| DHS report: China hid virus' severity to hoard supplies Posted: 03 May 2020 12:42 PM PDT  U.S. officials believe China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak — and how contagious the disease is — to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it, intelligence documents show. Chinese leaders "intentionally concealed the severity" of the pandemic from the world in early January, according to a four-page Department of Homeland Security intelligence report dated May 1 and obtained by The Associated Press. The revelation comes as the Trump administration has intensified its criticism of China, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying Sunday that that country was responsible for the spread of disease and must be held accountable.
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| South Korea says troops exchanged fire along North Korean border Posted: 03 May 2020 11:11 AM PDT  "We are in the process of taking measures to ensure that no additional situation occurs," the Joint Chiefs of staff said. It added that it was communicating with North Korea through a military line while staying prepared for further fire. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed the exchange of fire Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
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| In televised town hall, Trump pushes for economic reopening Posted: 03 May 2020 10:06 AM PDT  Anxious for an economic recovery, President Donald Trump fielded Americans' questions about decisions by some states to allow nonessential businesses to reopen while other states are on virtual lockdown due to the coronavirus. After more than a month of being cooped up at the White House, Trump returned from a weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland and participated in a "virtual" town hall, hosted Sunday night by Fox News Channel, from inside the Lincoln Memorial. "We have to get it back open safely but as quickly as possible," Trump said.
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| Coronavirus: Which African countries are ahead on testing? Posted: 03 May 2020 09:21 AM PDT  African states face real challenges in trying to expand their testing for the coronavirus.
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| Pence's Virus Role Enhances His Profile While Showing Limits of His Influence Posted: 03 May 2020 09:08 AM PDT  WASHINGTON -- The paradox of Vice President Mike Pence getting in trouble for failing to wear a mask is that perhaps no member of the Trump administration is more shrouded behind an invisible one of his own making.For weeks now, he has stood day after day at the side of President Donald Trump, stone-faced and unreadable, never displaying a hint of reaction to the president's governor-bashing tantrums and bleach-injecting prescriptions, while offering a calming, measured, what-he-meant-to-say counterpoint along with constant flattery for the boss.In the most consequential mission of his career, Pence has tried to navigate the complexities of a mysterious disease and the vagaries of a mercurial president at the same time, steering the response to the most deadly pandemic in generations without getting caught up in the melodrama of the moment. Yet questions have lingered about how seriously he himself took the threat at first and what advice he gave the president in the days when it really mattered.By touring the Mayo Clinic this past week barefaced while everyone else around him was masked, in keeping with the medical center's policy, Pence generated a sharp backlash for not adhering to the very precautions he himself has advanced. By showing up at a ventilator plant two days later with a mask covering his face, he also showed that, unlike the president, he was willing to back down in the face of criticism. But then a reporter said his aides threatened retaliation for what they claimed was a violation of an off-the-record agreement.The controversy over the mask was a rare miscue for a vice president who has stuck to the script and drawn praise both from Democrats who prefer working with him over the president and from Republicans who privately wish he were the one in the Oval Office. In the good cop-bad cop tandem, Pence takes the calls from the governors seeking help and even calls them unbidden to ask what else he can do."This has been a real defining moment for him," said Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican and chairman of the National Governors Association who has been at odds with the president over the response to the coronavirus but, like other governors, has turned to Pence to work through problems. "In all honesty, I think he has risen to the occasion. I think he's done an amazing job."At the same time, Pence has been an enabler, never contradicting the president's many falsehoods and advancing some of his own about the administration's handling of the crisis. His nonstop praise for "the president's leadership" and "decisive action" risks sounding unctuous. And he has not been able to keep Trump fully committed to policies recommended by public health experts to curb a virus that has already killed more than 65,000 people in the United States."Behind the scenes, whatever he is saying, if it is different from what he is saying in front of the cameras, is not working at all," said Kathleen Sebelius, a former secretary of health and human services under President Barack Obama. "And in front of the cameras, he is playing a role as a sidekick to a president who is delivering, at the very best, very mixed messages to the public which could put them at risk."Critics inside the administration, who asked not to be identified, acknowledge that time was squandered during the weeks before the president began to embrace quarantine policies. They said they were mystified Pence had escaped blame for the slow response.As with much of the relationship between the president and the vice president, it has been difficult to discern what goes on between them. "I think the vice president has always viewed his role as making sure the president has the best information possible to make decisions for the American people," said Marc Short, Pence's chief of staff. Aides to Pence said that included conveying the advice of the medical experts.Trump gave Pence the unenviable assignment of taking over the administration's coronavirus response in late February, a decision seen as fraught with danger for a vice president some thought was being set up as a fall guy if things went badly. Trump privately described the role to advisers as short term and played down its significance.Once Pence took over, administration officials said task force meetings focused more on spin rather than policy, going from operational and decision-making discussions run by Alex Azar, the secretary of health and human services, to mostly prep sessions for the news briefings that the vice president initially led until Trump decided he should do them himself. Some officials complained that Pence's office abruptly ended a daily morning conference call that Azar's team had been leading.Pence's aides took over communications surrounding