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Facebook targets 'false news' amid growing pressure from advertisers

Facebook targets 'false news' amid growing pressure from advertisers

Facebook's boss in Northern Europe says a new media literacy campaign is not about "financial considerations". from BBC News...

Israel annexation: What is the West Bank?

Concerns have been expressed around the world over plans by Israel’s prime minister to annex parts of the West Bank. from BBC News - Home ...

Coronavirus: Stop childhood being disrupted - charities

The life chances of children and young people risk being derailed over Covid-19, warn 146 charities. from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2...

100 days of lockdown: How life changed in the small town of Telford

What's lockdown been like for personal trainer, a student, a rapper and a semi-pro footballer? from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2BU...

Protest rights: 'We have a right to protest despite coronavirus'

Lawyer Christian Weaver posts videos online teaching the law in 60 seconds. from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2NLW5pH

Young skater goes viral performing at Black Lives Matter Plaza

A video of Kaitlyn Saunders skating on the square opposite the White House has amassed over 350,000 views. from BBC News - Home https://if...

Coronavirus: Spain's Alhambra Palace reopens to visitors

After a three-month closure due to coronavirus, the monument in Granada has once again opened its doors. from BBC News - Home https://ift....

Coronavirus: 'When lockdown eased, my panic attacks returned'

When lockdown began Seaneen Molloy's panic attacks stopped, but as restrictions are eased, her anxiety is returning. from BBC News - H...

'Don't call me 'BAME'': Why some people are rejecting the term

The term 'BAME' has been growing in prominence - but many say it does more harm than good. from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2YJ...

‘Trump political base hit hardest by coronavirus'

Covid-19 has hit President Trump's political base the hardest, says White House economic adviser. from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/...

Civil service: What changes does the government want to make?

There are 450,000 civil servants working in the UK, but what do they do? from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2MQy3tI

Mississippi Lawmakers Vote to Remove Confederate Symbol From State Flag

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/mississippi-lawmakers-vote-remove-confederate-230921387.html"><img align="left" alt="Mississippi Lawmakers Vote to Remove Confederate Symbol From State Flag" border="0" height="86" src="http://l1.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/ALrAEPtNuMMsguXp585XOQ--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en-US/thedailybeast.com/adbf8fb1e5ff449db7e77fcf74959cc7" title="Mississippi Lawmakers Vote to Remove Confederate Symbol From State Flag" width="130" /></a>Mississippi lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to remove a Confederate emblem from their state flag on Sunday, marking one of the most dramatic repudiations yet of white-supremacist imagery during a wave of protests against racism and police brutality in America.The bill passed 128 to 37 and is now awaiting signature by Gov. Tate Reeves. It requires the current state flag to be removed within 15 days of passage. A commission selected by the governor, lieutenant governor, and speaker of the House will design a flag including the phrase “In God We Trust” to be completed by September 14. Mississippi voters will decide on the new flag during the November general election. If the new flag is not ratified by voters in November, a new design will be created and voted on the following year. "Today’s vote is not a vote to erase Mississippi’s history or its heritage," Sen. John Horhn said. "But it’s an affirmation of Mississippi’s future, and that we intend to move forward together."On Saturday, lawmakers in both houses cleared an initial measure paving the way for a bill to change the flag, and Republican Gov. Tate Reeves tweeted that he would sign a bill to that effect.The initial measure lifted restrictions in place that prohibited the state government from changing or removing the state flag, which is the last in the United States to include an explicit homage to pro-slavery rebels.“The argument over the 1894 flag has become as divisive as the flag itself and it’s time to end it,” Reeves tweeted.The governor went on to say that changing the flag was not enough to fight the systemic racism the Confederate symbol represents. “We should not be under any illusion that a vote in the Capitol is the end of what must be done,” he wrote. “It will be harder than recovering from tornadoes, harder than historic floods, harder than agency corruption, or prison riots or the coming hurricane season—even harder than battling the Coronavirus.”State Representative Jeramey Anderson (D-Miss), the youngest-ever Black legislator elected in Mississippi at 28, applauded the decision to pave the way for change on Saturday. “This is a unique opportunity, one we should not squander,” he said. Confederate leader Jefferson Davis’s great-great grandson Bertram Hayes-Davis backed the change, telling CNN that “the battle flag has been hijacked” and that it “does not represent the entire population of Mississippi.”Rising college basketball player Blake Hinson said the Confederate symbol played a role in his decision to transfer from the University of Mississippi to Iowa State earlier this month. “It was time to go and leave Ole Miss,” he told the Daytona Beach News Journal. “I’m proud not to represent that flag anymore and to not be associated with anything representing the Confederacy.”Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-Miss) opposed the change and called for a state referendum on the issue, warning that changing the American flag was next. “I don’t see how that makes me a racist.” he said. “I don’t see how that makes me a terrible human being.”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.
 
 
 
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Mississippi Lawmakers Vote to Remove Confederate Symbol From State Flag

Mississippi lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to remove a Confederate emblem from their state flag on Sunday, marking one of the most dramatic ...

Three men arrested for murder in case of missing California couple who vanished in 2017

Three men have been arrested for murder in the case of Audrey Moran and Jonathan Reynoso, who have been missing since 2017. Manuel Rios, of ...

Gilead prices COVID-19 drug remdesivir at $2,340 per patient in developed nations

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/gilead-prices-covid-19-drug-111703954.html"><img align="left" alt="Gilead prices COVID-19 drug remdesivir at $2,340 per patient in developed nations" border="0" height="86" src="http://l.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/PaS0MhtdLkeKVjvXWAkpsA--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en-US/reuters.com/30b784bbec9d8ec233661b72ed897642" title="Gilead prices COVID-19 drug remdesivir at $2,340 per patient in developed nations" width="130" /></a>The price tag is slightly below the range of $2,520 to $2,800 suggested last week by U.S. drug pricing research group the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) after British researchers said they found that the cheap, widely available steroid dexamethasone significantly reduced mortality among severely ill COVID-19 patients. Remdesivir is expected to be in high demand as one of the only treatments so far shown to alter the course of COVID-19. After the intravenously administered medicine helped shorten hospital recovery times in a clinical trial, it won emergency use authorization in the United States and full approval in Japan.
 
 
 
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Gilead prices COVID-19 drug remdesivir at $2,340 per patient in developed nations

The price tag is slightly below the range of $2,520 to $2,800 suggested last week by U.S. drug pricing research group the Institute for Clin...

China forces birth control on Uighurs to suppress population: AP

Beijing accused of forced sterilisation, abortions, and pregnancy checks on hundreds of thousands of minority women. from Yahoo News - L...

Court says president can fire Consumer board head 'at will'

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/high-court-makes-easier-president-144946893.html"><img align="left" alt="Court says president can fire Consumer board head 'at will'" border="0" height="86" src="http://l1.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/AS0lC_6mi1a812Fs04_Aag--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/ap.org/e77bb6117bca38e8e644ed4d99053d96" title="Court says president can fire Consumer board head 'at will'" width="130" /></a>In a ruling underscoring the power of the president, the Supreme Court on Monday made it easier for the president to fire the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The justices struck down restrictions Congress had written on when the president can remove the bureau’s director. “The agency may ... continue to operate, but its Director, in light of our decision, must be removable by the President at will,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.
 
 
 
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2YLDMHP

Court says president can fire Consumer board head 'at will'

In a ruling underscoring the power of the president, the Supreme Court on Monday made it easier for the president to fire the head of the Co...

New York City mayor plans to cut $1bn from police budget

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio has proposed cutting $1bn (£814m) from the police force’s $6bn (£4.48bn) yearly budget, amid calls for re...

Israel orders evangelical Christian media network God TV to take channel off air

“The channel does not appeal to the Christian population in Israel, but rather to the Jews,” Israel's broadcasting regulator said in a s...

The coronavirus is devastating communities of color. The Trump administration's top doctor blames 'structural racism' and shares his plans to take action.

Dr. Jerome Adams is preparing two calls to action — one on high blood pressure, the other on maternal mortality — to address racial health i...

Detroit police SUV drives through crowd after protesters climb on hood

The driver activated the overhead lights, then gunned the accelerator, sending two protesters flying onto the pavement as the vehicle sped o...

Huntsman at risk of shocking defeat in Utah

After a decade away from Utah politics and a weeks-long fight with the coronavirus, the former governor is locked in a tight race for his ol...

