| GOP gov: Trump’s ‘LIBERATE’ tweets about coronavirus lockdowns aren’t helpful Posted: 19 Apr 2020 09:36 AM PDT  Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said that Trump contradicting his own federal guidelines just didn't "make any sense."
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| Putin warns Russia's coronavirus crisis yet to peak as cases surpass 47,000 Posted: 20 Apr 2020 04:26 AM PDT  President Vladimir Putin said Russia had managed to slow the spread of the new coronavirus but warned the peak of the outbreak still lay ahead after the number of confirmed infections surged past 47,000 nationwide on Monday. Russia reported 4,268 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Monday, down from more than 6,000 the day before. Forty-four people died overnight, bringing the death toll to 405, Russia's coronavirus task force said.
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| Supreme Court Rules Juries Must Convict by Unanimous Consent in Criminal Trials Posted: 20 Apr 2020 08:26 AM PDT  The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that defendants in criminal trials must be convicted by unanimous consent of the jury, outlawing a practice that has already been prohibited in all states except Oregon.The 6-3 ruling in the case, Ramos v Louisiana, was delivered with an unusual alignment in which conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh joined with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor for the majority opinion. Justices Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan, and John Roberts dissented."Wherever we might look to determine what the term 'trial by an impartial jury trial' meant at the time of the Sixth Amendment's adoption—whether it's the common law, state practices in the founding era, or opinions and treatises written soon afterward—the answer is unmistakable," Gorsuch wrote in an opinion for the majority. "A jury must reach a unanimous verdict in order to convict."While unanimous verdicts had previously been required for convictions in federal trials, most states have banned convictions by supermajority of a jury. The ruling applies a unanimous-conviction requirement in the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution to state law. Currently, Oregon is the only state which allows conviction of criminal defendants even if up to two jurors dissent. Louisiana outlawed the practice in 2019.The current Supreme Court case was brought by Evangelisto Ramos, who was convicted of murder in Louisiana court in 2016 by a 10-2 jury verdict. The Supreme Court's case could allow Ramos to receive a new trial.
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| A Michigan inmate who had been in prison for 44 years died from the coronavirus just weeks before his release Posted: 20 Apr 2020 09:37 AM PDT  William Garrison, 60, died from COVID-19 on April 13. He was set to be released from prison in early May.
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| Palghar lynching: India police arrest more than 100 suspects Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:24 AM PDT  Three men have been beaten to death in Palghar district despite a strict lockdown across the country.
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| Oil prices go negative — and Washington is paralyzed over what to do Posted: 20 Apr 2020 11:25 AM PDT  Reports that the Trump administration was considering paying oil companies not to pump oil have not comforted oil executives.
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| Russian fighter jet executes 'unsafe' intercept of US Navy aircraft, coming within 25 feet of an American plane Posted: 19 Apr 2020 03:08 PM PDT  The intercept was caught on video and marks the second time in four days that a Russian fighter has come dangerously close to a US Navy plane.
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| Senators propose a $500 billion rescue package Posted: 20 Apr 2020 01:04 PM PDT  A U.S. Senate Republican and a Democrat proposed a $500 billion rescue package for state and municipal governments on Monday, as it became increasingly clear that the next coronavirus relief bill would not include money for reeling local authorities.
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| Experts: Coronavirus brings spike in anti-Semitic sentiments Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:04 AM PDT  Israeli researchers reported Monday that the global coronavirus outbreak has sparked a rise in anti-Semitic expression blaming Jews for the spread of the disease and the economic recession it has caused. The findings, which came in an annual report by Tel Aviv University researchers on anti-Semitism, show an 18% spike in attacks against Jews last year. "Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a significant rise in accusations that Jews, as individuals and as a collective, are behind the spread of the virus or are directly profiting from it," said Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, an umbrella group representing Jewish communities across the continent.
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| Trump’s WHO attacks: Fair criticism or scapegoating? Posted: 20 Apr 2020 08:06 AM PDT  President Trump has called for cutting off funding for the World Health Organization over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Are his criticisms fair or is he searching for someone else to blame?
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| Albania sends 60 more nurses to join coronavirus fight in hard-hit Italy Posted: 20 Apr 2020 09:27 AM PDT  Albania, which has recorded one of Europe's lowest numbers of coronavirus cases, sent 60 more nurses to help treat patients in hard-hit neighbour Italy on Monday. Health Minister Ogerta Manastirliu said the move was meant "to show hope and solidarity with the friendly Italian people, who have helped us over the years," as she saw the nurses off at Rinas airport. In Italy, across the Adriatic Sea, deaths from the infection rose to more than 23,600 on Sunday, the second-highest tally in the world after the United States.
