Music: Banda Magda — ‘Reine De Bois’
‘Coming back and biting us’: U.S. sees Covid-19 resurgence
The Associated Press reports: Hospital administrators and health experts warned desperately Wednesday that parts of the U.S. are on the verge of becoming overwhelmed by a resurgence of the coronavirus, lamenting that politicians and a tired-of-being-cooped-up public are letting a disaster unfold. The U.S. recorded a one-day total of 34,700 new COVID-19 cases, the highest in two months, according to the count kept by Johns Hopkins University. The number of new cases per day is now running just short of…
The right way to breathe during the coronavirus pandemic
Breathing in through the nose is an integral part of meditation and delivers virus-fighting gases to the lungs. triloks / Getty Images By Louis J. Ignarro, University of California, Los Angeles Inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth. It’s not just something you do in yoga class – breathing this way actually provides a powerful medical benefit that can help the body fight viral infections. The reason is that your nasal cavities produce the molecule nitric oxide, which…
How Facebook allows climate misinformation to bypass its fact-checking process
E&E News reports: A team of climate scientists working as approved fact checkers for Facebook evaluated a post last year by a White House-connected group that claims the world needs to burn more fossil fuels. The researchers found that the post by the CO2 Coalition was based on cherry-picked information to mislead readers into thinking climate science models are wrong about global warming. The post, which was published originally in the conservative Washington Examiner, was an opinion piece that had…
Who is really to blame for climate change?
Jocelyn Timperley writes: One of the most frustrating things about the climate crisis is that the fact that earlier action could have prevented it. With every passing year of inaction, the emissions cuts needed to limit global warming to relatively safe levels grow steeper and steeper. Many groups have been accused of being at blame for this ongoing lack of action, from fossil fuel companies and wealthy countries, to politicians, rich people and sometimes even all of us. Others may…
As Trump slumps, his campaign fixes on a target: Women
The Washington Post reports: Before the coronavirus pandemic shut down Tampa’s hotels and put her out of work, Audrey Scaglione said she expected to vote for Donald Trump a second time. Now the contract food service worker finds herself struggling to decide. “I’m just really unsure right now,” said Scaglione, who says she leans Republican but also previously voted for Barack Obama. “It is so hard to tell. I don’t think I can.” She has not heard much from former…
With annexation plan looming, Israel grapples with reality of apartheid
Meron Rapoport writes: On 15 June 1967, five days after the end of the Middle East war, the Israeli cabinet met for the second time since the ceasefire was announced. Menachem Begin, the historical leader of the nationalistic Herut party – which would later become Likud – had joined the government only a few days before the war, having previously been treated as a pariah by the successive Zionist “social democrat” ruling parties in the first 19 years of Israel’s…
The origin of scientists
Jessica Riskin writes: A few years ago, when my daughter was in middle school, she had to study for a quiz on “the five steps of the scientific method.” She had no problem memorizing five words in a given order, but she also had to be ready to explain them, and there she ran into trouble, until she was seized by a bright idea: here was a chance for her mother, who taught and wrote about the history of science,…
Music: Banda Magda — ‘Ase Me Na Bo’
With Trump under fire for his handling of the pandemic, his advisers consider blaming the CDC
Politico reports: White House officials are putting a target on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, positioning the agency as a coronavirus scapegoat as cases surge in many states and the U.S. falls behind other nations that are taming the pandemic. Trump administration aides in recent weeks have seriously discussed launching an in-depth evaluation of the agency to chart what they view as its missteps in responding to the pandemic including an early failure to deploy working test kits,…
Americans may be banned from EU due to U.S. failure to control the pandemic
The New York Times reports: European Union countries rushing to revive their economies and reopen their borders after months of coronavirus restrictions are prepared to block Americans from entering because the United States has failed to control the scourge, according to draft lists of acceptable travelers reviewed by The New York Times. That prospect, which would lump American visitors in with Russians and Brazilians as unwelcome, is a stinging blow to American prestige in the world and a repudiation of…
Texas is heading down a dangerous path, local leaders warn as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations surge
The Texas Tribune reports: As Texas’ coronavirus cases and hospitalizations continue to break records for a second straight week, leaders and health experts in the largest cities are warning that the state is heading down a dangerous path and hospitals could soon be overwhelmed. Gov. Greg Abbott struck a more urgent tone Monday, calling the increases in hospitalizations and cases across the state unacceptable. He said the state would only shut down businesses again as a last resort but cautioned…
Trump joked about Covid testing slowdown? He denies it while Fauci and Birx call for increase
ABC News reports: The White House said Monday that President Donald Trump was speaking only in “jest” when he said at Saturday night’s rally that he told officials to slow down testing for the coronavirus and that he had not actually ordered anyone to do so. “No, he has not directed that,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in an exchange with ABC News’ Ben Gittleson in Monday’s press briefing and added that “any suggestion that testing has been…
In American journalism, objective truth is decided almost exclusively by white reporters and their mostly white bosses
Wesley Lowery writes: It was a brief interaction, during the first weeks of my career. There had been a stabbing, and I’d been dispatched to a block in Roxbury, a predominantly black section of Boston, to snag quotes from anyone who might know anything about what had happened. “Who are you with?” inquired the first person I had approached, a black man in his 50s. “The Globe?” he exclaimed after hearing my response. “The Globe doesn’t have black reporters. What…
State terrorism: A low-flying ‘show of force’
The Washington Post reports: Hemmed in by police on all sides, Camellia Magness feared that the military helicopter descending on downtown Washington might unleash a final assault on protesters. It was June 1, nearly three hours after federal police in riot gear charged largely peaceful demonstrators as they gathered near the White House to protest after the killing of George Floyd. Magness and others had lingered downtown past a 7 p.m. curfew. Military helicopters had been flying high overhead, seeming…
CHOP’s legacy: ‘This has been a life-changing experience. For all of us’
The Seattle Times reports: On a sunny Monday morning, after a weekend that saw two nighttime shootings, the streets and fields of CHOP (Capitol Hill Organized Protest) were mostly deserted. Just a few days ago, the 24/7 protest, which occupies several blocks around Cal Anderson Park and a recently abandoned police precinct, had been bustling with life: activists; rubberneckers; reporters; volunteer security guards, some openly carrying guns; masked medics. But after two bursts of gunfire on successive nights — two…