Lamar Odom accuses ex-fiancée Sabrina Parr of hacking his Instagram

Lamar Odom and Sabrina Parr I’ve already called it over again, but this time it seems to be forever.

On Wednesday, December 30th, the former Lakers star took to Instagram to accuse his ex-fiancée of allegedly hacking his Instagram account following their breakup. In a post on his business, he wrote, “Unfortunately, my ex’s social media platforms are being held hostage and we are working hard to recover my IG and Twitter passwords.”

In another post he added, “You wronged me in so many ways and I was ready to quietly walk away, but I see you want a show … I gave you a global platform. Use it for your best or it will destroy. ” I wish you the best.”

Lamar’s statement was apparently in response to Sabrina’s since-deleted Instagram story, in which she denied that she was in control of his account. “I find these allegations from Lamar and whoever he works extremely disappointing,” she wrote. “We are no longer together and have not been together for a while.”

Oxford researchers say future strains will be protected against

Sir John Bell, a professor at Oxford University in the UK, told CNBC on Wednesday that he was confident that Covid-19 vaccines could be upgraded to provide effective protection against future coronavirus mutations.

Bell’s comments on “Closing Bell” come as global attention is focused on a strain of the virus that is widespread in the UK and that may spread more easily than previous variants. It has since been discovered in Colorado and California.

“This is going to be a game of cat and mouse,” said Bell, who worked with AstraZeneca to oversee vaccine development at Oxford. The UK government approved emergency vaccine use on Wednesday after granting limited approval for Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine earlier this month.

Studies are currently underway to officially determine whether Oxford-AstraZeneca’s vaccine will protect against the new strain of the virus, Bell said. “We think they probably can, but we just want to be absolutely sure.”

“Given the level of disease in the UK with the new variant … we will have many examples of people who have had the vaccine and are exposed to the virus and we will be able to report fairly quickly on whether the vaccine actually protects against this strain,” added Bell added.

In addition to the coronavirus variant found in Great Britain, a separate strain has come into focus, which was first found in South Africa. Officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday it may also be floating around in America.

Bell told CNBC that he believes the variant discovered in South Africa has mutations that make it “a little more worrying” than the UK’s predominant strain. Still, Bell expressed confidence in how scientists will deal with virus mutations that escape the protection of existing vaccines.

“If we need to make new vaccines, now that we’ve done the first work, we can make them. I’m sure our friends can do the same with the RNA vaccines,” said Bell. Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were developed using messenger RNA technology, a new approach that uses genetic material to trigger an immune response. Oxford-AstraZeneca’s viral vector vaccine uses a weakened version of a cold virus that causes infections in chimpanzees.

“We are ready if we need to make another vaccine to get closer,” added Bell. He also noted that the vaccine update development process is unlikely to require the same large-scale clinical trials conducted this year, just immunogenicity studies to ensure that an immune response is elicited.

According to Dr. It is not uncommon for viruses to mutate, Scott Gottlieb, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner who serves on Pfizer’s Board of Directors. “Some viruses like the flu develop their surface proteins very quickly, so we need a different flu vaccine every season,” he told CNBC earlier this month.

Gottlieb said at the time that he also believed the vaccines in place will protect against the strain of virus transmitted in the UK, as the vaccines target the entire spike protein of the coronavirus.

“We are developing antibodies against many different regions of this protein. Even if part of this protein were mutated and some antibodies no longer recognized it, there would be antibodies against other parts of this protein,” he said. “That probably won’t bypass our vaccines that easily, but at some point we’ll have to update the vaccines.”

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC employee and a member of the boards of directors of Pfizer, the genetic testing startup Tempus, and the biotech company Illumina. Gottlieb is also co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean’s Healthy Sail Panel.

California has recognized the primary case of a brand new pressure of Covid within the UK, in response to Newsom

In this file photo dated June 30, 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom removes his face mask before giving an update during a visit to Pittsburg, California.

