Big Time News Blog: 07/22/20

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

PPE made in China and exported to countries like the US was produced by oppressed Uighur Muslims, report says

The New York Times identified companies across China that use Uighur labor to make PPE, like face masks, that were then exported around the world.

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Seattle sued by family of man killed in autonomous protest zone

The man, who was shot in the city's autonomous zone, allegedly was not provided medical treatment.

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TSA finds assault rifle hidden in checked bag at Newark Airport

TSA agents discovered an assault rifle, a high-capacity magazine and hollow point bullets in a checked bag at Newark International Airport on Monday.

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Corrections: July 23, 2020

By Unknown Author from NYT Corrections https://ift.tt/2E2LbdE

Republicans, Deeply Divided on Virus Aid, Near Agreement on Opening Offer

By BY EMILY COCHRANE, NICHOLAS FANDOS AND JIM TANKERSLEY from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/3fRHNAB

The Hagia Sophia Was a Cathedral, a Mosque and a Museum. It’s Converting Again.

By BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/2OKOCIh

Danielle Collins Says World Team Tennis Waiver Did Not Forbid Leaving Site

By BY CHRISTOPHER CLAREY from NYT Sports https://ift.tt/3jxG71a

Southwest Airlines removes medical exceptions to rules requiring masks.

By BY NIRAJ CHOKSHI from NYT Business https://ift.tt/2WJiV6f

Senate Republicans secure impeachment witness who flagged concern about Hunter Biden

George Kent, who testified last year about Trump allies' efforts to influence Ukraine, has agreed to sit for an interview as early as Friday.

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China vows 'forceful counter-attack' in escalating row with Britain over Hong Kong

China threatened a "forceful counter-attack" on Tuesday in response to Britain's announcement that it would suspend its extradition treaty with Hong Kong following Beijing's introduction of a national security law for the former British colony. On Monday, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told parliament the extradition treaty would be suspended immediately and an arms embargo would be extended to Hong Kong.

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'Get the hell out of our uniforms': It's getting hard to tell who are the real law enforcement as camouflaged Feds crack down on protests

"That uniform represents the cloth of our nation for people who don't draw overtime," retired US Army Gen. Russel Honoré told MSNBC.

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Mary Trump: What Really Shocked Me About My Family and the KKK

Mary Trump had a giant barrel of tea to spill about her family on today’s episode of The New Abnormal by The Daily Beast.She claims her uncle Donald Trump “was protected at every turn from his incompetence, from his total inability to handle money.” And the Republican Party picked up where the media and the investment banks left off. Remember her grandfather Fred, the family patriarch who got arrested at a Ku Klux Klan rally? Mary was surprised by that news, but “not because my grandfather wasn’t anti-Semitic.”Nope, Mary was shocked her grandfather took time away from making money to join a KKK event. But of course, he was “perfectly happy being racist and anti-Semitic in his own house and his place of work.”Mary Trump held nothing back as she spoke with Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast. She even commented on Trump’s sleeping habits, alleging that the late-night tweeter-in-chief doesn’t sleep because “because Daddy wouldn't approve.”“So that’s maybe why he drinks 12 Diet Cokes a day and is up until three in the morning tweeting,” she said.Tune in for more of the juicy details from behind the Trump family veil. Plus, hear The Nation’s Elie Mystal discuss the passing of John Lewis—and the rise of a new generation of activists. And the hosts are back at the tough questions. Can Allen West turn Texas blue? Is Rick part of antifa? And is there anything—anything—Bill Barr hates more than graffiti? 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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US Navy’s top officer reveals grim new details of the damage to Bonhomme Richard

Fire and flooding left 11 of 14 decks damaged.

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Pence 'absolutely' would send his children back to school despite spreading risk

Vice President Mike Pence says he and second lady Karen Pence would send their children back to school in the fall, claiming they would be unconcerned about them contracting coronavirus."We wouldn't hesitate to send them back to school," Mr Pence told reporters during a visit to hard-hit South Carolina.

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Fauci says Biden and campaign 'know better' than to reach out to him

When asked if Biden has reached out to him, Fauci said, "No. I mean I think they know better. That I'm in a sensitive position."

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The proof is in the sewage: hundreds of Yosemite visitors may have had coronavirus

No one had tested positive via nasal swabs, but researchers’ investigation tells a different storyYosemite national park officials suspect that hundreds of visitors this summer may have had Covid-19 thanks to an unorthodox approach – testing sewage.The San Francisco Chronicle reported last week that the county health department has been collecting untreated wastewater flowing from the idyllic Yosemite Valley for testing. Prior to this effort, according to the Chronicle, no one had tested positive for the virus through nasal swab testing at the park’s health clinic. Scientists at a lab called Biobot Analytics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have examined the sewage water to determine if there are traces of genetic material from Sars-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, in the human feces. From the traces in a given sample, they can estimate how many people passing through Yosemite might be infected with Covid-19 at that time.“It just struck me as a really good idea,” said the Mariposa county health official Dr Eric Sergienko. He said that while the county was testing and monitoring local residents, “we really did not have a really good way of monitoring our visitors for Covid-19.”The county began testing the wastewater from the Yosemite Valley, where thecelebrated granite Half Dome is located, in June. Based on their findings, health officials believe that an estimated 170 people in the park the week of the Fourth of July may have been infected with the coronavirus. The following week, that number dropped to 60.In the neighboring community where wastewater is also tested, the estimate went down from 60 to 50 over that same two-week period. “For me that suggests that indeed the volume that we saw on the Fourth was directly related to visitors to the area,” says Sergienko.For now, Mariposa county will continue testing the sewage water every week, and maintaining safety protocols currently in place.The park closed its gates in March – partly, according to Sergienko, to avoid straining the local healthcare system with sick travelers. Now, the park requires visitors to make reservations to get in and has cut attendance by about half of what it was in June 2019. The park works closely with neighboring counties to implement safety measures. But since the national parks are under federal jurisdiction, it cannot force visitors to wear masks, for example.Kristen Brengel of the National Parks Conservation Association, a non-partisan group that advocates to protect national parks, said this decision came from the top. “The political appointees of the interior department have made it clear they do not want to make masks mandatory in parks. They’re doing this by choice.” Most parks are only able to recommend that visitors wear masks.Brengel also says crowding at popular outdoor sites is a risk to visitor and employee health. Photos on the Yellowstone national park’s Facebook page show crowds lined up for its famous geysers, with about half the people wearing masks. In Yosemite, timed entry is helping space out crowds, and Brengel says a handful of other parks, including Denali national park and reserve and Rocky Mountain national park are implementing this tactic.The National Park Service did not return a request for comment, but a public health update on its website asks visitors “to be our partner in adopting social distancing practices when visiting parks”.

