A veteran who set up a business delivering Amazon packages says he feels trapped and can't shut down because of potentially high exit fees for returning Amazon's branded vans

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Amazon Prime delivery trucks. 

MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP via Getty Images

A veteran who started an Amazon delivery business told Protocol he wanted to shut it down.

He said he was afraid of exit fees he could owe Amazon if he terminated his contract.

He said Amazon charged for damages to the vans and the damages could run upward of $100,000.

A veteran who set up an independent business delivering packages for Amazon told Protocol he wanted to shut his business down but was too afraid of anticipated exit fees from Amazon.

Amazon's vast delivery network is partly made up of delivery service partners, third-party contracted firms that deliver the tech giant's packages to customers.

The veteran, along with other DSP owners who spoke with Protocol, said they were dependent on federal Paycheck Protection Program loans to bolster their income or they previously were.

The veteran told Protocol he wanted to close his business but was too scared of the exit fees he could incur.

"They make it extremely difficult for you to get out of the program," he said. "If I were to say, 'Hey, I can't do this anymore,' they write down every nick or scratch on a vehicle; the average person that tries to return the vehicle, you're looking at well over $100,000 of damages they are going to find in your fleet."

Amazon did not immediately comment when contacted by Insider about Protocol's report.

Amazon offers DSP owners a "flexible lease" option that lets them lease Amazon-branded vans from an unnamed "third party fleet management company."

The veteran set up his DSP after he saw an ad that specifically encouraged veterans to apply by saying the usual requirement for applicants to have $10,000 in startup cash could be waived for veterans, he told Protocol.

Protocol granted the veteran and other DSP owners it spoke with anonymity because they were afraid Amazon might retaliate against them.

Vice also published a report on Monday about Amazon DSP owners shutting down their businesses.

One delivery service partner told Vice she shut down her business in October because she was falling into debt and showed the publication an invoice for $64,465 for damages on 20 vans.

Delivery service partners have butted heads with Amazon before over the degree of control it exerts over them and their drivers.

A woman who started a DSP business filed a lawsuit against Amazon in January alleging the tech giant squeezed her profit margins with its performance standards.

That lawsuit said Amazon charged delivery service partners for returned vehicles through its van-leasing contractor when a DSP contract was terminated and that one person was charged "$19,000 in exit fees each for multiple vans."

CNN reported in September that two delivery service partners threatened litigation against Amazon over working conditions for their drivers. After the legal threat, Amazon terminated its contracts with them. They then filed a lawsuit against Amazon in October alleging it made "unreasonable" demands of their drivers, Bloomberg reported.

House lawmakers ask Justice Dept. to open criminal investigation into Amazon

Amazon said on Wednesday that there is "no factual basis" for accusations of criminal conduct concerning a federal investigation into the company's competition practices.

 File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo


March 9 (UPI) -- House lawmakers asked the Justice Department on Wednesday to investigate online retail giant Amazon, saying that they believe some laws were broken when the company was testifying in Congress about its competition practices.

In a letter to the department, the House judiciary committee said that it's possible Amazon broke the law and "certain" that Amazon executives did a couple years ago when the panel's antitrust subcommittee was investigating tech companies' market dominance.

The panel sent the 24-page letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, which asks the department to investigate Amazon for obstructing Congress or violating other federal laws.

"Amazon engaged in a pattern and practice of misleading conduct that appeared designed to influence, obstruct, or impede the committee's 16-month investigation into competition in digital markets," the committee said in a statement Wednesday.

Lawmakers on the panel also said that Amazon executives lied under oath.

"Amazon lied through a senior executive's sworn testimony that Amazon did not use any of the troves of data it had collected on its third-party sellers to compete with them," the letter states. "But credible investigative reporting showed otherwise."

The 2019-20 investigation looked into claims that Amazon used its digital platform to favor its own products above those from other vendors.

"After Amazon was caught in a lie and repeated misrepresentations, it stonewalled the committee's efforts to uncover the truth," the letter says.

Amazon has long denied the accusations.

"There's no factual basis for this, as demonstrated in the huge volume of information we've provided over several years of good faith cooperation with this investigation," an Amazon spokesperson said, according to The Hill.

