The big picture: Nunes has faced criticism for downplaying the seriousness of the virus. In March, he encouraged healthy people to “go out” despite the advice of public health experts for people to stay home.
What they’re saying: Nunes told radio host Ray Appleton, “I just spent the last couple hours giving blood plasma and it was painless,” adding, “So I actually tested positive for the COVID antibodies.”
- “So that means you had it?” Appleton responded. “Yeah,” Nunes said.
Of note: Per the Centers for Disease Control, “A positive test result shows you may have antibodies from an infection with the virus that causes COVID-19. However, there is a chance that a positive result means you have antibodies from an infection with a different virus from the same family of viruses (called coronaviruses).”
Democrat Richie Neal once again screws over Americans. Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks.
Australia has reported its first week without a locally transmitted coronavirus case for the first time in more than nine months, according to Health Minister Greg Hunt.
The major milestone comes as social distancing restrictions continue to be eased and Queensland announced it would on Saturday open its border to New Zealand travellers.
“Advice just received from the National Incident Centre,” Mr Hunt tweeted on Friday afternoon.
“Today marks the first 7-day period without any cases of community transmission since February 29.”
Australia’s ability to contain the spread of the deadly virus has allowed nearly all state borders to open ahead of Christmas, with Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk breaking from her strict stance on travel to allow tourists to enter the Sunshine State from across the Tasman Sea.
“(Chief health officer) Dr Jeannette Young advised me late last night that New Zealand is good to go,” she told Today on Friday morning.
“So, visitors coming in from New Zealand from 1am tomorrow are welcome into Queensland.
“We are hoping that eventually New Zealand will not have to hotel quarantine upon return, and then there would be free flowing movement between the two.”
Only one more internal border needs to reopen - the one between South Australia and Western Australia, which Premier Mark McGowan has promised to do on Christmas Day.
Mr Hunt celebrated the positive milestone comes as countries across the world continue to report horrific death rates from the pandemic.
Deaths in the United States as a result of coronavirus reached 3054 on Thursday local time, while hospitalisations also hit a record high of 107,248, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
And the worst has only just begun, doctors have said, with a predicted post-thanksgiving surge leading to widespread infections and consistently record-setting hospitalisations and deaths.
“Things are really bad,” dean of Brown University School of Public Health, Dr Ashish Jha, told CNN.
“What we have seen over the last few weeks is a sharp rise in infections. And what we know – from the beginning of this pandemic – is infections are followed by hospitalisations, which are then followed by death.”
A rare leak of a prisoner list from a Chinese internment camp shows how a government data programme targets Muslim minorities for detention over transgressions that include simply being young, or speaking to a sibling living abroad.
The database obtained by Human Rights Watch (HRW) sheds new light on how authorities in Xinjiang region use a vast “predictive policing” network, that tracks individuals’ personal networks, their online activity and daily life.
The list contains details of more than 2,000 Uighur detainees held in Aksu prefecture between 2016 and 2018, all apparently imprisoned after they were flagged by the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP).
The IJOP is a massive database combining personal data scooped from automated online monitoring and information manually entered into a bespoke app by officials.
It includes information ranging from people’s physical characteristics to the colour of their car and their personal preference of using the front or back door to enter their house, as well as software they use online and their regular contacts.
“The Aksu List provides further insights into how China’s brutal repression of Xinjiang’s Turkic Muslims is being turbocharged by technology,” said Maya Wang, senior China researcher at HRW.
Most of those on the list were held for lawful and non-violent behaviour, but some are simply noted as “flagged by IJOP”, without further information about how authorities reached a decision with such painful implications.
Behaviour listed as a reason for detention includes being “generally untrustworthy” and being “born after the 1980s”. One man appears to have been detained for not paying rent on his land, and others for practising polygamy.
Beijing initially denied the existence of the camps, but more recently has claimed they are a vital part of the fight against extremism and terrorism.
The details on the list, however, show a broad detention dragnet. “This contradicts the Chinese authorities’ claims that their ‘sophisticated’, ‘predictive’ technologies, like the IJOP, are keeping Xinjiang safe by ‘targeting’ criminals ‘with precision’,” said Wang.
A detainee named in the report as Ms T was flagged for “links to sensitive countries”, after IJOP recorded that she had received four calls from her sister who lived overseas, noting their duration in minutes and seconds.
In the video, purportedly from a Palm Sunday sermon in 2015, Warnock also likened Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to former segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace.
