| Trump’s WHO attacks: Fair criticism or scapegoating? Posted: 20 Apr 2020 08:06 AM PDT  President Trump has called for cutting off funding for the World Health Organization over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Are his criticisms fair or is he searching for someone else to blame?
|
| The new coronavirus may be mutating to a less deadly form Posted: 20 Apr 2020 04:33 AM PDT  Life will not return to normal anytime soon, even if states lift COVID-19 lockdowns in an attempt to revive hard-hit economies. Face masks will be de rigueur, people may be "trapped indoors for months," and crowded public events are out, science reporter Donald McNeil Jr. writes at The New York Times, citing more than 20 health and science experts. Until there's a vaccine, "if Americans pour back out in force, all will appear quiet for perhaps three weeks. Then the emergency rooms will get busy again."Among the many things we don't yet understand about this new coronavirus is how deadly it is or how many people have been infected. "Fatality rates depend heavily on how overwhelmed hospitals get and what percentage of cases are tested," and those numbers keep getting revised in hard-hit areas, McNeil reports. People who die of the disease at home or in overwhelmed hospitals are not counted, but people with few or no symptoms are never tested, so "if you don't know how many people are infected, you don't know how deadly a virus is."The changing fatality rate is one reason the models keep fluctuating, McNeil says, but "there may be good news buried in this inconsistency: The virus may also be mutating to cause fewer symptoms. In the movies, viruses become more deadly. In reality, they usually become less so, because asymptomatic strains reach more hosts. Even the 1918 Spanish flu virus eventually faded into the seasonal H1N1 flu."While we don't know the fatality rate or level of contagion, the "refrigerated trucks parked outside hospitals tell us all we need to know: It is far worse than a bad flu season," McNeil writes. How the pandemic ends depends on the virus' lethality, medical advances, and how individuals behave, he adds. "If we scrupulously protect ourselves and our loved ones, more of us will live. If we underestimate the virus, it will find us."More stories from theweek.com What do animals think? A parade that killed thousands? Trump, McConnell insist no state, local government funds in imminent coronavirus rescue package
|
| Putin warns Russia's coronavirus crisis yet to peak as cases surpass 47,000 Posted: 20 Apr 2020 04:26 AM PDT  President Vladimir Putin said Russia had managed to slow the spread of the new coronavirus but warned the peak of the outbreak still lay ahead after the number of confirmed infections surged past 47,000 nationwide on Monday. Russia reported 4,268 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Monday, down from more than 6,000 the day before. Forty-four people died overnight, bringing the death toll to 405, Russia's coronavirus task force said.
|
| Palghar lynching: India police arrest more than 100 suspects Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:24 AM PDT  Three men have been beaten to death in Palghar district despite a strict lockdown across the country.
|
| Russian fighter jet executes 'unsafe' intercept of US Navy aircraft, coming within 25 feet of an American plane Posted: 19 Apr 2020 03:08 PM PDT  The intercept was caught on video and marks the second time in four days that a Russian fighter has come dangerously close to a US Navy plane.
|
| Officer killed, two injured in Texas 'ambush' Posted: 18 Apr 2020 08:05 PM PDT  Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the violence was "a somber reminder of the service and sacrifice our brave men and women in law enforcement make everyday."
|
| Georgia Governor Allows Gyms, Salons, and Bowling Alleys to Reopen Friday as Coronavirus Cases Climb Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:03 PM PDT  Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp announced on Monday that gyms, hair salons, nail salons, barbershops, and bowling alleys will be allowed to reopen in the Peach State on Friday—even as the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise. During an afternoon press conference, Kemp said that the statewide shelter-in-place order will expire on April 30, however he urged the "medically fragile" to continue to hunker down until May 13. The governor, who cited the pandemic's heavy toll on the state's economy, said that some restaurants and movie theaters can reopen on Monday as long as they adhere to social-distancing guidelines. Bars and nightclubs will remain closed. He also gave the green light to churches to hold in-person services.You Might Get a Coronavirus Vaccine Shot in 2021—If You're LuckyThe announcement comes even as top health officials maintain that the best way to prevent further spread of the virus at this stage of the pandemic is to continue enforced social distancing.The governors of two other Southern states, South Carolina and Tennessee, moved to ease restrictions on businesses shortly after Kemp's announcement. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster announced that retail stores, including department stores and flea markets, will be allowed to reopen on Monday at 5 p.m. with social distancing requirements. McMaster's order—which also lifted closures of public beaches, piers, and docks—requires stores to operate at 20 percent capacity or less and customers to stand six feet apart. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said that most businesses will be allowed to reopen on Monday, saying that "as we open up our economy it will be more important than ever that we keep social distancing as lives and livelihoods depend on it."As of Monday, Georgia has recorded over 18,301 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and at least 637 deaths, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker.Savannah Mayor Van R. Johnson told The Daily Beast that he is "beyond disappointed" in Kemp's order, which he called "premature, irresponsible, and places the lives of Savannahians at risk.""The science has been clear that expanded and comprehensive testing, combined with decelerated infections rates and reduced hospitalizations are the prerequisites to any phased re-openings or relaxation of emergency order," he added. "It is not clear to me that all of these boxes have been checked."Kemp said his primary concern is Georgians "going broke worried about whether they can feed their children and make the mortgage payment.""These are tough moments in our state and our nation. I hear the concerns of those that I'm honored to serve," Kemp said. "I am confident that together we will emerge victorious from this war we have been fighting."The order requires businesses to meet a set of 20 guidelines to reopen, including screening employees for symptoms of COVID-19, ramping up sanitation procedures, and making people stay six feet apart. Just last week, Kemp insisted that his main focus was to increase testing capacity in the state and said it was ultimately too early to determine whether he would relax restrictions in place to control the spread of the virus, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.The governor has faced criticism for his delayed response to the outbreak, finally issuing a shelter-in-place order weeks after the first reported infections in the state. As he defended that decision, he claimed on April 2 that he had only just found out that the virus could be transmitted by asymptomatic carriers. "Those individuals could have been infecting people before they ever felt bad, but we didn't know that until the last 24 hours," the governor said, as he announced the statewide order. The governor's revelation, which he called a "game-changer," shocked health officials who had been warning for weeks of the risk of those who could spread the disease without exhibiting any symptoms. Dr. Sanjay Gupta called his remarks "inexcusable" in an interview with CNN, adding, "We've known this for a long time. "To say that we've just found out in the last 24 hours and that's why we're doing this, this is just not right." Last week, President Donald Trump said that governors can call their own "shots" on reopening their states and relaxing social distancing guidelines. Kemp's order comes amid conservative protests against shelter-in-place orders across the country, demanding that state governors end enforced social distancing. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet 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.
