The historic oil deal meant to help crude prices rebound amid the coronavirus crisis has come into force. Starting today, global oil production is set to be slashed by nearly 10 million barrels per day.
On April 12, the group known as OPEC+, which includes 13 members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and 10 other major oil-producing states led by Russia, finalized the deal to cut crude output. Effective for two years, the accord includes several stages. The initial 9.7 million barrels per day (bpd) cuts will be reduced to 7.7 million bpd in July. Starting in 2021, the caps will stand at 5.8 million bpd till 30 April 2022, when the deal is set to expire. The parties will weight on the extension of the deal in advance, at the end of 2021.
However, the cut, which equals roughly to 10 percent of global output, may not be enough to offset the supply glut. Many analysts agreed that the reduction remains dwarfed by a steep demand drop that could reach 30 million bpd in April.
“The deal is going to help the supply imbalance [...] but the fact that OPEC delayed the start of the production cuts to May resulted in the market believing that it was too little and too late, although they have bought a little bit of time,” Lipow Oil Associates LLC President Andrew Lipow told RT.
In March, when the previous OPEC deal fell apart, oil prices crashed and have been on a wild ride since then. Some countries beyond OPEC, including Canada, Norway and the US, have also pledged to contribute to the stabilization of the market. Those additional cuts could happen naturally, given the dramatic drop in crude prices, and wipe out an additional 10 million bpd from the oversupplied market, according to Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak.
The situation in the energy market, and with oil prices in particular, is not going to change much initially, after the oil deal officially comes into force. Despite the massive demand collapse during the pandemic, oil producers were overflowing the market in April, with some analysts saying that the OPEC countries’ crude exports stood at one of the highest levels in recent history during this period.
“We shouldn’t expect any price miracle,” the head of the National Energy Security Foundation, Konstantin Simonov, said in an interview with RT. “May and June will be black months for our [oil] industry.”
He explained that the real drop in demand exceeds the cuts, preventing the market from reaching the needed balance. However, the situation could have been much worse without OPEC measures, he said, and the market will rebound as soon as quarantine measures are eased, possibly by July.
While the April agreement has been widely touted as the truce ending the oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, the conflict is far from over, Simonov noted. While Riyadh has reportedly started production curbs ahead of schedule, it did not stop offering discounts to its customers – a policy that is likely to prolong the oil price row.
“Saudi Arabia’s behavior is still aggressive, and the Saudis continue reducing prices. It’s still possible that they could cut output, but the volume of exports will stand at the same level,” the analyst warned.
OPEC and allied countries may be forced to introduce even deeper cuts, if the measure fails to help the market rebound, some analysts say. According to Lipow, if the storage facilities – both onshore and in tankers – continue to run out of space, oil-producing nations will have to further decrease crude production.
The top bank in Israel will hand over just shy of $900 million to the US Treasury after it was implicated in a tax evasion scheme, helping Americans to hide billions of dollars in wealth in thousands of foreign accounts.
Bank Hapoalim BM, as well as its Swiss subsidiary, agreed to pay the damages after submitting a guilty plea over allegations that it concealed some $7.6 billion in over 5,500 secret Swiss and Israeli bank accounts, the Department of Justice announced on Thursday. The $874 million sum is the second-largest recovered by the Treasury in an offshore tax evasion case since 2008, the DOJ added.
“Today, Bank Hapoalim is being held accountable for its conduct – it has admitted to its crimes and will surrender all fees it earned, repay the United States for lost tax revenue, and pay a substantial fine,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman.
At least four senior bank executives, including two former board members, were “directly involved” in the tax avoidance scheme, according to US officials. They were implicated in the conspiracy in a years-long joint investigation by the DOJ, the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal division and US attorneys.
“Today’s resolutions and payment of $874 million make clear that tax evasion cannot be taken lightly,” deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said, adding that “A fair tax system requires even-handed compliance, and honest conduct by all participants in the system.”
In a separate case brought by the US government, Hapoalim was accused of murky dealings with FIFA and laundering over $20 million in kickbacks and bribes to the international football organization’s officials. The bank will pay $30 million for its role in that plot, which was merely one facet of its broader money-hiding operation.
Primarily a retail bank, Hapoalim has some 250 branches in Israel and manages more than 2.5 million accounts in total, the DOJ said, while the Swiss subsidiary is based in Zurich and at various times during the US investigation kept branches in Geneva, Luxembourg and Singapore.
Weighing in on recently declassified footage of “unexplained aerial phenomena” – better known as UFOs – US President Trump seemingly cast doubt on the videos’ authenticity, driving some alien enthusiasts up the wall.
The president’s remark came during an Oval Office interview with Reuters this week, which was largely focused on the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic but briefly veered off into the paranormal sightings, prompting some playful skepticism from the commander in chief.
I just wonder if it’s real. That’s a hell of a video.
The three video clips were officially released by the US military on Monday, one of which dates back to 2004, showing a now-infamous ‘Tic Tac’-shaped object darting around over the Pacific Ocean. The second and third videos were filmed in 2015, both also depicting a strange object flying through the night sky. In one of them, astonished Navy airmen can be heard as they tried (and failed) to identify the object, which seemed to defy the laws of physics.
Though the videos had previously circulated online between 2017 and 2018 after they were obtained by a company co-founded by Tom DeLonge – a member of the pop-punk band Blink 182 who’s become a major UFO buff – the Pentagon finally dispelled any questions about their origin by releasing them itself.
Remaining doubtful that the clips prove mankind is not alone in the cosmos, Trump’s response to the footage was seized upon by Twitter’s resident UFOlogists, who soon developed a number of theories and interpretations, some more... elaborate than others.
