| Trump’s terrible, no good, very bad stretch on the campaign trail Posted: 09 Jul 2020 05:53 PM PDT  President Trump's re-election bid has had a rough few weeks, with challenges coming from both his stewardship of the presidency and past personal controversies that may be catching up with him. In June, the president's former national security adviser, John Bolton, released a tell all that accused the president of asking Chinese leader Xi Jinping for help with his re-election effort, among other things.
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| Nile Dam row: Egypt and Ethiopia generate heat but no power Posted: 09 Jul 2020 04:45 PM PDT  Egypt sees the dam as an existential threat, while Ethiopia sees it as an existential necessity.
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| Africa's week in pictures: 3-9 July 2020 Posted: 09 Jul 2020 04:38 PM PDT  A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent and beyond.
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| Govt Watchdog: Politics caused 'Sharpiegate' frantic rebuke Posted: 09 Jul 2020 04:33 PM PDT  Political pressure from the White House and a series of "crazy in the middle of the night" texts, emails and phone calls caused top federal weather officials to wrongly admonish a weather office for a tweet that contradicted President Trump about Hurricane Dorian in 2019, an inspector general report found. Commerce Department Inspector General Peggy Gustafson concluded in a report issued Thursday that the statement chastising the National Weather Service office in Birmingham, Alabama, could undercut public trust in weather warnings from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and for a short time even hindered public safety.
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| Amazon fined $135,000 in sanctions violations for letting blacklisted entities shop Posted: 09 Jul 2020 04:32 PM PDT  Drug dealers and weapons of mass destruction manufacturers like to shop on Amazon as much as the next guy. On Wednesday, the Department of the Treasury announced it had reached a settlement with Amazon for trade sanctions violations. Amazon voluntarily disclosed to the government that between 2011 and 2018, its automatic screening processes had failed to stop blacklisted individuals as well as people residing in countries under trade sanctions such as Iran, Syria, and Crimea from buying goods and services on the site.
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| UN says Latin America and Caribbean are COVID-19 `hot spot' Posted: 09 Jul 2020 04:29 PM PDT  Latin America and the Caribbean have become "a hot spot" for the COVID-19 pandemic, with several countries now having one of the highest per capita infection rates and absolute number of cases in the world, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday. The U.N. chief said in a video and briefing report that a 9.1% contraction in GDP is expected this year in the region, which would be the "largest in a century." "COVID-19 represents a massive health, social and economic shock with an immense human toll for the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean," the report said.
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| Employee of Merkel's press office suspected of spying for Egypt Posted: 09 Jul 2020 03:54 PM PDT  A man who worked in German Chancellor Angela Merkel's press office is suspected of having spied for Egypt, a government report said Thursday. Police carried out "executive measures" against the man in December 2019 after he was found to have "worked for years for an Egyptian intelligence service", according to a report on the protection of the constitution. The premises of the visitor service were searched as part of the investigation, Bild reported.
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| Bolivian president has COVID-19 as virus hits region's elite Posted: 09 Jul 2020 03:37 PM PDT  Bolivia's interim president and Venezuela's No. 2 leader announced Thursday that they have been infected with the new coronavirus, just days after Brazil's leader tested positive as the pandemic hits hard at some of Latin America's political elite. Three Cabinet ministers in the administration of Bolivian leader Jeanine Áñez have also tested positive for the virus, including Health Minister Eidy Roca and Presidency Minister Yerko Nuñez, who is hospitalized. The infections in Venezuela, Brazil and Bolivia, which is seeing a spike in cases, come after Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández tested positive in June and was briefly hospitalized.
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| Medical experts: Floyd's speech didn't mean he could breathe Posted: 09 Jul 2020 02:22 PM PDT  As George Floyd repeatedly pleaded "I can't breathe" to police officers holding him down on a Minneapolis street corner, some of the officers responded by pointing out he was able to speak. One told Floyd it takes "a lot of oxygen" to talk, while another told angry bystanders that Floyd was "talking, so he can breathe." "The ability to speak does not mean the patient is without danger," said Dr. Mariell Jessup, chief science and medical officer of the American Heart Association.
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| Three dead in DR Congo protest clashes Posted: 09 Jul 2020 02:16 PM PDT  Two protesters were shot dead and a policeman was lynched Thursday in clashes in the Democratic Republic of Congo over plans to name a new head to the country's election panel, sources said. The body of one protester was taken to a hospital morgue in the city of Lubumbashi, in southeastern DR Congo, a member of the local United Nations human rights office told AFP. The UN official deplored the use of force by military police.
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| Mississippi seeing big virus outbreak in state legislature Posted: 09 Jul 2020 01:47 PM PDT  People standing close to each other and talking, sometimes leaning in to whisper, without a mask in sight. Among those testing positive in the heavily Republican body are the GOP presiding officers, House Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann. None of the lawmakers has been hospitalized, according to state officials.
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| AP FACT CHECK: Trump team distortions on Biden and police Posted: 09 Jul 2020 01:32 PM PDT  President Donald Trump's campaign team is misrepresenting Democratic rival Joe Biden's stance on improving police practices following George Floyd's death. In ads and emails this week, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee assert that Biden would "defund the police." Meanwhile, Biden left out some context when he asserted that Trump had ordered the government to slow down coronavirus testing.
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| Police: Black man's hanging death in California was suicide Posted: 09 Jul 2020 01:30 PM PDT  A police investigation confirmed suicide was the cause of death of a Black man found hanging from a tree in a Southern California city park last month, authorities said Thursday. The investigation revealed Robert Fuller, a 24-year-old homeless man, suffered from mental illness and took his own life early on June 10 in a park near City Hall in Palmdale, a community of about 150,000 people north of Los Angeles, sheriff's Commander Chris Marks said. Marks also said the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department investigated an incident in February in which Fuller "allegedly tried to light himself on fire."
