| Trump identifies another hoax: The coronavirus Posted: 13 Jul 2020 08:26 AM PDT  "The most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19," wrote game show host Chuck Woolery in a tweet promoted by the president.
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| Spike in Shootings Continues over the Weekend in Chicago, NYC Posted: 13 Jul 2020 06:12 AM PDT  A spike in shootings during the past month and a half continued with 64 shooting victims in Chicago and 28 in New York City over the weekend.While overall crime is down in both cities, there has been an uptick in gun violence in June and July as compared to the same period in 2019. That uptick comes in the midst of massive protests against police kindled by the death of George Floyd, an African American man killed during his arrest by officers in Minneapolis.Of the shooting victims in Chicago this weekend, 13 were killed including two children. The same weekend in 2019 saw 41 shooting victims with nine dead. Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown has announced the creation of "mobile patrol" units to increase police presence in various neighborhoods, in an attempt to clamp down on the violence.Mayor Lori Lightfoot said last week that the uptick in gun violence could be attributed at least in part to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic."The ecosystem of public safety that isn't just law enforcement but is local, community-based, they too, have really been hit hard by COVID and are now just kind of coming back online and getting their footing," Lightfoot said at a press conference.Meanwhile, New York City recorded 28 shooting victims over the weekend, with 15 of those shot within a 15-hour period, according to the New York Post. The victims included a one-year-old boy who was killed after gunfire erupted near a barbecue in Brooklyn.Much of the spike in shootings in June occurred in 10 specific precincts, NYPD Chief of Crime Control Strategies Michael LiPetri said last week, adding "Those communities are being overrun by the small percentage of gang members who have no regard for their own life and absolutely zero regard for the community."The NYPD also dealt with multiple pro- and anti-police demonstrations over the weekend, some of which descended into scuffles between the two factions.
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| New York mayor 'heartbroken' over shooting death of one-year-old Posted: 13 Jul 2020 10:49 AM PDT  Toddler Davell Gardner Jr. was killed and three men were wounded on Sunday after two gunmen opened fire at a family cookout in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York media reported, citing New York police. "It's just horrifying," de Blasio said at a news conference to discuss the coronavirus. Davell's shooting was one of 11 incidents in which 16 people in New York were shot over the weekend, WABC television reported.
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| Ousted U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman: Deal Barr Offered ‘Could Be Seen as a Quid Pro Quo’ Posted: 13 Jul 2020 04:21 PM PDT  The federal prosecutor whom Attorney General Bill Barr ousted in June told House investigators that he was alarmed at the way Barr attempted to replace him, saying that "the "irregular and unexplained actions by the Attorney General raised serious concerns for me," according to a transcript of the closed-door interview released by the House Judiciary Committee on Monday. Geoffrey Berman, formerly the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was brought in for a closed-door session of the Judiciary Committee on July 9 to talk about the events surrounding Barr's public announcement on June 19 that Berman had "stepped down" from his post, even though the U.S. attorney made clear to Barr multiple times that he was not stepping down. The late-night announcement by Barr immediately sparked confusion and raised questions about his involvement in a crucial prosecutor's office. The next day, Berman said he would leave the job when Barr agreed to let his deputy take over as acting U.S. attorney, as opposed to Craig Carpenito, the U.S. attorney for the district of New Jersey, whom Barr wanted to install in the position until the Trump administration's pick, Securities and Exchange Commission chief Jay Clayton, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate.Berman, who at SDNY handled sensitive investigations into Trumpworld figures such as Rudy Giuliani, did not comment specifically to the Judiciary Committee on what he believed Barr's motivations to be, and he studiously avoided any questions about how specific SDNY probes might have factored into the situation. But Berman made clear that the attorney general's preferred plan would have slowed and complicated the work of the office, and he raised several questions challenging Barr's handling of the process. Trump Thought He'd Picked His Perfect U.S. Attorney in Geoffrey Berman. He Was Very Wrong."Why did the attorney general say that I was stepping down when he knew I had neither resigned nor been fired?" Berman asked rhetorically, in response to questions from Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY). "Why did the attorney general not tell me the actual reason he was asking me to resign instead of saying that it was to get Clayton into the position? And why did he announce the appointment of Craig Carpenito as acting U.S. attorney when Audrey Strauss was the logical and normal successor?""Replacing me with someone from outside the district would have resulted in the disruption and delay of the important investigations that were being conducted," Berman said later. "I was not going to permit that. And I would rather be fired than have that done." At numerous points, Berman expressed his dismay at Barr's wish to install Carpenito—who would have retained his previous job in New Jersey—in the job instead of Berman's top deputy, Strauss, a move he said violated 70 years of precedent at SDNY.According to his opening statement that was obtained by The Daily Beast last Thursday, Berman said that during a private meeting in New York that Barr called to open the discussion, the attorney general praised his performance as U.S. attorney but said the Trump administration wanted Clayton to take the SDNY post. Berman