| A timeline of Trump's missed opportunities on coronavirus Posted: 08 Apr 2020 12:32 PM PDT  As the deadly coronavirus outbreak rapidly spread across America in February and March, President Trump repeatedly asserted that "nobody could have predicted something like this." But a review of government records shows that repeated warnings were issued to the White House and went unheeded.
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| Coronavirus is ushering in a new wave of racially motivated attacks, warns intelligence bulletin Posted: 08 Apr 2020 07:46 AM PDT  Federal agencies are concerned that domestic extremists could use the coronavirus pandemic to attack Asians and Jews, according to a joint intelligence bulletin obtained by Yahoo News. That bulletin mirrors what organizations that monitor online hate content are also finding.
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| Doctors rethinking coronavirus: Are we using ventilators the wrong way? Posted: 08 Apr 2020 05:37 AM PDT  As hospitals and health care workers grapple with a shortage of supplies, some doctors are raising questions about how ventilators are currently being used on coronavirus patients — and whether they may actually be doing more harm than good.
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| 'A silent explosion': Coronavirus deaths in U.S. climb past 16,000 Posted: 09 Apr 2020 11:13 AM PDT  COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. surpass 16,000. In New York, new hospitalizations slow, affirming signs that stay-at-home orders are slowing coronavirus spread.
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| U.K. truck driver pleads guilty in deaths of Vietnamese migrants found in container Posted: 08 Apr 2020 09:50 AM PDT  Victims died of a combination of a lack of oxygen and overheating in an enclosed space, police said.
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| Biden pledges to lower Medicare age and reduce some student debt in olive branch to Sanders supporters Posted: 09 Apr 2020 02:16 PM PDT  Former Vice President Joe Biden is reaching out to Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) supporters, just a little bit.Sanders suspended his 2020 run on Wednesday, though he pledged to keep collecting delegates and fighting for his progressive platform. So in an effort to win over Sanders' backers, Biden adopted a lighter version of some of Sanders' policies Thursday, pledging to lower the age of Medicare eligibility and forgive some student debt.In a Thursday blog post, Biden first promised he'd let Americans receive Medicare benefits once they turned 60, a small step down from the current eligibility age of 65. This "reflects the reality that, even after the current crisis ends, older Americans are likely to find it difficult to secure jobs," Biden wrote, though he was sure to point out that "those who prefer to remain on their employer plans would be permitted to do so." Sanders' health care plan, famously known as Medicare-for-all, would swap all private insurance to a universal public plan.Biden also adopted Sanders' and Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-Mass.) plans to forgive student loan debt, albeit with several restrictions. Biden would "forgive all undergraduate tuition-related federal student debt from two- and four-year public colleges and universities for debt-holders earning up to $125,000," he said in the blog post. "Senator Sanders and his supporters can take pride in their work in laying the groundwork for these ideas," Biden finished in his post, though some Sanders backers weren't totally happy with Biden's proposals.More stories from theweek.com Biden is the weakest major party nominee in recent history — but that might be the point 4 important parenting lessons from life in lockdown Coronavirus genomes show New York's COVID-19 outbreak came from Europe months ago
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| Hamas arrests Gaza activists after Zoom call with Israelis Posted: 09 Apr 2020 09:06 AM PDT  Hamas-run security forces have arrested several peace activists in the Gaza Strip on treason charges after they took part in a web conference with Israeli activists, officials said Thursday. The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said the activists are accused of "holding a normalization activity with the Israeli occupation." "Holding any activity or contact with the Israeli occupation under any cover is a crime punishable by law and a betrayal for the people and their sacrifices," it said in a statement.
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| Oil producers intend to cut 10-15 mn barrels: Kuwait Posted: 08 Apr 2020 09:31 PM PDT  Top oil producers meeting later Thursday intend to cut production by between 10 and 15 million barrels per day, Kuwait's Oil Minister Khaled al-Fadhel reportedly said. The talks between OPEC and other major producers come as oil languishes at near-two decade lows, with Russia and Saudi Arabia's price war compounding slack demand caused by the coronavirus pandemic. "Through our continuous consultations in the past weeks, I confirm that the intention is to conclude an agreement to cut production by a large amount ranging between 10 million bpd and 15 million bpd," Fadhel said in an interview with Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai published Thursday.
