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Friday, July 31, 2020
What’s on TV Saturday: ‘Seeing America With Megan Rapinoe’ and ‘The Last Narc’
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Quotation of the Day: China Wields Its Security Law to Crush Hong Kong Dissent
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Kodak’s chief executive was given stock options. Then the share price spiked 1,000 percent.
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New top story from Time: President Trump Says He Will Act to Ban TikTok in the U.S. as Soon as Saturday
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump said he will take action as soon as Saturday to ban TikTok, a popular Chinese-owned video app that has been a source of national security and censorship concerns.
Trump’s comments came after published reports that the administration is planning to order China’s ByteDance to sell TikTok. There were also reports Friday that software giant Microsoft is in talks to buy the app.
“As far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States,” Trump told reporters Friday on Air Force One as he returned from Florida.
Trump said he could use emergency economic powers or an executive order to enforce the action, insisting, “I have that authority.” He added, “It’s going to be signed tomorrow.”
Reports by Bloomberg News and the Wall Street Journal citing anonymous sources said the administration could soon announce a decision ordering ByteDance to divest its ownership in TikTok.
There have been reports of U.S. tech giants and financial firms being interested in buying or investing in TikTok as the Trump administration sets its sights on the app. The New York Times and Fox Business, citing an unidentified source, reported Friday that Microsoft is in talks to buy TikTok. Microsoft declined to comment.
TikTok issued a statement Friday saying that, “While we do not comment on rumors or speculation, we are confident in the long-term success of TikTok.”
ByteDance launched TikTok in 2017, then bought Musical.ly, a video service popular with teens in the U.S. and Europe, and combined the two. A twin service, Douyin, is available for Chinese users.
TikTok’s fun, goofy videos and ease of use has made it immensely popular, and U.S. tech giants like Facebook and Snapchat see it as a competitive threat. It has said it has tens of millions of U.S. users and hundreds of millions globally.
But its Chinese ownership has raised concerns about the censorship of videos, including those critical of the Chinese government, and the potential for sharing user data with Chinese officials.
TikTok maintains it doesn’t censor videos based on topics sensitive to China and it would not give the Chinese government access to U.S. user data even if asked. The company has hired a U.S. CEO, a former top Disney executive, in an attempt to distance itself from its Chinese ownership.
U.S. national-security officials have been reviewing the Musical.ly acquisition in recent months, while U.S. armed forces have banned their employees from installing TikTok on government-issued phones. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier this month that the U.S. was considering banning TikTok.
These national-security worries parallel a broader U.S. security crackdown on Chinese companies, including telecom providers Huawei and ZTE. The Trump administration has ordered that the U.S. stop funding equipment from those providers in U.S. networks. It has also tried to steer allies away from Huawei because of worries about the Chinese government’s access to data, which the companies have denied it has.
The Trump administration has stepped in before to block or dissolve deals on national-security concerns, including stopping Singapore’s Broadcom from its $117 billion bid for U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm in 2018 in an effort to help retain U.S. leadership in the telecom space. It also told China’s Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. to sell off its 2016 purchase of gay dating app Grindr.
Other countries are also taking action against TikTok. India this month banned dozens of Chinese apps, including TikTok, citing privacy concerns, amid tensions between the countries.
___
Associated Press writers Kevin Freking aboard Air Force One and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.
Un estudio revela que los niños podrían portar altos niveles de coronavirus
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Canada’s Key Role in Creating a Once Awaited Vaccine
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Federal Agents Don’t Need Army Fatigues
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Kodak’s chief executive got stock options. The next day, the share price spiked 1,000 percent.
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Court Frees Michigan Teen Who Was Held for Skipping Online Schoolwork
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A Better Year for Trump’s Family Business (Last Year, That Is)
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The Less Impossible Israeli-Palestinian Peace
By BY ROGER COHEN from NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/3jTqktX
White House and Congress Clash on Relief Plan as Jobless Aid Expires
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Trump’s Coronavirus Testing Chief Concedes a Lag in Test Results
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New top story from Time: China Says It Has Completed a Navigation Network That Could Rival the U.S. GPS
(BEIJING) — China is celebrating the completion of its BeiDou Navigation Satellite System that could rival the U.S. Global Positioning System and significantly boost China’s security and geopolitical clout.
President Xi Jinping, the leader of the ruling Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army, officially commissioned the system Friday at a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
That followed a declaration that the 55th and final geostationary satellite in the constellation launched June 23 was operating after having completed all tests.
The satellite is part of the third iteration of the Beidou system known as BDS-3, which began providing navigation services in 2018 to countries taking part in China’s sprawling “Belt and Road” infrastructure initiative along with others.
