| Trump says he has evidence coronavirus came from a Chinese lab, but he can't reveal it Posted: 30 Apr 2020 04:29 PM PDT  President Trump said Thursday that he had seen evidence to prove that the coronavirus pandemic had spread from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, but he declined to detail what that evidence was.
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| Afghan president, feuding rival reach 'tentative' agreement Posted: 01 May 2020 06:10 AM PDT  A bitter feud between Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah appeared closer to resolution Friday after Abdullah said the two men had moved forward in talks. Abdullah previously served as Afghanistan's "chief executive" under a power-sharing deal with Ghani, but lost that post following last year's presidential elections that Ghani won amid claims of fraud. Instead of accepting defeat, Abdullah proclaimed himself president, a title he uses to this day, though the international community only recognises Ghani.
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| Jordan ends historic arrangement with Israel as West Bank annexation tensions rise Posted: 30 Apr 2020 12:41 PM PDT  Jordan's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ambassador Dhaifallah Al-Fayez, said the additional harvesting period "will end this evening."
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| Protests mark growing unrest with California stay-home order Posted: 30 Apr 2020 10:08 PM PDT  Californians weary of stay-at-home orders that have left millions unemployed staged displays of defiance Friday, with hundreds of flag-waving protesters gathering at the Capitol and along a famed Southern California beach, while a sparsely populated county on the Oregon border allowed diners back in restaurants and reopened other businesses. While much of the state's population remained behind closed doors to deter the spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged the building anxiety while repeatedly teasing the possibility the state could begin relaxing some aspects of the restrictions next week. Newsom noted the state just passed the grim marks of 50,000 confirmed infections and 2,000 deaths but that hospitalization statistics are heading in a better direction and that has him hopeful.
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| China Refuses to Allow WHO Reps to Investigate Coronavirus Origins Posted: 01 May 2020 05:08 AM PDT  China has refused requests by the World Health Organization to take part in an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus."We know that some national investigation is happening but at this stage we have not been invited to join," Dr. Gauden Galea, WHO representative in China, told Sky News. "WHO is making requests of the health commission and of the authorities."The WHO and the U.S. intelligence community have concluded that the coronavirus is naturally-occurring and was not genetically engineered. However, U.S. officials suspect that the pathogen may have been accidentally from a lab, possibly the Wuhan Institute of Virology or the Wuhan Center for Disease Control.Laboratory logs "would need to be part of any full report, any full look at the story of the origins," Dr. Galea said. The WHO representative emphasized that "the origins of virus are very important, the animal-human interface is extremely important and needs to be studied. The priority is we need to know as much as possible to prevent the reoccurrence."U.S. officials and politicians have accused China of attempting to cover up the initial coronavirus outbreak. The White House has ordered intelligence agencies to compile evidence of a cover up.President Trump has also halted U.S. funding to the WHO after accusing the organization of mishandling the outbreak and parroting Chinese propaganda regarding the coronavirus. Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have urged Democratic colleagues to investigate the WHO's ties to China.
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| Top CDC official says there's 'not a lot of science' to back-up theory that 'farting' spreads coronavirus Posted: 01 May 2020 10:54 AM PDT  Though coronavirus has been found in the fecal matter of some infected people, there's currently no evidence it can spread from feces to a person.