the virus, insisting they approve interviews, a move that prompted concern that the vice president was trying to silence experts. Pence's staff went into overdrive to dispute that, making Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government's top infectious disease expert, available for interviews with different outlets. Eventually, Fauci began booking interviews himself, aggravating aides to both the president and the vice president.While complimentary of Pence himself, some administration officials complained that his staff was less concerned about issues like ramping up testing, manufacturing ventilators and repatriating U.S. citizens stuck overseas. Short has made clear to colleagues that he thinks the lockdowns have gone too far, although the vice president is said not to share that view.White House officials disputed that Pence's team did not focus on issues like supplies and testing early on and said he took over a task force that was dysfunctional under Azar. They point to a series of actions the administration took in the weeks after Pence's takeover Feb. 26, including suspending travel from Iran, issuing a global travel advisory, increasing inspections of nursing homes, setting up an emergency operations center and pushing to improve testing.Azar skirted around any suggestion of tension in a statement on Saturday, saying he was "proud to work" with Pence and calling the vice president "instrumental not only in marshaling resources from across the federal government but also coordinating with state governments and countless American companies and nonprofits."At the start, Pence's own steady, mature, relentlessly polite public appearances won wide praise as he conveyed the seriousness of the virus, expressed concern about the victims and projected resolve to combat the pandemic."Pence is really good at this. Don't @ me," Jane Lynch, the actress and frequent Trump critic, wrote on Twitter on March 10, leading many liberals to express their disagreement anyway. Michael Gerson, a former senior adviser to President George W. Bush, wrote in his Washington Post column, "Never has the phrase 'President Pence' had a better ring to it."Recognition for Pence, of course, was bound to upset Trump, who likes to be the center of attention, and he quickly took over the briefings. At one point, he made a point of putting the vice president in his place, mocking Pence's artful dodge of a question about the administration's refusal to reopen enrollment in Obama's health care program. "I think that's one of the greatest answers I've ever heard because Mike was able to speak for five minutes and not even touch your question," Trump said.Still, Pence seems to know when to heed Trump and when to quietly ignore criticism of him. Whenever the president rails against governors who have criticized him, the vice president simply remains silent. At one point in March, Trump admitted that he sought to cut off Democratic governors who were not "appreciative" enough of him."I say, 'Mike, don't call the governor of Washington. You're wasting your time with him. Don't call the woman in Michigan,'" Trump said.In interviews, both Govs. Jay Inslee of Washington state and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan said Pence never stopped calling and never endorsed the president's vitriol but simply proceeded as if it had not happened."The vice president has a good poker face," said Inslee, who was called a "snake" by Trump even as he was treated professionally by the vice president. "I would hope he's frustrated by it, and I don't press him on that because he's in a difficult position. But I try to provide him encouragement to be as effective as possible to reduce the unnecessary tensions that are caused by the president's eruptions. He mostly nods his head, understands our position and doesn't betray his inner thinking."Whitmer said she has always found Pence "very accessible and cordial" regardless of what Trump said. "I've not had a hard time getting in touch with the vice president," she said. "He will on occasion call totally out of the blue unscheduled just to check in or to tell me about something coming from" the Federal Emergency Management Agency.Another governor, who asked not to be named, said Pence never betrays what he really thinks about the president's behavior. "Multiple times, I say, 'But, Mike, this is just crazy,' and sometimes there will be a little pause, and I'm waiting for him to say, 'Yes, I know.'" But he never does. Instead, Pence says, "I understand. Thank you for your input."Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, who has attended briefings with Pence, said the vice president remains disciplined no matter how provocative the question. "He is a skilled communicator and is very good at absorbing criticism," Schatz said. "Almost every answer to every question begins with an acknowledgment of how important the question is and maybe some praise for your home state governor. At that level, he's world class."In terms of answering the question in a substantive way," Schatz added, "I think he's stuck because the administration has failed and there's nothing he can do in private or in public to spin that."Pence has been pressed to reconcile his own initial statements with the reality that followed. In early March, he promised that the government would distribute 4 million test kits within a week. But it was not until mid-April that the nation actually conducted 4 million tests.The vice president's response was to make a distinction between distributing tests and actually conducting them. "I appreciate the question," he told a reporter who asked about it this past week, "but it represents a misunderstanding on your part and, frankly, a lot of the people in the public's part about the difference between having a test versus the ability to actually process the test."In the end, the crisis has both put Pence on a much more visible stage than ever while simultaneously demonstrating the limits of his influence in an administration headed by Trump. Tim Pawlenty, the former Republican governor of Minnesota, said people expecting Pence to force the administration one direction or another were misguided."Task forces and vice presidents don't get to decide things," he said. "They just get the opportunity to nudge the boss in a certain direction -- and the VP has been good nudger under difficult circumstances."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Nebraska will open voting sites for primary despite concerns Posted: 03 May 2020 09:07 AM PDT  Nebraska is forging ahead with plans to hold the nation's first in-person election in more than a month, despite health concerns about the coronavirus pandemic and allegations that political motivations are fueling opposition to an all-mail approach. Barring an unexpected change, Nebraska's primary will take place on May 12 — five weeks after Wisconsin held the last in-person balloting when courts sided with Republican legislators who pushed for that election to go forward. Republicans who hold all statewide offices and control the Legislature have encouraged people to cast early, absentee ballots.
