Generation Putin comes of age as Russians vote on extending his rule

Twenty-year-old Russians Yekaterina Mikhailova and Iya Barsegyan have only ever known life under President Vladimir Putin who rose to power in 1999, before they were even born. The pair may be of the same generation, but politically they are worlds apart, a contrast that shows how the divisions created by Putin's politics could last for years. This week, Russians are taking part in a nationwide vote on constitutional reforms that would clear the way for Putin to remain in the Kremlin until 2036.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2BpjpXN
via IFTTT

Robbery Caught On Camera In Kips Bay

Police are searching for a man seen on video putting a woman into a chokehold and then stealing her bag.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2YQsYs1
via IFTTT

Coronavirus: How much does your boss need to know about you?

Firms are collecting a lot more information about staff as they try to contain coronavirus risks.

from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/2CUcmH9
via IFTTT

Russia's Putin appeals to patriotism as key vote reaches climax

Russians have one more day to decide on key reforms, but opponents say the vote is a farce.

from BBC News - World https://ift.tt/3dMC514
via IFTTT

Coronavirus: What's behind new US outbreaks?

Cases are rising in Texas, Florida, Arizona and California - here's a look at the data and the theories.

from BBC News - World https://ift.tt/38g9MXu
via IFTTT

'Please don't forget us': Coronavirus adds to court cases backlog

It's been years since Emma told police she had been raped - and now lockdown has further delayed her case.

from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2BVya4w
via IFTTT

Coronavirus: Calls for government to plan public inquiry

The NHS ombudsman asks government to listen to patient complaints in order to learn from mistakes.

from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/31w5gD1
via IFTTT

Period poverty: Rise in free sanitary products needed in lockdown

Women unable to buy sanitary products have used newspaper or pillow cases instead, one charity says.

from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2ZkwWbc
via IFTTT

Cedarville University Trustees Resign as Board Reinstates President after Investigation

After the Cedarville University board of trustees voted to reinstate its president two board members resigned, citing concerns about an investigation into the president's hiring and firing of a faculty member.

from CBNNews.com https://ift.tt/38eJ1CV
via IFTTT

As coronavirus spreads to people under 40, it's making them sicker — and for longer — than once thought

Once assumed to be safe from the dangers of COVID-19, younger adults share their prolonged struggles with the disease.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2ZlkI1V
via IFTTT

National parks – even Mount Rushmore – show that there's more than one kind of patriotism

