Today's News: July 09, 2020

World News

Coronavirus: Belgrade protesters storm Serb parliament over curfew

BBC – Dozens of police and protesters have been hurt in riots that broke out outside the National Assembly in the Serbian capital Belgrade.
The protests began peacefully on Tuesday evening and included students and families, angered by a move to re-impose a weekend curfew because of a rise in coronavirus infections.
Protesters broke into the assembly, prompting police to intervene.
Clashes erupted and police fired tear gas to disperse the protesters.
Far-right nationalists have been blamed for stirring up the unrest and storming the assembly building. Serbian media said they included an MP who has pushed anti-vaccine and anti-5G conspiracy theories.
Serbian President Alexander Vucic on Wednesday condemned what he described as the most brutal political violence for years and appealed for the protests to end, citing the risk of increased infection.
On Wednesday evening police again clashed with protesters, firing teargas as bottles, stones and flares were thrown from the crowd.

World’s largest dam in ‘danger of collapse’ amid historic floods — 400 million people at risk, China

The Watchers – A flood alert has been raised near Three Gorges Dam in China– the largest hydropower project in the world– as the country grapples with its worst flooding in 70 years. Torrential rains have been causing havoc throughout the southwest and central region this month, with many rivers bursting their banks, prompting mass evacuations. As many as 400 million people may be at risk, however, local media Global Times said experts have dismissed reports that the dam is at a brink of collapse.
Heavy rains over the past weeks have led to natural disasters being declared in 24 provinces and municipalities in the southwest and central China, especially areas near the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the Three Gorges Dam.
According to Asia Times Financial, this is the largest flooding since 1949, and it has caused major problems to the dam, which is located in Sandouping Town, near Yichang in Hubei Province.
Zhao Yunfa, the deputy chief engineer of the overflow dispatch communications center at the Three Gorges Project, warned people: “Do not pin your hopes on the Three Gorges Dam,” as its flood storage capacity is limited.
Approximately 400 million people residing near the dam are now at risk.
Zhang Shuguang, director of the Three Gorges Corporation Hub Management Bureau, said flood control measures for the entire Yangtze River Basin could not depend on the dam to dominate the flood.

200,000 seafarers fear there’s no plan to get them off ships

SFGate – For nearly three months, the 27-year-old South African was caught in a web of border restrictions and corporate bureaucracy, shuttled on ships between ports in the Bahamas and Italy as her employer, MSC Cruises, worked to get its crews home.
“I don’t think we were ever priorities,” said Neethling, who worked as a shop employee aboard the luxury liner the MSC Preziosa. “I was depressed and in despair thinking I might have this baby on the ship.”
Neethling isn’t alone. While she’s finally home in Johannesburg, more than 200,000 more seafarers remain trapped on ships around the world, from cargo vessels and oil tankers to luxury cruise liners. Restrictions on ships docking to halt the spread of Covid-19, border shutdowns and a lack of flights are the biggest barriers to relieving exhausted crew. But shipping lines and cruise companies are also coming under increasing pressure to do more.
MSC said it’s been working with governments and ports to get workers home as quickly as possible, prioritizing pregnant seafarers. The company said in a statement that a “small number” of pregnant crew members across its fleet “have had to stay on board awaiting repatriation despite our best efforts to secure safe passage home for them.”
Seoul mayor missing, his phone turned off, search underway
AP – Authorities searched on Thursday for the mayor of South Korea’s capital, Seoul, who vanished amid sexual harassment allegations after giving his daughter a message that she described as sounding like a will, police said.
Police said they were looking for Mayor Park Won-soon in wooded hills stretching across northern Seoul where his cellphone signal was last detected. They said the phone was currently turned off.
His daughter called police on Thursday afternoon and said her father had given her “a will-like” verbal message before leaving their home hours earlier. The daughter didn’t explain the contents of the message, said an officer at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency who was responsible for the search operation.

