Phone contact

President Biden issued a stern warning to Senator Joe Manchin, DW.Va., in a phone call ahead of a critical vote on his $ 1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package last March, according to an excerpt from a new book by veteran Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

“If you don’t come, you’re really fucking me,” Biden said on the call, according to the book, which was retrieved by The Post.

The phone call was reportedly made on March 5, a day before Senate lawmakers voted on whether or not to approve Biden’s “US bailout”. At the time, Manchin, a moderate Democrat, was seen as a major obstacle after expressing concerns about the scope of unemployment benefits in the relief plan.

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Senator Kevin Cramer, RN.D., provides an overview of the Democrats’ $ 3.5 trillion spending bill. video
Senator Cramer: Democrats “largely in disarray” over $ 3.5 billion spending bill
Sen. Kevin Cramer, RN.D., gives an overview of Democrats’ $ 3.5 trillion spending bill.

Woodward and Costa said the book, titled “Peril,” was based on interviews with more than 200 people.

Manchin eventually joined other Senate Democrats in adopting the back-up plan in a 50-49 vote along party lines, giving Biden the first legislative victory of his presidency. The final bill was passed after Democrats nodded to Manchin’s last-minute call for a scaled-down version of Biden’s preferred federal unemployment benefits, and it included several Manchin-backed amendments.

Manchin and other moderates have become critical voices in the Senate, where Democrats hold a slim majority and cannot afford defections. The West Virginia senator could derail Biden’s pressure to get the Senate to approve a sweeping $ 3.5 trillion budget reconciliation plan.

Manchin hesitated at the price of the package and signaled he would oppose a Democratic effort to force a significant overhaul of the corporate tax code. Earlier this month, Manchin said he would not support the $ 3.5 trillion plan, citing rising debt and inflation. He did not rule out the possibility of approving a more modest deal.

Summary of the news:

• In a last-minute phone contact, Biden reportedly urged Manchin to support the $ 1.9 billion stimulus package, according to the book.
• Check out all the news and articles about the latest security updates.

ONE of the defendants in the Kevin Lunney kidnapping case had “important” telephone contact a month earlier with a man suspected of organizing the businessman’s kidnapping, he said. we affirmed.

The Special Criminal Court heard a phone attributed to Luke O’Reilly, owner of the land where Mr Lunney was allegedly imprisoned, had earlier been in repeated contact with a phone attributed to now-deceased suspect Cyril McGuinness.

There were also two calls between the two numbers on the evening of the kidnapping.

Evidence from the telephone recording, which had been legally challenged by the defense but found admissible by the court, was presented today at the trial without a jury.

Mr Lunney (52), a director of Quinn Industrial Holdings, was taken in a car outside his home in Co Fermanagh and taken to a container where his captors broke his leg with a wooden bat, slashed her face with a Stanley knife and sprayed bleach on her wounds while ordering her to resign from the company.

They etched “QIH” into his chest with the knife before throwing him, stripped of his underpants, at the side of a road in Drumcoghill, County Cavan.

Darren Redmond (27), of Caledon Road, Alan O’Brien (40) of Shemalier Road, both in East Wall, Dublin, and a male “YZ” (40), who cannot be legally named, would all have been directly involved in the attack.

Luke O’Reilly (67), of Mullahoran Lower, Kilcogy, Co Cavan is accused of providing “material assistance in the planning and execution of offenses”.

They all face the same charges of forcible confinement and causing serious harm to Mr Lunney at Drumbrade, Ballinagh, Co Cavan on September 17, 2019, which they deny.

Today, Edel Hannigan, senior intelligence analyst for the Guardian, told prosecutor Sean Guerin SC in late September 2019 that he was asked to provide analytical assistance in connection with the investigation into Mr. Lunney.

She received call data records for several phone numbers, as well as information regarding the two toll trips as of August 19, 2019, a document showing the GPS coordinates and the locations and times of the relevant CCTV footage. .

Ms. Hannigan agreed with Mr. Guerin that some documents, in addition to identifying the phone numbers, assigned names to the numbers. It was on the basis of information provided by the guard.

“It is entirely up to the court whether or not to accept the assignment of numbers to particular individuals,” Guerin told the three judges.

He then showed Ms Hannigan the tables she had prepared, which referred to numbers, including those attributed to the accused men and Cyril McGuinness.

The court previously heard that the prosecution alleged the offenses were committed under the direction of McGuinness, also known as “Dublin Jimmy”, who has since died in a police raid in the UK.

Among the tables of telephone records presented to the court was a list of contacts between a number ending in -2200 assigned to McGuinness and a number ending in -1567 assigned to Mr. Redmond.