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| In Germany, Syrians take their torturers to court Posted: 19 Apr 2020 07:49 PM PDT  When Anwar al-Bunni crossed paths with fellow Syrian Anwar Raslan in a DIY store in Germany five years ago, he recognised him as the man who had thrown him in jail a decade earlier. On Thursday, the two men will face each other in a German court, where Raslan will be one of two alleged former Syrian intelligence officers in the dock accused of crimes against humanity for Bashar al-Assad's regime. In the first legal proceedings worldwide over state-sponsored torture in Syria, Raslan will be tried under the principle of universal jurisdiction -- which allows a foreign country to prosecute crimes against humanity.
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| There are 4 requirements for reopening the U.S. amid COVID-19. Americans won't tolerate all of them. Posted: 20 Apr 2020 03:41 AM PDT  The White House has proposed a list of "preparedness responsiblities" for lifting social distancing rules enacted to slow spread the COVID-19 coronavirus. States should be able to test for the coronavirus, contact trace, and ensure hospitals have enough personal protective equipment (PPE) and ICU capacity for when the virus flares up again. Individuals should wear face masks when they can't keep six feet apart in public.Testing, tracing and isolating, hospital readiness, and masks are the four main pillars of reopening, dozens of scientists, public health experts, and disease historians told The New York Times and ProPublica, but the White House is seriously lowballing the amount of testing needed and skimming over some difficult choices America must make. Keeping the economy locked down isn't sustainable, but "the White House's 'phased' plan for reopening will surely raise the death toll no matter how carefully it is executed," Donald McNeil Jr. writes at the Times. "The best hope is that fatalities can be held to a minimum."A vaccine — the generally accepted prerequisite for a return toward normalcy — is realistically 18 months away at the earliest. All the experts agreed the U.S. needs to massively ramp up testing for both the virus and, separately, the antibodies that show who has already recovered — and they all agreed the U.S. is nowhere near ready for this. The U.S. also has tens of thousands too few workers trained to trace everybody who came in contact with every infected individual.China, South Korea, and other countries have supplemented the labor-intensive task of contact tracing with smartphone monitoring, a step the U.S. has neither the legal framework nor the civil-liberties culture to embrace. And however the positive cases are identified, the next step is even thornier. "To keep the virus in check, several experts insisted, the country also must start isolating all the ill — including mild cases," McNeil writes. China sent everyone testing positive to make-shift infirmities, while Taiwan paid infected citizens to quarantine in hotels."Separating people from their families for 14 days is a very tough thing to do," and "it would be massively unpopular" in America's "family-centered society," ProPublica notes. But "what we've learned in Italy, Taiwan, and now our country is sobering," and it's that when people self-isolated at home, "the disease spread to the entire family, sometimes sickening multiple generations." Read more about our coronavirus future at The New York Times.More stories from theweek.com What do animals think? A parade that killed thousands? The new coronavirus may be mutating to a less deadly form
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| Coronavirus nightmare in Ecuador's port city Guayaquil - pictures Posted: 20 Apr 2020 01:13 AM PDT  Guayaquil is one of the worst-hit places in Latin America in the pandemic.
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| Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps says its handheld device can detect coronavirus, scientists scoff Posted: 20 Apr 2020 11:09 AM PDT  Iranian scientists have rejected the claim and other government officials have distanced themselves.
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| Cuomo calls on the federal government to provide hazard pay to frontline workers: 'Give them a 50% bonus' Posted: 20 Apr 2020 11:19 AM PDT  Frontline workers, who have kept the state running while others have been on lockdown, should be rewarded, New York Gov, Andrew Cuomo said Monday.
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| Powerful photos show healthcare workers quietly standing up to lockdown protesters in Denver Posted: 19 Apr 2020 11:25 PM PDT  Video from the lockdown protest in Denver shows a woman yelling at a healthcare worker from her car to "go to China if you want communism."
