🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️NewsHero- Scientists: COVID-19 airborne; Native Americans protest at Mount Rushmore; Bolton, Rice say Trump would've been briefed on Russian bounties; Hong Kong adjusts to security law
July 6, 2020 - Issue 132
Welcome to this edition of NewsHero for July 6, 2020.
As we kick off another week, we send a huge thanks to you all for your continued support.
To our subscribers, your help means everything to NewsHero, and we hope you’ll share what we do with someone you love (or moderately like, even).
To our other readers, this here is what a typical edition of our newsletter looks like. We hope you enjoy it and consider signing up with us.
Your subscription is the only way that NewsHero can exist—we invite you to join us for $5 a month or $50 for the year.
Thanks for keeping us going!
Now, on with this issue, which also includes: doctors and journalists working to fight off COVID-19 in Egypt are arrested; a Black Facebook employee has filed a discrimination complaint; more Republicans are working together to get Joe Biden elected (or to at least get Trump booted); and armed militias swarmed Gettysburg ready to do battle against a supposed flag-burning ceremony arranged by that wily antifa. We feel so safe…
Scientists: ‘It is Time to Address Airborne Transmission of COVID-19’
Doctors, journalists working against virus in Egypt arrested
In this June 5, 2020 photo provided by the Mountain Area Health Education Center, physicians, residents and staff from the facility in Asheville, N.C., take a knee to show support for renewed calls for racial justice after the police killing of George Floyd. Government statistics from late January through May 30 suggest an increase in U.S. deaths from chronic diseases compared with historical trends. They include 7,000 excess deaths from hypertension, about 4,000 from diabetes and 3,000 from strokes -- all conditions that disproportionately affect Blacks, although the data don’t include race. (Brenda Benik/MAHEC via AP)
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - Researches promoting benefits of face masks
🦸♀️🦸♀️ - FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - Scientists continuing to study how COVID-19 spreads
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - Doctors and journalists working despite pressure from authorities
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - Watchdog group Public Citizen
The U.S. reported more than 55,000 new cases of coronavirus on July 2 and infection rates were hitting new records in several states—now the White House is looking to send a new message to the nation: “We need to live with it,” reports NBC News. Officials told NBC that Washington recognizes the virus is not going away any time soon, and will be around through the November election.
COVID-19 has delivered more than enough surprises, and as the economy is suffering, the markets oddly enough are thriving, Axios reports, noting that “the disconnect adds to the wealth gap.”
A model from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation shows that near-universal wearing of cloth or homemade masks could prevent between 17,742 and 28,030 deaths across the U.S. before Oct. 1, reports NPR.
FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn on Sunday declined to provide supporting evidence for Donald Trump’s claim that 99 percent of coronavirus cases in the U.S. are “totally harmless,” reports Politico. Hahn also recommended following CDC guidelines.
Hundreds of scientists say there is evidence that the coronavirus in smaller particles in the air can infect people and are calling for the World Health Organization (WHO) to revise recommendations, The New York Times reported on Saturday.
In an open letter to the WHO, which researches intend to publish as “It is Time to Address Airborne Transmission of COVID-19,” 239 scientists in 32 countries outlined the evidence showing smaller particles can infect people.
In perhaps the most shocking news to date, U.K. police said on Sunday that the scores of partiers who packed London’s Soho district the night pubs finally reopened made it “crystal clear” drunk people cannot socially distance, Al Jazeera reports. John Apter, the head of the U.K.’s police federation, said he wound up dealing with “naked men, happy drunks, angry drunks, fights and more angry drunks” while on duty.
According to rights groups, at least ten doctors and six journalists have been arrested since the coronavirus first hit Egypt in February, The Associated Press reports, including: “A doctor arrested after writing an article about Egypt’s fragile health system. A pharmacist picked up from work after posting online about a shortage of protective gear. An editor taken from his home after questioning official coronavirus figures. A pregnant doctor arrested after a colleague used her phone to report a suspected coronavirus case.”
The watchdog group Public Citizen identified forty lobbyists with ties to Donald Trump who helped clients secure more than $10 billion in federal coronavirus aid, among them five former administration officials whose work potentially violates Trump’s own ethics policy, The Associated Press reports.
