The New York Yankees have had another positiveCOVID-19 test, this one involving a staff member, manager Aaron Boone said before their game against the Orioles on Sunday.
Boone did not identify the staff member, saying he was part of the team’s support staff. Another staff member was not available because of contact tracing.
The Yankees have had nine total positives within the traveling party since Monday—three coaches, five staffers and shortstop Gleyber Torres.
“We’re just doing the best we can with it,” Boone said. “Fortunately, he’s another one that feels good. So we’ll just continue to try and be vigilant and handle it as best we can.”
The Yankees will have another staff member travel with the team to Texas. The latest staff member that tested positive is being quarantined in Baltimore.
New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone (C) watches batting practice before a baseball game against the Tampa Bay Rays, in St. Petersburg, Fla., on May 11, 2021. (Steve Nesius/AP Photo)
Last week, the Yankees revealed that Torres tested positive for the coronavirus despite being fully vaccinated and previously having COVID-19. He is quarantining in Tampa, Florida.
Adeel Raja contributed to CNN for seven years after tweeting ‘Hail Hitler’
CNN says it cut ties with a writer who took to social media to praise Adolf Hitler, but his admiration for the Nazi leader who killed more than six million Jews was well-established prior to this weekend’s post.
Adeel Raja, a Pakistani-based CNN contributor whose byline has appeared on the network’s website at least 54 times, wrote on Sunday in a now-deleted post, “The world today needs a Hitler.” CNN said Sunday night that due to Raja’s “abhorrent statements,” he would “not be working with CNN again in any capacity.”
Raja’s Sunday post, however, is just one of several praising Hitler and criticizing Israel in vitriolic terms. In other tweets, such as one during the World Cup in 2014, Raja wrote, “The only reason I am supporting Germany in the finals is—Hitler was a German and he did good with those jews [sic]!” In another 2014 tweet, Raja said, “Hail Hitler.”
(The American Conservative) COVID, whatever its origins, presents an opportunity to talk about risks and benefits in scientific experiments.
In theory, gain-of-function research prevents pandemics. Scientists subject pathogens to adaptive pressures, novel environments, animal experiments, protein modifications, and the like to see in action how they go about becoming dangerous to human beings. It’s supposed to keep us one step ahead of the enemy, knowing their tricks before they can use them, seeing mutations before they’ve happened, so that we prevent those conditions from occurring in the wild and can rapidly develop vaccines and treatments for viruses we’ve never seen before. It’s heroic “blue sky” research, the kind you do just because of what it might produce.
In practice, gain-of-function experiments are an established, sexy-sounding way to use a lab. You’re dealing with live pathogens, so it’s obviously dangerous, which means you need to use the best equipment and best practices that make the highest biosafety levels. You need funding. You’re a research scientist and want to get published, and producing and observing a potential pandemic virus is a sure way for you to have something to write about. The more it could kill, the cooler, right? Bet the money and recognition will come pouring in. Scientists are only human.
In theoretical practice, gain-of-function research is something you do as a matter of course, wherever they’ll let you do it, as long as there’s funding. Maintaining the highest standards for biosafety levels is hard, and since you would never be so stupid as to make a mistake, you can cut some corners. Besides, suiting up is not only annoying and uncomfortable; it makes it actually more difficult to conduct the experiments. That’s where the error will come from, right? You’re actually doing better, even safer science, skipping some steps. Yes, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a global leader in research on coronaviruses, has a biosafety level four lab, but its labs also mostly operate at a comfortable and efficient biosafety level two.
I said theoretical practice, because we don’t know. But leading scientists, and science journalists, and your smart friends, all think it’s worth investigating whether the long-named thing we call COVID-19 here leaked from a Wuhan Institute of Virology laboratory. “The science” on this is decidedly not settled. That was the point 18 virologists, epidemiologists, and the like made in a letter in Science journal Thursday, writing, “Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable. Knowing how COVID-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks.” That was the point former NYT science writer Nicholas Wade made in a must-read survey of what we do know about the origins of this pandemic for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
At the time of publication, however, Raja’s account still contains pro-Adolf Hitler messages including comments about how the Nazi leader “did good with the Jews”:
Raja has been cited as an author on several CNN articles, with the network’s Spanish-language edition giving him an author page. Most of Raja’s work focuses on international and domestic news related to Pakistan.
New variants of the COVID-19 – including a fourth blamed for a surge of infections in India – have raised concerns worldwide that vaccines may be rendered ineffective, restoring lockdowns.
The World Health Organization’s lead coronavirus adviser, Maria Van Kerkhove, has warned of evidence suggesting variants first identified in the U.K., South Africa and Brazil display “increased transmissibility.”
But a prominent virologist cited in an article published by MIT Technology Review affirms the conclusion of other researchers that “the virus hasn’t fundamentally changed,” reports PJ Media’s Stephen Kruiser.
