“Whatever the atmosphere is, and I would hope that everyone would say, no matter who the nominee is for president, we wholeheartedly embrace that person,” she said, in a private caucus meeting on Wednesday morning, according to an aide in the room.
According to a person familiar with the private conversations, Mr. Schumer told people he had so far stayed out of the primary because many members of his caucus were running. He argued that there was one school of thought that you needed to win the base and one that you needed to bring new voters in, and said that he did not yet know which candidate would be able to accomplish those goals.
A number of superdelegates dream of a savior candidate who is not now in the race, perhaps Mr. Brown, or maybe someone who already dropped out the race, like Senator Kamala Harris of California.
Representative Don Beyer of Virginia cast an even wider net, suggesting senators from Virginia and Delaware, along with Ms. Pelosi, as possible nominees.
“At some point you could imagine saying, ‘Let’s go get Mark Warner, Chris Coons, Nancy Pelosi,’” he said, while preparing to introduce the former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., at a campaign event near his home on Sunday. “Somebody that could win and we could all get behind and celebrate.”
MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee police today identified the five victims of the Molson Coors shooting as well as the gunman, who took his own life.
The victims, all of whom lived in Wisconsin, are:
Jesus Valle Jr., 33 of Milwaukee
Gennady Levshetz, 61, of Mequon
Trevor Wetselaar, 33, of Milwaukee
Dana Walk, 57, of Delafield
Dale Hudson, 50, of Waukesha
They were power house operators, machinists and electricians, Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales said.
Police identified the shooter as Anthony N. Ferrill, 51, who had worked as an electrician for more than 20 years, about 17 of them at Molson Coors.
Ferrill had been showing signs of bizarre behavior in recent months, telling at least one co-worker that he believed brewery workers were coming into his home, bugging his computer and moving chairs around, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
He opened fire at his workplace on Wednesday, killing the five victims before fatally turning the gun on himself.
The brewery, which was founded in 1855 as Miller Brewing Company, is a legendary part of Milwaukee’s beer brewing tradition.
The mass shooting, the largest in the United States in 2020 to date, has shaken residents and city leaders.
All 15 members of the Milwaukee Common Council released a statement Thursday calling for people to support each other, especially the families and friends of the victims.
“This is an unimaginable horror and we stand with them in their sorrow. We must not yield to despair or weariness, even as violence of this kind continues with disturbing frequency,” aldermen said. “It is in the face of events like these that we most need to find support in community — in a coming together with a common purpose to bring healing and peace. Together, we are, and will remain, Milwaukee Strong.”
The new White House approach came as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged Thursday that a California woman with coronavirus was made to wait days before she was tested for the disease because of the agency’s restrictive criteria about who may get tested.
And despite Mr. Trump’s efforts to calm the nation’s jittery investors, stock markets plunged again Thursday morning, opening about 2 percent lower amid concerns about the potential effects of the virus on the global economy. Earlier, European and Japanese stocks fell as well, closing more than 2 percent lower.
The president’s decision to appoint Mr. Pence to lead the coronavirus response came after several days in which his aides grappled with whether to name a “coronavirus czar” to coordinate the alphabet soup of federal health and security agencies that have roles to play in protecting the country.
Mr. Trump said at his news conference that he was pleased with Mr. Azar’s performance, calling the team that he has led “totally brilliant.” But White House aides, led by Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, have been debating for days whether the administration needed a point person to be the face of the response.
The decision to put Mr. Pence in charge was made on Wednesday after the president told some people that the vice president didn’t “have anything else to do,” according to people familiar with the president’s comments.
Dr. Birx has spent more than three decades working on H.I.V./AIDS immunology, vaccine research, and global health, according to the White House, which said in a statement that she would “bring her infectious disease, immunologic, vaccine research and interagency coordinating capacity to this position.”
As the outbreak of the new coronavirus continues to grow, experts around the world are working tirelessly to understand the characteristics of the mysterious new disease named COVID-19. That includes calculating its death rate, and seeing how it compares to that of other deadly diseases like Ebola, SARS and MERS.
What is known among experts as the case fatality rate—but commonly referred to as the mortality or fatality rate—is calculated by dividing the number of deaths by the total number of people infected. For instance, if 100 people die out of 1,000 people infected by any given disease, the mortality rate would be 10 percent.
As such, the mortality rate of a disease is changeable, and depends on a range of factors including the location of an outbreak, the health status of the infected person, and how much data has been accurately collected on the cases and deaths caused by the disease.
For the new coronavirus, which causes a disease called COVID-19, the average mortality rate is estimated to be in the range of 1 to 3 percent, Mike Tildesley, associate professor in the department of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick told Newsweek.
A summary of a report on over 72,000 COVID-19 cases by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the journal JAMA on Monday showed the case fatality rate was 2.3 percent of average, spiking to 80 percent in patients aged between 70 to 79-years-old, and dropping to 14.8 percent in those aged 80 and above.
