June 2020 ~ The Best New Google

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

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Can’t Request an Absentee Ballot Online? This Group Wants to Help

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Swift Charges Against Atlanta Officers Met With Relief and Skepticism

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U.S. Calls for Indefinite Arms Embargo of Iran, but Finds No Takers

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Coronavirus Briefing: What Happened Today

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Pence Raised Nearly $500,000 From Donors to Pay Mueller Legal Defense

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$1 Billion Is Shifted From N.Y.P.D. in a Budget That Pleases No One

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New top story on Hacker News: Mastering Jq: Part 1

Mastering Jq: Part 1
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New top story on Hacker News: Braille, and the Evolution of Software Development

Braille, and the Evolution of Software Development
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Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

EXCLUSIVE: DHS deploys special federal unit to protect monuments over July 4 weekend amid vandalism fears

06/30/20 4:09 PM

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.

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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.

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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.

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Russian state exit polls show 76% so far back reforms that could extend Putin rule

Russian state opinion pollster VTsIOM said on Monday that its exit polls showed that 76% of Russians had so far voted to support reforms that could allow President Vladimir Putin to extend his rule until 2036. The nationwide vote on constitutional reforms began on June 25 and is being held over seven days as a precaution against the coronavirus pandemic. If approved, the changes would allow Putin to run twice for president again after his current term expires in 2024.

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Bob Woodward story on Kavanaugh's veracity 'pulled' during Senate hearings

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Fauci says US death toll 'going to be very disturbing' and fears 100,000 daily cases

* Infectious disease expert says US ‘going in the wrong direction’ * ‘I’m very concerned. I’m not satisfied with what’s going on’Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, has said the country could see 100,000 new coronavirus cases daily unless action is taken to reverse the epidemic.Appearing before the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee on Tuesday, Fauci warned that the US is “going in the wrong direction” over handling the coronavirus, and said the death toll “is going to be very disturbing”.He appeared a day after the White House insisted the outbreak had been reduced to “embers” but the principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Anne Schuchat, insisted: “This is really the beginning.”Speaking on Capitol Hill, Fauci was asked about the increase in new cases of coronavirus – the US last week reported 40,000 in one day – and whether the pandemic was under control.“The numbers speak for themselves,” he said. “I’m very concerned, I’m not satisfied with what’s going on, because we’re going in the wrong direction.“Clearly we’re not in total control.”Fauci said that without a more robust response, the daily number of cases could more than double.“I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around,” he said. Fauci said he could not provide an estimated death toll, but said: “It is going to be very disturbing, I guarantee you that.”The stark warning came after Schuchat told the Journal of the American Medical Association: “What we hope is that we can take it seriously and slow the transmission. We have way too much virus across the country for that right now, so it’s very discouraging.”She added that there was “a lot of wishful thinking around the country” that the pandemic would be over by the summer.“We are not even beginning to be over this,” Schuchat said. “There are a lot of worrisome factors about the last week or so.“We’re not in the situation of New Zealand or Singapore or Korea, where a new case is rapidly identified and all the contacts are traced, and people are isolated who are sick, and people who are exposed are quarantined and they can keep things under control.”Testifying before the Senate committee, Fauci said he was “quite concerned about what we are seeing evolve right now in several states” which had moved quickly in attempts to return to normal.“They need to follow the guidelines that have been very carefully laid out with regard to [reopening] checkpoints. What we’ve seen in several states are different iterations of that, perhaps maybe in some, they’re going too quickly and skipping over some.”The US represents 4% of the world’s population, but accounts for 25% of all cases and deaths from Covid-19. The US has recorded more than 2.5m cases, with some states seeing record rises.On Monday, the governor of Arizona ordered bars, movie theaters, gyms and water parks to shut down for a month, weeks after reopening. Texas, Florida and California, all seeing rises in cases, have rolled back reopening efforts. Oregon and Kansas have ordered people to wear masks in public.Responding to widely shared images of people not following guidelines – including not wearing a mask and gathering in large groups – and especially young people, Fauci said better messaging was required.Fauci said: “We’ve got to get that message out that we are all in this together and if we’re going to contain this, we’ve gotta contain it together.”The Senate committee chair, the Republican Lamar Alexander, urged Trump to wear a mask and to depoliticize the topic. He said: “This small, life-saving practice has become part of the political debate that says, if you are for Trump you don’t wear a mask and if you are against Trump you do.”Alexander continued: “That’s why I’ve suggested that the president occasionally wear a mask. The president has plenty of admirers, they would follow his lead and it would help in this political debate; the stakes are too high for this to continue.”New daily cases are rising in 38 states, according to NPR’s pandemic tracker, but the White House continues its attempts to downplay the severity of Covid-19. At a briefing on Monday, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany ignored the surge.“The people who are being infected tend to be those – as Vice-President Pence has noted – half of those testing positive are under the age of 35. This means we’re catching people in their communities,” she said.She added: “We’re aware that there are embers that need to be put out.”Fauci said on Sunday the US was unlikely to achieve herd immunity to the coronavirus even with a vaccine, given a third of Americans say they would not receive it.“There is a general anti-science, anti-authority, anti-vaccine feeling among some people in this country – an alarmingly large percentage of people, relatively speaking,” Fauci said, adding that the government has “a lot of work to do” to educate people about vaccines.Even states where the rate of new infections has decreased are rethinking plans to allow businesses to reopen. New Jersey has postponed plans to allow indoor dining, while the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, said he may reverse plans to allow restaurants and bars to reopen.Broadway theaters will remain closed until January 2021, an industry group said on Monday. Theaters had planned to reopen in September.