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| Stacey Abrams’ Formidable Political Machine Could Be Used Against Her as Biden’s Veep Posted: 30 Apr 2020 01:46 AM PDT  Stacey Abrams is lobbying hard to be Joe Biden's presidential running mate, and she brings to the table an asset few other contenders do: an extensive, battle-hardened organizing apparatus that she can bring to bear on behalf of the Democratic presidential ticket in November.But with that asset comes a liability. The extensive work done on Abrams' behalf by a network of political and nonprofit groups that she founded has raised persistent questions about her use of ostensibly apolitical voter-registration and canvassing outfits to boost her own political profile.The advocacy work and more nonpartisan activities of Abrams' network of nonprofits take place parallel to each other, as required by her groups' varying legal classifications. But their work also bleeds together in notable ways. Her political outfit and its sister dark-money nonprofit share a website and social-media pages, for instance. They also lean heavily on the same cadre of organizations to execute their missions. A Daily Beast analysis of public records shows that two of Abrams' groups, a tax-exempt voter-registration organization and a more aggressive advocacy group, have steered millions of dollars to the same political consultants that helped elect Abrams to the Georgia statehouse and tried to win her the governorship in 2018.The data portray an organizing apparatus that is primed to advance Abrams' political prospects in 2020 regardless of the form they take, but which could force her—and, if she gets her wish, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden—to address questions, albeit many posed by political adversaries, about her use of groups legally bound to remain legally independent and politically neutral.They're largely questions that Abrams and some of her top allies write off as baseless attacks from political opponents. "The organizations founded by Leader Abrams give a voice to marginalized communities and empower people of color and low-income Americans across the country," her spokesperson, Seth Bringman, told The Daily Beast in an emailed statement. "This critical work has been the target of allies of [Georgia Gov.] Brian Kemp and Donald Trump, because they are desperate to hold on to their power, and they know they can only maintain their power if voters and people in this country are not counted. She will not be deterred from her critical work by fishing expeditions and made-up accusations from Kemp and Trump cronies."Publicly and privately, Democrats frequently point to Abrams' organizational prowess as the leading reason that she would be a formidable vice-presidential nominee for Biden. The Georgia Democrat, the thinking goes among some of her closest allies, Democratic Party strategists, and some within Biden's own campaign, would fill in key gaps that the presumptive nominee lacks, particularly with younger voters. Abrams is also considered to be someone who can turn out black voters at a large scale for the general election, a key argument used among some in the party who believe that's the best approach to beating President Donald Trump."When Stacey ran for governor, she mobilized hundreds of thousands of African-American and younger voters to vote for her. That shows just the personal appeal of her and how strong she is with turnout," Freg Yang, Abrams' pollster during the 2018 governor race, told The Daily Beast. "More than a year ago, she knew turnout was going to be important in 2020, based on her own experience in 2018. It makes her even more relevant now given all this uncertainty."Pressure Mounts for Biden to Select a Black Woman as VPNikema Williams, the head of the Georgia Democratic Party, said Abrams and her organizational structure transcend racial, geographic, and socio-economic lines, and can help boost turnout more broadly. "If you speak with progressives, they think she's the most progressive person ever because she connects with them," Williams said. "And if you speak with people that are moderate, they're able to connect with her because she speaks their language as well."When Biden pledged to nominate a female Democrat to be his running mate in March, Abrams again shot to the top of many elected officials' and operatives' lists. At least two high-ranking officials in Biden's campaign have been praising Abrams internally as recently as last month, before her public push for VP ramped up in earnest. Her core draw, in that instance, was a sense that she, and the network she's built, have a broad reach well beyond her home state. But Abrams' network has also faced allegations that it exists primarily to advance her public profile and political agenda. In 2019, the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, a right-leaning watchdog group, filed a complaint to the Internal Revenue Service alleging illicit politicking by Fair Fight Action, a dark-money nonprofit group that Abrams leads."By providing support for an individual's personal political activities," FACT wrote in its IRS complaint, "Fair Fight Action is in violation of the requirement that a social-welfare organization serve general community purposes rather than provide a private benefit to an individual or political group."The group wrote off the complaint at the time as a "bogus attack" from "right-wing hit groups allied with Donald Trump."Similar allegations are at the heart of an investigation by the Georgia Ethics Commission