On Wednesday, NBC News reported the mortality rate in Iran—which has seen a spike in cases since it reported its first case last week—was around 14 percent. At the same time, as only 60 COVID-19 cases have been reported in the U.S. and no one has died, it isn’t currently appropriate to estimate a mortality rate for that country, Tildesley explained.
Differences in reporting and healthcare systems in individual countries and their ability to manage outbreaks also affect the figure, Tildesley said. For example, officials in China changed how they count cases at least twice.
What’s more, we still don’t know how many people are infected but haven’t shown symptoms and are therefore missing from the available data on cases, Tildesley said. “If this figure is high, then the true mortality rate will be significantly lower than the current estimates.”
At present, COVID-19’s fatality rate is relatively low compared to other deadly virus outbreaks in recent memory. Ebola, which in 2014 killed over 11,000 people in West Africa, has had a fatality rate between 25 percent to 90 percent depending on the outbreak.
SARS and MERS—fellow members of the large coronavirus family of viruses which now includes COVID-19—have mortality rates of around 10 percent and 35 percent, respectively, Tildesley said. Since it emerged in 2012, MERShas killed 858 people, while 8,098 people died of SARS during the 2003 outbreak.
As reflected in the map by Statista below, fresh cases of COVID-19 have popped up in new countries almost daily in the past couple of days, with concerning clusters appearing in Italy, South Korea, and Iran. On Wednesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported what is suspected to be the first example of what is known as “community spread.” So, with all this going on, should the general public worry about figures like mortality rates or instead simply focus on preventing the spread of infection?
“It is completely understandable to be worried about mortality rates and evidence suggests that those most at risk are the elderly and those with underlying health conditions,” said Tildesley.
“The best course of action is for us to try to minimise further spread of disease. It is important for us to follow good hygiene practices such as regular handwashing, covering coughs and sneezes with tissues, avoiding contact with people who are sick and in those cases, avoiding contact with the eyes, nose and mouth,” he said.
Addressing fears that the virus could soon be declared a pandemic (where a pathogen has spread widely within two or more countries other than the first one to report it) Tildesley said: “The virus is concerning as we are now seeing spread in several countries in the world, so it is important to remain vigilant and to maintain the intervention protocols that are currently being put in place.
However, he cautioned: “The use of the term ‘pandemic’ can sometimes be distracting to the general public as it may give the impression that we are dealing with a virus that is ‘uncontrollable’ and spreading throughout the world.
“What should be stated is that health services around the world should be prepared for the possibility that COVID-19 cases may start to spread in their country and to ensure that contingency plans are in place to reduce the risk of large scale transmission,” Tildesley argued.
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — Health officials have confirmed that a new coronavirus case of unknown origin has been diagnosed in Solano County. An official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the diagnosis late Wednesday afternoon. The patient is receiving medical care at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, UC Davis officials said Wednesday night. The California Department of Public Health then confirmed the individual is a resident of Solano County.
UC Davis Medical Center said the patient was transferred there from another Northern California hospital on Wednesday, Feb. 19. Upon arrival, the patient had already been intubated, was on a ventilator and was given droplet protection orders because of an “undiagnosed and suspected viral condition.”
The patient tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday. The patient wasn’t immediately tested for COVID-19 because the patient “did not fit the existing CDC criteria,” the UC Davis memo said. “UC Davis Health does not control the testing process,” it continued.
UC Davis infectious disease expert Dr. Dean Blumberg says that the testing for the virus is limited right now. “We’d like to have more widespread testing so we know where this virus is, who is sick and who is at risk,” said Dr. Blumberg.
This is the first case in the state not associated with the Diamond Princess cruise ship or with someone who had returned to Northern California from visiting China.
The new case is also the first sign of the virus possibly spreading in a local community outside of cases that have been under quarantine. It’s the possible first case of person-to-person transmission of the novel virus in the country among the general public.
“There are probably other cases out there in the community that we don’t know about,” said Blumberg. He says this one patient getting sick means the disease may be spreading in the Bay Area.
“We have other cases that are currently circulating in the community and that anybody can get it,” says Dr. Blumberg.
“At this time, the patient’s exposure is unknown,” a press release from the CDC read. “It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of COVID-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States. Community spread means spread of an illness for which the source of infection is unknown. It’s also possible, however, that the patient may have been exposed to a returned traveler who was infected.”
The CDC said the case “was detected through the U.S. public health system — picked up by astute clinicians.”
UC Davis says out of an abundance of caution, a handful of employees who cared for the patient will stay home to see if they get sick.
The new case brings the total number of coronavirus cases in the United States to 15.
California congressman John Garamendi, who represents the state’s District 3 that includes Sacramento County, said he’s aware of the patient being treated. “I am in close contact with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the State of California and will pass along any updates as they become available,” he said in a tweet.
