The Ethiopian government ordered airstrikes on a village in the northern province of Tigray, killing more than 50 people, primarily civilians, in an effort to squelch an uprising stemming from the nation’s government effort to impose an ethnic suppression policy after, the Ethiopian government claims the Tigray People’s Liberation Front attempted a coup, the Associated Press reports.

More than 100 people were injured, including 50 seriously, in the Tuesday attack, which also left 33 still missing.  The majority of injuries and deaths happened when an Ethiopian jet dropped a bomb on the crowded marketplace packed with civilians.

Ethiopian forces then blocked roadways out of the region, leading to delays in getting advanced medical care for those injured at a modern hospital 60 miles away and causing to the death of an infant that had been wounded in the attack.

“The rapid spread of the delta variant of the coronavirus is poised to divide the United States again, with highly vaccinated areas continuing toward post-pandemic freedom and poorly vaccinated regions threatened by greater caseloads and hospitalizations, health officials warned this week. The highly transmissible variant is taxing hospitals in a rural, lightly vaccinated part of Missouri, and caseloads and hospitalizations are on the rise in states such as Arkansas, Nevada and Utah, where less than 50 percent of the eligible population has received at least one dose of vaccine. One influential model, produced by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, predicts a modest overall surge in cases, hospitalizations and deaths this fall. Scott Gottlieb, a former head of the Food and Drug Administration, said Sunday that a fall surge could occur even if 75 percent of the eligible population is vaccinated” The Washington Post reports.

It should be noted that none of the Covid-19 variants automatically die on contact with a vaccinated immune system. It still reproduces and transmits asymptomatically (though at a reduced level) so the Delta virus is spreading – possibly as easily as the original Covid did last year because vaccinated Americans are by and large no longer wearing masks or social distancing the way they did for most of 2020. If you are an adult, are not vaccinated, and to your knowledge did not ever get infected with the original virus (though that’s far less of a safe bet than being vaxxed) then you should probably avoid going out in public at all costs.

President Joe Biden has officially requested the resignation of Rodney Scott, the chief of the Border Patrol who had been appointed by Donald Trump, as conservative politicians and pundits harp about a crisis at the southern border, NBC News reports.

Working for the Border Patrol since 1992, Scott was appointed the Chief of the US Border Patrol in February 2020, as border crossings dropped in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.  He was sent what’s known as a “3 R’s” letter instructing him to retire, resign or request reassignment as a way to spare him the humility of being fired.  This is common in government when someone is found to be in an office above their demonstrated skills and capabilities, or when a political leader wants to make a change in a civil service position.  Scott will remain in his position an additional 60 days.

We can’t be sure of the exact time this was posted due to Instagram’s lame relative timestamp system, but it is very safe to say it was at least two or three hours after Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported John McAfee’s suicide in a local jail. This Instagram post is very much real and McAfee’s account is very much officially verified. So to reiterate: a dead man’s Instagram account posted an image of the letter Q hours after it was publicly reported that he had been found dead of a likely suicide in a foreign jail cell. To say the QAnon freaks are going to go completely fucking wild over this is obviously an understatement, but is anyone really going to be able to use words accurately to describe the coming shitstorm?

Hoo boy.

Just as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was complaining to members of the media that his caucus will not negotiate an infrastructure bill with the White House until the Biden Administration defines what “infrastructure” means, a pedestrian bridge spanning a six-lane highway through Washington, DC collapsed Wednesday, injuring at least five people and causing a major traffic issues in and around the nation’s capital.

A 49-year-old woman from Indiana, Anna Morgan-Lloyd, became the first person sentenced for participating in the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol, receiving three years probation, 40 hours of community service and a requirement to pay $500 in restitution, NBC News reports.

Morgan-Lloyd pleaded guilty to a single charge of illegally demonstrating in the Capitol building in exchange for federal prosecutors dropping three other misdemeanor charges.  Prosecutors were open to the plea deal because Morgan-Lloyd spent just 10 minutes in the Capitol and did not commit any damage.  She also admitted what she had done and cooperated with prosecutors.

“I would just like to apologize to the court, the American people, and my family,” she said in brief remarks to Judge Royce Lamberth. “I went there to show support for President Trump peacefully, and I’m ashamed that it became a savage display of violence.”

“Prison sources have confirmed that the American tycoon John McAfee, founder of the famous eponymous antivirus software company, has been found dead in his cell at the Brians 2 Penitentiary Center, in Sant Esteve Sesrovires. He was seventy-five years old. This morning the National Court had finally given the go-ahead to extradite McAfee in the United States”- El Mundo, translated by Google and edited for clarity by National Zero.

