Tag: nhl

The Past 24 Hours or So – Coronavirus/COVID-19 Update

Read Time: 4 Minutes

  • The U.S. reported 31,626 new cases and 560 additional deaths.
  • The United States has passed six million confirmed cases of the coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University. The country has also passed 183,000 deaths nationwide.
  • Coronavirus-related hospitalizations and deaths of children and teens are on the rise, according to data compiled by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The share of positive coronavirus cases among children has increased in every state since spring, and nearly doubled from 5 percent in May to over 9 percent Aug. 20, according to the data.

  • British drugmaker AstraZeneca – which announced Monday the U.S. launch of Phase 3 trials for its coronavirus vaccine – said its “core values to follow the science” and “put patients first,” according to a statement.

The statement came on the same day that the World Health Organization cautioned countries against rushing to develop coronavirus vaccines and to use great care in granting emergency use authorization. Those remarks appeared to be directed toward China, Russia and the United States.

  • Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Monday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will “hopefully” unveil a new coronavirus relief bill next week.
  • President Trump has retweeted a conspiracy theory falsely claiming that only about 9,000 people had “actually” died from coronavirus, instead of about 180,000. Twitter later removed the tweet, written by a user named “Mel Q,” who is also a believer of the QAnon conspiracy theory, saying it violated its rules.
  • According to The Washington Post, controversial health adviser to President Trump, radiologist Scott Atlas, is advocating letting the virus infect healthy people while only protecting the elderly and vulnerable.

The approach taken in Sweden was meant to let people get on with their lives free of any virus-related restrictions, something that Atlas, who recently joined the White House task force, has been advocating.

In a statement to The Hill, via the White House, Atlas said: “There is no policy of the President or this administration of achieving herd immunity. There never has been any such policy recommended to the President or to anyone else from me. That’s a lie.”

  • President Trump on Monday questioned the value of Anthony Fauci to the White House coronavirus task force, saying in an interview with Fox News he “inherited” the government’s top infectious disease expert.

“I just, I get along with him, but every once in a while he’ll come up with one that I say, ‘where did that come from?'” Trump continued. “I inherited him. He was here. He was part of this huge piece of machine.”

  • The late Herman Cain’s Twitter account, now supervised by family and friends, tweeted Sunday that the coronavirus which killed Cain in July is “not as deadly as the mainstream media made it out to be.”
  • There have been at least 260 Covid-19 cases associated with people who attended the motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, in early August.
  • MLB has postponed the first two games of the Oakland Athletics’ upcoming three-game series with the Seattle Mariners that was set to begin Tuesday.
  • The NHL reported no cases for the 5th straight week in either of the hub cities of Toronto or Edmonton.
  • The only way to find those with asymptomatic infections of Covid-19 at universities is to do aggressive testing, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, said over the weekend.

“To the college and university students, please isolate at your college,” Birx said during a news briefing. “Do not return if you’re positive and spread the virus to your family, your aunts, your uncles, your grandparents.”

  • A large party is suspected as the origin for a coronavirus outbreak at New York’s SUNY Oneonta, which has led to a halt on in-person classes for at least two weeks.

Dozens of students have been suspended for violating the code of conduct.

  • More than 900 University of Iowa students have reported testing positive for coronavirus as of Monday, with more than a third of the new cases being identified just since Friday. The university, which had its first day of classes last Monday, announced that 78 students who live in residence halls are in self-isolation after testing positive and 17 are in quarantine after potentially being exposed.
  • On the same day Iowa State University’s director of athletics Jamie Pollard declared Cyclones fans are welcome to attend the football home opener on Sept. 12, the University of Iowa announced it was halting all sports programs until after Labor Day.

The Iowa Hawkeyes reported 93 positive tests within its athletics community in the last week.

  • Just one week after the start of the fall semester, California State University, Chico is canceling all in-person classes and telling students to vacate on-campus housing over a “rapid and alarming” coronavirus outbreak on campus.
  • Connecticut will extend its Covid-19 emergency declaration until February 9, 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) announced Monday.

The five-month extension ensures that the state can use emergency powers to quickly respond to outbreaks, safely reopen the economy, protect and recover jobs and rapidly procure personal protective equipment.

  • Movie theaters and indoor performances venues in New Jersey can reopen with restrictions on capacity starting Friday, Gov. Phil Murphy (D) announced in a tweet.
  • Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R)  extended statewide limits on public gatherings for another two weeks.
  • Florida reported 1,885 new cases, marking the lowest single day infections since June 15. There were 68 additional deaths.
  • Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and White House Coronavirus advisor Scott Atlas discouraged testing individuals with no coronavirus symptoms at a Monday roundtable event in Tallahassee, Florida.

Last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN “I am concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations and worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact it is.”

