| Trump: ‘More White People’ Are Killed by Cops and How Dare Anyone Suggest Blacks Have it Bad Posted: 14 Jul 2020 02:10 PM PDT  Following weeks of nationwide protests over a spate of police killings of Black people, President Donald Trump has claimed that "more white people" actually die at the hands of law enforcement.The president made the comment after appearing to briefly lose it when asked about the hot button topic in a CBS News interview."Why are African-Americans still dying at the hands of law enforcement in this country?" host Catherine Herridge asked, prompting the president to immediately recoil."So are white people. So are white people! What a terrible question to ask," he huffed. "So are white people."Studies have shown that Black men are about 3.5 times more likely than white men to die in police custody. White men were killed by the police in the highest numbers between 2013 and 2017, but white people account for a greater percentage of the U.S. population than Black people, according to a Harvard study.Trump has made white grievance politics and the culture war a centerpiece of his re-election push in recent weeks, defending Confederate memorials and military bases named after Confederate generals even as he derides those who took part in anti-racism protests as "bad, evil people" seeking to destroy the country. Beyond that, he's targeted the only full-time Black NASCAR driver, Bubba Wallace, falsely accusing him of perpetrating a hate-crime "hoax" after a suspected noose was discovered in his garage at Alabama's Talladega Superspeedway last month. Trump took to Twitter to demand that Wallace should "apologize" after the FBI concluded the noose was not a hate crime, but Wallace was not the one who reported it to begin with.Amidst what has become a nationwide reckoning over racism in the country, Trump has veered off in the other direction and refused to acknowledge that racism is a problem. In fact, perhaps the most telling response he has offered to the racism issue at the heart of the protests was a recent retweet of a video showing a Trump supporter arguing with protesters and yelling "white power." 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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| US Postmaster General tells postal workers to leave mail behind if it slows down their route Posted: 14 Jul 2020 02:47 PM PDT  The US Postal Service is in a financial crisis, and is now instructing workers to avoid logging overtime — even if it means leaving mail behind.
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| Parents of slain Atlanta girl plead for help to find killer Posted: 12 Jul 2020 09:32 PM PDT  The parents of an 8-year-old Atlanta girl slain near the site of an earlier police killing pleaded for the public to help find whoever was responsible as their lawyers announced more reward money. "Please don't use the word snitch," the girl's father, Secoriey Williamson, said Monday, addressing anyone who might have leads. Total reward money now stands at $50,000, said one of the attorneys, Mawuli Davis.
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| Philippines to use police in house-to-house searches for COVID-19 cases Posted: 14 Jul 2020 05:59 AM PDT  Philippine authorities and police will carry out house-to-house searches for COVID-19 patients to prevent wider transmission, a minister said on Tuesday, amid soaring death and infection numbers and some areas returning to a stricter lockdown. Interior Minister Eduardo Año urged the public to report cases in their neighbourhoods, warning that anyone infected who refused to cooperate faced imprisonment. The tough approach comes during a week where the Philippines recorded Southeast Asia biggest daily jump in coronavirus deaths and saw hospital occupancy grow sharply, after a tripling of infections since a tough lockdown was eased on June 1 to allow more movement and commerce.
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| Protests after Pennsylvania police officer filmed kneeling on man’s head and neck Posted: 13 Jul 2020 12:35 AM PDT  A video of a black man being restrained by police kneeling on his head and neck in Pennsylvania has provoked outrage, with many comparing it to footage of the killing of George Floyd.The incident took place outside a hospital in Allentown, Pennsylvania on Saturday and was filmed by a passer-by. One video, less than 30 seconds long, shows three white officers holding the man on the ground.
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| Remains of Aztec palace, house built by Hernán Cortés found near Mexico City plaza Posted: 14 Jul 2020 12:06 PM PDT  Mexican officials said the remains of the Aztec palace and house built by Hernán Cortés were found near the Plaza del Zócalo.
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| Blame game? Cuomo takes heat over NY nursing home study Posted: 13 Jul 2020 09:39 PM PDT  New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is facing blistering criticism over an internal report that found a controversial state directive that sent thousands of recovering coronavirus patients into nursing homes was "not a significant factor" in some of the nation's deadliest nursing home outbreaks. Scientists, health care professionals and elected officials assailed the report released last week for flawed methodology and selective stats that sidestepped the actual impact of the March 25 order, which by the state's own count ushered more than 6,300 recovering virus patients into nursing homes at the height of the pandemic.
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| Alabama primary tests Trump's influence among Republican voters Posted: 13 Jul 2020 11:36 AM PDT  With the backing of President Trump, former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville faces off against former Attorney General Jeff Sessions Tuesday in a primary runoff for the U.S. Senate in Alabama.
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| US Air Force F-16 fighter jet crashes at New Mexico base, marking service's fifth fighter jet crash since May Posted: 13 Jul 2020 08:33 PM PDT  The pilot was able to eject safely and is being treated for minor injuries, the base said Monday evening.
