| As Biden fends off sexual assault charge, National Archives says it has no relevant records Posted: 01 May 2020 01:16 PM PDT  The National Archives said it has no record of any files that might contain evidence of a sexual misconduct complaint against Joe Biden from 27 years ago.
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| Florida curtails reporting of coronavirus death numbers by county medical examiners Posted: 01 May 2020 10:35 AM PDT  Florida health officials have halted the publication of up-to-the-minute death statistics related to the coronavirus pandemic that have, by law, been compiled by medical examiners in the state.
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| Trump wants to deliver 300 million doses of coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year. Is that even possible? Posted: 01 May 2020 07:11 AM PDT  The expectation is the U.S. won't return to normal until there's an effective vaccine against COVID-19 — and almost everyone in the country has been vaccinated.
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| China Refuses to Allow WHO Reps to Investigate Coronavirus Origins Posted: 01 May 2020 05:08 AM PDT  China has refused requests by the World Health Organization to take part in an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus."We know that some national investigation is happening but at this stage we have not been invited to join," Dr. Gauden Galea, WHO representative in China, told Sky News. "WHO is making requests of the health commission and of the authorities."The WHO and the U.S. intelligence community have concluded that the coronavirus is naturally-occurring and was not genetically engineered. However, U.S. officials suspect that the pathogen may have been accidentally from a lab, possibly the Wuhan Institute of Virology or the Wuhan Center for Disease Control.Laboratory logs "would need to be part of any full report, any full look at the story of the origins," Dr. Galea said. The WHO representative emphasized that "the origins of virus are very important, the animal-human interface is extremely important and needs to be studied. The priority is we need to know as much as possible to prevent the reoccurrence."U.S. officials and politicians have accused China of attempting to cover up the initial coronavirus outbreak. The White House has ordered intelligence agencies to compile evidence of a cover up.President Trump has also halted U.S. funding to the WHO after accusing the organization of mishandling the outbreak and parroting Chinese propaganda regarding the coronavirus. Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have urged Democratic colleagues to investigate the WHO's ties to China.
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| Iran says Germany to face consequences over Hezbollah ban Posted: 01 May 2020 12:53 AM PDT  Iran has slammed Germany's ban on the activities of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement on its soil, saying it would face consequences for its decision to give in to Israeli and US pressure. Germany branded Hezbollah a "Shiite terrorist organisation" on Thursday, with dozens of police and special forces storming mosques and associations across the country linked to the Lebanese militant group. In a statement issued overnight, Iran's foreign ministry said the ban ignores "realities in West Asia".
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| New Yorkers cannot be evicted for not paying rent through June, says Cuomo Posted: 02 May 2020 07:35 AM PDT  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has said that no one in the state can be evicted for non-payment of rent through June.In his daily coronavirus response press briefing, the governor said: "A landlord cannot evict a person for non payment of rent ... that is a law in place through June."
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| Unmasked Protesters Storm Huntington Beach After California Governor’s Closure Posted: 01 May 2020 05:18 PM PDT  Give them Vitamin D or give them death.Hundreds of demonstrators swarmed Huntington Beach, south of Los Angeles, on Friday to protest California Gov. Gavin Newsom's closure of the Golden State's sandy shores—an anti-lockdown display organized in part by the owner of a "health and wellness center."Reporters on the scene captured footage of banners for President Donald Trump's campaign, "Don't Tread on Me" flags, and homemade signs with slogans such as "Freedom is Essential." Overhead shots showed mounted cops corralling the demonstrators onto sidewalks and out of the road. It was clear that many protesters were not wearing masks that health officials say can help curb the spread of COVID-19.One of the organizers behind Friday's event is Vivienne Reign of an organization called "We Have Rights." She is also owner of the East Bay Health and Wellness Center and multiple companies marketing medical devices, corporate records show. Reign, however, refused to confirm her ties to the clinic, which specializes in chiropractic treatment and "regenerative medicine." In an interview hours before the protest began, Reign said she was not connected to Freedomworks, the right-of-center advocacy network which has backed other protests demanding shuttered states reopen, or to any groups bankrolled by libertarian billionaire Charles Koch, who has ties to Freedomworks.'Very, Very Scary': Officials Dumbfounded as Florida Beaches Reopen, 3 Days After Death SpikeShe claimed that We Have Rights had simply capitalized on the grassroots outrage Newsom provoked with his order, which he issued after crowds packed the coastline last weekend in defiance of the need for social distancing amid a global pandemic that has killed more than 2,000 Californians and another 60,000 Americans."'When that came out, people were pissed," she said, arguing the war with COVID-19 is effectively over, even though health experts say reopening could trigger a second wave. "The curve has essentially been beaten, so we decided we've gotta go do something about this."WeHaveRights.com, which calls itself without any backup "the biggest movement in California," was first registered just two weeks ago.Reign claimed her organization, which she characterized as an umbrella group encompassing multiple pro-reopening factions in California, has a wealthy benefactor—though she would not say who. "There's a lot of powerful people behind this, and we can get things done," she insisted.The East Bay Health and Wellness Center attracted criticism last year for marketing unproven stem cell injections as a treatment for joint pain.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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| Georgia businesses reopen and customers start returning, but only time will tell if it's the right decision Posted: 01 May 2020 09:05 AM PDT  Exactly one week since Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp began reopening the state's economy, small businesses shared early success stories as customers welcomed their return. But at what cost? Business owners say only time will tell.
