back-and-forth Kennedy appeared to lose his patience with Traum, trying the Biden nominee with a far less challenging question. "What's your favorite color?" the senator asked. It took Traum several seconds to respond “blue.”

“I got one. I’m one for about twenty,” Kennedy said, before declaring that he could not possibly vote for a nominee who is giving non-answers. “I mean that was embarrassing,” he said of the exchange.

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90. 100+ Marines kicked out of force for defying vaccine mandateПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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Over a hundred US Marines have been discharged for refusing to get vaccinated against Covid-19 as military punishments ramp up under President Joe Biden’s strict vaccine mandate.

The Marine Corps confirmed the discharges on Thursday in a statement to the Marine Corps Times. The 103 soldiers who have been booted from the force so far are expected to receive either an honorable or general discharge.

Marine Corps spokesman Maj. Jim Stenger told the magazine that 1,007 vaccine exemptions for medical and administrative reasons were granted, while 2,836 requests for religious exemptions have been rejected so far. It is widely expected that the force, which has yet to grant a single soldier an exemption on religious grounds over Covid-19 vaccination, would turn down nearly 300 remaining applications.

Although the Marine Corps was revealed last month to be the least vaccinated US military branch, the overwhelming majority of its personnel – about 95% – have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.

Active-duty personnel had been given until November 28 to either get vaccinated against the virus or apply for an exemption.

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FILE PHOTO.
Pentagon mulls mandatory boosters

The news on the mass dismissal of Marines comes shortly after 27 US Air Force service members – who were described as “younger, lower-ranking personnel” – were revealed to have been discharged this week for refusing to get vaccinated.

The terminated Air Force personnel did not seek any exemptions and were officially sanctioned for disobeying orders.

The US Navy is expected to follow suit in the near future. As of last week, 5,731 US Navy personnel remained unvaccinated despite a mandate requiring all active-duty sailors to get the shot by the November 28 deadline.

It has been reported that as many as 40,000 US military personnel either refused vaccination against Covid-19 or sought an exemption – amounting to roughly 3% of troops.

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91. US approves abortion pills by mailПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it will allow a drug used to abort early pregnancies to be received by mail, permanently lifting long-standing restrictions that had been suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The drug, known under the generic name mifepristone, is part of a two-drug cocktail used to end pregnancies that are less than 10 weeks along. It was originally approved in 2000, but had to be obtained in person at a clinic, medical office, or hospital. The FDA suspended the enforcement of that restriction in April, after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued claiming the practice created risk of “unnecessary exposure” to the coronavirus. Thursday’s decision makes the suspension permanent.

“The FDA’s decision will come as a tremendous relief for countless abortion and miscarriage patients,” said Georgeanne Usova, senior legislative counsel at the ACLU.

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Patients can now opt to receive it by mail from a pharmacy or a certified prescriber, which the ACLU condemned as “disappointing” and “medically unnecessary,” urging the lifting of these restrictions as well.

Thursday’s policy change will presumably increase access to the drug by women in rural and remote areas, or those lacking time or transportation to visit a doctor or a clinic. It will have no effect on residents of 19 US states that have explicitly outlawed the mailing of abortion pills.

The US Supreme Court is currently hearing a challenge to a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks. Democrats fear that the ruling – due by the end of June 2022 – may overturn the 1973 precedent in Roe v. Wade, which defined abortion as part of a constitutionally protected right to privacy.

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92. Judge orders search of Alec Baldwin’s phone after shootingПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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A search warrant has been issued for Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin’s iPhone after police said it could provide clues to the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was fatally shot by Baldwin on a movie set in October.

Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office Det. Alexandria Hancock requested a warrant “for the seizure and search” of Baldwin’s phone, expressing her belief that “there may be evidence” on the device due to Baldwin using it “during and/or after the commission of the crime.”

The detective also expressed interest in “several emails and text messages sent and received regarding the movie production ‘Rust’ in the course of interviews.”

