Saturday,  Aug. 8th, 2020

Stimulus bill talks hit another dead end after 2 weeks of negotiations Congressional Democrats and White House leaders were again unable to agree on terms for the next CARES Act on Friday, closing out a second week of negotiations while remaining gridlocked. Democrats don’t have the votes to support any bill under $2 trillion and Republicans won’t accept anything over it. While Democrats offered to slash $1 trillion off their $3.4 trillion proposal if Republicans added $1 trillion to theirs to meet in the middle, White House officials refused, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said. Democrats previously rejected Republicans’ standalone measure to temporarily continue the $600/week unemployment boost that has now expired. White House officials said they had advised President Trump to take unilateral action on stimulus measures, however, Trump likely doesn’t have the power to allocate funding via executive action. Source: CNBC

Trump attempts to bypass Congress with coronavirus relief executive orders President Trump on Saturday announced multiple executive actions aiming to extend economic aid to Americans while Congress remains in a stalemate over the next coronavirus relief package. The effectiveness and legality of the measures was unclear, however, with the orders seemingly exceeding Constitutional limits on executive power. The president said during a press conference at his golf club in Bedminister, New Jersey, that, via executive order, he will unilaterally continue expanded unemployment benefits, at $400/week rather than the previous $600/week. He also signed orders intended to pause student loan payments and extend the moratorium on evictions. Additionally, Trump said the action authorizes the Treasury Department to defer payroll taxes for Americans making less than 100,000 per year. Source: The Associated Press

Paris issues a mask mandate for busy areas to curb the rise of COVID-19 infections. (Reuters)

Anti-government protests erupt in Beirut Thousands of protesters in Beirut’s gathered in Beirut’s Martys’ Square on Saturday called for Lebanon’s politicians to resign and be held accountable for the negligence that led to a blast in the city’s port Tuesday that killed 158 people and injured more than 6,000. During the demonstrations, the protesters stormed Beirut’s government ministries and trashed the offices of the Association of Lebanese Banks, Reuters reports. Police reportedly fired tear gas at demonstrators trying to break through a barrier to get to the parliament building, and one officer reportedly was killed when he fell into an elevator shaft after being chased into a building by protesters, another officer said. The Red Cross said it treated 117 people for injuries, while another 55 were taken to hospitals. Source: Al Jazeera

Friday, Aug. 7th, 2020

State Department lifts global coronavirus travel advisory The State Department on Thursday lifted its Level 4: Do Not Travel advisory, issued on March 19 in order to encourage Americans against traveling overseas amid the coronavirus pandemic. Instead of a blanket travel advisory, the State Department said it will release country-specific guidelines “in order to give travelers detailed and actionable information to make informed travel decisions. This will also provide U.S. citizens more detailed information about the current status in each country. We continue to recommend U.S. citizens exercise caution when traveling abroad due to the unpredictable nature of the pandemic.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends against non-essential travel to 200 specific locations, CNN reports, and there are still travel restrictions in other countries affecting Americans; the European Union, for example, has blocked entry to tourists from the United States. Source: CNN

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine tests positive for COVID-19 Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) on Thursday took a COVID-19 test “as part of the standard protocol” to meet with President Trump at Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland, Ohio, as the president visits the state, and the result came back positive, the governor’s office said. DeWine, who will return home to quarantine for two weeks, said he isn’t showing any symptoms. DeWine is the second governor in the United States to test positive for COVID-19 after Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R). Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) previously tested positive for COVID-19 at the White House shortly before he was scheduled to travel with Trump to Texas. Source: Axios

Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines The economy falls into recession for the first time in 29 years after the economy shrank by 16.5% in the April to June quarter from the same period last year, which is the biggest slump in the government’s quarterly GDP data dating back to 1981. (CNA)

A court in China sentences a Canadian man to death on drug charges. His alleged accomplice receives life imprisonment. Police had confiscated 120 kilograms (266 pounds) of ketamine from the defendant’s home. He is the third Canadian citizen to be sentenced to death in China since Canadian authorities arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in late 2018 on an extradition request from the United States. (AP)

Twitter says it will label state media, official government accounts and their stafff. State-funded media outlets with “editorial independence”, such as the National Public Radio in the U.S., or BBC in the UK, will not be among those labelled, according to a spokesman for the social media site. (Twitter)

The End 

Thursday,  Aug. 6th, 2020

The Robert Koch Institute reports 1,045 new cases in Germany during the last 24 hours. It is the first time since May 7 that new COVID-19 cases in the country surpass 1,000. (The New Indian Express)

Poland reports record 726 new cases during the last 24 hours as the government will impose limits on restaurants, sporting events, public transport and weddings in 19 of its 380 counties as of Saturday, August 8. (Bloomberg)

Melbourne enters stage 4 lockdown, which is Australia’s toughest lockdown yet after spike of COVID-19 cases in Victoria, mainly in the city. (France 24)

Google shuts down 2,500 channels on its video sharing platform YouTube that were linked to Chinese disinformation. The channels generally posted “spammy, non-political content”, but a small subset touched on politics, the company said. (Reuters)

The Indonesian economy contracts 5.32% in second quarter of 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. It is the worst economic contraction in the country since the first quarter of 1999. (Kompas)

SpaceX Starship prototype SN5 successfully carries out a 150-meter (490 ft) flight test at the SpaceX South Texas Launch Site. (BBC)

The End 

1890 – At Auburn Prison in New York, murderer William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed by electric chair.

1914 – World War I: Serbia declares war on Germany; Austria declares war on Russia.

1945 – World War II: Hiroshima, Japan is devastated when the atomic bomb “Little Boy” is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 70,000 people are killed instantly, and some tens of thousands die in subsequent years from burns and radiation poisoning.

1991 – Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet.

 

Joe Rogan – April 26th, 2020

https://youtu.be/6Z9sVpMm76I

Joe Rogan – April 19th, 2020

https://youtu.be/FTiX_eKvT0g

Joe Rogan – April 12th, 2020

https://youtu.be/Bt0nVl1Nlj4