said Barr tried to lure him away by dangling other offers—to head the Department of Justice's civil rights division and, later, the SEC—but Berman declined. Barr told him that if he did not resign, he would be fired. "I believe the attorney general was trying to entice me to resign so that an outsider could be put into the acting U.S. attorney position at the Southern District of New York, which would have resulted in the delay and disruption of ongoing investigations," Berman told the Judiciary Committee.At one point in the interview, GOP committee attorney Steve Castor asked if Barr had laid out to Berman a set of actions that would have allowed him to keep his job—if there was any "quid pro quo for you getting to keep your job."Berman said no, and he confirmed that Barr did not mention any specific SDNY investigations—Castor raised Jeffrey Epstein and Guiliani-related probes—in pressuring him to leave. But Berman did say Barr's offering of other positions could have been construed as a quid pro quo."You know, he wanted me to resign to take a position. I assume you could call that a quid pro quo. You resign and you get this, that would mean quid pro quo," said Berman. Asked to clarify those comments later, he said it wasn't his term but reiterated that "it could be seen as a quid pro quo, his offering me a job in exchange for my resignation." Berman is a rare U.S. attorney in that he was not confirmed by the Senate but was appointed by the judges of SDNY to hold the position in April 2018. Berman insisted that, as he was a court-appointed prosecutor, neither Barr nor President Trump had the authority to fire him before the Senate confirmed a successor, but some past legal precedent has indicated the president can fire a court-appointed U.S. attorney. Trump has said he had nothing to do with Berman's ouster. 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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| St Louis couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters 'almost always in conflict with others', report says Posted: 13 Jul 2020 03:19 PM PDT  The white couple who were photographed pointing guns at protesters in St Louis, have been revealed to have had several conflicts over their property in recent years, from a number of lawsuits to the smashing of children's beehives.Personal-injury attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey were seen standing outside their home holding a handgun and a rifle at Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters who were walking down their street on 28 June.
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| US Air Force F-16 fighter jet crashes at New Mexico base, marking service's fifth fighter jet crash since May Posted: 13 Jul 2020 08:33 PM PDT  The pilot was able to eject safely and is being treated for minor injuries, the base said Monday evening.
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| I'm from Florida. Our coronavirus crisis doesn't surprise me Posted: 14 Jul 2020 03:37 AM PDT  'America's weirdest state' offers an extreme case of the country's broader failure to take the pandemic seriouslyI have spent the past three months in my home state of Florida, during which time I've watched it become the hottest of coronavirus hotspots on the planet. This week began with the announcement that the state registered over 15,000 new infections in a single day, which was almost 3,000 more daily cases than any state previously had recorded since the pandemic began. If Florida was a country, according to Reuters, it would have the world's fourth-highest tally of new Covid-19 cases over that 24-hour span, trailing only the US, Brazil and India.Florida has a well-deserved reputation as America's weirdest state, so perhaps the pandemic punishment being meted out to us right now shouldn't come as a shock. A 1948 Fortune magazine study observed: "Florida is a study in abnormal psychology, useful in signaling the … hidden derangements of the national mood." A lot of bad trends in American life find their most bizarre and refined forms in the Sunshine state, which is why "Florida Man" has become shorthand for the bad behavior of too many state residents. As far as the present pandemic is concerned, the simplest and most convincing explanation for why Florida is experiencing an explosion of Covid-19 cases it that it is an extreme case of the broader American failure to take the pandemic seriously.Considerable blame rests with the state's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis. A former member of the House Freedom Caucus, the most slavishly pro-Trump faction in Congress, he won election as governor in 2018 largely on the strength of the president's endorsement as well as campaign ads that showed him teaching his children how to build walls and recite "Make America Great Again".Unsurprisingly, he followed Trump's lead in minimizing the seriousness of the pandemic. Florida was one of the last states to impose a stay-at-home order, in early April, and began reopening little more than a month later. A state data scientist responsible for tracking the spread of the virus was fired when, she claimed, she wouldn't manipulate the data to show sufficient recovery from the pandemic to justify further easing of restrictions.Even now, DeSantis is aggressively pushing for schools to reopen next month, on the grounds that if big-box stores like Walmart and Home Depot can resume operations successfully, then so can schools. Teachers object that schools are smaller and more crowded spaces, and that few customers spend eight hours a day in the stores. But perhaps DeSantis is channeling the dystopian future vision of the film Idiocracy, in which higher education has been taken over by stores like Costco.DeSantis, to his credit, allowed some of the hardest-hit cities and counties to delay reopening and require masks in some public settings – unlike the Republican governors of Texas and Arizona, who blocked any pandemic restrictions more stringent than those imposed by the state (both governors have backtracked). He also seems, in hindsight, to have been unfairly pilloried by the media for allowing beaches to stay open, in view of current opinions on the lower risk of outdoor transmission.