| As states push ahead with reopening, CDC warns coronavirus cases and deaths are set to soar Posted: 04 May 2020 11:22 AM PDT  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is quietly projecting a stark rise in the number of new cases of the virus and deaths from it over the next month.
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| Leaked intelligence report saying China 'intentionally concealed' coronavirus to stockpile medical supplies draws scrutiny Posted: 04 May 2020 10:24 AM PDT  The Trump administration has issued an intelligence analysis claiming China purposely delayed notifying the World Health Organization about the spread of the coronavirus.
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| Venezuela: Two US citizens arrested after beach invasion aimed at capturing Nicolas Maduro, says regime Posted: 04 May 2020 06:56 PM PDT  Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Monday that authorities have captured 13 "terrorists", including two US citizens he described as mercenaries, over allegations that they were involved in a failed plot to invade the country and oust him. In a state television address, Maduro showed what he said were the passports and other identification cards of Airan Berry and Luke Denman, who he described as employees of Silvercorp, a Florida-based company whose owner has claimed responsibility for the invasion attempt. Venezuelan authorities said on Monday that they arrested another eight accused "mercenaries" in a coastal town and showed images on state TV of several unidentified men handcuffed and lying prone in a street. The Venezuelan government said that more than 25,000 troops have been mobilised to hunt for other rebels operating in the country. Diosdado Cabello, the vice-president of the ruling party, posted on his Twitter account a video of a Venezuelan identified as Josnars Adolfo Baduel, who was also detained, and claimed that two US citizens were among those arrested. Mr Baduel is shown responding to a security official who asks him about the Americans captured. Venezuelan state television broadcast the video but did not identify the Americans. But Jordan Goudreau, a Florida-based former Green Beret, said he was working with the two men in a mission launched early Sunday to "liberate" Venezuela.
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| US family 'murdered shop guard for enforcing mask policy' Posted: 04 May 2020 08:33 PM PDT  A Michigan store guard is shot in the back of the head after confronting a customer who had no mask.
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| How the coronavirus undid Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Posted: 04 May 2020 04:00 AM PDT  Long before the coronavirus outbreak turned him into one of the least popular governors in the nation, DeSantis of Florida was something of a conservative golden boy.
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| Body of 18-year-old missing since leaving Target in January is found Posted: 05 May 2020 06:48 AM PDT  Abdullahi "Abdi" Sharif was last seen on security video on Jan. 17 leaving the Target store at Merle Hay Mall in Des Moines where he and his sister, Ifrah, had worked for about two years.
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| Woman killed by alligator in SC was doing homeowner's nails Posted: 05 May 2020 12:01 PM PDT |
| Tokyo governor Koike to ask businesses to refrain from operating until end of May - NHK Posted: 04 May 2020 11:29 PM PDT  Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike will ask businesses in Japan's biggest city to refrain from operating until the end of this month, following the central government's extension of the state of emergency, a public broadcaster NHK reported. The Tokyo government will pay more financial aid to businesses that remain closed during the period, the report said, adding that she will announce details at a media briefing later on Tuesday. Japan on Monday extended a nationwide state of emergency to May 31, saying the new coronavirus infection rate had yet to drop enough to justify ending measures aimed at slowing the outbreak.
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| Navy Ships Transit Through Barents Sea Near Russia for 1st Time Since Cold War Posted: 05 May 2020 07:18 AM PDT  The operation was announced weeks after Russian aircraft were spotted flying near Alaska.
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| White House discusses winding down Coronavirus Task Force Posted: 05 May 2020 04:35 PM PDT  President Trump said the task force has done "a phenomenal job," and the administration is "looking at other phases."
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| 20 Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs capture the stunning violence from last year's Hong Kong protests Posted: 05 May 2020 02:08 PM PDT  Pulitzer Prize winning photos reveal how the protests in Hong Kong last year turned violent, destructive, and deadly.