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| The WHO often has been under fire, but no nation has ever moved to sever ties with it Posted: 09 Jul 2020 01:17 PM PDT  In the midst of a surge of new cases of COVID-19, the United States this week gave formal notice of its intention to withdraw from the World Health Organization. The move, to take effect next year, will at once deprive the WHO of one of its major sources of funding and marginalize the United States within the field of global health. The Trump administration had been threatening this unprecedented pullout for several weeks, criticizing WHO for its handling of the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak in China.The WHO is a United Nations agency that coordinates a wide range of international health efforts. The United States typically contributes more than US$400 million per year to the organization, roughly 15% of its annual budget.The U.S. already had suspended funding in May. In announcing the suspension of funding then, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed that WHO had failed to provide "real information about what's going on in the global health space." President Trump suggested that the agency had colluded with the Chinese government in withholding information about the nature of the outbreak: "I have a feeling they knew exactly what was going on," he said. And he sought to deflect blame for his administration's disorganized response by pinning responsibility on global health officials: "So much death has been caused by their mistakes."To assess these claims, it is important to understand the context in which WHO officials make critical decisions at the early stages of a disease outbreak. As I explore in my recent book, "Unprepared: Global Health in a Time of Emergency," WHO is constrained in its ability to gather knowledge about disease outbreaks and to intervene in national settings. It must rely on national governments for information about an outbreak and for permission to send investigators to learn more details. The agency's power is limited to providing technical assistance and issuing recommendations. Critical moments of decisionIn January 2020, infectious disease experts scrambled to understand key aspects of the novel coronavirus, such as its rate of transmission and its severity. At that point, it was not yet possible to know exactly what was going on with the disease. Nonetheless, WHO officials had to make urgent decisions – such as whether to declare a global health emergency – in a situation of uncertainty.More generally, much critical information about what is happening in the global health space can be known only in retrospect, once data on the event has been gathered, analyzed and disseminated by the scientific community.Two other recent global health emergencies are instructive: the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic and the 2014 Ebola epidemic. In the aftermath of each of these outbreaks, WHO was sharply criticized for its early response. When a novel strain of H1N1 influenza was first detected in the spring 2009, global health officials feared that it could spark a catastrophic pandemic. Within weeks of the virus's appearance, WHO officially declared a global health emergency. The declaration urged countries to put their existing pandemic preparedness plans into action. In response, a number of national governments implemented mass vaccination campaigns, making advanced purchases of millions of doses of H1N1 vaccine from pharmaceutical companies.Over the next several months, as the vaccine was manufactured and vaccination campaigns were implemented, epidemiological studies revealed that H1N1 was a relatively mild strain of influenza, with a case fatality ratio similar to that of seasonal flu.In many countries, when the H1N1 vaccine finally became available in the fall 2009, there were few takers. National governments had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on campaigns that immunized, in some cases, less than 10% of the population. Critics in Europe accused WHO of having exaggerated the pandemic threat in order to generate profits for the pharmaceutical industry, pointing to consulting arrangements that the agency's influenza experts had with vaccine manufacturers. According to one prominent critic, the WHO declaration of a health emergency in response to H1N1 was "one of the greatest medical scandals of the century."A later investigation exonerated the WHO experts from wrongdoing, noting that the severity of the disease had not yet been determined when vaccine orders were made, and that "reasonable criticism can be based only on what was known at the time and not on what was later learnt." Retrospective criticismFive years later, in the aftermath of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, WHO officials again found themselves under sharp attack for their initial response to a disease outbreak. This time, officials were accused not of acting too hastily but rather of having failed to act in time. At the earliest stages of the epidemic, in spring 2014, the agency's experts did not consider the event to be a "global emergency." Based on prior experience, they felt that Ebola, while dangerous, was easily containable – the disease had never killed more than a few hundred people, and had never spread much beyond its initial site of occurrence. "We know Ebola," as one expert recalled the early stages of response. "This will be manageable." It was not until August 2014, well after the epidemic had spun out of control, that WHO officially declared a global health emergency, seeking to galvanize international response. By this point it was too late to avoid a region-wide catastrophe, and multiple critics assailed the agency's slow response. "WHO's response has been abysmal," as one commentator put it. "It's just shameful." Whose failure?Today, as the world confronts the coronavirus pandemic, the agency finds itself again under a storm of criticism, now with its very financial survival under threat. To what extent can we say that the agency did not provide adequate information in the early stages of the pandemic – that it failed to "do its job," in Secretary of State Pompeo's scolding words?It is worth remembering that we are still in the early stages of the event as it unfolds, still seeking answers to critical questions such as how quickly the virus spreads, what its severity is, what proportion of the population has been exposed to it and whether such exposure confers immunity. We also do not yet know whether the Chinese government fully informed global health officials about the seriousness of the initial outbreak. We do know, however, that while WHO made its most urgent call for vigilance by national governments in late January, with the declaration of a global health emergency, it was not until nearly two months later that the U.S. began – haltingly – to mobilize in response.[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help. Read The Conversation's newsletter.] Editor's Note: This article has been updated from an article that ran originally on May 1, 2020.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Three reasons the US is not ready for the next pandemic * Aerosols are a bigger coronavirus threat than WHO guidelines suggest – here's what you need to knowAndrew Lakoff has received funding for this research from the National Science Foundation and the Social Science Research Council.
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| UN: Coronavirus will create 45 million more poor people in Latin America, UN report warns Posted: 09 Jul 2020 01:16 PM PDT  The coronavirus pandemic will create 45 million more poor people in Latin America in 2020, according to the United Nations.The report, released on Thursdays by UN chief Antonio Guterres, paints a dark picture for Latin America and the Caribbean, predicting an economic contraction of 9.1 per cent — the worst the region has seen in 100 years.
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| Officers in deadly Breonna Taylor raid thought she was alone Posted: 09 Jul 2020 12:57 PM PDT  Louisville police officers who fatally shot Breonna Taylor while serving a warrant were told she should be home alone because the main target of the narcotics investigation was elsewhere, according to an interview with one of the detectives who served the warrant. Taylor was shot eight times after officers used a battering ram to knock down her door and fired into the apartment after midnight March 13. One officer was shot by Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who said he thought an intruder was breaking into the home.
