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Washington — A former senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has pleaded guilty to a charge stemming from a scheme to hide federal records during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under a deal reached with federal prosecutors in Maryland, David Morens, 78, agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses and to defraud the United States. He faces up to five years in prison.
Morens, a senior adviser at NIAID's Office of the Director from 2006 to 2022, was indicted in April and charged with five counts for what prosecutors said at the time was his role in a scheme to defraud the U.S. by shielding federal records related to the COVID-19 pandemic from the public.
Tim Belevetz, a lawyer for Morens, said, "By pleading guilty today, Dr. Morens has taken responsibility for what he did and will continue to do so."
Prosecutors said Morens worked with two co-conspirators. The first, "co-conspirator 1," served as the president and CEO of a New York-based nonprofit that received a grant in 2014 titled "Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence." The Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, received a subaward from the New York group on the coronavirus grant, prosecutors said, though the National Institutes of Health terminated the award in April 2020 following allegations that COVID-19 emerged from the lab. The NIAID is part of the NIH.
The second co-conspirator was described in charging documents as a physician, scientist and professor who worked for an academic institute that received federal grants.
Emails made public by the GOP-led Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic indicate that the New York-based nonprofit is the EcoHealth Alliance and co-conspirator 1 is its president, Peter Daszak....
According to the guilty plea, Morens and the two co-conspirators agreed to exchange emails about COVID-19 and its origins, as well as the terminated coronavirus grant, through Morens' personal Gmail account, rather than his official NIH account, to hide federal records and evade public records laws.
Morens and his co-conspirators also used his Gmail account to share nonpublic information from the NIH about COVID-19 and "back-channel" information to an unidentified senior NIAID official, who appears to be Anthony Fauci, the institute's former director, according to court filings.
Nothing says integrity like hiding records.
Scott Rank hosts the "History Unplugged" podcast. He excels at highlighting interesting books. We've seen him here before, talking about "The Rifle" where a veteran gets World War II veterans to autograph his M1 Garand, about the tank duel in front of Cologne Cathedral, and about an interesting conservative blog and podcast.
He has a fascinating episode up about how analysis of ancient DNA is entirely rewriting our understanding of "Deep History" - things older than around 10,000 years:
Humanity’s story from 10,000 BC to 3,000 BC (from the end of the ice age to the beginning of civilizations) follows this pattern: primitive hunter-gatherers slowly progressed to farmers, then to village-builders, then to city-dwellers and kings. With enough food surplus to free up everyone from having to farm, religion, medicine, and art developed. But a revolution in archaeological science has completely rewritten the human past. Tools like ancient DNA sequencing, isotope analysis, LiDAR scanning, ground-penetrating radar, and high-precision radiocarbon dating are completely rewriting what we know about the ancient past. For example, the Natufians of the Levant, living between roughly 14,500 and 11,500 years ago, built permanent stone villages, stored food, buried their dead with elaborate grave goods, and developed complex social hierarchies — all before farming a single crop.
We’re going to look at other recent discoveries that have changed what we know about the Ice Age and Neolithic periods, and we’re joined by is Patrick Wyman, author of Lost Worlds: How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World. We cover the Copper Age megacity beneath modern Spain that was abandoned so completely it wasn’t rediscovered until the 1990s. We talk about Ukraine’s Trypillia culture, which built cities of tens of thousands of people, with no kings, no temples, and no walls. We look at the Neolithic mass graves of central Europe that shattered the myth of the peaceful early farmer, a single Polish burial site where DNA, isotopes, and radiocarbon dating together revealed a family massacre tied to the very moment steppe migrants were pushing into the region.
Highly recommended.
The post A WW2 German Mystery: Knorr Bremse FG42 Prototype? first appeared on Forgotten Weapons.
Police initially said the shooting followed a fight between people who knew each other. Further investigation found that a security guard at the business fired a gun during the incident, striking the suspect before he fled, according to police.
Officers later learned the suspect had arrived at Northside Hospital in a private vehicle. They found 23-year-old James Jenkins, who was taken into custody and charged with aggravated assault.
