Month: August 2020

The ‘extremely dangerous’ Hurricane Laura made landfall early Thursday morning as a Category 4 near Cameron, Louisiana, with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph. The eye of the storm pushed inland across southwestern Louisiana around 3:00 ET, with “catastrophic storm surge, extreme winds, and flash flooding,” the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. 

Around 0500ET, the NHC downgraded Laura to a Category 3 storm with winds up to 120 mph. The storm is moving northward through Louisiana as an “unsurvivable storm surge with large and destructive waves” batters the region. 

NHC’s Latest Update

It’s too early to speculate the total dollar amount of damage caused by Laura. Still, with floodwaters expected to penetrate 40 miles inland and take “several days” to recede, it could be in the billions of dollars, like other major storms to hammer the region in recent years.

Storm Surge

Storm Surge Map

“Hurricane-force winds and widespread damaging wind gusts will continue to spread well inland into portions of extreme eastern Texas and western Louisiana through the day,” NHC said.

A 132 mile per hour wind gust was recorded at the Lake Charles Regional Airport within Hurricane #Laura‘s northeastern eye wall. pic.twitter.com/oxxaggURyt

— Andrew Gorton WTOC (@AndrewGortonWx) August 27, 2020

PowerOutage.US shows more than 300,000 customers are without power in Louisiana and a little more than 75,000 in Texas. 

Power Outages 

The storm is just north of Lake Charles and is moving north at 15 mph.

Significant damage is being reported in Downtown Lake Charles. 

Breaking news major damage in Downtown Lake Charles many skyscrapers have blown out winds.
Some of the building may be total losses.
Many roof off massive flying debris. @NWSLakeCharles #lawx #HurricaneLaura pic.twitter.com/s9EgeDtz43

— Jeff Piotrowski (@Jeff_Piotrowski) August 27, 2020

NEW: buildings completely gutted, glass falling everywhere in downtown Lake Charles, LA in the eye of #HurricaneLaura @RadarOmega_WX pic.twitter.com/o1nkGLgUiB

— Reed Timmer (@ReedTimmerAccu) August 27, 2020

Watch what happened at 5:15 in @Jeff_Piotrowski‘s broadcast: Breaking news Hurricane Laura. Lake Charles

This is insane. https://t.co/W5gH2mYNm3

— Magpie Rose (@MagpieRose9) August 27, 2020

Golden Nugget Lake Charles is damaged.

TAKE A LOOK: #HurricaneLaura ripped away chunks off the roof at the Golden Nugget Lake Charles Hotel & Casino. https://t.co/TgY7DtAAwl pic.twitter.com/gHPedDkBjO

— KETK NEWS (@KETK) August 27, 2020

Forecast flooding depths in Lake Charles. 

Excellent but terrifying graphics showing forecast flooding depths in Lake Charles Louisiana as a result of #HurricaneLaura pic.twitter.com/v4JsupIk6y

— Dave Throup (@DaveThroupEA) August 27, 2020

More widespread damage is being reported around Lake Charles.

Damage is widespread in Lake Charles. It’s also very difficult to get around due to all of the downed power lines and trees. The interstates have multiple blockages of power lines and light poles with the smaller roads even worse. #HurricaneLaura #lawx pic.twitter.com/TSA5OY6sM4

— Brian Emfinger (@brianemfinger) August 27, 2020

NEW: A look at some of the damage being found around Lake Charles after Hurricane Laura made landfall nearby as a Cat 4 storm. Roofs of buildings torn off, trucks toppled, debris and trees all over. @WPTV pic.twitter.com/ujlp3ZMgX7

— Erica Rakow (@EricaRakow) August 27, 2020

A piece of the Lake Charles skyline has collapsed, here is a view of the KPLC tower. Photo credit to Charlie Haldeman of ABC 13 in Houston. #lawx pic.twitter.com/N908vVP4Qm

— Zack Fradella (@ZackFradellaWx) August 27, 2020

The long-term model tracker shows the storm could arrive in the Mid-Atlantic region by Saturday afternoon. 