July 4th will be quieter than usual this year, thanks to COVID-19. Many U.S. cities are canceling fireworks displays to avoid drawing large crowds that could promote the spread of coronavirus. But President Trump is planning to stage a celebration at Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota on July 3. It’s easy to see why an Independence Day event at a national memorial featuring the carved faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt would seem like a straightforward patriotic statement. But there’s controversy. Trump’s visit will be capped by fireworks for the first time in a decade, notwithstanding worries that pyrotechnics could ignite wildfires. And Native Americans are planning protests, adding Mount Rushmore to the list of monuments around the world that critics see as commemorating histories of racism, slavery and genocide and reinforcing white supremacy. As I show in my book, “Memorials Matter: Emotion, Environment, and Public Memory at American Historical Sites,” many venerated historical sites tell complicated stories. Even Mount Rushmore, which was designed explicitly to evoke national pride, can be a source of anger or shame rather than patriotic feeling. Twenty-first-century patriotism is a touchy subject, increasingly claimed by America’s conservative right. National Park Service sites like Mount Rushmore are public lands, meant to be appreciated by everyone, but they raise crucial questions about history, unity and love of country, especially during this election year. For me, and I suspect for many tourists, national memorials and monuments elicit conflicting feelings. There’s pride in our nation’s achievements, but also guilt, regret or anger over the costs of progress and the injustices that still exist. Patriotism, especially at sites of shame, can be unsettling – and I see this as a good thing. In my view, honestly confronting the darker parts of U.S. history as well as its best moments is vital for tourism, for patriotism and for the nation. Whose history?Patriotism has roots in the Latin “patriotia,” meaning “fellow countryman.” It’s common to feel patriotic pride in U.S. technological achievements or military strength. But Americans also glory in the diversity and beauty of our natural landscapes. That kind of patriotism, I think, has the potential to be more inclusive, less divisive and more socially and environmentally just. [Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get expert takes on today’s news, every day.]The physical environment at national memorials can inspire more than one kind of patriotism. At Mount Rushmore, tourists are invited to walk the Avenue of Flags, marvel at the labor required to carve four U.S. presidents’ faces out of granite, and applaud when rangers invite military veterans onstage during visitor programs. Patriotism centers on labor, progress and the “great men” the memorial credits with founding, expanding, preserving and unifying the U.S. But there are other perspectives. Viewed from the Peter Norbeck Overlook, a short drive from the main site, the presidents’ faces are tiny elements embedded in the expansive Black Hills region. Re-seeing the memorial in space and contextualizing it within a longer time scale can spark new emotions. The Black Hills are a sacred place for Lakota peoples that they never willingly relinquished. Viewing Mount Rushmore this way puts those rock faces in a broader ecological, historical and colonial context, and raises questions about history and justice. Sites of shameSites where visitors are meant to feel remorse challenge patriotism more directly. At Manzanar National Historic Site in California – one of 10 camps where over 110,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II – natural and textual cues prevent any easy patriotic reflexes. Reconstructed guard towers and barracks help visitors perceive the experience of being detained. I could imagine Japanese Americans’ shame as I entered claustrophobic buildings and touched the rough straw that filled makeshift mattresses. Many visitors doubtlessly associate mountains with adventure and freedom, but some incarcerees saw the nearby Sierra Nevada as barricades reinforcing the camp’s barbed wire fence. Rangers play up these emotional tensions on their tours. I saw one ranger position a group of schoolchildren atop what were once latrines, and ask them: “Will it happen again? We don’t know. We hope not. We have to stand up for what is right.” Instead of offering visitors a self-congratulatory sense of being a good citizen, Manzanar leaves them with unsettling questions and mixed feelings. Visitors to incarceration camps today might make connections to the U.S.-Mexico border, where detention centers corral people in unhealthy conditions, sometimes separating children from parents. Sites like Manzanar ask us to rethink who “counts” as an American and what unites us as human beings. Visiting and writing about these and other sites made me consider what it would take to disassociate patriotism from “America first”-style nationalism and recast it as collective pride in the United States’ diverse landscapes and peoples. Building a more inclusive patriotism means celebrating freedom in all forms – such as making Juneteenth a federal holiday – and commemorating the tragedies of our past in ways that promote justice in the present. Humble patriotismThis July 4th invites contemplation of what holds us together as a nation during a time of reckoning. I believe Americans should be willing to imagine how a public memorial could be offensive or traumatic. The National Park Service website claims that Mount Rushmore preserves a “rich heritage we all share,” but what happens when that heritage feels like hatred to some people? Growing momentum for removing statues of Confederate generals and other historical figures now understood to be racist, including the statue of Theodore Roosevelt in the front of New York City’s Museum of Natural History, tests the limits of national coherence. Understanding this momentum is not an issue of political correctness – it’s a matter of compassion.Greater clarity about value systems could help unite Americans across party lines. Psychologists have found striking differences between the moral frameworks that shape liberals’ and conservatives’ views. Conservatives generally prioritize purity, sanctity and loyalty, while liberals tend to value justice in the form of concerns about fairness and harm. In my view, patriotism could function as an emotional bridge between these moral foundations. My research suggests that visits to memorial sites are helpful for recognizing our interdependence with each other, as inhabitants of a common country. Places like Mount Rushmore are part of our collective past that raise important questions about what unites us today. I believe it’s our responsibility to approach these places, and each other, with both pride and humility. This is an updated version of an article originally published on June 26, 2019.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * More than scenery: National parks preserve our history and culture * The twisted roots of U.S. land policy in the WestJennifer Ladino received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support her book on national memorials.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3ifDDnu
via IFTTT