Serbia Protests Meet Violent Response in Europe’s 1st Major Virus Unrest

DNYUZ – Thousands of Serbs demonstrated for a second consecutive night on Wednesday in response to President Aleksandar Vucic’s management of the coronavirus crisis and wider concerns over the state of democracy in Serbia.
The protests were the first major pandemic-related unrest in Europe since the start of the crisis, and were met by a violent police response that some analysts said they had not witnessed in Serbia since the rule of Slobodan Milosevic, who governed Serbia during the 1990s.
Serbs first took to the streets on Tuesday, soon after Mr. Vucic announced that Belgrade would be placed under a new three-day lockdown following a second wave of confirmed coronavirus infections.
But the demonstrations quickly morphed into a wider expression of frustration at Mr. Vucic’s increasing control over policymaking and perceived mismanagement of Serbia’s pandemic response. The protests continued on Wednesday, even after Mr. Vucic suspended his decision to enforce a second shutdown.

Why one of the world’s top disease experts says Australia should abandon hard lockdowns, embrace ‘herd immunity’ and let COVID-19 rip

Daily Mail – A top disease expert has urged Australia to abandon its ‘selfish’ and ‘self congratulatory’ lockdown tactics and embrace a Swedish-style herd immunity strategy to fight COVID-19.
University of Oxford professor Sunetra Gupta said the Scandinavian country has ‘done quite well in terms of deaths’ – despite its record of 5,300 fatalities dwarfing Australia’s.
Sweden holds the fifth-highest rate of deaths per capita in the world after the Nordic nation took its own path and declined to close its restaurants, bars, schools and shops to fight the spread of the virus.
Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven has since called for an inquiry into the so-called soft approach.

U.S. News, Politics & Government

L.A. Mayor Warns Of Possible New Stay-At-Home Order.

Deadline – Los Angeles City Mayor Eric Garcetti began his Wednesday coronavirus press conference with some good news, and then a warning.
“We are making progress,” said the mayor, “and while it is fragile, it is progress.”
Noting that Los Angeles is currently seeing the highest level of hospitalizations since the pandemic began, Garcetti warned, “These [next two] weeks are absolutely critical. Critical to whether our schools open, whether our economy thrives.”
He reminded residents that “All options remain on the table. We will do whatever we need to.”
If things get worse, said Garcetti, “We’d likely return to a mandated stay-at-home order,” in one or two weeks.

Supreme Court, 7-2: House Cannot Force Trump to Provide Tax Returns

BReitbart – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 on Thursday in Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP that the House of Representatives cannot demand that the president hand over his tax returns — the opposite of the result it reached in Trump v. Vance, a separate decision on the same day, in which it said New York City prosecutors can obtain his tax returns for an investigation.

7 Antifa rioters charged with federal crimes after weekend of violent unrest in Portland

NaturalNews – Seven individuals have been arrested by federal authorities after a weekend of intense rioting in Portland. They appeared in court on July 6 and were charged with a variety of federal crimes. They were released afterward, pending trial.
Only three of those sentenced were actually from Portland: Cody Porter, 28; Rowan Olsen, 19; and Christopher Fellini, 31. Two others were from Oregon: Taimane Jame Teo, 24, from Eugene and Andrew Steven Faulkner, 24, from Beaverton. The two remaining criminals, Gretchen Margaret Blank, 29 and Shant Singh Ahuja, 28, are from Seattle, Washington and Oceanside, California, respectively.
The arrests were conducted by U.S. Marshals, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATFE), the Federal Protective Service, Customs and Border Protections and Homeland Security. All these law enforcement agencies are continuing their investigations, and hope to come up with more arrests in the future.

Economy & Business

Anti-mask shoppers at Costco and Target throw tantrums and tear down mask displays, revealing a growing crisis for retail workers

Business Insider – Anti-mask customers are creating a crisis for retailers, as employees at stores like Target and Costco have to handle customers throwing tantrums and destroying displays.
Over the weekend, a woman uploaded a video of herself destroying a mask display at an Arizona Target. In the video, a woman identified by The New York Post as Melissa Rein Lively yells “this s— is over” and “f— this s—,” until she is approached by two Target employees.
“You let everybody else do it,” Lively says. “I can’t do it because I’m a blonde white woman? Because I’m wearing a $40,000 Rolex, I don’t have the right to f— s— up?”

