| McConnell puts blame for 2020 coronavirus failure on Barack Obama, in office 2009-2017 Posted: 12 May 2020 07:02 AM PDT  The Senate majority leader criticized the former president on a Trump campaign live stream despite the presence of a "Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents."
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| Owner of house Ahmaud Arbery purportedly entered before fatal shooting is getting death threats Posted: 12 May 2020 10:24 AM PDT  "If the McMichaels are going to justify what they did, they are going to have to look elsewhere for help," said an attorney for Larry English.
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| CIA Believes China Tried to Prevent WHO from Declaring Coronavirus ‘Global Health Emergency’: Report Posted: 12 May 2020 03:59 PM PDT  The CIA reportedly believes that China attempted to prevent the World Health Organization from declaring a global health emergency during the beginning stages of the coronavirus pandemic in January.In a report titled "U.N.-China: WHO Mindful But Not Beholden to China," the CIA detailed that China threatened to cease cooperating with the WHO's coronavirus investigation if the agency declared a global health emergency, Newsweek reported on Tuesday. The threats came at the same time that China reportedly "intentionally concealed the severity" of the outbreak in order to hoard medical supplies.U.S. officials told Newsweek that they could not say whether Chinese premier Xi Jinping was personally involved in the effort to pressure the WHO. A German intelligence report published by Der Spiegel last week concluded that Xi was indeed involved in the effort.The WHO declared a global health emergency on January 30, about one month after China confirmed the emergence of the then-unidentified pathogen in the city of Wuhan."Let me be clear: This declaration is not a vote of no confidence in China. On the contrary, WHO continues to have confidence in China's capacity to control the outbreak," WHO Director-General Tedros Anhanom told reporters at the time. The coronavirus outbreak has since become a pandemic, causing over 4,000,000 confirmed infections and killing almost 300,000 worldwide as of Tuesday.Accusing the WHO of mishandling the crisis and kowtowing to China, President Trump in April announced he would suspend U.S. funding for the organization."I'm instructing my administration to halt funding of the WHO while a review is conducted to assess the WHO's role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus," Trump said at a White House press conference. "The WHO failed in this basic duty and must be held accountable."
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| Angela Merkel says Germany has 'hard evidence' Russia hacked her emails Posted: 13 May 2020 04:49 AM PDT  Angela Merkel threatened Russia with consequences yesterday on Wednesday as she accused Vladimir Putin's intelligence services of hacking her emails. "We always reserve the right to take measures, including against Russia," Mrs Merkel told the German parliament. Germany has "hard evidence" Russian intelligence was behind a 2015 hacking attack in which her emails were compromised, she said. It was the first official confirmation of claims that have been extensively reported by the German press in recent days. "I can honestly say that it pains me," Mrs Merkel said, voicing her frustration at what she called Russia's "outrageous" behaviour. "Every day I try to build a better relationship with Russia, and on the other hand there is hard evidence that Russian forces are doing this." The allegations centre on a 2015 hacking attack on the German parliament's internal computer system in which several MPs' email accounts were compromised. It emerged last week in a report in Spiegel magazine that one of Mrs Merkel's email accounts was among those affected.
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| A train station worker has died after a man who said he had the coronavirus spat at her Posted: 12 May 2020 04:44 AM PDT  Ticket office worker Belly Mujinga died with Covid-19 two weeks after a member of the public who claimed he had the disease approached her and spat at her.
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| Dozens dead in Mexico after drinking adulterated alcohol Posted: 13 May 2020 08:57 AM PDT  Police are searching for the source of the bootleg liquor which has left 46 dead in two states.
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| 'We must give this money back': Lawmakers seek to make airlines offer refunds to all amid pandemic Posted: 13 May 2020 09:55 AM PDT  Five Democratic senators say airlines should offer refunds to anyone who cancels a trip due to COVID-19, not just those whose flights were canceled.
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| FEATURE-Cancel or strike: Pressure mounts to help U.S. renters amid coronavirus Posted: 13 May 2020 05:00 AM PDT |
| US says China trying to steal COVID-19 vaccine as markets slump Posted: 13 May 2020 06:21 PM PDT  Chinese hackers are trying to steal COVID-19 vaccine research, US authorities said Wednesday, ratcheting up tensions between the superpowers as markets slumped on warnings from the US Federal Reserve that prolonged shutdowns could cause "lasting damage." Europe, meanwhile, pushed ahead with plans to gradually reopen for summer tourism, even as fears persist of a second wave of infections in the pandemic that has forced more than half of humanity behind closed doors in recent months. With some countries scrambling after a fresh surge in cases and the global death toll exceeding 294,000, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the virus "may never go away."