|
| German Virus Cases Rise by Least in Four Days Before Curbs Eased Posted: 18 Apr 2020 11:08 PM PDT |
| Experts: Coronavirus brings spike in anti-Semitic sentiments Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:04 AM PDT  Israeli researchers reported Monday that the global coronavirus outbreak has sparked a rise in anti-Semitic expression blaming Jews for the spread of the disease and the economic recession it has caused. The findings, which came in an annual report by Tel Aviv University researchers on anti-Semitism, show an 18% spike in attacks against Jews last year. "Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a significant rise in accusations that Jews, as individuals and as a collective, are behind the spread of the virus or are directly profiting from it," said Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, an umbrella group representing Jewish communities across the continent.
|
| India and Singapore see biggest single-day spikes in coronavirus cases Posted: 20 Apr 2020 07:21 AM PDT  India and Singapore announced their biggest single-day spikes in new coronavirus cases on Monday, as the crisis intensifies in parts of Asia. India's spike came after the government eased one of the world's strictest lockdowns to allow some manufacturing and agricultural activity to resume.
|
| Trump says US investigating whether coronavirus spread after China lab mishap but cites no evidence Posted: 20 Apr 2020 01:26 AM PDT  Trump said U.S. officials are investigating whether the coronavirus began spreading after an accident at a Chinese lab. He did not offer evidence.
|
| New York governor says 'don't need protests to convince anyone' of anxiety over lockdowns Posted: 20 Apr 2020 09:31 AM PDT  Cuomo, who has emerged as a leading national voice on the pandemic, called for federal hazard pay for hospital staff, police officers and other frontline workers and repeated a plea for federal funding to ramp up testing for the virus. Cuomo said total hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients in the state reached 16,103, down from 16,213 the day before, while 478 people died over the past 24 hours, the lowest daily fatality number since April 1. Cuomo said the data added to evidence that New York, the epicenter of the crisis in the United States, had passed the worst stage of the crisis and remained on a path toward stabilization of its healthcare system.
|
| Coronavirus nightmare in Ecuador's port city Guayaquil - pictures Posted: 20 Apr 2020 01:13 AM PDT  Guayaquil is one of the worst-hit places in Latin America in the pandemic.
|
| If You’re Cooking as Much as We Are, You Need These Kitchen Essentials Posted: 19 Apr 2020 07:00 AM PDT |
| U.S. crude oil futures for May plummet to minus $37 — lowest price in history Posted: 20 Apr 2020 12:47 PM PDT  With demand at near-paralysis, oil and fuel tanks around the world are close to brimming.
|
| In Germany, Syrians take their torturers to court Posted: 19 Apr 2020 07:49 PM PDT  When Anwar al-Bunni crossed paths with fellow Syrian Anwar Raslan in a DIY store in Germany five years ago, he recognised him as the man who had thrown him in jail a decade earlier. On Thursday, the two men will face each other in a German court, where Raslan will be one of two alleged former Syrian intelligence officers in the dock accused of crimes against humanity for Bashar al-Assad's regime. In the first legal proceedings worldwide over state-sponsored torture in Syria, Raslan will be tried under the principle of universal jurisdiction -- which allows a foreign country to prosecute crimes against humanity.
|
| Wuhan Lab Denies Any Link to First Coronavirus Outbreak Posted: 20 Apr 2020 03:10 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- A top Wuhan laboratory official has denied any role in spreading the new coronavirus, in the most high profile response from a facility at the center of months of speculation about how the previously unknown animal disease made the leap to humans.Yuan Zhiming, director of the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, hit back at those promoting theories that the virus had escaped from the facility and caused the outbreak in the central Chinese city. "There is absolutely no way that the virus originated from our institute," Yuan said in an interview Saturday with the state-run China Global Television Network.Yuan rejected theories that the yet-to-be identified "Patient Zero" for Covid-19 had contact with the institute, saying none of its employees, retirees or student researchers were known to be infected. He said U.S. Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, and Washington Post journalists were among those "deliberately leading people" to mistrust the facility and its "P4" top-level-security pathogen lab.U.S. President Donald Trump again fanned speculation about the origins of the virus at a Saturday news conference, in which he said China should face consequences if it was "knowingly responsible" for the outbreak. The U.S. president has at times referred to the disease as a "Chinese virus," a term he said he embraced after a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman tweeted an unsubstantiated theory about U.S. Army athletes introducing the pathogen to Wuhan."What we know is that the ground zero for this virus was within a few miles of that lab," Peter Navarro, a Trump trade adviser, said Sunday on Fox News. "If you simply do an Occam's razor approach that the simplest explanation is probably the most likely, I think it's incumbent on China to prove that it wasn't that lab."The U.S.-China blame game has helped fuel scrutiny of the Wuhan lab, which was studying bat-borne coronaviruses like the one that causes Covid-19. U.S. diplomats sent back warnings about safety procedures in the lab after visits two years ago, the Washington Post reported in an April 14 commentary, citing diplomatic cables."They don't have any evidence on this, what they rely on is only their guess," Yuan told CGTN on Saturday. "I hope such a conspiracy theory will not affect cooperation among scientists around the world."Earlier AccidentsThe P4 lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology began operations in January 2018 and was the first of its kind built in mainland China.It was designed with help from France as part of a joint research initiative focused on infectious diseases and equipped for the highest level of bio-containment, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. The first project undertaken at the lab was to research Xinjiang hemorrhagic fever, a tick-borne virus with a fatality rate of as much as 50% in humans, the report said.The facility has been the center of multiple conspiracy theories, including one that's circulated on Chinese social media since late January that the new coronavirus escaped from the lab. Multiple posts have cited previous blunders by Chinese scientists as evidence that similar research projects haven't been executed properly.Among them was a 2017 report by the Wuhan Evening News that said Tian Junhua, a researcher at the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, had