European governments are working with the United States on plans to overhaul the World Health Organization, a top health official for a European country said, signaling that Europe shares some of the concerns that led Washington to say it would quit.The European health official, who spoke on condition of anonymity while discussing initiatives that are not public, said Britain, France, Germany and Italy were discussing WHO reforms with the United States at the technical level.The aim, the official said, was to ensure WHO’s independence, an apparent reference to allegations that the body was too close to China during its initial response to the coronavirus crisis early this year.”We are discussing ways to separate WHO’s emergency management mechanism from any single country influence,” said the official.Reforms would involve changing the WHO’s funding system to make it more long-term, the official said. The WHO now operates on a two-year budget, which “could hurt WHO’s independence” if it has to raise funds from donor countries in the middle of an emergency, the official said.U.S. President Donald Trump has accused the WHO of being too close to China and announced plans to quit and withdraw funding.European countries have occasionally called for reform of the WHO but have generally shielded the organization from the most intense criticism by Washington. In public the European position has usually been that any reform should come only after an evaluation of the response to the coronavirus crisis.Evaluation and reformBut minutes of a videoconference of EU health ministers last week suggested European countries were taking a stronger line and also seeking more European influence at the WHO in future.The German and French ministers told their colleagues “an evaluation and reform of the WHO was needed,” the minutes said.That was stronger wording than in a resolution last month which the EU drafted, and which was adopted by all 192 WHO member countries. That resolution called for an evaluation of the response to the coronavirus crisis, but it stopped short of calling for reforms.The German and French ministers also told their colleagues, “The EU and its MS (member states) should play a bigger role at the global level,” the minutes showed.A spokesperson for the German health ministry said Berlin sought stronger engagement with the WHO ahead of Germany taking over the EU presidency on July 1.A German government source told Reuters the aim of the intervention at the health ministers’ meeting was to encourage debate among EU member states about how to reform the WHO. Asked whether Germany was now pushing for quicker changes, instead of waiting until after the crisis, the official said: “Reforms of international organizations normally take years, not months.”A French health ministry spokesman also said the WHO would be on the agenda of Germany’s presidency of the EU, and Paris would work on it with Berlin. France backed WHO reform, but changes should follow the evaluation of the organization’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis, he said.A British government spokesperson said Britain worked with organizations including the WHO “to encourage and support transparency, efficiency and good management.”The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the WHO did not respond to requests for comment.The WHO drew criticism for public praise of China’s efforts to combat the new coronavirus in the early days of the crisis, even as evidence emerged that Chinese officials had silenced whistleblowers.The EU and its governments funded around 11 percent of the WHO’s $5.6 billion budget in the 2018-19 period, and the United States provided more than 15 percent. China covered just 0.2 percent.
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Month: June 2020
Twitter Labels Trump’s Tweet as ‘Manipulated Media’
Twitter Inc added a ‘manipulated media’ label on a video posted on U.S. President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed on Thursday that showed a doctored news clip with a mis-spelled banner flashing “Terrified todler runs from racist baby.”The original video, which went viral on social media in 2019, showed a black toddler and a white toddler running towards each other and hugging. It was published with the headline “These two toddlers are showing us what real-life besties look like” on CNN’s website last year.The clip shared in Trump’s tweet first shows the part where one of those toddlers is seen running ahead of the other. At one point the banner reads: “Racist baby probably a Trump voter.”pic.twitter.com/vnRpk0zl5y— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2020The tweeted video, with more than 7.7 million views and 125,000 retweets, then goes on to show the original video and concludes: “America is not the problem. Fake news is.””We may label Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide additional context,” Twitter says in an explanation of its policies posted on its website.Twitter has been under fierce scrutiny from the Trump administration since it fact-checked Trump’s tweets about unsubstantiated claims of mail-in voting fraud. It also labeled a Trump tweet about protests in Minneapolis as “glorifying violence.”The president, who has battled Twitter and other tech companies over alleged censorship of conservative voices on social media platforms, said in late May he would propose legislation to potentially scrap or weaken the law shielding internet companies, in an extraordinary attempt to regulate outlets where he has been criticized.