into the activities of another Abrams-founded nonprofit, the New Georgia Project Action Fund, during the 2018 campaign. David Emadi, the commission's executive director and an appointee of Gov. Kemp, Abrams' Republican opponent in 2018, suggested that New Georgia may have illicitly acted as a political committee on Abrams' behalf, an allegation that Abrams and her team have flatly denied.Neither the FACT complaint nor the investigation in Georgia have resulted in findings of wrongdoing by any Abrams group, though the ethics commission said last week that its investigation was still ongoing. As it did with FACT, Abrams' team has largely written it off as politically motivated.After Abrams' 2018 defeat, she alleged that Kemp, Georgia's former secretary of state, used his position to suppress votes that might have swayed the election. After Abrams conceded in mid-November, her campaign donated more than $1 million in leftover funds to Fair Fight Action, which continued litigation and advocacy efforts to address those voter suppression allegations. The group did so under the new leadership of Abrams' former campaign manager.At the time, Fair Fight Action was still officially called the Voter Access Institute. But it amended its corporate structure on Dec. 5, 2018, to reflect its new moniker. It also made a significant change to the group's corporate bylaws: It deleted language saying it would not get involved, "directly or indirectly," in political contests.Just days later, Fair Fight Action began running television ads. And it did so through the same media buyer, Chicago-based AL Media, that the Abrams campaign had been using just weeks earlier. Campaign-finance records show the Abrams campaign had already paid the firm more than $4.7 million. By the end of 2018, Fair Fight Action had steered it an additional $165,000. Federal Communications Commission records show that the same AL Media employee handled media buys for both the nonprofit and the campaign.More recent FCC filings show that AL Media continues to buy ads for Fair Fight Action. So far this year, the group has purchased about $155,000 in broadcast ad time, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, for a pair of ads going after Kemp, whom Abrams has pondered challenging in 2022. AL Media is simultaneously handling ad buys for Fair Count, Abrams' 501(c)(3) charitable group.There's nothing legally problematic with that relationship; such vendors often work for both political entities and nonprofit and advocacy groups, and are free to do so as long as the proper firewalls are in place to ensure that work remains separate. But it underscores how complementary the electoral and apolitical nodes of Abrams' network are.Since 2014, Fair Fight Action has paid more than $2 million to five different vendors that also worked for Abrams' campaign or Georgia Next, her state-level political action committee, including fundraising firm G Strategies, phone-banking vendor Control Point Group, and direct-mail firm Deliver Strategies.During the same time period, Fair Count paid G Strategies for fundraising services as well. In 2014 and 2015, Fair Count and Fair Fight Action paid more than $2.7 million combined to a voter contact and communications firm called Field Strategies. In 2017, a partner at that firm, founded a new consulting firm called New Ground Strategies, which received more than $5.5 million from Abrams' gubernatorial campaign. According to its website, New Ground has worked for years with the New Georgia Project, which Abrams founded and led prior to her gubernatorial run. All told, Abrams' 2018 gubernatorial campaign, her past statehouse campaigns, and Georgia Next paid more than $14.7 million to political vendors that have also worked for one or more of Abrams' nonprofit groups.Do Stacey Abrams and Steve Bullock Want to Make Mitch McConnell President?Even among the nonprofit groups themselves, that division of labor can be difficult to distinguish. Fair Fight Action, for instance, shares a website and a Facebook page with Fair Fight, Abrams' PAC. Both advise that the web properties are joint projects of the PAC and the dark-money group, a rare move for organizations with different legal structures—and different limits on how explicitly political their work can be.The website's donation link directs visitors to the PAC's contribution page. The PAC, in turn, passes along funds to the dark-money group. It's provided about $1.8 million in contributions to Fair Fight Action since last year, and paid it another $2 million in reimbursements for shared overhead and expenseNone of that is inherently problematic from a legal perspective. But the common thread among all parties—the political action committees, the nonprofits, and their vendors—is a drive to promote Abrams, the woman whose drive to enfranchise and turn out communities of color have animated their work for years.Abrams, in turn, is front and center as they carry out that work. Since December, Fair Fight Action has paid tens of thousands of dollars to run scores of Facebook ads promoting its voter registration and turnout activities. Every one of the ads has featured a photo or a video of Abrams herself.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get 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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| Black Georgia man chased and killed while jogging, mom says Posted: 01 May 2020 06:09 AM PDT  Gregory McMichael told police he saw Ahmaud Arbery run by and said he recognized him from recent break-ins.
