A group of about 70 students from the University of Texas at Austin celebrated spring break in Mexico, then returned to find that dozens had tested positive.

By David Montgomery & Manny Fernandez @ NYTimes.com, April 1

AUSTIN, Texas — Two weeks ago, amid the coronavirus pandemic, about 70 students from the University of Texas at Austin partied in Mexico on spring break. The students, all in their 20s, flew on a chartered plane to Cabo San Lucas, and some returned on separate commercial flights to Texas.

Now, 44 of them have tested positive for the virus and are self-isolating. More students were monitored and tested on Wednesday, university officials said, after 28 initial positive tests.

The Austin outbreak is the latest to result from a group of college students who ignored social-distancing guidelines, went on traditional spring break trips and have now tested positive for the coronavirus. Many of them appeared to be under the mistaken impression that young people are not as likely to get the coronavirus as older people are. Students at the University of Tampa, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and other colleges have tested positive after returning from spring break trips to Florida, Alabama, Tennessee and elsewhere [....]

Normally I would be skeptical, but this is Brett McGurk Payne Distinguished Lecturer @Stanford. Foreign Affairs Analyst @NBCNews/@MSNBC. Former Presidential Envoy. Served under Bush, Obama, Trump. Dad. @CarnegieMEC.

We've seen all too terribly the consequences of those who denied warnings of a pandemic. We can't afford any more consequences of climate denial. All of us, especially young people, have to demand better of our government at every level and vote this fall. 
 

The dominant conservative philosophy for interpreting the Constitution has served its purpose, and scholars ought to develop a more moral framework, by Adrian Vermule, Professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School

A federal appeals court has ruled that grand jury evidence long sought by civil rights activists and historians in a 1946 mass lynching case in rural Georgia must remain sealed.

Despite the historical significance of the case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta ruled Friday that federal judges do not have the authority to unseal federal grand jury records, except for a limited set of circumstances governing grand jury rules of secrecy.

The 8-to-4 decision reversed a lower court’s ruling in 2017 that the evidence should be unsealed. That ruling, which had been viewed as a breakthrough in the unsolved murders of two black couples in 1946 by a mob of white men in Walton County, Ga., was also affirmed in 2019 by a three-judge panel made up of members of the circuit court, which heard the case after the Justice Department appealed the lower court’s decision. Last June, the full court voted to rehear the case, which led to Friday’s ruling.

The victims in the lynchings, Roger and Dorothy Malcom and George and Mae Murray Dorsey, were dragged from their car at gunpoint on July 25, 1946, tied up and shot about 60 times at close range in the attack, which was widely considered to be one of the last mass lynchings in American history. It came to be known as the Moore’s Ford lynchings.

Why are they so afraid?

@ BBCNews.com, 7 hrs. ago

Los Angeles County is reopening gun shops to the public after a federal memo listed them as "essential" businesses. Sheriff Alex Villanueva closed shops last week, but reversed course on Monday, following the guidance.

The LA county closures had prompted a lawsuit from gun rights groups.The change comes amid a national dispute over whether gun access is critical amid the Covid-19 pandemic.The federal guidance issued on 28 March classified munitions makers and sellers as "essential critical infrastructure workers".

Mr Villanueva said that though the memo was non-binding, it has national scope and he would therefore open shops closed last week [....]

Meanwhile, social isolation through policy discrimination has extracted significant wealth from Black families. According to the Federal Reserve’s most recent numbers in 2016, white families had the highest median family wealth at $171,000. Black and Latino or Hispanic families had $17,600 and $20,700, respectively—making these household far more susceptible to pandemics of this scale.

According to the Federal Reserve’s most recent numbers in 2016, white families had the highest median family wealth at $171,000. Black and Latino or Hispanic families had $17,600 and $20,700, respectively—making these household far more susceptible to pandemics of this scale.

According to my own research with David Harshbarger and Gallup’s Jonathan Rothwell, homes of similar quality in neighborhoods with similar amenities are worth 23% less in Black-majority neighborhoods compared to those with very few or no Black residents. After accounting for factors such as housing quality, neighborhood quality, education, and crime, owner-occupied homes in Black neighborhoods are undervalued by $48,000 on average, amounting to a whopping $156 billion that homeowners would have received if their homes were priced at market rate.

“For life expectancy, money matters,” according to the Harvard Gazette. Wealthier people live longer—but the COVID-19 pandemic reveals that our fates are more intertwined than we think. Due in part to a lack of access to managerial positions, Black workers are overrepresented in occupations that require face-to-face contact, such as health care support, personal care, and protective services, as well as in gig-economy jobs. While business in these sectors has been risingduring the pandemic, the nature of these jobs places workers at greater risk for contracting the virus, with many employers refusing to offer paid sick leave. While white-collar workers telecommute, receive paid time off, or are otherwise able to both socially distance and remain financially secure, the most vulnerable members of society are forced to choose between their work and their health.

This is a structural problem created by the social distancing of people of color—and the more we put these workers at risk of COVID-19, the longer the entire country will suffer. The proliferation of the coronavirus forces us to see the inherent connections we share in a way that our public policy has not always recognized. Individual recovery is contingent upon how much we collectively live by the principle of being “all in this together.” If undocumented residents are sick, the country’s citizens will be as well. If Black and Latino or Hispanic people suffer from COVID-19’s effects, so will Asian American and white people.

By Jeff Cox @ CNBC.com, March 30 

• The coronavirus economic freeze could cost 47 million jobs and send the unemployment rate past 32%, according to St. Louis Fed projections.
• There are nearly 67 million Americans working in jobs that are at a high risk of layoffs, according to the analysis.
• St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said last week that the initial estimates are grim but the plunge should be short-lived.