Ah, the righteous indignation of a surfer.
Read the restA Manhattan Beach surfer was issued a $1,000 citation Saturday morning after ignoring a lifeguard’s order that he not go in the water.
“F… you. What are you going to do about it,” the surfer said to the lifeguard who confronted him, according to sources who were present during the encounter.
A Manhattan Beach police officer responded by issuing the citation.
Hackers tried to break into the World Health Organization earlier in March, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread, Reuters reports. Security experts blame an advanced cyber-espionage hacker group known as DarkHotel.
A senior agency official says the WHO has been facing a more than two-fold increase in cyberattacks since the coronavirus pandemic began. Read the rest
Some NHS medical staff in the UK feel like 'cannon fodder' over the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) against coronavirus, and on Monday the government said the military would help ship millions of items including masks to healthcare workers who have complained of shortages.
Frontline staff in UK hospitals treating COVID-19 patients have been begging for masks, gloves, face shields, and hazmat suits.
The situation is so desperate that some nurses and doctors were and are reportedly improvising by tying plastic aprons around their heads, and affixing clinical waste bags around their legs. Read the rest
Wikileaks said Monday that lawyers representing founder Julian Assange will apply for his release on bail because of the high risk in prison of contracting coronavirus and the deadly disease it causes, COVID-19. Read the rest
The number of coronavirus cases in New York sharply increased to nearly 8,000 cases on Friday, a result of increased testing and the continuing uncontrolled spread of the virus that causes the respiratory illness COVID-19.
This is 10 times higher than what was reported earlier in the week.
New York now has half of all coronavirus cases in the US.
In a startlingly quick ascent, New York was closing in on 8,000 positive tests, about 1/2 the cases in the country. The # was 10x higher than what was reported earlier in the week. The sharp increase is thrusting the medical system toward a crisis point. https://t.co/SPPe5PESWT
— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) March 20, 2020
“The healthcare system is already getting overrun. Hospitals are running out of ventilators. Doctors are reusing masks,” says the New York Times' Brian Rosenthal.
Read the restThe sharp increase is thrusting the medical system toward a crisis point, officials said.
In the Bronx, doctors at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center say they have only a few remaining ventilators for patients who need them to breathe. In Brooklyn, doctors at Kings County Hospital Center say they are so low on supplies that they are reusing masks for up to a week, slathering them with hand sanitizer between shifts.
Some of the jump in New York’s cases can be traced to significantly increased testing, which the state began this week. But the escalation, and the response, could offer other states a glimpse of what might be in store if the virus continues to spread.
Impeached United States President Donald J. Trump said something awful again today that would end any other man's presidency in any timeline but this hellscape we're in. Read the rest
• Taoiseach addresses Ireland on St Patrick's Day to warn of coming hardship • Today: 354 cases confirmed in Ireland • Predicted: 15,000 Covid-19 cases in Ireland within 2 weeks
On what he called “A St. Patrick’s Day like no other,” Ireland's Taoiseach Leo Varadkar warned the nation that the expanding “crisis will last months and cause enormous economic damage.”
From Ireland's RTÉ News:
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said the coronavirus emergency is likely to go on well beyond 29 March and could go on for months into the summer. In a special Ministerial Briefing broadcast, he said that "this is the calm before the storm and the surge will come".
His address comes after 69 new cases were confirmed in the Republic, bringing the overall number to 292.
A further ten cases have been confirmed in Northern Ireland, bringing the total there to 62. Overall there are 354 cases on the island of Ireland.
Mr Varadkar said it is believed that there could be 15,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in this country by the end of the month.
Here are the Irish leader's remarks in full, and video. Read the rest
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a $8.3 billion bill to address the coronavirus outbreak in a bipartisan vote late Wednesday.
A Senate vote is expected Thursday. Read the rest
The CDC just broadened coronavirus testing guidelines. Anyone with COVID-19 symptoms and their doctor's approval can now get tested — but there are still not enough kits. Read the rest
• Coronavirus fears can't stop the fromage
In Wisconsin today, the world's largest technical cheese, butter and yogurt competition kicked off with a record 3,667 entries from 26 nations. Read the rest
Kazuhisa Hashimoto, who created the famous ‘Konami Code,’ has died.
He was 79. Read the rest
Facebook is reportedly considering making it just a wee bit clearer that pro-Bloomberg political campaign posts come from paid staffers on Michael Bloomberg's political campaign. Yes, 2020 is bonkers. Read the rest
Sure, this absolutely passes the corruption smell test. Everything is fine. Trump and his klepto-regime are (of course) supporting Oracle's Larry Ellison in his Supreme Court fight with Google. The same day the same Larry Ellison hosted a massive fundraiser for Trump in California.
From reporting by Malathi Nayak at Bloomberg News:
The Trump administration urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject an appeal by Alphabet Inc.’s Google, boosting Oracle Corp.’s bid to collect more than $8 billion in royalties for Google’s use of copyrighted programming code in the Android operating system.
The administration weighed in on the high-stakes case on the same day that President Donald Trump attended a re-election campaign fundraiser in California hosted by Oracle’s co-founder, billionaire Larry Ellison.
Ellison hosted a golf outing and photos with Trump. The event cost a minimum of $100,000 per couple to attend, with a higher ticket price of $250,000 for those who wanted to participate in a policy roundtable with the president, the Palm Springs Desert Sun reported.
read more:
Trump Backs Supporter Larry Ellison in Court Fight With Google [ Malathi Nayak, February 19, 2020] Read the rest
The Defense Information Systems Agency, which calls itself a combat support agency of the Defense Department on its website, employs 8,000 military and civilian employees.
The DIA, which is responsible for secure White House communications, said Social Security numbers and other personal data its network held, was likely compromised, reports Reuters, citing a letter sent to compromised individuals. Read the rest