UFO advocates' reactions to Trump's recent UFO comments infer multiple levels of conspiracy when a simpler explanation is more plausible: Trump probably just saw the videos on Fox News, where they were prominently featured with zany ufologists' commentary. https://t.co/p6kpmFuBC7
Most ufologists agree that the majority of Presidents don’t have a ‘need to know’ when it comes to UFOs. They’re in office for such a relatively short time they prob aren’t told much.
Especially an incompetent dunce like Trump who puts everything on Twitter. https://t.co/LRFQZVpUG4
Do you think the soft disclosure on confirmed UFO sighting from DoD was just a prequel to an upcoming false flag alien invasion on Election Day? Then they can blame @realDonaldTrump for not doing anything about it when we knew we had contact? 😂👽🛸 #UFO
Some netizens deemed the whole episode a “distraction,” part of a shadowy plot to take Americans’ minds off of the raging health and economic crises now gripping the country, with one critic dismissing the supposed UFOs as “high speed drone nonsense.”
They’re trying to distract.
I bet trump was like, “ you got anything crazier than the president telling people to drink bleach?”
Pentagon: climate change? Kim jong Un is dead? UFOS?
As for the implications for “disclosure” – a watchword for alien hunters who believe the government will someday reveal proof of extraterrestrial life – users were divided, some insisting it would never happen, while others were sure it was imminent.
Excerpt: "President Donald Trump on Wednesday responded to footage released by the Pentagon that shows unidentified flying objects (UFO).
“I just wonder if it’s real,” Trump told Reuters of the videos. “That’s a hell...." https://t.co/4Kh4zbxlUP
There are Trump fans imagining all sorts of stuff about him and ufo secrets...like he is really in the know and is playing a clever and complicated game to bring disclosure, lol. Disclosure as imagined wont happen b/c govts very dysfunctional nowadays.
— Cosmic Pluralism Studies (@ufo_classes) May 1, 2020
Trump has voiced doubt about UFOs in the past, telling ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in 2019 that he’d attended a “brief meeting” on the subject, but noted it did not turn him into a believer. “People are saying they’re seeing UFOs,” he said, “Do I believe it? Not particularly.”
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said he will serve as a “transition candidate” in the 2020 race, arguing his primary role is to funnel new voices and ideas into government – rather than govern himself.
“I view myself as a transition candidate,” Biden said during a virtual fundraising event on Thursday, adding “My job … is to bring the Mayor Petes of the world into this administration … and even when they don’t come in, their ideas come into this administration.”
JUST IN (via campaign press pool)
Joe #Biden says during virtual fundraising event he's a "transition candidate" for the future of the Dem party:
Jumping far ahead of the election in November, as well as the Democratic nominating convention, Biden described his hopes for when he “leave[s] office,” saying he would handle “big issues” and garner attention for talented staffers who “haven’t been in the national spotlight enough.”
The former VP’s latest slogan – effectively labeling a future Biden administration a placeholder before the more able “Mayor Petes of the world” can take over – did not inspire much confidence among netizens.
Biden 2020: “I View Myself as a Transition Candidate” — truly a slogan to inspire the masses https://t.co/FiccSWQT5N
Supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who dropped out of the race and endorsed Biden in early April, shredded the statement, arguing Democrats had traded a “transformational” candidate for a mere “transitional” one.
Biden Tonight: “I view myself as a transition candidate. My job’s to bring the Mayor Petes of the world into the administration.”
Centrists rejected a transformational candidate for a “transition candidate” who will maintain the status quo during a time when we need real change.
An international team of scientists was able to capture images of planet-forming disks hundreds of light years away from Earth. The photos, which are an achievement in itself, shed new light on how planetary systems come to be.
Those protoplanetary clouds of dust and gas, shaped like vinyl music records, appear around young stars and astronomers believe the matter found in them eventually turns into planets.
Scientists previously struggled to properly capture planet-forming disks, as even the images from the largest telescopes weren’t detailed enough. A new study, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics on Thursday, solved this problem by coming up with completely different observation techniques.
For the first time, astronomers captured details of planet-forming disks that sprout planetary systems 💫💪 https://t.co/8i4llps6w7
Lead author Jacques Kluska from KU Leuven in Belgium and his colleagues, who were working on the project at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile, have relied on the method called infrared interferometry.
They used ESO’s PIONIER instrument to combine the light collected by four telescopes and obtain the images of the disks. That was not the end of their work, as the light of the stars hindered the level of detail in the photos, so the missing pieces had to be recovered through mathematical reconstruction.
“I’m thrilled that we now for the first time have fifteen of these images,” Kluska said. The photos showed the inner rims of planet-forming disks where rocky planets like Earth are believed to be forming.
The images received by the team have revealed “brighter or less bright” spots in the disks, which could be “instabilities” that would eventually result in the formation of planets. Kluska and his team are planning to do additional research to figure out what causes those processes, while also trying to obtain even more detailed images of protoplanetary clouds.
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An international team of scientists was able to capture images of planet-forming disks hundreds of light years away from Earth. The photos, which are an achievement in itself, shed new light on how planetary systems come to be.
Those protoplanetary clouds of dust and gas, shaped like vinyl music records, appear around young stars and astronomers believe the matter found in them eventually turns into planets.
Scientists previously struggled to properly capture planet-forming disks, as even the images from the largest telescopes weren’t detailed enough. A new study, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics on Thursday, solved this problem by coming up with completely different observation techniques.
For the first time, astronomers captured details of planet-forming disks that sprout planetary systems 💫💪 https://t.co/8i4llps6w7
Lead author Jacques Kluska from KU Leuven in Belgium and his colleagues, who were working on the project at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile, have relied on the method called infrared interferometry.
They used ESO’s PIONIER instrument to combine the light collected by four telescopes and obtain the images of the disks. That was not the end of their work, as the light of the stars hindered the level of detail in the photos, so the missing pieces had to be recovered through mathematical reconstruction.
