Link Roundup February + March 2020

[wepon]

Joe Biden tells crowd ‘I’m a candidate for the United States Senate’ in confused campaign speech

Earlier this month, he mistakenly referred to New Hampshire as Nevada on the night of the state’s first-in-the-nation primary.

Health Officials Warn Americans To Plan For The Spread Of Coronavirus In U.S.

Hand-washing with soap and water continues to be a top recommendation to protect against the virus, since the abrasiveness of soap helps remove infectious particles from the hands. Experts say that commonly worn surgical masks aren't very effective protection. A heavy-duty mask called an N95 respirator is considerably better protection, but it is uncomfortable to wear and can make breathing more difficult.

Greyhound to stop allowing immigration checks on buses

Greyhound’s announcement comes after a Border Patrol memo was leaked saying that agents cannot board private buses without the company’s consent. Greyhound had previously said it had no choice but to allow warrantless searches under federal law.

Pro-Trump Republican aiming to unseat Ilhan Omar charged with felony theft

Police and court records said a warrant was put out for Stella’s re-arrest for alleged contempt of court on 4 April, after she failed to show up for a court hearing. Officers in nearby Bloomington then arrested Stella on 28 April after she was allegedly seen by security staff at a Cub Foods grocery store stealing a bottle of tick spray for cats, and placing other items “under her purse so that they could not be seen”.

Michael Bloomberg's Transphobic Remarks Illustrate How Democrats View Trans People as a Political Football

Then, yesterday, BuzzFeed News reported on similar comments Bloomberg made in 2019. Reporter Dominic Holden found that, during a business development forum hosted in Manhattan in March of last year, Bloomberg said in a now-unavailable YouTube video [emphasis added], “If your conversation during a presidential election is about some guy wearing a dress and whether he, she, or it can go to the locker room with their daughter, that’s not a winning formula for most people.”

Trump contradicts past denials, admits sending Giuliani to Ukraine

Emboldened after his impeachment acquittal, President Donald Trump now openly admits to sending his attorney Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine to find damaging information about his political opponents, even though he strongly denied it during the impeachment inquiry. The reversal came Thursday in a podcast interview Trump did with journalist Geraldo Rivera, who asked, "Was it strange to send Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine, your personal lawyer? Are you sorry you did that?" Trump responded, "No, not at all," and praised Giuliani's role as a "crime fighter."

Kickstarter Hired a Law Firm That Advertises 'Maintaining a Union-Free Workplace'

According to an anonymous source with knowledge of the meetings and resumes on Duane Morris' website, Kickstarter management met with attorneys with expertise specifically in these areas. Motherboard granted the source anonymity because they feared retaliation. When asked about its relationship with Duane Morris, Kickstarter confirmed that it had retained the firm’s services, but said it could not go into much detail due to the “media blackout” agreement struck between the union and management in December.

Kickstarter workers vote to form first union in tech industry

Kickstarter United will now be formally recognized by the management after a vote held by the National Labor Relations Board, in which workers voted 36 to 47 in favor of unionizing. It is the first union comprised of white-collar, full-time employees in the technology industry.

What you need to know about the Coastal GasLink pipeline conflict

The Prime Minister's Office and the office of Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett referred questions to Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan's office. O'Regan's office said in an emailed statement that the issue was up to the province to deal with.

Federal Judge Reverses Conviction of Border Volunteers, Challenging Government’s “Gruesome Logic”

The remains of roughly 3,000 migrants have been recovered in Pima County alone since 2000. Experts are confident that the true death toll is much higher. Situated at the heart of the Sonoran Desert, the Cabeza Prieta refuge is one of the deadliest spaces in the region. As Márquez made clear in her decision, the No More Deaths volunteers admitted to the factual claims in the case: that they left aid supplies in “an area of desert wilderness where people frequently die of dehydration and exposure.” But in appealing their convictions, Márquez went on to write, the defendants had successfully argued that their actions — imbued “with the avowed goal of mitigating death and suffering” — were protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA.

Rand Paul reads alleged whistleblower's name on Senate floor

Paul then read his question, while standing next to a sign that that reiterated the question. Paul submitted a question during last week's two-day question-and-answer period that included the name of the alleged whistleblower. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who has been presiding over the impeachment trial, had privately indicated to Republicans that he would not read aloud Paul's question.