to quarantine himself for 14 days after accidentally coming into direct contact with bat urine during a 2012 research trip.Social-media users also cited a 2004 accident at a national lab in Beijing during experiments with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-related coronavirus that led to infections -- and one death. Five top officials at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention were punished at the time, according to China Daily.Some countries including Australia have urged an independent review of how the pandemic came to infect more than 2.4 million people and kill more than 166,000. "The issues around the coronavirus are issues for independent review and I think that is important that we do that, in fact Australia will absolutely insist," Foreign Minister Marise Payne told ABC Australia's "Insiders" program Sunday.While many Republicans have emphasized the Chinese origins of a virus that has killed more than 40,000 Americans, Cotton has been among the most vocal urging an investigation into the lab's role. On Friday, he told Fox News that "circumstantial evidence" was "stacking up pretty quickly that this virus may have originated in those labs in Wuhan."Although the first known cluster centered on a wet market in Wuhan, the ultimate origins of the virus remain a mystery and Chinese officials have raised the possibility that the virus didn't begin in the country at all. Meanwhile, General Mark Milley, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, has endorsed studies that have shown the virus evolved naturally, as opposed to being genetically engineered.Shi Zhengli -- a researcher at the institute known as "Bat Woman" for her expeditions in bat caves -- said in a February social media post that she would "swear on my life" that the virus had nothing to do with the lab.On Feb. 19, the Wuhan Institute of Virology issued a letter to staff, saying it received its first sample of the virus from Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital on Dec. 30, a day before Chinese authorities first disclosed the outbreak to the world. Researchers finished gene-sequencing in 72 hours and submitted its findings to the national virus database by Jan. 9, the institute said, adding "we have a clear conscience looking back on what we've gone through."(Updates with background on laboratory)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Nearly all abortions in Texas must stop, appeals court rules Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:13 PM PDT  The vast majority of abortion services will again be halted in Texas.
|
| 'Don't shoot him no more!' California police face backlash over killing of man in Walmart Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:27 PM PDT  Steven Taylor was experiencing mental health crisis when he wielded a baseball bat inside San Leandro store, family lawyer saysThe police shooting of a 33-year-old man in a California Walmart over the weekend has led to intense backlash from civil rights activists, calls for protests and a Facebook video from the local police chief to "dispel some rumors" about the incident.Police in San Leandro in the Bay Area shot Steven Taylor on Saturday afternoon after he wielded a baseball bat inside a local Walmart. A video shot by a bystander captured two officers pointing their weapons at Taylor holding a bat near the doors on the Walmart floor.The footage appears to show one of the officers deploying a Taser after Taylor had dropped the bat on the floor and was lying on the ground. One witness is heard shouting, "Don't shoot him no more!" Police said one of the officers hit Taylor with a bullet in the upper torso, and the officers tried to use their Tasers multiple times during the confrontation.Lee Merritt, an attorney for Taylor's family, said Taylor was going through a mental health crisis on Saturday afternoon, and that he has previously suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar depression. "He was shot after he had become completely helpless and no longer represented a threat," Merritt told the Guardian on Monday.Merritt said he wasn't sure yet whether police shot Taylor with a Taser or bullet after he was already down, and that an autopsy was now underway.Merritt also alleged that the officers provided insufficient care once Taylor was shot. "Their job, according to standard operating procedures, was to get Mr Taylor help. He had been seriously wounded and was suffering from a mental health crisis. They had to treat him quickly. They did the opposite and exacerbated his injuries," Merritt said.The San Leandro police department said Taylor had not complied with officers' commands to drop the bat and had walked toward police. At this point, one officer discharged his Taser "which was not effective", according to the department. Then, police said, the officer fired his gun at Taylor, hitting him in the "front of his upper body". Seconds later, another officer discharged his Taser at the man, according to the department. Taylor died at the scene.Taylor's family is calling for charges against the officers. Merritt, who represents families of those killed by police in federal litigation, said the officers should face homicide charges for targeting Taylor after the threat was "neutralized". He said police should have de-escalated by clearing the Walmart, surrounding Taylor and trying to talk him down, instead of quickly using lethal force.The San Leandro police chief, Jeff Tudor, said in an interview that the "pop" heard on the video after Taylor was already on the ground came from a Taser, and that it was too early to speculate whether that shot had hit Taylor or whether it was justified and in line with department policy. One officer was initially "trying to deescalate the situation and grab the bat", Tudor said, adding, "It's very tragic."On Sunday, Tudor publicly acknowledged that the shooting had upset many. "Our community is hurting right now," Tudor said in a Facebook video. "But protecting the sanctity of life is extremely important. I know there are a lot of questions and concerns."Few details have emerged about Taylor since he was killed. Merritt said Taylor had three children, including an 11-year-old, and that he leaves behind three siblings. "I hope they don't see their father executed like that," Merritt said.He added that Taylor "was best known for trying to make people laugh". The fatal shooting happened just south of Oakland, in a region where residents for years have organized Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality and police shootings.Last year, California adopted the strictest law in the US limiting when police can kill, dictating that law enforcement must "reasonably believe … deadly force is necessary to defend against an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury". Typically, courts across the US have long ruled that shootings are justified if officers claimed they feared for their lives and were acting in self defense, a bar that advocates have said was too low and allowed police to kill civilians with impunity, particularly unarmed black Americans.
