| 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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| North Korea's Kim getting treatment after cardiovascular procedure: report Posted: 20 Apr 2020 05:20 PM PDT  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is receiving treatment after undergoing a cardiovascular procedure early this month, a South Korean media report said, amid speculation over Kim's health following his absence from a key anniversary event. Daily NK, a speciality website run mostly by North Korean defectors, cited unidentified sources inside the isolated state saying Kim is recovering at a villa in the Mount Kumgang resort county of Hyangsan on the east coast after getting the procedure on April 12 at a hospital there. Reporting from inside North Korea is notoriously difficult, especially on matters concerning the country's leadership, given tight controls on information.
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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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| 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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| 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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| ‘Cartels are scrambling’: Virus snarls global drug trade Posted: 19 Apr 2020 07:18 AM PDT  Coronavirus is dealing a gut punch to the illegal drug trade, paralyzing economies, closing borders and severing supply chains in China that traffickers rely on for the chemicals to make such profitable drugs as methamphetamine and fentanyl. One of the main suppliers that shut down is in Wuhan, the epicenter of the global outbreak. Associated Press interviews with nearly two dozen law enforcement officials and trafficking experts found Mexican and Colombian cartels are still plying their trade as evidenced by recent drug seizures but the lockdowns that have turned cities into ghost towns are disrupting everything from production to transport to sales.
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| 'Everyone Was Screaming at Them.' The Story Behind Those Photos of the Counter-Protesting Health Care Workers Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:10 PM PDT  Photographer Alyson McClaran shares the story behind the viral photos of the healthcare workers blocking the coronavirus lockdown protesters.
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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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| 20 Weird Facts About Earth To Remind You Why It's The Best Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:52 PM 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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| 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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| Canada killer's 12-hour rampage is one of worst gun massacres in nation's history Posted: 19 Apr 2020 05:10 PM PDT  Residents of a small town in Nova Scotia, Canada woke up on Sunday to chaos as police hunted a mass shooter who had left a trail of bodies and burning buildings behind him. By the end of the ordeal, at least 10 people were killed, including one member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.Though mass shootings are far more prevalent in Canada's neighbour to the south, the country has weathered its own share of tragic violence at the hands of gunmen.
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| Poisonings linked to cleaning supplies spike in US during pandemic Posted: 20 Apr 2020 01:50 PM PDT  Calls to US poison centers have risen 20 percent this year because of exposure to bleach and other disinfectants, health authorities said Monday, linking the surge to COVID-19 cleaning recommendations. From January to March 2020, poison centers received 45,550 calls about dangerous exposure to cleaning chemicals, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a report, up from 37,822 the year before. Exposure to bleaches, non-alcoholic disinfectants and hand sanitizers all saw sharp rises, with the main route being inhalation.
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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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| Nearly all abortions in Texas must stop, appeals court rules Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:13 PM PDT  The vast majority of abortion services will again be halted in Texas.
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| Turkey says Syria violating truce in rebel-held north Posted: 20 Apr 2020 11:19 AM PDT |
| 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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| 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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| China may be keeping coronavirus data for commercial gain: Trump adviser Posted: 20 Apr 2020 03:52 PM PDT |
| 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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| Elon Musk claims in a tweet that Tesla's Cybertruck can float "for a while" Posted: 20 Apr 2020 10:55 AM PDT  Musk has a history of dropping vague references on Twitter to obscure Tesla car capabilities without offering much detail.