“I’m thrilled that we now for the first time have fifteen of these images,” Kluska said. The photos showed the inner rims of planet-forming disks where rocky planets like Earth are believed to be forming.
The images received by the team have revealed “brighter or less bright” spots in the disks, which could be “instabilities” that would eventually result in the formation of planets. Kluska and his team are planning to do additional research to figure out what causes those processes, while also trying to obtain even more detailed images of protoplanetary clouds.
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Weighing in on sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden, US President Donald Trump said he knows all about being falsely accused and urged his Democrat rival to address them publicly, as mainstream media mostly kept silent.
Biden, who locked down the Democratic presidential nomination earlier this month, has been accused of sexual assault on his Senate staffer Tara Reade back in 1993. While both Biden and most mainstream media outlets have been happy to ignore the allegations, additional revelations bolstering Reade’s case in recent days have made that difficult.
Asked about the claims during a White House event on Thursday, Trump urged Biden to respond to Reade.
“I think he should respond, it could be false accusations,” he told reporters. “I know all about false accusations. I've been falsely charged numerous times, and there is such a thing.”
But I don't know, I can't speak for Biden, I can only say that I think he should respond, I think he should answer them.
The president then brought up Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose confirmation in 2018 was almost derailed by claims of sexual assault eagerly embraced by Democrats and the media, in marked contrast to their silence when Biden is concerned.
“He was falsely charged. What happened with him is an absolute disgrace to our country,” Trump said, referring to Kavanaugh. “This is a fine man. I saw a man suffering so unfairly."
Reade – a Democrat herself – has come forward with a more detailed and corroborated claim than Kavanaugh’s accuser Christine Blasey-Ford, but while Democrats back then insisted the Supreme Court nominee was guilty until proven innocent and all women should always be believed, they suddenly remembered due process when it came to Biden.
Earlier in the day, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) addressed the allegations by saying “Joe Biden is Joe Biden” and calling Barack Obama’s vice-president the “personification of hope and optimism and authenticity for our country — a person of great values.”
Meanwhile, MSNBC host Chris Hayes was treated like a heretic and faced a torrent of abuse and calls for his firing, for merely mentioning the allegations on his show.
In saying Biden ought to respond to the charges, Trump may have been aware that his rival has already scheduled an appearance with a friendly outlet to do just that. He will be interviewed on Friday morning on NBC, by ‘Morning Joe’ Scarborough and his wife Mika, both outspoken Trump foes.
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Fresh research has shed light on enormous hailstones that are so big that they can burst through the roofs of houses. Scientists have had to create a new category to describe the lethal weather phenomenon – gargantuan hail.
Boffins have just released a study on an extraordinary supercell thunderstorm that battered the Argentinian city of Villa Carlos Paz in 2018. The violent tempest left residents of the heavily populated town running for cover as they were bombarded by massive hailstones that left a trail of destruction in their wake.
As the storm evolved, residents began posting photos and videos of the freak hail on social media, allowing the experts to run an unprecedented study on the bizarre occurrence.
Amazingly, the team found that one hailstone that assaulted the town measured between 7.4 and 9.3 inches across, likely making it a new world record. The current record belongs to a hailstone that measured eight inches across, about the size of a volleyball, that fell in South Dakota in 2010.
“It's incredible,” said Matthew Kumjian, associate professor in the Department of Meteorology and Atmosphere Science at Penn State. “This is the extreme upper end of what you'd expect from hail.”
Kumjian explained that hail of this size can cause serious damage and his team has proposed that hail larger than six inches should be classified as ‘gargantuan’.
“In some rare cases, six-inch hail has actually gone through roofs and multiple floors in houses. We'd like to help mitigate the impacts on life and property, to help anticipate these kinds of events,” he said.
The supercell storm’s deep rotating updrafts had the effect of holding the hailstones in sub-zero temperatures high in the atmosphere. This allowed them to grow into miniature ice missiles that then blasted the town in the remarkable weather assault.
The study notes that gargantuan hail may actually be more common than previously believed. As if we didn’t have enough to be worrying about right now.
South Korea on Thursday reported no new domestic coronavirus cases for the first time since February, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).
It reported four new infections, all imported cases, taking the national tally to 10,765. The death toll rose by one to 247, while 9,059 have been discharged. Of the total, 1,065 were imported cases, while more than 90 percent were Koreans, a KCDC statement said.
The health authorities also said that no local transmissions occurred from a parliamentary election this month, where authorities took safety measures.
“Twenty-nine million voters participated in the April 15 parliamentary election… Not one case related to the election has been reported during the 14 days of incubation period,” Reuters quoted Yoon Tae-ho, director general for public health policy, as saying.
Fresh research has shed light on enormous hailstones that are so big that they can burst through the roofs of houses. Scientists have had to create a new category to describe the lethal weather phenomenon – gargantuan hail.
Boffins have just released a study on an extraordinary supercell thunderstorm that battered the Argentinian city of Villa Carlos Paz in 2018. The violent tempest left residents of the heavily populated town running for cover as they were bombarded by massive hailstones that left a trail of destruction in their wake.
As the storm evolved, residents began posting photos and videos of the freak hail on social media, allowing the experts to run an unprecedented study on the bizarre occurrence.
Amazingly, the team found that one hailstone that assaulted the town measured between 7.4 and 9.3 inches across, likely making it a new world record. The current record belongs to a hailstone that measured eight inches across, about the size of a volleyball, that fell in South Dakota in 2010.
“It's incredible,” said Matthew Kumjian, associate professor in the Department of Meteorology and Atmosphere Science at Penn State. “This is the extreme upper end of what you'd expect from hail.”