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| Cases of novel coronavirus in Russia surge past 10,000 after record daily rise Posted: 09 Apr 2020 12:55 AM PDT  Russia on Thursday reported a record one-day rise in cases of novel coronavirus, pushing the official tally to more than 10,000, a day after President Vladimir Putin said the coming weeks would prove decisive in the fight against the virus. The number of cases jumped by 1,459 and 13 more people died, the national coronavirus crisis response centre said on its website. Moscow, the worst-affected region, and many other regions are in their second week of a partial lockdown.
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| New Yahoo News/YouGov coronavirus poll shows Americans turning against Trump Posted: 08 Apr 2020 01:13 PM PDT  The new survey found that Americans increasingly blame Trump for the vast scale of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak.
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| Coronavirus: WHO chief and Taiwan in row over 'racist' comments Posted: 09 Apr 2020 07:39 AM PDT  Taiwan rejects accusations by the UN health body's head that racist slurs against him originated there.
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| This is what I want my friends to do if they have COVID-19 symptoms and are asked to go to the ER Posted: 08 Apr 2020 06:20 AM PDT  As a frontline infectious diseases doctor, this is what I want my friends and neighbors to do if they have COVID-19 symptoms and are asked to go to the emergency room.
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| New York City will bury unclaimed bodies on a remote island after 14 days because coronavirus deaths are overwhelming morgues Posted: 09 Apr 2020 12:19 PM PDT  The city typically waits 30 days before interring bodies in mass graves on Hart Island, but the coronavirus' death toll is overwhelming the system.
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| Two suspects arrested after Wisconsin doctor and husband were 'targeted' and killed, police say Posted: 08 Apr 2020 07:23 AM PDT  Two suspects were arrested Friday after the double-homicide of Beth Potter, 52, and Robin Carre, 57.
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| Wuhan ends its coronavirus lockdown, but another Chinese city shutdown emerges Posted: 08 Apr 2020 08:22 AM PDT  The Chinese city where the new coronavirus emerged ended its more-than two-month lockdown on Wednesday, even as a small northern city ordered restrictions on residents amid concern about a second wave of infections.
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| Philippines backs Vietnam after China sinks fishing boat Posted: 08 Apr 2020 03:51 AM PDT  The Philippines on Wednesday expressed solidarity with Vietnam after Hanoi protested what it said was the ramming and sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat by a Chinese coast guard ship in the disputed South China Sea. The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila expressed deep concern over the reported April 3 sinking of the boat carrying eight fishermen off the Paracel Islands. China claims virtually the entire South China Sea and has built several islands equipped with military installations in the area, one of world's busiest shipping lanes.
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| Pakistan shoots down Indian drone as Kashmir tensions rise Posted: 09 Apr 2020 12:19 AM PDT  Pakistan's army said Thursday it had shot down a small Indian surveillance drone in Kashmir, as tensions rose over continued cross-border shelling in the disputed territory. "This blatant act was aggressively responded to by Pakistan Army troops shooting down Indian quadcopter," the statement read. An Indian army spokesman said the drone "is not ours".
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| New York state reports more coronavirus cases than any country except the U.S.: Reuters tally Posted: 08 Apr 2020 10:44 AM PDT  The U.S. state has 149,316 reported cases compared with Spain at 146,690. Italy is now in third place with 139,422 cases reported on Wednesday. In total, the United States has recorded over 417,000 cases and 14,100 deaths, according to the Reuters tally.