The court heard that there were four connections between them and they were all on September 12, 2019. These started with calls from the -2200 number which went to the message, followed by a text message, then a call from number -2200, which connected.

The following table showed links between the McGuinness number and a number ending in -6640, attributed to Mr. O’Reilly.

These covered the period from August 1, 2019 to September 23, 2019. The first contact took place on August 1 and then on August 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, “in-depth contact” on August 14, 15, 21, Aug 23 and 28, said Guerin.

These were relatively short phone calls, some lasting about two minutes and the longest five minutes.

The following month, there was inbound contact to the number assigned to Mr. O’Reilly from the McGuinness number on September 3-4. There was two-way contact on September 5, 6 and 9 and from number -2200 to number 6640 on September 10.

There was two-way contact on September 13 and from the number assigned to Mr. O’Reilly to the McGuinness number the next day.

On September 16, the day before the kidnapping, there was a 163-second outgoing call from the McGuinness number to the one assigned to Mr. O’Reilly at 9:59 p.m.

There were two contacts between the numbers on the day of the kidnapping, September 17.

The first, lasting 246 seconds, took place at 7:30 p.m. – an outgoing call from -6640 to -2200.

This was followed at 7:54 p.m. by a call from the McGuinness number to the one assigned to Mr. O’Reilly, lasting 43 seconds.

There were two contacts the next day – from number -2200 to number -6640 just after 9:20 am, lasting 136 seconds.

There was another call in the same direction this afternoon just before 3:30 p.m., lasting just under two minutes.

Ms Hannigan’s testimony will continue tomorrow before Judge Tony Hunt, Judge Gerard Griffin and Judge David McHugh.

With the increase in coronavirus outbreaks, hospitals and health departments say contact tracing – a critical part of controlling the spread of the pandemic – will be more difficult, forcing Pennsylvania to shift the focus from these now. efforts towards those diagnosed with COVID-19 in the past six days.

Local health services say they have anticipated an increase, and the state health service has issued new guidelines for a modified strategy to protect the most vulnerable populations from the consequences of severe infection in the city. community.

“As the burden of COVID-19 worsens, health departments will prioritize which cases to investigate and which contacts to find,” said Michael Huff, the state’s director of testing and contact tracing. “Implementation must be guided by what is feasible, practical and acceptable.”

Following: Pennsylvania could run out of intensive care beds by next week as COVID patients overwhelm hospitals

People, he added, contract the disease without knowing where they got it from. And with just 150 case investigators and 1,672 contact tracers working with the Department of Health, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the workload.

In addition to focusing on people diagnosed in the past six days, contact tracers prioritize people who visit, live or work in a care facility or commute to a job in a high density workplace. .

Pennsylvania reported an additional 6,669 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 81 new virus-related deaths on Tuesday. Statewide, there have been 321,070 confirmed cases and 9,951 deaths.

Huff said that of the nearly 35,000 positive cases reported in the past week, 23% of those who tested positive were contacted within 24 hours and 7% were contacted within 48 hours. However, of these, only 25% of people have had their cases successfully traced, with 96% of contacts refusing to quarantine.

This is extremely concerning, Huff noted, because COVID-19 patients and the people they interacted with during the 14-day incubation period could be spreading the disease without even knowing it.

“Why? Because people don’t want to answer the phone,” Huff said. “People don’t realize how important it is to give the information we need to make sure we can control the disease. “

The Commonwealth is experiencing a substantial level of transmission in nearly all of its counties, indicating an alarming community spread, which Huff says is the result of large and small gatherings.

“This indicates that in both of these settings, the spread of disease can happen very easily,” Huff said. “Certainly in small gatherings where we get a little too free to move around and maybe don’t take as much social distance. We’re less likely to wear masks. We’ve certainly seen a lot of data that shows that cases are. identified from these groups. “

Following: Pennsylvania schools must sign new COVID health protocols or go virtual by month’s end

As COVID-19 cases reach record highs in Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Wolf and Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine recently announced new mitigation efforts to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.

This included new guidelines for schools wishing to continue teaching students in person and a stay-at-home notice issued by the governor.

Also interesting:

When my 88-year-old mother’s landline broke a few weeks ago, we quickly realized how much of a lifeline it had been during the Covid-19 pandemic. As an elderly person living alone who refused to have a cell phone, suddenly we no longer had direct daily contact with her and her personal alarm – which was linked to her landline number – did not work. during the few days it took to get her landline. work again.