|
| Trump, Head of Government, Leans Into Anti-Government Message Posted: 20 Apr 2020 11:59 AM PDT  First he was the self-described "wartime president." Then he trumpeted the "total" authority of the federal government. But in the past few days, President Donald Trump has nurtured protests against state-issued stay-at-home orders aimed at curtailing the spread of the coronavirus.Hurtling from one position to another is consistent with Trump's approach to the presidency over the past three years. Even when external pressures and stresses appear to change the dynamics that the country is facing, Trump remains unbowed, altering his approach for a day or two, only to return to nursing grievances.Not even the president's reelection campaign can harness him: His team is often reactive to his moods and whims, trying but not always succeeding in steering him in a particular direction. Now, with Trump's poll numbers falling after a rally-around-the-leader bump, he is road-testing a new turn on a familiar theme -- veering into messages aimed at appealing to Americans whose lives have been disrupted by the legally enforceable stay-at-home orders.Whether his latest theme will be effective for him is an open question: In an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday, just 36% of voters said they generally trusted what Trump says about the coronavirus.But the president, who ran as an insurgent in 2016, is most comfortable raging against the machine of government, even when he is the one running the country. And while the coronavirus is in every state in the union, it is heavily affecting minority and low-income communities.So when Trump on Friday tweeted "LIBERATE," his all-capitalized exhortations against strict orders in specific states -- including Michigan -- were in keeping with how he ran in 2016: saying things that seem contradictory, like pledging to work with governors and then urging people to "liberate" their states, and leaving it to his audiences to hear what they want to hear in his words.For instance, Trump did not take the opportunity to more forcefully encourage the protesters when he spoke with reporters Friday."These are people expressing their views," Trump said. "They seem to be very responsible people to me." But he said he thought the protesters had been treated "rough."In a webcast with Students for Trump on Friday, a conservative activist and Trump ally, Charlie Kirk, echoed the message, encouraging a "peaceful rebellion against governors" in states like Michigan, according to ABC News.On Fox News, where many of the opinion hosts are aligned with Trump and which he watches closely, there have also been discussions of such protests. And Trump has heard from conservative allies who have said they think he is straying from his base of supporters in recent weeks.So far, the protests have been relatively small and scattershot, organized by conservative-leaning groups with some organic attendance. It remains to be seen if they will be durable.But Trump's show of affinity for such actions is in keeping with his fomenting of voter anger at the establishment in 2016, a key to his success then -- and his fallback position during uncertain moments ever since.In the case of the state-issued orders, Trump's advisers say his criticism of certain places is appropriate.Stephen Moore, a former adviser to Trump and an economist with FreedomWorks, an organization that promotes limited government, said he thought protesters ought to be wearing masks and protecting themselves. But, he added, "the people who are doing the protest, for the most part, these are the 'deplorables,' they're largely Trump supporters, but not only Trump supporters."On Sunday, Trump again praised the protesters."I have never seen so many American flags," he said.But Trump's advisers are divided about the wisdom of encouraging the protests. At some of them, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a Democrat, has been compared to Adolf Hitler. At least one protester had a sign featuring a swastika.One adviser said privately that if someone were to be injured at the protests -- or if anyone contracted the coronavirus at large events where people were not wearing masks -- there would be potential political risk for the president.But two other people close to the president, who asked for anonymity in order to speak candidly, said they thought the protests could be politically helpful to Trump, while acknowledging there might be public health risks.One of those people said that in much of the country, where the numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths are not as high as in places like New York, New Jersey, California and Washington state, anger is growing over the economic losses that have come with the stringent social-distancing restrictions.And some states are already preparing to restart their economies. Ohio, where Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, took early actions against the spread of the virus, is planning a staged reopening beginning May 1.Still, as Trump did throughout 2016, as when he said "torture works" and then walked back that statement a short time later, or when he advocated bombing the Middle East while denouncing lengthy foreign engagements, he has long taken various sides of the same issue.Mobilizing anger and mistrust toward the government was a crucial factor for Trump in the last presidential election. And for many months he has been looking for ways to contrast himself with former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and a Washington lifer.The problem? Trump is now president, and disowning responsibility for his administration's slow and problem-plagued response to the coronavirus could prove difficult. And protests can be an unpredictable factor, particularly at a moment of economic unrest.Vice President Mike Pence, asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" about the president's tweets urging people to "liberate" states, demurred."The American people know that no one in America wants to reopen this country more than President Donald Trump," Pence said, "and on Thursday the president directed us to lay out guidelines for when and how states could responsibly do that.""And in the president's tweets and public statements, I can assure you, he's going to continue to encourage governors to find ways to safely and responsibly let America go back to work," he said.With the political campaign halted, Trump's advisers have seen an advantage in the frozen-in-time state of the race. Biden has struggled to fundraise or even to get daily attention in the news cycle.But Trump himself has seemed at sea, according to people close to him, uncertain of how to proceed. His approval numbers in his campaign polling have settled back to a level consistent with before the coronavirus, according to multiple people familiar with the data.His campaign polling has shown that focusing on criticizing China, in contrast with Biden, moves voters toward Trump, according to a Republican who has seen it."Trump finally fired the first shot" with his more aggressive stance toward the Chinese government and its leader, Xi Jinping, said Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist. "Xi is put on notice that the death, economic carnage and agony is his and his alone," Bannon said. "Only question now: What is America's president prepared to do about it?"Trump's campaign manager, Brad Parscale, has advocated messages that contrast Trump with Biden on a number of fronts, including China.But inside and outside the White House, other advisers to Trump see an advantage in focusing attention on the presidency.Kellyanne Conway, the White House counselor, has argued in West Wing discussions that there is a time to focus on China, but that for now, the president should embrace commander-in-chief moments amid the crisis.Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey and a friend of Trump's, said on ABC's "This Week" that he did not think ads criticizing Biden on China were the right approach for now.Ultimately, Trump's advisers said, most of his team is aware that it can try to drive down Biden's poll numbers, but that no matter what tactics it deploys now, the president's future will most likely depend on whether the economy is improving in the fall and whether the virus's spread has been mitigated. Those things will remain unknown for months."This is going to be a referendum," Christie said, "on whether people think, when we get to October, whether or not he handled this crisis in a way that helped the American people, protected lives and moved us forward."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
