Economy
U.S. labor market unexpectedly improves; recovery years away (Sparky1)
Economists said the government’s Paycheck Protection Program, part of a historic fiscal package worth nearly $3 trillion, offering businesses loans that can be partially forgiven if used for employee salaries, artificially juiced employment. They noted many sectors added jobs in May, though businesses remained shut.
This Treasury Official Is Running the Bailout. It’s Been Great for His Family. (Lisa D.)
When lockdowns crippled the economy in March, the Treasury and the Fed launched an unprecedented effort to buy up corporate debt to avert a freeze in lending at the exact moment businesses needed to borrow to keep running. That effort has succeeded, at least temporarily, with credit continuing to flow to companies over the last several weeks. This policy also allowed those who were heavily invested in corporate loans to recoup huge losses.
U.S. schools lay off hundreds of thousands, setting up lasting harm to kids (Sparky1)
That is more than the nearly 300,000 total during the entire 2008 Great Recession, according to a 2014 paper by three university economists financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. The number of public school teachers hasn’t recovered from that shakeout, reaching near-2008 levels only in 2019.
Video shows police in Buffalo, New York, shoving 75-year-old to ground (Sparky1)
The video taken by a reporter from local public radio station WBFO and posted on its website and Twitter account shows the white-haired man approaching a line of officers in riot gear. One officer pushes him with a baton and a second one with his hand. The sound of a crack is heard and then blood trickles from the man’s head. The man, who is white, is not identified.
“I was deeply disturbed by the video,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said in a statement. “After days of peaceful protests and several meetings between myself, police leadership and members of the community, tonight’s event is disheartening.”
2 Buffalo cops charged with assault after video shows officers shoving 75-year-old man to the ground (Sparky1)
Attorney Kelly V. Zarcone issued a statement from Martin Gugino, the man who was pushed to the ground, saying Gugino is “a longtime peaceful protester, human rights advocate, and overall fan of the US Constitution.”
57 Buffalo officers resign from Emergency Response Team after two cops suspended (Sparky1)
“If they resigned, I’m exceptionally disappointed by it because it indicates to me that they did not see anything wrong with the actions last night,” Poloncarz said at a press conference Friday.
The incident is one of several instances where police officers appear to be using excessive force against demonstrators protesting the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was killed in Minneapolis police custody last week.
Special Report: How union, Supreme Court shield Minneapolis cops (Sparky1)
In Minneapolis, officers have successfully used the qualified immunity doctrine to win civil lawsuits against them in federal courts. It is difficult to identify all excessive force lawsuits in federal court records, but Reuters found 28 such cases from 2006 through 2018 in which Minneapolis police officers raised a qualified immunity defense. Judges sided with the officers in 15 of those, ending the cases without a jury trial.
The union contract and the qualified immunity doctrine play a role in emboldening some officers to commit abuses, legal scholars say, but they don’t always provide a shield in cases that trigger criminal charges or unleash national media scrutiny — as has now happened in Minneapolis.
From Michael Brown to George Floyd: What We’ve Learned About Policing (tmn)
To better plumb the root causes of police violence, The Marshall Project has talked to a range of people who’ve immersed themselves in the issue. David Simon, most famous for creating “The Wire”, pointed to the drug war’s role in changing policing in the city where Freddie Gray was killed in police custody, sparking mass protests. In the wake of the Charleston church shootings that killed nine black parishioners, Bryan Stevenson, the author of “Just Mercy” and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, explored the historic role of the police in enforcing white supremacy in America. We also talked to those with searing personal encounters, such as Erica Garner, whose father, Eric Garner, died in Staten Island after a New York Police Department officer put him in a chokehold. His final words— “I can’t breathe”—were echoed by George Floyd as he died.
“They believe that in this current moment, the chaos that surrounds us is signaling the potential for an impending second civil war which, believe it or not, they are hoping for because they believe that will rid the United States of all its problems,” said Devin Burghart, executive director of the national Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights.
Antifa: Terrorist Group or Trump Scapegoat? (Sparky1)
For protests that turned violent, President Trump blames the far left, and saying he wants to designate Antifa – short for ‘Anti-Fascists’ – as a terrorist organization. But activist and Occupy Wall Street organizer Mark Bray hits back in a piece for the Washington Post. Bray joins Michel Martin to explain why he believes Trump’s bluster is a diversionary tactic.
‘Our community not guiltless’, says Indian-American group on recent African-American killings (newsbuoy)
The US-based advocacy group, which helps Indian-Americans join politics and run for elected offices, has observed that the recent killings of Floyd, Taylor and others have exposed the horrifying reality of anti-blackness in America.