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| Supreme Court appears split on whether Congress and prosecutors can see Trump's tax returns Posted: 12 May 2020 04:16 PM PDT  The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in two cases that could help decide whether President Trump can keep his tax returns private.
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| Gregory McMichael, who is charged in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, worked for years in DA Jackie Johnson's office without required gun training Posted: 13 May 2020 07:45 AM PDT  In a 2014 letter, DA Jackie Johnson called his longstanding lapse of training a "great embarrassment to me and to Investigator McMichael."
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| Ohio dad who went to D.C. to work on coronavirus frontlines now on ventilator Posted: 13 May 2020 03:50 PM PDT  "What we wanted to get out there was his story," his fiancée said. "How somebody goes away ... to help people. Now he's sick and far away from home."
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| WHO official cautions that even with vaccine, coronavirus 'may never go away' Posted: 13 May 2020 04:28 PM PDT  Dr. Mike Ryan, head of the World Health Organization's health emergencies program, wants people to be aware that the coronavirus now sweeping across the world "may never go away.""The virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away," Ryan said Wednesday. "HIV has not gone away, but we've come to terms with the virus and we have found therapies and we have found the prevention methods, and people don't feel as scared as they did before." There is still so much to learn about the coronavirus, including whether those who get it become immune or resistant, and "the current number of people who've been infected is actually relatively low," Ryan said.When it comes to a vaccine, "there are no promises in this and there are no dates," he declared, and even if one is created, that does not mean the coronavirus will instantly be eliminated. Recent measles outbreaks are proof that there are "some perfectly effective vaccines on this planet that we have not used effectively for diseases we could have eradicated," Ryan said.More stories from theweek.com Coronavirus will win. America needs to make a plan for failure. Will the Supreme Court crown Trump king? White House reportedly trying to lower coronavirus death rates by changing counting method
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| FBI Accidentally Reveals Name of Saudi Diplomat Suspected of Supporting 9/11 Hijackers Posted: 13 May 2020 07:45 AM PDT  The FBI has accidentally revealed the name of a Saudi diplomat who is suspected of directing support to two of the September 11, 2001, plane hijackers.In a federal court filing by Jill Sanborn, the assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division, the diplomat's name was redacted in all instances except one. In that instance, Sanborn's document refers to a diplomat formerly stationed at the Saudi embassy in the U.S. as "Jarrah," Yahoo News reported on Tuesday.The name refers to Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah, who served at the Saudi embassy from 1999 to 2000. Al-Jarrah "was responsible for the placement of Ministry of Islamic Affairs employees known as guides and propagators posted to the United States, including Fahad Al Thumairy," according to a declaration by former FBI agent Catherine Hunt, who has assisted some of the families of 9/11 victims.Al-Thumairy is a Saudi cleric who served as imam of a Los Angeles mosque. FBI reports released in 2012 revealed that Al-Thumairy and another individual were suspected of being "tasked" with aiding two 9/11 hijackers, although agents could not prove the suspicion conclusively.Some families of 9/11 victims have seized on the disclosure as hard evidence that the Saudi government had some level of involvement in the attacks."This shows there is a complete government cover-up of the Saudi involvement," Brett Eagleson, a spokesman for the families, told Yahoo. Eagleson noted that the Justice Department had informed families of al-Jarrah's identity in September 2019, it had done so while forbidding the reporting of al-Jarrah's name to the public.The U.S. maintains an alliance with Saudi Arabia that has deepened in recent years as the two countries have placed pressure on Iranian forces throughout the Middle East. The Saudi government has repeatedly denied that any of its representatives were involved in the 9/11 hijackings.
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| Airlines were just warned for a second time by the US government that they're required to issue refunds for canceled flights after 25,000 people complained Posted: 13 May 2020 09:09 AM PDT  The DOT's imprecise language surrounding refund requirements led to many disputes between customers and airlines.