> Florida's subtropical climate is an irresistible inducement to hedonismIt's also clear that Florida, like the country as a whole, failed to shut down to the extent and duration necessary to contain the spread of the virus, or to wear masks and practice social distancing to the extent that was routine in most societies where the virus was successfully brought under control. During the first two months I was down here, I rarely saw as many as half of the customers (and in some cases staff) in supermarkets and drugstores wearing masks. Groups of teenagers thronged the shopping malls as if the pandemic was a thing of the past.Bars, nightclubs, movie theaters, gyms, massage parlors, nail salons and a host of other transmission-friendly environments reopened in early June, with distancing restrictions more or less ignored. Floridians who chafed at weeks of restrictions made up for lost time by partying down with a kind of feral intensity, to judge by local social media, at any rate. Florida's subtropical climate is an irresistible inducement to hedonism, and many of the young people who crowded into bars and nightclubs believed that they had nothing to fear from the virus. Health officials have linked more than 150 Covid-19 cases to a single bar in Orlando. (DeSantis subsequently banned on-premise alcohol consumption at establishments that derive more than half of their income from alcohol sales.)There could be some other factors peculiar to Florida that explain the virulence of the pandemic's spread here. Partisanship is hard-edged here, and not wearing a mask has become a mark of Republican tribal identity. Many conservatives I know (particularly men) consider mask-wearing to be an infringement upon their constitutional freedom. Skepticism of science and experts, along with ingrained contrarianism – some otherwise sane Floridians I know resolutely maintain that the virus is a hoax, or no worse than seasonal flu – surely plays a role in some cases as well.The state government's handling of the pandemic has proved shockingly inadequate, largely because the previous Republican administration sabotaged its institutional capacities. It took weeks and even months for laid-off Floridians to get unemployment relief, largely because the online system was designed to make it harder for workers to receive benefits so that the previous governor (now a senator), Rick Scott, could claim lower jobless numbers.Floridians historically have shown a ferocious individualism and an unwillingness to abide by state government restrictions. In addition, the severe economic damage inflicted by the shutdown surely has made people more willing to engage in magical thinking about how the dangers of the virus have been inflated by the media and the establishment, including the mistaken belief that hot weather prevents virus spread.> The inability of too many Floridians to distinguish between reality and fantasy is part of what's frustrating about this placeTwo-thirds of Florida's residents (and nearly all of its tourists) come here from somewhere else, which may cut against the collective sense of social responsibility that's more widespread in more settled communities and societies. And masks are indeed uncomfortable in Florida's heat and humidity, as visitors to a reopened Disney World are finding out.The pandemic laid bare the incompetence of the Trump administration, which took much too long to put widespread testing in place and has yet to implement contact tracing on the scale that's needed. But the pandemic has also shown the weakness of America's federal structure and its insufficient state capacity relative to other developed countries, where governments have implemented more uniform and effective national responses. Perhaps one of the pandemic's legacies will be greater citizen insistence on competent government.I've spent most of my adult life outside Florida, but I share the affectionate exasperation that many Floridians feel for their state. It's not like anywhere else, for both good and ill. The New York Times recently interviewed a couple who visited the reopened Disney World and shared their belief that the park's reopening "was the first thing that made us feel like we could leave our house and still feel safe". Why? Because "it's Disney". The inability of too many Floridians to distinguish between reality and fantasy is part of what's frustrating about this place, but their irrepressible optimism makes me hope we will get through this pandemic without losing too many more of them.
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| Trump says a President Biden would get 'no ratings' Posted: 13 Jul 2020 07:42 AM PDT  President Trump, whose halting leadership in the face of the coronavirus pandemic Americans increasingly question, boasted Monday about his one undisputed success: his ability to command media attention.
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| French man accused of molesting hundreds of children dies in Indonesia Posted: 13 Jul 2020 04:22 AM PDT  Francois Camille Abello, 65, died in a suspected suicide in his cell in Jakarta, police say.
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| Four more states added to New York quarantine order, Cuomo says Posted: 14 Jul 2020 08:12 AM PDT  Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday ordered those arriving in New York from an additional four states to quarantine for 14 days to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. The newly added states - Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin - were all seeing 'significant' community spread of the virus, Cuomo said in a statement. Travelers arriving in New York from a total of 22 U.S. states are now required to quarantine for 14 days, according to Cuomo's order which was first issued in June.
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| 64 Stunning Kitchen Island Ideas Posted: 13 Jul 2020 11:42 AM PDT |
| After coronavirus kept a Florida couple apart for 114 days, wife takes dishwashing job to see husband Posted: 14 Jul 2020 02:50 AM PDT  Mary Daniel got a job as a dishwasher at a memory-care center so she could be inside the locked-down facility to see her husband, a patient there.
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| Boeing lands the first order of the F-15EX Posted: 13 Jul 2020 04:20 PM PDT  The first award covers an initial lot of eight jets.
