U.S. Is Said to Plan to File Antitrust Charges Against Google

By BY CECILIA KANG, DAVID MCCABE AND DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/3bwqbHm

A Sitting President, Riling the Nation During a Crisis

By BY ALEXANDER BURNS, MAGGIE HABERMAN, JONATHAN MARTIN AND NICK CORASANITI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3bv9YSQ

The Masked Versus the Unmasked

By BY ROGER COHEN from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2Ay5NsE

Biden campaign says voters will reject 'desperate' Trump strategy

“Trump is desperate not to have this campaign be about his failure on the central issues in front of the country," Biden strategist Mike Donilon told reporters.

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Americans calling for herd immunity should look at Sweden's coronavirus experiment to see why it won't work

Health officials have called the concept of herd immunity dangerous and said it could take years to reach without a vaccine.

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Feinstein was also questioned by FBI on coronavirus stock trades — but Loeffler won't say if she has been

Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-Calif.) spokesperson has confirmed she answered questions from the FBI over stock trades her husband made before the U.S. markets took a dive due to the coronavirus pandemic — but Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) is refusing to say if she was contacted as well.Reports emerged earlier this year Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) sold stocks while he was receiving briefings on the coming COVID-19 coronavirus crisis, and federal agents have now seized his cellphone. Numerous other senators also sold stocks around the same time as Burr, including Feinstein, as The New York Times reported she and her husband sold between $1.5 million and $6 million in stock in the biotech company Allogene Therapeutics between Jan. 31 and Feb. 18.Feinstein denied being involved in the sales, with a spokesperson at the time saying, "All of Senator Feinstein's assets are in a blind trust" and "she has no involvement in her husband's financial decisions." On Thursday, Feinstein's spokesperson confirmed to NBC News that she answered questioned from the FBI and provided authorities with documents. Her aides also said this questioning occurred in April and that there have been "no follow up actions on this issue," per The Washington Post.Loeffler, who is a much closer ally of President Trump's than Burr, and her husband also sold stock around the same time after she was briefed on the coronavirus, although she says the decisions were made by investment advisers. But asked Thursday if she's been contacted by the FBI, Loeffler wouldn't say, and when asked by CNN if she has, a spokesperson didn't directly address the question, instead saying, "No search warrant has been served on Sen Loeffler. She has followed both the letter and spirit of the law and will continue to do so."More stories from theweek.com The next phase of America's coronavirus problem is a massive housing crisis 5 hilarious cartoons about Trump's vague 'Obamagate' allegations The conservative victimhood complex has made America impossible to govern

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Attorneys for killer of Ahmaud Arbery say he has a 'presumption of innocence' as Georgia case heats up

Attorneys for Travis McMichael urge public not to rush judgment on the case; 911 reveals prior confrontation in neighborhood Security camera video released by an attorney briefly shows a man walking inside an open-framed home under construction on Feb. 11.

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U.S. accuses Chinese-born researcher at Cleveland Clinic of ties to Chinese spying

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Naked doll hanging by a noose prompts fight at armed anti-lockdown protest in Michigan

A fight broke out between anti-lockdown protesters in Michigan after one began waving an American flag with a doll tied to the pole by a noose around its neck.As armed demonstrators gathered at Michigan's State Capitol to denounce the governor's stay-at-home orders, one man began waving his flag with the naked doll attached in one hand while also carrying an axe in the other.

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Official says suicide attack in eastern Afghanistan kills 5

A suicide bombing in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktia province on Thursday that looked to target a military compound but exploded before its destination killed five civilians and wounded at least 29 others, including civilians and military personnel, Afghan officials said. The Taliban took responsibility for the bombing, calling it retaliation for statements by President Ashraf Ghani blaming it for an attack earlier this week against a maternity hospital that killed 24 people, including two newborns as well as several mothers and nurses. The Taliban were quick to deny responsibility and condemn that attack on Tuesday.