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| Report: Intel shared among U.S. allies contradicts claim coronavirus spread because of lab accident Posted: 04 May 2020 07:55 PM PDT  Intelligence shared between the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand indicates that it's "highly unlikely" the COVID-19 coronavirus originated in a Wuhan, China, laboratory, two officials told CNN on Monday, citing an intelligence assessment.The countries make up the Five Eyes alliance, and two officials said the nations are uniting around the assessment. One Western diplomat told CNN the intelligence points to the coronavirus outbreak coming from a market in Wuhan, and it's "highly likely it was naturally occurring and that the human infection was from natural human and animal interaction."Another official said "clearly the market is where it exploded from," but it's not clear how the virus got there. This official noted that each Five Eyes country does keep some intelligence to themselves, and the U.S. might not be sharing everything it knows about the coronavirus.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has claimed there is "enormous evidence" the coronavirus spread as a result of a lab accident, backing up earlier comments made by President Trump. Officials who have examined classified U.S. intelligence reports told The New York Times that several theories are being investigated, and there is no evidence the virus was man-made or genetically modified.More stories from theweek.com Trump is pursuing a herd immunity strategy — whether intentionally or not How George W. Bush exposed Trump's biggest failure Whistleblower complaint from doctor formerly leading U.S. coronavirus vaccine effort alleges HHS operated on 'cronyism'
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| Cuomo Blasts Trump: Your Bailout Strategy Will Doom Us All Posted: 05 May 2020 11:03 AM PDT  New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Republicans' refusal to bail out cash-strapped states "will lead to defeat for us all," in an epic rant on Tuesday against the federal government's "decades" of mismanagement and crippling partisanship in the face of COVID-19."It's not red or blue, it's red, white, and blue. This coronavirus doesn't pick Democrats or Republicans. It doesn't kill Democrats or Republicans, it kills Americans," Cuomo said during his daily press briefing in New York City, urging the nation to embrace "factual, productive and united" bipartisanship to pass a virus relief stimulus bill necessary to "get this economy back on its feet.""The virus is less discriminating and more of an equalizer than the lens through which we're viewing it," he added. "And if we can't get past this now, when can we get past this? You can't put your politics aside even now, even today?"Cuomo Slams McConnell: 'I Dare You' to Let States Declare BankruptcyCuomo has repeatedly feuded with Republican leadership over the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. In a Monday interview with the New York Post, Trump said he wouldn't provide federal aid to states that have been hit hard by the coronavirus, including New York, because they're mostly blue states."I think Congress is inclined to do a lot of things, but I don't think they're inclined to do bailouts. A bailout is different than, you know, reimbursing for the plague," Trump said. "It's not fair to the Republicans because all the states that need help—they're run by Democrats in every case. Florida is doing phenomenal, Texas is doing phenomenal, the Midwest is, you know, fantastic—very little debt."Trump, who was happy to bail out the airline and cruise ship industries with $58 billion, has also floated the idea of incorporating a state's use of "sanctuary cities" in bailout considerations. "If you starve the states, how do you expect the states to be able to fund this entire reopening plan?" Cuomo said, adding that Democratic lawmakers will not pass another bill that does not provide funding for states. "The president, in my opinion, has to be the responsible one here."Cuomo, who has been asking for federal funding for weeks, said the federal government has the authority to "literally determine how many people live or die." New York is grappling with a $13.3 billion budget shortfall and is projected to lose another $61 billion over four years as a result of the public health crisis.Cuomo said New York was resilient enough to bounce back from what he previously called an "economic tsunami" but he said he was more appalled that the federal government was in a stalemate over allocating funds in the next stimulus bill to state and local governments."It's not a blue-state issue. Every state has coronavirus cases. This is not any mismanagement by the states," Cuomo said. "If anything, the mismanagement has been on behalf of the federal government, and that's where the mismanagement has gone back decades." Trump's comments to the Post echoed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who suggested last week that states most affected by the pandemic should consider filing for bankruptcy rather than seeking additional aid from the federal government. McConnell said any additional assistance to state and local governments needed to be "thoroughly evaluated."Cuomo, who has repeatedly slammed McConnell for his "absurd" suggestion, said Tuesday that New York had paid $116 billion more than it had received from the federal government annually, money he wished "to get back" if Republicans refused to provide relief funding. New York had given the most money to the federal government, while Kentucky—McConnell's home state—was among the top three states to receive more than they give, he added. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio also slammed Trump on Tuesday, calling the president "a pure hypocrite" for putting politics over the coronavirus response. In his daily briefing, de Blasio said Trump claimed he does not "do bailouts" but provided nearly $58 billion to the airline industry amid the pandemic.Trump Wants to Bail Out Airlines and Cruise Ships. How About Us?"He says he's not inclined to do bailouts. He's a pure hypocrite given how much money he's put in the hands of the corporations and the wealthy already," de Blasio said, noting that the pandemic is projected to cost the city $7.4 billion in lost tax revenue next year. "That means he's not inclined to help firefighters, EMTs, paramedics, police officers, doctors, nurses, health-care workers, teachers, sanitation workers."Seemingly in response to Cuomo's harsh words, Trump took to Twitter Tuesday afternoon to suggest "poorly run" states were using the pandemic as an excuse to secure federal funds. "Well run States should not be bailing out poorly run States, using CoronaVirus as the excuse!" Trump tweeted, adding that "the elimination of Sanctuary Cities, Payroll Taxes, and perhaps Capital Gains Taxes, must be put on the table." The political squabble comes as New York officials shift their attention to reopening the economy. To date, 25,000 state residents have died and 318,953 more have been infected with the coronavirus. Cuomo said that, although 230 people died in the last 24 hours, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and deaths have decreased over the last week. And while the state seems to be past the worst of the pandemic, Cuomo stressed his continued apprehension about lifting shelter-in-place restrictions too early, triggering a second wave of the disease. "There's a cost to staying closed, no doubt. Economic cost, personal cost. There's also a cost to reopening quickly. Either option has a cost," Cuomo said. "The faster we reopen, the lower the economic cost, but the higher the human cost because the more lives lost. That, my friends, is the decision we are really making. What is that balance? What is that trade-off?"Federal projections now estimate the COVID-19 death toll will increase from 60,000 to 100,000. Cuomo reiterated Tuesday that, despite political and economic pressure to loosen restrictions, New York still has a long way to go between public life to return to a "new normal." 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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| W.Va. woman charged with mishandling classified information Posted: 04 May 2020 12:08 PM PDT  A West Virginia woman who had already been accused of kidnapping her daughter faces a new charge of retaining top-secret information from the National Security Agency in a storage unit she leased, court papers show. Elizabeth Jo Shirley was charged with willful retention of national defense information in a two-count criminal information document filed in federal court in West Virginia last week. The document contains only sparse information about the allegations, but says that between 1999 and August 2019, Shirley had unauthorized possession of documents "relating to the national defense" and "failed to deliver them to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive them."