Kumjian explained that hail of this size can cause serious damage and his team has proposed that hail larger than six inches should be classified as ‘gargantuan’.
“In some rare cases, six-inch hail has actually gone through roofs and multiple floors in houses. We'd like to help mitigate the impacts on life and property, to help anticipate these kinds of events,” he said.
The supercell storm’s deep rotating updrafts had the effect of holding the hailstones in sub-zero temperatures high in the atmosphere. This allowed them to grow into miniature ice missiles that then blasted the town in the remarkable weather assault.
The study notes that gargantuan hail may actually be more common than previously believed. As if we didn’t have enough to be worrying about right now.
Nick Kyrgios has fired back at Dominic Thiem after the Austrian world number three reacted with disdain to plans to provide a $5 million fund to help lower-ranked players mooted by Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
“He still doesn’t understand the point,” said Kyrgios on his Instagram account after Thiem dismissed the scheme due to his belief that even less successful pros don’t need financial assistance during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We at the top get paid far too much and there is not enough to go around.”
The idea, spearheaded by world number one Djokovic, would benefit players outside the top 250 who have been unable to play competitive matches during the pandemic, seeing their salaries effectively stopped.
Despite usually being something of a divisive player, Kyrgios has stepped up to show his generous side during the past month, offering to personally deliver food and essential items to anyone in need who contacts him via social media.
However, despite a personal wealth estimated at $17 million, Thiem believes that, in terms of tennis pros at least, financial assistance should be worked for, saying: “I wouldn’t really see why I should give such players money.
"None of us top players got anything handed to us - we all had to fight our way up. I don’t have the guarantee in any job that I will do well and earn lots of money. That’s my opinion on the matter.”
That doesn’t sit well with Kyrgios however, who wrote: “It’s about helping where we can, professional or unprofessional, put yourself in their shoes.”
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Thursday he would gradually relax Italy’s coronavirus lockdown taking into account differences in contagion levels in various parts of the country.
Conte told the lower house of parliament that a new stimulus package to support the economy, due to be presented in a few days, would include €15 billion ($16.3 billion) for companies and €25 billion directly for payroll workers and the self-employed.
The lockdown imposed on March 9 will be gradually rolled back from May 4 and agreed with local authorities “taking account of the regions where the epidemiological situation is less severe,” Conte said. The PM warned regions not to ease restrictions unilaterally.
The government earlier set aside €3.3 billion ($3.6 billion) for employees at small companies, and predicted 2.3 million people would sign up; but as of April 27, the program had helped just 29,000 workers, a Reuters report said on Wednesday.
Hungarian schools will remain closed until the end of May and events with more than 500 participants cannot be held until August 15, PM Viktor Orban’s chief of staff Gergely Gulyas said on Thursday.
Orban announced late on Wednesday that, outside Budapest, some restrictions imposed to contain the coronavirus outbreak would be lifted starting next week. Shops and restaurant terraces will be allowed to reopen without time limits. However, existing strict measures in the capital will continue for now, as about 70 percent of registered infections were in Budapest.
Written graduation exams will be held nationwide from Monday onwards for tens of thousands of secondary school students, with safety measures in place, Gulyas said.
As of Thursday, Hungary had reported 312 deaths from among a total of 2,775 cases of Covid-19, Reuters reports.
Social distancing measures in Germany will be extended until May 10, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff, Helge Braun, said. The statement came ahead of a government meeting on Thursday to review lockdown restrictions.
Merkel and state leaders will discuss proposals on reopening schools and nurseries and resuming sporting events. However, they will wait until May 6 for data on the effect of first steps to ease the lockdown before enacting any further changes, Braun said. “The contact restrictions will certainly now be extended until May 10 for the time being,” the official told broadcaster n-tv.
Germany began easing its lockdown last week, when some shops were allowed to open, provided they practiced strict social distancing.
The novel coronavirus reproduction rate in Germany is currently estimated at 0.76, on average, Reuters quoted the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases as reporting on Thursday.
With the US Labor Department set to release weekly jobless claims figures on Thursday, economists project that another 3.5 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits during the week ending April 25.
That will add to the 4.427 million initial jobless claims in the previous week, bringing the total number to at least 30 million during the six-week period of the forced lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Economists expect the number of unemployed Americans in April to shatter the post-World War II record of 10.8 percent reached in November 1982. In March, the jobless rate skyrocketed 0.9 of a percentage point to 4.4 percent, which is the greatest monthly change since January 1975.
“The peak in unemployment will come in April or May, followed by declines beginning in June as economic reopening plays out. For small business loans to be forgiven, employers will need to rehire by late June,” Andrew Hollenhorst, an economist at Citigroup in New York, was quoted as saying by Reuters.
“Enhanced unemployment benefits stretch through late July. The timing of these policies suggests there may be a surge of hiring into the later months of the summer.”
The US economy has suffered its sharpest contraction since the 2008 financial crisis as a result of nationwide lockdowns to slow the spread of Covid-19. The United States is the worst-hit country, with more than 1 million coronavirus infections and more than 61,000 deaths.
A cabinet minister has admitted that the UK is on track to miss its target of carrying out 100,000 coronavirus tests a day by the end of April. It comes after the country jumped to second in Europe for fatalities from Covid-19.
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock set the goal amid intense scrutiny earlier this month. But as April draws to a close, only 52,429 tests were completed on Wednesday, leaving the UK far short of its stated goal and raising further questions about the government’s handling of the crisis.
Justice Minister Robert Buckland conceded that the goal may not be met in TV interviews on Thursday. “Even if it isn’t met, we’re well on our way to ramping this up and 100,000 is an important milestone, but frankly we need more,” he said.
