Billings Clinic launching permanent viral clinic

Billings Clinic launching permanent viral clinic

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  • Chauvin Verdict Brings the Police Relief and Some Resentment

    MINNEAPOLIS — It was shortly after 4 p.m. Tuesday, and all chatter ceased in the roll-call room for the Fourth Police Precinct in North Minneapolis. Everyone’s attention was glued to the television on the wall. Then came the verdict: Derek Chauvin was guilty on all counts, including murder, for killing George Floyd last May. The station house stayed silent, the officers processing what the verdict meant after a year of tension and conflict, said Inspector Charles Adams, the precinct’s commanding officer. “It was just like, wow,” Adams said. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times For him, it was a relief — he felt that Chauvin had been wrong and that his actions, kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, cast a negative light on policing. But the verdict did little to end months of upheaval and anxiety in his profession. “So much is being thrown at us as law enforcement officials,” Adams said. “We’re unsure how we’re going to police in the future.” Police chiefs and unions across the country condemned Chauvin’s actions and applauded the jury's verdict, but not always with the same zeal or for the same reasons. Some said they hoped it would restore faith in the criminal justice system. Others said it would help keep the peace. And still others indicated that it would clear the way for “honest discussion” about policing. The feelings of rank-and-file officers were more complicated: a mix of relief, resentment at being vilified alongside Chauvin and unsettling thoughts of themselves in his shoes. “They’re thinking, ‘Man, I’ve got to think long and hard before I get out of my car and get into something I don’t have to get into,’ ” said Jim Pasco, the executive director of the national Fraternal Order of Police. In the Minneapolis station house, Adams heard of remarks from a few rank-and-file officers who believed the defense’s argument that drugs killed Floyd and that Chauvin had followed his training. “Some just think he got a raw deal,” Adams said. “But there’s a lot of them who think he was guilty, too.” The full extent of the fallout for Chauvin will be known June 16, when he is scheduled to be sentenced. He is being held alone in a cell in a maximum-security prison in Oak Park Heights, Minnesota, a Twin Cities suburb. He is allowed out for exercise for only an hour each day. Even then, he is kept away from other inmates. Prison officials said Chauvin was being kept in solitary for his own safety. Outside the Twin Cities, in rural communities where “Back the Blue” banners hang in storefronts, Chauvin’s trial at times seemed a world away. There, largely white police departments patrol largely white communities, and residents are often friends or relatives of law enforcement officers. In Gilbert, Minnesota, a community of about 2,000 three hours north of Minneapolis, Ty Techar, the police chief, said he watched only about an hour of the trial and 30 seconds of the body-camera footage. While he said that what Chauvin did would be unacceptable in his department, he stopped short of saying he agreed with the verdict. “For me to sit here and make a judgment on whether he got a fair trial, I don’t know all the evidence,” he said. “I haven’t looked at it closely enough.” He added: “Is it second-degree murder or manslaughter? I don’t know much about the case.” Police unions historically have been the staunchest defenders of officers, even those accused of wrongdoing. They did not defend Chauvin, but some used the verdict as an occasion to criticize public figures who have scrutinized the police. The Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis said in a statement that it wanted “to reach out to the community and still express our deep remorse for their pain” and that “there are no winners in this case.” “We need the political pandering to stop and the race-baiting of elected officials to stop,” the statement said. “In addition, we need to stop the divisive comments and we all need to do better to create a Minneapolis we all love.” Police and union officials have argued that the consistent pressure some community members and elected leaders place on law enforcement can be a detriment. In Minneapolis, there are several efforts to significantly downsize the Police Department and create a new public safety division. The governor of Minnesota has come out in support of a bill to limit police traffic stops for minor infractions. The Justice Department on Wednesday announced a broad civil rights investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department. Adams said that several officers were now hesitant to perform even some of the most basic duties like traffic stops, worrying that such situations might escalate and get them in trouble. In New York, a union leader seemed to play on such anxieties. “It is hard to imagine a tougher time to be a member of the law enforcement profession,” Ed Mullins, the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, wrote in a letter after the verdict was announced. He warned members that their every action was being recorded and that “scores of attorneys” were eager to sue them. “Our elected officials are complicit in perpetuating the myth that we are the enemy,” he added. Attitudes like that, activists said, speak to the resistance of law enforcement to be held accountable and allow police abuses to continue. Some police officials said the backlash to Chauvin’s actions actually provided an opportunity to improve. “I think it takes us a step closer toward reform,” said Michael S. Harrison, Baltimore’s police commissioner. “It doesn’t make it harder to do our jobs. It makes it where we have to train better, and use best practices and we have to do our job the right way.” The guilty verdict was a significant reminder for officers to stay within their training, said Rick Smith, the police chief in Kansas City, Missouri. “I think officers understand that going outside the norms leads to potential issues,” he said. “And this one highlighted that in the hundredth degree across the nation.” Adams said he believed that the judicial process ultimately helped the profession regain some of its credibility. Nine current and retired members of the Minneapolis Police Department testified against Chauvin at trial, including the police chief. That testimony, Adams said, showed the public that Chauvin was not representative of the Minneapolis police. The prosecution’s assertion during closing arguments that its case was against Chauvin, not the police, also helped, he said. After Chief Medaria Arradondo testified that Chauvin acted outside of department policy, Adams said he texted him to say he was proud to belong to his staff. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company

  • Long road for Cup runner-up Stars to get back in playoffs

    The defending Western Conference champion Dallas Stars have quite a road to get back in the postseason. After winning four in a row at home and now within two points of the final playoff spot in the Central Division, the Stars will end the regular season playing nine of their last 11 games on the road. "We’ve known all along it was coming,” coach Rick Bowness said.

