World News: April 2020

Thursday, 30 April 2020

NASA, Partners Launch Virtual Hackathon to Develop COVID-19 Solutions - NASA

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Senate Democrat says Republican leader's plan to resume work puts lives in danger

A U.S. Senate Democrat on Wednesday accused Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of endangering the lives of Senate staff if he brings them back to work next week without effective safeguards against coronavirus infection in place. Senator Chris Van Hollen, whose state of Maryland contains several suburbs of Washington where federal workers live, said he had written to McConnell to demand details of how staff will be protected when the Senate returns to session on Monday. "I am ready to see senators resume work in the Capitol, but without effective safeguards in place, Mitch McConnell is endangering the lives of the staff who work there – including many of my constituents – and undermining regional efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus," Van Hollen said in a statement.

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One dead, five missing after Canadian helicopter goes missing during NATO exercise

Canadian prime Minister Jusin Trudeau has confirmed that one man has died and five others are missing after a Canadian military helicopter went missing during a NATO operation. Debris and the aircraft's black box have been found in the sea between Greece and Italy, a Greek military officer and public television said Thursday. Canada's armed forces said the helicopter had been involved in an accident after taking off from the Canadian frigate Fredericton on Wednesday. "Debris has been found in Italy's zone of control and intervention" in the Ionian Sea, the Greek military officer told AFP, specifying the wreckage belonged to the Canadian helicopter. Six crew were aboard the helicopter when it disappeared, the officer said on condition of anonymity. Greek public television reported that a body had been found amid the wreckage in international waters off the Greek island of Kefalonia. Greek public television ERT said Italian and NATO vessels were also taking part in the search while Turkey said one of its frigates was also involved. Canada said on Twitter that it contacted the family members of those who were on board the missing CH-148 Cyclone helicopter.

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Philippines rejects China's territorial label on island

The Philippines protested on Thursday China’s designation of a disputed South China Sea reef, which it has turned into a heavily fortified island base, as a Chinese “administrative center.” The Department of Foreign Affairs issued a statement objecting to what it called China’s “illegal designation” of Fiery Cross Reef as a regional administrative center in the hotly contested Spratly archipelago. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused China last week of taking advantage of widespread distraction over the pandemic to advance its territorial claims.

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Cuban embassy in Washington struck by gunfire, suspect arrested

A man armed with a high-powered assault rifle fired multiple rounds at the Cuban embassy in Washington early Thursday, authorities said, damaging the building but without causing any injuries. Police arrested the suspect, identified as 42-year-old Alexander Alazo of Aubrey, Texas. "This morning at approximately 2:15 am, US Secret Service officers responded to the Embassy of Cuba following reports of shots fired," the Secret Service said in a statement.

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‘Women’s Groups’ Sat on Letter Urging Biden to Address Reade Allegation after Campaign Intervened

A coalition of national women's advocacy groups drafted a letter urging Joe Biden to address sexual-assault claims by former staffer Tara Reade, but decided against releasing the letter publicly after the Biden campaign learned of the efforts, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.Instead, the unspecified groups decided to work with Biden advisers to try to pressure the campaign to address the allegations before the end of April, which is designated Sexual Assault Awareness Month.“Vice President Biden has the opportunity, right now, to model how to take serious allegations seriously,” the letter read. “The weight of our expectations matches the magnitude of the office he seeks.”As of April 30, a campaign spokesman has denied the allegations but Biden himself has not spoken about them on the record. The campaign circulated talking points to surrogates advising them to say the alleged incident with Reade “did not happen,” BuzzFeed reported on Tuesday.“It’s difficult for survivors to see that a woman who has more corroborating sources than most survivors have in similar situations is being tossed aside and actively being weaponized by cynical political actors,” Shaunna Thomas, a founder of women's rights advocacy group UltraViolet, which is involved in discussions with the Biden campaign regarding Reade's allegations, told the Times.The Times itself edited a story on Reade's allegation after the campaign complained. Initially, the report included the sentence, “The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable.” The paper subsequently deleted the second half of the sentence.“Even though a lot of us, including me, had looked at it before the story went into the paper, I think that the campaign thought that the phrasing was awkward and made it look like there were other instances in which he had been accused of sexual misconduct, and that’s not what the sentence was intended to say,” Times executive editor Dean Baquet said.As media attention has become more focused on Reade, calls have grown over the past week to release Biden's Senate archive, currently held at the University of Delaware, which may offer new details that shed light on the allegations. Seven members of the university's Board of Trustees, including its chairman, have donated to the Biden campaign and affiliated PAC's.

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Inmates at Parchman's Unit 29 describe life inside notorious cellblock

Four inmates at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman spoke to CBS News in recent days, expressing frustration as they wait to be relocated from the state's oldest prison.