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| If You’re Cooking as Much as We Are, You Need These Kitchen Essentials Posted: 19 Apr 2020 07:00 AM PDT |
| Trump, Head of Government, Leans Into Anti-Government Message Posted: 20 Apr 2020 11:59 AM PDT  First he was the self-described "wartime president." Then he trumpeted the "total" authority of the federal government. But in the past few days, President Donald Trump has nurtured protests against state-issued stay-at-home orders aimed at curtailing the spread of the coronavirus.Hurtling from one position to another is consistent with Trump's approach to the presidency over the past three years. Even when external pressures and stresses appear to change the dynamics that the country is facing, Trump remains unbowed, altering his approach for a day or two, only to return to nursing grievances.Not even the president's reelection campaign can harness him: His team is often reactive to his moods and whims, trying but not always succeeding in steering him in a particular direction. Now, with Trump's poll numbers falling after a rally-around-the-leader bump, he is road-testing a new turn on a familiar theme -- veering into messages aimed at appealing to Americans whose lives have been disrupted by the legally enforceable stay-at-home orders.Whether his latest theme will be effective for him is an open question: In an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday, just 36% of voters said they generally trusted what Trump says about the coronavirus.But the president, who ran as an insurgent in 2016, is most comfortable raging against the machine of government, even when he is the one running the country. And while the coronavirus is in every state in the union, it is heavily affecting minority and low-income communities.So when Trump on Friday tweeted "LIBERATE," his all-capitalized exhortations against strict orders in specific states -- including Michigan -- were in keeping with how he ran in 2016: saying things that seem contradictory, like pledging to work with governors and then urging people to "liberate" their states, and leaving it to his audiences to hear what they want to hear in his words.For instance, Trump did not take the opportunity to more forcefully encourage the protesters when he spoke with reporters Friday."These are people expressing their views," Trump said. "They seem to be very responsible people to me." But he said he thought the protesters had been treated "rough."In a webcast with Students for Trump on Friday, a conservative activist and Trump ally, Charlie Kirk, echoed the message, encouraging a "peaceful rebellion against governors" in states like Michigan, according to ABC News.On Fox News, where many of the opinion hosts are aligned with Trump and which he watches closely, there have also been discussions of such protests. And Trump has heard from conservative allies who have said they think he is straying from his base of supporters in recent weeks.So far, the protests have been relatively small and scattershot, organized by conservative-leaning groups with some organic attendance. It remains to be seen if they will be durable.But Trump's show of affinity for such actions is in keeping with his fomenting of voter anger at the establishment in 2016, a key to his success then -- and his fallback position during uncertain moments ever since.In the case of the state-issued orders, Trump's advisers say his criticism of certain places is appropriate.Stephen Moore, a former adviser to Trump and an economist with FreedomWorks, an organization that promotes limited government, said he thought protesters ought to be wearing masks and protecting themselves. But, he added, "the people who are doing the protest, for the most part, these are the 'deplorables,' they're largely Trump supporters, but not only Trump supporters."On Sunday, Trump again praised the protesters."I have never seen so many American flags," he said.But Trump's advisers are divided about the wisdom of encouraging the protests. At some of them, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a Democrat, has been compared to Adolf Hitler. At least one protester had a sign featuring a swastika.One adviser said privately that if someone were to be injured at the protests -- or if anyone contracted the coronavirus at large events where people were not wearing masks -- there would be potential political risk for the president.But two other people close to the president, who asked for anonymity in order to speak candidly, said they thought the protests could be politically helpful to Trump, while acknowledging there might be public health risks.One of those people said that in much of the country, where the numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths are not as high as in places like New York, New Jersey, California and Washington state, anger is growing over the economic losses that have come with the stringent social-distancing restrictions.And some states are already preparing to restart their economies. Ohio, where Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, took early actions against the spread of the virus, is planning a staged reopening beginning May 1.Still, as Trump did throughout 2016, as when he said "torture works" and then walked back that statement a short time later, or when he advocated bombing the Middle East while denouncing lengthy foreign engagements, he has long taken various sides of the same issue.Mobilizing anger and mistrust toward the government was a crucial factor for Trump in the last presidential election. And for many months he has been looking for ways to contrast himself with former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and a Washington lifer.The problem? Trump is now president, and disowning responsibility for his administration's slow and problem-plagued response to the coronavirus could prove difficult. And protests can be an unpredictable factor, particularly at a moment of economic unrest.Vice President Mike Pence, asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" about the president's tweets urging people to "liberate" states, demurred."The American people know that no one in America wants to reopen this country more than President Donald Trump," Pence said, "and on Thursday the president directed us to lay out guidelines for when and how states could responsibly do that.""And in the president's tweets and public statements, I can assure you, he's going to continue to encourage governors to find ways to safely and responsibly let America go back to work," he said.With the political campaign halted, Trump's advisers have seen an advantage in the frozen-in-time state of the race. Biden has struggled to fundraise or even to get daily attention in the news cycle.But Trump himself has seemed at sea, according to people close to him, uncertain of how to proceed. His approval numbers in his campaign polling have settled back to a level consistent with before the coronavirus, according to multiple people familiar with the data.His campaign polling has shown that focusing on criticizing China, in contrast with Biden, moves voters toward Trump, according to a Republican who has seen it."Trump finally fired the first shot" with his more aggressive stance toward the Chinese government and its leader, Xi Jinping, said Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist. "Xi is put on notice that the death, economic carnage and agony is his and his alone," Bannon said. "Only question now: What is America's president prepared to do about it?"Trump's campaign manager, Brad Parscale, has advocated messages that contrast Trump with Biden on a number of fronts, including China.But inside and outside the White House, other advisers to Trump see an advantage in focusing attention on the presidency.Kellyanne Conway, the White House counselor, has argued in West Wing discussions that there is a time to focus on China, but that for now, the president should embrace commander-in-chief moments amid the crisis.Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey and a friend of Trump's, said on ABC's "This Week" that he did not think ads criticizing Biden on China were the right approach for now.Ultimately, Trump's advisers said, most of his team is aware that it can try to drive down Biden's poll numbers, but that no matter what tactics it deploys now, the president's future will most likely depend on whether the economy is improving in the fall and whether the virus's spread has been mitigated. Those things will remain unknown for months."This is going to be a referendum," Christie said, "on whether people think, when we get to October, whether or not he handled this crisis in a way that helped the American people, protected lives and moved us forward."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| US lockdowns coincide with rise in poisonings from cleaners Posted: 20 Apr 2020 10:19 AM PDT  One toddler became dizzy, fell and hit her head after drinking from a large bottle of hand sanitizer. A woman had a scary coughing and wheezing fit while soaking her produce in a sink containing bleach, vinegar and hot water. Reports of accidental poisonings from cleaners and disinfectants are up this year, and researchers believe it's related to the coronavirus epidemic.
