"Darwin was the first to use data from nature to convince people that evolution is true, and his idea of natural selection was truly novel. It testifies to his genius that the concept of natural theology, accepted by most educated Westerners before 1859, was vanquished within only a few years by a single five-hundred-page book. On the Origin of Species turned the mysteries of life's diversity from mythology into genuine science." -- Jerry Coyne
A police officer stands guard outside the Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral in Makassar, Indonesia, on Sunday. Two suicide bombers attacked the Roman Catholic compound, injuring at least 20 people.
Two suicide bombers attacked a Roman Catholic church compound in Makassar, Indonesia, on Sunday morning, injuring at least 20 people, according to state officials. While no deaths among the churchgoers have been reported, police say both attackers died in the blast.
The attack happened at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral around 10:30 a.m., as a round of mass was wrapping up at the church. The bombers attempted to enter the church compound on motorbike and detonated at least one bomb by an entrance to the compound, according to news reports.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo condemned the attack as an "act of terrorism," and said he had ordered the police "to thoroughly investigate the perpetrators' networks and tear down the networks to their roots."
The attacks happened on Palm Sunday, the beginning of the Holy Week leading up to Easter. In a televised address, Joko called on people to remain calm and said "the state guarantees the safety of religious people to worship without fear."
Religious Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas encouraged police to improve security at places of worship. "Whatever the motive is, this attack cannot be justified by any religion because it only does harm to other people," he said.
No organization has claimed responsibility for Sunday's attack. Authorities are investigating possible ties between the bombers and radical networks, national police spokesman Argo Yuwono said, according to Reuters.
In 2018, a series of coordinated suicide bombings targeting churches and a police post in the port city of Surabaya killed dozens of people. Police blamed the attacks on the ISIS-affiliated group Jamaah Ansharut Daulah.
CONLEY: Good morning, everyone. Since we spoke last, the president has continued to improve. As with any illness, there are frequent ups and downs over the course, particularly when a patient is being so closely watched 24 hours a day.
We review and debate every finding, compare it to existing science and literature, weighing the risks and benefits of every intervention, its timing, as well as any potential impacts a delay may have.
Over the course of his illness, the president has experienced two episodes of transient drops in his oxygen saturation. We debated the reasons for this and whether we'd even intervene. Is was the determination of the team based predominantly on the timeline from the initial diagnosis that we initiate dexamethasone.
I'd like to take this opportunity now, given some speculation over the course of the illness the last couple days, update you on the course of his — his own illness.
Thursday night into Friday morning when I left the bedside, the president was doing well, with only mild symptoms, and his oxygen was in the high 90s. Late Friday morning when I returned to the bedside, the president had a high fever and his oxygen saturation was transiently dipping below 94%.
Given these two developments, I was concerned for possible rapid progression of the illness. I recommended [to] the president we try some supplemental oxygen, see how he'd respond. He was fairly adamant that he didn't need it. He was not short of breath, he was tired, had the fever, and that was about it.
After about a minute on only 2 liters, his saturation levels were back over 95%. He stayed on that for about an hour maybe, and it was off and gone.
Later that day, by the time the team here was at the bedside, the president had been up out of bed moving about the residence with only mild symptoms.
Despite this, everyone agreed the best course of action was to move to Walter Reed for more thorough evaluation and monitoring.
I would like to invite up Dr. Dooley discuss the current plan.
SEAN DOOLEY, PULMONARY CRITICAL CARE DOCTOR: Thank you Dr. Conley.
Before I begin a brief clinical update on the president's condition, I do want to reiterate my comments from yesterday regarding how proud I am to be a part of this multidisciplinary multi-institutional team of clinical professionals behind me and what an honor it is to care for the president here at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Regarding his clinical status, the patient continues to improve. He has remained without fever since Friday morning. His vital signs are stable.
From a pulmonary standpoint, he remains on room air this morning, and is not complaining of shortness of breath, or other significant respiratory symptoms. He is ambulating himself walking around the White House medical unit, without limitation or disability. Our continued monitoring of his cardiac, liver and kidney function demonstrates continued normal findings, or improving findings.
I'll now turn it over to Dr. Garibaldi from Johns Hopkins to talk about our therapeutics and again, our plan for the day.
BRIAN GARIBALDI, PULMONARY CRITICAL CARE DOCTOR: Thank you Dr. Dooley. I just wanted to again reiterate what an honor and a privilege it is to take care of the president and to be part of such a talented and multidisciplinary team here at Walter Re
In response to transient low oxygen levels, as Dr. Conley has discussed, we did initiate dexamethasone therapy, and he received his first dose of that yesterday, and our plan is to continue that for the time being. The president yesterday evening completed a second dose of remdesivir. He's tolerated that infusion well. We've been monitoring for any potential side effects. And he has had none that we can tell. His liver and kidney function have remained normal. And we continue to plan to use a five-day course of remdesivir.
Today he feels well, he's been up and around. Our plan for today is to have him to eat and drink, be up out of bed as much as possible, to be mobile. And if he continues to look and feel as well as he does today, our hope is that we can plan for a discharge as early as tomorrow to the White House where he can continue his treatment course.
Thank you very much and I'll turn it over to Dr. Conley for any questions.
CONLEY: The president wanted me to share how proud he is of the group, what an honor it is for him to be receiving his care here at Walter Reed, surrounded by such incredible talent, academic leaders, department chairs, internationally renowned researchers and clinicians, including the support of Dr. Garibaldi from Johns Hopkins. I'd like to reiterate how pleased we all are with the president's recovery.
And with that, I'll take your questions.
REPORTER: You said there were two instances where he had drops in oxygen. Can you walk us through the second one? And also I've got a question for the lung specialist afterwards.
CONLEY: Yesterday there was another episode where he dropped down, about 93%. He doesn't ever feel short to breath, we watched it, and it returned back up.
