Facebook post Says truck drivers are being turned away from fast-food restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Explanation: Truck drivers are having issues getting meals at some fast-food chains with shuttered dining rooms. Their rigs can’t fit in drive-thru lanes and they aren’t allowed to walk up and order at the window. McDonald’s responded to complaints and created a curbside trucker ordering service at some of its locations. Other fast-food chains haven’t yet implemented a solution.

Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,

As truck drivers across the country provide an essential service, delivering food and supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic, complaints have surfaced about some fast-food chains turning them away. In response to the epidemic, many restaurants are offering only drive-thru service. But Facebook posts, like these, chronicle story after story of truckers attempting to get meals at popular fast-food restaurants only to be turned away when they attempt to walk up and order at these drive-thru windows: "***Glenshaw***This McDonalds is Refusing to serve truckers, because they can’t drive through the drive-thru. The manager was disrespectful. They are out supplying (sic) are stores with food for all of us. They are out all night and can’t eat or get a coffee?" The posts were flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) But in this case, there's more truth to the claim than not. Fast-food restaurants including McDonald’s, Wendy’s, KFC and Taco Bell recently announced they were shutting down dining rooms amid the coronavirus outbreak and switching to a to-go model, emphasizing delivery and drive-thru orders. Social media posts say truckers can’t maneuver their rigs through drive-thru lanes, so their only option is to walk up to the windows. Trucking news website Transportation Nation reported that one trucking group reached out to McDonald’s on March 18 asking for changes to be made to allow truckers easier access to food. "Truckers are having a difficult time finding food on the road due to various closures because of the national emergency," wrote James Lamb, president of the 15,000-member Small Business in Transportation Coalition. "We are told they are being refused service when they walk up to your drive thru windows because they are not in sedans and their 80,000 lb. big rig trucks do not fit through your drive thru driveways." Lamb asked the company to make temporary accommodations for trucker customers. McDonald’s responded by creating a curbside ordering system. The fast-food chain pointed PolitiFact to a March 23 statement that addresses the issue: "As the world continues to address the quickly changing landscape, we are in this together with you, our valued friends in the trucking and transportation industry. Thank you for everything you are doing to keep essential parts of our economy going. "However, at some locations, only Drive-Thru and McDelivery are available. We realize that you can’t bring your rig through the Drive-Thru and for safety reasons, we cannot accept walk up orders at the Drive-Thru window." McDonald’s instructed truckers to use its mobile order and pay app and then walk to "the designated Trucker curbside sign on the sidewalk outside our designated door." An employee will bring the order out when it’s ready. But it’s not just McDonald’s. Reports of similar incidents at Wendy’s and Burger King have also surfaced. We reached out to both, but only heard back from Wendy’s. A spokesperson sent a statement saying Wendy’s is "particularly appreciative of the nation’s truck drivers who are a vital part of our supply chain." It continued: "We are continuing to explore options to continue to make Wendy’s food available to as many of our loyal customers as possible during this difficult time, but of course we must continue to focus on safety and security at our restaurants as a top priority." Social media posts claim truck drivers are being turned away from fast-food restaurants with shuttered dining rooms since they can’t fit their rigs in drive-thru lanes. This is really happening. It’s worth noting that McDonald’s has responded with a curbside ordering app at some locations to help accommodate truckers. And Wendy’s says they are exploring options. These reports are accurate but need additional, updated information. We rate them .


Suicides rise and fall with economy: CDC report.

Explanation: Suicides in the United States ebb and flow with the economy, rising in bad times and falling in good, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.

Their study, published online in the American Journal of Public Health, is the first to look at suicide trends by age and business cycles, and it found that working Americans — people aged 25 to 64 — are significantly more prone to suicide in tough economic times. Researchers looked at the impact of business cycles on U.S. suicide rates from 1928 through 2007. They found a general correlation among suicide rates and major shifts in the U.S. economy. For example, suicides famously spiked during the Great Depression, surging to a record high of 22 suicides per 100,000 people in 1932, up from 18 per 100,000 in 1928. But other slowdowns also saw an increase in suicides, including the end of the New Deal (1937-1938), the Oil Crisis (1973-1975), and the Double-Dip Recession (1980-1982.) And suicide rates tended to fall during periods of plenty, such as during World War Two and the decade-long expansion from 1991 to 2001, in which the economy flourished and there were low rates of unemployment. “Knowing suicides increased during economic recessions and fell during expansions underscores the need for additional suicide prevention measures when the economy weakens,” James Mercy, acting director of CDC’s Injury Center’s Division of Violence Prevention, said in a statement. “It is an important finding for policy makers and those working to prevent suicide.”


People come here to have babies. They come here to drop a child. It's called 'drop and leave.

Explanation: Fact-checking the claims about 'anchor babies' and whether illegal immigrants 'drop and leave'