Rich Pedroncelli | AP

California health officials have identified the state’s first case of a new and contagious strain of Covid-19 that was originally discovered in the UK.

The patient is a 30-year-old San Diego County male who showed symptoms on Sunday, government officials confirmed Wednesday.

“I don’t think Californians should feel like this is anything strange. This is expected,” said White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, on Wednesday during a live Q&A session with California Governor Gavin Newsom. Fauci said other states are likely to identify their own cases of the new strain soon.

San Diego county supervisor Nathan Fletcher said the patient was tested for Covid-19 Tuesday morning. Because he had not traveled, state officials believe there are other cases of the new strain in the county, Fletcher said at a press conference after Newsom revealed the case.

Fletcher urged residents to follow public health instructions over the next few days to avoid further burdens on the county’s hospitals, which are “hugely burdened” by an onslaught of Covid-19 patients.

On Tuesday, Colorado health officials confirmed the first case of the B.1.1.7 variant of coronavirus. During a news conference Wednesday, Colorado Governor Jared Polis said the state is investigating a possible second case of the new tribe.

Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said earlier Wednesday that the new tribe could put pressure on the country’s hospitals, which are already overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients.

Dr. Henry Walke, the agency’s Covid Incident Manager, said the new variant appears to be spreading “easier and faster than other strains”, but it doesn’t seem to make people sick or increase their risk of death.

A particularly worrying aspect of the Colorado case was that the patient had not traveled, “suggesting this variant was transmitted person-to-person in the United States,” Walke told reporters on a conference call.

Some good news: The new variant doesn’t appear to affect the vaccines’ effectiveness or make diagnosis difficult with existing tests, Fauci told Newsom. The UK has also found that people who were already infected with previous strains of Covid-19 do not appear to be re-infected with this new variant.

Researchers have yet to determine whether the new strain may be resistant to monoclonal antibody treatment, which has successfully helped some patients recover from the disease, Fauci said. Unlike vaccines, which trigger an immune response that attacks different parts of the virus, monoclonal antibodies target a very specific component, according to the country’s leading infectious disease expert.

Monoclonal antibodies have shown promising benefits if the virus is detected early enough. President Donald Trump attributed Regeneron’s treatment for feeling better “immediately” when he was infected and finally hospitalized with Covid-19 in early October.

“That’s what we know about it now, but we’re following this extremely carefully,” Fauci said, adding that they are investigating the exposure at the National Institutes of Health and a number of laboratories across the country.

– CNBC’s Will Feuer and Amanda Macias contributed to this report.

The chief of Operation Warp Velocity ​​says the distribution needs to be higher.

The United States won’t vaccinate as many people against the coronavirus by the end of the year as was originally estimated by federal officials, President Donald Trump’s Covar-19 vaccine tsar said Wednesday.

According to the latest census by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 11.4 million doses of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s two-dose vaccines were distributed across the country on Monday morning, but only about 2.1 million were given to humans. This is nowhere near the US health authorities’ original goal of injecting at least 20 million Americans with their first doses before the end of the year.

“We agree that this number is lower than we had hoped,” said Moncef Slaoui, chief advisor to Operation Warp Speed, during a press conference. “We know it should be better and we’re working hard to do better,” he said.

The CDC has recognized that due to delays in receiving data from the states and jurisdictions that they report to federal officials, their own data is out of date. “A large difference between the number of doses distributed and the number of doses administered is expected at this point in the COVID vaccination program due to several factors,” the agency said.

U.S. General Gustave Perna, who oversees logistics for Operation Warp Speed, said he was working to fix the delay in data reporting, which is currently 72 to 96 hours ago. The CDC updates its vaccine numbers every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9 a.m. CET, according to the agency.

Even so, the US is doing “really well,” so far, Perna said, adding that the actual number of cans being distributed is now more than 14 million. The operation began this week with the delivery of second doses of Pfizer’s vaccine to those who were vaccinated with a first shot in mid-December.

