[Fox5 Atlanta] ATLANTA - An Atlanta police supervisor has been accused of striking and biting a fellow officer in a traffic dispute.
Lt. Sharrone Steed will be charged in the case. The incident happened last Saturday.
The supervisor, who was not in uniform and was in her personal vehicle, asked to be allowed to move through traffic. An Atlanta officer working the traffic area did not know where she was and told her no.
Steed then allegedly struck the patrol officer with her car and bit that officer when he tried to remove her from the vehicle.
[Guardian] A surprise outing in a fighter jet unnerved one defence company executive so much he accidentally ejected himself while flying at over 500km/h (320mph), an investigation into the debacle in France has found.
The 64-year-old civilian got the most unwelcome ride of his life after the force of the take-off made him "float" off his seat, causing him to stand up and involuntarily grab the ejection handle to steady himself.
Air accident investigators found a series of errors in the lead-up to the incident, including ignored medical warnings that the passenger should not undergo to the 3.7g of force generated by the take-off, and loose seat straps that allowed him to float up. He also lost his helmet while being ejected.
[USA Today] PHOENIX — A Phoenix man is the first in Arizona to survive COVID-19 through a rare form of treatment called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) therapy.
Enes Dedic, 53, was on the brink of death with a ventilator until his doctors at HonorHealth used ECMO as a last resort. Dedic is among the first U.S. COVID-19 patients to survive the disease by using the treatment and is among around 10 worldwide.
ECMO works by helping oxygenate blood outside the body so blood doesn't need to transfer through damaged or filled lungs. Instead, tubes carry blood from the body to an external artificial lung that removes carbon dioxide and adds oxygen, at which point an artificial heart pumps the blood back into the body.
It's a last hope treatment, as the mortality rate on ECMO is around 40% — "extraordinarily high for almost any medical procedure" — according to Dedic's doctors.
After 10 days in a medical coma on ECMO, Dedic woke up responsive and soon was able to FaceTime his wife.
#2
After the second major heart attack, they gave me 2 grams of magnesium intravenously. Imagine being on a beach in Saudi Arabia, then turn that up 30 degrees or so. That lasted five minutes with one of the nurses holding a window fan over me for the duration. I'm not exactly sure what the deal with that is but it worked.
In situations like that, you have nothing to lose. Good for Enes there!
[Powerline] The Sioux Falls facility is massive. It has 3,700 employees, of whom fewer than 10% have tested positive for COVID-19. The Sioux Falls facility is one of the main pork producers in the U.S., turning out around 18 million servings of bacon, pork chops, etc., per day.
You may wonder, why were so many diagnostic tests performed on employees at that plant? The answer is that Smithfield implemented an aggressive program, in partnership with two major hospital systems, whereby anyone who entered or left the facility was questioned and had his or her temperature taken. Anyone who reported having a cough, etc., or who showed an elevated temperature was tested for COVID-19.
Moreover, the Post article conveyed the impression that the Smithfield plant might become a ghost facility, closed forever due to South Dakota's failure to elect a Democratic governor. In fact, the plant will reopen in a matter of days. During the brief time it has been closed, Smithfield has been working intensively with the Centers for Disease Control, OSHA, and others. Large South Dakota HCQ Trial Begins:
Governor Noem has been working closely with President Trump and Vice President Pence to set up the largest clinical trial of Hydroxychloroquine that, to my knowledge, has so far taken place. South Dakota has secured access to a large number of doses of Hydroxychloroquine from the national stockpile to conduct a series of tests, in conjunction with some of the Midwest's major hospital groups.
There will be two tracks: one will test Hydroxychloroquine among those who have tested positive for COVID-19 and have been hospitalized. The second will be prophylactic, testing the drug among high-risk populations that have not been hospitalized, like health care workers. This will be a double-blind study that begins with a clinical trial involving 2,000 patients, but could be expanded to as many as 100,000. This study will tell us more about the effectiveness of Hydroxychloroquine than any other study has done, to my knowledge, to date. Much more at link. Most of it is Powerline reporting on the Washington Post's biased misreporting. Great reporting by Powerline.
