Former Trump deputy national security adviser Victoria Coates said on Thursday Iran “destroyed its key asset” in the Strait of Hormuz, adding that regional states are increasingly building energy infrastructure to bypass the chokepoint.
“The Iranians have destroyed their key asset, which is the Strait of Hormuz, in that the entire region is busily building energy infrastructure to bypass it. The United States is the world’s gas station of choice now because we’re reliable.”
Kuwait’s Civil Aviation Authority said Kuwait International Airport’s radar was targeted on Thursday morning, causing injuries and serious damage to radar facilities and air traffic management equipment.
A Qatari delegation returning from Tehran delivered Iran’s approval of the final draft of an Iran-US memorandum of understanding, Al Arabiya reported, citing a senior source.
The likelihood of Iran approving a proposed memorandum of understanding with the United States is high because Washington has accepted Tehran’s proposed text, but Iran has not yet given a final response, IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency reported.
Tehran given its final approval to a draft agreement with the United States and conveyed the decision to Washington through Qatari mediators, Al Arabiya reported on Thursday, citing sources familiar with the negotiations.
The report said the proposed agreement would include a mechanism overseen by a mediator to monitor and address any violations. Al Arabiya did not identify the mediator.
A New York Times journalist on Wednesday shockingly downplayed accusations leveled against Maine Senate candidateGraham Platnerby his ex-girlfriends as “not like classic abuse allegations.”
Jodi Kantor, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s sexual abuse, suggested Maine voters may have been willing to overlook the scandals plaguing Platner’s campaign in Tuesday’s primary because they “are not classic MeToo accusations” – before comparing them to President Trump’s scandals.
“They’re not about a boss and a young female employee being subjected to sexual advances. They were mostly made in the context of consensual relationships,” Kantor said in a CNN interview about the allegations against Platner reported in the Times.
Kantor argued the allegations against Platner were “not classic MeToo accusations.”CNN
“There are these, like, very sensational texts about sex. There are allegations from former girlfriends that are not — the way my colleagues reported them were not like classic abuse allegations,” she argued.
“They were mostly like being his boyfriend gave me a view into him and I did not like what I saw. His character was scary. He had this Nazi tattoo. Et cetera.”
Lyndsey Fifield, who dated Platner from 2013 to 2015, told the outlet that the former oyster farmer and Marine veteran “regularly grabbed her by the shoulders — sometimes hard enough to leave marks — and, on one occasion, yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument when she wanted to stay in the car.”
During another incident, Fifield claimed, “he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out, telling her to remain there until she was ‘calm.’”
“There was one allegation of crossing a line physically,” Kantor acknowledged, without detailing it, “but I think that means that these are pretty different accusations than, say, the one that — the ones that President Trump faced.”
Platner received a stunning 72% of the vote in Maine’s Democratic Senate primary.AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty
Kantor specifically referenced the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, which Trump dismissed as “locker room talk.”
“I think it speaks to the kind of confusion of the long post MeToo moment in which, like, gender related accusations get bundled together,” Kantor argued. “But they’re actually very different.”
Fifield has accused Times reporters Lisa Lerer and Katie Glueck of twisting her account of Platner’s alleged abuse into “a gift” for the Democrat’s Senate campaign.
She claims the outlet spiked allegations of sexual assault made against Platner by other women and refused to include accounts from her friends corroborating her story.
Despite his scandals, Platner clinched the Democratic Senate nomination Tuesday night with about 72% support.
Fifield did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
An inmate at California’snotorious San Quentin prisonhas exhibited hantavirus symptoms, sparking concerns of a potential outbreak in a superspreader environment.
Hantavirus drew a significant amount of public attention after an outbreak infected several American citizens on the MV Hondius cruise ship traveling around the world.
The prison, located in Marin County, is still awaiting federal and state testing results to determine if the 38-year-old male inmate has hantavirus, ABC 7 reported.
The prison in Northern California houses more than 3,000 criminals.REUTERS
There have yet to be any confirmed cases of hantavirus at the prison, officials said.
“The health and safety of the incarcerated population and staff remain CDCR’s top priority,” a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokespersontold the San Francisco Chronicle.
The prison, officially known as the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, houses more than 3,000 inmates.
The facility where the sick prisoner was housed has been disinfected, and medical staff will monitor inmates and staff for symptoms indicative of possible exposure.
Officials at the prison believe the inmate’s sickness was not caused by person-to-person contact and no quarantine has been announced.
A prison official did not know whether the inmate was still being treated at the medical unit or had been returned to his regular housing facility, ABC 7 reported.
Hantavirus drew a significant attention after an outbreak infected several US citizens on the MV Hondius cruise ship.Anadolu via Getty Images
Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome is a rare but severe respiratory illness that can start with flu-like symptoms, sometimes including stomach problems, before rapidly progressing to life-threatening respiratory distress.
The fatality rate is about 30% to 40%, and there is no antiviral treatment, according to the the California Department of Public Health. Severe cases usually require aggressive critical care.
Four Californians exposed to the cruise ship outbreak were being monitored by the state for infection last month. Two of the them have already returned home and are being monitored by local public health officials.
The other two were transported by federal authorities to a secure medical facility in Nebraska and are expected to return to California once health assessments are complete and safety arrangements are in place.
