| A woman who accused Biden of inappropriate touching says she supports him as the 'obvious choice' to defeat Trump Posted: 10 May 2020 07:30 PM PDT  Amy Lappos accused Biden of touching her inappropriately at a political fundraiser in 2009. She says he is the "obvious choice" over Donald Trump.
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| Iran warship accidentally 'hit by missile' during exercises Posted: 10 May 2020 11:31 PM PDT  An Iranian warship was accidentally hit by a missile during exercises in the Gulf of Oman, killing at least one, state television said Monday, amid tensions with the US in the waterway. One report said the vessel had sunk after being hit by a missile fired by another Iranian warship. "The vessel was hit after moving a practice target to its destination and not creating enough distance between itself and the target," state television said on its website.
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| China berates New Zealand over support for Taiwan at WHO Posted: 11 May 2020 02:35 AM PDT |
| Germany's infection rate rises above one after lockdown eased Posted: 10 May 2020 09:37 AM PDT  Germany's coronavirus reproduction rate – the crucial measure shows how widely the virus is spreading in the community – has risen to 1.1, giving rise to fears that a second wave of infections may be imminent. The findings come just days after the country begun the first phase of relaxing its coronavirus lockdown measures, while anti-lockdown protests have been building across the country. Germany has been lauded internationally for its coordinated response to the virus and its corresponding low death rate, with 7,549 having fallen victim to the disease there until Saturday, compared with 31,587 in the UK, which has a much smaller population. But the rise in infections suggests that the lockdown relaxations may have been premature, and is a headache for Chancellor Angela Merkel who has limits on her powers in Germany's decentralised system. Britain will be watching the developments closely as it begins to move towards easing lockdown. When she announced a relaxation of lockdown measures on Wednesday, Germany's reproduction rate was at 0.65, before rising to 0.81 on Friday and 1.1 on Saturday. A rate of 1 or more means that each carrier of the virus infects at least one more person, ensuring it continues to spread. Germany's Robert Koch Institute which compiled the figures, said it that while the rate has been increasing rapidly since Wednesday, at this stage it cannot be determined whether the relaxed lockdowns were responsible. It said: "The increase in the estimated (reproduction) value makes it necessary to watch the development very carefully over the next few days.|" The findings come from data compiled on Saturday, and show that the infection rate has now effectively doubled in the three days since the relaxation of lockdown restrictions. On Saturday, outbreaks at several meatpacking plants in North Rhine-Westphalia – the country's most populous state - prompted the state leadership to promise to test each of the estimated 18-20,000 meatworkers in the state. In the western town of Coesfeld, where 151 of 200 slaughterhouse workers tested positive for the virus, authorities decided to suspend lockdown relaxations. Despite the outbreaks, Armin Laschet, Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, called for the country's border with France to be reopened in order to foster European solidarity. Merkel struck a different tone when announcing the first phase of relaxations midweek, reminding the German public "we still have a long fight against the virus ahead of us". It was a rare example of contradicting sentiments between the German leader and the man favoured to succeed her as leader of the Christian Democrats when she steps down next year. Despite the continued danger posed by Covid-19, protesters took to the streets across Germany at the weekend to criticise the lockdown measures. Thousands gathered in Berlin, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and other German cities, saying their rights were being infringed and complaining that the government and medical workers were spreading panic. In Munich, more than 3,000 people – many without masks and not respecting social distancing rules - gathered in the city's central Marienplatz, with signs critical of "health fascism" and proclaiming: "We want our lives back". Although there have been consistent protests against the measures since they were first put in place in March, the weekend's demonstrations were the biggest seen so far since the outbreak of the virus. The German Press Agency reports that although the group was well over the maximum of 50 people allowed to attend demonstrations under the government's coronavirus restrictions, police decided not to break up the largely peaceful demonstration in the interests of "proportionality". Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter was heavily critical of the protesters on Sunday. Despite saying he empathised with their desire "to return to a certain normality", Reiter told German media "I have absolutely no understanding of actions or demonstrations that, due to the lack of distance and mouth / nose protection, counteract any positive developments in the infection and more likely to jeopardise further loosening than to enable it." Reiter also said he found it "absolutely unbearable" that the protests had a heavy presence from known far-right groups.
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| Does L.A. Catholic school have a religious-liberty right to fire a teacher who gets cancer? Posted: 10 May 2020 06:00 AM PDT  Supreme Court to decide if Catholic school teachers are like "ministers" of the faith and not protected by anti-discrimination laws.