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Study finds asteroid impact, not volcanoes, made the Earth uninhabitable for dinosaurs: 'Only plausible explanation'

A new study found what happened to the Earth's dinosaurs. An asteroid strike blocking out the sun for years and causing permanent winters was cause.

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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.

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White couple who pointed gun at protesters say they support Black Lives Matter but felt threatened by ‘angry mob’

A white couple who pointed guns at protesters in St Louis have said they were threatened as crowds marched down their street.Video shared online showed 63-year-old Mark McCloskey and 61-year-old Patricia McCloskey stationed on the lawn outside their St Louis home on Sunday night as protesters walked past.

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'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.

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Coronanvirus: Snacking and family meals increase in lockdown

Young people's eating habits have meant more snacks but also more shared meals, say researchers.

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Judge blocks tell-all by Trump niece - for now

Lawyers for Mary Trump and Simon & Schuster plan to immediately appeal the ruling.

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Cherry Groce: Mum's police shooting 'robbed me of my childhood'

Cherry Groce's son says his family has had three generations of police harassment since Brixton riots.

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Monday, June 29, 2020

A White Gatekeeper of Southern Food Faces Calls to Resign

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Remote School Is a Nightmare. Few in Power Care.

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In Texas, Voting Reflects Partisan Split Over How to Deal With Virus

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Coronavirus Briefing: What Happened Today

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‘Our Luck May Have Run Out’: California’s Case Count Explodes

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Three Hikers Are Missing on Mount Rainier

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New top story on Hacker News: Cancel Culture in 1974

Cancel Culture in 1974
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New top story on Hacker News: Featherweight Java: A Minimal Core Calculus for Java and GJ (2002) [pdf]

Featherweight Java: A Minimal Core Calculus for Java and GJ (2002) [pdf]
5 by sendilkumarn | 1 comments on Hacker News.

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).

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South Pole warming three times faster than rest of Earth: study

The South Pole has warmed three times faster than the rest of the planet in the last 30 years due to warmer tropical ocean temperatures, new research showed Monday. Antarctica's temperature varies widely according to season and region, and for years it had been thought that the South Pole had stayed cool even as the continent heated up. Researchers in New Zealand, Britain and the United States analysed 60 years of weather station data and used computer modelling to show what was causing the accelerated warming.