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Pope joins inter-faith prayers against coronavirus, irks ultra-conservatives

Pope Francis joined an inter-faith day of prayer on Thursday to call on God to end the coronavirus pandemic, brushing aside criticism from ultra-conservative Catholic groups, with one accusing him of associating with "infidels". A multi-faith committee formed after the pope's historic visit to the Arabian Peninsula last year came up with the proposal that Christians, Muslims and Jews pray, fast and perform charitable works on Thursday. "Maybe there will be someone who will say 'This is religious relativism and it cannot be done," Francis said in the homily of his morning Mass at the Vatican on Thursday.

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Headscarves and bare hands: women deliver baby during Kabul hospital attack

As armed men rampaged through an Afghan hospital, shooting dead mothers and babies, a group of pregnant women hid in a room with one of them about to give birth. "The mother was in pain but was trying not to make any sound," said a midwife who helped deliver the baby girl and sever the umbilical cord with her bare hands. "She even put her finger in the newborn baby's mouth to stop her from crying," the woman told AFP by phone on Friday, her voice still shaking three days after the attack in Kabul.

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Coronavirus: President Trump’s testing claims fact-checked

President Trump has made several claims about coronavirus testing in the US - is he right?

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Experts warn about the 'brutal arithmetic' of applying herd immunity to humans

Health professionals and officials continue to warn that there is no easy way out of the pandemic, particularly with parts of the U.S. beginning to ease lockdowns.

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Sweden's per capita coronavirus death toll is among the highest in the world — a sign its decision to avoid a lockdown may not be working

Sweden's strategy to fight the coronavirus did not include a mandatory lockdown. Its outsize death toll raises questions about the approach.

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Reward for return of Colorado woman who went missing on Mother's Day increased to $200,000 as FBI join search

A woman who disappeared while riding her bike on Mother's Day is still missing, and the FBI is joining the search.Suzanne Morphew, 49, of Colorado, disappeared on Sunday while riding her bike, triggering a major search effort by more than 100 people and numerous dogs.

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Biden campaign sees clear path to '318 electoral votes'

Former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign is convinced it can turn some solidly red states blue.Biden's team revealed its electoral strategy to reporters on Friday, saying the campaign is convinced it can win 318 of the 538 electoral votes up for grabs this fall. A big chunk of those votes will come from reclaiming typically blue states Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, as well as homing in on the traditionally red states of Arizona, Georgia, and Texas.Biden needs 270 electoral votes to beat Trump this year, and officials on his team think he can win back most of the states that went for former President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 but flipped to Trump in 2016. In particular, internal polling shows the Biden campaign "pulling ahead" in Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona, O'Malley Dillon said.Arizona has gone Republican for the last 20 years of presidential contests, but has one recently elected Democratic senator and another close senatorial contest slated for this fall. And if the former vice president can secure what his campaign calls the "Biden coalition" of "young, African American, and Latino voters; suburban, college educated voters, and women; and disaffected voters," it estimates it can win Texas and Georgia as well, The Daily Beast writes.While Biden's campaign did well with black voters in the primaries, its strategy to bring in Latino voters has been widely criticized, questioning whether Biden can actually pull southern red states into his camp. More stories from theweek.com The next phase of America's coronavirus problem is a massive housing crisis 5 hilarious cartoons about Trump's vague 'Obamagate' allegations The conservative victimhood complex has made America impossible to govern

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Residents of Bogota slum facing eviction despite quarantine

Hundreds of people expected to be evicted from their hillside homes in a slum of Colombia's capital Bogota on Friday, despite having nowhere to go during the country's coronavirus lockdown. Residents accuse police accompanying the eviction process of excessive force. The evictions in the Altos de la Estancia neighborhood are taking place despite Colombia's months-long lockdown meant to stem the spread of coronavirus, which has killed more than 500 people.

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An Indiana man threw a cup of coffee at a 7/11 cashier after he was told off for not wearing a mask

This is the second aggressive act to take place in a 7-Eleven store this week in defiance of coronavirus guidelines.