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| What you need to know today about the virus outbreak Posted: 03 May 2020 09:05 AM PDT  Faced with 19,000 coronavirus deaths and counting, the nation's nursing homes are pushing back against a potential flood of lawsuits with a sweeping lobbying effort. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he was so sick from the coronavirus that doctors had discussed what to say if he had died. The coronavirus pandemic is forcing big changes at th e tradition-bound U.S. Supreme Court.
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| Unlike 2008 crisis, pandemic has no leader, no global plan Posted: 03 May 2020 09:04 AM PDT  When financial markets collapsed and the world faced its last great crisis in 2008, major powers worked together to restore the global economy, but the COVID-19 pandemic has been striking for the opposite response: no leader, no united action to stop the spread of the new coronavirus, which has killed over 200,000 people. The financial crisis gave birth to the leaders' summit of the Group of 20, the world's richest countries responsible for 80% of the global economy. In an April 6 letter to the G-20 following the summit, former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and 164 other current and former presidents, prime ministers, scientists and global figures urged the group's leaders to coordinate action "within the next few days" and agree on measures to address the deepening global health and economic crises from COVID-19.
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| After a Lifetime Together, Coronavirus Takes Them Both Posted: 03 May 2020 08:53 AM PDT  For most of her life, Maranda Lender, 32, has lived with her parents in Lewisberry, Pennsylvania.An only child, she grew up doted on by a mother and father who took her to golf lessons, soccer games and orchestra rehearsals (she played the viola). After she graduated from design school, she moved back home in 2014 to save money.But the family-of-three configuration imploded last month.Her mother, Becky Lender, 61, died April 4. Her father, Brad Lender, 60, died three days later. Both had tested positive for the coronavirus."I'm alone," Maranda Lender said.One of the cruelties of the coronavirus is the way it sweeps through homes, passing from person to person, compounding the burdens and anxieties of relatives who are either prevented from giving physical and emotional care to their loved ones or must risk getting sick themselves to do so.The cruelty is darker when both partners in a couple die, often within a few days of each other. It's the coronavirus version of dying of a broken heart, but the cause of death isn't a metaphor. It's a pandemic.There is no reliable data tracking the number of couples dying from coronavirus complications, but cases have cropped up in news reports across the country. Last month, a couple in Louisiana, married for 64 years, died within 10 days of each other. The virus took a Milwaukee couple two months shy of their 65th anniversary, and a couple in Connecticut that had celebrated theirs. A couple from the Chicago area who were married nearly six decades died a few hours apart. A Florida couple married a half-century died six minutes apart. Another Wisconsin couple died on the same day last week in side-by-side hospital beds; they had been married 73 years.Stephen Kemp, director of the Kemp Funeral Home in Southfield, Michigan, made arrangements for 64 people who died last month of COVID-19 -- including three married couples."Entire households are becoming ill, and then the deaths of husbands and wives become a part of this crisis," said Kemp, who has been a funeral director for 36 years. "I've never seen anything like it."Every long-term couple has a distinct story of love and commitment. For the Lenders, the story took them from a family living room where they were married to interstate motorcycle rides in search of the perfect hot dog.Dr. Delutha King and Lois King had their own narrative, 60 years in the making and winding from the South Side of Chicago to Tuskegee, Alabama, and then Atlanta, with excursions to South Africa and South America. But it ended just as the Lenders' did.Delutha King died in early April at the age of 96 and was buried April 10. An hour after the graveside service, the couple's son, Ron Loving, heard his phone ring.The call came from Arbor Terrace at Cascade, the assisted living residence facility in Atlanta that Loving, 77, had moved his parents into last summer: His mother had died, too."For her to pass the day we lay my granddaddy to rest," said their granddaughter, Kristie Taylor, "it was like, 'Wow, you two really were inseparable.'"The Kings both tested positive for COVID-19.Lois and Dee, as Delutha King was known to friends, met in 1960 at a cocktail party in Chicago. She was 36, a dental hygienist and divorced mother raised on a corn and tobacco farm in Ahoskie, North Carolina. He was a World War II veteran who attended college and medical school after the war and had just completed a residency in surgical urology at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington.They were married within six months, and he quickly became a surrogate father, and then just a father, to Loving.The family moved to Tuskegee, where Delutha King worked at a VA hospital, and then to Atlanta, where he began building a medical practice in 1966.Lois