As I said, we evaluate all of these, and given the timeline where he is in the course of illness, you know, we are trying to maximize everything that we could do for him and we debated whether we'd even start it --- the dexamethasone, and we decided that, in this case, the potential benefits early on the course, probably outweighed any risks at this time.
REPORTER: Did you give him a second round of supplemental oxygen yesterday?
CONLEY: I'd have to, I'd have to check with the nursing staff. I don't think that — if he did it was very, very limited. But he's not on oxygen. The only oxygen that I ordered that we provided was that Friday morning, initially.
REPORTER: About what time was that yesterday?
CONLEY: Yesterday? What was yesterday?
REPORTER: You said the second incident —
CONLEY: The second incident? Oh it was over the course of the day. Yeah. Yesterday morning.
REPORTER: What is president's current blood oxygen level? That's my first question to you, Dr. Conley.
CONLEY: 98%
REPORTER: And what do the X-rays, and CT scans show, are there signs of pneumonia, are there signs of lung involvement? Or any damage to the lungs?
CONLEY: Yes, so we're tracking all of that. There's some expected findings, but nothing of any major clinical concern.
REPORTER: I wanted to ask if his oxygen level ever dipped below 90?
CONLEY: We don't have any recordings here of that, that's right.
REPORTER: What about at the White House or here, anything below 90, just to follow up on her question?
CONLEY: No, it was below 94%. It wasn't down in to the low 80s or anything, no.
REPORTER: Yesterday you told us that the president was in great shape had been in good shape and paper free for the previous 24 hours. Minutes after your press conference, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told reporters that the president's vitals were very concerning over the past 24 hours. Simple question for the American people: Whose statements about the president's health should we believe?
CONLEY: So, the chief and I work side by side, and I think his statement was misconstrued. What he meant was that 24 hours ago, when he and I were checking on the president, that there was that momentary episode of the high fever and that temporary drop in the saturation, which prompted us to act expediently to move him up here. Fortunately, that was really a very transient, limited episode. A couple hours later he was back up. Mild again. I'm not going to speculate what that limited episode was about so early in the course but he's doing well.
REPORTER: What are the expected findings on his lungs and why is the president not wearing a mask in the videos and photos that have been released?
CONLEY: Well, the president wears a mask anytime he's — he's around us, and we're all wearing our N95s, full PPE. He's — he's the patient, and when we can, when he'll move out into public, we move him about out and around other people that aren't in full PPE, I'll assure you, as long as he's still under my care, we'll talk about him wearing a mask.
REPORTER: Is he in a negative pressure room?
CONLEY: I'm not going to get into specifics of his care.
REPORTER: The lung function question? Can you talk about that?
CONLEY: I will just share that, like every patient, we perform lung spirometry on him, and he's maxing it out. We told him, see what you can do, and it's over 2,500 milliliters each time.
He's — he's doing great.
REPORTER: Why were you so reluctant until today to disclose that the president had been administered oxygen?
CONLEY: I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, that his course of illness has had. I didn't want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction. And in doing so, you know, it came off that we're trying to hide something, which wasn't necessarily true.
The fact of the matter is, is that he's doing really well, that he is — he is responding. And as the team said, if everything continues to go well, we're going to start discharge planning back to the White House.
On Thursday, as Donald Trump was about to accept the Republican nomination from the South Lawn of the White House with warnings that “No one will be safe in Biden’s America,” National Public Radio was doing its small part to make sure the president would be re-elected.
NPR’s assistance in this matter was surely unwitting. But that doesn’t make it any less effective.
The assist came in the form of a lengthy interview by NPR’s Natalie Escobar with Vicky Osterweil, author of “In Defense of Looting.” The book makes the case for looting because it “attacks some of the core beliefs and structures of cisheteropatriarchal racial capitalist society”; “rejects the legitimacy of ownership rights and property”; and “reveals all these for what they are: not natural facts, but social constructs benefiting a few at the expense of the many, upheld by ideology, economy and state violence.”
To judge by the NPR interview, “In Defense of Looting” is not an interesting book. It speaks for almost nobody beyond the fringe left — and certainly not for looters who hadn’t thought about “cisheteropatriarchalism.” The fact that the publisher is an imprint of the international conglomerate Hachette (2018 revenues, approximately $2.7 billion) compounds foolishness with hypocrisy.
Nonetheless, the book is symbolically important. I became aware of it when several friends separately forwarded to me the NPR interview. Many of these friends, I suspect, will reluctantly vote for Trump — not out of sympathy for him, but out of disgust with defenses of looting and other things they see too often on the left.
What else are they seeing? A CNN chyron from a burning Kenosha: “Fiery but mostly peaceful protests after police shooting.” A video of an outdoor diner at a Washington, D.C., restaurant being yelled at by Black Lives Matter protesters because she won’t raise a fist in solidarity. Republican Senator Rand Paul and his wife getting harassed by a swarm of protesters as they left the White House.
And more: Trump being mocked in 2017 for warning that if statues of Robert E. Lee come down, then George Washington and Thomas Jefferson statues will be next — and then radical demonstrators doing exactly that three years later. Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York scolding Orthodox Jews in April for appearing to flout social distancing rules at a Brooklyn funeral, but then making an exception for Black Lives Matter demonstrations a few months later. Seattle’s mayor, Jenny Durkan, celebrating a “summer of love” in the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” and then watching the area descend, with depressing predictability, into violent anarchy.
The list could be longer, but the question it leaves in the minds of wavering voters is exactly the question Trump most wants asked: Can the left be trusted with power?
Let me ask that question more specifically. Can the left be honest that the tragedies unfolding today in American cities are as much the story of insufficient policing as they are of abusive policing? Does it get that “law and order” is a precondition to civil liberty, not an impediment to it? Is it willing to say that the American founders who bequeathed us the institutions of liberal democracy should be honored, not despised? And does Joe Biden have the nerve to stand up to the extremes in his own party, or does he just mean to appease them?