“Yes, 52,000 isn’t 100,000, I know that... but we are straining every sinew to get there... If [Hancock] hadn’t set a target he would have been criticized for being unambitious. I think now is the time in respect of this to be bold,” Buckland added.
On Wednesday, the UK’s official death toll from Covid-19 overtook those of France and Spain after health officials finally included people who died in care homes and the wider community in the fatality figures.
Previously, only people who died in hospital after testing positive for the illness were included in the stats, leading to question marks about the veracity of what Britons were being told.
Russia recorded a drastic increase of daily Covid-19 infections unseen in previous days, with the number of fresh cases surging above 7,000 this Thursday. The nationwide tally of coronavirus patients now stands at over 106,000.
In the past 24 hours 7,099 more people tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the government’s emergency response team revealed. Over half of these cases were located in Moscow and the surrounding region; Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg, appears third in the grim rating.
The updates came after Dmitry Peskov, Russia’s presidential spokesman, suggested the country will reach a coronavirus plateau if the number of daily infections drops. Tuesday's figure meanwhile ups the curve from 5,841 cases recorded on Wednesday all around the country.
Peskov said that hospitals have increased the number of available beds while the government encouraged people to abide by the strict self-isolation regime, under which everyone with non-essential jobs has to remain indoors.
Various Russian regions have kept all businesses shut until further notice, except for grocery stores, pharmacies and a few others. People’s mobility was also limited to the most urgent needs, most notably in Moscow where movement is controlled through an electronic pass system.
Russia will remain under partial lockdown until May 11, with top officials believing this week will show if the crisis subsides.
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Dozens of dead bodies were found inside moving trucks near a funeral home in New York City, discovered after neighbors complained of a sickening odor emanating from the vehicles, which may have stored the corpses for weeks.
Residents of Brooklyn’s Flatlands neighborhood had tried to ignore the stench, but on Wednesday police were finally called to investigate its source, stumbling upon 50 rotting corpses stacked inside four non-refrigerated trucks at the Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home. Some residents told local media they’d noticed the odor for several weeks.
“They were unloading bodies. They had bodies all over the floor inside the funeral home. They came out one by one, blood dripping,” one local man told a New York CBS affiliate, adding that he saw funeral home workers moving the corpses without masks or gloves.
The smell, forget it. It was overwhelming.
President of the Brooklyn borough, Eric Adams, said he arrived at the Cleckley facility on Wednesday evening to see what looked like a crime scene, with streets sealed off as officers inspected the trucks.
It was the smell that caused someone to dial 911. Cops discovering dozens of bodies on ice in rented trucks outside a Brooklyn funeral home. #SiriusXM115pic.twitter.com/cKlgCAJzQm
“It appears the truck was full. They were trying to use U-Haul as a backup” Adams said, adding: “This is traumatizing to family members.”
New York City has been the country’s worst-hit hotspot for Covid-19 for some time, seeing over 164,000 infections and some 18,000 deaths, according to data gathered by Johns Hopkins University. The health crisis has put abnormal strain on the city’s morgues and funeral homes, many of which are quickly running out of storage space for bodies. Though the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has provided refrigerated morgue trucks to deal with the excess deaths, some facilities are still struggling to cope with the influx of corpses.
The owner of the facility told authorities he had done his best to deal with the overwhelming flow of bodies, attempting to load the trucks with ice, but to little effect. Though he was slapped with two citations for the improper storage, the owner faces no criminal charges, according to NBC News.
Police say the bodies were transferred to a refrigerated vehicle later on Wednesday, but added it was not clear how many of the deceased had succumbed to the coronavirus, as opposed to other causes.
The coronavirus pandemic has claimed over 60,000 lives in the US, crossing the grim milestone of one million infections nationwide earlier this week. Though federal health officials have pointed to falling numbers in some of the country’s worst hotspots, the outbreak continues to inflict thousands of daily fatalities, with tens of thousands still contracting the virus each day.
Berlin has banned the Lebanese militant organization and political party, Hezbollah, labeling the group a terrorist outfit as German police carry out raids on those suspected to be members.
“[Interior Minister Horst Seehofer] today banned the operation of the Shiite terrorist organization Hezbollah (Party of God) in Germany,” an Interior Ministry spokesperson tweeted on Thursday morning.
Police measures have been taking place in several federal states at the same time since the early hours of the morning. The rule of law can also act in times of crisis.
BM #Seehofer hat heute die Betätigung der shiitischen Terrororganisation Hizb Allah (Partei Gottes) in Deutschland verboten. Seit den frühen Morgenstunden laufen in mehreren Bundesländern zeitgleich polizeiliche Maßnahmen. Auch in Krisenzeiten ist der Rechtsstaat handlungsfähig.
Police descended on several mosques and cultural centers – believed to be linked to Hezbollah – in Berlin as well as North Rhine-Westphalia and Bremen. Flats of their leaders, treasurers and tax advisors were also searched.
German authorities believe some 1,050 people in the country could belong to the group’s “extremist wing,” carrying out raids to sweep up the alleged members.
Though Berlin previously made a distinction between Hezbollah’s political and armed units, the minister’s decision will see the entire group banished from the country as an illicit terrorist cell.
Founded in the 1980s during Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, the Shia organization has risen to prominence within Lebanese politics, taking part in governing coalitions while maintaining its armed presence along the border with Israel. The group has found a staunch ally in Tehran, keeping a close relationship with the Islamic Republic, and has come to the aid of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the fight against jihadist rebel groups which took over swaths of Syria beginning in 2011.
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Berlin has banned the Lebanese militant organization and political party, Hezbollah, labeling the group a terrorist outfit as German police carry out raids on those suspected to be members.
“[Interior Minister Horst Seehofer] today banned the operation of the Shiite terrorist organization Hezbollah (Party of God) in Germany,” an Interior Ministry spokesperson tweeted on Thursday morning.