  • Houston, Texas, Mayor Sylvester Turner (D) warned residents to avoid large gatherings ahead of Labor Day Weekend, saying coronavirus “is still looking for you.”

“You know what happened during Memorial Day and the Fourth of July weekend. People came together, and then the virus took off, and then you saw the numbers go up.”

Sources:  ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Forbes,  Fox News,The Hill, Independent, MSNBC, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So

Protests/Racial & Social Issues, Trump Administration, and Presidential Campaign Updates

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Protests/Racial & Social Issues

  • The father of Jacob Blake, the 29-year-old Black man shot seven times by a Kenosha, Wisconsin police officer in front of his children, says Blake was handcuffed to the hospital bed where he is recovering and has been told he is at least temporarily paralyzed from the waist down.
  • The NBA’s players have decided to resume the postseason. Discussions on when the postseason will begin again are ongoing, but for now, both sides are aiming for Friday.
  • President Trump derisively referred to the NBA as a “political organization” after players have been outspoken on social justice issues and skipped playoff games in protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
  • Vice President Pence’s chief of staff dismissed NBA teams’ refusal to play Wednesday night’s playoff games in protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, calling it “absurd” and “silly.”
  • The WNBA postponed its scheduled games for a second straight night in a protest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
  • The NHL postponed its playoff games for Thursday and Friday 
  • White House Adviser Jared Kushner on Thursday said he would reach out to basketball superstar LeBron James following an NBA player boycott to protest racial injustice in the wake of a police shooting that paralyzed a Black man in Wisconsin.
  • Vice President Pence will be replaced as the commencement speaker at an upcoming graduation for Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee, the school announced, citing the protests in Kenosha following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. 
  • White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany accused the media and Democrats of “aiding and abetting the violence” in US cities, as protests persist in Wisconsin following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

“It’s a real travesty that it took the Democrats this long to mention the violence in our streets, that it was ignored. When they had the biggest platform, it was entirely ignored.”

  • Fox News host Tucker Carlson sparked vehement backlash online after saying it was not surprising that the white teen accused of fatally shooting two protesters “decided they had to maintain order when no one else would” during Black Lives Matter protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
  • Just two weeks after the city of Lake Charles, Louisiana voted to keep a Confederate monument standing, Hurricane Laura brought it down on Thursday with 150 mph winds as it made landfall along the state’s coast.

The Daily Advertiser reported that the statue, The South’s Defenders Monument, was the subject of a contentious debate, which ended in a vote on Aug. 13. The Calcasieu Parish Police Jury ultimately voted 10-4 to keep the statue in place.

Trump Administration

  • Another 1 million American workers filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department reports.
  • North Carolina is suing the federal government over its decision to try to locate oil and gas off the state’s coast despite objections from the state. 

In June, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration allowed a company to move ahead with seismic testing, which uses blasts from air guns to try to detect oil and gas deposits in the ocean.

  • Environmentalists won their battle challenging the EPA’s regulation of Pennsylvania’s air quality, with the court ruling the agency used a “pernicious loophole” when greenlighting laxer standards for coal-fired power plants.
  • The EPA is facing another suit over its rule that limits states’ ability to block pipelines and other controversial projects that cross their waterways.

The Clean Water Act previously allowed states to halt projects that risk hurting their water quality, but that power was scaled back by the EPA in June

  • The U.S. is officially participating in a global program that aims to plant 1 trillion trees worldwide, something that Republicans, including President Trump, have latched on to as a way to combat climate change.
  • The Pentagon called out China over test launches of ballistic missiles in the South China Sea, a move that the United States views as “counterproductive” to quelling tensions in the region.
  • The U.S. Embassy in Ottawa issued a rare statement praising Canada’s military service in Afghanistan after White House trade adviser Peter Navarro sharply criticized Canadian policies in a new book.

Presidential Campaign

  • Dept of Homeland Security employees received an email reminding them to not to engage in “partisan political activity” just days after Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf participated in a naturalization ceremony that was broadcast at the Republican National Convention.
  • Officials launched an investigation Thursday into what they said was an erroneous, racist robocall aimed at discouraging voters in battleground states from casting their ballots by mail.

The recorded message features a woman who says she works for “Project 1599,” founded by the right-wing operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, and falsely warns that personal information of those who vote by mail will be shared with police tracking down warrants and credit card companies collecting outstanding debt, according to recordings of the call reviewed by The Washington Post. Wohl and Burkman denied their involvement in the call, blaming “leftist pranksters.”