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| COVID-19 is now believed to attack kids, kidneys, hearts, and nerves, not just lungs Posted: 10 May 2020 10:24 PM PDT  New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said Sunday that three New York children have died and 73 have become gravely ill with an inflammatory disease tied to COVID-19. The illness, pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome, has symptoms similar to toxic shock or Kawasaki disease. Two of the children who died were of elementary school age, the third was an adolescent, and they were from three separate counties and had no known underlying health issues, said New York health commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker. Cases have been reported in several other states.New York City health officials warned about the disease last week, but health providers were alerted on May 1 after hearing of reports from Britain, The New York Times reports. Symptoms have included prolonged high fever, racing hearts, rash, and severe abdominal pain. Dr. David Reich, president of Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, said the five cases his hospital treated started with gastrointestinal issues and progressed to very low blood pressure, expanded blood pressure, and in some cases, heart failure. "We were all thinking this is a disease that kills old people, not kids," he told The Washington Post. Cuomo made a similar point.It isn't just children struggling with arterial inflammation. In fact, for a virus originally believed to primarily destroy the lungs, COVID-19 also "attacks the heart, weakening its muscles and disrupting its critical rhythm," the Post reports. "It savages kidneys so badly some hospitals have run short of dialysis equipment. It crawls along the nervous system, destroying taste and smell and occasionally reaching the brain. It creates blood clots that can kill with sudden efficiency."Many scientists now believe coronavirus wreaks havoc in the body through some combination of an attack on blood vessels, possibly the endothelial cells that line the blood vessels, and "cytokine storms," when the immune system goes haywire. "Our hypothesis is that COVID-19 begins as a respiratory virus and kills as a cardiovascular virus," Dr. Mandeep Mehra at Harvard Medical School tells the Post. Read more about the different ways COVID-19 attacks the body at The Washington Post.More stories from theweek.com The dark decade ahead Trump claims coronavirus numbers 'are going down almost everywhere.' That's not the case. 5 brutally funny cartoons about Trump's coronavirus strategy
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| Not Feeling the iPhone? Consider One of These Android Phones Instead Posted: 11 May 2020 09:00 AM PDT |
| Letters to the Editor: Trump called Putin to gloat over Michael Flynn? You can't make this stuff up Posted: 10 May 2020 03:00 AM PDT  It's not normal for a president to boast about an aborted criminal prosecution with the Russian president.
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| Airports are being repurposed as drive-in movie theaters, morgues, and a concert hall for one during the pandemic. See 7 ways airports are adapting without fliers. Posted: 10 May 2020 05:52 AM PDT  Airport runways, terminals, and grounds around the world are now being used as makeshift morgues, drive- movie theatres,
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| Iran accidentally fires missile at its own military ship, killing 19 Posted: 11 May 2020 03:18 AM PDT  An Iranian ship fired a missile during a training exercise which accidentally struck another vessel, killing 19 sailors, state media reported.
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| Fauci becomes third member of White House coronavirus task force to enter quarantine Posted: 09 May 2020 06:58 PM PDT  The head of the Food and Drug Administration will also self-quarantine; all three are on the coronavirus task force.
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| Outcry in Afghanistan after Iran border guards accused of forcing drowned migrants into river Posted: 10 May 2020 09:08 AM PDT  The drowning of at least 18 young Afghans allegedly forced at gunpoint into a river by Iranian border guards has caused a diplomatic strain between Kabul and Tehran and international calls for an investigation. Hanif Atmar, Afghan foreign minister, has pledged to use "all diplomatic affords to bring justice and investigate this unforgivable crime" and said he had held "tense" meetings with Iranian officials. Accounts of the incident and video of the bodies laid out in desert have provoked outcry across Afghanistan. The US State department said: "Iran's cruel treatment and abuse of Afghan migrants alleged in these reports is horrifying. We support calls for a thorough investigation. Those found guilty of such abuse must be held accountable." Tehran has denied its border guards had any involvement in the deaths, but has agreed to cooperate in any investigation. Survivors told the Telegraph that a party of more than 50 young men were caught north of the Western city of Herat as they tried to smuggle themselves into Iran earlier this month. Iranian guards beat them, then forced them into the Harirod river.
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| Italian aid worker kidnapped in Kenya in 2018 returns home Posted: 11 May 2020 12:48 AM PDT  Silvia Romano, 25, was freed on Saturday in Somalia, in an operation by Italy's secret services.
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| How COVID-19 Symptoms May Present in Kids Posted: 09 May 2020 01:41 PM PDT  As experts learn more about the virus, it's become clear that COVID-19 can affect people of all ages, including kids, in a variety of ways -- some deadly.
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| US Supreme Court to take on Trump taxes and presidential immunity Posted: 09 May 2020 06:34 PM PDT  Can Donald Trump refuse to turn over his tax returns and financial records to Congress and New York prosecutors? The Supreme Court takes up this politically charged question on Tuesday, and it may use the occasion to better define the limits of presidential immunity. The high court's nine justices, confined at home by the novel coronavirus pandemic, will question lawyers for both sides by telephone in a highly anticipated session to be broadcast live.
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| Coronavirus cases are rising in Germany again just days after it relaxed its national lockdown Posted: 10 May 2020 07:27 AM PDT  Germany could be forced to bring back its coronavirus lockdown just days after shops and schools were allowed to re-open.
