स्थानीय Pedong समाचार, भारत

Horrific details emerge about alleged beating of a 'frail' woman, 60, by her own son - Daily Mail

Luke Henry, 26, allegedly punched and kicked his mother Adelle Henry, before slamming her head on concrete, at a Mt Druitt Disability workshop on Wednesday afternoon.

A 'frail' 60-year-old woman remains in a critical condition after she was allegedly bashed by her son in front of horrified work colleagues who armed themselves with mops and a squeegee.  Luke Henry, 26, allegedly punched and kicked his mother Adelle Henry, before slamming her head on concrete, at a Mt Druitt Disability workshop, in Sydney's western suburbs, on Wednesday afternoon.  Henry, who has been charged with domestic violence related offences over the alleged attack, told a court he had been released from a mental health facility just hours earlier.  The 26-year-old, who is yet to enter a plea, appeared in Mr Druitt Local Court on Thursday, where his bail application to be released into a mental health facility was denied.  Henry chose to represent himself after refusing a legal aid lawyer - and begged to be locked away for life, saying he thought his mum was an 'evil demon'. Adelle Henry was treated for head injuries by paramedics on Wednesday afternoon before she was taken to Westmead Hospital, where she remains in a critical condition Luke Henry, 26, allegedly punched and kicked his mother, before slamming her head on concrete, at a Mt Druitt Disability workshop on Wednesday afternoon 'I just want to do my jail time,' he said via audio visual link from custody, according to The Australian.  'I honestly don't care if you give me life.'  Henry claimed he was suicidal and hearing voices after his arrest and applied for bail to receive treatment in a mental health facility.    'I thought she was an evil demon I walked away from the situation after I realised what I had done,' Henry told the court. But Magistrate James Gibson questioned the claims and instead ordered Henry be examined by a mental health practitioner while locked up in jail. Magistrate Gibson also noted Henry's history of violent offending and a strong case put forward by police.   Henry claimed he was suicidal and hearing voices after the arrest and applied for bail to receive treatment in a mental health facility. 'I thought she was an evil demon I walked away from the situation after I realised what I had done,' Henry said Henry allegedly assaulted his mother on Wednesday afternoon at her Kurrajong Avenue workplace after accusing her of stealing money from him.  Mount Druitt Police Area Command Detective Chief Inspector Paul Tickner said the alleged attack was witnessed by a number of people who suffer varying degrees of disability.  Ms Henry's colleagues were allegedly assaulted when they attempted to intervene, arming themselves with cleaning equipment in a desperate attempt to protect her. Pictured: Adelle Henry, who remains in a critical condition  'A couple of them [her colleagues] did arm themselves with some mops and a squeegee to confront the male but the male unfortunately armed himself with a fire extinguisher and they retreated back to the premises,' Mr Tickner said, 7news.com.au reported.   'It's a violent attack on a frail 60-year-old lady ... so [her colleagues] are fairly traumatised by it.'   Ms Henry was treated for head injuries by paramedics before she was taken to Westmead Hospital, where she remains in a critical condition.  It's understood she suffered significant head injuries, including fractures to the face and and a bleed on the brain.   Henry, who is from Parramatta in Sydney's west, allegedly fled the scene before being arrested nearby.  He was taken to Mt Druitt Police Station where he was charged with causing grievous bodily harm to person with intent (domestic violence) and destroying or damaging property (domestic violence).    Henry will be back in court in March.   Mount Druitt Police Area Command Detective Chief Inspector Paul Tickner said the alleged attack was witnessed by a number of people who suffer varying degrees of disability Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.

The 17 executive orders and directives Joe Biden has already signed and what they aim to do - SBS News

The new president signed a slew of orders aimed at undoing parts of Donald Trump's policy legacy just hours after he took the oath of office.