The scientist is Kartik Chandran of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.
Another virologist, Thomas Friedrich of the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, said vaccines may become less effective over time, but there’s no evidence the world is on the brink of catastrophe.
“I don’t think that there’s an imminent danger that we’re going to go back to square one,” he said. “We should be concerned, but not freaked out.”
The general assembly of the Church of Scotland soon will be reviewing a plan to drop the terms “husband and wife” from its marriage ceremonies.
It’s that sometimes, well, these days there’s no husband, or wife, because the church is planning to dive headlong into affirming same-sex duos.
The Christian Institute described the plan as “radical,” and noted later this month the leaders of the religious organization will consider a specific plan to kill references to “husband and wife.”
Three years ago, the church’s leaders approved a plan 345-170 to have the Legal Questions Committee suggest new language.
Currently, the church’s marriage ceremonies explain, “the parties covenant together to take each other as husband and wife as long as they both shall live, and the minister declares the parties to be husband and wife.”
The world’s most prominent cryptocurrency, bitcoin, has the potential to reach $100,000 in the current bull cycle despite the growing uncertainty and volatility, says Lyn Alden, the founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy.
“We are seeing a lot of froth throughout the industry,” the analyst told Cointelegraph, referring to the latest rally of several meme coins such as Dogecoin. “Those are kind of warning signs for the cycle,” Alden added.
With the bull run slowing down and the growing risks of a correction, it makes sense for some investors to take some money off the table and put it into some other assets, Alden explained. “For people who would have trouble with drawdowns or periods of volatility, it can make sense to rebalance.”
Alden said she remains bullish on the strong fundamentals of the bitcoin network: “I have a pretty high conviction on it. And so, I’m fine with maintaining a pretty large position.”
Despite a number of altcoins outperforming bitcoin this year, it is nowhere near losing its leading position in the crypto market. Most altcoins didn’t manage to sustain the same degree of growth throughout multiple business cycles, Alden added.
Last month, there were more than 173,000 illegal aliens detained at our southern border. If they were unaccompanied children, they were allowed to stay in a DHS shelter for a few days until room opened in another shelter run by HHS. If they were families with children, they got even luckier. Chances are very good they were released into the United States with a slip of paper with a court date written on it.
But in addition to those detained, there were at least 40,000 “got aways” at the border. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) revealed the shocking fact at a Senate hearing this past week and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas did not dispute it.
A “known got away” is “an unlawful border crosser who is directly or indirectly observed making an unlawful entry into the United States” who is not apprehended and who does not turn back into Mexico.
Once they get a few miles from the border, these got-aways are pretty much free and clear of any border patrol action.
Of course, that number doesn’t include the thousands of illegals who enter the U.S. completely under the radar. Earlier this month, police pulled over a semi truck carrying 50 illegals and the passengers scooted away. Most of them were eventually caught but how many semi-trucks coming over the border every month with illegals make it through without being detected? There are a dozen ways that coyotes bring their customers across the border and avoid detection. That 40,000 number is only a fraction of the got-aways.
These aren’t people who are seeking asylum (if they were, they would turn themselves in). Rather, as Portman put it: “We have no idea who these individuals are.” As saliently, the United States and DHS have no idea where they are from, where they are going, or what their intentions are.
Keep in mind that the more than 40,000 got-aways in April were in addition to more than 173,000 migrants that agents at the Southwest border did apprehend last month, a 21-year high.
And, to give you some perspective, the more than 40,000 got-aways last month are almost as many aliens as Border Patrol actually did apprehend at the Southwest border in the first three full months — February to April — of the Trump administration (February to April 2017, 42,076), combined.
The U.S. has decided to withdraw 120 troops from Israel amid the increase of violence throughout the region involving an abundance of rocket exchanges.
The Pentagon announced the news on Thursday, citing recent missile strikes and lack of commercial flights as catalysts for the decision. Pentagon officials have said the move was ordered out of extreme caution.
U.S. military troops were in Israel for an upcoming military exercise, but have since been flown into Germany to await their impending journey home. The withdrawal comes days after Israel announced they had deployed ground forces near the Gaza Strip to quell the violence between Israel and Palestine.
Acting director of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency Brandon Wales warned lawmakers that more ransomware attacks are on the horizon. In an appearance before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday, Wales cited the SolarWinds hack last year which he said should have acted as a wake-up call to the danger that was to come.
This after the Colonial Pipeline was shut down earlier this month after a suspected Russian ransomware attack blocked its computer systems sending gas prices soaring across the Southeastern U.S.
“Cyber attacks on our nation’s infrastructure are growing more sophisticated, frequent and aggressive. Wales voiced his concerns stating, “malicious cyber actors today are dedicating time and resources towards researching, stealing and exploiting vulnerabilities…using more complex attacks to avoid detection and developing new techniques to target information and communications in supply chains.”