Illinois zoo announces birth of critically endangered Amur leopard cubs

March 9 (UPI) -- The Niabi Zoo in Coal Valley, Ill., has announced the birth of two critically endangered Amur Leopard cubs, a male and a female.
The cubs are thriving the Niabi Zoo said on Facebook. A third cub was also born, however, the newborn was only able to survive a few days.

Amur Leopard cubs are the most critically endangered big cat in the world with fewer than 100 left, the zoo said. Only seven others were born in 2021.

The births come after the Niabi Zoo was chosen by the Amur Leopard Species Survival planning group as a partner in 2019. The zoo, following COVID-19 related delays, received Iona from the U.K. to breed with their male Amur leopard named Jilin.

Jilin and Iona are now first-time parents.

"We are honored and excited to have been able to contribute to such an important conservation program for such a critically endangered species. It speaks very well of the regard in which Niabi is held in the international conservation community, and to the expertise of the Niabi Zoo animal care staff," director Lee Jackson said in a statement.

First pig heart transplant recipient dies 2 months after surgery

The first person to receive a pig heart transplant has died, the hospital that carried out the surgery has said. David Bennett, 57, underwent the operation in January as he was ineligible for a human heart transplant.

The University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) in the US announced on Wednesday that David Bennett has died, roughly two months after becoming the first-ever human to receive a genetically modified pig's heart. 

"We are devastated by the loss of Mr. Bennett. He proved to be a brave and noble patient who fought all the way to the end. We extend our sincerest condolences to the family," said Bartley P. Griffith, who conducted the surgery.

Bennett received the heart transplant on January 7 and passed away on March 8.

"His condition began deteriorating several days ago. After it became clear that he would not recover, he was given compassionate palliative care. He was able to communicate with his family during his final hours," the statement from the hospital said.

First-of-its-king transplant

Bennett was admitted to UMMC in October in need of a heart transplant but was classified as ineligible for a conventional heart transplant.

To keep him alive, he was placed on a heart-lung bypass machine. The transplant was his last option.

The US Food and Drug Administration gave emergency authorization for doctors to carry out the pig-to-human heart transplant on December 31.

This first-of-its-kind surgery only recently became a valid option thanks to developments in gene editing tools. The heart given to Bennett had been genetically modified to prevent rejection.

Experts have long looked to pig organs as a potential source for transplants due to their similarity with humans, but organ rejection and increased viral infection risk meant that prior efforts had failed.

Doctors still 'optimistic' about pig-to-human transplants

Bennett's son called the procedure a "miracle." His new heart functioned "very well for several weeks without any signs of rejection," the hospital said on Wednesday.

"Before consenting to receive the transplant, Mr. Bennett was fully informed of the procedure's risks, and that the procedure was experimental with unknown risks and benefits," the statement added.

Doctors at the UMMC said that despite the loss, the experience had helped them learn and they "remain optimistic and plan on continuing our work in future clinical trials," Muhammad Mohiuddin, director of the university's cardiac xenotransplantation program, said.

"We have gained invaluable insights learning that the genetically modified pig heart can function well within the human body while the immune system is adequately suppressed." 

ab/msh (dpa, AFP, Reuters)

Biden’s inflation plan upends thinking on jobs sent overseas
By JOSH BOAK

President Joe Biden speaks in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, March 4, 2022, in Washington. Biden has a solution for high inflation that seems counterintuitive: Bring factory jobs back to the U.S. This challenges a decades-long argument that employers moved jobs abroad to lower their costs by relying on cheaper workers. 

(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has a solution for high inflation that seems counterintuitive: Bring factory jobs back to the U.S.

This challenges a decades-long argument that employers moved jobs abroad to lower their costs by relying on cheaper workers. The trend contributed to the loss of 6.8 million U.S. manufacturing jobs, but it also translated into lower prices for consumers and put downward pressure on inflation in ways that kept broader economic growth going.

It was a trade-off that many corporate and political leaders were privately comfortable making.