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| Trump Slammed the WHO Over Coronavirus. He's Not Alone. Posted: 08 Apr 2020 11:46 AM PDT  President Donald Trump unleashed a tirade against the World Health Organization on Tuesday, accusing it of acting too slowly to sound the alarm about the coronavirus. It was not the first time in this pandemic that the global health body has faced such criticism.Government officials, health experts and analysts have in recent weeks raised concerns about how the organization has responded to the outbreak.In Japan, Taro Aso, the deputy prime minister and finance minister, recently noted that some people have started referring to the World Health Organization as the "Chinese Health Organization" because of what he described as its close ties to Beijing. Taiwanese officials say the WHO ignored its early warnings about the virus because China refuses to allow Taiwan, a self-governing island it claims as its territory, to become a member.Critics say the WHO has been too trusting of the Chinese government, which initially tried to conceal the outbreak in Wuhan. Others have faulted the organization and its leader, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, for moving too slowly in declaring a global health emergency.The WHO, a U.N. agency, has defended its response, saying Wednesday that it alerted the world to the threat posed by the virus in a timely manner and that it was "committed to ensuring all member states are able to respond effectively to this pandemic."The agency's defenders say that its powers over any individual government are limited, and that it has done the best it can in dealing with a public health threat with few precedents in history.There will be time later to assess successes and failings, "this virus and its shattering consequences," the United Nations secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, said Wednesday in a statement praising the WHO as "absolutely critical" to vanquishing COVID-19.Here's why the WHO is coming under attack.The WHO has not pushed China on early missteps.When cases of a mysterious viral pneumonia first appeared in Wuhan in December, Chinese health officials silenced whistleblowers and repeatedly played down the severity of the outbreak.Even as late as mid-January, as the virus spread beyond China's borders, Chinese officials described it as "preventable and controllable" and said there was no evidence it could be transmitted between humans on a broad scale.The WHO endorsed the government's claims, saying in mid-January, for example, that human-to-human transmission had not been proved.Critics say the organization's repeated deference to Beijing exacerbated the spread of the disease. A group of international experts was not allowed to visit Wuhan until mid-February."They could have been more forceful, especially in the initial stages in the crisis when there was a cover-up and there was inaction," said Yanzhong Huang, a global health expert specializing in China at Seton Hall University.Huang noted that during the SARS epidemic in 2002 and 2003, which killed more than 700 people worldwide, the WHO pushed the Chinese government to be more transparent by publicly criticizing it for trying to conceal the outbreak.At one point during the SARS epidemic, officials at hospitals in Beijing forced SARS patients into ambulances and drove them around to avoid their being seen by a visiting delegation of WHO experts, according to reports at the time.WHO officials were slow to declare a public health emergency, critics say.Even as the virus spread to more than half a dozen countries and forced China to place parts of Hubei province under lockdown in late January, the WHO was reluctant to declare it a global health emergency.WHO officials said at the time that a committee that discussed the epidemic was divided on the question of whether to call it an emergency but concluded that it was too early. One official added that they weighed the impact such a declaration might have on the people of China.After the United States announced a ban on most foreign citizens who had recently visited China, the WHO again seemed to show deference to Chinese officials, saying that travel restrictions were unnecessary. The group officially called the spread of the coronavirus a pandemic March 11.Some experts argue that the institution's delay in making such declarations deprived other countries of valuable time to prepare hospitals for an influx of patients."It reinforced the reluctance to take early strong measures before the catastrophe had actually landed on other shores," said François Godement, senior adviser for Asia at Institut Montaigne, a nonprofit group in Paris. "The WHO's tardiness or reluctance to call out the problem in full helped those who wanted to delay difficult decisions."The WHO defended its actions, saying Wednesday that it had "alerted member states to the significant risks and consequences of COVID-19 and provided them with a continuous flow of information" ever since Chinese officials first reported the outbreak Dec. 31.Guterres of the United Nations said, "It is possible that the same facts have had different readings by different entities." He added in his statement: "Once we have finally turned the page on this epidemic, there must be a time to look back fully to understand how such a disease emerged and spread its devastation so quickly across the globe and how all those involved reacted to the crisis."China's influence at the WHO is growing.China's leader, Xi Jinping, has made it a priority to strengthen Beijing's clout at international institutions, including the WHO, seeing the U.S.