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| Polish conservative Duda re-elected president, deeper EU rifts likely Posted: 12 Jul 2020 10:16 PM PDT  Polish President Andrzej Duda has won five more years in power on a socially conservative, religious platform in a closely fought election that makes renewed confrontation with the European Union's executive likely. Final results from Sunday's presidential election runoff showed Duda, 48, won with 51.03% of the vote, the National Election Commission said. Liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski got 48.97%.
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| St Louis couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters 'almost always in conflict with others', report says Posted: 13 Jul 2020 03:19 PM PDT  The white couple who were photographed pointing guns at protesters in St Louis, have been revealed to have had several conflicts over their property in recent years, from a number of lawsuits to the smashing of children's beehives.Personal-injury attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey were seen standing outside their home holding a handgun and a rifle at Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters who were walking down their street on 28 June.
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| How might China react to the UK's Huawei decision? Posted: 14 Jul 2020 07:51 AM PDT  China has repeatedly threatened to retaliate if the UK Government reversed its decision on Huawei, with relations already under strain after Boris Johnson offered citizenship to up to three million people from Hong Kong fleeing tough new security laws. The Chinese government has not hinted what measures are being considered, but ongoing diplomatic spats with British allies including the US, Australia and Canada reveal a wide-ranging playbook. A key factor is how quickly China might be willing to allow relations with the UK to deteriorate. In the US, Canada and Australia, political elements have been critical of China for several years, while the UK is only now starting to push back against China's ambitions, said Kitty Smyth, the founder of Jingpinou, a UK consultancy specialising in China. Therefore, China may be "more likely to want to build on those pockets of support, rather than erode all relationships with the UK entirely", she added. Still, some level of reprisal is likely to take place as Beijing's swagger has grown with its new "wolf warrior" style of diplomacy, taking a much harder line in defiance of what it views as the West trying to diminish its place on the world stage.
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| This Tennessee doctor caught coronavirus at a meeting about coronavirus. He nearly died. Posted: 14 Jul 2020 04:45 PM PDT  Dr. Daniel Lewis, the chief medical officer of a hospital in East Tennessee, nearly died after catching coronavirus. His recovery took months.
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| Funeral for Seoul mayor held as allegation details emerge Posted: 12 Jul 2020 08:46 PM PDT  Mourners wept and deeply bowed before the coffin of Seoul's mayor during his funeral Monday, while a lawyer came forward with details about sexual harassment allegations against the late politician. The allegations have split many in South Korea over how to remember Park Won-soon, who was found dead Friday in a wooded area in northern Seoul. Park, a liberal who built his career as a reform-minded politician and champion of women's rights, had been considered a potential candidate for president in 2022.
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| Kamala Harris Was in Biden Circle of Trust. Then Came Debate Night. Posted: 13 Jul 2020 01:51 AM PDT  Kamala Harris was mad as hell.It was September 2011, the first year of her first term as California's attorney general. The nation was still struggling to regain its economic footing after the Great Recession, and Harris was under intense pressure from the banking industry, the Department of Justice, and most of her fellow state attorneys general to accept a billion-dollar settlement from the mortgage-financing industry that would immunize them from investigations into other potential crimes committed in advance of the the subprime mortgage crisis. And she was not having it."This was insane," Harris wrote in her pre-presidential memoir The Truths We Hold: An American Journey. "We hadn't even finished the investigation, so we didn't know what crimes we might uncover!"California had more foreclosures in the wake of the subprime-mortgage collapse than any other state, and was home to seven of the 10 cities hit hardest by the crisis. Harris hoped to use the state's clout to force the banks to drop the proposed settlement, giving her office a longer runway to investigate more malfeasance."There's no way I'm taking this offer," Harris told her team after a meeting in Washington, D.C., with the general counsels of the nation's largest lenders. The next week, she announced that the proposed deal would "excuse conduct that has not been adequately investigated" without providing the relief that California homeowners desperately needed.Then the phone calls began.Friends, advisers, White House officials and even Gov. Jerry Brown warned her that she had made too powerful an enemy."The pressure was intense—and constant—and it was coming from all sides: from longtime allies and longtime adversaries and everyone in between," Harris recalled in her memoir.Only a few other state attorneys general, equally dissatisfied with the settlement's proposed terms, supported Harris in holding out for more money and more time to investigate wrongdoing: Martha Coakley of Massachusetts, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Eric Schneiderman of New York, and Beau Biden of Delaware.Biden, the crown prince of the Diamond State, was in his second term as Delaware's attorney general, and had every reason to follow Justice's lead on the settlement. The foreclosure crisis hadn't hit Delaware nearly as badly as California, and the state's friendly corporate arbitration system and even friendlier tax structure