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| 3 family members charged in killing of guard over face mask dispute Posted: 05 May 2020 03:58 AM PDT  Three members of a family have been charged in the fatal shooting of a security guard over a virus mask dispute at a Family Dollar store in Michigan.
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| The White House has barred its coronavirus task force from testifying to Congress as a House panel gears up to investigate the government's pandemic response Posted: 05 May 2020 03:00 AM PDT  A House subcommittee is investigating the US government's response to the coronavirus crisis and is set to meet this Wednesday.
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| Iranian airline linked to Revolutionary Guards 'defied coronavirus ban on China flights' Posted: 05 May 2020 03:08 AM PDT  An Iranian airline with links to the Revolutionary Guards Corps may have contributed to the spread of coronavirus around the Middle East after it continued to fly to China despite a ban imposed by the Iranian government, an investigation has claimed. Mahan Air, a privately owned airline, flew between Iran and China 157 times between early February and March, an analysis of flight tracking data by BBC Arabic found. The Iranian government banned flights to and from China on January 31. Mahan said it was suspending flights and ticket sales to and from China on February 2, in accordance with instruction from the World Health Organisation and Iran's Civil Aviation Organisation. It has previously said it carried out several evacuation flights of Iranian citizens after that date, and published a message of thanks from Iranian aviation authorities for doing so on its website on February 7. The flights included an Airbus 310 that repatriated 70 Iranian students from Wuhan to Tehran on February 6, and then flew on to Baghdad the following day. Four more flights were operated between February 3 and February 6, carrying repatriated Chinese and Iranian citizens in either direction. But the BBC found that that airline continued to fly regularly to destinations including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen after that. It also claimed that Mahan had continued to fly to Iraq after the government of that country banned flights from Iran on April 20, and to the United Arab Emirates after it introduced a ban on February 25. Iraq and Lebanon reported their first cases of coronavirus in travellers from Iran in February. The BBC claimed both cases arrived on Mahan Air flights. Iran was one of the worst-affected countries at the beginning of the pandemic and has so far recorded almost 100,000 cases of the coronavirus. Allegations that Mahan was flouting the flight ban were first reported in the Shargh daily, a reformist newspaper in Iran. Mahan said in a statement at the time that since the ban on China routes it had only flown repatriation and aid flights at the request of the country's ministries of health and foreign affairs. It said it had also agreed to fly industrial materials from China for Iranian manufacturers. "Obviously, our company would be in such a situation that regardless of material interests and even accepting losses, it had to assist the esteemed government and the country's industries and carry over hundreds of tons of industrial items to Iran," it said. Mahan has faced US sanctions because of its suspected links to the Revolutionary Guards Corps. Germany, France and Italy banned Mahan flights in 2019, following requests from the United States. Germany cited "security" concerns and the airline's alleged role in flying personnel and material to conflict zones including Syria. The airline's last European Union route, a twice-weekly service between Tehran and Barcelona was cancelled in March after Spain revoked its landing license. Mahan did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
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| Boko Haram jihadists clash with army near key Niger city Posted: 05 May 2020 09:14 AM PDT  Boko Haram fighters clashed with government forces on Sunday in Diffa, the largest city in southwestern Niger, in what the jihadists said was a successful attack on a military camp. A propaganda video released by the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a Boko Haram splinter group affiliated to the so-called Islamic State, purports to show heavily-armed insurgents storm an army camp following sustained fighting and heavy weapons fire. The area around Diffa, a city of around 200,000 people located near the Nigerian border, has been repeatedly attacked by the jihadist group, which emerged in Nigeria in 2009.
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| Trump attacks Joe Scarborough, who tells him 'take a rest' and 'let Mike Pence actually run things' Posted: 04 May 2020 08:21 AM PDT  With the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus mounting, President Trump on Monday took aim at MSNBC's Joe Scarborough. The cable news host responded by telling Trump to let Vice President Mike Pence "run things for the next couple of weeks."
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| This Extremely Detailed Owl Puzzle Has Unique Wooden Pieces That Create a Colorful Masterpiece Posted: 05 May 2020 09:31 AM PDT |
| How child abusers and other criminals are exploiting COVID-19 realities Posted: 05 May 2020 04:29 AM PDT  "There is no doubt that with more children online, we need to work harder to protect those children," National Crime Agency boss says.
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| Putin awards commemorative WWII medal to Kim Jong Un Posted: 05 May 2020 01:34 AM PDT  Russian President Vladimir Putin has awarded Kim Jong Un a commemorative war medal marking the 75th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, the Russian embassy in Pyongyang said Tuesday. The medal was awarded to the North Korean leader for his role in preserving the memory of Soviet soldiers who died on North Korean territory, the statement said. Russia's ambassador in North Korea, Alexander Matsegora, presented the award to the country's Foreign Minister Ri Son-gwon on Tuesday.
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| Trump makes false statement, claims Biden offered him an apology Posted: 04 May 2020 03:45 AM PDT  President Trump falsely stated on Sunday that Joe Biden apologized for calling him xenophobic after he issued travel restrictions on China.