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| UK turns down EU coronavirus vaccine scheme Posted: 09 Jul 2020 12:51 PM PDT  The Government has turned down the opportunity to join a European Union coronavirus vaccine scheme after ministers expressed concern over "costly delays", The Telegraph understands. Alok Sharma, the Business Secretary, is believed to have walked away from the plan after failing to secure "sufficient assurance" that the UK would receive the number of vaccines it needs on time. The European Commission is expected to be notified on Friday. The UK has been for weeks holding talks with Brussels over the EU scheme, which involves using the bloc's collective bargaining power to strike deals with international drugs companies. With trials underway across the world, there is expected to be fierce global competition to secure supplies when a successful vaccine is found. The decision not to participate in the scheme is likely to provoke a backlash among opposition MPs, who believe that the Government is reluctant to take part in EU projects after Brexit. Boris Johnson has previously faced criticism in some quarters over the failure to join EU ventilator and PPE procurement schemes, which was initially blamed on a communications problem. However, Government sources on Thursday told The Telegraph that officials believe signing up to the scheme could delay the rollout of a successful vaccine in the UK by up to six months as negotiations on distribution took place. They added that countries that opted in would also be subject to a so-called "volume ceiling" or cap on the number of doses allocated to each member state. Although the EU says that "collective purchasing power" will enable participants to drive down costs, officials argue the benefits are "limited" as most pharmaceutical companies are offering the UK similar prices to other countries. Due to the UK no longer being an EU member state, it would also have no say in which companies are involved in negotiations, pricing or the timetable for delivering the vaccine, according to insiders. "The terms just weren't right for us. The EU scheme wouldn't allow the UK to do anything more than it currently is," one source said. Another insisted that the decision would "not damage the efforts" being undertaken by the Government's Vaccines Task Force, which is coordinating efforts to research and produce a safe vaccine. The UK has already secured a bilateral deal with Oxford University and the pharma giant AstraZeneca, as well as Imperial College London to accelerate trials of a vaccine. The Oxford partnership, which is if successful will mean the UK becoming the first recipient of the vaccine, began phase two of human trials in May. The Government has also invested up to £93 million in a new Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre, which is currently under construction in Oxford. When it opens next year, ministers say it will be able to produce enough vaccine doses for the entire UK population in as little six months.
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| Russia charges governor over murders, sparking party fury Posted: 09 Jul 2020 12:14 PM PDT |
| Ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen back in federal prison Posted: 09 Jul 2020 11:38 AM PDT  President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, was returned to federal prison Thursday, after balking at certain conditions of the home confinement he was granted because of the coronavirus pandemic. The federal Bureau of Prisons said that Cohen had "refused the conditions of his home confinement and as a result, has been returned to a BOP facility." Lanny Davis, a Cohen legal adviser, said Cohen had refused to sign off on conditions requiring he avoid speaking with the media and publishing a tell-all book he began working on in federal prison.
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| Sudan reshuffles government, hoping to appease protesters Posted: 09 Jul 2020 11:04 AM PDT  Sudan's transitional government announced a major Cabinet reshuffle on Thursday, hoping to defuse public discontent over economic collapse and other crises that have tested the country's path toward democracy. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok accepted the resignation of six ministers, including the finance minister criticized for failing to rescue the plunging economy. A government statement named the acting replacements for the seven posts, which also include foreign, energy, agriculture and transportation ministers.
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| Chemical weapons watchdog's council condemns Syrian attacks Posted: 09 Jul 2020 11:03 AM PDT |
| Mayor helps paint 'Black Lives Matter' outside Trump Tower Posted: 09 Jul 2020 10:45 AM PDT  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio grabbed a roller Thursday to paint "Black Lives Matter" in front of the namesake Manhattan tower of President Donald Trump, who tweeted last week that the street mural would be "a symbol of hate." De Blasio was flanked by his wife, Chirlane McCray, and the Rev. Al Sharpton as he helped paint the racial justice rallying cry in giant yellow letters on Fifth Avenue in front of Trump Tower. "When we say 'Black Lives Matter,' there is no more American statement, there is no more patriotic statement because there is no America without Black America," de Blasio said.
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| Trump faced issues with Asian Americans even before virus Posted: 09 Jul 2020 10:24 AM PDT  Sonny Vinuya hasn't decided if he'll vote again for Donald Trump in the battleground state of Nevada. The Filipino American businessman in Las Vegas is personally offended by the president's use of a racist slur at recent re-election rallies, where he mocked China and the COVID-19 pandemic's origins in Asia. The Pew Research Center recently declared Asian Americans to be the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in the U.S. electorate, but they are also arguably the least competitive voter block for Trump when considering where they live and how they relate to the Republican party.
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| Fear of disaster if UN cuts aid entering rebel-held Syria Posted: 09 Jul 2020 10:18 AM PDT  In Syria's opposition-held enclave, a new kind of panic is setting in. Already living in fear of frequent government attacks, the nearly 3 million people crowded into the country's northwest corner now risk losing vital aid as Russian moves at the U.N. threaten to shut down border crossings with Turkey. At the Security Council, Russia is seeking to stop deliveries through one of two border crossings used for U.N. aid.
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| Official: Feds feared Epstein confidant might kill herself Posted: 09 Jul 2020 10:15 AM PDT  Federal officials were so worried Jeffrey Epstein's longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell might take her own life after her arrest that they took away her clothes and bedsheets and made her wear paper attire while in custody, an official familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The steps to ensure Maxwell's safety while she's locked up at a federal jail in New York City extend far beyond the measures federal officials took when they first arrested her in New Hampshire last week. The Justice Department has added extra security precautions and placed federal officials outside the Bureau of Prisons in charge of ensuring there is adequate protection for Maxwell.
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| Late Seoul mayor was outspoken liberal who eyed presidency Posted: 09 Jul 2020 10:08 AM PDT  Park Won-soon, the three-term mayor of South Korea's capital, a fierce critic of economic inequality who was seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2022, was found dead early Friday. Police said Park's body was found near a restaurant nestled in wooded hills stretching across northern Seoul after a more than seven-hour search involving hundreds of police officers, firefighters, drones and dogs. The Seoul Metropolitan Government earlier said Park did not come to work on Thursday and had canceled his schedule for the day.