“We all have the responsibility to protect ourselves and others by washing our hands and carrying out procedures to avoid infecting ourselves and others. Please monitor CDC’s website and Facebook for further information,” he added.
Wednesday afternoon, President Trump made a rare appearance in the White House briefing room to announce VP Mike Pence will lead the country’s cornonavirus task force.
“Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low,” the President said.
A Senior White House official tells CBS the President is taking over messaging to prevent the stock market from falling as concerns over the coronavirus outbreak have seriously impacted global markets over the past few days.
Since Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped more than 2,000 points. Dow futures fell 53 point, indicating a loss of 74 points that will kick off Thursday’s opening bell.
Health experts question whether downplaying the risk is the right approach to take with a virus that has spread so rapidly in other countries.
“Nobody here has been exposed to it. That means we are all susceptible to it. That means if you do get a significant exposure, we will get infected. There’s really not a question of that,” says Dr. Blumberg.
Officials have started tracing the contacts the new coronavirus case has had to determine how the person might have been infected and who else may have been exposed.
A number of coronavirus patients have been receiving treatment under isolated conditions at greater Bay Area hospitals, but those patients had contracted the virus while on the Diamond Princess in Japan.
Late Tuesday afternoon, Sonoma County health officials confirmed one case of coronavirus was being treated at a county hospital after being transported from Travis AFB Monday night.
The patients, who were among the recent U.S. evacuees from the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan, were receiving care in Contra Costa due to a lack of space at facilities closer to the base that can properly isolate them to minimize the risk of spreading the virus.
While the three patients have tested positive for COVID-19, they haven’t begun to show symptoms of the virus, such as fever and difficulty breathing. However, the CDC’s agreement with the Department of Defense requires any evacuee who tests positive to be moved from the base.
“Our county’s healthcare system is prepared to handle COVID-19,” said Contra Costa Health Services Dr. Chris Farnitano. “We have been working with our hospital partners to follow safety protocols to keep patients and healthcare workers safe and minimize the risk of the virus spreading in Contra Costa.”
The addition of the four new cases among Diamond Princess passengers evacuated to Travis raises the national case count to a total of 60.
Earlier Tuesday, CDC officials announced that COVID-19 was edging closer to becoming an official pandemic.
Dr. Nancy Messonnier with the CDC said it is not a matter of if, but when the new virus will spread in the U.S. and how many Americans will have severe illness.
The doctor said the U.S. needs to employ new strategies to blunt impact of disease and slow spread after global reports of additional cases occurring without any known source of exposure in Italy and South Korea.
However, the CDC believes the U.S. strategy currently in place has slowed the coronavirus entry and spread and that containment in the U.S. has been successful so far.
“Unfortunately, I am devastated to share that we lost five other members of our family in this tragic incident,” Molson Coors’s chief executive, Gavin Hattersley, said in a statement. “There are no words to express the deep sadness many of us are feeling right now.”
The gunman was also an employee, and killed himself after the attack.
The police said that the gunman was a 51-year-old Milwaukee man who was wearing his company uniform as he carried out the shooting. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, they said, but they did not disclose a motive or say what type of weapon he used.
Mr. Hattersley confirmed that the gunman was an employee.
The shooting began in the afternoon, and a lockdown lasted for hours.
People began calling in to the Police Department with reports of gunfire at about 2 p.m. Wednesday. As officers from several departments raced to the area, which is west of downtown, schools went on lockdown and residents were told to stay away.
The police continued to search the Molson Coors campus for hours after the shooting. Some workers remained stuck inside the complex late into the evening waiting for the police to finish their search and clear the workers to go home.
The brewery is an icon in Milwaukee.
State Senator LaTonya Johnson, a Democrat whose district includes the Molson Coors complex and its towering “Home of the High Life” sign, said the facility was a point of pride in Milwaukee. The company, still known to many in the area by its former name, MillerCoors, continued to invest in the city and pay competitive wages even when some other employers left. For $10, visitors could tour the complex, including its famous beer caves, and sample its beverages.
More new cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus have been reported outside China than within the country for the first time since the outbreak, including a new case in California which may be the first indication of a “community spread” of the virus in the U.S., where a person with no exposure to an infected patient contracts the virus, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned on Wednesday.
With new cases confirmed in Brazil (marking the first in Latin America), Algeria, and hundreds more across South Korea and Europe, at least 23 new cases in Australia and others in the Middle East, the virus has now reached every continent except Antarctica.
The deadly virus, which was first identified in Wuhan city of the Hubei province of China, has infected at least 81,109 people globally, around 78,191 of whom are in China, with at least 2,718 deaths reported in the country, according to a February 26 report by the World Health Organization (WHO). There have been around 2,800 deaths from the virus reported across nearly 47 countries, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University.
For the first time since December 2019, when the virus appeared in China, the number of new cases outside the country has exceeded the number within, with 459 new patients reported outside China, while 412 new cases have been confirmed in China, as of February 26.
