Datasets:

tingchih

/

classification_claims

like 0

###CLAIM: the children were devastated by the accident because they were waiting to get a ride on a stopped-to-deal-with problem. ###DOCS: A five-year-old boy was among 30 to be rescued after an 85-year-old rollercoaster broke down at a popular tourist hotspot. The wooden, twin-track Grand National ride at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, built in 1935, broke down at midday - leaving thrill seekers stranded more than 50 feet above ground. Staff at the popular attraction had to climb up the ride, which stands 62ft high, to escort nervous adrenaline junkies back to the ground. The wooden, twin-track Grand National ride at Blackpool Pleasure Beach (above) built in 1935, broke down at midday - leaving thrill seekers stranded more than 50 feet above groundSteve Ely, from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, tweeted a photo of the stuck ride and criticised the Pleasure BeachAt about the same time, the UK's tallest rollercoaster at the same amusement park, Big One, also suffered a temporary stoppage, but riders were able to remain seated and the ride continued five minutes later. Steve Ely, from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, on the Grand National ride with his two children, tweeted a photo of the ride stuck at the top of an incline on the rollercoaster. He also criticised the Pleasure Beach and said all customers were given in compensation was a bottle of water and tickets that could not be used. An eyewitness waiting to get on the ride said his children were 'devastated' as the ride was stopped while the problem was dealt with. A spokesman for Blackpool Pleasure Beach said: 'At 11.55 am on Tuesday June 1 a stoppage occurred on the lift hill of the Grand National. Staff at the popular attraction had to climb up the ride, which stands 62ft high, to escort nervous adrenaline junkies back to the ground'All riders were safely escorted down the lift hill, and the ride was checked and re-opened just before 1pm. 'Shortly afterwards there was a very brief stoppage on the Big One lift hill, at 50ft, riders remained seated and the ride continued after five minutes.' Passengers were seen carefully being escorted down The Big One at Blackpool Pleasure Beach in April after the ride broke down on its way to the track's 200ft peakIn April, riders on the UK's tallest rollercoaster had to be escorted down after the amusement attraction broke down. Adrenaline junkies were left stranded at the highest point of the 213ft Big One at Blackpool Pleasure Beach on Sunday, April 25. Video taken from the park below shows park staff as they were forced to scale the rollercoaster before tentatively guiding nervous visitors to safety by making them walk down.

###CLAIM: tedros, adhanom and ghebreyesus said in a video address at the opening of the three-day berlin summit of the world health organization (who) that the only way to recover from pandemic is to work together and ensure that poorer countries have fair access to vaccine. ###DOCS: 25 Oct 2020 18.21 EDT Slovakias pilot testing in coronavirus hotspots attracted tens of thousands people over the weekend, showing an infection rate of 3.87%, government data showed on Sunday. The government plans to widen the scope to the whole country next weekend and hopes the antigen tests, along with a partial lockdown, can help curbing a sharp rise in infections, Reuters reports. Slovakias testing campaign to cover most of its population and its results will likely draw the attention of other countries, including the neighbouring Czech Republic, which has been struggling with Europes fastest surge of the epidemic. People keep a safe distance as they wait at a COVID-19 testing site as the spread of coronavirus continues, in Nizna, Slovakia, on 23 October, 2020. Photograph: Radovan Stoklasa/Reuters As of 5pm local time on Sunday, health workers had done 136,904 tests with 5,298 positive results, the governments website showed. The tests were administered between Friday and Sunday at around 235 sites in four northern regions that are home to about 180,000 people. In some locations, many people even showed up who live outside the designated regions, local media reported. Thanks to the effort of all the involved staff and the responsibility of people who participated, the pilot phase of the country-wide testing has proven successful, prime minister Igor Matovics party OLANO said. The government offered an incentive to take part in the tests, offering less stringent rules to those with negative results, while those not participating face a stricter lockdown regime including a ban on commuting to work. President Zuzana Caputova has questioned the idea of sanctions slapped on those not participating in tests declared as voluntary. In the regular tests done since the pandemic started, Slovakia reported a record 3,042 new cases of the coronavirus on Sunday, bringing the total number of infections to 43,843. 25 Oct 2020 17.57 EDT Australias coronavirus hot spot of Victoria on Monday reported zero cases of the new coronavirus for the first time since June, a day after the state delayed the easing of restrictions because of a fresh outbreak in Melbournes northern suburbs. The 5 million residents of Melbourne, Victorias state capital, have been placed under a hard lockdown since July to contain the spread of the virus, shutting down businesses and restricting peoples movements. The city was just emerging from a second wave after the lockdown helped bring down daily cases to single digits in recent days from a peak of 700 in early August. Men queue up for a haircut in Rathdowne St Carlton, after hairdressers are allowed to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic and associated lockdown. Coronavirus outbreak, Melbourne, Australia, on 25 October 2020. Photograph: Chris Putnam/REX/Shutterstock But clusters in five suburbs had sparked fears of a new outbreak. Australia has so far recorded just over 27,500 coronavirus infections, far fewer than many other developed countries. Victoria, which accounts for more than 90% of the 905 deaths nationally, did not record any new deaths from the virus in the past 24 hours. 25 Oct 2020 17.10 EDT Bulgarian prime minister Boyko Borissov said on Sunday he had a general malaise after testing positive for coronavirus and would stay at home for now for any treatment, as recommended by his doctors. The government press office said Borissov was able to carry out his duties and was in constant contact with his ministers as the Balkan country grapples with a spike in new coronavirus infections and daily anti-government protests since July, Reuters reports. Borissov had self-isolated late on Friday after he was informed that a deputy minister who he had been in contact with five days ago had tested positive. Health authorities lifted Borissovs quarantine late on Saturday after two negative results from coronavirus tests, but then he tested positive on Sunday. After two PCR tests, as of today I am positive with Covid-19, the 61-year-old said on Facebook. I have a general malaise. For the moment, on the doctors discretion, I remain on home treatment.It was not immediately clear if he was already receiving a specific treatment. He said he had postponed all meetings and planned public appearances for the coming days. In a response to wishes for a speedy recovery from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Twitter, Borissov wrote back: Thank you. I hope to recover soon. And in the meantime I will strictly follow the orders of the health authorities.In this file photo taken on 24 April, 2018 prime minister of Bulgaria Boiko Borisov addresses a press conference. Photograph: Daniel Mihailescu/AFP/Getty ImagesUpdated at 18.22 EDT25 Oct 2020 16.40 EDT A further 76 people who tested positive for coronavirus have died in hospital in England, bringing the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 31,819, NHS England said on Sunday. Patients were aged between 43 and 100. All except three, aged between 71 and 83, had known underlying health conditions. The deaths occurred between 28 August 28 and 24 October, with the majority being on or after 21 October, NHS England said. One other death was reported with no positive Covid-19 test result. 25 Oct 2020 15.34 EDT WHO chief warns against "vaccine nationalism" The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Sunday called for global solidarity in the rollout of any future coronavirus vaccine, as the number of cases soared across the world. In a video address at the opening of the three-day World Health Summit in Berlin, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the only way to recover from the pandemic was together and by making sure poorer countries had fair access to a vaccine. It is natural that countries want to protect their own citizens first but if and when we have an effective vaccine, we must also use it effectively. And the best way to do that is to vaccinate some people in all countries rather than all people in some countries, he said. Let me be clear: vaccine nationalism will prolong the pandemic, not shorten it. Scientists around the world are racing to develop a vaccine against Covid-19, which has killed over 1.1 million people globally. Several dozen vaccine candidates are currently being tested in clinical trials, ten of which are in the most advanced phase 3 stage involving tens of thousands of volunteers, AFP reports. The European Union, the US, Britain, Japan and a slew of other nations have already placed large orders with the companies involved in developing the most promising vaccines. But concerns are growing that countries with smaller wallets could be left at the back of the queue. The WHO has launched an international scheme known as Covax to help ensure equitable access to jabs, but it has struggled to raise the funds needed. 25 Oct 2020 14.52 EDT France sees new record as daily infections climb over 50,000 mark France registered 52,010 new confirmed coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, following a record 45,422 on Saturday, the health ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It also said that 116 people had died from coronavirus infection over the past 24 hours, compared to from 137 on Saturday, taking the total confirmed death toll to 34,761. The new cases brought the total to 1,138,507, putting France now ahead of Argentina and Spain to become the country with the worlds fifth highest number of cases, after the US, India, Brazil and Russia. Commuters wearing face masks walk on the platform, of a Paris subway, Sunday, 25 October, 2020. A curfew, intended to curb the spiraling spread of the coronavirus, has been imposed in many regions of France including Paris and its suburbs. Photograph: Lewis Joly/APUpdated at 15.08 EDT25 Oct 2020 14.47 EDT Turkish Airlines will be putting foreign national pilots on unpaid leave to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on its finances, Bloomberg reported on Sunday. Turkeys national carrier informed some of its foreign crew staff by email that they are to go on leave from 1 November, and that the decision would be reviewed after six months. It wasnt immediately clear how many pilots will be affected, and whether Turkish nationals would escape the cost saving measure. A spokesman for Turk Hava Yollari AO, as the airline is officially known, declined to comment. The company reported a loss of 2.23bn liras ($280m) in the second quarter, with passenger numbers down by almost two thirds this year. A Turkish Airlines office is empty after Saudi Arabias retail stores urged customers to boycott Turkish products, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on 18 October, 2020. Photograph: Ahmed Yosri/Reuters25 Oct 2020 14.38 EDT Israel will begin human trials for a potential Covid-19 vaccine developed by a research institute overseen by the Defence Ministry on 1 November after receiving regulatory approval. The Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) began animal trials for its BriLife vaccine in March. The health ministry and an oversight committee have now given the green light to take it to the next stage. Eighty volunteers aged between 18 and 55 will be monitored for three weeks to see if virus antibodies develop, the ministry said in a statement. A second phase, expected to begin in December, will involve 960 people over the age of 18, Reuters reports. Should those succeed, a third, large-scale phase with 30,000 volunteers is scheduled for April or May 2021. If successful, the vaccine may then be approved for mass use. The vaccine, the ministry said, has already tested well on a number of animal models and the IIBR has produced more than 25,000 doses for the first and second phases of the clinical trials. Our final goal is 15 million rations for the residents of the State of Israel and for our close neighbours, said IIBR director Shmuel Shapira. There are no internationally approved vaccines yet, but several are in advanced trials, including from Pfizer Inc, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca Plc and Moderna. Israel, with a population of 9 million, has begun easing a second nationwide coronavirus lockdown after a steady decline in the rate of daily infections. The country saw 692 new cases on Saturday - down from a peak of more than 9,000 several weeks ago. It has reported 2,372 deaths from the pandemic.

###CLAIM: during one conversation, rusesabagina admitted that the rebels backed by his opposition platform were responsible for attacks inside rwanda, he said. ###DOCS: Paul Rusesabagina, who inspired the film "Hotel Rwanda" and is credited with saving more than 1,000 people by sheltering them at the hotel he managed during the genocide, attends a court hearing in Kigali, Rwanda Friday, Feb. 26, 2021. The judge on Friday rejected Rusesabagina's argument in his terrorism trial that a court there cannot try him because he is no longer a citizen. (AP Photo/Muhizi Olivier)Paul Rusesabagina, who inspired the film "Hotel Rwanda" and is credited with saving more than 1,000 people by sheltering them at the hotel he managed during the genocide, attends a court hearing in Kigali, Rwanda Friday, Feb. 26, 2021. The judge on Friday rejected Rusesabagina's argument in his terrorism trial that a court there cannot try him because he is no longer a citizen. (AP Photo/Muhizi Olivier)KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) A key piece of the mystery around the arrest of the man who inspired the film Hotel Rwanda became clear on Friday when a pastor told a Rwandan court he worked with someone from the Rwanda Investigation Bureau to trick him onto a private plane from Dubai. The pastor, Constantin Niyomwungere, alleged that Paul Rusesabagina, who now faces terror-related charges, had acknowledged that rebels backed by his opposition platform had killed Rwandans. Myself, the pilot and cabin crew knew we were coming to (the Rwandan capital) Kigali. The only person who didnt know where we were headed was Paul, Niyomwungere said. ADVERTISEMENTThe 66-year-old Rusesabagina, once praised for saving hundreds of ethnic Tutsis from Rwandas 1994 genocide while a hotel manager, now faces nine charges including the formation of an irregular armed group; membership in a terrorist group; financing terrorism; and murder, abduction and armed robbery as an act of terrorism. If convicted, he could face more than 20 years in prison. The case of Rusesabagina, a Belgian citizen and U.S. resident and outspoken critic of longtime Rwandan President Paul Kagame, has drawn international concern. He disappeared in August during a visit to Dubai and was paraded in handcuffs days later in Rwanda. His family asserts that the charges against him are politically motivated. Rusesabagina asserts that he was kidnapped. Rwandas president had hinted that he had been tricked into boarding a flight to Rwanda, a country he left in 1996. In court on Friday, Rusesabagina denounced the pastor Niyomwungere, whom he has said betrayed him. Niyomwungere said an unnamed person connected him and Rusesabagina in 2017 in Brussels and they later become friends. He said that in one conversation, Rusesabagina admitted that rebels backed by his opposition platform were responsible for an attack inside Rwanda. The pastor alleged that Rusesabagina showed no remorse, which pained him. Niyomwungere said last year he started working on a plan with the Rwanda Investigation Bureau to capture Rusesabagina. I prayed to God to give me courage and arrest this man. I prayed for a month, he said. Opportunity came when Rusesabagina said he planned to travel to Burundi, which neighbors Rwanda. Niyomwungere said he alerted the Rwanda Investigation Bureau contact. Rwandas government has alleged that Rusesabagina was going to Burundi to coordinate with armed groups based there and in neighboring Congo. ADVERTISEMENTOn Friday, Rusesabagina said all his rights have been taken away and his international lawyers have been refused. Last month, Rwandas attorney general in a video accidentally sent to al-Jazeera said authorities had intercepted messages between Rusesabagina and his legal team. How can you say my rights have been respected when I spent the first three days of captivity at an unknown location, blindfolded, tied legs and hands? he asked. When the trial resumes on March 10, the court will rule on whether Rusesabagina was kidnapped and is in Rwanda illegally. The court earlier rejected his argument that a Rwandan court cannot try him because he is no longer a citizen. His family says Rusesabagina has no chance at a fair trial because of his outspoken criticism of Kagame and human rights abuses. They also fear he might die from poor health behind bars.

###CLAIM: tom di galoma, managing director of seaport global and holdings, said trading reflected expectations that the federal reserve might have room to hike rates earlier than thought as the economy grows and vaccine appears to be working. ###DOCS: (Updates with market activity, comment on 3-month bills, bank rates) By Ross Kerber and Saikat Chatterjee Feb 26 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury yields subsided in cautious trading on Friday as investors repositioned, but growth concerns weighed on sentiment as data showed a strong rebound in consumer spending. The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note's yield was down 5.9 basis points at 1.4564%. On Thursday it touched 1.614%, the highest in a year, rocking world markets. The note's yield is still up more than 50 basis points so far this year. Yields in other major government bonds have also increased. Raymond James market analyst Ellis Phifer said Friday's trading showed investors turning cautious and repositioning after Thursday's jump. "We moved vertical in rates and there's a point where things get overdone," he said. Part of Friday's decline could also reflect dealers convincing clients to buy bonds after poor demand for a 7-year note auction on Thursday, he added. At the front end of the curve the yield on the 3-month Treasury bill was roughly unchanged at 0.0406% after rising as high as 0.053% on Friday, up from a low of 0.03% at the start of the week. Tom di Galoma, managing director of Seaport Global Holdings, said the trading reflected an "expectation that the Fed may have room to hike rates earlier than was thought as the economy is reflating and vaccinations appear to be working." U.S. consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, jumped 2.4% last month after decreasing 0.4% in December, the Commerce Department said on Friday, setting up the economy for faster growth in the first quarter. A closely-watched part of the U.S. Treasury yield curve measuring the gap between yields on two- and 10-year Treasury notes, seen as an indicator of economic expectations, was at 131 basis points, about 4 basis points lower than Thursday's close. On Thursday, the gap touched 141 basis points, the most since 2015. The overnight U.S. repurchase agreement (repo) rate and the secured overnight financing rate (SOFR) recovered from roughly nine-month lows on Friday, but should remain under pressure this year as the market digests excess cash in the system. The U.S. secured overnight financing rate (SOFR), which measures the cost of borrowing cash overnight using Treasury securities as collateral, was at 0.03% after dropping to 0.01% Wednesday, the lowest since May 2020. SOFR has replaced the London interbank offered rate (LIBOR) as an interest rate benchmark for banks. The two-year U.S. Treasury yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations, was down 2.1 basis points at 0.1446% on Friday. The yield on 30-year Treasury Inflation Protected Securities was at 0.171%. The 10-year TIPS yield was at -0.690% and the breakeven inflation rate was at 2.129%. Editing by Mark Potter and Chizu Nomiyama)

###CLAIM: kristin derock, marketing manager for the kristin and derock nuts brands, said in a statement that constraints in supply chains and higher demand for cereals led to shortages of products. ###DOCS: New York CNN Business If youre having a hard time finding Grape-Nuts at your local supermarket, you are not alone. The pandemic has come for Grape-Nuts. Supply chain constraints and higher demand for cereal have led to shortages of the product, Kristin DeRock, Grape-Nuts Brand Manager, said in an emailed statement. Grape-Nuts should be fully back on shelves in the spring, she said. There is a Grape Nuts shortage. Post Consumer BrandsThough sales of cereal in general were struggling for years, theyve grown during the pandemic as customers eat breakfast at home and reach for comfort foods. From 2015 to 2019, the US ready-to-eat cereal market dipped between one and two percent each year, according to data from Euromonitor International. From 2019 to 2020, the market grew by nearly 20% to about $10.6 billion. The Grape-Nuts shortage comes as demand for consumer goods has put a strain on supply chains, leading to shortages. All that said, people who cant get enough of Grape-Nuts can breathe a sigh of relief. Fans can be rest-assured that we have absolutely no plans to discontinue Grape-Nuts cereal, DeRock said. The cereal has been around since 1897, when it was developed by founder C.W. Post himself, according to the Grape-Nuts website. Its made with wheat and barley but no grapes or nuts. Post also makes Honey Bunches of Oats, Pebbles and Raisin Bran cereal, among other cereals. A message on the Grape-Nuts websites implores anxious customers to be patient. Please know that our team members are working hard every day to safely produce and ship products to our consumers during this unique time, it says. We expect our [Grape-Nuts] to be available again at your favorite retailer in the next couple months.

###CLAIM: they have the pleasure of a bumper crop of entries after the world 's leading film festival was canceled because of the 2020 pandemic, promising a stellar year for the festival. ###DOCS: The Serpent star Tahar Rahim, US actress Maggie Gyllenhaal and Parasite lead Song Kang-Ho are part of this years Cannes Film Festival jury led by director Spike Lee, organisers announced Thursday. It will be a female-majority jury for the July 6 to 17 festival, which has faced criticism in recent years for its lack of female representation. Only one woman has ever won the Palme dOr in its 73 years: Jane Campion for The Piano in 1993. This years jury will wade through 24 entries (only four by women) to decide the winner of the arthouse worlds most coveted film prize. The nine members include French actor-director Melanie Laurent, best known abroad for her role in Quentin Tarantinos Inglourious Basterds. The jury also features several international filmmakers: Brazilian Kleber Mendonca Filho, who competed at Cannes in 2016 with Aquarius, Austrian Jessica Hausner, who competed with Little Joe in 2019, and French-Senegalese director Mati Diop, whose debut Atlantique won the Grand Prix the same year. French star Rahim made his name with indie favourite The Prophet and recently had an award-winning turn in Guantanamo drama The Mauritanian and a TV hit with BBC-Netflix show The Serpent. Gyllenhaal broke out alongside her brother Jake in Donnie Darko and made her name with indie hits such as The Secretary and her Oscar-nominated turn in Crazy Heart, as well as appearing in blockbuster Batman flick, The Dark Knight. Song Kang-ho has appeared in 40 films and is a favourite of his fellow South Korean Bong Joon-ho, who cast him in Snowpiercer and as the adorable father in Parasite, the last film to win the Palme dOr (as well as Best Film at the Oscars) in 2019. The jury line-up is completed by French singing sensation Mylene Farmer, who has sold 35 million albums across a 35-year career. They have the pleasure of a bumper crop of entries that promises a stellar year for the worlds leading film festival after it was cancelled due to the pandemic in 2020. The selection includes films from US favourites Wes Anderson and Sean Penn, previous Palme winners Nanni Moretti, Jacques Audiard and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, as well as Irans two-time Oscar winner Ashgar Farhadi.

###CLAIM: former chief inspector pillsjackie and malton both said the massive linear structure of going up, down, then out is that if the met commander is corrupt and drury corrupts the weight loss becomes so over due to eating unhealthy that humphreys and drury become worried about it. ###DOCS: Interested in 'one thing, and one thing only', Line of Duty's Ted Hastings leads the AC-12 anti-corruption squad to weed out 'bent coppers' in the hit BBC series. But while his team's mission to find the elusive 'H' continues to grip millions, a new documentary tells the true, revelatory story of corruption in the British police. The upcoming second episode of Bent Coppers: Crossing the Line of Duty sheds light on how corrupt members of the Metropolitan Police ran a 'protection racket' covering sex shops in London's Soho in the 1970s. Officers from the Obscene Publications Squad, led by corrupt officer Bill Moody, carried out periodic raids to make it appear as though they were clamping down on the illegal sale of hardcore pornography, whilst continuing to take bribes from shop owners. The corruption ran so deep that Kenneth Drury, the commander of the Met's prestigious Flying Squad of officers, even went on holiday with Soho's leading pornographer, Jimmy Humphreys. The police complicity meant that the number of sex shops climbed from 28 in 1969 to more than double that number by 1970. One insider interviewed in the documentary said the police were the 'biggest gang in Soho' in the 1970s. The officers finally met their match when new Met Commissioner Robert Mark, who was later knighted for his efforts, created a new anti-corruption unit: A-10. Their work, along with efforts by newspaper journalists, led to the jailing of Drury, Moody and his boss, Commander Wally Virgo, in 1977. The true, revelatory story of wrongdoing in the Metropolitan Police is being told in new BBC documentary Bent Coppers: Crossing the Line of Duty. The upcoming episode tells the story of how corrupt officers ran a 'protection racket' covering sex shops in London's Soho. Pictured: Sir Robert Mark, who as Commissioner of the Met from 1972 until 1977, rooted out corruptionThe corruption ran so deep that Kenneth Drury, the commander of the Met's prestigious Flying Squad of officers, even went on holiday with Soho's leading pornographer, Jimmy HumphreysOverall, during Sir Robert's five years as commissioner, more than 18 officers were collectively sentenced to more than 100 years in prison. The BBC's documentary hears from retired investigative journalists and former officers to detail the extent of the sex shops' activities and the complicity of corrupt policemen. Also featured are archive interviews with and footage of Commissioner Mark, sex shop owner Jimmy Humphreys and corrupt officer Drury. The sex shop trade in Soho blossomed due to demand for pornography in the late 1960s being at an all-time high. Material was smuggled in cheaply from Europe before being sold in shops in the UK. The job of policing the shops fell to the Met's Obscene Publications Squad. Journalist Martin Tomkinson described how the squad operated under the 'ambiguity' of the Obscene Publications Act 1959, which governed the sex shop trade. Publications were deemed obscene if they were 'liable to corrupt and deprave', but as Mr Tomkinson said, 'one person's corruption is another person's libertarianism'. Fellow investigative reporter Paul Lashmar said: 'The obscene publication squad controlled it, they dealt with it, so they decided what happened in Soho. In 1969, an investigation by the Times newspaper exposed a corrupt network of officers operating across London. Humphreys ran several sex shops in Soho which were allowed to carry on selling hardcore material thanks to the complicity of corrupt officers. Pictured: A file photo of a sex shop in Soho in the late 1970sHumphreys, who is described in the programme as a 'classic failed criminal', took over a hardware store in Soho in 1969 and turned it in to a sex shop. Pictured: Humphreys after he was extradited from Holland following his attempt to escape justiceThat led to the Met appointing officer Bill Moody to head an inquiry into the wrongdoing. However, Mr Lashmar said that he was in fact 'put there to bury it'. Martin Short, also an investigative journalist interviewed in the BBC programme, said: 'Every potential pornographer in the country wanted to come into London. 'One thing you needed to secure the entire operation was a corrupt cop or two.' The Obscene Publication Squad issued, at their discretion, unofficial licenses which allowed shops to operate. 'These licenses were unofficial licenses. It was an informal arrangement,' Mr Short said. 'Verbal only. Nothing written down. It was a protection racket. 'A protection racket is one which guarantees you the opportunity to trade but at the same time preventing other people from trading.' Humphreys, who is described in the programme as a 'classic failed criminal', took over a hardware store in Soho in 1969 and turned it in to a sex shop. Speaking in an archive interview, Humphreys said he gave Moody 4,000 for the license to operate. 'From that moment, we were in business,' he added. Mr Lashmar said of the deal: 'Moody organised the collection of bribery in a way that had never been done before. This was a rock solid alliance between bent cops and the vice industry.' However, part of the arrangement was that Moody's boss, Commander Wally Virgo, was also due a large share. Mr Short said the pair 'did not see themselves answerable to any of the regulations which would have applied to other officers. 'They really did act as a firm in a firm,' he added. Interested in 'one thing, and one thing only', Line of Duty's Ted Hastings leads the AC-12 anti-corruption squad to weed out 'bent coppers' in the hit BBC series. But the new documentary tells the real story of police corruptionHumphreys (right) admitted to entertaining Drury (left) 'three, four times a week.' Drury became so overweight from the meals he enjoyed that Humphreys became worried about his weight and gave him a rowing machine and a course of slimming pillsJackie Malton, a former Detective Chief Inspector in the Met, said: 'If you are a commander in the Met and you are corrupt there's a massive linear structure going down and down and down and then out. 'And therefore if you've got corruption at the top of the organisation at that rank, it's a very very powerful position to be in.' Interviewee Aiden McManus said he was employed along with his father to install a secret porn cinema in the basement of a sex shop. Commander Wally Virgo was the head of the Met's Serious Crime SquadHe described how, while they were at work, police raided the shop. He said the man behind the shop's counter 'didn't even blink'. Once the police had left, he said the man told him: 'don't be an idiot man we pay them every week. That was all for show. They raid us once a month for appearances sake.' 'He told me the whole story about how, if you wanted to operate a sex shop in Soho, you had to pay off the bent police. The biggest gang in Soho in the 70s was the police. You know what I mean? They were making a fortune, an absolute fortune. The documentary tells how officers would often warn shop owners that a raid was coming, so that the 'worst material' could be removed. Some goods would be confiscated by police but would then be picked up again by the pornographers from Holborn police station. The relationship between Humprheys and Moody became to close that it made Virgo 'upset' because he felt he was missing out on financial gains. It was also in Humphreys' interest to keep Flying Squad chief Drury happy. Mr Tomkinson said: 'Ken Drury had a lot of police muscle in the area. So it was in James Humphreys' interest to keep Ken Drury on side.' Drury brazenly boasted of his links with the criminal fraternity. In an archive interview, he said: 'If you have no association with the criminal fraternity, you don't know what is going on. 'It's no good going to the vicar's tea party and trying to gain information about the activities of organised teams of robbers.' Humphreys admitted to entertaining Drury 'three, four times a week.' Drury became so overweight from the meals he enjoyed that Humphreys became worried about his weight and gave him a rowing machine and a course of slimming pills. Mr Short said: 'The relationship between Drury and Humphreys. It's all quite benign. It's friendly and extremely cosy.' But Drury sealed his ultimate downfall by going on holiday to Cyprus with Humphreys and the pornographer's wife, Rusty. Laurie Manifold, who was then the assistant editor of the Sunday People newspaper, described how his publication carried out an investigation into Drury's holiday. Martin Short, also an investigative journalist interviewed in the BBC programme, said: 'Every potential pornographer in the country wanted to come into London. 'One thing you needed to secure the entire operation was a corrupt cop or two'Former Detective Superintendent John Simmonds was put in charge of the Met's new anti-corruption unit, A10Investigative journalist Paul Lashmar said the Obscene Publications Squad 'decided what happened in Soho'Incredibly, one of his reporters found after going to Cyprus that the holiday had been booked with travel agents Cooks. The bill had been paid directly by Humphreys. Mr Manifold said: 'Quite amazingly Cooks produced a copy of the bill for the holiday, the bill was paid by James Humphreys. 'There was clear proof that the holiday was nothing to do with some secret Scotland Yard operation. 'It wasn't booked by Scotland Yard or paid for by Scotland Yard. The whole thing was corrupt without any doubt.' In April 1972, Commissioner Mark took over the Met. His mantra was 'a good police force is one which catches more criminals than it employs'. Speaking in archive footage, he said: 'A bent detective not only is himself a wrongdoer, not only does he do irreparable harm to a body of men who little deserve to be discredited in that way but he harms the whole fabric of public confidence and the confidence of the courts in the police. 'As far as I'm concerned he will always be a prime target.' Mark decided to set up a dedicated anti-corruption unit, which was named A10. Until then, corruption allegations would have been carried out by members of CID (Criminal Investigation Department) themselves. Largely staffed by uniformed officers, the unit was hated by CID members, who viewed themselves as the elite, Mr Tomkinson said. Ms Malton said: 'It was a corruption unit looking at corruption within the police and therefore the CID or anybody would think of those who had gone to A10, whether they had been volunteered or been put there, were not to be trusted. 'You were seen to be a betrayer of the organisation.' Journalist Martin Tomkinson described how the squad operated under the 'ambiguity' of the Obscene Publications Act 1959, which governed the sex shop tradeLaurie Manifold, who was then the assistant editor of the Sunday People newspaper, described how his publication carried out an investigation into a holiday which Drury's took with HumphreysFormer Detective Superintendent John Simmonds was put in charge of A10. He said: 'I got the call up to A10. In one breath I was obviously pleased. 'But I wasn't happy that I was going to spend my time day in day out dealing with the bad side of the police service. 'There's no let up, there's no sort of fun side to it at all. It was sad but it was necessary.' The officers would carry out what Ms Malton called 'bin spins' on CID offices. A10 members would 'sweep everything up' during their investigations. Mr Tomkinson said: 'A10 put fear into the heart of the many corrupt CID detectives, who now realised that the game had radically changed.' Under pressure as a result of the newspaper investigations and A10's work, Drury resigned from the force in May 1972. He then sold his story to the now-defunct News of the World. He claimed that Humphreys and his wife were informers and that he had gone to Cyprus to gather information on the Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs. Mr Tomkinson said Humphreys was 'furious' because he was now viewed as an informant. He called a press conference where he claimed Drury was lying. Humphreys himself went on the run after he attacked a man who was having an affair with his wife. His flat was raided by officers. There they found diaries which detailed his payments to Drury, Virgo and Moody. Mr Tomkinson said: 'His diaries show that Wally Virgo and Bill Moody have, in just a 16-month period, received 53,000. That's a phenomenal amount of money.' Interviewee Aiden McManus said he was employed along with his father to install a secret porn cinema in the basement of a sex shop. He described how, while they were at work, police raided the shop. He said the man behind the shop's counter 'didn't even blink'Jackie Malton, a former Detective Chief Inspector in the Met, said: 'If you are a commander in the Met and you are corrupt there's a massive linear structure going down and down and down and then out. 'And therefore if you've got corruption at the top of the organisation at that rank, it's a very very powerful position to be in'Asked in an interview if officers were aware that he had been writing the payments down, his wife Rusty said: 'Oh no, no. I think it came as a great shock to a lot of people. But then none of us thought that this would come out.' In June 1973, Humphreys was tracked down to the Netherlands. He was sentenced to eight years in prison for the knife attack on his wife's lover. He agreed to give evidence against corrupt officers. Mr Simmonds said: 'The fear of A10 was like the fear of the policeman walking the street. It should stop the average hooligan seeing a bobby on the beat, if you like A10 became the bobbies on the beat for the police service.' From 1977, Moody, Virgo and Drury stood trial for accepting bribes. The trio were convicted and sent to prison. Moody and Virgo were jailed for 12 years, though the latter man's sentence was quashed after an appeal court found the judge had misdirected the jury. In July 1977, Drury was convicted on five counts of corruption and received eight years in prison. For his cooperation, he was released early and served only three years. Mr Short said: 'Never before, in the history of the Metropolitan Police, had so many senior officers been jailed in one roundup.' Bent Coppers: Crossing the Line of Duty airs on Wednesday, April 21 on BBC 2 at 9pm.

###CLAIM: she expressed frustration with what she called "unrepresentative" and "uncaring" people who "volunteer without wanting to" date trans people and ask them if they are dating others aggressively. ###DOCS: Back in February, Kyle Royce, a 20-year-old in British Columbia, Canada, created a video that proved far more controversial and influential than he had imagined it would be when he uploaded it to TikTok. He had built up a small following poking gentle fun at Karen behavior. Occasionally, he would also do live-streams, during which some participants would ask about his backgroundhes a straight, cisgender Christian of mixed Asian and white ancestryand press him on controversial matters of the day. On multiple occasions, he was asked if he would date a trans woman. He was repeatedly told, upon responding no, that his answer was transphobic. I felt like I was getting unfairly labeled, he told me recently. Im not transphobic, I see that as a negative term. Then, he had an idea. Lots of sexualities are being created, he said, alluding to the proliferation of terms such as pansexual, demisexual, sapiosexual, and more. Recasting his own preferences as a sexual identity of its own, he reasoned, would be like a kind of defense against accusations of perpetrating harm. In a video trying out his idea, he said:Yo, guys, I made a new sexuality now, actually. Its called super-straight, since straight people, or straight men as myselfI get called transphobic because I wouldnt date a trans woman. You know, theyre like, Would you date a trans woman? No. Why? Thats a female. No, thats not a real woman to me. I want a real woman. No, youre just transphobic. So now, Im super-straight! I only date the opposite gender, women, that are born women. So you cant say Im transphobic now, because thats just my sexuality, you know. When I asked what his intentions were on a spectrum from 100 percent earnest to 100 percent trolling, he had trouble answering. Nowhere seemed quite right. He was trying to accurately convey his dating preferences and truly felt frustrated by others criticism. But he was also trying to make a point by co-opting a norm of LGBTQ activists: that ones professed sexual or gender identity is unassailable. Chase Strangio: The trans future I never dreamed ofHad the video spread no more widely than Royces followers, a low-stress exchange of ideas might have ensued. Instead his video quickly garnered many thousands of likes and shares. Supporters deemed the term super-straight an ingenious gambit forcing dogmatic social-justice advocates to live by the same standards they enforce on others. Royce also drew a lot of critics. Haters argued that super-straight was a cruel parody of all LGBTQ people. The video quickly disappeared from TikTok, perhaps because many users flagged it as violating the apps rules. It reappeared about a week later, presumably after human content moderators reviewed it. Thats when it went massively viral. My TikTok feed, usually a respite of surfing highlights, recipe ideas, and Generation X nostalgia, was overrun by super-straight. Fans and critics alike commented on and shared videos about the subjector posted their own. Let me break this down: trans women are women, declared the TikTok creator @tblizzy, who currently has more than 425,000 followers. So if youre a heterosexual man and you said you wouldnt date a trans woman because its a preference, thats just transphobia, period.The super-straight meme was soon proliferating on Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. The more it spread, the more people encountered it not through the original video, but through derivative content. Someone made a super-straight flag. Encountering the black-and-orange banner and the hashtag #SuperStraight, many internet users presumed they were encountering a random attack on trans people. Have you seen these colors on a TikTok video? Scroll [away] instantly, a critic warned in one of many response clips. These men are known as Super Straights. We have to keep them off the For You page. (For You is where users see whatever TikTok serves up based on an algorithm that boosts videos that garner interactions.) Our trans family is being targeted, and we have to keep them safe. Do not comment, like, or watch their content. Pause it and report it. Many users joined this effort to report fellow creators and censor their accounts in the name of safety. This mobilization in turn deepened many super-straight fans conviction that they were the victims of discrimination. For me, the fight over the term super-straight suggested something else: that social-media culture is disorienting to many people in ways that make hard conversations harder still, and that no faction in Gen Z will win an argument about matters of the heart by tarring the other side as problematic. Few decisions are more personal than the choice of a partner. Questions about an individuals sexuality need not degenerate into public fights about who is bigoted; an individual heterosexual mans hesitation to date trans women need not provoke trans-rights supporters or encourage anti-trans trolls. But whenever an asserted identity comes to double as a hashtag, drama is sure to follow. If you started dating in the 1990s, as I did, odds are youve never been asked, Would you date a trans person? To their credit, Millennials and Gen Zers have far surpassed their elders in welcoming trans people into the American cultural mainstream. Because of that progress, younger people will grapple with sensitive questions many of their elders never contemplated in the era before widespread trans visibility, when a cisgender person might never knowingly encounter a trans person in daily life. Late-20th-century film and television did occasionally feature trans characters. And the hostility of many Hollywood portrayals is one reason why some trans-rights supporters remain hypervigilant to perceived slights, particularly when they concern straight men encountering trans women. In the Netflix documentary Disclosure, a chronicle of Hollywood portrayals of trans people over the decades, the actress and writer Jen Richards, who is transgender, reflects on movie scenes where a character in a romantic entanglement with a straight man is revealed to be a trans woman with a penis. In both the 1992 drama The Crying Game and the 1994 comedy Ace Ventura: Pet Detectivewhich spoofs The Crying Games climactic scenea straight man retches in disgust. In some other films, the men erupt in violence. Without film representations of trans people, Richards reflected, I might not have ever internalized that sense of being monstrous, of having fears around disclosure, of seeing myself as something abhorrent, and as a punch line and as a joke. I might be able to go on a date with a man without having the image of men vomiting.She continued:When you start watching trans clips back to back, you see how often all the people around the trans character feel betrayed or lied to. But frankly, I kind of hate the idea of disclosure. And the sense that it presupposes that there is something to disclose. It reinforces their assumption that there is a secret that is hidden and that I have a responsibility to tell others. And that presupposes that the other person might have some kind of issue or problem with whats to be disclosed, and that their feelings matter more than mine. Hollywood has seldom portrayed the issue of disclosure from a trans persons perspective. But such a conversation did happen in 2016 on the show Horace and Pete. In one scene, Horace, a heterosexual man, meets Rhonda, a woman. They have mutually enjoyable sex. At breakfast the next morning, they get to know each other. Horace notes that he has two adult children who are the same age but not twinsan anomaly that prompts him to reluctantly admit that years earlier he had an affair with the sister of his then-pregnant wife. When its Rhondas turn to talk about herself, she makes a comment raising the possibility that she was born a woman in a male body. Horace cannot tell if she is kidding. That makes him uncomfortable as he questions her:Horace: You would have to tell somebody a thing like that. Rhonda: Well, but you didnt ask me before we had sex. You just told me about your big, special penis and invited me upstairs. Horace: But you dont have to ask people which one are you before you get started. A person has the right to assume certain things. Rhonda: Did I have a right to assume that you arent a sexual deviant who did the unthinkable with his special penis? In some cultures what you did in your family is considered a crime punishable by death. So did you have an obligation to tell me what kind of man I was getting intimate with instead of springing it on me like the morning paper over some eggs? Until very recently, very few people would have shamed a man like Horace for wanting to know if a prospective sex partner was trans or for feeling that he wouldnt want to have sex with a trans woman for inarticulable reasons. A 2018 study showed that only 1.8 percent of straight women and 3.3 percent of straight men would date a transgender person, The Advocate reported in 2019. A small minority of cisgender lesbians (29 percent) and gays (11.5 percent) would be willing. Bisexual/queer/nonbinary participants (these were all combined into one group) were most open to having a trans partner, but even among them, just a slim majority (52 percent) were open to dating a transgender person.Read: My parents still struggle to know me after I transitioned lateWhenever people are mismatched in their desires, the outcome can be difficult for all involved. Trans people face particular challenges: Knowing that much of your preferred dating pool disqualifies you before meeting you must be deeply frustrating. For some trans people, the subject is additionally freighted with fear that by seeking sex, they might risk violence. I empathize with people on the other side of this divide, too. Most have dating preferences that dont necessarily imply a negative view of people who fall outside themId be averse to dating an 18-year-old or a 60-year-old, yet I neither hate nor fear either age cohortand that they might not be able to change even if they wanted to. Claims that only bigots would decline to date a trans person strike some commentators as a form of coercion. Its obviously completely valid to exclude trans people from your dating pool if youre not attracted to them, and anyone who says otherwise is honestly kind of rapey, argues the YouTuber Blaire White, who is trans. Nevertheless, among young people on social media, the perspectives that Jen Richards and the Rhonda character expressed are now common enough that some cis and trans people harshly criticize trans-exclusionary daters. The longer social-media shamers condemn preferences that the overwhelming majority of people share, the more inevitable the pushback. For many, Royces meme was defensible precisely because it was couched as a plea for inclusion. The fact that people are upset about this new sexuality being created is a little hypocritical coming from the folks who created abrosexual, demisexual, gerontosexual, gynosexual, intrasexual, kalosexual, multisexual, pomosexual, sapiosexual, and literally hundreds more, White said on YouTube. Even though super-straight is a joke, the irony is that its a lot more valid than a lot of those I just listed. Actually, all of them. Yall are releasing new sexualities more than I release new videos, like its your full-time job. But you freak out when someone else does it?As super-straight spread and mutated, Royce watched the debate with alarm. He was still associated with the meme he created, but it had acquired its own momentum. Digital bullies began going through his Instagram posts, harassing his friends, and targeting his mothers business with negative reviews, causing her to fear for her safety and beg him to delete his social media. He also felt a responsibility to urge others to use his creation for good, not evil. Dont use super-straight to spread hate, he said in a follow-up video. The super-straight motto is: You do you; love and respect everybody else.Read: What do the parents of trans kids have to say? Of course, matters were beyond his control. A TikTok user who saw the original video might come away with a radically different understanding of it than, say, folks on Reddit. The super-straight video started to spread on social media, eventually hitting the /pol board of 4chan, known for being a home to far-right trolls, and growing from there, Insider reported. The board members discussed creating and sharing memes about being super straight to drive a wedge within LGBTQ communities and use the lefts tactics against themselves ... The posts also directly linked the abbreviation for super straight to the Nazi SS.On TikTok many creators who associated themselves with the label were people of color. Some gay and lesbian people began declaring themselves super-gay and super-lesbianmeaning that they too felt attracted only to people who are cisgender. Visual memes soon emerged. In some, failing to recognize self-professed super-gays or super-straights was an intolerant act. Learn the difference. pic.twitter.com/PnsS9TCyct Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 7, 2021In a video aimed at a super-straight TikToker, the YouTuber Eden Estrada retorted, Your entire sexuality is based off of trans women, and yet I bet not a single one has ever paid attention to you. Look, I can literally care less what any ugly random turd in the middle of America is attracted to. At its most dysfunctional, the meme war descended into a kind of mutually assured destruction: Many people invoking super-straight sounded like assholes. Many people denouncing it sounded like hypocrites. And the incentives were perverse: In a culture war, assholery or hypocrisy against the other side can raise your status with allies. Internet discourse does not have to be that way. A better approach begins by recognizing that the worst of what we see is not representative. Super-straight went viral in February, but it has since become the social-media equivalent of a multi-variant pandemic. No matter how far you go down the rabbit hole of YouTube compilations of super-straight TikTok videos and memes, youll remain unable to generalize about it accurately. If someone assures you that super-straight is just the expression of a new sexual orientation, or just transphobic bigotsand especially if they tell you its just Nazis, or that its critics are just hypocritical and intolerant social-justice warriorsdont let them mislead you. All of this is too expansive, fragmented, and varied for anyone to fully grasp or neatly characterize. When its layers overwhelmed me, I turned to the video essayist Natalie Wynn, whose YouTube channel, ContraPoints, excels at getting fans to grapple with the complexity of fraught subjects. Wynn is transgender. In a recent phone interview about the super-straight debate, I asked her how the public conversation about dating and trans people might proceed more constructively. She expressed frustration both with people who aggressively volunteer that they dont want to date trans people and with people who aggressively ask others if they would date a trans personand cautioned that the latter group is not representative of trans people. If my only impression of what trans people were came from Twitter, she joked, I would be a transphobe. And whats more, she said, cis allies are often the ones who are pushing the matter. Wynn does believe that being totally closed-minded to dating a trans person often comes from a place of ignorance about trans people. In her telling, people who believe that theyd never want to date a trans person should consider the possibility that they could change their mindespecially if they grew up in an environment where negative stereotypes about trans people abounded and attractive portrayals of trans people or relationships with them were nonexistent. To come out as trans, which I didnt do until I was in my mid-to-late 20s, I had to overcome an upbringing of misinformation, stereotyping, and self-loathing, she said. Might such negativity mislead cis people, too? Often, when a person finds themselves attracted for the first time to a trans person, that comes as a shock to them, she argued, as their intellectual preconceptions turn out to be at odds with how they feel. They want what they didnt think theyd ever want. Thats how this happens. Often people are surprised. They think they are not attracted to trans people, but then theres a trans person theyre attracted to. Thats how attraction works. Its not this ideological thing. She also noted that who you date is a really personal thing. And no one is ever going to respond well to being told that its bigoted to date who they want to date or to not date who they dont want to date. Berating other people is never going to elicit any reaction other than causing them to get more locked down in their view.Notice how her approach points away from drawing sweeping conclusions based on meme analysis and back toward questions about how best to understand how fellow humans think and feel. Others can challenge or contest her viewpoints and understanding by invoking their own experiences or insights. But everyone would benefit from forswearing tactical stigma and shaming, laying down their memes, calling truce in the culture wars, and talking out their differences like friends. Chloe Valdary is the founder of Theory of Enchantment, a diversity and resilience training company that the 27-year-old African American entrepreneur runs from Downtown Brooklyn. Its website lists clients including TikTok, WeWork, the Federal Aviation Administration, and Greenwich High School, and asks potential customers a loaded question: Looking for an antiracism program that actually fights bigotry instead of spreading it?The diversity, equity, and inclusion industry is booming as corporations, government agencies, high schools, colleges, and nonprofit organizations clamor for its services. Advocates insist that formal instruction in anti-racism yields more inclusive, equitable institutions. Skeptics object to what they characterize as coerced indoctrination in esoteric theories, or charge that prominent consultants like Robin DiAngelo, author of the best-selling White Fragility, traffic in false and divisive racial stereotypes. Still others cite studies finding that diversity training sessions are actually counterproductive. John McWhorter: The dehumanizing condescension of White FragilityValdary is unusual because she shares many critiques of the multibillion-dollar DEI industrial complex, as sardonic observers call it, even as she argues that her framework avoids the flaws of her competitors. We teach love and compassion, her website insists. Let us train your team. Whats more, Valdary pledges, We do not dehumanize, stereotype, or caricature anyone who seeks our services. Can her Theory of Enchantment help bridge this chasm in the culture wars? Maybe so. My first response to any anti-racism course is disgust, Mikhaila Peterson, the daughter of Jordan Peterson, told listeners in the preamble to a September podcast episode featuring Valdary. They teach white people to be ashamed of being white. Sometimes they separate people by race and pit them against each other ... The minimum these courses do is make people angry. Valdarys explanation of Theory of Enchantment didnt exactly convert Peterson to the cause: I still dont think anti-racism courses are a good idea, she said. But if there are business owners out there that are mandated to provide anti-racism or anti-bias training, Chloes course is what I would recommend, Peterson said. She doesnt come at you from a place of hatred ... I believe she really wants to make the world a kinder place without tearing anyone down.Although its too soon to evaluate the proliferation of training sessions introduced after George Floyds death, I am persuaded by older research suggesting that DEI programs can do more harm than goodeven granting that there is no universal definition of successand I think I know one reason why. The political psychologist Karen Stenner has found that roughly a third of humans have an authoritarian predispositiona kind of political personalitycharacterized by a fundamental discomfort with difference. Authoritarians tend to treat members of other racial groups best in contexts where they are presented as (or feel like, or appear to be) one of us, and with more hostility when race is seen (or identified) as a core attribute that differentiates us from them. The racial essentialism embedded in leading DEI frameworks fuels us and them thinking. Read: Being Blackbut not too Blackin the workplaceValdarys approach does not. Having interviewed her by phone and email, and having delved into her course material and the thinking behind it, I can confirm that her approach to anti-racism and inclusion really is substantively different from that of her better-known competitors. Theory of Enchantment elicits unusual openness, trust, and engagement from ideologically diverse observers, including many critics of more conventional DEI-training approaches. Chloe Simone Valdary was raised in New Orleans, where she attended Langston Hughes Elementary School. The education I received on race was grounded in a transcendent view of humanity which came specifically from an African-American literary tradition, she reflected on Twitter in July. She read the poems of Maya Angelou; various Harlem Renaissance writers; and stories from formerly enslaved people, abolitionists, and civil-rights leaders. A curriculum featuring the very best of our peoples power to express the tired struggles and abiding resilience of the human spirit taught Valdary that past injustice in no way prevented her from shaping the future. This freedom was sacrosanct, a product of our black experience and a rejection of any idea that tried to confine our being black to one particular label or stereotype, she wrote in a Commentary essay. Our ability to be anythingavant-garde artists or well-to-do investment bankers, charitable or devastating, complex or simplewas a rebellion against the old guards attempt to define us by any one experience.Her family belonged to the Seventh-Day Sabbatarian Christian Intercontinental Church of God, where the congregation worshipped on Saturdays, observed Old Testament holidays such as Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, and did not celebrate Christmas. Growing up Christian without partaking in mainstream holidays gave me an identity marked by paradox, characterized by the ambiguity of being both within and without a community, she told me in an email correspondence. At times this made her feel ostracized, but it also sparked her curiosity. For example, being taught that Christmas is derived from the ancient festival of Mithras can teach you to make shallow dichotomies between the pagan and the so-called pure, she reflected, but it can also help you conclude that what matters most is the symbolic bringing of light into darkness that both the ancient pagan and modern Christian festivals suggest. Both festivals essentially represent this same human yearning: in the darkest of days and times, in the dead of winter is when to look for the light.She told me she no longer identifies with the Church. But some of its teachings taught me to question everything, and out of that came wonder and a sense of transcendent oneness.Read: When a white Republican teen invited a Black pastor to preach in his hometownIn 2011 she enrolled at the University of New Orleans, where she majored in International Relations and studied diplomacy. After graduating in 2015, she reflected that although her academic field offered many frameworks for combatting conflict, it seldom addressed a related but conceptually distinct task: teaching people how to love. Wasnt that a glaring deficiency? One of her heroes, Martin Luther King Jr., repeatedly stated in the last decade of his life that the end goal of his activism, even beyond equal rights for all people, was the creation of a beloved community rooted in redemptive agape, love. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opponents into friends, King said. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age.Valdary, nothing if not ambitious, decided she wanted to teach people to love like that. But how? She would study what people already love in hopes of reverse engineering the processwork she completed during a paid fellowship at The Wall Street Journal. She sought data in popular culture, identifying people and products that inspire quasi-religious devotion. Companies like Nike and Disney and artists like Beyonce counted tens of millions of loyal fans. Did any common denominator explain their appeal? All were creating content where we as the audience see ourselves and our potential reflected back to us, she told me, arguing that with Just Do It, Nike was tapping into the human need for self-actualization; that almost every Disney movie incorporated Jungian archetypes and variations on the heros journey as metaphors for the human condition; and that Beyonces iconography and lyrics like Who run the world? Girls! made her fans feel their potential reflected in her artistry. Valdary wanted a name for this process of affecting others by helping them see their own potential. In 2016, as she completed what would become an 82-page paper on her findings, she read the 2011 book Enchantment by the Silicon Valley marketing specialist Guy Kawasaki, best known for his stint at Apple. He believes that traditional marketing and even outright manipulation are less effective than what he calls the process of enchantment. If you can enchant someone, you can bring about a voluntary, enduring, and delightful change, he argued. By enlisting their own goals and desires, by being likable and trustworthy, and by framing a cause that others can embrace, you can change hearts, minds, and actions.Read: The false promise of anti-racism booksNow Valdary had a name for her theory: the Theory of Enchantment. In her estimation, people in the process of enchantment can be taught, as they come to more fully appreciate their own potential, to love themselvesand people who have learned to love themselves can be taught to love their neighbors. In 2018, after two years of delivering lectures on her framework in the U.S. and abroad, she saw that her Theory of Enchantment could be applied to efforts to manage diversity and fight racism within institutions, so she launched a business, targeting educational institutions and corporations. Three principles guide all of the coursework her company offers:Treat people like human beings, not political abstractions. Criticize to uplift and empower, never to tear down, never to destroy. Root everything you do in love and compassion. The Theory of Enchantment course, which Valdary taught in person before the pandemic and lately offers remotely via Zoom, eschews newly ascendant social-justice concepts and academic literature in favor of philosophical texts, civil-rights-movement speeches, nonacademic anti-racist authors such as James Baldwin, and pop culture, including shoe commercials, scenes from films, and song lyrics. The course lasts up to six weeks, though Valdary offers shorter options. At first, she focuses on peoples relationships with themselves. She aims to teach the skills to develop self-worth, urging reflection on challenges we all share: mortality, imperfection, vulnerability, parental baggage. By making peace with the most trying aspects of the human condition, you will be able to develop a capacity for empathy, she wrote. You will naturally want to create inclusive spaces, because the lens through which you see the world will be driven by openness, not by fear or cynicism.Achieving openness is hard, a lesson Valdary underscores with Kendrick Lamar lyrics: I got power, poison, pain and joy inside my DNA. To thrive in spite of our flaws, we need to hone skills of self-mastery. She teaches Stoic philosophy, citing complex passages from original texts and endeavoring to make those ancient words come alive by putting them in dialogue with elements of pop culture, like The Lion King. Concepts like sympathiathe idea that you are connected with everyone else around youis precisely what the song Circle of Life is about, she told the Los Angeles Review of Books in December 2019. Read: Can cops unlearn their unconscious biases? Next, the course shifts focus from loving and improving oneself to cultivating empathy for others. Valdary uses Beauty and the Beast to illustrate the difference between monsters and men, and explore which responses to monstrous behavior make change most likely. We use a great snippet from an interview Jay Z did, where he talks about how therapy helped him to see that when he was growing up in Brooklyn and someone said, in a threatening way, What are you looking at?, they were coming from a place of insecurity and hurt, and didnt want him to see their pain, Valdary told me. Once you understand that theres a whole lot of baggage and complexity behind the facades that we project, you start to look for the depth of things, gain awareness of your own depth, and see the depth in others. We teach [about] Daryl Davis, the Black musician who successfully convinced multiple people to leave the KKK. We teach something from a show called The Redemption Project, where Van Jones went to San Quentin to arrange conversations between victims and offenders. It has nothing to do with race. The individuals are of the same racial background. Beyond the household names in her course, Valdary was influenced by Albert Murray, the musician, novelist, critic, and essayisteasily one of the twentieth centurys most important aesthetic theorists of American culture, the Harvard historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. declared in the foreword to the 50th-anniversary reissue of Murrays essay collection The Omni-Americans. The book repeatedly objects to reducing Black and white Americans to a folklore of white supremacy and a fakelore of black pathology, arguing that adherents of those mutually reinforcing ideas neglect glaring evidence that all Americans are more alike than different. Murray argued that ... there was no so-called American culture without the Negro American formal element and content in its marvelous blend, and no black American culture without its white American influences and form, Gates concluded. In one passage in How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi, the academic, educator, and Atlantic contributor, presents U.S. history as a duel between racists and anti-racists, writing, Before and after the Civil War, before and after civil rights, before and after the first Black presidency, the White consciousness duels. The White body defines the American body. The White body segregates the Black body from the American body. The White body instructs the Black body to assimilate into the American body. The White body rejects the Black body assimilating into the American bodyand history and consciousness duel anew. The Black Body in turn experiences the same duel. The Black body is instructed to become the American body. The American body is the White body. To which Valdary replied on Twitter: BLACK CULTURE IS AS FOUNDATIONAL TO OUR SOCIETY AND IS AS AMERICAN AS APPLE PIE.As Valdary sees it, Kendi errs by treating racial groups as fixed across centuries. White America is black America and vice versa, she countered in another Twitter thread. As Murray pointed out, there is no native born black American that is not white and no native born white American that is not also black. America is a composite. So a dichotomy in terms of skin color is just false. The better distinction to make here is, I think, between [African American] culturewhich Im defining as the culture developed by slaves and their descendantsand WASP culture.Anyone can be part of either culture regardless of skin color, she insists, and even the two cultures have themselves overlapped. [African American] culture has historically been very Protestant, for example, but in its own distinct way. There are those who believe that the racial category to which they belong captures the essence of their lives, she acknowledges, but argues that a racialized sense of self is externally constructed, and Valdary instead champions an internal locus of control that transcends immutable factors. Whether or not love is in fact the key to transcending injustice, Theory of Enchantment strikes me as more likely to cause people to treat one another better than other diversity training for the simple reason that it rejects race essentialism, which alienates many, and centers love, which does not. Robin DiAngelos popular white fragility framework breaks the first rule of the Theory of Enchantment, Valdary points out, by treating white people as a monolith and racially essentializing everyone. All individuals are complex and multifaceted. If we treat any human being, any group of people, as a conglomerate, we run the risk of stereotyping them, reducing them, in our words and in our actions, and turning them into an abstraction, she said. Thats not going to be helpful or sustainable for anyone. We have to treat each other like family.Whereas DiAngelo explains the alienation that her sessions elicit from some by faulting the participants for being too fragile, Valdary believes that it is her job to get everyone to participate enthusiastically. Dance and DJing has thoroughly affected my approach to all this because what a DJ does is facilitate an experience in which people from all walks of life dance, she told me. Its another numinous experience that has roots in the African American aspect of my identity, and its why Im an avid DJ and dancer. But before presuming the efficacy of any framework, including Theory of Enchantment, we should study outcomes with rigorthe entire DEI industry lacks sufficient assessmentand ask whether advancing social justice is best accomplished through more training for elites. You can tell a lot about the role that Valdary plays in the culture wars by her ability to enchant others in situations when most never could. I saw her trending on Twitter recently, usually a sign of an angry pile-on, but in this instance people were praising her for a thread about Donald Trump supporters and critical race theory, two of the most fraught and polarizing subjects in America. She is critical of both, once writing, Trump cant take on critical race theory ... he shares its fundamental belief that life is a zero-sum power game, that its okay to dehumanize your enemies, and that preying on peoples fears for the sake of power is fair game.On this occasion, she was empathizing with adherents of these rival ideologies that she rejects. I think Im having one of the biggest aha moments I've had all year, she began. After studying various documents that circulate in diversity, equity, and inclusion circles on the woke left, she noticed that they define equitable workplaces as those that value things like interdependence and collaboration. If you boil much of it down, she suggested, activists are urging a more communal work life, where employees are seen as humans with worth and emotions, such that communication and collaboration are important to thriving. Valdary believes that woke approaches to DEI incorporate racecraft, which is distorting and counterproductive. But she cheers attempts to create workplaces that reduce alienation and isolation. Heres the bridge, she continued. On the right, a defining feature of communities that voted for Trump at the highest rates was their alienation. She cited Tim Carneys carefully reported book Alienated America, in which he shows that Trump was more popular in places where fewer traditional connections existed among citizens. These were communities where the civic life and civic institutions in the community evaporated, Valdary wrote. Churches were shuttered; communal life dithered ... It was precisely the absence of a shared sense of belonging and communal life that led to an increase in deaths of despair, opioid addictions, aimlessness, and the like. In this respect, folks on the woke left and the reactionary right want the same things, Valdary observed. Alienation is a massive culprit re our societal woes ... Groups who are fighting against it can only see how it affects *their in group* but not their adversary.I largely agree with Valdary here: As I see it, if woke-left or reactionary-right illiberalism wins, everyone loses. But reduce alienation in American life and both woke illiberalism and Trumpist illiberalism will wither and their adherents will be better off. You may disagree. Regardless, notice how her thread treats people she fundamentally disagrees with as human beings, not political abstractions; how she criticizes to uplift, not to tear down; the compassion of her approach and how it synthesizes disparate insights and injects them improvisationally into the public square. While attuned to what ails usalarmed by it, in factshe insists that it is within our power to overcome if we love with urgency. Right now we are dealing with mass unemployment, poverty, inequality, a pandemic, and abuses of power, she lamented on Twitter. We have no idea what traumas and fears our neighbors carry, and they have no idea which of those we carry. Nevertheless, she said, were all afflicted by the same fears because were human, never mind racialists caught up in hyper-identitarian ideology who urge us to treat one another with contempt. This is madness, Valdary objected. It is the African American tradition to use soul power to wage a war of unconditional love against hatred, discord, and bigotry. This is my birthright. If you are an Americanregardless of where you come fromit is your birthright too.In one of the most memorable passages in The Omni-Americans, Murray muses on the blues idiom in American music. Some misconstrue the blues as a mere therapeutic expression of despair for Black people they regard as alienated from the country. But the blues idiom, like all transcendent art, goes beyond making life bearable, he explained. It helps make human existence meaningful and significantand it is quintessentially American, he observed, as well as absolutely essential to thriving in America. No other attitude, he believed, is more appropriate to the ever-shifting circumstances of all Americans, who inhabit a dynamic country that has always demanded a pioneering spirit. Every anti-racist intellectual, and every DEI-training framework, is sharply aware of human ugliness. But Valdarys participation in public discourse and her pioneering Theory of Enchantment distinguish themselves. They contend with the human condition and its infernal absurdities and frustrations by playing with the possibilities that are also there.

###CLAIM: clinton, traveling to georgia for a rally of supporters two weeks ahead of a runoff election that will determine which party controls the senate, announced his decision to make the concession. ###DOCS: AdvertisementPresident Trump blasted a White House correspondent during a testy exchange on Thursday, branding the reporter lightweight for speaking over him to ask if he would concede the election to President-elect Joe Biden. Im the President of the United States. Dont ever talk to the president that way,' Trump told Reuters correspondent Jeff Mason on Thursday during a heated question-and-answer session in the White House. Trump later said it's a 'very hard thing to concede' the election, but admitted he would leave the White House if the Electoral College votes for Joe Biden. But he stopped short of admitting that meant he had lost - despite Biden's huge lead in Electoral College votes and refused to say if he would attend the inauguration. The meeting was the first time the president had taken questions from the press since Election Day. Trump spoke to reporters in the White Houses ornate Diplomatic Reception Room after holding a teleconference with members of the US military stationed across the globe. He thanked the troops for their service and jokingly warned them not to eat too much turkey, then turned to the election after ending the call. Earlier during the Thanksgiving holiday, the president spent time playing golf at his club in Sterling, Virginia, before going on a Twitter rant that took aim at the election results, kneeling NFL players, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the news media, including his once-favorite cable news network, the Fox News Channel. President Donald Trump is seen above on Thursday snapping at a White House reporter during a question-and-answer session. The crew that got President Trump to answer his first questions in over three weeks. Proud to be part of it. Happy Thanksgiving! pic.twitter.com/1H1uBdxdG9 Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) November 26, 2020In his 25 minute back-and-forth with the media, Trump didn't concede his loss and insisted his legal arguments would go ahead. He argued he has time until the inauguration - which is 55 days away - but admitted it's ticking fast. He reiterated unproven conspiracy theories about voting machines changing votes for him to Biden, complained the election was 'rigged' and alleged Biden only got his record 80 million votes through 'massive fraud.' The president grew angry with Reuters correspondent Jeff Mason (pictured above in 2017), who interrupted Trump while he was giving his answer about whether he would concede if the Electoral College voted for Joe Biden on December 14Trump is trying to over throw the election results by going to court in battleground states but his legal cases have been going nowhere. States are in the process of certifying their results and the electoral college meets in about two weeks to name the winner. 'Time isn't on our side,' the president conceded. Mason asked the president if he would consider offering a proper concession after the Electoral College meets on December 14. That is when Bidens victory will be made official. Trump, however, said that the Electoral College should not confirm Bidens win. Well if they do, they made a mistake, because this election was a fraud, the president said in response to Masons question. Just so you understand, this election was a fraud, he continued. Trump said it was inconceivable that Biden won, since the former vice president captured more votes in key swing states than Barack Obama did in his election victories. [Biden] is beating Obama in swing states, which are the states that mattered for purposes of the election, the president said. So no, I cant say that [I will concede] at all. I think its a possibility... theyre trying to, look, between you people...At this point, Mason interrupts the president and begins to ask his next question before Trump finished giving his response. Dont talk to me that way, Trump snapped at Mason. Youre just a lightweight. Dont talk to me that way. Dont talk to... Im the President of the United States. Last month, Trump mocked Mason in the Oval Office for wearing a mask just weeks after the White House hosted an event in which several attendees, including the president himself, would later test positive for COVID-19. On October 23, Mason attempted to ask Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a question in the Oval Office. 'This is Jeff Mason,' Trump explained to Netanyahu, relaying Mason's question. 'He's got a mask on that's the largest mask I think I've ever seen.' In early September, Trump held a news conference at the White House during which he demanded that Mason remove his face covering while asking a question. Mason started speaking when Trump cut him off and said: 'You're going to have to take that off, please. You can take it off. How many feet are you away?' The reporter declined to remove his mask and politely raised his voice again, asking: 'Is that better?' Trump rolled his eyes and responded: 'It's... better, yeah.' And during a briefing back in May, the president asked Mason to remove his covering and then accused him of trying to be 'politically correct' for refusing. While a concession speech may not be in the offing, the president did say on Thursday that he would leave the White House if Biden is confirmed as the next president by the Electoral College. When asked whether he would vacate the building, allowing a peaceful transition of power in January, the president said: Certainly I will. But you know that.' But Trump renewed his unproven claims that massive fraud and crooked officials in battleground states caused his election defeat. He insisted that a lot of things would happen between now and then that might alter the results. This has a long way to go, Trump said, even though he lost. Trump's administration has already given the green light for a formal transition to get underway. But Trump took issue with Biden moving forward. I think its not right that hes trying to pick a Cabinet, Trump said, even though officials from both teams are already working together to get Biden's team up to speed. And as he refused to concede, Trump announced that he will be traveling to Georgia to rally supporters ahead of two Senate runoff elections that will determine which party controls the Senate. Trump said the rally for Republican Senators David Perdue and Sen Kelly Loeffler would likely be held on Saturday. The White House later clarified he had meant December 5. Earlier on Thursday, the president played a round of golf at his Sterling, Virginia, club during which he grew angry while struggling at one particular holeOne of the reasons Republicans have stood by Trump and his baseless claims of fraud has been to keep his loyal base energized ahead of those runoffs on January 5. But Trump, in his remarks, openly questioned whether that election would be fair in a move that could dampen Republican turnout. I think you're dealing with a very fraudulent system. I'm very worried about that, he said. People are very disappointed that we were robbed.As for the Electoral College, Trump made clear that he will likely never formally concede, even if he said he would leave the White House. Its gonna be a very hard thing to concede. Because we know there was massive fraud, he said, noting that, time isnt on our side.Asked whether he would attend Biden's inauguration, Trump said he knew the answer but didn't want to share it yet. When asked if he'd go to Biden's inauguration on January 20th, Trump replied: 'I don't want to say that yet. I mean I know the answer, I'll be honest, I know the answer, but I just don't want to say it yet.' He warned that 'a lot of things happening between now and January 20th' and the election results have a 'long way' to go. But there were some signs that Trump was coming to terms with his loss. At one point he urged reporters not to allow Biden the credit for pending coronavirus vaccines. Don't let him take credit for the vaccines because the vaccines were me and I pushed people harder than theyve ever been pushed before, he said. Trump wouldn't say if he would attend rival Joe Biden's inauguration on January 20thAs for whether or not he plans to formally declare his candidacy to run again in 2024 - as he has discussed with aides - Trump he didn't want to talk about 2024 yet.All states must certify their results before the Electoral College meets on December 14, and any challenge to the results must be resolved by December 8. Trump's last hope could be January 6, 2020, which is when Congress meets to formally certify the results of the electoral college. But the transition process has already begun. The General Services Administration, led by a Trump appointee, announced this week that federal agencies and the Biden Transition Team could start communicating. The president elect is starting to name his cabinet. In his remarks on Thursday, Trump repeated a conspiracy theory pushed by members of his legal team that votes from Dominion Voting Systems machines lost votes for him or switched votes from him to Biden. Dominion said there was no problem with their machines nor is there any evidence of what Trump alleges. 'We're using computer equipment that can be hacked,' the president complained about the election. 'We're like a third world country. We have machines that nobody knows what the hell they're looking at. I mean you take a look at all the mistakes they made,' he said. 'This election was a fraud, just so you understand this election was a fraud,' he said. He said there was proof of what he was talking about on the internet. 'If you look, just take a look anywhere on the internet. You will see many, many people where they're experimenting with this stupid machinery. Wherever you send it a certain way the votes go from Trump to Biden,' Trump said. President Donald Trump on Thursday took his first questions from reporters after the electionPresident Trump made his remarks after he spoke to U.S. troops for the Thanksgiving holidayPresident Trump started his Thanksgiving with a round of golfAnd he challenged Biden's vote tally. 'I know one thing Joe Biden did not get 80 million votes,' he said. 'The only way he got 80 million votes is through massive fraud.' The current tally of the popular votes stand at: 80,045,066 (51%) for Biden and 73,897,658 (47%) for Trump. Additionally,'You have to really take a look at what's going on. They're finding tremendous discrepancies in the votes, and nobody believes those numbers those numbers are incorrect numbers,' he said of the vote tallies. He provided no evidence of his claim. State officials have said they've found no evidence of election fraud in the November contest. 'I thought I was going to win it, and essentially I did win it. It's very very close, it's very very close,' he said. The election results are not close. Biden has 306 electoral votes and only needs 270 to win the presidency. Trump has 232. Trump played coy when asked about his own Thanksgiving plans for his last one at the White House, saying he 'can't say what's first or last.' He added that it might be the 'first one of a second term.' President Trump said he would go to Georgia on Saturday, December 5, to campaign for Republican Senators Kelly Loeffler and David PerduePresident Trump's motorcade arrives at his Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va, on Thanksgiving DaySpecifically, Trump complained about results in states he won in 2016 but lost to Biden in November, specifically calling out Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia. 'You will find tens of thousands of false ballots,' he promised. He alleged voters in Pennsylvania who tried to vote were told they already had, said he was winning in Wayne County in Michigan but then said canvassers wouldn't certify for him, claimed there were 'tremendous discrepancies' in Wisconsin, and faulted Democrat Stacey Abrams for his loss in Georgia. Trump accused Abrams, who worked on voter registration in Georgia, with harvesting votes. 'Ballot harvesting', as it's called, is when a third party collects an individual's legal vote and turns it into state officials. The practice is legal'You're not allowed to harvest,' Trump said. He also railed against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who led a hand recount of the state that certified Biden's win, an 'enemy of the people.' 'I understand the Secretary of State, who is really an enemy of the people, the Secretary of State, and whether it's republican or not,' Trump complained. Georgia officials are doing another recount at Trump's request. Biden became the first Democrat to carry the state of Georgia since 1992 and many Democrats credited Abrams' get-out-the-vote operation in the state for his victory there. Trump is going to Georgia on Saturday, December 5, to campaign for Republican Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. The two candidates are in a January 5th runoff election. Republicans need to win both seats in order to maintain their control of the Senate. The president said he spoke to them about his concerns about Georgia's voting. 'I told them today I said listen you have a fraudulent system, you have a system with the flick of a switch or the putting in a new chip can change the course of history,' he said. President Trump faulted Democrat Stacey Abrams for his loss in GeorgiaTrump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, an 'enemy of the people' - Raffensperger presided over a hand recount that confirmed Biden's victoryPresident Donald Trump called into a hearing-style event in Pennsylvania where lawyer Rudy Giuliani leveled charges of voter fraud on WednesdayIn Pennsylvania Trump's legal team is trying to stop certification of the state's 20 electoral votes for Biden. Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney who is leading the charge in trying to overturn the election, testified at a Republican-led hearing of sorts on Wednesday, which Trump called into to implore GOP officials in the state to find he won Pennsylvania. 'This election has to be turned around. We won Pennsylvania by a lot and we won all of these swing states by a lot,' Trump said via a cellphone his attorney Jenna Ellis held up to a microphone. Trump also tried to subvert results in Michigan. He met with two state lawmakers at the White House to discuss the election. But, despite his efforts, the two men said they haven't seen any evidence that would change the fact that Biden won their state. 'We have not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan and as legislative leaders, we will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan's electors, just as we have said throughout this election,' Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield said in a joint statement after their meeting with President Trump last week. In Wisconsin, Republicans filed a lawsuit Tuesday asking the state Supreme Court to block certification of the presidential election results as a recount is ongoing. The state is supposed to certify its results on Tuesday, December 1. Trump says COVID vaccines will start going out NEXT WEEK as he brags about his accomplishments in Thanksgiving call with U.S. troopsPresident Donald Trump spent time on his call with U.S. troops bragging about his own record, noting the record stock market high this week and claiming COVID vaccines will start being delivered in the next week or two. At least three COVID vaccines show remarkable efficacy, a promising result as America sees more than 12.9 million infections and more than 263,000 deaths for the virus. The candidates are in Phase 3 clinical trials, the last step before seeking the go-ahead from the Food and Drug Administration. Trump said distribution will begin soon with frontline workers and high risk populations. 'We are rounding the curb,' he said on a call with troops stationed overseas. 'The vaccines are being delivered literally starting next week and week after, and the frontline workers and seniors and doctors, nurses, a lot of people going to start getting.' President Donald Trump said COVID vaccines will start going out next week with healtcare workers and at-risk populations getting them firstPresident Trump made his announcement on his traditional Thanksgiving call with troopsThe FDA is meeting Monday to talk to Pfizer about giving an emergency authorization for its vaccine to be used. Trump said the rapid development of the vaccine was a 'medical miracle.' 'Some people call that a medical miracle really a miracle. It could have taken four or five years to do this normally. It probably would have taken four or five years, just getting it through the FDA. We pushed it very hard,' he said. Gen. Gustave Perna, who is leading Operation Warp Speed's effort to distribute coronavirus vaccines nationwide, told ABC News that he believes the FDA's authorization, which he calls 'D-Day,' could occur between Dec. 10 and Dec. 14. Once it's authorized, he said, '24 hours later, vaccines are on the street.' Trump, in his overseas call, also bragged about Tuesday's record achievement in the stock market: the Dow hit 30,000 points for the first time. 'You're doing an incredible job and your country is doing well. We just set a record in the stock market over 30,000 in the Dow Jones industrial average,' he said. The president spoke with different members of service stationed around the world. 'Don't eat too much turkey,' he told them. 'How is Kuwait doing,' he said in his conversations with Army, Marine, and Air Force personnel stationed in Kuwait. He also spoke with Navy service members on the USS Winston S Churchill in the Red Sea, members of the Space Force in Colorado and Coast Guard forces in the Kingdom of Bahrain. On the teleconference, all the service members wore face masks. Trump did not wear one. Pfizer is meeting with the FDA on Monday to discuss emergency use authorization of its COVID vaccinePresident Trump led a round of applause for the troops when he finished his call with themWhen one of the commanders thanked him for doing the call, saying it raised morale during the holiday, Trump replied: ''I love doing it and I'm so proud of it.' He also said repeatedly the military is in better shape after his four years in the White House, claiming its equipment is in 'tippy-top' shape. 'Your equipment is getting newer and newer and better and better,' he told crew members of the Churchill. 'On the Army, we just made a tremendous purchase of equipment,' he said. And he praised one service man who said he was a golfer. The 'only exercise there is,' said the president who had played a round before speaking with them. The president spoke from the Diplomatic Room of the White House. Teed off after teeing off! Trump tears into Twitter claiming it makes up 'false trends' and demanding section 230 be repealed - after losing it on the golf course and blasting 'I hate this f*****g hole!!!' President Trump split his Thanksgiving holiday between lashing out at his enemies on Twitter, playing golf, and holding a news conference. Early in the day, the president appeared grumpy earlier in the day on Thursday, when he was caught on camera using foul language after he flubbed a golf shot while playing at his course in Sterling, Virginia. I hate this f*****g hole! Trump said after he chipped a ball into the water. Later, the president took to Twitter to blast the social media company, accusing them of making up 'negative stuff' for their trending section, and called for the repeal of Section 230, a part of a law that shields internet companies from liability for the content that users post. But within half an hour the number one trending topic in the United States was 'DiaperDon' - a reference to the president sitting behind a small desk at a news conference earlier in the day. Trump retweeted and wrote more than a dozen tweets on Thursday, including several just hours after he grew visibly angry with a Reuters reporter during the question-and-answer session at the White House. Trump also retweeted his favorite commentators - who falsely suggested theres still a chance he can overturn the results of the election - and also vented his frustration at the media, Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez, kneeling NFL players, and Fox News. The president agreed with a tweet by conservative commentator David J Harris Jr, who said that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was 'in panic mode!' President Trump on Thursday blasted Twitter, accusing it of manipulating its trending topics so as to make him look badTwitter is sending out totally false Trends that have absolutely nothing to do with what is really trending in the world, the president tweeted on Thursday. They make it up, and only negative stuff'Twitter users relentlessly mocked the president for the small desk from which he spoke during his White House news conference. The sight of Trump sitting at the desk prompted Twitter users to trend the topic Resolute Desk - the much larger desk where the president sits in the Oval Office. Another trending topic on Twitter was the hashtag #DiaperDon, a reaction to an image of the president sitting at his smaller deskThe president on Thursday night repeated past grievances about the November 3 election which he lost to President-elect Joe Biden. He also took aim once again at Twitter, claiming that it was conspiring to make him look bad. Trump posted a tweet linking to an opinion column written by a blogger with The Federalist, a pro-Trump, conservative-leaning news site. The opinion piece listed five more ways Joe Biden magically outperformed election norms.It suggested that that Bidens win was fraudulent since it defied several metrics that have historically been used to gauge who would win a presidential election. A must read. Impossible for Biden to have overcome these, and even greater, odds! Trump tweeted when linking the article. The president then posted another tweet complaining about media coverage of his Thanksgiving Day message to US troops stationed abroad. I gave a long news conference today after wishing the military a Happy Thanksgiving, & realized once again that the Fake News Media coordinates so that the real message of such a conference never gets out, the president tweeted. Primary point made was that the 2020 Election was RIGGED, and that I WON!Trump spoke to reporters in the White Houses ornate Diplomatic Reception Room after holding a teleconference with US military leaders stationed across the globe. He thanked them for their service and jokingly warned them not to eat too much turkey, then turned to the election after ending the call. Trump repeated grievances and angrily denounced officials in Georgia and Pennsylvania, two key swing states that helped give Biden the win. 'Resolute Desk' was also trending on Twitter late on Thursday, drawing Trump's ire'Moved from the Resolute Desk to the Coffee Table of Despair,' tweeted another Twitter userTrump then took aim at Twitter after the social media sites trending topics painted the president in an unfavorable light. Twitter is sending out totally false Trends that have absolutely nothing to do with what is really trending in the world, the president tweeted on Thursday. They make it up, and only negative stuff. Same thing will happen to Twitter as is happening to Fox News daytime. Also, big Conservative discrimination!Twitter users relentlessly mocked the president for the small desk from which he spoke during his White House news conference. The sight of Trump sitting at the desk prompted Twitter users to trend the topic Resolute Desk - the much larger desk where the president sits in the Oval Office. Another trending topic on Twitter was the hashtag #DiaperDon, a reaction to an image of the president sitting at his smaller desk. The president then tweeted: For purposes of National Security, Section 230 must be immediately terminated!! !Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act protects internet companies from liability for the material users post on their networks. 'No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider,' the law states. Trump has long accused social media networks of being biased against conservatives and Republicans. Since the November 3 election, Twitter has been more aggressively labeling Trumps tweets with warnings about its accuracy as the president has made numerous claims about alleged voter fraud. Trump and his attorneys have yet to substantiate allegations of widespread voter fraud that he claims cost him the election. Earlier on Thursday, Trump praised a Pennsylvania judge who placed a hold on the certification process for down-ballot races in the Keystone State. A brilliant woman of courage! the president tweeted on Thursday. He was reacting to a tweet posted by David J. Harris Jr, a conservative commentator who linked to a news story on his web site about the case. Harris headline read: Judge Blocks Certification of Pennsylvania Election Results.But the headline and the article incorrectly suggest that the decision by Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia A. McCullough will have any impact on the presidential race. The state has already certified the results of the presidential election, with Democrat Joe Biden winning its 20 electoral college votes. Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, sent a certificate of ascertainment to the national archivist in Washington with the slate of electors who support President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Pennsylvanias 20 electors, a mix of elected Democrats, party activists and other staunch Biden backers, will meet in the state Capitol on December 14. McCulloughs ruling on Wednesday temporarily blocks the portion of the election that had yet to be certified - namely the state legislature results. A majority of the legislature is controlled by Republicans. The president on Thursday also retweeted a post from Harris which links to an article about the voter fraud hearing led by Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis. Trump also retweeted another post by Harris, this one claiming that 'AOC is in panic mode!' The Texans won the game 41-25The post was linked to a news story about a lawsuit filed by pro-Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, who are suing Georgia because of an 'unlawful election.' Biden won Georgia's 16 electoral college votes, defeating Trump by slightly more than 12,000 votes. The link to the news story on Harris' site alleges that AOC is 'in trouble,' though the basis for that claim is unclear. Trump also reacted negatively to a news story about the two quarterbacks of the Houston Texans and the Detroit Lions, the NFL teams who faced off against each other in the Thanksgiving game on Thursday. The Texans' Deshaun Watson and the Lions' Matthew Stafford were seen kneeling on their respective sidelines during the national anthem just before kickoff at Ford Field in Detroit. The Texans won the game 41-25. Trump has been a vocal critic of professional athletes who kneel during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial injustice. He demanded that NFL owners fire players who do so after the Colin Kaepernick controversy. Kaepernick, the former 49ers quarterback, ignited a fierce, nationwide debate in 2015 and 2016 by kneeling on the sidelines during the Star Spangled Banner. Earlier on Thursday, Trump kicked off his Thanksgiving with a round of golf at his Trump National Golf Club in Virginia and a lot of whining on Twitter, insisting there was no way Biden won the 'rigged' election and slamming Fox News. Trump left the White House Thursday morning for 18 holes at his golf club in Sterling, Virginia. But before and after his game, his focus was on the presidential election - which he still insists he won - instead of the holiday. 'Just saw the vote tabulations. There is NO WAY Biden got 80,000,000 votes!!! This was a 100% RIGGED ELECTION,' Trump complained about his Democratic rival. Twitter flagged the tweet, noting on it: 'This claim about election fraud is disputed.' The president has refused to concede the election even as his legal cases challenging the results in battleground states have gone nowhere, his campaign has turned up no evidence of major voter fraud, and states have begun to certify Biden's victory. The current tally of the popular votes stand at: 80,045,066 (51%) for Biden and 73,897,658 (47%) for Trump. Additionally, Biden has 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232. The 2020 contest saw a record number of votes. Biden was the first candidate to earn over 80 million. Trump also got in a dig at Fox News. The news organization infuriated him by being the first on election night to call Arizona for Biden. The president retweeted a tweet on the network seeing declining ratings and added his own commentary: 'Will go down much further. Weekend daytime even worse, dead. They still dont get it. Fantastic alternatives! The late/great Roger Ailes is seriously missed, but I still won LEGAL VOTES by a lot!!!' Ailes, who was ousted from Fox News in 2016 over charges of sexual harassment, advised Trump on the presidential debates that year. He died in 2017 and some credit him for Trump's rise in politics. And Trump retweeted a tweet about a lawsuit Sidney Powell, the attorney dumped from his legal team, brought about in Georgia. And he complained about Pennsylvania, where his legal team is trying to stop certification of the state's 20 electoral votes for Biden: 'A total FRAUD. Statehouse Republicans, proud, strong and honest, will never let this travesty stand!' Rudy Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney who is leading the charge in trying to overturn the election, testified at a Republican-led hearing of sorts on Wednesday, which Trump called into to implore GOP officials in the state to find he won Pennsylvania. 'This election has to be turned around. We won Pennsylvania by a lot and we won all of these swing states by a lot,' Trump said via a cellphone his attorney Jenna Ellis held up to a microphone. 'We got 11 million votes more than we had four years ago in 2016. And we got many more votes than Ronald Reagan had when he won 49 states,' Trump said, pointing to an election forty years ago when the population was considerably smaller. Trump did receive 73 million votes - the most ever of an incumbent president. But Biden won over 80 million votes and the electoral college, which hands him the White House. The Trump team has shown no evidence of voter fraud in Pennsylvania or any other state. Trump had switched into holiday mode earlier in the day, writing 'HAPPY THANKSGIVING' atop a retweet from the SCOTUS blog, which covers Supreme Court cases. It reported that: 'Just before midnight on the night before Thanksgiving, the Supreme Court blocked New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo from enforcing attendance limits at religious services. The vote is 5-4, with Roberts and the three liberals dissenting.' The Supreme Court late Wednesday temporarily barred New York from enforcing attendance limits at houses of worship in areas designated as hard hit by the coronavirus. Andrew Cuomo's October 6 decision about houses of worship in areas designated red and orange zones, where attendance was capped at 10 and 25 people, respectively. New Justice Amy Coney Barrett ruled in the majority whereas the court's three liberal justices and Chief Justice John Roberts dissented. In two previous cases this year, the court on 5-4 votes turned away similar requests by churches in Nevada and California. Those votes occurred before the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The president is having Thanksgiving dinner with his immediate family. 'The First Family will be celebrating the day with immediate family for dinner at the White House. The President and First Lady wish everyone across the country a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving,' said Stephanie Grisham, the chief of staff to first lady Melania Trump, in a statement. She did not detail who was included in the immediate family, which could consist of the president's adult children from his first marriages and the first lady's parents, who live near the White House. In his Thanksgiving proclamation, President Trump encouraged Americans to gather and give thanks. 'I encourage all Americans to gather, in homes and places of worship, to offer a prayer of thanks to God for our many blessings,' he said in a statement. Trump's urging Americans to gather for the holiday comes as daily deaths from COVID-19 in the United States have surpassed 2,100 for the first since May as millions of Americans continue to ignore CDC travel guidance and dire warnings from health experts that Thanksgiving could be the 'mother of all superspreader events'. Don Jr., the president's oldest son who tested positive for coronavirus a couple of weeks ago, posted a message to Instagram he is 'done with Rona' and will spend Thanksgiving with family. He videotaped the message on Wednesday with girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, noting the couple will be eating their 'back up meal' that day and then enjoying a second Thanksgiving feast. 'I wasnt sure if Id be able to be cleared to be with my family but I got the medical OK Im all done with the Rona,' he noted. And Lara Trump, the president's daughter-in-law, posted a photo to Instagram of her, husband Eric Trump and their two kids taking a road trip to an unnamed location. The president is also reaching out to friends who could be having a tough time over the holidays. Eric Bolling, the Sinclair TV host whose son died of an accidental drug overdose in 2017, tweeted that Trump called him on Thanksgiving Day. '3 years ago today: A difficult first holiday without my Eric Chase.. the empty Thanksgiving seat being too real having just lost our son. The phone rang: 'Eric, Melania and I want to tell you how much we feel for you today' That call just came again. Thank you @realDonaldTrump,' he wrote. Last year on Thanksgiving, Trump made a surprise visit Afghanistan where he met with President Ashraf Ghani and served Thanksgiving dinner to U.S. troops stationed there.

###CLAIM: in the meantime, according to rosario and hernandez, because of disability benefits and insurance, the hernandez family has only been covered for a portion of their salary. ###DOCS: Saul Sanchez died in April, one of six workers with fatal COVID-19 infections at meatpacker JBS USA's slaughterhouse in Greeley, Colorado, the site of one of the earliest and deadliest coronavirus outbreaks at a U.S. meatpacking plant. Before getting sick, the 78-year-old Sanchez only left home to work on the fabrication line, where cattle carcasses are sliced into cuts of beef, and to go to his church, with its five-person congregation, said his daughter, Betty Rangel. She said no one else got infected in the family or at Bible Missionary Church, which could not be reached for comment. JBS, the world's largest meatpacker, denied the family's application for workers' compensation benefits, along with those filed by the families of two other Greeley workers who died of COVID-19, said lawyers handling the three claims. Families of the three other Greeley workers who died also sought compensation, a union representative said, but Reuters could not determine the status of their claims. JBS has said the employees' COVID-19 infections were not work-related in denying the claims, according to responses the company gave to employees, which were reviewed by Reuters. As more Americans return to workplaces, the experience of JBS employees shows the difficulty of linking infections to employment and getting compensation for medical care and lost wages. "That is the ultimate question: How can you prove it?" said Nick Fogel, an attorney specializing in workers' compensation at the firm Burg Simpson in Colorado. The meatpacking industry has suffered severe coronavirus outbreaks, in part because production-line workers often work side-by-side for long shifts. Companies including JBS, Tyson Foods Inc and WH Group Ltd's Smithfield Foods closed about 20 plants this spring after outbreaks, prompting President Donald Trump in April to order the plants to stay open to ensure the nation's meat supply. The White House declined to comment on the industry's rejections of workers' claims. The U.S. Department of Labor did not respond to a request for comment. Tyson has also denied workers' compensation claims stemming from a big outbreak in Iowa, workers' attorneys told Reuters. Smithfield workers at a plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, also hit by a major outbreak, have generally not filed claims, a union official said, in part because the company has paid infected workers' wages and medical bills. Smithfield declined to comment on workers compensation. Tyson said it reviews claims on a case-by-case basis, but declined to disclose how often it rejects them. JBS acknowledged rejecting claims but declined to say how often. It called the denials consistent with the law, without elaborating. Workers can challenge companies' denials in an administrative process that varies by state but typically resembles a court hearing. The burden of proof, however, usually falls on the worker to prove a claim was wrongfully denied. The full picture of how the meatpacking industry has handled COVID-related workers' compensation remains murky because of a lack of national claims data. Reuters requested data from seven states where JBS or its affiliates have plants that had coronavirus outbreaks. Only three states provided data in any detail; all show a pattern of rejections. In Minnesota, where JBS had a major outbreak, meatpacking employees filed 930 workers' compensation claims involving COVID-19 as of Sept. 11, according to the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. None were accepted, 717 were rejected and 213 were under review. The agency did not identify the employers. The Minnesota Department of Health said only two meatpacking plants there had significant coronavirus outbreaks: a JBS pork processing plant in Worthington, and a poultry plant in Cold Spring run by Pilgrim's Pride Corp , which is majority-owned by JBS. Tom Atkinson, a Minnesota workers' compensation attorney who has represented meatpacking workers, estimates up to 100 COVID-19 claims were filed by employees at the Worthington plant. In Utah, seven JBS workers filed claims related to COVID-19 by Aug. 1 and all were denied, according to the state's Labor Commission. At least 385 workers at a JBS beef plant in Hyrum, Utah, tested positive for COVID-19. In Colorado, 69% of the 2,294 worker compensation claims for COVID-19 had been denied as of Sept. 12. Although the state does not break down the denials by industry, a JBS spokesman told Reuters the company is rejecting claims in Colorado and that it uses the same claim-review procedures nationwide. JBS spokesman Cameron Bruett did not answer the question of whether JBS employees were infected on the job and declined comment on individual workers claims. He said the company has outsourced claim reviews to a third-party administrator. "Given the widespread nature of viral spread, our third-party claims administrator reviews each case thoroughly and independently," said Bruett. The administrator, Sedgwick, did not respond to a request for comment. Bruett, also a spokesman for Pilgrim's Pride, did not respond to questions about infections and claims at its Minnesota plant. At the JBS plant in Greeley, where Sanchez worked before he died, at least 291 of about 6,000 workers were infected, according to state data. The company, in its written response to the familys claim, said that his infection was not work-related, without spelling out its reasoning. The two sides are now litigating the matter in Colorado's workers' compensation system. Under Colorado law, a workers' compensation death benefit provides about two-thirds of the deceased worker's salary to the surviving spouse and pays medical expenses not covered by insurance. If JBS had not denied the Sanchez familys claim, that would have provided his widow a steady income and paid uncovered medical bills totaling about $10,000, according to his daughter. "They don't care," Rangel said of JBS. "They are all about the big profits, and they are not going to give any money out." Mass infections, little compensationThe United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) International Union, which represents 250,000 U.S. meatpacking and food-processing workers, said last week at least 122 meatpacking workers have died of COVID-19 and more than 18,000 had missed work because they were infected or potentially exposed. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said on Sept. 11 that it had cited JBS for failing to protect workers at the Greeley plant from the virus. OSHA cited Smithfield this month for failing to protect workers at its Sioux Falls, South Dakota, plant, where the agency said nearly 1,300 workers contracted the coronavirus and four died. Smithfield and JBS said the citations had no merit because they concerned conditions in plants before OSHA issued COVID-19 guidance for the industry. OSHA said it stands by the citations. Workers' compensation is generally the only way to recoup medical expenses and lost wages for work-related injuries and deaths. The system protects employers from lawsuits, with few exceptions, and allows workers to collect benefits without having to prove fault or negligence. But the system was designed for factory accidents, not airborne illnesses. In response to the coronavirus, governors and lawmakers in at least 14 states have made it easier for some employees to collect workers compensation for COVID-19 by putting the burden on companies and insurers to prove an infection did not occur at work. But most of the changes, which vary by state, only apply to workers in healthcare or emergency services. A similar proposal failed to gain support in Colorado. Mark Dopp, general counsel for the North American Meat Institute, a trade association that represents meatpackers, said it is difficult to determine where workers get infections given extensive sanitation efforts taken by meat plants and workers' daily travel to and from the plants. Tyson in April closed its Waterloo, Iowa, pork processing plant due to a COVID-19 outbreak. Ben Roth, a local workers compensation attorney, said five families of employees who died filed workers compensation claims for death benefits, and all were denied. He said meat-processing companies have an incentive to deny every claim because admitting they caused even one infection can expose the firms to liability for all workers contracting COVID-19. "That undercuts the argument that they want to make across the board: that you cant prove you got it here and not at a grocery store," Roth said. Tyson said it follows state laws for workers compensation. The company noted that Iowa law states that disease with an equal likelihood of being contracted outside the workplace are "not compensable as an occupational disease.In Colorado, Sylvia Martinez runs a group called Latinos Unidos of Greeley and said she knows of more than 20 JBS workers who applied for workers compensation and were denied. Many plant workers are not native English speakers and sought out her group for guidance, she said, adding that many don't understand their rights and fear being fired. The company's rejections have discouraged more claims, Martinez said. "If you deny five or 10, those workers will tell their co-workers," she said. 'Who is going to hire him?' JBS also contested the claim of Alfredo Hernandez, 55, a custodian who worked at the Greeley plant for 31 years. He became infected and was hospitalized in March. He still relies on supplemental oxygen and hasn't returned to work, said his wife, Rosario Hernandez. Generall y, companies approve claims if it looks probable that an employee was injured or sickened at work, said Erika Alverson, the attorney representing Hernandez. But JBS, she said, is arguing workers could have contracted COVID-19 anywhere. "They're getting into, where did our clients go, what were they doing during that time, who was coming into their house, what did their spouse do, was there any other form of exposure?" said Alverson, of the Denver firm Alverson and OBrien. A judge will decide the Hernandez case in an administrative hearing. In the meantime, the Hernandez family has only his disability benefits a portion of his salary to cover his medical and insurance costs, Rosario Hernandez said. "We're getting bunches of bills," she said. Follow NBC Latino on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

###CLAIM: rodney and harrison said at a news briefing that the mother 's boyfriend called 911 from an apartment in the st. nicholas and houses building saturday. ###DOCS: NEW YORK (AP) A 10-year-old boy was fatally abused by his mothers companion in Harlem, police said Monday. The mothers boyfriend called 911 on Saturday from an apartment in the St. Nicholas Houses, Chief of Department Rodney Harrison said at a news briefing. When the officers arrived, they found 10-year-old Ayden Wolfe lying unconscious and unresponsive in the living room. The boy was taken to Harlem Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Ryan Cato, 34, was arrested late Sunday on charges of murder and endangering the welfare of a child, police said. It wasnt clear if Cato had an attorney who could comment on the charges. ADVERTISEMENTHarrison said Aydens body was covered with bruises both old and recent. He said the boy died of fatal child abuse syndrome.The Daily News reports that residents of the housing complex held a vigil for Ayden outside of his building Sunday, and tenant association head Tyrone Ball urged residents to check on their neighbors when they hear something amiss. These walls are thin enough to where you can hear a child being beaten. You think its not your business, it is your business, Ball said. It takes a village to raise a child, but the village failed. The mother of a 10-year-old Harlem boy who was bludgeoned to death in the familys apartment was investigated for neglecting the child when he was just a baby, police revealed on Monday. The womans boyfriend, Ryan Cato, 34 who is charged with murder in Ayden Wolfes death was also investigated by the city Administration for Childrens Services in an unrelated case in which he allegedly beat another woman in front of their children in December, NYPD Chief of Department Rodney Harrison said at an afternoon press conference. Mr. Cato has three prior arrests, Harrison said. He was last arrested in December in Brooklyn, where he assaulted the mother of his children in their presence. An ACS case was opened for that case.The chief said the boys mother whose name is being withheld by The Post because she has not been charged was investigated by the ACS in 2010 after Ayden was born. The outcome of the two probes was not immediately known. In an e-mail on Monday, a spokesperson for the ACS said that the agency was barred by law from discussing details of its cases, but that it was now involved in the investigation into the boys death. The safety and well-being of New York Citys children is our top priority, the spokesperson said. We are investigating this case with the NYPD.Ayden was found unconscious and unresponsive in the living room of the apartment at the St. Nicholas Houses just before 2:30 p.m. on Saturday. Ayden was rushed to Harlem Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead, police said. The victim was found with extensive bruising to his face, his extremities and all over the body, Harrison said on Monday. Some injuries were old, but others were recent. At the hospital, investigators were informed that the victims demise was caused by fatal child-abuse syndrome.Harrison said that Aydens mother had not yet been interviewed over the boys death. Cato was questioned and was charged on Sunday with murder and endangering the welfare of a child. He was awaiting arraignment on Monday. Meanwhile, police executed a search warrant at the West 131st Street apartment on Monday along with members of the city Medical Examiners Office. Aydens cousin, who would identify herself only as Jennifer A., 42, remembered the dead boy as super smart, super intelligent.She said the boys mother was a good mom and was very protective of him.She would never hurt Ayden, Jennifer said. She just would not. Something had to go terribly wrong.I dont know who this other person was that was in her home, she added. I dont know him.Additional reporting by Kevin Sheehan and Nolan Hicks An apparently serially bludgeoned Manhattan boy was found dead inside a Harlem apartment Saturday, authorities said. The 10-year-old had severe trauma throughout his body, with injuries both old and new, said a source, who added that two family members were being questioned in connection with the childs death. The tragic youngster was found just before 2:30 p.m. inside a fourth floor apartment at 260 West 131st St., in the Saint Nicholas Houses, and pronounced dead at Harlem Hospital. The city Medical Examiner is expected to determine the cause of death. No arrests have been made.

###CLAIM: that would prevent the trump administration from continuing operations of several recreational facilities, including a wollman ice skating rink in central park that is to generate 4. 5 million dollars in revenue in 2020, according to financial disclosures. ###DOCS: London CNN Business Donald Trumps businesses generated nearly 40% less revenue last year as the coronavirus pandemic slammed the hotel industry, putting the former president under financial pressure even before corporate partners and banks ditched him in the wake of the insurrection at the US Capitol. Posted on Wednesday as he left the White House, Trumps final financial disclosure as president reveals a steep decline in revenue at some of his marquee properties in 2020 and the first 20 days of this year. Sales at the Trump International Hotel Washington plummeted by 63% compared with 2019 to $15.1 million, while revenue fell 62% to $9.8 million at Scottish golf resort Turnberry. Revenue at one of the former presidents biggest businesses, the Trump National Doral golf resort near Miami, declined to $44.2 million from $77.2 million in 2019. Trump has mortgages on the property totaling between $55 million and $75 million, according to the document. The loans from Deutsche Bank mature in 2023. The Trump International Hotel located at 1100 Pennsylvania Ave in Washington, D.C. Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post/Getty ImagesFederal officials are allowed to disclose their income and the value of their assets in broad ranges. Overall, Trump reported revenue for 2020 of $278 million to $313 million, down from $445 million to $483 million in 2019. Based on the midpoint of those ranges, revenue fell by 37%. Hotels and other hospitality companies, which form a substantial part of Trumps business empire, have been hit especially hard during the pandemic as travelers stay home and governments impose lockdowns. In Scotland, for example, Trump Turnberry has been forced to close because of government restrictions designed to contain the spread of the coronavirus. There were a few bright spots for the Trump Organization. Revenue was fairly steady at his golf courses in Charlotte, North Carolina, Philadelphia and New Yorks Hudson Valley. Sales at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, where Trump returned after leaving the White House on Wednesday, increased to $24.2 million from $21.4 million. (He transferred his permanent residence to the Florida property from Trump Tower in New York in 2019, and spent hundreds of days golfing at courses he owned during his presidency.) Still, there are major questions about the presidents business after his supporters vandalized the Capitol earlier this month in a brazen assault that left five people dead and sparked a major corporate backlash. Twitter (TWTR) and Facebook (FB) banned Trump indefinitely, taking away his biggest megaphones. Stripe is no longer processing credit card payments for his campaign organization, Shopify stopped operating online stores for the Trump Organization and the campaign and the PGA announced it was pulling a major golf tournament from his Bedminster, New Jersey, course. New York City is seeking to terminate its business relationships with the Trump Organization. That would prevent Trump from continuing to operate several recreational venues including the Wollman ice skating rink in Central Park, which generated $4.5 million in revenue in 2020, according to the financial disclosure. Deutsche Bank (DB) has decided to no longer do business with Trump, a source told CNN Business earlier this month. In addition to the mortgages on the Doral property, Germanys biggest bank has also provided loans for the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago and the companys hotel in Washington. The Trump Organization owes Deutsche Bank approximately $340 million in the coming years, the source said. Its unclear which, if any, other banks will want to loan money to the Trump Organization. New York state criminal investigators looking into Trumps business practices have subpoenaed the bank about its lending relationship with the Trump Organization. Late last month the two private bankers at Deutsche Bank who worked most closely with Trump resigned their positions. Signature Bank said following the attack on the Capitol that it had started closing Trumps personal accounts. The former president has a checking account with the bank, according to his financial disclosure. The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. Matt Egan and Chris Isidore contributed reporting. FILE - In this Jan. 15, 2021 file photo, extra security barricades are outside the Trump Hotel in Washington. Trump is returning to a family business ravaged by pandemic shutdowns, with revenue plunging more than 40 percent at his Doral golf property, his Washington hotel and at both his Scottish resorts. Trumps financial disclosure released as he left office this week was just the latest bad news for his financial empire after banks, brokerages and golf organizations announced they were cutting ties with his company following the storming of the Capitol this month by his political supporters (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)FILE - In this Jan. 15, 2021 file photo, extra security barricades are outside the Trump Hotel in Washington. Trump is returning to a family business ravaged by pandemic shutdowns, with revenue plunging more than 40 percent at his Doral golf property, his Washington hotel and at both his Scottish resorts. Trumps 2020 financial disclosure released as he left office this week was just the latest bad news for his financial empire after banks, real estate brokerages and golf organizations announced they were cutting ties with his company following the storming of the Capitol this month by his political supporters. ADVERTISEMENTThe disclosure showed sizable debt facing the company of more than $300 million, much of it coming due in the next four years, and a major bright spot: Revenue at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, his new post-presidency home, rose by a few million dollars. Eric Trump, who with Donald Trump Jr. has run the Trump Organization the past four years, told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that the disclosure doesnt tell the whole story, calling the debt negligible and the outlook for the company bright, especially at its golf resorts and courses. The golf business has never been stronger. We took in hundreds and hundreds of new members, he said, adding that profits were in the tens of millions.Hinting at possible new ventures in the post-presidency era, Eric Trump raised the prospect of a flurry of new licensing deals in which the Trump name is put on a product or building for a fee, a business that has generated tens of millions for the company in the past. The opportunities are endless, he said, declining to give details. The disclosure report filed each year with federal ethics officials shows only revenue figures, not profits, but the hit to Trumps business appeared widespread. The National Doral Golf Club outside of Miami, his biggest money maker among the familys golf properties, took in $44.2 million in revenue, a drop of $33 million from 2019. The Trump International Hotel in Washington, once buzzing with lobbyists and diplomats before operations were cut back last year, generated just $15.1 million in revenue, down more than 60% from the year before. Trumps Turnberry club in Scotland took in less than $10 million, down more than 60%. Revenue at the familys golf club in Aberdeen dropped by roughly the same proportion. The Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach club where Trump arrived Wednesday, saw revenue rise 10% to $24.2 million. Revenue at a golf club near that club and one in Charlotte, North Carolina, also rose, up about 5 percent to $13 million each. In total, Trumps vast holding of hotels, resorts, office buildings, licensing deals and other assets took in at least $278 million for 2020 and the first few weeks of the new year, down more than a third from a minimum of about $450 million in 2019. The financial blow from former clients and business partners cutting ties to Trump is unclear, but it could be sizable. The PGA of America canceled a championship tournament at Trumps Bedminster club in New Jersey, and several banks said they would no longer lend to the company, making it more difficult to roll over its debt with new loans. In addition, New York City said it would be canceling various contracts with the company, including those running skating rinks and a golf club in the Bronx. Revenue at that course, the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point, fell 20% last year to $6.4 million. Eric Trump dismissed the backlash, saying parts of the business that get less attention, such as its commercial buildings, are thriving. Ive signed 125,000 square feet of office space in the fourth quarter alone, he said, referring to new leases. We hit it out of the park.The disclosure report was unclear on that claim, though the revenue at four of the companys most important commercial buildings Trump Tower on New Yorks Fifth Avenue, a Wall Street building, and two towers owned with real estate giant Vornado -- seemed to have held up during the pandemic. The report, which gives some figures in broad ranges and vague more than estimates, said the four took in over $20 million in total last year, unchanged from a year earlier.