Our reliance on cell phones became evident during the Covid-19 pandemic, not least because if you take a Covid test, you get the results directly sent to your cell phone number (they also go to your general practitioner and can be received by Publier). And if you are a close contact of someone who tests positive for Covid-19, cell phone numbers are the most useful way for contact tracers to contact you.

The Health Service Executive’s new Keeping Well this Winter booklet – distributed free to all households this month – highlights the importance for seniors of using the contact numbers of a family member or friend close in case of emergency if they do not have a cell phone themselves. Only 30% of people aged 80 and over had a smartphone or tablet, according to a study carried out in May by researchers at Trinity College Dublin.

“If you are an elderly person without a cell phone, you should ask a friend or relative if you can use their cell phone number as a contact,” says Dr Greg Martin, a public health doctor who helped put set up contact tracing. system in Ireland.

Dr Martin says people should also offer their cell phone number as a contact number if they have a friend or relative without a cell phone. “We encourage people to have conversations with friends, neighbors or relatives who may need help making sure they have a cell phone number when needed,” he says.

Challenge

Missing or wrong contact details are a challenge for the testing and contact tracing system, so having this conversation will be very important if anyone needs a test. “There are other vulnerable groups of people such as the homeless, people in direct assistance centers, those who have recently arrived in Ireland and people who do not speak English who also need to ask someone if they can use their cell phone number as a contact, says Dr. Martin.

There is plenty of advice in the Keeping Well this Winter booklet, especially for seniors living alone during the pandemic. He encourages older people to keep written records of contact numbers for their family, friends, GP and pharmacy, as well as details of their medications. It also includes the national community call number – 0818-222024 – if assistance is needed with the delivery of food, medicine, fuel or other medical or healthcare needs. Each local authority continues to call for volunteers who will visit people when they need help in any way.

The booklet also contains helpful reminders about the importance of eating and sleeping well, exercising daily, getting general check-ups and keeping your mental health healthy. There are contact numbers for organizations such as the Samaritans (116-123 free call from a landline or mobile number).

And as if we needed it, it also reminds us how to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and what to do if you experience any of the symptoms of Covid-19. There is a helpful chart comparing flu, cold, and Covid-19 symptoms to help you tell them apart.

And yes, my mom has since agreed to carry – and use – a cell phone whenever she’s away from home – or in the unlikely event that her landline doesn’t work anytime soon.

Alone operates a national helpline – 0818 222 024 – for the elderly every day from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

BOVID-19? Cattle spotted wearing masks in NJ

Serval Mesh software allows users to talk to and send text messages to each other even when normal mobile phone coverage fails.

He is one of five winners of the federally sponsored Pacific Humanitarian Challenge, which will share $ 2 million to further develop their projects.

The Challenge to Encourage Innovative Approaches to Humanitarian Problems received 129 applications from 20 countries.

The Flinders University project, led by Dr Paul Gardner-Stephen in collaboration with the New Zealand Red Cross, can transfer coded messages between mobile phones using the app, even in the absence of mobile phone coverage.

“We’re pretty happy with it,” said Dr Gardner-Stephen The advertiser.

“We’ve been working on it for about six years, testing it at Arkaroola, and it’s now leaving the lab for use around the world.

“It has already been downloaded over 100,000 times.

The app works with commercial Android phones and enables secure, infrastructure-free, peer-to-peer voice, text and data services.

Although the range is limited to several kilometers, it would allow messages and information to be transmitted from city to city or property to property in the event of a disaster.

The technology was designed for humanitarian use in disasters, but Dr Gardner-Stephen noted that it can also be used in remote communities where there is no cellular network for normal communications, thus opening up the possibility of a wide range of uses.

The $ 279,000 prize will allow the group to conduct a pilot project in the South Pacific and further develop the technology.

“We will be carrying out the trial in Fiji, Solomon Islands or Vanuatu, or perhaps at several sites,” Professor Gardner-Stephen said.

“The idea is to work in areas without mobile phone coverage to familiarize them with it, so that it can be easily used in the event of a disaster.”

The winning entry noted that one of the defining characteristics of emergency communications in Pacific countries is the fragile or nonexistent nature of their telecommunications infrastructure.

“In the event of a severe earthquake or cyclone, it is common for already limited cellular capacity to be turned off or exceeded,” he says.

“The lack of private mobile communications is hampering rescue and relief efforts; prevents timely analysis of needs; gives rise to excessive stress; and as time passes and desperation rises, presents opportunities for civil unrest and looting.