While the U.S. is indeed testing more for COVID-19, it’s not the reason case numbers are going up, Axios reports. The number of new cases is just increasing faster.
Native American Protesters Block Road At Mount Rushmore Before Trump Speech
Black Facebook employee files discrimination complaint
Activists and members of different tribes from the region block the road to the Mount Rushmore National Monument as they protest in Keystone, South Dakota on July 3, 2020. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty)
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - Native American protesters
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - Oscar Veneszee, Jr., other Facebook employees speaking up
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - Opponents of Facebook groups spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories
A group of mainly Native American protesters blocked the road leading up to Mount Rushmore for three hours before Donald Trump gave a speech at the national monument Friday night, Business Insider says. According to the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, the protesters were met with resistance from law enforcement, pepper-sprayed, and arrested. Protesters argue that the Trump administration opposes the interests of Native Americans and other minority groups.
Oscar Veneszee, Jr., a Black Facebook employee, has filed a complaint against the company, saying it discriminates against Black workers and applicants in hiring, evaluations, promotions and pay, reports The Associated Press. Two others joined Veneszee’s complaint, saying they were unlawfully denied jobs at the company despite being qualified.
According to Veneszee’s complaint, filed on Thursday, “people of color and Black workers in particular remain underrepresented at all levels of Facebook and especially at the management and leadership levels. They do not feel respected or heard. And they do not believe that Black workers have an equal opportunity to advance their careers at Facebook.”
The Black Lives Matter movement appears to be the latest target of Facebook groups that previously worked to organize protests over coronavirus stay-at-home orders, and have, as The Associated Press notes, become a hub of misinformation and conspiracy theories.
“Unless Facebook is actively looking for disinformation in those spaces, they will go unnoticed for a long time and they will grow,” said Joan Donovan, the research director at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy. “Over time, people will drag other people into them and they will continue to organize.”
More Republicans Organize To Get Trump Defeated In November
Federal court orders Dakota Access Pipeline shut down
Activists demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Thursday as the court rejected the Trump administration's move to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - Republicans working to get Biden elected
🦸♀️🦸♀️ - FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn, again
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - Animal rights activists
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - Native Americans, environmental activists
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - DACA supporters
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that states can require presidential electors to back their states’ popular vote winner in the Electoral College, reports The Associated Press. The so-called “faithless electors” have not been critical to the outcome of a presidential election, but that could change in a race decided by just a few electoral votes.
It’s reassuring to know that when antifa plans to strike next—even if it’s all just made up—there’s an armed militia in America ready to suit up and unite to defend…something. The Washington Post reports: “Militias flocked to Gettysburg to foil a supposed antifa flag burning, an apparent hoax created on social media.”
It’s not just Democrats hoping to get Donald Trump replaced, “a slew of organized Republican groups have sprung up to do all they can to defeat Trump in November,” The Guardian reports.
“After seeing three and a half years of chaos and incompetence and division, a lot of people have just been pushed to say, ‘We have got to do something else,’” said Kristopher Purcell, a former Bush administration official who founded the Super Pac 43 Alumni for Biden. “We may not be fully on board with the Democratic agenda, but this is a one-issue election. ‘Are you for Donald Trump, or are you for America.’”
With record numbers of people testing positive for the coronavirus in Jacksonville and across Florida, FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn was asked if it would be safe to hold the Republican National Convention in just seven weeks. “I think it’s too early to tell,” Hahn told CNN. “We will have to see how this unfolds in Florida and elsewhere around the country.”
Yeah, we’ll see. Something tells us the no-masks-allowed-thousands-of-Republicans gathering will proceed as scheduled. Maybe they’ll even bump it up a few weeks.
Overturning an Obama-era ban on controversial hunting and trapping techniques on national preserves in Alaska, the Trump administration has a new rule that allows practices critics say are cruel and unsportsmanlike, reports CNN. Beginning next month, hunters will be able to use artificial light to hunt black bears, including cubs, in their dens, use bait to attract brown and black bears and bring in dogs to hunt black bears. There’s more, too, including the ability to shoot swimming caribou from motorboats.
