| Black Republican prosecutor appointed to racially charged Ahmaud Arbery case Posted: 14 May 2020 02:12 PM PDT  Joyette M. Holmes was appointed as the fourth prosecutor in the case of Ahmaud Arbery, a black man gunned down in February by two white men while on a jog in Georgia.
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| Former FBI senior official: James Comey politicized the FBI in Flynn case Posted: 14 May 2020 01:24 PM PDT  "There's a number of behaviors in Comey that ... have really cast the FBI in the worst possible light," ex-FBI official Frank Figliuzzi said on Yahoo's "Skullduggery" podcast.
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| US sends oil to Belarus, seeking to diversify from Russia Posted: 15 May 2020 08:55 AM PDT  The United States has dispatched a shipment of oil to Belarus, which is seeking to diversify its supplies after a price dispute with Russia, the Belarusian government said Friday. The 80,000-ton shipment is expected to arrive at the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda in June and from there will sent by rail to Belarus. Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei said cooperation with the U.S. on oil is "an element of energy security."
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| Letter and contract put Guaidó at center of failed Venezuelan raid to oust Maduro Posted: 15 May 2020 01:39 PM PDT |
| Joe Biden: People who believe Tara Reade 'probably shouldn't vote for me' Posted: 15 May 2020 10:49 AM PDT  Joe Biden said people who believe Tara Reade's assault allegations "probably shouldn't vote for me. I wouldn't vote for me if I believed Tara Reade."
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| Man blocks black delivery driver in Oklahoma neighborhood Posted: 15 May 2020 11:14 AM PDT  "My intention was never to go viral," Travis Miller said. "My intention was to cover myself in case he called my employer and said I did something other than what I did."
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| U.S. on pace to pass 100,000 Covid-19 deaths by June 1, CDC director says Posted: 15 May 2020 04:35 PM PDT  This marks the first time Robert Redfield has explicitly addressed the grim milestone.
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| Photos taken 1 year apart show potentially troubling sign in volcano. Posted: 15 May 2020 12:28 PM PDT  The Halema'uma'u crater on Kilauea, located in Hawaii, has been relatively quiet over the last year after a frenzy of activity in 2018, which all began with an explosive eruption of ash 30,000 feet into the air during May. But, since at least 2019, there has been a change that scientists believe could pose a potential danger to the Big Island. Water has started to collect in the caldera to form a lake.A caldera is a large crater left behind in a volcano after an eruption. From 2010 until 2018, a lava lake had filled the caldera rather than water. That changed in May 2018 when the eruption caused the lava lake to drain, collapsing the caldera floor and causing a hole nearly as deep as the 1,776-foot One World Trade Center. The eruption also created a 459-foot cliff (140 meters) north of the crater.About a year later, a helicopter pilot flying over the volcano noticed a mysterious green pool of water in the Halema'uma'u crater. A second report of the same findings from a helicopter passenger prompted USGS-Hawaiian Volcano Observatory researchers to survey the green pool of water.It was then discovered that water had indeed started to pool into the lowest part of the Halema'uma'u crater, and ever since the water was discovered in 2019, the depth of the lake has been steadily growing. The sequence of satellite images above shows Halema'uma'u crater before the lava lake drained (left), after the caldera floor had collapsed (middle) and after water pooled on the crater floor for nine months (right). (Joshua Stevens / Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey) "We know that the crater floor dropped a little more than 70 meters below the water table in 2018. Any time that you punch a hole below the level of the water table, water is eventually going to come in and fill that hole," explained Don Swanson, a volcanologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. The pool of water in the Halemaʻumaʻu Crater on Aug. 7, 2019. (USGS / D. Swanson) Currently, the water has an area larger than five football fields combined and is approximately 100 feet (30 meters) deep, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.The water has also changed color from the original chalky green to a rusty brown, due to chemical reactions happening in the water. The pool of water in the Halemaʻumaʻu Crater on April 21, 2020\. Since its discovery in 2019, the pool has slowly been growing. (USGS / M. Patrick) As for how the water could affect a future eruption of the volcano, Swanson said it could contribute to an explosive eruption, since one of the main factors behind a big volcanic explosion is the amount of water and other gases that get caught up inside the magma."In one case, magma could rise quickly up the conduit and intersect with the lake," said Swanson. "In the second, the crater floor could collapse and drop all of the water down to a zone where it would be quickly heated into steam."While an explosive eruption remains possible for Kilauea, Swanson said the next eruption could also happen slowly and all the water could evaporate."We do not want to be alarmist, but we also need to point out to the public that there is an increasing possibility of explosive eruptions at Kilauea," said Swanson.Only time will tell what is in store for Kilauea, but for now, the volcano is being closely researched and monitored by geologists.Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
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| 35 Outdoor Fire Pit Ideas That Are Lit Posted: 15 May 2020 09:39 AM PDT |
| Murder of holocaust survivor in Paris should be treated as anti-Semitic, say prosecutors Posted: 15 May 2020 09:03 AM PDT  French prosecutors have called for two men accused of murdering a Holocaust survivor in her eastern Paris council flat to be tried for killing her on anti-Semitic grounds. Mireille Knoll, 85, was stabbed 11 times in March 2018 and burned in a frenzied onslaught, which shocked the nation and outraged political leaders. President Emmanuel Macron, who attended her funeral at the time amid widespread public mourning, said: "She was killed simply because she was Jewish." Her neighbour, Yacine Mihoub, 30 is now in custody along with another suspect, 24-year old Alex Carrimbacus with mental health issues. On Thursday night, Paris prosecutors called for the pair to be tried for "murder of a vulnerable person due to the victim's real or supposed affiliation to a religion". It is now up to the investigating magistrates conducting the investigation to decide whether to retain the motive of anti-Semitism. Prosecutors pointed out that Yacine Mihoub had scrawled graffiti in praise of the Paris terror attacks in his cell and had conducted internet searches on the liberation of Palestine, Salafist Islam and the Muslim brotherhood. Carrimbacus is thought to have asked whether the victim was rich. "This evidence legitimately raises the question over Yacine Mihoub and Alex Carrimbacus's state of mind and the deep reason for the murder," the prosecution was cited as arguing in Le Parisien.
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| Security video raises questions in Arbery shooting Posted: 15 May 2020 01:15 PM PDT  Security camera footage taken in December outside a home being built in coastal Georgia raises new questions about what Ahmaud Arbery was doing at the site two months later, right before he was fatally shot in the neighborhood.
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| Bosnians protest Mass in Sarajevo for Nazi-allied soldiers Posted: 16 May 2020 08:09 AM PDT  SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Thousands of Bosnians demonstrated Saturday against a Catholic Mass commemorating Croatian Nazi-allied soldiers and civilians killed by partisan forces at the end of World War II. The Mass in Sarajevo was a replacement for a controversial annual gathering usually held in Bleiburg, Austria, which was canceled due to restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. Another small replacement event took place Saturday at a cemetery in Zagreb, Croatia.