The search warrant request was approved by a New Mexico judge on Thursday, who gave police permission to seize the phone at any time of the day between 6am and 10pm.

Hutchins was killed on the set of Baldwin’s Western movie ‘Rust’ in October and director Joel Souza was hospitalized after a prop gun Baldwin was holding discharged.

Though the gun was in Baldwin’s hand when it killed Hutchins, the actor insisted in a controversial interview this month that he had never pulled the trigger.

“The trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger,” Baldwin claimed, insisting he would “never point a gun at anyone and pull the trigger at them, never.”

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RT
WATCH: Alec Baldwin ambushed by journalist over ‘Rust’ shooting

Baldwin also told ABC News that he did not feel responsible for Hutchins’ death, saying, “Someone is responsible... but I know it's not me.”

However, script supervisor Mamie Mitchell claimed in a lawsuit that Baldwin “intentionally, without just cause or excuse, cocked and fired the loaded gun even though the upcoming scene to be filmed did not call for the cocking and firing of the firearm.”

“Mr. Baldwin chose to play Russian Roulette with a loaded gun without checking it and without having the armorer do so,” the lawsuit alleged.

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93. CDC urges Americans to embrace mRNA vaccinesПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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The US health agency has recommended that people seeking vaccination for Covid-19 receive Pfizer or Moderna mRNA-based shots rather than the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, due to the risk of blood clots.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) backed the recommendation of its advisory panel to designate the mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech the “preferred” vaccination option, citing newly-released data on the incidence of a severe but rare blood clot disorder in the adenovirus-based shot from Johnson & Johnson.

The drug behemoth has insisted that the benefits of its shot outweigh the risk of blood clots, and a company representative argued that while the maximum protection delivered by the vaccine comes later than that delivered by the mRNA shots, it also lasts longer.

Noting that the recommendation to shun Johnson & Johnson is based on “the latest evidence of vaccine effectiveness, vaccine safety and rare adverse events,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky nonetheless stated that “receiving any vaccine is better than being unvaccinated.”

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered a hold on the J&J shots in April, after six women developed a rare blood clotting disorder within two weeks of being vaccinated. The CDC later revealed that nine more women had developed such clots, even while insisting that the chances of developing the disorder were extremely low. By the end of April, when the CDC recommended resuming the use of the vaccine, three of the women had died and seven were hospitalized.

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© Reuters / Dado Ruvic
Pfizer documents reveal variety of vaccine side effects

There have been concerns over possible side effects from other vaccines as well. A trove of Pfizer documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FDA this month revealed that the mRNA-based vaccine manufacturer recorded nearly 160,000 adverse reactions in the first months of the rollout. This included thousands of nervous system disorders and a range of different autoimmune conditions and other ailments such as epilepsy, heart failure, and strokes. Over 1,200 reactions were fatal, the data indicated.

Doctors demanding further transparency on the part of the drug manufacturer may be out of luck, as the FDA recently argued that it might take them up until 2096 to process and release 451,000 pages of files studied in the vaccine’s approval.

While the latest Omicron variant is said to be more resistant to the vaccines currently in use than previous variants, scientists believe the variant is milder than its predecessors. The White House’s top medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, has recently called into question speculation that the new variant would render the existing vaccines ineffective, saying that an Omicron-specific booster might be excessive.

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94. US Marines chief reveals biggest risk for his forceПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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The US Marine Corps risks being left without the weapons it will need to fight, unless Congress and the Pentagon fund new programs amid a purge of old technology, its commandant has warned.

General David Berger warned that, if the Congress and the Pentagon were not “willing to back” his force, the USMC might end up “in a bad place” after it gets rid of “legacy things” such as tanks and artillery without receiving new cutting-edge capabilities to replace them.

“We’re in that middle ground where we’re rapidly changing,” he told an online event hosted by the Center for a New American Security on Tuesday. “If you’re left in a lurch there, that’s not a good place to be.”