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| Italy's coronavirus death toll edges up, new cases fall sharply Posted: 20 Apr 2020 09:25 AM PDT  Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy rose by 454 on Monday, slightly up on Sunday's tally, while the number of new cases dropped to 2,256, the lowest level in well over a month, the Civil Protection Agency said. The total death toll stood at 24,114, the second highest in the world after that of the United States, while the number of confirmed cases, which includes those who have fully recovered and those who have died of the disease, was 181,228. "The death toll is the only parameter that is moving in the wrong direction."
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| The new coronavirus may be mutating to a less deadly form Posted: 20 Apr 2020 04:33 AM PDT  Life will not return to normal anytime soon, even if states lift COVID-19 lockdowns in an attempt to revive hard-hit economies. Face masks will be de rigueur, people may be "trapped indoors for months," and crowded public events are out, science reporter Donald McNeil Jr. writes at The New York Times, citing more than 20 health and science experts. Until there's a vaccine, "if Americans pour back out in force, all will appear quiet for perhaps three weeks. Then the emergency rooms will get busy again."Among the many things we don't yet understand about this new coronavirus is how deadly it is or how many people have been infected. "Fatality rates depend heavily on how overwhelmed hospitals get and what percentage of cases are tested," and those numbers keep getting revised in hard-hit areas, McNeil reports. People who die of the disease at home or in overwhelmed hospitals are not counted, but people with few or no symptoms are never tested, so "if you don't know how many people are infected, you don't know how deadly a virus is."The changing fatality rate is one reason the models keep fluctuating, McNeil says, but "there may be good news buried in this inconsistency: The virus may also be mutating to cause fewer symptoms. In the movies, viruses become more deadly. In reality, they usually become less so, because asymptomatic strains reach more hosts. Even the 1918 Spanish flu virus eventually faded into the seasonal H1N1 flu."While we don't know the fatality rate or level of contagion, the "refrigerated trucks parked outside hospitals tell us all we need to know: It is far worse than a bad flu season," McNeil writes. How the pandemic ends depends on the virus' lethality, medical advances, and how individuals behave, he adds. "If we scrupulously protect ourselves and our loved ones, more of us will live. If we underestimate the virus, it will find us."More stories from theweek.com What do animals think? A parade that killed thousands? Trump, McConnell insist no state, local government funds in imminent coronavirus rescue package
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| Merkel issues stark warning as Germany begins opening up Posted: 20 Apr 2020 08:57 AM PDT  Chancellor Angela Merkel urged discipline in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, warning that Germany is not "out of the woods" even as the country took small steps in easing curbs imposed to slow contagion. With small shops opening on Monday for the first time in a month, Merkel said the authorities can only allow such small cautious steps each time to avoid a devastating relapse. "We must not lose sight of the fact that we stand at the beginning of the pandemic and are still a long way from being out of the woods," she told journalists after chairing a cabinet session on the coronavirus battle.
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| China accused of discriminating against Africans as part of coronavirus fight Posted: 20 Apr 2020 05:03 AM PDT  Ambassadors to Beijing and others say Africans have been harassed, denied basic services and even evicted despite adhering to mitigation guidelines.
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| Coronavirus-lockdown protests will 'backfire' and interrupt the US's economic recovery, Fauci says Posted: 20 Apr 2020 10:00 AM PDT  Meanwhile, the president's adviser Kellyanne Conway said some governors had "gone too far" and were "physically distanced from common sense."