|
| There are 4 requirements for reopening the U.S. amid COVID-19. Americans won't tolerate all of them. Posted: 20 Apr 2020 03:41 AM PDT  The White House has proposed a list of "preparedness responsiblities" for lifting social distancing rules enacted to slow spread the COVID-19 coronavirus. States should be able to test for the coronavirus, contact trace, and ensure hospitals have enough personal protective equipment (PPE) and ICU capacity for when the virus flares up again. Individuals should wear face masks when they can't keep six feet apart in public.Testing, tracing and isolating, hospital readiness, and masks are the four main pillars of reopening, dozens of scientists, public health experts, and disease historians told The New York Times and ProPublica, but the White House is seriously lowballing the amount of testing needed and skimming over some difficult choices America must make. Keeping the economy locked down isn't sustainable, but "the White House's 'phased' plan for reopening will surely raise the death toll no matter how carefully it is executed," Donald McNeil Jr. writes at the Times. "The best hope is that fatalities can be held to a minimum."A vaccine — the generally accepted prerequisite for a return toward normalcy — is realistically 18 months away at the earliest. All the experts agreed the U.S. needs to massively ramp up testing for both the virus and, separately, the antibodies that show who has already recovered — and they all agreed the U.S. is nowhere near ready for this. The U.S. also has tens of thousands too few workers trained to trace everybody who came in contact with every infected individual.China, South Korea, and other countries have supplemented the labor-intensive task of contact tracing with smartphone monitoring, a step the U.S. has neither the legal framework nor the civil-liberties culture to embrace. And however the positive cases are identified, the next step is even thornier. "To keep the virus in check, several experts insisted, the country also must start isolating all the ill — including mild cases," McNeil writes. China sent everyone testing positive to make-shift infirmities, while Taiwan paid infected citizens to quarantine in hotels."Separating people from their families for 14 days is a very tough thing to do," and "it would be massively unpopular" in America's "family-centered society," ProPublica notes. But "what we've learned in Italy, Taiwan, and now our country is sobering," and it's that when people self-isolated at home, "the disease spread to the entire family, sometimes sickening multiple generations." Read more about our coronavirus future at The New York Times.More stories from theweek.com What do animals think? A parade that killed thousands? The new coronavirus may be mutating to a less deadly form
|
| 20 Weird Facts About Earth To Remind You Why It's The Best Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:52 PM PDT |
| UN experts want to blacklist 14 ships over NKorea sanctions Posted: 19 Apr 2020 12:16 AM PDT |
| Coronavirus: Ecuador sees massive surge in deaths in April Posted: 20 Apr 2020 01:09 AM PDT  Guayas province, home to the city of Guayaquil, sees nearly 6,000 extra deaths in a two-week period.
|
| Oil prices dive more than 100% to minus $37 as demand collapses during coronavirus pandemic Posted: 20 Apr 2020 10:54 AM PDT  One of the US' crude price futures have plummeted to the lowest level in history and entered into the negatives, as demand for oil continued its decline amid the coronavirus pandemic.Sharp selling heightened on Monday over concerns about the storage of the excess oil.
|
| Europe’s Call-to-Arms Moment May Disappoint Investors. Again Posted: 20 Apr 2020 08:26 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- A video call between European Union leaders on Thursday may fall short of giving investors clarity over how the bloc will finance economic recovery efforts, risking a prolongation of the paralysis that has pushed borrowing costs higher across peripheral euro-area countries.EU institutions are focusing on a proposal to boost the bloc's joint budget, largely shunning demands by Italy and Spain for joint debt issuance to share the costs of cushioning a pandemic-induced recession. The plan being prepared would instead see the European Commission use its massive budget to borrow from financial markets and then channel cheap loans to the worst-hit nations, according to two diplomats briefed on the ongoing preparations.The bulk of the leverage created in the so-called recovery instrument of the new EU budget would take place over the next two years and the loans would be repaid after 2027, according to one of the diplomats, who asked not to be named as negotiations are ongoing. Even though the use of the budget is a more palatable solution to countries such as Germany and the Netherlands, the plans have so far failed to sway Southern nations, which demand more solidarity and concessions from their richer peers.Europe is entering what is projected to be the steepest recession in living memory, while the timing of recovery depends on factors largely outside the control of policymakers, such as the availability of a vaccine or an antiviral cure for the lethal coronavirus. The drop in economic output and the massive funds needed to keep businesses and households afloat has investors doubting whether highly indebted European countries can foot the bill.Bonds FallItalian bonds tumbled on Monday, with yields on 10-year notes rising by 15 basis points to 1.95%. That's more than double the borrowing costs from mid-February, as a package of economic measures adopted so far by EU finance ministers has left loose ends to be sorted out and is seen by many economists as insufficient.One of the officials familiar with the matter said that Thursday's video call between leaders will have to be followed by others until a concrete solution is reached. Failure to come up with a convincing plan would put more pressure on the European Central Bank to boost its bond purchases to keep spreads between German and peripheral yields widening.The plan to be presented on Thursday by EU institutions revolves around four pillars, according to the officials briefed: mobilizing massive investment, repairing the bloc's single market after border closures, supply chain breakdowns and export restrictions disrupted the flow of goods, global action to fight the pandemic, and better communication between Brussels and national capitals.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps says its handheld device can detect coronavirus, scientists scoff Posted: 20 Apr 2020 11:09 AM PDT  Iranian scientists have rejected the claim and other government officials have distanced themselves.
