Kenya governor under fire after putting Hennessy bottles in coronavirus care packages
Nairobi, Kenya (CNN)Recipients of Nairobi politician Mike Sonko’s Covid-19 care packages can expect to receive the typical food staples except for one item — alcohol.Sonko, the governor of the Kenyan capital city, Nairobi, confirmed in a media briefing on Tuesday that his care packages include a few small bottles of the cognac, Hennessy.The governor justified the inclusion of alcohol as “throat sanitizer.””I think from the research conducted by the World Health Organization and various organizations, it has been believed that alcohol plays a major role in killing the coronavirus,” Sonko said in a video.
But the World Health Organization has explicitly stated that alcohol does not protect against coronavirus, and advises people to minimize its consumption.In a post released by the WHO on Tuesday, the organization said that alcohol can weaken the health of an individual and make them more vulnerable to viruses including coronavirus.Githinji Gitahi, the CEO of Amref Health Africa, a medical nonprofit, in a post on Twitter condemned Sonko’s claim and appealed to Kenyans to dump the alcohol.This isn’t the first time Sonko has been met with public scrutiny. The governor was arrested late last year on corruption charges, and was forced to surrender some of his duties to the national government.
Meanwhile, Hennessy has refuted through local media the claims by the Nairobi governor that its drink in particular or alcohol in general can ward off coronavirus contagion.”Hennessy would like to stress that the consumption of our brand or any other alcoholic beverage does not protect against the virus,” reads part of its statement to Nairobi News.CNN was unable to reach Sonko for comment.
via: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/17/africa/kenya-governor-alcohol-and-coronavirus/index.html
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Man breaks into restaurant, drinks liquor for 4 days before getting caught, CT cops say
A man in Connecticut faces a number of charges after police say he broke into a closed restaurant and feasted on food and alcohol for several days.
Police responded to a New Haven restaurant after a report of burglary-in-progress around 11:30 Tuesday morning, WVIT reported. The caller had found a man asleep in a closet, police said.
Officers arrived to find Louis Ortiz, 42, on a nearby street with a bottle of rum from the restaurant, according to the outlet.
Security footage showed that a man had entered through a side window several days before and that he’d been eating the restaurant’s food and drinking its liquor and beer for four days, WFSB reported.
Officials say the man had also taken other drinks out of the restaurant, according to the outlet.
The store had been closed for several days before the break-in, and the manager discovered the man during a routine building check, WFSB reported.
The restaurant estimated at least 70 bottles of liquor had been drunk or stolen and that the loss of food and beverages amounted to thousands of dollars, according to The Patch.
Ortiz is charged with several offenses including larceny, burglary and criminal mischief, the outlet reported. His bond was set at $12,500 with arraignment scheduled for Wednesday morning.
via: https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/xandr/man-breaks-restaurant-drinks-liquor-193310289.html
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Louisiana pastor asks followers to send their stimulus checks to churches instead of buying food “……and if you don’t have a church, you can donate on MY website”
Tony Spell, the pastor at the Life Tabernacle Church in Central, Louisiana, believes his fellow pastors need your COVID-19 stimulus money more than you do.
TMZ reports that Spell has started a campaign called “#PastorSpellStimulusChallenge” in which followers are encouraged to send money they’ve received from the government as part of the federal stimulus package to evangelists and missionaries.
Spell claims that he and his wife are both donating their personal checks to churches in need instead of using it to pay for food, although he did not initially offer proof of doing so.
“His challenge also doesn’t seem to consider many people are in desperate need of their stimulus money for food, rent or bills,” notes TMZ.
Spell has become a lightning rod for controversy after he defied bans on large-scale gatherings by holding packed services in his church during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Spell also told his followers not to be afraid of dying from the virus, and even said that “death is a welcomed friend” for true believers.
Photo Credit: rawstory.com
Aussie Shopper Tries To Return 4,800 Rolls Of Toilet Paper And 150 Litres Of Hand Sanitizer
An Australian supermarket boss has revealed his brutal and blunt response after a shopper tried to return thousands of rolls of toilet paper and hand sanitizer.
The South Australian shopper went into one of the state’s Drake’s supermarkets and tried to make a deal.
Drakes supermarkets director John-Paul Drake revealed the shocking case of stockpiling in a YouTube video.
He said he was working in one of the stores when the receptionist called him, saying: “You have got to hear this.”
