Fauci security upped; Over 80K volunteer for NY medical reserve; Families of wrongly imprisoned say US can do better; CPJ blasts acquittals in Pearl killing; NASA launch set for May
NewsHero - April 2, 2020 - Issue 68
Welcome to today’s edition of NewsHero for April 2, 2020.
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NewsHero Notes
Scientists - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
Scientists have discovered a bacterium that feeds on toxic plastic. The bug reportedly breaks down the plastic and also uses it as food. Scientists - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
One Free Press Coalition - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
One Free Press Coalition has issued its monthly “10 Most Urgent” list of journalists whose press freedoms are being suppressed or whose cases demand justice. Wired covers the list here.
Afternoon Brief
NASA, SpaceX - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
According to NASA, astronauts will launch into space aboard an American rocket and spacecraft from American soil the first time since the final space shuttle mission in 2011, reports CNN.
Along with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, NASA hopes to launch the manned SpaceX Demo-2 flight test in May from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are expected to be on the flight test in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft on top of a Falcon 9 rocket. The two have been practicing in a Crew Dragon simulator over the last few months.
“The simulations were a great opportunity to practice procedures and to coordinate decision-making for the mission management team, especially with respect to weather,” said Michael Hess, manager of Operations Integration for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
Wrongfully imprisoned and their families - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
Relatives of Americans who are wrongfully imprisoned abroad or held hostage by militant groups say in a report Thursday that the U.S. government must do better in communicating with them, though they cite improvements over the past five years.
Several of those interviewed for the report say they do not believe that the cases of their loved ones have the attention of the highest levels of government.
The report from the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation is based on interviews with 25 former hostages and detainees as well as their relatives and advocates.
Some cases remain unresolved or have not had positive outcomes. American journalist Austin Tice remains missing after vanishing in Syria in 2012, and last week the family of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who vanished on an unauthorized CIA mission to Iran 13 years ago, said it had been told that the U.S. government had concluded that he was dead.
Daniel Pearl, the Pearl Project - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
Four people convicted in the killing of Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter kidnapped in 2002 in Pakistan, were acquitted by a Pakistani court today, with the accused mastermind getting his death sentence commuted.
“The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply disappointed to see justice in the murder case of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl denied by a Pakistani court today,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “We urge prosecutors to appeal the decision, which found Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh guilty only of kidnapping Pearl in a crime that led directly to his murder.”
Pearl, 38, was investigating Islamist militants in Karachi after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. when he was kidnapped in January 2002. His case grabbed headlines globally, after a video of his beheading emerged weeks after Pearl was abducted.
An investigative journalism project called the Pearl Project set out to identify those responsible in the killing of Daniel Pearl. The original investigation was conducted in 2007 through 2010, and the 31-thousand word report was published by the Center for Public Integrity.
Fauci Gets Security Beefed Up After Threats
More than 80,000 volunteer for NY medical workers reserve force
Dr. Anthony Fauci, NIAID Director. (Doug Mills/ The New York Times/Redux)
NewsHero is continuing to offer a compilation of stories and resources that best represent the current state of the coronavirus pandemic, centered on those individuals, institutions, and organizations stepping up to end this crisis as quickly and effectively as possible. The public, too, has a duty. This includes staying responsibly informed and taking the situation seriously, while remaining as cool-headed and as isolated as possible. These are strange and difficult times, but we will endure.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has faced growing threats to his safety, and the government will step up his security, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. Asked on NBC’s “Today” show if he felt safe, Fauci said, “I do.”
An editorial from Nature says that world leaders could benefit from following the example set by scientists as they team up to fight the novel coronavirus.
New York rushed to bring in an army of medical volunteers Wednesday as the statewide death toll from the coronavirus doubled in 72 hours. So far, at least 82,000 people have volunteered for the state’s reserve force of medical workers—a group that includes recent retirees returning to work, health care professionals who can take a break from their regular jobs and people between gigs, according to health officials.
California Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday said 25,000 people signed up for the state’s new Health Corps site in just one day.
A group of 30 laid-off employees of Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) have started training this week to learn basic skills to assist in nursing homes and hospitals currently overwhelmed by a surging number of patients and ill medical staff.
The west coast of the U.S. shows hopeful signs that early social distancing has worked, allowing officials to increase hospital capacity and slowing the spread of the coronavirus, reports Bloomberg News. While the situation in California is unstable, distancing measures may help ease a potentially devastating burden on medical facilities, Governor Gavin Newsom said.
The New York Times reports that governors from all political standpoints are challenging the Trump administration’s claim that the U.S. is adequately prepared to test and care for coronavirus patients.
