Amazon deliveryman caught spitting on package in vile video
Revolting video captured by a doorbell camera has caught an Amazon deliveryman apparently spitting on a package on the customer’s front porch and using his hand to smear his saliva.
“I received the box and saw a big wet spot and then checked the camera!” the horrified resident, Marcus Martinez, wrote on Twitter.
The disgusting incident amid the coronavirus pandemic occurred Thursday evening in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, according to TMZ.
The footage shows the man, who is wearing a vest with the Amazon logo on the back, leaning over to spit on the package and then wiping it with his hand before apparently snapping a photo of his dastardly delivery.
Sources told TMZ that a friend of the resident contacted Amazon, whose customer service representative gasped in horror while viewing the vile video.
The rep later said the deliveryman, who worked for a third-party service, has been reported.
A neighbor also posted the nauseating tracking photo along with a strong message to Amazon.
“I’d like to believe this was an honest mistake. PLEASE make sure your staff is educated and taking all the necessary precautions!” the message says.
An Amazon spokesperson told The Post in an email: “This is clearly not representative of drivers who deliver for Amazon and the care they take for customers around the world every day. We are aggressively investigating to understand what may have occurred in this situation. If it truly was a malicious act by the driver, we will be sure he is held accountable, up through and including law enforcement action.”
People who intentionally spread the coronavirus could be charged with terrorism for the “purposeful exposure and infection of others,” according to a Justice Department memo, CNN reported.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/03/27/amazon-deliveryman-caught-spitting-on-package-in-vile-video/
Photo Credit: dailymail.co.uk
Son accused of ordering hit on mobster dad at McDonald’s wants out of jail over coronavirus
The man accused of paying $200,000 to have his allegedly mobbed-up father whacked in the drive-thru of a Bronx McDonalds — while the wiseguy was ordering a coffee — wants to get out of jail to avoid catching coronavirus.
Attorneys for Anthony Zottola Sr. said in papers filed late on Friday that he is willing to put up a $5 million bond to get sprung from Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center and stay under house arrest while he awaits trial.
Zottola Sr. is accused of plotting with his nine codefendants to murder Sylvester “Sally Daz” Zottola. They all could face life in prison or the death penalty if convicted.
Anthony Zotolla Sr.’s attorneys said that keeping their client in MCC also affects their ability to work with him to protect him from the “harshest of penalties available in the federal system.”
As of Friday, two inmates at the roughly 700-prisoner MCC in Lower Manhattan have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the US Bureau of Prisons.
In filing the request, Zottola joins a long list of high-profile prisoners who have asked to be released as COVID-19 tears through jails across the New York City area.
Many inmates have provided specific health reasons — such as age and medical conditions — to justify their release.
On Thursday, for example, disgraced R&B legend R. Kelly, 53, said that both his age and the fact that he recently underwent hernia surgery warrant his release.
But the 41-year-old Zottola doesn’t provide any similar excuse — arguing just that MCC presents a “gratuitous risk” to his health.
The feds allege that Zottola plotted his father’s murder so he could take control of Salvatore Zottola’s illegal gambling ring — and offered to pay $200,000 to get the job done.
The feds say that when Anthony Zottola Sr. would text with codefendant Bushawn “Shelz” Shelton to plot the hit, the two men used morbid film analogies as code for how it would play out — the gunman would be the “director” and Sally Daz “the actor” to be shot for the “final scene,” court papers state.
This isn’t the first time that Zottola has asked to be able to enjoy the comforts of home while his case proceeds.
Zottola previously offered to put up a $5 million bond for his release but Brooklyn Federal Judge Raymond Dearie shot down the request, saying the charges against him were too “serious and disturbing” to allow him to wait it out at home.
Photo Credit: Christopher Sadowski
British woman goes shopping with bizarre self-isolation method amid coronavirus crisis
There’s a pandemic — and she’s having a ball!