Warnock made the statements shortly after the 2015 Israeli elections, won by Netanyahu’s Likud Party. On the final day of the campaign, Netanyahu announced his opposition to a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, walking back previous support.
In his sermon, Warnock described the Israeli and Palestinian region as “a land of violence and bloodshed and occupation,” and said he heard a “very clever politician running for re-election as prime minister suddenly announce ‘No two-state solution,’” he said.
“That’s tantamount to saying, ‘occupation today, occupation tomorrow, occupation forever,’” Warnock said, using phrasing mirroring Wallace’s racist call in 1963 for “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”
Warnock urges his parishioners to consider the Middle East demographics. There are more Arabs in the region than Jews, he said. Without a two-state solution, the Jews in the region would need undemocratic apartheid-like policies, or risk being overwhelmed at the polls.
“The state will either be Jewish, or it will be a democracy,” he said. “It can’t be both if you don’t have a Palestinian state. You would have to have apartheid in Israel that denies other citizens, sisters and brothers, citizenship.”
Warnock also took aim at a statement Netanyahu made in the lead-up to voting when he warned that his right-wing government was in danger, and urged his supporters to vote because “Arab voters are heading to polling stations in droves.” Warnock described Netanyahu’s statement as “kind of racist and vicious language.”
Warnock is one of two Democrats in Georgia trying to defeat Republican incumbents in a January runoff election. If both win, Democrats will take over the Senate.
This wasn’t the first time Warnock’s past statements about Israel have come back to haunt him. Last year, Warnock was part of a group of African American church leaders who toured the Middle East and released a statement accusing Israel of engaging in tactics similar to those previously used by apartheid South Africa and communist East Germany – “patterns that seem to have been borrowed and perfected from other previous repressive regimes.”
He was right. Israel is linked to apartheid.
Three snow leopards, two males and a female, tested positive for the virus at the Louisville Zoo, the zoo and the US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service confirmed Friday.
The female’s infection was confirmed first. All three leopards, whose symptoms are “mild” and include wheezes and dry coughs, are expected to fully recover, Louisville Zoo director John Walczak said in a filmed statement.
The leopards were likely infected by an asymptomatic staff member “despite precautions taken by the zoo,” the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspect Service said.
It’s unlikely the leopards – or other animals – pose a significant risk in transmitting the virus to humans, as Covid-19 is primarily spread between people.
The snow leopards are one of at least six animal species to become infected with coronavirus after close contact with humans. The first was a Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo, who in April tested positive for coronavirus after showing symptoms of respiratory illness. By the end of the month, eight of the zoo’s big cats, including four other tigers and three African lions, tested positive for the virus.
A small number of dogs and cats have been infected with the virus in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In most animal cases, coronavirus isn’t deadly, though coronavirus outbreaks at fur farms in the US and abroad have killed thousands of mink.
Police in Belgium are looking for four men who used a train’s public address system to threaten a bombing of the vehicle near Antwerp unless Jewish passengers step off.
The passengers took control of the public address system on Wednesday afternoon between Antwerp and Mechelen, the city that Nazis and their collaborators used as an internment and dispatch station for Jews whom they sent to be murdered in Poland.
“Attention, attention,” the men said in Flemish, “the cancer Jews need to leave the train now or we’ll blow you all up,” witnesses said.
Security personnel on the train failed to locate the perpetrators, according to Michael Freilich, a Belgian-Jewish lawmaker who has looked into and filed parliamentary questions about the incident to the Transportation Ministry.
Freilich asked the ministry to explain why the perpetrators were not caught, how they gained access to the address system and what can be done to prevent a recurrence.
The ministry has two weeks to respond.
Officers were serving a search warrant Monday morning at the home of Rebekah Jones, a coronavirus data scientist who was fired from the state and has accused Florida officials of covering up the extent of the pandemic.
The state Department of Law Enforcement is investigating whether Jones illegally accessed a state messaging system to send her former colleagues a message urging them to speak out about coronavirus deaths. Jones, who has feuded with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis for months, has denied sending the message.
The two videos released by the department show that Jones didn’t exit her Tallahassee home until about 23 minutes after officers first rang the doorbell, and 15 minutes after they first announced themselves as police. Jones has claimed authorities waited 13 minutes while she got dressed.
Officers are seen calling Jones’ cell phone to ask her to leave the house, while one holds a large hammer.
“Police search warrant, open the door!” officers yell several times. “Make sure the whole block hears us,” one agent tells his colleagues.