Tucker Carlson’s Journey From Coronavirus Alarm-Puller to COVID Truther

In early March, while President Donald Trump’s loudest allies at Fox News downplayed the coronavirus pandemic, with some claiming it was nothing more than an “impeachment scam” to destroy the president, Tucker Carlson received widespread—and usual, considering his notoriously far-right rhetoric—praise for calling out his colleagues and Trump for “minimizing” the impending danger.The Fox News primetime star continues to receive plaudits for reportedly convincing the president to finally take the crisis seriously. Days after that March 9 monologue, which was delivered shortly after Carlson privately spoke with Trump about the virus, the president publicly addressed the nation and his administration began pushing social-distancing guidelines.While Carlson sounding the alarm much earlier than his Fox News peers may have a had a positive impact (on his viewers, especially, as studies show his audience took protective measures before Trump confidant Sean Hannity’s), it didn’t take long for the right-wing TV host to shift gears and rage against social distancing, lockdowns, and any other measure implemented to slow the spread of the virus.Over the past two months, Carlson has devoted much of his coronavirus coverage to discrediting public-health experts, specifically top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force. On top of telling his audience to stop listening to Fauci and other health officials, the Fox News star has repeatedly boosted a fellow contrarian, former New York Times reporter-turned-spy-novelist Alex Berenson, as an expert on the deadly virus.Less than a month after his much-lauded call to action on the virus, Carlson declared the crisis to be over—a claim that received far less attention from the mainstream press than his rogue stance against the president. Despite the United States having already experienced 13,000 deaths by that point, Carlson pointed to revised models showing lower expected deaths to call for the easing of stay-at-home orders, insisting that the “short-term crisis may have passed.”Since the Fox star’s assertion that the pandemic was essentially over and it was time to go back to business as usual, the nation has suffered roughly 115,000 more deaths and at least two million more confirmed cases.Carlson, in his quest to convince viewers that social distancing was futile and lockdowns were useless, began taking aim at Fauci almost immediately, framing the Medal of Freedom honoree as a power-hungry bureaucrat who had suddenly become the most powerful person in the world. Furthermore, the conservative talk-show host repeatedly portrayed the top doctor as incompetent and unknowledgeable about infectious diseases.One way Carlson often sharply criticized the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was by highlighting his shifting opinions on the virus as more information became known about the disease. In particular, he hit Fauci for initially saying mask-wearing was unnecessary—a position the renowned immunologist quickly reversed, as have other health officials who initially worried that masks might instill a false sense of security.Tucker Carlson Wants to Have It Both Ways on CoronavirusAt one point in mid-May, following Sen. Rand Paul dressing down Fauci in a Senate hearing, Carlson applauded the pro-Trump Republican before delivering his own lengthy takedown of Fauci, arguing that the top doctor’s advice was “buffoon-level stuff,” later describing him as “the chief buffoon of the professional class.” Weeks prior, Carlson called it “national suicide” for Fauci to urge aggressive social-distancing restrictions.“We should never let someone like that run this country,” he fumed.Besides repeatedly dismissing social distancing, Carlson has also told his viewers that the virus is just not that deadly, even as the death toll continues to rise. In late April, for instance, Carlson pointed to some antibody studies—which have since largely been dismissed due to a large number of false-positive statistical errors—and the laughable claims made by a pair of California doctors who pushed for reopening by claiming the disease “just isn’t nearly as deadly as we thought it was.”The segment was steeped in so much disinformation on the disease that MSNBC host Chris Hayes, his direct 8 p.m. time slot competitor, directly called out Carlson for peddling “coronavirus trutherism” the next evening, picking apart the arguments put forth by the Fox star.“There is a reason many of the employees of Fox News, which is based in New York, are working from home right now,” Hayes pointedly stated. “At least someone there understands why it is important to continue to keep physical distance.”Weeks later, Carlson again pointed to antibody tests and cherry-picked surveys to claim the deadly virus was relatively tame.