Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
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America’s addiction to mass incarceration could almost double its number of deaths from coronavirus, with jails acting as incubators of the disease and spreading a further 100,000 fatalities across the US.
The startling warning comes from groundbreaking modeling by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and academic researchers, released on Wednesday.
Transit workers in New York City are afraid to go back to work after 68 employees have died from coronavirus, and say authorities could have done more to protect them.
'They want to call us heroes now, but how can you call up heroes when you didn't give your heroes proper equipment to fight this,' said conductor Tramell Thompson.
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New York governor Andrew Cuomo said it would be a “major, major undertaking” to develop a plan on reopening the state’s schools.
Cuomo emphasized no school district was allowed to reopen at the moment, as the state has mandated schools to remain closed for now.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo said some hospitals in the state would send the results of its hydroxychloroquine trials to federal health officials today.
Cuomo declined to describe the results of the trials, focused on whether the anti-malaria drug can help treat coronavirus patients.
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New York governor Andrew Cuomo reiterated that the federal government must be involved in expanding testing capacity, after Trump tweeted it was up to the states to make tests more widely available.
“If we don’t have federal help on testing, that’s a real problem,” Cuomo said.
Trump sent a series of tweets trying to deflect responsibility for the coronavirus crisis, suggesting states are the ones who need to expand testing capacity.
Donald Trump’s former lawyer and longtime fixer Michael Cohen will reportedly be released from federal prison to serve the remainder of his sentence in home confinement because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Cohen is currently locked up at FCI Otisville in New York after pleading guilty to numerous charges, including campaign finance fraud and lying to Congress. Cohen began serving his sentence last May and was scheduled to be released from prison in November 2021.
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Kari Paul here, logging out for the night. Below are some top stories to be aware of from the last few hours:
For those of us on the West Coast wondering “what’s next?” here is a pretty comprehensive look at what needs to be done to reopen California, written by two medical doctors.
In short, to reopen we will need much more access to testing so we can localize and isolate new cases of the virus, and restrictions on large gatherings will likely persist for awhile. In other words, we are all going to be working from home and washing our hands constantly for the foreseeable future.
The New York governor has brushed off Donald Trump's claim that the president has the ultimate say on when and how to reopen the economy. Andrew Cuomo says Trump's assertion is inaccurate and unconstitutional, adding: 'There are many things you can debate in the constitution because they are ambiguous. This is not one of those things that is ambiguous.'
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It’s been one month since Trump declared a national emergency over the coronavirus pandemic, and many of his key promises remain unfulfilled.
An in-depth NPR investigation found many of the pledges that Trump made in his March 13 Rose Garden speech have only been parially realized, while others have gone completely ignored.
NPR’s Investigations Team dug into each of the claims made from the podium that day. And rather than a sweeping national campaign of screening, drive-through sample collection and lab testing, it found a smattering of small pilot projects and aborted efforts.
In some cases, no action was taken at all.
Independent congressman Justin Amash pushed back against Trump’s claim that he has the authority to reopen the economy at the federal level, an assertion that is also challenged by constitutional experts.
President Trump is flat-out wrong. The president has no authority to “close down” or “open up” the states. He’s the one creating conflict and confusion. Put down the authoritarianism and read the Constitution. https://t.co/3AFqRx7YTX
New York City mayor announces schools closed until autumn
Shortly afterwards, governor insists decision to close is his
New York governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio once again had differing opinions on who has authority to implement certain Covid-19 policies.
This time, it involved De Blasio’s announcement on Saturday morning that New York City’s school district, which oversees 1.1 million students, would shutter for the rest of the academic year to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus. De Blasio said his administration was forging a “comprehensive plan” to safely reopen schools in September and that “next year is going to have to be the greatest academic year New York public schools have ever had”.
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What does protest look like under a stay-at-home order?
This evening, activists are lighting a candle in solidarity with more than 90,000 people typically incarcerated in state prisons and jails in New York state, as coronavirus threatens to turn crowded, unsanitary prisons into death traps.