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A NYC coronavirus patient died after inexperienced medical residents set her ventilator too high and it stopped her heart

The incident happened at Montefiore hospital in the Bronx in March, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

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Satellite images reveal Kim Jong-un may be at luxury family villa

New satellite images showing the recent movements of luxury boats by Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, have provided further indications that he may be ensconced in his seaside villa in Wonsan, on the country’s east coast. The location of the reclusive leader has been a mystery since his unprecedented no-show at April 15 events to mark the birthday of his late grandfather and North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung. His absence, for the first time since he took power in 2011, unleashed a torrent of speculation about his health conditions, with unverified and conflicting reports claiming he was both recuperating from cardiovascular surgery and in “grave danger.” On Tuesday, commercial satellite imagery obtained by North Korea-monitoring website NK PRO showed boats often used by Kim had made movements in patterns that suggested he or his entourage may be in the Wonsan area. “Extensive analysis shows that similar leisure boat movements at an exclusive villa in Wonsan and a nearby island near the Kalma peninsula have aligned with Kim’s public appearances in the area in every one of a half-dozen instances since last summer, and many more dating back to 2013,” it said. The imagery adds to earlier satellite pictures studied by the Washington-based North Korea monitoring project 38 North, which appeared to show that a train similar to Kim’s was parked in the resort’s so-called “leadership station” reserved for the use of the Kim family a week ago.

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Pompeo criticizes S.Africa, Qatar for taking Cuban doctors

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday criticized South Africa and Qatar for accepting doctors from Cuba to battle the coronavirus, accusing the communist island of profiting from the pandemic. Cuba's globe-trotting doctors have long been a source of diplomatic soft power and pride for Havana, but Washington says the medical workers only benefit the government and has encouraged them to defect. "We've noticed how the regime in Havana has taken advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to continue its exploitation of Cuban medical workers," Pompeo told reporters.

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Most of U.S. House urges more diplomacy at U.N. to renew Iran arms embargo: sources

Nearly 90% of U.S. House of Representatives members have signed a letter urging the Trump administration to increase its diplomatic action at the United Nations to renew an arms embargo on Iran, congressional sources said on Thursday. In a rare show of bipartisanship, at least 382 of the 429 members of the Democratic-controlled House - Democrats and Republicans - have signed the letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to work with U.S. allies and partners to extend the embargo, as well as U.N. travel restrictions on Iranians involved with arms proliferation. "The U.N. arms embargo is set to expire in October, and we are concerned that the ban's expiration will lead to more states buying and selling weapons to and from Iran," said the letter, seen by Reuters and led by Representatives Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Mike McCaul, the committee's top Republican.

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80,000 cruise workers are still stuck aboard ships in US waters. Staff members say it's 'embarrassing' they're not allowed to disembark.

Up to 80,000 crew members are stuck on 120 cruise ships on US waters, and it's unclear when they'll touch land again.

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30 Easy Side Dishes For Lasagna

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FDA reportedly plans to authorize emergency use of largely untested drug to treat coronavirus

The Food and Drug Administration will authorize the emergency use of the antiviral remdesivir on COVID-19 patients as soon as Wednesday, a senior administration official told The New York Times. Pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences revealed promising study results involving remdesivir on Wednesday, but the FDA's reported move would still sidestep the usual testing required to authorize a drug's usage.Gilead said Wednesday that its own trial, as well one overseen by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, met its goals. Of the study's 397 severe COVID-19 patients, at least 50 percent of patients treated with a 5-day dosage of remdesivir improved and more than half were discharged from the hospital within two weeks. The overall mortality rate of the study was 7 percent, and relatively few patients developed bad side effects. But the study wasn't evaluated against a control group, and it's unclear if those recoveries were natural or if remdesivir actually had something to do with them. Hard data from the study also hasn't been released yet.Anecdotal reports, including two published in The New England Journal of Medicine, provided more credibility for remdesivir in the coronavirus fight. But they also didn't compared the drug against a placebo. A study published in The Lancet concluded remdesivir was "safe and adequately tolerated" but "did not provide significant benefits over placebo."More stories from theweek.com Trump's 'mission accomplished' moment Gun-toting protesters' dramatic stand inside Michigan's statehouse, in 5 photos and videos The Justice Department is apparently working with conservative Christian groups to fight COVID-19 policies

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Half of U.S. states easing coronavirus restrictions as jobless numbers grow

As White House economic reopening guidance expired on Thursday after two weeks in place, half of all U.S. states forged ahead with easing restrictions on restaurants, retail and other businesses in hopes of reviving coronavirus-stricken commerce.

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Satellite images of luxury boats further suggest North Korea's Kim at favoured villa: experts

Satellite imagery showing recent movements of luxury boats often used by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his entourage near Wonsan provide further indications he has been at the coastal resort, according to experts who monitor the reclusive regime. Speculation about Kim's health and location erupted after his unprecedented absence from April 15 celebrations to mark the birthday of his late grandfather and North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung. On Tuesday, North Korea-monitoring website NK PRO reported commercial satellite imagery showed boats often used by Kim had made movements in patterns that suggested he or his entourage may be in the Wonsan area.

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Coronavirus: 'I'm being penalised because I took maternity leave'

Self-employed women say they are missing out on government support as they've recently taken leave.

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Debt warning over car finance payment holidays

Families say they have been trying for six weeks to secure a lockdown car finance payment holiday.