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| Indefinite detention or family separation? US forced immigrants to choose, lawyers say Posted: 15 May 2020 12:56 PM PDT  Immigration officials were confusing and intimidating in seeking parents' signatures, according to advocatesUS officials gave dozens of detained immigrant parents an ultimatum – allow your children to be released from detention without you or face indefinite detention together, according to legal representatives from the country's three family detention centers.In one chaotic day on Thursday, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) instituted what legal representatives for detained families called an "indefinite detention or family separation" policy. Ice officials met with asylum-seeking parents, gave them papers and told them conflicting things about what signing the documents meant, advocates said.At the country's largest family detention center in Dilley, Texas, a lawyer said Ice stopped mothers from keeping copies of the document and ignored their requests to speak to attorneys before signing."One mother reported that Ice officers were very mad when she refused to sign, they were intimidating, they were speaking firmly to her and when she said she didn't want to sign, they told her it wasn't really up to her," said Allison Herre, managing attorney for the Dilley Pro Bono Project.The attorney Bridget Cambria represents families at Berks detention center in Pennsylvania and said the pro-bono law firm Aldea's phone line was flooded with calls from families on Thursday."The families were each upset, most of them were crying," Cambria said. "Because immigration had called them down one by one and told them that if they wanted their children to leave detention, they had to sign a paper that would separate the parents from the child."Ice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Because prisons are a cauldron for infectious disease, the US immigration detention system is facing additional scrutiny amid the Covid-19 outbreak.People inside these facilities are detained on civil immigration violations, not criminal charges, and the government has the power to release them unless they are considered a danger to the community.In February, advocates urged the government to release people held in the world's largest immigrant detention system to minimize the spread of coronavirus before it was too late.Last week, Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejía became the first person to die from Covid-19 in immigration custody.The push to have parents release their children but remain detained themselves came the day before the government was due to provide a report to a court on how many children are in detention as part of the Flores settlement. That agreement says the government must hold children in the least restrictive setting and release them as quickly as possible, generally after 20 days in detention.Donald Trump's administration has repeatedly attempted to end these court-ordered protections and has kept children well past the 20-day limit.On Thursday, there were 163 children at the detention centers in Dilley, Berks and Karnes City, Texas, detained an average of 137 days, attorneys said. Lawyers wrote to the independent monitor for the Flores settlement to report on what they described as a coercive and unconstitutional attempt to put in place a "indefinite detention or family separation" policy."My assumption is that they will be using what they have done today to convince federal judges that they have complied with the Flores settlement and other orders of federal courts," Cambria said. "I am telling you right now they have not."The chairman of the House homeland security committee, Bennie Thompson, urged the Trump administration to end the practice immediately."While the number of Covid-19 cases in Ice facilities continues to rise daily, the administration should use its authority to release families – together – as much as possible," Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, said in a statement. "Parents should not be placed in the impossible position of choosing between the safety of their children or being separated."
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| 2020 election: Joe Biden says anyone who believes Tara Reade should not vote for him in November Posted: 15 May 2020 05:42 AM PDT  Joe Biden has said anyone who believes accuser Tara Reade, who's claimed he harassed her while working in the Senate, should not vote for him come November, but confessed he doesn't remember the staffer.The former vice president and assumed Democratic presidential nominee spoke to Lawrence O'Donnell for MSNBC on Thursday to discuss his bid to unseat Donald Trump come November.
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| 'I had no income': Michigan barber, 77, refuses to close, has licenses suspended Posted: 14 May 2020 10:30 AM PDT  "If we wait until we're absolutely perfectly safe, we'll never have the freedoms that we had," Karl Manke said, adding: "I had no income. There was nothing coming in."
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| Rand Paul isn't a subliterate yawper like Trump. But he's spreading the same deadly coronavirus lies Posted: 15 May 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Rand Paul is one of those figures in public life who is wrong, wrong, and wrong again — and somehow is never called to account.
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| Kenya closes borders to Tanzania and Somalia over coronavirus Posted: 16 May 2020 05:52 AM PDT  Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta on Saturday banned movement across the country's borders with Tanzania and Somalia to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. "There will be a cessation of movement of persons and any passenger-ferrying automobiles and vehicles into and out of the territory of Kenya through the Kenya-Tanzania international border," Kenyatta said in a televised address. The same measures would apply on the border with Somalia, he said.
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| Five arrested for brazen teen abduction over drug debt Posted: 15 May 2020 09:16 AM PDT  Toronto police say a 14-year-old teenage boy was abducted to settle his stepbrother's drug debt.
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| Hospital responds to nurse caught at crowded bar Posted: 15 May 2020 08:32 AM PDT  "I have a toddler at home and I'm a full-time nurse it's been very stressful and hard to go out and be with my friends and family at the bars," Katie Koutsky said.