#8
Watch the tusks. They will slice you open if you are not careful.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/15/2020 16:46 Comments ||
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#9
Probably one of the more dangerous animals to hunt. Probably the most dangerous in North America, although Grizzly Bears come close.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/15/2020 16:52 Comments ||
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#10
Those tusks reminded me of the hunchbacked one, he who adopted the Boar Badge: RICHARD GLOUCESTER IS AT HAND... HE HOLDS HIS COURSE TOWARD TEWKESBURY
[NYPOST] When it comes to the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... , age and weight are more than just numbers.
In two new studies, NYU researchers found certain risk factors like age, obesity and chronic illness can lead to an increased risk of hospitalization for COVID-19 patients.
In one of the largest data reviews on COVID-19 cases so far, researchers at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine found that age and chronic illness (cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity, in particular) were the leading factors that led to hospitalization for COVID-19 patients. The study, which looked at reports on 4,103 patients from March 1 through April 2, is currently under peer review and has been pre-published online.
"The risk factors we identified for hospitalization in [COVID-19] are largely similar to those associated with any type of severe disease requiring hospitalization or ICU-level care, though we were surprised that cancer and chronic pulmonary disease did not feature more prominently in the risk models," the researchers wrote in the study. "For instance, while advanced age was by far the most important predictor of hospitalization . . . 54% of hospitalized patients were younger than 65 years. This is typical of the hospitalization pattern in viral respiratory disease."
In a separate study, researchers at NYU Langone Health found that patients under 60 were at a higher risk of hospitalization due to complications from COVID-19 if they were obese. The report, which was published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, looked at the data of 3,615 patients who tested positive for the coronavirus from March 4 to April 4.
Statement from NYC Health on the new definition for deaths linked to coronavirus. 6,589 confirmed deaths, 3,778 probable deaths pic.twitter.com/KsJI1y8w5E
Health care workers are 10%-20% of US coronavirus cases
[AlAhram] Between 10% and 20% of U.S. coronavirus cases are health care workers, though they tended to be hospitalized at lower rates than other patients, officials reported Tuesday. But the data varied in how complete it was, researchers said. In 12 states that did a better job reporting on whether patients worked in medicine, around 11% of cases were health care workers.
Media reports said about 10% of cases in Italy and Spain were health care workers.
Compared with U.S. cases overall, larger proportions of diagnosed health care workers were women, were white, and were young or middle-aged adults. That's consistent with the demographics of who works in health care, researchers said.
About 10% of the health care workers were hospitalized with symptoms, compared with 21% to 31% of overall cases. That may reflect the younger age of the workers, as well as prioritization of testing for health care employees, the report said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2020 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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#1
NYU researchers found certain risk factors like age, obesity and chronic illness can lead to an increased risk of hospitalization for COVID-19 patients.
Something seems to be missing here, for some reason /s
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/15/2020 7:57 Comments ||
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#10
I want all of you to remember how they targeted the military with the refinance whore and still are for mortgage cheap while they threw you in garbage cans in their basements medical files! Nothing has changed kids they are still fucking all of you! Six people sick on a ship and resign and thousands announced sick on the news with that mentality the person or persons who compromised national security should be killed! They are still ducking all of you! Heros they are all hero's well I knew real fire fighters during 911 etc they were just doing their civil service job not foundations savers! They are ducking all of you! We need a free meal and a fund raiser for nurses and doctors who are making thousands etc. In overtime who cannot afford food they are fucking heros! Scam scam scam when does the bullshit lie end!?!
[Just The News] Ukraine detained a security service general on suspicion of secretly working for Russia, officials in Kyiv said Tuesday. The accused man is Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Maj. Gen. Valery Shaitanov.
Counterintelligence agents from the SBU found evidence that Shaitanov worked for the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, the SBU press service reported.
