Pelosi slams Barr as Flynn case dropped; Police make arrests in Arbery murder; Journalists arrested in Bangladesh; Nurses protest lack of PPE; UN seeks $6.7b in aid for 'fragile countries' + 'robodog'
NewsHero - May 8, 2020 - Issue 94
Welcome to today’s edition of NewsHero for May 8, 2020.
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At NewsHero we put the heroes in the headlines and give them the attention that they deserve. Our coverage puts the focus on those who are helping, over those causing harm. Here you’ll find the same top-priority issues, but you won’t find clickbait, and what you read won’t be driven by ad sales.
NewsHero Notes
Veterans - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
Today is VE day, and this year marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Though since there will be no parades or gatherings, remembrances must be at home this year during these times of isolation.
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
Australia’s child abuse royal commission found that Cardinal George Pell was aware of children being sexually abused within the Archdiocese of Ballarat by a notorious pedophile priest, reports The Guardian.
A protester demands the release of Bangladeshi journalist Shafiqul Islam Kajol in front of the National Press Club in Dhaka, Bangladesh on May 5, 2020. (© 2020 Syed Mahamudur Rahman/NurPhoto via AP)
Afternoon Brief
Those in pursuit of the truth - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
House Democrats are criticizing Attorney General William Barr as being excessively loyal to Donald Trump, following the announcement that the Justice Department is dropping the criminal case against Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.
The action Thursday was a surprising reversal for one of the signature cases brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. It comes even though prosecutors for the past three years have maintained that Flynn lied to the FBI in a January 2017 interview about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.
“Attorney General Barr’s politicization of justice knows no bounds,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. She accused Barr’s department of “dropping the case to continue to cover up for the president.”
Trump, however, praised Barr for abandoning the prosecution of Flynn, calling Barr “a man of unbelievable credibility and courage.” Trump said that if Barr had been his first attorney general, there would never have been a Russia probe.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation - 🦸♀️🦸♀️
Georgia authorities arrested a white father and son Thursday and charged them with murder in the February shooting death of a black man they had pursued in a truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood.
The charges came more than two months after Ahmaud Arbery, 25, was killed on a residential street just outside the port city of Brunswick. National outrage over the case swelled this week after cellphone video that appeared to show the shooting.
Those close to Arbery celebrated the news but also expressed frustration at the long wait.
“This should have occurred the day it happened,” said Akeem Baker, one of Arbery’s close friends in Brunswick. “There’s no way without the video this would have occurred. I’m just glad the light’s shining very bright on this situation.”
Human Rights Watch; protesters - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
Four people have been arrested and seven others charged by authorities in Bangladesh for “spreading rumors and misinformation on Facebook,” after they criticized the government’s response to COVID-19. Human Rights Watch said Thursday that authorities “should immediately drop all charges, which appear to violate freedom of expression, release the four people in custody, and repeal the draconian Digital Security Act (DSA).”
According to the First Information Report (FIR) filed with police, the individuals are being charged under the DSA for “knowingly posting rumors against the father of the nation, the liberation war, and the coronavirus pandemic to negatively affect the nation’s image,” and to “cause the law and order situation to deteriorate.”
“It is only an insecure and authoritarian government that uses a pandemic to arrest cartoonists, journalists, and activists,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of filing cases that could result in life imprisonment simply for posting satire, the ruling Awami League should take note of the criticism and try to address any gaps in the government’s response to COVID-19.”
The DSA has been criticized by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, the U.S., the EU, journalists in Bangladesh, and many others for violating Bangladesh’s commitments under international law, says Human Rights Watch.
Nurses Gather Outside White House To Protest Lack Of PPE
UN asks for $6.7 billion in coronavirus aid for ‘fragile countries’
A statue of Queen's late singer Freddie Mercury, wearing a protective face mask. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
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.
Nurses gathered Thursday morning in front of the White House to protest their lack of personal protective equipment, reports CNN. “You talk about how essential, how needed, how grateful you are, and yet you throw us to the wolves. You throw us out onto a battlefield without armor and the more we complain we don't see anything being done,” said Jean Ross, president of National Nurses United.
As part of its Global Humanitarian Response Plan, the United Nations is requesting $6.7 billion in aid to fight the effects of coronavirus in “fragile countries,” reports NPR. “The COVID-19 pandemic is hurting us all,” U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said. “But the most devastating and destabilizing effects will be felt in the world's poorest countries. In the poorest countries we can already see economies contracting as export earnings, remittances and tourism disappear.”
States like New York, California, and Massachusetts, and cities like Baltimore and San Francisco, have said, “No thanks,” or “Not now,” after considering cutting-edge contact-tracing solutions like those from a Google-Apple collaboration, reports Wired.
According to a report from NewsGuard, which rates news sites on reliability, Twitter is failing to avoid misinformation “superspreaders,” says Financial Times. Additionally, more than 100 doctors and health experts Thursday—including former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and CDC officials—published a letter in The New York Times that read: “We are calling on the tech giants to take immediate systemic action to stem the flow of health misinformation, and the public health crisis it has triggered.”
Senior officials with direct knowledge of the discussions say that a communication breakdown within the Trump administration is hindering the development of a COVID-19 treatment, Axios reports. Remdesivir hasn’t made it to some of the hospitals where it’s needed most, and administration officials have reportedly been playing the blame game, shirking responsibility.