A British woman has taken self-isolation on the road – by walking inside a giant inflatable orb to go shopping amid the coronavirus crisis, according to The Sun.
The woman left customers and workers at the Morrisons store in Herne Bay, Kent, chuckling as she went zorbing through the aisles with an assistant in tow who plucked items from the shelves for her.
“She’s really germaphobic,” the self-described “carer’ said as he rubbed the ball with antiseptic wipes in what appeared to be a stunt.
Eventually, store workers asked the pair to get the ball rolling and leave the premises.
Photo Credit: Newsflare
Univ. of Washington researchers predict 80,000 COVID-19 deaths in U.S. by July
If gaps in health care resources aren’t filled, more than 80,000 Americans will die over the next four months due to the coronavirus pandemic, epidemiologists at the University of Washington predict.
The grim forecast — based on an analysis of statistics from the World Health Organization, as well as from national and local governments and hospitals — is laid out today in a research paper that’s being submitted to the MedRxiv preprint server but hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed.
Researchers at the UW’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation say their forecast takes current policies on social distancing into account. The problem is that shortages of hospital beds and medical supplies are projected to boost the death toll nevertheless.
Peak excess demand is projected to occur in the second week of April, when the researchers predict a shortage of 64,000 beds and 19,000 ventilators. “The date of peak excess demand by state varies from the second week of April through May,” the researchers say.
With those inputs, the computer models project a total of 81,114 deaths in the U.S. over the next four months. Most of those deaths are expected to occur during April, peaking at more than 2,300 deaths per day. That rate is projected to drop below 10 deaths per day sometime between May 31 and June 6.
There are also state-by-state projections of hospital resource usage and deaths. In Washington state, for example, the peak resource use is projected to occur on April 19, the death rate is projected to rise to a maximum of 27 per day, and total COVID-19 deaths are projected to amount to 1,429 through Aug. 4. As of today, Washington state’s cumulative COVID-19 death toll is 147.
The researchers say patients suffering from other diseases will face increased risk as well. “In addition to a large number of deaths from COVID-19, the epidemic in the U.S. will place a load well beyond the current capacity of hospitals to manage, especially for ICU care,” they say.
If the forecast proves correct, that suggests a dramatic upswing in the U.S. outbreak. Today’s figures from the Coronavirus Research Center at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine show nearly 1,200 U.S. deaths to date due to COVID-19, out of more than 82,000 confirmed cases.
The global death toll has risen above 23,000, with 523,000 confirmed cases worldwide. Just today, the United States took the top spot on JHU’s nation-by-nation tally of confirmed cases, surpassing China and Italy.
The UW team’s predictions are couched in statistical caveats. For example, the death toll projection of 81,114 has a 95% confidence interval of 7,977 to 251,059 deaths.
Additional travel restrictions and social distancing policies could make a difference in states that haven’t taken such measures so far. But based on the modeling, the most urgent measures would be to boost available beds and medical supplies — by reducing the demand for medical services not related to COVID-19, and increasing system capacity by any means possible.
“These are urgently needed, given that peak volumes are estimated to be only three weeks away,” the researchers say.
Update for 11 a.m. PT March 27: During a March 26 briefing, Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, stressed the efforts being made to ensure that the worst-case scenario won’t happen.
“To make the implication that when [patients] need a hospital bed, it’s not going to be there, or when they need that ventilator, it’s not going to be there — we don’t have evidence of that right now … It’s our collective job to make sure that doesn’t happen,” she said.
The next few weeks will tell the tale on that front. In the meantime, the UW researchers will continue to update their projections at COVID19.Healthdata.org. As of March 27, the unmet need at the peak is projected to amount to 49,292 hospital beds, 14,612 ICU beds and 18,767 ventilators. Projected death toll through Aug. 4 is still 81,114.
