Today's News: February 17, 2021

World News

Another US Navy destroyer challenged China in the South China Sea by sailing past contested islands without asking permission

Business Insider – The US Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Russell sailed through the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea on Wednesday, challenging China’s demands that foreign military vessels ask for permission before sailing through the area, the Navy said.

The Spratly Islands are contested territories in the South China Sea. China, which claims almost all of the 1.3 million-square-mile waterway, has built up its military presence in this area, constructing fortified outposts on artificial reefs.

The Spratlys are also claimed by Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines, some of which put restrictions on the operations of foreign military vessels, as China does.

The US Navy characterizes “unlawful and sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea” as a “serious threat to freedom of the sea.”

The latest freedom-of-navigation operation “upheld the rights, freedoms and lawful uses of the sea recognized in international law by challenging unlawful restrictions on innocent passage imposed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan,” the Navy’s 7th Fleet said in a statement.

U.S. News, Politics & Government

Rush Limbaugh, Talk Radio Legend, Dies at 70 of Lung Cancer

Newsmax – Conservative icon Rush Limbaugh, who single-handedly created the era of national political talk radio and had the most listened to program in U.S. history, died Wednesday of lung cancer a year after announcing his diagnosis with the disease. He was 70.

A cultural force with a cumulative weekly radio audience of more than 20 million at his peak, an author of seven books – two of which were New York Times best sellers, and the host of a nationally syndicated TV show, Limbaugh was hailed by Republicans and conservatives and derided by Democrats and liberals.

In 1994, his daily broadcasts trumpeting conservative politics and policies were credited with helping Republicans gain control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years as part of Newt Gingrich’s “Republican Revolution.” The party gained 54 seats in the House – the biggest change in nearly a half century – and Limbaugh was bestowed with an honorary membership by the incoming freshmen congressional GOP caucus.

He was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the 2020 State of the Union Address by President Donald Trump in which he thanked Limbaugh for “decades of tireless devotion to our country.”

Fulton County Election Board Votes To Fire Election Director After 2020 ‘Dysfunction’

Daily Wire – The elections board in Fulton County, Georgia, voted to fire the county’s election manager in a bipartisan vote Tuesday following the 2020 election cycle.

The county’s board of registration and elections voted 3-2 to remove election director Rick Barron after he oversaw a series of missteps and controversies during the 2020 election. The board voted against the wishes of many on Barron’s staff, who wrote a letter to the board defending Barron prior to the vote.

“The person who is responsible for our success, the County’s success amid all of this, is current Director Richard Barron who has shown his ability to guide, motivate, steer and maintain the course of integrity, honesty, and fairness,” the staff wrote, according to WABE.

Barron has not yet been removed from his position. According to attorneys for the election board, the county board of commissioners must approve the election board’s decision to fire Barron before it is official. When the board of commissioners will consider whether to follow through on firing Barron is unknown.

White House announces plans to ramp up COVID testing

Officials said the US is now vaccinating 1.7 million Americans per day, up from less than one million last month.

Al Jazeera – The White House announced new efforts on Wednesday to expand and improve testing for the coronavirus, as the United States ramps up efforts to vaccinate Americans.

In a news briefing, Carole Johnson, the nation’s new COVID-19 testing coordinator, announced that the federal government would invest $1.6bn to increase nationwide testing.

Facebook CEO Zuckerberg Expresses Concern About COVID-19 Vaccines in Leaked Footage

Epoch Times – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made comments last year about COVID-19 vaccines that clash with policies that his platform has implemented, leaked video shows. Zuckerberg said in July 2020: “I do just want to make sure that I share some caution on this [vaccine] because we just don’t know the long-term side effects of basically modifying people’s DNA and RNA … basically the ability to produce those antibodies and whether that causes other mutations or other risks downstream. So, there’s work on both paths of vaccine development.” Zuckerberg took a different stance when appearing in a virtual forum with Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading government scientist. “Just to clear up one point, my understanding is that these vaccines do not modify your DNA or RNA. So that’s just an important point to clarify, if I’m getting anything wrong here of course correct me, but just to make that clear

Fauci to Americans: ‘When your turn to get vaccinated comes up, get vaccinated’

Fox – Dr. Anthony Fauci on Wednesday had a message to Americans – urging them to “get vaccinated” against the novel coronavirus when they become eligible.