Police measures have been taking place in several federal states at the same time since the early hours of the morning. The rule of law can also act in times of crisis.
BM #Seehofer hat heute die Betätigung der shiitischen Terrororganisation Hizb Allah (Partei Gottes) in Deutschland verboten. Seit den frühen Morgenstunden laufen in mehreren Bundesländern zeitgleich polizeiliche Maßnahmen. Auch in Krisenzeiten ist der Rechtsstaat handlungsfähig.
German authorities believe some 1,050 people in the country could belong to the group’s “extremist wing,” carrying out raids to sweep up the alleged members.
Though Berlin previously made a distinction between Hezbollah’s political and armed units, the minister’s decision will see the entire group banished from the country as an illicit terrorist cell.
Founded in the 1980s during Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, the Shia organization has risen to prominence within Lebanese politics, taking part in governing coalitions while maintaining its armed presence along the border with Israel. The group has found a staunch ally in Tehran, keeping a close relationship with the Islamic Republic, and has come to the aid of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the fight against jihadist rebel groups which took over swaths of Syria beginning in 2011.
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Google has released its videoconferencing app Meet for free, angling for a slice of the rapidly-expanding market even as a majority of Americans reveal they wouldn’t trust the company with their Covid-19 infection status.
Meet, which according to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai is adding 3 million users daily, will be available to anyone with an email address and a Google account in the coming weeks, the tech behemoth revealed on Wednesday in a blog post.
The videoconferencing platform allows up to 100 people to chat together and was previously available only to subscribers of Google’s premium “G Suite” software. A 60-minute time limit won’t be enforced until the end of September, the company promised.
A videoconferencing gold rush has erupted in the wake of Covid-19-related lockdowns worldwide, and Google’s Meet expansion comes less than a week after Facebook’s decision to release its own “Rooms” videoconferencing platform for Messenger ahead of schedule. Ironically, Zoom was slammed in the press and even sued earlier this month for sharing users’ data with Facebook without their consent. Perhaps with that fact in mind, Facebook reassured Rooms users that it would not be monetizing the platform – a strategy Google has echoed.
“Your Meet data is not used for advertising, and we don’t sell your data to third parties,” the company stressed, insisting “our approach to security is simple: make products safe by default.”
Millions of users who’ve unwittingly had their data exploited by the tech giant might beg to differ, and the results of a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll published Wednesday reveal that despite the media hype surrounding Google’s collaboration with Apple to roll out the semi-official US coronavirus testing app, Americans aren’t exactly thrilled with the idea of trusting the megacorporation with even more private information.
Half the poll respondents who owned smartphones said they would “definitely or probably not” use a contact-tracing app created by Google and Apple. While political leanings and concern about becoming seriously ill with Covid-19 influenced Americans’ willingness to embrace such a platform, most cited their distrust of Big Tech as one of the reasons for their reluctance, specifically their concern about whether Google, Apple and their peers would protect the privacy of their health data. Just 43 percent of smartphone users claimed to trust Big Tech, according to the poll.
That might sound like a speed-bump for the companies, which have hinted the earliest version of the platform could be released by the end of the week. Oxford University researchers claimed earlier this month that upwards of 60 percent of a population would have to sign on to a contact-tracing app in order for it to be successful in stopping the spread of Covid-19. However, Google and Apple already have plans to embed the platform in future operating system updates, meaning smartphone users won’t have a choice of whether they want to download it or not.
The corporations recently stopped referring to their app as a “contact tracing” platform and switched to “exposure notification,” attempting to make the bitter pill of Big-Tech-as-Big-Brother easier to swallow. A member of the EU’s executive branch went even further last week after a phone call with Apple CEO Tim Cook, describing the program as a “deconfinement app.” After two months of lockdowns, who doesn’t want ‘deconfinement’?!
Trust in Big Tech might be down, but profits are healthy despite an economy that has been profoundly sickened by the coronavirus pandemic. Alphabet’s share price rose 7 percent on Tuesday after the company reported its first-quarter earnings, while Facebook’s own sanguine earnings report the following day triggered a 10 percent bump in stock prices.
Apparently not content to rescue mankind from only one doomsday scenario, teenage eco warrior Greta Thunberg has sprung into action again, launching a fundraising campaign to help the children of the world survive Covid-19.
The project will see the young activist partner with Denmark’s Human Act Foundation to pledge $100,000 each to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), which brings humanitarian aid to children around the globe, according to the Associated Press.
Though the Covid-19 outbreak has largely spared the young, Thunberg nonetheless dubbed the pandemic a “child-rights crisis” in a statement announcing the new initiative on Wednesday, calling on people everywhere to “step up and join me in support of UNICEF’s vital work to save children’s lives.”
Thunberg earned her bonafides as a climate soldier at the age of 15 after spearheading a school strike in her native Sweden to demand more aggressive action on climate change, but has since skyrocketed to worldwide fame, touring the planet to angrily lecture ‘adults’ on the dangers of petroleum-addiction.
Some critics might argue that the virus – given her vision of “climate action” at any cost – is achieving precisely what she has always dreamed of: curtailing production, grinding air travel to a halt, slashing carbon emissions and reducing air pollution. Yet Thunberg has now made it her job to take on the coronavirus pandemic as well, calling on the world to “tackle two crises at once.”
Apparently not content to rescue mankind from only one doomsday scenario, teenage eco warrior Greta Thunberg has sprung into action again, launching a fundraising campaign to help the children of the world survive Covid-19.
The project will see the young activist partner with Denmark’s Human Act Foundation to pledge $100,000 each to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), which brings humanitarian aid to children around the globe, according to the Associated Press.