Immigration, National, Health Care, Legal Issues, Lindsey Graham,

It sounds like a way for illegal immigrants to get a foothold in the United States: Pregnant women from Mexico and other countries can come to the U.S. to deliver their babies. Voila! Under the 14th Amendment, the babies are instant citizens! That's become a popular talking point for critics of illegal immigration, who have dubbed the children "anchor babies." The implication often is that the baby U.S. citizens act as an anchor that that helps parents and other relatives obtain citizenship and other benefits. Several Republican senators, including Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., John McCain, R-Ariz., Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have called for hearings on whether the 14th Amendment, which was adopted in 1868, needs to be rewritten to curb automatic "birthright citizenship." The most prominent voice pushing that concept is Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who proposed amending the Constitution to make clear that babies born in the U.S. do not automatically receive American citizenship. In a July 28, 2010, interview on Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, Graham said that "there's another problem we have in this nation that I think is novel and needs to be fixed. If you come across the border illegally and you have a child in America, automatically, that child becomes an American citizen. Under the 14th Amendment, three court cases says there's a constitutional right to that. I would like to deal with the 12 million (illegal immigrants) firmly and fairly. You can't stay here on your own terms. You have to learn English. You have to pay fines. You have to get in the back of the line if you want to be a citizen. But I may introduce a constitutional amendment that changes the rules if you have a child here. Birthright citizenship, I think, is a mistake, that we should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child's automatically not a citizen." Later in the interview, Van Susteren asked Graham, "How realistic is it that you will introduce a constitutional amendment?" Graham replied that he had to because "people come here to have babies. They come here to drop a child. It's called 'drop and leave.' To have a child in America, they cross the border, they go to the emergency room, have a child, and that child's automatically an American citizen. That shouldn't be the case. That attracts people here for all the wrong reasons." In a later interview with Van Susteren on Aug. 3, Graham once again referred to a "problem where thousands of people are coming across the Arizona-Texas border for the express purpose of having a child in an American hospital so that child will become an American citizen, and they broke the law to get there." We've dealt with one aspect of this issue before, when we checked a claim by Fox host Glenn Beck that "we're the only country in the world" that offers birthright citizenship. (We found that 33 others do.) This time, we were curious about Graham's statement that "people come here to have babies. They come here to drop a child." He portrays it as such a big phenomenon that it warrants changing the U.S. Constitution. But is the problem as big as he suggests? Limited benefits It's important to note that having an "anchor baby" won't do much to help a Mexican mom become a U.S. citizen. Because citizen children cannot sponsor their parents for citizenship until they turn 21 -- and because if the parents were ever illegal, they would have to return home for 10 years before applying to come in -- having a baby to secure citizenship for its parents is an extremely long-term, and uncertain, process. However, having a citizen child can produce some short-term benefits, said Marc Rosenblum, a senior policy analyst for the Migration Policy Institute. Pregnant women and nursing mothers could be eligible for certain benefits under the Women-Infants-Children (WIC) program, which provides food and nutrition vouchers, and their children could enroll in Medicaid, although the undocumented parents could not. Having a child can also help an undocumented parent qualify for relief from deportation, but only 4,000 unauthorized immigrants can receive such status per year, and the alien has to have been in the U.S. for at least 10 years. That means very long odds, Rosenblum said. Most of the benefits of citizenship accrue over the much longer term. The child will be able to work here legally once he or she is old enough, said Roberto Suro, a communications and journalism professor at the University of Southern California who specializes in Hispanic issues, and when they're ready for college, they'll qualify for in-state tuition at most public colleges. "It is a hell of a lot of deferred gratification at best," he said. Mixed evidence When we contacted Graham's staff, they could not provide any specific data on mothers who "drop and leave." But they sent us several news accounts about the large number of undocumented immigrants who give birth to children in the United States. Graham is right on that point. According to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a think tank that has done extensive research on immigration policy, 3.8 million undocumented immigrants have at least one child who is a citizen. "Most children of unauthorized immigrants -- 73 percent in 2008 -- are U.S. citizens by birth," the center says. That's up from 63 percent in 2003. These statistics suggest not only that the number is large, but is also growing. To offer a concrete example, we found a 2006 article from the Dallas Morning News about Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, a safety-net facility for poor residents. As many of 70 percent of the roughly 16,000 women giving birth annually at the hospital were immigrants who were in the U.S. illegally, according to one survey cited in the story. So there's ample evidence that many illegal immigrants give birth in the U.S. every year. But how many of them came to the U.S. with the motivation of giving birth and then leaving? In interviewing medical practitioners in states on the U.S. Mexico border, we found mixed evidence. James Dickson, the administrator and CEO of Copper Queen Community Hospital in Bisbee, Ariz., located five miles from the Mexico border, told us that his hospital hasn't offered obstetrical services in a few years, but when it did, he did not see anything like what Graham is describing. "We had some" people who came to have a baby in the U.S., he said, but their goal was not citizenship. It was higher quality treatment or specific services that were unavailable in Mexico. Salli Gonzalez, a nurse-midwife in Seguin, Texas, who delivers about 30 babies a year, said that in the past two years, she'd seen only one person who would fit Graham's criteria. On the other hand, Lauren Weber, a midwife in San Diego, said that some patients from Mexico have confided to her that they've temporarily secured a U.S. address and a utility bill, which is typically enough to qualify them for birth-related care paid by California's version of Medicaid. "There are a million hardworking Hispanic people in San Diego who came here to work and then happened to have a baby," she said. "Then there are people who come over in order to have a baby." She estimated that in the clinic where she works part time, a third to a quarter of her patients have come over for the express purpose of having a baby, and the rest are staying in the U.S. for the longer term, whatever their legal status may be. Weber also noted that she's treated wealthier patients who get the proper visas and fly to the United States to have a child. They come from such countries as China, Pakistan and India. Less affluent Filipinos have also come on tourist visas, she said, and some affluent Mexicans come to give birth as well. This is a pattern cited in a series of recent news accounts. One article, by the Associated Press on June 28, 2009, details a "birth package" offered by the Tucson Medical Center in Tucson, Ariz., to affluent Mexican women. "This is not a new phenomena," the Mexican consul general in Tucson, Juan Manuel Calderon Jaimes, told the AP, saying he's seen the practice for almost 30 years. "Many families of means in Sonora send their wives here to give birth because they have the resources to pay for the services." The article reported that "expectant mothers can either schedule a Caesarean section or arrive a few weeks before their due dates to give birth at TMC. It is one of 13 packages aimed at Mexican families, some of which include a stay at a local resort and shopping excursion. Tucson Medical Center's maternity package costs $2,300 for a vaginal birth with a two-day stay and $4,600 for a Caesarean section and a four-day stay, assuming no complications." Another article, published in the Washington Post on July 18, 2010, featured a Shanghai-based firm that charges $14,750 for a three-month stay in a center in California. The package includes "two months before the birth and a month after," according to the article. "A room with cable TV and a wireless Internet connection, plus three meals, starts at $35 a day. The doctors and staff all speak Chinese. There are shopping and sightseeing trips. The mothers must pay their own airfare and are responsible for getting a U.S. visa, although (the firm) will help them fill out the application form." In such cases, it's hard to determine whether mothers-to-be are coming to the U.S. for higher-quality medical treatment or the benefits of citizenship. Data doesn't support Graham's claim  Immigration data and surveys don't provide much support for Graham's notion that many women are illegally crossing the border in large numbers to have children, then leaving. First, immigration from Mexico to the U.S. tends to go up and down in tandem with the health of the economy. According to another Pew Hispanic Center report, immigration from Mexico dropped by about one-third between 2000-2001 and 2002-2003, coinciding with the recession precipitated by the dot-com bust and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The numbers climbed back as the economy recovered, rising close to their pre-decline numbers by 2005-2006. Then, the numbers fell again, starting in 2006-2007 (a bit before the current recession began) and have continued to fall as the economy has sputtered. It should be noted that these are numbers for all immigrants coming from Mexico, legal and illegal combined. But Jeffrey S. Passel, a senior demographer with the Pew Hispanic Center, said that since illegal immigration historically accounts for 80 to 85 percent of all new immigration from Mexico, the trends for all immigrants tend to mirror those for illegal immigrants alone. "All the data suggests that people come here to work -- especially Mexicans, and especially illegal Mexicans," said Suro. "If people came here because they were looking for work, you would expect to see the flow fluctuate with employment opportunities -- and that’s what the data shows. If people came here to have babies, the flows would be pretty constant, and they are not." There's something else you don't see, Suro said. If having a baby was a significant driving factor in illegal immigration, you would expect to see a higher percentage of women of child-bearing age in the U.S. illegally compared to men of the same age. In fact, just the opposite is the case. Numbers from the Pew Hispanic Center show that in four separate age ranges between 20 and 40, undocumented men significantly outnumber undocumented women. Finally, there's direct testimony from actual immigrants. Princeton University sociologist Douglas Massey conducted in-depth interviews with 159 Latin American immigrants -- most of whom came to the U.S. illegally -- for a recent book he coauthored with Magaly Sanchez R., Brokered Boundaries:  Constructing Immigrant Identity in Anti-Immigrant Times. When they were asked about their motivations for coming to the U.S., "no one ever mentioned having kids in the U.S." Massey said. "I've been surveying Mexican immigrants to the U.S. for 30 years as part of the Mexican Migration Project. We don't ask people their reasons for migrating because most people cannot really articulate the reasons very well -- you get simple answers like, 'I came for the money,' but that doesn't tell you much because people can want money for all kinds of reasons. But we do ask about their migratory behavior, which we then link to social and economic conditions on both sides of the border. What our work shows is that migrants come in response to labor demand in the U.S. and are motivated by economic problems at home." Misleading comments  Undoubtedly, citizenship plays some role in the decisions by undocumented immigrants to come to the U.S. After all, they have made a decision to make their future in the United States rather than in their home country, and part of building a better life in the U.S. is having citizenship for their children. But on Fox, Graham termed the practice "drop and leave," which suggests that illegal immigrants are coming here for the primary purpose of having babies with citizenship, then rushing home to wherever they came from. Graham's comments on this are misleading. While that does appear to be happening with affluent "birth tourists," it's important to understand that those affluent "birth tourists" are not the ones illegally crossing the Rio Grande or the Sonoran desert. They are coming here with the proper legal papers and giving birth. Thus, whatever public policy challenges arise from "birth tourism" are separate and distinct from the public policy challenges of illegal immigration -- which is not at all the impression that Graham gave in his Fox appearance. Graham tacitly acknowledged this distinction in his follow-up appearance on Van Susteren's show on Aug. 3, 2010, saying, "You have found and I've provided you information about groups that are marketing to Chinese, and Mideastern and European families a 90-day visa package, where you come to America as a tourist. You come to a resort. You have your child at a hospital within the resort. That child is an American citizen. You turn around and leave." But raising this example days later strikes us as an after-the-fact justification. So let's recap. It's true that many illegal immigrants are having children in the U.S. However, we are not convinced that "drop and leave" is a phenomenon. The data suggests that the motivator for illegal immigrants is the search for work and a better economic standing over the long term, not quickie citizenship for U.S.-born babies. Graham appears to be conflating two things -- a pattern of wealthy foreigners engaging in "birth tourism" using legal visas, and illegal immigration of poorer people from Mexico. In our view, failing to make the distinction exaggerates the alleged problem and uses inflammatory rhetoric to obscure legitimate policy questions.


Bald eagle died of lead poisoning in Montana’s Glacier Park.

Explanation: A bald eagle found dead in Montana’s Glacier National Park died of lead poisoning.

Wildlife, Animals, Health, Wildlife health, Bald eagles, Montana, Eagles, Birds

News outlets reported Tuesday that the female bird was discovered near a creek in in February. Similar deaths of eagles due to lead poisoning were reported in the same vicinity of Glacier National Park in 2012 and in Yellowstone National Park in December. Officials say eagles are scavengers as well as predators and sometimes feed on other animals that have been shot using lead ammunition. Park biologists sent the emaciated bird’s carcass to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, for evaluation after an initial assessment found no signs of gunshot wounds or other trauma. The eagle had signs of lead poisoning including a distended gallbladder filled with viscous, green bile.


Roseanne Barr posed as Hitler for an issue of satirical Jewish magazine 'Heeb.'

Explanation: Roseanne: I don’t give a fuck what people think. I care what people do. I don’t care what they think. That’s what I’m trying to say. Let’s stop holocausts. When I did The Star Spangled Banner — let’s care about freedom, instead of symbols of freedom for a fucking change. You know what I mean, I don’t know. I’m just really old. When you’re post-menopausal, you’re just really crazy.