|
| Bulgarian Christians celebrate Easter amid coronavirus outbreak Posted: 18 Apr 2020 05:53 PM PDT  The Easter holiday is the most significant date on the calendar for the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians with thousands of Bulgarians usually packing the churches and their ancestral homes all around the country to celebrate Christ's resurrection. This year many Bulgarians opted to watch services live on TV instead after the government urged people to celebrate and pray from home.
|
| Trump says he's 'OK' with Las Vegas shutdown after mayor calls it 'total insanity' Posted: 20 Apr 2020 09:38 AM PDT  "I'm OK with it," President Trump said of Gov. Steve Sisolak's closure of nonessential businesses, which has shuttered Las Vegas hotels and casinos.
|
| The head of the WHO warns that 'the worst' of the coronavirus is 'ahead of us' Posted: 20 Apr 2020 12:03 PM PDT  The WHO chief compared the virus to the 1918 flu that killed 675,000 people in the US and tens of millions around the world.
|
| Yahoo News/YouGov coronavirus poll: Most Americans reject anti-lockdown protests Posted: 20 Apr 2020 06:32 AM PDT  An overwhelming majority of Americans, Republicans included, are rejecting right-wing protests — encouraged by President Trump — to immediately "reopen" the country in the midst of the world's largest and deadliest coronavirus outbreak, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.
|
| Congressional Black Caucus PAC backs Biden's White House bid Posted: 20 Apr 2020 06:00 AM PDT  The Congressional Black Caucus PAC endorsed Joe Biden's presidential bid on Monday, further cementing his support among the nation's influential black political leadership. The political action committee's unanimous endorsement came on the heels of several key nods of support among caucus leadership and members, including civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis of Georgia and caucus Chairwoman Rep. Karen Bass of California. "There's no question that Joe Biden is badly needed by this country," CBC PAC Chairman Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York said in an interview with The Associated Press.
|
| Supreme Court Rules Juries Must Convict by Unanimous Consent in Criminal Trials Posted: 20 Apr 2020 08:26 AM PDT  The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that defendants in criminal trials must be convicted by unanimous consent of the jury, outlawing a practice that has already been prohibited in all states except Oregon.The 6-3 ruling in the case, Ramos v Louisiana, was delivered with an unusual alignment in which conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh joined with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor for the majority opinion. Justices Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan, and John Roberts dissented."Wherever we might look to determine what the term 'trial by an impartial jury trial' meant at the time of the Sixth Amendment's adoption—whether it's the common law, state practices in the founding era, or opinions and treatises written soon afterward—the answer is unmistakable," Gorsuch wrote in an opinion for the majority. "A jury must reach a unanimous verdict in order to convict."While unanimous verdicts had previously been required for convictions in federal trials, most states have banned convictions by supermajority of a jury. The ruling applies a unanimous-conviction requirement in the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution to state law. Currently, Oregon is the only state which allows conviction of criminal defendants even if up to two jurors dissent. Louisiana outlawed the practice in 2019.The current Supreme Court case was brought by Evangelisto Ramos, who was convicted of murder in Louisiana court in 2016 by a 10-2 jury verdict. The Supreme Court's case could allow Ramos to receive a new trial.
|
| Oil prices go negative — and Washington is paralyzed over what to do Posted: 20 Apr 2020 11:25 AM PDT  Reports that the Trump administration was considering paying oil companies not to pump oil have not comforted oil executives.
|
| 'Everyone Was Screaming at Them.' The Story Behind Those Photos of the Counter-Protesting Health Care Workers Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:10 PM PDT  Photographer Alyson McClaran shares the story behind the viral photos of the healthcare workers blocking the coronavirus lockdown protesters.
|
| She's a doctor on the front lines of the coronavirus. At home, she has no running water. Posted: 19 Apr 2020 01:53 AM PDT  "You're saying 20 seconds of wash your hands with water," a Navajo doctor in Arizona said. "We do not have plumbing. And that's how I grew up."
|
| Italy's coronavirus death toll edges up, new cases fall sharply Posted: 20 Apr 2020 09:25 AM PDT  Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy rose by 454 on Monday, slightly up on Sunday's tally, while the number of new cases dropped to 2,256, the lowest level in well over a month, the Civil Protection Agency said. The total death toll stood at 24,114, the second highest in the world after that of the United States, while the number of confirmed cases, which includes those who have fully recovered and those who have died of the disease, was 181,228. "The death toll is the only parameter that is moving in the wrong direction."
|
| Fauci warns protesters about dangers of ending lockdowns prematurely: 'It's going to backfire' Posted: 20 Apr 2020 06:56 AM PDT  Dr. Anthony Fauci is warning about the dangers of reopening the United States too quickly in a message to those protesting stay-at-home orders.Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of President Trump's coronavirus task force, appeared on Good Morning America on Monday after protests in some cities against stay-at-home orders; at one in Texas, video captured protesters calling for Fauci to be fired. Polls, however, have found that more Americans are worried about restrictions being loosened too soon than not soon enough.Asked for his message to those protesting, Fauci told ABC, "The message is that clearly this is something that is hurting from the standpoint of economics ... but unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery, economically, is not going to happen."Fauci went on to stress the importance of a gradual reopening."If you jump the gun, and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you're going to set yourself back," he said. "So as painful as it is to go by the careful guidelines of gradually phasing into a reopening -- it's going to backfire. That's the problem."These comments come after President Trump on Friday appeared to express support for stay-at-home protesters in some states on Twitter. During a White House briefing on Sunday, Trump said those protesting stay-at-home orders have "cabin fever" and "want their life back." > "Clearly this is something that this is hurting …. but unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery, economically, is not going to happen." -- NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci on protests against stay-at-home orders. pic.twitter.com/n7x3cunEAm> > -- Good Morning America (@GMA) April 20, 2020More stories from theweek.com What do animals think? A parade that killed thousands? The new coronavirus may be mutating to a less deadly form
|
| Senators propose a $500 billion rescue package Posted: 20 Apr 2020 01:04 PM PDT  A U.S. Senate Republican and a Democrat proposed a $500 billion rescue package for state and municipal governments on Monday, as it became increasingly clear that the next coronavirus relief bill would not include money for reeling local authorities.
