| Newly reopened South Florida seen as an emerging coronavirus hot spot Posted: 15 May 2020 03:39 PM PDT  Federal officials responding to the coronavirus pandemic are concerned about the rapidly rising number of cases in Palm Beach County, Florida, according to an internal Trump administration document reviewed by Yahoo News.
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| As meat-processing factories struggle to reopen, govt. documents warn of shortages Posted: 15 May 2020 05:04 PM PDT  As COVID-19 ravages meatpacking plants throughout the country, beef and pork options are dwindling in grocery stores.
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| In patchwork restart, parts of New York and other U.S. states reopen Posted: 15 May 2020 07:56 AM PDT  Less populated areas of New York, Virginia and Maryland took their first steps towards lifting lockdowns on Friday, part of a patchwork approach to the coronavirus pandemic that has been shaped by political divisions across the United States. Construction and manufacturing facilities in five out of 10 New York state regions were given the green light to restart operations, although New York City, the country's most populous metropolis, remained under strict limits. Joe Dundon, whose construction business in Binghamton, New York, was able to start up again after shutting down in March, said he had a long backlog of kitchen and bathroom remodeling projects and several estimates lined up for Friday.
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| Family separation is back for migrants at the U.S./Mexican border, say advocates Posted: 15 May 2020 03:05 PM PDT  NBC News obtained a copy of a form ICE is allegedly distributing in family detention centers that lets parents apply for minor children to be released.
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| US sends oil to Belarus, seeking to diversify from Russia Posted: 15 May 2020 08:55 AM PDT  The United States has dispatched a shipment of oil to Belarus, which is seeking to diversify its supplies after a price dispute with Russia, the Belarusian government said Friday. The 80,000-ton shipment is expected to arrive at the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda in June and from there will sent by rail to Belarus. Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei said cooperation with the U.S. on oil is "an element of energy security."
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| Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga arrested after 25 years on run Posted: 16 May 2020 04:08 AM PDT  Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga, who is accused of funding militias that massacred about 800,000 people, was arrested on Saturday near Paris after 25 years on the run, the French justice ministry said. The 84-year-old, who is Rwanda's most-wanted man and had a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, was living under a false identity in a flat in Asnieres-Sur-Seine, according to the ministry. French gendarmes arrested him at 0530 GMT on Saturday, the ministry said. A Hutu businessman, he is accused of funding the militias that massacred some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus over a span of 100 days in 1994. "Since 1994, Felicien Kabuga, known to have been the financier of Rwanda genocide, had with impunity stayed in Germany, Belgium, Congo-Kinshasa, Kenya, or Switzerland," the statement said. The arrest paves the way for bringing the fugitive in front of the Paris Appeal Court and later to the international court in The Hague, it added. Kabuga was indicted on genocide charges by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Two other Rwandan genocide suspects, Augustin Bizimana and Protais Mpiranya, are still being pursued by international justice.
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| Trump sets goal of coronavirus vaccine by year's end, but 'vaccine or no vaccine, we're back' Posted: 15 May 2020 12:16 PM PDT  Trump said the project would be "big" and "fast," comparing it to the Manhattan Project, which led to the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.
