How will airlines get flying again?

When passenger planes start flying again, the world of air travel will be very different.

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LeBron backs primetime tribute for HS '20 class

LeBron James is helping to present a primetime special that will honor the high school class of 2020 with commencement addresses, celebrity cameos and more.

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US 'hasn't seen' North Korean leader Kim Jong-un recently, Mike Pompeo

The US secretary of state's comments come after speculation the North Korean leader might be ill.

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New York City Mayor de Blasio singles out the city's Jewish community for flouting coronavirus rules and said cops will start arresting people gathered in large groups

Though some members of the Hasidic community have disregarded lockdown rules, New York's large Jewish population has followed coronavirus measures.

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The US is 'slightly' past its first peak, but expert says the pandemic is far from over

Dr. Tom Inglesby said some states are experiencing a decline in cases, while half of the country is still seeing a rise in daily numbers.

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Coronavirus: What African countries are doing to help people to eat amid the lockdowns

What African countries are doing to help people to eat amid the lockdowns.

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'A drug can block this virus': Fauci hails Covid-19 treatment breakthrough

Positive data from the NIAID trial would be a landmark in the race to find a coronavirus treatment.

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Religious freedom watchdog pitches adding India to blacklist

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is urging that the State Department add India to its list of nations with uniquely poor records on protecting freedom to worship — while proposing to remove Sudan and Uzbekistan from that list. The bipartisan commission, created in 1998 by Congress to make policy recommendations about global religious freedom, proposed designating India as a “country of particular concern” in the annual report it released Tuesday. President Donald Trump declined to criticize the citizenship measure during his February visit to India, where his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi was punctuated by skirmishes between Hindus and Muslims.

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To Confront China After Coronavirus, We Must See the Bigger Picture

