As many states move toward reopening after a horrific April that saw nearly 60,000 deaths because of the coronavirus, a new report offers a stark warning: A group of experts has concluded the pandemic could last as long as two years, until 60% to 70% of the population is immune.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is scheduled to leave the White House on Friday for the first time in a month to travel to Camp David, one day after the expiration of federal social distancing guidelines.
Our live blog is being updated throughout the day. Refresh for the latest news, and get updates in your inbox with The Daily Briefing.
Here are the most important developments Friday on the coronavirus pandemic.Scroll down for the latest updates.
Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, suggested social distancing could continue in some form through the summer as the White House quietly allowed official guidelines to expire. Meanwhile, a new report warns the pandemic could last up to two years, until the world hits the threshold for herd immunity.
Trump said Thursday he’s seen evidence suggesting the new virus originated in a Chinese virology lab. The president didn’t provide the evidence, but his top national intelligence official said the virus was not man-made or genetically modified, as scientists have concluded. The intelligence community “will continue to rigorously examine” the virus’ origin, the national intelligence director’s office said.
Some positive news today: If you’re a fan of “Parks and Recreation,” then you must catch the show’s quarantine special. It’ll make you laugh, cry and sing for Lil Sebastian.
El uso de mentiras y calumnias no es nuevo. Es tan viejo como la humanidad. La información siempre ha sido fuente de poder. Su manipulación tienen muchos nombres: guerra sucia, noticias falsas (fake news) o trascendidos.
En la era de lo instantáneo, los chismes y las infamias se mezclan, selectivamente, con trozos de verdad para disponer, al fragor de las batallas políticas, de municiones y morteros para ganar la guerra en el despiadado juego de la política. Lo que es notable, en torno a un tema tan trillado, es que el papa Francisco, fiel a su estilo franco y directo, aborde sin ambages este fenómeno creciente: la difusión masiva de noticias falsas.
El pontífice apuntó: los medios que se centran en los escándalos y difunden información incorrecta para difamar, especialmente a los políticos, cometen “pecados”.
“Los medios de comunicación tienen sus propias tentaciones. Pueden ser tentados por la calumnia y ser usados, por tanto, para difamar a la gente y calumniarla, sobre todo, en el mundo de la política”, sentenció.
En declaraciones al semanario católico belga Tertio, el argentino dijo que expandir la desinformación es, probablemente, el mayor daño que pueden hacer los medios a la democracia.
Al utilizar las redes para este objetivo, todos nos transformamos, figurativamente, en presas cautivas de la coprofilia, patología que genera gusto y excitación por los excrementos. Nos transmutamos en coprófagos, encontrando un placer pervertido al comer heces.
Consciente de lo escatológico de su analogía, el Papa ofreció disculpas por recurrir a estos conceptos, al responder a un cuestionamiento sobre el uso adecuado de los medios en el debate político. “Creo que los medios deben ser muy claros, muy transparentes, y, sin intención de ofender, no caer en la enfermedad de la coprofilia, que es querer cubrir siempre escándalos y cosas desagradables, incluso aunque sean verdaderas”. El segmento anterior, que fue repartido a la fuente del Vaticano con una traducción italiana de la entrevista, realizada en español por el propio Papa, se da en el lenguaje más duro y frontal jamás usado por Francisco para referirse a los medios de comunicación. Lo descrito no debería extrañarnos ya que la noticia falsa de mayor impacto en las redes sociales este año giró en torno a su persona. La web WTOE 5 News publicó un artículo durante la campaña electoral en EU en el que señalaba que el Papa había respaldado a Trump en su camino a la presidencia.
Dicha invención fue compartida por miles de usuarios, no obstante de ser una mentira flagrante. Manipulaciones similares, involucrando al propio Trump y a su rival Clinton, se reprodujeron durante la contienda electoral, generándose una neblina de confusión sin precedente. Así, la veracidad de la información y la incapacidad de los ciudadanos para distinguir la verdad de la mentira, se ha transformado en un reto formidable para el periodismo en el siglo XXI.
BALANCE
Garantizar información fidedigna resulta cada vez más difícil ante los torrentes de datos que con velocidad incomparable fluyen en redes sociales, indómitas e ingobernables.
Inundados por reality shows, blogs, tuits, Facebook posts y snapchats, los consumidores de contenidos, vamos desarrollando un apetito insaciable por información vistosa, de dudosa reputación, con controles de veracidad lentos y defectuosos. Atender este fenómeno, sin vulnerar la libertad de expresión, es central para conservar la buena salud de la democracia en la era de lo instantáneo. Sin duda, un periodismo sin concesiones es la mejor medicina para tan escandalosa enfermedad.
*Secretario para el Fortalecimiento de la Democracia de la OEA. Los puntos de vista son a título personal. No representan la posición de la OEA.
Most EU laws will continue to be in force – including the free movement of people – until the end of December, by which time the UK aims to have reached a permanent free trade agreement with the EU.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn urged the country not to “turn inwards” and instead “build a truly internationalist, diverse and outward-looking Britain”.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We must be united in a common vision for our country, however great our differences on achieving it – a common hope for what we want to happen, and what we want to do in the years to come.”
And Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage said: “At last the day comes when we break free. A massive victory for the people against the establishment.”