The CDC states on its website that the federal government has not yet started its vaccine distribution partnership with major pharmacy chains such as CVS and Walgreens, which have been tasked with vaccinating long-term care residents.

CVS Health spokesman TJ Crawford told CNBC on Wednesday that the pharmacy chain will be delivering the vaccines to long-term care facilities in 48 states and Washington, DC starting earlier this week. Walgreens spokeswoman Kelli Teno said the company will also offer vaccines in 48 states and in Washington, DC starting this week.

Despite the delays, Operation Warp Speed ​​spokesman Michael Pratt said the US is close to meeting its goal of supplying 20 million Americans with its first shot by the end of the year.

“Operation Warp Speed ​​remains on track to deliver approximately 40 million vaccine doses and 20 million primary vaccination doses by the end of December 2020. The distribution of the 20 million primary doses extends into the first week of January when states place orders she, “he said in a statement.

Perna also applauded state health officials for their work in rolling out the cans, contradicting President Donald Trump, who went to Twitter earlier in the day to blame states for the slower-than-expected rollout, saying the US had the life-saving ones Shots distributed but states must manage them.

“The federal government has distributed the vaccines to the federal states,” said the president in a tweet. “Now it is up to the states to manage. Move on!”

The irregular vacation schedule likely explains some of the delays in reporting vaccinations, said Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers, which represents state health officials who oversee vaccination planning, in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Vaccine shipments are arriving in the first half of the week, but many places have decided not to hold vaccination clinics during the Christmas break late last week. The biggest problem, however, is that many states are required to provide up to half of their doses for the federal government’s partnership to vaccinate long-term care residents through pharmacy chains like CVS and Walgreens, Hannan said.

“These count as dispensed doses, but they basically just sit in the long-term care facility’s bank,” Hannan said. She added that hospitals are more focused on their vaccination programs by postponing appointments and taking time to make sure they store and mix the doses properly.

“You’re doing all of these things right and I think we don’t want to rush,” said Hannan. “Of course we have to speed things up when we go beyond healthcare, but I think there are only a number of factors that are contributing, none of which are a major problem for me.”

– CNBC’s Will Feuer and Melissa Repko contributed to this report.

Lamar Odom claims his ex, Sabrina Parr, retains his social media

Married couple Lamar Odom and Sabrina Parr shared words on Instagram after Lamar beat up Sabrina for banning him from his social media accounts. Today Lamar shared a video on Instagram asking fans to follow him on Snapchat and Twitch. In the long caption, Lamar stated, “What is it, good people? I’ve worked hard to build my brand and a new team. Unfortunately, my social media platforms are being held hostage by my ex and we are working hard to get my IG and Twitter passwords back. If any of you know anyone who can reset it for me, check out my brand manager’s DM ASAP @savvygirlconsulting. “

He continued: “In the meantime, come up to me holla. You need to log into my YouTube, my Twitch, and follow me on Snapchat Lucky7lefty. If you have an iPhone, I’ll be in the clubhouse. So take a look. I’m starting a room on mental health, toxicity and abuse relationships, and self-love. Thank you all for loving and supporting me. I love you all back. Now watch me at work. “

Shortly afterwards, Sabrina made her own Instagram post and denied all claims. She wrote: “I find these allegations from Lamar and whoever he works extremely disappointing. We’re not together anymore and haven’t been for a while. I made up my mind to speak quietly about the situation and I suggest that you do the same. We both know the truth, and I can assure you that the truth will be towed at its end. If you will excuse me now, I will carry on in peace and quiet … “

Lamar responded to Sabrina’s rejection by posting a screenshot on Instagram of her email address and phone number linked to his account. He wrote: “Where is the lie? This is my ex’s phone number and business email address. “

Just when we thought the drama was over, Sabrina responded with a series of screenshots that support her claims that she didn’t have access to his accounts. She pulled out the email receipts between her and Facebook, saying the number attached to his Instagram was not hers.

Roommate, what do you think of all of this?

.