-dominated global order as an impediment to his country's rise as a superpower.China contributes only a small fraction of the WHO's $6 billion budget, while the United States is one of its main benefactors. But in recent years, Beijing has worked in other ways to expand its influence at the organization.The government has lobbied the WHO to promote traditional Chinese medicine, which Xi has worked to harness as a source of national pride and deployed as a soft-power tool in developing countries, despite skepticism from some scientists about its effectiveness.Last year, the WHO offered an endorsement of traditional Chinese medicine, including it in its influential medical compendium. The move was roundly criticized by animal welfare activists, who argued that it could contribute to a surge in illegal trafficking of wildlife whose parts are used in Chinese remedies.China has sought to promote traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of symptoms of the coronavirus both at home and abroad. Last month, the WHO was criticized after it removed a warning against taking traditional herbal remedies to treat the coronavirus from its websites in mainland China.China's role at the WHO will probably continue to grow in the coming years, especially if Western governments retreat from the organization, as Trump has threatened."This is part of China's efforts to more actively engage in international institutions," said Huang, the global health expert. "It will not please every country or every actor, but it's going to affect the agenda of the WHO."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Bernie Sanders, Sellout Posted: 09 Apr 2020 10:46 AM PDT  Yesterday, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders officially dropped out of the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Despite early successes in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, Sanders failed to put up much of a fight against Joe Biden after the latter convincingly won South Carolina. And so, for the second campaign in a row, he has come up short against a weak but well-known presumptive front-runner.In the not-too-distant past, this would have depressed me. When Sanders announced his 2016 presidential campaign, I had never heard of him, but he didn't take too long to figure out. On economic questions, he was among the left-most political figures ever to achieve prominence in America, and was clearly proud of it. On other issues, he strayed from left-wing orthodoxy in some interesting ways. He evinced a skepticism of open borders and increased immigration that occasionally made him sound downright Trumpy. He had a surprisingly decent record on gun rights. And above all, he actually seemed to believe what he said, which I found a breath of fresh air when juxtaposed with the obfuscation and opportunism of his opponent, Hillary Clinton.Four years later, my view of the Sanders phenomenon has changed completely. I do not now mourn the end of Sanders's candidacy, because in his second run for the White House he proved himself to be just another politician: He deemphasized or outright jettisoned his politically inconvenient stances in pursuit of power, while remaining true to a core far-left agenda that, in the absence of that aura of integrity, seems far scarier than it did four years ago.It was always one of the more striking aspects of Sanders's rhetoric that he could sound like an immigration hawk. In a 2015 interview with Vox, he famously called open borders a "Koch brothers proposal":> It would make everybody in America poorer — you're doing away with the concept of a nation state, and I don't think there's any country in the world that believes in that. If you believe in a nation-state or in a country called the United States or UK or Denmark or any other country, you have an obligation in my view to do everything we can to help poor people. What right-wing people in this country would love is an open-border policy. Bring in all kinds of people, work for $2 or $3 an hour, that would be great for them. I don't believe in that. I think we have to raise wages in this country, I think we have to do everything we can to create millions of jobs.To be fair, Sanders wasn't necessarily getting immigration-policy advice from Mark Krikorian. He represented an older strain of left-wing thought that argued against immigration from the perspective of labor unions concerned about multinational corporations and undercut wages. But nevertheless, when he spoke of the issue, he could sound surprisingly like Donald Trump, then rampaging his way through the Republican primaries.That Bernie Sanders is gone now. His 2020 platform called for "breaking up ICE and CBP and redistributing their functions to their proper authorities," unilaterally reinstating President Obama's DACA and DAPA programs, and decriminalizing illegal immigration, among other things. For the most part, he became difficult to distinguish from his Democratic opponents on immigration, except insofar as some of them chased after him as he moved left in the hope of capturing more votes. Thus did this unconventional aspect of his public persona recede.The story on gun rights is much the same. Vermont is caricatured as a semi-socialist state, and maybe the caricature is accurate. But it also has relatively loose gun laws, and a high rate of per capita firearm ownership. As a representative of the state in various capacities, Sanders has compiled a record that reflects this. The National Rifle Association helped him first win election to the House in 1990, where he would vote against the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. As a senator, he has supported bills that would allow firearms in checked bags on Amtrak trains. And after the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, Sanders said, "If you passed the strongest gun-control legislation tomorrow, I don't think it will have a profound effect on the tragedies we have seen." Though this record was a source of consternation for an otherwise adoring left in 2016, and was fodder for Hillary Clinton's campaign, he didn't run away from it then.Four years later, the story was very different. A watershed moment came during a February Democratic primary debate, when he was asked about his past vote to protect gun manufacturers from lawsuits pertaining to the use of guns in shootings. "I've cast thousands of votes, including bad votes," Sanders said. "That was a bad