Big Time News Blog: 07/16/20

Thursday, July 16, 2020

Lung radiation shows promise for COVID-19 pneumonia; smoking raises risks

A low dose of radiation to the lungs of COVID-19 pneumonia patients can help them recover more quickly, a small study suggests. Doctors at Emory University in Atlanta treated 10 such patients with lung radiation and compared them to 10 patients of similar ages who received usual care, without radiation. The radiation group was "a little older, a little sicker, and their lungs were a little more damaged ... but despite that we saw a strong signal of efficacy," Emory's Dr. Mohammad Khan told Reuters.

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Kentucky Democratic party stalwart sentenced to prison

Kentucky businessman and Democrat Party stalwart Jerry Lundergan was sentenced on Thursday to 21 months in prison for making illegal contributions to the failed U.S. Senate campaign of his daughter, former Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. Prosecutors said Lundergan, 73, orchestrated a scheme to funnel more than $200,000 in illegal contributions to Grimes' 2014 campaign against Republican Mitch McConnell.

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Louisiana attorney general says mask mandate likely illegal

Attorney General Jeff Landry, who is currently quarantining after testing positive for the coronavirus, issued a legal opinion Wednesday saying the governor's statewide mask mandate and bar restrictions to combat the outbreak appear to violate Louisiana's constitution. The Republican attorney general's office said Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards' order requiring most people to wear face coverings, limiting bars to takeout and delivery and banning gatherings of more than 50 people in indoor spaces is “likely unconstitutional and unenforceable.” “Although the mask mandate and the 50-person limit may be good recommendations for personal safety, they may not be enforced with financial or criminal penalties,” Landry wrote.

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Reopen Schools? Here’s What You Had to Say

By BY LISA LERER from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2B5ckvq

Mask Rules Expand Across U.S. as Clashes Over the Mandates Intensify

By BY SARAH MERVOSH, MANNY FERNANDEZ AND CAMPBELL ROBERTSON from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3jfzjFA

Extending Cruise Ban, C.D.C. Says Ships Helped Spread Coronavirus

By BY FRANCES ROBLES from NYT Travel https://ift.tt/2OuSqwT

A Debate About Open Debate

By BY SPENCER BOKAT-LINDELL from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/3fEJBwz

Federal Employees Can Express Support for Black Lives Matter, Watchdog Says

By BY MICHAEL LEVENSON from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2OuagjT

La Casa Blanca de Trump se muestra atrevida respecto a los límites éticos conforme se acercan las elecciones

By BY MICHAEL CROWLEY from NYT en Español https://ift.tt/2CbikUd

What the Twitter Hack Revealed: An Election System Teeming With Risks

By BY DAVID E. SANGER, NICOLE PERLROTH AND NICK CORASANITI from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3eALskE

Joe Biden opens up biggest national poll lead over Trump since securing nomination as independents abandon president

Joe Biden has opened up his biggest poll lead over Donald Trump since securing the nomination, with a new nationwide survey showing him with a 15-point advantage in the race for the White House.Registered voters back the former vice president over the incumbent 52 - 37 per cent, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released on Wednesday. The same poll one month ago gave Mr Biden a lead of eight points, 49 - 41 per cent.

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The Trump administration just pulled coronavirus data out of the CDC's hands, and it means Americans can't see where hospital beds are filled

In a statement, the CDC said "hospital-reported COVID-19 data summaries will no longer be provided."

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Florida breaks single-day coronavirus death toll record, still has no mask mandate

Florida's coronavirus problem keeps getting worse.The state reported its highest-ever single-day death toll on Thursday, with 156 people reported dead from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours. The numbers have Miami, recently called the "new epicenter of the pandemic," considering mandatory lockdowns, but Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) doesn't seem inclined to push many statewide restrictions at all.Thursday marked the second time this week Florida broke its coronavirus death toll record, with 132 people reported dead on Tuesday. The state's death toll now sits at 4,677. A total of 13,965 people tested positive for COVID-19 over the past day as well, putting Florida's total case numbers at 315,775.Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said Thursday he was planning to meet with business leaders to weigh "the possibility of a future lockdown" if these numbers don't improve soon, the Miami Herald reports. Suarez specifically raised concerns about hospitals and ICU beds filling up. Yet the state as a whole still has relatively relaxed social distancing guidelines, and no mandatory mask order, putting it behind the restrictive measures New York took to eventually cut its massive coronavirus spread.More stories from theweek.com Maryland's GOP governor publishes a scathing indictment of Trump's coronavirus response Trump attacks Biden's housing desegregation proposal as a plot to 'abolish our suburbs' Donald Trump is destroying the Post Office

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Ethiopia says rising waters at mega-dam a 'natural' part of construction

Ethiopia on Wednesday acknowledged that water levels behind its mega-dam on the Blue Nile River were increasing, though officials said this was a natural part of the construction process. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has been a source of tension in the Nile River basin ever since Ethiopia broke ground on it in 2011, with downstream countries Egypt and Sudan worried it will restrict vital water supplies. Addis Ababa has long intended to begin filling the dam's reservoir this month, in the middle of its rainy season, though it has not said exactly when.