  • “Don’t be finessed into giving your private information to the man,” the recording says. “Stay safe and beware of vote-by-mail.”
  • “Well, QAnon is batshit crazy,” GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham said. “Crazy stuff. Inspiring people to violence. I think it is a platform that plays off people’s fears, that compels them to do things they normally wouldn’t do. And it’s very much a threat.”
  • “The violence you’re seeing in Donald Trump’s America,” Joe Biden said in a statement. “Is Donald Trump even aware he’s president? These are not images from some imagined ‘Joe Biden’s America’ in the future. These are images from Donald Trump’s America today. The violence we’re witnessing is happening under Donald Trump. Not me. It’s getting worse, and we know why.”
  • A Tennessee judge this week ordered state election officials to clearly note on absentee ballot applications that voters can opt for mail-in ballots if they or someone in their care believe they are at higher risk for contracting COVID-19, ruling that the forms as they currently are read deceptively and don’t inform voters that the state Supreme Court said it is a valid reason to obtain an absentee ballot.
  • Vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris denounced the looting and acts of violence that followed the police shooting of a Black man, as Republicans sought to paint the two Democrats as weak on crime.
  • More than 300 LGBT leaders threw their support behind Democratic nominee Joe Biden for president, stating that the former vice president and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), together make “the most pro-equality ticket in American history.”

Sources:  ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Forbes,  Fox News,The Hill, Independent, MSNBC, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So – Coronavirus/COVID-19 Update

Read Time: 3 Minutes

  • The U.S. reported 34,567 new cases and 449 additional deaths. 
  • New cases appear to be declining in many states. At least 25 states reported fewer cases in the past week compared to the previous week. Another 14 states have a steady amount of new cases.
  • China has been giving an experimental coronavirus vaccine candidate to frontline workers since July, a senior Chinese health official announced. Zheng Zhongwei, director of the National Health Commission’s science and technology development center said that the Chinese government authorized the emergency use of a vaccine on July 22. The “emergency” vaccine appears to be China’s first in use outside of clinical trials.
  • The head of the FDA said criticism for his praise of convalescent plasma treatment was warranted, but denied the decision to authorize the emergency use of the treatment for COVID-19 patients was politically motivated.
  • The EPA said it has granted emergency approval for American Airlines to use a disinfectant against the coronavirus on certain surfaces that lasts for up to seven days, and is studying whether it could be effective in places like schools.
  • Republican National Committee officials were warned by Mecklenburg County, N.C., health officials about a failure by some convention attendees to wear masks or practice social distancing following the roll call vote.
  • Zoom video conferencing app experienced outages in some parts of the world. In the United States, the problem mainly affected those in the East Coast.

Atlanta Public Schools tweeted that the Zoom outage interrupted online education on its first day of classes.

  • Ohio State University issued 228 interim suspensions on Monday to students who they say have broken the university’s Covid-19 regulations.
  • The University of Notre Dame added a total of 50 additional cases of Covid-19 over the weekend.
  • The University of Missouri has 159 active student Covid-19 cases. Monday was the first day of classes. 
  • Twelve students at Duke University tested positive for coronavirus out of a total of 4,497 tests performed for the week of Aug. 15 to 21. 
  • Georgia Tech reported 51 new cases of COVID-19.
  • University of Alabama reported 566 cases of COVID-19 since August 19. 
  • The University of Kansas has issued disciplinary actions against two fraternities for hosting social events this weekend in violation of county and university health guidelines on Covid-19.
  • More than 100 students from the University of Southern California are under a 14-day quarantine due to a coronavirus outbreak among students who live in the university’s off-campus housing.
  • For the fourth consecutive week the NHL announced zero positive COVID-19 tests results from its Toronto and Edmonton bubbles.
  • Across an eight-day period from August 12 to 20, zero NFL players tested positive for COVID-19 on 23,260 administered tests.
  • Olympic legend Usain Bolt says he’s self-isolating while awaiting his Covid-19 testing results.
  • There are now 27 cases of Covid-19 in Minnesota linked to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally that took place in South Dakota earlier this month.
  • Danbury, Connecticut, is facing a “serious outbreak” of Covid-19 stemming mostly from recent domestic and international travel, according to a statement attached to Governor Ned Lamont’s latest Covid-19 update. 

Between August 2 and 20, there were at least 178 new Covid-19 cases reported in Danbury, compared to the 40 new cases that were recorded in the prior two week period.

  • New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and NY Health and Hospitals will be setting up new Covid-19 testing sites at John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports in New York City for incoming passengers.
  • New York State saw a 0.66% reported infection rate, the lowest the state has had since the pandemic began. 
  • Florida reported 2,258 new cases and 72 additional deaths.
  • A Florida judge temporarily halted a statewide order that would have forced schools to reopen for in-person classes this month amid the coronavirus pandemic or risk losing funding.
  • The Miami Dolphins announced that a maximum of 13,000 fans will be allowed to the opening game against the Buffalo Bills on September 20.

Masks will be mandatory for all fans entering the Hard Rock Stadium.

  • Coronavirus testing sites in Louisiana have been suspended through Wednesday as the state prepares for Tropical Storms Marco and Laura.

Sources:  ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, Independent, MSNBC, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post