| West Virginia sees coronavirus outbreaks in churches Posted: 15 Jun 2020 01:08 PM PDT  Less than a month after President Trump urged churches to reopen, West Virginia has reported a significant number of coronavirus outbreaks linked to houses of worship.
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| 'Not to me, they don't': Philadelphia court supervisor fired for tearing down Black Lives Matter signs on video Posted: 16 Jun 2020 10:44 AM PDT  A supervisor with Philadelphia's Family Court was fired after a video circulated online showing him tearing down Black Lives Matter signs and telling bystanders that black lives don't matter to him.The video shows Michael Henkel marching along a sidewalk tearing Black Lives Matter signs from fences and walls. When a bystander yells "black lives matter" at him, Mr Henkel replies "not to me, they don't."
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| Violent counter-protesters mobbed a small-town BLM demonstration in Ohio amid false rumors of antifa Posted: 16 Jun 2020 12:32 PM PDT  A small demonstration against racism in Bethel, Ohio, turned violent when hundreds counter-protesters arrived after learning of the event online.
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| Supreme Court rejects cases over 'qualified immunity' for police Posted: 15 Jun 2020 07:00 AM PDT  The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear eight cases involving a legal defense called qualified immunity that can be used to shield government officials from lawsuits, including seven involving police accused of excessive force or other misconduct. In six of the seven cases involving police, plaintiffs who sued officers were challenging actions in lower courts that protected the defendants through qualified immunity. Among the cases the justices declined to hear was a dispute over whether officers in Tennessee can be sued for using a police dog that bit a man who has said he had put up his hands in surrender.
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| Making it illegal for an adult to store a gun in a place where a child might access it could result in nearly 2,500 fewer gun deaths a year in the US, new research shows Posted: 15 Jun 2020 12:04 PM PDT  Stricter background checks and prohibiting domestic abusers from owning guns are also policies that reduce gun violence.
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| Police department rips Tucker Carlson for "inaccurate" protest report Posted: 16 Jun 2020 11:57 AM PDT  The department said Carlson's report creates "creates an environment of confusion and bitterness"
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| Woman apologizes after criticism for confronting homeowner Posted: 15 Jun 2020 03:10 PM PDT  The CEO of a cosmetics company has issued an apology after a video went viral showing her and her husband confronting a man and threatening to call police because he wrote "Black Lives Matter" in chalk on his San Francisco property.
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| At least 20 Indian soldiers killed in hand-to-hand fighting on Chinese border Posted: 16 Jun 2020 12:37 AM PDT  Twenty Indian soldiers were killed in violent hand-to-hand clashes with Chinese troops on the disputed border in the Himalayas late on Monday as the threat of a full-blown war flared. The soldiers died after intense fighting in the Galwan Valley in Ladakh where there has been a tense stand-off for more than a month, and were the first at the disputed border in 45 years. The Indian army confirmed the higher total late last night after initially saying only three had died, including a colonel, and India blamed China for starting the fighting. One tweet from a senior reporter at the pro-Beijing Global Times in China suggested five of its troops had been killed, and eleven injured, but that remained unconfirmed. His editor, Hu Xijin, posted on Twitter: "Based on what I know, Chinese side also suffered casualties in the Galwan Valley physical clash. I want to tell the Indian side, don't be arrogant and misread China's restraint as being weak. China doesn't want to have a clash with India, but we don't fear it." They are the first casualties to be suffered by either Asian superpower along their 3,488km border since 1975. Chinese and Indian troops typically do not carry weapons on the Line of Actual Control, in an attempt to avoid fatalities or diplomatic escalation of tensions, and it is understood these clashes were with stones and batons. India and China have been facing-off for over a month in Ladakh in Kashmir after Chinese troops crossed the so-called Line of Actual Control on May 5 and 6 to occupy over 60 kilometres of Indian territory at four locations - Pangong Tso, Galwan River, Demchok and Hot Springs.
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| A Crisis Is Brewing Between India and China. But This Time There Is a Big Difference. Posted: 16 Jun 2020 07:59 AM PDT  America has inserted itself deeper into the China-India-Pakistan triangle, altering the shape of the regional order, pushing it toward a bipolar one with Beijing and Islamabad on one side and New Delhi and, to some extent, itself on the other.
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| Atlanta officer Garrett Rolfe was fired after fatally shooting Rayshard Brooks. He had recently been trained in de-escalation tactics and cultural awareness. Posted: 15 Jun 2020 04:34 PM PDT  Garrett Rolfe attended 2,000 hours of police training, his personnel record shows. In January, he attended a course in the use of deadly force.