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| Tucker Carlson Finds Tammy Duckworth ‘Unimpressive.’ So Who Does He Find ‘Impressive’? Posted: 09 Jul 2020 09:51 AM PDT  Nearly all of the attention is focused on Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson calling Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth—an Iraq War veteran who lost both of her legs in combat—a "coward" and a "fraud" who "hates America," but don't forget: He also called her an "unimpressive person."If you have the unfortunate brain rot that comes with working in, regularly covering, or watching cable news, then you likely recognize "unimpressive" as one of the insults most frequently deployed by Carlson in his nightly unhinged-paleoconservatism-but-with-boyish-charm diatribes. A common setup during Carlson's rants about various Fox News bogeymen and women—Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Joe Biden, James Comey, various CNN anchors, take a guess and you're probably right—is to tell viewers that they are "expected" to find this villain "impressive" but, Carlson assures you, they are "not impressive." The barb is sometimes airdropped, almost like a tic, into the middle of sentences ("Gov. Gretchen Whitmer—not impressive—has imposed…"). Immigrants, whom Carlson has made a career of terrifying the Fox audience over, are frequently divided into two camps: those who "impress" Tucker Carlson and those who are "unimpressive." Pro-immigration activists, the Fox host repeatedly tells his audience, will "lecture" you that all immigrants "are so much more impressive than you are," but, alas, Carlson sneers, many are not.Schools (Northwestern University), generalized groups ("the ruling class," "U.S. intel agencies," "college administrators," a nebulous "they" after a long, labyrinthian tirade that only loosely identifies some possible targets), and newspapers (The New York Times) have also been "unimpressive" to King Tucker, the prep-school educated son of a former media executive and a frozen-dinner fortune heiress. Some people are categorized with a damning modifier: "Formerly impressive."In fact, the act of being "unimpressive" in Tucker Carlson's eyes is so often used as an insult that it's safe to assume that somewhere in the Fox star's life someone told him he was "not impressive" and it was the most withering critique he'd ever heard.But the perennial cable-news star has never given any standard of what actually constitutes impressiveness or who the people he finds so deeply unimpressive are actually supposed to impress. And so one can't help but wonder: Who or what does the perpetually unimpressed Tucker Carlson actually find impressive?Oftentimes Carlson finds people "impressive" as a form of mockery, usually delivered with his trademark shit-eating grin—snarking that Michael Bloomberg is just "so impressive," or deadpanning that Chelsea Clinton is "more impressive than you are" for having attended Stanford. And, of course, there was the time in 2017 when he trollishly joked that Trump staring at the solar eclipse without protective eyewear was "perhaps the most impressive thing any president has ever done."But believe it or not, some animals, places, and people not named Tammy Duckworth have managed to impress him. Based on a review of his show's transcripts, here are the many things that Tucker Carlson has declared "impressive," broken down and categorized into a guide for how you, too, could one day impress him.The least surprising way to impress Tucker Carlson is to be his friend or ideological ally: * Rush Limbaugh. * Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy and pretty much the only remaining advertiser on Carlson's show. * Peter Thiel. * Brett Kavanaugh. * Ryan Cleckner, a columnist for The Federalist. * Ayaan Hirsi Ali. * Michigan GOP Senate candidate John James. * Mike Rowe, the Dirty Jobs guy and frequent Fox News guest. * Charles Krauthammer, the late conservative commentator. * Harry Kazianis, head of the Council for the National Interest, an anti-Zionist foreign-policy advocacy group. * Daniel Turner, head of a dark money anti-environmentalist group called Power the Future. * Ret. Gen. John Kelly (in June 2018; no word on how Carlson feels about him now that Trump hates him). * The Harvard Law School Class of 1991, which included Justice Neil Gorsuch. * Ryan Wolfe, a conservative Wake Forest University student who said he was harassed at school for his views. * Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson, for organizing "the largest conservative rally in the history of Portland" in 2017 (Gibson and some other far-right activists were charged last year in a violent altercation outside a cidery).You can also impress Tucker Carlson by being a Fox News colleague who does something neat: * Fox anchor Bret Baier, for writing a book about Reagan's 1988 speech at Moscow State University. * Dion Baia, a Fox News audio technician, for writing a detective novel. * Fox reporter Mike Tobin, for hiking to the summit of Mount Aconcagua. * Now-former Fox host Ed Henry's mom, for being a good cook.You could even be a political foe who does something Tucker Carlson finds impressive but, in the end, his admiration feels more like the setup for an insult: * Dr. Anthony Fauci, an "impressive person," to be sure, but also "wrong." * Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for being "bold" against the Democratic establishment (but elsewhere, he says, "she's not impressive, she's awful"). * Elizabeth Warren's 2003 book, The Two-Income Trap, "was impressive," he admits, but she got "infected with a virulent strain of identity politics" and "like tertiary syphilis, it drove her insane." * Nancy Pelosi, for managing "to hold Democrats together for the health-care vote." * Vladimir Putin, for "playing ice hockey at whatever age he is." * Hartford's Mayor Luke Bronin, who, according to Carlson, "seems" to suck less than the usual Democratic mayors. * Madeleine Albright, "impressive" by being a "great bureaucrat." * Mayor Pete Buttigieg's "speaking Norwegian and playing piano." * Ronan Farrow's act of taking his Harvey Weinstein reporting away from liberal NBC. * David Campos, a Santa Clara County official, who Carlson notes is among the "impressive" immigrants.Or you could be a collection of people or a species that does something that manages to impress him: * Iran, "in some ways," because it is sophisticated, unlike "the chintzy prefab capitals of the Arab world like Riyadh or Dubai." * The state of New Hampshire, for its high SAT scores and low crime rate. * The American cigar industry, "which is vibrant and impressive." * The U.S. women's national soccer team's record-setting 13-0 victory over Thailand. * Raccoons, "one of the most impressive and underrated animals." * Dandelions, for being a completely edible superfood, from flower to root.But it seems there is only one surefire method to achieve instant "impressive" status in the eyes of Tucker Carlson. You must be a Fox News star who is good at trivia: * Fox host Greg Gutfeld, for handily defeating Jesse Watters in one of Carlson's goofy trivia segments. * Fox host Lou Dobbs, for correctly answering which NFL jersey Garth Brooks fans mistook for a liberal political endorsement by the country singer. * Fox host Jesse Watters, on several nights, for winning multiple trivia segments. * Fox host Lisa Kennedy, for beating colleague Janice Dean in a trivia segment. * Sean Spicer, for correctly answering what title Gov. Gavin Newsom bestows upon his spouse instead of "first wife." * Fox host Carley Shimkus, for correctly answering the limit to how many kids Prince Harry plans to have. * Fox anchor Martha MacCallum, for correctly answering what type of food the Biden campaign spent more than $12,000 on. * Fox correspondent Lauren Blanchard, for correctly naming the dog that won the 2019 Westminster Dog Show. * Fox reporter Mike Emanuel, for correctly answering how many hot dogs Joey Chestnut ate in the 2018 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest.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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| Russian investigators search homes of Kremlin critics Posted: 09 Jul 2020 09:29 AM PDT  Russian investigators on Thursday searched the homes of several Kremlin critics who have urged supporters to protest against President Vladimir Putin's rule, activists said. The latest searches of members of the opposition came after Putin, who has been in power for two decades, this month oversaw a controversial vote that allows him to extend his hold on power until 2036. Investigators targeted the home of Yulia Galyamina, a Moscow city councillor, who helped organise mass opposition protests last summer, the activists said.
