Economy
Coronavirus: US to borrow record $3tn as spending soars (tmn)
The US borrows by selling government bonds. It has historically enjoyed relatively low interest rates since its debt is viewed as relatively low-risk by investors around the world.
But even before the coronavirus, the country’s debt load had been climbing toward levels many economists consider risky for long-term growth, as the country spent more than it took in.
Thousands made homeless in Tokyo amid pandemic (Sparky1)
Tokyo has estimated 4,000 Internet cafe refugees who sleep and eat in the cafe’s small cubicles. However, they are losing the last accommodation as the government has requested to close the cafes to contain the spread of virus. CNN’s Will Ripley talks to an internet refugee who had to sleep on street after losing job and a place to stay due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Food banks struggle to keep pace with immigrant communities hit hard by pandemic (Sparky1)
The TDEM documents are from its most recent state situation report and show food banks in the state are seeing an 88% increase in the number of people showing up to food distribution centers, but sector representatives say that even those figures may understate the surge.
Celia Cole is CEO of Feeding Texas, an association of the state’s food banks. Cole said: “We’re seeing now close to a 100% increase in the number of people seeking out help compared to last year. That means that there’s double the need there was a year ago.”
Sorting Out the Debris of Modernity – When the ‘Old’ Becomes the New ‘New’ (Afridev)
We inhabit the psychology of ‘betwixt times’. Instinctively, we know the world will never be the same again, but we cling to the familiar. And for now, the future – our ‘new’ – cannot be construed intelligibly. It lacks a framing in narrative (old, or new). Even the ability to narrate our own lives, depends on our having narratives available, that make any one individual life-narrative, fit somehow, within the community’s ‘whole’.
A mutant coronavirus has emerged, even more contagious than the original, study says (Sparky1)
The 33-page report was posted Thursday on BioRxiv, a website that researchers use to share their work before it is peer reviewed, an effort to speed up collaborations with scientists working on COVID-19 vaccines or treatments. That research has been largely based on the genetic sequence of earlier strains and might not be effective against the new one.
Scientists Claim Newly-Dominant Strain of Coronavirus is More Contagious Than Original (Roger B.)
Most worldwide research on a vaccine has focused on earlier versions of coronavirus that lack the new mutation, the Los Angeles Times noted. The authors of the Los Alamos study wrote that they felt an “urgent need for an early warning” that the now-dominant strain of coronavirus had mutated, which would compel vaccine developers to study that strain in order to produce effective treatments.
“The story is worrying, as we see a mutated form of the virus very rapidly emerging, and over the month of March becoming the dominant pandemic form,” study leader Bette Korber, a computational biologist at Los Alamos, wrote in a Facebook post. “When viruses with this mutation enter a population, they rapidly begin to take over the local epidemic, thus they are more transmissible.”
As Death Toll Increases Blame China Campaign Intensifies (Roger B.)
There continues to be some infighting between the Trump administration and the intelligence services about blaming China. The administration wanted the U.S. intelligence services to claim that the virus was probably manmade or escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan. The intelligence services disagree with the administration on both points.
The administration then penned a paper from open sources that contains those and other allegations and pushed it to friendly media.
A nuclear waste site where the biggest fear isn’t radiation, but coronavirus (Sparky1)
Beginning in the 1940s, the Hanford site produced plutonium for nuclear weapons, including the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki at the end of the second world war. The site was also relied on heavily during the cold war, ultimately becoming the country’s main supplier of plutonium for its nuclear weapons.
Antibody blocks infection by the SARS-CoV-2 in cells, scientists discover (Roger B.)
“This discovery provides a strong foundation for additional research to characterize this antibody and begin development as a potential COVID-19 treatment,” said Frank Grosveld, PhD. co-lead author on the study, Academy Professor of Cell Biology, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam and Founding Chief Scientific Officer at Harbour BioMed. “The antibody used in this work is ‘fully human,’ allowing development to proceed more rapidly and reducing the potential for immune-related side effects.” Conventional therapeutic antibodies are first developed in other species and then must undergo additional work to ‘humanize’ them. The antibody was generated using Harbour BioMed’s H2L2 transgenic mouse technology.
Activation of the SARS coronavirus 2 revealed (Roger B.)