Greta Thunberg accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of lining up to take a selfie with her just to 'look good'

Thunberg castigated Angela Merkel and other world leaders at the UN summit as stealing her dreams, but they still craved an Instagram moment...

Robert Jenrick under fresh pressure after whistleblower claims he ignored pleas to block Westferry project

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/robert-jenrick-under-fresh-pressure-174300003.html"><img align="left" alt="Robert Jenrick under fresh pressure after whistleblower claims he ignored pleas to block Westferry project" border="0" height="86" src="http://l.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/X4_yNfbBnvzrLy_mfF6nJQ--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en-GB/the_telegraph_258/dab6371995bb933b845bafdf6835d7f1" title="Robert Jenrick under fresh pressure after whistleblower claims he ignored pleas to block Westferry project" width="130" /></a>Robert Jenrick has found himself under fresh pressure, after a whistleblower claimed he ignored pleas from senior officials to block the controversial Westferry printworks project. The Housing Secretary reportedly overruled objections from civil servants and lawyers to greenlight Tory donor Richard Desmond’s £1 billion development in January, with one source saying he showed “total disregard” for the law. Mr Jenrick had weeks earlier watched a promotional video for the luxury East London project on the businessman’s mobile phone during a dinner at the Savoy hotel in London. Home Secretary Priti Patel insisted she would not “be watching videos” at Conservative fundraisers when quizzed on the matter on Sunday. Ms Patel also argued that going to Tory events would “absolutely not” help a person’s chances in securing planning permission as she described the matter as "closed". She told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "I haven't followed the details of every single decision on this but what I do know and what I can tell you is that the correspondence, the documentation is out in the public domain on this particular application - and rightly so. "The papers have been published, the Secretary of State has followed all issues around transparency. "It has been discussed in Parliament a number of times, questions have been answered on this and the matter is deemed to be closed."
 
 
 
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Robert Jenrick under fresh pressure after whistleblower claims he ignored pleas to block Westferry project

Robert Jenrick has found himself under fresh pressure, after a whistleblower claimed he ignored pleas from senior officials to block the con...

Coronavirus doctor's diary: A 'dying' patient's miraculous recovery

When Mohammed Azeem arrived in hospital his blood oxygen levels were "not compatible with life" as one doctor put it. from BBC N...

Ready but waiting: 'It will make people proud to live here again'

Kids can get into trouble if there’s nothing to do - could a new £6.6m centre be about to change that? from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt...

'Talking to my white friend about race - for the first time'

The Black Lives Matter protests that followed George Floyd's killing led one of Patrick George's white friends to ask him a question...

Coronavirus: Can you really do these jobs from home?

Coronavirus has forced people to get creative with the way they work, with some surprising jobs going online. from BBC News - Home https:/...

'My chronic acne inspired me to start my own skincare company'

How Michelle Doherty overcame her skin problems and launched skincare business Alpha-H. from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2NEJIM8

Is Becky Hill pop's biggest unknown star?

She's sung on dozens of chart hits but after eight years, people are only just starting to recognise her name. from BBC News - Home ht...

Child poverty: Boris Johnson's claims fact-checked

The prime minister has made four claims on poverty, do the figures support them? from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/3ibcK4d

For Biden VP, Black Democrats are torn between Harris and Warren

The California senator represents the diversity and generational transition activists want, but polls suggest Black Democratic voters may pr...

Transcript: Mike Pence on "Face the Nation"

The following is a transcript of an interview with Vice President Mike Pence that aired Sunday, June 28, 2020, on "Face the Nation....

Coronavirus updates: New US cases hit single-day record; as heat rises in places like Florida and Mexico, so do infections

The U.S. hit a single-day record. Texas, Florida closing bars amid surge in cases. The Trump administration is considering new approach to t...

Trump signs executive order to punish vandalism against federal monuments

Details of the executive order were not immediately released, but Trump said earlier this week that the order would "reinforce" ex...

Trump visits private golf course as US battles rapid surge in coronavirus cases

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/trump-visits-private-golf-course-161818984.html"><img align="left" alt="Trump visits private golf course as US battles rapid surge in coronavirus cases" border="0" height="86" src="http://l.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/.MB.pbl2DGhj8zVeKBgrHA--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en-GB/the_guardian_765/68d61d676a1ed61edd3ebf3afc324582" title="Trump visits private golf course as US battles rapid surge in coronavirus cases" width="130" /></a>US president heads to Virginia a day after saying he’d stay in Washington DC to ‘make sure law and order is enforced’ amid ongoing anti-racism protests * Coronavirus in the US – follow live updatesDonald Trump visited one of his own private golf courses in Virginia on Saturday as America continued to see fallout from a rapid surge in coronavirus cases. The trip came a day after the US president said he would stay in Washington DC to “make sure law and order is enforced” amid ongoing anti-racism protests.The president has been frequently criticized for the scale of his golfing habit while in office. CNN – which tallies his golfing activities – said the visit to the Trump National course in Loudon county, just outside Washington DC, was the 271st of his presidency – putting him at an average of golfing once every 4.6 days since he’s been in office. His predecessor, Barack Obama, golfed 333 rounds over the two terms of his presidency, according to NBC.The visit comes as the number of confirmed new coronavirus cases per day in the US hit an all-time high of 40,000, according to figures released by Johns Hopkins on Friday. Many states are now seeing spikes in the virus with Texas, Florida and Arizona especially badly hit after they reopened their economies – a policy they are now pausing or reversing.Trump has been roundly criticized for a failure to lead during the coronavirus that has seen America become by far the worst hit country in the world. Critics in particular point to his failure to wear a mask, holding campaign rallies in coronavirus hot spots and touting baseless conspiracy theories about cures, such as using bleach.On Friday night Trump tweeted that he was cancelling a weekend trip to his Bedminster, New Jersey golf course because of the protests which have rocked the capital, including taking down statues of confederate figures.“I was going to go to Bedminster, New Jersey, this weekend, but wanted to stay in Washington, D.C. to make sure LAW & ORDER is enforced. The arsonists, anarchists, looters, and agitators have been largely stopped,” he tweeted.Trump’s latest visit to the golf course put him in the way of some opposition. According to a White House pool media report: “A small group of protesters at the entrance to the club held signs that included, ‘Trump Makes Me Sick’ and ‘Dump Trump’. A woman walking a small white dog nearby also gave the motorcade a middle finger salute.”It is not yet known if Trump actually played a round of golf. But a photographer captured the president wearing a white polo shirt and a red cap, which is among his common golfing attire.
 
 
 
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3i687Ix

Trump visits private golf course as US battles rapid surge in coronavirus cases

US president heads to Virginia a day after saying he’d stay in Washington DC to ‘make sure law and order is enforced’ amid ongoing anti-raci...

