| Iran moves mock-up U.S. carrier to mouth of Gulf: satellite images Posted: 27 Jul 2020 02:42 AM PDT  Iran has moved a mock-up U.S. aircraft carrier to the strategic Strait of Hormuz, satellite images show, suggesting it will use the look-alike vessel for target practice in war games in a Gulf shipping channel vital to world oil exports. The use of dummy American warships has become an occasional feature of training by Iran's Revolutionary Guards and its naval forces, including in 2015 when Iranian missiles hit a mock-up resembling a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.
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| 2nd presidential debate host withdraws amid virus outbreak Posted: 27 Jul 2020 01:26 PM PDT  The University of Notre Dame has become the second university to withdraw as the host of one of this fall's three scheduled presidential debates amid the coronavirus pandemic. The university was set to host the inaugural face-off between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden on Sept. 29. The first debate will now be hosted by Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates announced Monday.
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| Man arrested in Florida after trying to kidnap child in front of mother Posted: 27 Jul 2020 09:09 AM PDT  A man has been arrested in Florida after he reportedly walked into a hotel room and attempted to kidnap a child in front of their mother.The suspect, 24-year-old Gabriel Martin, was arrested by authorities on Sunday on suspicion of kidnapping, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.
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| Rare blue lobster spotted at Red Lobster before being cooked finds home at Ohio zoo Posted: 27 Jul 2020 07:55 AM PDT  "Clawde" was saved by Red Lobster workers — who noticed it in the lobster delivery. The likelihood of catching a blue lobster is 1 in 200 million.
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| Netanyahu warns Hezbollah against playing with fire after frontier incident Posted: 27 Jul 2020 05:59 AM PDT  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces thwarted an attempt by Hezbollah to infiltrate across the Lebanon frontier on Monday, which the Iranian-backed Shi'ite group denied. "Hezbollah should know it is playing with fire," Netanyahu said in a televised address from Israel's defense ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv. Earlier, a Reuters witness in Lebanon counted dozens of Israeli shells hitting the disputed Shebaa Farms area along the frontier.
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| Hurricane Douglas skirts Hawaii, forecasters remain vigilant Posted: 27 Jul 2020 04:26 AM PDT  Hurricane Douglas gained some strength and began to spin away from many of the Hawaiian Islands late Sunday.
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| Emirates will pay for your medical treatment, hotel quarantine, and even your funeral if you catch COVID-19 while traveling Posted: 27 Jul 2020 10:17 AM PDT  In a bid to boost seat sales, Emirates has created a coronavirus insurance plan that's free for all passengers.
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| Florida Man Receives $3.9 Million in COVID-19 Relief Funds, Buys a Lamborghini and Gets Arrested for Fraud Posted: 27 Jul 2020 03:53 PM PDT  The DOJ alleges he fraudulently applied for about $13.5 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans
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| As Congress fights, analysts warn economy needs help now Posted: 27 Jul 2020 09:00 AM PDT  As Congress and the White House resume their efforts to agree on a new economic aid package, evidence is growing that the U.S. economy is faltering. "We're in a pretty fragile state again," warned Nancy Vanden Houten, lead economist at Oxford Economics, a consulting firm. "The economy needs another shot in the arm."
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| US could ‘virtually eliminate’ coronavirus if ‘we decide to’, top Obama administration health official says Posted: 27 Jul 2020 01:32 PM PDT  A top Obama administration health official has said the United States could "virtually eliminate" the coronavirus "any time we decide to" if the country were to take universal steps in controlling the virus.Andy Slavitt, the former acting administrator of the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Barack Obama, shared a 38-tweet thread about what the country could be doing during the pandemic.