Despite last night’s announcement from the DoJ that Jacob Blake had a knife stashed in his car, bolstering the officers’ claims that he appeared to be reaching for the weapon when he was shot, NBA players are ready to scrap the whole season as they’re swept up in yet another protest movement for “social justice”.

As we recounted yesterday, it all began Wednesday afternoon when the Milwaukee Bucks (the team closest to Kenosha) announced that the team would be boycotting Game 5 of its first-round playoff series against the Orlando Magic. After they moved, the rest of the league swiftly followed as players scrambled to evade the wrath of the ‘cancel culture’ police, ready as ever to brand any who resist with the scarlet letter of “insufficient woke-ness.”

A late-night meeting between players, coaches and the league ensued, and according to Deadline Hollywood, it didn’t go nearly as well as the owners had probably hoped. The Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers (which still carries the stain of having once been owned by a man outed as a notorious racist) both reportedly voted to end the season without continuing.

Since most NBA players are working men who are operating under the same financial pressures as ordinary people (though they lack the platform of somebody like a Lebron James), the rest of the teams in the league pushed back, arguing that the season should be allowed to continue.

According to Deadline, the end result is that the meeting “failed to reach a consensus” (whatever happened to a majority or super-majority?) and thus the fate of the 2020 post-season is still in jeopardy.

Of course, this isn’t the first time the league’s star players have tried to scuttle the season in the name of “social justice” (preserving their brand). Before teams arrived in the Orlando, Florida “bubble” where they’ve been playing, Brooklyn Nets superstar Kyrie Irving moved to try and boycott the rest of the season (of course, some pedantic leftists are really out there on twitter arguing that the proper terminology is a “strike” not a boycott).

It’s a strike, not a boycott. Words have meaning.

— Franklin Leonard (@franklinleonard) August 26, 2020

Lol. Since when? But we digress…

Despite Irving’s efforts, the NBA players decided to forge ahead. 

But now that the players have been locked up for weeks with their WAGs on restriction and a raft of eliminations coming soon, understandably, the mood has probably shifted somewhat. Still, the majority appear to still support continuing on with the post-season.

LeBron James reportedly walked out of last night’s meeting, prompting the rest of the Lakers players to leave with him.

Sources: Miami’s Udonis Haslem spoke and essentially told everyone in room that — without Lakers and Clippers, how will season continue?

LeBron James walked out. Rest of Lakers and Clippers exited behind him.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) August 27, 2020

Because in contemporary America, it’s not enough to be a sports legend. You need to be an activist, a designer, a speaker, an author and a politician, too.

Of course, the financial repercussions should the season be cancelled will undoubtedly total into the billions, and with the league likely to reject the player’s collective bargaining agreement if the season falls through, it could leave the league with a lockout on its hands as we head into next season.

Now that what had once looked like a plausible career risk has transformed into a geopolitical minefield, TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer, who left Disney earlier this year to take the reins at the social media upstart, has announced his resignation.

Instead of offering up boilerplate about “spending more time with family”, Mayer acknowledged in a letter to staff that the political environment had made his job untenable.

In a message sent on Wednesday to staff at TikTok, Mayer said as the political environment has “sharply changed,” he has reflected on what kind of corporate restructuring may be coming for the company, concluding that it was best for him to depart.

“I want to be clear that this decision has nothing to do with the company, what I see for our future, or the belief I have in what we are building,” Mayer wrote in his message, which TikTok shared with NPR.

“I understand that the role that I signed up for — including running TikTok globally — will look very different as a result of the US Administration’s action to push for a sell off of the US business,” Mayer said.

Without direct knowledge, nobody can say for certain what kind of pressure Mayer was under, but with the Trump Administration pressuring ByteDance to sell TikTok to a US buyer – and Beijing urging the company to resist – we’re almost surprised that it took him this long.

Of course, his departure doesn’t exactly bode well for the prospects of a deal. Mayer was brought in earlier this year in an effort by ByteDance to placate US regulators and show them that California-based TikTok really was walled off from the rest of China-centered ByteDance (the company is now trying to move the headquarters to London from California, though some British lawmakers are resisting the move).