“When your turn to get vaccinated comes up, get vaccinated,” Fauci said.

“It is not only good for you, and good for your family and your community,” he continued. “It will have a very important impact on the dynamics of the outbreak in our country.”

The White House on Wednesday announced that the U.S. is now averaging 1.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered daily – up from an average of 900,000 shots per day one month ago. The latest data reflects an increase of 200,000 doses from the week prior.

Epstein’s Ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell Alleges Abuse by Guard in Federal Jail

Epoch Times – A former girlfriend of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is accusing a guard of abusing her in the jail where she’s being held on sex trafficking charges. Ghislaine Maxwell is “at the mercy of a revolving group of security officers who are used to guarding hundreds of inmates but now focus their undivided attention exclusively on one respectful, middle-aged female pretrial detainee,” Maxwell’s attorney wrote to a federal judge in a letter this week. In one recent instance, out of view of security cameras, Maxwell was physically abused during a pat-down when being placed in her isolation cell, attorney Bibbi Sternheim said. “When she asked that the camera be used to capture the occurrence, a guard replied ‘no.’ When Ms. Maxwell recoiled in pain and when she said she would report the mistreatment, she was threatened with disciplinary action.

Kamala Harris’s School Reopening Word Salad Shows The Administration Has No Coherent Goal

The Federalist – Vice President Kamala Harris repeatedly brushed off questions about school reopenings on Wednesday, applying her typical political spin instead of answering whether the Biden administration plans to actually follow the science and get children back in classrooms.

During NBC’s “Today,” Harris fumbled with host Savannah Guthrie’s questions about the Biden administration’s constant flip-flop on school reopening policies, from saying the goal should be the majority of schools open at least one day a week by the 100th day of the Biden administration to claiming the real goal is five days per week — and even more flips, as Guthrie noted.

“Our goal is that as many K-8 schools as possible will reopen within the first 100 days. Our goal is that it will be five days a week, and so we have to work to achieve that goal,” Harris said. “But our goal is the goal of parents, and I mean, here’s the thing, Savannah, I don’t need to tell you, the issue here is not just about statistics, it’s about our kids, it’s about their parents. It’s about the fact that every day our kids are missing essential, critical days in their educational development.”

When Guthrie asked Harris asked if it was a mistake that the CDC’s new guidance, which was created with the input of anti-science teachers unions, would keep 90 percent of schools closed for in-person learning, Harris simply claimed it has always been the White House’s priority to put the children first.

“In the last four weeks, schools are opening, every week more schools are opening,” Harris said. “And it is because we are supplementing what needs to happen around the vaccinations getting into states, but also because we are seeing progress, folks are wearing masks when they’re getting vaccinated, when they’re social distancing, we’re seeing progress there. … But we all want the schools to reopen, Savannah, all of us who have children in our lives. They want to go back to school, we want them to go back to school, teachers want to teach.”

But the new CDC guidelines, Harris clarified, are simply recommendations.

“What the CDC, what they have recommended are exactly that: recommendations about how to reopen safely if they’ve been closed, how to stay open if they’ve been opened,” Harris said. “Some recommendations include what, again, needs to happen around social distancing, hand-washing, mask-wearing. But the point is that we all want our kids to get back to school as quickly as possible and as safely as possible.”

While both the CDC and Anthony Fauci declared teachers don’t have to be vaccinated for schools to safely reopen, the vice president refused to respond to Guthrie’s consistent pressure to answer whether the Biden administration would declare that vaccines are not required for teachers to return to in-person teaching.

“Teachers should be a priority [to receive the vaccine] along with other front-line workers,” Harris said multiple times while rambling about how much she loved her teachers growing up.

She also tried to pitch the administration’s COVID relief bill as a way “to decide if we can put in place safe measures” for school reopenings. “The American Rescue Plan, which the president and I have proposed, is a plan about getting our schools back open,” Harris said.

