| Defense secretary says coronavirus vaccine will be available within months, but experts skeptical Posted: 28 May 2020 01:30 PM PDT  Pentagon leaders expressed strong confidence Thursday that a coronavirus vaccine will be available by January, and possibly as early as this fall — claims that were met with skepticism by scientific experts.
|
| White House encourages hydroxychloroquine use for coronavirus again Posted: 28 May 2020 02:03 PM PDT  Speaking during a press briefing on Thursday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany strongly endorsed the "prophylactic" use of hydroxychloroquine: that is, to prevent contracting the coronavirus.
|
| Can you contract coronavirus from a surface or object? Posted: 29 May 2020 03:48 PM PDT  The CDC says that it may be possible to contract COVID-19 by coming in contact with a surface or object that has the virus on it, but you're much more likely to get the coronavirus through person-to-person transmission.
|
| Ex-officer who knelt on George Floyd's neck charged with murder Posted: 29 May 2020 02:16 PM PDT  The suspect's knee was on his neck for more than 8 1/2 minutes, including 2 1/2 minutes after he had passed out, according to a criminal complaint.
|
| EU won’t follow Trump into a trade war over Hong Kong Posted: 29 May 2020 03:25 AM PDT |
| Long Island serial killer victim IDed 2 decades later Posted: 28 May 2020 11:13 AM PDT  A woman whose skeletal remains were found along a suburban New York beach highway, in an area where body parts of 10 other people had been strewn, was identified as a Philadelphia escort who went missing two decades ago, police said Thursday. Suffolk County police said the woman previously known as "Jane Doe No. 6" was identified through genetic genealogy technology as Valerie Mack, who also went by Melissa Taylor and was last seen in 2000 near Atlantic City, New Jersey. Determining the victim's identity has brought clarity to a long-running Long Island mystery that attracted national headlines, was featured on true-crime TV shows and was the subject of a recent Netflix film, Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart said.
|
| China plans to extend curbs on international flights until June 30: U.S. embassy Posted: 29 May 2020 01:54 AM PDT  Chinese civil aviation authorities plan to extend until June 30 their curbs on international flights to contain the spread of the coronavirus, the U.S. embassy in Beijing said in a travel advisory on Friday. China has drastically cut such flights since March to allay concerns over infections brought by arriving passengers. A so-called "Five One" policy allows mainland carriers to fly just one flight a week on one route to any country and foreign airlines to operate just one flight a week to China.
|
| Greece to open airports to arrivals from 29 countries from June 15 Posted: 29 May 2020 07:42 AM PDT  Greece said Friday it would reopen its airports in Athens and Thessaloniki to arrivals from 29 countries from June 15, the start of the tourist season. Visitors would be allowed to fly into Greece from 16 EU countries, including Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland, the Czech Republic, Baltic countries, Cyprus and Malta, the tourism ministry said in a statement. Outside the European Union, holidaymakers from Switzerland, Norway, and neighbouring Balkan countries such as Albania, Serbia and North Macedonia will be allowed to land at Greece's main airports from June 15.
|
| Republican lawmakers accused of hiding positive COVID-19 test result from Democrats, who call it 'immoral' Posted: 28 May 2020 11:54 AM PDT  Democratic lawmakers in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives are demanding answers after learning that one of their Republican colleagues tested positive for COVID-19, shared that information with GOP leadership, but never informed them.
|
| President is slammed for leaving ‘press conference’ without addressing Minnesota as he disbands US relationship with WHO Posted: 29 May 2020 05:05 AM PDT  Donald Trump held a "press conference" on Friday to discuss the United State's relationship with China, but then left the Rose Garden without taking questions or addressing the mounting situation in Minnesota following the death of George Floyd.The president announced during his statement the US would disband its relationship with the World Health Organisation (WHO) amid the coronavirus pandemic.
|
| Minneapolis mayor responds after night of protests and violence in wake of George Floyd's death Posted: 28 May 2020 11:23 AM PDT  At a press conference on Thursday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said protests and unrest after the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man seen on video pinned to the ground by the neck while being arrested by a white police officer, were the result of "built-up anger and sadness" in the black community over the past 400 years.