Energy & Environment

Idaho Hasn’t Stopped Shaking Since March 31… Geologists Puzzled

Popular Mechanics – On March 31, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake rolled through Idaho’s Sawtooth mountain range, northeast of Boise. It was the second largest earthquake to strike Idaho, according to the Idaho Statesman. (The strongest temblor in Idaho history, 1983’s Borah Peak earthquake, registered as a magnitude 6.9.)
But the region hasn’t stopped shaking since. The area has experienced a string of aftershocks in the months following the quake, some registering as high as magnitude 4.8. The shaking has been so strong, in fact, that a popular beach along Stanley Lake in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area has sunk into the water.
“The most probable cause for the ‘disappearing’ of the inlet delta is a combination of liquefaction and compaction of saturated sediments and some possible sliding and later spreading on the delta toward the deeper part of the lake,” Claudio Berti, director and state geologist of the Idaho Geological Survey, said in a statement.
The March 31 earthquake occurred 16 miles north of the Sawtooth Fault, a 40-mile stretch of fault line discovered nearly a decade ago. Geologists have largely believed the fault was inactive, but the latest round of quakes have reinvigorated interest in the region.

Science & Technology

Musk says TESLA close to developing fully autonomous car

AFP – Tesla founder Elon Musk said Thursday that the world’s recently crowned most valuable auto company could achieve a fully autonomous car by the end of 2020.
Musk, who has made premature predictions about the advent of completely autonomous cars before, offered the updated timetable in a pre-recorded message to a Shanghai tech fair.
“I’m extremely confident that ‘Level 5’, or essentially complete autonomy, will happen, and I think will happen very quickly,” Musk said.
“I remain confident that we will have the basic functionality… complete this year.”
In years past, Musk had said Tesla may develop the technology for a completely autonomous vehicle by 2018, and then last year he said it may come by early 2020.
The California-based electric carmaker became the world’s most valuable auto manufacturer earlier this month and its shares have soared this year thanks to strong output figures despite disruptions from the coronavirus epidemic.
The complexity and autonomy of self-driving car technology is classified up to “Level 5”. Lower levels feature some combination of autonomous decision-making by the vehicle, along with as-needed human intervention.
But Level 5 denotes a car that requires no human intervention at any time, allowing the passenger to sleep or watch a movie while the car handles all navigation as well as adjustments to avoid collisions.
Tesla already enables partial autonomy for its cars, but analysts say the road to full autonomy faces considerable legal and regulatory hurdles, not to mention getting consumers to feel comfortable entrusting their cars with full control.
Tesla is racing with Waymo, Uber and traditional automakers to bring autonomous vehicles to market.

Health

Operation Warp Speed gives $1.6 billion in taxpayer funding to Novavax for coronavirus vaccines

NaturalNews – Pharmaceutical giant Novavax has been awarded $1.6 billion from President Donald Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed” program, which aims to deliver hundreds of millions of rushed Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines to market potentially by year’s end.
According to reports, the Gaithersburg, Maryland-based drug manufacturer was granted the taxpayer money to support the rapid “large-scale manufacturing of NVX-COV2373” jabs, 100 million doses of which will go into production beginning this fall.
The goal is to have enough doses of the injectable drug ready by the start of 2021 to jab the entire nation – or as Trump himself put it, enough to jab anyone who “wants” the vaccine.
Since getting vaccinated for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) seems likely to become a requirement in order to travel or enter businesses – much like how face masks are currently in many areas – the presumption is that millions of Americans will line right up to “voluntarily” get the Novavax jab once it becomes available.
“What this Warp Speed award does is it pays for production of 100 million doses, which would be delivered starting in the fourth quarter of this year, and may be completed by January or February of next year,” stated Novavax CEO Stanley Erck.
The money will also help cover the expenses associated with a large “Phase 3” trial of the experimental vaccine, which is said to be the final state of human testing. As many as 30,000 human guinea pigs will reportedly participate in this trial.