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| Students at 25 universities sue for refunds after campuses close due to coronavirus Posted: 05 May 2020 01:04 PM PDT  "It's just not the same experience I would be getting if I was at the campus," said Grainger Rickenbaker, who filed a lawsuit against Drexel University.
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| Taiwan rebuffs WHO, says China has no right to represent it Posted: 04 May 2020 11:29 PM PDT  Only Taiwan's democratically-elected government can represent its people on the world stage, not China, its foreign ministry said on Tuesday, calling on the World Health Organization (WHO) to "cast off" China's control during the coronavirus pandemic. Taiwan's exclusion from WHO, due to China's objections which considers the island one of its provinces, has infuriated Taipei, which says this has created a dangerous gap in the global fight against the coronavirus. Taiwan has been lobbying to attend, as an observer, this month's meeting of the WHO's decision-making body, the World Health Assembly (WHA), although government and diplomatic sources say China will block the move.
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| High-rise 48-storey tower catches fire in UAE Posted: 05 May 2020 01:43 PM PDT  A high-rise tower caught fire on Tuesday in the United Arab Emirates. The side of the 48-floor Abbco Tower in Sharjah, which neighbours Dubai, saw flames shoot up them. Firefighters and police surrounded the tower, as did curious onlookers. Seven people were treated for minor injuries from the fire in the tower in Sharjah's Al Nahda area and taken to hospital for treatment. Authorities offered no immediate cause for the blaze.
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| Hannity Pleads With Anti-Lockdown Protesters He Praised: Please, No Rifles Posted: 04 May 2020 08:30 PM PDT  In back-to-back segments on Monday night, Fox News star Sean Hannity—who has repeatedly cheered on anti-shutdown protests against coronavirus stay-at-home orders—pleaded with demonstrators to keep their rifles and tactical gear at home.Hundreds of protesters, many armed with long guns, swarmed Michigan's Capitol building last Thursday to rail against the state's continued shelter-in-place orders amid the pandemic. Images of gun-toting protesters storming and crowding the state house sparked bipartisan criticism, though President Donald Trump called them "very good people."Speaking to frequent guest Dan Bongino on Monday evening, Hannity—who has recently gushed over the protests—groused that the sight of demonstrators packing rifles and dressed in military gear is a "distraction" to the real message of reopening the economy.No one is a "bigger defender" of the Second Amendment than he is, Hannity said, but still he blasted the demonstrators for adopting a "militia look," claiming that it is "dangerous" and "puts the police at risk.""No one should be attempting to intimidate officials," Hannity added. "God forbid something happens—they are going to go after all of us law-abiding Second Amendment people."After Bongino said he didn't fully agree with the Fox host as "people are fed up," Hannity snapped back that "nobody's going to hear them" because they were showing force against law enforcement and government officials. Bongino relented somewhat, saying he felt that the "liberal media" would try to paint the armed protesters as a "crazed bunch of lunatics." At the same time, he insisted they were standing up for the Constitution and Bill of Rights, prompting Hannity again to denounce the optics of it all."This is a distraction, though," the pro-Trump host said. "I'm never going to take anyone's rights. But this is a distraction."Later in the program, he posed the same question to Fox News contributors Tammy Bruce and Mike Huckabee, asking them both if they felt the armed protesters created a "tough environment where nobody can hear you.""I agree," Huckabee responded. "Just because there's some things we can do that doesn't mean we should do.""I wish I said that," Hannity said.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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| Airbnb is holding an all-hands meeting and rumors are circulating among employees that layoffs may be on the agenda Posted: 05 May 2020 11:32 AM PDT  Sources confirm that the company is holding an all hands meeting, while online forums suggest the company may be discussing additional layoffs.
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| Jim Jordan Demands Top FBI Officials Answer Questions about ‘Perjury Trap’ Set for Michael Flynn Posted: 05 May 2020 06:37 AM PDT  House Judiciary Republicans are demanding that FBI Director Christopher Wray answer for the Bureau's "targeting" of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn by making top officials and documents connected to the probe available to lawmakers.House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) and Representative Mike Johnson (R., La.) asked Wray to hand over all documents and communications related to the FBI's "Crossfire Razor" investigation of Flynn, as well as to address why the Bureau has not been forthcoming regarding the new information about the case that has been released in court filings."The American people continue to learn troubling details about the politicization and misconduct at the highest levels of the FBI during the Obama-Biden Administration," Jordan and Johnson wrote. "Even more concerning, we continue to learn these new details from litigation and investigations — not from you. It is well past time that you show the leadership necessary to bring the FBI past the abuses of the Obama-Biden era."Records released last week showed that handwritten notes dated January 24, 2017 — the same day of Flynn was interviewed at the White House interview by FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka — showed one agent questioning whether the goal of the interview was "to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired."Further documents released in the case also reveal that Strzok intervened to keep the Flynn case open after Crossfire Razor investigators noted on January 4, 2017 that they had found "no derogatory information" regarding Flynn's Russian contacts. That same day, Strzok also told a redacted individual that the FBI's "7th floor" had intervened — apparently referencing the floor in Bureau headquarters that houses senior FBI leadership.In their letter, Jordan and Johnson ask Wray to allow Pientka and Priestap to be made available for an interview to explain their respective roles in the case, and also ask Wray to publicly address allegations that he had opposed the disclosure of exculpatory information in the Flynn case, as reported by the Daily Caller.President Trump reportedly wants to fire Wray in response to the latest revelations, but the president is unlikely to remove him before the November election. Wray has been backed publicly by Attorney General Bill Barr, who said in an October interview that "there's been a world of change" since Wray took over in 2017. "I think that he is restoring the steady professionalism that's been a hallmark of the FBI," Barr told Fox News.
