RUSSIA IS PREPARED TO DISCONNECT FROM SWIFT PAYMENT SYSTEM (Source blacklistednews.com)

Russia is preparing to depart from the international payment system SWIFT, Maria Zakharova, Russia’s Defense Ministry spokeswoman said, in an interview with RT. Russia has been attempting to push its Mir payment system since 2019, with Russian lawmakers backing the international use of a Russian alternative system for the global financial messaging network SWIFT designed by Moscow to eliminate the risk of Western sanctions. Back then, Russia held talks with China, India, Iran and Turkey about joint use of Russia’s financial messaging system, said Anatoly Aksakov, who heads the Russian Banking Association and a financial committee with the lower house of parliament. This is becoming increasingly likely, as the sanctions the US, and also the EU pushes on Russia and China are making the two countries move ever closer. Most recently, China’s foreign ministry said that US sanctions on Russia amounted to bullying at this point.

Biden hopes to meet with Putin during June Europe trip(Source thehill.com) President Biden said he hoped to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a June trip to Europe for the Group of Seven (G-7) summit. “That is my hope and expectation. We’re working on it,” Biden told reporters after remarks on the pandemic. Biden is scheduled to take his first overseas trip since becoming president when he attends the G-7 summit, which is being hosted this year by the United Kingdom in Cornwall. The trip is also tentatively scheduled to include a stop in Belgium for meetings with European and NATO leaders.

The G-7 summit, from June 11 to June 13, will be the first in-person meeting of the leaders in two years after former President Trump postponed last year’s summit, which was supposed to be held in the United States. Leaders instead met virtually.

US seen as bigger threat to democracy than Russia or China, global poll finds(Source theguardian.com)

The US faces an uphill task presenting itself as the chief guardian of global democracy, according to a new poll that shows the US is seen around the world as more of a threat to democracy than even Russia and China. The poll finds support for democracy remains high even though citizens in democratic countries rate their governments’ handling of the Covid crisis less well than people in less democratic countries. Inequality is seen as the biggest threat to global democracy, but in the US the power of big tech companies is also seen as a challenge. The findings come in a poll commissioned by the Alliance of Democracies Foundation among 50,000 respondents in 53 countries. In perhaps the most startling finding, nearly half (44%) of respondents in the 53 countries surveyed are concerned that the US threatens democracy in their country; fear of Chinese influence is by contrast 38%, and fear of Russian influence is lowest at 28%.

Nuclear waste tank in Washington state may be leaking(Source Associated Press)

An underground nuclear waste storage tank in Washington state that dates to World War II appears to be leaking contaminated liquid into the ground, the U.S. Department of Energy said Thursday.

It’s the second tank believed to be leaking waste left from the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The first was discovered in 2013. Many more of the 149 single-walled storage tanks at the site are suspected of leaking. Tank B-109, the latest suspected of leaking, holds 123,000 gallons (465,000 liters) of radioactive waste. The giant tank was constructed during the Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bombs and received waste from Hanford operations from 1946 to 1976.

The Hanford site near Richland in the southeastern part of the state produced about two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear arsenal, including the bomb dropped in 1945 on Nagasaki, Japan, and now is the most contaminated radioactive waste site in the nation. A multi-billion dollar environmental cleanup has been underway for decades at the sprawling Hanford site. The Washington state Department of Ecology and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency were notified Thursday that the tank was likely leaking.

Charleston police seeing increase of fentanyl mixed with other illicit drugs (Source live5news.com)

Officials with the Charleston Police Department say they are seeing an increase use of fentanyl being mixed with heroin, cocaine and marijuana. “Fentanyl has also been found in non-pharmaceutical “imitation” pills that replicate Percocet, Oxycodone and Xanax,” CPD officials said.

In addition, police reported to have also seen fentanyl disguised to replicate other illegal drugs such as cocaine and MDMA (Ecstasy / Molly). “These types of cases have been seen in every area of our city, state and even nationally,” Charleston police said. In 2020, the City of Charleston recorded 215 overdose cases of which 44 resulted in fatalities, according to a report by CPD officials. In 2021 to date there have been 47 overdose cases, 12 of which resulted in a fatality, police said.