King delighted in being a doctor's wife, having supper on the table when he arrived home, playing bridge and raising money for organizations they both cared about, like the Sickle Cell Foundation of Georgia, which her husband helped found.At night they would watch "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson," sitting in the built-in recliners at either end of their couch and reaching their arms toward the middle, over the newspapers they had been reading, to hold hands.They visited Barbados and Venezuela, traveled through the Panama Canal and took a cruise through Europe with their best friends, Dr. Clinton Warner and Sally Warner. In the mid-90s, after Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa, the two couples traveled there to take part in the historic moment. The trip ended with a safari.Delutha King, who had majored in zoology as an undergraduate at Case Western Reserve University, loved the excursion. His wife, who longed for air conditioning, tolerated it."She was very opinionated," said Sally Warner, 73. "If Lois thought something, she would say it. If Dee thought something, he would think about it long and hard."The Kings were part of Atlanta's African American professional elite. Their social circle included Andrew Young, the former mayor and ambassador to the United Nations. They celebrated the new year at the home of Billye and Hank Aaron, the Hall of Fame baseball player and executive, who helped Delutha King raise money to fight sickle-cell anemia.Loving, an Army veteran and former Atlanta police officer who had a long second career as a news cameraman for WXIA in Atlanta, revered his parents.His wife, Freda Loving, remembers that when they began to date seriously in 2012, he told her, "I want us to be like my mom and dad."As the Kings slipped into old age, she developed dementia and he had Parkinson's disease. Their son visited them daily and arranged for visiting nursing aides so that his parents could keep living in their house for as long as possible.But by last year, it was clear that it was no longer safe for them to live independently. That's when they moved into Arbor Terrace. "They were still going to be together; that was the important thing," Loving said.When you are 77 and your parents are 96, Loving said, you know that their deaths will come. But to lose them in such rapid succession and have the virus deny him the chance to comfort them at the end or give them proper funerals to celebrate their lives, particularly his father's career and civil rights achievements -- he found that hard to cope with."This has been devastating," Loving said.Almost 800 miles to the north, Maranda Lender is living through similar pain. "It's the worst kind of situation," she said.Brad and Becky Lender's life together wasn't always easy. He had health issues, including diabetes and a hip injury that in recent years had left him unable to work. The couple squabbled often and fought some, most recently about Maranda Lender's fiance, whom her father gave a hard time."It's not like their marriage was a love story, because it was not," said Bonnie Hammaker, one of Becky Lender's sisters. "But they were committed to the marriage. You would never find them holding hands, but you would always find them together."They were both raised in Enola, Pennsylvania, and were married in 1986. Their life revolved around family and work. He was a forklift operator. She was a clerk at the New Cumberland Army Depot, a job she left when her daughter was born in 1988 and then reclaimed several years later. She added a second job as a cashier at Karns Foods to help send her daughter, now a graphic designer, to Pennsylvania College of Art and Design.Sue Hutchison, Becky Lender's boss at the depot and a close friend, said her employee loved meeting new people."She had a magnet for the needful souls," said Hutchison, 63. "We'd be sitting somewhere eating, and I would leave the table, and when I would come back, she would know the life story of the person sitting next to us. I'd say, 'Dude, how could you do that? I went to the bathroom for five minutes!' She had that kind of draw."The Lenders spent free time motorcycle-cruising and driving vintage fire trucks owned by Brad Lender's uncle in parades and expos all over Pennsylvania. "They were into racing, dirt tracks, NASCAR. They did a lot with the fire company. They had a ton of friends," Hammaker said.Over the winter they had made plans for a trip to Cincinnati to visit the zoo, which they had seen on a favorite program on the Animal Planet channel. They were supposed to go the weekend of May 9 to celebrate their 34th anniversary. "It would have been the first vacation that they had together in my entire life," Maranda Lender said.But COVID-19 intervened.On March 21, Becky Lender told her daughter she had a fever. Neither woman was particularly worried, Maranda Lender said. But the next day, Maranda Lender and her father had developed fevers as well.The next day, a Monday, Becky went to the family doctor and was tested for COVID-19. There was a six-day wait for the results, so she went home to rest. A few days later, she had terrible diarrhea and was nearly incapacitated. Her husband took her to the emergency room.Doctors gave her anti-nausea medicine and sent her home again, where she waited, fighting a high fever that made her sweat and shiver. (All three Lenders ultimately tested positive