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| South Korean president says epidemic isn't over 'until it's over' after cases rise Posted: 10 May 2020 07:30 AM PDT  South Korean President Moon Jae-in channeled Yogi Berra on Sunday, though the circumstances were much more grim.After the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday reported 34 new coronavirus infections — the country's highest daily rise since April 9 — Moon warned about the risk of a second wave of COVID-19 later this year. "It's not over until it's over," he said of the coronavirus epidemic.Moon said the new cluster, which emerged after a man who eventually tested positive visited multiple recently reopened night clubs in Seoul, shows how quickly the disease can spread. South Korea has drawn praise for how it has largely curbed the outbreak, but the latest development shows how difficult reopening can be, and Seoul's bars and clubs were quickly ordered shut once again.South Korea isn't alone — new infections continued to accelerate in Germany, which has also started to open things up slowly after responding to the initial outbreak relatively successfully, and China, where the virus originated, has reported what could be the beginning of a second wave of cases in the country's northeastern Jilin province.Despite the rise in cases, South Korea has been able to trace most of them to the specific night clubs, highlighting its ability to track new infections, which could prove crucial in keeping a second wave far below the first one. Read more at The Wall Street Journal and Reuters.More stories from theweek.com The dark decade ahead Trump claims coronavirus numbers 'are going down almost everywhere.' That's not the case. 5 brutally funny cartoons about Trump's coronavirus strategy
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| Italian woman returns home after 18-month African kidnapping Posted: 10 May 2020 07:31 AM PDT  Wearing a surgical mask, disposable gloves and booties to guard against COVID-19, a young Italian woman returned to her homeland Sunday after 18 months as a hostage in eastern Africa. Silvia Romano lowered her mask briefly to display a broad smile after she stepped off an Italian government plane at Rome-Ciampino International Airport. Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte has thanked the Italian intelligence agents who worked for her release, which took place Friday in Somalia.
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| More than 90% of Tokyo hospital beds for COVID-19 patients filled: government Posted: 10 May 2020 08:59 AM PDT  More than 90 percent of hospital beds secured for COVID-19 patients in Tokyo have already been occupied, the Japanese Health Ministry said on Sunday, underscoring the pressing need to curb the further spread of the new coronavirus. The Tokyo Metropolitan government aims to boost the number of beds for COVID-19 patients to 4,000 eventually. About 5,000 people in Tokyo were confirmed to have been infected with the virus, representing nearly one-third of Japan's total infections of around 16,000, according to public broadcaster NHK.
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| Iran raises death toll in friendly fire missile strike to 19 Posted: 11 May 2020 03:38 AM PDT  The friendly fire incident happened on Sunday near the port of Jask, some 1,270 kilometers (790 miles) southeast of Tehran.
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| Warning, graphic: Las Vegas man threatens to kill officers with sword before deadly shooting Posted: 10 May 2020 12:02 PM PDT  Raw video: Las Vegas Metropolitan Police released footage from a deadly shooting after a man wielding a Samurai sword approached officers and threatened to kill them.
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| North Korea outbreak fear as Chinese border city locked down Posted: 11 May 2020 02:02 AM PDT  China has enforced a lockdown on a city bordering North Korea, raising suspicions about a coronavirus outbreak in the isolated country. Residential compounds have been closed and transportation shut down in Shulan, a city of 700,000 in the north-eastern province of Jilin, state broadcaster China Central Television reported on Sunday. Students who already had returned to school, were sent back home again to study, and the city's threat level has been raised from medium to high risk. As of Saturday, Jilin province had reported a total of 105 locally transmitted Covid-19 cases and 19 imported ones. There were 11 new coronavirus cases in Shulan on Saturday, local health authorities said. North Korea closed its borders in January when Covid-19 first began to take hold in China, and has consistently stated that nobody inside the country has been infected.
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| Colombian airline Avianca files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in US Posted: 10 May 2020 02:10 PM PDT  Avianca, the second-largest airline in Latin America, filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States on Sunday to reorganize its debt "due to the unpredictable impact" of the coronavirus pandemic. In a statement issued in Bogota, Avianca said that along with "some of its subsidiaries and affiliates," it had asked to "voluntarily file for Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code" in a New York court. The airline's operations "have been dramatically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic," as well as federal air travel restrictions.
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| Eleven captured for failed maritime 'invasion' of Venezuela Posted: 10 May 2020 08:19 PM PDT  Eleven alleged "terrorists" were arrested on Sunday in connection with the failed maritime "invasion" of Venezuela, authorities said, bringing the total captured to more than 40. "Captured today #10May 2020, another three terrorist mercenaries in Colonia Tovar," about an hour from Caracas, tweeted armed forces chief Admiral Remigio Ceballos. Hours later, state television reported that military personnel had captured an additional eight "terrorists" in the northern coastal state of Vargas.
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| A senior Trump adviser said White House employees are going to work in a 'relatively cramped' West Wing out of love for their country: 'We've all been exposing ourselves to risks' Posted: 10 May 2020 09:17 AM PDT  At least a dozen people with potential access to the president and vice president tested positive for COVID-19 last week.
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| Letters to the Editor: Newsom's O.C. beach closure isn't an abuse of power. It's science-based leadership Posted: 10 May 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Gov. Gavin Newsom is basing his decision to close Orange County beaches on a century's worth of experience with past pandemics.