As well as being a navigation aid with an extremely high degree of accuracy, the system offers short message communication of up to 1,200 Chinese characters and the ability to transmit images.
While China says it seeks cooperation with other satellite navigation systems, Beidou could ultimately compete against GPS, Russia’s GLONASS and the European Union’s Galileo networks. That’s similar to how Chinese mobile phone makers and other producers of technically sophisticated hardware have taken on their foreign rivals.
Among the chief advantages for China is the ability to replace GPS for guiding its missiles, especially important now amid rising tensions with Washington.
It also stands to raise China’s economic and political leverage over nations adopting the system, ensuring that they line up behind China’s position on Taiwan, Tibet the South China Sea and other sensitive matters or risk losing their access.
China’s space program has advanced rapidly since becoming only the third country to fly a crewed mission in 2003 and the country this month launched an orbiter, lander and rover to Mars. If successful, it would make China the only other country besides the U.S. to land on Mars.
China has also constructed an experimental space station and sent a pair of rovers to the surface of the moon. Future plans call for a fully functioning permanent space station and a possible crewed flight to the moon.
The program has suffered some setbacks, including launch failures, and has had limited cooperation with other countries’ space efforts, in part because of U.S. objections to its close connections to the Chinese military.
New top story from Time: Actor Bryan Cranston Says He Caught COVID-19 and Is Now Donating His Plasma
(LOS ANGELES) — Actor Bryan Cranston said he contracted and recovered from COVID-19 and has donated his plasma because it contains antibodies.
The actor best known for playing Walter White on AMC’s “Breaking Bad” made the announcement in a video posted to Instagram on Thursday.
Cranston, 64, did not say exactly when he got infected with the new coronavirus, but indicated that it was “quite early on” in the pandemic. He had mild symptoms including a slight headache, tightness in his chest and loss of taste and smell, according to the post.
“I was pretty strict in adhering to the protocols and still… I contracted the virus,” he wrote.
Cranston recorded himself inside UCLA Blood & Platelet Center in Los Angeles making the plasma donation. He said the process took about an hour, during which he watched “A Face in the Crowd” starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal.
Cranston urged his followers to wear a mask, wash their hands and practice social distancing.
Thursday, July 30, 2020
New top story from Time: Meet the New Zealand Politician Nicknamed ‘Crusher Collins’ Trying to Unseat Jacinda Ardern
She’s trying to topple a political superstar, but Judith Collins says she isn’t daunted.
The new leader of New Zealand’s opposition National Party — nicknamed “Crusher Collins” after her spell as a hard-line police minister — will need all her resolve to beat Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in the Sept. 19 election.
“It’s an extremely difficult job, and that’s why I’ve got it,” Collins, 61, said in an interview in her parliamentary office in Wellington. “I don’t fear much at all.”
National goes into the election campaign as the underdog after Ardern’s deft handling of the pandemic eliminated local transmission of the coronavirus in New Zealand, helping her Labour Party soar in the polls. National’s chances haven’t been helped by a string of scandals and internal ructions that saw the party appoint Collins as its third leader in two months.
Labour had 53% support in a 1News/Colmar Brunton poll published yesterday, while National mustered 32%.
Collins, who’s been likened to the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, has just seven weeks to rebuild public faith in her party and gain support with her pledge of sound economic management. While popular among conservatives, the question is whether she can win the center ground dominated by 40-year-old Ardern, whose brand of empathetic leadership has won worldwide admiration.
Collins is “a true-blue, traditional National Party right-winger,” said political analyst Bryce Edwards. “In some ways that means she’s more attractive because she’s a conviction politician and someone who seems more authentic.”
Closed Border
The election comes as New Zealand faces its biggest economic challenge in generations, with unemployment set to surge after the loss of international tourism, a key foreign exchange earner. The next government will need to create new industries and jobs, and find a way to safely reopen the border, which has been closed since the pandemic struck.
While Ardern has won plaudits for her crisis management, her center-left government has failed to deliver on some key policies, such as a pledge to build 100,000 new homes to ease a housing crisis. National, which oversaw eight consecutive years of growth and returned the budget to surplus before losing to Labour in 2017, says it is more capable of navigating the recovery.
Collins was born on a dairy farm in the Waikato region of New Zealand’s North Island. She became a lawyer, later specializing in tax, and ran several businesses with her husband before entering parliament in 2002.
It was as police minister that she got her “Crusher” moniker by cracking down on illegal street car racing and saying the vehicles should be sent to the compacter.
‘Dirty Politics’
Her political career hasn’t been free of controversy. In 2014 she faced claims of endorsing milk products made by a company that her husband was a director of when in China on government business. Later that year she resigned her portfolios after allegations she engaged in “dirty politics” by trying to undermine a public servant. An inquiry cleared her, and she returned as a minister in late 2015.