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| A New York City police officer was filmed punching a bystander during arrests while enforcing social distancing measures Posted: 04 May 2020 10:03 AM PDT  An NYPD officer identified as Francisco Garcia was filmed violently punching a man named Donni Wright on Saturday.
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| Iran news agency: Gunmen kill 3 Revolutionary Guard members Posted: 05 May 2020 09:19 AM PDT |
| Former FDA commissioner says U.S. may be unable to decrease coronavirus transmission much more Posted: 05 May 2020 07:16 AM PDT  Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb believes the United States may not be able to reduce coronavirus transmission much more, saying we should prepare for a "new normal."Gottlieb spoke with Today on Tuesday as many states allow some nonessential businesses to begin reopening and after a key model that's been cited by the White House significantly raised its projected death toll from COVID-19 to almost 135,000 by early August."We still have a high level of infection in this country," Gottlieb said. "We've reached a plateau, but we haven't seen the kind of declines that we were expecting to see at this point. And as we start to reopen the country, cases are likely to go up, not down."Gottlieb went on to suggest that as cases continue to rise in many states, the country may not be able to lower the rate of infection much further."I think that we need to understand, this may be the new normal," he said. "We may not be able to get transmission down much more. I hope we can."Gottlieb expanded on this in a Twitter thread, in which he wrote that "we need to prepare to deal with covid as a persistent threat," including by protecting those who are most vulnerable and being "prepared with case-based interventions, and widespread screening, to slow the transmission."On Monday, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration is privately forecasting that the U.S. daily coronavirus death toll will reach 3,000 by June 1, up from about 1,750, as well as 200,000 new cases a day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000. > "We need to understand this may be the new normal. We may not be able to get transmission down much more. I hope we can." -@ScottGottliebMD pic.twitter.com/yF1eijFIDV> > -- TODAY (@TODAYshow) May 5, 2020More stories from theweek.com Trump is pursuing a herd immunity strategy — whether intentionally or not How George W. Bush exposed Trump's biggest failure Whistleblower complaint from doctor formerly leading U.S. coronavirus vaccine effort alleges HHS operated on 'cronyism'
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| Philippine telecoms body orders TV broadcaster that irked Duterte to shut Posted: 05 May 2020 10:15 AM PDT  Duterte has repeatedly threatened to block the renewal of ABS-CBN's franchise, after the channel refused to air his 2016 presidential campaign commercials.
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| Venezuelan authorities detain U.S. citizens allegedly involved in incursion Posted: 04 May 2020 01:00 PM PDT  Venezuelan authorities have detained two U.S. citizens working with a U.S. military veteran who has claimed responsibility for a failed armed incursion into the oil producing country, President Nicolas Maduro said on Monday. In a state television address, Maduro said authorities arrested 13 "terrorists" on Monday allegedly involved in a plot he said was coordinated with Washington to enter the South American country via the Caribbean coast and oust him. Eight people were killed during the foiled incursion attempt on Sunday, Venezuelan authorities said.
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| Drone discovers mass grave of Islamic State victims at bottom of gorge in Syria Posted: 05 May 2020 02:29 AM PDT  Islamic State fighters used a stunning gorge in north-eastern Syria as a mass grave for their victims, a human rights group has revealed, after it deployed a drone to confirm the suspicions. In a new report, Human Rights Watch said the terror group dumped the bodies of people it had abducted, tortured and executed in al-Hota gorge, near Raqqa. It is one of around 20 mass graves containing thousands of bodies in areas that were formerly held by the so-called Islamic State (IS). Local villagers told researchers from Human Rights Watch that people had been threatened by IS fighters with being thrown into the gorge, while videos posted on Facebook in 2014 show two victims being cast in. The clothes on the men's bodies in that video match the clothing of two men being killed on camera in a separate propaganda video, Human Rights Watch said. Activists used a drone to fly into the gorge, where they discovered six bodies floating in the water in a state of decomposition. "Al-Hota gorge, once a beautiful natural site, has become a place of horror and reckoning," said Sara Kayyali, Human Rights Watch's Syria researcher. "Exposing what happened there, and at the other mass graves in Syria, is crucial to determining what happened to the thousands of people ISIS executed and holding their killers to account." It is likely that there are more bodies at the very bottom of the gorge, which the drone was unable to reach as it was underwater. Human Rights Watch has now called on Turkish forces, which control the area, to retrieve and identify the bodies so as to begin building a criminal case against IS for the atrocities committed in 2014 and beyond. "Whichever authority controls the al-Hota area is obliged to protect and preserve the site," added Ms Kayyali. "They should facilitate the collection of evidence to hold ISIS members accountable for their horrendous crimes, as well as those who dumped bodies in al-Hota before or after the ISIS rule." She also called on the Turkish military to clear the al-Hota area of boobytraps and other hazards that prevent thorough investigation of the site.