|
| Mississippi mayor under fire over comments on George Floyd's death Posted: 28 May 2020 07:36 AM PDT  Mayor Hal Marx of Petal, Mississippi, said he "didn't see anything unreasonable" in the video of George Floyd's arrest. "If you can talk, you can breathe."
|
| Britain pushing US to form 5G club of nations to cut out Huawei Posted: 29 May 2020 10:15 AM PDT  Britain said Friday it was pushing the United States to form a club of 10 nations that could develop its own 5G technology and reduce dependence on China's controversial telecoms giant Huawei. The issue is expected to feature at a G7 summit that US President Donald Trump will host next month against the backdrop of a fierce confrontation with China that has been exacerbated by a global blame game over the spread of the novel coronavirus. Britain has allowed the Chinese global leader in 5G technology to build up to 35 percent of the infrastructure necessary to roll out its new speedy data network.
|
| 'Orwell is rolling in his grave': Anger and disbelief at strict new lockdown rules in Moscow Posted: 28 May 2020 04:15 AM PDT  The Moscow City Hall on Wednesday promised to re-open parks and finally allow walks after nine weeks of coronavirus lockdown but the incredibly strict rules regulating outdoor activities have been met with universal derision. Sergei Sobyanin, the Moscow mayor, announced something that could be a cause for celebration on Wednesday, telling Vladimir Putin, the president, in a televised conference call that the Russian capital was poised to begin lifting some of the lockdown restrictions. The number of new Covid-19 cases recorded in Moscow on Thursday, was just over 2,000, the lowest in five weeks, and the number of hospitalisations dropped by 40 per cent in a fortnight, according to the mayor. Most of Moscow's shops and parks will re-open on Monday, and walks and outdoor exercises will finally be allowed but with a caveat. The details of what the City Hall dubbed an "experiment" have angered even the mayor's supporters who have credited him for stemming the outbreak. Each apartment building will be assigned three days a week when residents will be allowed to venture outside but only between 9 am and 9 pm, exercising will be permitted only before 9 am, and face masks will be mandatory.
|
| The Latest: US agency calls back drone it sent to Minnesota Posted: 29 May 2020 08:03 AM PDT  U.S. Customs and Border Patrol says it dispatched a drone to Minneapolis following three nights of violent protests there but ended up sending it back to its base because the unmanned aerial vehicle wasn't needed. The agency, which typically patrols the nation's border and ports of entry, said the drone was going to provide live video to assist law enforcement in Minneapolis as they responded to protests that have left dozens of stores burned and looted. President Donald Trump says he talked to members of George Floyd's family on Friday and "expressed my sorrow."
|
| Epstein estate, victims reach agreement on compensation fund Posted: 29 May 2020 02:30 PM PDT  A fund to compensate victims of Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse may begin making payouts soon, after the deceased financier's estate, his accusers and the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands resolved their differences over the process. The accord came 9-1/2 months after Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on sexual abuse and sex trafficking charges.
|
| 'No mask — no entry': New York Gov. Cuomo says he'll sign an executive order allowing businesses to refuse service to people who won't wear masks Posted: 28 May 2020 09:56 AM PDT  "No mask — no entry," said New York's governor. The executive order will give businesses the power to keep people without masks from entering.
|
| Analysis: With a new law for Hong Kong, Beijing makes clear sovereignty is its bottom line Posted: 28 May 2020 09:30 AM PDT  Beijing's bottom line is sovereignty. Hong Kong is a 'purely internal affair that allows no foreign interference,' Chinese government spokesman says.
|
| Coronavirus deaths in US top 100,000 Posted: 28 May 2020 07:34 AM PDT  The US has seen more deaths (currently 100,047) and infections (1.69 million) than any other country.