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| Reporter: Pence's office punished me for saying VP ignored mask rule Posted: 01 May 2020 10:25 AM PDT  Photos showed Pence was the only person not wearing a mask during his visit to the Mayo Clinic
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| Russia's coronavirus cases hit new high, Moscow warns of clampdown Posted: 02 May 2020 01:47 AM PDT  Russia reported 9,623 new cases of coronavirus on Saturday, its highest daily rise since the start of the pandemic, bringing the total to 124,054, mostly in the capital Moscow, where the mayor threatened to cut the number of travel permits. The death toll nationwide rose to 1,222 after 57 people died in the last 24 hours, Russia's coronavirus crisis response centre said, after revising the previous day's tally. Russia has been in partial lockdown, aimed at curbing the spread of the novel coronavirus, since the end of March.
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| Column: Whatever happened with Tara Reade in 1993, Biden is still infinitely better than Trump Posted: 02 May 2020 03:05 AM PDT  Joe Biden is a flawed individual with a penchant for unwanted touching. Here's why I'll vote for him anyway.
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| 'Everybody is scared': Some Texas cities nervous as governor reopens state Posted: 02 May 2020 03:07 PM PDT  "Today marks our highest day so far in new COVID19 cases," Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said. "Our highest three days have all been this week."
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| A US researcher who worked with a Wuhan virology lab gives 4 reasons why a coronavirus leak would be extremely unlikely Posted: 02 May 2020 05:11 AM PDT  A fringe theory posits that the coronavirus accidentally leaked from a Wuhan lab. But a US researcher says there's no evidence for that.
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| Venezuela prison riot death toll rises to 47 Posted: 02 May 2020 04:32 PM PDT  The death toll from a prison riot in western Venezuela has risen to at least 47, with 75 wounded, an opposition politician and prisoners' rights group said Saturday. "At the moment we have been able to confirm 47 dead and 75 wounded," deputy Maria Beatriz Martinez, elected from Portuguesa state where the Los Llanos prison is located, told AFP. The Venezuelan Prison Observatory (OVP) rights group also gave the same tally, calling the violence a "massacre," and both confirmed that all of the dead were detainees.
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| Could These Rivals Stop Kim Jong Un’s Little Sister From Taking Power? Posted: 01 May 2020 01:43 AM PDT  SEOUL—Whatever the condition of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the moment—and supposedly informed speculation ranges from dead, to comatose, to just chilling at his personal resort in Wonsan—his absence from public view for more than two weeks now is a reminder that his demise could plunge his country and the region, maybe even the world, into a huge new geopolitical crisis. For now his younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, looks like the understudy waiting in the wings to take the lead if her brother cannot function. He's positioned her for that role, and groomed her for it. But if Kim Jong Un dies, it's fair to say all hell could break loose.Many analysts believe China would move swiftly to consolidate control over North Korea if Kim Jong Un is no longer able to govern effectively. Chinese concerns, like those of the U.S. and just about every other country with a stake in the region, focus not only on who's in charge of North Korea but more specifically on what happens to North Korea's nukes. If there is a chaotic battle for succession, who will secure them?A Chinese medical team known to be in the North right now presumably is looking after Kim, and looking out for Beijing's interests. If Kim is indeed in grave condition, Chinese Leader Xi Jinping will be the first to know.And then what? "I'm very sure the Chinese will send their army into North Korea," says defector Ken Eom, who served 10 years in Pyongyang's military and is now a prominent analyst in the South. "They have already planned what they will do."Chinese concern about Korea goes deep into history, and was never more evident than in the Korean War, when half a million Chinese died driving U.S. and South Korean troops out of North Korea after they reached the Yalu River border between Korea and China in the early months of the war in 1950.It's not as though North Korea would threaten China, the source of all its oil and half its food, but the Chinese want to be sure the Americans don't get there first in the confusion of a power vacuum if Kim is no longer around, factions compete to succeed him, and the fate of his nuclear missile arsenal hangs in the balance.The results could be very bloody.Choi Jin-wook, former director of the Korea Institute of National Unification, believes it's "very unlikely" that North Korean authorities would invite the Chinese into their country as in the Korean War. "That is very dangerous," he says. "They will face a tough response from the North Korean side, probably an exchange of fire," he predicts, but if U.S. or South Korean troops enter North Korea, "that is a different story."It's been more than eight years since Kim Jong Un inherited the family dynasty, and North Korea's relations with China may never have been better since Kim first journeyed to Beijing—his first trip outside the country as North Korea's leader—in March of 2018. With sister Yo Jong always hovering nearby, he spent three days seeing President Xi Jinping and other top officials on a mission that set the course for future close ties.The encounter had much to do with Kim agreeing to see President Donald Trump for the first U.S.