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- Amazon has announced its Echo devices, powered by the Alexa AI virtual assistant, can put customers in touch with doctors hands-free via the telemedicine company Teladoc. Virtual “visits” – audio-only for now, though Teladoc has promised video visits are “coming soon” – will cost $75 for the uninsured. The consultations are available for non-emergency services only, and customers must already have an Alexa voice ID.
- A special device, reportedly being developed by the European Space Agency in cooperation with Thales Alenia Space, Franco-Italian aerospace manufacturer specialising in the space industry, would be able to extract oxygen from Lunar rocks, according to the Mirror. The innovation may be another step towards the creation of a real “lunar village.” “We wish to have lunar research stations which are permanent and people can go backwards and forwards from, rather than just go up there every 20 years,” said Roger Ward of Thales Alenia Space. “That’s when you start thinking about lunar villages and the need for resources such as oxygen to support that.”
- Most US states have ended their mask mandates. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last Friday said Covid-19 risks are high enough in only about 28% of the country to make face coverings necessary.
- [Fat Finger Syndrome] No, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin hasn’t come over to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s side on Ukraine policy. The Pentagon has deleted a Twitter post in which the defense chief’s account mistakenly shared a Fox News screenshot that appeared to defend Moscow’s motives in massing troops near Ukraine in December. “It was a fat finger mistake by one of our social media guys,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told media outlet Politico on Monday.
- International card companies Mastercard and Visa have disconnected a number of Russian banks from their payment systems following “sanction orders” related to Russia’s ongoing military operation in Ukraine. Last week announced a list of Russian banks which fall under the sanction orders. These include VTB, Otkritie, Sovcombank, Promsvyazbank and Novikombank. Their assets and dollar accounts were blocked, and Apple Pay and Google Pay for the cards of these banks stopped working. Restrictions were also placed on Sberbank, but they fell short of freezing its assets – instead, only correspondent accounts of the bank will be closed.
- YouTube has blocked the channels of RT and Sputnik for all European users, the platform, owned by Google parent company Alphabet Inc., announced on Tuesday. The block came with immediate effect, the statement said, citing the “ongoing war in Ukraine.” RT International is among the most popular news services on YouTube and currently has 4.66 million subscribers. Its content remains available on alternative platforms like Odysee and Rumble. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced it will restrict European users from accessing RT and Sputnik on its platforms. US-based tech platforms previously banned the Russian news organizations from monetizing their content.
- Among the many gaffes made by the United States President Joe Biden, a particularly common one is his tendency of calling Vice President Kamala Harris “President.” The trend of referring to VP Harris as the head of state appears to have been picked up by First Lady Jill Biden, who mistakenly introduced her with the title during a Black History Month celebration at the White House on Monday. Jill Biden called Kamala Harris “President” and then claimed she was just trying to make the attendees laugh.
- Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger stated on Sunday that an inner-perimeter fence will be constructed around the Capitol. According to the police chief, the decision was made “out of an abundance of caution,” as well as “in conjunction with the United States Secret Service.” “Our Department’s mission to protect the United States Congress, the Capitol, and the legislative process remains unwavering,” Manger said. Earlier this month, Capitol Police said that they were “aware of plans for a series of truck convoys arriving in Washington, DC. Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis took to Twitter on Monday to tell his followers that the Biden Administration had requested him to send the State National Guard to DC, but DeSantis had refused.
- Blogger Scott C. Waring, who previously made claims about UFO sightings and supposed alien bases on Earth, has reported what he described as “100 percent real UFO raw footage”. The sighting occurred on 27 February in the South Korean capital Seoul, where a motorist managed to capture some strange shape in the sky on their cell phone camera (though the veracity of the footage could not be immediately confirmed). As the blogger points out, the object “has no tail, no wings, no window” and the clip “looks similar to that of a rocket more than anything else”.
- The ISS is a collaboration between the US, Russia, Japan, Canada, and the European Space Agency. Presently, two Russian cosmonauts, four NASA astronauts, and one European astronaut live and work onboard the ISS. Russia has already said it will pull out of the ISS by 2025. Roscosmos has already begun work on a new space station.
- Europe may have trouble replenishing its natural gas storage facilities by next winter as storage levels are at decade lows. Russia, which supplies one-third of Europe’s natgas needs, has said delivery of gas through vast networks of pipelines will continue. On Monday, Russia’s gas producer Gazprom published a statement warning there will be “serious challenges” in replenishing European gas storage facilities for next winter considering “such significant gas volumes” are needed and never has this happened ahead of the summer months. Gazprom said there could be daily restrictions on injections because of the technological capacities of the pipeline infrastructure. Then there’s also the risk of damage to pipelines that transit gas from Russia through Ukraine. On top of this, European markets will be competing with increasing demand from Asian markets.
- Jeffrey Epstein pal Jean-Luc Brunel’s death was not caught on camera and he was in a single occupancy cell at the time, sources said. Brunel died in circumstances eerily similar to his paedo friend Epstein as he also hung himself in prison while awaiting trial for sex crimes. He was being held at La Santé in Paris – one of the toughest jails in France. While CCTV is commonplace in the corridors and gateways of French prisons, the vast majority of cells are not under video surveillance. This is ensure a degree of privacy, and to make sure that European human rights legislation is not violated.
News Burst 2 March 2022
Rose Rambles... 