By Kai Kupferschmidt @ ScienceMag.org, Feb. 26
[....] The Wu-han Clan is just one example of how the COVID-19 outbreak is transforming how scientists communicate about fast-moving health crises. A torrent of data is being released daily by preprint servers that didn’t even exist a decade ago, then dissected on platforms such as Slack and Twitter, and in the media, before formal peer review begins. Journal staffers are working overtime to get manuscripts reviewed, edited, and published at record speeds. The venerable New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) posted one COVID-19 paper within 48 hours of submission. Viral genomes posted on a platform named GISAID, more than 200 so far, are analyzed instantaneously by a phalanx of evolutionary biologists who share their phylogenetic trees in preprints and on social media.
“This is a very different experience from any outbreak that I’ve been a part of,” says epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The intense communication has catalyzed an unusual level of collaboration among scientists that, combined with scientific advances, has enabled research to move faster than during any previous outbreak. “An unprecedented amount of knowledge has been generated in 6 weeks,” says Jeremy Farrar, head of the Wellcome Trust [....]
Was a work rage shooting, the shooter had been fired. Only two handguns needed, one with legal silencer:
Sounds to me like health insurance copays & deductibles would an accessory to homicide here. Noting this kind of problem more and more.
By Kerry Burke, Rocco Parascandola & John Annese @ NYDailyNews.com, Feb. 25
A Bronx woman died 10 days after she was jumped and beaten for not letting another woman into a bank ATM vestibule, police sources said Tuesday. Tamara Sinclair told her sister she thought she was followed and set up when three women pummeled her on Feb. 11.
On Saturday, the 44-year-old nursing assistant and one-time Miss Jamaica contestant died, after saying, “I’m not afraid. I just hope we get through this,” and uttering her sister’s name one final time.
[....] Tamara Sinclair filed a police report six days after the attack, telling police what happened. Three days after the filing, Sinclair went to Montefiore Medical Center complaining of head and chest pains, police sources said. She had a fractured ankle and doctors told her they wanted to do more tests to deal with her other medical issues but she refused and left, sources said.
A doctor warned her that she had blood clots from the beating that could kill her, but she feared she being hit with a large hospital bill, her sister told The News. "She said Keshia, I can’t afford to stay. She was determined to go home,” Keshia Sinclair said [....]
By Colin Kalmbacher @ LawandCrime.com, Feb. 26
President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign filed a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times over an article from early 2019 which accused the 45th president of working with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin during the 2016 presidential election.
The lawsuit claims the outlet “knowingly published false and defamatory statements of and concerning plaintiff Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., claiming it had an ‘overarching deal’ with ‘Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy’ to ‘help in the campaign against Hillary Clinton‘ in exchange for ‘a new pro-Russian foreign policy.'”
The legal filing continues: [....]
By The Editorial Board @ WashingtonPost.com, Feb. 25, 6:48 pm
FAR FROM the madding crowds and MAGA caps, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, discovered his inner candor. Appearing at the Oxford Union during a trip to England a few days ago, Mr. Mulvaney let slip that the United States needs more immigrants, lest severe labor shortages and anemic birth rates sap economic growth.
“We are desperate, desperate for more people,” said Mr. Mulvaney, evidently emboldened by the 3,600 miles separating his speaking venue, where TV cameras were not in evidence, from the White House. “We are running out of people to fuel the economic growth.” [....]
Death count has been updated since this tweet to 11 and description to a working-class neighborhood.
I'm posting this only because I am incredibly impressed with the three paragraphs I quote! Talk about the art of journalistic writing making things clear and simple, geez, this is genius. Good luck, though, folks, with the rest of your argument.
By The State Opinion Page, Feb. 24
[...] History does not lie.
During the last half-century, the Democratic Party has only won the presidency when it has resisted the temptation to pick status-quo nominees and shown the courage to choose centrist outsiders with fresh, optimistic messages.
Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama prevailed in part because they understood the values of real-world America. All three successfully connected with voters by tapping into the sensibilities of average Americans [....]
in Texas’ 13th District, one of the most conservative in the country....In a primary field of 15 anti-immigrant, anti-abortion Republicans...!!!
Economists are accumulating evidence that instead of being indolent layabouts, poor people are harried and frantic, which results in subpar decisions. By Noah Smith, Feb. 20
New health report and TV debates highlight backlash against gender reassignment