The Past and the Future of the Earth’s Oldest Trees

In 1957, Edmund Schulman, a researcher from the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, in Tucson, determined that this eccentric senior was older than any other tree on earth which had been dated. He named it Methuselah. The next year, when the United States Forest Service established the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, Methuselah bore an identifying marker. The sign was soon removed, however, because tourists were extracting souvenirs. The tree’s location is now known only to scientists, forest rangers, and a few enthusiasts. This anonymity is just as well, since there are almost certainly Great Basin bristlecones that are yet older. A nearby tree appears to have been born about three hundred years earlier. Even more ancient trees are rumored to exist elsewhere in the Whites.

Even Though He Is Revered Today, MLK Was Widely Disliked by the American Public When He Was Killed

While still involved in the Scripto affair, King sat for a Playboy interview with Alex Haley, in which he endorsed a massive federal aid program for blacks. Its whopping $50 billion price tag was, he pointed out, less than annual U.S. spending for defense. Such an expenditure, he argued, would be more than justified in “a spectacular decline” in “school dropouts, family breakups, crime rates, illegitimacy, swollen relief rolls, rioting, and other social evils.” Many poor whites were “in the very same boat with the Negro,” he added, and if they could be persuaded to join forces with blacks, they could form “a grand alliance” and “exert massive pressure on the Government to get jobs for all.”

Doctors can't use COVID-19 antibodies from gay men or anyone taking PrEP

The restrictions date to 1983, during the height of the AIDS crisis, when the federal government instituted a lifetime ban on blood donations by any man who had ever had sex with another man. The rule, intended to keep HIV out of the blood supply, was replaced in 2015 with a regulation that requires a year of abstinence to donate blood.

FDA eases restrictions on gay blood donors amid 'urgent need'

The new guidelines reduce the donation deferral period for sexually active gay and bisexual men from 12 months to three, meaning these otherwise healthy men will now have to abstain from same-sex sexual activity for 90 days before they are eligible to donate blood. Other 12-month deferral periods have also been shortened under the new guidelines, including those for people who have traveled to areas with certain endemic diseases, those who have engaged in injection drug use and people who have participated in commercial sex work.

Trump administration edits national stockpile website a day after it contradicted Jared Kushner

The stockpile has run low this week. The New York Times also reported this week that thousands of ventilators stockpiled by the federal government were not functional because the Trump administration had allowed a maintenance contract to lapse.

The government is distributing emergency Covid-19 supplies. But some states are losing out.

In Massachusetts, where there are major outbreaks around Boston and in the state’s western Berkshire County, only 17 percent of requested resources have been shipped out. Maine has received about 5 percent of what it has requested, and Colorado has received about a day’s worth of supplies, according to the Post. On Sunday, Michigan’s Gov. Gretchen Whitmer appeared on Meet the Press to say that her state received 112,000 masks from the national stockpile Saturday, but that even with that number, “We’re going to be in dire straits again in a matter of days.” President Donald Trump has been critical of Whitmer’s requests for aid, and her criticism of his administration’s response, referring to her as “the woman in Michigan.” By contrast, he has praised Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, where Trump resides, and that state has received multiple shipments of everything it has requested, and is awaiting another, according to FEMA data.

Massachusetts Governor Says He's Being Outbid by Federal Government For Coronavirus Supplies, Despite Trump Telling Govs to Get Their Own

Trump said at a coronavirus task force press briefing on Monday that state governments should attempt to purchase PPE such as face masks, respirators and ventilators "on their own" if it means they can receive the equipment faster. "If [governors] can get them faster by getting them on their own," Trump told reporters, "In other words, go through a supply chain they may have. Because the governors—you know, during normal times, the governors buy a lot of things not necessarily through federal government." Purchasing PPE through the federal government would be a "longer process" than utilizing existing supply chains, according to Trump.