|
| The Bird Watcher, That Incident and His Conflicted Feelings on Her Fate Posted: 28 May 2020 05:16 AM PDT  NEW YORK -- His binoculars around his neck, Christian Cooper, an avid birder, was back in his happy place on Wednesday: Central Park during migration season. He was trying to focus on the olive-sided flycatchers and red-bellied woodpeckers -- not on what had happened there two days earlier.That was when Cooper, who is black, asked a white woman to put her dog on a leash. When she did not, he began filming. In response, the woman said she would tell the police that "an African American man is threatening my life" before dialing 911.On Tuesday, the video went viral on Twitter and garnered more than 40 million views, setting off a painful discourse about the history of dangerous false accusations against black people made to police.The birds were a welcome distraction from thinking about what had happened next: By that day's end, the woman, Amy Cooper (no relation) had surrendered her dog and had been fired from her high-level finance job. As he wandered the park's North Woods on Wednesday shortly after dawn, Christian Cooper said he felt exhausted, exposed and profoundly conflicted, particularly about her fate."Any of us can make -- not necessarily a racist mistake, but a mistake," he said, "And to get that kind of tidal wave in such a compressed period of time, it's got to hurt. It's got to hurt."A gray catbird darted around his hiking boots."I'm not excusing the racism," he said. "But I don't know if her life needed to be torn apart."He opened his mouth to speak further and then stopped himself. He had been about to say the phrase, "that poor woman," he later acknowledged, but he could not bring himself to complete the thought."She went racial. There are certain dark societal impulses that she, as a white woman facing in a conflict with a black man, that she thought she could marshal to her advantage," he said."I don't know if it was a conscious thing or not," he added. "But she did it, and she went there."Cooper's love of birding began at age 10, he said, when his parents, two Long Island schoolteachers, enrolled him in a 4-H program. There, in a woodworking class, he crafted a bird feeder that he set in his lawn.The creatures that flocked to it set off a fascination that has endured for four decades, through his time at Harvard, where he graduated with a degree in political science, and into his years as an editor for Marvel Comics, where he is credited with creating one of the first gay characters in the Star Trek comic universe.A northern rough-winged swallow alighted on a branch and Cooper, 57, trained his lenses on it for a while.Then he resumed. "If we are going to make progress, we've got to address these things, and if this painful process is going to help us address this -- there's the yellow warbler!" Cooper said, cutting himself off to peer around with his binoculars.At length, he turned his eyes away from the tops of the London plane trees and continued where he had left off:"If this painful process -- oh, a Baltimore oriole just flew across!-- helps to correct, or takes us a step further toward addressing the underlying racial, horrible assumptions that we African Americans have to deal with, and have dealt with for centuries, that this woman tapped into, then it's worth it," he said, setting his binoculars down on his chest."Sadly, it has to come at her expense," he added.On Tuesday, Amy Cooper was fired by her employer, Franklin Templeton, where she had been a head of insurance portfolio management, according to her LinkedIn page.Cooper, who graduated from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, also surrendered her dog, Henry, to the rescue organization she had adopted him from, the same day, according to a Facebook post by the group.She issued a public apology to Christian Cooper, whom she had encountered in a semi-wild part of the park called The Ramble, where dogs must be leashed.After she refused to tether her dog on Memorial Day, Christian Cooper said, he attempted to lure the dog with treats, to induce her to restrain her pet. In a statement, Amy Cooper said she had misread his intent."I reacted emotionally and made false assumptions about his intentions when, in fact, I was the one who was acting inappropriately by not having my dog on a leash," she said in the statement.She did not respond to multiple requests for comment.On Wednesday, New York City's Commission on Human Rights began an investigation into Amy Cooper's actions.On his birding walk Wednesday, Christian Cooper said he had read her apology.He called it "a start." He said he was not interested in meeting her or in any face-to-face reconciliation.What he was interested in were birds, like the sighting in 2018 of a rare Kirtland's warbler that led him to sprint from his office in Midtown Manhattan to the park to catch a glimpse.Cooper, who now works in communications and lives on the Lower East Side, has fed his passion with birding trips to Central Park and around the world, and he is on the board of the New York City Audubon Society.He has developed a virtuoso's ear for their birdsong, and can identify them by chirp. ("There's a myth that I have the best ears in the park," he said. "It's a myth.")As he has pursued his passion, he has been keenly aware of the fact that there appear to be few other African American men invested in the hobby, excluded by the same subtle messaging he gets when he is followed around in shops, he said.And he is aware that the image he cuts -- as a man often shuffling the undergrowth after a rare bird, with a metal object, the binoculars, in his hand -- can read differently for a black person than for a white person.It doesn't stop him."We should be out here. The birds belong to all of us," he said. "The birds don't care what color you are."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
|
| Coronavirus quietly started spreading as early as January, CDC says Posted: 29 May 2020 10:35 AM PDT  By early February, there was "cryptic circulation" of the virus.