She unsuccessfully sought the party leadership twice, in 2016 and 2018, before finally winning her colleagues’ backing this month as the best bet to lead them out of turmoil.
Collins is flattered by comparisons with Thatcher, who she credits with getting the U.K. out of its economic quagmire in the 1980s, and says National can revitalize New Zealand in the post-Covid world. The party has already released some flagship policies, such as a NZ$31 billion ($20 billion) spend on roads and other infrastructure, and Collins says it’s working on a plan for safely re-opening the border.
Collins is firmly on the side of farmers in the debate over New Zealand’s reliance on dairy exports and the impact cows are having on the environment, such as degrading waterways and making rivers unswimmable.
“The only people who think it’s contentious don’t understand where the money comes from,” she said. The industry is the backbone of the economy, yet dairy farmers are treated “as though they were enemies of the state.”
Scandals
National is on the back foot after one of its politicians leaked confidential Covid-19 patient details, while another resigned amid allegations he sent pornographic images to young women.
“It was a couple of backbenchers, most people wouldn’t know who they are,” said Collins. “It’s not like it’s a minister,” she added in a dig at Ardern, who last week dismissed her Workplace Relations minister over a yearlong affair with a former staffer.
Despite the recent tawdry headlines, Collins insists she’ll run a clean campaign. She has a penchant for one-liners and a confident, easy communication style, and says she’s looking forward to debating the prime minister when the election campaign begins next month.
Ardern’s popularity could be an Achilles Heel, she says.
“One of the things that I’ve learnt in my time in politics is not to get too carried away with everything,” she said. “This is a great danger for the current prime minister -– lots of adulation and people telling you how good you are can very quickly become, let’s say, unhelpful.”
National won the biggest share of the vote in the 2017 election and only lost to Ardern because she was able to win the support of smaller parties.
New Zealand’s German-style electoral system lends itself to coalitions, and National will need partners if it is to regain the government benches.
It can rely on the small, libertarian ACT Party but has ruled out working with the populist New Zealand First. There is also little chance of National teaming up with the Greens, who are staunchly allied to Labour.
Collins concedes her path to power won’t be easy but says she’s relishing the contest ahead.
“It’s always difficult to remove and replace a first-term government of any ilk,” she said. “I love a challenge.”
New top story from Time: Senate Republicans Move to Force Vote on Unemployment Benefits Stopgap
Senate Republicans moved forward with a plan to set up votes on extending lapsed supplemental unemployment insurance with President Donald Trump’s endorsement, as talks on a broader pandemic relief package made little progress.
The GOP gambit is almost certain to fail in the face of opposition from Democrats in the Senate and House, who say the jobless measure must be part of comprehensive stimulus legislation. But it will give Senate Republicans a chance to go on the record as saying they tried to act as supplemental jobless aid for millions of Americans expired.
Hours after the Senate action, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer met with Schumer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows for the fourth time this week.
“On certain issues we made progress, on certain issues we’re still very far apart,” Mnuchin said after the meeting, adding that talks would continue Friday and Saturday. “As long as it takes to get this done.”
The Democrats were more negative in their assessment of the meeting, with Pelosi describing the GOP goal of a short-term extension of unemployment assistance as “worthless” unless the parties were working on something bigger.
“We just don’t think they really understand the gravity of the problem,” Schumer said.
Trump said at a White House briefing Thursday afternoon that Congress should at least temporarily extend the supplemental benefit because it would be “great for our country and it’s great for our workers.” He also urged lawmakers to extend a moratorium on evictions.
Meadows said separately that the administration could back temporarily extending the payments at the current $600-a-week level.
Democratic Votes Needed
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday used a procedural move in the Republican-led Senate to open debate on a 47-42 vote. It isn’t clear which of several competing GOP proposals on unemployment insurance might ultimately get votes next week.
However, McConnell would need Democratic votes to pass any legislation, and right now that is unlikely to happen.
On the Senate floor on Thursday, McConnell faulted Democrats for their intransigence in talks with the Trump administration on a comprehensive bill that have brought the expanded unemployment benefits to the brink of lapsing.
”They want jobless aid to expire tomorrow, period,” McConnell said. “If that is their position, they will have to vote on for the entire country to see.”
In response to McConnell, Schumer accused the GOP of participating in a stunt instead of negotiations, saying the “disunity, dysfunction of this Republican caucus” created the situation of having no agreement before people start losing benefits.
Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney and others have presented versions of a so-called skinny bill designed to keep millions of unemployed Americans from going entirely without the additional support they’ve counted on since the stimulus package enacted in March.