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| More than 70 percent of Americans say the U.S. doesn't have enough coronavirus tests Posted: 15 May 2020 07:06 AM PDT  A majority of Americans agree that the U.S. doesn't currently have enough coronavirus tests available, a new poll has found.A few days after President Trump touted the amount of COVID-19 testing being conducted in the United States and declared "we have prevailed," ABC News/Ipsos released a poll Friday in which 73 percent of respondents said there are not enough coronavirus tests available in the United States right now, compared to 26 percent who said there are.An overwhelming majority of Democrats, 90 percent, said there's not enough COVID-19 tests available, but 50 percent of Republicans also said the same.> NEW: Large majority of Americans say country lags in testing availability: POLL@kendallkarson @ABC News: https://t.co/bjy4aBiCBn pic.twitter.com/6nPzoNXVio> > — Will Steakin (@wsteaks) May 15, 2020Trump in a press conference earlier this week celebrated the fact that the United States is conducting on average 300,000 coronavirus tests a day, promising that number "will go up substantially" but also claiming "we've prevailed on testing" already. Experts have said the United States needs to ramp up its level of testing, and on Thursday, ousted vaccine official Dr. Rick Bright told Congress the U.S. must take steps such as implementing a national testing strategy or it could face the "darkest winter in modern history."The ABC News/Ispos poll was conducted by speaking to a random national sample of 564 U.S. adults on May 13 and May 14. The margin of error is 4.7 percentage points. Read the full results at ABC News.More stories from theweek.com It's almost time for pandemic apologies 5 scathingly funny cartoons about America's risky reopening The pre-election number Trump's team reportedly fears the most is the COVID-19 'body count'
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| Bosnians protest Mass in Sarajevo for Nazi-allied soldiers Posted: 16 May 2020 08:09 AM PDT  SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Thousands of Bosnians, many wearing masks, demonstrated Saturday against a Mass in Sarajevo for Croatia's Nazi-allied soldiers and civilians killed by partisan forces at the end of World War II. The Mass in Sarajevo was a replacement for a controversial annual gathering usually held in Bleiburg, Austria, which was canceled due to restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. Another small replacement event took place Saturday at a cemetery in Zagreb, Croatia.
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| China confirms US accusations that it destroyed early samples of the novel coronavirus, but says it was done for 'biosafety reasons' Posted: 16 May 2020 03:50 AM PDT  The Chinese official insisted that it was not done to cover-up or hide early coronavirus samples from other countries.
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| Rand Paul isn't a subliterate yawper like Trump. But he's spreading the same deadly coronavirus lies Posted: 15 May 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Rand Paul is one of those figures in public life who is wrong, wrong, and wrong again — and somehow is never called to account.
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| Italy PM says taking calculated risk in rolling back lockdown Posted: 16 May 2020 12:44 PM PDT  Italian Prime MInister Giuseppe Conte said on Saturday Italy was taking a calculated risk in rolling back lockdown measures from next week as the daily death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic fell to its lowest since March 9. "We're facing a calculated risk, knowing that the epidemiological curve could rise again," Conte said in press conference to detail measures taken by the Rome to restart most economic activities and lift restrictions on people's movements. With shops allowed to open from Monday, Conte said movement between European Union countries would be allowed from June 3, without a quarantine period for those entering Italy.
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| New York tourist arrested after posting Hawaii beach photos Posted: 16 May 2020 02:15 PM PDT  Tarique Peters, 23, of the Bronx, arrived in Honolulu on Monday, said a news release from the Hawaii COVID-19 Joint Information Center.
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| Jerry Nadler Says House Judiciary Will Hold Hearings on DOJ Decision to Drop Flynn Case Posted: 15 May 2020 11:48 AM PDT  House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.) said Friday that the panel will hold hearings to probe the Justice Department's decision to drop its case against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn."We're looking into all of this," Nadler said. "We are going to hold hearings on the Flynn matter," Nadler told CNN's Manu Raju, adding that his staff is talking to former prosecutors and whistleblowers, as well as people "overruled in these kinds of matters."Last week, the DOJ moved to withdraw its case against Flynn, who in 2017 pled guilty to lying to the FBI, after an outside examination of the case yielded previously-undisclosed information. Documents released earlier this month showed handwritten notes from an FBI official questioning the goal of Flynn's January 2017 White House interview with FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka, suggesting their intent was "to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired." That interview came after the FBI had moved to drop its counterintelligence probe into Flynn's Russian contacts, only for Strzok to intervene to keep the investigation open."They didn't warn him, the way that would usually be required by the Department, they bypassed the Justice Department, they bypassed the protocols at the White House, and so forth," Attorney General Bill Barr explained after the decision. "These were things that persuaded me that there was not a legitimate counterintelligence investigation."But the judge in the Flynn case, Emmet Sullivan, has so far resisted allowing the DOJ to drop the case, and appointed a former federal judge to argue against the move, as well as to weight charges of perjury or contempt for Flynn.President Trump and his allies have lashed out at President Obama and members of his administration this week on the grounds that they used the intelligence apparatus to target a political opponent. The attacks began after the release of documents showing that senior Obama administration officials, including Vice President Biden, requested Flynn's identity after his communications with then-Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak were collected as part of a surveillance operation.Biden's campaign responded to the release by saying "all normal procedures were followed – any suggestion otherwise is a flat out lie."