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Dame Vera Lynn, Britain’s World War Two ‘Forces’ Sweetheart,’ Dies at 103
Dame Vera Lynn, the woman whose voice boosted British spirits during the darkest days of World War Two, has died at 103.Her family did not give a cause of death when it announced her passing Thursday in East Sussex.Along with Winston Churchill’s, Lynn’s was the most recognized and renowned British voice of World War Two.She was known as the “Forces’ Sweetheart,” serenading Allied soldiers and the British people with such sentimental but optimistic ballads as “We’ll Meet Again,” “The White Cliffs of Dover” and “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.”FILE – Singing star Vera Lynn tries on a lampshade in London, Nov. 30, 1961.She also hosted “Sincerely Yours,” a hugely popular BBC radio show during the war that included messages to British soldiers and sailors overseas and songs she sang at their request.Lynn also toured army camps, entertaining British troops in person.”What they needed was a contact from home,” she said. “I entertained audiences from 2,000 to 6,000. And the boys would just come out of the jungle and sit there for hours waiting until we arrived and then slip back in once we’d left.”Her popularity endured after the war.A decade before the Beatles, her 1952 recording of “Auf Wiedersehen Sweetheart” made her the first British singer to top the American record charts.She also found renewed fame when director Stanley Kubrick played her vintage recording of “We’ll Meet Again” near the end of his 1964 film “Dr. Strangelove.”Long after she retired, a 2009 compilation album, “We’ll Meet Again — The Very Best of Vera Lynn,” was a top-selling recording in Britain.Prime Minister Boris Johnson said her “charm and magical voice entranced and uplifted our country in some of our darkest hours. Her voice will live on to lift the hearts of generations to come.”Buckingham Palace said Queen Elizabeth plans to send a personal note of condolence to Lynn’s family. Sir Paul McCartney tweeted that he is “so sad to hear of her passing but at the same time so glad to have met her and experienced first-hand her warm, fun-loving personality. Her voice will sing in my heart forever.”Sir Cliff Richard recalled performing with Lynn on the 50th anniversary of VE Day in 1995, calling her “a great singer, a patriotic woman and a genuine icon.”
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Australia Says it Has Been Target of ‘State-Based’ Cyberattacks
A “sophisticated state-based cyber actor” has been attempting to hack a wide range of Australian organizations for months and had stepped up its efforts recently, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday.The attacks have targeted all levels of the government, political organizations, essential service providers and operators of other critical infrastructure, Morrison said in a news briefing in Canberra.”We know it is a sophisticated state-based cyber actor because of the scale and nature of the targeting,” he said.Morrison said there were not a lot of state actors that could launch this sort of attack, but Australia will not identify which country was responsible.Australia’s Defense Minister Linda Reynolds said advice showed no large-scale personal data breaches from the attack, as she urged businesses and organizations to ensure any web or email servers are fully updated with the latest software and the use of multifactor authentication.An Australian government source said Morrison’s public declaration was an attempt to raise the issue with those who could be targeted.Australia’s chief cyber intelligence agency said its investigations have so far found no evidence that the actor attempted to be “disruptive or destructive” once within the host’s network.Morrison said he spoke with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday about the issue, while briefings to other allies have also been conducted.The revelation comes after Reuters reported Canberra had determined in March last year that China was responsible for a hacking attack on Australia’s parliament. Australia never publicly identified that source of the attack, and China denied it was responsible.A U.S. security ally, Australia strained ties with its largest trading partner, China, by pushing for an international inquiry into the source and spread of the new coronavirus that first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
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Dame Vera Lynn, Britain’s World War II ‘Forces’ Sweetheart,’ Dies at 103
Dame Vera Lynn, the woman whose voice boosted British spirits during the darkest days of World War II, has died at 103.Her family did not give a cause of death when it announced her passing Thursday in East Sussex.Along with Winston Churchill’s, Lynn’s was the most recognized and renowned British voice of World War II.She was known as the “Forces’ Sweetheart,” serenading Allied soldiers and the British people with such sentimental but optimistic ballads as “We’ll Meet Again,” “The White Cliffs of Dover” and “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.”FILE – Singing star Vera Lynn tries on a lampshade in London, Nov. 30, 1961.She also hosted “Sincerely Yours,” a hugely popular BBC radio show during the war that included messages to British soldiers and sailors overseas and songs she sang at their request.Lynn also toured army camps, entertaining British troops in person.”What they needed was a contact from home,” she said. “I entertained audiences from 2,000 to 6,000. And the boys would just come out of the jungle and sit there for hours waiting until we arrived and then slip back in once we’d left.”Her popularity endured after the war.A decade before the Beatles, her 1952 recording of “Auf Wiedersehen Sweetheart” made her the first British singer to top the American record charts.She also found renewed fame when director Stanley Kubrick played her vintage recording of “We’ll Meet Again” near the end of his 1964 film “Dr. Strangelove.”Long after she retired, a 2009 compilation album, “We’ll Meet Again — The Very Best of Vera Lynn,” was a top-selling recording in Britain.Prime Minister Boris Johnson said her “charm and magical voice entranced and uplifted our country in some of our darkest hours. Her voice will live on to lift the hearts of generations to come.”Buckingham Palace said Queen Elizabeth plans to send a personal note of condolence to Lynn’s family.