Romney has proposed a three-month extension of unemployment benefits that would give states the option of an 80% wage replacement or $500 a week in August, $400 a week in September, and $300 a week in October.
The plan, endorsed by endangered Senate Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Martha McSally of Arizona, would also give states $2 billion to update their unemployment systems, which have been swamped during the Covid-19 pandemic and are often using outdated computers.
Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin earlier Thursday proposed a $200 a week benefits enhancement in a move that was rejected by Senate Democrats as insufficient. The Johnson plan, backed by Indiana GOP Senator Mike Braun, would give states the option of providing the supplemental benefit at two-thirds of a prior wage, up to a cap of $500.
Inter-Related Elements
Passage of any measure would require 60 votes under Senate rules and the Republicans have only 53.
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said Democrats continue to have concerns about pulling out a piece of the stimulus measure.
“We’ve made it clear that we think that the pieces are inter-related because we’re concerned about how working families are going to pay rent and buy groceries,” Wyden said.
The debate comes amid grim economic news. Gross domestic product shrank at an annualized pace of 32.9% in the second quarter, the steepest decline in records going back to 1947, the Commerce Department said. A separate report on Thursday showed the number of Americans filing initial claims for unemployment benefits increased for a second straight week.
The two sides have to bridge significant differences between the $1 trillion stimulus plan the GOP released Monday and the $3.5 trillion package House Democrats passed in May.
The biggest roadblocks remained McConnell’s plan to shield employers against lawsuits stemming from Covid-19 infections, and Democrats’ drive to maintain $600-a-week supplemental unemployment payments and provide $1 trillion in aid to state and local governments.
(Updates with Mnuchin, Pelosi and Schumer comments starting in fourth paragraph.)
–With assistance from Skylar Woodhouse, Erik Wasson and Jordan Fabian.
New top story from Time: Hurricane Isaias Bears Down on Bahamas and Florida After Battering Puerto Rico
(SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico) — New Hurricane Isaias kept on a path early Friday expected to take it to the U.S. East Coast by the weekend as it approached the Bahamas, parts of which are still recovering from the devastation of last year’s Hurricane Dorian.
Isaias had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph) late Thursday and was centered about 70 miles (110 kilometers) east-southeast of Great Inagua Island in the Bahamas, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It was moving northwest at 18 mph (30 kph).
It was forecast to pass over the southeastern Bahamas during the night, be near the central Bahamas late Friday and move near or over the northwestern Bahamas and near South Florida on Saturday.
On Thursday while still a tropical storm, Isaias knocked out power, toppled trees and caused widespread flooding and small landslides in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, where at least 35 people were rescued from floodwaters and one person remained missing. Hundreds of thousands of people in Puerto Rico were left without power and water.
A hurricane warning was in effect for the northwestern Bahamas, including Andros Island, New Providence, Eleuthera, Abaco Islands, Berry Islands, Grand Bahama and Bimini.
Two of those islands, Abaco and Grand Bahama, were battered by Dorian, a Category 5 storm that hovered over the area for two days and killed at least 70 people, with more than 280 reported missing. People are still living in tents on both islands, and officials said crews were trying to remove leftover debris ahead of Isaias.
Prime Minister Hubert Minnis announced late Thursday that he was relaxing a coronavirus lockdown as a result of the impending storm, but said a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew would be implemented starting Friday. He said supermarkets, pharmacies, gas stations and hardware stores would be allowed to be open as long as weather permitted.
“These are especially difficult days,” he said during an online news conference. “We need at this time the spirit of love and unity.”
Stephen Russell, director of the Bahamas’ emergency management agency, said there were no plans to evacuate people, but he urged those living in low-lying areas to seek shelter.
The Bahamas has reported more than 500 confirmed COVID-19 cases and at least 14 deaths. It recently barred travelers from the U.S. following a surge in cases as it reopened to international tourism.
Given the pandemic, the prime minister urged young people booking hotel rooms to stay safe from the approaching storm to respect social distancing measures.
“Please do not engage in hurricane or COVID(-19) parties,” he said. “It can be devastating.”
Isaias was expected to produce 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain in the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
New top story from Time: Alaska Man Killed in Apparent Bear Attack Near His Remote Cabin
(JUNEAU, Alaska) — A man who was clearing a trail behind his property in south-central Alaska was found dead with wounds consistent with a bear attack, Alaska State Troopers said Thursday.
Troopers said they received a report late Wednesday that a Hope man who set out to clear a trail about a mile behind his property had not returned home and a dog that had gone with him came back alone.
The man’s body was found by family and friends in the area in which he had been working, troopers said.