Mr Drake said he couldn’t believe his ears when the unidentified shopper wanted to return some of the items he had purchased.
“He said he wanted to get a refund on 150 32-packs of toilet paper and 150 units of one-litre sanitiser,” the supermarket director said.
“This sort of behaviour is disgraceful. He is the sort of person that’s causing the problem in the whole country.”
Unsurprisingly, John refused the deal.
But that didn’t stop the shopper from trying to hand the items over, coming in the next day to sweeten the deal.
Mr Drake continued: “He had all the receipts, he came back and offered me a 30 percent discount.
“We have only been selling these items one at a time. He would have had to have come in 150 times to buy them. That’s 150 (other) customers who have missed out.
“We’re all about supporting the local community. I want products bought here to stay here but this is ridiculous.”
The Drakes supermarket director alleged the man had been working with a team of shoppers to buy items while supply was in heavy demand to then sell it at an inflated price.
This shopper wasn’t the only one who tried this trick when things like toilet paper and hand sanitiser was in short supply.
Two brothers were stuck with 17,700 bottles of hand sanitiser after they bought in bulk to sell online as the coronavirus pandemic was getting started.
Matt and Noah Colvin of Hixson, Tenneseee, drove thousands of miles to pick up as many bottles of the handwash as they could after the first death was recorded in the US, earlier this year – spending between USD$10,000 and USD$15,000 on their haul.
They had hoped to flog the $1 bottles for an inflated price of $70 each, with people panicking over the spreading disease.
However, after Amazon put a block on accounts trying to make money from the crisis, the pair were left with thousands of bottles, unable to sell them.
They eventually donated all their products to a local church and first responders.
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State orders Tacoma apartment complex to stop eviction notices amid coronavirus crisis
These apartments are trash anyway. It looks nice on the outside but in the inside it’s trash I was so desperate this past summer I was going to move there anyway I’m glad I didn’t
TACOMA, Wash. — A Tacoma apartment complex has been ordered by the Washington Office Attorney General’s Office to cease and desist eviction notices.
Boulders at Puget Sound at 2602 Westridge Ave. W. has been sending emails, calling and posting notices to doors stating that residents need to pay rent or vacate despite Gov. Jay Inslee’s moratorium that temporarily prohibited landlords from evicting renters because they cannot pay rent until April 17.
The Attorney General’s Office provided The News Tribune with a copy of the letter sent Monday to Boulders at Puget Sound and the parent company, JRK Holding Partners.
The letter states Boulders at Puget Sound violated the eviction order by serving notices and taking actions in the eviction process with 14-day pay-or-vacate notices.
The letter also said JRK Property Holdings placed “unfair and deceptive pressure on tenants to pay rent” by telling residents to pay rent as quickly as possible to allow the property company “to support your less fortunate neighbors who are directly battling COVID-19.”
The apartment complex referred all comment to JRK Holding Partners. The phone numbers provided and those listed on the company site are non-operable, and Boulders at Puget Sound did not provide another way to contact the corporation. An email was sent to the JRK Holding Partners’ general inquiries account, but there was no immediate response.
Boulders at Puget Sound is one of several landlords sending eviction notices, according to the Attorney General’s Office. As of Monday, the office had received 403 eviction complaints from renters and contacted 168 landlords over the complaints.
Crystal Martin, a resident for about a year and a half, said management at Boulders in Puget Sound has even called her job.
“We don’t have money to move,” Martin told The News Tribune. “They tried to reach out to me but tried to contact my job, not realizing that I answer the phone for my job. They refused to speak to me. They wanted to speak to my boss.”
Martin, her husband and their three children live in a $1,767 two-bedroom apartment. She is still employed, but it has been difficult to pay rent with only one income. Her husband, a disabled veteran wasn’t working before, but other family members who were helping the couple before can no longer help them out, Martin said. If they can’t pay rent, she is afraid her family will end up on the streets.
“They have given us this notice so when the eviction order is over, they can take action right away,” Martin said. “I’ve called 211 to find some help, and we were thinking about becoming homeless because having an eviction on your record makes it so hard to find another place to live.”
Natascha Jammes, her husband and daughter have lived at Boulders in Puget Sound for three years. They rent a one-bedroom apartment for $1,255. Jammes was laid off about a month ago from a children’s birthday company.
Jammes said there have been issues with management before but never like this.