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| AP Explains: Confederate flags draw differing responses Posted: 09 Jul 2020 09:05 AM PDT  Public pressure amid protests over racial inequality forced Mississippi to furl its Confederate-inspired state flag for good, yet Georgia's flag is based on another Confederate design and lives on. The Confederacy used more than one flag while it was fighting the United States to preserve slavery, and most of the designs are largely forgotten more than 150 years after the Civil War ended. Here are some facts about the flags of the Confederacy and how those symbols are viewed today.
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| US sanctions Chinese officials over repression of minorities Posted: 09 Jul 2020 09:02 AM PDT  The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on three senior officials of the Chinese Communist Party, including a member of the ruling Politburo, for alleged human rights abuses targeting ethnic and religious minorities that China has detained in the western part of the country. The decision to bar these senior officials from entering the U.S. is the latest of a series of actions the Trump administration has taken against China as relations deteriorate over the coronavirus pandemic, human rights, Hong Kong and trade.
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| Judge orders Brazil to protect Indigenous people from ravages of COVID-19 Posted: 09 Jul 2020 07:56 AM PDT  Brazil must take emergency measures to protect its Indigenous communities from the novel coronavirus, the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled on July 8.Justice Luis Roberto Barroso gave the Brazilian government just three days to establish a crisis response team. The team must get check points installed on Indigenous lands - with military support if necessary - to prevent outsiders from entering without permission and to test for COVID-19. Within a month, the government must issue a comprehensive pandemic plan to stop trespassing on Indigenous territory – which potentially exposes residents to the virus – and provide health care for all Indigenous peoples. The order responded to a June 29 petition filed by a Brazilian indigenous rights organization and six political parties asserting that COVID-19 could lead to a "genocide" of Brazil's already at-risk Indigenous population.Data from the pandemic shows that Indigenous Brazilians are getting sick and dying at higher rates than the general population. Most of Brazil's roughly 896,000 Indigenous people live in the Amazon region, where the nearest hospital may be days away by boat and offer limited care. Indigenous Brazilians also have high rates of malnutrition, anemia and obesity \- risk factors for severe COVID-19. As of July 8, Brazil's Health Ministry reported 8,098 COVID-19 infections among Indigenous people and 184 deaths. The National Committee for Indigenous Life and Memory, an advocacy group for Indigenous people during the pandemic, estimates more than 12,000 infections and 446 deaths. For Native communities with just a few hundred or thousand members, that's an existential threat. At current rates of infection, 5,600 Indigenous Yanomami people – or 40% of their entire population – could get COVID-19, according to Brazil's Indigenous Environmental Institute. What is genocideBrazil's uncontained coronavirus outbreak is just the latest deadly threat to Indigenous people under President Jair Bolsonaro, who recently tested positive for COVID-19. Since taking office in January 2018, Bolsonaro has dismantled environmental protections for the Amazon, allowing deforestation and wildfires to spike. He has also curtailed the land rights of Indigenous people and turned a blind eye to illegal mining, logging and farming operations on their territory. The president's policies and rhetoric toward Indigenous Brazilians are so hostile that they essentially amount to an extermination campaign, our research finds. In late 2019, two leading Brazilian human rights organizations argued to the International Criminal Court of the United Nations that the right-wing leader was "inciting genocide" against Indigenous people.That case is still pending, but under international law, the crime of genocide requires "intent to destroy, in whole or in part," a group based on their nationality, ethnicity, race or religion – not explicit mass killing. Causing serious harm to a population and destroying their way of life can constitute genocide. [Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation's newsletter.]As scholars of mass atrocity prevention and Indigenous rights, we have watched with alarm the warning signs that a slow genocide was underway in Bolsonaro's Brazil. Then came COVID-19, which is killing Indigenous people by the hundreds. Warning signsIn theory, many Brazilian Indigenous people should be able to escape COVID-19 exposure. An estimated 10,000 live in voluntary isolation across the Amazon, separated from broader Brazilian society. Many others have only limited contact with the outside world. Their rights to self-determination and isolation are confirmed by two international agreements on indigenous rights, both of which Brazil signed. In recent years, however, loggers, miners and farmers have aggressively violated these land rights and begun operating in the Amazon, sometimes with the Bolsonaro government's explicit endorsement. The illegal land grabs have worsened during the pandemic, as the world's attention turned away from the Amazon. The number of non-Indigenous gold miners working on Indigenous lands in Brazil increased from 4,000 in 2018 to over 20,000 so far in 2020. Beyond bringing the coronavirus into isolated communities, such incursions endanger the very survival of Indigenous Brazilians.Indigenous people have lived in the Amazon for centuries, protecting the rainforest in a manner that not only supported their traditional way of life but also protected this global natural resource. Historically, they could count on at least minimal government regulations intended to defend the Amazon rainforest, though deforestation has long been a challenge.Bolsonaro does not believe in defending the Amazon or its inhabitants. One of his first acts in office was to slash environmental protections. Deforestation of the Amazon has increased 34% since 2018, according to the Brazilian Amazon monitoring program. On Indigenous lands it is up almost 80%.Illegal property seizure and rights violations like those experienced by Indigenous Brazilians are known warning signs of genocide. So is the physical destruction of a persecuted group's homeland. According to the UN, "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part" constitutes genocide. Denying the humanity of a group is another frequent precursor to genocide, history shows. Before the Holocaust, for example, Nazis referred to Jews as rats. Bolsonaro has not gone so far as to characterize Indigenous Brazilians as vermin. But he refers to them using derogatory language. "The Indians do not speak our language, they do not have money, they do not have culture," he told Campo Grande newspaper in 2015, when he was still a congressman. Earlier this year, Bolsonaro said Indigenous people exposed to the outside world are "increasingly becoming human beings, like us." A preventable atrocityLand grabs, insufficient health care, deforestation and stigmatization all threatened Indigenous Brazilians before the pandemic. Genocides can happen that way: They are processes, not sudden, isolated events. Risk factors and warning signs can smolder for years in a country. Then a "trigger" like COVID-19 ignites them, resulting in mass death. The Supreme Court's 40-plus page emergency ruling makes no mention of genocide. However, its quick issuance and strict deadlines acknowledge the urgency of the situation facing Brazil. Compliance is not guaranteed. The Bolsonaro administration has ignored past court rulings related to Indigenous rights, with only occasional fines as a consequence. But by ordering emergency protections, Justice Barroso demonstrated that at least one branch of Brazil's government accepts its responsibility to protect its people - all of them - from a preventable atrocity. This is an updated version of an article first published on July 7.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro has coronavirus – what it could mean for him politically * Indigenous people may be the Amazon's last hopeThe authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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| CDC head sticking to school-opening guides Trump criticized Posted: 09 Jul 2020 07:42 AM PDT  Federal health officials won't revise their coronavirus guidelines for reopening schools despite criticism from President Donald Trump, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. "Our guidelines are our guidelines," Dr. Robert Redfield declared. In draft CDC documents obtained by The Associated Press, the agency says there are steps that schools can take to safely reopen but that it "cannot provide one-size-fits-all criteria for opening and closing schools or changing the way schools are run."
