World News
Coronavirus deaths JUMP by 936 in one day across UK in new record high
RT – The UK has seen its single sharpest increase in coronavirus-related deaths recorded over a day, pushing the country’s death toll over 7,000.
Health authorities on Wednesday confirmed 828 deaths in England, along with 70 in Scotland, 33 in Wales and five in Northern Ireland.
Patients ranged in age from 22 to 103 — and 46 of the 828 fatalities in England had no known underlying health conditions that would have put them in a higher risk category.
India’s authorities consider narrowing lockdown to Covid-19 hotspots
RT – India is considering plans to seal off coronavirus hotspots in Delhi, Mumbai and parts of the south while easing curbs elsewhere, Reuters reported officials as saying on Wednesday. The country is seeking a way out of a three-week lockdown that has caused deep economic distress.
The lockdown of India’s 1.3 billion people to prevent an epidemic of Covid-19 ends on April 14. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due to take a decision this week on whether to extend it.
More than 80 percent of the positive cases of the coronavirus have been traced to 62 districts – less than 10 percent of India’s landmass, the government says. These are concentrated in the western state of Maharashtra, home to financial capital Mumbai, Delhi and the southern states of Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Kerala. Many parts of the country have not reported a single case.
“We are working on a cluster containment strategy,” said Health Ministry joint secretary Lav Agarwal, leading the effort to tackle the outbreak. Under the ‘Bhilwara model,’ which was adopted last month soon after about 30 people tested positive, the town and its surrounding villages were tightly sealed with a virtual curfew in place.
Italy closes ports to refugee ships because of coronavirus
Al Jazeera – Italian ports cannot be considered safe because of the coronavirus epidemic and will not let charity refugee boats dock, the government has ruled.
The decision was taken late on Tuesday after a ship operated by the German non-governmental group Sea-Eye picked up some 150 people off Libya and headed towards Italy.
Afghan government says will release 100 Taliban prisoners
Al Jazeera – The latest move comes a day after the Taliban walks out of talks, accusing Kabul of delaying the release of prisoners.
Downing Street: Boris Johnson Stable, Responding to Coronavirus Treatment
Breitbart – UK PM Boris Johnson is in a stable condition in intensive care and responding to treatment, his spokesman has said.
UN suspends deployment and rotation of peacekeeping troops worldwide due to coronavirus pandemic
RT – The United Nations has ordered its military and police forces across the globe to suspend rotation in an effort to mitigate the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
The suspension will stay in effect until June 30, the spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, Stephane Dujarric, told reporters on Tuesday.
“There is no movement of troops, coming in or out… A few, limited exceptions may be considered,” Dujarric told CBS News.
The spokesperson explained that the order applies not only to formed military and police units, but to individual officers as well.
The UN currently has 13 active peacekeeping missions in Africa, the Middle East, Cyprus, Kosovo, and Kashmir
U.S. News, Politics & Government
Bernie Sanders drops out of presidential race
NBC – Bernie Sanders is ending his presidential campaign, he announced on Wednesday.
Washington Examiner – Thousands of miles from the American coronavirus epicenter in New York City, rancher Ammon Bundy and other skeptical Idahoan politicians are questioning state-mandated guidelines against congregating in public spaces.
Bundy, who has led militia standoffs in the past, announced on Sunday that he is searching for a venue to hold an Easter gathering in Idaho that could attract up to 1,000 visitors. He added that he is willing to defend his constitutional rights during state-mandated quarantines that have kept many Americans stuck inside during the pandemic.
“If it gets bad enough, and our rights are infringed upon enough, we can physically stand in defense in whatever way we need to,” Bundy told a group who met on Saturday in defiance of Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s orders to stay home. “But we hope we don’t have to get there.”
Though Bundy is known for his controversial tactics, his decision to meet in person with like-minded people is not out of step for Idahoans who have yet to see a marked spike in coronavirus cases or deaths in their state. Bonner County Sheriff Daryl Wheeler penned an open letter to residents ripping the World Health Organization and claiming that the public had been “misled” by state officials. He demanded the state legislature be called to debate stay-at-home orders.
Republican state Rep. Heather Scott also wrote a letter to her constituents on the outskirts of Coeur d’Alene that encouraged them to rally against shelter-at-home orders. The letter was titled, in part, “The virus that tried to kill the constitution,” and said that Idahoans have “a God-given constitutionally protected right to peacefully assemble.” In a YouTube video posted on April 2, Scott acknowledged that the virus is problematic but warned that “it is not the role of government in a free society to tell us what we can and cannot do.”
