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President Donald Trump's choose-your-own-adventure of medical studies and advice has this week forced his coronavirus team's medical experts into awkward and often untenable positions, leading to what some describe as a baffling conundrum of when and how to publicly correct potentially dangerous misinformation.

Members of the panel are often caught off-guard by Trump's comments, a source close to the coronavirus task force said, adding the President's remarks sometimes seem "surreal" to the experts sharing the podium at the daily news conferences. One official said task force members can never tell what precisely Trump will absorb from their briefings, often picking something small and fixating on it during the televised news conference afterward.

Some members of the task force have become aware that their reactions to Trump are being captured on camera, leading the experts and administration officials to either remind themselves to remain expressionless as the President is speaking or to stay away from the podium in order to avoid the camera.

A German company working with US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has begun human trials of a potential Covid-19 vaccine that could supply millions by the end of the year, according to the two firms.

"Twelve study participants have been vaccinated with the vaccine candidate BNT162 in Germany since the start of the study on April 23, 2020," the company said in a statement.

Pfizer and BioNTech plan to initiate trials for BNT162 in the US on regulatory approval, expected shortly, the statement said.

GOP group 'Stop Stacey' targets Abrams ahead of expected 2022 run By Julia Manchester - 02/01/21 09:19 AM EST 863 17,083 AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to FacebookFacebookFacebookShare to TwitterTwitterTwitter Share   Just In... Fauci: CDC will release new guidance for vaccinated Americans 'very soon' Healthcare — 2m 39s ago Veteran PAC slams Tucker Carlson for comments on female service members BriefingRoom BlogRoll — 24m 3s ago US officials debating sending millions of AstraZeneca doses awaiting clearance overseas: report Administration — 48m 11s ago Biden denounces hate, violence against Asian Americans: 'It must stop' News — 1h 29m ago Biden administration to implement testing programs in schools as part of reopening effort field

publican strategists aligned with Georgia Gov. Brian KempBrian KempGeorgia Senate votes to repeal no-excuse absentee voting Two Republicans can stop voter suppression Trump fires back at WSJ editorial urging GOP to move on MORE (R) on Monday launched an outside group aimed at stopping a potential 2022 gubernatorial run by Democrat Stacey Abrams.

"We will do whatever it takes to expose Stacey Abrams’ radical network, highlight her dangerous agenda, and ultimately defeat her — and her left-wing candidates — at the ballot box," the group's senior strategist, Jeremy Brand, said in a statement. "There is no time to waste: We must stand up, fight back, and Stop Stacey.”

Developing countries racing for coronavirus vaccines now have another dependable option — and China’s reputation as a rising scientific superpower just got a big boost.

The World Health Organization on Friday declared a vaccine made by a Chinese company, Sinopharm, as a safe and reliable way to fight the virus. The declaration marks a significant step toward clearing up doubts about the vaccine, after little late-phase clinical trial data was disclosed by the Chinese government and the company.

“The addition of this vaccine has the potential to rapidly accelerate Covid-19 vaccine access for countries seeking to protect health workers and populations at risk,”

In mere weeks, Joe Biden will stride into the Oval Office and peer out at a world still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and at growing threats from resurgent US adversaries such as China and Russia. Leaders around the world will have to adapt to a new US administration and its potentially dramatic changes in policy and rhetoric.

We asked Atlantic Council experts to preview what Biden’s election means not just for regional heavyweights, but also for smaller nations who could play an outsized role in US foreign policy over the next four years.

GERMANY: A brighter tone and realistic expectations could rehabilitate relationship

ederal health officials sounded the alarm Friday about a fast spreading, far more contagious variant of the coronavirus that is projected to become the dominant source of infection in the country by March, potentially fueling another wrenching surge of cases and deaths.

Only 76 cases of the variant have been identified so far in the U.S., but the actual number is believed to be higher and is expected to spiral upward in the next few weeks, officials said.

But spikes in cases threaten to cripple already overwhelmed hospitals and nursing homes in many parts of the country. Some are at or near capacity. Others have faced troubling rates of infection among their staff, causing shortages and increasing patient loads.

Californians braced for power cuts and a “potentially historic” wind event on Saturday as a growing wildfire prompted fresh evacuations for 50,000 people in the northern Bay Area.

The tumultuous Kincade fire spread to 25,455 acres in the wine-growing region of Sonoma county, with meteorologists warning of severe, windy conditions beginning Saturday night that could see gusts of up to 80mph. The entire communities of Healdsburg and Windsor were ordered to evacuate.

The Sonoma county sheriff’s office said it is expected to be the biggest evacuation in the county in more than 25 years.

Ultimately, all democratic transitions are based on one side being willing to concede power to another. Without a concession at some stage, power must be allocated by force: Either the military must decide, or there is civil war. There is growing concern that the United States may be arriving at a moment where a concession is no longer achievable — but if this is the case, this is ultimately a problem with the state of American politics, not its legal machinery.

In ordinary presidential systems elsewhere, an election commission announces the outcome. Then, the political spotlight shifts immediately to the defeated candidate, who must make the crucial decision: Will they accept the result? It is a democracy’s most defining and most perilous moment.

State legislatures in the United States have an untested reserve power that allows them to ignore their state’s vote and appoint electors themselves. This has been portrayed as a grave danger to the system, providing yet another way for a presidential election to go off the rails.

Voters face challenges including changing deadlines for mail-in ballots and concerns about long lines, demonstrations and potential intimidation at polling places.

Disabled voters will have limited access after the Supreme Court reinstated a ban on curbside voting, blocking a lower-court order that allowed county officials to use the accommodation.

