Saturday, June 20, 2020

Coronavirus pandemic accelerating with Americas worst, warns WHO

Coronavirus pandemic accelerating with Americas worst, warns WHOThe coronavirus pandemic is accelerating, with Thursday's 150,000 new cases the highest in a single day and nearly half of those in the Americas, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. "The world is in a new and dangerous phase," Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual briefing from WHO headquarters in Geneva. Tedros, whose leadership of the WHO has been severely criticised by U.S. President Donald Trump, urged people to maintain social distancing and "extreme vigilance."




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Draft UN resolution calls for three aid crossings to Syria



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The deaths of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks have soured the already strained relationship between Black people and the police

The deaths of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks have soured the already strained relationship between Black people and the policeThe retired professor Delores Jones-Brown says her husband's motto is,"Don't call the police to this house unless somebody's dying."




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Calls for reparations are growing louder. How is the US responding?

Calls for reparations are growing louder. How is the US responding?Presumptive Democratic nominee Biden has said he will support study of reparations, representing a sea change on the issueAs the American civil war reached its bloody end in 1865, the Union general William Sherman seized land from Confederates and mandated it be redistributed, in 40-acre plots, to newly freed slaves.The promise of “40 acres and a mule” was never fulfilled. But a debate has raged ever since about what America owes to the descendants of slaves, and to the victims of racial terror and state-sanctioned discrimination that persisted long after emancipation.“We helped build this nation. We built the United States Capitol. We built the White House. We made cotton king and that built the early economy of the United States,” the Texas congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, the sponsor of a House resolution to study reparations, said in an interview this week.“We were never paid, never given insurance, never received compensation for the more than 200 years of living and working in bondage. And we continue to live with the stain of slavery today.”Jackson Lee said the disparities exposed by compounding national crises – a pandemic, an economic collapse and widespread protests over police brutality, all of which have taken an unequal toll on African Americans – are helping to make the case for reparations.In the weeks since George Floyd died pleading for his life under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, an act many saw as an embodiment of the violent oppression black Americans have endured for centuries, public support for the Black Lives Matter movement has soared.“Look at the protests. Look at the protesters,” Jackson Lee said. “We are winning the hearts and minds of the American people. That’s why I think the time to pass reparations is now.”Reparations were once a lonely cause championed by black leaders and lawmakers. Now the debate has moved to the center of mainstream politics.Several states, localities and private institutions are beginning to grapple with issue, advancing legislation or convening taskforces to develop proposals for reparations. Progressive candidates running for Congress from New York to Colorado to Texas have declared their support for reparations. And earlier this month, at an AME church in Delaware, Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, listened as the state senator Darius Brown challenged him on the issue.“It shouldn’t be a study of reparations,” Brown said. “It should be funding reparations.”But for scholars and advocates who have been making the case for reparations for decades, Biden’s support for studying the issue represents a dramatic break from the past.> [We] never received compensation for the more than 200 years of living and working in bondage. And we continue to live with the stain of slavery today> > Sheila Jackson LeeJohn Conyers, who died in 2019 and was the longest-serving African American in Congress, first introduced a bill to study reparations for slavery in 1989. The Michigan Democrat reintroduced it every cycle for nearly three decades, until he resigned in 2017. Even Barack Obama, when asked by the author, Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose influential 2014 essay in the Atlantic reintroduced the subject, said he was opposed, arguing that reparations was politically impractical.Jackson Lee reintroduced Conyers’ bill, which would develop a commission to study the legacy of slavery across generations and consider a “national apology” for the harm it has caused. The measure, designated HR 40 in reference to Sherman’s unmet promise, now has more than 125 sponsors, the blessing of Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, and the New Jersey senator Cory Booker introduced a companion measure.On Juneteenth last year, a congressional subcommittee convened a first-of-its-kind hearing to discuss how the nation might atone for its “original sin”, as well as the Jim Crow segregation that followed and the modern scourges of mass incarceration, persistent inequality and police violence that still plague African Americans.Such a commission would have to grapple with profound moral and ethical questions as well as profane matters of money and politics. Proposals vary widely, as do the cost estimates and suggested criteria for eligibility. But at their core is an attempt to make economic amends for historic wrongs.William Darity, an economist at Duke University