Biden Says to Expect 'Real' Food Shortages Due to Ukraine War

Source: Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden said that the world will experience food shortages as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and production increases were a subject of discussions at a Group of Seven meeting on Thursday.

“It’s going to be real,” Biden said at a news conference in Brussels. “The price of the sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia. It’s imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well.”

Ukraine and Russia are both major producers of wheat, in particular, and Kyiv’s government has already warned that the country’s planting and harvest have been severely disrupted by the war.

Biden said that at the G-7 summit in Brussels earlier that he and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau both discussed increasing their nation’s agricultural production to try to make up for shortfalls. Biden said he’s also urging all nations including those in Europe to drop trade restrictions that could restrict exports of food.

Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biden-says-expect-real-food-175308088.html

The far right's obsession with fitness is going digital

It appears the far right has taken advantage of pandemic at-home fitness trends to expand its decade-plus radicalization of physical mixed martial arts (MMA) and combat sports spaces.

Earlier this month, researchers reported that a network of online “fascist fitness” chat groups on the encrypted platform Telegram are recruiting and radicalizing young men with neo-Nazi and white supremacist extremist ideologies. Initially lured with health tips and strategies for positive physical changes, new recruits are later invited to closed chat groups where far-right content is shared.

Physical fitness has always been central to the far right. In “Mein Kampf,” Hitler fixated on boxing and jujitsu, believing they could help him create an army of millions whose aggressive spirit and impeccably trained bodies, combined with “fanatical love of the fatherland,” would do more for the German nation than any “mediocre” tactical weapons training.

In more modern times, far-right groups have launched mixed martial arts and boxing gyms in Ukraine, Canada and France, among other places, focused on training far-right nationalists in violent hand-to-hand combat and street-fighting techniques. It’s caught the attention of intelligence authorities, especially in Europe, where various reports have noted the role of combat sports and MMA in radicalizing and promoting far-right violence. A series of collaborative efforts between governments, national sports associations, and local gyms in places such as Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom have introduced intervention and prevention programs.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/pandemic-fitness-trends-have-gone-extreme-literally-n1292463?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma

Omicron's 'stealth' subvariant BA.2 could go 'wild' in Europe before going global

Source: CNBC

LONDON — While war rages in Ukraine, not much attention is being paid to surging Covid-19 cases across Europe that could soon start to filter out to the rest of the world.

The rise in cases across the continent, from the U.K. and France to Italy and Austria, is being driven by several factors: The lifting of most — if not all — Covid restrictions, waning immunity from vaccines and booster shots, and the spread of the more transmissible omicron subvariant, BA.2.

“We all hoped and expected a different turn now at the beginning of spring,” Ralf Reintjes, professor of epidemiology at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, told CNBC this week.

...

Germany is seeing a surge in cases and has reported daily tallies of new infections of between 200,000 to 300,000 a day in the last week.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/omicrons-subvariant-bapoint2-could-spread-wildly-in-europe-epidemiologist.html

Biden press secretary has COVID-19, won't travel to Europe

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that she is positive again for COVID-19 and will not accompany President Joe Biden to Europe this week for urgent meetings with world counterparts on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Biden tested negative on Tuesday, she said.

Psaki’s reinfection is the latest COVID-19 scare for the White House after recent positive tests for Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband and Ireland’s prime minister, who was in the nation’s capital last week for a series of in-person celebrations of St. Patrick’s Day with Biden and other officials.

The scares come as the Biden administration is trying to help the United States ease back into its pre-pandemic norms, even as cases climb in Europe due to a new variant of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-biden-covid-health-europe-c68d2677aa3d9040a5772bbc80d4b84f

Great piece for history buffs, re: Ukraine

Picking Sides: Not everyone wants to make Putin an economic pariah over the Ukraine war

Hackers drop deepfake of Zelenskyy ordering troops to surrender on Ukrainian news site

Jimmy Hill, American Killed in Ukraine, 'Gunned Down' in Bread Line: Family

Source: Newsweek

Jimmy Hill, an American born in Minnesota, was killed in Ukraine while waiting in line for bread, his family wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday.

Anton Gerashchenko, the adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, confirmed on Telegram that Hill, 67, was killed in Chernihiv Wednesday. The city, about 80 miles from Kyiv, has been suffering "heavy artillery" attacks from Russian forces and Ukrainian police wrote on Facebook that several United States citizens have died there.

Cheryl Hill Gordon, Hill's sister, posted about her brother's death on Facebook. "He was waiting in a bread line with several other people when they were gunned down by Russian military snipers," Gordon wrote. "His body was found in the street by the local police."

According to Gordon, Hill was staying in Ukraine with a friend, mentioned as Ira, who was "severely ill," and had been stranded in a hospital with her when the war began on February 24.

Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/american-jimmy-hill-dead-ukraine-1689155

Quinnipiac: Would Americans Stay and Fight or Flee?

A covid surge in western Europe has U.S. bracing for another wave

Source: Washington Post

A surge in coronavirus infections in western Europe has experts and health authorities on alert for another wave of the pandemic in the United States even as most of the country has done away with restrictions after a sharp decline in cases.

Infectious-disease experts are closely watching the subvariant of omicron known as BA. 2, which appears to be more transmissible than the original strain, BA. 1, and is fueling the outbreak overseas.
What to know about BA.2, a new version of the omicron variant

Germany, a nation of 83 million people, saw more than 250,000 new cases and 249 deaths Friday, when Health Minister Karl Lauterbach called the nation’s situation “critical.” The country is allowing most coronavirus restrictions to end Sunday, despite the increase. The United Kingdom had a seven-day average of 65,894 cases and 79 deaths as of Sunday, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Research Center. The Netherlands, home to fewer than 18 million people, was averaging more than 60,000 cases the same day.

In all, about a dozen nations are seeing spikes in coronavirus infections caused by BA. 2, a cousin of the BA. 1 form of virus that tore through the United States over the past three months.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-covid-surge-in-western-europe-has-us-bracing-for-another-wave/ar-AAV8kgb