The Black Officer Who Detained George Floyd Had Pledged to Fix the Police

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/black-officer-detained-george-floyd-183500869.html"><img align="left" alt="The Black Officer Who Detained George Floyd Had Pledged to Fix the Police" border="0" height="86" src="http://l1.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/TGtV4R5Q6JopmaAI.Sa0Ew--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media-mbst-pub-ue1.s3.amazonaws.com/creatr-images/2020-06/176749a0-a6c3-11ea-aafe-720178567f33" title="The Black Officer Who Detained George Floyd Had Pledged to Fix the Police" width="130" /></a>MINNEAPOLIS -- There were two Black men at the scene of the police killing in Minneapolis last month that roiled the nation. One, George Floyd, was sprawled on the asphalt, with a white officer's knee on his neck. The other Black man, Alex Kueng, was a rookie police officer who held his back as Floyd struggled to breathe.Floyd, whose name has been painted on murals and scrawled on protest signs, has been laid to rest. Kueng, who faces charges of aiding and abetting in Floyd's death, is out on bail, hounded at the supermarket by strangers and denounced by some family members.Long before Kueng was arrested, he had wrestled with the issue of police abuse of Black people, joining the force in part to help protect people close to him from police aggression. He argued that diversity could force change in a Police Department long accused of racism.He had seen one sibling arrested and treated poorly, in his view, by sheriff's deputies. He had found himself defending his decision to join the police force, saying he thought it was the best way to fix a broken system. He had clashed with friends over whether public demonstrations could actually make things better."He said, 'Don't you think that that needs to be done from the inside?'" his mother, Joni Kueng, recalled him saying after he watched protesters block a highway years ago. "That's part of the reason why he wanted to become a police officer -- and a Black police officer on top of it -- is to bridge that gap in the community, change the narrative between the officers and the Black community."As hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated against the police after Floyd's killing on May 25, Kueng became part of a national debate over police violence toward Black people, a symbol of the very sort of policing he had long said he wanted to stop.Derek Chauvin, the officer who placed his knee on Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes, has been most widely associated with the case. He faces charges of second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter; Kueng and two other former officers were charged with aiding and abetting the killing. At 26, Kueng was the youngest and least experienced officer at the scene, on only his third shift as a full officer.The arrest of Kueng, whose mother is white and whose father was from Nigeria, has brought anguish to his friends and family. "It's a gut punch," Joni Kueng said. "Here you are, you've raised this child, you know who he is inside and out. We're such a racially diverse family. To be wrapped up in a racially motivated incident like this is just unfathomable."Two of Alex Kueng's siblings, Taylor and Radiance, both of whom are African American, called for the arrests of all four officers, including their brother. They joined protests in Minneapolis.In a Facebook Live video, Taylor Kueng, 21, appeared with the head of the local NAACP to speak of the injustice that befell Floyd, acknowledging being related to Alex Kueng but never mentioning his name.Alex Kueng's sister Radiance posted a video of Floyd's final minutes on Facebook. "Just broke my heart," she wrote. In an interview, she said that as a Black man, her brother should have intervened. She said she planned to change her last name in part because she did not want to be associated with her brother's actions."I don't care if it was his third day at work or not," she said. "He knows right from wrong."A Full HouseThrough his life, Alex Kueng straddled two worlds, Black and white.Kueng, whose full name is J. Alexander Kueng (pronounced "king"), was raised by his mother, whom he lived with until last year. His father was absent.As a child, Kueng sometimes asked for siblings. Joni Kueng, who lived in the Shingle Creek neighborhood in north Minneapolis, signed up with an African American adoption agency.When Alex was 5, Joni Kueng brought home a baby boy who had been abandoned at a hospital. Alex soon asked for a sister; Radiance arrived when he was 11. Taylor and a younger brother came in 2009, when Alex was about 16.Radiance Kueng, 21, said their adoptive mother did not talk about race. "Race was not really a topic in our household, unfortunately," she said. "For her adopting as many Black kids as she did -- I didn't get that conversation from her. I feel like that should have been a conversation that was had."Growing up, Alex Kueng and his family made repeated trips to Haiti, helping at an orphanage. Alex Kueng and his siblings took a break from school to volunteer there after the earthquake in 2010.Joni Kueng, 56, likes to say that the Kuengs are a family of doers, not talkers."I had to stay out of the race conversations because I was the minority in the household," Joni Kueng said in her first interview since her son's arrest. She said that race was not an issue with her, but that she was conflicted. "It didn't really matter, but it does matter to them because they are African American. And so they had to be able to have an outlet to tell their stories and their experience as well, especially having a white mom."Joni Kueng taught math at the schools her children went to, where the student body was often mostly Hmong, African American and Latino. Classmates described Alex Kueng as friends with everyone, a master of juggling a soccer ball and a defender against bullies. Photos portray him with a sly smile.Darrow Jones said he first met Alex Kueng on the playground when he was 6. Jones was trying to finish his multiplication homework. Alex Kueng helped Jones and then invited him into a game of tag.When Jones' mother died in 2008, Joni Kueng took him in for as long as a month at a time.By high school, Alex Kueng had found soccer, and soon that was all he wanted to do. He became captain of the soccer team; he wanted to turn pro. The quote next to his senior yearbook picture proclaimed, "We ignore failures and strive for success."Alex Kueng went to Monroe College in New Rochelle, New York, to play soccer and study business. But after surgery on both knees, soccer proved impossible. Alex Kueng quit. Back in Minneapolis, he enrolled in technical college and supported himself catching shoplifters at Macy's.About that time, he started talking about joining the police, Joni Kueng recalled. She said she was nervous, for his safety and also because of the troubled relationship between the Minneapolis police and residents.Given his background, Alex Kueng thought he had the ability to bridge the gap between white and Black worlds, Jones said. He often did not see the same level of racism that friends felt. Jones, who is Black, recalled a road trip a few years ago to Utah with Alex Kueng, a white friend and Alex Kueng's girlfriend, who is Hmong. Jones said he had to explain to Alex Kueng why people were staring at the group."Once we got to Utah, we walked into a store, and literally everybody's eyes were on us," recalled Jones, whose skin is darker than Alex Kueng's. "I said, 'Alex, that's because you're walking in here with a Black person. The reason they're staring at us is because you're here with me.'"By February 2019, Alex Kueng had made up his mind: He signed up as a police cadet.Only a few months later, his sibling Taylor, a longtime supporter of Black Lives Matter who had volunteered as a counselor at a Black heritage camp and as a mentor to at-risk Black youths, had a confrontation with law enforcement.Taylor Kueng and a friend saw local sheriff's deputies questioning two men in a downtown Minneapolis shopping district about drinking in public. They intervened. Taylor Kueng used a cellphone to record video of the deputies putting the friend, in a striped summer dress, on the ground. "You're hurting me!" the friend shouted.As the confrontation continued, a deputy turned to Taylor Kueng and said, "Put your hands behind your back." "For what?" Taylor Kueng asked several times. "Because," said the deputy, threatening to use his Taser.Taylor Kueng called home. Alex Kueng and their mother rushed to get bail and then to the jail. "Don't worry, I got you," Alex Kueng told his sibling, hugging Taylor, their mother recalled.Alex Kueng reminded his sibling that those were sheriff's deputies, not the city force he was joining, and criticized their behavior, his mother recalled.After Taylor Kueng's video went public, the city dropped the misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and obstructing the legal process. The sheriff's office announced an official review of the arrests, which resulted in no discipline.Diverging PathsAlex Kueng's choice to become a police officer caused a rift in his friendship with Jones."It was very clear where we stood on that," said Jones, a Black Lives Matter supporter who protested on the streets after the deaths of Jamar Clark and Philando Castile at the hands of Minneapolis-area police. "Our fundamental disagreement around law enforcement is not that I believe cops are bad people. I just believe that the system needs to be completely wiped out and replaced. It's the difference between reform and rebuilding."After Alex Kueng became a cadet, Jones went from seeing Alex Kueng twice a month to maybe three times a year. He said he did not even tell Alex Kueng when the police pursued him for nothing and then let him go.In December, Alex Kueng graduated from the police academy. For most of his field training, Chauvin, with 19 years on the job, was his training officer.At one point, Alex Kueng, upset, called his mother. He said he had done something during training that bothered a supervising officer, who reamed him out. Joni Kueng did not know if that supervisor was Chauvin.Chauvin also extended Alex Kueng's training period. He felt Alex Kueng was meeting too often with a fellow police trainee, Thomas Lane, when responding to calls, rather than handling the calls on his own, Joni Kueng said.But on May 22, Alex Kueng officially became one of about 80 Black officers on a police force of almost 900. In recent years, the department, not as racially diverse as the city's population, has tried to increase the number of officers of color, with limited success.That evening, other officers held a small party at the Third Precinct station to celebrate Alex Kueng's promotion. The next evening, he worked his first full shift as an officer, inside the station. On that Sunday, he worked the 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. patrol shift, his first on the streets.On May 25, Alex Kueng's third day on the job, Alex Kueng and Lane, now partnered up despite both being freshly minted rookies, were the first officers to answer a call of a counterfeit $20 bill being passed at a corner store. They found Floyd in a car outside.After they failed to get Floyd into the back of a squad car, Chauvin and Tou Thao, another officer, showed up.As Chauvin jammed his knee into the back of Floyd's neck, Alex Kueng held down Floyd's back, according to a probable cause statement filed by prosecutors.Chauvin kept his knee there as Floyd repeated "I can't breathe" and "mama" and "please." Through the passing minutes, Alex Kueng did nothing to intervene, prosecutors say. After Floyd stopped moving, Alex Kueng checked Floyd's pulse. "I couldn't find one," Alex Kueng told the other officers.Critics of the police said the fact that none of the junior officers stopped Chauvin showed that the system itself needed to be overhauled."How do you as an individual think that you're going to be able to change that system, especially when you're going in at a low level?" said Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality in Minneapolis. "You're not going to feel OK to say, 'Stop, senior officer.' The culture is such, that that kind of intervening would be greatly discouraged."All four officers have been fired. All four face 40 years in prison. Alex Kueng, who was released on bail on June 19, declined through his lawyer to be interviewed. He is set to appear in court Monday.A day after Floyd's death, Jones learned that Alex Kueng was one of the officers who had been present. Around midnight, Jones called Alex Kueng. They talked for 40 minutes -- about what, Jones would not say -- and they cried."I'm feeling a lot of sadness and a lot of disappointment," Jones said. "A lot of us believe he should have stepped in and should have done something."He added: "It's really hard. Because I do have those feelings and I won't say I don't. But though I feel sad about what's occurred, he still has my unwavering support. Because we grew up together, and I love him."Jones said he had gone to the protests but could not bring himself to join in.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
 
 
 
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The Black Officer Who Detained George Floyd Had Pledged to Fix the Police

MINNEAPOLIS -- There were two Black men at the scene of the police killing in Minneapolis last month that roiled the nation. One, George Flo...