for COVID-19.)Becky Lender continued to get worse. On March 29, Maranda Lender heard her mother get out of bed and then collapse. She called 911. Her mother was admitted to the hospital and put on a ventilator.On April 1, as Maranda Lender and her father continued to deal with their own symptoms, the family doctor called her and said her father needed to go to the hospital as well. An ambulance was called. One of the EMTs had also been to the house three days earlier to take her mother.That night, Brad Lender called his daughter from the hospital. "They want to put me in a coma and stick me on a ventilator," he told her. "I just want you to know that I love you and that I always have.""I love you too, Dad," she replied. "You're going to be home soon, and you're going to be fine."She tried to set aside her anxiety. "Both my parents are in the ICU on ventilators, and I'm not well myself," she remembered thinking. "I was alone. You go into survival mode: 'What is it that I need to do for me right now?'"Her mother's condition was worsening. Maranda Lender had a conference call with Hammaker (her aunt) and her mother's doctors. "They said, 'It's not looking good, and we think at this point you may need to just make peace with it,'" Maranda Lender recalled.The next day, nurses brought an iPad to her mother's bedside and put Maranda Lender on speaker. "I told her that I loved her," Maranda Lender said. "I said, 'I don't want you to suffer, and I don't want you to be in pain. Go take care of Dad.'"Becky Lender died about an hour later. Her siblings, including Hammaker, went to their mother's assisted living residence in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which is under quarantine. "I had to tell my 85-year-old mother that her daughter died -- through a window," Hammaker said.Back at home, Maranda Lender was fielding more hospital phone calls. On April 7, a doctor treating her father called and said that the ventilator was merely prolonging the inevitable. "Give him eight hours to fight," she told the doctor. "If he is worse in eight hours, we should look into making him comfortable." Her father died about 10 hours later.In the weeks since then, Maranda Lender has been hunkering down in the house she is now afraid to leave, healing physically from the virus and trying to manage its emotional toll. At moments, she has found dark humor in the situation, imagining her father tracking down her mother in heaven and her mother telling her father, "Brad, you only gave me a three-day break!"She also has been scrubbing the house, and this week she finally let her aunt and her husband come into the house, masked and gloved, to help disinfect the place and look for a will.And she has been FaceTiming with her fiance, whom she hasn't seen in person since mid-March because she is terrified that she could spread the virus to him, too."We have the idea of next year getting married on May 9, their anniversary date," she said. "Every time we celebrate for us, we can celebrate for them, too."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Islamic State prisoners agree to end riot in Syria jail Posted: 03 May 2020 08:52 AM PDT |
| Kim Jong Un Is Back. What Happens When He's Really Gone? Posted: 03 May 2020 08:48 AM PDT  SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, reappeared in dramatic fashion this weekend when he was shown on North Korean media after three weeks of unexplained absence, cutting the ribbon on a fertilizer factory -- and quieting rumors that he was gravely ill.But those weeks of hand-wringing over Kim's fate, and North Korea's future, showed again how little the world knows about what's happening in the opaque, nuclear-armed country, and how vulnerable it is to misinformation about it.It seems that Kim is alive and well, after all. On Saturday, North Korean state media released photos and video footage of him smiling, chatting and walking before a large crowd at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, which it said took place on Friday.Such reports are almost impossible to confirm. But after the photos appeared, South Korea -- which had repeatedly insisted there was "nothing unusual" happening in the North -- issued a strong rebuke about the various news reports that had suggested Kim was in peril."The groundless rumors about North Korea have caused various unnecessary economic, security and societal confusion and costs," the South's Unification Ministry said in a text message to reporters.Still, Kim's reappearance did nothing to explain the three-week absence from public view that led to the rumors, not least why he missed the important April 15 state ceremonies for the birth anniversary of his grandfather Kim Il-sung, North Korea's founder.And the speculation about Kim's well-being -- some reports had him in a "vegetative state" after botched heart surgery -- brought home an alarming fact: that the world simply doesn't know what would happen to the North and its nuclear arsenal should he suddenly die or become incapacitated.Unlike his grandfather and his father, Kim Jong-il, both of whom spent years grooming their chosen sons as successors, Kim, 36, has no heir apparent. He is said to have three children, all too young to govern; his younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, has become a trusted aide, but there is skepticism that the North's elderly generals would answer to a young woman."If