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| China confirms US accusations that it destroyed early samples of the novel coronavirus, but says it was done for 'biosafety reasons' Posted: 16 May 2020 03:50 AM PDT  The Chinese official insisted that it was not done to cover-up or hide early coronavirus samples from other countries.
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| China ready to put U.S. companies on 'unreliable list' Posted: 15 May 2020 10:06 AM PDT  China is ready to put U.S. companies in an "unreliable entity list," as part of countermeasures against Washington's move to block shipments of semiconductors to Huawei Technologies, the Global Times reported on Friday.
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| Massive search underway for missing Colorado mom as family pleads for safe return Posted: 14 May 2020 03:37 PM PDT  Suzanne Morphew, 49, was last seen when she went on a bike ride on Mother's Day, Sunday, May 10, in Maysville, Colorado. A $200,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to Suzanne's whereabouts. The Chaffee County Sheriff's Office, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the Salida Police Department, the Fremont County Sheriff's Office and the FBI are investigating.
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| Does the justice department work for the Trump campaign now? Barr thinks so Posted: 15 May 2020 06:33 AM PDT  The US attorney general seems determined to turn the DoJ into a fully fledged arm of the Trump re-election teamIt was enough that last week, the US Department of Justice did something completely unheard of: it moved to dismiss the guilty plea of a cabinet level officer, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, for lying to the FBI. The department's argument was so preposterous that within days, nearly 2,000 former department officials signed a letter in protest of William Barr's "assault on the rule of law".A week before the motion to dismiss in the Flynn case, Trump had tweeted that a prosecution like Flynn's "should never be allowed to happen … again". The day that the motion was filed, Trump told reporters that the Obama administration officials had targeted Flynn to try to "take down a president". In co-ordination, Trump campaign manager BradParscale issued a statement saying: "[T]he Obama-Biden officials responsible for these misdeeds must be held accountable."Immediately after the filing in the Flynn case, Barr went on national television and attacked the FBI, pointedly disparaging its 2016 investigation into Russian interference and letting it be known that FBI officials or ex-officials were under examination for prosecution: "[J]ust because something may even stink to high heaven and … appear to everyone to be bad we still have to apply the right standard and be convinced that there's a violation of a criminal statute."Then on Wednesday, Barr's press spokeswoman, Kerri Kupec, upped the ante in the high-stakes effort to lend political support to Gen Flynn and to Trump's partisan political interests. Kupec complained about an allegedly nefarious effort involving Joe Biden to "unmask" Flynn's identity during the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.She said this to the Fox news correspondent Martha MacCallum: "Martha, what happened to candidate Trump and then President Trump was one of the greatest political injustices in American history and should never happen again."It is remarkable how quickly Flynn's fate is put aside and the focus shifted to the president.When has a justice department press person ever issued so nakedly political a statement?Biden was among several people who asked that the intelligence committee to identify the unnamed American who had been recorded in a conversation with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, about Obama's newly imposed sanctions in December 2016. It apparently doesn't matter to the Barr justice department that the rules were scrupulously adhered to in this "unmasking". It also doesn't matter that such requests are permitted if the identity unmasked is necessary to understand the information, and that such requests are hardly unusual. The National Security Agency handles such unmasking requests in thousands of cases: 10,000 in 2019 and nearly 17,000 in 2018.> Using the department in this way undermines the integrity of the lawyers and prosecutors who work thereKupec's statement tracks perfectly with Mr Trump's partisan campaign messaging and with the president's efforts to present himself and his most loyal followers as victims of a conspiracy. The DoJ has now been let loose in search of nefarious activity by Biden, and in the hope it can cast his way a McCarthyite shadow of suspicion.Barr, the attorney general, is by no means the first occupant of that office to do political work for or serve as a political ally of the president who appointed him. Indeed, Edmund Randolph, the first attorney general of the United States, was a close ally of George Washington, having served as the general's chief of staff and personal secretary. During Randolph's term, Washington relied on him for support on matters that went well