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Javier E

Russians abandon wartime Russia in historic exodus - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...russia-diaspora-war-ukraine

russia exodus emigrants history

shared by Javier E on 14 Feb 23 - No Cached
  • Initial data shows that at least 500,000, and perhaps nearly 1 million, have left in the year since the invasion began — a tidal wave on scale with emigration following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.
  • The huge outflow has swelled existing Russian expatriate communities across the world, and created new ones.
  • Some fled nearby to countries like Armenia and Kazakhstan, across borders open to Russians. Some with visas escaped to Finland, the Baltic states or elsewhere in Europe. Others ventured farther, to the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Thailand, Argentina. Two men from Russia’s Far East even sailed a small boat to Alaska.
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  • The financial cost, while vast, is impossible to calculate. In late December, Russia’s Communications Ministry reported that 10 percent of the country’s IT workers had left in 2022 and not returned.
  • those remaining in the depleted political opposition also faced a choice this year: prison or exile. Most chose exile. Activists and journalists are now clustered in cities such as Berlin and the capitals of Lithuania, Latvia and Georgia.
  • “This exodus is a terrible blow for Russia,” said Tamara Eidelman, a Russian historian who moved to Portugal after the invasion. “The layer that could have changed something in the country has now been washed away.”
  • the influx of Russians into countries such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which have long sent immigrants to Russia, set off political tremors, straining ties between Moscow and the other former Soviet states. Real estate prices in those countries have shot up, causing tensions with local populations.
  • For many Russians choosing to flee, Armenia was a rare easy option. It is one of five ex-Soviet countries that allow Russians to enter with just a national ID — making it a popular destination for former soldiers, political activists and others needing a quick escape.
  • Given the shared religion and use of language, Russians typically do not face animosity or social stigma in Armenia. Obtaining residency permits is also straightforward, and living costs are lower than in the European Union.
  • Yerevan has attracted thousands of IT workers, young creatives and working-class people, including families with children, from across Russia. They have established new schools, bars, cafes and robust support networks.
  • n the courtyard of the “Free School” for Russian children, established in April, Maxim, a construction company manager, was waiting for his 8-year-old son, Timofey. The school started with 40 students in an apartment. Now, there are nearly 200 in a multistory building in the city center.
  • “I did not want to be a murderer in this criminal war,” said Andrei, who is being identified by his first name for safety reasons
  • Like the White Russian emigres of the Bolshevik era and the post-Soviet immigrants of the 1990s, many of those leaving Russia because of the war in Ukraine are probably gone for good.
  • The family has adapted seamlessly to Yerevan. Everyone around them speaks Russian. Maxim works remotely on projects in Russia. Timofey likes his school and is learning Armenian. Maxim said he is sure the family will not return to Russia.
  • Tanya Raspopova, 26, arrived in Yerevan last March, with her husband but without a plan, overwhelmed and frightened.Then she heard that another emigre was seeking partners to set up a bar, a space where Russian expats could come together, and she wanted to help. Tuf, named after the pink volcanic rock common throughout Yerevan, opened its doors within a month.
  • They started with a neon-lit bar and kitchen on the ground floor, which soon expanded into a small courtyard. Then they opened up a second floor, then a third. Upstairs there is now a recording studio, a clothing boutique and a tattoo parlor. On a Wednesday night in January, the place was packed with young Russians and Armenians singing karaoke, drinking cocktails and playing ping-pong. “We have since created such a big community, a big family,” Raspopova said. “Tuf is our new home.”
  • Thousands have chosen the UAE, which did not join Western sanctions and still has direct flights to Moscow, as their new home. Russians enjoy visa-free travel for 90 days, and it is relatively easy to get a national ID, through business or investment, for a longer stay.
  • The high cost of living means there are no activists or journalists. Dubai is a haven, and the go-to playground, for Russian tech founders, billionaires under sanctions, unpenalized millionaires, celebrities, and influencers.
  • Shortly after the invasion, conversations in Moscow’s affluent Patriarch Ponds neighborhood turned to the best Dubai real estate deals, said Natalia Arkhangelskaya, who writes for Antiglyanets, a snarky and influential Telegram blog focused on Russia’s elite. A year later, Russians have ousted Brits and Indians as Dubai’s top real estate buyers, Russian-owned yachts dock at the marina, and private jets zigzag between Dubai and Moscow.
  • Russians can still buy apartments, open bank accounts and snag designer leather goods they previously shopped for in France.
  • The UAE’s embrace of foreign business has lured a stream of Russian IT workers seeking to cut ties with Russia and stay linked to global markets. Start-ups seek financing from state-supported accelerators. Larger firms pursue clients to replace those lost to sanctions.
  • About a dozen people arrived to discuss opportunities in India, which has maintained ties with Russia despite the war. Most expressed bitterness about the Kremlin’s politics and a longing for Moscow when it was an aspiring global hub.
  • “The most important thing for me is to be able to develop international projects and to integrate my kids into a global community, so they grow up in a free environment,”
  • Andrei works as a delivery driver and shares a modest room with two other men in a shelter set up by Kovcheg, a support organization for Russian emigrants. “Before the war, I never followed politics, but after the invasion, I started reading about everything,” Andrei said. “I feel so ashamed about what Russia has done.”
  • “Every extra month leads people to get used to a different country,” she said. “They get a job there, their children go to school, they begin to speak a different language. The longer the war lasts — the longer the dictatorship in the country continues — the fewer people will return.”
  • the expats could become “a repository of relevant skills for a better, freer, modern Russia.” For now, though, Rojansky said, the outflow sends a clear message.
James Flanagan

