NYT's - Leaked Documents Suggest Ukrainian Air Defense Is in Peril if Not Reinforced

A huge influx of munitions is needed to keep Russia’s air force from changing the course of the war, according to U.S. officials and newly leaked Pentagon documents.

WASHINGTON — For more than a year, Ukrainian air defenses, reinforced by Western weaponry, have kept Russian planes at bay.
But without a huge influx of munitions, Ukraine’s entire air defense network, weakened by repeated barrages from Russian drones and missiles, could fracture, according to U.S. officials and newly leaked Pentagon documents, potentially allowing President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to unleash his lethal fighter jets in ways that could change the course of the war.

In the early days of the invasion, Russian aircraft flew hundreds of combat flights to bomb targets in Ukraine. But a combination of quick thinking by Ukrainian commanders and poor intelligence and bad aim by Russian pilots left many of Ukraine’s warplanes and air defenses intact, preventing Moscow from gaining control of the skies above the battlefield and forcing Russia to keep much of its air force out of the fight.

Now Pentagon officials are worried that Moscow’s barrage of attacks from afar is draining Ukraine’s stores of the missiles it uses to defend itself. And a Pentagon assessment from late February contained in the trove of leaked documents that were discovered circulating online last week paints an even grimmer picture. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/us/politics/leaked-documents-ukrainian-air-defense.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

French Protesters storm Blackrock

The Telagraph
“Dozens of trade unionists invaded the offices of US-based investment firm BlackRock in protest against Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms on Thursday.

Members of the railway worker’s union set off firecrackers in the atrium of the Centorial building near the capital’s Grands Boulevards, filling it with smoke. “

Florida braces for 5,000-mile-wide stinky seaweed blob -- and a toxic algae bloom

A toxic algae bloom known as a red tide has been killing fish along the Gulf Coast and southern Florida, kicking up the stench of decay.

Now, a massive blob of seaweed twice as wide as the U.S. is drifting across the Atlantic Ocean and could wash ashore in Florida in the coming months, creating an even bigger mess. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/florida-braces-for-5000-mile-wide-stinky-seaweed-blob-and-a-toxic-algae-bloom/ar-AA18LxPJ

(it’s twice as big as the USA & it doubles EVERY month. Expected in July so HOW BIG will it be in July?)

Over on CBS news they just reported double billing by Wuhan Lab to US

The U.S. government may have made duplicate payments for projects at labs in Wuhan, China, through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), according to records reviewed by CBS News.

"What I've found so far is evidence that points to double billing, potential theft of government funds. It is concerning, especially since it involves dangerous pathogens and risky research," said Diane Cutler, a former federal investigator with over two decades of experience combating white-collar crime and healthcare fraud.”


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-government-agencies-may-have-been-double-billed-projects-wuhan-china-records-indicate-probe/

Adam Schiff on Silicon Valley Bank

Fauci on CNN - could be manipulated " a bit"

Fauci on CNN Newsroom

JUST IN – Fauci Now Says A Lab Leak Could Still Be Considered As Coming From Natural Origins

"A lab leak could be that someone was out in the wild maybe looking for different types of viruses in bats, got infected, went into a lab, and was being studied in a lab, and then came out of the lab. But if that's the definition of lab leak, then that's still a natural occurrence.

The other possibility is someone takes a virus from the environment that doesn't actually spread very well in humans, and manipulates it a bit, and accidentally it escapes or accidentally infects someone and then you get an outbreak.”

'Potential lab incident': FBI director Wray speaks publicly for 1st time on COVID-19 origin The FBI

'Potential lab incident': FBI director Wray speaks publicly for 1st time on COVID-19 origin
The FBI has assessed the virus "most likely" came from a Chinese lab leak.

FBI director Christopher Wray on Tuesday spoke publicly for the first time on the bureau's assessment that the COVID-19 virus "most likely" originated from a potential lab incident in Wuhan, China.https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/potential-lab-incident-fbi-director-wray-speaks-publicly/story?id=97535563

east-palestine-animal-death-toll-reaches-43700-after-train-derailment

An estimated 43,700-plus aquatic animals in East Palestine, Ohio, died following the train derailment there earlier this month.
Mary Mertz, the director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said in a virtual press conference that consulting group EnviroScience surveyed four different sites to calculate Thursday’s new figure — which marked a disturbing climb from last week’s count of 3,500 dead aquatic animals.
She added that the Environmental Protection Agency had warned her staff that it was “too dangerous to enter the water without specialized gear” after the derailment on Feb. 3.https://www.huffpost.com/entry/east-palestine-animal-death-toll-reaches-43700-after-train-derailment_n_63f8f4ffe4b0735bf8778cab

Reuters - "FDA, CDC see early signal of Pfizer bivalent COVID shot's link to stroke

No problem with Moderna

(Reuters) -A safety monitoring system flagged that U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech's updated COVID-19 shot could be linked to a type of brain stroke in older adults, according to preliminary data analyzed by U.S. health authorities.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Friday that a CDC vaccine database had uncovered a possible safety issue in which people 65 and older were more likely to have an ischemic stroke 21 days after receiving the Pfizer/BioNTech bivalent shot, compared with days 22-44.

An ischemic stroke, also known as brain ischemia, is caused by blockages in arteries that carry blood to the brain.

The FDA and CDC said that other large studies, the CDC's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, other countries' databases and Pfizer-BioNTech's databases had not flagged this safety issue, adding that it requires more investigation. https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/u-s-fda-cdc-see-early-signal-of-pfizer-bivalent-covid-shot-s-link-to-stroke/ar-AA16kqXg

Warning on XBB.1.5 by prof of immunology at Yale