As Jones exits her house, one officer with his gun drawn appears to point the weapon in her direction, although it’s unclear whether anyone pointed a firearm six inches from Jones’ face, as she has claimed in interviews with CNN. Officers are seen holding her by her back and her arms as she shouts at them not to point a gun at her children.
One of the officers scolds Jones for taking so long after she leaves the house.
“That was not smart what you are doing,” the officer tells Jones. “You need to calm down and get your head (inaudible) because you are making all the wrong decisions.”
“All you had to do was answer the door – there was no doubt who we were,” the officer said.
Jones replies that her lawyer had previously told her not to answer the door. She seems confused about what officers want. “What are they looking for? Are they looking for a person?” she asked at one point.
Law enforcement department Commissioner Rick Swearingen said in a statement that “this video demonstrates that FDLE agents exercised extreme patience.”
Attorney General Gordon MacDonald’s office said in a statement Thursday that the state’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Jennie V. Duval, had determined the Republican’s death Wednesday was due to the disease caused by the coronavirus. Hinch was 71.
“During this difficult time, the family has requested that their privacy continue to be respected,” the statement read.
The late Republican speaker had been elected to the post on December 2. Hinch, who was first elected to the chamber in 2008, previously served as New Hampshire’s House Republican leader from 2018 to 2020 and as House majority leader from 2015 to 2018.
“We ask that Speaker Hinch’s family be given the highest level of privacy and respect as they deal with this unexpected tragedy. There are no details to share at this time, however, I would ask that you please keep Speaker Hinch’s wife Pat, and their children in your warm wishes,” his office said in a statement on Wednesday.
New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu has directed all flags on public buildings and grounds in the state to fly at half-staff, and he said in his own statement that Hinch was “a respected public servant.”
“Profoundly sad to learn of the passing of Speaker Dick Hinch,” Sununu said. “Speaker Hinch was a fierce defender of the New Hampshire Advantage, a close friend, and a respected public servant. His loss will be greatly felt by the people of this state.”
Sununu said later Thursday that Hinch’s passing is a reminder that the virus still poses a great threat to all people.
“Really just a stark reminder, unfortunately, that this virus really doesn’t care if you’re in a long-term care facility or if you’re an elected official,” he said at a news conference. “No one is immune.”
Hinch’s death comes as the coronavirus ravages the country, and he is among the 3,124 Americans who died from the virus on Wednesday, a record-setting day for the pandemic in the US.
Hinch served in the Navy from 1968 to 1972, according to his biography, which says he worked as a Realtor and served for a time as New Hampshire’s real estate commissioner.
After 106 House Republicans on Thursday signed onto a brief supporting a last-ditch Supreme Court lawsuit attempting overturn the November election, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called out her GOP colleagues for focusing their time and attention on trying to undo President Donald Trump’s decisive loss instead of working to provide relief to struggling Americans.
“House Republicans are spending critical time when people are starving and small businesses are shuttering trying to overturn the results of our election,” the New York Democrat tweeted, “but please tell us more about how ‘both sides are just as bad.’”
Led by Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), more than half of the House GOP caucus on Thursday joined 18 Republican attorneys general in endorsing a likely doomed-to-fail lawsuit by Texas AG Ken Paxton, which seeks to stop the official certification electors in the key battleground states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. All four states have certified President-elect Joe Biden’s victories.
The Republicans’ move followed a pressure campaign by Trump, who has reportedly been calling GOP members of Congress and “imploring them to keep fighting and more loudly proclaim the election was stolen while pressing them on what they plan to do.”
As Common Dreams reported earlier Thursday, Paxton’s lawsuit has been dismissed as “garbage” by legal experts, and it is unclear whether the U.S. Supreme Court will even consider it.
While the suit is almost certain to fail, analysts and Democratic lawmakers have warned that the Republican legal challenge represents a dangerous threat to democracy—a threat that will not go away when Trump leaves office on January 20.
“They are attempting a coup in broad daylight and it should not be treated as anything less,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said Thursday.
Growing Republican support for Trump’s flailing effort to overturn his election defeat comes amid worsening public health and economic crises that have left tens of millions of people across the U.S. desperate for relief. With an estimated 26 million Americans struggling to afford food in the absence of help from the deadlocked federal government, people are increasingly turning to shoplifting to obtain basic necessities.
“It wasn’t malicious,” said one young mother who has recently resorted to sneaking food into her child’s stroller while grocery shopping. “We were hungry.”