17 Rikers Island officers face discipline in transgender woman's death

Layleen Polanco, 27, died of an epileptic seizure while in solitary confinement on June 7 of last year. from Yahoo News - Latest News ...

'We opened too quickly': Texas becomes a model for inadequate Covid-19 response

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/opened-too-quickly-texas-becomes-133941375.html"><img align="left" alt="'We opened too quickly': Texas becomes a model for inadequate Covid-19 response" border="0" height="86" src="http://l1.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/AaqIv_OW06U8sG72qr6UiA--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en-GB/the_guardian_765/547123c36f35ef60fba559ddabfa15e7" title="'We opened too quickly': Texas becomes a model for inadequate Covid-19 response" width="130" /></a>State shuts down again after seven weeks with coronavirus cases soaring, after ignoring inconvenient data and fighting party-political turf warsWhen Donald Trump welcomed Texas governor Greg Abbott to the White House in May, the US president hailed his fellow Republican as “one of the great governors” and lauded the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and predicted boom times ahead.“When you look at the job he’s done in Texas, I rely on his judgment,” Trump said.Seven weeks later, as the state once again closes businesses with virus cases skyrocketing and hospitals running out of intensive-care beds, Texas indeed appears to be a model: for how to squander a hopeful position through premature reopening, ignoring inconvenient data and fighting party-political turf wars.On 7 May, the day of Abbott’s visit to Washington, the state reported 968 new cases among its 29 million residents. Daily numbers have soared this week – to 5,996 on 25 June – prompting doctors in Houston to sound the alarm.On Friday, Abbott ordered a halt to Texan experiences such as bar-hopping along Austin’s raucous Sixth Street and floating lazily on an inner tube along a tree-lined river. Bars – which were open at up to 50% capacity – must close again, restaurants must reduce from 75% to 50% capacity and rafting operations must close.Harris County, which includes Houston, moved to its highest Covid-19 threat level, signalling a “severe and uncontrolled” outbreak.“The harsh truth is that our current infection rate is on pace to overwhelm our hospitals in the very near future,” Lina Hidalgo, the county judge, said at a press conference on Friday. “We opened too quickly.”It was not her choice. Hidalgo, a Democrat, issued a mandatory mask order in April that was swiftly rendered toothless by Abbott, who said masks were strongly recommended but local authorities could not impose penalties for non-compliance.Abbott said in the Oval Office that Texas’ phased reopening was based on data-driven strategies that would reduce the spread of the virus and enable the economy to recover. But he was cherry-picking numbers; the statistics did not meet federal criteria for relaxing a lockdown and Texas’ per-capita testing rate is among the worst in the nation.That same day, Abbott diluted his own authority in order to mollify his conservative base. He eliminated jail as a punishment for violating his coronavirus restrictions, in a response to right-wing outrage over the imprisonment of a Dallas hair salon owner who had illegally reopened, refused to close again and was sentenced to seven days behind bars for contempt of court.“Abbott tries to play the moderate but in reality he’s almost on a leash with the extreme right,” said Mustafa Tameez, a Houston-based Democratic strategist.Tameez said that Abbott and Trump have sown confusion through mixed messages. “We’re not going to be able to make policy unless we root it in facts and science,” he said. “We’re not going to be able to make it through this on soundbites and political positioning.”Republicans control Texas politics at state level largely thanks to support from white rural and suburban voters. But Democrats dominate in the biggest cities, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin. This has long led to policy conflicts, with the state overriding municipalities on issues from banning plastic bags to immigration enforcement. Greg Casar, an Austin city council member, said that Abbott placed appeasing his core voters ahead of the health of urban communities of color.“The governor at the very beginning of this chose to prioritize politics over public health,” Casar said, noting the state’s attempt to suspend abortions. He added that if cases continue to spike, Austin would probably pass laws that go beyond Abbott’s limits, risking a court fight.“The overwhelming majority of our hospitalizations are Latino and of course black Austinites are being hospitalized at a disproportionate rate as well,” Casar said. “Generations of racist practice and policies are really exposing those communities at the moment no matter how much we try to mitigate it.” Austin was blocked earlier this month from implementing mandatory paid sick leave after a long-running legal challenge backed by leading Texas Republicans.“Hopefully the leadership of this state now knows that they’ve got to put public health first, we’ve got to flatten the curve all the way,” said Royce West, a state senator in Dallas and Democratic US senate primary candidate. “Leaders in this state have got to look at whether or not what the model was in New York should be replicated here.” That would underline the dramatic reversal in fortunes from the spring, when New York was the national epicentre – but severe actions seem unlikely.Dan Patrick, the 70-year-old Texas lieutenant governor, declared in March that he was willing to risk death to help the economy.On Friday, Patrick dismissed the idea of a fresh lockdown and accused hospitals of providing misleading information. “Yes, positive rates are up, mostly young people, they’re not dying,” he told Fox News. “We’re still moving forward, with a slight pause.”Nor is the pandemic causing state leaders to reconsider their most cherished policy goals. As hospitals scramble to find more ICU beds, Texas, the state with the highest number of uninsured people, filed a brief on Thursday urging the US supreme court to scrap the Affordable Care Act, which would threaten access to healthcare for millions.
 
 
 
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'We opened too quickly': Texas becomes a model for inadequate Covid-19 response

State shuts down again after seven weeks with coronavirus cases soaring, after ignoring inconvenient data and fighting party-political turf ...

Spanish village makes its own rainbow after council's gay pride flag banned

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/spanish-village-makes-own-rainbow-194438241.html"><img align="left" alt="Spanish village makes its own rainbow after council's gay pride flag banned" border="0" height="86" src="http://l.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/y1Sn.qnkGgU8s3uiNKczGw--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en-US/reuters.com/932cb9204dff45bfbab990f08463babf" title="Spanish village makes its own rainbow after council's gay pride flag banned" width="130" /></a>When police ordered a local mayor in southern Spain to take down a rainbow flag put up to celebrate gay pride on Friday because it was illegal, more than 300 households in the village rallied to the cause and flew their own flags. By the time gay pride celebrations took place in Spain on Sunday, the Andalusian village of Villanueva de Algaidas near Malaga was awash with flags hanging from balconies, windows and even a bar in solidarity. Juan Civico, Socialist mayor of the village of 4,000 inhabitants, only found out it was illegal for authorities to fly the flag after three residents complained about the one he had put up.
 
 
 
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Spanish village makes its own rainbow after council's gay pride flag banned

When police ordered a local mayor in southern Spain to take down a rainbow flag put up to celebrate gay pride on Friday because it was illeg...

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Mississippi lawmakers voted Sunday to surrender the Confederate battle emblem from their state flag, triggering raucous applause and cheers ...

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Coronavirus: Can you really do these jobs from home?

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Fauci says US has 'a serious problem' with the coronavirus, as younger people drive the surge of new cases

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China rebuts Canadian criticism over detention of two men

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/china-rebuts-canadian-criticism-over-181943470.html"><img align="left" alt="China rebuts Canadian criticism over detention of two men" border="0" height="86" src="http://l1.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/sNj3a3coQd6Yo9oiqRdBmw--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en-US/reuters.com/119bc64213bb572166778bf5716ee2f4" title="China rebuts Canadian criticism over detention of two men" width="130" /></a>China lashed out at Canada on Saturday over criticism about Chinese prosecution of two Canadians, saying the matter is based on evidence and urging Ottawa to cease "megaphone diplomacy." Chinese prosecutors this month charged Canadians Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, a businessman, for suspected espionage. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called on Beijing to cease the "arbitrary detention," and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also called for their release.
 