-North Korean summit in Singapore in June 2018. Xi hosted Kim again in May, a month before the summit, in the industrial port city of Dalian, agreeing to send him and his entourage to Singapore on a Chinese plane. And one week after the summit, as if reporting back to his patron, Kim again called on Xi in Beijing.The presence of Kim Yo Jong, present for many of these encounters, would seem to guarantee continuity. She could pick up where her brother left off, but it's likely that long-suppressed rivalries will explode if Kim Jong Un is not, in fact, on one of his yachts lying low during the COVID-19 pandemic, and really is at death's door, or through it."If factions face off, a vicious internal conflict is certain, and a civil war not unthinkable," writes Michael Auslin at Stanford University's Hoover Institution in the journal Foreign Policy. "With North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile sites potentially falling into the hands of whoever acts most quickly, Asia could face an unprecedented nuclear crisis."Kim Yo Jong now owes her role as number two to him and to the authority that she's believed to exert over the North's Organization and Guidance Department, the entity with life-or-death power over all aspects of North Korean society. She's the de facto leader of the OGD as well as Bureau 39, the office that controls the North's money, including counterfeit U.S. currency printed on a press imported from Switzerland."She's in charge," says Ken Eom, but "that doesn't mean she'll be in charge when her brother is no longer around."Assuming Kim Yo Jong will face trouble from powerful men who just can't accept the notion of a woman dominating them, at least two other figures are to be reckoned with.One is Kim Pyong Il, the much younger half brother of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. That makes him not only Yo Jong and Jong Un's uncle but also the son of Kim Il Sung, who founded the North Korean state after the Japanese surrender in 1945. At 65, he's still theoretically capable of carrying on the dynasty's bloodline.Kim Pyong Il faces, however, what may be insurmountable problems. He spent nearly 40 years in a kind of exile as ambassador to eastern European countries before he was summoned back to Pyongyang last November."Nobody knows him," says Shim Jae-hoon, who writes about Korea for Yale Global. "He's been away too long." But he still could serve as figurehead leader over restive, quarreling subordinates. "It's almost possible," says Ken Eom, "but he might not last long."And then there's the top non-family contender, Choe Ryong Hae, whose title as President of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly makes him North Korea's titular head of state. Choe, who also is first vice chairman of the state affairs commission, through which Kim as chairman wields his power, has his own bloodline—his father fought with Kim Il Sung against Japanese rule as a guerilla in Manchuria.Choe, however, has had an up-and-down career, once having been forced out of the hierarchy for "reeducation" as a laborer for involvement in a scheme to sell scrap metal—a crime that sometimes merits execution. In his case, his father's old-time bond with Kim Il Sung saved him.On the plus side, Choe's son is rumored to have been married to Kim Yo Jong."Choe is next at the moment," says Choi Jin-wook, "but he is not a Kim, though from a guerrilla family." But would that lineage do the trick?"I cannot find any alternative to this Stalinist dynasty," says Choi. "This will lead to the end of the Kim dynasty. Enough is enough.There is no legitimate person, and it is going to be anybody's game. Maybe big chaos."Xi Jinping would like to stand above the fray, pressuring competing factions to get along.In that spirit Xi received Kim for the fourth time in extraordinary pomp and circumstance in Beijing in January last year, six weeks before Trump's second summit with Kim in Hanoi. Then, last June, after the failure of the Trump-Kim summit in February, Kim received Xi in Pyongyang—the first visit by a Chinese leader to the North Korean capital in 14 years.All those displays of mutual good-will, however, may have been for naught if Kim Jong Un is no longer around. "I do not think Kim is yet dead," says Ken Eom, but, "I think he's got a serious problem."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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| After Decades of Service, Five Nuns Die as Virus Sweeps Through Convent Posted: 01 May 2020 05:26 AM PDT  CHICAGO -- Our Lady of the Angels Convent was designed as a haven of peace and prayer in a suburb of Milwaukee, a place where aging, frail nuns could rest after spending their lives taking care of others.Songbirds chirped in the sitting area. A courtyard invited morning prayers and strolls for the several dozen nuns who lived in the facility, a low-slung cream-colored building with a turret.The quiet convent has become the site of a deadly cluster of the coronavirus. Four staff members have tested positive, a health official said. Since April 6, five nuns have died from the virus.COVID-19, difficult to contain in any circumstance, has spread within Our Lady of the Angels with a particular invisibility. All five nuns who died were only discovered to have the virus after their deaths.The women had moved into the convent after decades of service in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska. They worked in parishes, schools and universities, teaching English and music, ministering to the aged and the poor and nurturing their own passions for literature and the fine arts. Our Lady of the Angels, which specializes in caring for people with dementia, was meant to be their final home.Officials say that this week, as alarm has grown surrounding the outbreak in the convent, medical staff quickly increased testing, ensuring that every resident was tested for the coronavirus. Earlier in April, the facility had temporarily stopped testing nuns for the coronavirus, according to investigative reports by the Milwaukee County medical examiner.Records show that administrators at the convent had reasoned that the process of testing the nuns, by inserting a long nasal swab through a nostril into the back of the throat, was too difficult for them to endure.In early April, Sister Mary Regine Collins was several weeks away from her 96th birthday. She