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| De Blasio Tells Covid Contract Tracers Not to Ask Positive Cases If They’ve Attended BLM Protests Posted: 15 Jun 2020 06:43 AM PDT  New York City's coronavirus contact-tracing force are not asking those who test positive for COVID-19 whether they recently attended a Black Lives Matter demonstration, a city spokesperson confirmed."No person will be asked proactively if they attended a protest," Avery Cohen, a spokesperson for de Blasio, told THE CITY about the directive. "If a person wants to proactively offer that information, there is an opportunity for them to do so."De Blasio, who announced his program last month to hire 1,000 "contact tracers," has promised to reveal Monday how many city residents have been questioned so far.Tracers are supposed to ask those who test positive for Covid-19 to "recall 'contacts' and individuals they may have exposed," Cohen explained. Tracers also probe for any "close contacts" of the patient — anyone that has been within six feet of the infected person for at least 10 minutes.New York City officials have taken a soft stance over fears that mass protests could lead to a spike in coronavirus cases. "Let's be clear about something: if there is a spike in coronavirus cases in the next two weeks, don't blame the protesters. Blame racism," Mark Levine, head of the city council's health committee, tweeted earlier this month.The mayor, whose daughter was arrested during a Manhattan protest over the death of George Floyd, is facing a lawsuit from Catholics and Jews for violating the constitutional rights of religious New Yorkers by placing restrictions on religious services. But De Blasio has pushed back on claims that he has been hypocritical in allowing protests to proceed while keeping religious services shuttered."When you see . . . an entire nation, simultaneously grappling with an extraordinary crisis seated in 400 years of American racism, I'm sorry, that is not the same question as the understandably aggrieved store owner or the devout religious person who wants to go back to services," de Blasio said in a press conference earlier this month.
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| Show me the data: U.S. doctors skeptical of reported COVID breakthrough Posted: 16 Jun 2020 02:48 PM PDT  Global pressure to find a cure or vaccine has accelerated the process of reporting coronavirus study results, feeding confusion over whether therapies have been proven effective. One influential COVID study was withdrawn this month by respected British medical journal The Lancet over data concerns. Trial results announced on Tuesday showed dexamethasone, used to fight inflammation in other diseases, reduced death rates by around a third among the most severely ill COVID-19 patients admitted to hospital.
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| 'Kroger Karen' is going viral for using a stroller to block a Black woman from leaving a grocery store parking lot Posted: 16 Jun 2020 01:58 PM PDT  Shaneeka Montgomery-Strickland live-streamed the incident in which a white woman barred her from exiting a Kroger parking lot.
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| 18 of America’s Best Historic Homes to Visit Posted: 15 Jun 2020 01:00 PM PDT |
| 'Because I was white' — Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian shares story of walking away from a police encounter in college after he was found drunk and high in his car Posted: 16 Jun 2020 10:13 AM PDT  "Because I was white. I walked away + started Reddit, not jail time. I became an entrepreneur, not a statistic," Ohanian tweeted.
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| India says 20 soldiers killed along contested border with China Posted: 16 Jun 2020 10:58 AM PDT  They are the first deaths in 53 years in the standoff between the two nuclear-armed powers.
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| US Supreme Court halts Texas execution over clergy question Posted: 15 Jun 2020 09:04 PM PDT  The U.S. Supreme Court granted a reprieve Tuesday to a Texas inmate scheduled to die for fatally stabbing an 85-year-old woman more than two decades ago, continuing a more than four-month delay of executions in the nation's busiest death penalty state during the coronavirus pandemic. The justices blocked Ruben Gutierrez's execution about an hour before he could have been executed. Gutierrez's attorneys had argued his religious rights are being violated because the prison system won't allow a chaplain to accompany him in the death chamber.
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| Lindsey Graham praises Joe Biden and calls Donald Trump a 'race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot' in new ad Posted: 15 Jun 2020 08:54 AM PDT  Before he was one of the president's closest allies, Lindsey Graham (R—SC) was an outspoken critic of Donald Trump — and some members of the Republican Party want voters to remember that come Election Day.A new ad from the group Republican Voters Against Trump features the conservative senator dissing the president along the campaign trail in 2016, as well as discussing his admiration for former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
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| Russia’s Ka-52 Helicopter Gunship to be Upgraded with Long-Range Missiles Posted: 16 Jun 2020 05:00 AM PDT  What can they do?