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The general’s concerns were linked to the Marines’ new strategy dubbed ‘USMC Force Design 2030.’ Over the past several years, the USMC moved “to divest, or get rid of things that may have been useful in the past, but were not as useful going forward.” The force discarded what it considered outdated hardware not fitting its new, agile and more expeditionary role.

In addition to tanks and artillery and bridging companies, the Marines also got rid of heavy helicopters in preparation of pursuing “the next-generation capabilities for the future,” as the USMC put it in May.

As soon as 2023, Berger hopes to equip Marines with NMESIS anti-ship missile launchers paired with drone ammunition carriers and Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV) for greater mobility and firepower. He also wants more radars and F-35 stealth fighters. Currently, however, his most pressing priority is to buy light amphibious warships (LAW) to make his force more mobile.

The ships were supposed to be included in the acquisition list for the fiscal year 2022 but were ditched by the Navy because of a budgetary decision. Now, Berger hopes their purchase would be in the fiscal year 2023 budget cycle.

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“If we don’t do that, then you’ll have the stand-in force that’s forward without an organic ability to move around,” the general said, adding that the force cannot wait “three or four years to assess what our requirement is. We can’t move like that anymore.”

Outlining the Marines’ new strategy, Berger suggested sending “small but lethal” mobile units made up of USMC, Navy and Coast Guard forces on missions “below the threshold of violence” in contested areas like the South China Sea. Having these forces would enable the US to “assist in identifying and countering malign behavior,” the general said in a December 1 report, adding that “if armed conflict does erupt, the joint force can attack effectively first and prevent the enemy from doing so.”

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95. Biden predicts 'winter of death' for unvaxxedПт, 17 дек 2021[-/+]
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US President Joe Biden urged all Americans to receive booster shots and warned of a winter full of “severe illness and death” for those who remain unvaccinated amid the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19.

“If you’re vaccinated and have your booster shot, you’re protected from severe illness and death, Biden said on Thursday, in brief remarks to the press as he met with his Covid-19 coordination team at the White House.

“Due to the steps we’ve taken, Omicron has not spread as fast as it could have otherwise done,” Biden added, “but it’s here now and it’s spreading and it’s gonna increase.”

We are looking at a winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated.

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The White House responded to the discovery of the variant – designated Omicron by the World Health Organization in late November – by banning travelers from eight African countries where it was first detected.

The ban went into effect on November 29. The first US case of the Omicron contagion was detected two days later in California, in a traveler who returned from South Africa on November 22. As of Wednesday, 36 US states have reported cases of Omicron, which was said to amount to 3% of total infections across the country.

Health authorities across the world consider Omicron to be far more transmissible than the Delta variant, blamed for the spike in US coronavirus deaths this year. Data suggests that its symptoms are much milder, however.

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96. School owes transgender student $4 million in bathroom caseЧт, 16 дек 2021[-/+]
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A Missouri jury has ruled that a school district owes more than $4 million to a male transgender student, who sued for sex discrimination after being denied the use of boys’ bathrooms and locker rooms.

The Jackson County jury decided on Monday that the unnamed student was discriminated against “based on his sex.”

According to the complaint, the student had registered a legal name change in 2010 and updated the birth certificate in 2014 to reflect his new name and gender. Though the state recognized the student as a boy, the Delta Woods Middle School in Blue Springs denied him the use of the boys’ locker room due to having “female genitalia,” said the lawsuit, filed in 2015.

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The school required the student to use a single-person unisex restroom outside the locker room while participating in the 8th grade boys’ football and track teams, according to court documents. The lawsuit alleged the student felt singled out and inferior to other boys due to the exclusion.

Commenting on the verdict, the Blue Springs school district said it disagreed and will seek “appropriate relief from the trial court and court of appeals if necessary.” Blue Springs is part of the greater Kansas City urban area, with a population of about 57,000.

In the controversial Bostock decision, in June 2020, the US Supreme Court held that the ban on discrimination on the basis of sex – included in the 1964 Civil Rights Act – applied to “sexual orientation” as well. The three dissenting justices objected that the redefinition would create cases where schools will no longer be allowed to separate dormitories by sex, and allow transgender students to sue over bathroom access.