In 17 executive orders, memorandums and proclamations signed hours after his inauguration, US President Joe Biden moved swiftly Wednesday to dismantle Trump administration policies his aides said have caused the greatest damage to the nation. Despite an inaugural address that called for unity and compromise, Mr Bidens first actions as president were sharply aimed at sweeping aside former President Donald Trumps pandemic response, reversing his environmental agenda, tearing down his anti-immigration policies, bolstering the teetering economic recovery and restoring federal efforts to promote diversity. Heres a look at what the measures aim to accomplish. On the pandemic Mr Biden signed an executive order appointing Jeffrey Zients as the official COVID-19 response coordinator who will report to the president, in an effort to aggressively gear up the nations response to the pandemic. The order also restores the directorate for global health security and biodefense at the National Security Council, a group Mr Trump had disbanded. Though it is not a national mask mandate, which would most likely fall to a legal challenge, Mr Biden is requiring social distancing and the wearing of masks on all federal property and by all federal employees. He is also starting a 100 days masking challenge urging all Americans to wear masks and state and local officials to implement public measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Mr Biden is also reinstating ties with the World Health Organization after the Trump administration chose to withdraw the nations membership and funding last year. Dr Anthony Fauci will head the US delegation to the organizations executive board and will jump into the role with a meeting this week. On immigration With an executive order, Mr Biden bolstered the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protects from deportation immigrants brought to the United States as children, often called Dreamers. Mr Trump sought for years to end the program, known as DACA. The order also calls on Congress to enact legislation providing permanent status and a path to citizenship for those immigrants. Another executive order revokes the Trump administrations plan to exclude non-citizens from the census count, and another overturns a Trump executive order that pushed aggressive efforts to find and deport unauthorised immigrants. Yet another order blocks the deportation of Liberians living in the United States. In a blow to one of his predecessors earliest actions to limit immigration, Mr Biden also ended the so-called Muslim ban, which blocked travel to the United States from several predominantly Muslim and African countries. Mr Biden directed the State Department to restart visa processing for individuals from the affected countries and to develop ways to address the harm caused to those who were prevented from coming to the United States because of the ban. Mr Biden also halted construction of Mr Trumps border wall with Mexico. The order includes an immediate termination of the national emergency declaration that allowed the Trump administration to redirect billions of dollars to the wall. It says the administration will begin a close review of the legality of the effort to divert federal money to fund the wall. On climate change Chief among executive orders that begin to tackle the issue of climate change, Mr Biden signed a letter to re-enter the United States in the Paris climate accords, which it will officially re-join 30 days from now. In 2019, Mr Trump formally notified the United Nations that the United States would withdraw from the coalition of nearly 200 countries working to move away from planet-warming fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. In additional executive orders, Mr Biden began the reversal of a slew of the Trump administrations environmental policies, including revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline; reversing rollbacks to vehicle emissions standards; undoing decisions to slash the size of several national monuments; enforcing a temporary moratorium on oil and natural gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; and re-establishing a working group on the social costs of greenhouse gasses. On racial and LGBTQI+ equality Mr Biden will end the Trump administrations 1776 Commission, which released a report Monday that historians said distorted the role of slavery in the United States, among other history. Mr Biden also revoked Mr Trumps executive order limiting the ability of federal agencies, contractors and other institutions to hold diversity and inclusion training. The president designated Susan Rice, head of his Domestic Policy Council, as leader of a robust, interagency effort requiring all federal agencies to make rooting out systemic racism central to their work. His order directs the agencies to review and report on equity in their ranks within 200 days, including a plan on how to remove barriers to opportunities in policies and programs. The order also moves to ensure that Americans of all backgrounds have equal access to federal government resources, benefits and services. It starts a data working group as well as the study of new methods to measure and assess federal equity and diversity efforts. Another executive order reinforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to require that the federal government does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, a policy that reverses action by Mr Trumps administration. On the economy Mr Biden is moving to extend a federal moratorium on evictions and has asked agencies, including the agriculture, veterans affairs and housing and urban development departments, to prolong a moratorium on foreclosures on federally guaranteed mortgages that was enacted in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The extensions all run through at least the end of March. The president is also moving to continue a pause on federal student loan interest and principal payments through the end of September, although progressive groups and some congressional Democrats have pushed Mr Biden to go much further and cancel up to $50,000 USD ($64,340 AUD) in student debt per person. On government accountability Following in the footsteps of some of his predecessors, Mr Biden has established ethics rules for those who serve in his administration that aim to restore and maintain trust in the government. He has ordered all of his appointees in the executive branch to sign an ethics pledge. Finally, Mr Biden issued a freeze on all new regulations put in motion by his predecessor to give his administration time to evaluate which ones it wants to move forward. The memorandum is aimed at preventing so-called midnight regulations, policies pushed through by a lame-duck president unconstrained by electoral considerations. The fast pace often cuts short the opportunity for the public or industry to review the policies.

COVID-19 Global Roundup: The global vaccine program faces shortages - CGTN

As countries around the globa are ramping up with massive immunization programs, the production and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines have met with mismatches and shortages in many areas.