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| What if Trump loses but refuses to leave office? Here's the worst-case scenario Posted: 27 Jul 2020 03:16 AM PDT  The risk of an electoral meltdown is ordinarily rather small, but this November promises a combination of stressors that could lead to epic failure and chaosWhile working on a book about the peaceful succession of power, I came to realize that built into our system of presidential elections is a Chernobyl-like defect: placed under the right conditions of stress, the system is vulnerable to catastrophic breakdown. The risk of such an electoral meltdown ordinarily is rather small, but this November promises – in a manner last seen in 1876 – to present a combination of stressors that could lead to epic failure.The problem begins – but does not end – with Donald Trump, who, in his recent interview with Chris Wallace, once again reminded the nation that losing is not an option. He will reject any election that results in his loss, claiming it to be rigged. Alarming as this may be, Trump alone cannot crash the system. Instead, an unusual constellation of forces – the need to rely heavily on mail-in ballots because of the Covid-19 pandemic; the political divisions in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania; and a hyper-polarized Congress – all work together to turn Trump's defiance into a crisis of historic proportions.> Should Trump lose decisively – not only in the popular vote, but in electoral college, too – his capacity to engage in constitutional brinkmanship will be limitedConsider the following scenario: it's 3 November 2020, election day. By midnight, it's clear that former vice-president Biden enjoys a substantial lead in the national popular vote but the electoral college vote remains tight. With the races in 47 states and the District of Columbia called, Biden leads Trump in the electoral college vote 252 to 240, but neither candidate has secured the 270 votes necessary for victory. All eyes remain on Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and their 46 electoral college votes.In each of these three states, Trump enjoys a slim lead, but the election-day returns do not include a huge number of mail-in ballots. Some states, such as Colorado, have been counting their mail-in votes from the day they arrived, but not Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. These states do not allow elections officials to begin the task of counting the mail-ins until election day itself. It will take days, even weeks, for the key swing states to finish their count. The election hangs in the balance.Only not for Trump. Based on his 3 November leads, Trump has already declared himself re-elected. His reliable megaphones in the rightwing media repeat and amplify his declaration, and urge Biden to concede. Biden says he will do no such thing. Biden knows that the bulk of the mail-in ballots have been cast in heavily populated urban areas, where voters were unwilling to expose themselves to the health risks of in-person voting. And he is keenly aware that urban voters vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Indeed, this phenomenon, in which mail-in and provisional ballots typically break Democratic, has been dubbed "blue shift" by election law experts.The count of the mail-in ballots in the three swing states is plagued by delays. Overworked election officials, slowed by the need to maintain social distance, struggle to process the huge volume of votes. Trump's lawyers, aided by the Department of Justice, bring multiple suits insisting that tens of thousands of votes must be tossed out for having failed to arrive by the date specified by statute. All the same, as the count creeps forward, a clear pattern emerges. Trump's lead is shrinking – and then vanishes altogether. By the time the three states complete their canvass of votes nearly a month after the election, the nation faces an astonishing result. Biden now leads in all three. It appears he has been elected our next president.Only Trump tweets bloody murder. All his most dire predictions have come to pass. The mail-in ballots are infected with fraud. The radical Democrats are trying to steal his victory. The election has been rigged, he says.Now things take an ominous turn. Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania all share the same political profile: all three states are controlled by Republican legislatures faithful to Trump. And so Republican lawmakers in Lansing, Madison and Harrisburg take up the fight to declare Trump victorious in their state. Citing irregularities and unconscionable delays in the counting of the mail-in ballots, state Republicans award Trump their states' electoral college votes.Yet all three of our crucial swing states also have Democratic governors. Outraged by the actions of Republican lawmakers, the Democratic governors of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania announce that they will recognize Biden as having carried their state. They certify Biden as the winner, and send the certificate cast by his electors on to Congress.It is now 6 January 2021, the day on which the joint session of Congress opens the states' electoral certificates and officially tallies the votes. Normally this is a ceremonial function, but not today. Suddenly Congress is confronted with the astonishing reality that Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have each submitted conflicting electoral certificates – one awarding its electoral college votes to Trump; the other, to Biden. The election hangs in the balance.Seems far-fetched? And yet the nation faced a nearly identical crisis in the notorious Hayes-Tilden election of 1876, when three separate states submitted conflicting electoral certificates. With neither Hayes nor Tilden enjoying an electoral college majority, a divided Congress – a Democratic House and a Republican Senate – fought bitterly over which certificates to recognize. Congress tried to resolve things by handing the problem to a one-off special electoral commission, but partisan rancor plagued the work of that body, too. Inauguration day neared and the nation had no president-elect –or rather, it had two rivals both claiming victory. President Ulysses S Grant weighed declaring martial law.Catastrophe was avoided only by a