 
 
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China rebuts Canadian criticism over detention of two men

China lashed out at Canada on Saturday over criticism about Chinese prosecution of two Canadians, saying the matter is based on evidence and...

Florida Smirked at New York's Virus Crisis. Now It Has Its Own.

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/florida-smirked-yorks-virus-crisis-185603540.html"><img align="left" alt="Florida Smirked at New York's Virus Crisis. Now It Has Its Own." border="0" height="86" src="http://l2.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/trC5JiJir4jmt_5WuyQtYQ--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/the_new_york_times_articles_158/e5055f2bd755939c0705f1274680f3d0" title="Florida Smirked at New York's Virus Crisis. Now It Has Its Own." width="130" /></a>In late April, as new coronavirus cases in Florida were steadily decreasing, Gov. Ron DeSantis began crowing how his state had tamed the pandemic.He credited his decision to impose a state-specific quarantine on New York, then the epicenter of the nation's outbreak. The move earned him praise in the White House and the ire of Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York.Months later, Cuomo has clearly not forgotten."You played politics with this virus and you lost," Cuomo said Thursday when asked in an interview about DeSantis' earlier boasts.With infections now rapidly spreading in Florida while they retreat in New York, the two states have come to reflect the rapidly shifting course of the coronavirus pandemic.New York still has the country's highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths, but the day-to-day numbers have been steadily falling: At its peak, the virus claimed 1,000 deaths a day in the state; on Thursday, the state recorded 17 deaths. Florida, among the states not mandating masks, rushed to reopen and on Friday reported its highest number of new cases in one day, with close to 9,000.And in their divergent political responses to the outbreak, Cuomo, a Democrat, and DeSantis, a Republican, also mirror the divide over the virus among states and regions around the country.The two brash, telegenic governors both embraced the increased visibility that the virus provided. Cuomo delivered daily sober updates on the virus, the state's aggressive lockdown strategy and its cautious approach to reopening. DeSantis eagerly advanced a narrative pushed by President Donald Trump, seeing the economic damage as a greater risk than a virus that had, for months, largely spared his state.The strain of the pandemic has frayed the ties between New York and Florida, two states that normally enjoy a more symbiotic relationship, even allowing for the occasional hints of schadenfreude.On Wednesday, Cuomo ordered his own quarantine on travelers from states with high-infection rates -- a group of eight that included Florida -- to protect New Yorkers who now have low infection rates. The reversal of fortune was too much to pass up."Your hospital beds are filling up," Cuomo said Thursday. "It means more people are getting sick. That's what's happening. And it's now undeniable."Despite the virus' spread, DeSantis has given no indication that he would order the shutdown of any of the businesses already opened. But on Friday, in an unexpected move, the state's Department of Business and Professional Regulation abruptly announced that on-premises alcohol consumption would be suspended at bars, effective immediately.DeSantis acknowledged that the trend in infections had shifted. "Our peak before was much lower than a lot of the other states -- in the Northeast, for example," he said on Thursday during a news conference in Tampa. "Really, the whole Sun Belt is seeing this."DeSantis said the state, which has lost 3,327 lives to the virus, was prepared for the rise in cases. He did not address Cuomo's remarks or the quarantine of Floridians traveling to New York. A spokeswoman for DeSantis, Helen Aguirre Ferre, said Cuomo was "sadly mistaken if he thinks this pandemic is a political contest."Even before the pandemic, New York and Florida engaged in some interstate rivalry, competing for residents and businesses. Florida has overtaken New York in population in recent years, a trend driven in part by the migration to the state of New Yorkers, census figures show.But in their responses to the coronavirus, the differences between the two states have never been clearer.Cuomo in April mandated all New Yorkers to wear masks when they could not stay 6 feet apart. DeSantis has declined to do the same, even after his own state surgeon general issued an advisory recommending masks in any setting where social distancing is not possible.New York leaders, after a halting early response to the pandemic in March, mostly followed the recommendations of state public health officials, including requirements for widespread testing and contact tracing before reopening. Florida has moved to open its businesses faster, and without the same infrastructure for tracking down the close contacts of the infected.In large part, the different approaches reflect the different experiences with the virus. New York state saw more than 18,000 hospitalizations a day during the worst period of the outbreak, back in April.The state's nursing homes were particularly hard-hit: 6,200 residents have died, and Cuomo has been criticized by DeSantis and others for an executive order that forbade nursing homes from turning away patients arriving from hospitals solely because they had the coronavirus. A Cuomo spokesman recently responded by saying DeSantis does not know how to wear a mask properly.DeSantis received praise for the state's more limited response to the pandemic, including from Trump, who urged the quarantine of New Yorkers going to Florida. DeSantis believed harsh restrictions would result in citizens refusing to follow the rules.He has also attacked the news media, which he said has been overly concerned about contagion in Florida's reopened beaches and not worried enough about virus spread in the New York subway.In early May, Florida began reopening business, and quickly: The state's first phase of reopening included restaurants, gyms, barbershops and large spectator sporting events, with restricted occupancy. In New York, reopening began more haltingly, with manufacturing and construction businesses.And when the White House called, DeSantis traveled to Washington to highlight the state's progress next to Trump."When you look at some of the most draconian orders that have been issued in some of these states and compare Florida," DeSantis said from the Oval Office in late April, including New York in a litany of several states, "Florida has done better."And so the National Basketball Association said it would hold the rest of its season at Walt Disney World. The Republican National Convention relocated its big speeches to Jacksonville, Florida. NASCAR raced at the Homestead-Miami Speedway earlier this month, with DeSantis as its honorary starter.Cuomo has made his own bid for sports, coaxing the Mets and the Yankees to return to New York from their spring training camps by suggesting Florida was no longer safe. (He exempted the teams from the new quarantine, saying they had their own health protocols.)While Cuomo did not explicitly target his quarantine order to apply to Florida, he signaled in the days before making the announcement that the state's recent treatment of New Yorkers was very much on his mind."Well, wouldn't that be karma?" Cuomo said when asked about a quarantine in New York on MSNBC.Florida's quarantine affecting New Yorkers is still in effect: As of Tuesday, New Yorkers arriving at Miami International Airport were still being met by the National Guard and state health officials, told to head straight for their lodgings and ordered to quarantine there for two weeks.But as the course of the coronavirus outbreak has turned in recent weeks, the flow of travelers has reversed: People are now jetting out of Florida and back to the relative safety of New York. Such an exodus would have been unimaginable three months earlier.Epidemiologists said Florida's quarantine of New Yorkers made sense at the time, just as New York's for Floridians does now. "There is more virus in that environment," said Dr. Amanda D. Castel, a professor of epidemiology at George Washington University.Right now, New York was looking like a safer bet to Evan Friedman, a White Plains, New York, resident who had been staying in his second home in Boca Raton, Florida, since March.In recent weeks, Friedman, 58, had begun to worry that Florida residents were not taking the virus seriously enough. A barber not wearing a mask rattled him. So did the man in the bagel shop who prepared a platter without a mask or gloves.Many New Yorkers he knew in Florida had gone back north, and he planned to go early next month.But when Cuomo announced that the new quarantine would take effect at midnight Wednesday, Friedman rushed to pack his bags. He found the flights to New York were all booked, so he got a ticket to Connecticut and rented a car to get back to New York."I have the luxury of being able to be up North or in the South," he said. "I want to be where there are the smallest amount of cases."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
 
 
 
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Florida Smirked at New York's Virus Crisis. Now It Has Its Own.

In late April, as new coronavirus cases in Florida were steadily decreasing, Gov. Ron DeSantis began crowing how his state had tamed the pan...