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| Woman charged in hit-and-run at Indiana protest Posted: 09 Jul 2020 07:13 AM PDT  An Indiana woman was charged Thursday in a hit-and-run crash that sent one woman to the hospital and caused minor injuries to a man during a southern Indiana protest over the assault of a Black man by a group of white men. Prosecutors charged Christi Bennett, 66, with two counts of criminal recklessness, both felonies, and two counts of leaving the scene of an accident, one a felony and the other a misdemeanor, court records show. Bennett's first court appearance is scheduled for July 17.
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| Justices rule swath of Oklahoma remains tribal reservation Posted: 09 Jul 2020 07:09 AM PDT  The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a large chunk of eastern Oklahoma remains an American Indian reservation, a decision that state and federal officials have warned could throw Oklahoma into chaos. The court's 5-4 decision, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, means that Oklahoma prosecutors lack the authority to pursue criminal cases against American Indian defendants in parts of Oklahoma that include most of Tulsa, the state's second-largest city. Forced to leave their ancestral lands in Georgia and Alabama, the Creek Nation received assurances that their new lands in the West would be secure forever.
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| Pompeo says U.S. continuing to work to establish dialogue with North Korea Posted: 09 Jul 2020 07:00 AM PDT |
| Expert sees "new level of repression" in Russian journalist's arrest Posted: 09 Jul 2020 06:55 AM PDT  Many see detention of former defense reporter Ivan Safronov as the latest example of the Putin regime's efforts to silence independent journalists.
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| VIRUS DIARY: In Saudi Arabia, a photographer finds new focus Posted: 09 Jul 2020 06:39 AM PDT  I moved to Saudi Arabia from Egypt last year, eager to photograph a national awakening that was once unimaginable in a country so beholden to ultraconservative mores. It jolted this nation of 34 million — almost half of whom are under 30 years old — into a nation of budding movie theaters, concerts and raves, a place where women could dine alongside men, drive without fear of arrest, travel without permission and enter stadiums. As a photographer, I was for the first time welcomed to document far-flung parts of the country.
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| EXPLAINER-Who's WHO? The World Health Organization under scrutiny Posted: 09 Jul 2020 06:22 AM PDT |
| Arrests and police raids follow Russia's vote to let Putin rule for life Posted: 09 Jul 2020 06:10 AM PDT  An opposition governor was detained and several activists had their homes raided by the police on Thursday as Russia's latest crackdown on dissent gathers momentum. The flurry of arrests and criminal inquiries follow last week's vote in which nearly 78 percent endorsed constitutional amendments allowing Vladimir Putin to stay as president at least until 2036 when he turns 83. Sergei Furgal, the governor of the Khabarovsk region in Russia's Far East who beat a Kremlin candidate at the 2018 election, was arrested by camouflaged agents of Russia's top investigative body on Thursday morning and put on a plane to Moscow. The popular governor whose landslide win at the polls embarrassed the pro-Kremlin party, is accused of organising two contract killings as well as an attempted murder 15 years ago, according to the Investigative Committee, Russia's main federal investigating authority. Mr Furgal has not been charged with any crime. An unnamed source claiming to be linked to Mr Furgal says he has denied the allegations. Mr Furgal had been in Russian parliament for more than a decade before he won the Khabarovsk election in 2018, which has raised questions about the timing of the charges brought against him.
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| Lebanon not planning to negotiate with Iran on fuel imports -minister Posted: 09 Jul 2020 05:46 AM PDT |
| With prizes, food, housing and cash, Putin rigged Russia's most recent vote Posted: 09 Jul 2020 05:17 AM PDT  When Russians voted in early July on 200 constitutional amendments, officials rigged the election to create the illusion that President Vladimir Putin remains a popular and powerful leader after 20 years in office. In reality, he increasingly relies on manipulation and state repression to maintain his presidency. Most Russians know that, and the world is catching up.At the center of the changes were new rules to allow Putin to evade term limits and serve two additional terms, extending his tenure until 2036. According to official results, Putin's regime secured an astounding victory, winning 78% support for the constitutional reform, with 64% turnout. The Kremlin hailed the national vote as confirmation of popular trust in Putin. The vote was purely symbolic. The law governing constitutional change does not require a popular vote. By March 2020, the national legislature, Constitutional Court and Russia's 85 regional legislatures had voted to enact the proposed amendments. Yet, the president insisted on a show of popular support and national unity to endorse the legal process. The Kremlin's goal was to make Putin's 2024 reelection appear inevitable. Given the stakes, the outcome was never in doubt – but it did little to resolve uncertainty over Russia's future. Declining social supportWhy hold a vote if a vote isn't needed?As a scholar of Russian electoral competition, I see the constitutional vote as a first step in an effort to prolong Putin's 20-year tenure as the national leader. The Kremlin's success defined the legal path to reelection and the strategy for securing an electoral majority in the face of popular opposition.Its effect on societal attitudes is less clear. A recent poll by the independent polling organization the Levada Center showed that while 52% of respondents supported Putin's reelection, 44% opposed. At the same time, 59% want to introduce a 70-year-old age cap for presidential candidates. This change would bar the 68-year-old president from running again. [Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research. Sign up for The Conversation's newsletter.]The government's disorganized and weak response to COVID-19 highlighted the inefficient and corrupt system and produced an unprecedented drop in Putin's public approval ratings. Growing signs of popular discontent in Russia suggest this polling data underestimates demand for change. Local protest against pollution, trash incineration and state reforms continue to grow across the Federation. Focus group data reveals that ordinary Russians are concerned about state repression and civil rights violations. In the leadup to the constitutional vote, internet influencers read the public mood and refused payments for their endorsement, fearing a backlash from followers and advertisers. A new Putin majorityDeclining popular support highlights the difficulty of building a new voting coalition. Manufacturing a demonstration of national unity was the first step in reinventing Putin's links to core supporters in the runup to the next national election cycle. By 2012, Putin's first coalition, forged in the economic recovery