RSN: Andy Borowitz | Cuomo Says Florida Beachgoers Travelling to New York Must First Be Tested for IQ

22 April 20

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21 April 20

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Andy Borowitz | Cuomo Says Florida Beachgoers Travelling to New York Must First Be Tested for IQ

Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "After seeing images of Floridians crowding the beaches in Jacksonville, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that all Florida beachgoers who travel to New York must first be tested for I.Q."
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Vehicles sit in gridlock during a protest in Lansing, Michigan, over lockdown measures during the coronavirus pandemic. (photo: AP)

ALSO SEE: Kentucky Reports Highest Coronavirus Infection Increase
After a Week of Protests to Reopen State

US Lockdown: Three Brothers Appear to Be Behind Online Network of Far-Right Gun Owners Calling for Protests
Isaac Stanley-Becker and Tony Romm, The Independent
Excerpt: "A trio of far-right, pro-gun provocateurs is behind some of the largest Facebook groups calling for anti-quarantine protests across the country, offering the latest illustration that some seemingly organic demonstrations are being engineered by a network of conservative activists."
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A doctor from SOMOS Community Care prepares to test a patient at a drive-thru testing center for Covid-19 at Lehman College on March 28, 2020, in the Bronx, New York City. (photo: John Moore/Getty Images)

28,000 Missing Deaths: Tracking the True Toll of the Coronavirus Crisis
Jin Wu and Allison McCann, The New York Times
Excerpt: "At least 28,000 more people have died during the coronavirus pandemic over the last month than the official Covid-19 death counts report, a review of mortality data in 11 countries shows - providing a clearer, if still incomplete, picture of the toll of the crisis."
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Matt Drudge in 1998. (photo: Khue Bui/AP)

Matt Drudge Draws Trump's Ire, Setting Off a Potentially Substantial Split Between the Conservative Media Power Player and the President
Paul Farhi, The Washington Post
Farhi writes: "President Trump's on-again, off-again relationship with one of the most powerful figures in conservative media appears to be off again."

EXCERPTS:

For reasons not entirely clear, Trump washed his hands of Matt Drudge, the digital news kingmaker, in a weekend tweet, saying he “gave up” on Drudge “long ago.”

The proximate cause of Trump’s disappointment with Drudge — or more directly, his influential Drudge Report news site — was his promotion of a report stating that the number of deaths in the U.S. had set a single day record. It carried an all-caps headline: “NO PEAK YET.” Trump framed his exasperation by retweeting a conservative writer who had called out Drudge’s headline as “sensationalistic & misleading.”

The president, who regards any hint of negative news as a personal betrayal, was clearly upset that Drudge had featured a story that undermines Trump’s repeated claims that the crisis is subsiding.

If Trump’s ardor for Drudge has truly waned, and the feeling is mutual, it would suggest a potentially consequential split. Without Drudge’s support, Trump would lose a powerful potential ally when he most needs him — during his campaign for reelection this year.

Drudge, the reclusive, hat-fancying pioneer of Internet aggregation, has been courted by Republican candidates, and the occasional Democratic one, since his Internet creation first became a traffic-grabbing monster in the late 1990s. He has since become one of the most important figures in the conservative media establishment.

Drudge was helpful to Trump during his 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton, especially during the final weeks when the Drudge Report published screaming headlines falsely claiming that former president Bill Clinton had secretly fathered a child with another woman.

Visitors to his site effectively come for Drudge’s judgments on what’s worth knowing in the news. His understanding of the mass market’s tastes and interests is his singular contribution. (A Drudge acolyte, Andrew Breitbart, went on to start his own aggregation site, which later morphed into a far-right site with staff-written contributions).

He did, however, provide a brief statement to CNN in the wake of Trump’s tweet, which asserted that “People are dropping off like flies” from the site.

In fact, he said, “The past 30 days has been the most eyeballs in Drudge Report’s 26 year-history. Heartbreaking that it has been under such tragic circumstances.”

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Potbelly. (photo: Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

Companies That Are Absolutely Not Small Businesses Are Getting Millions of Dollars in Small Business Loans
David Mack, BuzzFeed
Mack writes: "A federal crisis fund of $350 billion established to keep small businesses afloat during the coronavirus pandemic ran out this week, leaving thousands of companies waiting desperately for help."

EXCERPT:

Sandwich maker Potbelly and Ruth's Chris Steak House successfully obtained loans worth $10 million and $20 million, respectively, according to filings this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Taco Cabana, which has at least 164 stores across the country and is owned by parent company Fiesta Restaurant Group, also received a $10 million loan.

All loans were from JP Morgan bank but will be backed by the US government as part of the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act. The act provided up to $350 billion in loans to businesses with 500 employees or less for payroll purposes.

But the law provided some flexibility to restaurant and hotel groups by stating they could apply as long as they had no more than 500 workers at a single location.