The arrest followed a lengthy investigation, according to Ukraine security officials.
"We conducted a complex, long-lasting, multi-level special operation," said the head of the SBU, Ivan Bakanov, in a statement translated by Just the News. "Unfortunately, the man who received the rank of general after the Revolution of Dignity and had to defend Ukraine actually worked against it."
Shaitanov's Russian handler, officials said, was a colonel with the FSB.
The SBU claimed that Shaitanov plotted "terrorist acts" in exchange for money and a Russian passport, and that he revealed information related to national security and defense.
Shaitanov's detention comes one week after another Ukrainian military officer, Colonel Ivan Bezyazykov, reportedly was sentenced to 13 years in prison for treason.
Representatives for Shaitanov could not immediately be located. Russian government officials did not respond to a request for comment.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/15/2020 00:00 ||
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And no serious harm done, just like the 2017 forest fire and the one in 2015, and no doubt earlier forest fires that we missed or that predate Rantburg’s existence.
Ukrainian authorities said on Tuesday that though they had registered short-term spikes in Caesium-137 particles in the Kiev area to the south of the plant, radiation levels remained within normal limits overall and did not require additional protection measures.
"There is no open fire," the Interior Ministry said in a statement. It added that there was "a slight smouldering of the forest floor" however.
The fire, one of several that followed unusually dry weather, began on April 3 in the western part of the exclusion zone and spread to nearby forests.
Police say they have identified a 27-year old local resident who they accuse of deliberately starting the blaze. It remains unclear if the person, who has reportedly confessed to starting a number of fires "for fun", is partly or fully responsible.
[Business Today] The US government had reportedly funded $3.7 million to the Chinese laboratory in Wuhan which has been at the centre of speculations surrounding coronavirus outbreak.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology is believed to have conducted coronavirus experiments on mammals captured from the caves of Yunnan, China, with the US money.
According to documents obtained by British media outlet Daily Mail, scientists there experimented on bats as part of a project funded by the US National Institutes of Health, which continues to licence the Wuhan laboratory to receive American money for experiments.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is an agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services responsible for biomedical and public health research.
Research into the sequencing of the COVID-19 has traced the virus back to bats in the Yunnan caves. The Wuhan Institute of Virology is one of the most advanced laboratories in China. It is situated 20 miles from the animal market from where the coronavirus is believed to have first transferred to a human. 20 Miles? What happened to "less than a 100 yards"?
The revelation that the US government was funding the lab doing research on bats in Wuhan has added fuel to the conspiracy theory which suggests that that the Wuhan lab was the actual place of origin of the coronavirus pandemic, not the animal market. Soon after this discovery US lawmakers, pressure groups hit out at the US government for funding dangerous and cruel experiments at the Wuhan Insititute.
US Congressman Matt Gaetz said, "I'm disgusted to learn that for years the US government has been funding dangerous and cruel animal experiments at the Wuhan Institute, which may have contributed to the global spread of coronavirus, and research at other labs in China that have virtually no oversight from US authorities."
#2
Perhaps we are now discovering why a 'deep dive' into the origins of the CV in the vicinity Wuhan hasn't gained much traction.
National Institute of Health (NIH). Website excerpt:
NIH History - Several Institutes were established over the next two decades. Then, with the golden era of expansion beginning after World War II, the primary focus of the NIH turned to a rigorous grants program to bolster research in U.S. colleges and universities.
[France-24] US chain McDonald's has apologised after a sign telling black people they were banned from entering a branch in southern China prompted outrage online, following reports of discriminatory treatment towards Africans in the city.
Tensions have flared between police and Africans in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou after local officials announced a cluster of COVID-19 cases in a neighbourhood with a large migrant population.
As the row escalated, posts widely shared online showed a sign at fast food chain McDonald’s saying black people were not allowed to enter the restaurant.
The chain apologised and a spokesman for McDonald’s told AFP that the notice was "not representative of our inclusive values".