had made it a haven for the big banks."But that wasn't who Beau was," Harris later wrote. Biden opened his own investigation into the mortgage-financing industry as the settlement stalled, and began sharing the resultant information with Harris' office—and "became an incredible friend and colleague" as a result."There were periods, when I was taking heat, when Beau and I talked every day, sometimes multiple times a day," Harris recalled in The Truths We Hold. "We had each other's backs.""That's really where the two of them started to bond," said Doug Gansler, a close friend of Beau's and the former attorney general of neighboring Maryland who served as the president of the National Association of Attorneys General at the time. "She was sort of an instant rock star, as Beau was. They were destined to get together and collaborate."Harris' holdout over the National Mortgage Settlement—which ended with a $20 billion victory for Harris instead of the $4 billion initially proposed by the banks, and more money for Delawareans, as well—was the beginning of what would be a close friendship between two rising stars in the Democratic Party. That friendship, cut short by Beau's death from brain cancer in 2015, is now under renewed focus as former Vice President Joe Biden, Beau's father and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, whittles down his list of potential running mates, a list at which Harris sits near the top.VP Jockeying Season Is Upon Us"Short of personal friendship with Dr. [Jill] Biden, there is no bigger credit that you can have with the vice president than a relationship with Beau," said one source close to the Bidens, who told The Daily Beast that the family, marked by tragedy and incredibly tight-knit after decades in the public eye, would naturally hold anyone with Beau's stamp of approval in the highest esteem. "He was the heir."Both were young, telegenic, and bright even by the standards of the occupation, Gansler said, and largely aligned in their political beliefs. State attorneys general tend to break into three categories—workhorses without term limits who have served in the office for decades, journeymen who view the office as a pitstop on the road to lucrative private sector work, and the young legal minds with their eye on the governor's mansion or the U.S. Senate.Harris and Beau were in the last group, prominent enough that when Gansler was setting up a breakfast for Maryland's delegation during the Democratic National Convention in 2012, he invited both to be the event's speakers."They had the most star appeal, the most mystique, and both were sort of destined for even higher office, in my view," Gansler said, explaining his choice. "And they both had great stories."Beyond the mortgage settlement, Harris and Biden worked together both formally and informally on legal issues on their docket, including fighting online child abuse imagery, sex trafficking, and elder abuse in nursing homes. Their friendship eventually included an introduction to Beau's father, at the time the sitting vice president.Beau's illness, the severity of which he kept close to his chest until his final weeks, and his death at age 46 hit the tight-knit circle of state attorneys general hard."We were all rocked by the whole thing," Gansler said, calling Beau's memorial service, which Harris also attended, "devastating."In a way, Biden took the torch from his son in continuing a friendship with Harris, who introduced Biden at the party's 2016 state convention as having given "so much to our country"—including his son, "my dear friend Beau.""It is through my friendship with Beau that I truly came to know Joe Biden, not just as a leader but as a person," Harris said. "I say from my personal experience that the Biden family truly represents our nation's highest ideals—a powerful belief in the nobility of public service."America Mourns at Beau Biden's FuneralHarris was elected to the U.S. Senate that year with the help of Vice President Biden's endorsement over her Democratic challenger—"Beau always supported her," Biden said in a statement announcing his endorsement, "and I'm proud to support her candidacy for the United States Senate"—and joined the judiciary committee that Biden had once chaired."They obviously weren't as close as she and Beau were," a friend of the family told The Daily Beast. "But she'd been welcomed into the fold, and that's basically forever with the Bidens."But that relationship was changed—perhaps irrevocably, some close to Biden said—during the June 2019 Democratic presidential debate, when Harris came after Biden for his record on school busing and his friendship with senators who supported segregation."It was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country," Harris said during the debate, the first of the cycle. "And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing. And, you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me."In the context of other broadsides against Biden during subsequent debates—Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts accusing him of running in the "wrong presidential primary," Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey mocking his position on marijuana legalization as only making sense if he'd been "high"—the moment was comparatively tame.But it was the first moment of genuine conflict between the Democrats vying for the nomination, and came at a particularly sensitive time for the Biden clan, as President Donald Trump was injecting himself into the primary largely by attacking Biden's younger son with baseless accusations of corruption.As a result, in both the public imagination and in the hearts of Biden's most dedicated supporters, the dispute has been hard to shake."If there was anyone on that stage that night that Joe Biden probably felt he trusted the most, it was her," said John Morgan, a Florida attorney and one of Biden's top fundraisers. "And she was the one he could trust the least."Morgan told The Daily Beast that Harris' debate performance in June 2019 is disqualifying for any potential running mate, and said that he found it "impossible" to imagine that