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| Bolsonaro orders gyms and hair salons to reopen despite Brazil becoming 'global epicentre' of virus Posted: 13 May 2020 07:47 AM PDT  Brazil witnessed another record breaking daily death toll from coronavirus as it cemented its place as an emerging global epicentre for the disease. The official toll of 881 deaths was second only to the US, while its total of 177,589 cases surpassed Germany and came within touching distance of France. The total death toll now stands at 12,400, the sixth worst in the world, but experts say the real figure is far higher due to lack of testing and poor record keeping. The rising numbers came as hard-Right president Jair Bolsonaro has issued a decree to reopen all gyms and hair salons in Latin America's largest economy, even in regions with strict lockdowns in place. Mr Bolsonaro, who gained the 'Tropical Trump' moniker even before the crisis, has turned Brazil into a pariah in the region and much of the world for playing down the severity of the disease. He referred to the virus as a "little flu" and has been battling with state governors to lift lockdowns before the peak of the infection curve. His latest decree — classifying gyms, fitness centers, hair salons and barbershops as "essential services", which may remain open during isolation measures — has been branded as "irresponsible" by several of Brazil's states, with governors refusing to obey the president's orders. Rio de Janeiro governor Wilson Witzel said President Bolsonaro was "edging towards the precipice, and trying to take Brazil with him". In the northeastern state of Maranhão, left-wing governor Flavio Dino reckoned that the president is only looking to "cause trouble".
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| Team Trump Pushes CDC to Revise Down Its COVID Death Counts Posted: 13 May 2020 12:53 AM PDT  President Donald Trump and members of his coronavirus task force are pushing officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change how the agency works with states to count coronavirus-related deaths. And they're pushing for revisions that could lead to far fewer deaths being counted than originally reported, according to five administration officials working on the government's response to the pandemic.Though he has previously publicly attested to the accuracy of the COVID-19 death count, the president in recent weeks has privately raised suspicion about the number of fatalities in the United States, which recently eclipsed 80,000 recorded deaths. In talks with top officials, Trump has suggested that those numbers could have been incorrectly tallied or even inflated by current methodology, two individuals with knowledge of those private comments said. The White House has pressed the CDC, in particular, to work with states to change how they count coronavirus deaths and report them back to the federal government, according to two officials with knowledge of those conversations. And Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the administration's coronavirus task force, has urged CDC officials to exclude from coronavirus death-count reporting some of those individuals who either do not have confirmed lab results and are presumed positive or who have the virus and may not have died as a direct result of it, according to three senior administration officials. Officials inside the CDC, five of whom spoke to The Daily Beast, said they are pushing back against that request, claiming it could falsely skew the mortality rate at a time when state and local governments are already struggling to ensure that every person who dies as a result of the coronavirus is counted. Scientists and doctors working with the task force, including Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have said the U.S. death-toll count is likely higher than is being reflected in government data sets. And several local officials in hot spot areas said they've seen hundreds if not thousands more deaths over the last two months than in the same time period over the last several years. They presume many of those individuals contracted the coronavirus. "I don't worry about this overreporting issue," Bob Anderson, the chief of the Mortality Statistics Branch in CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, told The Daily Beast. Anderson's team is in charge of aggregating, calculating, and reporting coronavirus deaths for the agency. "We're almost certainly underestimating the number of deaths [in the country]."'Lightning Fast' Coronavirus Test Hyped by Trump Is Actually 'Slow,' Officials SayThe pressure being placed on the CDC is yet another tension point between the agency and the White House that has erupted over its handling of the coronavirus. Those tensions have reached a boiling point over the last several weeks as the CDC has worked to publish its guidelines for states working to reopen their local economies. The guidelines, which provide detailed information about how local officials can begin to allow some residents to attend religious gatherings and summer camps, were contested by White House officials who sought to shelve many of the agency's recommendations. The emerging fight over death counts represents a new front line in these battles—one that's attracted the direct interest of the president himself. Though Trump has quietly suggested that the U.S. is inflating the COVID-19 death tolls, one task-force official told The Daily Beast that any discussion about mortality rate is merely a small part of a broader dialogue about how to improve the quality of data at the local, state, and federal level. That official called the mortality rate a "far-lagging indicator" of the spread of the virus and argued that it was "not a real-time indicator of how the virus is affecting the population." The official said it was the task force's view that the mortality rate doesn't "inform the response efforts as other data could, like hospitalizations" and that the virus moves through populations "like nursing homes and prisons," as well as populations with comorbidities.But according to other knowledgeable sources, there is broader skepticism within the White House over how the CDC is compiling its data. In a task-force meeting last week, officials relayed that Birx said she couldn't trust the CDC's numbers—on both case and death