[Daily Caller] Bill Priestap, the FBI’s former chief of counterintelligence, told Justice Department investigators he agreed not to disclose information he learned about Christopher Steele as a precondition for a meeting with British government officials regarding the former MI6 officer, according to recently declassified information.
Priestap and his deputy, Peter Strzok, traveled to the United Kingdom in November and December 2016 to assess the reliability of Steele, a former MI6 officer whose dossier the FBI used for its investigation into the Trump campaign.
Priestap and Strzok received mixed reviews about Steele from his former colleagues, according to a Justice Department inspector general’s report on the FBI’s probe.
Some vouched for Steele’s honesty and integrity, but several others questioned his judgement and "lack of self-awareness." Some colleagues described Steele as "smart," and a "person of integrity," their notes said. (RELATED: FBI Received Evidence Of Russian Disinformation In Steele Dossier)
"[I]f he reported it, he believed it," one contact said.
But their notes also reflected negative reviews on Steele. He "[d]emonstrates lack of self-awareness, poor judgment," was "underpinned by poor judgment," and "[r]eporting in good faith, but not clear what he would have done to validate," one source said.
Priestap and Strzok embarked on the fact-finding mission weeks after the FBI had already used Steele’s anti-Trump dossier to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) order against Carter Page.
They shared those assessments with the FBI team conducting the Trump probe, but did not include the information in Steele’s so-called Delta file, which the FBI maintains for its confidential sources.
#3
Poppy's great-great-great-great gram came over on the Mayflower. The ties go waaaaaay back...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 5:31 Comments ||
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#4
All this spying on a Presidential campaign sounds much more serious than the Watergate break-in. Where’s the Washington post with top notch investigative reporters on this story?
#6
They're "looking out for us." I doesn't appear that way, but leave it to the professionals...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 6:53 Comments ||
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#7
Robert Hannigan, director of UK GCHQ, resigned as head of one of the three Government intelligence agencies after just two years. GCHQ would only say that Mr Hannigan had left his post for "personal reasons" and that he was not sacked or subject to disciplinary proceedings.
[NYPOST] A shameless freeloader quarantined himself in a shuttered Connecticut restaurant, helping himself to thousands of dollars worth of food and drink during a four-day bacchanalian binge, police said.
Louis Angel Ortiz, 42, was arrested early Tuesday after allegedly pillaging a Cuban restaurant in downtown New Haven, which police believe he busted into Saturday through a side window.
Ortiz then proceeded to eat, drink or steal several thousand dollars worth of food and booze, including roughly 70 bottles of liquor, New Haven police said.
"Officers learned Ortiz helped himself over the course of four days to the restaurant’s food, liquor and beer," police said in a statement Wednesday.
"In addition to eating and drinking at the restaurant, Ortiz removed beverages and property from the building," officials added.
Ortiz was taken into custody after a manager stopped by the closed restaurant and saw someone sleeping inside with a bottle of rum, police said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/18/2020 00:00 ||
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#1
Louis Angel Ortiz a Connecticut Yankee -exhibits typical Yankee practicality?
#3
Is Louis Angel Ortiz Yale's new Vice Associate Provost and Assistant Dean of Diversity Inclusion & Equity?
If so, perhaps the Dean was doing a bit of field research on the effects of diversity ("70 bottles of liquor"), inclusion ("lemme in!") and equity ("I got mine, Jorge!")?
#4
I'm surprised there was any food there to begin with. I go into Boston once a week and there's a pizza joint on the first floor. We had the keys to the place and for the first week, we cleaned house and helped ourselves to anything we wanted. On Day 7 or 8 the owner came back in and threw all the perishables away. I would think that part of it would be standard procedure for all restaurants.
[NYPOST] Three armed robbers got the shock of their lives when they broke into a Florida apartment — and were shot at by the person inside, police said.
Chilling surveillance video shows the trio walking up to a second-story Neptune Beach residence on Tuesday evening, as one of them uses his body to push in the door.
Seconds later, about five gunshots ring out and the three men scurrying out, with one even leaping over the balcony to the ground.
Police said one of the home invaders was shot in the chest and was being treated at a hospital, local outlet WJXT reported.
The other two were still being sought on Wednesday.
The male resident who fired the shots is not facing any charges.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/18/2020 00:00 ||
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#1
"You sure this the place, Joey ?"
"Yep. All sorts of trinkets and stuff."
"Joey, I heard he collects those trinkets from inside croc stomachs."
"Yeah. They eat these nature loving aunties and bird watching geezers. A lot of real Rolexes and pearls here, my boy !"