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Social Media Companies Battle Evolving Threat Ahead of 2020 Election
Top social media companies Google, Facebook and Twitter told U.S. lawmakers Thursday that foreign interference on their platforms has evolved significantly since the 2016 presidential election.The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence heard how these companies are adapting their approaches to combating disinformation as COVID-19, Black Lives Matter protests and the upcoming 2020 presidential election present opportunities for the exploitation of partisan political differences in the United States.FILE – Nick Pickles, public policy director for Twitter, speaks during a full committee hearing, in Washington, Sept. 18, 2019.To date, Twitter has not seen signs of foreign actors attempting to exploit U.S. racial divides or differences of opinion on the coronavirus, Nick Pickles, Twitter’s director of global public policy strategy and development, told lawmakers.”We haven’t found evidence of concerted platform manipulation by foreign actors in either of those areas,” Pickles said.Facebook’s head of security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said his company has yet to see “coordinated inauthentic behavior on the part of foreign governments, particularly targeting voting systems or how to vote in the United States.”But in his opening statement, Chairman Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, said that while social media companies have made efforts since the 2016 election to address concerns about manipulation of their platforms by foreign entities, “I can’t say that I am confident that the 2020 election will be free of interference by malicious actors, foreign or domestic, who aspire to weaponize your platforms to divide Americans, pit us against one another and weaken our democracy.”Representatives from Google, Facebook and Twitter told the panel they are seeing an evolution by many foreign actors, who are returning to methods last seen from the 1960s through the 1980s to disseminate misinformation and evade controls the companies put into place in response to concerns about Russian interference in the 2016 election. FILE – Facebook Head of Cybersecurity Policy Nathaniel Gleicher testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 22, 2019.”So far this year, we’ve taken down 18 coordinated networks seeking to manipulate public debate, including three networks originating from Russia, two from Iran and two based here in the United States,” Gleicher told lawmakers.A Pew Research survey found that 44% of Americans used social media platforms as a news source during the 2016 election. Lawmakers noted contentious discussions on social media do much of the work for malicious foreign actors.”I’m pretty convinced that when this republic dies, it doesn’t happen because the Russians broke into Ohio voting machines or they managed to buy ads on Facebook or Twitter. It happens because our politics become so toxic, so polarized, we don’t recognize each other anymore as Americans,” said Representative Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat. “All it takes is a match from Russia, from Iran or from North Korea, or from China to set off a conflagration.”The House Intelligence Committee is holding virtual hearings because of continuing concerns about the threat of COVID-19. Committee Republicans have chosen not to participate in these virtual hearings this week.The committee hearing marked the second time social media companies had briefed lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee about the security threat posed by bad actors on their platforms. In 2017, the committee released dozens of Russian-linked ads that circulated on Facebook ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
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COVID-19 Sparks Technology Innovation
Engineers at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, are developing new technology for health care workers on the front lines of fighting the spread of COVID-19. As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports from Chicago, an unexpected benefit of the current pandemic is technological innovation that could have a lasting impact.Camera: Kane Farabaugh Produced by: Rob Raffaele
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Mystery Fossil Found in Antarctica is Giant Egg, Scientists Say
Researchers say they have determined a mystery fossil discovered in Antarctica in 2011 is a large egg, possibly laid by an ancient aquatic reptile.Science publication Inverse reports that since the fossil was discovered, researchers referred to it as the “thing,” because they could not classify it. They compared it to a deflated American football — oval in shape, about 28 centimeters long and 18 centimeters wide.In a study published Wednesday in the science journal Nature, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin used microscopic analysis to confirm that the fossil is indeed an ancient egg.An illustration of a marine reptile and its fossil egg, found in Antarctica, are seen in this handout obtained by Reuters on June 16, 2020. (University of Chile/Handout via Reuters)They analyzed the body size of 260 living reptiles, compared them with their egg sizes, and estimated that the animal that laid the mystery egg would have been roughly 7 meters long.They also determined the fossil egg was soft-shelled, unlike dinosaur eggs, and similar to turtle eggs — suggesting an aquatic species. The researchers found no trace of what was in the egg, but the fossil was found in a formation in Antarctica rock formation that also contained fossils from mosasaurs — huge ancient aquatic reptiles.If the fossil is determined to be a mosasaur egg, the new finding would be significant, as scientists previously did not believe the ancient creatures laid eggs.Since there are no living aquatic reptiles the size of a mosasaur, the egg seems to be in a class of its own.