Is he Bill Clinton, or George McGovern?
I’ve been fairly enthusiastic about Biden’s candidacy, largely because I think he represents the best chance for the moderate Democratic wing to prevail over its left one. But his wan and sometimes unsteady speech in Pittsburgh, with its brief defense of the police and its anodyne call for healing, isn’t going to assuage the voters he needs in swing states.
And need them he does. It’s always possible that Trump will overplay his hand on law and order. And Biden may still have a commanding lead in national polls. But he’s up by an average of just 2.7 points in battleground states, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls. And the phenomenon of the “shy voter” is coming into sharper focus: Nearly 12 percent of Republicans and 11 percent of independents say they’re unlikely to give telephone pollsters their true opinion on how they’ll vote in November because they think “it’s dangerous to express an opinion outside of the current liberal viewpoint,” according to a study cited by Bloomberg. When did we hear that before?
Biden can do something about this. He can publicly call out far-left ugliness (not just violence) the next time he sees it. He can pay a visit to the people who’ve had their businesses burned to the ground in Kenosha and tell them that their grievances will be heard, and their property protected, in a Biden administration. He can even call the family of the right-wing activist killed on Saturday in Portland. What better way to prove that a Biden presidency stands for unity than to express sympathy for the victims of violence, regardless of their politics.
Too many progressives are unthinkingly helping Trump. Biden helps himself when he tells them, publicly, that their sort of help isn’t needed.
Bret L. Stephens has been an Opinion columnist with The Times since April 2017. He won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary at The Wall Street Journal in 2013 and was previously editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post. Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 1, 2020, Section A, Page 23 of the New York edition with the headline: Unwitting Progressives For Trump.
A ship carrying more than 40 crew members and some 6,000 head of cattle has disappeared off the coast of Japan after capsizing in typhoon-lashed seas, according to a crew member who so far is the only known survivor.
The Gulf Livestock 1, en route from New Zealand to China, issued a distress call early Wednesday from a position west of Japan's Amami Oshima island.
The mayday call, to which the Japanese coast guard responded, was sent as Typhoon Maysak was tracking through the region as a powerful Category 4 storm.
"Either you're being disingenuous or you do not fully understand your own theory. Evidently what is true of the barnacle is true of all creatures, even humans. Clearly the Almighty can no longer claim to have authored every species in under a week. You killed God, sir. You have killed God."
Retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, who resigned as President Trump's defense secretary nearly a year-and-a-half ago over policy differences, has issued an extraordinary critique of the White House's handling of nationwide unrest, saying Trump has sought to divide Americans, and warning against "militarizing our response" to the protests.
"When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution," Mattis said in a statement published in The Atlantic.
"Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside," Mattis wrote, referring to a series of events on Monday in which peaceful protesters were cleared from around the White House to make way for an impromptu appearance by the president, Bible in hand, outside a historic church.
Mattis called Monday's actions "an abuse of executive authority."
The broadside came on the same day that current Defense Secretary Mark Esper said at a Pentagon briefing that he opposed invoking the Insurrection Act — which allows the president to deploy the military within the United States — something Trump had threatened to do in a televised speech on Monday.
Earlier this week, Esper had referred to unrest in the streets as a "battle space" and Trump urged state governors to use law enforcement and the National Guard to "dominate" the protesters.
"We must reject any thinking of our cities as a 'battlespace' that our uniformed military is called upon to 'dominate,' " Mattis wrote. "At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors."
It is extraordinarily rare for military leadership to speak out against a sitting president, though Trump has come in for implicit criticism from senior ranks.
After Trump said of a "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, which turned violent, that there were "very fine people on both sides," each of the military service chiefs — as well as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – issued statements condemning bigotry.
"I can absolutely and unambiguously tell you there is no place — no place — for racism and bigotry in the U.S. military or in the United States as a whole," said Gen. Joe Dunford, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman at the time.
America’s military, our sons and daughters, will place themselves at risk to protect their fellow citizens. Their job is unimaginably hard overseas; harder at home. Respect them, for they respect you. America is not a battleground. Our fellow citizens are not the enemy.
Just this week, two former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairmen, Gen. Martin Dempsey and Adm. Mike Mullen, condemned the use of the military to quash the demonstrations on Monday. In a tweet, Dempsey said, "America is not a battleground. Our fellow citizens are not the enemy."
In an opinion piece in The Atlantic titled "I Cannot Remain Silent," Mullen wrote regarding Trump's photo-op at St. John's Church, "Whatever Trump's goal in conducting his visit, he laid bare his disdain for the rights of peaceful protest in this country, gave succor to the leaders of other countries who take comfort in our domestic strife, and risked further politicizing the men and women of our armed forces."
Mattis, who resigned and was then fired by Trump in December 2018 over disagreements with the White House's Syria policy, has remained largely silent about the president's job performance since leaving the defense post, telling NPR last year: "I don't discuss sitting presidents." He said he thought that Trump deserved "a period of quiet."
However, days of nationwide protest over the death of George Floyd in police custody and the use of National Guard troops in Washington to disperse peaceful demonstrators, have led Mattis — "angry and appalled" — to speak up.
He said the protesters were only demanding equal justice under the law.
"It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind," he wrote.
"We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers," Mattis wrote, referring to the vandalism and looting that have sometimes occurred along with the largely peaceful protests. "The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation."
Mattis accused the president of pursuing a divisive strategy. "Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try."
"Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership," he said.
The president responded to the criticism in a tweet, calling Mattis "the world's most overrated General," an insult Trump has fired off in the past.
In Wednesday's statement, Mattis said the country's response to the pandemic showed that "it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country."