vote." His 2020 platform proposed a buyback program for guns and a ban on assault weapons. In a fitting bookend to his elective career, it also demanded that Democrats "take on the NRA and its corrupting effect on Washington." Once again, Sanders had tacked left under pressure in search of votes, willingly abandoning a unique part of his persona to the political needs of the moment.Shorn of the ideological heterodoxies that made him appealing, Sanders was reduced to his essence as a crusader for hard-left economics. When, in 2015, he argued that, "You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm-spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country," I still regarded his economic platform as a quirk that might inspire him to join with fiscally conservative Republicans to, say, cut corporate welfare. But it wasn't a quirk at all: He recently expressed disgust at the idea that someone might make money developing drugs to fight the novel coronavirus.Meanwhile, in his second campaign certain aspects of Sanders's record that were always there for those who wanted to see them became impossible to ignore. We knew in 2016 that, as mayor of Burlington, the just-married Sanders had visited the Soviet Union on a mission to procure a Soviet sister city that doubled as his honeymoon. Those facts would be more forgivable if he had not offered unqualified praise for Cuban "literacy programs" and the economic progress of Communist China in 2020.In 2016, smitten with the heterodox left-populist gadfly I thought I'd found, I either did not realize the currency that Sanders's economic views had in the Democratic Party or did not anticipate the extent of the foothold they would gain in it. This is due mostly to young voters, who in a 2019 Gallup survey thought almost equally well of capitalism and socialism (51 percent to 49 percent). Sanders consistently garnered more support than Clinton from this group in 2016. In 2020, he maintained that support to a certain extent, though it didn't translate into actual votes as easily as it had before. Both times around, the center of the Democratic Party, such as it is, held. But the young democratic socialists uncovered by his campaigns continue to maintain that they are the future of the party's politics, and of the country's.If they are right, we can be sure that they won't remember the Bernie Sanders whom I, as an outside conservative observer, once found somewhat compelling. For that Sanders held certain views they would abhor, views that he changed or abandoned when it became politically expedient. And that may be the most disappointing thing about Sanders: In the end, he stands revealed as just another guy all too happy to tell people what they wanted to hear.
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| Coronavirus: More than 9 million expected to be furloughed Posted: 08 Apr 2020 06:00 AM PDT  New analysis underlines a surge in demand for the government's Job Retention Scheme.
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| The coronavirus probably started spreading in Wuhan far earlier than Chinese authorities reported — here's the more likely timeline Posted: 09 Apr 2020 08:55 AM PDT  The first cases of COVID-19 in China popped up weeks before December 31, the date health authorities reported the first cluster of cases.
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| Texas teen accused of threatening to spread coronavirus is charged Posted: 08 Apr 2020 01:58 PM PDT  Maradiaga claimed in a series of Snapchat videos to have tested positive and threatened to willfully spread COVID-19, according to police.
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| Italian cemeteries can't keep up with deaths from pandemic Posted: 09 Apr 2020 11:52 AM PDT  In Bergamo, a city in Northern Italy, bodies are being kept in a makeshift morgue, unrefrigerated.
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| Crew member of cruise ship with virus cases dies in Florida Posted: 09 Apr 2020 02:19 PM PDT  A crew member who was hospitalized for days after two ill-fated cruise ships with coronavirus patients were finally allowed to dock in Florida has died, officials said. Broward County Medical Examiner Craig Mallak on Thursday confirmed the death of Wiwit Widarto, 50, of Indonesia. The man died Wednesday, six days after the Zaandam and a sister ship docked in the Fort Lauderdale port after spending two weeks at sea rejected by South American ports, said Holland America Line spokesman Erik Elvejord.
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| New single-day record for NY virus deaths but hospitalizations fall Posted: 09 Apr 2020 01:16 PM PDT  America's coronavirus epicenter of New York recorded a new single-day high of 799 COVID-19 deaths Thursday but Governor Andrew Cuomo said the rate of hospitalizations continued to fall. Cuomo said 799 people died in the last 24 hours, outdoing the previous high of 779 announced on Wednesday, but added that the curve was flattening because of social confinement measures. "We had a 200-net increase in hospitalizations, which you can see is the lowest number we've had since this nightmare started," Cuomo told reporters, adding that intensive care admissions were also at the lowest yet.
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| Road bridge in north Italy collapses, two suffer minor injuries Posted: 08 Apr 2020 03:31 AM PDT  A bridge on a normally busy provincial road in northern Italy collapsed on Wednesday but, with virtually no traffic due to the coronavirus lockdown, only two truck drivers suffered minor injuries, the fire brigade said. A spokesman for the fire brigade said the 260 metre bridge on the SS330 road near the town of Aulla, roughly midway between Genoa and Florence, in the northern tip of Tuscany, collapsed at 1025 local time (0825 GMT). Although casualties were limited in Wednesday's incident, it highlights the poor state of repair of Italy's road network, after the collapse of a motorway bridge in the port city of Genoa in 2018 that killed 43 people.