Activist Post – The DeVos Department of Education’s new “Proposed Rules” for federal regulations of “Distance Education and Innovation” (85 FR 18638) will effectively open the floodgates for online education corporations to put public brick-and-mortar schools out of business by streamlining “adaptive-learning and other artificial intelligence” technologies that replace “human instructors” with “competency-based education (CBE)” software which provide “direct assessment” through “subscription-based” courseware that data-mine students’ cognitive-behavioral algorithms to “personalize” digital lessons.
What Is Computerized CBE? No More Classrooms, No More “Credit Hours”:
As I have documented in several articles, “CBE” is a euphemism for educational methods that deploy computer modules based on Harvard Psychologist B. F. Skinner’s “teaching machines,” which implement operant-conditioning methods to “shape” student learning into “competent” behaviors geared toward college or career readiness. The terms “competency-based education” and “CBE” are used 147 times in the new Proposed Rules for 85 FR 18638, which is a total of 64 pages long. Compare this to the 392-pages of federal legislation that cover the entire Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which only contains 6 references to “competency-based education.”
Trump says US will have more ventilators than it needs
BBC – President Donald Trump says the US will soon have more ventilators than it needs to help those suffering with coronavirus across the country.
The US “won’t need anywhere near” the additional 110,000 devices that it will have at its disposal, he said.
He added that any surplus could be distributed among “desperate” countries fighting the virus, including the UK.
Mr Trump also threatened to end funding for the World Health Organization over its handling of the pandemic.
The president accused the United Nations agency of being biased towards China while issuing its guidance during the coronavirus outbreak.
Graham: There Will Not Be Funding for W.H.O. in Next Appropriations Bill
Breitbart – On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “The Story,” Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) vowed that there will not be any funding for the World Health Organization in the next appropriations bill.
Graham said, “In the next appropriations bill, there’s not going to be any money for the W.H.O. I’m in charge of the appropriations subcommittee. I’m not going to support funding the W.H.O. under its current leadership. They’ve been deceptive, they’ve been slow, and they’ve been Chinese apologists. I don’t think they’re a good investment, under the current leadership, for the United States. And until they change their behavior and get new leadership, I think it’s in America’s best interests to withhold funding.”
ABC News: US intelligence warned of China’s spreading contagion in November
CNN – US intelligence officials were warning as far back as late November that the novel coronavirus was spreading through China’s Wuhan region and posing a threat to its people and daily life, according to ABC News.
The US military’s National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) compiled a November intelligence report in which “analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event,” one of the sources of the NCMI’s report told ABC News.
The source told ABC News that the intelligence report was then briefed “multiple times” to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and the White House.
Repeated briefings were held through December across the US government, including the National Security Council, culminating in a detailed outline of the threat in the President’s Daily Brief in early January, according to ABC News, whose report cited four sources briefed on the matter.
California governor planning coronavirus aid for illegal immigrants
Fox – California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature are working on a coronavirus aid plan for the state’s illegal immigrants and others not covered by the federal government’s $2.2 trillion relief package.
Newsom, a Democrat, disclosed the plans Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.
“Californians care deeply about undocumented residents in this state,” the governor, a former mayor of San Francisco, said.
“Californians care deeply about undocumented residents in this state.”
— Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democrat
But some California Republicans have spoken out against the plan.
“I see the state of California and its budget as a house of cards and with this coronavirus-induced recession, I’m just trying to figure out where the money would come from,” state Sen. John Moorlach, a Republican from Costa Mesa, told the AP. “I would say helping undocumented would be a luxury item.”
“I would say helping undocumented would be a luxury item.”
— State Sen. John Moorlach, Republican
About 2 million people are believed to be living in California illegally, according to the California Latino Legislative Caucus. The group requested that Newsom create a “disaster relief fund” to provide financial assistance to those immigrants who haven’t been able to work during the state’s stay-at-home order because of the virus.
Under the federal relief plan that President Trump signed into law last month, American adults making less than $75,000 annually will receive checks for $1,200 and couples making less than $150,000 will receive $2,400 – provided they use a Social Security number when filing their tax forms.
But illegal immigrants are not eligible for the federal plan, regardless of whether they pay taxes from their paychecks.
Newsom said a plan he intends to unveil in May will offer some relief for illegal immigrants, adding California is “not just waiting for the federal government to do that for us.”
Tucker: Data Suggests Coronavirus Epidemic Peak ‘Passed Five Days Ago’
Information Liberation – Tucker Carlson said Tuesday on Fox News that data suggests the “peak” of the coronavirus epidemic may have “passed five days ago.”