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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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| 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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| The Next Coronavirus Nightmare Is What Happens After the ICU Posted: 19 Apr 2020 02:01 AM PDT  When Janet Mendez first got off the ventilator, she had no idea who she was. "[The hospital staff] kept calling me Maria," she told The Daily Beast. "I said, OK, that's my name.'"Except, of course, it wasn't. Maria is her mother, who had been anxiously calling Mount Sinai in upper Manhattan every day since her 33-year-old daughter was hospitalized with COVID-19. Somewhere along the way, the staff had misplaced Mendez's ID tag—maybe they'd never given her one at all—and mixed up her name with her mother's. After 10 days in the intensive care unit, Mendez was too confused to correct them.Mendez is one of the lucky ones—part of the minority of novel coronavirus patients who require mechanical breathing and still make it out of the hospital alive. She is recovering quickly, and one Mount Sinai doctor described her as a "success." But for many patients like her, getting out of the ICU is only half the battle. "There's surviving and there's returning to your normal life," Mekeleya Yimen, a critical care physician at Mount Sinai, told The Daily Beast. "That's not always possible."A Coronavirus ICU Nurse on 'Dying Alone Behind Sliding Glass Doors'Decades of research shows many of the sickest ICU patients will never return to their former selves. An ailment called Post-Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS) causes cognitive, physical, and psychological problems in up to 80 percent of all critical-care survivors. About a third never return to work. Now physicians say they are witnessing many of these effects in COVID-19 survivors, at a scale they've never seen before. And some are not sure we're ready for the influx of ICU survivors this crisis will bring."I believe and I feel this with every part of me, that the same way there's been a surge in need for hospital beds, there's going to be a surge in need for rehab beds," said Miguel Escalón, the vice chair of the rehabilitation department at Mount Sinai. "The question is, how will the system step up to meet this?"Of the hundreds of thousands of Americans projected to contract the coronavirus, a small percentage will require hospitalization. An even smaller percentage will require care in the ICU—often because of a lung condition called acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Many of them will require mechanical breathing devices called ventilators to keep them alive.The confusion Mendez felt coming off of the ventilator is common for patients with extended ICU stays—so common it has a name: "ICU delirium." The extreme stress of critical illness on the body, combined with the sedative drugs and the foreign surroundings of the ICU, leave many people feeling confused and disoriented, occasionally plagued by memories of things that never happened.Mendez says she spent 10 days on the ventilator thinking she was a character in the Netflix show On My Block. Her imagined exploits on the "show" felt real, but everything happening in real life felt like a dream. When she finally came to, the hospital wing was covered in Christmas decorations. She assumed she'd been in a coma for almost a year, until a nurse told her they were only an April Fools prank. According to the Society of Critical Care Medicine, between 30 and 80 percent of ICU survivors struggle with some sort of cognitive impairment after their stay. A year after being released from the ICU, a third of patients have cognitive test scores consistent with someone who suffered a traumatic brain injury, like a car crash. A quarter have test scores in the range of mild Alzheimer's. Others will suffer from lasting mental health effects. Almost a third of all ICU survivors show clinically important symptoms of depression, and a quarter show signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—nightmares, flashbacks, fear of going back to the doctor. A study of ARDS survivors found that a third were never able to return to work."We talk about physical cognitive and mental health, but it becomes very understandable to everyone when you talk about not returning to work and the lost income," said Dale Needham, medical director of the critical care and rehabilitation program at Johns Hopkins Hospital. "The impact that this has not just on the patient but their entire family is profound."While it's too early to know the lasting effects of COVID-19 on survivors, doctors told The Daily Beast these patients often awoke confused and disoriented, with no idea what happened to them. Benjamin Seidel, a rehabilitation physician at Burke Hospital in New York, said some of his patients had noticeably different MRI results compared to when they were admitted. "Some of these COVID patients that we see, if I get my neurologic expert therapist to evaluate them, they say, 'This person must have had a brain injury,'" said Kyle Ridgeway, an inpatient acute physical therapist at University of Colorado Hospital. For those who have been in the ICU for weeks, he said, "this is going to be a life-altering situation for them."Generally, the level of impairment depends on how healthy the patient was before they entered the ICU and how long they had to stay there. But some coronavirus patients who were not admitted to the ICU still show signs