News of the World

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3 Injured in West Virginia Train Derailment That Sent Diesel Fuel, Oil Into River

Three people have been injured after an empty coal train operated by CSX Corp. derailed on March 8 after hitting a rock slide in a remote area of West Virginia.

All four of the train’s locomotives and nine empty coal cars derailed in a remote area just south of Sandstone, Summers County, inside the New River National Park and Preserve, CSX said in a statement. The incident happened just before 5 a.m. local time.

The lead locomotive was carrying three crew members—a conductor, an engineer, and an engineer trainee—and caught fire after striking the rock slide and derailing, CSX said.

Local fire departments arrived on the scene to put out the fire and all three crew members are safe and were evaluated and treated for “non-life threatening injuries,” according to the train operator.

Two of the crew members were airlifted and the third was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, a Summers County Office of Emergency Management dispatcher told CNN.

“An unknown quantity of diesel fuel and oil spilled from the derailed locomotives and environmental measures will be deployed in the New River for containment,” CSX said.

China Took Down Its Spy Balloon After It Flew Over Latin America

China brought down its balloon after it crossed Latin America around the time another one was flying through the United States, the commanders of U.S. Northern and Southern Command told lawmakers on March 8.

“What I understand is the PRC actually terminated that balloon in the Atlantic Ocean off the east coast of South America,” Gen. Glen VanHerck, who heads the U.S. Northern Command, told the House Armed Services Committee in a hearing...U.S. Southern Command’s head Gen. Laura Richardson confirmed that to be true.

Neither revealed the timing and location of the takedown and the whereabouts of balloon remnants.

The balloon was sighted over Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Venezuela. Beijing had claimed both that balloon and the one the United States shot down off the South Carolina coast on Feb. 4 were non-military assets that deviated from their original course.

U.S. officials have described the balloons as spying tools aiding the Chinese regime’s global surveillance program, which they said has spanned across five continents.
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“It was the first time in NORTHCOM’s history we conducted an engagement over the United States and it made clear that our competitors have the capability and intent to reach our homeland.”

Military Generals Issue Warning
About China Amassing ‘Power and Influence’ in South America

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “continues to expand its economic, diplomatic, technological, informational, and military influence in Latin America and the Caribbean. The PRC has the capability and intent to eschew international norms, advance its brand of authoritarianism, and amass power and influence at the expense of these democracies,” General Laura J. Richardson, Commander of the U.S. Southern Command, said during a House Armed Service committee hearing on March 8.
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The CCP has “expanded its ability to extract resources, establish ports, manipulate governments through predatory investment practices, and build potential dual use space facilities, the most space facilities in any combatant command region.”

Richardson pointed out that China has used the devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to boost its influence in Latin America.
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Amidst this crisis, the CCP came in with investments in critical infrastructure like highways, electrical dams, deepwater ports, telecommunications, and so on, she said.

General Glen D. VanHerck, Commander of the U.S. Northern Command, noted that China has made significant investments in Mexico. Around 80 percent of Mexico’s telecommunications equipment is provided by Chinese companies like Huawei, he said.

In the Bahamas, the CCP is “aggressively pursuing their economic coercion,” he said. China has built its biggest embassy in the world in the Bahamas, with a “very aggressive ambassador who uses the information space to undermine us each and every day.”

You better check it out, guys. The whole article is truly alarming.

New WHO Chief Scientist Made Crucial Change to Paper
Claiming COVID-19 Didn’t Come From Lab

Jeremy Farrar, the [WHO] chief scientist, was credited in one message with helping guide the paper about the origin of COVID-19, according to an email released by the U.S. House select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic on March 5.

“Thanks for shepherding this paper. Rumors of bioweaponeering are now circulating in China,” Dr. Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University professor, wrote to Farrar in the message.

“Yes I know and in US – why so keen to get out ASAP. I will push nature,” Farrar responded.
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“Sorry to micro-manage/microedit! But would you be willing to change one sentence?” Farrar wrote to Kristian Andersen, who co-authored the paper, in an email just one day before publication.

Farrar asked to insert “improbable” in place of “unlikely,” the email showed.

“Sure,” Andersen responded.

The paper also stated that “SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct” and that the authors “do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”

“This evidence suggests that Dr. Farrar was more involved in the drafting and publication of Proximal Origin than previously known and possibly should have been credited or acknowledged for this involvement,” the panel said.
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The British scientist was, at the time of the messages, at the helm of the Wellcome Trust, which controls millions of dollars in funding for research in the UK.
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Farrar helped arrange a secret Feb. 1, 2020, teleconference with Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to discuss the origin of COVID-19, previously released emails show.

Some of the participants said details of SARS-CoV-2 indicated it didn’t originate from nature, though others favored the natural origin theory.

Anderson was among the former, writing that “some of the features (potentially) look engineered.”

Maryland, Virginia Officials Compete for Mammoth New FBI Headquarters

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and other officials are trying to convince government authorities to choose a site in their state for a mammoth new FBI headquarters, which is expected to cost more than $1 billion.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), and other Maryland officials met with the FBI and General Services Administration (GSA) on March 8 to make their case. Kaine, Mark Warner (D-Va.), and other Virginia officials followed on Thursday.

“The new FBI headquarters belongs in the state of Maryland,” Moore, a Democrat, told reporters after the meeting.

The Virginia group said a location in Springfield would be best, in part because of its proximity to the FBI Academy in Quantico.
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The GSA and FBI must choose from one of three sites. One is in Landover, Maryland; one is in Greenbelt, Maryland; and the third is in Springfield.

The new facility will replace the J. Edgar Hoover building in Washington. At least 7,500 personnel will work in the building, which could cost billions of dollars.
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An FBI relocation study concluded the agency needed a 2.6 million-square-foot facility on a site of between 55 and 65 acres.