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We found and tested 47 old drugs that might treat the coronavirus: Results show promising leads and a whole new way to fight COVID-19 - The Conversation US

We found and tested 47 old drugs that might treat the coronavirus: Results show promising leads and a whole new way to fight COVID-19 The Conversation USView Full Coverage on Google News

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Fact check: Trump says the U.S. ready to contain COVID-19 with contact tracing. Experts disagree. - News Info Park

Fact check: Trump says the U.S. ready to contain COVID-19 with contact tracing. Experts disagree. News Info Park
Why contact tracing is vital to fighting coronavirus Washington Post
Elmridge Golf Course looking to build solar energy facility on some holes theday.com
What exactly is contact tracing? Hopkins doctors explain WBAL-TV 11 Baltimore
Ragtag army of coronavirus tracers shapes up with Mass., other states hiring fast Boston.com
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Contact tracing is the next big hurdle in the push to re-open cities - Axios

Contact tracing is the next big hurdle in the push to re-open cities AxiosView Full Coverage on Google News

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Heart disease main underlying condition in coronavirus deaths in Oregon - KATU

Heart disease main underlying condition in coronavirus deaths in Oregon KATUView Full Coverage on Google News

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Coronavirus wiped out family over the course of three horrific weekends - Metro.co.uk

Coronavirus wiped out family over the course of three horrific weekends Metro.co.uk
ER nurse who died of COVID-19 documented her fight on camera CBS This Morning
3 in the same family die from COVID-19, sister recovering WCTV
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Wednesday, 29 April 2020

'A drug can block this virus': Fauci hails Covid-19 treatment breakthrough

Positive data from the NIAID trial would be a landmark in the race to find a coronavirus treatment.

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Taiwan's Coronavirus Moment — And Delicate Balancing Act - NPR

Taiwan's Coronavirus Moment — And Delicate Balancing Act NPR
Taiwan Emerging From Pandemic With a Stronger Hand Against China Bloomberg
US reportedly supports Taiwan participating in WHO events New York Post
Taiwan Pushes WHO Participation in Rare Ministerial Call With U.S. The New York Times
U.S. Makes Rare Nod Toward Taiwan With Call to Discuss Virus Bloomberg
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Religious freedom watchdog pitches adding India to blacklist

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is urging that the State Department add India to its list of nations with uniquely poor records on protecting freedom to worship — while proposing to remove Sudan and Uzbekistan from that list. The bipartisan commission, created in 1998 by Congress to make policy recommendations about global religious freedom, proposed designating India as a “country of particular concern” in the annual report it released Tuesday. President Donald Trump declined to criticize the citizenship measure during his February visit to India, where his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi was punctuated by skirmishes between Hindus and Muslims.

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British PM Johnson's fiancée gives birth to boy amid coronavirus crisis - Reuters

British PM Johnson's fiancée gives birth to boy amid coronavirus crisis Reuters
Boris Johnson and fiancee Carrie Symonds announce birth of their son The Washington Post
Labour MP deletes tweet criticising Boris Johnson for attending the birth of his son Daily Mail
Boris Johnson becomes fourth Prime Minister in 170 years to have child in Downing Street Telegraph.co.uk
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To Confront China After Coronavirus, We Must See the Bigger Picture