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Russia Lifts Ban on Telegram Messaging App
The Russian government has lifted a ban on Telegram two years after it announced attempts to restrict access to the encrypted instant-messaging app, the country’s communications regulator said Thursday.“As agreed with the Prosecutor General’s office, Roskomnadzor withdraws the demand to restrict access to the Telegram messenger,” the federal communications watchdog said in a statement.Roskomnadzor began blocking the popular app in accordance with a 2018 court order that demanded the messaging service be restricted because of its alleged use by Islamic State terrorists.Pavel Durov, the app’s Russian-born founder, was ordered to hand over the app’s encryption codes but refused, citing violations of user privacy.But even top-tier officials such as Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov continued using the app after its developers adjusted the code to slip past Roskomnadzor’s cybersecurity barriers.Its widespread use has continued, and even coronavirus task force operations in many Russian regions use Telegram for daily updates.Roskomnadzor on Thursday said it was prepared to lift restrictions because Durov, who has been living in self-imposed exile since 2014, was prepared to cooperate with Russian government counterterrorism efforts to combat extremism on the platform.Islamic State terrorists behind the November 2015 Paris attacks, which claimed 130 lives, used the app’s public channels to spread propaganda and other related content. The app shut the channels down after the attack.Telegram’s developers say that they have since increased their ability to spot and delete extremist content on the app without compromising user privacy.The Kremlin took note of Roskomnadzor’s decision and the reasoning for it, the Tass news agency reported, quoting Kremlin spokesman Peskov.Founded in 2013, Telegram now has an estimated 30 million users in Russia — nearly 20% of the population.Some information for this report came from AP and Reuters.
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Films Offer Window into Police Brutality, Racial Injustice in US
The death of George Floyd while in police custody has sparked protests across the country and abroad about police brutality against African Americans. Acclaimed films have shone a light on racial injustice against African Americans since the 1960s. VOA’s Penelope Poulou looks at some of these works.
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Fresh Scandal Tests Spain’s Monarchy
Inside the Zarzuela Palace, the spacious residence of King Felipe VI of Spain, there is a corridor dedicated to cartoons about the royal family.Most of the light-hearted jokes are by Spanish media but there is also one from France’s Le Monde.Conspicuous by its absence is the Spanish satirical magazine El Jueves (Thursday). This is no accident.When Felipe’s father Juan Carlos I abdicated in 2014 after nearly 40 years on the throne, the magazine’s artists marked the occasion with a special front page cartoon.It showed the former king passing his son a crown covered in excrement – a pointed reference to the scandals which had led to Juan Carlos’ to quit the throne.It did not go down well at the Zarzuela. El Jueves was ordered to withdraw the magazine from sale and gave in to pressure as insulting the royal family is a criminal offense in Spain.“It seemed that we could make fun of Juan Carlos’ love life but if we said anything about his financial affairs or anything about how he ruled, that would not be tolerated,” Isaac Rosa, a former writer for El Jueves told VOA.“Many staff, myself included, left in protest. We all knew about these allegations but no-one reported it in Spain. That has changed now.”A financial scandal involving the 82-year-old ex-king has put into sharp relief Spaniards’ relationship with the monarchy.Spain’s supreme court prosecutor began an investigation into the role of its former king in a $7.5 billion deal to build a high speed rail link in Saudi Arabia.FILE – Spain’s Princess Elena waves to the crowds as she is escorted by her father King Juan Carlos to the altar of Seville’s cathedral on March 18, 1995.Prosecutors are examining if there is any evidence of money laundering and fraud after Juan Carlos left the throne as the Spanish constitution says serving monarchs cannot be prosecuted.The story revolves around allegations made by Carlos’ former lover, Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, a German businesswoman who splits her time between London and Monaco. She said they had maintained a relationship between 2004 and 2010. The king remains married to Queen Sofia.Sayn-Wittgenstein claimed in 2008 Carlos received a kickback of $100m from the Saudi Arabian royal family and he later gave her some $65 million which was deposited in offshore accounts.A magistrate in Switzerland is now investigating two financial advisers to Juan Carlos who handled accounts in Switzerland and Panama City.Spain’s relationship with monarchy has in recent years been an uneasy one.The longtime ruler General Francisco Franco nominated Juan Carlos as his successor before Franco died in 1975.Before Franco came to power after winning the civil war in 1936-1939, Spain voted in 1931 on whether to get rid of its monarch, Juan Carlos’s grandfather, Alfonso XIII, and usher in a republic. Alfonso fled.Juan Carlos was lauded for helping to uphold a fragile new democracy.In 1981, when armed police stormed the Spanish parliament in an attempted coup d’etat, Juan Carlos made a televised address to the nation backing democracy and faced down the plotters. The coup failed.Despite his love of bullfighting, fast cars and women to whom he was not married, the king was a popular figure.Yet doubts remained. Spaniards were often described as “more juan carlistas than monarquistas” meaning they supported the person of Juan Carlos more than the monarchy itself.Attitudes changed in 2012 when Juan Carlos had to be flown back from Botswana to Spain after he injured himself during a secret elephant hunting safari with Sayn-Wittgenstein.Spaniards were appalled as millions were struggling to survive a deep recession.When Felipe came to the throne he promised a “renewed monarchy for new times” and vowing to “listen, understand, warn and advise.”In March, Felipe was forced to renounce his personal inheritance from his father after it was alleged that he was set to receive millions of euros from a secret offshore fund linked to Saudi Arabia. The king also stripped Juan Carlos of his royal allowance.The king released an unprecedented statement saying last year he had become aware he was the beneficiary of an offshore fund and decided to renounce any benefit from this account.Now the issue has split the coalition government of the Socialists and the far-left Unidas Podemos.FILE – People fill the main square of Madrid during a march by members of the Podemos party, which hopes to emulate the electoral success of Greece’s Syriza party in elections later this year, Jan. 31, 2015.Pablo Echenique, parliamentary spokesman for Podemos, led a motion for a parliamentary commission to examine the ex-king’s financial affairs, but it was blocked by the Socialists who formed an unlikely alliance with the conservative People’s Party and the far-right Vox party.