Dr. Jill Biden would support Harris' selection in light of what he called her "treacherous" performance after becoming so close with Beau."She didn't stab him in the back—she stabbed him in the heart," Morgan said.Harris defended both her friendship with Beau and her line of attack in an appearance on The Breakfast Club radio show, calling him "an incredible person, an incredible human being and a very dear friend to me," but saying that their friendship was "separate from the fact that segregationists in the United States Senate stood, and lived their careers, to segregate the races in public education in the United States."Although Biden was at first surprised by the attack, telling CNN that "I wasn't prepared for the person coming at me the way she came at me," he later made light of the exchange in the moments before the next debate, telling Harris to "go easy on me, kid" with an avuncular smile."I'm not good at keeping hard feelings," Biden told reporters at a campaign stop in December, one day after Harris dropped out of the race. A source close to the campaign told The Daily Beast that Biden was one of the first to call her after she withdrew her candidacy, a conversation that was characterized as warm.During a digital fundraiser that raised $3.5 million for the campaign last month, Biden called Harris a "principled leader," and returned to her friendship with his late son."You said, 'I love you, and I loved Beau'—I won't forget that," Biden said.As Harris has begun the vetting process, the California senator has literally laughed off questions about the exchange and whether it could break her chances of joining Biden on the ticket."It was a debate!" Harris told Late Show host Stephen Colbert in June, laughingly repeating herself. "We all have family members or friends with whom we have disagreements—that doesn't overcome or overshadow the commonalities between us or the connections between us."But some in Biden's circle, and in the Biden family, have been slower to warm to Harris after the "little girl" moment. A source close to the Bidens told The Daily Beast that Valerie Biden Owens, the vice president's sister and longtime adviser, is still "chilly" on Harris, and that Dr. Jill Biden was privately flippant when Harris endorsed her husband in March.Joe Biden Asked Kamala Harris to 'Go Easy on Me.' Neither She Nor Anyone Else Did.At an Illinois fundraiser eight months later, Dr. Jill Biden still seemed wounded."Our son, Beau, spoke so highly of her and how great she was," she said when discussing potential vice presidential choices with the fundraiser's attendees. "And not that she isn't, I'm not saying that. But it was just like a punch to the gut. It was a little unexpected."The Biden campaign, which is generally loathe to comment on anything pertaining to the veepstakes, told The Daily Beast that the clash's significance has been overplayed in the 12 months since it occurred, and that the vice president's wife and sister have deep respect for Harris."Both Dr. Biden and Valerie have nothing but the utmost respect, admiration and affection for Senator Harris," said Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander, in a statement that was previously given to the Washington Post. "Any rumors or conjecture to the contrary are not true and have zero basis in reality or fact."But those in a position to make their feelings on Harris' potential as a running mate heard still point to the debate as potentially disqualifying—and note that both Dr. Biden and Valerie Biden Owens hold huge sway in any final decision on a running mate."I don't think the emotions of Dr. Biden and Val have softened," said one source familiar with the Biden family's feelings on the matter, who allowed that polling on Harris' utility as a running mate "and the persistent whispering of advisers trying to smooth things over" might change their opinions."But in the Biden world," they continued, "it was an ultimate act of betrayal by someone whom Beau had trusted."Morgan, who like other top fundraisers has participated in calls to discuss potential running mates, told The Daily Beast that he has communicated his strong support for fellow Floridian Rep. Val Demings, in part because he believes she's "loyal.""When you're walking in and you're guarded, and you're looking around and there's all these people onstage and you see one person, you go, 'well, at least I don't have to worry about her,' and she's the one that pulls out the Uzi, that's hard to reconcile for me," Morgan said. "But, you know, I'm Irish—I hold grudges."When The Daily Beast noted that Biden, too, is Irish, Morgan laughed and said: "He may be a gentler Irishman than me."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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| 5 Years Ago, New Horizons Reached Pluto—and We Never Stopped Learning Posted: 14 Jul 2020 11:25 AM PDT |
| Police across Virginia are searching for people who are putting up offensive flyers calling on residents to 'pray for white Americans in 2020' Posted: 14 Jul 2020 11:36 AM PDT  The flyers, packaged in ziplock bags with bird seeds, were placed in mailboxes and called for "100% Americanism."
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| Trump again directs blame at Obama as coronavirus pandemic worsens in U.S. Posted: 13 Jul 2020 01:45 PM PDT  The president on Monday again sought to redirect blame for his pandemic response to the previous administration.
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| Four more states added to New York quarantine order, Cuomo says Posted: 14 Jul 2020 08:12 AM PDT  Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday ordered those arriving in New York from an additional four states to quarantine for 14 days to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. The newly added states - Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin - were all seeing 'significant' community spread of the virus, Cuomo said in a statement. Travelers arriving in New York from a total of 22 U.S. states are now required to quarantine for 14 days, according to Cuomo's order which was first issued in June.
