- HealthYahoo News
Trump says coronavirus will 'go away without a vaccine'
President Trump on Friday broke with health experts, telling reporters that the coronavirus will “go away without a vaccine.” “This is going to go away without a vaccine, it's gonna go away, and we're not going to see it again, hopefully, after a period of time,” Trump said at the White House. Just days ago the Trump administration launched Operation Warp Speed, a project to accelerate the production of a vaccine for the coronavirus, which as of Friday had infected at least 1.2 million Americans and killed more than 76,000 here.
- U.S.NBC News
Neighbor of father and son arrested in Ahmaud Arbery killing is also under investigation
A day after the arrests of father and son Gregory and Travis McMichael in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, the head of a state law-enforcement agency said a neighbor who recorded a video of the shooting is also being investigated. Arbery, who would have turned 26 on Friday, was shot to death on Feb. 23 in Brunswick, a coastal city about midway between Savannah and Jacksonville, Florida, after being chased by Gregory McMichael, 64, and Travis, 34, in their pickup truck. Arbery's family says he was out jogging, while the McMichaels have claimed they thought he was a burglar, according to the Glynn County police report.
- U.S.USA TODAY
Man hit by plane, killed on Austin-Bergstrom airport runway, officials say
A man died Thursday night after being hit by a plane as it was landing on a runway at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, according to airport officials. Officials do not believe the person was supposed to be on the runway at the time, though they haven't confirmed that, said airport spokesman Bryce Dubee. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident.
- WorldReuters
Venezuela says troops seize abandoned Colombian combat boats, weapons
Venezuela's military said it seized three abandoned Colombian light combat vessels that soldiers found on Saturday while patrolling the Orinoco river, several days after the government accused its neighbor of aiding a failed invasion. In a statement, the Defense Ministry said the boats were equipped with machine guns and ammunition, but had no crew, adding they were discovered as part of a nationwide operation to guarantee Venezuela's "freedom and sovereignty." Colombia's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request to comment.
- PoliticsCBS News
Newsom declares California will be a vote-by-mail state
California Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday signed an executive order to ensure every registered voter in the state is automatically mailed a ballot for the November presidential election. The executive order does not replace in-person voting, Newsom said during a press conference. "Mail-in ballot is important but it's not an exclusive substitute to physical locations," Newsom said.
- U.S.Business Insider
South Dakota Governor demands Sioux tribes 'immediately' remove COVID-19 checkpoints because they interfere with traffic
Associated Press South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem sent letters to two Sioux tribes May 8 demanding they remove all COVID-19 checkpoints within 48 hours or face legal action. The governor said the checkpoints interfere with traffic and were erected without consulting with the state, something she said was required by a US Department of Interior memorandum. Both tribes have also strict stay-at-home orders and curfews for their communities, even though Noem has not issued such orders for the state.
- WorldBBC
Indian migrant deaths: 16 sleeping workers run over by train
Indian officials have ordered an investigation after 16 people were run over by a freight train in the state of Maharashtra. The dead were migrant workers who had fallen asleep on the tracks, while attempting to walk to a station, from where they were hoping to get a train home. India has organised special trains to take migrants to their home villages.
- U.S.LA Times
Panicked over 'murder hornets,' people are killing native bees we desperately need
The other reportedly flew away into the woods, Yanega said, and since then Washington entomologists have been on the lookout, encouraging residents to set out traps for the hornets so authorities can find and destroy any nests before they can grow. Queens are the biggest of the world's biggest hornets. They can grow to 2 inches from their cartoonish Spider-Man-type face (with vicious mandibles) to their quarter-inch-long stinger that can puncture heavy clothing.
- PoliticsThe Week
Federal watchdog finds 'reasonable grounds to believe' vaccine doctor's ouster was retaliation, lawyers say
The Office of Special Counsel is recommending that ousted vaccine official Dr. Rick Bright be reinstated while it investigates his case, his lawyers announced Friday. Bright while leading coronavirus vaccine development was recently removed from his position as the director of the Department of Health and Human Services' Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, and he alleges it was because he insisted congressional funding not go toward "drugs, vaccines, and other technologies that lack scientific merit" and limited the "broad use" of hydroxychloroquine after it was touted by President Trump. On Friday, Bright's lawyers said that the Office of Special Counsel has determined there are "reasonable grounds to believe" his firing was retaliation, The New York Times reports.
