>>8680096 LB

>US Army Awards $139 Million in Contracts to Build Care Centres

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>Four construction companies have received nearly $140 million in contracts to convert existing facilities into emergency hospitals from the US Army Corps of Engineers (ACE), the Department of Defence said in a press release.

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> "AECOM Technical Services of Los Angeles, California, was awarded a $58,250,000 modification …contract to retrofit the State University of New York Old Westbury campus into an alternate care facility", the release said Friday.

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>Turner Construction Company won a $50,500,000 modification contract for work on an alternate care facility at Stony Brook in New York State, while New York Convention Centre Operating Corporation won $15,250,000 to retrofit space in the Jacob Javits Convention Centre into an alternate care facility by 9 April in a third ACE contract, the release continued. And Haughland Energy Group of Plainview, New York, won a $15 million ACE modification contract for work on a similar care facility in White Plains, New York, it added.

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>New York officials earlier said they need to use the convention centre and build other facilities to handle patients amid the surge of coronavirus cases.

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>As of Friday, the total number of COVID-19 cases across the United States neared 240,000 and the number of deaths exceeded 5,400, the US Cenres for Dsease Control and Prevention data shows. According to Johns Hopkins University dashboard, over 277,000 people have been infected with the virus, while almost 7,100 patients have died.

>

>https://sputniknews.com/us/202004041078827525-us-army-awards-139-million-in-contracts-to-build-care-centres/

I'd like to know what the heck they're going to do with all these facilities post rescue care for the children or patients with CV.

Seriously?

>>8680894

Go back to rebbit.

>>8680973

Venus is her name.

NYC reportedly bribing prisoners with anti-virus gear to dig mass graves

New York City is reportedly using its Rikers Island jail workforce to dig mass graves, seemingly in anticipation of the fallout from the city's spike in coronavirus cases.

To lure convicts (those in jail awaiting trial are not part of the arrangement) into joining the work detail, the prison system is even offering a major increase in pay over what jobs normally pay behind bars, as well as access to masks and protective gear that much of the general population would have a hard time securing, according to a new report.

While the prisoners will reportedly be handed gear for the work under this arrangement, average Americans are finding it near impossible to buy masks, gloves and other protective equipment due to shortages and appropriation.

According to The Intercept, inmates will also receive $6 per hour for the work.

This is nearly a tenfold increase in pay over what the average New York state prisoner earns, which was discovered to be around 65 cents per hour in a 2017 Gothamist report.

Clearly, New York City wants these graves.

A spokesperson from Mayor Bill de Blasio's office confirmed the existence of the graves, but claimed they were not specific to COVID-19.

Hart Island, where the graves are to be dug, is home to a public cemetery which is already maintained by inmates.

While the mayor's office may claim the graves are not specifically intended for coronavirus victims, official documents hint the Hart Island cemetery will be used exactly for that purpose.

A 2008 document prepared by the city's chief medical examiner highlighted Hart Island as a destination for a hypothetical surge of corpses following a deadly viral outbreak.

"As of 2007, the [NYC Department of Correction] reported that Hart Island has two prepared sites able to accommodate 19,200 decedents and an additional undeveloped site to support future interments," the report reads.

Although the document used influenza to model the deaths, it's been shown that COVID-19 is a much deadlier illness.

All things considered, it appears that the government doesn't even need to bribe inmates with inflated wages and hard-to-get gear in order to get the work done.

It's likely that prisoners digging the graves are in a much better position than those inside prison facilities.

For one, the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 thrives in packed and unsanitary conditions like those of Rikers Island and other New York prison facilities. ( Harvey Weinstein, locked up in a Buffalo-area prison, caught COVID-19 while behind bars. )

Working in the open air while using the personal protective gear issued by the prison would likely give inmates on grave-digging detail a much better chance of avoiding infection.

While New York is the state hardest hit by the viral pneumonia, numbers from Johns Hopkins show the mounting number of deaths have not yet come close to requiring the digging of mass graves.

When considering Americans' propensity for ingenuity, like when doctors discover new ways to use ventilators, and the fact that production capacity for consumer goods is being shifted toward medical gear, it's far from certain that these graves will ever be filled with the bodies of New Yorkers.

https://www.wnd.com/2020/04/nyc-reportedly-bribing-prisoners-anti-virus-gear-dig-mass-graves/

Jimmy Carter-Appointed Federal Judge Violates His Constitutional Oath, OKs Gun-Store Shutdowns Near Los Angeles

A federal judge on Tuesday denied a request to force Ventura County, Calif., to reopen gun stores forced to close in response to the coronavirus.

Judge Consuelo B. Marshall, a Jimmy Carter appointee, of the District Court for the Central District of California, said she would not grant a temporary restraining order against the county's shutdown order. Her decision is one of the first in the legal battle over pandemic-related closures of gun businesses. It may indicate the court fights could drag on for weeks and produce mixed results even as Americans buy guns for self-protection at a record pace.

"While the public interest is served by protecting Second Amendment rights, the public interest is also served by protecting the public health by limiting the spread of a virulent disease," Marshall said in a ruling.

Marshall's ruling is one of at least three legal opinions that have come out in the wake of the outbreak, though state and federal courts have disagreed about the extent to which the Second Amendment protects against emergency closures. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court allowed Gov. Tom Wolf (D.) to include stores in his shutdown—though the governor later reversed course. Meanwhile, a North Carolina court ordered Wake County sheriff Gerald Baker (D.) to abide by an agreement that reopens the pistol-purchase permitting process in the county.

Gun-rights activists have been able to convince most jurisdictions to allow gun businesses to remain open during emergency shutdowns using a combination of lobbying and lawsuits. On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security updated its nonbinding guidance to add gun manufacturers, stores, and ranges to the list of "essential" businesses. While a dozen states and the federal government had originally left gun businesses off of their "essential" business lists, a number of states, including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, reversed course on their gun-store shutdowns over the past 10 days.

Massachusetts is the only state to move in the other direction when it revised its "essential" business list to exclude gun stores on Wednesday, effectively cutting off most legal gun sales in the state.

Judge Marshall said Ventura County's shutdown order was not as "sweeping" as the ban on handgun sales at issue in the landmark Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and should, therefore, be subject to a less rigorous judicial test for constitutionality.

"The County Order does not specifically target handgun ownership, does not prohibit the ownership of a handgun outright, and is temporary," she said. "Therefore, the burden of the County Order on the Second Amendment, if any, is not substantial, so intermediate scrutiny is appropriate."

She went on to argue that the plaintiff in the case did not provide evidence that the coronavirus-shutdowns would be as effective if they exempted gun stores.

"Plaintiff does not dispute that mitigation of the spread of the COVID-19 virus is a compelling interest but offers no evidence or argument disputing the County's determination that its mitigation effort would be as effective without closure of nonessential businesses," Judge Marshall said. "Plaintiff has not demonstrated he is likely to succeed on the merits of his claim."

The suit, filed by a firearms instructor and gun-rights activists living in the county, was separate from a suit filed by the nation's leading gun-rights groups. The Second Amendment Foundation, which partnered with the National Rifle Association and Firearms Policy Coalition to bring a suit against the Los Angeles County sheriff and California governor, said the organization believes its challenge is better suited to win and is continuing to move forward.

"Our lawsuits are moving ahead and we expect to win," Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, told the Washington Free Beacon.

https://freebeacon.com/coronavirus/federal-judge-oks-gun-store-shutdowns-near-los-angeles/