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| 'We absolutely have to': Pelosi willing to cancel August recess for deal on another coronavirus relief package Posted: 14 Jul 2020 12:37 PM PDT  Speaker Nancy Pelosi will delay or cancel Congress' August recess if negotiators need more time to reach a deal on a coronavirus relief package that is expected to include a renewal of beefed-up unemployment benefits and more federal assistance to state governments in order to address the Covid-19 pandemic."We absolutely have to. We also have to come to an agreement. The timetable is the timetable of the American people needing their unemployment insurance, their direct payments, their assistance for rent and mortgage foreclosure forbearance," and other federal aid programmes Democrats have proposed, Ms Pelosi said in an interview with CNN on Monday.
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| Former veteran hospital nursing assistant pleads guilty to murder charges in string of insulin deaths Posted: 14 Jul 2020 02:34 PM PDT  Reta Mays was charged with seven counts of second-degree murder.
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| Confederate statues stored at Richmond waste water plant Posted: 14 Jul 2020 02:30 PM PDT  At least some of the Confederate monuments that have been recently removed from places of prominence in Richmond, Virginia, are being stored on the grounds of a waste water treatment plant, photographs show. Photos taken this week by The Associated Press and Richmond Times-Dispatch show a collection of statues and other large objects under tarps at the facility just outside the city's downtown. On July 1, Mayor Levar Stoney ordered the immediate removal of all Confederate statues on city property in Richmond, a onetime capital of the Confederacy.
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| Pro-Police Agitators and Black Lives Matter Protesters Clash in Brooklyn Posted: 13 Jul 2020 05:51 PM PDT  The pro-police rallies came weeks after the New York City Council cut the NYPD's budget by $1 billion. The cuts came in light of national calls to defund police departments in response to the killing of George Floyd and other unarmed Black people at the hands of police officers.
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| I'm from Florida. Our coronavirus crisis doesn't surprise me Posted: 14 Jul 2020 03:37 AM PDT  'America's weirdest state' offers an extreme case of the country's broader failure to take the pandemic seriouslyI have spent the past three months in my home state of Florida, during which time I've watched it become the hottest of coronavirus hotspots on the planet. This week began with the announcement that the state registered over 15,000 new infections in a single day, which was almost 3,000 more daily cases than any state previously had recorded since the pandemic began. If Florida was a country, according to Reuters, it would have the world's fourth-highest tally of new Covid-19 cases over that 24-hour span, trailing only the US, Brazil and India.Florida has a well-deserved reputation as America's weirdest state, so perhaps the pandemic punishment being meted out to us right now shouldn't come as a shock. A 1948 Fortune magazine study observed: "Florida is a study in abnormal psychology, useful in signaling the … hidden derangements of the national mood." A lot of bad trends in American life find their most bizarre and refined forms in the Sunshine state, which is why "Florida Man" has become shorthand for the bad behavior of too many state residents. As far as the present pandemic is concerned, the simplest and most convincing explanation for why Florida is experiencing an explosion of Covid-19 cases it that it is an extreme case of the broader American failure to take the pandemic seriously.Considerable blame rests with the state's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis. A former member of the House Freedom Caucus, the most slavishly pro-Trump faction in Congress, he won election as governor in 2018 largely on the strength of the president's endorsement as well as campaign ads that showed him teaching his children how to build walls and recite "Make America Great Again".Unsurprisingly, he followed Trump's lead in minimizing the seriousness of the pandemic. Florida was one of the last states to impose a stay-at-home order, in early April, and began reopening little more than a month later. A state data scientist responsible for tracking the spread of the virus was fired when, she claimed, she wouldn't manipulate the data to show sufficient recovery from the pandemic to justify further easing of restrictions.Even now, DeSantis is aggressively pushing for schools to reopen next month, on the grounds that if big-box stores like Walmart and Home Depot can resume operations successfully, then so can schools. Teachers object that schools are smaller and more crowded spaces, and that few customers spend eight hours a day in the stores. But perhaps DeSantis is channeling the dystopian future vision of the film Idiocracy, in which higher education has been taken over by stores like Costco.DeSantis, to his credit, allowed some of the hardest-hit cities and counties to delay reopening and require masks in some public settings – unlike the Republican governors of Texas and Arizona, who blocked any pandemic restrictions more stringent than those imposed by the state (both governors have backtracked). He also seems, in hindsight, to have been unfairly pilloried by the media for allowing beaches to stay open, in view of current opinions on the lower risk of outdoor transmission.