beyond the formal duties of his office.Other attorneys general have followed in Randolph's footsteps, serving as close political allies of the president. Examples from the early years of the country include Andrew Jackson's attorney general, Roger Taney, who worked hand-in-hand with Jackson to end funding for the Bank of the United States.In the 20th century, Franklin Roosevelt's attorneys general regularly helped him in political battles. Some of those battles involved the justice department and some did not. Other close political allies of the president who appointed them include Robert Kennedy, who was appointed at 35 by his brother John, and widely criticized as unqualified for the job. President Reagan's second attorney general, Edwin Meese, was a longtime friend of, and political operative for, Reagan.But throughout American history, when presidents have appointed political cronies to be attorney general, they were looking for people only to help them pursue a policy agenda.Nixon's efforts to enlist John Mitchell in the Watergate cover-up and get one of Mitchell's successors, Elliot Richardson, to fire the Watergate special prosecutor stand out as important, but rare, exceptions.Other presidents have neither expected nor asked their attorneys general to use the vast investigatory and prosecutorial power of the justice department itself to intervene in criminal cases to help cronies, to buy the silence of those who might threaten him, or to discredit political adversaries. That is a new and dangerous ballgame.Using the justice department in this way undermines the integrity and professionalism of the lawyers and prosecutors who work there. It turns law into an arena for gaining partisan advantage and settling political grudges.Having gotten away with doing the same in his dealings with Ukraine, the president has an attorney general who is only too happy to go beyond merely politicizing the DoJ. He seems determined to turn it into a full-fledged arm of the Trump campaign.
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| Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga arrested after 25 years on run Posted: 16 May 2020 04:08 AM PDT  Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga, who is accused of funding militias that massacred about 800,000 people, was arrested on Saturday near Paris after 25 years on the run, the French justice ministry said. The 84-year-old, who is Rwanda's most-wanted man and had a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, was living under a false identity in a flat in Asnieres-Sur-Seine, according to the ministry. French gendarmes arrested him at 0530 GMT on Saturday, the ministry said. A Hutu businessman, he is accused of funding the militias that massacred some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus over a span of 100 days in 1994. "Since 1994, Felicien Kabuga, known to have been the financier of Rwanda genocide, had with impunity stayed in Germany, Belgium, Congo-Kinshasa, Kenya, or Switzerland," the statement said. The arrest paves the way for bringing the fugitive in front of the Paris Appeal Court and later to the international court in The Hague, it added. Kabuga was indicted on genocide charges by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Two other Rwandan genocide suspects, Augustin Bizimana and Protais Mpiranya, are still being pursued by international justice.
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| China Threatens to Place Apple, Boeing, and Other U.S. Firms on ‘Unreliable Entities’ List Posted: 15 May 2020 10:11 AM PDT  China is preparing to place U.S. companies including Apple and Boeing on an "unreliable entities list" in response to newly announced sanctions on tech giant Huawei."China will take forceful countermeasures to protect its own legitimate rights," a source told China's government-owned Global Times. The country could cease purchasing planes made by Boeing, and impose restrictions or even launch investigations into Qualcomm, Cisco, or Apple under Chinese anti-monopoly and cybersecurity laws.The threat comes after the U.S. Commerce Department announced sanctions that would prevent companies from selling semiconductor ships to Huawei if the chips are manufactured with American technology. The U.S. considers Huawei a national security threat, alleging that the Chinese government can gain access to data gathered by Huawei networks around the world.Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) welcomed the new sanctions on Friday."Let's cut to the chase: China's main export is espionage, and the distinction between the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese 'private-sector' businesses like Huawei is imaginary," Sasse said in a statement. "Huawei's supply chain depends on contracts with American companies and the Commerce Department ought to take a careful look at how we can effectively disrupt our adversary."The Global Times reported earlier this week that the Chinese government was considering sanctions on U.S. lawmakers who have taken a hawkish line against the country, including Senators Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) and Tom Cotton (R., Ark.).
