NETHERLANDS
Airport deploys pigs
Pigs have been drafted in to combat a hazard in the skies above the runways of Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. A six-week pilot project is studying whether a small herd can deter flocks of geese and other birds attracted to discarded sugar beet on nearby farmland. The 19 pigs have been enjoying life on a 2 hectare plot between two runways, turning a field of crop residue into a muddy haven and eating the food that attracts the birds, which can collide with planes and in the worst cases even get sucked into engines. “Geese like beet, and when it’s left on the fields, they flock to eat it,” said Stan Gloudemans, co-owner of a small-scale outdoor piggery that provided the animals. “Over there are 30 geese enjoying the beet, but those geese are a danger to aircraft. Here, the pigs have eaten up the beet so the geese stay away.”
UNITED STATES
Doctors test positive
Seven doctors who attended a Florida event this month at which treatments for COVID-19 were discussed developed symptoms of the disease within days. “I have been on ivermectin for 16 months, my wife and I,” Bruce Boros told the audience at the World Equestrian Center in Ocala, adding: “I have never felt healthier in my life.” The 71-year-old cardiologist tested positive for COVID-19 two days later, event organizer John Littell said. Littell, an Ocala family physician, told the Daily Beast that six other doctors among 800 to 900 participants at the event also tested positive or developed symptoms within days of the conference. “I think they had gotten it from New York or Michigan or wherever they were from,” he told reporters. “It was really the people who flew in from other places.” He said that “everybody so far has responded to treatment with ivermectin. Bruce is doing well.” The Daily Beast quoted sources as saying that Boros was gravely ill at his Key West home. Boros had previously written on Facebook that ivermectin is “working where it’s being used around the world” as a COVID-19 treatment and that White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci is “a fraud” and “big pharma is playing us for suckers.”
UNITED STATES
Pharmacies found ‘reckless’
CVS, Walgreens and Walmart pharmacies recklessly distributed massive amounts of pain pills in two Ohio counties, a federal jury said on Tuesday, in a verdict that could set the tone for city and county governments that want to hold pharmacies accountable for their roles in an opioid crisis. Lake and Trumbull counties blamed the three chain pharmacies for not stopping a flood of pills inked to hundreds of overdose deaths and cost each of the two counties about US$1 billion, said their attorney, who in court compared the pharmacies’ dispensing to a gumball machine.
UNITED STATES
Judge extends ‘Times’ ban
A New York trial judge on Tuesday extended a ban keeping the New York Times from publishing materials concerning journalists at Project Veritas. Justice Charles Wood of the Westchester County Supreme Court said that his temporary ban imposed on Thursday last week is to run at least until Wednesday, a deadline for Project Veritas to respond in writing to the New York Times’ bid to end it. James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas last year filed a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper over an article it published in September last year describing a video Project Veritas obtained of alleged voter fraud connected to the campaign of Representative Ilhan Omar.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was