Brexit was originally scheduled for 29 March last year but was repeatedly delayed when MPs rejected a previous withdrawal agreement reached by the EU and former Prime Minister Theresa May.
Mr Johnson was able to get his own deal through Parliament after winning December’s general election with a House of Commons majority of 80, on a pledge to “get Brexit done”.
This brought to an end more than three years of political wrangling, following the referendum of 2016, in which 52% of voters backed leaving the EU.
Image copyright Reuters
Image caption
Brexit Party MEPs left the European Parliament led by a bagpiper
The prime minister will hold a cabinet meeting in Sunderland – the city that was the first to back Brexit when results were announced after the 2016 referendum – on Friday morning.
Mr Johnson, who led the 2016 campaign to get the UK out of the EU, will attempt to strike an optimistic, non-triumphalist note in his message, stressing the need to bring all sides together.
“The most important thing to say tonight is that this is not an end but a beginning,” he will say.
“This is the moment when the dawn breaks and the curtain goes up on a new act. It is a moment of real national renewal and change.”
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption
Tourists pose for pictures with Manneken Pis statue in Brussels
In his message, filmed in Downing Street, Mr Johnson will also say: “This is the dawn of a new era in which we no longer accept that your life chances – your family’s life chances – should depend on which part of the country you grow up in.
“This is the moment when we begin to unite and level up.”
Brexit Party MEPs, including Ann Widdecombe, left the European Parliament in Brussels led by a bagpiper.
Supporters of the EU are expected to take part in a procession through Whitehall at 15:00 GMT to “bid a fond farewell” to the union.
Later, Brexiteers will gather in Parliament Square for a celebration, and a clock counting down to the moment the UK leaves the EU will be projected on to Downing Street.
Buildings along Whitehall will be lit up and Union flags will be flown from all the poles in Parliament Square.
A new commemorative 50p coin will also come into circulation to mark the UK’s withdrawal.
However, Big Ben will not chime at 23:00 GMT due to ongoing renovation works – despite a fundraising effort led by Conservative MP Mark Francois.
Media captionUrsula von der Leyen: “It’s a very emotional day”
In Brussels, the UK flag will be removed from the EU institutions, with one Union flag expected to be consigned to a museum.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen paid tribute to UK citizens who had “contributed to the European Union and made it stronger”.
“It is the story of old friends and new beginnings now,” she said. “Therefore it is an emotional day, but I’m looking forward to the next stage.”
Upcoming negotiations would be “fair” but each side would fight for its interests, she added.
Irish Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney told Sky News he thought the EU and UK would struggle to reach a trade deal during the 11-month transition period, as there was “too much to agree”.
Media captionConfused by Brexit jargon? Reality Check unpacks the basics.
In Scotland, which voted to stay in the EU in the 2016 referendum, candlelit vigils are planned.
And in a speech in Edinburgh later, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is expected to say Scotland has been “taken out of the European Union against the wishes of the overwhelming majority” of its people.
She will argue that Scotland has “the prospect of a brighter, better future as an equal, independent European nation”.
For Labour, Mr Corbyn, who is due to stand down as party leader in April, said the UK was “at a crossroads”.
“We can build a truly internationalist, diverse and outward-looking Britain,” he added. “Or we can turn inwards, and trade our principles, rights and standards to secure hastily arranged, one-sided, race-to-the-bottom trade deals with Donald Trump and others.”
Mr Corbyn promised Labour would “hold the government to account every step of the way”.
Liberal Democrat acting leader Sir Ed Davey vowed his pro-EU party would “never stop fighting” to have the “closest possible relationship” with Europe.
He said it would be on a “damage-limitation exercise to stop a hard Brexit hurting British people”.
Cabinet minister Michael Gove told BBC Breakfast he was “relieved” and “delighted” that Brexit was “at last coming to pass”.
Smuggling gangs in Mexico are reportedly using power tools to cut large holes in walls at the southern US-Mexico border, according to a new report from The Washington Post.
The steel-and-concrete portions of the walls, which President Donald Trump has touted as the solution to the flow of undocumented immigrants coming across the US-Mexico border, can be sawed apart with at least one commercially available cordless tool that retails for less than $100, according to the Post, which cites US border officials with knowledge of the damage.
In addition to cutting through the walls, officials told the Post that smugglers have also repeatedly scaled and climbed over the walls with makeshift ladders, particularly in areas near San Diego.
The report comes as the first and most detailed description of such breaches and says that the lack of government reporting means it is unclear how many times they have occurred. US Customs and Border Protection reportedly declined to provide further information about the number of wall breaches to the Post and had not yet fulfilled a Freedom of Information Act request seeking such data at the time of the report.
One factor of deterrent is electronic sensors that are yet to be added but could sense where and when the wall was damaged, triggering repairs. However, one former border chief said smugglers would likely eventually find a way around those as well.
The wall has been a costly and politically tense issue between lawmakers and Trump, after the president previously enacted what became the longest shutdown in government history when he did not relent in debates with lawmakers through December 2018 on his request for $5 billion to be allocated for the wall.
Despite the president’s repeated pushes for the wall, environmental and immigration experts have expressed doubts about its possible effects on nearby areas and its overall efficacy. CBP officials were vocal during Trump’s weighing of different designs that a solid concrete wall wouldn’t be beneficial to agents who ideally would be able to see through to the other side.