|
| Rep. Mark Green on suing House Speaker Pelosi Posted: 28 May 2020 03:04 AM PDT  House GOP sue over proxy voting; Tennessee Republican Rep. Mark Green weighs in.
|
| Double murder suspect arrested after multistate manhunt Posted: 28 May 2020 10:45 AM PDT  The manhunt for the 23-year-old college senior had spanned Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
|
| India's economy seen slowing rapidly in March quarter, with worse to come Posted: 28 May 2020 05:21 PM PDT  Gross domestic product data out later on Friday is expected to show India's economy grew at its slowest pace in at least two years in the March quarter as the coronavirus pandemic weakened already declining consumer demand and private investment. The median forecast from a Reuters poll of economists put annual economic growth at 2.1% in the March quarter, lower than 4.7% in the December quarter. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has maintained the lockdown ordered on March 25 to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the world's second most populous country, though many restrictions were eased for manufacturing, transport and other services from May 18.
|
| Burundi first lady hospitalised in Nairobi: government sources Posted: 29 May 2020 07:28 AM PDT  Burundi's first lady was in hospital in Nairobi on Friday, after being flown in on a late-night medical flight, according to sources at the airport and in the presidency. First lady Denise Bucumi was flown out of Burundi on a Pilatus plane by the AMREF air ambulance service, according to a source at the Melchior Airport in Bujumbura. A high-ranking government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that Bucumi had gone to Nairobi "for treatment as she caught the coronavirus".
|
| New report alleges killings, mass detentions in Ethiopia Posted: 29 May 2020 01:32 AM PDT  A new report by the rights group Amnesty International accuses Ethiopia's security forces of extrajudicial killings and mass detentions even as the country's reformist prime minister was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The report issued Friday says security forces killed at least 25 people in 2019 in the East Guji and West Guji zones of the restive Oromia region amid suspicions of supporting a rebel group, the Oromo Liberation Army, and a once-exiled opposition group. The government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who was awarded the peace prize in December for sweeping political reforms and restoring ties with neighboring Eritrea after two decades of hostilities, acknowledged that "the reform process has at times experienced bumps" but called the report "a one-sided snapshot security analysis that fails to appropriately capture the broader political trajectory and security developments."
|
| To punish China, Trump begins to revoke Hong Kong trade privileges Posted: 29 May 2020 01:10 PM PDT |
| 'If you say you can't breathe, you're breathing': A Mississippi mayor who defended the officer who stood on George Floyd's neck has been asked to resign Posted: 29 May 2020 10:57 AM PDT  Petal, Mississippi, Mayor Hal Marx tweeted Floyd likely "died of overdose or heart attack" and that Minneapolis police are being "crucified."
|
| One of the coldest places on Earth is experiencing a record-breaking heat wave Posted: 29 May 2020 09:46 AM PDT  Heat wave sparks concerns about devastating wildfire season and melting permafrost.
|
| Denmark and Norway cut coronavirus-hit Sweden out of free travel deal Posted: 29 May 2020 08:21 AM PDT  The governments of Denmark and Norway have cut Sweden out of a deal allowing each other's tourists to travel freely between the two countries — citing their Nordic neighbour's higher levels of coronavirus infection. The deal, announced at parallel press conferences in Oslo and Copenhagen on Friday afternoon, showed Sweden has failed in its diplomatic efforts to be included in the first stage of a Nordic travel bubble. Under the deal, people from Denmark will from June 15 be allowed to enter Norway without needing to quarantine, while tourists from Norway will be able to enter Denmark, so long as they have booked accommodation for at least six days. As she announced the agreement, Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen acknowledged that it would be difficult for many Swedes. "Danes and Swedes have family, lovers, and holiday homes across the border," she said. "Denmark and Sweden are at different places in relation to the coronavirus [epidemic], and this has a bearing on what we can decide in relation to the border."