counts—because the reporting system it relied upon was flawed. She argued that the agency was likely overcounting. The Washington Post was the first to report on the meeting. Officials in the CDC said they were confused by the argument. "The system can always get better. But if we've learned anything it's that we're seeing some of these individuals who have died of the virus slip through the cracks," one official told The Daily Beast. "It's not that we're overcounting." But according to one of the sources with knowledge of Trump's private remarks, the president recently said that he'd like a "review" of how the coronavirus deaths are counted and studied by the government, citing hypothetical cases in which a person has the virus but is killed by other unnatural means, such as falling down a flight of stairs. The other source said that Trump pointed out that death estimates for other incidents—such as natural disasters and wars—are revised down or up "all the time," and that the coronavirus pandemic could have similar fluctuations in the numbers published by public and private entities. (This month, Axios was first to report on Trump voicing doubts behind closed doors about current body counts.)Trump Sabotages His Own Coronavirus 'Mission Accomplished' MomentIt's an argument that has gained traction in various pro-Trump circles, as well, and is mirrored by the complaints of some of the president's closest advisers."My view is the president is totally correct that we need to have medical transparency," said Art Laffer, a longtime conservative economist who has counseled Trump and other key administration officials on coronavirus response and how to "open" the economy amid the pandemic. "When you attribute a death to the coronavirus today, what that means is that the guy had the coronavirus and died. It doesn't matter if he got hit by a car and died, and he would still be categorized as a coronavirus death... You need the whole transcribed medical records on a disk so people can sit there, maybe without names, and look for causes and correlations."Anderson said Laffer's assessment was incorrect and that the form used by physicians to report coronavirus deaths specifically asks them to answer: "Did the patient die as a result of this illness?" "It doesn't say 'Did this patient die?'" Anderson said.Anderson's division at the CDC keeps tabs on novel coronavirus deaths through two parallel tracking systems. It relies on the data it receives from local departments of health and through information it gathers from states through a death-certificate digital coding system. Anderson said the death count is normally higher from states' health systems than the death certificate system data. "But those numbers aren't necessarily inconsistent," he said, adding that the death-certificate death count usually lags anywhere from two to eight weeks. Meanwhile, local officials and doctors say any disruption in the way they count coronavirus deaths could lead to a significant undercounting. One study by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene published Monday said that there were thousands of "excess deaths" in the city from March 11 to May 2. About 18,879 of those deaths were explicitly tied to the coronavirus. But the study said there were also an additional 5,200 that were not identified as either laboratory-confirmed or probable COVID-19-associated deaths, but could have been tied to the virus in some other way.The COVID-19 Death Undercount Is Scarier Than You ThinkGretchen Van Wye, the assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Vital Statistics at New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said her team matches individuals coded as having died from the coronavirus with the lab results to get a "confirmed" category of people daily. Then, with individuals that aren't coded, the team uses an algorithm to search for words such as "Covid" or "Covid-19" on their death certificate to create a "probable" category. Unlike other cities across the country, New York City includes this probable count in its reporting. The rest of the results are considered as "other" deaths.In New Jersey, officials told The Daily Beast that they have seen an uptick in the number of patients arriving at the hospital already deceased who were never tested for the virus. Two doctors—one in New York City and one in Jersey City—said that they have not tagged certain individuals as having died as a result of the coronavirus because families requested it be kept off the death certificate so they could more easily collect the remains.Even with the death-certificate coding system, doctors and local officials say they are running into problems where some of their patients are not being counted in the total coronavirus death tally. State officials are required to enter a specific code—a seven-digit number—on a death certificate to identify whether an individual has died as a result of COVID-19, Anderson said. The CDC requires doctors to input "COVID-19" in order for an individual to be counted in the national system as having died as a result of the coronavirus. Several doctors in New York City who spoke with The Daily Beast said in high intensity situations human error could result in a physician not coding a patient correctly. Doctors were coding patients as simply "coronavirus" or some variation of that without indicating that the virus was specific to the 2020 pandemic. In some instances they were forgetting to input "-19" after "COVID"."Now we're having to go back and recode those deaths," Anderson said, adding that there were more than 1,500 individuals who were mistakenly overlooked in the first few weeks the CDC was calculating the coronavirus death count. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Democrat Ocasio-Cortez to lead Biden climate change panel with Kerry Posted: 12 May 2020 09:16 PM PDT  Ocasio-Cortez, who had backed fellow liberal U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders' bid for the Democratic nomination, will co-head the climate policy group Biden had set up in collaboration with his one-time rival Sanders, his campaign confirmed on Wednesday. The panel's other co-chair will be former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, a Biden ally who helped architect the Paris climate accord when he was President Barack Obama's Secretary of State.