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| Security video raises questions in Arbery shooting Posted: 15 May 2020 01:15 PM PDT  Security camera footage taken in December outside a home being built in coastal Georgia raises new questions about what Ahmaud Arbery was doing at the site two months later, right before he was fatally shot in the neighborhood.
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| Which major retail companies have filed for bankruptcy since the coronavirus pandemic hit? Here's the list. Posted: 15 May 2020 08:40 AM PDT  From iconic department stores to entertainment giants, the coronavirus has seemingly spared no one in its devastation of the U.S. economy.
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| Group buys Alabama abortion clinic to keep it from closing Posted: 16 May 2020 06:00 AM PDT  Conservative lawmakers in Alabama last year tried to enact the nation's most stringent abortion ban, but the attempt to outlaw the procedure may have had one ironic twist. An Alabama-based abortion rights group used a flood of donations that poured in from across the country after the ban to purchase the state's busiest abortion clinic to ensure it stays open. Yellowhammer Fund — a group founded to help low-income women access abortion — announced the purchase of West Alabama Women's Center on Friday, the one-year anniversary of the passage of the Alabama ban.
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| 'No-knock' searches plus stand-your-ground laws: A deadly combo for civilians and police Posted: 16 May 2020 07:43 AM PDT  To keep suspects from flushing drugs down the toilet, police says they need to conduct no-knock searches. Is it worth the cost in injuries and deaths?
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| India's coronavirus infections surpass China, but contagion slowing Posted: 15 May 2020 10:09 PM PDT  India's total novel corornavirus cases rose to 85,940 on Saturday, taking it past China, where the pandemic originated last year, though a strict lockdown enforced since late March has reduced the rate of contagion. State leaders, businesses and working class Indians have called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reopen the battered economy, but the government is expected to extend the lockdown, which would otherwise expire on Sunday, though with fewer restrictions. The toll in the United States, United Kingdom and Italy is much higher.
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| The fight is on for progressives to push Biden to the left. They might just win Posted: 15 May 2020 05:59 AM PDT  Progressives should know that Biden does not have a set ideology - which means his policies are still very much in flux and in playJoe Biden has had a hard time capturing the hearts of progressive Democrats. Like the media, progressive Democrats tend to see him as a centrist – a status quo candidate who just wants to return the US and the world to the pre-Trump era. Even Biden's collaborations with Bernie Sanders, including the recently announced unity taskforces, are often dismissed as pure window-dressing. But this kind of blithe dismissal of the presumptive Democratic nominee misreads both the politician and the times.It is true that Biden was never a very progressive Democrat, but neither was he a particularly conservative one. He has been a classic "centrist Democrat". But it's important to note that this places him not in the political center of the US electorate, but in the center of the Democratic party – a party that has shifted left significantly since 2016, as has Biden.Biden is a realist. He knows when the times are a-changin'. That's why he joined Barack Obama in 2008 and why he has moved to reconcile with Sanders in 2020. After two powerful primary campaigns, Biden is smart enough to acknowledge that Sanders represents the direction the party's base is moving to, and that he could shape that transformation.As Gabriel Debenedetti argues in his excellent New York magazine article on the Biden campaign, the Covid-19 pandemic has opened Biden's eyes to the need for a more radical approach to policy and governance. As Biden told a group of donors: "The blinders have been taken off because of this Covid crisis."Crises can lead to fundamental changes. While we mainly focus on the darkest consequences, such as Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the wake of the Great Depression, that same crisis also gave rise to the greatest progressive project in US history: Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal. While heralded as a "radical" by many today, FDR was in many ways a realpolitiker, politically expedient and adjustable to the mood of the times.But perhaps