and the author of From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century, argues that the wealth disparities between white and black Americans is the “most powerful indicator” of the cumulative economic toll of racial injustice in America.The data paint a stark picture. Black Americans hold one-tenth of the wealth of white Americans. Just 41% of black families own their homes compared with more than 70% of white families. And black college graduates have a lower homeownership rate than white high school dropouts.Darity says the objective of a reparations package should be to close the wealth gap, and that the best way to do that is by direct payments to eligible black Americans. As for political objections to the scale and expense of such a program, he notes that earlier this year Congress allocated $2tn for a coronavirus relief measure that included direct payments to Americans.Others have suggested compensation in the form of educational vouchers, health insurance or investments in programs that address disparities in education, housing and employment. That the debate has expanded to include discussions over feasibility and mechanics is a sign of progress, Darity said.“We’re finally moving away from the question of whether or not it’s the right thing to do – because more and more people acknowledge that, at least in principle, it is the right thing to do,” he said. “And that is a major step forward because the logistical questions can be resolved.”Still the notion of compensating descendants of American slaves is not widely popular. But there are signs that is shifting.According to a Gallup Poll conducted in 2002, 81% of Americans opposed reparations, compared with just 14% who supported the idea. In 2019, Gallup found that 29% of Americans agreed the government should recompense descendants of the enslaved, with support rising among white Americans from 6% to 16%. The most dramatic increase was among black Americans, whose support climbed from a simple majority in 2002 to nearly three-quarters in 2019.At the same time, young Americans are significantly more likely to agree that the legacy of slavery still impacts black Americans today, while also being more likely to say the US government should formally apologize for slavery and pay reparations, according to an AP-NORC poll published in September.And supporters are hopeful those numbers will rise amid a national reckoning over racism and discrimination. Public opinion on race has shifted dramatically in the span of a few weeks, with a majority of Americans now in agreement that racial discrimination is a “big problem” in the United States.In California, assemblywoman Shirley Weber said the protests fueled interest in her bill to study reparations in the state, which the chamber approved overwhelmingly last week.“Something dramatic is going on,” said Weber, who is the daughter of sharecroppers and a scholar of African American studies. “Folks now begin to realize just how extensively, how deeply, issues of race are embedded in our society and how that can produce what we saw happen to George Floyd in Minneapolis.”Reparations have long been met with strong resistance from conservatives and some prominent black leaders, who have dismissed the idea as impractical and unnecessarily divisive.“I don’t think reparations help level the playing field, it might help more eruptions on the playing field,” Senator Tim Scott, the lone black Republican senator, told Fox News earlier this month.Coleman Hughes, a fellow at the free market thinktank Manhattan Institute, worries a renewed focus on reparations was a “distraction” from the more pressing issues, like police brutality and mass incarceration, that has devastated America’s black communities.“How are reparations going to hold police accountable?” he said. “What is the added value of talking about reparations as opposed to talking about just good public policy that is going to address inequality and poverty?” Yet recompense for historical injustices are not without precedent in America. After the second world war, Congress created a commission to compensate Native American tribes for land seized by the US government, though many say the approach was paternalistic. Decades later, Ronald Reagan signed legislation that authorized individual payments of $20,000 to Japanese Americans who were interned in the US during the second world war, and extended a formal apology from the US government.In 2008, the House passed a resolution acknowledging and apologizing for slavery. The Senate approved a similar resolution a year later, but a disclaimer was appended to ensure the apology could not be used as a legal rationale for reparations.Facing history is a necessary part of the healing process for nations cleaved by atrocity said Susan Neiman, an Atlanta-born academic based in Berlin and the author of Learning from the Germans.She said it took time for Germany to confront the horrors of nazism and the Holocaust, Neiman said, and the process faced strong resistance. Since 1952, Germany has paid reparations, mostly to Jewish victims of the Nazi regime.“It needs to be a multi-layered process, one involving schools, the arts, rethinking what values we want to honor in public space, and all manner of legal measures from reparations to ending police brutality,” she said. “Ideally, a broad democratic discussion must accompany such a process, and once it’s done, countries are actually better off for it.”The cruelty of the Covid-19 outbreak, the economic crisis and police brutality against black Americans must be understood as part of “a continuum that began with the Middle Passage”, said the California congresswoman Barbara Lee, author of a new bill to establish a Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Commission.“This is truth-telling time,” she said. “We have to, as I say, break these chains once and for all.”