- U.S.Yahoo News
Trump calls Ahmaud Arbery killing 'very disturbing' but says he trusts Georgia justice
President Trump said Friday he had watched the video of Ahmaud Arbery being shot and found it “very disturbing” and “heartbreaking,” but he is confident the Georgia legal system will come down on the side of justice. In a phone interview on Fox News Friday morning, Trump said Arbery's death on Feb. 23 in Brunswick, Ga., was “a very disturbing situation to me.” The men, Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis McMichael, 34, have been charged with murder.
- PoliticsNational Review
‘Not a Bonafide Counterintelligence Investigation’: Barr Slams Comey’s Handling of Flynn Probe
Attorney General Bill Barr explained that the FBI did not conduct “a bonafide counterintelligence investigation” in the case that led former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn to plead guilty to federal investigators in 2017. Barr, speaking in an exclusive interview with CBS News after the Justice Department dropped its case against Flynn on Thursday, said that his review of the case found Bureau investigators laid “a perjury trap” for Flynn in a January 2017 White House interview. “They didn't warn him, the way that would usually be required by the Department, they bypassed the Justice Department, they bypassed the protocols at the White House, and so forth,” Barr stated.
- U.S.USA TODAY
Cruz gets his hair cut at salon whose owner was jailed for defying Texas coronavirus restrictions
WASHINGTON – Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, got a haircut Friday at the salon owned by Shelley Luther, who was briefly jailed for refusing to obey stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus pandemic. Luther, who opened Salon à la Mode nearly two weeks ago, was found in contempt for ignoring a court order to close from state Judge Eric Moyé, who sentenced her to seven days in Dallas County jail Tuesday and hit her with a $7,000 fine. The state's Supreme Court on Thursday ordered Dallas County officials to free Luther while they weigh an appeal challenging her incarceration.
WorldAFPDespite lockdown, no letup in Chicago's murder rate
The streets of Chicago may be largely empty as residents hunker down from coronavirus but some of the city's most deprived neighborhoods are still echoing to the sound of deadly gunfire and raucous partying. While significant falls in crime have been one of the few positive side effects of lockdowns in much of the United States and elsewhere, they have barely made a dent in the homicide rate in Chicago, a city that has long recorded the most murders in the country. Chicago police say 56 murders were committed in April despite statewide stay-at-home orders -- only a fraction lower than the 61 for the same month in 2019 -- while last weekend, the first of the new month, four people were killed and 46 others shot and wounded.
PoliticsYahoo News VideoTrump donor and lawyer to represent Biden's accuser
The former Senate staffer, who is accusing Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her 27 years ago, is being represented by a lawyer who is also a donor to President Trump.
- U.S.Business Insider
A person was struck and killed by a Southwest plane as it landed on the runway at Austin international airport
The FAA said in a statement on Thursday evening that it was investigating a pedestrian fatality on a runway at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Austin, Texas. The airport confirmed the incident in a tweet on Thursday, saying that it was "aware of an individual that was struck and killed on runway 17-R by a landing aircraft earlier this evening." The FAA said its investigators were assisting the Austin Police Department and other officials in determining whether the Southwest Airlines Flight 1392 struck and killed the victim upon landing.
- BusinessBBC
Coronavirus: Chinese official admits health system weaknesses
The coronavirus pandemic is a "big test" that has exposed weaknesses in China's public health system, a senior official has told Chinese media. The rare admission, from Director of China's National Health Commission Li Bin, comes after sustained criticism abroad of China's early response. The country will now improve its disease prevention, public health system and data collection, he says.
- U.S.NBC News
Meet the Ohio health expert who has a fan club — and Republicans trying to stop her
Many Ohioans trust Dr. Acton because they sense that she not only understands what she's doing and how it justifies the policies being implemented, but also that she understands how difficult it is for her audience to accept the news that she is delivering and the restrictions that are being imposed on their lives,” said Christopher Devine, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Dayton. On the other hand, Acton is now the target of angry Ohioans frustrated by the weeks of quarantine who are convinced the state overreacted to a threat that has claimed more than 1,270 lives in the state.