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How Susan Collins’ Small Business Bill Helped Bail Out Big Ones

Senator Susan Collins is fighting for her political life with a new television ad that says “in a time of crisis, real leaders step forward. Others disappear.” The ad touts that the Maine Republican co-wrote the Paycheck Protection Program that’s provided $2.5 billion in forgivable loans to more than 26,000 small businesses in the state. It doesn’t mention that she also allowed special interests and big donors to access the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP.All it took was three little words.Collins acknowledged in a radio interview on Maine broadcaster Mike Violette’s radio show Wednesday morning that she was one of the senators who’d worked to include an exception in the bill that allowed big hotel and restaurant chains to receive PPP money as long as they had fewer than 500 employees “per physical location.” Noting that the initial draft of the PPP did not have that “carve-in” for chains, Common Cause’s Beth Rotman, an expert in money and politics, told the Daily Beast, “Essentially a combination of wealthy special interests together with well-placed contributors at a critical moment bought a revision to our stimulus package that defined small business as including big business because they owned large franchises made up of hundreds of smaller entities. They were following the law they helped write.” An examination of contributions to Collins for Senator, and to her leadership PAC, during the first quarter of 2020 reveals $13,000 in contributions in mid-to-late February from the American Hotel and Lodging Association PAC, the Hilton Worldwide PAC, and the International Franchise Association.Those contributions—a fraction of the money she’s raised is this cycle—came before the PPP bill was under consideration, as the economic damage the virus would inflict became clear in March. After the bill was passed later that month, hotel and restaurant chains of all sizes moved quickly to secure the forgivable loans, sparking public outrage. A Pennsylvania investment firm that owns the Ritz-Carlton Coconut Grove in Miami applied for as many as 48 of the taxpayer-backed loans, according to the Orlando Sentinel. At the end of April, the CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association co-wrote an op-ed for the Bangor Daily News with the CEO of Hospitality Maine, declaring that “Maine hoteliers, and the industry at large, are lucky to have Collins advocating on our behalf” and stopping just short of endorsing her re-election bid as Maine’s tourist industry struggles to adapt to COVID-19. Collins’ office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.In her interview with Violette on Wednesday morning, Collins said that “ I was able to get an exception included in the bill. And I think it’s made a real difference to some of our restaurants and hotels in Maine that are locally owned and needed that kind of relief.”Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who also pushed for those three little words, had tweeted on Monday, April 20 that his legislative intent was to help small franchisees, and that the Treasury Department should correct the imbalance. Nobody disputes that the hotel industry has been especially hard hit by the pandemic—nine times worse than it was after 9/11, according to the op-ed in the Bangor Daily News. But the issue with the PPP was about who should get emergency funding from the government, and who were the free riders. Some like Shake Shack and the LA Lakers that took money quickly returned it, shamed by the publicity. The Treasury Department issued new guidelines to emphasize that companies with access to capital in ways that small businesses do not have should back away from the government trough, though not all of those companies have backed away. According to The Washington Post, publicly traded companies received more than $1 billion in PPP funds meant for small businesses. They included 43 companies with more than 500 workers, and several recipients “prosperous enough to pay executives $2 million or more.” By releasing an ad crediting herself as the creator of the PPP, Collins is betting that voters in Maine will remember the good things about it: that the government acted quickly and was able to set aside partisan feelings to get money to people that needed it. She’s hoping voters won’t blame her for the fact that so many of the loans went to big businesses with deep pockets instead of the mom-and-pop businesses she likes to tout.  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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The future of college tuition in the age of the coronavirus: Yahoo News Explains

As college campuses across the country remain closed amid social distancing orders, graduating high school seniors and their families are stuck with a difficult question: Is college worth the price if classes are online? In turn, the American Council on Education predicts that fall enrollment could decrease by 15 percent or more, leaving colleges and universities with an estimated $23 billion in lost tuition. David Klein, CEO and co-founder of CommonBond, a finance company that specializes in affordable student loans, explains that there may, in fact, be a silver lining here — pressure to enroll students could force universities to address the college tuition crisis that existed long before the coronavirus.

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Iran's OPEC governor dies after brain haemorrhage

Iran's OPEC Governor Hossein Kazempour Ardebili has died of a brain haemorrhage two weeks after falling into a coma, the semi-official news agency ISNA reported on Saturday.

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