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| China Daily Bureau Chief: Trump a ‘Racist A**hole’ for Suggesting China Has More Coronavirus Deaths than U.S. Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:47 PM PDT  The European bureau chief of China's state-run publication China Daily has called President Trump a "racist a**hole" for claiming China "must have the most" deaths from the global coronavirus pandemic."We don't have the most-in-the-world deaths — the most in the world has to be China," Trump said during Friday's White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefing. "It's a massive country. It's gone through a tremendous problem with this, a tremendous problem. And they must have the most."China Daily's Chen Weihua, an outspoken critic of the Trump administration's coronavirus response, responded by tweeting that Trump's suggestion was "coldblooded." He added in a later tweet that "Trump is like a mad dog with rabies biting everyone, only to divert attention from his failures," before tweeting that it was "irresponsible" and "immoral" for Trump to suggest that the virus could have come from a Wuhan lab. He also floated a theory pushed as Chinese propaganda that a U.S. military athlete brought the disease to China.In 2018, U.S. officials flagged the Wuhan Institute of Virology as the potential starting point of a "future emerging coronavirus outbreak," citing the lack of safety protocols applied to the Institute's research on "SARS-like coronaviruses in bats."While there is no documented evidence that China has more coronavirus deaths than the U.S., reports have detailed how China covered up the initial coronavirus outbreak, with the Chinese Communist Party recently restricting research into the pandemic's origins and censoring reports of thousands of asymptomatic cases. Radio Free Asia reported in March that Wuhan residents were dismissing the government's reported death counts, anecdotally referencing steep increases in funerals and cremations to estimate at least 40,000 deaths during the city's lockdown.Chen Weihua has been outspoken on Twitter about what he claims is the "racist" U.S. response to the pandemic, echoing a tactic used by other Chinese media outlets to suggest any scrutiny of China's handling of the coronavirus is xenophobic.
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| Unbearable loss: One Alabama family, 3 dead, 9 positive tests of coronavirus Posted: 20 Apr 2020 07:22 AM PDT  "People aren't taking this virus seriously," Tyrone Posey said, on why he and his family are speaking out after losing loved ones to coronavirus.
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| Biden’s VP prospects break along Dem fault lines Posted: 20 Apr 2020 01:28 AM PDT  Biden understands the critical role he is poised to play in shaping the party's identity for years to come.
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| 20 Weird Facts About Earth To Remind You Why It's The Best Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:52 PM PDT |
| 4/20 uncertainty: Marijuana industry tested in virus crisis Posted: 19 Apr 2020 09:06 PM PDT  The unofficial holiday celebrating all things cannabis arrives Monday as the nation's emerging legal marijuana market braces for an economic blow from the coronavirus crisis, with many consumers reducing spending or going underground for deals. It was supposed to be a long weekend of festivals and music culminating on April 20, or 4/20, the code for marijuana's high holiday. Virtual parties and video chats are replacing vast outdoor smoking sessions to mark the rise of legalization and celebrate cannabis culture.
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| Deported from U.S., man infects 14 migrants with coronavirus in northern Mexico Posted: 20 Apr 2020 10:16 AM PDT |
| Coronavirus-driven CO2 shortage threatens US food and water supply, officials say Posted: 20 Apr 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Washington state emergency planning document points to difficulties obtaining carbon dioxide gas, essential for water treatment * Coronavirus – live US updates * Live global updates * See all our coronavirus coverageAn emerging shortage of carbon dioxide gas (CO2) caused by the coronavirus pandemic may affect food supply chains and drinking water, a Washington state emergency planning document has revealed.The document, a Covid-19 situation report produced by the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC), contains a warning from the state's office of drinking water (ODW) about difficulties in obtaining CO2, which is essential for the process of water treatment.The document says that the ODW is "still responding to [that day's] notification of a national shortage of CO2".It continues: "Several [water plants] had received initial notification from their vendors that their supply would be restricted to 33% of normal."It further warns: "So far utilities have been able to make the case that they are considered essential to critical infrastructure and have been returned to full supply. However, we want to ask if CISA [the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] can assess this through their contacts, if this is sustainable given the national shortage."Asked to clarify the nature of this problem, ODW director Mike Means said in an email that his agency had first learned of potential problems when Seattle public utilities were "contacted by their vendor Airgas who supplied a copy of a Force Majeure notice", warning them that their CO2 order would be reduced due to pandemic-related shortages.Force majeure is a contractual defense that allows parties to escape liability for contracts in the case of events – such as a pandemic – that could not be reasonably foreseen.In this case, Means wrote, "Airgas informed in their notice that they would only be able to do 80% of their normal service but subsequent discussions said to expect more like 33%".At this point, he added, "we reached out to understand if this was a WA specific problem or national. We quickly understood it to be a national issue."ODW had then contacted federal agencies such as CISA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and industry bodies such as the Association of State Drinking Water Authorities (ASDWA).The main reason for national shortages, according to the CEO of the Compressed Gas Association (CGA), Rich Gottwald, is a ramping down of ethanol production."Back in the summertime, the [Trump] administration exempted some gasoline manufacturers from using ethanol. Then we had Russia and Saudi Arabia flooding the market with cheap gasoline. All of that led to an oversupply of ethanol," Gottwald said."As ethanol manufacturers were ramping down because there wasn't a market for their product, along comes Covid-19, which meant people weren't driving anywhere", he added.This led to plant closures, including among the 50 specialized plants that collect CO2 for the food and beverage market.Gottwald's association, along with a number of associations representing food and beverage industries, which together use 77% of food-grade CO2, issued a joint warning to the federal government about the shortage.In an open letter to the vice-president, Mike Pence, the coalition warns: "Preliminary data show that production of CO2 has decreased by approximately 20%, and experts predict that CO2 production may be reduced by 50% by mid-April."It continues: "A shortage in CO2 would impact the US availability of fresh food, preserved food and beverages, including beer production."In an email, a Fema spokesperson said: "There is nationwide reduction in CO2 production capacity based on a shutdown of some ethanol plants that produce CO2 as a by-product, but impacts to water sectors would be local"."The ethanol plants are not closed because of Federal government orders related to COVID-19, but rather by market forces".CISA and ASDWA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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| The head of the WHO warns that 'the worst' of the coronavirus is 'ahead of us' Posted: 20 Apr 2020 12:03 PM PDT  The WHO chief compared the virus to the 1918 flu that killed 675,000 people in the US and tens of millions around the world.