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE I n a popular movie two decades ago, hard-eyed criminals released into Sydney a woman infected with a virus, knowing that unsuspecting Australians would catch the highly contagious disease and, traveling on, unwittingly spread death across a hundred homelands. This past winter, the hard-eyed leaders of China did worse. They allowed not one, but thousands of infected to leave China and enter an unsuspecting world, a world lulled by Beijing. The crucial question is: Why?“China caused an enormous amount of pain [and] loss of life . . . by not sharing the information they had,” Secretary of State Pompeo said on April 23. America is angry, he added, and while much remains to be known, China “will pay a price.”No subpoenas, no oversight committees, no tell-all books will expose President Xi’s calculations as the novel coronavirus spread inside China. The unelected of Beijing guard well their secret debates. The CCP knows the virtues of opacity, of letting uncertainty, complacency, and wishful thinking paralyze the West. Exploiting these has been its way.In 2018, a major Trump-administration speech called CCP misdeeds to task. Some, including, notably, Japan’s prime minister, applauded. But many nations looked toward their feet, too reluctant, too sophisticated, perhaps too intimidated to bestir. Staggering COVID-19 losses may yet remind the world of the dangers of drift as great powers go astray.Today’s American, European, Japanese, and Asian policymakers, like those of centuries past, bear the burdens of judgment. Uncertainty has ever been the statesman’s curse. America’s famed diplomat, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, has written, “Nations learn only by experience, they ‘know’ only when it is too late to act. But statesmen must act as if their intuition were already experience. . . .”A reassessment of Xi and the CCP looms. From their actions and practices, from assessments of their motives and apparent long-term aims, today’s statesmen, like their forebears, must judge future risks and craft the surest course ahead. These are early days, but the picture of Beijing presented so far is troubling.Even before the virus spread in Wuhan, Xi brooded over a worrying hand. The CCP could not intimidate prolonged protests on the streets of freedom-loving Hong Kong. And the Party’s oppression there, in determined violation of treaty commitments, spurred voters in Taiwan to rebuff Beijing’s hopes for a more amenable regime in Taipei. The world was finally awakening to Xi’s increasingly autocratic surveillance state, his harsh repression of Uighur Muslims, and his predatory Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China’s economy, essential to Xi’s hold on power, had stumbled, in part because of the Trump administration’s move to counter China’s unfair, neo-mercantilist practices and to condemn their grim geopolitical implications. Worse yet, America’s markets hummed, raising reelection hopes within the Trump administration, which had also surpassed modern predecessors in challenging China. Rumors of Party dissatisfaction with Xi seeped out.COVID-19’s outbreak in Wuhan further darkened Xi’s prospects. As long as the virus raged primarily inside China -- derailing only her economy, stigmatizing only her government -- his troubles would soar. All the while, the world predictably would have leapt ahead, taking Chinese customers, stealing China’s long-sought glory.The disease’s spread to Berlin and Paris, New York and Tokyo, improved Xi’s prospects, at least in the near term. Pandemic diverted foreign eyes from Hong Kong’s and the Uighurs’ plight. Desperate needs rendered disease-weakened nations more susceptible to China’s goods and BRI’s short-term appeal. Asian states, wary of Beijing, had new cause to doubt the commitment of a pandemic-preoccupied Washington, while a weakened economy and vastly increased debts would likely constrain future U.S. defense spending, essential to Asian security. An unpredictable element had entered into America’s 2020 election.As events unfolded, might Xi have recognized that COVID-19’s leap into the wider world promised such political and geopolitical gains? Some say a desire to protect itself first fed a CCP cover-up, as if putting this before the health of innocents were not bad enough. But were CCP leaders blind, as days passed, to other benefits? It is the Chinese way, the noted French Sinologist François Jullien has written, to exploit the potential inherent in unfolding situations. CCP leaders still study China’s legendary strategist, Sun Tzu, who advised centuries ago that if, “in the midst of difficulties, we are always ready to seize an advantage, we may extricate ourselves from misfortune.”As the CCP realized the imminent disaster COVID-19 posed inside China, Xi suppressed the world’s appreciation of its dangers. By sometime in December, Chinese authorities had learned that a novel, highly infectious coronavirus similar to deadly SARS was on the loose. Yet for weeks PRC authorities, including China’ National Health Commission, suppressed inquiries and, directly or through the WHO, misled the world about the risks. When Chinese authorities finally acknowledged human-to-human transmission, the CCP took steps to isolate Wuhan from other parts of China, but continued to permit international travel. After the U.S. on January 31, and later Australia, restricted travelers from China, Beijing’s spokesmen, artful and indignant, rose to denounce such acts as ill-founded and ill-intentioned.For days, even weeks, after the CCP first knew of the danger, Chinese authorities and customs officers let tens of thousands of travelers, infected among them, leave China and enter an unwary world. In late January, China extended Lunar New Year celebrations, inviting greater international travel. PRC border guards stamped more exit papers. When America restricted such travelers, Beijing allowed more to leave for less cautious lands.Then, as pandemic gripped the world, the CCP brazenly blamed America for COVID-19. Xi once more preened over his authoritarian “China model’s” efficiencies, now cauterizing troubles he denies having caused. In Europe, Beijing postured as a savior offering needed medical supplies -- albeit that its sales favored states where it sought geopolitical gains, often bore high prices, included defective products that could undermine defenses, and drew on CCP surpluses bolstered by January purchases of world supplies at pre-pandemic prices. In Southeast Asia, Beijing proved “relentless in exploiting the pandemic,” a respected, former high-level Filipino bemoans, as it pushed its “illegal and expansive” territorial claims. Inside China, the Party seized the moment to round up leaders of Hong Kong’s democracy movement and reassert unilateral efforts to curtail the city’s special, self-governing status.Even after the virus began to spread inside China, events might have taken a different course. Many had once hoped for better from CCP leaders. Dreams of a mellowing CCP had floated widely among academics and policy elites, perhaps buoyed by the way such illusions avoided, rather than imposed, hard choices. Some yet hold to such views. The benign CCP of their reveries would have alerted others promptly as the novel virus’s dangers became known, shared information, welcomed foreign scientists, ceased reckless practices, and guarded against the pandemic’s spread.Indeed, under different leadership, China could have followed such a path. Traditions of humane governance, venerable and Confucian, are not alien to that land. China’s ancient text, the Tao-te Ching, favors just such a response:> A great nation is like a man:> > When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.> > Having realized, he admits it.> > Having admitted it, he corrects it.> > He considers those who point out his faults> > As his most benevolent teachers.The learned will debate how much such leadership would have eased the wider world’s suffering. Metrics and estimates will vary, but the consensus will be clear enough: The harm would have decreased manyfold.Such openness and grace have not been Xi’s way. As he built up islets in the South China Sea, he promised never to militarize them, then dishonored his promise, disregarded international rulings, and dispatched ships in packs to intimidate neighboring states and expand Beijing’s writ. Pledging to protect intellectual property, he enabled ongoing theft and coercion, ineluctably undermining industries of the advanced democracies, and then pressed forward on China’s newly gained advantages. His BRI professes to aid, then exploits poor countries’ weaknesses. Citing the betterment of all in the cause of greater China, he has imprisoned Uighurs, undermined Tibetan culture, and threatened the peaceful regional order that had enabled China’s rise. He violates treaty commitments to curb Hong Kong’s freedoms. Behind an anti-corruption façade, his prosecutors ruined scores of his rivals, as he consolidated and extended his personal powers. These wrongs he continues still. Xi’s are not the ways of grace and remorse.An angry narrative drives this man. Under his hand, the CCP highlights Chinese suffering and humiliation roughly a century ago under Western and Japanese imperialists, while eliding the democratic world’s helping hand and Japan’s benign democracy over four generations since. He slides past the Chinese millions massacred in the intervening decades by the CCP and Mao -- China’s legendary leader who spread cruelty and death as he judged useful. In imitation of Mao, Xi has issued his own “little red book” of wisdom. Mao’s iconic image looms over Tiananmen still. Coveting Mao’s autocratic power, Xi strove and won it; now he dare not let it go.The bitter recall of ancient Chinese glories; resentment of past humiliations; insecurity bred by corruption and illegitimacy; disdain, even hatred of America’s easy ways -- these are the pathogens coursing through Xi’s circle. A fever for Chinese primacy burns among them. For a time, they might pander to a Western-inspired, rules-based order, a liberal conceit; but this is not their dream. A historic economic rise, technological mastery, a rapidly expanding navy, all causes to be proud of, have freed them to be brazen. Xi now bares the teeth Deng Xiaoping’s smile hid. From South China Sea islets to the New Silk Road’s arid ends, the CCP, ruthless and defiant, pounds the stakes it holds to advance its aims. For Xi’s CCP, it is the fate of small states to bend to the strong.Rules should soon be theirs to set, the CCP believes, and not without some reason. Before Trump, a subtle and experienced Chinese diplomat confessed, CCP leaders marveled at America’s ineffectual response. In the South and East China Seas, on India’s long border, Beijing’s hostile and determined quest had followed Lenin’s line: “Probe with bayonets, if you find mush, you push; if you find steel, you withdraw.” It is to our shame, Trump observed on China’s unfair trade practices, that Beijing had not been held to account by prior administrations. Unanswered, history has shown, the ambitious calculate and, at times, miscalculate.In past American forbearance, CCP leaders have seen a once great power on the wane. In foreign capitals they confided, inside China they proclaimed: It will soon be America’s turn to bend. They claim their own version of the right side of history.The keys to victory, Sun Tzu counseled, lie in knowing your enemy and deceiving them. The cunning men of Beijing have taken heed. They have an instinct for a divided, self-doubting, and weary West. Cloaking their aggressions in ambiguity, they weigh the likely costs against desired gains.Straining to contain COVID-19, President Trump and Secretary Pompeo rightly extend a hand to international, including Chinese, cooperation. But in post-pandemic days to come, the democracies must carefully take the measure of the CCP and hold it to account, crafting strategies for what it is, not what they wish it to be. That is leadership’s task.The late, great professor Fouad Ajami warned, “Men love the troubles they know” -- too ready to slip into a comfortable neglect, too reluctant to face strategic change. Some cite an arc of history, he lamented, to hide behind, hoping it might bear the burdens they would rather shun.With all doubts resolved in their favor, the untouchable leaders of the CCP have much for which to answer. Perhaps in reality, even more.In a time of death, Ajami cautioned: “There is no fated happiness or civility in any land.” As a great river may abruptly rise or fall, “Those gauges on the banks will have to be read and watched with care.”