"We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln's 'better angels,' and listen to them, as we work to unite," he said.
Led by Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve has moved quickly and creatively to pump money into the rapidly shrinking U.S. economy.
As the United States tumbles into a coronavirus recession, the Federal Reserve is using its nearly unlimited power to generate cash to cushion the fall.
"The Fed is doing everything they can to keep financial markets functioning and credit available to households and firms," former Fed Chair Janet Yellen said during a forum organized by the Brookings Institution.
Since the middle of March, the Fed has purchased more than $1.2 trillion in Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities, and the central bank has made it clear that it will continue buying as much as necessary to keep credit markets from seizing up.
With help from the Treasury Department, the Fed is also branching into nontraditional markets. It will now lend money directly to corporations. And it's preparing to roll out a "Main Street" program to help finance smaller firms.
"The Federal Reserve is really throwing out all the stops in an effort to contain a health crisis from becoming an economic or financial crisis," said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst for Bankrate.com. "Issue No. 1 for the Fed is to get the plumbing of financial markets working properly again."
The Fed's actions have made a difference, preventing the financial pipes from clogging up, though credit is still harder to come by than it was before the crisis. The challenge now is whether the central bank can extend its helping hand to ordinary businesses whose customers have suddenly disappeared.
The $2 trillion relief bill passed by Congress to address the coronavirus fallout includes $454 billion to backstop Fed lending programs. That should allow the central bank to pump as much as $4 trillion into the economy. That's more than the Fed spent on its bond-buying program in the six years after the financial crisis.
Although the central bank has already exhausted some of its firepower by cutting interest rates to near zero, Fed Chair Jerome Powell insists he and his colleagues still have potent weapons at their disposal.
"When it comes to this lending, we're not going to run out of ammunition," Powell told NBC's Today show. "Where credit is not flowing, we have the ability in this unique circumstance to step in and provide those loans."
That's important at a time when countless businesses are closing their doors and millions of workers are losing jobs. Goldman Sachs predicts the U.S. economy will shrink at an annual rate of 34% in the next three months, thanks to a deliberate effort to slow the spread of the virus.
"This is a situation where people are being asked to step back from economic activity," Powell said. "Close their businesses, stay home from work."
By shoveling money out the door, the Fed hopes to keep the economy on life support long enough to outlast the pandemic.
"In principle, if we get the virus threat under control fairly quickly, economic activity can resume," Powell told NBC.
The Fed has moved much more quickly in recent weeks than it did during the financial crisis a dozen years ago.
"It's kind of crazy how they've almost done as much in this week as they did in several months in 2008," J.P. Morgan's chief U.S. economist, Michael Feroli, said during a week in which the Fed unveiled several new lending programs. "Now, they do have the advantage of just being able to dust off Bernanke's playbook."
Some of the Fed's new lending efforts are recycled from those that then-Chair Ben Bernanke and his colleagues set up during the financial crisis. But the Main Street program now on the drawing board would push the central bank into new territory — making cash available to midsize firms in an effort to keep them afloat during the coronavirus shutdown.
"The longer the economy has that downtime, the more significant the hangover is going to be and the tougher it's going to be for the economy to bounce back," McBride said.
"What the Fed is trying to do is provide as much liquidity and capital that's requested in markets, so businesses can continue to function, banks can continue to lend and consumers can still have access to credit," he added.
"While more than 80% of confirmed coronavirus cases are mild and the risk remains low for those who are young and healthy, Fauci emphasized just how dangerous the coronavirus can be for the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions."
My comment: Nobody cares about old people. They're a waste of taxpayer money. I should know because I am one.
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Here is the whole thing from NPR which by the way is totally free.
President Trump announced a total ban on travel from European countries to the United States for the next 30 days, beginning on Friday at midnight, in a bid "to keep new cases" of coronavirus "from entering our shores." The restrictions, he said late Wednesday, do not apply to travelers from the United Kingdom.
Trump also announced economic measures that he said would help the country overcome "temporary economic disruptions" caused by the disease.
The president's primetime remarks Wednesday cap a concerted effort by the White House to calm a public made jittery by the rapid global spread of the disease and the concomitant economic turmoil. Indeed, globally, the number of cases of coronavirus has exceeded 125,000, with more than 1,000 of those reported in the United States, where the outbreak is expected to get worse.
Trump's address followed a Wednesday announcement by the World Health Organization, which classified the outbreak a pandemic. In Washington, lawmakers scrambled to find ways to contain the economic fallout of the fast-spreading virus.
"This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history," Trump said Wednesday night.
"I am confident that by counting and continuing to take these tough measures, we will significantly reduce the threat to our citizens and we will ultimately and expeditiously defeat this virus," he added.
Trump explained the travel restrictions will be adjusted "subject to conditions on the ground." He added that the government will make travel exemptions for Americans who have undergone appropriate screening.
During his address, the president said that the prohibitions would apply to trade and cargo from Europe, but a White House official subsequently clarified that the new ban applies only to travelers — not goods and cargo.
Trump attempted to assuage concerns that fears about the virus were spreading to the stock market, which has been battered in recent weeks. On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 5.9%. The slide moved the market decline from a correction to a bear market, which traders usually define as a drop of 20% or more from a recent high point. It marks the first time since the 2008 financial crisis that the Dow dipped into bear market territory.
"This is not a financial crisis," Trump said. "This is just a temporary moment of time that we will overcome together as a nation and as a world."
In an attempt to ease the financial strain on working Americans and small businesses, the president offered a handful of proposals he said would be presented to Congress in the coming days. These include a $50 billion program to provide low-interest loans to small businesses affected by the coronavirus.
"Using emergency authority, I will be instructing the Treasury Department to defer tax payments without interests or penalties for certain individuals and businesses negatively impacted," he added.