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE I n a popular movie two decades ago, hard-eyed criminals released into Sydney a woman infected with a virus, knowing that unsuspecting Australians would catch the highly contagious disease and, traveling on, unwittingly spread death across a hundred homelands. This past winter, the hard-eyed leaders of China did worse. They allowed not one, but thousands of infected to leave China and enter an unsuspecting world, a world lulled by Beijing. The crucial question is: Why?“China caused an enormous amount of pain [and] loss of life . . . by not sharing the information they had,” Secretary of State Pompeo said on April 23. America is angry, he added, and while much remains to be known, China “will pay a price.”No subpoenas, no oversight committees, no tell-all books will expose President Xi’s calculations as the novel coronavirus spread inside China. The unelected of Beijing guard well their secret debates. The CCP knows the virtues of opacity, of letting uncertainty, complacency, and wishful thinking paralyze the West. Exploiting these has been its way.In 2018, a major Trump-administration speech called CCP misdeeds to task. Some, including, notably, Japan’s prime minister, applauded. But many nations looked toward their feet, too reluctant, too sophisticated, perhaps too intimidated to bestir. Staggering COVID-19 losses may yet remind the world of the dangers of drift as great powers go astray.Today’s American, European, Japanese, and Asian policymakers, like those of centuries past, bear the burdens of judgment. Uncertainty has ever been the statesman’s curse. America’s famed diplomat, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, has written, “Nations learn only by experience, they ‘know’ only when it is too late to act. But statesmen must act as if their intuition were already experience. . . .”A reassessment of Xi and the CCP looms. From their actions and practices, from assessments of their motives and apparent long-term aims, today’s statesmen, like their forebears, must judge future risks and craft the surest course ahead. These are early days, but the picture of Beijing presented so far is troubling.Even before the virus spread in Wuhan, Xi brooded over a worrying hand. The CCP could not intimidate prolonged protests on the streets of freedom-loving Hong Kong. And the Party’s oppression there, in determined violation of treaty commitments, spurred voters in Taiwan to rebuff Beijing’s hopes for a more amenable regime in Taipei. The world was finally awakening to Xi’s increasingly autocratic surveillance state, his harsh repression of Uighur Muslims, and his predatory Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China’s economy, essential to Xi’s hold on power, had stumbled, in part because of the Trump administration’s move to counter China’s unfair, neo-mercantilist practices and to condemn their grim geopolitical implications. Worse yet, America’s markets hummed, raising reelection hopes within the Trump administration, which had also surpassed modern predecessors in challenging China. Rumors of Party dissatisfaction with Xi seeped out.COVID-19’s outbreak in Wuhan further darkened Xi’s prospects. As long as the virus raged primarily inside China -- derailing only her economy, stigmatizing only her government -- his troubles would soar. All the while, the world predictably would have leapt ahead, taking Chinese customers, stealing China’s long-sought glory.The disease’s spread to Berlin and Paris, New York and Tokyo, improved Xi’s prospects, at least in the near term. Pandemic diverted foreign eyes from Hong Kong’s and the Uighurs’ plight. Desperate needs rendered disease-weakened nations more susceptible to China’s goods and BRI’s short-term appeal. Asian states, wary of Beijing, had new cause to doubt the commitment of a pandemic-preoccupied Washington, while a weakened economy and vastly increased debts would likely constrain future U.S. defense spending, essential to Asian security. An unpredictable element had entered into America’s 2020 election.As events unfolded, might Xi have recognized that COVID-19’s leap into the wider world promised such political and geopolitical gains? Some say a desire to protect itself first fed a CCP cover-up, as if putting this before the health of innocents were not bad enough. But were CCP leaders blind, as days passed, to other benefits? It is the Chinese way, the noted French Sinologist François Jullien has written, to exploit the potential inherent in unfolding situations. CCP leaders still study China’s legendary strategist, Sun Tzu, who advised centuries ago that if, “in the midst of difficulties, we are always ready to seize an advantage, we may extricate ourselves from misfortune.”As the CCP realized the imminent disaster COVID-19 posed inside China, Xi suppressed the world’s appreciation of its dangers. By sometime in December, Chinese authorities had learned that a novel, highly infectious coronavirus similar to deadly SARS was on the loose. Yet for weeks PRC authorities, including China’ National Health Commission, suppressed inquiries and, directly or through the WHO, misled the world about the risks. When Chinese authorities finally acknowledged human-to-human transmission, the CCP took steps to isolate Wuhan from other parts of China, but continued to permit international travel. After the U.S. on January 31, and later Australia, restricted travelers from China, Beijing’s spokesmen, artful and indignant, rose to denounce such acts as ill-founded and ill-intentioned.For days, even weeks, after the CCP first knew of the danger, Chinese authorities and customs officers let tens of thousands of travelers, infected among them, leave China and enter an unwary world. In late January, China extended Lunar New Year celebrations, inviting greater international travel. PRC border guards stamped more exit papers. When America restricted such travelers, Beijing allowed more to leave for less cautious lands.Then, as pandemic gripped the world, the CCP brazenly blamed America for COVID-19. Xi once more preened over his authoritarian “China model’s” efficiencies, now cauterizing troubles he denies having caused. In Europe, Beijing postured as a savior offering needed medical supplies -- albeit that its sales favored states where it sought geopolitical gains, often bore high prices, included defective products that could undermine defenses, and drew on CCP surpluses bolstered by January purchases of world supplies at pre-pandemic prices. In Southeast Asia, Beijing proved “relentless in exploiting the pandemic,” a respected, former high-level Filipino bemoans, as it pushed its “illegal and expansive” territorial claims. Inside China, the Party seized the moment to round up leaders of Hong Kong’s democracy movement and reassert unilateral efforts to curtail the city’s special, self-governing status.Even after the virus began to spread inside China, events might have taken a different course. Many had once hoped for better from CCP leaders. Dreams of a mellowing CCP had floated widely among academics and policy elites, perhaps buoyed by the way such illusions avoided, rather than imposed, hard choices. Some yet hold to such views. The benign CCP of their reveries would have alerted others promptly as the novel virus’s dangers became known, shared information, welcomed foreign scientists, ceased reckless practices, and guarded against the pandemic’s spread.Indeed, under different leadership, China could have followed such a path. Traditions of humane governance, venerable and Confucian, are not alien to that land. China’s ancient text, the Tao-te Ching, favors just such a response:> A great nation is like a man:> > When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.> > Having realized, he admits it.> > Having admitted it, he corrects it.> > He considers those who point out his faults> > As his most benevolent teachers.The learned will debate how much such leadership would have eased the wider world’s suffering. Metrics and estimates will vary, but the consensus will be clear enough: The harm would have decreased manyfold.Such openness and grace have not been Xi’s way. As he built up islets in the South China Sea, he promised never to militarize them, then dishonored his promise, disregarded international rulings, and dispatched ships in packs to intimidate neighboring states and expand Beijing’s writ. Pledging to protect intellectual property, he enabled ongoing theft and coercion, ineluctably undermining industries of the advanced democracies, and then pressed forward on China’s newly gained advantages. His BRI professes to aid, then exploits poor countries’ weaknesses. Citing the betterment of all in the cause of greater China, he has imprisoned Uighurs, undermined Tibetan culture, and threatened the peaceful regional order that had enabled China’s rise. He violates treaty commitments to curb Hong Kong’s freedoms. Behind an anti-corruption façade, his prosecutors ruined scores of his rivals, as he consolidated and extended his personal powers. These wrongs he continues still. Xi’s are not the ways of grace and remorse.An angry narrative drives this man. Under his hand, the CCP highlights Chinese suffering and humiliation roughly a century ago under Western and Japanese imperialists, while eliding the democratic world’s helping hand and Japan’s benign democracy over four generations since. He slides past the Chinese millions massacred in the intervening decades by the CCP and Mao -- China’s legendary leader who spread cruelty and death as he judged useful. In imitation of Mao, Xi has issued his own “little red book” of wisdom. Mao’s iconic image looms over Tiananmen still. Coveting Mao’s autocratic power, Xi strove and won it; now he dare not let it go.The bitter recall of ancient Chinese glories; resentment of past humiliations; insecurity bred by corruption and illegitimacy; disdain, even hatred of America’s easy ways -- these are the pathogens coursing through Xi’s circle. A fever for Chinese primacy burns among them. For a time, they might pander to a Western-inspired, rules-based order, a liberal conceit; but this is not their dream. A historic economic rise, technological mastery, a rapidly expanding navy, all causes to be proud of, have freed them to be brazen. Xi now bares the teeth Deng Xiaoping’s smile hid. From South China Sea islets to the New Silk Road’s arid ends, the CCP, ruthless and defiant, pounds the stakes it holds to advance its aims. For Xi’s CCP, it is the fate of small states to bend to the strong.Rules should soon be theirs to set, the CCP believes, and not without some reason. Before Trump, a subtle and experienced Chinese diplomat confessed, CCP leaders marveled at America’s ineffectual response. In the South and East China Seas, on India’s long border, Beijing’s hostile and determined quest had followed Lenin’s line: “Probe with bayonets, if you find mush, you push; if you find steel, you withdraw.” It is to our shame, Trump observed on China’s unfair trade practices, that Beijing had not been held to account by prior administrations. Unanswered, history has shown, the ambitious calculate and, at times, miscalculate.In past American forbearance, CCP leaders have seen a once great power on the wane. In foreign capitals they confided, inside China they proclaimed: It will soon be America’s turn to bend. They claim their own version of the right side of history.The keys to victory, Sun Tzu counseled, lie in knowing your enemy and deceiving them. The cunning men of Beijing have taken heed. They have an instinct for a divided, self-doubting, and weary West. Cloaking their aggressions in ambiguity, they weigh the likely costs against desired gains.Straining to contain COVID-19, President Trump and Secretary Pompeo rightly extend a hand to international, including Chinese, cooperation. But in post-pandemic days to come, the democracies must carefully take the measure of the CCP and hold it to account, crafting strategies for what it is, not what they wish it to be. That is leadership’s task.The late, great professor Fouad Ajami warned, “Men love the troubles they know” -- too ready to slip into a comfortable neglect, too reluctant to face strategic change. Some cite an arc of history, he lamented, to hide behind, hoping it might bear the burdens they would rather shun.With all doubts resolved in their favor, the untouchable leaders of the CCP have much for which to answer. Perhaps in reality, even more.In a time of death, Ajami cautioned: “There is no fated happiness or civility in any land.” As a great river may abruptly rise or fall, “Those gauges on the banks will have to be read and watched with care.”