of severe mental distress, according Sean Smith, a rehabilitation physician at the University of Michigan."A lot of these patients are pretty mentally shaken up," he said. "I think [overarching] all of this is going to be some element of PTSD for the patients—and for the doctors—who were in the emergency rooms and ICUs."For Mendez, the cognitive issues ended mercifully fast. A born-and-bred New Yorker, she said she remembered her name as soon as someone reminded her what street she was on. "The minute they told me it was 114th, I said, 'Hey I'm close to the house!'" she recalled. Later, she entertained herself and stayed sharp by counting, multiplying and dividing the ceiling tiles above her bed.But regaining her physical bearings was another story. A formerly healthy 33-year-old, Mendez could not even sit up on her own when she first woke up. Her first task—moving from her bed to a chair—made her feel dizzy and required an oxygen mask. It took her four days to muster the strength to walk to the bathroom on her own; even then, using it on her own was beyond her ability. She took a three-hour nap the first time she tried.The experience tracks with what many physicians have seen in their post-ICU coronavirus patients. Every doctor who spoke with The Daily Beast said their patients showed significant muscle loss, reduced lung capacity, and decreased endurance. Some of the most severe patients suffered a temporary paralysis called neuropathy in their hands, feet or limbs.Ridgeway said what struck him about COVID-19 patients compared to other ARDS survivors was their profound exhaustion. Some of his more muscular patients still struggled to stand for more than 30 seconds without getting fatigued. "Not an insignificant proportion of them really do feel—even if their oxygen is stable—they just feel profoundly short of breath, especially if they're trying to exert," he said. "And for some of these patients, 'trying to exert' is sitting up to the side of the bed."While most of the coronavirus patients who require rehabilitation are older, Ridgeway said he had treated patients in their thirties and forties, some of whom were unable to walk when they entered his care. Heidi Engel, an intensive care physical therapist at the University of San Francisco, described a man in his fifties who caught the virus while on an active outdoors vacation. It took the man a week to relearn how to walk—a progression Engel described as surprisingly fast.For many of these patients, there is a psychological burden in suddenly waking up with a body that cannot do what it used to. Engel said she'd seen several patients try to walk and fall, forgetting that their legs could not support them."I spend a lot of time explaining to people, 'You have this new body you're inheriting,'" she said. "'You're a fragmented person, and you need to now start to bring all these fragmented pieces back together.'"Bringing these patients back together is hard to begin with, and even harder when they're on the heels of a highly contagious virus. Responsible disease prevention requires limiting how many people are exposed to the patient, meaning therapists sometimes don't get in the room with their patients at all. Ridgeway said he'd started treating some patients through a window in the hospital, with a nurse inside the room to help the patient move.At Burke, Seidel said they are no longer using shared equipment like treadmills with COVID-positive patients, instead making due with whatever props can be left in the patient's room. When a therapist does make it into the room, they are decked out in head-to-toe personal protective equipment, which makes hands-on treatment difficult. "When you're basically wearing a hazmat suit it becomes a little more difficult to do some of the therapies," he said.At some hospitals in New York City, the epicenter of the disease, inpatient rehab floors have been entirely repurposed into beds for coronavirus patients. At Mount Sinai, rehabilitation doctors are making rounds as general medicine doctors. And at NYU Langone, a rehab physician said he was sending patients home sooner than he'd like, simply because the hospital was not considered safe.The constraints left a number of doctors worried about how their patients would fare long-term."The focus has shifted from usual care to emergency care, meaning things like physical therapy and rehabilitation are taking a back seat, rightfully so, to oxygen status and things like that," said Smith from the University of Michigan. "But you suffer when you do that. There are patients that aren't going to get out of bed."Still, most of the doctors agreed they hadn't seen the worst of the crisis yet. That will come after the surge in hospitalizations has flattened, and more recovered patients start flooding rehabilitation centers and floors. In New York, where hospitalizations have fallen in the last few days, that could be coming sooner rather than later.Long-term rehabilitation centers in the state, which take patients who are ready to leave the hospital but not strong enough to go home, are already struggling with the same constraints as major hospitals. Brian Im, a rehabilitation doctor at NYU Langone, said some long-term centers are running with limited personal protective gear and less than half the usual number of staff, making him think twice about where to send his patients."You have an already stretched-thin system now reduced beyond that," he said. "You can just see the safety and the ability to care for patients is severely limited."At the same time, home health