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Wildfire Spreading Rapidly on Traverse Mountain 'Started by Fireworks'

A large brush fire, estimated to have reached 150 to 200 acres, was “rapidly spreading” on Traverse Mountains near Lehi, Utah, on June 27, according to ABC4.

Utah Fire Info reported that the fire was “started by fireworks” and said “strong, gusty winds” were responsible for the rapid spread of the fire across the mountain side.

Lehi Community Emergency Response Team issued an evacuation order in a quarter mile radius in the city.

Video shows the fire burning on the mountain side from a residential area in the hills of the city of Lehi. Credit: Jeremy Roberts via Storyful

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Couple draw guns at crowd heading to St. Louis mayor's home

A white couple who stood outside their St. Louis mansion and pointed guns at protesters who were marching toward the mayor's home to demand her resignation support the Black Lives Matter movement and don't want to become heroes to those who oppose the cause, their attorney said Monday. Video posted online showed Mark McCloskey, 63, and his 61-year-old wife, Patricia, standing outside their Renaissance palazzo-style home Sunday night in the city’s well-to-do Central West End neighborhood. Mark McCloskey told KMOV-TV that he and wife, who are personal injury lawyers, were facing an “angry mob” on their private street and feared for their lives Sunday night.

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China to impose visa restrictions on U.S. individuals over Hong Kong

Beijing said on Monday it will impose visa restrictions on U.S. individuals with "egregious conduct" on Hong Kong-related issues, mirroring U.S. sanctions against unnamed Chinese officials deemed responsible for curbing freedoms in the city. The announcement comes as the top decision-making body of China's parliament deliberates a draft national security law for Hong Kong that pro-democracy activists in the city fear will be used to eliminate dissent and tighten Beijing's control. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, who announced the new sanctions during a press briefing in response to a question about Washington's new visa restrictions, did not specify which U.S. individuals have been targeted.

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The A-12 Avenger Shows Why The Navy Needs A Long-Range Strike Aircraft

The Navy’s carrier air wings would have greatly benefited from an A-12-like capability had the program survived.

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2 Oklahoma police officers shot, suspect taken into custody

Two police officers in Tulsa, Oklahoma, were shot and critically wounded on the city's east side Monday morning and police arrested the suspected gunman following a more than seven-hour search, authorities said. David Anthony Ware, 32, was arrested about 10:45 a.m., said Capt. Richard Meulenberg. The officers — Sgt. Craig Johnson and rookie officer Aurash Zarkeshan — remained in critical condition Monday afternoon and were “fighting for their lives,” said Police Chief Wendell Franklin.

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Shipbuilding suppliers need more than market forces to stay afloat

Without deliberate action, the U.S. shipbuilding industry will become increasingly fragile.

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What we know about Steven Lopez, the suspect in the fatal Louisville protest shooting

Steven Lopez is accused of firing a gun into the crowd at a protest at Louisville's Jefferson Square Park, killing a 27-year-old photographer.

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In pictures: Huge Nevada wildfire turns Las Vegas sky red

The fire in Mount Charleston, Nevada, engulfed about 5,000 acres (20 sq km) within an afternoon.

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New Yorkers who travel to Florida, Texas, and other states with high COVID-19 infection rates will lose paid sick leave benefits

Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah, and Texas all currently have positive test rates higher than 10%.

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Trump accuses California Democrats of 'incredible stupidity' in row over John Wayne's white supremacy remarks

Donald Trump is accusing some Democratic officials of "incredible stupidity" for calling for actor John Wayne's name to be removed from an airport in California even after an interview resurfaced of "The Duke" embracing white supremacy.John Wayne Airport in southern California serves Orange County and Los Angeles. Mr Trump in January 2016, as a presidential candidate, held a special event at the John Wayne Birthplace Museum in Winterset, Iowa. He spoke at a lectern with a wax statue of the late actor behind him.