|
| Move over James Bond; India returns alleged bird spy to Pakistan Posted: 29 May 2020 12:43 PM PDT  Indian police have released a pigeon belonging to a Pakistani fisherman after a probe found that the bird, which had flown across the contentious border between the nuclear-armed nations, was not a spy, two officials said on Friday. "The pigeon was set free yesterday (May 28) after nothing suspicious was found," said Shailendra Mishra, a senior police official in Indian-administered Kashmir. The Pakistani owner of the pigeon had urged India to return his bird, which Indian villagers turned over to police after discovering it.
|
| What schools will look like when they reopen: Scheduled days home, more online learning, lots of hand-washing Posted: 29 May 2020 06:21 AM PDT  Imagine American children returning to school this fall amid the coronavirus pandemic. Here's how the school week could look vastly different.
|
| AP Explains: What's behind latest India-China border tension Posted: 29 May 2020 12:25 AM PDT  Indian officials say the latest row began in early May, when Chinese soldiers entered the Indian-controlled territory of Ladakh at three different points, erecting tents and guard posts. China has sought to downplay the confrontation while providing little information. China has objected to India building a road through the valley connecting the region to an airstrip, possibly sparking its move to assert control over territory along the border that is not clearly defined in places.
|
| Trump’s ‘Very Sad’ When Police Kill Is the New ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ Posted: 28 May 2020 03:27 PM PDT  Eric Garner. Sandra Bland. Philando Castile. Alton Sterling. Michael Brown. Their names, and those of far too many other unarmed African-Americans killed by police (or in their custody) have become a grim litany etched in the memories of a whole generation of Americans. And now, George Floyd, who was violently detained for a "forgery in progress" on Monday by as many as four Minneapolis police officers, including one with a knee pressing his neck into the ground, has become yet another casualty of excessive force.Floyd's death stands apart because his death represents perhaps the most high profile case of this nature to occur during Trump's presidency. His predecessor, Barack Obama was routinely confronted with these kinds of tragedies. And as the first black president and a progressive, he was not only expected to weigh in on them, but was practically required to by his base and the media establishment. Minneapolis Man: Cop Who Kneeled on George Floyd 'Tried to Kill Me' in 2008Nearly every time one of these high-profile cases occurred, the president stepped up to offer compassion and in some cases, express his disgust. And while his legislative remedies to address the problem were largely stymied, at the very least Obama was able effectively to commiserate with the portion of the public that was outraged; and shine a spotlight on the issue of racially biased policing.No one expects Donald Trump to similarly elevate the discourse on this subject. On Wednesday, in his first remarks on the case, he conceded that Floyd's death was "very sad," but offered no other thoughts other than promising that the FBI and Justice Department will look into the case.On Twitter, where Trump is more freewheeling and candid (for better or worse), he praised local law enforcement, offered condolences to Floyd's family and promised that "justice will be served" without elaborating on what that would mean, or for who.We can only hope that the president doesn't try to assert himself too much further in the fallout of the Floyd case; given his history on issues of race, he would likely only add insult to fatal injury.Early Friday morning, hours after this article first posted, Trump bore that prediction out: Of course, Trump bears no direct responsibility for Floyd's death, but the president's embrace of racist language, ideas and policies has heightened the perception in this country that black life is expendable.In the past, it has been politically expedient for Trump to defend all police no matter what, and to abuse anyone who deigns to criticize them. During the 2016 campaign, he cast blanket aspersions on all Black Lives Matter activists, claiming they're only "looking for trouble" and even worse, blaming them for instigating the deaths of police officers, all while waxing nostalgic about the "good old days" where protesters could be beaten with impunity. As president, he has shown far more anger at African-American NFL athletes who silently protest police brutality than, say, a foreign government his own intelligence agencies believe brutally slaughtered a U.S.