had retired to Our Lady of the Angels after a life filled with religious service and education, according to a biography provided by her ministry, the School Sisters of Notre Dame.She taught in Catholic schools and at a university in Milwaukee; she earned a master's degree in art at the University of Notre Dame in 1962 and was known for her wood carvings.On April 3, she developed a mild cough. The next day she was short of breath. On April 6, she died.The convent staff had attempted to test Collins for the virus, but she had dementia and was "too combative to tolerate" the process, an investigator's report from the medical examiner's office said."Staff is treating her death as if she had COVID," the report said.A post-mortem coronavirus test, conducted by the medical examiner's office, came back positive.There have been at least 6,854 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Wisconsin, according to a New York Times database, and as of Thursday, at least 316 people had died.Most of the deaths have occurred in Milwaukee County, the most populous county in the state. In March, local health officials hosted conference calls with administrators of nursing homes and long-term care facilities, warning them that their residents -- in advanced age, with underlying medical conditions -- would be especially vulnerable."The convent administrator and staff have been following, and continue to follow, all the guidelines and recommendations of the local health department, the facility's infection control coordinator, and the sisters' primary care physician," said Michael O'Loughlin, a spokesman for the School Sisters of St. Francis, a co-sponsor of the convent."They are very aware that the convent's residents, who are elderly and receive specialized memory care, are a vulnerable population, which is why the convent suspended all communal activities and enforced social distancing long before any of the residents tested positive for COVID-19."Darren Rausch, director and health officer for the Greenfield Health Department, said Our Lady of the Angels was among the facilities in the small suburb of Milwaukee that had kept in close touch with his office.From the beginning of the outbreak, the convent staff followed the advice of his department, he said. Isolate positive cases. Make sure staff members are wearing personal protective equipment. Monitor the temperatures and symptoms of residents."It's definitely very challenging," Rausch said, noting that it can be more difficult for medical staff to detect symptoms of the coronavirus in patients with dementia. "They can't always vocalize what's going on."Health officials say that monitoring for COVID-19 is especially crucial in a residential setting full of older, medically vulnerable patients; about one-fifth of coronavirus deaths in the United States have been linked to nursing facilities.Nursing homes and long-term care facilities, which struggled with a widespread lack of tests in the early days of the outbreak, have significantly ramped up testing in recent weeks, even for residents who are asymptomatic.The Wisconsin Department of Health Services has asked long-term care facilities with an outbreak to test residents who appear sick; the specimens can then be sent to a state lab for free COVID-19 testing.Many people who undergo coronavirus tests using the most common method -- swabbing through the nose -- find the test uncomfortable or even painful. Other methods, using a sample of saliva that is spit into a vial, are being introduced in a small number of states but are not widely available yet.O'Loughlin, a spokesman for the ministry, said that since testing at the convent resumed, all of the residents have now been tested, some multiple times.As the convent staff fought to contain the coronavirus outbreak in early April, it took steps to protect the women inside, locking down the facility to visitors and keeping patients who had tested positive for the virus away from others. Each sister has a private room and bathroom, an arrangement that has helped to isolate the sick.But it was too late to stop the spread. A day after the first coronavirus death, another nun died: Sister Marie June Skender, 83, a former elementary schoolteacher and musician whose symptoms had begun with a fever a few days earlier.Sister Mary Francele Sherburne, 99, died two days later. Before retirement, she was a full-time college professor, a music teacher to elementary students and a volunteer instructor for decades to Milwaukeeans learning English as a second language. "Sister Francele had a passion for kite flying," said a biography provided by her ministry.When a doctor at the convent called the medical examiner's office in Milwaukee to report the death, she noted that no COVID-19 test had been performed.The facility "stopped testing as the patients are mostly dementia patients and it was too traumatic," an investigator wrote in the report. "Several other patients had tested positive before they stopped testing."Sister Annelda Holtkamp, 102, the fourth nun at the convent to die of the coronavirus, had been exposed to three people who had already tested positive, records show.Even when testing was performed, it was sometimes difficult to understand which patients were at risk. Early in April, Sister Bernadette Kelter, 88, tested negative for the coronavirus.She later developed a cough, fever and body aches, and lost her appetite. On Sunday, Kelter, a teacher and home health aide before retirement, became the fifth nun at the convent to die of COVID-19.Jane Morgan, the administrator of the convent, said in a statement that she was cooperating with health authorities to prevent further spread of the virus."We welcome prayers for the health and comfort of our residents and staff as we grieve the loss of our sister," Morgan said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| "I'm starving now": World faces unprecedented hunger crisis Posted: 02 May 2020 04:03 PM PDT  There's "a real danger that more people could potentially die from the economic impact of COVID-19 than from the virus itself," says the U.N. food agency's chief.
