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LOS ANGELES - To curb the coronavirus spread, Los Angeles has embarked on a massive effort to bring thousands of homeless people off the streets and into hotels to protect them and others from infection. California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week that money from the federal government would help pay for at least 15,000 hotel rooms during the pandemic. But Los Angeles County, with the state’s largest concentration of homeless people at some 60,000, has set its own goal of 15,000 rooms. “We’re going big in LA,” said Heidi Marston, interim director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority....

People like to tell a few stories about academic conservatives. Within the progressive left, one story is about the influence of corporate interests and “neoliberalism” on the university. In their view, academia is consumed by market forces. That view, in my opinion, is vastly mistaken. Universities rely on a combination of tuition, state funding, and grants to keep the doors open. Rather than operating as for-profit firms, university activity, such as teaching and research, are determined by workers—the faculty—not by shareholders. The “neoliberal” framing of the universities also ignores that most professors and administrators lean left far more than the...

Wuhan to Shanghai = 839km Wuhan to Beijing = 1,152km Wuhan to Milan = 15,000km Wuhan to NY = 15,000km The Coronavirus started in Wuhan yet there is no effect of Coronavirus in nearby Beijing or Shanghai but many deaths in Italy, Iran, European countries and USA. All business areas of China are now safe. America is not just blaming China without a reason. Even today, India is locked down but all the cities of China are open. China has also announced the opening of Wuhan from April 08. Not a single leader in China has tested positive for the...

Addis Ababa (AFP) - The chairman of the African Union Commission on Wednesday defended the World Health Organization (WHO) and its leadership from attacks by US President Donald Trump, who on Tuesday threatened to cut funding for the UN body. "Surprised to learn of a campaign by the US govt against WHO's global leadership," Moussa Faki Mahamat said in a Twitter post. "The African Union fully supports WHO and Dr Tedros," he added, referring to the WHO's director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, an Ethiopian. Faki was later joined by Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Namibian President Hage Geingob, who took to...

Sweden's Foreign Minister Ann Linde on Wednesday hit back at U.S. President Donald Trump's criticism of the Swedish approach to fighting the spread of the coronavirus, saying he was wrong to claim authorities were trying to achieve "herd immunity". Sweden is widely seen as taking a more low-key approach in its attempts to stop the spread of the disease. It's kept primary and secondary schools open, for example and hasn't closed its borders or forced people to stay indoors. Speaking on TV4, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said Trump's comments were "factually wrong". "We do not have a strategy that...

LUBBOCK, Texas — On Tuesday, Governor Greg Abbott announced that all Texas State Parks will close at the end of the business day on April 7, according to a press release from the Governors office. The following is a press release from the Governor’s office: At the direction of Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas State Parks will be closed to the public effective at the close of business Tuesday, April 7 in order to maintain the safest environment for visitors, volunteers and staff. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) will continue to stay current with the latest public health recommendations...

COVID-19 is not a climate-change pandemic - as far as we know, nothing about the emergence or spread of the coronavirus bears the recognizable imprint of global warming. But if the disease and our utter inability to respond to it terrifies you about our future staring down climate change, it should, not just as a “fire drill” for climate change generally but as a test run for all the diseases that will be unleashed in the decades ahead by warming. The virus is a terrifying harbinger of future pandemics that will be brought about if climate change continues to so...

As far back as late November, U.S. intelligence officials were warning that a contagion was sweeping through China’s Wuhan region, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population, according to four sources briefed on the secret reporting. Concerns about what is now known to be the novel coronavirus pandemic were detailed in a November intelligence report by the military's National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), according to two officials familiar with the document’s contents. The report was the result of analysis of wire and computer intercepts, coupled with satellite images. It raised alarms because...

On April 4, eight people were arrested by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department for sidewalk counseling and praying in front of an abortion facility. On April 4, eight people were arrested by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department for sidewalk counseling and praying in front of an abortion facility. Although most of the pro-life advocates did not come as a group and were spaced more than six feet apart, officers allege they were violating the North Carolina governor’s stay at home order as well as that of Mecklenburg County by participating in a gathering of more than ten people. The order allows for...

Researchers in Shanghai hope to determine whether some recovered coronavirus patients have a higher risk of reinfection after finding surprisingly low levels of Covid-19 antibodies in a number of people discharged from hospital. A team from Fudan University analysed blood samples from 175 patients discharged from the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre and found that nearly a third had unexpectedly low levels of antibodies. In some cases, antibodies could not be detected at all. “Whether these patients were at high risk of rebound or reinfection should be explored in further studies,” the team wrote in preliminary research released on Monday...