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| 30 Easy Side Dishes For Lasagna Posted: 30 Apr 2020 11:46 AM PDT |
| Canada set to ban 11 categories of assault rifles, other weapons - source Posted: 30 Apr 2020 01:08 PM PDT |
| Coronavirus: President Trump’s testing claims fact-checked Posted: 01 May 2020 02:06 AM PDT  President Trump has made several claims about coronavirus testing in the US - is he right?
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| What's open and closed this weekend: Beaches, parks and trails in Southern California Posted: 01 May 2020 11:01 AM PDT  As the pandemic fight evolves, state officials have stuck with closures while some cities ease up
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| Dr. Fauci says it's 'doable' to have coronavirus vaccine with hundreds of millions of doses by January Posted: 30 Apr 2020 07:15 AM PDT  Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, believes it's "doable" to have hundreds of millions of doses of a coronavirus vaccine ready by January 2021.Fauci appeared Thursday on Today after Bloomberg reported that a Trump administration program, Operation Warp Speed, aims to speed up development of a COVID-19 vaccine with the goal of having 300 million doses available by January. Asked if this rapid timeline is actually possible, Fauci told Today that he believes it is, explaining that the plan is, as Bloomberg reported, to quickly move to ramp up production of some potential vaccines while they are undergoing trials but before it's clear if they work."We're going to start ramping up production with the companies involved, and you do that at risk," Fauci said. "In other words, you don't wait until you get an answer before you start manufacturing. You, at risk, proactively start making it assuming it's going to work. And if it does, then you could scale up and hopefully get to that timeline." Fauci added of this quick timeline, "I think that is doable, if things fall in the right place." In its report on Operation Warp Speed, Bloomberg noted that "there is no precedent for such rapid development of a vaccine." > "We want to go quickly, but we want to make sure it's safe and it's effective. I think that's doable if things fall in the right place." -Dr. Anthony Facui on the possibility of coronavirus vaccine being widely available by January. pic.twitter.com/SIHeucVuTK> > -- TODAY (@TODAYshow) April 30, 2020More stories from theweek.com The smoke-filled room that could oust Joe Biden 5 scathingly funny cartoons about Mike Pence's unmasked hospital visit The self-inflicted derangement of the conservative intellectuals
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| No soft landing for Biden on 'Morning Joe' interview Posted: 01 May 2020 01:16 PM PDT  If Joe Biden was looking for a soft landing place to address sexual assault allegations made by a former Senate staffer, he didn't find it Friday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." The 20-minute interview of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee conducted by Mika Brzezinski was blunt and frequently uncomfortable, a milestone media moment in the 2020 campaign. The former vice president had faced increased pressure to publicly address the accusations by Tara Reade that he had assaulted her in the early 1990s, which he has consistently denied.
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| No arrests after black man shot dead while jogging Posted: 30 Apr 2020 02:06 PM PDT  Ahmaud Arbery's mother says she feels "very discouraged" by the investigation into her son's death.
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| Fact Check: CDC has not stopped reporting flu deaths, and this season's numbers are typical Posted: 30 Apr 2020 02:57 PM PDT  A claim that the CDC has stopped tracking flu deaths because the number of deaths is so low is false.
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| Ten soldiers killed in bomb attack in north Egypt Posted: 01 May 2020 11:07 AM PDT  Ten Egyptian soldiers, including an army officer, died in a bomb attack during the holy month of Ramadan in the volatile northern Sinai region of the country. The region is known for its jihadist insurrection and it is suspected this attack was carried out by Islamic State although no one immediately claimed responsibility. A spokesman for the army said the soldiers were targeted as they travelled in convoy near the town of Bir al-Abed on Thursday. The Egyptian army has been fighting an insurgency from the Sinai branch of IS since 2013. Fighting has intensified since the ousting of Mohamed Morsi that year. Since the Egyptian military moved into the region, official figures show that more than 845 jihadists and nearly 70 members of the security forces have lost their lives. However, it is impossible to verify these figures, as the region is cut off from media access. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi praised the fallen soldiers as "heroes" and "martyrs." Footballer Mohamed Salah was among those commenting on the incident, as he wrote on Twitter: "May God have mercy on the martyrs of the homeland in the Sinai and my wishes for a speedy recovery for all the injured."