Clay Adam, deputy chief with Cooper Landing Emergency Services, said local authorities received a call about 9:50 p.m. and when they arrived at the small, remote cabin learned the incident had occurred about a 45-minute to one-hour hike up the side of a mountain behind the residence. Given the darkness, there were safety concerns with trying to reach the area, Adam said.
People who had gone to the site earlier and returned were told not to go back or touch anything, and that troopers would be in charge of the scene, he said.
Cyndi Wardlow, a regional supervisor with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said based on preliminary information, officials believe the animal involved was a brown bear. She said efforts were underway to locate the bear and kill it.
New top story from Time: Ellen DeGeneres Apologizes to Staff of Her TV Show After Warner Bros. Launches Workplace Inquiry
(LOS ANGELES) — Ellen DeGeneres apologized to the staff of her daytime TV talk show amid an internal company investigation of complaints of a difficult and unfair workplace.
“On day one of our show, I told everyone in our first meeting that ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’ would be a place of happiness — no one would ever raise their voice, and everyone would be treated with respect,” DeGeneres wrote. Something changed, she said, “and for that, I am sorry.”
In a separate statement, the Warner Bros. studio said the investigation’s “primary findings” revealed what it called some flaws in the show’s daily management.
DeGeneres’ memo and the probe by the studio’s parent company followed a BuzzFeed News report in which one current and 10 former show employees complained about issues including being fired after taking medical or bereavement leave. One worker said she left because of comments about her race.
Most of the complaints were tied to executive producers and senior managers, BuzzFeed News said, but one ex-employee said DeGeneres need to take more responsibility for the work environment. The people making the allegations were not identified.
The complaints contrast sharply with the show’s upbeat tenor and DeGeneres’ own public demeanor and exhortations for people to be kind and caring.
In its statement, Warner Bros. said it and DeGeneres take the allegations about the show’s “workplace culture very seriously” and that its parent company is seeking to determine the validity of the publicly reported allegations and understand the show’s daily workings.
“As a result, WarnerMedia interviewed dozens of current and former employees about the environment at ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’ … . And though not all of the allegations were corroborated, we are disappointed that the primary findings of the investigation indicated some deficiencies related to the show’s day-to-day management.”
Steps are being taken to make several staffing changes and implement other steps, the studio said, without citing specifics. The internal investigation was first reported by Variety.
DeGeneres wrote that she has “deep compassion” for people who are treated unfairly or disregarded. That comes from someone who has been judged for “who I am,” said DeGeneres, who has detailed the price she paid for being openly gay.
“As we’ve grown exponentially, I’ve not been able to stay on top of everything and relied on others to do their jobs as they knew I’d want them done. Clearly some didn’t. That will now change and I’m committed to ensuring this does not happen again,” she said in the memo.
“It’s been way too long, but we’re finally having conversations about fairness and justice,” DeGeneres said, adding that she would push herself and others to “learn and grow.”
She said the COVID-19 pandemic kept her from delivering her comments in person to staffers. She signed the message, “Stay safe and healthy” and “Love, Ellen.”
Republicans and White House at Odds Over Kansas Senate Race
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Ellen DeGeneres Apologizes to Staff Members as WarnerMedia Investigates Show
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New top story from Time: NBA Players, Coaches and Referees Kneel in Solidarity as Unprecedented Bubble Season Begins
(LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla.) — Players and coaches from the New Orleans Pelicans and Utah Jazz knelt alongside one another before the first game of the NBA restart on Thursday night, an unprecedented image for the league in unprecedented times.
The coaches — New Orleans’ Alvin Gentry and Utah’s Quin Snyder — were next to one another, their arms locked together. Some players raised a fist as the final notes of “The Star-Spangled Banner” were played, the first of what is expected to be many silent statements calling for racial justice and equality following the deaths of, among others, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in recent months.
Even the game referees took a knee during the pregame scene, which occurred with the teams lined up along the sideline nearest where “Black Lives Matter” was painted onto the court. The Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers were expected to also take some sort of action before the second game of the re-opening night doubleheader later Thursday.
“It’s so important at this point for us to be unified and be able to peacefully protest many of the critical things that are going on in the country right now,” Snyder said.
The NBA has a rule going back to the early 1980s that players must stand for the national anthem. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, anticipating that players would kneel during these games at Walt Disney World, has made clear that he supports peaceful protests.
Many players warmed up wearing shirts that said “Black Lives Matter.” Thursday also marked the debut of new jerseys bearing messages that many players chose to have added, such as “Equality” and “Peace.”
The NBA season was suspended when Rudy Gobert of the Jazz tested positive for the coronavirus and became the first player in the league with such a diagnosis. Gobert was diagnosed on March 11; two days later, Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was fatally shot when police officers burst into her Louisville, Kentucky apartment using a no-knock warrant during a narcotics investigation. The warrant was in connection with a suspect who did not live there and no drugs were found.