While the WHO declared the virus a public health emergency last month, it has yet to declare it pandemic.
“Using the word pandemic carelessly has no tangible benefit, but it does have significant risk in terms of amplifying unnecessary and unjustified fear and stigma, and paralyzing systems,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a WHO weekly mission briefing on Wednesday.
“It may also signal that we can no longer contain the virus, which is not true. We are in a fight that can be won if we do the right things.
“For the moment, we are not witnessing sustained and intensive community transmission of this virus, and we are not witnessing large-scale severe disease or death.
But he added, “Do not mistake me: I am not downplaying the seriousness of the situation, or the potential for this to become a pandemic, because it has that potential. Every scenario is still on the table.
“On the contrary, we are saying that this virus has pandemic potential and WHO is providing the tools for every country to prepare accordingly.
“The primary objective of all countries with cases must be to contain the virus,” he said.
Potential community spread in the U.S.
With the origin of the new coronavirus case in northern California unknown, the latest incident may be the first person-to-person transmission of the virus in the U.S., where the infected individual had no “relevant travel history or exposure to another known patient,” the CDC said in a statement on Wednesday, CNN reported.
The latest patient’s “exposure is unknown,” the CDC confirmed in the statement.
“It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of Covid-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States,” it added.
The patient from Solano County is being treated at the UC Davis Medical Center in California and is not linked to the Diamond Princess cruise ship, the California Department of Public Health confirmed (CDPH), NBC Bay Area reported.
Several Americans had been evacuated from the Princess Cruises ship which was quarantined at sea for around two weeks in Japan after a passenger from Hong Kong was found to have been infected. Anyone diagnosed among the American evacuees were sent to hospitals in the areas surrounding the Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield. The latest patient “had no known exposure to the virus through travel or close contact with a known infected individual,” the CDPH said in a statement.
The U.S. has reported about 60 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, including 42 passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, according to the latest figures from the CDC. The fourth death from infected passengers was reported earlier this week. Earlier this week, the CDC warned the U.S. to prepare for the community spread of the virus.
“We expect we will see community spread in this country [U.S.],” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, stated at a press briefing on Tuesday.
“It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness.
“We are asking the American public to work with us to prepare in the expectation that this could be bad,” she added.
“Now is the time for US businesses, hospitals, and communities to begin preparing for the possible spread of #COVID19. CDC continues to work with business, education & healthcare sectors, encouraging employers to be prepared,” the CDC wrote in a post on its official Twitter account on Tuesday.
The U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary, Alex Azar, said at a press conference on Tuesday, “The immediate risk to the general American public remains low. But, as we have warned, that has the potential to change quickly.”
First case in Latin America
Brazil reported its first coronavirus case on Wednesday, marking the first infection in Latin America.
The infected patient was reported to be a 61-year-old man who had recently returned from a trip to Lombardy, one of the Italian regions where at least 10 towns are under quarantine following the recent spike in cases across the country.
There are suspected to be around 20 cases in Brazil, 12 of which are linked to recent trips to Italy, according to Brazil’s health minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta, Reuters reported. The figure is expected to rise as more Brazilian tourists return from their travels, he added.
“We still don’t have all the answers for how coronavirus will behave in the Southern Hemisphere,” he said.
The first infected patient is being treated at the Albert Einstein Israelite Hospital, where he will remain in quarantine for 14 days. He was reported to be in good condition, according to a statement from the hospital.
Brazilian authorities are tracing 90 or so people with whom the patient was in contact, including his wife and passengers near him on his flight, as well as the 30 guests he had received at his home the day before he was admitted to the hospital, Reuters reported.
South Korea sees nearly 500 new cases
South Korea, where the virus has been spreading rapidly, has reported at least 449 additional cases of the virus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to at least 1,595, according to the latest report by the Korea Centers for Disease Control (KCDC).
Earlier this week, a U.S. soldier stationed at Camp Carroll, a military base in South Korea, tested positive for COVID-19, marking the first time a U.S. service member has tested positive for the virus, the United States Forces Korea announced in a statement.
The city of Daegu has become the epicenter of the outbreak, claiming around 1,017 cases so far, while the Gyeongsangbukdo province has seen 321. Seoul has reported 55 cases, while Busan, the country’s second-most populous city, has reported 58 infected patients.
The majority of the cases have been linked to members of the religious group known as the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony (SCJ), which reportedly holds services in large masses with members sitting on the floor in close proximity for periods of one to two hours.
Suspicions that the secretive cult may have been a major source of the recent outbreak were raised after several members of the cult reportedly contracted the virus from an infected female member in her 60s who attended a service at a SCJ facility in Daegu.
Several countries, including Japan, Singapore, and the Philippines, have since placed a ban on the entry of travelers from South Korea following fears over the spread of the virus.