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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".

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Coronavirus: Choir song honours health and care workers who have died

Composer Howard Goodall's new song features the names of over a hundred NHS and care home workers who have died.

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'My struggle with racism in the Metropolitan police'

Former senior police officer Shabnam Chaudhri says she was unfairly treated, because of her ethnicity.

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Sunday, June 28, 2020

Mask Exemption Cards From the ‘Freedom to Breathe Agency’? They’re Fake

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Trump Denies Briefing on Reported Russian Bounties Against US Troops

President Donald Trump on Sunday denied that he had been briefed on reported U.S. intelligence that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing American troops in Afghanistan, and he appeared to minimize the allegations against Moscow.

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New top story on Hacker News: India Debates Skin-Tone Bias as Beauty Companies Alter Ads

India Debates Skin-Tone Bias as Beauty Companies Alter Ads
10 by pseudolus | 0 comments on Hacker News.

New top story on Hacker News: USPS sells nearly $20B worth of money orders a year

USPS sells nearly $20B worth of money orders a year
27 by saadalem | 23 comments on Hacker News.

New top story on Hacker News: How to finish your side project

How to finish your side project
13 by hugozap | 6 comments on Hacker News.

New top story on Hacker News: Parallax effect in browser using web-camera

Parallax effect in browser using web-camera
3 by munrocket | 3 comments on Hacker News.

New top story on Hacker News: A principled approach to GraphQL query cost analysis

A principled approach to GraphQL query cost analysis
4 by davisjam314 | 1 comments on Hacker News.

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.

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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" existing federal law.

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Texas Republican lawmaker says he won't wear a mask on the House floor unless he tests positive for coronavirus

Rep. Louie Gohmert is among a group of Republican lawmakers including the president and vice president who have been photographed without a face mask.

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Reopening Is Not a Failure

The coronavirus hasn’t gone away.As the Northeast, the epicenter of the pandemic in the U.S. for months, has seen steep, persistent declines in confirmed cases, other parts of the country have spiked. A month or so ago, most of the increased cases were a function of increased testing. Now, states like Florida, Texas, and Arizona have seen worrying increases in their positivity rates — the percentage of tests that are positive — in a sign of accelerating community spread.The media’s tone about this trend is, of course, apocalyptic, with many commentators portraying the Republican governors of these states as callous extremists hell-bent on reopening, come what may. The fact is that states all over the country have been reopening, and California and North Carolina, both with Democratic governors, have seen spikes in new confirmed cases, too (although not dramatically increasing positivity rates). It’s also irksome to see these governors depicted as villains at the same time New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is lionized as a hero, despite New York’s vastly higher death rate and his fateful decision to send COVID-positive patients into nursing homes.The reality is that Greg Abbott, Ron DeSantis, and Doug Ducey are reasonable, public-spirited men who never said they would insist on full reopening regardless of the consequences. Abbott has closed bars back down and further restricted the capacity of restaurants. He’s also stopped elective surgeries again in hard-hit areas and will allow counties to mandate wearing masks in public. DeSantis, too, has shuttered bars, while Florida localities are tightening up again on some restrictions. Ducey is hitting the brakes on the state’s reopening process.All of this seems prudent. They are following the evidence and adjusting to new data. We like the local watering hole as much as the next guy, but if bars are contributing to the surge of cases, it only makes sense to close them again. Bars and restaurants also should not be allowed to flout state and local guidelines. And masks, which more Florida localities are mandating, are a mild mitigation measure compared with shutting business and telling people to stay at home.The good news is that in none of these places have we yet seen a spike in deaths commensurate with the spike in cases. This may simply reflect the fact that deaths are a lagging indicator. But the evidence suggests that we are seeing a younger cohort of people getting the virus. In Florida, the median age of the positive cases has drastically declined, from 65 years old in March to 35 years old now. It looks as though older, more vulnerable people have continued to be cautious about the virus, while younger, less vulnerable people are being less careful. Although not ideal, this is better than the alternative. The virus is unpredictable, but younger people are less likely to get seriously ill and die.None of this means that reopening is a failure. The promise of reopening wasn’t that there would be no additional cases — most people conceded that there would be. The promise of reopening was that we could begin a necessary return to normal life, while managing new outbreaks, hitting the brakes when and where needed, and having plans in place to keep hospitals from coming close to getting overwhelmed, as almost happened during the worst period in New York.This is what Florida, Texas, and Arizona are trying to do, and we should all be rooting for their success.