A Superior Court judge ordered polls to remain open an additional two hours, until 9 p.m., in Spalding County after technical difficulties prevented people from voting in the county. Voters who vote in the extended time frame will cast provisional ballots.

Guinea is tracking down people who potentially had contact with Ebola patients and will rush vaccines to the affected area as soon as possible following at least three deaths from the disease,

unlike during the deadliest known outbreak, which tore through West Africa in 2013-2016, Guinea had the means to halt the resurgence of the virus

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday warned the outbreaks in Guinea and Congo represented a regional risk.

In July 2015, two founders of DeepMind, a division of Alphabet with a reputation for pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence, were among the first to sign an open letter urging the world’s governments to ban work on lethal AI weapons. Notable signatories included Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Jack Dorsey.

Last week, a technique popularized by DeepMind was adapted to control an autonomous F-16 fighter plane in a Pentagon-funded contest to show off the capabilities of AI systems. In the final stage of the event, a similar algorithm went head-to-head with a real F-16 pilot using a VR headset and simulator controls. The AI pilot won, 5-0.

The episode reveals DeepMind caught between two conflicting desires. The company doesn’t want its technology used to kill people. On the other hand, publishing research and source code helps advance the field of AI and lets others build upon its results. But that also allows others to use and adapt the code for their own purposes.

the exact kind of cost-benefit analysis implied by the president.

the economic benefits from lives saved by efforts to “flatten the curve” outweighed the projected massive hit to the nation’s economy by a staggering $5.2 trillion

Another study by two University of Chicago economists estimated the savings from social distancing could be so huge, “it is difficult to think of any intervention with such large potential benefits to American citizens.”

Philadelphia’s district attorney, a Democrat, said he is beefing up an election task force to investigate potential complaints about voter intimidation. Some 80 prosecutors and detectives will be detailed to the task force on Election Day.

possibility of armed individuals possibly showing up at polling sites

The Second Amendment does not protect private, unauthorized militia activity

When then-President Donald Trump released his updated list of potential Supreme Court nominees in September 2020, one name that garnered attention was that of Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron

The case, Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center, arises from a challenge to a Kentucky law, H.B. 454, that generally makes it a crime for doctors to use the “dilation and evacuation” method, the procedure most commonly employed to end a pregnancy during the second trimester.

They argued that, because the law effectively outlaws the most common procedure used during the second trimester, it imposes an undue burden on the right to an abortion before the fetus becomes viable – normally somewhere between 22 and 24 weeks.

As Malcolm Forbes Baldwin, the acting chairman of the president’s Council for Environmental Quality, told industry executives in 1981, “There can be no more important or conservative concern than the protection of the globe itself.”

Among those who called for urgent, immediate and far-reaching climate policy were Senators John Chafee, Robert Stafford and David Durenberger; the E.P.A. administrator, William K. Reilly; and, during his campaign for president, George H.W. Bush.

It was understood that action would have to come immediately. At the start of the 1980s, scientists within the federal government predicted that conclusive evidence of warming would appear on the global temperature record by the end of the decade, at which point it would be too late to avoid disaster.

Then came Omicron. The new lineage, which first appeared in South Africa last fall, is by far the most transmissible. Some experts described the earlier form of Omicron, the BA.1 sublineage, as the most contagious respiratory virus they’d ever seen, owing in part to key mutations on the spike protein, the part of the virus that helps it grab onto and infect human cells.

The BA.2 sublineage that soon replaced BA.1 is even worse: potentially 80 percent more contagious than BA.1. There’s also a very rare “recombinant” form of Omicron called XE that combines the qualities of BA.1 and BA.2 and might be 10 percent more transmissible than even BA.2.

even if they are reasonably effective, the vaccines are unevenly distributed in China. The government’s attacks on foreign jabs has had the effect of encouraging anti-vax attitudes, especially among older Chinese who might be less media-savvy than their younger counterparts.

We thus have the privilege of seeing a great civilization at its peak

How much greater would China’s peak have been if Deng Xiaoping had sided with the Tiananmen Square protesters, and liberalized China’s society in addition to its economy? How many great Chinese books, essays, video games, cartoons, TV shows, movies, and songs would we now enjoy if it weren’t for the pervasive censorship regime now in place? How much more would the people of the world have learned from Chinese culture if they could travel there freely and interact with Chinese people freely over the internet? Without a draconian autocrat like Xi Jinping at the helm, would so many Chinese people be looking to flee the country? Would the U.S. and China still be friends instead of at each other’s throats?

The key fact is that China’s meteoric rise seems like it’s drawing to a close

For years, I saw myself not as a global-warming denier (a loaded term with its tendentious echo of Holocaust denial) but rather as an agnostic on the causes of climate change and a scoffer at the idea that it was a catastrophic threat to the future of humanity.

It’s not that I was unalterably opposed to the idea that, by pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, modern civilization was contributing to the warming by 1 degree Celsius and the inches of sea-level rise the planet had experienced since the dawn of the industrial age. It’s that the severity of the threat seemed to me wildly exaggerated and that the proposed cures all smacked of old-fashioned statism mixed with new-age religion.

Hadn’t we repeatedly lived through previous alarms about other, allegedly imminent, environmental catastrophes that didn’t come to pass, like the belief, widespread in the 1970s, that overpopulation would inevitably lead to mass starvation? And if the Green Revolution had spared us from that Malthusian nightmare, why should we not have confidence that human ingenuity wouldn’t also prevent the parade of horribles that climate change was supposed to bring about?