Under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), the government will forgive the loans if the money is used on payroll, rent, or utilities — and workers aren't laid off.

Potbelly, Ruth's, and Fiesta Restaurant Group are publicly traded companies so their SEC filings were made public, but private companies do not have to disclose any loans.

Potbelly's chief people officer, Matt Revord, told BuzzFeed News in a statement, "Every penny will be used to financially support the employees in our shops. Congress specifically qualified restaurants for the PPP loan program because restaurant workers are vital to our economy.”

In the very same SEC filing that revealed its PPP loan, Potbelly announced it had promoted Steven W. Cirulis to the roles of chief financial officer and chief strategy officer, paying him a $425,000 yearly salary, which has been temporarily reduced by 25% due to the pandemic. Just for signing on, Cirulis was awarded a $100,000 bonus and will be eligible for a year-end bonus worth up to 60% of his base salary.

In 2018, Potbelly CEO Alan Johnson received more than $1.6 million in salary and bonuses. The company owns more than 400 stores in the US.

In 2018, Ruth's Chris CEO and President Cheryl J. Henry's total compensation package, including salary and stock awards, was more than $6,100,000. There are more than 150 Ruth's Chris steakhouses in the US.

A Ruth's spokesperson told BuzzFeed News the company took the loans to provide additional liquidity. "As a franchised organization, it is our responsibility to our nearly 30 small business owners, team members, customers and shareholders, to do everything we can to ensure Ruth’s Hospitality Group is well positioned to emerge from this situation a strong and viable entity," the spokesperson said. "We will be following all guidelines set forth by the [Small Business Administration] in how the funds are being leveraged including payroll assurance for our team members in individual locations running our takeout and delivery business."

News of the company's small business loans came as the small business fund ran out of money on Thursday, hitting its $350 billion limit after making more than a million loans.

Negotiations to extend it have stalled in Congress, but advocacy groups say more needs to be done to protect actual small businesses.

Wade, the NFIB research director, said the behavior of the large companies was "going against the spirit of the law."

"They have lines of credit and other available loans and they can work with their bank," she said.

The average NFIB business, Wade said, has just five employees. "This was one of the very few options where they could go for financial assistance," she said.

Derek Martin, a spokesperson for the watchdog group Accountable.US, told Politico that "big Wall Street-backed restaurant chains that pay their executives super-sized bonuses" did not deserve to be first in line for payments.

"What a slap in the face to the untold thousands of legitimate small businesses that will not survive this crisis," he said, "many because they couldn’t get the help they were promised from the president soon enough, if at all.”

The NFIB says 90% of US small businesses have been negatively impacted by the coronavirus outbreak. NFIB President Brad Close said the "smallest businesses [were] most disadvantaged."

"We’ve been hearing from our members, every day, worried the $349 billion lending program would run dry before help gets to them," said Close in a statement on Wednesday. "Today, their worries became a reality."

A Taco Cabana spokesperson said they had no further comment beyond their SEC filing.

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Illegal mining in Colombia. (photo: Lady Castro/Wikimedia)

Colombia's Environmental Crisis Accelerates Under Duque
Evan King and Samantha Wherry, NACLA
Excerpt: "On 16 February 2020, six gunmen fatally shot Albeiro Silva Mosquera and his brother Luis Hugo and severely injured Indigenous leader and activist Daniel Remigio in Colombia's southwestern department of Cauca."

EXCERPTS:

The attacks were not isolated cases. In 2019, Colombia was the most dangerous country on earth for human rights and environmental defenders, with at least 250 killed, according to the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz). Eighty percent of these deaths have been linked to powerful economic interests seeking to exploit the land and natural resources. As Colombia remains on COVID-19 lockdown, social leaders around the country continue to be murdered with impunity, with at least three environmental defenders killed in one week in March.

Meanwhile, the ongoing state-sponsored gold rush taking place in Colombia’s countryside could cause a further increase of violence in communities already struggling to recover after decades of war. A study conducted by the University of Medellín, showed the links between the rise in global gold prices in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and a substantial upsurge in homicides in Colombia’s gold-producing regions. The global economic slowdown brought about by the COVID-19 crisis has already driven up global gold prices by 5.3 percent as investors seek safe investments during times of increased uncertainty, exacerbating the ongoing slaughter of environmental activists across the region. 

Here, the country's western and central mountain ranges originate, as well as 70 percent of the country's fresh water. The Massif region houses not only a great wealth of biodiversity but also significant cultural diversity with a representation of various ethnic groups, including Indigenous peoples (10 percent), small-scale farmers (83 percent), and Afro-Colombians (7.5 percent). It is the ancestral home to 13 different Indigenous groups, including the Coconuco, Inga, Embera, Awa, and Yanacona peoples. Housing and infrastructure in the Massif region is precarious; few communities have access to electricity, roads, and sewage systems. The lack of government investment in basic infrastructure has forced the communities to rely solely on the Massif ecosystem for potable water. Despite being designated as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1978, the Colombian Massif was opened up to large-scale mining during the Uribe and Santos administrations. 