  • Gaza's gravediggers saw war: 'COVID is harder'

    As the pandemic drags on, the burden of casualties is increasingly shifting toward the world's poorer areas.And here in the Palestinian territories it is front and center, where the sick and dying are pushing Gaza's hospitals close to capacity. Mohammad al-Haresh knows. He's the man burying the dead, and he says even the Israeli-Gaza war of 2014 wasn't this difficult for him."There used to be one or two funerals a day, and some days none at all," he says. Now he has eight a day, 10 a day, and God knows they'll increase.He's burying bodies in the day and night.Across the border fence in Israel, daily headlines show progress against the disease. Over half of Israelis are fully vaccinated, cases are down sharply, and people no longer have to wear masks outdoors.In Gaza, with a densely packed population of two million people, only a mere 34,000 have been vaccinated. Health officials say disregard for social distancing helped worsen the spike. Vaccine skepticism also runs deep. A recent survey suggests 54% of Gazans refuse to get a shot, according to the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center.Hamas is imposing a nightly curfew to try and stem the tide, shutting mosques hosting hundreds of people for Ramadan.But it's reluctant to damage the economy further, and elections are also coming.We spoke with Eyad Al-Bozom, a Hamas representative. He says, "We may impose additional measures, but we don't expect at this phase to go into a full lockdown."Back at the cemetery, Haresh the gravedigger continues. He says in war they'd bury the dead during ceasefires or truces. With coronavirus, there is no truce.

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  • Black Market Hospital Beds and Price-Gouged COVID Drugs Selling on Indian Twitter

    Amit Dave via ReutersThe COVID-19 crisis in India has hit a new low as corrupt scammers are now prowling social media for desperate patients who are willing to pay a premium for hospital bed space and black market drugs. 50 Million People Allowed at Superspreader Festival so Modi Can Secure the Hindu VoteVideo of an undercover sting operation in the Indian city of Rajkot showed a hospital worker selling a hospital bed to a desperate woman whose relative needed critical care. “I won’t take anything less than Rs 9,000,” the worker said, which is about $120. “You will get the bed in 30 minutes.” The family negotiated down to Rs 8,000 and the man called someone inside the hospital who finalized the deal. Within an hour, the sick patient is whisked through a back door of the hospital, skirting the 50 or 60 waiting cars in front. So desperate is the need for coveted hospital space that scenes like this are reportedly playing out across the country as overwhelmed hospitals grapple with a tsunami of patients, critical supply shortages and an obvious lack of vigilance. Indian Hospitals Run Out of Oxygen After Foreign Sales BoomPolice uncovered the deal after following the initial exchange on social media, where many patients are pleading for help. Hospitals have also used social media platforms to plead for supplies like oxygen and drugs. India, which is the world’s largest producer of generic drugs, has also reached a critical shortage of remdesivir and favipiravir, which have both had moderate success in treating COVID-19 patients. Raman Gaikwad, an infectious diseases specialist at Sahyadri Hospital in the western city of Pune, told the Indian Express that remdesivir manufacturers were ordered to cease production in January because of decrease in infections. When the latest wave hit, they were left with severe shortages. “One solution to this crisis was to create a stockpile of antiviral drugs when cases were low,” Gaikwad told the paper. “But that did not happen.”A network of activists, including YouTuber Kusha Kapila, have joined together to try to source and share information on hospital bed availability, pharmacy supplies and food delivery to help people stay away from price gougers on the black market. One of the activists told AFP that there is a new request for help every 30 seconds. An investigation carried out by media outlet India Today trailed a black market ring selling remdesivir for six times the market price. Payments had to be made in cash and the patients were told the drug—which the World Health Organization has said doesn’t even work—would be smuggled out of the hospital. Patients were given injections upon delivery of the cash. On Thursday, India reported a record-breaking 314,000 new COVID-19 infections, the most recorded anywhere in the world since the pandemic began."Covid-19 has hit this country with a ferocity not seen before...but not unexpected either". WARNING - this is a very distressing but necessary report from @yogital, Fred Scott and Sanjay Ganguly on the human catastrophe unfolding in #Delhi. Please watch #CovidIndia #BBCNewsTen pic.twitter.com/A5Pi1nwd0n— Nicola Careem (@NicolaCareem) April 21, 2021 Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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