Category: NEWS
Violent protests erupt in India against new military recruitment scheme
Police in northern India fired shots in the air on Thursday to push back stone-throwing crowds and authorities shut off mobile internet in at least one district to forestall further chaos, as protests widened against a new military recruitment system.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/16/india/india-military-recruitment-protests-intl-hnk/index.html
What crypto skeptics dunking on the crypto faithful are missing
Crypto prices are sinking and the industry is cutting jobs. CNN Business’ Allison Morrow joins ‘Nightcap’ host Jon Sarlin to talk about the people affected by crypto’s collapse.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2022/06/16/nightcap-crypto-collapse-clip-orig-no.cnn
My dad taught me every problem has a solution. Then he got sick and I needed those lessons to learn how to help.
When my father fell ill with a movement disorder, I leaned on the lessons I’d learned from him growing up. I soon realized he wasn’t done teaching.
Covid doesn’t stop Anthony Fauci from taking on Rand Paul – again
Despite this week’s Covid-19 diagnosis, the White House’s top medical adviser and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci was still up for his usual sparring with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
The 81-year-old infectious disease expert testified by video and in isolation on Thursday at a Senate HELP hearing on the federal pandemic response after testing positive for Covid Wednesday. Fauci is fully vaccinated and has received two boosters, and is taking the antiviral Paxlovid. It is not yet known how he was exposed to the virus.
Yet Fauci and Sen. Paul got into their typical heated back-and-forth during the senator’s allotted time for questioning.
“Are you going to let me answer a question?” Fauci quipped amid a flurry of interruptions from Paul, who is also a medical doctor. “Soundbite number one,” he added.
Sen. Paul first asked Fauci if there was direct scientific evidence that booster shots prevent hospitalization and death in all people age 5 and older. When Fauci noted that the booster recommendations were based on assumptions and antibody data, Paul fired back: “If I give a patient 10 mRNA vaccines and they … make antibodies each time, is that proof we should give 10 boosters, Dr. Fauci?”
“I think that is somewhat of an absurd exaggeration,” Fauci said.
Sen. Paul then changed his line of questioning to the royalties scientists from the National Institutes of Health may have received from companies, especially vaccine makers. “Can you tell me that you have not received a royalty from any entity that you ever oversaw the distribution of money in research grants?” he asked.
As Fauci tried to answer, the two who have frequently butted heads during the pandemic, continued to squabble and interrupt each other.
Eventually, HELP Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) cut off the argument. “Sen. Paul, your time has long over-expired. I gave you an additional two-and-a-half minutes, the witness has responded, we are going to move on,” she said.
The topic at hand: Along with Fauci, witnesses Robert Califf, the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Dawn O’Connell, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, and Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, appeared before the HELP committee to discuss the White House’s request for additional Covid-19 funding to maintain the federal public health response and surveillance programs.
Murray and other Democrats voiced support for the request, while Ranking Member Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and other Republicans asked for more accountability from the agencies before they approve any more funding.
On vaccinations and treatments: When asked about the timing for vaccines for the youngest children, Fauci said he believed it was likely that it would happen soon. “The data look really good, so I anticipate that it will happen,” he said.
The FDA’s vaccine advisory committee recommended the agency authorize the shots on Wednesday. Soon comes the expected FDA approval. And the CDC’s vaccine advisory …read more
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/16/covid-fauci-rand-paul-00040210
Tom’s turn to fly: Suozzi has a Mike Pence 2.0 debate moment with a bug
Tom Suozzi was interrupted on the debate stage Thursday night by a big black house fly that was reminiscent of Mike Pence’s viral moment. …read more
https://nypost.com/2022/06/16/tom-suozzi-has-a-mike-pence-2-0-debate-moment-with-mosquito/
2nd man busted in shooting of 7-year-old NYC girl was free despite felony charge
Robert Cooper was charged with attempted murder in the March 22 shooting of 7-year-old Brooklyn girl Shauntae Gibbs. …read more
USC’s trustees elect first woman as chair of the board as Rick Caruso formally steps down
Suzanne Nora Johnson, the next USC board chair, is a former Goldman Sachs executive with deep experience in running corporate and philanthropic boards.
Read: J. Michael Luttig’s opening statement at Jan. 6 select committee hearing
Read former judge J. Michael Luttig’s opening remarks below as prepared for the Jan. 6 select committee’s public hearing Thursday.
Honorable Members of the House Select Committee —
A stake was driven through the heart of American democracy on January 6, 2021, and our democracy today is on a knife’s edge.
America was at war on that fateful day, but not against a foreign power. She was at war against herself. We Americans were at war with each other — over our democracy.