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Coronavirus in Tanzania: What do we know?

Coronavirus in Tanzania: What do we know?President Magufuli says cases are falling, but the government hasn't released new official figures. What do we know?




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North Korea prepares to send anti-South leaflets across the border

North Korea prepares to send anti-South leaflets across the borderNorth Korea is gearing up to send propaganda leaflets over its southern border, denouncing North Korean defectors and South Korea, its state media said on Saturday, the latest retaliation for leaflets from the South as bilateral tensions rise. Enraged North Korean people across the country "are actively pushing forward with the preparations for launching a large-scale distribution of leaflets", which are piled as high as a mountain, said state news agency KCNA. "Every action should be met with proper reaction and only when one experiences it oneself, one can feel how offending it is," KCNA said. North Korea has blamed North Korean defectors for launching leaflets across the border and threatened military action. On Tuesday, Pyongyang blew up an inter-Korean liaison office to show its displeasure against the defectors and South Korea for not stopping them launching leaflets. A North Korean defector-led group said on Friday it had scrapped a plan to send hundreds of plastic bottles stuffed with rice, medicine and face masks to North Korea by throwing them into the sea near the border on Sunday.




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U.S. protests inspire calls to "defund the police" in the U.K.

U.S. protests inspire calls to "defund the police" in the U.K."It's really powerful that this discourse has entered the mainstream conversation here in the U.K., and it's inherently connected to the conversations that are happening across America," activist says.




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Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

WATCH LIVE: President Trump holds rally in Tulsa; full coverage on Fox News Channel and on FoxNews.com

06/20/20 5:12 PM

Biden Raised More Than Trump in May, His First Month Leading the Money Race


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saturday


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Author Brittney Cooper on Harnessing Rage, Right Now


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'At a loss about what they're supposed to do': Police take on their own kind of protest

'At a loss about what they're supposed to do': Police take on their own kind of protestAs the national movement for police reform and racial justice grows, more police push back, saying the public has painted them with too broad a brush.




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Navy upholds firing of carrier captain in virus outbreak

Navy upholds firing of carrier captain in virus outbreakThe two senior commanders on a coronavirus-stricken aircraft carrier didn't “do enough, soon enough," to stem the outbreak, the top U.S. Navy officer said Friday, a stunning reversal that upheld the firing of the ship's captain who had pleaded for faster action to protect the crew. Capt. Brett E. Crozier and Rear Adm. Stuart Baker, commander of the carrier strike group, made serious errors in judgment as they tried to work through an outbreak that sidelined the USS Theodore Roosevelt in Guam for 10 weeks, said Adm. Mike Gilday, the chief of naval operations. The Crozier decision was a surprise since Gilday had recommended that the captain be restored to his command less than two months ago after an initial inquiry.




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John Bolton: Judge rejects Trump bid to ban ex-adviser's book

John Bolton: Judge rejects Trump bid to ban ex-adviser's bookA US judge denies the Trump administration's bid to halt publication of John Bolton's memoir.




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Rayshard Brooks' Final Hour Was a Jarring Panorama of Policing