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| My first reaction when I heard L.A. schools won't be open this fall? Tears. Lots of them Posted: 13 Jul 2020 07:40 PM PDT  Students will start the new school year they way the ended the last one — online and at home.
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| AOC suggests NYC crime spike linked to unemployment and parents shoplifting to feed children Posted: 13 Jul 2020 07:34 AM PDT  New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has insisted that spikes in New York crime are not related to police budget cuts but people needing to pay rent and feed their children.In a virtual town hall meeting on Thursday, reported by The Hill, AOC was questioned about the significant rise in crime in the city.
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| Airline contacts US senator over maskless photo Posted: 13 Jul 2020 09:07 PM PDT  American Airlines said Monday it had contacted Republican Senator Ted Cruz after he was seen without a mask on a flight, but he said he had only removed it to eat and drink. Health experts and scientists have called on politicians to set an example by wearing face coverings as the coronavirus rages across the United States. "While our policy does not apply while eating or drinking, we have reached out to Senator Cruz to affirm the importance of this policy," American Airlines said in a statement.
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| Trump's reelection operation hires 1,500 field staffers Posted: 13 Jul 2020 02:24 AM PDT  The Republican National Committee and President Donald Trump's campaign say they have now hired 1,500 field staffers, aiming to convert their financial advantage over Democrats into votes in November. Trump Victory, the joint field effort of the two organizations, announced Monday the hiring of an additional 300 staffers set to hit 20 target states by Wednesday in the largest field operation ever mounted by a Republican. The Trump team says it is on pace to eclipse the 2.2 million volunteer total that helped reelect President Barack Obama in 2012.
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| Romance scam: US woman freed after year as hostage in Nigeria Posted: 13 Jul 2020 04:46 AM PDT  The 46-year-old woman from Washington DC was held for more than a year and lost $48,000, police say.
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| Woman races across 4 lanes of traffic, dives into canal to save child, Oregon cops say Posted: 13 Jul 2020 11:58 AM PDT  The toddler's grandmother has been cited for child neglect.
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| U.S. Considers TikTok Ban as Chinese Threat to Global Internet Freedom Grows Posted: 13 Jul 2020 10:28 AM PDT  The partnership between Chinese tech companies and the Chinese Communist Party is threatening global Internet freedom. But the U.S. has the chance to push back and safeguard online free speech and privacy worldwide.Last Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News's Laura Ingraham that the U.S. is "certainly looking at" banning TikTok, a video-sharing social-media platform owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, over its ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).Pompeo cited the threat of "Chinese surveillance" to national security, as TikTok user data is surely being passed on to the CCP. A day later, in an interview with Greta Van Susteren, President Trump took a different tack, listing a ban on TikTok as "one of many" potential ways to punish the Chinese government for its hand in the coronavirus pandemic.TikTok is no stranger to U.S. scrutiny. Government agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security have banned the app for security reasons. And last year, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department investigated the company after it was alleged to have used data from users under 13 years of age in violation of American privacy laws. It was recently reported that the app may have failed to address regulators' concerns on that front.It might seem strange that an app known for making harmless, entertaining videos go viral would be the center of so much controversy. But the problem isn't the content TikTok allows users to share with the world; it's the company's meticulous collection of user data and its close, troubling relationship with the CCP.Parent company ByteDance is allegedly working with the CCP in its surveillance efforts. Just as unsettling, the app has been accused of aiding Chinese propaganda efforts through the use of "shadow bans," fiddling with the app's algorithm so that users — even users outside China — don't see content concerning Tiananmen Square or the Hong Kong protests. For instance, in 2019, TikTok user Feroza Aziz had her account suspended after posting a makeup tutorial that secretly condemned China's mass detention and abuse of Uighur Muslims in Xianjiang Province.Such abuses are not limited to TikTok. Other Chinese tech companies have done the CCP's bidding inside and outside China as well. According to an Australian Strategic Policy Institute report, Chinese tech giants such as Huawei, Tencent, and Alibaba are using artificial intelligence to collect users' data and aid and abet China in fulfilling its global ambitions.And what are those ambitions? One is obviously the legitimizing of the CCP's dictatorship abroad. But China may also be seeking to normalize authoritarianism more generally. For instance, TikTok has reportedly censored criticisms of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's authoritarian president.It's like a virtual Belt and Road Initiative, in which viral dance videos replace seemingly good-faith investments as the vehicle for the spread of CCP influence.In the face of China's threats to the freedom of the world's Internet, the Trump administration should be applauded for considering a ban on TikTok. As Chinese censorship, surveillance, and propaganda spread worldwide, the U.S. has a chance to fight back and change the trajectory of the Information Age for the better. At a press conference on Wednesday, Pompeo said that "the infrastructure of this next hundred years must be a communications infrastructure that's based on a Western ideal of private property and protection of private citizens' information in a transparent way." He added, however, that realizing that vision would be difficult: "It's a big project, because we've got partners all around the world where infrastructure crosses Chinese technology and then comes to the United States."It won't be easy, but it must be done. Nothing less than global Internet freedom is at stake.