Boosting selenium levels helps reduce premature death risk, say scientists

NaturalNews – Having high selenium levels is linked to a longer, healthier life, says a recent study published in The Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging.
The study used data from an earlier research known as the ilSIRENTE Study, which involved nearly 350 men and women aged 80 years and older who live in a small mountain community in Italy.
Selenium is an important antioxidant and trace mineral. It is also a constituent of more than two dozen selenoproteins, which play critical roles in reproduction, thyroid hormone metabolism and DNA synthesis, among others.
Why maintaining healthy selenium levels is important
According to the study, low levels of selenium are associated with a significantly increased risk of all-cause mortality. This held true even after controlling for confounding factors, such as age and other clinical and functional variables.
On the other hand, the researchers found that participants of the ilSIRENTE Study who had the highest levels of selenium also had the lowest levels of key inflammatory markers. This is particularly important because inflammation, especially when it becomes chronic, is linked to the development of life-threatening diseases. (Related: Selenium in broccoli and garlic boosts the immune system, could help fight cancer.)
The findings of this study echo those of a previous research published in the journal Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation. In it, researchers found that selenium deficiency increases the risk of hemodialysis patients dying from infectious disease.
Other studies, meanwhile, have linked selenium deficiency to chronic conditions, such as cancer, arthritis, depression and heart disease.

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Can Rosemary Improve Cognitive Function?

Mercola – Rosemary is an evergreen shrub native to the Mediterranean that’s revered for its culinary and therapeutic uses alike. Its pungent aroma and sharp lemon-pine flavor make it popular in French, Italian and other cuisines, and it’s been used for centuries as a tool to strengthen memory.1
A member of the mint family along with oregano and basil, rosemary is as versatile in medicine as it is in cooking. With potent antibacterial and antioxidant properties, rosemary is often used to help extend the shelf life of perishable foods, and rosemary extract is approved as a natural antioxidant for food preservation in the European Union.2
Among its many other pharmacologically validated uses in medicine are anticancer, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory and hepatoprotective properties, but it’s also notable for its ability to improve cognitive function.3 In fact, it’s said that in ancient Greece, students would wear rosemary garlands while studying and would eat the herb to improve memory.
Small Amounts of Rosemary Yield Cognitive Benefits
What is perhaps most exciting about rosemary is that benefits have been demonstrated at very low amounts, such as those you might use while cooking. In a study of 28 adults with a mean age of 75 years, dried rosemary leaf powder was blended with tomato juice in order to study its effects on cognitive function in older people.
The lowest dose led to improvements in speed of memory, which may be a predictor of cognitive function during aging, compared to placebo, while the highest dose led to a memory impairment. This suggests that using rosemary at “culinary” doses may be best for your brain.
“In conclusion, rosemary powder at the dose nearest normal culinary consumption demonstrated positive effects on speed of memory … The result points to the value of future studies on effects of low doses of rosemary on memory and cognition over the longer term,” the researchers noted.
What’s more, the subjects also subjectively reported “significantly less impairment to their alertness compared with placebo” at the lowest dose, which the researchers said “strengthens the findings, particularly as there is research suggesting that mood is an underlying driver of cognitive function.”

Eating More Fruits, Vegetables Can Cut Diabetes Risk 25 Percent

Newsmax – Eating more fruits, vegetables and whole grain foods could lower your risk of type 2 diabetes, two new studies suggest.
In one study, researchers looked at more than 9,700 people who developed type 2 diabetes and over 13,600 who didn’t. Participants were from eight European countries and part of a long-term cancer and nutrition study.
After adjusting for lifestyle, and social and dietary risk factors for diabetes, people with the highest levels of fruit and vegetable consumption were 50% less likely to develop diabetes than those with the lowest levels, the researchers found.
Every 66 grams a day (2.3 ounces) increase in total fruit and vegetable intake was associated with a 25% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, Nita Forouhi, of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and colleagues calculated.
The other study included more than 158,000 U.S. women and over 36,000 U.S. men.