Rayshard Brooks' Final Hour Was a Jarring Panorama of PolicingATLANTA -- From beginning to end, the encounter between Rayshard Brooks and two Atlanta police officers lasted 41 minutes and 17 seconds. For the first 40 minutes, it looked like a textbook example of policing.The officers treated Brooks, 27, with respect. They were cordial as they asked about his night and how much he had had to drink. They calmly guided him through a series of sobriety tests.Then things went dangerously awry, and Brooks became yet another African American man to die at the hands of police.The encounter -- veering from calm to fatal and captured on video from multiple angles -- has become the subject of intense scrutiny. There is vigorous debate over a host of decisions, big and small, that the two officers made last Friday night in a Wendy's parking lot, where Brooks had fallen asleep in the driver's seat in the drive-thru lane."It's at the point where the officer places his hands on him that things go south in a fraction of a second," said Kalfani Ture, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Quinnipiac University who said he had viewed the video footage more than three dozen times. "So you have to pay attention to the minutiae of details -- you have to try to understand decision-making, but you also have to pick out best practices."Understanding what went wrong, he said, is a crucial step in helping police do their jobs better and ease tensions with communities of color.As the officers moved to arrest Brooks, whose Breathalyzer test registered a .108, above the legal limit to drive in Georgia, he bolted from their grasp, hit an officer, grabbed the other's Taser, fired it and took off running.Officer Garrett Rolfe discharged his own Taser and reached for his 9-millimeter Glock handgun as Brooks turned and discharged the stolen Taser again. Rolfe fired, striking Brooks twice in the back.Brooks was 18 feet and 3 inches away when the first shot was fired. Prosecutors said that as Brooks lay dying, Rolfe kicked his bleeding body, and the other officer, Devin Brosnan, stood on his shoulder. Neither offered medical assistance for more than two minutes, prosecutors said.On Wednesday, the Fulton County district attorney, Paul L. Howard Jr., charged Rolfe, who had been fired from the Atlanta Police Department, with 11 criminal counts, including murder and aggravated assault. Brosnan, who is on administrative duty, was charged with three counts, including aggravated assault and violations of oath.The decision to file charges came five days after the fatal encounter, which has led to the resignation of the city's police chief and the mayor's announcement of a series of measures to overhaul how and when police officers use force. The shooting came amid nationwide protests over police brutality and systemic racism that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.President Donald Trump weighed in briefly this week, telling Sean Hannity of Fox News that people should not resist police officers. He also said he hoped Rolfe "gets a fair shake because police have not been treated fairly in our country."Some observers have said the shooting death of Brooks could have been avoided if the two officers, who are white, had declined to arrest him. According to the footage from Brosnan's body camera, Brooks maintained that he had not had more than two drinks that night.But he also made a suggestion: "I can just go home."It seemed like a simple request. "Why didn't they just let him go home?" Brooks' father, Larry Barbine, asked in an interview with The Toledo Blade.Ture, a former law enforcement officer, said he likely would have written a citation but not taken Brooks to jail, particularly given the presence of the coronavirus in many detention facilities."I'd have said, 'Mr. Brooks, I'll offer you a ride wherever you want to go, however, I'm going to take your vehicle keys,' " Ture said. "If I was so concerned I might even tow the vehicle. But I might not even take Mr. Brooks to jail."But other experts said that for decades, police have been told that society wants law enforcement to take a zero-tolerance approach to drunken driving, the No. 1 cause of death on U.S. roadways."Like with so many other social problems, we put officers at the forefront of dealing with DUI," said Seth Stoughton, a former police officer who teaches law at the University of South Carolina. "So it should be no surprise that officers arrest someone for DUI. That's what we've been telling them to do for a long time."Vince Champion, southeast regional director for the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, the Atlanta