###CLAIM: one of those drops secured a win for the spartans, an ethan and walker relief catch at first base with two outs in the 7th inning with the runner too far off the bag. ###DOCS: Comment on this story Comment Gift Article ShareForty days before his Broad Run baseball team played in the Virginia Class 4 state championship game, Coach Tommy Meier told his players, Guys, give me 40 days to make memories for the next 40 years. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight The Spartans gave their 30-year-old coach just that. Thirty years after the previous time the Spartans raised the state championship trophy, they proudly lifted one again Saturday after edging Hanover, 3-2, in Ashburn. They focused. They worked hard. They gave it everything they got the last 40 days, Meier said. Todays the 40th day; we finished out on top.Broad Run (16-1) was bolstered by Connor Hale, who kept the Hawks without a hit for 523 innings, his only mistake a two-run homer in the sixth. But the senior bounced back. Hes played in big games. Hes played in [front of] big crowds, Meier said. He just knows how to fight through it.AdvertisementHale worked himself through that stumble, striking out the next batter, but it was his defense that kept the Spartans on top for most of the matchup. Despite Hales five walks, Hanover left only one runner on base. Two double plays and two pickoffs kept the bases clear for much of the day. One of those pickoffs secured the win for the Spartans: Reliever Ethan Walker, who entered with two outs in the seventh, caught a runner on first base too far off the bag to end it. Our defense was shutdown all game today, Hale said. If that wasnt happening, the game couldve been a lot more different.The Spartans capitalized on the Hawks fielding troubles to get on the board in the second inning, grabbing a lead they would not relinquish. First, Tyler Morley scored on a wild throw by Hanovers pitcher, turning a bunt by Joe Ferguson into a two-base error. Later, Ferguson scored on a poor throw to third base by Hanovers catcher. AdvertisementAdam Chow gave the Spartans a key insurance run in the fifth, bringing Jacob Flicker home on a chopper to second that was delivered low to the first baseman, allowing Chow to take second and giving Broad Run a 3-0 edge. With just four outs left, Seth Keller gave Hanover life with a two-run homer to center. But Hale was not going to let that pitch define him; he retired the next three batters before Walker finished it off. Hes insane, Morley said of Hale, shaking his head. Thats it. Hes just insane.Hale, who three years ago became the first freshman to start on Broad Runs varsity squad in 10 years, ended his high school career with the state championship that he had wanted for so long. More from The Post:GiftOutline Gift Article

###CLAIM: a department of homeland security ( dhs ) whistleblower alleged wednesday that the top officials in power used intelligence reports to manipulate public scrutiny to ensure that campaign comments about antifa and anarchists match up with campaign comments about biden, using federal resources to cook up justification for the attacks. ###DOCS: Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. Last week, 11 Democratic senators signed on to a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin demanding the United States impose new sanctions on Russians who attempt to interfere with the 2020 election. There is virtually no national security threat more serious, they wrote, than that posed by those who would undermine confidence in, and the effective operation of, our democratic elections.After the events of 2016, when Russian hackers attacked the Democratic National Committee and other high-profile Democratic targets, the prospect of a foreign nation again disrupting the presidential election is a real concern. (A Senate report released last month detailed renewed efforts by the Russian government to spread disinformation in order to influence the campaign.) But this year, theres another hostile power putting its thumb on the scales to help President Donald Trump. From the United States Postal Service to the Department of Housing and Urban Development to the Justice Department, Trump has sought to use the federal bureaucracy to advance his own personal ends to a degree thats unprecedented since the days of Richard Nixon. So far, the government thats interfering most aggressively and overtly in the 2020 election isnt Vladimir Putinsits Trumps. Presidents have long used the perks of incumbency to their advantage when campaigning, by showering special attention, for instance, on the states they need to win to secure reelection. But Trump has reoriented the mission of government itself, using the levers of power to hurt his opponents, suppress damaging information, and bolster his own campaign messaging. The most infamous example of Trumps use of the powers of state for electoral ends was his attempted shakedown of the Ukrainian governmentfor which Trump was ultimately impeached. In that case, Trump threatened to withhold military aid to coerce an allied nation to manufacture dirt on a political rival, former vice president Joe Biden. In other words, he used official diplomatic channels to baitunsuccessfullya foreign government into intervening in the 2020 election. So far, the government thats interfering most aggressively and overtly in the 2020 election isnt Vladimir Putinsits Trumps. Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of ones oath of office that I can imagine, Utah Republican Mitt Romney said last year, explaining his vote to convict Trump in the Senate. Democrats warned that if Trump wasnt taught a lesson by way of impeachment, he would simply be emboldened to keep abusing his office for political purposes. And he has. Just a few weeks after he was acquitted in the Senate, Trump hired Richard Grenell, a longtime Republican operative who also served as ambassador to Germany, to serve as acting director of national intelligence. Grenells main accomplishment in that position was stoking the conspiracy Trump has dubbed Obamagate. Using his rarefied government perch, he selectively declassified intelligence in order to suggest that Biden had illegally spied on Trumps campaign in 2016. It was part of an effort to turn the actual misdeeds of Trumps inner circle into a conspiracy theory about his opponentan electoral disinformation campaign run by the United States governmentI think youll go down as the all-time great Acting ever, at any position, Trump told him in May as Grenell exited the DNI role. Grenell promptly took a job with the Republican National Committee. Meanwhile, Attorney General Bill Barr has suggested he might soon release the Durham Report, the Justice Departments investigation into...the Justice Departments investigation of Russias intervention in the 2016 election. The attorney general has made no secret about the timing. Ive said there are going to be developments, significant developments, before the election, he said in an interview on Fox News last month. This really does smell, a former DOJ official told HuffPost. Barr, meanwhile, has used his position as the nations chief law enforcement official to spread false information about voter fraud, in an attempt to influence the conduct of the election itself. On CNN, in an effort to impugn the legitimacy of mail-in voting, he invented a story about a Texas man who voted 1,700 times in one electionsomething his office later conceded never happened. It was a message seemingly ripped from the presidents reelection campaign. Government interference can take the form of promoting disinformation, and it can take the form of suppressing information. On Tuesday, in a move the New York Times called highly unusual, the Justice Department intervened in defense of Trump in an ongoing defamation lawsuit brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who has alleged that Trump raped her in the 1990s. Trump denied the charge and claimed she had fabricated the story because she was selling a new book. The governments official position is that when Trump said Carroll was not my type, he was acting within the scope of his office or employment at the time, according to the departments court filing. Its a major assist to Trump, who was facing mounting legal bills from the case, as well as the prospect of having to provide DNA evidence and testify under oath in the coming months. As the Times put it, The motion also effectively protects Mr. Trump from any embarrassing disclosures in the middle of his campaign for re-election. In 2016, Trump had Michael Cohen to hush up damaging personal revelations. Now he has the DOJ. Few nodes of the administration are immune from being co-opted for campaign purposes. Not even the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which in July undid an Obama-era rule that gave teeth to a long-unenforced provision of the Fair Housing Act. Trump made no secret of the political calculation behind the movehe was trying to set up a contrast between himself and Joe Biden, who he warned would ABOLISH suburban communities by letting low-income residents invade their neighborhoods. Some synergy between policy and politics is to be expectedits natural that someone who violated the Fair Housing Act as a businessman would continue to undermine it as president. But HUD officials have taken an unusually active part in the fall campaign. Secretary Ben Carson spoke at the RNC, and HUD Region II Administrator Lynne Patton produced a video for the convention featuring interviews with New York City public housing residents, who criticized their Democratic mayor, Bill de Blasio, while praising their interactions with the Trump administration. The New York Times reported the next day that the residents who were interviewed did not realize they were being used as props in a partisan convention videothey thought they were cooperating with a powerful representative of a federal agency. Such is the problem: In the Trump administration, in 2020, it is impossible to tell where the government ends and the campaign begins. The same holds true at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which held a citizenship ceremony at the White House during the convention as part of a stunt to soften the presidents image. (The participants reportedly were not aware that their major life event was part of the presidents re-election effort.) At the same time, the agency was poised to disenfranchise between 200,000 and 300,000 citizens-in-waiting by delaying their naturalization process. The absence of these hundreds of thousands of missing voters, many of whom live in swing states, argued the Washington Posts Catherine Rampell, could be sufficient to sway the election.Rarely has the government interference been as explicit as it was in August, when Trump bragged that he was starving the United States Postal Service of bailout funds it had requested in the hopes of sabotaging mail-in balloting in the presidential election. They need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take these millions and millions of ballots, Trump said. But if they dont get those two items...that means you cant have universal mail-in voting, because theyre not equipped to have it. (The USPS subsequently announced that it would continue to prioritize the handling of ballots.) Trump, after botching the governments response to the pandemic that has killed nearly 200,000 Americans, has also tried to exploit the crisis. He has repeatedly floated the prospect of making a Covid-19 vaccine available before the electionperhaps, he said last Friday, as early as October. Thankfully public health officials, at least so far, sound more reluctant to get involved in Trumps election schemes. Although the CDC raised eyebrows last week when it instructed states to be prepared to distribute a vaccine by November 1two days before the electionthe chief adviser for the governments vaccine program clarified to NPR that it was unlikely a vaccine would be available by then, and that the memo was merely a precautionary measure. Although Food and Drug Administration officials have insisted their vaccine approval process will not be influenced by the campaign, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent a memo to states last week instructing them to be prepared to distribute a vaccine by November 1two days before Trumps self-imposed election deadline. The problem with a president who uses public policy for personal ends is you can never really tell when one becomes another. Last month, Politico reported that the Department of Health and Human Services is considering spending up to $250 million on a media blitz to defeat despair and inspire hope on the pandemic in the coming months. That is, the notion that Americans wont be safe in Bidens America. On Wednesday, a whistleblower at the Department of Homeland Security alleged that top officials at the agency used their power to manipulate intelligence reports in order to ensure they matched up with the public comments by Trump on the subject of ANTIFA and anarchist groupsin other words, they used federal resources to cook up justification for Trumps campaign attacks against Biden. According to the same whistleblower, DHS was simultaneously squelching information about Russian interference because it would reflect poorly on the president. Covering up election interference is its own form of election interference. This isnt the first election in which Trump used government resources in an attempt to reshape the outcome. Just days before the 2018 midterms, Trump sent 5,000 troops to the USMexican border in a barely-concealed gambit to force Democrats on the defensive on the subject of border security and immigration. (The troops withdrew almost as soon as the votes were done being counted.) But the 2018 ploy was a failure. And therein lies the silver lining for Democrats. Trump has demonstrated practically every day the fragility of political norms; with toothless laws like the Hatch Act, and an accommodating Senate, the separation of campaigning and governance exists more or less on the honor system. It turns out its incredibly easy to cynically treat the federal bureaucracy like an arm of the RNC. But when youre doing it all in plain sight, sometimes that becomes the story. Comment on this story Comment Gift Article ShareDaniel Coats, a former head of the intelligence community, warned Wednesday that the Trump administrations move to roll back in-person briefings to Congress on foreign threats to the 2020 election undermines the agencies mission and efforts to safeguard the vote. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight Its imperative that the intelligence community keep Congress fully informed about the threats to our elections and share as much information as possible while protecting sources and methods, the former director of national intelligence said in an interview. Coatss stern warning came in response to Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffes notifying Congress a week and a half ago that he was suspending in-person briefings to lawmakers, though the Senate Intelligence Committees acting chairman said his panel will continue to receive such updates. But as the official who in 2019 established the intelligence communitys program to coordinate briefings on foreign election threats, he said he felt obliged to speak publicly. Weve got to get this process back in place, he said. Designating it to one committee and not the other and shutting down all members briefings is the wrong thing to do.As a Republican U.S. senator from Indiana, Coats took part in many all-member briefings, especially in his second stint from 2011 to 2017, where each senator was afforded an opportunity to raise a question, he said. What did you mean when you said, X? Wait a minute, so-and-so said something else, he said. It is that back and forth that makes in-person hearings valuable. [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin ought to be very happy with the way this is turning out, Coats said. He can only view his efforts as successful.AdvertisementCoats also voiced dismay over the continued questioning of whether we were delivering just the facts and not trying to shape anything in terms of policymaking.Trump has long derided U.S. intelligence analysts conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election and that it intends to do so in 2020. Coats said Trump has resisted any change to analysts assessments with regard to Russia. Coats is firm that Russia is the most significant foreign threat to the 2020 election. A recent public assessment by William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, drew criticism from Democratic lawmakers for appearing to equate the efforts of China, Russia and Iran, when it is primarily Russia that is engaged in covert efforts to try to actively help Trump by attacking his opponent, Joe Biden. They clearly have demonstrated the capacity to do things other countries either cant do or have decided not to do, Coats said of Moscow. And they have a long, long history there.AdvertisementCoats noted that the 2018 midterm elections went off largely without incident, thanks in part to an interagency working group led by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to coordinate the sharing of threat data among agencies, and which also provided information to the private sector and state and local election officials. Those processes worked, Coats said. We were able to assure the American people that the votes were not manipulated or influenced in any way that made a change in the result.But, Coats said, he knew that the Super Bowl of all elections is coming our way in 2020. So in 2019 he formally established the position of the election threats executive, and named to that job Shelby Pierson, a senior Russia analyst who had been ODNIs point person on the issue in the midterms. Pierson told lawmakers in February that Moscow had a preference for Trump in November. After Trump learned of the briefing from a GOP ally, he fired Coatss successor, acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire. Pierson kept her job, but Evanina was moved in to run the Hill briefings, though Pierson is marshaling the intelligence and has attended briefings with Evanina. Theres a great deal of concern among people who have spent their lives trying to stay out of politicizing intelligence and making sure that its just the facts, Coats said. That has been questioned and I think that has had a major impact on the morale of the intelligence community.GiftOutline Gift Article

###CLAIM: excluding covid, insurance could be nullified by us taking our positive people into service and the government would not move forward on doing anything for the sector despite doing for the nhs. ###DOCS: Care home staff have been told to go into work despite testing positive for coronavirus, an alarming new report has revealed today. In the past fortnight inspectors have flagged more than a dozen care homes over problems with infection control. The Care Quality Commission has reportedly warned at least 14 homes about flaws, including telling workers with Covid to work due to staff shortages, the Guardian reported. This comes as the NHS makes plans to commandeer spare care beds across the country to help release pressure on hospitals where wards are filling up with Covid patients as the crisis escalates. National Care Association chairwoman Nadra Ahmed told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the sector had been receiving calls over Christmas about filling beds in nursing homes. But she warned: 'There's no way that providers can go back to April when we were told everything was OK and people were being discharged out of hospitals. 'Of course we want to help the NHS if we can, but we have to do that safely. The only way that can be safely done is if we're absolutely clear that the person is no longer shedding the virus and bringing it into the care service.' Hospitals across England are seeing more coronavirus patients than they did in the first wave in 2020 (Pictured: Staff in an intensive care ward in St George's Hospital in London)A medic works with a patient in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) in St George's Hospital in Tooting, south-west LondonSome hospitals are approaching breaking point, and preparing to turn to care homes for help, the chief executive of NHS Providers has said. The number of Covid-19 patients in hospital had surged past 30,000 by January 4, NHS data revealsLONDON'S HOSPITALS 'TO BE OVERWHELMED IN TWO WEEKS' London's hospitals will be overwhelmed by Covid-19 in less than two weeks even in a 'best' case scenario, an official briefing reportedly warns. Medical director at NHS London Vin Diwakar provided the worrying analysis to medical directors of the capital's hospital trusts over a Zoom call. Even if coronavirus patients grew at the lowest likely rate and capacity is increased - including opening the Nightingale - the NHS would still be short 2,000 general, acute and ICU beds by January 19, the HSJ reports. Three scenarios are laid out in the report - 'best', 'average' and 'worse'. These account for the impact of four per cent daily growth, five per cent growth and six per cent growth respectively. Growth for beds on January 5 was 3.5 per cent, with the rate at 4.8 per cent for ICU beds, the report claimed. AdvertisementNHS bosses say they are running out of beds due to soaring virus admissions and desperately need to offload patients to the care sector. Chris Hopson, chief of healthcare union NHS Providers, said yesterday that some hospitals are almost full already and looking for beds elsewhere for their patients. But Ms Ahmed warned that many care home providers are operating with their normal insurance in place - meaning that if they take a Covid-positive patient, it would nullify their insurance. Campaigners warn this may lead to a repeat of the 'disaster' last spring when infectious patients were sent to care homes and tens of thousands of deaths resulted. Charities and care leaders say they have a 'horrible sense of deja-vu' and it would be a 'grave mistake'. Ms Ahmed told Radio 4 today: 'We also have to remember that care homes are also struggling with staffing. The risk to the sector is enormous if we don't do this in a safe manner. 'I don't know who Chris has been speaking to, but the providers we represent are all very concerned about the risk of bringing the virus into their services. 'We are not funded properly and that's not being looked at. 'A lot of providers are practising with the normal insurance in place but Covid is excluded so if we take people who are positive into our services, it could nullify our insurance and the government hasn't moved forward to do anything about that for our sector, but they did it for the NHS. 'So surely if the NHS is looking to move people into social care settings then that has to be underwritten as a precursor to anything. 'We need to be very clear isolation in care home is in place. But there is so much that needs to be done before we can go into the role of taking hospital patients.' If care homes are turned into overflow wards for hospitals it is likely only non-Covid patients would be sent to them, following uproar over a Government policy in the first wave which saw people recovering from coronavirus sent into care homes where they were feared to have triggered killer outbreaks. Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, warned of spiralling admissionsMore than 30,000 people are currently in hospital with Covid across the UK and the number is expected to soar after more than 300,000 people tested positive in the last week of December. This was up 27 per cent in a week and towers above the worst figure of 21,700 seen in April 2020. A CQC Spokesperson said: 'CQC inspectors have conducted 2,235 risk-based inspections of Adult Social Care locations since the beginning of the pandemic, and we have also conducted over 850 inspections focussed on infection prevention and control, in order to ensure that people are receiving safe care. 'Although in some cases we've taken action in response to poor care or inadequate infection control procedures, the majority of care providers that we have inspected have shown they are responding well to the challenges of infection prevention control during the pandemic and doing everything they can to keep people safe. Though our inspection activity we will continue to support providers to protect against the spread of Covid in care homes, take action to protect people where necessary, and check whether locations can be approved to care for people leaving hospital who cannot return to their original care setting for infection control reasons.' Chris Hopson warned yesterday: 'We are now reaching the point where hospital beds are full, community beds are full, and community at-home services are also full. 'What trust leaders are now trying to do is [use] spare capacity in the care and nursing home sector. 'They are in the middle of conversations with their care and nursing home colleagues to see if they can access that capacity.' Mr Hopson said care homes were better placed to accept patients than Nightingale hospitals because they had more staff. He called on the Government to create financial incentives for care homes to take NHS patients. He added: 'There is, of course, no question of using this capacity for patients who could introduce Covid-19 infection risk into care homes or for patients requiring complex or specialist hospital care.' A staff nurse treats patient Peter Watts, 64, in the emergency department at St George's Hospital in TootingMailOnline has contacted NHS England to ask how care homes may be utilised to help take the pressure off central hospitals. Intensive care patients are already being moved from the hardest hit regions to those where there is spare capacity. Some doctors are currently considering moving the most critically ill from London and the South East to as far afield as Yorkshire and the South West. The President of the Intensive Care Society, Dr Stephen Webb, said yesterday around 10 intensive care patients were already being shifted every day. Most of these are moved from and to hospitals within the same regions, he said, but a small number may be moved between regions. Dr Webb, who also works in the East of England, said: 'The problem with sending patients to the North is that those units were really badly affected earlier in this wave, and they could be hit with the new variant. It's a very tricky situation. 'If the virus continues as it is, I'm much more fearful we may get to saturation point for ICUs, but we have still got a bit of time. We do have capacity in other parts of the country, but not a lot. 'Currently, in the East of England, South East and London, many intensive care units are already saturated. This is where we're seeing daily export of patients. but at the moment this is mainly locally. 'So it may be a few miles down the road between London hospitals. We try to avoid moving patients and we always try to move the least sick of our ICU patients. They are transferred using all the equipment needed to keep them alive, accompanied by an ICU doctor and a nurse.' Inspectors have uncovered serious weaknesses in some care homes defences against the pandemic, including Covid-positive carers being told to work because of staff shortages, a failure to isolate residents when they return from hospital and poor use of personal protection equipment. Over the past fortnight, the Care Quality Commission has warned at least 14 care homes in England about problems with infection control, which the independent regulator says can place residents in danger of harm and breach Health and Social Care Act regulations. The problems emerged as Covid outbreaks in English care homes rose 65% in a week and GPs raced to deliver the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in an attempt to inoculate the 400,000 highest-priority people by the end of this month. Care homes reported relief on Thursday as the first doses of the new vaccine were delivered, but new data from Public Health England indicated it was a race against the clock. The number of care homes in England that recorded a Covid infection in the last week of 2020 rose to 503, more than doubling in a fortnight. Deaths from Covid in care homes, however, remain far lower than during the pandemics first wave in the spring. This week the Guardian reported growing concerns across south-east England, where a new more transmissible variant has been most prevalent, and a serious Covid outbreak in East Sussex where 13 of 27 residents died over Christmas. The CQC found problems in a number of facilities, including the Brookfield Care Home in Middlesbrough, where 41 staff and residents tested positive in the space of a week in October and eight residents died from Covid. A targeted inspection after the outbreak found the provider was not adequately encouraging social distancing and cohorting of staff and zoning of the service had not been fully adopted to minimise the risk of infection travelling between different areas of the service. At Brookfield, five staff members told CQC inspectors they or their colleagues had been asked to work with Covid symptoms or a positive test result. The Brookfield operator, SSL Healthcare, said this happened when the outbreak created severe staff shortages. It had been discussed with the local authority, which changed its advice the following day. One asymptomatic member of staff did report for duty; they left the premises within 30 minutes following the change in advice, said SSL. All recommendations have been implemented. We are confident that all our residents are safe and well cared for.At Vestige Healthcare in Tipton, in the West Midlands, inspectors observed staff wearing face masks incorrectly 30 times in one day and were told: People are not isolated when coming back from hospital.The inspectors concluded no consideration as to how to maintain social distancing had been given and ruled the home inadequate. Vestige did not respond to a request for comment. Problems identified at other homes included a lack of cleaning and staff moving between floors when they were supposed to be working in defined zones to reduce infection. In one home, inspectors found the dirty laundry of a person self-isolating after returning from hospital left in an open bag in the communal corridor. A targeted inspection at The Croft, an Autism UK care home on the Isle of Wight, found staff making close contact and touching people ... not wearing disposable gloves or aprons and a relative visiting a resident in the communal lounge shared with other people. The failure to correctly follow government best practice guidelines placed people at risk of infection, said a report that concluded the home had breached safe care regulations and was inadequate. Autism UK said it had been working incredibly hard in difficult circumstances. We have acted upon all the issues raised in the CQC report, and we can demonstrate that the processes we have in place mean that the people we support and our staff are properly protected, a spokesperson said. A spokesperson for CQC said: Although in some cases weve taken action in response to poor care or inadequate infection control procedures, the majority of care providers that we have inspected have shown they are responding well to the challenges of infection prevention control during the pandemic and doing everything they can to keep people safe.

###CLAIM: procon ( s ), the consumer defense agency, said fines were imposed on some 100 establishments for violations of the last restrictions. ###DOCS: SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Police broke up an illegal party with nearly 600 people in a windowless Sao Paulo nightclub in the early hours of Saturday, highlighting defiance of social distancing rules that has made the countrys outbreak the worlds deadliest at the moment. COVID-19 killed 12,000 Brazilians over the past week, more than any other country. With 275,000 lives lost in total, Brazils death toll lags only the United States, where the epidemic is slowing dramatically. Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria is among the state and municipal authorities ratcheting up restrictions as Brazils outbreak surges to record levels, fueled by more contagious local variants. However, many Brazilians still defy the measures, encouraged by President Jair Bolsonaro, who rails against lockdowns as job-killing and unnecessary. Sao Paulo officials have taken increasingly dramatic steps to show they mean business, including reinforced blitzes to suppress the citys famous nightlife. With axes and assault rifles, police officers broke down the door of the nightclub in the citys Capao Redondo district, piercing the darkness with lights on their guns. Hundreds of young partiers, few of them masked, cowered on the dance floor as police silenced the music and arrested organizers. I could never imagine hundreds and hundreds of people in a place without a single window, with all the doors closed, said Eduardo Brotero, the police officer who ran the operation. Jefferson dos Santos, one of the revelers forced to leave the party, voiced his disagreement with the operation: We pay taxes and we know the risks, we may get sick or infect our family. But we need to do something in life.Consumer defense agency Procon-SP said it had fined some 100 establishments for violating the latest restrictions. Carlos Cesar Marera, enforcement director at Procon-SP said the citys clandestine parties are organized over the internet. These young people, usually 18 to 23 years old, gather in these parties with no social distancing at a time when thousands of people are dying.

###CLAIM: `` our family is devastated and we want answers as to why our healthy son died so suddenly after a routine surgery, '' he added. ###DOCS: A 20-year-old college baseball player at George Mason University died following complications from Tommy John elbow surgery, according to his father. Sang Ho Baek, who was born in Korea but grew up in Maryland, died June 12, according to the schools website after receiving confirmation from the players family. We are devastated by the passing of Sang, George Mason baseball coach Bill Brown said in a statement. Sang was an incredible teammate who was loved by everyone associated with Mason baseball. He will be missed and forever cherished in our hearts. Right now, our thoughts are with Sangs family at this unbearably difficult time.Baek appeared in seven games as a relief pitcher for the Patriots during his freshman season with the team after winning a 3A state championship in 2019 at James M. Bennett High School in Salisbury, Md. After being informed by his family about Sangs passing, we are heartbroken and extend our deepest condolences to his family and friends, George Mason athletic director Brad Edwards said. Sang embodied everything you would want from a student-athlete. He was an excellent student, dedicated teammate and friend to so many. We are committed to providing support and resources to Sangs teammates and all those in the Mason family who loved him.Baek is survived by his parents Seong Han Baek and En Young Lee and his sister, Sun Ho Baek. His father confirmed to the New York Times that his son underwent Tommy John surgery on June 8, adding our family is devastated and we want answers to why our healthy son would die so suddenly after routine surgery.

###CLAIM: fearful of running out and getting hurt as well, loretta is believed to have stayed quiet around the children to protect them. ###DOCS: A woman who found her murdered mother's bloody body when she was just four years old has recalled how she enlisted a high school friend to solve the brutal crime more than 40 years later. Loretta Jones, 23, had been repeatedly stabbed and sexually assaulted in her Price, Utah home but managed to write her killer's name in blood before her daughter Heidi Jones-Asay woke up and discovered her dead on July 30, 1970. 'When I got up, I looked through the keyhole into the front room and when I opened the door, there was blood everywhere. It was my mom's lifeless body,' Jones-Asay recalled on a recent episode of the Oxygen true-crime series Exhumed. 'Jones had 17 stab wounds,' Sgt. David Brewer with the Carbon County Sheriff's Office told producers. 'A lot of rage went in on this one.' Despite the gruesome attack, Jones-Asay told police officers that she didn't hear her mother screaming or struggling the night of the murder. Investigators also noticed that Jones hardly had any defensive wounds. 'I believe Loretta stayed quiet to protect her own child because she was afraid her daughter would run out and get hurt as well,' Brewer explained. A medical examiner concluded that Jones was killed with a small, narrow knife. There was also semen on her, but DNA testing was still in its early stages at the time, and they couldn't find a match. Clue: Police noted that there were no signs of forced entry, suggesting that Jones had known her killerHuh? Jones-Asay told police officers that she didn't hear her mother screaming or struggling the night of the murder. Investigators also noticed that Jones hardly had any defensive woundsDoting mom: It is believed that Jones stayed quiet during the attack to protect her daughter from running out and getting hurtWithout any viable evidence at the crime scene, the only lead they had at the time was that a man tried to kidnap 10-year-old Lori Kulow Fennel on the same day as the murder. Kulow Fennel, who lived by Jones, was playing outside when a man grabbed her and tried to abduct her, but her loud screams scared him away. Jones-Asay also started talking about the night of the murder more and told her grandmother that she heard a man in their house threatening to kill her mother. She thought the voice belonged to her mom's friend 'Tom.' When trying to figure out who 'Tom' was, investigators went through Jones' diaries. They found one Tom Tom Egley whom she dated for about two months. Egley told police that he spent the day of Jones' murder in town, saying he had drinks, ate a hamburger, and went window shopping. While a bar owner confirmed she saw him that night, she noted that he had red spots all over his shirt. Kulow Fennel also identified Egley out of a lineup as the man who tried to abduct her that fateful day. Lead: Jones-Asay heard a man threaten to kill her mom that night and thought it was Jones' friend Tom Egley, who also tried to kidnap a 10-year-old girl on the day of the murderHope: The case went unsolved for decades until Jones-Asay enlisted the help of her high school friend David Brewer who works with the Carbon County Sheriff'They said, "Is this the guy?" I felt like was about throw up,' Kulow Fennel recalled on the show. Egley was charged with the attempted kidnapping, but there was no evidence in his home or the crime scene connecting him to Jones' murder. He spent just 90 days in prison and Jones' case went unsolved. Decades went by without any new leads, but Jones-Asay never stopped trying to find her mother's killer. 'If I could keep the conversation alive about my mom, then maybe I could help get her case solved,' she said. In 2009, Jones-Asay reconnected with Brewer on social media and learned her former high school friend was working with the Carbon County Sheriff. She purposely ran into him at a local arts festival to talk to him about her mom's cold case. 'I was kind of taken aback because knowing her in high school, I never knew that story,' Brewer recalled. 'I was a fairly fresh detective at the time. I had never worked a cold case, and I had never actually done a homicide yet. Suspicious: Brewer decided to exhume Jones' body to look for evident after an interview with Egley convinced him that he was the killerDoing it: 'If theres just a one per cent chance that we find physical evidence, it would be worth the effort,' Wally Hendricks, a detective with Carbon County Sheriffs Office'Heidi came in and she told me the details that she was aware of in the case. Heidi, her passion behind it and still crying after 39 years... She wanted her mom's case solved, and I owed it to her to do it.' However, the odds were stacked against him. The crime files had been lost, leaving him with only past media coverage, Jones-Asay's memory of that night, and a photo of her at the crime scene that showed a blood-soaked carpet. 'That picture kind of set me back a little because why are they taking a picture of her where her mom died?' he said. 'But this picture is the only crime scene photo we have.' Brewer managed to track down Egley's then-girlfriend who revealed that he had come home late the night of the murder and immediately took a bath with all of his clothes on. He went to the laundromat the next day and was missing several clothing items when returned. The officer found Egley living Rocky Ford, Colorado. The case's only suspect strangely claimed he couldn't remember the name of his old girlfriend who had been murdered. However, he was able to tell Brewer what he did and even ate that day. In July 2016, he asked Jones-Asay if they could exhume her mother's body to see if there was any evidence that was left behind. 'I said, "Get me a shovel. I'll help dig,"' Jones-Asay recalled. 'I was willing to do whatever needed to be done to get my mom's case solved.' After more than 40 years, investigators hoped Jones' remains were well-enough preserved that they could swab underneath her fingernails for forensic evidence. 'If theres just a one per cent chance that we find physical evidence, it would be worth the effort,' Wally Hendricks, a detective with Carbon County Sheriffs Office, told producers. However, much to their dismay, the coffin had collapsed while underground and there was too much water damage to swab for evidence. Investigators had heavily publicized the exhumation and claimed they were excited about the results as an attempt to scare Egley into giving himself away. Big break: Egley's neighbor Lisa Carter offered to wear a wire and spent weeks talking to himIncredible: Carter not only got Egley to confess, but she also convinced him to go to the police. Egley was arrested on August 2016, more than four decades after the murderJustice: Egley was found guilty of murder in October 2016 and sentenced to 10 years to life in prisonThey got their first big lead when a woman named Linda who had lived with Jones' parents as a college student came forward and told the police that Jones had written her murderer's name in blood at the crime scene. While reexamining their only crime scene photo, Brewer said he could see a 'T' and an 'O' in the bloodstain. Once again, all signs pointed to Egley, but the case might have remained cold if it wasn't for the killer's neighbor Lisa Carter. Carter contacted the police and offered to wear a wire while trying to get a confession out of Egley. She spent weeks talking to him, telling him that police had found evidence from the exhumation. The unlikely strategy worked and Egley confessed to the murder. He claimed they had consensual sex but snapped when they got into a fight. Carter convinced him to turn himself in to the police, and he did. Egley was arrested on August 2016 46 years after he had murdered Jones. He took a plea deal and plead guilty to Jones' murder in exchange for the rape charge being dropped. He was found guilty in October 2016 and was sentenced to 10 years to life in prison, but Jones-Asay has vowed that she will make sure he is never freed. 'If Tom is ever eligible for parole, I will be at the parole hearing to make sure he never walks as a free man again,' she said at the hearing, Deseret News reported at the time.

###CLAIM: the queen elizabeth, victoria and market will be made the site of the exposure between 8:00 a. m. and 9:00 a. m. ###DOCS: Victoria's health authorities will not rule out extending the state's snap five-day Covid lockdown as new exposure sites are revealed and new details emerge about the Coburg dinner virus spread. Sunday's two new local coronavirus cases - a toddler and an unrelated hotel quarantine worker - were linked to the Holiday Inn cluster, which has now reached 16 cases. Both had also attended a private dinner on Sydney Road, Coburg, on February 6. Melbourne's popular Queen Victoria Market fruit and vegetable section has been named as a new exposure spot on Thursday February 11 from 8.25am to 10.10am along with the women's toilets in section 2. The toddler's mother has been tested three times with different test results and is also potentially infectious. Four new exposure sites were also revealed on Sunday evening after an infectious person caught a tram to Melbourne's popular Queen Victoria Market on Thursday, February 11. The person caught the No.11 tram from Harbour Esplanade/Collins St at 7.55am to the William/Collins St stop at 8.10am, making it the first new exposure site. A Melbourne man outside Flinders Street Station on Sunday during the five-day lockdownThey then caught the No. 58 Yarra Tram from the Bourke/William St stop at 8.10am to the Queen Victoria/Peel St stop just before 8.30am. They went into the Queen Victoria Market fruit and vegetable section and the women's toilets in section 2, making it an exposure site from 8.25am to 10.10am. The person then caught the No.58 Yarra tram back from the Queen Victoria Market at 9.40am to the Bourke/William St stop at 9.55am making it the fourth exposure site. Anyone there at the same time as these exposures must immediately isolate for 14 days and get tested. Disturbing new details emerged about the dinner party at Coburg on Sunday, with health authorities revealing 38 people had gathered for the event. Testing commander Jeroen Weimar said a number of positive cases had been traced to the function. He rejected claims that a woman aged in her 50s who is linked to the Coburg function had gone there instead of being in isolation while infectious. the two new cases were linked to the Holiday Inn outbreak at Melbourne Airport, taking the total to 16 casesInstead, she had been infectious before she had been identified with testing. 'The staff member was identified on Wednesday and tested positive on Wednesday this week, that is February 10,' Mr Weimar said. 'At that point, the social contact point of the Saturday was not identified in those early conversations.' 'There was a negative test result that she returned as part of her normal workplace testing on the seventh but that has since been reviewed and that test is now a week positive and we have had to take the timeline back to include the sixth.' The outbreak, linked to the Holiday Inn hotel at Melbourne Airport, grew to 14 cases on Saturday, after a single additional case was recorded (pictured, cleaners in PPE disinfect the hotel on Wednesday)Greek tennis player Michail Pervolarakis (pictured) has also tested positive to Covid-19 after leaving Melbourne and travelling to South Africa'The genomics is clear that this is all part of the same strain,' Mr Weimar said. To encourage everyone at the function to step forward with contact tracing and testing, Mr Weimar said the owner of the venue would not be fined for a potential covid regulation breach. LATEST COVID EXPOSURE SITES: Authorities identified new Victorian exposure sites on Sunday: Queen Victoria Market: Fruit and vegetable section, female toilets in section two, 8.25 to 10.10am on 11/2/2021 No.58 Yarra Tram: From Bourke Street / William Street stop at 8.10am to Queen Victoria / Peel Street stop just before 8.30am, 11/2/2021 No. Advertisement'I'm not remotely interested in who did what at what time,' he said. Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said contact tracers had reduced the number of primary close contacts from the Holiday Inn cluster down from 996 to 940. Of nearly 1000 close contacts, 129 are direct family relations of those who tested positive from the Holiday Inn exposure. 'It is too early to say whether we have been successful, but the signs show Victorians are doing the right thing, supporting each other, and our test, trace and isolate system is staying ahead of this,' he told reporters on Sunday. 'But it is too early to say as yet whether this fantastic effort by all Victorians has got us there.' 'We will continue to monitor it on a day-by-day basis, really it is up to the shared effort of all Victorians.' Mr Foley said the child and the quarantine worker revealed as positive on Sunday had been from separate households. 'Both have been in isolation since February 12 and both tested and returned a positive sample in isolation on February 13.' The toddler has attended the Goodstart Early Learning Centre in Glenroy, but the childcare centre has not yet been added to the list of exposure sites. Regarding the three different test outcomes for the child's mother, Testing commander Jeroen Weimar said the experts were working on it. 'Our epidemiologists and specialists are working with her and with our labs to be clear about the nature of what possible infection she may have, whether she is at the start of our infectious period or whether she is coming towards the end,' he said. 'Serology is being done, and we will work out over the next few hours exactly where this individual stands.' Authorities have also identified four more exposure sights after the three-year-old child and quarantine worker visited several venues while infected. Melbourne has become deserted as the city enters its second day of a five-day long lockdownOne of the cases visited a Woolworths at Broadmeadows Central, in Melbourne's north, between 12.15pm and 12.30pm on February 2. The person then visited Pascoe Vale Oak Park Sports and Aquatic Centre between 4pm and 7.30pm on February 10. They also went to Elite Swimming in Pascoe Vale between 5pm and 6pm on February 8. Another positive Covid-19 case visited Broadmeadows Ferguson Plarre Bakehouse on Pascoe Vale Road between 12.30pm and 12.45pm on February 9. 'If you have been to these sites you will need to isolate, to get tested and to stay isolated for 14 days,' Mr Foley said. 'That goes above and beyond the general circuit maker that we are currently in,' he said. The health minister refused to comment further on the original Holiday Inn case after a man was accused of sparking the Covid-19 outbreak after using a nebuliser. 'Since I have been the minister for health I have made it crystal clear that I do not comment on individual cases and put people and families through trauma,' he said. Melbourne has recorded two new local cases of Covid-19 and identified four more potential exposure sites (pictured, Victorian health minister Martin Foley)Victorian Premier Dan Andrews told the media on Sunday that the two new cases were connected to the Holiday Inn - but both had also gone to the Coburg function'And I will not be starting that today. This family needs to put all of its effort into getting well.' The new cases come after Greek tennis player Michail Pervolarakis tested positive to Covid-19 after he flew from Melbourne to South Africa. Pervolarakis had represented his home country at the ATP Cup before he left the city on February 9. Tennis Australia says he tested negative to Covid-19 the day he left Melbourne. 'His own medical advice is that it was likely he contracted the virus in Doha or on the plane,' a spokesperson said. Pervolarakis took to Instagram on Saturday to say he was 'completely asymptomatic'. 'I am completely asymptomatic at the moment and will have to quarantine in an isolation facility in Potchefstroom,' he said on his Instagram account. Melbourne's empty streets on Sunday, under lockdown again for five days'I am not a person that complains, but I feel that I need to express my disappointment with the conditions we are in.' Victoria recorded one new case in hotel quarantine, bringing the total number of active cases in the state to 22. Mr Weimar added all 12 staff had tested negative at the Brunetti Cafe in Terminal 4 at Melbourne Airport. The cafe was listed as an exposure site after a Covid-19 positive person visited the venue on February 9. NEW RESTRICTIONS FOR VICTORIA FROM 11.59PM ON FRIDAY FEB 12 From Friday February 12 at 11.59pm, new rules apply to Victoria for five days until 11.59pm on Wednesday February 17 due to a worrying new outbreak of the UK mutant strain of Covid-19. 'My thanks to our health teams in other states for the coordinated way in which we continue to work.' Mr Weimar added viral fragments had also been found in wastewater in Coburg and South Melbourne. 'We have two detections that we are currently investigating. One is in the Coburg catchments which takes in Coburg, Coburg North, and the other is in the south of Melbourne, that Punt Road, Clarendon Street area, which we are keen to understand more of,' he said. Quarantine staff and soldiers prepare to welcome international travellers for quarantine at the Novotel Melbourne on Saturday'We do have a couple of exposure sites, a few cafes in that area that are listed on our website, so I would really encourage people who are in Reservoir, Southbank, South Melbourne to be extra vigilant and come forward to be tested if you have any symptoms.' Victoria has entered its second day of a five-day long lockdown as the state attempts to curb the spread of an outbreak at Melbourne Airport's Holiday Inn. Millions have been plunged back into the hardship they thought had been left behind with the lengthy restrictions and economic sacrifices of 2020. Florists and restaurants hoping to receive bumper trading for Valentine's Day are gutted at the loss of income they will incur as fresh produce goes unsold. Mr Foley said it was too early to tell whether the five-day lockdown would have to be extended. 'What we have today is the first day of a five day quick snap shot to get ahead of this,' he said. 'It is too early to say whether we have been successful but the signs that show Victorians are doing the right thing, supporting each other, all of these are positive measures.' Roads and Flinders Street Station have been emptied as the city pushes through its five-day lockdownA woman is seen walking along the deserted Bourke Street Mall as Melbourne enters Stage 4 restrictionsThe man accused of being at the centre of a the Hotel Inn outbreak had used a medical device for his asthma called a nebuliser in their hotel room, despite them being banned outside of medi-hotels. The nebuliser's use has been attributed to spread of coronavirus at the Holiday Inn. The man hit back at what he felt was authorities' criticism of him, claiming he had declared the nebuliser to medical staff at the hotel. On Saturday however, head of the state's hotel quarantine authority Emma Cassar denied he told staff about it. 'I can categorically say that there is no evidence from our audit that he has raised this with our health team,' she said. Ms Cassar said the man had been badly treated by the media and she was sorry about his experience. 'We have never accused him of doing the wrong thing,' she said. Millions have been plunged back into the hardship they thought had been left behind with the lengthy restrictions and economic sacrifices of 2020There are close to 1000 primary close contacts associated with the Holiday Inn cases who are isolating for 14 days and being tested. Their results are expected to start trickling through on Sunday and Monday. He defended the 'circuit-breaker' lockdown saying he could not ignore advice from experts. 'I've got advice to do it. I've done it. It's based on science,' he said. Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton addressed concerns about legal provisions for the lockdown to go until February 26. 'Nothing should be read into it as having any intention to extend a day beyond when we think they need to be in place. For now, that's five days,' he said. Until 11.59pm on Wednesday, Victorians are only able to leave home to shop for essential items, provide or receive care, exercise and to work or study if they can't from home. Similar to stage-four restrictions last year, there's a five-kilometre travel limit, compulsory face mask usage and no home visitors.

###CLAIM: the oscar-winning actor, who plays a husband in `` the undoing '', praised his screen husband for becoming a 1990s cast because it represented his departure from the role of romantic film heartthrob. ###DOCS: Nicole Kidman has revealed how difficult it was to convince Hugh Grant to join her hotly-anticipated HBO drama The Undoing. Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, the Australian actress, 53, revealed Hugh, 60, was initially hesitant to join the cast when Nicole came knocking, as he'd already decided to quit acting. 'He always says, "oh, I don't like working, I don't want to act",' Nicole explained. 'You can't stop, you're too good!' Nicole Kidman, 53, (right) has admitted she had to BEG Hugh Grant, 60, (left) to join her new series The Undoing after he quit acting'He's one of those. But then when he works, you watch him and you go, "you cannot stop, you're too good",' she added. The Oscar winner praised Hugh for agreeing to play her on-screen husband in The Undoing, as it represents a departure from the 'rom-com heartthrob' role for which he became typecast in the nineties. 'He's very bold and willing to play such a diverse range of characters now,' she enthused. 'Oh, I don't like working, I don't want to act': Nicole revealed Hugh is known for being reluctant when it comes to taking on acting jobsHugh has previously spoken about his reluctance to take on acting roles due to his battle with stage fright. 'I really don't know where it suddenly came from,' he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2016. 'They would just hit me in the middle of a film and they would only last a morning or something, but it was devastating,' he added. 'He's very bold': The Oscar winner praised Hugh for agreeing to play her on-screen husband in The Undoing, as it represents a departure from the 'rom-com heartthrob' role for which he became typecast in the nineties. Hugh pictured in Notting HillThe Undoing is based on the 2014 novel You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz, which reunites Kidman with her Big Little Lies creator David E. Kelley. Nicole and Hugh play the happily married couple Grace and Jonathan Fraser, who are living their best lives when their world is rocked by a violent death. The death leads to a chain of 'terrible revelations' as Grace becomes a suspect in the grisly death in a very public way. Drama: Nicole and Hugh play the happily married couple Grace and Jonathan Fraser, who are living their best lives when their world is rocked by a violent death. Pictured: Nicole and Hugh behind-the-scenes filming The UndoingGrace finds herself having to dismantle the life she made with her husband and son and try to build another for themselves. The six-episode limited series also stars Edgar Ramirez as Detective Joe Mendoza, Noah Jupe as Henry Fraser, Jonathan and Grace's precocious and artistic 12-year-old son and Lily Rabe as Sylvia SteinetzAfter an initial delay caused by COVID-19, The Undoing will premiere in Australia on October 26. The Undoing will be available in the UK from 26 October on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV. The finale of The Undoing aired in the US last week and proved to be a smash hit in the ratings. And it seems that even some of Hollywood's elite are fans of hit show, just like the rest of us. Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner hailed leading star Nicole Kidman as being 'brilliant' in the series, after the Australian actress penned a heartfelt tribute to 'each and every member' of her hit HBO show. She's a fan: Nicole Kidman has been hailed as 'brilliant' by Kris Jenner after The Undoing's shocking season finale. Nicole is pictured in the showThe 53-year-old actress reflected on starring alongside Hugh Grant and praised the cast and crew for pouring their 'hearts and souls into' the gripping drama. 'I'm forever grateful,' the four-time Golden Globe winner captioned a series of images on set, which included Grant, Donald Sutherland, Noah Jupe, Edgar Ramirez, Lily Rabe, Matilda De Angelis, Ismael Cruz Cordova and more. She continued: 'They poured their hearts and souls into our show and it showed throughout the entire season. Greatly looking forward to working with all of you again xx.' 'This was so good': Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner gushed about the Aussie star after Nicole penned a heartfelt tribute to 'each and every member' of her hit HBO showReflective: The 53-year-old actress reflected on starring alongside Hugh Grant and praised the cast and crew for pouring their 'hearts and souls into' the gripping dramaThey loved it: Underneath her Instagram post, Kris Jenner wrote: 'Brilliant!!! This was so good!!!!' Elvis Presley's granddaughter Riley Keough also commented with clapping emojisUnderneath her Instagram post, Kris Jenner wrote: 'Brilliant!!! This was so good!!!!' Elvis Presley's granddaughter Riley Keough also commented with clapping emojis. Kris, 65, isn't the only Kardashian obsessed with the show. Kim Kardashian West recently shared an Instagram story saying she had been watching the show, but had 'anxiety' after falling behind on the latest episodes. A Kardashian tick of approval: Kim Kardashian West recently shared an Instagram story saying she had been watching the show, but had 'anxiety' after falling behind on the latest episodesNicole re-posted the story and remarked: 'Thank you for watching Kim. Can't wait to hear what you think xx.' Last week, The Undoing finale delivered a ratings bonanza for HBO in the US. The David E. Kelley-created series was the most watched night of viewing for an HBO original series since the season 2 finale of the previous Kelley-Kidman collaboration, Big Little Lies. Three million viewers tuned in, according to Deadline. The show follows Nicole's character Grace Fraser, who is married to Hugh's character Jonathan Sachs, whose world falls apart when he's linked to the death of Elena Alves. The shocking finale finally revealed who killed Alves after numerous twists and turns. Fans took to Twitter to beg HBO for a renewal, with one comparing it to Big Little Lies. Tweeting HBO, one wrote: 'Hear me out- Big Little Lies wasn't supposed to have a season 2 because there was no second book, but it got one because of the fan base. PLEASE DO THIS FOR THE UNDOING WE NEED MORE IT WAS AMAZING!'

###CLAIM: she mentioned the victorian government 's efforts to host this year 's event as a reason for putting in. ###DOCS: Novak Djokovic has flouted lockdown rules once again as he held a celebration on the streets of Belgrade on Monday, after he became the sole-holder for the most weeks as men's tennis world No 1. The 33-year-old Serb overtook Roger Federer in the standings, having been top of the ATP men's singles rankings for a combined 311 weeks in five different stints. Hundreds of fans lined the streets of the Serbian capital in a celebration of Djokovic's career and jubilant supporters chanted 'Nole, Nole', without any social distancing taking place despite the coronavirus pandemic. Djokovic was in the spotlight last year for his controversial Adria Tour, which took place without social distancing, with videos of himself and other players partying in a nightclub widely criticised, especially after the Serb himself and others tested positive for coronavirus. It is mandatory to maintain physical distance of at least 1.5m in all public spaces. Protective face masks are mandatory in all public spaces, both indoors and outdoors when the area is crowded. Failure to wear a mask when required will incur a fine. Self-isolation, when required, will be enforced. Indoor and outdoor gatherings are limited to 5 people. Work organisations, schools, shops, shopping malls and similar are excluded from this but must limit numbers of patrons to 1 person per 4sqm. Theatres and some cultural events are permitted to operate with restricted numbers. Most businesses including restaurants, cafes and shopping malls, are not allowed to operate between 8pm and 5am on weekdays and weekends. Source: Gov.uk AdvertisementCovid-19 infections are increasing in Serbia with 3,828 new infections reported on average each day - that is 53 per cent of the peak, which is the highest daily average reported on December 4, according to Reuters. The country was in a 'circuit-breaker' lockdown over the weekend as a result of the latest figures and there are still rules in place on social distance, with indoor and outdoor gatherings limited to five people. There have been 489,530 infections and 4,579 coronavirus-related deaths reported in the country since the pandemic began. Djokovic, with his family alongside, watched on as fireworks took place in front of their restaurant in Belgrade. Main buildings downtown in the Serbian capital were lit with his portrait, including a light show displaying the best moments of his career. The 33-year-old addressed the crowd, saying: 'Today is a special day for myself, my family as well as Serbia. 'Thank you for the success, which is not only mine but of the whole nation.' The world No 1, who won his 18th Grand Slam at the Australian Open last month, has been involved in controversy aplenty in the past 12 months. Djokovic hosted a Facebook Live event back in April and revealed he is against having vaccinations. 'Personally I am opposed to vaccination and I wouldn't want to be forced by someone to take a vaccine in order to be able to travel,' Djokovic said. 'But if it becomes compulsory, what will happen? I will have to make a decision. Djokovic is also looking to chase down Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal's Grand Slam recordMajor buildings in Belgrade were lit up with projections of Djokovic and his career highlights'I have my own thoughts about the matter and whether those thoughts will change at some point, I don't know. 'Hypothetically, if the season was to resume in July, August or September, though unlikely, I understand that a vaccine will become a requirement straight after we are out of strict quarantine and there is no vaccine yet.' Djokovic's wife Jelena also holds what many would consider unconventional views. Djokovic pictured alongside his wife Jelena, who has previously had a 'false information' badge attached to one of her Instagram posts after sharing a clip that suggested the spread of coronavirus is linked to 5G technologyShe had a 'false information' label slapped on one of her Instagram posts last year after she shared a video promoting the belief that coronavirus could be spread via 5G technology. But it was the Adria Tour fiasco which really put the Serb under the microscope, with Djokovic issuing an apology for his conduct and after contracting the virus. The world No 1, who organised the event where social distancing was widely ignored, softened an earlier statement in which he had shown little remorse for what transpired. Djokovic (left centre) was joined by the likes of Alex Zverev and Dominic Thiem following the completion of the Adria Tour eventBig crowds attended the Adria Tour in June 2020 amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemicDJOKOVIC'S COVID CONTROVERSIES April 2020 - Djokovic hosted a Facebook Live event back and revealed he is against having vaccinations. June 2020 - Djokovic organised the Adria Tour, which took place without social distancing between crowds and players. Footage emerged of the Serb dancing with players in a Belgrade nightclub and he was forced to issue an apology after the event was canned following numerous positive tests, including himself. Djokovic's wife Jelena also holds what many would consider unconventional views. She had a 'false information' label slapped on one of her Instagram posts after she shared a video promoting the belief that coronavirus could be spread via 5G technology. Feb 2021 - Fans boo the mention of a 'Covid vaccine' after Djokovic wins the Australian Open in Melbourne. Advertisement'I am so deeply sorry our tournament has caused harm,' said Djokovic back in June. 'Everything the organisers and I did the past month, we did with a pure heart and sincere intentions. 'We believed that the tournament met all health protocols and the health of our region seemed in good condition to finally unite people for philanthropic reasons. 'We were wrong and it was too soon. I can't express how sorry I am for this and every case of infection.' Among the images which emerged from the events in Serbia and Croatia were those of him and other players dancing half-naked together in a Belgrade nightclub. He was also disqualified from the US Open in September after hitting a ball inadvertently at a line-judge. After Djokovic claimed an eighth title at the Australian Open in Melbourne last month, his fans were labelled a 'disgrace' after booing at the mention of a 'Covid vaccine' during the trophy presentation. Tennis Australia executive Jayne Hrdlicka took to the podium to commend the hundred of players who battled it out in the Grand Slam, despite the challenges posed by the pandemic. But her speech was rudely interrupted by a large section of the crowd, who jeered when she said the advent of the jab was a sign the tough times were drawing to an end. 'It's been a time of deep loss and extraordinary sacrifice for everyone. With vaccinations on the way, rolling out in many countries around the world, it's now a time for optimism and hope for the future,' she said. The boos resounded throughout the stadium, continuing again when she mentioned the effort the Victorian Government had put in to host this year's event. Hrdlicka pressed on, at times having to stop to wait for the crowd to settle, before offering a thinly-veiled swipe at the end. 'You are a very opinionated group of people, but whether you're at home or here tonight, we are really thankful that you're here. We look forward to seeing you next year,' she finished her speech. Tennis Australia executive Jayne Hrdlicka (pictured) was booed during her speech after mentioning the advent of the Covid-19 vaccine and the Victorian GovernmentThe ATP rankings date to 1973 and Djokovic first topped them in July 2011 after he won his first Wimbledon title - he is currently in his fifth stint at the top. Djokovic's next target will be to chase down Federer and Rafael Nadal in the all-time majors list, with the Swiss and Spaniard two ahead on 20, ahead of the next Grand Slam, the French Open, this spring. The Serb is set to be in action next at the Miami Masters at the end of the month, while Federer returns to action after 14 months out this week in Qatar.

###CLAIM: campaign trumpeters and allies including republicans and lawmakers have filed more than 40 lawsuits in state and federal courts in an effort to overturn beck 's democratic victory in the november 3 election. ###DOCS: (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trumps reshaping of the federal judiciary has done little to help him win lawsuits challenging the election outcome, with Trump appointees rebuffing him and the U.S. Supreme Court showing little interest in getting involved. FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House upon his return to Washington from Camp David, U.S., November 29, 2020. REUTERS/Yuri GripasAn appeals court judge appointed by Trump, a Republican, on Friday ruled against his campaigns effort to overturn President-elect Joe Bidens win in Pennsylvania based on unsupported allegations of voter fraud. Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy, Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote on behalf of a unanimous U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals panel. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.Two judges appointed by President George W. Bush, also a Republican, signed onto Bibas decision. Bibas is one of 53 judges Trump has appointed to the federal appeals courts since 2016. By comparison, President Barack Obama appointed 55 in eight years. Trump has appointed roughly a quarter of all trial-level federal judges. The Trump administration has been so efficient at confirming judges, but its a real mistake to think that just because you appointed someone they will rule in your favor in an election case, said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Trumps campaign and his allies, including Republican lawmakers and activists, have filed more than 40 lawsuits in state and federal courts in an effort to overturn Democrat Bidens victory in the Nov. 3 election. The 13 federal cases have had little success so far. Several have been withdrawn. Three, including the case Bibas heard on appeal, have been dismissed. One, concerning poll observer access in Philadelphia, resulted in a settlement after a judge rebuked Trumps lawyers. Ultimately, Trumps biggest problem is his arguments are so shaky that it is hard to find a sympathetic judge, Levinson said. These cases are an easy way for judges to show judicial independence, Levinson said. These cases are so frivolous.In one instance, a Trump appointee dismissed a lawsuit brought by conservative lawyer Lin Wood seeking to halt certification of Bidens victory in Georgia. To halt the certification at literally the 11th hour would breed confusion and disenfranchisement that I find have no basis in fact and law, U.S. District Judge Steven Grimberg in Atlanta wrote on Nov. 19. Trump campaign legal adviser Jenna Ellis said in a statement that the Trump campaign has been denied the opportunity to fully present its evidence in court. Every American who cares about our constitutional system and free and fair elections should demand a full adjudication on the merits and a remedy for the corruption that has occurred, whether in court or state legislatures, Ellis said. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court has for weeks sat on a request by Pennsylvania Republicans that it overturn a September decision by the states highest court allowing election officials to count mail-in ballots that arrived after Election Day. The Trump campaign has a pending request to intervene in that case. Trump appointed three of the Supreme Courts nine members: Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and most recently Amy Coney Barrett. Barrett joined the court a week before the election, creating a 6-3 conservative majority. Trump repeatedly said he expected the court to decide the outcome of the election while also raising doubts, without providing evidence, that the large number of mail-in ballots used because of the coronavirus pandemic would lead to fraud. I think this (election) will end up in the Supreme Court, and I think its very important that we have nine justices, Trump told reporters at a White House event in September. Trump struck a markedly different tone on Sunday, saying in a Fox News interview that he had an increasingly narrow path to overturning Bidens victory in court. Well, the problem is, its hard to get into the Supreme Court, Trump said. Federal judges, in general, are reluctant to appear to be interfering in elections, legal experts said. And, in the case of Trump-appointed judges, their priorities may be elsewhere, like broadening protections for religious freedoms. Just because you appoint somebody doesnt mean that you own them, said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond.

###CLAIM: prosecutors argued friday that an autism spectrum disorder may have been used as a defense in the murder trial of a toronto man for mass murder. ###DOCS: Prosecutors argued on Friday that autism spectrum disorder cannot be used as a legal defense in the mass murder trial of a Toronto man. Alek Minassian is on trial for the deaths of 10 people on April 23, 2018, when Minassian ran over 10 people with his van. Minassian has confessed to the crime, so the facts of the mass murder are not in dispute. What is in dispute, according to ABC News, is whether Minassian's diagnosed autism spectrum disorder was enough of a factor to cloud his judgment on the day of the mass murder. This is the van Alek Minassian used to allegedly kill ten people in Toronto in April 2018Minassian is now on trial for 10 counts of murder and 16 counts of attempted murder. Pictured: A memorial at Nathan Phillips Square to commemorate those who died in the attackMinassian, pictured, has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, a critical factor in his trialProsecutor Joe Callaghan argued Friday that it should not be a factor in whether Minassian is convicted. 'This is about a person who committed mass murder who happened to have ASD, not that the ASD made him commit murders,' Callaghan said. He also noted that Minassian had debated committing mass murder for years and was fixated on school shootings since he was a student. Justice Anne Molloy, who presided over the judge-only video case, was careful in her comments. 'Let me be clear, autism is not on trial, Alek Minassian is on trial,' Molloy said on Friday. 'The issue at this trial is whether the particular impact of ASD on this particular person at this particular point in time was such that he should not be held criminally responsible for his actions.' Minassian, 28, pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of murder and 16 counts of attempted murder for his van rampage, where eight women and two men ranging in age from 22 to 94 were killed. The defense argues he can't be held criminally responsible due to his autism spectrum disorder. In November, the Toronto Star reported that a forensic psychiatrist retained by the defense said Minassian's 'autistic way of thinking was severely distorted in a way similar to psychosis' when he committed his rampage, which is the crux of the defense's argument. A ruling will ultimately center on whether Minassian was aware of the moral wrongness of the murders, which the prosecution argues Minassian touched upon with mental health assessors. 'Fundamentally, it's the Crown's submission he had the capacity to make a choice,' Callaghan said, according to CTV News. 'And in this case, there's no evidence he ever lost the fact of the wrongness of his actions. 'Some of the reasons that Mr. Minassian committed these murders has nothing do with his autism.' The case and trial have become notable around the world for a number of shocking revelations that have come along. Closing arguments in the trial, held over Zoom without a jury, were heard on FridayThe prosecution argues Minassian's autism should not alter the outcome of the trial. Pictured: Mourners at a vigil following the 2018 attackMeanwhile, the defense argues Minassian shouldn't be held criminally responsible because his ASD can make it challenging to judge moral right and wrong. Pictured: Minassian's houseMinassian told police that he was a member of an Incel community, an online group for 'involuntary celibates' who are sexually frustrated. Sometimes, misogynistic violence stems out of these groups, with at least six mass murders being perpetrated by those with the same ideology. Minassian expressed doubts about ever having a relationship with a woman to mental health assessors. A machete attack in Toronto in February 2020 that killed one was linked to inceldom. The attack is the deadliest vehicular homicide in Canada's historyThe trial has been marked by many revelations, including posts that reveal Minassian was a member of the Incel community, consisting of 'involuntary celibates' who sometimes resort to misogynistic means of violenceMinassian's fate will be decided by Justice Anne Molloy when she rules on March 3Minassian also told mental health assessors at one point that he was infatuated with another anonymous mass murderer. During the case, it was revealed Minassian had plans to kill at least 100 people in an attack at a different location, only to launch his attack in the spur of the moment while sitting at a red light. Eight of the ten people killed in the attack were women. It was also revealed that Minassian had been fixated on the idea of school shootings since he himself was a high school student. With closing arguments taking place on Friday, Justice Molloy will now spend the next several weeks deliberating on the case. She is set to rule on the case on March 3. Alek Minassian faces 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder in connection with the April 23, 2018, attackA man who allegedly used a van to kill 10 pedestrians in Toronto pleaded not guilty Tuesday and his lawyer said he will argue he is not criminally responsible because of his state of mind at the time. Alek Minassian faces 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder in connection with the April 23, 2018, attack that drew attention to an online world of sexual loneliness, rage and misogyny. Minassian told police he belonged to an online community of sexually frustrated men, some of whom have plotted attacks against people who have sex. Minassian, 28, is accused of driving a rental van into crowds of pedestrians in a busy north Toronto neighborhood. Eight women and two men ranging in age from 22 to 94 died. 'I am entering a plea of not criminally responsible for all of the counts,' Minassian said via a Zoom call while sitting on a chair in a small holding room, wearing a dark blazer and collared shirt. The court opted for a trial on Zoom videoconference because of the pandemic. His lawyer, Boris Bytensky, said he will argue his client was not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder. Van attack victim Cathy Riddell arrives to the Superior Court of Justice in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on November 10, 2020, ahead of the first day of the trial for accused van attacker Alek Minassian'I feel like I accomplished my mission,' Minassian said when asked by the detective how he felt about the death of 10 peopleThe judge has said the case will turn on Minassian's state of mind at the time. 'On a warm spring afternoon on April 23, 2018, numerous pedestrians were out along Yonge enjoying the sunshine when their worlds were shattered by the actions of Mr. Minassian,' Prosecution lawyer Joe Callaghan said. Reading a statement of facts that both sides agreed on, Callaghan said Minassian drove 'straight at people.' 'The only issue at this trial is the criminal responsibility,' Callaghan said. The prosecution showed family photographs of each of the victims faces as Callaghan detailed how they were struck. One those killed was dragged for over 150 meters. Many were struck from behind. His lawyer, Boris Bytensky, said he will argue his client was not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder. Minassian in a 2018 sketchThe court heard of many serious injuries, including brain damage and amputated legs. Minassian booked the rental on April 4, weeks before the attack. 'Minassian began planning the murders in advance,' Callaghan said. He said he thought was getting a truck when he arrived at the car rental location. A publication ban on his interrogation by police was lifted last year. In it Minassian acknowledged what he did. 'I feel like I accomplished my mission,' Minassian said when asked by the detective how he felt about the death of 10 people. Minassian, who said he never had a girlfriend and was a virgin, admitted he used the van as a weapon and said he wanted to inspire more attacksPolice officers stand by a covered body in Toronto after a van mounted a sidewalk and crashed into a crowd of pedestrians on Monday, April 23, 2018Minassian, who said he never had a girlfriend and was a virgin, admitted he used the van as a weapon and said he wanted to inspire more attacks. Minassian called himself an 'incel,' short for 'involuntary celibates,' an online subculture that has been linked to other attacks and which often promotes the idea that men are entitled to have sex with women. Minassian said he had been in contact with Elliot Rodger, a community college student who killed six people and wounded 13 in shooting and stabbing attacks in 2014 near the University of California, Santa Barbara, before apparently shooting himself to death. 'The Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Eilliot Rodger!' Minassian posted on Facebook that day. Minassian told a detective he had been in contact with California killer Elliot Rodger (pictured) who had also raged at women for rejecting him before he murdered six people

###CLAIM: parents who find an alternative and get it, parents who want their children to have a gift and are told they may not be able to. ###DOCS: British shoppers have been urged to avoid stockpiling food in the event of a No-Deal Brexit. Retailers are increasing stocks to ensure a 'sufficient supply of essential products', the British Retail Consortium insisted. The retail trade association also said No-Deal Brexit would impact fresh produce like fruit and vegetables - which cannot be stored for long - rather than long-life shelf items. Britain has been facing chaos at its ports caused by the perfect storm of Covid, the festive rush and Brexit stockpiling. Container pileups at Southampton, Felixstowe and London Gateway mean Christmas presents may go undelivered and food could go off at the dockside. Earlier today, Ikea was forced to apologise to irate customers after they complained of stock shortages and delayed orders. The Swedish flat-pack furniture conglomerate blamed congestion at UK ports after it was hit by a wave of complaints from shoppers angry at missing, delayed and damaged orders. British shoppers have been urged to avoid stockpiling food in the event of a No-Deal Brexit limiting imports. Pictured: Lorries queue for miles on the A20 near DoverBritish Retail Consortium said that without a deal, the public will face more than 3 billion in food tariffs and higher prices throughout 2021 starting after January 1. It said the uncertainty surrounding Brexit is making it harder for businesses to prepare. Chief executive Helen Dickinson said: 'Retailers would have no choice but to pass on some of these additional costs to their customers, who would see higher prices filter through during 2021. 'Moreover, new checks and red tape that will apply from January 1 will create an additional burden for retailers and their customers. 'Retailers are doing everything they can to prepare for all eventualities, increasing the stock of tins, toilet rolls and other longer life products so there will be sufficient supply of essential products. It comes after Ikea was forced to apologise to irate customers after they complained of stock shortages and delayed orders (file image)'While no amount of preparation by retailers can entirely prevent disruption, there is no need for the public to buy more food than usual as the main impact will be on imported fresh produce, such as fresh fruit and vegetables, which cannot be stored for long periods by either retailers or consumers.' Ms Dickinson warned that the public will 'pay the price' of a failure to 'agree a zero-tariff agreement'. 'With many people's finances already strained by the economic impact of coronavirus, households can ill-afford a significant rise in food prices. For the sake of customers and businesses around the UK, we need a deal in the next three weeks,' she said. Earlier, British Chambers of Commerce president Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith told Sky News the UK needs a deal 'as soon as possible', adding: 'We need to understand how we are going to trade and what the rules are.' 'I think it's very difficult to be ready because there are a number of areas where we don't have any detail at all,' she said. 'We don't understand anything around quota tariffs or quotas. We don't understand anything in detail about rules of origin. Britain has been facing chaos at its ports caused by the perfect storm of Covid, the festive rush and Brexit stockpiling. Pictured: Lorries in Dover today'We're not going to know what tariffs are going to be imposed on any goods leaving or coming into the country, meaning we won't know the price. 'What we've seen in the pandemic is huge amounts of support given but we still have a significant number of industries shut down. On top of this we don't know how we're going to be trading from January 1.' She added that there 'could be some significant job losses', compounded by a 'lack of Government support after March as we come out of the pandemic'. It comes as Ikea customers accused the retailer of poor communication and 'failing to be contactable' over missing, delayed and damaged orders. Apologising in a statement, Ikea pointed the finger at chaos at the ports following a surge in demand for imports. On Saturday, the British Ports Association said the issues were now 'cascading', with long queues of traffic outside lorry ports becoming increasingly commonThe situation has been exacerbated by the pandemic, with countries reopening after lockdown, the Christmas rush and stockpiling amid fears of a No-Deal Brexit all fueling the surge. A spokeswoman for Ikea said: 'These continue to be extraordinary times and we apologise unreservedly for the inconvenience caused to our customers,' she added. 'We fully understand their frustration and want to assure them that we are working intensively to resolve these challenges as soon as possible.' On Twitter, one angry customer said: 'My order is over a week late and @IKEAUKSupport will not reply to anything or update me on the status of the delivery.' Another added: '@IKEAUKSupport Still waiting for a response for something broken when I opened my delivery... Been trying to sort this for 16 days and no response at all.' While a third, hitting back at Ikea's apology, said: 'Ok but that doesn't explain why they haven't been contactable. Failing to deliver is one thing, failing to tell customers and then ignoring their calls is quite another and entirely within ikea control.' Problems at ports have seen imports of items such as building materials held up. Last week, carmaker Honda had to pause production because of a shortage of components. On Saturday, the British Ports Association said the issues were now 'cascading', with long queues of traffic outside lorry ports becoming increasingly common. Boss Richard Ballantyne blamed a 'perfect storm' of surging global container movements, the busy pre-Christmas period and people moving more goods before the Brexit transition period ends. Ryan Clark, director of the Essex-based freight forwarder Westbound Logistics Services, told the BBC last week: 'The increase in freight is either creating more expensive prices for the consumer, or unsustainability for businesses that will be forced to close where the onward price cannot be increased.' Toy retailers are running out of some of this year's most popular Christmas gifts as chaos at Britain's ports adds to a supply shortage. Products close to selling out include Lego sets, Barbie dolls and 'Baby Yoda' soft toys one of 2020's most sought-after presents. Parents are rushing to find alternatives and are being told they may not be able to get their hands on the gift they want for their children. Experts warned that stores had been hit by a perfect storm of demand and supply problems after shoppers spent an estimated 1.7 billion on packed high streets yesterday. The surge in last-minute shopping has combined with delays to goods arriving at Felixstowe on the Suffolk coast to severely hit stocks in stores, some of which cannot get hold of toys fast enough. Covid safety restrictions have also hit the supply chains used by retailers and other industries. Shipping containers tower over a pub in Felixstowe (pictured) as delays at the port continueWhite goods, furniture, homeware and building supplies are also being delayed by the congestion in goods coming into Britain, while carmaker Honda closed its Swindon plant due to difficulty in getting parts. The chaos at Felixstowe, also hampered by Brexit stockpiling and virus medical supplies, is now threatening to cause logjams at other ports as shipping containers are rerouted. Gary Grant, owner of The Entertainer, the country's biggest toy retailer, told The Mail on Sunday last night: 'The toy trade will not run out of toys the shelves will not be empty at 5 o'clock on Christmas Eve, no chance. 'But there are always certain things that the whole world has wanted to buy Rubik's cubes, Cabbage Patch dolls, Tracy Island or Teletubbies. This year it's Mattel's 25 Baby Yoda soft toy they are like gold dust. Another range that has sold phenomenally well this year is Barbie. We've got around half the range in stock and we're waiting for more to come in. But it's not coming in as fast as we are selling it.' Baby Yoda toys have risen in popularity this year thanks to the success of Star Wars spin-off TV series The Mandalorian. Mr Grant, whose firm operates more than 170 shops across the UK, added: 'We will not be completely sold out of Barbies on Christmas Eve but we've only half the range so you might not get the one you want. That's down to demand but it's also the fact that shipments of new stock are being delayed.'

###CLAIM: both consoles come with a monthly subscription option called xbox game pass that lets you play hundreds of games from partner companies' expanded libraries. ###DOCS: It is an exciting time in video game world: two new consoles, the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, are arriving this month. With a long, lonely Covid winter ahead, it is tempting to splash out. New machines bring with them the promise of new worlds, as leaps in technology unlock creative possibilities for game developers. Throughout the 1980s, 90s and 00s, there was a transformational shift every five or so years, blowing apart peoples expectations of what you could do in a game, how big a virtual world could be and how you could explore it. It is not quite like that any more. The pace of change has slowed and this time around the advances are less immediate and more subtle, more like tinkering under the bonnet: better resolution, higher frame rates, shorter loading times, smoother online features. Look at a PS5 game next to one from its predecessor, the PS4, and unless you have a giant expensive TV and sound system you might not immediately see the difference. It will take a few years for the creatives behind blockbuster games to unlock these machines full capabilities. But whoever gains early ground in the console war gets a bigger say in the future of gaming. A bit of all white ... the new PlayStation 5. Photograph: DecaStock/AlamyThe Xbox Series X (449) resembles a futuristic computer: a squat, black obelisk of technology. When you turn it on, though, it looks just like its predecessor, the Xbox One: same menus, same Windows-esque design. Even the controller is almost identical. It is when you start playing that you feel the difference: games are prettier and play more smoothly, and you only have to wait half as long for them to load. A smaller and less powerful version, the Xbox Series S (249), has no disk drive and wont look quite as good on a 4K TV, but both consoles come with the option of Xbox Game Pass, a monthly subscription that lets you play hundreds of games from Microsofts expanding library of partners. The PlayStation 5 (also 449) is more of a design statement, a black-and-white, enormous spaceship of a thing. Its controller has futuristic features such as haptic feedback (super-precise rumble tech) and triggers that offer variable resistance depending on gameplay. Its revamped menus and home screen are slick and soothing. It has pretty much the same technical advantages as the Xbox but more personality. A 359 model comes without a disk drive, if you would rather download your games. It will work out as more pricey than the Xbox in the long run, though, as there is no Game Pass equivalent for new games: Sonys subscription service, PlayStation Now, only includes games from the PS4 and earlier. These two impressive bits of kit are the latest in a long line of rival video game consoles. The competitors have changed over the years from Nintendo and Sega to Sony and Microsoft but the console wars have been a constant in video game history, driving innovation as well as a lot of spending from players. Things really got going in the early 90s, when Sega hired Mattels former chief executive, Tom Kalinske, to take on Nintendo in North America, where Marios makers had 90% of the market. Aggressive ad campaigns followed (Sega does what Nintendont!) and a conscious effort to paint Sega as the cool older brothers choice of console saw its Genesis win over millions of players. But gaming rivalries had divided playgrounds even before Sonic v Mario. In 80s Britain, kids were split between the plucky-underdog ZX Spectrum, with its rubber keyboard and one-channel sound, or the fancier and much more expensive Commodore 64. You can still see men in their late 40s sniping at each other in comments threads over the pairs relative merits. Pretty, green ... Halo Infinites Master Chief. In part, console tribalism is a form of sunk cost fallacy. Few people can afford to own two or more games machines, and if you have just spent a lot of money on something, you are going to convince yourself the one youve bought is the best option. But that is only part of the story. Like record labels or car manufacturers, games consoles have cultural associations. They create and curate their own different libraries of games, and for fans, the games they play correspond to the kind of person they perceive themselves to be. For a while, Xbox had a reputation as the jocks console, best for shooting and racing, while the PlayStation positioned itself as an extension of club culture, something for twentysomethings to play together after a night out. If you liked Japanese culture, you had to go for a Sega Dreamcast. If you loved Nintendo, it was because its games were approachable and colourful. Ask people what drew them to their particular console subculture and youll get answers that probe every corner of the psychology of fandom and brand loyalty. Sooz Kempner is a comedian who has performed several shows that revolve around her Sega childhood and her obsession with its edgy mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog. I thought Sonic was incredibly cool, zany and anti-establishment, whereas I decided Mario was staid and tepid, like John Major, she says. Sonic and Sega gave me licence to sass people, [arguing that] Segas consoles were sleek and black whereas Nintendos were grey and blocky, Segas game soundtracks were edgy and guitar-led whereas Nintendos were plodding and childish. None of this was true, of course, but as a kid this was what Id decided. I used to go around saying SNES controllers hurt my hands when Id barely held one. I would draw cartoons of Mario getting his arse kicked by Sonic. Mean Machines, the very grown-up games magazine I sometimes bought, told me that Mortal Kombat on the Mega Drive had the gore effects but the SNES version did not. I crowed about this at school for a week.Dinosaur for juniors ... Super Mario World. Photograph: AlamyDespite Nintendo and Segas jostling, the next entrant in the console wars Sonys PlayStation in 1994 blew both out of the water. By the end of the decade, Nintendos N64 was on the back foot while the Dreamcast flopped so badly that Sega stopped making consoles altogether. Since the debut of the original Xbox in 2001, it has been Microsoft and Sony at the forefront of the console wars, releasing competing devices within months of each other: first with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in the 00s, then with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in 2013, and now with the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. Nintendo, meanwhile, decided that warring over the cutting edge of entertainment was for suckers, and instead put out a series of comparatively underpowered consoles, most recently the Nintendo Switch, that cheerfully sold hundreds of millions of units. You can distinguish each firms strategy by looking at their DNA, explains Joost van Dreunen, a professor at NYU Stern School of Business and the author of One Up: Creativity, Competition, and the Global Business of Video Games. Nintendo is a toy company, Sony makes consumer electronics and Microsoft is a software firm. Nintendo has always excelled at accessible content. Sony has historically emphasised high-end spectacle that showcases the capabilities of its consoles, TV and audio systems. And Microsoft has dedicated itself to making games available to the largest possible audience on PCs, consoles and phones.Console yourself ... Sonys original PlayStation. Photograph: Finnbarr Webster/AlamyEnormous sums of money await the victor in these battles. The best seller by far in the most recent console wars was the PS4: between 2013 and 2020, Sony sold 113m PlayStation 4s and more than 1bn games. Add in online gaming subscriptions and the amount of profit generated by that is ... well, lets just say that Sonys games division is by far the most successful part of the entire company. The PlayStations biggest rival cant match those numbers: estimates put the Xbox Ones total sales at around 50m, and Microsoft stopped reporting them years ago. Despite having been in the shadow of Sony, Microsofts second place has still allowed it to be hugely successful, says Van Dreunen. Bear in mind that Microsoft only relies on its gaming activity for about 10% of its overall revenue, compared to 27% for Sony. That makes Sony much more vulnerable to, and therefore motivated to invest in, its success in gaming.The stakes are high: video games are expensive to make and expensive to buy, and as Sega proved with the Dreamcast, failure can nearly wipe out a company. And, like music and film before it, the industry is facing huge changes to the way it does business. We have already seen some games become so big that they transcend the console wars entirely: think Fortnite or Minecraft, which people can play for years on end on whichever PC, console or even phone they have to hand. Instead of buying new games, plenty of players are just buying endless new content for the same games they already enjoy. Apocalypse: wow ... Ellie in The Last of Us Part II. The real disruptive force, however, is Netflix-style game streaming, which could eliminate buying individual games entirely; instead, youll have to pay a subscription, like the Xbox Game Pass. It is telling that Microsoft has been on a huge spending spree in the past few years to build up a stock of tempting titles. Most recently, it bought the Elder Scrolls, Doom and Fallout publisher Bethesda, for an eye-watering $7.5bn (5.8bn). Google and Amazon have also been sniffing around the industry, buying up studios and launching subscription services of their own. This is not necessarily good news; these are giant companies known for barging in and undercutting everyone else, and if they upend the economics of the games industry then it is bound to have an effect on its creative output. Still, so far, they have not been successful. Google Stadia, which lets you stream games in high-end PC quality to any Chrome browser or TV, has been met with a big meh by consumers, and despite investing tens of millions in development, Amazons only game so far competitive shooter Crucible was such a failure that it was pulled just weeks after its release this May. The video game business is not for the faint-hearted, and throwing money around has historically rarely worked. The thing is, despite all the fuss that surrounds the launch of new consoles, video games are not just about the hardware. They are about the entertainment that the technology enables. A console can have as many teraflops as it wants but without fun, envelope-pushing games to play on it nobody cares. Outside of the early adopters, most gamers are not that techy. We dont buy a console because it has better specs; we buy it because it has the games we want to play. This is why Nintendos consoles sell like gangbusters despite their relative lack of power, and why millions more people play games on phones and ageing laptops than on cutting-edge machines. Pent-up excitement will drive millions of sales of the PS5 and Xbox Series X in the coming months, but as history has proven several times over, in the end their success or failure will always come down to what you can play on them. How the consoles compareXBox Series S/XPrice 249/449. Models The cheaper Series S has reduced performance and no disk drive. The Series X is the pick for those with a 4K TV. Technical stuff 4/12 teraflops. Standout games Shooter sequel Halo Infinite, realistic racer Forza Motorsport, mysterious fantasy Everwild. Buy it for The Xbox Game Pass, offering access to hundreds of games for 10.99 a month. UK release date 10 November. PlayStation 5Price 359/449. Models A standard edition, and a cheaper digital edition with no disk drive. Technical stuff 10.28 teraflops. Standout games Dark fantasy Demons Souls, giant adventure Horizon: Forbidden West, Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Buy it for Exclusives: the creators of The Last of Us, God of War and more are making games only for the PS5. UK release date 19 November.

###CLAIM: the exclusion zone would end two common misperceptions and authorize the demolition of single family homes. ###DOCS: Beyond practical considerations, supporters emphasize the symbolism of rooting out a policy planted in the poisoned soil of discrimination. Berkeley City Councilmember Ben Bartlett recently gave voice to that centurylong grievance, saying, We cannot ignore that from the onset, zonings sole purpose was to segregate by race, to the detriment of people of color.Last month Berkeley officials set in motion a plan to redress the lasting effects of its century-old rule and alleviate the citys housing crunch, vowing to eliminate single-family zoning by the end of next year. The proposed policy could enable the building of duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes in neighborhoods across the city. Other California cities are considering similar overhauls. A portfolio of answers may be needed to fix Americas shortage of affordable housing. But increasingly, cities see the removal of exclusionary zoning as a key step one that could also combat racial segregation. The restrictions served to segregate minority tenants from white homeowners. And as cities and suburbs followed this pattern nationwide, single-family zoning contributed to an affordable housing shortage. Now famous as a bastion of liberal politics, the Northern California enclave of Berkeley established a first-of-its-kind policy in 1916 that prohibited multifamily housing on residential land. City planners at the time cast the regulation as a preemptive move to protect neighborhoods from the intrusion of the less desirable and floating renter class.The history of single-family zoning in America stretches back more than a century to what today ranks as one of the bluest cities in one of the countrys bluest states. Now famous as a bastion of liberal politics, the Northern California enclave of Berkeley established a first-of-its-kind policy in 1916 that prohibited multifamily housing on residential land. City planners at the time cast the regulation as a preemptive move to protect neighborhoods from the intrusion of the less desirable and floating renter class.The restrictions served to segregate minority tenants from white homeowners, and in the ensuing decades, as cities and suburbs coast to coast followed Berkeleys example, single-family zoning contributed to Californias and the countrys affordable housing shortage and a rise in homelessness. In the San Francisco Bay Area a constellation of 101 municipalities that includes Berkeley and is beset by some of the countrys highest housing prices and rents a meager 18% of residential land allows for multifamily development. Why We Wrote This A portfolio of answers may be needed to fix Americas shortage of affordable housing. But increasingly, cities see the removal of exclusionary zoning as a key step one that could also combat racial segregation. Last month Berkeley officials set in motion a plan to redress the lasting effects of its century-old rule and alleviate the citys housing crunch, vowing to eliminate single-family zoning by the end of next year. The proposed policy could enable the building of duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes in neighborhoods across the city, where half the residential land remains under single-family zoning and median rent for a one-bedroom apartment tops $2,000. Advocates suggest that the change would increase housing density and, by spreading the additional units throughout the city, create more living options for lower- and middle-income residents. The Berkeley proposal arrived a month after the Sacramento City Council voted to start the process of abolishing single-family zoning in Californias capital, which has confined multifamily dwellings to 30% of the citys residential land. Officials in San Diego, San Jose, and South San Francisco are exploring similar alternatives as the state attempts to address a housing deficit estimated at 3.5 million units. The push to revitalize the so-called missing middle of housing and unwind the legacy of exclusionary zoning and other discriminatory housing policies has gained momentum since Minneapolis became the nations first city to jettison single-family zoning in 2018. Oregon lawmakers banned the policy in much of the state in 2019, and last year Portland officials approved a comparable measure to nurture multifamily housing. Jacob Turcotte/StaffAmericas major metro areas proscribe anything other than single-family housing on about three-fourths of residential property. Reform advocates fault the constraints on multifamily dwellings, in part, for the countrys affordable housing gap of 7 million units, including 1.3 million in California, where recent legislative proposals to revamp zoning laws statewide have faltered. Opponents of efforts to remove or loosen single-family zoning rules claim the changes would alter the character of neighborhoods, hurt property values, and accelerate gentrification. A coalition of groups in Minneapolis, citing environmental concerns, has sued the city over its plans to increase housing density. Officials in Berkeley view such criticisms as misplaced, pointing out that ending exclusionary zoning would neither prevent the building nor authorize the demolition of single-family homes a pair of common misperceptions. They further assert that the reforms would foster incremental change much of the new housing would involve converting existing homes into duplexes and the like and help the Bay Area meet a state mandate to add 441,000 housing units by 2031. Get stories thatempower and uplift daily. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads. Beyond practical considerations, supporters emphasize the symbolism of rooting out a policy planted in the poisoned soil of discrimination. During a recent public discussion on Berkeleys proposal, City Councilmember Ben Bartlett gave voice to that centurylong grievance. We cannot ignore that from the onset, zonings sole purpose was to segregate by race, to the detriment of people of color, he said. SCOTT SIMON, HOST:For decades, neighborhoods full of single-family homes have only been a dream but often the law. That's starting to change in California and a handful of cities. They're changing standards for suburban-style neighborhoods. As member station KQED's Erin Baldassari reports, they're beginning to encourage smaller and multifamily buildings. ERIN BALDASSARI, BYLINE: Real estate developer Kevin Khasigian is standing in the middle of a grassy lot near Sacramento's downtown. KEVIN KHASIGIAN: You'll kind of see from here the wood gate. And we did some landscaping in the back there. BALDASSARI: When he bought the property, there was already a single-family home there that had been converted into a duplex. Khasigian is thinking even bigger. KHASIGIAN: It's going to be a multifamily property with four units, two studios on the ground floor, and then upstairs are two large one-bedroom units. BALDASSARI: He says this kind of thing is happening a lot in Sacramento as more people search for housing that's affordable. KHASIGIAN: What we've seen is an influx of people from San Francisco, the surrounding San Francisco area, Bay Area, and then even LA and down south. It's kind of exploding. BALDASSARI: Mixing small multifamily buildings among single-family homes is something that could happen a lot more thanks to a draft plan the Sacramento City Council approved in January to eventually allow fourplexes in all of its residential neighborhoods. BRIGITTE DRILLER: I was just really excited. BALDASSARI: Brigitte Driller is paying close attention. DRILLER: The issue of housing affordability, it impacts almost everyone in California. BALDASSARI: Driller is 30, and she's a renter. Homeownership, she says, feels impossible. But that hasn't stopped her from spending a lot of time on the real estate website Zillow. DRILLER: Looking at different lives that I could live. BALDASSARI: But she says there aren't a lot of options out there for her. DRILLER: There are a lot of single-family homes, which I don't really want. What I would love to see is more of that middle category of apartment complexes that are affordable. BALDASSARI: Not everyone is as excited as Driller. Maggie Coulter lives in a mostly single-family neighborhood in Sacramento. MAGGIE COULTER: A lot of houses in this neighborhood were built in the '40s. They're small. The lots are about 5,000 square feet. BALDASSARI: She moved to the neighborhood in the '80s. And Coulter is afraid that if this draft proposal becomes the rule, her neighborhood would soon become unrecognizable. COULTER: There have been a lot of houses flipped in this neighborhood. But if this general plan was approved, they could be flipped to accommodate six units. DAVID GARCIA: It's going to take 10, 20 years for anyone to really notice that there are duplexes and triplexes in neighborhoods that didn't used to have them before. BALDASSARI: David Garcia, a housing researcher at the University of California in Berkeley, says policies like this are part of a long-term strategy to make housing more affordable. In 2019, both Minneapolis and Oregon approved multifamily buildings in most residential neighborhoods. GARCIA: There's a real need in high-cost cities to explore where we can build new homes, and that includes looking at single-family homes, which for decades have been sacrosanct. BALDASSARI: Beyond driving up the cost of housing, many studies have shown restricting development has led to racial segregation. Congress passed the Fair Housing Act in 1968, which explicitly prohibited racial segregation in housing. And the backlash was huge. In an attempt to keep neighborhoods white, cities across the country banned multifamily dwellings in neighborhoods where previously they were allowed. Garcia says multiunit buildings tended to be occupied by people of color and recent immigrants. GARCIA: They're really reckoning with the racist and exclusionary nature of some of these single-family-only policies. BALDASSARI: In many cities, seeing single-family homes side by side with small apartment buildings and duplexes isn't new. In that Sacramento neighborhood where Kevin Khasigian wants to build a fourplex, there are cottage apartments next to small single-family homes and large two-story bungalows. KHASIGIAN: As we're talking about neighborhoods and feel and personal connection and, like, mixing uses, this block is oddly very emblematic of what's going on. BALDASSARI: And the real estate market here...KHASIGIAN: Hot, hot. I mean, you cannot get a better area than this. BALDASSARI: And if Sacramento and other cities have their way, there will be a lot more neighborhoods like it across the country. For NPR News, I'm Erin Baldassari in Sacramento. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)Copyright 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record.