Now, with inflation at a 40-year high, the president has begun to argue that globalization is stoking higher prices. That’s because proponents of outsourcing failed to consider the costs of increasingly frequent global supply chain disruptions. Recent disruptions have included the COVID-19 pandemic, shortages of basic goods like semiconductors, destructive storms and wildfires and, now, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has sent oil prices soaring.

Biden says the federal government can pursue two courses on inflation. It can either pull back on support and cause wages and growth to cool, or it can get rid of the pressure points that can lead to inflation when emergencies and uncertainties occur.

“We have a choice,” Biden said Friday when announcing plans by Siemens USA to add 300 jobs. “The way to fight inflation is to drive down wages and make Americans poorer or have a better plan to fight inflation: Lower costs and not your wages.”

The president then unspooled his thinking that more manufacturing of semiconductors inside the U.S. would lead to more cars and other products being produced domestically. That would fill the supply chain and, in theory, bring prices down.

But this plan would take years to implement and the consumer price report being released Thursday is expected to show that annual inflation rose to nearly 8% last month, according to the financial data firm FactSet.

Biden’s challenge is that he’s got long-term plans on inflation to address pain that consumers are feeling each day, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum, who described Biden’s plan as “optics.”

“Semiconductor manufacturing facilities take years to build,” he said. “Inflation’s here now, and it’s it’s an issue now.”

Biden’s assertion sets up an ideological battle with Republicans, who blame the president’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package for being excessive and flushing more cash into the U.S. economy than was needed. GOP lawmakers have said inflation — up from recent averages of about 2% — is entirely the president’s fault, while the administration is trying to say the bigger problem rests with the structure of the global economy.

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and others said last week that inflation — especially for gasoline — was the key source of the nation’s angst ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

“You don’t need a speech to know what the state of the union is. You feel it every time you go to the grocery store and the gas pump,” McCarthy said on Twitter.

Critics see this new Biden effort as largely an attempt at political damage control, rather than a data-driven approach to reducing inflation.

“It’s primarily about optics,” said Scott Lincicome, director of economics and trade at the libertarian Cato Institute. “The Biden administration clearly knows that inflation is a political albatross. And they are looking for anything and everything to show American voters that they have a plan to fix the problem.”

Lincicome argues that the vast majority of inflation is caused by Federal Reserve efforts to boost growth, Biden’s relief package and the general challenges of restarting an economy after the pandemic. Restoring factory jobs that went elsewhere would not address those challenges and any arguments for that are based on the belief that supply chain disruptions have become a permanent feature of the global economy, he says.

“Global supply chains lower costs and increase efficiency,” Lincicome said. “The idea that reshoring will somehow lower costs assumes a permanent pandemic situation and that’s just not reality.”

The Biden administration, for its part, is making that exact argument — supply chain disruptions are becoming more common and weighing on prices in ways that companies previously failed to consider.

The White House contends that the existing setup of the U.S. economy makes it vulnerable to disruptions that drive up prices. When companies first sent jobs overseas, they failed to fully account for the possible setbacks and challenges that can occur overtime with distant factories.

People were not accounting for increased “risks and disruption, and they weren’t thinking about five-, 10-year horizons,” said Sameera Fazili, deputy director of the White House National Economic Council. “They were looking at minimizing costs over a one-year horizon, two-year horizon.”

The administration is basing its argument, in part, on analyses done by the McKinsey Global Institute. A 2020 report by the institute found that companies will likely experience supply chain disruptions lasting a month or longer every 3.7 years, which increases costs and cuts into profits.

The risks examined in the report range from a “supervolcano” to a “common” cyberattack. There are political risks as well, as 29% of all global trade in 2018 came from countries ranked in the bottom half of political stability by the World Bank, an increase from 16% in 2000.

HUD says Texas discriminated against communities of color with flood aid

By Andrew Zhang & Joshua Fechter, The Texas Tribune

MARCH 8, 2022 / 

Rescue workers bring in a family through rising flood waters in the Cypress Station neighborhood as waters rise during Tropical Storm Harvey in Houston on August 28, 2017. File Photo by Jerome Hicks/UPI | License Photo

March 8 (UPI) -- A Texas agency discriminated against communities of color when it denied more than $1 billion in federal relief funds sought by Houston and Harris County to help hard-hit areas recover from Hurricane Harvey, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found.