“I can’t sleep. I’ve got butterflies in my stomach,” Jammes said. “I’ve even considered being homeless this summer and putting up a tent with my daughter and husband because it would be warm enough to live outside.”
In notices obtained by The News Tribune, the apartment complex told residents that unemployment benefits and $1,200 federal stimulus check are for paying necessities, like rent.
“These cash payments are being sent to you directly so that everyone can continue to pay for necessities such as rent and avoid running behind on these essential bills, which can hurt your credit and create serious financial problems for you in the future,” the notice said.
Neither Jammes nor Martin have received money from the government.
Jammes said the company’s tactics are leaving her feeling stress.
“They are calling, emailing us a harassing amount of times, reminding us how much is due and how important it is to pay and how they are not going to give us any leniency,” Jammes said. “They keep hinting that this is going to ruin our credit forever.”
The notice also said that those struggling to pay rent can reach out to the office to create a financial plan or payment options. Both Martin and Jammes said they reached out to the office multiple times, but the manager was never available or a payment plan cost around $300 to set up.
The state Attorney General’s Office has ordered the company to rescind all 14-day pay or vacate notices, notify residents that the apartment complex will comply with the eviction moratorium and provide proof of doing so.
Click here to read the story on thenewstribune.com.
10-year-old boy battling leukemia now fighting coronavirus
(KNWA/CNN/Meredith) — A 10-year-old Arkansas boy already battling cancer is now fighting the coronavirus. He now has to delay life-saving cancer treatments.
Riley Duckworth was diagnosed with leukemia a couple of months ago, and now he’s been diagnosed with Covid-19.
Riley’s dad Jeremy Duckworth says the two are quarantined at Arkansas Children’s Northwest Hospital in Springdale. They will be stuck there until Riley’s blood counts recover.
“We cannot leave the room, not even to get food or anything,” Jeremy said. “We just take the news and do the best we can; we will be alright but it doesn’t make things easy.”
The father and son duo are spending time watching TV and playing games inside the hospital room.
Jeremy said with his son’s delayed cancer treatments, he doesn’t know what effect that will have on the cancer.
It’s a scary time for the family, but even with all they are going through, they keep positive.
“We know we’ll make it through, there are other people who have it a lot worse,” Jeremy said.
To keep their spirits up, Riley is thinking about all the things he will get to do when he gets better, like going camping.
Photo Credit: kmov.com
Brooklyn man allegedly disemboweled dad, cut off body parts
A Brooklyn man holed up in the house with his father during the coronavirus outbreak was arrested Wednesday for allegedly knifing and “badly mutilating” his dad, including by disemboweling him, police and sources said.
Following the gory murder, Khaled Ahmad, 26, allegedly left his family’s Dyker Heights home drenched in blood and went to a nearby bagel shop around 4:30 a.m., where he confessed to police officers.
“I killed my father,” Ahmad told them, according to an NYPD spokesperson.
The cops cuffed him and went to the tidy, two-family brick home on 84th Street near 14th Avenue, where they found 57-year-old Imad Ahmad dead with multiple stab wounds, police said.
“The body of the father was badly mutilated,” the spokesperson said.
Ahmad had allegedly cut off his father’s arms and part of his head, in addition to gutting him, police sources said. He had placed some of the body parts near the rest of the corpse.
He told officers that he and his dad had been trying to stay home during the pandemic, the sources said.
Cops found a large kitchen knife inside the house.
A neighbor told cops she’d heard screaming coming from the home overnight but did nothing because it was a “daily occurrence,” the sources said.
A female relative who answered the phone at the house on Wednesday evening told The Post she had no comment, before adding “This is heartbreaking.”
Ahmad was charged with murder and criminal possession of weapon. Police didn’t say what triggered the attack.
A neighbor said the father owned a supermarket in Queens and was “a very good man.”
“They were a very nice family. Very nice people. It is very strange. Very strange,” the 54-year-old said.
The murder was one of four to take place in the Big Apple over less than 12 hours beginning Tuesday afternoon.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/04/15/brooklyn-man-allegedly-disemboweled-dad-cut-off-body-parts/
Photo Credit: Gabriella Bass
Most NYC coronavirus testing done in whitest and wealthiest zip codes, Post analysis finds
Staten Islanders are getting tested for coronavirus more often than any other borough — and at twice the rate of Brooklynites and Manhattanites, an analysis of data from the city Department of Health by The Post shows.
