Starbucks has shut down all shops and halted delivery services in China’s Hubei Province, as health officials scramble to contain a deadly coronavirus that originated from the provincial capital, Wuhan. The coffee chain’s decision to suspend operations for the duration of the week-long Lunar New Year holiday was prompted by “health concerns” for its customers and employees, the company said in a social media post. The move comes shortly after McDonald’s announced that it will halt operations in five cities in the province. The fast-food giant said the temporary closures were for “for employee and customer health and safety.” Traced…
Author: mediahitman
Cindy McCain, widow of the late Arizona Senator John McCain, has raised more than a few eyebrows after remarking that Jeffrey Epstein’s horrific crimes against young women were common knowledge. But common for whom, exactly? Speaking at a conference in Florida, McCain claimed that a girl from her daughter’s high school was one of Epstein’s victims, and said that she hoped the accused sex trafficker –who allegedly killed himself while in detention at a Manhattan prison– was “in hell.” Her uncontroversial condemnation of the shadowy multi-millionaire was followed by a rather more curious statement. “Epstein was hiding in plain sight,”…
China’s Wuhan city, the center of the outbreak of the new coronavirus, will build a second dedicated hospital to treat patients. Construction has already started on the first facility, with enough space for 1,000 patients, which is expected to be completed by 3 February. The second, which is designed to have 1,300 beds, is due to be finished within three weeks. This may seem like an unrealistic time frame, however, China has a history of quickly building hospitals at times of crisis. During the SARS outbreak in 2003, 7,000 people worked day and night in Beijing, taking just seven days…
A 5.1 magnitude quake has struck Turkey’s Elazig province, one day after a 6.8 tremor leveled buildings and killed at least 22 people. The earthquake struck at around 7:30pm local time on Saturday, at a depth of 10km, the United States Geological Survey (USGC) reported. The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) has put the magnitude at 4.9. For residents of Elazig province, it was the second major tremor to shake the region in less than two days. A 6.8 magnitude quake on Saturday claimed at least 22 lives and left more than 1,000 injured, Turkish authorities said. In addition to the…
Three cases of the deadly coronavirus have been confirmed in New South Wales, bringing the total nationwide to four. NSW Health tonight confirmed three men – aged in theirs 30s, 40s and 50s – are being treated in Westmead Hospital in Sydney and are in isolation. Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said this afternoon that a case of the respiratory condition had been confirmed in a man who last week returned from China. The man, aged in his 50s, was in Australia for six days before being diagnosed. A total of 42 people have died and more than 1300 have…
Thailand’s anti-drugs authority has apologized after it accidentally auctioned off a car hiding tens of thousands of amphetamine tablets. A buyer paid 586,000 baht ($19,000; £14,500) for the Honda CR-V car, which was put up for auction this month after being seized in a drugs case last year. But when it was sent to a garage for alterations, a mechanic discovered 94,000 pills stashed in its bumper. Officials said they would conduct more thorough searches in future. “According to protocols, we search every vehicle we have received and this case was no exception. However, we couldn’t find anything at the…
3 suspected cases of coronavirus being tested in Washtenaw, Macomb counties Two people from Washtenaw County and one person from Macomb County may have the Wuhan coronavirus, state health officials said Friday afternoon.They’re the latest in a quickly spreading global outbreak that appears to have started in December at a seafood market in Wuhan, China. So far, hundreds have been sickened and 41 people have died, USA Today reported.All three people from Michigan who are being tested for the virus have presented with mild illness, and all recently traveled to the Wuhan area of China or were in contact with travelers to that region, according to the Michigan Department of Health and…
Fast food chain McDonald’s has announced it will halt operations in five cities in China’s Hubei province, where the new deadly coronavirus is believed to originate. The suspension comes into effect on Friday. The restaurant chain has dozens of locations in the region, including in the city of Wuhan, which is considered to be the epicenter of the virus. Apart from Wuhan, where most infections have occurred, McDonalds will close restaurants in Ezhou, Huanggang, Qianjing and Xiantao. The company says that the temporary measure is introduced for “for employee and customer health and safety.” In a statement to RT, McDonald’s said that…
Content moderators are being asked to sign forms stating they understand the job could cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to reports. The Financial Times and The Verge reported moderators for Facebook and YouTube, hired by the contractor Accenture, were sent the documents. Moderators monitor objectionable materials and often view hundreds of disturbing images in a day’s work. Accenture said the wellbeing of workers was a “top priority”. In a statement the company added only new joiners were being asked to sign the forms, whereas existing employees were being sent the form as an update. “We regularly update the information…