Right-wing groups hurt the GOP - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...right-wing-groups-hurt-the-gop

republican tea party

shared by James Flanagan on 12 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Club for Growth is one of the right-wing groups prone to backing losing, extreme candidates and cheering on silly stunts like the shutdown
  • Opensecrets.org lists the CFG for 2013 as spending $16,584,207 in the 2012 election cycle. Over $9M was spent against Republicans.
  • By pushing unprepared, true-believer candidates in 2010 and 2012 it helped throw away potential pickups in Nevada, Colorado and Texas Alaska while helping Dems win Indiana. That is four seats Republicans don’t have (they need six now to win back the majority). I doubt there is a single Democratic group as effective in undermining GOP attempts to gain the Senate majority.
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  • This is only one example of the dysfunction on the right that winds up playing into the Dems hands. With CFG, Madison Project and Senate Conservatives Fund to do its work both in savaging good GOP candidates and boosting flaky ones, Democrats can focus their funds on hard-to-win swing states and even some long-shot races.
Javier E

Inuit Study Adds Twist to Omega-3 Fatty Acids' Health Story - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-fatty-acids-health-story.html

diet evolution human origins fat digestion

shared by Javier E on 18 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Today, at least 10 percent of Americans regularly take fish oil supplements. But recent trials have failed to confirm that the pills prevent heart attacks or stroke. And now the story has an intriguing new twist.
  • he journal Science reported that the ancestors of the Inuit evolved unique genetic adaptations for metabolizing omega-3s and other fatty acids. Those gene variants had drastic effects on Inuit’s bodies, reducing their heights and weights.
  • the discovery raised questions about whether omega-3 fats really were protective for everyone, despite decades of health advice. “The same diet may have different effects on different people,” he said.
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  • The researchers found several genetic variants at different locations in the genome that were unusually common in the Inuit, compared with people in Europe or China. Several of these variations occurred within a cluster of genes that direct construction of enzymes called fatty acid desaturases. (The genes are called FADS, for short.)
  • This discovery was particularly tantalizing, because the scientists knew that these enzymes helped regulate the different fats in our bodies, including omega-3 fatty acids.
  • Natural selection is the only known way this gene variant could have become so common in the Inuit. Dr. Nielsen said this adaptation might have arisen as long ago as 20,000 years, when the ancestors of the Inuit were living in the Beringia region, which straddles Alaska and Siberia
  • one of these gene variants was present in almost every Inuit in the study. It is much less common in other populations: About a quarter of Chinese people have it, compared with just 2 percent of Europeans.
  • To uncover the effect of this variant gene, the scientists compared the Inuit in their study with others with more European ancestry. Some had inherited a European version of the variant. People with two copies of the Inuit gene had different blood levels of fatty acids than people without them, the researchers found.
  • The adaptation did more than just change blood levels of fatty acids, the scientists found. Inuit who carried two copies of the variant gene were on average an inch shorter and 10 pounds lighter than those without a copy.“That’s quite extreme,” said Dr. Nielsen.
  • Indeed, it’s rare to find a single gene that can influence height and weight so drastically. In recent years, scientists have run a number of large studies pinpointing hundreds of genes that affect height and weight, but each one played a minuscule role in the variation from person to person.
  • Those studies missed this influential gene variant because they focused mostly on people of European ancestry. So Dr. Nielsen and his colleagues also investigated how it affects Europeans. As it turns out, the gene variant is linked to a drastic drop in height and weight in that population, too.
  • natural selection might not have favored the FADS variant but a neighboring, as yet unknown piece of DNA that conferred evolutionary advantages.As that gene spread through the Inuit population, the FADS variant might simply have been passed down with it.
  • Dr. Nielsen and his colleagues are planning to investigate the long-term health effects of the gene variants they’ve found. They may help explain why some of us metabolize fats more effectively than others, and why omega-3s haven’t been the heart panacea once hoped.
rachelramirez

More Gun Deaths Than Traffic Fatalities in 21 States - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...460431

gun deaths traffic politics US

shared by rachelramirez on 08 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • Gun Deaths May Not Eclipse Traffic Fatalities Just Yet
  • New data shows traffic deaths jumped by more than 9 percent during the first nine months of 2015, the most recent period for which information is available.
  • The NHSTA says it’s too soon to speculate on factors contributing to the “significantly higher” traffic fatality rates last year.
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  • Lower gas prices are one possible reason. When gasoline is cheaper, people drive more—and more time on the road translates into more fatal accidents.
  • For instance, the increase in traffic deaths exceeded 20 percent in the region that includes Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana, but only went up by about 3 percent in the region that includes California, Arizona, Hawaii, and other Pacific territories.
  • But while car-safety technology has improved dramatically in recent decades, handguns have barely changed in a century.
  • Gun deaths surpassed motor-vehicle deaths in 21 states plus the District of Columbia in 2014, according to analysis by the Violence Policy Center.
Alex Trudel

China says it warned and tracked U.S. warship in South China Sea - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

politics US crisis culture policy economic Obama warship south sea china

shared by Alex Trudel on 27 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • "illegally entered into the waters of China's Spratly Islands."
  • threatened China's sovereignty and security interest,
  • Chinese sovereign territory if the U.S. recognized the man-made islands as being Chinese territory, the official added.
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  • In little more than 18 months, China has reclaimed more than 2,000 acres at three main locations in the Spratly Islands
  • I advise the U.S. not to create such a self-fulfilling prophecy."
  • China from engaging in reasonable, legitimate and legal activities in its own territories
  • coming within 12 miles of the coastline during President Barack Obama's visit to the state, U.S. officials told CNN at the time.
  • "U.S. Freedom of Navigation operations are global in scope and executed against a wide range of excessive maritime claims,
  • The rest of the region, wary of China's intentions in the disputed waters, is likely to welcome the U.S. move.
  • Poling said under maritime law, artificial islands were not usually afforded the 12-mile territorial zone,
maddieireland334