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Fact check: CDC did not add flu and pneumonia cases to its COVID-19 death count

A Facebook post falsely claimed the CDC admitted adding influenza and pneumonia deaths to its COVID-19 death count.

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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.

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Three people died and one person was permanently blinded in New Mexico after drinking hand sanitizer

The cases, which occurred over several weeks in May, are related to alcoholism, according to health officials.

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Young novice protest leaders help drive US wave of dissent

Before George Floyd stopped pleading for air beneath a police officer's knee, 19-year-old Weidmayer Pierre was planning to work at Wal-Mart during his summer break from Palm Beach State College. Pierre has quit his retail job to focus on organizing Black Lives Matter protests every few days in Florida, determined to channel the groundswell of energy around the world into meaningful reform in his hometown. “Every time someone gets killed by police brutality we protest once or twice and it’s done," said Pierre, who wants to help police improve the system from within.

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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.

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Removing John Calhoun’s Name Is Easier Than Erasing His Racist Legacy

By Christian K. Anderson, The ConversationWhen I toured the South Carolina Governor’s Mansion in 2019, I noticed the multi-volume papers of John C. Calhoun on display. It struck me as remarkable that Calhoun’s ideas would be featured so prominently given his vigorous defense of slavery and his role in laying the groundwork for the Civil War.But the reality is Calhoun’s legacy until now has been quite prominent in American society—and not just in the South.His statue stands between the two chambers of the House and Senate in the South Carolina Statehouse. However, a separate statue in Charleston has been removed from the town square following nationwide protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd during an encounter with police. The statue had stood for 124 years just a block from Mother Emanuel Church, site of the horrific shooting massacre in 2015 of nine Black worshipers by an avowed white supremacist. The church is also located on Calhoun Street.Despite his historic prominence, Calhoun’s days as a revered icon in the public sphere are gradually coming to an end. CALHOUN IS ALL AROUND USNumerous cities and counties, streets and roads, schools and other public places are named for Calhoun, a slaveholder who served as secretary of state, secretary of war, a U.S. senator, and two terms as vice president.For instance, the Calhoun State Office Building sits in the capitol complex in Columbia, South Carolina’s state capital city.There are counties named for him in his home state, as well as Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and elsewhere in the South. There is even a Calhoun County in Michigan named for him.Major streets in Columbia and Charleston, still bear his name.Despite his prominence elsewhere, Calhoun is about to become less prominent on the landscape of American higher education.The board of trustees at Clemson University, a public university, announced on June 12 that its Honors College would no longer be named after Calhoun.South Carolina’s “Heritage Act” prevents renaming of buildings without legislative approval, but the honors college is an organizational unit, not a building.This is a particularly significant development given that Clemson University sits on what was once Calhoun’s plantation, which his daughter and her husband, Thomas Clemson, inherited.While public memorials of Calhoun appear to be on the decline, what I find more significant—and more troublesome—is the way that Calhoun’s ideology has been ingrained in the American culture and psyche, thanks in large part to the way his ideas were embraced in U.S. institutions of higher learning long after his death.I make this observation as a historian and author of a chapter for the forthcoming book Persistence Through Peril: Episodes of College Life and Academic Endurance in the Civil War South.Calhoun, who was born in 1782 and died a decade before the Civil War began, in 1850, was not only a slaveholder and an ardent defender of slavery, but a chief architect of the political system that allowed slavery to persist.More enduring than the effects of his political career—which included the annexation of Texas to expand the number of slaveholding states—are the repercussions of his political ideology.As a political theorist, Calhoun is best known for two ideas: “concurrent majority” and “nullification.” A concurrent majority is the notion that a minority