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| Pakistani police say armed men damage church in land dispute Posted: 11 May 2020 02:23 AM PDT |
| China warns of countermeasures to new U.S. rule for Chinese reporters Posted: 11 May 2020 12:43 AM PDT |
| Mail-In Ballots Are a Recipe for Confusion, Coercion, and Fraud Posted: 10 May 2020 05:29 PM PDT  Enormous pressure is being mounted to use our current crisis as an excuse to transform how we vote in elections."Coronavirus gives us an opportunity to revamp our electoral system," Obama's former attorney general, Eric Holder, recently told Time magazine. "These are changes that we should make permanent because it will enhance our democracy."The ideas Holder and others are proposing include requiring that a mail-in ballot be automatically sent to every voter, which would allow people to both register and vote on Election Day. It would also permit "ballot harvesting," whereby political operatives go door-to-door collecting ballots that they then deliver to election officials. All of these would dramatically reduce safeguards protecting election integrity.But liberals see a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sweep away the current system. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted that a mandatory national vote-by-mail option be forced on states in the first Coronavirus aid bill. She retreated only when she was ridiculed for shamelessly using the bill to push a political agenda. But Pelosi has promised her Democratic caucus that she will press again to overhaul election laws in the next aid bill.If liberals can't mandate vote-by-mail nationally, they will demand that states take the lead. Last Friday, California's governor, Gavin Newsom, signed an executive order requiring that every registered voter -- including those listed as "inactive" -- be mailed a ballot this November.This could be a disaster waiting to happen. Los Angeles County (population 10 million) has a registration rate of 112 percent of its adult citizen population. More than one out of every five L.A. County registrations probably belongs to a voter who has moved, or who is deceased or otherwise ineligible.Just last January, the public-interest law firm Judicial Watch reached a settlement agreement with the State of California and L.A. County officials to begin removing as many as 1.5 million inactive voters whose registrations may be invalid. Neither state nor county officials in California have been removing inactive voters from the rolls for 20 years, even though the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed last year, in Husted v. Randolph Institute, a case about Ohio's voter-registration laws, that federal law "makes this removal mandatory."Experts have long cautioned against wholesale use of mail ballots, which are cast outside the scrutiny of election officials. "Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud," was the conclusion of the bipartisan 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform, chaired by former president Jimmy Carter and former secretary of state James Baker.That remains true today. In 2012, a Miami–Dade County Grand Jury issued a public report recommending that Florida change its law to prohibit "ballot harvesting" unless the ballots are "those of the voter and members of the voter's immediate family." "Once that ballot is out of the hands of the elector, we have no idea what happens to it," they pointed out. "The possibilities are numerous and scary."Indeed. In 2018, a political consultant named Leslie McCrae Dowless and seven others were indicted on charges of "scheming to illegally collect, fill in, forge and submit mail-in ballots" to benefit Republican congressional candidate Mark Harris, the Washington Post reported. The fraud was extensive enough that Harris's 900-vote victory was invalidated by the courts and the race was rerun.Texas has a long history of intimidation and coercion involving absentee ballots. The abuse of elderly voters is so pervasive that Omar Escobar, the Democratic district attorney of Starr County, Texas, says, "The time has come to consider an alternative to mail-in voting." Escobar says it needs to be replaced with "something that can't be hijacked."Even assuming that the coronavirus remains a serious health issue in November, there is no reason to abandon in-person voting. A new Heritage Foundation report by Hans von Spakovsky and Christian Adams notes that in 2014, the African nation of Liberia successfully held an election in the middle of the Ebola epidemic. International observers worked with local officials to identify 40 points in the election process that constituted an Ebola transmission risk. Turnout was high, and the United Nations congratulated Liberia on organizing a successful election "under challenging circumstances, particularly in the midst of difficulties posed by the Ebola crisis."In Wisconsin recently, officials held that state's April primary election in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis. Voters who did not want to vote in-person, including the elderly, could vote by absentee ballot. But hundreds of thousands of people cast ballots at in-person locations, and overall turnout was high. Officials speculated that a few virus cases "may" have been related to Election Day, but, as AP reported, they couldn't confirm that the patients "definitely got [COVID-19] at the polls."In California, the previous loosening of absentee ballot laws have sent disturbing signals. In 2016, a San Pedro couple found more than 80 unused ballots on top of their apartment-building mailbox. All had different names but were addressed to an 89-year-old neighbor who lives alone in their building. The couple suspected that someone was planning to pick up the ballots, but the couple had intercepted them first. In the same election, a Gardena woman told the Torrance Daily Breeze that her husband, an illegal alien, had gotten a mail-in ballot even though he had never registered."I think it's a huge deal," she said. "Something is definitely wrong with the system."The Los Angeles Times agrees. In a 2018 editorial it blasted the state's "overly-permissive ballot collection law" as being "written without sufficient safeguards." The Times concluded that "the law passed in 2106 does open the door to coercion and fraud and should be fixed or repealed." It hasn't been.John Lieberman, a Democrat living in East Los Angeles, wrote in the Los Angeles Daily News that he was troubled by how much pressure a door-to-door canvasser put on him to fill out a ballot for candidate Wendy Carrillo. "What I experienced from her campaign sends chills down my spine," he said.What should also spook voters who want an honest election is a report from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. It found that, in 2016, more mail ballots were misdirected to wrong addresses or unaccounted for than the number of votes separating Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. She led by 2.9 million votes, yet 6.5 million ballots were misdirected or unaccounted for by the states.It would be the height of folly for other states to follow California's lead. In the Golden State, it already takes over a month to resolve close elections as mail-in ballots trickle in days and weeks after Election Day. Putting what may be a supremely close presidential election into the hands of a U.S. Postal Service known for making mistakes sounds like a recipe for endless litigation and greatly increased distrust in our democracy.