Adam Schiff drills Republican hypocrites for rejecting $ 2,000 stimulus checks Trump endorses

House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) pounded Republicans for indulging in every Trump whim but $ 2,000 stimulus checks.

Chairman Schiff tweeted:

For years, Republicans were obedient to Trump’s whim.

They stood by his failed COVID response. His lies. His impeachment. His corrupt pardons. His efforts to overturn the election.

But $ 2,000 checks to help the Americans? Is that where you draw the line?

Pass the bill.

– Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) December 30, 2020

The opposition to the $ 2,000 survival check is a stain Republicans will have with them for much longer than the Georgia Senate runoff next week. The American people will forget how the Senate Republicans responded to every request except that which would have donated thousands of dollars to millions of Americans who are starving and potentially homeless.

Senate Republicans were silent almost everywhere when Trump lied about election fraud. They refused to try the accused president when he tried to blackmail Ukraine. The Senate Republican majority has taken turns running away when asked for Trump’s comments, empowering him.

Trump wants the Senate to pass $ 2,000 stimulus checks for their own selfish reasons, but that doesn’t mean that after four years of kowtowing, apologizing, and enabling, it isn’t hypocrisy for the GOP to say no now.

Chairman Schiff was right. Republicans will defend anything Trump says or does except trying to help Americans.

For more discussions on this story, join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC groups.

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Mr. Easley is the Founder / Executive Editor, White House Press Pool, and a Congressional Correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a bachelor’s degree in political science. His thesis focused on public order with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and professional memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the American Political Science Association

In response to the CDC, the brand new Covid pressure within the USA may put a pressure on “closely polluted” hospitals

CDC headquarters in Atlanta

Elijah Nouvelage | Bloomberg via Getty Images

Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday that a new strain of Covid-19 now circulating in the United States could further strain hospitals already overwhelmed with coronavirus patients.

Colorado health officials announced Tuesday that they had discovered the first known case of the new and contagious strain of the virus, which was first discovered in the UK. A second separate new strain, identified for the first time in South Africa, could already be in circulation in the US, CDC officials said.

“As the variants spread faster, they could lead to more cases and put even more strain on our already stressed health systems,” said Dr. Henry Walke, the agency’s Covid Incident Manager, in a conference call with reporters.

According to Walke, the available data suggest that the new variant “spreads easier and faster than other strains” but does not appear to cause more serious illness or an increased risk of death.

He noted that the person in Colorado infected with the new strain of the virus had no travel history, “suggesting that this variant was transmitted person-to-person in the United States.” He added that given the spread of the variant in the UK, it was “expected” to arrive in the US.

“Viruses are constantly changing through mutation and we expect new variants to emerge over time,” he said. “Many mutations lead to variants that do not change how the virus infects humans. However, there are sometimes variants that are easier to spread, like this one.”

He added that “Experts believe that our current vaccines will be effective against both new strains”. Scientists are still studying how the new strain will respond to Covid-19 treatments such as monoclonal antibodies and convalescent plasma.

Dr. Greg Armstrong, director of the CDC Office of Advanced Molecular Detection, said the claim that the vaccines will be effective against the new variant is based on “experience with similar previous mutations.” He added that immunity induced by previous infection by another strain is likely to be effective against these new strains as well.

National and state laboratories across the country are running tests to see if other variants are present in the US and how far the variant discovered in the UK is spreading. He said the CDC is ramping up the national surveillance program so that it will receive 750 samples a week for sequencing.

He added that the agency is signing contracts with academic centers across the country to sequence samples and look for new variants locally. These centers are located in Boston, New Haven, Connecticut, Athens, Georgia, Nashville, Tennessee, Madison, Wisconsin, and at the Scripps Institute in San Diego.

“There are a lot of laboratories in the US with this capacity,” he said of testing the new variant. “Many of them are looking for this variant right now.”

$ 2,000 checks are made out within the Senate

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) attends a press conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on October 20, 2020.