- WorldReuters
India may see 0% GDP growth this fiscal year - Moody's
The impact of the coronavirus outbreak will exacerbate the material slowdown in India's economic growth, with the country expected to see 0% expansion in the current fiscal year, analysts at Moody's said on Friday. The ratings agency said it expected India to see no growth in financial year 2021 and bounce back to a 6.6% GDP growth in FY22, while the fiscal deficit is seen rising to 5.5% of GDP in FY21 versus the budgeted estimate of 3.5%. The COVID-19 spread in the country has also "significantly reduced the prospects of a durable fiscal consolidation," it said in a report.
- WorldThe Independent
Donald Trump says US would send an army, not two mercenaries, to overthrow Venezuela's Maduro
Donald Trump has denied the US was behind a failed coup attempt in Venezuela, saying he would send an entire army if he wanted to invade the country. Venezuela president Nicolas Maduro says the president is the “direct chief” of the invasion, and aired an American ex-special forces soldier on state television apparently confessing to the plot. In an interview on Fox & Friends on Friday, Mr Trump said he wouldn't make a secret about it if he wanted to go into Venezuela.
- U.S.CBS News
Texas lieutenant governor pays fine for jailed salon owner
Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said he would cover a fine owed by Dallas salon owner Shelley Luther, who is serving a seven-day jail sentence. A spokesperson later confirmed Patrick did just that, CBS DFW reports. Luther, owner of Salon A La Mode, was sentenced on Tuesday after judge Eric Moye said she violated statewide stay-at-home orders when she reopened her business nearly two weeks ago.
- WorldAssociated Press
Russian volunteers search for fallen World War II soldiers
Abayev and members of his search team rummage the steppe for remains of the Red Army soldiers who fell in the autumn of 1942 in fierce fighting with Nazi troops pushing toward the Caspian Sea south of Stalingrad. Stiff resistance by the Red Army stopped the Wehrmacht onslaught in the steppes of Kalmykia, and months later the enemy's forces were encircled in Stalingrad and surrendered, a major defeat for the Nazis that marked a turning point in World War II. The search for remains of fallen Red Army soldiers near Khulkhuta, in Kalmykia, a southern province that lies between the Volga River and the Caspian Sea, is part of a broad effort by myriad volunteer groups across Russia to pay tribute t...
- U.S.USA TODAY
What we know about community where Ahmaud Arbery was shot: 911 caller reported 'black guy' on property
Ahmaud Arbery was killed in a small, mostly-white coastal neighborhood about 2 miles away from the home family members say he shared with his mother. Local officials say Satilla Shores, which is an unincorporated community in Glynn County, Georgia, has remained largely under the radar before the Feb. 23 slaying caught the national spotlight. "We are not about what's happening out there," Johnny Cason, a city commissioner for the bordering town of Brunswick, Georgia, said of the killing.
- U.S.National Review
Gavin Newsom Signs Executive Order to Mail Every Voter a Ballot for November Elections
California Governor Gavin Newsom announced Friday that he had signed an executive order to mail ballots to the state's 20.6 million registered voters, citing potential health risks due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. “There's a lot of excitement around this November's election in terms of making sure that you can conduct yourself in a safe way, and make sure your health is protected,” Newsom said Friday. California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who heads the state's elections, commended the move “It's great for public health, it's great for voting rights, it's going to be great for participation,” he said.
- BusinessBusiness Insider
88,300 truck drivers lost their jobs in April, and it's the biggest trucking job loss on record
Some 20.5 million payrolls were cut in April, which is 25 times larger than the worst monthly decline seen during the recession in the late 2000s. Nationwide, the unemployment rate is now 14.7%, its highest since the Great Depression. While truck drivers have been deemed "essential" workers during the coronavirus pandemic, freight volumes and rates have collapsed this year.
- WorldBBC
Coronavirus: China offers to help North Korea fight pandemic
Chinese state media reported that the message congratulated Mr Xi on China's apparent success in fighting Covid-19. North Korea's government maintains that there has not been a single confirmed case there, though analysts have questioned whether that is possible. North Korea was the first country to suspend tourism and to shut its borders in response to the virus, in the third week of January.