last second disastrous compromise between the parties: Republicans agreed to remove federal troops from the south, paving the way to Jim Crow, and in return, Samuel Tilden, the Democrats' candidate, agreed to concede. Chastened by that experience, Congress passed a law –the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (ECA) –meant to guide Congress should a state ever again submit more than one electoral certificate. Since its passage, the provisions of the ECA have been triggered only once – that was back in 1969, and the issue was trivial, with no bearing on Nixon's victory.In January 2021, however, the nation finds itself in a true electoral crisis and lawmakers quickly realize that the 1887 law is glaringly deficient, failing to anticipate the most destabilizing contingencies.And so Congress descends into acrimonious debate, with each side charging the other with attempting to steal the election. The chambers vote on which certificates to accept, the outcome foreordained. The Senate, which after the 2020 vote remains in Republican control, rejects the governors' certificate and accepts the legislatures'; the Democratically controlled House votes in precisely the opposite fashion.Stalemate. Both parties appeal to the US supreme court, but the court – in sharp contrast to its intervention in 2000 in Bush v Gore – proves unable to solve the crisis. Experts insist that the court has no role to play in resolving an election dispute once it reaches Congress, a view that finds support in the ECA itself. With lawmakers in both party declaring that they would not abide by an unfavorable holding, the court chooses not to intervene.Congress remains deadlocked, with neither party prepared to concede. As protests roil the country, Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, deploying the military to protect his "victory". The nation finds itself in a full-blown crisis of succession from which there is no clear, peaceful exit.Electoral Armageddon can be avoided. Should Trump lose decisively – not only in the popular vote, but in the electoral college, too –his capacity to engage in constitutional brinkmanship will be limited. This is not to say that he won't claim the election was rigged, only that his claim will probably not trigger a larger constitutional crisis. But should Trump's defeat turn on the count of mail-in ballots in our crucial swing states, prepare for chaos. Our nation could witness dark times. * Lawrence Douglas is the James J Grosfeld professor of law, jurisprudence and social thought, at Amherst College, Massachusetts. He is the author of Will He Go? Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020. He is also a contributing opinion writer for the Guardian US
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| Vietnamese city reimposes distancing after first local infections in months Posted: 25 Jul 2020 11:30 PM PDT  Vietnam reintroduced social distancing measures in the central city of Danang on Sunday after the country reported four locally transmitted coronavirus cases over the past two days, the first in more than three months. The Southeast Asian country was back on high alert after the government on Saturday confirmed its first community infection since April, and another case early on Sunday, both in the tourism hot spot of Danang. The two new cases included a 17-year-old boy in Quang Ngai province and a 71-year-old woman in Danang, the government said late on Sunday, bringing the total number of reported cases in the country to 420.
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| How a Chinese agent used LinkedIn to hunt for targets Posted: 26 Jul 2020 11:27 AM PDT  Dickson Yeo, a PhD student-turned-agent, targeted Americans that had access to private information.
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| Some travelers still take trips abroad during COVID-19 pandemic: 'I feel safer exiting America' Posted: 26 Jul 2020 11:43 AM PDT  COVID-19 has grounded a lot of activities, mostly international travel. Three people are taking the risk because they feel safer abroad.
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| Minneapolis residents are forming armed neighborhood watches as shootings triple after George Floyd's death Posted: 27 Jul 2020 05:45 AM PDT  The city council also voted to reduce the police department's budget by more than $1 million late last week.
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| Man, This New Picture of Saturn Posted: 27 Jul 2020 12:52 PM PDT  It doesn't even look real.
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| The Chicago Gun Myth Posted: 27 Jul 2020 01:12 PM PDT  The tragically incompetent mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, appeared on CNN's State of the Union this weekend to deflect attention from the horror show unfolding in her city by blaming interlopers for its spiking murder rate: "We are being inundated with guns from states that have virtually no gun control, no background checks, no ban on assault weapons -- that is hurting cities like Chicago."Although these accusations have leveled by Chicago politicians for decades now, they are a myth.For one thing, there is no state in the nation with "virtually no gun control" or "no background checks." Every time anyone in the United States purchases a gun from a federal firearms licensee (FFL) -- a gun store, a gun show, it doesn't matter -- the seller runs a background check on the buyer through the NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) database. In some cases, the FFL checks to see if the buyer has passed a background check via a state-issued concealed-carry permit. In states that allow individual private sales, it is illegal to knowingly sell to anyone who you believe is obtaining a firearm for criminal purposes.Those who cross state lines to buy guns undergo the same background check, and the sale is processed by an FFL in the buyer's home state. The exact same laws apply to all online sales.The vast majority of Americans obtain their guns in this manner, and they rarely commit crimes. Around 7 percent of criminals in prison bought weapons using their real names. Fewer than 1 percent obtained them at gun shows. As the Heritage Foundation's Amy Swearer points out, there have been around 18 million concealed-carry permit holders over