“We now know, thanks to widespread blood testing, that the virus isn't that deadly,” he said on May 21. “An enormous percentage of coronavirus infections produce mild symptoms or no symptoms at all, they're asymptomatic. The death toll is a tiny fraction of what we were told it would be.”Carlson, meanwhile, has also seemed more than willing to accept that the death toll—which is now approaching 130,000—is overinflated and possibly a hoax, despite overwhelming evidence showing it has likely been undercounted. Besides giving airtime to “COVID Contrarian” Berenson, who has repeatedly suggested the death toll is inflated or would remain low, he has also hosted Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume to make those same claims. “Dr. Birx said tonight during the briefing at the White House that all deaths from anyone who died with coronavirus is counted as if the person died from coronavirus. Now, we all know that isn’t true,” Hume said on April 7 before relaying anecdotal evidence: “ I remember my own doctor telling me at one point when I was discussing prostate issues, he said about prostate cancer—I didn't have it, as it happened, but he said, ‘You know, a lot more people die with it than die from it.’”In recent weeks, amid nationwide unrest following the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, Carlson has spent far more time demonizing the Black Lives Matter movement than covering the outbreak of new coronavirus cases, many of which are occurring in the states that rushed to reopen. When the Fox host did shift from fear-mongering about a race war to cover the virus, however, he actively minimized the damage of the pandemic while once again claiming lockdowns do not work.Just as multiple states began seeing a massive uptick in confirmed cases following relaxed restrictions and Memorial Day weekend celebrations, Carlson definitively declared social-distancing rules to be useless.“We do think it’s worth, for a minute, taking a pause to assess whether or not they were in fact lying to us about the coronavirus and our response to it,” he said on June 10, taking issue with media criticizing lockdown protests but praising police brutality demonstrations. “And the short answer to this is: Yes, they were definitely lying.”“As a matter of public health, we can say conclusively the lockdowns were not necessary. In fact, we can prove that and here’s the most powerful evidence: states that never locked down at all, states where people were allowed to live like Americans and not cower indoors alone, in the end turned out no worse than states that had mandatory quarantines, the state you probably live in,” Carlson continued. “The states that did lock down at first but were quick to reopen have not seen explosions of coronavirus cases.”Since making that proclamation, Florida, Texas and Arizona have all set single-day records for confirmed cases, and have reported newly overwhelmed hospitals and ICU capacity. Presented with Carlson's repeated claims that social distancing and stay-at-home orders have been unnecessary, Dr. Irwin Redlener, a Daily Beast contributor and director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University outright dismissed the TV host’s analysis.“Tucker Carson is one of the most fervent anti-science commentators on the airway,” the public-health activist told The Daily Beast. “He, like Sean Hannity, seems to relish in unwavering support for Donald Trump, no matter how outlandish, dishonest or ignorant the president’s statements or policies might be. I assume that Tucker is probably a bright guy, but his uncritical support of Trump is a dangerous disservice to his audience.”While Carlson has privately advised the president on several issues and is regularly cited by the president's Twitter account, he has also stood out among his Fox primetime peers in offering up criticism of Trump. Besides subtly calling the president out over his COVID-19 response, Carlson has also knocked the president for not being tough enough in dealing with the protests, arguing that it is placing him on a trajectory to lose.An analysis from Columbia University, meanwhile, has found that if the United States had implemented physical-distancing guidelines just one week earlier in March, as many as 36,000 American lives could have been saved.I Spent a Week Down the Right-Wing Media Rabbit Hole—and Was Mesmerized by ItAs Carlson has dismissed the expertise of epidemiologists and scientists, while boosting spy novelists and talking heads, he has occasionally sought the advice of actual medical professionals to provide pandemic analysis. One of the most frequent voices on his show in this respect has been Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel.While the Fox News primetime star has blasted Fauci and others for their inaccurate predictions and so-called buffoonery, he doesn’t seem to have an issue with Siegel’s history of comically over-the-top projections and medical punditry that seemingly bends over backwards to please the Fox audience.For example, Siegel, who infamously said in March that the “worst-case” for coronavirus is that it “will be the flu,” told Carlson last month that “we're not going to have a big second wave,” citing the low number of cases in Australia. “That’s the southern hemisphere,” he said. “That’s essentially our November right now.”He would eventually walk back that claim on Carlson’s show days later, noting that Brazil—which is also in the southern hemisphere—was experiencing a huge surge in cases. And last week, Siegel lashed out at the European Union for possibly banning American visitors due to the latest rise in cases. “Could this be retaliatory? Possibly,” he huffed. “Could it be public health? Whatever it is, it is not the tone they sounded back in March, when they were horrified at our travel ban, at a time when thousands and thousands of cases were coming here.” And then the unmistakably Carlson-esque reactionary barb. “So I have a message for the European Union tonight: How about remembering what we did for you in the middle of the 20th century?”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2BPnGnw
via IFTTT