Up Next
See Gallery
According to the Post’s report, smugglers are exploiting the “bollard” style design that the administration eventually settled on, which has been described as part of a “border wall system” as agents insisted a wall alone couldn’t safeguard the border.
NBC News reported in January 2019 that a test of a steel bollard wall in Trump’s chosen design by the Department of Homeland Security showed the wall could be sawed through.
Photos of the breaches were not included in a redacted version of an internal February 2018 US Customs and Border Protection report that mentioned the faults, NBC reported, and Trump denied the validity of the photos, saying it was “a wall designed by previous administrations,” though the one in question was made under his administration.
Meruelo Media (MM) is the media division of The Meruelo Group. MM currently operates two Southern California Legendary media platforms; the classic hip-hop and R&B radio station, 93.5 KDAY and one of Los Angeles’ oldest Hispanic TV stations, KWHY-TV Canal 22, which is currently the flagship of MundoFOX Television Network. MM also owns the first and only US Hispanic Super Station, Super 22, airing on its KWHY-TV second digital stream and reaching over 6 Million Homes over various multiple video delivery providers. MM also broadcasts in Houston and Santa Barbara. The Meruelo Group is a minority owned, privately-held management company serving a diversified portfolio of affiliated entities with interests in banking and financial services; food services, manufacturing, distribution and restaurant operations; construction and engineering; hospitality and gaming; real estate management; media, public and private equity investing. For more information please visit www.meruelogroup.com.
Yet, on Monday — after nearly three decades on the Supreme Court — Thomas finally articulated his approach to stare decisis, the principle that courts should generally follow the rules announced in past decisions.
Though Thomas dresses up his concurring opinion in Gamble with a few paragraphs that seem to soften his conclusion, the rule he ultimately articulates would give his court free reign to burn down any decision that five of its members do not like. It’s the kind of judicial arson one might expect from a justice who, after spending much of his career writing lone dissents that had little impact on his colleagues, now thinks he may have the votes to do things his way.
“When faced with a demonstrably erroneous precedent, my rule is simple,” Thomas writes. “We should not follow it.” That may seem like a workable rule — how bad does a decision have to be before it is “demonstrably erroneous?” — but bear in mind that this rule comes from a man who has serious doubts about child labor laws.
There are many reasons why courts typically adhere to stare decisis. Stability in the law is an important virtue, for one thing. Legislatures will pass laws, companies will make investments, and individuals will shape their actions based on their assessment of existing precedents. If those precedents can be wiped away on a whim, all of this planning will be for naught. And many crucial investments may never happen because investors cannot plan for an uncertain future.
Stare decisis also helps depoliticize the law. When the Supreme Court’s political center of gravity changes — as it has shifted to the right under President Donald Trump — it’s tempting for the new majority to declare themselves victors and start pillaging old precedents they do not like. If power shifts again, the new majority might be equally tempted to retaliate, burning their vanquished foe’s decisions to the ground. That’s not just a recipe for instability, it’s a recipe for the kind of politics that turns Supreme Court nominations into existential fights between the two major political parties. Moreover, it’s a recipe for a court that strips power from the elected branches and claims it for itself.
But, perhaps most significantly, stare decisis is about modesty. Consider, for one moment, the fact that many provisions of the Constitution live in a state of ambiguity.
There is significant historical evidence, moreover, that many of these provisions were intentionally written to be ambiguous — either because the framers hoped that the courts would be able to transform vague principles into actionable rules, or because political compromises and the fear of a looming election prevented a supermajority of Congress from agreeing on clearer language.
As NYU law professor William Nelson wrote in a seminal book, “the debates on the Fourteenth Amendment were, in essence, debates about high politics and fundamental principles.” But they “did not reduce the vague, open-ended, and sometimes clashing principles used by the debaters to precise, carefully bounded legal doctrine.”
It is arrogant in the extreme, in other words, for a judge to assume that they alone have determined the one true meaning of a legal text as vague as the Constitution. The only way for the law to have any stability whatsoever is for judges to accept that the men and women who came before them typically acted in good faith to read difficult-to-interpret language. And the work of those men and women should not be idly cast aside simply because the current crop of justices think that they could do it better.
And yet, that’s more or less what Thomas says should happen in his Gamble opinion.
“By applying demonstrably erroneous precedent instead of the relevant law’s text—as the Court is particularly prone to do when expanding federal power or crafting new individual rights—the Court exercises ‘force’ and ‘will,’ two attributes the People did not give it,” Thomas writes. Instead, he would have his court, “restore our stare decisis jurisprudence to ensure that we exercise ‘mer[e] judgment,’ which can be achieved through adherence to the correct, original meaning of the laws we are charged with applying.”
Again, all of this rhetoric may seem reasonable in the abstract. But remember that it comes from a man who’s suggested that that decisions upholding a ban on whites-only lunch counters “drifted far from the original understanding of the” Constitution. Now, ask yourself if you want him to have an unchecked power to decide which decisions are “demonstrably erroneous?”
The Gamble case itself involves an unfortunate doctrine which the Supreme Court upholds as firmly grounded in precedent. The Fifth Amendment provides that no one shall “be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” Yet the court’s “separate sovereigns” doctrine creates a massive hole in the Double Jeopardy Clause. Though the federal government may not prosecute someone twice for the same crime, and neither may any state, a state may prosecute someone and then the feds may do so again.