Erin Scott | Reuters

Efforts to raise direct payments in the coronavirus bill to $ 2,000 by the end of the year failed on Wednesday as Republican leaders and Senate Democrats were divided over whether to take further relief efforts.

The Democratic House has passed a stand-alone bill to increase checks from $ 600 to $ 2,000 as 44 Republicans, backed by President Donald Trump, joined almost all of the Democrats to back the move. The GOP-controlled Senate has shown less of an appetite to pass the checks without setting other Trump priorities that the Democrats consider toxic – and would sink any legislation.

At the same time, the finance department began sending payments up to $ 600 on Tuesday evening. If Congress can break through the thorny political momentum to increase deposits to $ 2,000, the government would later add to the money already distributed.

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Introduced a bill to increase payments to $ 2,000, but also to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects legal liability for internet platforms , and a commission for voters set up fraud. The President has pushed for the latter provision as he claims without evidence that a widespread fraud cost him the 2020 presidential race against President-elect Joe Biden.

Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Senate Minority, DN.Y., said Tuesday that linking other proposals to the direct monetary measure “would be an obvious attempt to strip Americans of a $ 2,000 survival check.”

McConnell on Tuesday blocked efforts by the Democrats to quickly hand over the $ 2,000 checks. He has attempted to offset a desire not to immediately increase the price of the $ 900 billion bailout while appeasing a GOP president who has fixated on sending more direct payments to struggling Americans.

House spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi called on the Senate Wednesday to approve the standalone bill before the new Congress begins on Sunday at 12:00 PM ET.

“I hope that in the coming days – we only have a few days left in the session – you will see the light and understand the suffering that is going on in this country,” said the California Democrat of the Republicans.

Meanwhile, Senator Pat Toomey, R-Pa., Has announced that he will block a possible vote on the $ 2,000 payments. Delays could blow up efforts to get legislation passed during the current session.

“There is no point in having these universal payments. Any relief should be targeted,” he told CNBC on Wednesday morning.

The Senate has not yet voted to overturn Trump’s veto of the annual National Defense Authorization Act. McConnell called lawmakers back this week to do so. While the chamber plans to take procedural steps on Wednesday to get a vote, it may not be able to override the veto until Saturday.

Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Blocked swift examination of the defense measure Tuesday when he called for a vote on the standalone bill to increase direct payments to $ 2,000. Later in the day, he told CNN that “I think we have the votes to pass bigger checks” if McConnell puts the measure to the vote.

At least four Republican senators – Josh Hawley from Missouri, Marco Rubio from Florida, and Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue from Georgia – have expressed support for larger payments. Loeffler and Perdue are fighting a runoff election on January 5 to determine which party will control the Senate for the next two years. Hawley and Rubio are considered potential GOP candidates for president in 2024.

Trump continues to urge Congress to approve $ 2,000 checks after threatening to veto the relief bill for lacking direct money for Americans. He gave in and signed it on Sunday.

On Wednesday Trump tweeted: “$ 2000 ASAP!”

Senate controls controversy has lasted for more than eight months, with no quarreling on Capitol Hill over how far the federal government should go to stimulate the economy and health system during the pandemic. The Democrats have been pressing for trillion more aid since May, two months after Congress passed the $ 2 trillion CARES bill. Republicans again called for more relief in July and never raised their price above $ 1 trillion.

Lawmakers then failed to approve a new relief for months before settling on the $ 900 billion package that was passed this month. They left lifelines like the $ 600 per week unemployment benefit and the unsuccessful small business loan application window that helped lift millions out of poverty and keep business doors open in the early days of the pandemic, on the route.

The new bailout package, which was passed in the same legislation as a regular government spending plan of $ 1.4 trillion, renews some provisions from the spring. Unemployment is expected to increase by USD 300 per week by mid-March. The payment is half what unemployed Americans received from the CARES Act.

It also expands provisions that allow gig, freelancers, and self-employed people to take out unemployment insurance and increases the maximum number of benefit weeks.

