Italian Prime Minister Orders Nationwide Closure of All Stores, Except Pharmacies and Food

The total number of cases of novel coronavirus infection (COVID-2019) in Italy has increased by 2,000 in the past 24 hours, exceeding 12,400, while the number of the dead increased by 196 to 827, according to the National Civil Protection Agency.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte late on Wednesday ordered an increase in efforts to tackle the spread of the deadly outbreak. Conte announced new measures in addition to those imposed earlier, including a restriction on free movement across the nation.

The new decree calls for the closure of all shops across the nation, excepting pharmacies and food stores. The order also stipulates the closure of clubs, bars, restaurants, hairdressers and eateries that cannot otherwise guarantee a safe distance of at least one meter between customers and visitors.

According to Conte, authorities must now suspend the work of all businesses not essential for production and the economy. Conte on Wednesday promised that he would not tighten measures further, even if the number of new coronavirus cases continues to rise.

Conte said that the effect of "this great effort" would only become visible over the next couple of weeks.

Earlier in the day, Conte announced that Italy would allocate an additional 25 billion euros ($28 billion) to fight the coronavirus disease. Conte also stated that the Italian government was ready to review a request by the authorities of the country's northern regions, including virus-hit Lombardy, to tighten quarantine measures amid the outbreak.

Italian Industry Minister Stefano Patuanelli vowed that the government was preparing a package of economic measures to support families and businesses amid the coronavirus crisis. The package would temporarily suspend payments of utility bills, taxes and mortgages, according to the minister.

On a global scale, there are currently over 122,000 confirmed cases, with nearly 81,000 in mainland China alone. The total number of global deaths reached 4,550 as of Wednesday, and over 66,000 recoveries have been reported.

World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has now named the coronavirus a pandemic.

https://sputniknews.com/europe/202003111078541810-italian-prime-minister-orders-nationwide-closure-of-all-stores-except-pharmacies-and-food/

Med student, who was arrested at Logan Airport for smuggling cancer research, freed on bond

Zheng was arrested in December at Logan International Airport in Boston with 21 vials of cancer cells in a suitcase he was taking to China, authorities said.

A medical student from China who U.S. authorities say tried to smuggle cancer research material out of the country has been freed on $100,000 bond over the objections of federal prosecutors.

Zaosong Zheng, 30, walked out of U.S. District Court in Worcester, Massachusetts on Friday but will remain under GPS-monitored house arrest, The Telegram & Gazette reported. His passport has also been confiscated.

Zheng was arrested in December at Logan International Airport in Boston with 21 vials of cancer cells in a suitcase he was taking to China, authorities said. Zheng stole the materials from his lab at Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, authorities allege. The hospital has fired him.

He’s charged with smuggling goods from the U.S. and making false statements.

The government has opposed his release. Prosecutors argue that he is a flight risk and may be working with the Chinese government, and have raised questions about the source of bail money posted by his wife.

Zheng has not been charged with conspiring with the Chinese government, and a federal judge Friday denied multiple requests from prosecutors that he remain in jail.

Zheng and his wife declined comment outside of court. One of his attorneys, David Duncan, said he does not believe his client did anything wrong.

Federal authorities haven been aggressively going after Chinese researchers in the U.S., some of whom they say work on behalf of the Chinese government to steal the work of American academics.

Last month, a Harvard University professor was charged with lying about his ties to a Chinese-run recruitment program and concealing payments he received from the Chinese government for research.

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2020/03/07/med-student-charged-with-research-smuggling-freed-on-bond-beth-israel-china

Council on Foreign Relations cancels coronavirus-themed conference in NYC because of…coronavirus

The Council on Foreign Relations has nixed a conference on “Doing Business Under Coronavirus,” apparently not wanting to risk actually doing its business under the coronavirus epidemic laying siege to New York City.

The notorious think tank cancelled the talk, scheduled for Friday, as the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 crept up to 36 in New York on Tuesday. Details of the event were elusive - it’s not listed on the organization’s website, and it’s not clear who was supposed to attend. However, after an unknown number of attendees at both the Conservative Political Action Conference and the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee were exposed to the coronavirus during both gatherings last weekend in Washington DC, the CFR likely opted to err on the side of caution rather than risk infecting its elite invitees. It has cancelled the rest of its roundtable conferences through April 3 as well.

