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Fire

Despite major fire on hospital roof, medical team stay inside to complete heart operation - Russia

hospital fire
© Blagoveschensk emergency service
Answering if he was scared or if his hands trembled as smoke and flames engulfed the hospital, chief surgeon Valentin Filatov said: ‘Of course we were scared. We are human.’
Hero staff of Blagoveschensk cardio centre had just cut open the patient's chest when a major fire began.

A medical team successfully completed heart surgery as fire brigades fought a blaze on the hospital roof, and rescuers evacuated patients and medical staff.

Sixty seven patients were taken to safety, and all but eight of the staff who were at the operation theatre were ordered to leave.

Comment: See also:


X

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green proposes bills to fire Dr. Fauci, ban vaccine passports

Greene
© C.B. Schmelter/Chattanooga Times Free Press/AP
Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Republican, proposed legislation Thursday to "fully defund" Dr. Anthony Fauci and ban COVID-19 "vaccine passports."

Ms. Greene detailed her two proposals — the "Fire Fauci Act" and the "We Will Not Comply Act" — during a morning interview while railing against Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, over his handling of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic under both President Biden and his predecessor.

"Dr. Fauci has been running the show in this country, and that is not his role," the first-year congresswoman said to Republican strategist Stephen K. Bannon during an appearance on his War Room: Pandemic podcast:
"He is not supposed to run our country. Dr. Fauci has been running our country, and he hasn't been running it, he has been shutting it down with his ever-changing advice."

Comment: See also:


Stop

Brussels police unleash water cannon, tear gas, drones as thousands gather for April Fool's prank and 'freedom rally'

Belgian park riot
© Reuters/Clement Rossignol
Belgian police forces use water cannon to disperse revelers at Bois de la Cambre/Ter Kamerenbos park in Brussels, April 1, 2021.
A "festival" at Bois de la Cambre in Brussels began as an April Fools' prank on social media, and ended with police using tear gas and water cannon to disperse several thousand partygoers defying the Covid-19 lockdown.

Around 5,000 mainly young people showed up at the forest park just south of Brussels on Thursday, for an event called "La Boum" (a reference to a 1980s French teen rom-com) even though it was obviously an April 1 prank.

After using drones to repeatedly call on the partygoers to disperse, police sent a shield wall of riot police around 5pm local time.

Comment: Other comments from Twitter suggest the event was peaceful until authorities intervened:



Quenelle

Los Angeles parents sue teachers union and school district over continued closures that cause students to 'suffer'

School buses
© REUTERS/Stephen Lam
School buses are seen in San Francisco, California, U.S. April 7, 2020.
Parents in Los Angeles are suing the local teachers union and school district over continued remote learning due to the coronavirus, which they say has harmed children socially, mentally, and emotionally.

"UTLA has been holding the children of Los Angeles hostage as the price of advancing a political agenda," civil rights attorney with the Freedom Foundation, Timothy Snowball, wrote in an announcement.

The four families, represented by the Freedom Foundation pro bono, filed the suit on Tuesday and named the Los Angeles Unified School District, United Teachers Los Angeles union, and UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz as defendants.

"Since the beginning of the pandemic, UTLA has been more interested in scoring political points it couldn't achieve without holding Los Angeles children and parents hostage. While state and local officials try desperately to come up with a way to satisfy UTLA and other teacher union demands, it is the children of Los Angeles that continue to suffer," Snowball wrote.

Health

Stillbirths, maternal deaths up by one-third amid pandemic: study

Hospital Beds
© Alex Wong (Getty Images)
Overwhelmed health systems and less access to care during the coronavirus pandemic worsened birth outcomes for expectant mothers and newborns around the world, an analysis of dozens of studies suggests.


Comment: I.e. lockdowns.


Researchers from St. George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in the U.K. published findings in The Lancet Global Health on Wednesday, with results drawing from 40 studies conducted from January 2020 through January 2021 on over 6 million pregnancies and rates of outcomes like complications and deaths. The team drew reports from Medline and Embase research databases.