In an emailed statement, Mcdonald’s said it removed the sign and temporarily closed the Guangzhou restaurant "immediately upon learning of an unauthorized communication to our guests."
Several Africans have told AFP they had been forcibly evicted by police from their accommodation, refused service at shops and restaurants, and were subject to mass testing and arbitrary quarantines.
The row has also prompted a diplomatic flurry, with ambassadors and envoys from more than 20 African countries meeting assistant foreign minister Chen Xiaodong on Monday. HT to Drew at WeaselZippers
#2
Use a means test. Apple can afford to pay their way. If they need help, low interest loans or long term tax breaks. Tell them if they do not move they will be tariff'd out of existence.
#4
Laugh at them for being such naive fools and make it possible for shareholders to sue the folks that made such idiot short term decisions as to move everything to a commie dictatorship that uses slave labor and eats bat soup.
#6
Another approach: give them a 3-year payroll tax holiday for those new American jobs created once they've exited China and brought the work onshore.
I.e. Tie the benefit to incremental US employment.
#8
I pretty much agree with these feelings here but after reading some stuff about the physics community I'd like to see it tied to real growth in US Stem education the doesn't rely on the Chinese student population. The hard working Chinese student has become a laugh line along with the tiger-Mom.
Offer 4-year full-ride scholarships at any of ca. 35-40 Tier One or Tier Two public US research universities, renewable based on meeting a GPA threshold, for native-born US kids who show an aptitude for math and basic science.
Offer 2-year scholarships for math or basic science majors at another 100 or so lesser-ranked public universities.
This would essentially offset the lost revenue from kicking out the out-of-state tuition paid by the CCP gazillionaires' spawn. That equates to roughly $80 million per year for a place like TAMU or Penn State or the other large flagship public Tier One research universities which take in ca. 600 of these little brats from China each year, or about 2,500 total CCP spawn undergrads per university in any given year.
So the tab for the public generally, across the US, would be something like 50 of the Tier One/Tier Two universities would be about $4 billion for the entire US nation.
I could see allowing promising 16 year-olds to start college early through dual-enrollment programs that allow them to satisfy lower-division math/science requirements via college courses taken while in high school.
But we need to shoot the closest alligators:
1) the f---ing nightmare that is unaffordable university tuition and unsustainable student debt
2) the f---ing disaster that is flooding this country with hundreds of thousands of CCP spawn, Chinese "Confucius Institute" spies and other Chinese who should not be displacing our own kids.
#14
Pay for the ~$6-7 billion per year Math & Basic Science Free Tuition Scholars Program by forcing corporations to chip in $100,000 to this program each year for every H-B they sponsor
#16
I could see allowing promising 16 year-olds to start college early through dual-enrollment programs that allow them to satisfy lower-division math/science requirements via college courses taken while in high school.
They can already do that with any college courses if the state or school district has such a program. Trailing daughter #2 matriculated one course short of a junior between two years of dual credit Japanese from the University of Cincinnati and a bunch of AP courses — and the high school paid the UC charges and fees.
#18
The standard undergraduate college experience will eventually become 2 or at most 3 years of advanced work that builds upon lower-level college work completed during what is now the last 2 years of high school.
[Bloomberg] The auto industry -- already fretting lengthy factory shutdowns and depressed new-vehicle demand -- is starting to sound the alarm about a potential used-car price collapse that could have far-reaching consequences for manufacturers, lenders and rental companies.
Used-vehicle auctions are for now virtually paralyzed, much like the rest of the economy. The grave concern market watchers have is that vehicles already are starting to pile up at places where buyers and sellers make and take bids on cars and trucks -- and that this imbalance will last for months.
Dealers also are looking to tap the used-car inventory sitting on their lots into whatever money they can muster. One of Manheim's biggest tasks now, Cox Automotive's Pollak wrote in his letter last week, is finding places to park the stream of vehicles headed for auctions.