anything, the past 10 days of frenzied speculation have revealed our weaknesses in intelligence and in reporting on what is happening inside North Korea," said Jean H. Lee, a North Korea expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. "Regardless, it has refocused our attention on Kim, his health, stability in North Korea and the family's hold on power."Even the perception of a leadership vacuum in the North could have dangerous consequences, analysts say. Misinformation could lead to miscalculation or unintended escalations by one party or another.Over the decades, the rulers of the Kim dynasty have often disappeared from view for weeks or even months at a time. Each absence generated rumors of a coup, an assassination or a health crisis, always fueled by a lack of firsthand information about the leadership in Pyongyang, the capital.This time was no different. Even two North Korean defectors who were recently elected to the South's Parliament -- who might be expected to read the Pyongyang tea leaves better than most -- said they were sure Kim was either dead or seriously ill."One thing is clear," said one, Thae Yong-ho, a former diplomat. "He cannot stand up by himself or walk properly."Kim's latest absence came at a particularly sensitive time. Since his diplomacy with President Donald Trump stalled last year, Kim has dragged the North deeper into isolation, declaring that it was prepared for a prolonged standoff with Washington over its nuclear weapons program.But his plan to build a "self-supporting" economy in the face of international sanctions has been ambushed by the coronavirus, which forced North Korea to shut its borders. On Saturday, the state news agency said the fertilizer plant opened by Kim represented a "great victory" against the "mean sanctions and pressure from hostile forces" amid "the global catastrophe caused by the malicious virus."North Korea insists that it has had no COVID-19 cases, but outside experts fear it could be hiding a significant outbreak. Harry Kazianis, senior director of Korean studies at the Center for the National Interest in Washington, said the likeliest explanation for Kim's absence was that he was "taking steps to ensure his health or may have been impacted in some way personally by the virus." One of the biggest lessons from recent weeks is that "the world is largely unprepared for instability in North Korea," said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.Outside analysts fear that if Kim suddenly died, the country's dozens of nuclear devices -- as well as chemical and biological weapons, conventional arms and a 1.2 million-strong military -- would be at the center of a messy, cutthroat contest for power."The combination of loose nukes and political conflict is a nightmare scenario for the world," said Danny Russel, vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, who dealt with North Korea as a National Security Council director at the White House and an assistant secretary of state for Asia. "Political turmoil could lead a faction or a commander to brandish or -- God forbid -- launch a nuclear-armed missile."Russel said that in the event of a leadership struggle, Washington's immediate priority would be to ensure "the security of North Korea's nuclear weapons and material." But its work would be "handicapped by the intelligence community's uncertainty about their exact whereabouts -- something the North Koreans have gone to great lengths to conceal," he said.China also fears instability in North Korea, which it considers a buffer state between itself and U.S. forces in South Korea.Some analysts think China would intervene to secure the North's nuclear facilities and install a new leader to its liking, should Kim's rule end. But others are skeptical about its ability to do so, given the deep-rooted distrust that has shadowed the countries' alliance. Besides, decades of extreme nationalistic indoctrination have left North Koreans wary of any intervention by foreigners, be they American or Chinese.The police state's control over the population has been such that a civil uprising is all but unthinkable in the North. But if that control should loosen during a murky transition period, long-held grievances against official corruption and economic hardship could erupt into protests. Such considerations have long complicated discussions between American and South Korean officials as they struggled to formulate top-secret plans for handling crises in North Korea, including how to prevent the North's nuclear arms from falling into the wrong hands."With U.S.-China relations at an absolute low point, what happens if U.S. and Chinese special forces find themselves face to face while attempting to seize control of a North Korean base?" Russel asked."Conversely, Washington may suddenly have to deal with a South Korean ally who sees a now-or-never chance to reunify the Korean Peninsula and begins a northward push despite U.S. objections," he said. "Does the United States in that case relent and provide air cover and support, or stand back and run the risk of a military disaster?"For now, such questions will subside -- until Kim disappears again.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Coronavirus: Tanzanian president promises to import Madagascar's 'cure' Posted: 03 May 2020 08:26 AM PDT  There is no scientific proof the Madagascan-made tonic is effective in treating the virus.