“Even in constitutional cases, a departure from precedent ‘demands special justification,’” Justice Samuel Alito writes for a majority of the Supreme Court. And that “means that something more than ‘ambiguous historical evidence’ is required before we will ‘flatly overrule a number of major decisions of this Court.’” Alito then spends the bulk of his opinion picking apart citations to very treatises and even older British judicial decisions, to show that they offer no clear basis for dismantling the separate sovereigns doctrine.
Notably, while Thomas used this case as a vehicle to rail against stare decisis, he also joined Alito’s opinion. Apparently a case involving a man unjustly punished twice for the same crime isn’t the kind of case “expanding federal power or crafting new individual rights” that gets under Thomas’ skin.
There are a few lines in Alito’s opinion that should trouble court-watchers who are hoping that the Supreme Court’s new conservative majority doesn’t share Thomas’ desire to light a whole range of precedents on fire. At one point, for example, Alito writes that “the strength of the case for adhering to [past] decisions grows in proportion to their ‘antiquity’” — suggesting that Alito may be perfectly happy to overrule newer decisions. There’s also an unconvincing passage where Alito defends the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which invigorated the Second Amendment based on historical evidence that is at least as ambiguous as the evidence raised in Gamble.
But Alito’s opinion is, at its heart, a statement that precedents are powerful and they shouldn’t be disregarded lightly. That’s a statement liberals should welcome from this Supreme Court — and it is very different than what Thomas says in his concurring opinion.
It’s always tough to get at exactly why politicians change their positions over time. Often, it reflects political accommodation, preparing for an upcoming campaign. (Case in point: President Bill Clinton signing the Defense of Marriage Act, barring federal recognition of same-sex marriages, in September 1996 — a bill that Biden, along with most Democrats, supported.)
But it’s hard to see what Biden had to gain in 2012 when he stepped out in front of President Barack Obama to announce his support for same-sex marriage. “There’s no political barometer that would have told him to get ahead of the White House on this,” Pete Buttigieg, who is gay and ran for president this year, told us.
But societal views on these kinds of issues were beginning to change. Biden was very much part of that wave — and when it came to the Democratic Party, ahead of much of it.
Tell us more about that moment. Was it just an example of Biden being characteristically loose-lipped — or was it a reflection of a consistent role he played in the administration, as a proponent of L.G.B.T.Q. rights?
Obama and his White House were caught off-guard by this. They were, in fact, angered by the notion that Biden was trying to pre-empt the president on the issue, or even that he was trying to maneuver Obama to — I guess we shouldn’t say come out of the closet on the issue, should we? Well, just did. Biden’s aides initially issued a statement suggesting that he had been misunderstood, but he soon made clear that he wasn’t.
This is one of those cases where he was asked a question, had a view on the question, and answered it.
In this year’s Democratic primary, Biden wasn’t the first choice of most progressives, but he seemed to have generally earned the trust of many L.G.B.T.Q. rights advocates. Would you say there is true excitement there about his candidacy?
Reports that British Ambassador Kim Darroch privately dissed the president’s team as “dysfunctional” and “inept” in leaked cables back to the British foreign ministry have set off a diplomatic spat. | Alex Wong/Getty Images
Kim Darroch is known as a garrulous and popular figure who rarely lets his diplomatic mask slip in public at his famously lavish parties.
When British Ambassador Kim Darroch went to the White House days after Donald Trump was inaugurated, the new U.S. president greeted him warmly, noting that he’d watched Darroch being interviewed on Fox News.
“You’re going to be a TV star!” Trump told Darroch.
Story Continued Below
It was a jovial moment, according to two people Darroch told about the encounter, and it was one reason that the British envoy — in public and private — has described Trump as “charming.”
But new reports that Darroch privately dissed Trump’s team as “dysfunctional” and “inept” in leaked cables back to the British foreign ministry have set off a diplomatic spat and soured Trump on the diplomat. The president has spent two days obsessively tweeting about Darroch, claiming he doesn’t even know him, that the Brit is a “very stupid guy” and a “pompous fool” and — most astoundingly — insisting the U.S. will no longer deal with Darroch.
Yet in Washington, Darroch is widely liked and well-connected in U.S. government circles, having cultivated close ties to some of the president’s top aides, whom he regularly has seen in business and social settings. The ambassador to the U.S. since early 2016, he is a garrulous figure who rarely lets his diplomatic mask slip in public. He also throws famously lavish parties in his stately residence next to the massive British Embassy and always has a fun toast to make.
Trump aides and confidants who have attended his soirees include White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Darroch and his embassy even hosted a September 2017 engagement party for Katie Walsh, Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, and her beau Mike Shields, which several Trump aides, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, attended. Matthew Whitaker celebrated the new year during his brief stint as acting attorney general at the British Embassy, where Darroch oversaw the festivities.
Now, almost overnight, the ambassador risks going from bipartisan Washington convener to ostracized foreigner at Trump’s direction. The fallout reflects how quickly Trump can turn on a top ally’s envoy — and insist that Washington turn with him. It’s also another example of Trump’s willingness to shatter diplomatic norms with the United Kingdom, which claims a “special relationship” with the United States.
“It drags one of the most important U.S. relationships internationally through the mud at the very highest levels,” said Jeff Rathke, a former Foreign Service officer and Europe analyst who has served in multiple administrations. “Even if it is temporarily satisfying for President Trump in some way, it is bad for the relationship because it undermines confidence and trust.”