Trump has signed two executive order pertaining to TikTok, both of which essentially bar American companies from dealing with the social media giant and its owner unless the business is sold to an American company.

Trump’s first order, signed on Aug. 6, outlaws business transactions between American citizens and ByteDance, a move that the Trump administration says arose out of concern for national security. The order would effectively ban TikTok from the US, starting a countdown clock that would expire 45 days after the order was signed.

In the second executive order, Trump signed on Aug. 14, TikTok was ordered to sell all of its US assets within 90 days, which extended the countdown to doomsday. TikTok is also being sued in the US for allegedly stealing data from minors, something that federal regulators have also taken an interest in.

However, despite the horrible optics of his departure, Mayer assured employees that a resolution to TikTok’s predicament would be announced “very soon”, and that its future is “incredibly bright.”

In a statement, TikTok said: “We appreciate that the political dynamics of the last few months have significantly changed what the scope of Kevin’s role would be going forward, and fully respect his decision. We thank him for his time at the company and wish him well.”

 

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

As riots and unrest continue to dominate the headlines, a new poll has found that almost as many American voters now view violent crime as an important election issue compared to coronavirus, something that is likely to help President Trump.

While cities like Portland have seen riots on a nightly basis for a virtually unbroken time period, the mayhem has now spread to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where two people were fatally shot last night.

The bedlam is now reflected in the polls, with Americans becoming increasingly concerned about law and order.

“A sizable 59 percent of voters in the survey indicate that violent crime, which President Trump has framed as happening in Democrat-controlled cities, is a “very important” factor in casting their ballots,” writes Rusty Weiss.

He cites a Pew poll which found that coronavirus has dropped to the fourth most important issue with 63 percent concerned.

“A new Pew survey found that violent crime is now the fifth-most important issue for votes, with 59% listing it as ‘very important’ to their vote. For context, it’s nearly as important to Americans as the coronavirus, which ranks fourth with 63%”https://t.co/25M33A3GVy

— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) August 24, 2020

When broken down along party lines, 74 percent of Trump supporters view violent crime as an important issue compared to 46 percent of likely Biden voters.

As we highlighted earlier, CNN host Don Lemon appears to be worried that the relentless riots and unrest that have plagued American cities for the last three months are aiding Trump.

“I think Democrats are ignoring this problem or hoping that it will go away…Joe Biden may be afraid to do it…He’s got to address it. He’s got to come out and talk about it,” said Lemon.

A CNN poll taken earlier this month also found that Biden’s lead over Trump had dropped 10 points since early June.

Meanwhile, the public’s diminishing concern about coronavirus also appears to be helping President Trump’s approval rating in the polls.

A new poll released today that was taken immediately after the DNC found that “Trump had a 48% approval rating and a 52% disapproval rating among likely voters in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.”

This compares with a 46%/54% approve/disapprove split two weeks ago, when fears about COVID-19 were slightly higher.

*  *  *

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Approximately 3,700 Swedes received false-positive COVID-19 tests due to a faulty testing kit from China, according to the Reuters, citing a Tuesday statement by Sweden’s Public Health Agency – which said that the kit was unable to distinguish between a very low level of the virus and a negative result.

“The supplier must adjust the performance that is required for this test to be used,” said the agency’s head microbiologist, Karin Tegmark Wiselll, who added that the test kit has been widely exported to other countries.

BGI Genomics, two of whose subsidiaries are on a U.S. economic blacklist of companies implicated in human rights violations regarding China’s treatment of Uighurs, could not immediately be reached for comment.

It received emergency use authorization from U.S. authorities for its coronavirus testing kits in March and got an Emergency Use Listing from the World Health Organization in May. -Reuters

The agency was unable to say how many tests had been done using the kit, but that the 3,700 false positives were a ‘minority of cases,’ and occurred when the virus is at very low levels. The Chinese test kits had only a marginal effect on Sweden’s COVID-19 statistics according to the report.