the past 15 years, and they have committed 801 firearm-related homicides over that span, or somewhere around 0.7 percent of all firearm-related murders. Concealed-carry holders not only are more law-abiding than the general population as a group; they are more law-abiding than law enforcement.Studies of those imprisoned on firearms charges show that most often they obtain their weapons by stealing them or buying them in black markets. A smaller percentage get them from family members or friends.On top of all this, federal law requires every FFL license holder to report the purchase of two or more handguns by the same person with a week to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. This is one of the reasons straw purchasers -- people with a clean record who buy for criminals -- spread their operations to other states. This is not unique to Illinois or Chicago. It has nothing to do with strict or lenient laws. It has mostly to do with cities and states failing to prosecute straw purchases.Lightfoot claims that 60 percent of the guns used in Chicago murders are bought from out of state. I assume she is relying on 2017's suspect "gun trace report," which looked at guns confiscated in criminal acts from 2013 and 2016. Even if we trusted the city's data, most guns used in Illinois crimes are bought in-state. If gun laws in Illinois — which earns a grade of "A-" from the pro-gun-control Gifford Law Center, tied for second highest in the country after New Jersey — are more effective than gun laws in Missouri, Wisconsin, or Indiana, why is it that FFL dealers in suburban Cook County are the origin point for a third of the crime guns recovered in Chicago, and home to "seven of the top ten source dealers"? According to the trace study, 11.2 percent of all crime guns recovered in Chicago could be tracked to just two gun shops.The only reason, it seems, criminals take the drive to Indiana is because local gun shops are tapped out. There is a tremendous demand for weapons in Chicago. That's not Mississippi's fault. And Lightfoot's contention only proves that criminals in her city can get their hands on guns rather easily, while most law-abiding citizens have no way to defend themselves.Lightfoot may also be surprised to learn that California borders on states with liberal gun laws, such as Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon. Yet no big city in California has quite the murder and criminality of Chicago. New York borders on states with liberal gun laws, such as Vermont, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. Yet NYC's murder rate is only fraction of Chicago's. Texas gets an "F" from Gifford Law Center, yet Houston and Dallas have murder rates that are half of that in Chicago. The rates in Austin and El Paso are tiny when compared to Chicago.Then, of course, the "assault-weapons bans" that Lightfoot brings up have absolutely no bearing on Chicago's murder rate, even if such prohibitions actually worked. There were 864 murders in the state of Illinois in 2018 (the last year for which the FBI has full stats). Of homicides where the type of weapon is reported by law enforcement, 592 were perpetrated using handguns, 14 with rifles, and four with shotguns. Over 100 murders were committed using knives, other cutting instruments, hands, feet, and other types of weapons. And of the 14 "rifles" used, it's almost surely the case that not all of them were "assault weapons." Among the illegal guns recovered by Chicago law enforcement in 2018, 12,220 were handguns of some kind and 1,769 were rifles and shotguns.In the states in Illinois's neighborhood with no bans on "assault weapons," the number of murders committed with a "rifle" is correspondingly small — ten in Indiana, eight in Tennessee, six in Kentucky, four in Wisconsin, and three in Mississippi.It's also worth pointing out that gun homicides dropped sharply in most cities after the national "assault weapons" expired in 2004, even though the AR-15 would correspondingly become one of the most popular weapons in the country. The AR-15 is an excellent home-defense weapon, but long guns aren't conducive to criminality, despite what we see in movies. Tragically, AR-15s are often favored by psychotic mass shooters, but rarely by the murderers who plague Lightfoot's city.It keeps getting worse. Nearly 400 people have already been murdered in Chicago this year, around 100 more than in the entire year of 2019. On the night of May 29, 25 people were murdered and another 85 wounded by gunfire, more than any day in 60 years. And yet the mayor is appearing on TV to blame Mississippi and Texas. It is far more likely that black-market guns find their way to Chicago because the place has been a poorly run criminal mecca for decades.
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| Anti-mask US senator who called coronavirus a hoax tests positive for Covid-19 Posted: 27 Jul 2020 07:23 AM PDT  An Arkansas senator who shared an article that described the coronavirus pandemic as a "hoax" has contracted Covid-19.Republican senator Jason Rapert, who unsuccessfully introduced a bill to ban gay marriage in the US in 2017, was hospitalised with coronavirus and pneumonia on 24 July.
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| Stop partying or we may go back into lockdown, regional chief tells young Catalans Posted: 27 Jul 2020 01:00 AM PDT  Young Catalans should stop partying to help halt a surge in new coronavirus cases or local authorities may have to reimpose harsh restrictions, the leader of the northeastern Spanish region said on Monday. Catalonia is at the heart of a rebound in coronavirus cases in Spain that started after a nationwide lockdown was lifted last month. "If we continue with the current pace of social life the only thing we will accomplish is to worsen the situation," Catalonia's regional leader Quim Torra said, after youngsters reverted to the tradition of "botellones," where they meet outside in the evening to drink and party.
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| People in several states mailed unsolicited packets of seeds that may be from China, officials say Posted: 27 Jul 2020 10:05 AM PDT  Agriculture officials in several states are urging people not to plant seeds they have been mailed unsolicited. The packages appear to be from China.