Diapers, Cereal and, Yes, Toilet Paper Are Going to Get More Expensive (Source The New York Times)

Procter & Gamble is raising prices on items like Pampers and Tampax in September. Kimberly-Clark said in March that it will raise prices on Scott toilet paper, Huggies and Pull-Ups in June, a move that is “necessary to help offset significant commodity cost inflation.” And General Mills, which makes cereal brands including Cheerios, is facing increased supply-chain and freight costs “in this higher-demand environment,” Kofi Bruce, the company’s chief financial officer, said on a call with analysts. These price increases reflect what some economists are calling a major shift in the way companies have responded to demand during the pandemic.

Before the virus hit, retailers often absorbed the cost when suppliers raised prices on goods, because stiff competition forced retailers to keep prices stable. The pandemic changed that. It created chaos and confusion in global shipping markets, leading to shortages and price increases that have cascaded from factories to ports to stores to consumers. When the pandemic hit, Americans’ shopping habits shifted rapidly — with people spending money on treadmills and office furniture instead of going out to eat in restaurants and seeing movies at theaters. This, in turn, put enormous pressure on factories in China to produce these goods and ship them across the Pacific in containers. But the demand for shipping outstripped the availability of containers in Asia, yielding shortages that resulted in higher shipping costs.

Dr. Anthony Fauci says there’s a chance coronavirus vaccine may not provide immunity for very long

(source cnbc.com)

White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said he worries about the “durability” of a potential coronavirus vaccine, saying there’s a chance it may not provide long-term immunity.

If Covid-19 acts like other coronaviruses, “it likely isn’t going to be a long duration of immunity,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during an interview Tuesday evening with JAMA Editor Howard Bauchner. “When you look at the history of coronaviruses, the common coronaviruses that cause the common cold, the reports in the literature are that the durability of immunity that’s protective ranges from three to six months to almost always less than a year,” he said. “That’s not a lot of durability and protection.”

Iranian vessels swarmed and harassed US Coast Guard ships for hours in the Persian Gulf

(Source businessinsider.com)

A handful of Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vessels swarmed and harassed two US Coast Guard ships in the Persian Gulf earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing Navy officials. Three IRGC fast-attack boats and a larger support vessel swarmed the US Coast Guard cutters Monomoy and Wrangell while they were on patrol in international waters on April 2.

During the incident, the large Iranian support ship crossed repeatedly in front of the US vessels, at one point coming within 70 yards of the Wrangell and forcing the cutter to take evasive maneuvers to avoid a collision. The US vessels sent repeated warnings via bridge-to-bridge communications, but the Iranian vessels did not alter their behavior and continued to maneuver in an unsafe manner around the two Coast Guard ships.

‘Super Pink Moon’ to kick off string of supermoons in 2021 (Source accuweather.com)

The last week of April will kick off with the brightest night so far this year as a supermoon fills the sky after sunset on Monday. The first in a trio of consecutive supermoons will rise on the night of April 26 into the early morning of April 27, followed by another supermoon on May 26 and the final supermoon of the year on June 24. The last major astronomical event of the month will be visible around the globe, as long as clouds do not obscure the sky.

Girl Scout cookies delivered by drone? A Virginia troop teamed up with Google Wing amid COVID-19

(Source usatoday.com) In Christiansburg, Virginia, Girl Scout cookies are falling from the heavens. Well, not exactly. They are being delivered not by young girls in uniform but by Google-developed Wing drones, a futuristic twist on how to get your fill of Thin Mints.

Wing, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc., reached out to the Girl Scouts of Virginia Skyline about making cookie drops to help boost cookie sales, which are still being impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Even with loosening COVID restrictions, the traditional method of selling cookies outside of grocery stores or shops is difficult this year, and sales are down about 50% from prior years,” Lia Reich, Wing global communications lead, said in a statement to USA TODAY. “It was a natural fit to partner with the Girl Scouts to help out in this situation.”