The Next-Gen Air Force One Is Already Over Budget

The converted Boeing 747s, designed to carry the POTUS, will fly in 2024.

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One dead, five missing after Canadian helicopter goes missing during NATO exercise

Canadian prime Minister Jusin Trudeau has confirmed that one man has died and five others are missing after a Canadian military helicopter went missing during a NATO operation. Debris and the aircraft's black box have been found in the sea between Greece and Italy, a Greek military officer and public television said Thursday. Canada's armed forces said the helicopter had been involved in an accident after taking off from the Canadian frigate Fredericton on Wednesday. "Debris has been found in Italy's zone of control and intervention" in the Ionian Sea, the Greek military officer told AFP, specifying the wreckage belonged to the Canadian helicopter. Six crew were aboard the helicopter when it disappeared, the officer said on condition of anonymity. Greek public television reported that a body had been found amid the wreckage in international waters off the Greek island of Kefalonia. Greek public television ERT said Italian and NATO vessels were also taking part in the search while Turkey said one of its frigates was also involved. Canada said on Twitter that it contacted the family members of those who were on board the missing CH-148 Cyclone helicopter.

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Fact Check: CDC has not stopped reporting flu deaths, and this season's numbers are typical

A claim that the CDC has stopped tracking flu deaths because the number of deaths is so low is false.

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California closes Orange County beaches where crowds defied coronavirus guidelines

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday ordered beaches in Orange County in the southern part of the state to close, after crowds defied public health guidelines to throng the popular shoreline last weekend. The move came after Newsom complained that beachgoers could hasten the spread of the coronavirus in California, delaying the state's ability to ease public health restrictions even as millions of people in the most-populous U.S. state obey the stay-at-home rules imposed in March. Newsom's decision to close the Orange County beaches, announced at his daily coronavirus briefing, stood in contrast to media reports, including by Reuters, that the Democratic governor planned to close all parks and beaches in the state.

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Class action suit aims to free all transgender ICE detainees

As hundreds of coronavirus cases are reported at U.S. immigration facilities, the suit calls for the release of dozens of trans migrants from what it calls ICE “death traps.”

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Citing no evidence, Trump says he’s seen information that coronavirus originated in a Wuhan lab

Without citing any evidence, President Trump said he’s seen information that the coronavirus originated in a lab in Wuhan, China. When pressed by a reporter to back up his claim, Trump said he wasn’t at liberty to do so.

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Satellite images reveal Kim Jong-un may be at luxury family villa

New satellite images showing the recent movements of luxury boats by Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, have provided further indications that he may be ensconced in his seaside villa in Wonsan, on the country’s east coast. The location of the reclusive leader has been a mystery since his unprecedented no-show at April 15 events to mark the birthday of his late grandfather and North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung. His absence, for the first time since he took power in 2011, unleashed a torrent of speculation about his health conditions, with unverified and conflicting reports claiming he was both recuperating from cardiovascular surgery and in “grave danger.” On Tuesday, commercial satellite imagery obtained by North Korea-monitoring website NK PRO showed boats often used by Kim had made movements in patterns that suggested he or his entourage may be in the Wonsan area. “Extensive analysis shows that similar leisure boat movements at an exclusive villa in Wonsan and a nearby island near the Kalma peninsula have aligned with Kim’s public appearances in the area in every one of a half-dozen instances since last summer, and many more dating back to 2013,” it said. The imagery adds to earlier satellite pictures studied by the Washington-based North Korea monitoring project 38 North, which appeared to show that a train similar to Kim’s was parked in the resort’s so-called “leadership station” reserved for the use of the Kim family a week ago.

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American plans to shrink, says no hubs will close: 'No way to overstate the gravity of this situation'

The airline is retiring more than 100 jets earlier than planned and says more may be ahead as it grapples with a dearth of passengers.

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Fauci says leak concerns fueled his White House revelation of Gilead drug results

Concerns over leaks compelled the top U.S. infectious disease official to reveal data on Gilead Sciences Inc’s experimental drug remdesivir, the first in a scientifically rigorous clinical trial to show benefit in treating COVID-19. The dramatic announcement by Dr Anthony Fauci in the Oval Office on Wednesday prompted concerns among scientists that the Trump administration was raising hopes about a coronavirus treatment before sharing the full data with researchers. As a cautionary example of inflating the potential value of a therapy, some pointed to President Donald Trump’s repeated endorsements of malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment, with no evidence that it works.