The National Suicide Prevention Hotline in the U.S. is available 24 hours a day at 1-800-273-8255. Call them if you need to talk to someone.

https://youtu.be/NtTArzNpuJI

More than 40 cows escaped a slaughterhouse in Los Angeles County, California and stampeded through a residential neighborhood early Tuesday morning, CBS News reports.  The cows roamed the Pico Rivera neighborhood for hours before being wrangled and taken back to the facility. 

https://twitter.com/gregkellyusa/status/1407392065743462403
Novelties always lose their shine after a while, and Newsmax host Greg Kelly’s schizo-Dadaist tweets are no different. As far as subject matter goes, his bizarre rants are probably wearing out their welcome with readers here at National Zero. If it’s not newsworthy (and, if we’re being honest, none of his tweets are) it better be entertaining, and his batshittery can only entertain for so long. Going forward, it’d better be really fucking crazy if we’re going to “report” it here. At least on the level of Greg claiming he was a champion jouster at Medieval Times-type crazy.

All that said, this above selfie with influencer Chrissy Teigen is actually kind of newsworthy(-ish) in its own right, given the reactions this pic drew from MAGA World. Now, we’re only vaguely aware of what the MAGAverse’s hatred of Teigen is based upon, aside from the obvious that she’s a celebrity with a huge social media following who as such is left-leaning, is of mixed racial heritage, and is sexually unattainable to the involuntarily celibate. Oh and she’s a “sex trafficker”. We don’t know specifics beyond that. But it’s clear they really fucking hate her based on some of these reactions

Graydon Young, a 54-year-old member of the Oath Keepers from Florida, has pleaded guilty to two charges related to the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol, and in doing so, became the first defendant in the incident to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge, CNN reports.

Young, who is cooperating with investigators, was originally charged with five crimes, but pleaded guilty to two felony counts:  conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding.  He could face more than five years in prison, depending on the recommendations of prosecutors based on his level of cooperation.  He will also pay $2,000 in restitution for damage to the building.

Young’s guilty plea is the first in a series of cases the Justice Department is bringing against groups like the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and the III Percenters for conspiring before the January 6th event to attack the Capitol and disrupt Congressional proceedings to certify the Electoral College vote.

Vice: “A British man convinced of a QAnon conspiracy that a shadowy group was going to abduct him and his children was sentenced to 10 years in jail Monday for trying to murder his pregnant partner with a hammer while she was taking a bath. Anthony Beckett believed there was a Chinese government plot to abduct him, his partner, and their two children, and that former president Donald Trump was the only person who could save them.”

“Beckett, 33, also believed that a ‘great reset’ would take place on Jan. 20, the date of President Joe Biden’s inauguration, and a date that QAnon adherents had marked as a red line for when Trump would finally unmask the deep state and show the world that the conspiracy theories about a global pedophile ring had been true all along. But Beckett, who lives in the northern England town of Middlesbrough, decided he couldn’t wait until Inauguration Day. So on Jan. 18, while his pregnant partner was taking a bath, he took a hammer and hit her in the head four times before putting his hands around her neck and strangling her. ‘I need to do this, I need to do this,’ Beckett repeated as he forced his partner’s head under the water, according to court documents. Beckett had a history of mental health problems, but he hadn’t been prescribed medication for over a year and he’d been consuming up to two grams of cannabis a day, the court documents said.”

Eight students have sued the Indiana University board of trustees for requiring students to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or risk being removed from the student body, claiming the vaccine requirement violates their Constitutional right under the Fourteenth Amendment, USA Today reports.

The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the government from “depriv[ing] any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”  The lawsuit also cites the ban on government-issued so-called “vaccine passports” passed by the Indiana state government, although that law specifically excludes the state’s universities from the law.  The university, however, simply requires students to fill out a self-reported vaccination verification form and upload proof of vaccination; it doesn’t not require students obtain or carry any paperwork, government-issued or otherwise.

All student and faculty are required to have full vaccinations prior to August 15th, prior to returning to campus for the fall semester.  Full vaccination means having both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine two weeks prior to the required date.

Reuters: “An Ivory Coast court on Wednesday sentenced former prime minister and rebel leader Guillaume Soro in absentia to life in prison on charges of plotting a coup against his former ally President Alassane Ouattara. Soro, who is in exile in Europe, was charged with conspiracy and an attempted attack on state authority. He has repeatedly denied the charges and denounced them as politically motivated. ‘This trial has demonstrated once again the corruption of the Ivorian judiciary and its wilful submission to the diktats of the executive,’ Soro said in a statement after the verdict.”