Royal Caribbean, the major cruise line, has also turned away travelers from countries heavily affected by the virus, including South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Italy, in view of the growing outbreak, the company noted in a statement on its website. It also canceled 30 cruises to Southeast Asia, Reuter reported.
The U.S. CDC’s elevated travel warning for South Korea remains in effect, advising U.S. citizens to “avoid all nonessential travel to South Korea,” warning that “there is limited access to adequate medical care in affected areas.”
The U.S. State Department also raised its travel warning for South Korea to Level 2, which advises travelers to “Exercise Increased Caution” since “sustained community spread has been reported in South Korea.”
“Sustained community spread means that people in South Korea have been infected with the virus, but how or where they became infected is not known, and the spread is ongoing,” the department wrote on its website.
The outbreak continues in Europe, with 25 percent surge in Italy
Italy, which has been hit with the greatest outbreak of the virus in Europe, has reported more than 400 cases as of Wednesday, around 80 more cases than the previous day, and 12 deaths, Reuters reported.
More than 50,000 residents of the Lombardy and Veneto regions have been placed on lockdown following the initial outbreak in the north of the country. At least two cases have also been reported in southern Italy, in Tuscany and Sicily.
The governor of the Lombardy region, Attilio Fontana, placed himself in quarantine after one of his staff was diagnosed with the disease.
“For now I don’t have any type of infection so I can continue to work… but for two weeks I will try to live in a sort of self-isolation,” he noted on Facebook, Reuters reported.
Elsewhere in Europe, seven new cases were confirmed in Germany (bringing its confirmed cases to 19), while France reported its second death from the virus, with 18 total confirmed cases as of Wednesday.
“There is no epidemic in the country, just isolated cases”, French health minister Olivier Veran said during a news conference. Twelve of the infected have been cured and four have been hospitalized, the director of the health ministry, Jerome Salomon, said according to Al Jazeera.
Health authorities in Norway, Finland, North Macedonia, and Georgia all announced their first case in each country, linked to people who’ve recently been to China, Italy, and Iran.
Several other European countries, including Greece, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia, and mainland Spain, also reported their first cases of the virus, all of which involved people who had traveled to Italy.
Evacuations ordered in Iran as virus spreads in the Middle East
There are around 220 confirmed cases across the Middle East, with the WHO confirming the virus has spread to Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, and Oman. Lebanon reported its second case, which was linked to a trip to Iran. The woman is currently in quarantine at a hospital, the country’s health ministry said in a statement, Al Jazeera reported.
The death toll in Iran has risen to at least 22, with 141 confirmed cases, according to Iran’s IRNA news agency, Gulf News reported.
Iraq has banned all public gatherings as well as the entry of travelers from Kuwait and Bahrain, in addition to anyone coming from China, Iran, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, and Italy, the country’s health minister confirmed.
Saudi Arabia has also suspended all pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina in a drastic measure to help curb the spread of the virus.
The government of Qatar ordered the evacuation of all Qatari and Kuwaiti citizens in Iran, Al Jazeera reported, while Kuwait Airways is also planning to send a plane to evacuate citizens in Italy, according to a post on its official Twitter account.
The graphic below, provided by Statista, illustrates the spread of the COVID-19 virus as of February 27.
Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh and her attorney arrive for a sentencing hearing in Baltimore on Thursday. Pugh pleaded guilty to federal fraud, tax and conspiracy charges last year.
Steve Ruark/AP
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Steve Ruark/AP
Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh and her attorney arrive for a sentencing hearing in Baltimore on Thursday. Pugh pleaded guilty to federal fraud, tax and conspiracy charges last year.
Steve Ruark/AP
Updated at 1:15 p.m. ET
Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh was sentenced to three years in federal prison Thursday.
It was just months ago she pleaded guilty to federal fraud, tax and conspiracy charges over a scheme involving sales of her self-published Healthy Holly children’s books.
Prosecutors had been seeking a five-year prison sentence for the 69-year-old Democrat who had served in Baltimore for decades.
Pugh’s lawyers had asked the judge for a more lenient prison sentence of one year and one day, noting that she is a first-time offender and she entered a guilty plea.
BREAKING: Pugh will serve a 3 year sentence, somewhere in the middle of the 5 years prosecutors asked for and the 1 year 1 day her lawyers countered with
She pleaded guilty in November to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the government and two counts of tax evasion.
Ahead of Thursday’s sentencing, her lawyers submitted a 13-minute video to the judge in which she apologizes and says the nearly yearlong legal saga created a “ringing negativity” in the city of Baltimore.
“First, I want to apologize to the citizens, to young people, to partners, to my friends, everyone I’ve offended, everyone I’ve hurt and the city’s image by pleading guilty and by being involved in all of this that has led me here today,” Pugh says in the video, according to The Baltimore Sun.
“I accept responsibility. I accept total responsibility. I’ve plead guilty. I’m sorry,” she says.