Peter Andrews is an Irish science journalist and writer, based in London. He has a background in the life sciences, and graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in Genetics. New research has shown that despite being marketed as a healthy alternative, soybean oil, America’s most popular oil, causes neurological changes in the brains of mice, and may contribute to autism and dementia in humans. Extracted from the seeds of soybeans and used in everything from fast food to animal feed and even baby formula, soybean oil is easily the most widely consumed oil in the US, ubiquitous in…
The newly unveiled logo for US President Donald Trump’s Space Force appears to have boldly gone where Star Trek went before. Twitter users noted that the emblem, revealed by the president, bears an uncanny likeness to the insignia from the cult sci-fi TV series. The striking resemblance left many critics as stunned as though they had been zapped by Captain Kirk’s phaser. But others online insisted the logo was really based on the US Air Force one. The intergalactic controversy comes after mockery erupted last week when it emerged Space Force troops will wear woodland camouflage uniforms. Unveiling the insignia…
The London Metropolitan police have announced that they will be deploying facial recognition cameras for the first time on the streets of the capital within the next month, prompting fears the move will erode civil liberties. Met police say that the cameras will be operating for five to sex hours at a time, covering a “small, targeted area,” with officers working with bespoke lists of suspects wanted for serious and violent crime being drawn up each time. It comes after recent pilots of the new surveillance technology in London and South Wales. In response, privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch…
Chocolate chip cookies have become the first food to be baked in space in a first-of-its-kind experiment. Astronauts baked the cookies in a special zero-gravity oven at the International Space Station (ISS) last month. Sealed in individual baking pouches, three of the cookies returned to Earth on the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on 7 January. The aim of the experiment was to study cooking options for long-haul trips. The results of the experiment, carried out by astronauts Luca Parmitano and Christina Koch, were revealed this week. The question is: how do they taste? The answer: nobody knows, yet. A spokesman for…
Universities and Science Minister Chris Skidmore has said that the UK will not implement the EU Copyright Directive after the country leaves the EU. Several companies have criticised the law, which would hold them accountable for not removing copyrighted content uploaded by users, if it is passed. EU member states have until 7 June 2021 to implement the new reforms, but the UK will have left the EU by then. The UK was among 19 nations that initially supported the law. That was in its final European Council vote in April 2019. Copyright is the legal right that allows an…
China spent the crucial first days of the new coronavirus outbreak arresting people who talked about it online and harassing journalists trying to cover the story. While Chinese officials were quick to inform world health authorities about the new disease, they appear to have tried to repress the news at home. That could have allowed the disease to spread quickly through cities such as Wuhan, now thought to be the epicentre of the virus, because citizens were largely unaware it existed and took no precautions against it. The move also has chilling echoes of the 2003 SARS outbreak, which China…
Big Pharma at it again…. Here are some simple questions answered for those who are paranoid by the media and there lies. Can the coronavirus be transferred through items shipped from Wuhan ? There is no evidence this is a risk yet. But most diseases – including the coronavirus it can be spread through surfaces contaminated by people coughing or sneezing on them. There is still questions about whether international shipping would be a major problem if boxes were infected and spread globally.Cold viruses typically tend to survive less than 24 hours outside the human body although norovirus can last…
“We are already at the point where you can’t tell the difference between deepfakes and the real thing,” Professor Hao Li of the University of Southern California tells the BBC. “It’s scary.” We are at the computer scientist’s deepfake installation at the World Economic Forum in Davos which gives a hint of what he means. Like other deepfake tools, his software creates computer-manipulated videos of people – often politicians or celebrities – that are designed to look real. Most often this involves “face swapping”, whereby the face of a celebrity is overlaid onto the likeness of someone else. As I…
A banker implicated in the embezzlement and money-laundering case against Africa’s richest woman, Isabel dos Santos, has been found dead in Lisbon. Nuno Ribeiro da Cunha, 45, managed the account of oil firm Sonangol, formerly chaired by Ms Dos Santos, at the small Portuguese lender EuroBic. His death, on Wednesday, was reported on Thursday soon after Angolan prosecutors named both as suspects. Ms Dos Santos denies alleged corruption revealed by leaked documents. Mr Da Cunha was found dead at one of his properties in Lisbon. A police source told Portuguese media that “everything points to suicide”. Local media quoted police…