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Philippines rejects China's territorial label on island

The Philippines protested on Thursday China’s designation of a disputed South China Sea reef, which it has turned into a heavily fortified island base, as a Chinese “administrative center.” The Department of Foreign Affairs issued a statement objecting to what it called China’s “illegal designation” of Fiery Cross Reef as a regional administrative center in the hotly contested Spratly archipelago. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused China last week of taking advantage of widespread distraction over the pandemic to advance its territorial claims.

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Fox News' Judge Napolitano wants Trump to pardon Flynn after FBI allegedly tried to 'get him fired'

One of President Trump's biggest Fox News skeptics is on his side for this one.Documents unsealed late Wednesday in the case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn raise questions about whether the FBI "set out to entrap" him in an interview with the agency, Fox News' judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano declared to Fox & Friends on Thursday. "Anybody who believes in the rule of law ... should be utterly scandalized and outraged" by what the documents reveal, and Trump should pardon Flynn "in the next day or so," Napolitano continued."This is a classic case of the FBI setting out to entrap someone and reducing it to writing," Napolitano incredulously said. He called for the Department of Justice to apologize to Flynn before the judge overseeing his case, denounce the FBI's actions, and both ask the judge to "vacate" Flynn's guilty plea and "dismiss" the indictment against him. And if it doesn't, Trump should quickly move to pardon him, Napolitano said.> Fox's Andrew Napolitano calls for Trump to pardon Michael Flynn "within the next day or so," unless the DOJ first denounces Flynn's prosecution, apologizes to him, and asks the judge to vacate his guilty plea and dismiss the indictment. pic.twitter.com/ycJcViHGSA> > — Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) April 30, 2020The documents reveal former FBI counterintelligence division Bill Priestap questioned "our goal" in a note written just days after Flynn lied about conversations with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. at the time. "Truth/admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?" Priestap wrote.Napolitano has frequently criticized Trump in the past, siding with those who wanted to impeach the president in saying he'd committed several crimes, including obstruction of justice.More stories from theweek.com Trump's 'mission accomplished' moment Gun-toting protesters' dramatic stand inside Michigan's statehouse, in 5 photos and videos The Justice Department is apparently working with conservative Christian groups to fight COVID-19 policies

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30 Easy Side Dishes For Lasagna

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Coronavirus: Armed protesters enter Michigan statehouse

Several senators reportedly wore bulletproof vests as armed demonstrators looked on from the gallery.

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Nigerian drummer Tony Allen dies aged 79

Nigerian drummer Tony Allen, who created Afrobeat with Fela Kuti, dies aged 79, his manager says.

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Coronavirus: Gulshan Ewing's death adds to care home tragedy

Gulshan Ewing rubbed shoulders with Hollywood legends, interviewing and partying with them.

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The worldwide race to make solar power more efficient

Scientists are working on better solar cells that will turn more of the sun's rays into electricity.

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How The Assistant exposes Hollywood's abuse silence

The movie which has roots in the exposure of power and abuse in the film industry after #MeToo.

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Quiz of the Week: On UFOs, lockdown loosening and more

How closely have you been paying attention to what's been going on during the past seven days?

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Africa's week in pictures: 24 - 30 April 2020

A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent and beyond.

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Coronavirus in Ghana: Online funerals, face masks and elections without rallies

Ghana is well known for its elaborate funerals and rowdy election campaigns so coronavirus is changing everything.

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Australia plots return of sport as spread of coronavirus slows

The Australian government will meet on Friday to discuss how sport can restart as the number of new coronavirus cases dwindles and states begin to relax restrictions on social gatherings, two sources familiar with the details told Reuters.

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Most of U.S. House urges more diplomacy at U.N. to renew Iran arms embargo: sources

Nearly 90% of U.S. House of Representatives members have signed a letter urging the Trump administration to increase its diplomatic action at the United Nations to renew an arms embargo on Iran, congressional sources said on Thursday.

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Two Arrested in Killings of Transgender Women in Puerto Rico

By BY MICHAEL LEVENSON AND SANDRA E. GARCIA from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2YnU3CH

Training AI 'to translate mum's phone messages'

How African researchers are using the continent's languages to help spur innovation in Artificial Intelligence.

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Staging a 'socially distanced' boxing match

Inside the Nicaraguan boxing event that caught the world's attention during the pandemic.