Maybe in a few years you can just buy bear cubs and take them home to strangle them from the comfort of your living room.
Despite an earlier Supreme Court win, the developers of the $8 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline natural gas project, designed to cross 600-miles from West Virginia and Virginia into North Carolina, announced its cancellation due to uncertainties about costs, permitting and litigation.
Speaking of pipelines, federal court ruled Monday that the Dakota Access Pipeline must shut down within 30 days, by Aug. 5, according to a copy of the brief obtained by USA Today. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and environmental activists were opposed to the permit granted by Donald Trump in 2017, arguing oil spills could contaminate their water source and put their culture at risk, says CNBC.
Following a Supreme Court ruling last month in favor of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, offering protections for thousands of young immigrants, Donald Trump is expected to file paperwork this week to try once again to shut it down, The Hill reports. Fantastic.
And more from the Supreme Court: Politico reports that on Monday the court ruled to keep a ban on unsolicited robocalls to cell phones in place. Seriously, some things must be universally sacred—like the right to loathe robocalls.
Hong Kong Adjusting As New Security Law Takes Effect
Tech companies suspend requests for user data
Supporters of a detained protester held blank signs outside a courthouse on Friday. (Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times)
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - Pro-democracy supporters
🦸♀️🦸♀️ - Tech companies suspending requests for user data (🦸♀️ for Facebook, of course)
Hong Kong is adjusting to life under the new national security law imposed by Beijing, The New York Times reports, pointing out that “the defiant masses who once filled Hong Kong’s streets in protest have largely gone quiet. Sticky notes that had plastered the walls of pro-democracy businesses vanished, taken down by owners suddenly fearful of the words scribbled on them. Parents whispered about whether to stop their children from singing a popular protest song, while activists devised coded ways to express now-dangerous ideas.”
While pro-democracy activists and many countries around the world oppose China’s security law, fifty-three countries at the U.N. Human Rights Council, led by Cuba, came out in support of the law, reports Fox News.
With the law now in effect, BBC News reports that books by pro-democracy figures have been removed from public libraries in Hong Kong. At least nine books have become unavailable or marked as “under review,” according to the South China Morning Post.
Google, Facebook, and Twitter are among the tech companies that have suspended requests for user data from Hong Kong law-enforcement agencies following China’s law, the Wall Street Journal reports. “We believe freedom of expression is a fundamental human right of people to express themselves without fear for their safety or other repercussions,” Facebook said in a statement. OK, we’ll give Facebook a pass here on this one.
Bolton, Rice Say Trump Would Have Been Briefed On Russian Bounties
Russian Journalist Convicted In Terrorism Trial For Comments Made On Liberal Radio
A rainbow flag flies in support of the LGBTQ+ community at the British Embassy in Moscow, Russia June 27, 2020. (Reuters/Shamil Zhumatov)
🦸♀️ - John Bolton, again, for finally speaking up
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - Susan Rice
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - LGBTQ+ rights advocates
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - Svetlana Prokopyeva, Committee to Protect Journalists
John Bolton, speaking to CBS on Sunday, said of Donald Trump’s claims he wasn’t briefed on Russian bounties to kill U.S. troops, that it’s “just not the way the system works.”
Former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice said, “I don’t buy this story that he was never briefed,” adding that Bolton likely would have briefed Trump himself. “I believe that … when the information first came to light in 2019, my successor, John Bolton, would have walked straight into the Oval Office, as I would have, and informed the president of this intelligence.”
As lawmakers demand more information about the reports that Russia offered payments to fighters linked to groups to target American troops, the U.S. is moving forward with peace talks with the Taliban, reports CBS News.
At the same time, The New York Times reports that: “New Administration Memo Seeks to Foster Doubts About Suspected Russian Bounties”
The U.S. embassy in Moscow flies a rainbow Pride flag, celebrating LGBTQ+ rights. Russian President Vladimir Putin remarked on the embassy raising the flag, saying it “revealed something about the people that work there.” The unsolicited commentary follows a nationwide vote on constitutional reforms that included an amendment defining marriage specifically as a union between a man and a woman, reports Reuters.