Findings indicated "significant increases" in stillbirths and maternal deaths by about one-third during the pandemic, though the rate of overall preterm births remained about the same compared to pre-pandemic life. More specifically, researchers cited a 28% uptick in stillbirths, noting 1,099 stillbirths per 168,295 pregnancies during the pandemic, compared to pre-pandemic rates at 1,325 stillbirths per 198,993 pregnancies. Maternal deaths occurred at reported rates of 530 per 1,237,018 pregnancies during the pandemic, compared to 698 per 2,224,859 pregnancies pre-pandemic.

The team also reported a decline in mothers' mental health like heightened depression and anxiety, and additional findings indicated a six-fold uptick in surgeries relating to ectopic pregnancies (occurring outside of the uterus), suggesting women delayed medical care.

"This finding suggests that the increased rate of adverse outcomes might be driven mainly by the inefficiency of health-care systems and their inability to cope with the pandemic, rather than by the stringency of pandemic mitigation measures," study authors wrote.

Hardhat

Notre Dame's rector says it will take '15 or 20 years' for restoration

notre dame holy week april 2021
© Christophe Ena, AP
Notre Dame rector Patrick Chauvet leads a procession, wearing protective helmets, as part of Maundy Thursday ceremony, in Notre Dame Cathedral, Thursday. April 2, 2021
The rector of Notre Dame said Friday that the burned-out Paris cathedral and its esplanade could remain a building site for another "15 or 20 years."

Rector Patrick Chauvet spoke to The Associated Press following Good Friday ceremonies, including venerating the "Crown of Thorns" at Notre Dame's temporary liturgical base, the nearby church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois.

He added that: "I can guarantee that there's work to do!"

Comment:


Attention

Project Veritas video reveals makeshift migrant detention facility under BRIDGE

migrant facility bridge
Shocking new footage released by Project Veritas reveals the existence of a makeshift migrant detention facility under a bridge in McAllen, a border town in Texas.

The video footage shows migrants, including children, living outdoors in an open-air holding facility where they are separated by makeshift fences. The migrants can be seen sleeping on the dirt ground with space blankets for warmth.

The facility is located underneath the Anzalduas International Bridge, which connects the United States to Mexico.

Comment: See also:


Eye 1

4 killed, including child, in California mass shooting; UPDATE: Police say it was a targeted attack

Orange shooting
© Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Time
Authorities at the scene of the shooting in Orange
One of the four fatal victims in a shooting rampage in suburban Los Angeles on Wednesday was a 9-year-old boy who may have died in his wounded mother's arms as she tried in vain to save him, officials said on Thursday.

"It appears that a little boy died in his mother's arms as she was trying to save him during this horrific massacre," Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer told a news conference.

The bloodshed in Orange, California, about 30 miles (48 km)southeast of central Los Angeles, marked the third deadly mass shooting in the United States in less than a month.

In the two other outbursts in March, a man killed eight people including six Asian women at three Atlanta-area spas, and another man opened fire at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, killing 10.

Comment: UPDATE from The Daily Beast:
Police say they believe Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez locked the Orange County office complex and lay in wait before opening fire and killing four people.


Spitzer said the "horrific rampage" was the result of a "targeted" attack. All the victims knew Gonzalez through business or personal relationships.

At around 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, police responded to reports of shots fired at the offices of Unified Homes, a real estate business and mobile home seller located in the complex alongside other businesses.

A law enforcement source told ABC7 said the gunman shot "into the windows" after locking the courtyard. Since the gates were chained shut with bike cable locks, officers were forced to engage Gonzalez from the outside while they waited for bolt cutters. Gonzalez was also armed with pepper spray and handcuffs, police said.

Eventually, Gonzalez was apprehended with a gunshot wound — though authorities did not say if it was sustained by an officer or self-inflicted.

In the complex's courtyard, police then found two victims, the young boy and a woman who remains in critical condition. On the upstairs outdoor landing, police found a woman fatally shot. Two others were found inside the office.

Lt. Jennifer Amat, a spokeswoman for the Orange Police Department, said Thursday that police found a semi-automatic handgun, a backpack with pepper spray, handcuffs, and ammunition in the scene. They believe it belonged to Gonzalez.

Public records list Gonzalez's address as a mobile home park in Anaheim that appears to be closed. He is listed as the owner of three trucking businesses and a relative of a licensed real estate agent who works for Unified Homes.