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| The White House is building a massive 'anti-climb' wall following protests. These photos show the evolution of White House fencing over the years Posted: 27 Jul 2020 11:10 AM PDT  The "anti-climb" component for a new White House perimeter has been in the works since July 2016, but construction of the wall has ramped up recently.
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| Couple wearing swastika face masks insist they aren't Nazis as Walmart bans them Posted: 27 Jul 2020 11:43 AM PDT  A couple in Minnesota wore swastika masks while shopping at a Walmart, but claimed they were not Nazis and that – despite wearing the symbol of the Nazis on their faces – it was their political enemies who were the fascists.According to The Washington Post, the incident was captured on video by Raphaela Mueller, a 24-year-old woman who was born and raised in Germany.
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| 2 shot while driving on Highway 41 in Madera County, CHP says Posted: 27 Jul 2020 06:48 AM PDT  The CHP has part of southbound Highway 41 at Highway 145 is closed while officers and Madera County sheriff's deputies investigate.
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| Barr able to put his stamp on executive power as Trump's AG Posted: 27 Jul 2020 03:19 AM PDT  "We've been here an hour and now we all understand what you go through every day," a middle-age banker tells Barr, "so thank you." Barr can expect this kind of praise when he appears Tuesday for the first time before the House Judiciary Committee -- but only from its Republicans. To them, he is a conservative stalwart, an unflappable foe of the left and its excesses, and -- most importantly -- a staunch defender of President Donald Trump.
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| Malaysia faces crucial graft test as Najib’s first 1MDB verdict looms Posted: 25 Jul 2020 09:33 PM PDT  Malaysian former prime minister Najib Razak, fighting dozens of charges over a multi-billion-dollar graft scandal at state fund 1MDB, faces his first verdict on Tuesday in a landmark case that tests the country's efforts to stamp out corruption and could have big political implications. Najib was voted out in a historic 2018 election amid public anger over allegations that $4.5 billion was stolen in a globe-spanning scheme from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a fund he co-founded. For Najib, the verdict in the years-long saga, which has seen a spectacular fall from extreme opulence and a dominant position in Malaysian politics, marks a reckoning for the urbane, British-educated politician - potentially decades in jail or a partial vindication.
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| Hawaii avoided a coronavirus spike – but its tourist economy is shattered Posted: 26 Jul 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Its remote setting and a decision to shut down helped keep cases fairly low, but unemployment soared. What next?The Sheraton Waikiki stands just a sea-smooth pebble throw from one of Hawaii's most famous beaches. Working the front desk, Jordyn Wallace loved meeting new people from different states and faraway countries in one of the world's most beautiful holiday destinations.Like many Hawaiians, Wallace has been working in tourism since she graduated high school five years ago, and started her front-desk job in December. Then the pandemic came and Wallace lost her job, as Hawaii was forced to make a literally life-changing decision: close down to stop Covid-19 and weather an economic maelstrom unseen in decades.On 21 March Hawaii's governor David Ige announced all visitors to the islands must quarantine for 14 days. The flip-flopped travelers disappeared. Stores and restaurants began to close under state shutdown orders. Wallace had her hours dramatically cut, only working a few shifts in April and May before being laid off."I have never seen Waikiki so empty. It felt surreal because no matter what time of day it is, you always see visitors in Waikiki," Wallace said. "We have more than 1,000 rooms. It's a huge hotel, and to not see a single soul on property was crazy."Nearly every state in the US implemented some type of shutdown order to prevent the spread of Covid-19, closing bars, restaurants and gyms and starting a new way of socially distanced life. The shutdowns brought on Depression-level unemployment numbers, the effects of which have lingered even as states reopen their economies.For Hawaii, being an isolated chain of islands in the middle of the Pacific has proved to be a blessing and a curse. That Hawaii is only accessible by plane or cruise ship has provided the state with a geographic advantage in preventing the spread of the virus. But encouraging people to stay away has severely damaged the state's economy, which relies heavily on the tourist dollar."Every day, there is something on the news that announces businesses are shutting down. These are not new business. They are family businesses, they are institutions, and these are businesses that have survived economic challenges in the past," said Sherry Menor-McNamara, president and chief executive of the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce.While other states in the US, such as Florida and