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| Georgia businesses reopen to early success amid coronavirus pandemic Posted: 01 May 2020 08:51 AM PDT  Exactly one week since Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp began reopening the state's economy, small businesses shared early success stories as customers welcomed their return. But at what cost? Business owners say only time will tell.
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| Top E.U. Official Confirms China Objected to Coronavirus Report, Denies Revisions Were Result of Pressure Posted: 01 May 2020 07:23 AM PDT  The European Union's foreign policy chief admitted Thursday that China "expressed their concerns" over an EU report on Chinese disinformation regarding coronavirus, after allegations that his team had watered down their initial findings "to appease the Chinese Communist Party."Speaking to the European Parliament in Brussels, Josep Borrell denied that Beijing had coerced him to soften the report's verdict. Drafts of the report showed that language condemning China for "a global disinformation campaign" was removed, while an analyst in the EU administration warned her superiors of "self-censoring.""I can assure you that no changes had been introduced to the report published last week to align the concerns of a third party, in this case, China. There is no watering down of our findings. We have not bowed to anyone," he said.But Borrell admitted that it was "clear and evident" China was unhappy with the leaked report, first reported by the New York Times, stressing that the Chinese "expressed their concerns through the diplomatic channels."The admission did not satisfy some lawmakers. Thierry Mariani, a French politician, told Borrell that his team had been "caught with their hand in the cookie jar," while a Beligan member, Hilde Vautmans, demanded further answers. "Who interfered? Which Chinese official put pressure? At what level? What means of pressure?" she asked. "I think Europe needs to know that. Otherwise you're losing all credibility."Borrell did not go into details over his contact with China over the report. "The Chinese were not happy," he stated. "They were not happy at the beginning and they are still not happy now."
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| Woman spots 12-foot-long alligator in South Carolina Posted: 01 May 2020 08:46 AM PDT  The woman was with her dog when she came across this giant beast.
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| US intelligence community says it concurs with the 'wide scientific consensus' that the coronavirus was not 'man-made or genetically modified' Posted: 30 Apr 2020 08:07 AM PDT  The announcement comes after weeks of speculation in the right-wing and far-right media that the coronavirus was created in a Wuhan lab.
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| Secret Service paid $33,000 to Trump's D.C. hotel to guard Mnuchin while he lived there Posted: 30 Apr 2020 10:34 PM PDT  In 2017, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spent several months living in a suite at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., with the Secret Service paying more than $33,000 to rent the adjoining room in order to screen his packages and visitors, three people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post. Billing records show the Secret Service was charged $242 per night, which at the time was the maximum rate federal agencies were typically allowed to pay for a room. The room was rented for 137 nights, and the final bill, footed by taxpayers, was $33,154. Mnuchin stayed at the hotel while looking for a home to purchase in Washington. A Treasury Department spokesperson told the Post Mnuchin paid for his suite with his own money, and was able to negotiate a discounted rate.When asked by the Post if Mnuchin considered how much it would cost taxpayers to have the Secret Service rent a hotel room for an extended period of time, the spokesperson said, "The secretary was not aware of what the U.S. Secret Service paid for the adjoining room."Renting a room in order to guard a Treasury secretary is standard Secret Service practice, people familiar with the matter told the Post, but during other administrations, the president didn't own the hotel that was being paid. The Trump Organization has not revealed how much federal agencies have paid to the company since Trump's 2017 inauguration, but using public records, the Post has found more than 170 payments from the Secret Service to Trump properties, for a total of more than $620,000. Many of these payments stem from the Secret Service accompanying Trump on trips to his own hotels. Read more at The Washington Post.More stories from theweek.com The smoke-filled room that could oust Joe Biden 5 scathingly funny cartoons about Mike Pence's unmasked hospital visit If flu deaths were counted like COVID-19 deaths, the worst recent flu season evidently killed 15,620 Americans
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| DeVos, Education Department sued for 'seizing' student borrower paychecks Posted: 01 May 2020 11:16 AM PDT  Supporters of a lawsuit against the department say the agency is placing the "well-being of vulnerable student loan borrowers in peril" during the coronavirus pandemic.