|
| Medical detection dogs able to sniff 750 people an hour could help identify coronavirus cases, researchers say Posted: 19 Apr 2020 08:01 AM PDT  Dogs have already been taught to detect diseases such as cancer. UK health experts believe they could be trained to sniff test the coronavirus.
|
| Syria: Israel fired missile on areas near historic Palmyra Posted: 20 Apr 2020 01:33 PM PDT |
| Three dead as severe storms, tornadoes lash South Posted: 20 Apr 2020 01:43 PM PDT  Severe storms and tornadoes pounded a wide area of the South on Sunday and Monday.
|
| Top China official for Hong Kong security probed for corruption Posted: 20 Apr 2020 12:09 AM PDT  China's deputy public security minister, who was placed in charge of security affairs for protest-wracked Hong Kong in 2017, is being investigated by the country's anti-graft body for alleged corruption. Sun Lijun was being investigated for "serious violations of discipline and the law" -– a euphemism for corruption -- according to China's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Sun, 51, was last seen in public in early March in Wuhan, the city at the epicentre of China's coronavirus outbreak, the official People's Public Security Daily reported.
|
| Coronavirus-driven CO2 shortage threatens US food and water supply, officials say Posted: 20 Apr 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Washington state emergency planning document points to difficulties obtaining carbon dioxide gas, essential for water treatment * Coronavirus – live US updates * Live global updates * See all our coronavirus coverageAn emerging shortage of carbon dioxide gas (CO2) caused by the coronavirus pandemic may affect food supply chains and drinking water, a Washington state emergency planning document has revealed.The document, a Covid-19 situation report produced by the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC), contains a warning from the state's office of drinking water (ODW) about difficulties in obtaining CO2, which is essential for the process of water treatment.The document says that the ODW is "still responding to [that day's] notification of a national shortage of CO2".It continues: "Several [water plants] had received initial notification from their vendors that their supply would be restricted to 33% of normal."It further warns: "So far utilities have been able to make the case that they are considered essential to critical infrastructure and have been returned to full supply. However, we want to ask if CISA [the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] can assess this through their contacts, if this is sustainable given the national shortage."Asked to clarify the nature of this problem, ODW director Mike Means said in an email that his agency had first learned of potential problems when Seattle public utilities were "contacted by their vendor Airgas who supplied a copy of a Force Majeure notice", warning them that their CO2 order would be reduced due to pandemic-related shortages.Force majeure is a contractual defense that allows parties to escape liability for contracts in the case of events – such as a pandemic – that could not be reasonably foreseen.In this case, Means wrote, "Airgas informed in their notice that they would only be able to do 80% of their normal service but subsequent discussions said to expect more like 33%".At this point, he added, "we reached out to understand if this was a WA specific problem or national. We quickly understood it to be a national issue."ODW had then contacted federal agencies such as CISA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and industry bodies such as the Association of State Drinking Water Authorities (ASDWA).The main reason for national shortages, according to the CEO of the Compressed Gas Association (CGA), Rich Gottwald, is a ramping down of ethanol production."Back in the summertime, the [Trump] administration exempted some gasoline manufacturers from using ethanol. Then we had Russia and Saudi Arabia flooding the market with cheap gasoline. All of that led to an oversupply of ethanol," Gottwald said."As ethanol manufacturers were ramping down because there wasn't a market for their product, along comes Covid-19, which meant people weren't driving anywhere", he added.This led to plant closures, including among the 50 specialized plants that collect CO2 for the food and beverage market.Gottwald's association, along with a number of associations representing food and beverage industries, which together use 77% of food-grade CO2, issued a joint warning to the federal government about the shortage.In an open letter to the vice-president, Mike Pence, the coalition warns: "Preliminary data show that production of CO2 has decreased by approximately 20%, and experts predict that CO2 production may be reduced by 50% by mid-April."It continues: "A shortage in CO2 would impact the US availability of fresh food, preserved food and beverages, including beer production."In an email, a Fema spokesperson said: "There is nationwide reduction in CO2 production capacity based on a shutdown of some ethanol plants that produce CO2 as a by-product, but impacts to water sectors would be local"."The ethanol plants are not closed because of Federal government orders related to COVID-19, but rather by market forces".CISA and ASDWA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
|
| 16 dead, including officer, in Canada shooting, authorities say Posted: 20 Apr 2020 04:51 AM PDT  "The impact of the incident will extend from one end of the province to the other," an officer said.