“Therefore, there is a great need for a secure and inexpensive peer-to-peer mobile phone network technology that can be deployed quickly and efficiently after a disaster. “

Serval Mesh software includes the ability to broadcast information such as weather forecasts and locations of rescue centers across communities via mobile phone in the acute phase of a disaster.

Detectives believe they were targeting the family until the alarm was raised about Madeleine’s disappearance.

They discovered a series of eight calls and texts suggesting they were monitoring her parents, Kate and Gerry, before a raid on their apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May 2007.

Detectives try to find out if they intended to commit a heist or if they had a more sinister motive to keep an eye on the McCanns.

The first call was made by Suspect A, a 51-year-old heroin addict, to Suspect B, a then-only 16-year-old beggar, at 12:08 p.m. the day before Madeleine disappeared.

B then exchanged four phone calls and texts with suspect C, a 33-year-old former Ocean Club driver convicted of theft, on May 3.

The first was at 5:26 p.m., at the precise time when Madeleine left the crèche at the station.

A text was exchanged at 9:25 p.m. when two of the McCanns’ vacation buddies left their dinner at a tapas bar to check on the children in the group who were sleeping in neighboring apartments.

The two suspects were in touch again at 9:38 p.m. when one of the McCanns’ friends, Jane Tanner, left the restaurant to check on her children.

They resumed contact at 9:51 p.m. as the mother of Madeleine’s general practitioner was on her way to her apartment to find her then three-year-old daughter missing.

Later that evening, A made three calls from a public phone booth in the resort to B.

Police still have not located a man seen carrying a sleeping blonde girl in pajamas towards the resort beach at 10 p.m.

Yesterday, Scotland Yard officers, including Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, joined Portuguese detectives to continue investigating the three men bound by the calls.

Sources said suspicious hair was also found that did not match Madeleine’s DNA. According to Portuguese newspapers, a request to obtain DNA and fingerprints from the three men was refused.

They deny any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance and answered more than 250 questions from the police. Yesterday UK police sniffer dogs were brought in to examine the cars of suspects A and C.

According to a Portuguese newspaper, thefts had tripled at the Ocean Club at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.

None of the men commented as they left a police station in Faro.

A friend of suspect A, who a private investigator hired by the McCanns said he “would do anything for his next solution,” insisted he was innocent.

“He was inside the night Madeleine disappeared,” his friend said.

“It is inhuman that a patient like him is dragged in front of the police.

A fourth suspect, a Russian, was also questioned. Yesterday, police questioned eight people as witnesses.

This week, Facebook users across the country had a heart attack and grabbed their foil hats in horror for what they saw as an almost sci-fi Facebook feature they thought was. be slipped over them to enter them in the night: a list of phone numbers. As you may or may not know, Facebook has had your phone number since you first entered it when you signed up on the site. Didn’t you sign up with your phone number in the first place? Have you downloaded any type of Facebook app on any type of smartphone in the past? If you have, you have agreed to have your mobile phone number shared with all of your friends.

The only relatively new thing is the actual list of phone numbers. These numbers are available to you and your friends from several months now, but it is only since a few days that the torrent of REALIZATION has come out. You may have seen a post (or derivation in some way) like this permeating your Facebook news feed:

It’s true! ALL PHONE NUMBERS of your contacts are now on facebook! Go to the top right of the screen, click on ACCOUNT, click on EDIT FRIENDS, on the left of the screen and click on CONTACTS. You will see that ALL YOUR CELL PHONE PHONE NUMBERS (FB friends or not) have been posted. To delete, go to the right column under Directory Contacts and click on “THIS PAGE”. Please repost this on your status, so your friends can remove their numbers and avoid abuse if they don’t want them posted!

If you take care and follow the crazy person’s instructions above, you will actually delete the contacts you imported from your mobile device, at least Facebook would have you believe it. You’ll also need to go through a process (as shown in the image below) where you open your Facebook app and turn off sync. The instructions here tell you to do this with your iPhone app, but a similar process works for Android.

This large list of numbers you’ve seen isn’t public, or more public than each number on its own – if your friend has a profile with a publicly displayed phone number, it will be public regardless. everything YOU do. Note again that these numbers come from Facebook, not from your unconnected contact book, certainly not if your contacts are not connected to Facebook. Also, you might want to know that if you’ve ever typed your phone number anywhere on Facebook, it’s accessible, like Tom Scott’s classic webpage. “WRONG” shows quite clearly.

In short: the numbers come from the users who entered them themselves. No Facebook user to whom you have not given permission to see your number has access to your number. Protect yourself by not capturing information you want to keep secret by not posting it on the internet in the first place.

[via TechSpot]