Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong arrested; UN members support cease fire, except US; Georgia AG seeks federal investigation in Arbery murder; Virus officials self-quarantine; set to testify
NewsHero - May 11, 2020 - Issue 95
Welcome to today’s free edition of NewsHero for May 11, 2020.
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A protester holds a national flag during a demonstration against President Daniel Ortega's government in Managua, Nicaragua, on February 25, 2020. YouTube has censored independent Nicaraguan news outlets after copyright complaints from Ortega-owned media. (Reuters/Oswaldo Rivas)
NewsHero Notes
Journalists, CPJ - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
Committee to Protect Journalists has for years documented a crackdown on the media in Nicaragua that includes harassment, threats, surveillance, and imprisonment of journalists, the group says. Now, with President Daniel Ortega’s government facing criticism for failing to take action to stop the spread of COVID-19, independent information is more crucial than ever, CPJ says.
Voters! - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
Saturday, October 24, 2020 is Vote Early Day, a movement of non-profits, businesses, election administrators, and creatives working to ensure all Americans know their options to vote early. Learn more about the initiative here.
Undercover police arrest and handcuff a pro-democracy demonstrator in Mong Kok district. At least three arrests were made while groups of officers conducted multiple stop-and-searches. (Isaac Lawrence/AFP)
Afternoon Brief
Pro-democracy protesters - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
More than 200 pro-democracy protesters were arrested in Hong Kong Sunday night following a sing-along demonstration at a shopping mall that spilled out on to the streets.
Police said the arrested were between ages 12 and 65 and their offenses included unlawful assembly, assaulting a police officer and failing to produce proof of identity.
Police fired pepper spray at journalists and activists, and conducted stop and search operations on members of the public and media.
The Hong Kong Journalists’ Association (HKJA) said some members of the press were prevented from filming.
“Some journalists who were sprayed by pepper spray were not allowed to receive immediate treatment, and they were requested to stop filming,” said Chris Yeung, chairman of the HKJA.
Police did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
UN global cease fire supporters - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
It seems every country in the United Nations—except for the U.S.—has agreed to a proposed global cease fire amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The United States blocked a vote on a UN security council resolution calling for the global cease fire, because the Trump administration objected to an indirect reference to the World Health Organization, reports The Guardian.
For six weeks the security council has been negotiating the resolution, which was supposed to show global support for U.N. secretary general António Guterres’ March 23 call for the cease fire, to help fight the coronavirus by enabling humanitarian aid supplies to get through conflict zones.
Donald Trump has blamed the WHO for the pandemic, claiming (without any supporting evidence) that it withheld information in the early days of the outbreak, The Guardian wrote, and that China insisted that the resolution should include mention and endorsement of the WHO.
“The relationship between Washington and Beijing has grown worse and worse recently,” Jeremy Greenstock, a former British ambassador to the U.N., told PassBlue. “It’s pathetic, really, that they are scrapping like this when they need to be cooperating.”
At an April 30 press conference Guterres expressed disappointment over a bickering security council. “The relation between the major powers in the world today is very dysfunctional,” he said. “It is obvious that there is a lack of leadership.”
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
Georgia’s attorney general on Sunday asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the handling of the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a black man who authorities say died at the hands of two white men as he ran through a neighborhood.
Arbery was shot and killed Feb. 23. No arrests were made until this month after national outrage over the case swelled when video surfaced that appeared to show the shooting.
“We are committed to a complete and transparent review of how the Ahmaud Arbery case was handled from the outset,” Attorney General Chris Carr said in a statement. “The family, the community and the state of Georgia deserve answers, and we will work with others in law enforcement at the state and federal level to find those answers.”
Attorneys for Arbery’s mother and father applauded Carr for reaching out to federal officials.
“We have requested the involvement of the DOJ since we first took this case,” attorneys S. Lee Merritt, Benjamin Crump and L. Chris Stewart said in a statement. “There are far too many questions about how this case was handled and why it took 74 days for two of the killers to be arrested and charged in Mr. Arbery’s death.”