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| Southern California birthday party blamed for virus cluster Posted: 09 May 2020 08:35 PM PDT  One attendee joked that, because she was coughing, she probably had the virus, a city of Pasadena spokeswoman said.
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| Fact check: Convicted 1980s abortion clinic bomber attended anti-lockdown protests in Ohio Posted: 10 May 2020 06:29 PM PDT  John Brockhoeft was convicted of planning to bomb the Pensacola The Ladies Center in 1988 and served 26 months in federal prison.
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| Fox News Hosts: Americans Need ‘Military Mindset’ to ‘Reopen Right Now’ Posted: 11 May 2020 08:59 AM PDT  A few days after Fox News host Pete Hegseth called on "healthy people" to muster up the "courage" to go get infected with coronavirus in order to achieve "herd immunity," Hegseth agreed with Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade on Monday that Americans need to take on a "military mindset" and enter public spaces.Promoting his latest military-themed special on Fox Nation, the network's online streaming service, Hegseth was asked by the Fox & Friends crew if there was a similarity between military combat and the current pandemic that has killed roughly 80,000 Americans."I was going to say, all of you guys in the special, you're used to fighting an enemy who you can see coming at you, but this is so different because it's invisible," co-host Steve Doocy noted.After Hegseth said that his "Modern Warriors" special shows the need for people to "have some courage to be out and get open and be responsible," Kilmeade explicitly asked if the American public could learn a lesson from soldiers in terms of confronting the disease as states rush to reopen businesses."About 78,000 are dead, we understand how many got the virus and will. I get it," Kilmeade stated. "But at the same time, can you get the military mindset with the masses of, take on the enemy because we have no choice—sitting on the sideline will destroy the country. How do you get the military mindset for the everyday American?"Hegseth, an informal adviser of President Donald Trump who was once under consideration to run the VA administration, responded that the "military mindset is a patriotic mindset.""It's what forged and founded this country," he continued. "It is courage. We can be responsible, we can follow guidelines—while also reopening. We have to reopen, guys, right now, even in some of the more difficult places, or the livelihoods of people is going to crush more folks, or as many—I'm not talking in a statistical sense—as the actual virus itself."Hegseth's remarks come on the heels of him calling for healthy Americans to embrace the "American spirit" and help open back up the economy by willingly going out in public and risking infection."Now that we are learning more, herd immunity is our friend," he declared last week. "Healthy people getting out there—they are going to have to have some courage!"The vast majority of the public, meanwhile, still believe it is too soon for the nation to be reopened, feeling it will result in a higher death toll. Current models now project a sharp upturn in deaths after taking into account the relaxation of social distancing guidelines and increased mobility.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.
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| Republicans have chance to pick up Calif. House seat amid allegations of Democrat meddling Posted: 11 May 2020 06:57 AM PDT  Republicans accuse Democrats of trying to steal the California special election by opening an additional voting location in a Democrat-heavy area; Karl Rove reacts.
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| The White House is testing its staff for coronavirus using a device that often gives false negatives Posted: 11 May 2020 04:14 AM PDT  Abbott Laboratories has said its ID NOW test system, which gives results in 13 minutes, can wrongly say someone is virus-free when they are not.
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| Canada PM 'worried' about situation in Montreal Posted: 09 May 2020 01:59 PM PDT  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Saturday for caution and expressed concern about loosening lockdown measures in Montreal, the epicenter of Canada's coronavirus outbreak. While several Canadian provinces, including Quebec, are preparing reopening measures and a gradual revival of their economies, Trudeau stressed prudence and said that the country is not yet out of danger. Quebec is the worst-hit province in Canada, with more than half of both the country's 67,000 cases of coronavirus and 4,700 deaths.
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| Coronavirus: Wuhan in first virus cluster since end of lockdown Posted: 11 May 2020 03:29 AM PDT  As China continues easing restrictions, new virus clusters in Wuhan and elsewhere have emerged.
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| All masks, no fireworks: Shanghai Disneyland in muted reopening after coronavirus closedown Posted: 10 May 2020 06:58 PM PDT  Thousands of visitors streamed into Shanghai Disneyland on Monday for the first time in three months as the Chinese park became the first reopened by Walt Disney Co after the coronavirus pandemic brought the Magic Kingdom to a standstill. While Mickey Mouse joined familiar Disney characters welcoming the crowds, the Shanghai experience will not be as it was: Instead of parades and fireworks, there are mandatory masks, temperature screenings and social distancing for visitors and employees. Among the crowd on Monday was Shanghai Disneyland passholder Kay Yu.
