11 August 20
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11 August 20
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Reader Supported News
RSN: Marc Ash | The Coming Tightening of the Presidential Race
Marc Ash, Reader Supported News
Ash writes: "American auto racing has developed a technique for creating close races."
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A healthcare worker and a patient. (photo: ABC News)
US Considers Barring Entry of Some Citizens, Residents Over Virus
Chelsea Janes, Brady Dennis, Nick Miroff and Josh Dawsey, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "White House officials have been circulating a proposal that would give U.S. border authorities the extraordinary ability to block U.S. citizens and permanent residents from entering the country from Mexico."
It is unclear whether the Trump administration has the legal authority to block citizens and permanent residents from returning to their own country, but one official said the administration is weighing a public health emergency declaration that would let the White House keep out potentially infected Americans.
Medical experts have warned the administration that such restrictions would make little difference in controlling the pandemic, because widespread community transmission already is occurring in the United States. The country’s outbreak is the world’s worst, with more than 5 million confirmed cases and wide circulation in many parts of the country, especially in the South and Southwest.
There is sharp dissent within the administration about the plan to keep sick Americans from traveling back into the country. The administration’s discussions were first reported by the New York Times on Monday.
Though the disease is widely circulating in South Texas, Arizona and in other border areas, with active community transmission on both sides of the line, President Trump continues to talk about the Mexican border as a source of the disease, using that argument to promote the barrier he is building there as a protective shield against the virus.
The Trump administration already has cited the pandemic to impose a rapid-expulsion system at the border that immediately returns to Mexico most migrants taken into U.S. Border Patrol custody.
If implemented, the proposals to temporarily block the ability of U.S. citizens to return home would be the first time the administration attempts to apply such restrictions to the hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who cross the border legally each day. The administration has restricted nonessential travel, but those crossing for school, work, business or medical appointments are generally not restricted.
As the virus continues to run rampant in the United States, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association reported that more than 97,000 U.S. children tested positive for the virus during the last two weeks of July, accounting for more than a quarter of the total number of children diagnosed nationwide since March. It was the latest sign of how the deepening pandemic has reached every corner of the nation and every demographic.
The report, which cited data from 49 states as well as territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam, also found that more than 380,000 cases have been reported in children since the pandemic began.
The number represented about 9 percent of total cases in the United States at the end of July, the authors said. As the total U.S. tally of coronavirus cases has risen past 5 million confirmed infections, there have been nearly 160,000 deaths — far more than any other country. As of April 14, people younger than 19 made up just 2 percent of cases nationwide, according to the data.
“It will be a little hard to sort out the degree to which a lot more kids are getting infected and the degree to which our testing capacity has gone up,” Sean O’Leary, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics and professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Colorado, said Monday. “What we can say is that it’s not particularly surprising, given the large increase in cases we’ve seen nationally overall.”
The jump in pediatric cases comes as children are entering close quarters for the first time in months as some of the nation’s schools begin to open their doors.
Many school districts are going forward with remote-only operations until local case numbers drop. Some have opted for hybrid learning systems in which children attend school in person only periodically, to limit crowding. But even some of the schools with measures to reduce the number of students present have suffered outbreaks.
North Paulding High School, near Atlanta, made news last week when pictures appeared on social media showing students crowded in hallways and not wearing masks. On Sunday, the school sent a letter to parents announcing that the campus would be closed to in-person learning for at least two days after nine people tested positive for the virus.
Asked at a White House news conference Monday about the report on youngsters and coronavirus infections, Trump said children account for a “tiny fraction” of virus deaths and added that in general “they get better very quickly.”
“I think schools have to open,” the president said, adding, “I think it’s a very important thing for the economy to get the schools open.”
Seven out of 10 new pediatric cases were reported in Southern and Western states, according to Monday’s report. Arizona reported the most cases per capita among children, with more than 1,000 per 100,000 on July 30. Louisiana, South Carolina and Tennessee were the only other states with more than 800 cases per 100,000.
O’Leary noted that a slight increase in the percentage of children who tested positive and were hospitalized from May (0.8 percent) to July (1.4 percent) might suggest that more children are getting sick. Unlike testing, which doesn’t necessarily indicate the severity of illness and isn’t uniformly available, hospitalization data is less subject to local circumstances and more directly related to the number of people falling ill.
O’Leary also noted limitations with the data, because they lack more granular information about age, race and ethnicity, and severity of illness.