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| Michigan partygoers test positive for COVID-19 after July 4th lake bash; 43 cases tied to house party Posted: 13 Jul 2020 01:06 PM PDT  "This is a very clear example of how quickly this virus spreads," a Michigan health official said after 43 COVID-19 cases were tied to a house party.
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| The 17 coolest features of the new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport, the smaller SUV sibling in the rugged all-4x4 Bronco lineup — see them all Posted: 13 Jul 2020 05:00 PM PDT  All Ford Bronco Sport models come with a mounted bottle opener hidden by the rear tailgate.
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| California Mandates Widespread Reclosure of Indoor Malls, Hair Salons Posted: 13 Jul 2020 02:47 PM PDT  Business taking place indoors in most of the state is again being prohibited as the coronavirus is spreading rapidly.
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| Javonni Carson: Nine-year-old shot four times while filming TikTok videos Posted: 13 Jul 2020 01:03 PM PDT  A fourth-grade boy shot four times in Atlanta was filming TikTok videos with his two siblings when an unknown gunman fired into a crowd during a drive-by shooting, his mother said.Javonni Carson, 9, who was one of three people injured in the attack, has undergone surgery and is expected to recover, mother Keyona Carson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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| Ten million kids 'may never return to school' after virus Posted: 12 Jul 2020 05:02 PM PDT  The coronavirus pandemic has caused an "unprecedented education emergency" with up to 9.7 million children affected by school closures at risk of never going back to class, Save the Children warned Monday. It said the economic fall-out of the crisis could force an extra 90 to 117 million children into poverty, with a knock-on effect on school admissions. At the same time, the charity warned the crisis could leave a shortfall of $77 billion in education budgets in low and middle income countries by the end of 2021.
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| Trump again directs blame at Obama as coronavirus pandemic worsens in U.S. Posted: 13 Jul 2020 01:45 PM PDT  The president on Monday again sought to redirect blame for his pandemic response to the previous administration.
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| Appeals court: 1st federal execution in 17 years can proceed Posted: 12 Jul 2020 11:42 AM PDT  A federal appeals court ruled Sunday that the first federal execution in nearly two decades may proceed as scheduled on Monday. The ruling from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturns a lower court order that had put the execution of 47-year-old Daniel Lewis Lee on hold. Lee, of Yukon, Oklahoma, had been scheduled to die by lethal injection on Monday at a federal prison in Indiana.
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| Timbuktu's jihadist police chief before ICC for war crimes Posted: 14 Jul 2020 09:20 AM PDT  He is charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, rape and making girls marry militants.
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| Oregonians still want to join Idaho — and filed a lawsuit to make it happen, group says Posted: 13 Jul 2020 08:11 PM PDT  The group doesn't want the coronavirus to impact its plans to join Idaho.
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| Afghanistan faces 'catastrophe' as COVID-19 cases grow: Red Crescent Posted: 14 Jul 2020 09:05 AM PDT  Afghanistan faces "catastrophe" as growing COVID-19 cases stretch a health infrastructure already severely weakened by decades of war, the Afghan Red Crescent Society said on Tuesday. "Afghanistan is on the edge of potential health, social and economic catastrophes caused by COVID-19 as the disease places a crippling burden on one of the 10 most fragile states in the world," the Red Crescent Society said in a statement. Red Crescent Secretary General Nilab Mobarez said acute protective equipment shortages and difficulties in accessing remote regions were hampering its COVID-19 response.
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| An Alaska Airlines flight was forced to land when a passenger threatened to kill everyone on board Posted: 13 Jul 2020 08:15 AM PDT  The Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to Chicago turned around after a passenger became unruly and threatened to kill everyone on board.