The Quest For a Safe Gun - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...423909

shared by maddieireland334 on 16 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Gun-safety technology has barely improved over the decades, even as many firearms have become more powerful.
  • n a speech at the White House earlier this month, President Barack Obama announced he’s directing the departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security to conduct or sponsor research into what it would take to make guns harder to use without authorization, and less likely to fire accidentally.
  • For one thing, gun owners often want their weapons to be instantly accessible and usable. That’s why so many people choose not to store their firearms in safes
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  • Making guns personalized so that they only work for approved users is a major theme in gun-safety technology today, but not everyone agrees that fingerprint sensors are the way to go
  • A review by America’s 1st Freedom, a publication run by the NRA, called Armatix’s smart weapon “sleek” but unreliable and ultimately “disappointing.” The review also raised questions about remote hacking, an aspect of personalized authentication that is likely to continue to come up.
  • TriggerSmart is developing its own RFID-enabled gun, one that he hopes—like many of the people developing advanced gun-safety technologies—will appeal to law enforcement
  • If gun enthusiasts see police officers and members of the military using a certain weapon, they’re more likely to buy the same thing.
  • That’s the idea, anyway. TriggerSmart is still testing its product, a painstaking process, and one that McNamara estimates will take a couple more years. “Because they’re such serious weapons,” he said. “We need to go and test technology rigorously in extreme conditions—in the desert in Africa and in the snow up in Alaska—to make sure that they perform perfectly well.”
  • “Nobody’s trying to take away guns,” McNamara said. “This is just offering another kind of gun. There’s thousands of types of guns. This is just another one. I don’t think, in any stretch of the imagination, that there’s anything in the president’s announcement that we’re taking away anybody’s guns. But of course there’s the fear-mongering. Paranoid fantasies.”
  • In the United States alone, there are some 350 million firearms—or, as The Washington Post recently pointed out, more guns than people. “The majority of gun owners are responsible,” Hirsch said. “I don’t know if guns are any more lethal than they used to be. The problem is they’re falling into the wrong hands.”
  • That’s true. People do kill people, just like guns-rights advocates like to say, but they wouldn’t always be able to without guns.
  • “Just the simplicity, pulling the trigger. It’s not something like a construction machine, where if you make a mistake you might lose a hand. You’re playing on a much higher level when talking about safety.”
Javier E

Andrew Sullivan: Portrait of the President As a Con Man - 0 views

nymag.com/...he-president-as-a-con-man.html

immigration Catholic sexual abuse trump con game history

shared by Javier E on 29 Jul 18 - No Cached
  • One of the talking points for some who support continued mass immigration is the notion that the places where immigration is least popular are the places with the fewest number of immigrants. That’s how irrational xenophobia is, they suggest
  • the Migration Policy Institute complicates the picture a bit. While it finds that the number of immigrants increased by 9 percent between 2010 and 2016, it also notes that it had risen by 15 percent or more in 15 states. And among those states, most are red ones: North Dakota, West Virginia, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Alaska, Indiana, and Iowa among them.
  • , the total numbers are nowhere near where they are in, say, California, but the pace of change really has increased in those states where opposition — especially to immigrants who entered the country illegally — is high. I don’t find this surprising.
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  • One other small thing to note: More than a fifth of Americans, according to this survey, now speak a language other than English at home. In Nevada and Florida, nearly a third of residents don’t speak English at home.
  • very few previous waves of immigrants have been so homogeneous for as long as the Spanish-speaking immigrants from Mexico and Central America currently are; their numbers are higher than any other previous wave; and few have been so thoroughly dispersed.
  • the sheer scale of the cultural transformation of the last couple of decades — the CDC predicts that close to a quarter of Americans will be Hispanic by 2035 — is undeniable.
  • If you ignore that, or insist that worrying about too fast a pace of cultural change is inherently racist, it’s relatively easy to insist that there is no immigration crisis
  • if you believe that nations require some continuity and cultural unity to cohere and endure, then the picture is somewhat different. There is a reason this issue has become so prominent in this country. And it isn’t entirely bigotry.
anonymous

1 in 14 women still smokes while pregnant, CDC says - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

women US culture environment health

shared by anonymous on 28 Feb 18 - No Cached
  • 7.2% of women who gave birth in 2016 smoked cigarettes while pregnant, CDC says
  • About one in 14 pregnant women who gave birth in the United States in 2016 smoked cigarettes during her pregnancy, according to a report released Wednesday.The findings, gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, revealed that 7.2% of all expectant mothers smoked -- but that the percentage of pregnant smokers varied widely from state to state.
  • In 2011, about 10% of women in the US reported smoking during their last three months of pregnancy, and of those women who smoked, 55% quit during pregnancy, according to data from the CDC's Pregnancy Risk Assessment and Monitoring System.Smoking while pregnant puts a baby at risk for certain birth defects. It also can cause a baby to be born too early or to have low birth weight and can raise the risk of stillbirth or sudden infant death syndrome, according to the CDC.
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  • "Women in West Virginia smoked during pregnancy more than five times as often as women in the states with the lowest prevalence,"
  • The researchers also found that prevalence of smoking during pregnancy varied by age and race. The prevalence was highest among women 20 to 24 at 10.7%, followed by women 15 to 19 at 8.5% and 25 to 29 at 8.2%.
  • The prevalence also was highest among non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native women at 16.7%, followed by non-Hispanic white women at 10.5%, non-Hispanic black women at 6%, Hispanic women at 1.8% and non-Hispanic Asian women at 0.6%.
  • "We still have a serious issue with infant mortality -- prematurity and infant mortality are clearly linked to cigarette smoking, as is low birth weight -- and when you begin to explain these things to patients, it really does appear to make a difference to them," he said.Brown pointed out that some of the states in the new CDC report with the highest prevalence of smoking during pregnancy also tend to have high rates of infant mortality. A CDC data brief released in January showed that, between 2013 and 2015, West Virginia and Kentucky had infant mortality rates higher than the overall national rate.
Javier E