Though the Covid-19 outbreak has largely spared the young, Thunberg nonetheless dubbed the pandemic a “child-rights crisis” in a statement announcing the new initiative on Wednesday, calling on people everywhere to “step up and join me in support of UNICEF’s vital work to save children’s lives.”
Thunberg earned her bonafides as a climate soldier at the age of 15 after spearheading a school strike in her native Sweden to demand more aggressive action on climate change, but has since skyrocketed to worldwide fame, touring the planet to angrily lecture ‘adults’ on the dangers of petroleum-addiction.
Some critics might argue that the virus – given her vision of “climate action” at any cost – is achieving precisely what she has always dreamed of: curtailing production, grinding air travel to a halt, slashing carbon emissions and reducing air pollution. Yet Thunberg has now made it her job to take on the coronavirus pandemic as well, calling on the world to “tackle two crises at once.”
US President Donald Trump believes China “will do anything they can” to make him lose his re-election bid in November, pointing to Beijing's handling of the coronavirus outbreak that has killed over 60,000 Americans already.
Taking aim at Beijing, Trump told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that the country would prefer to see his Democratic rival Joe Biden take the Oval Office in November, stating it would pull out all the stops to see him win – though the former VP would first need to secure his party’s nomination.
China will do anything they can to have me lose this race.
The president has ramped up attacks on China in recent weeks, insisting it concealed information about the coronavirus in the early stages of the outbreak and has all but blamed the country for the health crisis. Asked whether he would use tariffs or debt write-offs to penalize Beijing, Trump refused to offer much detail, saying only that “we’re looking for what happened” and howto respond to the alleged "cover-up."
There are many things I can do
Beijing has maintained that it tackled the pandemic appropriately and that it shared information about the virus with the international community as soon as it was available. Chinese officials have also hit back at the US accusations, suggesting Washington’s handling of Covid-19 has been slow and ineffective, while warning against politicizing the global crisis.
Newly unsealed documents indicate that the FBI targeted former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn for prosecution, showing senior officials at the bureau discussing ways to ensnare him in a “perjury trap” before an interview.
The four pages of documents were unsealed by US District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan on Wednesday, revealing in handwritten notes and emails that the FBI’s goal in investigating Flynn may have been “to get him to lie so we can prosecute him or get him fired.”
“The FBI planned it as a perjury trap at best and in so doing put it in writing,” Flynn’s defense attorney Sidney Powell said in a statement.
Sullivan also ordered another 11 pages of documents unsealed, which, according to Powell , may soon be redacted and published.
How they planned to get Flynn removed:
1) Get Flynn “to admit to breaking the Logan Act”; or
2) Catch Flynn in a lie.
Their end goal was a referral to the DOJ - not to investigate Flynn's contacts with the Russians. pic.twitter.com/Vty3FYaSt9
The potentially exculpatory documents were inexplicably denied to Flynn’s defense team for years, despite numerous requests to the government.
“What is especially terrifying is that without the integrity of Attorney General Bill Barr and US Attorney Jensen, we still would not have this clear exculpatory information as ... the prosecutors have opposed every request we have made,” Powell said.
A tightly-packed funeral procession of Orthodox Jews attracted the ire of Bill de Blasio, but netizens had something to say about the mayor's own distancing policy and said his outburst had "invited anti-Semitism."
The New York City mayor tweeted his anger at members of Brooklyn's Jewish community who gathered on Tuesday night for the funeral of Rabbi Chaim Mertz. "My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed," he wrote.
Photos of the procession were circulated in the media, with many of the participants visibly defying social distancing rules, while others wore no face masks. De Blasio himself was at the scene as the NYPD dispersed the gathering.
Tipster says this is the Williamsburg funeral today of Rabbi Chaim Mertz who died from COVID-19 pic.twitter.com/wsTvCrlzpb
The mayor said he has instructed the police to issue summonses or even arrest anyone convening in large groups. "What I saw WILL NOT be tolerated so long as we are fighting the coronavirus," he wrote afterward.
While some believe De Blasio's demand looked legitimate in the middle of the Covid-19 epidemic that has killed nearly 23,000 New Yorkers do date, it still triggered a huge backlash online, with users accusing him of singling out Jews and even of being blatantly anti-Semitic.
"This has to be a joke. Did the Mayor of NYC really just single out one specific ethnic community (a community that has been the target of increasing hate crimes in HIS city) as being noncompliant?" asked Chaim Deutsch, who represents Orthodox Jews in the City Council.
Twitter users also recalled other initiatives by De Blasio that ran contrary to the strict social distancing policy that he is preaching.
Something absolutely unacceptable happened in Central Park: A large group of people gathered in Central Park. When #NYC Mayor #BillDeblasio heard about it, he went there himself to ensure the crowd was dispersed. Upon arrival, he saw that it's not #Jews so he left right away. pic.twitter.com/y0pVACJjAl
The Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council uploaded photos of scores of New Yorkers who flocked to the banks of the Hudson River on Tuesday to watch a spectacular fly-past by two aerobatic teams. The event, meant to honor health workers battling Covid-19, would probably not have made doctors too happy, as it brought people close to each other, increasing the risk of transmitting the virus.
PHOTO of @NYCMayor@BilldeBlasio failing to social distance moments ago in Williamsburg where people failed to social distance at a funeral the same day that thousands of New Yorkers failed to distance for 45 minutes to watch a flyover. pic.twitter.com/yvxy1aR6Vg
"Also, there are plenty of photos of people in ethnic groups violating the rules but how often do you mention them by name as done tonight to Jews?" the organization asked.
As the outrage mounted, certain users couldn't resist getting personal, calling de Blasio "literally Hitler" and "Nazi." Among them was the former Republican candidate for Congress DeAnna Lorraine who suggested the NYC mayor "has the Reich idea rounding up and arresting people."