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| Factbox: Can frozen or chilled food spread coronavirus? Posted: 16 Jun 2020 03:29 AM PDT  Below are comments from health officials, doctors and other experts on the risk of infection from eating or handling frozen or chilled food. Wu told state media over the weekend that the virus can survive on the surface of frozen food for up to three months and his agency "highly suspects" contaminated goods were the source of the latest outbreak. Virus contraction via frozen food usually involves viruses such as the rotavirus and hepatitis A virus being transmitted through the gastrointestinal tract.
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| Secret drug cave discovered by Spanish police Posted: 15 Jun 2020 06:51 AM PDT  A secret operations centre buried in a garden belonging to alleged drug traffickers has been discovered by Spanish police, accessed via steps hidden under an ornamental fountain. It was only after Guardia Civil officers in the Costa del Sol town of Mijas began to investigate the three men accused of trafficking cannabis that they made the discovery, realising a small ornate fountain positioned next to a barbecue lifted up to reveal a shaft into the ground. At the bottom of the stairwell, officers advanced along a cramped tunnel before entering a shipping container buried under the garden, where the gang hid drug consignments. "It seems like something out of Hollywood, but we see this kind of thing in the local drug trafficking scene," a Guardia Civil spokesman told The Telegraph.
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| 'Golden State Killer' suspect to plead guilty, won't get death penalty Posted: 16 Jun 2020 04:33 AM PDT  The man accused of being the Golden State Killer is expected to plead guilty on June 29 in return for being spared the death penalty, a source familiar with the matter said Monday.
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| Richmond police chief resigns after weeks of protests Posted: 16 Jun 2020 03:35 PM PDT  "It boils down to whether the leadership of RPD embraces the change or stands in the way," said Mayor Levar Stoney.
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| The Atlanta police officer who shot Rayshard Brooks was reprimanded for using a firearm in 2017 Posted: 16 Jun 2020 10:23 AM PDT  Ex-officer Garrett Rolfe had been with Atlanta police for nearly seven years. He faced 12 investigations and was exonerated in nine of them.
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| Police killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta ruled a homicide Posted: 15 Jun 2020 10:16 AM PDT  The Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office said Brooks, 27, died after he was shot twice in the back.
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| Supreme Court won't consider limiting police immunity from civil lawsuits Posted: 15 Jun 2020 11:08 AM PDT  The justices' decision not to hear any new cases follows the recent death of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, while in police custody.
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| US police reform: Trump signs executive order on 'best practice' Posted: 16 Jun 2020 05:43 PM PDT  The move seeks to encourage "best practice" following anger over the killing of black men by police.
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| Is the U.S. Naval Buildup in the Pacific a Warning to China? Posted: 15 Jun 2020 12:55 PM PDT  Beijing had better believe it.
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| Virus more efficient at infection after mutation; diseased lungs more receptive to virus Posted: 15 Jun 2020 12:20 PM PDT  A genetic mutation in the new coronavirus that significantly increases its ability to infect cells may explain why outbreaks in Northern Italy and New York were larger than ones seen earlier in the pandemic. Scientists at Scripps Research in Florida say the mutated virus was seen infrequently in March, but by April accounted for some 65% of cases submitted from around the world to the GenBank database run by the National Institutes of Health. The mutation, designated D614G, increased the number of "spikes" the virus uses to bind to and break into cells, and made them more stable, researchers found in the study undergoing peer review.
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| GoFundMe froze $350,000 in contributions after Black Lives Matter supporters mistakenly donated to an unaffiliated group with the same name Posted: 15 Jun 2020 07:14 PM PDT  The Black Lives Matter Foundation attracted $4 million in donations to its mission for "unity with the police department," BuzzFeed News reported.
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| Amy McGrath faces surprise primary showdown in Kentucky Senate race Posted: 15 Jun 2020 12:41 PM PDT  Amy McGrath is suddenly fending off an insurgent challenger: State Representative Charles Booker with just about a week to go before the primary.