Advocates have been pleading for weeks that San Francisco move people out of homeless shelters and into hotel rooms, given that the conditions inside these facilities are often unsanitary and crowded, making it easy for a virus to quickly spread.
Now, there has been a major coronavirus outbreak inside a homeless shelter in San Francisco: nearly 70 residents at MSC South have tested positive, which is roughly half of all the people who were tested.
After 70 residents of a San Francisco homeless shelter test positive for Covid-19, advocates say others are trapped in lockdown in shelters with restrictions. "Telling them they cannot leave is not protecting them"-@Leahfsw. "People need to be moved to hotels, not just locked up" pic.twitter.com/YTfxVaMIGg
While ridership on the New York City subway has declined 92% during the outbreak of the coronavirus, for many essential workers it remains the only way to get to work. But with cramped conditions and busy train carriages, the subway brings its own risks.
The New York governor has said the state is seeing the effect of physical distancing and that the curve of coronavirus cases is starting to flatten, despite the largest single-day death toll increase on Tuesday. However, he emphasised that citizens need to continue to be vigilant
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The White House is reportedly having discussions about reopening the economy next month, which could cause friction with health experts who have warned against lifting “stay at home” orders too quickly.
Officials said the options being discussed on reopening the country vary widely in scope, from recommendations on benchmarks for when individual states can begin easing restrictions to a nationwide ‘big bang’ that Trump previewed Tuesday evening on Fox News. The officials said the conversations were still preliminary and would likely evolve over the course of the next weeks.
Still, some officials have even begun mulling the type of event Trump may want to mark the day when nationwide restrictions are lifted after he suggested a ‘big celebration’ when the crisis is over. ...
At some point, the president is going to have to look at Drs. Fauci and Birx and say, we're opening on May 1. Give me your best guidance on protocols, but we cannot deny our people their basic freedoms any longer.
Barack Obama called for a “robust system of testing and monitoring” to confront the coronavirus crisis.
Social distancing bends the curve and relieves some pressure on our heroic medical professionals. But in order to shift off current policies, the key will be a robust system of testing and monitoring – something we have yet to put in place nationwide. https://t.co/evkTSrzReB
New York suffered the highest single-day increase in its death toll from coronavirus, governor Andrew Cuomo reported on Tuesday, even as those in the state were still under orders to stay at home.
The governor noted the three-day average of hospitalizations was down, indicating the state is “reaching a plateau in the total number of hospitalizations”.
The New York governor said the Chinese government would facilitate a donation of 1,000 ventilators to arrive into JFK airport on Saturday. Cuomo said: ‘This is a big deal and it’s going to make a significant difference for us. We’re not at the apex so we’re still in the stage where we have the luxury – if you will – of gathering as much as we can.’
Andrew Cuomo has said he will sign an executive order to take ventilators and personal protection equipment from facilities in New York state that have them and do not need them to deal with the virus. He said the equipment would be returned or reimbursed, but the move is likely to spark outcry from hospitals in upstate New York, which has seen fewer coronavirus cases.
Nurses and doctors at Montefiore medical center in the Bronx protested over the lack of personal protective equipment on Thursday. 'Every day when I go to work, I feel like a sheep going to slaughter,' said Dr Laura Ucik, a third-year resident at the centre
New York governor Andrew Cuomo said he thought Americans would be living with the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic for a long time. ‘I don’t think we get back to normal,’ Cuomo said. ‘I think we get to a new normal.’ The governor also emphasised that states need to be better prepared for such crises because ‘something like this will happen again’
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Dr. Fauci said “I believe we acted early,” in response to a question about whether the US could have done more, earlier. But he conceded that earlier action could have helped.
Dr. Birx, as well, evaded the question, asserting that it remains to be seen whether the disease was spreading through the US in February or earlier.
Fact check: Hydroxychloroquine cure
Trump once again touted hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus cure, asserting that it won’t kill people because it has already been used to treat other conditions. But the drug can have serious side effects even when it is used as recommended, to treat malaria, as well as lupus and arthritis.