police union, said there were limits to an officer's discretion.Champion said he once let an inebriated driver walk home a short distance and the man was struck and killed. His supervisor, who had approved the move, was demoted, he said. Such episodes can lead to lawsuits."We've had to go away from trying to be nice," he said.After Brooks went through a field sobriety test and the Breathalyzer test -- both of which came after he was unable to identify which county he was in and gave a seemingly implausible explanation about how he had arrived at the Wendy's -- Rolfe decided to arrest him."All right, I think you've had too much to drink," he said, moving to cuff Brooks, according to the video footage. "Put your hands behind your back for me."In his news conference announcing the criminal charges against the officers, Howard said they had violated the Police Department's policy because Brooks "was never informed he was under arrest for driving under the influence."Verbally notifying people that they are about to be arrested accomplishes multiple goals, experts say. It is a way to show respect and courtesy, which increases public confidence in police. And it is also tactical -- it helps slow the interaction down to eliminate surprises.When people are not told what to expect -- particularly intoxicated people -- they can react in ways that an officer might misinterpret as resisting, when in fact the person is simply startled."In many situations, officers should tell someone what is happening because you don't want the person to react in surprise and the officers to take that surprise as resistance," Stoughton said.When Brooks lurched away from the two officers as they moved to cuff him, they hung on, and the three fell into a heap on the pavement, fighting and struggling.Video footage shows Brooks seizing a Taser from Brosnan and striking Rolfe. In a statement this week, the lawyers representing Brosnan said Brooks used the Taser on their client around this point.After a few moments, Brooks broke free of the officers. As Brooks ran away, Rolfe fired a Taser at him, a violation of department rules that prohibit firing at a fleeing suspect, prosecutors said.Seconds later, mid-stride, Brooks turned and fired the Taser at Rolfe, who was close on his heels.Three gunshots can be heard, and Brooks falls.Howard said that Rolfe, before opening fire, must have known that the Taser that Brooks had taken had already been fired twice -- and that this model of Taser was only capable of two shots.Several policing experts agreed that Rolfe should have known that Brooks was not a deadly threat, but for other reasons.Brooks was running, and it seemed like escaping the situation was his only goal, some experts said. And although Georgia officers are taught that Tasers are a deadly threat because they can disable officers long enough for their guns to be seized, that threat is diminished when a second officer is present as backup.Use of force should be proportional to the threat, the experts said.But whether the officer should have known how many times the Taser had been fired -- or could have reacted quickly enough to that knowledge -- was a separate question."That's a high expectation in the middle of a fight, that an officer is going to know every single fact that we get to see after the fact with an analysis of the video," said Roberto Villaseñor, a former police chief in Tucson, Arizona, and a member of former President Barack Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing."There's a lot of things that occur in a dramatic, volatile situation that you might not be aware of," he continued. "You have adrenaline pumping; you've got fear working; you've got the fight-or-flight syndrome going on -- you've got a lot of things that are affecting your perceptions."Noah H. Pines, a lawyer for Rolfe, said in a statement this week that the shooting was justified and that the responsibility was squarely at Brooks' feet."When Mr. Brooks chose to attack two officers, to disarm one of them," Pines said in the statement, "he took their lives, and his own, into his hands. He took the risk that their justified response might be a deadly one."But on CNN on Monday, Stacey Abrams, Georgia's former Democratic candidate for governor, called it "murder.""At no point did he present a danger that warranted his death," she said of Brooks. "And that's what we're talking about. A murder because a man made a mistake, not a mistake that would have cost the police officer his life but a mistake that was caused out of some form of dehumanization of Rayshard Brooks."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company