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| Tensions rise as Texas governor readies to lift more rules Posted: 14 May 2020 09:07 PM PDT  Two weeks into the reopening of Texas, coronavirus cases are climbing. "It seems like a huge invasion of privacy," said owner Cathy Lipincott, who is nonetheless trying to comply with Austin's local public health guidelines by asking, but not requiring, customers to give their information. Few states are rebooting quicker than Texas, where stay-at-home orders expired May 1.
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| Choosing between a car dealership and an independent mechanic isn't difficult — here's a guide for the pandemic Posted: 14 May 2020 12:09 PM PDT  In the age of coronavirus, both dealerships service centers and mechanics are essential, so you can continue to choose between each for your needs.
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| No students. No graduation. ‘Total devastation’ in college towns during coronavirus pandemic Posted: 16 May 2020 08:25 AM PDT  As states reopen, businesses in college towns are only now entering the traditional slow period. They've missed millions in revenue from graduation.
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| Wisconsin governor says 'many more people' could get sick after court blocks lockdown Posted: 14 May 2020 02:58 PM PDT  Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, criticized the state Supreme Court ruling and urged social distancing.
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| 2020 election: Joe Biden says he wouldn't pardon Trump if he is elected president Posted: 15 May 2020 05:13 AM PDT  Former Vice President Joe Biden says, if elected president in November, he would not pardon Donald Trump or order the halt to any federal probes of the current commander in chief.Mr Trump was not completely cleared by former Special Counsel Robert S Mueller III on questions of obstructing justice by trying to interfere with the Justice Department's Russia election meddling investigation. And it appears Mr Trump was repeatedly referred to as "Individual 1" for having knowledge of or possibly committing crimes in documents crafted by federal prosecutors in the case of Michael Cohen, the president's personal lawyer who was sentenced to prison on federal charges.
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| Afghan maternity ward attackers 'came to kill the mothers' Posted: 15 May 2020 11:20 PM PDT  The attack on an Afghan maternity unit was "methodical" and no mistake, says charity director.
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| Turkish pilots, others, to stand trial over Ghosn escape Posted: 15 May 2020 11:42 AM PDT |
| 30 migrant workers killed in India lockdown crashes Posted: 15 May 2020 05:44 PM PDT  At least 30 Indian migrant workers were killed Saturday in road accidents as they tried to return to their home villages during a nationwide coronavirus lockdown, officials said. The accidents, in central and northern India, were the latest involving some of the millions of labourers left stranded and jobless by the seven-week shutdown. Scores have died in road and rail accidents and even from exhaustion walking home.
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| NYPD searching for 4 suspects in Bronx assault, robbery Posted: 16 May 2020 07:16 AM PDT  The NYPD are searching for several suspects involved in an attempted robbery and assault in the Bronx.
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| GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler just handed over documents to federal authorities investigating alleged insider trading Posted: 14 May 2020 07:32 PM PDT  A spokesperson said the senator had forwarded "documents and information" to federal authorities investigating allegations of insider trading.
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| Germany calls on Poland, Czech Republic to open borders soon Posted: 16 May 2020 06:39 AM PDT  German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Saturday called on Poland and the Czech Republic to fully open their borders soon to enable the free flow of people and goods. The European Union this week pushed to reopen internal borders and restart travel, but recommended Europe's external borders remain closed for most travel at least until mid-June to avoid a second wave of infections in the coronavirus pandemic. "We'll stop border controls for Denmark in the next few days, and from June 15th there will be no more checks at the borders with France, Austria and Switzerland," Maas said after meeting his Luxembourg counterpart Jean Asselborn at a border crossing between the towns of Perl and Schengen.