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| Hard-to-count Arab Americans urged to prioritize census Posted: 03 May 2020 08:17 AM PDT  At a Michigan gas station, the message is obvious — at least to Arabic speakers: Be counted in the 2020 census. "Provide your community with more/additional opportunities," the ad on the pump handle reads in Arabic. In the fine print, next to "United States Census 2020," it adds: "To shape your future with your own hands, start here."
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| NRA cutting staff and salaries amid coronavirus pandemic Posted: 03 May 2020 08:15 AM PDT |
| In random test of 500 in Afghan capital, one-third has virus Posted: 03 May 2020 06:30 AM PDT  One-third of 500 random coronavirus tests in Afghanistan's capital came back positive, health officials said Sunday, raising fears of widespread undetected infections in one of the world's most fragile states. Neighboring Iran, meanwhile, said it would reopen schools and mosques in some locations, even though the nation has been the regional epicenter of the pandemic since mid-February. The results of the random tests in the Afghan capital of Kabul are "concerning," said Public Health Ministry spokesman Wahid Mayar.
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| 10 things you need to know today: May 3, 2020 Posted: 03 May 2020 06:29 AM PDT |
| Virus restrictions stymie signature-gathering campaigns Posted: 03 May 2020 06:27 AM PDT  Primary election day in Ohio was supposed to be big for Raise the Wage Ohio. Volunteers and activists armed with petitions were gearing up to visit packed voting locations across the state to collect signatures in support of putting a minimum wage increase on the fall ballot. "The easiest way to go get the most signatures is to go to places where there's a lot of people — festivals, fairs, outside of grocery stores, libraries," said James Hayes, acting spokesman for the wage campaign.
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| Black robes or bathrobes? Virus alters high court traditions Posted: 03 May 2020 06:06 AM PDT  The coronavirus pandemic is forcing big changes at the tradition-bound Supreme Court. Beginning this coming week, the justices will hear arguments by telephone for the first time since Alexander Graham Bell patented his invention in 1876. This will be just the second time that the justices will meet outside the court since the Supreme Court building opened in 1935.
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| Venezuela says it foiled attack by boat on main port city Posted: 03 May 2020 05:55 AM PDT  Venezuelan officials said they foiled an early morning attempt by a group of armed "mercenaries" to invade the country in a beach landing using speedboats Sunday, killing eight attackers and arresting two more. Cabello said it was carried out by neighboring Colombia with the United States backing the plot to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro - a claim dismissed by U.S. and Colombian officials. "Those who assume they can attack the institutional framework in Venezuela will have to assume the consequences of their action," said Cabello, adding that one of the detained claimed to be an agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
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| Coronavirus knocks Putin's popularity in Russia Posted: 03 May 2020 05:37 AM PDT  Russia on Sunday reported a record daily rise in coronavirus infections, as the handling of the outbreak begins to weigh down President Vladimir Putin's popularity. According to the government's daily update, 10,633 new infections were reported in the 24 hours to Sunday, bringing the country's total to more than 134,000. As some European countries start to gradually lift restrictions, Russia is now the European country registering the most new infections each day. Residents in Moscow - the epicentre of the contagion - are being urged to stay home despite glorious weather. But the economic fallout from a five-week lockdown, combined with record-low prices for oil - the backbone of the national economy - is taking its toll, and frustration with Mr Putin's response is mounting.
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| UK PM: At low point, doctors prepared my death announcement Posted: 03 May 2020 05:30 AM PDT  Prime Minister Boris Johnson has offered more insight into his hospitalization for coronavirus, telling a British newspaper that he knew doctors were preparing for the worst. The 55-year-old Johnson, who spent three nights in intensive care during his week of treatment in a London hospital after falling ill with COVID-19, told The Sun newspaper he was aware that doctors were discussing his fate. Medical workers gave him "liters and liters of oxygen'' but he said the "indicators kept going in the wrong direction.'
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| Sidelined by pandemic, Trump campaign turns to digital shows Posted: 03 May 2020 05:19 AM PDT  The streaming video began and, within minutes, the president's eldest son was musing that Osama bin Laden had endorsed Joe Biden. Seven nights a week, President Donald Trump's reelection team is airing live programming online to replace his trademark rallies made impossible for now by the coronavirus pandemic. Hosted by top campaign officials, prominent Republicans and "Make America Great Again" luminaries, the freewheeling shows offer reality according to Trump.