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| Flynn's Exoneration Was the Latest in a Life Full of Reversals Posted: 10 May 2020 09:11 AM PDT  WASHINGTON -- There have always been two sides to Michael Flynn. There was the rebellious teenager who surfed during hurricanes and spent a night in juvenile reformatory. Then there was the adult who buckled down, joined the Army and rose to become a three-star general.Flynn was a lifelong Democrat who served President Barack Obama as a top intelligence officer. He also called Obama a "liar" after being forced out of the job and reinvented himself as a Republican foreign policy adviser.Flynn criticized retired generals who used their stars "for themselves, for their businesses." He appeared to do the same thing as a consultant.But the two sides of Flynn were perhaps never so stark as in the criminal case against him that ended abruptly on Thursday to the astonishment of much of official Washington.After pleading guilty in 2017 to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with a Russian diplomat, Flynn cooperated with the special counsel, saying he was "being a good soldier" and earning prosecutors' praise. Then he recanted his confession and began what some allies saw as a reckless gamble to recast himself as an innocent victim of a justice system run amok.That gamble paid off this past week when, in an extraordinary reversal, the Justice Department abandoned his prosecution, saying he never should have been charged. Current and former federal law enforcement officials expressed disbelief and dismay, calling the move an unprecedented blow to the Justice Department's integrity and independence. Obama, in remarks to former members of his administration, said he feared that "not just institutional norms, but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk."Flynn transformed his case into a political cause that resonated in the conservative echo chamber. Led by his lawyer, Sidney Powell, and Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. and a close ally of the president's, Flynn's backers worked to wipe away the mistrust of some Republicans over his cooperation with law enforcement and turn him into a right-wing hero. Powell dug up documents she insisted showed that her client was as much of a victim of malfeasance by the FBI as Trump had been.Ultimately Attorney General William Barr joined the battle, granting Flynn another turnabout in a life filled with them.A maverick in the military Michael T. Flynn, 61, grew up in Middleton, Rhode Island, the sixth of nine children. His father was an Army sergeant who became a banker. His mother ran a secretarial school before earning a law degree at age 63.The family was squeezed into a three-bedroom, one-bathroom oceanfront cottage. Finances were tight."I was one of those nasty tough kids, hellbent on breaking rules for the adrenaline high and hard-wired just enough not to care about the consequences," Flynn wrote in his 2016 book, "The Field of Fight." "Some serious and unlawful activity," he wrote, led to his arrest.He nearly flunked out of his freshman year at the University of Rhode Island, earning a 1.2 grade-point average. But the ROTC awarded him a three-year scholarship, and he found his calling in the military.For much of Flynn's career, former colleagues said, his mentors and superior officers let his talents flourish and kept his disruptive tendencies in check. In his book, he described himself as a rebel at heart. "I'm a maverick, an atypical square peg in a round hole," he wrote.As a young officer in 1983, he talked his way onto the military force that invaded Grenada. There, he dove off a 40-foot cliff to rescue two soldiers foundering in waters off the coast. He was scolded for the unauthorized rescue, but also earned respect.His boldness later translated into strategies that seemed fresh and welcome when the military was mired in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Afghanistan, he championed new ways to fuse intelligence gathering and military operations.His partnership with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of American-led forces in Afghanistan at the time, shielded him from critics. McChrystal also acted as a brake, ensuring that Flynn's most outlandish ideas were confined to brainstorming sessions.By the time Flynn arrived at the Defense Intelligence Agency as a three-star general in 2012, cracks were beginning to show. Obama had fired McChrystal, a move that deeply distressed Flynn.He executed a reorganization of the agency that is still in effect. But his chaotic management style and increasingly hard-edged views about counterterrorism gave colleagues pause, and his superiors viewed him as insubordinate, former Pentagon officials said. His defenders said the Obama administration bristled at his tough line on Iran.His two-year term was not extended, thrusting him into the civilian world at age 55, an embittered man.Flynn had flourished with the special operation forces in Iraq where his colleagues could "tolerate, adjust, and manage what was functional and dysfunctional with Mike Flynn," said Douglas Wise, a former CIA officer who became Flynn's deputy at the Defense Intelligence Agency."In the political arena," Wise said, "he no longer had this kind of adult supervision."Pivoting to the rightAs a military man, Flynn seemed oblivious to wealth, un-self-consciously parking his 1986 Buick Park Avenue in a Pentagon parking lot dotted with Cadillacs and Lexuses.But as a civilian, he founded a consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group, that attracted high-paying clients. In a decision that appalled some friends, he agreed to give a speech in 2015 to RT, Russia's state-controlled television network, for about $45,000. He was seated at the head table next to President Vladimir Putin of Russia.The next year, he pulled in at least $1.8 million from private intelligence and security services, consulting and speeches. About $530,000 came for work to discredit an enemy of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. Flynn did not register with the Justice Department as a foreign agent, as required under lobbying disclosure laws, until the following spring, when he was under federal scrutiny.Flynn's politics seemed to shift even more than his finances. He heavily criticized the Obama administration, especially over Iran policy.His pragmatic approach of old gave way in private conversations with reporters and students to almost hostile views to Islam. In his book, he called for the destruction of the Iranian government. Publicly, he sneered at Obama for avoiding the term "radical Islam"and implied that Obama was