WHAT'S BREWING
PANDEMIC 'FAR FROM OVER,' FAUCI WARNS Describing COVID-19 as his “worst nightmare,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said the ongoing pandemic is far from over. “Where is it going to end? We’re still at the beginning of really understanding,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said of the pandemic during a virtual conference held by BIO, the Biotechnology Innovation Organization. In just four months, the virus “has devastated the whole world,” he said. [HuffPost]
SENATE REPUBLICANS FLAIL ON POLICE REFORM AS TRUMP MIA While Trump tweets incendiary conspiracy theories and ignores calls for police reform, congressional Republicans are moving forward with proposals of their own aimed at addressing police brutality amid the nationwide protests over George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tasked Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the only Black Senate Republican, with leading a group of GOP senators “that is working on a proposal to allow us to respond to the obvious racial discrimination that we’ve seen on our television screens” in recent weeks. [HuffPost]
LONG LINES AT GEORGIA POLLING PLACES LEAD TO CLAIMS OF VOTER SUPPRESSION Georgia has been roiled by a fight over access to voting during the pandemic. In April, the state’s Republican House leader, David Ralston, publicly denounced the Republican secretary of state for sending absentee ballots to registered voters ahead of Tuesday’s primary, which was postponed from its original May 19 date due to the pandemic. Ralston claimed mail-in voting is ”devastating to Republicans.” On Tuesday, droves of voters still showed up to vote in person. The ensuing chaos had Atlanta Mayor Keshia Lance Bottoms calling out the secretary of state on Twitter and urging voters in line to “not allow your vote to be suppressed.” [HuffPost]
STUDY: WIDESPREAD FACE MASK USE COULD STEM 2nd WAVE Population-wide face mask use could push COVID-19 transmission down to controllable levels for national epidemics and could prevent further waves of the pandemic disease when combined with lockdowns, according to a U.K. study. The research, led by scientists at Britain’s Cambridge and Greenwich Universities, suggests lockdowns alone will not stop the resurgence of the coronavirus, but that even homemade masks can dramatically reduce transmission rates if enough people wear them in public. [Reuters]
BLACK MAN'S VIOLENT DEATH IN CUSTODY WAS FILMED Police video and documents released more than a year after the in-custody death of a Black man in Texas show that sheriff’s deputies repeatedly used a stun gun on him despite multiple pleas that he couldn’t breathe following a chase after he failed to dim his headlights. The revelations in the 2019 death of Javier Ambler raise questions about Williamson County deputies’ practice of pursuing drivers for minor crimes. A local prosecutor says the circumstances of Ambler's death are troubling because it was being filmed for A&E Network’s real-time police show “Live PD.” [AP]
PROVINCETOWN DEBATES HOW WIDE TO OPEN ITS DOORS TO OUTSIDERS Like much of the country, Provincetown, Massachusetts, is in the throes of figuring out how to safely reopen during a pandemic. But the beach town and LGBTQ mecca is facing a pressure-cooker version of this dilemma. Workers here log massive overtime during the tourism season and live off savings, reduced wages or unemployment the rest of the year. Provincetown also has an aging population (median age, 57), with a significant number of HIV-positive, immunocompromised residents. The nearest intensive care bed is over an hour’s drive away. [HuffPost]
THE POLICE HAVE SPIED ON BLACK REPORTERS AND ACTIVISTS FOR YEARS On Aug. 20, 2018, the first day of a federal police surveillance trial, I discovered that the Memphis Police Department was spying on me. The ACLU of Tennessee had sued the MPD, alleging that the department was in violation of a 1978 consent decree barring surveillance of residents for political purposes. I’d long suspected that I was on law enforcement’s radar, simply because my work tends to center on the most marginalized communities, not institutions with the most power. [HuffPost] |
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