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Costco to require face coverings for shoppers

Starting Monday, customers will be required to wear masks covering their nose and mouth at all times while inside the store.

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South Korea minister, U.S. sources, say Kim may be sheltering from virus

Fear of the coronavirus could have been keeping North Korean leader Kim Jong Un out of public sight, a South Korean minister and U.S. sources said on Tuesday, following intense speculation and concern as to his whereabouts and health. Under Kim's rule since 2011, North Korea has expanded its arsenal of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, and with no obvious successor, any change in leadership in the secretive, authoritarian state would raise concerns about instability that could impact other North Asian countries and the United States. Speculation about Kim's health erupted after his unprecedented absence from April 15 celebrations to mark the birthday of his late grandfather and North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung.

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New Model Shows How Deadly Lifting Georgia’s Lockdown May Be

Gov. Brian Kemp’s aggressive scheme to lift Georgia out of COVID-19 lockdown may cost many thousands of lives, according to models prepared by epidemiologists and computer scientists at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in partnership with The Daily Beast.The findings come as governors across the United States aim to restore economic activity following months of pandemic-related infections and over 50,000 deaths—a number widely understood to be an undercount. Meanwhile, over 26 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits in recent weeks, a number that is itself a likely undercount of the economic toll.Georgia’s Kemp has perhaps been the boldest of any governor about moving on, issuing a pair of executive orders allowing fitness centers, tattoo and massage parlors, bowling alleys, and hair salons to reopen last Friday with some mitigation measures. Other businesses, like restaurants and theaters, began opening Monday. The state’s shelter-in-place decree, meanwhile, was slated to expire on Thursday.Those policies are placing Georgians at spectacular risk, the new models found. ‘Dying to Bowl’: Georgia Flirts With Disaster as Lockdown EasesAs of Friday, by official counts in Georgia, at least 871 people statewide had lost their lives to COVID-19. If Georgia had maintained its pre-Friday lockdown policy, the Harvard/MIT team’s simulation—which used data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center and accounts for local demographics and health conditions based on Census and survey data—estimated the state would have logged a total of between 1,004 and 2,922 coronavirus fatalities by June 15. That fatality range, like all such ranges detailed in this article, includes deaths that had already been documented (in this case, 871).By contrast, under Kemp’s current plan to reopen, if approved businesses returned to just 50 percent of their pre-pandemic activity (or “contact”) levels, that range could reach 1,604 to 4,236 deaths. At 100 percent of pre-shutdown activity, the projected final body count could soar to a range between 4,279 and 9,748.Even if employee-on-employee contact returned to just one-quarter of what it was before the disease hit, and interactions among the general public—beginning April 30—reached 20 percent of the old norm, the researchers projected that deaths in the state could hit 3,563.“What we find, no matter what we assume, is that reopening on Monday was just too early,” said Jackson Killian, Ph.D. student at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, who worked on the models. “If you let people go out and have contact again now, you end up causing deaths that could have been avoided.”Based on the nature and speed of COVID-19’s spread through Georgia, Killian and his team estimated the virus may have arrived in the state as early as Feb. 1, or at least weeks before the first diagnosed cases—a possibility Kemp himself has acknowledged. To be clear, the models cannot prove or verify that the first infection happened on that date, but used it as an assumed start date based on the available information and the spread to date. The governor’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story.For their part, the team behind the models framed their approach not as an argument for absolutes, but a testament to dire stakes. “The stay-at-home orders cannot go on indefinitely,” said Maimuna Majumder, faculty member at the Computational Health Informatics Program and Harvard Medical School who led the creation of the models in partnership with Milind Tambe, a professor of computer science and director of Harvard’s Center for Research on Computation and Society. Instead, she emphasized the need for a “new normal [that] still allows people to go back to work” and that acknowledges “each of us can make a difference by physically distancing ourselves at, for example, grocery stores.”Turgay Ayer, an associate professor at Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, recently released a state-by-state COVID-19 simulator with colleagues at Harvard and researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital that he said found results “in line” with the estimations from the Harvard- MIT group.Ayer’s simulator showed that—under minimal restrictions, with no other interventions—there could be up to 20,000 deaths by Aug. 30 in Georgia, but he noted that was a worst-case scenario he didn’t expect to see. That’s because he believes politicians like Kemp will reimplement some restrictions once a resurgence of infections appears.“Once we start to see a second spike in infections in late July and early August, the policymakers will put some of these social distancing measurements back in place,” said Ayer. But the numbers do show one thing very clearly, he said: “If you lift the restriction too soon, a second wave will come, and the damage will be substantial both medically and economically. We don’t want to throw away the sacrifices we have made for weeks now.”The Harvard and MIT modelers working with The Daily Beast also looked at two neighboring states that, like Georgia, were hesitant to implement shutdowns in the first place, and are now mulling their own reopening plans: Florida and Mississippi. The results were similarly alarming.To be sure, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves have been more cautious than Kemp. DeSantis has, so far, mostly kept his state’s social distancing measures in place, while allowing localities to reopen beaches. He has also convened a Re-Open Florida Task Force to present a program for resuscitating commerce in the Sunshine State. The shelter-in-place order in Florida, like that in its neighbor to the north, was scheduled to sunset at month’s end. As of Friday, 987 Florida residents had been identified by the state as having died from COVID-19. Should DeSantis back off plans to reopen businesses and renew his stay-at-home decree through June 15, the Harvard/MIT/Daily Beast model projected his state would witness a total number of deaths as small as 988 or as large as 3,014 due to the