Missouri couple point guns at protesters calling for St. Louis mayor to resign

A video on social media shows a couple pointing guns at protesters marching through a St. Louis neighborhood demanding Mayor Lyda Krewson's resignation.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3dQ7L5K
via IFTTT

CanSino's COVID-19 vaccine candidate approved for military use in China

China's military has received the greenlight to use a COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by its research unit and CanSino Biologics after clinical trials proved it was safe and showed some efficacy, the company said on Monday. The Ad5-nCoV is one of China's eight vaccine candidates approved for human trials at home and abroad for the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2BKz0kP
via IFTTT

Distancing from Trump? Some Republicans step up critiques

For more than three years, President Donald Trump instilled such fear in the Republican Party's leaders that most kept criticism of his turbulent leadership or inconsistent politics to themselves. Four months before voters decide the Republican president's reelection, some in Trump's party are daring to say the quiet part out loud as Trump struggles to navigate competing national crises and a scattershot campaign message. “He is losing,” former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Trump friend and confidant, said Sunday of Trump’s reelection prospects on ABC’s “This Week.”

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2ZkME6i
via IFTTT

The 20 Best Deals from REI’s Fourth of July Sale

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Zo3Bwz
via IFTTT

'Dirty' depiction of Kim's wife outraged NKorea: Russian envoy

North Korea's fury over anti-Pyongyang leaflets launched from the South is driven by "dirty, insulting" depictions of leader Kim Jong Un's spouse, Russia's top envoy in the reclusive country has said. In recent weeks Pyongyang has issued a series of vitriolic condemnations over anti-North leaflets which defectors based in the South send across the militarised border -- usually attached to balloons or floated in bottles. The campaigns have long been a point of contention between the two Koreas, but this time, Pyongyang upped the pressure, blowing up a liaison office and threatening military measures.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2BouZT1
via IFTTT

Woman Choked, Robbed In Manhattan

The 64-year-old victim was attacked in Kips Bay on Sunday and suffered cuts. CBS2's Natalie Duddridge reports

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2ZrRHSb
via IFTTT

Rand Paul again rips Dr. Anthony Fauci over coronavirus: 'We just need more optimism'

Paul criticized Fauci for a lack of "certitude" when it comes to advice on if kids should be allowed to go back to school in the fall amid COVID-19.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2BYhQjt
via IFTTT

What's going on between Russia, US and Afghanistan?

Russia denies reports it paid militants to kill US troops. The BBC's Jonathan Marcus evaluates those reports.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3dIQJpY
via IFTTT

More Chinese regions brace for floods as storms shift east

Torrential rain is set to hit China's eastern coastal regions this week after overwhelming large parts of the southwest, inundating villages and tourist spots and displacing more than 700,000 people, state weather forecasters said on Monday. Nearly 14 million people in 26 different provinces had been affected by storms and floods by Friday, with 744,000 evacuated, the China Daily reported, citing the Ministry for Emergency Management. Much of the damage has hit southwestern regions like Guangxi and Sichuan, and the municipality of Chongqing on the upper reaches of the Yangtze river last week experienced its worst floods since 1940.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3eJK9kf
via IFTTT

Woman shot in back while trying to steal man's Nazi flag, authorities say

The victim had been with friends at a nearby party when she apparently snatched one of the swastika flags displayed outside the man's home.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2Zon7cj
via IFTTT

'My business will close if I can't reopen soon'

Spas and complementary therapists say they will not survive the pandemic if they cannot reopen.

from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/2ZrLXb5
via IFTTT

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/2Bd8znZ
via IFTTT

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/2BUyNv6
via IFTTT

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
via IFTTT

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://ift.tt/3dES0yg
via IFTTT

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.tt/3dKV8J4
via IFTTT

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 - Home https://ift.tt/31uFXkQ
via IFTTT

'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/2YJdiXd
via IFTTT

‘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/2NHEv6s
via IFTTT

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
via IFTTT

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 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.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2ZkVl07
via IFTTT

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 Coachella, Abraham Fregoso, of Indio, and Jesus Ruiz Jr., of Stockton, were taken into custody on Saturday, June 27, 2020, and booked in Riverside County Jail. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office is investigating.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3g7tibs
via IFTTT

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 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.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2VtTh4U
via IFTTT

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 - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/31sFy2j
via IFTTT

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 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
via IFTTT

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 reform.Mr de Blasio announced the plan during his daily City Hall press briefing on Monday, and said the proposed budget would help reform the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2NGUzFq
via IFTTT

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 statement.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2YM3EmV
via IFTTT

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 inequality.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3eX2Hhj
via IFTTT

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 off.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3dGP3x1
via IFTTT

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 old job.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2NCYOlq
via IFTTT

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 with her.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2CQm5OH
via IFTTT

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 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."

