NYC shootings cost taxpayers at least $350 million in hospital bills

 Shootings in the Big Apple are bleeding taxpayers to death.

Americans collectively spent at least $350 million to treat gunshot wounds in New York City hospitals alone over the course of a decade — with Brooklyn and the Bronx accounting for more than 70% of the city’s medical bill.

Federal taxpayers — all of whom chip in for Medicaid and Medicare — were on the hook for between $30 million and $40 million annually to cover the cost of treating gunshot wounds across the five boroughs between 2010 and 2020, according to a new report by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

In comparison, private spending was less than $60 million for the same decade-long period.

The researchers, who analyzed data on over 10,400 hospital claims in New York State’s healthcare billing system, told The Post that this is not a local problem, but in fact, an issue that the whole country should be made aware of.

Putting a price tag on the city’s gun violence may help the problem get attention from communities less directly affected by the problem, Dr. Jeffrey Butts, head of the Research & Evaluation Center at John Jay, said.

The researchers analyzed data on over 10,400 hospital claims in New York State’s healthcare billing system.

Paul Martinka

“People should not delude themselves into thinking that if they live in a rural farm community, they do not have to worry about urban gun violence — because they are paying for that,” Butts said.

Brooklyn got the most taxpayer dough — $132 million; followed by the Bronx at $116 million; Manhattan, nearly $50 million; Queens, $42 million; and Staten Island, $11 million.

https://nypost.com/2023/01/07/nyc-shootings-cost-taxpayers-at-least-350-million-in-hospital-bills/

America’s spy agencies failed to protect us from China’s bio-warfare program

 As we settle into the New Year, many of us are watching with trepidation the signs that COVID-19 may be surging again. Hospitalizations have been rising since early November. It is common to once again see folks fully masked up in an elevator, movie theater or a Broadway show. We don’t know if we can get this virus under control, and we must be able to foresee and prevent the emergence of another. This is why it is critical to uncover the origins of COVID-19. And that is where US intelligence agencies have failed and even deceived us.

American taxpayers shell out billions each year to our 18 spy agencies  — the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) and NSA (National Security Agency) the best-known of them — so they can protect us from foreign threats. And these threats include COVID-19, which originated in China. At minimum, these agencies must use their incredible human spy-power and powerful technology to collect (or even steal) secrets to determine where threats originate so we can neutralize them. Because if we don’t, we will be dealing with these threats again and again.

Our country and the world suffered an unimaginable toll from COVID-19 – more than one million dead in the US and nearly seven million globally. In August, the declassified version of the Intelligence Community’s Assessment on the virus’ origins was released and stated, “The IC was able to reach broad agreement” that “the virus was not developed as a biological weapon.”

And yet, American spy agencies, when pressed by the House intelligence committee on what they knew about the deadly virus, failed to come clean. The agencies concealed from the oversight panels, and therefore the American people, that COVID-19 is consistent with China’s biological warfare doctrine and the long-term programs Beijing has invested in to weaponize viruses. Most curiously, they withheld key intelligence from the oversight committees regarding the extent of China’s much-discussed gain of function research — programs aimed at increasing the transmissibility and virulence of highly dangerous pathogens through genetic manipulation. If they are so sure of their conclusion, why withhold this crucial information.

Ohio Congressman Brad Wenstrup led a recent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus that suggested US spy agencies may have concealed the virus’ connection to Chinese bioweapons efforts.

REUTERS

Scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology examine a bat captured in a Chinese cave to sample them for coronavirus. Many suspect Covid-19 originated in this facility.

ECOHEALTH ALLIANCE

So why is China developing and manipulating viruses? China’s biological warfare doctrine was developed, at least in part, to target deadly viruses at the United States, which Beijing perceives as its key impediment to its goals of becoming the world’s top economic and military power by 2049 — the centennial of China’s Communist revolution — and taking over Taiwan, either via gradual integration of by military force. 

China has a long history of coronavirus research, which is conducted by scientists from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Fifth Institute of the Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS) in Shanghai and scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). These scientists work collaboratively as part of China’s national biological weapons program. Information about these efforts became available thanks to Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), which on December 14 released a Second Interim Report on the Origins of the COVID-19 Pandemic as part of an oversight investigation led by Congressman Brad Wenstrup (OH-02). The report accused US spy agencies of downplaying the possibility that SARS-CoV- 2 was connected to China’s bioweapons program and of withholding vital information from the public and skewing the public’s understanding of key issues on COVID-19.