Pugh resigned as mayor in May 2019 as allegations of “self-dealing” in connection with the sale of thousands of copies of her Healthy Holly children’s books engulfed her administration.
Prior to her resignation, federal investigators were looking into the book sales, many of which went to entities she had influence over or businesses that hoped to do business with the city and the state.
Prosecutors had accused Pugh of earning approximately $800,000 from the Healthy Holly book series about an African American girl who promoted exercise and nutritional eating habits.
“But the problem was thousands of books that nonprofits and foundations ordered to distribute in schools and day cares to promote healthy choices and combat obesity were never delivered to the city’s children,” as NPR reported in November.
“Instead, authorities say she took books that were already purchased and resold them. Pugh then funneled those proceeds into her own political campaigns and used the cash to purchase and renovate a house in Baltimore.”
In early April, Pugh took an “indefinite leave of absence” as mayor, citing health challenges as the reason. By then, the book scandal had already jeopardized her term in office.
That same month, federal agents with the FBI and IRS raided Pugh’s home and offices at City Hall in connection to their investigation into the fraudulent book scheme. Hours after the raids, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan called for Pugh’s resignation.
He said at the time: “Now more than ever, Baltimore City needs strong and responsible leadership. Mayor Pugh has lost the public trust. She is clearly not fit to lead.”
She would remain in office for another week.
Pugh’s career in Maryland politics spanned decades.
She was first elected to the Baltimore City Council in 1999 and won a seat in the Maryland State Senate in 2007. During that time, she drew widespread praise during the unrest in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray, a young black man who died while in police custody in 2015.
Pugh, along with the late Rep. Elijah Cummings, spent hours trying to quell distressed crowds in the streets of West Baltimore. She sang “This Little Light of Mine,” according to the Sun, and told residents, “We are a great city.”
In 2016 she was elected as Baltimore’s 50th mayor.
Globally, more than 80,000 people in more than 40 countries have been infected. Nearly 2,800 have died, the vast majority in China’s Hubei province.
Iran, where 26 people have died, has cancelled Friday prayers in Tehran
Saudi Arabia is stopping foreign pilgrims entering the country. It is not clear if the Hajj pilgrimage, which begins in July this year, will be affected
Australia is extending a ban on foreign visitors from mainland China
Italy, where 14 people have died, has quarantined 11 towns
Greece is cancelling all carnival activities
Media captionCoronavirus: Five countries, five responses
Why is Japan closing schools?
The closures are set to take effect on Monday and will last until the end of spring vacation – typically in early April.
Mr Abe said the first weeks of March would be an “extremely critical period” for preventing virus transmission.
“The government attaches the top priority to the health and safety of children,” he said.
It follows China’s decision not to reopen schools on the mainland after the Spring Festival holiday and instead ask nearly 200 million students to follow classes online from their homes. Hong Kong is also keeping schools closed until April.
Media captionFive ways to self-isolate successfully to prevent the spread of coronavirus
Many parents in Japan are concerned about what they will do with their children.
“My honest feeling – all schools on break? It’s important to protect children, but what happens if they have working parents?” one parent wrote on social media.
Officials say child day care centres and after-school facilities can remain open.
More than 200 people have so far been infected with the coronavirus in Japan.
One woman in her forties in Osaka is said to have tested positive for a second time after earlier recovering.
A tour guide who had come into contact with visitors from the Chinese city of Wuhan where the outbreak began, she first tested positive in late January and was discharged from hospital on 1 February, a statement said.
Meanwhile, health officials in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong say some patients there who recovered and were discharged from hospital have again tested positive.
The authorities in both countries say they will track former patients after they are discharged from hospital.
Is it possible to be re-infected?
By Philippa Roxby, health reporter, BBC News
There is still much that scientists don’t know about this virus – and that includes the possibility of it infecting people more than once.
Reports from China and Japan suggest that a small number of people recovered from the virus and then tested positive again within weeks.
But there may be several reasons why that appears to be the case.
Firstly, the virus may not have completely gone away before they were discharged and allowed home, and then may have got worse again.
Image copyright EPA
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Face masks on sale in the Pakistani city of Peshawar
Secondly, although tests are used to determine if the virus is still present, they are not always accurate and may not be sensitive enough to detect dormant virus or very low-level symptoms.
Anal swabs, which have been used, are not totally reliable at picking up the virus either.
The fact is that more information on these specific cases is needed before scientists can come to any conclusions about whether the virus gives future immunity.
If re-infection is possible, some experts say the virus could act like the flu or common cold and infect people on a seasonal basis.
What is happening elsewhere?
Iran has emerged as a major centre of coronavirus, with 26 deaths and nearly 250 confirmed cases.
Several government officials are among those infected – including Vice-President for Women and Family Affairs Masoumeh Ebtekar, according to state media. Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi and two MPs also have the virus.