Entertainment, adolf hitler, anti-semitism, roseanne barr

The revival of the sitcom Roseanne in March 2018 sparked big ratings for ABC, generally positive reviews, and, of course, controversy. However, the initial episodes did not seem to drive the conversation online quite as much as a years-old series of images that suddenly reappeared featuring the show’s eponymous star, actor and comedian Roseanne Barr, dressed up as Hitler and pulling gingerbread cookies out of an oven:  These photographs are real. However, they are frequently shared without important accompanying context. The series of images were originally part of a 2009 article in a “Germany” issue of Heeb magazine, a satirical Jewish publication that ran between 2001 and 2010. (An infrequently updated version of the magazine still exists online.) In the article which originally accompanied these photographs, entitled “That Oven Feelin’,” author Oliver Noble wrote that Roseanne asked to dress up as Hitler for the spread, as she believes (or at least jokingly said that she believes) that she may be the reincarnation of the Führer himself: As I wait for Barr to arrive, I contemplate the pop culture folklore that surrounds her: the alleged multiple personality disorder, the roller coaster relationship with Tom Arnold—which culminated in a bitter divorce—the theory (her own) that she may in fact be the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, whom she has requested to be dressed as for her Heeb photo shoot. “Nervous” doesn’t begin to describe my feelings about meeting this 5’4” Jewish grandmother. With her hit sitcom off the air for more than a decade and the tabloid pages of her tumultuous life rotting in landfills, Barr currently spends her time working on a collection of essays on menopause, celebrity, pharmaceuticals and Jewish life in Mormon Utah (to be published by Simon Spotlight Entertainment) and disseminating her signature mix of insights and insults through her blog (Roseanneworld.com). She briefly kept an account with what she now calls “that shit heap” (Twitter) before deleting it, citing as her reason “the idiocy of people and how ill-informed they all seem.” Today, when she brusquely enters the photo studio, she seems none too happy about having been dragged from her self-imposed exile. […] As the “Domestic Goddess” dons the famous moustache, transforming into “Domestic Goddess Hitler,” I notice that she’s beginning to have fun. She nails the Fuehrer’s facial expressions with twisted glee, and as she takes the burnt gingerbread “Jew Cookies” out of the oven it occurs to me that Barr may be the last celebrity utterly incapable of giving a fuck—a quality theoretically easy to embody until it’s time to face the practical repercussions. “Franklin Ajae, Paul Mooney, Mort Sahl and Dick Gregory’s passings will tear my kishkas out,” Barr laments. “They gave everything they had to just tell the truth, and they couldn’t make a decent living because of the choice they made—not selling out to Hollywood.” The photoshoot stirred up considerable controversy at the time, and from pundits across the political spectrum. Segments on The View and The O’Reilly Factor criticized the comedian for the Hitler-themed photoshoot. Heeb, however, defended the pictures and noted that Holocaust jokes are frequently featured in Hollywood movies, explaining that as a satirical, Jewish publication its goal was to challenge preconceptions: Heeb is a satirical Jewish culture magazine that interrogates stereotypes and ideas (hopefully in creative ways) that many hold sacred in order to represent the complex and nuanced perspectives that many Jews have about their identities. When we depicted Sarah Silverman behind a hole in a sheet or Jonah Hill dressed as Moses holding two kegs as if they were tablets, we weren’t trying to be shocking–we were trying to communicate something truthful about contemporary Jewishness. Yes, that may sound impossibly high-fallutin, but it’s the truth and while we kind of don’t give a shit whether the magazine wreaks havoc on smug and sanctimonious visions of Jewish life, we do care when our intentions (or those of our collaborators) are distorted. Virtually every pitch we received leading up to the publishing of our Germany Issue circled back to the Nazis and the Holocaust and almost all of them were humorous in nature. Naturally, our editors couldn’t help but wonder whether something new was happening in the culture— whether the taboo against joking about the Holocaust and the Nazis exerted as much power as it used to. Certainly Jews have been joking about the Holocaust since the Holocaust (I believe it was the Warsaw Ghetto where the Jewish inhabitants referred to Hitler regularly as “Horowitz”), but these jokes have largely been uttered in private or underground. In recent years, they have been finding themselves in the most public of conversations. […] And what better way to capture this moment in popular culture than by having the original “domestic goddess” don the Fuhrer’s famous mustache? For better or worse, hasn’t the Holocaust itself been domesticated? Roseanne also addressed the issue during an episode of The Green Room with Paul Provenza. The conversation about those Hitler images begins about the eight minutes in. We’ve transcribed the relevant portion below:  Roseanne: It’s like a Jewish woman. And She’s dressed up like Hitler. And he’s in drag. Hitler. And he’s baking cookies. And he’s really proud of them. But he’s also looking off into the horizon because he has a dream. It was for Heeb magazine. It was their Germany issue. And who better a symbol of Germany than Hitler? Provenza: What did your detractors have to say? Roseanne: Oh my god. You don’t want to piss of Jews. Even if you’re a Jew, don’t piss off Jews. All Jews hate each other. Provenza: Jews went crazy over this. Understandably. Rozeanne: I don’t think understandably. It really pissed me off. Because they were like “you’re making fun of the people in the ovens,” but I’m not making fun of people in the ovens. Patrice O’Neal: You kind of are though. The only thing worse would have been if you made the cookies skinny. Roseanne: There’s another, deeper layer to it. You know just the everyday. Moving off this Holocaust. There’s been about fifty of them since then. That’s what I’m kind of trying to say. Is like, Jesus Christ it’s so fucking every day now, holocausts, it’s like baking cookies. Provenza: Were you not aware that that’s not what people would be thinking?


Georgia deploys 3D printers, Guard units in testing scramble.

Explanation: Seeing a chance to help amid a shortage of kits to test people for the coronavirus, Dr. Jeffrey James dedicated a 3D printer at the dental college where he teaches to churning out nasal swabs at a rate of 300 per day.

Georgia, Health, General News, Augusta, Science, Virus Outbreak, Technology, U.S. News

Then Georgia officials working with Gov. Brian Kemp heard about the project. They asked James if he could crank up swab production even more — to 5,000 daily. “I said yes,” James recalled, “then I left the meeting and had a panic attack.” Now seven printers with names like Mighty Mouse and Sonic 1 and 2 hum constantly in a room on the third floor of Augusta University’s dental school. Volunteering dental residents, endodontists, orthodontists and oral surgeons rotate between two daily 12-hour shifts, even on weekends, to meet the demand. The production push is one way Georgia is scrambling to catch up on COVID-19 testing after the Republican governor lifted shelter-at-home orders for most people and allowed hair salons, gyms, tattoo parlors and bowling alleys to reopen and restaurants to resume dine-in service. The Trump administration’s plans  for emerging from lockdowns imposed to slow the virus have largely left individual states on their own when it comes to supplying themselves with test kits and finding workers and sites to administer those tests. Georgia lagged behind most U.S. states in testing even as Kemp moved aggressively to ease restrictions and restart the economy. Public health experts say expanded testing is critical to keeping watch for a resurgence of infections as states begin reopening. What’s lacking, both at the federal and state level, is a clear and coordinated long-term strategy, said Dr. Harry J. Heiman, a professor of public health at Georgia State University in Atlanta. “You don’t manage a pandemic by waiting for people to come to you and raise their hand and say, ‘I have an idea and I’m willing to help,’” Heiman said. The virus has killed more than 1,200 people in Georgia. Health officials have confirmed more than 29,300 infections statewide. Acknowledging his own “frustration” with the lack of testing in Georgia, Kemp rolled out plans on April 20 to use National Guard troops as well as clinicians and other staff from Augusta University’s medical schools to dramatically ramp up testing. The same day, the governor announced some shuttered businesses would soon reopen with restrictions. Although testing was initially limited to high-risk populations, such as the elderly and medical workers, Kemp is now encouraging anyone with flu-like symptoms to get tested for COVID-19, as well as grocery store, chicken plant and other essential workers who aren’t showing symptoms. “Our goal is to use every single test we’ve got every single day,” Kemp said Thursday. There have been signs of improvement. On April 20, the total number of people tested in Georgia was just over 84,300. By Monday, it had swelled to more than 183,000, according to the state Department of Public Health. Compared with other states, Georgia now ranks in the bottom 20 for per capita testing. It had previously been in the bottom 10. Kathleen Toomey, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health, said Thursday that her agency’s goal is to have administered more than 200,000 total coronavirus tests by sometime this week. Kemp touted more than 20,000 new tests reported Thursday — the most Georgia had seen in a single day — and nearly 13,000 new tests Tuesday. But those figures don’t reflect sustained daily testing, which still fluctuates greatly. During the same week, Georgia reported fewer than 4,000 new tests on April 27 and Wednesday. “If they can do 13,000 a day, every day, then from purely a numbers perspective that’s a great place to be,” Heiman said. “Am I seeing a trend where it seems we’re getting where we need to be? My candid answer is no.” As part of Georgia’s recent expansion effort, the National Guard, already tasked with disinfecting nursing homes across Georgia, has deployed 10 teams capable of administering 1,500 tests daily to long-term care facilities and other coronavirus hotspots. About 30 Guard troops sent to Augusta University have turned a classroom into a call center where citizen-soldiers in fatigues and boots are manning phones to schedule testing appointments for people showing symptoms. Those patients are being referred by clinicians at the university who screen them using a cellphone app. Georgia now operates 49 drive-thru testing sites statewide. With nasals swabs used to collect samples for testing being 3D printed, cleaned and sterilized across campus, Dr. Phillip Coule said the greatest supply shortage now is the chemicals used to test the samples, called reagents. That’s something the university can’t produce, said Coule, the chief medical officer for the Augusta University Medical System. And it’s limiting how many tests his staff and the National Guard can arrange. “That’s the weak link right now,” Coule said. “I could double capacity if I had more reagent.” ___ Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Associated Press writer Jeff Amy contributed from Atlanta. ___ Follow AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.


Patients push limits for clues to chronic fatigue syndrome.

Explanation: Researchers hooked Zach Ault to medical monitors as he slowly climbed onto a gym bike. An invisible disease is sidelining this once avid athlete and he knew the simple exercise would wipe him out -- but Ault was pedaling for science.