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| Student who made elevator noose pleads guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct Posted: 13 May 2020 05:15 AM PDT  A student pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct for making a noose out of string and leaving it in a residence hall elevator.
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| FBI Arrests NASA Researcher for Failing to Disclose China Ties Posted: 13 May 2020 06:34 AM PDT  Federal agents have arrested a NASA researcher for allegedly failing to disclose ties to Chinese government entities, the Justice Department announced on Tuesday.University of Arkansas-Fayetteville professor Simon Saw-Teong Ang, 63, was arrested on Friday and charged with wire fraud."Ang made false statements and failed to report his outside employment to UA, which enabled Ang to keep his UA job as well as obtain [US government] research funding," an affidavit in the case reads. According to the DOJ, Ang defrauded NASA and UA "by failing to disclose that he held other positions at a Chinese university and Chinese companies."Ang has been an electrical engineering professor at UA since 1988, and has engaged in several projects for NASA and other U.S. government agencies. Ang's ties to China were discovered by a university employee who was attempting to ascertain the owner of a hard drive placed in the university's lost-and-found. While searching through the hard drive, the employee discovered emails between Ang and a visiting researcher from Xidian University in Xi'an, China."You can search the Chinese website regarding what the US will do to Thousand Talent Scholars," Ang wrote in one email. "Not many people here know I am one of them but if this leaks out, my job here will be in deep troubles [sic]."The criminal complaint against Ang states that while he did disclose participation in a Thousand Talents program in 2014, he failed to report connections to other programs between 2012 and 2018.The Thousand Talents program is a Chinese government-funded initiative whose stated purpose is to encourage scientific research, but which U.S. intelligence agencies warn have led to Chinese attempts at espionage and intellectual property theft. Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have launched a probe into Chinese funding and influence at American universities."We cannot allow a dangerous communist regime to buy access to our institutions of higher education, plain and simple," Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) said earlier this month. "We owe it to the American people to hold China accountable and to prevent them from doing further harm to our country."
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| A group of states is demanding Amazon and Whole Foods reveal how many of their employees have the coronavirus Posted: 12 May 2020 03:07 PM PDT  An unknown number of Amazon and Whole Foods workers have contracted the coronavirus in recent months. State officials want to know the exact number.
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| Saudi Arabia to enter full lockdown for five days after Ramadan as coronavirus cases rise Posted: 13 May 2020 10:22 AM PDT  Saudi Arabia has said it will impose a full, 24-hour lockdown during the five-day Eid al-Fitr festival, which falls at the end of Ramadan, due to rising coronavirus infections. The curfew will be imposed from May 23 to May 27, following the end of the fasting period for Muslims, the Saudi interior ministry said in a statement. The kingdom has reported some of the highest number of coronavirus cases in the Gulf region and is now trying to slow the spread of the disease at a time when millions of Muslims will be celebrating the end of their fast. Most parts of the kingdom were put under full lockdown following the outbreak, but last month the government relaxed the curfew between the hours of 9am and 5pm. Shopping centres and retailers have been allowed to reopen, except in major hotspots including the holy city of Mecca, where confirmed cases have substantially increased, despite a stringent lockdown.