the best comparison would be FDR's protege Lyndon B Johnson, the southerner who, in an atmosphere of intense polarization over civil rights and in the wake of the national trauma of the assassination of John F Kennedy, introduced some of the most important civil rights legislation in US history. As with Johnson, the current crisis provides Biden with an opportunity to step out of the shadow of his charismatic and inspiring Democratic predecessor, Obama, and become a much more transformative president.To be clear, this is not a foregone conclusion. Moderates, both Democrats and Republicans, also see Biden as a great opportunity, in their case to re-establish the status quo. Many of them have been around Biden for years, if not decades, and play important roles in his campaign – I'm looking at you, Larry Summers.But the recently announced unity taskforces – on the climate crisis, criminal justice reform, economy, education, healthcare and immigration – show a more mixed picture. First, they much better reflect the ethnic and gender diversity of the contemporary Democratic party and its electorate – with many prominent African American and Hispanic members as well as twice as many female than male co-chairs. Second, they include many prominent progressives, including Sanders surrogates such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pramila Jayapal – hardly politicians who will accept a token role.While some "Bernie or bust" keyboard warriors will invariably denounce these progressives as sellouts, and some jaded progressives as naive, they are actually realists who should be supported and strengthened. Few politicians understand the signs of the times better than Ocasio-Cortez. She knows that the country and the party are changing, and she understands that the Covid-19 crisis provides a unique opportunity to accelerate that change.Moreover, these progressives realize that Biden does not have a set ideology, but is in many ways an empty vessel whose domestic policies and priorities are still very much in flux and in play. In other words, progressives have two fights to fight: one for a President Biden, against the Republicans, and one for a progressive Biden presidency, against the moderate Democrats. * Cas Mudde is a Guardian US columnist and the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor in the school of public and international affairs at the University of Georgia. His latest book is The Far Right Today
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| Coronavirus live updates: House passes $3T 'HEROES' aid package as U.S. death toll nears 90,000 Posted: 16 May 2020 12:08 AM PDT  Here are the latest coronavirus updates from around the world.
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| Letter and contract put Guaidó at center of failed Venezuelan raid to oust Maduro Posted: 15 May 2020 01:39 PM PDT |
| What's open and closed this weekend: Beaches, parks and trails in Southern California Posted: 15 May 2020 08:50 AM PDT  As the fight against coronavirus goes on, local, state and federal leaders keep adjusting restrictions
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| 'She's Starting to Lose Hope.' Two Years on, Sister of Jailed Saudi Women's Rights Activist Pleads for Justice Posted: 15 May 2020 01:05 PM PDT  Lina al-Hathloul said in an interview with TIME there hasn't been an adequate investigation into her sister Loujain's alleged torture in prison.
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| Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan's $800,000 donation to their 8 favorite restaurants is like the median US family giving 13 cents to each Posted: 15 May 2020 12:05 PM PDT  When you do the math, the couple's $800,000 donation is about the same as the median US family donating $1.02.
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| Coronavirus has exposed a brutal truth - we have become the fat man of Europe Posted: 15 May 2020 08:22 AM PDT  Even prior to the arrival of Covid-19 in Britain we were engulfed by the twin epidemics of obesity and diabetes, weakening people and their immune system. The coronavirus outbreak has exploited this to shocking effect. A recent study of the outcomes of 16,749 patients hospitalised in Britain with Covid-19 showed people who had a body mass index greater than 30 were 37 per cent more likely to die. Notwithstanding his own experience in intensive care, these are the figures that are frightening Prime Minister Boris Johnson into action. It is long overdue. I've been a GP in Southport looking after a population size of around 9,000 patients since 1986. In that time I've seen a more than nine fold increase in the number of people with type 2 diabetes, rising from 56 to 530.