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| Cost of Navy secretary's trip to Guam? $243,000, his job and isolation after coronavirus exposure Posted: 09 Apr 2020 01:58 PM PDT  Acting Navy chief Thomas Modly's Guam trip to see sailors on the stricken USS Roosevelt cost $243,000. He's now in coronavirus isolation, out of a job.
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| Coronavirus: World Bank predicts sub-Saharan Africa recession Posted: 09 Apr 2020 05:59 AM PDT  The region's economy will shrink for the first time in 25 years because of the coronavirus, the bank predicts.
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| South Korea reported that 51 coronavirus patients' infections went away then 'reactivated' But it's unlikely the virus has a dormancy period. Posted: 09 Apr 2020 04:48 PM PDT  Health authorities said 51 COVID-19 patients in recovery tested negative then positive again within a "relatively short time." It's not clear how.
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| U.S. Coronavirus Daily Death Toll Reaches Record High Posted: 09 Apr 2020 05:08 AM PDT  Coronavirus claimed 1,973 lives in the U.S. on Wednesday, the largest one-day death toll in the country since the start of the pandemic, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.With over 432,000 Americans infected, almost 15,000 Americans have died in total as of Thursday morning.Earlier on Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, indicated that, while deaths may continue to rise, there actually may be reason to hope the outbreak in the U.S. is slowing."At the same time as we're seeing an increase in death, like typically what we are seeing now from New York, over the last few days, there's been a stabilization and a decrease in the hospitalizations, admissions to intensive care and of the requirements for intubations," Fauci told Fox News. "That means that, as we get further on beyond this week we should start to see the beginning of a turnaround which is a good sign."New York City and the surrounding area is currently the nation's largest coronavirus hotspot, while Dr. Deborah Birx, response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, warned on Wednesday that Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., may see a spike in cases in the upcoming weeks.New York governor Andrew Cuomo hailed the slowing number of hospitalizations in the state since the weekend as a sign that mitigation efforts were slowing the spread of the disease."There is good news in what we're seeing, that what we have done and we are doing is actually working," Cuomo said.
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| Head of Global Strike Command Wants to Make Air Force Bombers Even More Lethal Posted: 09 Apr 2020 01:07 PM PDT  The Air Force plans to have 165 to 175 bombers in its inventory once the B-21 Long Range Strike Bomber comes online.
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| Adam Schiff says Intelligence Committee may conduct 'Zoom hearings' during current pandemic Posted: 08 Apr 2020 03:17 PM PDT  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., says he is considering using the teleconferencing software Zoom to hold hearings into foreign election interference and other key issues, including the firing of intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson, while social distancing restrictions remain in place due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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| Pope hails priests, health workers as 'the saints next door' Posted: 09 Apr 2020 11:23 AM PDT  Pope Francis on Holy Thursday hailed priests and medical staff who tend to the needs of COVID-19 patients as "the saints next door." Francis celebrated the Holy Week evening Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, which was kept off-limits to the public because of restrictions aimed at containing the spread of the new coronavirus. The pope began his off-the-cuff homily by honoring the memory of priests who gave their lives in service to others, singling out those who died after tending to sick people in Italy's hospitals.
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| What you need to know about the coronavirus right now Posted: 09 Apr 2020 12:20 AM PDT  Beyond the daily casualty statistics, the big, sobering economic number of the week lands on Thursday at 08.30 ET (1230 GMT): New U.S. jobless claims will likely reveal that the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits in the last three weeks has now hit a staggering 15 million. The speed with which patients are declining and dying from the new coronavirus is shocking even veteran doctors and nurses as they scramble to try to stop such sudden deterioration. The quick turns for the worse are likely products of an "overly exuberant" reaction by the immune system as it fights the virus, said Dr Otto Yang, an infectious disease specialist at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.
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| Exclusive: Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, in solitary confinement Posted: 09 Apr 2020 12:23 PM PDT  Cohen, 53, was transferred on Wednesday to a Special Housing Unit at Otisville Federal Correctional Institution, a disciplinary section of the prison, the sources said. Until now, Cohen had been housed in a minimum-security camp at Otisville, which is about 70 miles (110 km) northwest of New York City.