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| Israel waging 'imaginary battle' against Iran troops in Syria: Hezbollah Posted: 13 May 2020 10:23 AM PDT  Lebanon's Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah charged Wednesday that Israel had been waging an "imaginary battle" against Iranian troops in Syria, insisting that Tehran had sent only "military advisers and experts". Nasrallah also denied Iran and its allies were in a battle for influence with Russia in the neighbouring country and said their chief aim was "preventing Syria from falling under the hegemony of America and Israel".
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| 2 Target customers who refused to wear face masks were arrested after a brawl that broke an employee's arm Posted: 13 May 2020 09:06 AM PDT  A video posted by the LAPD shows a fight that resulted in the arrests of Phillip Hamilton, 31, and Paul Hamilton, 29 for battery.
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| Spanish antibody study suggests 5% of population affected by coronavirus Posted: 13 May 2020 03:38 AM PDT  Preliminary results from a nationwide coronavirus antibody study showed on Wednesday that about 5% of the overall Spanish population had contracted the novel virus - about 10 times more than the tally of diagnosed cases suggests. The results point to 2.3 million of Spain's 45 million population being affected by the virus, if without symptoms in many cases, considerably more than the official count of under 230,000 cases. "We have not been surprised" by the results, Illa said.
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| Highlights of Democrats' $3 trillion-plus virus relief bill Posted: 12 May 2020 09:30 PM PDT  Democrats controlling the House have unveiled a $3 trillion-plus coronavirus relief bill — the fifth coronavirus response legislation so far — and are planning to pass the measure on Friday. The legislation replenishes existing accounts to respond to both the COVID-19 health care crisis and to try to ease the economic impact of the pandemic, which has produced record job losses and fears of a depression. The Democratic bill provides more than $900 billion to states ($500 billion), local governments ($375 billion), as well as Indian tribes and territorial governments ($40 billion) to help prevent layoffs of public workers, cuts to services, or tax hikes.
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| Schumer calls Biden denial of Tara Reade assault allegation ‘sufficient’ Posted: 12 May 2020 01:04 PM PDT  The Senate minority leader's comments continue a pattern of top Democrats standing by the former vice president heading into the election.
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| Fact check: Did heroin overdoses kill more Americans than the coronavirus in mid-March? Posted: 13 May 2020 10:23 AM PDT  A widely shared Facebook post claims heroin overdoses killed more people than the coronavirus on March 19. There's not enough information to prove that.
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| Goodbye offices? Working from home might be here to stay Posted: 13 May 2020 05:53 AM PDT  "The views around work from home have completely changed," one expert said.
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| Coronavirus: China’s new army of tough-talking diplomats Posted: 12 May 2020 04:06 PM PDT  How Beijing is mounting an aggressive campaign to defend its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
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| Cyprus says Turkey denied COVID-19 supply flight airspace entry Posted: 13 May 2020 08:43 AM PDT  Cyprus said Wednesday a flight it had chartered from China carrying 36 tonnes of COVID-19 medical supplies was diverted towards Moscow after Turkey denied it entry into its airspace. "The pilot changed route and is heading to Moscow airport in Russia to land and refuel" as the plane did not have enough fuel to take a longer flight path, Cypriot Transport Minister Yiannis Karousos told the official Cyprus News Agency. Ankara enforces an embargo on Cypriot air and shipping traffic.
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| What It's Like to Celebrate Ramadan Under Coronavirus Lockdown in the West Bank Posted: 13 May 2020 11:28 AM PDT  Dr. Zeena Salman, a Sudanese-American pediatric oncologist, says the Palestinian territories are already dealing with occupation by Israel, three generations worth of people living in refugee camps and now they also have the coronavirus pandemic to consider.
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| Moscow says it ascribed over 60% of coronavirus deaths in April to other causes Posted: 13 May 2020 01:14 PM PDT  The city of Moscow said on Wednesday it had ascribed the deaths of more than 60% of coronavirus patients in April to other causes as it defended what it said was the superior way it and Russia counted the number of people killed by the novel virus. At 242,271, Russia has the second-highest number of confirmed cases in the world after the United States, something it attributes to a massive testing programme which it says has seen almost 6 million tests conducted. The disparity between the high number of cases and the relatively low number of deaths has prompted Kremlin critics and various Western and Russian media outlets to question the veracity of Russia's official death statistics.