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| Trump gives up on virus fight to focus on economic recovery – and re-election Posted: 05 May 2020 09:46 AM PDT  With Covid-19 deaths set to almost double this month, the president is putting the stock market before lives, critics say * Coronavirus – latest US updates * Coronavirus – latest global updates * See all our coronavirus coverageDonald Trump is effectively abandoning a public health strategy for the coronavirus pandemic and showing "clear willingness to trade lives for the Dow Jones", critics say.A leaked internal White House report predicts the daily death toll from the virus will reach about 3,000 on 1 June, almost double the current tally of about 1,750, the New York Times revealed on Monday.Yet at the same time, Trump has scrapped daily coronavirus task force briefings and marginalized his medical experts in favour of economic officials flooding the airwaves to urge states to reopen for business – even amid rising infection rates.On Tuesday morning, before boarding Air Force One to visit a medical mask-making facility in Arizona for his first long trip since late March when the outbreak escalated in the US, Trump weighed a predicted surge in deaths against economic revival."There is no great win, one way or the other, but I will tell you where there is a win, we are going to build a country, I did it once, two months ago we had the best economy in the history of the world, but we are going to do it again and that's what we're starting … it's going to happen pretty fast."The top US public health expert on the White House coronavirus task force, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned in a CNN interview the previous evening that there will be a "rebound" of new coronavirus cases in the US if the country rushes towards a "premature" reopening of society and business."How many deaths and how much suffering are you willing to accept to get back to what you want to be some form of normality sooner rather than later?" he asked.And on Tuesday morning New York governor Andrew Cuomo warned against what he called a life or death "trade-off" when planning how and when to lift restrictions."The faster we reopen the lower the economic costs, but the higher the human costs because the more lives lost. That, my friends, is the decision we are really making," Cuomo said at his daily briefing.Critics are now sharply questioning the Trump administration approach to what Fauci called "a very difficult choice" that weighs a death toll against economic catastrophe."They've decided in a very utilitarian kind of way that the political damage from a collapsed economy is greater than the political damage from losing as many as 90,000 more Americans just in June," said Rick Wilson, a former Republican strategist. "We're witnessing the full-scale application of a kind of grisly realpolitik that is a clear willingness to trade lives for the Dow Jones."In a sign of the shift, the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie told CNN that increased deaths could be worth it if the economy reopens. "Of course, everybody wants to save every life they can – but the question is, towards what end, ultimately?" said Christie, a Republican who led Donald Trump's presidential transition team in 2016. He added: "Are there ways that we can … thread the needle here to allow that there are going to be deaths, and there are going to be deaths no matter what?"When Trump declared a national emergency on 13 March, hopes rose that, for all the early downplaying and missed testing opportunities, the federal government was finally ready to attack the crisis with full force.Trump quickly branded himself a "wartime president" and, on 31 March, somberly braced Americans for a "very, very painful two weeks" ahead. His daily White House coronavirus taskforce briefings earned comparisons with campaign rallies, sometimes running for more than two hours, but also featured respected experts, Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci, armed with graphics and science.On 23 April, however, Trump pontificated about injecting disinfectant into coronavirus patients, prompting worldwide disbelief and derision. The briefings would never be the same again and over the past week have been replaced by set-piece events touting an economic comeback.On Sunday, tellingly, when Trump held a Fox News virtual town hall entitled "America Together: Returning to Work" at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, he was accompanied not by Birx and Fauci but Vice-President Mike Pence and the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin.The president has been egged on by Fox News hosts who question whether the virus is any worse than the common flu, doubt the value of physical distancing and contend that the economic shutdown, which has cost at least 30m jobs, shows the cure is worse than the problem.On Saturday, a Washington Post report suggested Trump had been encouraged to pivot from the health crisis to the economic fightback by an internal White House analysis that suggested the daily death toll would peak in mid-April then fall away significantly. His "decision-making has been guided largely by his re-election prospects", the Post added.But death toll predictions from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a model favored by the White House, were raised on Monday from 72,000 to 134,000 by the start of August because, it said, states are relaxing physical distancing too soon.Now, critics say, Trump seems ready to shrug at the losses as collateral damage, paying greater heed to his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, than Birx or Fauci.Wilson, author of Everything Trump Touches Dies, warned: "They may end up making the situation so bad with a second wave in the summer and a third wave in the fall that we end up with a much worse set of economic challenges than if we'd taken our bitter medicine and stayed shut down until we were through the early part of this crisis."The grim news remains inescapable but the administration hopes its economic message will offer at least some counter-programming.Joe Lockhart, a former White House press secretary, said: "Almost by necessity, they are changing their strategy. They are pinning all of their hopes on getting the economy reopened, using their economic spokespeople and hoping that the American public has a high toleration for the death count moving up. It sounds terrible to say and even worse to do."I think you won't be seeing much from the scientists any more – the news is that bad – and they're just going to turn a blind eye to the fact that what they're doing is going to kill more people, because ultimately the way the president makes decisions is what's good for his re-election."
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| China is reportedly silencing coronavirus survivors who want answers on what went wrong with the country's early coronavirus response Posted: 04 May 2020 10:01 PM PDT  According to The New York Times, Wuhan residents who survived the virus or lost loved ones have been threatened for questioning China's response.
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| Trump allies fall silent amid SCOTUS financial records case Posted: 05 May 2020 07:08 AM PDT  Allies of President Trump are remaining quiet amid a Supreme Court battle over his financial records.