Radical warming in Siberia leaves millions on unstable ground - Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...climate-change-siberia

warming siberia global warming crisis

shared by Javier E on 04 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • Siberia has warmed up faster than almost anywhere else on Earth. Scientists say the planet's warming must not exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius — but Siberia's temperatures have already spiked far beyond that.
  • the region near the town of Zyryanka, in an enormous wedge of eastern Siberia called Yakutia, has warmed by more than 3 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times — roughly triple the global average.
  • The permafrost that once sustained farming — and upon which villages and cities are built — is in the midst of a great thaw, blanketing the region with swamps, lakes and odd bubbles of earth that render the land virtually useless.
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  • For the 5.4 million people who live in Russia’s permafrost zone, the new climate has disrupted their homes and their livelihoods. Rivers are rising and running faster, and entire neighborhoods are falling into them. Arable land for farming has plummeted by more than half, to just 120,000 acres in 2017.
  • As the permafrost thaws, animals and plants frozen for thousands of years begin to decompose and send a steady flow of carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere — accelerating climate change.
  • Siberians who grew up learning to read nature’s subtlest signals are being driven to migrate by a climate they no longer understand.
  • This migration from the countryside to cities and towns — also driven by factors such as low investment and spotty Internet — represents one of the most significant and little-noticed movements to date of climate refugees. The city of Yakutsk has seen its population surge 20 percent to more than 300,000 in the past decade.
  • In Yakutia, an area one-third the size of the United States, cattle and reindeer herding have plunged 20 percent as the animals increasingly battle to survive the warming climate’s destruction of pastureland.
  • “It used to be man was in control,” said Pyotr Kaurgin, head of the Chukchi indigenous community in the village of Kolymskoye, on the northern reaches of the Kolyma River. “Now nature is in control.”
  • a booming cottage industry in mammoth hunting has taken hold
  • ornithologists in the region have identified 48 new bird species in the past half century, an increase of almost 20 percent in the known diversity of bird life.
  • Winters, though still brutal, turned milder — and shorter. Fed by the more rapidly thawing permafrost, rivers started flooding more, leaving some communities inaccessible for months and washing others away, along with the ground beneath them.
  • Formed during the late Pleistocene, the Earth’s last glacial period, which ended about 11,700 years ago, Yedoma consists of thick layers of soil packed around gigantic lodes of embedded ice. Because Yedoma contains so much ice, it can melt quickly — reshaping the landscape as sudden lakes form and hillsides collapse.
  • In the summer, huge blazes tore through Siberian boreal forests, unleashing yet more carbon into the atmosphere. Some scientists fear worsening northern fires are amplifying the permafrost damage.
  • on the Yamal Peninsula, monstrous craters have opened up in the tundra. Scientists suspect they represent sudden explosions of methane gas freed by thawing permafrost.
  • Due to thawing permafrost — along with the demise of Soviet-era state farms — the area of cultivated land in Yakutia has plummeted by more than half since 1990. The region’s cattle herds have shrunk by about 20 percent, to 188,100 head in 2017 from 233,300 in 2011. Reindeer herds have also declined sharply
  • he degradation of crop and pastureland caused by the thawing permafrost helped bring about the collapse of the region’s agriculture.
  • “The permafrost is thawing so fast,” said Anna Liljedahl, an associate professor at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. “We scientists can’t keep up anymore.”
  • . The radical transformation underway here, she said, should serve as a warning to people in every corner of the globe. “Changing our ways is imminent,” Crate said.
  • The town of Zyryanka has warmed by just over 2 degrees Celsius from 1966 to 2016, according to their analysis.
  • The Post’s analysis, which uses a data set from Berkeley Earth, looks further back. It shows that Zyryanka and the roughly 2,000-square-mile area surrounding it has warmed by more than 3 degrees Celsius when the past five years are compared with the mid- to late 1800s.
  • From 2005 to 2014, his team found, the number of days with below-freezing temperatures three feet below the surface fell from around 230 days a year to 190.
  • enormous wedges of ice lie under Yakutia.
  • Yegor Prokopyev, the retired head of Nelemnoye, says climate change is the latest shock to befall the Kolyma River region. There was communism and forced collective farming. Then capitalism and government cutbacks.
  • In the 1970s, Desyatkin said, the ground in the Middle Kolyma District, just north of Zyryanka, thawed to a depth of about two feet every summer. Now it thaws to more than three feet. That extra foot of thawing means that, on average, every square mile of territory has been releasing an additional 700,000 gallons of water into the environment every year
  • Meanwhile, ancient plant and animal remains trapped inside the Yedoma are exposed to nonfreezing temperatures — or even the open air. That, in turn, activates microbes, which break down the remains and unleash carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, especially from the thawing plant material.
  • Scientists estimate that the Earth’s Yedoma regions contain between 327 billion and 466 billion tons of carbon. Were it all released into the atmosphere, that would amount to more than half of all human-caused emissions from greenhouse gases and deforestation between 1750 and 2011
  • As the permafrost thaws and riverbanks erode, more tusks will emerge. Though mammoths disappeared from the Siberian mainland some 10,000 years ago, the government estimates that 500,000 tons of their tusks are still buried in the frozen ground.
  • Supply and demand are so great that some people are collecting mammoth tusks at near-industrial scale. They use high-pressure hoses to blast away riverbanks and hire teams of young men to comb the wilderness for months at a time.
  • . In the glutted market, Sivtsev said, the price for top-quality tusks has fallen from about $500 a pound five years ago to around $180.
  • climate change is leaving people with few choices. “They have to somehow support and feed their families.”
  • The ducks and geese are just about gone, he said, possibly moving to new habitats in Siberia as the climate shifts. The sable pelts aren’t as thick as they used to be. The shorter winters mean that once reliably frozen-over lakes and rivers are now less predictable, making hunting grounds harder to reach and restricting his ability to get goods to market.
  • In Nelemnoye, the population has declined to 180 from 210 in the past decade, according to village head Andrei Solntsev. Just 82 of the residents have work. Many factors are pushing people to move to the city — lack of Internet access, poor flight connections, limited job opportunities — but the uncertainty born of a changing climate looms over everything
  • As the permafrost thaws and recedes, a handful of apartment buildings there are showing signs of structural problems. Sections of many older, wooden buildings already sag toward the ground — rendered uninhabitable by the unevenly thawing earth. New apartment blocks are being built on massive pylons extending ever deeper — more than 40 feet — below ground
  • a study published this year that the value of buildings and infrastructure on Russian permafrost amounts to $300 billion — about 7.5 percent of the nation’s total annual economic output. They estimate the cost of mitigating the damage wrought by thawing permafrost will probably total more than $100 billion by 2050.
brookegoodman