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| Explosions hit Syrian military warehouse, 10 civilians hurt Posted: 01 May 2020 02:16 AM PDT  Explosions at a Syrian military base housing a weapons warehouse Friday were the result of "human error" while moving ammunition, the defense ministry said. Ten civilians outside the base were hurt, a local doctor said. The group said Syrian air defenses were activated before the explosions, suggesting they were responding to an incoming attack.
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| People of black African origin three times more likely to die of coronavirus than white Britons, study finds Posted: 30 Apr 2020 12:31 PM PDT  People of black African origin are three times more likely to die of coronavirus in the UK than white Britons, analysis by the Institute of Fiscal Studies has shown. A report into the disproportionate Covid-19 death toll among black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people in the UK found deaths among people of black Caribbean origin are 1.8 times those of white British people. Deaths among those of Pakistani heritage are 2.7 times as high, and black African fatalities three times higher. The higher tolls come after predictions that BAME groups should theoretically experience fewer deaths per capita than white Britons because of average age profiles. Although many BAME groups live in major cities such as London and Birmingham, which have higher overall coronavirus death rates, most are younger on average than the population as a whole – in theory making them less vulnerable to the virus.
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| Biden Has Ties to Univ. of Delaware Board Members Keeping His Archive Secret amid Reade Allegations Posted: 30 Apr 2020 05:15 AM PDT  Some members of the University of Delaware Board of Trustees, which has sole authority over Joe Biden's Senate archive, have close ties to the former vice president, Fox News reported.Calls to make the archive public have grown over the past week as former Biden staffer Tara Reade's allegations of sexual assault, which Reade says occurred in 1993 when Biden was a senator for Delaware, have garnered increasing media coverage. The Biden campaign has denied the allegations.Biden deposited his Senate archive at the University of Delaware in 2012. Initially, the university promised to open the archive two years after Biden's last day in public office. However, in April 2019 hours before Biden announced his presidential campaign, the university decided to keep the archive closed until December 31, 2019 or until Biden retires from public life.The chairman of the university's Board of Trustees is longtime Biden donor John Cochran. In 1996, Cochran bought Biden's home for $1.2 million, shortly after which Biden's son Hunter was hired by MBNA, where Cochran was vice chairman at the time.Board member Terri Kelly, former CEO of W.L. Gore & Associates, donated the maximum legal amount to the Biden presidential campaign in 2019. Carol Ammon, another board member, has given $10,000 to the campaign and related PAC's. Five additional board members have donated upwards of $1,000 to Biden and affiliated PAC's.While the Biden campaign has denied the allegations from Reade, Biden himself has not directly addressed the allegations, including at a virtual town hall on Tuesday on women's issues during which he received the endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Democratic politicians including Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams have up to now backed Biden."I think the [Democratic National Committee] is a sham and their silence around what happened to me as a Democratic staffer is unconscionable," Reade told National Review on Wednesday.
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| When will US reach 100,000 deaths? After a horrific April, grim milestone could hit in May Posted: 01 May 2020 02:52 PM PDT  After the U.S. suffered nearly 60,000 deaths because of the coronavirus in April, the prospect looms of reaching the grim milestone of 100,000.
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| Second cargo of water trucks from Mexico arrives in Venezuela under oil swap Posted: 01 May 2020 11:27 AM PDT |
| Turkey claims success treating virus with drug touted by Trump Posted: 30 Apr 2020 05:55 AM PDT  The nation says every hospitalized coronavirus patient is given hydroxychloroquine.
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| EU says it didn't bow to pressure from China to water down a critical coronavirus disinformation report, but not everyone's convinced Posted: 01 May 2020 12:35 AM PDT  Josep Borrell, the European Union's chief diplomat said: "There is no watering down of our findings." But some lawmakers aren't convinced.