Trump puts onus on states to secure medical equipment, but one governor says they're losing orders to the feds

"We took very seriously the push that you made previously on one of these calls that we should not just rely on the stockpile, and that we should go out and buy stuff and put in orders and try to create pressure on manufacturers and distributors," Baker said. "And I've gotta tell you that on three big orders, we lost to the feds. So my question is, could you give some of these guys some guidance that says, you know, if states are doing what the feds want and trying to create their own supply chain on this, that people should be responsive to that? Because I've got a feeling that if someone has a chance to sell to you or a chance to sell to me, I'm going to lose every one of those." "All right, Charlie, well thank you very much," Mr. Trump said, after chuckling slightly. "Well, we do like you going out seeing what you can get if you can get it faster. And price is always a component of that, also. And maybe that's what you lost to the feds — I'll tell you that's probably why."

NYPD’s Aggressive Policing Risks Spreading the Coronavirus

The woman was taken to the local precinct and then to central booking, where she shared a cell with two dozen other women for the next 36 hours. Only women who already had masks when they were arrested were allowed to keep them. There was no soap and the cell was dirty, but at one point an officer went around distributing drops of hand sanitizer to the women held there. “They got us all bunched up in one cell,” the woman said. “Nobody gave us no tissues. Regular jail stuff. Once you go in there they are going to treat you like the scum of the earth.” The woman was ultimately released on Sunday morning — but her employer has not allowed her back to work because of fears she was exposed to the virus while in detention.

NYC hospitals scramble to control their image as workers share horrors from the inside

Meanwhile health care workers on a coronavirus task force at Mount Sinai said they are demanding “zero tolerance of employer retaliation or threats against those who are speaking up,” in a letter distributed among staffers and obtained by POLITICO. “Just last week, two nurses in NYC died,” the letter states. “We have friends and colleagues who are admitted and in the ICUs. Some hospitals are down 30-40% of their staff due to infection and quarantine. The assumption, which is quickly becoming a reality, is that we will all be exposed.”

Early Data Shows African Americans Have Contracted and Died of Coronavirus at an Alarming Rate

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracks virulent outbreaks and typically releases detailed data that includes information about the age, race and location of the people affected. For the coronavirus pandemic, the CDC has released location and age data, but it has been silent on race. The CDC did not respond to ProPublica’s request for race data related to the coronavirus or answer questions about whether they were collecting it at all.

Some Amazon Employees With Fevers Are Being Sent Home Without Pay

Amazon “is forcing employees to test their coworkers for fever because no one would volunteer to do this,” an employee in Edison, New Jersey, who requested anonymity, told BuzzFeed News. “All people who are tested are less than 6 feet between tester and the employee being tested.” He said Amazon is providing “no additional protections for testers.” Amazon did not immediately respond to request for comment on its fever screening procedures. Meanwhile, he said that despite the concerns he and others have voiced, Amazon still isn’t disinfecting individual work stations.

Leaked Amazon Memo Details Plan to Smear Fired Warehouse Organizer: ‘He’s Not Smart or Articulate’

“He’s not smart, or articulate, and to the extent the press wants to focus on us versus him, we will be in a much stronger PR position than simply explaining for the umpteenth time how we’re trying to protect workers,” wrote Amazon General Counsel David Zapolsky in notes from the meeting forwarded widely in the company. The discussion took place at a daily meeting, which included CEO Jeff Bezos, to update each other on the coronavirus situation.

The evidence for everyone wearing masks, explained

When it comes to traditional medical masks, we still need to address a supply shortage for doctors, nurses, and other health care workers before people buy their own masks. A big public run on masks could make an already critical shortage of masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) for doctors and nurses even worse. The shortage doesn’t just hurt health care workers, but all of us — because we need as many doctors and nurses as possible to stay healthy so they can treat and save people who are sick, not just with Covid-19 but with other illnesses too.

Whole Foods Employees Are Staging a Nationwide 'Sick-Out'

Whole Foods employees are planning to strike on Tuesday to protest the lack of protections offered to workers during the coronavirus pandemic—the first national collective action led by workers at the company since it was founded in 1980. On March 31, Whole Foods employees will call in sick to demand paid leave for all workers who stay home or self-quarantine during the crisis, free coronavirus testing for all employees, and hazard pay of double the current hourly wage for employees who show up to work during the pandemic.

Zoom Meetings Aren’t End-to-End Encrypted, Despite Misleading Marketing

Still, Zoom offers reliability, ease of use, and at least one very important security assurance: As long as you make sure everyone in a Zoom meeting connects using “computer audio” instead of calling in on a phone, the meeting is secured with end-to-end encryption, at least according to Zoom’s website, its security white paper, and the user interface within the app. But despite this misleading marketing, the service actually does not support end-to-end encryption for video and audio content, at least as the term is commonly understood. Instead it offers what is usually called transport encryption, explained further below.