The CFR conference was far from the only event in New York to be struck from the calendar thanks to the epidemic. The New York City Half Marathon, scheduled for Sunday, has been cancelled, while the New York International Auto Show, set for next month, has been moved to late summer. New York Mayor Bill deBlasio appears determined to hold next Tuesday’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, however, even as Boston and Philadelphia cancel theirs.

While New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has called in the National Guard to maintain quarantine in the NYC suburb of New Rochelle, no restrictions have yet been placed on freedom of movement for residents of the city itself. However, the military detachment will enforce a two-week ban on large gatherings within the one-mile “containment area” set up around the Young Israel synagogue where Westchester County’s apparent Patient Zero was a member of the congregation.

New York state has 173 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with the majority (108) located in Westchester County, rather than New York City proper. Thousands of New York and Westchester residents are under “precautionary quarantine,” and dozens are under “mandatory quarantine,” meaning they’ve either tested positive for the virus, had close contact with someone who has, or recently visited an at-risk country and returned with symptoms.

The COVID-19 cases who exposed other AIPAC attendees are believed to have come from the Westchester cluster, according to the Israeli lobbying group, which hosted some 18,000 people at its yearly conclave - including a significant foreign contingent. Israel has adopted one of the most stringent approaches to the epidemic, closing borders and advising its citizens to avoid all travel, but the AIPAC snafu led the country’s health ministry to issue an order to all returnees from “international conferences abroad” to self-quarantine.

https://www.rt.com/usa/482800-coronavirus-cancels-cfr-conference-nyc/

CDC Official: ‘We Do Not Expect Most People to Develop Serious Illness’

Nancy Messonnier, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters on a conference call on Tuesday that health experts “do not expect most people to develop serious illness.”

In her opening remarks, Messonnier explained that there are two different risk pools for contracting coronavirus.

“Risk can be looked at in two ways,” Messonnier said.“There is risk of being exposed and getting sick from this virus, and there is risk of getting very sick or dying from illness with this virus.”

She explained that because no one can have immunity against a new virus, coronavirus will makes it way through the population.

“Based on this, it’s fair to say that as the trajectory of the outbreak continues, many people in the United States will at some point in time either this year or next be exposed to this virus, and there’s a good chance many will become sick,” Messonnier said.

She also explained who is most at risk for developing a potentially deadly case of coronavirus.

“Reports out of China that looked at more than 70,000 COVID-19 patients found that about 80 percent of illness had — was mild and people recovered,” Messonnier said. “Fifteen to 20 percent developed serious illness.”

“Let’s talk about who those people are,” Messonnier said. “So far it seems like it’s not children.”

“Of the 70,000 cases, only about two percent were in people younger than 19,” Messonnier said. “This seems to be a disease that affects adults. And most seriously older adults.”

“Starting at age 60, there is an increasing risk of disease and the risk increases with age,” Messonnier said. “The highest risk of serious illness and death is in people older than 80 years.”

She said people with serious underlying health conditions like diabetes, heart disease, or lung disease “are more likely to develop serious outcomes including death.”

Messonnier called on reporters to tell the public that people should have a plan for their families, including making sure medical prescriptions are filled and basic supplies are on hand.

That said, Messonnier also called on calm and common sense.

“This is a time for people to prepare for what they might need to do but not a time for people to clear out the shelves,” Messonnier said. “And I really want to focus on the United States and the families at highest risk because in the setting where it’s really clear that it is older Americans who are at the highest risk right now, we want to make sure that they’re taking every precaution to prepare themselves so that if there is more widespread transmission, they can stick close to home.”

She also said that masks are not recommended and should be reserved for healthcare workers who will need them when dealing with patients who have coronavirus.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/03/11/cdc-official-we-do-not-expect-most-people-to-develop-serious-illness/

Dick’s Sporting Goods Halting Gun Sales at 440 More Stores

The corporate gun control at Dick’s Sporting Goods continues with the stoppage of firearm sales at 440 additional company stores.

Fox 59 reports that the end of gun sales is part of Dick’s “methodical elimination of firearms from its stores.”

On February 28, 2018–two weeks after the attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School–Dick’s announced they would no longer sell “assault rifles” or “high capacity” magazines. They also raised their minimum purchase age for long guns to 21. Slightly less than two months later, Breitbart News reported that Dick’s would be destroying unsold “assault rifles” and “high capacity” magazines rather than sending them back to manufacturers.