aides are reluctant to visit former coronavirus patients in their houses, and many outpatient physical therapy clinics are closed for the foreseeable future. Even after the pandemic ends, the national shortage in home-care workers and physical therapists could make it difficult to treat everyone who needs help.Needham, who has studied PICS for years at Johns Hopkins, said many of these workers will have to be trained in how to treat critical illness survivors, rather than the survivors of heart attacks or brain injuries they are used to."Because of COVID, we now have this massive influx of critically ill patients," he said. "We need to think about the survivorship wave we're going to face."Mendez appears to be on her way to a full recovery. When she finally made it home, it was in an ambulance. After 10 days of recuperation in the hospital, she still cannot get around without a walker. The hospital had to send her home in an ambulance because she couldn't manage the subway stairs.. Mendez said she plans to return to work as an office administrator at Dominos when she can walk on her own, but doesn't know when that will be."It took a toll on my body," she said of the virus. "Right now, I'm like a newborn trying to walk again."For some reason, Mendez still hasn't regained her sense of taste—a bitter pill for the daughter of a chef, who has a passion for Italian food. She's also struggling with another problem: her hair. After nearly a month of not showering in the hospital, it took her two hours at home to get knots out of her curls. At this point, she's thinking of cutting it all off and starting again. "I'm in quarantine anyway," she said. "Nobody's going to see me."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. 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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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| Mexican president tells gangs to stop donating food, end crime instead Posted: 20 Apr 2020 03:49 PM PDT  Mexico's president chastised drug gangs on Monday, telling them to end violence instead of distributing food, after several reports across the country in recent days showed armed narcos handing out care packages stamped with cartel logos. Imploring criminals to behave better, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador declared that the care packages filled with basic foodstuffs and cleaning supplies are not helpful. The leftist president, who has advocated a less confrontational approach than his predecessors to taming raging cartel violence, said gang members should refrain from harming others and instead think of the suffering they cause to their own families and the mothers of their victims.
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| Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee are already about to let businesses reopen Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:26 PM PDT  Southern states are rushing to get back to business against the advice of medical experts and the federal government.Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) announced Monday that he'd allow some types of shut-down businesses to reopen by next week. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) topped that by saying some businesses could even reopen this Monday at 5 p.m., and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) finished by saying the state's stay-at-home mandate would run out for good at the end of April.Hair salons, barbers, gyms, and similar businesses will be allowed to reopen Friday in Georgia, Kemp said Monday. Restaurants and theaters will also get to reopen next Monday under social distancing guidelines, though bars and performance venues will stay closed, Kemp said. Lee said some Tennessee businesses will get to reopen by next Monday, and nearly every business will get to do so on May 1.> NEW: "@GovBillLee announces the stay-at-home mandate will EXPIRE April 30th, with most businesses allowed to open May 1st" pic.twitter.com/zqqMJqOTTU> > — The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) April 20, 2020McMaster went further, saying a variety of retail stores in South Carolina could reopen at 5 p.m. today if they operated at 20 percent capacity or less. Like Florida, McMaster also lifted closures of beaches, public piers, and docks.> South Carolina governor begins reopening of certain beaches and businesses some as early as today. pic.twitter.com/QJe8KtuPwz> > — Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) April 20, 2020The White House issued guidance last week listing what criteria states would have to meet before they were allowed to begin a phased reopening of businesses. None of these states have met those case and hospitalization thresholds yet. 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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| Israelis Just Showed the World What a Socially Distant Protest Looks Like Posted: 20 Apr 2020 07:54 AM PDT  Opposition politicians gathered alongside citizens, spaced 2 meters apart, as a political crisis continues to engulf the country
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| India and Singapore see biggest single-day spikes in coronavirus cases Posted: 20 Apr 2020 07:21 AM PDT  India and Singapore announced their biggest single-day spikes in new coronavirus cases on Monday, as the crisis intensifies in parts of Asia. India's spike came after the government eased one of the world's strictest lockdowns to allow some manufacturing and agricultural activity to resume.