virus.But if DeSantis had implemented Kemp’s aggressive reopening policies in recent days, the loss of life might have escalated to a range of 1,273 to 4,106 fatalities in the lowest-contact scenario, or even as high as 15,523 deaths if businesses returned to their pre-COVID-19 levels. DeSantis’ office did not reply to repeated inquiries from The Daily Beast.Reeves, meanwhile, appears to be plotting a course between Kemp’s attempted renaissance and a more prolonged shutdown. The Mississippi governor inked a decree on April 24—by which point 201 of his constituents had been identified as having died of COVID-19-related causes—that will keep the state’s gyms, salons, and theaters mostly closed and continue to limit eateries to take-out and delivery. But it will enable other retail stores to reopen at 50 percent capacity and for elective surgeries to resume. This fiat superseded an earlier shelter-in-place order with a looser “safer at home” policy, which is scheduled to remain in effect through May 11. The group from Harvard and MIT did not have the opportunity to model that new agenda in their simulation.Still, the team determined that had Reeves left his old order in place he could have contained the death toll to a range between 213 and 640 by June 15. Were he instead to have followed Kemp’s lead, the range of deaths might have spiked to between 1,865 to 3,463, assuming Mississippi businesses and patrons returned to their pre-pandemic habits.“There is no higher priority for Governor Reeves than ensuring the health and well-being of all Mississippians,” said a spokeswoman for his office, Renae Eze, noting the virus’ present impact on the state has been substantially less severe than the worst projections. “Thanks to the strategy executed by the governor and our state health officials, our testing is robust, our numbers are low, and our curve is flattening.”Regardless of how credible claims of flattening curves may be when testing remains so scant, the analysis performed by the Harvard and MIT team showed these same governors could have saved many of their constituents had they ordered social distancing sooner. Had Kemp instated his shelter-in-place order on March 23 (when New York City instituted its policy) instead of the date he actually did—April 3—the analysis found his state could have seen as few as 148 COVID-19 deaths by April 24 and possibly no more than 427, far lower than the actual documented count of 871.Likewise, the simulation projected that had DeSantis locked down Florida on March 23 instead of April 3, the tally of fatalities in his state on Friday could have fallen to somewhere between 103 and 376, rather than the actual total of 987. If Reeves had acted on the earlier date, only 36 to 111 Mississippians might have died because of the virus as of April 24, instead of 201.Of course, the Harvard and MIT models—like all such models—has critics. Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, an adjunct professor of epidemiology at the University of California Los Angeles who previously worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, acknowledged the analysis and similar simulations “can help policy-makers frame a response.” But he argued such projections “overinterpret the benefit of stay-at-home orders” and underestimate the impact of other factors that go into determining the infection’s reproduction number.“It’s very difficult to input the right assumptions to get a useful outcome,” added Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University and an expert on U.S. readiness for pandemics. “The infectivity of the virus, people following these rules, containment—you don’t really know what you’re dealing with.”Southern Tourist Hotspot Terrified of Post-Lockdown ExplosionStill, Redlener said, it’s too soon to reopen states without enough tests and contact-tracing to keep track of a resurgence of infections. “It’s not responsible of governors to rush into a return to business as usual, even if it’s relatively slow,“ he said. “This is a serious risk. We’re playing with fire.”Tambe, who co-created the models with Majumder and their team, acknowledged they may not map precisely onto reality. Still, he questioned whether the other factors model detractors cited—more diligent hand-washing and mask-wearing—would improve broadly enough in the weeks ahead to have an impact comparable to government orders. And he asserted that the purpose of the simulations was less to provide flawless predictions than to inform elected leaders and health officials as they consider methods to revive sedated economies.“We’re not saying this is the answer,” he said, acknowledging that a permanent lockdown was impracticable. “It’s one in the arsenal of tools that policymakers may employ.”When presented with doubts about the benefits of projecting pandemic death, Ayer—the Georgia Tech modeler—responded by quoting British statistician George E. P. Box, who famously said: “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” In an absence of sufficient data to look back on—a real problem for a pandemic experts are still learning about every day—no model will be perfect, Ayer said. But a careful and meticulous one is a much better alternative for policy-makers to “having no models and relying on gut feeling.”The idea, Ayer added, is to look at the dozens of models currently available and see where the similarities lie, what the trends are, and what is likely to happen over time, as opposed to focusing on specific numbers.“A lot of experts have said that lifting restrictions too soon would lead to a second wave, and that’s what a lot of the research has shown,” said Ayer. “All of the modelers are using the best available evidence out there, but our understanding of the disease is evolving over time.”Or as Majumder put it, “A model is only as good as the assumptions we put into it, and when we have a novel pandemic, our knowledge is changing every second.”The models provided for this story were created by Jackson A. Killian, a Ph.D. student at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Marie Charpignon, a Ph.D. student at MIT's Institute for Data, Systems, and Society; Bryan Wilder, a Ph.D. student at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Andrew Perrault, a Postdoctoral researcher at Harvard’s Center for Research on Computation and Society; Milind Tambe, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science and Director of Harvard’s Center for Research on Computation and Society; and Maimuna S. Majumder, faculty at the Computational Health Informatics Program (CHIP) based out of Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.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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Coronavirus kills 70 veterans at Massachusetts care home

Officials are investigating if residents received proper medical care at the Massachusetts home.

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Irrfan Khan: The Bollywood star loved by Hollywood

Irrfan Khan's biographer, Aseem Chhabra, writes about the life of one of Bollywood's biggest stars.

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Coronavirus: Searching for truth behind Spain's care home tragedy

Families want to know why so many of their elderly relatives have died.