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| More than half of Americans think China should pay coronavirus reparations, poll shows Posted: 08 Apr 2020 08:08 AM PDT  Americans have turned some of their bipartisan ire amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic toward Beijing, a new Harris Poll survey released Wednesday shows.Per the poll, nearly 90 percent of Republicans believe China, where the coronavirus originated, is responsible for the spread while two-thirds of Democrats surveyed said the same. There's a little more discrepancy across party lines when it comes to how Chinese President Xi Jinping and his government should reckon with their role in exacerbating crisis, but more than half of Americans believe Beijing should pay some form of reparations to other countries.> NEW: > > -77% blame China for coronavirus including more than two-thirds (67%) of Democrats> > -71% say American companies should pull back manufacturing in China> > -69% support Trump's tougher trade policies with China> > -54% say China should pay reparationshttps://t.co/ExK5hf0Lrd> > — Alberto E. Martinez (@albertemartinez) April 8, 2020Among GOP voters, 71 percent think China has a responsibility to compensate other countries for the damage the pandemic has caused. Fewer than half of Democrats agree with that sentiment, but the 41 percent who do is not an insignificant amount.The Harris Poll was conducted online between between April 3-April 5. A nationally representative sample of 1,993 U.S. adults was surveyed. No margin of error was reported. Read more at The Washington Post and take a look at the full poll results here.More stories from theweek.com Biden is the weakest major party nominee in recent history — but that might be the point The coming backlash against the public health experts Senate Democrats block McConnell's $250 billion small business loans bill, demanding double funding
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| Letters to the Editor: In South L.A., social distancing doesn't mean stop caring for your neighbor Posted: 08 Apr 2020 03:00 AM PDT  The coronavirus threatens the survival of businesses in South L.A., but that doesn't mean people have stopped taking care of one another.
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| New CDC data sheds light on who's been hospitalized with COVID-19 across 14 US states. Connecticut and Michigan had the most per capita. Posted: 08 Apr 2020 04:52 PM PDT  About 90% of people in the US who were hospitalized with COVID-19 in March had underlying health conditions.
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| Liz Cheney Calls WHO’s Tedros ‘A Puppet of the Chinese Communist Party’ Posted: 09 Apr 2020 07:21 AM PDT  Representative Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.) slammed the World Health Organization's director general Tedros Adhanom for being "a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party" over the organization's response to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.Cheney, speaking to radio host Hugh Hewitt, cited Tedros's kowtowing to Chinese authority in the wake of the outbreak, despite multiple reports detailing how Chinese government officials failed in their response."The fact that the head of the WHO was unwilling to say, for example, yes, it's right to cut off travel from China, was unwilling to acknowledge that there was, you know, community transmission, has been touting the Chinese Communist Party line from the beginning of this, tells you that he absolutely should go," Cheney stated. "And again, you know, we're in a situation where having somebody who is a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party running the WHO is costing lives around the world. And in order for that organization to play anywhere near the role we need it to play, it needs a new director, certainly."Beijing silenced Wuhan laboratories which had realized in December that the coronavirus was related to the deadly SARS virus from 2002-2003, and continued to claim that coronavirus could not be transmitted from human-to-human for weeks after evidence of that fact emerged.The WHO parroted Beijing's line on January 14, tweeting that there was "no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus." The WHO also defended China's multiple drastic alterations to its coronavirus case count, and has not criticized Beijing for refusing to count asymptomatic cases until April 1. Multiple reports have detailed how China backed Tedros's bid for WHO director general in 2017, after he had worked closely with Beijing as Ethiopia's health minister.On Wednesday, Tedros defended his leadership and the response to the virus, warning that U.S. lawmakers were "politicizing" the pandemic."Please, unity at national level. No using COVID for political points," he said. "And then second, honest solidarity at global level and honest leadership from the U.S. and China . . . We shouldn't waste time pointing fingers. We need time to unite."Tedros also added that he was being personally attacked with "racist comments.""I can tell you personal attacks that have been going on for more than two, three months. Abuses, or racist comments, giving me names, black or Negro. I'm proud of being black, proud of being Negro," he stated. "I don't care, to be honest . . . even death threats. I don't give a damn."President Trump hammered the WHO on Tuesday, tweeting that the organization "really blew it."> The W.H.O. really blew it. For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look. Fortunately I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?> > -- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 7, 2020Cheney is not the only lawmaker to single out Tedros for criticism. Last week, Senator Martha McSally (R., Ariz.) called him "a communist" and said Tedros "needs to step down."