"It's critical for dealers to recognize what may be an unpleasant truth," Pollak said. "It might take all the cash you can gather to sustain your business today and put it in a position to be viable when the market comes back."
#3
My last pickup was for the (occasional) cargo hauling in the back, but mostly for the fact that CAFE standards meant it was almost 10,000$ cheaper than a sedan car that was big enough for me to be comfortable in. ...And something that I felt wouldn't be instant death in a collision.
[ESPN] WWE was deemed an "essential business" in Florida, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said Monday, allowing the company to resume live television shows from its Orlando training facility and Full Sail University in Winter Park.
The decision, outlined in an April 9 memo from Gov. Ron DeSantis' office, could open the door for other sports to resume in the state.
According to Demings, WWE initially was not designated as essential and therefore was not exempt from the state's shelter-in-place order, which took effect April 3 and runs through at least April 30. That decision was reversed after "some conversation" with DeSantis' office, Demings said Monday during a news conference.
Essential businesses that are supposed to remain open during Florida's stay-at-home order include those in the health care, financial, energy, food, communications and transportation sectors. According to the memo sent by the governor's office on Thursday, recent additions to the list of "essential services" in the state include "employees at a professional sports and media production with a national audience -- including any athletes, entertainers, production team, executive team, media team and any others necessary to facilitate including services supporting such production -- only if the location is closed to the general public."
A spokesperson from DeSantis' office told ESPN on Monday that such services were characterized as essential "because they are critical to Florida's economy."
Asked if this would apply to UFC events, the spokesperson said, "The memo does not specify specific sports, as long as the event location is closed to the general public."
The UFC has suspended all events and does not have a time frame for a return, though UFC president Dana White has made it clear that he wants to resume as soon as possible.
Starting Monday with its Raw program, WWE will run live shows without fans after several weeks of taped programming, a spokesperson confirmed to ESPN on Saturday.
"We believe it is now more important than ever to provide people with a diversion from these hard times," WWE said in a statement. "We are producing content on a closed set with only essential personnel in attendance following appropriate guidelines while taking additional precautions to ensure the health and wellness of our performers and staff. As a brand that has been woven into the fabric of society, WWE and its Superstars bring families together and deliver a sense of hope, determination and perseverance."
WWE has three TV shows per week: Raw (USA Network), NXT (USA Network) on Wednesday and SmackDown (Fox) on Friday.
PARIS/BEIJING (Reuters) - French automaker Renault SA (RENA.PA) is ditching its main passenger car business in China following poor sales at the loss-making venture with Dongfeng Motor Group (0489.HK).
#2
Renault is te state automobile company of France. It produces cars of different species and types, from sports to cars and trucks Renault cars are no bigger than a VW Passat. Their focus is on smaller cars, of the size of a VW Polo or VW Golf. The question is, when will Renault call it quits in France?
[FoxNews] It's a story that spans decades, exposes corrupt Chinese politicians and shows the lengths Bloomberg L.P. will go to protect its profit.
It begins in China in 2012, when a team of hard-nosed journalists at Bloomberg News started investigating the ties between the Communist Party and the country's wealthiest citizens.
Their reporting hit a little too close to home and the higher-ups at Bloomberg News killed it, firing the reporter who questioned the decision and attempted to silence his wife by pressuring her for years to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
The incredible story, reported by NPR on Tuesday, untangles the twisty tale behind Bloomberg's decision to cave to threats by China's ruling party because they were worried about repercussions by Beijing. Instead of standing by their reporters, Bloomberg turned on them and took it a step further when it tried to get author Leta Hong Fincher, the wife of then-Bloomberg Beijing correspondent Mike Forsythe, to also keep quiet.
"They assumed that because I was the wife of their employee, I was the wife," she told NPR. "I was just an appendage of their employee. I was not a human being."
A Bloomberg News spokesperson declined to comment to Fox News.