#2
Yes, down here that sort of incident doesn't begin with the "civil rights ombudsman" looking into whether the miscreants' rights were protected during the event. And the DA isn't on TV grandstanding about locking the homeowner up.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 2:53 Comments ||
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#3
..isn't the right to a jury trial wonderful? Tends to slow down grand standing DAs. Not all, but so far just enough.
#4
With a straight face, whitebread democrat says "these are somebody's kids. You can't just lock them up." And Karen and Dennis nod in a slack jaw way and send in their ballots.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 7:15 Comments ||
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#11
Where is Martha Toscano's family to quietly hunt the perps down and teach them some manners?
Once upon a time, one would go and ask the Godfather for justice. Given that the cops have a clearance rate of something like 40% for serious stuff like murders, we seem to be headed back there.
[JustTheNews] Page says multiple FBI misconduct issues in Russia case make it worse than Watergate.
The list of FBI misdeeds in the Russia investigation keeps piling higher.
In addition to filing inaccurate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants, hiding evidence of innocence from the courts and falsifying a government document, the bureau collected inappropriate cell phone photos during two secret premises searches in summer 2017 while spying on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
The revelations surfaced belatedly this week when the government declassified once-redacted footnotes from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigative report on the bungled Russia case.
Footnote 379 revealed that in 2019, nearly two years after the inappropriate pictures were gathered, the Justice Department’s National Security Division (NSD) self-reported two violations notifying the FISA court that FBI personnel conducting two premises searches violated rules designed to protect Americans from unnecessary privacy invasions.
The rules are known as Standard Minimization Procedures (SMPs) and require FBI agents not to collect, gather or store privacy information about an American target that isn’t germane to the investigation, according to current and former FBI officials familiar with the procedures.
The footnote lays out in detail the concerns disclosed to the court, saying the improper actions occurred after the fourth and final FISA warrant against Page was issued in summer 2019 and FBI employees conducted two secret premises searches....
[FoxNews] A licensed gun owner in Philadelphia is claiming self-defense after shooting three teens who were allegedly attacking him on a public transit bus, police said Thursday.
The 24-year-old man, who police said had a concealed-carry permit for his weapon, was sitting in the back of the bus when the group approached him and an altercation soon followed, according to Lt. Dennis Rosenbaum of Northeast Detectives.
"There were about three other people on the bus at the time who were not involved," Police Chief Inspector Scott Small told Philadelphia's WPVI-TV. "Those three individuals were transported to Northeast Detectives as witnesses. The 35-year-old bus driver was not injured and not involved."
Authorities said those wounded were 15, 16 and 17 years old. The 15-year-old was shot in his right thigh and buttocks, while the 17-year-old was shot in his right knee. They were both taken to Einstein Medical Hospital.
Thinking the fellow did the low shots on purpose. Fun to the femur.
[The Aviationist] On Feb. 1, 2020, 41-year old French private pilot Corentin Larose, was in the backseat of the MiG-15UTI "2562" piloted by Fred Bourdais, a French who works for Air France in LAX and lives in San Pedro for years. Corentin, who has a license for gliders, planes and helicopters and owns two helicopters, was shooting a video for his Youtube channel LOW FUEL — HELICOPTER LIFE, where he shares his passion for flying.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 06:39 ||
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#1
Scary as hell but what a hoot.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/18/2020 12:57 Comments ||
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#2
I would have lost five pounds and a change of drawers.
[American Thinker] NPR and the Houston Chronicle weren't the only outlets making (or implying) that Armstrong is an evil Republican doctor, even though his behavior was entirely within the bounds of law and ethics. All those outlets should be eating crow now. Despite being a vulnerable cohort for COVID-19 mortality (since they’re all elderly), Armstrong's patients are recovering:
"I thought the risk of seeing 15% of that nursing home die was just not an acceptable," said Dr. Robin Armstrong, MD, medical director at The Resort at Texas City.
On [Easter] Sunday, those 39 patients finished five days of treatment with hydroxychloroquine. Dr. Armstrong said no one experienced any side effects. Another anecdote, but it didn't seem to make the national news, did it?
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/18/2020 10:12 Comments ||
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#2
In Texas 42% of those over age 80 who get the virus die from it, as do 13% of those in their 70s 7% of those in their 60s, and 1.6% of everyone else.
#6
But I am definitely not a fan of the pharmaceutical-industrial complex. But, if a biggie can find the right medicine to fight COVID-19 and save lives and suffering, then, great.