###CLAIM: teams finished with 25 points, eight guidelines, six assists and five steals as they climbed up to sixth place in the eastern conference. ###DOCS: [1/3] May 7, 2021; Dallas, Texas, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers forward Cedi Osman (16) passes the ball against Dallas Mavericks guard Josh Richardson (0) during the third quarter at American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports2021-05-08 09:25:52 GMT+00:00 - Luka Doncic scored 24 points, grabbed eight rebounds and passed the 5,000-point plateau for his career as the Dallas Mavericks defeated the visiting Cleveland Cavaliers 110-90 Friday night. With his seventh point of the game, Doncic, who played only 23 minutes, became the fourth-youngest NBA player (22 years, 67 days) to reach 5,000 points. Only LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony were younger. Tim Hardaway Jr. added 20 points as the Mavericks won for the ninth time in their past 12 games. Josh Richardson contributed 18 points for Dallas. The Cavaliers have lost nine straight games and will host the Mavericks on Sunday in the second of two games between the teams this season. Collin Sexton scored 27 points for the Cavaliers. Bulls 121, Celtics 99Nikola Vucevic scored 18 points, grabbed 14 rebounds and dished 10 assists to record his fourth career triple-double, and host Chicago cruised to a win over Boston. Chicago's Coby White finished with 25 points on 9-for-16 shooting, including 7-of-12 success from beyond the 3-point arc. Zach LaVine also scored 25 for the Bulls, who won for the second time in as many nights after dropping their previous four games in a row. Kemba Walker scored a season-high 33 points to lead Boston. Evan Fournier contributed 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting, but Jayson Tatum made only 3 of 15 shots from the field and finished with nine points. Heat 121, Timberwolves 112Tyler Herro scored 27 points to spark host Miami during a victory over Minnesota. Herro, who missed the previous six games due to an injury to his right foot, sparked the Heat with 14 first-half points on 4-of-4 shooting from 3-point range. Jimmy Butler also returned after missing the Heat's previous game and he finished with 25 points, eight rebounds, six assists and five steals as Miami climbed up to sixth place in the Eastern Conference. Minnesota lost its third in a row despite Karl-Anthony Towns' 27 points, six rebounds and four assists. Suns 128, Knicks 105Jae Crowder had a strong return after missing eight consecutive games with an ankle injury by making six 3-pointers and finishing with 18 points in Phoenix's win over visiting New York. Deandre Ayton led Phoenix with 26 points and 15 rebounds, and Chris Paul had 17 points, 11 assists and six rebounds. Phoenix remains one game behind Utah in the Western Conference standings with only five games remaining. Julius Randle led New York with 24 points and 11 rebounds, and RJ Barrett finished with 23 points and eight rebounds. Derrick Rose chipped in 17 points and six assists. New York sits fourth in the Eastern Conference, one-half game better than Atlanta. Trail Blazers 106, Lakers 101Damian Lillard recorded 38 points and seven assists to lead Portland to a crucial victory over visiting Los Angeles. CJ McCollum scored 21 points for the Trail Blazers, who moved into sixth place in the Western Conference, while dropping the Lakers into seventh place. The top six finishers avoid the play-in round. Anthony Davis registered 36 points, 12 rebounds and five assists for the Lakers, who lost for the eighth time in the past 10 games. Alex Caruso scored 18 points and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope added 17 for Los Angeles. 76ers 109, Pelicans 107Joel Embiid had 37 points and 13 rebounds and host Philadelphia held on for a victory over short-handed New Orleans. It was Embiid's 16th game this season with at least 30 points and 10 rebounds. Tobias Harris scored 17 points, Seth Curry added 16 and George Hill had 11 for the Sixers, who won their seventh in a row. Embiid made two free throws and Harris connected on a trey from the corner for a 109-107 Sixers advantage with 1:10 to go. The Pelicans turned the ball over in the final few seconds down by two. Jaxson Hayes led the Pelicans with 19 points, one of seven Pelicans players in double figures. Bucks 141, Rockets 133Red-hot shooting, balanced scoring and a dominant third quarter powered host Milwaukee past Houston for its fifth consecutive win. Brook Lopez led seven Milwaukee players in double figures with 24 points and added seven rebounds, and Khris Middleton netted 23 points. Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 15 of his 17 points in the first half and grabbed a team-high 11 rebounds. The Bucks shot 53.7 percent from the floor. Kenyon Martin Jr. led the Rockets with 26 points and added seven rebounds. Kelly Olynyk was next with 23 points and a game-high 12 rebounds, and Armoni Brooks scored 19 points off the bench. Jazz 127, Nuggets 120Bojan Bogdanovic scored a career-high 48 points, Jordan Clarkson had 21 points and eight assists, and Utah beat Denver in Salt Lake City. Rudy Gobert had 14 points and nine rebounds for the Jazz, who won their fourth consecutive game. Michael Porter Jr. scored 31 points while Nikola Jokic finished with 24 points, 13 assists and nine rebounds for the Nuggets, who have dropped two of the past three. Spurs 113, Kings 104DeMar DeRozan scored 25 points and Lonnie Walker IV made key baskets in the decisive stretch as San Antonio defeated host Sacramento. Dejounte Murray added 22 points and seven assists for San Antonio. The 10th-place Spurs snapped a five-game losing streak and moved their lead over the 11th-place New Orleans Pelicans to 2 1/2 games the final position in the Western Conference play-in tournament. Terence Davis led the Kings with 24 points. Hield and Delon Wright scored 17 points each, with Wright contributing nine assists. Richaun Holmes hit for 15 points and Maurice Harkless added 12. Hornets 122, Magic 112Terry Rozier posted 28 points and LaMelo Ball pumped in 27 points as Charlotte topped visiting Orlando. P.J. Washington tacked on 23 points and nine rebounds for the Hornets, who had lost four of their previous six games. Charlotte's Jalen McDaniels scored 13 points and Bismack Biyombo added 11 points and 11 rebounds. Orlando lost for the ninth time in its past 12 games despite Dwayne Bacon's 26 points and Cole Anthony's 20 points. R.J. Hampton had 16 points off the bench. --Field Level MediaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

###CLAIM: `` legislative terrorism encourages actual terrorism now, '' he wrote in an epilogue to his book, which was written as a witness as a speaker. ###DOCS: Former Republican speaker John Boehner has accused GOP Congressman Jim Jordan of being a 'political terrorist' and recounted how a colleague held a knife to his throat on the House floor. In a new interview with CBS ahead of the release of his memoir, Boehner was talking about the Capitol riot when interviewer John Dickerson said: 'You call some of these members 'political terrorists.' 'Oh, yeah, Jim Jordan especially, my colleague from Ohio. I just never saw a guy who spent more time tearing things apart never building anything, never putting anything together, ' Boehner said. It follows extracts from his memoir where he calls Ted Cruz a 'reckless asshole', Tea Party member Michelle Bachmann a 'lunatic' and said Donald Trump 'incited a bloody insurrection' by 'shovelling bulls****'When pressed in the interview, the red-wine drinking chain-smoking Boehner tempered down his language and said: ''Listen, I, I, I'm not in office anymore. I don't have to answer all the questions that I used to have to answer, right? And, and, while it isn't my style, I don't wanna use a pejorative term like that talking about him or anybody else.' Boehner also retells the story where GOP Congressman Don Young held a 10-inch kitchen knife to his throat after a speech attacking earmarks. Former Republican speaker John Boehner has accused GOP Congressman Jim Jordan of being a 'political terrorist' and recounted how a colleague held a knife to his throat on the House floorBoehner also retells the story where GOP Congressman Don Young (center) held a 10-inch kitchen knife to his throat after a speech attacking earmarks'Don't you ever do that again,' he growled,' Boehner wrote. He responded by looking Young 'right square in his eyes and said, 'F*** you.' 'The speech was aimed right at the House crazies - he (then-Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid) was trying to gin them up even more and make my position even worse. 'So when I saw him at the White House the next day, talking quietly with Mitch McConnell before the meeting, I went over, got in Reid's face and said, 'Do you even listen to all that s*** that comes out of your mouth? You can go f*** yourself,'' Boehner writes. In his biting memoir, Boehner also writes that Ronald Reagan wouldn't even get elected in today's GOP that has been overtaken by the 'chaos caucus' and members who 'encouraged actual terrorism' before the Capitol riot. Of Jordan, Boehner said: 'I just never saw a guy who spent more time tearing things apart never building anything, never putting anything together.' In his memoir On the House: A Washington Memoir, he also says he regrets backing impeaching Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal because the Republican motivation was 'purely political'. 'Clinton probably did commit perjury. That's not a good thing. But lying about an affair to save yourself from embarrassment isn't the same as lying about an issue of national security,' he writes. Boehner makes the observation inside his biting memoir where he calls Ted Cruz a 'reckless a**hole', admits the respect he had for Nancy Pelosi's 'iron grip' leadership and describes a wild round of golf with Donald Trump. 'I don't even think I could get elected in today's Republican Party anyway. I don't think Ronald Reagan could either,' writes the longtime Ohio Republican in the book, which, an early copy of which was obtained by the Washington Post. 'That was fine by me because I'm not sure I belonged to the Republican Party he created,' he added. Former House Speaker John Boehner dishes on Republicans in his new book and talks about his penchant for merlot and longtime cigarette habit'REAGAN COULD GET ELECTED IN TODAY'S GOP'Boehner drew a direct line between his own struggles trying to reign in conservative lawmakers like the House Freedom Caucus on the budget and government shutdowns, and the January 6th MAGA riot. 'The legislative terrorism that I'd witnessed as speaker had now encouraged actual terrorism,' he wrote in an epilogue to the book that he penned after the attacks that resulted in five deaths. 'Trump incited that bloody insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons, perpetuated by the bulls*** he'd been shoveling since he lost a fair election the previous November. He claimed voter fraud without any evidence,' Boehner wrote. Boehner, who once worked his family's Ohio Barr, shares the reflections in his new book, On the House: A Washington Memoir, set for release next week. He also called out GOP tactics going back to the 90s, when he included himself among those who erred in impeaching Bill Clinton, who had an affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and lied about it in a deposition to Ken Starr and his prosecutors. 'I don't even think I could get elected in today's Republican Party anyway. I don't think Ronald Reagan could either,' the former Ohio lawmaker wroteBoehner backed the House GOP effort to impeach Bill Clinton, which resulted in Democratic gains in 1998. He also accused his conference of blindly following former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (right) of Texas in the impeachment effortHe did so while taking a shot at his former leadership rival Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who was the powerhouse in the conference when Boehner held the title of conference chair, which he lost before plotting his comeback. 'I know what we all said at the time: Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath. In my view, Republicans impeached him for one reason and one reason only . . . Tom DeLay believed that impeaching Clinton would win us all these House seats, would be a big win politically, and he convinced enough of the membership and the GOP base that this was true,' Boehner writes. Boehner backed the move, but now has second thoughts. 'Clinton probably did commit perjury. That's not a good thing. But lying about an affair to save yourself from embarrassment isn't the same as lying about an issue of national security,' Boehner says. He also describes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has twice held the gavel and retains it at age 81, as a ruthless operator. He describes her fingerprints on the effort by fellow Californian Henry Waxman to depose former dean of the House John Dingell of Michigan from his powerful perch as head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Although she claimed neutrality, 'she was all over this. I could just smell it.,' Boehner writes. 'Pelosi had gutted Big John Dingell like a halibut she found floating around San Francisco Bay, then calmly sat back and had a cup of coffee afterward. His entrails were left on display for everyone in the House of Representatives to see and to remember,' Boehner writes. 'I don't think Nancy relished mounting Dingell on her wall she certainly didn't brag about it but that's not the point. The point is she did it, and I have no doubt she slept just fine that night.' While going after conservative firebrands for 'legislative terrorism,' Boehner also takes a shot at future White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who headed the Freedom Caucus when he was a North Carolina lawmaker. After Meadows made a statement by voting against him for speaker as a House freshman, he came to Boehner's office as a supplicant, 'dropped off the couch and was on his knees. Right there on my rug. That was a first. His hands came together in front of him as if he were about to pray,' Boehner says. He writes that Meadows was on the verge of tears. ''For what?' Boehner says he responded, shrugging off the act of rebellion. TRUMP'S EXPLOSION ON THE GOLF COURSEBoehner details the time then-businessman Donald Trump exploded at his staffer as an 'idiot' and screamed 'f***ing listen' when the aide got their golfing partners' names wrong. The former Republican House speaker says during the outing that day, Trump only played with a five handicap and Boehner was 'blown away' by how good he was at golf. In an excerpt from the book released by Punchbowl News Thursday morning, Boehner recalled the bizarre day when during a fundraising swing he was out-of-the-blue paired with Trump for a round of golf at his Westchester, New York club against two insurance executives. At the time, Boehner was House minority leader and it was several years before Trump made his 2016 run for the White House. 'He was very friendly, but in an in-your-face, this-is-how-they-talk-in-New-York kind of a way that I was not used to at all. Direct, loud, intense,' Boehner wrote. 'Pretty much the same guy who got elected to the White House. I can tell you that with Trump, what you saw was what you got for better or worse.' ''Boehner!' Trump said when we were ready to start. 'You and I are gonna take these two turkeys on and whip 'em.' That was okay with me,' he continued in the book, revealing the name Trump used to describe their golf opponents that day. The memoir will be released on Tuesday, April 13 and is already No. 19 in books on Amazon, where it is available for pre-order. ''I think they're Joe and Jeff,' BJ told him. So Trump said hello to Joe and hello to Jeff and we set off,' Boehner wrote of the interaction between Trump and Criscuolo. He said that at the end of the game, where Trump and Boehner emerged victorious, the club owner shook hands and said: 'Good match, Joe,' 'Well done, Jeff.' 'Finally, one of the guys stopped us. He had kind of a weird look on his face, and I could see something awkward was coming. 'Guys,' he said, 'our names are Mike and David.'' 'We had been calling these guys the wrong names over and over, all day long, and they were either too polite or too shy to correct us the whole time,' the excerpt reveals. Boehner says while he laughed it off and so did the high-profile executives Trump was furious. 'This sort of glower fell across his face,' Boehner detailed. 'The kind of look I could tell that you didn't want to see too often if you happened to work for him.' Boehner continues: 'He marched over to BJ and got right in his face to the point that BJ might have had to take a step or two back. Then Trump shouted, 'What are you, some kind of idiot?' These guys' names are Mike and David!'' 'Then he gave the young man a piece of advice that he and I have never forgotten. And I hesitate to put an expletive in the mouth of a former president of the United States, but here it goes anyway. 'You want to know how to remember somebody's name?' Trump asked. 'You f***ing LISTEN!'' Boehner spelled out the swear word in his book, where he uses other expletives in his own writing, as well. Criscuolo still worked with Boehner. 'We laughed about that at the time, and since,' Boehner wrote, adding: '[B]ut there was something dark about it too.' 'I'd never seen anybody treat a staffer like that not in politics, not ever,' the excerpt reads. 'This was more than New York bluster. This was real anger, over something very, very small. 'We had no idea then what that anger would do to our country.' Boehner and Trump are avid golfers. Here the former speaker hits the links with then-President Barack Obama in 2011BOEHNER WAS 'BLOWN AWAY' BY TRUMP'S FIVE GOLF HANDICAPBefore the game kicked off at Trump's Palm Beach golf club, the businessman revealed his handicap was only five. Boehner says he was a 10 and the other two players were at 12 and 14 handicaps. But the lifelong Republican politician said he was shocked that Trump actually turned out to be a fantastic golfer. 'There's no way this guy is a five handicap,' Boehner said he thought when Trump revealed his number ' matter-of-factly.' 'I'm going to have to carry him around on my back all day,' he wrote the thought that went through his mind. 'But Trump ended up birdying three of the first five holes that's going one under par three times, or one under the standard number of strokes a hole usually needs, for those rusty at golf terms,' he wrote. 'It absolutely blew me away. Holy s**t, I thought, this guy can play golf.' Boehner said that paired with Trump, they won against the two executives they were up against in their foursome that day. 'Over 18 holes, we talked about this and that,' he wrote. 'Nothing particularly memorable, but had I known back then I was walking around with the 45th president, I might have paid better attention.' Other parts of Boehner's book have been leaked by those who received an early copy, including claiming Trump was responsible for the Capitol attack on January 6. TRUMP HITS BACK AT BOEHNER'S BOOKTrump lashed out at that claim on Wednesday after an excerpt revealed Boehner felt Trump incited the event by 'shoveling bulls***' election fraud claims. 'Was he drinking when he made this statement? Just another RINO who couldn't do the job,' Trump said in response to the comments in Boehner's new book. He claimed in the memoir that the then-president incited the 'bloody insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons' and accuses GOP 'whack jobs' who backed the bid to overthrow the election of encouraging 'actual terrorism.' The chain-smoking, red wine-sipping former GOP speaker doesn't hold back in his memoir. Boehner describes Senator Ted Cruz as a 'reckless a**hole' details his battles with Tea Party Republicans and Fox News and reveals he was attacked by members of his own party for saying that Barack Obama was born in America. But his harshest criticism is toward Trump, the head of his party. In a stunning rebuke of the former president, Boehner writes that Trump's 'refusal to accept the result of the election not only cost Republicans the Senate but led to mob violence,' adding: 'It was painful to watch.' Boehner writes, in book excerpts obtained by The New York Times: 'I'll admit I wasn't prepared for what came after the election Trump refusing to accept the results and stoking the flames of conspiracy that turned into violence in the seat of our democracy, the building over which I once presided.' Trump, repeatedly and falsely, claimed he won the November 2020 election and falsely accused Joe Biden of stealing it. There has been no evidence of voter fraud, multiple recounts confirmed Biden's victory, and courts threw out the Trump campaign's challenges to the results. Donald Trump hit back when an excerpt of the book was leaked with Boehner slamming the president for inciting the January 6 'bloody insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons'. Trump responded by saying Boehner was 'another RINO who couldn't do the job' and asked 'was he drinking wine when he made this statement''TRUMP INCITED THE RIOT FOR NOTHING MORE THAN SELFISH REASONS'Boehner called the January 6th riot, where Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on the day Congress was certifying Biden's win, 'one of the lowest points of American democracy.' 'Watching it was scary, and sad. It should have been a wake-up call for a return to Republican sanity,' he wrote. Trump, he writes, 'incited that bloody insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons, perpetuated by the bull**** he'd been shoveling since he lost a fair election the previous November.' In response, Jason Miller, a spokesman for Trump, called Boehner a 'Swamp Creature.' In his book, Boehner tears into Trump for falsely claiming the election was stolen: 'He claimed voter fraud without any evidence, and repeated those claims, taking advantage of the trust placed in him by his supporters and ultimately betraying that trust.' Former Republican House Speaker John Boehner calls Jan. 6 'one of the lowest points of American democracy' in his new book 'On the House: A Washington Memoir'REPUBLICANS 'ENCOURAGED ACTUAL TERRORISM'Boehner also slammed Republican lawmakers who supported Trump's attempt to overthrow the electoral college certification on January 6th. Republican Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, along with GOP House members Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene and many others, were among those objecting. 'Some of the people involved did not surprise me in the least. The legislative terrorism that I'd witnessed as speaker had now encouraged actual terrorism,' Boehner wrote. Boehner was not the only Republican leader to castigate Trump for his refusal to concede to Biden or for his role in the January 6th insurrection. After the riot, McCarthy criticized Trump from the House floor for not doing enough during the event to calm his supporters storming the building, leaving a wave of destruction in their path. Ultimately five people died in connection to the MAGA riot. And Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell criticized Trump at the end of his second impeachment trial for his role on January 6th. Ten House Republicans, including Rep. Liz Cheney, a member of GOP leadership, voted to impeach Trump over his role in the insurrection. But Boehner's comments are the harshest. And his blistering, salty language falls in line with other excerpts from his book, where Boehner torn into 'lunatics' and 'morons' in his own party and reveals he was criticized for confirming that Barack Obama was born in America. Former House Speaker John Boehner (left) wrote in his new book that Republicans and right-wing media figures truly believed President Barack Obama (right) was a 'secret Kenyan Muslim traitor'ATTACKED FOR CONFIRMING OBAMA WAS BORN IN HAWAIIBoehner recalled the pushback he received from members of his party when he went on Meet The Press and vouched that Obama was born in the United States. 'The state of Hawaii has said that President Obama was born there. That's good enough for me,' Boehner said in January 2011. He also wrote about the moment he realized the 'lunatics' had grown more powerful than Republican leadership. 'I got all kinds of sh** for itemails, letters, phone calls. It went on for a couple weeks. 'I knew we would hear from some of the crazies, but I was surprised at just how many there really were,' Boehner wrote. 'All of this crap swirling around was going to make it tough for me to cut any deals with Obama as the new House Speaker. Of course, it has to be said that Obama didn't help himself much either.' 'But on the other hand - how do you find common cause with people who think you are a secret Kenyan Muslim traitor to America?' Boehner observed. 'YOU COULD BE A TOTAL MORON AND GET ELECTED WITH AN 'R' NEXT TO YOUR NAME IN 2010'Boehner ascended to the speakership in 2011 after the Tea Party movement helped the GOP capture the House majority two years into Obama's tenure. He recalled how Obama called the experience a 'shellacking.' 'And oh boy, was it ever,' Boehner wrote in an excerpt for Politico Magazine that was released Friday. 'You could be a total moron and get elected just by having an R next to your name - and that year, by the way, we did pick up a fair number in that category.' Boehner complained about the tone of the new Tea Party-tied members. 'Since I was presiding over a large group of people who'd never sat in Congress, I felt I owed them a little tutorial on governing. 'I had to explain how to actually get things done,' he explained. 'A lot of that went straight through the ears of most of them, especially the ones who didn't have brains that got in the way. Incrementalism? Compromise? That wasn't their thing.' 'A lot of them wanted to blow up Washington. That's why they thought they were elected,' he continued. CLASHES WITH RUPERT MURDOCH, ROGER AILES AND SEAN HANNITYOn top of that, the conservative media establishment was leaning into conspiracy theories and elevating those who spouted them, Boehner observed. The former speaker recalled a meeting he had in the early 90s with the late Roger Ailes, who became CEO of Fox News Channel and Rupert Murdoch. They were talking to Boehner about this new TV network they were starting, Fox News. Former Speaker John Boehner's book, 'On the House: A Washington Memoir,' comes out on April 13'I had no idea I was listening to the outline of something that would make my life a living hell down the line,' Boehner observed. Cut to 2011, and Boehner watched how 'birther-ism' - the conspiracy theory that Obama wasn't born in the United States - went from the internet to, by his calculation, radio host Mark Levin. 'It got him ratings, so eventually he dragged Hannity and Rush to Looneyville along with him,' Boehner said. 'My longtime friend Roger Ailes, the head of Fox News, was not immune to this,' Boehner added. 'He got swept into the conspiracies and the paranoia and became an almost unrecognizable figure.' Boehner wrote about confrontations he had with Ailes and also with Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity. Ailes, the Ohio Republican recalled, told him how Obama, the Clintons and George Soros were 'trying to destroy him' and so he had installed a 'safe room' in his house. 'It was like he'd been reading whacked-out spy novels all weekend,' Boehner recalled. 'I thought I could get him to control the crazies, and instead I found myself talking to the president of the club. One of us was crazy. Maybe it was me.' Sean Hannity hit back at Boehner's comments and said 'he will down as one of the worst Republican speakers in history. He added: 'He's weak, timid and what's up with all the crying John?' 'At some point I called him a nut,' Boehner added. After Hannity started going after Boehner on his show night after night, the House speaker called him up to ask, 'What the hell?' Hannity, according to Boehner, pushed back that the speaker didn't 'have a plan.' Look, our plan is pretty simple: we're just going to stand up for what we believe in as Republicans,' Boehner said he shot back. The Ohio Republican said his relationship with Hannity, after that conversation, never got any better. Hannity made that clear in a tweet Friday. 'John Boehner will go down in history as one of the worst Republican speakers in history. He's weak, timid and what's up with all the crying John?' the Fox News Channel host tweeted. 'There was not a single time I was around him when he didn't just reek of cigarette smoke and wine breath,' Hannity added. 'I'm glad he finally found his true calling in life in the 'weed industry,'' Hannity said in a second tweet. Boehner has lobbied for a cannabis group since leaving office. Boehner (right) referred to Rep. Michele Bachmann (left) as a 'lunatic' and said she was one of the 'first prototypes' out of Fox News Channel's laboratory of 'fringe characters'TEA PARTY MEMBER MICHELE BACHMANN WAS A 'LUNATIC'Boehner recalled a conversation he had with Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican, who had presidential ambitions. Bachmann was one of the 'fringe characters' that Fox was responsible for turning into a media star, Boehner said. 'One of the first prototypes out of their laboratory was a woman named Michele Bachmann,' he said of the overall trend. Bachmann, who was starting her third term in Congress, told Boehner she wanted to be put on the House Ways and Means Committee, which is the House's most powerful. That was never going to happen because she would need the approval of the Steering Committee - so it was technically out of his hands - but Boehner was going to be put in a tough position because she didn't do nuance. When he diplomatically told her no, she pushed back saying, 'Well, then I'll just have to go talk to Sean Hannity and everybody at Fox. And Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and everybody else on the radio, and tell them that this is how John Boehner is treating the people who made is possible for the Republicans to take back the House.' Boehner introduces Sen. Ted Cruz (pictured) as the 'new head lunatic leading the way' adding that 'there is nothing more dangerous than a reckless a**hole who thinks he is smarter than everyone else'Ted Cruz responded to an audio clip of John Boehner telling him to f*** himself with a 'Mean Girls' gif'I wasn't the one with the power, she was saying. I just thought I was. She had the power now,' Boehner said. 'She was right, of course.' Boehner ended up putting Bachman on the House Intelligence Committee, admitting that she 'did her homework' and impressed other members on the panel. TED CRUZ: THE LEADER OF THE 'CHAOS CAUCUS'Boehner concluded his excerpt by previewing what happened to the 'chaos caucus' in the next cycle. 'Ladies and gentleman, meet Senator Ted Cruz,' Boehner wrote, referring to the Texas Republican who took office in 2013. Boehner dubbed Cruz the 'new head lunatic leading the way.' 'There is nothing more dangerous than a reckless a**hole who thinks he is smarter than everyone else,' Boehner said. Boehner ended the chapter with a cliffhanger: '[Cruz] enlisted the crazy caucus of the GOP in what was a truly dumbass idea. Not that anybody asked me.' He was likely previewing the chaotic 2013 government shutdown. On Friday, Axios reporter Jonathan Swan shared a clip of Boehner's audiobook, in which he randomly inserts, 'P.S., Ted Cruz, go f*** yourself.' Cruz responded to the tweet by sharing a 'Mean Girls' gif that read, 'Why are you so obsessed with me?'

###CLAIM: dozens of police were called to the scene as traffic bound for the east bank of bathurst street banked onto george street. ###DOCS: Extinction Rebellion protesters caused peak hour traffic chaos in Sydney after blocking a busy city street. Protesters rallying against climate change and a gas project in northwest NSW unfurled large banners as they stood in the middle of Bathurst Street, with some activists sitting on the road and others chaining themselves to barrels. Dozens of police were called to the scene on Monday morning as eastbound traffic banked up at the intersection of Bathurst and George streets. A number of protesters were arrested, including one woman who reportedly glued her hand to the road. Extinction Rebellion protesters blocked traffic in Sydney's CBD on Monday as frustrated motorists were on their morning commuteProtesters dressed all in red were pictured laying on the ground as Extinction Rebellion members held up a sign that read 'Still climate emergency, act now'Some frustrated motorists were captured on camera attempting to drive through the protesters as they were on their morning commute. Extinction Rebellion members chose the CBD location because it was outside the office of natural gas transmission company APA Group, who they were demanding cease interest in two projects. 'NO GAS! Rebels are locked on outside APA Groups offices to demand that they back out of the Westerns Slopes pipeline and Narrabri gas project!,' Extinction Rebellion posted on Facebook. Protesters unfurled two large banners that each read 'Climate emergency, get off the fence now' and held up signs emblazoned with the words 'fossil fuels will cook our kids'. All eastbound lanes on Bathurst Street were later reopened. But Live Traffic NSW warned motorists that 'traffic remains heavy through the area, continue to exercise caution and allow plenty of extra travel time'. Daily Mail Australia contacted APA Group for comment.

###CLAIM: hanage said that since other people know you are still on the look-out whether or not you get vaccinated, you show it by wearing masks. ###DOCS: As of last week, more than 37 million people in the U.S. have received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to a tally by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Another 13 million people have received their second dose, fully completing their vaccination series against Covid-19. With many already immunized against the virus, the questions are: When can we start to think about visiting family or planning a social gathering? Being vaccinated can ease anxiety about going out, but even people who have had both doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine will still need to follow public health guidance of wearing a well-fitted mask and social distancing. Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak"Fully vaccinated" means at least two weeks have passed since a person has received the second dose of a two-dose vaccine or one dose of a single-dose vaccine. NBC News asked vaccine experts what they would feel comfortable doing once fully vaccinated. Is it safe to visit family? Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the nation's leading public health advisers, told Savannah Guthrie on NBC's "TODAY" show that he is often asked if it's safe to get together without some of the public health measures like masking and social distancing. The answer, ultimately, is going to be yes, he said during the interview Thursday. However, that's if everyone in the group is fully vaccinated. Fauci urged more caution if only one party has received the vaccine, since people who have been vaccinated could potentially harbor virus in their nose and transmit it to others. That's the reason why we say, until we have the overwhelming majority of people vaccinated, and the level of virus is very low, if you're vaccinated, it would be prudent to wear a mask, Fauci said. While we dont yet know the extent of how much the vaccine limits transmission, early data from Moderna and AstraZeneca suggests a modest protection against asymptomatic infection, and therefore a lower ability to spread the virus. We don't know so much about whether or not [the vaccines] are able to prevent infection, meaning you might become infected and unwittingly transmitted to others, said William Hanage, an associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Thats something we are still learning about.While these vaccines are some of the greatest scientific achievements Hanage has seen in his career, immediately going back to pre-pandemic life is not a good idea, he cautioned. Gloria DeSoto, 92, visits with her family in their car through a window at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale in the Bronx, N.Y., on June 11. Seth Wenig / AP fileLike Fauci, Hanage agreed that if both he and his older family members had received the vaccine he would feel safe giving them a hug but only if both parties had completed their vaccine series. One of the best things about the vaccine is as it's rolled out to people who are older and more vulnerable to disease, it's going to be much easier to have contact with them, Hanage said. Dr. Jay Varkey, an associate professor of infectious disease at Emory University in Atlanta, said that while he has completed his vaccine series and his parents are close to doing the same, he would only feel safe giving them a hug if community transmission rates are low. He added that if his older family members were essential workers, he would give it even more time. If my family members were out and about in the community as essential workers, having to work in factories or in school settings where they're intermixed with many other people, many of whom are not vaccinated, I would hold off a little bit longer, Varkey said. Is it safe to gather indoors? Infectious disease experts also had differing opinions on whether they would feel safe gathering indoors with friends. Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease physician at UCSF Health, has suggested the formation of immunity bubbles with other members who have also been vaccinated. Within the bubble, friends and family who are fully vaccinated can gather without masks or social distancing. Download the NBC News app for full coverage of the coronavirus outbreakFor example, Chin-Hong has a group of five to seven colleagues at work who have completed their vaccine series and is looking forward to having them over for dinner. Within these bubbles, it is safe to gather without masks and social distancing. We would wear masks before entering my home or dinner space but once in there, I think I'd feel comfortable with everyone taking the masks off, sitting around the table, watching a football game or listening to music, Chin-Hong told NBC News on Thursday during a "Doc to Doc" Facebook Live interview with senior medical correspondent Dr. John Torres. These are all things that I've deferred for more than a year, and I can't wait to do that.Hanage urged a little more caution with gathering indoors without masks temporarily, until the virus becomes more under control in the community. "We are going to need to keep an eye on this virus. It's very sneaky, so be cautious," Hanage said. "If I were in that situation, I'd keep my mask on for now, but I would be looking forward to taking it off." While experts had differing opinions on what is safe after being vaccinated, they all agreed on one thing: Dont lose the mask when in out in public settings. Other people don't know you've been vaccinated, so by wearing a mask youre showing that whether or not you're vaccinated, you're still looking out for them, Hanage said.

###CLAIM: the company has the opportunity of aligning itself with democracy in the united states just as it did in places like east germany and the baltic states at the end of the cold war. ###DOCS: A group of concerned Coca-Cola shareholders have sent a letter to the beverage corporation, alleging a recent policy aimed at diversity would actually require law firms that represent the company to violate anti-discrimination law. Paul Mirengoff, a board member of the American Civil Rights Project (ACRP), reported at Powerline that in January 2021, the general counsel of Coca-Cola sent a letter to the law firms that represent it. The letter notes that Coca-Colas policy of contracting, refusing to contract, and altering the terms of signed contracts on the basis of the race of Cokes counterparties, the [directors] have exposed Coke and its shareholders to material risk of liability for potentially violating anti-discrimination laws. The letter continues:The Policies additionally expose the company to potential litigation on other theories, including (without waiving the right to later note more): (a)the Policies order outside counsel to discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, sex, gender, and disability status in hiring, promotional decisions, firing, staffing, and internal compensation structures. In doing so, the Policies order outside counsel to violate Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964,Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. (b)in requiring the disclosure of individual outside-counsel team member[]s disability status, the Policies separately compel the violation of the confidentiality provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. As Mirengoff noted, the letter adds that Coca-Cola knew or should have known the policy it enacted was illegal. In April, famed attorney Boyden Gray wrote an open letter to the company outlining how the new policy was discriminatory, so by now the company should have no questions as to whether the policy is potentially illegal. Yet, as Daniel Morenoff, leader of the ACRP wrote in the letter to Coca-Cola, on the same day Gray wrote his letter, the company:[Coke] executed and filed with the SEC a Form 10Q omitting any reference whatsoever to the [illegal contracting] policies or Cokes related liabilities. Given the total omission of these material liabilities, that document, by all appearances, did not contain[ ] or fairly present[ ], in all material respects, the financial condition.... of the Company. Thus, [Coke] executed and submitted to the SEC a false Certification Pursuant to 18 USC Section 1350, as Adopted Pursuant to Section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Even though Coca-Cola didnt report this new policy, Morenoff wrote, it has retained the policy. Concluding his letter, Morenoff issued a demand to the company:

###CLAIM: food, research, and action (friac) center says blacks are twice as likely to go hungry than white counterparts. ###DOCS: mRelief1 in 9 people in the U.S. struggle with hunger. And despite federal assistance programs like food stamps, which aim to help millions of families across the U.S., many of these families arent actually receiving these benefits due to the cumbersome administrative process required to enroll. mRelief is changing that. Led by cofounders Rose Afriyie and Genevieve Nielsen, the tech nonprofit is transforming access to food stamps, so more families can get the help they need to eat with dignity. Shannon Farley: What is mReliefs approach to solving food insecurity? Rose Afriyie and Genevieve Nielsen: At mRelief, we address hunger by increasing access to resources and closing the digital divide - all through an equity-centered approach, because we know that addressing hunger is an issue of racial equity. People of color are disproportionately affected by hunger. According to the Food Research and Action Center, Black people in America are 2.5 times more likely to be hungry than their white counterparts. The mRelief team (pre-pandemic) in Chicago Rose AfriyieFarley: There are a whole host of factors at play that drive food insecurity. What specific problem within the issue of hunger are you seeking to solve? Afriyie and Nielsen: Though federal nutrition assistance is available in the form of food stamps, there is a huge lack of accessibility to these benefits. In fact, $11 billion in SNAP goes unclaimed every year. In other words, millions of families are eligible for food stamps - but arent receiving them. Reason being that to enroll in SNAP, applicants have to complete a 20-page application and submit as many as 10 additional documents. Its a lot, and this lengthy process is a huge barrier for low-income families. Technology can and should be used to increase accessibility to this much-needed resource. Farley: So you built mRelief. Can you tell me how it works? Afriyie and Nielsen: mRelief helps families quickly determine their eligibility for food stamps and, if they qualify, sign up for SNAP. We do this through an easy-to-use platform for web, text, and voice that takes users through 10 simple questions. Our tech has cut down food stamp enrollment from a cumbersome 20-page application to a straightforward 3-minute process. And our solution is scalable. To date, weve served over 870,000 families in all 50 states with our innovative platform. Danielle Thomas, mReliefs Administrative Coordinator, attends People's Grab-and-Go, a local ... [+] community event where clients pick up groceries and sign up for SNAP with mRelief. Rose AfriyieFarley: During this pandemic, your solution is more important than ever. What are you doing to support families amidst these unprecedented times? Afriyie and Nielsen: Youre right - the need for these solutions has never been greater. At the start of the pandemic, we doubled the number of users weve served. And were not stopping there - were on a mission to reach as many families as possible. Besides our core service, we have two additional COVID-19 solutions. During the pandemic, our safety net services like food banks are overburdened. SNAP can provide nine meals for every one meal provided by a food bank. To make it easier to access the program, were building Johnnie, a CRM platform for outreach workers to connect with SNAP beneficiaries on everything from on-demand support to submitting documents. Weve also built a pre-screening tool that informs SNAP recipients about the key flexibilities they may have in the wake of COVID-19, like receiving maximum benefits or being able to shop with SNAP online. Johnnie, mRelief's tool to help caseworkers provide one-on-one support to families signing up for ... [+] SNAP mReliefFarley: What does mReliefs future look like? Afriyie and Nielsen: Were taking exciting steps to support families even after theyve enrolled in SNAP. The cornerstone of our work is signing people up for SNAP for the first time. But successfully enrolling in SNAP doesnt mean recipients are set to receive benefits for life. They have to periodically recertify to continue receiving food stamps - which, unsurprisingly, is another long and cumbersome process. mRelief is building a tool to help. Through our initiative keepsnap.org, we are collaborating with government agencies to help families sign up for e-notices, helping them receive this critical information faster while drastically reducing postage costs. And in the future, were planning to take on the recertification process from end-to-end to ensure that more than 40 million Americans can eat with dignity. Farley: What advice do you have for women entrepreneurs launching social impact startups? Afriyie and Nielsen: Start with a discrete problem that is smaller in scope. For us, this meant focusing on increasing access to one social service in particular - food stamps - rather than multiple other services. Measure this clearly defined problem, and go all-in on your solution. Focus is the key that unlocks the door to what were all striving towards: impact.

###CLAIM: steve and bullock said the state health department was pursuing legal action against several montana businesses for not following mandatory masks and other restrictions meant to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. ###DOCS: A harvest moon rises with Yenni Stadium in the foreground, while Newman students watch their school play East Jefferson in a high school football game in Metairie, La., during the coronavirus pandemic, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020. (Chris Granger/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)A harvest moon rises with Yenni Stadium in the foreground, while Newman students watch their school play East Jefferson in a high school football game in Metairie, La., during the coronavirus pandemic, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020. (Chris Granger/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)UNITED NATIONS The U.N. chief says its very frustrating that leaders of the 20 major industrialized nations didnt come together in March and establish a coordinated response to grapple with the coronavirus in all countries as he proposed. The result, he says, is every country is taking its own sometimes contradictory actions, and the virus is moving from east to west, north to south, with second waves of infections now affecting many countries. Czech Republic enters second lockdown to avoid health system collapse. New measures include closing stores, shopping malls and hotels. Photographer in Dubai providing free photo shoots to laid-off expats forced to leave the skyscraper-studded Persian Gulf city because of the pandemic. ___Follow all of APs coronavirus pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreakADVERTISEMENT___HERES WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea has reported 155 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus, its highest daily jump in more than 40 days as officials struggle to stem transmissions at hospitals and nursing homes. The figures announced Friday brought the national caseload to 25,698, including 455 deaths. Officials say most of the new cases were local transmissions and primarily in the Seoul region, where hundreds of infections have been tied to a handful of hospitals and nursing homes. A nursing home in Namyangju, east of Seoul, has emerged as the latest cluster of infections, with officials putting the facility under isolation after more than 30 workers and residents tested positive. Around 120 infections have been linked to a hospital in nearby Gwangju. Fridays daily jump was the highest since Sept. 11 when 176 new infections were reported. ___BOISE, Idaho A regional health board in northern Idaho has voted narrowly to repeal a local mask mandate, acting moments after hearing how the regions hospital has been overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients and is looking at sending people as far away as Seattle for care. The board heard Thursday that the hospital in Coeur dAlene reached 99% capacity the previous day, even after doubling up patients in rooms and buying more beds. The board in Kootenai County then voted 4-3 to end the mask mandate. Kootenai is the third most populous county in conservative Idaho. Gov. Brad Little has left it up to local health departments and school districts to decide on what restrictions, if any, are needed for the coronavirus pandemic. ___SEATTLE Health officials in Washington state say the number of people in the state who have been confirmed with coronavirus infections during the pandemic has surpassed 100,000. The Department of Health reported 651 new virus cases and three new COVID-19 deaths Thursday. The latest numbers increased the states confirmed cases to 100,525 and the total number of people who have died to 2,289. Gov. Jay Inslee tweeted about the cases topping 100,000, saying, Every choice you make right now matters.Inslee says cases are on the rise again in Washington, and he urges people to have fewer and shorter interactions with others. ___AUSTIN, Texas Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is sending more medical reinforcements to the El Paso area in response to a surge of coronavirus infections and cases of COVID-19, the illness the virus can cause. The Texas Department of State Health Services and the Texas Division of Emergency Management will provide more medical personnel and equipment this week. The move comes during the same week that El Paso County reported 3,750 new coronavirus infections, including 1,161 on Thursday. That number accounts for 17.5% of the 21,321 cases reported this week by the states 254 counties. Active coronavirus cases in El Paso rose 864 Thursday to 9,569. The 558 confirmed COVID-19 patients hospitalized in El Paso, Culberson and Hudspeth counties account for more than one-third of all of that regions hospitalized patients___HELENA, Mont. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock says the state health department is pursuing legal action against several businesses in northwestern Montana for not following a mask mandate and other restrictions meant to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The announcement came Thursday as the state reported 932 newly confirmed coronavirus cases. That was far above the previous one-day high of 734. The new cases include 173 in Yellowstone County and 112 in Flathead County, where the governor says businesses face legal action. State officials also have launched a new website to allow people to submit complaints against businesses and events that are not complying with health directives. ___ROSWELL, N.M. -- Officials at a military junior college in New Mexico say the school is under quarantine after more than 60 cadets and employees tested positive for the coronavirus. Those who tested positive are being kept isolated. The quarantine at the New Mexico Military Institute is expected to last until Oct. 29. Parents will be allowed to visit only in special situations or emergencies, and officials say all campus facilities are being closed to the public for five weeks. The closure comes as the state struggles with a surge in coronavirus infections. Wednesday marked another record day for daily confirmed cases, with 827, and state health officials reported an additional 669 cases Thursday. That brings the statewide total to nearly 39,380 since the pandemic began. ___BATON ROUGE, La. Louisiana will allow more high school football fans to attend games in open-air stadiums beginning Friday if the events are in parishes with low numbers of coronavirus cases in the last few weeks. Gov. John Bel Edwards said Thursday that stadiums will be allowed to have crowds at 50% capacity in parishes where 5% or less of coronavirus tests have come back positive in the previous two weeks. Stadiums have been capped at 25% capacity. The governor says 26 of Louisianas 64 parishes meet the criteria to boost crowd size. ___MONTGOMERY, Ala. Alabama Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth said Thursday that he remains opposed to mandatory mask orders despite being diagnosed with COVID-19, even though he encourages people to wear one. The Republican lieutenant governor announced Wednesday that he tested positive for the coronavirus. He said he sought a test after learning someone in his Sunday school group had COVID-19. I have always encouraged mask-wearing, and I wear one in my daily life, Ainsworth said in a statement, adding that: At the same time, I believe in personal responsibility and think everyone has the right to make their own choices regarding their health.Ainsworth has been critical of the states COVID-19 response under Republican Gov. Kay Ivey. In March, he criticized what he said at the time was the states slow response to prepare for a possible tsunami of hospital patients. But he has also been critical of the states mandatory mask order. He said last month that masks should be voluntary, not mandatory.___TALLAHASSEE, Fla. Florida plans to more closely scrutinize deaths attributed to the coronavirus, as the state Department of Health notes some people listed as COVID-19 fatalities died months after testing positive. The state will not backtrack to reexamine the more than 16,000 deaths attributed to the virus, but rather take a closer look at deaths going forward, said Fred Piccolo, a spokesman for Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, speaking Thursday. And the state wont immediately discount those who tested positive for coronavirus and died weeks afterwards, recognizing the virus may have caused damage that contributed to the death, he added. Florida reported more than 5,500 new COVID-19 cases Thursday, raising the seven-day average in daily reported cases to about 3,300. Thats about 1,000 more per day since the beginning of the month. ___SIOUX FALLS, S.D. Gov. Kristi Noem has insisted South Dakota is excelling in its handling of the pandemic, although the state surpassed 9,000 active coronavirus cases and matched an all-time high for deaths reported in a day. The state ranks second in the country in new infections per capita over the last two weeks, according to Johns Hopkins University data. There were about 1,036 new cases per 100,000 people in South Dakota, meaning that about one in every 97 people in the state has tested positive for the virus in the last two weeks. Health officials on Thursday also reported an all-time high of 973 new cases. But the Republican governor has used her refusal to issue government mandates to vault to nationwide relevance among conservatives. She told Fox News on Wednesday night, Were doing really good in South Dakota. Were managing COVID-19, but also our economy is thriving.___CHICAGO Some Chicago businesses will have to close by 10 p.m. and residents are asked to limit gatherings to six people as the number of newly confirmed coronavirus cases among residents continues to rise, the citys mayor announced Thursday. Mayor Lori Lightfoot also announced that bars without food licenses must stop serving customers indoors and liquor sales citywide must end at 9 p.m. The curfew doesnt apply to grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations and other essential businesses. All of the changes take effect Friday. Lightfoot warned earlier this week that rising numbers of new confirmed cases could lead to reinstated restrictions on the citys economy. As of Thursday, Lightfoot said the city was reporting an average of 645 new cases during the past seven days. ___COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. A federal judge has exempted two churches in Colorado from safety guidelines intended to limit the spread of COVID-19. The Gazette reports that Denver Bible Church in Wheat Ridge and Community Baptist Church in Brighton filed a complaint in August, challenging the states mandate on wearing masks and its limitations on indoor gatherings. Both churches argued that the health orders restrict or prevent religious speech.The Colorado attorney generals office filed Monday an emergency motion for a stay, or suspension of the injunction, pending the outcome of an appeal. The decision is now up to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. ___BISMARCK, N.D. North Dakota remained as one of the worst spots in the nation for coronavirus spread on Thursday, with health officials reporting a record day of new infections. North Dakotas daily positivity rate topped 13%, with 1,038 new virus cases. Nine new deaths were reported, bringing the statewide death toll from the virus to 431. Gov. Doug Burgum has resisted issuing an order to require a statewide mask mandate. Leaders in Fargo and Minot this week moved to require face coverings in most settings, though the mandates are not enforced. Leaders in Bismarck are considering a similar mandate next week. ___MISSION, Kan. The coronavirus positivity rate in Kansas has topped 20%, among the highest in the country. The 14-day rolling average of the positivity rate in Kansas rose from 15.04% on Oct. 7 to 20.64% on Wednesday, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project. The seven-day average for new cases was a record 757 on Wednesday, with many cases in rural parts of the state. More than 90 of the states 105 counties have opted out of Democratic Gov. Laura Kellys mask order. She plans to speak with House and Senate leadership to work toward a bipartisan mask requirement with more teeth. The states top public health official, Dr. Lee Norman, this month blamed the states worsening numbers on residents refusal to consistently follow public health guidelines for mask-wearing, social distancing and avoiding large public gatherings. Some lawmakers have resisted imposing statewide restrictions, wanting the decisions left to local officials. Kelly says there will be legislative challenges, but the research is clear: Masks work. Trump and Biden on how they will lead the country through next stage of COVID-19Boise, Idaho Moments after hearing an Idaho hospital was overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients and looking at sending people as far away as Seattle for care, members of a regional health department board voted Thursday to repeal a local mask mandate. "Most of our medical surgical beds at Kootenai Health are full," Panhandle Health District epidemiologist Jeff Lee told board members in the state's third most populated county. The hospital in Coeur d'Alene reached 99% capacity a day earlier, even after doubling up patients in rooms and buying more hospital beds. Idaho is one of several states where a surge of COVID-19 infections is overwhelming hospitals, likely in part because cooler weather is sending people indoors, U.S. health officials said. A Kootenai Health nurse works on a computer while caring for a patient on the COVID-19 isolation ward at the hospital in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in an undated photo provided by Kootenai Health. Kootenai Health/Handout"We're facing staff shortages, and we have a lot of physician fatigue. This has been going on for seven months we're tired," Lee said. He introduced several doctors who testified about the struggle COVID-19 patients face, the burden on hospitals and how masks reduce the spread of the virus. But the board voted 4-3 to end the mask mandate. Board members overseeing the operations of Idaho's public health districts are appointed by county commissioners and not required to have any medical experience. Board member Walt Kirby said he was giving up on the idea of controlling the spread of coronavirus. "I personally do not care whether anybody wears a mask or not. If they want to be dumb enough to walk around and expose themselves and others, that's fine with me," Kirby said. "Nobody's wearing the damned mask anyway... I'm sitting back and watching them catch it and die. Hopefully I'll live through it." Another member, Allen Banks, denied COVID-19 exists. "Something's making these people sick, and I'm pretty sure that it's not coronavirus, so the question that you should be asking is, 'What's making them sick?'" he told the medical professionals who testified. Similar scenes with doctors and nurses asking officials for help, only to be met with reluctance or even open skepticism have played out across the conservative state. Idaho is sixth in the nation for new coronavirus cases per capita, with the average number of confirmed cases increasing by more than 55% every day over the past two weeks. Still, Republican Gov. Brad Little has declined to issue a statewide mask mandate or limit crowd sizes beyond requiring social distancing at large events and in businesses, which is seldom enforced. Instead, Little has left it up to local health departments and school districts to make the tough decisions that sometimes come with blowback from the public. In the southern city of Twin Falls, hospital officials told health board members this week that they too were in danger of being overwhelmed, with one out of every four hospitalized patients sick with COVID-19. The region's hospitals, operated by St. Luke's Health System, have been forced to postpone non-emergency surgeries and ship patients elsewhere. "I want to be very clear: Punting those decisions is saying we're willing to put that burden on the shoulders of our frontline staff," Mike Fenello, St. Luke's vice president of population health, told board members in asking for a mask mandate Wednesday. "Will you please help those on the front lines? They need you to help." Instead, board members decided to write a letter to the governor asking him for a statewide mask requirement. The board did restrict indoor gatherings to 50 people, except for grocery stores, schools, religious institutions, polling places and nonprofits. In central Idaho, Adams County commissioners have approved a resolution rescinding all orders, recommendations and restrictions related to COVID-19. "And we resolve that Adams County is open for business and back to normal," the commissioners wrote. Adams County is very sparsely populated, with about 4,250 residents. So far, it's been relatively untouched by the virus, with just 32 documented cases. Health leaders in the Boise region and in eastern Idaho have been more willing to take sometimes unpopular steps. Residents in Ada County, Idaho's most populated, and Valley County, a resort destination with many visitors, are required to wear masks in public, and health officials have issued safety recommendations to schools. Idaho reported 987 new COVID-19 cases Thursday, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, bringing the total to more than 56,600 since the pandemic began. Infections are thought to be higher, but obscured by a lack of testing and other factors. At least 553 people have died of the virus, including seven reported Thursday.

###CLAIM: understandable, say those who see why the biden administration is trying to get more resources for helping the nicaraguans. ###DOCS: The Biden administration is seeking short-term responses, including through diplomacy. Long-term solutions would involve steps such as improving a byzantine and backlogged asylum system, offering more short-term work visas, and punishing companies that exploit unauthorized migrant labor, says Irasema Coronado, director of the Arizona State University School of Transborder Studies. But substantial reform would take congressional approval, rendering it all but fanciful given the 50-50 Senate. Add a rebounding American economy also affecting flows of migrants from Mexico and the U.S. can appear like a particular land of promise. President Joe Biden has also taken a notably less harsh approach to immigration than his predecessor, Donald Trump. A stunning surge in irregular immigration caught the Biden administration off guard. But some experts say the crisis-like conditions are less about numbers of people than how the U.S. responds. Why the surge? As has been the case since 2014, a big factor is families and children fleeing Central America to escape poverty, gang violence, poor governance, and natural disasters. The United States is facing levels of irregular immigration this year that could exceed anything seen in 20 years. Immigration officers encountered more than 170,000 migrants at the border in March, accelerating a trend that began late last year. Just under 19,000 of those arriving were unaccompanied children, almost 8,000 more than the previous monthly record set in May 2019. The rapid increase in irregular immigration raises the prospect of U.S. border apprehensions and encounters this year exceeding anything seen in two decades. A record number of unaccompanied minors arrived last month, scrambling immigration services to increase capacity. Sheltering them alone is reportedly costing more than $60 million each week. After an initially sluggish response, President Joe Bidens administration is seeking short- and long-term solutions to the potential humanitarian crisis, likely without the aid of a stubbornly divided Congress. Why We Wrote This A stunning surge in irregular immigration caught the Biden administration off guard. But some experts say the crisis-like conditions are less about numbers of people than how the U.S. responds. What is the current situation on the southwest border? The past few months have been chaos. According to monthly figures from Customs and Border Protection (CBP), immigration officers encountered more than 170,000 migrants at the border in March, accelerating a trend that began late last year. About 100,000 migrants were expelled under Title 42, permitting refusal of entry to prevent the spread of infectious disease. Just under 19,000 of those arriving were unaccompanied children, almost 8,000 more than the previous monthly record set in May 2019. Border crossings rise and fall cyclically, increasing in the first half of the year, with warmer weather and seasonal employment, and later dropping. Unique about this year is the sheer volume of arrivals, says Jessica Bolter, an associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy InstituteDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, Health and Human Services reduced its shelter capacity to comply with social distancing guidelines. But even full capacity wouldnt have been able to meet current demand. Entering an overloaded system, many children are spending weeks in temporary CBP shelters meant to house them for no more than 72 hours, without showers, programming, or the ability to contact family. The number of people who are coming don't constitute a crisis, says Ms. Bolter. But the way that the government has managed it or not managed it has led to some crisis-like conditions.Whats causing the increase in border crossings? A mix of circumstance and policy change. Since 2014, irregular immigration at the southwest border has been dominated by families and children fleeing Central America to escape poverty, gang violence, poor governance, and natural disasters, says Tony Payan, director of the Center for the United States and Mexico at Rice Universitys Baker Institute for Public Policy. Dario Lopez-Mills/AP Young migrants watch television inside a playpen at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, the main detention center for unaccompanied children in the Rio Grande Valley, in Donna, Texas, on March 30, 2021. Migrant families will be held temporarily at hotels in the Phoenix area in response to a growing number of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, authorities said on April 9. The same factors are at work today, he says including two hurricanes that buffeted Guatemala and Honduras late last year and are likely causing increased emigration from the two countries. Add to those factors the rebounding American economy, and the U.S. can appear like a particular land of promise for those in Central America continuing to shoulder the economic burden of COVID-19. (That has helped fuel a resurgence in migrant numbers from Mexico, too.) Mr. Biden has also taken a notably less harsh approach to immigration than his predecessor, Donald Trump. After facing a similar surge in 2019, the Trump administration responded with near-draconian border policies in 2020, often turning migrants away before they could even reach the U.S.It is clear that there are people that understood that the Biden administration would be more lenient and more generous, says Irasema Coronado, director of the Arizona State University School of Transborder Studies. Tangible policy change between the two administrations has come in three areas. The Biden administration is no longer expelling children under Title 42, is no longer separating families at the border, and has ended the Migrant Protection Protocol also known as remain in Mexico which forced those seeking asylum to wait in Mexico until their hearing. Smugglers will often exaggerate policy changes to boost business, says Ms. Bolter, and its unclear just how informed many migrants are before they undertake the often-perilous journey north. Easing coronavirus restrictions in the Americas has also contributed to the influx, experts say. How is the Biden administration responding? It wasnt until late February and early March (before Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra was confirmed) that increasing shelter capacity became a priority for the administration, says Ms. Bolter. Since then the administration has sought to add facilities for incoming migrants and named a special envoy to the Northern Triangle, reflecting a Biden focus on diplomacy. The president also tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to lead a policy response to the issue. Long-term solutions would involve steps like simplifying the byzantine U.S. asylum system with more than 1.3 million cases assigned to around 460 judges offering more short-term work visas, and punishing companies that exploit unauthorized migrant labor, says Professor Coronado. Substantial reform would take congressional approval, though, rendering it all but fanciful given the 50-50 Senate. Get stories thatempower and uplift daily. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads. That reality leaves the Biden administration which recently struck deals with Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala to increase border enforcement in their countries in a bind, says Mr. Payan. It needs to be regularized. ... It needs to be stopped, he says. But how? Life Is 'Really Tough' For Refugees Trying To Settle In Pandemic AmericaEnlarge this image toggle caption Jose Luis Magana/AP Jose Luis Magana/APThe loneliest part of coming to America is the first few months, says Mustafa Nuur, who came as a refugee from Somalia in 2014. Now, the coronavirus makes it so much harder for newcomers, he says. Despite the pandemic, the U.S. admitted 21,533 refugees in 2020, some arriving as late as September, according to refugee resettlement agencies citing official numbers. "Everybody is getting overwhelmed," says Nuur, who helps newly arrived refugees get settled in Lancaster, Pa. "Most of the refugees and immigrants that I work with were working in service jobs and restaurant jobs. All of those jobs are going away right now. Everybody's panicking," he says. Federal financial support for refugees ends at 90 days, when they are expected to become self-sufficient. That hasn't changed during the pandemic. Now, refugees fear eviction and poverty as jobs are scarce. The usual challenges of moving to a new country are all the more daunting when many schools, offices, banks and places of worship are closed and work is drying up. This comes at a time when many of the nonprofit agencies that resettle refugees are in financial peril, decimated by Trump administration cutbacks, and are hopeful for a reboot under President Biden. "Mental health and groceries"Two years ago, Nuur launched a startup called Bridge, connecting local residents in Lancaster with refugees to have home-cooked meals and cross-cultural experiences together. The pandemic paused the project and he's had to shift his efforts. Enlarge this image toggle caption Cardiff Garcia/NPR Cardiff Garcia/NPR"We focus on mental health and on groceries," says Nuur. "For mental health, we try to communicate and give the family a sense of community every week. One Zoom call and then we drop off groceries." In Louisville, Ky., Maha Kolko, a caseworker at the nonprofit group Kentucky Refugee Ministries, notes that it's not just the shutdowns but the slowdowns of getting settled that are difficult for the newly arrived. She is frustrated that refugee families who arrived in September are only now getting appointments to apply for a Social Security Number, which is key for getting a job, paying taxes and applying for public benefits. "This is what I can't understand. If the U.S. government allows them to come here as refugees, what are the reasons for delaying their application process?" says Kolko. "It's been tough with COVID-19 and Trump." Kolko knows the uncertainty of resettlement all too well, "feeling the pain and agony of waiting," she says, as she awaits her asylum hearing. She was a linguistics professor at Damascus University in Syria but fled her country's civil war in 2013. "When I came here, running for my life, I didn't know what to do. What is the next step?" she says. The coronavirus pandemic has made answers harder when even the first welcomes are socially distant, with just a wave from the front lawn for newcomers. "We meet the family just from outdoor meetings to make them feel that they don't need to worry that they have enough support in the community," Kolko says. She boosts community support by organizing church volunteers to deliver donations, especially during the holidays. "Christmas trees with all the ornaments, food cards, some clothing. A lot of faith community groups are doing this. I'm really proud of Louisville," she says, beaming. Pandemic stressesAcademic Bethany Letiecq has been tracking the pandemic's stresses on refugee families. "If you are a refugee, coming here with very little, English might be limited, job opportunities can be limited, trying to just meet your family's basic needs can be a full-time job," says Letiecq, associate professor of human development and family science at Maryland's George Mason University. Many depend on community food banks when paychecks disappear without notice, Letiecq says, and most local rental assistance programs are only short term. "Maybe a month of rental support, but we've been in a pandemic for so many months," she says. Eviction is a real fear, says Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, the CEO and president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, one of the nine domestic resettlement agencies that coordinate with the State Department. "A significant part of the population that we're serving right now face this as a real threat," she says. Enlarge this image toggle caption Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for Fortune Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for FortuneDespite a federal moratorium on evictions for renters and homeowners who fall short of payments and a ban in almost every state on ousting tenants affected by COVID-19, these rules only work if they're enforced, say tenant activists. "Some landlords are a bit more stubborn and still try to proceed," adds O'Mara Vignarajah. Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service launched Neighbors in Need, she says, a private fund-raising initiative. "About half of all the funds that we disbursed were for emergency housing assistance to refugees," says O'Mara Vignarajah. "Our clients have been hit hard, far too many families are holding on by a thread," she continues, because many either work in the informal sector or they had jobs in the service industry. "What we did see was a significant downturn overnight." Biden's pledgesPresident Biden extended the federal eviction moratorium through March as one of his first executive actions following his inauguration Wednesday. He has also called on lawmakers to pass an additional $30 billion in emergency aid for rent and household energy and water costs, and $5 billion for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. Historically, the U.S. has taken in more refugees than any other country, but the Trump administration slashed admissions to record lows. That meant deep cuts for resettlement agencies as their federal funding tracks with refugee admissions numbers. Biden made a campaign pledge to boost the annual admissions cap to 125,000 people. O'Mara Vignarajah hopes private donations to resettle refugees continue until more federal money is available but "normal" is still a long way off, she says. "It's really, really tough and difficult," says Mustafa Nuur, who will apply for U.S. citizenship this year. "But I keep getting encouraged because all of these families have made it through the worst of the situation." MSNBC anchor Ayman Mohyeldin said Saturday that climate change has played a noticable factor in the overwhelming surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Reporting from Guatemala, Mohyeldin told viewers the deep structural and economic problems in the country are "compounded" by both the coronavirus pandemic and climate change. Climate change, he said, is "making the farmland and agricultural base ... that much harder to sustain the economic needs of a country that has 17 million people." So, he concluded, thousands are flocking to the U.S.TEXAS GOV. ABBOT WARNS BORDER WOES 'WILL GET WORSE'; POINTS TO 'BIPARTISAN RESPONSE' TO BIDEN ADMINMohyeldin expanded on that argument on his Twitter page, citing natural disasters as one of the culprits for the mass migration. Thousands of unaccompanied minors are crowding holding facilities at the border amid a record migrant surge. Border Patrol agents reported encountering 170,000 migrants along tthe Mexican border in March, a 20-year high. TRAGIC TO SEE BIDEN ADMIN 'FLIP SWITCH' AND REVERSE TRUMP POLICIES AT BORDER: MIKE POMPEOMohyeldin says he "sees" and understands why the Biden administration is trying to get more resources to help Guatemalans. But Republican lawmakers have blamed the crisis on President Bidens decision to reverse several Trump administration immigration policies, such as the Remain in Mexico measure, which required asylum seekers to wait in Mexico until it was their turn in U.S. immigration court. Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, R., has fumed that the current administration initially denied media access in border facilities. That's because Biden, Jordan alleged, does not "want the American people to know what's going on." CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPBiden has yet to visit the border to assess the situation for himself, yet has tapped Vice President Kamala Harris as his border czar. Critics have observed she's been mostly silent on her new role, failing to hold a press conference since the appointment.

###CLAIM: the rittenhouse case highlighted the divisions in the united states over racial and gun control issues. ###DOCS: Kyle Rittenhouse, Accused In Kenosha Shootings, Pleads Not Guilty To All ChargesEnlarge this image toggle caption Nam Y. Huh/AP Nam Y. Huh/APUpdated 5:08 p.m. ETKyle Rittenhouse, a young gunman facing criminal charges in the killing of two men and the serious injury of a third this summer in Kenosha, Wis., entered not guilty pleas to all charges during an arraignment Tuesday. Rittenhouse, now 18, appeared before Kenosha County Circuit Court Commissioner Loren Keating by video link from the office of his attorney Mark Richards. He is free on $2 million bail, largely provided by donors. Rittenhouse was wearing a light blue shirt and dark tie along with a black facial covering. Keating asked Rittenhouse if he understood that the previously imposed conditions of bond and bail "remain in full force and effect." "Yes sir," Rittenhouse replied. The charges facing Rittenhouse include first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide and attempted first-degree intentional reckless homicide. An additional charge of violation of curfew the night of the shootings was added last week, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Rittenhouse is accused of shooting three men Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum, who were killed, and Gaige Grosskreutz, who was seriously wounded during unrest in the city following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. The not guilty pleas by Rittenhouse come as Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers authorized the mobilization of 500 of the state's National Guard troops while officials ready for potentially more unrest in Kenosha. Michael Graveley, the Kenosha County district attorney, announced Tuesday that no charges will be brought against the white Kenosha police officer who shot Blake, a Black man, several times at close range in August. The Rittenhouse case has highlighted divisions in the United States on issues of race and gun control. Conservative groups and sympathizers have sought to paint Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time of the Aug. 25 shootings, as a staunch supporter of the Blue Lives Matter movement and a patriot. He is said to have crossed into Wisconsin from Antioch, Ill., near the Wisconsin-Illinois border where he lives, to join militiamen who were purported to be in Kenosha to help law enforcement protect property from being destroyed during the August protests. Black Lives Matter supporters and others have sought to characterize Rittenhouse as a white vigilante, who brought a semiautomatic weapon to already destructive demonstrations with the intent of stoking more violence. A pretrial conference for Rittenhouse is scheduled for March 10. Kyle Rittenhouse's mother has vowed to 'take down' Joe Biden after the President-elect used a photograph of her son in a campaign advert featuring white supremacists. Wendy Rittenhouse's son Kyle, 17, traveled from his home in Antioch, Illinois to the Wisconsin city on the night of August 25, amid protests at the police shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake. Armed with an assault rifle, Kyle was swept up in the melee and opened fire, killing two protesters and wounded a third. Wendy, a single mother of three, said he was acting in self defense, and attacked Biden for showing her son alongside neo-Nazis in a campaign video. 'I will take him down,' she said of the president-elect. Wendy Rittenhouse appeared on Fox News on Thursday night to defend her son KyleTucker Carlson's Interview w/ Kyle Rittenhouse's Mother About Her Family's Lawsuit Against The Joe Biden Campaign For Smearing Her SonWendy Rittenhouse: "How dare him do that to my son. That's my son that he did that to & I'm not going to back down from him." pic.twitter.com/c90b26dvj7 The Columbia Bugle (@ColumbiaBugle) November 13, 2020Biden shared a video clip on Twitter denouncing white supremacists that including a photo of Rittenhouse wielding a gunOn Thursday night she appeared on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox News and said she was suing Biden for defamation after her son's image appeared in a Biden campaign video, in which Biden called on Donald Trump to condemn white supremacists. In the September campaign clip, Fox News' Chris Wallace, moderator in the first presidential debate, is heard asking: 'Are you willing, tonight, to condemn white supremacists and militia groups?' Kyle Rittenhouse, at 17, was not legally allowed to carry a gun in WisconsinThe clip features various extremist groups marching, and an image of Kyle from August 25. Asked by Carlson how she felt on seeing her son in the Biden campaign, along with torch-carrying white supremacists, she replied: 'How dare him do that to my son? That's my son that he did that too. 'And I'm not going to back down from him and he is not a white supremacist. He's not a racist. 'He is my son and I know him and he is none of that what Joe Biden said.' Wendy said that he son was 'a caring young man'. 'He went to Kenosha to help people and what Joe Biden did and showed my son's picture, his image, and labeled him as a white supremacist, I will take him down.' Carlson asked why she thought Biden used her son in the campaign. 'To win the election,' she said. 'Cheaters don't win and he used my son's image to get votes.' Her son is currently in Kenosha county jail. Rittenhouse, seen lying on his back on the ground, shot and killed Kenosha protestersRittenhouse looked up to law enforcement and was part of a 'police explorer' programShe then appealed to Fox News viewers to donate to her son's legal fund. Wendy said she didn't know her son was planning on going to Kenosha on the August night. She said he intended to clean graffiti, and went there with his medical kit to help people. 'You know, every day I think about my son. I wish he didn't go,' she said. 'But he's a caring young man that wanted to help.' On Tuesday Wendy told the Chicago Tribune that neither her son nor the protesters should have been on the street that night, and put much of the blame for what happened on police and the governor. 'It's a tragedy what happened to Mr Blake. It is,' she said. 'But my son and everybody else should not have been in Kenosha. 'The police should have helped the businesses out instead of having a 17-year-old kid helping him. 'The police should have been involved with these people that lost their businesses. They should have stepped up.' Joe Biden used Rittenhouse's image in a campaign advert in SeptemberRittenhouse is shown opening fire on Joseph Rosenbaum on the night of August 25She stressed that she understands the pressure the police are under and said Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, should have deployed reinforcements. A Kenosha County court commissioner determined that Kyle Rittenhouse would be a flight risk if he was released from jail and ordered his bail to remain at $2 million. Wendy dismissed any suggestion that her son could flee, telling the paper: 'I have $1.20 in my bank account. You think I can get on a plane?' The Rittenhouse case has attracted significant conservative financial support. Her attorney, John Pierce, said a legal defense fund has raised nearly $2 million, and that Rittenhouse has received a total of $100,000 for personal expenses from an organization that supports gun rights and another that backs domestic militias. Pierce told the newspaper he has control of that money. Rittenhouse's mugshot, taken on August 26 by the Antioch police departmentRittenhouse appears via video during a hearing in Waukegan, Illinois on October 9Rittenhouse in court on October 30 for his extradition hearing, sending him to WisconsinPresident Donald Trump has suggested the shootings may have been justified because it appeared Kyle Rittenhouse was trying to fend off violent attackers. Videos show armed civilians arriving in Kenosha after a local militia group, the Kenosha Guard, put out a call to arms on Facebook. Police didn't stop them as they walked down the street and, in one video, officers handed them bottles of water. In another video, Kyle Rittenhouse, armed with an assault rifle, explained to a reporter that he was protecting a business from looting. His mother told the Tribune he doesn't belong to the Kenosha Guard or any militia group and prosecutors also have not suggested any connection between her son and militias. She declined to discuss how her son acquired the weapon that he used in the shootings. Dominic Black, an 18-year-old friend of Rittenhouse, told authorities that he purchased the weapon at a hardware store in Wisconsin. On Monday, a court commissioner set Black's bail at $2,500 on felony charges that he supplied a dangerous weapon to a minor, causing death. According to police reports, Black told investigators that Wendy Rittenhouse had been planning to apply for a firearm owner's identification card in Illinois so they could legally keep the weapon in Antioch. Wendy Rittenhouse told the newspaper that she sees nothing wrong with teenagers possessing firearms.

###CLAIM: ken clarke, the former health secretary, accused ministers yesterday of exasperating the public and spreading disillusionment by promising impossible results. ###DOCS: Parents, teachers and children face being put to the back of the queue for Covid tests as Matt Hancock admitted yesterday swabs will have to be rationed. In a humiliating climbdown, the Health Secretary said a 'priority list' would ensure environments such as care homes and hospitals would have enough. However, it comes at the expense of millions of others, with warnings issued that the UK was being put into 'lockdown by default' as a result of the shortage of tests. Hundreds of schools have been partially or completely closed because of coronavirus cases - both proven and suspected - leading to fears of a domino effect, resulting in parents not being able to go to work and the return of empty offices. More than one in 10 children were not in classes last Thursday, figures show, as the National Governance Association claims the growing number of pupils and staff awaiting tests could cripple parent confidence in getting their children back to school. It comes as teachers will today hold a protest outside the Department for Education, arguing that the lack of tests, and the inability of staff, pupils and parents to get to the front of the queue, is stopping schools returning to normal. One told the i that they had been unable to book a test for their daughter on Sunday either online or on the phone despite trying on an hourly basis. Her efforts involved driving to a local test centre, which proved to be closed, and then to Gatwick, where despite being the only car waiting, she was turned away as they were only available 'for those who have booked'. Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, told the Telegraph: 'We are getting reports of bubbles of 250 children being sent home. People on the ground are telling me this is not sustainable and they cannot keep their schools open. 'Children are being sent home who cannot get tests, and parents are being forced to take two weeks off to look after them. We will end up in an effective lockdown. There is an escalating sense that we will end up with a return to lockdown by default.' Heath Secretary Matt Hancock speaking in the House of Commons, LondonIn a torrid session in the Commons, the Health Secretary was also forced to admit the current critical shortages could drag on for weeks. The public had been told to seek tests 'if in doubt'. But checks by the Mail found that 46 of the 49 virus hotspots including Bolton, Bradford and Oldham had no swabs to offer. Preston, one of the three areas providing tests said they were not available until January and 22 miles away. Mr Hancock is considering making GPs 'gatekeepers' for the system, according to ITV's Robert Peston. This would mean patients would get a test only on their say-so. Peston also reported that if the rule of six did not flatten the pandemic curve within two weeks further lockdown measures would be brought in. Long queues were seen outside testing centres yesterday, involving many desperate people who had failed to get an online appointment but turned up anyway. A healthcare worker was one of around 150 outside a walk-in centre in Bury, where infection rates have reached an alarming 77.5 per 100,000 residents. She shaded herself with an umbrella at the site where staff say they have been 'overwhelmed'. Lines also formed in Birmingham and Southend but in a sign of the general chaos other test centres were nearly empty. Concerns were also growing about the Government's seven 'lighthouse labs' and their ability to process results, due to shortages of staff and equipment. One MP said her constituents in Twickenham, south-west London, had been told to travel to Aberdeen to book a test. Munira Wilson, Lib Dem health spokesman, said: 'We were promised a world-beating test and trace system but what we have at the moment is an utter shambles.' Ministers first faced a crisis over testing early on in the first wave of Covid when a campaign by the Mail led to Mr Hancock vowing to deliver 100,000 tests a day. That pledge was later raised to 200,000, then 500,000 by the end of October and now four million by next February under the ambitious 'Operation Moonshot'. However, the system has been thrown back into chaos in recent days because demand for tests has massively increased, overwhelming laboratories. Staff direct vehicles entering a coronavirus testing centre in GloucesterThe surge has resulted from a rise in daily cases, the return of schools, the rolling-out of regular swabs to care homes and an increase in outbreaks. As a result, there has been a deluge of complaints that people cannot access tests locally or that they have to wait too long to find out if they are positive or negative. Schools have been closed while teachers wait for results on sick pupils. NHS leaders warn of a crisis in hospitals, with medics forced to stay away from work and operations cancelled. Figures yesterday showed that 227,075 tests were carried out across the UK in the previous 24 hours but that was down from 231,969 on Monday and from 250,839 on Sunday. Mr Hancock was yesterday summoned to the Commons to answer an urgent question from Labour on the fiasco. Asked whether the issue would be sorted this week, he replied: 'I think we will be able to solve this problem in a matter of weeks.' Last night former health secretary Ken Clarke accused ministers of 'irritating' the public and spreading 'disillusion' by making impossible promises on testing. Citing testing problems, Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle said: 'This is completely unacceptable and totally undermines track and trace so I have raised my concerns with ministers to push for action to be taken as a matter of urgency.' Dr Layla McCay of the NHS Confederation, which represents healthcare organisations, said: 'Our members are telling us that lack of access to testing for staff is a major barrier to them delivering services and achieving targets set to restore services. 'We seem light years away from the world-beating test-and-trace system that we were promised. Every week we wait for these problems to be resolved is a week of some NHS staff not being able to go to work, and a week that makes it harder to identify and contain Covid-19 surges.' Mr Hancock is preparing to publish a 'priority list' within the next few days which will be used as a rulebook for testing centres in determining who is offered a swab. This was the queue at Southend's Covid testing site at 8am, as hundreds of people tried to get a testCurrently anyone, in theory, should be offered one regardless of whether they are a key worker or even have symptoms. But the list will spell out to centres that if there are shortages of testing capacity, priority will be given to NHS and care home staff as well as to patients, key workers and school pupils. Anyone else faces being refused a test until the capacity is ramped up. Ministers are also planning to open up two huge lighthouse labs to process test results. Seven are in operation in Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Newport, Glasgow, Alderley Park in Cheshire, Loughborough in Leicestershire and Antrim in Northern Ireland.The increase in demand has been largely driven by schools going back as children spread coughs and colds. Anxious parents are booking the whole family in for tests to avoid lengthy self-isolation. The surge in virus cases has sparked worry among the public, and ministers have claimed people are booking tests before going on holiday even though they don't have any symptoms. At the same time, experts believe testing capacity has been hit by a shortage of equipment and staff, including postgraduate students who have gone back to university. Last night a leaked memo obtained by The Guardian claimed that the lighthouse labs were stretched to capacity even in late August. How - Page 20Workers sit around at an almost empty Covid test centre. Covid-19 test centre at Milton Park and ride CambridgeSix months on... but just as cluelessAnalysis by BEN SPENCERDoctors having to stay off work because they can't get a test. Pleas for university scientists to help process a huge backlog of swabs. Sound familiar? Those stories dominated the headlines at the end of March. Incredibly, nearly six months on, they have resurfaced. So how did it get to this? The Government spent April and May dealing with their testing failures by building a huge new system that was meant to be able to provide a test to every person who needed one. First, we were promised 100,000 tests a day, then 250,000, then 400,000. Finally, last week, came Boris Johnson's 'moonshot' announcement 'literally millions' of people would be tested every day 'in the near future', he claimed. It sounded remarkable a pathway back to normality. But the reality? On most days in the past few weeks the system has struggled to process even 150,000 swabs a day, and is now facing a backlog of at least 185,000. People with symptoms are regularly told there is no test available unless they are willing to travel hundreds of miles. And yesterday Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced a new 'prioritisation' list, making clear that patients and care home residents would be front of the queue. So why has this vast testing system so dramatically crumbled? The core reason is that demand has soared and the network of laboratories that process the tests simply cannot keep up. Infections are doubling every week and for each person who tests positive, there are up to 100 more who need a test even if they're found to be negative. The start of the school term has also meant a spike in seasonal coughs and colds, which has led to even greater demand. But all of this was foreseeable. Scientists have long warned that the testing system must be fit for purpose by the time the schools return, and even more importantly, in time for a predicted second Covid spike this winter. Sir John Bell, at the University of Oxford, said ministers had 'underestimated' the speed at which cases would surge and the extra demand from children going back to school. 'They are definitely behind the curve,' he said. But instead of accepting they were caught unawares yet again ministers have instead blamed the public for 'frivolously' seeking tests when they do not have symptoms. Given that ministers and officials spent the summer trying to persuade people to seek tests, this is not only unfair but also misleading. The Government seems intent on diverting attention away from fundamental problems with its network of seven privately run 'Lighthouse' labs, set up in the spring. At the time, scientists questioned why ministers were turning to the private sector, instead of using the expertise in Britain's university labs. The Lighthouse labs are now reportedly dealing with a staffing shortfall. There have also been issues with reliability. Allan Wilson, the president of the Institute of Biomedical Science, the professional body for lab scientists, said: 'We are calling for transparency. We need someone to lift the lid on the Lighthouse labs and say what is the capacity.' With cases on the rise, and no quick solution in sight, the problems of last spring are definitely back and they seem set to stretch into the winter. Care boss: Act now or deaths in homes will soar againTesting in care homes must improve or there may be more deaths, England's care chief has warned. Professor Martin Green said testing within the sector 'has gone backwards' with long delays to get tests and results. The Government's pledge of weekly testing for staff and monthly testing for residents is not being met in many areas, he said, potentially allowing the virus to spread unchecked. The warning comes as Health Secretary Matt Hancock vowed to put care homes at the front of the queue while announcing plans to ration coronavirus tests for those most in need. On the frontline: Staff at Shedfield Lodge care home near Southampton, which received a delivery of PPE from Mail-backed charity Mail Force, have struggled to get test resultsThe rise in coronavirus infections has seen cases creep up in care homes, with official figures showing 513 cases recorded in homes between August 31 and September 6. Cases have mainly been among staff so far but there are fears it could spread to residents, leading to more catastrophic fatalities. 'Don't keep children off with a cold' Parents should not keep their children off school if they're likely to be suffering from a cold, a top doctor said. GP Dr Sarah Jarvis said the average child gets up to 12 colds or viral infections a year. She suggested children would 'spend virtually no time' at school if they were kept off every time they had the sniffles. But if children cough for more than an hour or have three or more coughing episodes in 24 hours, they should stay at home, she said. 'If they've just got a runny nose or sneezing but they haven't got a fever, haven't got a cough and they haven't got this change in sense of smell or taste then NHS 111 advises they don't need testing and the NHS website says the same,' she told Radio 4's World at One. 'Given we don't think it's likely they're going to have Covid, I would suggest you don't keep them off school if you wouldn't have done otherwise,' she said. 'Children get so many of these things every year that if we keep every child who has a runny nose off school then they will spend virtually no time there,' she added. AdvertisementEarlier this week the Government wrote to care home providers in England to warn them of a rise in coronavirus infections within the sector. The letter, from the director of adult social care delivery, urged bosses to 'take necessary action to prevent and limit outbreaks'. It has led hundreds of homes to be closed to visitors again, just a month after re-opening. Local public health officials are now directing whether visits should still be permitted, depending on infection rates in that area. Professor Green, chief executive of Care England which represents independent providers of adult social care, said homes were desperate to allow visitors but had to 'balance the risk of bringing in Covid'. 'If we don't improve testing, there is a real risk of repeating deaths earlier this year,' he said. Testing has been frustratingly 'sporadic' according to the manager of Shedfield Lodge care home near Southampton in Hampshire. The home, which received a vital batch of personal protective equipment in April from the Mail Force charity backed by this newspaper, has had no trouble getting hold of the kits. But some staff and residents are still waiting for their results weeks later, despite a supposed 72-hour turnaround time. Manager Alicia Taskis said yesterday: 'The results have been sporadic. Some staff have received no results. Some staff have waited a lot longer than 72 hours. We sent 20 testing kits off on Friday and currently nobody has got one back.' The surge in community infections has seen two of the largest national care operators close homes to visitors. Care UK has closed 48 of its 124 care homes to visitors temporarily while HC-One has done the same at 133 of its 329 homes and is restricting visits in areas that have seen spikes in cases. A Department of Health spokesman said: 'We have been doing everything we can to ensure all staff and residents in care homes are protected.' Patients denied surgery without Covid all-clearPatients are being denied operations because they cannot get a test to prove they are virus-free. One man had his surgery postponed by two weeks even though his consultant wanted to bring it forward after the testing centre lost his result. Operations and appointments have been cancelled because patients cannot book a slot to prove they do not have the virus. Gavin Zembrzuski, 31, was meant to be having knee surgery on Monday but it has now been postponed until the end of the month because his local testing centre lost the result. Gavin Zembrzuski, 31, was meant to be having knee surgery on Monday but it has now been postponed until the end of the month because his local testing centre lost the resultPatients undergoing NHS surgery must have had a negative test result three days before the procedure otherwise it cannot go ahead. Mr Zembrzuski, who lives in Llandrindod, in Powys, Wales, said: 'If they can't manage a minor operation like my knee, I fear for people who need surgery for life-threatening conditions like cancer.' Yesterday hospital leaders warned that the testing fiasco was affecting routine services as NHS staff were also having to take time off self-isolating. NHS Providers said senior staff in London, Bristol and Leeds had reported doctors and nurses calling in sick, unable to get a test. Chris Hopson, chief executive of the organisation, which represents hospitals and other acute trusts, said the health service 'simply can't spare members of staff waiting for tests, not being able to come into work'. He added: 'We have now got cases where patients who should be being treated, we can't treat them because they can't get access to a test. So for them that's a real problem.' Delays hit teachers ... so hundreds of pupils miss lessonsAcademies boss Steve ChalkeSchools are being 'let down' by delays with Covid-19 testing which are keeping hundreds of pupils off lessons across the country, an academy boss claimed yesterday. And the Government's 'chaotic' handling of the crisis is causing massive disruption to education. Headteachers have complained a 'lack of sufficient capacity' means a single virus case at a school can leave several pupil groups in isolation because they are unable to find out if they are infected. Steve Chalke, founder of the Oasis academy trust, said eight of its schools have had to send home a total of 1,200 pupils to self-isolate, including whole year groups. Oasis Academy South Bank in central London has sent 240 children home because a single teacher tested positive. Other staff members told to isolate as a precaution have been unable to get tests. Mr Chalke said: 'We feel let down... What schools need is on site testing, they need bulk testing, they need regular testing.' He attacked the 'massive disruption to the education of every child'. James Bowen, of school leaders' union NAHT, said there was 'chaos being caused by the inability of staff and families to successfully get tested when they display symptoms'. Over 30 schools have told at least one full cohort to stay home or closed down altogether after one coronavirus case, it emerged yesterday. A Government spokesman said children and school staff should only get a test if they develop symptoms. Pictured is one of academies boss Steve Chalke's schools, which sent 240 pupils homeJust three of the top 49 hotspots have tests availableBy Sam Greenhill, Jake Hurfurt and Andy Dolan for the Daily MailNo coronavirus tests were available yesterday in 46 out of England's top 49 infection hotspots, a snap survey has revealed. In most places where people reported symptoms, the official Covid-19 test booking system simply said: 'No slots available'. Swab kit shortage blow to airports Plans to reopen Britain's skies with an airport testing regime are being delayed by a shortage of coronavirus tests, Heathrow's boss said last night. John Holland-Kaye revealed the Department for Transport is eager to get airside testing facilities up and running to save the economy. But he said the Government has yet to approve the plans. He told Channel 4 News: 'The blockage is around the capacity for testing facilities. Now we've been talking to private suppliers to get around this either for the same test that the Government uses for the NHS...or moving to one of these new rapid point-of-care tests the Prime Minister was talking about last week.' He added: 'As I understand it, the only thing holding us back is the Government's concern about the capacity for testing.' It comes after MPs and business chiefs warned the failure to test air passengers is having a disastrous effect on the economy. They are backing the Daily Mail's Get Britain Flying Again campaign for an airport testing regime. Dozens of countries have introduced airport testing to restart their economies but the UK is one of a few to insist on a blanket 14-day quarantine of arrivals from high-risk destinations. Last week the International Air Transport Association warned the UK will lose its position as the third-biggest global aviation market unless testing is introduced. Airports have given ministers until the end of the month to come up with a solution. Heathrow has set up a multi-million pound facility and is in talks with private firms that can provide virus test results quickly without taking capacity away from the NHS. Last night Mr Holland-Kaye asked: 'If the capacity is there and we've got the facilities set up at Heathrow, why can't we get on with it?' It came as the European Commission revealed plans that could force all British travellers to get a test before going on holiday. It is pushing for a 'traffic light' warning system of red, amber and green nations so that the entire bloc uses the same criteria for restricting travel. However, passengers who present a negative test certificate could have quarantine time shortened or scrapped altogether. UK ministers are said to be considering adopting the model. A Department for Transport spokesman said work was ongoing with medical experts and the travel industry 'to consider if and how testing could be used to reduce the self-isolation period'. AdvertisementOne exception was Preston, Lancashire, where a test was offered for anyone willing to travel 22 miles and wait until next year. Users also reported that if you live in London, but enter a postcode for Aberdeen, you are offered a test in the capital. In another quirk, there was nothing available in Liverpool yesterday, but people there were being directed to cross the River Mersey to Wirral, while those in Wirral itself were being sent to Deeside, 11 miles south. Meanwhile, many testing sites appeared to be empty, with staff idle. Boris Johnson has promised a 'world-beating' testing operation would be in place by June. But yesterday it was exposed as a shambles by a Daily Mail survey. Tests were requested using postcodes in every one of the 49 areas on Public Health England's watchlist where infection rates are highest. Only Sefton on Merseyside, Sheffield and Northampton offered tests on the day for people living there. Daily Mail reporters did not actually book any of the offered tests. Top of the hotspots list is Bolton, which has 121 cases per 100,000 people. Despite reporters making several attempts yesterday, no test slots for people living there were available. The Government website set up to handle booking requests asks users a series of questions, including whether they are a key worker. Answering 'yes' appeared to make no difference. Getting to the point where the website says 'no slots available' takes several attempts. Most times, users are greeted with a message saying: 'This service is currently very busy. Try again in a few hours'. In Preston, there were not any local tests available but the website did offer a test in Litherland, which is 22 miles away on Merseyside. However, despite stating that there were '34 slots available', the website was then unable to offer a booking until at least January 31, 2021. However, on-the-day tests were available in five other areas on the watchlist Wirral, Liverpool, Knowsley, Stoke-on-Trent and St Helens to those willing to travel to a neighbouring area, up to 19 miles away. In Coventry, staff at the drive-in test centre opposite the Ricoh Stadium seemed concerned about stopping the media from reporting on the near-empty facility. Five of the eight testing bays appeared to be empty. Security staff tried to stop a reporter from taking pictures from a dual carriageway overlooking the site, and insisted he delete the pictures before he would be allowed to drive away. A Department of Health spokesman said later that journalists were not banned from taking photos of test sites, but were asked not to take pictures of people using the sites or of their car registration plates without first seeking permission. He said of the testing situation: 'It is wrong to say testing is not available in these areas, and our capacity continues to be targeted where it is needed most. Whilst we are seeing significant demand, over a million tests are being processed every week with around 200,000 every day on average over the last week.' AdvertisementThousands of students are having their return to school curtailed because of coronavirus outbreaks in the classroom amid a fiasco over testing. Headteachers have warned that schools which were closed for months because of the pandemic will 'grind to a halt' if teachers and pupils can't get tested quickly to avoid whole-school closure. At least 30 schools have closed completely already because of cases and one headteacher in Preston said this morning that he already has two staff self-isolating at home and struggling to get tested, along with 10 children. Another 300 in England and Wales have sent class groups home after receiving positive test results. Pupils in Scotland had all returned by August 12, and they are also dealing with a number of outbreaks. And Northern Ireland schools were back in classrooms on August 31, despite a survey from NI's largest teaching union saying a majority of staff 'feel anxious and stressed' about returning. Jim Blakely, head at Garstang St Thomas' School, told the Today programme: 'At the moment I've got two members of staff not here. My Year 4 teacher was sent home last Wednesday due to Covid symptoms, a persistent cough, but there were no tests available on Wednesday. 'So he kept trying to book during the day and in the evening, and there was some test available in some strange places, and these are the same places that parents in my school have been directed to like Aberdeen and Llandudno. 'Not only are they miles away, but they are in Wales and Scotland. There is very little local testing.' Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said disruption to pupils' education could worsen in the months to come. 'While only a small number of schools have had to close because of outbreaks, we are regularly hearing reports of groups of pupils and staff having to self-isolate in response to positive cases. The concern is that this disruption will worsen as winter approaches.' Downing Street have said that the vast majority - around 99 per cent - of schools have reopened as planned this month. 'There is a very small number of schools which have asked some or all of their pupils to remain at home,' they said. 'Children who are self-isolating continue to receive remote education from home.' Here is a list of all schools in England and Wales known to have been affected by a positive coronavirus test:More than 330 schools in England and Wales have either shut completely or sent some class groups home after receiving positive test results. Pictured: Blackfordby St Margaret's CE Primary School, Derbyshire is closedEnglandNORTH WESTAccringtonMount Carmel RC High School told every Year 7 pupil to remain at home after a pupil in the year group tested positive for Covid-19. A pupil also caught the bug at Accrington Academy - students who were in 'very close and prolonged proximity' to the infected pupil were told they needed to quarantine for 14 days at home. St Christopher's CE High School confirmed on September 7 that two pupils had the disease, but said it would remain open. A class at St Anne's and St Joseph's school were told to self-isolate for two weeks following a case. It is not known if it is a pupil or member of staff that has been affeted. BarnoldswickCoates Lane Primary School confirmed a positive case Covid-19 - a number of individuals who may have been in close contact have been asked to isolate. BlackburnTwo students and one teacher at Blackburn College tested positive for coronavirus. Students and staff who have been in direct contact with the teacher and two pupils are being asked to self-isolate at home for 14 days. At Blackburn High School three year groups have been sent home due to a coronavirus case in each - year 10, year 9 and year 7. Lammack Primary School contacted parents after positive cases of coronavirus were confirmed among pupils. A class at the Blackburn school has been advised to take precautionary measures and self-isolate following instructions from Public Health England. A year 9 pupil tested positive at Witton Park Academy and the whole year group were sent home. The parents of Year 7 students at Pleckgate High School were contacted following a positive case in that year group. BoltonThree schools in Bolton have had outbreaks. They are:St Bernard's RC, Bolton - (Year 5 bubble)Beaumont Primary, Bolton - (Reception)Clarendon Primary, Bolton - (Year 6 bubble)Downing Street have said that the vast majority - around 99 per cent - of schools have reopened as planned this month. Pictured: St Mark's Primary School, Swanage, Dorset which also closed due to an outbreakBurnleyA Year 7 at Unity College caught the bug on the first day back to school. He had shown no symptoms but was immediately collected by his family and told to self-isolate. All other 25 students in the Year 7 'bubble' were sent home on Wednesday afternoon and will also self-isolate for 14 days. BuryFive schools in Bury have had coronavirus outbreaks. They are:Heaton Park Primary School, Bury - (Class 2W and Year 3)Lowercroft Primary School, Bury - (Year 6)Prestolee Primary School, RadcliffeSt Bernadette's RC Primary, Whitefield - (Nursery, Years 1, 2, 5 and 6)St Gabriel's RC High School, Bury - (Year 11)Cheshire'Several' cases of coronavirus were reported in unspecified Cheshire West schools this week, Cheshire West and Chester Council said. All schools affected have successfully completed contact tracing, while all staff and pupils who have been in contact with those suffering symptoms have been advised to self-isolate for 14 days. CarlisleA pupil at Stanwix School tested positive for the bug, prompting some pupils there to self-isolate. LeylandAn entire class of primary school pupils and their teacher was told to self-isolate after a pupil tested positive at Leyland Methodist Infant and Junior Schools. Parents of Year 1 pupils have been asked to keep their children at home after the school was notified of a positive Covid-19 case. LongridgeSt Cecilia's Roman Catholic High Schoo has asked 13 members of staff to self-isolate for 14 days after a teacher tested positive. Years 7, 8 and 9 will not return to school until September 17 and have been told to access learning from home. 160 pupils at Two Mile Hill Primary School in Bristol are at home self-isolating following an outbreakManchesterTwelve schools in Manchester have had coronavirus outbreaks. What has gone wrong with coronavirus testing in the UK? People across England are struggling to get access for swab tests which are used to confirm whether or not they have Covid-19. These should be available on the day at drive/walk-through centres or by mail order but many have reported being unable to get them, and instead being met by a 'service busy' message on the booking website. This is even reportedly a problem in areas with local lockdowns, where testing is crucial and mobile test sites are set up to speed up the process. Why are tests not available for everyone who wants them? The Government's testing system is still not set up to cope with the surging demand now being placed on it. It was never advanced enough to offer everyone a test, which is why only people with symptoms are supposed to book the swabs. Numbers of people catching the virus are rising across the country and the number of people wanting tests is increasing as a result. Although the Department of Health claims it can process 243,817 swab tests per day, the system is stalling at a lower level 205,659 were done on Thursday, September 10, the most recent data. Health officials have blamed laboratory capacity for the shortage, and the testing chief at NHS Test & Trace apologised for this last week. Is a lack of staff in labs really to blame? One suggestion is that labs may not have enough technical staff able to operate the machines that process the swabs. More labs are being set up and more staff employed, but this could take weeks or months to translate to big gains in testing capacity. One of the scientists who helped set up the system, however, has rejected this and said labs are operating normally and 'there are problems elsewhere in the chain'. The University of Birmingham's Professor Alan McNally said on BBC Breakfast: 'The labs are still fully staffed, they are still churning through huge amounts of samples per day - the same number as they were a couple of months ago - so there are problems elsewhere in the chain... 'I think this is multi-factorial. I think you almost have a perfect storm of events that have come together to almost essentially crash the testing system. 'I think there is a surge in demand [and] I think our stated capacity is very different from actually how many tests can be run in a given day.' What is the impact of growing pressure on test labs? A large workload for testing labs around the UK means that people's results are taking longer to process many people have to wait more than the target 24 hours to find out their result. This means that the government is throttling the number of tests that are sent out, to avoid completely overwhelming the system, so people in some areas are finding it difficult to access swabs. There are concerns that a system that is frustrating or slow to use will put people off and members of the public will stop bothering to use it. Should people still be ordering tests? Yes, anyone who has symptoms of coronavirus (a cough, fever or lost sense of taste/smell) must order a test however they can. People who do not have symptoms, and have not been instructed by a medical professional to get tested, should not order a test. AdvertisementMerseysideWest Derby School was the first in the city to send children home after a confirmed case. A total of 56 pupils and three staff members will now spend 14 days self isolating at home following the positive test. Half of all pupils at Sudley Junior School were sent home after it recorded two positive coronavirus cases, with pupils in Years 3 and 5 now isolating. A member of "the school community" at Broad Square Primary School tested positive, meaning they are their bubble are in self-isolation. Pupils in Year 11 at Liverpool College have to isolate for two weeks after a positive coronavirus tests. In Everton Hunts Cross Primary School and Our Lady of Immaculate School had to send some pupils home after an outbreak. English Martyrs Catholic Primary Year 5 pupils have to spend a fortnight at home after a member of staff got the bug where as Litherland Moss shut entirely after Year 3 pupils tested positive. Woodchurch High School and Co-op Academy Bebington have collectively have to tell hundreds of students to self-isolate after pupils at the former and staff at the latter caught the disease. Ridgeway High School, Brackenwood Infant School and Bidston Village Primary School have been affected to an unknown extent after reported cases. Meadow Park School - a pupil referral unit - closed after an outbreak among staff. All Saints Catholic High School remains open despite two pupils testing positive for coronavirus last week. Parents of children at Longton Lane Primary School received an email on Tuesday morning informing them there had been a confirmed case of Covid-19 at Kidzone, the neighbouring private nursery that also provides Longton Lane's after-school club. Holly Lodge Girls college in Liverpool has confirmed three cases of coronavirus, with those testing positive now self-isolating. A school manager told MailOnline that Public Health England was 'satisfied' there was no risk of an outbreak and the school could remain open. OldhamThirteen schools in Oldham have had coronavirus outbreaks. PrestonDozens of students were sent home from Cardinal Newman College after a positive case of coronavirus on September 7. Students who share classes with the infected student must self-isolate for 14 days. RochdaleTen schools in Rochdale have had coronavirus outbreaks. Pictured: Royal Wootton Bassett Academy near Swindon, Wiltshire where 284 students are self isolatingSalfordFive schools in Salford have had coronavirus outbreaks. They are:Harrop Fold, Salford - (Year 11)Buile Hill Academy, Salford - (Year 7)Co-op Academy Swinton - (Year 7 and Year 10)Ellenbrook Primary School, Walkden, Salford - (One class from Year 3)Salford City Academy, Eccles - (Small number in Year 11)SkelmersdaleA member of staff at Our Ladys Queen of Peace College tested positive for Covid-19, leaving them and four of their colleagues to self-isolate for 14 days. StockportThree schools in Stockport have had coronavirus outbreaks. They are:St Winifreds RC Primary, Heaton MerseyDidsbury Road Primary School, Stockport - (Year 1)Adswood Primary, Stockport - (Year 1, Year 2, one class from Y5/6TamesideThree schools in Tameside have had coronavirus outbreaks:Great Academy Ashton, Tameside - (part of Y10)St Stephen's RC Primary School, Droylsden - (Confirmed case in Key Stage 2)St Anne's Primary School, Denton - (One class in Year 5)TraffordFour schools in Trafford have had coronavirus outbreaks. They are:Gorse Hill Primary School, Stretford - (Year 1)Brooklands Primary School, SaleSeymour Park Community Primary, Old TraffordUrmston Grammar - (Part of Year 12)WiganSix schools in Wigan have have coronavirus outbreaks. They are:St John Vianney RC School, Stretford - (Small number self-isolating)St Mary's Catholic High School, Astley, WiganSt Michael's CE Primary, Atherton, WiganWestleigh Methodist Primary School, Leigh - (Year 3 and Year 4)Dean Trust Wigan - (Year 8)Hawkley Hall High, Wigan - (Small number in Year 7)WhitworthAlthough its identity is not currently known, a Rossendale Borough Councillor has confirmed that several cases have been traced back to one school in Whitworth. The latest case in Rossendale's coronavirus outbreak that has seen its infection rate spike to become one of the worst in all of England. NO TESTS AVAILABLE 'IN 10 OF ENGLAND'S COVID-19 HOTSPOTS' No walk-in, drive-in or postal coronavirus tests are available for people with symptoms of the disease in England's 10 outbreak hotspots, it was claimed yesterday. Swabs are not available in Bolton, which is fighting the largest outbreak of the virus in the country with an infection rate of 122 cases for every 100,000 people. The Government website where testing slots are booked also shows there are no tests available in Salford, Bradford, Blackburn, Oldham, Preston, Pendle, Rochdale, Tameside and Manchester, according to LBC radio. When postcodes in each area are put into the testing system it allegedly comes up with the message: 'This service is currently very busy. More tests should be available later.' The leader of the council in Bolton, which has Britain's highest infection rate, said there were 'major flaws' with the online booking system and that it was out of the council's control because the Government runs it. He said the issue was 'unacceptable'. AdvertisementNORTH EASTBarnsleySt Helen's Primary Academy confirmed that a teacher tested positive for the virus, meaning all students in that teacher's class must now self-isolate for two weeks. On September 6, Athersley South Primary School confirmed that a positive case of the virus had been identified at the school. Students in Year 8 and 9 only were advised to stay home for two weeks and have been told they can return to school on September 17. On September 8, Wellgate Primary School confirmed they had one confirmed case of the virus within the school. On September 7, Barugh Green Primary School closed two of its class bubbles after a child in each was confirmed to have the virus. On September 10, two departments at Barnsley College were closed after three members of staff tested positive for coronavirus. ConsettConsett Academy told parents a child had tested positive on Tuesday. It said the school remains open however and that a small number of students are self-isolating. DarlingtonFour days after children returned to school Hummersknott Academy confirmed a Year 7 student had its first case of Covid-19. On Monday, Staindrop Academy told parents the school had a confirmed case. DurhamLaurel Avenue Primary School told parents on Monday that a pupil had tested positive. The day after that Belmont School confirmed that a member of non-teaching staff had tested positive for Covid-19, with Coxhoe Primary School following closely behind. There has been a confirmed case of Covid-19 at Seaham Trinity Primary School in County Durham, meaning Year 1 pupils have to stay home. GatesheadSt Thomas More Catholic School sent pupils home after a Year 9 student contracted the disease. HartlepoolSt Aidan's primary school saw a pupil or staff member test positive. Head teacher Lynn Chambers told parents that after taking advice from Public Health England, there was no need to close parts of the school or ask any children to self-isolate. Houghton le SpringShiney Row Primary School closed both Year 1 and Year 6 groups after a confirmed case within the school. Easington Lane Primary School shut its nursery after a member of staff tested positive for Covid-19 at the weekend. LanchesterThe whole of Year 8 at St Bede's Catholic School and Sixth Form Centre were told to self-isolate after an infection was confirmed at the Lanchester school. North ShieldsMarden High School's headteacher said a pupil had tested positive for the virus. RyhopeSt Patrick's Primary School is asking all children in reception to self-isolate for 14 days. StocktonStockton Riverside College confirmed a member of non-teaching staff had tested positive for the virus last week. Their symptoms developed overnight and they did not come in the following day. On Wednesday Thornaby Primary School told parents a member of non-teaching staff had tested positive for the virus. Ian Ramsey CE Academy confirmed a second positive Covid-19 case within the school. All Year 8 pupils must self-isolate at home for 14 days. Whitley BayMarine Park First School told children in some class to self-isolate on September 7 after a "small number" of coronavirus cases were detected in the primary school. YORKSHIRE AND HUMBERBradfordDixons Academies Trust, which runs 12 academies in Bradford and Leeds, has confirmed that two staff members and one student have tested positive for the virus at three academies. While the Trust has not named the schools, two of them are understood to be Dixons Trinity Academy and Dixons Kings Academy. A small number of staff and students have been asked to self-isolate. On September 8 , Bradford Academy wrote to parents informing them that a member of staff had the bug. The school said that Public Health England's advice was to keep the bubble that the teacher taught in open, as he had socially distanced while teaching. On September 12, Parkside School closed after two members of staff tested positive for coronavirus. CleethorpesA teacher at Cleethorpes Academy tested positive for Covid-19. However, because of the strict social distancing measures in place on the site, the school remains open to all other staff and pupils unless they fell unwell. Coulby NewhamThe King's Academy confirmed a positive test of a Year 7 pupil, prompting the entire year group to self-isolate. KeighleyA staff member at Beckfoot Oakbank School tested positive for the virus and was asked to stay home for two weeks. Three other members of staff were also asked to self-isolate after coming into close contact with the staff member, though the school's head teacher said that no students have been affected. LeedsBardsey Primary School will only welcome back Years 5 and 6 on September 8 after a member of staff tested positive. The rest of the school are now set for another week of home learning. On September 11, Castleton Primary School asked a small number of children to remain at home until September 21 after someone tested positive for the virus. MarsdenA child in Year 6 at Lisle Marsden Church of England Primary Academy tested positive. Parents of other Year 6 children who have been in close proximity to the pupil have been contacted, but all other children are continuing to attend. MiddlesboroughOutwood Academy Ormesby school leaders said in a short statement that a confirmed case had been found within the school community earlier this week. The person who tested positive did not contract the virus at the secondary school. On Tuesday a Year 7 pupil had tested positive for the virus at Kings Academy. Their whole year group will now have to self-isolate. Nunthorpe Academy confirmed it had seen a Covid-19 case. All those with close contact to the affected pupil were told to self-isolate until September 22. Hemlington Hall Academy is to close for 14 days after five staff members tested positive for coronavirus. OrmesbyOrmesby Primary School told its parents that all Year 5 pupils would need to self-isolate due to a confirmed case. RedcarA positive case had been recorded at St Benedicts RC primary school. Ings Farm Primary School has also seen a positive case, although it remains open to all but those directly in contact with the student. Manchester's High School for Girls is one of 12 in the city to have had a coronavirus outbreakMIDLANDSBeechdaleRobert Shaw Primary and Nursery School has told Year 5s to self-isolate after a teacher caught the disease. BicesterYear 2 pupils and some staff at Five Acres Primary School were told to stay at home for 14 days following an outbreak. BilboroughGlenbrook Primary School partially closed after a member of staff tested positive. BinghamRobert Miles Junior School sent a Year 5 bubble home after a member of staff tested positive. BirminghamPupils in Year 11 student at Greenwood Academy tested positive after showing symptoms of Covid-19, sparking a 14-day quarantine for classmates. A class of students at Erdington Academy have been sent home after a positive case. Year 8 and 11 bubbles at King Edward's Five Ways were told to self isolate after one pupil in each year group reported they had received a positive test result over the weekend. Hall Green Infant and Junior School sent home its Year 4 and 5s after positive cases, while a Year 1 class from Lakey Lane were sent home. All pupils and employees in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 at Prince Albert Primary School were told to stay home for 14 days. Yardley Primary School sent home pupils today after a positive case. BlabyBarlestone Primary School sent several pupils home after they came into contact with a student who tested positive for Covid-19. A Year 3 pupil caught the bug at Blaby Stone Primary, meaning everyone in the year had to self-isolate for 14 days. BlackfordbyBlackfordby Church of England Primary has been shut for a deep clean after an outbreak. A member of staff at St Cecilia's RC High School (pictured) tested positive on September 5. No pupils have been affected but 12 members of staff have been advised to self isolate for 14 days. BlythNewsham Primary School has sent its Year 1s home after a child tested positive. A reception class of 30 children at Bede Academy in Blyth have been advised to self-isolate until September 18 after a confirmed case. BraunstoneA teacher tested positive at Fullhurst Community College, leading Year 10 pupils to a period of self-isolation. BromfordPupils in Years 4 and 6 at Firs Primary Academy have been told to isolate for a fortnight following two confirmed cases at the school. Chapel HillA member of staff at St Cecilia's RC High School tested positive on September 5. No pupils have been affected but 12 members of staff have been advised to self isolate for 14 days. ChesterfieldParents of Year 5 students at Newbold Church of England Primary School in Cranborne Road were told to collect children on Thursday. CoalvilleA school visited by Boris Johnson on August 26 temporarily shut after a member of staff caught the disease. The Castle Rock School hosted the Prime Minister as he went on a press tour when schools reopened after months of lockdown. Only those staff and students who came into direct contact with the person infected will be made to stay home for two weeks, with Castle Rock due to open its doors on September 15 to everyone else. CorbyStudfall Junior Academy said a Year 4 pupil had tested positive for Covid-19. They are the only person that has had to self-isolate. A member of AYear 5 group at Hazel Leys Primary Academy tested positive, meaning their bubble has been told to home school for the next 14 days. CountesthorpeFour members of staff have had to isolate after a teacher caught the bug at Countesthorpe Leysland Community College. CoventryA child in Year 1 at Parkgate Primary School has caught the bug. Parents of all children in Year 1 at the school have been told that their child must self-isolate for 14 days as a precaution. Elsewhere in the city Longford Park Primary School, Foxford Community School, John Gulson Primary School, Park Hill Primary School and West Coventry Academy have reported cases. Before the weekend there were 23 confirmed cases in the city's school system. Croxton KerrialCroxton Kerrial Primary School has been closed after a positive case was reported. DesfordLast weekend at Bosworth Academy pupil found out they had the bug. They did not go to school on the Monday, meaning class can continue as normal. DudleyThe Wordsley School confirmed there had been a positive case on September 8. GranthamAll Year 7 pupils, along with four staff, have been sent home from Kings School. GrobyThree members of staff at Brookdale Groby Learning Campus must self-isolate after catching the virus. EvingtonJudgemeadow Community College pupils in Year 10 and 11 have been sent home after a student got the bug. HarlowThe Freshwaters Primary Academy closed on Tuesday after a number of students displayed coronavirus symptoms. The school announced it will stay shut until negative test results come back. Handsworth WoodParents were told to pick their children up from school as soon as possible on September 10 after a case was confirmed in Year 2 at Cherry Orchard Primary School and Nursery. HeanorSenior staff at Heanor Gate Science College confirmed that a year 10 pupil had contracted the disease. But because the youngster had not been in lessons since last Friday, no other students need to self-isolate. Howitt Primary Community School sent a number of children home, who were in the same "bubble", after a Year 6 pupil also tested positive for coronavirus. Robert Shaw Primary and Nursery School in Beechdale, near Nottingham has told Year 5s to self-isolate after a teacher caught the diseaseHucknallA member of staff at Holgate Primary and Nursery School tested positive, meaning they and 29 children were sent home. HumberstoneA single pupil has tested positive at Merrydale Infants School. A teacher has been infected at Falcons Primary, leading Year 4 students to self-isolate. A Humberstone Junior Academy child also has the bug, meaning they and their bubble have to self-isolate. KibworthA Year 10 student was sent home after one day back at Beauchamp College having tested positive. KingshurstTudor Grange Academy sent a letter to parents informing them that a Year 7 pupil had tested positive for Covid-19. The pupil was not in school whilst symptomatic but in accordance with guidelines, the pupils tutor and support bubble will be required to self-isolate. LeicesterThe Winstanley School has recorded a case. Parents have been urged to watch their children and get them to self-isolate if they begin showing symptoms. A member of staff and a teacher have tested positive for the bug at New College. A class bubble worth of pupils at English Martyrs School in Year 9 have been made to self-isolate after a pupil caught the disease. A single case at Wyvern Primary has seen several staff and pupils embark on a period of self-isolation, while a member of staff at Ellesmere College also has the bug. One student has been confirmed as having the virus at each of Orchard Mead Academy, Mowmacre Hill Primary, Catherine Infants School, Crown Hills Community College, City of Leicester College, Shenton Primary, Medway Primary, Overdale Infant School and Lancaster Academy. LoughboroughWoodbrook Vale School has had to send several dozen pupils home for a fortnight after a single pupil caught the bug. MansfieldTwo pupils at Berry Hill Primary School caught the bug, meaning two classes were put in self-isolation for two weeks. Market HarboroughA pupil at Ridgeway Primary Academy has tested positive for the coronavirus. They have been asked to self-isolate for 10 days. Other pupils who were in close contact with the child have been asked to self-isolate for two weeks. NorthamptonGreenfields Specialist School for Communication has recorded a case. Because the school is separated into zones to stop everyone mixing, only limited numbers have been sent home. Northampton International Academy sent one bubble of students home after a teacher caught the bug. NuneatonA pupil at Chetwynd Junior School tested positive. They have been told to self-isolate for 14 days along with people close to them. NottinghamMellers Primary School has been forced to close after a teacher tested positive for coronavirus. The school confirmed a Year 1 teacher had tested positive for Covid-19 in a statement on its website. OadbyBrocks Hill Primary School has told two Year 3 classes worth of pupils to stay home for 14 days after two children tested positive. A Year 10 pupil at Gartree High School tested positive, prompting the rest of the year being told to stay home until September 21. The whole of Year 8 at St Bede's Catholic School and Sixth Form Centre were told to self-isolate after an infection was confirmed at the Lanchester schoolOldburyPupils at Oldbury Academy were told they must self-isolate for 14 days on Friday, September 11. The rest of the school remains open, with children not directly affected by the case urged to attend as normal. RadfordMellers Primary School saw a Year 1 and Year 3 teacher test positive for coronavirus at the start of last week. All Year 1 and Year 3 pupils were been told to stay at home for 14 days and register for a test if they feel unwell. The school cannot currently reopen for the remaining pupils "for the time being" as too many staff members are either self-isolating or getting tested. QuintonYear 4 pupils at World's End Junior School have been ordered to remain at home. PRITI PATEL DENIES THERE ARE A LACK OF TESTS IN BADLY-HIT AREAS Home Secretary Priti Patel said it was 'wrong to say' that there were no tests available after she was quizzed about the long delays in trying to book a test in Bolton where the infection rate is the highest in England. Speaking on BBC Breakfast, she said: 'Tests are available, youve heard me say, particularly in local lockdown areas, Ive seen this myself, Ive seen the teams that have been working on this. 'Mobile testing is going in, capacity is going into local areas where lockdowns have been undertaken and are taking place. 'I think it is wrong to say tests are not available, new book-in slots are being made available every single day, mobile testing units are being made available. 'And on top of that home testing kits are being issued across the country but specifically in local lockdown areas.' The Government is 'surging capacity' in local lockdown areas and tests are available within a 10-mile radius, she added. Ms Patel said: 'Clearly there is much more work that needs to be undertaken with Public Health England and the actual public health bodies in those particular local areas. 'As a Government we work with Public Health England to surge where there is demand in local hotspot areas and we continue to do that. On access to testing, she said the majority of tests are available within a 10-mile radius. 'It seems to me therell be extreme cases where people cant get to test locations within that radius but that doesnt mean that Public Health England are not working night and day to boost capacity,' she added. AdvertisementRetfordA group of pupils from Carr Hill Primary School were sent home and told to self-isolate for 14 days after there was a positive case on-site. The school remains open. RocesterThe JCB Academy confirmed a positive case after being one of the first schools in England to reopen in August. It was closed on Friday September 4 as a precaution but reopened the following on Monday with around 100 students self-isolating. RothwellA Year 10 student in Montsaye Academy has caught the bug, meaning people in their bubble were told to self-isolate. RugbySt Matthews Bloxham Primary and Bilton High Schools have also both had positive cases. Neither of them have closed. SaltleyHighfield Junior and Infant School in Saltley closed to pupils and staff in Year 4 and 5 after an unconfirmed number of cases. SandwellThirty students at Moat Farm Junior School were told to self-isolate on September 10, the day after Year 4 pupils and teachers from Ocker Hill Academy were sent home. Foxyards Primary School has had to send two year groups home after an outbreak. A bubble has been told to self-isolate following a case in Year 9 at Stuart Bathurst Catholic High School. Wodensborough Ormiston Academy confirmed a student had tested positive, leaving 27 students and one staff member in self-isolation. SapcoteA child tested positive at All Saints Church of England. ScamptonScampton C of E Primary School sent a class load of pupils and a teacher home after a student tested positive. ScunthorpeSt Lawrence Academy took precautionary measures after a member of staff tested positive for coronavirus. SheffieldOn September 6 Birkdale School confirmed that sixth form students would be staying at home for two weeks following one of them testing positive for the virus. The school's head teacher said that sixth formers were in a bubble and, as such, only came into contact with one another. On September 7, Chaucer School confirmed that there had been a positive case of the virus at their school. The school said that a small number of children will have been in prolonged contact with the person who tested positive and have been asked to stay home for two weeks. SilebyHighgate Primary has had one confirmed case, meaning a small number of their close contacts are now in isolation. ShepshedA pupil from Oxley Primary School caught the bug, meaning their classmates were sent home for two weeks. ShrewsburyA member of staff at Shrewsbury Academy tested postive for Covid 19 and has immediately isolated. The school has not shut, despite parents worried by reports on social media queueing outside the school in the middle of the day to collect their children. Four days after children returned to school, Hummersknott Academy in Darlington confirmed a Year 7 student had its first case of Covid-19SkellingthorpeA member of staff at the Holt Primary School tested positive, meaning they, three colleagues and 30 children have to self-isolate. The school currently remains open to all other pupils. SolihullColeshill Heath School informed parents of a positive case on September 9. It was not confirmed whether a pupil or staff member was the confirmed case and the affected class bubble has been shut. A person also tested positive for coronavirus at Light Hall School. SECOND WAVE TO BLAME FOR LACK OF TESTS, TOP EXPERT CLAIMS An Oxford University expert who has been overseeing the government's antibody testing programme and advising ministers blamed a second wave for the testing fiasco. Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that a spike in Covid-19 cases had led to a surge in demand for tests. He said: 'I think what's going wrong is the second wave. 'A month ago they had spare capacity in testing - significant spare capacity - but I think what has been underestimated was the speed at which the second wave would arrive, but also the pressure put on the system from children returning to school, and the testing demands associated with that, and people increasingly out and about. 'So, I think they are definitely behind the curve in terms of getting the necessary tests for what we need today." Sir John said there would be a 'significant increase' in testing capacity over the next two weeks. 'But this will get worse because of course we haven't hit winter yet - we haven't all started to sniffle, get fevers, get colds, and that's going to add additional confusion to the problem,' he said. 'The demand will go up. The real question is whether they can get supply in a position where it can outpace demand, and that's the challenge at the moment.' AdvertisementSouthwellLowe's Wong Junior School sent 31 children home following a positive case of coronavirus on site. SpaldingA student tested positive at Spalding High School, leaving the establishment to undertake a deep clean. The school remains open as usual. SparkbrookA Year 6 class is closed to pupils at Conway Primary School after a pupil tested positive for coronavirus. All pupils and staff in the affected class are now self-isolating for 14 days. StamfordThree cases of coronavirus affecting pupils at the Stamford Endowed Schools were confirmed. Stourport-on-SevernSome pupils at Burlish Park Primary School have been told to isolate after a coronavirus case was reported. TamworthThe Rawlett School said that the staff member and a Year 8 student are self-isolating along with all other pupils in the bubble. Approximately 200 pupils were being sent home last week. TelfordA primary reception pupil at Hadley Learning Centre contracted the virus, meaning children in the same class must stay at home until further notice. TowcesterOne Year 9 pupil from Sponne School caught the bug, landing 15 of their classmates in self-isolation. TrowellA teacher at Trowell Church of England Primary School was sent to hospital but is said to be "in good spirits" having tested positive for coronavirus. Public Health England instructed that the school close for 14 days. WaingroveBlackthorns Primary School confirmed that 32 pupils and five members of staff were told to self-isolate on September 11. WalsallGrace Academy Darlaston had to send some Year 7 students home after an outbreak. A Year 7 student at Aldridge School also caught the bug, but they had not been in school. WednesburyA total of 27 pupils at Wodensborough Ormiston Academy have been forced to self-isolate following a positive case. Parents of children in Year 9 attending Stuart Bathhurst Catholic High School in Wednesbury received a letter telling them to enforce isolation for 14 days after an outbreak. WellingboroughSir Christopher Hatton Academy econdary school has confirmed a single case of coronavirus. All year groups remain open, with a small number of students self-isolating as a precaution. West BridgfordHeymann Primary and Nursery School has told several pupils to self-isolate after two confirmed cases. WigstonA Year 12 pupil tested positive at Wigston College, meaning the year must now isolate for two weeks. WolverhamptonCodsall Community High School confirmed that two students, one in Year 11 and one in the Football Academy, had tested positive for Covid and their classmates had been told to self-isolate. 'Following an in-depth analysis of our mitigation measures in school... we have been advised that the school can remain open and, providing your child remains well, they can continue to attend school as normal,' the headteacher said in a letter to pupils. One mother with a 15-year-old son at the school told MailOnline that he was 'terrified' of going back, but added that 'if you dont send your child to school they will fine you 80 per day'. Pupils at Springdale Primary School in Year 6 have been asked to self-isolate after a pupil tested positive for coronavirus, with Year 3s at Whitgreave Primary School also sent home. Thirty pupils in Woden Primary School's Year 6 were told to self-isolate after a student tested positive for coronavirus on September 8, three days before Codscall Community High School had a confirmed case. All Year 11 pupils at Highfields School have had to go home, as with Year 8s at Bilbrook Middle SchoolAmethyst Sixth closed to its 250 students after a teacher tested positive for coronavirus, while East Park Academy sent home two different year groups after two students tested positive for coronavirus. A member of staff at Royal Primary School caught the bug, meaning around 100 people had to self-isolate. Two members of staff at Ormiston SWB Academy caught the disease. Wyre ForestPupils in two reception classes at Burlish Park Primary School have been told to self-isolate following a positive case. WythallA Year 7 class at Woodrush High School is self-isolating for 14 days after a pupil tested positive for coronavirus. EAST ANGLIAHaverhillFive members of staff tested positive at Samuel Ward Academy. The school closed on Monday for a deep clean to be carried out and so the headteacher can establish who the staff members have been in contact with. It reopened on Wednesday. HitchinHitchin Boys' School closed after a member of staff tested positive. A 'significant number' of other staff are having to self isolate and a 'few cases' where pupils had closer contact with the staff member. Head teacher Fergal Moane confirmed the school is looking at a mixture of remote and on-site learning for the two week period. Kings LangleyThere has been a positive Covid-19 test of a Year 5 student at Kings Langley Primary School. The year five bubble were told to self-isolate for 14 days. NorwichA pupil or member of staff at George White Junior School was told to self-isolate for 14 days after testing positive for the coronavirus. Old BuckenhamOld Buckenham High School closed last week after a member of staff tested positive. RadlettA 'small number of pupils' tested positive at the Hertsmere Jewish Primary School and three classes have been self-isolating as a result. Welwyn Garden CityA student at the Stanborough School tested positive for Covid-19. The whole year 8 cohort was told to self isolate for 14 days as a result. SOUTH EASTAylesfordA Year 6 pupil from Valley Invicta Primary School tested positive and the whole year group were told to self isolate. AylesburyA student at Aylesbury Grammar School has tested positive for Covid-19. One form group from Year 8 has been told to isolate as a result. AshfordThere has been a case reported at Echelford Primary School. BattleClaverham Community College has had a confirmed case of Covid-19 but remains open. BracknellParents of students at Garth Hill College, Edgbarrow and The Brakenhale School have received letters warning that there have been outbreaks. Four students from Garth Hill's sixth form are in isolation as are an unspecified number from Brakenhale's Year 13. It is not known what year has been affected from Edgebarrow. BromleyBromley College has been deep cleaned after a staff member tested positive for coronavirus - though students have been told to still attend. Red Hill Primary School confirmed an individual at the school has coronavirus and that everyone who was considered a 'close contact' has been asked to self-isolate for 14 days. BusheyTwo members of staff tested positive at the Bushey Meads Academy and were sent home immediately. No students have been in close contact with the staff members. The headteacher says the school is safe and all necessary Public Health England advice is being followed. ChelmsfordThe head teacher of Great Baddow High School in Chelmsford confirmed that one of the pupils at the institution has received a positive diagnosis for Covid-19. CheshamAn unknown number of pupils at Chesham Grammar School caught the virus last week. Most of them are said to have been infected abroad during the school holidays. The school had not reopened when the cases were confirmed. ChobhamA pupil at Valley End C of E Infant School caught the bug. CroydonA staff member at Ridgeway Primary School and Nursery tested positive last Saturday - a couple of days before pupils returned for the new academic year. Dartford'A number of staff' at Longfield Academy have been told to self-isolate after a member of support staff is unwell with a suspected case of Covid-19, a spokesman has said. Given the circumstances of the case it is being treated as a confirmed case. DidcotHadden Hill Nursery was be closed until September Friday 11 following an outbreak. The nursery has not specified whether it is a child or a member of staff who has coronavirus. EnfieldWilbury Primary School welcomed back children on Monday but on Tuesday the school was forced to close a 'bubble class' after a child tested positive for the virus. GuildfordSandfield Primary School wrote to parents on September 7 to confirm it had sent the Year 3 bubble home after a positive case. HershamBell Farm Primary School sent letters to parents informing them that pupils in Year 1 have contracted the virus. HoveSix people have now tested positive for the coronavirus at Cardinal Newman Catholic School since the start of term. It is thought the cases are linked to an eighteenth birthday party, also attended by a Brighton, Hove And Sussex VI Form College student. A further three students at the college contracted the disease, with nine people in total now in isolation. HounslowHeston Community School has suffered one positive case. The school has sent home one tutor group to self-isolate 'as a precautionary measure' but will remain open for everyone else. Cranford Community College announced a 'new female student' had received a positive test. A total of 27 students and two teachers who had been in contact with her have been told to self-isolate. Isle of WightCowes Primary School sent letters to parents saying an individual had coronavirus. The council said the school is following the advice of Public Health England and has asked the other children in that class bubble, the teacher and teaching assistant to self-isolate for 14 days. MaidenheadManor Green School is the latest school to see positive test result. Headteacher Joolz Scarlett said: "Opening the school in an international pandemic is not without risk, and were a special school, so so some pupils have very complex special needs which make them vulnerable. So we have given parents the option to continue home schooling. Very few parents have taken us up on that offer and most pupils are in." MarlowThere has been an outbreak amongst Sir William Borlase's Grammar School pupils. It is not known how many pupils were affected. MedwayA Strood Academy employee and three other members of staff have been advised to self isolate after a positive case at the school. OxfordThe Cherwell School advised pupils and parents that an unnamed employee had contracted Covid-19 and was self-isolating. Students are still expected to come to school. ReadingA "class bubble" at Katesgrove Primary School, 30 pupils plus a teacher and an assistant, were sent home after a positive test this week. They must now self-isolate for a period of 14 days. RayleighA member of staff at Sweyne Park School tested positive for the virus. Any other staff member or pupil who came into close contact with the affected person has been sent home. SittingbourneFive schools in Sittingbourne have been hit with coronavirus outbreaks. SloughIt has been confirmed Upton Court Grammar School in Slough has had a pupil test positive for the virus. SnodlandAn entire primary school class was sent home after several children fell ill with symptoms of coronavirus at St Katherine's School. An entire primary school class was sent home after several children fell ill with symptoms of coronavirus. StainesAshford Park Primary School wrote to parents on September 4 saying: "We have been advised by Public Health England that there has been a confirmed case of COVID-19 within the school." It is not yet known whether the confirmed case was a pupil or member of staff at the school. There has also been a confirmed case at Laleham Primary School. SuttonThe whole of Year 2 at Devonshire Primary School has been told to stay at home for two weeks following an infection. SydenhamParents of pupils in Year 4 at Adamsrill Primary School received an email informing them of a positive Covid-19 test and were told to keep their children home. ThatchamKennet School confirmed on September 10 that a student has contracted the virus just days after schools reopened. TottenhamA school in Tottenham has closed for two days after confirming two cases of coronavirus. The two positive cases at Duke's Aldridge Academy are in Year 7 and Year 8, and all pupils in those years have been sent home 'until further notice'. Virginia WaterTrumps Green Infant School has had a positive case amongst either the students or teachers. WandsworthSt Michael's Primary School parents were told on Tuesday that a case had been recorded. Children in the bubbles affected were sent home and told to self-isolate for 14 days. WokingWinston Churchill School has had a teacher or student test positive. SOUTH WESTBristolOne Year 6 child has been diagnosed with the bug at Shirehampton Primary School. The entire year group is self-isolating for 14 days. Two Mile Hill Primary School tested positive leading 160 students of mixed ages to self-isolate. John William Oasis Academy saw one confirmed case, leading all of Year 7 to isolate. Kings' Forest Primary School had one Year 1 pupil test positive, with the result being their 27 class mates being put in isolation. CalneSt Margarets Preparatory School has asked all 27 pupils and three staff in Year 3 to self-isolate for 14 days. PlymouthA student at Plymouth College tested positive for coronavirus. The private school, located in Ford Park, confirmed a Year 11 day pupil has received a positive result for Covid-19 and the whole Year 11 "year group bubble" will isolate at home for a quarantine period of 14 days. SherborneThe Gryphon School said that staff and students who had been in close contact with a Year 13 student who tested positive have been identified and advised to self-isolate. SturminsterYewstock School is now undergoing a deep clean meaning classrooms are remaining shut to students. SwanageSt Mark's Primary School said it would shut for two weeks after a staff member caught the bug. SwindonA pupil tested positive for Lainesmead Primary School, meaning their Year 5 bubble has been made to self-isolate. TrowbridgeOne pupil and four members of staff at St Augustine's Catholic College tested positive, landing 160 people with two weeks of self-isolation. Western-super-MareHans Price Academy will stay open after a teacher tested positive over the weekend. WinscombeChurchill Academy has asked 57 pupils to stay home for a fortnight after one student caught Covid-19. WimborneMerley First School, near Bournemouth has reported confirmed cases. Queen Elizabeth school confirmed that two Year 9 students had contracted the virus, and two tutor groups would be isolating for 2 weeks. Royal Wootton BassettA pupil at Royal Wootton Bassett Academy has tested positive for coronavirus, leaving 284 Year 9s to self isolate until 25 September. WalesBridgendBridgend council has confirmed a case at two schools this week. Both Ysgol Bryn Castell in Brynmenyn and Maesteg School have been affected by staff having tested positive. Pupils are to return as planned on Monday, aside from Key Stage 4 students at Ysgol Bryn Castell who will come back on September 21. CarmarthenThere was one positive test recorded at Ysgol y Dderwen primary in Carmarthen. The council said the school were dealing with the case "in line with its test, trace and protect procedures". CwmbranTorfaen council confirmed a staff case at Woodlands Community primary in Cwmbran. The member of staff did not come into contact with pupils.