Forsythe was part of Bloomberg's team of reporters looking into the mass accumulation of wealth by China's ruling class. Their investigative reporting got them on Beijing's radar, and the Chinese ambassador purportedly warned Bloomberg executives about publishing further exposés.
Forsythe pressed on, despite receiving death threats.
The team's next round of reporting focused on Chinese leaders' ties to Wang Jianlin, the country's richest man, as well as the family of President Xi Jinping. At first, Bloomberg editors seemed to be excited about digging deeper into China's most influential leaders, but soon the media outlet's bigwigs back home decided to drop the story
WASHINGTON/SYDNEY (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s move to halt funding to the World Health Organization over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic prompted condemnation on Wednesday from world leaders who appealed for cooperation and unity.
#17
Super-expensive organization blew their one job so badly they turned a regional crisis into a global catastrophe. We should not only cut funding but demand a refund.
Might as well. It’s not as if they were going to repay their loans even under ideal conditions.
[AlAhram] G20 and Gay Paree Club creditor nations have agreed to a partial moratorium on debt payments for the world's poorest countries in 2020 due to the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... crisis, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said Tuesday.
There have been growing calls for debt forgiveness, including from Pope Francis ...Argentine liberation theologist, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio. He was elected pope in 2013. Rather than setting up shop in Avignon, where he belongs, the first Jesuit Pope chose to reside in the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse instead of the papal apartments. He is big on climate change, against consumerism, and in favor of throwing a blanket over homosexual activity within the clergy. He's not real sure about the Resurrection, about Christ's divinity, and a few other things that would have gotten him burned at the stake a few hundred years ago, but he's hot for a certain South American Earth Mother Goddess... and French President Emmanuel Macron, given the need for countries to lift spending on health care to confront the pandemic and its economic fallout.
For 76 eligible nations, including 40 in sub-Saharan Africa countries, La Belle France "obtained a moratorium from bilateral creditors and private creditors, for a total of $20 billion," Le Maire said in conference call.
That breaks out to $12 billion in payments to bilateral creditors and $8 billion to private creditors.
The total debt servicing costs for those nations this year was $32 billion.
Le Maire said the deal was reached at the level of the Gay Paree Club of creditor nations and the G20 group of most industrialised countries thanks to China's support.
"There remains $12 billion in multilateral payments of which the World Bank accounts of a large part. We'd like it to join the moratorium as well," said Le Maire, adding that due to technical issues the multilateral institution hadn't yet adopted a position.
IMF MORATORIUM, TOO
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday announced debt relief for 25 poor countries for six months.
Pope Francis in his Easter Sunday homily called for debt relief for the world's poorest countries.
In a televised national address on Monday, La Belle France's Macron went further and called for cancelling the debts. Le Maire acknowledged that a moratorium fell short of that goal, but said it represents a "major step" towards helping countries respond to the coronavirus crisis.
"If for certain countries among the poorest on the planet it appears that the debt is not sustainable... that could lead us cancel debts," Le Maire said.
He said cancellation of debts would be done on a case by case basis and on a multilateral level by creditors.
The IMF board approved the debt relief for the countries, nearly all in Africa, but also Afghanistan, Yemen, Nepal and Haiti.
The fund together with the World Bank have called for rich nations to stop collecting debt payments from poor countries from May 1 through June 2021.
The debt relief will be funded by the IMF's Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT), which was first set up to combat the West Africa Ebola outbreak in 2015 and has been repurposed to help countries fend off COVID-19.
The fund currently has $500 million, with Japan, Britain, China and the Netherlands among its main contributors.
"I urge other donors to help us replenish the trust's resources and boost further our ability to provide additional debt service relief for a full two years to our poorest member countries," Georgieva said.
Last week, the World Bank said it would roll out $160 billion in emergency aid over 15 months to help countries stricken by the virus, including $14 billion in debt repayments from 76 poor countries to other governments.
[Fox 40] President Donald Trump says he has directed a halt to U.S. payments to the World Health Organization pending a review of its warnings about the coronavirus and China.