Additionally, the paper’s analysis found that more than two-thirds of the 30 zip codes with the highest per-capita rates of testing were either whiter or wealthier — and frequently both — than the city average population.
“As the data shows, the COVID-19 crisis is hitting communities of more color the hardest – while those same communities have less testing to diagnose the virus or resources to fight it,” said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn), the city’s highest-ranking elected black official. “The city needs a task force in place to rapidly implement an action plan to mitigate racial disparities in COVID-19 exposure, testing, access to resources, and fatalities.”
City officials and civil rights leaders have been sounding the alarm about COVID-19’s disparate impact on the Big Apple’s minority communities after an analysis of death certificates revealed that black and brown New Yorkers are dying at twice the rate of their white counterparts.
“There is absolutely no question that people of means have found a way to get a test during the most restrictive times and that the vast majority of people who are low income or people of color had no opportunity for testing unless they were sick enough to be hospitalized,” said Councilman Mark Levine (D-Manhattan), who chairs the health committee.
On Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced City Hall was launching a new $10 million advertising and outreach effort targeting the 88 zip codes hardest hit by the virus to try to slow the virus’s spread in minority communities.
Nearly four out of every 100 residents — 3.8 — Staten Islanders have gotten a hard-to-score test for COVID-19, far exceeding the per-capita rates in other boroughs, the paper’s analysis found.
Just 2.5 per 100 people in Queens have gotten a test, while testing is slightly more prevalent in The Bronx, where 2.9 people per 100 have been checked.
Both boroughs have been hard-hit by the outbreak and an analysis by a nonprofit news organization, The City, found that Bronxites were more likely to die of COVID-19 than residents in any other borough.
Testing rates in Brooklyn and Manhattan are even worse, averaging just 1.9 tests per 100 people — half the rate of Staten Island.
The analysis also found that Staten Island residents tested positive for the disease at a slightly higher per-capita rate than any other borough — 1.8 per 100 people. The Bronx came in a close second with 1.7 positives per 100 people.
New York’s smallest borough is home to many first responders, possibly explaining the disparity in both testing availability and the rate of positives.
But even in New York’s most tested borough — only one in every 25 people have been checked for the disease.
Additionally, the analysis revealed that 22 of the 30 most tested zip codes are either whiter or wealthier than the city’s average population.
New York’s most tested zip code per capita is The Bronx’s 10464, which includes City Island and Pelham Bay Park. Its least tested zip code was Manhattan’s 10280, which covers a swath of the Financial District that stretches from Battery Park to the World Trade Center.
The Post conducted its analysis by marrying the city’s testing data for each of its 177 zip codes with the U.S. Census Bureau’s population and demographic estimations for each zip code.
“We are deeply concerned about the disparities of the impact of this virus and are working hard to ensure the resources are available to communities experiencing the worst outcomes,” said Health Department spokesman Patrick Gallahue. “With respect to testing, we have given guidance to providers on when it is appropriate to test, however, it is ultimately the judgment of the physician.”
He added: “While we have recently expanded testing we urge providers to limit tests to seriously ill people as well as healthcare workers, first responders, and other especially vulnerable communities.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/04/16/most-nyc-coronavirus-testing-done-in-wealthiest-zip-codes-analysis/
Photo Credit: REUTERS/Marco Bello
NYC nurse who beat coronavirus pummeled, robbed by group of thugs
A New York City nurse who recently recovered from the coronavirus was attacked on her way to work by a group of vicious youths who badly beat her and ran off with her purse, police sources and the victim told The Post.
Martha Toscano had just gotten out of the 6 train station on her way to work at Bellevue Hospital Wednesday around 10:30 p.m. when about 15 thugs ran her down and pummeled her to the ground.
“I thought they were going to kill me,” Toscano, 60, said in a phone call from her Queens studio Thursday.
“They hit me on the head, on the face, I run and fell on the floor and they keep hitting me.”
The beatdown was interrupted by three men driving down the street, who screamed “Stop it, stop it,” Toscano recalled.
“Thank God these angels came, because nobody was in the street, nobody.”
The good Samaritans pulled the woman up and tried to chase the muggers to retrieve her purse, to no avail.
Police on Thursday arrested three of the alleged assailants, including two teenage girls, aged 14 and 15, and a 19-year-old man named Deshaun Harrison. All three suspects are residents of a nearby group home run by the city’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), sources said.