###CLAIM: evans added : `` this is an incident of deep upset and cause great distress to the community, particularly to those who know the family. '' ###DOCS: A seven-year-old girl is still fighting for her life in hospital after a Devon house fire killed a four-year-old girl and her parents. Daniel and Kaylie Rudge died alongside their four-year-old daughter Lillie-Rose after a fire broke out at a house in the St David's area of Exeter in the early hours of Sunday. Lillie-Rose's twin brother is one of three children - the others are a girl, seven, and boy, nine - currently being treated at Bristol Childrens Hospital. The seven-year-old is in critical condition. The fire is not being treated as suspicious after police searched the scene and found no evidence of third-party involvement. The blaze started in a downstairs room and no faults have been identified with any electrical appliances or wiring. The investigation is continuing, police said. A scientific major investigations unit stands outside the Exeter home where a woman, 28, man, 29, and a girl, four, all died in a house fire on SundayChief superintendent Evans asked the public to give officers space as they investigate, saying he will give them a 'safe space,' to leave flowers or tributes 'over the coming days'. Some have already left floral tributes at the sceneSuperintendent Antony Hart said: 'The circumstances of this tragic incident have touched the hearts of all of those who were involved in the emergency response, those who know the family and the wider community. 'Our thoughts are with the family at this difficult time, and they are being supported by specialist officers. We ask that the privacy of those who are grieving is respected.' Full-time mother Kaylie, 28, and Daniel, 29, a member of a local bike group, had been married for five years. Devastated friends have been paying tribute while a fundraising page has now been set up to raise money for their surviving children - with thousands of pounds already donated. Mr Rudge was a member of the Demons motor bike club - and his bike was parked outside the house in a cul-de-sac which is home to around 20 families near the city's main railway station. 'We are absolutely devastated and heartbroken not only to lose friends, but to help his sister and family get through this awful time. 'They were such funny, caring and loving individuals, amazing parents to their four beautiful babies,'They were always there when we needed them the most without any hesitation, they were at our door within minutes, always thinking about everyone else but themselves. 'They will be truly missed and Exeter has gained a huge hole in its heart as they were very popular among the community. 'We hope their souls are at peace and their babies they've left behind will be very well taken care of and will never go without love and care from us all.' Police extended their cordon to give them more space to investigate the cause of the fire - though officers said they were not looking to speak to anyone else in connection with the fireThree other children - boys, aged nine and four, and a seven-year-old girl - are being treated at Bristol Children's Hospital - while police have screened off the entrance to the homeMiss England's partner Lauren Willdigg added: 'Big love to my best friend and her family, two of my good friends gone too soon.' Devon and Cornwall police said they were alerted to the fire at 5.30am on Sunday after it had been extinguished by emergency services. The end of terrace property is next to a takeaway shop in a cul-de-sac where mostly families live. Some police were drafted in from Plymouth to the scene and officers were also asking for CCTV from the local area following the blaze. Chief Fire Officer at Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue, Lee Howell, added: 'Our hearts go out to everyone who knew the family involved in the fire in Exeter. 'Im very proud of the actions of our Fire Control operators and the crews from Danes Castle, Middlemoor, Clyst St George and Crediton who worked so bravely to try and save the lives of those involved and all those support staff and officers who helped resolve this incident. The house is an a cul de sac where families mostly live. Most said they had no idea of what had happened'They have been offered support following such a traumatic incident. The support from police and ambulance service colleagues was so important and Im grateful to everyone who tried to help in any way.' Further tributes were paid online. Amy Chambers wrote: 'Gut wrenching my heart is in pieces, such a lovely family. My thoughts are with family, thinking of you all.' A fundraising page has now been set up to help the surviving members of the family. Natalie Anderson, who created the appeal, wrote: 'As some of you may know or have seen or heard there was a horrific fire at a house in central Exeter in the early hours of Sunday which have left two adults and a four-year-old girl dead. 'Three more young children, all from the same family, are injured and are to be taken to Bristol Children's Hospital. The tragedy will impact 'the whole of the city,' of Exeter, council leader Phil Bialyk said'On behalf of friends of the family and the bike club that Dan was a member of, I am helping to set up this go fund me page for the family. 'This will help their family cover costs for funerals, travel, child care and for the other children for in the present and the future. 'Please donate what you can for the family at this devastating time, our thoughts and prayers are with all family and friends and of course the children who are currently still in hospital.' It has already received around 5,000 in donations. Phil Bialyk, leader of Exeter City Council, said: 'This is tragic news that will impact the whole of the city. 'Our hearts go out to the family. Thank you to the emergency services. We will of course do anything we can to support the community.' Tom Woodman, chief executive of Cornerstone Housing which owns the property at Clayton Road where the fire happened, added: 'Words can't express how devastated we feel at Cornerstone Housing about this terrible tragedy in one of our houses. 'Our hearts go out to the family's relatives, friends, and the whole of the local community. We will do whatever we can to help and support them at this awful time. 'Our thoughts are also with the emergency services who dealt with this heart-breaking scene.' Police have launched an investigation into the deaths of a four-year-old girl and two adults in a house fire in Exeter. Those who died in the blaze on Sunday morning in the St Davids area of the city were a 28-year-old woman, a 29-year-old man and a four-year-old girl. Two boys aged four and nine, and a seven-year-old girl, were also in the house at the time of the fire and remain in hospital. All those occupying the house were part of the same family, Devon and Cornwall police said in a statement. A critical incident was declared after police were called at about 5.30am on Sunday. By then the ambulance and fire crews were already at the family home and the fire had been extinguished. On Sunday evening forensic experts remained at the house on Clayton Road, which has been cordoned off as the investigation continues. Ch Supt Daniel Evans of Devon and Cornwall police said: It has now been confirmed that two adults, a 28-year-old woman and a 29-year-old man, plus a four-year-old girl have all died following this house fire. Next of kin have been informed and we will be supporting those affected with specialist officers. Two boys aged four and nine, and a seven-year-old girl who were also in the house at the time of the fire remain in hospital. All three are currently in a stable condition, and all will be transferred to Bristol childrens hospital later today. All six within the property are related to each other.Evans said officers were working with specialist scene investigators to establish the cause of the fire. Currently there is nothing to indicate any third-party involvement in this matter and therefore we are not seeking anyone in connection to this fire at this time, he said. We hope to release the wider cordon along Bonhay Road by this evening, but an inner cordon surrounding the property along with a scene guard will be in place for the next three days at least, whilst vital scene investigation work takes place.Evans added: This is a deeply upsetting incident and one that will cause great distress to the community, particularly to those who knew the family. I dont doubt that people will wish to leave a tribute and flowers at the scene. I ask that at this time the public give our officers space to undertake the vital investigative work at the scene, and we will update you all over the coming days in relation to a safe space where people can leave flowers or a tribute if they wish.In a statement, Devon and Somerset fire and rescue service said: Our heartfelt thoughts are with the family and everyone involved in responding to this tragic incident. Our officers remain at the scene working alongside the police. Investigations into the cause of the fire continue and we are working closely with specialist scene investigators.Exeter city council announced that the flag on the citys civic centre will be flown at half mast tomorrow, and a minutes silence will also be held before Tuesdays council meeting.

###CLAIM: kyle and schwarber were said to be some interest before signing a one-year, 10 million-dollar deal with the nats and handing out veteran minor league deals to such throwers as adam and warren. ###DOCS: Francisco Lindor is headed to Queens, but that hasnt changed the Yankees attitude or timeline regarding their pursuit of DJ LeMahieu. While keeping LeMahieu in The Bronx remains the Yankees top priority this offseason and they continue to have optimism they will ultimately strike a deal the two sides arent close, sources said, as free agency throughout baseball continues to be at a near standstill. There have been significant trades, from Lindor and Carlos Carrasco to the Mets in exchange for Amed Rosario, Andres Gimenez and a pair of prospects, as well as the Padres acquiring Blake Snell from the Rays and Yu Darvish from the Cubs, but the free-agent markets glacial pace has shown no signs of picking up. As of Sunday, the biggest contract handed out this offseason is the four-year, $40.6 million the Mets gave James McCann. LeMahieu, J.T. Realmuto, George Springer and Trevor Bauer remain available, with little more than a month remaining until spring training camps are scheduled to open. The issues regarding the stalemates are what theyve been throughout the offseason: uncertainty about when the season will start, how many games will be played and whether fans will be permitted in ballparks, all due to the surging rates of COVID-19 throughout the country. DJ LeMahieu and Francisco Lindor N.Y. Post: Charles Wenzelberg (2)The Posts Joel Sherman reported last month the two sides were more than $25 million apart, with the 32-year-old LeMahieu believed to be looking for a five-year deal and the Yankees hoping to bring him back on a three-year contract. General manager Brian Cashman said last month he was willing to let other options come off the board while waiting on LeMahieu. One of those options would have been a trade for Lindor. The Yankees checked in on the trade price tag for the 27-year-old shortstop but opted to stay focused on LeMahieu, as the Dodgers and Blue Jays lurk as possible landing spots. The Dodgers, though, still like free-agent third baseman Justin Turner and the Blue Jays, while tied to several available free agents, have yet to sign a big-ticket item this offseason. According to Yahoo Sports, LeMahieu has also drawn interest from the Braves, Cardinals and Red Sox and expects to have virtual meetings with some teams in the coming week. The Mets have also been a potential match, but with the addition of Lindor, that now seems less likely. With a goal of staying under the $210 million luxury-tax threshold next year, the Yankees can likely afford LeMahieu and an additional starting pitcher this offseason. Masahiro Tanaka is among the pitchers still on the market, but Cashman has said that although hes been in contact with the agents for both the right-hander and fellow veteran Yankee presence Brett Gardner, they still are earmarking their largest expenditure for LeMahieu, who is coming off a two-year, $24 million deal and a pair of excellent seasons with the Yankees. Other than that, they showed some interest in Kyle Schwarber according to Schwarber before the outfielder signed a one-year deal with the Nationals for $10 million and handed out a few minor league deals to veteran pitchers such as Adam Warren and Jhoulys Chacin. The only player added to the 40-man roster has been outfielder Greg Allen, whom the Yankees picked up in a trade with the Padres for minor league left-hander James Reeves.

###CLAIM: the india meteorological department called for isolation as eight inches of rain topped the area through the weekend. ###DOCS: Comment on this story Comment Gift Article ShareA developing cyclone is forecast to slam northwest India and Pakistan early next week, bringing a dose of dangerous and destructive weather to a region struggling with surging coronavirus cases and deaths. The storm could reach the strength of a major hurricane, with winds well over 100 mph, in addition to a serious storm surge, or rise in ocean water above normally dry land, and pockets of flooding rainfall inland. The storm could threaten Karachi, Pakistans largest city and home to some 15 million people. Gujarat, a state in western India, could also be affected, though the risk of a serious storm hitting Mumbai has diminished. Even though much of Indias west coast, including Mumbai, may only get grazed by the fledgling storm through the weekend, heavy rain and some coastal flooding remain a possibility. On Friday morning Eastern time, the system set to unleash inclement weather across the Arabian Sea had reached tropical storm strength, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, with peak winds of 45 mph. It was over the Lakshadweep Islands, an archipelago about 200 miles west of Indias Kerala state. AdvertisementSatellite imagery revealed an obvious circulation spanning much of the western India Ocean, the storms cloud shield appearing as a large spiral. While the northern edge of the circulation appeared partially free of convection, or shower and thunderstorm activity, that is likely to change in the short term as the storm continues to organize. By early Saturday morning Eastern time, the system is likely to be a severe cyclonic storm, with winds of 65 to 71 mph gusting as high as 77 mph, according to the India Meteorological Department. The storm, which at that point will be named Tauktae, should be at hurricane strength around lunchtime Saturday. On the Lakshadweep Islands, winds gusting to around 40 mph are likely, with up to eight inches of rain possible before the storm draws northward Saturday. Weather models are in good agreement that the storm will move north this weekend, perhaps with a slight westerly component, as it strengthens into a storm potentially flirting with major hurricane strength. Its possible that incipient Tauktae could rapidly intensify, meaning maximum sustained winds in the systems eyewall could spike by at least 35 mph in 24 hours. Supporting the propensity for the system to rapidly intensify are warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures and tepid wind shear, or a change of wind speed and/or direction with height. That lack of strong shear will allow the system to organize without being disrupted by strong winds at the upper levels. There will also be some upper-level divergence present, or the spreading apart of air at high altitudes. That will assist in venting the system, evacuating air containing less heat energy such that the storm can draw in more warm, moist air at the low levels and intensify. The storm will probably be a high-end Category 1 or 2 by Monday, but some weather models suggest the storm could really take off. At that point it would be centered several hundred miles offshore of western India, but a storm surge of several feet remains likely, along with blustery to gusty winds topping 40 mph and squally weather. As the storm parallels Indias west coast through the weekend, very heavy rain near the coast could exceed 20 inches across Kerala, the west coasts southernmost state, with a foot possible in a few spots of Karnataka, the state just to its north. To the north and farther inland, amounts should drop off quickly as the path of the cyclone curves slightly westward later in the weekend. Cyclone 01A poised to be a significant tropical system as it skirts Western #India and possibly strikes near the #Pakistan border. Comment: Vastly improved storm evacuation efforts in recent years have dramatically reduced human casualties in this part of the world. Progress. pic.twitter.com/cU4nM3Bcoe Steve Bowen (@SteveBowenWx) May 14, 2021Significant uncertainty arises beginning Sunday night, arguably the most crucial time of the forecast. The European model simulates then-Tauktae approaching major hurricane strength and continuing to barrel north with no turn, plowing into coastal Gujarat, the west coasts northernmost state, on Monday night and intensifying or maintaining strength all the way to the shoreline. That would bring obvious serious impacts and cause major disruption and damage. It would also be a worse-case scenario track for storm surge, since the cyclones counterclockwise winds would be streaming in from the south-southwest in the Gulf of Khambhat, piling water up inside the bay. Waves offshore could be nearly 50 feet tall. That track would also bring strong tropical storm conditions to Mumbai along with copious rainfall, but the city should be spared a more serious blow. The American GFS model, on the other hand, is depicting a potential curve to the northwest, which would jeopardize Karachi and areas to the east, especially near the Pakistan-India border. Pakistan hasnt been hit by a tropical cyclone since 2010, when the remnants of two systems brought heavy rain and wind to the country. In 2007, more than 200 people were killed in Karachi by tropical storm conditions stemming from Cyclone Yemyin. On May 20, 1999, a Category 3-equivalent storm killed 6,400 people in the country. GiftOutline Gift Article

###CLAIM: 28 states introduced 106 bills restricting voting access through various means, including a requirement to document voters ' identities and adding more conditions for mail voting. ###DOCS: A new report looked at proposed state bills and how they would affect elections. It's been less than three months since the U.S. saw a record-breaking election turnout, and state leaders across the country are introducing legislation that changes how their localities would operate future elections. But one watchdog group is already raising flags over some of these bills, particularly ones in key swing states. The Brennan Center for Justice, a non-partisan, independent organization that analyzes election rules, released a study Tuesday that found 28 states have introduced 106 bills that would restrict voting access by various means, including mandating voter ID and adding more conditions for requesting mail-in ballots. At the same time, 35 states have introduced over 400 bills to expand voter access, including ones that would increase access to mail-in ballots and increase early voting, the report said. By comparison, there were 35 similarly restrictive voting bills in 15 states and 188 similarly expansive voting bills introduced in 28 states in February 2020, according to the study. A woman casts her ballot at Philadelphia City Hall, Oct. 27, 2020, in Philadelphia. Mark Makela/Getty ImagesEliza Sweren-Becker, voting rights and elections counsel for the Brennan Center, told ABC News state legislators are reacting to the overwhelming turnout during last year's election, where over 155 million Americans cast a ballot. Sweren-Becker warned that any of these bills would have a major effect on turnout. "I think the big overall takeaway is: Democracy reform as an issue is not going away just because were not in a presidential year," she said. Here are some of the biggest bills and proposals that have been introduced in statehouses. Restrictive bills and proposalsSwing state Pennsylvania, which has a Republican majority in the state legislature, has 14 election-related bills that the Brennan Center called restrictive, the most of any state so far. President Joe Biden won the state with just 81,660 votes in November, with a large number of votes coming from mail-in ballots, according to election results. The state adopted "no-excuse" absentee ballot voting in 2019, which means people do not need a reason to request an absentee mail-in ballot. However, there are three different proposals announced by leaders in the Pennsylvania state legislature that look to remove that provision, according to the Brennan Center report. Another Pennsylvania bill would allow election offices to reject absentee ballots solely based on mismatched signatures. Sweren-Becker noted that the Pennsylvania state courts ruled last year that absentee ballots couldn't be rejected just on mismatched signatures alone. "It is concerning that elected officials are trying to take away a tool that their voters used, and frankly preferred to use, in voting," she said. Voters enter Southeast Regional Library to cast their ballots, Nov. 3, 2020 in Gilbert, Ariz. Courtney Pedroza/Getty ImagesBills have also been introduced in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Washington, Virginia, Nebraska, Wyoming and Nebraska that would require voter ID at poll sites. Sweren-Becker said such laws have been created because of unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. Voter ID laws have directly resulted in fewer Americans, particularly minorities and low-income citizens who don't have access to driver's licenses or passports, from registering to vote, she said. "People are latching onto the lies of voter fraud, which was disproven time and again in the courts last year," Sweren-Becker said. "Legislators are using that lie to restrict access to the ballot box." The Brennan Center report also highlighted a bill in Arizona that would purge the permanent early voter list if a voter didn't participate in two consecutive election cycles. During last year's election, over 2.4 million Arizona voters voted early, marking a trend across the country that saw a rise in early votes, according to the U.S. Elections Project. Over 101 million Americans voted early in the 2020 election, according to the U.S. Elections Project. Expansive bills and proposalsSweren-Becker also noted that state elected officials, even in states that have previously restricted voter access, are looking at the historic turnout and working on ways to keep civic engagement strong during future election days. The report noted that in Texas, Missouri and Alabama, three states which require voter ID, bills have been introduced that would establish no-excuse mail-in voting. "There are legislators that are picking up on things that their voters have been asking," Sweren-Becker said. Eight states, including New York, Kentucky and New Jersey, have proposed legislation that would allow for localities to set up mail ballot drop boxes, according to the report. Seven states -- Alabama, Connecticut, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and South Carolina -- have bills that would introduce early in-person voting, the Brennan Center said. One major piece of legislation seen across several states affects the disenfranchisement of felons, the Brennan Center report said. Fifteen states, including Texas, Oregon, New York and Mississippi, have introduced policies that would restore voting rights or ease current restrictions for people with past convictions, according to the report. "That follows not only the trend of addressing voting access, but also the inequities of our criminal justice system," Sweren-Becker said. The futureIt's unknown how many of the election-related bills will be passed or if the governors in those states will ultimately sign off on them, Sweren-Becker said. She noted that legislators will have to wrestle with the fact that expanded voter access is popular among a majority of voters on both sides of the aisle. Residents wait in line to cast ballots for the Senate runoff elections at a polling location in Atlanta, Jan. 5, 2021. Aboubacar Kante/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesThere will likely be more voting rights bills and proposals on the state level as the year continues, according to Sweren-Becker. Voters, she said, still have some power to influence the future of those proposals. "Voters should reach out to their state elected officials and voice their opinions on voting rights," she said.

###CLAIM: one neighbor of warner told the tennessean that his home even built a wheelchair ramp so the dog wouldn't have to use the door. ###DOCS: AdvertisementThe Nashville bomber smiled and told his neighbor 'the world is never going to forget me' days before the Christmas Day explosion that left three people injured, and officials are investigating whether he had his dogs with him when he blew up his RV. Rick Laude recalled how he had a small chat with his neighbor Anthony Quinn Warner, 63, who officials say was the perpetrator of the Friday bombing, less than a week before the attack. He saw Warner standing at his mailbox and pulled over his car to talk. Laude asked Warner how his elderly mother is doing and casually asked, 'Is Santa going to bring you anything good for Christmas?' Warner then cracked a smile and said, 'Oh, yeah, Nashville and the world is never going to forget me.' At first Laude didn't think much of the remark saying, 'Nothing about this guy raised any flags. He was just quiet.' Then on Friday around 6.40am a white RV rigged with bombs exploded outside the AT&T building on 2nd Avenue in downtown Nashville, destroying over 40 businesses, and Warner was confirmed to have perished in the blast. On Monday the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Memphis released a new photo of Warner showing him leaning out of what appears to be his white RV. Investigators said theyre looking into whether Warner had his pet dogs with him in the RV when it detonated. When asked about if Warners dogs perished alongside him in the blast, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David Rausch said Monday: 'That, we dont know yet. Thats still information that were trying to determine, all of that detail.' The Nashville bomber smiled and told his neighbor 'the world is never going to forget me' days before the Christmas Day explosion that left three people injured, and officials say he may have had his dogs with him when he blew up his RV. On Monday the FBI in Memphis released this new photo of Warner showing him leaning out of what appears to be his white RVWarner appeared to target the AT&T transmission building in Nashville (above) in the Friday morning explosionWarner had several dogs over the years. He was known to own two Shetland sheepdogs and a larger dog he adopted, according to his neighbor of 25 years Steve Schmoldt. He said Warner 'took really good care of his dogs.' Warner even built a wheelchair ramp at his home so the dogs didnt have to use the stairs, one neighbor said to The Tennessean. Warner also said in a letter to a Los Angeles woman he gifted his $160,000 house to in November that he 'intended to travel on Christmas Eve to spend a few weeks in the woods with his dogs.' Christmas bomber Anthony Quinn Warner claimed to have cancer before the attackInvestigators are still trying to piece together a motive for the bomb. Officials say Warner's mother is cooperating with investigators. Warner left behind clues that suggest he planned the bombing and intended to kill himself. 'We hope to get an answer. Sometimes, it's just not possible,' David Rausch, the director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said Monday in an interview on the Today show. 'The best way to find motive is to talk to the individual. We will not be able to do that in this case.' However, Rausch said that Warner's plan seemed more intent on destruction rather than harm as a warning countdown blared on speakers 15 minutes before the blast, allowing police to evacuate people living in the area. 'It does appear that the intent was more destruction than death,' he said. A Sunday report from the New York Times details preparations Warner made in the weeks prior to his suicide attack, including telling his ex-girlfriend that he had cancer and giving her his car. However, it is unclear whether he indeed had cancer. On December 5, he also told a real estate agent that he worked for as a tech consultant that he planned to retire, according to the newspaper. A month before the bombing, Warner gave away the $160,000 home he lived in to a a 29-year-old, Los Angeles-based woman named Michelle Swing, whose ties to him are unclear, DailyMail.com first reported Saturday. A property record dated November 25 indicates Warner transferred the home to Swing in exchange for no money after living there for decades. Her signature is not on that document. The explosion took place before downtown streets were bustling with activity and was accompanied by a recorded announcement from the RV (pictured) warning anyone nearby that a bomb would soon detonateInvestigators remove items from the basement of Warner's home in Antioch, Tennessee, on Saturday afternoon. A review of his financial transactions also uncovered purchases of potential bomb-making components, the official said. Investigators used some items collected from the vehicle, including a hat and gloves, to match Warner's DNA and DNA was taken from one of his family members, the official, who spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity, said. Warner had worked as a computer consultant for Nashville real estate agent Steve Fridrich, who said Warner told him he was retiring earlier this month. The bomber's father Charles B. 'Popeye' Warner (above) died in 2011Officials said Warner had not been on their radar before Christmas. A law enforcement report released Monday showed that Warner's only arrest was for a 1978 marijuana-related charge. The freelance IT consultant, whom neighbors described as an 'oddball', was 'heavily into conspiracy theories', a source close to the investigation told DailyMail.com. Warner believed 5G cellular technology was killing people, and may have been spurred on in the conspiracy theory by the 2011 death of his father, who worked for telecom BellSouth, which later merged with AT&T. The bombing badly damaged a critical AT&T transmission center, wreaking havoc on phone communications in multiple states that the company is still racing to resolve. Agents are also investigating whether Quinn's paranoia over telecommunications began with the death of his father Charles B. Warner in July 2011, aged 78. A death certificate obtained by DailyMail.com notes that Charles, nicknamed Popeye, died of dementia after spending his career working for BellSouth, a former AT&T subsidiary which re-merged with the company in 2006. Electronic devices seized from Warner's former home in Antioch, a suburb of Nashville, have been sent to a digital forensics laboratory to unlock his online activity and find out where he discussed his warped views. 'We are waiting on the digital footprint that should finally provide us with some answers,' a source explained. 'The unofficial motive thus far is the suspect believed 5G was the root of all deaths in the region and he'd be hailed a hero.' Forensic analysts are also reviewing evidence from the blast site to try to identify the components of the explosives as well as information from the U.S. Bomb Data Center for intelligence and investigative leads, according to a law enforcement official who said investigators were examining Warner's digital footprint and financial history. Investigators pictured examining the blast site on Sunday in downtown Nashville, TennesseeNashville Police Chief John Drake, left, joins a group of police officers as they embrace after speaking at a news conference Sunday. The officers are part of a group of officers credited with evacuating people before an explosion took place in downtown Nashville early Christmas morningThe official, who was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, said federal agents were examining a number of potential leads and pursuing several theories, including the possibility that the AT&T building was targeted. Korneski said Sunday that officials were looking at any and all motives and were interviewing acquaintances of Warner's to try to determine what may have motivated him. The explosion took place before downtown streets were bustling with activity and was accompanied by a recorded announcement warning anyone nearby that a bomb would soon detonate. The warning blared out at least 15 minutes before the explosion actually happened. Then, for reasons that may never be known, the audio switched to a recording of Petula Clark's 1964 hit 'Downtown' shortly before the blast. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David Rausch (pictured) on Monday said that the bizarre forewarning indicates that Warner did not intend to hurt anyone but himself'When you look at all the facts at this point, obviously the audio from the vehicle warning people that an explosion was imminent, the opportunity to clear the area, certainly gives you that insight that the possibility was he had no intention of harming anyone but himself,' Rausch told Today. In addition to the DNA found at the blast site, investigators from the Tennessee Highway Patrol were able to link the vehicle identification number recovered from the wreckage to an RV registered to Warner, officials said. 'We're still following leads, but right now there is no indication that any other persons were involved. We've reviewed hours of security video surrounding the recreation vehicle. We saw no other people involved,' Korneski said. She pointed out that her signature did not appear on the quitclaim deed, saying: 'In the state of Tennessee you can deed property to someone else without their consent or their signature or anything. 'I didn't even buy the house he just deeded it over to me without my knowledge. 'This all very weird to me, that's about all I can say.' But a new report claims that Warner informed Swing of the transfer in a strange letter last month. 'The attic has plywood and lighting, take a look. The basement is not normal, take a look,' Warner allegedly wrote in the letter described by The Sun. He concluded with the words: 'Woof woof Julio.' In the letter Warner also shared that he 'intended to travel on Christmas Eve to spend a few weeks in the woods with his dogs'. Speaking to DailyMail.com, Swing declined to disclose whether she had ever met Warner or if she had any family links to him, saying: 'I've been told to direct everything else to FBI.' The Sun reported that police believe Warner may have had a relationship with Swing's mother. The outlet said Swing told investigators that she last spoke to Warner a week before Thanksgiving and that she had never met him in person. Warner's two properties are located just a 15 minute drive from where the bomb explodedSwing's signature does not appear on the November 25th transfer and she told DailyMail.com she knew absolutely nothing about itRecords show Warner also transferred another home on Bakertown Road to Swing via a quitclaim deed in January 2019. The $250,000 house had previously belonged to Warner's brother Steven, and Warner had only been in possession of it for five months before giving it to Swing for free. She later also used a quitclaim to give the house to Warner's mother, Lane. Swing's address in the record for the transfer is listed as Lenoir City, Tennessee, a two-hour drive from Nashville. According to her LinkedIn profile, she studied Marketing and Business and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, where she remained working until 2012 when she moved to California. Swing first lived in San Francisco before a move to Los Angeles in October 2018, where she works in artist development for Anschutz Entertainment Group. Federal authorities are working to piece together the motive behind the Christmas Day bombing in Nashville that severely damaged dozens of downtown buildings and injured three people. Officials on Sunday named Anthony Quinn Warner, 63, as the man behind the mysterious explosion in which he was killed, but the motive has remained elusive. We hope to get an answer. Sometimes, its just not possible, David Rausch, the director of the Tennessee bureau of investigation said in a Monday interview on NBCs Today show. The best way to find motive is to talk to the individual. We will not be able to do that in this case.In just a few days, hundreds of tips and leads have been submitted to law enforcement agencies. Yet thus far, officials have not provided information on what possibly drove Warner to set off the explosion. According to officials, he had not been on the radar before Christmas. A TBI records report released on Monday showed that Warners only arrest was for a 1978 marijuana-related charge. It does appear that the intent was more destruction than death but again thats all still speculation at this point as we continue in our investigation with all our partners, Rausch added. Jason Pack, a special agent with the FBI, said the investigation into a motive was still in the early stages. FBI and ATF agents are still collecting evidence from the scene and conducting numerous interviews, which our team will need to analyze. Its a time-consuming process which could take several weeks, Pack said. Some details about Warners life have emerged, with acquaintances describing him as a reserved homebody who was long devoted to his pets. Warner was raised in the Nashville neighborhood of Antioch. He graduated from Antioch high school and then put down roots in the area, according to the Tennessean. In high school, Warner was on the golf team. What I can remember about him was essentially three things: quiet, polite, and I dont like to use the term, but quite frankly nerdish, Charlie Bozman, who had overseen the Antioch high schools golf coach when Warner was on the team, told the newspaper. He was a very reserved person.Over the past month, however, Warner appeared to put his affairs in order, the newspaper reported. In late November, Warner transferred ownership of his longtime home to a Los Angeles woman. He did so with a quitclaim deed, meaning the transfer did not require her signature. Steve Fridrich, owner of Fridrich & Clark Realty, told the newspaper that Warner resigned from providing IT services after working as a contractor for the firm for about four or five years. In December he sent us an email saying hed no longer be working for us, Fridrich reportedly said. Police close off an area damaged by the explosion on Christmas morning. Photograph: Terry Wyatt/Getty ImagesFridrich also told the local WSMV TV station that federal agents had asked him if Warner had a paranoia about 5G technology. Promoted by the rightwing cult movement QAnon, among others, the conspiracy theory makes wild claims about 5G. The Associated Press reported that Rick Laude, a neighbor of Warners, saw him standing at his mailbox less than a week before Christmas and pulled over in his car to talk. After asking how Warners elderly mother was doing, Laude said he casually asked, Is Santa going to bring you anything good for Christmas?Warner smiled and said, Oh, yeah, Nashville and the world is never going to forget me, Laude recalled. Laude said he didnt think much of the remark and thought Warner only meant that something good was going to happen for him financially. Nothing about this guy raised any red flags, Laude said. He was just quiet.Officials have not provided insight into why Warner selected the particular location for the bombing, which damaged an AT&T building and continued to wreak havoc on cellphone service and police and hospital communications in several southern states as the company worked to restore service. Forensic analysts were reviewing evidence collected from the blast site to try to identify the components of the explosives as well as information from the US Bomb Data Center for intelligence and investigative leads, according to a law enforcement official who said investigators were examining Warners digital footprint and financial history, as well as a recent deed transfer of a suburban Nashville home they searched. The official, who was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, said federal agents were examining a number of potential leads and pursuing several theories, including the possibility that the AT&T building was targeted. The bombing took place on a holiday morning well before downtown streets were bustling with activity and was accompanied by a recorded announcement warning anyone nearby that a bomb would soon detonate. Then, for reasons that may never be known, the audio switched to a recording of Petula Clarks 1964 hit Downtown shortly before the blast. Police were responding to a report of shots fired on Friday when they encountered the RV blaring a recorded warning that a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes. Suddenly the warning stopped, and Downtown started playing. The RV exploded shortly afterward, sending black smoke and flames billowing from the heart of downtown Nashvilles tourist scene, an area packed with honky-tonks, restaurants and shops. Earlier on Sunday, the officers who responded provided harrowing details, at times getting choked up reliving the moments that led up to the blast. This is going to tie us together forever, for the rest of my life, said Metro Nashville police officer James Wells, who suffered some hearing loss due to the explosion, to reporters at a news conference. Christmas will never be the same.

###CLAIM: sandra and white added : `` if you see them out and about, they are very friendly, but a huge amount of them are just fine. '' ###DOCS: AdvertisementSir Richard Sutton's partner's son has been charged with murder after the multi-millionaire hotelier was found stabbed at his 2million mansion. Dorset Police said Sir Richard Sutton, who owned a string of top hotels in London, died on Wednesday during an incident at a property near Gillingham. A woman in her 60s, named in reports as Sir Richard's partner, was seriously injured and airlifted to Southmead Hospital in Bristol where she remains in a critical condition. It is believed both were stabbed, the force said. A spokesman for Sir Richard Sutton Ltd said the woman is Anne Schreiber, who was 'a hugely important part of Sir Richard's life' having cared for him for a 'long period'. Thomas Schreiber, 34, was detained on Wednesday night and has been charged with murder, attempted murder and dangerous driving and is due before magistrates in Poole on Monday. An initial post-mortem examination indicated that Sir Richard's cause of death was stab wounds to his chest. Schreiber, from the Gillingham area, allegedly suffered wounds and was taken to hospital with non life-threatening injuries. He has since been released from hospital and is helping officers with inquires, police have said. He was earlier named locally as the man arrested. A family friend who has known him since childhood said: 'It's very upsetting but yes, it's Thomas that they have arrested.' Friends described Thomas as 'socially awkward' and told MailOnline he divided time between a rented flat in London and his mother's home with Sir Richard in Dorset. Friends said he moved in permanently with his mother and stepfather last year when the country was plunged into its first coronavirus lockdown. 'Employees across the group have been united in their shock at what has happened and will need time to come to terms with the loss of such an influential figure.' In a statement released on Sunday, Detective Inspector Simon Huxter, of Dorset Police's Major Crime Investigation Team (MCIT), said: 'Our thoughts remain with the victims' family and all of those affected by this terrible incident. 'Following a detailed investigation, we have consulted with the Crown Prosecution Service. As a result, Dorset Police have been authorised to formally charge Thomas Schreiber with the murder of Sir Richard, attempted murder of the injured woman and dangerous driving. 'It is important to stress that it would be entirely inappropriate for Dorset Police to comment further ahead of the trial. It is vital that the criminal justice system is allowed to follow its course. 'I would like to remind the public that this matter is now the subject of active court proceedings and the individual charged in connection with this investigation has a right to a fair trial. 'It is important that there should be no commentary or sharing of information online or on social media that could potentially prejudice these proceedings.' Three hours after the 301million baronet died inside his home on Wednesday night, police detained a suspect in a Range Rover 100 miles away in Chiswick. A family member who lives close by is understood to have raised the alarm when they failed to get through to the house about three miles from Gillingham in Dorset. The emergency workers, who were masked, then drove a suspect to hospital while accompanied by police. Chris Twiselton, a 38-year-old care worker who specialises in people with autism and lives directly opposite the arrest scene, said he saw paramedics aiding the injured man. He added: 'The paramedics got to him straight away to try to help him and they put him into one of the three ambulances really quickly. I was really shaken by it all.' On Wednesday night police arrested a 34-year-old man, known to Sir Richard, on suspicion of murder. Pictured: A map showing how police tracked a suspect from Dorset to LondonPolice guard Sir Richard's 2million property. The landowner, 83, is estimated to be worth 301millionAn aerial view of Sir Richard's estate about three miles away from Gillingham in DorsetA wider view of the estate. Sir Richard's wealth was put at 301 million in May 2020, placing him 435th on The Sunday Times Rich ListSir Richard - described as an 'old English gentry land owner' - recently ranked at number 435 on the Sunday Times Rich List with a fortune of 301million and owned the five-star Sheraton Grand on London's prestigious Park Lane and the Athenaeum in Piccadilly. He owned other hotels in Bath, Cheltenham and Windsor, 7,000 acres of land in Dorset, Berkshire, London, Lincolnshire and Aberdeenshire, and had farming and property businesses. Sir Richard, who became the ninth baronet of Norwood Park, Nottingham, in 1981, is divorced from first wife Italian Fiamma Sutton, has two children, son, David, 61, and daughter, Caroline, 55, as well as five grandchildren. Ms Schreiber has three grown up children from a previous marriage, two daughters, Louisa, 39, Rose, 35 and a son Thomas, 34. Sir Richard Sutton: Baronet and hotelier with 7,000 acres of land and a 301million fortune Sir Richard Lexington Sutton, 83, is estimated to be worth 301million and owns around 7,000 acres of land across the UK. He is a baronet, a hereditary honour awarded by the monarch. It is the lowest-ranking hereditary title, but baronets are able to use the prefix 'sir. The Sutton Baronetcy of Norwood Park in the County of Nottingham, dates back to October 1772. It was created by King George III for politician Richard Sutton. He was the second surviving son of the distinguished diplomat Sir Robert Sutton. The latter was the grandson of Henry Sutton, brother of Robert Sutton, 1st Baron Lexinton. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the family seat was at Benham Place. However, the house was sold in 1982. Sir Richard became the ninth baronet of Norwood Park, Nottingham, in 1981, after inheriting the title from his father. Sir Richard was listed at number 435 in The Sunday Times Rich List in 2020 with an estimated family fortune of 301 million - a rise of 83 million on the previous year. He owned the Sheraton Grand on London's prestigious Park Lane and the Athenaeum in Piccadilly, in addition to other hotels in Bath, Cheltenham and Windsor, and land in Dorset, Berkshire, London, Lincolnshire and Aberdeenshire, and several farming and property businesses. His landholdings include the Benham Estate in West Berkshire and the Stainton Estate in Lincolnshire. AdvertisementMs Schreiber owns and runs The London Road clinic in Sherborne, Dorset, an exclusive clinic with services such as osteopathy, physiotherapy and counselling. In 2012, she offered her advice for easing the pain of swollen limbs in an interview with the Daily Mail. The 34-year-old man who was arrested on Wednesday night was often seen in the tiny hamlet of Higher Langham and was described by one neighbour as a 'lovely man.' 'We would see him about quite often. He was a lovely man and very chatty. I don't think he had a job as he was around here so often', the neighbour told MailOnline. Floral tributes to Sir Richard were earlier laid at the entrance to his country estate. Neighbour Hilary Gallup placed a box plant with the message: 'A lovely man - our thoughts are with you'. She said: 'It is so sad. I had met him on a few occasions, such as a Jubilee party at the house. They were a private couple but a big part of the community.' Two other bouquets were placed at the entrance. A police statement previously said of Wednesday's arrest: 'At approximately 22.30pm on Wednesday, 7 April, police stopped a vehicle in Chiswick High Road. When they approached the vehicle, officers discovered that the lone male occupant had sustained a number of serious self-inflicted injuries. 'First aid was commenced immediately and the London Ambulance Service were called. The male was taken to a west London hospital. His injuries have been assessed as non-life threatening.' More villagers came forward to speak of their shock and heartache at Sir Richard's death. John Murray, who is aged in his 70s, said: 'We don't even register as being big enough to be a village. This really is the last place you'd expect something like this to happen. 'I only ever chatted to him a couple of times. Whenever you did see him he was friendly and would say hello as he passed. It's very sad and you have to think about what that family must be going through.' Fellow resident, Sandra White, added: 'They were very friendly if you saw them out and about but they didn't mingle a huge amount, which is fine. 'I know they attended a party for the jubilee one year when the bunting was out around the village. It's really sad and I cannot believe it. To be killed in that way is tragic for everyone who knew them well.' Another resident, who did not want to be named, said: 'Speaking to people out and about, people don't seem to have known them very well but nobody has anything bad to say about them. 'He was obviously very successful and did well for himself in business. I'm sure people who knew him well will he absolutely heartbroken.' Hotelier Sir Richard Lexington Sutton (pictured), 83, was found stabbed inside his 2million home in north Dorset, on Wednesday nightSir Richard also owned the luxury Athenaeum Hotel and Spa in London's PiccadillySir Richard is the owner of the luxurious five-star Sheraton Grand (pictured) in London's prestigious Park LaneA witness told MailOnline: 'It was a big, big operation. There were armed police everywhere and a dog unit. At least two helicopters hovered overhead. 'The forensics arrived in the early hours and were searching the scene of the stop. They were there until about 4am this morning.' The arrest was captured on camera by resident Maureen Kane, 50, whose flat overlooks the street. Ms Kane, who works in video marketing, said: 'I just heard a loud screech of cars swerving and then crash sounds. Then I looked out of my window and saw lots of armed police jumping on top of a car and aiming guns at a man and all around his car. 'He was a white male in his 30s and seemed to be injured.' The ambulance arrived within 30 minutes, Ms Kane said, adding: 'Police were still in the road and had all the roads blocked for hours after this until I went to bed at 2am. 'I've not heard anything about it from my neighbours or anything since.' Sir Richard was found with fatal stab wounds following the attack at his large detached home near Gillingham, Dorset. He bought the Moorhill country estate, set in the tiny hamlet of Higher Langham, in 2014 for 1.4million. Sir Richard, who inherited his estate with his baronetcy in 1981, has been described as an 'old English gentry landowner'. Alongside his two Park Lane hotels he owned a swathe of property and farms across the country. A spokesman for the Sir Richard Sutton Limited (SRSL) said on Wednesday: 'We are deeply saddened and devastated by the sudden death of Sir Richard Sutton, announced this morning. 'Sir Richard was a caring, generous and warm family man, who genuinely regarded those who worked for him as part of his extended family. Sir Richard was passionately devoted to both his company and its people, setting the highest and standards for quality in the hotels, farming and property interests within the group. 'His loss will be felt by everyone within the company, those who worked with him, and his family who have lost an incredible individual. Our thoughts are with the Sutton family at this tragic time.' The property is a large detached home in a tiny hamlet, near Gillingham, Dorset. Pictured: Flowers left at the scene as police continue their investigationSir Richard inherited his title and estate from his father in 1981 and was worth an estimated 301m in May 2020, placing him 435th on the Sunday Times' Rich List. Pictured: Police at the sceneSir Richard's company has donated more than 240,000 to the Conservative Party in the past 20 years. Three police vans had been seen at the entrance to a long drive which leads to the remote property, while forensics officers were observed inside. A neighbour said: 'The Suttons live there. They have two grown up children and grandchildren. It is just awful. You would never imagine something like this could happen. They are lovely people.' A local farmer said: 'I saw a search helicopter with a spotlight overhead on Wednesday night and then an air ambulance landed. The people who live there is an old English gentry landowner and his partner.' Another neighbour said they were aware of police helicopters flying over the house for a number of hours. Their family has been informed and the Dorset coroner has been notified of the death. Sir Richard Lexington Sutton, 9th Baronet, was head of the Sutton family, which owns land in Dorset, Berkshire, London and Lincolnshire and Aberdeenshire. He married wife Fiamma in 1959, but the pair are said to have divorced. It is believe she now lives at a farm in a village near Hungerford, Berkshire. Local MP Simon Hoare, who knew Sir Richard Sutton well, paid tribute to the landowner who he said was a 'country gentleman'. Three police vans were seen at the entrance to a long drive which leads to the remote property, while forensics officers were observed inside. The house is picturedA police van and flowers near a sign for a road closure near the properly in the countryside outside GillinghamThe Conservative MP for North Dorset described the incident as 'deeply awful' and said he received a 'full briefing' on it from police. Mr Hoare MP, 51, said: 'I knew him, strangely enough I knew him before I was an MP as my company did a lot of work for his estate many years ago. 'He was a charming man, he had a very good sense of humour, he was politically astute and genial. 'If you wanted to conjure up a picture of a country gentleman then that was him. 'It is a huge loss for his family in what is clearly deeply awful circumstances.' Mr Hoare also said: 'This is not the sort of thing you expect to see happening in North Dorset nor the sort of thing we are used to seeing here. 'Based on what I have been told by the police there is cause for shock and sadness but no cause or reason for alarm.' The politician added that he is hoping medics are able to help save the injured woman in her 60s as 'one murder is shocking but a double murder would be chilling'. Mr Hoare earlier said he would not disclose details about the circumstances of the incident nor the identity of the 34 year old man who has been arrested. Richard Gallop, a retired air traffic controller in his 70s, who is involved in the local neighbourhood watch, said: 'Anne is quite chatty while Richard kept himself to himself.' A murder investigation has been launched after one of Britains richest men was found stabbed to death. Sir Richard Lexington Sutton, an 83-year-old baronet, was attacked on Wednesday at his country mansion near Gillingham in Dorset. A woman who is believed to be his partner also received knife injuries. A 34-year-old man from the Gillingham area was arrested on suspicion of murder and was taken to hospital with injuries that are not believed to be life-threatening. He and the couple were known to each other, according to Dorset police. Tributes have been paid to Sutton by friends including Simon Hoare, the Conservative MP for North Dorset, who described him as a country gentleman. He was a charming man, he had a very good sense of humour, he was politically astute and genial, Hoare said. If you wanted to conjure up a picture of a country gentleman then that was him. It is a huge loss for his family in what is clearly deeply awful circumstances.The family wealth of the landowner and businessman was estimated at 301m in the 2020 Sunday Times rich list. He owned a large portfolio of farms, properties and hotels including the five-star Sheraton Grand in Londons Park Lane and the Athenaeum. The woman who was injured in the incident was reported to be Anne Schrieber, 65, his long-term partner and physiotherapist who runs her own practice in the nearby village of Milborne Port. Police said on Thursday that they received a report at 7.30pm on Wednesday raising concern for the welfare of the occupants of an address in the hamlet of Higher Langham. Officers attended the detached property, known as Moorhill, where they found the couple with serious stab wounds. Sutton was pronounced dead at the scene at around 9.15pm while his partner was airlifted to Southmead hospital in Bristol, where she remained in a critical condition. Following what the force described as fast-time inquiries by officers, a Range Rover believed to be linked to the incident was identified on its way to London and was stopped in Hammersmith, in the west of the city, where the suspect was arrested. A statement issued by the baronets company, Sir Richard Sutton Limited, said staff were deeply saddened and devastated by the sudden death. It said: Sir Richard was a caring, generous and warm family man, who genuinely regarded those who worked for him as part of his extended family. Sir Richard was passionately devoted to both his company and its people, setting the highest and standards for quality in the hotels, farming and property interests within the group.Dorset polices major crime investigation team have appealed for members of the public with information to come forward. DI Simon Huxter said: Our thoughts are with the family of the man who sadly died and the injured woman at this extremely difficult time and they are being supported by specially trained officers. We will be carrying out a full investigation to establish exactly what happened at the address in Higher Langham and I would appeal to anyone who saw or heard anything suspicious in the area on the evening of Wednesday 7 April 2021 to please contact us.Sutton bought Moorhill in 2014 for 1.4m. He was reported to have been divorced from his first wife, Fiamma Sutton, and had two children, David, 61, and Caroline, 55, and five grandchildren. He inherited his title and estate from his father in 1981. . A man will appear in court in Dorset charged with the murder of the millionaire businessman Richard Sutton, one of Britains richest men. Sutton, 83, was found stabbed on Wednesday at his home in Higher Langham near Gillingham, alongside his partner, Anne Schreiber, who remains seriously ill in Southmead hospital in Bristol. Police said Thomas Schreiber, 34, from the Gillingham area, has been charged over the murder of Sutton, attempted murder, and with dangerous driving. He is scheduled to appear at Poole magistrates court on Monday. Police say a postmortem examination indicated that Sutton died from stab wounds to the chest. His partner, who is in her 60s, also suffered stab wounds. Sutton owned a portfolio of leading hotels in London. His company owns the Sheraton Grand Park Lane and the Athenaeum, as well as three other venues. Dorset police said they were called to his home on Wednesday evening and he was pronounced dead less than 90 minutes later. Officers attended the address and found a man aged in his 80s and a woman aged in her 60s, both with serious injuries, a police spokesperson said. Very sadly, the injured man was pronounced dead at the scene at around 9.15pm.A man was stopped later that evening in a car near Hammersmith, west London. He was arrested. DI Simon Huxter, of Dorset polices major crime investigation team, said: Our thoughts remain with the victims family and all of those affected by this terrible incident. Dorset police have been authorised to formally charge Thomas Schreiber with the murder of Sir Richard, attempted murder of the injured woman and dangerous driving. I would like to remind the public that this matter is now the subject of active court proceedings and the individual charged in connection with this investigation has a right to a fair trial. It is important that there should be no commentary or sharing of information online or on social media that could potentially prejudice these proceedings.A spokesperson for Sir Richard Sutton Ltd said Anne Schreiber was a hugely important part of Sir Richards life and had cared for him for a long period. She is an accomplished physiotherapist who owns a clinic in Sherborne, Dorset. The spokesperson added: Though separated, Sir Richard also remained on good terms with his wife, Lady Fiamma, and very close to their children, who are mourning the loss of a devoted father. Employees across the group have been united in their shock at what has happened and will need time to come to terms with the loss of such an influential figure. Sutton had two children from his marriage to his wife. Last year, Suttons family fortune was estimated by the Sunday Times Rich list to be 301m, and to have increased by more than 80m compared with the preceding year. As well as hotels, he had property and farming interests, including the 6,500-acre Benham Estate in West Berkshire and the Stainton Estate in Lincolnshire. Simon Hoare, the Conservative MP for North Dorset, paid tribute to Sutton. He said: He was a charming man, he had a very good sense of humour, he was politically astute and genial. If you wanted to conjure up a picture of a country gentleman then that was him. It is a huge loss for his family in what is clearly deeply awful circumstances. AdvertisementThe stepson of millionaire hotelier Sir Richard Sutton, who was arrested on suspicion of his murder, has been released from hospital and is tonight being probed by police. Thomas Schreiber, 34, was detained by armed officers on Wednesday night in Chiswick, West London, after Sir Richard, 83, was killed at his north Dorset home. Sir Richard's partner and Schreiber's mother Anne, 65, had been wounded during the same incident and remains in a critical condition in hospital after suffering multiple stab wounds. An initial post-mortem examination indicated that Sir Richard's cause of death was stab wounds to his chest. A Range Rover car that Schreiber was alleged to have been driving was tracked across six counties and brought to a halt in West London by armed police where he was dragged from the vehicle. Schreiber had suffered wounds and was taken to hospital with non life-threatening injuries. He has since been released from hospital and is helping officers with his inquires, police have today said. Officers have yet to confirm whether he was involved in the killing other than to say the 83-year-old murder victim knew his attacker. But Schreiber has been named locally as the man arrested. A family friend who has known him since childhood said: 'It's very upsetting but yes, it's Thomas that they have arrested.' Friends of Schreiber told how he had been affected by the end of his parents' marriage. His father David Schreiber died from alcoholism in 2013 while living in sheltered accommodation. Thomas is said to have visited his father's grave hours before the alleged knife attack at his step-father's home in the tiny hamlet of Higher Langham in North Dorset. Friends described Thomas as 'socially awkward' and told MailOnline how he struggled to cope with his parents' marriage split. Thomas divided his time between a rented flat in London and his mother's home with Sir Richard in Dorset. Friends said he moved in permanently with his mother and stepfather last year when the country was plunged into its first coronavirus lockdown. In recent weeks the relationship is said to have deteriorated. The driver, who is said to have been unemployed and living on Sir Richard's county estate, is believed to have visited his father's resting place at some point in the day, according to The Times. MailOnline uncovered the first images of the suspect being cared for by paramedics and stretchered into an ambulance after allegedly stabbing himself several times. Surrounded by around a dozen police officers with automatic rifles, he was tended to on the pavement by medics after one officer shouted 'he's stabbed himself'. Paramedics worked to stem the flow of blood from the suspect and used a defibrillator to restore his heart beat before taking him to hospital, where his condition is not thought to be life-threatening. Footage shows him being placed on a stretcher with medics covering his body in foil to maintain his body temperature and putting him into one of three ambulances which arrived on the scene. Sir Richard's partner, named locally as Anne Schreiber, 65, a Danish-born physiotherapist, this morning remained in a 'critical' condition in hospital after suffering knife injuries in the attack at their country house, Moorhill. A family member who lives close by is understood to have raised the alarm when they failed to get through to the house about three miles from Gillingham in Dorset. The emergency workers, who were masked, then drove the suspect to hospital while accompanied by police. The eye witness who shot the video said: 'I heard what I thought was an explosion and then saw that the cars had smashed into each other. 'They were trying to save the guy's life for around 15 minutes. But the whole thing was very calm. There must have been around 25 police officers and 12 police cars but I didn't know what it was about until the next morning when I read about it.' Pictures from the scene show the 4x4 had been boxed in by police in Chiswick, London, before the driver - who was believed to be known to Sir Richard - was carried away in a stretcher after he was found to have received 'a number of serious self-inflicted injuries'Police attended an accident involving a Range Rover (pictured) in Chiswick on Wednesday evening. He was on the ground surrounded by officers with automatic weapons. 'I thought it was a terrorist incident when I saw the number of police with guns. They were really calm as clearly they knew they had got their man. Sir Richard Sutton: Baronet and hotelier with 7,000 acres of land and a 301million fortune Sir Richard Lexington Sutton, 83, is estimated to be worth 301million and owns around 7,000 acres of land across the UK. He is a baronet, a hereditary honour awarded by the monarch. It is the lowest-ranking hereditary title, but baronets are able to use the prefix 'sir. The Sutton Baronetcy of Norwood Park in the County of Nottingham, dates back to October 1772. It was created by King George III for politician Richard Sutton. He was the second surviving son of the distinguished diplomat Sir Robert Sutton. The latter was the grandson of Henry Sutton, brother of Robert Sutton, 1st Baron Lexinton. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the family seat was at Benham Place. However, the house was sold in 1982. Sir Richard became the ninth baronet of Norwood Park, Nottingham, in 1981, after inheriting the title from his father. Sir Richard was listed at number 435 in The Sunday Times Rich List in 2020 with an estimated family fortune of 301 million - a rise of 83 million on the previous year. He owned the Sheraton Grand on London's prestigious Park Lane and the Athenaeum in Piccadilly, in addition to other hotels in Bath, Cheltenham and Windsor, and land in Dorset, Berkshire, London, Lincolnshire and Aberdeenshire, and several farming and property businesses. His landholdings include the Benham Estate in West Berkshire and the Stainton Estate in Lincolnshire. Advertisement'There was blood on the ground and one of the lamp posts outside my flat has a dent in it where one of the cars had hit it.' Mr Twiselton a 38-year-old care worker who specialises in people with autism and lives directly opposite the arrest scene, said he saw paramedics aiding the injured man. He added: 'The paramedics got to him straight away To try to help him and they put him into one of the three ambulances really quickly. I was really shaken by it all.' A knife, passport, shoes and jeans were found at the scene. Sir Richard - described as an 'old English gentry land owner' - recently ranked at number 435 on the Sunday Times Rich List with a fortune of 301million and owned the five-star Sheraton Grand on London's prestigious Park Lane and the Athenaeum in Piccadilly. He owned other hotels in Bath, Cheltenham and Windsor, 7,000 acres of land in Dorset, Berkshire, London, Lincolnshire and Aberdeenshire, and had farming and property businesses. Sir Richard, who became the ninth baronet of Norwood Park, Nottingham, in 1981, is divorced from first wife Italian Fiamma Sutton, has two children, son, David, 61, and daughter, Caroline, 55, as well as five grandchildren. Ms Schreiber has three grown up children from a previous marriage, two daughters, Louisa, 39, Rose, 35 and a son Thomas, 34. Ms Schreiber owns and runs The London Road clinic in Sherborne, Dorset, an exclusive clinic with services such as osteopathy, physiotherapy and counselling. In 2012, she offered her advice for easing the pain of swollen limbs in an interview with the Daily Mail. The 34-year-old man who was arrested on Wednesday night was often seen in the tiny hamlet of Higher Langham and was described by one neighbour as a 'lovely man.' 'We would see him about quite often. He was a lovely man and very chatty. I don't think he had a job as he was around here so often' the neighbour told MailOnline. Floral tributes to Sir Richard were laid at the entrance to his country estate today. Neighbour Hilary Gallup placed a box plant with the message 'A lovely man - our thoughts are with you'She said: 'It is so sad. I had met him on a few occasions, such as a Jubilee party at the house. They were a private couple but a big part of the community.' Two other bouquets were placed at the entrance. A police statement said of Wednesday's arrest: 'At approximately 22.30pm on Wednesday, 7 April, police stopped a vehicle in Chiswick High Road. When they approached the vehicle, officers discovered that the lone male occupant had sustained a number of serious self-inflicted injuries. The male was taken to a west London hospital. His injuries have been assessed as non-life threatening.' While police continue to question the suspect, more villagers came forward to speak of their shock and heartache at Sir Richard's death. John Murray, who is aged in his 70s, said: 'We don't even register as being big enough to be a village. This really is the last place you'd expect something like this to happen. 'I only ever chatted to him a couple of times. Whenever you did see him he was friendly and would say hello as he passed. It's very sad and you have to think about what that family must be going through.' Fellow resident, Sandra White, added: 'They were very friendly if you saw them out and about but they didn't mingle a huge amount, which is fine. 'I know they attended a party for the jubilee one year when the bunting was out around the village. It's really sad and I cannot believe it. To be killed in that way is tragic for everyone who knew them well.' Another resident, who did not want to be named, said: 'Speaking to people out and about, people don't seem to have known them very well but nobody has anything bad to say about them. 'He was obviously very successful and did well for himself in business. I'm sure people who knew him well will he absolutely heartbroken.' The Range Rover was tailed by two marked police 4x4 cars and an unmarked BMW X5 as it travelled along the Chiswick High Road in west London at about 10.45pm on Wednesday night. One of the Metropolitan Police 4x4s appeared to have clipped the back of the Range Rover as the X5 pulled in front of it to perform a hard stop. On Wednesday night police arrested a 34-year-old man, known to Sir Richard, on suspicion of murder. Pictured: A map showing how police tracked the suspect from Dorset to LondonPolice guard Sir Richard's 2million property today. The landowner, 83, is estimated to be worth 301millionAn aerial view of Sir Richard's estate about three miles away from Gillingham in Dorset, seen this morningA wider view of the estate. Sir Richard's wealth was put at 301 million in May 2020, placing him 435th on The Sunday Times Rich ListThe Metropolitan Police operation involved armed police, police dog handlers and the force helicopter. An eyewitness told MailOnline on Wednesday evening: 'I counted about 17 police cars and two ambulances. The whole street was bathed in flashing blue lights. 'There had been two or three large bangs, which drew me to the window. I saw what looked to be a Range Rover that had come to a stop between two police 4x4s and a BMW X5. 'The police swarmed around the Range Rover and the driver was brought out and laid out on the road. He was clearly in some distress, the police crowded around him and began to assess his injuries. 'They cut his clothes off, his shirt and trousers, and then wrapped him in a silver foil wrap as they administered first aid. 'I saw an officer go to the back of the X5 and bring out what looked like a defibrillator. The ambulances showed up a short while later. 'The paramedics took over the medical treatment. The driver of the Range Rover appeared to be conscious as the officers were talking to him and I could see him move slightly. 'After maybe an hour to 90-minutes he was placed on a stretcher with an oxygen mask over his mouth and placed in the back of one of the ambulances.' The witness continued: 'It was a big, big operation. There were armed police everywhere and a dog unit. At least two helicopters hovered overhead. 'The forensics arrived in the early hours and were searching the scene of the stop. They were there until about 4am this morning.' The crash was captured on camera by resident Maureen Kane, 50, whose flat overlooks the street. Hotelier Sir Richard Lexington Sutton (pictured), 83, was found stabbed to death inside his 2million home in north Dorset, on Wednesday nightSir Richard also owned the luxury Athenaeum Hotel and Spa in London's PiccadillySir Richard is the owner of the luxurious five-star Sheraton Grand (pictured) in London's prestigious Park LaneMs Kane, who works in video marketing, told how up to 40 police officer attended the scene. She said: 'I just heard a loud screech of cars swerving and then crash sounds. Then I looked out of my window and saw lots of armed police jumping on top of a car and aiming guns at a man and all around his car. 'He was a white male in his 30s and seemed to be injured.' The ambulance arrived within 30 minutes, Ms Kane said, adding: 'Police were still in the road and had all the roads blocked for hours after this until I went to bed at 2am. 'I've not heard anything about it from my neighbours or anything since.' Sir Richard was found with fatal stab wounds following the attack at his large detached home near Gillingham, Dorset. He bought the Moorhill country estate, set in the tiny hamlet of Higher Langham, in 2014 for 1.4million. Sir Richard, who inherited his estate with his baronetcy in 1981, has been described as an 'old English gentry landowner'. Alongside his two Park Lane hotels he owned a swathe of property and farms across the country. A spokesman for the Sir Richard Sutton Limited (SRSL) said on Wednesday: 'We are deeply saddened and devastated by the sudden death of Sir Richard Sutton, announced this morning. 'Sir Richard was a caring, generous and warm family man, who genuinely regarded those who worked for him as part of his extended family. Sir Richard was passionately devoted to both his company and its people, setting the highest and standards for quality in the hotels, farming and property interests within the group. 'His loss will be felt by everyone within the company, those who worked with him, and his family who have lost an incredible individual. Our thoughts are with the Sutton family at this tragic time.' Sir Richard's company has donated more than 240,000 to the Conservative Party in the past 20 years. Yesterday three police vans were seen at the entrance to a long drive which leads to the remote property, while forensics officers were observed inside. A neighbour said: 'The Suttons live there. They have two grown up children and grandchildren. It is just awful. You would never imagine something like this could happen. They are lovely people.' The property is a large detached home in a tiny hamlet, near Gillingham, Dorset. Pictured: Flowers left at the scene today, as police continue their investigationSir Richard inherited his title and estate from his father in 1981 and was worth an estimated 301m in May 2020, placing him 435th on the Sunday Times' Rich List. Pictured: Police at the scene todayA local farmer said: 'I saw a search helicopter with a spotlight overhead on Wednesday night and then an air ambulance landed. The people who live there is an old English gentry landowner and his partner.' Another neighbour said they were aware of police helicopters flying over the house for a number of hours. Their family has been informed and the Dorset coroner has been notified of the death. Detective Inspector Simon Huxter, of Dorset Police's Major Crime Investigation Team, said: 'Our thoughts are with the family of the man who sadly died and the injured woman at this extremely difficult time and they are being supported by specially-trained officers. 'We will be carrying out a full investigation to establish exactly what happened at the address in Higher Langham and I would appeal to anyone who saw or heard anything suspicious in the area on the evening of April 7 to please contact us. 'A cordon remains in place at the address and there will continue to be a heavy police presence in the vicinity as we carry out enquiries. 'Officers can be approached by members of the public with any information or concerns.' Sir Richard Lexington Sutton, 9th Baronet, was head of the Sutton family, which owns land in Dorset, Berkshire, London and Lincolnshire and Aberdeenshire. He married wife Fiamma in 1959, but the pair are said to have divorced. It is believe she now lives at a farm in a village near Hungerford, Berks. Local MP Simon Hoare, who knew Sir Richard Sutton well, paid tribute to the landowner who he said was a 'country gentleman'. Yesterday three police vans were seen at the entrance to a long drive which leads to the remote property, while forensics officers were observed inside. The house is pictured todayA police van and flowers near a sign for a road closure near the properly in the countryside outside GillinghamThe Conservative MP for North Dorset described the incident as 'deeply awful' and said he received a 'full briefing' on it from police. Mr Hoare MP, 51, said: 'I knew him, strangely enough I knew him before I was an MP as my company did a lot of work for his estate many years ago. 'He was a charming man, he had a very good sense of humour, he was politically astute and genial. 'If you wanted to conjure up a picture of a country gentleman then that was him. 'It is a huge loss for his family in what is clearly deeply awful circumstances.' Mr Hoare MP also said: 'This is not the sort of thing you expect to see happening in North Dorset nor the sort of thing we are used to seeing here. 'Based on what I have been told by the police there is cause for shock and sadness but no cause or reason for alarm.' The politician added that he is hoping medics are able to help save the injured woman in her 60s as 'one murder is shocking but a double murder would be chilling'. Mr Hoare MP said he would not disclose details about the circumstances of the incident nor the identity of the 34 year old man who has been arrested. Richard Gallop, a retired air traffic controller in his 70s, who is involved in the local neighbourhood watch, said: 'Anne is quite chatty while Richard kept himself to himself.'

###CLAIM: hopefully this is a demonstration of what these things can work for and have been doing for years. ###DOCS: One of the buzziest diet trends of the past several years has been debunked. A new study has found that intermittent fasting a celebrity-favored diet in which eating is limited to about an 8-hour window during the day does not help people lose weight, and may even result in a loss of muscle mass. The study by researchers from the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) found that those who intermittently fasted for 12 weeks only lost a half-pound more than a group of people who ate normally. Previous studies of the diet promised a range of benefits, from weight loss to longevity; however, much of the research only studied mice. The new findings, published in JAMA Internal Medicine following a clinical trial, were shocking to the researchers one of whom was even on the diet himself for seven years. I went into this hoping to demonstrate that this thing Ive been doing for years works, lead author and UCSF cardiologist Dr. Ethan Weiss told CNBC. But as soon as I saw the data, I stopped.It upends years of hype, especially among Silicon Valley biohacking types, who touted fasting as a way to stay healthy, be productive and live longer. Among its most loyal devotees were Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. But even average Joes combined it with healthier lifestyle choices to drop pounds. Last year, a version of it was the most-searched diet trend of the year. In reality, however, it appeared no one on the diet alone loses a statistically significant amount of weight, according to the study, which enlisted 116 overweight or obese participants. It also had little effect on blood sugar and cholesterol levels. In fact, it even had some adverse effects. Some of the participants on the diet actually experienced lean muscle loss, the study found. Previous research touting the weight-loss benefits of intermittent fasting came with a caveat that any resultant fat loss may have had more to do with calorie restriction, since fewer hours of eating a day generally meant fewer opportunities to overindulge. Diets made famous by the likes of Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon that require you to limit when you eat are 'no better for weight loss' than eating normally. Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco had a group of 116 volunteers eat a celebrity inspired fasting diet and others eat three meals a day. The fasting group could only eat between 12pm and 8pm and the other could eat when they wanted - no restrictions were placed on what food people could eat. While both saw a modest drop in their weight, neither was significantly different from the other group - suggesting a daily 'fasting time' makes no difference. Time restricted eating, or intermittent fasting, involves limiting when you eat to a smaller part of the day, and is favoured by celebrities as a weight loss solution. In October 2019 Jennifer Aniston said she doesn't eat breakfast and only consumes liquids in the mornings - saving her eating until the final half of the day. Diets made famous by the likes of Jennifer Aniston (pictured) and Reese Witherspoon that require you to limit when you eat are 'no better for weight loss' than eating normallyThe University of California team set out to find out if this form of diet control can actually help to reduce weight when compared to eating throughout the day. It was hoped that if it did prove to help with weigh loss it could be a relatively easy lifestyle change for obese people to implement and still lose weight. 'Even modest weight reduction can improve cardiovascular disease risk,' they wrote. 'However, long-term adherence to lifestyle changes is difficult. Therefore, it is important to find novel lifestyle-modification interventions that are effective in reducing weight and accessible and straightforward to enhance adherence.' They looked at intermittent fasting, the process of eating separated by defined periods of fasting - usually for 12 hours in every 48 hours. Unfortunately most of the benefits claimed for this method of dieting are either untested or under tested in humans, the authors claim. To test their theory that it could improve weight loss, they narrowed in on the time restricted eating diet - also known as 16:8 - which has been shown to work in mice. This involves a consistent fasting and eating period over the course of a day - usually eight hours eating for 16 hours fasting. Each volunteer was given a bluetooth scale and asked to log their weight every day. There was no notable difference between time restricted eating (yellow) and normal eating (blue)Previous small-scale studies in overweight people found time restricted eating can result in reduced calorie intake and a decrease in body weight. To see if this holds up with a larger group, the team designed a randomised clinical trial to determine the effect on overweight and obese patients. Volunteers stuck to the new diet for 12 weeks and completed a survey throughout the process, recording their weight on university supplied bluetooth scales. The study only limited the time food was consumed, not what people eat or any other physical activity during the study - it was just a test of eating windows. They found that people were able to stick to the time restricted eating diet successfully, giving credence to the idea it would be a viable weight loss solution. Celebrities like Reese Witherspoon (pictured) use diets like the 16:8 time restricted eating method - but studies suggest it may be just as good to eat throughout the dayUnfortunately, there was no greater weight loss with that method than among those who eat three meals a day with no restrictions on timing. Researchers say there was also some evidence that following a time restricted eating diet could exacerbate muscle loss - particularly appendicular lean mass (ALM). The team say future studies should be aimed at understanding the effects of early versus late restricted eating, as the time set aside to eat may have an impact. They also want to look at whether an increase in protein intake, or different times of the day could limit the loss of ALM. The findings have been published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

###CLAIM: in context of both the size of the question (population) and whether it's just a case of "just not being counted" the cases are reported in schools where the infection is actually transmitted rather than the broader community. ###DOCS: Comment on this story Comment Gift Article ShareThis is a rebuttal to a recent column by The Washington Posts Jay Mathews, who has long written in support of charter schools and who, last month, penned a piece calling it a myth that charter schools can pick and choose students. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight The issue is part of a long-running national debate on charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated and are a key part of the school choice movement. Critics say some charter schools limit access to students who they believe can succeed in their schools. Mathews and many other charter school boosters say these schools dont do that. This piece, which notes that at least one charter network conceded doing it, was written by Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Welner is the co-author of several books on school law, including the 2019 law school casebook Education and the Law. He is also author of NeoVouchers: The Emergence of Tuition Tax Credits for Private Schooling, and he co-wrote, with Wagma Mommandi, a book that will be published in the fall titled, Controlled Access, which investigates student access to charter schools. AdvertisementBy Kevin WelnerPost columnist Jay Mathews recently published a piece he titled, Can charter schools pick the best students? No, but many believe the myth. Matthews is wrong. Charters cherry-picking of students is reality, not myth as his own article demonstrates. And this cherry-picking can take many forms. In a nutshell, Mathews contends that charters cant pick their students, since applicants to over-enrolled schools are almost always chosen via lotteries. But the piece fails to address the truth that such lotteries involve just one small part of the enrollment process. Charter schools, like other businesses, have many different models for influencing the composition of their customers, and these approaches become more dominant (and creative) as the incentives to shape clientele become greater. AdvertisementFor instance, one model can be thought of as the nightclub with bouncers at the door (and inside), deciding who gets in and who stays in. Another model is the restaurant, with deliberate choices about location, marketing, price and menu so that the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel seeks and finds very different customers than does McDonalds. The model for a law firm has some of these same elements, but clients are also shaped by the services offered by the firm. If the firms lawyers specialize in bankruptcy, they will direct a potential client to a different firm if the person is seeking representation on a criminal matter. With my colleague Wagma Mommandi, I have researched charter-school access policies and found upward of a dozen different ways that these schools can and do shape their enrollment. While few charter schools have the equivalent of bouncers at the door, many more have bouncers inside the schools (e.g., push-out discipline policies) or use other approaches to shape their enrollment. We wrote about these approaches in a book chapter in Choosing Charters, an excellent edited book (our chapter plus 14 others by top charter-school researchers) that should be required reading for anyone engaged with charter-school policy issues. The chapter that I wrote with Wagma is titled, Shaping Charter Enrollment and Access, and is available in full online free through Google Books. AdvertisementThe chapter separates the enrollment-shaping approaches into three time periods: pre-enrollment, during enrollment and after enrollment. In the pre-enrollment stage, charters shape access through choices about location, description, design and marketing. These are all easy to observe, yet we often dont notice their role in determining which students are enrolled. We also see charters engaging in a wide variety of creative practices that influence who successfully navigates enrollment. We call these (a) steering, (b) denial of services, (c) conditions placed on enrollment, (d) required volunteerism, and (e) conditions in applications. To get a feel for these hurdles, imagine yourself as the parent of a 11-year-old boy with a disability manifesting as reduced control over behavior and learning attention. You want to enroll your son in a new middle school. Youve done your research and found a nearby charter school that interests you. AdvertisementFirst, you visit the schools website and read, Success at this school requires self-discipline and strong executive functioning by our students. All students are required to follow strict behavioral codes. In the admissions section, you see something about all students being required to take admissions tests or placement exams. You also specifically read the section on special education and see, Some students with special needs can be successful at this school, but we lack the capacity to serve students with severe disabilities, and our staffing is limited.The website also notes that before filing an application, parents must visit the school during one of several designated time windows. You see that the school asks that the application include any Individualized Education Program that the student has, and you wonder if this will disadvantage the application. When you finally do visit the school (having to take sick time for that morning at work), the counselor you speak with seems concerned that your son wouldnt fit, and she recommends the excellent public school just blocks away, with very strong special education services. Finally, she mentions that all parents are expected to help the school out by volunteering at least 30 hours each school year. AdvertisementNotwithstanding all these obstacles, you may still decide to apply to this school. (I daresay that many of us would not.) If you did apply, and if the school had more applications than available seats, this is where a lottery would enter the process. But does the lottery mean that the school has not engaged in cherry-picking? For me, the question is best posed as: Has the school taken steps to shape its enrollment in ways that discourage students like your son? Setting aside the specific quotes, the above are all examples of actual enrollment-stage practices. AdvertisementIn any case, even after a student is admitted, some charters continue to control access by avoiding or pushing out those deemed less desirable. The most well-known example of this is the Got to Go list generated by a Success Academy charter school in Brooklyn. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. In our chapter, Wagma and I identify five post-enrollment practices: (a) counseling out, (b) grade retention, (c) charges and fees, (d) discipline, and (e) not backfilling student attrition. Putting your parent hat back on, imagine youve successfully enrolled your son in the hypothetical charter school discussed above. By the end of the first year at this middle school, you have been called to pick up your son nine times because he has been suspended after engaging in disruptive behavior in violation of the schools strict disciplinary code. (Pursuant to the federal Individual With Disabilities Education Act, the school is supposed to conduct a manifestation determination to ensure that the behavior is not a result of the disability and to determine if the school is appropriately implementing the Individualized Education Program. Quite often the school does not do this.) The schools counselor has also told you that your sons academics are suffering and that if he stays at the school the following year, hell have to repeat the grade. She then reminds you of that excellent public school just blocks away. Meanwhile, it turns out the charter school also levies fines against students for disciplinary infractions, and your son has racked up more than $200. Ultimately, you decide to enroll in that neighborhood public school. AdvertisementThe backfilling issue noted above as item (e involves what the charter school does after you leave. Neighborhood public schools are sometimes overcrowded since they enroll new students notwithstanding ideal capacity. But charter schools are not required to do so; they instead implement a variety of enrollment policies. Some charters adopt a version of the public-school approach, enrolling students whenever they apply even midyear as long as there are seats available. Others will take in new students if there are seats available, but only during the normal admissions cycle so that the new students begin in the fall along with the schools continuing students. Finally, others will only take in new students at entry grades (e.g., ninth grade for a high school). These more restrictive policies have implications for who enrolls and the impact of that enrollment. A charter schools refusal to backfill an open seat allows the charter to avoid midyear disruption and avoid more transient students. Consider here the comment made by Michael Petrilli of the Fordham Institute, a fervent advocate of charter schools. In discussing the strict discipline used by some charter schools, he acknowledged that these policies shape enrollment. In fact, he welcomed this sorting of families as a feature, not a bug, since some parents can thereby seek out the desired environment (e.g., strict discipline) for their children. AdvertisementUltimately, I read Mathews as saying the same thing. Hes not saying, as his title states, that cherry-picking by charters is a myth, but rather that cherry-picking is okay or even desirable if done in ways that are not too heavy-handed. He writes, The most powerful influence on who goes to certain charters is not admission rules but the character of each school. Those that set academic standards very high draw more applications from parents who want that.This may be true. The schools design may be the most powerful factor among the 14 that Wagma and I identified. If so, however, the core problem remains for those of us who are concerned when childrens opportunities to learn are further stratified on the basis of their parents efficacy in working the system. In fact, whichever approaches for controlling access are most common, the key point is that there are many powerful ways that charters can and do shape their enrollment. Some can choose to call this something other than cherry-picking if they like saving that term only for the bouncer-at-the-door. But the end result is the same, and it has very real implications for how charter schools fit within our educational system. Charter advocates insist that these are public charter schools, but their publicness is undermined every time they evade their responsibility to serve all families in their communities. This is important because, notwithstanding the many scandalous examples of corrupt charter-school operators, a given charter school may be beneficial for any given student. The National Education Policy Center, of which I am director, has a Schools of Opportunity recognition project that has lauded the practices of several charter schools as exemplars that other schools can and should follow. Other charter schools, such as the Strive network of schools in Denver, have acknowledged past access-limiting practices and have worked on reforms that increase access. In short, access concerns should be shared by all supporters and skeptics. Accordingly, lets momentarily set aside the question of whether charter school reform is, as a whole, a wise and beneficial policy, and lets ask whether the rules create the right incentives for charter schools to serve the public. Reform efforts such as those at the Strive charters are swimming upstream, pushing back against incentives to shape access in ways that favor students who are relatively inexpensive, non-disruptive, and academically successful. While we can applaud such efforts, we cannot expect them to become widespread until the incentives themselves are changed. Wagma and I continued to work on our access study and developed it into a book called Controlled Access that will be published by Teachers College Press in the fall. While we and others cannot quantify the frequency of each practice, the book provides a wealth of specifics that should convince even skeptics such as Mathews that charter schools are incentivized to use access-shaping policies and that they have many such policies to choose from. Thats one type of choice that we should all agree to limit. GiftOutline Gift Article

###CLAIM: nmaam curatorial directors henry beecher, hicks and dina bennett said : "racism is deep in the american music appreciation of visitors, which shows in the development since 2002. " ###DOCS: (CNN) As more people are starting to learn about the history of African Americans, there is one component that's particularly integral to understanding the national culture: music. African American artists created and influenced genres from the blues, jazz and hip-hop to rock and roll. Bluesmen Muddy Waters and B.B. King electrified that genre and galvanized rock guitarists, and trumpeter and composer Louis Armstrong changed the jazz landscape all building on traditions brought to American soil by enslaved people. Educating the world on the central role African Americans have played in "creating the American soundtrack" and preserving that legacy are the missions of the National Museum of African American Music , which debuted in Nashville on Martin Luther King Jr. Day on January 18. The museum opens to the public on Saturday. On display here are interactive exhibits as well as artifacts including a Gibson guitar, "Lucille," played by B.B. King, a Grammy won by jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, a gold-plated trumpet owned by Armstrong and a kimono worn by singer-songerwriter and pianist Alicia Keys. In development since 2002 , the museum seeks to deepen visitors' appreciation of American music by showing that there is more to the stories of more than 50 music genres and subgenres details that have been obscured by factors such as racism, cultural appropriation and industry labeling, said NMAAM President and CEO Henry Beecher Hicks and Dina Bennett, an ethnomusicologist and NMAAM's curatorial director. Related content Little Richard kicked open the doors to rock 'n' roll"Often the story lines of music and of these songs deal with social justice, the quest for freedom and the social quest for equality, for a better life," Hicks said. "Those kinds of messages are nothing new. And they really are a core element of the story that we tell." While other museums have focused on different genres of African American music, this is the first comprehensive museum that "has actually laid out the experience of African Americans in the creation of these musical traditions that spanned from the 1600s, when the first Africans were brought to the US as enslaved peoples, to the present day," Bennett said. Lessons on the rootsA film overview of traditions in West and Central African cultures that predated enslavement is where guests begin. This takes place in the Roots Theater, which is both the figurative and literal nucleus of the museum experience. The Roots Theater will host lectures, performances and film screenings as well. NMAAM/353 Media Group"As enslaved people, they brought their music traditions," Bennett said. "Many times their instruments were taken away from them, because their instruments were used to communicate with each other. But they still had their voice or they had their body." The film chronicles the " evolution of becoming African American." Spirituals, blues, jazz, gospel, rhythm and blues and hip-hop were forms of expression created during slavery, the Reconstruction era, Jim Crow, the Great Migration, the world wars, the Harlem Renaissance and more. While African spirituals were a sacred experience, Bennett added, the later genres were largely methods of coping with the harsh realities freed people faced. "The root of American music is African American expression," Hicks said. Charting the ties between music and historyMaybe you remember what music was popular when the Twin Towers fell, or when former US President Barack Obama was elected. Those aren't only memories, but also cultural snapshots of the political and musical zeitgeists of those times. This concept of mirroring eras lines the Rivers of Rhythm Pathways, the "central spine of the museum experience (that) features touch panel interactives and an animated time-line that links American history and American music history," says the museum's websiteThe Rivers of Rhythm Pathways also feature periodic immersive-film experiences that place visitors amid iconic music moments. 353 Media Group"From 1600 to present day, we have 13 different eras. So, there's an era that covers the civil rights period, and when you click on it, you'll begin to read about the March on Washington," Bennett said. You'll also "hear about the music that was going on ... and read about different artists that were present." Musical hopeThe Wade in the Water gallery connects the religious music of African cultures and later African American spirituals and hymns. Those led to gospel. Photos of artists including Mahalia Jackson, interactives and artifacts depict how gospel groups influenced secular R&B, doo-wop and soul music. For the "Sing With the Choir" interactive, the staff enlisted gospel singer and television host Bobby Jones, the leader of The Nashville Super Choir. Jones and his choir filmed a segment teaching visitors the gospel song "Oh Happy Day." PIctured is the area where visitors learn a gospel song to join The Nashville Super Choir. 353 Media GroupVisitors "go into a space and stand up against the green screen and they take their directives from Dr. Jones," Bennett said. "The film is played back with the visitor superimposed in with the choir." With the RFID bracelet you receive when purchasing your ticket, you can download that experience to your mobile device. Background on the bluesAs formerly enslaved Africans worked in Southern US fields, some sang to accompany their work or communicate. These "field hollers" produced the blues, and the Crossroads gallery details "how the blues influenced White country music and the rock and roll sound of the 1950s," according to a news release. The Crossroads exhibit, in the National Museum of African American Music, explores the history and influence of the blues. NMAAM/353 Media Group"Roots and Streams" interactives allow visitors to click on the biographies of artists, revealing who their influences and peers were, and who those artists inspired. "If you click on the Rolling Stones, you're gonna find out that they were influenced by Muddy Waters. They actually took their name, Rolling Stones, from a Muddy Waters song," Bennett said. "You get to see all those little interconnections." The jazz explosionin New Orleans in the 1900s. Once jazz traveled with musicians to the North, it became nationally popular. A Love Supreme is the gallery that explores jazz, which emerged from African musical traditions retainedin New Orleans in the 1900s. Once jazz traveled with musicians to the North, it became nationally popular. The Love Supreme gallery features artists such as Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington. NMAAM/353 Media GroupAlso highlighted are the resulting styles, and legends who made huge contributions to jazz. Known as the Queen of Jazz, singer Ella Fitzgerald's Grammy award is displayed here along with a fur coat she wore. Groovy products of changeThe background of R&B a combination of blues, gospel and jazz that emerged post-World War II is outlined in the One Nation Under a Groove gallery. The era was not only politically transformative but culturally, too, as the music industry grew and new technologies changed how music was made and distributed. The exhibit covers the stories of influential forces such as Motown Records, music-dance TV program "Soul Train" (1970s) and MTV (1981). The One Nation Under A Groove gallery is the largest in the museum due to it covering the influence of R&B on genres including soul, funk and disco. NMAAM/353 Media GroupIn the pattern of tracing from origin to influence, the gallery chronicles how R&B yielded genres including soul, funk, disco, techno and hip-hop. R&B's popularity was a positive, but it was also vulnerable to cultural appropriation. "We talk about songs recorded by African Americans that were then recorded by White Americans, and the White American version went on to get the most play and the most success," Bennett said. The One Nation Under A Groove gallery offers two gallery-specific interactive elements: Visitors can find out what producer style they are, and there is an interactive dance studio teaching visitors different dances throughout the decades. NMAAM/353 Media Group"A really great example is ('Hound Dog'), which was a song by Willie Mae Thornton, and Elvis recorded it and the rest is history. When you peel back the layers, you understand that Willie Mae Thornton was the one who recorded it." Expressing a centuries-old refrainThe grit of hip-hop and rap that originated from New York's South Bronx in the 1970s is captured in The Message exhibit. These genres were pivotal for art, street style and music production technology, which the gallery shows. The Message gallery explores the origins of hip-hop and rap. NMAAM/353 Media GroupSpeaking truth to power and honesty about the ongoing struggles for equality are the concepts connecting 1970s and modern hip-hop and rap. As visitors peruse the museum's interactives, they can create a playlist that they can download to their RFID bracelet, Hicks said. Afterward, they can go to a website to download to their device the playlist that documents the experience they had at the museum. What Hicks also hopes that people leave with is a realization that "we've got more that unites us than divides us." The Message gallery also features artifacts and interactives, such as a rap battle against friends and building your own rap song. NMAAM/353 Media Group"For non-African Americans," he added, "I hope that they would realize that African Americans are at the center of American culture in a way that they maybe never considered." If you goThe museum, located at the intersection of 5th Avenue and Broadway in Downtown Nashville, opened to museum board members, staff, elected officials and community leaders on January 18. The museum opens to the public on January 30. Through February, tours will be offered from 11 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

###CLAIM: monday was due to be the first back-to-school day at the watson and chapel for on-site learning after several weeks of closure due to weather-related issues. ###DOCS: A 15-year-old boy who was shot Monday morning at Watson Chapel Junior High School in Arkansas has died, Pulaski County Coroner's Office said, according to CBS affiliate KTHV-TV. The Watson Chapel School District also announced the death of the student, citing his mother's Facebook page. The suspected gunman, a fellow classmate who is also 15, was arrested a short time after the shooting, police said. The incident took place inside Watson Chapel Junior High School as students switched classes around 10 a.m., Pine Bluff Police Chief Kelvin Sergeant said Monday. The suspect is being held on a first-degree battery charge in Monday's shooting and a judge set bond at $1 million, according to KTHV. The charges are expected to be updated following the death of the victim. A Facebook post from the school district on Monday said that the shooting was an "isolated incident." Police said the Arkansas Department of Corrections dog squad found the suspect hiding behind a house near the school. At the time, police described the shooting as a "targeted incident" and said that a motive is under investigation. The Associated Press said Monday was scheduled to be Watson Chapel's first day back for on-site learning after several weeks of weather-related issues closed the school. Pine Bluff is located some 44 miles south of Little Rock. A 15-year-old student has been arrested after allegedly shooting and seriously wounding a classmate at a junior high school in Arkansas on Monday, which was supposed to be the first full day of in-person learning. The alleged shooter, also 15, had 'targeted' the victim at Watson Chapel Junior High School in Pine Bluff, police said. Pine Bluff Police Chief Kelvin Sergeant said at a press conference on Monday afternoon that a 911 call came in about shots fired just before 10am. Officers responded to the school three minutes later and found a 15-year-old student who had been shot inside the school. Scroll down for videoOne student was wounded and another was taken into custody following a shooting at Watson Chapel Junior High School in Pine Bluff, ArkansasPine Bluff Police Chief Kelvin Sergeant said at a press conference the shooting was targetedThe victim was taken in very serious condition to a local hospital, and from there he was later transferred to Children's Hospital in Little Rock 40 miles away for further treatment. Police later released an update saying the victim had died, but retracted it an hour later, saying 'bad information was released.' The suspected shooter, who was described as a 15-year-old black male who is also a student at the school, was later found hiding behind a house off campus. Sergeant said police dogs tracked and correctional officials tracked him to his hiding spot near the school. Witnesses reportedly followed the suspect out of the school and pointed police in the right direction, according to KATV. He was transported to a juvenile detention facility pending the filing of formal charges. Sheriff's deputies are on the scene at the junior high school investigating the shooting'We believe it was a targeted incident as opposed to a random incident,' the police chief said after noting that they do not have a specific motive yet. Prosecutors will decide whether to charge the suspected shooter as a juvenile or an adult within the next 48 hours. The Pine Bluff School District described the shooting as 'an isolated incident' but said that all campuses in the area were placed on lockdown. 'This was an isolated incident and all students are safe at this time,' district officials said in a Facebook post. 'The parent of the student hurt has been notified so if you have not been notified by the school your student is safe and secure.' Parents are seen arriving at the school to pick up their children after the shootingMonday was supposed to the first full day of in-person instruction in Pine Bluff schoolsParents are being allowed to pick up their children early from the school. If the parents are not able to pick up their child, then the students can stay on campus until they are released at the end of the day. Monday was supposed to the first full day of in-person instruction in Pine Bluff schools in several weeks because of winter weather and subsequent water issues.