A Major GOP Nightmare Moves a Step Closer to Reality

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/major-gop-nightmare-moves-step-083244975.html"><img align="left" alt="A Major GOP Nightmare Moves a Step Closer to Reality" border="0" height="86" src="http://l1.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/YQsn9n3jBUSOt0Ko15QcGA--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en-US/thedailybeast.com/aa3a6fef9db3d9f7f6ae921584be13c4" title="A Major GOP Nightmare Moves a Step Closer to Reality" width="130" /></a>Legislation to make the District of Columbia a state is poised to pass the House on Friday, a major advance from the last time the measure came before Congress 27 years ago and 40 percent of Democrats joined with all but one Republican to defeat D.C. statehood. After decades of benign neglect, the movement to make D.C. the 51st state has gained new life with Black Lives Matter and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s heightened profile. President Trump’s efforts to use federal force to dominate streets around the White House exposed the subservient status of a city that must answer to Congress for how it spends money while its 706,000 residents are without full voting representation in the House or Senate. Republicans appear unmoved by pleas for equality. Republican Sen. Tom Cotton took to the Senate floor to denounce the Democrats’ move in a racially tinged speech depicting D.C. as an elitist conclave of the “deep state” and Mayor Bowser as someone who could not be trusted to keep the city and its statues safe. “Yes, Wyoming is smaller than Washington by population,” he tweeted, “but it has three times as many workers in mining, logging, and construction, and 10 times as many workers in manufacturing. In other words, Wyoming is a well-rounded working-class state."Opinion: I Fixed Tom Cotton’s Op-EdThe bill to rename D.C. “Washington, Douglass Commonwealth” is going nowhere in Mitch McConnell’s Senate. But if the Democrats win the White House and flip the Senate, statehood becomes imaginable, since statehood requires only a vote of Congress. “Trump says Republicans would have to be stupid to support D.C. statehood and that’s what the battle is about these days, maybe that’s what it’s always been about,” says Michael Brown, D.C.’s non-voting “shadow senator.” Actually, Trump said Republicans would have to be “very, very stupid” to support statehood for D.C. because it would add two Democratic senators, which McConnell would never let happen. “But it’s about more than McConnell,” Brown told the Daily Beast. “We can’t get one Republican (in the Senate), and there are still six (Senate) Democrats who are not on the bill.” In the modern Senate, 60 votes are needed to overcome a filibuster and proceed to a vote on legislation of any significance. The exception is judges, where Republicans exercised what is known as the “nuclear option” to confirm two Supreme Court judges and 200 lower court lifetime judges with a simple majority. Democratic leader Harry Reid opened this dangerous door by striking the filibuster for Executive Branch confirmations that McConnell was blocking. Several Democrats who ran for president, including Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Pete Buttigieg, favor doing away with the filibuster if Democrats win the Senate. Otherwise, they argue, McConnell (or his successor, should he happen to lose his own race) will obstruct everything Democrats try to do.  The District of Columbia has a population of 706,000, more than Wyoming and Vermont, and D.C. residents pay more in total federal income tax than 22 states. It has long been a sore point that fighting in every war and contributing blood and treasure is not enough to gain more than a symbolic vote in Congress. D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has served almost 30 years, has a vote in committee but not on the House floor, and if her committee vote breaks a tie, it doesn’t count. Even that small measure of democratic largesse was taken away by Republicans when they gained control of the House in 1994 and again in 2010. Democrats restored Norton’s limited right to vote when they won the House in 2006 and 2018, and since then Norton has been on a roll when it comes to statehood. She has 226 co-sponsors for the bill, including the No. 2 Democrat in the House, Steny Hoyer from Maryland, who opposed statehood until now. Speaking before the Rules committee Wednesday, Norton explained how the legislation before her colleagues was personal to her own history. “My great-grandfather, Richard Holmes, who escaped as a slave from a Virginia plantation, made it as far as D.C., a walk to freedom but not to equal citizenship,” she said. “For three generations my family has been denied the rights other Americans take for granted.” Opponents of statehood argue that the Founding Fathers didn’t want the District to be a state, but our vaunted forebears also didn’t want women to vote, or Black people to vote, so that argument seems lame. “Whether you’re a textualist or an originalist, I don’t believe the Founding Fathers had any more reason to deny representation to people who pay federal taxes, serve in war and do everything a citizen should—than they would have wanted my neighbor down the hall to have a closet full of AK-47s,” says Ellen Goldstein, who served until recently as a neighborhood advisory commissioner for the Sheridan-Kalorama neighborhood, home to the Obamas, the Kushners, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. “You can unearth the minds of the Founding Fathers to justify anything,” Goldstein told the Daily Beast. “As somebody who has lived here for 50 years, I believe the only reason we’re not a state is because of race.” Race has a lot to do with it, says Brown, a former political consultant whose unpaid position’s main perk is identifying as a senator. The Constitution grants Congress jurisdiction over the District in “all cases whatsoever,” which allowed some committee chairmen of the House and Senate Committees on the District of Columbia to run the city like a plantation. In his recent book Class of 1974, John Lawrence recounts how John McMillan, a South Carolina Democrat and a segregationist, sent a truckload of watermelons to the office of appointed Mayor Walter Washington to let him know how little he thought of the budget Washington submitted in 1967 for the committee’s review. The District couldn’t even elect its own mayor until after Home Rule passed Congress in 1973. For a long time, D.C. pridefully called itself “Chocolate City,” acknowledging its majority Black population. No state has ever come into the union with a majority minority population, says Brown. In 1993, the last time Congress voted on statehood, the city was 56 percent Black, a factor in the outcome despite President Bill Clinton’s advocacy for statehood. During his final weeks in office, Bill Clinton had the newly authorized D.C. license plate with the slogan “taxation without representation” affixed to the presidential limousine. His successor, President George W. Bush, had the plate removed. It wasn’t until after President Obama won re-election in 2012 that he ordered the controversial plate installed on all presidential vehicles. In 2011, the District’s Black population fell below 50 percent for the first time in over 50 years. According to 2017 Census Bureau data, the African-American population is 47.1 percent. Unlike the Clinton-era vote, when Democrats were divided on the political merits of D.C. statehood, a newly awakened Democratic leadership is rallying around the cry for equal rights. “It’s beyond statehood,” says Goldstein, citing congressional meddling in District policies on marijuana legalization, gun regulation, and funding for abortion. “If we decide to do it, they take it away. They take our money and tell us how to spend it.”  Goldstein doubts the House vote will change anything, but in her thinking, modern America cannot continue to deny D.C. is a state any more than Macy’s Department store in the movie classic Miracle on 34th Street could deny Kris Kringle was Santa when bags of letters addressed to him were delivered by the Post Office. Using the same reasoning, Goldstein notes that when she shops online on Amazon and scrolls down, D.C. is a state: “If the Post Office thinks you’re Santa, you’re Santa. And if Amazon thinks we’re a state, then by golly, we’re a state.”Until a miracle happens on Capitol Hill, that will have to do.  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.
 
 
 
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A Major GOP Nightmare Moves a Step Closer to Reality

Legislation to make the District of Columbia a state is poised to pass the House on Friday, a major advance from the last time the measure c...

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Coronavirus food fear: Government launches investigation after meatpacking outbreaks

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/government-scientists-ask-fsa-investigate-152419113.html"><img align="left" alt="Coronavirus food fear: Government launches investigation after meatpacking outbreaks" border="0" height="86" src="http://l2.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/mfHvbFt.NE2ScmBUGGrhcg--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en-GB/the_telegraph_258/cd08e179cf7c13bfe40e1697a5005469" title="Coronavirus food fear: Government launches investigation after meatpacking outbreaks" width="130" /></a>Government scientists have asked the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to investigate whether food could harbour coronavirus following major outbreaks in meatpacking plants. Four food processing factories in England and Wales have suffered clusters of disease, with 469 workers testing positive for the virus so far. Across the world, staff at meat packing plants have been disproportionately impacted by disease, with cold, crowded and noisy working conditions which force people to shout, thought to be to blame. Now it has emerged that government scientists have asked the FSA to check whether the virus could get into food. So far the risk has been assessed as low, but experts say they are continuing to monitor the situation. A government source said: “We have actually asked the Food Standards Agency to look at this a few times, about the risk in meat and other produce, and their assessment is that the risk is very low for transmission on meat. “But we’ll keep asking them to look as new evidence comes up.” In the US, as many as 25,000 meat and poultry workers have tested positive for Covid-19, and at least 93 have died. This week Kirklees council confirmed that 165 employees of a meat processing plant in West Yorkshire had contracted the virus and Public Health Wales reported 200 coronavirus cases at a meat processing plant on Anglesey. There have also been 34 cases linked to Merthyr Tydfil and 70 to Wrexham. Dr Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health at the University of Southampton, said: “Whilst refrigeration may be a contributory factor to the spread of the virus, the key factors are likely to be the number of people close together in indoor conditions. “Some of these factories have onsite or nearby accommodation where there are several people in each dormitory, they may be transported on a bus to the site of work, and they will be indoors together all day.”
 