Harrison — who has a lengthy rap sheet — was charged with robbery in the second degree, the sources said. An ACS spokeswoman said the agency couldn’t legally comment.
Toscano suffered scrapes and bumps all over her body but was able to escape the bruising without serious injuries.
“I have pain in all my body,” she said. “My back, my neck, bumps on my head, even on my elbows.”
The brave healthcare worker said she’d been out of work for two weeks after catching COVID-19 but had just gotten the OK to return to her job Friday.
“My first day back was Sunday… and then this,” Toscano said, breaking into tears.
Her three adult children had begged her to stop working, afraid that she would catch the deadly disease, she said.
After getting checked out at her hospital, Toscano said she returned home around 4 a.m. and had to call her landlord to get into her apartment, since her keys — as well as her ID and credit cards — were in the purse the thugs swiped.
Toscano was recovering at home with her fiance, adding that she didn’t know when she would return to work because of how terrified she was.
“I’m so afraid,” she said.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/04/16/nurse-who-beat-coronavirus-pummeled-robbed-by-group-of-thugs/
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Kellyanne Conway Raises Eyebrows With ‘COVID-1’ Remark On Fox News – “This is COVID-19 ― not COVID-1, folks”
Top White House aide Kellyanne Conway made a baffling ― and misleading ― statement during an appearance Wednesday on Fox News, suggesting COVID-19’s name is derived in part from the number of known coronavirus diseases.
“This is COVID-19 ― not COVID-1, folks,” Conway said during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.” “And so you would think the people charged with the World Health Organization would be on top of that.”
But COVID-19 stands for “coronavirus disease 2019” and is reflective of the year it was identified, not the number of previously documented diseases.
It seemed as though Conway, a high-ranking adviser to the president, was either alarmingly unaware of this or she feigned ignorance in front of the show’s more than 1 million average daily viewers.
In a subsequent interview on the Fox Business Network, Conway acknowledged that the disease’s name partially refers to the year 2019.
“It is called COVID-19 – not COVID-20 ― yet it took WHO until March to call it a global pandemic,” she said.
Conway later tweeted that she knows the “19 refers to the year” in response to Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), who called on her to “do better” after her “COVID-1” remark.
“Which felt better: insulting me or endorsing Bloomberg for president?” Conway tweeted at the congressman. “God bless.”
“It’s telling that you perceive the truth as an insult,” Rush tweeted back.
Conway’s eyebrow-raising comments Wednesday were part of a larger attack against the World Health Organization’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced the U.S. is placing a hold on funding to the organization while his administration investigates what he claimed was the group’s mismanagement of the crisis.
“The WHO failed in its basic duty and must be held accountable,” Trump, who has been sharply criticized for initially downplaying the threat of the pandemic, said during a news conference at the White House. “So much death has been caused by their mistakes.”
The WHO has faced criticism for being overly deferential to China, even as the country initially concealed news about the coronavirus and failed to disclose alarming data about infections among health care workers for more than a month.
The group has also lagged in making some key recommendations: Its guidelines still say people don’t need to wear face masks in public unless they are sick, while the CDC has recommended all Americans do so. What’s more, the group waited until mid-March to declare COVID-19 a pandemic, which some experts thought came too late.
However, public health experts have warned against freezing WHO funding in the middle of a pandemic.
Conway on Wednesday tore into the agency for being reluctant to support travel restrictions as the virus continues to spread across the world.
“The president took decisive and immediate action in the end of January to shut down flights from China that was criticized by the WHO, it was criticized by other people, as xenophobic and racist and ‘travel bans don’t work,’” she said. “Well, this one sure did.”
In fact, scientists believe most coronavirus cases came into the U.S. from Europe, not Asia. Trump did not impose travel restrictions on Europe until March 11.
Of the world’s more than 2 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, roughly 30% ― or about 600,000 people ― are in the U.S., making it the country with the most known infections. Spain is a distant second with more than 177,000 confirmed cases.
“Some of the scientists and doctors say there could be other strains later on,” Conway said Wednesday. “This could come back in the fall in a limited way.”
“Limited” may prove to be an understatement. Some experts have suggested a possible second wave could be even deadlier than the first. Others have suggested outbreaks will emerge sporadically until there is a vaccine.
via: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kellyanne-conway-covid-19-who_n_5e96fc65c5b65eae709d1183
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