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Coronavirus: Japan's low testing rate raises questions

Japan's relatively low rate of virus testing raises questions about how it has tackled the pandemic.

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Training AI 'to translate mum's phone messages'

How African researchers are using the continent's languages to help spur innovation in Artificial Intelligence.

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Staging a 'socially distanced' boxing match

Inside the Nicaraguan boxing event that caught the world's attention during the pandemic.

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Coronavirus: Why the fashion industry faces an 'existential crisis'

"No-one wants to buy clothes to sit at home in," as Next's chief executive Simon Wolfson puts it.

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Coronavirus: Why so many US nurses are out of work

At a time when many healthcare workers are risking their lives, some face pay cuts and job loss.

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How will airlines get flying again?

When passenger planes start flying again, the world of air travel will be very different.

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'We'll starve to death if this continues'

Half of the world's workers could lose their jobs because of Covid-19, we meet four who are struggling with lockdown.

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Coronavirus: Madrid's balcony cinema screens films for people in lockdown

People in Madrid can watch films from their balconies after the local council brought in huge screens.

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Supreme Court Dismisses NYC Gun Rights Case; Conservative Justices Dissent

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a case brought by three New York City handgun owners challenging a city regulation that prohibited gun owners from transporting their firearms outside the city.The court agreed to hear the case in December, but the city then amended the regulation to allow gun owners to bring firearms to other locations. The Supreme Court ruled 5-3 in an unsigned opinion that the case was moot because the city had amended its original regulation.Conservative justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch wrote in their dissent that the case should not have been dismissed."By incorrectly dismissing this case as moot, the Court permits our docket to be manipulated in a way that should not be countenanced," the justices wrote. Lawyers for the plaintiffs had argued that the case should not be dismissed because the city changed its regulation due to fears that the Supreme Court would use the case to restrict broader gun control measures.Gun rights advocates had initially hoped the court's conservative majority would tip the case in their favor."I believe it will change the way the Second Amendment is applied to everyone who owns a gun in the country," Romolo Colantone, a resident of Staten Island and one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in December 2019.

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McConnell to Move Quickly on Confirming His 38-Year-Old Protégé to the Bench

When the U.S. Senate returns from a lengthy absence next week, one of its first orders of business will be advancing the nomination of a 38-year-old ally of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to the second highest court in the land. According to two Democratic aides, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is expected to schedule a committee hearing for May 6 for Justin Walker, a federal judge in Kentucky whom President Trump has nominated to the influential D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. McConnell announced on Monday that the Senate would return to session on May 4 for its first full week of legislative business after the CARES Act passed in late March. And he has not been shy about his desire to start confirming judges as soon as his chamber is back in session. “I haven’t seen anything that would discourage me from doing that. And as soon as we get back in session, we’ll start confirming judges again,” he told Hugh Hewitt in a recent interview. McConnell’s office had no comment. Graham’s office did not return a request for comment. Mitch McConnell Turned the Courts Conservative—and Democrats Helped HimWalker is a McConnell protégé who has close ties to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and played a high-profile role defending him during his contentious confirmation hearings. Walker moved up the ranks of conservative legal circles before landing a judgeship on the United States District Court of the Western District of Kentucky. There, his record has been distinguished by conservative jurisprudence and a flair for unorthodox rulings. “On Holy Thursday, an American mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter,” Walker wrote in ruling against ordinances restricting attendance at religious services do to the coronavirus pandemic, “that sentence is one that this Court never expected to see outside the pages of a dystopian novel, or perhaps the pages of The Onion.”Walker’s lack of experience and partisan background has earned him “not qualified” ratings from the American Bar Association and the opposition of Democrats, who see his nomination as a thinly veiled attempt to place young ideological allies in key judicial positions. “If Graham/McConnell go forward with this, it would show that Senate Rs are rushing the Senate back to confirm an unqualified, anti-health care judge instead of responding to the pandemic and conducting oversight,” said a Senate Democratic aide.McConnell and Kavanaugh attended Walker’s swearing-in on March 13 in Louisville. There, the majority leader and Walker, his former intern, praised each other effusively in public remarks.In his Monday announcement on the May 4 return, McConnell said the Senate “must focus on concrete steps to strengthen our response to this complex crisis,” adding that lawmakers “cannot get distracted by pre-existing partisan wish-lists.”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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The richest ZIP code in the US, a private island off the coast of Miami, applied for a small business loan. It was approved for $2 million in funding — but residents voted to reject it.

Fisher Island is home to 800 families with an average income of $2.2 million. They pay a one-time fee of $250,000 and annual dues of $20,651.

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Trump news: President denies responsibility for people drinking bleach to fight coronavirus as tweetstorm branded ‘indecent and obscene’

As the number of US coronavirus cases climbs above 1 million and the nation's death toll surpasses deaths from the Vietnam War, Donald Trump claims the country is "very close" to testing 5 million people daily, as he continues to pressure states and local governments to begin "reopening" as the economy flounders.The president also suggested during a briefing on Tuesday that states with financial deficits could be forced to give undocumented people in custody over to federal immigration authorities if they want financial relief in the wake of the public health crisis.

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Reversing course, House won't return to D.C. next week because of coronavirus threat

"We made a judgment that we will not come back next week," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said in a phone call with reporters.

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Australia rejects Chinese 'economic coercion' threat amid planned coronavirus probe

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne has cautioned China against attempts at "economic coercion" as Australia pushes for an investigation into the coronavirus pandemic that China opposes. Chinese ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye, said in a newspaper interview on Monday the "Chinese public" could avoid Australian products and universities. Australia last week called for all members of the World Health Organization (WHO) to support an independent review into the origins and spread of the coronavirus, and is lobbying world leaders.