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| 'This is a war': the coronavirus disaster in California's hardest-hit – and poorest – county Posted: 13 Jul 2020 03:00 AM PDT  About 17 patients are airlifted out of Imperial county every day, as the virus takes a devastating toll on Latino residentsIn southern California's Imperial county, the chuff-chuff of spinning helicopter blades has become a familiar noise. It's the sound of coronavirus patients being airlifted out – 15 to 17 a day, on average. This remote region along the US-Mexico border is under siege from Covid-19, and hospitals are stretched to the brink.Imperial county, population 181,000, is experiencing California's worst outbreak, according to several public health metrics.Over the last 14 days, the county's infection rate was more than 588 per 100,000 people – by far the highest in the state. As of Friday, the county had recorded 7,759 coronavirus cases and 132 fatalities. Adolphe Edward, the CEO for El Centro regional medical center, one of only two hospitals in the county, is reminded of medical operations he has overseen in Turkey, Oman and United Arab Emirates. More than 500 patients have already been transported out of the county to other medical facilities, and still the cases keep coming. "People are asking, 'What's going on? Is there a war?'" said Edward. "Yes, there is. This is a war on Covid." 'If there was a poster of a place where Covid thrives, this is it'Imperial county, a rural stretch of California's far south-east, faces a unique set of challenges, including high poverty rates, air pollution and a transitory workforce of farmworkers.But in many ways it is also a microcosm of the pandemic's toll on communities of color across the state and nation.Latinos in California are already disproportionately affected by the virus, making up 39% of the population but 55% of coronavirus cases and 42% of deaths. But near the border, the trends are even more pronounced. Latinos in Imperial county make up 85% of the population and a startling 95% of deaths.Not only has coronavirus infected a disproportionately high number of residents, Imperial county is also the state's poorest. In 2018, 30% of its children lived in poverty, soaring above state and national averages. It comes in dead last on a ranking of county health indicators, which include rates of obesity, access to healthcare, and environmental pollution.For years, children in Imperial county have suffered alarmingly high rates of childhood asthma, a factor researchers believe could be connected to pollution and harmful, dust-blown particles released by an evaporating Salton Sea.Luis Olmedo, executive director of Comite Civico del Valle, a non-profit that has been monitoring air quality and pushing the state to address it, said that taken together these factors make the county a Petri dish for disease."We're in the middle of a pandemic, but we've been dealing with epidemics of cancer, asthma, and diabetes for a long time. If there was a poster of a place where Covid thrives, this is it," said Olmedo.Medical professionals treating patients in Imperial county say they are not surprised to see coronavirus disproportionately affect a community dealing with underlying risk factors of poverty and chronic illness."We see so many patients with diabetes, asthma, cancer and obesity. This type of co-morbidity compromises health, and by the time you run into Covid, this virus that wants to take you down, it becomes much harder to combat," Edward said.The doctor said the medical center saw its first case in early March, and by the first week of April cases began to soar. Since May, they have seen a steady flow of 50 to 60 Covid-19-positive patients a day. Medical staff have witnessed at least 26 patients rapidly deteriorate and die within 10 to 15 minutes, Edward said. Patients in need of higher care levels have been transported as far away as San Francisco, 600 miles north.Equipment and PPE shortages are also a major problem, Edward said. El Centro's medical center has requested 10 additional ventilators from the state to meet demand. "Every county is holding on to every asset they have in case they get a spike," he said. What's causing the outbreak?Many in Imperial county have theories about what lies behind the deadly surge. Edward believes residents could be getting infected while visiting nearby Arizona or San Diego, where bars and businesses have reopened.Blanca Morales, the CEO of the Calexico Wellness Center, a small community clinic, said the county's proximity to Mexicali – a metropolitan area of more a million on the Mexican side of the border that has been overwhelmed by its own war on Covid – also probably plays a role."We see many patients with family in Mexicali," she said. "They come here and they visit family, many of them living in multigenerational homes, and then we see more cases."While public health officials have not tied case numbers to outbreaks at specific locations, Luis Flores, a Calexico resident and activist with the Imperial Valley Equity and Justice Coalition, said that many infections had happened among farm workers who legally cross the border each day to work in the fields."The folks who cross every day, they're our essential workers, but there are a large number of risks. These are people who wait in line to cross the border, then get on a cramped bus without PPE and ride an hour to the field site," Flores said.Flores said he and his organization had called on county officials to enforce safety guidelines for employers."We're hearing stories of bus drivers and field supervisors dying. There's an element of exploitation in this labor market that is also expressing itself in unsafe worker conditions," Flores said.Imperial county's public health department confirmed that the county has seen cases among individuals working in retail settings, including Walmart, as well as among farm workers and people who are not currently employed, such as retirees, disabled residents and children. 'Toggling back' on reopeningThe crisis in Imperial county has highlighted the challenges of reopening California, particularly in a hard-hit region where people are desperate to get back to work.In late June, as the county was poised to reopen more businesses, California's governor, Gavin Newsom, ordered Imperial county to "toggle back" its plans amid surging cases, a move that Flores and Equity and Justice Coalition supported.County plans that allowed for in-store retail and indoor religious services were also walked back after the governor threatened to "intervene" if the county did not follow guidance.The business community, however, pushed back, with the Imperial Valley Business Recovery Task Force calling Newsom's announcement "a devastating turn of events for our businesses who have worked hard over the last several months to implement proper safety precautions for a safe working environment".Luis Plancarte, the chairman of Imperial county's board of supervisors, said the urge to reopen was especially strong from employees who found themselves out of work due to lockdowns."The pressure came from dishwashers, servers, busboys within the restaurant industry. From retail and hospitality workers. From people who were out of work and already spent their $1,200 stimulus checks and said 'we're running out of money and we need to do something'," Plancarte said.Unemployment in the county currently stands at nearly 30%, he added.Meanwhile, the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties has pushed county supervisors to collect and publish additional information on those who have been infected – data on gender, primary language, health insurance coverage and whether they are "essential workers" – with the hopes of gathering knowledge that can help the county fight back."If we're going to be serious about tackling this pandemic, we have to have as much information as possible," said David Trujillo, advocacy director for the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties."We want to make sure that we meet the needs of the most vulnerable residents. If we do that, then we meet the needs for everyone."