The irony, said one person close to the Trump administration who’s been to Darroch’s parties, is that “a lot of folks from the White House actually say the exact same things” about the internal dynamics there. “They were probably saying those things to him.”
The fracas started Sunday, when the Daily Mail published a story detailing the contents of secret cables that Darroch had sent to London offering his analysis and views on the Trump administration starting in 2017. According to the British news outlet, Darroch described internal divisions in the White House as “knife fights,” warned Trump could lead the U.S. to war with Iran and described the administration overall as “chaotic,” predicting it would not become “less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept.”
Darroch wrote that Trump “radiates insecurity” and has “no filter.” But he also warned officials in London: “Do not write him off.”
On Monday, Trump lashed out: “I do not know the Ambassador, but he is not liked or well thought of within the U.S. We will no longer deal with him.” By Tuesday, Trump seemed even more angry, tweeting: “The wacky Ambassador that the U.K. foisted upon the United States is not someone we are thrilled with, a very stupid guy…. I don’t know the Ambassador but have been told he is a pompous fool.”
On both occasions, Trump also used his tweets to attack outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May, who he said had failed to take his advice on how to negotiate Brexit with the EU. “She went her own foolish way-was unable to get it done,” Trump wrote.
So far, the British government has stood up for Darroch, noting that it’s his duty as a diplomat to offer “honest, unvarnished” analysis to his superiors back home. “Sir Kim Darroch continues to have the Prime Minister’s full support,” a U.K. spokesman said.
And the State Department has said it will still work with Darroch — for now.
“We will continue to deal with all accredited individuals until we get any further guidance from the White House or the president, which we will, of course, abide by the president’s direction,” spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said during a news conference, describing the U.S.-U.K. relationship as “bigger than any individual” and “bigger than any government.”
For his part, Darroch worked as usual on Tuesday from his embassy office on Massachusetts Avenue,. He also went to Capitol Hill to meet with Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. George Holding (R-N.C.). However, he did not join a meeting between Liam Fox, a top British trade official, and Ivanka Trump, the president’s adviser and daughter. Fox had said he would apologize for the leak during the meeting.
Darroch, who did not respond to a request for comment, has spent decades as a diplomat, holding top positions such as national security adviser to former British Prime Minister David Cameron before coming to Washington. He’s done tours in Tokyo and Rome, and dealt with Middle Eastern and Adriatic issues, according to his embassy biography.
His appointment to the ambassador post in Washington is something of a career capstone — the position is considered the most prestigious ambassadorship in the U.K. foreign service and often goes to senior diplomats in the final years of their career.
The 65-year-old was born in Northern England and attended Durham University. He studied zoology but joined the U.K.’s diplomatic ranks in 1977. He is referred to as “Sir Kim” because of his appointment as a “Knight Commander” in 2008.
Some former officials and analysts believe what made Darroch a target for whoever leaked his critical memos is the ambassador’s extensive experience with European Union issues. He spent many years dealing with U.K.-EU relations, including having served as Britain’s representative to the regional bloc in Brussels. During a party in Washington months after the British voted to leave the EU, Darroch remarked wryly that his EU experience was “obviously time well spent.”
The belief in some corners is that the leaks of the cables were orchestrated by supporters of Brexit who want to make sure that the next British ambassador in the United States is on their side. Others suspect Russia may be behind the leaks similar to the way Moscow is accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee’s emails.
Sally Quinn, a journalist who’s attended parties at the British Embassy, said what Darroch wrote in the cables reflects what most foreign ambassadors in Washington also privately think.
“What Kim Darroch said is what all the ambassadors or most of them think, even the ones who particularly cozy up to the Trump people” like ambassadors from Middle Eastern countries, Quinn said. “They’re just lucky that their reports have not been hacked.”
Darroch has always been respectful to Trump administration officials in private, according to people who know him. At parties he has hosted, he would note how honored he was to have senior officials from the Trump administration attending, and they would return the bonhomie.
“Oh, we love the British — go Brexit!” one senior Trump administration official told Darroch at a small private dinner last year, prompting the British ambassador to laugh.
Darroch’s dilemma has now become an issue in the British Conservative Party’s internal race to replace May as prime minister. That contest is down to front-runner Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary and a Brexit advocate, and Jeremy Hunt, the current foreign secretary who supported remaining in the EU during the 2016 referendum.
Hunt on Tuesday tweeted support for Darroch, whom he said was simply doing his job by sending honest analysis to London.
“Allies need to treat each other with respect as @theresa_may has always done with you,” he wrote, addressing Trump. “Ambassadors are appointed by the UK government and if I become PM our Ambassador stays.”
Johnson has stressed that he has a “good relationship” with the White House, avoiding addressing Trump’s comments directly. But Nigel Farage, a fellow Brexiteer whom Trump has suggested should be the British ambassador in Washington, bulldozed into the controversy. “Kim Darroch is totally unsuitable for the job and the sooner he is gone the better,” Farage tweeted.
Despite Darroch’s positive reputation in the foreign policy establishment, some observers pointed out that the insights he offered in his memos weren’t all that original.