Las Vegas homeless people are sleeping in a parking lot -- six feet apart

In Las Vegas, the Catholic Charities' homeless shelter has long served as a facility for people in need of accommodations. But after one homeless man who used the facility tested positive for coronavirus last week, the shelter was forced to close, leaving 500 homeless people scrambling for a new place to stay. Even Courtyard Homeless Resource Center, a nearby open-air facility, was unable to take in more people as it was almost at capacity.

The Contrarian Coronavirus Theory That Informed the Trump Administration

By the way, Bill Gates agrees with me, I’m happy to say.

What does he agree with you on?

He thinks you have to relax the economic, lockdown restrictions. They are too severe.

Just to clarify, this is from a Vox Recode article, “Bill Gates rebuked proposals, floated over the last two days by leaders like Donald Trump, to reopen the global economy despite the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak, saying that this approach would be ‘very irresponsible.’ ” Gates said, “There really is no middle ground, and it’s very tough to say to people, ‘Hey, keep going to restaurants, go buy new houses, ignore the pile of bodies over in the corner. We want you to keep spending because maybe there’s a politician who thinks GDP growth is all that counts.’ It’s very irresponsible for someone to suggest we can have the best of both worlds.”

I misread him then. Whatever Mr. Gates said, that’s fine. That strikes me as more populist than I am.

Subway shop owner tries to explain coronavirus medical-mask promotion amid outrage: ‘We’re just struggling’

“Free Medical Mask to protect you and your kids,” it reads, next to a stock image of someone wearing a medical-looking gown and cap. “Buy any 2 regular Sandwiches and get 1 FREE Mask.”

Citing coronavirus, EPA suspends enforcement of environmental laws

The oil and gas industries were among those seeking relaxation of environmental and public health enforcement, and cited potential staffing problems due to illness. The EPA’s decision Thursday was sweeping, forgoing fines or other civil penalties for companies that failed to monitor, report or meet some other requirements for releasing hazardous pollutants. The move was the latest, and one of the broadest, regulation-easing moves by the EPA, which is seeking to roll back dozens of regulations as part of President Trump’s purge of rules that the administration sees as unfriendly to business. Civil and criminal enforcement of polluters under the administration has fallen sharply.

EPA suspends enforcement of environmental laws amid coronavirus

The temporary policy, for which the EPA has set no end date, would allow any number of industries to skirt environmental laws, with the agency saying it will not “seek penalties for noncompliance with routine monitoring and reporting obligations.”

Secretary Of Interior Orders Mashpee Wampanoag Reservation 'Disestablished,' Tribe Says

In an email to the leadership of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, Jean-Luc Pierite, head of the North American Indian Center of Boston, called the federal government's action an existential crisis for all tribes federally recognized after 1934. (The Cape Cod-based Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe gained federal recognition in 2007.) The department's move without a court order signals that reservations across the United States could be taken out of trust at the discretion of the secretary of the interior, Pierite said.

Instacart’s Gig Workers Are Planning a Massive, Nationwide Strike

On Monday, workers say they will refuse to accept orders until Instacart provides hazard pay of an additional $5 an order, free safety gear (hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, and soap) to workers, and expands its paid sick leave to include workers with pre-existing conditions who have been advised by their doctors not to work at this time. Workers say the strike will last until Instacart agrees to these terms.

Senator says White House turned down emergency coronavirus funding in early February

On Feb. 5, Murphy tweeted: “Just left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus. Bottom line: they aren't taking this seriously enough. Notably, no request for ANY emergency funding, which is a big mistake. Local health systems need supplies, training, screening staff etc. And they need it now.”

For the first time since 9/11, NYC has set up makeshift morgues. This time, it's in anticipation of coronavirus deaths

Refrigerated trailers to be used as makeshift morgues hummed outside two hospitals on Thursday as New York City deals with the surging death count in the epicenter of the nation's coronavirus pandemic. The last time New York took such drastic measures was after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when the city medical examiner's office was tasked with identifying tens of thousands of body parts from the 2,753 people killed in the World Trade Center collapse.