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Tulsa Can’t Opt Out of Trump’s Massive Coronavirus Gamble

Tulsa Can’t Opt Out of Trump’s Massive Coronavirus GambleAmid weeks of civil unrest following the police killing of George Floyd, Oklahoma state Representative Regina Goodwin witnessed a disturbing sight on Wednesday: masses of Donald Trump supporters—some in Confederate gear—lining up blocks from the site of the 1921 race massacre on “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa.Some of the assembled fans, determined to attend the president’s first campaign rally in months, sang pro-Trump anthems and told local reporters they set up tents in order to ensure they got good seats inside the nearly 20,000-person arena. After all, it promised to be the largest indoor public gathering in the country since COVID-19 sent a shockwave of lockdowns and quarantines throughout the world.“The point is to rally his base, and they are out there on this sidewalk wanting to be the first in line,” Goodwin, who serves as chair of the Oklahoma Legislative Black Caucus, told The Daily Beast. “I’ve seen people out there sleeping with the Confederate flag symbol. Because of the racist elements that he attracts, you’re adding fuel to the fire of the racial tensions in Tulsa.”But that’s not the only problem facing Goodwin’s constituents. The state’s COVID-19 numbers are “continuing to climb and climb and climb,” as she put it, and the rally is likely to be populated by uniquely COVID-19-skeptical hordes amid a surging pandemic that has hit communities of color with horrific force.The Race Massacre Trump Ignored Because America Tries to Hide Its SinsAs of Thursday, Oklahoma had 8,904 cumulative cases of the virus, which had caused 364 deaths. Compared to other states, those numbers were relatively low. But compared to Oklahoma’s previous numbers, they amounted to an ominous trend. Authorities reported new record-high case counts in the state at large—and in Tulsa specifically—in recent days. In fact, at least one recent cluster made national news when it forced a 1,600-employee factory for home appliances manufacturer Whirlpool to temporarily shutter. Adding to the concern on Thursday, local authorities reported that a technical error would delay its COVID-19 reporting numbers.Gov. Kevin Stitt reopened Oklahoma’s economy on June 1, and Dr. Bruce Dart, the executive director of the Tulsa County Health Department, told The Daily Beast last week that an increasing number of residents have stopped wearing masks or staying home due to “quarantine fatigue.” “The state was open too soon and this was predicted, and that’s what we’re getting,” said Goodwin. A plethora of scientific studies and media reports have shown the Black community is being hit disproportionately hard by COVID-19. Meanwhile, many Black Tulsans work in Greenwood, the setting of the 1921 massacre where roughly 300 people were killed, 35 city blocks were burned, more than 800 people injured, and 10,000 Black Tulsans were left without homes. The fact that the neighborhood is mere blocks away from the setting of the rally, which was initially scheduled on Juneteenth—the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the end of slavery in the country—has not escaped anyone’s attention. Nor have the epidemiological risks.Local public health authorities all the way up to the top infectious disease experts in the country have sounded the alarm in recent weeks over the risks of Trump’s rally. Even the typically party-line hosts of Fox and Friends appeared nervous about it on Thursday morning.Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the public face of the nation’s coronavirus response, told The Daily Beast earlier this week that he would not personally be willing to attend the event since he’s “in a high-risk category.”“Of course not,” Fauci said, noting that a good rule of thumb is that “outside is better than inside, no crowd is better than crowd” and “crowd is better than big crowd.”Days earlier, Dart, the executive director of the Tulsa County Health Department, urged people not to attend and told The Daily Beast he asked Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum to “postpone the event until it’s safe for large crowds to gather indoors.” Mayor Bynum’s office only responded to a request for comment this week from The Daily Beast by noting that he was “not available,” though the event appears to be within the city’s control. The arena hosting the rally, the BOK Center, has been closed since March “out of an abundance of caution,” according to its official website. And the City of Tulsa website declares that it must grant a permit for any event at the facility, though Bynum has said he did not know about it until after a permit was already given.“I’m not positive that everything is safe,” Bynum said on Wednesday.Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University and an expert on U.S. readiness for pandemics, called the rally “unconscionable”—especially in a state where he described the COVID-19 situation as “not exactly stable.”