While Harris acknowledged children are suffering because they do not have in-person instruction, she still danced around how the Biden administration would ensure their swift return to classrooms around the nation.

“We know, we have worked on this issue for years, around the fact that by the end of the third grade, if a child is not at third-grade reading level, they literally drop off,” Harris said. “So each day in the life of a child is a very long time, and that’s why we’ve got to collectively do everything in our power to reopen our schools as quickly as possible and as safely as possible.”

Economy & Business

Vaccine delays leave grocery workers feeling expendable

A decentralized vaccine campaign has resulted in a patchwork of policies that differ from state to state

Fox – As panicked Americans cleared supermarkets of toilet paper and food last spring, grocery employees gained recognition as among the most indispensable of the pandemic’s front-line workers.

A year later, most of those workers are waiting their turn to receive COVID-19 vaccines, with little clarity about when that might happen.

A decentralized vaccine campaign has resulted in a patchwork of policies that differ from state to state, and even county to county in some areas, resulting in an inconsistent rollout to low-paid essential workers who are exposed to hundreds of customers each day.

“Apparently we are not front-line workers when it comes to getting the vaccine. That was kind of a shock,” said Dawn Hand, who works at a Kroger supermarket in Houston, where she said three of her co-workers were out with the virus last week. She watches others getting vaccinated at the in-store pharmacy without knowing when she’ll get her turn.

Texas is among several states that have decided to leave grocery and other essential workers out of the second phase of its vaccination effort, instead prioritizing adults over 65 and people with chronic medical conditions.

Energy & Environment

Complete Bungle’: Texas’ Power Grid Fails in Record Cold

Voice of America – Anger over Texas’ power grid failing in the face of a record winter freeze mounted Tuesday as millions of residents in the energy capital of the U.S. remained shivering with no assurances that their electricity and heat — out for 36 hours or longer in many homes — would return soon or stay on once it finally does.

“I know people are angry and frustrated,” said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who woke up to more than 1 million people still without power in his city. “So am I.”

In all, between 2 and 3 million customers in Texas still had no power nearly two full days after historic snowfall and single-digit temperatures created a surge in demand for electricity to warm up homes unaccustomed to such extreme lows, buckling the state’s power grid and causing widespread blackouts. More bad weather, including freezing rain, was expected Tuesday night.

Making matters worse, expectations that the outages would be a shared sacrifice by the state’s 30 million residents quickly gave way to a cold reality, as pockets in some of America’s largest cities, including San Antonio, Dallas and Austin, were left to shoulder the lasting brunt of a catastrophic power failure, and in subfreezing conditions that Texas’ grid operators had known was coming.

The breakdown sparked growing outrage and demands for answers over how Texas — whose Republican leaders as recently as last year taunted California over the Democratic-led state’s rolling blackouts — failed such a massive test of a major point of state pride: energy independence. And it cut through politics, as fuming Texans took to social media to highlight how while their neighborhoods froze in the dark Monday night, downtown skylines glowed despite desperate calls to conserve energy.

“We are very angry. I was checking on my neighbor, she’s angry, too,” said Amber Nichols, whose north Austin home has had no power since early Monday. “We’re all angry because there is no reason to leave entire neighborhoods freezing to death.”

She crunched through ice wearing a parka and galoshes, while her neighbors dug out their driveways from six inches of snow to move their cars.

“This is a complete bungle,” she said.

The toll of the outages was causing increasing worry. Harris County emergency officials reported “several carbon monoxide deaths” in or around Houston and reminded people not to operate cars or gasoline powered generators indoors. Authorities said three young children and their grandmother, who were believed to be trying to keep warm, also died in a suburban Houston house fire early Tuesday. In Galveston, the medical examiner’s office requested a refrigerated truck to expand body storage, although County Judge Mark Henry said he didn’t know how many deaths there had been related to the weather.

‘An electrical island’: Texas has dodged federal regulation for years by having its own power grid

USA Today – As winter storm blackouts roil Texas, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the nonprofit that operates Texas’ electrical grid, has gained sudden notoriety — as well as the unusual fact that Texas has its own electrical grid.

The U.S. has three power grids: one covers the eastern U.S., another the western states and the Texas grid covers nearly the entire state.