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| People are getting sick from coronavirus spreading through the air – and that's a big challenge for reopening Posted: 16 Jun 2020 04:57 AM PDT  I am a scientist that studies infectious diseases and I specialize in severe respiratory infections, but I also serve as a member of my church's safety team. Over the past few weeks as states began to loosen restrictions, we have been discussing if and how to safely start services again. But the coronavirus is far from gone. As we try and figure out how to hold services while protecting our members, one question is of particular concern: How common is airborne spread of the virus? How to spread a virusRespiratory infections are generally spread in three possible ways: from direct contact, from droplets and from airborne particles.Contact transmission occurs when a person touches an object that has live virus on it – called a fomite – and gets sick.Droplets are small particles of mucus or saliva that come from a person's mouth or nose when they cough or talk. They range in size from 5 microns to hundreds of microns in diameter - a red blood cell to a grain of sand. Most droplets, particularly large ones, fall to the ground within seconds and don't usually travel more than 1 or 2 meters. If a person coughed on you and you got sick, that would be droplet transmission.Airborne transmission happens because of airborne particles known as droplet nuclei. Droplet nuclei are any bit of mucus or saliva smaller than 5 microns across. People produce droplet nuclei when they talk, but they can also be formed when small droplets evaporate and shrink in size. Many of these droplets shrink so much that they begin to float before they hit the ground, thus becoming aerosols.People produce thousands of these droplet nuclei per second while talking and the aerosolized particles can contain live viruses and float in the air for hours. They are easy to inhale, and if they contain live virus, can get people sick. The ability of droplet nuclei to transmit the coronavirus has a massive impact on if and how places like my church can reopen. Early on in the pandemic, experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization were most concerned about the coronavirus being transmitted from surfaces and from large droplets. But the more research is done on SARS-CoV-2, the more evidence there is that airborne transmission is occurring although it is controversial. Both the CDC and WHO are now recommending that the general population wear masks, but for people going about their lives and wondering how to reopen public areas across the world, the question remains: Just how important is airborne transmission? Airborne longevity in the labTo get infected, a person needs to come in contact with live virus. If the virus dies before a person can inhale it, they won't get sick. To test how well SARS-CoV-2 can live in the air, researchers use special equipment to create aerosolized virus and keep it airborne for long periods of time. Researchers can then take samples of the virus and see how long it stays alive in an aerosol. An early study from researchers at the National Institute of Health kept the virus airborne for four hours and found live virus the whole time. A subsequent pre-print study that I was part of found that the coronavirus can stay alive for up to 16 hours in the air.Neither the initial study nor the one that I was involved with measured the impact of temperature, humidity, ultraviolet light or pollution on survival of the virus in aerosols. There is evidence that simulated sunlight can inactivate 90% of SARS-CoV-2 viruses in saliva on surfaces or in aerosols within seven minutes. These studies suggest that the virus would be rapidly inactivated outdoors, but the risk of transmission indoors would remain. Evidence from the real worldLaboratory studies can provide valuable insight, but real world scenarios point to the true risk from airborne transmission. Reports from China, Singapore and Nebraska have found the virus in patient rooms and at very low levels in the ventilation system of hospitals where COVID-19 patients were treated. The report from China also found evidence of the virus at the entrance of a department store. So far, this sampling has been done using polymerase chain reaction tests which look for pieces of viral DNA, not live virus. They can't tell researchers if what they are finding is infectious.For direct evidence of the risks of airborne transmission, we can look to a few case studies in the U.S. and abroad. One study tracked how a single infected person at a call center in South Korea infected 94 other people. There is also the widely reported of case of one infected person at a restaurant in Guangzhou, China, spreading the virus to nine other people because of the airflow created by an air conditioning unit in the room.Perhaps most striking, especially for myself as we contemplate how to reopen our church, is the example of the church choir in Skagit County, Washington. A single individual singing at a choir practice infected 52 other people. Singing and loud vocalization in general can produce a lot of aerosols, and evidence shows that some people are super-emitters of aerosols even during normal speech. It's likely that some infections in this incident occurred from droplets or direct contact, but the fact that one person was able to infect so many people strongly suggests that airborne transmission was the driving factor in this outbreak.A paper published just last week compared the success of mitigation measures – like social distancing or mask wearing – to try and determine how the virus is spreading. The authors concluded that aerosol transmission was the dominant route. This conclusion is hotly debated in the scientific community, but this study and others do show the effectiveness of masks in slowing the spread of COVID-19. What does this mean for reopening and for individuals?The evidence strongly suggests that airborne transmission happens easily and is likely a significant driver of this pandemic. It must be taken seriously as people begin to venture back out into the world.Thankfully, there is an easy, if not perfect way you can reduce airborne transmission: masks. Since people can spread the virus when they are pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic, universal mask wearing is a very effective, low-cost way to slow down the pandemic.Since the primary risk is indoors, increasing ventilation rates and not recirculating air inside buildings would remove the virus from the indoor environment faster. My church has decided to reopen, but we are only planning to allow limited numbers of people in the church and spreading them throughout the sanctuary to maintain social distancing. And at least for now, everyone is required to wear masks. Especially while singing.[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help. Read The Conversation's newsletter.]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Coronavirus drifts through the air in microscopic droplets – here's the science of infectious aerosols * Masks help stop the spread of coronavirus – the science is simple and I'm one of 100 experts urging governors to require public mask-wearingDouglas Reed receives funding from NIH and DOD, as well as CEPI.