 
 
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Coronavirus food fear: Government launches investigation after meatpacking outbreaks

Government scientists have asked the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to investigate whether food could harbour coronavirus following major outbr...

New top story on Hacker News: Volley (YC W18) is hiring a Head of Engineering to build voice-controlled games

Volley (YC W18) is hiring a Head of Engineering to build voice-controlled games 1 by jameswilsterman | 0 comments on Hacker News.

New top story on Hacker News: Open letter from a Texas county judge about his Covid mask order

Open letter from a Texas county judge about his Covid mask order 34 by beervirus | 15 comments on Hacker News.

New top story on Hacker News: A Treatise on Font Rasterisation (2010)

A Treatise on Font Rasterisation (2010) 4 by threeme3 | 0 comments on Hacker News.

Coronavirus: The foods we are all eating during lockdown

During the coronavirus lockdown our eating habits have changed, so who has been benefiting from it? from BBC News - Business https://ift.t...

Being black in business is being 'on your own'

The coronavirus pandemic is expected to widen America's longstanding economic disparities. from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/2NG...

Pakistan national airline grounds third of pilots over 'dubious' licences

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/pakistan-national-airline-grounds-third-102828668.html"><img align="left" alt="Pakistan national airline grounds third of pilots over 'dubious' licences" border="0" height="86" src="http://l.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/AzahCKgSWXjrVKKvWk.r9w--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en-GB/the_telegraph_258/179e2b300632a337df74723f99db0b8b" title="Pakistan national airline grounds third of pilots over 'dubious' licences" width="130" /></a>Pakistan's national airline will ground a third of its pilots on suspicion they hold “dubious” licences and flying certificates. The move was announced after air accident investigators blamed a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) pilot for last month's crash in Karachi which killed 99 people. A government minister said the crew were over confident and distracted by a conversation about coronavirus when the PIA Airbus A320 crashed on May 22. PIA was highly placed among world airlines until the 1970s, but its reputation has sunk with delays, cancellations and financial troubles. The airline has been embarrassed by reports of pilots falling asleep, or turning up drunk. "We've been told that an investigation conducted by the civil aviation authority has found that about 150 of our pilots have dubious licenses," company spokesman Abdullah Khan told Reuters. Investigations into pilot qualifications began after an earlier crash where it was found the pilot's license may have been fake. The test date indicated on his licence had been a public holiday. Another pilot was found to have been out of the country on the day he was said to have been tested, Mr Khan said. In 2017 a PIA pilot was investigated for potentially putting the lives of more than 305 passengers at risk by putting a trainee pilot in charge while he took a nap in a passenger seat. The pilot was allegedly photographed reclining while covered in a blanket, but denied being asleep. In 2013, a PIA pilot was jailed for nine months in Britain for being drunk as he prepared to fly 156 passengers. Irfan Faiz, 55, was found three times over the legal limit, prosecutors told Leeds Crown Court. The father-of-two was unsteady on his feet and smelled of alcohol while in the cockpit during checks for the flight from Leeds Bradford to Islamabad. The airlines was embarrassed further in 2017 when first UK border officials and then Pakistani officials found consignments of heroin hidden on PIA flights between the countries. At the time the airline was investigating to see if any staff had links to drug traffickers.
 
 
 
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Pakistan national airline grounds third of pilots over 'dubious' licences

Pakistan's national airline will ground a third of its pilots on suspicion they hold “dubious” licences and flying certificates. The mov...

Colorado police officers involved in death of Elijah McClain taken off the streets

The deadly confrontation in the Denver suburb of Aurora is getting renewed scrutiny. from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https...

UNICEF: Millions of Yemeni children may starve amid pandemic

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/unicef-millions-yemeni-children-may-050807757.html"><img align="left" alt="UNICEF: Millions of Yemeni children may starve amid pandemic" border="0" height="86" src="http://l2.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/L09Ot3zpJxvOM412rBlusQ--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/ap.org/a990b7f6ebde9b315a76ecaa1a9f422b" title="UNICEF: Millions of Yemeni children may starve amid pandemic" width="130" /></a>Millions of children could be pushed to the brink of starvation as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across war-torn Yemen amid a "huge" drop in humanitarian aid funding, the U.N. children’s agency warned Friday. The stark prediction comes in a new UNICEF report, “Yemen five years on: Children, conflict and COVID-19.” “As Yemen’s devastated health system and infrastructure struggle to cope with coronavirus, the already dire situation for children is likely to deteriorate considerably,” warned UNICEF.
 
 
 
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UNICEF: Millions of Yemeni children may starve amid pandemic

Millions of children could be pushed to the brink of starvation as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across war-torn Yemen amid a "huge...

Russia reportedly paid Taliban-linked militants bounty money to kill American troops

Russian officials said they were not aware of the allegations that the country's military offered bounties to kill US troops. from Y...

Trump suddenly has a bigger problem than his plummeting poll numbers | Analysis

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/trump-suddenly-bigger-problem-plummeting-132100959.html"><img align="left" alt="Trump suddenly has a bigger problem than his plummeting poll numbers | Analysis" border="0" height="86" src="http://l2.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/2.PW6DAkH2k5kPxi0_cQvA--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/the_independent_635/2195296f857aae8306f00c34514a9a3e" title="Trump suddenly has a bigger problem than his plummeting poll numbers | Analysis" width="130" /></a>Losing politicians rarely miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Donald Trump is undefeated in political races, but he missed a major opportunity on Thursday night.During a friendly interview at a town hall event in Wisconsin -- a state he needs to win and collect its 10 Electoral College votes – Fox News commentator and host Sean Hannity lobbed what in basketball terms should have been alley-oop for the president.
 
 
 
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Trump suddenly has a bigger problem than his plummeting poll numbers | Analysis

Losing politicians rarely miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Donald Trump is undefeated in political races, but he missed a major o...

Liverpool: Crowds celebrating title win despite coronavirus fears 'told to leave'

Police issue a dispersal order after crowds gather for a second night despite coronavirus fears. from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/3i38V...

Coronavirus: More care urged for pregnant BAME patients

Maternity units in England are being asked to provide more checks and support during the pandemic. from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2Vm...

Coronavirus: Armed forces praised for 'versatility' in pandemic

Tributes are paid to veterans and serving military personnel as the nation marks Armed Forces Day. from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/382...

Justin Bieber files defamation lawsuit after assault claims

Two anonymous Twitter accounts made sexual assault allegations against the singer last week. from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2A7Urvv

Pakistan grounds 262 airline pilots with 'dubious' credentials

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3g2b5vX

Virus whistleblower alleges retribution has only intensified

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/virus-whistleblower-alleges-ongoing-retaliation-194815392.html"><img align="left" alt="Virus whistleblower alleges retribution has only intensified" border="0" height="86" src="http://l2.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/.iJza3xSBEr1dDaomLxnaA--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/ap.org/580b9f9358fe9bf22ec8a351382a3ba1" title="Virus whistleblower alleges retribution has only intensified" width="130" /></a>A government whistleblower ousted from a leading role in battling COVID-19 alleged Thursday that the Trump administration has intensified its campaign to punish him for revealing shortcomings in the U.S. response. Dr. Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, said in an amended complaint filed with a federal watchdog agency that he has been relegated to a lesser role in his new assignment at the National Institutes of Health, unable to lend his full expertise to the battle against COVID-19. The complaint also said that Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is leading a “coordinated effort” to undermine Bright in his new duties, and that has led to former colleagues shunning the sidelined scientist.
 
 
 
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Virus whistleblower alleges retribution has only intensified

A government whistleblower ousted from a leading role in battling COVID-19 alleged Thursday that the Trump administration has intensified it...

Pence falsely claims the US 'flattened the curve' the day after it broke its single-day record for new COVID-19 cases

Pence once claimed that the US's coronavirus outbreak would be "behind us" by Memorial Day. The US reported more than 39,000 n...

Op-Ed: Why California needs affirmative action more than ever

California's Proposition 209, an anti-affirmative action law, never did "level the playing field"; instead it reinforced histo...

Mandatory masks? Biden says as president he would require wearing face coverings in public

The presumptive Democratic nominee said he would use all the powers at his disposal to stop the spread of the coronavirus. from Yahoo Ne...