Off Grid Survival – I guess billionaires get to push wild ass conspiracy theories without consequences! Had an alternative media site said anything like this, they would have been bashed by the dipshits at PolitiFact (The group that helps Facebook’s quasi-censorship program) and been charged with pushing false news.
As it is, I know I will likely incur the wrath of Facebook watchdogs and a bunch of fucking Karen’s who have nothing better to do with their life than report things that go against the one world government wet dream, but here is the Fuckhead Bill Gates himself suggesting that public gatherings will be banned until the world is widely vaccinated for COVID-19.
Until large numbers of people can be vaccinated against the virus “those may not come back at all,” Gates said.
But I know, suggesting this dipshit who runs a company that pushes vaccines is involved in anything like this is a wild conspiracy theory, right?
Here is the full interview where he:
- Calls for strong “isolation measures” on a national basis. Basically, a complete lockdown of the entire country.
- Calls for a nationwide shutdown of at least 6-10 weeks.
- Praises China and says he believes their numbers. Keep in mind this is the country who lied to the world and helped this spread to the rest of the world because of their lies. They literally imprisoned doctors who tried to warn the world, yet Gates seems to love what China did. These people are about as corrupt as it gets!
- Suggests the economic problems are not as big of a problem as the virus. Yet, later in the interview says it will take years for the economy to come back, and then ties it to a mass vaccination program to help it come back. Keep in mind this is a virus that so far has killed fewer people worldwide than an average flu season. It must be nice to be a billionaire and not have to worry about how you are going to feed your family during a worldwide shutdown where you have been deemed non-essential and can no longer work.
Don’t forget, this guy is spending billions of dollars making these vaccines. It seems to us he has a vested economic interest in these “mass vaccinations” that he now claims we have to do to get back to normal. I don’t know about you, but should we at least maybe be asking what he has to gain financially by doing this? We know that the liberal media would be going bat shit crazy if this was a Trump organization doing and saying the same things.
Watch>> Extended interview: Bill Gates on coronavirus pandemic
Economy & Business
Coronavirus hits grocery workers, truck drivers; supply chain now in danger
NaturalNews – Tensions are now running high as several major grocery chains start to report their first coronavirus-related employee deaths while the pandemic continues to rage across the United States.
Among the establishments that have confirmed coronavirus-related casualties are a Trader Joe’s in Scarsdale, New York; a Giant store in Largo, Maryland; and a Chicago-area Walmart store. The companies, as well as a labor advocacy group, confirmed the employees’ deaths Monday.
The confirmation of the employees’ deaths came after a series of strikes by unions demanding additional protections, as well as hazard pay for grocery workers who, under new “stay-at-home” directives, are now considered “essential workers.”
According to the workers, protections must be granted to the said employees because, by continuing to go to work, grocery store clerks and delivery workers put themselves at risk for catching the deadly virus, which has claimed the lives of 12,841 people and infected 400,335 others in the U.S. alone.
Marc Perrone, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Union, said that while grocery chains like Ahold Delhaize’s Stop & Shop have raised wages and retailers like Walmart have offered special bonuses, those measures don’t really go far enough.
“If you’re looking at a bonus like Walmart offered at $300, is that worth somebody’s life?” Perrone said.
Despite their demands, however, many employees still report having to work long shifts as well as take on extra workloads, just to keep up with spiking demand.
According to industry experts, the rising cases of coronavirus-related employee deaths, as well as the current spike in coronavirus infections among workers, will likely affect many stores’ ability to retain and add new workers, especially during a time when most stores are looking to rapidly fill spots with temporary employees in order to cope with demand.
One of these stores is Walmart, which is looking for people to fill around 150,000 temporary employment slots. However, according to supermarket analyst Phil Lempert, finding people who are willing to man grocery tills while a pandemic is raging may be an increasingly tough sell – especially if they’re going to get paid just the minimum wage.
“One of the biggest mistakes supermarkets made early on was not allowing employees to wear masks and gloves the way they wanted to,” Lempert said. “They’re starting to become proactive now, but it’s still going to be much tougher to hire hundreds of thousands of new workers. We’re going to start seeing people say, ‘I’ll just stay unemployed instead of risking my life for a temporary job.’”
Perhaps as a way to appease employees’ demands for added workplace protection against the deadly virus, several stores have taken to installing plexiglass sneeze guards at cash registers, as well as the strict imposition of social distancing rules, which require customers to stand six feet apart in line.
As some have pointed out, however, these precautions seem to be reactive, as most employers actively told employees to refrain from using rubber gloves while working during the early days of the pandemic.