You may recall very recently they tried to get legislation passed in New Jersey that would absolve big pharma of any liability for [mandatory] vaccines, even if it f's up school kids. Sick, as are the politicians who go along with them.
#7
Sorry, but, when I see "Reuters" that's the sentence comes to my mind. Just like CNN is associated with "Rubber coated metal bullets", and journalists in general are "well poisoners".
[France24] An operation by France's Chinese community to help the diaspora during the coronavirus outbreak by distributing masks, disinfectant and gloves has prompted questions and legal problems for some of its backers.
Sceptical of the French government's response to the epidemic, the Chinese embassy, business leaders and ex-pat associations have handed out so-called "COVID kits", masks and other protective equipment to their compatriots.
But this landed some in trouble with the law.
Among the masks given out were the highly sought-after FFP2 type, which in times of critical supply shortages have been reserved for medical personnel on the frontlines of France's coronavirus battle.
Early in the outbreak, France had requisitioned all face mask stocks and production for distribution to doctors, nurses and caregivers.
Yet on April 5, police in Paris detained two representatives of Chinese associations for possession of some 15,000 masks.
Two days later, three students were arrested while handing out Chinese embassy-sponsored "COVID kits" in the Paris suburbs, an operation which caused people to amass in contravention of France's strict social distancing regulations to stem the virus spread.
FFP2 masks were included in some of the kits, along with protective gloves, disinfectant wipes and Chinese traditional medicine.
The Chinese embassy in Paris insisted in a statement that there was nothing illegal. It was doing "its best... to defend the rights and legitimate interests of Chinese compatriots in France."
- 'CHINESE HEALTH DIPLOMACY' -
The health crisis has strained ties between Paris and Beijing.
France this week summoned the Chinese ambassador to protest a string of controversial comments by Beijing's embassy in Paris on France's handling of the coronavirus.
And French President Emmanuel Macron told the Financial Times that things "happened that we don't know about" in the response to the virus by China, where the pandemic originated.
The "COVID kit" initiative came in response to a letter dated March 31, in the form of an urgent appeal signed by about 20 bodies representing France-based Chinese people, whom they judged to be "in danger".
Faced with "the inability (of the French authorities) to take appropriate protective measures", said the authors of the letter, penned in Mandarin, they were launching an appeal for "certain protective products and medical materials".
Belgium virus death toll passes 5,000
[IsraelTimes] The novel coronavirus has claimed the lives of more than 5,000 people in Belgium, officials say, confirming its high per-capita mortality ratio compared to most other European countries.
A further 313 deaths recorded in the past 24 hours have pushed the overall toll to 5,163, health authorities say in a daily news conference. Half of the fatalities are reported from old-age care homes, and the other half from hospitals in the country of 11.5 million inhabitants.
UK virus death toll rises by 847 to 14,576
[IsraelTimes] The number of people in Britain who have died in hospital from coronavirus has risen by 847 to 14,576, according to daily UK health ministry figures. The increase over a period of 24 hours is slightly lower than the 861 new deaths recorded the previous day.
The latest data also showed a further 5,599 people had tested positive for COVID-19 over 24 hours, taking the total number of infections in the country to nearly 109,000.
Russian virus cases top 32,000, Putin warns of ‘very high’ risks
[IsraelTimes] Russia says it has recorded 32,008 coronavirus cases, including a record 4,070 in the last 24 hours, as President Vladimir Putin warns of “very high” risks, particularly in the ill-equipped provinces. Official figures showed more than half of the new cases were registered in Moscow and the surrounding region. So far 273 deaths have been recorded in Russia, including 41 in the last 24 hours.
Moscow’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin reports the completion of a 500-bed hospital built within weeks, which will start admitting patients Monday.
But Putin says every region must be equally prepared, even as several governors complained of a lack of medical equipment and specialist staff. Vladimir region governor Vladimir Sipyagin says his region of 1.36 million only has 71 ventilators and half the needed resuscitation experts.
Moscow, Europe’s largest city with some 12 million inhabitants, has been under lockdown since the end of March, but officials have complained that many residents are flouting confinement rules.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/18/2020 00:00 ||
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#1
Belgium virus death toll passes 5,000
At least they've more cases recover than die - unlike certain Northern savages.
#4
Does anyone have real adult intelligence on the sick and death rates in china towns in the United States compared to the rest of the populace!?! Not one mention in any news outlet on the net tv or radio!?! Seems strange real strange ! So those trillions spent on intelligence any real yes real adult stuff not fluff and white wash fbi type Washington politics?