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| President of police union chapter in Florida suspended after 'despicable' Facebook post Posted: 16 Jun 2020 11:52 AM PDT  A Facebook post by a Florida chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police recruited officers disciplined and charged in violent incidents.
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| Two whistleblowers to testify against Attorney General Barr's 'unprecedented politicization' of Trump's Justice Department Posted: 16 Jun 2020 09:29 AM PDT  Attorney General William Barr has promoted the "unprecedented politicization" of the Justice Department since his appointment last year, two whistleblowers from the Justice Department and a former deputy attorney general under President George HW Bush are expected to tell Congress next week."Again and again, Attorney General Barr has demonstrated that he will cater to President Trump's private political interests, at the expense of the American people and the rule of law," House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, who is convening the hearing, said in a statement on Tuesday.
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| He Xiangjian: China arrests five after attempt to kidnap billionaire Posted: 15 Jun 2020 01:33 PM PDT  Five people have been arrested after an attempt to kidnap He Xiangjian, one of China's richest men.
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| China Keeps Flying Its Su-30 Fighters Over Taiwan, but How Do They Stack Up? Posted: 16 Jun 2020 07:42 AM PDT  Not as good as the F-15?
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| Living on the edge, Pakistani Hindus still feel safer in India Posted: 16 Jun 2020 04:03 PM PDT  Seven years ago, Dharamveer Solanki, a Hindu, left his home in Pakistan's Hyderabad city, never to return. When his train crossed the border into India, Solanki said he felt happier than ever before. "It felt as though I had been reborn," he said, sitting inside a bustling refugee colony on the outskirts of New Delhi, where he and hundreds of other Hindus who fled Muslim-majority Pakistan have built a new home.
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| Austin extended its stay at home order until August after a spike in coronavirus cases Posted: 16 Jun 2020 01:47 AM PDT  Austin is now in Stage 4 risk, which is the second-highest and will remain under the orders until August 15, Mayor Steve Adler announced.
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| Texas reports record high number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients Posted: 16 Jun 2020 12:46 PM PDT  The state is reporting a record-high number of coronavirus hospitalizations for the fourth day in a row.
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| California's starting to reopen hotels. Hawaii just extended its shutdown Posted: 15 Jun 2020 11:55 AM PDT  California and Hawaii are responding differently to reopening hotels and other tourism spots during the pandemic.
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| Iran warns against UN nuclear watchdog resolution Posted: 16 Jun 2020 06:01 AM PDT  Iran criticised on Tuesday a plan to put forward a resolution at a meeting of the UN's nuclear watchdog urging the country to allow access to two disputed sites. European states are expected to put the resolution before the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) board of governors' meeting this week. "Introduction of this resolution aiming to call on Iran to cooperate with the Agency... is disappointing and absolutely counterproductive," said Kazem Gharib Abadi, Iran's UN ambassador in Vienna.
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| 'Embrace the change': Black officers sidestep unions to support police reform Posted: 15 Jun 2020 11:01 AM PDT  "We're talking about Black men dying. We're talking about systemic racism in police work," said a leader of one Black law enforcement association.
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| Trump on coronavirus testing: ‘If we stopped testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any’ Posted: 15 Jun 2020 02:20 PM PDT  At the White House on Monday, President Trump spoke about testing for the coronavirus in the U.S., saying, "If we stopped testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any."
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| Federal judge, wife killed in cartel-plagued Mexican state Posted: 16 Jun 2020 01:12 PM PDT |
| New virus cases in China, N. Zealand sound pandemic alarm Posted: 16 Jun 2020 01:45 AM PDT  More than two dozen new coronavirus cases in China and the first New Zealand infections in almost a month on Tuesday underlined the immense challenges still ahead in containing the deadly pandemic, even as some EU nations reopened their borders to fellow Europeans. More than eight million people have now been infected with the virus worldwide since it first emerged in China late last year -- with more than 435,000 deaths -- and the tolls are still surging in Latin America and South Asia. The latest reminder of the threat came on Tuesday from China, which had largely brought its outbreak under control, as 27 new infections were reported in Beijing, where a new cluster linked to a wholesale food market has sparked mass testing and neighbourhood lockdowns.
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