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| Top China official for Hong Kong security probed for corruption Posted: 20 Apr 2020 12:09 AM PDT  China's deputy public security minister, who was placed in charge of security affairs for protest-wracked Hong Kong in 2017, is being investigated by the country's anti-graft body for alleged corruption. Sun Lijun was being investigated for "serious violations of discipline and the law" -– a euphemism for corruption -- according to China's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Sun, 51, was last seen in public in early March in Wuhan, the city at the epicentre of China's coronavirus outbreak, the official People's Public Security Daily reported.
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| Trump says he's 'OK' with Las Vegas shutdown after mayor calls it 'total insanity' Posted: 20 Apr 2020 09:38 AM PDT  "I'm OK with it," President Trump said of Gov. Steve Sisolak's closure of nonessential businesses, which has shuttered Las Vegas hotels and casinos.
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| Oil prices dive more than 100% to minus $37 as demand collapses during coronavirus pandemic Posted: 20 Apr 2020 10:54 AM PDT  One of the US' crude price futures have plummeted to the lowest level in history and entered into the negatives, as demand for oil continued its decline amid the coronavirus pandemic.Sharp selling heightened on Monday over concerns about the storage of the excess oil.
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| India reports biggest one-day virus spike as lockdown eased Posted: 19 Apr 2020 11:21 PM PDT  India recorded its biggest single-day spike in coronavirus cases on Monday as the government eased one of the world's strictest lockdowns to allow some manufacturing and agricultural activity to resume. At least 543 people have died from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, and epidemiologists forecast the peak may not be reached before June. The shelter-in-place orders imposed in India on March 24 halted all but essential services, sparking an exodus of migrant workers and people who survive on daily wages out of India's cities and toward villages in rural areas.
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| Taiwan virus cases jump after ship visit, Palau says not the source Posted: 20 Apr 2020 03:10 AM PDT  Taiwan reported 22 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, almost all of them sailors who were on a navy visit to the small Pacific islands state of Palau, which said there was "little chance" it was the source of the infection. Taiwan's government on Sunday said 700 navy personnel were being quarantined and tested and there were 24 positive cases altogether. Of those, three cadets had been to Palau, one of only 15 countries to maintain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and one of the last states in the world yet to report a coronavirus outbreak.