Russian journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva was convicted and fined today in a terrorism trial over comments she made on a liberal radio station. “We are relieved that Svetlana Prokopyeva will not go to jail, but convicting a journalist of ‘justifying terrorism’ for simply expressing views shows how little tolerance Russian authorities have toward dissent,” said Committee to Protect Journalists’ Gulnoza Said. “Russia authorities should not contest Svetlana Prokopyeva’s appeal, return her electronic equipment, unfreeze her assets, and allow her to work and travel freely and safely.”
House Committee on Homeland Security - homeland.house.gov
De-Escalating Social Media - Nick Punt
Why are COVID cases increasing while deaths are decreasing? - Threader
This town of 170,000 replaced some cops with medics and mental health workers. It's worked for over 30 years - CNN
The Daily: Four New Insights About The Corona Virus - The New York Times
The Fullest Look Yet at the Racial Inequity of Coronavirus - The New York Times
US-China tensions heat up in South China Sea - CNN
Russians arrested in Austria over killing of Chechen dissident - The Guardian
Sources:
White House looks to make 'we need to live with it' the new tone on coronavirus: report - The Hill
'We need to live with it': White House readies new message for the nation on coronavirus - NBC News
Markets swell as the economy shrinks - Axios
Models Project Face Masks Can Reduce Significant Amount Of Coronavirus Deaths - NPR
FDA commissioner declines to back Trump assertion on ‘harmless’ coronavirus cases - Politico
FDA commissioner refuses to comment on Trump's claim that 99 percent of coronavirus cases are 'harmless' - USA Today
Hundreds of scientists say coronavirus is airborne, ask WHO to revise recommendations: NYT - Reuters
Scientists urge WHO to address airborne spread of coronavirus - The Washington Post
Drunk people cannot socially distance, say England police - Al Jazeera
Egypt arrests doctors, silences critics over virus outbreak - AP News
Trump-connected lobbyists reap windfall in COVID-19 boom - AP News
Case growth outpacing testing in coronavirus hotspots - Axios
Native American protesters blocked the road leading up to Mount Rushmore and faced off with the National Guard in the hours before Trump's fiery speech - Business Insider
Protesters in Keystone arrested after blocking road to Mount Rushmore for hours - Argus Leader
Facebook groups pivot to attacks on Black Lives Matter - AP News
Black worker files discrimination complaint against Facebook - AP News
Justices rule states can bind presidential electors' votes - AP News
Militias flocked to Gettysburg to foil a supposed antifa flag burning, an apparent hoax created on social media - The Washington Post
'We've got to do something': Republican rebels come together to take on Trump - The Guardian
Too soon to say if safe to hold Republican convention in Florida, U.S. official says - Reuters
A new federal rule will make it easier to hunt bears, wolves on national preserves in Alaska - CNNPolitics
Developers cancel long-delayed, $8B Atlantic Coast Pipeline - AP News
Court orders Dakota Access pipeline to shut down - CNBC
Trump expected to refile paperwork to end DACA this week - The Hill
Robocall ban stands, Supreme Court rules - Politico
Hong Kong Security Law Redraws Lines, Making Some Ideas Dangerous - The New York Times
At UN Human Rights Council, 53 countries back China's draconian Hong Kong crackdown - Fox News
Hong Kong security law: Pro-democracy books pulled from libraries - BBC News
Hong Kong Libraries Pull Books for Review Under China’s Security Law - WSJ
Google, Facebook and Twitter Suspend Review of Hong Kong Requests for User Data - WSJ
Facebook Temporarily Stops Hong Kong Data Requests - The New York Times
Bolton: Trump claim he wasn’t told of Russia bounty report is 'not how system works’ - The Guardian
New Administration Memo Seeks to Foster Doubts About Suspected Russian Bounties - The New York Times
U.S. moves forward with Taliban peace plan as questions loom over Russian bounty reports - CBS News
Austria police probe murder of Chechan critic as political hit - Fox News
Putin mocks U.S. embassy for flying rainbow flag - Reuters
Russian court convicts, fines journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva in terrorism trial - Committee to Protect Journalists
"That would be great."
"Not on the rug, man."