Texas, saw huge spikes in Covid-19 cases as state governments worked to reopen economies, Hawaii instead rolled out a policy that deliberately stopped tourism to ensure the health of its residents.People who break quarantine are subject to arrest and a fine of up to $5,000. Hawaii has been strict in enforcing the rules, arresting nearly 200 people, visitors and residents, since March.The quarantine, along with other broader travel restrictions implemented around the world, effectively stopped travel to Hawaii. On 1 March nearly 29,000 people arrived. By 31 March that figure had dropped to 301, a fall of 98.9% compared to the same day last year.Quarantine has helped stop any large outbreaks of the virus. As of 22 July, Hawaii has reported just over 1,400 cases and 25 deaths. In comparison, New Hampshire, which has a slightly smaller population than Hawaii, has had over 6,000 confirmed cases and nearly 400 deaths.But the combined forces of a statewide shutdown and abrupt pause in the tourism industry has devastated the economy. At least 150,000 workers in the state of 1.5 million people were out of work in May. The unemployment rate was 23.5% – over 10% higher than the national rate.Hawaii's online system for filing unemployment claims was so overwhelmed that many had to wait at least a month to receive any payment.Wallace applied for unemployment in March, once her hours were cut to almost nothing. Right before the pandemic hit, she had just taken out a loan to consolidate some credit card and medical debts. Without payments, Wallace would not be able to make her payments on time, triggering high interest rates.Her payments finally came in May, after weeks of trying to get answers from the unemployment office. "It was just an absolute nightmare trying to get a hold of their office," she said.Jobs started to come back in late May and June, once Hawaii began its slow reopening process. In June, the unemployment rate fell to 13.9%, with about 85,000 people out of work.But the effects on the leisure and hospitality industry will linger. Last year, 10.5 million visitors spent $17bn when traveling to the islands, with $2bn of that money going directly to the state government.About $7bn has been pumped into Hawaii's economy over the past four months from the federal government's emergency stimulus programs. But that is not enough to make up for the huge shortfall.State budgets across the country have been devastated by the pandemic. Hawaii will likely prove to be no exception. Earlier this month, Governor Ige said pay cuts for state and local workers, including teachers, are inevitable. The state government will be left short of $1.2bn, according to a report from the University of Hawaii's Economic Research Organization (UHERO). This deficit is "far worse than those encountered during the Great Recession", the report said.Carl Bonham, a professor of economics at the University of Hawaii and executive director of UHERO, said the disproportionate effect the pandemic has had on tourism compared to other industries means the state will be slow to recover from the economic effects."Much of the rest of the country will recover faster than Hawaii. Even once there is better treatment or better control of the virus, there will still be lingering effects on air travel," Bonham said. "Hawaii will be a different place over the next year or so as we have an increase of bankruptcies and failures of businesses. There will be fewer activities for visitors to come to."Bonham said more federal aid is the only way Hawaii's economy can recover. Even with more aid, it will likely be short of money for the next five years, he said.With Congress at a standstill over giving additional aid to states and local governments, Hawaii's leaders have been scrambling for solutions that would allow tourists to carefully come back.Currently, all bets are hedged on a plan that would allow visitors to bypass the 14-day quarantine if they test negative for the virus 72 hours before their flight to Hawaii, and show proof of the negative test. The state is in talks with CVS Pharmacy over a potential partnership to make tests available to incoming travelers.The plan was originally slated to start 1 August, but the governor pushed the date back to 1 September, citing the surge of infections in other states. While the delay is upsetting to many business owners, eight out of 10 residents in a poll said they believed Hawaii is not ready to open to tourists just yet. And polls show travelers themselves are most willing to take car trips to their vacation destination – rather than a long-haul flight to Hawaii – as it comes with less risk of spreading the virus."The best economic policy at this point is really a health policy. It's controlling the virus," Bonham said. Tourists "are not going to sit on an airplane for five hours with a whole bunch of people who aren't wearing masks"."If you don't deal with those issues, it doesn't matter if the economy is open. That part of the economy won't really recover."
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| Fact check: South Dakota's COVID-19 infection, jobless stats aren't as good as claimed Posted: 27 Jul 2020 07:36 AM PDT  A popular meme notes that South Dakota didn't have any stay-at-home orders (true) and that it has had hardly any COVID-19 (false).