By the end of August 2018, sales reports showed that Dick’s gun control stance was hurting business, but instead of doing away with anti-gun policies, Dick’s doubled-down, downsizing inventories of hunting gear as well. The sporting goods conglomerate faced the specter of having to close upwards of 35 stores nationwide, yet they continued to stand their ground on gun control.

On March 13, 2019, Breitbart News reported that sales had dropped enough that Dick’s was pulling all guns from 125 stores nationwide. Now the Fox 59 report makes clear that 440 other Dick’s locations will see guns disappear, too.

On December 11, 2019, Business Insider reported Dick’s CEO Ed Stack talk of how meeting with Parkland families shaped his gun control views. Two days later, Breitbart News reported that Parkland father Andrew Pollack–whose daughter, Meadow, was killed in the attack–made clear that Stack had never talked to him.

Pollack said, “Dick’s CEO Ed Stack didn’t meet with me. He is advocating for universal background checks which wouldn’t have made a difference in my daughter getting murdered. Dick’s will continue to go downhill and lose money under his leadership.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/03/11/dicks-sporting-goods-halting-gun-sales-at-440-more-stores/

Flashback: Charlie Sheen Divorce Bombshell…Wife: Drugs, hookers, threats, gambling, porn on actor’s plate

APRIL 21–In a searing court attack on Charlie Sheen, actress Denise Richards alleges that her estranged husband is unstable, violent, addicted to gambling and prostitutes, and visits pornographic web sites featuring young men and girls who appear underage.

In a remarkable sworn declaration (a copy of which you'll find here) filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court, Richards also charges that Sheen, 40, assaulted her and threatened her life during a December 30 incident at the actress's Los Angeles home. Richards claims that an enraged Sheen–who was over for a visit with the couple's two children–told her she was "fucking with the wrong guy" and called her a series of vulgar names in front of the children.

The actor, Richards said, then shoved her to the ground and screamed, "I hope you f–king die, bitch."

As Richards, 35, tells it, Sheen was angry because she had told her divorce attorney about discovering details of Sheen's porn-surfing practices. Richards's declaration, filed in support of her request for a restraining order against Sheen, contends that Sheen "belonged" to "disturbing" sites "which promoted very young girls, who looked underage to me with pigtails, braces, and no pubic hair performing oral sex with each other."

Other sites visited by Sheen, Richards alleges, involved "gay pornography also involving very young men who also did not look like adults." Richards claims that she also discovered that Sheen "belonged to several sex search type sites" on which he "looked for women to have sex with." His online profile, Richards adds, included a photo of "his erect penis."

The Richards evisceration also portrays Sheen as a lousy father who urged her to abort their first child. And, when she was about to give birth to their second child via a C-section, Sheen's attention was "diverted to his pager for the results of his betting."

To illustrate Sheen's volcanic temper and abusive language, Richards's court filing includes transcripts of six phone messages he allegedly left her last April, while she was pregnant with the couple's second daughter. In one call, Sheen says, "You're a coward and a liar and a fucking nigger alright so fuck you." In a second message, Sheen appears to make a reference to Richards's female attorney when he complains about "two pregnant cunts…plotting against the rest of us." (19 pages)

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/charlie-sheen-divorce-bombshell

Watching kiddy porn

Bulgarian government floods the Evros River to stop migrant invasion

The Bulgarian government on Monday opened one of its dams along the Evros River to raise the river’s water level in an attempt to stop migrants who are trying to cross the Greek-Turkish border.

The Ivaylovgrad Dam was opened at Greece’s request. The operation was successful in raising the river’s water level, the Greek Reporter reports.

Bulgaria’s action took place as the standoff between migrants, who were recently granted permission to cross Turkish territory to enter Greece – and hence Europe – by the Turkish government, and Greek security personnel continues. The number of migrants – most of whom are fighting-aged men – currently trying to cross illegally into Greece via the Evros River has been estimated as being in the thousands.

During a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that if Turkish President Recep Erdogan wants to renegotiate his country’s agreement on migration with the EU, he must first bring the migrants off the border and put a stop to the spread of disinformation. The prime minister emphasized that neither Greece or Europe will allow themselves to be blackmailed, although he also recognized that Turkey has long played a crucial role in controlling the migrant crisis.