of the early 2000s, was eroded by chronic economic stagnation punctuated by crisis. In the mid-2010s, Putin's new majority was based on aggressive foreign policy actions. That coalition declined, as conflicts in Ukraine and Syria dragged on, and public support for expensive foreign policy adventures decreased.The constitutional vote marks Putin's third attempt to reconstruct electoral support rooted in patriotism, conservative values and state paternalism that echoes the Soviet era. Fixing the voteThe constitutional reform campaign focused on state benefits rather than the Putin presidency. Putin offered something for everyone in the 200 amendments. As an antidote to unpopular pension reforms, a new provision guarantees pensioners annual adjustments linked to inflation. Other amendments codified existing policies guaranteeing housing and a minimum wage. New clauses codify Putin's version of conservative values, with measures that add a reference to God, a prohibition against same-sex marriage and support for patriotic education. Other provisions take aim at corruption, by prohibiting state officials from holding offshore accounts.A massive PR campaign framed starkly different appeals to different voter groups. For those concerned with international security, ads depicted apocalyptic visions of Russia's future after a NATO invasion. For younger voters, appeals depicted happy families voting to support a bright future. State television featured supportive cultural icons and artists, including Patriarch Kirill, who is the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Putin himself argued that participation was a patriotic duty. No one mentioned the controversial loophole that would allow Putin to run again. The campaign foretold the outcome: The regime would stop at nothing to secure success. Officials coerced employees of government agencies and large businesses to turn out. Voters were offered prizes, food and chances to win new housing and cash for participating. Ostensibly in response to COVID-19, the Electoral Commission altered voting procedures to evade observation, developing a flawed online voting system and creating mobile polling stations in parks, airports and outside apartment blocks. There is overwhelming evidence that the Kremlin resorted to falsification to produce the desired outcome. Most Russians understand that the manufactured outcome does not accurately reflect attitudes about Putin's reelection. Limits of disinformationThere is growing evidence that the public is no longer persuaded by disinformation and political theater such as the rigged constitutional vote. Trust in state media, the president and the government are declining precipitously.The realities of sustained economic stagnation and the Kremlin's anemic response to COVID-19 stand in sharp contrast to its all-out approach to the symbolic national vote. It can rig a vote, but it can't control a virus.The Kremlin's pandemic response raises doubts about its ability to fulfill new constitutional mandates. Widely publicized efforts to reform the Soviet-era health care system still left hospitals unprepared to manage the pandemic. The state proved incapable of delivering bonuses to first responders and medical workers. The Kremlin refused to use its substantial emergency fund to support entrepreneurs, families with children and the unemployed. Given these realities, upcoming elections will test the illusion of a new pro-Putin majority defined by this rigged vote. And if the voters abandon Putin, the new Constitution provides a final path to remain in office: the unelected chairmanship of the powerful new State Council.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Russia's cabinet resigns and it's all part of Putin's plan * Vladimir Putin's lying gameRegina Smyth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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| U.S. officials say intel on Russian bounties was less than conclusive. That misses the big picture. Posted: 09 Jul 2020 05:07 AM PDT  A growing chorus of American officials have said in recent days that the intelligence suggesting Russians paid "bounties" to induce the Taliban to kill American service members in Afghanistan is less than conclusive. U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed for years that Vladimir Putin's Russia is supporting America's enemies in Afghanistan with cash and weapons.
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| Back clean energy post-virus, UN chief urges leaders Posted: 09 Jul 2020 04:52 AM PDT  United Nations chief Antonio Guterres on Thursday urged world leaders to favour clean energy solutions as they pour money into their economies to save them from a coronavirus-induced meltdown. Governments should exit coal, stop subsidising other fossil fuels, and pressure polluting industries to clean up their act in exchange for bailing them out, the UN Secretary-General told an International Energy Agency conference by video link. "Today I would like to urge all leaders to choose the clean energy route for three vital reasons -- health, science and economics," Guterres said.
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| Gorillas in Nigeria: World's rarest great ape pictured with babies Posted: 09 Jul 2020 04:30 AM PDT  The sighting of young Cross River gorillas in Nigeria eases fears they will soon die out.
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| Missing Seoul mayor's body found after massive search Posted: 09 Jul 2020 02:47 AM PDT  The missing mayor of South Korea's capital, reportedly embroiled in sexual harassment allegations, was found dead early Friday, more than half a day after giving his daughter a will-like message and then leaving home, police said. Police said they located Park Won-soon's body near a traditional restaurant in wooded hills in northern Seoul, more than seven hours after they launched a massive search for him. Choi Ik-su, an officer from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, told reporters there were no signs of foul play and no suicide note had been found at the site or in Park's residence.
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| UN: World could hit 1.5-degree warming threshold by 2024 Posted: 09 Jul 2020 02:37 AM PDT  The world could see annual global temperatures pass a key threshold for the first time in the coming five years, the U.N. weather agency said Thursday. The World Meteorological Organization said forecasts suggest there's a 20% chance that global temperatures will be 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) higher than the pre-industrial average in at least one year between 2020 and 2024. The 1.5 C mark is the level countries agreed to cap global warming at in the 2015 Paris accord.
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| Serbia bans mass gatherings after virus lockdown protests Posted: 09 Jul 2020 02:09 AM PDT  Serbia's government crisis team said the restriction was intended to prevent the virus' further spread following the clashes, during which social distancing was barely observed and few people wore face masks. In addition to limiting gatherings, businesses in closed spaces, such as cafes, shopping malls or shops, were ordered to operate shorter hours. "The health system in Belgrade is close to breaking up," Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said.