Chronic fatigue syndrome, AP Top News, Health, General News, Science, U.S. News, Weekend Reads

Chronic fatigue syndrome is one of medicine’s most vexing mysteries. Now doctors at the National Institutes of Health are using volunteers like Ault for a unique study that pushes their limits in search of what’s stealing all their energy. “I’ve tried to exercise my way out of this multiple times and I’ve put myself in deeper pits every time,” said Ault, 36, of Paducah, Kentucky, as he began a nearly two-week stint at the research-only hospital outside the nation’s capital. “Chronic fatigue is kind of like they took the stopper out of the energy reserve tank,” and no amount of sleep replenishes it, he said. Up to 2.5 million Americans are estimated to have what is known officially as ME/CFS -- it stands for “myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.” Its hallmark is profound fatigue, lasting more than six months, that’s made even worse by any type of exertion. Among other symptoms, patients also tend to have difficulty staying upright or cognitive trouble often described as a “brain fog.” Many go undiagnosed, misdiagnosed or dismissed by skeptical doctors. Decades after it was first recognized, scientists don’t know what causes it. There are no approved treatments, or even tests to help diagnosis -- and no way to predict who will recover and who will have a severe case that leaves them debilitated, even bed-bound, for years. “The ignorance about the condition just vastly dwarfs what we know about it,” said Dr. Walter Koroshetz, director of NIH’s National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke, which is leading the research. The NIH has more than doubled funding -- to more than $14 million -- for scientists around the country to unravel the biology of ME/CFS since 2015, when the influential Institute of Medicine decried “a paucity of research.”  Part of the trouble is that varied symptoms make it hard to compare patients. A patient advocacy group called Solve ME/CFS Initiative is preparing to open a registry where patients can send in medical information and blood and saliva samples to help scientists expand research. And illustrating the desperation for answers, nearly 500 patients have called seeking to enroll in NIH’s own study that is putting a few dozen under the microscope, with a barrage of sophisticated tests few hospitals can offer under one roof. Like many such patients, Ault’s disease struck following a run-of-the-mill infection in 2017. He’d been training for a half-marathon but after a little time off to recover, he tried to resume his runs and couldn’t. His diagnosis came after months of tests for other explanations. “His body had literally hijacked him and it wasn’t going to allow him to push through,” said Anne Ault, his wife. Ault, a father of three, was missing his kids’ sporting and school activities, even his nightly wrestle with his young son. He had to cut back his job, in the ministry, to half-days. When 16 hours of sleep a day made no difference, his wife, a pharmacist, hunted research opportunities. Ault fit the bill for the NIH study, which is focusing on people who came down with the disease after an infection, of any sort, within five years. That initial infection is long gone but maybe, the body’s normal reactions to illness went into a destructive tailspin. “You’re really capturing the disease at a specific point in time,” in its crucial early stages, said Sadie Whittaker, scientific director for the Solve ME/CFS Initiative. “No one has studied such a very specific population to such depth before.” There are some clues. Earlier studies have found brain inflammation in patients, and nervous system abnormalities that might explain why they feel worse upright than lying down. The immune system seems to be on chronic alert. Then there’s the energy drain. Just last month, Cornell University researchers reported that patients’ key immune cells don’t make energy properly. The NIH study is looking for more clues. It starts with a week-plus hospitalization for blood and genetic tests, brain scans, a spinal tap, sleep tests, a check of gut bacteria. Scientists pore over the results before deciding who to invite back for a longer and more rigorous visit. “Go as far as you can, work as hard as you can,” NIH physical therapist Bart Drinkard told Ault as he climbed onto the exercise bike. Cells, in particular little factories inside cells called mitochondria, use oxygen and nutrients to create energy. While Ault pedals, scientists can measure how his leg muscles use oxygen, and see if that’s different than in a healthy person. Afterward, doctors fit a special cap on Ault to track electrical activity in his brain, and then sent him to spend the night in an air-tight chamber. Pipes draw out the room’s air for analysis. How much oxygen is used and carbon dioxide is produced tells how much energy Ault is using, minute by minute. “We can calculate every molecule. It’s the cleanest air we have in the hospital,” said NIH’s Kong Chen, a metabolism specialist. “We’re figuring out how his body adjusts to an exercise load, or a stress load.” Researchers are clear: The study doesn’t offer any treatments, although the hope is to find targets to eventually develop some. But Ault says it did help to learn about the disease and tricks to conserve his energy and pace himself “so I can try to stay as healthy as possible without such bad consequences.” “It’s hard not knowing if I’m going to recover, if or when,” he said. Until research has an answer, he’ll “hope for the best but live for right now.” ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


Mississippi chicken plant Koch Foods, which was raided by ICE in August 2019, was the subject of a previous lawsuit brought by workers and was subsequently ordered to pay a settlement.

Explanation: Was the Mississippi Chicken Plant Raided by American Immigration Authorities Previously Sued for Workplace Abuses?

An early August 2019 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid at Mississippi chicken plant made national news due to its size and the number of children left without parents or guardians in its wake; in its aftermath, rumors claimed that the business in question, Koch Foods, had been previously ordered to pay a large sum of money in a workplace lawsuit settlement.The screenshot above was shared to Facebook on August 8 2019, days after the raid. A status update read:“Ahhhhh ok, so the 600 immigrants arrested at work in Mississippi are the same folks who were awarded a huge settlement due to being physically and sexually assaulted while at work. They’re being locked up so that employers like Koch foods (owned by billionaire Republican Joe Glendys) can rely on the fear of raids to help them exploit migrant laborers already working in dangerous facilities without accountability for their other illicit labor conditions. Smh wowww”.The screenshot was originally shared to Instagram with the following commentary:So my good friend and attorney @hzaarour brought this to my attention just now, and I’m in utter disbelief—remember that chicken processing plant ICE raided and arrested 600+ workers? Well, that’s the same plant, and those are the same workers who were about to receive a large settlement stemming from an employment-related lawsuit.The posts include two claims: that ICE raided a Mississippi chicken plant called Koch Foods (no affiliation with or relation to the Koch brothers or Koch Industries) in August 2019, and that Koch Foods was ordered to pay nearly $4 million to its employees after they brought a suit alleging workplace abuses.On August 7 2019, ICE agents captured and detained 680 people in seven separate raids across six food processing plants in Mississippi:US immigration authorities have detained some 680 undocumented immigrants in what a federal prosecutor described as a record-setting operation.US Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi Mike Hurst told reporters the arrests took place at seven sites in six different cities in Mississippi on [August 7 2019]. The raids, he said, are “believed to be the largest single-state immigration enforcement operation in our nation’s history.”Officials declined to provide details about what sites had been targeted, citing what they said was an ongoing criminal investigation. CNN affiliates reported the raids at food-processing plants throughout the state.Headlines indicated ICE detained “undocumented immigrants,” but how the immigration status of the hundreds of detained individuals was divined so quickly was not made clear in any reporting. A local news organization, the Clarion Ledger, reported that “Latino workers were gathered into one room” by ICE agents. At least 300 of the 680 detained were released within a day.According to another report, the seven raided plants were owned by a total of four companies:In some instances, immigrants were released from detention and outfitted with ankle monitors while awaiting deportation proceedings. Authorities tracking their GPS coordinates were able to see they were coming and going from Mississippi food processing plants.On [August 7 2019], hundreds of immigration officials descended on seven Mississippi plants owned by four companies — Peco Foods, Koch Foods, PH Food and Pearl River Foods. They are suspected of “willfully and unlawfully employing” undocumented workers, recently unsealed search warrants say.An August 8 2019 Chicago Tribune article identified one of the four companies as Mississippi-based Koch Foods:Mississippi ICE raids hit Koch Foods, a large suburban Chicago-based poultry processor that mostly flies under the radarThe Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids [August 7 2019] on agricultural plants in Mississippi hit close to home in Chicago, with about a quarter of the arrested workers employed by Koch Foods, a large Park Ridge-based poultry processor whose billionaire owner, Joseph Grendys, mostly flies under the radar.As many as 200 of the 680 people allegedly living in the country illegally, who were detained by authorities, worked at the Koch plant in Morton, Miss., according to an initial estimate by ICE spokesman Bryan Cox.The raids represent the largest workplace immigration sting operation of the Trump administration, with more than 600 agents from ICE and Homeland Security Investigations executing multiple federal criminal search warrants at seven Mississippi agricultural facilities.That article went on to report on a 2018 settlement agreement involving Koch Foods, as well as another immigration raid — this one in 2007 — at one of the company’s plants. Hundreds of those apprehended in August 2019 were employees of Koch Foods.A second claim held that Koch Foods agreed to pay a $3.7 million settlement in 2018, which stemmed from a discrimination lawsuit. The article seen in the screenshot was published by human resources industry site HR Dive on August 13 2018. It reported:Dive Brief:HR Dive linked to an August 2018 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) brief about Koch Foods and the settlement, which stated in part that Koch Foods was found to have engaged in retaliatory behavior against employees who reported workplace harassment and bias:Koch Foods Settles EEOC Harassment, National Origin And Race Bias Suit Poultry Supplier Pays $3.75 Million to Class of Hispanic WorkersBIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Koch Foods, one of the largest poultry suppliers in the world, will pay $3,750,000 and furnish other relief to settle a class employment discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today. The EEOC charged the company with sexual harassment, national origin and race discrimination as well as retaliation against a class of Hispanic workers at Koch’s Morton, Miss., chicken processing plant.According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, Koch subjected individual plaintiff/intervenors and classes of Hispanic employees and female employees to a hostile work environment and disparate treatment based on their race/national origin (Hispanic), sex (female), and further retaliated against those who engaged in protected activity.1 EEOC alleges that supervisors touched and/or made sexually suggestive comments to female Hispanic employees, hit Hispanic employees and charged many of them money for normal everyday work activities. Further, a class of Hispanic employees was subject to retaliation in the form of discharge and other adverse actions after complaining. […]The three-year consent decree entered today by Judge Daniel P. Jordan III provides for $3,750,000 in monetary relief for the victims. In addition, Koch Foods will take specified actions designed to prevent future discrimination, including implementing new policies and practices designed to prevent discrimination based on race, sex or national origin; providing anti-discrimination training to employees; creating a 24-hour hotline for reporting discrimination complaints in English and Spanish; and posting policies and anti-discrimination notices in its workplace in English and Spanish.Posts on social media claimed that many of the people ensnared in ICE raids in Mississippi were Koch Foods workers. Moreover, the rumors asserted that Hispanic employees of Koch Foods had been awarded $3.75 million in a 2018 settlement over workplace abuses. These claims are both true.Although other companies’ plants were raided by ICE that day, hundreds of the affected workers were employed by Koch Foods. It is also true that employees of Koch Foods sued the company over workplace abuses, and that the EEOC determined in their investigation at the time that some endured retaliation for their reporting of the abuses.


Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.

Explanation: Intriguing circumstances, but still a fair bit short of the more captivating rumor.