The preprint research paper, “Forecasting COVID-19 Impact on Hospital Bed-Days, ICU-Days, Ventilator-Days and Deaths by US State in the Next Four Months,” comes from the IHME COVID-19 Health Service Utilization Forecasting Team under the direction of UW Professor Christopher J.L. Murray.
via: https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/univ-washington-epidemiologists-predict-80-223530567.html
Photo Credit: UW Medicine Photo / Randy Carnell
Dozens of young women in South Korea were allegedly forced into sexual slavery on an encrypted messaging app
One girl wrote the word slave above her genitals. Another was made to bark like a dog while naked.
Cho Joo-bin, a 24-year-old man, hosted online rooms on encrypted messaging app Telegram, where users paid to see young girls perform demeaning sexual acts carried out under coercion, according to South Korean police.
As many as 74 victims were blackmailed by Cho into uploading images onto the group chats, some of the users paid for access, police said. Officials suspect there are about 260,000 participants across Cho’s chat rooms.
At least 16 of the girls were minors, according to officials.
On March 20, the authorities announced that Cho had been arrested on charges including producing and distributing child pornography, sexual abuse, blackmail, coercion, fraud, illegal distribution of private information, and sexual assault through illegal filming but he has not been indicted.
For South Koreans, the case has become a lightning rod for a nation grappling with widespread sexual abuse and accusations of pervasive misogyny, after a series of scandals involving the secret or forced taping of women in recent years.
On Monday, President Moon Jae-in responded to the rising anger, calling for police to investigate all members of the chat groups, not just Cho. Currently, 124 people connected to the chat groups have been arrested, and 18 have been detained.
But for many South Koreans, an investigation is not enough.
Over four million people have signed two petitions demanding the heaviest of punishments for the arrested operator and calling for the names and faces of all involved to be released.
Cho, who has only appeared once since his arrest, gave a statement on March 25, at the Jongno Police Station in Seoul before being transferred to the prosecutors’ office. “Thank you for stopping a life of a devil which I couldn’t stop myself,” he said.
Cho’s lawyers quit on March 25 according to the law firm and authorities. The law firm told CNN that the reason for this decision was because information they received from Cho’s family when they accepted the case was very different from the facts.
The investigation
It was two university journalism students who brought Cho to the attention of the police last July, officials confirmed to CNN.
The duo, who asked to use the pseudonyms Kwon and Ahn to protect their own safety, discovered the chat groups, which were hosted on the encrypted Telegram messaging app, in the summer of 2019, as part of an assignment to investigate online sexual crimes.
Though the chat groups were private, links to them were easily found by simply using keyword searches on Google.
When Kwon first saw the chat rooms, she said she “couldn’t believe the scenes and messages unfolding before her eyes.”
“I felt that I needed to bring these serious crimes to the public’s attention,” Ahn said.
There were many operators running similar chats on Telegram, but Kwon and Ahn focused on Cho, who went by the alias of “Guru” and ran at least eight groups, some of which had over 9,000 members at any one time.
Cho allegedly sourced his victims by posting fake modeling jobs online, police said.
Young women would submit their personal information, including their social security numbers and addresses, so they could get paid, along with photographs.
Once hired, they would allegedly be asked to provide more revealing pictures. Police believe these were then used to blackmail the young women — Cho allegedly threatened to post them on the internet with their personal details if the girls did not work in his Telegram chat rooms, police said.
Cho allegedly ran free-of-charge chats, which offered the chance to pay to upgrade to more premium groups, where they could make increasingly demanding requests of the girls. Users paid as much as $1,200 to enter a room using bitcoin transactions, according to police.
Each Telegram group had about three to five girls to one chat room Guru called as ‘slaves,’ who would be online and ready to take requests for pictures and videos of them performing acts, which they captured on their own cameras, from both paid-members and the operator, according to Kwon and Ahn.
While the encrypted nature of Telegram has proven itself to be a tool for resistance against authoritarian regimes around the world, the anonymity of the platform allows the chat room participants to be able to remain anonymous.