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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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| 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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| Promising plasma therapies give hope for coronavirus treatment Posted: 20 Apr 2020 07:45 AM PDT  Plasma therapy is still experimental and clinical trials are underway.
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| 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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| 2020 Watch: Why is Trump going to war with governors? Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:19 AM PDT  The inconsistencies in President Donald Trump's coronavirus response are evident as Democrats show new signs of unifying behind presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden. Democrats, meanwhile, are showing new signs of unifying behind Biden following the sudden endorsements of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and former President Barack Obama. Biden still has glaring political liabilities, but as the coronavirus continues to define the political landscape, Democrats and Republicans seem to be moving in opposite directions.
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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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| U.S. coronavirus death toll rises as cases hit 750,000: Reuters tally Posted: 19 Apr 2020 11:29 AM PDT  It took the United States 38 days after recording its first fatality on Feb. 29 to reach 10,000 deaths on April 6, but only five more days to reach 20,000 dead, according to a Reuters tally. The United States has by far the world's largest number of confirmed coronavirus cases, with more than 750,000 infections -- a number that has doubled in 13 days. New cases on Saturday rose by nearly 29,000, the lowest increase in three days.
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| US lockdown: Three brothers appear to be behind online network of far-right gun owners calling for protests Posted: 20 Apr 2020 02:28 AM PDT  A trio of far-right, pro-gun provocateurs is behind some of the largest Facebook groups calling for anti-quarantine protests across the country, offering the latest illustration that some seemingly organic demonstrations are being engineered by a network of conservative activists.The Facebook groups target Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, and they appear to be the work of Ben Dorr, the political director of a group called Minnesota Gun Rights, and his siblings Christopher and Aaron. By Sunday, the groups had more than 200,000 members combined, and they continued to expand quickly, days after President Donald Trump endorsed such protests by suggesting citizens should "liberate" their states.
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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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| Yahoo News/YouGov coronavirus poll: Most Americans reject anti-lockdown protests Posted: 20 Apr 2020 06:32 AM PDT  An overwhelming majority of Americans, Republicans included, are rejecting right-wing protests — encouraged by President Trump — to immediately "reopen" the country in the midst of the world's largest and deadliest coronavirus outbreak, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.
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| F-16 fighter intercepted even more Russian jets 'overflying' a US warship, NATO says Posted: 20 Apr 2020 12:37 PM PDT  After Russian jets flew over a US warship, NATO said a F-16 fighter "conducted a professional intercept and left the scene"
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| North Korea denies that Kim sent Trump 'a nice note' Posted: 19 Apr 2020 08:07 AM PDT  North Korea on Sunday dismissed as "ungrounded" President Donald Trump's comment that he recently received "a nice note" from the North's leader, Kim Jong Un. Trump also defended now-stalled nuclear diplomacy with Kim, saying the U.S. would have been at war with North Korea if he had not been elected.
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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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| Asia virus latest: Japan cases surge, schools to reopen in Wuhan Posted: 20 Apr 2020 10:41 AM PDT  Japanese medics are warning more must be done to prevent the coronavirus from overwhelming the country's healthcare system, as confirmed cases passed 10,000 despite a nationwide state of emergency. Experts have been alarmed by a recent spike in coronavirus infections, with hundreds detected daily. Kentaro Iwata, a professor of infectious diseases at Kobe University who has repeatedly criticised Japan's response to the pandemic, warned he is "pessimistic" the postponed Olympics can be held even in 2021.
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