#5
Does anyone realize how close that city in New York state that China is building is to Westchester and new York city!?! Adult stuff!?!
Posted by: Flinelet Spawn of the Mongol Horde1244 ||
04/18/2020 6:51 Comments ||
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#6
Fuck those people. They bought it, they get to live with it.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 6:55 Comments ||
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#7
Good question about the Chinese population in the US. But I suppose the politicians (media) are too busy pandering to the Black community to look into it. Or, they have and are too ashamed to release any data.
#1
Going by "worldometer" graphs (Newly Infected vs. Newly Recovered), Japan is getting Xi's Gift now. The earlier wasn't actually an outbreak - they caught it early enough and suppressed it.
[Hot Air]- Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido is home to about 5 million people. When the coronavirus began spreading around the world in February, Hokkaido was the first place in Japan to declare a state of emergency. And that early decision appeared to work. The number of new cases dropped and the emergency order was lifted. When the emergency ended, Hokkaido Gov. Naomichi Suzuki said, "There was no surge of infected patients that led to the collapse of the medical environment. We overcame without the fearful circumstance."
In essence, Hokkaido had flattened the curve without overwhelming the health system. The emergency was lifted on March 19 but earlier this week Hokkaido declared a second state of emergency as the number of infections began to climb again:
The BBC reports that none of the new cases in Hokkaido come from foreigners, so this isn’t a case of a new outbreak that was imported from abroad. The president of the Japan Institute for Global Health said the lesson is that it’s easy to knock the numbers down through concerted effort but harder to keep them down:
In the last week, Hokkaido has recorded 135 new confirmed cases of Covid-19. Unlike the first outbreak in February, there is no evidence the virus has been re-imported from outside Japan...
"It is relatively easy to tackle clusters, to contact trace and isolate," says Professor Kenji Shibuya of King’s College London...
"The major lesson to take from Hokkaido is that even if you are successful in the containment the first time around, it’s difficult to isolate and maintain the containment for a long period. Unless you expand the testing capacity, it’s difficult to identify community transmission and hospital transmission."
I wonder how Fauci managed to engineer that - he must be working with Besoeker's Klingons.
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong police arrested on Saturday about a dozen democracy activists on charges of illegal assembly in raids across the Asian financial hub, media and political sources said.
Believed to be among those detained in the swoop is prominent Democratic Party founder and senior barrister Martin Lee, 81, broadcaster RTHK reported. In all, nine former legislators were arrested.
Hong Kong police have yet to confirm the arrests, which media said related to marches on Aug. 18 and Oct. 1 last year - both days of large and at times violent protests across the city.
Media showed footage of police outside the house of publishing tycoon Jimmy Lai, a financial backer of the city’s pro-democracy movement.
Lai was arrested on similar charges in late February, along with veteran activists Lee Cheuk-yan and Yeung Sum. It was unclear whether he was among those arrested on Saturday, while others named by media could not be contacted.
The raids mark the biggest crackdown on the pro-democracy movement since the outbreak of large and sometimes violent anti-government protests across the former British colony in June last year.
Marchers initially targeted a now-scrapped bill proposing to send suspects to mainland China for trial but protests broadened into demands for full democracy and a public investigation of the use of force by police.
Saturday’s arrests come after several months of relative calm amid a partial coronavirus lockdown but just as Chinese and city government officials launch a new push for tougher national security laws for Hong Kong.
#1
Saturday’s arrests come after several months of relative calm amid a partial coronavirus lockdown but just as Chinese and city government officials launch a new push for tougher national security laws for Hong Kong.
[NationalPulse] The National Pulse exposed Ching-Yi Chang on April 9th, after he told President Trump he was from Taiwan. In truth, he works for Dragon Television, owned in turn by Shanghai Media Group, one of the largest state-owned media groups in China.
Now, according to Taiwan’s Liberty Times, Ching-Yi could be facing punitive action from Taiwan.
Journalist William Yang reports: "So last week, a Taiwanese journalist working for #China’s state-run Dragon Television in the US told @realDonaldTrump that he is from Taiwan when the president asked him where he is from during a presser at the White House.
"His response drew heavy criticism from both #Taiwan and #China, as people from both sides accused him of misleading Trump and the public.
"An unexpected twist of the event is that #Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, the official government agency in charge of cross-Strait affairs, came out today to say that since Chang is still a Taiwanese citizen, his employment by Dragon TV has violated the law that governs the relationship between #Taiwan and #China, in which Taiwanese nationals are prohibited from working for any companies run by the Chinese Communist Party.
Whoops!