a secret Muslim."I'm not going to sit here and say he's Islamic," he told one of the country's largest anti-Muslim groups, ACT for America, in 2016. But, he said, the president "didn't grow up as an American kid," and held values "totally different than mine."Colin Powell, the former secretary of state, called Flynn "right-wing nutty." But his views resonated with Trump. Their initial mid-2015 meeting, scheduled for a half-hour, lasted 90 minutes and prompted Flynn to begin advising the campaign.He enthralled conservatives at the Republican National Convention in July 2016 when he led a chorus of "Lock her up!" chants against Hillary Clinton.Within weeks, Flynn became the subject of an FBI counterintelligence inquiry into the Trump campaign's links to Russia. His code name was "Razor."By January 2017, with Trump's inauguration imminent, the FBI had decided that insufficient evidence existed that Flynn conspired with the Russians, wittingly or unwittingly.But the FBI's interest was rekindled when agents learned that in late December during the presidential transition, Flynn had advised the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, that the Kremlin refrain from reacting to the Obama administration's imposition of sanctions for Russia's election interference. Flynn also asked that Russia delay or defeat an upcoming United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel.Those phone calls were problematic because Flynn was attempting to intervene in foreign policy as a private citizen, a potential violation of a federal law -- albeit one rarely enforced.Flynn also told the incoming vice president, Mike Pence, that he had not discussed sanctions with Russia. Pence repeated that assertion on television, raising concerns at the Justice Department that Flynn had lied to him and that the Russians could use the truth to blackmail Flynn.At the FBI, his file had lingered in abeyance, not yet formally closed. "Our utter incompetence actually helps us," Peter Strzok, an FBI counterintelligence agent, texted a bureau lawyer. Because of a bureaucratic oversight, agents would not have to justify a reopening of the inquiry.Four days after the inauguration, the FBI sent two agents to question Flynn at the White House. Caught off-guard, Justice Department officials "hit the roof" when they found out, one said.Flynn told the agents he had not asked Russia to act in any specific way in response to the U.N. resolution or the imposition of sanctions. Those denials did not save his job: He was soon forced to resign.Even then, Trump tried to protect him from further investigation. "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," he told James Comey, then the FBI director whom Trump later fired.That December, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his conversations with the Russian official and pledged to cooperate with the inquiry by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, into Russia's 2016 election interference.Rebellion and resurrectionAbout a year later, Flynn had second thoughts. After a federal judge warned that he might not be sentenced to probation, he fired his legal team. His legal bills had amounted to nearly $3 million, forcing him to sell his Alexandria, Virginia, house and move to his Rhode Island homeIn a court filing, Flynn said he had only pleaded guilty because his lawyers advised him to. "One of the ways a person becomes a three-star general is by being a good soldier, taking orders, being part of a team and trusting people who provide information and support," he wrote.Even before she formally took over Flynn's defense last June, Powell put together a public relations and legal campaign to exonerate him, making the case on Capitol Hill and in conservative media.In appearances on Fox News, Powell linked her client's plight to other examples of what she saw as government overreach. She also stitched Flynn's story to conspiracy theories about career government officials' efforts to undermine Trump, both in court filings and conversations with journalists.Nunes, a longtime friend of Flynn and close ally of Trump, joined Powell in a full-throated defense. Together, they reoriented the view of Flynn on the right from an object of suspicion for cooperating with the special counsel into a conservative cause."Sidney Powell brilliantly shifted the narrative and shrewdly found new allies in the House Freedom Caucus and Fox News commentators," said Michael Pillsbury, an informal adviser to Trump and a scholar at the Hudson Institute.In a letter to Barr, Powell accused prosecutors and investigators of withholding documents, improperly leaking to the media and seeking to entrap her client.Her evidence included what Flynn's backers called a smoking gun: handwritten notes from Bill Priestap, then the head of FBI counterintelligence. "What is our goal?" he asked before the White House interview. "Truth/admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?"The bureau's defenders said the notes proved the FBI's impartiality, not its bias. But they provoked a fresh wave of indignation from the right.The campaign shifted Trump's thinking, as well. Initially he seemed inclined to believe that Flynn had done something wrong -- at least by lying to Pence. More recently, he has privately voiced regrets about firing him.By the time the Justice Department dropped the charges against Flynn on Thursday, Trump was calling the investigators who pursued Flynn "human scum." The next day, he praised Nunes' relentless efforts to take them on."Devin Nunes, he wouldn't stop," Trump said. "He saw it before anybody."The president has begun musing about rehiring Flynn. But some advisers to Trump said they viewed Flynn as too much of a loose cannon for the campaign trail or the White House.In the end, that side of Flynn may prevent him from finding that final bit of redemption.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Armed 'mob' allegedly tried to enter black family's North Carolina home, white deputy charged Posted: 10 May 2020 08:27 AM PDT  Among the people demanding to enter the home was a person carrying an assault weapon and another with a shotgun, according to local reports.
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| Coronavirus: California rodeo attracts thousands despite social distancing orders Posted: 11 May 2020 03:58 AM PDT  Thousands attended a rodeo in California despite state orders against public gatherings amid the coronavirus pandemic, it has been reported.Crowds could be seen packed tightly in the stands at Sunday's annual Cottonwood Rodeo in rural Shasta County, after local police said they would not enforce the state's lockdown orders.