Shanghai’s Fifth Institute of the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, which like the Wuhan laboratory, conducted research into the coronavirus.

CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikipedia

Chinese President Xi Jinping was the architect of his nation’s “zero-Covid” policy which has recently been partially rescinded. The result: Millions of new covid cases are now overwhelming the country.

REUTERS

Founded in 1951, AMMS is China’s premier military medical research agency. It includes 11 organizations, one of which is the Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, also known as the Fifth Institute. Although China bills this program as defensive, the State Department in 2005 revealed that China also operates an offensive biological weapons program. In a 2006 declaration of compliance with the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention — a global agreement prohibiting bio-weapons development and deployment — China acknowledged that the Fifth Institute conducts research on SARS coronaviruses. In 2015, the official publishing house of the AMMS released a book titled “The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Artificial Humanized Viruses as Genetic Weapons.” 

The book makes clear that Chinese military medical researchers have concluded that an artificially engineered chimeric coronavirus can serve as a genetic weapon, infecting humans and creating a pandemic, such as COVID-19. Such a bioweapon has an advantage over a traditional kinetic weapon, such as a missile or a nuclear bomb, because it can be employed both in wartime and peacetime — and also, theoretically, via the air or food supply.

China’s bioweapons program is believed to be part of a larger effort by the superpower to retake control over Taiwan, which includes potential strikes by ballistic missiles such as these being tested last year.

AP

Of course, the Chinese never explicitly said they were manipulating coronaviruses to weaponize them. Rather, “the purpose of using modern genetic weapons, argued Chinese military theorists in this book, is not primarily for military motives but rather as an important terror threat [and to meet] political and regional or international strategic requirements.”  They highlighted the use of such weapons in the context of “political struggle,” in which these non-conventional but equally deadly means could strain the target nation’ healthcare systems, potentially causing “the enemy’s medical system to collapse.” 

This is exactly what we experienced in America during the worst moments of the COVID-19 pandemic. We didn’t have enough sanitizers and masks, let alone ventilators, to help infected patients. Hospitals were barely able in some areas to keep up with the patient load, while treatment of other illnesses was sidelined. Ironically, China is experiencing the very same thing now that Pres. Xi Jinping has ending his nation’s onerous zero-Covid policy

If we don’t get to the bottom of how COVID-19 has erupted into a global weapon of mass devastation, we will continue to be vulnerable to our adversary’s devious doctrines. Which is why the final report by the Government Accountability Office — scheduled to be completed early this year — must not only address the exact origins of the virus, but expose any cover-ups by US spy agencies since the pandemic began.

Rebekah Koffler is the president of Doctrine & Strategy Consulting, a former DIA intelligence officer, and the author of  “Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America.” 

https://nypost.com/2023/01/07/americas-spy-agencies-failed-to-protect-us-from-chinas-bio-warfare/

The Army National Guard vs. The Invading Cartel Armies

 Rape trees, river floaters, skeletal remains, and fentanyl candy. The new vernacular of illegal immigration is an indictment of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) loss of operational control along the U.S.-Southern border. A consequence of this is the transformation of cartel insurgencies into well-formed armies that recruit and employ uniformed soldiers, have supporting intelligence operations, and control terrain. The challenge now confronting state and federal law enforcement is no longer how to deter an insurgency; it’s how to defeat an army.

Modern armies are resourced by nation-states who provide moral leadership in times of war. But the accountable governments of nation-states can falter and fail. Mexico in particular has a compromised central government that is not protecting its own homeland from subversive actors. When this happens, a conglomerate of paid professionals, mercenaries, conscripts, and criminals fills the void to either protect or exploit the resources of a community. It was true within the first communities of Mesopotamia, and it is happening now in communities across Mexico. This is how armies begin. A state is incapable of securing its communities, accountable governments lose legitimacy, and subversive actors start vying for control of terrain to exploit resources. 