The Texas General Land Office -- the agency charged with distributing approximately $2 billion in federal funds for future flood preparation -- initially awarded Houston and Harris County nothing when deciding where to send the money. At the time, local officials blasted the state agency, headed by Land Commissioner George P. Bush, for denying much-needed aid and called on the federal government to intervene.

HUD officials said the state agency's method of doling out the funds "discriminated on the basis of race and national origin" and "substantially and predictably disadvantaged minority residents, with particularly disparate outcomes for Black residents," according to a Friday letter detailing the result of a HUD probe. The land office is in violation of the Civil Rights Act as well as federal housing law, federal housing officials said.

"Quite frankly, it's what those of us at the city and at Harris County have been saying for quite some time," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said Tuesday.

Bush, who was born in Houston, is in the middle of a fierce runoff in the Republican primary for Texas attorney general against incumbent Ken Paxton. During the race, several of Bush's opponents have criticized his office's work in distributing the relief funds. Despite making it into the runoff, Bush placed third in Harris County in the March 1 primary.

Brittany Eck, a spokeswoman for the land office, said in a statement that HUD was politicizing the mitigation plan and the land office administered its program in accordance with the department's guidance.

"The GLO is considering all options, including legal action against HUD, to release this iron-fisted grip on mitigation funding and restore the pipeline of funds to communities," Eck said.

Local officials, meanwhile, applauded HUD's finding.

"It's not complicated: Harris County was ground zero for the heartbreaking impacts of Hurricane Harvey, and continues to be exceedingly vulnerable," Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a statement. "The share of mitigation funds we receive from the federal government should reflect that reality."

The letter, which was first reported by The Houston Chronicle, is the latest turn in the drawn-out process to deliver relief for communities wrecked by Hurricane Harvey more than four years ago. Congress approved $4.3 billion for Texas in 2018, and about half of it remains undistributed.

The federal relief awarded to Texas is distributed through Bush's office. During the initial round of funding announced last year, the land office required communities seeking money to submit project proposals that were scored against a matrix with a variety of factors because of limited funding. Harris County's submissions did not score high enough to receive funding in the competition against other local entities, but county officials said the area's large population put them at a disadvantage.

Following the initial outcry after Texas' largest metro area was denied any federal funds, Bush called for the federal government to give $750 million directly to Harris County.

In June, Texas Housers, a nonprofit housing advocacy group, and Northeast Action Collective, an advocacy group formed to push for greater investment in flood mitigation after Hurricane Harvey, submitted a civil rights complaint to HUD alleging that the funding was distributed to white neighborhoods in lieu of Black and Hispanic neighborhoods that needed the money.

"Tragically yet predictably, the GLO's decision that violated civil rights laws delayed the award of badly needed funds to areas of our state at risk of future disaster," David Wheaton, advocacy director for Texas Housers, said in a video statement published Tuesday. "This delay is the sole fault of the GLO."

As the process continued to drag, HUD halted the approximately $2 billion in aid money in January after it said the land office had not submitted proper paperwork on its funding plan -- an announcement that an agency spokesperson called a political move. Then, Harris County officials asked the local congressional delegation to send future disaster relief money directly to large counties instead of routing it through a state agency.

The report said that if the land office does not voluntarily resolve the issue with a clear timetable for implementation, the department may initiate administrative proceedings or refer the matter to the U.S. Justice Department.

Disclosure: The Texas General Land Office has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a non-profit, non-partisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune. Read the original here. The Texas Tribune is a non-profit, non-partisan media organization that informs Texans -- and engages with them -- about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Study offers more evidence that education protects against dementia

By HealthDay News

A new study reinforces the idea that education can prevent or delay the onset of dementia. 

Photo by stevepb/Pixabay

Not everyone who becomes forgetful as they age develops dementia, and a new study suggests that those with college degrees and advanced language skills are likely to get better.

Mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, is an early stage of memory loss marked by lapses in memory and thinking problems that don't interfere with everyday life.