That step, he said, would provide more $200 billion of additional liquidity to the economy.
Trump also said he would take emergency action to provide financial relief to people who need to stay home because they are sick, quarantined, or caring for others. There were no details immediately available on that measure.
As the coronavirus increasingly disrupts daily American life — from school cancellations to companies pushing employees to work from home to cities banning large public gatherings — the Trump administration and Congress were rushing to unveil countermeasures.
Trump said this week proposed payroll tax relief for hourly wage workers to shore up the economy, but faced stiff resistance from congressional Democrats, who argue that a payroll tax break would help the wealthiest Americans the most. Democrats are pushing paid sick leave, expanded unemployment assistance and food assistance.
At a meeting on Wednesday with bankers about how the outbreak is affecting the financial sector, Trump, who has repeatedly downplayed the severity of the coronavirus, suggested that the U.S. was blinded by how rapidly the virus is spreading.
"We're having to fix a problem that four weeks ago nobody thought would be a problem," Trump said.
Whatever shape the economic response takes, the nation's top infectious disease experts are cautioning that the number of cases and fatalities linked to the coronavirus in the U.S. are expected to keep rising.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said federal officials are working to stay ahead of the virus, but efforts have been complicated by the number of infected people entering the country after visiting other parts of the world.
While more than 80% of confirmed coronavirus cases are mild and the risk remains low for those who are young and healthy, Fauci emphasized just how dangerous the coronavirus can be for the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions.
The seasonal flu, Fauci said, has a mortality rate of about 0.1%, compared with the coronavirus fatality rate, which is around 1% when all available data are analyzed.
In other words, Fauci said: "It is 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu."
A quarter of Americans surveyed could not correctly answer that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around, according to a report out Friday from the National Science Foundation.
To the question "Does the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun go around the Earth," 26 percent of those surveyed answered incorrectly.
In the same survey, just 39 percent answered correctly (true) that "The universe began with a huge explosion" and only 48 percent said "Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals."
That roughly two-minute video, taken from a surveillance camera, shows what looks to be a missile being launched and hitting its target — and then, nearly 30 seconds later, a second missile is launched and causes another explosion. The plane then remains airborne for well over a minute, including a shocking moment when it is enveloped by a fireball.
A New South Wales Rural Fire Service large air tanker drops fire retardant on the Morton Fire burning in bushland close to homes at Penrose, south of Sydney, on Friday.Dan Himbrechts/AAP Image via Reuters
A pair of massive bushfires in southeastern Australia has merged into a "megafire" engulfing some 2,300 square miles — a single blaze more than three times as large as any known fire in California.
The merged fire, which straddles the country's most populous states of New South Wales and Victoria, measures nearly 1.5 million acres, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. It is just one of some 135 bushfires in Australia's southeast that have claimed the lives of at least 26 people, killed more than a billion animals and damaged or destroyed nearly 3,000 homes.
Since September, the unprecedented bushfires have swept through an area larger than Massachusetts and New Hampshire combined.
NASA has released an animation showing how smoke from the fires has reached the lower stratosphere and traveled as far away as Chile.
Meanwhile, more than 30,000 people attended a protest in Sydney to denounce the government's handling of the crisis and to call for action on climate change.
The protesters directed their ire at Prime Minister Scott Morrison, whose coalition government's policies have rejected a link between Australia's unprecedented drought and fires crisis and climate change.
However, the prime minister said this week that his government would launch an inquiry to examine whether there was any connection between the fires and climate change. Asked whether he expected the current fire crisis to become commonplace in Australia because of climate change, he replied: "The links and implications here have been acknowledged."
Morrison, who has also found himself on the defensive for taking a Hawaiian vacation with his family while the fires raged, also said Friday he had ordered the military to be on standby to help firefighters.
"I've given them very clear instructions that they are to stand ready to move and support immediately," he said. "In the event that they are needed in the wake of what we hope we will not see today, but we must prepare for today."
Authorities in Australia on Friday urged a quarter of a million people in Victoria to leave their homes amid erratic winds and soaring temperatures, even as there was welcome rain in some parts affected by the fires.
Air support have arrived to assist with the grass fire burning out of control at Beechworth-Wodonga Road, Wodonga.
A few rain drops starting to fall but the wind is strong
Helicopters dropped supplies to towns at risk of being cut off and C-130 tankers unleashed torrents of fire retardant.
Fire crews were preparing for what they believe will be a difficult night as the wind shifts and ramps up to 50 miles per hour. In parts of the fire-affected countryside, temperatures pegged out at 104 degrees Fahrenheit on Friday.
Firefighter Andrew Beville, who was battling the Morton fire on the outskirts of the town of Penrose, near Wingello, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that he wasn't sure what would happen when the blaze reached the town.
"We just want to survive the night," he said.
Towns south of Sydney, including Eden, Batemans Bay and Norwa were warned by New South Wales Rural Fire Service to be prepared for another onslaught, The Associated Press reports.
A yacht sails past a burning woodchip mill as bushfires hit the town of Eden, New South Wales, Australia, on Friday.Rick Rycroft/AP
In neighboring Victoria, premier Daniel Andrews told reporters he was thankful that there were at present no one unaccounted for and no communities cut off in his state.
"Now, all of those things can change and that is perhaps the most powerful reminder that we have to remain vigilant," he said. "Please, listen to the warnings and do as you are asked. If you are told to leave a community, and you can leave, then you should leave."
Veterinarians and volunteers treat koalas at Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park on Kangaroo Island, southwest of Adelaide, Australia, on Friday.Reuters
The conservation group WWF-Australia estimates that 1.25 billion animals have been killed in the fires and says it fears that some species, such as the glossy black-cockatoo and the knee-high kangaroo, face local extinctions.
Meanwhile, the government says the loss of livestock from the fires will exceed 100,000 animals.