Pediatric coronavirus deaths remain rare, accounting for less than 1 percent of the national total, the report concluded. Children also still make up a relatively small percentage of those hospitalized with the virus nationwide, but a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday found that Hispanic and Black children were substantially more likely to be hospitalized with the disease than their White peers.
Teachers in the United States have threatened strikes as the unusual academic year begins. Schools have reopened and watched cases surface quickly. Districts that spent the summer planning hybrid systems, in which children would attend school part time, have scrapped those models as cases surged. Universities have altered start dates and their rules for housing, all with scant notice. And many school districts have yet to make final decisions about the fall, even as the end of summer approaches.
The turmoil comes as families and businesses around the country juggle the inevitable demands and desires to return to normal with the reality of a virus that continues to spread wherever people gather in large numbers.
One month after reopening, for instance, Walt Disney World is modifying its hours of operation in a schedule taking effect Sept. 8, the day after Labor Day. Disney’s already limited hours will be reduced by one to two hours per day, depending on the park. The change comes days after Disney reported unexpectedly low park attendance and “adversely impacted” earnings because of restrictions aimed at preventing the virus’s spread.
Meanwhile, with the cancellation of the college football season under serious consideration, the president joined members of Congress and athletes opposed to the move on Monday.
“The student-athletes have been working too hard for their season to be canceled. #WeWantToPlay,” Trump tweeted Monday afternoon. He tweeted again 51 minutes later: “Play College Football!”
\The ongoing struggles have not been limited to the United States, even as it remains the epicenter of the pandemic.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Sunday that the government has a “moral duty” to ensure students return to classrooms in September, potentially setting up a conflict with members of the opposition Labour Party who have questioned whether adequate safety measures are in place.
Health Minister Helen Whately told Sky News: “Sadly, we have seen children from more disadvantaged backgrounds [are] more likely to fall behind during this time, so it is essential that we have children back at school this autumn.”
Andy Burnham, the mayor of greater Manchester, has expressed hesitation about that plan, telling “BBC Breakfast” on Monday that better contact tracing must be put in place first. The children’s commissioner for England and Britain’s National Education Union has also called for regular coronavirus testing in schools.
Coronavirus cases have risen in several European countries in recent weeks, prompting some governments to implement new public health guidelines to keep transmission under control.
In Paris, anyone older than 11 is required to wear a mask in many outdoor spaces. About 400 cases are being confirmed each day in the Paris area, with many of those cases diagnosed in people ages 20 to 30.
In Germany, where students are starting to return to school, new protocols were put in place at airports over the weekend, mandating tests for travelers arriving from countries deemed high risk for coronavirus infections.
In Spain, hospitalizations have quadrupled in the past month, the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported Monday. In Ireland, 174 new cases were confirmed on Saturday, marking the highest number of cases recorded there in about three months.
Rep. Ilhan Omar. (photo: Mandel Ngan/Getty Images)
Ilhan Omar Faces a Pro-Israel Backed Primary Challenge in Her First Reelection Bid
Cameron Peters, Vox
Peters writes: "When Minnesotans go to the polls on Tuesday, the political futures of one of the state's most progressive Democrats - as well as its most conservative - will be on the ballot."
Minnesota’s primaries could have major repercussions for both poles of the Democratic Party.
In Minnesota’s Fifth District, voters will decide whether they want to return Rep. Ilhan Omar — a former Somali refugee and one of the first Muslim women ever to serve in Congress — to Washington. And in the Seventh District, voters will pick a Republican challenger for Rep. Collin Peterson, a 15-term incumbent who has held on for term after term in an ever-reddening district in western Minnesota.
Elsewhere in Minnesota, general election matchups are already set — like in Minnesota’s Second Congressional District, where incumbent Rep. Angie Craig, who flipped the seat from GOP control in 2018, is up against Marine Corps veteran Tyler Kistner — or aren’t expected to be competitive.
In Minnesota’s Fourth District, longtime Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum will face a handful of challengers, including political strategist and first-time candidate Alberder Gillespie, who co-founded the organization Black Women Rising. McCollum won her 2018 primary with more than 80 percent of the vote in 2018.
The Minnesota Senate race is effectively locked in as well: Neither incumbent Sen. Tina Smith nor presumptive GOP challenger Jason Lewis, who previously represented Minnesota’s Second District in the House, have serious primaries to contend with on Tuesday, and their focus is on November.