Coronavirus map of the US: latest cases state by state | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...us-latest-cases-state-by-state

us crisis

shared by brookegoodman on 27 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • The number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 continues to grow in the US. Mike Pence, the vice-president, is overseeing the US response to the coronavirus.
  • Confirmed cases 85,919 (Today: +2,083) Deaths 1,297 (Today: +88)
  • State/territory Confirmed cases Deaths New York 39,140 461 New Jersey 6,876 81 California 4,040 82 Washington 3,207 150 Michigan 2,844 61 Illinois 2,542 26 Florida 2,484 29 Massachusetts 2,417 25 Louisiana 2,304 83 Pennsylvania 1,813 18 Texas 1,658 24 Georgia 1,642 56 Colorado 1,430 19 Tennessee 1,097 3 Connecticut 1,012 21 Ohio 870 15 North Carolina 755 3 Wisconsin 728 10 Indiana 657 17 Maryland 583 4 Nevada 536 10 Alabama 531 1 Missouri 520 9 Arizona 508 8 Mississippi 485 6 Virginia 468 10 South Carolina 456 9 Utah 396 1 Arkansas 349 2 Minnesota 344 2 Oregon 317 11 District of Columbia 267 3 Oklahoma 248 7 Kentucky 247 5 Idaho 191 3 Iowa 179 1 Kansas 172 3 Rhode Island 165 0 Vermont 158 9 Maine 155 0 New Hampshire 154 1 Delaware 143 1 New Mexico 136 1 Hawaii 106 0 Montana 90 1 Nebraska 82 0 West Virginia 76 0 Puerto Rico 64 2 North Dakota 57 0 Alaska 56 1 Wyoming 56 0 South Dakota 46 1 Guam 45 1 Virgin Islands 17 0
brookegoodman

A state-by-state breakdown of US coronavirus cases - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

crisis us

shared by brookegoodman on 27 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • (CNN)The first US case of the coronavirus was reported January 21 -- a Washington state man who had recently returned from China. Now, the country has at least 82,250 cases across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
  • Alabama: 531 (including one death)Alaska: 69 (including one death)Arizona: 508 (including eight deaths) Arkansas: 349 (including three deaths)California: 3,006 (including 65 deaths)Colorado: 1,430 (including 24 deaths)Connecticut: 1,012 (including 21 deaths)Delaware: 143 (including one death)District of Columbia: 267 (including three deaths)Florida: 2,353 (including 28 deaths)Georgia: 1,643 (including 56 deaths)Guam: 45 (including one death)Hawaii: 106 Idaho: 189 (including three deaths)Illinois: 2,538 (including 26 deaths)Indiana: 645 (including 17 deaths)Iowa: 179 (including one death)Kansas: 168 (including three deaths)Kentucky: 248 (including five deaths)Louisiana: 2,305 (including 83 deaths)Maine: 155Maryland: 580 (including four deaths)Massachusetts: 2,417 (including 25 deaths)Michigan: 2,856 (including 60 deaths)Minnesota: 346 (including two deaths)Mississippi: 485 (including five deaths)Missouri: 502 (including eight deaths)Montana: 90Nebraska: 73Nevada: 535 (including 10 deaths)New Hampshire: 137 (including one death)New Jersey: 6,876 (including 81 deaths)New Mexico: 136 (including one death)New York: 37,258 (including 385 deaths)North Carolina: 636 (including two deaths)North Dakota: 52Ohio: 867 (including 15 deaths)Oklahoma: 248 (including seven deaths)Oregon: 316 (including 11 deaths)Pennsylvania: 1,687 (including 16 deaths)Puerto Rico: 64 (including two deaths)Rhode Island: 165South Carolina: 456 (including nine deaths)South Dakota: 46 (including one death)Tennessee: 957 (including three deaths)Texas: 1,424 (including 18 deaths)US Virgin Islands: 17Utah: 402 (including one death)Vermont: 158 (including nine deaths)Virginia: 460 (including 13 deaths)Washington: 3,207 (including 149 deaths)West Virginia: 76Wisconsin: 707 (including eight deaths)Wyoming: 55Repatriated cases: 70
  • CORRECTIONS: A previous version of this story included an incorrect number of cases for Florida. That number has been corrected. On March 14, CNN revised the US death count, taking it down by one after discovering a double count of one death. This article also has been updated with the correct number of deaths for Hawaii, and cases for Wisconsin, Alabama.
Javier E