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Canadian helicopter missing off Greece - BBC News

Canadian helicopter missing off Greece BBC News
Canadian Helicopter Engaged in NATO Exercises Missing Off Greek Coast The New York Times
Military Helicopter Lost in Sea Between Italy and Greece The New York Times
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Costco to require face coverings for shoppers

Starting Monday, customers will be required to wear masks covering their nose and mouth at all times while inside the store.

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Coronavirus deaths top 60,000 in US. ‘We learned a lot of lessons here, painfully’ - Kansas City Star

Coronavirus deaths top 60,000 in US. ‘We learned a lot of lessons here, painfully’ Kansas City StarView Full Coverage on Google News

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South Korea minister, U.S. sources, say Kim may be sheltering from virus

Fear of the coronavirus could have been keeping North Korean leader Kim Jong Un out of public sight, a South Korean minister and U.S. sources said on Tuesday, following intense speculation and concern as to his whereabouts and health. Under Kim's rule since 2011, North Korea has expanded its arsenal of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, and with no obvious successor, any change in leadership in the secretive, authoritarian state would raise concerns about instability that could impact other North Asian countries and the United States. Speculation about Kim's health erupted after his unprecedented absence from April 15 celebrations to mark the birthday of his late grandfather and North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung.

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Trump says federal social distancing guidelines are "fading out" - CBS News

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New Model Shows How Deadly Lifting Georgia’s Lockdown May Be