“It’s likely that an event like this, at this particular moment, is going to be a super-spreader event,” said Redlener, painting a portrait where even one infected attendee could transmit the virus to dozens, who could in turn infect their friends, families, and coworkers. Deadly clusters started by just one asymptomatic or presymptomatic person have been documented all over the country in recent months, in Arkansas, in Chicago, in Washington state, and in New York. In many of those cases, all appropriate precautions were followed, and people still died.To that end, the BOK Center, which is hosting the event, has reportedly hired a private firm to conduct temperature tests, while event staff will pass out masks and hand sanitizer. But attendees will not be required to wear masks—and given the president’s own behavior and the cascading culture wars over mask use, it’s fair to wonder how many people would willingly oblige.Redlener noted attendance at all is still a gamble, even with protections, and a significant number of people will likely be forced to work at Trump’s event.“What if just one person dies who had nothing to do with the rally?” asked Redlener. “Is that worth it? It’s a very cold calculus that they are taking, and I would do everything in my power if I was a public official to put an end to it.”To be clear, like Fauci, the Republican mayor has said he would not be willing to personally attend the rally—but would greet the president beforehand. But in addition to the nearly 20,000 people who can fit inside the BOK Center, an overflow audience is reportedly set to be held in the nearby Cox Business Convention Center, according to The Tulsa World. Trump said this week that more than one million people had requested tickets, though that had not been verified. While at least 100,000 people were expected to attend the related events, it was not yet clear on Thursday how many people would be attending the overflow rally.The Tulsa County Public Health Department declined a request for an interview with The Daily Beast this week but provided the agency’s public health recommendations, which note that “any large gathering of people in enclosed spaces where social distancing is difficult to maintain” is cause for concern, and urge residents to avoid such events and to continue to wear masks and practice diligent hand hygiene.Despite the apparent consensus from bipartisan lawmakers, doctors, and public health experts—and an unwillingness from even the city’s mayor to attend the dangerous event—the community’s best shot at preventing the rally was, for better or worse, in court.Lawyers Clark Brewster and Paul DeMuro filed a writ on Wednesday morning on behalf of four plaintiffs—Greenwood District Limited, the general partners of the neighborhood’s Chamber of Commerce, in addition to the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation and two immune-compromised Tulsans—to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, seeking an injunction against the companies holding the rally.The BOK Center is owned by the city and managed by a firm called ASM Global. Doug Thornton, executive vice president for Arena, Stadia and Theaters at ASM Global, said during a Thursday special meeting of the Tulsa Public Facilities Authority that the company was “told at the time by city officials there were no concerns from a public safety standpoint,” according to The Tulsa World. A spokesman for the company did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Beast last week, and voicemails left on Thursday were not immediately returned.The underlying lawsuit was initially filed in Tulsa County District Court, where the petition was denied after a set of COVID-19 cases among workers at the courthouse led to new protective measures, Brewster told The Daily Beast. The suit seeks to force BOK Center management to abide by safety protocols amid the pandemic, including temperature screenings, social distancing, limited seating capacity, and attorneys’ fees and costs, The World first reported.Brewster said that he and his co-counsel were set for a Thursday afternoon hearing and were told to expect a ruling on Friday.“As a lawyer I would strongly defend [Trump’s] right to have that assemblage and the right of free speech for his supporters,” Brewster told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. “The problem is that Tulsa has had a sharp escalation in infections. It looks like a hockey stick.”“You can’t even have a jury trial right now, and this event is going to pack in up to 20,000 people inside the convention center,” said Brewster.In an apparent acknowledgement of the rally’s danger, the Trump campaign made national headlines in recent weeks after it required people to sign a waiver assuming “all risks related to exposure to COVID-19” and agreeing not to hold the president or the arena responsible for any “illness or injury” before entering the BOK Center. “Nothing prevents them from infecting the rest of us,” as Goodwin pointed out. “That doesn’t protect those of us who don’t want to be infected.” “We don’t have any waivers that we’re obliged to sign,” she added.As Brewster put it: “Even if you wanted to attend it and signed a release, that doesn't mean you aren’t going to take it to the nursing home where you work.”“They’re going to hand out masks and hand sanitizer, but we have a reasonable expectation that people in attendance will not be wearing masks,” he added. “This isn’t about politics. It wouldn’t make a difference if this was a Garth Brooks concert. I’d be filing the same injunction.”What does make a difference is the cultural moment in which this potentially deadly experiment is taking place.As Goodwin put it, “You’ve got the COVID-19 virus and the virus of racism, and somehow there seems to be a collision of the two in Tulsa.”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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McEnany won't wear mask at Tulsa Trump rally