George Conway: Don't let the defense fool you. This impeachment is all about corruption... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...a-b503-2b077c436617_story.html

impeachment trump defense politics history Policy

shared by Javier E on 31 Jan 20 - No Cached
  •  Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Mitt Romney (Utah) asked: What if the president had a mixed motive — if he thought he was acting both “in pursuit of a personal political advantage” and in “promotion of national interests”? Deputy White House Counsel Patrick Philbin responded without caveat. That “cannot possibly be the basis for an impeachable offense,” he said.
  • If “a president does something which he believes will get himself elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” Dershowitz contended.
  • For a president psychologically incapable of distinguishing between his own personal interests and the nation’s, that amounts to the ultimate get-out-of-impeachment-free card.
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  • It’s just not true that good motives, when mixed with bad ones, compel acquittal under the law. If a politician takes a bribe to do what he thinks would have been best for the public anyway, he still goes to jail
  • it’s not true, as Dershowitz argued Wednesday, that the Framers’ rejection of “maladministration” as a basis for impeachment means that abuse of power isn’t impeachable
  • The Framers rejected the word “maladministration” because it covered mistakes and incompetence, not because it also could mean abuse of power. In fact, they swapped “high crimes and misdemeanors” into the final document precisely because it does cover such abuse.
  • Trump’s lawyers are right that if a president does what he honestly thinks is simultaneously in his personal electoral and the national interests, that’s not impeachable, in the following sense: If a president cuts taxes because he thinks it will get him reelected and it will create jobs, that’s fine. That’s ordinary electoral politics.
  • But if he cuts taxes because he has an agreement with a major backer that, in exchange for tax cuts, the backer will fund a huge super PAC to support his reelection, that’s impeachable — because that’s a corrupt quid pro quo for his personal benefit.
blythewallick

Opinion | Changes to the Census Could Make Small Towns Disappear - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...census-algorithm-privacy.html

politics US history culture

shared by blythewallick on 06 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • According to the 2010 census, 590 people lived in Toksook Bay. State demographers expect the total to rise by about 100 people when census results are published next year.
  • The law requires individual census records to be kept confidential for 72 years. Fearing that data brokers using new statistical techniques could de-anonymize the published population totals, the bureau is testing an algorithm that will scramble the final numbers. Imaginary people will be added to some locations and real people will be removed from others.
  • In Toksook Bay, the population dropped from 590 people to 540 in the test run. Mr. Pitka said that a decrease in the count due to the privacy algorithm would be “disappointing and hurtful.”
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  • In Toksook Bay, federal grants helped pay for a permanent path to the nearby village of Nightmute, according to Mr. Pitka. “Now people aren’t making their own trails and tearing up the environment with their A.T.V.s.,” he said.
  • “When a small tribe puts its own money into getting all members to participate and it gets back information that it has a population of zero, it’s certainly not going to be willing to promote the census in the future,” said Norm DeWeaver, a consultant for Native American tribes on data issues.
  • Census officials have already exempted state population totals from the algorithm’s effects, so congressional apportionment will remain as accurate as possible. Dr. Abowd said that the census plans to increase accuracy for the populations of some small areas, such as reservations, and that the undercount of Native Americans in the test run is “unacceptable.” There is still time to modify the algorithm — the bureau has more than a year before it releases results to the states for redistricting.
  • The goal of the Census Bureau is to “count everyone once, only once and in the right place.” Trudging through the snow, enumerators in rural Alaska are helping the government reach that standard. But if the bureau uses its privacy algorithm without hearing from small communities like Toksook Bay, it risks undermining their efforts and damaging the census’s reputation for decades to come.
katherineharron

Novel coronavirus cases in the United States are nearing 1 million - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

crisis

shared by katherineharron on 27 Apr 20 - No Cached
  • A new week in the coronavirus pandemic is beginning with a United States case count approaching 1 million and several cities and states preparing to loosen stay-at-home restrictions.
  • There have been 54,883 coronavirus deaths reported nationally and more than 965,000 cases of the virus in the US.
  • While states from Hawaii to Texas and Michigan to Alaska are loosening restrictions on certain businesses and outdoor recreation, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday that his state is still weeks away from reopening.
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  • "We are going to do everything in a smart way," DeSantis said in a news conference Sunday. "I am less concerned about the date and more concerned about getting it right."
  • Maryland has received hundreds of calls from people asking if they can effectively combat coronavirus by injecting or ingesting disinfectants, Gov. Larry Hogan told Margaret Brennan on "Face the Nation" on Sunday.
  • Tennessee's poison control center has seen a jump in the number of people hospitalized from exposure to hydrogen peroxide, a common ingredient in disinfectants, according to the Tennessean newspaper.
  • "All I know is this, when the person with the most powerful position on the planet is encouraging people to think about disinfectants whether it was serious or not, people listen,"
  • And while final results are not expected until mid-to-late May, preliminary results for a clinical trial of the experimental antiviral drug remdesivir could come out in a week or two,
millerco

Senate Approves Budget Plan That Smooths Path Toward Tax Cut - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...budget-vote-senate.html