The hallmark of any effective army is its ability to control terrain. The cartel armies have done that by co-opting the gangs of the U.S. and operate the world’s largest crime syndicate complete with narco distribution hubs throughout the U.S.. In Mexico they cordon cities and run roadblocks to collect information and extort residents. To date, as much as 20 percent of Mexico has come under control of the cartels as previously reported by CIA analysts. Their center of gravity is the illicit drug and human trafficking revenues from which they derive their strength. The illegal aliens that they infiltrate, the drugs that they smuggle, and the terrorist that they give safe passage each infiltrate the Southern border under their control and further empower their control of terrain.

The Invasion Word

Armies deter aggression and win the nation’s wars by dominating the land. So, the maxim goes… But this is a description that prescribes to a classical definition of state-on-state aggression initiated by an invasion of one state’s sponsored military against another’s. Article 4, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution even guarantees that the U.S. shall protect its states against invasion. And if not, Article 1, Section 10 permits states the right to protect themselves from an invasion. These “invasion clauses” are the genesis of the debate that is occurring between the federal government and border states. The federal government clings to the classic definition of an invasion and does not believe the humanitarian disaster occurring under the control of cartel armies constitutes an invasion. Whereas border state Governors believe in a 21^st century asymmetric style of invasion pointing to the infiltration of bad actors causing economic and criminal harm to their states. Regardless, the federal dogma continues along the line that an invasion is an “armed hostility from another political entity.”

To date, America’s next great leader has yet to emerge and articulate a coherent unified response to the 21^st century cartel invasion. Instead, a range of state-based strategies and stunts have been developed. Governor Gregg Abbott of Texas has passed an executive order empowering his state to apprehend illegal immigrants in certain circumstances as well as designating Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey was seeking court affirmation for his state’s right to defend itself, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is focusing on trafficking operations. And each of the aforementioned Governors has since adopted the political stunt of giving illegal aliens safe passage to sanctuary cities in northern states via bussing. As a result, cartel armies continue to consolidate power and gain control of territories while states bear the brunt of economic and criminal impacts.

Deploying the National Guard

The loss of operational control along the U.S.-Southern border by DHS has forced border state Governors into a constitutional dilemma. To date, no Governor has challenged the federal government to enforce federal immigration law and turn back persons seeking illegal entry. Instead, states such as Texas are relying on their own state constitutional authority to use the National Guard to arrest illegal aliens committing crimes. In fact, the National Guard has had a continuous presence on the Southern border since 2014 when former Texas Governor Perry deployed 1,000 troops to interdict Cartel del Golfo (Gulf Cartel). Deploying the National Guard to interdict cartel armies remains a desirable option due to the federal government’s abandonment of the border. But when opting for this option the Governor’s and their military commanders must maintain strategic symmetry throughout all facets of the operation. On-going challenges the National Guard is confronting on the border has generated the following principles that should be addressed when conducting border operations.

A Task Force is Not a Strategy

Governors love a good Task Force. And they exist for virtually every political, economic, and social purpose. As far as the border is concerned, Current task forces include Arizona’s Task Force Badge to support local law enforcement in border towns; New Mexico’s Human Trafficking Task Force; and Texas’ Task Force on Border and Homeland Security. These task forces sometimes strain due to the broad scope of concerns they attempt to address. Governor’s fall into a ‘my task force is bigger than yours” mentality and end up creating over representative committees. For instance, Texas’ Task Force on Border and Homeland Security has representatives from eight state agencies, the Border Sheriffs’ Coalition, county judges, mayors, property rights organizations, concerned citizens, and border community prosecutors. Good luck with that task force developing a specific focus.

A bloated think-tank style “task force” creates ambiguity at the operational level that lacks strategic context. What often results are large task forces that try to cover all conceivable scenarios due to the absence of a unified strategy. Inevitably, the Governor responds to think-tank style task forces and their recommendations and begins to implement what is confused as a strategy. Whereas the General tries to facilitate force structure and build a strategy within their joint staff. Thus, the two begin to react to separate problem sets.

Don’t Surge Your Troops to Failure

The National Guard is an operational force that provides strategic depth to our nation’s Army and Air Force. Over the past two decades the National Guard became quite adept as a resource provider to the Middle Eastern wars. In this federal role the National Guard followed a deliberate mobilization process lasting up to a year that culminated with properly trained, equipped, and missioned Soldiers. State led missions on the other hand are led by the Governor and TAG who controls the state’s National Guard. These National Guard soldiers and airmen are activated on state active duty and remain under the command and control of the Governor while costs are incurred by the taxpayers of the state. In this capacity the state’s TAG is responsible for training, readiness, and oversight of soldiers and airmen.