“The case has raised tensions in a country still recovering from a brief civil war a decade ago, during which Soro led the rebels that swept Ouattara to power after a disputed election. Soro went on to serve as prime minister and speaker of parliament under Ouattara, but the two men later fell out as the president made clear he would oppose Soro’s own presidential ambitions. Prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Soro in December 2019, just before he planned to return home from Europe to launch his presidential campaign. Soro was also accused of stealing public funds, for which he was convicted and sentenced last year to 20 years in prison. He denies those charges too. The court on Wednesday also handed 20-year prison sentences to several of Soro’s close associates for participating in the coup plot. It dissolved his political party and ordered the seizure of its property and any weapons acquired by Soro and his allies.”

https://youtu.be/bKzmhDGkDRs

A biracial 16-year-old boy in Fort Myers, Florida was waiting for his girlfriend to open the back door of her home Monday afternoon, texting on his phone, when a Florida state trooper tased him, in the latest episode of questionable use of force by police, CBS News reports. 

“Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt today announced that his office has recovered $156,000 and obtained a consent judgment against Jim Bakker and Morningside Church Productions. The Missouri Attorney General’s Office filed suit against Bakker and Morningside Church Productions back in March of 2020 for marketing ‘silver solution’ as a potential cure for the Coronavirus. ‘Today I’m pleased to announce that the Missouri Attorney General’s Office has obtained a consent judgment against Jim Bakker and Morningside Church Productions that results in $156,000 in restitution and strong safeguards to prevent the marketing of ‘silver solution’ as a cure or treatment for COVID and other medical issues,’ said Attorney General Schmitt.”

“Under the consent judgment, which was signed yesterday by Judge Alan Blankenship, Bakker is not allowed to sell or advertise “silver solution” as a way to diagnose, prevent, mitigate, treat or cure any disease or illness, and must return an additional $90,000 to consumers who purchased ‘silver solution’ between February 12, 2020, and March 10, 2020. Bakker has already refunded a number of customers, which, combined with the $90,000, totals up to roughly $156,000 in restitution. The Missouri Attorney General’s Office filed suit against Bakker and Morningside Church Productions, his production company, after seeing a clip from his show that advertised ‘silver solution’ as a cure for the Coronavirus” – Missouri Attorney General’s office press release.

“Vice President Kamala Harris is heading to the U.S.-Mexico border this week, amid an unrelenting chorus of criticism from Republicans over her failure to visit there” Politico reports.

https://youtu.be/js_yaRY-SDc

Apparently, the date Donald Trump will be reinstalled into the presidency might be delay, according to chief conspiracy officer Mike Lindell.  It might be August, or maybe September or a date TBD.

“They pulled this election down and it’s over,” Lindell ranted on some podcast.  “You put our real president back in by the–  I think, I think that mainstream media go, ‘Mike, you said August!’  Well, excuse me, I might be off by a month.”

To be clear, Lindell said that Trump would be reinstalled by January 20th, by March, by April, and now by August.  Or not.  But definitely by some unspecified date.

From ProPublica’s “Politiwoops” engine which catalogs tweets from public figures as soon as they go up, preserving them forever despite the social network’s delete button.

“Republican lawmakers in Ohio pushing for more ‘safety and security’ at the ballot box can now point to a clear example of voter fraud in the November 2020 presidential election. Unfortunately for them, it involves another Republican. Edward Snodgrass, who is a Porter Township trustee, has admitted to forging his dead father’s signature on an absentee ballot and then voting again as himself, court records and other sources revealed. Snodgrass was busted after a Delaware County election worker questioned the signature on his father’s ballot” NBC News reports.

“A subsequent investigation revealed the ballot had been mailed to H. Edward Snodgrass on Oct. 6 – a day after the 78-year-old retired businessman died. In an interview with NBC News, Snodgrass said he made ‘an honest error’ while struggling to take care of his dying father, who had advanced Parkinson’s disease. He said he had power of attorney for several years and because his dad had broken his right arm he’d already been ‘signing for him.’ He said his dad had requested the absentee ballot. ‘It was there with a pile of other paperwork,’ Snodgrass said. ‘I was sleep-deprived and not thinking clearly. But I’m not going to run away from it.’ Snodgrass, 57, declined to say who he voted for but said it would not be accurate to characterize what he did as ‘just Trump voter fraud.’ ‘I was simply trying to execute a dying man’s wishes,’ he said.”