“You could have pulled it from pages of The New York Times,” said a senior Conservative British lawmaker, who asked not to be named. In fact, Trump’s “overreaction” arguably proved correct Darroch’s assessment about the volatility of his administration, the lawmaker added.
Robin Niblett, director of the London-based Chatham House think tank, said Trump’s assault may be an opportunistic attempt to gain “leverage” over the next British prime minister.
“In essence, it’s, ‘You will need to buy back my love,’” Niblett said. “There’s plenty of issues on which the U.S. wants to influence U.K. foreign policy going forward: Iran sanctions, [the Chinese tech firm] Huawei and a U.S.-U.K. trade deal.”
Darroch was expected to leave his post, and possibly retire, in January 2020. The fortuitous timing could give the next prime minister a chance to possibly sit tight and quietly move him on without appearing to have caved to Trump.
If Johnson wins the prime minister’s slot, he might recall the envoy. But if for whatever reason Darroch is allowed to stay and Trump follows through on his threat to bar U.S. officials from dealing with him, Darroch could find his final days as a diplomat rather lonely.
The dust up is already affecting his ability to socialize. On Tuesday, a person familiar with the matter confirmed the White House had disinvited Darroch from a dinner on Monday night in honor of the visiting emir of Qatar.
Charlie Cooper contributed to this report from London.
SUIFENHE, China (Reuters) – China’s northeast Heilongjiang province which borders Russia has become the new battleground against the coronavirus as authorities reported the highest number of new daily cases in nearly six weeks, driven by infected travellers from overseas.
China fears a rise in imported cases could spark a second wave of COVID-19 and push the country back into a state of near paralysis.
A total of 108 new coronavirus cases were reported in mainland China on Sunday, up from 99 a day earlier and marking the highest number of cases since 143 infections were reported on March 5.
The National Health Commission said 98 of the new cases were imported, a new record. A total of 49 Chinese nationals who entered Heilongjiang province from Russia tested positive.
“Our little town here, we thought it was the safest place,” said a resident of the border city of Suifenhe, who only gave his surname as Zhu.
“Some Chinese citizens they want to come back, but it’s not very sensible, what are you doing coming here for?”
Though the number of daily infections across China have dropped sharply from the height of the epidemic in February, China has seen the daily toll creep higher after hitting a trough on March 12 because of the rise in imported cases.
Chinese cities near the border with Russia are tightening border controls and imposing stricter quarantines in response to influx of infected patients from the country.
Suifenhe last week announced restrictions on movements and gatherings similar to those imposed in Wuhan city, where the coronavirus outbreak first emerged late last year, and extended the closure of its border with Russia.
The land route through the city had become one of few options available for Chinese nationals trying to get into China after Russia stopped all flights to the country.
Suifenhe and Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang, are now mandating 28 days of quarantine for all arrivals from abroad as well as nucleic acid and antibody tests.
Streets in Suifenhe were virtually empty on Sunday evening due to restrictions of movement. Residents said a lot of people had left the city as the number of infected people crossing the border from Russia rose.
“I don’t need to worry,” Zhao Wei, another Suifenhe resident, told Reuters. “If there’s a local transmission, I would, but there’s not a single one. They’re all from the border, but they’ve all been sent to quarantine.”
Reporting by Yew Lun Tian and Huizhong Wu in Suifenhe, Se Young Lee and Lusha Zhang in Beijing; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Michael Perry
El joven venezolano Marco Coello, perseguido político del gobierno de Nicolás Maduro, fue detenido por ICE al acudir a su primera entrevista por su caso de asilo en la oficina del Servicio de Inmigración en Miami.
“Marco Coello tiene dos condenas criminales por delitos menores y no abandonó el país como pedía su visa”, informó ICE a Univision Noticias en un comunicado al explicar la detención. Se conoció que el joven será presentado ante un juez de inmigración que decidirá su caso.
Sus abogados desconocen los delitos a los que se refiere ICE.
Se pidió al Servicio de Inmigración y Aduanas (USCIS, por su sigla en inglés) que confirmara si Coello tiene un caso abierto de asilo. Una portavoz respondió que la agencia no puede referirse al estatus migratorio de ninguna persona.
Más temprano su madre, Dorys Coello, había confirmado la detención.
Coello, de 20 años, fue arrestado apenas al llegar a su primera entrevista, contó Elizabeth Blandon, la defensora del estudiante y quien lo acompañaba en el momento de la detención junto a un traductor. Fue recluido en un centro de inmigrantes al oeste de Miami conocido como Krome Detention Center.
“Ustedes no tienen idea de lo que han hecho”, dijo la abogada Blandon a los funcionarios de ICE que detenían al joven.
Al entender la traducción de lo que estaba ocurriendo, Coello le dijo a los funcionarios de inmigración: “No me pueden devolver a Venezuela”.
Informes forenses demostraron que el joven sufrió estrés post-traumático luego de las torturas de los cuerpos policiales durante su detención en Venezuela. Este caso fue documentado por distintas organizaciones de derechos humanos, como Human Rights Watch, la ONU y Amnistía Internacional.
Este miércoles, al conocer la noticia y ante los dos funcionarios, el joven “se sentó, lloró”, cuenta su abogada, quien le repetía constantemente: “Esto no es igual, esto no es Venezuela”.