A Freudian slip is embarrassing because for an instant something we hide is revealed to others. Maybe it’s suppressing bigoted and prejudiced feelings that we know are unacceptable in the wider society, but in a moment of stress and thoughtlessness, this dark side of who we are pops out. Recently, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (MN-D) had her own Freudian slip. I’m calling it her “Hijabi Slip,” because it relates to her confessions of deep Islamic religious piety. The slip appeared on her Twitter feed reacting to one from a Retawa Agnihotri, who quoted from the Qur’an. Agnihotri tweeted, “Nor come nigh...

By Hassan Mahmoudi It may still be too soon to say for sure the coronavirus pandemic could totally change industrial production and the social relations that have been dominant and unchanged up until this time, but the information trend seems to be pointing in this direction. In the three months since COVID-19 erupted into the history of mankind, we have partially realized, in this new, harsh reality, that wealth and the superiority of technology do not save lives, but that solidarity, collective participation, reliance on sustainable community and environmental standards, and rules for health and safety do! In short, this...

This was something we discussed when I recently asked if there was a plan for how we’re supposed to “turn the country back on” as the pandemic fades away. It will almost certainly have to be done in stages rather than just opening the floodgates all at once. But who goes back to work and is allowed to begin socializing again first? One suggestion that seemed to make sense was to cut loose the people who had survived the infection and presumably now have antibodies to protect them from the illness.This would be a complicated process to be sure,...

The highest-paid U.S. federal official earned $8.16 million last year, and he may be in line for a big pay cut as populist outrage shapes a new infrastructure package intended to put people back to work after the coronavirus outbreak. There’s a bipartisan drive to cut compensation for Jeff Lyash, president of the Tennessee Valley Authority, as the White House and House Democrats begin talks on up to $2 trillion in infrastructure spending to offset a spike in joblessness. The TVA is a federally owned electricity provider that controls dozens of dams built during the Great Depression as a jobs...

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) model cited by the White House Coronavirus Task Force lowered its projections for coronavirus deaths in the U.S. by 25 percent from 81,766 to 60,415 early Wednesday morning.The IHME model has come under withering criticism for vastly overstating projections of regular and ICU hospital beds needed, but its death projections to date have closely tracked with actual data.Wednesday’s dramatic reverse in the model’s projection of U.S. deaths was made without a press release from IHME explaining the reasons for the reduction. It marks the second reduction in the model’s U.S. deaths projections since April 1, when it...

China demanded an explanation from Brazil Monday after the far-right government's education minister linked the coronavirus pandemic to the Asian country's "plan for world domination," in a tweet imitating a Chinese accent. In the latest incident to strain ties between Brasilia and Beijing, Education Minister Abraham Weintraub insinuated China was behind the global health crisis. "Geopolitically, who will come out stronger from this global crisis?" he wrote on Twitter Saturday. "Who in Brazil is allied with this infallible plan for world domination?" In the original Portuguese, his tweet substituted the letter "r" with capital "L" -- "BLazil" instead of "Brazil,"...

As those who follow the gyrations of the stock market are well aware, human beings have a propensity for short-term thinking. They react on impulse to that which is recent; they magnify its significance; and they forget what previous generations learned through bitter experience.To this propensity, the study of history can be an antidote. But all too often historians ransack the past in support of current prejudice.For one who wishes to escape the prison of presentmindedness and gain perspective, there is no substitute for works written regarding circumstances similar to our own at a time our prejudices and predilections...

On 3 April, two weeks after the study was first published online, the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, which publishes the IJAA, said in a statement that the group’s board “believes the article does not meet the Society’s expected standard, especially relating to the lack of better explanations of the inclusion criteria and the triage of patients to ensure patient safety”.

All state and county parks and forests in New Jersey have been ordered closed indefinitely due to the coronavirus outbreak, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Tuesday. “Don’t think I take this action lightly,” Murphy said at the Trenton War Memorial during his daily coronavirus press briefing. “We have seen far too many instances where people have gathered in groups in parks erroneously thinking since they are outside social distancing doesn’t matter," the governor said. “Nothing can be further than the truth.” New Jerseyans are allowed to go outside for exercise under the governor’s order to stay inside, though Murphy insisted they...

When dangers and discomforts of the present trump the greater ones of the future. Short-term thinking has been the bane of democracies since ancient Athens. Regularly scheduled elections and term-limits make it politically expedient, if not mandatory, for politicians to gratify the people’s desires, or assuage their present fears, even if the action or policy creates greater risks later. As Tocqueville wrote, “A clear perception of the future founded on judgment and experience” is “frequently wanting in democracies.” The dangers and discomforts of the present will trump the greater ones of the future. The current pandemic crisis illustrates this perennial...