> Florida's subtropical climate is an irresistible inducement to hedonismIt's also clear that Florida, like the country as a whole, failed to shut down to the extent and duration necessary to contain the spread of the virus, or to wear masks and practice social distancing to the extent that was routine in most societies where the virus was successfully brought under control. During the first two months I was down here, I rarely saw as many as half of the customers (and in some cases staff) in supermarkets and drugstores wearing masks. Groups of teenagers thronged the shopping malls as if the pandemic was a thing of the past.Bars, nightclubs, movie theaters, gyms, massage parlors, nail salons and a host of other transmission-friendly environments reopened in early June, with distancing restrictions more or less ignored. Floridians who chafed at weeks of restrictions made up for lost time by partying down with a kind of feral intensity, to judge by local social media, at any rate. Florida's subtropical climate is an irresistible inducement to hedonism, and many of the young people who crowded into bars and nightclubs believed that they had nothing to fear from the virus. Health officials have linked more than 150 Covid-19 cases to a single bar in Orlando. (DeSantis subsequently banned on-premise alcohol consumption at establishments that derive more than half of their income from alcohol sales.)There could be some other factors peculiar to Florida that explain the virulence of the pandemic's spread here. Partisanship is hard-edged here, and not wearing a mask has become a mark of Republican tribal identity. Many conservatives I know (particularly men) consider mask-wearing to be an infringement upon their constitutional freedom. Skepticism of science and experts, along with ingrained contrarianism – some otherwise sane Floridians I know resolutely maintain that the virus is a hoax, or no worse than seasonal flu – surely plays a role in some cases as well.The state government's handling of the pandemic has proved shockingly inadequate, largely because the previous Republican administration sabotaged its institutional capacities. It took weeks and even months for laid-off Floridians to get unemployment relief, largely because the online system was designed to make it harder for workers to receive benefits so that the previous governor (now a senator), Rick Scott, could claim lower jobless numbers.Floridians historically have shown a ferocious individualism and an unwillingness to abide by state government restrictions. In addition, the severe economic damage inflicted by the shutdown surely has made people more willing to engage in magical thinking about how the dangers of the virus have been inflated by the media and the establishment, including the mistaken belief that hot weather prevents virus spread.> The inability of too many Floridians to distinguish between reality and fantasy is part of what's frustrating about this placeTwo-thirds of Florida's residents (and nearly all of its tourists) come here from somewhere else, which may cut against the collective sense of social responsibility that's more widespread in more settled communities and societies. And masks are indeed uncomfortable in Florida's heat and humidity, as visitors to a reopened Disney World are finding out.The pandemic laid bare the incompetence of the Trump administration, which took much too long to put widespread testing in place and has yet to implement contact tracing on the scale that's needed. But the pandemic has also shown the weakness of America's federal structure and its insufficient state capacity relative to other developed countries, where governments have implemented more uniform and effective national responses. Perhaps one of the pandemic's legacies will be greater citizen insistence on competent government.I've spent most of my adult life outside Florida, but I share the affectionate exasperation that many Floridians feel for their state. It's not like anywhere else, for both good and ill. The New York Times recently interviewed a couple who visited the reopened Disney World and shared their belief that the park's reopening "was the first thing that made us feel like we could leave our house and still feel safe". Why? Because "it's Disney". The inability of too many Floridians to distinguish between reality and fantasy is part of what's frustrating about this place, but their irrepressible optimism makes me hope we will get through this pandemic without losing too many more of them.
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| Romance scam: US woman freed after year as hostage in Nigeria Posted: 13 Jul 2020 04:46 AM PDT  The 46-year-old woman from Washington DC was held for more than a year and lost $48,000, police say.
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| Donald Trump Jr., Ted Cruz, and other top Republicans praise New York Times editor Bari Weiss' resignation letter slamming the paper Posted: 14 Jul 2020 02:31 PM PDT  Donald Trump Jr. claimed Weiss' resignation exposed the "rampant attacks on anyone who breaks from the far-left narrative."
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| Young conservative women stand up to liberal mob Posted: 13 Jul 2020 08:27 PM PDT  Incoming Marquette freshman Samantha Pfefferle says she has been threatened over her pro-Trump TikTok post; political activist Savanah Hernandez targeted by Black Lives Matter protesters.
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| Tulsa race massacre: Search continues for mass grave site from 1921 Posted: 14 Jul 2020 10:48 AM PDT  Archaeologists and dig crews have resumed the excavation of a suspected mass grave in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the site of one of the bloodiest episodes of racist violence in the US.A white mob terrorised hundreds of black Americans during a nearly two-day massacre on 31 May 1921. Armed white men, backed by Oklahoma officials and law enforcement, shot at black residents, bombed buildings and set them ablaze, destroying 35 blocks of homes, businesses, churches and schools in the city's prosperous Greenwood neighbourhood, known as Black Wall Street.
