News Burst 26 April 2020 – Live Feed

News Burst 26 April 2020

• A California-based startup that’s seen recent success as a popular electric scooter rental service in cities across the nation appears to have set a record in terms of number of employees laid off on the spot in the least amount of time. Bird, which is headquartered in Santa Monica, but maintains clusters of employees nationwide that must service and oversee its fleet of ‘Bird scooters’ including app developers — invited 406 employees to attend what the company called a “COVID-19 Update” Zoom meeting on March 27. And then a massacre ensued… a two-minute massacre. “Once employees logged onto the one-way meeting, a woman’s voice began reading a script, informing the attendees that they had all been laid off in a 2-minute speech.”

• Arjun Dhungana, a wholesaler at Balkhu vegetable market in Kathmandu, Nepal finds happiness in putting vegetables on the plates of the needy. Instead of letting veggies rot, this trader is delivering it to the needy for free. According to the Kalimati Fruits and Vegetable Market Management Committee, demand for vegetables has gone down by 50 percent in Kathmandu as hotels, restaurants and hostels have been shut due to the nationwide lockdown. Thousands of people have also returned to their villages. But vegetables trucks continue to come to Kathmandu as wholesalers don’t want to irk farmers who are their long-term business partners.

• With so many New Yorkers unable to pay rent for the foreseeable future, the current crisis is unsustainable and demands action. Many tenants have no ability to pay rent, and landlords can’t collect rent from tenants who are broke. Landlords expecting May’s rent next week could be for a rude awakening. Mostly because “rent strike” searches across the internet have exploded in April. When it comes to subregions, Monterey-Salinas, California; Boise, Idaho; Lansing, Michigan; Savannah, Georgia; and Lexington, Kentucky, saw increased “rent strike” searches over the month.

• Saudi Arabia may have to borrow as much as $58 billion this year to cover a budget shortfall caused by the oil price slump. Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan.

• The Progress MS-14 cargo craft, launched on April 25 at 04:51 Moscow time from the Baikonur cosmodrome, has docked successfully with the International Space Station (ISS). The Russian space agency Roscosmos has transmitted the docking on its website. The cargo spacecraft will deliver 420 kilograms of water, 46 kg of oxygen, 700 kg of fuel and 1,350 kg of dry cargo. The previous cargo launch happened on December 6, 2019. That time, the flight took three days: the Progress reached the ISS in two days, but idled for another day to provide NASA with a reserve day to dock the Dragon spacecraft.

• Across the Arab world today an average of 45 percent of married couples are related, according to Dr. Nadia Sakati, a pediatrician and senior consultant for the genetics research center at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh.

• Nintendo Co. has said that about 160,000 accounts for its home video game networking service may have been hit by an unauthorized login. Birthdays, email addresses and other information of the account holders for game consoles such as Wii U and Nintendo 3DS online, could have been viewed by the perpetrators, officials with the major Japanese game maker said Friday. An in-house investigation found that unauthorized login using identification codes and passwords started around early this month, the officials said. In addition, unauthorized login via the IDs occurred for accounts used for playing the Nintendo Switch console, possibly leading to illegal purchases of goods on Nintendo’s online shopping website, they said. The company will send email to users whose accounts were possibly compromised, asking them to set new passwords.

• Cryoconite, the layer of dark sediment on top of most glaciers, is a sponge for nuclear contaminants. New research finds that glaciers all over the world — not only those near nuclear disaster sites — are excessively contaminated with radioactive nuclear fallout. Analyzing the cryoconite, the researchers found it in the Alpine glaciers of Forni, in Italy, and Morteratsch, in Switzerland. Similar situation in Svalbard Islands and in the Caucasus glaciers. The result of the 1986 Chernobyl accident and nuclear tests in the upper atmosphere in the 1950s and 1960s.

• A 36-year-old Texas man has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for threatening to assassinate President Donald Trump, prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty in December to making threats against Trump. According to plea documents, Gedlu admitted he threatened Trump’s life on social media, stating on YouTube: “I am waiting for Trump to visit Dallas before I attempt to assassinate him.”
  During court proceedings, prosecutors said that on May 31, 2018, Gedlu was observed across the street from Dallas’ Adolphus Hotel just 30 minutes before Trump arrived there for a fundraiser. Dallas police officers noticed Gedlu holding a “Kill Trump” sign and detained him as he screamed “kill the president.”

• North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has expressed gratitude to the workers of a major construction project in the town of Samjiyon, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea Rodong Sinmun wrote on Sunday.

• Prices of raw sugar for May delivery at New York crashed to 9.75 cents per pound, the lowest closing for a nearest-month futures contract since the 9.70 cents recorded on June 9, 2008. One reason for this collapse is the closure of restaurants, weddings and other social functions not taking place, and people avoiding ice-creams and sweetened cold beverages that might cause throat infections.

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