Hurricane Dorian is predicted to strengthen into a Category 3 storm before reaching Florida's coast early Monday, the National Hurricane Center says
Tropical Storm Dorian officially became Hurricane Dorian on Wednesday, its sustained winds topping 80 mph hitting Puerto Rico and St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands before heading northwest. Forecasters are now warning that the storm will strengthen into a dangerous Category 3 hurricane as it nears the U.S. mainland.
"Dorian is moving toward the northwest near 13 mph (20 km/h), and this general motion is expected to continue through Friday. On this track, Dorian should move over the Atlantic well east of the southeastern and central Bahamas on Thursday and Friday," the National Hurricane Center said in its 8 p.m. ET report.
"All indications are that by this Labor Day weekend, a powerful hurricane will be near or over the Florida peninsula," the National Hurricane Center said at 5 p.m. ET.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency for 26 counties in the path of the hurricane.
The eye of Hurricane Dorian was located about 60 miles northwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico, as of Wednesday night.
"The Hurricane Warning for Vieques, Culebra, and the U.S. Virgin Islands has been discontinued," the National Hurricane Center report added. "The Hurricane Watch and Tropical Storm Warning for Puerto Rico have been discontinued."
Dorian caused only limited damage in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
"We're happy because there are no damages to report," Culebra Mayor William SolÃs told The Associated Press. He said only one community on his island lost power.
Dorian is expected to become a major hurricane (Category 3 and above) as it moves north of the Bahamas. The NHC's current predictions show Dorian's center hitting Florida's coast early Monday. But the Florida coast could see tropical-storm-force winds arrive as early as Saturday night.
The center currently predicts the storm will make landfall near an area that's roughly level with Orlando. But that potential location could shift drastically as the storm develops.
The earliest projected effects of the winds of Hurricane Dorian
NHC Director Ken Graham cautioned that for Florida, even though Dorian is estimated to make landfall Monday morning, "the impacts could come a lot earlier than that," saying intense rain, tropical-storm-force winds and a storm surge could begin to affect the coastline far from the storm's center.
Acknowledging that considerable uncertainty remains over the path Dorian will take, Graham also said anyone on the southeastern U.S. coast from Florida up through Georgia and South Carolina should watch for potential hazards.
Earlier, President Trump had declared an emergency in the commonwealth of Puerto Rico, ordering the Federal Emergency Management Agency late Tuesday to provide "equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency."
Vázquez Garced thanked Trump for approving the declaration, saying it would "allow federal aid to arrive more quickly" after the storm passes.
In a statement about its preparations, FEMA said that its "stock on the island compared to 2017 levels includes three times as many generators, nine times as many meals, five times as many liters of water and 16 times as many blue tarps."
Meanwhile, the fifth named storm of the 2019 Atlantic season formed late Tuesday, as Tropical Storm Erin's winds reached 40 mph. The storm, which was several hundred miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., was downgraded to a tropical depression on Wednesday. Erin is expected to remain on a north-northeastern track, likely arriving at Canada's coast late this week.
NPR's Windsor Johnston contributed to this report.
Large swaths of forest have been cut down in Brazil in recent decades to make room for farming. Deforestation contributes to global warming, and reversing it will be necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Humans must drastically alter food production to prevent the most catastrophic effects of global warming, according to a new report from the United Nations panel on climate change.
The panel of scientists looked at the climate change effects of agriculture, deforestation and other land use, such as harvesting peat and managing grasslands and wetlands. Together, those activities generate about a third of human greenhouse gas emissions, including more than 40% of methane.
That's important because methane is particularly good at trapping heat in the atmosphere. And the problem is getting more severe.
"Emissions from agricultural production are projected to increase," the authors warn. "Delaying action" on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, they continue, "could result in some irreversible impacts on some ecosystems."
This is the latest in a series of reports from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The new report adds weight and detail to a warning put out by the same panel of scientists last fall, in which they sounded the alarm about the inadequacy of the pledges countries have made so far to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
At that time, the panel broadly suggested that farmland would need to shrink and forests would need to grow to keep Earth from getting more than 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than it was in the preindustrial era. Global temperatures have already risen about 1 degree Celsius in the past 150 years.
To meet that temperature target, global greenhouse gas emissions will need to fall by 40% to 50% in the next decade. Scientists say the only way to achieve that reduction is to significantly increase the amount of land that's covered in trees and other vegetation and significantly reduce the amount of methane and other greenhouse gases that come from raising livestock such as cows, sheep and goats.
The new report offers some broad suggestions for how countries might achieve that. For example, for countries that have lost tree cover in the past century, reforestation can help suck greenhouse gases out of the air, while also preventing soil from drying up. Reducing food waste can also help: The report estimates food waste accounts for as much as 10 percent of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. (Check out these tips on reducing food waste in your own home.)
Controlling emissions from agriculture is also a food-security issue. Greenhouse gases from food production create a vicious cycle: As Earth gets hotter, farming gets more difficult in many places, which forces farmers to clear more land to grow food.
"Climate change, including increases in frequency and intensity of extremes, has adversely impacted food security and terrestrial ecosystems, as well as contributed to desertification and land degradation in many regions," the report's authors write.
If greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, as they are doing today, it will exacerbate those challenges and eventually make it all but impossible to control global warming without creating serious food shortages.
The U.N. panel is the latest group of experts to grapple with a global conundrum: how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, deforestation and other land use without creating food shortages or displacing people whose livelihoods rely on practices that are unsustainable globally.
Scientists and economists have been studying the effects of our diets on the environment for years. There's a growing consensus that a transition to a more plant-centered diet would help.
Currently, about 50% of the globe's vegetated land is dedicated to agriculture — and about 30% of cropland is used to grow grain for animal feed. Given how much land it takes to grow food to feed livestock, meat production is a leading cause of deforestation.
