Memphis: Storm leaves 135,000 without power – National & International News – FRI 4Feb2022

Memphis: Storm leaves 135,000 without power. Overwhelmed hospitals await relief from foreign nurses. U.S. says Russia hatching ‘false-flag’ attack in Ukraine.

NATIONAL NEWS

Memphis: Storm leaves 135,000 without power

From Texas to Maine, massive snow and ice storms have wrought havoc and left at least 330,000 people without power in freezing conditions. Of those, 135,000 are in Memphis. The local public utility, Memphis Light, Gas and Water, says that residents may be without power for days. Some areas, they say, may not see power restored until Sunday. The company has 50 crews working 16-hour shifts.

Unwary drivers on iced-over roads also led to a 16-car pile up in the area. One of the bridges over the Mississippi was temporarily closed down after an 18-wheeler jackknifed. FedEx, which has its headquarters in Memphis, warned of delays delivering some packages.

Last year, a powerful winter storm left parts of Memphis without water service for weeks as pumps froze and pipes burst. So far, there have been no such reports from this storm.

In Texas, 70,000 people were initially without power, but that number has now dropped to 20,000. A repeat of last year’s weeks-long outage has been averted, though the storm proved more powerful than predicted.

In Hale County, AL, the storm spawned a tornado that killed one woman and injured 8 others.

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Overwhelmed hospitals await relief from foreign nurses

Hospitals and nursing homes across the country are facing major nursing shortages. While fatigue, low pay and long hours are taking their toll, the lure of lucrative contracts as travel nurses has proven impossible for many to resist. In Mississippi, the problem is particularly acute. Hospital budgets are being stretched to the limit to pay travel nurses as much as 5 times the rate a staff nurse makes. The American Rescue Plan provided funding to cover these budget overreaches, but hospital administrations say the situation is not sustainable.

Some hospital associations are calling on the federal government to rein in pricing by employment agencies, which they contend amounts to price gouging. But the agencies say they are competing as much with each other as with hospitals, and the pricing is merely a function of supply and demand. Some fear that putting artificial wage caps on travel nurses may backfire and drive nurses from the profession altogether.

Now, many hospitals are hopeful that an influx of foreign nurses will alleviate staffing issues and drive down costs. There are twice as many visas available for foreign professionals this year as there were in previous years. The one hitch is that many U.S. consulates are struggling to process applications due to COVID shutdowns and staff absences.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

U.S. says Russia hatching “false-flag” attack in Ukraine

Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted at the possibility that the U.S. may attempt to draw Russia into war with Ukraine by staging an invasion of Russian-held areas of Ukraine. Putin spoke specifically of Donbass, a region of Ukraine that is home to many Russian-speakers and which has been under Russian control since 2014.

Now, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price is alleging that the U.S. has specific intelligence that Russia might be plotting a “false-flag” attack in Donass to create a pretext for invasion. With unusual candor, Price suggested that Russia is producing, “A video with graphic scenes of false explosions – depicting corpses, crisis actors pretending to be mourners, and images of destroyed locations or military equipment – entirely fabricated by Russian intelligence”. 

When a reporter at the conference pressed for evidence of this, Price got defensive. “If you doubt the credibility of the U.S. government, of the British government, of other governments, and want to, you know, find solace in information that the Russians are putting out, that is for you to do”.

Price said the purpose of sharing this intelligence was to forewarn allies in the event that such a video is distributed.

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