-based journalist.Even setting issues of race and policing aside, it is not in Trump's nature to show empathy as we have seen in his response to the pandemic that has claimed 100,000 American lives. As the U.S. crosses this horrendous milestone, he's spent the better part of a week tweeting juvenile insults about his enemies, indulging in conspiracy theories and threatening the very social media platform on which he spends much of his time.Meanwhile, the president has proven time and again for over 40 years, that he will never acknowledge the existence (let alone comprehend the nuances) of institutional racism or admit how he has benefited from it, as he would say, tremendously. Instead he's whined that 'an educated black" stands a better chance of benefiting from the American dream than he does.If anything, Trump staying relatively silent would be a relief coming from a man who instinctively gravitates to the people causing black pain rather than those trying to alleviate it. If in the wake of Floyd's death, people start to point the finger at Trump's rhetoric endorsing "tough" police tactics, he and many of his supporters will defensively seek excuses for the Minneapolis police. They will insist that we don't know what occurred prior to the video — as if any action by a single, unarmed suspect could justify his fate. They will say that people looting a Target is somehow more heinous than an officer of the law suffocating a man with his knee. Others will, with a straight face, suggest that Floyd couldn't be suffocating if he was able to articulate it — the same inhumane reaction that was repeated endlessly after the killing of Eric Garner. They perceive an alternative universe where speaking out against police brutality somehow is responsible for inspiring more of it, and where the real victims are cops who are subjected to unreasonable accountability for their actions.People in this universe, and particularly people of color, are keenly aware of a very different status quo, where heroic people on their phones are seemingly the only thing that stands between many of us and the truth and where the president openly encourages police to rough up suspects without fear of reprisal.They know they are not safe on the street, in a store, or even in their own home. You can add bird-watching to that litany. This same week,another racially fraught viral video out of New York City caused a sensation, but, gratefully, not a death. In the clip, a white woman named Amy Cooper, after being asked by a bird-watching black man to put her dog on a leash (a regulation in Central Park), calls the police to falsely claim "an African-Ammerican man" was threatening her life.The most chilling thing about the video is seeing Cooper, who is not an actress, perform faux trauma to a 911 operator with such instinctual ease.The video footage exposed Cooper as a liar and cost her job (and her dog, that she manhandled terribly throughout the clip). Is this a happy ending? Well, not for any viewer of color who still has to live every day with the existential fear that the black man who filmed her must have felt — that a trigger-happy policeman might have responded to her call for help. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get 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.
|
| Voice recorder recovered from Pakistan air disaster Posted: 28 May 2020 06:27 AM PDT 
A Pakistan International Airlines spokesman said on Thursday (May 28) that search teams had recovered the cockpit voice recorder from the fated jet which crashed last week, killing 97 people. The Airbus A320 came down in a crowded residential district of Karachi. Only two people survived. The flight data recorder had previously been found. Pakistani officials and Airbus investigators are collecting evidence at the site as they try to determine the cause of the country's worst airline disaster in years. Under international aviation rules, French investigators from the French air safety investigation authority for civil aviation - have joined the probe as the jet was designed in France. The BEA said in a statement the two recorders would be examined at its laboratory just outside Paris.
|
| IKEA manager in Poland charged for firing worker over anti-gay comments Posted: 28 May 2020 11:27 AM PDT  The manager was charged with religious discrimination for firing an employee who called homosexuality "an abomination" on the company's internal website.
|
| US revokes Hong Kong's special status as anger grows over China law Posted: 27 May 2020 09:53 PM PDT  The United States has revoked Hong Kong's special status under US law, opening the way for the city to be stripped of trading privileges, as Washington accused China of trampling on the territory's autonomy. The decision came as China's rubber-stamp parliament was set to vote Thursday on a new Hong Kong security law, a move that has triggered renewed protests. Under legislation passed last year to support Hong Kong's pro-democracy protesters, the US administration must certify that the city still enjoys the freedoms promised by Beijing when it negotiated with Britain to take back the colony.
|
| Petition calling for UK PM's aide to be sacked passes one million signatures Posted: 29 May 2020 10:14 AM PDT  A petition calling for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's closest aide to be sacked after he took a long-distance journey during the country's coronavirus lockdown has been signed by more than one million people. Dominic Cummings travelled 400 km (250 miles) from London to the northern English city of Durham in March with his four-year-old son and his wife, who was sick with suspected COVID-19 at the time, to be close to relatives. The petition on the Change.org site, entitled "Dominic Cummings must be sacked" has so far been signed by more than 1,001,260 people.