Doctors And Nurses Say More People Are Dying Of COVID-19 In The US Than We Know

In California, one ER doctor who works at multiple hospitals in a hard-hit county told BuzzFeed News, “those medical records aren't being audited by anyone at the state and local level currently and some people aren’t even testing those people who are dead.” “We just don't know. The numbers are grossly underreported. I know for a fact that we’ve had three deaths in one county where only one is listed on the website,” the doctor said.

$1,200 stimulus checks for all? What to know about the US coronavirus bailout

There has been some compromise. Republicans agreed to some major changes from their original bill. More money will be given to large companies in hard-hit industries, but Democrats have also pushed for strict oversight of the loans. More aid will also be given to the healthcare sector and more funds will be earmarked for unemployment insurance after pushes from Democrats.

With Abortion Restrictions On The Rise, Some Women Induce Their Own

Susan Yanow, with the international reproductive advocacy group Women Help Women, is training activists from around the country to provide information about self-induced abortion. She said one project that focuses on self-induced abortion has seen its Web traffic spike in the past couple of years, especially around the time of the confirmation of President's Trump's most recent Supreme Court nominee. "There was a huge jump during the Kavanaugh hearings, when I think people started to really realize that access to clinic-based abortion might be going away in many places," Yanow said. "There has been steady growth even since last summer, when those hearings were taking place."

Coronavirus lifestyles of the rich and famous: how the 1% are coping

Quarantine may prove too much for wealthy couples forced to stay home and deal with intimacy issues rarely encountered by the jet set. Mitchell Moss, who teaches urban policy and planning at New York University, told Bloomberg News: “This is going to destroy the marriages of the rich … All these husbands and wives who travel will now have to spend time with the person they’re married to.”

Exclusive: Amazon Confirms First Known Coronavirus Case in an American Warehouse

According to the text, which was sent by a member of a workers’ group called Amazonians United, management sent day-shift workers home in order to disinfect the sorting facility, known as DBK1. Jonathan Bailey, an employee who sorts packages at the Queens facility, told me that workers were not notified of the positive case by Amazon management; he learned of it from other employees. He said workers believed that they were still expected to report for their night shift. In an email to The Atlantic, Amazon denied this, saying that it notified all associates about the positive test, and that workers were not expected to come in for their night shift.

Trump, in Tweet, Says He’s Considering Plan That Would Kill a Lot of People

Even more disconcerting, one of the only bright spots in this administration has been Dr. Anthony Fauci, the immunologist who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci has spoken truth to power and directly contradicted the president’s statements about coronavirus, but his competence may cost him. Trump has begun to freeze Fauci out, openly saying he “disagrees” with him on things like whether malaria drugs could be effective against coronavirus. Fauci even joked in a recent interview, “To my knowledge, I haven’t been fired.”

Oakland Hospital Took in Coronavirus Cruise Patients. Now, Low on Supplies, Nurses Asked to Reuse Disposable Masks.

Nurses at an Oakland, California, hospital caring for patients being tested for Covid-19 received instructions this week to reuse disposable medical equipment, including masks and eye protection. The hospital, Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center, issued guidelines to nurses explaining how to clean single-use supplies to serve multiple patients during one shift.

Here’s Why The Coronavirus Testing In The US Is So Far Behind

The CDC supplied three of these primers with each test. One primer proved unreliable for nearly every lab that tried it, as did a second one in some big state public health labs, notably New York’s. Despite these failures, the CDC and FDA did not give other labs permission to make their own tests until the end of February, losing a month of testing time.

Naica's crystal caves hold long-dormant life

"Other people have made longer-term claims for the antiquity of organisms that were still alive, but in this case these organisms are all very extraordinary - they are not very closely related to anything in the known genetic databases," said Dr Penelope Boston.

This Minecraft Library Provides a Platform for Censored Journalists

Spearheaded by Reporters Without Borders and built by BlockWorks and DDB Berlin, The Uncensored Library is a place you can visit within Minecraft to read the works of censored journalists from Russia, Mexico, Egypt, Vietnam, and Saudi Arabia. Unlike news websites or personal blogs, Minecraft is still accessible in countries that tightly control what is reported about their governments, and Reporters Without Borders is now using this loophole to bypass internet censorship.