The claim that British prime minister “Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ room at a dance” has been circulating on Internet-based trivia lists for as long as we can remember. Given that Churchill was one of the most important figures of the 20th century — a long-lived statesman of international prominence whose career spanned two world wars and beyond — this would seem like a fairly easy item to verify, but once again things were deceptively  less simple than they appeared at first blush. To research this type of item (an anecdote about a famous figure), we generally first turn to the most recent biography of that person we can find, which in this case was Roy Jenkins’ 900-page Churchill: A Biography (2001). The brief description of Churchill’s birth found there mentioned nothing more remarkable than that he was born two months prematurely (labor having been brought on when his mother took a fall)  in a “singularly bleak-looking bedroom” at Blenheim Palace:  He was born on 30 November 1874 and, mainly by accident, in Blenheim Palace, although in a singularly bleak-looking bedroom. The accident arose out of his being two months premature. He should have been born in January in the small but fashionable house in Charles Street, Mayfair, which his father had rented to receive him, or more purposefully perhaps to use as a base for the somewhat rackety metropolitan life of which Lord Randolph and his bride of only seven and a half months’ standing were equally fond. This house not being ready, they had taken autumn refuge in Blenheim, and, as Lord Randolph put it in a letter to his mother-in-law in Paris, ‘[Lady Randolph] had a fall on Tuesday walking with the shooters, and a rather imprudent and rough drive in a pony carriage brought on the pains on Saturday night. We tried to stop them, but it was no use.’ Neither the London obstetrician nor his Oxford auxiliary could arrive in time, although it was over twenty-four hours to the birth from the onset of labor pains, and the baby was born very early on the Monday morning with the assistance only of the Woodstock country doctor. Well, maybe the author had to leave some things out in order to keep an already sprawling biography from spanning more than one volume, and the item we were looking for was one of them. So we tried other Churchill biographies, but they scarcely noted the circumstances of his birth at all, saving their detailed narratives for later portions of his life:   Winston Churchill was born in 1874, half way through the Victorian Era. That November, his mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, then less than seven months pregnant, had slipped and fallen while walking with a shooting party at Blenheim Palace. A few days later, while riding in a pony carriage over rough ground, labour began. She was rushed back to the Palace, where, in the early hours of November 30, he son was born. A volume entitled The Private Lives of Winston Churchill sounded promising, and there we found the suggestion that Churchill hadn’t been born prematurely at all and that the story about his mother’s taking a fall may have been concocted to cover a pre-marital dalliance:  The wedding took place in the British embassy in Paris on April 15, 1874, with all the signs of a somewhat hushed and rushed affair. There was none of the splendor that an international society wedding of such wealth and standing  would normally receive, no public ceremony, and little mention in the press. The Duke and Duchess [of Marlborough] were conspicuously absent. Was [the bride] already pregnant? Piety says no, but the evidence suggests she might have been. Why else the rush, the discreet ceremony, and the pointed absence of the Marlboroughs — followed by a notably uncomplicated birth seven months later, of the lusty baby who was christened Winston. At the time the premature birth was accounted for by Jennie’s falling while out shooting, followed by “a rather imprudent and rough drive in a pony carriage,” which apparently brought on the pains of labor. A small downstairs room at Blenheim was improvised for the confinement. It would have been in character for both participants not to have allowed mere chaperones or dull convention to impede passion — and it would certainly explain much of what happened later. Still nothing about a dance or a ladies’ room, though; only the unsatisfying notation that Winston’s birth was “notably uncomplicated.”   We pressed on. William Manchester’s The Last Lion also suggested Winston’s “premature” birth was a fiction promulgated to obscure a pre-wedding pregnancy, a ruse that supposedly fooled no one:  Another admission, which [the bride] preferred to keep from her husband’s family, was that she was bearing their grandchild. Indeed it is virtually certain that she had been pregnant for three months, and soon it would begin to show … Premature? The Times bought it. At the head of its birth notices it reported: “On the 30th Nov., at Blenheim Palace, the Lady Randolph Churchill, prematurely, of a son.” But no one believed it, not the patrician friends of the family, chuckling over the announcement, nor even the yeomen of Woodstock, who, the Oxford Times reported, rang “a merry peal on the church bells … in honour of the event.” Winston was full-term. It was generally believed that sometime the previous February, during the maddening negotiations over the marriage settlement, Jennie had eluded her mother, divested herself of the incredible layers of clothing then worn by young ladies, and received Randolph’s seed. Indeed, it was thought the duke and duchess had known Jennie was pregnant at the time of the wedding; that was why they had boycotted it. Sly allusions to the circumstances of his birth followed Winston all his life. He enjoyed them. He would reply: “Although present on the occasion, I have no clear recollection of the events leading up to it.” Of course, it is possible that his parents have been slandered. Periods of gestation do vary. He may have been premature. It would have been just like him. He never could wait his turn. But, more important for our purposes, Manchester also included an account of the birth itself, one which was clearly in the ballpark of what we were looking for:  That evening the annual St. Andrew’s Ball was held in the palace. To the astonishment of everyone, including her husband, [Jennie] appeared in a loose gown, holding a dance card. She was actually on the floor, pirouetting, when the pains started. Randolph wrote his mother-in-law [Clara]: “We tried to stop them, but it was no use.” It was, in fact, time to choose a birthplace. Her grandniece, Ann Leslie, afterward described Jennie’s search for one. Attended by servants and by Randolph’s aunt Clemetina, Lady Camden, she stumbled away from the party — which seems to have proceeded gaily without her — and lurched “past the endless suite of drawing-rooms, through the library, ‘the longest room in England,'” toward her bedroom. She didn’t make it. She fainted and was carried into a little room just off Blenheim’s great hall. Once it had belonged to the first duke’s chaplain; tonight it was the ladies’ cloakroom. Sprawing, she lay on velvet capes and feather boas, which were deftly drawn from beneath her when the ball ended and the merry guests departed. It was a long night, with servants hurrying in and out with poultices and towels. The pains, Randolph told Clara, “went on all Sunday.” He had telegraphed the London obstetrician Jennie had consulted, but, Sunday train schedules being what they were, the doctor couldn’t arrive until Monday. Thus, the historic role of delivering England’s greatest prime minister fell to Frederic Taylor, a Woodstock physician. “The country Dr. is … a clever man,” Randolph reported, “& the baby was safely born at 1:30 this morning after about 8 [sic] hrs labour. She suffered a good deal poor darling, but was v[er]y plucky & had no chloroform. The boy is wonderfully pretty so everybody says dark eyes and hair & v[er]y healthy considering its prematureness.”  That’s not quite enough for us to label this one as “true.”  Winston’s mother may have been attending a dance when she went into labor and delivered him in the palace where the dance was held, but he wasn’t actually born until more than 24 hours later, long after the dance had ended and all the guests had departed. And the room where the birth took place wasn’t a ladies’ bathroom at all but ordinary living quarters temporarily pressed into service as a place to store coats, as can be seen in photographs of Blenheim Palace. The confusion may stem from the fact that ‘cloakroom’ is sometimes employed as a euphemism for ‘lavatory’ in the UK, but in this case ‘cloakroom’ was clearly used in its literal sense.


Jordan's King Abdullah II murdered his wife, Queen Rania.

Explanation: — Rania Al Abdullah (@QueenRania) June 28, 2016

Junk News, awd news, jordan, king abdullah ii

On 24 June 2016, a shocking story suddenly appeared out of nowhere: Queen Rania, Jordan’s beautiful consort to King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein, famous for her humanitarian work, was murdered by her husband in Rome. Why? Because of an affair she had, claimed the indifferently-punctuated article, with none other than the frontman to the band U2: According to many local observers the ominous news is considered widely as a harbinger of widening rifts within Jordan’s tormented social fabrics as the Arab nation of seven million is equally divided into native Jordanians and descendents of Palestinian refugees whom Queen Rania belonged.Unbeknownst to many Westerners, the King Abdullah of Jordan, a close ally of Obama administration, supports and harbors fanatic Saudi-backed ISIS terrorists and seeks to spread terrorism in the Middle-East region. While Queen Rania showed herself as a typical glamorous Queen, showing more agreeable and democratic façade to her husband’s despotic and repressive regime, but the rumors in Jordan whisper that there was a secret side to Rania’s life, that is least publicized. One thing facts could confirm though, Rania was living a life on the fast lane that is very much Hollywood, and Hollywood indeed, with all that come with that in stark contrast to restricted norms in her country. Dr. Oday al-Shana’a, a London-based former Jordanian court official and ex-friend believes that Bono, the famous Irish singer and so-called philanthropist seduced the innocent Queen. The story quickly spread through social media and aggregation sites, but there’s no truth to it. AWD News, the web site on which the story originated, doesn’t have more than a nodding acquaintance with facts, instead playing on nationalistic fantasy and conspiracy theory to create alarming (and thus clickable and shareable) stories. AWD News‘ story also included the following passage: “I am sorry to inform you that due to yet unexpected reasons, Her Majesty the Queen was found dead at her Excelsior Hotel room, 9:00 pm yesterday night . His Majesty expresses his sincere gratitude to the international  outpouring of grief and sorrow over the Queen ‘s death,” Moscow Times cited Mr. Tarawneh on Friday as saying, adding that before her death, the Queen did much to precipitate ending the long-troubled marriage by travelling to Rome to meet a family friend without King’s permission. No such quote was published in the Moscow Times, nor could we find it reproduced in any article that is not a copy of the AWD News story. Other extremely dubious headlines that have appeared on the site include the following: “European Union Unveils the Creation of ‘EU Army’ Hidden from British Voters Over the ‘Danger of Russia,'” “Saudi Arabia offers Mark Zuckerberg $250 billion to buy Facebook and arrest the pro-democracy activists, say reports,” and “Assassins Who Killed British MP Jo Cox and Targeted Donald Trump Tied to UK Military, CIA.” That last story alleges documents from the Kremlin’s Foreign Intelligence Service show that the man who murdered Jo Cox and a man who threatened Donald Trump could be traced back to the same mental hospital. (Needless to say, no such documents exist.) If Queen Rania had indeed been murdered by King Abdullah II in Rome, the news wouldn’t be leaked by a conspiracy-oriented web site out of Berlin. Also, if Queen Rania was indeed murdered on or before 24 June 2016, it’s news to her, as she’s still posting on social media: Happy birthday to Al Hussein! It has been a joy to watch you become the kind and dedicated man you are today. pic.twitter.com/l6S7eKGgfE


Indonesia says avoid coast near volcano, fearing new tsunami.