Us history senate budget plan republicans democrats politics Trump

shared by millerco on 20 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • The Senate took a significant step toward rewriting the tax code on Thursday night with the passage of a budget blueprint that would protect a $1.5 trillion tax cut from a Democratic filibuster.
  • The budget resolution could also pave the way for opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil exploration by ensuring that drilling legislation can pass with only Republican votes.
  • Despite having full control of the government, Republicans have so far been unable to produce a marquee legislative achievement in the first year of President Trump’s tenure, putting even more pressure on lawmakers to succeed in passing a tax bill.
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  • The budget’s passage could keep Republicans on track to approve a tax package late this year or early in 2018.
  • As early as next week, the House plans to take up the budget blueprint that the Senate approved on Thursday by a 51 to 49 vote. Doing so would allow for the tax overhaul to move ahead quickly.
  • Speaker Paul D. Ryan will need most House Republicans to back the blueprint without changes; in the Senate, Rand Paul of Kentucky was the lone Republican to vote against the measure on Thursday, in protest of what he deemed excessive spending.
  • If House Republicans were to insist on negotiating a compromise that melds the Senate and House budget plans, tax legislation could be delayed.
  • “This is the last, best chance we will have to cut taxes,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a member of the Budget Committee, who warned that the consequences would be ruinous if the party failed.
  • “That will be the end of us as a party,” he said, “because if you’re a Republican and you don’t want to simplify the tax code and cut taxes, what good are you to anybody?”
ethanshilling

California and Florida Prepare to Give Vaccine Access to All Adults - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...alifornia-florida-vaccine.html

US pandemic vaccine

shared by ethanshilling on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Governors across the United States are speeding up eligibility for coronavirus vaccines as the number of new cases nationally plateaus, adding more urgency to vaccination efforts.
  • California will open up vaccine eligibility on April 1 to any resident who is 50 or older, and will expand that to residents 16 or older on April 15, state officials announced on Thursday, saying they could do so because of increasing supplies of vaccine from the federal government.
  • In Connecticut, which is among the most-vaccinated states in the country, Gov. Ned Lamont said Thursday that all residents 16 and above would be eligible beginning April 1.
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  • Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said the state would open vaccinations to those 40 and older starting Monday, adding that a mask mandate would stay in place for at least another 30 days.
  • Alaska, Mississippi, Utah and West Virginia are the only states where all adults are now eligible to receive shots, but many more have announced plans to expand eligibility on or before May 1, a goal set by President Biden.
  • The nation is averaging about 2.5 million doses of vaccine a day. At that pace, about half of the nation’s population would be at least partially vaccinated by mid-May.
  • State officials said they expected California to start receiving 2.5 million doses a week in the first part of April, and more than three million by the second half of the month, a major increase from the current pace of about 1.8 million doses a week.
  • The governor has repeatedly said that short and unpredictable supplies have been to blame for what has been criticized as a confusing and chaotic vaccination process that has left many poorer communities to lag behind.
  • Florida, more than most states, has emphasized age, rather than occupation or other risk factors, in its approach to vaccine eligibility.
  • The number of new virus cases reported in Florida has been hovering around 4,600 a day in recent weeks, a level that health officials say is still too high, even though it has fallen significantly from a peak earlier this year.
  • The state’s efforts to reopen its tourism industry has not been without problems. In Miami Beach, local officials have been overwhelmed with spring break revelers who have ignored safety precautions like mask wearing and social distancing.
leilamulveny

In Trump's Final Days, Lines Are Drawn for a Republican Civil War - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...publican-civil-war-11609772298

Trump Politics policy crisis

shared by leilamulveny on 10 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Less than two years from now, after this week’s attempt to overturn the results of the presidential election has long since played out, here is a plausible scenario:
  • But that outcome will be challenged by Republican rebels, who, taking a cue from what is happening right now, will charge that the election was “rigged” by the establishment, and go to court to try to overturn it.
  • The irony is that Republicans might instead be uniting in celebration over what actually was a good outcome for them in the 2020 vote, and allowing attention to focus on Democrats’ own considerable internal ideological schisms. Instead, the party is being pulled apart in the last days of the Trump term.
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  • Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, who aspire to lead the Trump army whenever Mr. Trump isn’t there to do so himself, have engineered a scenario in which each of their colleagues will have to go on record either favoring or opposing the president’s effort to reverse the election.
  • They have done so in defiance of Mr. McConnell, creating in the process a no-win scenario for a series of their colleagues up for re-election in 2022— Roy Blunt of Missouri, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio, Marco Rubio of Florida, John Thune of South Dakota—in which they have to take a stand that either infuriates Trump loyalists back home or energizes Democrats and many independents against them.
  • Former House Speaker Paul Ryan released over the weekend a blunt statement urging his former colleagues not to attempt what many are about to try: overturn the election results. “Under our system, voters determine the president, and this self-governance cannot sustain itself if the whims of Congress replace the will of the people,” Mr. Ryan wrote. “I urge members to consider the precedent that it would set.”
  • As that tweet shows, there is an important ideological struggle lying beneath the skirmishing. Mr. Trump essentially ran for president in 2016 as an independent populist, with no use for a Republican establishment that largely opposed him. Upon prevailing, he turned the party away from traditional conservative principles of free trade, lower government spending and limited executive authority and toward more of a working-class agenda.
  • The unanswerable question is whether Mr. Trump can maintain his hold on the party once he is out of office. Scott Reed, a longtime GOP strategist, argues that “Trump wannabes need a new paradigm, for there will never be another Trump.” He predicts Mr. McConnell, a traditional conservative, will emerge as the party’s clear leader.
  • “The election showed us that GOP policies and ideas worked up and down the ticket, but it was the personality that cost us the White House.”
aidenborst