Minnesota’s Fifth District: A progressive luminary in a harsh spotlight
The old Tip O’Neill aphorism holds that “all politics is local.” But in Minnesota’s Fifth District, which centers around Minneapolis, national politics has fueled a challenge to Rep. Ilhan Omar from lawyer Antone Melton-Meaux.
Melton-Meaux isn’t too far from Omar on the issues, and he brands himself as a “lifelong progressive.” But it’s not his position on Medicare-for-all or similar progressive policies that have buoyed his candidacy: Instead, it’s dislike of Omar, who serves as whip for the Congressional Progressive Caucus. On the back of an (arguably racist and sexist) anti-Omar backlash, Melton-Meaux raised a staggering $3.2 million in the second quarter of 2020 alone.
As BuzzFeed’s Molly Hensley-Clancy reported last month, much of that money has come from large donations and pro-Israel bundlers. And for both candidates, many of their donors are from out of state.
Melton-Meaux has criticized Omar on at least two fronts: One, her voting record — not what she’s voted for, but the number of votes she’s missed. (Omar missed about 6 percent of votes in 2019.)
“I was hopeful that she would use her platform to do great work for the district,” he told MinnPost. “But what I’ve seen since then is someone that doesn’t show up for votes and someone that doesn’t show up for voters.”
And two, Israel: Omar supports the Boycott, Divest, Sanction, or BDS, movement; Melton-Meaux, meanwhile, has the backing of several pro-Israel groups.
But for all the traction Melton-Meaux has gained in the race, it’s not too likely that Omar is going anywhere — a recent poll commissioned by her campaign found her with a 37-point lead over Melton-Meaux, with the other three challengers — journalist Les Lester, campaign strategist John Mason, and attorney Daniel McCarthy — relegated to single digits.
Omar has a long list of high-profile endorsements to her name, both in Minnesota and nationally. Sen. Tina Smith, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have all backed her candidacy, though the Minneapolis Star-Tribune chose to endorse Melton-Meaux just last week.
Larry Jacobs, a professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, believes that Omar will win out on Tuesday — and go on to win the reliably blue district come November.
“Yes, she’s controversial,” he said. “Yes, she’s alienated some Democrats and angered the Jewish community. But she’s in a district where she’s progressive and voters are progressive. And so she’s likely to, I think, win the primary and go on to being reelected.”
Minnesota’s Seventh District: Third time’s the charm?
By some metrics, Rep. Collin Peterson is the most conservative member of the House Democrats’ 232-person majority — and he’s still more liberal than his district. First elected to the House in 1990, Peterson represents a district that went for Trump by 30 points in 2016, which means that the National Republican Congressional Committee is champing at the bit for a chance to flip his seat this cycle.
Before the Minnesota GOP gets around to Peterson though, there’s still a five-way primary coming up on Tuesday.
Air Force veteran Dave Hughes is something of a perennial candidate in Minnesota’s 7th District, where he has twice now won the Republican nomination and gone on to lose to Peterson. This year, former Minnesota Lieutenant Gov. Michelle Fischbach looks to be his main challenger on the way to the nomination, but three other candidates — Dr. Noel Collis, pastor Jayesun Sherman, and farmer William Louwagie — are also in the running.
Though Hughes was the anointed candidate in 2018, when he lost to Peterson by a bit more than 4 points, in 2020 Fischbach has won endorsements from President Donald Trump, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the Minnesota Seventh District Republican Party.
It’s already been a contentious race: According to MinnPost, Fischbach’s former campaign manager pleaded guilty to harassing Hughes just last month. Nonetheless, most signs point to her being the favorite heading into Tuesday. Not only does she hold the edge in terms of big-name endorsements, but she has a more than 10:1 fundraising advantage — MinnPost reports that she had more than $900,000 in the bank last month compared to just $66,000 for Hughes.
If Fischbach wins on Tuesday, though, she likely won’t have an easy time come November, despite how much the district favored Trump in 2016. Peterson has at least one major advantage: He chairs the influential House Agriculture Committee, a plum position for someone representing a rural district.
“Donald Trump won by double digits in his district,” Jacobs said. “It’s by the sheer power of Peterson’s name that he held on, though it’s worth saying that his last few elections have been competitive. He used to win by large double digits.”