While people with MCI are more likely to develop dementia than folks who don't have these early memory lapses, some improve and return to normal.

"Although many people assume that if they develop mild cognitive impairment they will inevitably progress to dementia, we found encouraging evidence that this is not so," said study author Suzanne Tyas, an associate professor of public health sciences at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

RELATED Risk for CTE linked to head injury rises with more years playing hockey

Education and language skills can help predict who will go on to develop dementia and who won't, the study found.

"These factors reflect exercise for the brain, and our work suggests they may be indicators of cognitive reserve," Tyas said. But exactly how cognitive reserve helps protect from dementia is not fully understood yet.

"One possible mechanism is neural compensation, where the brains of those individuals with higher levels of cognitive reserve may, by using alternate brain networks, be more able to compensate for the brain changes that originally led to mild cognitive impairment," Tyas explained.

The researchers analyzed data on 619 U.S. Catholic nuns, age 75 and up, in a long-running study of aging and Alzheimer's disease.

The nuns took tests measuring memory and other mental skills for up to 12 years or until they died.

A total of 472 women were diagnosed with MCI during the study, and about a third -- 143 -- regained their normal memory level at least once during an average 8.5 years after diagnosis. Nearly 84% of these 143 nuns never developed dementia.

RELATED Erectile dysfunction drugs may help cognitive decline

Another third did progress to dementia without ever reverting to normal thinking and memory skills, while 3% stayed in the MCI stage, and 36% of the nuns died.

The participants who earned a bachelor's degree had more than double the chances of getting their memory back compared to those with a grade school or high school education.

Nuns who had a master's degree or more advanced education were even more likely to regain their normal thinking skills after an MCI diagnosis, the study found.

The findings also offer reassurance for folks without such high levels of formal education, Tyas said.

Language skills, including those reflected in high grades in English class or in strong writing skills, also protected against dementia, the study found.

Those who had high grades in English but not in other subjects were almost twice as likely to improve after MCI as to develop dementia.

What's more, participants with strong writing skills based on number of ideas expressed were four times more likely to improve than progress to dementia, the study showed. This effect was even stronger for those whose writing used complex grammatical structure, Tyas said.

"Language is a complex function of the brain, so it makes sense that strong language skills were also protective, and this effect was even stronger than for education," Tyas said.

In addition to having high levels of education and solid language skills, nuns who were younger than 90 and didn't carry certain genetic risk factors associated with Alzheimer's disease, the most common type of dementia, were also more likely to see a return of their memory.

The bottom line? "It's encouraging that our findings show there are multiple factors that improve your chance of regaining cognitive function after experiencing mild cognitive impairment," Tyas said.

The findings were published this month in the journal Neurology.

Dr. Kenneth Langa, a dementia researcher at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, called the study "interesting and well-done."

Many people with MCI will get better on their own, said Langa, who was not part of the study.

"These findings are in line with other studies, but this study's careful measurement and long period of follow-up provide additional confidence in the results," he said.

These findings should be taken into account when considering treatment, Langa said.

"The fact that a significant number of individuals with MCI will not go on to dementia, even in the absence of any treatment, increases the risk for overdiagnosis and potential overtreatment among those with MCI," he said.

More information

The Alzheimer's Association has information about reducing your risk for Alzheimer's disease.

Copyright © 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Shift work linked with memory, brain function problems, study finds

A new study links night-shift work with memory and other brain problems, which researchers said may contribute to increased risk for workplace injuries and errors. Photo by dayamay/Pixabay

March 8 (UPI) -- Night-shift work can cause memory and other brain function problems, an analysis published Tuesday by the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine found.

It is also associated with lower levels of alertness and visual focus, as well as declines in the ability to control impulses and situational response, the researchers said.

This could potentially raise the risk for workplace injuries and errors, they said.

Based on data from 18 studies that collectively included more than 18,000 participants, researchers found that night-shift workers had lower scores on tests designed to measure impulse control and situational response, or decision-making ability.

RELATED Working night shifts may raise odds for A-fib, study says

Night-shift workers also scored slightly lower on tests assessing brain processing speed, working memory, alertness and ability to filter out unimportant visual clues, the data showed.