“Every time they need weaker arguments to continue protecting the royal household and to keep putting the king above the law. We will keep trying to change that,” Echenique tweeted.Pilar Eyre, a writer and royal expert, said the royal household should have addressed the financial allegations earlier to boost support for the monarchy.“The way the royal household has dealt with this has seemed clumsy. These allegations have been around for a time but they have not dealt with them properly in order to re-establish respect for the institution of the monarchy,” she told VOA.Conservative commentators have applauded the role of King Felipe in renewing faith in the monarchy and for his support during the COVID-19 crisis.Emiliano Garcia-Page, regional president of Castilla La Mancha, said: “I don’t think a debate over monarchy or a republic will be the best idea now. The king has been in touch with us throughout this crisis.”Spaniards may disagree.A poll published in April for Publico newspaper found 51.6 per cent of Spaniards backed a republic rather than a monarchy, while 34.6 per cent supported the crown. Just over 58 per cent said the matter should be settled by holding a referendum.The spokesman for the royal household declined to comment.
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Lockheed Martin Orion Spacecraft Completes Successful Test
Aerospace company Lockheed Martin says it has successfully completed a crucial test of the Orion spacecraft it is building for the NASA space agency to eventually return astronauts to the moon.The company released video Thursday of its most recent test conducted earlier this month at the company’s Waterton Canyon facility near Littleton, Colorado. After takeoff, the Orion must jettison three large service module coverings, known as fairings, designed to protect the spacecraft during the launch. The fairings must come off to lighten the load so the craft can reach space. Lockheed Martin said the test was successful and validated the jettison mechanisms, and will help the company as it builds new versions of the Orion.NASA hopes to launch the Space Launch System on its first test flight as early as 2021. The agency’s mission to the moon is scheduled for 2024, the first since 1972.
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WHO Aiming for 2 Billion Doses of COVID Vaccine by End of 2021
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) chief scientist said Thursday the agency hopes there will be about two billion doses of a vaccine against COVID-19 by the end of next year that would be reserved for “priority populations.”Speaking at a virtual news conference in Geneva, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan told reporters, “It’s a big ‘if’ because we don’t have any vaccine that’s proven.”She said she is encouraged by the number of possible vaccines currently being tested and hoped at least one or two would prove ready for use by next year.Swaminathan said that the WHO recommends immunizing people at risk first, including the elderly and those with underlying conditions like diabetes or respiratory disease, as well as key workers. But she said countries must come to a consensus on which populations would be prioritized.Numerous developed countries including Britain, France, the Netherlands, Germany and the U.S. have already struck deals with pharmaceutical firms to secure vaccine supplies for their citizens.On Wednesday, EU Commission President Ursual von der Leyen announced a donor conference scheduled for June 28 designed to raise funds to ensure all people can get access to any vaccines or COVID-19 treatments that might become available.She said there is no place for “Me first” when it comes to fighting a global pandemic.The WHO and partners have called for drug makers to suspend their patent rights on any effective COVID-19 vaccine and for billions of dollars to buy vaccines for developing countries.
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New Zealand Confirms Third New Coronavirus Case
New Zealand on Thursday reported its third confirmed coronavirus case this week, a development that has prompted the government to further restrict its quarantine rules for those entering the country after it had declared local transmission of the virus eradicated.All three cases involve people who flew to New Zealand from elsewhere in the world, the latest coming from Pakistan. The man is in quarantine.Authorities are working to trace those who may have come into contact with the man and two women who flew from Britain and tested positive after being permitted to leave their quarantine early to see an ill relative.There are worries about rising case counts in other parts of the world.India reported 12,881 new confirmed cases Thursday, the highest one-day increase it has seen during the pandemic. The country now has about 367,000 confirmed cases, trailing only the United States, Brazil and Russia.US cases
More than a dozen U.S. states have reported their highest number of new cases in recent days, while deaths in the country continue their trend of declining.Oklahoma, where President Donald Trump is set to hold a political rally Saturday in the city of Tulsa, Wednesday reported 259 new cases during the previous 24 hours.“I know so many people are over COVID, but COVID is not over. COVID is here, it’s transmitting very efficiently in our community,” Bruce Dart, Tulsa’s top health official, said Wednesday. “If you’re in public, wear masks, social distance, pay close attention to handwashing and hygiene, and keep yourself safe and healthy.”Texas reported 3,100 new COVID-19 cases Wednesday, a new record for the state, while California surpassed 4,000 new confirmed cases in one day for the first time.According to data from Johns Hopkins University, there were 840 new deaths from COVID-19. Wednesday marked the seventh consecutive day in which the U.S. death toll was under 1,000 people.New York has been the state hardest hit by the coronavirus, but Governor Andrew Cuomo celebrated progress Wednesday, saying, “We have gone from the worst infection rate in the country, to the best infection rate in the country.”Cuomo said there were 17 deaths reported on Tuesday, prompting him to declare it was one of the state’s best days since the outbreak began.
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Virtual Global Pride Event to Celebrate LGBTQIA+ Community
In place of crowded and festive in-person parades and celebrations, national pride networks have organized a virtual 24-hour international FILE – People attend the annual Pride in London parade, in London, Britain, July 6, 2019.For Oliva, Global Pride will be a time to reflect and be grateful for the efforts of the international LGBTQIA community. “I think that Pride for a lot of us is going to be just this chance to breathe and to … remind ourselves of our identities and how important it is to keep celebrating them especially during tough times like this,” he told Reuters. Although many local pride organizations postponed their celebrations in order to focus on racial justice and the Black Lives Matter movement, Global Pride said that over 500 Pride organizations submitted more than 1,000 pieces of content. The content will be compiled into a video stream by volunteers. The event will also focus on the pivotal role of black trans people in the Pride movement in the United States, as well as calling for an end to racism. According to LGBTQIA+ publication Time Out, Global Pride is partnering with Black Lives Matter to raise awareness during the event. “What makes Global Pride very unique is that this is the first Pride of its kind where we are really focused on bringing the entire LGBT global community together,” said Natalie Thompson, a chair of the Global Pride event. Some information from Reuters was used in this report.
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Netflix CEO to Donate $120M to Historically Black Colleges
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and his wife, Patty Quillin, are donating $120 million toward student scholarships at historically black colleges and universities.
The couple is giving $40 million to each of three institutions: the United Negro College Fund, Spelman College and Morehouse College. The organizations said it is the largest individual gift in support of student scholarships at HBCUs.
Hastings has a history of supporting educational causes, including charter schools. He launched a $100 million education fund in 2016, beginning with money toward college scholarships for black and Latino students.
Hastings said now is the time when “everyone needs to figure out” how to contribute to solving racism. He said HBCUs have been resilient “little-known gems” for black education.FILE – People enter the campus of Morehouse College, a historically black school, in Atlanta, Georgia, April 12, 2019.Amid protests over police brutality that began three weeks ago, companies and business leaders have been pledging solidarity with their black employees and the black community. But tech companies — including Netflix — have fallen short in hiring, retaining and promoting underrepresented minorities within their own ranks.
Other tech industry donations in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests have largely been on the company level. Last week, for instance, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that the company will spend $100 million on a new Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, investing in education and criminal justice reform among other things. YouTube, meanwhile, pledged $100 million to help black artists and other creators.
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Padma Lakshmi Gets Political With Series Cheering Immigrants
Padma Lakshmi has watched in anger as some politicians denigrate immigrants. She’s been left seething as newcomers are discriminated against or targeted. So she has responded with something she knows quite a lot about: food. Specifically, immigrant food: burritos, dosas, crab boil, pad Thai and poke.Lakshmi, a longtime judge of Bravo’s “Top Chef,” created and hosts the new Hulu documentary series “Taste the Nation,” which celebrates the food of American immigrants and indigenous people.”I am an immigrant. And I was just disgusted the way immigrants had been used as a pawn for political gain and been discriminated against so grossly by this administration. I guess this show is my rebuttal to that,” she said.”Taste the Nation” sees Lakshmi go to the Texas border city of El Paso and talk to locals about the wall. She goes to South Carolina to go crabbing and explore Gullah Geechee food. She goes to Las Vegas to spend time with Thai immigrants and to Arizona to forage for Native American ingredients.Lakshmi, an Indian American who came to America when she was 4, tells viewers at the top of each episode: “I want to explore who we are through the food we eat. What makes us American?” There’s discussion of immigration, global warming, massacres, cultural stereotypes and racism. It’s a departure from most food shows, which avoid partisan politics or current events for fear of alienating viewers or piercing the safe cooking bubble. “I wouldn’t even say that I was a very political person a few years ago, but I have out of necessity and anger and frustration, and become very vocal,” Lakshmi said.”I’m not interested in food in a vacuum. I’m interested in the cultural and emotional connection that people have to food. And I’m not just interested in the food: I’m interested in the hand that makes the food.”During each episode, Lakshmi consults with community leaders, food experts and leading lights. Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara talks about being bullied as a kid. Lakshmi and Indian actress and food authority Madhur Jaffrey make Lemony Chicken with Coriander. “I just wanted to show the humanity of these people who live in our country, who have built our country and show that they’re not something to be afraid of,” she said. “They’re not dirty. They’re not criminals. They’re not going to threaten our jobs.”Lakshmi goes to the very heart of the nation’s food identity when she visits Milwaukee to look at that mainstay of Americanism — the hot dog. It’s another immigration story.Hot dogs have their roots in Germany, as do the classic U.S. beer labels Pabst, Miller and Schlitz. Lakshmi notes than many German Americans had to hide their background during World War II. “Assimilation is complicated,” she points out. Sarina Roma, executive producer and co-director, said the show represents a lot of what Lakshmi cares about in her personal life. “It all comes from a place of genuine curiosity. It’s very reflective of who she is as a person.”Roma added that the show illustrates food can be political: “We’ve tasted food from all over the world, but when you actually stop and think about how that food got here, it tells a much larger story of America.”The third episode finds Lakshmi getting very personal. The woman known mostly for her kindness to TV contestants beside chef Tom Colicchio this time introduces her daughter and mother as she discusses Indian immigration. “I did not want this show to be about me. That was not the intention at all. But obviously my experience informs this show throughout. And so I had to be able to show my family in my kitchen,” she said. “To talk to other Indians without talking to members of my own family would have felt not false, but a little hypocritical.”Lakshmi knows her show is subjective and formed around her specific political and cultural lens, but she hopes people with differing views will tune in.She is hopeful. too. that the world of food will look at itself and change. She complains that restaurants are often boys’ clubs for white men, where immigrants and women find glass ceilings. She noted the recent furor at Bon Appetit that cost its editor in chief his job after a photo of him dressed in a stereotypical Puerto Rican costume surfaced on social media. And Lakshmi called for doing more in real life, not just online.”It doesn’t do any good for us to tweet our support and like and post and all that stuff if, behind closed doors, we’re not practicing what we’re so up in arms about in our social media,” she said. “I would say that a reckoning is very much needed.”
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Solar Obiter Spacecraft Makes Closest Approach to Sun So Far
The joint Europe and U.S. Solar Orbiter spacecraft has made its first close approach to the Sun, getting as close as 77 million kilometers and taking the closest images of the sun ever captured.The collaboration between the the U.S. space agency, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), began in February when the orbiter was launched from from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The orbiter is designed to give close-up views of the Sun’s polar regions and observe its magnetic activity for the first time.ESA and NASA scientists say on Monday the orbiter made its first close approach to the Sun at around 77 million kilometers, about half the distance between Earth and the star. The researchers used the flyby to test the spacecraft’s ten science instruments, including six telescopes.The space agencies say pictures of the Sun taken by the orbiter will be released next month. ESA says the spacecraft is currently 134 million kilometers from Earth, so it will take around a week for the images to be sent back.Scientists hope the instruments on board the orbiter will help solve the mysteries of the inner workings of our nearest star. To do that, the spacecraft will fly to within 42 million kilometers of the sun, closer than Mercury. At that distance, it will face temperatures up to 600 degrees Celsius, hot enough to melt aluminum.If the mission works as expected, the Solar Orbiter will be able to take the first images of the Sun’s poles as well as investigate the heliosphere and solar wind. After sling-shotting around Venus, it’s expected to make its first close solar pass in early 2022.
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Explainer: Viral Load
How does a virus make some people sicker than others?
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COVID-19 Vs Climate Change
COVID lockdowns are clearing the air around the world, but the emissions reductions may only be temporary.
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High Court Decision Spotlights GOP Divide Over LGBT Rights
Democrats flooded Twitter and email inboxes this week with praise for the watershed Supreme Court decision shielding gay, lesbian and transgender people from job discrimination. Republicans — not so much.
The court’s 6-3 ruling came just two days after an event that played out in the opposite direction. Freshman GOP Rep. Denver Riggleman, who’d officiated at a same-sex wedding, lost his party’s nomination in a conservative Virginia district.
The two developments underscored an election-year challenge facing the GOP: how to reconcile broad national support for LGBT protections, even among many Republicans, with fervent opposition from some of the party’s die-hard conservative voters.
On Election Day, that question will be easily overshadowed by the moribund economy, the coronavirus pandemic, the interaction between race and violent police tactics and by Trump himself. Still, the week’s events point to a culture-war schism in the GOP that Democrats are happy to exploit, even as Republicans struggle to prevent moderate suburban voters from deserting them.
“This is something suburban voters support,” said GOP pollster Glen Bolger. “And that is a group that Republicans are having challenges with.”Polling illustrates GOP’s dilemma
In a December survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 62% of Americans overall said they backed banning discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people in workplaces, housing and schools.