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Detroit police officer charged with felony assault after rubber bullets fired at journalists

If convicted, 32-year-old corporal Daniel Debono could be sentenced to up to four years in prison.

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White House: Trump sometimes tested for coronavirus more than once a day

At a briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said President Trump at times is tested for the virus more than once daily.

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China’s Monstrous Abuse of Uighur Women

Slavery and genocide are ancient bedfellows. I first became aware of this fact as a child while watching the opening number of DreamWorks’s 1998 film, The Prince of Egypt. In the first five minutes of the movie, enslaved Hebrew men construct monuments to the Pharaoh as their wives beg for their infant sons’ lives. All, save Moses, are ripped from their mothers’ arms and tossed into the Nile.Of course, with 21st-century technology, crocodile-infested rivers are no longer needed to get rid of minority children. We have “medicine” for that.Last week, drone footage, verified by Western intelligence agencies, emerged from Northern China. It showed Uighur Muslims bound and blindfolded, with shaven heads, being loaded onto trains that were likely headed for detention camps. In a BBC interview, British journalist Andrew Marr demanded answers from Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom. Xiaoming accused “so-called Western intelligence agencies” of making “false accusations against China.” The population of Xinjiang had doubled in 40 years, he said, which clearly proved that “ethnic cleansing” and “so-called forced abortions” had not occurred. Marr, unconvinced, retorted, “According to your own local government statistics, the population growth in Uighur jurisdictions in that area has fallen by 84 percent between 2015 and 2018. 84 percent.”How can that be so? A recent report by the Associated Press, compiling “government statistics, state documents and interviews with 30 ex-detainees, family members and a former detention camp instructor” gives an idea.Over the past four years, the Chinese government has spent tens of millions of dollars to violently hijack the functioning reproductive systems of minority women. In 2017, according to official directives uncovered by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, government officials backed by armed law-enforcement officers were instructed to “leave no blind spots,” “contain illegal births and lower fertility rates,” “test all who need to be tested,” and “detect and deal with those who violate policies early.”The AP report found that “having too many children” is a “major reason people are sent to detention camps,” that “parents of three or more [children] are ripped away from their families unless they can pay huge fines,” and that “police raid homes, terrifying parents as they search for hidden children.” The report also contains shocking witness testimony: * “Tursunay Ziyawudun said she was injected until she stopped having her period, and kicked repeatedly in the lower stomach during interrogations. She now can’t have children and often doubles over in pain, bleeding from her womb.” * “Gulbahar Jelilova confirmed that detainees in her camp were forced to abort their children. She also saw a new mother, still leaking breast milk, who did not know what had happened to her infant. And she met doctors and medical students who were detained for helping Uighurs dodge the system and give birth at home.” * Gulzia Mogdia was also forced to have an abortion when she became pregnant with her third child. “Medics inserted an electric vacuum into her womb and sucked her fetus out of her body,” after which she was “taken home and told to rest, as [officials] planned to take her to a camp.”Some survivors recalled being suddenly “force-fed birth control pills” and “injected with fluids.” One had to recite her crimes (“I gave birth to too many children”) whenever officials came near her cell. Another remembered that a pregnant woman in her camp’s “class” had suddenly disappeared.In The Prince of Egypt, when Moses demands an explanation, Pharaoh retorts that the victims were “only slaves.” Since slavery doesn’t go down so well any more in the West, the Chinese government justifies its actions as a means of preventing terrorism, which is likewise blatant nonsense. These are victims of the state: innocent women and children, the most vulnerable members of an already vulnerable minority. As for the men, one Uighur, Abdushukur Umar, was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for the crime of having seven children. Umar’s cousin, who fled China, said that Umar “spent all his time taking care of his family, he never took part in any political movements.”In the past, Westerners have been too squeamish to issue a full-throated condemnation of China’s inhumane population policies. During the era of the so-called one-child policy, sex-screening technology meant widespread gendercide, since baby girls were seen as less valuable. The Nobel economist Amartya Sen estimated that the policy resulted in 100 million aborted girls. Where was the feminist outcry then?For that matter, where is the outcry now? China’s treatment of the Uighurs is reminiscent of the kind of abuse fictionalized in The Handmaid’s Tale, yet even the AP report is replete with Western euphemisms, such as involuntary “birth control” and “population control.” Get into the details and what the Egyptians did to the Israelites almost seems tame by comparison. Men and women of conscience in the West have a duty to call this out for what it is -- evil.

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