Trump says the outbreak could have been contained at its source and spared lives had the U.N. health agency done a better job investigating reports coming out of China.
The president says the world depends on the World Health Organization to work with countries to make sure accurate information about health threats are shared in a timely manner.
Trump claims the organization failed to carry out its "basic duty" and must be held accountable.
But Trump says the U.S. will continue to engage with the organization in pursuit of what he calls meaningful reforms.
BREAKING - President @realDonaldTrump cuts all U.S. fundins of the @WHO for permitting flights out of China when they parroted China's claim that #coronavirus could not be spread from person-to-person.
[FOXNEWS] As the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... pandemic continues its assault across the world, red flags have been raised over the role played by the World Health Organization (WHO) in initially downplaying the virus to appease China and just how effectively its money — funded overwhelmingly by U.S. taxpayers — is spent by the U.N. agency.
President Trump last week threatened to withhold funding from the WHO, insisting that his administration would be "looking into" its operations — igniting a blistering response from its controversial chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who warned that "politicizing" the virus would only result in "more body bags."
Experts weighed in on the possibility of the U.S. abruptly pulling its majority funding and on the threatened move's impact on the agency.
"In the short run, not a lot [would change] because WHO management will hope for a change in leadership in November and/or that other nations fill the void," Dr. Roger Bate, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and an expert on public health and emerging markets, told Fox News. "Budgets and fiscal years are months, so they wouldn't feel a problem for a while."
In addition to repeating Beijing's flawed theory on Jan. 14 that "there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission" of the novel pathogen and ignoring warnings from Taiwan, the WHO — a heavily centralized outfit — also failed to necessitate that Chinese officials share the viral strains that would have allowed diagnostic tests to have been produced significantly earlier worldwide.
[American Mil News] The Navy is offering active-duty and full-time support officers, currently on active duty who are slated to retire on or before Dec. 1, 2020, to remain on active duty but in a retired status until the end of the year.
The offer is part of the Navy’s plans to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, while helping the service maintain operational, Sailor and family readiness.
According to NAVADMIN 105/20, released April 9, officers in the rank of captain or below, who must retire due to statutory requirements between now and Dec. 1, can submit a request to serve longer under a provision known as "retire/retain."
Those who are required by law to retire because of statutory age limits, years of commissioned or active service or for failures of selection to the next rank may be eligible, if already retirement eligible.
The officer would still retire on their scheduled date but would then continue to serve with active-duty pay and entitlements until Dec. 31, unless they request an earlier date.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[USA Today] PHOENIX — A Phoenix man is the first in Arizona to survive COVID-19 through a rare form of treatment called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) therapy.
[Powerline] The Sioux Falls facility is massive. It has 3,700 employees, of whom fewer than 10% have tested positive for COVID-19. The Sioux Falls facility is one of the main pork producers in the U.S., turning out around 18 million servings of bacon, pork chops, etc., per day. 
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
[Just The News] Ukraine detained a security service general on suspicion of secretly working for Russia, officials in Kyiv said Tuesday. The accused man is Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Maj. Gen. Valery Shaitanov. 
[Business Today] The US government had reportedly funded $3.7 million to the Chinese laboratory in Wuhan which has been at the centre of speculations surrounding coronavirus outbreak..jpg)
[
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] ...after Treasury proposed ownership stake in the nation's leading carriers.
[FoxNews] It's a story that spans decades, exposes corrupt Chinese politicians and shows the lengths Bloomberg L.P. will go to protect its profit.
...Argentine liberation theologist, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio. He was elected pope in 2013. Rather than setting up shop in Avignon, where he belongs, the first Jesuit Pope chose to reside in the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse instead of the papal apartments. He is big on climate change, against consumerism, and in favor of throwing a blanket over homosexual activity within the clergy. He's not real sure about the Resurrection, about Christ's divinity, and a few other things that would have gotten him burned at the stake a few hundred years ago, but he's hot for a certain South American Earth Mother Goddess...
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