US Coronavirus: A year after the pandemic was declared, US Covid-19 numbers are way too... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

politics US history crisis Culture Policy Pandemic covid-19 pandemic-recovery vaccine

shared by aidenborst on 11 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • More than 29 million cases have been reported in the US since the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic one year ago.
  • The virus plunged America into grief and crisis.
  • Spikes in deaths drove some communities to call in mobile units to support their morgues.
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  • The US has lost more than 529,000 people to the virus, Johns Hopkins University data shows. It's more than the number of Americans killed in World War I and World War II combined. And the death toll is rising by the thousands each week.
  • Now, the country is at a pivotal point.
  • "While these trends are starting to head in the right direction, the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths still remain too high and are somber reminders that we must remain vigilant as we work to scale up our vaccination efforts across this country," Walensky said.
  • So far, almost one in 10 Americans have been fully vaccinated -- a number that is still too low to suppress the spread of the virus. And some experts have warned another possible surge could be weeks away, fueled by a highly contagious variant spreading across the country.
  • "We must continue to use proven prevention measures to slow the spread of Covid-19," Walensky added. "They are getting us closer to the end of this pandemic."
  • For Americans who have been fully vaccinated, the new guidance released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this week marks a small first step toward a return to pre-pandemic life, the agency's director and other colleagues wrote in a JAMA Viewpoint article published Wednesday.
  • "What we have seen is that we have surges after people start traveling. We saw it after July 4, we saw it after Labor Day, we saw it after the Christmas holidays," Walensky said in the briefing. "Currently 90% of people are still unprotected and not yet vaccinated. So we are really looking forward to updating this guidance as we have more protection across the communities and across the population."
  • "With high levels of community transmission and the threat of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, CDC still recommends a number of prevention measures for all people, regardless of vaccination status," they wrote.
  • "As vaccine supply increases, and distribution and administration systems expand and improve, more and more people will become fully vaccinated and eager to resume their prepandemic lives," Walensky and CDC officials Drs. Sarah Mbaeyi and Athalia Christie wrote.
  • More than 62 million Americans have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, CDC data shows. Roughly 32.9 million are fully vaccinated.
  • As vaccination numbers climb, more state leaders are loosening the requirements for who can get a shot.
  • At least 47 states plus DC are allowing teachers and school staff to receive Covid-19 vaccines. By next Monday, teachers will be eligible in all 50 states.
  • In Georgia, officials announced the state will expand its vaccine eligibility starting March 15 to include people 55 and older as well as individuals with disabilities and certain medical conditions.
  • "Provided supply allows, vaccine eligibility is expected to open to all adults in April," Gov. Brian Kemp's office said in a statement.
  • Other states also announced expanded vaccine eligibility this week, including Alaska, who took it the furthest by making vaccines available to everyone living or working in the state who is at least 16. It's the first state in the nation to do so.
  • The guidance allows for indoor visitation regardless of the vaccination status of the resident or visitor, with some exceptions.
  • For example, visitations may be limited for residents with Covid-19 or who are in quarantine or for unvaccinated residents living in facilities where less than 70% of residents are fully vaccinated, in a county that has a Covid-19 positivity rate greater than 10%.
  • "CMS recognizes the psychological, emotional and physical toll that prolonged isolation and separation from family have taken on nursing home residents, and their families," CMS Chief Medical Officer Dr. Lee Fleisher said in a statement.
  • "That is why, now that millions of vaccines have been administered to nursing home residents and staff, and the number of COVID cases in nursing homes has dropped significantly, CMS is updating its visitation guidance to bring more families together safely."
carolinehayter

China adopts new laws to ensure only 'patriots' can govern Hong Kong | Hong Kong | The ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-patriots-can-govern-hong-kong

china Politics US Culture Policy

shared by carolinehayter on 11 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • China’s rubber stamping parliamentary body has unanimously – bar one abstention and to sustained and loud applause – approved new laws ensuring that only people it deems “patriots” can govern Hong Kong, in a move critics say signals the end of the city’s remaining autonomy.
  • approved new domestic amendments and budgets, and the 14th five-year-plan, intended to strengthen and expand China’s domestic technology industry and market, and reach new GDP and population targets amid economic uncertainty and declining birth rates.
  • approved a decision to amend Hong Kong’s mini constitution, the basic law, and the electoral system to ensure that people opposed to the Chinese Communistparty and its rule over Hong Kong are ineligible to sit in the city’s parliament.
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  • The UK’s foreign minister, Dominic Raab, was quick to criticise the move.
  • the decision will increase the number of seats in Hong Kong’s legislature from 70 to 90, and the election committee charged with choosing a chief executive from 1,200 to 1,500.
  • Li said the government would “solidify the foundations of basic research”, including by offering 100% tax deductions on R&D costs for manufacturers.
  • In the past year new laws and regulations in Hong Kong, including a draconian national security law and a concerted campaign of protest-related prosecutions, have resulted in almost every significant voice of opposition being in jail, on trial or in exile overseas.
  • The changes have drawn international condemnation. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told Congress on Wednesday that the Biden administration would “follow through on sanctions … against those responsible for committing repressive acts in Hong Kong”. The US and other countries have repeatedly objected to the crackdown with little effect.
  • Speaking to press after the sessions, the premier, Li Keqiang, praised the passage of the decision, and the approval of China’s 14th five-year plan, which included GDP growth targets of “above 6%” and a focus on boosting China’s tech industry.
  • The changes will also establish a vetting panel responsible for “reviewing and confirming the qualifications” of committee and political political candidates in line with the national security law and basic law.
  • Ahead of a high-level bilateral meeting in Alaska next week, Li also urged improved relations with the US, but signalled China had no intention of conceding to criticisms of its actions in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and towards Taiwan.
mimiterranova

How Senators Voted In Impeachment Trial Verdict : Trump Impeachment Aftermath: Updates ... - 0 views

www.npr.org/...ial-verdict-how-senators-voted

trial verdict trump aftermath Politics US

shared by mimiterranova on 12 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Former President Donald Trump's historic second impeachment trial ended Saturday with his acquittal by senators, who were acting as jurors in the proceeding.
  • The Republicans in favor of conviction were: Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.
  • Trump faced a single impeachment charge, incitement of an insurrection, for his role in urging a mob to attack the Capitol complex on Jan. 6.
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  • Trump was impeached by the Democratic-led House last month a week after the insurrection, and just days before he left the White House.
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