Currently, the Cook Political Report rates Minnesota’s Seventh District as a toss-up this November. Jacobs, though, believes that Peterson, 76, will pull off a win. “But,” he adds, “this could be his last election. I mean, it’s not fun for him anymore. This is like a fistfight.”
A demonstrator holds a sign with the image of Breonna Taylor. (photo: Jason Connolly/AFP/Getty Images)
Why the Officers Who Shot and Killed Breonna Taylor May Never Be Arrested
James Lartey, Guardian UK and The Marshall Project
Excerpt: "A tangled legal doctrine in Kentucky means a kind of self-defense stalemate that leaves a lot of questions over what charges a prosecutor could bring against the officers."
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Seattle Police officers carry gear as they walk towards the Seattle Police Department's West Precinct in Seattle, Washington, U.S., June 10, 2020. (photo: Lindsey Wasson/Reuters)
Seattle Reduces Police Funding, Signals Deeper Cuts Ahead
Gregory Scruggs, Reuters
Scruggs writes: "By a vote of 7-1, the council approved a revised 2020 budget that reduced the department's budget by $3.5 million for the remainder of the year and invested $17 million in community public safety programs."
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An Evo Morales supporter confronts Bolivian police in La Paz. (photo: Natacha Pisarenko/AP)
Bolivia: Social Movements Will Not Allow an Illegitimate Regime to Remain in Power
Anton Flaig and Denis Rogatyuk, Jacobin
Excerpt: "Nine months after the military coup that ousted left-wing president Evo Morales, Bolivia's coup government has suspended elections for the third time."
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'The Milne Ice Shelf on Ellesmere Island in Canada's Nunavut territory fell into the Arctic Sea and started to drift before breaking into two large chunks.' (photo: VCG)
Canada's Last Intact Ice Shelf the Size of Manhattan Collapses Due to Global Warming
Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch
Davidson writes: "A 4,000-year-old ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has collapsed into the sea, leaving Canada without any fully intact ice shelves."
4,000-year-old ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has collapsed into the sea, leaving Canada without any fully intact ice shelves, Reuters reported. The Milne Ice Shelf lost more than 40 percent of its area in just two days at the end of July, said researchers who monitored its collapse.
Unlike glaciers, ice shelves are part of the ocean.
The Milne Ice Shelf on Ellesmere Island in Canada's Nunavut territory fell into the Arctic Sea and started to drift before breaking into two large chunks. The Copernicus Sentinel satellite captured the entire event, CNN reported.
Time-lapse photos on Twitter show the satellite animation between July 30 and August 4, as the ice shelf lost approximately 43 percent of its area. When the fallen pieces split in two, the larger one formed an iceberg roughly the size of Manhattan, according to Business Insider.
The massive break was first noticed by ice analyst Adrienne White of the Canadian Ice Service, the AP reported.
"This is a huge, huge block of ice," White told the AP. "If one of these is moving toward an oil rig, there's nothing you can really do aside from move your oil rig."
The break resulted from polar amplification, which causes the Arctic to warm faster than the rest of the world, Business Insider reported. For example, today's polar ice caps are melting six times faster than in the 1990s.
"Above normal air temperatures, offshore winds and open water in front of the ice shelf are all part of the recipe for ice shelf break up," the Canadian Ice Service said on Twitter, according to Reuters.
"Entire cities are that size. These are big pieces of ice," said Luke Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa and part of the research team studying the Milne Ice Shelf. He told Reuters that this summer the Canadian Arctic experienced temperatures about 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the 30-year average.
"Without a doubt, it's climate change," Copland told the AP, adding that the ice shelf is melting from both hotter air above and warmer water below. "The Milne was very special. It's an amazingly pretty location."
According to Business Insider, a research camp was lost when the shelf broke apart, as was the Northern Hemisphere's last known epishelf — a freshwater lake contained by an ice shelf.
"It is lucky that we were not on the ice shelf when this happened, our camp area and instruments were all destroyed in this event," Derek Mueller, a professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University, said in a blog post, CNN reported. His team's trip had been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now that a large chunk of the ice shelf has collapsed into the ocean, there is the potential for additional cracking and movement, the Water and Ice Research Laboratory (WIRL) said in a press release. The ice shelf is still unstable and further ice breaks are possible in the coming days and weeks, WIRL warned.
Ice shelves can help limit rising sea levels since they act like a dam, CNN reported.
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