A first-aid staff (R) is undergoing a 15-minute waiting process for any potential adverse reaction after receiving a Moderna vaccine shot at the Putnam Clubhouse at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass., the U.S., January 15, 2021. /AP A first-aid staff (R) is undergoing a 15-minute waiting process for any potential adverse reaction after receiving a Moderna vaccine shot at the Putnam Clubhouse at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass., the U.S., January 15, 2021. /AP As countries around the globe ramp up their massive immunization programs, the production and distribution of vaccines have been met with mismatches and shortages in many areas including the U.S., Brazil, and India, three of the most infected countries. In the U.S., the push to inoculate Americans against the coronavirus is hitting a roadblock: A number of states are reporting they are running out of vaccine doses, and tens of thousands of people who managed to get appointments for a first dose are seeing their appointments canceled.  The reason for the apparent mismatch between supply and demand in the U.S. was unclear, but last week the Health and Human Services Department suggested that states had unrealistic expectations for how many vaccines were on the way. In any case, new shipments go out every week, and both the government and the drugmakers have said there are large quantities in the pipeline. The shortages are coming as states dramatically ramp up their vaccination drives, at the federal government's direction, to reach people 65 and older, along with certain others. More than 400,000 deaths in the U.S. have been blamed on the virus. President Joe Biden, who was inaugurated on Wednesday, immediately came under pressure to fix things. He has made it clear that his administration will take a stronger hand in attacking the crisis, and he vowed to administer 100 million shots in his first 100 days. Workers transport boxes of China's COVID-19 vaccines in Brasilia, Brazil, January 18, 2021. /Xinhua Workers transport boxes of China's COVID-19 vaccines in Brasilia, Brazil, January 18, 2021. /Xinhua Brazil's foreign minister, Ernesto Araujo, said on Wednesday he still could not provide a timeline for when new coronavirus vaccine doses would arrive from India and China, raising concern in a country that is lagging behind others in vaccinating its people. Brazil is waiting for a shipment of AstraZeneca vaccines from India and a shipment of Sinovac vaccines from China.  Meanwhile, the country on Wednesday registered 1,340 new coronavirus deaths, the health ministry said, bringing the total to 212,831. Brazil also registered 64,385 new cases of the disease, which now total 8,638,249. Brazil launched its mass vaccination campaign in all states on Monday, Minister of Health Eduardo Pazuello said. The initial plan was to begin nationwide vaccination on Wednesday, but the date was moved up in response to the request of state governors, said Pazuello. "The governors asked that as soon as (the vaccines) arrive in the states, they have the freedom to begin vaccination," Pazuello said. Brazil's Health Regulatory Agency (Anvisa) on Sunday authorized the emergency use of the CoronaVac vaccine, as well as the AstraZeneca-University of Oxford vaccine against COVID-19. But the current supply of active ingredients still falls short for the local manufacturing partners for vaccine makers to fill and finish doses for distribution. Brazil was distributing around six million doses, with over 4.6 million distributed by the federal government and 1.3 million by the local government of Sao Paulo. The Butantan Institute run by Sao Paulo state needs another shipment of Sinovac's ingredients by the end of the month in order to hit its target of 46 million doses by April, the head of the institute told a news conference. A health worker receives a COVID-19 vaccine shot at a government Hospital in Mumbai, India, January 19, 2021. /AP A health worker receives a COVID-19 vaccine shot at a government Hospital in Mumbai, India, January 19, 2021. /AP India's national immunization program is confronted with mistrust from the general public, as the national COVID-19 vaccine drive has been hampered by turnout as low as 22 percent in some states.  Some 780,000 people have been given the first shot of the two-jab dose in the five days since the world's biggest COVID-19 vaccination drive started on January 16, according to local media NDTV. The government plans to vaccinate around 300,600 on the first day was seen as a first step in vaccinating around 300 million people with two doses in the first six to eight months of the year. But on the first day, only 200,000 vaccinations were given, still the highest one-day total of any country, but nonetheless fell short of the nationwide government targets. By Tuesday evening, the government said 631,417 people had been vaccinated, far below the expected figure. So far, in states such as Tamil Nadu and Punjab, uptake of the vaccine was as low as 22 percent and 23 percent in the first two days of the vaccination drive, according to The Guardian. The low turnout was attributed to the nervousness about safety among the healthcare workers who were first in line to receive the vaccine, as well as technical difficulties with the app designed to alert people of their vaccine appointments. The Health Ministry said on Wednesday that at least three of the four deaths reported among candidates who got their COVID-19 jabs are not because of the coronavirus vaccines, after a 42-year-old healthcare worker died in Telangana. "The post-mortem is ongoing," an official health ministry statement said referring to the death of a Telangana man, who got a COVID jab on Tuesday morning and died early Wednesday morning after complaining of chest pain. The percentage of adverse events among those administered COVID jabs was 0.18 per cent, while hospitalizations accounted for a negligible 0.002 per cent, the ministry added in an attempt to underline that the two vaccines are safe. Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a visit to the Jenner Institute in Oxford, England, September 18, 2020. /AP Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a visit to the Jenner Institute in Oxford, England, September 18, 2020. /AP New version of vaccine on the way for the new variant Oxford scientists are preparing to rapidly produce new versions of their vaccine to combat the emerging more contagious COVID-19 variants discovered in the UK, South Africa and Brazil, The Telegraph reported on Wednesday. The team behind the vaccine from Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc is undertaking feasibility studies to reconfigure the technology, the newspaper said, citing a confirmation from Oxford University. They were working on estimating how quickly they could reconfigure their proprietary ChAdOx vaccine platform, which is the base of their COVID-19 vaccine, the report said. An Oxford spokesman said the university is carefully assessing the impact of new variants on vaccine immunity and evaluating the processes needed for rapid development of adjusted COVID-19 vaccines if these should be necessary. Tuesday, the scientists reported on bioRxiv ahead of peer review that, the variant of the new coronavirus identified in South Africa can resist, or "escape," antibodies that neutralize earlier versions of the virus. It "exhibits complete escape" from three classes of monoclonal antibodies manufactured for treating COVID-19 patients, and it shows "substantial or complete" resistance to neutralizing antibodies in blood donated by COVID-19 survivors, said the scientists. Recent laboratory tests have indicated that the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and partner BioNTech SE is likely to be effective against the new variant. BioNTech has said it plans to publish a more detailed analysis of the likely effect of its vaccine on the new variant within a few days. (With input from agencies)