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| The Mysterious Link Between COVID-19 and Guillain-Barré Syndrome Posted: 09 Jul 2020 01:56 AM PDT  Sherry H-Y. Chou, Aarti Sarwal and Neha S. Dangayach, The ConversationThe patient in the case report (let's call him Tom) was 54 and in good health. For two days in May, he felt unwell and was too weak to get out of bed. When his family finally brought him to the hospital, doctors found that he had a fever and signs of a severe infection, or sepsis. He tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 infection. In addition to symptoms of COVID-19, he was also too weak to move his legs.When a neurologist examined him, Tom was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, an autoimmune disease that causes abnormal sensation and weakness due to delays in sending signals through the nerves. Usually reversible, in severe cases it can cause prolonged paralysis involving breathing muscles, require ventilator support and sometimes leave permanent neurological deficits. Early recognition by expert neurologists is key to proper treatment.We are neurologists specializing in intensive care and leading studies related to neurological complications from COVID-19. Given the occurrence of Guillain-Barré Syndrome in prior pandemics with other coronaviruses like SARS and MERS, we are investigating a possible link between Guillain-Barré Syndrome and COVID-19 and tracking published reports to see if there is any link between Guillain-Barré Syndrome and COVID-19.Some patients may not seek timely medical care for neurological symptoms like prolonged headache, vision loss and new muscle weakness due to fear of getting exposed to virus in the emergency setting. People need to know that medical facilities have taken full precautions to protect patients. Seeking timely medical evaluation for neurological symptoms can help treat many of these diseases.'Truly Disturbing': Third NY Child Dies From Rare Syndrome Linked to COVID-19Guillain-Barré syndrome occurs when the body's own immune system attacks and injures the nerves outside of the spinal cord or brain—the peripheral nervous system. Most commonly, the injury involves the protective sheath, or myelin, that wraps nerves and is essential to nerve function.Without the myelin sheath, signals that go through a nerve are slowed or lost, which causes the nerve to malfunction.To diagnose Guillain-Barré Syndrome, neurologists perform a detailed neurological exam. Due to the nerve injury, patients often may have loss of reflexes on examination. Doctors often need to perform a lumbar puncture, otherwise known as spinal tap, to sample spinal fluid and look for signs of inflammation and abnormal antibodies.Studies have shown that giving patients an infusion of antibodies derived from donated blood or plasma exchange—a process that cleans patients' blood of harmful antibodies—can speed up recovery. A very small subset of patients may need these therapies long-term.The majority of Guillain-Barré Syndrome patients improve within a few weeks and eventually can make a full recovery. However, some patients with Guillain-Barré Syndrome have lingering symptoms including weakness and abnormal sensations in arms and/or legs; rarely patients may be bedridden or disabled long-term.Which COVID-19 Treatments Work—and Which Were a BustAs the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps across the globe, many neurologic specialists have been on the lookout for potentially serious nervous system complications such as Guillain-Barré Syndrome.Though Guillain-Barré Syndrome is rare, it is well known to emerge following bacterial infections, such as Campylobacter jejuni, a common cause of food poisoning, and a multitude of viral infections including the flu virus, Zika virus, and other coronaviruses.Studies showed an increase in Guillain-Barré Syndrome cases following the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, suggesting a possible connection. The presumed cause for this link is that the body's own immune response to fight the infection turns on itself and attacks the peripheral nerves. This is called an "autoimmune" condition. When a pandemic affects as many people as our current COVID-19 crisis, even a rare complication can become a significant public health problem. That is especially true for one that causes neurological dysfunction where the recovery takes a long time and may be incomplete.The first reports of Guillain-Barré Syndrome in COVID-19 pandemic originated from Italy, Spain and China, where the pandemic surged before the U.S. crisis.Though there is clear clinical suspicion that COVID-19 can lead to Guillain-Barré Syndrome, many important questions remain. What are the chances that someone gets Guillain-Barré Syndrome during or following a COVID-19 infection? Does Guillain-Barré Syndrome happen more often in those who have been infected with COVID-19 compared to other types of infections, such as the flu?The only way to get answers is through a prospective study where doctors perform systematic surveillance and collect data on a large group of patients. There are ongoing large research consortia hard at work to figure out answers to these questions.Coronavirus and Cancer Act Alike. That Could Be a Good Thing.While large research studies are underway, overall it appears that Guillain-Barré Syndrome is a rare but serious phenomenon possibly linked to COVID-19. Given that more than 10.7 million cases have been reported for COVID-19, there have been 10 reported cases of COVID-19 patients with Guillain-Barré Syndrome so far—only two reported cases in the U.S., five in Italy, two cases in Iran and one from Wuhan, China.It is certainly possible that there are other cases that have not been reported. The Global Consortium Study of Neurological Dysfunctions in COVID-19 is actively underway to find out how often neurological problems like Guillain-Barré Syndrome are seen in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Also, just because Guillain-Barré Syndrome occurs in a patient diagnosed with COVID-19, that does not imply that it was caused by the virus; this still may be a coincident occurrence. More research is needed to understand how the two events are related.Due to the pandemic and infection-containment considerations, diagnostic tests, such as a nerve conduction study that used to be routine for patients with suspected Guillain-Barré Syndrome, are more difficult to do. In both U.S. cases, the initial diagnosis and treatment were all based on clinical examination by a neurological experts rather than any tests. Both patients survived but with significant residual weakness at the time these case reports came out, but that is not uncommon for Guillain-Barré Syndrome patients. The road to recovery may sometimes be long, but many patients can make a full recovery with time.Though the reported cases of Guillain-Barré Syndrome so far all have severe symptoms, this is not uncommon in a pandemic situation where the less sick patients may stay home and not present for medical care for fear of being exposed to the virus. This, plus the limited COVID-19 testing capability across the U.S., may skew our current detection of Guillain-Barré Syndrome cases toward the sicker patients who have to go to a hospital. In general, the majority of Guillain-Barré Syndrome patients do recover, given enough time. We do not yet know whether this is true for COVID-19-related cases at this stage of the pandemic. We and colleagues around the world are working around the clock to find answers to these critical questions.Sherry H-Y. Chou is an associate professor of critical care medicine, neurology, and neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh. Aarti Sarwal is an associate professor of neurology at Wake Forest University. Neha S. Dangayach is an assistant professor of neurology and neurosurgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| 25 years on, Srebrenica dead still being identified, buried Posted: 09 Jul 2020 12:41 AM PDT  SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — A quarter of a century after they were killed in Europe's worst massacre since World War II, eight Bosnian men and boys will be laid to rest Saturday in a cemetery just outside of Srebrenica — their marble gravestones joining thousands more, each with the same month and year of death. Over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims perished in 10 days of slaughter after the town was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces in the closing months of the country's 1992-95 fratricidal war. When the remains are identified, they are returned to their relatives and reburied in the Potocari memorial cemetery.
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| Is it safe to visit the dentist during the pandemic? Posted: 09 Jul 2020 12:32 AM PDT  Is it safe to visit the dentist during the COVID-19 pandemic? Dentists can't eliminate all risk, but they are taking steps to minimize the chances of spreading the coronavirus. You'll likely notice changes as soon as you enter the office.
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