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An investigation by The New York Times published in March 2021 found that for years, the Strategic National Stockpile was heavily weighted toward protecting against bioterror attacks; throughout most of the past decade, nearly half its budget was spent on the anthrax vaccine. At the same time, China made half the world’s masks before the coronavirus emerged there, and the country was hoarding them.
The Biden administration promised to correct the stockpile’s deficiencies. At a Senate hearing last week, Dawn O’Connell, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services, said the stockpile now had 737 million N95 masks, all from domestic manufacturers.
Lisa O’Connor, the former chief nursing officer at Boston Medical Center, said she was concerned that distributing stockpile assets to the public would put health care workers at risk.
“This precious resource should be in the hands of health care providers only, which has been the practice and guidance for 20 years,” said Ms. O’Connor, who is now a health care consultant at FTI Consulting.
But Ms. O’Connell told senators last week that the government was soliciting proposals from companies that have the ability to produce 141 million N95 masks per month in a crisis and that would be able to manufacture them at a much lower rate when demand is lower.
The idea is for the stockpile to “keep this capacity that we currently have going,” she said, “even when demand diminishes.”
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/19/health/biden-free-n95-masks.html
Hamas has largely remained on the sidelines in the fighting in Gaza on Saturday, raising the chances that the current round of cross-border violence could be contained in both scope and duration.
The leader of Hamas’s political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, has made noncommittal statements, saying that Israel bears full responsibility for the latest escalation without elaborating on Hamas’s own intentions.
One reason may be jobs. Since the last major Gaza conflict in May of last year, Israel has shifted its policy toward Gaza in what officials have described as an effort to keep the peace, offering economic incentives to the 2 million civilians in the coastal enclave and raising the stakes for Hamas should it decide to join the hostilities.
Israeli security officials have issued thousands of permits to Gaza residents allowing them to enter Israel daily to work in agriculture and construction. About 14,000 Palestinian laborers from Gaza have been working in Israel over the past few months, the largest number since Hamas gained control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, and Israel has promised to raise the number to 20,000.
Beyond that economic incentive, the Israeli military also has been warning of the dire consequences of another major round of fighting in Gaza. Military officials have publicized what they describe as intelligence reports showing Hamas tunnels and other military infrastructure constructed in the heart of Gaza’s residential areas, suggesting civilian casualties would be almost unavoidable in a military campaign.
In addition to the job permits, Israel also has allowed improvements in recent months that have enlarged the water and electricity supply in Gaza and expanded the capacity for imports and exports.
More medical equipment has been imported, and exports of agricultural produce from Gaza and its fisheries, textile and furniture industries have nearly doubled in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year, military officials said.
But in recent days, as Islamic Jihad threatened to retaliate from Gaza for Israel’s arrest of one of the group’s senior commanders in the West Bank, Israel closed the border crossings, preventing the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza. Israeli residents living close to the border were effectively placed under a curfew, with all roads closed in the areas close to Gaza.
Maj. Gen. Ghasan Alyan, the head of the military agency responsible for liaising on civilian matters in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, conveyed a stark message to Hamas on Friday, outlining the choice it faces regarding supporting Islamic Jihad or staying out of this round of fighting.
“The responsibility rests with Hamas,” he said, in a video released on the agency’s Arabic Facebook page. “Is it more concerned with helping the residents of Gaza, or with helping dissident organizations?”
Hamas’s decision to remain on the sidelines so far was reminiscent of a short round of cross-border fighting in 2019. That cycle, too, opened with an Israeli airstrike that killed a senior Islamic Jihad commander, Baha Abu al-Ata, along with his wife, Asmaa Abu al-Ata, and prompted Islamic Jihad to fire hundreds of rockets into Israel.
Over the next two days, Israel killed 34 people in Gaza, including about two dozen militants and several children. But Hamas chose not to join in, containing the scope of the hostilities.
By contrast, it was Hamas that initiated the last major Gaza conflagration in May 2021, when it fired a barrage of rockets toward Jerusalem after weeks of rising Israeli-Palestinian tensions and clashes in the contested city.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/08/06/world/israel-gaza-fighting-airstrikes
A cruise ship headed to Miami changed course and is now docked in the Bahamas after an arrest warrant was issued by U.S. authorities over unpaid fuel bills, CBS News reported.
A Miami-based federal judge on Thursday issued an arrest warrant for the Crystal Cruises’ Crystal Symphony cruise ship, according to USA Today.
Peninsula Petroleum Far East (PPFE) filed a lawsuit against Crystal Cruises and Star Cruises seeking $4.6 million in unpaid bills, $1.2 million from the Crystal Symphony vessel alone.
According to a complaint filed by PPFE on Wednesday, the company wants the Crystal Symphony ship to be sold to pay off about $1.2 million in claims.
Judge Darrin Gayles of the U.S. District Court of Southern Florida approved the arrest warrant on Friday, USA Today reported.
The cruise ship is currently docked at the Bahamian island of Bimini, CBS News noted. Ship passengers were taken by ferry to Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday.
Various news outlets reported that the vessel had between 300-700 passengers on it before docking.
Crystal Cruises announced earlier this week that it will suspend operations through late April due to the eventual closure of its parent company, Genting Hong Kong, according to USA Today.
Elio Pace, a performer on the cruise, told USA Today that he heard rumors about the parent company’s financial troubles before boarding the ship.
“I cannot tell you if I’m going to get paid for this week, let alone for the contracts that are supposed to run until the 23rd of February,” Pace said. “(If) I’m in that predicament, I can guarantee you that everybody else on this ship — the crew and the staff — are in exactly the same predicament.”
Source Article from https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/590993-cruise-ship-bound-for-miami-changes-course-after-us-arrest-warrant
The Jan. 6 insurrection
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection has held a series of high-profile hearings throughout the summer: Find Day 8′s highlights and analysis.
Congressional hearings: The House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol has conducted a series of hearings to share its findings with the U.S. public. The eighth hearing focused on Trump’s inaction on Jan. 6. Here’s a guide to the biggest moments so far.
Will there be charges? The committee could make criminal referrals of former president Donald Trump over his role in the attack, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said in an interview.
What we know about what Trump did on Jan. 6: New details emerged when Hutchinson testified before the committee and shared what she saw and heard on Jan. 6.
The riot: On Jan. 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. Five people died on that day or in the immediate aftermath, and 140 police officers were assaulted.
Inside the siege: During the rampage, rioters came perilously close to penetrating the inner sanctums of the building while lawmakers were still there, including former vice president Mike Pence. The Washington Post examined text messages, photos and videos to create a video timeline of what happened on Jan. 6.
Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/21/lindsey-graham-trump-grand-jury-georgia/