Then on May 25, Floyd died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into the Black man’s neck for nearly eight minutes. That happened on a street, with the images — and sounds of the man saying he couldn’t breathe, then crying out for his mother — all captured on a cell phone video.
NBA players have used their platforms — both in the bubble and on social media — to demand equality, to demand justice for Taylor. Coaches have also said it is incumbent on them to demand change and educate themselves and others. And the pregame actions by the Jazz and the Pelicans were just the start of what is expected to be a constant during the remainder of this season.
“It’s taken a very long time to get this momentum going,” San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said in a video that aired pregame, a project organized by both the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association. “And it cannot be lost.”
Gentry said he appreciated the accidental symmetry that came from the first games of the restarted season coming only hours after the funeral for U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who died July 17 at the age of 80.
Lewis spent most of his life championing civil rights and equality and was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington — the one where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Gentry said he believes this movement, like the one Lewis helped spark six decades ago, will endure.
“If you talk to some of the younger generation, I think this is here to stay. I really do,” Gentry said. “I have a 20-year-old son and a 22-year-old son, and I know that they feel like this is the most opportune time for us to try to have change in this country.”
4 Guards Charged in Inmate’s Beating at Alabama Prison
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Will Herman Cain’s Death Change Republican Views on the Virus and Masks?
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Louie Gohmert’s Coronavirus Case Reveals a Dangerous Reality in Congress
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Trump Floats an Election Delay, and Republicans Shoot It Down
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John Lewis Believed America Would Survive Trump
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With Jobless Aid Set to Lapse, Senate Fails to Agree on Extension
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Obama’s Call to Abolish Filibuster Puts Further Spotlight on the Tactic
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The Economy Is in Record Decline, but Not for the Tech Giants
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Mitch McConnell Could Rescue Millions. What Is He Waiting For?
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¿Trump puede posponer las elecciones de 2020?
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SEC Becomes Latest College Football League to Shrink Schedule
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House Panel Finds Arizona Congressman Violated 11 Ethics Rules
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Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Report: N.B.A.’s Academies in China Abused Athletes
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New top story from Time: Execution Date Set For Only Native American on Death Row
(FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.) — The only Native American on federal death row is scheduled to be executed in late August, the U.S. government announced Wednesday.
Lezmond Mitchell, who is Navajo, had been among the first of a handful of inmates set to be put to death after the Trump administration restored federal executions after an informal, 17-year moratorium. Mitchell has been spared temporarily by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals where his attorneys argued they should be able to interview jurors for potential racial bias.
Mitchell lost the bid in late April, but the case hasn’t technically been closed, preserving a stay of execution. His attorneys have asked the appeals court to essentially keep the stay in place while they seek review at the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. attorney in Arizona urged the appeals court Wednesday to make a quick decision.
The execution date for Mitchell, who was convicted of the 2001 murder of a Navajo woman and her 9-year-old granddaughter, now is Aug. 26 at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terra Haute, Indiana, where he’s being held.
Despite the grisly nature of the killings, tribal officials and even the victims’ family opposed the death penalty. Native American tribes for decades have been able to tell federal prosecutors if they want a death sentence considered for certain crimes on their land. Nearly all, including the Navajo Nation, have rejected that option.
Mitchell was convicted of carjacking resulting in death — a crime that carries a possible death sentence no matter where it happens, meaning the tribe had no avenue to object.
“The federal government’s announcement that it now plans to execute Lezmond Mitchell demonstrates the ultimate disrespect for the Navajo Nation’s values and sovereignty,” his attorneys, Jonathan Aminoff and Celeste Bacchi said in a statement Wednesday.
Mitchell is scheduled to be put to death in the same week as Keith Dwayne Nelson, who was convicted of kidnapping a 10-year-old girl while she was rollerblading in front of her Kansas home and raping her in a forest behind a church, then strangling her.
Three other federal inmates were put to death earlier this month — Dustin Honken, Wesley Purkey and Daniel Lewis Lee. All were convicted of killing children.
Mitchell and an accomplice abducted Alyce Slim, 63, and her granddaughter in October 2001 with plans to use Slim’s vehicle in a robbery. Prosecutors said the two fatally stabbed Slim and slit the girl’s throat. Their beheaded, mutilated bodies were found in a shallow grave on the Navajo Nation.
Mitchell’s attorneys have said he had no history of violence and wasn’t the primary aggressor. They said they’ll continue to pursue avenues for relief from the convictions and death sentence.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr noted Wednesday that courts repeatedly have ruled against Mitchell.