Sweden has had 86,891 confirmed infections and 5,814 deaths from the virus, according to the agency. Of note, deaths, infections and ICU admissions have been falling in recent weeks as the government explores easing their already-lax coronavirus restrictions, such as large public gatherings over 50 people and sporting events.

Via AlMasdarNews.com,

A British soldier of Yemeni descent is under investigation by the Royal Military Police for protesting the arms sales to Saudi Arabia and ongoing war in Yemen.

According to Declassified U.K., the British soldier, who was identified as Ahmed Al-Babti, said: “I’d rather sleep peacefully in a cell than stay silent for a paycheck.”

Babati was reportedly filmed outside the Ministry of Defense building in London on Monday before he was apprehended by the Royal Military Police.

Declassified U.K. said the Ministry of Defense has not commented on the matter.

However, the publication said Babati was filmed in his combat fatigues, saying that he was born in Yemen and joined the British Army in 2017.

“Yemen is facing the worst humanitarian crisis… due to years of war. This proxy war is led by Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia are responsible for multiple airstrikes, killing innocents, targeting hospitals and breaking international law. Saudi Arabia are also responsible for blocking aid from going into the country,” Babati said.

“This has left 80% of the population in need of emergency aid. That’s 24 million people in need of emergency aid. Yet our government continues to arm and support Saudi Arabia. We tried to make our voices heard by protesting in London, Manchester, Liverpool and many other cities. We’ve even tried to email our MPs, but clearly our words mean nothing to Boris Johnson,” he continued.

“And it’s clear this government has blood on their hands, so with that being said I refuse to continue my military service until the arms trade with Saudi Arabia has been put to an end. It is reported that a child dies every 10 minutes in Yemen, so I’ll be standing outside 10 Downing Street blowing a whistle every 10 minutes so that they can hear every time a child dies due to a war they continue to arm and support,” he added.

Police have launched an investigation after al-Babati staged a public protest opposite Downing Street.

The British army has killed many Arabs/Muslims, even before the Yemen war. Remember Iraq…#Yemen #YemenCantWait #YemeniLivesMatter https://t.co/Wwl9j2kVpO

— Robert Carter (@Bob_cart124) August 25, 2020

Saudi Arabia, along with the United Arab Emirates and several other Arab states, have been actively intervening in Yemen, often carrying out airstrikes over several densely populated cities, including the capital, Sana’a, and historical areas inside the Sa’ada Governorate.

Germany’s University of Fine Arts in Hamburg is offering “idleness grants” to applicants who can convince them they’d make the best of their “active inactivity,” according to The Guardian.

Three €1,600 (US$1900) scholarships will be awarded to applicants from across the country, who will need to convince a jury that their “active inactivity” will result in an impressive or relevant use of their time.

The application form – which has a deadline of September 15, asks just four questions; What do you not want to do? For how long do you not want to do it? Why is it important not to do this thing in particular? Why are you the right person not to do it?

“Doing nothing isn’t very easy,” said Friedrich von Borries, an architect and design theorist who came up with the programme. “We want to focus on active inactivity. If you say you are not going to move for a week, then that’s impressive. If you propose you are not going to move or think, that might be even better.”

The idea behind the project arose from a discussion about the seeming contradiction of a society that promotes sustainability while simultaneously valuing success, Von Borries said. “This scholarship programme is not a joke but an experiment with serious intentions – how can you turn a society that is structured around achievements and accomplishments on its head?” –The Guardian

Upon the delivery of an “experience report” in mid-January of next year, the university’s bursary will hand out the grants. According to von Borries, if awardees fail to live up to their planned “inactivity,” they won’t be punished. So, laziness all around.

“If you say you are not going to sleep, then you can only do that for a couple of days,” he said, adding “But if you say you are not going to shop then that’s something you could sustain for a lot longer.”

So, applicants are encouraged to set realistic goals.

Once the applications are in, they will be included in a November exhibition named The School of Inconsequentiality: Towards A Better Life, which will revolve around the question: “What can I refrain from so that my life has fewer negative consequences on the lives of others?”