Brick Wall

Belgium must lift 'all Covid-19 measures' within 30 days, Brussels court rules

belgium police lockdown
© Belga
The Belgian State has been ordered to lift "all coronavirus measures" within 30 days, as the legal basis for them is insufficient, a Brussels court ruled on Wednesday.

The League for Human Rights had filed the lawsuit several weeks ago and challenged Belgium's system of implementing the measures using Ministerial Decrees, which means it is done without any input from parliament.

The judge gave the Belgian State 30 days to provide a sound legal basis, or face a penalty of €5,000 per day that this period is exceeded, with a maximum limit of €200,000, reports Le Soir.

Comment: ... and there's something similar happening in Finland. From Reuters:
The Finnish government is holding talks about how to restrict the spread of COVID-19, Prime Minister Sanna Marin tweeted on Wednesday after withdrawing a lockdown proposal from parliament.

The proposal to largely confine people to their own homes in areas with most infections was deemed too imprecise by the constitutional law committee of parliament.

"It would be impossible for residents to predict what is prohibited, allowed or punishable," committee chairperson Antti Rinne said, but acknowledged that the arguments for more restrictions were justified.

Last week the government proposed locking down residents of five cities, including the capital Helsinki, and only allowing people to leave their homes for limited reasons, to curb rising coronavirus infections and hospitalisations.

The committee said the wide-ranging proposal should be changed to targeted restrictions for where the risk of contracting the virus was significant, such as private gatherings and crowded places such as shops.

The Nordic nation of 5.5 million people has recorded 77,452 coronavirus infections and 844 deaths. It has been praised for its handling of the pandemic and has been among the least-affected countries in Europe. It has 295 people in hospital with COVID-19.
But France has joined other European nations in going back into lockdown to try to halt a "spike". From RT:
From Saturday, France will widen regional lockdown measures to the entire country in a bid to halt rising Covid-19 infections, President Emmanuel Macron has said, while defending his government's approach to tackling the virus.

All face-to-face teaching in schools will be suspended from Monday for a week ahead of the two-week spring break, with schools set to return on April 26, Macron announced, in a televised national address on Wednesday evening.

The tougher lockdown measures, which had been in place in 19 areas including Paris, will now be extended to the whole of France for four weeks.

From Saturday evening, travel for the entire population will be limited to within a 10-kilometer radius of home, while longer essential journeys will require a certificate.
Similarly in Germany (from RT):
The German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI) has called on the government to urgently implement a two-week Covid-19 lockdown, as the country's health systems risk hitting capacity.

Speaking to the Rheinische Post, the scientific head of the DIVI, Christian Karagiannidis, warned that if the current rate of admission to intensive care units continues, Germany "will reach the regular capacity limit in less than four weeks."
We are not overexaggerating. Our warnings are driven by the figures.
Alongside the DIVI's demand for at least a two-week lockdown, Karagiannidis called on the government to introduce compulsory coronavirus tests in schools twice a week, and speed up the vaccine rollout in vaccination centers and GP practices.

The DIVI's call comes after Bavarian Health Minister Klaus Holetschek told German TV that his region would consider compulsory testing after not enough school students and teachers got voluntarily tested.

The federal German government has been coming under increasing pressure to take steps to speed up the vaccine rollout and take stricter measures to contain the virus as infection rates continue to rise.

With Germany being part of the European Union's vaccine rollout scheme, the country has suffered from the delays the bloc has experienced despite having domestically developed the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.



Fire

Fire kills 55,000 animals at one of Germany's biggest pig farms

pig farm fire
© Stefan Sauer/dpa via AP
A firefighter walks between pigs after a fire broke out in a large pig farm in Alt Tellin, Germany, March 30, 2021. -
A fire at a pig-breeding facility in northeastern Germany is believed to have killed more than 55,000 animals, the operator said Thursday.

The fire broke out on Tuesday at the facility in Alt Tellin, in Germany's northeastern corner. It spread quickly, in part through ventilation shafts, and destroyed the stalls where the animals were kept.

A spokesman for operator LFD Holding, Ralf Beke-Bramkamp, told German news agency dpa that over 55,000 animals died. Some 7,000 sows and 50,000 piglets were listed as being at the facility at the time, and only about 1,300 animals were rescued.

Comment: Yet another hit to the food supply: