Monday, Memorial Day, May 25th, 2020

In his first appearance in three weeks, leader Kim Jong-un meets with state officials to discuss improving nuclear war deterrence measures, including increased artillery firepower. (Reuters)

The first of five Iranian tankers en route to Venezuela to deliver fuel enters Venezuelan territorial waters, after being escorted by the Venezuelan Air Force and Navy. Both Iran and Venezuela warned the United States not to interfere with the delivery. (BBC)

Thousands of protesters take to the streets of Hong Kong to oppose a controversial national security law expected to be passed by China’s National People’s Congress. (BBC)

Americans head outdoors for Memorial Day weekend as COVID-19 deaths near 100,000 Holiday travelers headed to the beach and elsewhere Saturday for Memorial Day weekend amid the coronavirus pandemic, as the country nears 100,000 deaths related to the virus. Some places became so crowded they had to shut down, though there were also some surprise openings of outdoor sites like South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore National Memorial, which wasn’t expected to allow visitors so soon. In New York, which has achieved a sustained decline in new infections and deaths, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said he would allow up to 10 people to gather for nonessential activities, provided they adhere to social distancing guidelines. President Trump, meanwhile, took to the golf course for the first time in more than 70 days Saturday. Source: Reuters

Report: Warren plans to host high-dollar fundraiser for Biden Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has agreed to host a gathering of big money donors for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee former Vice President Joe Biden, The New York Times reports. The event, which will take place online because of the coronavirus pandemic, is scheduled for June 15, three people with knowledge of the plans told the Times on condition of anonymity. During Warren’s own presidential campaign, which ended shortly after Super Tuesday in March, the senator, a progressive Democrat, vowed not to attend private events or call wealthy potential donors for contributions. Instead, she relied on grassroots donations. But Warren had previously built a network of high-dollar donors during her Senate campaigns and will reportedly turn to that group to aid Biden in his battle against President Trump. Source: The New York Times

Wuhan lab director says coronavirus origin theory is ‘pure fabrication’ Wang Yanyi, the director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, told Chinese state media Sunday the lab was working on three live strains of bat coronavirus, but the closest genetic match to the virus that causes COVID-19 and sparked a global health crisis was only 79.8 percent. Therefore, Wang said, claims by the likes of President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the virus may have escaped from the facility are “pure fabrication.” As tensions between the U.S. and China have heightened since the outbreak, Trump and Pompeo have leaned into the lab-origin theory. But the scientific consensus remains that the pathogen was passed from bats to humans through an intermediary species at a wet market in Wuhan last year, although it’s becoming more challenging to pinpoint the animal. Source: The Guardian

China reports no cases for the first time since the pandemic began, according to the National Health Commission. (Reuters)

Thousands of protestors, mostly supporters of the far-right party Vox, participate in car protests in Madrid, Seville, Barcelona and other cities against the continuing lockdown and the national government. (BBC)

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Sunday,  May 24th, 2020

China reports no cases for the first time since the pandemic began, according to the National Health Commission. (Reuters)

Thousand of protestors, mostly supporters of the far-right party Vox, participate in car protests in Madrid, Seville, and Barcelona against the continuing lockdown. (BBC)

https://www.businessinsider.com/scott-galloway-americans-more-empathetic-us-recover-from-covid-19-2020-5

https://youtu.be/YP4hYtwGFlI

Fauci calls Moderna vaccine trial results ‘quite promising’  Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Friday that the initial results from Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine trial are “really quite promising” and that it remains “conceivable” a vaccine could be available in some capacity by the end of this year. Fauci, one of the key members of the White House coronavirus task force, remained cautious, noting that a lot of things could hinder the vaccine’s development between now and then. Dr. Carlos del Rio, an Emory University professor of medicine working on the Moderna study, echoed Fauci, saying he’s “cautiously optimistic” about its success. Del Rio noted that the team is working at a “mind-boggling” pace. Source: NPR

Spain plans to open to foreign tourists in July  Spain is hoping to salvage as much of its tourism industry as possible as it emerges from coronavirus lockdown. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Saturday that the country will reopen to overseas visitors starting July 2. He encouraged people to begin planning their vacations, though he said safety measures will be in place to protect both tourists and Spanish residents from infection. “We will guarantee that tourists will not run any risks, nor will they bring any risk to our country,” he said. The prime minister also gave Spain’s top professional soccer league, known as La Liga, permission to return June 8. There have been 234,824 confirmed coronavirus cases and 28,628 COVID-19 deaths in Spain, but the daily infection and fatality rates have steadily declined since the country went into a strict lockdown in March. Source: The Guardian

American car rental company Hertz files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to accumulating nearly $19 billion in debt. (CBC News)

Governor Gretchen Whitmer extends her state’s stay-at-home order until June 12 and its state of emergency until June 19. (The Detroit News)

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Saturday,  May 23rd, 2020

Europe’s largest coach operator Shearings collapses into administration with 2,460 immediate job losses and thousands of holidays cancelled. (The Guardian)

Hong Kong executive says that the newly proposed security law will not hamper judicial independence. Many activists condemn the move; the organizer of many of last year’s protests and convener of the Civil Human Rights Front Jimmy Sham says that the law is a “nuclear bomb” dropped by “the Chinese Communist Party” and calls for mass protests. Activist Joshua Wong also condemns the law and calls it a law “to silence Hongkongers”. (The Standard Hong Kong)

Trump declares places of worship ‘essential’ and demands governors let them reopen

President Trump is calling for religious institutions to reopen amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump announced Friday that he would identify houses of worship, including “churches, synagogues, and mosques,” as “essential places that provide essential services.” He called on governors to allow those institutions to reopen, and vowed to “override the governors” if they do not because “in America we need more prayer, not less.” Just like reopening businesses, Trump does not have the power to override governors when it comes to letting places of worship start holding services again. Some churches had resisted closing down amid the pandemic, and subsequently saw deadly coronavirus outbreaks spread among their members. Source: C-SPAN

43 states broke unemployment records in April

Forty-three states recorded their highest unemployment rate since the government began tracking the data in 1939, federal numbers released Friday reveal. Nevada had the highest overall unemployment rate in the country, at 28.2 percent, up from 3.6 in February before the pandemic shutdowns. The other two states to top 20 percent unemployment in April were Michigan and Hawaii, at 22.7 percent and 22.3 percent, respectively. Nevada and Hawaii saw drops because of their reliance on tourism, while Michigan’s losses stem from automotive plant shutdowns. Seven states recorded unemployment below 10 percent, with Connecticut the lowest with only 7.9 percent. Those numbers should probably be higher due to errors in the robustness of data collection as well as how that data was classified, CNN notes. Source: CNN, MarketWatch

D.C. now has the highest coronavirus positivity rate in the country

The Washington, D.C., metro area has the highest coronavirus positivity rate in the country, Dr. Deborah Birx said at the White House press briefing on Friday. The region includes both the nation’s capital, northern Virginia and several counties in Maryland. Birx said that D.C. is followed in positivity rate by Baltimore, Chicago, and Minneapolis. “These are the places where we have seen really a stalling, or an increase of cases as in Minneapolis,” she explained. The D.C. metro area specifically has a rate of infection three times higher than the areas directly surrounding it. Governors in Maryland and Virginia began easing restrictions in their states last Friday, while protestors gathered in Baltimore County on Friday to push for a faster reopening. Source: NBC News, The Washington Post

538 women are running for Congress this year, breaking 2018’s record

While the 2018 midterm elections saw a historic number of women run for Congress, 2020 has already broken that record, Gen reports. In 2018, 529 women filed to run for the House or the Senate, according to Vox, with 117 ultimately elected or appointed. This year, some 538 female congressional candidates have filed their paperwork so far. Among them are 490 women vying for House seats, according to data from Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), up from 476 in 2018. So far, 48 women have filed to run for Senate in 2020, just behind 2018’s record of 53. Additionally, Gen notes that 195 of the women running for the House this year are on the Republican ticket, “far more than the previous high of 133 in the 2010 midterms.” Source: Gen, Vox

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