Key Virus Officials, Self-Quarantined, Set To Testify Before Senate
ACLU sues to protect incarcerated at Arizona private prison
Katie Machado, RN, UCSF Nurse Practitioner Student, conducts COVID-19 testing that was conducted by Unidos En Salud, a unique partnership between Mission community organizers in the Latino Task Force for COVID-19, UCSF researchers, the City and County of San Francisco, and the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH). (Photo by Barbara Ries)
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, FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn, CDC director Robert Redfield, and coronavirus testing coordinator Brett Giroir will testify via videoconference before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Tuesday, Axios reports.
Fauci, Hahn, and Redfield were in self-quarantine on Saturday after coming into contact with someone who had tested positive for the disease, their agencies and spokesmen said.
Katie Miller, Mike Pence’s press secretary, tested positive on Friday, raising alarm about the potential spread of the virus within the White House’s innermost circle. Miller is married to White House immigration adviser Stephen Miller. A valet for Pence has also tested positive.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Arizona filed a federal lawsuit against the warden of a private prison run by CoreCivic, the United States Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Prisons, demanding that the defendants ensure that the facility comply with public health guidelines to protect incarcerated people from the threat of COVID-19. The U.S. Marshals in Arizona said that 13 people detained at the facility have tested positive for COVID-19 and over 400 people are being quarantined.
“For months, public health officials and corrections experts have warned that under current circumstances prisons and jails will become especially potent vectors for the rapid spread of COVID-19 inside the facilities and in the surrounding communities,” said Emma Andersson, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Criminal Law Reform Project.
Senegalese researchers are working to develop a prototype ventilator that could cost a mere $160 each instead of tens of thousands of dollars. The team is using 3-D printed parts as it works to find a homegrown solution to ventilator shortages.
“Africans must find their own solutions to their problems. We must show our independence. It’s a big motivation for this,” said Ibrahima Gueye, a professor at the Polytechnic School of Thies in Senegal, on the 12-member team developing the prototype ventilator.
Ukraine’s troubled health care system has been overwhelmed by COVID-19, even though it has reported a relatively low number of cases—15,648 infections and 408 deaths as of Monday. Nowhere is the problem more evident than in the western city of Chernivtsi, with 2,324 confirmed infections in the city and the surrounding region.
“My soul is crying!” said Mykola Sharakhlitsky, an anesthesiologist at Chernivtsi’s main hospital as he cleaned a protective suit. “We are experiencing a shortage of medical equipment and protective gear, and we all get infected as a result.”
South Dakota’s Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe is refusing to stop using coronavirus checkpoints, saying they are the best way for them to prevent the virus from spreading, reports CNN. Gov. Kristi Noem has declared the checkpoints illegal.
Tribe Chairman Harold Frazier told CNN that the main purpose of their checkpoints is to monitor (and hopefully track) the coronavirus should it enter tribal lands.
“We want to ensure that people coming from ‘hot spots’ or highly infected areas, we ask them to go around our land,” Frazier said.
A Co-Diagnostics COVID-19 testing kit is pictured in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, March 17, 2020. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)
A report from The Washington Post says that job loss amid the virus pandemic has hit women the hardest. “Women have never experienced an unemployment rate in the double digits since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began reporting data by gender in 1948—until now. At 16.2 percent, women’s unemployment in April was nearly three points higher than men’s, according to Labor Department rates released Friday,” the Post says.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued the first emergency use authorization for a new category of tests to help rapidly spot coronavirus—diagnostic tests that quickly detect antigens found on samples collected from nasal swabs, reports CNBC. There is reportedly a higher chance of false negatives with antigen tests, but they could allow for testing millions of Americans per day.