For decades, the presence of the country’s largest left-wing guerrilla group, the FARC, in the Colombian Massif acted as a formidable deterrent against extractive projects in two main ways. 

The historic peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC marked a major shift for many communities who had grown accustomed to their relative isolation from destructive neoliberal policies taking root in other areas of the country. Suddenly, these areas— inaccessible to extractive industries during the country’s long civil war—became the next frontier for multinationals seeking to make short-term profits at the expense of the local inhabitants and the fragile ecosystems they depend on for survival. 

Despite President Iván Duque's campaign rhetoric about environmental sustainability, his administration has doubled down on policies set in motion by the Uribe administration in the early 2000s, opening up conflict-ridden regions to foreign multinationals. These policies benefit corporations seeking profits at the expense of the environment and the lives of people already struggling to build peace after the longest and bloodiest conflict in the hemisphere. Far from being a solution to Colombia’s armed conflict, exposing the country’s rich environmental diversity and cultural heritage to the whims of multinationals could prove to be the catalyst for the next one. 

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Dense smog in Milan. The heavily polluted northern Italian city and the surrounding region have been hard hit by the coronavirus outbreak. (photo: Flavio Lo Scalzo/Reuters)

Air Pollution May Be 'Key Contributor' to Covid-19 Deaths
Damian Carrington, Guardian UK
Carrington writes: "High levels of air pollution may be 'one of the most important contributors' to deaths from Covid-19, according to research."

Research shows almost 80% of deaths across four countries were in most polluted regions

The analysis shows that of the coronavirus deaths across 66 administrative regions in Italy, Spain, France and Germany, 78% of them occurred in just five regions, and these were the most polluted.

The research examined levels of nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant produced mostly by diesel vehicles, and weather conditions that can prevent dirty air from dispersing away from a city. Many studies have linked NO₂ exposure to health damage, and particularly lung disease, which could make people more likely to die if they contract Covid-19.

“The results indicate that long-term exposure to this pollutant may be one of the most important contributors to fatality caused by the Covid-19 virus in these regions and maybe across the whole world,” said Yaron Ogen, at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany, who conducted the research. “Poisoning our environment means poisoning our own body, and when it experiences chronic respiratory stress its ability to defend itself from infections is limited.”

The analysis is only able to show a strong correlation, not a causal link. “It is now necessary to examine whether the presence of an initial inflammatory condition is related to the response of the immune system to the coronavirus,” Ogen said.

A separate study published on 7 April looked at fine particle pollution in the US and found that even small increases in levels in the years before the pandemic were associated with far higher Covid-19 death rates. Another recent paper noted that the high death rates seen in the north of Italy correlated with the highest levels of air pollution.

The new research, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, compared NO₂ levels in January and February in 66 administrative regions with Covid-19 deaths recorded up to 19 March. Ogen also assessed the atmospheric conditions to see where pollution was being trapped over the regions.

He found that 78% of the 4,443 deaths were in four regions in northern Italy and one around Madrid in Spain. These five regions had the worst combination of NO₂ levels and airflow conditions that prevented dispersal of air pollution.

Ogen noted that the Po Valley in Italy and Madrid were surrounded by mountains, which helps trap pollution, as is Hubei province in China, where the pandemic began. “However, my research is only an initial indication that there might be a correlation between the level of air pollution, air movement and the severity of the course of the corona outbreaks,” he said.

Prof Jonathan Grigg, from Queen Mary University of London, said the study showed an association between Covid-19 deaths and NO₂ levels. “This association could reflect a causal link between exposure to air pollution and increased vulnerability to fatal Covid infection, but other factors cannot be ruled out at this stage. For example, the study does not adjust for differences in age distribution in different areas.”

Widespread lockdowns around the world have led to reduced vehicle traffic and air pollution. However, long-term exposure to dirty air before the pandemic may be more important than current levels of pollution.

In the UK, NO₂ has been at illegal levels in most urban areas for the last decade. A key policy to reduce NO₂ levels is the introduction of clean air zones, where charges are imposed to deter the most polluting vehicles from city centres. But the introduction of some CAZs has been postponed because of the coronavirus crisis.

Jenny Bates, an air pollution campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “This new study is worrying. We know NO₂ is a toxic gas that inflames the lining of the lungs and reduces immunity to lung infections, so it may not be surprising that people who have suffered in areas with high levels of NO₂ could be more susceptible to coronavirus.

“This is all the more reason to keep traffic and pollution levels down as much as possible now and get out of this terrible situation with a view to fewer but cleaner vehicles on the road.” 

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