###CLAIM: `` he 's working with tim and bogar on getting some games in here soon as a bench coach. ###DOCS: Comment on this story Comment Gift Article ShareThe Washington Nationals had 25 players once Victor Robles went to the injured list with a sprained right ankle Sunday, leaving them shorthanded for a win over the Baltimore Orioles. Then they filled the hole with infielder Luis Garcia before a three-game series with the Cincinnati Reds began Tuesday night, giving one of their top young players another shot in the majors. Garcia, 21, was officially promoted from the Class AAA Rochester Red Wings on Tuesday afternoon. That came after the Nationals considered adding a pitcher or infielder Carter Kieboom, who was once ahead of Garcia in the organizational pecking order. Garcia, though, provides a left-handed bat and a lot of versatility on defense. The Nationals are scheduled to face six straight right-handed pitchers this week, and they could flip Josh Harrison to center field if they want Garcia in the order. Thats how Manager Dave Martinez explained the decision. Garcia is not in the starting lineup for Tuesdays opener against the Reds at Nationals Park. Harrison stayed at second, and Andrew Stevenson again replaced Robles in center field. AdvertisementIm going to try, as long as hes here, to pick a day or two or three to see if we can stick him in there, Martinez said of Garcia. I just dont want him to sit here, because he is swinging the bat well.Martinez also announced that reliever Tanner Rainey is back with the Nationals and starter Erick Fedde is close to returning. Fedde, who is vaccinated, tested positive for the coronavirus last week. Rainey was deemed a close contact and had to quarantine. Rainey was cleared after multiple negative tests, according to Martinez, and threw a bullpen session at Nationals Park on Tuesday. Once Fedde is cleared, he could require an appearance or two with the Red Wings to build his arm strength back up. Because Robless IL stint was backdated to Thursday, he could return, at the earliest, to face the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday. Otherwise, Garcia will fill out the bench with first baseman Ryan Zimmerman, outfielder Yadiel Hernandez, infielder Jordy Mercer and backup catcher Alex Avila. Martinez explained that, even with Mercer available, Garcia could fill in at second base, third or shortstop while Robles is sidelined. The Nationals have long felt that Garcia is notably sharper than Kieboom on defense. AdvertisementAnd that Garcia was recalled in this case, and Kieboom stuck with the Red Wings, is a hint at their feelings toward the pair. Kieboom struggled through 11 games in 2019, then 122 plate appearances in 2020, then kept struggling this spring, when he had another chance to be the clubs everyday third baseman. Kieboom has eight hits, including one homer, with 14 strikeouts and nine walks in 13 games for Rochester. Garcia has 16 hits, including four home runs, with 18 strikeouts and six walks in 17 contests. Both were on the Nationals Opening Day roster as the team dealt with a coronavirus outbreak. Both have struck out too much in the minors this season. When directly asked about choosing between Garcia and Kieboom for this promotion, Martinez stressed Garcias strengths. The Nationals typically dont promote their best prospects unless they can create playing time. We thought about Carter as well. I really thought Garcia could help us not only playing but also off the bench. And also, too, he can play shortstop really well, Martinez said. Having him here, just in case we need someone, even though we have Jordy, or if we wanted to spell Trea [Turner], we could do that as well. AdvertisementFor me its about putting eyes on him. ... Its kind of nice to get him out there and get him working with [bench coach Tim Bogar], and well get him in some games here soon.Read more on the Washington Nationals:GiftOutline Gift Article

###CLAIM: victoria has decided not to join the foursome, whose most recent tour was the `` spice and the world '' in 2019. ###DOCS: Brooklyn Beckham unveiled the injury he sustained while cooking as he posed with a bandage wrapped around his fingers and wrist. The 22-year-old son of football icon David Beckham was snapped by his girlfriend Nicola Peltz, 26, on her Instagram story on Wednesday morning. Three of Brooklyn's fingers can be seen wrapped tightly in thick bandages, while his wrist and other parts of his right hand were also covered up. 'Chef got burned': Brooklyn Beckham posed with a bandage wrapped around his hand as girlfriend Nicola Peltz revealed he suffered a cooking accidentThe injuries appeared to have been the result of an accident while cooking, with Nicola writing 'chef got burned' alongside the picture. Despite what appears to have been a painful injury to his hand, Brooklyn looked to be feeling positive as he smiled for the camera. He even made up thumbs up gesture for the picture using his injured hand. It comes after Victoria Beckham shared a sweet family snap alongside her eldest son Brooklyn via Instagram on Saturday. Burn: Brooklyn appeared to have injured his hand while cooking, though the pain didn't stop him smiling or making a thumbs up for the camera. File image of Brooklyn cookingThe fashion mogul, 47, wrapped her arms around the aspiring photographer, 22, in a picture taken by his fiancee Nicola Peltz and admitted she missed him. Putting on a stylish display, Victoria slipped into a black-and-gold brocade dress, while she appeared to be midway through her beauty regime as she had celestial black diamond eye masks on, courtesy of 111Skin. Seemingly on holiday together, Brooklyn showed off his tattoos by going shirtless, and he wore a towel wrapped around his waist. Ouch! Nicola shared the snap of his injury (stock image of the couple)Lamenting how her son has been living in the US with Nicola during the pandemic, Victoria wrote in the caption: 'We miss you @brooklynbeckham and @nicolapeltz! (on photography duty!) kisses xx'On Friday, Victoria put on a leggy display when she shared a stylish picture on social media of her modelling a dark blue skirt. The outfit highlighted her slender legs thanks to the skirt's front-slip that had a white lace trim, and she boosted her figure in a pair of white heels. Also on Saturday, Brooklyn was spotted out in Los Angeles. He cut a casual figure in a blue hoodie and tracksuit bottoms as he returned to his vehicle. 'We miss you!' Victoria Beckham cuddled shirtless son Brooklyn in sweet snap taken by his fiancee which she shared via Instagram on SaturdayHe rounded off the look with Air Force 1 sneakers and swept his tresses behind a hairband. On Mother's Day, Victoria shared a heartwarming Mother's Day with all four kids Brooklyn, Romeo, 18, Cruz, 16, and Harper, nine, who she shares with husband David Beckham. The former Spice Girl gushed: 'Mum's are so special we get celebrated twice! Happy Mother's Day to all of you celebrating today.' It comes after Victoria revealed the Spice Girls influenced Beyonce to become the iconic artist she is today. She revealed the band's message of Girl Power really resonated with Beyonce, 39, who told her about the impact they'd had. Victoria said: 'I met Beyonce a few years ago, and she actually said to me, "It was the Spice Girls that inspired me and made me want to do what I do and made me proud to be a girl and proud to be who I am"'. She added on Dear Medias Breaking Beauty podcast: 'And when someone like Beyonce, who is so iconic and was such a strong woman, says that she was inspired by the Spice Girls, I think thats quite something.' The Spice Girls shot to fame in 1996, they split up in 2000 after Geri (Ginger Spice) decided to leave in 1998, but they have briefly reunited over the years. Victoria decided to not join the foursome for their most recent tour Spice World in 2019.

###CLAIM: first minister mark drakeford announced changes to restrictions on staying at home, including a more lenient requirement for local stays. ###DOCS: Some semblance of normal life will return in Wales from Saturday, after the countrys first minister, Mark Drakeford, announced more lenient 'stay local' requirements. The relaxation of rules will allow people from rural areas to travel greater distances than those who live in urban towns and cities. Hairdressers and barbers can reopen for appointments from Monday, the same day that all primary school pupils and those in qualification years can return to schools. Non-essential retail will remain shut until 12 April.

###CLAIM: andrews, a professor who called an raf weatherman who bombed nazi germany a war criminal, had previously accused britain of racism. ###DOCS: Woke students have forced Liverpool University to rebrand an accommodation block named after William Gladstone because of his family's links to slavery. Gladstone Halls will be renamed after racial inequality campaigner Dorothy Kuya, who was the city's first community slavery officer. But the move has caused fury among members of the faculty, with politics professor Dr David Jeffrey slamming the decision as 'shameful'. He added: 'Liverpool University is shamefully going ahead with renaming Gladstone Hall. Named after one of our greatest Prime Ministers and one of Liverpool's most consequential political exports. 'He worked for the abolition of slavery and never owned slaves himself.' Gladstone Halls will be renamed after racial inequality campaigner Dorothy Kuya (pictured), who was the city's first community slavery officerGladstone (pictured) - the British prime minister between 1868 and 1894 - never owned slaves himself, but his family had links to the tradeGladstone - the British prime minister between 1868 and 1894 - never owned slaves himself, but his family had links to the trade. The move to change the name of the halls was first touted in 2017, when students signed an online petition. Who was Liverpudlian race campaigner Dorothy Kuya? Dorothy Kuya was 'Liverpool's greatest fighter against racism,' according to the director of National Museums Liverpool. Born in the Granby area of Toxteth in 1932, her father was from Nigeria and her mother from Liverpool. She went on to dedicate her life to racial injustice, becoming a British communist activist, and co-founding Teachers Against Racism. She was also the general secretary of the National Assembly of Women. She was the first Community Relations Officer on Merseyside in the 1960s and later moved to London to be the Head Race Equality Adviser for Haringey Council. When she returned to Liverpool she helped set up the International Slavery Museum. She died in 2013. AdvertisementAlisha Raithatha, from Birmingham, spent her first year at Liverpool University living in the Roscoe and Gladstone Halls. She did not realise Gladstone's links to slavery until making a trip to the city's slavery museum. I didnt realise I dont think anybody did, she told the Liverpool Echo. I looked it up and realised William Gladstone wasnt in favour of abolishing slavery. I was a bit disgusted to live in the building without realising that history.So she began a petition on the Liverpool Guild of Students website, explaining she was horrified by the news about Gladstones past. We believe, the petition said, that someone with this controversial background should not have a university hall named after them, especially in a city where we try hard not to forget the atrocities that took place on our docks.In a follow up tweet after the final decision was made in March, Dr David added: 'We're post-truth. It doesn't matter what the facts are, if you can kick up a storm on social media you can bully your way to getting what you want. 'Liverpool's going to be a historically barren place if you erase everyone who was even close to someone who owned slaves.' Gladstone, a Liberal politician, once campaigned for compensation for slave owners after the abolition of the horrific practice but also dubbed slavery the 'foulest crime.' The university halls will be now named after Liverpudlian race campaigner Ms Kuya. A Liverpool Guild spokesperson said: 'Students have been at the heart of this campaign and I wanted to personally thank all previous students and Student Officers for working so hard on this. 'And finally a huge thank you to everyone who had their say and voted in the referendum. 'I am so proud to have finished what they had started and taking the necessary steps to create a more inclusive and diverse campus.' The university halls (pictured) will be now named after Liverpudlian race campaigner Ms KuyaThe decision was revealed after 4465 votes were cast in a referendumPolitics professor at Liverpool University, Dr David Jeffery slammed the decisionIt comes as it was revealed Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are to be relabelled in the British Library to explain how it once came to be owned by a slave-trading family. Left, a portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer (c 1342 to 1400), who wrote The Canterbury Tales (right)Dorothy Kuya was born in 1932 in Toxteth, Liverpool, before becoming a lifelong commuist activist, co-founder of Teachers Against Racism, and the general secretary of the National Assembly of Women. Ms Kuya also served as the Head of Race Equality for Haringey Council and helped to establish the Liverpool International Slavery Museum in 2007. It comes as it was revealed Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are to be relabelled in the British Library to explain how it once came to be owned by a slave-trading family. The relabelling of the collection is part of the institution's 'anti-racism action plan' which was put in place after the Black Lives Matter protests last year, internal documents seen by The Sunday Telegraph reveal. It will see an overhaul of all 210 items in the library's public-facing Treasures Collection which includes invaluable literary artefacts such as Shakespeare's First Folio, some of which have links to the slave trade in their history.

###CLAIM: the company, whose nominee has not yet been determined, will replace a board member who has departed, the company said. ###DOCS: [1/2] GameStop logo is seen near displayed stock graph in this illustration taken February 2, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo/File PhotoMarch 25 (Reuters) - GameStop (GME.N) and other so-called meme stocks surged on Thursday, as investors piled into the shares after a tumble in the previous session. Shares in video-game retailer GameStop closed up 52.7% at $183.75 with brisk trading volume after rising as high as $187.50 late in the session. The company's shares remained down 8.2% for the week so far following losses after a lackluster earnings report late Tuesday during which the company disclosed it was evaluating the possibility of a share sale. read more They are up 875% year-to-date, though still far from their record high of $483 reached in late January. The company has benefited from a push by retail investors, often on online forums such as Reddit's popular WallStreetBets, to drive up prices of stocks they believe undervalued. Investors have also been eyeing efforts by billionaire investor and Chewy Inc (CHWY.N) co-founder Ryan Cohen, who is on GameStop's board, to transform the retailer into an e-commerce firm that can take on big-box store rivals such as Target Corp (TGT.N) and Walmart Inc (WMT.N). GameStop, which added three new directors including Cohen to its board in January as part of a settlement, said in its annual regulatory filing on Tuesday it expects eight incumbent board members to retire at its 2021 annual meeting in June. The company said it has not yet determined who it would nominate to replace departing board members. CFRA analyst Camilla Yanushevsky said some investors believe the plan for a board overhaul is a promising sign for GameStop's efforts to expand e-commerce. "If Ryan Cohen can fill the board with his allies, people think it can lead to a transformation in GameStop. That's what the bull case is," she said. Meanwhile shares in other meme stocks such as headphone maker Koss Corp (KOSS.O) also surged. Koss shares closed up 57.1% at $25.80 with trading volume around 4.7 times the 10-day moving average. The stock had fallen almost 22% on Wednesday. Cinema operator AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (AMC.N) closed up 21.3% at $10.94 after falling 36% in the last four sessions. Reporting By Sinead Carew; Editing by Alden Bentley and David GregorioOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

###CLAIM: saroya on monday posted a 13-minute video on the scheme, in which more than 150, 000 views were piled up. ###DOCS: A YouTuber allegedly faked a medical episode in the middle of Times Square traffic and then posted video of the ordeal to his channel, police said. Zeeshan Saroya, 30, was arrested around 5:30 p.m. Thursday and charged in connection with the Jan. 10 incident that unfolded at Broadway and West 46th Street, cops said. Saroya, who goes by Prince Zee on Instagram, posted a 13-minute video Monday of his scheme, racking up more than 150,000 views. Were going to see what theyre going to do, what New Yorkers are going to do, how theyre going to help this dead guy, Saroya said at the start of the video as he talked out the plan. The incident unfolded just before 3 p.m., cops said. Saroyas video shows him driving when he suddenly slumps over, hitting his head on the steering wheel. Responding officers used their batons to break the car window and dragged him out of the vehicle. Zeeshan Saroya, 30, was arrested around 5:30 p.m. Jan. 28, 2021. YouTubeLater in the clip, Saroya said he simply told cops he was taking two pre-workouts and a Red Bull. He was briefly taken into an ambulance, but was allowed to go home when someone came to pick him up. Saroya was charged with obstructing governmental administration, false reporting of an incident, criminal nuisance and disorderly conduct, according to police. He was released on a desk appearance ticket. Saroya has 159,000 YouTube subscribers. Other popular videos on his channel include, Beating a Baby in Public, Lighting a Baby on Fire and Pooping in an Adult Diaper around NYC.

###CLAIM: just when she saw the nurse fainting video, she said to her pfizer vaccine spokesperson, "i'm just really terrified because i think she's got two little kids and one day she'll be a mom and go to work and then nothing. ###DOCS: For weeks now, commenters have flooded Tennessee nurse Tiffany Dovers Facebook wall with messages of tribute, praising her kindness and beauty and offering their condolences for her loss. Tiffany died a hero, they wroteand RIP Angel.There are more than 22,000 comments on her last Facebook post, from people around the worlda collective grieving and outpouring of anger for the 30-year-old mother of two. But Tiffany Dover is not dead. According to all official sources, she is alive and well and working as a nurse at CHI Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga. Last week, she was pictured on the front of the local newspaper caring for a north Georgia police chief who had been in the hospital for nearly 100 days. Dover is not the victim of some medical mishap, as her mourners allege, but of a massive global conspiracy theory that has united anti-vaxxers and COVID skeptics in a dangerous attempt to prove themselves right. The outcry started in mid-December, when six staff members at CHI Memorial Hospital were selected to receive their first dose of Pfizers COVID-19 vaccine on live TV. Dover, a nurse manager at the hospital, was one of them. Speaking with reporters that day, she called the vaccine a symbol of hope, a light at the end of a very dark tunnel. In the video, Dover can be seen getting the injection in her left arm, her deep-set blue eyes shining over the top of her surgical mask. A few minutes later, she stands to take questions from reporters, then stops and puts her hand to her head. She tells reporters she feels dizzy. Then she sinks slowly to her knees. Two other employees rush to her side to catch her before she hits the ground. Minutes later, Dover is back on her feet, telling television cameras that she suffers from a medical condition that makes her prone to fainting. I have a history of having an overactive vagal response, and so with that if I have pain from anythinghangnail or if I stub my toeI can just pass out, she said. It was a dramatic moment with a simple explanation: a common and largely benign medical condition that affects some 20 percent of the population. But for vaccine skeptics, it was all they needed to construct a vast conspiracyand incite a targeted harassment campaign that shows no signs of stopping. AdvertisementIts hard to pin down where, exactly, a conspiracy theory starts. It derives power from being seemingly everywhere at once, simultaneously unprovable and unimpeachable. But what we know about the Tiffany Dover conspiracy theory is this: Someone deceptively edited the video of her vaccination to make it look like she had died, leaving out the footage of her post-recovery interview. The video circulated on anti-vaxx Facebook pages and other social media accounts, accruing enough critical mass that by the time people got the facts, they werent interested in them at all. They were convinced a nurse had died, and they were going to get to the bottom of it. In the days following the broadcast, commenters from around the world flooded CHI Memorials social media pages and even called the hospital, demanding proof that Dover was alive. Others sought out her friends and family, posting on their walls and Instagram pages demanding information. As evidence, they circulated screenshots of what they said was Dovers death report on SearchQuarry.coma website that will give an identical, similarly morbid result to anyone who enters their name. By Dec. 19, the uproar was so intense that the hospital was forced to issue a tweet saying that Dover was home and doing well and asking for privacy for the nurse and her family. That tweet, too, was flooded with comments. Send a picture of her with a newspaper of the day, one wrote. I want to see a video of her talking about it, said another. (This according to screenshots taken at the time; the hospital's account has since been made private.) With the conspiracy theorists only getting louder, on Dec. 21 the hospital took the extraordinary step of releasing what was essentially a proof-of-life video. The 20-second clip shows Dover standing on a staircase in the hospital, surrounded by other nurses holding signs with the days date and the hashtag CHIMemorialStrong. In a statement at the time, a hospital spokesperson said CHI was aware of the multitude of false information circulating on social media about Tiffany Dover, and had shot the video to clear up many of the circulating rumors.Of course, it did nothing of the sort. AdvertisementSix weeks and countless fact-checks and debunkings later, the Dover conspiracy continues to spread. On top of the comments on Dovers Facebook post, there are more than 11,000 on her latest Instagramthe most recent of which were posted today. Checking in again, one user wrote recently. I dont think Ill ever stop until we get an answer guys. The comment has more than 200 likes. Facebook has hidden many search results for her name, but a Daily Beast analysis found more than 400 posts about Dover currently available on the sitemost of them containing false information. Hundreds more such posts are available on Twitter. At least two Facebook groups dedicated exclusively to the Dover conspiracy are still active, with thousands of members each. And comments about her pop up in others like "Fauci, Gates & Soros to prison worldwide Resistance and "STOP The Great Reseta reference to another conspiracy theory about global elites using the pandemic to establish a totalitarian regime. The groups serve as an echo chamber where users share vaccine misinformation, and an organizing space where they urge each other to investigate and spread the conspiracy further. "It's starting to go viral, lets[sic] push it, one user wrote recently in the Justice for Tiffany Pontes Dover group, which has nearly 3,000 members. Post, tweet, share [this] link as a comment on public fb pages, mewe, youtube, news media, etc. The general public just doesn't know.Elisa Myzal, a spokesperson for the Chattanooga Police Department, told The Daily Beast the departments social media had been flooded with comments about Dover, asking whether they were investigating her disappearance. (They are not, she confirmed, because there is nothing to investigate.) Just this week, the department received a call from a German radio host whose listeners apparently wanted more information. The only thing Myzal could compare it to was a few years ago, when a rumor started circulating about young women getting abducted outside the local mall. At the time, the police department was able to confirm that they had received no such reports, and put out a statement to that effect. But the Dover situation left Myzal struggling for a response. AdvertisementThe police department isnt involved in this at all because there's no crime, no death, no nothing, Myzal said. So we don't really have a strategy or a response." Personally, she added, I just ignore them. You don't believe what you saw with your own eyes, so why are you going to believe me?" Why isnt anyone that lives close to her figuring out where her kids go to school or where her husband works or where they live and waiting and trying to snap a picture of her coming or going. Facebook commenterDorit Reiss, a law professor at UC Hastings, also heard about Dover from a Facebook groupthough not the conspiracy theory kind. Reiss is a pro-vaccine advocate, who spends her working hours writing about vaccination in the law and her leisure time fighting anti-vaxx social media posts. That was what she was doing when she stumbled upon a post about Dover. To Reiss, the targeting of Dover and her family members crossed the line from conspiracy theory to harassment. She has previously counseled doctors and other clinicians who were hounded by anti-vaxxers, and sees it as a way to silence pro-vaccine views. If you are one person and you suddenly get hundreds or thousands of messages, some of them full of hate, it can be very traumatic, she told The Daily Beast. It can have a real deterrent effect on posting positive messages about the vaccine.AdvertisementIt is hard to see the treatment of Dover and her family as anything but harassment. In the comments on her Facebook wall, people have suggested going to her house or workplace, tracking down her family members, and even searching out the parents of her childrens friends. Why isnt anyone that lives close to her figuring out where her kids go to school or where her husband works or where they live and waiting and trying to snap a picture of her coming or going?! ? one commenter recently asked. "Can someone living in Alabama just take a quick ride over to their place to see whats going on? another added. Message me if youre near Higdon." When her brother-in-law shared an article debunking claims that Dover was dead, more than 260 people left angry comments. "How much money do they pay you all that you post this? She is dead and you know, one person wrote. Under a similar post by her sister-in-law, which attracted nearly 900 comments, someone added: "your entire family is disgusting that you dont let Tiffany speak herself!" The comments were somewhat ironic, given that the anti-vaxxers had been asking Dover's family members to comment on her wellbeing for days. But every time someone did so, the theorists upped the ante: First they needed to hear it from the hospital, then from the family, then from Dover herself. When her father-in-law posted that she was fine, and that the hospital had simply instructed them to let the lawyers handle things, the theorists turned his words against him: Why does someone whos healthy and safe need lawyers?" one wondered under his post. TIFFANY IS ALIVE AND FINE Tiffany Dovers sister-in-law on FacebookIn a comment under her own Instagram post, which included photos of Dover over the Christmas holiday, the nurses sister-in-law unleashed a rare display of frustration at having her every move scrutinized and flipped upside down:All of yall stop acting like your entitled to know anything, she added. Its none of your dang business. Im honestly disgusted with people right now. We cant even go on a family vacation for Christmas without being harassed. Im sick of it. TIFFANY IS ALIVE AND FINE.AdvertisementReiss has jumped into the comments section herself, often leaving messages in support of Dover and her family members. She has also written a blog post about the conspiracy and reached out to Dovers family to offer her support. (She has not spoken with them directly.) The vitriol directed at Dover and her family is nothing the law professor hasnt seen before. She has counseled anti-vaxxer victims who were forced to hire lawyers and doctors who took on social media managers just to handle the onslaught. What has changed most during the pandemic, she said, is not anti-vaxxers behavior, but the number of people who are willing to listen to them. COVID has been a national trauma, Reiss said. More people are vulnerable, more people are looking for answers, more people are mistrustful of public health officials ... and that makes more people vulnerable to conspiracy theories.She added: Anyone can get trapped in an alternative reality conspiracy theory if they fall in the wrong moment.More than 8,000 miles away from Reiss, Australian Michelle Millmann also spends much of her free time on Facebook. In and out of lockdown, with no job and no one to see besides her family, she spends up to 10 hours a day managing a Facebook group titled Where is Tiffany Dover?AdvertisementThe group has more than 5,000 members and averages 30 posts a day. Recent posts include a video edited to make it look like a nurse was vaccinated with an empty syringe, and another claiming Bill Gates had a body double get the vaccine in his place. (The video is titled: EARGATE- THE GROWING MYSTERY OF BILL GATES EAR.) Recently, when someone shared the photo of Dover caring for the police chief in the hospital, members insisted she had a body double, too. Millmann insists she is not an anti-vaxxer, and that both she and her child are fully vaccinated. She says she was terrified of the virus at the beginningmaking her husband and son change clothes every time they entered the housebut slowly started questioning its seriousness. (A quick browse of her Facebook likes shows she follows Tucker Carlson, Project Veritas founder James OKeefe, and right-wing commentator Dan Bonginoall media figures who have downplayed the virus.) That led Millmann to question pandemic-related restrictions, which led her to question the vaccine effort, which led her to Tiffany Dover. When she saw the video of the nurse fainting, she said, it just really struck a chord with me.I was terrified for her because I thought, Shes got two little kids, shes a mom, shes gone to work one day to be a spokesperson for the Pfizer vaccine and then... nothing. she said. In my heart, I believe something has happened to her.Millmann is convinced that she and her group members are doing a public service, and is furious that Facebook fact-checks or removes their posts. She also feels absolutely no guilt about spreading rumors that have led to harassment of Dover and her family. Not at all, she said when asked about it. Why would I?In her interview, Reiss referenced the term crank magnetism, or the propensity for one conspiracy theory to make people vulnerable to others. And in a 30-minute conversation, Millmann rattled off an astounding number of them: that car accident victims were being recorded as COVID deaths, that Bill Gates gave seminars about a new world order; that the virus was created in a Wuhan lab. Her voice rose as she talked about the virus, the vaccine, the American presidential election. If America collapsed, she wanted to know, who was to stop China from invading Australia? What if this was all a plan for a global elite takeover? AdvertisementShe sounded, as Reiss suggested, vulnerable, distrustful, and desperate for answers. I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist, believe it or not, she insisted. But I don't know, with everything that's going on in America and around the world... you seriously have to be questioning what the hell is going on." Asked whether these fears developed recently, since the pandemic started, she responded: "Absolutely. When opposition to vaccines becomes part of your identity, its difficult to dislodge these things. Dr. Saad OmerThere was a belief, at the beginning of the pandemic, that the disruption and devastation caused by the virus would convince skeptics of the value of vaccines. Instead, anti-vaxxer have made the global tragedy their veritable Super Bowl. The vaccine development process has given them a spotlight for their misinformation, and frustration over public health restrictions has created a new population of aggrieved potential converts. Meanwhile, the spread of other conspiracies like QAnon has undermined faith in institutions and loosened a swath of Americas grip on reality. AdvertisementAccording to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, anti-vaxx social media accounts gained more than 10 million followers over the last year. There is an identifiable counterforce trying to persuade people Covid isnt dangerous, vaccines are dangerous, and that doctors and scientists cannot be trusted, the group warned in its latest report. We need to adapt or risk losing.Around the same time Dover got her shot, vaccine skeptics began claiming that a different, recently vaccinated nurse had been found dead in her home. Some posted messages they described as being from her family members; others identified her as Jennifer McClung, a 54-year-old nurse from Sheffield, Alabama, who had actually died of COVID-19 earlier that month. The state health department was forced to contact every hospital in the state that had administered the vaccine to refute the rumors. The examples of this are endless. Anti-vaxxers claimed 24 people at a New York nursing home died after receiving the vaccines, neglecting to mention that a COVID outbreak had started at the home before the shots were administered. Others suggested baseball legend Hank Aarons death was tied to the vaccine he received earlier this month; the county medical examiners office confirmed he died of natural causes. Dr. Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, has spent years studying how anti-vaxx beliefs take hold and spread. Vaccine skepticism, he believes, is less an opinion people hold and more an identity they cling to. Like a sports fan or a science fiction nerd, he said, being an anti-vaxxer is part of who you are.AdvertisementFor someone who spends 10 hours a day managing a Facebook group about a single conspiracy theory, then, there is a dangerous need to validate the time you have invested. When a narrative is presented that shakes your sense of selfsay, a non-sinister explanation for a nurse fainting after the vaccinea new story needs to be created to restore the balance. When opposition to vaccines becomes part of your identity, its difficult to dislodge these things, he said. For that reason, he added, it is best not to try to reason with anti-vaxxers at all. A lot of people who have concerns about the COVID-19 vaccines are people who are persuadable, he said. But its a folly and it's wasted effort to try to persuade people who keep on moving the goalposts.CHI Memorial hospital learned this the hard way. After multiple social media posts, too many incoming phone calls, and that creepy proof-of-life video, a somewhat frustrated-sounding CHI spokesperson responded to The Daily Beasts request for comment by saying they would not be participating in this story. The hospital was focus[ing] its attention on caring for COVID patients and administering the COVID-19 vaccine, and Dover was continu[ing] to focus on her job as a nurse manager caring for patients.We are not continuing to do interviews to once again debunk a myth that has been debunked numerous times by multiple credible news sources, the spokesperson said. The vaccine rollout would continue as planned.

###CLAIM: only after a steep decline in support during the post-election period did trump refuse to accept the results, claiming the elections were rigged and speaking to supporters who stormed the capitol. ###DOCS: President Donald Trump is leaving office with nearly 400,000 Americans dead of the coronavirus, nearly 13 million unemployed and the lowest approval rating of his entire presidency. Trump's 34 per cent is the lowest approval rating of his term in the final Gallup poll of his tenure which featured previous dips during the clash in Charlottesville in 2017, arrests of associates in the Russia probe, and Trump's threats to rain 'fire and fury' upon North Korea. The president, who soaked up polling information even as he regularly blasted public polls that partnered with major media organizations, never cracked 50 per cent. He is the only president not to do so since Gallup started measuring presidential job approval in 1938 under F.D.R. President Donald Trump is leaving office with just 34 per cent approval in the final Gallup poll of his termTrump's polling has been generally consistent throughout his presidency, with mild lifts and mild downturns with a base group of supporters sticking with him through his first impeachment and the Mueller probe. It was only after the election that Trump suffered a steep decline, during a period where he lost the election, refused to accept the results, claimed the election was 'rigged,' and spoke to supporters who went on to storm the Capitol. The House made him the first president to be impeached twice when it voted an article charging him with 'incitement of insurrection.' The poll was conducted January 4 through January 15, a period that includes the Capitol riots. It all coincided with a 12-point post-election drop. Most presidents enjoy a bump after being defeated at the polls. The other exceptions are Jimmy Carter, whose approval dropped 3 per cent during the lame duck period, and Harry Truman, whose approval held at 32 per cent. Trump in now rated positively by many historians. Trump's approval rating has been remarkably consistent but never topped 50 per centA LOT TO UNPACK: A moving truck is parked outside Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Monday, Jan. 18, 2021. Trump's approval dipped around Charlottesville, arrests of associates in the Russia probe, and the post-election periodTrump supporters stream into and out of Nancy Pelosi's office in the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, during a riot and steal her sign. They laugh and hold up photos of the broken nameplate as a trophy. His average approval during his presidency was 41 per cent, a record low that is worse than Truman's by 4 points. The data inside the poll provide a snapshot into how polarizing a president Trump has been. His disapproval among Democrats shattered records - his average of just 7 per cent Democratic approval was six points lower than the previous low, 13 per cent under Barack Obama. Prior presidents got at least 20 per cent approval from the opposition. His support from his own party was also a record, with an average of 88 per cent. Trump will leave the White House this week with the lowest approval rating of his presidency, with just 34 percent of Americans supporting the job he has done, a Gallup poll showed Monday. Gallup noted that Trump's average approval rating during his one-term presidency was 41 percent, four points lower than any of his predecessors since the polling group has been gathering data. Trump's job approval had dipped to 35 percent in previous polls, most notably after he failing to condemn a violent gathering of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. The last poll of the Trump presidency was taken on the week of January 4-11, which covered the storming of the US Capitol building by Trump supporters trying to overturn the certification of the election won by Joe Biden, whose victory Trump has consistently denied. His all-time high rating was in early 2020, when he was facing an impeachment in the Senate on charges of trying to push Ukraine into helping him smear Biden and during the early stages of the pandemic, when Americans believed he was responding well to the virus that has now killed 398,000 people in the country. Two polls Sunday showed Donald Trump leaving office on his lowest approval ratings from Americans but still with the overwhelming backing of his base for his actions in the wake of the MAGA riot. An SSRS poll for CNN put Trump's final approval rating at just 34%, the lowest of his presidency, and far behind Barack Obama's final rating of 60%. But a separate Washington Post/ABC News poll showed how Republicans refuse to blame Trump for the MAGA riot which caused his second impeachment, and still back his claims that Joe Biden is not a legitimate president. The polls show some of the task facing Biden in the attempt to 'unite America' which will be the theme of his inauguration - an event itself held under unprecedented security, with 25,000 armed National Guard members, razor wire round the Mall and the White House, and crowds banned entirely. Trump's approval rating at the end of his single term put him in a minority of post-war presidents leaving office with approval under 40%. Jimmy Carter left on 34%, Harry Truman had 32%, George W. Bush 31% and Nixon, in the polls before he resigned, 24%. The CNN poll shows a mixed record for Trump on success versus failure. A majority - 54% - say he was more of a success than a failure on the economy, but the numbers for race relations (34%), immigration (36%) and the coronavirus (36%) show how he could not capture support beyond his base. But it is the Washington Post/ABC News results which show the grip he still has on Republican voters ahead of his second impeachment trial and Biden's inauguration. It found overwhelming support for Trump among those who say they voted Republican. Fifty seven per cent say that the party should follow his leadership when he leaves office, and 51% say that party leaders did not go far enough in attempts to overturn the election results. The party's voters do not blame Trump for the MAGA riot for which he is being impeached, with 56% saying he was not to blame for the Capitol being stormed at all. And 66% said that his overall conduct since the election had been 'responsible.' Those findings put the party's supporters entirely out of step not just with Democrats but with majority opinion. Just 27% of all voters think Republicans should follow Trump's leadership. The findings underline the difficulties Republican senators face with Trump's impeachment trial. Mob: Republican voters refuse to blame the president for the rioters who stormed the Capitol i his name and wearing his clothingConvict or not? Trump's grip on the base presents senators with a crisisThose who face primary elections in 2022 or 2024 would face angry Republican voters and even the possibility of Trump himself campaigning against him, making a vote to convict politically difficult. But if they vote against conviction to survive a primary, at a general election they would face a Democratic rival determined to hang that voter around their necks as a mark of shame - and a general electorate to whom Trump is a pariah. While Democratic voters favor Trump being convicted and banned from running for office again 89 to nine, Republicans oppose it 85 to 12. Among independents, it has 56% backing. Similarly, Biden's legitimacy is a matter of deep partisan divide: 62% of voters overall and more than 90% of Democrats say his election was legitimate. But Trump was so successful in sowing distrust in the election that among Republican voters, 70% say Biden did not win legitimately. A similar question in the SSRS/CNN poll saw 58% of Republicans say there was 'solid evidence' that Biden's election win was fraudulent. And 75% of Republican respondents said that they had little confidence that elections reflect the will of the American people. The possibility of Trump trying to pardon himself before he leaves office on Wednesday also divided opinion: 68% of all voters say he should not, but 59% of Republicans say he should. A move to self-pardon would bring about a fresh constitutional crisis because it is unknown if it would be valid and many experts believe that new Biden Justice Department would be forced to prosecute him just to get a Supreme Court ruling on whether it is possible - then consider a constitutional amendment to explicitly rule it out if the justices say Trump was allowed to pardon himself.

###CLAIM: the discovery adds to relatively large evidence of sea level changes in the gulf of thailand, where there are shorelines up to 10 kilometres inland from the present coast around 6, 000 to 3, 000 years ago. ###DOCS: A whale skeleton thought to be up to 5,000 years old has been discovered, almost perfectly preserved, by researchers in Thailand. The skeleton, believed to be a Brydes whale, was found in Samut Sakhon, west of Bangkok. Researchers have excavated 80% of the remains and have so far identified 19 complete vertebrae, five ribs, a shoulder blade and fins. The skeleton measures 12 metres (39ft), with a skull that is 3 metres long. The bones will be carbon dated to verify their age, but it is thought they are between 3,000 and 5,000 years old. Brydes whales are still found in Thailands waters, where they are considered a protected species. The whales which prefer waters above 16C (61F), and feed on schooling fish such as anchovies face threats from fishing equipment as well as tourism. The remains, which were found about 12km (7.5 miles) inland, will help scientists understand the evolution of the species, and track how sea levels have changed over thousands of years, said Varawut Silpa-archa, the natural resources and environment minister. Marcus Chua, of the National University of Singapore, said the discovery adds to evidence of relatively large sea level changes around 6,000 years to 3,000 years ago in the Gulf of Thailand, where the shoreline was up to tens of kilometres inland of the present coast. Previously, only marine deposits containing small fossilised marine shells or crabs had been found inland, and it was not clear if those fossils had been moved by humans, said Chua. A large subfossil whale dated thousands of years ago near Bangkok would provide strong evidence of where the sea was during that time, he said. Such evidence is highly relevant, given that the climate crisis is contributing to rising sea levels. This could certainly bring attention to the issue, and show how and where low-lying areas could be inundated by the sea when that happens, said Chua. The discovery will also help deepen researchers understanding of the Brydes whale, as well as other marine life. Alongside the skeleton, researchers found preserved items including shark teeth and shells. Scientists could also study the deposits found at the same level as the whale to reconstruct the biological communities present during that time, and compare them to present day systems, said Chua. The exact age of the skeleton is expected to be confirmed in December. The immaculately preserved remains of a 39-foot whale unearthed in Thailand is thought to be between 3,000 and 5,000 years old, experts have estimated. Researchers found the partially-fossilised bones which belonged to a Bryde's whale some 7.5 miles from the coast in Samut Sakhon, west of Bangkok. Bryde's whales, which can grow to 1328 tons in weight, live in tropical and warm temperate seas worldwide and are still found in the waters around Thailand today. Over the last 10,000 years, tectonic activity has raised the region some 13 feet relative to sea level. This explains how the whale ended up on what is now land. The immaculately preserved remains of a 40-foot-long whale (pictured) unearthed off the coast of Thailand is thought to be between around 3,0005,000 years old, experts saidResearchers found the partially-fossilised bones, pictured which belonged to a Bryde's whale some 7.5 miles from the coast in Samut Sakhon, west of BangkokMammal researcher Marcus Chua of the National University of Singapore told the BBC that the exceptionally preserved bones represented 'a rare find'. 'There are few whale subfossils in Asia,' he explained, with even fewer, the expert added, being 'in such good condition'. Images of the whale skeleton were shared on Facebook by Thailand's environment minister, Varawut Silpa-archa, the son of the country's former prime minister. Around four-fifths of the remains which are being carefully excavated from the surrounding clay by researchers from Thailand's departments of Mineral Resources and Marine and Coastal Resources have been recovered so far. The skeleton includes a head that is nearly 10 feet in length, along with fins, ribs, vertebrae and one shoulder blade. Researchers have also uncovered other remains including those of barnacles, crabs, shark teeth and stingrays. The whale bones will soon be carbon-dated to provide a more accurate estimate of the whale's age with results expected to come next month. Bryde's whales (one of which is pictured) which can grow to 1328 tons in weight live in tropical and warm temperate seas and are still found in the waters around Thailand todayMammal researcher Marcus Chua of the National University of Singapore told the BBC that the near-perfectly preserved bones represented 'a rare find'. 'There are few whale subfossils in Asia,' he explained, with even fewer, the expert added, being 'in such good condition'According to Mr Chua, the find will help researchers to better understand how Bryde's whales lived thousands of years ago and reveal how they might have differed in the past. The remains will also shine a light, he told the BBC, on the 'palaeobiological and geological conditions at that time including sea level estimation, types of sediments and the contemporary biological communities.' 'This find [will provide] a window into the past once the skeleton has been dated.' Images of the whale skeleton were shared on Facebook by Thailand's environment minister, Varawut Silpa-archa, the son of the country's former prime minister SAMUT SAKHON, Thailand (Reuters) - Thai researchers have unearthed a rare partially fossilised skeleton belonging to a Brydes whale believed to be around 5,000 years old at an inland site west of Bangkok. The 12.5-metre (41 ft) long skeleton was found by a cyclist, who spotted part of a vertebrae coming out of the ground, in early November. Excavation has been going on since then. This whale skeleton is thought to be the only one in Asia, said Pannipa Saetian, a geologist in the Fossil Protection division of the Department of Mineral Resources. Its very rare to find such a discovery in near-perfect condition, said Pannipa, estimating that about 90% of the whales skeleton had been recovered. Yesterday we found the right shoulder and fin, she said, noting that about 36 backbone pieces had been unearthed. The bones needed to be carbon-dated in order to determine the exact age of the skeleton, she said. Once the painstaking process of cleaning and preserving the fragile skeleton is complete it will be exhibited. Scientists hope the skeleton will provide more information to aid research into Brydes whale populations existing today as well as the geological conditions at the time. Brydes whales, sometimes known as tropical whales for their preference for warmer waters, are found in coastal waters in parts of the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, including in the Gulf of Thailand.

###CLAIM: smith said : `` to work with great people trying to help english cricket develop a continuous development is a huge privilege and exciting to watch. ###DOCS: Ed Smith was on Tuesday dispensed with as England's national selector with coach Chris Silverwood empowered to pick squads going forward as part of a revamped system. Smith, 43, was ditched on the third anniversary of his appointment and a third of the way into a year that includes a Twenty20 World Cup and an Ashes down under. The timing is unusual for that reason but in announcing the news in a statement in Tuesday evening, Ashley Giles, England's managing director, cited the need for 'greater lines of accountability' amid suggestions that the selection system was archaic. Engaland selector Ed Smith (left, with Test captain Joe Root) will leave at the end of the monthThe new one will have Silverwood at its summit, responsible for all future squad selections and the final XIs on match days alongside the two England captains Joe Root and Eoin Morgan. James Taylor, effectively Smith's deputy but whose title was England selector, has moved into a revised position as head scout and will report to Silverwood. 'I would like to personally thank Ed for his contribution to the England men's teams over the past three years. Ed's input has helped deliver successes for all our England teams, and he has worked with commitment and professionalism throughout. I wish him well in his future endeavours,' said Giles. 'The current process of selecting England teams has been in place for over 120 years. Even though this system has its merits, with advances in technology and a greater information gathering resource at our disposal than ever before, the restructure is in the best interests of helping England men's teams be successful. England managing director Ashley Giles (right, with Smith) is at the heart of the restructure'The new structure also makes lines of accountability much clearer, with Chris Silverwood, as head coach, taking ultimate responsibility for picking England senior men's squads.' While Smith, somewhat surprisingly selected for the job in the first place by Giles' predecessor Andrew Strauss, leaves at the end of the month following a decorated spell which included a maiden World Cup title and number one rankings in both white-ball formats. However, there has been considerable angst in recent months over the decision to leave the England Test team undermanned in India due to a raft of rest and rotation periods. He was credited for some bold choices early in his tenure, such as the promotion of Sam Curran and Ben Foakes, although those successes would later be offset by his influence in England fielding two spinners in defeat in Barbados in early 2019 and the omission of Stuart Broad in another loss to West Indies at the start of last year's biosecure summer. England captains Root and Eoin Morgan (right) will advise Silverwood on team selectionsSportsmail understands that Smith's contract was due to expire at the end of the 2021-22 winter. 'It has been a huge privilege to work with great people trying to help England cricket and I am excited about watching England's continued development,' Smith said. 'England's two captains, Joe and Eoin, have already completed remarkable achievements in an England shirt. England has two men dedicated to playing cricket in a way that makes the country proud. The role of national selector has been enjoyable and rewarding, and that is significantly due to my interaction with all of the England players. 'At such a high point for England cricket, I wish Ashley Giles, the coaches and all support staff good fortune over the coming months. I know how hard Ashley and his teamwork for England cricket. I'd like to wish Chris Silverwood good luck and every success going forward.' Under the new process, both Taylor and England men's performance director Mo Bobat will feed their information to Silverwood, along with other national coaches, performance analysts, and the talent ID, medical and sports science teams. Chris Silverwood has preferred to keep a low profile during his time as Englands head coach but by now taking on the additional job of sole selector, and thus approaching something more commonly found in football and rugby, the spotlight will get a notch or two brighter. In a year when the stated aims are clear add the T20 World Cup to the trophy cabinet and regain the Ashes the question of who is responsible for what has certainly been simplified. Joe Root and Eoin Morgan, respective captains of the Test and white-ball teams, remain central but by removing Ed Smith as national selector and transferring his powers to Silverwood, fewer decision-makers are now involved. How this plays out will be intriguing given crickets long history of selection committees and few examples otherwise. A couple spring to mind. In Pakistan, Misbah-ul-Haqs recent time as head coach and chief selector lasted 12 months and he is now solely the former, while Englands previous foray into the world of having one overarching supremo, Ray Illingworth, back in the mid-90s, is said to be slightly over-egged as regards his coaching input and also suffered from a generational gap. The landscape Silverwood will navigate is hugely different to Pakistan, while the 46-year-old is closer to the players than Illingworth, his fellow Yorkshireman, in age and personal experience in cricket. A year of expanded squads in the bubble and his past time as head coach of Essex means he will know most of the players available. In the short to medium term, selection should be relatively straightforward, while any potential bolters will still be assessed and flagged up by the scouting network. Silverwood has taken time to assemble his preferred coaching setup since being appointed in 2019 and in Graham Thorpe, Paul Collingwood, Marcus Trescothick, Jon Lewis and Jeetan Patel as well as Richard Dawson heading up the pathway he now has trusted eyes and ears in place. The only question is, without a selector observing from a distance, what checks are in place to prevent this becoming an echo chamber? And, looking further ahead, for all the advancements in technology, how easily can a head coach stay abreast of emerging players given a packed schedule? When it comes to Englands white-ball team, ranked No 1 in both shorter formats, Morgans hand will remain firmly on the tiller. As Dawid Malan put it last autumn, and Alex Hales has discovered over the past two years, the captains opinion is everything. There seems little reason for a well-oiled machine to change because of the restructure, even if the recent 3-2 defeat to India in the Twenty20s threw up areas for improvement. Joe Root plays a shot during Englands recent Test series defeat in India. Photograph: Surjeet Yadav/Getty ImagesIf anything the removal of Smith has likely been done more with the Test team in mind and follows a winter in which the rotation policy, however well intentioned, left Root depleted. Ashley Giles, the team director, clearly feels selection by committee is antiquated, but for all the talk about clarity of roles and greater accountability it would surely have lived on had everyone been working well together. Silverwoods ability to explain his decisions publicly will be key and though not every press conference in cricket is necessary, squad announcements are scarcely unimportant. From supporters to the boardroom, everyone has a view and so clearly articulating the chosen path and ensuring it is consistent with what the players themselves have been told behind closed doors remains a must. Its here where Smith had started to lose his audience. He deserves credit for bringing the thinking process behind selection into the 21st century (perhaps even making his role redundant as a result) and there were some inventive picks along the way. But his tone had become slightly supercilious towards the end and veered towards spin. And though the job is not a popularity contest, he also managed to irrevocably rub a number of established players up the wrong way. The Spin: sign up and get our weekly cricket email. Silverwood is more of a people person and viewed as a pleasingly straight-talking communicator behind the scenes. Although conversely, when the dictaphones are placed on the table and the cameras roll, he can struggle to get his point across at times and can slip into cliche or repetition. Its an area that will require some hard work but as a former fast bowler, and someone who has followed three months away from home on the subcontinent by taking on additional responsibilities, hard work is something Silverwood is clearly not averse to.

###CLAIM: movie-watching habits have changed over the years with cheap big-screen tv sets and the rise of streaming services. ###DOCS: A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. London CNN Business Saudi Arabia, Russia and other oil producing countries have agreed to start pumping more oil next month, even as the coronavirus pandemic continues to cloud the outlook for demand. But thats not dissuading investors, with crude prices at their highest level since early March. Whats happening: Brent crude futures, the global benchmark, are trading at more than $49 per barrel. Thats 25% below where they started the year, but marks a huge recovery since April, when prices fell below $20 a barrel. US crude, meanwhile, is now trading above $46 per barrel. Given the state of the pandemic, this may seem counterintuitive. The United States has been adding 1 million Covid-19 cases to its total tally every six days for the past three weeks, with infection rates triggering greater restrictions in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles. It was clearly a tough call for OPEC and allies to start relaxing production curbs. Producers said Thursday they intend to increase output by 500,000 barrels per day beginning in January. So why have oil prices pushed even higher Friday? It could have been worse. Per Paola Rodriguez-Masiu of Rystad Energy, the production increase is not the nightmare scenario. And while the coalition of producers showed some signs of cracking as it debated next steps this week, it ultimately held together. OPEC also said it would assess market conditions monthly starting next year, allowing for a course correction as needed. But UBS energy analyst Giovanni Staunovo thinks that theres a simpler explanation for the price jump: As with stocks, prices have been buoyed by optimism about Covid-19 vaccines, which are expected to usher in an explosion of demand. Oil prices are also getting a boost from a weaker US dollar, which makes crude cheaper for buyers in emerging markets, he told me. Still, the near-term road may be rocky given the trajectory of the virus. UBS forecasts that Brent crude could drop to $45 per barrel by the end of March. Staunovo thinks prices can rise to $52 by the end of June, however, and $57 per barrel by the end of September lifting struggling energy firms and providing clarity on the path forward. The latest US jobs report may be a warningRisky assets like stocks have been flying high on hopes that safe and effective vaccines will bring a swift end to pandemic disruptions in 2021. But in the near-term, efforts to contain the deadly Covid-19 virus are still wreaking havoc on the economy, causing many Americans to suffer. That message could be driven home Friday by the latest US jobs report, which is expected to show the weakest employment gains since the recovery started. Economists polled by Refinitiv predict that 469,000 jobs were added to the US economy in November. Thats roughly 169,000 fewer than the previous month, my CNN Business colleague Anneken Tappe reports. The breadth and severity of the virus resurgence suggests a larger labor market impact than during the second wave, Goldman Sachs economists told clients, referring to the spike in cases across the Sun Belt in early summer. If the November prediction proves correct, the United States will still be down 9.6 million jobs from February. That would mean the labor market has recovered more than half of its losses, but theres still a long way to go. On the radar: The situation could be made worse with special pandemic unemployment benefits set to expire in the next few weeks. Unless Congress reaches a new stimulus deal, programs like Pandemic Unemployment Assistance which has provided support to independent contractors, gig workers and freelancers, as well as certain people who are sick with Covid-19 will run out just after Christmas. Ethan Harris, head of global economics at Bank of America, told my CNN Business colleague Matt Egan that the latest jobs report could give Congress a wake-up call.There is no outside force intervening telling Congress to stop fooling around and get to work, he said. Warner Bros. streaming decision shakes the movie industryIn a decision that could upend the way movies are distributed, Warner Bros. the worlds second-largest studio has announced it will stream all of its 2021 films on HBO Max at the same time they hit theaters. The movies include Matrix 4, Dune, Judas and the Black Messiah, Space Jam: A New Legacy and the film adaptation of In The Heights, my CNN Business colleague Kerry Flynn reports. WarnerMedia, which owns CNN, is the parent company of Warner Bros. and HBO. Big picture: Movie-watching habits have been changing for years thanks to cheap big-screen television sets and the rise of streaming services. But the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated those trends, paving the way for Warner Bros. announcement. The plan an industry first is a gamble on the future of at-home entertainment as a major source of revenue. The movie theater distribution business remains lucrative and crucial to Hollywoods bottom line. Investors in movie theater chains, however, have reason to be concerned. Shares of AMC (AMC) and Cinemark (CNK) plunged on the news, nosediving 16% and 22%, respectively. Up nextThe US jobs report, along with data on the unemployment rate and wages, posts at 8:30 a.m. ET. Coming up: Can the United Kingdom and the European Union clinch a trade deal despite their differences? Oil ministers from the worlds largest petroleum producers agreed to raise global production by 500,000 barrels a day beginning in January a move that was viewed by oil analysts as a compromise after a rare rift between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, another major producer that historically has aligned with its larger neighbor. OPEC and its allies had resumed talks on Thursday, after suspending negotiations earlier in the week after an uncharacteristic breakdown of talks among officials on how to address the pandemic-induced slowdown in demand. In general, these end-of-year meetings have proven to be the more volatile of the semiannual OPEC conferences, said Peter McNally, global energy sector lead at investment and research firm Third Bridge. Reaching consensus is more complicated at the end of the year than mid-year when demand is typically increasing and output is raised to meet that increased seasonal market need.Oil markets have been roiled by the demand shock of the pandemic, which triggered such great volatility in the global oil market that, for a brief period in April, the price of oil futures that is, the value at which a buyer would agree to purchase at a particular future date fell below zero. Although primarily a technical headache for speculators, the inversion highlighted just how severe the oil glut had become. In May, OPEC implemented a record-breaking production cut of 9.7 million barrels a day, which it changed to 7.7 million in August. Initially, the group laid out a plan to exit from that drastic 9.7 million barrel cut by increasing production by 1.9 billion barrels a day beginning in January 2021. More recently, though, industry participants had widely expected OPEC to extend its current level of production cuts through March the preferred course of action for Saudi Arabia. As the de facto leader of OPEC, Saudi Arabia has typically held considerable sway over the groups actions, but Thursdays announcement indicated to industry observers that the kingdom does not hold the influence it once did. Its certainly an interesting chapter to see some cracks forming among OPECs core that could create some complexity in agreements to production cuts, said Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. Now numbering nearly two dozen, the members of OPEC and the other oil-producing nations that comprise OPEC+ have increasingly diverse agendas and concerns. Friction is one thing thats routine in times of crisis. But ordinarily, they figure out a compromise and present a united front, said Stewart Glickman, energy equity analyst at CFRA Research. I think sticking to the original plan would have caused crude oil prices to plummet.These tensions, along with the ongoing pandemic, together paint a murky picture for American fossil fuel production. The biggest problem continues to be Covid, said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for OPIS by IHSMarkit. While demand for natural gas is likely to be robust through the winter as people staying at home turn up the thermostat activity that is, in aggregate, less energy-efficient than heating large downtown and suburban office complexes and the push to move social gatherings and dining outside has kept propane prices from cratering, Americans are collectively sipping rather than guzzling gasoline and jet fuel. This change, some suggest, could mark an inflection point for the industry. A major breakthrough in electric-vehicle battery functionality or storage capacity would send shock waves through the oil-producing world. There a strong argument that gasoline demand will not reach its pre-pandemic levels, DeHaan said. The American energy sector is bigger, but not necessarily better, today than it was the last time the market was in post-crash recovery beginning in 2016, McNally said. Consolidation among producers and refiners has left the remaining players with less dry powder, cooling investor enthusiasm. In addition, analysts expect that under President-elect Joe Biden, the new administration will move to implement changes like higher fuel-efficiency standards and increased incentives for electric vehicle adoption, while plunging state and municipal revenues could prompt lawmakers to look at gas tax increases to plug budget holes. Long-term, many analysts see the writing on the wall for OPEC, with an upcoming fundamental shift in the way countries produce and consume energy. There is a growing sense that the biggest oil producers especially those like Saudi Arabia with highly petroleum-dependent economies are in a race against time as a growing number of developed nations accelerate their initiatives to reduce carbon emissions. A major breakthrough in battery functionality or storage capacity, for instance, would send shock waves through the oil-producing world. Longer-term, renewables have potential to take market share from fossil fuels, and that would bode poorly for OPEC, Glickman said.

###CLAIM: the loss of his twitter juggernaut, with alternative platforms like parler slowly shutting down, stings more sharply. ###DOCS: Comment on this story Comment Gift Article ShareBoy, did Donald Trump blow it. There he was, poised to gallop off into the sunset with his lost-cause mythology and his claims of a rigged election more or less intact. Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates ArrowRight He was leaving a martyr to his most loyal acolytes. He was a demon only to those who hated him from the start. And he was something in between to those who had feared him sometimes and used him other times. Now, they were less afraid, and he was less useful, so they prepared to tiptoe away. There is no tiptoeing, however, amid an armed insurrection. The horde of Trump denunciators this week turned huge and vehement. You cant incite a violent mob to storm the seat of our democracy and expect every enabler to continue enabling you. Certainly not if youve recently become a loser. Admittedly, defections among lawmakers and other elites may not do much to repel the fever-swamp dwellers who attempted Wednesdays coup (or who insist it was dastardly antifa-masquerading-as-MAGAmen who attempted the overthrow the government). And, admittedly, Trump probably doesnt care too much about a legislative censure. The loss of the juggernaut that was his Twitter account may sting more sharply, as will the slow and steady shutting down of alternative platforms such as Parler. Early on Jan. 6, The Post's Kate Woodsome saw signs of violence hours before thousands of President Trump's loyalists besieged the Capitol. (Video: The Washington Post, Photo: John Minchillo/AP/The Washington Post)What hurts most is precisely what never would have happened at all had Trump gone gently into the night and it starts with golf. AdvertisementWe find ourselves in a political situation not of our making, the chief executive of the Professional Golfers Association of America told the Associated Press after announcing that the PGA would withdraw its 2022 golf championship from Trump Bedminster. Were fiduciaries for our members, for the game, for our mission and for our brand. And how do we best protect that?Not, of course, by affiliating with an aspiring autocrat. Trump, who has hit the links more than 300 times during his tenure, was reportedly gutted by the loss of the event. Follow Molly Roberts 's opinions FollowPotentially being impeached? Yes, he was angry about that. But losing the PGA was a different order of magnitude.Reduced by orders of magnitude could be the business executives fortune. The PGA is but a drop in a bucketful of severed relationships: American Express and Mastercard say they wont make contributions to candidates who tried to block the certification of results; Visa is suspending all donations as it reviews. American Airlines, AT&T, Best Buy, Coca-Cola, Comcast, Ford the list goes on. Theyre all hitting pause on the giving, or restricting gifts to the complicit. Even Deutsche Bank, Trumps primary lender for two decades, is saying auf wiedersehen. AdvertisementThe post-presidency has been a lucrative gig ever since Gerald Ford started traveling what Ronald Reagan called the mashed-potato circuit even without the hefty annual pension afforded former commanders in chief. Jimmy Carter, eating salmon and broccoli casserole on a paper plate while sipping on bargain-brand chardonnay, was never the norm. Bill Clinton has racked up tens of millions of dollars in speeches. George W. Bush declared upon leaving the Oval Office that he intended to replenish the ol coffers. Barack Obama has leaned into branding, hard. Book deals are old news; the hot game now is Netflix and Spotify production deals. Trump, by contrast, was always trying to make money when he was still in office, telling Fortune that he might be the first hopeful to come out of his run richer than when he entered it. This boast turned out also to be a bluff; the reality TV star by all accounts is poorer now than he was four years ago, despite pouring taxpayer money into Mar-a-Lago by hosting summits there or hoovering up the dollars of diplomats at some of his other properties. (The so-called winter White House did manage to double its initiation fee, turning into the go-to destination for glitzy, glamorous GOP events. Where big donors go to see and be seen, as The Post put it. ) Today, it seems no one wants to be seen next to Trump. The grimmest possible fate for this disgraced politician has little to do with politics, where social distancing from a lame-duck president is standard procedure. For the founder of Trump Hotels, and Trump Steaks, and Trump Vodka, and Trump Anything and Everything the guy could get his name on, doom arrives when the whole world at once tries to cast off his brand. AdvertisementRead more:GiftOutline Gift Article

###CLAIM: the pipeline of the nord stream 2 (sassnitz-mukran ) will be stored at the sassnitz port site from october 2020 to september 2020. ###DOCS: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The annual U.S. defense policy bill unveiled by lawmakers late on Thursday contains sanctions that backers say will halt one of Russias biggest projects in Europe: the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. FILE PHOTO: Pipes for the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline are stored on a site at the port of Mukran in Sassnitz, Germany, September 10, 2020. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke/File PhotoThe $11 billion Nord Stream 2 project, led by Russian state energy company Gazprom and aimed at doubling the existing pipelines capacity, is more than 90% complete. Russia says the project to deliver gas under the Baltic Sea to Europe via Germany will begin operating next year. But President Donald Trumps administration, which is eager to offer Europe U.S. shipments of gas, and many U.S. lawmakers oppose the pipeline. They say the project, which would bypass Ukraine, depriving it of lucrative transit fees, would boost Moscows economic and political leverage over Europe. The sanctions in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) target any companies and individuals providing help to the project, including upgrading of a ship needed to lay the pipeline, verification of equipment used to lay the pipeline, and insurance. The NDAA is expected to be passed by the U.S. House of Representatives early next week and soon after by the Senate. Trump has vowed to veto the bill over a bipartisan provision to strip the names of Confederate military leaders from U.S. bases. But vetoing the massive bill would carry significant political risk. If Trump vetoes the legislation and Congress upholds his veto, it would end a 59-year streak of passing the NDAA. TOUGHER SANCTIONSThese sanctions significantly toughen existing provisions ... to cover critical components of the pipeline project, said a U.S. official familiar with the process of crafting sanctions on Nord Stream 2 and who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Obama administration had also opposed the project and the incoming Biden administration is expected to maintain that policy. Backers say the sanctions will deprive Russia of the capability to upgrade Gazproms vessel, the Akademik Cherskiy, to lay the type of pipe used in the project, required insurance, and necessary certifications. Without any of this, they are just not going to be able to finish the pipeline, said Daniel Vajdich, president of Yorktown Solutions, a lobbyist for Ukraines state energy company Naftogaz, which opposes the project. The Kremlin said the threat of new U.S. sanctions was a sign of unfair competition and promised Russia would defend its interests and commercial projects. Nord Stream 2 did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company said last month the sanctions would directly or indirectly hit about 120 companies from more than 12 European countries and that it was up to governments and the European Commission to protect them from illegal extraterritorial sanctions.Only a final stretch of about 100 miles (160 km) in Danish waters needs to be completed, but the work is complicated by unexploded World War Two bombs on the seabed in the projects path. In addition, fear of sanctions has led important companies doing work necessary for the project to drop out. Last month Norways DNV GL, a company that had been monitoring the testing and preparation of equipment used by ships to lay the pipeline, suspended work. In September, the worlds largest group of shipping insurers said they would not insure vessels involved in Nord Stream 2. Associations belonging to the International Group of Protection and Indemnity Clubs, including the Shipowners Club and the London P&I Club, said they would not provide coverage for any activity involving the Nord Stream 2 or TurkStream, a pipeline project to bring Russian gas to Turkey.

###CLAIM: safeway, vons and albertsons announced monday that the partnership will enable customers of the door-to-door service to shop across nearly 2, 000 of their stores. ###DOCS: Gift Article ShareDoorDash, Albertsons team up on delivery Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight DoorDash, the largest meal-delivery company in the United States, is teaming up with Albertsons Companies to offer grocery delivery on its marketplace app in a bid to capture a share of the fast-growing sector dominated by Instacart and Walmart. The partnership will enable DoorDash customers to shop across Albertsons nearly 2,000 stores, including Safeway, Vons and Jewel-Osco, the companies announced Monday. Albertsons offerings will be available on DashPass, DoorDashs subscription program that provides members unlimited free delivery and reduced service fees from thousands of restaurants, grocery stores and convenience stores. While San Francisco-based DoorDash has offered same-day grocery delivery, including from Walmart, through its white-label fulfillment platform, the alliance is its first major step into groceries. DoorDash will list more than 40,000 grocery items from Albertsons stores on its marketplace, placing it in direct competition with Instacart. AdvertisementDoorDash dominates U.S. food delivery and increased its market share over rivals such as Uber Technologies and Grubhub amid the shift to ordering from home as the coronavirus pandemic shuttered indoor dining. However, even as cities reopen, demand for food delivery has remained resilient, with DoorDash nearly tripling revenue during the first quarter. Since then, DoorDash has pushed into new business lines such as retail through a partnership with Bed Bath & Beyond in May and most recently PetSmart as well as expanded convenience-store offerings, in an effort to capture more customers now accustomed to fast, on-demand delivery. Bloomberg NewsGermany targets Apple in wide-ranging probeApple became the latest target of a German antitrust crackdown on tech giants market power with a wide-ranging probe examining the companys digital ecosystem.AdvertisementThe nations Federal Cartel Office said Monday that it will focus on the App Store and whether Apple has created a dominant business around its iPhone and iOS operating system that extends across several markets. Since the start of the year, the agency has opened similar investigations against Facebook, Google and Amazon. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) A main focus of the investigations will be on the operation of the App Store as it enables Apple in many ways to influence the business activities of third parties, said Andreas Mundt, the regulators head. We will examine Apples extensive integration across several market levels, the magnitude of its technological and financial resources, and its access to data, he added. The German antitrust regulator was equipped with far-reaching new powers at the start of the year, letting it move against digital platforms that play a crucial role in the online economy. AdvertisementApple said in an emailed statement that its an engine for innovation and job creation, with more than 250,000 jobs supported by the iOS app economy in Germany. The App Store has given German developers of all sizes the same opportunity to share their passion and creativity with users around the world, the company said. We look forward to discussing our approach with the Federal Cartel Office and having an open dialogue about any of their concerns, Apple said. Bloomberg NewsSweetgreen, the salad restaurant chain founded by Georgetown University graduates, has filed confidentially for a U.S. initial public offering. The Los Angeles-based company said in a statement Monday that it has submitted a draft registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission for an IPO. Founded in 2007, the restaurant chain was valued at $1.78 billion in a January funding round. AdvertisementThe U.S. Commerce Department said Monday that it was rescinding a list of prohibited transactions with TikTok and WeChat that were issued in September as the Trump administration sought to block new U.S. downloads of both Chinese-owned apps. The move came after President Biden this month withdrew several Trump-era executive orders that sought to ban new downloads of TikTok and Tencent-owned WeChat, and ordered a Commerce Department review of security concerns posed by those apps and others. India proposed banning flash sales on e-commerce websites and said Monday that their affiliate entities should not be listed as sellers on their platforms, in a proposed tightening of rules that could hit Amazon and Walmart's Flipkart. Amazon and Flipkart say they comply with all Indian laws. Amazon said Monday that it was reviewing the draft rules and had no immediate comment, while Flipkart did not respond to a request for comment. From news servicesGiftOutline Gift Article

###CLAIM: the cdc now says the real count of cases in the u. s. is likely higher than previously thought due to incomplete reporting, false negatives and asymptomatic carriers. ###DOCS: More Americans than ever are in the hospital with the coronavirus. On Thanksgiving Day, hospitalizations hit a record high of more than 90,000 people, according to the COVID Tracking Project, and about 50 Americans are now dying every hour. More than 13 million Americans have now been infected with the virus and it shows no signs of slowing down. Hospitals, already at the brink, are bracing for a new surge after 6.5 million people flew this holiday week. Thirty-two states are seeing increases in new daily cases, with Pennsylvania, Arkansas and Massachusetts breaking records. And the true case count could be much higher, considering an expected dip in positivity rates linked to a surge in pre-holiday testing. Dr. Joseph Varon hugs and comforts a patient in the COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) during Thanksgiving at the United Memorial Medical Center on November 26, 2020 in Houston, Texas. Go Nakamura / Getty Images"A lot of people flooded into testing programs to get tested before they traveled for Thanksgiving," said Dr. Emily Landon of the University of Chicago Medical Center, adding, "But they do bring the positivity rates down by flooding the testing market with a number of low risk individuals." Landon advised those who learn that someone from their Thanksgiving gathering tested positive to quarantine, and warned that "there are so many cases right now that you will probably not hear from a contact tracer." The CDC now says the real U.S. case count is likely eight times higher than previously thought, due to underreporting, false negatives and asymptomatic carriers who were never tested. The NFL's Baltimore Ravens are facing a serious outbreak that's testing the NFL's COVID-19 protocols. The team's game against the Pittsburgh Steelers was postponed twice after 12 Ravens, including star quarterback Lamar Jackson, were put on the Reserve/COVID-19 list. On the vaccine front, the CDC committee focused on distributing vaccines announced that a vote at an emergency meeting on Tuesday would recommend who gets the vaccine first if one is approved by the FDA.

###CLAIM: between petits petits arufiac and corbu, the dry whites have a tropic fresh fleshiness and a slight grapefruit ###DOCS: Ancient tower, or 'tour,' in the Graves region of Bordeaux Tom MullenThe French wine region of Bordeaux includes an annual series of events that are mutually beneficial for both producers and consumers. Named Portes Ouverts, or open doors, these are weekends during which dozens of wine chateaux within any one specific wine appellation allow visitors to come taste their wines, andshould guests desiretour the vines and facilities, all free of charge. There is no pressure to purchase wines and no fees unless you want to purchase lunch or food. These events take place from spring through fall. Bordeaux has about 60 appellations (although not all host open doors weekends) and these events are conducive to marketing as well as to those who want to explore wines. From Graves to Castillon to Bourg to Haut-Medoc, wine chateaux at these events are listed in brochures showing a map of the region pinpointed with participating producers. French labor laws can make hiring seasonal labor a challenge. This results in most wine chateaux not having regular visiting hours. Instead, visitors often need to call in advance to arrange a tasting. A benefit of this less than consumer friendly system is that often wine tastings are quite intimate: visitors may meet and taste with the owner and/or winemaker rather than with a harried staff member who rattles off memorized tasting notes. Church in Moulon in the Entre-Deux-Mers region of Bordeaux Tom MullenThis portes ouverts system serves as one institutionalized solution to wine chateaux tasting rooms not being perennially open. Alternatively, and sometimes additionally, many wine appellations include one centralized retail store that is funded by winemakers and by the local governmentoften known as a maison du vinwhich sell wines from throughout the region (and from nowhere else). Vintages are priced the same as at individual wine chateaux. These outlets often feature a few wines of the day that are available for free tasting. The notes below were made after tasting wines using each of these avenues available for visitors to Bordeaux: portes ouverts, a reserved and personal visit, and a visit to a maison du vin. Listed retail prices are those from the wine chateaux. Some of the wines listed below include a Value Scoring based on a proprietary algorithm used to combine subjective quality scores with winery retail prices to determine optimal local values. These value scores can be Superlative (), Excellent () or Good ().Vines in Bourg appellation of Bordeaux Tom MullenAppellation: Cotes de Bourg , BordeauxLocated on the right bank of Bordeaux (east of the Dordogne River), the small and attractive medieval town of Bourg is a 45 minute drive northeast from the center of Bordeaux city. This region has produced wine since the time of Romans. The appellation nicknames itself the spicy side of Bordeaux because winemakers generally incorporate a greater percentage of Malbec into blends than do producers from other Bordeaux appellations. Considering the price, the quality of wines here is often exceptional. These Bourg wines listed below score from 92 to 95 points on a subjective 100-point scale. Le Garagiste. Tutti Fruite. 2018. 15.00/$17.95This 80/20 blend of Merlot and Cabernet Franc, aged in stainless steel, comes from a producer located in Saint-Ciers-de-Canesse. Aromas include spice, black currants, plums, raspberries and wild strawberries. In the mouth, the fruity taste includes that of oranges and raspberries. This is one of the most fruit forward expressions within the Bourg/Blaye region of Bordeaux. Beautifully light and easy to drinkquite spicy on the nose, but full of fruit in the mouth. The spice hangs in the cheeks, says winemaker Ben Hall. Tutti Fruite wine from Le Garagiste, Cotes de Bourg, Bordeaux Tom MullenLa Garagiste. Burlesque. 2017. 15.00/$17.95Ben Hall produced his first French vintage in 2015 (after having produced white wines in the U.K.). His talent and renown grow annually, and his wine production is almost fully converted to organic. This 80/20 Merlot/Cabernet Franc blend is slightly oaked and includes aromas of cinnamon, coffee, mocha and red currants. The wine is burly on the nose and suave in the moutheasy drinking juice with well integrated flavors that include hints of oranges and sultanas. Serve with a steak or beef from a Moroccan tajine. La Garagiste. Gran Turismo. 2018. 19.00/$22.50This 85/15 Cabernet Franc/Merlot blend includes a vegetative freshness and structured, hefty aromas of green grass, black cherries, licorice, lemon, brick and mocha. In the mouth this has Christmas cake layers of flavors: sultanas, allspice, eucalyptus, and a ribbon of lime tinged acidity. Tastes also include chocolate, maple syrup and orangesa layered but light and easy beauty. Electrifying. Only 2,000 bottles produced. Chateau De Cots. Cuvee Prestige. 2015. Cot is another French name for the Malbec grape, which this wine chateau heartily incorporates into their blends. Winemaker/co-proprietor Remi Bergon gained experience working in Bordeaux (Montagne Saint-Emilion) as well as in Australia and in the U.S. (California and Oregon). He also spent ten years working in wine retail in Paris. His father was one of the first to begin making certified organic wines in the Bourg appellation in 1999, and nowwith Remi at the helmthe winery received Demeter biodynamic certification for their 2020 vintage. Individual barrel samples from that vintageof Malbec, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignonshow energetic wines with beautiful fruit expression and excellent, confident acidity. Their 2015 Prestige is a 50/50 blend of Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon that spent 28 months aging in non-new oak. It includes aromas of violets, orange peels and the scent of forest. The wine is gorgeously approachable and well structured, with flavors that include those of cep mushrooms and orangesits a juicy mouthful that will pair with duck breast or steak and will age for decades. Vines at Chateau de Cots in Bourg, Bordeaux Tom MullenAppellation: Entre-Deux-Mers, BordeauxEntre-Deux-Mers is a huge appellations located between the seas, or in this case between the two tidally influenced rivers of Dordogne and Garonnewhich converge to form the Gironde Estuary that flows north to the Atlantic Ocean. This region produces red, white and rose wines, although only white wines from here can receive appellation dorigine controlee (AOC) designation. These wines listed below score from 91 to 96 points on a subjective 100-point scale. Chateau Auguste. 2019. This 74-acre (30 hectare) estate owned by American businessman Tom Sullivan produces rose and red wines, the reds generally being 80/10/10 blends of Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. The organically produced 2019 red blend (still aging) includes beautifully layered aromas of cherries, blackberries, licorice and black pepper. Tastes include those of licorice and aniseed. Excellent value and qualitysolidly produced by winemaker Damien Landouar, working in conjunction with consulting enologist Hubert du Bouard. Chateau Auguste winemaker Damien Landouar, Entre-Deux-Mers Tom MullenChateau Saint-Marie. Chardonneret. 2018. 9.50/$15.00Named after a small but rare local bird, this blend of Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Gris and Semillon ages in amphorae for 6 to 8 months. It includes aromas of tropical fruits, green apples and iron filings. In the mouth this acidic, rounded wine includes the taste of peaches. Chateau Saint-Marie. Alios. 2017. 9.90/$11.70 [Excellent Value ]This 74/21/5 blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot spends 12 months in oak. Beautiful aromas of cherries and raspberries and tastes that include those of butterscotch and Oreo cookies. Wine box from Chateau Sainte-Marie, Bordeaux Tom MullenChateau Saint-Marie. Asterie (Syrah). 2019. 12.00/$14.20 [Excellent Value ]This Vin de France Syrahunusual because Syrah is typically not grown in Bordeauxis named after a type of soil and is aged in stainless steel. No sulfites added. Aromas are very fruity and include a hint of blueberries and orange peel. Slightly herbaceous. Suave and fruity in the mouth with a hint of eucalyptus. Lacks the complexity and spice of a more southern Syrah, but is pleasantly easy to drink. Chateau Peyredon. Lagravette (Haut Medoc). 2018. 15.00/$17.70A 63/37 blend of Cabernet Sauvigon and Merlot with aromas of black cherries, chocolate biscuits, licorice and a hint of hickory. Well structured and balanced. In the mouthsame flavors as aromas, but also with a ribbon of citric acidity and a silky mouth feel. Young and bristling with energy. Chateau Laurence. Brut Nature Zero Dosage. 12.00/$14.20 [Excellent Value ]From winemaking wizard and enological consultant Philippe Nunes comes this 100% Chardonnay that includes flavorful and energetic aromas of grapefruit, tangerines, honey, butterscotch and toast. In the mouth, chewy caramel, butter and oatmeal. A very distinct beauty that can beat plenty of champagnes for quality. Lively. The key to flavor abundance is ample stirring of leesor as Philippe saysbattonage! Winemaker Philippe Nunes of Chateau Laurence, Bordeaux Tom MullenChateau Laurence. Blanc Sec. 2018. 12.00/$14.20 [Excellent Value ]Crisp, precise with aromas of white flowers, rounded tropicals including grapefruit. The mouth feel is creamy and full bodied. The oak is virtually indiscernible although the juice actually ages in 100% new French oak. Excellent. Appellation: Graves, BordeauxGraves refers to gravels in soils, and this appellation south of Bordeaux city forms a line that hugs the west bank of the Garonne River. It produces not only red and white wines, but the famed sweet wines from Sauternes. The wines listed below score from 89 to 94 points on a subjective 100 point scale. Chateau Calens. Graves Rouge. 2018. 9.00/$10.55 [Excellent Value ]A 40/60 bend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot that spends 12 months aging in oak. Black cherry aromas, and a pleasing taste. Chateau Montesquiou. Graves Rouge. 2018. 7.00/$8.20 [Superlative Value ]Aromas and taste include a hit of light, refreshing cherries. Chateau Trebiac. Graves. 2018. 9.00/$10.55 [Excellent Value ]This 100% Semillon includes aromas of honey and grapefruit and in the mouth is beautiful, semi-sweet and silky. Chateau Crabitey. Graves. 2019. 13.00/$15.25 [Good Value ]This 70/30 blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon includes sweet, balanced aromas of limes and honey and in the mouth is somewhat dense, but full, sweet and rounded. Chateau Crabitey. Graves. 2017. 14.00/$16.40 [Good Value ]This 50/50 blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot includes sweet, succulent and gorgeous aromas of black cherries, crushed Oreo chocolate cookies and blackberries. Round and luscious in the mouth. Winemaker Arnaud de Butler of Chateau Crabitey, Bordeaux Tom MullenChateau de Castres. Graves. 2018. 15.00/$17.55This Semillon and Sauvignon Gris blend spends 12 months aging in oak and includes powerful, open aromas of white flowers. Chateau Pont Saint-Martin. Graves. 2018. 21.00/$24.60A blend of Semillon and Sauvignon Gris grown without pesticides that includes aromas of flint, lime and grapefruit. Opulent and round in the mouth. A fine, lasting finish. Appellation: MadiranStraddling three French administrative and geographical departments in the southern region of France (an hour drive northeast of the city of Pau), Madiran produces Tannat rich wines that were once the preferred fare of pilgrims along the French portion of the Santiago de Compostela trail. These powerful dark wines typically include aromas of raspberry, and sometimes also of spice and toast. The wines listed below score from 89 to 94 on a subjective 100-point scale. Domaine Moureou Madiran. 2016. 7.50/$8.70 [Superlative Value ]A blend of unwooded 70/30 Tannat/Cabernet Franc that includes a chewy, vegetative quality. Astringent but sleekly so. A wine to pair with venison. Typical mixed vines, pasture and woodlands from the Madiran appellation of France Tom MullenDomaine Sergent. Les Noyers Madiran. 2016. 12.00/$13.95 [Good Value ]This 100% Tannat is made by two sisters and is aged in a combination of old and new barrels for one year. Aromas include violets, orange rind, graphite and even maple syrup. Suave and sumptuous in the mouth, with tastes that include treacle and orange. Beautiful length with a taste of cherries, and lip smacking acidity. Domaine de Maouries. Les Orchis de Pyren Madiran. 2014. 19.00/$22.05From a fifth generation producer family that now includes a brother, sister and niece, this 100% Tannat wine aged one year in oak should be decanted before drinking. It includes spicy aromas of pepper, cumin, even cinnamon and cloves. In the mouth it includes that characteristic Madiran Tannat taste of orange segments and treacle. A light wine, though still notably tannic. Domaine de Moulie. Cuvee Chiffre Madiran. 2016. 13.00/$15.10 [Good Value ]Fresh violet aromas, as well as uplifting, happy and light aromas of mandarins and black cherries. In the mouth this includes a well balanced and suave assembly and an attack of smoky dark fruit. Cuvee Chiffre from the Madiran appellation, France Tom MullenDomaine Laffont. Hecate Madiran. 2016. 25.00/$29.00Bucket of blueberries, violets and cinnamon aromas. Precious! Tannat odors of lift and dominance. In the mouthorange rind and sultanas, dark raspberries and bitter chocolate. Domaine Dou Bernes. Terroir de Rendaou Madiran. 2015. 13.00/$15.10 [Excellent Value ]Light aromas of violets, raspberries and cloves. Beautiful and richly balanced shot of molasses, cocoa and cumin in the moutha juicy shot of textured spice melded with red fruit. Pair with red meat or a hearty vegetable lasagna.

###CLAIM: the 29-year-old actor, who confirmed the engagement of nfl quarterback aaron and rodgers, was bundled in a heavy coat. ###DOCS: She's newly engaged to the man of her dreams. But Shailene Woodley focused on more important things at hand as she walked her dog in the snowy weather on Monday morning in Montreal. The 29-year-old actress stayed bundled up in a heavy coat for a quick trip around the block days after confirming her engagement to NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Out and about: Shailene Woodley focused on more important things at hand as she walked her dog in the snowy weather on Monday morning in MontrealShailene looked cozy in a warm puffer jacket which draped down to her knees and featured furry cuffs and a high neck. She added a pair of matching mittens and wore dark grey leggings with heavy brown snow boots. Peeks of her luscious auburn hair peered out from underneath a warm grey beanie as she walked her pet pooch by her side. Staying warm: The 29-year-old actress stayed bundled up in a heavy coat for a quick trip around the block days after confirming her engagement to NFL quarterback Aaron RodgersFresh air: Peeks of her luscious auburn hair peered out from underneath a warm grey beanie as she walked her pet pooch by her sideShailene recently confirmed she's engaged to Aaron Rodgers during a virtual chat with Jimmy Fallon as she flashed a massive engagement ring. On Sunday night's Golden Globe award's show, Shailene's The Mauritanian co-star, Jodie Foster, sang her praises after mentioning Aaron in her speech when accepting the Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture Award. 'She's the best,' Foster said of Woodley in virtual comments backstage. 'I did not set up Shailene and Aaron, I have never met Aaron Rodgers. Congrats! Foster explained in the press room that her relationship with Rodgers is solely based on her love for the Wisconsin team and joked that she and Rodgers are now in 'competition' over who is the real MVP. 'I just got a very cute video from Aaron Rodgers where he says he's going to get me back,' Foster told reporters, 'so I'm looking forward to this. We'll see who wins.'

###CLAIM: the obama administration's response has been slow as the islamic terrorists conquer vast territory, syria falls into chaos and russia re-enters the middle east for the first time since 1973. ###DOCS: Just days after U.S. forces in Iraq suffered casualties from a rocket attack likely launched by an Iran-backed militia, the Biden administration appeared to turn the other cheek by signaling openness last week to talks with Iran to reenter the flawed nuclear deal that President Donald Trump rightly quit in 2018. It is becoming clear that with the Biden administration, the American people can expect a strategy of appeasement in the Middle East and a foreign policy mashup of President Barack Obamas worst hits: reentering the failed Iran nuclear deal, rolling back Americas restored alliances, and sapping momentum from the Abraham Accords. Congress must proactively serve as a check on President Joe Bidens headstrong drive to reset relations with Irans terror-sponsoring regime. Toward that end, I am introducing the Iran Sanctions Relief Review Act. This legislation would build on the precedent of a 2017 bipartisan law that empowers Congress to vote to support or block Russian sanctions relief. It would apply these identical congressional review procedures to any future Iran sanctions relief, including any to revive the Iran nuclear deal. The Middle East strategy of the Biden administration takes its lead from former President Obama, who was blinded by the false hope of transforming Iran into a moderate partner. As a consequence, the Obama administration alienated our regional allies by pursuing the fatally-flawed nuclear deal. Unsurprisingly, Iran used the nuclear deals massive financial windfall to fund proxy wars, terrorism, missiles, cyber attacks, and the barbarous Assad regime. Worse, the Obama administration responded slowly as ISIS conquered vast territory, Syria fell into chaos, and Russia reentered the Middle East for the first time since 1973. The Trump administration spent the last four years repairing this damage. It took deliberate and, at times, bold steps to restore relations with Israel, Egypt, and the Gulf States. Former President Donald Trump freed U.S. military commanders from unsound Obama-era constraints and enabled our troops to militarily defeat the ISIS caliphate. He held accountable dictator Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons and imposed sanctions to penalize Russia and Iran for supporting the Syrian regime. The Trump administration reestablished strategic deterrence against Iranian aggression, including the elimination of General Qassem Soleimani. Buoyed by the strength it demonstrated in the region, the Trump administration also broke new ground in promoting Middle East peace through Abraham Accords, under which Israel so far has normalized relations with four additional Arab nations. A sensible approach for President Biden would be to build on these American achievements and pursue a regional strategy based on three common-sense principles. The first principle is to protect the U.S.-led security order. We must strengthen our traditional allies, take their concerns seriously, and avoid the development of a vacuum that opens the door for adversaries to take control of this region. The second principle is to deter and contain our adversaries, starting with Iran and its axis of resistance. We cannot allow Tehran to threaten the regional order or energy flows on which our European and Asian allies rely. The third principle is to resolve regional conflicts on our own terms. The model of the Abraham Accords between Israel and the Arab world serves as a powerful reminder that diplomacy is not an end itself, but a means to an end and one that must be backed by political, economic, and military power to be effective. Unfortunately, under the Biden administration, U.S. policy in the Middle East appears headed in the opposite direction. Democrat and Republican lawmakers must now to use our powers as a coequal branch of government to address the risks of Bidens apparent Iran reset policy. Over the long term, the U.S. needs to unite behind a strategy in the Middle East for strengthening our allies, pressuring our enemies, and safeguarding the American people a strategy that, once again, can endure through successive presidential administrations, regardless of party. If President Biden isnt confident that he can secure a strong bipartisan congressional vote to give tens of billions in sanctions relief to Irans terror-sponsoring regime, then he should abandon this effort to rejoin the flawed nuclear deal and return to a regional strategy based on common-sense American principles. Hagerty is the junior senator from Tennessee and a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

###CLAIM: it's a waste of weeks and months before you fully re-enter the world of relationships and work. ###DOCS: How to Build a Life is a weekly column by Arthur Brooks, tackling questions of meaning and happiness. Many years ago, I met a woman who had had the kind of experience you ordinarily only find in fiction. As a young adult, she was in a serious car accident, resulting in a head injury. She suffered a period of total amnesia, followed by months of convalescence. When she recovered, she was never the same: Her family relationships weakened; she cut out former friends and found new ones; she moved halfway across the world; her interests and tastes changed; she became more outgoing and less self-conscious; she no longer cared much what other people thought about her. Her parents always attributed these major character changes to her bump on the head. But she told me nothe injury had nothing to do with it. Rather, it was the recovery time, away from ordinary routines, that created a punctuation mark in the long sentence of her life. She had a unique opportunity to assess her priorities. She vowed to take nothing in her former life as given. She tore her beliefs and values down to the studs, and rebuilt them. And in so doing, she said, she became happy for the first time in her life. Today, many of us have an opportunity to do something similar. Americans might be entering the waning days of the year-plus coronavirus pandemic, during which lifes ordinary patterns have paused for millions of people. In these last weeks and months before something resembling normality returns, we might ask ourselves, What do I want normal to look like? Then, we can start preparing for a new and better normal than what we took for granted until a year ago. Want to stay current with Arthur's writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. When people talk about life before the virus, their recollections are often sentimental: about the good old days; about what we miss. In one recent survey, the specific things people said they yearned for most were traveling (24 percent), visiting family (19 percent), and hanging out with friends (16 percent). I havent been able to find any surveys of what we most dont miss from pre-pandemic times. But there is research that gives us clues. Studies have shown that spending time on people or activities that bring us down depresses our sense of meaning in life; unpleasant exchanges with bosses, customers, and co-workers lower our sense of well-being. Read: The hidden toll of remote workDuring pre-pandemic life you might have said, I like my job, and I like my social life. Maybe you meant it, and maybe you didnt: Social scientists have long shown that most people are inveterate liars, and might be even more adept at lying to themselves. Either way, it was certainly convenient to say your life made you happy, wasnt it? Researchers find that people who hold unpopular views usually keep them private or live lies to avoid conflict. I am willing to bet that in some areas of your pre-pandemic life, you were also deceiving yourself to avoid rocking your own boat. But then your boat was capsized by the coronavirus. We all yearn for the end of the human suffering brought about by the pandemic. And many, if not most, of us look forward to the end of the constraints and inconveniences it has imposed. But deep inside, there are probably a few things you dread about going back to normal life. Each of us, if we are brutally honest, could make a list of the activities and relationships that we didnt like in pre-pandemic times, but that we accepted through self-deception, sheer inertia, and the pressure to go along and get along. If your relationships, work, and life have been disrupted by the pandemic, the weeks and months before you fully reenter the world should not be wasted. They are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to come clean with yourselfto admit that all was not perfectly well before. Heres how you can make a plan not to return to normal. 1. Collect your data. On a piece of paper, draw a two-by-two matrix, where the columns are what you like and dislike, and the rows are pre-pandemic and pandemic times. Many of us have taken to asking each other, over the past year or so, what we miss from before the pandemic and hate about living through it. But for your happiness, the more germane questions are What did I dislike from before the pandemic and dont miss? and What do I like from the pandemic times that I will miss?Read: Youre gonna miss Zoom when its goneGive some serious reflection to these off-quadrants, and commit to complete honestyespecially in the one about what you dont miss from pre-pandemic times. Be specific about any of your daily interactions that were toxic, relationships that were unproductive, and the life patterns that made you unhappy. Dont settle for the easy stuff, like being stuck in traffic. Go deeper, like the friends you always went for drinks with who were relentlessly snarky and negative. 2. Make a list of things to leave behind. Some of the things you disliked before the pandemic might be unchangeable, such as having to commute in the winter in Syracuse. Start a list of these things, and think carefully about whether you might have more agency than you assumed. While not possible for everyone, for some it might make sense to start looking for a new job somewhere you would prefer to livemaybe even moving to your hometown, if you love itinstead of the place where you found yourself before the lockdowns. Read: The case for moving back to your hometownLeaving people behind can be trickier. But in truth, we all have relationships that are simply not mutually beneficial. At work and elsewhere, there are people who bring out the worst in us, belittle us, or just bring us down. If the pandemic has been a welcome furlough from these relationships, you should ask yourself whether you can make that break permanent. This moment is the best chance you might ever have to do so. 3. Make a list of what to keep. This exercise shouldnt be all negative. Remember that second off-quadrant: things you like about your pandemic life, and will miss when they stop. Consider how you might work them into your life after case numbers drop for good. Perhaps you stopped traveling for work and found life at home sweet. If so, start thinking now about how to re-engineer your job to include fewer trips, setting up a mix of in-person and virtual meetings for the future thats more to your liking. Maybe you developed your spiritual life, read a lot, or started cooking, and wish these practices could continue. They canbut only if you do the work. Join a house of worship; organize a book club; put dates on the calendar to host people for dinner. In his Poetry of Departures, the English poet Philip Larkin wrote about a man who walked away from a life he disliked. Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand,As epitaph:He chucked up everythingAnd just cleared off,And always the voice will soundCertain you approveThis audacious, purifying,Elemental move. This fearless adventurer doesnt have to be someone you hear about fifth-handor even secondhand, as in the case of my friend. You have a choice: to be the subject of this poem, who makes the audacious, purifying / Elemental move, or the narrator, slightly awestruck but too nervous to make these changes. If youve ever wanted to chuck up everything and just clear off, now is your chance. Take it. How to Build a Life is a weekly column by Arthur Brooks, tackling questions of meaning and happiness. A year before the pandemic changed all of our lives, a friend sent me a link to a survey based on academic research that rates your personality traits on a numeric scale. He was particularly keen to know my extroversion score, to see if the test was accurate. His results had shown that he scored at the 15th percentile. He sent it to me as the most extroverted person he knows. Sure enough, I scored at the 96th percentile. Lucky you, he remarked, extroverts are a lot happier. He was right about that, on average. Decades of research have consistently shown that extroverts have a significant happiness edge over introverts. They report higher levels of general well-being as well as more frequent moments of joy. COVID-19, however, has given us extroverts our comeuppance. Research published in March in the scientific journal PLOS One studied the impact of the pandemic on people with various personality characteristics. The authors found that mood worsened for extroverts but improved for introverts. As my friend said, only half joking, Why dont we just stay locked down forever?In ordinary times, American introverts are like cats living in Dogland: underappreciated, uncomfortable, and slightly out of place. A side effect of shutting down the world was to turn it into Catland, at least for a little while. That gave the introverts a chance to lord their solitary comfort over the rest of us, for once. To this I say, Woof.Read: The coming conflict between introverts and extrovertsBut the temporary shift has also created a kind of social-science field experiment, highlighting all the ways in which introverts and extroverts can learn from each other. If we take the lessons to heart, we can all benefit. Want to stay current with Arthur's writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. Psychologists see extroversion as one of the Big Five personality traits, along with agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. The Big Five theory has been a staple of psychology since the 1980s, but the introvert-extrovert binary was first popularized in 1921 by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, who posited that the two groups have different primary life goals. The former, he thought, seek to establish autonomy and independence; the latter seek union with others. Those stereotypes have persisted to this day. From the March 2003 issue: Caring for your introvertThe German-born psychologist Hans Eysenck further developed Jungs theory in the 1960s, arguing that our genetics determine our relative extroversion. He believed that cortical arousalthat is, the brains level of alertnesswas more difficult for extroverts than introverts, so the former seek stimulation in the company of others, ideally the fresh company of new people. Subsequent research has shown mixed results on Eysencks specific theory, but has found clear cognitive differences between the groups. One common explanation for the happiness differential between introverts and extroverts follows from stereotypes like Jung and Eysencks: Humans are inherently social animals, so contact brings happiness; extroverts seek out contact, so extroverts are happier. The fact that introverts prefer solitude and often struggle with sociability doesnt mean that avoiding contact makes them happier. It just means they prefer something that makes them unhappy. Nothing strange hereyou can also prefer unhealthy food. There are complementary cultural explanations for the happiness differential. To begin with, extroversion is highly rewarded in American society, and predicts a significant edge in earning poweron average, extroverts make about $12,000 more per year than introverts. Extroverts attain other advantages in the workplace as well, such as promotions to leadership positions and high performance evaluations. Read: When schools overlook introvertsSome resent these patterns, and believe they show a lack of cultural depth. In her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Cant Stop Talking, Susan Cain lists the many advances made by introvertsfrom the theory of gravity to Googleand argues that admiring and rewarding extroversion is not just unfair, but hinders progress. If you ever feel disillusioned by Americans habit of elevating egotistical-yet-charismatic leaders, you might have to admit that Cain has a point. Whether we are introverts or extroverts, we dont need to regret our sojourn to Catland or dread the return to Dogland. On the contrary, each group can teach the other a lesson that can improve all of our well-being. 1. Introverts should focus more on the future, like extroverts do. In 2001, a group of Oxford scholars broke a sample of survey respondents into four groups: happy extroverts, unhappy extroverts, happy introverts, and unhappy introverts. As expected, the happy extroverts outnumbered the happy introverts, by about two to one. But the researchers were more interested in what drove the rare happy introverts relatively high well-being. They found the same characteristics among both happy groups: optimism, a sense of life purpose, and self-esteem. Extroverts, of course, love to talk to others about the future, their dreams, their lifes purpose. As psychologists have long shown, we tend to act according to the commitments we have articulated to others, so the extrovert habit of telling everyone you meet about your goals makes you more likely to reach them and therefore get happier. Read: Make room, introvertseveryone needs time to rechargeHappy introverts have figured out how to envision the future without all the (uncomfortable, for them) personal sharing with lots of people. They tend to have close one-on-one friendships instead, where they can share their dreams if and when they choose. 2. Extroverts should work on deep friendships, which introverts tend to have more of. Intimate friendships are not only good for sharing your dreams. They are also a clear and direct producer of happiness. In particular, forging close friendships with people from whom you have nothing to gain is an intense source of satisfaction. But doing so isnt easy, especially for extroverts, because of their love of crowds, audiences, fresh contact, and excitement. The pandemics pause in lifes rhythms has left societys dogs in a state of social withdrawal, explaining the current happiness inversion. But it also presents an opportunity for extroverts to cultivate more real friendships like introverts have. While this might not be the natural tendencyresearch shows that extroverts tend to have a lot of low-depth friendships with other extrovertsit is more optimal for happiness. Extroverts should set a goal for the next few weeks and months to deepen one friendship before life returns to normal. Read: Two competing impulses will drive post-pandemic social lifeIf they dont know how to begin, they should just watch a happy introvert do it. I am a dog, but my 18-year-old daughter is a cat. She and her closest cat-friend talk for an hour or two every day, making a point to update each other on their life plans. Find your nearest happy cats and act like them. Beyond the specifics of introversion and extroversion, there is one important lesson in all this: Watching and learning from people very different from you is a great way to learn to be happier. Indeed, a love of human diversity of all types, from culture to character to politics, is required for a full education in well-being. None of us has a lock on the best practices, and surrounding ourselves with people just like us will not inspire new ideas to raise our life satisfaction. For the happiest world, we need cats and dogstogether.

###CLAIM: fortunately for the writer, who has never felt comfortable in the limelight of the newspaper mainstream, too long in the limelight creates a tale in which wild excesses and scenes of superhuman strength form a backdrop rather than the main event. ###DOCS: Neil Gaimans comic book The Sandman isnt quite in the canon of unadaptable literature, but converting it from page to screen is not a task for the fainthearted. That is why its so exciting for long-term fans that the first morsels of news about Netflixs television version paint a picture of a production eager to be as forward-thinking as the original. The DC Comics series, which ran to 75 issues in the early 1990s (and later collected into 10 graphic novels), was groundbreaking for a variety of reasons. It popularised the concept of the trade paperback, the DVD boxset of the comics world, making it possible to write a long-running series with years of character growth without every issue having to stand alone for new readers. The Sandman, along with a handful of other titles that came out in the late 1980s including Maus, Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, helped to bury the reputation of the comic as an inherently juvenile distraction. Halfway through its run, it helped to launch Vertigo, DC Comics influential adult imprint, from which came Preacher, Y: The Last Man and Lucifer (now a Fox TV show and originally a Sandman spinoff). Even its release schedule larger arcs focusing on the main narrative followed by one-shot standalone chapters expanding the world and characters became the template for the series that would follow. Comics dont win huge, passionate fanbases by being influential, of course. Where Sandman succeeded was in pulling together its messy, multifaceted influences to create a series that had something for everyone, but with a solid core throughout. Originally set in the DC universe one early issue even features a cameo from the Justice League Sandman follows Dream, the personification of, well, that. But it also follows an ever growing cast of characters whose lives are shaped by their interaction with the lead, from humans whose messy lives are thrown awry to mythological figures who can hold their own against even the fundamental forces of nature. It is the casting of those figures that sparked such excitement last week. Yes, Tom Sturridge, the relative unknown who will play Dream himself, looks the part, and Boyd Holbrook, who plays the first arcs primary antagonist, the Corinthian, has already shown he can do creepy and sinister as the villain in 2017s Logan. But more promising is where the show has shown a willingness to reimagine what makes the original series tick, in a way that suggests we can hope for more than just filming the panels on the page. Vivienne Acheampong only has a few credits to her name, in the recent adaptation of The Witches and the BBC Three sketch show Famalam, but nowhere do they suggest that her casting as Lucien now Lucienne Dreams head librarian, is going to be a straight adaptation. A less bold version of the text would have just cast Anthony Head, surfed the attention from the Buffy fandom, and stopped thinking. A less bold adaptation wouldnt do Sandman justice. Or take Cain and Abel. Yes, the biblical figures the first murderer, and the first victim but their route to the world of Sandman was less direct than it seems. The brothers were the hosts of DC Comics long-running Horror anthologies the House of Mystery and the House of Secrets, before they were revived by Alan Moore in his Swamp Thing run, and adopted by Gaiman. Cain, an abusive, pompous, arrogant figure, is eternally hurling abuse at the stuttering, snivelling Abel, and their arguments always, inevitably, result in murder. Yet an issue, page or panel later, Abel is alive again. The characters are archetypes, exaggerated examples of the concept they representLike so much of the world of Dream, the characters are archetypes, exaggerated examples of the concept they represent. Although it is dark humour, the exaggeration and ultimate lack of consequences cant help but add a funny edge to the whole thing. Even so, the casting of Sanjeev Bhaskar and Asim Chaudhry is inspired. Each would appear to be cast against type, with Bhaskar, best known as the loveably brattish host of The Kumars at No. 42, and a likeable detective in Unforgotten, taking on a sinister air, while Chaudhry, whose comic creation Chabuddy G is a brash serial (failed) entrepreneur, needs to be the beta male no pun intended. Then theres Lucifer. Again, literally the devil, and in Sandman, a complex figure, reminiscent more of Paradise Lost than the horned-and-goat-legged figure of popular culture. Lucifer begins as something of an antagonist but by the end of the series, is more an equal to Dream to the point where the spinoff series he earned, written by Mike Carey, ran as long as Sandman itself. In some ways, then, the casting of Gwendoline Christie, Game of Thrones Brienne of Tarth, is obvious in hindsight. Physically imposing, powerfully yet softly spoken, Christie can pull off perfectly the talk quietly and carry a big stick mentality favoured by the lord of hell. And, not to get horny on main, but Lucifer is fairly firmly presented as oozing sex appeal, and you dont have to spend long browsing Christies name on Tumblr to get a sense of how many others share my view that she can pull that off too. There is a lot more to an adaptation than a cast list, of course. But as a first sign of what to expect, it doesnt get better than this.