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97. Sex and the City star accused of sexual assaultЧт, 16 дек 2021[-/+]
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The revival of iconic US TV series Sex and the City has triggered two women who claim they were sexually assaulted by one of the show’s stars to come forward with painful memories they thought they had “buried.”

The return of SATC and its male star Chris Noth – ‘Mr. Big’ – to the small screen in And Just Like That has led two women to come forward with vivid memories of being assaulted by the actor. The pair approached The Hollywood Reporter independently over the past several months to share their stories, which despite taking place 11 years apart on opposite sides of the country have a lot in common.

‘Zoe’, who approached THR in October, opted to “try to go public with who [Noth] is” as the hype was building over the new TV series. Still employed in the entertainment industry, she told the magazine that “for so many years, [she] buried” the memory of the assault, which took place in Los Angeles in 2004 as Zoe was beginning her career in the industry.

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Ghislaine Maxwell speaks with Bobbi Sternheim as defense witness Cimberly Espinosa is questioned by lawyer Christian Everdell during the trial of Maxwell, the Jeffrey Epstein associate accused of sex trafficking, in a courtroom sketch in New York City, December 16, 2021. © REUTERS / Jane Rosenberg
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While Noth, who was represented by the firm she worked for, was “kind of flirty,” she thought nothing of it, given his celebrity at the time of “peak SATC.” It was only when she stopped by his apartment to return a book he had lent her that things went dreadfully wrong, with a surprise kiss quickly devolving into sexual assault. A friend who took her to the hospital and a former boss she allegedly spoke to both corroborated her story, and Zoe noted that she did not want to end her life like her mother, diagnosed with cancer in 2018 and “haunted” by a sexual assault she had kept quiet for years.

‘Lily’, who came forward in August, was allegedly approached by Noth while working at a New York nightclub, invited to a restaurant shortly before closing time and later shepherded to the actor’s apartment. After “he kept trying” to make out with Lily against her will, he allegedly raped her in a similar fashion to his reported assault on ‘Zoe’. She shared the incident with a friend shortly thereafter, and Noth allegedly sent multiple text messages seemingly attempting to gauge her response to (and minimize) the assault.

Contacted by the magazine, Noth addressed both women’s claims by declaring the accusations “categorically false,” noting that whether “30 years ago or 30 days ago, no always means no” and that the “encounters were consensual.”

It’s difficult not to question the timing of these stories coming out,” he said.

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98. NYPD commissioner appointed in front of mural praising convicted ‘domestic terrorist’Чт, 16 дек 2021[-/+]
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New York Police Department commissioner Keechant Sewell, the first woman to hold the post, raised eyebrows during her swearing-in ceremony in front of a mural featuring FBI-most-wanted convicted cop-killer Assata Shakur.

Sewell was sworn in on Wednesday at Queensbridge Houses, a public housing development in Queens, in front of a mural featuring famous black revolutionaries, from slave rebellion leader Nat Turner to Black Panther Huey Newton. Sewell’s family once lived in the complex.

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Perhaps the most controversial figure in the mural, Joanne Chesimard aka Assata Shakur, fled to Cuba in 1979 after escaping from a New Jersey prison where she was being held following her conviction as an accomplice in the murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster. Granted political asylum by Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Shakur has remained in Cuba since then and lives there to this day despite a hefty FBI bounty on her head.

The 73-year-old, a member of the Black Liberation Army, was convicted in 1977 of Foerster’s murder and attained the dubious honor of becoming the first woman to be listed on the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list in 2013. The agency doubled the reward for her capture to $2 million that year, the 40th anniversary of the crime, declaring her a “domestic terrorist.”

While living openly and freely in Cuba she continues to maintain and promote her terrorist ideology,” FBI special agent Aaron Ford declared at a news conference on the 40th anniversary of the highway shootout that saw Foerster and a passenger in the car with Shakur killed following a traffic stop. She and the driver of the vehicle were sentenced to life in prison.