The bill sends $ 600 direct payments to most Americans. The total is half of the $ 1,200 contained in the CARES Act.

In addition, more than $ 300 billion is being allocated to small business support, primarily through $ 284 billion in loans for the paycheck protection program. It includes $ 8 billion for vaccine distribution as states struggle to keep up with early vaccinations.

The move brings in $ 82 billion in education and $ 45 billion in transportation. It does not include state and local aid, a measure that Democrats and many Republicans are pulling back to prevent layoffs from state payrolls.

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Trump officers focus on vaccine adoption as criticism mounts

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Department of Health and Human Services and Pentagon officials will hold a joint briefing Wednesday on the Trump administration’s Operation Trump Warp Speed ​​Covid-19 vaccination program.

The briefing comes as the government faces criticism of what appears to be a slower than expected introduction of the vaccines.

As of Monday morning, more than 11.4 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna two-dose vaccines had been distributed across the country, but only about 2.1 million doses were given to people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s a far cry from US health officials’ original goal of getting at least 20 million Americans their first shots before the end of the year.

However, the CDC acknowledged delays in their vaccine data from the states and jurisdictions it collects and reports to federal officials, among other things.

“A large difference between the number of doses distributed and the number of doses administered is expected at this point in the COVID vaccination program due to several factors,” the agency said.

President-elect Joe Biden and public health specialists have criticized Trump’s vaccination program in recent days for failing to deliver doses as quickly as they were being distributed.

Read CNBC’s live updates for the latest news on the Covid-19 outbreak.

Britain places hundreds of thousands of animal covid restrictions on when instances rise

A bus drives past a sign detailing measures taken by the government against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak on the first day of a newly imposed lockdown on November 5, 2020 in London, UK.

John Sibley | Reuters

LONDON – The UK government on Wednesday outlined plans to impose stricter coronavirus restrictions on millions of people across England as a new strain of the virus spreads across the country.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said more regions would be classified in the toughest Tier 4 category from 12:01 a.m. London time on Thursday.

“This new variant is now spreading in most of England and the cases are quickly doubling,” Hancock told the House of Commons. “It is therefore necessary to apply Tier 4 measures to a larger area, including the remaining parts of the south-east as well as large parts of the central plateau, the north-west, the north-east and the south-west.”

The move will mean three-quarters of the population will be in Tier 4 for the new year, Hancock said.

The restrictions imposed on a “stay at home” order mean people are not allowed to leave their homes unless they have a reasonable excuse. Businesses such as non-essential stores, gyms, and hairdressers are closing.

The announcement comes shortly after the Oxford AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine was approved for use in the UK emergency. The vaccine is believed to allow the UK to speed up its vaccination program significantly.

“We must of course vaccinate as soon as supplies allow, after the necessary security checks have been carried out, and the NHS is ready to accelerate the deployment on a larger scale from Monday January 4th,” said Hancock.

He added, “We have ordered a total of 100 million doses which, together with the Pfizer vaccine, is enough to vaccinate every adult in the UK with both doses.”

Anyone who wants a vaccine will be able to get one, Hancock said, adding that the UK will have 530,000 doses available as of Monday, with millions more due from Astra-Zeneca in early February.

Government data shows that infection rates have risen sharply across England over the past week, with significant pressure on hospitals.

53,135 new Covid cases were registered in the UK on Tuesday, the highest increase in a day since mass testing began.

On Wednesday, the latest government figures showed 981 people in the UK died within 28 days of a positive Covid test – the highest number of deaths since April 9. The UK reported 414 deaths within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test on Tuesday.

The new variant of the coronavirus in the UK is reportedly more transferable and has resulted in travel restrictions for people trying to leave the country. The new strain, known in science as SARS-CoV-2 VUI 202012/01, could be up to 70% more transmissible, said UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

U.S. health officials on Wednesday confirmed the new strain’s first case. Several other countries have also identified the variant strain in the past few weeks.