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| U.S. expels 6,300 migrants from border under coronavirus order Posted: 09 Apr 2020 03:30 PM PDT  The U.S. is also rapidly expelling unaccompanied migrant children. Top border official Mark Morgan said they could also pose an "absolute public health risk" to the U.S.
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| Linda Tripp: Woman who revealed Clinton-Lewinsky scandal dies Posted: 09 Apr 2020 02:44 AM PDT  Linda Tripp, who disclosed Bill Clinton's White House affair with Monica Lewinsky dies, aged 70.
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| Coronavirus: California woman arrested for licking $1,800 worth of groceries Posted: 08 Apr 2020 06:47 PM PDT  A California woman has been arrested after licking $1,800 worth of groceries and other items at a supermarket in the northern part of the state, police said Wednesday. Chris Fiore, spokesman for the South Lake Tahoe police department, near the border with Nevada, told AFP that officers were called to the Safeway store on Tuesday following reports of "a customer licking groceries" at a time of heightened fears over the spread of the highly contagious novel coronavirus. "When officers arrived on the scene, a Safeway employee informed them that the suspect put numerous pieces of jewelry from the store on her hands," he said.
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| Fox’s Kilmeade: 60,000 Coronavirus Deaths Shows ‘How Good We Are Doing’ Posted: 09 Apr 2020 08:07 AM PDT  Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade called for the American economy to quickly reopen amid downward revisions of some models projecting the coronavirus death count, saying Thursday that a now-expected 60,000 victims shows just "how good we are doing."With one influential and highly respected modeler moving its projections down over the past few days, Fox News hosts have been clamoring for President Donald Trump to quickly reverse social-distancing restrictions in order to jumpstart the economy, claiming public health experts exaggerated the impact of the virus.Noting that Trump had originally expressed hope that the country could get going again at Easter, Kilmeade said that one model shows that the peak of the coronavirus infections will now come around that time. He then seemed to downplay the possibility of tens of thousands of more deaths."The fact is, when someone says 200,000 people die, oops, I mean 60,000," the Fox host declared. "And it's not going to be right away, it's going to be in August. That's how good we are doing and how off the models were.""You have to wonder, as much as social distancing is working, I wonder if the economists are going to get in that room and say we have to stand up this economy in some way before we're not going to be able to stand when this is all said and done," he continued.Co-host Steve Doocy, meanwhile, reminded his colleague that 60,000 coronavirus victims is still a "staggering number.""It's a high number," Kilmeade reacted. "But how many people are going to die as the country goes flat on its back for three months. We're not going to look like the same country. So the economists have to have a say in this."As of publication, per the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the United States has over 430,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly 15,000 have died.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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| India struggles to contain coronavirus, enforce lockdown in sprawling city slums Posted: 09 Apr 2020 08:09 AM PDT  India faces an uphill battle to contain coronavirus outbreaks in the slums of the vast financial capital Mumbai amid fears the virus is gathering pace in the dense, unsanitary alleyways where it is next to impossible to enforce a full lockdown. India, the world's second most populous country after China with 1.3 billion people, has reported more than 5,800 cases of the virus, including 169 deaths, a far cry from the high tolls in several European countries and the United States. Mumbai's seaside Worli Koliwada slum is in an area that had 184 reported cases on Wednesday, as per the latest data, up from 133 the previous day.
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| CDC releases data of worst U.S. coronavirus cases Posted: 09 Apr 2020 04:34 PM PDT  The CDC gathered data on those who were hospitalized from COVID-19 in 14 states from March 1-30, in efforts to get a clearer picture of those infected who needed the most serious medical care.
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| Exclusive: Three nurses forced to wear bin bags because of PPE shortage test positive for coronavirus Posted: 08 Apr 2020 09:15 AM PDT  Three NHS nurses who were forced to wear bin bags due to a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) have all tested positive for coronavirus, The Telegraph has been told. The three frontline staff were pictured wearing clinical waste bags on their heads and feet at Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow last month. The hospital was the first in the country to declare a critical incident after being overwhelmed by Covid-19 patients. Frontline staff told how they were contracting the virus from patients because bosses had failed to provide them with proper masks, caps and aprons. It came as nursing leaders warned that a lack of protective equipment continued to "fundamentally compromise" the care they can give patients, despite repeated assurances from the Government. According to a senior source at Northwick Park, the three nurses pictured wearing the bin bags were all diagnosed with coronavirus at a North London testing centre last week.
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