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| Florida sheriff defends keeping childhood shooting a secret Posted: 04 May 2020 07:29 AM PDT  The Florida sheriff appointed by the governor after the 2018 Parkland high school massacre is defending himself over allegations that he should have disclosed he fatally shot another teenager when he was 14 in Philadelphia. Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony told reporters over the weekend that he didn't see the need to disclose the 1993 killing to Gov. Ron DeSantis or on other applications during his law enforcement career because he was a juvenile and he was cleared because it was self-defense. The shooting came to light Saturday in an article published by the Florida Bulldog website and further roiled the August Democratic primary race between Tony and the fired sheriff he replaced, Scott Israel.
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| British Scientist Who Spearheaded National Lockdown Quits After Meeting With Married Lover Posted: 05 May 2020 12:55 PM PDT  The British scientist known colloquially as "Professor Lockdown," who pushed Prime Minister Boris Johnson to impose a nationwide lockdown, resigned on Tuesday after he defied social distancing guidelines to have a rendezvous with his married lover in his London home.Professor Neil Ferguson, who had been praised for his expertise and guidance during the U.K.'s coronavirus outbreak, allowed 38-year-old Antonia Staats—who is married with two children—into his home at the same time he was publicly advising everyone else to adhere to strict guidelines banning couples from seeing each other if they didn't live together. Ferguson, who is the head of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College London, had delivered stark warnings to Downing Street about how many people could die of the coronavirus if the government did not impose restrictions. His renowned work also reportedly informed government responses to coronavirus in the United States, France, and Germany."I accept I made an error of judgment and took the wrong course of action," Ferguson told The Telegraph, which first reported on Ferguson's ouster. "I have therefore stepped back from my involvement in SAGE [the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies]. I deeply regret any undermining of the clear messages around the continued need for social distancing to control this devastating epidemic. The government guidance is unequivocal, and is there to protect all of us."The scientist's lover reportedly made several trips to his home in March and April even though she admitted to her friends that her husband was experiencing symptoms of the coronavirus. Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jenny Harries and Health Secretary Matt Hancock informed the public one week before the lovers' first reunion on March 30 that "if the two halves of a couple are currently in separate households, ideally they should stay in those households." According to The Telegraph, Staat and her husband are in an open marriage and Staat did not believe their actions to be hypocritical because she considers the households to be one.Ferguson has for years modeled the spread of major pathogen outbreaks such as swine flu and Ebola. He tested positive for the coronavirus on March 19 after speaking at a Downing Street press conference two days earlier. He recently completed two weeks of self-quarantine, according to The Telegraph. "This virus is probably the one that concerns me the most of everything I've worked on," Ferguson said in a February 14 interview in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak.The scientist had been on the forefront of the coronavirus fight in the U.K., frequently appearing in interviews to praise "very intensive social distancing" measures. Ferguson heads an Imperial College team that presented a staggering report to the government that projected more than 500,000 deaths in the UK without enforced restrictions. "Scientists like him have told us we should not be doing it, so surely in his case it is a case of we have been doing as he says and he has been doing as he wants to," said British Member of Parliament Iain Duncan Smith. "He has peculiarly breached his own guidelines and for an intelligent man I find that very hard to believe. It risks undermining the government's lockdown message."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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| The Real Reason Joe Biden Won’t Release His Papers Posted: 04 May 2020 02:36 PM PDT  What is Joe Biden's case for the presidency?The most obvious answer, of course, is that he's not Donald Trump. That's a perfectly legitimate argument to make, and it might be enough to get the job done. Biden has already hinted that he views himself as a placeholder for the next generation of Democratic Party leaders.If, however, Biden's case for the presidency is predicated on his nearly 50 years of "public service," he is a failure without many peers. This is not my position; this is Joe Biden's position.There are numerous reasons that Biden might resist opening his Senate papers from 1973 to 2009 (and his vice-presidential papers from 2009 to 2016) that have little to do with the accusations of sexual assault made by Tara Reade. None of them are very persuasive.His papers do not cover personal business dealings in the private sector; they cover his time working for the people of the United States. The University of Delaware had initially promised that Biden's records were to be made public two years after he retired from public office. That was in 2017.On top of that, the justification Biden offers for holding back the release of his papers is astoundingly weak: "They are documents that existed and that for example when I go, when I met with Putin or when I met with whomever," he said in his recent video interview on MSNBC. "And all of that to be fodder in a campaign at this time."Dear Lord, weren't we just subjected to four years of panic-stricken news cycles warning us that Russia and the president had schemed to crush American democracy? Yet here is Biden arguing that he won't share documents amassed while he was forging foreign policy because they include conversations with Vladimir Putin, our most dastardly geopolitical foe ever.Looking back at the Obama administration's history of placating the Russian strongman, a habit we can reasonably suspect was far more pronounced in private than public, we should probably assume the papers would explode the already-tenuous myth that Biden has a history of being tough on Russia.The predicament of releasing his papers isn't that they might be taken out of context, as Biden alleges, but that they will give far too much context.Even beyond Putin, Biden's papers are sure to include the candidate's thoughts on the most consequential political debates of the past half