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| Covid-19: nursing homes account for 'staggering' share of US deaths, data show Posted: 11 May 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Yale professor describes as 'staggering' research that reveals more than half of all deaths in 14 US states from elderly care facilitiesResidents of nursing homes have accounted for a staggering proportion of Covid-19 deaths in the US, according to incomplete data gathered by healthcare researchers.Privately compiled data shows such deaths now account for more than half of all fatalities in 14 states, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Only 33 states report nursing home-related deaths."I was on a phone call last week, where four or five patients came into our hospital just in one day from nursing homes," said infectious disease specialist Dr Sunil Parikh, of Yale School of Public Health in Connecticut. "It's just a staggering number day to day."Despite early warnings that nursing homes were vulnerable to Covid-19, because of group living settings and the age of residents, the federal government is only beginning to gather national data.In Connecticut, 194 of 216 nursing homes have had at least one Covid-19 case. Nearly half the Covid-19 deaths in the state – more than 1,200 people – have been of nursing home residents. The proportion is higher elsewhere. In New Hampshire, 72% of deaths have been nursing home residents.Parikh said limited testing and a lack of personal protective equipment such as masks hampered efforts to curb the spread of Covid-19 in care homes. Connecticut nursing homes are still only testing residents with cough, fever and shortness of breath, classic Covid-19 symptoms, even though the disease is known to spread asymptomatically."What I would like to see is the ability to test the entire nursing homes," Parikh said. "This symptomatic approach is just not cutting it. Many states, including Connecticut, are starting to move in that direction … but I hope it becomes a national effort."Nursing homes have been closed to the public for weeks but a bleak picture has nonetheless emerged. In New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy called in 120 members of the state national guard to help long-term care facilities, after 17 bodies piled up in one nursing home.In Maine, a 72-year-old woman who went into a home to recover from surgery died just a few months later, in the state's largest outbreak."I feel like I failed my mom because I put her in the wrong nursing home," the woman's daughter, Andrea Donovan, told the Bangor Daily News. "This facility is responsible for so much sadness for this family for not protecting their residents."Fifteen states have moved to shield nursing homes from lawsuits, according to Modern Healthcare.Nursing home residents were among the first known cases of Covid-19 in the US. In mid-February in suburban Kirkland, Washington, 80 of 130 residents in one facility were sickened by an unknown respiratory illness, later identified as Covid-19.Statistics from Kirkland now appear to tell the national story. Of 129 staff members, visitors and residents who got sick, all but one of the 22 who died were older residents, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).By early March, most Covid-19 deaths in the US could still be traced to Kirkland."One thing stands out as the virus spreads throughout the United States: nursing homes and other long-term care facilities are ground zero," wrote Dr Tom Frieden, the former head of the CDC, for CNN on 8 March.That day, Frieden called on federal authorities to ban visitors from nursing homes. US authorities announced new measures to protect residents several days later.The CDC investigation into Kirkland was released on 18 March. It contained another warning: "Substantial morbidity and mortality might be averted if all long-term care facilities take steps now to prevent exposure of their residents to Covid-19."It was not until 19 April that the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services promised to track all deaths in nursing homes. That requirement went into effect this Friday, but there is still a two-week grace period for compliance. During the period from 19 April to 8 May, 13,000 people died, according to an NBC News analysis."This is really decimating state after state," said Parikh. "We have to have a very rapid shift [of focus] to the nursing homes, the veteran homes … Covid will be with us for many months."
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| Trump reportedly rattled and annoyed by White House staffers testing positive for coronavirus Posted: 10 May 2020 09:01 PM PDT  With one of President Trump's personal valets and Katie Miller, Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary, both testing positive for the coronavirus, several senior White House officials worry that it's too late to stop the virus from sweeping through their ranks, The New York Times reports. At the White House, all employees are being tested at least once a week, with those who come in close contact with Trump getting tested every day, senior officials said. Miller tested positive on Friday morning, one day after testing negative. She did not regularly wear a mask while working, the Times reports, and several staff members who were most likely in meetings with her before she tested positive are still coming into work. Her husband, Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller, tested negative on Friday, and is not expected to go into the White House anytime soon, people familiar with his plans said.Trump has been ignoring Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and is not wearing a mask during meetings with people, the Times reports. One senior administration official said the fact that a valet who served him food tested positive rattled Trump, and he was "annoyed" to find out Katie Miller was positive. Over the weekend, several press aides who had been coming into the White House were told to start working remotely, and officials were urged to stay home if they believe they are getting sick.One of Trump's top economic advisers, Kevin Hassett, admitted on CBS's Face the Nation Sunday that it is "scary to go to work." He wears a mask, but said he thinks "I'd be a lot safer if I was sitting at home than I would be going to the West Wing. It's a small, crowded place. It's, you know, it's a little bit risky. But you have to do it because you have to serve your country."More stories from theweek.com The dark decade ahead Trump claims coronavirus numbers 'are going down almost everywhere.' That's not the case. 5 brutally funny cartoons about Trump's coronavirus strategy
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| South Dakota governor demands tribes remove travel checkpoints on Indian reservations Posted: 09 May 2020 02:34 PM PDT  South Dakota Indian tribes have set up checkpoints on reservations restricting travel during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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| Russia's Putin orders gradual easing of coronavirus lockdown despite surge in cases Posted: 11 May 2020 01:40 AM PDT  Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday announced a gradual easing of coronavirus lockdown measures despite a new surge in infections which took Russia's tally past Italy's, making it the fourth highest in the world. Putin, in a televised nationwide address, said that from Tuesday he would start lifting restrictions that had forced many people to work from home and businesses to temporarily close. The Russian leader emphasised the lifting of restrictions would be gradual and that individual regions in the world's largest country would need to tailor their approach to varying local conditions.
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