De Blasio found himself in the middle of another controversy this week when he was spotted wandering around from Manhattan to Brooklyn with his wife. He acknowledged that it would be challenging for New Yorkers not to go out and enjoy warm weather during the Covid-19 quarantine before failing that challenge soon afterwards.
It will be impossible to host the Tokyo Olympic Games next year unless the coronavirus pandemic is contained, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Wednesday.
“The Olympic Games must be held in a way that shows the world has won its battle against the coronavirus pandemic,” Abe told parliament. “Otherwise, it will be hard to hold the Games,” Reuters quoted him as saying.
The prime minister was replying to a query from an opposition lawmaker whether Tokyo could host the Games next year, after this year’s delay caused by the pandemic.
The lower house of the Czech parliament has voted to extend a state of emergency until May 17 – a week less than the government had sought. The development comes as the country charts a course to emerge from a coronavirus lockdown earlier than forecast. PM Andrej Babis had asked for an extension until May 25 to be able to keep restrictions on business in place. The state of emergency was due to expire on April 30.
The government is reluctant to end the emergency early, even though it has already reopened some shops and services over the past week as the pace of new infections has declined. It now expects to restart the economy faster than previously forecast, although not in time for the deadline now set by parliament.
Babis said after the vote on Tuesday that the government would seek legal amendments to keep some restrictions in place after the state of emergency ends.
The Czech Republic has seen a drop in new cases to the lowest level in six weeks, with 41 new infections on Monday and a total of 7,486 on Tuesday afternoon, Reuters reports. The number of active cases declined from its peak to 4,319 on Tuesday.
While the UK has put all efforts into battling the epidemic of the novel coronavirus, cancer could claim up to 18,000 lives in England due to lack of diagnostics and treatment, a new study warns.
Delays in diagnosing and treating cancer could hurt the survival chances of thousands of people across England, joint research by University College London (UCL) and the Health Data Research Hub for Cancer (DATA-CAN) suggests. Scientists analyzed data from more than 3.5 million patients and discovered that the Covid-19 outbreak could indirectly lead to more than 17,900 extra cancer deaths within a year, including 6,270 fatal cases in newly diagnosed cancer patients.
The average drop in early cancer diagnosis referrals has already amounted to 76 percent, the study said, adding that chemotherapy attendance has also fallen by 60 percent in England.
“There are many factors operating here, including rapid changes to diagnosis and treatment protocols, social distancing measures, changes in people’s behavior in seeking medical attention, and [the] economic impact of Covid-19, as well as deaths due to Covid-19 infection,” said Professor Harry Hemingway, a senior author of the study and the director of UCL’s institute of health informatics.
The fact that people are reluctant to contact medics out of fear of contracting coronavirus even if they have some worrying symptoms also plays a role. A recent poll suggested that some 10 percent of people would not contact their general practitioners even if they had a lump or a new mole that didn’t disappear after a week.
One third of respondents were generally worried about seeking help during the epidemic. According to the scientists, this fact could also impact the projected mortality rate, particularly among cancer patients.
The developments prompted the National Health Service (NHS) to launch a campaign urging people with potentially serious illnesses to seek help and to attend hospitals when needed. Professor Peter Johnson, the NHS clinical director for cancer, also called on patients to contact medics and pointed to “Covid-free cancer hubs” providing necessary treatment in 19 areas across England.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK has meanwhile reached 162,350, according to Johns Hopkins University. More than 21,700 people have died from Covid-19 nationwide.
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A US warship was “expelled” from disputed South China Sea waters after Beijing’s navy scrambled fighter jets and naval assets to escort it away, accusing Washington of “provocative” actions at sea.
The USS 'Barry,' a guided missile destroyer, “trespassed” into Beijing’s territorial waters near the disputed Xisha Islands – also known as the Paracel Islands – on Tuesday, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy said in a statement. The incident marks the first time the navy “actively announced” an illegal trespass in the area, according to the Global Times.
A US warship trespassing into Chinese territorial waters off the Xisha Islands in the #SouthChinaSea on Tue could have potentially caused an accident, and the US should focus on controlling #COVID19 at home rather than destabilizing security and peace. https://t.co/QkmFVgfjo4pic.twitter.com/S4EhhVgYxi
“The US' provocative actions seriously violated international law and related norms, seriously violated Chinese sovereignty and security interests, and intentionally increased regional security risks,” said Senior Colonel Li Huamin, a spokesperson of the PLA Southern Theater Command, adding that the action could have led to an “accident.”
We urge the US side to focus on epidemic prevention and control on its homeland... and immediately stop military actions against regional security, peace and stability.
Earlier this week, the 'Barry' traversed the nearby Taiwan Strait in its second “routine transit” this month, the US Navy said, closely followed by a Chinese aircraft carrier on both occasions. American warships regularly “patrol” the Strait, as well as the South and East China seas, citing the need to protect “freedom of navigation,” but Beijing has repeatedly slammed the operations as infringing on its sovereignty.
Tensions between Washington and Beijing have seen a steep rise in recent weeks, with both sides trading accusations regarding the coronavirus pandemic and its origins. US officials, including President Donald Trump, claim that China concealed vital information in the early stages of the health crisis, even freezing funding for the World Health Organization over its supposed role in the cover-up. Beijing has hit back by insinuating that the US military may have had a hand in the original Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, while a number of Chinese officials have rejected the US allegations, insisting it shared information on the virus as soon as it was available.
Made up by some 40 islets and reefs, the Paracel Islands are claimed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan – which itself is also regarded by Beijing as its own territory – but since a short military confrontation over the archipelago with Vietnam in 1974, China has maintained control of the islands, which are now administered by the provincial government of Hainan. Washington, however, does not recognize Beijing’s territorial claim, considering the area around the island chain to be international waters.