“Many of us are here because of the tireless work of black and civil rights activists to open up immigration to America, and many more of us have benefited from the ‘myth of the model minority’.
Brands Have Nothing Real to Say About Racism (tmn)
But it has never been clearer than right now that brands aren’t your friend, when social media is awash in videos of riots and humans being assaulted, in the middle of a global pandemic, all while the president of the United States threatens to unleash the country’s military on its own populace. American brands have rushed to show where they stand, but it’s still uncertain what they intend to offer—what they can offer—beyond greater awareness of their existence and a vague sense of virtue.
The virus’s tale (thc0655)
Kilayko didn’t know the voice on the other end of the line. But she knew the woman’s role. This on-call epidemiologist for the state Department of Public Health’s hotline was a gatekeeper. And according to the state of Massachusetts on Tuesday, March 3, the virus had scarcely arrived here. Outbreaks in China and Italy were raging, but there were just over 100 official cases dotting the US, most of them a continent away in Washington and California. There had been two sick people identified in Massachusetts, but both were infected overseas and both were quickly isolated. As far as the state was concerned, the novel coronavirus was still a faraway problem.
The Black Plague (tmn)
It is easy to simply point to the prevalence of these health conditions among African-Americans as the most important explanation for their rising death rates. But it is also important to acknowledge that black vulnerability is especially heightened by the continued ineptitude of the federal government in response to the coronavirus. The mounting carnage in Trump’s America did not have to happen to the extent that it has. covid-19 testing remains maddeningly inconsistent and unavailable, with access breaking down along the predictable lines. In Philadelphia, a scientist at Drexel University found that, in Zip Codes with a “lower proportion of minorities and higher incomes,” a higher number of tests were administered. In Zip Codes with a higher number of unemployed and uninsured residents, there were fewer tests. Taken together, testing in higher-income neighborhoods is six times greater than it is in poorer neighborhoods.
We always aspire to perform our research in accordance with the highest ethical and professional guidelines. We can never forget the responsibility we have as researchers to scrupulously ensure that we rely on data sources that adhere to our high standards. Based on this development, we can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources. Due to this unfortunate development, the authors request that the paper be retracted.
Lancet retracts Hydroxychloroquine study (newsbuoy)
The WHO Data Safety Committee found no evidence of HCQ-linked mortality in Covid positive patients, asking the world body to resume trials and leaving The Lancet red-faced.
In its retraction notice regarding the article, The Lancet today said it could no longer vouch for the veracity of primary data used in the research. The journal also apologised.
Malaria Drug Promoted by Trump Did Not Prevent Covid Infections, Study Finds (Donna B.)
This type of study, in which patients are picked at random to receive either an experimental treatment or a placebo, is considered the most reliable way to measure the safety and effectiveness of a drug. The participants were health care workers and people who had been exposed at home to ill spouses, partners or parents.
In this paper, we raise the puzzling observations surrounding the identification, characterization, unique genome features of this RaTG13 strain, as well as its 100% nucleotide identity in partial RdRp gene with another bat coronavirus strain BtCoV/4991. And the paper presented premature hypothesis of potential bat origin of SARS-CoV-2 while RaTG13 strain was not successfully isolated. We also present the concerns on the methodology, data quality and experiment procedures described in this paper. We call for the authors to provide additional data, to share related samples to be verified and further characterized by other scientists.
Vitamin K found in some cheeses could help fight Covid-19, study suggests (AM)
He said: “We are in a terrible, horrible situation in the world. We do have an intervention which does not have any side effects, even less than a placebo. There is one major exception: people on anti-clotting medication. It is completely safe in other people.
“My advice would be to take those vitamin K supplements. Even if it does not help against severe Covid-19, it is good for your blood vessels, bones and probably also for the lungs.”
Earth has hottest May on record, with 2020 on track to be one of the top 10 warmest years (tmn)
“The last month has been the warmest May on record globally and this is unquestionably an alarming sign,” said Freja Vamborg, a scientist at Copernicus Climate Change Service, an intergovernmental agency that supports European climate policy.
“Even more concerning is the fact that average temperatures of the last 12 months have become one of the hottest 12-month periods ever recorded in our data set,” she said.
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The post Daily Digest 6/6 – Lancet Retracts Hydroxychloroquine study, How Union and Supreme Court Shield Minneapolis Cops appeared first on Peak Prosperity.
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