CNN has reached out to Telegram for response but has not heard back.
Furthermore, Cho allegedly received payment via Bitcoin, according to South Korean police.
Bitcoin is a decentralized currency, meaning there is no company or official bank which oversees transactions. Users store their Bitcoin in a virtual account — known as a digital wallet — without having to prove their real identity, as they might for a regular brick-and-mortar bank account.
This keeps bitcoin users’ transactions private, without easily tracing it back to them and that’s why it has become the currency of choice for people online buying drugs or other illicit activities.
Sexual abuse in South Korea
Cho’s arrest is the latest in a series of online sexual scandals involving women in South Korea in recent years.
In 2018, tens of thousands of women took to streets of Seoul to protest against illegal filming of women by hidden cameras in motels and public toilets. Videos taken by these spy cams were circulated online. Women protested under a slogan, “My Life is Not Your Porn.”
In 2019, South Korean police discovered an online group chat that shared sexually explicit videos of women filmed without their knowledge and consent, and named several high-profile K-pop stars as members of the group.
Later that year, activist Nam Hye-ri opened a Twitter account asking people to report sexually abusive Telegram chats, called ‘Project ReSet,’ Reporting Sexual Exploitation in Telegram. The group is now calling for heavier punishments for the possession of digital material documenting violent sexual cases, as well as the distribution of that material.
Nam said: “It’s important to detect digital sex crimes as soon as possible by using Artificial Intelligence technology monitoring and laws should keep up with these changes so that not only the ones producing these materials but the users can be punished.”
What makes Cho’s case particularly disturbing is the allegation that at least 16 of the known victims were minors.
Under current South Korean laws, possessing child or juvenile pornography is punishable by up to one year in prison or fines up to 20 million Korean won ($16,000) but the act of watching pornographic videos when the viewer doesn’t know the subject is underage is not punishable.
That creates a defense where viewers can prove they did not realize the girl was a minor.
Only 80 people out of the 3,449 charged with distributing sexually abusive videos of children received jail terms between 2015 and 2018, according to the South Korean Prosecutors’ Office.
Lawmaker Jin Sunmee believes stronger punishments for these crimes is vital. “Our justice system is too lenient to offenders and it is heartbreaking to think the system has missed its golden time to protect our children,” Jin said.
Nam agreed. She said: “Women are not objects to be consumed. Women are human beings. The continuous digital sexual crimes can only come to an end when people genuinely believe in this.”
via: https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/dozens-young-women-south-korea-040008758.html
Photo Credit: Reuters
101-year-old Italian man released from hospital after recovering from coronavirus
(CNN) — A 101-year-old man has been released from hospital after recovering from the novel coronavirus, Gloria Lisi, the deputy mayor of the Italian city of Rimini, has said.
The man, who has been named only as “Mr P,” was admitted to hospital in Rimini, northeast Italy, last week after testing positive for COVID-19 and left the hospital on Thursday.
Lisi said his “truly extraordinary” recovery gave “hope for the future.”
“Mr P made it. The family brought him home yesterday evening. To teach us that even at 101 years the future is not written,” she said.
Mr. P was born in 1919, during the Spanish flu pandemic, which is estimated to have killed between 30 million and 50 million people worldwide.
Rimini had registered 1,189 cases of coronavirus as of Thursday, according to the Italian Civil Protection Department.
Authorities in 197 countries and territories have reported more than 549,000 novel coronavirus cases worldwide since China reported its first cases in December.
Italy has been particularly badly hit, with more deaths than any other country.
According to figures from Johns Hopkins University, there have been 80,589 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Italy and 8,215 deaths.
The-CNN-Wire
Photo Credit: globalnews.ca
Teen whose death may be linked to coronavirus denied care for not having health insurance, mayor says
A teenager in Lancaster, California, who may have died from the coronavirus last week, was turned away from an urgent care because he did not have health insurance, the city’s mayor said.