Explanation: Indonesian authorities urged people to avoid the coast in areas where a tsunami killed at least 430 people over the weekend in a fresh warning issued on the anniversary of the catastrophic 2004 Asian earthquake and tsunami.

Tsunamis, AP Top News, Java, International News, Indonesia, Asia, Sumatra, Weather, Geophysics, Science, Asia Pacific, Earthquakes

The big waves that followed an eruption on a volcanic island hit communities along the Sunda Strait on Saturday night. The eruption of Anak Krakatau, or “Child of Krakatoa,” is believed to have set off a large landslide on the volcano, apparently on its slope and underwater, displacing water that slammed into Java and Sumatra islands. Indonesia’s Meteorology, Geophysics and Climatology Agency asked people late Tuesday to stay at least 500 meters (1,640 feet) and up to 1 kilometer (less than a mile) from the coastline along the strait, which lies between the two islands. The agency was monitoring Anak Krakatau’s eruptions as stormy weather and high surf continued to plague the area, said agency head Dwikorita Karnawati. “All these conditions could potentially cause landslides at the cliffs of the crater into the sea, and we fear that that could trigger a tsunami,” Karnawati said at a news conference. She asked that communities remain vigilant and not to panic. The warning was reiterated by the country’s disaster agency on Wednesday. The tsunami struck without warning, taking people by surprise even in a country familiar with seismic disaster. No big earthquake shook the ground beforehand, and it hit at night on a holiday weekend while people were enjoying concerts and other beach and resort activities. It was a sharp contrast to the disaster that struck 14 years ago off the northwestern tip of Sumatra island. An enormous magnitude 9.1 earthquake rocked the area the morning after Christmas, creating gigantic waves that surged far inland and swallowed everything in their path. The wall of water killed some 230,000 people in a dozen countries, more than half in Indonesia’s Aceh province. The devastation was vast, and the disaster was among the worst in recent history. Saturday’s event, coupled with an earthquake and tsunami in September on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island that killed at least 2,100 people, triggered flashbacks for some who survived the 2004 tragedy. “When it happens, I always remember what we have been through,” said Qurnaty, 54, who lost her home and several family members to the 2004 waves in the hard-hit provincial capital of Banda Aceh. Qurnaty, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, prayed with surviving family members at a mass grave there on Wednesday’s anniversary. “Every time I see them (on TV), I feel really, really sad. All we can do from here is to pray for them,” she said. Though recovery was slow, some victims of the latest tsunami said they remember the resilience of the Acehnese people, which gives them hope that they too can rebuild their homes and their lives. “I am scared. I am traumatized by the tsunami that I only knew before from the news,” said Kusmiati, who also uses one name. “Now I know how horrifying a tsunami is.” Her face was still bruised and her legs swollen after she and her husband managed to survive being hit and dragged under by the waves after fleeing a beach villa in Carita, where they were working. Beaches were largely empty in the area, which is typically crammed with tourists, and police patrolled on motorbikes, warning people to stay away from the coast. Some residents defied the warning, returning to what was left of their homes to begin cleaning up as heavy rain fell and waves pounded the shore. “I am still afraid that the tsunami will return, so when dark comes, I stay at a temporary shelter on the hill,” said Rohayati, who worked to salvage what was left of her battered house, 300 meters (985 feet) from the sea. “I hope the government can provide a tsunami warning, like a siren, for people living in coastal areas so we can be alerted of a potential tsunami and have time to save ourselves.” The country’s system of tsunami detection buoys — deployed after the 2004 disaster — has not worked since 2012, with some units being stolen or vandalized. Karnawati, of the meteorology agency, said that because the tsunami was caused by volcanic activity, it would not have been picked up by the system’s seafloor sensors, which monitor movement from conventional earthquakes responsible for most of Indonesia’s tsunamis. Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for Indonesia’s Disaster Mitigation Agency, said Wednesday that the volcanic activity is believed to have triggered an underwater landslide and that a large chunk of Anak Krakatau’s southwest slope collapsed. This movement displaced a large volume of water, creating waves that raced toward the shore. Residents of Sumur village, which has been slow to receive aid due to roads being cut off, remained stunned by how quickly the tsunami hit. The beach, located just a few kilometers (miles) from the tourist island of Umang near Java’s western tip, is popular for snorkeling and other water activities. The tsunami decimated the area, ripping houses from their foundations and bulldozing concrete buildings. Scientists have said the waves were recorded in several places at about 1 meter (3.3 feet) high, but Sumur residents insisted they towered more than 3 meters (10 feet), possibly as high as 5 meters (16 feet), which Sutopo also confirmed in some areas. More than 21,000 people have been displaced from their homes and heavy equipment is urgently needed in the Sumur subdistrict near Ujung Kulon National Park to help get aid flowing and reach people who may be injured or trapped, said Nugroho. He said the death toll was 430, with more than 1,400 people injured and at least 159 missing. Anak Krakatau formed in the early 20th century near the site of the cataclysmic 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, which killed more than 30,000 people. It has been erupting since June and did so again 24 minutes before the tsunami, according to the geophysics agency. ___ Associated Press writers Margie Mason and Ali Kotarumalos in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.


Michael Kors uses fur from dogs that were skinned alive in manufacturing the brand's products.

Explanation: Although the Michael Kors petition had disappeared by 25 October 2016, reproductions, screenshots, copies, and other remnants of it have remained in circulation on social media.

Critter Country, animal cruelty, dailypetition.com, michael kors

In October 2016, a since-deleted petition hosted on the web site DailyPetition.com (of which there are no archives) alleged that the Michael Kors brand abused dogs and skinned them alive in the manufacture of their products: An undercover investigation carried out by animal rights group PETA has revealed the terrible truth of the dog leather industry in China. Currently, there is a strong mechanism in place to keep this disgusting industry in full swing mode. Needless to imagine, this involves a lot of suffering for man’s best friend. PETA has also managed to provide valuable insight about how this industry actually functions: stray dogs are captured from the streets by professional dog snatchers. They are sold to unlicensed facilities were their life is taken in the most abrupt way: they are hit over and oven with bladed objects (bats or sticks), before the actual skinning process starts. Some of the dogs are still alive when this happens. Their lifeless bodies are piled up and left in the facility’s dumpster for days. According to the investigator present on the scene, the sight and smell was absolutely terrible and difficult to endure. According to PETA, such facilities can process and deposit as many as 200 dogs each day. The compound visited by PETA housed 300 dogs. All them of them were kept in terrible conditions: deprived from their freedom, they were placed in tiny, dirty and dark cages, frightened and all alone. They were left without food and water for days. Most of them, constantly agitated, were climbing on each other in a desperate attempt to escape. But neither of them would see the light of day again. The floor of this facility would be later filled with tons of liters of blood. Innocent dog blood. All in the name of fashion. Please note that the images come from just one plant, but there are hundreds of similar facilities all across China. After the skinning is complete and the dog skin is properly processed, it is later sold to fashion companies such as Michael Kors, which transform them into trendy leather jackets or posh handbags, sold to unsuspecting customers at unreasonably high prices. The well known American designer has been long profiting off the backs of innocent dogs in China. However, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ (PETA) Twitter timeline lacked any content about products made from dog fur or Michael Kors, suggesting that the petition did not originate with that organization. A 25 October 2016 article published by an English-language version of a Chinese web site stated that the petition referenced a “DNA test” being needed to determine whether the animal products were indeed canine-derived, suggesting the claim had not been substantiated: U.S. animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) claim that their undercover investigation into China’s dog leather industry revealed how some facilities process as many as 200 dog carcasses every day, and then sell the processed dog skin to fashion companies such as Michael Kors to make leather jackets and handbags — items labeled as lamb skin. The report pointed out that most animal skin looks similar, and it’s almost impossible to determine what animal a given piece of leather comes from without a DNA test, according to a petition launched by animal rights activist Jerald Marrero on Oct. 20. The petition calls for a halt on the alleged dog skinning, and has received 17,908 signatures. It has been shared on Facebook and Twitter more than 26,000 times. “As one of the leading brands in the fashion industry, it is extremely important for Michael Kors to stand up against the Chinese leather trade and stop using this cruel fabric in its collections immediately,” the petition said. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) criticized Michael Kors in 2010 for using fur in general (but not dog fur specifically): Project Runway‘s eighth season premieres tonight, and coincidentally I just heard about an opportunity to let judge Michael Kors know what we think of his designs — which include real fur. Kors tweeted that he will be answering questions from his fans in a Facebook video on August 4. Let’s take him up on his offer and flood him with questions, such as “Did you know that animals are skinned alive for their fur?” and “With all the luxurious faux furs that are available, why do you continue to kill animals?” or maybe “Would you submit to a brain scan to see if your empathy neurons are underdeveloped?” PETA’s 2010 comment made no mention of dogs, however, simply asserting that (unspecified) animals used in the manufacture of some Michael Kors products were “skinned alive for their fur.”  The provenance of the petition hosted on DailyPetition.com is unknown, and a Whois search indicates that DailyPetition was created in July 2016 and that its ownership information is private: Michael Kors sent us the following short statement about the dog fur rumors: We wanted to let you know that these accusations are 100% false. Below please find an official company statement on the matter: – “Michael Kors leather products are not made of dog skin. The accusations that have been published are false.” The brand repeatedly denied the rumors on Twitter as well: @Cooki3Wongster Michael Kors leather products are not made of dog skin. The accusations that have been published are false. — Michael Kors (@MichaelKors) October 25, 2016


A bill supported by Gov. Scott Walker makes it "so that drunk drivers who kill have an easier time of it.