The Metropolitan Opera Will Stream Operas for Free in Wake of Coronavirus

Have you always thought that you could get really into opera if it were more easily accessible? Well, thanks to the coronavirus, now is your chance. OperaWire has reported that the Metropolitan Opera will host “Nightly Met Opera Streams” on its official website in an attempt to continue providing opera to its audience members. “We’d like to provide some grand opera solace to opera lovers in these extraordinarily difficult times,” said Met general manager Peter Gelb in a press release. “Every night, we’ll be offering a different complete operatic gem from our collection of HD presentations from the past 14 years.”

Coronavirus crisis exposes years of failure

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Tuesday he would not close his state's beaches to spring break revelers, while Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) said on a St. Louis radio show that there was little government could do to fix things, a day before he declared a state of emergency and five days before he ordered schools and casinos to close.

Coronavirus divides tech workers into the 'worthy' and 'unworthy' sick

The day before, Google had asked all its North American employees to begin working from home due to the coronavirus – a policy that has since been expanded to the rest of its global workforce. But Borden, a triage analyst who has worked for Google for about four years, is one of the approximately 135,000 people who make up Google’s “extended workforce”: temps and subcontractors who perform work for, but are not technically employed by, the $830bn company. And though Borden and his co-workers perform computer-based tasks that could just as easily be completed from home as those of other technical workers, Google does not allow them to access their work from home.

Coronavirus: Wuhan doctor speaks out against authorities

The staff were forbidden from passing messages or images related to the virus, she said. All Ai could do was ask her staff to wear protective clothing and masks – even as hospital authorities told them not to. She told her department to wear protective jackets under their doctor coats.

Super-rich jet off to disaster bunkers amid coronavirus outbreak

The world’s richest people are chartering private jets to set off for holiday homes or specially prepared disaster bunkers in countries that, so far, appear to have avoided the worst of the Covid-19 outbreak. Many are understood to be taking personal doctors or nurses on their flights to treat them and their families in the event that they become infected. The wealthy are also besieging doctors in private clinics in Harley Street, London, and across the world, demanding private coronavirus tests.

Louisiana Sodomy Sting: How Invalidated Sex Laws Still Lead to Arrests

Oops, our bad. But it was on the books! Such was the response, essentially, of the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office, after The Advocate newspaper reported on Sunday that at least 12 men had been arrested since 2011 under a sodomy law invalidated by the Supreme Court a decade ago. Most of these men were arrested after being approached by a male undercover cop at a public park and agreeing to have sex at a private residence. No money changed hands.

DOJ Wants to Suspend Certain Constitutional Rights During Coronavirus Emergency

But the Constitution grants citizens habeas corpus, which gives arrestees the right to appear in front of a judge and ask to be released before trial. Enacting legislation like the DOJ wants would essentially suspend habeas corpus indefinitely until the emergency ended. Further, DOJ asked Congress to suspend the statute of limitations on criminal investigations and civil proceedings during the emergency until a year after it ended.

Want to do better science? Admit you’re not objective

The UCL inquiry was prompted in part by 2018 revelations that a now-former honorary fellow had been booking meeting space for secretive conferences discussing race and eugenics. Many people — even members of the inquiry committee — are concerned that the investigation did not go far enough in connecting the pseudoscience of the past with ongoing attempts to keep that pseudoscience alive. In the same month that UCL released its report, news broke that Dominic Cummings, a self-proclaimed science enthusiast and special adviser to the UK prime minister, had hired an aide who espouses eugenicist views. Now resigned, Andrew Sabisky had suggested compulsory contraception to halt the growth of a “permanent underclass”.

GameStop Instructs Employees to Ignore Law Enforcement And Not Shut Down

“Due to the products we carry that enable and enhance our customers’ experience in working from home,” reads the memo, “we believe GameStop is classified as essential retail and therefore is able to remain open during this time. We have received reports of local authorities visiting stores in an attempt to enforce closure despite our classification. Store managers are approved to provide the document linked below to law enforcement as needed.”

Weeks Before Virus Panic, Intelligence Chairman Privately Raised Alarm, Sold Stocks

"It's going to disappear. One day, it's like a miracle. It will disappear," the president said then, before adding, "it could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. We'll see what happens." On that same day, Burr attended a luncheon held at a social club called the Capitol Hill Club. And he delivered a much more alarming message. "There's one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history," he said, according to a secret recording of the remarks obtained by NPR. "It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic."