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| Biden is winning the young and the old in Wisconsin. Trump is winning the middle-aged. Posted: 13 Jul 2020 11:05 AM PDT  Despite the stereotype that Donald Trump's political base is "old," the president has drawn negative ratings from seniors in Wisconsin throughout his term.
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| Funeral for Seoul mayor held as allegation details emerge Posted: 12 Jul 2020 08:46 PM PDT  Mourners wept and deeply bowed before the coffin of Seoul's mayor during his funeral Monday, while a lawyer came forward with details about sexual harassment allegations against the late politician. The allegations have split many in South Korea over how to remember Park Won-soon, who was found dead Friday in a wooded area in northern Seoul. Park, a liberal who built his career as a reform-minded politician and champion of women's rights, had been considered a potential candidate for president in 2022.
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| Iranian officials urged to unite after nuclear plant blast Posted: 12 Jul 2020 11:00 AM PDT  Iran's supreme leader has addressed the country's parliament amid growing divisions and unanswered questions over the explosion at the Natanz nuclear facility earlier this month.
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| Prosecutors in Ghislaine Maxwell case say proposed $5 million bond is 'effectively meaningless' Posted: 13 Jul 2020 05:43 PM PDT  Prosecutors in New York doubled down in their bid to keep Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell behind bars while awaiting trial.
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| Royal descendants can keep temple full of riches, rules Indian Supreme Court Posted: 13 Jul 2020 10:24 AM PDT  One of the vaults in Kerala's Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple contained $20bn (£16bn) worth of diamonds.
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| Barack Obama’s Presidential Library Hits a Major Roadblock Posted: 13 Jul 2020 11:32 AM PDT  The roughly $500 million project, which will be set in Chicago's Jackson Park, is facing new demands by the Illinois State Historic Preservation Office
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| Doctors in France have found the world's first recorded case of an unborn child contracting COVID-19 from their mother while inside the womb Posted: 14 Jul 2020 04:31 AM PDT  Doctors said the fetus's brain bore evidence of inflammation caused by the coronavirus, which had crossed the placenta into the baby's bloodstream.
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| Explosion as fire breaks out at Iranian industrial complex Posted: 13 Jul 2020 09:09 AM PDT |
| South Korean captured after third HK virus lockdown escape Posted: 13 Jul 2020 06:49 AM PDT  A South Korean man who twice broke coronavirus lockdown regulations jumped out of a moving minibus in a failed bid to escape being transferred to a strict government-controlled quarantine facility, Hong Kong police and media reported Monday. Local media said the man arrived in Hong Kong on Thursday and was ordered into mandatory 14-day quarantine at a hotel in Kowloon. The maximum penalty for violating coronavirus regulations is six months in jail and a fine of HK$25,000.
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| Trump news – live: Hillary Clinton says president 'won't go quietly' if he loses election, as Biden announces $2tn clean energy plan Posted: 14 Jul 2020 07:36 AM PDT  Donald Trump has continued to insist US schools must reopen this autumn despite the raging coronavirus, declaring at the White House on Monday: "Schools should be opened. Kids want to go to schools. You're losing a lot of lives by keeping things closed."His comments were answered by former education secretary Arne Duncan, who served under Barack Obama and told MSNBC: "The real travesty here is that there is no body count high enough for the president to actually pay attention to science. We could lose another 10,000. We could lose another 50,000. We could lose another 100,000… [He] doesn't care whether you live or die."
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| Oregon, other states putting names of ousted police online Posted: 13 Jul 2020 11:14 AM PDT  In the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in police custody, Oregon has released the names of over 1,700 officers whose transgressions over the past 50 years were so serious that they were banned from working in law enforcement in the state. The online posting last week came after the state Legislature created a law requiring the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training to establish a statewide public database of officers whose certification has been revoked or suspended. "Those who are revoked have tarnished the badge and no longer have the trust of their community, their agency, or our agency as the certifying body," department director Eriks Gabliks told The Associated Press.