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3g5DRfa
via IFTTT

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 - Technology https://ift.tt/3geG08b
via IFTTT

Coronavirus: How much does your boss need to know about you?

Firms are collecting a lot more information about staff as they try to contain coronavirus risks.

from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2CUcmH9
via IFTTT

Coronavirus: Ghana 'quack doctors' selling 'cure'

Investigative reporter Anas Aremeyaw Anas exposes a Covid-19 scam said to be worth thousands of dollars.

from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/3eFRLnS
via IFTTT

Want to start cycling to work? Here's how

The Bikeability Trust's Paul Robison breaks down how to start cycling with confidence.

from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/3g56d9v
via IFTTT

Who needs Wimbledon? Strawberry sales soar

The cancellation of events like weddings and Wimbledon has not stopped strawberry sales soaring.

from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/3g7QZ3w
via IFTTT

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 News - Home https://ift.tt/3g8nAGs
via IFTTT

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/3idMFRQ
via IFTTT

'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.

from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/31pG3Kd
via IFTTT

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://ift.tt/3g7R07A
via IFTTT

'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
via IFTTT

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 https://ift.tt/3eImReG
via IFTTT

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
via IFTTT

Mississippi Lawmakers Vote to Remove Rebel Emblem From Flag

Mississippi lawmakers voted Sunday to surrender the Confederate battle emblem from their state flag, triggering raucous applause and cheers more than a century after white supremacist legislators adopted the design a generation after the South lost the Civil War.

from CBNNews.com https://ift.tt/3ifc6Ts
via IFTTT

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 prefer Warren.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3i7TQem
via IFTTT

Critics question `less lethal' force used during protests

When a participant at a rally in Austin to protest police brutality threw a rock at a line of officers in the Texas capital, officers responded by firing beanbag rounds — ammunition that law enforcement deems “less lethal” than bullets. A beanbag cracked 20-year-old Justin Howell's skull and, according to his family, damaged his brain. Adding to the pain, police admit the Texas State University student wasn't the intended target.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/388sQXS
via IFTTT

Mississippi moves to strip Confederate emblem from state flag

The southern state of Mississippi is the last in the US to feature the emblem on its flag.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2NDoqyI
via IFTTT

'I pray it will finally be over': Golden State Killer survivors hope guilty plea brings justice