"Our findings suggest an association between shift work and decreased cognitive functions such as working memory," study co-author Thomas Vlasak told UPI in an email.

This "may ultimately contribute to work-related injuries and errors leading to potential implications for occupational health and safety especially for high-risk and safety-sensitive professions," said Vlasak, a member of the scientific staff at Sigmund Freud Private University in Linz, Austria.

Previous studies have linked shift work with sleep problems and other serious health complications, including heart disease, obesity, diabetes, mood disorders and substance abuse.

Working outside the normal day-night cycle interferes with the body's internal clock, or circadian rhythm, because it results in affected people sleeping "out of step" with the normal light-dark cycle, Vlasak and his colleagues said.

Interference with the circadian rhythm affects production of the hormones that govern it, such as cortisol and melatonin, which impacts stress response and mental and physical health, they said.

RELATED Shift work-induced problems may raise risk for heart health problems

For this analysis, the Austrian researchers reviewed data from 18 studies published between 2005 and 2020 that collectively enrolled 18,802 working adults who had an average age of 35.

Five of the studies compared workers in fixed shifts with those working normal office hours, while 11 compared workers in rotating shifts with those working normal office hours and two did not specify shift type.

Half of the studies included healthcare professionals while the other half focused on different professions, such as police officers.

Based on the findings, companies who engage shift-workers should consider protective countermeasures such as scheduled naps, recovery plans and regular employee monitoring to minimize potential health effects, the researchers said.

"Studies suggest that managing healthy sleep patterns outside of shift work, taking naps when working overnight, following a healthy diet and controlled exposure to light during and after work can help to minimize risks," Vlasak said.

WAR CRIME

'The Destruction Is Colossal': Russia Bombs Ukrainian Children's Hospital

"The Russian occupying forces have dropped several bombs on the children's hospital," said officials from the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

A screenshot of video footage shows the outside of a children's hospital reportedly bombed by Russian forces on March 9, 2022. (Photo: Mariupol City Council)


JAKE JOHNSON

COMMOAN DREAMS

March 9, 2022

This is a developing news story... Check back for possible updates...

Local Ukrainian officials said Wednesday that a Russian airstrike hit a maternity and children's hospital in the besieged port city of Mariupol, inflicting heavy damage and burying patients under the rubble.

"The Russian occupying forces have dropped several bombs on the children's hospital. The destruction is colossal," said the Mariupol city council, adding that it is not yet sure how many injuries or deaths the attack caused.

Sharing a video of the airstrike's aftermath on Twitter, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russian forces of committing another "atrocity" and reiterated his demand for a no-fly zone, which NATO countries have rejected given the high risk of sparking a broader war with Russia.

 

According to the United Nations, dozens of Ukrainian children have been killed during Russia's full-scale assault on Ukraine, which is about to enter its third week with no end in sight.

Asked to comment on the reported hospital bombing, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Reuters that "Russian forces do not fire on civilian targets."

Mariupol, located in southeastern Ukraine, has been under near-constant shelling over the past several days as Russian troops surround the strategic port city. Vadym Boichenko, the city's mayor, told the Financial Times that Russian forces "are trying to exterminate us."

As the Associated Press reports, "A humanitarian crisis is unfolding in this encircled city of 430,000, and Tuesday brought no relief: An attempt to evacuate civilians and deliver badly needed food, water, and medicine through a designated safe corridor failed, with Ukrainian officials saying Russian forces had fired on the convoy before it reached the city."

Ahead of the strike on the Mariupol hospital—which was carried out during an agreed ceasefire—the World Health Organization (WHO) said Wednesday that it has confirmed 18 attacks on Ukrainian healthcare facilities thus far, resulting in 10 deaths and 16 injuries.

"Attacks on healthcare are in violation of international humanitarian law," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressed last week.

Ukraine officials say Russian airstrikes destroyed children's hospital, maternity ward


March 9 (UPI) -- Ukrainian officials accused Russia's military on Wednesday of bombing a children's hospital and a maternity ward in southeastern Ukraine and leaving children and women under the debris.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other officials reported the attack on the hospital in Mariupol, which is one of five cities that Moscow agreed to allow refugees to flee with a new cease-fire agreement on Wednesday.