The FDA said Friday that it had issued emergency authorization for the first at-home saliva collection kit to test for COVID-19. The test kit was developed by RUCDR Infinite Biologics, a Rutgers University laboratory, in partnership with Spectrum Solutions and Accurate Diagnostic Labs, reports The New York Times.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science profiled Dr. Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, a virologist who previously worked battling Ebola and HIV who’s now contracted COVID-19.
A report from Axios says that economists, investors and environmentalists are urging the U.S. to include clean energy and climate policy in its coronavirus recovery plans, alongside calls for clean-energy policies from the U.N., the IMF, and corporate executives as well.
The World Health Organization took to Twitter to post a video accompanying the message: “In a little over 3 months, #COVID19 has changed the world in so many ways, bringing us closer together and reaffirming the importance of #HealthForAll. This video shows the key moments so far as WHO works with partners worldwide to fight #coronavirus and save lives.” Watch it here.
And, “Waiting for Boris Johnson,” here is the latest installation of the Corona Daily newsletter.
Extra! Extra!
A headline from the Associated Press caught our attention this morning: Grit and red wine: Famous war photographer beats virus at 97
Tony Vaccaro, who lives in the Queens borough of New York City, survived WWII’s Battle of Normandy, and now at age 97, has survived COVID-19.
A photographer, he was the subject of a 2016 HBO documentary, “Under Fire: The Untold Story of PFC Tony Vaccaro.” His images are displayed in museums including the Pompidou Center in Paris and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Vaccaro credits his longevity to “blind luck, red wine,” and determination.
“To me, the greatest thing that you can do is challenge the world,” Vaccaro said. “And most of these challenges I win. That’s what keeps me going.”
That’s nice to hear. Especially at a time when it feels like it’s the world that is challenging us.
Cheers, Tony. Cheers, everyone.
Sources:
YouTube censors independent Nicaraguan news outlets after copyright complaints from Ortega-owned media - Committee to Protect Journalists
Vote Early Day is October 24 - Vote Early Day
Hong Kong police arrest more than 200 as pro-democracy protests return - Reuters
Carrie Lam blames Hong Kong education system for fueling protests - The Guardian
In Pictures: Hong Kong pro-democracy protests resurface - Al Jazeera
Hong Kong police arrest more than 200 in renewed protests - AP News
To mention or not to mention WHO, that is U.N. Security Council question - Reuters
US blocks vote on UN's bid for global ceasefire over reference to WHO - The Guardian
US withdraws support for UN Security Council global ceasefire resolution - France24
'Pathetic': The US Pulls the Plug on a UN Global Cease-Fire Resolution - PassBlue
Ahmaud Arbery: Georgia attorney general requests federal investigation into handling of the case - CNN
Georgia Attorney General asks DOJ to investigate jogger Ahmaud Arbery's killing - The Washington Post
Georgia AG requests federal probe in handling of Arbery case - AP News
Three key U.S. coronavirus officials in self-quarantine after COVID-19 exposure: reports - Reuters
Top Trump health officials to testify before Senate via videoconference - Axios
ACLU Sues to Protect People Incarcerated in a Private Prison From COVID-19 - American Civil Liberties Union
African nations seek their own solutions in virus crisis - AP News
Ukraine's hospitals under strain, even with few virus cases - AP News
South Dakota Sioux tribe refuses to take down checkpoints that governor says are illegal - CNN
Female unemployment: Women have lost more jobs than men from the pandemic - The Washington Post
FDA issues emergency authorization for first antigen test to rapidly detect coronavirus - CNBC
FDA Clears First Home Saliva Test for Coronavirus - The New York Times
‘Finally, a virus got me.’ Scientist who fought Ebola and HIV reflects on facing death from COVID-19 - Science
Clean energy and climate change unlikely to lead recovery from coronavirus - Axios
VIDEO: ‘key moments so far as WHO works with partners worldwide to fight #coronavirus’ - WHO, Twitter
Waiting for Boris Johnson - Coronadaily
Grit and red wine: Famous war photographer beats virus at 97 - AP News