Mitsotakis further called for Erdogan to consider taking other measures, such as carrying out joint border patrols with Greece and repatriating migrants who had crossed into Greece illegally.

The Turkish regime has become increasingly belligerent as this border conflict has unfolded over the past weeks.

https://voiceofeurope.com/2020/03/bulgarian-government-floods-the-evros-river-to-stop-migrant-invasion/

The Nigerian Armed Forces (NAF) have suffered heavy losses in a recent attack on the remaining ISIS cells in the northeastern province of Borno.

ISIS’s news agency, Amaq, said the failed attack targeted the terrorist group’s positions near the town of Baga on March 9. The terrorists quickly repelled the attack, inflicting heavy losses on the NAF.

“Islamic State fighters killed and wounded 10 Nigerian army soldiers while repelling the attack, they also burned six armored vehicles, two trucks, and a 4×4 vehicle,” a source in ISIS told Amaq.

According to the source, ISIS terrorists also captured four 4×4 vehicles, a bulldozer as well as a truck-mounted Grad multiple rocket launcher (MRL).

Amaq released a photo of a Saurer 4K 4FA armored personnel carrier (APS) of the NAF that was allegedly burned during the failed attack. The agency also shared a video showing two Nigerian soldiers, who were captured by ISIS fighters, and the dead body of a third soldier.

The Defence Ministry of Nigeria is yet to comment on ISIS’ claims or to release a statement clarifying what exactly happened near Baga.

Last year witnessed a notable decline in ISIS activities in Nigeria. However, the terrorist group is now, once again, on the move to rebuild its influence in the country, mainly in the northeastern region neighboring the Chad Lake.

https://southfront.org/nigerian-army-suffers-heavy-losses-in-failed-attack-on-isis-cells-in-borno-18-video/

Yearning for past glory? Brits more nostalgic for empire than other post-colonial powers, 33% think colonies ‘better off’ – survey

Were British colonies “better off” for being part of the bygone empire? The answer is ‘yes’ for over one-third of respondents in a new poll, which found Brits tend to yearn more for their imperial past than other colonial powers.

The YouGov survey shared with the Guardian also revealed that more than one-third of Britons are still “proud” of the empire, which encompassed almost a quarter of the Earth’s land area at its height. Pride in empire was stronger only in the Netherlands, the survey found.

Yet, not only are empire-proud Britons more likely to believe the colonized were better off — they are also more likely than citizens of France, Spain, Italy, German, Japan or the Netherlands to say that they would like the empire to still exist today.

Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, Conservative voters were nearly twice as likely as Labour voters to be pro-empire. Somewhat ironically, ‘Leave’ voters, many of whom used Brexit as a rallying cry to “take back control” of Britain’s borders, were more than twice as likely to be wistful about Britain’s colonizing imperial past.

Indeed, just last month, Tory councillor James Airey said Brexit offered an opportunity for the empire to “strike back” now that it is “free from the shackles” of the EU — an ill-suited choice of wording, if ever there was one.

Things have not quite panned out as expected, however, for those who were hoping Brexit would have the effect of relaunching Britain as one of the major influential players on the world stage. Rather, the opposite seems to be happening, with London losing some of its international clout and looking increasingly isolated post-Brexit.

The results from Britain and the Netherlands were in stark contrast to responses from Germany and Belgium. Asked about the period of empire between 1871 and 1918, only nine percent of Germans said they were proud. Likewise, Belgians were the most likely nationality to admit that their imperialism left colonial territories worse off.

Britain. I assure you the 6 counties that make it the UK as opposed to Britain, are not nostalgic for the British empire. https://t.co/LpzpPn1vQ7

— Ciara McShane (@Ciara87C) March 11, 2020

The reason for the belief that the colonies were “better off” could lie in the fact that Britain has not undergone a national reckoning with its past and its empire’s legacy of violence, slavery, famine and division.

Jon Wilson, history professor at King’s College London told the Guardian that while countries like Belgium, France and Italy have more openly discussed their past actions in places like the Congo, Algeria and Ethiopia, Britain “has not had that debate,” he said.

https://www.rt.com/uk/482854-british-empire-proud-survey/

33 more masonic signalling