According to a group of workers from grocery store chain Trader Joe’s, store managers repeatedly told employees that they could not wear rubber gloves while on site.
A Walmart manager, meanwhile, said she doesn’t feel “protected” even as the store claims to take steps to protect their employees’ well-being.
“We don’t have the equipment needed to wipe down every register. Customer carts are not being wiped down,” said the Walmart manager, who declined to be identified for fear of losing her job.
“We don’t have enough supplies to do that. We barely have enough paper towels to clean up if someone spills something on the floor.”
US Hunger Crisis: Food Banks Struggling as Jobless Americans Demand Free Food
Off Grid Survival – Food banks across the United States are reporting major problems in being able to keep up with the unprecedented demand as an estimated 6.6 million Americans are now out of work.
Huge numbers of newly unemployed Americans who lost their jobs as a result of government-mandated shutdowns of “non-essential” businesses throughout the United States are showing up at food banks demanding food, that in many cases isn’t there.
In some areas, the demand has created longer lines at the food banks than we are seeing at the grocery stores as the real danger of the pandemic becomes apparent: the government response and the widespread layoffs it caused.
Global stocks turn negative as virus death toll mounts
Reuters – World stocks turned negative on Wednesday as the coronavirus death toll mounted and euro zone finance minister failed to agree a rescue package to help economies recover from the impact of the outbreak.
Energy & Environment
Mother Earth News – Pollution levels in India have dropped dramatically after lockdown measures have been enforced to stop the spread of coronavirus.
As a result, the snow-capped Himalayas can now be seen from more than 200 kilometres away in parts of northern India.
Residents have taken to social media saying that it is the first time they have seen the snow-clad Dhauladhar range of Himalayas in over 30 years.
Science & Technology
A Super Pink Moon Will Radiate Over Quebec’s Sky Tonight
MTL Blog – This Tuesday night, April 7, when you go out for your walk where you respectfully remain 2 metres away from others due to social distancing recommendations, look up. Mother Nature has a nice surprise in store for you: a Super Pink Moon! But don’t be fooled, unfortunately, tonight’s moon will only be pink in its name and not in its colour.
Its nickname comes from the fact that the month of April marks the appearance of the first perennials, some of which are pink and grow in the west.
But take solace in the fact that even though tonight’s moon won’t appear pink to you, it should be bigger and brighter than usual. That in itself is something to look forward to.
Enough to literally and figuratively illuminate yet another night of confinement.
Health
Coronavirus vaccine could be ready in SIX MONTHS, Oxford University researchers say
Daily Mail – A coronavirus vaccine could be ready as early as autumn, leading scientists behind a major UK trial say.
Oxford University researchers are confident they can roll out a jab for the incurable disease within the next eight months.
This ‘best case scenario’ is much sooner than was previously touted. Britain’s chief scientific adviser said it would be at least 2021 until a vaccine was ready.
But the Oxford team, one of hundreds worldwide racing to develop a COVID-19 cure, warned it will be ‘challenging’ if the outbreak peaks before a jab is ready for trials.
A coronavirus vaccine could be ready as early as autumn, leading scientists behind a major UK trial say.
Oxford University researchers are confident they can roll out a jab for the incurable disease within the next eight months.
This ‘best case scenario’ is much sooner than was previously touted. Britain’s chief scientific adviser said it would be at least 2021 until a vaccine was ready.
But the Oxford team, one of hundreds worldwide racing to develop a COVID-19 cure, warned it will be ‘challenging’ if the outbreak peaks before a jab is ready for trials.
Scientists regard sorghum as a potential therapeutic agent against atherosclerosis
NaturalNews – Sorghum bicolor, commonly known as great millet, is a cereal grain that belongs to the grass family, Poaceae. It is considered a major food crop in Africa, where it likely originated, and is now cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions. It is highly valued in hot and arid regions because it is resistant to heat and drought.
As a food, great millet offers plenty of nutrients and is an excellent substitute for wheat because it is gluten-free. And because it is rich in fiber and antioxidants, many health benefits are associated with its consumption.
In a recent study, researchers from South Korea examined the anti-atherosclerotic effect of fermented great millet. Previous studies have found that great millet has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that can help prevent diseases. The researchers discussed their findings in an article published in the Journal of Natural Medicines.
Pet News
Keep your cat indoors if you’re self-isolating, vets say
CNN – Cat owners who are self-isolating or have Covid-19 symptoms should consider keeping their pets indoors to stop them carrying the virus on their fur, a veterinary body has advised.
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