Gov. Brian Kemp’s aggressive scheme to lift Georgia out of COVID-19 lockdown may cost many thousands of lives, according to models prepared by epidemiologists and computer scientists at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in partnership with The Daily Beast.The findings come as governors across the United States aim to restore economic activity following months of pandemic-related infections and over 50,000 deaths—a number widely understood to be an undercount. Meanwhile, over 26 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits in recent weeks, a number that is itself a likely undercount of the economic toll.Georgia’s Kemp has perhaps been the boldest of any governor about moving on, issuing a pair of executive orders allowing fitness centers, tattoo and massage parlors, bowling alleys, and hair salons to reopen last Friday with some mitigation measures. Other businesses, like restaurants and theaters, began opening Monday. The state’s shelter-in-place decree, meanwhile, was slated to expire on Thursday.Those policies are placing Georgians at spectacular risk, the new models found. ‘Dying to Bowl’: Georgia Flirts With Disaster as Lockdown EasesAs of Friday, by official counts in Georgia, at least 871 people statewide had lost their lives to COVID-19. If Georgia had maintained its pre-Friday lockdown policy, the Harvard/MIT team’s simulation—which used data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center and accounts for local demographics and health conditions based on Census and survey data—estimated the state would have logged a total of between 1,004 and 2,922 coronavirus fatalities by June 15. That fatality range, like all such ranges detailed in this article, includes deaths that had already been documented (in this case, 871).By contrast, under Kemp’s current plan to reopen, if approved businesses returned to just 50 percent of their pre-pandemic activity (or “contact”) levels, that range could reach 1,604 to 4,236 deaths. At 100 percent of pre-shutdown activity, the projected final body count could soar to a range between 4,279 and 9,748.Even if employee-on-employee contact returned to just one-quarter of what it was before the disease hit, and interactions among the general public—beginning April 30—reached 20 percent of the old norm, the researchers projected that deaths in the state could hit 3,563.“What we find, no matter what we assume, is that reopening on Monday was just too early,” said Jackson Killian, Ph.D. student at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, who worked on the models. “If you let people go out and have contact again now, you end up causing deaths that could have been avoided.”Based on the nature and speed of COVID-19’s spread through Georgia, Killian and his team estimated the virus may have arrived in the state as early as Feb. 1, or at least weeks before the first diagnosed cases—a possibility Kemp himself has acknowledged. To be clear, the models cannot prove or verify that the first infection happened on that date, but used it as an assumed start date based on the available information and the spread to date. The governor’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story.For their part, the team behind the models framed their approach not as an argument for absolutes, but a testament to dire stakes. “The stay-at-home orders cannot go on indefinitely,” said Maimuna Majumder, faculty member at the Computational Health Informatics Program and Harvard Medical School who led the creation of the models in partnership with Milind Tambe, a professor of computer science and director of Harvard’s Center for Research on Computation and Society. Instead, she emphasized the need for a “new normal [that] still allows people to go back to work” and that acknowledges “each of us can make a difference by physically distancing ourselves at, for example, grocery stores.”Turgay Ayer, an associate professor at Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, recently released a state-by-state COVID-19 simulator with colleagues at Harvard and researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital that he said found results “in line” with the estimations from the Harvard- MIT group.Ayer’s simulator showed that—under minimal restrictions, with no other interventions—there could be up to 20,000 deaths by Aug. 30 in Georgia, but he noted that was a worst-case scenario he didn’t expect to see. That’s because he believes politicians like Kemp will reimplement some restrictions once a resurgence of infections appears.“Once we start to see a second spike in infections in late July and early August, the policymakers will put some of these social distancing measurements back in place,” said Ayer. But the numbers do show one thing very clearly, he said: “If you lift the restriction too soon, a second wave will come, and the damage will be substantial both medically and economically. We don’t want to throw away the sacrifices we have made for weeks now.”The Harvard and MIT modelers working with The Daily Beast also looked at two neighboring states that, like Georgia, were hesitant to implement shutdowns in the first place, and are now mulling their own reopening plans: Florida and Mississippi. The results were similarly alarming.To be sure, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves have been more cautious than Kemp. DeSantis has, so far, mostly kept his state’s social distancing measures in place, while allowing localities to reopen beaches. He has also convened a Re-Open Florida Task Force to present a program for resuscitating commerce in the Sunshine State. The shelter-in-place order in Florida, like that in its neighbor to the north, was scheduled to sunset at month’s end. As of Friday, 987 Florida residents had been identified by the state as having died from COVID-19. Should DeSantis back off plans to reopen businesses and renew his stay-at-home decree through June 15, the Harvard/MIT/Daily Beast model projected his state would witness a total number of deaths as small as 988 or as large as 3,014 due to the virus.But if DeSantis had implemented Kemp’s aggressive reopening policies in recent days, the loss of life might have escalated to a range of 1,273 to 4,106 fatalities in the lowest-contact scenario, or even as high as 15,523 deaths if businesses returned to their pre-COVID-19 levels. DeSantis’ office did not reply to repeated inquiries from The Daily Beast.Reeves, meanwhile, appears to be plotting a course between Kemp’s attempted renaissance and a more prolonged shutdown. The Mississippi governor inked a decree on April 24—by which point 201 of his constituents had been identified as having died of COVID-19-related causes—that will keep the state’s gyms, salons, and theaters mostly closed and continue to limit eateries to take-out and delivery. But it will enable other retail stores to reopen at 50 percent capacity and for elective surgeries to resume. This fiat superseded an earlier shelter-in-place order with a looser “safer at home” policy, which is scheduled to remain in effect through May 11. The group from Harvard and MIT did not have the opportunity to model that new agenda in their simulation.Still, the team determined that had Reeves left his old order in place he could have contained the death toll to a range between 213 and 640 by June 15. Were he instead to have followed Kemp’s lead, the range of deaths might have spiked to between 1,865 to 3,463, assuming Mississippi businesses and patrons returned to their pre-pandemic habits.“There is no higher priority for Governor Reeves than ensuring the health and well-being of all Mississippians,” said a spokeswoman for his office, Renae Eze, noting the virus’ present impact on the state has been substantially less severe than the worst projections. “Thanks to the strategy executed by the governor and our state health officials, our testing is robust, our numbers are low, and our curve is flattening.”Regardless of how credible claims of flattening curves may be when testing remains so scant, the analysis performed by the Harvard and MIT team showed these same governors could have saved many of their constituents had they ordered social distancing sooner. Had Kemp instated his shelter-in-place order on March 23 (when New York City instituted its policy) instead of the date he actually did—April 3—the analysis found his state could have seen as few as 148 COVID-19 deaths by April 24 and possibly no more than 427, far lower than the actual documented count of 871.Likewise, the simulation projected that had DeSantis locked down Florida on March 23 instead of April 3, the tally of fatalities in his state on Friday could have fallen to somewhere between 103 and 376, rather than the actual total of 987. If Reeves had acted on the earlier date, only 36 to 111 Mississippians might have died because of the virus as of April 24, instead of 201.Of course, the Harvard and MIT models—like all such models—has critics. Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, an adjunct professor of epidemiology at the University of California Los Angeles who previously worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, acknowledged the analysis and similar simulations “can help policy-makers frame a response.” But he argued such projections “overinterpret the benefit of stay-at-home orders” and underestimate the impact of other factors that go into determining the infection’s reproduction number.“It’s very difficult to input the right assumptions to get a useful outcome,” added Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University and an expert on U.S. readiness for pandemics. “The infectivity of the virus, people following these rules, containment—you don’t really know what you’re dealing with.”Southern Tourist Hotspot Terrified of Post-Lockdown ExplosionStill, Redlener said, it’s too soon to reopen states without enough tests and contact-tracing to keep track of a resurgence of infections. “It’s not responsible of governors to rush into a return to business as usual, even if it’s relatively slow,“ he said. “This is a serious risk. We’re playing with fire.”Tambe, who co-created the models with Majumder and their team, acknowledged they may not map precisely onto reality. Still, he questioned whether the other factors model detractors cited—more diligent hand-washing and mask-wearing—would improve broadly enough in the weeks ahead to have an impact comparable to government orders. And he asserted that the purpose of the simulations was less to provide flawless predictions than to inform elected leaders and health officials as they consider methods to revive sedated economies.“We’re not saying this is the answer,” he said, acknowledging that a permanent lockdown was impracticable. “It’s one in the arsenal of tools that policymakers may employ.”When presented with doubts about the benefits of projecting pandemic death, Ayer—the Georgia Tech modeler—responded by quoting British statistician George E. P. Box, who famously said: “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” In an absence of sufficient data to look back on—a real problem for a pandemic experts are still learning about every day—no model will be perfect, Ayer said. But a careful and meticulous one is a much better alternative for policy-makers to “having no models and relying on gut feeling.”The idea, Ayer added, is to look at the dozens of models currently available and see where the similarities lie, what the trends are, and what is likely to happen over time, as opposed to focusing on specific numbers.“A lot of experts have said that lifting restrictions too soon would lead to a second wave, and that’s what a lot of the research has shown,” said Ayer. “All of the modelers are using the best available evidence out there, but our understanding of the disease is evolving over time.”Or as Majumder put it, “A model is only as good as the assumptions we put into it, and when we have a novel pandemic, our knowledge is changing every second.”The models provided for this story were created by Jackson A. Killian, a Ph.D. student at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Marie Charpignon, a Ph.D. student at MIT's Institute for Data, Systems, and Society; Bryan Wilder, a Ph.D. student at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Andrew Perrault, a Postdoctoral researcher at Harvard’s Center for Research on Computation and Society; Milind Tambe, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science and Director of Harvard’s Center for Research on Computation and Society; and Maimuna S. Majumder, faculty at the Computational Health Informatics Program (CHIP) based out of Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Police protecting Prague mayor after 'Russian murder plot' - BBC News