Forty years later, suspect Joseph DeAngelo is expected to take a deal that would see him sentenced to life in prisonJennifer Carole sleeps with a small baseball bat nearby, keeps bells on her door and has taken multiple self-defense classes.Gay Hardwick never feels safe alone, and can’t sleep with an open window.Both women’s lives were forever changed by the Golden State Killer, a rapist and murderer who haunted the state for more than 40 years. He murdered Carole’s father and stepmother in bed in their southern California home and sexually assaulted and terrorized Hardwick when she was 24.In 2018, California authorities said they had identified Joseph DeAngelo, a former police officer, as the suspect in at least 13 murders and more than 50 rapes attributed to the Golden State Killer between 1974 and 1986.Authorities have told some of the survivors that the 74-year-old DeAngelo will plead guilty on Monday – a deal that would see him sentenced to life in prison and would spare the state a costly trial. The Sacramento county district attorney’s office would confirm only that a hearing is scheduled.DeAngelo was arrested in 2018 after law enforcement compared DNA from the crimes committed in the 1970s and 80s to that of users on the open-source genealogy website GEDMatch.Law enforcement had spent decades trying to solve the crimes, which spanned 11 counties, but the case gained renewed attention in 2016 when the Sacramento DA announced the creation of a task force to identify the killer, who has also been called the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker, and the FBI put up a reward of $50,000 for information leading to his capture.The scope of the crimes, and long unidentified perpetrator, drew particular interest from the true crime community and spawned dedicated discussion boards. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, a bestselling book about the true crime writer Michelle McNamara’s search for the Golden State Killer, brought wide attention to the case when it was released months before DeAngelo’s arrest.DeAngelo is a US navy veteran of the Vietnam war and father of three and had worked as a police officer in communities near where the crimes took place. He was fired from his job at the Auburn police department in 1979 after being arrested for allegedly shoplifting dog repellant and a hammer from a Pay ’n Save store. DeAngelo worked at a Save Mart distribution center from 1989 until 2017, the Sacramento Bee reported, and in 2018 was reportedly living with his daughter and grandchild on a quiet street in a suburb of Sacramento.It was there he was arrested, in one of the communities the Golden State Killer had terrorized years earlier.For many survivors, DeAngelo’s plea comes with mixed emotions as well as a fear that he could opt out of the agreement at the last moment.“It’s a difficult place to be in, to know that at any time he could change his mind and that he is highly manipulative. I won’t believe anything until it is written in ink and approved,” Hardwick said.Hardwick was 24 in 1978 when a man broke into the home she shared with her now husband, woke the couple up at gunpoint and sexually assaulted her. They survived and did their best to move forward, selling the home they felt unable to live in. But Hardwick suffered for years from undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder and the attack had long-lasting impacts on her career and emotional state and took decades to work through.“I’m hoping and praying it is going to be finally over for all of us. Once and for all [I’ll] know that he is in a place where he is never going to leave.”The statute of limitations for rape convictions expired three years after the attack on the Hardwicks, but she said she considers the plea an opportunity for justice.Carole wanted DeAngelo “to have to face a courtroom and the evidence”, but she thinks the plea deal is the right thing to do as it will save the state millions of dollars and spare his daughters from further pain. That DeAngelo is pleading guilty as US police face a reckoning over systemic racism and violence is particularly salient for Carole.“We’ve got a dirty cop that had skills he acquired as a police officer and used to terrorize, rape and murder,” Carole said.Carole’s father, Lyman Smith, and his wife, Charlene, were bludgeoned to death in their Ventura home in 1980 when Carole was just 18. Her 12-year-old brother discovered the bodies. The family didn’t learn the crime was the work of a serial killer for 20 years, and it was only after DeAngelo’s capture that Carole realized the extent to which the murders had affected her life.“I’m going to be really happy to have this be done. I’m tired of him having any real estate in my head,” Carole said. But, she added, “you can’t get your people back. You can’t get your sense of safety back. He stole something from everyone in California that endured his terrorism.”As Monday’s hearing approaches, Kris Pedretti goes back and forth about attending. Pedretti became the Golden State Killer’s 10th victim when she was sexually assaulted in her home at the age of 15.“This is my one opportunity to hear this person who attacked me admit guilt,” she said.Pedretti’s attacker crept into her home days before Christmas in 1976, sneaking up on her as she played piano and threatening her with a knife before sexually assaulting her. It left Pedretti with post-traumatic stress, but in recent years she has found comfort through therapy and a Facebook group she created where sexual assault survivors can share their stories. Born out of a horrific crime she suffered at the hands of someone who sought to terrorize her community, Pedretti said the group has been healing.“We share our stories. We share what books have been helping us. I am finally at a place in this journey where I can see some sunlight because I can use what I learned.”

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2YERig7
via IFTTT

Satellite images show buildup on disputed India-China border

Construction activity appeared underway on both the Indian and Chinese sides of a contested border high in the Karakoram mountains a week after a deadly clash in the area left 20 Indian soldiers dead, satellite images showed. The images released this week by Maxar, a Colorado-based satellite imagery company, show new construction activity along the Galwan River Valley, even as Chinese and Indian diplomats said military commanders had agreed to disengage from a standoff there. China has said that India first changed the status quo last August when it split the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two federal territories — the territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the territory of Ladakh, parts of which are contested by China.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/31otvmu
via IFTTT

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 testing.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3dwOKox
via IFTTT

76 coronavirus cases have been linked to one Michigan bar

Health officials urged anyone who visited the establishment between June 12 and June 20 to self-quarantine for 14 days.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3eGL3Op
via IFTTT