In a video posted to YouTube on Wednesday, Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris said the 17-year-old had been sick for a few days and had no previous health conditions.
“The Friday before he died, he was healthy. He was socializing with his friends,” Parris said. “By Wednesday, he was dead.”
Parris said the teen went to an urgent care March 18.
“He did not have insurance, so they did not treat him,” Parris said, adding the boy was sent to a hospital.
En route, he went into cardiac arrest, according to the mayor. When the teen got to the hospital, he was revived and kept alive for six hours. But, it was too late, the mayor said.
“We’ve learned that once you go into respiratory issues, you have trouble breathing, you’re short of breath and you have a fever, that is the time to get medical treatment without delay,” Parris said.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health initially said the teen died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, but later backtracked. In a statement Tuesday, public health officials said his death will require further evaluation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Though early tests indicated a positive result for COVID-19, the case is complex and there may be an alternate explanation for this fatality,” the statement said. “Patient privacy prevents our offering further details at this time.”
Parris did not immediately return a request for an interview Friday.
NBC News was referred by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office to the county’s office of emergency management for comment on the teen’s cause of death. A spokesman said a cause of death would be determined by the CDC.
More than 4,000 cases of the coronavirus had been reported in California as of Friday afternoon.
Photo Credit: independent.co.uk
Fox Business lets go anchor who called coronavirus ‘impeachment scam’
Trish Regan, who was pulled from her prime-time slot on Fox Business Network after calling the coronavirus an “impeachment scam,” will not be returning to the channel.
Fox Business — the sister channel of Fox News — issued a statement Friday saying it has parted ways with the host, who had been with the channel since 2015.
“We thank her for her contributions to the network over the years and wish her continued success in her future endeavors. We will continue our reduced live primetime schedule for the foreseeable future in an effort to allocate staff resources to continuous breaking news coverage on the coronavirus crisis,” the company said in a statement.
Regan, 47, also acknowledged her departure.
“I have enjoyed my time at Fox and now intend to focus on my family during these troubled times,” she said in a statement. “I am grateful to my incredible team at Fox Business and for the many opportunities the network has provided me. I’m looking forward to this next chapter in my career.”
Regan had been a staunch supporter of President Trump on her nightly prime-time opinion program. But her tenure was apparently doomed by her March 9 commentary in which she said described the coronavirus as a scam being used by the Democrats in attempt to politically damage the president.
Regan’s remarks occurred after other Fox News opinion hosts had shifted away from downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic. She was pulled off the air after her March 13 telecast. The company called it a “hiatus” so that Fox Business Network resources could be used to cover the volatile stock market during the day.
Fox News — which has seen its viewership surge during the crisis — has been under fire for some of the commentary it has aired on the issue, but Regan is the first host on any network to lose a job over it.
While Fox News has covered the crisis thoroughly and has frequently interviewed Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, some of its conservative opinion hosts initially downplayed the severity of the outbreak and have taken contrarian views on how to combat the novel coronavirus.
Fox News Channel host Steve Hilton said on his Sunday program that a prolonged economic shutdown imposed to curtail the spread of the virus risks more damage than the pandemic itself. “You know that famous phrase the cure is the worst than the disease?” he said. “That’s what we’re hurtling toward…poverty kills.”
Trump and other conservative commentators adapted Hilton’s points during the week, with the president even suggesting to Fox News that the country could reopen for business on Easter, which is April 12.
Fox News opinion hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham have also been pushing the use of two antimalarial drugs, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, as treatment for the coronavirus. Fauci has called the drugs’ effectiveness in treating virus “anecdotal.”
via: https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/xandr/fox-business-anchor-called-coronavirus-211408128.html
Photo Credit: currently.att.yahoo.com
Pierce Transit drastically cuts back bus service amid coronavirus crisis
Pierce Transit will reduce weekday bus service by 28 percent starting Monday, March 30, as ridership plummets during the coronavirus crisis.