###CLAIM: partey 's move to the emirates completes the release clause of his release clause, a day after the transfer deadline when arsenal activated it. ###DOCS: When Arsenal's deadline day present Thomas Partey arrived at the club for the first time this week, social media was awash with huge excitement among the fanbase. In recent times at the Emirates, only the arrivals of Mesut Ozil, Alexis Sanchez and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang have been met with as much anticipation as Partey's last-gasp move. After years of chasing the Ghanaian midfielder, Arsenal finally got their man after meeting Atletico Madrid's release clause of 45million. Thomas Partey is in line to make his Arsenal debut against Manchester City on SaturdayPartey certainly won't be afraid to pull any punches in the heart of the midfield for ArsenalThe transfer has been viewed by many as the missing piece in Mikel Arteta's jigsaw, the man needed to help Arsenal challenge for the Champions League places after four seasons away from the top table. And former Arsenal scout Francis Cagigao has reiterated that stance, but has gone one step further. 'I first watched him about six years ago playing for Almeria on loan from Atletico Madrid and he was more box-to-box, attacking even', Cagigao told Sportsmail. 'I think we will see him with the shackles off because he did very much play in a constricted midfield unit [at Atletico]. 'He could be the final piece of the jigsaw that makes Arsenal challenge for the title.' And Arteta, who finally has a player at his disposal that can allow him to tweak his formation in various ways, also realised just how important a coup this was. Speaking on Thursday ahead of his potential debut against Manchester City in the Premier League, the Arsenal boss admitted: 'I've seen the buzz around the place I think the fans are really happy. 'I've seen some really positive reactions after we bought him, the same with the team, the squad and the staff. 'He is a player we had the radar on for a long time and we have managed to bring him in and it's going to be a really important addition to the team.' Arsenal fans were so excited by his arrival they even started a trend on Twitter called '#NoThomasNoPartey', and they will be hoping he can be the man who can guide them to a party come the end of the season. In recent campaigns, if you watch Arsenal closely, their midfield has become way too laboured - a far-cry from the silky football played under legendary manager Arsene Wenger. While both Granit Xhaka and Dani Ceballos have impressed under Arteta since his arrival in December last year - especially the former after his career at the Emirates appeared all but over after his bust-up with the fans - there has been something deeply missing in the heart of midfield. The midfield is far too one-paced for Arteta's liking and he knew he needed change with Arsenal struggling to create much for their deadly attacking threat. Mikel Arteta finally got his man in a 45million deal on deadline day from Atletico MadridThere was no bite or incisiveness but Partey was brought in to change that view and add that ruthless streak to the midfield. And his stats compared to the usual Gunners midfield cast prove that point emphatically. While the perception of Partey is that he will provide a robust shield in front of the defence, his all-round play will serve as a breath of fresh air for Arsenal supporters. His box-to-box nature means he is just as effective going forward as he is defensively, and since the beginning of last season in league football, he has offloaded 37 shots in 38 matches compared to Xhaka's 15 and Ceballos' 14. Partey has also scored more goals, albeit only with three, than his new team-mates during that time. Partey's chances created figures are down but that's not why Arsenal were so heavily invested in bringing him to the club. The 27-year-old will offer that immediate escape route from the back, turning defence into attack in an instant. His combative nature shines through in his stats, achieving 64 successful dribbles compared to the 25 of Xhaka and 34 of Ceballos. Partey will bring that combative and box-to-box approach to the Gunners midfield this seasonMeanwhile on the interception front, Partey has produced 50 while Xhaka and Ceballos have only made 23 and 39 respectively. The Ghanaian star also leads the way on the tackle front, making a huge 76 - while the Arsenal duo's stats are well down. Partey's strength in the 50/50 battle and aerial duels should also greatly benefit Arsenal while his never-say-die attitude has allowed him to make many more recoveries than his new midfield team-mates. He has joined Arsenal in his peak years and the club knew tying down his signature was significant moving forward. The ex-Atletico star will allow Arsenal to play with more freedom and give Xhaka and Ceballos the chance to flourish in their own ways, enabling the former to dictate the tempo of the game while the latter can roam further forward and provide that creativity up top. Most importantly, Partey's arrival will offer that balance Arsenal have needed for quite some time. For a while, the midfield have struggled to link up the attack but the Ghanaian star's box office approach should free up Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Co to do what they do best. It's a tough awakening starting your career in England against Pep Guardiola's City side, but don't get it wrong, Partey's signing is a big move forward for Arsenal.

###CLAIM: michael arone, chief investment strategist at state street global advisors, said anxiety grew when investors asked if hedge funds -- which liquidate other positions to address short-term stock losses -- needed to liquidate. ###DOCS: LONDON, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Silver prices jumped and global equity markets sank on Friday amid a growing battle on Wall Street between hedge funds and retail investors, while a dispute over COVID-19 vaccine supply in Europe cooled risk appetite. Disappointing vaccine data from Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) also hurt sentiment but the assault of retail traders using online forums to force hedge funds to reverse short positions - bets that stocks will fall - kept the market on edge. Shares of GameStop Corp (GME.N) and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (AMC.N) surged again after Robinhood and Interactive Brokers said they planned to ease restrictions after imposing buying halts on Thursday. read moreGameStop soared 67.9% to $325 a share, five times its closing price a week ago Friday, and AMC gained 53.7%, both in heavy trade. AMC was one of the most active stocks on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume on U.S. exchanges was 16.83 billion shares, up from the 10.6 billion average in the fourth quarter. Silver rallied and was up 2% at $26.90 an ounce, taking gains to almost 10% since messages began to circulate on Reddit early Thursday urging retail investors to pile into the market and drive up prices. Anxiety has grown as investors ask whether hedge funds will need to liquidate other positions to address losses in stocks they have shorted, said Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors in Boston. "Once this short squeeze inevitably ends and there aren't any more greater fools to bid up these stocks, will retail investors get stuck holding the bag?" Arone asked. "The unintended consequences of this potential volatility have markets on edge as we end the week," Arone said. Arone added that investors need to take a giant step back as earnings are strong, the economy is improving, fiscal and monetary policy is supportive and vaccines are rolling out. MSCI's benchmark for global equity markets (.MIWD00000PUS) fell 1.82% to 642.57, while Europe's broad FTSEurofirst 300 index (.FTEU3) closed down 1.95% at 1,524.1 to post its worst weekly loss, at 3.3%, since October. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 2.03%, the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 1.93% and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) dropped 2%. The three indexes suffered their biggest weekly fall since the end of October. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) fell 1.1% to post a weekly loss of 4.4%. Japan's Nikkei (.N225) fell 1.9%, recording its first weekly loss of the year. VACCINE DISPUTE[1/6] The London Stock Exchange Group offices are seen in the City of London, Britain, December 29, 2017. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo 1 2 3 4 5Delays in COVID-19 vaccine production have snowballed into a spat between Britain, the European Union and drugmakers over how best to direct limited supplies. read moreAstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L) offered eight million more doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to the European Union after it unexpectedly announced supply cuts last week. But the bloc said that was far short of what was originally promised, an EU official told Reuters on Friday. read moreNew variants of the novel coronavirus have prolonged lockdowns and delayed expectations of an economic rebound. Click here for an interactive chart on the vaccine race. The U.S. dollar retreated from its highest level since mid-November against the Japanese yen as investors rebalanced portfolios for month-end. The greenback slid 0.48% against the yen and traded little changed against an index of currencies , falling 0.002%. Bitcoin jumped as much as 14% to a two-week high after Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) chief Elon Musk tagged the cryptocurrency in his Twitter biography. read moreFrench 10-year government bond yields , which move inversely to price, rose four basis points after France's gross domestic product contracted less than expected in the fourth quarter of 2020. read moreU.S. Treasury yields rose, in line with those in Europe, after data showed inflation perked up last month, while employment costs rose, suggesting the world's largest economy is on the mend from the devastating effects of the pandemic. The U.S. yield curve steepened as long yields increased, with the spread between 2-year and 10-year notes hitting 98.20 basis points , the widest in about a week. The 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose 2.1 basis points to yield 1.0757%. Oil prices traded mixed as demand concerns caused by new coronavirus variants and slow vaccine rollouts offset a cut in Saudi Arabian oil supply and falling U.S. oil inventories. Brent crude futures settled up 35 cents at $55.88 a barrel. U.S. crude futures fell 14 cents to settle at $52.20 a barrel. Spot gold prices rose 0.16% to $1,843.31 an ounce. U.S. gold futures settled up 0.5% to $1,850.30 an ounce. Additional reporting by Tom Westbrook in Singapore and Alwyn Scott in New York; Editing by Richard Pullin, Ana Nicolaci da Costa, William Maclean, Larry KingOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

###CLAIM: the young, unrecognisable faces who entered the downing street centre led by ms cunneen, gazi and abbas and female companion looked unable to speak. ###DOCS: A Sydney geography teacher has admitted to having sex with a 14-year-old male student on three separate occasions. Monica Elizabeth Young, 24, fronted Downing Centre District Court on Monday - without her engagement ring or the support of her fiance - and admitted to aggravated sexual intercourse with the boy in Homebush in June and July, 2020. Her victim and another teenage boy were due to pre-record their evidence on Tuesday and Wednesday ahead of her five day trial beginning on September 21. But former top prosecutor Margaret Cunneen SC, who was enlisted to defend Young, on Monday indicated her client would be willing to plead guilty to three of the initial 12 charges. On Tuesday morning, the Director of Public Prosecutions indicted Young on three counts of aggravated sexual intercourse with a child. Monica Elizabeth Young (pictured) donned an all-black ensemble when she appeared in Downing Centre District Court on MondayMonica Elizabeth Young (pictured) enters Downing Centre District Court for the first day of a two day hearing ahead of her trial in SeptemberShe was supported by an older female companion when she fronted court on Monday - but Young's fiance, who once vowed to stand by her, was not present. She also was not wearing her engagement ringYoung stood before Judge Kate Traill and meekly pleaded guilty to having sex with her teenage student on three separate occasions in Homebush in Sydney's west between June 21 and July 3. A police statement of facts previously tendered in court said Young drove her pupil to a western Sydney park, mounted him and had sex in her car. Investigators obtained CCTV footage allegedly showing Young's car approaching the park, according to material before the court. The aggravated element of each of the charges stems from the fact that the boy was under her authority and that Young had a position of trust at the time of offending. She will undergo a psychiatric assessment before she is due to be sentenced in June. 'We have medical personnel lined up and are hopeful for some treatment regimes before the inevitable,' Ms Cunneen told the court. Judge Traill did not alter Young's bail conditions following her guilty plea and there was no suggestion she be immediately taken into custody. Monica Elizabeth Young, 23, fronted Downing Centre District Court on Monday where she admitted to aggravated sexual intercourse with the boy in Homebush in June and July, 2020Her long, blonde hair had been chopped into a blunt mid-length bob and her coloured a darker brownYoung was also pictured back in February without her engagement ringThe maximum penalty for each count of aggravated sexual intercourse with a child under 16 is 12 years' imprisonment. Prosecutor Alexander Terracini told the court he would argue custody 'is the only option' for Young when she is sentenced on June 24. Currently living with family, Young must report to police on a daily basis, adhere to a strict 8pm to 8am curfew and can only leave the house while accompanied by her parents or grandmother. Ms Cunneen said on Monday Young was 'very anxious to avoid a situation where [the victim] had to endure another weekend of concern about having to do this [give evidence]'. 'My instruction from Ms Young is to put him out of his misery as soon as possible,' she added. The Director of Public Prosecutions initially indicated they would have a response to the submission by close of business on Monday, to avoid potentially unnecessarily making the witnesses give their testimony on Tuesday. Young was last pictured back in February when she was due to appear in court - sporting longer, lighter hair and a face mask due to Covid restrictions'I'll do my best for an answer one way or another... One so the complainant can have an answer but also so Ms Young can have an answer hopefully by today,' the prosecutor said. 'Everybody that needs to know will know as soon as I know. We all need to have some direction as soon as possible.' Young looked unrecognisable as she entered the Downing Centre flanked by Ms Cunneen, solicitor Gazi Abbas and a female companion. Her long, blonde hair had been chopped into a blunt mid-length bob and her coloured a darker brown. She also went without her engagement ring and her fiance, who initially insisted she was innocent, did not appear in court to support her. It is not clear if the pair are still together. Monica Elizabeth Young (right) was joined on Monday by a female companion for supportYoung had only just started her teaching career when the offences occurred between June 24 and July 6 last yearYoung had only just started her teaching career when the offences occurred between June 24 and July 6 last year. Young spent a month in custody last year before she was released on strict bail conditions. She had maintained her innocence and entered an official plea of not guilty right up until last week, when her counsel claims to have contacted prosecutors wanting to plead guilty to some of the charges. Prosecutor Alexander Terracini provided the court with documents relating to three other offences that will be taken into account at the time of sentencing. They will not result in a conviction. Young no longer works as a teacher. She is due to be sentenced on June 24.

###CLAIM: winter weather advisories were issued for northwestern indiana, where the service forecast three to five inches of snow as the storm left the area. ###DOCS: A glass bottle sculpture is covered with snow Tuesday, Jan, 26, 2021, in front of a home in St. Joseph, Mich.(Don Campbell/The Herald-Palladium via AP)A glass bottle sculpture is covered with snow Tuesday, Jan, 26, 2021, in front of a home in St. Joseph, Mich.(Don Campbell/The Herald-Palladium via AP)OMAHA, Neb. (AP) A major winter storm dumped more than a foot of snow on parts of the middle of the country while another system blanketed areas of the Southwest, disrupting travel for a second consecutive day Tuesday and shuttering many schools. Several coronavirus testing sites closed Monday and Tuesday in Nebraska and Iowa, as both states saw 12 to 15 inches (30.5 to 38.1 centimeters) of snow in places. At least 4 inches (10 centimeters) of snow was expected through Tuesday across most of an area stretching from central Kansas northeast to Chicago and southern Michigan. ADVERTISEMENTNational Weather Service meteorologist Taylor Nicolaisen, who is based near Omaha, said up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) was reported in spots between York, Nebraska, and Des Moines, Iowa. He said its uncommon for the region to get more than a foot of snow from a single storm, and it has been decades since some cities saw this much. A lot of people tend to misremember snow events especially from when you were a kid. Everything felt like a foot of snow when you were a kid, Nicolaisen said. The snow drifts were literally higher than your head when you were a kid, but thats because you were 2 1/2 feet tall.The storm made travel treacherous in places as wind-whipped snow piled up. Interstates were temporarily closed in western Nebraska and in Wisconsin near Milwaukee because of crashes, and scores of flights were canceled at airports across the region. Officials urged drivers to stay off the roads. In Wisconsin, the weather service predicted up to 10 inches (25.4 centimeters) of snow could fall in the Milwaukee area, with the highest totals along Lake Michigan. Wind gusts of 15 mph (24 kph) to 25 mph (40 kph) were reported across southern Wisconsin, creating drifting snow, reduced visibilities and complicating snow removal efforts, said Andy Boxell, a meteorologist with the weather services office in Sullivan, Wisconsin. In the Chicago area, more than 6 inches (15.24 centimeters) had already fallen by Tuesday afternoon and forecasters predicted up to 8 inches (20.3 centimeters) or more would fall in some areas before the storm ended Tuesday evening. The last comparable snowfall hit the area in November 2018, when 8.4 inches (21.3 centimeters) fell. Many schools and businesses across the Midwest closed for a second day Tuesday as crews worked to dig out after the storm. Omaha had all 115 of its own plows and 300 contractors out Tuesday working around the clock to clear the streets in Nebraskas biggest city, but Assistant Public Works Director Todd Pfitzer cautioned that the effort will take some time to complete. We are asking for a little patience, Pfitzer told the Omaha World-Herald. In West Des Moines, Iowa, Chris Borsberry said he needed four-wheel drive to make it into the Fairfield Inn & Suites where he works, and it took him twice as long as normal. Once at the hotel, Borsberry said he had to shovel the sidewalk seven times because it kept getting covered until the snow finally stopped. I got excited about that because it meant I only had one more shovel pass to do, said Borsberry, 45. In the South, one person was dead and at least 30 others were injured after a tornado carved a 10-mile-long (16 kilometer) path of destruction north of Birmingham, Alabama, on Monday night, leaving the area with crumpled buildings and downed trees. Full Coverage: StormsIn the Southwest, more than a foot of snow fell in the mountains of Southern California, Nevada and Arizona. Icy conditions in mountains north of Los Angeles shut Interstate 5 in Tejon Pass and State Route 58 in Tehachapi Pass. A storm buried northern Arizona in snow while sending flurries to the outskirts of Las Vegas and Phoenix. Preliminary snowfall reports from the latest storm included 14.2 inches (36 centimeters) at the Flagstaff airport and 16 inches (40.6 centimeters) at Payson between Sunday night and late Monday, the weather service said. Most of Nevada was bracing for another series of powerful storms that generated a rare blizzard warning along with a forecast for as much as 6 feet (2 meters) of snow and wind gusting over 100 mph (160 kph) in the mountains above Lake Tahoe by early Friday. At lake level, the weather service expects 2 to 4 feet (61-122 centimeters) of snow with winds gusting to 50 mph (80 kph). Travel could be near impossible or even paralyzed with near-zero visibility through Friday morning, the service said. Another major storm was approaching the coast with the potential to bring 10 to 15 inches (25.40 to 38.1 centimeters) of rain to central California and dump several feet of snow across the Sierra Nevada mountains over the next three days. That could lead to flash floods and debris flows which can carry massive boulders, trees and other objects to areas north and south of San Francisco Bay. Evacuation orders were in effect for areas of fire-scarred Santa Cruz County and evacuation warnings were issued in San Mateo County.

###CLAIM: it really gets to be clear that exercise is so good but also not all that great. ###DOCS: You might think that nothing good happens on the internet anymore. It's just an algorithmically driven continuous feed of rage, disinformation, and subterfuge. Natalie Wynn, known for her YouTube channel ContraPoints, proves that good things are still happening on the internet. Part philosopher, part performance artist, and wholly genre-defying, Wynn crafts gorgeous and ethereal video essays on everything from TERFS and J.K Rowling to the rise of incels. Theres no one on the internet quite like Natalie Wynn, and she joins to tell us how she does it. Note: This is a rough transcript please excuse any typos. NATALIE WYNN: A lot of people who watch my channel have reached out and told me that my videos in some way helped them not to fall into the far-right pipeline, because often, they'll say like, "Oh, I was watching all of these Ben Shapiro videos and I was really annoyed at feminists, but your videos, I didn't feel judged by, and it opened my eyes, and gave me this perspective that took some of the appeal out of Ben Shapiro." That, to me, feels good, taking the appeal out of Ben Shapiro. That's good. If I did that for one person, that's a day's work. CHRIS HAYES: Hello, and welcome to Why Is This Happening? with me, your host, Chris Hayes. I've found, recently, myself frustrated and increasingly disquieted, or just with unease about the state of the Discourse, capital D. Now, I mean, that's permanently true. If you spend all your day on the Internet and on social media, and arguing with people and reading stuff and reading people who are arguing with other people, you're constantly in this weird vortex of verbal battle and conflict that's probably completely unnatural. I mean, it's definitely completely unnatural. There's something kind of satisfying about it, just because I like intellectual stimulation, and because I like argumentation. And I like debate. And I like public issues. And I like examining things. And I like back-and-forth. And I like learning new things, which is why I do what I do for a living, but there's a thing that's happened where I think that the technologies that we've been using to have our conversations have this flattening effect, where everything gets sledgehammered down into these slogans. I find that, even the case recently, I find myself with people I agree with, or views I agree with, being communicated in these very short, pithy slogans that, I get why they exist, and they might be effective for getting a message out, but there also seems increasingly this invitation for people not to think. The way that social media functions is just to sloganeer or to pass on these memes, and examination or questioning or fighting or arguing about it or being curious about it, or... I was thinking about this because I saw this meme that was going around during the violence between the rockets being fired by Hamas and the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, which I found to be really awful and incredibly upsetting. 60-plus children were killed in that. Two Israeli children were killed. There were deaths on both sides, but massively, massively more on the Gazan side. And there was this meme that was just like... The point of the meme was, it said something like, "It's not complicated." And I got what the meme was trying to communicate. What the meme was trying to communicate was like, "There's a moral simplicity to this that you shouldn't allow people to spin you away from." I get that, and I think that was actually probably an effective thing, but I also had this feeling of like, "Well, it's kind of complicated." Honestly, everything in life is pretty complicated, and the it's not complicated to me felt like this expression of an impulse and an ethos in social media discourse that I find myself increasingly just discomforted by, because I think learning things and asking questions and wrestling with hard questions can sit alongside moral clarity and clear principles. Those two things don't have to be distinct. You can have clear views and clear principles and understand that some things are truly morally simple, but factually complex, and want to ask questions about the factually complex aspects, and maybe be open to the possibility of them being more morally complex than you thought going in. All this to say that the way that our discourse functions and the way that algorithms function, I think, particularly to produce the discourse we have, can be really flattening. And a great counter to that is today's guest, Natalie Wynn, who goes by ContraPoints on the internets. She's a YouTuber who has a fascinating backstory as a philosophy grad student who basically started to get into YouTube, and found the algorithm to be pushing her in directions that she thought were really weird. I will get into her whole life story, but what I really, really like about Natalie's work is she is staking this claim. She's massively popularmillions and millions and millions of viewsbut she's trying to stake out this ground on the internet that is both morally clear and rigorous and also sophisticated and nuanced and curious and doesn't take herself too seriously, and produces these fascinating videos that are kind of genre-defying in their aesthetics. You should definitely check them out. We will definitely link to them, but I thought to talk about the state of the discourse or why our arguments sound like they do, the best person to talk to was Natalie Wynn, so thank you for coming on Why Is This Happening?NATALIE WYNN: Thank you so much for having me on, and thank you for that intro. CHRIS HAYES: I was trying to think of the best way to intro you for someone that is completely unfamiliar with your work. NATALIE WYNN: I think you did a good job. I usually try to avoid explaining what my channel is about if it comes up in conversation. People are like, "Oh, you have a YouTube channel. What's it about?" I'm like, "Oh, the internet." I'm evasive, because I don't want to say that, "Oh, I'm a leftist trans woman who talks about how the internet became fascist in 2017, and the consequences of..." Like, I don't want to have that conversation with an Uber driver. It's more than I can bear. CHRIS HAYES: Well, that was a good one, a leftist trans woman who talks about how the internet essentially facilitated fascism in 2017 is actually, maybe that's a better button slogan for what I should have done as your intro. NATALIE WYNN: No, I liked your intro. I thought it was new. I'm tired of the old intro about the fascism. I'm done with... I'm ready to move on from fascism. CHRIS HAYES: Well, I don't think fascism is ready to move on from us. NATALIE WYNN: Yeah, fascism is never ready to move on from us, so we'll keep an eye on it, but I do try to... I think it's good to talk about other things from time to time, instead of letting your entire life be run by these maniacs. CHRIS HAYES: We're going to talk about the darkness of the fascist and proto-fascist and maybe fascist-sympathetic corners of the internet that you've explored in your work, but I wanted to start with telling me, you were a philosophy student, right? NATALIE WYNN: That's right. Well, I was an undergraduate. I mean, I went through a few things. First, I was a music major, but I ended up double majoring in philosophy and psychology, and then I went to grad school. I was a PhD student in the philosophy department at Northwestern, where I made it two years, enough to get a master's degree, and realized academia is not for me. Nope. So, I dropped out. That's my background, but I would say that I have the instincts of an entertainer. I can remember going to an undergraduate philosophy conference and reading a paper to a full room, and at one point, some line in my philosophy paper got a laugh, and I was just like, "This is what I live for. This is what I want." I was like, "Oh, I'm in the wrong career. Interesting." CHRIS HAYES: By the way, I completely know that feeling, and 100% feel the same way about that. NATALIE WYNN: It's intoxicating. CHRIS HAYES: Oh my God. We did... Back in the before times, we were doing these live WITH Pod shows. We had the live podcast. If you come on a stage, and there's 1,000 people in the room or 1,500 people in the room, and you say something they all laugh at, I mean, that's really tough to beat. NATALIE WYNN: Yeah, that'll sustain you through the next week, although I... I'm actually a very shy person offline, so I think that YouTube is actually the perfect stage for me because it caters to the exact contradiction of attention-starved and introversion that I think a lot of us who thrive on the internet have this combination of personality flaws. CHRIS HAYES: So, you decided that philosophy is not for you, but what did you like about philosophy, or what had drawn you to it? NATALIE WYNN: Well, I really liked being a philosophy major when I was an undergraduate. I think philosophy is more fun to study at the 101, 201, maybe even 301 level. It's fun to get this grand tour of intellectual history, and you're reading Plato one week, and the feminist philosophers the next week, and then postmodernism. It's very exciting to go through all this for the first time, and you feel the thrill of your mind expanding. But, by the time that you're considering writing a dissertation, and it's like, "Okay, which three paragraphs of Heidegger am I going to spend the rest of my 20s writing about?" CHRIS HAYES: Totally. NATALIE WYNN: That's a different situation, and I don't have the patience for that, unfortunately. CHRIS HAYES: Yeah, that's exactly how... I had flirted with the idea of philosophy grad school, and had the same feeling. I was also drawn to performance and theater, but yes, when things start to get super specialized and super recondite and super specific, it gets less fun. NATALIE WYNN: I lose interest because it stops being about things. It becomes harder to make it about life. I think that is something that's a downer for me in academic philosophy and in the humanities in general. Obviously, there is incredible scholarship that still goes on in the humanities. I don't want to completely bash it, but I do find that a lot of people, once they really get up there to the higher echelons of academia, the stuff they're talking about is like, oh, it's so abstract and so detached from any actual problem that needs solving, that it's hard for me to sustain interest, for sure. CHRIS HAYES: How did you first start both watching YouTube videos and then deciding you wanted to make them? NATALIE WYNN: Well, I am a millennial. I was born in 1988. YouTube was invented in 2005. I was... How old? 17, something like that. I've been watching YouTube since the beginning. I think the first time I ever uploaded a video of myself was in 2007 and it was a video of me playing the piano. I started out in a very amateurish way, just uploading little piano videos, later vlogs. I guess my first real sense that YouTube could be a place where discourse happensit could be an actual public forum, it could be a place where people are getting news or getting information, where conversations are happeningis, there was this phenomenon in 2008, 2009, what later became called YouTube skepticism or the YouTube skeptic community, that was kind of like... I mean, it was almost a fan community that started with the New Atheists, people like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens. I don't know why this was the one topic that took off on YouTube, but there was a real community around it. There were meetups. There were debates. People were making a primeval, what we now call video essay, about why creationism is wrong, and here's my argument against Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God, and this kind of thing. This was interesting to me when I was 19 years old. I guess by the time I was 22, I had decided this was cringe. In retrospect, I guess a lot of the New Atheist stuff had the seeds of some very toxic things that later became alt-right YouTube, or maybe alt-lite YouTube, we can say. This fixation on the unique barbarism of Islam, for example, I think, was something that I look back on and I'm like, "Oh, God." You can see the ugliness. There is also the fact that this is a... I mean, I knew a lot of women in this community. The gender balance was... There were a lot of women involved, but, much like gaming around the same time, the community was fairly misogynistic. That ended up being the issue that tore the community apart was the question of feminism. A lot of men in STEM or who had STEM degrees and that... I mean, again, I'm not trying to bash an entire family of fields. I'm just saying culturally, well, let's just say that the idea of some women coming forward as feminists was so threatening to them that it tore the community apart. CHRIS HAYES: My understanding is part of your desire and decision to make your own videos was in a dialogue with this part of the internet, and you've continued it up. What is it about a certain kind of youngish man on the internet, and the subcultures they create that become, I don't know, toxic, authoritarian, fascist sympathetic? What is that dynamic? NATALIE WYNN: Well, I think a lot of young men in the last couple of decades feel very threatened by the advancement of, in particular, people who are not white men. I think the reason for that is, culturally, I think this is still a generation of men that was raised to think that the world was theirs. Obviously, it's more complicated than just that, but I think in subtle ways, there's a sense of entitlement that is cultivated in the upbringing of a lot of boys, especially white boys, and so the very real gains of women, for example, I think, to the point where it's like women are now the majority in a lot of universities, is kind of threatening and makes boys insecure, young men insecure about what their place in the world is exactly. I think there's a crisis of masculinity, where men aren't sure how to be men in the 21st century. What is it that they're supposed to do now? They're being told that it's toxic to engage in some of the traditional expressions of masculinity, sexual aggression, Don Juanism aggression against other men that... And so, here's this anxiety that is pretty legible to me. Things like the soy boys and cucks and all this vocabulary that we got in 2015 was an expression of this, I don't know, quarter-life identity crisis of a lot of men. CHRIS HAYES: I think that that crisis and the way that it feeds itself online, I mean, a lot of those instincts and cultural pathologies feel both very distinct to the moment, but also across time. I think I've said this before the programNATALIE WYNN: It's not new. CHRIS HAYES: Yeah. A bunch of young men together hopped up in any settingNATALIE WYNN: It's been known to cause trouble. CHRIS HAYES: Exactly. In any setting... I think about this violence all the time when you look at both historical, but also cross-country violence studies. Men between 16 and 30 are doing the bulk of violence basically everywhere. NATALIE WYNN: It's not some special thing about American culture, no. It's a combination of high testosterone levels and too much time on one's hand. CHRIS HAYES: Right, but I also wonder how much the algorithms facilitate it, which gets to this medium question. I can never... I go back and forth on this as someone who spends a lot of time on the internet. How much of it is just the way things are, and how much of it is the way that the algorithms are functioning, or the way the platforms, or what they're incentivizing? What do you think about that? NATALIE WYNN: Well, I think that the way people talk about the algorithm is so vague. I think one issue here is that it's, for the most part, very opaque. There's a few things we know. We know that in 2012, the algorithm began to consider watch time over raw clicks. That clearly played a role in the success of video essays as a genre, where, suddenly, it was never in your interest before to... I mean, I've been on YouTube long enough that I remember when the advice to aspiring creators was keep it under five minutes. No one's going to watch a video that's so long, its 10 minutes. That started changing, though, I think as a result of the algorithm. It actually made long-form political videos a much more viable thing on the medium. A lot of attention on the media has been given to what was termed the alt-right pipeline, where people watching gamers on YouTube would eventually be recommended gaming commentators. The gaming commentators were also talking about politics. Gamergate is an event that is, I think, correctly seen as pivotal, where gamer as an identity was politicized as a millennial male identity politics almost. CHRIS HAYES: In a very reactionary fashion. NATALIE WYNN: Very reactionary, absolutely, because it's backlash politics against feminism, against women, against people of color, against LGBT people. This moment launched the careers of people who became infamous in the following years, Milo Yiannopoulos being the most prominent one. That was all a result of the increasing reactionary thread in gaming culture on YouTube. I think that we talk about the algorithm like we're talking about some kind of Sumerian god that's motivations are mysterious and possibly sinister, but I think it's just a simple... The fact that, like I said, popular gaming content funneled people into commentary. A lot of that commentary was reactionary, and it became a snowball effect where you had increasing radicalism. People found that... People who had far right beliefs found that this was actually a pretty good area to do recruitment, and more and more people started doing that. CHRIS HAYES: How would you compare the vibrancy of that alt-right nexus of young male interests, gaming content, reactionary resistance to what's viewed as political correctness, that, I'm dating myself now, wokeness? I put in quotes, because it's such an annoying...NATALIE WYNN: That's exactly the same concept. CHRIS HAYES: It's literally the same thing. Yes. What is the status of that in 2021 as opposed to 2015NATALIE WYNN: Well, I think in 2015, there was this really intense sense of being embattled and aggrieved. I mean, there still is that, of course, but I think it was actually more intense in 2015 when we'd had eight years of Obama. It seemed like Hillary was likely to be president next. I think Trump changed some things. I think that... Well, there's part of me that's hoping that this nightmarish four years will inoculate this country and inoculate the internet against some of this far-right populist stuff, but maybe that's too optimistic. CHRIS HAYES: Talk about your form, because you made mention of it now. What I really like about what you do is theyre these long, very well produced, fascinatingly producedNATALIE WYNN: Thank you. CHRIS HAYES: visual essays that are, like, 30 minutes long. Do people watch them? NATALIE WYNN: People certainly do, and my videos keep getting longer. The last one I did was, I think, 90 minutes. It's gotten watched as much as anything. It has three million views in a few months, so people are watching very long-form content. The increasing length of the videos is something that's... I think it's a combination of things. One is, as I get more experienced, I'm better able to execute a really ambitious project like that. I know how to pace it so that it doesn't get boring. I think, as I said, the algorithm now encourages stuff where people are watching for a long time. People are used to... I mean, people listen to hour-long podcasts, of course. People willCHRIS HAYES: Shout out to the people listening right now. Don't turn us off. NATALIE WYNN: Of course. I know that some people will watch a political or commentary YouTube video. They'll kind of use it as a podcast. I mean, my videos are so visual. I like to think that people are just watching and starry eyed the whole time. I think the reality is, though, people are doing their laundry, and that's fine. I mean, that's how I watch YouTube. I'm making dinner or whatever, and I'll put a video on. I think this is a good development, quite honestly, because people read less, which is a little bit concerning, because you worry that... I mean, there's always a panic going on about how media is going to destroy the minds of the young, right? I think that's overblown, but I think people are willing to listen to 90 minutes to two hours. It may as well be a lecture or reading an essay. It's just that it's done in an audio-video form on YouTube. I think that probably this is a medium that's only going to be taken more seriously as time goes on. CHRIS HAYES: I want to talk to you about what you're trying to do in these conversations, what your approach is, and trying to talk to people where they are, bring them in and persuade them, right after we take this quick break. Natalie, for people that are not familiar with your work, can you just give an example of what a topic would be and what your goal is, and what the visual essay is trying to do, who you're trying to talk to? NATALIE WYNN: My most popular video I've ever done was one I did about three years ago called Incels. It's about... I assume most people know what incels are at this point. It's about this community of men who feel that they, because of whatever unfortunate genetic defects, simply are unable to find a girlfriend. It becomes this spiral of self-defeating doom. It's not only, "Oh, I'm unlovable." It's also, "I'll never be happy," and then that pretty much quickly turns to, "It's feminism's fault, and it's the fault of..." A person in pain always wants someone to blame, so that starts, and at this point, the incel movement has inspired so many mass murderers. There's an entire timeline on Wikipedia devoted to charting them. CHRIS HAYES: It's really, really grizzly. NATALIE WYNN: It's extremely grizzly. I became fascinated by this community because of the violence that it was producing, and so I made a video. I wanted it to serve two functions. One is that it's supposed to educate a general audience about what this group of people iswhy are they like this, and what are they like? Is there anything we can do about it? And then the other is, I'm aware that people who are, if not obsessive members of these incel forums, people who are at risk for falling into this way of thinking, I want those people to watch. I want to try to make content in a way so that someone who's not with me from the beginning might actually listen to at least a little bit of what I have to say. I try to be very inviting in my videos. No one likes to be lectured and no one likes a sermon. That's the tone that I always try to avoid having. I want to produce content in a way that is a little more seductive than that. It's not hectoring, and doesn't make you feel like you're being judged. That also just naturally suits my personality. I think that some people think that I actually am a moral fanatic at heart, and I'm just adopting this ironic persona as some strategy. No, I think that it just suits my personality. I think for me, I feel a little bit an arm's length from morality. I'm just more of an aesthetic person than a moral person. That's not a popular personality type on the far left, but I think it's-CHRIS HAYES: No, in a nice, sublimated Kierkegaard either-or reference there. NATALIE WYNN: That's exactly where I got that from. CHRIS HAYES: No, I think you're right, and I think there's something interesting, which is that, I actually think that the valence of both moral relativism versus moral absolutism and moral certainty versus aesthetic investment, the valence of that has switched a little bit in my lifetime. 20 years ago, I would say that moral relativism was a little bit of the domain of the left and moral absolutism was kind of the puritanical right. I think there's been a little bit of an inversion between those two. NATALIE WYNN: Yes. CHRIS HAYES: I think the right wing has gotten increasingly morally relativistic, even nihilistic, and the left has gotten more moral absolutist in good... I'm not saying that in a judgmental way, just observing that. I think it actually is, that transposition accounts for some of the weirdness in our politics at this moment. NATALIE WYNN: I completely agree with that analysis. It's fascinating to have watched this. I remember being in high school. This was the early 2000s and even back then, I understood myself as a progressive. What that meant was much more of this, I don't know, free love, anti-censorship, almost like looking back to the 60s idea of what leftism was, whereas it has become this more Soviet atmosphere of moral fanaticism in the meantime. And I, well, you can probably glean from the way that I'm describing this, I don't love the development, but I also think that there are good things about it. CHRIS HAYES: Yeah. The thing I wrestle with is moral fanaticism has its place. As someone who spends a lot of time reading history of the run-up to the Civil War and the aftermath, the abolitionists were constantly being called moral fanaticists, and they absolutely were moral fanaticists. NATALIE WYNN: Yes. Well, John Brown, that guy at the time would have been considered a maniac, but in retrospect, he looks like he is the only rational one there. CHRIS HAYES: Right, yeah. That becomes the tricky part, which is what to be morally clear about and what not to be, which I think ends up being the distinction that we all make informally, and then becomes the battleground for a lot of the fights we're having. NATALIE WYNN: I think that's right. You have to choose moments where you're going to be a moral fanatic in your own time, right? You choose moments where you're like, "Oh, I'm putting my foot down on this," but you have to choose those moments selectively because it's actually a destructive thing to be really committed. I mean, you sort of have to be, right? If you're going to change the world, that doesn't happen without disorder and disruption. CHRIS HAYES: What is your... Can I... If it's okay with you, I want to just ask some personal questions just about what your life is like because you're such a, I don't know, for lack of a better word, ethereal presence on YouTube, and partly because of the aesthetics of your production. To me, you exist in this digital universe, but you're a person. You wake up. You get coffee. Where do you live? What's your day like? NATALIE WYNN: I'm different from a lot of YouTubers. I mean, conventionally on YouTube, authenticity is the ultimate virtue. People tend to watch YouTubers, especially more traditional vloggers because it's like, oh, you feel like you know this person. They're like, "Hey, what's up you, guys? I'm showing you around my apartment, and we're doing things today." That's kind of the vibe of the video, whereas I have created this aestheticized alternate universe that I exist in. Well, I am a person. I guess I consider myself some kind of artist, and I create these videos, but I'm not literally... I'm not an aesthetic creation. I'm just a person who eats at Subway sometimes when I'm at the airport, and I'm late like everyone else. I live in Baltimore. I live alone. I've been quarantined alone for a year. It's been very horrible. I don't know. What do you want me to say? I'm a trans woman, so that comes up a lot. CHRIS HAYES: Yeah, I'm going to get to that in a second, but also, do you... This is a prying question, but you make a living off YouTube, right? NATALIE WYNN: I do. CHRIS HAYES: I mean, I feel like a such an old man asking you this, and I apologize, butNATALIE WYNN: Go crazy. CHRIS HAYES: I'm just like, "Well, what's the deal?" How's it work? Again, this is one of these things where YouTubers and the culture around YouTubers and Instagram influencers, all these things, I know about them, because I read Style pieces in the New York Times. I remember the cringe-inducing nature of conversations with baby boomers back in 2003 about bloggers, because they had read a New York Times Magazine piece about blogs. I, as a native to that universe, had to explain it in this annoying way. Now, I am that person asking you. Explain to me. Well, how does the business model work? NATALIE WYNN: From a business perspective, I'll tell you exactly how it works. In my case, most of the money that I make comes from Patreon. Patreon is subscription-based fan funding. People who like my videos go to my Patreon page. It's separate from YouTube, and they pledge a monthly amount in the way that people use to pledge to support, I don't know, classical music radio stations or something like that. And they get little rewards for that, such as their name goes in the credits of my videos. I will do ask me anything live streams where people can ask me a question. That's honestly the only reason why I was able to make a career out of this. Traditionally, the way YouTubers make money is through ad revenue, and that incentivizes a very different structure of video making to Patreon. If you're treating this as a business and you want to make money with ad revenue, your job is to get as many clicks, as many eyeballs on ads, by whatever means necessary, which tends to mean churning out content that... I mean, I hesitate to call it garbage, but sometimes, it's garbage. I don't know. A lot of stuffCHRIS HAYES: It's disposable. NATALIE WYNN: It's disposable content that is never made to be rewatched. It doesn't particularly need to be life-changing or loved by people. It just needs to be watched. That's the bar, and so there's no reason really to devote more time and effort than the minimum needed to achieve that. Whereas, on Patreon, the goal is to make content that people love so much that they will pay you to make it. That's a very different bar, and it incentivizes a very different kind of structure. I'm working on a huge project right now. It's a video that's going to be more than an hour long, once again. I've been working on it for months. That would be a disaster if I was only making money from ads, but because of Patreon, I can do this. CHRIS HAYES: I had that thought when I was watching your videos of like, "Man, this seems like a lot of work." NATALIE WYNN: It's an immense amount of work. I often have no life when I'm working on these projects because of how much work it is. CHRIS HAYES: Yeah, its like the lightings and costumes and the cutaways, I mean, these are extremely produced things, so that makes sense. That speaks to something broader to me, where I am really excited about the subscription versus ad-based, which are basically the two models. I mean, cable news has a hunter-gatherer hybrid, which is that, the reason cable news is successful is that it has both. So there's subscription fees, the sub fees that come in, and then there's the advertising, and between those two, you have two different models. It sounds like what you're describing is kind of the same. There's some advertising revenue that comes in from YouTube. Most of what provides stability are these subscribers through Patreon. NATALIE WYNN: That's exactly right. I mean, at this point, my videos are getting views in the millions. That's enough... That's significant ad revenue, but still, most of the funding that I have comes from Patreon. You don't need to have millions of people to make it as a living. I made this my full-time job when I was at a much smaller level, because before this, I mean, after I dropped out of grad school, I was basically in the gig economy. I was teaching piano lessons. I was driving Uber. I was being a copywriter and that kind of gig work. CHRIS HAYES: Contract work. NATALIE WYNN: Exactly. So the second that I was able to switch to YouTube full time, I did. At the time, I think I only had 40,000 subscribers on YouTube, and probably, I don't know, just probably a few hundred patrons, but that was enough. CHRIS HAYES: How many patrons do you have now? NATALIE WYNN: It just fluctuates between 12,000 and 13,000. CHRIS HAYES: Wow, that's cool. NATALIE WYNN: I'm in the top 20 on Patreon, which, I'm very fortunate. CHRIS HAYES: Have you built out a business around this, or do you just do this all yourself? NATALIE WYNN: I mostly do it myself. To the point that it's actually a little bit insane, I have a half-time personal assistant who helps get me on to podcasts, and schedule things and helps me be an organized human being. I also have a lot of people who do contract work, so composers, music... Its two people who regularly will be writing and recording music for my videos. I also use a lot of stock music. I will pay voice actors to read voiceover for some things. In my last video, actually, for the first time, I had a contractor to do visual effects. But a shocking amount of it, I say... Well, I'm not shocked, but a lot of people I tell about it are shocked. I just do it myself. I write the video. I do the research. A lot of times, it's me moving the lights and camera around before I sit down to film. I'm alone. I'm editing the video by myself. It's madness, actually. Most people who are at the level I'm at will hire an editor and hire other people to do these things. I'm not quite sure why I weirdly insist on doing it all myself still. I think it's hard to let go of control of your own project when you're used to doing it all yourself, but I think probably in the future. It's a little bit unsustainable that I'm doing all of this, because, like I said, I have no life apart from this a lot of the time. CHRIS HAYES: You mentioned that you're a trans woman, and you have had the experience of transitioning in the public eye. You started making videos before you transitioned. You've talked about this a bit, about the ways cis folks, trans folks, anyone who is in front of a camera is going to develop. I speak from personal experience, all sorts of insanity about how you look. I'm saying this with a lot of privilege in my personal subjective bearing and also as someone who had a not intense relationship to how I appear to the world, or any kind of feelings that those didn't match how I felt inside. I could just imagine that that's got to be really magnified for putting yourself in front of a camera all the time. NATALIE WYNN: Yes. You're imagining correctly. It is nightmarish. I mean, honestly, for a lot of trans women, how you look is often the determining factor between are you socially legible? Are you able to function in a given social space? Are you even allowed into certain spaces, like bathrooms and things? How you look is of extreme importance. It's like the difference between being seen as a functioning member of society and some kind of, I don't know, liminalCHRIS HAYES: Threat. NATALIE WYNN: freak or threat. Yes, exactly. So that, obviously, is something that has been... I'm at a point in my transition now, where offline, this does not create a problem for me. Well, I shouldn't say it never creates a problem for me, because I'm vaccinated now, so I went out to a club two weeks ago. A man will just grope you if you're a woman at a club. There's a fear that comes with, okay, what happens when the man who basically assaults you finds anatomy he wasn't expecting? That stuff is still a concern offline. But online, I mean, God, the microscopic analysis of every single physical feature that you have, assessing whether it's passable or whether you look male or female, it's hard not to go insane. CHRIS HAYES: Yeah, and I think you had a great video essay about this, about beauty and about wrestling through all these questions and the ways... and how it's bound up in identity, in personhood, in trans-ness altogether. I just found it really brilliant, and got at this stuff in ways I hadn't thought about before. NATALIE WYNN: Thank you. CHRIS HAYES: Well, but partly because also, what I like about the videos is, theres such an industry of... It's funny. So much of what's new is just old. When you go to the recommended for you part of social media, or things that have tons of subscribers... Again, I'm generationally out of touch with this, but it's all like, "Oh, these are conventionally attractive women doing conventionally suggestive dances." It's like, "Oh, this is the new frontier of media," and it's like, "Right. Well, this is just what's been going on forever." NATALIE WYNN: It's the same exact thing. What was once called selfie feminism has turned out to be a disappointment, in my view. It turns out that when you give women the camera, I mean, in some ways, it improves things, but also, in some ways, things are not as different as one might have hoped. I think that it's tough. It is a question that you ask yourself as a woman who's in media. Your face is on camera all the time. At what point am I going to hit my expiration date? Well, I am pretty determined to resist that. I think that... I don't know, do men worry about their expiration date? Maybe they do, but I don't think it's to the same extent. I'm determined not to allow myself to be forced off for that reason. I think that there's more to my videos than looking at me. My hope is that people... I don't think that's the only reason people are watching. CHRIS HAYES: Well, the expiration date. I totally hear that, but I also feel like, if I were in your... How old are you, Natalie? NATALIE WYNN: I'm 32. CHRIS HAYES: To me, the scarier thing from an expiration date is there's going to be... In three years, there's going to be like, all the kids are into this new app that's like a brain chip and they do some... Again, I remember when I was on the cutting edge of media and blogging, and now, I have to read New York Times articles about what people are doingNATALIE WYNN: What TikTok is. CHRIS HAYES: TikTok, exactly. NATALIE WYNN: I'm even there too. I'm not even on TikTok. I'm losing it. CHRIS HAYES: It all moves so quickly. I wonder how quickly the waters are rushing around you. NATALIE WYNN: Well, that's a question I ask myself frequently. I do think I need to get on TikTok. I don't use it. My judgment is that YouTube is going to be here for the foreseeable future. I don't claim to be able to foresee very far into the future. By the foreseeable future, I mean, three years, let's say. I think that it's going to be around for that long, but I do think it is the height of hubris to imagine that the current technology and this current state of social media, "That's just what the reality is going to be for the next 50 years." That seems highly unlikely if you compare us to where we were 50 years ago. I do think for anyone to have long-term career success that spans decades in this industry, meaning media, you have to keep in mind that you need to be agile. You need to be spotting the next trend. CHRIS HAYES: Its exhausting. NATALIE WYNN: I know its exhausting, but you have to do it. There's this weird new app that kids are using. God, do we really have to learn this? Yes, you do. You have to learn it. Find a 20-year-old, buy them lunch and have them show you how to do it. CHRIS HAYES: My wife, she has a legal podcast called Strict Scrutiny, which is fantastic, which I recommend. One of her co-hosts did that and just started doing legal TikToks, and they've been hugely successful. NATALIE WYNN: That's cool. CHRIS HAYES: I was like, "Wow, that's awesome." It was exactly just like, "Alright, I'm going to figure this out." I think she may have recruited a young to give her a tutorial. NATALIE WYNN: It's good to get a youth spy. I think, that's from 1984, the youth spies. CHRIS HAYES: Youth spy. You are engaged in this different kind of discourse, these long-form videos. You talk about wanting to bring people in. I wonder if you have... You must have interactions with your viewers and your patrons, surely. I wonder if you hear from people that you change the mind of, or who got into politics through you, or that you introduced into a different worldview. NATALIE WYNN: Yeah. I've heard from many people like that in the last few years. I mean, theres been different eras of my channel, but a lot of people who watch my channel have reached out and told me that my videos in some way helped them not to fall into the far-right pipeline, because often, they'll say like, "Oh, I was watching all of these Ben Shapiro videos and I was really annoyed at feminists, but your videos, I didn't feel judged by, and it opened my eyes, and gave me this perspective that took some of the appeal out of Ben Shapiro." That, to me, feels good, taking the appeal out of Ben Shapiro. That's good. If I did that for one person, that's a day's work. CHRIS HAYES: We started by... You were saying that fascism always looms in the background. You said an interesting thing, which is that it felt less intense in some ways than 2015, that 2015 felt like a peak of a certain kind of political formation online, and maybe it's less that way now. I wonder with this rise of this counter-woke internet community, which, to me, feels very much like the New Atheists, very, very similar, in some ways is sometimes the same people, the same impulses, what you make of that and whether that feels different or similar to some of the things you've seen happen before in these internet spaces. NATALIE WYNN: Well, I guess the reason to me that 2016 and 2015 were scarier than now is that back then, I felt like I was one of very few people who were noticing. Gamergate was written about, but when the alt-right was gaining traction on YouTube and on social media, there was an early period where this was not being taken seriously at all, before Trump was elected. That I can remember being, in some ways, the scariest. Nazi-adjacent ideology was gaining incredible traction, and that to me was like Ionescos play, Rhinoceros, where, although it's a metaphor for the coming of fascism, everyone around you is turning into a rhino, it felt like that. That's when I started making these videos, against that trend, but then, obviously, the Trump era, in some ways got less scary for me, because I felt less alone. It's like, "Oh, everyone else is now paying attention, too." It's like, "I'm not crazy, and I'm not alone." Now, I would say that one major change, and this actually affects the way I work and think, is that when I started doing my YouTube videos, leftist YouTube was not really a thing. There was feminist YouTube, which was mostly vloggers who would talk about feminist issues and then get ruthlessly dunked on by these skeptic people, but there wasn't an economy of leftist video essays in the way that there is now. There are just hundreds of these creators who are making LeftTube videos, and that has changed me. For one thing, I don't have the sense that I used to have that I'm surrounded by the encroaching victory of the far right. I have, instead, the sense that I'm surrounded by leftists feuding with each other, which changes the kind of topic that you're prone to discuss. CHRIS HAYES: Those internecine battles can be the... They can take it out of you even more in some ways, becauseNATALIE WYNN: They can. CHRIS HAYES: It wounds, it cuts so much more deeply when you're critiqued by a comrade than a foe. NATALIE WYNN: In some ways, it was more fun in 2017 when the people sending you death threats were Nazis, because there's a sense of righteous victimhood that comes with that, whereas now when it's just, I don't know, an angry 20-year-old anarchist harassing me, I don't know, it just doesn't have the same thrill to it. CHRIS HAYES: I also wonder, too, if we're in a moment now, where what was a kind of internet subculture and vanguard is incredibly mainstream now. You know what I mean? NATALIE WYNN: Yes. No, I think that's right. CHRIS HAYES: The insurrection on January 6 was basically a normie insurrection. It's like-NATALIE WYNN: Yes, a normie insurrection. CHRIS HAYES: It was not like online edgelords. NATALIE WYNN: This was not 8chan. CHRIS HAYES: No, it was not an 8chan. It was people with boats and mortgages...NATALIE WYNN: People with boats, yeah, 100%. CHRIS HAYES: ... who stormed the Capitol, and it's like but that is now-NATALIE WYNN: That boat owners uprising. CHRIS HAYES: Exactly. That is now... What was on the edges, and in these forums, is now part and parcel of a mainstream American political faction formation tendency that is an existential threat to American democracy, but also takes up so much space in daylight, that it's not this creepy thing at the edges anymore. NATALIE WYNN: I agree with that. In some sense, I feel like it is so mainstream that I feel like, as a YouTuber, it's not quite my domain in the way that it used to be. Maybe that's what I'm feeling as this becomes what conservatism in America is. It's like, "Well, everyone's already talking about this, so I have to find something that..." I'm always looking. What can I do that other people aren't doing? Because I feel other people are working on this. Of course, who knows how to solve this problem. As you say, it's a threat to democracy. It's, in some ways, would have been an unimaginably awful outcome like eight years ago, that this is where we would be. But yeah, it's out of my league now. CHRIS HAYES: Natalie Wynn goes by ContraPoints on YouTube. You can find her there. You can find her on Patreon as well. I really, really suggest after you listen to this podcast, if you haven't seen any of her work or heard any of her work, you should head over to her YouTube page and watch a bunch. Natalie, thank you so much. NATALIE WYNN: Thank you for having me on. CHRIS HAYES: Once again, great thanks to Natalie Wynn. You can check her out at ContraPoints, C-O-N-T-R-A-P-O-I-N-T-S, ContraPoints on YouTube. Search for her, youll find her videos. Start with any of them. You can start with the famous incel one, the one on beauty is fantastic and Im looking forward to the new, super-mega-opus that shes working on now. Tweet us with the hashtag #WITHpod, email WITHpod@gmail.com. We really do love to hear your feedback, so send it along. Why Is This Happening? is presented by MSNBC and NBC News, produced by the All In team and features music by Eddie Cooper. You can see more of our work, including links to things we mentioned here, by going to nbcnews.com/whyisthishappening. Related Links:https://www.youtube.com/user/ContraPoints

###CLAIM: it comes after the everyone invited website compiled more than a dozen testimonies detailing sexual abuse of girls by male students across the country. ###DOCS: Gareth Doodes is encouraging all 1,467 pupils at the King's School in Worcester to sign up to the Change the Narrative' clubParents today accused the head teacher at a top 15,000-a-year private school founded by Henry VIII of 'demonising boys' after it launched a 'Change the Narrative' club to stamp out 'male toxic behaviour'. Gareth Doodes is encouraging all 1,467 pupils at the King's School in Worcester to sign up to the new group after claiming that the 'collective inaction' of men was in part responsible for women being killed. It was set up following the murder of Sarah Everard and comes as the school is being investigated over claims teachers forced girls to kneel to measure their skirts. A whistleblower on anonymous website Everyone's Invited also alleged that female teachers 'enforced blatantly sexist rules' and bullied girls into feeling shame about their bodies. The website has been central to allegations that a 'rape culture' exists in some of Britain's leading private schools. Mr Doodes said today: 'A new club called Change the Narrative that has been formed by sixth form pupils has yet to meet. 'It is open to all pupils and staff regardless of sex, with the stated aim of discussing important matters such as sexual harassment, violence against women, mental health and other issues in todays society that need to be addressed in an open and constructive way.' A whistleblower recently alleged that female teachers at the school 'enforced blatantly sexist rules' and bullied girls into feeling shame about their bodiesHe said in an earlier statement: 'Following the tragic murder of Sarah Everard we decided to address the issue of misogynistic behaviour and attitudes in school. 'We are encouraging all pupils to change the narrative and understand that although all men did not take part in such behaviour, by our collective inactions we were all to an extent culpable.' But parents have accused Mr Doodes of 'going for woke' and 'demonising all men and boys'. One parent said: 'The school is, on the whole, wonderful and provides the best in terms of teaching and pupil development. 'That said, there is a growing number of parents who are concerned at the direction the head is taking in terms of addressing issues such as misogyny and sexism. Founded by Henry VIII: The school with close links to Worcester cathedral The King's School, Worcester is an English independent school refounded by Henry VIII in 1541. It was initially set up as a boy's school, but girls were welcomed into the sixth form in 1971. The school became fully coeducational in 1991. The mixed school, which is next to Worcester cathedral in the city centre, now caters to 1,465 pupils aged 2 to 18. They work closely with the cathedral to train choirsters. Notable former pupils at the school, which was founded by Henry VIII in 1541, include Conservative MP Richard Bacon, the late comedian Rik Mayall and Sky News presenter Jeremy Thompson. Advertisement'I worry that when Mr Doodes says things like ''collective inactions'' he really means the inactions of men and this is how many parents have interpreted his comments. 'It is not fair, either deliberately or otherwise, to put the blame for sexism and violence against women onto the shoulders of young boys at the start of their lives.' Writing on Facebook, a mother, who was not identified, added: 'This 'Change the Narrative' club is a prime example of going for woke. 'The school has a duty to address sexism and make girls feel heard and empowered but not at the expense of demonising all men and boys.' Mr Doodes took over as headmaster last September and as well as a background in education, is also a Church of England lay minister. He added: 'The reaction [to the Change the Narrative club] was heartfelt from all sections of the school community but especially girls at the upper end of the school who felt empowered to speak out. 'I received over 40 emails from pupils, staff and parents, all in support of taking a stance and shouting out male toxic behaviour in UK institutions. 'The subject moved from being taboo to being openly discussed in lessons and classes and our head of school Liv along with senior prefect Alice worked with other girls and boys to form a new society called Change the Narrative. 'This will continue the discussion in a formal setting open to all pupils and staff.' The school, which was founded by Henry VIII in 1541, caters for boys and girls aged 2-18 and received an 'Excellent' Ofsted ratingMailOnline has asked the school for more information about the club. Earlier this week Mr Doodes confirmed he was launching an urgent investigation into allegations of sexism and bullying. Writing on whistle-blowing website Everyone's Invited, the anonymous post read: 'I remember walking out of cathedral and seeing teachers taking girls off and making them kneel on the cathedral floor just to check their skirt length. 'The saddest thing was that female teachers even enforced the blatantly sexist rules. 'They made us think that our bodies should be covered and that it was our responsibility to make sure men wouldn't look at us.' The school, which was founded by Henry VIII in 1541, caters for boys and girls aged 2-18 and received an 'Excellent' Ofsted rating.

###CLAIM: the attorney said the lavish lifestyle was `` one of systematic and meticulous deception '' in which the mother entrusted millions of dollars in investments to one person and then used the money to fund her lavish lifestyle. ###DOCS: Melissa Caddick's father-in-law said he won't accept the conwoman is dead until three crucial questions about her mysterious disappearance are answered. Caddick, who allegedly defrauded more than $25million from scores of investors including friends and family, vanished the day after corporate watchdog ASIC raided her luxury $6.1million home in Dover Heights, Sydney, on November 11 last year. A foot washed ashore three months later on the NSW south coast and was confirmed to be Caddick's after a DNA match was made, however police have been hesitant to confirm the missing conwoman is actually dead. The 49-year-old's father-in-law, tax agent Rodo Koletti, has been probed by police who are preparing a statement for the coroner. When asked by officers if he believed Caddick was dead, Mr Koletti responded: 'I do not feel police have to date provided enough information for me to form an opinion one way or the other if Melissa is dead. 'How much of the mysterious foot was found in the shoe, how was it severed, how do they explain that forensic scientists stated that it was unlikely the shoe had been in the ocean for less than two weeks?' He also said his son didn't have any business prowess, and wouldn't have been aware of his wife's alleged fraudulence. 'Even if Melissa's business documents were sitting on the kitchen table in front of Anthony he would not know what he was looking at. He doesnt have the business capacity to know what a financial scheme is,' Mr Koletti told The Daily Telegraph. Anthony and Caddick's son are still living in her Dover Heights mansion, which could soon be seized pending a federal court decision, to be sold to help repay her alleged victims. ASIC is also seeking the Edgecliff penthouse where Caddick's parents live, which is under the fraudster's name. ASIC dropped all charges against Caddick and has withdrawn the warrant for her arrest. The commission would not reveal whether this is confirmation that Caddick is definitely dead. 'It is not for ASIC to determine if, or speculate on whether, Ms Caddick is alive. That is a matter for the NSW Police and - should it come to that - a coroner,' a spokesman previously said. Liquidators say the mother-of-one 'meticulously and systematically' deceived those who entrusted millions of investment dollars to her over seven years, then used the money to fund her lavish lifestyle. Caddick blew her victims' money on luxury items and overseas trips with the authorities confiscating high end fashion label handbags, shoes and clothes during the raid. A lack of credible witnesses and an absence of CCTV footage means her disappearance may never be solved. ASIC dropped all charges against Caddick and has withdrawn the warrant for her arrestLiquidators say the mother-of-one 'meticulously and systematically' deceived those who entrusted millions of investment dollars to her over seven years, then used the money to fund her lavish lifestyleCaddick vanished the day after corporate watchdog ASIC raided her luxury $6.1million home in Dover Heights, Sydney, on November 11 last year. Pictured: the ASIC raidTwo forensic experts have raised a theory that Caddick may have died elsewhere before being moved closer to Bournda beach, where her foot and trainer were discoveredMore than 50 possible sightings were reported to NSW Police in the weeks after her disappearance but none were solid leads. Two forensic experts have raised a theory that Caddick may have died elsewhere before being moved closer to Bournda beach, where her foot and trainer were discovered. The south coast beach is more than 400km from where Caddick was last seen at her lavish Dover Heights home in Sydney. 'That is remarkable but it can happen,' said Professor John Hilton, a forensic pathologist said. Earlier this month, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said authorities were unable to say whether she killed herself or if there was foul play involved. He also raised the possibility Ms Caddick could have severed her own foot to throw police off the scent - and that she could still be alive. 'There's always a chance she cut her foot off and is still alive, though it's pretty fanciful,' he told 2GB on March 8. One theory to explain her disappearance has been that Caddick jumped from the Dover Heights clifftops after making the short 300m walk from her home. The route is not covered by CCTV cameras and led police to initially suspect she had taken her own life. But Mr Fuller said many people jumped from those cliffs without their remains washing up several hundred kilometers away. The south coast beach where Caddick's foot was found is more than 400km from where she was last seen at her lavish Dover Heights home (pictured) in SydneyA lack of credible witnesses and an absence of CCTV footage means her disappearance may never be solvedCaddick blew her victims' money on luxury items and overseas trips with the authorities confiscating high end fashion label handbags, shoes and clothes during the raid. Pictured with husband Anthony Koletti'[It's not common to see] body parts wash up so far south of Sydney and in such good condition given she went missing on or about November 11,' he said. 'Not to say it can't happen. The coroner will make further determinations.' He said the limited decomposition of the shoe would indicate it had not been out in the ocean for the entire three-month period since she went missing. Earlier this month Caddick was farewelled in a private service with only a handful of mourners in attendance. Caddick's husband, her parents Barbara and Ted Grimley, and her brother Adam Grimley gathered with friends at the West Chapel, in Matraville, on April 6 to say their goodbyes. Anthony led the procession out of the chapel alongside the funeral director, who helped him carry a bouquet of flowers to put in the boot of his black Mercedes, as the Grimleys followed behind. Although a death certificate is yet to be obtained, her foot has been cremated.

###CLAIM: the program would make higher education possible for a far broader population of students and families seeking ways to afford college. ###DOCS: Politicians, policymakers, and university administrators alike understand a fundamental truth about the 21st century: in order for our nation to sustain its competitive edge, we must make higher education more broadly available. Proposals for free college range from free K-16 education to debt forgiveness. In my experience as a college president, I realize that there isnt a one-size-fits-all solution. Our students each have individual needs and goals, and we must offer a wide range of solutions that address those issues effectively in real time. As the Biden administration and Congress grapples with the costs of higher education, broader access, student debt, and workplace preparedness, I offer a model from Miami University. Two years ago, we piloted our Work+ program, a collaboration with industry and state partners who recognized its low-cost, high-impact benefits for Ohios citizens and economy. The program is modeled after a collaboration between the Metropolitan College at the University of Louisville and United Parcel Service (UPS). Work+ leverages the federal law that enables companies to support employees educations up to $5,250 tax-free for both the company and the employee. Students work approximately 24 hours a week, are paid an hourly wage, and graduate debt-free with a four-year resume of experience in a sought-after field. Miamis Work+ program is helping students who might not otherwise be able to attend college. Approximately 42 percent of participants are underrepresented minorities and 47 percent are first-generation college students. Work+ rewards students who dedicate themselves to a career-building education and experience. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has endorsed this approach for all Ohio public universities. I believe its benefits can be replicated across the nation. There are several ways that the Biden administration and Congress can support programs like Work+. The $5,250 exclusion under the employer-provided education assistance has not been increased in more than 40 years and has not kept pace with the cost of most education programs. As Congress looks to improve college access and affordability, it should consider tax reform under Sec. 127. Specifically, Miami supports legislative efforts to double the $5,250 threshold and index it to inflation moving forward. Increasing the threshold benefits employers and their ability to attract and retain a talented workforce and it strengthens opportunities for students to attend college who might not otherwise have the resources for a college degree. Work+ works. It is not a side job, summer internship, or short-term cooperative experience. It is a four-year modern-day apprenticeship. Students in the program work for the business year-round. This makes the model easily replicable and increases the opportunities for smaller businesses to participate. Work+ is a different experiential learning opportunity because business needs drive the program and higher education provides the wraparound services that empower students to succeed on the job and in the classroom. It is a win-win-win partnership for students, companies and our society. As a university president, my job is to empower students for success in life and career. Work+ achieves that. A graduate in their early 20s who enters the workforce with both a bachelors degree and four years of successful work experience at a respected firm will find an edge in the marketplace. Employers and the university together ensure that the students job provides meaningful career preparation participating on project teams, receiving mentoring, accepting leadership roles, and more. The student acquires both practical skills in a field that leverages their education and the soft skills so prized by employers. At the same time, the real-world experience elevates the students appreciation for their classroom learning. The old question What am I going to do with this? gets answered every day, and the student brings valuable insights to the academic discussion. Companies are looking for talented, motivated, hard-working, creative, reliable employees who will stay on the job for years, not weeks or months. CEOs tell me about the high cost of training that must be repeated frequently for the same position in a revolving-door cycle of short-term employee commitment. Work+ students have the motivations of income, education, training and career preparation. Companies have long lamented that college graduates lack necessary workforce skills new hires require remedial preparation they should have received in their education. Work+ students are not only fully prepared they are already practicing. Universities, companies and government will drive our societys success in the 21st century. We need well-equipped leaders and robot-proof workers to develop thriving economies locally and nationally. Communities seek to attract and retain top talent in key growth areas. Work+ powerfully synergizes those interests. Students are embedded in local businesses where they see the impact of their education and the potential for thriving careers every day. The Work+ model not only makes free college for the student a reality it launches graduates into the dynamic workforce with a four-year resume, sought-after real-world experience and leadership acumen. In the past, we handed off our graduates to companies this model is hand-in-hand. The cost to society is minimal a tax break for participating companies and the returns are myriad. The program makes higher education possible for a far broader population of students and families seeking ways to afford college. Gregory P. Crawford is the 22nd president of Miami University.

###CLAIM: `` teams get that grit and that competitive attitude and that 's what i have with the game -- trying and thinking. ###DOCS: United States' Jessica Pegula celebrates after defeating Ukraine's Elina Svitolina in their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Feb. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Andy Brownbill)United States' Jessica Pegula celebrates after defeating Ukraine's Elina Svitolina in their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Feb. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Andy Brownbill)MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) After Jessica Pegula earned her first trip to a Grand Slam quarterfinal, the daughter of the owners of Buffalos NFL and NHL franchises scribbled on the screen of an Australian Open courtside TV camera: Hi Mom, Hi Dad. See u next rnd Jen B.In addition to a shoutout to her parents, that was a message for Jennifer Brady, a good pal of Pegulas whose fourth-round match was up next in Rod Laver Arena on Monday. And after Brady won, too, setting up an all-American matchup against Pegula with a berth in the final four at stake, she used a blue marker to respond in kind, writing: Bring it Jess!Its an opportunity for both of us, Pegula said, recalling that she and Brady became close after playing doubles together for the United States in the team competition now known as the Billie Jean King Cup. Im just happy Im here; shes been playing some good tennis, solidifying herself as a top player.The 61st-ranked Pegula beat No. 5 seed Elina Svitolina of Ukraine 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, before the 22nd-seeded Brady, a Pennsylvanian who played college tennis at UCLA, had a 6-1, 7-5 victory over No. 28 Donna Vekic of Croatia. Brady was one of the 72 players who had to go through a hard lockdown two weeks stuck in a hotel room, not allowed to leave for any reason after flying to Australia in January because someone on their flight tested positive for COVID-19 upon arrival. A lot of people were complaining, and I told myself I wasnt going to complain, Brady said. I mean, theres way worse things going on in the world than me being stuck in a hotel room for 14 days.Brady and Pegula gave the U.S. three womens quarterfinalists at Melbourne Park, joining 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams, who advanced a day earlier. Top-ranked Ash Barty ensured a fourth American didnt make it to the last eight, beating unseeded Shelby Rogers 6-3, 6-4 to set up a quarterfinal against No. 25 Karolina Muchova. I mean, its pretty awesome to see. I hope we can all push through, Pegula said. The last, I dont know, year or so, weve really all pushed each other. Maybe we havent said it to each other, but I think we all can feel it.She is on quite a breakthrough run. Pegula has won four matches at Melbourne Park over the past week including victories over two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka and 2011 U.S. Open champion Sam Stosur after entering the hard-court tournament with a total of three wins at majors for her career. ADVERTISEMENTAlso significant for Pegula, who works with Venus Williams former coach, David Witt: She came into the day with an 0-6 record against top 10 women. Witt said Pegulas rising confidence is a big part of her progress. She found a sort of kinship with her familys football team, the Bills, who made the playoffs three of the past four seasons behind quarterback Josh Allen after going nearly two decades without a trip to the postseason. Even last year, when he wasnt playing that well, I was like, I like this kid. I loved his competitive spirit. He was a gamer. He just wanted to win. Thats something you love to see, she said about Allen. Its definitely something I think I tried to take into my game a little bit, even watching the team getting that grit, that competitive attitude, having that mindset in tennis, its like 90%, sometimes, of the matches. I think its been really cool to watch them and kind of channel that energy into how Ive been doing.Bradys progress is far less surprising, given that she made it to the semifinals at the U.S. Open in September before losing to eventual champion Naomi Osaka. Vekics right knee was heavily taped by a trainer early in the second set, which eventually got to 5-all. But Brady broke at love there when Vekic double-faulted, then held for the victory. There will be a one-nation mens quarterfinal, too, between Russians Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev. Medvedev, the 2019 U.S. Open runner-up, eliminated 192nd-ranked American Mackenzie McDonald 6-4, 6-2, 6-3 in 1 1/2 hours, while Rublev moved on when No. 22 Casper Ruud stopped because of an injury after dropping the first two sets. A third Russian man, 114th-ranked qualifier Aslan Karatsev, already had advanced, giving the country a trio of quarterfinalists at a major tournament for the only time in the professional era. Also on that half of the draw, Rafael Nadal moved closer to a mens-record 21st Grand Slam trophy by overwhelming No. 16 Fabio Fognini 6-3, 6-4, 6-2. Nadals next opponent will be No. 5 Stefanos Tsitsipas, whose fourth-round match was canceled when No. 9 Matteo Berrettini withdrew because of an abdominal injury. With the sky blue and temperatures in the low 70s Fahrenheit (low 20s Celsius), and no fans in the stands for the third day in a row because of a local COVID-19 lockdown, Pegula dictated groundstroke exchanges from right along the baseline. In the early going, she pushed around two-time Grand Slam semifinalist Svitolina, who eliminated American teenager Coco Gauff in the second round, and went up by a set and a break at 1-0 in the second. After Svitolina forced a third, Pegula returned to her more aggressive brand of hit-to-the-corners play and led 4-1. She was broken to 4-3, but broke right back, then served out the most important victory of her career by grabbing the last four points after falling behind love-30. Now itll be Brady vs. Pegula. Im super excited for her making her first Grand Slam quarterfinal. I know the emotions that shes feeling. You feel like youre on cloud nine, definitely, Brady said. We both know each other so well and Im really looking forward to it. It will be a lot of fun. I think everyone back home in America will be watching, definitely.___More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

###CLAIM: the cash offer, which should include a financial dividend in 2020, provides 41. 2 percent premium to the price of the shares compared with the original ballys proposal. ###DOCS: This Oct. 1, 2020, photo shows the exterior of Bally's casino in Atlantic City, N.J. On Nov. 4, 2020, officials with Twin River Worldwide Holdings, a Rhode Island firm that's buying Bally's for $25 million, said they can make it "a place to see and be seen" by investing $90 million into the aging casino and boosting its offerings. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)This Oct. 1, 2020, photo shows the exterior of Bally's casino in Atlantic City, N.J. On Nov. 4, 2020, officials with Twin River Worldwide Holdings, a Rhode Island firm that's buying Bally's for $25 million, said they can make it "a place to see and be seen" by investing $90 million into the aging casino and boosting its offerings. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) A Rhode Island company thats buying Atlantic Citys worst-performing casino says it can make Ballys a place to see and be seen by investing $90 million and beefing up its offerings. Twin River Worldwide Holdings is seeking preliminary authority from the New Jersey Casino Control Commission to operate Ballys while its application for a casino license is being considered. The hearing began Wednesday morning, and is scheduled to conclude on Thursday. Twin River, which is changing its name to Ballys next Monday, is in the process of buying the casino from Caesars Entertainment for $25 million in a transaction that is expected to close by the end of this year. ADVERTISEMENTWe want to make sure Ballys is competitive again and return it to its former glory, said Marc Crisafulli, a Twin River executive vice president. Were committed to making it a signature property again at the center of the Boardwalk.Ballys was the third casino to open in Atlantic City, debuting in 1979, and once led the citys gambling market. It was named after the Monopoly board: Ballys at Park Place, said Lloyd Levenson, an attorney representing Twin River. The sixth floor of Ballys was the place to see and be seen.But the years have not been kind to Ballys, which now ranks dead last out of Atlantic Citys nine casinos in terms of revenue won from gamblers. For the first nine months of this year, Ballys has won nearly $72 million; in contrast, the citys top casino, the Borgata, won $373 million over that same period. The company, which had planned to invest $65 million into the property, said Wednesday it now plans to invest $90 million. Twin River has nearly a half-billion dollars worth of liquidity to draw upon, according to chief financial officer Stephen Capp. The company plans to build a new sports book at Ballys once the sale goes through and it obtains a casino license. The existing sports book in the Wild Wild West section of Ballys will become part of the adjacent Caesars casino after the sale. -Follow Wayne Parry at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC FILE - In this Jan. 29, 2020, file photo, a gambler makes bets on the upcoming Super Bowl at Bally's casino in Atlantic City N.J. The online sports betting company FanDuel will open an in-person sports book at Bally's casino in Atlantic City once the casino's sale to a Rhode Island company is finalized. FanDuel told The Associated Press on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020, that it has plans for a temporary sports betting facility in the casino before the end of the year, and will build a permanent sports book on the center of the casino floor next spring. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry, File)FILE - In this Jan. 29, 2020, file photo, a gambler makes bets on the upcoming Super Bowl at Bally's casino in Atlantic City N.J. The online sports betting company FanDuel will open an in-person sports book at Bally's casino in Atlantic City once the casino's sale to a Rhode Island company is finalized. FanDuel told The Associated Press on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020, that it has plans for a temporary sports betting facility in the casino before the end of the year, and will build a permanent sports book on the center of the casino floor next spring. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry, File)ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) The online sports betting company FanDuel will open an in-person sports book at Ballys casino in Atlantic City once the casinos sale to a Rhode Island company is finalized. When that happens, all nine Atlantic City casinos will have on-location sports books as New Jersey vies for the national lead in the fast-growing sports betting industry. FanDuel told The Associated Press on Wednesday that it has plans for a temporary sports betting facility in the casino before the end of the year, and will build a permanent sports book on the center of the casino floor next spring. ADVERTISEMENTBallys currently has a sports book in its Wild, Wild West section. But that area will be annexed by the adjacent Caesars casino once Ballys is sold to Twin River Worldwide Holdings in a deal expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year. Once the deal goes through, Ballys would be without a sports book. Enter FanDuel, which already has sports betting dealings with Twin River in Colorado, and is eager to replicate the experience in New Jersey. They are great partners and we are thrilled to work with them in another exciting, gaming-centric market like Atlantic City, said George Papanier, Twin Rivers president and CEO. The permanent sports book location is going to be one of the many exciting changes we have in store for the Ballys property, a unique location just steps away from center Boardwalk where millions stroll by annually.Twin River announced Wednesday that it is changing its name to Ballys Corporation effective Nov. 9. New Jerseys red-hot sports betting market blew past its own national record in September, taking in more than $748 million in bets from sports gamblers finally able to wager on football amid the coronavirus outbreak. That easily surpassed the national monthly record New Jersey set just a month earlier, when $668 million was wagered on sports in August. The New Jersey Casino Control Commission is due to consider Twin Rivers application for authority to operate a casino in Atlantic City on Tuesday. The Ballys sports book will be FanDuels second brick-and-mortar facility in New Jersey. It already runs the sports book at the Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, just outside New York City. That facility has dominated the states sports betting market in terms of revenue. The Meadowlands made nearly $119 million in the first nine months of this year after paying out winning bets and meeting other expenses. ___Follow Wayne Parry at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC

###CLAIM: amy and cohen, co-founders of families, for, safe and on the streets, say the samas have a heart-breaking bellyache. ###DOCS: A shocking video shows the horrific moment a young girl crosses a Brooklyn street on her scooter before being hit by an armored truck and killed. Seven-year-old Sama Ali was walking from the park with her mother, brother and some friends in Bath Beach at around 4pm Monday when the GardaWorld armored truck driver made a left turn and struck her. Video footage of the accident shows the heartbreaking moment her family and onlookers rush to her side and begin crying in the street, just a six-minute walk from her home. Ali was rushed to Lutheran Hospital with a police escort but could not be saved. Scroll down for videoSeven-year-old Sama Ali was walking from the park when she was fatally hit by a truckThe driver said he did not see the young girl as she crossed the street on MondayThe GardaWorld driver stayed at the scene and NYPD say no criminality is suspectedPolice say the driver, a man in his 40s, remained at the scene near the Muslim American Society Youth Center on Bay 23rd Street and Bath Avenue. He said he didn't see the little girl as she crossed. According to New York Daily News, the NYPD do not suspect any criminality. Onlookers and employees in nearby stores rushed out to help as they heard the screams and saw a crowd gathering around Ali's body. 'The mom, she cry a lot,' Peter Younan, 34, told Daily News. Waqar Yussouf, 39, said that he witnessed who he believes to be Ali's father running down the street toward her. 'That was a horrible thing to see. He came running down screaming her name. They wouldn't let him go all the way over,' he said. 'There was so much blood it was horrific. Her shoe is still there,' Yussouf added. 'How fast can you be going on a left turn? Maybe if it was a Honda or a Toyota she would have survived.' As police continued the investigation, one of Ali's small pink shoes and her scooter still lay on the street. The young girl was half way across the road as the truck approached the crossingThe driver took a left turn and hit her. She was rushed to hospital but could not be savedA GoFundMe set up for her family described her as a 'sweet and loving child who was filled with radiant energy and brought a smile and warmth to everyone she knew'. One of Ali's teachers at the Muslim American Society also described her as a 'sweet, smart, and loving girl'. Her parents, Duaa and Mohamed Saad, had just one daughter, as well as Ali's three older brothers, Mahmoud, 16, Ali, 14, and Omar, 8. GardaWorld said in a statement that it was conducting its own investigation into the accident and had sent out its 'accident response team'. 'All of us at GardaWorld are deeply saddened by the news of this tragic accident. Our thoughts and prayers, and our deepest condolences go out to the family and loved ones of the decedent,' the statement reads. The seven-year-old's shoes remained on the street as the accident was investigatedHer scooter also lay by the side of the street after the accidentThe Florida-based company has been involved in several tragedies in recent years. The Tampa Bay Times revealed that at least 19 people were killed in Garda crashes between 2008 and March 1, 2020. Twelves of those deaths were caused by mechanical failure or driver error. According to Bklynr, Ali was the 182nd person killed in traffic violence, and the ninth child to die on New York City streets, so far in 2020. In August alone, there were 105 reported motor vehicle collisions with a total of 126 people injured in the area. Just a few blocks from where she died, three-year-old Elnur Shavkator was also knocked down while riding on his scooter in 2019. 'Sama Ali, a seven-year-old, did not have to die while crossing the street with her scooter. This crash, like countless others across New York City, could have been prevented. My heart aches for Samas family,' Amy Cohen, the co-founder of Families For Safe Streets said. 'Like them, I buried a child because of a preventable crash, and demand accountability from the City for allowing traffic violence to continue unchecked and unabated.' The local Muslim Center expressed their condolences to the family. One of Ali's teachers at the Muslim American Society described her as a 'sweet, smart, and loving girl'City officials also expressed their condolences to the young girl's family. 'Every traffic death is a preventable tragedy, but the loss of a young child is especially difficult to bear,' NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson said. 'My heart breaks for the family and friends of Sama Ali, whose life was cut short too soon. Our fight for safe streets must continue until we finally achieve the goals of vision zero until we end traffic deaths in our city.' Others called on the Department of Transport to do more to stop traffic accidents in the neighborhood. The intersection where Ali was hit right next to PS 200, an elementary school, and Benson Playground is notorious for double-parked cars, NYC Streets reports. 'The infuriating thing is that DOT has the tools to make intersections in Bath Beach and other neighborhoods safer but too often traffic flow and speed take priority. This has to end now,' Council Member Justin Brannan said. 'DOT must start implementing safety controls like Leading Pedestrian Intervals that prioritize safety over speed so that not one more family must endure the loss of a child from traffic violence. We must seriously question the city's priorities for saving lives when known safety controls are ignored over and over so that drivers can get where they need to go just a little bit faster. 'My heart is breaking for this family today. Our neighborhood will come together, as we always do, to surround them with love and support during this impossible time.' The GoFundMe for Ali's family has raised more than $34,000 as of Wednesday afternoon. Her funeral took place Tuesday at the MAS Youth Center. A driver in an armored truck struck and killed a 7-year-old girl riding her scooter in Brooklyn on Monday afternoon, police said. The child, identified as Sama Ali, was hit at the intersection of Bay 23rd Street and Bath Avenue in Bath Beach around 4 p.m., the NYPD said. She was taken to Lutheran Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The driver remained on hand after the crash, cops said. Photos from the scene showed officers inspecting the white truck from GardaWorld Corporation, a private security firm based in Canada. Friends of the Ali family in Bath Beach said little Sama was an angel who loved hugs and playing with others in the neighborhood. She was like an angel girl, said Walaa Elabd. Her mother was taking her to the park to play with her friend and thats when we heard the news, she added. Were shocked. So shocked.Councilman Justin Brannan, whose district covers the area, asked for prayers for the girls family. Awful, horrible, tragic news, Brannan tweeted. Earlier this evening, a 7-year-old girl was struck and killed by the driver of an armored truck as she was riding her scooter across the street on Bay 23rd Street & Bath Avenue.Please join me in rushing prayers to her family tonight.No other details were immediately available and an investigation was ongoing.

###CLAIM: the paris-based organization for economic cooperation and development ( oecd ) said monday that gross domestic product dropped by a record 6. 9 percent in the g7 area in the second half of this year. ###DOCS: MINDEN, Nev. (AP) Kicking off a Western swing, President Donald Trump barreled into Nevada on Saturday looking to expand his paths to victory while unleashing a torrent of unsubstantiated claims that Democrats were trying to steal the election. Trump defied local authorities by holding a rally in tiny Minden after his initial plan to hold one in Reno was stopped out of concern it would have violated coronavirus health guidelines. Unleashing 90-plus minutes of grievances and attacks, Trump claimed the states Democratic governor tried to block him and repeated his false claim that mail-in ballots would taint the election result. ADVERTISEMENTThis is the guy we are entrusting with millions of ballots, unsolicited ballots, and were supposed to win these states. Who the hell is going to trust him? Trump said of Gov. Steve Sisolak. The only way the Democrats can win the election is if they rig it.As part of his ongoing crusade against mail-in voting, lawyers for the presidents reelection campaign are urging a federal judge in Las Vegas to block a state law and prevent mail-in ballots from going to all active Nevada voters less than eight weeks before the election. Addressing a mostly mask-less crowd tightly packed together, Trump spoke in front of mountains draped in haze, the scent of smoke in the air from wildfires raging a state away in California. The president expressed his condolences to the victims but, declaring that I dont have to be nice anymore, focused on tearing into his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden. Trump claimed that the Democrats running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, would be president in about a month if Biden won, asserting that the former vice president would be but a figurehead and that Harris would hold power. He claimed that the media would treat Biden like Winston Churchill if he was able to merely stand on the debate stage in three weeks. And embarking on a swing that would also include stops in Las Vegas and Phoenix, Trump mocked Bidens slower travel schedule. You know where he is now? He is in his damn basement again!And, for good measure, Trump invoked his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, leading the crowd to launch into its traditional Lock Her Up! chant. The president claimed he usually tried to stop the chant but on Saturday declared, I dont care if you say it anymore and, breaking yet another norm of the office, suggested that Clinton should be in jail.Trump also offered a fierce defense of his handling of the pandemic, which has killed more than 190,000 Americans and still claims nearly 1,000 lives a day. And he blamed Democratic governors across the nation, including Sisolak, for deliberately slowing the pace of reopening their states to hurt his election chances. ADVERTISEMENTState Republicans claimed Sisolak tried to stop the rally, but the decision to cancel the Reno event was made by airport officials. Sisolak has limited in-person gatherings indoors and outdoors to 50 people since May, a recommendation based on White House reopening guidelines. Privately, the Trump campaign welcomed the fight, believing it highlighted a reelection theme: Trumps insistence that the nation has turned the corner on the pandemic, while Democrats, including Biden and governors, are hurting the nations economy and psyche with stringent restrictions. Its the kind of political fight that Trumps team relishes and underscores the growing importance of Nevada in Trumps quest for 270 electoral votes as the race looks tight in a number of pivotal states. Several thousand people covered the tarmac in Minden, including Tom Lenz, 64, of Sparks, Nevada, who said he didnt vote for Trump last time. But I will this time. I think he knows what hes doing, said Lenz. Hes pro-faith, pro-life, hes made more peace in the world. Biden cant even talk.Trump narrowly lost Nevada in 2016 to Clinton, and the state has trended further toward the Democrats in the past decade. But Trumps campaign has invested heavily in the state, relying on its ground game to turn out voters. Democrats, by contrast, have largely relied on virtual campaign efforts during the pandemic, save for the casino workers Culinary Union, which has sent workers door to door. The White House announced Saturday that, while out west, Trump will also visit California on Monday to receive a briefing on the devastating wildfires racing through the region. He has largely been silent on the blazes, which Oregons emergency management director said was a possible mass fatality event.Some Democrats fear a possible Trump momentum gain in Nevada, with the president showing increasing support from Latinos and non-college education white voters, two important constituencies in the state. The tightening race in a number of the most contested states, including increasing concern on the presidents team about Arizona, has led to a renewed effort for Trump to expand his electoral map. Once considered fairly safely in Trumps column, Arizona has been ravaged by the coronavirus and the Trump team has grown worried about a slip in support among the states older residents. If Arizona slips away, Trump campaign officials privately acknowledge that it would complicate his path to 270 electoral votes. If he loses Arizona, winning Wisconsin the most likely Midwest state for Trump to retain would not be enough even if he keeps Florida and North Carolina. It would require him to win somewhere else, which has led to a renewed focus on Minnesota, New Hampshire and the at-large congressional districts in Nebraska and Maine. And Nevada has become a particular focus, with hopes of turning out huge numbers in rural areas, including Minden, population 3,000. Everything he said he was going to do, he has at least tried to do, said Ron Falstad, a 67-year-old retired firefighter. Last time, everybody underestimated him. This time, you cant underestimate him. So they are trying to destroy his character.Trump was hosting two fundraisers in Las Vegas on Sunday. The Republican National Committee said it expected to raise $18 million, which would be shared by Trumps campaign, the committee and several state GOP committees. Trump and Republicans raised $210 million in August, a robust sum but far behind the record $364.5 million taken in by Biden and his party that month. ___APs Advance Voting guide brings you the facts about voting early, by mail or absentee from each state: https://interactives.ap.org/advance-voting-2020/

###CLAIM: any of st. louis, st. louis, milwaukee or san francisco or the giants would have eliminated the nats had the game gone to the final and two different parts of bryce 's home been muslim. ###DOCS: When the music started and the clapping of the arms soon followed and filled Nationals Park with a kind of chaotic, infectious energy, manager Dave Martinez looked at Josh Harrison, Josh Bell and the other newcomers on the team who hadnt experienced such a scene before. As Gerardo Parra walked to the plate as a Nationals player for the first time since Game 5 of the 2019 World Series, thats when Baby Shark began playing from the speakers. And with a Mets mound visit, the song kept playing and playing with the crowd continuing to clap their jaw-arms together. You shouldve saw their faces, Martinez said. They were laughing, they were excited about it.To Patrick Corbin, who had exited the game by that point, there was a distinct feeling of 2019 to it all, with the song blaring and the fans joining in and winning the game, most of all. But then again, the past week and a half has reminded somewhat of 2019, with a slow start giving way to the beginnings of a midsummer surge. Washington is still five games back of the New York Mets in the National League East, but the team suddenly showed signs of clicking. With eight wins in 11 games of a homestand, including taking three of four from the Mets, the Nationals have propelled themselves into the divisional mix again, with another key two-game series beginning Tuesday against the Philadelphia Phillies before visiting the Miami Marlins. To go on that run, the team has needed a prolonged stretch of timely hitting and standout pitching and perhaps a dose of Baby Shark to meld together into eight wins in their last 10 games. The boys, theyre starting to play well, theyre starting to swing the bats well, Martinez said. Were getting some consistency now and everything. Its been a lot of fun. I mean, this week has been a lot of fun, so lets keep it going.When the homestand began June 11 against the San Francisco Giants, Max Scherzer exited the game with groin inflammation after just 12 pitches. The Nationals went on to lose 1-0, with their hitting stuck in the mire theyve often faced to begin the season. That loss, and another the next day in a doubleheader, put Washington 8 1/2 games back of the division lead the largest gap of the season so far. But in the past 10 games, the Nationals showed a different self. Walks had been a major issue for their pitching staff, but since June 12, their 5.3% walk rate is the lowest in the majors. Theyve allowed two runs or fewer in nine of the last 10 games, with an MLB-best 0.90 WHIP over that span. And with Kyle Schwarbers nine home runs over the homestand leading the way, the offense has shown just enough life to back up the strong pitching. Washington has hit .277 over that stretch of 10 games, the sixth-highest average in the majors, with an .814 on-base-plus-slugging percentage. Obviously, we wish we started the season a little better, but I think were in a good spot right now, Corbin said. Like I said, theres a lot of games left, and Im excited where were at. I think from top to bottom, were a strong team. And I think were only going to continue to get better.In 2019, the Nationals started the season 19-31 before going 74-38 the rest of the way, earning a Wild Card spot and winning the World Series. The 2021 version of the Nationals sat at 21-29 at the 50-game mark, and the team is still three games under .500 despite its recent surge. Still, when Schwarber learned of the interest Washington had in him this summer, he jumped at the chance partly because he believed in the rosters capabilities come October. The Nationals are a long way off from that, but the play the last week and a half breeds confidence. This is why I wanted to come here, because I knew that this was a great team, and I knew I just wanted to go out there and help them win ball games, Schwarber said. You see it on paper. It looks unbelievable. And you saw the highlights of it spring training. And now that things are starting to get mushed together and guys are going to start getting healthy, were going to see what we can keep doing.Baseball is a game of averages. The hot streak over the past 10 games could go cold and even out fairly quickly, and this could be a blip before a late-July trade deadline selloff for a team that proves out of contention. Or things could go another way. Thats part of the reason why Martinez laughed while sitting in the dugout Sunday, bemoaning the off day Monday he didnt want any interruption to the way his team was rolling. But theres a feeling in the air and a sickeningly catchy tune in the eardrums signaling that a turnaround is possible. Parras influence over Sundays proceedings, with his pinch-hit double and crowd-pumping walk-up song, are just one factor for a team hitting an upswing. Start believing in everybody right now, Parra said, because we have a great team. And were close. Andy Kostka can be reached at akostka@washingtontimes.com. Comment on this story Comment Gift Article ShareWe dont yet know what the 2021 Washington Nationals will become, which, long before the Fourth of July, is just fine. We know what they are in the moment: interesting. Two weeks ago, that wasnt guaranteed. Which raises the question: Will they remain that way for two more weeks or two more months? Doesnt yet matter. What the Nats just-concluded 8-3 homestand provided is what you want from your baseball team as summer begins: a reason to tune in. Step back from this season and view it wide-angle: For the Nats, that has been true for nine of the past 10 summers a period that dates back to the initial run to the postseason in 2012 and includes every season but last years miserable, pandemic-shortened campaign. Now here they are again, not necessarily thriving but surviving. June is a foolish time to make conclusions, and even with seven wins in eight games, these Nats are still three games below .500. But if youre feeling optimistic, heres a primary reason: This team is built on the right arms of Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg, and neither Max Scherzer nor Stephen Strasburg contributed to this run. AdvertisementSince June 5, Scherzer has pitched just a third of an inning though he may come off the injured list as soon as Tuesday night in Philadelphia, and he has pledged that the groin strain that sent him there was minor, not major. Strasburg has pitched just 2123 innings all year and 2623 innings since winning the World Series MVP award and signing a seven-year, $245 million deal. It says here, and has said here for years, that in order for the Nats to be the best versions of themselves, Scherzer and Strasburg must be something resembling the best versions of themselves. Which is why there is room for encouragement in this recent run. If the Nats can win without their best two pitchers, what might they do with them? In his past eight starts, Scherzer has a 1.71 ERA and a .163 batting average against; theres no reason to believe he wont pick right back up again. Strasburg, out with a nerve issue in his neck, is now throwing from 75 to 90 feet on flat ground, but he hasnt returned to the mound. His status is more complicated and less predictable. In any case, here are the Nats runs allowed in each game of this homestand, which began the night Scherzer lasted just 12 pitches before coming out with that tweaked groin: 1, 0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 1, 0, 5, 2, 2. Forget ERA. Thats just 1.45 runs allowed per game. (Looking at it that way, its kind of remarkable they only won eight times.) AdvertisementThats Washingtons goal under Mike Rizzo: Win with starting pitching. That the starting pitchers who have led them back into the race arent Scherzer and Strasburg and instead have included junk-balling Paolo Espino as well as resurgences from Erick Fedde and Joe Ross doesnt matter at the moment. What matters is staying afloat until the horses are healthy again. Which is why griping about the offense isnt worth it. In 2019, the year the Nats went on to win the whole thing, they ranked second in the National League in on-base-plus-slugging percentage and runs. Hoping that offense will return? It cant, and it wont. That team had an in-his-prime Anthony Rendon and a reborn Howie Kendrick. Starlin Castro and Josh Harrison wont produce at that level. So get used to a flawed offense producing flawed results. Kyle Schwarber isnt always going to hit five homers in two games as he did over the weekend against the Mets. Only Fernando Tatis Jr. and Ronald Acuna Jr. have more homers in the National League, and thats likely to be a pattern for Washingtons offense one or two guys getting hot for a period, enough to support superior pitching. AdvertisementThe best hope for the offense lies not, then, in waiting for all cylinders to click. It lies in one cylinder being itself: Juan Soto. When the Nats dreamed of what the best version of their lineup could be, it didnt include Schwarber and fellow reclamation project Josh Bell with more homers than Sotos eight. It also didnt include a reality in which Ryan Zimmerman has 96 fewer plate appearances than Soto but more extra-base hits 15 for Zimmerman to 14 for Soto. Yet here we are. Soto doesnt have to slug as he did last year, when he led all of baseball at .695 and had as many extra-base hits as he did singles 27 apiece. But right now, his slugging percentage is .432. His career mark coming into this year was a full 125 points higher. If the player around which the lineup should revolve gets back not to last years absurd numbers but just to what his career has been, then the lineup becomes more dynamic. (A small aside: Victor Robless next 2021 homer will be his first. Two summers ago, he hit 17. Sotos star has streaked past Robless, but the center fielder should feel free to develop his offensive skills or even revert to what he was when he was 22.) Whatever the month-and-change before the trade deadline brings, theres an argument that the long-term health of the franchise would be helped by a losing season this summer. Thats hard to endure not to mention hard to watch in the moment. But whatever happens at the major league level, the truth is that the minor league system needs restocking. Some of that will happen in next months draft, when the Nats select 11th their highest first-round pick since 2011, when they took Rendon sixth. AdvertisementThis could all make for an existential question for Rizzo and his front office in a month or so. Constantly going for it takes its toll on the depth of a farm system, which is a reason the Nats are thin. But how could you look at the players in your clubhouse who overcame a covid-related 1-5 start and injuries to Soto, Scherzer and Strasburg and tell them youre not going for it? If Manager Dave Martinezs Go 1-0 today mantra was followed and it paid off the reward for the roster should be adding in an attempt to reach the postseason. About Martinez: Ill admit that his relentlessly positive Believe me, itll turn around message during slow starts occasionally rings unrealistic and out of touch to me. But damned if it doesnt work. Martinez has navigated his bullpen through injuries to Will Harris and Daniel Hudson and ineffective stretches from Brad Hand and Tanner Rainey, and that group allowed three earned runs in 32 innings during the homestand. As important: In tenor and substance, Martinez seems to have the right mix of patience and faith needed with such a veteran group. So, then off to Philadelphia, the start of seven more games against the NL East. In a week, well have more evidence about what the 2021 Nationals will ultimately become. What they are to this point with Scherzer about to return, and Strasburg presumably doing so at some point are relevant and intriguing. That has been the norm around here for a decade. Dont take it for granted. Read more about the Nationals:GiftOutline Gift Article

###CLAIM: at the first review meeting, economic and city minister john glen said technology playing a role in the recovery of the u. k. economy had played a vital role in emphasising the need to create an inclusive financial services ecosystem that will lead the world in sustainable growth. ###DOCS: A woman walks past a shop with closing down sales signs, in west London. (AP Photo/Lefteris ... [+] Pitarakis) ASSOCIATED PRESSHalf of U.K. adults with debts have mental health issues and one in four people with a mental health problem are also in debt. The relationship is cyclical and much of it boils down to a sense of feeling in control of your money, of being financially resilient and capable. According to Martin Lewis Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, and numerous studies, the links between mental and financial health have become increasingly apparent in recent years. The pandemic, with its impact on the way that we work and live, has emphasized just how interwoven mental and financial wellbeing are for all of us. The U.K.s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced that financial resilience is at an all-time low with 12 million households now having low financial resilience. This is an increase of 20 percent since February and leaving millions having trouble withstanding financial knockbacks or a sudden loss of income. According to new research from Asto, the business finance and bookkeeping platform by Santander, the links between mental and financial health are present in the U.K.s small and medium size enterprise (SME) business community. For small business owners, sole traders, and freelancers, issues around liquidity and cash flow concerns leave many struggling. Over two thirds do not feel in control of their money, with a third specifically saying that they feel anxious and stressed when it comes to their business finances. Furthermore, when they face financial pressures, over half feel stressed or uncertain, compared to just 11 percent who feel optimistic. Perhaps this is no surprise given the impact of the pandemic on the global economy, with small businesses feeling the impact of business interruption the hardest. Research from MarketFinance, found that most small business owners believe they will not survive into 2021, with only a quarter believing they will make it, a shocking statistic. Late payments, low savings, and poor cash flow are their main concerns - with the data showing almost half of the businesses surveyed are still waiting to be paid for work completed in first lockdown, and almost half are withholding payments to suppliers themselves because of cash flow fears. Nucleus Commercial Finance has revealed that almost a quarter of U.K. SMEs have little to no savings, rising to almost half of sole traders surveyed. Their survey suggests that the businesses with savings have spent around 72,000 on average to stay afloat already, with this increasing to 149,101 in medium size businesses. They suggest that SMEs will need to spend the same again, at minimum, in order to make it back to pre-Covid levels of business. Fears of future economic shocks are understandable. Astos Cash Flow Revolution report makes the connection between issues such as cash flow and late payments with the wellbeing of business owners noting that over half of business owners define good financial health as feeling in control of their finances. Control is more important to business owners surveyed than turning a profit or paying their salaries. The report also notes that the level to which freelancers and business owners embrace technology is a key factor in their confidence and sense of control. Astos findings demonstrate that British businesses are increasingly open to using fintech to support their business needs. Four in five running a small business now say they would use digital tools, including fintech apps, digital banks, accounting software and alternative finance. This is driven by the desire for financial control in the wake of Covid-19, with most of the small number of business owners who already use digital tools saying its because they make them feel in control or organised. Business owners say the key reasons for adopting fintech tools are things like having greater visibility of their cash flow and the time-saving features around automated invoicing, accounting and financial admin. These are simple features that are just the tip of the innovation that fintech can deliver to businesses, however there is much work to be done to address this demand by the fintech sector. Over half of the U.K. SMEs surveyed told Asto that they find the information shared by banks and fintechs confusing. Less than two in five said they felt confident about where to find or how to choose the right fintech tools for their business, leaving 62 percent unsure of where even to start their search these statistics echo the SME lending market years ago, prior to the U.K.s fintech revolution. The UK Fintech Review and the path to mainstream adoptionOverall, it is a concerning set of statistics, pointing out a considerable, untapped opportunity for those working in digital financial services. It is also particularly pertinent in light of the U.K. Fintech Review, re-launched in July and led by Ron Kalifa. The review was set up to examine what is necessary to increase mainstream adoption of technology solutions and enhance the resilience of the UK fintech sector. It focuses on the themes of skills and talent, investment, national connectivity, policy, and international attractiveness. And following Covid-19, which has caused exponential awareness and change in the adoption of digital financial services, it comes at a pivotal moment in the UKs pandemic response. At the reviews first meeting of the governance board, John Glen, economic secretary to the Treasury and City minister, said that technology has a vital role to play in the U.K.s COVID-19 economic recovery, emphasising the need to create a financial services ecosystem that is sustainable, inclusive and world-leading. With this spirit in mind, it seems wise that those taking part in the Review should pay attention to the growing data around the links between the liquidity of SMEs, promotion of fintech, and money and mental health. After all, these factors are arguably crucial to the very concept of resilience. At the heart of the review is the ambition to deliver government and private sector policy to further incentivize and drive mainstream adoption of fintech. Its fair to say that you cant get more mainstream than the U.K.s SME community. The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) estimates that there were almost six million small businesses in the U.K. at the start of 2020, accounting for three fifths of employment (nearly 17 million jobs) and around half of turnover in the U.K. private sector. SME businesses are now open to fintech adoption in a way that hasnt been seen before. They want the insight and ease, the speed and innovation, provided by digital banks, automated accounting, digital currencies and alternative finance. Joanna Morris, head of insight at Hitachi Capital Business Finance, commented, The pressure for businesses to embrace technology continues to mount, as those that have already reaped the benefits of their competitive advantage. The case for investing in a business tech agility has never been stronger.Nicolette Maury, CEO of Asto, concurs, having seen the impact that the right technology can have on SMEs from her time at eBay, Intuit and now Asto. She notes the vital role that digital financial tools can - and must - play in the future for the small business sector, pointing out that recovery is about long-term strategy and investment, looking beyond the immediate crisis and into the future. Maury says, There is currently a lot of short-term support to help business owners, provided both by the government and initiatives from banks and fintechs, but what we need next is more innovation and investment in technology that can truly support the people running businesses in the U.K. in the long-term. Fintech companies and banks can lead in this, providing digital-first solutions to the biggest challenges that business owners face and helping foster a sustainable ecosystem of digital tools, communities and access to finance. This level of innovation can help ensure that British businesses continue to run and grow and that the business community as a whole can thrive.CBILS and BBLS have slowed down the fintech sectorThe short-term support, of course, refers to schemes like the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans (CBILs) and Bounce Back Loans (BBLs) that have been lifelines to many SMEs across the UK. Fintech providers like Starling Bank, OakNorth, and Funding Circle have become well-known names amongst many thanks to their position as CBILs and BBLs lenders. In some instances, these schemes may also be the first introduction that some small business owners and sole traders have to digital financial tools. Their subsequent inclusion has had wider ramifications for the fintech industry in terms of their reputation and potential harm. The schemes have also choked the alternative finance space. Herrling adds, Many of the fintechs, particularly the challenger banks, have been sidelined by this entire thing. If you werent accredited and were therefore unable to provide funding, then your customers werent eligible for bank funding. Weve seen on the Funding Xchange platform an increase in customers coming from challenger banks looking for a loan. Before the crisis, it was about 15 percent of customers and now its upwards of 40 percent. Thats because the large banks are accredited, so if you werent banking with the main banks then you largely didnt have access to BBLs. The damage that this is doing to the reputation of some of the fintechs is not insignificant. Its ensured that SMEs are much better off being with one of the traditional high street banks.Since the announcement of the second national lockdown, 84 percent of businesses have said they will be applying for CBILS loans. Anil Stocker, chief executive officer of MarketFinance, adds, The stop-start government announcements on lockdowns havent helped U.K. businesses, however, they continue to fight on and will, naturally, require more funds to bolster them through a tricky winter period. Looking ahead, ultimately, it will be the private sector which will enable the Chancellor to get the countrys finances back under control, so business leaders will be looking for some pro-growth, pro-enterprise stimulus measures in time to come.Meaningful engagement and the path to economic growth with fintechOne could argue that some issues that have historically held fintech lenders back, such as a lack of access to cheap funding, are now being scrutinised. A fresh flag has been raised over market competition, with the all-party parliamentary group for challenger banks and building societies recently concluding that it is time to break up the big high street banks. It is also fair to say that the pandemic has made more U.K. SMEs aware of the benefits of digital tools, though many may not have been able to access or benefit from them because of the nature of the government backed loans, however, while alternative lending may have been stifled, or even choked by the CBILs and BBLs schemes, some trends, like Open Finance, have been accelerated exponentially. Weve seen a leap frog in terms of Open Banking, says Herrling Lenders are now mandating access to open banking data and businesses are agreeing to share that data in order to gain funding. The pandemic has overcome a huge amount of hesitancy and we are now beginning to see the value-add services becoming feasible. In the long-term the potential there is humongous.A final essential trend that has accelerated fintech is that freelancers and small business owners are engaging with their finances in a more meaningful way. Small business lenders and fintechs can easily see how customers have a growing desire for more robust solutions and skills to better run their finances. The challenge now is to harness this proactive interest in, and desire for, digital solutions. As Maury says, Business owners, freelancers and sole traders are the backbone of British industry, and they need help now more than ever, particularly when it comes to digital tools that fully address the needs of the business community. Digital tools are key to supporting the U.K.s entrepreneurial zeal and international competitiveness.The U.K. Fintech Review is an important and timely piece of work. But if the insights from fintech lenders like Asto, MarketFinance and Funding Xchange indicate anything, it is that, to encourage mainstream adoption of fintech and bolster business resilience, we must collectively assess the holistic needs of SMEs, including their relationship with their money. We must unsure we better understand the interaction between financial and mental health and how we can better and more responsibly drive the adoption of fintech and digital finance to ensure a greater resilience of British industry. COVID-19 has put many British business on life support systems, Brexit could finish them off. Fintech is a game changer for U.K. SMEs and can play a greater and more significant role in the acceleration of the country's economic success. The U.K. Fintech Review is a call to action for the government to activate fintech to help save U.K. SMEs and drive the post-COVID-19 and Brexit recovery. Fintech offers many opportunities to help British SMEs sustain themselves in the short-term while laying the foundations to go on and successfully create longer term economic growth and prosperity, but will require more than a nudge from the government. Next to the expansion of the Bank of England's balance sheet, and right sizing financial services regulation for crypto and digital assets and sustainable finance and investment, fintech is one of the few tools in the government's limited arsenal that can make a difference to SMEs, now.