Governors don’t understand this concept and instead believe that the military exists within a perpetual state of readiness. And because of this belief they are quick to surge troops to the border when political pressure builds. Doing this wrong had disastrous results in Texas. Just this past summer a “no notice surge” of up to 10,000 troops to the Texas-Mexico border was attempted by the Governor. What resulted was a logistical nightmare of delayed pay, substandard living conditions, and equipment shortages. Most egregious were a number of suicides attributed to forced mobilizations because of no warning, and a tragic drowning due to limited training. In the wake of this disaster the TAG, Major General Tracy Norris, was replaced due to her inability to plan an operation, other senior officers were reassigned, and the number of troops on the border was reduced.  

You Can’t Go to War with a Border

The Prussian Soldier and writer Carl von Clausewitz wrote over two hundred years ago that war is not exerted on inanimate or passive human material. The U.S.-Mexico border is an inanimate terrain feature. It does not think or fight. The thinkers and fighters are “Cartel Americana” that have saturated the Americas in depth throughout the northern and Southern hemispheres. Defeating the illicit activities of the cartel armies requires a defense in depth strategy extending to within the cities and towns of the U.S. away from the border. What is required is a higher order of operational strategy consisting of what military theorist Liddell Hart refers to as the “concentration of strengths against weaknesses”.

The strength of the National Guard is its array of specialized units and human capital that do not exist within the active component of the U.S. military. Units such as homeland response forces, counter drug programs, cyber defense teams, and information operations; amongst other specialized capabilities could be the focus beyond the border. The primary intent should be to reclaim the physical and digital terrain that the cartel armies have seized. Augmenting the special agents within the Criminal Investigation Divisions of each state’s County Sheriff’s Offices, Attorney General’s Office, and Departments of Public Safety would provide a real threat to the cartel army’s self-preservation. Physical interdictions do not cease but instead become enhanced on the border.  

Build Consensus Between the Diplomats, the Bureaucrats, and the Generals

A Governor that decides to deploy the National Guard takes on the role of a diplomat to convince both the citizenry and state legislature for the need of civil self-protection. The messaging that the Governor delivers must be persuasive enough to receive popular support, pass legislation, and forge a budget. In Arizona Governor Doug Ducey influenced state legislators to create a border security fund consisting of $55 million; Florida Governor Ron DeSantis created a consortium of state law enforcement agencies expending $1.6 million to provide border security support to Texas; and Texas Governor Greg Abbott influenced his state legislature to provide $3 billion to finance the Operation Lone Star mission. Building consensus for a budget proposal is a core competency of Governorship. However, building funding consensus is not synonymous with strategic consensus. 

Governors, as the Commander in Chief of state military forces, are responsible for providing a strategic context to their National Guard troops. They should be able to rely on their existing agencies to craft that strategic context. The strategic aptitudes of a state exist within the Department of Emergency Management, Department of Public Safety, and Military Department (National Guard) who possess competent strategic planners. It is within these departments and agencies that a strategic framework is developed to visualize the operation in time, space, and purpose. From that, operations at the tactical level are developed, and resources applied through existing state bureaucracies. Doing this right requires strategic patience which is antithetical to a Governor who may have just negotiated a “border package” and needs a surge to commence. Thus consensus on a strategy often is strained from the very first press conference.

Conclusion

Current border state Governors have been forced into a situation non dissimilar to Reagan’s dilemma of 1984 when he responded to the Soviet Union’s influence in our hemisphere. During that time Reagan stated, “the United States has a legal right and a moral duty to help resist the subversive activities of the Soviet Union.” The dilemma of our hemisphere today is how to defend the United States from cartel armies. It’s not good practice to commit large military formations to long term criminal enforcement. It’s simply not within the DNA of America’s founding principles. However, the U.S. is being invaded by cartel armies as they continue to infiltrate the U.S.. How our Governors decide to leverage Constitutional authorities will determine if this war can be won.  