COVID-19 cluster among migrants causes angry confrontations in southern Italian town

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/covid-19-cluster-among-migrants-114949163.html"><img align="left" alt="COVID-19 cluster among migrants causes angry confrontations in southern Italian town" border="0" height="86" src="http://l2.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/ntIazSU3B_QtUo6a.tBh2A--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en-US/reuters.com/963c4697bcf4ca04a55feaee58161e47" title="COVID-19 cluster among migrants causes angry confrontations in southern Italian town" width="130" /></a>Italy has sent soldiers to restore order in a coastal town near Naples after a coronavirus outbreak at an apartment complex illegally occupied by hundreds of migrant workers caused angry confrontations with residents. The authorities announced on Thursday that more than 40 people living at the abandoned buildings in Mondragone, 45 km from Naples, had tested positive for COVID-19, and warned the entire town could be quarantined if the outbreak proves widespread. Italian residents on the street chanted "Mondragone is ours" and gathered outside the sealed off are, resulting in both sides shouting abuse at each other, footage showed.
 
 
 
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COVID-19 cluster among migrants causes angry confrontations in southern Italian town

Italy has sent soldiers to restore order in a coastal town near Naples after a coronavirus outbreak at an apartment complex illegally occupi...

This simple model shows the importance of wearing masks and social distancing

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/simple-model-shows-importance-wearing-123110409.html"><img align="left" alt="This simple model shows the importance of wearing masks and social distancing" border="0" height="86" src="http://l2.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/koLVnC3Sm...7cVDhBK7NQ--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/the_conversation_us_articles_815/6235cd037b69c5d6f0387065f141e3b1" title="This simple model shows the importance of wearing masks and social distancing" width="130" /></a>The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.With the advent of an infectious disease outbreak, epidemiologists and public health officials quickly try to forecast deaths and infections using complex computer models. But with a brand new virus like the one that causes COVID-19, these estimates are complicated by a dearth of credible information on symptoms, contagion and those who are most at risk. My team at the Goldenson Center for Actuarial Research has developed a free, user-friendly computer model that has a different goal. It demonstrates how infections and deaths progress on a daily basis over a three-month period depending on how people behave in response to the outbreak. This model allows the public to input data that demonstrate how changes in safety measures in their communities, including wearing face covering and social distancing, can significantly impact the spread of this virus and mortality rates. Our Goldenson Center COVID-19 model uses a hypothetical 1,000-person population and calculates outcomes using three types of information: the initial number of infections, social distancing, and personal protection measures that include wearing masks, frequent hand-washing and staying quarantined if exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms. Our model then uses this initial information to project on a daily basis the cumulative infections and deaths over a three-month period. It’s not based on actual disease data and is designed to demonstrate the effects of safety measures, rather than make specific predictions. Why it mattersBy inputting different assumptions, people can see how their community’s personal actions can change the course of this pandemic – and how poor protocols can trigger exponential spread of the virus. For example, let’s assume that 100 people are infected out of a population of 1,000, with one in 10 wearing masks, keeping appropriate distance and quarantining if necessary. The model shows that 30 days later, the virus would have killed 156 people. After three months, the death toll reaches 460 – with 510 now infected. However, our model shows that if half the population practices safe protocols, infections after 90 days drop to 293 and deaths drop even more dramatically, to 149 – about one-third of the lives lost under looser measures. The main takeaway is that safety measures that are within our control have significant impact – and ignoring those protocols can have dire consequences. If a state opens up and maintains safety measures for at least three months, the virus will be contained and possibly eliminated. On the other hand, if a state opens up too soon and its residents ignore safety protocols, there could be an exponential increase in COVID-19 deaths within months. It’s important for the public to realize that spread of the virus is impacted only by personal behavior. What’s next?Our model shows that there must be continued emphasis on maintaining necessary safety measures as we relax shelter-in-place rules and get people back to work. Practicing common-sense social distancing, wearing masks in public and quarantining when necessary is a small inconvenience for a limited amount of time – that will contain the devastation of this virus and ensure that our economy is restored.[You’re too busy to read everything. We get it. That’s why we’ve got a weekly newsletter. Sign up for good Sunday reading. ]This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Herd immunity won’t solve our COVID-19 problem * People are getting sick from coronavirus spreading through the air – and that’s a big challenge for reopeningJeyaraj Vadiveloo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
 
 
 
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This simple model shows the importance of wearing masks and social distancing

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.With the advent of an infectious disease outbreak, epidemiologists and pu...

Trump suddenly has a bigger problem than his plummeting poll numbers | Analysis

Trump suddenly has a bigger problem than his plummeting poll numbers | Analysis

Losing politicians rarely miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Donald Trump is undefeated in political races, but he missed a major o...

California shakes up auto industry, says all vans and trucks must be electric by 2024

California shakes up auto industry, says all vans and trucks must be electric by 2024 from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines http...

Germany, France shore up political, financial aid to beleaguered WHO

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/germany-france-shore-political-financial-112612603.html"><img align="left" alt="Germany, France shore up political, financial aid to beleaguered WHO" border="0" height="86" src="http://l1.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/YLbXKbxlD2c7181ZVGiFhA--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en-US/reuters.com/d8c8745b35932468ed893d9bbd1f4423" title="Germany, France shore up political, financial aid to beleaguered WHO" width="130" /></a>France and Germany expressed political and financial backing for the World Health Organization in its fight against the coronavirus on Thursday, with Berlin saying it would give a record half billion euros in funding and equipment this year. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the agency, criticised by the United States for being slow off the mark in tackling the pandemic, was getting the support it needed and that the talks had been "very productive". U.S. President Donald Trump said last month that the United States was cutting ties with the "China-centric" WHO, but he has still not formally notified the U.N. agency.
 
 
 
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/31hLWJE

Germany, France shore up political, financial aid to beleaguered WHO

France and Germany expressed political and financial backing for the World Health Organization in its fight against the coronavirus on Thurs...

Law enforcement struggles with policing in reckoning moment

<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/law-enforcement-struggles-policing-reckoning-172121408.html"><img align="left" alt="Law enforcement struggles with policing in reckoning moment" border="0" height="86" src="http://l1.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/mXkjrPgs.TnCwIyu_87ETA--/YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b247aD04Njt3PTEzMDs-/https://media.zenfs.com/en/ap.org/c59bf400ef0a6eddbadf67acbb0e71a7" title="Law enforcement struggles with policing in reckoning moment" width="130" /></a>As calls for police reform swell across America, officers say they feel caught in the middle: vilified by the left as violent racists, fatally ambushed by extremists on the right seeking to sow discord and scapegoated by lawmakers who share responsibility for the state of the criminal justice system. The Associated Press spoke with more than two dozen officers around the country, Black, white, Hispanic and Asian, who are frustrated by the pressure they say is on them to solve the much larger problem of racism and bias in the United States. “You know, being a Black man, being a police officer and which I’m proud of being, both very proud — I understand what the community’s coming from,” said Jeff Maddrey, an NYPD chief in Brooklyn and one of many officers who took a knee as a show of respect for protesters.
 
 
 
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Law enforcement struggles with policing in reckoning moment

As calls for police reform swell across America, officers say they feel caught in the middle: vilified by the left as violent racists, fatal...

Trump jokes that he helped design US Navy's newest 'yacht with missiles'

"That's a terrible-looking ship, let's make it beautiful. It'll cost you the same, and maybe less," Trump joked. f...

WEB EXTRA: Company Makes Face Masks That Feature Your Face

Sometimes it is hard to tell who you’re looking at when the person is wearing a face mask, but not with these custom designs. Check out how ...

New top story on Hacker News: The Math Behind the Rolling Shutter Phenomenon

The Math Behind the Rolling Shutter Phenomenon 9 by reddotX | 0 comments on Hacker News.

Eurovision: How Ariana Grande's songwriter got involved in Will Ferrell's new movie

Pop songwriter Savan Kotecha and Swedish singer Molly Sanden are among those who helped make the fictional movie about the Eurovision Song C...

When working from home is much more than emailing

Some jobs like animating films need more than just regular internet access and robust Wi-Fi. from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2Z9QEGr

Rethink: 'There has been a renaissance of love for nature,' says author Lucy Jones

Writer and author Lucy Jones considers how - post lockdown - we can capitalise on our rediscovered love of nature. from BBC News - Home ht...

Coronavirus: What's happening in Peru?

Peru has one of the highest case totals and excess death rates in the world - but why? from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2YwyYG3