"Since Dragon TV is an affiliation of the CCP, Chang has violated the relevant clause in the law, and the Mainland Affairs Council will now seek to penalize Chang for violating the law. According to the law, Chang could be fined between 100,000 to 500,000 NTD."
That’s up to $16,000 USD.
The news followed the National Pulse expose of CCP-propagandist Youyou Wang who also lied to the U.S. President during a press briefing, claiming her news outlet was privately owned.
Youyou works for Phoenix Satellite Holdings, owned by Liu Changle (37.1% of shares). Changle is a "former PLA propaganda official who is close to senior Chinese government leaders".
Changle previously worked as a propaganda officer for China National Radio (then known as the Central People’s Broadcasting Station).
A further 20 percent of the company is owned by Extra Step Investments Limited, in turn owned by China Mobile Hong Kong, which itself is owned by the Chinese government-owned China Mobile.
Eight more percent of the company is owned by China Wise Investment Ltd, owned by the Bank of China.
This means at least 65 percent of the company is owned by the government of China.
[ARABNEWS] China’s 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... ground-zero city of Wuhan on Friday admitted missteps in tallying its corpse count as it abruptly raised the count by 50 percent, as world doubts mounted about how transparent China has been during the crisis.
The United States has led the charge in questioning Beijing’s handling of the pandemic and how much information it has really shared with the international community since the virus emerged late last year.
Authorities in Wuhan initially tried to cover up the outbreak, punishing doctors who had raised the alarm online in December, and there have been questions about the government’s recording of infections as it repeatedly changed its counting criteria at the peak of the outbreak.
Wuhan’s epidemic control headquarters said in a social media posting on Friday that it had added 1,290 deaths to the tally in the city, which has suffered the vast majority of China’s fatalities from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
That brings the total number of deaths in the city to 3,869. But the city government only added 325 cases, raising the city’s total number of infections to 50,333.
The change also pushes the nationwide corpse count up by nearly 39 percent to 4,632, based on official national data released earlier on Friday.
The official toll in the country of 1.4 billion people, however, remains well below the number of fatalities in much smaller countries such as Italia and Spain.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/18/2020 00:00 ||
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But the American Researcher that worked there TOTALLY vouched for herself, right?
[Fox News] The U.S. is conducting a full-scale investigation into whether the novel coronavirus, which went on to morph into a global pandemic that has brought the global economy to its knees, escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, Fox News has learned.
Intelligence operatives are said to be gathering information about the laboratory and the initial outbreak of the virus. Intelligence analysts are piecing together a timeline of what the government knew and "creating an accurate picture of what happened," the sources said.
Once that investigation is complete -- something that is expected to happen in the near-term -- the findings will be presented to the Trump administration. At that point White House policymakers and President Trump will use the findings to determine how to hold the country accountable for the pandemic.
Fox News first reported on Wednesday that there is increasing confidence that the outbreak likely originated in a Wuhan lab, not as a bioweapon but as part of a Chinese effort to show that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal or greater than those of the U.S.
U.S. officials and the intelligence community have confirmed to Fox News that they have taken the possibility of the coronavirus being man-made or engineered inside China as some sort of bioweapon off the table and have ruled it out at this point.
Sources point to the structure of the virus, in saying the genome mapping specifically shows it was not genetically altered. The sources believe the initial transmission of the virus was a naturally occurring strain that was being studied there -- and then went into the population in Wuhan.
Sources say the investigation of open source and classified data points to the work in the lab of Dr. Shi Zhengli, who was working on antivirals and immunizations for coronavirus, specifically with bats.
US officials are 100 percent confident China went to great lengths to cover up after the virus was out, the sources said.
Additionally, the sources believe that the World Health Organization -- which the president paused funding to this week over its role in the crisis -- was either complicit in the coverup, or looked the other way.
The president hinted at an investigation on Wednesday when he told Fox News' John Roberts: "More and more we're hearing the story...we are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation."
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday reiterated that the administration was eyeing the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and accused the Chinese government of stonewalling scientists from finding out what happened.
#3
Yeah, don't they know there's more graft in the limited licensing game and you don't have to worry about any stinking unfinanced pension obligation.
#5
PeeAye will be the last link in the rust belt to grow up. And with OH and WV next door that's saying something.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 7:35 Comments ||
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#6
I do think it's kinda funny here in NH that the State Liquor store is literally right next to the grocery store which sells wine and beer. Gotta go to the staties for the Scotch and Rum and Vodka and Gin.