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| AR-15 is an ‘everyday gun for everyday citizens,’ NRA says. The backlash was swift Posted: 13 Jul 2020 10:08 AM PDT |
| Gun Control’s Black Lives Matter Problem Posted: 13 Jul 2020 01:27 PM PDT  June has been marked in recent years by a flurry of orange-clad marchers promoting National Gun Violence Awareness Month. This year's planned gatherings, however, fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic and were overshadowed by Black Lives Matter's nationwide protests against institutional racism within policing. But the gun-control lobby's reticence isn't out of respect for the lives of George Floyd or Breonna Taylor but rather concern for its own preservation.For decades, gun-control advocates promoted greater police power as well as known practices of institutional racism within police firearms-licensing divisions. Now that there are calls to "defund the police," many leaders of the gun-control lobby, who are mostly white, should rightly fear that their history of siding with the police and promoting policies now deemed racist by progressives may make them the next casualty of cancel culture.Gun control in the U.S. has historically been rooted in racism of the blatant "no blacks allowed" variety. Fundamentally, it is difficult to subjugate a group if it's armed. This is why restrictions on minority gun ownership pre-date not only the institution of slavery in the U.S. but the Founding itself. The modern gun-control movement has supported a more insidious method of using police discretion and biased background checks to suppress firearms-license issuance.New York's Sullivan Act is one of the best examples of gun-control laws that put minorities at a disadvantage, and it has been widely copied. Passed in 1911, the law addressed what was considered a growing problem of gun ownership among minorities, immigrants, labor organizers, and anyone seen as a threat.The law accomplished this by allowing majority-white police departments broad leeway to determine licensing requirements. Police departments can add their own requirements; even if applicants deemed undesirable checked all the required boxes, the law's "good moral character" clause could be used as a catchall to deny them. Reminiscent of practices any segregationist would appreciate, the NYPD License Division, with its perpetually white leadership and the blessings of the New York City Council, has used exorbitant fees, long English-only applications, expansive ID requirements, the need for applicants to take time off from work, and numerous other unconventional tactics to restrict license issuance. The NAACP and other civil-rights groups have denounced these impediments as unfairly putting blacks and other minorities at a disadvantage.Organizations that support such discretionary licensing requirements, such as Brady United Against Gun Violence, seem to believe that the same police who allegedly beat, shoot, and asphyxiate people of color in the street would turn around and equitably issue them firearms permits. This makes no sense.And what about background checks, the holy grail of the gun-control agenda? The public seems to have little idea of what goes into them. For example, the NYPD License Division's background check includes marijuana offenses — and not just convictions, but mere arrests. The ACLU's research shows that African Americans are 3.64 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession (in New York the figure is in the double digits). You would think that inclusion of such arrests on background checks would raise social-justice concerns. There is a broad movement dedicated to reforming a racist justice system, yet the gun-control lobby doesn't seem to have gotten the memo. Moreover, and perhaps most egregiously, peaceful protesters who came out to support the Black Lives Matter movement and were arrested for minor infractions stand to lose their gun licenses or their right to ever have one. Still, the gun-control lobby remains silent.Maybe we shouldn't be surprised. After all, groups like Everytown for Gun Safety were founded by Mr. Stop-and-Frisk himself, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. Like Bloomberg, most funders behind gun-control initiatives are wealthy whites who can afford to hire private security. But even if gun-control groups believe that minority groups shouldn't be armed, why take the additional step of providing special privileges to the police?We've all balked at the armored military vehicles that start in Fallujah, get bought up by police departments, and end up in Farmingdale. So why does every gun-control bill since the 1934 Firearms Act contain clauses that exempt police officers from "common sense restrictions"? The 2004 Law Enforcement Safety Act, for example, promoted by gun control enthusiasts such as Senator Charles Schumer (D, N.Y.), allows active or retired officers the right to carry weapons nationwide. Assault-weapon-weary New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey certainly think it's okay for their police officers to possess military arms and jam as many rounds into them as desired. And if keeping guns in the home is so dangerous, why are police officers encouraged to do so? Don't blue lives matter too?If we are trying to instill in our police that they are of and for the people, why do gun-control advocates grant them a status akin to super-citizen? One of the simplest ways to reduce the number of police shootings is to hold police officers to the same standard of self-defense the rest of us are held to. Surely the gun-control lobby's mantra that "only the police should have guns" no longer holds.Perhaps the most striking contradiction inherent in the gun-control lobby is that its promotion of licensing discrimination and special police privileges comes on the backs of those seeking to reduce gun violence. Rank-and-file members of the gun control movement are good people, many of whose lives have been tragically touched by gun crime. It's only right that they seek to stem further violence and advocate laws to help prevent the mass shootings and killings we witness in this country. But these folks know little about the discriminatory nature of the policies that the gun-control lobby's leadership supports.Some groups have seen the light: that the gun-control lobby is violating the tenets of progressivism even as it's nestled amongst the progressive Left. In 2017, New York's Gays Against Guns was one of the first to acknowledge that gun control is a tool "of American white supremacy." But this is far from the norm. So far, the gun-control lobby has refused to comment on policy changes in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, nor have leaders apologized for their role in perpetuating institutional racism.If the Black Lives Matter movement is going to rid America of every vestige of racism, it must hold America's gun-control lobby to the same standard and demand the resignation of its leadership. As the movement's slogan goes: Their silence is violence.
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