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| 'Don't shoot him no more!' California police face backlash over killing of man in Walmart Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:27 PM PDT  Steven Taylor was experiencing mental health crisis when he wielded a baseball bat inside San Leandro store, family lawyer saysThe police shooting of a 33-year-old man in a California Walmart over the weekend has led to intense backlash from civil rights activists, calls for protests and a Facebook video from the local police chief to "dispel some rumors" about the incident.Police in San Leandro in the Bay Area shot Steven Taylor on Saturday afternoon after he wielded a baseball bat inside a local Walmart. A video shot by a bystander captured two officers pointing their weapons at Taylor holding a bat near the doors on the Walmart floor.The footage appears to show one of the officers deploying a Taser after Taylor had dropped the bat on the floor and was lying on the ground. One witness is heard shouting, "Don't shoot him no more!" Police said one of the officers hit Taylor with a bullet in the upper torso, and the officers tried to use their Tasers multiple times during the confrontation.Lee Merritt, an attorney for Taylor's family, said Taylor was going through a mental health crisis on Saturday afternoon, and that he has previously suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar depression. "He was shot after he had become completely helpless and no longer represented a threat," Merritt told the Guardian on Monday.Merritt said he wasn't sure yet whether police shot Taylor with a Taser or bullet after he was already down, and that an autopsy was now underway.Merritt also alleged that the officers provided insufficient care once Taylor was shot. "Their job, according to standard operating procedures, was to get Mr Taylor help. He had been seriously wounded and was suffering from a mental health crisis. They had to treat him quickly. They did the opposite and exacerbated his injuries," Merritt said.The San Leandro police department said Taylor had not complied with officers' commands to drop the bat and had walked toward police. At this point, one officer discharged his Taser "which was not effective", according to the department. Then, police said, the officer fired his gun at Taylor, hitting him in the "front of his upper body". Seconds later, another officer discharged his Taser at the man, according to the department. Taylor died at the scene.Taylor's family is calling for charges against the officers. Merritt, who represents families of those killed by police in federal litigation, said the officers should face homicide charges for targeting Taylor after the threat was "neutralized". He said police should have de-escalated by clearing the Walmart, surrounding Taylor and trying to talk him down, instead of quickly using lethal force.The San Leandro police chief, Jeff Tudor, said in an interview that the "pop" heard on the video after Taylor was already on the ground came from a Taser, and that it was too early to speculate whether that shot had hit Taylor or whether it was justified and in line with department policy. One officer was initially "trying to deescalate the situation and grab the bat", Tudor said, adding, "It's very tragic."On Sunday, Tudor publicly acknowledged that the shooting had upset many. "Our community is hurting right now," Tudor said in a Facebook video. "But protecting the sanctity of life is extremely important. I know there are a lot of questions and concerns."Few details have emerged about Taylor since he was killed. Merritt said Taylor had three children, including an 11-year-old, and that he leaves behind three siblings. "I hope they don't see their father executed like that," Merritt said.He added that Taylor "was best known for trying to make people laugh". The fatal shooting happened just south of Oakland, in a region where residents for years have organized Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality and police shootings.Last year, California adopted the strictest law in the US limiting when police can kill, dictating that law enforcement must "reasonably believe … deadly force is necessary to defend against an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury". Typically, courts across the US have long ruled that shootings are justified if officers claimed they feared for their lives and were acting in self defense, a bar that advocates have said was too low and allowed police to kill civilians with impunity, particularly unarmed black Americans.
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| The Money Taboo That Central Banks Have Shied Away From So Far Posted: 19 Apr 2020 04:00 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- The coronavirus economy is shredding records for government borrowing and for central-bank lending. Soon it may also smash the taboo that's supposed to keep those two things apart.Governments paying for budget spending with loans from their own central banks is known as monetary financing. The risk, repeated throughout history from the Weimar Republic to parts of Latin America, is that it becomes a slippery slope in which politicians ride roughshod over central-bank independence, triggering runaway inflation as they splash what feels like free cash around the economy.The stricture against direct financing has held up even through a series of crises when central bankers did in fact buy plenty of public debt. They just made sure to do it in a roundabout way, snapping up bonds in the secondary market.But in a pandemic that's placing unprecedented demands on budgets -– and could strain the capacity of bond markets to finance them -- some monetary experts say it's time for exactly this kind of break-the-glass policy."Independence doesn't mean having to say no to a request for direct monetization," says Willem Buiter, a former Bank of England policy maker and Citigroup chief economist. "It means you can say yes or no."Government OverdraftRight now, according to Buiter, the answer that makes sense in developed economies is 'yes'.As they pour money into the virus fight, policy makers "needn't bother with the sovereign debt market," he says. In what would amount to cutting out the middleman, central banks can just buy debt direct from governments "or simply credit the treasury's account."Last week, the Bank of England appeared to be doing something like the latter -– triggering a flurry of interest among central-bank-watchers -- when it extended an overdraft to the government.Just days earlier, Governor Andrew Bailey had appeared to rule out the use of monetary financing, after a former BOE deputy chief had urged the bank to buy bonds directly from the government.The overdraft facility has been drawn on before, in wartime and most recently after the 2008 crisis. It's a temporary measure, according to U.K. officials.'They'll Do It'But the recent history of monetary policy is full of stopgap moves introduced during a crisis that turned out to be hard to reverse. And they've tended to leave government and central-bank finances more closely entwined.Japan's central bank, for example, started amassing government bonds two decades ago to break the grip of deflation. Now, it has a balance sheet bigger than the economy, owns some 43% of the government's outstanding bonds, and has seen its policy of quantitative easing replicated across the industrial world."The Bank of Japan started down this road in the late 1990s, and we've all been following their example," said Russell Jones, a partner at London-based research group Llewellyn Consulting. "It's been a progressive shift. We're moving towards overt monetary finance."That barrier may be breached soon, he said. If economies continue to deteriorate because of the pandemic, "you will see central banks directly financing governments, they'll do it explicitly, it's only a matter of time."What Bloomberg's Economists Say...'Back in the great financial crisis, central banks could legitimately argue that asset purchases were the pursuit of monetary policy by other means -- bringing down longer-term borrowing costs to stoke private-sector borrowing.In 2020, that fig leaf isn't there. We're not quite at monetary financing of fiscal deficits. Still, the main beneficiary of central bank purchases will be governments."