Trump says US farmers to receive $19 billion for coronavirus mitigation
[Jpost] US President Donald Trump on Friday announced a $19 billion relief program to help farmers cope with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic through a package that will include direct payment and mass purchases of produce, meat and other products.
"These are great people, great Americans, never complain, never complain - they just do what they have to do," Trump said while announcing the farm aid program, which he said will have $16 billion in direct payments.
#6
boeing restart is being reported in seattle times; also GE Capital is reportedly canceling 89 737 Max orders.
On the widebody front British Air has reportedly retired all 747 s and A380s, Lufthansa and Air France also accelerating 4 engined aircraft retirements. United parking all 767s.
On the good news side, Buffalo Air is still flying its DC-3s and C-46s
#7
Is that Boeing story confirmed? I haven't seen it anywhere else.
If you go to the link, CrazyFool, you’ll see that the Daily Mail picked this one up from the Associated Press feed. When they do their own write-up, they’ll have a hotlink at the bottom of the article to the local reports they got the information from.
#8
KC-46s are being built. That contract has not been cancelled.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 13:58 Comments ||
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#9
Thanks TW. I tried the local news media (TV) but didn't check Seattle Times (an honest-to-god newspaper!). Even Seattle Times seemed to have buried it.
Finally, some good news from all this Chink Virus hysteria.
[Awful Announcing] - There have been plenty of layoffs and furloughs at various sports media outlets amidst the revenue downturns brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the latest furloughs come from Vox Media (parent company to SB Nation and Banner Society on the sports side). Anthony Ha of TechCrunch writes that the company is furloughing 9 percent of its total employees for three months beginning May 1, including editorial staff at SB Nation and Curbed:
In a staff memo obtained by TechCrunch (and others), CEO Jim Bankoff outlined several cost-cutting measures but no outright layoffs.
The measures including furloughing 9% of employees from May 1 to July 31. Bankoff said this will include some employees in sales, sales support, production, events, IT and office operations, along with editorial staff at SB Nation and Curbed. He also said affected employees will retain their company health insurance during this period.
In addition, the company is freezing wages through the end of 2020, pausing its 401K match, reducing hours for 1% of employees and cutting salaries during the same three-month furlough period for employees making more than $130,000 per year — the cuts start at 15%, with Bankoff and Vox Media President Pam Wasserstein taking a 50% salary reduction.
You know it's bad when a major executive takes a haircut like that.
[Synopsis:]
[GatestoneInstitute] Europe has a large web of hate speech laws and policies, thanks in part to the efforts of ECRI -- an unelected body -- and the Council of Europe.
Finally, ECRI "strongly welcomes the German government's implementation of its recommendation [in ECRI's fifth report on Germany] to introduce into the law an obligation to discontinue the public financing of political parties and other organisations that promote racism" and recommends that such a procedure against the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party be examined.
Since 1994, ECRI has been dispensing its highly politicized recommendations to European governments in confidential government consultations removed from public scrutiny. Only the final reports are published.
As this kind of arguably undemocratic governance, where an unelected body of "experts" tells national governments how to govern on fundamental issues such as freedom of speech, has been ongoing for several decades now, one can only assume that either Europeans approve of these measures or are entirely ignorant of them.
[France24] A bearded Orthodox priest carefully assembles a plastic visor as he works with a group of volunteers to provide Ukrainian medics with much-needed personal protective equipment.
The group is working in a shed in the grounds of Kiev's green and blue-domed Vydubychi monastery, which was founded in the 11th century.
Their mission is a vital one: to protect medics in the fight with the novel coronavirus.
In the small makeshift workshop, Father Mykolai, still wearing a black cassock and a large gold cross on a chain, fixes straps to a visor using an electric screwdriver.
The coronavirus "is testing our ability to cooperate around the world, to help one another," says the 46-year-old priest, raising his voice against the sound of a cutting machine.
The project manager, 30-year-old Roman Kholodov, tries on one of the face shields over his bushy beard.
"You can adjust the height and width. And most importantly, they are light," he says enthusiastically.
With his trendy hairstyle and plaid shirt, Kholodov has a hipsterish air. He is not a priest himself but heads the social services department of the newly created independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
He and the group of volunteers at the picturesque monastery started out by making high-alcohol hand-sanitiser that they bottled and gave out to parishioners and doctors.
After making 20,000 bottles and running out of ingredients, the small team bought a laser cutting machine to produce the plastic face shields that doctors wear over facemasks as an additional layer of protection.
- INFECTED MEDICS -
Their small workshop has already made around 50 face shields and they have delivered some to a Kiev hospital.
"The doctors were so happy!" Kholodov said with a smile.
