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Biden administration takes steps to make sex-change surgery available as a healthcare benefit for military veterans


RT
Sat, 19 Jun 2021 20:17 UTC
Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough
© Reuters / Tom Brenner
Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough is shown speaking at a White House press briefing in March.
The Joe Biden administration is poised to offer gender-reassignment surgery as a standard medical benefit for military veterans, boosting transgender services in a system with a history of delaying or denying basic care.

Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Denis McDonough announced the move on Saturday at a LGBTQ Pride Month event in Orlando. "We are taking the first necessary steps to expand VA's care to include gender-confirmation surgery, thus allowing transgender vets to go through the full gender-confirmation process with the VA by their side," McDonough was quoted as saying by CNN.

The new benefit marks President Biden's latest effort to expand transgender services and protections. Within the first few days after he took office in January, he signed executive orders expanding protections under federal anti-discrimination laws to transgender people and ending former president Donald Trump's ban on transgender troops in the military.

Comment: See also:

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Info

Charges dismissed against trucker who drove into George Floyd protest

Jordan Williams
The Hill
Fri, 18 Jun 2021 12:59 UTC
george floyd mural
© getty
Charges have been dismissed against a trucker who drove into a crowd of protesters in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd last year.

In an online court session on Friday, Bogdan Vechirko entered into a "continuance without prosecution" agreement with prosecutors, according to the Star Tribune.

Under the agreement, he has to remain law-abiding for the next year and pay restitution.
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Stock Down

Food shortages now 'inevitable' due to labour crisis, industry warns

Harry Holmes
The Grocer
Fri, 18 Jun 2021 00:01 UTC
factory worker

Workers across the supply chain are in short supply.
Worsening supermarket food shortages are now "inevitable" in the coming weeks as labour shortages across the food supply chain approach crunch point, the sector has warned.

Chronic driver shortages have been compounded by shortfalls across other low-paid sectors including harvesting, manufacturing and packaging, and the supply chain is creaking under the pressure.

Trade bodies, logistics firms and suppliers all warn that the continued reopening of the economy combined with the start of the summer holidays will see a tipping point in supermarkets' ability to keep shelves fully stocked.

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Fire

They looted businesses during Black Lives Matter riots. Their charges were dropped and storeowners aren't happy

Ashe Schow
The Daily Wire
Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:01 UTC
store empty sign
© TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
Last summer, as the Black Lives Matter movement protested and rioted across the country in response to the police-involved death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd, businesses in numerous U.S. cities were ravaged and looted.

NBC News reported that prosecutors in the Bronx and Manhattan have decided to drop burglary and looting charges against hundreds of rioters, angering store owners who had their businesses destroyed.

"I was in total shock that everything is being brushed off to the side," Jessica Betancourt, whose eyeglass shop was one of the businesses looted, told NBC.

Comment: Color us completely unsurprised. Punishing these criminals means there will be fewer around for the next round of riots.

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Airplane

An Essential Journey: My Experience of International Travel in Covid Times

Joanna Sharp
OffGuardian
Sat, 19 Jun 2021 07:24 UTC
travel during covid 1
I had not planned to travel abroad this year, especially after the UK government's announcement in early 2021 that foreign holidays were forbidden. Even heading towards the airport with an intent to go on a foreign holiday could result in a £5000 fine or imprisonment! Surreal.

Where we live in London under a flight path to Heathrow, we notice that although there are fewer flights, they have not ceased completely. So how do people travel? It's not something I have thought about.

One day at the end of April I receive a message that my elderly father's condition is critical. Within an hour I am looking at flights back home in Eastern Europe and checking the UK government travel 'advice' webpages.

I say 'advice' but that word belongs to the past. Today, 'command' might be more appropriate. According to the government, only "essential" international travel is permitted for named valid reasons; 'medical and compassionate' is the category which applies to me.
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Attention

COVID-19 might be over, but viral infections in Israel are surging

Rossella Tercatin
The Jerusalem Post
Thu, 17 Jun 2021 20:07 UTC
covid virus
© NIAID-RML/FILE PHOTO/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS
This undated transmission electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2, also known as novel coronavirus, the virus that causes COVID-19, isolated from a patient in the U.S. Virus particles are shown emerging from the surface of cells cultured in the lab.
The corona crisis might be over, but all over Israel adults and children are getting sick with viral infections in a phenomenon that is unprecedented for this time of the year, according to several medical professionals.

"We have never seen anything like this," said Dr. Tal Brosh, head of Infectious Disease Unit at the Samson Assuta Ashdod Hospital. "We've been monitoring viral infections in the hospital, which of course is just the tip of the iceberg of what is going on in the community, as for each hospitalized patient, there are many more out there. Since the spring, we have been seeing an increasing number of respiratory diseases, and since May there has been a surge in RSV cases."

RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, usually appears in the winter together with the influenza, and is especially serious for very young children and older, vulnerable adults.

"We usually see it disappearing in the summer, but if we consider the numbers now, it looks like winter in previous years," said Brosh. "During the winter 2020-2021, we did not see one individual case of RSV."