Explanation: Wisconsin Democratic Party says Walker supported a law that makes it easier for drunken drivers to escape punishment

Alcohol, Legal Issues, Wisconsin, Democratic Party of Wisconsin,

State prosecutors are scrambling to fend off fresh legal challenges to drunken-driving cases, with defense lawyers scoring some early victories under restrictive new evidence standards. The new rules -- which can make it harder to get police testimony and field sobriety tests admitted into court -- sprang from a legal-reform push in January 2011 by Gov. Scott Walker and Republican lawmakers. Republicans’ primary goal was to make it easier to block unreliable expert testimony and so-called junk science in negligence lawsuits against businesses. But the change applies to all types of civil and criminal actions, a move that led the state district attorney’s association to predict before passage that the new rules would "significantly curtail our ability to prove our cases" -- including in charges of operating while intoxicated. That aspect of the law got a sharper characterization when the Democratic Party of Wisconsin -- gearing up for a recall drive against Walker -- blasted the governor on a host of issues. Amid complaints about the budget bill, concealed carry legislation and changes related to sex-ed in schools, the party in a news release declared that a Walker administration move makes it so that "drunk drivers who kill have an easier time of it." Amid the rhetoric is an interesting claim:  Does Act 2, the legal reform legislation, really mean an easier go for drunken drivers, either in criminal prosecutions or in personal injury suits against them? Asked to back up its claim, the Democrats cited three pieces of evidence: Mothers Against Drunk Drivers’ opposition to Act 2; the bill’s limits on court-ordered punitive damages in civil cases; and changes that make it harder for people to testify as experts. But Republicans decided to exempt drunken-driving crash victims from the punitive damage limits in civil cases. So that point is off the mark. The Mothers Against Drunk Drivers position is a moving target. The group opposed the bill initially, but then dropped its opposition after lawmakers added the punitive damage exemption -- and is now seeking a partial legislative fix in reaction to the new evidence rules. As for the evidence rules themselves, prosecutors say the issue is real and the change puts new pressures on them. We talked to numerous lawyers and researchers and they said the changes were significant, but welcome in concept. Almost all agreed the old standards allowed in too much. The new standards are used in federal courts, and by more than 30 states. Since the bill’s Feb. 1, 2011 start date, challenges to OWI evidence have played out in courtrooms and prosecutor’s offices under the new law. Both sides expect many more battles as the "Daubert standard" rules (from a Supreme Court case, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.) come into play in more cases. In our interviews with lawyers in several counties, we did not discover any OWI homicide trials affected by the new Daubert standard -- the focus of the Democrats’ claim. But those cases would be subject to the same advantages and disadvantages as other OWI cases. And there are some examples we can dig into there: In the very early stages here, we found that a loose cadre of defense attorneys are sharing tips on how to mount challenges that DAs told us cause worrisome delays. "This will protract cases in the long run," said Gerol, who likes the Daubert standard overall. But what’s been the experience of prosecutors and defense lawyers in states that already have Daubert? Nationally, the reality doesn’t look one-sided, we found. Generally speaking prosecutors have found the new standards to be fairly neutral, just more work in defending the reliability of tests and witnesses, said Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association. On the defense side, national expert Michael Hawkins of Atlanta, said the tougher rules could produce an "unintended benefit" for some defendants, but only when evidence doesn’t pass legal muster. "It doesn’t make it ‘easier’ on drunk drivers," said Hawkins, a National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ expert on drunken driving issues. "It makes it so prosecutors have to do more work to assure judges and juries that the evidence they are using is accurate and reliable." Yes, prosecutors in Wisconsin are having a tougher go of it in first skirmishes here. But the rules apply to both sides. Defense attorneys acknowledge they will have have to introduce better and more reliable evidence under the new standards as well. In fact, Andrew Mishlove, a nationally certified OWI defense lawyer who is helping train judges and lawyers on the new standards, told us a half-dozen common defense strategies might wilt now under the tougher evidence rules. Among them: That testing equipment failed, or that radio frequency interference led to false readings of blood-alcohol level. Overall the new standard will "prevent the defense from putting on bogus experts or questionable experts," said Donald Ramsell, an Illinois-based OWI lawyer who is nationally recognized. Ramsell noted something pertinent to the Democrats’  claim about "drivers who kill." He and others said both sides will have a tougher time presenting testimony on estimates of a person’s intoxication level at the time of an incident -- when the test wasn’t taken until hours after the arrest. In fatal-crash homicide cases, the prosecution will be hurt more often in that scenario, Ramsell said, because often the drunken driver is often injured too, preventing a timely blood test. Looking ahead, what can we expect? On the prosecution side, the big concern is that arresting officers were formerly treated as experts who could draw conclusions about sobriety tests -- but now are being challenged, along with the tests, and police training methods. In cases that already have some evidence weaknesses -- for example, the defendant refused breath and blood tests, or the tests were delayed -- these challenges can be important, lawyers on both sides said. Under the new system, judges are the gatekeepers of what is reliable and relevant scientific testimony, in contrast to past practice of letting juries hear almost everything. Some judges have concerns about testimony that has been routinely allowed in the past -- such as the follow-the-finger vision test known as Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN). Those test are not allowed as evidence in some states. "There are judges that feel like (the vision test) is voodoo because of a conception they have," said Emily Thompson, an assistant district attorney in Dane County who handles crash cases, including fatalities involving alcohol. Such concerns have led the Wisconsin chapter of MADD, the advocacy group, to call for the Legislature to revisit Act 2and exempt drunken-driving cases from the new evidence rules. "This aspect is troubling and MADD hopes the Legislature remedies the oversight as we support prosecutors who often face a daunting task in making sure justice is served and criminal charges relating to drunk driving are fully prosecuted," MADD spokesman Frank Harris told us. Ultimately the state’s high courts will decide how the issue plays out. But most experts and lawyers are predicting neither side will gain clear advantage; others say wait and see. Some prosecutors see some advantages long-term. There’s agreement that fairness will increase. Said Marquette University law professor Daniel Blinka when asked if OWI defendants would have an easier time: "I don’t see how that’s going to happen." Our conclusion  The Democratic Party of Wisconsin claimed that one of Walker’s actions was to make it "so that drunk drivers who kill have an easier time of it." One of their talking points to back up the statement -- related to civil lawsuits -- doesn’t hold up given amendments made to the bill. Their other issue, regarding Act 2’s tougher standard for scientific testimony, clearly does affect drunken driving prosecutions. And the law already has benefited some drunken drivers, though not in every instance where scientific evidence was challenged. (We did not find a homicide case affected, but they would be subject to similarly varied effects as would regular OWI cases.) So we think there’s an element of truth in the Dems’ statement. Some defendants already have found an easier road. But the statement implies the net effect of the law is tipped pro-defense. In OWI cases, that is an unknown at this point. Both sides -- defense and prosecution -- are subject to the new standards. And even defense-side experts don’t buy the "easier road" argument. Finally, we think it’s misleading to suggest -- as the party’s statement did --  that the intent of the bill was to favor homicidal drunken drivers. It clearly wasn’t. We rate the party’s claim .


Boy, 9, is 1st French death from likely COVID-linked illness.

Explanation: Medics at a hospital that treated the first child to die in France with a puzzling inflammatory condition seemingly linked to the new coronavirus initially thought the 9-year-old had scarlet fever, and sent him home.

Marseille, Understanding the Outbreak, Health, General News, France, Lifestyle, Virus Outbreak, Europe

The boy then suffered a heart attack at home that night, resulting in brain damage that later led to his death. Details of the case were released Friday by the La Timone hospital in the southern French city of Marseille. The child spent six days in intensive care at the hospital after his heart attack in the evening of May 2. Earlier that afternoon, the boy had been taken to an emergency ward in another of the city’s hospitals. There, an experienced pediatrician examined the child and diagnosed symptoms “similar to scarlet fever,” said Doctor Fabrice Michel, who heads the pediatric intensive care unit at La Timone. Scarlet fever is generally mild, usually beginning with a temperature and a sore throat, and is easily treated with antibiotics. “The child didn’t have serious signs, justifying his return home,” Michel said. But the boy suffered a heart attack a few hours later and was rushed to intensive care at La Timone. There, blood tests indicated the boy had been infected with COVID-19 in the previous weeks, although he didn’t have its symptoms and was no longer positive for the virus when admitted to hospital. Instead, some of the boy’s symptoms resembled those of Kawasaki disease, a rare blood vessel disorder, Michel said. About 125 children in France have developed Kawasaki-like symptoms during the coronavirus outbreak, arousing suspicions of a link. The death at La Timone was the first fatality in France linked to the syndrome. The boy died on May 8. “What is certain is that this illness is thankfully very rare,” Michel said. Doctors outside of France have also reported small but noticeable upticks of cases, but very few fatalities, involving children with inflammations that required intensive care and other symptoms. Symptoms seen in affected children in France have included persistent high fevers, intense fatigue, rashes and stomach pains, Michel said. Only some of the children tested positive for COVID-19, so scientists are unsure whether the symptoms are caused by the new coronavirus or by something else. The World Health Organization said Friday that it is studying the condition, which it described as having “some features similar to Kawasaki’s disease and toxic shock syndrome.” ___ AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng in London contributed. ___ Follow AP pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.