A report released last month by the World Resources Institute finds that if current dietary patterns continue, an additional 593 million hectares — which is almost twice the size of India — would be needed to feed the projected 9.8 billion people (the anticipated population) by 2050.
Right now, agriculture generates an estimated 25% of annual greenhouse gas emissions, according to the WRI; that's when you combine food production and the land-use changes associated with farming, such as clearing vegetation and plowing.
Although often unreported, honor killings have been recorded in several countries, especially in the Middle East and South Asia.
Police in Atlanta have been investigating the death of a 25-year-old Pakistani woman, who was allegedly murdered by her father in the name of family honor.
She wanted out of an arranged marriage, but her father thought a divorce would bring shame to the family.
Honor killings are old rites of murder within families, committed because of some perceived dishonor or shame. The United Nations estimates around 5,000 deaths occur each year — mostly of women, mostly in South Asia and the Middle East.
A Quiet Street
Detective Mike Christian of the Clayton County Police Department has lived in Jonesboro, a suburb of Atlanta, all his life.
"Supposedly Tara — the big plantation from 'Gone with the Wind' — this is where it was located," Christian says of the family's home.
Past the cemetery where the flag still flies, he pulls into a quiet street with tidy brickfront two-story homes.
"That's it — 9816," he says. "They've got a 'for sale' sign in the yard. The window to her bedroom is open."
It was around 1 a.m. on July 6 when police got several 911 calls connected to that house. The first was from a man who told police, "My daughter's dead." Then, at 1:55 a.m., Clayton County received a 911 call from a woman named Gina Rashid who was worried about her stepdaughter, Sandeela.
'My Daughter's Dead'
"I hear a lot of hollering and screaming," Rashid says, "and I just woke up and I asked my family what's going on. They're from Pakistan. They're not speaking any English to me. They're not telling me nothing. Sandeela's dead. Sandeela's dead."
Sandeela Kanwal was the 25-year-old daughter of Chaudry Rashid. Christian says when police arrived at the house, they found the 57-year-old pizza shop owner sitting cross-legged in his driveway, smoking a cigarette.
"They talked to him and asked him what was going on," says Christian, "and he said, 'My daughter's dead.' They asked him again what he'd said and he said, 'My daughter's dead.'"
Police found Kanwal dead on the floor of her bedroom, still in her Wal-Mart uniform. She'd been working the late shift that night. As they surveyed the scene, police tried to piece together what had happened. Rashid was taken into custody and questioned.
"He admitted to actually taking the life of his daughter," says Sgt. Stefan Schindler, a 13-year veteran of the Clayton County Police Department.
"And the reason he took his daughter's life," says Schindler, "by his own words was that she wasn't being true to her religion or to her husband."
A Killing To Avoid Shame Of Divorce?
Police believe Rashid killed his daughter because she wanted a divorce and he felt that it would bring shame on his family. Schindler says Rashid told him that killing his daughter was a right given to him by God — and that God would protect him. To police, in other words, this was an honor killing.
"I've never encountered anything like this," says Schindler. "This was the first time."
He says Rashid told police he strangled his daughter with a bungee cord, which he later burned and flushed down the toilet. Police were unable to find it. That's just one of many holes in this case, says Rashid's lawyer, Alan Begner.
"No one saw what happened," he says. "There are no witnesses to it. There is said to be a confession, but there was no interpreter there — although there was an interpreter on the speaker phone, I'm told."
Schindler sat in on the interview. He says Rashid was read and understood his rights. But Begner isn't sure.
"It's not clear to me Mr. Rashid understood that by giving a statement, it might be held against him," he says.
Rashid was refused bail and remains in jail. He's charged with murder and other felonies, including assault.
"Here in Georgia, this is going to make me sound like a backwoods cracker, but we don't have many Muslims," Begner says. "Not too much diversity down here, at least that I'm aware of."
It sent a ripple through this swath of Bible Belt country.
"For me, and my upbringing, nothing in your life prepares you for that," Begner says.
'This Is American Law'
If it is an honor killing — and what really happened that night is not yet clear — it would be one of a handful of such crimes in this country.
In Dallas, an Egyptian man is wanted by police, accused of murdering his two daughters, reportedly, because they had non-Muslim boyfriends.
In Scottsville, N.Y., a Turkish immigrant has been in and out of psychiatric care since he was charged three years ago with killing his wife and beating his daughters because of alleged sexual assault.
In some honor killings overseas, family members have killed women who've been raped because they're considered to have brought shame on their families. For Muslims in Atlanta, the attention was the last thing they needed.
Shahid Malik is a local representative of Atlanta's Pakistani population and one of the very few willing to speak about the Rashid case.
"This thing hurt the Muslim community, Pakistani community," he says.
He says that the killing has nothing to do with Islam, but that Rashid has little education and comes from a small village in Pakistan where tribal traditions are strong.
"I think in their mind, use the name honor killing, they give less punishment," he says. "But that is wrong because law is changed. This is American law."
Malik says years ago, Pakistan used to punish honor killings with only seven years' imprisonment. Now, he says, the sentence is greater. But he says Kanwal's murder doesn't fit in that category of crimes.
"Whatever this case is or not, this is not an honor killing," he says. "It is not based on Pakistani law. Chaudry Rashid loved his daughter."
Begner hopes the state doesn't make this about Islam or ethnicity. This death could have happened, he says, in any culture, with any family.
"He says that the killing has nothing to do with Islam, but that Rashid has little education and comes from a small village in Pakistan where tribal traditions are strong."
BULLSHIT. This atrocity had everything to do with Islam. Muslims are stupid fucking assholes. They're afraid of women. They brainwash children. They're science deniers. Muslims are scum.
"Chaudry Rashid loved his daughter."
Is that why the coward murdered her? Fuck you Muslim asshole. You can't defend your disgusting cult because it's the world's largest terrorist organization.