Comment: Is this the tip of the iceberg? Given that Israel was one of the early adopters of the mass vaccination campaign (along with high compliance rates) and one of the dangers of these mRNA "vaccines" is compromised immune systems, it is very likely that we'll be seeing many more cases of viral infection in the months to come.


Comment: They're blaming the return to normal life. That may be a factor, but the elephant in the room is a population now vaccinated with experimental mRNA 'vaccines'.

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Pistol

Shocking video shows masked gunman opening fire on NYC sidewalk

Tina Moore, Joe Marino, Nicholas Conca and Craig McCarthy
New York Post
Fri, 18 Jun 2021 18:09 UTC
nyc bronx shooting
A 10-year-old girl and her kid brother were trampled and nearly shot when their trip to buy some candy became a first-hand look at the city's escalating gun violence, according to cops and chilling video.

At least a dozen shots whizzed by the terrified children as the black-masked gunman repeatedly aimed for his fallen target — who knocked the kids down while trying to escape.

The shocking footage shows the 5-year-old boy's legs shaking in fear at one point amid the bloodshed.

Miraculously, neither child was hit.

The mayhem occurred on Sheridan Avenue near Mt. Eden Parkway — right outside the little kids' apartment building — just before 7 p.m., police and sources said.

The shooter fled on a scooter, cops said.

Comment: See also:

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Pistol

Chicago alderman says gangs are responsible for Chicago problems, not racism, as Mayor Lori Lightfoot claimed

Ashe Schow
The Daily Wire
Sat, 19 Jun 2021 23:37 UTC
lightfoot
© Scott Olson/Getty Images
A Chicago city official heavily criticized Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot's claim that racism was to blame for the challenges facing the city, declaring it a "public health crisis."

Lightfoot on Thursday blamed "systemic racism" for the hardships minority residents face in the city, pledging to use millions of dollars in grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for combatting alleged systemic racism, which she called a "public health crisis."


Comment: Ignoti nulla est curatio morbi. This money will be a complete waste as long as idiots like Lightfoot misdiagnose the problems in their cities and focus on bogeymen like "systemic racism."


"When we think about racism, many of us think about it in visible and audible forms, but the reality is the insidious nature of systemic racism has other impacts that are every bit as deep and harmful, but often ones that we can't see, like the impacts on the psyche and other impacts on our bodies that are just as, if not more deadly," Lightfoot said, as The Daily Wire previously reported.

Alderman Raymond Lopez of Chicago's 15th Ward, however, says gang violence is to blame for the problems faced by minority residents.

"Generational gang life isn't just something that's encouraged. It's almost revered in some neighborhoods," Lopez told the Washington Examiner. "If you really want to get to what is at the heart of a lot of this, it is gangs, and it is the borderline collapse of the family unit in many of our neighborhoods ... [Lightfoot] has avoided calling out gangs in our community as a source of violence in our city."
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Newspaper

Warsaw gay pride parade back after backlash & pandemic, Warsaw mayor leads march


My Northwest
Sat, 19 Jun 2021 15:13 UTC
price poland
© AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski
People take part in the Equality Parade, the largest gay pride parade in central and eastern Europe, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday June 19, 2021. The event has returned this year after a pandemic-induced break last year and amid a backlash in Poland and Hungary against LGBT rights.
The largest gay pride parade in central Europe took place again in Warsaw on Saturday for the first time in two years after a pandemic-induced break — and amid a backlash in Poland and Hungary against LGBT rights.


Comment: The backlash in Hungary was against LGBT propaganda aimed at children, and they recently passed a law, 157 votes to 1, making it illegal.


The year's Equality Parade came 20 years since the event was first held in the Polish capital. It was banned twice in its early years by a conservative mayor who feared it would promote homosexuality and last year it was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski walked at the head of the parade in a sign of support for LGBT rights, joining thousands who were cheered on by others waving rainbow flags from apartment balconies and sidewalk cafes.
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Sheriff

China to issue 20b yuan to farmers due to commodity price spike, financial institutions sacrifice earnings to shore up economy


GlobalTimes.cn
Sat, 19 Jun 2021 10:03 UTC
china farmer rice
© Xinhua
Farmers harvest rice at Jiache Village, Jiabang Township, Congjiang County of southwest China's Guizhou Province, Sept. 19, 2020.
China will hand over a one-off subsidy of 20 billion yuan ($3.1 billion) from its central finance budget to farmers to cope with rising costs of production materials due to spiking commodity prices in recent months, said a statement on Friday after a State Council executive meeting presided over by Premier Li Keqiang.

Agriculture is of high importance to social stability, the statement said and the subsidy will be issued to farmers in light of the recent spike in prices of production materials such as fertilizer and diesel oil.

The subsidy will be issued at a critical moment in the summer harvest and is aimed at ensuring farmers' willingness to produce grains.

Comment: As usual China is ahead of the curve and it's taking measures that will benefit its citizens; not only is it ensuring its people can produce its own food, it has been buying up US produce in bulk for at least a year now which should at least temporarily stave off inflation, lockdown related supply disruptions and shortages, and the accumulating crop losses due to extreme weather, as well as cattle and poultry disease outbreaks.

Meanwhile, in the West, governments dumped mountains of food and prevented migrant workers from harvesting crops:

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