Senator Dumped Up to $1.7 Million of Stock After Reassuring Public About Coronavirus Preparedness

Soon after he offered public assurances that the government was ready to battle the coronavirus, the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $628,000 and $1.72 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 33 separate transactions.

Finding Asexuality in the Archives

At one feminist conference in 1973, women and nonbinary people were asked to wear a label choosing one of several identities: “Straight, Lesbian, Gay, Butch, Femm, Asexual, Anti-sexual, ?, other, etc.” Asexual researchers recently located a photo from a similar conference in which Barnard College activists asked attendees to “choose your own label instead of having someone do it for you.” Among the listed options was “asexual.”

How the drug industry got its way on the coronavirus

Industry lobbyists successfully blocked attempts this week to include language in the $8.3 billion emergency coronavirus spending bill that would have threatened intellectual property rights for any vaccines and treatments the government decides are priced unfairly.

California orders insurers to waive out-of-pocket costs for coronavirus testing

Kristine Grow, speaking for the America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, said she “could not speak to the uninsured population. But for people who have health insurance coverage with high deductibles, they should not hesitate to seek treatment because of concerns about costs.”

Coronavirus testing is free, but the hospital trip may set you back thousands. One graphic breaks down potential costs.

Consider Miami resident Osmel Martinez Azcue, as reported by The Miami Herald's Ben Conarck. He checked himself into the hospital for flu-like symptoms after arriving back in the US from a work trip to China, concerned he had been exposed to the novel coronavirus. He asked to be first tested for the flu before getting a CT scan to screen for coronavirus because of his limited insurance plan, Conarck wrote. He did have the flu, which meant no further testing for coronavirus, but he told Conarck that the whole hospital visit cost $3,270, according to a notice from his insurance company.

The Problem With Telling Sick Workers to Stay Home

For all but the independently wealthy in America, the best-case scenario for getting sick is being a person with good health insurance, paid time off, and a reasonable boss who won’t penalize you for taking a few sick days or working from home. For millions of the country’s workers, such a scenario is a nearly inconceivable luxury. “With more than a third of Americans in jobs that offer no sick leave at all, many unfortunately cannot afford to take any days off when they are feeling sick,” Robyn Gershon, an epidemiology professor at the NYU School of Global Public Health, wrote in an email. “People who do not (or cannot) stay home when ill do present a risk to others.” On this count, the United States is a global anomaly, one of only a handful of countries that doesn’t guarantee its workers paid leave of any kind. These jobs are also the kind least likely to supply workers with health insurance, making it difficult for millions of people to get medical proof that they can’t go to work.

This Small Company Is Turning Utah Into a Surveillance Panopticon

Banjo will, again, direct police to the anomalies and emergency events it detects in real time. Even if all names are stripped from the data, there will be real people at the other end. Maybe that person will be a kidnapper or mass shooter. Maybe it will be a truant student, or a drug user, or a protester. These people will, inevitably, be forced into potentially dangerous interactions with the police.

Some NYPD officers tip each other off when body cameras are on: watchdog report

During its investigation, CCRB claims that NYPD officers in videos it reviewed used phrases like "I went Hollywood," "Green," "We're live," and "I'm hot" to warn fellow officers that their BWCs were on and recording. "Officers also used non-verbal cues, such as tapping motions, shoulder brushing, and gesturing to indicate whether their cameras were turned on or off," the CCRB said in its investigation report released Thursday, that focused on the impact of police body-worn cameras from May 2017 to June 2019.

The U.S. Military Is Monitoring Interfaith Group Opposed to Child Separation, Leaked Document Reveals

The first event of interest is described as “anti-border wall extremists” who “made threats to law enforcement and border wall construction projects.” “The extremists belong to a known anti-border wall group alleged to have direct action camps in the McAllen, TX area,” the document states. The group in reference appears to have been the Rio Bravo Action Camp, a training camp hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America’s Rio Grande Valley Chapter, the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, along with several activist groups, according to its website. The action camp’s training appears to focus on nonviolent forms of resistance, including civil disobedience and street protests.