In their current study, the infection biologists of the German Primate Center led by Markus Hoffmann and Stefan Pöhlmann were able to show that the S1/S2 activation sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is cleaved by the cellular protease furin and that this cleavage event is essential for the infection of lung cells. It is also important for the fusion of infected cells with non-infected cells, which might allow the virus to spread in the body without leaving the host cell.
GE Aviation to cut workforce by up to 13,000 jobs, or 25% (Sparky1)
The GE Aviation job cuts are part of the $3 billion in cost and cash savings announced by the company last month and include previously announced cuts, including a 10% cut to its U.S. workforce announced in March.
GE Aviation Chief Executive David Joyce told employees on Monday the “deep contraction of commercial aviation is unprecedented, affecting every customer worldwide. Global traffic is expected to be down approximately 80% in the second quarter.”
WATCH: Whistleblower prosecuted, imprisoned, then rewarded $104 million (thc0655)
Sharyl: When you went to the Department of Justice, they treated you like the criminal.
Birkenfeld: They did. They were very hostile. The moment I walked in there, they said I’m not a whistleblower, I’m a tipster. The hostility was so great, I asked my attorneys why am I even here? This is a waste of time. And the fact that they kept berating me and belittling me. And it’s all clear now why. Because they were so incompetent to uncover the largest tax fraud that was going on underneath their nose for decades.
Security Researchers Say The Reopen America Campaign Is Being Astroturfed (tmn)
By gathering domain names that include the same words, and by analysing the domains for other similarities, DomainTools was able to determine that many of them “redirect to a state-based firearms coalition group.” And according to its senior security researcher, Chad Anderson, these groups tie back to Aaron Dorr, a registered lobbyist for the state of Iowa.
Anderson goes on to explain that the “reopen” websites linked to Aaron Dorr bear various similarities, including the fact that they were built using nonpartisan advocacy platform One Click Politics and also WordPress. By looking at one of them, the Iowa Gun Owners website, DomainTools was able to find Dorr’s telephone number.
Bailing out the states: the momentum – and the prospect for violence – builds (thc0655)
As I reported last week, Illinois Democrats have asked for over $41 billion in financial aid, ostensibly related to the costs of the coronavirus pandemic, but in reality specifically earmarked to make up the shortfall in state pension funding, pay off the state’s deficit, and basically cover their overspending for the past decade or two. The money has little or nothing to do with the coronavirus, but everything to do with ensuring that their past misdeeds are paid for by the taxpayers of the entire United States, not just those in Illinois. What’s more, you and I know full well that if they succeed, they won’t change their spendthrift ways. Within a few years, they’ll have dug themselves into yet another fiscal hole, and demand to be bailed out yet again – citing this bailout as precedent.
‘Like watching a train wreck’: The coronavirus effect on North Dakota shale oilfields (Sparky1)
With businesses locked down and billions of people staying at home, demand for oil to fuel cars, planes and industry has dropped around 30% worldwide. The resulting supply glut has pushed U.S. crude prices well below production costs, forcing companies to start winding down operations. Producers are shutting down the higher-cost output first – and those are also the operations likely to stay shut the longest.
Meat Shortages and Our Broken Food Supply Chain! (Sparky1)
Meat suppliers across the US are announcing temporary closures due to Covid 19 which may lead to meat shortages. The chairman of Tysons Meats has said our Food Supply Chain is Breaking. How did this happen and what can we do to help ourselves?
Meatpackers cautiously reopen plants amid coronavirus fears (Sparky1)
Virginia-based Smithfield is offering COVID-19 testing to all employees and their family members, according to a text message sent to employees. The message told employees to report to a local high school to be tested. Gov. Kristi Noem said employees aren’t required to undergo tests before returning to work, though it’s strongly encouraged. Noem’s health commissioner, Kim Malsam-Rysdon, said it was Smithfield’s decision to make the tests optional.
‘We don’t know how it will end’: Hunger stalks amid virus (Sparky1)
Janeth and her husband, Roberto, are part of the greatest surge in unemployment in the U.S. since the Depression, setting off a wave of hunger that is swamping food programs nationwide. The couple and every adult member of their extended family in the U.S. have lost their jobs in the economic lockdown prompted by the pandemic.
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