Ms Ebtekar’s symptoms are reportedly not severe and she is not in hospital.
The WHO’s Michael Ryan said the extent of infection in Iran “may be broader than we think”.
But he said the country had a “very high clinical capacity” and the current 10% death rate for cases there probably reflected screening that was not picking up mild coronavirus cases.
Image copyright EPA
Image caption
Iran has seen 26 deaths so far
Health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur called on Iranians to avoid “unnecessary trips inside the country”.
Kuwait and Bahrain recorded more cases on Thursday, all in people who had visited Iran, bringing their totals to 43 and 33 respectively. Lebanon has announced its third confirmed case, an Iranian citizen.
South Korea saw new cases bringing its total infections to 1,261 with 12 deaths. Singapore said a 12-year-old student at the top Raffles Institution school was among three new cases, bringing its total to 96.
Media captionQuiet on Venice streets amid coronavirus fears
In Europe, Italy had 453 infections and 12 deaths. Denmark recorded its first case in a man back from a ski holiday in Italy and Estonia saw its first case in someone returning from Iran.
The US has recorded its first confirmed case on US soil, the 60th in the country overall. The unidentified person in California had “no relevant travel history or exposure to another known patient” with the virus, officials said.
The ministry reported there had been 139 cases of the coronavirus in Iran on Wednesday, with 19 deaths nationwide.
Earlier this week, Iran’s Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi tested positive for the coronavirus, following an appearance on state television where he looked visibly feverish and coughed into a tissue several times.
In the Middle East, health authorities from Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates have all said they have cases of the coronavirus that stemmed from Iran.
China’s National Health Commission reported an additional 433 cases of the coronavirus on Thursday, with 29 deaths nationwide. It brings the country’s total to 78,497 cases, and 2,744 deaths.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s announcement Wednesday that his vice president will lead the administration’s response to the coronavirus put the spotlight on Mike Pence’s handling of a major health crisis when he was Indiana’s governor.
Critics have faulted Pence for what they call his slow and inadequate response to the nation’s first HIV outbreak linked to the injection of oral painkillers in 2015.
Pence initially opposed allowing a clean-needle exchange that health officials advocated to slow the spread of infection. Studies in medical journals have said the outbreak could have been prevented if the state had acted faster.
“As Governor of Indiana, an HIV/AIDS epidemic flourished until he allowed public health—not ideology—to direct policy & response,” tweeted Leana Wen, the past head of Planned Parenthood who now teaches at George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences. “I hope he now follows the guidance of the exceptional career public health leaders @CDCgov & in the admin.”
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is running for the Democratic nomination to challenge Trump, tweeted that the president’s response plans so far include having “VP Pence, who wanted to `pray away’ HIV epidemic, oversee the response.”
Southeastern Indiana became the face of the nation’s opioid addiction in 2015 after an unprecedented epidemic of HIV associated with intravenous drug use.
Addicts were injecting a liquefied form of the potent painkiller Opana more than 10 times a day. At one point, the cases of new HIV infections in rural Scott County exceeded the number of people infected with HIV through injection drug use in New York City in the previous year.
The outbreak highlighted the weaknesses in the state’s health infrastructure. Indiana ranked among the states with the fewest drug treatment providers and the lowest public health spending.
The state also banned needle exchange programs.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention strongly advocated Indiana remove the ban. But Pence had been opposed to needle exchanges as anti-drug policy.
“I do not enter into this lightly,” he said at the time. “I don’t believe effective anti-drug policy involves handing out drug paraphernalia.”
A 2018 study by the Yale School of Public Health that appeared in The Lancet found that the number of HIV infections – 235 – could have been drastically reduced if the state had acted faster.
A 2016 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded the crisis had been preventable.
“Substantial barriers to syringe exchange (i.e. laws prohibiting syringe exchange or syringe possession, lack of funding or of a community organization to implement the syringe exchange, and stigma) existed in this community before this outbreak,” the article said.
The study also noted that free HIV testing had not been available in the community since a Planned Parenthood clinic closed in 2013.
Federal and state funding cuts had prompted Planned Parenthood to close five rural clinics in Indiana.While a Planned Parenthood official said in 2015 that she couldn’t make a direct link between the closure and the outbreak, one of the centers had been providing HIV tests in Scott County and could have reported any positive results to the state.
Paul Halverson, dean of Indiana University’s Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, has given a lot of credit for Pence’s turnaround on needle exchange programs to Jerome Adams, who was Indiana’s state health commissioner and is now the surgeon general. Halverson has said Adams helped Pence “understand the scientific aspects related to syringe exchanges.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., tweeted Wednesday that Pence “put ideology over science & contributed to one of the worst HIV crises his state had ever seen.”
“We need competence & science driving our response – that’s not the VP’s record,” Merkley added.
At the White House news conference announcing the appointment, Pence did not respond to a Yahoo News reporter’s attempt to ask him about his handling of the HIV outbreak.