Before the hospital attack, Ukrainian officials said they were skeptical that Russia would comply with the cease-fire.

City councilors in Mariupol called the damage from the bombing "colossal."

RELATED Voices: Will Vladimir Putin threaten Ukraine with nuclear strike or surrender?

"Mariupol. Direct strike of Russian troops at the maternity hospital. People, children are under the wreckage," Zelensky said in a tweet.

"How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror? Close the sky right now! Stop the killings! You have power but you seem to be losing humanity."

Earlier Wednesday, Zelensky urged the international community to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying that failure to do so will lead to a humanitarian catastrophe.

The new cease-fire was scheduled to run from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday and Russia said it would allow civilians to flee in five cities -- Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Mariupol. Ukrainian officials, however, noted that Russian forces have been shelling escape routes every day this week.

After failed attempts to secure safe corridors for Ukrainians trying the leave the country, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said she was hopeful Wednesday that the 12-hour cease-fire would allow the departure of noncombatants from several areas.

Vereshchuk said she is consulting with the International Red Cross about the proposed routes and called on Russia to keep its commitment to the passage without hostilities.

"People have to be able to leave the places where they are now hiding from the hail of [rockets] and the devastating fire that is killing them," she said, according to CNN.

Ukrainian officials said evacuations would resume Wednesday in war-torn Sumy, where a Russian airstrike on Tuesday killed several people, but noted that there are hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in Mariupol.

Meanwhile, the United States has agreed to send Patriot anti-missile batteries to Poland to protect allied troops in the country. There is some concern that Moscow could ultimately fire rockets toward Poland or other neighboring countries that oppose the Russian advances.

Poland has been a staging area for Western forces and equipment, and U.S. President Joe Biden sent a couple thousand American troops there last month to aid NATO forces in protecting Ukraine.

On Wednesday, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is traveling to Poland as part of a three-day trip through Eastern Europe to support allied forces. The White House said she will visit Poland and Romania.

"She will be carrying a three-part message. The first is that the U.S. stands firmly and resolutely with our NATO Allies," a senior administration official told reporters. "Second is our continuing support for the Ukrainian people, both in terms of humanitarian and military assistance to them.

"And third is the fact that Putin has made a mistake that will result in resounding strategic defeat for Russia. And you're already seeing evidence of that in terms of what's going on inside Ukraine as well as the impact of the sanctions that we have imposed on the Russian economy."

Harris' trip comes after U.S. officials rejected the Polish government's offer to send MiG-29 fighters to a U.S. air base in Germany for use by the Ukrainian military.

Meanwhile, the European Union agreed Wednesday to expand sanctions against Russia and its ally Belarus. It added to SWIFT restrictions for Belarusian banks, sanctions against more than 150 people and punitive measures against Russia's maritime industry.

UH OH 😨

'Insanity Not to Allow This': Calls for Ceasefire to Repair Chernobyl Power Supply

Ukraine's foreign minister said a ceasefire in the area would "allow repair crews to restore electricity supply" 

to the Chernobyl plant "as soon as possible."


A picture taken on April 13, 2021 shows the giant protective dome built over the sarcophagus covering the destroyed fourth reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant ahead of the upcoming 35th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

 (Photo: Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)


JAKE JOHNSON

COMMON DREAMS

March 9, 2022

This is a developing news story... Check back for possible updates...

Ukrainian authorities warned Wednesday that radioactive material could leak into the atmosphere after the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear plant was reportedly disconnected from the power grid by Russian forces, raising the risk that spent nuclear fuel stored at the site may not cool properly.

"Because of military actions of Russian occupiers, the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl was fully disconnected from the power grid," Ukrenergo, Ukraine's state-owned power grid operator, said in a statement.

Ukrenergo added in a Facebook post that emergency diesel generators have been activated in response to the electricity shut-off, but noted the fuel would last for just 48 hours.