|
| Marauding monkeys attack lab technician and steal Covid-19 tests Posted: 29 May 2020 05:00 AM PDT  A band of marauding monkeys has attacked a laboratory technician and stolen three Covid-19 test samples, raising fears they will infect themselves and then spread the deadly disease to humans. The worker was attacked outside a medical college in Meerut, northern India, while transporting samples from patients suspected of having coronavirus. The monkeys ran off into a residential area. The employee is said to have been unharmed, but has angered officials after filming the aftermath of the attack, rather than attempting to retrieve the samples from the fleeing monkeys. Monkeys can contract Covid-19 and then infect humans, according to scientists. Some Indians have been worried about catching the deadly virus from animals and it led to pet dogs being released onto the streets during the start of the pandemic. Others saw the funny side of the monkey attack, with the incident coming days after the Indian authorities detained a pigeon in Jammu & Kashmir on suspicion of spying for Pakistan. "The nation wants to know if Pakistan has sent those monkeys to steal coronavirus samples," joked one user on Twitter. "These are highly trained monkeys and very intelligent monkeys." In India, groups of monkeys are attacking people with increasing regularity as they are displaced from their natural habitats by urban sprawl. Their attacks can prove deadly - particularly for young children who are vulnerable to their powerful bites. In 2018, a 12-day-old baby boy died after he was bitten by a monkey in the city of Agra, home of the Taj Mahal.
|
| Officials cite mistakes as CDC removes coronavirus guidance Posted: 29 May 2020 02:32 PM PDT  U.S. health officials removed some coronavirus reopening tips for religious organizations only hours after posting them late last week, deleting guidance that discouraged choir gatherings and the use of shared communion cups. A federal health official on Friday said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted a version of the guidance on May 22 that had not been cleared by White House officials. The initial guidance posted last week contained most of the same advice that was in a draft drawn up by the CDC more than a month ago and then shelved for weeks by administration officials.
|
| Don Lemon Erupts: ‘No One Wants to Hear From the Birther-In-Chief’ on George Floyd Posted: 28 May 2020 06:42 PM PDT  CNN anchor Don Lemon unloaded on President Donald Trump after the Justice Department said Thursday that the president was "actively monitoring" the investigation of four Minneapolis police officers over the death of an unarmed black man, exclaiming that nobody "wants to hear from the Birther-in-Chief."During a press conference late Thursday afternoon, local and federal investigators insisted that they "can't rush" bringing charges for the death of George Floyd, who was pronounced dead after an officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes. With protests raging across the country, U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald said the investigation was a "top priority" for the feds before adding that Trump and Attorney General William Barr were paying high attention to the case.Moments after the presser wrapped up, Lemon blew up over MacDonald invoking the president in this particular situation, bringing up a number of incidents Trump has been involved in over the years that have widely been seen as racist."I know she has a tough job, but guess what, as long as we are being honest right now, nobody wants to hear from the White House or the attorney general right now," Lemon exclaimed. "No one wants to hear from the man who wanted the death penalty to come back for the Central Park Five.""No one wants to hear from the man who says that the former president was not born in this country," the CNN anchor continued, in something of a call-and-response fashion. "No one wants to hear from the man who said there are 'very fine people on both sides.' Do you understand what I am saying?""No one wants to hear from the person that they perceive as contributing to situations like this in this society," Lemon kept going. "Not directly, but allowing people like that to think they can get away from this. No one wants to hear from the Birther-in-Chief, from the 'sons of bitches'-calling person, who says that athletes are kneeling for this very reason."After scolding federal investigators for seemingly having more urgency in telling protesters to calm down than investigating police brutality, Lemon concluded by expressing some solidarity with demonstrators amid the increasingly violent clashes."I understand the anger of the people upset in Minneapolis, Minnesota," he said. "I don't condone the actions. I don't understand the actions, but I understand the anger."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get 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.
|
| Fourth Iranian tanker docks at Venezuelan port, U.S. slams 'distraction' Posted: 28 May 2020 10:12 AM PDT |
| A conservative strategist challenges Harvard. Advocates say a win brings back 'segregation.' Posted: 28 May 2020 02:39 PM PDT  "Every applicant has a different story to tell, and race can be a part of that story. Students deserve the opportunity to be recognized for it," a graduating Asian American Harvard student told NBC News.
|
| New Zealand has no new coronavirus cases and just discharged its last hospital patient. Here are the secrets to the country's success. Posted: 28 May 2020 10:03 AM PDT  New Zealand has reported zero new coronavirus cases over the last five days, and just discharged its last hospital patient. Here's what it did right.
|