January 6 was but the next, foreseeable battle in a war that had been raging in America for years, though that day was the most consequential battle of that war even to date. In fact, January 6 was a separate war unto itself, a war for America’s democracy, a war irresponsibly instigated and prosecuted by the former president, his political party allies, and his supporters. Both wars are raging to this day.
A peaceful end to these wars is desperately needed. The war for our democracy could lead to the peaceful end to the war for America’s cultural heart and soul. But if a peaceful end to the war for America’s democracy is not achievable, there is little chance for a peaceful end to that war. The settlement of this war over our democracy is necessary to the settlement of any war that will ever come to America, whether from her shores or to her shores. Though disinclined for the moment, as a political matter of fact only the party that instigated this war over our democracy can bring an end to that war.
Like our war from a distant time, these twin wars are “testing whether th[is] nation or any nation . . . so conceived in Liberty . . . can long endure.” We must hope that January 6 was the final battle of at least the deadly war for America’s democracy.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
These senseless wars are of our own making, and they are now being waged throughout the land, in our city centers and town squares, in our streets and in our schools, where we work and where we play, in our houses of worship — even within our own families. These wars were conceived and instigated from our Nation’s Capital by our own political leaders collectively and they have been cynically prosecuted by them to fever pitch, now to the point that they have recklessly put America herself at stake.
America is now the stake in these unholy wars.
Serious thinkers about the American experiment who are not given to apocalyptic prophesying question whether America is on the verge of a literal civil war. But is even this figurative civil war to be our generation’s legacy to posterity?
These wars that we are waging against each other are immoral wars, not moral ones, being immorally waged over morality itself. We Americans no longer agree on what is right or wrong, what is to be valued …read more
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/16/j-michael-luttig-opening-statement-jan-6-hearing-00040255
Canada has a massive surplus of unused ventilators
OTTAWA — More than half of the 40,000 ventilators the Canadian government ordered early in the pandemic are now sitting unused in the federal emergency stockpile.
Just over 2,000 of the ventilators have been deployed, either in Canada or abroad. Ottawa is now working to cancel orders for ventilators that have yet to be delivered, but won’t say how much it has paid for the machines.
In the spring of 2020, Canada rushed to shore up supplies of medical and personal protective equipment as Covid-19 case numbers climbed. Dire headlines out of Italy and New York warned of an acute shortage of ventilators for those who were critically ill. A global surge in demand meant Canada could no longer rely on international supply chains.
In response to the crisis, the federal government quickly ordered just over 40,000 ventilators at a cost of C$1.1 billion, the vast majority from Canadian manufacturers that started building the life-saving machines from scratch.
At the time, it was billed as a success story for Canadian ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit. By May 2021, more than 27,000 ventilators had been delivered. But the worst-case pandemic scenarios never came to pass, and most of the machines were never needed.
According to figures provided by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), the federal government has received 27,687 ventilators of the 40,000 it ordered. Of those, only 2,048 have been deployed, including several hundred that have been donated to developing countries.
A total of 25,964 ventilators are in the national emergency strategic stockpile, a reserve of medical and emergency equipment that provinces and territories can request when they run out.
Public Services and Procurement Canada is working with suppliers to reduce the volumes ordered. The department won’t say how much of the C$1.1 billion has been paid to suppliers, or if the government will save some of that money by canceling orders.
“The Government of Canada is working with Canadian suppliers to identify opportunities to reduce the volumes ordered and support them as these contracts wind down,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “As negotiations are presently underway, we cannot disclose further details related to payment at this time.”
Infection control epidemiologist Colin Furness said the surplus of ventilators is a “nice problem to have,” in light of the nightmare scenarios doctors in New York and Italy were facing early in the pandemic.
“Under those conditions, ordering a large number of ventilators I think was a very understandable decision,” he said. “Having those makes me sleep a little better at night.”
But he also raised questions about how much maintenance the machines in the stockpile will require to keep them in good working order.
A government website lists 15 suppliers with whom the government signed contracts for ventilators, but the largest are with five Canadian suppliers: CAE Inc., Canadian Emergency Ventilators Inc. (led by StarFish Medical), EPM Global Services Inc., Thornhill Medical and FTI Professional Grade Inc., a consortium of companies that came together on the initiative of Rick Jamieson, an auto-parts manufacturer.
FTI Professional Grade came under scrutiny in late 2020 …read more
GOP senator warns gun talks could collapse if key decisions aren’t made
The chief GOP negotiator in the bipartisan talks to find a gun safety package that can pass the US Senate warned Thursday evening that the negotiations could fall apart if they drag on, as many lawmakers leave Washington for the weekend.