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| U.S. Considers TikTok Ban as Chinese Threat to Global Internet Freedom Grows Posted: 13 Jul 2020 10:28 AM PDT  The partnership between Chinese tech companies and the Chinese Communist Party is threatening global Internet freedom. But the U.S. has the chance to push back and safeguard online free speech and privacy worldwide.Last Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News's Laura Ingraham that the U.S. is "certainly looking at" banning TikTok, a video-sharing social-media platform owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, over its ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).Pompeo cited the threat of "Chinese surveillance" to national security, as TikTok user data is surely being passed on to the CCP. A day later, in an interview with Greta Van Susteren, President Trump took a different tack, listing a ban on TikTok as "one of many" potential ways to punish the Chinese government for its hand in the coronavirus pandemic.TikTok is no stranger to U.S. scrutiny. Government agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security have banned the app for security reasons. And last year, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department investigated the company after it was alleged to have used data from users under 13 years of age in violation of American privacy laws. It was recently reported that the app may have failed to address regulators' concerns on that front.It might seem strange that an app known for making harmless, entertaining videos go viral would be the center of so much controversy. But the problem isn't the content TikTok allows users to share with the world; it's the company's meticulous collection of user data and its close, troubling relationship with the CCP.Parent company ByteDance is allegedly working with the CCP in its surveillance efforts. Just as unsettling, the app has been accused of aiding Chinese propaganda efforts through the use of "shadow bans," fiddling with the app's algorithm so that users — even users outside China — don't see content concerning Tiananmen Square or the Hong Kong protests. For instance, in 2019, TikTok user Feroza Aziz had her account suspended after posting a makeup tutorial that secretly condemned China's mass detention and abuse of Uighur Muslims in Xianjiang Province.Such abuses are not limited to TikTok. Other Chinese tech companies have done the CCP's bidding inside and outside China as well. According to an Australian Strategic Policy Institute report, Chinese tech giants such as Huawei, Tencent, and Alibaba are using artificial intelligence to collect users' data and aid and abet China in fulfilling its global ambitions.And what are those ambitions? One is obviously the legitimizing of the CCP's dictatorship abroad. But China may also be seeking to normalize authoritarianism more generally. For instance, TikTok has reportedly censored criticisms of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's authoritarian president.It's like a virtual Belt and Road Initiative, in which viral dance videos replace seemingly good-faith investments as the vehicle for the spread of CCP influence.In the face of China's threats to the freedom of the world's Internet, the Trump administration should be applauded for considering a ban on TikTok. As Chinese censorship, surveillance, and propaganda spread worldwide, the U.S. has a chance to fight back and change the trajectory of the Information Age for the better. At a press conference on Wednesday, Pompeo said that "the infrastructure of this next hundred years must be a communications infrastructure that's based on a Western ideal of private property and protection of private citizens' information in a transparent way." He added, however, that realizing that vision would be difficult: "It's a big project, because we've got partners all around the world where infrastructure crosses Chinese technology and then comes to the United States."It won't be easy, but it must be done. Nothing less than global Internet freedom is at stake.
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| South Africa surpasses the UK in confirmed coronavirus cases Posted: 14 Jul 2020 12:56 PM PDT |
| Portland Protesters Set Fire to Base of Elk Statue During 46th Consecutive Night of Demonstrations Posted: 13 Jul 2020 10:04 AM PDT 
During a night of unrest in Portland, Oregon, on Sunday, July 12, protesters set fire to an empty fountain and the base of an elk statue that was recently removed during protests in the area. During clashes on July 11, one protester, named as Donavan La Bella, was hospitalized after he was shot in the head with an impact munition, the Portland Tribune reported. Mayor Ted Wheeler has announced that US Marshals will investigate the incident. Protesters gathered on July 12, the 46th consecutive day of protests in Portland, to call for justice for La Bella, local media reported. The Oregonian reported that a “120-year-old statue of an elk” that sat atop the David P. Thompson Fountain was removed from downtown Portland after protesters damaged its base by setting it on fire during July 1 demonstrations. This video shows a figure lying on the base as fire burns in the empty fountain beneath on Sunday night. Credit: Drew Hernandez via Storyful
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| White House Orders Hospitals to Bypass CDC Even as Agency Director Prepares for ‘the Most Difficult Times’ Posted: 14 Jul 2020 03:57 PM PDT  The White House is now requiring hospitals around the country to change how they report data on COVID-19 patients in a move that effectively bypasses the nation's largest public health agency. In a letter from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the agency mandated that hospitals send information on their COVID-19 patients directly to a database managed by HHS rather than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The order outlining the alteration claims it will help federal agencies move from manual data entry to automated, which would streamline the collection and dissemination of coronavirus data for multiple federal agencies that will have access to the database. The document reads: "As of July 15, 2020, hospitals should no longer report the Covid-19 information in this document to the National Healthcare Safety Network site," a clearinghouse of data on infectious diseases operated by the CDC since 2008.The shift in data collection, long the responsibility of the CDC, arose after Dr. Deborah Birx, the chief medical officer on the White House's coronavirus task force, said in a conference call with hospital executives several weeks ago that healthcare facilities were not adequately reporting their data. CDC employees were shocked at the change, according to The New York Times.Some public health