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| Kenya closes borders to Tanzania and Somalia over coronavirus Posted: 16 May 2020 05:52 AM PDT  Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta on Saturday banned movement across the country's borders with Tanzania and Somalia to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. "There will be a cessation of movement of persons and any passenger-ferrying automobiles and vehicles into and out of the territory of Kenya through the Kenya-Tanzania international border," Kenyatta said in a televised address. The same measures would apply on the border with Somalia, he said.
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| Puerto Rico to hold statehood referendum amid disillusion Posted: 16 May 2020 10:39 AM PDT  Gov. Wanda Vázquez announced on Saturday that she will hold a nonbinding referendum in November to decide whether Puerto Rico should become a U.S. state, a move that comes amid growing disillusion with the island's U.S. territorial status. For the first time in the island's history, the referendum will ask a single, simple question: Should Puerto Rico be immediately admitted as a U.S. state? It's an answer that requires approval from U.S. Congress and a question that outraged the island's small group of independence supporters and members of the main opposition Popular Democratic Party, which supports the status quo.
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| Typhoon forces 140,000 from homes in virus-hit Philippines Posted: 14 May 2020 07:48 PM PDT  Over 140,000 people were forced into cramped shelters as a powerful typhoon hammered the Philippines on Friday, compounding the nation's battle with the coronavirus pandemic. Typhoon Vongfong has dumped heavy rains since it roared ashore on Thursday, with hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in its path on the coast or in flimsy homes. The storm hit as tens of millions of Filipinos are hunkered down at home against the coronavirus, but at least 141,700 have had to flee because of the powerful storm, disaster officials said.
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| House passes' $3T 'HEROES' aid for stimulus checks, rent assistance Posted: 15 May 2020 09:06 PM PDT  Here are the latest coronavirus updates from around the world.
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| The Chinese government resettled villagers who lived up a 2,624-foot cliff into town apartments Posted: 15 May 2020 09:31 AM PDT  Young children had to climb down the cliff to go to school each week, descending rickety ladders made of vines and scaling dangerously narrow paths.
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| 'A good kid': Ahmaud Arbery remembered as 'humble guy' with plans to become an electrician Posted: 16 May 2020 06:14 AM PDT  Loved ones say Ahmaud Arbery -- who many say was racially profiled when he was shot to death while jogging -- didn't live life in fear of racism.
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| Man who ‘threatened to kill’ Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer faces terrorism charge Posted: 16 May 2020 03:43 AM PDT  A man from Detroit faces a terrorism charge after making "credible threats" to kill the governor of Michigan and the state attorney general, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office has said.Robert Tesh, 32, is alleged to have made the threats against governor Gretchen Whitmer and Dana Nessel, the attorney general, to an acquaintance via social media on 14 April.
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| Joe Biden makes more mistakes during virtual town hall, pushes back on sexual assault allegation Posted: 15 May 2020 02:54 PM PDT  Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden struggles as gaffes continue to pile up; reaction and analysis on 'The Five.'
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| Italy's daily coronavirus death toll dips to lowest since March 9 Posted: 16 May 2020 09:14 AM PDT  The daily toll from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy fell to 153 on Saturday, its lowest since March 9, against 242 the day before, the Civil Protection Agency said, while the daily tally of new cases increased to 875 from 789 on Friday. The total death toll since the outbreak came to light on Feb. 21 now stands at 31,763 the agency said, the third highest in the world after those of the United States and Britain.
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| China uses trade as weapon to silence virus criticism Posted: 15 May 2020 03:45 AM PDT  Trying to silence criticism over the coronavirus pandemic, China is deploying a well-used weapon — trade sanctions. Beijing has blocked some imports of Australian beef after Prime Minister Scott Morrison's government, endorsed by Washington, called for a robust inquiry into the origins of the outbreak and rebuffed Chinese demands to back off. The move is the first time Beijing has used access to its huge markets as leverage in its campaign to deflect blame for the outbreak.
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| How Russia's Coronavirus Outbreak Became One of the World's Worst Posted: 15 May 2020 03:40 AM PDT  With more than 250,000 COVID-19 cases, Russia now has the second-highest number of confirmed infections in the world. How did it get so bad?
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