Trump news: President praises ‘great people’ shouting ‘white power’ as Pelosi brands his alleged inaction over Russia-Taliban reports ‘as bad as it gets’

Donald Trump has praised “great people” in footage he shared of furious protesters clashing over his presidency outside a Florida retirement home, in which one apparent supporter repeatedly shouts “white power” from a golf buggy.The only black Republican senator Tim Scott urged him to remove the “indefensible” footage, which he later did. The White House claimed he did not hear the racist chant.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/389BLbi
via IFTTT

Pakistan army says Indian spy drone shot down in Kashmir

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2NFJVi4
via IFTTT

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-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
via IFTTT

Hong Kongers march in silent protest against national security laws

The proposed national security laws were discussed by the National People's Congress Standing Committee on Sunday in Beijing at a three-day meeting.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/31mJYYe
via IFTTT

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 - Business https://ift.tt/3g7R07A
via IFTTT

Paul Weller: 'People weren't ready for my house record'

The returning rock star reflects on underground sounds, happy times, and "shocking" race issues.

from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/3gaTcLD
via IFTTT

Coronavirus: Will pop-up bike lanes keep new cyclists on the road?

Campaigners say routes need to be made safer to keep new cyclists on the roads as lockdown is eased.

from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2NzT2RJ
via IFTTT

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 - Home https://ift.tt/2YDA9mW
via IFTTT

Patient 91: How Vietnam saved a British pilot and kept a clean Covid-19 sheet

Stephen Cameron spent 68 days on a ventilator but beat the odds to survive coronavirus.

from BBC News - Home https://ift.tt/2NvomRz
via IFTTT

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 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.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3dIWq7v
via IFTTT

Judge orders Roger Stone to surrender July 14, denying his request for an extended delay

Roger Stone, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, requested a two-month delay to his prison sentence, citing his age and medical concerns.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/31l1g85
via IFTTT

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

"The only way we're going to end it is by ending it together," Anthony Fauci, a top infectious disease expert said.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/388SPOK
via IFTTT

Toronto cop convicted in beating of Black man who lost eye

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3eIEMSC
via IFTTT

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 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

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3g84uQL
via IFTTT

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 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.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/386ZsAZ
via IFTTT

In 2017, Two Historic Accidents Shook The U.S. Navy (Here Is What They Learned)

Two deadly collisions involving U.S. Navy destroyers in June and August 2017 may have cost the lives of up to sixteen sailors, leading the Navy to declare a day-long operational pause to reflect upon its safety culture.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/387JKFU
via IFTTT

Amid coronavirus surge, Abbott expresses regret on reopening bars

The number of people hospitalized in Texas from the coronavirus increased for the 15th consecutive day, surpassing 5,000 for the first time.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3g2eF9d
via IFTTT

If everyone in the US wears a mask in public, 33,000 lives could be saved over the next 3 months, one model suggests

Wearing face masks can cut coronavirus transmission by 50%. A new model shows the effect that would have in the US by October.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/384zwpB
via IFTTT

Protesters resist clearing of Seattle protest zone

Crews arrived with heavy equipment Friday at Seattle's "occupied" protest zone, apparently ready to dismantle barriers set up by protesters, but halted work when demonstrators resisted by lying on top of some of the makeshift structures. (June 26)

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3dEPacs
via IFTTT

Coronavirus: Florida and Texas reverse reopening as infections surge

Florida and Texas reverse moves to reopen business as total cases across the US surpass 2.5 million.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3dEQL1Z
via IFTTT

In 'God, guns and Trump' country, simmering doubts about the president

In Mohave County, Arizona, which went 73% for Donald Trump in 2016, some residents are starting to question their support for the president.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/385N58m
via IFTTT

Yemen asks for help as seawater seeps into abandoned tanker

The United Nations said an abandoned oil tanker moored off the coast of Yemen loaded with more than 1 million barrels of crude oil is at risk of rupture or exploding, causing massive environmental damage to Red Sea marine life, desalination factories and international shipping routes. Internal documents obtained by The Associated Press show that seawater has entered the engine compartment of the tanker, which hasn't been maintained for over five years, causing damage to the pipelines and increasing the risk of sinking. Rust has covered parts of the tanker and the inert gas that prevents the tanks from gathering inflammable gases, has leaked out.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2CChMX2
via IFTTT