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| Secret Service paid $33,000 to Trump's D.C. hotel to guard Mnuchin while he lived there Posted: 30 Apr 2020 10:34 PM PDT  In 2017, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spent several months living in a suite at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., with the Secret Service paying more than $33,000 to rent the adjoining room in order to screen his packages and visitors, three people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post. Billing records show the Secret Service was charged $242 per night, which at the time was the maximum rate federal agencies were typically allowed to pay for a room. The room was rented for 137 nights, and the final bill, footed by taxpayers, was $33,154. Mnuchin stayed at the hotel while looking for a home to purchase in Washington. A Treasury Department spokesperson told the Post Mnuchin paid for his suite with his own money, and was able to negotiate a discounted rate.When asked by the Post if Mnuchin considered how much it would cost taxpayers to have the Secret Service rent a hotel room for an extended period of time, the spokesperson said, "The secretary was not aware of what the U.S. Secret Service paid for the adjoining room."Renting a room in order to guard a Treasury secretary is standard Secret Service practice, people familiar with the matter told the Post, but during other administrations, the president didn't own the hotel that was being paid. The Trump Organization has not revealed how much federal agencies have paid to the company since Trump's 2017 inauguration, but using public records, the Post has found more than 170 payments from the Secret Service to Trump properties, for a total of more than $620,000. Many of these payments stem from the Secret Service accompanying Trump on trips to his own hotels. Read more at The Washington Post.More stories from theweek.com The angst over Joe Biden's assault allegation has an easy resolution Mitt Romney sides with Democrats calling for $12 hourly raises for essential workers 5 scathingly funny cartoons about Mike Pence's unmasked hospital visit
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| Protests mark growing unrest with California stay-home order Posted: 30 Apr 2020 10:08 PM PDT  Californians weary of stay-at-home orders that have left millions unemployed staged displays of defiance Friday, with hundreds of flag-waving protesters gathering at the Capitol and along a famed Southern California beach, while a sparsely populated county on the Oregon border allowed diners back in restaurants and reopened other businesses. While much of the state's population remained behind closed doors to deter the spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged the building anxiety while repeatedly teasing the possibility the state could begin relaxing some aspects of the restrictions next week. Newsom noted the state just passed the grim marks of 50,000 confirmed infections and 2,000 deaths but that hospitalization statistics are heading in a better direction and that has him hopeful.
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| Trump Approval Rating Hits All-Time High in New Gallup Poll Posted: 01 May 2020 07:32 AM PDT  President Trump's approval rating hit an all-time high in a Gallup survey released on Friday, with 49 percent of respondents approving of his performance versus 47 percent disapproving.The results continue a wide swing in polling for Trump, who garnered a 43 percent approval rating two weeks ago."Most of the variation in Trump's recent job approval rating is among independents," Gallup said. "In the current poll, 47% of independents approve of the job he is doing as president, the highest Gallup has measured for the group to date. 93% of Republicans and 8% of Democrats approve of the job Trump is doing."However, RealClearPolitics polling averages place the president at 44.3 percent approval versus 50.6 percent disapproval as of Friday. Averages of general election polls give Trump 42.1 percent to Joe Biden's 47.4 percent.Last week officials including Trump-campaign manager Brad Parscale, adviser Jared Kushner, and Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel presented the president with internal campaign polls showing him falling behind Biden in key swing states, the Washington Post reported. Advisers showed Trump the polls as part of an effort to convince him to stop or scale back his presence in the daily White House coronavirus briefings.
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| U.K.s Johnson names new son with tribute to doctors who treated him for COVID-19 Posted: 02 May 2020 07:38 AM PDT  Nicholas was inspired by the names of two doctors who had treated Johnson in hospital, his fiancée Carrie Symonds said.
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| Biden asks the secretary of the Senate to direct a search for an alleged sexual harassment complaint filed by a former staffer Posted: 01 May 2020 11:39 PM PDT  Biden allows access to his Senate records to see if there are documents to corroborate accusor's claims after previously denying access.
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| Sajid Hussain: Swedish police find body of missing Pakistani journalist Posted: 01 May 2020 07:55 AM PDT  Sajid Hussain fled Pakistan for Sweden in 2012 after receiving death threats connected to his work.
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| North Korea's Kim reappears after weeks of speculation Posted: 02 May 2020 01:36 AM PDT  State television showed Kim walking, smiling broadly and smoking a cigarette at what the North said was the opening of a fertiliser factory on Friday in Sunchon, north of Pyongyang. Rumours about Kim's health have been swirling since his conspicuous no-show at April 15 celebrations for the birthday of his grandfather, the North's founder -- the most important day in the country's political calendar. Kim's sudden death would have left Pyongyang facing an unplanned succession for the first time in its history and raised unanswered questions over who would succeed him and take over the North's nuclear arsenal.
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| Italy's daily coronavirus death toll jumps, new cases stable Posted: 02 May 2020 09:11 AM PDT  Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy jumped by 474 on Saturday, against 269 the day before, the Civil Protection Agency said, posting the largest daily toll of fatalities since April 21. The steep increase in deaths followed a long, gradual declining trend and was due largely to Lombardy, the country's worst affected region, where there were 329 deaths in the last 24 hours compared with just 88 the day before.
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| ICE detainees clash with Massachusetts jail officials over coronavirus Posted: 02 May 2020 03:00 PM PDT  It is the ninth time since a national emergency was declared that staff at detention centers used pepper spray on protesting ICE detainees.
