Russia said on Friday it will withdraw from an international treaty allowing observation flights over military facilities following the US exit from the pact. Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement that the US withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty last year "significantly upended the balance of interests of signatory states."
Friday Cognitive dissonance is the phenomenon where you see two or more phenomena that are supposed to go together but really are wildly different. For example, if you saw a bloody beachhead on Peleliu and right on the sand in the middle of a huge blood stain was a band from the Stork Club playing classic American songbook favorites with a white piano. Yesterday, I went to my favorite supermarket on this earth, the Pavilions in gay West Hollywood. I noticed a line of men and women at the pharmacy counter. From their conversation I could tell they were waiting for COVID vaccine. I know the pharmacists well at that store. I asked one of them if she could give me the vax. She studied a computer screen and then cheerfully nodded. A very few minutes later, I was getting a tiny, super-sharp needle in my triceps, and a second later, I was rubbing my shoulder, thanking the pharmacist and smiling like a fool. Today, I brought my wifey into the same store and the same super pharmacist gave her the same Moderna vaccine. Both of us were smiling like monkeys as we got into my car and drove home.
HONG KONG: Thousands of Hong Kong residents were locked down on Saturday in an unprecedented move to contain a worsening outbreak in the city, authorities said.Hong Kong has been grappling to contain a fresh wave of the coronavirus since November.Over 4,300 cases have been recorded in the last two months, making up nearly 40 per cent of the city's total.Coronavirus cases in Hong Kong's Yau Tsim Mong district – a working-class neighbourhood with old buildings and subdivided flats – made up about half of the infections in the past week.Sewage testing in the area picked up more concentrated traces of the Covid-19 virus, prompting concerns that poorly built plumbing systems and a lack of ventilation in subdivided units may present a possible path for the virus to spread.Authorities said in a statement Saturday that an area comprising 16 buildings in Yau Tsim Mong will be locked down until all residents have undergone tests. Residents will not be allowed to leave their homes until they have received their test results to prevent cross-infection.“Persons subject to compulsory testing are required to stay in their premises until all such persons identified in the area have undergone testing and the test results are mostly