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Fox News Host Admits She Doesn’t Trust Fox Polls, Deliberately Misleads Pollsters

Fox News host Melissa Francis admitted on Thursday that she doesn’t trust her own network’s polling—conducted by a group considered among the industry’s most trustworthy pollsters—while also claiming on-air that she deliberately misleads pollsters when they call her.With President Donald Trump trailing former Vice President Joe Biden by double digits in many national and battleground state polls, a narrative has formed that there are so-called “secret Trump voters” who don’t feel comfortable expressing their support for the president. A recent Monmouth poll in Pennsylvania, which finds Biden up by 13 points, shows that a majority of voters in the state believe a secret Trump vote exists.“The media consistently reports that Biden is in the lead, but voters remember what happened in 2016. The specter of a secret Trump vote looms large in 2020,” Monmouth pollster Patrick Murray wrote upon the poll’s release.During a Thursday afternoon Fox News discussion on Brad Parscale’s demotion as Trump campaign manager, Francis expressed her distrust of political polling by citing her own experience with deceiving pollsters.After fellow Fox host Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery said the 2016 polls were “completely wrong” and that current polls are using that same methodology, Francis noted that she is “familiar” with the polls because she has been polled twice recently.“Because I’m not affiliated with a party, I am married, I have three children,” she said. “I think I am a woman of a certain age, so I am sort of the vote that people are looking for. I have a blast when they call me.”“None of the information—sometimes I’m somebody who voted for [New York Mayor Bill] de Blasio but now I was thinking about Trump,” Francis continued. “Sometimes it just depends how I toy with these folks.”After this writer tweeted out a clip of Francis’ comments while asking “are Fox News hosts now claiming they openly lie to pollsters to help push the narrative that all the polls are wrong,” the Fox News personality responded that polling is “garbage.”“Any pollster who calls me - I do not tell the truth,” she wrote. “It’s not their business. But I misled them left and right in equal measure. Polling is in fact garbage. I also do *always* disclose where I work and ask from whom they purchased my information.”When asked whether this meant that she believed her own network’s polls are also “garbage,” Francis replied: “I don’t trust any polling at all based on my personal experience.”Interestingly, despite claiming to find all polling to be “garbage,” Twitter sleuths pointed out that she has a history of boosting polling data that supports various Fox-friendly narratives.Francis later tweeted that she has never heard anyone tell her they've been contacted by a pollster but that she personally has been polled “20 times in the past 5 years.” She added that this has “undermined my own personal confidence in polling, that is my opinion.”According to poll analysis digital outlet FiveThirtyEight, Fox News is rated as one of the most accurate polling organizations, with an A rating. Furthermore, much has been made about the inaccuracy of the 2016 presidential election polls. Post-election analysis, however, shows that the accuracy of the national polls was pretty much on par with every election of the past 50 years. The average of the final polls was also largely in line with Hillary Clinton two-point popular vote win.Beyond that, polling since the 2016 election has been even more accurate. During the 2018 midterm elections, which resulted in a blue wave in the House of Representatives, non-partisan polls were far more accurate than any average poll since 1998. 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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Chinese executives get 'pre-test' injections in vaccine race

In the global race to make a coronavirus vaccine, a state-owned Chinese company is boasting that its employees, including top executives, received experimental shots even before the government approved testing in people. “Giving a helping hand in forging the sword of victory,” reads an online post from SinoPharm with pictures of company leaders it says helped “pre-test” its vaccine. Whether it’s viewed as heroic sacrifice or a violation of international ethical norms, the claim underscores the enormous stakes as China competes with U.S. and British companies to be the first with a vaccine to help end the pandemic — a feat that would be both a scientific and political triumph.

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg: US Supreme Court oldest justice treated for possible infection

The 87-year-old underwent a procedure to clean out a bile duct stent in Baltimore's hospital.

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'I didn't do it': Executed federal prisoner used final words to plead innocence

The first man executed by the US federal government in 17 years protested his innocence in his final words before his sentence was carried out on Tuesday.Asked if he wanted to give a final statement before the lethal injection procedure, Lee reportedly said “I bear no responsibility for the deaths of the Mueller family.”

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National Association of Police Organizations president explains decision to endorse President Trump

Major law enforcement lobbying group throws weight behind President Trump.

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Returned of tainted Pemex boss spells trouble for Mexico's old elite

Once a rising star of Mexican politics, Emilio Lozoya could trigger a precipitous fall from grace of former colleagues if he returns to spill the beans on alleged corruption inside the government of the country's last president, Enrique Pena Nieto. Lozoya, who is being extradited from Spain to Mexico, is expected home this week to face a series of corruption charges dating back to his 2012-16 tenure at the helm of struggling Mexican state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, known as Pemex. Once vaunted as a possible foreign minister, the 45-year-old Lozoya has become a key piece in President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's plan to expose corruption in and around the government he took over from Pena Nieto in December 2018.