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| Pence's office is selectively retaliating against reporters who disclosed its Mayo Clinic mask warning Posted: 01 May 2020 03:12 AM PDT  Vice President Mike Pence wore a mask at a ventilator plant in Indiana on Thursday, two days after he was criticized for flouting the Mayo Clinic's rules by declining to wear facial covering. But for some reason, Pence's office seems to want to keep the story alive.Karen Pence assured Fox News on Thursday that her husband had not been informed of the mandatory mask policy until after the Mayo tour concluded. This contradicted a since-deleted tweet from the Mayo Clinic, and two reporters tweeted after Karen Pence's interview that the vice president's office had informed them a day earlier about the Mayo Clinic's policy.> All of us who traveled with him were notified by the office of @VP the day before the trip that wearing of masks was required by the @MayoClinic and to prepare accordingly. https://t.co/LFqh27LusD> > — Steve Herman (@W7VOA) April 30, 2020> also, everyone in the entire Mayo Clinic had a mask on, everyone, and we were all told the day before we had to wear a mask if we entered the clinic https://t.co/cNW4fJ87Q4> > — Gordon Lubold (@glubold) April 30, 2020Steve Herman, who covers the White House for VOA News, said the White House Correspondents' Association informed him Pence's office has banned him from further travel on Air Force Two, The Washington Post reports. Pence's office and VOA later said discussions are still ongoing about any possible punishment. Gordon Lubold, who works for The Wall Street Journal, has not been sanctioned by Pence's office for his tweet.The ostensible issue is Herman violating confidentiality rules. Monday's planning memo was marked "OFF THE RECORD AND FOR PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY," but that standard requirement is typically for security purposes, the Post reports, and "there's some question about how long the obligation lasts — whether it is permanent or only applies to the period before and during the trip." Herman's tweet was nearly 48 hours after the trip. Pence's office declined to comment.More stories from theweek.com The angst over Joe Biden's assault allegation has an easy resolution Mitt Romney sides with Democrats calling for $12 hourly raises for essential workers 5 scathingly funny cartoons about Mike Pence's unmasked hospital visit
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| Defiant Californians protest against coronavirus lockdown restrictions Posted: 01 May 2020 07:57 PM PDT  Californians weary of stay-at-home orders that have left millions unemployed staged displays of defiance on Friday, with hundreds of flag-waving protesters gathering at the Capitol and along a famed Southern California beach, while a sparsely populated county on the Oregon border allowed diners back in restaurants and reopened other businesses. While much of the state's population remained behind closed doors to deter the spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged the building anxiety while repeatedly teasing the possibility the state could begin relaxing some aspects of the restrictions next week. "We are all impatient," the governor said during his daily briefing, adding "We have to be really deliberative on how we reopen this economy." Mr Newsom noted the state just passed the grim marks of 50,000 confirmed infections and 2,000 deaths but that hospitalisation statistics are heading in a better direction and that has him hopeful. "We can screw all that up. We can set all that back by making bad decisions," he said. "All of that works because people have done an incredible job in their physical distancing."
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| Trump World Turns on the True COVID Villain: Surgical Masks Posted: 01 May 2020 04:19 PM PDT  Back in March, with Americans just a week into quarantine, Fox News host Laura Ingraham envisioned a way that the economy could reopen. Her plan relied on lots of masks. "Going back to most jobs after 15 days will require new protocols until this virus burns out—everyone within 6 feet of others MUST wear masks," Ingraham tweeted.As part of her pro-mask campaign, Ingraham tweeted instructions for Do It Yourself (DIY) masks, even urging her followers to make homemade masks out of their sheets. "Literally you can make these with cotton sheets," Ingraham wrote. "Again, we can be resourceful when necessary!" A month later, Ingraham has done a 180, becoming one of the right-wing media's most outspoken mask-haters. She's tweeted that widespread mask wearing would make everyone "like Antifa," the left-wing antifascist activists reviled on Fox. On Wednesday, she suggested on her show that widespread mask usage is some sort of plot to scare people."The masks, they're kind of a constant reminder," Ingraham said. "You see the mask and you think you're not safe, you are not back to normal — not even close." Such a conversion may seem peculiar on the surface. Who, after all, has an actual problem with face masks, especially in the midst of a pandemic. But Ingraham's conversion reflects something deeper about the nature of our current politics, in which social safety measures themselves can become emblems of partisan leanings. Once the potential tools of liberation from stay-at-home orders, Trump supporters now see masks as a hated carryover from those same orders. Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, the recent recipient of a Presidential Medal of Freedom from Donald Trump, was an early mask paranoiac. On April 20, he promoted the idea, later picked up by Ingraham, that masks are totems of control."It is clear that the mask is a symbol of fear, and when you see various people suggesting that we may now have masks as part of our public lives for the rest of our lives?" Limbaugh said. "Uh, why?"For some conservatives, refusing to wear a mask has become just the latest way to thumb their noses at social distancing mandates. Talk radio host Dennis Prager said in a video that he refused to don one—and compared himself to Rosa Parks or dissident Germans in the Nazi era for his defiance.Anti-mask feelings in the GOP comes from the top, with Vice President Mike Pence flouting a Mayo Clinic rule this week mandating mask usage in a visit there. In early April, Trump said he was "choosing not to" wear a mask even as his health officials advised people to do so. (Trump's personal preferences, however, haven't stopped his campaign from a reported plan to sell Trump-branded masks). But the mask backlash has also spread to the party's rank-and-file at the anti-stay-at-home protests popping up across the country. After a Houston judge issued an order requiring mask usage in public, protesters rallied with signs bearing messages like "Don't Mask the Truth" and "Just Say No," illustrated with the crossed-out image of a mask. After a protest in