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Colonel Clarence Henderson (U.S. Army, ret.) is a former Infantry Brigade Combat Team Commander and U.S. Army War College graduate with over 20 years of active service and multiple worldwide deployments. He was the former commander of all troops on the border under Governors Rick Perry and Greg Abbott of Texas.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/01/07/the_invasion_equation_874351.html

How exercise preserves physical fitness during aging

 Proven to protect against a wide array of diseases, exercise may be the most powerful anti-aging intervention known to science. However, while physical activity can improve health during aging, its beneficial effects inevitably decline. The cellular mechanisms underlying the relationship among exercise, fitness and aging remain poorly understood.  

In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center investigated the role of one cellular mechanism in improving physical fitness by exercise training and identified one anti-aging intervention that delayed the declines that occur with aging in the model organism. Together, the scientists’ findings open the door to new strategies for promoting muscle function during aging.  

“Exercise has been widely employed to improve quality of life and to protect against degenerative diseases, and in humans, a long-term exercise regimen reduces overall mortality,” said co-corresponding author T. Keith Blackwell, MD, PhD, a senior investigator and section head of Islet Cell and Regenerative Biology at Joslin. “Our data identify an essential mediator of exercise responsiveness and an entry point for interventions to maintain muscle function during aging.” 

That essential mediator is the cycle of fragmentation and repair of the mitochondria, the specialized structures, or organelles, inside every cell responsible for producing energy. Mitochondrial function is critical to health, and disruption of mitochondrial dynamics  the cycle of repairing dysfunctional mitochondria and restoring the connectivity among the energy-producing organelles — has been linked to the development and progression of chronic, age-related diseases, such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes.  

“As we perceive that our muscles undergo a pattern of fatigue and restoration after an exercise session, they are undergoing this mitochondrial dynamic cycle,” said Blackwell, who is also acting section head of Immunobiology at Joslin. “In this process, muscles manage the aftermath of the metabolic demand of exercise and restore their functional capability.” 

Blackwell and colleagues — including co-corresponding author Julio Cesar Batista Ferreira, PhD, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sao Paulo — investigated the role of mitochondrial dynamics during exercise in the model organism C. elegans, a simple, well-studied microscopic worm species frequently used in metabolic and aging research. 

Recording wild type C. elegans worms as they swam or crawled, the investigators observed a typical age-related decline in physical fitness over the animals’ 15 days of adulthood. The scientists also showed a significant and progressive shift toward fragmented and/or disorganized mitochondria in the aging animals. For example, they observed in young worms on day 1 of adulthood, a single bout of exercise induced fatigue after one hour. The 60-minute session also caused an increase in mitochondrial fragmentation in the animals’ muscle cells, but a period of 24 hours was sufficient to restore both performance and mitochondrial function.  

In older (day 5 and day 10) worms, the animals’ performance did not return to baseline within 24 hours. Likewise, the older animals’ mitochondria underwent a cycle of fragmentation and repair, but the network reorganization that occurred was reduced compared to that of the younger animals. 

“We determined that a single exercise session induces a cycle of fatigue and physical fitness recovery that is paralleled by a cycle of the mitochondrial network rebuilding,” said first author Juliane Cruz Campos, a postdoctoral fellow at Joslin Diabetes Center. “Aging dampened the extent to which this occurred and induced a parallel decline in physical fitness. That suggested that mitochondrial dynamics might be important for maintaining physical fitness and possibly for physical fitness to be enhanced by a bout of exercise.”  

In a second set of experiments, the scientists allowed wild type worms to swim for one hour per day for 10 consecutive days, starting at the onset of adulthood. The team found that — as in people — the long-term training program significantly improved the animals’ middle-aged fitness at day 10, and mitigated the impairment of mitochondrial dynamics typically seen during aging.  

Finally, the researchers tested known, lifespan-extending interventions for their ability to improve exercise capacity during aging. Worms with increased AMPK — a molecule that is a key regulator of energy during exercise which also promotes remodeling of mitochondrial morphology and metabolism — exhibited improved physical fitness. They also demonstrated maintenance of, but not enhancement of, exercise performance during aging. Worms engineered to lack AMPK exhibited reduced physical fitness during aging as well as impairment of the recovery cycle. They also did not receive the age-delaying benefits of exercise over the course of the lifespan.  