Volunteers with Extend a Hand, Help a Friend prepare salad and fruit plates on Thursday at the Climb CDC Family enrichment Center in Gulfport. (John Fitzhugh)
Though the National World War I Museum in Kansas City, Mo. is closed, its employees, rather than being laid off, are transcribing and digitizing more than 300,000 pages from letters, diaries, and journals, reports CNN.
Doctors Without Borders is offering an online discussion series, held April 2, 9, and 16.
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Tuesday the company has extra FDA-approved ventilators that can be shipped free of cost to hospitals within regions where the electric carmaker delivers.
U.S. manufacturers have worked frantically to increase the output of ventilators, reminiscent of the mobilization of industry during World War II. Medical companies teamed up with automakers to boost their production, including without orders from FEMA, reports NPR.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo expressed his state’s need for medical equipment in a tweet saying, “We need supplies. We need your help. If you can manufacture PPE I implore you to do so. NYS will pay a premium.”
Amazon.com plans to roll out temperature checks and face masks for staff at all its U.S. and European warehouses plus Whole Foods stores by early next week, a huge deployment for workers on the front lines of the coronavirus outbreak.
Azeem Azhar over at Exponential View has a good read up titled “What Dr Doom told me about the coming recession—Buckle up. Pandemic economics are turbulent.”
Extra! Extra!
“One Giant Leak For Mankind”
Astronauts will be returning to the moon in 2024, and according to CNN the first woman and next man on the moon—as part of NASA’s Artemis program—will be landing at the lunar South Pole.
The space travelers will have to “build a safe habitat to protect them from radiation, extreme temperature swings…and impacts by micrometeorites.” The Artemis program will include working toward a sustainable way to be on the moon permanently.
What might come in handy when setting up camp on the moon, you wonder? Urine.
“As part of a new study, researchers investigated what would happen if moon dust, known as regolith, was mixed with a component of human urine called urea to create a kind of concrete that can be 3D-printed to build a structure fit for human habitation.”
Ain’t that a pisser? Sorry. But seriously, would MacGyver even have thought of this? Yes, some things really are the stuff of dreams.
Our heroes are identified as follows:
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - the hero, hands down. - Meaning that it wasn’t even a close call.
🦸♀️🦸♀️ - the hero, but… - Meaning that in this situation the call needed to be looked at in a little more detail. For example, in this case, they did the right thing but there have been some questionable calls in the past.
🦸♀️ - the hero, but only here, and it was a close call. - Meaning that in this instance they did the right thing but it was either out of character or a maddeningly close call.
Sources:
Scientists find bug that feasts on toxic plastic - The Guardian
One Free Press Coalition Spotlights Journalists Under Attack - Wired
NASA and SpaceX prepare to launch astronauts from the US again - CNN
NASA call for astronauts draws 12,000 spaceflight hopefuls - AP News
Musk's SpaceX wins NASA award to supply planned lunar space station - Reuters
Report: US hostage families seek better government support - AP News
James W. Foley Legacy Foundation - jamesfoleyfoundation.org
Pakistan court overturns murder convictions in Daniel Pearl case - CPJ
Pakistani court overturns murder convictions in killing of journalist Daniel Pearl - Washington Post
Pakistan court set to free four accused in Daniel Pearl killing - Reuters
Researchers: show world leaders how to behave in a crisis - Nature
‘A battlefield behind your home’: Deaths mount in New York - AP News
Anthony Fauci’s security is stepped up as doctor and face of U.S. coronavirus response receives threats - Washington Post
Social Distancing Shows Signs of Curbing Virus on West Coast - Bloomberg News
Governors Fight Back Against Coronavirus Chaos: ‘It’s Like Being on eBay With 50 Other States’ - The New York Times
Kansas City's WWI Museum is avoiding layoffs by giving employees thousands of pages from its archives to digitize - CNN
California Health Corps site scored 25,000 sign-ups in its first day, Governor Newsom says - CNBC
Call for virus volunteers yields army of health care workers - AP News Doctors Without Borders Hosts Online Discussion Series - MSF
Tesla plans to supply FDA-approved ventilators free of cost: Musk - Reuters
FEMA Hadn't Ordered Ventilators. Manufacturers Forged Ahead Anyway - NPR
NY Governor Andrew Cuomo - Twitter
Reporting for duty: Airline crew sign up to help hospitals - AP News
Exclusive: Amazon to deploy masks and temperature checks for workers by next week - Reuters
What Dr Doom told me about the coming recession - Exponential View
Moon bases could be built using astronaut urine - CNN