[AMGREATNESS] Following President Trump’s announcement that all American funding to the World Health Organization has been halted, the White House has since confirmed that the money will instead be directed to more reliable charitable organizations, as reported by the New York Post.
The United States had previously provided 10 percent of the WHO’s total budget of $4.8 billion, with such agencies as the USAID office, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Health and Human Services collectively contributing anywhere from $300 million to $400 million per year.
The funding will instead be redirected to several charities such as the Red Thingy and Samaritan’s Purse, while the WHO undergoes increased scrutiny for its mishandling of 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... outbreak. The organization has been criticized for being too close to the Chinese government, even repeating the debunked Chinese talking point in January that the coronavirus was not contagious. It has also been criticized for its extravagant travel budget, which amounted to twice as much money as what was spent on medical equipment last year.
#6
@ AlanC - It might even buy a few ventilators or give a few disadvantaged people a bite to eat. But, I suppose even that is technically "picking and choosing".
If $1 trillion equals one million stacks of one million dollars, then, well...the numbers are just too staggering.
#7
The House says Trump is bound by law to distribute those funds to WHO because that is what they were appropriated for, and that to do otherwise is an impeachable offense; this could go to the courts.
#9
and thus the Democrats own WHO, a corrupt commie-dominated organization that Americans will come to loathe. Trump is a genius
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/18/2020 10:06 Comments ||
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#10
Can this entire impeachment business be streamlined? Sorta, "Clerk, add to the session notes that (not mine) president Trump been impeached today."?
[JPost] - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Saturday night a partial release of the restrictive measures imposed by the government to contrast the coronavirus outbreak.
Among other, Netanyahu announced that certain type of stores facing the street will be able to open, sports activities up to 500 meters will be allowed and praying with a quorum in open spaces up ten people keeping a distance of two meters from each other will also be permitted again.
"The good results we have achieved allow us today to take measures in the opposite direction, not to make them more stringent but to relieve them," Netanyahu said addressing the Israeli public. "From tomorrow we start opening up both the personal sphere and the economic sphere."
Netanyahu added that the government views the public health and the economy as two limbs of the same body. Optimization, not either or, capisce?
They include rising the number of workers permitted in every business from 15 to 30% while standards were set for businesses allowed to operate detailing the conditions under which they can open.
Among stores that can open are electronics, furniture, house supplies and computer, as long as they are accessible from the streets and not in closed spaces and as long as they abide by the guidelines. With inspection - no illusions about human nature.
...In order to facilitate the increased public activity, public transportation will be boosted accordingly.
Sports activities are going to be allowed up to 500 meters from the place of residence with a permanent training partner.
Outdoor prayers up to ten people are going to be allowed again.
Netanyahu highlighted that these directives are going to be valid for two weeks "and that if the rate of infection continues to slow and there is a stabilization of the number of severely sick there will be more opening; if not, we will re-instate harsher measures." This is not a threat, this is an explanation of the experimental conditions.
He also mentioned Sweden - as a negative example. To Israelis the behavior of Sweden is nothing short of horrifying: an example of callous inhumanity masquerading as (classical) liberalism.
[YNet] - Israel is heading off shortages of disposable surgical masks during the coronavirus crisis by mass-producing washable versions sized to fit everyone from children to bearded men who shun shaving due to their religion. Fit for beards? "Big Mike we have a special mask for you"
As part of stepped-up precautions against the virus, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on Sunday made it compulsory for Israelis to cover their mouths and noses while in public. For some strange reason Israelis don't see it as a plot to abolish our civil liberties.
But the global crunch on medical kit has made single-use masks scarce or overpriced. After sending Mossad spies to hunt for supplies abroad and permitting Israelis to opt for scarfs or other makeshift masks, the government turned to local expertise.
The result is a mask made of high-density cotton similar to bedsheet material, which can be disinfected with a 60 degree Celsius laundry cycle and reused, potentially for weeks.
Around 10 workshops - including in jails - on around-the-clock shifts have made the first million masks for the emergency services and high-risk groups, said Amit Ben-Kish, a manager of the project sponsored by the health and defense ministries.
While the state covered that initial cost, the plan is to produce further masks for sale in shops at around $2 each. About a price for a kilo of tomatoes, or loaf of bread.