Police protecting Prague mayor after 'Russian murder plot' BBC NewsView Full Coverage on Google News

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New report says SLS rocket managers concerned about fuel leaks - Ars Technica

New report says SLS rocket managers concerned about fuel leaks Ars Technica
Rocket Lab rolls out first Electron at LC-2 ahead of Q3 2020 launch NASASpaceflight.com
Rocket Lab takes giant step toward first US launch New Zealand Herald
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Coronavirus kills 70 veterans at Massachusetts care home

Officials are investigating if residents received proper medical care at the Massachusetts home.

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Irrfan Khan: The Bollywood star loved by Hollywood

Irrfan Khan's biographer, Aseem Chhabra, writes about the life of one of Bollywood's biggest stars.

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Coronavirus: Searching for truth behind Spain's care home tragedy

Families want to know why so many of their elderly relatives have died.

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Coronavirus: Japan's low testing rate raises questions

Japan's relatively low rate of virus testing raises questions about how it has tackled the pandemic.

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Training AI 'to translate mum's phone messages'

How African researchers are using the continent's languages to help spur innovation in Artificial Intelligence.

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Staging a 'socially distanced' boxing match

Inside the Nicaraguan boxing event that caught the world's attention during the pandemic.

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Coronavirus: Why the fashion industry faces an 'existential crisis'

"No-one wants to buy clothes to sit at home in," as Next's chief executive Simon Wolfson puts it.