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European doctors warn rare kids' syndrome may have virus tie

Doctors in Britain, Italy, and Spain have been warned to look out for a rare inflammatory condition in children that is possibly linked to the new coronavirus. Earlier this week, Britain’s Paediatric Intensive Care Society issued an alert to doctors noting that, in the past three weeks, there has been an increase in the number of children with “a multi-system inflammatory state requiring intensive care” across the country. The group said there was “growing concern” that either a COVID-19 related syndrome was emerging in children or that a different, unidentified disease might be responsible.

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Ignorance, fear, whispers: North Korean defectors say contacts in the dark about Kim

Defectors from North Korea say many of their relatives and contacts were unaware of the international speculation over leader Kim Jong Un's health or were unwilling to discuss the issue in clandestine calls made from the South. Two defectors told Reuters their relatives in North Korea did not know that Kim has been missing from public view for almost two weeks, said they didn't want to discuss the issue, or abruptly hung up when the supreme leader was mentioned. Kim's health is a state secret in insular North Korea and speculation about him or his family can invite swift retribution.

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COVID-19 and gun violence: Mayors fight double health crisis

Everytown for Gun Safety offers new guidelines for mayors struggling with a "perfect storm"

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Supreme Court sidesteps major Second Amendment case, a setback for NRA

The justices ruled that New York City's repeal of gun restrictions rendered the case moot. But other Second Amendment cases are in the pipeline.

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Mitch McConnell wants to prevent a 'blue state bailout' of stimulus money. But Kentucky takes more from the federal government than almost any other state.

Kentucky has a bigger balance than 47 other states from the 2015 fiscal year through 2018, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government.

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Britain to stockpile non-medical face masks for the public after Nicola Sturgeon advises using scarves

Britain is to stockpile non-medical face masks for people to wear while shopping and on public transport after Nicola Sturgeon recommended the use of t-shirts and scarves. Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office Minister, confirmed that a "domestic effort" has been launched to slow the spread of coronavirus by producing masks that "limit the droplets that each of us might be responsible for". Challenged by Labour's Rachel Reeves to build up a stockpile for the public, he also told the Commons they would not be the "high-spec surgical face masks" required in the NHS but could be used in "particular settings." Whitehall insiders said the Government wants to delay an announcement over its guidance for England on wearing face coverings until enough have been stockpiled. Unlike Ms Sturgeon, they said UK ministers were not happy with telling people to use cloth coverings, which they think "will not do any good at all" at slowing the virus. The announcement came after the Scottish First Minister published official guidance that Scots over the age of two should wear a cloth covering, such as a scarf or t-shirt, in "enclosed spaces" indoors where social distancing is difficult. She cited the examples of shops and public transport. Rather than protecting the wearer, the First Minister said the main benefit was helping prevent asymptomatic carriers who do not realise they have the virus from passing it on. The change ramped up pressure on Boris Johnson to follow suit in England, with Ms Sturgeon stating she assumed that UK ministers had seen the same scientific advice she had. But Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, hit back by telling the daily Downing Street briefing that there was only "weak science" on face masks and "the most important thing" remains social distancing. He was backed by Dame Angela McLean, the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser, who said there is "weak evidence of a small effect" of masks preventing carriers passing on the virus. She said the recommendation from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) to UK ministers, which they are considering before coming to a final decision, is "completely clear" on this.

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Trump ‘can't imagine why’ there are increased reports of people misusing disinfectants

President Trump on Monday said he "can't imagine why" there have been more reports of people misusing disinfectants after his comments on the subject last week.

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Nova Scotia gunman killed 9 of his 22 victims by setting fire to their houses, police say

Nine of the 22 victims killed in Canada's Nova Scotia province earlier this month in a weekend shooting rampage died in house fires set by the gunman, Canadian police told reporters on Tuesday.

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Ground Situation In Bihar Behind Nitish Kumar's Stance On Migrants

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has refused to bring back students and migrant labourers, sticking to his stand that puts lockdown rules first. While it has ensured that the COVID-19 figures in the...

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India Inches Closer To 30,000 Coronavirus Cases, Total Deaths 937

India is inching closer to 30,000 coronavirus cases across the country. Currently, the number of cases stand at 29,974 with 937 deaths. Maharashtra is still the most affected state with over 8,500...

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Ground Situation In Bihar Behind Nitish Kumar's Stance On Migrants

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has refused to bring back students and migrant labourers, sticking to his stand that puts lockdown rules first. While it has ensured that the COVID-19 figures in the...

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California faces civil-rights lawsuit after Highway Patrol bans rallies at state Capitol over coronavirus

A firearms instructor and Republican congressional candidate are suing California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Highway Patrol over the rejection of their permit applications to hold protests at the Capitol to demand the rollback of restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

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Byron York: Dems 'set themselves up' for Biden furor by adopting 'believe all women' mantra against Kavanaugh

Washington Examiner chief political correspondent and Fox News contributor Byron York said on "Special Report" Tuesday that Democrats set themselves up for accusations of hypocrisy by adopting the mantra "believe all women" after now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was accused of sexual misconduct during his confirmation battle.

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David Bossie: Trump-hating media should stop covering up Biden sexual assault allegation

The liberal media are so eager to defeat President Trump for reelection that they are downplaying coverage of a serious allegation that Biden committed sexual assault in 1993.

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Mnuchin: Large companies should apologize for seeking coronavirus small-business loans

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Tuesday said large companies that sought coronavirus relief funds for small businesses should apologize to American taxpayers.

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Hawley calls for extra PPP loan oversight to protect small businesses from 'corporate greed on Wall Street'

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Tuesday pushing for stricter oversight of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and expressed concern about corporate cronyism with regard to coronavirus relief loans.

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Here are all the states set to begin loosening lockdown restrictions this week

As new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in the U.S. slowly reach the back end of the curve, a number of states have announced plans to loosen restrictions and begin to reopen their economies.