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Coronavirus: Why the fashion industry faces an 'existential crisis'

"No-one wants to buy clothes to sit at home in," as Next's chief executive Simon Wolfson puts it.

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Coronavirus: Why so many US nurses are out of work

At a time when many healthcare workers are risking their lives, some face pay cuts and job loss.

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How will airlines get flying again?

When passenger planes start flying again, the world of air travel will be very different.

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China opposes international COVID-19 probe that presumes its guilt: vice foreign minister

China "resolutely opposes" any international inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic that presumes its guilt, said Yue Yucheng, a vice-foreign minister, in comments published on Thursday.

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Australia links coronavirus outbreak in remote south to Carnival Corp cruise ship

A coronavirus outbreak in Australia's remote southern island state of Tasmania likely originated from the Ruby Princess cruise ship, a government report published on Thursday concluded, as the national death toll rose to 91.

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Peru's leader says to propose comprehensive pension reform

Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra on Wednesday rejected a bill approved by Congress earlier this month that would have let people withdraw up to 25% of their holdings in private pension funds and vowed to send a full pension reform plan to lawmakers.

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Irish government talks may drift into June: Fianna Fail leader

The leader of one of the parties negotiating to form a new Irish government raised the prospect on Wednesday of talks drifting well into June, extending a months-long deadlock that has been overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic.

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Delivering Food Under Coronavirus

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The Trump Administration’s Legal Moves to Prevent a Meat Shortage, Explained

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Trump Seeks Push to Speed Vaccine, Despite Safety Concerns

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US 'hasn't seen' North Korean leader Kim Jong-un recently, Mike Pompeo

The US secretary of state's comments come after speculation the North Korean leader might be ill.

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New York City Mayor de Blasio singles out the city's Jewish community for flouting coronavirus rules and said cops will start arresting people gathered in large groups

Though some members of the Hasidic community have disregarded lockdown rules, New York's large Jewish population has followed coronavirus measures.

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The US is 'slightly' past its first peak, but expert says the pandemic is far from over

Dr. Tom Inglesby said some states are experiencing a decline in cases, while half of the country is still seeing a rise in daily numbers.

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Biden already working with team on transition planning

Former Vice President Joe Biden is already working with a team to plan for his transition in preparation for winning the White House in November, he told donors during a virtual fundraiser Monday night. Biden said he has been meeting with former Delaware Sen. Ted Kaufman, his longtime top aide who was appointed to fill Biden’s Senate seat when he was elected vice president, to discuss his transition plans. Kaufman worked on Barack Obama's transition team in 2008, and helped author legislation formalizing the presidential transition process.

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'A drug can block this virus': Fauci hails Covid-19 treatment breakthrough

Positive data from the NIAID trial would be a landmark in the race to find a coronavirus treatment.

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Religious freedom watchdog pitches adding India to blacklist

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is urging that the State Department add India to its list of nations with uniquely poor records on protecting freedom to worship — while proposing to remove Sudan and Uzbekistan from that list. The bipartisan commission, created in 1998 by Congress to make policy recommendations about global religious freedom, proposed designating India as a “country of particular concern” in the annual report it released Tuesday. President Donald Trump declined to criticize the citizenship measure during his February visit to India, where his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi was punctuated by skirmishes between Hindus and Muslims.

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Inmate who gave birth on ventilator dies of Covid-19

The 30-year-old appears to be the the first US federal female prisoner to die from coronavirus.

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6 monkeys given an experimental coronavirus vaccine from Oxford did not catch COVID-19 after heavy exposure, raising hopes for a human vaccine

A team from the University of Oxford is leading the way in the search for an effective vaccine for the coronavirus. Human trials started last week.

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Costco to require face coverings for shoppers

Starting Monday, customers will be required to wear masks covering their nose and mouth at all times while inside the store.

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South Korea minister, U.S. sources, say Kim may be sheltering from virus

Fear of the coronavirus could have been keeping North Korean leader Kim Jong Un out of public sight, a South Korean minister and U.S. sources said on Tuesday, following intense speculation and concern as to his whereabouts and health. Under Kim's rule since 2011, North Korea has expanded its arsenal of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, and with no obvious successor, any change in leadership in the secretive, authoritarian state would raise concerns about instability that could impact other North Asian countries and the United States. Speculation about Kim's health erupted after his unprecedented absence from April 15 celebrations to mark the birthday of his late grandfather and North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung.