|
| Deported from U.S., man infects 14 migrants with coronavirus in northern Mexico Posted: 20 Apr 2020 10:16 AM PDT |
| The Money Taboo That Central Banks Have Shied Away From So Far Posted: 19 Apr 2020 04:00 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- The coronavirus economy is shredding records for government borrowing and for central-bank lending. Soon it may also smash the taboo that's supposed to keep those two things apart.Governments paying for budget spending with loans from their own central banks is known as monetary financing. The risk, repeated throughout history from the Weimar Republic to parts of Latin America, is that it becomes a slippery slope in which politicians ride roughshod over central-bank independence, triggering runaway inflation as they splash what feels like free cash around the economy.The stricture against direct financing has held up even through a series of crises when central bankers did in fact buy plenty of public debt. They just made sure to do it in a roundabout way, snapping up bonds in the secondary market.But in a pandemic that's placing unprecedented demands on budgets -– and could strain the capacity of bond markets to finance them -- some monetary experts say it's time for exactly this kind of break-the-glass policy."Independence doesn't mean having to say no to a request for direct monetization," says Willem Buiter, a former Bank of England policy maker and Citigroup chief economist. "It means you can say yes or no."Government OverdraftRight now, according to Buiter, the answer that makes sense in developed economies is 'yes'.As they pour money into the virus fight, policy makers "needn't bother with the sovereign debt market," he says. In what would amount to cutting out the middleman, central banks can just buy debt direct from governments "or simply credit the treasury's account."Last week, the Bank of England appeared to be doing something like the latter -– triggering a flurry of interest among central-bank-watchers -- when it extended an overdraft to the government.Just days earlier, Governor Andrew Bailey had appeared to rule out the use of monetary financing, after a former BOE deputy chief had urged the bank to buy bonds directly from the government.The overdraft facility has been drawn on before, in wartime and most recently after the 2008 crisis. It's a temporary measure, according to U.K. officials.'They'll Do It'But the recent history of monetary policy is full of stopgap moves introduced during a crisis that turned out to be hard to reverse. And they've tended to leave government and central-bank finances more closely entwined.Japan's central bank, for example, started amassing government bonds two decades ago to break the grip of deflation. Now, it has a balance sheet bigger than the economy, owns some 43% of the government's outstanding bonds, and has seen its policy of quantitative easing replicated across the industrial world."The Bank of Japan started down this road in the late 1990s, and we've all been following their example," said Russell Jones, a partner at London-based research group Llewellyn Consulting. "It's been a progressive shift. We're moving towards overt monetary finance."That barrier may be breached soon, he said. If economies continue to deteriorate because of the pandemic, "you will see central banks directly financing governments, they'll do it explicitly, it's only a matter of time."What Bloomberg's Economists Say...'Back in the great financial crisis, central banks could legitimately argue that asset purchases were the pursuit of monetary policy by other means -- bringing down longer-term borrowing costs to stoke private-sector borrowing.In 2020, that fig leaf isn't there. We're not quite at monetary financing of fiscal deficits. Still, the main beneficiary of central bank purchases will be governments."\-- Tom Orlik, chief economist. Read the full piece here.The longstanding fear has been that handing this kind of money-creating power to politicians with short-term electoral goals will lead to over-spending that hurts economies in the longer run by fanning inflation.That's why most developed countries keep those levers in the hands of central banks with some autonomy from the rest of government. It also explains why some analysts are alarmed that the current spending spree could ultimately send prices surging, creating bigger problems for central banks down the road.But most argue that in the immediate future, at least, the bigger risk is deflation as the virus destroys businesses and jobs and hammers demand.'Same Drum'The lines that separate overt monetary financing from other kinds of central-bank support for governments aren't clear-cut. In the U.S., for example, the Federal Reserve doesn't buy government debt directly from the Treasury, but it's bought plenty via QE since 2008.And this year, with the Treasury issuing trillions in bonds at an unprecedented pace, the Fed is set to hoover up more than 90% of them, according to Bank of America projections. It just won't be doing so directly at Treasury auctions.The upshot isn't that different from direct monetary financing, according to Buiter. But "the statement is more powerful," he says, "if the Treasury and Fed are visibly and audibly banging on the same drum, not being coy about it, recognizing that they are monetizing fiscal action."Advocates of Modern Monetary Theory, an emerging school of economics, also play down the idea that there's anything scary about such arrangements. MMTers say the question of whether spending is financed by treasury bonds or central-bank reserves isn't a big deal -- since both are government liabilities in the end. What matters is whether the spending triggers inflation.The increasing role of asset purchases, and the blurring of lines with fiscal policy, has come about as central banks ran out of other ways to stimulate.There was no room left to cut the cost of credit for households and businesses, so that they'd take on more debt and spend or invest. Instead, governments took over as the main borrowers, and became the chief beneficiaries of the super-low rates -- starting in Japan, the first country to get to zero.And in a bad scenario where the global economy struggles to shake off Covid-19, economists at Evercore ISI wrote last week, the Japanese combo of persistent fiscal support by the government and asset purchases designed to keep borrowing costs low "is a plausible end-destination for much of the world."For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Report: Trump administration received real-time information on coronavirus from Americans working at the WHO Posted: 19 Apr 2020 09:33 PM PDT  As the novel coronavirus first emerged in China late last year, more than a dozen U.S. researchers, doctors, and public health officials were working at the World Health Organization's Geneva headquarters, relaying back real-time information on the virus and its spread to the Trump administration, several U.S. and international officials told The Washington Post. President Trump has accused the United Nations' health agency of not clearly communicating early on how big a threat the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic was, in an attempt to protect China. Last week, he said the U.S. will halt funding to the WHO and conduct a review "to assess the WHO's role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus."Caitlin Oakley, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), confirmed to the Post that in January, 16 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees were at the WHO "working on a variety of programs, including COVID-19 and Ebola." She added that "just because you have Americans embedded in WHO providing technical assistance does not change the information you are getting from WHO leadership. We have learned now that WHO information was incorrect and relied too heavily on China."Officials told the Post that from the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, CDC staffers consulted with their WHO counterparts on the disease, and that CDC Global Disease Detection Operations Center Director Ray Arthur has participated in daily "incident management" calls, sharing information gleaned from WHO officials. That information is sent to HHS via telephone calls and written reports, one official said.Sensitive information, including details on actions the WHO is planning on taking, was shared in a secure facility at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, the official told the Post, with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar among those receiving updates in the early days of the outbreak. Read more at The Washington Post.More stories from theweek.com What do animals think? A parade that killed thousands? The new coronavirus may be mutating to a less deadly form
|
| 30 Dining Chairs That Make a Statement Posted: 20 Apr 2020 06:40 AM PDT |
| Coronavirus-lockdown protests will 'backfire' and interrupt the US's economic recovery, Fauci says Posted: 20 Apr 2020 10:00 AM PDT  Meanwhile, the president's adviser Kellyanne Conway said some governors had "gone too far" and were "physically distanced from common sense."
|