Trump lauded Pence’s record on health care when he was governor of Indiana.
“He is really very expert at the field,” Trump said. “Anybody that knows anything about health care, they look at the Indiana model.”
Pence did mention a different health issue he dealt with as governor. In 2014, the first Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) case in the United States emerged in Indiana.
Pence said he learned from that experience the importance of presidential leadership and of partnerships with state and local governments and health authorities in responding to dangerous infectious diseases.
Pence said he will work with the administration’s existing coronavirus task force to bring to Trump the “best options for action to see to the safety and well being and health of the American people.”
Contributing: The Indianapolis Star and The (Louisville) Courier-Journal.
Iran’s health ministry has confirmed 106 additional cases of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of infections up to 245.
Iran’s death toll as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak has also been raised to 26, Kianoush Jahanpour, a spokesperson for the Islamic Republic’s health ministry, said Thursday.
Iran is at the epicenter of the outbreak in the Middle East, having recorded the highest number of coronavirus fatalities outside China.
Health authorities from Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates have all reported cases of the coronavirus that stemmed from Iran.
Earlier on Thursday, Saudi Arabia announced it would temporarily suspend the entry of foreigners for pilgrimage and tourism purposes. (See 1:57 p.m. update). — Sam Meredith
Former Democratic presidential candidate and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio reacts to former Mayor Bloomberg’s controversial comments about the policy, weighs in on the current 2020 Democratic field.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio appeared on “Hannity” Wednesday and ripped his predecessor and current Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg over his controversial comments defending the police practice of “stop and frisk.”
In a recently resurfaced 2015 speech to the Aspen Institute, Bloomberg acknowledged that “stop and frisk” targeted minority “kids” whom cops had to throw “up against the wall” to disarm.
“Is that [Bloomberg’s comments] racist to you?” host Sean Hannity asked de Blasio after playing a clip of the remarks.
“Oh, sure, Sean,” said the mayor, who has endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for the Democratic nomination. “Thank you for playing that for your millions of viewers, because now more people get to see who Mike Bloomberg really is.”
“He’s totally out of touch with the people of his own city when he says that. It’s derogatory, it’s unfair, it’s not truthful,” de Blasio added. “But on top of that, what happened? It made it harder for the police and the community to communicate and be on the same page. It created tons of pain for parents [and] grandparents trying to bring up their kids the right way.”
De Blasio, who ended his own campaign for the Democratic nomination in September, slammed Bloomberg as an elitist who cannot relate “everyday people.”
“When you watch Michael Bloomberg on that debate stage, he’s got no clue what everyday people are going through. He doesn’t care to know,” de Blasio said. “When he was mayor here, if you tried to talk about what’s happening in neighborhoods, what was happening to everyday people, all he could think about was that elite he comes from.”
California motorists may see gasoline prices rise modestly as a result of the fire that erupted at the Marathon Petroleum refinery in Carson on Tuesday night.
Within a week or two, prices at the pump could inch up by 10 to 15 cents per gallon, said Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at Gas Buddy, a company that tracks real-time gas prices. California has already seen an initial effect, with wholesale prices in Los Angeles and San Francisco up about 7 and 12 cents, respectively, on Wednesday morning.
The Marathon refinery is the largest on the West Coast, able to process 350,000 barrels a day. It’s one of the refineries that produces the gasoline blend required by the California Air Resources Board to reduce pollution.
The fire was extinguished Wednesday morning. A portion of the refinery was shut down in response to the fire, Marathon said in a statement. It did not provide details on the extent of the damage.
The rise in prices due to the fire may be offset by fears of the coronavirus and a resulting worldwide drop in demand, which is driving global oil prices down significantly.
“It should not be a dramatic overnight spike,” DeHaan said of any price increase. “The silver lining is it’s happening at a time of year where demand is reduced and oil prices remain relatively low. The market may be reacting less than if it had happened out of the blue in the middle of summer,” which is the season with peak demand.
Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service, said it might be too early to tell how the fire will affect gas prices. If the refinery is shut down for just a short time or the company is able to keep operating despite some damage, prices should not be affected much.
“We saw an initial jump in prices, but it’s already started to cool a little. … Markets change, markets react, there’s a case to be made that the uptick in retail prices might be a bit more modest than anticipated,” he said. “The big question is, how long before they can get it back up and running?”
On an earnings call in early February, another Indian generic company, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, described the complexity of the supply chain. Some raw materials come almost exclusively from China, Dilip Shanghvi, managing director of Sun said, including antibiotics such as azithromycin, penicillin and cephalosporin. In a sign of how the supply chain can be hard to unravel, he noted that raw materials that were purchased in India might depend on ingredients sourced in China.
(CNN)President Donald Trump wants America to know he’s doing a great job in keeping out the novel coronavirus, in a victory lap that could look premature if his own experts are correct in their more somber forecasts.
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