Weekday routes will start and end around the same time, but buses will run less frequently. Weekend routes will remain the same, spokesperson Rebecca Japhet said in a press release.
At least one route, Route 102 in Gig Harbor, will stop completely, because there are other routes connecting to Tacoma, Japhet said.
Service reductions were planned to minimize impact on customers and ensure people still have early and late trips available to access jobs and other life needs.
Ridership has plummeted by 57 percent compared to this time last year. Gov. Jay Inslee has issued several orders in the past week, closing non-essential business, and calling everyone apart from essential personnel to stay at home to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Pierce Transit CEO Sue Dreier said she is aware many depend on the bus to get to critical-service jobs, obtain food or make a medical appointment.
“Pierce Transit ridership is down significantly, but we are still committed to providing this essential service during this challenging time for our community,” Dreier said.
Rides on Pierce Transit buses are now free to protect the safety of bus drivers. Riders are asked to board the bus using the back door.
By Friday, March 27, the new routes will be posted to Trip Planner, and riders can plan ahead. They can also sign up for route text alerts by visiting PierceTransit.org/StayConnected.
Other options for getting information about Pierce Transit’s services include:
Toll-Free Line: 1.800.562.8109
Bus or SHUTTLE paratransit TTY for hearing impaired: 711
PierceTransit.org/StayConnected for route-specific text alerts and general information
Read more here: https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/coronavirus/article241530271.html#storylink=cpy
Toll-Free Line: 1.800.562.8109
Bus or SHUTTLE paratransit TTY for hearing impaired: 711
PierceTransit.org
PierceTransit.org/StayConnected for route-specific text alerts and general information
Riders can look for the next bus by:
Texting 253-533-7084 from their bus stop and entering the bus stop number found on the pole.
Using a bus locator app, such as Transit or One Bus Away.
FOLLOW MORE OF OUR REPORTING ON FULL COVERAGE OF CORONAVIRUS IN WASHINGTON
Brits using spatulas, brooms as sex toys during coronavirus lockdown
With much of the globe under virtual house arrest due to the coronavirus pandemic, people are getting inventive with their DIY fixes — and Brits are using random utensils, appliances and cleaning supplies to spice up their sex lives.
London-based EOT Cleaning Services Company surveyed 1,668 people about which household objects they found most worthy of being used as sex toys.
“With recent events taking the world by storm, it looks like we are going to spend the majority of our time indoors,” the company says in a statement. “To keep things creative, Brits have admitted to resorting to new ways of spicing things up in the bedroom . . . !”
At the top of the list: a spatula, with 89 percent of respondents admitting they’ve used a hamburger-flipper for kinky purposes.
Rope was favored by 85 percent of survey-takers, followed by plastic gloves (82 percent), dusters (81 percent), broomsticks (55 percent), vacuum cleaners (41 percent) and glass-top tables (39 percent).
It appears that the folks who volunteered for EOT’s poll are especially kinky, with 75 percent admitting to having a fetish.
“Why spend your money on expensive whips and paddles when you can pop into the other room and get yourself a ‘home-made’ one?” asks the cleaning company’s press release.
Meanwhile, on this side of the pond, the NYC Department of Health issued graphic guidance Saturday on ways to stay COVID-19-free when the birds and bees beckon.
The bottom line: Self-love is the best — and safest — kind of love.
“You are your safest sex partner,” the document reads. “Masturbation will not spread COVID-19, especially if you wash your hands (and any sex toys) with soap and water for at least 20 seconds before and after.””Vagina Whisperer” wants couples to have more sex during the coronavirus quarantinePlay Video
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends using hand sanitizers with at least 60% alcohol and ensuring the correct amount of gel is applied. However, sanitizer should only be used in situations where the ultimate germ fighter isn’t readily available.
Photo Credit: nypost.com