"Schindler says Rashid told him that killing his daughter was a right given to him by God — and that God would protect him."
Another good reason to throw out the disgusting god fairy fantasy.
Hey asshole, let's see how much your fairy protects you in prison.
NPR - 2 Dead And 4 Injured In Shooting At University Of North Carolina Charlotte Campus April 30, 2019 •••••••••••••••••••••• New York Times - U.N.C. Charlotte Shooting Leaves 2 Dead and 4 Wounded By Mihir Zaveri and Jacey Fortin April 30, 2019 A man with a pistol walked into a classroom at the University of North Carolina Charlotte late Tuesday afternoon and opened fire, fatally shooting two people and injuring four others on the last day of classes, the authorities said. Chief Jeff Baker of the U.N.C.C. Police and Public Safety Department said at a news conference that three of those injured were in critical condition. The fourth had less serious injuries, he said. The police disarmed the suspect and took him into custody at a building on campus, Chief Baker said. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department identified the suspect as Trystan Andrew Terrell, 22. The police declined to elaborate on a possible motive for the shooting. “One officer immediately went to the suspect to take him down,” Chief Baker said. He said the gunman did not say anything when he was taken into custody. “Our officers’ actions definitely saved lives,” he said. Mr. Terrell was charged with two counts of murder, four counts of attempted murder, four counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, possession of a firearm on an educational property and discharging a firearm on an educational property. Just before 6 p.m., the campus’s office of emergency management reported that shots were fired near the Kennedy Building, an administrative building in the middle of campus. Katie Ballard, 24, a graduate student in gerontology, was sitting in a classroom in a nearby building when her professor stepped out. The professor came back in and said she heard somebody had been shot. Then an alert popped up on a projector screen at the front of the class saying that gunshots had been fired close by. “Run, Hide, Fight,” the alert said. “Secure yourself immediately.” Ms. Ballard ran with about 30 other students to an empty room nearby and locked the doors. Ms. Ballard never heard any gunshots, but she heard helicopters buzzing while locked in the room. She heard students running up and down the halls. Through the window, she saw a man who had been shot in the abdomen. A handful of paramedics crouched around him, tending to his wounds. “It was so surreal,” Ms. Ballard said. “I just felt all the blood leave my face. I felt there’s no way this is real.” Eventually, she said, “the police came and knocked on the door, and we were all escorted out with our hands above our head.” Videos posted on Twitter showed police officers running in one direction while students streamed in the other direction. “We are in shock to learn of an active shooter situation on the campus of UNC Charlotte,” Vi Lyles, the mayor of Charlotte, said in a tweet. “My thoughts are with the families of those who lost their lives, those injured, the entire UNCC community and the courageous first responders who sprang into action to help others.” It was the final day of classes for the school year, with graduation ceremonies scheduled for early May. Some students were getting ready for the summer break, and some were preparing to attend an on-campus concert featuring the rapper Waka Flocka Flame, which was canceled after the shooting. Joan F. Lorden, the school’s provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, said at a news conference late Tuesday evening that the school had canceled final exams through Sunday. “From today through the weekend,” she said, “everything academic is essentially canceled.” Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina said at the news conference that the state would take a “hard look” at how such shootings could be prevented in the future. “This is a tough day, but this university will get through it,” Mr. Cooper said. “One thing I do know is a student should not have to fear for his or her life when they are on our campuses.” The episode was yet another in a series of deadlyshootings that have made headlines across the United States. It happened three days after a gunman opened fire at a synagogue in Poway, Calif., killing a congregant there, and came on the heels of anniversaries of other deadly school shootings. It has been a little more than one year since 17 people were killed in Parkland, Fla., and two decades since 13 were killed at Columbine High School. U.N.C. Charlotte is a public university with an enrollment of about 30,000. It is the largest postsecondary educational institution in the Charlotte area. Sign Up for the Crossing the Border Newsletter The U.S.-Mexico border is a daily headline. A political football. And also home to millions of people. Every week for the next few months, we'll bring you their stories, far from the tug-of-war of Washington politics. Jo Constantz and Daniel Victor contributed reporting. A version of this article appears in print on April 30, 2019, on Page A15 of the New York edition with the headline: 2 Dead After Shooting on Campus at U.N.C. Charlotte. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
This is what the fucktard looks like:
UNCC shooting suspect identified as Trystan Terrell, 22-year-old history major
A 22-year-old man has been identified as the suspect in a deadly shooting on a college campus in North Carolina.
Trystan Andrew Terrell is charged with two counts of murder, four counts of attempted murder, four counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, possessing a firearm on educational property and discharging a firearm on educational property, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department announced in a prepared statement Wednesday.
Terrell was a history major at UNCC and was most recently enrolled at the university in fall 2018, the same semester he transferred to the school, according to the university's advising system called Connect.
Terrell, who was born in Texas, is a registered voter in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, according to his voter registration records.
According to the Associated Press, Terrell's grandfather, Paul Rold of Arlington, Texas, said Terrell and his father moved to Charlotte from the Dallas area about two years ago after his mother died.
Terrell taught himself French and Portuguese with the help of a language learning program his grandfather bought him and was attending UNC-Charlotte, Rold said. But Terrell never showed any interest in guns or other weapons and the news he may have been involved in a mass shooting was stunning, said Rold, who had not heard about the Charlotte attack before being contacted by an Associated Press reporter.
UNC-C Police Chief Jeff Baker said at a news conference Tuesday night that the suspect was "not somebody ... on our radar" prior to the campus shooting.
Police were not searching for additional suspects as of Tuesday night, according to a press release from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.
Terrell was located by the UNCC Police on scene and was initially transported to Charlotte-Mecklenburg police headquarters to be interviewed by detectives, the police department said in a statement.