Energoatom, Ukraine's national nuclear energy firm, cautioned Wednesday that without adequate electricity, "the temperature in the [spent fuel] holding pools will increase" and "release of radioactive substances into the environment may occur."

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, characterized the state of the Chernobyl plant as "an extremely dangerous situation."

In a social media post, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) wrote that Wednesday's development "violates a key safety pillar on ensuring uninterrupted power supply" to the Chernobyl plant.

But the agency added that it "sees no critical impact on safety at the moment," explaining that the heat load of the spent fuel storage pool and the "volume of cooling water" at the facility are "sufficient for effective heat removal without the need for electrical supply."

Russian military forces quickly seized control of the Chernobyl plant, the site of the 1986 nuclear catastrophe, soon after they invaded Ukraine late last month, heightening fears of a nuclear disaster stemming from possible damage to the facility.

In a pair of tweets Wednesday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called for an immediate ceasefire in the area to "allow repair crews to restore electricity supply" to the Chernobyl plant "as soon as possible."

"Spare diesel generators will power the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and its facilities for 48 hours," Kuleba wrote. "Then the cooling system of the spent nuclear fuel storage will be shut down, which will threaten the leakage of radiation. Russia's barbaric war threatens the whole of Europe. Putin must stop it immediately."

The advocacy group Beyond Nuclear said it would be "insanity not to allow this," referring to necessary repairs to the Chernobyl power supply.

"The fighting must stop," the group added. "Everyone will be affected."

Officials fear possible radiation leak after Chernobyl nuclear plant loses power in Ukraine

Losing power means that systems in the Chernobyl plant that regulate radiation could fail and allow harmful radiation to escape into the atmosphere. Photo by Carl Montgomery/Wikimedia Commons

March 9 (UPI) -- Officials in Ukraine said Wednesday that Russian shelling has damaged a high-voltage power line to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station, which is under Russian control, and that radiation could escape if it's not repaired soon.

Authorities said the damage to the power line was caused by the "occupiers" and urged Moscow to call a halt to the fighting in the area to fix it. The Chernobyl plant is located about 70 miles northwest of Kyiv.

Russian forces have slowly been making advances in some parts of Ukraine and none at all in other areas that are guarded by Ukrainian troops and civilians. A new cease-fire that began on Wednesday was called to allow thousands of Ukrainians to flee the fighting, but it doesn't offer the necessary protection to fix the Chernobyl power line.

Losing power means that systems in the plant that regulate radiation could fail and allow harmful radiation to escape into the atmosphere.

A sign near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine warns of possible radiation exposure stemming from the 1986 explosion at the facility, which partially melted the core in reactor No. 4. 

File Photo by Sergey Starostenko/UPI

"About 20,000 spent fuel assemblies are stored in the spent nuclear fuel storage facility-1. They need constant cooling. Which is possible only if there is electricity," Ukraine's State Service of Special Communications said in a tweet Wednesday.

"If it is not there, the pumps will not cool. As a result, the temperature in the holding pools will increase. After that evaporation will occur, that will lead to nuclear discharge. The wind can transfer the radioactive cloud to other regions of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Europe. In addition, there is no ventilation inside the facility."

Officials also said that personnel at the plant will be exposed to a "dangerous dose of radiation."

Ukrainian officials said that there's also an increased risk of fire due to the outage, as extinguishing and suppression systems depend on electricity to function.

Making matters worse, officials said on Tuesday that systems that monitor nuclear waste at Chernobyl had stopped transmitting data.

"I'm deeply concerned about the difficult and stressful situation facing staff at the Chernobyl nuclear plant and the potential risks this entails for nuclear safety," Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said. "I call on the forces in effective control of the site to urgently facilitate the safe rotation of personnel there."

The IAEA said in a tweet earlier Tuesday, however, that it didn't foresee a "critical impact on safety" from the power outage.

More than 200 workers at the Chernobyl plant have been trapped there since the start of the war as no one is being allowed to replace them. The IAEA on Wednesday called on the international community to facilitate a staff rotation.

The Chernobyl nuclear plant was the site of a 1986 partial core meltdown after an explosion in its reactor No. 4. It was one of the worst nuclear disasters in history.

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