Navajo Nation Council Delegate Carl Slater, whose grandparents testified against capital punishment in Mitchell’s trial as educators, has been pushing the tribe to request clemency from the federal government and affirm its position against the death penalty.
If the execution moves forward, Slater said it would send a message that the federal government has no problem using loopholes to infringe on the tribe’s sovereignty.
“This completely conflicts with our values,” he said. “The government has an obligation to express our values and reflect them. That’s not just to our citizens, that’s to other sovereigns that have these relationships.”
New top story from Time: Hiroshima Court Recognizes Victims of Radioactive ‘Black Rain’ as Atomic Bomb Survivors
(TOKYO) — A Japanese court on Wednesday for the first time recognized people exposed to radioactive “black rain” that fell after the 1945 U.S. atomic attack on Hiroshima as atomic bomb survivors, ordering the city and the prefecture to provide the same government medical benefits as given to other survivors.
The Hiroshima District Court said all 84 plaintiffs who were outside of a zone previously set by the government as where radioactive rain fell also developed radiation-induced illnesses and should be certified as atomic bomb victims. All of the plaintiffs are older than their late 70s, with some in their 90s.
The landmark ruling comes a week before the city marks the 75th anniversary of the U.S. bombing.
The U.S. dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, killing 140,000 people and almost destroying the entire city. The plaintiffs were in areas northwest of the ground zero where radioactive black rain fell hours after the bomb was dropped.
The plaintiffs have developed illnesses such as cancer and cataracts linked to radiation after they were exposed to black rain, not only that which fell but also by taking water and food in the area contaminated with radiation.
They filed the lawsuit after Hiroshima city and prefectural officials rejected their request to expand the zone to cover their areas where black rain also fell.
In Wednesday’s ruling, the court said the plaintiffs’ argument about their black rain exposure was reasonable and that their medical records showed they have health problems linked to radiation exposure.
One of the plaintiffs, Minoru Honke, who was exposed to black rain at age 4, said more than a dozen people died during the trial. “I want to tell them that we won,” he said.
Osamu Saito, a doctor who has examined atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima, welcomed the ruling for considering the survivors’ welfare based on an assumption that anyone who was in these areas and hit by the rain could have been affected by radiation.
Earlier in the day, dozens of plaintiffs walked into the Hiroshima court in the rain, showing a banner saying “Certificates to all ‘black rain’ victims.” As soon as the ruling was issued, lawyers for the plaintiffs ran out of the court, showing a banner saying “Full victory,” and their supporters applauded and cheered.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that the government will closely examine the ruling and respond after consulting with related government agencies and Hiroshima officials.
New top story from Time: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Undergoes Medical Procedure at Hospital
(WASHINGTON) — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has undergone a nonsurgical medical procedure in New York City and expects to be released from a hospital there by the end of the week, the Supreme Court said Wednesday night.
The court said in a statement that the 87-year-old Ginsburg underwent a minimally invasive procedure to “revise a bile duct stent” at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The stent had originally been placed last August, when Ginsburg was treated for a cancerous tumor on her pancreas.
The statement said that, according to Ginsburg’s doctors, “stent revisions are common occurrences and the procedure, performed using endoscopy and medical imaging guidance, was done to minimize the risk of future infection.”
The procedure follows another one earlier this month at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore to clean out the stent. Ginsburg had gone to the hospital after experiencing fever and chills and was treated for a possible infection.
The statement from the court Wednesday said that Ginsburg “is resting comfortably and expects to be released from the hospital by the end of the week.”
Ginsburg, the oldest justice on the nine-member court, announced earlier this month that she is receiving chemotherapy for a recurrence of cancer. The liberal justice, who has had four earlier bouts with cancer, said her treatment so far has succeeded in reducing lesions on her liver.
New top story from Time: Hong Kong Police Arrest Four Under New Security Law Over Online Posts
(HONG KONG) — Hong Kong police have signaled their intent to enforce a new Chinese national security law strictly, arresting four youths Wednesday on suspicion of inciting secession through social media posts.
Three males and one female, aged 16 to 21, were detained, a police official said at an 11 p.m. news conference. All are believed to be students.
“Our investigation showed that a group has recently announced on social media that they have set up an organization for Hong Kong independence,” said Li Kwai-wah, senior superintendent of a newly formed unit to enforce the security law.
The 1-month-old law has chilled pro-democracy protesting as activists along with academics and others wonder if their activities could be targeted.
The central government in Beijing imposed the national security law on the semi-autonomous Chinese territory after city leaders were unable to get one passed locally. The move has raised fears that Hong Kong’s freedoms and local autonomy are being taken away.