“An important goal of the aging field is to identify interventions that not only extend lifespan but also enhance health and quality of life,” said Blackwell, who is also a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School. “In aging humans a decline in muscle function and exercise tolerance is a major concern that leads to substantial morbidity. Our data point towards potentially fruitful intervention points for forestalling this decline -- most likely along with other aspects of aging. It will be of great interest to determine how mitochondrial network plasticity influences physical fitness along with longevity and aging-associated diseases in humans.” 

Additional authors included Takafumi Ogawa of Joslin Diabetes Center; Luiz Henrique Marchesi Bozi (co-first author) and Edward Chouchani of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Barbara Krum, Luiz Roberto Grassmann Bechara, Nikolas Dresch Ferreira, Gabriel Santos Arini, Rudá Prestes Albuquerque of University of Sao Paulo; Annika Traa of McGill University; Alexander M. van der Bliek of David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles; Afshin Beheshti of NASA Ames Research Center; and Jeremy M. Van Raamsdonk of Harvard Medical School.   

This work was supported by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) (grants 2013/07937-8, 2015/22814-5, 2017/16694-2 and 2019/25049-9); Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento – Brasil (CNPq) (grants 303281/2015-4 and 407306/2013-7); Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) Finance Code 001 and Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia and Centro de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento de Processos Redox em Biomedicina; National Institutes of Health (NIH) (grants R35 GM122610, R01 AG054215, DK123095, AG071966); the Joslin Diabetes Center (grants P30 DK036836, and R01 GM121756); FAPESP postdoctoral fellowships 2017/16540-5 and 2019/18444-9, and 2016/09611-0 and 2019/07221-9; the American Heart Association Career Development Award (2022/926512); the Claudia Adams Barr Program; the Lavine Family Fund; the Pew Charitable Trust. William B. Mair (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) and Malene Hansen (Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute) provided some of the worm strains used in this study. Other strains were provided by the CGC, which is funded by the NIH (P40 OD010440).  

Chouchani is a founder and equity holder in Matchpoint Therapeutics. The other authors declare no competing interests.  

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/975797

NYC Subway Crime Spikes 30% Despite Beefed Up Transit Patrols

 Send in the Ninja Turtles.

Subway crime in the New York City has jumped 30% in 2022 vs. one year ago, outpacing the 22% jump in major crimes across the city over the same period, Bloomberg reports, citing police data released this week.

The crime wave comes as an embarrassment to NYC Mayor Eric Adams (D) who deployed thousands of additional police patrols in the transit system in order to to reduce crime and put riders at ease.

"Once we stabilized that, we’re going to right-size," said Adams during a Thursday briefing, discussing the need to reduce the police force once crime is lower. "You’re going to see a normalizing of the number of people who are there."

The New York City Police Department is spending an additional $20 million per month on overtime costs on top of regular levels, which pushed its overtime spending to $272 million through November. That’s more than 70% of the annual overtime budget for the fiscal year that ends June 30, according to New York City Comptroller Brad Lander’s office. -Bloomberg

The rise in spending on the police comes as Adams grapples with critics who say the city isn't doing enough to tackle crime within the transit system. Ridership, meanwhile, has to 60% of 2019 levels.

Some City Council members, meanwhile, say the additional funding should be sent on other services such as schools and libraries.

On Thursday, NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper said the additional subway patrols resulted in a 4.6% reduction in major crime in the transit system between Oct. 31 - Dec. 31, vs. the same period in 2021.

"This plan is paying dividends," said Kemper, who was probably told the plan needed to pay dividends, or else. "We went from a very concerning increase in crime for the first 10 months of the year to a sharp turnaround during the last nine weeks of the year."

In October, Adams and NY Governor Kathy Hochul pledged 1,200 overtime NYPD shifts in order to back the nearly 2,600 subway cops.

According to the Police Benevolent Association, which represents over 24,000 NYPD officers, said that the beefed up pace was unsustainable, and that the city was "underpaying and overworking cops."

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nyc-subway-crime-spikes-30-despite-beefed-transit-patrols

Now able to sell abortion pill, U.S. pharmacies weigh if they should

 Pharmacies across the United States are weighing whether to sell mifepristone, a pill used in medication abortions, following the Food and Drug Administration's announcement earlier this week that they can now do so.

What they decide is primarily based on where they are located given that almost half the states ban or restrict abortion after the Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v Wade ruling, though some pharmacists told Reuters the local culture and attitudes or their own personal beliefs on abortion is what guides them.