###CLAIM: johnson and johnson ( j&j) has suspended efforts to develop a vaccine against aids, meaning another leading player has hit a common snag in the vaccine race. ###DOCS: Vaccine trials and public confidence stall Presented by The Pharmaceutical Care Management AssociationWith Zachary Brennan, David Lim, Adam Cancryn, Susannah Luthi and Dan GoldbergOn Tap Another vaccine trial paused, meanwhile public confidence still low. FDA resists rebranding vaccine authorizations after HHS pressure. In antibody land, there's also a trial pause and a CEO with a reality check. Its Wednesday, welcome back to Prescription Pulse. As always, send pharma tips and news to [email protected] or @owermohle. Loop in David Lim ([email protected] or @davidalim) and Zachary Brennan ([email protected] or @ZacharyBrennan)! LETS TALK ABOUT INEQUALITIES IN HEALTH CARE: Were hosting an Oct. 29 virtual town hall on the policies and public health solutions needed to solve racial inequalities in the U.S. health care system and we want your stories to help shape that conversation. Submit a 45-second video sharing your thoughts and we may feature it in our town hall and invite you to join our private Zoom discussion afterward to continue the conversation. CoronavirusJ&J PAUSES VAX TRIAL, DISCUSSES CONFIDENCE Johnson & Johnsons paused coronavirus vaccine trial means another frontrunner has hit a (common) snag in the vaccine race. Vaccines are hard: AstraZeneca once seen as the leader of the race paused its own vaccine trials in early September, and U.S. studies have not yet picked up again. J&J announced its temporary pause late Monday because of an unexplained illness in a study participant. In both cases, executives stressed that these things happen in clinical trials its one main reason you dont set hard timelines, especially when shots are already being developed at record speed. We know very little information right now, Mathai Mammen, Global R&D head for J&Js Janssen, said on the companys earnings call, adding that the independent data safety monitoring board is still reviewing the incident and asking questions. It'll be a few days at minimum for the right set of information to be gathered and evaluated.That includes key information such as details of the illness, its severity and whether the adverse event happened in the vaccine or placebo arm. Mammen later said that the companys overall plan is to complete recruitment of 60,000 trial volunteers in two to three months and that is still on track. The presidents suggestions that there could be a vaccine before Election Day havent moved the needle: 68 percent of voters want shots fully tested, and 35 percent believe that it will be at least six months before vaccines are available in the U.S. Voters still trust Joe Biden more on vaccines, with 47 percent preferring the Democratic presidential candidate to oversee vaccine development, testing and launch versus 36 percent who prefer Trump. ...but trust Anthony Fauci most. Forty-seven percent of respondents are more likely to get a vaccine if he suggests doing so. Democrats and independents trust him the most among a range of politicians, health leaders, agencies and organizations. Republicans put him roughly on par with Trump for trust levels. Still, 20 percent of Republicans say the president is pressuring the FDA. FDA RESISTS BID TO REBRAND A COVID VACCINE AUTHORIZATION FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn hasrejected Trump administration efforts to label emergency authorization of a Covid-19 vaccine a pre-licensure, over fears it would appear his agency is politicizing its scientific determinations, POLITICOs Adam Cancryn reports. Hahns resistance to the change has frustrated HHS officials who contend the agency is already holding coronavirus vaccines to a far higher standard than normal for an emergency authorization. Its also complicated efforts to fulfill the administration guarantee that a vaccine will be free for all Americans. HHS has pitched the rebrand as a simple way to plug a coverage loophole. Congress earlier this year mandated that Medicare cover the cost of administering a licensed vaccine to millions of Americans but the language didnt include those authorized under emergency-use designations. HHS lawyers argue that labeling a Covid-19 vaccine authorization as equal to "pre-licensure" would fix that problem. But Hahn remains firmly opposed. The FDA chief has refused to tinker with the agencys terminology, amid concerns that failing to stick to the technical language would erode credibility and open the FDA up to accusations that its allowing politics to influence its role in the vaccine hunt. Of particular concern: That referring to a Covid-19 vaccine as winning pre-licensure would be swiftly conflated with it being fully licensed by the FDA sparking confusion and deepening distrust of the vaccine process. The episode fits with an emerging pattern for Hahn. Since taking intense heat for the FDAs role in separate controversies surrounding hydroxychloroquine and convalescent plasma, Hahn has aligned himself closely with the agencys career scientists and sought to steer the agency well clear of situations that could raise questions about the FDAs independence. PFIZER EXPANDS VAX TRIAL AGAIN The companywill enroll teens and children as young as 12 years old, it announced Monday. Pfizer will be the first vaccine maker with trials in the U.S. to include people under 16, though it didnt say how many. But it also raises questions about whether the expansion could push back the company's timeline. Last month Pfizer expanded from 30,000 to 44,000 patients, even as CEO Albert Bourla has said it could have answers on whether its shot works in October. FDA recently released updated guidance stating that vaccine makers need to follow half their trial patients for two months before filing for emergency use. It still isnt clear whether Pfizer could still submit based on 15,000 people, or would need to track 22,000 and now even more to file. SAFETY BOARD PAUSES LILLY ANTIBODY TRIAL A NIAID-sponsored clinical trial testing a coronavirus antibody treatment from Eli Lilly has stopped enrolling volunteers over safety concerns just days after the company asked the FDA to approve emergency use of the treatment. The late-stage study is examining whether Lilly's monoclonal antibody, known as bamlanivimab, could help hospitalized patients. A Lilly spokesperson said the company supports the independent data safety monitoring boards work to cautiously ensure the safety of the patients participating in this study. The company is seeking authorization to use the antibody treatment on high-risk patients recently diagnosed with mild-to-moderate Covid-19. REGENERON CEO: TRUMP A CASE OF ONE Regeneron chief executive Leonard Schleifer on Sunday said President Donald Trump's treatment with the company's experimental antibody cocktail is a case of one and far from what is needed to declare efficacy. "The president's case is a case of one, and that's what we call a case report, and it is evidence of what's happening, but it's kind of the weakest evidence that you can get," Schleifer said in an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation." Trump declared the antibody a cure that would be available for every American who needed it. ROCKEFELLER ROLLS OUT SCHOOL TESTING PAPER The Rockefeller Foundation on Wednesday released a strategy that schools can useto implement coronavirus testing programs to lower the risk of transmission in their communities. The group cautioned more false positives will occur in areas of low transmission and suggested schools either use a high-accuracy test to confirm presumptive cases from lower accuracy tests or consider not returning individual results. The cost of managing the false positives is not that high, you can sort them out pretty quickly, said Mark McClellan, a former FDA Commissioner under George W. Bush. That cost may be relatively low compared to what you gain: for every true positive that you pick up, that is a potential outbreak headed off significantly sooner than would have been the case.MEDICAL DEVICESHHS, DOD INVEST $481M INTO CUE HEALTH The funding will be used to help Cue expand its manufacturing capacity for a 20 minute point-of-care coronavirus test to 100,000 per day by March 2021, HHS announced Tuesday. ACCESS BIO GETS EUA FOR ANTIGEN TEST Access Bio announced Tuesday it received emergency authorization from FDA for a new 10 minute point-of-care coronavirus antigen test. Reeve Benaron, CEO of test distributor Intrivo Diagnostics, said the antigen test will cost less than $20. Ten million units will be manufactured in November, and a new manufacturing facility in New Jersey is set to ramp up production by early 2021. ROCHE LAYS OUT ANTIGEN TEST PLANS Roche announced Tuesday it plans to file for emergency authorization of an coronavirus antigen test, but the timing for the application remains unclear. The diagnostics company said it plans to make the test available at the end of 2020 in markets that accept a CE mark such as countries in the European Union. Coming Up in PharmaFRIDAY: Johns Hopkins University hosts NIAID Director Anthony Fauci for a fireside chat during the universitys Health Policy Forum. Drug PricingDEMS URGE PRICE CHECK ON DRUG CARDS Democratic lawmakerscalled on government auditors to review the Trump administration's hastily devised plan to award drug-discount cards to seniors citing aPOLITICO report and warned that the program could be an election-linked gambit and violate federal law. The Democrats also asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether the proposed $7.9 billion plan appropriately taps the Medicare trust fund. Research CornerCROWDFUNDING FOR A RIGHT TO TRY? STUDY FINDS LACKLUSTER RESULTS The limited success of crowdfunding campaigns to raise money to help access investigational drugs via the Right-to-Try pathway shows that the pathway is not a practical alternative to the FDAs expanded access program, according to a study published Monday in Regenerative Medicine. Of the 26 campaigns referencing the FDA-administered expanded access program, 21 received approval as individuals sought to raise money for expensive therapies, including a $700,000 experimental treatment for ALS. But just one of 14 campaigns seeking a specific treatment via Right-to-Try clearly indicated that the patient obtained access. The study applied ratings of therapeutic value published by health authorities in four countries (Canada, France, Germany, and Italy) and an independent non-profit organization (Prescrire). Although expedited drugs were more likely than non-expedited drugs to be highly rated, most expedited drugs approved by the FDA but not the EMA were rated as having low therapeutic value, the authors found. They also said the studys findings suggest a widening of the gap between regulatory approvals and clinical and public health priorities. Pharma in the StatesMALLINCKRODT BANKRUPTCY HAS OPIOID IMPLICATIONS The company filed for bankruptcy protection for itself and all its U.S. subsidiaries on Monday, noting a tentative $1.6 billion deal to resolve the multi-billion dollar legal complaints tied to the mass litigation effort against the drug industry for its alleged role in fueling the opioid epidemics, SusannahLuthi writes. Under the proposed framework to shed the opioid claims, the company would pay out the first $450 million when it emerges from bankruptcy. State leaders were quick to praise the move, reports Dan Goldberg. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said that by moving up the first settlement payment, the new settlement provides reces more quickly to the drug epidemic. Minnesotas Attorney General Keith Ellison said that while no amount of money can repay the costs of the opioid epidemic, this settlement at least begins to hold manufacturers and distributors accountable. Im especially pleased that weve won the public disclosure of millions of documents that will show how MNK misled the public about opioids and failed to stop suspicious opioid orders, he said. Texas AG Ken Paxton called it a significant step toward helping people suffering from addiction, and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said this will go a long way toward ending the irresponsibly business practices that have devastated countless lives.Quick Hits Moderna Chief Medical Officer Tal Zaks has made weekly stock sales through pre-scheduled trades, racking up $50 million since the pandemic started, Stat News Damian Garde and Adam Feuerstein report. Document DrawerFDA on Tuesday issued final guidance aimed at granting flexibility to manufacturers of flu and respiratory syncytial virus tests to allow modifications to the allowable type of swabs and transport media. More than 65 law, medical and business professors are calling on an appeals court to revisit a challenge to AbbVies patents around its blockbuster biologic Humira that effectively restricted U.S. biosimilar competition. Follow us on Twitter David Lim @davidalimLauren Gardner @Gardner_LMKatherine Ellen Foley @katherineefoley

###CLAIM: officials from the church of england have admitted that shutting down wedding and funeral churches and banning them would cost at least 100 million dollars. ###DOCS: AdvertisementA black gay clergyman forced to apologise after calling the clap for Captain Sir Tom Moore a 'cult of white British nationalism' is now being investigated by the Church of England and is a hostile anti-Tory who has repeatedly called Boris Johnson and Priti Patel 'oppressors', MailOnline can reveal today. The Reverend Jarel Robinson-Brown, 29, has deleted his offensive tweet dismissing the 33million raised for the NHS by the 100-year-old hero, whose efforts were praised by all political leaders and the Archbishop of Canterbury after he died this week. The London-born trainee vicar, who was brought up by his Jamaican grandmother, responded to the veteran's death with coronavirus by writing: 'The cult of Captain Tom is a cult of White British Nationalism. I will offer prayers for the repose of his kind and generous soul, but I will not be joining the 'National Clap'.' The Diocese of London has called his message 'unacceptable, insensitive, and ill-judged' and revealed a review of his posts is 'now underway, led by the Archdeacon of London' saying his apology 'does not undo the hurt he has caused'. Mr Robinson-Brown has since deleted his Twitter account. A petition signed by 7,000 people is demanding the Bishop of London takes away his prestigious curate role at the oldest church in the City of London, the 675 AD All Hallows By the Tower, where the 12th century altar was donated by Richard the Lionheart and Samuel Pepys watched the Great Fire of London rage from its spire in 1666. And as the Diocese of London launched a probe into his social media activity, MailOnline can reveal Rev Robinson-Brown's Twitter feed is packed with political tweets slamming Boris Johnson and his Government and incendiary comments on a number of other issues. The cleric has repeatedly accused the Prime Minister of 'talking nonsense', branded Mr Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel 'oppressors' during lockdown and replying to one tweet asking for a 'sad story in three words' he replied: 'Boris wins majority'. In a message criticising Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng for defending the British Empire, the cleric called him 'Kwasia' - Ghanaian for dumb - and accused him of 'speaking colomental claptrap' in an article about Brexit. When asked what BLM would think of Mr Kwarteng he said: 'Nothing good'. In another rant Reverend Jarel Robinson-Brown, a prominent gay activist and author of the book Black Gay British Christian Queer, blasted 'ignorant White Christian men' as the debate rages over LGBTQ+ rights in the CofE. The scandal came at a time of acute crisis for the Church of England, caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The scale of deaths and illness as well as the shutdown of churches is expected to cause congregations dwindle while the ban on services, weddings and funerals is estimated have cost the Church of England at least 100 million. Many vicars have been furious about the Government's decision to close churches at a time when their communities needed them most with one report claiming a fifth of regulars may now never return. In another rant Reverend Jarel Robinson-Brown, a prominent black and gay activist, blasted 'ignorant White Christian men''Woke' cleric has job at ancient church where Samuel Pepys watched the Great Fire of London in 1666 Reverend Jarel Robinson-Brown has just landed a role as curate at the oldest church in the City of London But after his outburst about Captain Tom, there is growing pressure on the Bishop of London to remove him from the prestigious role at the All Hallows By the Tower. He was appointed to the post by the Right Reverend Sarah Mullally, the first female Bishop of London, last month. A curate is a paid role where trainee priest acts as a assistant to a vicar, rector, or parish priest. Founded in 675 AD, the church is mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086 and the altar stone was brought back to Britain from Israel during the crusades by King Richard I, best known as Richard the Lionheart. Civil War King Edward IV made it royal chapel and because of its proximity to the Tower of London, people beheaded there were sent for temporary burial at All Hallows. It survived the Great Fire of London in 1666 when Samuel Pepys is claimed to have climbed the church's spire to watch the progress of the blaze, which he called the 'the saddest sight of desolation'. The 7th Century church, right next to the Tower of London, has built a liberal reputation in recent years. In 2007 there was a scandal when it emerged the then Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams kept the details of a communion service for gay clergy so secret that he failed to inform the then Bishop of London Right Rev Richard Chartres it was taking place in his diocese. It reignited the row that is causing divisions within the Anglican Church after agreeing to hold a Eucharist for homosexual, lesbian, bisexual and transgender clergy. Details of the service, attended by around 100 people, emerged months later, with the Archbishop said to have spoken openly about the future for gay people in the church. AdvertisementBorn in West London in 1991 and raised by his Jamaican grandmother, the former Methodist minister in Cardiff and chaplain at King's College London converted to Anglicanism and is now training to become a priest in the Church of England. Nigel Farage is calling for him to face more severe censure. Sharing the Captain Tom tweet, the former Ukip leader directed a message to the Archbishop of Canterbury and said: 'These appalling comments attacking the Clap for Captain Tom as 'white nationalism' shows why the Church of England is collapsing. Time to show some leadership @JustinWelby'. A spokesman for the Diocese of London said: Jarel Robinson-Brown's comments regarding Captain Sir Tom Moore were unacceptable, insensitive, and ill-judged. The fact that he immediately removed his tweet and subsequently apologised does not undo the hurt he has caused, not least to Captain Tom's family. Nor do Jarel's actions justify the racist abuse he is now receiving. 'A review is now underway, led by the Archdeacon of London. As a Church, we expect clergy to ensure that all online activity is in line with the Church of England's social media guidelines and built on truth, kindness and sensitivity to others. It is incumbent upon all of us to make social media and the web more widely positive places for conversations to happen'. The shutdown of churches and the ban on church weddings and funerals cost the Church of England at least 100 million, Church officials have admitted. And the Covid losses for the Anglicans may have been much higher. Highly placed sources have suggested the Church dropped 150million in donations alone during the months when collection plates went unused and fees for special services such as weddings, funerals and christenings dried up. The losses have plunged the Church into a financial crisis and prompted plans for sweeping money-saving reforms. Among those discussed by its leaders have been a cut in the number of CofE bishops from more than 100 to as few as 10, and a redrawing of the boundaries of Englands 12,500 parishes that would reduce their number to around 9,000. An internal report has raised questions over the 'sustainability' of many local churches and a financial subsidy given to 5,000 loss-making parishes out of a total of 12,000. The report, revealed by The Sunday Times, warned up to 20 per cent of regular worshippers may never return and dioceses are trying to 'prune' the number of staff. Sources said the number of paid priests could be cut by 10 to 20 per cent, as Archbishop Stephen Cottrell prepares to announce a transformation programme. He is set to reveal on February 25 how the CofE can attract a younger and more ethnically diverse flock, and be a 'Jesus-shaped church' focused on the wider world. However there are concerns among some traditionalists that the Archbishop is 'cashing in on the coronavirus' amid concerns for the network of 16,000 churches. It is claimed there will be a management system imposed on parishes which will see assets such as vicarages sold and retained clergy given larger areas to run. Bishop of London launches probe into woke warrior clergyman Jarel Robinson-Brown who called Clap for Capt Tom a 'white British nationalist cult' as thousands sign petition to remove him and it emerges he called PM an 'oppressor' and blasted 'ignorant' white Christian men. There is now pressure for her to revoke it after the Twitter scandal. His new vicar, the Reverend Katherine Hedderly, greeted his appointment as a curate last weekend by saying her congregation were 'delighted'Part of the strategy is to attract more young BAME people like Mr Robinson-Brown. Who is firebrand cleric Jarel Robinson-Brown? Jarel Robinson-Brown was born in West London in 1991 and raised by his Jamaican grandmother. He currently lives in Putney. He rained for ordination at Wesley House, Cambridge, and served as a Methodist Minister in Cardiff and later in south-east London. In 2019 he converted and entered the Church of England in 2020. He is training to be a priest in the Diocese of London, taking on a curate role in the City of London. Prior to full-time ministry he studied classical music as a pianist and organist at the London College of Music, and privately in Paris, according to his biography. He has interests in 'Liberation Theology and 'Queer Theology' and has written the book Black Gay British Christian Queer, which he said was aimed at his 'younger self'. Before deleting his social media he said 'in his spare time he is often found on Twitter, walking his Jack Russell Terrier, writing, watching James Baldwin videos on Youtube, listening to Daniel Caesar, Lauryn Hill, or Nonames Telefone Album (again), or enjoying a nice glass (or two!) of wine somewhere in London'. AdvertisementHe has said he is 'passionate about issues of justice, particularly in the areas of race and sexuality' and has 'an interest in gender, desire and ethnicity in Late Antique Egypt', alongside 'liberation theology' and 'queer theology'. The cleric, newly appointed to a prestigious post by the Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Sarah Mullally, sparked the row after saying he would not join Wednesday night's national clap to mark the passing of Captain Tom. Hundreds of thousands of Britons across the nation took to their doorsteps yesterday evening to pay tribute to Sir Captain Moore after he died of coronavirus yesterday. The intervention by the 29-year-old black and gay activist appeared to undermine the Church of England and its handling of the Covid crisis at a time when its leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Justin Welby, have been facing criticism for their willingness to close churches. The Archbishop marked Captain Tom's death by saying he was 'an inspiration to millions'. Mr Robinson-Brown deleted the tweet after a fierce backlash and posted an apology, saying: 'I offer an unreserved apology for the insensitive timing and content of my tweet regarding the clap for Captain Tom.' He said he had since read and will sign the church's digital charter, which is designed to 'help make social media and the web more widely positive places'. Former Tory MEP David Campbell Bannerman described it as an 'appalling comment', and Bishop Mullally's diocese was understood to be preparing an apology last night. Mr Robinson-Brown is set to begin work shortly at All Hallows, which is an inclusive church - a parish that supports gay rights. 'Inclusive churches' were founded in 2003 and 'advocate for the full inclusion of all people regardless of ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation'. This includes welcoming all people to a church - and holding events in the community. His new vicar, the Reverend Katherine Hedderly, greeted his appointment as a curate last weekend by saying her congregation were 'delighted'. Senior clergy also believe up to fifth of regular worshippers may never return once the crisis is over - and the number of paid priests could be cut by 20 per cent. This could see the CofE try to recruit more unpaid clergy to reduce costs, although it already has 2,870 unpaid clergy and 7,370 retired clergy who still officiate. Churches were shut during the first and second lockdowns, and more than half have stayed closed during the third - although they are now legally allowed to open. With the average age of a CofE member at 61, the Archbishop of York is launching a new strategy later this month to attract more young and BAME worshippers. Sources said the number of paid priests could be cut by 10 to 20 per cent, as Archbishop Stephen Cottrell prepares to announce a transformation programme. AdvertisementPrime Minister Boris Johnson led the national round of applause at 6pm from Downing Street yesterday, with the veteran's family also taking part. Images showed his emotional daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore leaning on her son Benjie as they marked the applause alongside her daughter Georgia and husband Colin Ingram outside Captain Tom's home in Marston Moretaine near Milton Keynes. They were joined by hundreds of thousands thousands of well-wishers who showed their support for the 100-year-old by standing on doorsteps and leaning out of windows to clap. Captain Tom became a national treasure during the first coronavirus lockdown after he raised 33 million for the NHS by doing laps of his garden. His death was met with an out-pouring of grief with the Queen leading tributes. MPs held a minute's silence before Prime Minister's Questions at midday, after which Mr Johnson asked Britons to take part in a clap straight after his 5pm Covid press conference. He also threw his backing behind a statue to commemorate the war veteran for his efforts during the pandemic. Leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, has said he hopes to see a proposal from the Royal Mint for a commemorative coin for Captain Sir Tom Moore. Conservative former minister Caroline Nokes told the Commons: 'Captain Sir Tom Moore taught us that tomorrow is a good day. Can I ask (Mr Rees-Mogg) as Lord President of the Privy Council to use his influence to bring about a commemorative coin for this remarkable national treasure and a debate in this House?' Mr Rees-Mogg responded: '(Ms Nokes) has the most brilliantly obscure knowledge because the approval of all coins does indeed come before the Privy Council on the suggestion of the Royal Mint. 'And I hope that as Lord President I do see a proposal from the Royal Mint in due course.' He added: 'Captain Sir Tom Moore dedicated his life to serving his country and others and he showed the value of all life that he in his hundredth and hundredth and first year, showed that somebody of great age can make as important a contribution as anybody else in the country did over that last year. 'And it is a reminder to all of us of the value of life and why it's been right to protect life as far as we possibly can during this incredibly difficult period.' Beverley Turner says she refused to clap for Captain Tom because she didn't want to 'maintain the fear that imminent death is all around' Ms Turner said she did not clap because it 'maintained fear that imminent death is all around' TV presenter Beverley Turner has revealed she refused to clap in memory of Captain Sir Tom Moore because she felt the act maintained 'the fear that imminent death is all around. The journalist and broadcaster, 47, also appeared to object to the applause on the basis it had been used by the authorities to push the idea everyone was 'in this together'. Ms Turner - who has appeared on some of the UK's biggest daytime shows - signalled she felt the government was using the public to distract from NHS funding issues. She sparked a mixture of support and condemnation, with Piers Morgan blocking her on Twitter and calling her thoughts 'pathetic'. Ms Turner had posted online at 5.50pm, ten minutes before the clap's allotted time, and said: 'Sir Tom Moore and his family did a brilliant job of raising for the NHS. It's great that he lived to 100! It's awesome that he got one last fab holiday. 'But I'm not clapping in the St to maintain the fear that imminent death is all around & we're all in this together. We're not.' AdvertisementCashing in on Captain Tom: RedBubble website is slammed for 'shamelessly' selling 'tacky' pillows, duvet covers and even mini-skirts emblazoned with the late war hero's faceAn online shop has been slammed for selling 'tacky' Captain Sir Tom Moore merchandise - including mini skirts with his face on. The print merchandise site Redbubble is flogging memorabilia such as a mini skirt with a price tag of 28.87, as well as cushions and t-shirts, plastered in images of the late war hero. The array of items can be bought from the online retailer and all feature various depictions of the war hero. Many social media users have slammed the website for making money off the back of Captain Tom's death, with one writing: 'There is all sorts of tacky Captain Tom merchandise on there - it's shameless cashing in.' One seller AndythephotoDr designed a mini skirt bearing the late hero's face on the front and back, before selling it on the site for 29. Photos online show the low half of the model's figure wrapped in his face. Other items include a duvet set - priced at a steep 104.32 - designed and sold by another user nacer1982. The 100 per cent polyester fabric features a print of Captain Tom walking using his frame, a rainbow above his head and the words 'Tom Moore 1920-2021' written underneath. All the items have received rather positives reviews - yet appear to stem back to 2015, years before Captain Tom became known in the media. T-shirts can also be purchased - showing a suave looking Captain Tom dressed in a tuxedo with a Union Jack flag draped over his shoulder. The T-shirts, designed and sold by bradleycann, range in sizes from small to 3XL and bear the words: 'Rest in peace Captain Tom Moore 1920-1921.' A Captain Tom Covid-19 mask will set you back 12.17, while a 'Brighter days are coming' pillow depicting Tom with his war medals will cost 46.74. Social media users said they had been stunned by the website's merchandise, with one person commenting: 'This has sent me over the edge.' Another Twitter user @NigellaGoresome commented: "What the f***** f***?!" One posted: "What in the everloving F***." Free speech campaigners today blasted Police Scotland over its decision to charge a man over an offensive tweet about Captain Sir Tom Moore. A tweet sent shortly after war hero's death last Tuesday read: 'The only good Brit soldier is a deed one, burn auld fella, buuuuurn.' Joseph Kelly will appear at Lanark Sheriff Court accused of communications offences. Laurence Fox led anger about the decision today, tweeting: 'The police should be free to do their jobs, which is investigate actual crime, not arresting idiots who tweet idiotic things. 'Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of any open society. Protect it, even if you dont like or agree with it.' One libertarian Scottish Twitter user wrote 'my country is a joke' next to an article announcing the charge today. Politics lecturer Adrian Hilton wrote: 'Unless this tweet threatened violence or incited civil unrest or some other kind of harm, I'd very much like to know why this man has been arrested. We have a right to be 'offensive', and that's a high bar. If anyone can send me the tweet, please do.' It comes as the SNP continues efforts to introduce a new hate crime bill that will criminalise 'stirring up hatred' - a 'vague' definition that critics believe could legalise cancel culture. Sir Tom, who helped raise tens of millions for the NHS during the first national lockdown, died in hospital last TuesdaySenior lawyer Thomas Ross, QC, is one of the most high-profile critics of the SNP's hate crime bill. He warned it would be 'impossible' for Scots to know if they had committed a crime, which could lead to debate on controversial subjects being stifled. He believes laws are already in place to deal with those who commit hate crimes, while the vague language used in the Bill could lead to serious offenders being acquitted. Serious concerns have been raised, including over vague language and reference to 'inflammatory material'. Lawyers, politicians, campaigners and religious groups believe the law could have a devastating impact on freedom of speech. In particular, they believe a section referring to the 'stirring up of hatred' signals that someone could be charged over comments perceived to be offensive, even if this is not intended. There are also concerns people could be prosecuted for possessing 'inflammatory material' - which could include books, blogs, leaflets or social media. Those who share, forward or repeat such material could also face charges. Mr Ross said: 'If the Scottish Government is going to create an offence that can be committed unintentionally, drafters of the legislation have to make the essentials of the offence crystal clear. They've failed to do that. 'The language used in the Bill is so difficult to understand that it will be impossible for the man or woman in the street to know when the line is likely to be crossed. 'A person might think, "I don't intend to be offensive and I don't think this comment is abusive, but what might a mythical sheriff think about it if the procurator fiscal is persuaded to prosecute? Why take the chance". Laurence Fox led the free speech backlash today, while one libertarian Scottish Twitter user wrote 'my country is a joke' next to an article announcing the charge todaySir Tom, who helped raise tens of millions for the NHS during the first national lockdown, died in hospital last Tuesday. Police Scotland said a tweet about the 100-year-old was reported to them three days later and a man from Lanarkshire was arrested. A spokesman for Police Scotland said: 'On Friday we received a report of an offensive tweet about Sir Captain Tom Moore who died on Tuesday February 2. 'A 35-year-old man has subsequently been arrested and charged in connection with communication offences and is due to appear at Lanark Sheriff Court on Wednesday, February 17.' The World War Two veteran passed away after contracting coronavirus and pneumonia. His daughters, Hannah and Lucy, issued a statement reading: 'It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our dear father, Captain Sir Tom Moore. 'We are so grateful that we were with him during the last hours of his life; Hannah, Benjie and Georgia by his bedside and Lucy on FaceTime. 'We spent hours chatting to him, reminiscing about our childhood and our wonderful mother. We shared laughter and tears together. 'The care our father received from the NHS and carers over the last few weeks and years of his life has been extraordinary. 'We politely ask for privacy at this time so we can grieve quietly as a family and remember the wonderful 100 years our father had.'

###CLAIM: `` we have learned absolutely nothing about his ability between the sticks at international level. ###DOCS: England got their World Cup qualifying campaign off to a perfect start after thumping San Marino 5-0 at Wembley. But with their opponents' rock bottom world ranking, manager Gareth Southgate saw the fixture as the perfect opportunity to give his fringe players a chance to give him a few selection headaches heading into this summer's European Championship. With the exception of Ben Chilwell and Raheem Sterling, who are established first-team stars for the Three Lions, Sportsmail looks at Southgate's stars from the Wembley triumph and assess their chances of making the cut for Euro 2020. England's fringe players largely impressed in their 5-0 win over San Marino at WembleyManager Gareth Southgate is still considering his team to feature at Euro 2020 this summerNick PopeThe bad news for Nick Pope is despite playing in a side that earned a clean sheet and a victory, he had very little to do apart from ruminate about the meaning of life inside his penalty box for the entire game. While this is not a surprise given the nature of opposition, it also meant we learned absolutely nothing about his capability between the sticks at international level. The good news is you won't be able to name three better English goalkeepers right now, so while he gained little he's lost nothing. VERDICT: Certain for the squadNick Pope had little to do in the World Cup qualifier but is still a good bet to make the squadReece JamesOne of the big winners of the evening. There was a fair argument recently that Reece James was only the fourth best right-back in the country behind Trent Alexander-Arnold, Kyle Walker and Kieran Trippier. But in their absence for varying reasons, the Chelsea star did what was expected of him in his 45 minutes on the pitch, laying on an excellent crossing assist for Dominic Calvert-Lewin to score. From fourth choice to a reasonable contender to start, but competition is fierce in that area of the pitch. VERDICT: In gang of four mixChelsea's Reece James stepped up to strengthen his claim for a spot at right back at Euro 2020Kieran TrippierJames' 45 minutes has put pressure on Trippier to keep up his international form, despite having enjoyed a solid season at Atletico Madrid. In a second half where England largely relaxed he wasn't able to outshine James yet he has credit in the bank with Southgate and rarely lets his country down. Not certain for the squad but would still be a surprise omission to leave him out now. VERDICT: Under pressure but still in Euro plansKieran Trippier came on at half-time to replace James as he looks to maintain his squad placeJohn StonesBack in the squad after a sensational season with Manchester City and while this was not the night for defenders to make their case in forcing Gareth Southgate's hand, it's yet another clean sheet for the centre-back. In truth, England could be short of natural centre-backs for the Euros and as long as Stones keeps up his incredible form for City he is almost certain to retain his place from now to the summer. VERDICT: Here to stayAnother clean sheet would not have harmed John Stones chances of retaining his placeConor CoadyKept it simple, did little wrong and that was all that was needed from the Wolves man earning his fourth cap. The centre-back looks like he has earned Southgate's trust, and his ability to play in a back-four and a back-three makes him a highly useful asset when it comes to picking a squad. VERDICT: Sensible squad pickConor Coady's versatility in the defence could see him book a place in Southgate's squadTyrone MingsMings could be the casualty following Stones' recall having earned six of his eight caps since October. Unfortunately 45 minutes at centre-back against San Marino is not the scenario a player needs to prove his worth to make a finals squad, even if the Aston Villa defender did little wrong. VERDICT: Work to do to make squadTyrone Mings did little wrong but could get lost in the shuffle when the final squad is pickedKalvin PhillipsA shock call up last September but in the sink or swim environment he has impressed Southgate enough to have become a regular starter. In the team to protect the defence, his job was highly redundant but he kept it professional. Reputation though could see the more established Declan Rice and Jordan Henderson get the nod ahead of him. VERDICT: Did little wrong, but needs to show moreKalvin Phillips enjoyed another solid run-out but will still need to impress to reach Euro 2020Mason MountGranted it's only San Marino but even in 45 minutes the Chelsea midfielder put in a display that Southgate cannot ignore when he chooses his squad this summer. Mount created eight clear cut chances, which is the most by any player at international level since Xavi for Spain 13 years ago. Now that's a sales pitch. Over to you Jack Grealish... VERDICT: Enhanced starting XI chancesAn excellent creative display in the first half has all but secured Mason Mount a Euro spotJesse LingardConsidering he was not anywhere near the England squad during the last round of international matches after being left out of Manchester United's first team, it shows just how well the midfielder has impressed since joining West Ham on loan. He provided an assist for Calvert-Lewin and was unlucky not to score himself. It looks like his recall will come too late to trouble the more established forwards but BettingExpert have reduced his odds of making the Euro 2020 squad from 9/4 to 6/4. VERDICT: Great return but could be too lateJesse Lingard looked lively on his return to England duty after impressing with West HamJames Ward-ProwseEngland have an abundance of talent when it comes to attacking players so it was crucial for Ward-Prowse not to go missing against San Marino when given a chance. He took his opportunity well, scoring the opening goal and going close to adding another in a tidy display. He's been part of the squad since September now and having also played under Southgate in his Under 21 days can be considered a trusted player by hismanger, but will that be enough? His odds have dropped from 11/4 to 7/4. VERDICT: Enhanced chancesJames Ward-Prowse made the most of his audition by scoring the opening goal for EnglandPhil FodenThe in-form Manchester City star replaced his team-mate Sterling at half-time and set up Watkins for his goal seven minutes from the end. This was no audition though for Foden though, he is already one of Southgate's main picks and is continuing to rebuild his reputation having been sent home in disgrace from the squad after breaching Covid protocols along with Greenwood late last year. VERDICT: Nothing to prove, he's inPhil Foden looks like he has earned Southgate's trust again heading into the summerJude BellinghamJust 17-years-old and he was widely praised for his second half appearance, with many now suggesting he should keep his squad place for the Euros. The question though is who do you leave out? England are not short of attacking stars who have already proven their worth to Southgate against much more credible opposition. He's one for the future certainly but this tournament could come too soon for the Borussia Dortmund star. His odds though of making Euro 2020 have dropped from evens to 10/11. VERDICT: Euro 2020 could come too soonJude Bellingham came off the bench to make a lively cameo appearance for EnglandDominic Calvert-LewinSouthgate is expected to take five forwards to the Euros, and four of them look certain in Sterling, Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho. That leaves one spot to fill and right now Calvert-Lewin appears to be in the driving seat for it. The Everton striker was guilty of missing chances, but among his two goals he advertised his aerial ability, something Southgate doesn't have strength in depth when it comes to attacking players. VERDICT: In pole position for squad. Two goals have put Dominic Calvert-Lewin in an ideal spot to claim an attacking positionOllie WatkinsGiven half-an-hour to impress on his England debut and marked it with a goal to cap off a perfect night for the Aston Villa striker. He is battling Calvert-Lewin, Tammy Abraham, and Mason Greenwood for what is likely one spot, so while this won't have earned him a place in the for the finals it may keep him in Southgate's long term plans. VERDICT: Took his chance but Euros unlikely

###CLAIM: back in bangladesh, the incepta factory is trying to get what it needs by offering its production line to moderna and reaching out to who partners. ###DOCS: A member of production checks cell growth and viability of a bioreactor sample under an inverted microscope inside the Incepta plant on the outskirts of Dhaka in Bangladesh Saturday Feb. 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Al-emrun Garjon)A member of production checks cell growth and viability of a bioreactor sample under an inverted microscope inside the Incepta plant on the outskirts of Dhaka in Bangladesh Saturday Feb. 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Al-emrun Garjon)PARIS (AP) In an industrial neighborhood on the outskirts of Bangladeshs largest city lies a factory with gleaming new equipment imported from Germany, its immaculate hallways lined with hermetically sealed rooms. It is operating at just a quarter of its capacity. It is one of three factories that The Associated Press found on three continents whose owners say they could start producing hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccines on short notice if only they had the blueprints and technical know-how. But that knowledge belongs to the large pharmaceutical companies who have produced the first three vaccines authorized by countries including Britain, the European Union and the U.S. Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca. The factories are all still awaiting responses. Across Africa and Southeast Asia, governments and aid groups, as well as the World Health Organization, are calling on pharmaceutical companies to share their patent information more broadly to meet a yawning global shortfall in a pandemic that already has claimed over 2.5 million lives . Pharmaceutical companies that took taxpayer money from the U.S. or Europe to develop inoculations at unprecedented speed say they are negotiating contracts and exclusive licensing deals with producers on a case-by-case basis because they need to protect their intellectual property and ensure safety. ADVERTISEMENTCritics say this piecemeal approach is too slow at a time of urgent need to stop the virus before it mutates into even deadlier forms. WHO called for vaccine manufacturers to share their know-how to dramatically increase the global supply.ADVERTISEMENTADVERTISEMENTIf that can be done, then immediately overnight every continent will have dozens of companies who would be able to produce these vaccines, said Abdul Muktadir, whose Incepta plant in Bangladesh already makes vaccines against hepatitis, flu, meningitis, rabies, tetanus and measles. All over the world, the supply of coronavirus vaccines is falling far short of demand, and the limited amount available is going to rich countries. Nearly 80% of the vaccines so far have been administered in just 10 countries, according to WHO. More than 210 countries and territories with 2.5 billion people hadnt received a single shot as of last week. ADVERTISEMENTThe deal-by-deal approach also means that some poorer countries end up paying more for the same vaccine than richer countries. South Africa, Mexico, Brazil and Uganda all pay different amounts per dose for the AstraZeneca vaccine and more than governments in the European Union, according to studies and publicly available documents. AstraZeneca said the price of the vaccine will differ depending on local production costs and how much countries order. What we see today is a stampede, a survival of the fittest approach, where those with the deepest pockets, with the sharpest elbows are grabbing what is there and leaving others to die, said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS. In South Africa, home to the worlds most worrisome COVID-19 variant , the Biovac factory has said for weeks that its in negotiations with an unnamed manufacturer with no contract to show for it. And in Denmark, the Bavarian Nordic factory has capacity to spare and the ability to make more than 200 million doses but is also waiting for word from the producer of a licensed coronavirus vaccine. ADVERTISEMENTGovernments and health experts offer two potential solutions to the vaccine shortage: One, supported by WHO, is a patent pool modeled after a platform set up for HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis treatments for voluntary sharing of technology, intellectual property and data. But no company has offered to share its data. The other, a proposal to suspend intellectual property rights during the pandemic, has been blocked in the World Trade Organization by the United States and Europe, home to the companies responsible for creating coronavirus vaccines. That drive has the support of at least 119 countries and the African Union but is adamantly opposed by vaccine makers. Pharmaceutical companies say instead of lifting IP restrictions, rich countries should simply give more vaccines to poorer countries through COVAX , the public-private initiative WHO helped create for more equitable vaccine distribution. The organization and its partners delivered its first doses last week in very limited quantities. But rich countries are not willing to give up what they have. Ursula Von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, has used the phrase global common good to describe the vaccines but the European Union imposed export controls on vaccines, giving countries the power to stop shots from leaving. On her first day as director-general of the WTO, Nigerias Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the time had come to shift attention to the vaccination needs of the worlds poor. We must focus on working with companies to open up and license more viable manufacturing sites now in emerging markets and developing countries, she told the organizations members. This should happen soon so we can save lives.The long-held model in the pharmaceutical industry is that companies pour in huge amounts of money and research in return for the right to reap profits from their drugs and vaccines. Last May, Pfizers CEO Albert Bourla described the idea of sharing IP rights widely as nonsense and even dangerous.Thomas Cueni, director general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, called the idea of lifting patent protections a very bad signal to the future. You signal that if you have a pandemic, your patents are not worth anything.Advocates of sharing vaccine blueprints argue that, unlike with most drugs, taxpayers paid billions to develop vaccines that could help end the worlds biggest public health emergency in living memory. People are literally dying because we cannot agree on intellectual property rights, said Mustaqeem De Gama, a South African diplomat involved in the WTO discussions. Paul Fehlner, the chief legal officer for biotech company Axcella and a supporter of the WHO patent pool board, said governments that poured billions of dollars into developing vaccines and treatments should have demanded more from the companies they were financing from the beginning. A condition of taking taxpayer money is not treating them as dupes, he said. Last month, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading pandemic expert in the United States, said all options need to be on the table, including improving production capacity in the developing world and working with pharmaceuticals to relax their patents. Rich countries, ourselves included, have a moral responsibility when you have a global outbreak like this, Fauci said. Weve got to get the entire world vaccinated, not just our own country.Its hard to know exactly how much more vaccine could be made worldwide if intellectual property restrictions were lifted. But Suhaib Siddiqi, former director of chemistry at Moderna, said with the blueprint and technical advice, a modern factory should be able to get vaccine production going in at most three to four months. In my opinion, the vaccine belongs to the public, said Siddiqi. Any company which has experience synthesizing molecules should be able to do it.Back in Bangladesh, the Incepta factory tried to get what it needed to make more vaccines in two ways, by offering its production lines to Moderna and by reaching out to a WHO partner. Moderna did not respond to requests for comment about the Bangladesh plant, but its CEO, Stephane Bancel, told European lawmakers the companys engineers were fully occupied on expanding production in Europe. Doing more tech transfer right now could actually put the production and the increased output for the months to come at great risk, he said. We are very open to do it in the future once our current sites are running.Muktadir said he fully appreciates the extraordinary scientific achievement involved in the creation of vaccines this year, wants the rest of the world to be able to share in it, and is willing to pay a fair price. Nobody should give their property just for nothing, he said. A vaccine could be made accessible to people high quality, effective vaccines.___Maria Cheng reported from Toronto. Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, Al-Emrun Garjon in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Andrew Meldrum in Johannesburg, South Africa, contributed to this report. ___Follow APs pandemic coverage at:https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemichttps://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccinehttps://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak In an industrial neighborhood on the outskirts of Bangladeshs largest city lies a factory with gleaming new equipment imported from Germany, its immaculate hallways lined with hermetically sealed rooms. It is operating at just a quarter of its capacity. It is one of three factories that The Associated Press found on three continents whose owners say they could start producing hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccines on short notice if only they had the blueprints and technical know-how. But that knowledge belongs to the large pharmaceutical companies who produce the first three vaccines authorized by countries including Britain, the European Union, and the United States Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca. The factories are all still awaiting responses. Across Africa and Southeast Asia, governments and aid groups, as well as the World Health Organization (WHO), are calling on pharmaceutical companies to share their patent information more broadly to meet a yawning global shortfall in a pandemic that already has claimed over 2.5 million lives. Pharmaceutical companies that took taxpayer money from the U.S. or Europe to develop inoculations at unprecedented speed say they are negotiating contracts and exclusive licensing deals with producers on a case-by-case basis because they need to protect their intellectual property and ensure safety. Critics say this piecemeal approach is just too slow at a time of urgent need to stop the virus before it mutates into even deadlier forms. WHO called for vaccine manufacturers to share their know-how to dramatically increase the global supply.If that can be done, then immediately overnight every continent will have dozens of companies who would be able to produce these vaccines, said Abdul Muktadir, whose Incepta plant in Bangladesh already makes vaccines against hepatitis, flu, meningitis, rabies, tetanus, and measles. All over the world, the supply of coronavirus vaccines is falling far short of demand, and the limited amount available is going to rich countries. Nearly 80% of the vaccines so far have been administered in just 10 countries, according to WHO. More than 210 countries and territories with a collective population of 2.5 billion hadnt received a single shot as of last week. The deal-by-deal approach also means that some poorer countries end up paying more for the same vaccine than richer countries. South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, and Uganda all pay different amounts per dose for the AstraZeneca vaccine more than governments in the European Union, according to studies and publicly available documents. AstraZeneca said the price of the vaccine will differ depending on factors such as production costs, where the shots are made and how much countries order. What we see today is a stampede, a survival of the fittest approach, where those with the deepest pockets, with the sharpest elbows are grabbing what is there and leaving others to die, said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS. In South Africa, home to a new COVID-19 variant, the Biovac factory has said for weeks that its in negotiations with an unnamed manufacturer with no contract to show for it. And in Denmark, the Bavarian Nordic factory has capacity to spare and the ability to make more than 200 million doses but is also waiting for word from the producer of a licensed coronavirus vaccine. Governments and health experts offer two potential solutions to the vaccine shortage: One, supported by WHO, is a patent pool modeled after a platform set up for HIV, tuberculosis, and hepatitis treatments for voluntary sharing of technology, intellectual property, and data. But not a single company has offered to share its data or transfer the necessary technology. The other, a proposal to suspend intellectual property rights during the pandemic, has been blocked in the World Trade Organization by the U.S. and Europe, home to the companies responsible for creating the coronavirus vaccines. That drive has the support of at least 119 countries among the WTOs 164 member states, and the African Union, but is adamantly opposed by vaccine makers. Pharmaceutical companies say instead of lifting patent restrictions, rich countries should simply give more of the vaccines they have to poorer countries through COVAX, the public-private initiative WHO helped create for equitable vaccine distribution. The organization and its partners delivered its first doses last week in very limited quantities. But rich countries are not willing to give up what they have. Ursula Von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, has used the phrase global common good to describe the vaccines. Even still, the European Union imposed export controls on vaccines, giving countries the power to stop shots from leaving their borders in some cases. In comments Monday on her first day as director-general of the WTO, Nigerias Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the time had come to shift attention to the vaccination needs of the worlds poor. We must focus on working with companies to open up and license more viable manufacturing sites now in emerging markets and developing countries, she said, according to notes from her closed-door talk with delegates shared with The Associated Press. The long-held model in the pharmaceutical industry is that companies pour in huge amounts of money and research in return for the right to reap profits from their drugs and vaccines. At an industry forum last May, Pfizers CEO Albert Bourla described the idea of sharing intellectual property rights widely as nonsense and even dangerous. AstraZenecas chief Pascal Soriot said if intellectual property is not protected, there is no incentive for anybody to innovate.Thomas Cueni, director general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, called the idea of lifting patent protections a very bad signal to the future. You signal that if you have a pandemic, your patents are not worth anything.Advocates of sharing vaccine blueprints argue that, unlike with most drugs, taxpayers paid billions to develop vaccines that are now global public goods and should be used to end the biggest public health emergency in living memory. People are literally dying because we cannot agree on intellectual property rights, said Mustaqeem De Gama, a South African diplomat who has been deeply involved in the WTO discussions. Paul Fehlner, the chief legal officer for biotech company Axcella and a supporter of the WHO patent pool board, said governments that poured billions of dollars into developing vaccines and treatments should have demanded more from the companies they were financing from the beginning. A condition of taking taxpayer money is not treating them as dupes, he said. In an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading pandemic expert in the U.S., said all options need to be on the table, including increasing aid, improving production capacity in the developing world, and working with pharmaceutical companies to relax their patents. Rich countries, ourselves included, have a moral responsibility when you have a global outbreak like this, Dr. Fauci said. Weve got to get the entire world vaccinated, not just our own country.Its hard to know exactly how much more vaccine could be made worldwide if intellectual property restrictions were lifted, because the spare production capacity of factories has not been publicly shared. But Suhaib Siddiqi, former director of chemistry at Moderna, said with the blueprint and technical advice, a modern factory should be able to get vaccine production going in at most three to four months. In my opinion, the vaccine belongs to the public, said Mr. Siddiqi. Any company which has experience synthesizing molecules should be able to do it.Back in Bangladesh, the Incepta factory tried to get what it needed to make more vaccines in two ways, by offering its production lines to Moderna and by reaching out to a WHO partner. Moderna did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the Bangladesh plant, but its CEO, Stephane Bancel, told European lawmakers that the companys engineers are fully occupied on expanding production in Europe. Doing more tech transfer right now could actually put the production and the increased output for the months to come at great risk, he said. We are very open to do it in the future once our current sites are running.Mr. Muktadir said he was also in discussions last May with CEPI, or the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, one of WHOs partners in a global effort to buy and distribute COVID-19 vaccines fairly, but nothing came of it. CEPI spokesman Tom Mooney said the talks last year with Incepta didnt raise interest, but that CEPI is still in discussions about matchmaking opportunities including the possibility of using Inceptas capacity for second wave vaccines.Mr. Muktadir said he fully appreciates the extraordinary scientific achievement involved in the creation of vaccines this year, wants the rest of the world to be able to share in it, and is willing to pay a fair price. Nobody should give their property just for nothing, he said. A vaccine could be made accessible to people high quality, effective vaccines.Get stories thatempower and uplift daily. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads. This story was reported by The Associated Press. Maria Cheng reported from Toronto. Jamey Keaten in Geneva; Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark; Al-Emrun Garjon in Dhaka, Bangladesh; and Andrew Meldrum in Johannesburg, South Africa, contributed to this report. Editors note: As a public service, the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. Its free.

###CLAIM: alice and phillips noted that the sound of a hit sounded dreadfully, noting that the titanic had been scheduled to board american lines ' philadelphia but was forced to cancel because of coal strikes. ###DOCS: AdvertisementOn the bitterly cold night of April 14, 1912, Frederick Barrett was working hard in his role as the Titanic's chief stoker when the ship hit an iceberg and thousands of gallons of water began flooding into the vessel. Within three hours, the 'unsinkable' ship had slipped beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean, taking the lives of more than 1,500 passengers and crew. Barrett had been among the first crew members to see water gush into the ship and worked to try to keep its engines going by stoking the furnaces powering its boilers, before it became clear the vessel was going to sink. The worker became one of only 705 passengers and crew to survive after he was put in charge of one of the lifeboats which held mostly women and children. They were then saved by rescue vessel the Carpathia. Remarkably, Barrett who is portrayed in James Cameron's 1997 Hollywood film about the disaster - also saved the lives of an estimated 70 people when his quick-thinking averted a disaster as the lifeboats were being lowered into the water. Without his action in cutting the ropes of his boat and pushing it free after it had landed in the water, another rescue vessel full of survivors would have crashed on to them, likely killing many of the passengers in both boats. But despite his heroics, Barrett then tragically died in 1931 from pulmonary tuberculosis - after his wife and two daughters lost their lives to the same disease. It left his son Harold, aged just ten, as an orphan who had to be raised by his uncle and his 'cold as ice' wife. Now, Barrett's granddaughter 66-year-old mother of four Sue Thompson has told MailOnline of her and her twin brother Fred's pride in the man who is ultimately responsible for their existence. Speaking from her home in Seaforth, near Liverpool, married Mrs Thompson said how she feels 'very proud' of Barrett and his heroic actions and spoke of the resemblance she sees between him and her son Alex. She added that her father, who passed away in 1974 while in hospital, rarely spoke of his childhood trauma but was a 'devoted family man' who gave her and her brother a 'wonderful childhood'. On the bitterly cold night of April 14, 1912, Frederick Barrett was working hard in his role as the Titanic's chief stoker when the ship hit an iceberg and thousands of gallons of water began flooding into the vessel. Barrett (left) had been among the first crew members to see water gush into the ship and worked to try to keep its engines going before it became clear the vessel was going to sink. Remarkably, Barrett who is portrayed in James Cameron's 1997 Hollywood film (right) about the disaster - also saved the lives of an estimated 70 people when his quick-thinking averted a disaster as the lifeboats were being lowered into the waterWithin three hours, the 'unsinkable' ship had slipped beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean, taking the lives of more than 1,500 passengers and crewBarrett was born in Bootle, Lancashire, in January 1883. Whilst Mrs Thompson is not certain about his full seafaring history, records show that he was serving as a stoker or fireman on the Campania liner in 1903. A year later, he served on board the Parisian and Cedric ships before returning to the Campania in 1906. He also worked on the SS City of New York. Barrett's life changed forever when he signed up to serve on the brand new Titanic, for its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. Shortly after the ship's departure, Barrett was among those who responded after a fire was discovered on board. He later claimed to have witnessed the damage caused by the flames to one of the ship's dividing walls known as a bulkhead. Experts believe the fire could have contributed to the ship's sinking by weakening its hull making it more vulnerable to being pierced by the chunk of ice which sealed its fate. At the time that the Titanic collided with the iceberg at just before midnight on April 14 Barrett was on duty in boiler room six. After hearing a loud crash, he witnessed water gushing into the ship. Along with engineer James Hesketh, he then retreated into the adjacent boiler room five. But despite his heroics, Barrett then tragically died in 1931 from pulmonary tuberculosis - after his wife and two daughters lost their lives to the same disease. It left his son Harold (pictured left and right, while serving in World War Two), aged just nine, as an orphan who had to be raised by his uncle and his 'cold as ice' wifeNow, Barrett's granddaughter 66-year-old mother of four Sue Thompson has told MailOnline of her and her twin brother Fred's pride in the man who is ultimately responsible for their existenceWhen he returned to boiler room six around 15 minutes later, he said the water was eight feet deep. Later, the stoker witnessed the violent rush of water when the bulkhead separating the two stricken boiler rooms gave way. Barrett was then ordered to the top deck of the ship and was put in charge of life boat number 13. After it was lowered into the water, the wash from the sinking ship caused the boat to rescue vessel to drift underneath life boat 15 as it too slowly descended. Calls for its lowering to be stopped then went unheard, forcing Barrett to scramble to cut number 13's ropes and push it out of the way. At the subsequent inquiry into the disaster in New York, Barrett testified that there were around 70 people on board. They would have likely lost their lives had the other boat been dropped onto them. Barrett then took the tiller of his life boat and only gave it up to someone else when he became too cold in the freezing conditions. At the subsequent inquiry into the disaster in New York, Barrett (pictured above with other surviving crew members in the city) testified that there were around 70 people on board his life boat. They would have likely lost their lives had the other boat been dropped onto themHe and the other 705 people who ultimately survived the Titanic's sinking were then rescued by the RMS Carpathia before being taken to New York their original destination. Within weeks, Barrett was back serving on the White Star Line's RMS Olympic and he then testified at the New York and later British inquiry into the disaster. The horrific 1912 Titanic tragedy Constructed by Belfast-based shipbuilders Harland and Wolff between 1909 and 1912, the RMS Titanic was the largest ship afloat of her time. Owned and operated by the White Star Line, the passenger vessel set sail on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on April 10, 1912. The liner made two short stops en route to her planned Atlantic crossing one at the French port of Cherbourg, the other at Cork Harbour, Ireland, where smaller vessels ferried passengers on and off board the Titanic. Nearly five days into her voyage, the Titanic struck an iceberg at around 23:40 local time, generating six narrow openings in the vessel's starboard hull, believed to have occurred as a result of the rivets in the hull snapping. At just before midnight on April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg while travelling on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. Within three hours, the 'unsinkable' ship had slipped beneath the waves of the freezing Atlantic Ocean, killing more than 1,500 people The Titanic took on water some fifteen times faster than could be pumped out, with the hull damage proving too extensive for the vessel's watertight bulkheads to keep the flooding from spreading across the liner's compartmentalised lower decks. After around two-and-a-half hours, the vessel broke into two sections and sank, each settling to the seafloor around a third of a mile apart. Around 1,500 people were believed lost in the tragedy, including around 815 of the liner's passengers. At its launch, the luxurious Titanic was the largest ship in the world, and was carrying some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of people from Britain, Ireland, and elsewhere who were seeking a new life in the United States. AdvertisementIn 1915, Barrett married Mary Ann Jones in Liverpool and the couple had two daughters one of whom Mrs Thompson knows was called Rosie - and their only son Harold. After leaving his role at sea, Barrett worked as a timber labourer. But he and his family were then the victims of a disease which was then tragically common. Barrett left his son as an orphan when he lost his life in March 1931, after his wife and daughters had already died. It meant that Harold had to be raised by his mother's brother in Bootle. Mrs Thompson, a midwife, knew little of her family's history until, while off work with cancer, carried out her own research. She said: 'I was off work eight years ago, it gave me time to look into things. There was nobody else going to do this. I went and got the birth and death certificates. 'We had sort of buried it for years after my father's death because you get married and have kids and life goes on. But then I decided to come back to that.' Speaking of her discovery of his heroic actions, she added: 'He cut the strings. Only when I read it, I thought wow. 'I just feel proud of him. I'm even more proud that I've managed to uncover it all. I don't know how much would have been uncovered if I hadn't of done it. It could have died with us. 'My father was a serious man and spoke very little. He didn't express his emotions. My mum and me and Fred were everything to him. He was a devoted family man. He didn't speak a lot. 'I didn't speak to him about what happened. I was 18 and getting married and he died three months after that. I thought I would have time after that. 'The story that we were told was, he was the chief stoker down in that boiler room that was hit with the iceberg. So he was one of the first to be aware of the leak. 'It meant very little to us when we were young to be honest. It was only when you come into your teens that it's quite a biggie really.' Although her father kept quiet about the death of his family, he showed how he wanted his father's memory to live on by naming Mrs Thompson's brother after him. Mr Barrett has three daughters and is very close to his sister. Mrs Thompson said she feels she has now honoured her grandfather's memory by finding out more about his remarkable actions. 'I feel that somewhere he will be thinking thank goodness,' she said. 'He certainly wouldn't have been craving fame. It's just nice for my family.' Before carrying out her research, Mrs Thompson had never seen a photo of her grandfather and so had no idea what he looked like. The 705 people who ultimately survived the Titanic's sinking were rescued from their lifeboats by the RMS Carpathia. Pictured: Some of the survivors in their lifeboatBarrett and the other 705 people who ultimately survived the Titanic's sinking were then rescued by the RMS Carpathia before being taken to New York their original destination. Pictured: Passengers on the Carpathia sewing items of clothing for survivors after they had come onboardShe was delighted when she saw that her third son, Alex, bears a striking resemblance to his grandfather. 'It's nice when you can find one you can see a likeness between your child,' she said. Mrs Thompson said that her father's aunt 'didn't really want to take on this son' when the orphaned boy needed a home. 'She didn't give him a happy time. She was cold as ice and they were very strict with my father,' she said. 'They were certainly lacking in a lot of direction and love. It must have been hard for him. Really hard. I can only imagine because it has never been verbalised to me.' Before carrying out her research, Mrs Thompson had never seen a photo of her grandfather and so had no idea what he looked like. She was delighted when she saw that her third son, Alex, bears a striking resemblance to his grandfatherHarold went on to serve in the Second World War before also going into the timber trade. He passed away while having a medical procedure. In a touching tribute to him, Mrs Thompson added: 'We had a wonderful childhood. Our mum and dad between them did their best. 'We never had any money. We always knew we were loved and cherished. We knew we were loved. 'I think he had a happy life. We were everything to him. He was a well-liked man. He had a lot of friends. He had a quiet dignity about him, my father. He never wasted his words.' Is everything you think you know about the Titanic WRONG? New documentary claims Captain Smith wasn't reckless, the ship was not poorly built and third class passengers WEREN'T locked below deck as it sankBy Harry Howard for MailOnlineAt just before midnight on April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg while travelling on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. Within three hours, the 'unsinkable' ship had slipped beneath the waves of the freezing Atlantic Ocean, killing more than 1,500 people. Now, a new documentary released on Netflix-style platform History Hit dispels some of the common beliefs about the Titanic's sinking. Debunking the Myths of the Titanic hears from the world-leading expert about the disaster, Tim Maltin. One claim made about why the ship sank is that members of the ship's watch did not have binoculars on the fateful night and so did not spot the iceberg quickly enough. But Mr Maltin, the author of three books on the Titanic, argues that if the crew had had binoculars they would have taken longer to warn of the iceberg. Among the other claims, which are all debunked below, are that Captain Smith was reckless by sailing too quickly, that the ship was poorly built and that poorer passengers in third class were locked below deck. At just before midnight on April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg while travelling on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. Within three hours, the 'unsinkable' ship had slipped beneath the waves of the freezing Atlantic Ocean, killing more than 1,500 people. Now a new documentary released on Netflix-style platform History Hit dispels some of the common beliefs about the Titanic's sinkingCaptain Smith was reckless by going too fastThe judge who led the British inquiry into the Titanic disaster, John Charles Bigham, 1st Viscount Mersey, wrote in his journal that the ship was travelling at 'excessive speed' and there was 'no reduction of speed' in the icy environment. However, Mr Maltin said that 'every captain' who testified at the inquiry said they would have 'done the same thing'. 'The night the Titanic sank it was actually extremely clear and they were keeping a very sharp lookout,' he said. 'They knew they were getting into the ice region, but critically they believed they could see the ice in time.' It has also been suggested that Captain Smith may have been drunk or was not even on the ship's bridge when it hit the iceberg. But Mr Maltin said that while Captain Smith did dine with passengers at around 7 or 8pm, he was on the bridge 'the whole time' when the ship hit the ice at 11.40pm. Debunking the Myths of the Titanic hears from the world-leading expert about the disaster, Tim MaltinAmong the other debunked myths is the claim that Captain Edward Smith was reckless by sailing too quickly'In fact, his suite of rooms, his navigating room and his chaise lounge area and his bedroom area are actually part of the bridge. He was always on the bridge,' he said. 'And he had left instructions to be called immediately if anything happened. 'And in fact, as soon as they went full astern and he heard the ship starting to stop, he came straight through and he was there. 'But he was working out positions and he was alert and around the bridge the whole time.' Mr Maltin also said that Captain Smith was the Commodore of the White Star Line and had captained all their flagship vessels. He was also popular with the crew, who 'loved sailing under him'. Instead of seeking out a life boat himself, the Captain chose to help women and children get to safety, Mr Maltin said. The ship was poorly constructedIt has previously been claimed that the Titanic's hull was held together by second-rate rivets, meaning that part of it was weak and so vulnerable to being torn open by the iceberg which sealed its fate. Science writer Dr Richard Corfield made the claim in 2012 and said the answer for why she sank could be found partly 'within the science of the Titanic's construction'. But Mr Maltin hit back against this claim, saying the vessel was 'one of the best built ships in history'. He said: 'She was so well built. I have been lucky enough to go and see a huge 40-ton piece of the Titanic and just the scale of it and size and the weight of it, is utterly incredible.' The White Star Line had famously claimed the Titanic was 'unsinkable'. It has previously been claimed that the Titanic's hull was held together by second-rate rivets, meaning that part of it was weak and so vulnerable to being torn open by the iceberg which sealed its fate. But Mr Maltin hit back against this claim, saying the vessel was 'one of the best built ships in history'. Pictured: The ship in Belfast shortly after being constructedMr Maltin said the reason for this was that the ship could actually have been 'sliced in to three pieces and each piece would've floated.' 'She was also designed to float even with the first four watertight compartments flooded and she was designed to float even with a collision at the point of two watertight compartments,' he said. But he said the ship was not designed for the 'side swipe disaster' which saw the iceberg hit the vessel at an angle after its crew took avoiding action. He said the iceberg ended up doing 'a little bit of damage along 200ft of Titanic's length.' 'That Dan was five watertight compartments and she could sail with the first four flooded but not the fifth one,' he added. And even though the ship did sink, Mr Maltin said she did so 'on an even keel' and it took two and a half hours. By contrast, he highlighted the example of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, which 'rolled over much more quickly' during the disaster in 2012 off the coast of an Italian island. 'So actually you could say Titanic was safer than modern ships are today,' Mr Maltin claimed. The crew didn't have binoculars and so could not spot the iceberg in timeBefore the Titanic left Southampton, there was a reordering of the officers with Henry Wilde coming over from the RMS Olympic with Captain Edward Smith. As a result Second Officer David Blair left the Titanic and it is thought he took the key to the cabin with him, which would have given officers access to a binoculars case. Speaking to presenter and fellow historian Dan Snow, Mr Maltin conceded in the History Hit documentary that 'there were no binoculars in the crow's nest that night.' However, he explained that the best way to detect icebergs at night is with the naked eye. Speaking to presenter and fellow historian Dan Snow, Mr Maltin conceded in the History Hit documentary that 'there were no binoculars in the crow's nest that night.' However, he explained that the best way to detect icebergs at night is with the naked eye. Pictured: The Titanic's lookout, Frederick Fleet, who issued the warning about the iceberg'That's because the naked eye has a wide field of vision and that helps the way that we detect objects,' he said. 'Whereas, if you're trying to look through binoculars, it is really hopeless because the binoculars are used to inspect an object you've already detected.' Mr Maltin in fact argued that, had they had binoculars, the crew would have been slowed down in declaring news of the iceberg to the ship's bridge. He added: 'Instead of thinking "is that an iceberg or not" and checking it out with the binoculars, they just rang the bell three times which meant "iceberg, dead ahead". Captain Smith then ordered the ship's crew to take evasive action but was not able to turn quickly enough to fully avoid the ice. Titanic tipped up and sank horizontallyIn the 1997 Hollywood film about the disaster, which stars Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet, the Titanic splits in two before the bow (front) tips up horizontally. However, Mr Maltin said this is not how the vessel actually sank. Because the iceberg struck the ship near the front on its starboard (right) side, that was were water flowed into the vessel. It meant that the stern was lifted out of the water and then broke away. But because it was 'so well sub-divided', Mr Maltin said it 'crashed back down' on to the water. In the 1997 Hollywood film about the disaster, which stars Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet, the Titanic splits in two before the bow (front) tips up horizontallyThe passengers who were on the stern, which was 'almost everyone at that stage' actually then thought they were 'going to be fine'. However, because the bow was having a 'tug of the war' with the stern as it sank, it did terminal damage to the still-floating rear part. Mr Maltin said: '[It] did so much damage pulling at her keel that the damage to the stern that was caused by the bow was greater than the damage caused by the iceberg.' Despite the film scenes of the Titanic violently sinking as passengers clung on to its rails, Mr Maltin said the stern in fact 'sank very quietly', allowing remaining passengers to swim off it. One passenger remarked that his head did not get wet as he swam away, Mr Maltin said. The third class passengers were locked below deck while the others escapedIn James Cameron's 1997 film, third class passengers are seen being locked below deck beneath huge metal gates. However, this is not actually what happened. Mr Malton said: 'In fact, first class stewards were sent straight down to the third class to tell people exactly where the boats were.' It is true that there were gates which separated first, second and third class. But this was a legal requirement set by US immigration authorities to avoid the spread of infectious diseases. 'The law was that no passenger ship could go to America without these gates shut. It was only in a state of emergency that the gates were allowed to be opened,' Mr Maltin said. In James Cameron's 1997 film, third class passengers are seen being locked below deck beneath huge metal gates. However, this is not actually what happenedOn the Titanic, the gates were opened as soon as a state of emergency was declared, 47 minutes after the ship hit the iceberg. Addressing the fact that more third class passengers died than those in second class, Mr Maltin said it was because they 'did not want to' get in life boats. He said that, in 1912, boys were classed as adults from the age of 13, meaning teenagers were only allowed into life boats after women and children had taken their places. Because poorer families were going to America in search of a new life, they did not want to lose teenage or male members of their family. 'So you could imagine these women and men with families going to America,' Mr Maltin said. 'What you don't want to do is leave behind your 13-year-old son, your 14-year old son, your 15-year-old daughter. 'So what they did is they decided they would be better off sticking together. 'If they were going to leave the breadwinner behind dead in the icy waters of the Atlantic, what hope would there be for the mother on her own?' Titanic didn't have enough lifeboatsMuch has been made of the fact that the Titanic only had 20 lifeboats, which was enough to carry just over 1,000 of the 2,208 passengers. However, Mr Maltin said that, because half the lifeboats would have been put out of action by the listing of the ship, the Titanic would have in fact needed to carry twice as many everyone needed if they were to save all souls onboard. 'The fact is, if you want to have enough life boats on a ship for everyone, you need to have twice as many as everyone needs,' he said. Much has been made of the fact that the Titanic only had 20 lifeboats, which was enough to carry just over 1,000 of the 2,208 passengers. Pictured: Some of the Titanic survivors in a lifeboat'Every ship almost settles on an uneven keel, it lists to the port or starboard. When it's listing, half the lifeboats are put out of action. 'So if the Titanic needed 30 lifeboats, then she actually needed to carry 60 to allow for that eventuality,' he said. Because this was impractical, the Board of Trade instead opted to have 'ships properly built and properly subdivided', Mr Maltin said. 'What the authorities said was that any properly subdivided ship could actually carry a limited number of lifeboats in order for the lifeboats to act as a ferry from a stricken liner to get people to nearby vessels,' he added. Rudder was too smallIt has also been argued that the Titanic's rudder was too small to effectively manoeuvre the enormous ship. However, Mr Maltin said it was the same size as the one which was on the Titanic's sister ship, the Olympic. The Olympic remained in service until 1935 and its captain said it had the best handling of any ship he had ever commanded, Mr Maltin said.

###CLAIM: much of wheatley 's biography of his death in 1784, leaving behind a sizeable body of work, is based on the memoirs of a white woman who claims to have been margaretta, margarita, susanna, matilda, wheatley and odella. ###DOCS: This week, The New Yorker will be announcing the longlists for the 2020 National Book Awards. On Wednesday, we presented the lists for Young Peoples Literature and Translated Literature. Check back this afternoon for Nonfiction. The Age of Phillis, a poetry collection by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, reimagines the life of Phillis Wheatley, a Black poet who achieved literary stardom as an enslaved young woman in Colonial Boston. Though Wheatley, who died in 1784, left behind a sizable body of work, much of her biography has been recovered from the memoir of Margaretta Matilda Odella white woman who claimed to be a descendant of Susanna Wheatley, the woman who enslaved the poet. The Age of Phillis, the product of several years of research in Massachusetts archives, undoes the whitewashing of Philliss story, Elizabeth Winkler writes. In some of the poems, language is bracketed and crossed outa way of representing, through style, Philliss elisions, everything she could not say.The Age of Phillis is on the longlist for this years National Book Award in Poetry. It is one of several contenders that observes the violence of empire and excavates histories that have been forgotten or erased. Anthony Cody investigates omissions in the historical record in his collection Borderland Apocrypha, Natalie Diaz subverts a traditional form in Postcolonial Love Poem, and Don Mee Choi uses translation as a tool for disobedience in DMZ Colony, a collection that explores the Korean Demilitarized Zone. The full list is below. program at Rutgers-Newark; Diana Khoi Nguyen, whose collection Ghost Of was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award; Elizabeth Willis, whose collection Alive was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; John Hennessy, who directs the undergraduate creative-writing program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and Layli Long Soldier, whose collection Whereas was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award. This week, The New Yorker will be announcing the longlists for the 2020 National Book Awards. So far, weve presented the lists for Young Peoples Literature, Translated Literature, and Poetry. Check back tomorrow morning for Fiction. This years longlist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction includes two debuts that intersperse memoir with research and reportage. At the center of Michelle Bowdlers Is Rape a Crime? is the horrific story of her own rape, in 1984; what follows is a damning examination of the justice systems failures to investigate and prosecute sexual assaults. The Undocumented Americans, by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, is both an autobiographical project and a story that sweeps across the U.S.Other contenders for the award present frameworks that illuminate the workings of race and other vectors of power. Isabel Wilkerson offers a new theory of American hierarchyone that draws from her studies of India and Nazi Germanyin Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Frank B. Wilderson III, the author of Afropessimism, locates Black people in a state of perpetual slavery, arguing that Black death is foundational to human society. Two books on the longlist, both works of history, were excerpted in The New Yorker: The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, by the late journalist Les Payne and his daughter, Tamara Payne, and If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, by the New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore. The full list is below. Michelle Bowdler, Is Rape a Crime?

###CLAIM: many folks are afraid to go out because of my speech, but walking every day, or even going to the grocery store, encourages elderly parents to go out. ###DOCS: RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:It's been a year since the pandemic changed life as we know it, not least for Asian Americans. In many cities, they've been the target of racists who blame them for the coronavirus. New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco have all reported a rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans. Harder to track are other incidents beyond crime that cast a cloud of discrimination. Connie Chung Joe is CEO of a legal aid group, Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Los Angeles. Connie, thanks so much for being with us. CONNIE CHUNG JOE: Thanks so much for having me, Rachel. MARTIN: Where you are in LA, there have been high-profile hate incidents in recent weeks. What's happening? CHUNG JOE: Yeah. A few weeks ago, we had an Air Force veteran who was physically assaulted and had his nose fractured and was called all sorts of racial slurs. And we've been seeing across the country over the last year over 3,000 reported incidents of hate like that against the Asian community. MARTIN: Who is most affected? Is there a way to measure that? CHUNG JOE: So we are seeing some patterns. First, out of the 3,000 reported cases, almost half of them are coming from California. Another thing is that women are targeted more than twice as often as men. And then we are seeing a spate of hate and violence targeted at our seniors. The focus of some of these attacks are people who are considered to be less able to stand up for themselves. MARTIN: What's the effect of that for Asian Americans right now? CHUNG JOE: Well, I will say it's a scary time for our community. Folks are incredibly disturbed and worried about what's happening. Many of the folks that I speak to are scared to go out or they're encouraging their elderly parents not to go out of the house, even for things like daily walks or trips to the grocery store. So folks are really worried about this. And there's also a lot of outrage of why is this still allowed to happen in our society? MARTIN: What's the reporting like? Do you trust that the data is actually capturing the number of incidents that are happening? CHUNG JOE: Well, so the 3,000 reported incidents I mentioned are just the tip of the iceberg. When you think about the vulnerable community members, we're talking about folks who are seniors, often limited English speaking, and they don't know how to navigate language and cultural barriers. And so there is far more people who have not reported incidents than those who have. MARTIN: I mean, when you think about whether or not these attacks are underreported, does it have anything to do with representation in the police force? Does that make a difference here at all? CHUNG JOE: Well, I don't think we have a great deal of Asian representation in the police force. And, I mean, I think it can certainly help if there were. But I think part of what we've seen is that law enforcement has not done enough to recognize and investigate and report on these hate-based incidents. And unfortunately, some victims told me that when they called the police, the police said, well, there's nothing we can really do here. And I think if the community feels that the police aren't going to do anything, then chances are that word gets around and the community feels next time I'm not going to report it then. What's the point? MARTIN: Connie Chung Joe, CEO of Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Los Angeles, thank you so much for talking with us. CHUNG JOE: Thanks so much for having me. (SOUNDBITE OF BRAMBLES' "TO SPEAK OF SOLITUDE")Copyright 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Against the backdrop of anti-racism protests last summer, racist violence was surging in Chinatowns and Asian American communities across the country. In July, an 89-year-old Chinese woman was set on fire while walking on the street after being slapped in the face in Brooklyn, New York. The two assailants, she said, didnt say a word before attacking her. She scrambled to put out the fire, but it left a large burn mark on the back of her pink blouse a grisly reminder of the attack. It was not an isolated incident. Between March 19 and December 31, 2020, there were more than 2,808 firsthand accounts of anti-Asian hate, according to a report by Stop AAPI Hate, an organization that has been tracking reports on anti-Asian violence a 150 percent rise since 2019. From being barred from establishments to being spat or coughed on, Asian Americans have reported physical and verbal harassment throughout the pandemic, as theyve been used as a xenophobic scapegoat for the spread of a virus that originated in China. According to one survey conducted last April, 32 percent of Americans have witnessed someone blaming Asian people for Covid-19, and 60 percent of Asian Americans have witnessed this behavior. This year, the attacks have seemed to take a more gruesome and visible turn: A 61-year-old Filipino man was slashed in the face as he rode the subway in New York; a 64-year-old Vietnamese woman was robbed in a parking lot in San Jose ahead of Lunar New Year; and an 84-year-old Thai man was shoved to the ground in San Francisco, which resulted in his death. When the pandemic emerged and the president began calling the virus kung flu or China virus, those who were aware of how race operates knew that we were about to experience a surge of racism that we havent seen in a while, said Pastor Raymond Chang, founder and president of the Asian American Christian Collaborative, a faith-based group advocating for Asian American communities while also leading Black and Asian solidarity. Racism against Asian Americans has always been a part of the fabric of our society. It just depends on whether its overt and violent, or subtle and kind of flies under the radar.Contribute to Voxs reporting How do you define your Asian identity? We want to hear from you for an upcoming story. Fill out this Google form to share your experience. What also isnt new in times of anti-Asian sentiment is the focus on relationships between Black and Asian communities. Many of the attacks that have gained widespread attention have featured Black assailants, and have threatened to inflame tensions between Asian Americans and Black Americans. While Vox found no evidence that Black Americans are predominantly responsible for this rise in attacks, or that they are particularly hostile to Asian Americans relative to the rest of the population, the narrative of Black-Asian hostility is rooted in immigration and economic policies that have historically pitted these communities against one another. In America, what we need to realize is that theres this timeless structure, in which theres always one group on top and another at the bottom, Scott Kurashige, professor and chair of comparative race and ethnic studies at Texas Christian University, told Vox. Though there certainly is an unchanged structure in the sense that this country has had a white supremacist ruling class structure since the beginning, its not the same techniques of governance or the same ideology, and certainly not the same people.Ultimately, there is a failure to remember what got America to this place of racial hierarchies and lingering Black-Asian tensions: white supremacy. White supremacy is what created segregation, policing, and scarcity of resources in low-income neighborhoods, as well as the creation of the model minority myth all of which has driven a wedge between Black and Asian communities. In fact, it is white Christian nationalism, more than any other ideology, that has shaped xenophobic and racist views around Covid-19, according to a recent study. And for Black and Asian American communities to move forward, it is important to remember the root cause and fight together against it. There is already a long history of Black-Asian solidarity against oppression and structural racism, which has been obscured by these recent fissures. In the late 1960s, for instance, Black and Asian activists led the Third World Liberation Front movement to establish race and ethnic studies in college and university curriculums in California. And today, members of both communities are showing up for each other in demonstrations for Black lives and against anti-Asian violence. This is a moment for us to really tell that history to share that not only have Asians and other immigrants and people of color been blamed and scapegoated, but that theres also a history of our community, mobilizing, and demanding change and action that weve stood in solidarity together with other communities, said Cynthia Choi, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate. How policy created the conditions for Black-Asian tensionsThe models we have for understanding and interpreting racism are often oversimplified and lead to frustration and resentment. A simple model of racism that casts people as either perpetrators or victims of racism is divorced from the reality that individuals have dozens of identities outside of just their race. The fact is that Black Americans are native-born Americans, and, like all native-born people, they are susceptible to xenophobic and nationalistic sentiments that can place blame on an other in this case, Asian Americans, who can be seen as forever foreigners even if they, too, are native-born. While Black Americans (who are overwhelmingly Democratic) often have more liberal views on immigration reform, there is also existing research that indicates that Black people may feel economic competition with new immigrant communities that can manifest as broad anti-immigrant sentiment and racism. Its not that Asian-Black tensions or racial hierarchies dont exist today but that there is a failure to remember what got America to this place: white supremacyScholars also highlight that a lot of this competition is due to a racial hierarchy that has placed Black Americans at the bottom. When newcomers enter the country, they encounter a system that reserves the best for wealthy, white Americans, engendering resentment and zero-sum thinking among everyone else for whatever is left. The conflict between Korean Americans and Black Americans is one of the most visible examples of this phenomenon. In 1965, the United States ended the quota-based system of immigration and began to push for high-skilled labor to enter the country. One group that was able to enter the country were Korean Americans who were hyper-selected that is, they had much higher socioeconomic and educational attainment relative not only to their country of origin but also to the native-born US population. Yen Le Espiritu, a professor of ethnic studies who specializes in Asian American studies at the University of California San Diego, explained how this highly educated population came to the United States and was often unable to replicate the social status that they enjoyed in their home country due to racial discrimination and other barriers. Instead, they found employment as small-business owners, opening up shops in predominantly Black communities. Many of these immigrants didnt intend to be small businessmen. The structural context is that Korean immigrants couldnt regain the employment and educational status they once held, Espiritu told Vox. Their proximity to Black people was because they were only able to start businesses in economically disadvantaged areas. This, coupled with the fact that anti-Black racism in financing meant Black people often couldnt start their own businesses, sparked bitterness on both sides. Espiritu added that an additional barrier was that both groups had already been primed to mistrust each other. As Koreans consumed American media, they internalized the racist depictions of Black Americans as violent, uneducated, and poor similarly, Black Americans had watched (with the rest of America) as Koreans were depicted as untrustworthy during the Korean War. Edward T. Chang, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of California Riverside, explained the middleman minority theory, which helps further explain the tensions that arose at these Korean-owned businesses. Middleman minority is a term derived from the historical experiences of Jews in Europe and Chinese in Southeast Asia and Asian Indians in Africa, Chang told Vox. Middlemen minorities exist between dominant and subordinate groups in society and often hold professions heavily concentrated in the retail and service industries like grocery markets and liquor stores, he explained. These groups often have daily contact with one another in a way that white Americans often do not due to segregated neighborhoods, shopping centers, and schools. Between the racist stereotypes both groups have internalized and the linguistic and cultural barriers separating them, its little surprise the continual interactions could lead to conflict. In Americas collective memory, the most notable such collision occurred during the 1992 Los Angeles riots sparked by the acquittal of four white LAPD officers after they were videotaped beating Rodney King, a Black man. Over the following week, more than 50 people were killed and 1,000 were injured in the uprising that showcased not only anger at the verdict but also longstanding resentments between Black and Korean communities in the LA area. According to CNN, roughly half a billion dollars worth of damage was borne by Korean-owned businesses. Many believe the 1992 riots are emblematic of the relations between Black Americans and Asian Americans despite being the product of a specific time and place. After the riots, churches and community organizers worked to educate the two communities on their shared histories of oppression many Korean business owners, for example, were unaware of the violence and discrimination Black people have faced in America. Today, more than nine in 10 Korean Americans believe there is at least some discrimination against Black people, according to a survey by Asian Americans Advancing Justice. Meanwhile, 70 percent of Korean Americans agree that the government should do more to protect the civil rights of Black Americans. White supremacy is at the crux of these tensions, including the model minority mythAccording to scholars and activists who have experienced it firsthand, Black-Asian tensions have obscured Americas root problem: white supremacy. Racism and white supremacy have created longstanding rifts between communities of color, Pastor Chang said. The way the system works, the rhetoric around Black and Asian tensions will be used to discount the white supremacy that actually drives these tensions.To be white is to sit atop Americas ruling class and since darker skin has historically been deemed undesirable and equated with being poor under Western and Eurocentric views, anyone who is not white falls at the bottom of this hierarchy. In this dominant Black-white paradigm, Asian immigrants and Asian Americans have had to find a way to fit in, rendering them at risk of invisibility. Those who could assimilate into the dominant framework often did, buying into the notions of racial hierarchies and white supremacy including internalizing racism against their own communities. But not all Asians are offered this opportunity: The categorization of Asian Americans encompasses roughly 40 ethnicities and a vast range of economic statuses, religions, regions, and cultures. While its true that Asian Americans are the wealthiest minority group in the country, they also have the widest income gap of any racial group. Myanmarese Americans, for example, have a far higher poverty rate than other Asian groups, particularly Japanese Americans. A huge reason for this divide is due to the disparity between Asian immigrants who arrived in the US with skill-based visas and those who arrived as refugees. Our history is a story of seeking to belong but finding that our choices were often either erasure or exclusion or assimilation, Pastor Chang said. We ultimately chose to try to fight erasure in the form of assimilation to the degree that made us give up a lot of our cultural heritage. When it benefited the broader white society, they didnt punish Asians as much, but when Asians are perceived as a threat, they either incarcerated or excluded us altogether.This rush to assimilation is what has perpetuated the model minority myth and helped further racial tensions. The model minority myth took root around the time Japanese Americans were put in internment camps in World War II. Asians were scared of returning or being put into camps, so they remained reticent and were seen as hard workers who, as Choi puts it, have been able to pull themselves up by the bootstraps or overcome barriers. This perpetuated the belief that nonwhite Americans can succeed and overcome racism in the US, without acknowledging the specific historical struggles of Black and Latino Americans and the role of skin color in creating a caste system meant to stoke interracial conflicts. The model minority stereotype really isnt meant to define Asian Americans. Rather, its meant to define African Americans as deficient and inferior to white people by using Asian Americans as a proxy or a pawn to serve that purpose, Kurashige told Vox. It was never an accurate portrayal of Asian Americans, but actually consciously meant to distort and stereotype Asian Americans.The recent rise in anti-Asian attacks has reflected the anti-Asian sentiment that has always coursed through AmericaFor example, there are other ethnicities that meet the surface criteria of a so-called model minority but are unlikely to be seen that way. According to researchers at Columbia University and UC Irvine, nearly two-thirds of Nigerian immigrants are college-educated far exceeding the US mean at 28 percent. Like Koreans, Nigerians were defined by hyper-selected migration, but unlike Koreans, they were racialized as Black in the US context. Nigerians are not held up as a model, yet more evidence that the minority myth was not about the outcomes of a specific group but a way to reemphasize the existing racial caste structure and absolve the government of removing barriers to success for Black people. The model minority myth is to Asians what the Black criminality myth is to Black communities. Any image of Black people acting inherently violent toward Asian Americans or other groups of color feeds into the systemic tropes that have long painted Black people as criminals, which has been perpetuated by both American media and Asian media platforms like WeChat and Weibo. Last summer, Asian news media furthered the Black criminality image during the protests for racial justice, creating a fearmongering framework around incidents of looting and violence, rather than focusing on the largely peaceful protests. In recent months, videos circulated in social media showing elderly Asians getting shoved and attacked, with a few of the attacks perpetrated by Black assailants, and the news and social media were quick to put the spotlight on historically complicated tensions between Black and Asian communities. Again, its not that these fissures dont exist after decades of white supremacy-inflected policy its just that the emerging narrative has too easily attributed the violence to these tensions when there are other factors in play. For example, anti-Asian (and anti-China) sentiment is on the rise globally from Australia to Europe to Canada, people are registering increasing hostility toward China and people who they think are Chinese. Not to mention in America, it is white Christian nationalists who are the most likely to say that it isnt racist to call Covid-19 the Chinese virus.Ultimately, the recent rise in anti-Asian attacks has not only reflected the anti-Asian sentiment that has always coursed through America, but also underscores how Asian Americans perceived model minority status has kept that racism out of the public consciousness for so long. So when America needs an answer to why this violence is happening the same way it was quick to blame Asians for the pandemic the tendency is to scapegoat Black people, or to claim that these incidents arent racially motivated. Moving forward through solidarityAs author and activist Helen Zia said, Asian Americans are not missing in action; they are missing in history. And because of this invisibility, Asian Americans are often unaware of their own communities history of activism and solidarity with Black communities and other communities of color. While the decades-long acculturation into a predominantly white society will take a lot of work to undo, the intergenerational gap between Asian immigrants who have absorbed anti-Black sentiment and younger US-born Asians who are much more willing to speak out against injustice will play a major role in this shifting narrative. And it starts with looking at the moments of solidarity that have come before. In his book The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans In the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles, Kurashige examines the coexistence of Black and Japanese Americans in Los Angeles, before, during, and after World War II, going back to the creation of the model minority myth. While Japanese Americans were incarcerated in camps, Black folks from the Jim Crow South migrated West to Los Angeles and settled in spaces that were previously occupied by Japanese Americans. After being released from internment camps, Japanese Americans found themselves having to integrate with their Black counterparts. Fearing being put back into camps, they tried to prove themselves worthy of earning back their constitutional rights by working hard. As policing and white fearmongering intensified in these communities, Japanese Americans were further invoked as a model minority for being able to rise up economically after their internment. But that status didnt necessarily translate into divides between Japanese American and Black communities themselves. Kurashige cites stories of an African American elder who delivered care packages and letters to his Japanese friends when they were first put into temporary assembly centers before they were interned, and another story of a Black woman who sent high school yearbook copies to her Japanese American classmates who had been put in camps. When politicians and media stoked fears of race riots upon Japanese Americans being released from internment, one Black activist told the media, I have nothing against the return of the Japanese.A friend who was a waitress at this cherished, now demolished, bowling alley in Crenshaw in Los Angeles said she would serve udon noodles to African American customers who were having lunch with their Japanese American friends eating grits, Kurashige said. You can find solidarity moments like this all over the place when we shift the framework. We can still be concerned about racism and white supremacy, but we dont have to center whiteness and white ideologies all the time.Movements of solidarity between both communities are even more widespread and out in the open today. Like many Americans this summer, Asian Americans rallied around Black Lives Matter protests and vowed to interrogate anti-Blackness within their communities. Im tired of the Asian community being quiet or missing in action when its time to side with our Black brothers and sisters, one Asian American activist who joined the Black Lives Matter protests in Austin, Texas, told Vox last June. And now Black activists have joined the fight at recent rallies in New York and California, calling attention to the resurgence of anti-Asian violence. Heartwarming videos circulated on social media showing Black people chanting things like, We are on these streets fighting for Asian lives.Healing is happening at the community level, too. Last May, Pastor Chang led an effort to bring Black and Asian communities together by hosting a three-part panel series titled Interconnected, in which they discussed racial biases and the deep-rooted history of Black and Asian American conflicts. And in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd, Ray brought together two churches a mile apart from each other an African American church and an Asian American church to lead a historic solidarity march for Black lives in Chicago. If you take a holistic look at our history, I truly believe that Asian Americans have more in common with the African American community than with the white community in America, Pastor Chang said. The fact that many people dont know that shows how historically malnourished we are and how fragmented our understanding of history is.In addition to understanding this history, Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter and principal of Black Futures Lab, said its important to continue fostering these interracial relationships. Without these interracial relations and solidarity movements, she said, white nationalist groups will end up benefiting if Black and Asian communities are seen at conflict with each other instead of addressing the overall problem of systemic racism and white supremacy head on. We need to make sure that were not falling into the wedges and the traps that get set for us, Garza said. There is a long history of solidarity in Black communities and Asian communities and those relationships are needed more than ever.In this moment of racial reckoning, Garza, Pastor Chang, Choi, and others say its imperative to have difficult and uncomfortable yet meaningful conversations across all racial groups to understand one anothers collective struggles. We have to enter into the stories of other people and understand how their communities have been shaped and formed, and why they are the way they are, Pastor Chang said. That comes through learning, unlearning and relearning, because theres a lot of misconception and misunderstanding around how we actually got to where we are today.Ultimately, the pandemic has exposed the cracks in Americas society, bringing forth the layers of systemic racism and legacies of injustice that many Americans have chosen not to pay attention to until now. And its not only up to Black and Asian American communities to do the work of building solidarity its the responsibility of all Americans to understand the role that white supremacy has played in creating these rifts that are exploited again and again. The crisis for me is not that theres this intractable clash of cultures between Black and Asian Americans, Kurashige said. The crisis is systemic: It is Covid-19, the persistence of white nationalism, police brutality, and these really anti-human discourses and practices that are at the center of so much of whats wrong in our countrys history.We need dramatic change, he added. Radical solutions never come from the top down. They start off with groups at the grassroots level breaking through the status quo.