Lansing, Michigan, on Thursday where armed protesters tried to force their way into the legislative chambers, organizer Jason Howland defended protesters who refused to wear masks, identifying mask usage as one of the issues they were rallying against. "If I'm gonna protest somebody, and I do it by the rules that they're laying down on me, I'm going to look pretty stupid by the end of the day," Howland told The Daily Beast. The coronavirus has sparked an explosion in conspiracy theories, from claims that Bill Gates is cooking up a dangerous vaccine to allegations that 5G towers are causing the virus. With masks, however, there doesn't appear to be a larger conspiracy theory driving the opposition. Instead, much of it appears to be based on the same desire to buck public health mandates that has driven people to rally with each other while standing much closer than the medically-advised distance of six feet.Masks have become a hot topic in state-specific "Reopen" Facebook groups, some of which have hundreds of thousands of members. Trump supporters fume about being kicked out of grocery stores for not wearing masks and vow to boycott businesses that require masks in the future. In the "Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine" Facebook group, one poster compared the anti-mask campaign to feminists burning their bras."Time to burn the masks and gloves!!!!" the Facebook user wrote.Some of the broader anti-mask backlash has been caused by confusion over the CDC's evolution on the matter. After initially saying only Covid-19 patients and healthcare workers needed masks, the agency reversed itself in April, advising universal mask usage. The guidance had some skeptics in the medical community, with some health officials worrying that it would give people a false sense of security and potentially lead others to touch their faces with more frequency—both of which could lead to more coronavirus spread. But Trump's health team defended the mask policy on grounds that asymptomatic people infected with coronavirus were unknowingly spreading the disease and would be less likely to do so with a face covering. Vivienne Reign, the organizer of a set of reopen protests in California on Friday, said her group "We Have Rights" advised attendees only to "follow the CDC guidelines" — rather than spelling out a mask requirement. Reign cited the CDC reversal as a driving force behind confusion over the masks."It's really hard to keep up with what they want you to do," Reign said. 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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| Fact Check: Reps. Omar and Ocasio-Cortez are not trying to ban Pledge of Allegiance Posted: 01 May 2020 05:30 AM PDT  There is no evidence in any public record or legitimate news report of either member of Congress regarding a purported Pledge of Allegiance ban.
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| Former Green Beret led failed attempt to oust Venezuela's Maduro Posted: 02 May 2020 09:11 AM PDT  About 300 heavily armed volunteers had planned to sneak into Venezuela from South America. Along the way, they would raid military bases in the country and ignite a rebellion that would end in President Nicolás Maduro's arrest.
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| Tara Reade is disputing a report that says her complaint against Joe Biden didn't refer to sexual assault or harassment Posted: 02 May 2020 01:49 PM PDT  Reade alleges Biden assaulted her in a Senate corridor in 1993 when he put his hands under her skirt and underwear without her consent.
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| The cardinal known as 'the Pope's 'Robin Hood' is helping transsexual prostitutes struggling in Italy's coronavirus lockdown Posted: 02 May 2020 10:49 AM PDT  "This is ordinary work for the Church, it's normal," Cardinal Konrad Krajewski told Reuters.
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| WH press secretary says she will 'never lie' to the media Posted: 01 May 2020 12:16 PM PDT  At her first briefing as White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany said she will never lie to reporters.
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| Coronavirus: Is there any evidence for lab release theory? Posted: 01 May 2020 11:13 AM PDT  BBC News examines allegations that the coronavirus was accidentally released from a lab.
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| Michigan governor extends coronavirus state of emergency until May 28 Posted: 30 Apr 2020 09:27 PM PDT  Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) on Thursday extended a coronavirus state of emergency declaration through May 28, saying "common sense and all of the scientific data tells us we're not out of the woods yet."The Republican-controlled state legislature did not approve her order to extend the declaration, which was set to expire on Friday. Whitmer continued the state of emergency by executive order, and GOP lawmakers are now planning on taking her to court over her exercise of state emergency powers, the Detroit Free Press reports. Whitmer said in a statement that by "refusing to extend the emergency and disaster declaration, Republican lawmakers are putting their heads in the sand and putting more lives and livelihoods at risk."There are now 41,379 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Michigan, with the death toll at 3,789. Conservative groups have complained that Whitmer's stay-at-home order is too strict, and on Thursday, dozens of demonstrators, some of them carrying rifles, entered Michigan's statehouse, calling on Whitmer to end the state of emergency. This was a "political rally," Whitmer said, and if participants become infected from COVID-19 because they didn't practicing social distancing, the stay-at-home order could last even longer.More stories from theweek.com The angst over Joe Biden's assault allegation has an easy resolution Mitt Romney sides with Democrats calling for $12 hourly raises for essential workers 5 scathingly funny cartoons about Mike Pence's unmasked hospital visit