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New Model Shows How Deadly Lifting Georgia’s Lockdown May Be

Gov. Brian Kemp’s aggressive scheme to lift Georgia out of COVID-19 lockdown may cost many thousands of lives, according to models prepared by epidemiologists and computer scientists at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in partnership with The Daily Beast.The findings come as governors across the United States aim to restore economic activity following months of pandemic-related infections and over 50,000 deaths—a number widely understood to be an undercount. Meanwhile, over 26 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits in recent weeks, a number that is itself a likely undercount of the economic toll.Georgia’s Kemp has perhaps been the boldest of any governor about moving on, issuing a pair of executive orders allowing fitness centers, tattoo and massage parlors, bowling alleys, and hair salons to reopen last Friday with some mitigation measures. Other businesses, like restaurants and theaters, began opening Monday. The state’s shelter-in-place decree, meanwhile, was slated to expire on Thursday.Those policies are placing Georgians at spectacular risk, the new models found. ‘Dying to Bowl’: Georgia Flirts With Disaster as Lockdown EasesAs of Friday, by official counts in Georgia, at least 871 people statewide had lost their lives to COVID-19. If Georgia had maintained its pre-Friday lockdown policy, the Harvard/MIT team’s simulation—which used data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center and accounts for local demographics and health conditions based on Census and survey data—estimated the state would have logged a total of between 1,004 and 2,922 coronavirus fatalities by June 15. That fatality range, like all such ranges detailed in this article, includes deaths that had already been documented (in this case, 871).By contrast, under Kemp’s current plan to reopen, if approved businesses returned to just 50 percent of their pre-pandemic activity (or “contact”) levels, that range could reach 1,604 to 4,236 deaths. At 100 percent of pre-shutdown activity, the projected final body count could soar to a range between 4,279 and 9,748.Even if employee-on-employee contact returned to just one-quarter of what it was before the disease hit, and interactions among the general public—beginning April 30—reached 20 percent of the old norm, the researchers projected that deaths in the state could hit 3,563.“What we find, no matter what we assume, is that reopening on Monday was just too early,” said Jackson Killian, Ph.D. student at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, who worked on the models. “If you let people go out and have contact again now, you end up causing deaths that could have been avoided.”Based on the nature and speed of COVID-19’s spread through Georgia, Killian and his team estimated the virus may have arrived in the state as early as Feb. 1, or at least weeks before the first diagnosed cases—a possibility Kemp himself has acknowledged. To be clear, the models cannot prove or verify that the first infection happened on that date, but used it as an assumed start date based on the available information and the spread to date. The governor’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story.For their part, the team behind the models framed their approach not as an argument for absolutes, but a testament to dire stakes. “The stay-at-home orders cannot go on indefinitely,” said Maimuna Majumder, faculty member at the Computational Health Informatics Program and Harvard Medical School who led the creation of the models in partnership with Milind Tambe, a professor of computer science and director of Harvard’s Center for Research on Computation and Society. Instead, she emphasized the need for a “new normal [that] still allows people to go back to work” and that acknowledges “each of us can make a difference by physically distancing ourselves at, for example, grocery stores.”Turgay Ayer, an associate professor at Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, recently released a state-by-state COVID-19 simulator with colleagues at Harvard and researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital that he said found results “in line” with the estimations from the Harvard- MIT group.Ayer’s simulator showed that—under minimal restrictions, with no other interventions—there could be up to 20,000 deaths by Aug. 30 in Georgia, but he noted that was a worst-case scenario he didn’t expect to see. That’s because he believes politicians like Kemp will reimplement some restrictions once a resurgence of infections appears.“Once we start to see a second spike in infections in late July and early August, the policymakers will put some of these social distancing measurements back in place,” said Ayer. But the numbers do show one thing very clearly, he said: “If you lift the restriction too soon, a second wave will come, and the damage will be substantial both medically and economically. We don’t want to throw away the sacrifices we have made for weeks now.”The Harvard and MIT modelers working with The Daily Beast also looked at two neighboring states that, like Georgia, were hesitant to implement shutdowns in the first place, and are now mulling their own reopening plans: Florida and Mississippi. The results were similarly alarming.To be sure, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves have been more cautious than Kemp. DeSantis has, so far, mostly kept his state’s social distancing measures in place, while allowing localities to reopen beaches. He