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| We Asked 30,000 Black Americans What They Need to Survive. Here’s What They Said Posted: 01 May 2020 10:05 AM PDT  The coronavirus has laid bare the disparities that have been ravaging Black communities for decades. Sure, we're all in this together, but we're not all…
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| Prison sentence for 'Hot Pockets' heiress delayed amid coronavirus Posted: 01 May 2020 01:44 PM PDT  Judge denies bid for house arrest but won't have surrender this month, as originally scheduled.
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| North Korea’s Kim Jong Un appears in public amid health rumors, state media reports Posted: 01 May 2020 02:44 PM PDT  The report ends rumors about the dictator's health.
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| Prisoners in Iran 'disappearing', British inmate claims Posted: 01 May 2020 12:44 PM PDT  Prisoners with suspected coronavirus in Iran are "disappearing" due to illness or being given sleeping pills and sent back to crowded cells where the virus can easily spread, a British-Iranian father who is jailed on spying charges has claimed. Retired engineer Anoosheh Ashoori, 66, secretly recorded an audio diary detailing the chaotic conditions in Evin prison, Tehran, where he is serving a 10-year sentence for "spying for Israel", which he strongly denies. Several inmates have fallen ill due to suspected coronavirus, Mr Ashoori claims, adding that once a sick prisoner goes to the prison's medical centre, "he does not return… nobody knows any more about his fate." Another prisoner complained of Covid-19 symptoms but was not tested, he added. Instead, he was given sleeping pills and told by a prison doctor to "go back and rest" in a cell shared with 11 other men. Iran has been the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic in the Middle East and has recorded more than 95,000 cases and 6,000 related deaths, although the official figures are heavily disputed. As a precaution in March, the Islamic Republic temporarily released thousands of prisoners from its over-crowded jails, including British-Iranian mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who has been allowed to stay with her parents in Tehran while being monitored by an ankle tag. But other dual nationals accused of espionage, including Mr Ashoori and the British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, have remained behind bars in Evin, while other inmates are now returning following their temporary release. "It is just enough for one contaminated person to arrive and the rest will soon contract the virus," Mr Ashoori said in the diary, recorded last month [April] during phone calls to his wife, Sherry Izadi. Ms Izadi, from South London, today [Friday] criticised the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab for a lack of action to release her husband, saying he had become "forgotten" since being arrested in August 2017 while visiting his family in Iran. "Every time I hear Dominic Raab talk about returning Britons who have been trapped on holiday by coronavirus, I wonder why he is not giving the same priority to those, like my husband, who are held unlawfully in a foreign prison", she said. "Other countries are doing deals to free their citizens, but the government that is showing the least action has to be the British. It's as if they have forgotten my husband exists." A Foreign Office spokesperson said: "We strongly urge Iran to reunite British-Iranian dual national Mr Ashoori with his family. Our Embassy in Tehran continues to request consular access and we have been supporting his family since being made aware of his detention. The treatment of all dual nationals detained in Iran is a priority and both the PM and Foreign Secretary have recently raised this issue with their Iranian counterparts."
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| Syrians in Idlib protest opening of trade link with regime Posted: 01 May 2020 11:18 AM PDT  Maarat al-Naasan (Syria) (AFP) - Protests broke out across opposition-held parts of northwest Syria Friday against an al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group after it opened a trade crossing into regime territory, an AFP correspondent and a war monitor said. "Mass protests broke out in several towns and villages in the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo to denounce the practises of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham alliance" said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor. Led by Syria's former al-Qaeda affiliate, HTS and allied rebel groups dominate large swathes of Idlib province and slivers of neighbouring Aleppo.
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| Oregon aims to include brewpubs, wineries in reopening Posted: 30 Apr 2020 02:26 PM PDT  Oregon is planning to allow its famed microbreweries and wine tasting rooms to reopen when it starts loosening stay-home orders, rejecting a federal recommendation that bars remain closed. Oregonians will be able to hoist a glass at their neighborhood watering holes under Gov. Kate Brown's draft plan released on Thursday for the state's first phase of reopening. The "Opening Up America Again Guidelines" released by Trump on April 16 recommends that while restaurants open with strict distancing and sanitation protocols, bars remain closed.