McEnany won't wear mask at Tulsa Trump rallyThe Centers for Disease Control recommends that Americans wear masks in public.




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Woman Charged With Burning Philadelphia Police Cars Must Remain In Jail Until Trial

Woman Charged With Burning Philadelphia Police Cars Must Remain In Jail Until TrialLore Elisabeth Blumenthal is charged with arson.




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Pompeo accuses U.N. body of hypocrisy after condemnation of U.S. police brutality

Pompeo accuses U.N. body of hypocrisy after condemnation of U.S. police brutalityU.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused the United Nations Human Rights Council of hypocrisy on Saturday after the organization condemned racism and police brutality in the United States following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month. Pompeo said the 47-member-state forum's unanimous resolution on Friday on policing and race was a new low for the Council and reaffirmed the United States' decision to withdraw from the organization in 2018. "The United Nations Human Rights Council, now comprised of Venezuela and recently, Cuba and China, has long been and remains a haven for dictators and democracies that indulge them," Pompeo said in a statement.




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'Stay away': Black Tulsans urge Pence not to visit historic Greenwood neighborhood

'Stay away': Black Tulsans urge Pence not to visit historic Greenwood neighborhood“They’re using this to promote a message that they just don’t believe,” said one Greenwood resident.




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Citing 'problems' receiving a ballot, Trump campaign manager acknowledges he didn't vote in '16

Citing 'problems' receiving a ballot, Trump campaign manager acknowledges he didn't vote in '16Parscale, then a Texas resident, oversaw Trump's digital operation in 2016 and became the campaign manager in 2018.




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Matt Gaetz Appears Alongside His Newly Revealed ‘Son’ on Tucker Carlson’s Show

Matt Gaetz Appears Alongside His Newly Revealed ‘Son’ on Tucker Carlson’s ShowHours after announcing that he has a 19-year-old Cuban “son,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) appeared alongside the teen, Nestor Galban, on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight to prove to a Democratic colleague with whom he’s been feuding that he has a “non-white” child.Gaetz’s revelation about Galban came on the heels of his extremely heated altercation with Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA) during a congressional hearing on police reform, which flew off the rails when Gaetz exploded at Richmond for suggesting he didn’t know what it’s like to fear for a Black son.“For all those wondering, this is my son Nestor. We share no blood but he is my life. He came from Cuba (legally, of course) six years ago and lives with me in Florida,” Gaetz tweeted on Thursday morning. “I am so proud of him and raising him has been the best, most rewarding thing I’ve done in my life.”The pro-Trump congressman also wrote that Nestor had just turned 19 and arrived when he was 12, adding that he was “triggered” by Richmond’s remarks because he knows what it's like to “raise non-white kids.” Gaetz’s sudden announcement that he had a grown son, meanwhile, raised quite a few questions, especially considering he had never publicly disclosed this before Thursday.At the same time he appeared on Carlson’s show, People published a report providing details on Gaetz’s relationship to Galban. Gaetz admitted to People that he “did not formally adopt” Galban, stating that Galban moved in with him when he was 12 because Gaetz—then a state legislator—was dating Galban’s older sister. “He is a part of my family story,” Gaetz told People, adding that Nestor “is my son in every conceivable way, and I can’t imagine loving him any more if he was my own flesh and blood.” He declined to tell the magazine what Nestor’s relationship was with his biological family at this time.Carlson, meanwhile, introduced the pro-Trump congressman on his program by asking him how he feels about Richmond telling him “you are not allowed to participate in the conversation because of your skin color.”Saying his Democratic colleague’s remarks were “offensive” because Richmond didn’t know anything about his experience, Gaetz went on to say that “Nestor is the light of my life” and that he “couldn’t imagine loving him anymore if he was my own flesh and blood.”“I’ve raised him for the last six years, and he is the most remarkable young man,” he added. “I am proud of him, and I am honestly embarrassed of the United States Congress that we have resorted to criticizing each other based on our race and the race of our children and I wish that we could be more productive going forward.”After Gaetz said Galban had been raised to “treat everyone equally,” Carlson wondered aloud if Galban had also learned those lessons in school, prompting Gaetz to reveal that Nestor was already mic’d up and ready to appear on-screen.“What do you make of Cedric Richmond’s attacks? Did you see all of this?” Carlson asked Galban.“I did not see it because I was sleeping from my workout the night before,” Nestor replied, adding that he woke up to the tweets on the altercation and Gaetz calling him about it.“I think it’s unfair to tell someone that they don’t understand because they don’t have—because of their racial color,” he added. “While he is fighting for equality but if you tell someone to not get involved—he doesn’t understand because of the color—you are being a hypocrite there.”The Fox host applauded Galban’s answer before snarkily noting that this is now something “you would be censured for,” something Gaetz agreed with.“I cannot believe that it’s acceptable in the United States Congress for someone to tell someone else that they are fighting for their children more than they are. You have a son,” Gaetz said. “How would you feel if someone said to you that they were fighting for your own family more than you were? That’s why I got very upset.”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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North Korean defectors sometimes struggle to adjust to new life

North Korean defectors sometimes struggle to adjust to new lifeMore than 30,000 defectors have escaped through China, some paying thousands of dollars to brokers.




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Guardian identified for small child found wandering Sunday morning by Fort Myers police

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