###CLAIM: lines outside the stadium since 15:15 a. m. have been lining up to turn away, but after the turn-away the gates were gutted, said kira and lewis. ###DOCS: AdvertisementThousands of young people tonight descended on Twickenham Stadium hoping to get a Covid jab as part of a special one-day vaccination event at the home of English rugby. A huge queue, described by some as being 'longer than those at Glastonbury', was tonight seen outside the west London venue, as thousands of young vaccine hopefuls lined-up to get their Covid jab. Earlier in the day, the under-30s had been given green light to get their vaccination at the special walk-in event at the 82,000-seater ground. Bosses behind the scheme had been aiming to shift 15,000 doses and push them above their vaccine targets for the Hounslow area - which has recently been involved in a surge testing and vaccination project due a spike in Indian variant cases. But after a steady start, organisers sparked a vaccine free-for-all by throwing open the doors anyone aged over-18 - even though the national roll-out is currently focused on the over-30s. It comes as Cambridge professor Ravi Gupta today warned there are signs that the UK is in the early stages of a third wave of coronavirus infection and that the lifting of restrictions on June 21 should be postponed. Meanwhile Government minister George Eustice today acknowledged England's 'Freedom Day' could be in jeopardy due to concerns about the spread of the Indian variant in the UK. Today's call to get jabs-in-arms at Twickenham sparked a late rush to the stadium this evening, as people under 30 raced to get their vaccine. But with queues mounting, thousands of vaccine hopefuls were turned away. An hour before the event was set to end, organisers announced that there were enough people in the queue to use up the 15,000 available. Kira Lewis, who had been queueing outside the stadium since 5.15pm, said she was 'gutted' after being turned away. In a tweet, the 21-year-old, who travelled from Hampstead Heath in north London with her partner, Nathan Burns, 24, said: 'We were queuing since 5.15pm and at 7pm they've just told us they've run out. Absolutely gutted. (My friend) came home early from Cambridgeshire to get it today. 'Thousands just been turned away. Boris Johnson make them available to everyone now!' She later added: 'I hate needles. But it'll have to be done sooner or later and getting the vaccine is definitely for the best. I had coronavirus at Christmas and it was horrible. It's better to avoid it again or passing it on.' Another attendee, Jake Round, said on Twitter: 'Shame I missed out on the vaccine after nearly two-hours of queuing at Twickenham Stadium - Mad to see the thousands that showed up.' Organisers of the event - named 'Let's Tackle Covid' - had earlier warned people to get to the stadium early to avoid missing out. In a message on Twitter, Hounslow Council, who helped organise the event, said: 'Hundreds still turning up at Twickenham Stadium to get their jab. 'Now advised get here no later than 7.30pm. No appointment needed.' Organisers behind the project started the huge walk-in operation at 10am today. The event was originally due to finish at 8pm, but people reported being turned away at around 7pm. Thousands of people are tonight making a mad dash to jump the Covid vaccine queue by taking part in a one-time only event at the home of English rugbyQueues, described by some 'as long as those to get into Glastonbury', are tonight forming outside Twickenham Stadium in west London as people rush to get their Covid jabOrganisers say there are now enough people in the queue to use up all 15,000 doses. Earlier today organisers had warned hopefuls to get to the stadium before 7.30pm in order to get a jabThe incredible length of the queue after it was announced anyone over 18 would be able to have the vaccineSuch is the demand that late-comers are even being turned away an hour before the vaccine free-for-all is set to end. It comes after the under 30s were earlier given the green light to get their Covid jab at the special one-day eventIn a bid to increase demand, organisers earlier opened the doors to anyone aged over 18 - even though the national roll-out is currently focused on those in their 30s. It sparked a late rush to the stadium this evening, as people under 30 rushed to get their jabA rugby-themed mass Covid vaccination event set in the stadium home of the sport tonight threw open its doors to anyone over 18 - as they tried to shift 15,000 dosesVaccination staff were dressed up in uniforms with the England Rugby Team's logo on itPippa Nightingale, chief nurse in north-west London said: 'We know we are finally due some lovely weather on Monday. But if you are eligible and you haven't had your vaccine yet, we encourage you to take some time out of your day and come and see us'Jab mandate for NHS staff? Covid vaccines could be made compulsory for frontline under plans to prevent hospital infections Covid jabs could be made compulsory for NHS staff, the vaccines minister confirmed yesterday. The plan was first revealed by the Mail in March and Nadhim Zahawi said it would be 'irresponsible' of the Government not to consider strict measures to protect vulnerable patients. The Department of Health has just finished a five-week consultation on whether vaccines should be a compulsory condition of deployment for care home staff. The findings will be announced shortly. But Mr Zahawi confirmed that the Government was considering expanding this to all healthcare staff, pointing out that some doctors already had to get hepatitis B vaccines as a condition of work. He told Sky News's Trevor Phillips on Sunday: 'It would be incumbent on any responsible government to have the debate, to do the thinking as to how we go about protecting the most vulnerable by making sure that those who look after them are vaccinated. There is precedent for this. So it's something we are absolutely thinking about.' Later he told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: 'Maybe the whole of the healthcare system should be looked at, including the NHS.' But shadow Commons leader Thangam Debbonaire highlighted the NHS recruitment crisis and said: 'Threatening staff I don't think is a good idea.' Figures obtained by the Health Service Journal last week revealed that a quarter of frontline staff at some London trusts had not been vaccinated. AdvertisementThe event had originally planned to be a walk-in for those over the age of 30. At the moment government rules say that only people over 30 are eligible to have the vaccine. But an NHS plea for more arms to inoculate came just after 3pm as they declared: 'Thousands of people vaccinated at Twickenham Stadium today. 'Still spaces and vaccine left: now open to all 18 and over who can get here before 7.30pm!' It was hoped the push - which was dishing out the Pfizer vaccine - would give locals their first dose of the vaccine without delay of having to book or wait. The initiative comes as the spread of the Indian variant of coronavirus threatens plans to reopen the country on June 21. Student and sports fan Flo Flake-Parsons said it was 'quite exciting' to get her jab in a place 'where there has been so many happy memories'. The 24-year-old of Chiswick, west London, said there were no queues by the time she got her afternoon injection. Saying it was 'quite a relief' to the get the vaccination, she added: 'It has been a really rubbish time for everyone and this is a good step back towards normality.' Latest figures for England showed there were a further 3,240 positive tests yesterday and 22,474 over the past seven days, which represents a 26.8 % rise on the previous week. The Twickenham jabbing day was dreamt up by a partnership of the local NHS and Hounslow Council with support from England RFU. It is situated by Hounslow, which is currently under surge testing due to increased variant cases. Dr Genevieve Small, who is a Harrow GP and the clinical lead for the north west London vaccination programme, described the Twickenham event which had been organised in a short space of time as a service which had been 'something quite powerful' for a range of people. She said: 'We have been able to provide this facility on the day for people who perhaps knew they were allowed to get the vaccine but had not come around to sorting it out, or who have just been more spontaneous, or who had previously questions about the programme and now feel ready to come forward for the vaccination. 'There is, of course, a want (or a need) to make sure we are protecting the areas that are seeing more cases of the new variant. 'We have been given the opportunity (to do this). We have been given the vaccine and we have gone for it.' Over 100 vaccinators, which includes a mixture of GPs and nurses, were on duty to hand out the jabs. Pippa Nightingale, chief nurse for North West London, said: 'We made a local clinical decision to widen the vaccination offer today to ensure all the available vaccine could be put to use without waste. 'We got a huge response from the public, to the point where we had to close the gates to walk-ins at 6.45. 'We're really sorry for anyone who was disappointed - for those eligible, please do book through the national book on system.' Twickenham Stadium venue director Mark Lynch said: 'We are proud to have supported the NHS for over a year during the pandemic, first with a test centre in Twickenham Stadium car park and now to set up this mass vaccination facility in record time. 'It's taken less than a week to turn around and I'd like to thank all 600 stadium and NHS employees involved for their hard work to make this happen. A burger serving stall had been transformed into a vaccine distribution hub today for the jabs at Twickenham Stadium in west LondonTurnstyles normally used for sporting fans were gateways to getting the vaccine today at the special event at Twickenham StadiumThe Covid-19 Vaccination centre at Twickenham stadium saw a good uptake a queues formed. But thousands were turned away later after under-30s were given the invite to get a vaccineHounslow is currently under surge testing due to increased coronavirus variant cases - which experts warn could delay June 12's Freedom DayWalk-in vaccinations at Twickenham Stadium for eligible residents of North West London took place today at the venue - the home of English rugbyThe home of English Rugby has become UK's biggest vaccination hub for one day only. The event aimed at jabbing 15,000 people'We can't rule anything out': Minister hints No10 is prepared to cave in to SAGE pressure and push back June 21 Freedom Day after scientists warned UK is 'on a knife-edge' due to Indian variant outbreak A Government minister today acknowledged England's June 21 Freedom Day could be in jeopardy after a number of SAGE scientists publicly called for the end of restrictions to be pushed back. During a round of interviews this morning, Environment Secretary George Eustice said the Government couldn't 'rule anything out' when asked if the next phase of the roadmap could be delayed or watered down. He insisted a decision would be made in a fortnight's time when ministers will know more about the effect of the Indian strain - which is making up three-quarters of all new infections - on hospital rates. The comments mark a significant shift in tone from No10, with ministers claiming just days ago there was no reason to deviate from the lockdown-ending plan. The remarks come after several high profile SAGE experts and Government advisers today lobbied for the June 21 easing to be moved. Professor Ravi Gupta, who sits on the Nervtag subgroup of SAGE, urged the Government to push back the unlocking by 'a few weeks' to allow more people to get vaccinated before ditching all social distancing rules. The Cambridge University expert claimed there were early signs the third wave had already begun after daily infections breached 4,000 on Friday for the first time in nearly two months - and warned it could become 'quite explosive' over the next few months. Professor Ravi Gupta, who sits on NERVTAG, was speaking in a personal capacity when he urged ministers to slow down lockdown easings. Professor Susan Michie, who sits on the SPI-B subgroup, warned Britain was perched on a knife edge and running the risk of cases going the same way as at Christmas Professor Gupta said the jab rollout was giving people a 'false sense of security' because infection rates were still relatively low, but claimed it was inevitable unvaccinated people would eventually start to fall ill with the highly infectious strain. The roaring success of the vaccine programme has seen almost 40million adults given at least one dose of the jab and 25million fully inoculated. But it leaves more than 5million Britons over 50 either unvaccinated or only partially protected. Professor Gupta's comments were echoed by SAGE professor Susan Michie, who warned Britain was on a 'knife-edge' as it approached the June 21 deadline. The University College London behavioural scientist, who sits on the SPI-B committee, said said fully opening the country as planned could lead to a serious spike akin to the second wave in the winter. 'Either it could run away as it did before Christmas, which would be extremely serious and we'd have more restrictions, or it could be contained,' she told Sky News. Professor Adam Finn, a member of the panel which advises No10 on its Covid vaccine rollout, also urged ministers to be 'cautious' amid rising cases. He said the impact of May's lockdown easings on Covid cases which saw restaurants allowed to serve indoors and Britons able to invite up to six others into their homes would not be clear for another two to three weeks. Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith accused scientists of bullying the Government into extending lockdown. Last week the noise from Government was that the June 21 date was likely to go ahead and there was no reason to deviate, but sources in No10 have told Politico there is now a '50-50' chance of the roadmap being delayed. Ministers are set to make a final decision on whether to push on with the last phase of the roadmap on June 14, a week before the restrictions are set to be ditched. Advertisement'Like rugby clubs across the country, we feel it's important for us to do our bit to support our local communities.' It comes as it was reported that the race to double jab millions of over-50s by June 21 is likely to be won. Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi yesterday set a deadline for the first time amid increasing concern over the Indian variant, which is highly transmissible and causing a third surge of the virus ahead of 'unlockdown'. Around 5 million people aged over 50 are currently waiting for their second dose, with the NHS needing to vaccinate 225,000 of them every day to meet the target. But second jabs were handed out at a rate of 400,000 a day most days last week, meaning it would take something catastrophic to knock the drive off course. Ministers hope that by hitting the target, they won't have to extend restrictions - such as the use of face masks - beyond the 'unlockdown date', which Boris Johnson has set for three weeks' time. It comes as a Government minister today acknowledged England's June 21 Freedom Day could be in jeopardy after a number of SAGE scientists publicly called for the end of restrictions to be pushed back. During a round of interviews this morning, Environment Secretary George Eustice said the Government couldn't 'rule anything out' when asked if the next phase of the roadmap could be delayed or watered down. He insisted a decision would be made in a fortnight's time when ministers will know more about the effect of the Indian strain - which is making up three-quarters of all new infections - on hospital rates. The comments mark a significant shift in tone from No10, with ministers claiming just days ago there was no reason to deviate from the lockdown-ending plan. The remarks come after several high profile SAGE experts and Government advisers today lobbied for the June 21 easing to be moved. Professor Ravi Gupta, who sits on the Nervtag subgroup of SAGE, urged the Government to push back the unlocking by 'a few weeks' to allow more people to get vaccinated before ditching all social distancing rules. The Cambridge University expert claimed there were early signs the third wave had already begun after daily infections breached 4,000 on Friday for the first time in nearly two months - and warned it could become 'quite explosive' over the next few months. Professor Gupta said the jab rollout was giving people a 'false sense of security' because infection rates were still relatively low, but claimed it was inevitable unvaccinated people would eventually start to fall ill with the highly infectious strain. The roaring success of the vaccine programme has seen almost 40million adults given at least one dose of the jab and 25million fully inoculated. But it leaves more than 5million Britons over 50 either unvaccinated or only partially protected. Professor Gupta called for June 21 lockdown easings to be delayed while speaking in a personal capacity on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. 'I think the problem is we are not too far from reaching the sort of levels of vaccination that would help us contain the virus,' he said. 'I think that people are not saying we should abandon the June 21 date altogether but just to delay it by a few weeks while we gather more intelligence and we can look at the trajectory in a clearer way.' Asked whether a delay would be necessary, he said: 'If you look at the costs and benefits of getting it wrong, I think it is heavily in favour of delay, so I think that's the key thing. 'Yes, we will learn to live with it but this date that was set did not take into account the fact we would have a new variant on the horizon, with properties that allow it to evade antibodies to some extent and a virus which is more transmissible.' He added: 'It will probably take longer than earlier waves to emerge because of the fact that we do have quite high levels of vaccination in the population, so there may be a false sense of security for some time, and that's our concern.' Professor Gupta's comments were echoed by SAGE professor Susan Michie, who warned Britain was on a 'knife-edge' as it approached the June 21 deadline. The University College London behavioural scientist, who sits on the SPI-B committee, said said fully opening the country as planned could lead to a serious spike akin to the second wave in the winter. 'Either it could run away as it did before Christmas, which would be extremely serious and we'd have more restrictions, or it could be contained,' she told Sky News. Professor Adam Finn, a member of the panel which advises No10 on its Covid vaccine rollout, also urged ministers to be 'cautious' amid rising cases. He said the impact of May's lockdown easings on Covid cases which saw restaurants allowed to serve indoors and Britons able to invite up to six others into their homes would not be clear for another two to three weeks. Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith accused scientists of bullying the Government into extending lockdown. Last week the noise from Government was that the June 21 date was likely to go ahead and there was no reason to deviate, but sources in No10 have told Politico there is now a '50-50' chance of the roadmap being delayed. Ministers are set to make a final decision on whether to push on with the last phase of the roadmap on June 14, a week before the restrictions are set to be ditched. The Prime Minister has repeatedly promised he will be led by 'data not dates', and said his roadmap will be 'irreversible'. Asked on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show whether the vaccine rollout was enough to ensure that all restrictions are lifted on that date, Mr Zahawi said: 'We are in a race between vaccinating at scale and making sure people get their two doses. The discovery of the variant in Britain was not announced to the public by ministers for a fortnight while thousands of potentially infected people were allowed to enter the country, it was reported yesterday. Ministers were given the news of the variant's arrival on April 1 but no official statement was made until April 15. India was not placed on the red list banning travellers for another eight days. But vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi insisted yesterday that it was wrong to say they had been negligent in not putting India on the red list much earlier. Asked when ministers first knew of the new variant, he said: 'It became a variant of interest on April 29. 'When we found out, there were three variants of the Indian variant, as well as other variants, so there were hundreds of variants. Viruses mutate. It became a variant of concern two weeks after we put India on the red list.' Asked on Sky News whether he thought the Government had been slow to close the borders, Mr Zahawi said: 'I don't agree with you. 'I think we have a very robust border control. The reason we pick up these variants in the UK probably before some countries pick them up themselves is because we have the genome sequencing capability. We account for just under 50 per cent of all sequencing taking place.' Advertisement'We saw very good data from Public Health England around the protection from two doses, either of Pfizer or of AstraZeneca. 'We hope to be able to protect with two doses all 'one to nine' [first phase priority groups], all the over-50s before June 21. We will make sure we vaccinate at scale. 'But and here's the important thing we will share the evidence with the country on June 14 to basically explain exactly where we are on infection rates, hospitalisations and of course, sadly, of death.' To meet the deadline, many people have already been told they will receive second jabs earlier than expected eight weeks rather than 12 after their first dose. Over-50s are the priority for 'double-jabbing' because older people are much more likely to be hospitalised or die. Only 3 per cent of those infected with the Indian variant had been double jabbed, according to official statistics, meaning scientists are confident it gives great protection against the strain. Soldiers with the Royal Horse Artillery yesterday helped volunteers hand out Covid tests door-to-door in Bolton, where the Indian variant is prominent. It emerged at the weekend that the NHS has now jabbed more than half of people in their 30s, and there are hopes that those in their 20s will be invited soon. The Department of Health said the new deadline announced by the vaccines minister was a target rather than a commitment. 'We have to be cautious,' said Mr Zahawi. 'Are we still vaccinating at scale? Big tick. Are the vaccines working? Yes. But are infection rates too high for us to then not be able to proceed because there are too many going into hospital? 'I don't know the answer, but we will know it, hopefully, on the 14th, a few more weeks of steady as she goes and we'll get there.' All legal limits on social contact are due to be lifted in England on June 21, a step Mr Johnson has described as 'irreversible' once taken. But ministers are now in a race with the new strain, with almost half of all new cases thought to be the Indian variant. Last week the Prime Minister admitted his June 21 plans now hang in the balance. He said he 'didn't see anything currently in the data' to derail the reopening, but added that 'we may need to wait'. It emerged at the weekend that the NHS has now jabbed more than half of people in their 30s, and there are hopes that those in their 20s will be invited soon. Pictured: Soldiers with the Royal Horse Artillery assist volunteers with handing out Covid-19 tests in BoltonLinda Bauld, professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh, yesterday described the date as 'too early'. She told Sky News: 'The 21st of June is very soon and I think to avoid more preventable deaths... we really need to be cautious at the current time.' Dr Mike Tildesley, from the University of Warwick and a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M) government advisory panel, said 'an awful lot of uncertainty' surrounded the plans. Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, said hospitals are already under 'worrying' pressure and bosses were concerned about the transmissibility of the Indian variant and the large number of people who have still to receive doses of the vaccine. Vaccine passports 'will NOT be legally required to attend large events' says Government source after months of wranglingVaccine passports are not expected to be legally required for large events after the Government ran into opposition from Tory backbenchers who oppose their domestic use on civil liberties grounds. Ministers are examining whether the controversial Covid status certificates in use in countries including Israel could be used to allow football matches, big concerts and festivals resume at full capacity. The certificates would show that an individual had either had one or both Covid jabs, a recent negative test, or antibodies after catching the virus. Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove told MPs last week the costs and benefits of introducing them were 'finely balanced', as he suggested they may not be needed. But last night a government source told the Telegraph: 'It's not a case of 'it's finely balanced'. It's not going to happen. Everyone says it's dead.' The decision not to announce legal changes to mandate passports is likely to be treated as a triumph by backbench Tory MPs, who vowed to join with Labour rebels to defeat the move. A government spokesman said: 'The Covid status certification review is ongoing and no final decisions have been taken yet. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will update Parliament after recess.' A Whitehall source said: 'Michael has been listening very carefully to the arguments for and against Covid certification and the review has left no stone unturned in examining whether there is a case for them domestically. 'He will make recommendations to the PM soon'. It comes as ministers prepare contingency plans to extend restrictions beyond June 21, amid fears that a surge in cases of the Indian variant could lead to a spike in hospital admissions and deaths. Yesterday daily Covid cases have risen by nearly 40 per cent in a week to 3,240 while deaths remain flat at just six as 537,000 more vaccinations were carried out in England yesterday. Ministers are examining whether the Covid status certificates could be used to allow football matches, big concerts and festivals resume at full capacity. Stock imageMr Gove, who has been conducting a review into the idea, told the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee there were 'benefits' in a system of proof for negative tests and vaccines that could help reopen parts of society. But he said there was also a lot of 'hassle' and 'friction' attached, and pointed out that Israel has already suspended its scheme. He suggested that even if certification is introduced it might not be by June 21 - meant to be the final stage of the Government's unlocking roadmap - and it would be time-limited. Boris Johnson has already made clear there is 'no prospect' of proof being needed to do things like drink in a pub from June 21. The review had been due to report earlier this month, but that has now been delayed until the week of June 7 when the Commons returns from recess. 'We have been looking at every stage the impact certification might or might not have on the economy,' he said. 'So, to take a case in point, if it is the case that we want to see the restoration of Premier League football, which I certainly do, then in order for that to happen we would want to have, and indeed Premier League teams would also want to have, their stadia full to maximum capacity. 'Certification may play a role in that if the alternative were to, for example, to continue with social distancing and other forms of restrictions such as crowd capacity limits. 'So, in that sense, and that is just one example, the deployment of certification and the investment in that infrastructure would enable the economic and social life of the country to return more quickly and safely.' But Mr Gove said there were 'frictional costs' involved with certification as testing would have to be continued for those who had not been vaccinated. Asked how balanced in his view were the costs and benefits of such a scheme, he replied: 'Finely balanced.' He said the advantages had to be set against the 'hassle factor' of implementing them. The UK has been examining the Israeli 'green pass' model, but Mr Gove highlighted that the scheme has recently been suspended due to the high uptake of vaccinations in the country. He said even if a similar scheme is brought in for the UK it will be 'for a time-limited period'. Mr Gove said there was not an 'ironclad' link between the June 21 date earmarked for the next stage of the road map out of lockdown and the possible introduction of Covid status certification. 'People have quite rightly linked Covid status certification to stage four. There's no absolute necessary ironclad inviolable link between the two,' he said. 'But, naturally, as we contemplate reopening at stage four, people will understandably want to know what our approach towards certification will be and how that will operate.' 'You can never make any venue or any activity completely safe and ... even two doses of vaccination doesn't automatically inoculate someone completely against the risk of infection, transmission or, indeed, ill health. 'What it does do is dramatically reduce the risk. If one can have confidence that people in a venue have been vaccinated or have immunity in another way, or have recently received a valid test which confirms their negative status, then you can know that that venue will be safer. Pictured, people attending a test music festival as part of a national research programme in Liverpool, May 2, 2021'Set against that, of course, has to be the question about the cost and indeed the ... hassle factor that certification will involve, so it always has to be a balance between the two.' Department of Health figures published yesterday show that daily cases have risen from 2,325 last Sunday to 3,240 today, while deaths rose just one in a week - from five last Sunday to six. Meanwhile, NHS England announced 54,379,320 jabs were given across the country between December 8 and May 29, including first and second doses - which is a rise of 537,283 on the previous day. Of these, there were 155,467 more first doses and 381,816 more second doses. A total of 6,900,813 jabs were given to people in London between December 8 and May 29, including 4,334,097 first doses and 2,566,716 second doses, NHS England said. This compares with 6,182,099 first doses and 4,157,677 second doses given to people in the Midlands - a total of 10,339,776. Despite the success of the jabs roll-out, Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said the Government is waiting for the latest data on June 14 before deciding whether to proceed with the unlocking as planned. NHS chiefs have warned that hospitals are under 'worrying' pressure with uncertainty over the transmissibility of the Indian variant and the number of people not fully vaccinated. Between May 19 and 25, 870 people went into hospital with coronavirus, an increase of 23.2 per cent compared with the previous seven days. Though current data suggest that admissions are rising in some parts of the country, they are at very low levels compared with the winter peak. Meanwhile, the reproduction number - the R value - for England is 1 to 1.1, up from 0.9 and 1.1 the previous week, suggesting the epidemic is growing as the fast-spreading Indian variant becomes the dominant strain. Health experts are now calling the June 21 unlocking 'too early' and are urging No10 not to 'charge ahead'. However, hospitality leaders are calling for clarity on whether restrictions will be extended beyond June 21 after firms suffered big losses during the pandemic last year. British Beer and Pub Association chief executive Emma McClarkin told the BBC: 'If the Government does leave any lingering restrictions in play then they really need to give us advance notice of that and it needs to talk seriously about financial compensation. 'But right now we are asking the Government to stick to their road map.' Labour leader Keir Starmer suggested the biggest risk to easing lockdown was 'incompetence' in the Government, as he claimed 'weak, slow decisions' on border policy had allowed the Indian variant to spread. A member of the public prepares to receive a coronavirus vaccination at a surge vaccine operation set up at Twickenham rugby stadium, south-west London, Monday May 31, 2021. Up to 15,000 doses of vaccine are ready to be administered at the walk-in centre which has been set up for residents of north-west London in response to an increase in the number of coronavirus cases in the area. (Dominic Lipinski/PA via AP)A member of the public prepares to receive a coronavirus vaccination at a surge vaccine operation set up at Twickenham rugby stadium, south-west London, Monday May 31, 2021. Up to 15,000 doses of vaccine are ready to be administered at the walk-in centre which has been set up for residents of north-west London in response to an increase in the number of coronavirus cases in the area. (Dominic Lipinski/PA via AP)LONDON (AP) British health authorities were aiming to vaccinate 15,000 people at Londons Twickenham rugby stadium on Monday as part of a race to contain a fast-spreading coronavirus variant. The strain, first identified in India, accounts for a majority of new cases in the U.K., which is seeing a rise in infections after weeks of decline. Scientists say the variant is more transmissible than the U.K.s previously dominant strain, but current vaccines appear to be effective against it. Many scientists are urging the U.K. government to delay plans to lift social distancing rules and other remaining restrictions on June 21, arguing that more people need to be vaccinated before measures can be eased safely. The government says it will announce on June 14 whether the relaxation will be delayed. The U.K. has recorded almost 128,000 coronavirus deaths, the highest toll in Europe, but a mass vaccination campaign that started in December has brought confirmed new infections and daily deaths down sharply. Three-quarters of U.K. adults have had one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and almost half have had both doses. ADVERTISEMENTRavi Gupta, a member of a committee that advises the government on respiratory diseases, said it would be wise to delay the June 21 reopening by a few weeks.We are not too far from reaching the sort of levels of vaccination that would help us contain the virus, he told the BBC. If you look at the costs and benefits of getting it wrong, I think it is heavily in favor of delay.The walk-in vaccination center at Twickenham home of Englands national rugby team was offering first jabs without an appointment on Monday to people from northwest London, a hotspot for the variant first found in India. Health officials in the northwest England town of Bolton, which had the highest rates of the new variant, say infections are starting to fall after a mass testing and surge vaccination campaign there. ___Follow more of APs pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine

###CLAIM: the 48-year-old writer said in a statement thursday : `` in 1973 my grief-stricken mother and extraordinary writer began to do all that has become fine work in the respect of mr. and mrs. stoker 's novel. ###DOCS: AMC has ordered an eight-episode series based on Anne Rice's best-selling 1976 literary debut, Interview with the Vampire. The 79-year-old author and her son Christopher will executive produce the 2022 reboot as part of the cable network's overall deal to adapt 18 of her titles - according to THR. Interview with the Vampire will be overseen by three-time Emmy nominee Rolin Jones, who co-created HBO's Perry Mason reboot last year. 'Coming 2022!' AMC has ordered an eight-episode series based on Anne Rice's best-selling 1976 literary debut, Interview with the Vampire'In 1973, a grieving mother and extraordinary writer began what would become the finest vampire novel ever written (all respects to Mr. Stoker),' the 48-year-old showrunner said in a statement on Thursday. 'Nearly 50 years later we know what's expected of us. We know how much this book and the ones that follow mean to their massive fan base. We feel you over our shoulders as we tend the Savage Garden. Louis and Lestat are coming out of hiding and we cant wait to reunite them with you.' No one has been cast yet in the new adaptation of the American gothic horror classic, which will also be overseen by Oscar-winning producer Mark Johnson. 'The challenge of adapting for television the groundbreaking and immensely compelling work of Anne Rice is both intimidating and exhilarating,' the 75-year-old AMC veteran said in a statement. 'I strongly believe that with AMC and Rolin Jones we are equipped to meet this challenge and to thrill and entertain both the loyal Anne Rice fan and the viewer who is just now discovering her work.' Anne's Vampire Chronicles and Mayfair Witches franchises have sold more than 150M books worldwide. Bloodsucker! Neil Jordan's original 1994 film Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles received mixed reviews yet amassed $223.7M at the global box officeEnsemble: It memorably starred nineties heartthrobs Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, and Christian Slater (replacing River Phoenix) as well as Kirsten Dunst and Thandiwe NewtonPlans for a multiple-show universe come as AMC staples The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul are coming to a close. Neil Jordan's original 1994 film Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles received mixed reviews yet amassed $223.7M at the global box office. It memorably starred nineties heartthrobs Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, and Christian Slater (replacing River Phoenix) as well as Kirsten Dunst and Thandiwe Newton. Anne Rices Interview with the Vampire set for AMC in 2022FILE - Author Anne Rice poses for a photo at her home Oct. 26, 2005, in San Diego. Rices Interview with the Vampire is rising again on screen, this time for TV. The bestselling novel, which was adapted for the 1994 Brad Pitt-Tom Cruise film, will be the basis for a new AMC and AMC+ series set for 2022. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi, File)FILE - Author Anne Rice poses for a photo at her home Oct. 26, 2005, in San Diego. Rices Interview with the Vampire is rising again on screen, this time for TV. The bestselling novel, which was adapted for the 1994 Brad Pitt-Tom Cruise film, will be the basis for a new AMC and AMC+ series set for 2022. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi, File)LOS ANGELES (AP) Anne Rices Interview with the Vampire is rising again on screen, this time for TV. The bestselling novel, which was adapted for the 1994 Brad Pitt-Tom Cruise film, will be the basis for a new AMC and AMC+ series set for 2022, AMC Networks said Thursday. The announcement follows the companys 2020 acquisition of 18 works by Rice, including 1976s Interview with the Vampire, its sequels and the Mayfair Witches series. Producer Mark Johnson (Breaking Bad, Halt and Catch Fire) will be in charge of developing the books as a streaming and television franchise and universe, according to an AMC release. AMC+ is a subscription streaming service. In a statement, Johnson called the challenge of adapting Rices work both intimidating and exhilarating....I recognize both the responsibility and the obligation we owe the material.The first series, headed by executive producer Rolin Jones (Perry Mason), has been greenlit for eight episodes for season one. Rice and her son, Christopher, are serving as executive producers. ADVERTISEMENTWe know how much this book and the ones that follow mean to their massive fan base, Jones said in a statement. Casting wasnt immediately announced. In Rices gothic horror novel, vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac recounts his life to a journalist. The film, which also featured Christian Slater, Kirsten Dunst and Antonio Banderas, received mixed reviews but was a box-office success.

###CLAIM: trayvon and martin were killed prompting bruce to start playing the song again in 2012. ###DOCS: (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)STEPHEN THOMPSON, HOST:It's been a year since live concerts were a safe way to experience music. And we missed them - the roar of a blissed out crowd, the experience of being in the same room as art at the moment of its creation. So it feels like a good time to talk about some of our favorite concert films, movie-length experiences that transport us to the stages and spectacles we miss. I'm Stephen Thompson. And today, we're talking about our favorite concert films on POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. So don't go away. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)THOMPSON: Welcome back. Joining us from her home in Washington, D.C., is NPR music contributor Cyrena Touros. Hey, Cyrena. CYRENA TOUROS, BYLINE: Hey, Stephen. What's up? THOMPSON: It's great to have you here. Also joining us from her home in Chicago is LaTesha Harris. She's an NPR music contributor as well as a production assistant on the NPR podcast Louder Than A Riot. Welcome to the show, LaTesha. LATESHA HARRIS, BYLINE: Hi, Stephen. Thank you so much. THOMPSON: Oh, it's great to have you. Also with us from his home in Washington, D.C., writer Chris Klimek. Hey, Chris. CHRIS KLIMEK, BYLINE: Hello, Stephen. Glad to be here. THOMPSON: So obviously, there's no way we can get to every great concert film ever made. I had to tell my colleague, Robin Hilton, that we weren't going to get to Billy Joel's "Live From Long Island (1982)," and the man was crestfallen. We're also going to shy away from music documentaries, which are a whole different animal. And we figure that if you listen to the show, you already know about stuff like Tiny Desk concerts. Instead, we're going to go around the table and each talk about one of our favorite concert films. Cyrena Touros, I'm going to start with you. TOUROS: Well, Stephen, truthfully, I wanted to say Martin Scorsese's "Rolling Thunder Revue" but just the four minutes in which Joni Mitchell plays Coyote and makes Bob Dylan look like a has-been. But I guess if I have to pick a full film, I want to go with "Lady Gaga Presents The Monster Ball Tour: At Madison Square Garden." This film came out in 2011. She was supporting her debut album, "The Fame," and her follow-up EP, "The Fame Monster." I'd say in 2011, the biggest pieces of mainstream queer media were RuPaul, "Glee" and Gaga. I think society has progressed past the need for Ryan Murphy shows - no more Ryan Murphy shows. But I have been going back and revisiting a lot of the things that made me happy at the beginning of last decade. So I have been rewatching "Glee." I have been thinking about the mama monster, Lady Gaga. And I like my Gaga the weirder, the better. And this is peak weird Gaga. THOMPSON: This is meat dress Gaga. TOUROS: There are some crazy costumes in this film. So the Monster Ball Tour, as recorded here, is for HBO. And you can kind of tell - like it's not the most artfully shot documentary. It's not the most meticulously crafted behind-the-scenes sort of deal. It really is just kind of like preserving this cultural moment in amber. And I'm totally fine with that. Like, I know these two albums or this album and this EP, like, front to back. Like, I knew every single song. Like, there are so many things in this concert that are a gateway to the Lady Gaga that is to come. And as much as I love the theatrics, you know, your vampire chic costumes, your cult leader/spa day attendant costumes, like, all of the Gaga camp and flair, I think what really shone in this documentary was the moments that she sat down at the piano. She played "Speechless," which is a ballad from "The Fame Monster," and "You And I," which came out on "Born This Way," back to back while weirdly shouting out Liza Minnelli in the audience. I guess Liza Minnelli was there, and she was really hyped about it. And I think this, like, Gaga at the piano, is, like, the most incredible thing you'll ever hear. (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LADY GAGA PRESENTS THE MONSTER BALL TOUR: AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN")LADY GAGA: (Singing) ...If you broke? And is your punchline just a joke? I'll never talk again. Oh, boy, you've left me speechless. You left me speechless, so speechless. TOUROS: I think Gaga in this era is still trying to figure out how to marry the pop star with the theater kid inside of her. I just love that we have this portal into the new Gaga that's to come, the Gaga that duets with Tony Bennett, the Gaga that stars in "A Star Is Born" at these moments where she sits down at the piano like this. But I do have to say it's not Gaga without the overly sentimental audience pandering. But there is this really great moment where she says, the best thing about the Monster Ball is that I created it so that my fans would have a place where all the freaks are outside. And it's wild to me because I'm an openly bisexual young person. But in 2011, I didn't know that quite yet. And so I think it's really easy to think like in the 2021 that gay marriage has been legal for almost six years and how much progress has been made in such a short time. But in 2011, that wasn't the case. There are backup dancers who were making out on stage. And so I think that there is this kind of like lightning-in-a-bottle moment that's captured in this concert - not just great music, dancing, weird costumes, the spectacle, the flair, but just knowing that, like, this is a piece of queer history. And Lady Gaga herself is also openly bisexual. I feel like that's often - that's something that people forget about her. They think that she's this queer icon, but forget that she's also queer. So it was really special, I think, to revisit this 10 years after it came out. THOMPSON: Yeah, I think that's a great example of kind of what we're talking about here with a great concert film is you're not just capturing a performance, but you're capturing a moment in history. And you're able to kind of judge what you're watching against the moment in history that it reflects, that Lady Gaga is a perfect example of that. Right. So that's "Lady Gaga Presents The Monster Ball Tour: At Madison Square Garden" from 2011. LaTesha Harris, give us your pick. HARRIS: Yeah. So my pick is Beyonce's "Homecoming." And I'm so happy to talk about how great it is, as if we don't all already know already. I think this film is absolutely something that people should revisit in the pandemic monthly, if not weekly. I pulled an all-nighter to watch Beychella live on the YouTube stream when it happened in 2018. It was like 4 a.m. and I remember being literally blown away. Like, I had already known that Beyonce was a powerhouse with an emphasis on her skills as a vocalist and a live performer for years. But this concert specifically was like otherworldly. The setlist covers her entire 22-year career with several seamless transitions. I'm thinking specifically of the "Mine," "Mi Gente" and "Baby Boy" transition. (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HOMECOMING")BEYONCE: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. HARRIS: It's just a concert curated to maximize fun and connectivity amongst all the musicians on stage. And even with all that fun, you know, it's concise in practice. Like, they had eight months of rehearsal for a two-hour show - a two-hour festival show at that. For me, I think "Homecoming" is most about community celebration via music. And it's been my go-to concert film during the pandemic because I watch it and, you know, I'm there with everyone sharing, you know, my energy. passing waters back, helping strangers up, losing my voice. And I think considering, you know, the secondary impact that "Homecoming" had, I think Beyonce kind of recreated the standard for what a documentary concert film could be, because when watching it, you'll find that it's less of a documentary with a concise, linear narrative about Beyonce's inner life than it is about Black history and her inheritance of that history. "Homecoming" is a tribute to HBCUs, Black college life, the Divine Nine, our homecomings, our culture - all delivered, you know, in this package that Beyonce knows how to best deliver, which is live music. (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HOMECOMING")UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: We ready. We ready. We ready. We ready. HARRIS: Beychella was a cultural phenomenon way before the documentary came out, so the snippets that we get are just like golden bonuses of cultural insight and social commentary. It's just - kind of like Cyrena was saying, it's a moment in time that's just captured so beautifully through this beautiful medium. And it's just like visually stunning and, like, emotionally provoking. And I think everyone should watch it or listen to it at least once a week. THOMPSON: Once a week. Yeah. I mean, we did an entire episode of this show on "Homecoming" when it came out. And rest assured, it was very positive. It's a great film. I love the way it combines this fantastic, epic, Olympic-level performance with Beyonce's gift for showing her work. I think the work-showing on this only makes the performance seem more epic somehow, which is really remarkable. So that's "Homecoming" by Beyonce. The film is from 2019. Thank you, LaTesha. Chris Klimek, what do you got? KLIMEK: Well, speaking of elaborate costumes and exacting choreography, the time has come for us to speak now of Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen and the most famous of his several bands. What he has in common with Beyonce is showing his work. If you've ever seen any footage of this man performing, he looks like he is going to die before the song that he is currently singing is over. I've always had an acute jam band allergy. So for me, the E Street Band was like the quintessence of the, like, you-have-to-see-this-band-live live bands, which is weird because it's, you know, makes it weird that it took 25 years for this band to get a proper concert film, which is boringly titled "Live In New York City." Like the Gaga Monster's Ball film, this was shot at Madison Square Garden over the the finale 10-night stand of his '99-2000 reunion tour with the E Street Band. And I think what makes this an interesting contrast to the Gaga film and to "Homecoming" is, like, "Monster's Ball" (ph) captures Gaga, like, kind of still on the ascendency. "Homecoming" is Beyonce at the absolute apex of her cultural power. And this is, you know, Bruce, like, 15 years past his major cultural moment and, of course, you know, another 20 years on now. But just for some quick context, at the end of the '80s, he had dissolved the E Street Band. In the '90s, he wins an Oscar for his theme song for Jonathan Demme's film "Philadelphia" - great but very sad. He releases a great but very sad album called "The Ghost Of Tom Joad" that's all about the lives of undocumented migrant workers in Southern California - not really sure where he fit in a commercial sense, right? So when he reconvenes the E Street Band, he is extremely wary of this being perceived as a nostalgia fest. And he's working very hard to make the emotional tenor and the setlist of these shows different from what this band had done before. In terms of filmmaking, I will hail this video as serviceable. (LAUGHTER)KLIMEK: But the musical performance is what I find extraordinary. And what pushes this over the top for me from very good to great are the final two songs in this film, "Land Of Hope And Dreams" and "American Skin (41 Shots)." Neither of these songs had been released prior to when this film dropped initially on HBO in 2001. "Land Of Hope And Dreams" is an aspirational, open-hearted, gospel-tinged anthem that we heard a very cold 71-year-old Bruce Springsteen just play at President Biden's inauguration. When the E Street Band played it in 2000, it sounded like this. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LAND OF HOPE AND DREAMS")BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) This train carries fools, carries kings. Lord, this train - all aboard. I said, now, this train - dreams will not be thwarted. This train - faith will be rewarded. This train - hear the steel wheels singing. This train - bells of freedom ringing. KLIMEK: I just love hearing those voices. That kind of harmony singing was not really as much a part of the earlier era of the E Street Band prior to when he brought it together. I think it makes it, you know, more gospel-inflected and more powerful. So this song, "Land Of Hope And Dreams," was the emotional climax of most of the shows on this tour but not of the film. The film ends with a song called "American Skin (41 Shots)." Let's hear a few seconds of that. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AMERICAN SKIN (41 SHOTS)")SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) If an officer stops you, promise me you'll always be polite and that you'll never, ever run away. And promise Mama you'll keep your hands inside. Well, is it a gun? Is it a knife? Is it a wallet? This is your life. KLIMEK: So this song, of course, is Bruce's response to the police killing of Amadou Diallo, a 23-year-old Guinean immigrant who was shot to death well unarmed by four plainclothes NYPD detectives the year prior to this. Springsteen had always written ballads about the inner lives of cops and crooks. This is a song about an innocent person killed, to quote the lyric, "just for living in your American skin." Here's an artist who was always big with cops and firefighters, you know, so he paid a price for this principled stance. The head of the New York chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police used a homophobic slur to refer to him in the press, urged officers to boycott these shows and to not accept assignments working security at these concerts. You can actually hear Springsteen being booed at the beginning of the song on the film because he had been playing it for a few weeks by this time and word had kind of gotten around. This is a dozen years before the killing of Trayvon Martin, whose killing prompted Bruce to start playing the song again in 2012. It is tragic and awful how resonant and relevant this song has remained. Many years later, he told NPR's Ann Powers he considers this one of the best songs he ever wrote. I agree. That is why for me, "Live In New York City" is the essential cinematic document of the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, house-quaking, history-making, Viagra-taking legendary E Street Band, Stephen. (LAUGHTER)THOMPSON: I don't know if people listening at home could hear the mic drop. (LAUGHTER)THOMPSON: Well, it's a great pick. That's "Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: Live In New York City," recorded in 2000 and released in 2001. So my pick has a considerably longer gap between when it was recorded and when it was released, and there's a whole story behind it. When Aretha Franklin recorded the gospel album "Amazing Grace," she recorded it live in a church at a point when she was, as Beyonce was during "Homecoming," at the apex of her commercial and critical power. She had just released a very, very long string of massively, massively popular and now-legendary songs. But she wanted to make a gospel record. And so she went to this church with the Reverend James Cleveland, brought a camera crew, brought recording equipment. Warner Bros. hired the director Sydney Pollack to direct. They wanted to make not only an album but a film. They recorded the album "Amazing Grace," which was and is the bestselling gospel album of all time. It is an absolute classic, both in Aretha Franklin's discography and in gospel music in general. It is absolutely glorious. But the film wound up getting shelved for decades, mostly for technical reasons. Because Sydney Pollack didn't use clappers, they weren't able to sync up the audio and video, which, as anybody who has recorded concert films or been around people recording concert films, it's pretty crucial that you be able to sync up your audio and your video. KLIMEK: They had to wait for Final Cut Pro to be invented for them to be able to finish this movie. (LAUGHTER)THOMPSON: So there was this enormous technical lift. And if you watch this movie, it does not look like there were great technical lifts made. It's pretty straightforwardly shot, but it ended up being very difficult. And at the end of Aretha Franklin's life, she didn't want this film released. There was a whole dispute back and forth where they tried to release the film, and she would sue to block its release. Apparently, Aretha Franklin had some beefs and resentment in terms of what was promised to her versus what was delivered where this movie was concerned. But once she died, her family wanted it released, and it finally got a theatrical release in 2019, fully 47 years after it was recorded. It is so beautiful that this film exists. And part of what's remarkable about it is how kind of ramshackle it is. Like, sometimes you expect - you know, Aretha Franklin, a great perfectionist, you know, you would expect this kind of Beyonce-style high production value. This was just they gathered in a church. It wasn't a megachurch. You can just feel every surface in this church and kind of imagine exactly what it was like to be in this church. It's a very sweaty performance. There is a lot of brow-mopping going on in this performance. What you get is Aretha Franklin at the absolute top of her form. The vocal performances here are absolutely sublime. Every once in a while, they whip up the kind of fervor that I can only describe as absolutely magical. Let's hear a little bit of "How I Got Over." (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "AMAZING GRACE")ARETHA FRANKLIN AND THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY CHOIR: (Singing) ...For you and for me. Oh, yes. I want to thank Him because He brought me. Oh, yes. I want to thank Him because He taught me. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I want to thank God because He kept me. I want to thank God that He never left me. I want to sing - hallelujah. I might shout this evening - troubles over. I'm going to thank Jesus for all He's done for me. Oh, yeah. How I got over - over - over...THOMPSON: You can just feel this swell of joy. And part of what you're getting here is not just these magical performances, but you're getting some of the kind of raw nuts and bolts grind of how it was documented. It's amazing, watching this film, how often a camera person is in the shot, how often the sound equipment is in the shot, how much, like, photographers are kind of up in her grill the entire time she's trying to perform. And it's just interesting. Like, I found myself studying her face in between the songs because during the songs, she is really just lost in committing herself completely to these vocals. But in between, there's something in her eyes. There's something in the way she carries her face. And I just - I saw in her face something that I've seen in the faces of hundreds of performers at the Tiny Desk. There's something about these moments in between performances, these moments when you're about to perform, where you can kind of feel herself steeling herself to give the best performances that she can possibly give. And there's a rough-around-the-edges quality to this document. There are mics that don't work quite right. They are little technical concerns. The sound kind of occasionally drops in and out. Taken collectively, I think it is an absolutely magical document of an artist at the peak of her enormous, earth-shattering power. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)THOMPSON: So that's "Amazing Grace." It is streaming on Hulu. Well, we want to know about your favorite concert films. Obviously, we could only get to four of them. You can find us at facebook.com/pchh and on Twitter - @pchh. That brings us to the end of our show. Thanks to all of you for being here. KLIMEK: Thank you. HARRIS: Thank you, Stephen. TOUROS: Thanks, Stephen. THOMPSON: And of course, thank you for listening to POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. If you're interested in checking out more beautiful, live concert recordings, I would be remiss if I didn't encourage you to dive into the NPR Music archives. There's a full Bon Iver concert on there that is absolutely gorgeous, and that's just the beginning. That and many other concerts are at npr.org/liveconcerts. We'll see you all right back here tomorrow. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)Copyright 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Beyonce to Bruce Springsteen: Our Favorite Concert FilmsEnlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of Parkwood Entertainment Courtesy of Parkwood EntertainmentIt's been more than a year since live concerts were a safe way to experience music. We miss the roar of a blissed-out crowd and experiencing art at the moment of its creation. Therefore, it feels like a good time to talk about some of our favorite concert films: movie-length experiences that transport us to the stages and spectacles we miss. Show Notes:The audio was produced by Candice Lim and edited by Jessica Reedy.

###CLAIM: once considered merely a line item in a business plan, the coronavirus pandemic has moved the required digits. ###DOCS: Ph.D. data scientist turned data-driven growth marketer. VP of Growth and Product Marketing at Turing Video, Inc.gettyThe impact of the 2020 health pandemic continues to throttle communities and economies around the world. The United States has not escaped the grasp of this pandemic. The loss of life in the United States is unprecedented from a single pandemic, and the death toll has reached 308,000, as of the writing of this article. Thats more than five times the American lives lost in the Vietnam War. As of now, there are more than 17 million reported cases of Covid-19, and the unknown toll on the quality of life of those whove been infected is immeasurable. Entire communities continue to be devastated, while essential workers in industries from healthcare to food services continue to operate on the front lines with no data to predict long-term health outcomes for repeated exposure. Alongside the human impact sits an unprecedented economic crisis that cannot be ignored. For the economy, the pandemic has created a demand shock, a supply shock and a financial shock all at once. To put this into context, the United States economy ended its longest consecutive expansion in February 2020, one that began in June 2009, and immediately recorded two consecutive quarters of decline, including a second-quarter drop of 9.1%, the steepest drop in economic output on record. While these numbers are unfathomable, the Sophies Choice between public and economic health that the 2020 health pandemic has presented to the human race is undoubtedly the greatest dilemma of them all. Of course, human life is the highest good, and all is being done to find a vaccine that will protect us. We also need a stable economy in place when we are able to get the spread of the virus under control and inoculate against it. In the chasm of time in between, grocery stores must remain open, and hospitals must continue to care for the sick. Businesses must be able to provide goods and services that form the backbone of our economy. As weve all gained our footing, the above have been presented to us as separate choices on the menu, and we can only choose one at a time. Is this truly the case? Do we need to participate in this either-or choice, or is there another way to safely move forward, protecting and nourishing both humanity and the economy? For essential workers and businesses, finding answers to these questions has been the crux of daily life throughout most of 2020 and sits at the center of their outlook for 2021. Its no surprise that many industries have turned to technology to create a framework of functionality. To really understand the opportunities, we must first further break down the problem from the greater national economic challenges to those faced by enterprises and industries. Underneath the larger economic woes, essential enterprises have wrestled with these challenges, creating new policies to allow for safe operation while also protecting their employees based on the most recent public health information available. Some stumbled along the way, resulting in the most costly outcome: death of workers. These early decisions, and their consequences, introduced an additional layer of complexity: lawsuits against employers and even state governments. The bold truth is that the settlements made to compensate families cannot bring back lost loved ones, cripple already struggling industries and, in some cases, inhibit states from delivering necessary services. Earlier in 2020, it was easy to see these issues as discrete problems, with solutions sitting squarely in opposition to each other. There are other outcomes available. Enterprises have employed technology to protect the health of their essential employees and the financial health of their business, ensuring that employees and employers alike can keep their families fed and the communities they serve cared for. Whats the secret of these enterprises? Whats allowing them to act in compliance with their state liability laws, as well as federal CDC, HIPAA and FDA regulations? The not-so-secret secret lies with the technology theyve installed, which effectively ticks all the boxes and creates a holistic protection system that meets the needs of employees and the businesses that employ them. Innovations Can Help Essential Businesses Remain OpenEssential services like grocery stores have remained open throughout the pandemic, ensuring that food, medicine and necessities are available either through in-store shopping or deliveries. Countless workers continue to report for their shifts every day, interacting with the public, vendors and their colleagues in spaces from warehouses to storerooms to checkout lanes in stores across the country. As the CDC explained in early 2020, several actions can be taken to protect workers, including mask-wearing, temperature checks (fever continues to be the first symptom reported), distancing of up to six feet and contact tracing for reporting purposes. As these businesses scrambled to implement and regulate these guidelines, technology firms looked inward to create solutions that would meet these needs. Ive been fortunate to see firsthand the outcomes of innovation and engineering within my own firm thats created a complete, fully encrypted and compliant cloud-based platform that meets the needs of data collection for state and federal public health reporting, coupled with on-site employee and visitor-facing contactless thermal devices that provide a daily CDC health questionnaire, measure temperature, detect masks and print access badges all within 20 seconds. Working in tech has given me a different perspective on the 2020 health pandemic than I would otherwise have. We can protect the health and rights of our essential workers and also safeguard the financial health of the businesses they work for and the liability of those who employ them. In some cases, its as simple as plugging in literally plugging scanners into the wall and figuratively plugging into a protected platform in the cloud. We can all forge ahead into a new normal, during this pandemic and beyond, when we plug into the right systems. Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?

###CLAIM: these include trying to solve questions such as whether vaccines can stabilize in higher temperatures so that they are easier to store and distribute. ###DOCS: BERLIN (Reuters) - A pan-European consortium developing a COVID-19 vaccine is in talks with big pharma to support the late-stage development of its shot and ramp up manufacturing, the head of German biotech firm Leukocare told Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A woman holds a small bottle labelled with a "Coronavirus COVID-19 Vaccine" sticker and a medical syringe in this illustration taken October 30, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File PhotoLeukocare is working with Italys ReiThera and Belgiums Univercells on a vaccine based on a so-called non-replicating adenoviral vector, the same technology that AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have used. Chief Executive Michael Scholl said the companies were talking to potential big pharma partners about whether they could provide additional manufacturing capacity, as well as help to advance their candidate through Phase III clinical trials. We as a consortium are definitely open and are also discussing with big pharma partners about how to leverage us, he said. ReiThera, which developed the vaccine, has said it has capacity to produce some 100 million doses per year. The company secured 81 million euros ($98 million) in Italian funding last month after the government described results of a Phase I trial as encouraging. The consortium hopes to start a mid-stage trial this month and move to late-stage testing in May, Scholl said. Fellow German biotechs BioNTech and CureVac have partnered with Pfizer and Bayer respectively to help bring their vaccine candidates to market. Getting a bigger player on board was not a pre-requisite for starting Phase III testing, but would be beneficial for the clinical trial process, Scholl said. One question facing the next crop of COVID-19 vaccine developers is whether it remains ethical to offer a placebo to participants in late-stage trials, Scholl said, adding talks with regulators were ongoing. Leukocare has helped develop a highly-stable liquid formulation of the vaccine, which can be stored at between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius for at least 12 months. The company is also working with other COVID-19 vaccine makers, including those whose shots are already approved and others still in clinical trials, Scholl said. This includes trying to solve questions, such as whether it is possible to stabilise vaccines at higher temperatures so they are easier to store and distribute, he said. The company is also exploring an alternative type of vaccine packaging that would do away for the need to have glass vials, Scholl said, declining to give further details as the company is still in talks with regulators. ($1 = 0.8238 euros)

###CLAIM: an earlier, smaller study carried out suggested that 1. 76 percent of english schools had an asd rate, adjusted for age, sex and other factors, with a higher figure of 1. 57 percent. ###DOCS: Autism is more common among children in England than previously thought, with rates higher among Black pupils than their white peers, researchers have revealed. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects communication and behaviour and is thought to affect 1-2% of people around the world, with diagnoses more common among males than females. However, there has been little large-scale research into its prevalence, and whether it differs with ethnicity. Now researchers say an analysis of data from more than 7 million schoolchildren in England not only reveals ASD is more common than previously thought, but that there are striking differences in ASD prevalence around the country, and between different groups. This is the largest prevalence study to date in the world, said Dr Andres Roman-Urrestarazu of the department of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge and a co-author of the new research. Writing in the journal Jama Pediatrics, Roman-Urrestarazu and colleagues reveal how they analysed data from the 2017 spring school census obtained from the national pupil database in England to determine the prevalence of ASD among schoolchildren aged five to 19 in state-funded schools in England. This census records whether children have received a diagnosis of ASD through local authorities and the NHS, or have been flagged as having ASD through a school assessment. The results reveal that 119,821 pupils had ASD, of whom 21,660 had learning difficulties. When adjusted for age, sex and other factors, the team say that equates to 1.76% of schoolchildren in England having ASD a higher figure than the 1.57% suggested by an earlier, smaller study carried out by the team. The rise, they add, is likely down to improved recognition of ASD. However, prevalence was not uniform. As with previous studies, ASD was found to be more common in boys and men than girls and women, with the study revealing that ASD to be almost four-and-a-half times more common among the former than the latter. But there were geographical differences, with the team finding an ASD prevalence of 3.38% in Solihull compared 0.63% in the Cotswolds, while in some local authorities the male-to-female ratio for ASD was almost 13:1 a figure Roman-Urrestarazu said suggests some areas might be overlooking autistic women. There were also striking ethnic differences, with ASD most common among Black pupils, of whom 2.11% found to have ASD, and lowest in Roma/Irish Traveller pupils, of whom 0.85% had ASD. Among white pupils, the figure was 1.84%. The study has limitations, including that it might understate the number of children who have ASD, only covers data from state-funded schools, and cannot prove cause and effect. However, Roman-Urrestarazu said the study is not only important for helping local authorities to plan ASD support services, but also flags disparities in prevalence that are cause for concern. While he said more research is needed to explore the causes for the variations, Roman-Urrestarazu noted a number of factors could be at play, including individuals access to diagnosis or recognition of symptoms, bias in diagnosis, local authority budgets and other issues for example, he said, it is known that problems such as psychosis are more common among recent immigrants, meaning the same may be true of other conditions, including ASD. The team found social disadvantage to be one important factor, with children eligible for free school meals around 60% more likely to have ASD. Indeed, the team say more than 12% of the increased ASD prevalence in Black children was explained by differences in racially linked social disadvantage compared with white pupils. Prof Uta Frith, an expert in autism from University College London who was not involved in the work, praised the size of the study but said the mechanism by which ethnicity might be linked to ASD is unclear. But she said that the link to deprivation highlighted by the study raises concerns, given that the Covid pandemic has exacerbated inequalities and the disparities shown by the study might be expected to become worse. [Deprivation] is such a major factor, she said.

###CLAIM: even if biden wins and the results are accepted, we as a democracy living in an assumed democracy will live through moments that show it is less stable than assumed. ###DOCS: In the early morning hours after election day, the president of the United States showed his authoritarian ambitions. He launched an attack on our democratic system at a moment when it is at its most fragile in recent memory. His lies about the results of the election erode trust in the fairness of the democratic process and risk provoking violence. Now we are dependent on media, especially the outlets most popular with Donald Trumps base, to rein in the chaos he is encouraging. This grave threat comes from the presidents false declaration of victory, despite no evidence that he had won the election, and with millions of valid votes yet to be counted. He referred to any suggestion that he had lost as a fraud on the American public. In one breath, he declared that we want all voting to stop and that we dont want any ballots to be found at four in the morning. This conflation of voting after election day and counting votes after election day a standard practice in every election is deeply misleading and deeply dangerous. In this respect, its damage is far worse than many of the many fibs Trump has made while in office. His suggestion is a direct lie, one that comes while millions of voters look to him to understand who our legitimate president will be. In past elections, the media specifically TV networks served as the main gatekeepers of results, but this president communicates directly to his base through social media, avoiding the reputable news organizations that could factcheck him in real time. This means that his unsubstantiated claims of victory and of electoral fraud perpetrated by Democrats are being fed directly to his base. Many will believe him, undermining confidence in the ultimate legitimate results and sowing discord and potentially violence. The problem of Trumps unfiltered reach coupled with his blatant lying is compounded by social media executives inadequate handling of the situation. Facebook and its irresponsible CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, refused to directly challenge the president, even while receiving credit from some observers for reminding voters that final results may take days. They did not call Trumps statement a lie or take strong steps to counter it. Twitter went far enough to say that the presidents message might be misleading, but it too failed to take a strong and definitive stand on a statement that is not just possibly, but indisputably, incorrect. Surprisingly, Fox News might be the media outlet that holds the country together. The network called Arizona for Joe Biden around the same time as the Associated Press and has insisted on reporting real numbers, with its reputable non-partisan news anchors leading the coverage. Ultimately, a large number of Trump voters might turn to Fox to decide whether to trust official results or their president, who has told them that those disputing his victory are committing fraud. If Fox continues to say that any early declaration of victory is incorrect, viewers might be more likely to have the patience required to wait for what might be days, with twists and turns as more ballots are reported, until a winner is declared. Still, it is not only the media outlet that should be tasked with maintaining the publics confidence in our electoral machinery. Part of Trumps pattern of deception to his base involves invoking bizarre and completely erroneous legal claims. On Tuesday night, Trump promised to take up his concerns about ongoing ballot counting to the US supreme court. However, if ballots are received on or before election day, there is no serious legal claim to support Trumps seeming contention that any ongoing ballot counting after the election is fraudulent. Indeed, in a decision the president disparaged on Twitter, the US supreme court refused to undo the Pennsylvania supreme courts decision that even ballots that arrived three days after election day would count as long as they were postmarked by election day. Trumps claims risk sowing violence, confusion and an erosion of faith in the bedrock principles of American democracyI cannot overstate the danger of this moment. Right now, it is essential that Republican members of Congress and the vice-president make it clear that the ballots need to be counted. Both candidates and parties should be modeling respect for our democratic process, patiently waiting for the legitimate results, and encouraging all Americans to do the same. Instead, Trumps claims risk sowing violence, confusion and an erosion of faith in the bedrock principles of American democracy. Amid this chaos, what is left for us to do? Americans who believe that every persons ballot should count in an election must insist on truth and spread this message as widely as possible on social media, at our dinner tables and, if need be, through peaceful demonstrations. That is the only way to counteract Trumps lies and his threat of upending our democracy. Even if Biden does win and the results are accepted, we will have lived through a moment that showed our democracy is less stable than we assumed. Strengthening it and reinforcing its protections must be a priority of a Biden presidency.

###CLAIM: between february and april of 2020 the number of men in the labor force will fall by 4. 3 percent. ###DOCS: If you're a politician peddling big new government programs for which there is little need but hefty price tags, you need a clever marketing strategy. At the least, your sales pitch could use a decent soundbite. Such marketing is what the Biden administration with its friends in Congress and the media are doing when insisting that the drop in women's labor force participation during the pandemic requires implementing a policy of federal paid family leave. Don't buy it. First, temporary problems should never be addressed with permanent government expansions. Women have dramatically fallen out of the labor force, and unemployment rates have skyrocketed because of a once-in-a-century pandemic followed by state and local governments locking down the economy. The reality, fortunately, is that this virus will soon be in the rearview mirror, and the economy is now quickly reopening. Once labor unions agree to let K-12 public schools reopen five days a week in the fall, all should be back to normal. As such, there's no reason to use a temporary hardship to saddle taxpayers with a permanently bad deal. I understand why this advice is rarely followed. After all, "never letting a crisis go to waste" is a good strategy for those in power to exploit the distress of the American people to create programs that can't be pushed through during normal times. Second, the call to implement new programs to address the fact that women are still hurting from the pandemic is based on incorrect assumptions and a passive media. Heritage Foundation scholar Rachel Greszler looks at the data and finds that, while the pandemic and the accompanied lockdowns caused more women than men to lose jobs and drop out of the labor force initially, this is no longer the case. For instance, Greszler writes: "Initially, women's employment fell by 17.9 percent, and men's employment fell by 14.3 percent, from February 2020 to April 2020...In March 2021, women's employment was down 4.9 percent, and men's employment was down 5.0 percent, from what they had been in February 2020....but now women's employment losses are 500,000 fewer than men's." She also finds that between "February and April 2020, the number of men participating in the labor force fell by 4.3 percent, while the number of women participating in the labor force fell by 5.5 percent." Yet, women essentially closed that gap by March 2021 as "the number of men in the labor force [was] down 2.3 percent (2.0 million) and the number of women [was] down 2.4 percent (1.9 million)." Here's the kicker: "Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, women's earning have increased by more than twice the rate of men's." Apparently, no fact-checking is necessary anymore before burdening taxpayers with billions in new spending. I should be used to such opportunistic policymaking since the favorite pre-pandemic talking point by those who wanted to implement a federal paid leave program was that the United States doesn't offer paid leave for workers. Yet, this claim is bunk. While the United States government doesn't have a federal paid leave program, government surveys show that some 65 percent of American workers nevertheless have access to some form of paid leave. In fact, the absence of a federal program means we are also a country with a vast and expanding network of companies that provide benefits like paid leave programs that are flexible, accommodating and often more generous than the plan some liberals and conservatives have in mind. The irony is that this pandemic has forced employers and employees to try new workplace arrangements and use technology in ways that could lead to a major shake-up in the flexibility afforded to parents who must both work and take care of children. Implementing one-size-fits-all government policies now could stop this transformation as employers might feel better able to require employees to work on-site. In fact, rather than return to the pre-COVID and limited work arrangements, the administration and state governments should promote more flexibility in the workplace by removing the regulatory barriers that make raising a family harder. Two such changes would be to eliminate occupational licensing for child care workers and to let employees be paid in the form of additional leave time for their overtime work. There are many more nongovernmental ideas for helping workers, and even more to be discovered. Let's pursue them, rather than ram through a federal paid leave program. COPYRIGHT 2021 CREATORS.COM

###CLAIM: not because the hospitals needed them, but because there are not enough doctors and nurses in the country to attend to the thousands of extra beds at coronavirus facilities. ###DOCS: Emergency field hospitals established across the country by the British government at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds are being stood down and decommissioned, in many cases without having treated a single patient for coronavirus. 12 so-called Nightingale hospitals named for a famed 19th-century British nurse who revolutionised healthcare practices were established across the United Kingdom in 2020, part of a plan to see the nation prepared for a sudden surge in critical coronavirus cases. Built inside sports stadia, convention centers, and former retail premises, the sites provided thousands of extra beds. Now more of the Nightingale hospitals are being shut down without having seen a single patient. The 500-bed Yorkshire Nightingale has now been stood down, the BBC reports, and like some others, it has not treated a single Coronavirus patient since it was opened in April 2020. It has not been totally empty, however, and the enormous facility built inside the Harrogate Convention Centre has seen some Radiology outpatients for scans in recent months. The BBC reports the now mothballed facility cost the government 27 million ($37,000,000) to establish, but this already steep sum is only part of the picture. The UKs Health Service Journal reported in January that beyond the headline construction figures, other costs associated with the largely unused temporary hospitals pushed the true figure upwards. In all, the journal said, the hospitals would cost the taxpayer over half a billion pounds (532,000,000, or $735,000,000) by the end of 2022. The HSJ noted that the estimate includes costs for setting up the Nightingales, running costs, stand-by costs and decommissioning costs.There is a cost to the local authority, as well. Harrogate council, which owns the convention centre and lent it rent-free to the NHS for the emergency, now has a 9 million ($12,000,000) budget black hole from lost income incurred due to their property being effectively empty for a year. Londons NHS Field Hospital to Be Closed After Barely Being Used https://t.co/EKXVjIpHbD Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 6, 2020Despite the cost, it has been claimed the hospital wouldnt even have functioned had it been needed, as allegedly there arent enough trained doctors and nurses in the country to attend to the thousands of extra beds in coronavirus facilities, were they filled. City AM reported the remarks of British Association of Critical Care Nurses boss Nicki Credland who claimed the London Nightingale alone would, if it were activated, need more Intensive Care nurses to run it than presently work in the whole United Kingdom. These claims and others are now being probed by the Yorkshire regional goverment in its inquiry into the areas ghost hospital. The Yorkshire Nightingale resembles others in its genesis. The Island of Jerseys Nightingale hospital of 180 beds was stood down this week without seeing a single patient. Birminghams Nightingale the most expensive in England, costing even more than Londons 4,000-bed facility was stood down in early March pending disassembly, again never having seen a single patient. The NHS has defended the empty field hospitals, calling them the ultimate insurance policy that by being empty were a sign that things were going to plan. The NHS had said the hospitals were established to see off scenes like those witnessed in Italy at the start of Coronavirus, with facilities at the point of collapse due to demand.

###CLAIM: the 45-caliber handgun is a legal possession because of a ban due to a weapons conviction in new york more than a decade ago. ###DOCS: Just one day after he was pardoned by President Trump, Lil Wayne was back on set filming a new music video. Tory Lanez, 28, posted video of the rapper dancing joyfully beside a naked model on the set of his new music video, Big Tipper. 'Bruh ... FIRST DAY AFTER THE PARDON, my n***a came and did my video for #BigTipper feat . @melii,' Lanez captioned the video. 'I WILL NEVER FORGET THE TREMENDOUS LOVE U SHOW ME TUNE !!! #BigTipper VIDEO COMING SOON ! #OneUmbrella2021 We not playing.' Lights, camera, action: Tory Lanez has revealed Lil Wayne appeared in his music video Big Tipper one day after getting pardoned by TrumpThe video Lanez posted did not have him in it, but did see a grinning Wayne beaming with joy and smoking beside the nude woman. Wayne wore head-to-toe pink as he took smoked and danced away beside the young woman. The rapper was pardoned by Trump last week, allowing him to dodge prison for a firearms conviction. Wayne, who has shown support for the former president, could have faced 10 years in prison for illegally owning a .45-caliber handgun - which he was banned from possessing because of a weapons conviction in New York more than a decade ago. Making moves: Clad in head-to-toe pink, Wayne danced around beside the tableHowever, he ended up being one of the 73 people to receive a pardon in Trump's final hours in office, with the White House paying tribute to the 'trustworthy, kind-hearted and generous' musician and praising his philanthropic work for hospitals and foodbanks. Wayne may no longer be in legal turmoil, but Lanez is not entirely in the clear after he was accused by Megan Thee Stallion of shooting her in both feet. Megan accused Tory of shooting her in both feet after an argument following a party last October. Pardoned: Wayne was pardoned by former president Donald Trump last week, allowing him to dodge prison for a firearms convictionMeanwhile: Wayne may no longer be in legal turmoil, but Lanez is still in the middle of a dispute with rapper Megan Thee Stallion, who has accused him of shooting her in both feetHe was subsequently arrested and later charged with two felony gun offenses by Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, but pleaded not guilty during a November court date. Rumors recently swirled that the criminal charges had been dropped, but Megan insisted that wasn't the case. In addition, a rep from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office told Complex the next court date for the case is now set for February 25, following the originally reported hearing date of Jan. 20.

###CLAIM: `` it is known that life must be taken, regardless of whether it saves a life and who said the escalation. ###DOCS: This is a rush transcript from "Watters World," May 1, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: Welcome to WATTERS' WORLD, I'm Jesse Watters. Divided we fall: that's the subject of tonight's Watters' Words. The corporate media has created an identity crisis in the Republican Party. The right has been manipulated into believing they're wrong, that they represent a minority opinion in America. This head game keeps us down. But it's time for the sleeping giant to wake up. As the saying goes, "The truth shall set you free." A majority of the country wants lower taxes and smaller government. Those numbers have actually grown over the last 15 years. A vast majority of the country favors voter ID, including -- are you ready -- 66 percent of blacks. Paging Major League Baseball. An overwhelming majority of Americans prefer a lower level of immigration or no immigration at all. Hollywood' is falling apart. Besides the apolitical blockbusters, no one watches their movies anymore. Nobody cares about the Academy Awards. Just look at the ratings. And look at CNN's ratings. CNN doesn't even have a show in the top 15. Each week, FOX dominates the cable news market. "The Five" is number two on cable news and we're on at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time. We beat "The View," "The Today Show" at nine, NBA basketball on Saturday nights. Tucker Carlson beats "Meet the Press." "Gutfeld" beats Kimmel and Fallon. And WATTERS' WORLD is number one on the weekends. Most Americans aren't buying what the left is selling, but we get confused under the cloak of wokeness. "The Daily Caller" interviewed whites and blacks in Minnesota and asked if looting was okay. Watch. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Change needs to be made, and if it's not getting done in the traditional avenues, then writing is a good option. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you're being violent, if you're destroying property, I don't think that's cool. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If rioting is what gets people's attention, then I think that's necessary. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're human and we want to be treated with respect. So we've got to come out here and show we are human and bring respect. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When violence is involved, it is normally because there's no other way to get your point across. (END VIDEO CLIP)WATTERS: Most Americans that are black don't go for looting. But white liberals here support it because that's just what they think black Americans support. Now, where did they get that idea? The media. But the media doesn't have a clue about black America, or maybe they do, they just lie about it. Black Americans don't want to defund the police, but the defund the police media makes it look like black Americans do. A majority of black Americans say they've never even felt harassed by the police at all. Interesting, isn't it? The corporate media is selling us woke lies just to divide us for money and power and distract us from the real issues like the border crisis, which they get rich from. By the way, Biden is getting killed on the border, only 35 percent approval. But if you call out open borders, because it hurts Americans, you're called racist, to shut you up and keep the cheap labor flowing. James Carville from Louisiana, I remind you, the guy who helped the Democrat from Arkansas win two terms, identified the problem. Ready? "Wokeness is the problem and everybody knows it. It's hard to talk to anybody today -- and I talk to lots of people in the Democratic Party -- who doesn't say this, but they don't want to say it out loud." Why? "Because they'll get clobbered or canceled." So the fear of being called racist is freezing Americans. Once they freeze you with fear, they take advantage. That's why the Republican Party is always on the defensive and why even most Democrats won't push back on their own. Republican Senator Tim Scott whose ancestors were sharecroppers declared that America is not systemically racist. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): Hear me clearly, America is not a racist country. We are all in this together and we get to live in the greatest country on Earth. The country where my grandfather in his 94 years, saw his family go from cotton to Congress in one lifetime. (END VIDEO CLIP)WATTERS: After Senator Scott said that, he trended on Twitter as "Uncle Tim." Twitter dominated by Democrats pushed that Uncle Tim smear. Is the Democratic Party's systemically racist? You could easily argue that based on their history. And now that party is dividing America by race more than they have since the Civil War. The Democrat Party, corporate America and the social media Titans are dividing us by race to keep us at each other's throats because when America comes together, the power of populism is a threat to their power and profits. So when Americans realize what we have in common, and we fight for each other, not against each other, that's when the American dream will be fulfilled. Joining me now to react Senator Ted Cruz. Senator, do you agree with that assessment? SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): I think it's exactly right. I think wokeness is trying to destroy America and we're seeing whether it's the corporate media or big business, we are seeing woke corporations that are engaged as the political enforcers of the radical left, and are trying to silence or trying to cancel. They're trying to punish American citizens, and I think it is profoundly dangerous. WATTERS: So what does the Republican Party need to do about that? There's always been talk about trust busting ala Teddy Roosevelt, but it never seems to go anywhere. What's the next step? CRUZ: Look, we've got to grow a backbone. We've got to stand up to big business and we've got to take on Big Tech. We've got to use the antitrust laws to break up Big Tech to go after them for abusing their monopoly power. This week, I wrote an op-ed in "The Wall Street Journal" on big companies and woke corporations and I made a commitment this week that I am no longer accepting even one penny from any corporate PAC. Over nine years in the Senate, corporate PACs have given me about $2.6 million. But I said enough is enough. These guys are corrupt. They're lying to the American people. They're fighting the American people. They've declared the American people are their enemy. And so I don't want their money. I won't take a penny. And when they come to Washington with their hands out for corporate welfare, for subsidies, for mandates, and they do that over and over again. Look, I've been standing against the cronyism and corporate welfare a long time, but I'm urging my colleagues in the Republican Party to stand against the cronyism and corporate welfare as well. We've launched a new website. That is nowokemoney.com, nowokemoney.com because if we're not going to take the money from the corporate PACs, we've got to rely instead to communicate our message on individual Americans all across the country who are supporting us to the tune of $10.00 or $25.00 or $50.00. And I think the Republican Party needs to grow a backbone and stand up to woke corporate America. WATTERS: And so does the Democratic Party, when I'm talking about the voters. They themselves would agree with everything you just said. They don't want corporate welfare. They don't want crony capitalism. I talked last week about how Biden is throwing -- what is it -- $100 billion at the biggest auto companies in the country just so they can go green and they can do an electric car line and then take all the profits and pat themselves on the back for going green. Meanwhile, it's just a transfer of wealth from working Americans to Detroit, so Joe Biden can win Michigan next time. If everybody saw that, I think everybody would come together and agree with everything you just said. CRUZ: Look, the dirty little secret is that Big Business gets in bed with Big Government and long has done so, and my basic view is big is bad. Big government is bad. Big business is bad. Big Tech is bad. Big Hollywood is bad. Big unions are bad -- that as Republicans, as conservatives, we have to support the little guy. We have to support the small business owner, we have to support the working men and women. Our party is a blue collar party. Our party are the truck drivers and steel workers and waiters and waitresses and cops and firefighters, the men and women with calluses on their hands that is who we're fighting for. That's who we should be fighting for, not these corrupt cronies -- who -- what happens is big business they curl up in bed with big government and they use government to try to kill their competitors, to try to kill the little guys and we've got to be able to stand up and say no. WATTERS: And that's what happened during the pandemic. You had the big multinational corporations enjoy the lockdowns, because they could survive the lockdowns because everything is automated and they're not going to get crushed like a mom and pop restaurant or a small hardware store on the corner. They are making more money than they ever have before and that's why they rooted for Joe Biden and the Democratic Party to win because he was going to prolong the lockdown, and then when he got in control, shower them with our tax dollars. I'll give you the last word. CRUZ: Well, I think that's exactly right. Big Tech made billions off the lockdowns and you saw the blue state governors, states like California and New York, where they just shut down small businesses, they shut down restaurants, they destroyed jobs. You know, New York City Broadway has been destroyed and fine if someone is a multimillionaire star, they'll be fine. But what about the carpenter? What about the lighting guy? What about the makeup woman? All the people whose livelihoods, some arrogant leftist have just destroyed and what a contrast to red states, states like Texas, states like Florida that said open up. People want to work. Kids want to be in school. You know, Joe Biden and the Democrats, they don't care that more than half the kids in America today are still not back in school in-person five days a week. It's an outrage and I think we ought to be standing for individual liberty against big government and against the abuse of power and I hope that we see other Republicans following the lead and saying no to corporate PACs and instead standing with the people. WATTERS: I couldn't have said it better myself. Senator Ted Cruz, go check out his op-ed in "The Wall Street Journal." Thank you very much, Senator. CRUZ: Thank you. WATTERS: Governor Ron DeSantis steps into WATTERS' WORLD. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)WATTERS: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, one of the only governors in the entire country cracking down on Big Tech. His new bill just passed by the State House and Senate, takes aim at companies like Twitter and Facebook for banning people. The social media giants have to come clean on their censorship policies and give a 30-day grace period before they take action. And if they don't, they could face whopping fines up to a quarter mil. Joining me now, Governor Ron DeSantis. Welcome to the show, Governor. GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): Hey, thanks for having me. WATTERS: So have you been in contact with Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey? And have they deployed an army of lobbyists to the Sunshine State to stop this? DESANTIS: Well, usually my contact with them is when they take my videos down of things like YouTube or put disclaimers on some of the things I do on Twitter, which is really unbelievable. But Jesse, I think Big Tech is just very arrogant. I don't think that they think -- I think they think they're bulletproof because of Section 230, under Federal law, but what we did is we didn't touch Section 230 at the state level, because we can't, obviously, so we focused on a consumer fraud theory. So they have these Terms of Service, they apply it in ways that are discriminatory. And so if you're someone that's been censored unfairly, or deplatformed, we're giving you the ability to sue Big Tech yourself. And I don't think that that was something that they necessarily thought we would do, so we were able to get it through. And the thing is, Jesse, this is not just purely a Republican thing. I think that there are people who aren't necessarily Republicans, who see the danger of going down a road in which the discourse in our country is controlled by oligarchs in Silicon Valley. WATTERS: We just talked to Ted Cruz about that on the top of the show, Americans from across the political aisle are sick of the Big Tech censorship and the corporate welfare. So this strategy, illegal strategy kind of death by a thousand cuts, you just kind of go wherever the soft spots are, if the Feds and Congress aren't going to do anything. You're also going after these rioters. Now, when I look at video, I don't see a lot of rioting in Florida. I don't see what I see in Minneapolis or New York. But I do see a lot of added control, people in Miami Beach. Is this your crack down there targeting these crazy people? DESANTIS: Well, actually, this is something we proposed at the end of last summer, when you had the BLM and Antifa riots. We had the National Guard called out. We said it's not going to stand in Florida, and so we were able to avert some of those disasters. But what I knew was, this is not something, unfortunately, that's going away in our country. And so we wanted to make sure that we were providing the tools for law enforcement to be protected, and for our people to be protected, and so what we're doing is a number of things. One is, if a local government defunds the police, the state is going to be able to come back and restore the funding. We're not going to let local governments put their citizens at risk by indulging in insane policies like that. And we also have stiff penalties if you're rioting, if you're looting, if you assault someone, particularly a police officer, you're going to jail, you're not just going to have your mug shot taken like they do in Portland and get put back on the street, you're going to spend some time in the slammer. WATTERS: You've been getting hit hard by "60 Minutes," by NBC News, CNN. Do you take that personally? Or do you just see that as your typical attack on Republican governors that have a rising national profile? DESANTIS: Well, I think it's the latter. They smear what they fear. And the fact of the matter is, they indulged at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. The conceit that New York was the model, some of these other big blue states and now here we are a year out. Clearly, states like Florida have performed better across the board, education, COVID mortality, economy, jobs, and all of these different things, quality of life. They don't want to admit that, and so I think that they resort to trying to smear people like me, and to gaslight their viewers with partisan narratives. WATTERS: You saw the President's State of the Union speech. A lot of people didn't see it. It was probably the lowest rated State of the Union we've ever had in this country. What was the thing that jumped out at you listening to those remarks? DESANTIS: Well, I'll tell you, it seemed to me to be almost like out of a dystopian novel. You see him there, everyone is vaccinated. You have the VP and the Speaker behind, you know, wearing these masks. You hardly have anybody in the Chamber. It really just sent, I think a message that America is on its back right now. It didn't exude strength. And I think his pedestrian delivery of it, obviously, you know, he is not the sharpest tool in the toolbox anymore, I think that was readily apparent. So I thought it was really sad to be honest with you. WATTERS: And so you didn't like him whisper talking throughout the address. I would agree with that. All right, Governor, you have been named as one of the leading contenders to secure the Republican nomination. I know you're not going to make a big announcement here on WATTERS' WORLD, but you kind of have to be flattered that people are putting you that high up in the conversation. What's going through your mind is you kind of take the lead on a lot of these issues in 2021. DESANTIS: Well, that's the thing, Jesse. It's not anything that I'm thinking about or positioning myself. I'm doing my job here in Florida, and I think the fact that we're ...WATTERS: Oh, you're thinking about it. DESANTIS: ... doing so much. I mean, you talked about -- we talked about Big Tech, you talked about anti-rioting. We're also doing a bill to crack down on influence of the Communist Party of China, things like Confucius Institutes. We're doing more election integrity. So we're really, I think, leading by example AND I think folks are noticing that. And I think there's a lot of people throughout the country, they are like, man, I wish my state were more like Florida. Why aren't we leading that way? And of course, many people are pulling up the stakes and moving to Florida because we've really created this oasis of freedom. So, we're proud of that. But it's not based on political posturing or positioning, it is just based on getting things done down here for my folks. WATTERS: Oh, that's a good attitude to have, and we'd like to have you back on to talk about the Confucius crackdown. That's interesting stuff and they have tentacles everywhere and we've got to keep our eyes open. Governor, thank you for coming on WATTERS' WORLD. DESANTIS: All right. Thank you. WATTERS: Chris Christie on deck, here to explain the real danger Biden poses to America that no one is talking about. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)JILLIAN MELE, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening and welcome to "FOX News Live." I'm Julian Mele. The beginning of the end for what President Biden calls the forever war. Today, U.S. and NATO troops began to formally withdraw from Afghanistan with over $2 trillion spent in the last two decades, the withdrawal has already become complicated. Yesterday morning, a truck filled with explosives killed at least 27 people in Kabul. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack but the Afghan government has blamed the Taliban. And back home, Essex County in New Jersey is ending its jail contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Essex County had previously held hundreds of detained undocumented immigrants in exchange for financial compensation from I.C.E. But on Wednesday, the county decided to terminate that contract amid fierce protests including from the states to U.S. senators. That's all for right now. Thanks for joining us. I'm Jillian Mele. Now back to WATTERS' WORLD. Have a good night. WATTERS: President Biden is a hundred days in and his strategy is pretty clear: spend trillions of dollars to juice the stock market and buy votes with your tax dollars to win re-election. That's it. The Democratic media will divide Americans with fake race narratives distracting us from real issues like gas prices and the border crisis, hoping to reduce midterm losses. Joining me now to react, former New Jersey Governor and former presidential candidate, Chris Christie. All right, Governor, do you agree with that assessment? CHRIS CHRISTIE, FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: Yes, I think you're pretty on there, Jesse. You know, what we've seen is this is a guy who campaigned saying he was going to bring the country together, work with both parties, and that he is going to be a transitional President to a new generation of leadership. And instead, he is governing to the left of FDR, wanting to spend multiples of what FDR did with no World War and no depression to deal with. You know, listen, I was at that speech the other night and I thought to myself, this sounds like what a 15-year-old would sound like if you gave him a credit card with no limit. It's just incredible and what it's going to do to the American economy is drive inflation way up, and with his tax increases, it is going to hurt the stock market, Jesse, and that's going to hurt everyone out there with 401(k), IRA, their savings for their children's education. This is going to be a disaster if we let it happen. WATTERS: It's like Bernie Sanders with a better speech writer, and then he hides in the Oval, and doesn't put himself out there so he kind of doesn't get attacked. I just see it as bribes, Governor. I just see you print money, you tax, you spend and you just shower the American people with cash, just throw it all around to donors, special interests and your voters. You buy off enough people, you buy off enough swing states, and you just choose Wall Street at such high extremes. You know, you're trying to guarantee yourself free election just by taxing and spending. When you saw the Feds raid Rudy's house. What crossed your mind? Because when I saw that happening, I think to myself, the Biden Department of Justice just raided the home of the lawyer who broke the Hunter Biden story in Ukraine. Does that scare you at all? CHRISTIE: Well, you know, what scares me is anytime that the Justice Department decides that they're going to serve a search warrant on an attorney, especially an attorney for, you know, a former President of the United States, you know, the attorney-client privilege is a sacrosanct privilege. And I'm very concerned about all of these actions being taken. Rudy is a friend of mine. He has been a friend of mine for a long time and I hope for the best for him in all of this because, listen, I've been the victim of the Obama-Biden Justice Department. You know, they went and wrote all of those crazy prosecutions around the George Washington Bridge and the United States Supreme Court threw them out and overruled it as prosecutorial misconduct, nine nothing. I mean, the Obama-Biden Justice Department was so corrupt that they brought Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg together. WATTERS: Yes, so they did that to you to take you out. I think they took out Petraeus. They really targeted the Tea Party and then you saw what they did with President Trump's Campaign, with the spies and the informants and the wiretaps. It's out of control and no one really seems to be able to stand up to it. When you got coronavirus, it rocked you, didn't it? And now you're stepping up and you have a message about vaccines. And we're on a pretty good pathway with vaccines in this country, but it looks like it might be plateauing. What do you want to say to the American people about that? CHRISTIE: Well, this this disease is random in who it goes after and where it goes after you. I was in the safest place in the world inside the White House when I caught coronavirus prepping the President for the debates last fall. And it attacked me and put me in the ICU for seven days. I've had two relatives that were completely healthy who both have died from COVID in the last three months. And so what we need to remember about these vaccines is four times the number of people went through the clinical trials that go through a normal clinical trial for these drugs, they're safe. They are safe and they are effective. And this is the way I would analogize it to people, it's like putting your seatbelt on when you get in the car. It doesn't guarantee you that if you get an accident that you're not going to get seriously hurt or killed, but it makes it much, much less likely and it helps your other family members and neighbors because it makes you much less likely to pass the disease, and so I think it's the right thing to do. And the reason we have these so quickly, let's never forget, is because President Trump put the money behind these vaccines and cut all the red tape so that you get here as quickly as they did in world record time. We should use them and I agree that with the President when he -- President Trump when he says everyone should get vaccinated. WATTERS: All right. Thank God for Operation Warp Speed. Thank you, Governor Christie, we appreciate it. CHRISTIE: Thanks for having me, Jesse. WATTERS: Death, worship and human sacrifice, an exclusive look at the cults controlling drug cartels. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)WATTERS: Cartels flooding our border aren't just about drugs and human trafficking, it is about cults, human sacrifices, worshipping death saints and exploitation. The Mexican cartels explain away their violent and criminal behavior through cult fanaticism. They follow these Narco saints to deflect from their crimes. Many of them follow a cult, Santa Muerte connected to the criminal underworld. Santa Muerte itself translates to Saint Death or Holy Death. It is represented through a skeletal figure holding a scythe. She is often depicted as a Narco saint, meaning one for those involved in the drug cartels. It's a fast growing cult in Mexico with symbols of it on cars, statues, jewelry, even cupcakes. Not just criminals follow Santa Muerte, some of the poorer class in Mexico view her more as an all-purpose saint. It's said to have millions of followers, but still Catholic and Protestant churches condemn Santa Muerte. President Felipe Calderon declared her Mexico's enemy and had her shrines for her bulldozed down in 2009. Members of the cult often wear pendants, symbolizing the cult for protection. Here's a La Linea operative with a Santa Muerte pendant. Sometimes they get tattoos to give them protection for their crimes. They see it as an offering of skin. Here's a Barrio Azteca drug trafficker with the Santa Muerte tattoo. Some see Santa Muerte as the devil herself or a fake saint devoted to Holy Death. Human sacrifice has become popular among the cartels. In many cases, people are killed in Santa Muerte shrines and in the form of rituals, sometimes as an offering to her. They often behead or torture people, and they believe it's all going to be okay. The cartels believe Santa Muerte is protecting them and is still going to take them to heaven, no matter what crimes they commit. "The Huffington Post" reported many believe that she sanctions, if not blesses such despicable deeds. In 2019, police found over 40 skulls covered in blood, a fetus in a jar and dozens of bones in what they deemed to be a Santeria ritual meant to help the killers avoid getting arrested in Mexico City. Santeria rituals are often used to give offerings to Santa Muerte. The killers were believed to be part of the La Union Tepito Cartel. In 2017, cartel members in jail killed 28 prisoners in the middle of a ritual to Santa Muerte in Acapulco, Mexico, according to Mexican newspaper, "Reforma." This has been going on for years. In 2008, according to the F.B.I., Gulf Cartel members captured Sinaloa cartel members and killed them at a public Santa Muerte shrine. Law enforcement said they were likely killed as offerings to Santa Muerte. Human sacrifices are seen as offerings to this fake saint. They somehow think the saint is condoning their behavior and is giving them more power in the narco world, making them all the more dangerous. It's not just Santa Muerte that cartel members worship though. Here is Ovidio Guzman Lopez, son of the infamous El Chapo Guzman, and a Mexican drug lord himself, a high ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel. His pendant is another narco saint, the Holy Infant of Atocha. He wears his pendant for protection for crimes. Cartel members often use religion as a means of explaining away these crimes. What used to be the notorious Mexican La Familia Michoacana drug cartel use the idea of religion to kill people. Their former leader, Nazario Moreno Gonzalez preached that they were allowed to behead their enemies, because it's their divine right to get rid of them -- divine justice. It is now been reconstituted as Los Caballeros Templarios, still using the idea of religion to control their members. These cults cartel members are in make them even more dangerous and more ruthless. These are the people we're letting into our country with our open borders policies. Here to tell us more, host of "No Agenda" on FOX Nation, Lara Logan. First, we just want to thank Lara for doing a lot of the investigation that revealed what we just told you about. Lara, thank you for that and tell us why Americans need to understand the cult angle to the cartel crisis. LARA LOGAN, FOX NATION HOST, "NO AGENDA": Well, this is a bottom up phenomenon within the cults, Jesse, and it dates right back to the Aztecs who were never really conquered by the Spanish on military tactics alone. It was smallpox that decimated them. And so this is left over from the ancient Aztec religions. And it's a way that, you know, cult capos and squad leaders, if you like us to recruit, and also to keep these guys under their control, and also to justify the things that they do. You know, it's like human sacrifices of old. They would play a game that was a cross between lacrosse and basketball. And the victor would slice the head of the loser's team and there were sacrifices that were done by their gods. And those are the kinds of things that you see in a lot of these killings happen around these shrines like the shrine of Santa Muerte. WATTERS: So, this is an indigenous cult that goes back centuries, does that give the cartel a firmer grip on the lower class that they smuggle across? LOGAN: Well, there's the distinction between the people and the cartel and the way the people worship these saints and the way the cartels use them, because for the people, it's part of folklore, it is part of culture. It's also what's there for you when institutions like the Catholic Church, or like, you know, the government when they forsake you and abandon you who never forsakes you, right? It's the saints that you believe in. But with the cartels, it's much more important, because when you've got cartel members who are going to prison, how do you keep them loyal? One way is the tattoos which are sometimes known as sacrifices of the flesh, and you're giving up your flesh to the gods so that they look after you. So yes, does it give them power and control over the people? Of course. But you know, what gives you more power and control than the combination of this sort of deep faith, and the worst, most terrible and terrifying tactics of violence that you can ever imagine? Like, for example, cutting out the heart of a young girl while she is still alive. WATTERS: And they use that to justify their killings, and I guess keep the rest of the cartel soldiers in line to make them believe that this is okay. LOGAN: It's like a sacrifice. WATTERS: That this is sanctioned and this is okay. Right. So does the Biden administration understand the intelligence of this? I mean, you're coming at this from a really granular angle, very detailed, very well explained. Do they have a strategy to combat the cult phenomenon with the cartels? Because essentially, we're having a cult control our own border. LOGAN: Yes, the strategy is open the border and let them all come in and do whatever they want, and make as much money as they want, pour drugs into the country. Use the children that they bring across the border for whatever reasons they want. And why do I say that? Well, because if you ask the cartel leaders, that's what they'll tell you. Right? I spoke to one just recently, and I asked him about the unaccompanied minors coming across the border. And I said, what is this? And he said, it's our workforce. I said, what work will they do? And he said, well, some of them will sell drugs and some will do ordinary jobs and some of them will do the things that nobody wants to imagine. I said, what? Like child porn? He said, yes. Child prostitution? Yes. And even child snuff videos. WATTERS: Oh, God. LOGAN: So you know, I mean, the Biden administration knows everything that you and I are talking about. None of this is secret, Jesse. It's not like, you know, it's not like you can't research and find out about the cartels, it is not like the F.B.I. hasn't documented this. It's not like, you know, anyone following the cartels doesn't know about this. It's a growing phenomenon within the ranks of the cartels because as they become more powerful and they have more to lose, it becomes more important to control both the cartel members and the population around them. WATTERS: I'm just shocked that this administration is allowing the importation of underage children from Central America to participate in snuff videos. Lara Logan, everyone go watch her FOX Nation specials. You're going to really see some stuff that no one else has been able to uncover. Thank you very much for digging into that layer. We appreciate it. LOGAN: Thank you, Jesse. WATTERS: Is liberalism a mental disorder? A psychiatrist next to analyze that condition. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)ROSE MCGOWAN, ACTRESS: I grew up in a cult and it was a very famous cult called Children of God and it gave me a superpower. It gave me the ability to see the control and the propaganda machine. You might be in a cult, too, if you don't know the signs, and I do believe Democrats most especially are in a deep cult that they really don't know about and aren't really aware of. (END VIDEO CLIP)WATTERS: Actress Rose McGowan might be onto something. It turns out white liberals are way more likely to have mental health problems. The Pew Research study just resurfaced on social media leaving many to ask why there's a connection between progressive ideas and mental illness. A writer for "Evie" Magazine explained it this way. Building resiliency against hardship is the best weapon against depression and anxiety, yet progressive ideology forces its followers to wallow in feelings of helplessness and victimhood. Joining me now to examine the science behind the study is psychotherapist and author of "Disconnected: How to Protect Your Kids from the Harmful Effects of Device Dependency," Tom Kersting. All right, Tom, we're not saying being a liberal means you're mentally ill. There are studies that do draw a connection, though, between a vowed liberals, especially white liberals, and higher reporting of mental illness, including anxiety and depression. Explain that connection and what your theory is on the political connotation of it. TOM KERSTING, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: So thanks, Jesse. So let me just talk real quickly about what we -- we hear the term mental health, but what is it? So it's pretty simple. It's what is going on? What is orbiting around in our minds? All right, so the average person has, it is estimated about 60,000 thoughts per day, and about 90 to 95 percent of those thoughts are subconscious thoughts, those daydreaming thoughts. Now, where do they come from? Where does our thinking come from? It comes from our experiences, and it comes from the information that we're consuming on a daily basis. Right now, the average person spends roughly eight to nine hours a day immersed on their phones, and in screens and in social media, where most of their information is coming, and therefore securing itself deep within their subconscious mind. So depending on what you're looking at, you know, the algorithms direct information towards you, that's consistent with the things that you're saying. So as far as, you know, white liberals, for example, having more mental health issues, a lot of the information that they are consuming is in -- is a lot of doom and gloom. And it's not, you know, hope in love and so forth. And it can also create a sort of, you know, cognitive dissonance, which is basically you have conflicting thoughts. So, your subconscious is, you know, programmed and you have these deep beliefs, but then you see evidence that doesn't support that, and it can create conflict mentally in your mind, and lead to things like anxiety and depression. WATTERS: So that's interesting, if you are a liberal, and you are immersing yourselves in social media, or CNN and MSNBC, and they're telling you, the world is going to end, climate crisis, we're all going to die. Or, you know, black Americans and white Americans, they're at each other's throats, they're gunning each other down. It's basically a race war. Those types of things will have a subconscious influence on their mental health and manifest itself in feelings of fear, anxiety and depression? KERSTING: Exactly. So the subconscious mind is the uncritical, subjective mind, right? The conscious mind is the critical mind. So the subconscious is like a supercomputer. So the way in which messaging is secured into the subconscious is either subliminally or through constant repetition. So it bypasses that conscious, critical mind and then you form these beliefs that you're not really even aware of. And then when you have something, for example, a cognitive dissonance, an example would be, you know, you keep hearing that there's peaceful protest, peaceful protest, but then the reporter has a fire, a building burning behind him. And now there's that conflict, like, you can't -- it's so hard to shake your beliefs when you see a truth or a reality, and you become defensive, and it causes this restlessness, you know, and essentially what is, you know, mental wellbeing with emotional health? I always say that, you know, whatever we're feeling is really a symptom of what we're thinking. And then 90 to 95 percent of our thinking, we're not really consciously aware of. Another thing I think we can touch on here, Jesse, too, is that you know, God, all right. You hear the term God, one nation under God, and this isn't about religion. God, you know, represents all that is good. And, you know, I did a little bit of research on this and 40 -- another Pew Research, 43 percent of white liberal women have a strong belief in God, whereas, I'm sorry, 45 percent, and 83 percent of white conservative women do. So that factor there, just that belief in basically all that is good, whenever good is removed, that opens up the doors for darkness, hence evil. WATTERS: All right, Tom, thanks very much. KERSTING: Yes, my pleasure. Thanks for having me, Jesse. Be well. WATTERS: Up next, "Last Call." A very special personal announcement. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)WATTERS: In case you missed it, I announced on "The Five" that I wrote a book. I did. It's called "How I Saved the World." Part autobiography, part call to arms, part confession. I mean, I talk about things I haven't told anybody before. Stories from high school, college, roaming around the beaches for "The Factor," meeting Donald Trump. You're going to love it. Get out there. You can preorder it right now, Amazon, HarperCollins wherever books are sold, and it comes out on July 6th. That is all for tonight. Be sure to follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. "Justice with Judge Jeanine" is next, and remember, I'm Watters and this is my world. ENDContent and Programming Copyright 2021 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2021 VIQ Media Transcription, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of VIQ Media Transcription, Inc. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.

###CLAIM: molotov cocktails -- three molotov cocktails -- were hurled at officers and rocks thrown at a window-shattering precinct station, police said. ###DOCS: Drew Pinsky was recruited to broker a peace deal between Jennifer 'JWoww' Farley and Angelina Pivarnick on Thursday's episode of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation. The 62-year-old celebrity doctor flew from Los Angeles to Las Vegas amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic at the request of Ronnie Ortiz-Magro, 35, after attempts to bring Angelina and JWoww, both 34, together had failed. The season four episode opened with an awkward dinner among the roommates as Angelina and JWoww were together for the first time in nearly a yearCelebrity doctor: Drew Pinsky was recruited to broker a peace deal between Jennifer 'JWoww' Farley and Angelina Pivarnick on Thursday's episode of Jersey Shore: Family Vacation'I do feel negativity in the room because Jenni's at the table,' Angelina said in a confessional. JWoww and Angelina avoided looking at each other during the strangely quiet 'family dinner'. Michael 'The Situation' Sorrentino, 38, offered a toast and suggested everyone say something positive about one person at the table in an attempt to break the ice. They all offered compliments, but avoided the obvious tension in the room. In fear: JWoww told Drew at the end of the episode that she was fearful of AngelinaWedding ruined: Angelina was wary of JWoww who took part in the disastrous wedding speech'Okay, I guess that didn't work,' Mike said in a confessional. The feud between JWoww and Angelina was the main issue during the episode titled 'The Note 2.0', but a secret text that JWoww earlier sent to Deena Cortese, 34, warning her not to make up with Angelina also needed to be addressed. Mike accidentally revealed the secret text while the cameras were rolling, but JWoww remained unaware the guys new about it. Good effort: 'Okay, I guess that didn't work,' Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino said after his attempt to break the ice failed'Bro, this is like the f***ing Note all over again,' Vinny said. 'It is the note,' Ronnie agreed. They were referencing the infamous anonymous note that JWoww and Nicole 'Snooki' Polizzi wrote to their housemate Sammi Giancola in the August 2010 episode of Jersey Shore that outlined her then-boyfriend Ron's infidelities. Secret text: Mike accidentally revealed the secret text to Deena Cortese while the cameras were rolling, but JWoww remained unaware the guys new about itA flashback then showed JWoww and Snooki typing out the note together and later refusing to take responsibility for its authorship. 'I can't deal with another note,' Vinny Guadagnino, 33, said. 'And it's still the same person,' Ronnie noted. Note redux: Ronnie Ortiz-Magro likened the situation to the infamous anonymous note from a 2010 episode of Jersey ShoreVinny and Ronnie agreed that they had exasperated their efforts to bring the women together and the problem was beyond their level of expertise. 'I have Dr. Drew's number,' said Ronnie who shot him a text in a last-ditch effort. Ronnie and Vinny then laughed again at the similarity of the situation to the infamous note. Silent night: The Situation offered a toast during the oddly quiet family dinner, but tensions remainedVinny revealed that ever girl he knows from 'the Shore' has the note hanging above their beds. 'It's like the Shore flag,' Vinny said. The guys the next morning took part in their regular gym routine and Ronnie mentioned how he reached out to Dr Drew. Eye contact: JWoww refused to make eye contact with Angelina at the group dinnerRonnie also floated a backup plan of having a group lunch in which everyone would leave except the 'threesome' of JWoww, Angelina and Deena. 'I really like that idea,' exclaimed Paul 'DJ Pauly D' DelVecchio Jr, 40. Drew called back Ronnie who told him about the disastrous wedding speech at Angelina's nuptials that sparked the simmering feud. The bride: Angelina nearly a year after her wedding remained angry with JWoww, but made amends with DeenaThe celebrity doctor offered to help and said he would clear his schedule to work on the situation in-person in Las Vegas. 'The boys are beyond over it being caught in the middle of this crossfire with these girls,' Pauly D said. '...Maybe they'll listen to a professional that does this for a living'. Pauly also received a package of a giant plush elephant to remind the women of the 'giant elephant in the room'. Professional help: 'The boys are beyond over it being caught in the middle of this crossfire with these girls,' Pauly D said. '...Maybe they'll listen to a professional that does this for a living''My whole plan with this elephant is for the girls to see exactly how absurd this elephant is, and then maybe they'll see and think that what they're doing is absurd,' Pauly said. The whole group then went to lunch and they executed their 'threesome' maneuver, but it also backfired as JWoww and Angelina again failed to engage with one another. Drew then arrived and was debriefed by the guys about the situation including the secret message from JWoww to Deena that became public knowledge. Drew said he would like to talk to Jenni with Ronnie and Mike as mediators and offered an approach so Jenni wouldn't feel ambushed. The guys showed up at her door and told Jenniw that Dr Drew wanted to make their family better. Stepping in: Drew said he would like to talk to Jenni with Ronnie and Mike as mediators and offered an approach so Jenni wouldn't feel ambushedJWoww was in a good mood and excited to meet Dr Drew as Deena in her room figured that something was up with the guys. Drew listened as JWoww explained in front of the guys that she didn't intend to ruin Angelina's wedding and blamed social media for exacerbating the situation. 'So you did decide to come to vacation,' Drew pointed out. Reality star: Drew listened as JWoww explained in front of the guys that she didn't intend to ruin Angelina's wedding and blamed social media for exacerbating the situation'I'm coming in scared, because there's another side, there's a woman that doesn't have as much to lose as I do, and doesn't think logically. Where she goes to social media and it's damaging,' JWoww said. 'So, this is the first time I'm hearing fear,' Drew said. 'Pure fear,' JWoww replied. Pure fear: 'I'm coming in scared, because there's another side, there's a woman that doesn't have as much to lose as I do, and doesn't think logically. Where she goes to social media and it's damaging,' JWoww saidDrew said her feelings of fear were valid, but pointed out that JWoww also had a lot of support. 'Oh, they're great,' JWoww said of the guys. 'But they don't feel what I feel with her, 'cause she'll never do it to them.' Deena proved that her intuition was correct as she then crashed the meeting between JWoww and Drew. Something up: Deena in her room figured that something was up with the guys'What the hell is going on?,' Deena said in a confessional. Vinny in a confessional said that Deena's arrival had just brought on a 'whole new realm of drama' as the issue of the secret text message was still lingering. Jersey Shore: Family Vacation will return next week on MTV.

###CLAIM: the leading side doubled their lead when correa burst into the area, rode a tackle from milan defender fikayo tomori and blasted into the roof of the net. ###DOCS: Milan have fallen out of the Champions League qualification places after losing 3-0 to Lazio at the Stadio Olimpico. Napoli climbed above both Milan and Juventus and up to third with a 2-0 win at struggling Torino. Stefano Piolis side spent 17 weeks at the Serie A summit this season but are now fifth after Joaquin Correas double condemned them to defeat. Milan, one of three Italian clubs to sign up to the ill-fated European Super League before reversing their decision, now face a battle to qualify for next seasons Champions League. It took just 77 seconds for the hosts to take the lead through Correa, who exchanged passes with Ciro Imobile before rounding Milan keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma. Manuel Lazzaris strike just before half-time was disallowed by VAR for offside, before Correa doubled Lazios lead six minutes into the second half. The Argentina international dribbled past Fikayo Tomori and fired the ball into the roof of the net, and almost had a hat-trick when his fierce drive was tipped away by Donnarumma. Immobile then saw his lob came back off the post, but the forward did get on the scoresheet with three minutes remaining, drilling into the corner. We need to show that we are strong, like I believe we are, Pioli told Sky Italia after the game. We must react straight away, because this is a heavy defeat. Franck Kessies stoppage-time header was the closest Milan came to scoring, but came back off the bar as Milan lost their second league game in a row. Tiemoue Bakayoko fires Napoli ahead in the 11th minute at Torino. Photograph: Alessandro Di Marco/EPAElsewhere, goals from Tiemoue Bakayoko and Victor Osimhen helped Napoli edge above Milan and Juve on goal difference with a win at Torino. Midfielder Bakayoko opened the scoring with a swerving shot from the edge of the area, with Osimhen getting the visitors second in the 13th minute, via a fortunate deflection. Piotr Zielinski and Lorenzo Insigne both hit the post for Gennaro Gattusos side either side of the break, before Torino midfielder Rolando Mandragora picked up a second yellow card late on. Torino stay level with Cagliari and Benevento on the edge of the drop zone, but have a game in hand. Napoli, Juventus and Milan all have 66 points, two behind second-placed Atalanta. Leaders Inter are 11 points clear and heading for their first title since 2010, while sixth-placed Lazio have a game in hand and are now five points off Milan.