PhRMA, which represents innovative biopharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies in the U.S., said: “American biopharma companies are coming together to eradicate COVID-19. With over 400 clinical trials underway, more than half of PhRMA members are researching and developing potential treatments and vaccines,” via Axios on Twitter.
Dennis Ruhnke, the former farmer from Kansas who sent his last N95 mask to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has been given an honorary degree from Kansas State, reports NowThis via Twitter. “My life is forever changed,” said Ruhnke.
Nurses are trained on using WHO-provided ventilators at a hospital for COVID-19 patients in Sana'a, Yemen, on April 8, 2020. (Khaled Abdullah/Reuters)
Yemeni authorities on both sides of a five-year war were dismayed to learn that the World Health Organization is reducing supplemental payments to thousands of health care workers across Yemen, even as the coronavirus is starting to spread there, reports The New Humanitarian.
A report from MIT’s Technology Review says that when the coronavirus hit China live-streaming came to the rescue for agriculture as farmers benefited from e-commerce.
New documents obtained by ProPublica reveal that although hundreds of workers at the JBS meatpacking plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, tested positive for COVID-19, Gov. Pete Ricketts blocked recommendations from public health officials to close it. “Since then, cases have skyrocketed,” ProPublica says.
Some 400,000 Indians were expected to be brought back from the United States and the United Kingdom, besides southeast Asia and the Gulf, in a massive airlift of special flights from Air India. “The process for return of Indian nationals stranded abroad via non-scheduled commercial flights and Indian navy ships has begun,” home ministry joint secretary Punya Salila Srivastava told a news conference.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against Uber and Lyft, alleging that they have evaded state law by declaring their workers to be contractors rather than employees, his office announced, as reported by NBC News. “The time has come for Uber’s and Lyft’s massive, unlawful employee misclassification scheme to end,” according to an advanced copy of portions of the complaint that were shared with NBC News.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said Thursday that the city plans to permanently close 20 miles of streets to traffic so residents will have more space to exercise and bike, reports CNN. “Safe and Healthy Streets are an important tool for families in our neighborhoods to get outside, get some exercise and enjoy the nice weather,” Durkan said. “Over the long term, these streets will become treasured assets in our neighborhoods.”
Extra! Extra!
A four-legged robot dog called SPOT patrols a park as it undergoes testing to be deployed as a safe distancing ambassador, following the COVID-19 outbreak, in Singapore May 8, 2020. (Reuters/Edgar Su)
Good boy! There’s a robot dog that reminds park-goers in Singapore to keep their distance. Get ‘em!
According to Reuters: “The remote-controlled, four-legged machine built by Boston Dynamics was first deployed in a central park on Friday as part of a two-week trial that could see it join other robots policing Singapore’s green spaces during a nationwide lockdown.
‘Let’s keep Singapore healthy,’ the yellow and black robodog named SPOT said in English as it roamed around. ‘For your own safety and for those around you, please stand at least one meter apart. Thank you,’ it added, in a softly-spoken female voice.”
At least the cyber-hound is nice about it and not chasing people down the street, tackling them and stuffing citations into their mouths. Yet.
Actually, SPOT has also been tested with a local hospital for delivering medicine. So maybe digi-pup will wind up with a permanent place in maintaining a healthy society. Or ruling it.
Sources:
VE Day clashes with virus chaos, veterans left in limbo - AP News
George Pell: cardinal was aware of children being sexually abused, royal commission report finds - The Guardian
An Ugly Day for the Justice Department - Lawfare
Justice Department dropping Flynn's Trump-Russia case - AP News
Barr defends dropping Flynn case: 'I'm doing the law's bidding' - CNNPolitics
Ahmaud Arbery: Travis and Gregory McMichael arrested on murder charges - USA Today
Ahmaud Arbery case: Two men involved in fatal shooting face murder charges, GBI says - CNN
Father, son charged with killing black man Ahmaud Arbery - AP News
Bangladesh: Mass Arrests Over Cartoons, Posts - Human Rights Watch
Nurses head to the White House to protest lack of protective equipment - CNNPolitics
U.N. Seeks $6.7 Billion For Humanitarian Aid Due To COVID-19 : Coronavirus Live Updates - NPR
Health Officials Say 'No Thanks' to Contact-Tracing Tech - Wired
Coronavirus deals U.S. job losses of 20.5 million, historic unemployment rate in April - Reuters
Twitter failing to curb misinformation ‘superspreaders’, report warns - Financial Times
Dysfunction within the Trump administration hurt the distribution of a coronavirus drug - Axios
‘My life is forever changed’ - NowThis on Twitter
World Health Organization cuts health worker stipends in Yemen - The New Humanitarian
Live-streaming helped China’s farmers survive the pandemic. It’s here to stay - MIT Technology Review
What Happened When Health Officials Wanted to Close a… - ProPublica
India mounts huge airlift to return stranded citizens home - Reuters
Uber and Lyft face landmark lawsuit over gig worker classification - NBC News
Seattle to permanently close 20 miles of streets to traffic so residents can exercise and bike on them - CNN
Roaming 'robodog' politely tells Singapore park goers to keep apart - Reuters
Singapore races to build beds for COVID-19 patients as cases surge - WKZO