of the electorate—namely, one with money and property—can veto a political majority.This idea is related to his belief in nullification theory, which is the idea that a state can void federal laws. Nullification made the idea of South Carolina seceding from the nation—and the creation of the Confederacy—a political possibility and then a reality.Calhoun laid out his arguments for these ideas in his treatise “A Disquisition on Government.”While some Americans defended slavery as a “necessary evil” Calhoun viewed slavery as “a positive good.”He held paternalistic views of Black people as well as other non-whites, declaring: “We make a great mistake when we suppose that all people are capable of self-government.” THE CALHOUN CURRICULUMCalhoun’s political doctrines were taught explicitly in college classrooms for decades after his death. There are still remnants in the curriculum.His own views on nullification theory, states’ rights and secession were formed when he studied at Yale University where the college’s president, Timothy Dwight, introduced to him the idea that New England could leave the young nation and become a separate country. Yale named a residential college in his honor in 1931. It renamed it in 2017 after the intense pressure from students and alumni that followed the Charleston massacre at the Mother Emanuel Church.In the chapter that I am writing for Persistence through Peril, I am explaining how Calhoun’s ideologies permeated Southern institutions of higher education. His views were taught at the Military Academy of South Carolina, before, during and after the Civil War. When those cadets studied the U.S. Constitution, their professors and texts emphasized Calhoun’s interpretation of it.John Peyre Thomas, a Citadel graduate and Confederate Army colonel who served as professor, superintendent and later trustee at The Citadel, heaped praise upon Calhoun, having served as editor for The Carolina Tribute to Calhoun in 1857.In a speech given at Clemson University on June 22, 1897, Thomas declared, “It is conceded that Calhoun’s standard in the science of government is so lofty as in some respects to be unattainable in our day and generation.” THE ROAD AHEADDecades of teaching a particular doctrine do not fade easily or quickly. The United States is now witnessing another racial awakening with protests for social justice. Symbols of racism and white supremacy are being removed from higher education.On June 17, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees reversed its 16-year moratorium on renaming buildings, put in place after the statue known as “Silent Sam” was torn down in 2018.The University System of Georgia, which includes the University of Georgia, also moved in June 2020 to review the names of its buildings. This would include the University of Georgia’s Grady School of Journalism, which is named after Henry Grady, an avowed white supremacist.After Calhoun’s death in 1850, his colleague in the Senate, Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, remarked about him: “He is not dead. There may be no vitality in his body, but there is in his doctrines.” He was prophetic in his words.Calhoun’s ideologies fueled the Civil War, gave comfort to those who believed in the “Lost Cause” (that is, to show the Civil War in the best light possible from the Confederate point of view) and perpetuated the teaching of racist and white supremacist attitudes.Because the ideas he espoused have flourished, I believe that dismantling his legacy will take much more than just removing statues of his likeness or renaming buildings, streets and other public places named in his honor.Christian K. Anderson is an associate professor at the University of South CarolinaRead 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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After yearlong fight, Missouri's lone abortion clinic gets its license renewed

That means the state's lone clinic is set to continue operating through at least 2021.

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Global coronavirus deaths top half a million

The death toll from COVID-19 reached half a million people on Sunday, according to a Reuters tally, a grim milestone for the global pandemic that seems to be resurgent in some countries even as other regions are still grappling with the first wave. The respiratory illness caused by the new coronavirus has been particularly dangerous for the elderly, although other adults and children are also among the 500,000 fatalities and more than 10 million reported cases. While the overall rate of death has flattened in recent weeks, health experts have expressed concerns about record numbers of new cases in countries like the United States, India and Brazil, as well as new outbreaks in parts of Asia.

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Tuesday, June 30, 2020

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