The grid has been thrust into the national spotlight as extreme energy demand and overloaded frozen utility plants contributed to widespread power outages across Texas, experts said.

Nearly 4.5 million customers went without electricity Tuesday, and by Wednesday over 3.1 million Texans still didn’t have the lights turned on, according to poweroutage.us.

The predecessor for ERCOT was formed in the 1930s, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Federal Power Act, which charged the Federal Power Commission with regulating interstate electricity sales.

“Utilities in Texas were smart and made an agreement that no one was going to extend power outside of Texas,” Donna Nelson, who served as chair of the state Public Utility Commission, which oversees ERCOT, from 2008 to 2017, said in an ERCOT promotional video about the history of the grid.

Health

Warning: Keep iPhone 12 Away From Pacemakers

Mercola – Apple recently included a warning in their support documents for the iPhone 12, cautioning users to keep the phone at least 6 inches away from medical devices, specifically implanted pacemakers and heart defibrillators.1

The idea that electromagnetic fields can damage your health is not new. Over the past decade, I have written many articles discussing the evidence of biological harm from EMF.

While the wireless industry has been built on the premise that only ionizing radiation, such as that produced for X-rays, can cause health damage, researchers and scientists have been warning that even nonionizing and nonheat-producing radiation can cause damage to your health and the environment.2

I have been so convinced of the damage that EMF can cause to human health that I took three years to write “EMF*D,” which was released in early 2020 during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the book, I reviewed the overwhelming scientific evidence that EMFs are a hidden health hazard that simply cannot be ignored any longer. Over the years I have interviewed several scientists who have shared their knowledge and expertise in a field that is poorly understood and in which the wireless industry has a vested interest in keeping you in the dark.

For over two decades evidence has demonstrated that EMF exposure has a negative influence on your immune system, which is significant during cold and flu season, as well as during the current COVID-19 pandemic.3 While Apple acknowledges the interference EMF may have on pacemakers, it is far from the only damage EMFs can do to your health.

Ancestor of Covid ‘was lurking in animals for MILLIONS of years before infecting humans’

Daily Mail – The ancestor of the coronavirus could have been lurking in animals for millions of years before it jumped to humans, a virologist has claimed.

The coronavirus, known scientifically as SARS-CoV-2, became able to infect humans when it mutated while inside an animal and then jumped across species.

This happened for the first time last year in China and the virus – which turned out to be both fast-spreading and deadly to humans – has since infected at least 110million people and killed 2.4million.

Dr Emilia Skirmuntt, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Oxford, is studying viruses that affect bats and said it was likely they carried a version of the virus for a long time.

Scientists believe that bats passed the virus to another species which then gave it to humans, but Dr Skirmuntt suggested it could have skipped over the intermediary.

What ‘species zero’ was, she told MailOnline, was still unclear. And scientists would probably never pinpoint the exact moment the virus spread from animals to people.

Experts had suggested pangolins could have transmitted the virus to humans, but Dr Skirmuntt said this was unlikely because it appeared to make them sick, too, meaning they wouldn’t be efficient ‘reservoirs’ to incubate the virus.

The origin of the pandemic is still hazy and China has been accused of covering up the true extent of the outbreak and of failing to hand over key data to a World Health Organization team last month.

Mindless Mask Mandates Likely Do More Harm Than Good

Mercola – In breathless tones, NBC News recently reported the existence of a business where mask wearing isn’t enforced. In the Naples, Florida, grocery store, hardly anyone wears a mask. The store’s owner, who the news station claimed “is known for his conservative and often controversial viewpoints,” told a reporter he’s never worn a mask in his life and never will.

The store does have a mask policy posted, but video shows that many customers are fine with not wearing one. There is a mask mandate in Naples, but Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has issued a ruling that makes enforcement of the rule difficult, NBC said.

The irony of the whole thing is that while the media claims mask mandates are based on science and will “save lives,” this simply isn’t true. Science is actually being ignored wholesale and recommendations are primarily pushed based on emotional justifications and triggers. If science were actually followed, universal mask wearing by healthy people would not — indeed could not — be recommended.