experts, though, said that the move is the latest in a long line of the Trump administration politicizing the pandemic and the science behind it.Nicole Lurie, former president Barack Obama's assistant secretary for preparedness and response, told the Times, "Centralizing control of all data under the umbrella of an inherently political apparatus is dangerous and breeds distrust. It appears to cut off the ability of agencies like C.D.C. to do its basic job." Trump disbanded a pandemic response team convened by his predecessor in 2018.Several days after the letter, CDC Director Robert Redfield offered a grim prognosis for the near future of the United States. In a webinar hosted by the Journal of the American Medical Association, he said, "I do think the fall and the winter of 2020 and 2021 are going to be probably one of the most difficult times that we experienced in American public health." His worry, he said, concerns a flu season that will arrive during the worst American health crisis in decades. The flu infects anywhere between 9 and 45 million Americans a year, hospitalizes hundreds of thousands, and kills tens of thousands, according to CDC estimates. Both viruses hitting simultaneously, Redfield said, poses the danger of overwhelming the American health system. The danger of an overtaxed healthcare system is not theoretical, he said, citing the high mortality rate in New York at the height of its struggle with the pandemic: "When you really look at the differential mortality across the country, it was quite significant—sometimes New York, 5, 6, 7, 8 percent—a lot of that mortality is driven by the stress of the health care system that the patients are in that are trying to be taken care of. So keeping the health care system from being overstretched is going to be really important, and the degree that we're able to do that will define how well we're able to get through the fall and winter." Redfield also spoke out about an issue that has been especially divisive amid the pandemic: face masks. "Masking is not a political issue; it's a public health issue, and it really is a personal responsibility for all of us." President Donald Trump donned a mask at a public appearance this weekend, one of the first times he has done so after repeatedly foregoing a mask in public settings and ignoring health guidelines. Despite the raging pandemic, Trump and his administration have taken an adversarial approach to the country's public health officials, contravening rather than supporting them in many cases. The White House released a list of all the times Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had incorrect predictions about the virus this past weekend and cancelled his cable news appearances, apparently in retaliation for unfavorable assessments of the state of the country's public health. Though public health officials, principals, and university presidents have said the resumption of schools this fall will at best become a mixture of online and in-person classes, the commander-in-chief and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have demanded nothing less than full reopening and every student at a desk. Vice President Mike Pence said in a press conference Tuesday, "We don't want CDC guidance to be a reason why people don't reopen their schools." Four former directors of the CDC spoke in no uncertain terms in a Tuesday Washington Post op-ed in which they warned, "No president ever politicized its [the CDC's] science the way Trump has. The administration is undermining public health." Coronavirus cases are surging across the country despite the president's overly optimistic assessment that the sickness will "go away." The United States hit new highs for daily positive COVID-19 cases multiple times last week, breaking its own record and the world's on subsequent days. More than 3.4 million people have contracted the disease, and over 130,000 people have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. 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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| Fact check: Rep. Ilhan Omar was not photographed at an al-Qaida training camp Posted: 14 Jul 2020 07:57 AM PDT  A photo claiming to be of Rep. Ilhan Omar was taken in 1978, four years before she was born. Social media posts claiming this are false.
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| Timbuktu's jihadist police chief before ICC for war crimes Posted: 14 Jul 2020 09:20 AM PDT  He is charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, rape and making girls marry militants.
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| Trump's attacks on mail-in voting could lead to nightmare scenario, election expert warns Posted: 13 Jul 2020 02:34 PM PDT  Even before the pandemic made it likely that there will be a historic number of mail-in ballots in this fall's election, UC Irvine professor Richard Hasen worried that if it were close, President Trump might declare victory before all votes were counted. That concern is now much greater for Hasen.
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| Photo shows Arizona's governor without a mask at party with no social distancing days before telling constituents to 'arm yourself with a mask' Posted: 14 Jul 2020 12:43 PM PDT  Cases have skyrocketed in Arizona recently, with record high hospitalizations and deaths climbing over 2,000 as the state rolls back its reopening.
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| An Airman Died After His Chute Opened While He Was Still in the Plane, Says New Report Posted: 14 Jul 2020 04:38 PM PDT  A report concluded that the unexpected deployment of a T-11R reserve parachute led to the death of Staff Sgt. Cole Condiff.
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| Pandemic pulls Latin America's trans community into the spotlight Posted: 13 Jul 2020 09:17 AM PDT |
| AR-15 is an ‘everyday gun for everyday citizens,’ NRA says. The backlash was swift Posted: 13 Jul 2020 10:08 AM PDT |
| Delta CEO promises empty middle seats beyond September but admits, 'It's not going to last forever' Posted: 14 Jul 2020 05:11 PM PDT  Delta CEO Ed Bastian said the airline's surveys show blocked middle seats are the top reason travelers are buying Delta tickets today.
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| Accusations of serial assault spark new #MeToo wave in Egypt Posted: 12 Jul 2020 11:29 PM PDT  Their accounts are similar. The girls and women describe meeting the young man — a former student at Egypt's most elite university — in person and online, followed by deceit, then escalating sexual harassment, assault, blackmail or rape. It's resulted in a new #MeToo firestorm on social media, and the arrest of the suspect last week from his home in a gated community outside Cairo.
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