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Coronavirus: Why so many US nurses are out of work

At a time when many healthcare workers are risking their lives, some face pay cuts and job loss.

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How will airlines get flying again?

When passenger planes start flying again, the world of air travel will be very different.

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Online demand for hydroxychloroquine surged 1,000% after Trump backed it, study finds - The Guardian

Online demand for hydroxychloroquine surged 1,000% after Trump backed it, study finds The Guardian
Coronavirus: ‘Troublesome’ spike in searches for unproven drugs endorsed by Donald Trump Yahoo Lifestyle
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Coronavirus: Surge in people trying to buy unproven 'cures' promoted by Trump and Elon Musk, study finds The Independent
High-profile endorsements fuel virus misinformation The Canberra Times
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Tuesday, 28 April 2020

North Korea's Kim 'alive and well': Seoul

Conjecture over Kim has grown since his conspicuous no-show at April 15 celebrations for the birthday of his grandfather Kim Il Sung, the North's founder -- the most important day in the country's political calendar. "Our government position is firm," said Moon's special adviser on national security Moon Chung-in, in an interview with CNN on Sunday. "Kim Jong Un is alive and well."

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'Naked concerns': Doctors strip down to protest lack of protective equipment

In one of the photos a doctor holds up a sign which reads in German, “I learned to sew wounds. Why do I now need to know how to sew masks?”

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US was warned of threat from anti-vaxxers in event of pandemic

FBI-connected researchers suggested biggest threat in controlling outbreak was from ‘those who categorically reject vaccination’America’s “anti-vaxxer movement” would pose a threat to national security in the event of a “pandemic with a novel organism”, an FBI-connected non-profit research group warned last year, just months before the global coronavirus pandemic began.In a research paper put out by the little-known in-house journal of InfraGard – a national security group affiliated with the FBI – experts warned the US anti-vaccine movement would also be connected with “social media misinformation and propaganda campaigns” orchestrated by the Russian government.Since the virus hit America, anti-vaccination activists and some sympathetic legislators around the country have led or participated in protests against stay-at-home orders designed to slow the spread of the deadly virus. More than 50,000 people have died in the US.On its website, InfraGard says it is an “FBI-affiliated nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening national security” with a mission to protect “United States critical infrastructure”. It says it consists of local chapters and that “an FBI special agent from each field office is assigned to serve as a private sector coordinator”.The paper, jointly written by a security consultant and a senior doctor in New York State’s largest hospital network, warned: “The biggest threat in controlling an outbreak comes from those who categorically reject vaccination.”The paper, entitled The Anti-Vaxxers Movement and National Security, was co-written by Dr Mark Jarrett, the chief quality officer, senior vice-president and associate chief medical officer at Northwell Health; and Christine Sublett, a health industry-focused cybersecurity consultant.It lays out a pandemic scenario remarkably similar to the one now afflicting the US along with most of the world, including that “social distancing and isolation have impacts that include loss of manufactured goods, reduced food supply, and other disruptions to the supply chain”.The article then turns to the anti-vaccine movement, arguing that sufficient resistance to vaccination would hobble the chances of reaching herd immunity to a highly infectious pathogen.The paper also says that such movements have received a boost in recent years due to their “alignment with other conspiracy movements including the far right … and social media misinformation and propaganda campaigns by many foreign and domestic actors. Included among these actors is the Internet Research Agency, the Russian government–aligned organization.”Ben Harris-Roxas at the University of New South Wales, an expert on public health, endorsed the epidemiological reasoning in the paper.“Vaccine hesitancy represents a significant threat – not just for any Covid-19 vaccine that might be developed, but also to measures that might assist people and health services now, such as people getting flu vaccinations,” he said.Others expressed concerns about the implications of a paper defining a specific group as a national security threat being published under the imprimatur of the FBI.Michael German, a Brennan Center fellow and former FBI agent and whistleblower, said he was worried about the unintended consequences of defining a group as a national security threat based on their beliefs, and how that might feed into both policy and law enforcement decisions.“You can imagine some young police officer who’s trying to do a good job protecting his or her community. And all of a sudden he’s told that anti-vaxxers are Russian agents.”German added that “the lack of proper government preparation and stockpiles of medical materials to respond to a pandemic was a much more serious problem than the influence of a relatively small group of anti-vaxxers could ever be, but it is hard to argue with the need for a science-based policy approach”.InfraGard has been criticized by civil liberties groups from its origins as a security national entity and links to the FBI. An FBI spokesperson said: “InfraGard is a non-profit organization serving as a public-private partnership among US businesses, individuals, and the FBI.”The spokesperson added, “It is important to distinguish among the statements, views, and comments made by official FBI representatives and InfraGard Members”, and declined further comment.InfraGard Journal’s editor, Dr Ryan Williams, said in a telephone conversation that the journal was peer-reviewed, but received an additional layer of oversight from InfraGard’s board, which includes senior FBI officials and representatives from other partner groups.Dr Jarrett said the paper had been inspired by the experience of the measles outbreak of early 2019, and its predictions were being borne out in the current crisis.“Take the pandemic now,” he said. “If they come out with a vaccine and you have 15% of people saying, ‘I don’t want to take it, I don’t believe in it, it’s going to cause harm’, you’re never going to get up to the level of herd immunity to really shut off the process.”