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China envoy threatens Australia boycott over virus inquest demand

China's ambassador in Australia has warned that demands for a probe into the spread of the coronavirus could lead to a consumer boycott of Aussie wine or trips Down Under. Australia has joined the United States in calling for a thorough investigation of how the virus transformed from a localised epidemic in central China into a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 people, forced billions into isolation and torpedoed the global economy. In a thinly veiled threat, ambassador Cheng Jingye warned the push for an independent inquest into the origins of the outbreak was "dangerous".

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Stacey Abrams: ‘I would be willing to serve’ if asked to be Biden’s VP

The Georgia Democrat is actively seeking the No. 2 spot on the Democratic ticket.

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Supreme Court Dismisses NYC Gun Rights Case; Conservative Justices Dissent

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a case brought by three New York City handgun owners challenging a city regulation that prohibited gun owners from transporting their firearms outside the city.The court agreed to hear the case in December, but the city then amended the regulation to allow gun owners to bring firearms to other locations. The Supreme Court ruled 5-3 in an unsigned opinion that the case was moot because the city had amended its original regulation.Conservative justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch wrote in their dissent that the case should not have been dismissed."By incorrectly dismissing this case as moot, the Court permits our docket to be manipulated in a way that should not be countenanced," the justices wrote. Lawyers for the plaintiffs had argued that the case should not be dismissed because the city changed its regulation due to fears that the Supreme Court would use the case to restrict broader gun control measures.Gun rights advocates had initially hoped the court's conservative majority would tip the case in their favor."I believe it will change the way the Second Amendment is applied to everyone who owns a gun in the country," Romolo Colantone, a resident of Staten Island and one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in December 2019.

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Trump Questions Whether U.S. Should Aid ‘Democrat’ States

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Mexico all but empties official migrant centers in bid to contain coronavirus

Mexico has almost entirely cleared out government migrant centers over the past five weeks to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, returning most of the occupants to their countries of origin, official data showed on Sunday. In a statement, the National Migration Institute (INM) said that since March 21, in order to comply with health and safety guidelines, it had been removing migrants from its 65 migrant facilities, which held 3,759 people last month. In the intervening weeks, Mexico has returned 3,653 migrants to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador by road and air, with the result that only 106 people remain in the centers, it said.

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Joe Manganiello looks like a completely different person without his beard — no, seriously

The actor looked unrecognizable without any facial hair in photos that he and Sofia Vergara posted on Instagram on Sunday.

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Louisiana pastor, while on house arrest, again defies coronavirus order with church service

Life Tabernacle Church pastor Tony Spell admitted violating Louisiana's mandate to avoid large gatherings by hosting hundreds of worshippers.

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Coronavirus impact: Meat processing plants weigh risks of prosecution if they're blamed for spreading infection

Tyson Foods recently suspended production at its Waterloo, Iowa, pork processing plant due to a growing coronavirus outbreak among employees. The plant was Tyson’s largest, employing some 2,800 workers and processing 19,500 pigs a day. At least 180 confirmed infections originated from the plant, about half of all cases in the county.It’s not the first meat processing plant to close. In the U.S., at least eight have halted in recent weeks, affecting over 15% of the nation’s pork processing capacity. As a result, pig farmers have begun euthanizing hundreds and potentially tens of thousands of animals that can’t be processed – raising fears of a meat shortage on grocery shelves. Managers at essential companies like Tyson considering plant shutdowns over coronavirus are weighing a variety of factors, from worker safety and profits to keeping afloat a US$230 billion segment of the U.S. economy that supplies food for hundreds of millions of Americans.As a corporate and white-collar crime scholar, I believe there’s another variable they’re weighing: criminal liability. Coronavirus crimePut simply, executives at food companies like Tyson face a heightened risk of criminal prosecution for the decisions they make. This is due to a quirk in American law, known as the “responsible corporate officer doctrine,” that allows senior executives in certain industries to be held criminally responsible for wrongdoing at their companies – even if they’ve never set foot in a plant or factory.In the case of the coronavirus pandemic, potential criminal liability stems from a meatpacking facility sending out a contaminated product and knowing there was an outbreak among employees. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not found evidence that COVID-19 has been transmitted through meat or poultry, public health officials have said that coronavirus strains can live at low and freezing temperatures and on food packaging. And so much about the risks of COVID-19 are uncertain and evolving that companies need to be on their toes. In addition, there’s the danger that if plants stay in operation without enough workers, there’s a greater risk for other types of food contamination, like of E. coli or salmonella. And the Food and Drug Administration has reduced the number of inspections during the outbreak, which doesn’t limit the criminal liability of executives if tainted food reaches a consumer. This means food safety procedures are paramount to keeping the public safe. Executives that don’t take steps to ensure those procedures are in place – for example, by keeping processing lines going as usual while employee infections spike – are at risk of ignoring their legal duties and becoming a “responsible corporate officer.”Normally, criminal law insists that a defendant must be aware that he’s doing something wrong to be held liable. But courts have decided that this element of intent can be ignored in limited situations where the public’s health and welfare are at stake – namely, in the making of drugs and in food production. ‘Strict liability’Although the responsible corporate officer doctrine is an anomaly in the criminal law, it has a lengthy history. In 1943, the Supreme Court in United States v. Dotterweich found that the president and general manager of a pharmaceutical company was liable for the misbranding of the company’s drugs that were later distributed across state lines. In upholding his conviction under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, the court stated that there need not be a showing that Joseph Dotterweich knew of the illegal activity. The court reasoned that Congress had balanced the relative hardships that came from imposing “strict liability” on corporate executives who had a “responsible share” in the illegal conduct and those imposed on the innocent public “who are wholly helpless.” Dotterweich was found guilty by a jury and had to pay a small fine. Thirty years later, in United States v. Park, the Supreme Court again considered the responsible corporate officer doctrine, this time specific to food distribution. John Park, president and CEO of a national food chain, was charged with violating the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for allowing food to be shipped from company warehouses infested with rats.Although the contamination occurred in locations Park did not personally oversee, the court found him responsible. The court held that the food act imposes not only a positive duty to seek out and remedy violations but also a duty to “implement measures that will insure that violations will not occur.” While this standard is demanding, the court conceded, the public has a right to expect executives to assume such a standard when taking positions of authority that affect the health and well-being of the public. He was required to pay a small fine. While the penalties in responsible corporate officer cases have mostly been minor, some have involved months of jail time. For example, in 2016, the Eighth Circuit not only upheld the conviction of two executive owners of a large Iowa egg production company for not preventing a salmonella outbreak, but also their three-month jail sentences. Relying on the previous Supreme Court rulings, the court in United States v. DeCoster brushed aside arguments that jailing the the owner and his son for a strict liability crime violated the Constitution. The punishment was proportionate and reasonable, the court found, for those overseeing “egregious” safety and sanitation procedures that allowed salmonella-contaminated eggs to enter the market and sicken consumers. Executive dutiesSo what does this mean for executives at American food companies today? While it would be easy for those executives with responsibility over our nation’s food supply to defer to others, such as governors or the president, that thinking ignores their own duties – legal and ethical – as well as their own criminal risk.The law is clear that even if an executive is not involved in the day-to-day operations of production, he or she could be held criminally responsible for the distribution of contaminated food. That’s one more risk to weigh in the decision to keep the plant doors open. Let’s see if it tips the balance. [Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]