Police did not identify the suspects or their group. An organization called Studentlocalism — which announced it was disbanding just before the law took effect — said on Facebook that four former members had been arrested on secession charges, including ex-leader Tony Chung.
The police action appeared to target the Initiative Independence Party, which says on its Facebook page that it consists of former Studentlocalism members who have completed their studies and are overseas.
The party, which also posted the news of Wednesday’s arrests, advocates for independence because it believes full democracy for Hong Kong is impossible under Chinese rule, its Facebook page says.
Li said only that the group in question had set up recently and that the posts were made after the law took effect late on June 30.
“They said they want to establish a Hong Kong republic, and that they will unreservedly fight for it,” he said. “They also said they want to unite all pro-independence groups in Hong Kong for this purpose.”
He warned anyone who thinks they can carry out such crimes online to think twice.
Police have made a handful of other arrests under the new law, all of people taking part in protests and chanting slogans or waving flags deemed to violate the law.
China promised Hong Kong would have its own governing and legal systems under a “one country, two systems” principle until 2047, or 50 years after Britain handed back its former colony in 1997.
China, in justifying the new law, says issues such as separatism are a national security concern and, as such, fall under its purview.
The latest arrests came one day after a leading figure in Hong Kong’s political opposition was fired from his university post.
Hong Kong University’s council voted 18-2 to oust Benny Tai from his position as an associate law professor, local media reported.
Tai has been out on bail since being sentenced to 16 months in prison in April 2019 as one of nine leaders put on trial for their part in 2014 protests for greater democracy known as the Umbrella Movement.
In a posting Wednesday on his Facebook account, Tai said he intended to continue writing and lecturing on legal issues and asked for public support.
“If we continue in our persistence, we will definitely see the revival of the rule of law in Hong Kong one day,” Tai wrote.
While the 2014 movement failed in its bid to expand democracy, protests returned last year over a legislative proposal that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to face trial in mainland China.
Although the legislation was eventually shelved, protester demands expanded to include calls for democratic change and an investigation into alleged police abuses. They grew increasingly violent in the second half of the year.
In a statement issued after the vote to remove Tai, the Chinese government’s liaison office in Hong Kong said it was “a punishment for evil doing.”
Quotation of the Day: New Resistance in Remote City Confronts Putin
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New top story from Time: U.S. Postal Service Considers Downsizing, Senator and Union Leader Say
(CHARLESTON, W.Va.) — The U.S. Postal Service is considering closing post offices across the country, sparking concerns ahead of an anticipated surge of mail-in ballots in the 2020 elections, U.S. Sen Joe Manchin and a union leader said Wednesday.
Manchin said he has received numerous reports from post offices and colleagues about service cuts or looming closures in West Virginia and elsewhere, prompting him to send a letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy asking for an explanation.
The possible cutbacks come as DeJoy, a major donor to President Donald Trump who took control of the agency last month, moves to eliminate overtime for hundreds of thousands of postal workers, potentially causing a delay in mail deliveries. A recent document from the Postal Service, obtained by The Associated Press, described the need for an “operational pivot” to make the cash-strapped agency financially stable.
“It’s just asinine to think that you can shut something down or throttle it back in terms of the pandemic when basically the lifeline for voting and democracy is going to be in the hands of the Postal Service,” Manchin, a Democrat, told reporters Wednesday.
He said at least two post offices in West Virginia had been scheduled to close next month but that the agency had “slowed” its plans.
A spokesman for the Postal Service referred questions to a prior statement from DeJoy, which said the agency “has experienced over a decade of financial losses, with no end in sight, and we face an impending liquidity crisis.” The statement goes on to say that “it is critical that the Postal Service take a fresh look at our operations and make necessary adjustments.”
Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, which represents more than 200,000 postal workers and retirees, said there’s “definitely buzz” about closures although he said he was not aware of specific details. A spokesman for the union said rank-and-file postal employees have been told by managers that their offices are being targeted for potential cutbacks.
“The logical conclusion is that he’s going to try to close some post offices,” Dimondstein said of the postmaster general’s belt-tightening strategies.
The coronavirus pandemic has created further strain on Postal Service finances. The service reported a $4.5 billion loss for the quarter ending in March, before the full effects of the shutdown sank in.
Manchin’s letter noted that the coronavirus relief package passed by Congress in March included authorization for the agency to borrow up to $10 billion from the U.S. Treasury. The money was intended to help the Postal Service maintain essential services during the pandemic.
“Unfortunately, not only has little to none of that funding been utilized, you are now proposing the very cuts that we sought to avoid with that emergency line of credit,” Manchin said in his letter.
Later Wednesday, Treasury announced it had reached agreement with the Postal Service on the terms of any future borrowing but also said the service was able to fund its operations at this time without using a loan.
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