I was a bit concerned that we might have difficulty find good Mexican food so far from the Southwest. Santa Fe Mexican Grill has now far exceeded our expectations both with Carne Asada Tacos and Chicken Fajitas. I notice many dishes on the menu that I have never seen before. I am aware that many Mexican restaurants in the Southwest reflect Sonoran traditions. I wonder if we may be seeing more dishes from other states?
Thank you, dear readers, for your patience. I like to be consistent in my postings, but having moved cross country from Idaho to Tennessee, it's been a challenge!
It's interesting to move to a place where the evidence of Christianity is everywhere. Just like in Idaho, there are numerous churches. In Idaho, it was the LDS church that made its presence greatly felt; here in Tennessee, you find a plethora of Baptist churches.
People are polite here. They smile, call you "honey" and have a friendliness that is very endearing. Idaho used to be like that. When we first moved there 25 years ago from northern California, it was refreshingly nice. People looked you in the eye, smiled and said, "hello." I felt we had died and gone to heaven.
Change is inevitable, to be sure, but it's the kind of change that can be discouraging. Idaho experienced a boom in population that I have never seen before. After Covid, our state was flooded by people who were disgusted with how their governments handled the epidemic. For some, it was the final straw.
We came to Idaho after 9/11 caused my husband to lose his job in telecommunications. HP in Boise offered him a job and we are forever grateful to God for opening up that door to us.
Around 2020, we saw a shift. People no longer looked you in the eye or smiled; they didn't say, "hello" and seemed almost offended if you did. The drivers became more aggressive, bullying you by tailgating and some used the interstate to race other like-minded individuals.
According to the San Antonio Police Department, the man was involved in a physical altercation with his sister when he pulled out a weapon.
The 35-year-old man was actively hitting the other person when the woman's 25-year-old boyfriend intervened, retrieved a handgun and shot him in the torso.
He was taken to University Hospital in critical condition but later died from his injuries.
Around 12:30 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 20, deputies said a shooting happened on Mays Drive in the Edgemoor area. The Chester County Sheriff’s Office said there was between altercation over a vaping device which led to the shooting.
The sheriff’s office said Brandon Tavon Cassidy shot the first person multiple times and died.
Deputies said a second person returned returned fire in self-defense and Cassidy exchanged gunfire and he was struck and died.
“What do you mean I gotta actually take my card out of my wallet and stick it in the machine with my hands like it’s 2015 up in here? I used my wristwatch to pay a guy in bib overalls for a stone knife last Wednesday, for heaven's sake!”
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| Resin-filled cholla hilt and gold sheen obsidian blade. |
8/22/26 The Hill reports on scromiting, a cute expression formed from screaming and vomiting. Isn't that adorable? The formal description is:
Cannabis (or cannabinoid) hyperemesis syndrome (CHS) is as serious as it sounds. The condition, which can cause excessive vomiting with recurring bouts of severe stomach pain and nausea, was first detected in Australia two decades ago. Some have referred to a combination of CHS symptoms – screaming, due to the intense pain, and vomiting – as “scromiting.”
Heavy marijuana use. It does wonders.
The post The Very First FAL Prototype (in 8mm Kurz) first appeared on Forgotten Weapons.
Most of my recreational reading is history and biography. One of my favorite writers is Tom Clavin. I just read his new book “Vengeance: the Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull.” I had been reading about Custer’s Last Stand since I was a little boy, and this book taught me a few […]BSO's Crime Scene and Homicide units also responded to the scene for the investigation. According to detectives, the preliminary investigation showed the man, who was identified as Maurice Wright Jr., and the shooter, an adult woman, were known to each other.
The BSO said that the woman told detectives that she needed to defend herself from a physical attack during the incident, and said the shooting was in self-defense.
The wolfettes went mad, barking. I looked out the front window and there was a majestic doe on the front lawn. Lillie was saying, "Please let me out! You won't need to feed me for a week!"