Her cause was taken up by several high-profile civil rights activists who claimed she was not given a fair trial amid the politically-charged climate of the 1970s that saw the FBI and other government agencies infiltrate and dismantle American leftist movements like the Black Panthers, to which Shakur had previously belonged.

Incoming New York Mayor Eric Adams praised Sewell as the first woman to take on the role of NYPD commissioner. She has served in the department for 22 years and was most recently Chief of Detectives for Nassau County, Long Island. Adams heralded Sewell’s appointment, declaring that women would no longer be “always sitting on the bench, never allowed to get in the game.

Sewell declared she would prioritize getting crime under control as commissioner. “The first thing we have to do is get a handle on the violence in the city,” she told MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Thursday.

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99. US blacklists Chinese firms over ‘brain-control weaponry’Чт, 16 дек 2021[-/+]
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The US Treasury has blacklisted 34 Chinese companies and research institutes, with Washington accusing one of the named institutes of developing “brain-control weaponry.”

The Chinese institutes and firms were added to the department’s ‘Entity List’ on Wednesday, joining more than 260 other Chinese businesses – including smartphone giant Huawei – already on the list. Placement on the list forbids these firms from buying technology from the US without express permission from Washington.

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Among the entities listed are the Chinese Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS) and 11 of its research institutes. In an entry to the Federal Register published Thursday, the Biden administration claimed that these institutes “use biotechnology processes to support [the] Chinese military,” and have developed “purported brain-control weaponry.”

“The scientific pursuit of biotechnology and medical innovation can save lives. Unfortunately, the PRC is choosing to use these technologies to pursue control over its people and its repression of members of ethnic and religious minority groups,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo wrote in a statement, referring to the People’s Republic of China’s alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in the Chinese province of Xinjiang.

Four other companies were added to the list “for their support of China’s military modernization,” while five additional firms were added for allegedly trying to acquire US technology to help the Chinese military.

The Federal Register entry did not elaborate further on the alleged Chinese “brain-control weaponry,” nor did it specify which of the AMMS’ institutes was behind this supposed weaponry.

The Biden administration has largely continued former President Donald Trump’s antagonistic stance toward Beijing. While Biden has not imposed any fresh tariffs on Chinese goods, he has not removed those put in place by Trump. In addition, the Biden administration continues to target the Chinese technology sector with sanctions, expanding a Trump-era ban on American investments in companies working with the Chinese military, and weighing sanctions on the country’s largest semiconductor manufacturer.

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100. ‘False memory’ expert called to testify in Ghislaine Maxwell’s defense trialЧт, 16 дек 2021[-/+]
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Seeking to challenge the credibility of accusers in the sex-trafficking trial of Jeffrey Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell, her defense attorneys have called as witness the “false memories” expert Elizabeth Loftus.

“I am here as a professor and a scientist who studies human memory to talk about the nature of memory, the workings of memory, how people can develop memories of things that didn’t happen or remember things differently from the way they actually were,” Loftus said on the stand Thursday.

“One thing we know about memory is that it doesn’t work like a recording device,” she told the jury.

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A psychology professor at the University of California, Irvine, Loftus has testified or consulted in over 300 trials, including high-profile cases such as that of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, real-estate mogul Robert Durst, and athlete O. J. Simpson.

Calling her up is part of the Maxwell defense strategy to challenge the credibility of the women who testified that Maxwell set them up for sexual abuse by Epstein while they were minors.

In their opening statement at the end of November, the defense argued the accusers were motivated by money and driven by false memories influenced by the media coverage of Epstein and Maxwell. They also said Maxwell was on trial for the crimes of Epstein, who was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell in August 2019.

Maxwell’s trial began at the end of November, and prosecutors wrapped up their case last week.

US District Judge Alison Nathan, presiding over the trial, has rejected the defense motion to allow pseudonymous witnesses. It remains unclear how many of the proposed 35 defense witnesses will take the stand, or if Maxwell will be among them.

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