.@louiscasiano from @FoxNews reached out to ask if we are actually planning on contaminating the hotel rooms of Proud Boys with bedbugs. The short answer is no, we don't even know if that's possible. But here's our full response.

1/42 Good to see yesterday’s @thetimes editorial attacking the pandemic of covid misinformation. Here’s my twitter contribution to fighting it, as suggested. Lockdown and covid sceptics continue to consistently misuse cherry picked data to argue NHS not unusually busy.

2/42 NHS trust leaders believe this disinformation is profoundly disrespectful to staff and risks reducing vital compliance with restrictions on social contact. Below is a long two part thread answering the main "NHS not unusually busy" and other NHS related disinformation.

3/42 Much of the disinformation comes from simplistic year on year percentage comparisons of data. Some types of NHS demand are flat or lower year on year. But it’s a huge distortion to argue that these individual statistics mean the NHS is not unusually busy.

4/42 For example, there ARE much lower levels of winter flu year - a global phenomenon. There ARE fewer elective operations - because of covid pressures. And there are many other examples. But there are five problems with cherry-picking/using these individual datasets.

5/42 1. They do not capture anything like the current total level of NHS demand which is very differently shaped due to COVID-19. Traditional, existing, NHS datasets were built to reflect “normal” levels of demand, “normal” operations and "normal" capacity. This isn’t normal.

ALERT In hours starting 12 PM ET Fri night / 9 AM Karachi time, Omar Sheikh + 3 men convicted in Danny Pearl's murder will try to walk out of jail. Ruth + @YudaPearl ask the govt of Pakistan to stop this miscarriage of #JusticeforDanielPearl. cc: @imrankhanpti @realdonaldtrump

1/How did we get here? Born in 1973, Omar Sheikh, a British-Pakistani dropout from the London School of Economics became radicalized at Salafi mosques in London in the early 1990s. He vowed to become a jihadi. He went to Pakistan to wage jihad. And kidnap.

2/ 1994, Omar Sheikh went to India for a militant group, and he used the fake name "Rohit Sharma" to kidnap four tourists, including an American, Bela Nuss, from Connaught Place in Delhi. He was caught by Delhi police and sent to Tihar Jail.

3/ Dec. 24, 1999, militants hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 from Kathmandu, Nepal, and they demanded the release of 4 men from jail in India. One was militant leader Masood Azhar. Another: Omar Sheikh. On Dec. 31, 1999, they were freed. Omar was 26.

4/ After Sept. 11, 2001, Daniel Pearl went to Pakistan with his wife, Mariane, to report on the 9/11 attacks. On Jan. 6, 2002, Danny started chasing a story about a Sheikh Gilani. Omar Sheikh pretended to be the cleric's student. Their paths now crossed.

As the @guardian continues their antisemitic game of contorting everything in existence to attack Israel, (in this instance perpetuating a libel of Jews as disease spreaders withholding vaccines), here are some other headlines I’ve written for them to keep up their sleeves:

Israel’s national anthem sung in Hebrew - not Japanese - another low for this racist state

Israeli of the year award goes to Israeli - not Frenchman - is there no end to Israel’s racism?

Israeli sports budget spent on Israelis - not on Scottish skateboard parks. What would we expect?

Diego Maradonna doesn’t even place in list of top ten greatest ever Israelis. An insult to world’s football fans. FIFA must act...

BREAKING: Bangko Sentral maintains key interest rate at 2%. | @meltlopez

BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno: The inflation environment remains benign. Latest trends show an increase in food prices, but this is transitory.

BSP: A resurgence of COVID-19 cases globally tempered economic activity. Optimism on vaccines has lifted market confidence, improved prospects for global growth.

BSP: further easing of quarantine measures should facilitate economic recovery in PH in the next few months.

BSP: Accommodative policy rates together with fiscal support will quicken PH recovery.

For some non-Covid news, and as a bit of recent political history, I’ve been released more than 100 pages of internal press office communications relating to the Home Office’s fried chicken box saga.

You may remember back in heady 2019 that there was an uproar after the government provided takeaway boxes with anti-knife crime messages to chicken shops around the country.

The campaign faced an immediate backlash, with critics questioning why fried chicken shops — stereotypically associated with young black communities — were being targeted by the Home Office for this campaign against knife crime.

The emails I’ve been released show that privately, officials admitted that the outcry risked angering the communities the campaign was trying to reach out to.

A briefing prepared by a Home Office official highlighted that they were “unsure what could be done publicly” to rebuff the criticism, and that the campaign’s focus on chicken boxes had created a perception that the campaign had “publicised racist stereotypes”.