Este artículo se vuelve a publicar de The Conversation, un medio digital sin fines de lucro dedicado a la diseminación de la experticia académica.

Lee mas:

• Why farmers are dumping milk down the drain and letting produce rot in fields
• Migrant workers face further social isolation and mental health challenges during coronavirus pandemic

Todd Haugh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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China Says It Is ‘Victim’ of Coronavirus Disinformation, Accuses U.S. of ‘Hiding Something’

The Chinese government went on the attack Monday against U.S. criticism of the Beijing's handling of the coronavirus outbreak, claiming it is a "victim" of disinformation surrounding the pandemic and accusing the U.S. of “hiding something.”"China always stands against disinformation campaign. We are victim rather than producer of disinformation," the Chinese foreign ministry wrote on its Twitter account. "Peddling disinformation and recrimination are by no means prescription for international anti-pandemic cooperation and should be rejected by all."Moments later, the foreign ministry added a tweet hammering the U.S. response to the coronavirus and suggesting that the U.S. government has been dishonest about the pandemic with the American public."Growing doubts over the US government’s handling of the COVID19, e.g. When did the first infection occur in the US? Is the US government hiding something? Why they opt to blame others? American people and the international community need an answer from the US government," the foreign ministry tweeted.The U.S. has strongly condemned China's managing of the virus from the earliest days of the outbreak with the exception of President Trump's initial praise for Chinese president Xi Jinping.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week doubled down on his previous criticism of Beijing's response, saying the U.S. “strongly believed” China flouted World Health Organization rules by neglecting to report on the outbreak in a "timely fashion," and did not report on the community spread of the virus “for a month until it was in every province inside of China.”Even after the Chinese Communist Party eventually reported the outbreak to the WHO, China did not share all the information it had on the virus, Pompeo said, but instead covered up the danger the disease posed, censored those who tried to warn the rest of the world, and halted the testing of new samples while destroying existing samples.The U.S. intelligence community concluded in a classified report released Wednesday that China deliberately provided incomplete public numbers for coronavirus cases and deaths resulting from the infection.In December, local and national officials issued a gag order to labs in Wuhan after scientists there identified a new viral pneumonia, ordering them to halt tests, destroy samples, and conceal the news.Meanwhile, Wuhan doctor Ai Fen, who expressed early concerns about the coronavirus to the media, disappeared several weeks ago and is believed detained by Chinese authorities. Fen, the head of emergency at Wuhan Central Hospital, was given a warning after she disseminated information about the coronavirus to several other doctors.

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Nigeria to ease lockdown for millions in key cities

Nigeria will start easing a coronavirus lockdown covering its largest city Lagos and capital Abuja from May 4, President Muhammadu Buhari said on Monday. "I have approved a phased and gradual easing of lockdown measures," Buhari said in a televised broadcast. More than 25 million residents in Abuja, Lagos and neighbouring Ogun state have been under federal lockdown since March 30 and other states have introduced their own restrictions.

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Less-invasive breathing therapies could keep 'significant number' of patients off ventilators

A potential ventilator shortage has made building and buying them a national priority to fight COVID-19. But doctors are becoming less concerned.

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E.R. doc on COVID-19 'front lines' died by suicide

Dr. Lorna Breen was a "hero who brought the highest ideals of medicine to the challenging front lines of the emergency department," the hospital said in a statement.

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Venezuela appoints alleged drug trafficker El Aissami as oil minister

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday appointed his economy vice president, Tareck El Aissami, who has been indicted in the United States on drug trafficking charges, as oil minister, amid acute fuel shortages across the country. Maduro named Asdrubal Chavez, cousin of the late President Hugo Chavez, as interim president of state oil firm PDVSA, according to the appointments published in the government's official gazette.

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Farmers are destroying their own crops after the coronavirus ravaged the food market — and say USDA failed to help them get it to hungry Americans in time

USDA has been accused of acting too late to buy up and redistribute the surplus farm food left after lockdown decimated food service industry demand.

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Banks smashed as protests turn violent in Lebanon's Tripoli

The facades of several banks were smashed with at least one set on fire as protests fuelled by Lebanon's economic crisis turned violent in the northern city of Tripoli overnight, a witness said.

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Burgers, fries and coffee: New Zealanders rush for fast food as lockdown eases

New Zealanders queued for burgers, fries and coffee takeaway on Tuesday after they were freed from a month-long lockdown, which Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern credited with eliminating domestic transmission of the coronavirus.

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Trump says he has good idea how North Korea's Kim is doing; 'I hope he's fine'

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he has a good idea how Kim Jong Un is doing and hopes he is fine, after days of speculation over the North Korean leader's health.

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