That included around 3 in 4 Democrats and nearly half of Republicans. That’s a turnaround from more negative feelings people had two decades ago.
“Wake up, my Republican friends, the times, they are a-changing,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday.
Yet just 33% of white evangelical Protestants said they supported prohibiting broad LGBT discrimination. In a September 2019 survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, 61% of Americans said making same-sex marriage legal was good for society while 72% of white evangelical Protestants said it was bad.
Those voters are a crucial GOP bloc, especially in rural districts, and party leaders cross them at their own peril. The Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that the Constitution ensures a right for same-sex couples to marry.
“It’s decided law” but some Republicans are using same-sex marriage as a “divisive political tool,” said Jerri Ann Henry, who resigned last year as executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, which represents LGBT members of the party.
Henry, a GOP strategist, said the battle over the issue is “the exact thing that will further alienate suburban and independent voters.”
Within hours of Monday’s Supreme Court ruling, Democratic lawmakers unleashed a flood of statements hailing it. GOP reaction was harder to find, with top Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., mum.
Notably, praise came from two moderate GOP senators, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Maine’s Susan Collins.
“All Americans deserve a fair opportunity to pursue the American dream,” tweeted Collins, a four-term senator in her toughest reelection race. She called the decision “a major advancement for LGBTQ rights.”
Collins’ likely Democratic opponent, Sara Gideon, tweeted that the decision showed Collins “will continue to be a reliable vote for Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ nominees.” Gideon’s focus was Collins’ pivotal 2018 vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, which Democrats consider a major vulnerability for Collins. Kavanaugh voted against this week’s court ruling.
Other Republicans were less receptive to the court’s decision.
Carrie Severino, president of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, suggested the ruling would motivate conservative voters eager to ensure that Congress, not courts, control the law.
“The Supreme Court is always a hugely important issue to conservatives,” Severino said Tuesday.
If the court’s ruling wasn’t painful enough for Republicans, the opinion was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first Supreme Court appointee. Trump administration lawyers had argued on the side of employers who opposed lifting the discrimination ban.
Trump has voiced support for LGBTQ rights and appointed openly gay Richard Grenell to be acting director of national intelligence, though he’s since been replaced.
But Trump has also appointed numerous federal judges who opposed LGBTQ rights and rolled back federal protections for transgender people. And the GOP has embraced its 2016 party platform anew for this year’s campaign, a document that “condemns the Supreme Court’s lawless ruling” that legalized same-sex marriage.
“Donald Trump has racked up some firsts, and that sets the tone in the Republican Party,” said Charles Moran, managing director of Log Cabin Republicans. But he added, “There are definitely battles we still need to fight in some heartland areas” of the country.
Riggleman learned that firsthand last weekend. His short-circuited attempt to be renominated to Congress demonstrated that while religious conservatives have gotten more attention lately for opposing abortion, battling same-sex marriage resonates for many.
A member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, Riggleman was endorsed by Trump and evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr.
But he was defeated Saturday at a GOP nominating convention in rural Virginia that, amid the pandemic, was conducted by delegates who voted by driving up to a church near his opponent’s home. It was the only polling location in a district that sprawls from northern Virginia to the North Carolina border.
Riggleman officiated at a wedding last summer of two of his male friends and campaign aides. He said that during Saturday’s voting, a constituent asked him to repent for conducting that wedding. He said he responded he had nothing to repent for.
Riggleman said younger Republicans and those who’ve have served in military like himself don’t see gay marriage as an issue. He said if the GOP wants religious liberties protected, it must embrace civil liberties, too.
“If we can’t get over how other people live, I think the Republican Party is dead in Virginia,” Riggleman said. And he voiced no regrets for officiating at the wedding.
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NY Governor Approves Plan to Proceed with US Open in August
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday announced the U.S. Open tennis tournament is on schedule to be held this year in Queens, N.Y. from Aug. 31 to Sept. 13 without spectators due to health concerns associated with the coronavirus. Cuomo said the United States Tennis Association (USTA) “will take extraordinary precautions to protect players and staff, including robust testing, additional cleaning, extra locker room space and dedicated housing and transportation.” The USTA said they are “incredibly excited” by Cuomo’s approval to push ahead with the U.S. Open. “We recognize the tremendous responsibility of hosting one of the first global sporting events in these challenging times, and we will do so in the safest manner possible, mitigating all potential risks,” said Mike Dowse, USTA Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director.Dowse also described “tennis as the ideal social distancing sport,” and “a boost for the City of New York and the entire tennis landscape.” The green light for the U.S. Open makes it the first of the Grand Slam tournaments to be held after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. The French Open, originally scheduled for May 2020, was moved to September and London’s famed Wimbledon tournament was cancelled.
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