Más temprano, Ros-Ana Guillén, otra de las abogadas, contó que el bufete había pedido acelerar el proceso. “Siempre llega una notificación, pero en este caso nos llamaron por teléfono y nos dijeron: ‘La semana que viene tenemos disponibilidad a las 8:00 am en la oficina en Downtown Miami'”, dijo.
Sus defensores lo prepararon para la entrevista y lo acompañaron la mañana del 26 de abril, pero al llegar lo detuvieron.
Fue detenido en esa fecha por policías, que lo recluyeron en una prisión y lo torturaron para que inculpara al líder opositor Leopoldo López en la violencia que se generó en esas manifestaciones en el centro de Caracas. Desde entonces fue juzgado en el mismo caso.
Llegó a Miami el 3 de septiembre de 2015 acompañado por su padre, ausentándose de su última audiencia y alegando que en Venezuela sería condenado sinderecho a la defensa. Desde ese día, el joven y su familia se encuentran en Estados Unidos, esperando una respuesta sobre su asilo político.
La tortura
En una entrevista con el canal de noticias CNN, Coello contó su detención. Luego de arrestarlo, en la calle, un grupo de funcionarios –que no se identificaron ni llevaban uniforme– le golpearon, incluso con un extinguidor de incendios. “Me golpeaban en la cara, en el estómago, donde llegaban a darme. Era una furia que tenían que no la controlaban (…) Yo trataba de escaparme, les decía ‘no me peguen’ y me protegía, pero se ponían más agresivos aún”, dijo.
Lo trasladaron hasta una de las sedes del Cuerpo de Investigaciones Científicas, Penales y Criminalísticas (CICPC), lo esposaron y lo arrodillaron con la vista hacia una pared durante unas cinco horas. Entonces lo llevaron a un cuarto aparte: “Me ponen una declaración y me dicen que la firme diciendo que yo era el responsable de todos los hechos que habían pasado (en la Fiscalía), ‘que tú eres el culpable y que Leopoldo López te estaba dirigiendo a ti'”.
“Me pusieron una pistola en la cabeza y me dijeron: ‘Si no lo haces, te vamos a matar'”, contó. “‘Sabemos dónde vive tu familia'”, le decían. “Sabían el nombre de mi papá, de mi mamá, de mi hermana, de mis hermanos y dijeron que iban a arremeter contra ellos si yo no firmaba”. Aún así, el joven se negaba a firmar. Entonces, lo trasladaron a un sótano del mismo edificio.
“Entraron como ocho funcionarios, me envolvieron en una colchoneta y empezaron a entrarme entre batazos, palos de golf, golpes, patadas, me echaban gasolina, me ponían un yesquero (encendedor) y me decían que me iban a prender en fuego”, dijo. “Después de cuatro horas de tortura y que vieron que yo no iba a firmar intentaron lo último, que fue darme unos choques eléctricos”, agregó. Después de eso, lo dejaron detenido.
El largo camino del asilo
El asilo en Estados Unidos puede ser solicitado por cualquier persona que haya sido perseguida a razón de su “raza, religión, nacionalidad, pertenencia a un grupo social en particular u opinión política”, según las reglas del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS por sus siglas en inglés).
Es un proceso que puede durar meses o años, de acuerdo con el camino que decidan las autoridades. Primero se debe llenar una petición de asilo con la forma I-589, “en un plazo de un año a partir de la fecha de su llegada a Estados Unidos”, según DHS.
Una vez que se presenta el formulario y se entrega, el servicio de inmigración notifica que lo recibió y le da curso a la petición de asilo. Luego llaman al solicitante a una primera cita, en la que se realiza la entrevista del miedo creíble.
En este encuentro el funcionario decide dos cosas: si considera que el caso es verídico otorga el asilo en ese momento y se transforma en una petición de asilo afirmativa. Con esto continúa el trámite hasta que conceden el asilo. De lo contrario se convierte en un caso de asilo defensivo y el proceso debe continuar con un juez de inmigración.
Por esta vía los casos suelen retrasarse por el volumen de procesos que debe resolver cada juez.
Solo puede pedir un permiso de trabajo quien haya cumplido 150 días de haber presentado su solicitud completa de asilo. Es el caso de Marco Coello.
Paola Andreína Ramírez Gómez tenía23 años. Como Moreno, falleció el pasado 19 de abril de un disparo en la cabeza en San Cristóbal, en el estado occidental de Táchira. La Fiscalía venezolana confirmó la muerte ocurrida en una plaza de esa ciudad y explicó, sin dar mayores detalles, que la joven transitaba por el lugar cuando fue agredida. Testigos citados por distintos medios aseguran que el disparo fue hecho por los “colectivos”.
Insight from Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel.
The commutation of Roger Stone’s sentence may have more profound legal implications, and the Redskins changing their name may have more cultural significance.
But the escalating warfare between President Trump and Anthony Fauci may well have a more immediate impact on the pandemic that is increasingly devastating our country.
While it’s easy to cast this as merely a media-generated feud, it represents a fundamental clash over how to handle the coronavirus that keeps breaking records, rather than fading with the July heat, as the administration once predicted.
To be sure, the charge that the White House has done an “oppo dump” on Fauci is rather overblown. To me, that signifies a stealthy handoff of documents or encoded digital communication to get dirt into the hands of reporters. The Trump team is just stabbing Fauci in the front.
And they’re doing it by pointing to his past public statements, which are obviously fair game.