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| The Latest: Japan government holds virus task force meeting Posted: 12 May 2020 11:24 PM PDT  — UN forecasts pandemic will shrink world economy by 3.2% this year. — Spanish health officials say large-scale testing has demonstrated there is no herd immunity in the country. — New York City launching public service campaign to inform parents about rare syndrome thought to be linked to COVID-19.
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| GOP wins special election in California after Democrat concedes Posted: 13 May 2020 01:45 PM PDT  State Assemblywoman Christy Smith conceded defeat to Republican Mike Garcia.
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| Death toll from Kabul maternity hospital attack rises to 24 Posted: 13 May 2020 11:54 AM PDT  Officials on Wednesday raised the death toll from a militant attack on a maternity hospital in Kabul to 24, including mothers, nurses and two babies. A day after the shooting rampage, 20 infants were under medical observation, lying swaddled in blankets in hospital cribs. Militants had stormed the hospital Tuesday, setting off an hours-long shootout with police. As the gunfight raged, Afghan security forces carried out babies and frantic mothers. The clinic in Dashti Barchi, a mostly Shiite neighborhood in Afghanistan's capital, is supported by international aid group Doctors Without Borders. One woman gave birth as the shooting was taking place, the aid group said in a statement Wednesday. It said the woman and her baby were doing well. The Interior Ministry initially said Tuesday that 16 people were killed and more than 100 wounded. Wahid Majroh, the deputy public health minister, on Wednesday raised the death toll to 24 and said 16 people were wounded.
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| Coronavirus travel: Disney Cruise Line won't sail again until end of July at the earliest Posted: 13 May 2020 03:00 PM PDT  The extension doesn't come as a surprise after Disney CEO Bob Chapek warned that the cruise line would be the last travel business to return.
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| 54% of participants in a new poll cited the Trump administration as a major source of misinformation on the coronavirus Posted: 12 May 2020 12:02 AM PDT  "For Democrats, it is the Trump administration; for Republicans, it is the mainstream national news media," a Gallup staffer said.
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| Chunks of China's Powerful Rocket Fall Back to Earth, Narrowly Missing NYC Posted: 13 May 2020 04:00 AM PDT  It's the largest piece of space junk to fall uncontrolled in nearly 30 years.
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| Sudan rejects Ethiopia's proposal to fill mega-dam Posted: 12 May 2020 08:37 AM PDT  Sudan on Tuesday rejected an Ethiopian proposal to sign an initial agreement greenlighting the filling of a controversial mega-dam it is building. "I cannot accept the signing of a draft agreement to the first phase (filling the dam) because it poses legal and technical problems that must be addressed," Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said in a statement. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had urged him to sign the agreement.
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| On tape, Bolsonaro cites protecting his family in push to swap top Rio cop: source Posted: 12 May 2020 12:48 PM PDT  Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said in an April cabinet meeting that he needed to change Rio de Janeiro's chief of the federal police to protect family members under investigation, a person with knowledge of a video of the meeting told Reuters. The video was shown on Tuesday to investigators looking into accusations by former Justice Minister Sergio Moro, who resigned two days after the cabinet meeting, alleging Bolsonaro was trying to interfere in law enforcement for personal motives. The fresh evidence in the federal investigation of the president fanned a political crisis distracting Bolsonaro from a widely criticized response to the coronavirus pandemic, eroding his popularity and rattling financial markets.
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| As COVID-19 looms, conditions for migrants stalled at U.S. border are a 'disaster in the making' Posted: 12 May 2020 02:01 AM PDT  Migrant health care workers operating in the border cities of Juarez, Matamoros and Tijuana say the conditions are right for a coronavirus outbreak.
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| Thousands get sick as president encourages reopening Posted: 12 May 2020 09:48 AM PDT  Even as President Trump urges getting people back to work and reopening the economy, an Associated Press analysis shows thousands of people are getting sick from COVID-19 on the job.
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| Poll: Taiwanese distance themselves from Chinese identity Posted: 12 May 2020 07:09 AM PDT  About two-thirds of Taiwanese don't identify as Chinese, according to a survey released Tuesday that highlights the challenge China would face in bringing the self-governing island under its control. The U.S.-based Pew Research Center found that 66% view themselves as Taiwanese, 28% as both Taiwanese and Chinese and 4% as just Chinese. The results are consistent with other polls showing that people in Taiwan increasingly identify only as Taiwanese, Pew said.
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