Under the Obama plan . . . all the health care in this country is eventually going to be run by the government.

Explanation: Obama health plan does not call for government-run health care

When Sen. Tom Coburn said that under President Obama, "all the health care in this country is eventually going to be run by the government," it was like a golden oldie PolitiFact has heard many times before. During the campaign, we heard the same tune from vice presidential candidate  Sarah Palin  , who said Obama was calling for a "government-run plan";  Mitt Romney  , who said Obama "wants the government to take over health care"; and  Rudy Giuliani  , who called Hillary Clinton's similar plan "socialized medicine." (We rated their statements  Barely True  ,  Barely True  and    .) Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, made his remarks while criticizing Obama on a different matter. Obama is moving to rescind Bush administration rules that protected medical workers from performing procedures such as abortion that conflicted with their religious or moral beliefs. Coburn, who is against abortion, said rescinding the order would be only a first step for the Obama administration. "Remember, under the Obama plan . . . all the health care in this country is eventually going to be run by the government," Coburn said in an interview on Fox News on March 4, 2009. "So it's part of an incremental creep towards eliminating any objection, both as us as taxpayers and then individual physicians in terms of not complying with a government-run bureaucracy," he added. Coburn and Obama can fairly disagree about conscience protections for health care workers who oppose abortions. But he's wrong that Obama's plan offers government-run health care. In fact, Obama's plan leaves in place the private health care system, but seeks to expand it to the uninsured. It increases eligibility for the poor and children to enroll in initiatives like Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and creates pools for individuals to buy their own cheaper insurance. It also outlines strategies to rein in costs for everyone, such as electronic medical records and preventive care. "I think most of us would agree that if we want to cover all Americans, we can't make the mistake of trying to fix what isn't broken," Obama said at a health care conference he hosted on March 5. "So if somebody has insurance they like, they should be able to keep that insurance. If they have a doctor that they like, they should be able to keep their doctor. They should just pay less for the care that they receive." Would Obama's plan result in closer regulation of the health care system? Very likely so. It includes provisions that require health insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions and disclose more information about how they treat patients. Obama's plan also calls for evidence-based health care standards, so that government can stop paying (through programs like Medicare) for treatments that don't get good results. But the plan is very different from some European-style health systems where the government owns health clinics and employs doctors. We asked Coburn's office about his remarks. "What matters is not just President Obama’s intent, or what his plan states, but the likely effect and consequences of his plan," said spokesman John Hart. "Under Obama’s approach, the only plans left standing will be those controlled by the government." That may be Sen. Coburn's opinion on what could happen, but it's definitely not part of Obama's plan. And Coburn was very specific in saying that "under the Obama plan, all the health care in this country is eventually going to be run by the government." That gives the incorrect impression that Obama is promoting a government-run health care system. He's not. We rate Coburn's statement .


The Obama administration shut down the Amber Alert program because of the government shutdown.

National, Children, Federal Budget, Crime, Tweets,

The government shutdown has cranked up the volume on the blame game of who is causing the most misery for whom. The latest move comes from the right, where accusations began to fly that President Barack Obama was willing to put missing children’s lives at risk to score political points. From what we found, the claim started in the Twitterverse with tweets late on Friday night, Oct. 4, 2013. "Did u see how the amber alert system was shut down & they even produced a screen to declare it!?" said one. Amber Alert is the system that draws the public into the hunt for an abducted child. The Right Scoop carried the message to a wider audience. At around 5 p.m. Sunday, it posted that the U.S. Justice Department Web page for the Amber Alert program was down. "I’m sure you care about your lost child but Obama doesn’t – at least not while he’s trying to ‘win’ the government shutdown," the blog post said. The Drudge Report put that item on its homepage with the headline, "Amber Alert website shut down, Michelle’s ‘Let’s Move’ stays up." By the next morning, the Washington Examiner’s Mark Tapscott had an article titled, "Obama shutters Amber Alerts as government shutdown enters second week." "Somebody, somewhere in the Obama White House or the Obama Justice Department decided to shut down the Amber Alerts, despite the system's long and stellar record of helping locate missing children," Tapscott wrote. Two congressmen, Stephen Fincher, R-Tenn, and Steve Stockman, R-Texas, added their own tweets into the mix, echoing the theme that Obama was playing politics with kids. By mid-morning Monday, the government Web page was back up, but chastising tweets continued. We decided to check out exactly what had been shut down, and by whom. Federal action If you went to the federal Amber Alert Web page on Sunday, you would have found this message "Due to the lapse in Federal funding, this Office of Justice Program website is unavailable." That is what triggered the blog postings, tweets and articles. A Justice Department spokesperson explained to the Huffington Post, "All the sites that had to go offline were put behind a firewall so that they couldn't be hacked while the IT people were on furlough." The spokesman said a furloughed worker was brought back Monday to put the site back online. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney gave the reason for that move at his press briefing later that day. "To eliminate any confusion among the public about the status of the program. A furloughed Justice Department employee was called in to work in order to restore the informational site," Carney said. "But again, it’s informational. The system itself was never interrupted." We contacted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a private nonprofit that assists local and state authorities in this work. According to their data, over this weekend, at the same time the tweets and blog posts were building, the Amber Alert was activated twice: in Texas on Oct. 4 and in Florida on Oct. 5. At the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, spokesperson Gretl Plessinger said the news stories about the federal website had prompted some people to call out of concern. Plessinger reassured the public that Florida's program "is operating as it always has." We also got in touch with Gene Thaxton of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, who coordinates the Amber Alert system for that state. Thaxton was emphatic that the program never closed. "Oklahoma has its own Amber Alert program, and it is not affected by the government shutdown," he said. "The federal Web page is informational. It doesn’t affect the operations of the program." To be clear, the Amber Alert system is not run by Washington. States set up their own programs and use guidelines and standards that are shared nationwide. The program is a network of these state-run operations. At the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, spokesman Bob Hoever told us that the federal Web page plays no role in actually finding children. Hoever said local or state law enforcement officials trigger an Amber Alert when authorities have details like the name of the child, a photo of the child, the kind of car involved, a plate number, or a photo of the suspect. "Those are the things that have led to a rescue in the past," he said. State authorities then notify the media and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The center spreads the word through the Web and over cell phones, sending automatic text messages to everyone with a smart phone in the area where officials think the child might be. "We had a case in Minnesota where a teenager read the text on her phone, and there across the street was the car," Hoever said. "She told her dad, and he called the police, and they rescued the child." Hoever said as far as he knows, from the initial investigation to the public reports of a possible sighting, the federal website has never been involved. "If people knew how this worked, we wouldn’t be dealing with this confusion," he said. Our ruling People on Twitter, bloggers and others said the Obama administration shut down the Amber Alert system. Actually, each state has its own alert system, and national coordination takes place through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a private nonprofit, untouched by the federal stalemate. The system has continued to operate through the federal shutdown, sending out alerts in Texas and Florida. The one sliver of truth that triggered this claim is that a federal webpage promoting the program was closed, but that did not affect the program itself. It is a mistake to confuse that web page with the Amber Alert system.


Spain's coronavirus deaths rise above 10,000, yet there is 'glimpse of hope'.

Explanation: Spain’s death toll from the coronavirus rose above 10,000 on Thursday after a record 950 people died overnight, but health officials were encouraged by a slowdown in daily increases in infections and deaths.

Spain has the world’s second-highest death toll after Italy at 10,003 but Thursday’s one-day toll was the highest for any country since the start of the epidemic. The number of registered coronavirus cases rose about 8% from Wednesday to 110,238, the ministry said. The total deaths rose by just over 10%, about the same rate as the previous day. The daily rate of new infections has been slowing since March 25, when reported cases rose by just over 20%. “There’s light at the end of the tunnel,” Health Minister Salvador Illa told parliament. “A glimpse of hope: the curve has stabilized. We have reached ... the peak of the curve and we have started the slowdown phase.”  Click tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in a separate browser for GRAPHIC tracking the spread of coronavirus. Spain has been in lockdown since March 14, and as of this week only employees in essential sectors are permitted to travel to and from work. Data showed on Thursday that Spain has shed an unprecedented 900,000 jobs since the restriction started, with temporary layoffs affecting at least 620,000 other jobs. Around 80,000 workers are off sick with coronavirus, while 170,000 more are on sick leave, isolated after coming into contact with an infected person. Nursing homes, whose elderly residents are highly vulnerable to the disease, have been particularly hard hit. Clad in white protective gear, funeral service workers could be seen taking out coffins from a nursing home in Leganes on the outskirts of Madrid, where 50 residents had died since the start of the epidemic according to EFE news agency, and putting them in a van, Reuters footage showed. Later, ambulances picked up various uninfected residents to take them to other homes. Two-thirds of 150 residents tested in the Vitalia home on Wednesday had coronavirus, EFE said. Vitalia administration was not immediately available for comment. The head of government for the region around Madrid told Cadena Ser radio that a total of around 3,000 people had died in nursing homes in March, around three times the normal monthly toll. The administration says it cannot be sure how many were caused by coronavirus as it lacks testing. In Catalonia, the second worst-hit region after Madrid, the government reversed its initial reluctance and asked the national military to send medical teams to help tackle the coronavirus. Senior health official Alba Verges said the region’s intensive care capacity was “at the limit”. Catalonia’s push for independence from Madrid has caused political turmoil.