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| Make Your At-Home Dining Experience Fit for a Five-Star Restaurant Posted: 15 May 2020 10:52 AM PDT |
| 6.5 magnitude earthquake strikes western Nevada, cracks Vegas-to-Reno highway Posted: 15 May 2020 11:34 AM PDT  "It's a pretty good-sized quake," a U.S. Geological Survey scientist said. The temblor struck 4.7 miles deep, causing at least six aftershocks, including two with a magnitude of 5.4.
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| Lindsey Graham pushes back on Trump's call to have Obama testify about Russia, Flynn Posted: 14 May 2020 02:41 PM PDT  Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a statement Thursday the Judiciary Committee would start hearings on the Russia investigation in June.
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| Dying to go out to eat? Here's how viruses like Covid-19 spread in a restaurant Posted: 15 May 2020 10:22 AM PDT  As US states begin loosening restrictions, a recent viral video from Japan gives an idea of how easily coronavirus might spread * Coronavirus – live US updates * Live global updatesEven as Covid 19 deaths in the US continue to grow, now surpassing 85,000, many states have begun loosening lockdown restrictions.Regardless of the wisdom of such moves, it's clear that there's a desire to return to something resembling normalcy across the country, as in Wisconsin, where locals returned to packed bars this week.How many of those revelers there, and in other states like Texas with lax policies, may contract the virus remains to be seen, but a recent viral video from Japan gives an idea of how easily the infection might spread.The video experiment, conducted by the public broadcaster NHK in conjunction with disease specialists, uses blacklight and a fluorescent substance to simulate how quickly germs can be spread across a variety of surfaces in environments such as restaurant buffets and cruise ships.To begin with, one guest of 10 at a restaurant buffet is shown with the substance on his hands meant as a stand-in for the coronavirus. Over the course of a typical dining period, the rest of the guests behave in predictable fashion, selecting utensils from serving stations, enjoying their food, checking their phones and so on.At the end of the experiment the backlight is turned on and the substance is revealed to be smeared everywhere: plates, foodstuff, utensils and even all over some of the guests' faces.A second experiment in the same environment showed the benefits of improved hygiene techniques. The "infected" person and the other diners washed their hands before and throughout the meal, and utensils and other implements were cleaned and replaced more frequently."What the video demonstrated, is that it will spread to surfaces and to people very efficiently," John Nicholls, a clinical professor in pathology at Hong Kong University, told CNN. "I think it really highlights the need of what people have been saying about hand hygiene to stop the spread of disease."
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| Group buys Alabama abortion clinic to keep it from closing Posted: 16 May 2020 06:00 AM PDT  Conservative lawmakers in Alabama last year tried to enact the nation's most stringent abortion ban, but the attempt to outlaw the procedure may have had one ironic twist. An Alabama-based abortion rights group used a flood of donations that poured in from across the country after the ban to purchase the state's busiest abortion clinic to ensure it stays open. Yellowhammer Fund — a group founded to help low-income women access abortion — announced the purchase of West Alabama Women's Center on Friday, the one-year anniversary of the passage of the Alabama ban.
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| Ukraine workers skirt lockdowns to rescue European farms Posted: 15 May 2020 07:07 PM PDT  In an almost empty terminal at Boryspil airport in Kiev, Yuriy was waiting in a busy line of 200 seasonal workers to check in for a lone flight to Finland. The flight was an exception after Ukraine closed its borders and grounded air travel in March to contain the coronavirus, stranding Ukrainian labourers who would usually be harvesting crops on farms throughout Europe. Faced with the prospect of fruit and vegetables rotting in fields, farmers in countries including the United Kingdom and Finland moved to solve the problem by chartering flights for workers.
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| 'She's Starting to Lose Hope.' Two Years on, Sister of Jailed Saudi Women's Rights Activist Pleads for Justice Posted: 15 May 2020 01:05 PM PDT  Lina al-Hathloul said in an interview with TIME there hasn't been an adequate investigation into her sister Loujain's alleged torture in prison.
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