Nature via HotAir
We report temporal patterns of viral shedding in 94 patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 and modeled COVID-19 infectiousness profiles from a separate sample of 77 infector—infectee transmission pairs. We observed the highest viral load in throat swabs at the time of symptom onset, and inferred that infectiousness peaked on or before symptom onset. We estimated that 44% (95% confidence interval, 25—69%) of secondary cases were infected during the index cases’ presymptomatic stage, in settings with substantial household clustering, active case finding and quarantine outside the home. Disease control measures should be adjusted to account for probable substantial presymptomatic transmission.
[Daily Star via Whatfinger] A bombshell report by scientists from the University of Cambridge has cast doubt on previous beliefs about when and where Covid-19 first broke out.
While coronavirus was previously believed to have originated in a wet market in Wuhan at the end of last year, new research suggests it may have actually came from further south — and began spreading among humans as early as September 2019.
#1
We may never agree as to the origins. What we do know, is that Chinese government quarantined Wuhan with respect to the rest of China - but not the rest of the world. Compared to this, pouring your industrial waste into a river where people downstream drink it is a minor misdemeanor.
#3
He and colleagues from several institutes analysed more than 1,000 full genome sequences of the virus.
By counting the various mutations of the virus, they were able to get closer to figuring out when the first human was infected by a strain closest to a virus spread among bats.
Another mathematical model? I await Story #357.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/18/2020 9:17 Comments ||
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#4
^ good analogy
Posted by: Thack Oppressor of the Platypi5171 ||
04/18/2020 9:32 Comments ||
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#6
Or how about just chalking this up to "sh!t happens". The Earth has been around for billions of years. Viruses gotta live, too.
Because if it was a low probability natural event, we don't have to worry about repetition. But, if it was deliberately produced bio-weapon, we can expect an improved version next year.
#8
They tried to blame the US and got pushback.
They tried to blame Italy and that did't take hold.
I'm guessing this will lead to blaming Vietnam as soon as the next round of checks arrives at the University of Cambridge.
#9
There's nothing in the report that rules out -
1. Virus originates naturally, in Horseshoe bats, 900 km from Wuhan.
2. Chinese scientist captures horseshoe bat for study in Wuhan.
3a. Virus escapes accidentally,
3b. Or is released - take your choice.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/18/2020 10:56 Comments ||
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#10
Robert the virus is closest to the horseshoe bat's but different. The probability of differences occurring outside lab within the indicated time frame are about as likely as finding a million dollars on a sidewalk. In NYC.
#13
#11 Blame Clinton and W for turbo-charging Chinese growth with WTO membership in 2001.
Irony of ironies, our elites scored that own goal just after 9/11. Their actions built up a far greater long-term threat than the one they were focused on.
Park is ruined for a long time. Skaters I knew took as much pride in their boards as the gear heads with their cars; even if the bulk gets scooped out, the loose sand with changes movement mechanics making a dangerous slip hazard as well as chew up the wheels and axles.
Skaters I knew were proud, confident, persistent, independent, and they just got it in their nose and were told to sniff it.
They want backlash? Because this is how you get backlash.
#2
The nonprofit group that has raised money to support the skatepark, however, says the city made the decision to fill the skatepark with sand without notifying them first.
Well, it's just stupid and pathetic what the city did. Maybe they should pour tonnes of sand in front of all of the liquor stores then, too.
#5
Kinda makes you want to dump a few tons of horse manure on the Mayor's front lawn in response. Same goes for the clown running the public works department.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2020 15:25 Comments ||
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#9
They did that at my towns local skatepark, weven though the park is in plain view of the police station. Cops are too lazy to shoo a few malfacters away
Posted by: Regular joe ||
04/18/2020 15:39 Comments ||
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#10
Beats posting cops to argue with skaters.
Doesn't stop the culture. Did they dump sand on all the basketball courts?
Even if there is a lot of doobie swapping going on, and maybe it is where I grew up, but that was a lot more prevalent on the ball courts than the skate rinks.
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.
[Daily Caller] Bill Priestap, the FBI’s former chief of counterintelligence, told Justice Department investigators he agreed not to disclose information he learned about Christopher Steele as a precondition for a meeting with British government officials regarding the former MI6 officer, according to recently declassified information.
[NYPOST] Three armed robbers got the shock of their lives when they broke into a Florida apartment — and were shot at by the person inside, police said.
[JustTheNews] Page says multiple FBI misconduct issues in Russia case make it worse than Watergate.
[France24] An operation by France's Chinese community to help the diaspora during the coronavirus outbreak by distributing masks, disinfectant and gloves has prompted questions and legal problems for some of its backers.
...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...
[France24] A bearded Orthodox priest carefully assembles a plastic visor as he works with a group of volunteers to provide Ukrainian medics with much-needed personal protective equipment.
...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...