The FDA rule will make medication abortion, which accounts for more than half of U.S. abortions, more accessible in states where abortion remains legal, but its impact on pharmacies in the states that have banned abortion remains to be seen.

Bill Patel, who has owned Care Rite Pharmacy in Marianna, Florida, for five years, said he would not seek out certification to dispense mifepristone at his pharmacy because he is personally opposed to abortion. The pharmacy is located near Florida's borders with Georgia and Alabama, where abortion is severely restricted.

He said he would only do it if asked by the health department. "I just oppose it to be honest with you," he said. "I'm against abortion."

Florida currently bans abortion after 15 weeks and has several other restrictions.

National pharmacy chain giants Walgreens Boot Alliance Inc and CVS Health Corp have said they plan to offer mifepristone in states where it is allowed. Other national and regional chains including Southeastern Grocers Inc, which owns Winn-Dixie stores, said they are still considering if they will offer it and where.

A spokesperson for GenBioPro, one of two companies that make mifepristone in the United States, said the drugmaker has already started to receive applications for certification but did not provide further details.

Michelle Vargas, owner of independent Lamar Family Pharmacy in Lamar, South Carolina, said she is not considering dispensing it.

"We're in a very small rural area. We're not near an abortion clinic or in a larger city where that happens more," she said. "That's just not something we see here."

Legal questions are swirling around the prospects of a drug with FDA approval being made illegal under state law in some parts of the country.

With the legal issue unsettled, pharmacies in states restricting abortion are likely to face legal risks and could lose their licenses if they decide to sell mifepristone in violation of state laws, said American Pharmacist Association interim CEO Ilisa Bernstein, who worked at the FDA for 30 years.

Other factors, such as safety for pharmacies and pharmacists, are also at play, said Bernstein.

Steve Moore, pharmacist and owner of Condo Pharmacy in Plattsburgh, New York, a state where abortion is legal, plans to dispense the drug.

"As far as my role as a pharmacist, I feel it's to help people safely and effectively use the medications," said Moore. "I'm not in the role of limiting access to medication."

"We've had patients give us a hard time for dispensing the morning after pill or birth control. That's certainly your prerogative. But if that's a concern, then we're not the pharmacy for you, because we're certainly not going to stop doing that," he said.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/now-able-sell-abortion-pill-110000264.html

Media Blackout Over Terror Incident At Vegas Power Plant

 The US power grid is under attack as extremists shoot, sabotage, and vandalize electrical equipment at power stations. One of the highest-profile attacks was when two men used guns to paralyze a substation in Washington state on Christmas Day, leaving thousands without electricity. The incident made national news, but strangely enough, another attack last week on the Las Vegas power grid went unnoticed by the national press.

Mohammad Mesmarian, 34, rammed his car through the gate of a solar power generation plant outside Las Vegas on Wednesday and set his car on fire, intending to damage a massive transformer, 8 News Now reported.

"Employees at the plant said they found a car smoldering in a generator pit," 8 News Now said, adding the Mega Solar Array facility provides power to 13 properties on the Las Vegas Strip, all belonging to MGM Resorts. 

Investigators believe Mesmarian "siphoned gasoline from his car to put on wires at the transformer," 8 News Now said, citing documents from investigators. 

"Mesmarian clarified he burned the Toyota Camry," police said. "Mesmarian said he burned the vehicle at a Tesla solar plant and did it 'for the future.'"

Here's security camera footage of Mesmarian lighting his car on fire next to a giant transformer. 

8 News Now said Mesmarian caused "major damage," estimating it could take two years to receive parts and fix the transformer. Luckily, the damaged unit wasn't online at the time of the incident.. 

"Following an incident at the Mega Solar Array facility, on-site personnel immediately notified authorities and shut down the plant's operations as a precaution in accordance with industry-standard safety protocols," an Invenergy spokesperson said.

Mesmarian was arrested at a campground Thursday. He's being charged with committing an act of terrorism, first-degree arson, third-degree arson, destroying or injuring real or personal property of another, and escape by a felony prisoner.

Why is the national press absent in reporting this terror incident on the power grid? 

Perhaps the person involved doesn't fit the extremist profile routinely touted by progressive and state media. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/media-blackout-over-terror-incident-vegas-power-plant