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| ‘Even If Genocide Were to Happen’ Posted: 27 Jul 2020 03:30 AM PDT  The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation granted its Human Rights Award on Thursday to Uighur economist and intellectual Ilham Tohti, who was unable to accept the award in person because he is currently imprisoned in China, whereabouts unknown. Tohti's daughter, Jewher Ilham, accepted the award in his stead.Ilham has made a mission of bringing her father's plight to world attention. In 2013, Tohti and his daughter were about to board a plane for the U.S., where Tohti had accepted a teaching position at the University of Indiana Bloomington. Police stopped Tohti himself from boarding the plane, but he implored Ilham to continue to the U.S., where his contact at the university picked her up from the airport. Ilham was 18 at the time and knew barely any English."'One, two, three, four,' 'how are you,' things like this: that was my English level when I first came here," Ilham told National Review in an interview. She has since graduated from IU with a degree in political science and Near Eastern studies; she learned Arabic while also improving her Uighur, which she did not speak continuously while growing up.Tohti meanwhile was tried and convicted of "separatism" in 2014, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Then–secretary of state John Kerry condemned the sentencing, noting that the penalty "appears to be retribution for Professor Tohti's peaceful efforts to promote human rights for China's ethnic Uighur citizens." Ilham has not had contact with her father since 2017 and does not know if he is alive or dead."The only truth that I do believe is that my dad is not a separatist," Ilham testified to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China in a 2014 hearing on human-rights defenders. "He knew China is such a great and powerful country and tried to help enhance the relationships between us [Uighurs] and Han and decrease the problems between us."While Tohti was already known among U.S. officials and human-rights advocates, China's intensified repression of its Uighur population may make him a household name in other nations. Born in 1969 in Atush, Xinjiang Province, Tohti went on to study at Beijing's Central Minzu University and became a professor of economics at the school.While living in Beijing, Tohti observed as the Chinese government began to focus more intently on cementing control over Xinjiang. Ethnic tensions had already existed between Uighurs and Han Chinese, and Uighur Muslims had chafed under the Communist Party's attempt to enforce its atheistic ideology on them. But even leaving aside ethnic conflict, control over the province is of paramount importance to the Communist Party. "The Uighur region has geopolitical value. . . . The whole region is full of resources like gold, uranium, [and] natural gas," Ilham said. "The size is one-sixth of the Chinese mainland — it's a huge area." But the province has a population of roughly 25 million, or only 1–2 percent of China's total population. "China has been trying to migrate Han Chinese to the region, encouraging people: you move to there, we'll give you houses, we'll give you a free education. . . . If you get married to a Uighur woman you get 80,000 ren [renminbi]."Tohti's research interests included the economics and social standing of Uighurs, and he repeatedly criticized Chinese government policies toward the Uighur population, drawing the attention of police. As Ilham explains, "I went to boarding school [for] high school because the police kept bothering us," even sleeping at their home.Tohti positioned himself as an advocate for tolerance between Uighurs and ethnic Han Chinese, arguing for greater leeway for Uighurs to practice their culture. As such, he stood squarely between Communist Party officials attempting to settle Xinjiang with Han residents, and Uighurs who actively fought the regime.The simmering ethnic conflict burst into the open in July 2009, when a Uighur protest in the province's capital city of Urumchi devolved into riots between Uighurs and Han Chinese in which at least 197 people were killed. In response, the Chinese authorities moved to close Uighur mosques and cut off Internet access to the region.Tohti was arrested for criticizing China's handling of the 2009 riots but was released after an international pressure campaign. Before his second arrest in 2014, China commissioned Tohti to complete a study of the government's policies in Xinjiang and to make recommendations for improvements. He did not hold back, criticizing the "ethnic alienation and segregation," "Han Chinese chauvinism," and absence of trustworthy high-level Uighur officials in the provincial government."At all levels of government in Xinjiang, we encounter a mentality that falls far short of what is needed to govern and manage Xinjiang's societal complexities," Tohti wrote. One prescient passage states:> The Uighur community [has a] growing fear of the government's increasingly chauvinistic ethnic policies. The government's sharp curtailing of bilingual education and Uighur cultural enterprises has led many in the Uighur community to feel that official ethnic policy is beginning to look like forced assimilation. In many public forums, particularly on the Internet, it is not difficult to find people openly discussing a point of view common among Han Chinese: that the only way to solve Xinjiang's ethnic problems is to accelerate Uighur assimilation.Tohti recommended the establishment of true regional autonomy, which would allow Uighurs to engage in fully bilingual education and participate in Chinese national life without abandoning their culture. He also rejected the notion that Han Chinese and Uighurs were bound to engage in ethnic conflict without end. "I don't like violence and I won't advocate it," Tohti said in an interview with Tibetan writer Tsering Woeser on November 1, 2009. "And I definitely don't think the Han are our enemy, not even if racial hatred or killings should happen again. Even if genocide were to happen, I would still say: the Han should be our friends."That genocide now does appear to be happening. Over the past several years, researchers have uncovered a network of Uighur internment camps and the systematic forced sterilizations of Uighur women. These grim discoveries confirm that Beijing is intent on absolute power in the region. The push is led by Xinjiang Communist Party secretary Chen Quanguo, who