century: war, abortion, segregation, China, criminal justice, and the culture war.Perhaps his papers would shed light on why Biden voted for welfare reform and the Defense of Marriage Act and an "immoral" border wall? Maybe it will give voters some context as to why he voted to repeal Glass–Steagall, the supposed root of the 2007 great recession? Or why he advocated against green-lighting the raid that killed Osama bin Laden?These days, Biden likes to pretend he was a fierce opponent of the invasion of Iraq, when in reality he turned critical only after the democracy-building went south. Biden stood in front of Congress in 2002, as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and argued for war.The historic record already shows that Biden was far more than just "civil" with segregationists early in his career: He engaged in obsequious efforts to gain their trust for committee seats and worked with them on issues such as busing.While in the Senate, Biden supported virtually every expansion of the drug war and mass incarceration, co-authoring the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Biden gave passionate speeches on the Senate floor arguing that one could be a "progressive" and "lock the SOBs up." Now Biden claims to regret 1990s crime bill, calling it a "big mistake."Maybe Biden's papers can provide some ideological framework to his recent embrace of an extremist abortion position as well. In 1976, Biden voted for the Hyde Amendment, a somewhat toothless law banning federal funds to pay for abortion. (In 1993, he voted to save the Hyde Amendment.) Today, Biden supports overturning the Hyde Amendment and believes that taxpayers should fund the procedure on demand until crowning. There still exists a "Biden amendment," which was added to the Foreign Assistance Act in 1981 to ban American aid from being used in research related to abortions. In 1982, Biden proposed a law allowing states to overturn Roe v. Wade. In 1984, Biden supported the "Mexico City policy," banning federal funding for organizations that provide abortion or expand abortion services. Both in 1995 and 1997, Biden voted for partial-birth abortion bans vetoed by Bill Clinton. There are probably some interesting correspondences in his papers dealing with 40 years of pro-life advocacy.It's this history, Biden argues, that makes him uniquely competent to be president. It's also this history he ignores. Biden's senatorial experience entails four decades of making decisions and supporting public policy he now claims to regret. Indeed, it's difficult to recall a single issue on which Biden has kept a principled and consistent position over the years. His papers would likely put an exclamation point on that reality.Of course, there's nothing wrong with changing your mind. We all do it. Most of us, however, can expound on the evolution in our thinking; the events or facts that impelled us to rethink our perceptions. Biden has never explained himself on most of these flip-flops.It's unlikely that most Democratic Party voters (or any voters) are acutely concerned with a politician's malleable policy positions. They want Trump gone. Yet setting aside the hypocritical standards and coverage of sexual-abuse allegations, both the media's and his own, release of these papers would probably force Biden, who struggles to articulate much of anything these days, to explain why he's made a 180 on virtually all notable policy stances. As a recent New York magazine piece put it, Biden is at his best when he's neither speaking nor appearing in public. For Democrats, Biden is best because Biden is not Trump.As his papers would likely prove, that's about it.
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| Coronavirus latest news: Reopening all schools would bring 'very real risk' of a second peak, warns Dominic Raab Posted: 04 May 2020 01:17 PM PDT  Prof Neil Ferguson resigns after breaking lockdown rules to meet his married lover Lockdown dossier: What new government advisory papers reveal How Sweden suppressed infection rates without a lockdown The five charts that explain the UK's horrifying death toll NHS workers targeted by state-backed hackers Subscribe to The Telegraph, free for seven days Telegraph Coronavirus Appeal: Join us in helping those hit hardest Reopening all schools in the UK would bring a "very real risk" of a second deadly peak of coronavirus, Dominic Raab has warned. The Foreign Secretary said there would be a phased plan to bring all students back to schools, avoiding a spike in the 'R' transmission rate of the virus that could overwhelm the NHS. Speaking at the daily Downing Street briefing, Mr Raab said the Government is still consulting its scientific advisors on how to open schools again, but they are unlikely to return to full capacity immediately. "The crucial bit for us is the five tests and the risk of a second spike in relation to any new changes that we would make and that must of course included schools," he said. "At least to date the evidence has been that we wouldn't be able to open up all schools without a very real risk that the R rate - the transmission rate - would rise at such a level that we would risk a second spike." The UK now has the highest Covid-19 death toll in Europe totalling 32,375, the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows. There were 29,710 deaths involving Covid-19 in England and Wales up to April 24. In today's briefing, Mr Raab pointed to new National Cyber Security Centre guidelines for fighting cyber criminals and hostile foreign states during the crisis. Some criminals have been exploiting Covid-19 for their own "nefarious ends", he said.
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| U.S. files first criminal charges for defrauding coronavirus bailout program Posted: 05 May 2020 12:11 PM PDT  The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday brought its first criminal charges against people it accused of defrauding the $660 billion Paycheck Protection Program aimed at dulling the coronavirus pandemic's heavy hit on the economy. David Staveley, 52, of Andover, Massachusetts said he needed more than $400,000 to help employees at three restaurants, when in fact two of the establishments were closed before the pandemic began and the third has a different owner, prosecutors alleged. Prosecutors said David Butziger, 51, of Warwick, Rhode Island lied about the number of employees at a small business to obtain a forgivable $105,000 loan.
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| Intel from US allies suggest it is 'highly unlikely' the coronavirus came from a Chinese lab and 'highly likely' that it was 'naturally occurring' Posted: 04 May 2020 10:48 PM PDT  "It is highly likely it was naturally occurring and that the human infection was from natural human and animal interaction," an official told CNN.
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