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| WHO Adviser Says It’s ‘Likely’ Coronavirus Leaked from Lab, Slams Trump Admin Response to Pandemic Posted: 01 May 2020 01:01 PM PDT  Jamie Metzl, a member of the World Health Organization's International Advisory Committee on Human Genome Editing, has speculated that the coronavirus originated in a lab in Wuhan, China."When they have outbreaks in China, the zoonotic jump [of the virus from animal to humans] tends to happen in the south in Guangdong or Yunnan Province, and not in Wuhan or in Hubei Province," Metzl told National Review. "They have the only level-4 virology lab in China, which happens to be in Wuhan and was studying dangerous coronaviruses."That lab is the Wuhan Institute of Virology, situated about nine miles from the seafood market where the coronavirus was initially thought to have originated.Metzl continued, "It seems kind of likely that [if] you have a Chinese lab studying a dangerous virus, and you have a very similar virus that leaps out right next to one of the labs, you could logically…put two and two together."Metzl said he has considered this theory a possibility since January, "from the very beginning when I heard this news story."The first U.S. politician to point out the proximity of the Wuhan Institute of Virology to the outbreak's epicenter was Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.)."China claimed—for almost two months—that coronavirus had originated in a Wuhan seafood market. That is not the case," Cotton wrote on Twitter on January 30. The senator uploaded a video in which he noted the proximity of the lab.While initially dismissed as a conspiracy theory, suspicion has grown amongst U.S. officials that circumstantial evidence points to an accidental leak. President Trump and other officials have called for investigations into a possible Chinese cover up of the outbreak's origins, and Trump has halted funding to the WHO over what he described as the organization's "gross mismanagement" of the pandemic. U.S. politicians, particularly congressional Republicans, have also accused the WHO of parroting Chinese misinformation in the early stages of the pandemic.Metzl said the WHO could have been more skeptical of the information coming from China in late December and early January, but on the whole defended the organization's handling of the pandemic, saying his colleagues are "driven by doing the right thing and following the evidence." However, Metzl slammed the Trump administration's response to the pandemic."The Trump administration's response to the pandemic has been among the greatest leadership failures in all of American history," Metzl said. "Not only did they feel to heed the warnings, not only did they completely screw up the testing, but the president of the United States was actively spewing deadly misinformation to the American people and denying this crisis as it was playing out."China has so far refused to allow representatives from the WHO to join an investigation into the coronavirus's origins.The coronavirus has infected over 1,000,000 Americans and killed over 64,000 as of Friday. Social distancing measures and business closures implemented to mitigate the spread of coronavirus have caused widespread damage to the U.S. economy and put roughly 30 million Americans out of work.
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| Prisoners in Iran 'disappearing', British inmate claims Posted: 01 May 2020 12:44 PM PDT  Prisoners with suspected coronavirus in Iran are "disappearing" due to illness or being given sleeping pills and sent back to crowded cells where the virus can easily spread, a British-Iranian father who is jailed on spying charges has claimed. Retired engineer Anoosheh Ashoori, 66, secretly recorded an audio diary detailing the chaotic conditions in Evin prison, Tehran, where he is serving a 10-year sentence for "spying for Israel", which he strongly denies. Several inmates have fallen ill due to suspected coronavirus, Mr Ashoori claims, adding that once a sick prisoner goes to the prison's medical centre, "he does not return… nobody knows any more about his fate." Another prisoner complained of Covid-19 symptoms but was not tested, he added. Instead, he was given sleeping pills and told by a prison doctor to "go back and rest" in a cell shared with 11 other men. Iran has been the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic in the Middle East and has recorded more than 95,000 cases and 6,000 related deaths, although the official figures are heavily disputed. As a precaution in March, the Islamic Republic temporarily released thousands of prisoners from its over-crowded jails, including British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who has been allowed to stay with her parents in Tehran while being monitored by an ankle tag. But other dual nationals accused of espionage, including Mr Ashoori and the British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, have remained behind bars in Evin, while other inmates are now returning following their temporary release. "It is just enough for one contaminated person to arrive and the rest will soon contract the virus," Mr Ashoori said in the diary, recorded last month [April] during phone calls to his wife, Sherry Izadi. Ms Izadi, from South London, today [Friday] criticised the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab for a lack of action to release her husband, saying he had become "forgotten" since being arrested in August 2017 while visiting his family in Iran. "Every time I hear Dominic Raab talk about returning Britons who have been trapped on holiday by coronavirus, I wonder why he is not giving the same priority to those, like my husband, who are held unlawfully in a foreign prison", she said. "Other countries are doing deals to free their citizens, but the government that is showing the least action has to be the British. It's as if they have forgotten my husband exists." A Foreign Office spokesperson said: "We strongly urge Iran to reunite British-Iranian dual national Mr Ashoori with his family. Our Embassy in Tehran continues to request consular access and we have been supporting his family since being made aware of his detention. The treatment of all dual nationals detained in Iran is a priority and both the PM and Foreign Secretary have recently raised this issue with their Iranian counterparts."
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| DOJ began investigating a doctor promoting unproven COVID-19 treatments after Roger Stone's former associate accidentally emailed a federal prosecutor instead of the doctor Posted: 01 May 2020 08:12 AM PDT  Corsi meant to email the doctor and instead emailed Aaron Zelinsky, one of the prosecutors who spent months investigating him in the Russia probe.
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| United sees 'zero' travel demand, says major layoffs loom if bookings don't pick up by fall Posted: 01 May 2020 11:22 AM PDT  United Airlines says it will have to lay off employees this fall if travel demand doesn't resume by then.
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| US tweets support for Taiwan, sparking opposition from China Posted: 01 May 2020 11:56 PM PDT |
| Wages Seized. Bank Accounts Frozen. The Poor Are Getting Poorer as Creditors Pursue Debts Posted: 01 May 2020 10:22 AM PDT  'Things were bad before the COVID emergency, they got worse with COVID, and they're going to get even worse.'
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| Coronavirus: President Trump’s testing claims fact-checked Posted: 01 May 2020 02:06 AM PDT  President Trump has made several claims about coronavirus testing in the US - is he right?
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