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| Confirmed coronavirus cases surge in reopened JBS Colorado beef plant; worker dies -union Posted: 30 Apr 2020 03:05 PM PDT |
| Michael Cohen reportedly has his early prison release rescinded Posted: 01 May 2020 12:01 PM PDT  Michael Cohen will reportedly not be getting out of prison early after all.Cohen, the former personal lawyer to President Trump who pleaded guilty to charges of tax fraud, campaign finance violations, and lying to Congress, was informed earlier this month he would be able to serve the remainder of his three-year sentence at home due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, his attorney said.But on Friday, ABC News reported that Cohen's early release has been rescinded, and other inmates at the New York prison reportedly appear to have had their home confinements rescinded as well. Cohen, The Daily Beast reports, had spent 14 days in quarantine and was expected to be released on Friday, but it's "unclear what prompted the last-minute decision." In a press conference on Friday, asked if the White House intervened, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said, "Absolutely not."Cohen has reportedly been working on a tell-all book about his time working for Trump, as The Daily Beast reported, and on Friday, ABC reported that Trump Organization lawyers had sent a letter to Cohen demanding he stop writing it, citing a nondisclosure agreement he signed. The Beast previously quoted a source close to Cohen as saying "the stories that will be in the book aren't privileged" but would be "about what it's like being around this man and things that he did that most people typically do not do." Cohen is scheduled to be released from prison in November 2021.Update 4:12 p.m.: The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that while Cohen did not return home on Friday, his "early release hasn't been rescinded, and he will be eligible at the end of the month." More stories from theweek.com The smoke-filled room that could oust Joe Biden 5 scathingly funny cartoons about Mike Pence's unmasked hospital visit If flu deaths were counted like COVID-19 deaths, the worst recent flu season evidently killed 15,620 Americans
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| Louisiana pastor Tony Spell's followers jammed police phone lines to protest his arrest. He says it'll keep happening until cops 'get this ankle bracelet off of me.' Posted: 30 Apr 2020 09:23 AM PDT  The pastor has repeatedly gotten into legal trouble for trying to hold church services, saying stay-at-home orders violate his civil liberties.
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| Three Days in a Detroit Funeral Home Ravaged by the Coronavirus Posted: 01 May 2020 05:00 AM PDT  On April 29, Stephen Kemp arrived at his office just outside Detroit to a perplexing silence. Since COVID-19 hit the city, the phones at his…
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| Germany bans Hezbollah and conducts raids across Germany Posted: 30 Apr 2020 04:37 AM PDT 
There were dawn raids at several mosques associations across Germany on Thursday (April 30), which police believe are closely linked to Hezbollah. The early morning raids came as Germany banned all Hezbollah activity on its soil and designated the Iran-backed group a terrorist organization. It's a much-anticipated step urged by Israel and the United States. The move means that Hezbollah symbols are banned at gatherings and in publications and the media. The interior ministry said the heavily armed Shi'ite Islamist group's assets can be now be confiscated. But as it's a foreign organization, it's not possible to ban or dissolve the group. Security officials believe more than 1,000 people in Germany are part of what they describe as Hezbollah's extremist wing. Israel's foreign minister described the move as a "very important" one and a "valuable and significant step in the global fight against terrorism". The American Jewish Committee also hailed it as a landmark decision. Germany's interior ministry said Hezbollah calls for the violent elimination of the State of Israel and questions the right of the State of Israel to exist. Previously, Berlin had distinguished between Hezbollah's political arm and its military units, which have fought alongside President Bashar al-Assad's army in Syria.
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| Newly engaged lesbian couple missing in North Carolina Posted: 30 Apr 2020 08:13 AM PDT  Stephanie Mayorga, 27, and Paige Escalera, 25, disappeared in mid-April under "suspicious" circumstances, according to the Wilmington Police Department.
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