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| North Korea's DMZ gunfire could be a message from Kim that he's still in charge of the military, expert says Posted: 03 May 2020 04:51 AM PDT  Gunshots were fired Sunday morning from the North Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone, striking a guard post in South Korea. South Korea, which reported no casualties, responded by firing two shots toward North Korea.The two countries are technically still in a state of war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in truce rather than a peace treaty, and they've exchanged fire in similar fashion on occasion, but Seoul is reportedly perplexed by the timing of the latest incident.Choi Kang, the vice president of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, has one theory — it shows who's in charge of Pyongyang's military. The gunfire comes one day after North Korea reported the first public appearance by its leader, Kim Jong Un, in three weeks, mostly squashing rumors that he was in ill heath or had died. "Yesterday, Kim was trying to show he's perfectly healthy, and today, Kim is trying to mute all kinds of speculation that he may not have full control over the military," Choi told Reuters. "Rather than going all the way by firing missiles and supervising a missile launch, Kim could be reminding us, 'yes I'm healthy and I'm still in power.'" Read more at The New York Times and Reuters.More stories from theweek.com 5 scathing cartoons about Democrats' MeToo hypocrisy 5 scathingly funny cartoons about Mike Pence's unmasked hospital visit The angst over Joe Biden's assault allegation has an easy resolution
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| Lebanon detains 5 Sudanese along the border with Israel Posted: 03 May 2020 03:47 AM PDT |
| South Korea: Kim did not have surgery amid lingering rumors Posted: 03 May 2020 03:05 AM PDT  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un did not undergo surgery or any other medical procedure, a South Korean official said Sunday, amid speculation about his health that continues to linger even after he reappeared publicly in recent days. While North Korean video showing a smiling Kim moving around, cutting a red ribbon and smoking quelled intense rumors that he might be gravely ill or even have died, some media outlets and observers still raised questions about his health, citing moments when his walking looked a bit stiff at the factory. A senior South Korean presidential official told reporters Sunday that the government had determined that Kim did not have surgery or any other procedure, according to the presidential Blue House.
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| Desert or sea: Virus traps migrants in mid-route danger zone Posted: 03 May 2020 02:05 AM PDT  Thousands of desperate migrants are trapped in limbo and even at risk of death without food, water or shelter in scorching deserts and at sea, as governments close off borders and ports amid the coronavirus pandemic. Migrants have been dropped by the truckload in the Sahara Desert or bused to Mexico's desolate border with Guatemala and beyond. Many governments have declared emergencies, saying a public health crisis like the coronavirus pandemic requires extraordinary measures.
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| Egypt says security forces kill 18 militants in Sinai Posted: 03 May 2020 01:21 AM PDT |
| Israeli high court could determine Netanyahu's future Posted: 02 May 2020 11:58 PM PDT  With the fate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the line, Israel's Supreme Court began discussions Sunday on the question of whether the embattled leader can form a new government while facing criminal indictments. A ruling preventing Netanyahu from returning for another term would almost certainly trigger an unprecedented fourth consecutive election in just over a year and draw angry, perhaps violent, reactions from Netanyahu's supporters accusing the court of inappropriate political meddling. "The High Court of Justice is facing its most important verdict ever," former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, a staunch critic of Netanyahu's, wrote in the Haaretz daily.
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| North and South Korean troops exchange fire along border Posted: 02 May 2020 08:03 PM PDT  North and South Korean troops exchanged fire along their tense border on Sunday, the South's military said, the first such incident since the rivals took unprecedented steps to lower front-line animosities in late 2018. The Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said in a statement that North Korean troops fired several bullets at a South Korean guard post inside the border zone. Defense officials said it's also unlikely that North Korea had any casualties, since the South Korean warning shots were fired at uninhibited North Korean territory.
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| Donald Trump hails re-emergence of Kim Jong-un Posted: 02 May 2020 08:00 PM PDT  Donald Trump has hailed the reported reappearance of Kim Jong-un following speculation that the North Korean dictator was seriously ill. "I, for one, am glad to see he is back, and well!" the US president tweeted after the North Korean dictator made his first public appearance in nearly three weeks. Speculation over the health of Kim, 36, was triggered by his lengthy absence even failing to appear at his late grandfather's birthday celebration on April 15. It was the first time he had ever missed the event, which is held at the mausoleum of Kim Il-sung, the founder of North Korea. No explanation for his absence was provided by Pyongyang. It was the second time in recent years that he disappeared for several weeks. In 2014 he was laid low for six weeks after reportedly sustaining an ankle injury. Kim Jong-un's return was announced by the official KCNA news agency, which said his appearance cutting the ribbon at the opening of a fertiliser factory, was greeted by "thunderous cheers of hurrah". The video showed a beaming Kim at the ceremony at the factory near the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.
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| County has highest rate of COVID-19 cases on West Coast Posted: 02 May 2020 09:12 AM PDT |