previously quelled unrest in Tibet."In some ways, it's the logical evolution and culmination of the ethnic policy and domestic government approach," Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, told National Review. Zenz is a leading researcher and analyst of key documents that detail the operation and methods of the crackdown on the Uighur population. These include the China Cables and the Karakax List, collections of classified Chinese government documents leaked to outside sources.When Beijing began its systematic crackdown on Uighurs in Xinjiang in 2009, Zenz said, "they figured out, well, instead of just having a long-term police state we're really going to change those people. We're going to break their necks."The crackdown threatens Uighurs outside of China as well."My laptop and my phone are monitored almost every single day," says Jewher Ilham, noting that she has certain tools to determine that this is happening. China has also attempted to extort exiled Uighurs by threatening family members still inside the country."The main strategy is, they want all exiled Uighurs to come back to China — they don't want any exiles," Zenz said. "They want them to come back to Xinjiang so they can put them in camps and break them and assimilate them." Once "they can be controlled, they're not a liability anymore."The recognition of the genocide in progress has led Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) to introduce legislation that would slap fines on American companies that use products sourced to Xinjiang, where factories are using forced Uighur labor. Now that the Uighur region has come under an international spotlight, this comment by Tohti in his 2009 interview seems especially significant:"I'm even prepared for the possibility of a death sentence. That just might be the price our people have to pay. When I, Ilham Tohti, pay that price — though I may have to go, perhaps that will draw attention to the plight of our people." A Haven for the Sane If you think there should be a corner of our journalistic and intellectual life that defends right reason and is an alternative to the unhinged mainstream media, and if you have been alarmed at the sound of the American mind slamming shut at so many institutions recently, please lend National Review your support. SUPPORT NR TODAY
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| India has banned 47 more Chinese apps including a TikTok clone and is eyeing hundreds more Posted: 27 Jul 2020 03:18 AM PDT  Along with 47 cloned versions of already prohibited apps, the Indian government is considering banning 275 more apps.
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| Transcript: Nancy Pelosi on "Face the Nation" Posted: 26 Jul 2020 08:17 AM PDT  The following is a transcript of an interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that aired Sunday, July 26, 2020, on "Face the Nation."
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| To defeat COVID, bring America's full power to the international fight: Albright & Hadley Posted: 27 Jul 2020 01:00 AM PDT  The stakes are immeasurably high for the global community to get this right. The world needs US resources, conflict resolution and democracy support.
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| Trump criticises Reagan Foundation after request to stop using late president's image Posted: 27 Jul 2020 07:47 AM PDT  Donald Trump has hit back at the Ronald Reagan presidential foundation for asking him to stop using the former president's name and image to raise funds.In comments posted to Twitter on Sunday, the president called-out the foundation's chairman over demands that the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee (RNC) stop raising money with Reagan's name and image.
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| AP PHOTOS: Young Israelis play leading role in new protests Posted: 26 Jul 2020 11:23 PM PDT  The wave of colorful and combative demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent weeks have been dominated by young Israelis. Israel has a long tradition of political protests that draw huge crowds. In recent years, anti-Netanyahu rallies have mostly been the domain of Israel's old guardians of liberal values, who accuse the prime minister of using authoritarian tactics to chip away at the country's democratic ideals.
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| New Jersey police spent nearly five hours breaking up house party of over 700 people Posted: 27 Jul 2020 12:47 PM PDT  The party started at around 8:30 p.m. Sunday and was not completely cleared until around 1 a.m. Monday, police said. The investigation in continuing.
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| Global prospects dim for China's tech champions as great powers clash Posted: 26 Jul 2020 08:02 PM PDT  Huawei Technologies' founder Ren Zhengfei's global ambitions are marked in bricks and mortar at a new company campus in southern China, where the buildings are replicas from European cities. Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance, the operator of short video app TikTok, has plastered his Beijing headquarters with posters including a cover of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt's book "How Google Works", and has long said he will build a global firm that can compete with U.S. tech giants.
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| First French fighter jets head to India after purchase Posted: 27 Jul 2020 08:39 AM PDT  The deal, estimated to be worth $9.4 billion, has been overshadowed by corruption allegations levelled by the opposition Congress party although Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has rejected the claims. The jets built by Dassault Aviation -- and piloted by officers from the Indian Air Force (IAF) -- took off from Merignac in southwest France, the company said in a statement.
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| A farmer, 'little ghosts' and 18,000 tobacco plants: How COVID-19 upended farming in South Korea Posted: 27 Jul 2020 05:00 AM PDT  The coronavirus has frozen migrant labor, leaving farmers and workers desperate.
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| RNC: Enthusiasm for Trump is higher than 2016, Republicans are being under-polled Posted: 27 Jul 2020 05:28 AM PDT  RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel discusses the latest 2020 polling and plans for the 2020 convention.
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