Behind the scenes, the president hasn’t spoken to Fauci in more than a month.
Make no mistake, the president is the decision-maker and Fauci is a medical expert who, by his own account, is not in charge of setting policy. Still, the 79-year-old doctor, who has been part of the government’s infectious disease agency since the Reagan administration, is widely respected, and part of his job is to work on a vaccine.
For an administration that has been accused of ignoring science, this seems somewhat petty. But there is an important clash here: Fauci casts himself as a truth-teller, and Trump wants to control the administration’s message, which is that the pandemic is under control and things will be getting better.
That, admittedly, is a harder sell when the number of new daily Covid-19 cases surged past 66,000 heading into the weekend, and Florida broke the single-day record for a state on Sunday with more than 15,000 cases. And it comes at a time when the president is pressuring governors, with a threatened funding cutoff, to physically reopen the nation’s schools in September.
What the White House has done, among other things, is basically kept Fauci off television. “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan told viewers she’s been trying to book him for three months. The coronavirus task force briefings have become infrequent, handed off to Mike Pence and moved out of the White House, and Fauci’s schedule was such that he couldn’t attend the last one.
Instead, he’s been doing podcasts and print interviews, such as one in which he told the Financial Times: “I have a reputation, as you have probably figured out, of speaking the truth at all times and not sugar-coating things. And that may be one of the reasons why I haven’t been on television very much lately.”
The Washington Post reports that White House communications aides did approve appearances by Fauci on the PBS “NewsHour,” “Meet the Press” and a CNN town hall. But those were canceled after Fauci did a Facebook Live event with Democratic Sen. Doug Jones and disputed Trump’s assertion that the country’s lower death rate was a sign of progress, calling that a “false narrative.”
“Our bigger issue with Fauci is stop critiquing the task force . . . and try to fix it,” an administration official told the Post.
Trump, for his part, has called Fauci “a nice man, but he’s made a lot of mistakes.”
Which brings us to the official counterattack.
“Several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong on things,” says a statement sent by the White House to reporters.
The Post says this “included a lengthy list of the scientist’s comments from early in the outbreak. Those included his early doubt that people with no symptoms could play a significant role in spreading the virus…They also point to public reassurances Fauci made in late February, around the time of the first U.S. case of community transmission, that “at this moment, there is no need to change anything that you’re doing on a day-by-day basis.”
Sure he’s made some missteps, Fauci’s supporters say. But when he downplayed the need for masks early on, it was because he was worried about a shortage and wanted to keep them for health care workers.
The New York Times, in picking up the story yesterday, said the White House left out Fauci’s words, in an NBC interview, immediately after his “no need to change anything” comment:
“Right now the risk is still low, but this could change. When you start to see community spread, this could change and force you to become much more attentive to doing things that would protect you from spread.”
Asked yesterday by CNN’s Jim Acosta why the White House was “trashing” Fauci, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the statement came in response to the Post’s questions and the two men “have always had a very good working relationship.”
The president has mentioned Fauci’s high approval ratings. A Times poll last month found that 67 percent of Americans trusted Fauci on Covid-19, while 26 percent trusted Trump.
If Fauci was a political appointee, he’d probably have gone the way of Jeff Sessions, Jim Mattis and John Bolton by now. But as a career civil servant, he can’t be fired. So the White House is clearly sidelining him instead.
It’s a shame the two men, despite their contrasting styles, can’t find a way to work together, as this is a distraction in the war on their common enemy: the virus itself.
Footnote: President Trump has retweeted the following missive from game show host Chuck Woolery:
“The most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most ,that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of it…There is so much evidence, yes scientific evidence, that schools should open this fall. It’s worldwide and it’s overwhelming. BUT NO.”
El canal de noticias C5N realizó un nuevo spot para celebrar su buena performance en el rating. Según datos de la consultora Ibope la semana pasada pasó al frente entre los canales de noticias de la TV paga.
La presentación destaca que el canal es líder en los segmentos de la mañana, tarde y noche. En la programación durante la primera mañana el canal presenta “Mañanas Argentinas” con Daniela Ballester y Javier Díaz, “Bien temprano” con Mariela Fernández y “Argentina en vivo” con Claudio Rígoli y Agostina Scioli.
“La Tarde”, con Melina Fleiderman y Guillermo Favale y “El Diario” con Pablo Duggan y Julia Mengolini. A la noche “Minuto Uno” con Gustavo Silvestre.
“Porque seguís eligiendo C5N somos líderes absolutos”, puede leerse en el spot.
La semana pasada el canal pasó primero entre los canales de noticias y generales de la TV paga, desde hace meses viene achicándose la brecha entre TN y C5N los canales más vistos del cable. Finalmente el canal del grupo Indalo pasó al frente durante toda la semana.
Según informó la medidora Ibope, durante tres días de la semana que termina, lunes, miércoles y jueves, la emisora del Grupo Indalo derrotó en audiencia a la del Grupo Clarín por 2,67 a 2,50; 2,83 a 2,65, y 2,42 a 2,31 respectivamente.
Con estos números, el canal 5 de noticias pasó a liderar la audiencia, confirmando la supremacía que ya había conseguido hace dos años en el ‘prime time’ matutino.
This is a widget area - If you go to "Appearance" in your WP-Admin you can change the content of this box in "Widgets", or you can remove this box completely under "Theme Options"