\-- Tom Orlik, chief economist. Read the full piece here.The longstanding fear has been that handing this kind of money-creating power to politicians with short-term electoral goals will lead to over-spending that hurts economies in the longer run by fanning inflation.That's why most developed countries keep those levers in the hands of central banks with some autonomy from the rest of government. It also explains why some analysts are alarmed that the current spending spree could ultimately send prices surging, creating bigger problems for central banks down the road.But most argue that in the immediate future, at least, the bigger risk is deflation as the virus destroys businesses and jobs and hammers demand.'Same Drum'The lines that separate overt monetary financing from other kinds of central-bank support for governments aren't clear-cut. In the U.S., for example, the Federal Reserve doesn't buy government debt directly from the Treasury, but it's bought plenty via QE since 2008.And this year, with the Treasury issuing trillions in bonds at an unprecedented pace, the Fed is set to hoover up more than 90% of them, according to Bank of America projections. It just won't be doing so directly at Treasury auctions.The upshot isn't that different from direct monetary financing, according to Buiter. But "the statement is more powerful," he says, "if the Treasury and Fed are visibly and audibly banging on the same drum, not being coy about it, recognizing that they are monetizing fiscal action."Advocates of Modern Monetary Theory, an emerging school of economics, also play down the idea that there's anything scary about such arrangements. MMTers say the question of whether spending is financed by treasury bonds or central-bank reserves isn't a big deal -- since both are government liabilities in the end. What matters is whether the spending triggers inflation.The increasing role of asset purchases, and the blurring of lines with fiscal policy, has come about as central banks ran out of other ways to stimulate.There was no room left to cut the cost of credit for households and businesses, so that they'd take on more debt and spend or invest. Instead, governments took over as the main borrowers, and became the chief beneficiaries of the super-low rates -- starting in Japan, the first country to get to zero.And in a bad scenario where the global economy struggles to shake off Covid-19, economists at Evercore ISI wrote last week, the Japanese combo of persistent fiscal support by the government and asset purchases designed to keep borrowing costs low "is a plausible end-destination for much of the world."For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Medical detection dogs able to sniff 750 people an hour could help identify coronavirus cases, researchers say Posted: 19 Apr 2020 08:01 AM PDT  Dogs have already been taught to detect diseases such as cancer. UK health experts believe they could be trained to sniff test the coronavirus.
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| Iran's Guard acknowledges tense encounter with U.S. warships during a drill Posted: 20 Apr 2020 07:09 AM PDT  Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard acknowledged Sunday it had a tense encounter with U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf last week, but alleged without offering evidence that American forces sparked the incident.
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| Officer killed, two injured in Texas 'ambush' Posted: 18 Apr 2020 08:05 PM PDT  Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the violence was "a somber reminder of the service and sacrifice our brave men and women in law enforcement make everyday."
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| Trump says protesters demanding end to coronavirus lockdowns have 'cabin fever' Posted: 19 Apr 2020 06:05 PM PDT  President Trump on Sunday said that people who are calling on state governments to lift coronavirus stay-at-home orders have "cabin fever" and "want their life back."There have been protests in some cities, with demonstrators shouting that they should be able to go back to work despite coronavirus continuing to spread across the country. Trump was asked by a reporter about a series of tweets he wrote on Friday, including one stating, "LIBERATE Virginia, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!"Trump denied that he was inciting violence, and said protesters "learned a lot during this period. They learned to do things differently than they have in the past and they'll do it hopefully until the virus has passed." At some protests, only a few dozen people showed up, and many remained in their cars. Still, Trump said he had "never seen so many American flags at a rally as I've seen at these rallies. These people love our country. They want to get back to work."More stories from theweek.com What do animals think? A parade that killed thousands? The new coronavirus may be mutating to a less deadly form
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| Coronavirus lockdown: NZ to ease restrictions after 'stopping explosion' Posted: 20 Apr 2020 05:57 AM PDT  The country, which has relatively few cases, has been praised for its quick and strict response.
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| Syria: Israel fired missile on areas near historic Palmyra Posted: 20 Apr 2020 01:33 PM PDT |
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| Iran extends prisoner furloughs, closure of holy sites amid coronavirus Posted: 19 Apr 2020 01:34 AM PDT  Iran has extended furloughs for prisoners for another month, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday, as the Islamic Republic endeavours to stem the spread of the new coronavirus in its crowded jails. Iran's reported temporary release of 100,000 prisoners since February - including prisoners of conscience and dual and foreign nationals - was welcomed by the United Nations on Friday as a good step, but one that must be expanded. "Furloughs of those prisoners, who pose no threat to the society, have been extended until May 20," Rouhani said in a televised cabinet meeting.
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