has also convened a Re-Open Florida Task Force to present a program for resuscitating commerce in the Sunshine State. The shelter-in-place order in Florida, like that in its neighbor to the north, was scheduled to sunset at month’s end. As of Friday, 987 Florida residents had been identified by the state as having died from COVID-19. Should DeSantis back off plans to reopen businesses and renew his stay-at-home decree through June 15, the Harvard/MIT/Daily Beast model projected his state would witness a total number of deaths as small as 988 or as large as 3,014 due to the virus.But if DeSantis had implemented Kemp’s aggressive reopening policies in recent days, the loss of life might have escalated to a range of 1,273 to 4,106 fatalities in the lowest-contact scenario, or even as high as 15,523 deaths if businesses returned to their pre-COVID-19 levels. DeSantis’ office did not reply to repeated inquiries from The Daily Beast.Reeves, meanwhile, appears to be plotting a course between Kemp’s attempted renaissance and a more prolonged shutdown. The Mississippi governor inked a decree on April 24—by which point 201 of his constituents had been identified as having died of COVID-19-related causes—that will keep the state’s gyms, salons, and theaters mostly closed and continue to limit eateries to take-out and delivery. But it will enable other retail stores to reopen at 50 percent capacity and for elective surgeries to resume. This fiat superseded an earlier shelter-in-place order with a looser “safer at home” policy, which is scheduled to remain in effect through May 11. The group from Harvard and MIT did not have the opportunity to model that new agenda in their simulation.Still, the team determined that had Reeves left his old order in place he could have contained the death toll to a range between 213 and 640 by June 15. Were he instead to have followed Kemp’s lead, the range of deaths might have spiked to between 1,865 to 3,463, assuming Mississippi businesses and patrons returned to their pre-pandemic habits.“There is no higher priority for Governor Reeves than ensuring the health and well-being of all Mississippians,” said a spokeswoman for his office, Renae Eze, noting the virus’ present impact on the state has been substantially less severe than the worst projections. “Thanks to the strategy executed by the governor and our state health officials, our testing is robust, our numbers are low, and our curve is flattening.”Regardless of how credible claims of flattening curves may be when testing remains so scant, the analysis performed by the Harvard and MIT team showed these same governors could have saved many of their constituents had they ordered social distancing sooner. Had Kemp instated his shelter-in-place order on March 23 (when New York City instituted its policy) instead of the date he actually did—April 3—the analysis found his state could have seen as few as 148 COVID-19 deaths by April 24 and possibly no more than 427, far lower than the actual documented count of 871.Likewise, the simulation projected that had DeSantis locked down Florida on March 23 instead of April 3, the tally of fatalities in his state on Friday could have fallen to somewhere between 103 and 376, rather than the actual total of 987. If Reeves had acted on the earlier date, only 36 to 111 Mississippians might have died because of the virus as of April 24, instead of 201.Of course, the Harvard and MIT models—like all such models—has critics. Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, an adjunct professor of epidemiology at the University of California Los Angeles who previously worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, acknowledged the analysis and similar simulations “can help policy-makers frame a response.” But he argued such projections “overinterpret the benefit of stay-at-home orders” and underestimate the impact of other factors that go into determining the infection’s reproduction number.“It’s very difficult to input the right assumptions to get a useful outcome,” added Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University and an expert on U.S. readiness for pandemics. “The infectivity of the virus, people following these rules, containment—you don’t really know what you’re dealing with.”Southern Tourist Hotspot Terrified of Post-Lockdown ExplosionStill, Redlener said, it’s too soon to reopen states without enough tests and contact-tracing to keep track of a resurgence of infections. “It’s not responsible of governors to rush into a return to business as usual, even if it’s relatively slow,“ he said. “This is a serious risk. We’re playing with fire.”Tambe, who co-created the models with Majumder and their team, acknowledged they may not map precisely onto reality. Still, he questioned whether the other factors model detractors cited—more diligent hand-washing and mask-wearing—would improve broadly enough in the weeks ahead to have an impact comparable to government orders. And he asserted that the purpose of the simulations was less to provide flawless predictions than to inform elected leaders and health officials as they consider methods to revive sedated economies.“We’re not saying this is the answer,” he said, acknowledging that a permanent lockdown was impracticable. “It’s one in the arsenal of tools that policymakers may employ.”When presented with doubts about the benefits of projecting pandemic death, Ayer—the Georgia Tech modeler—responded by quoting British statistician George E. P. Box, who famously said: “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” In an absence of sufficient data to look back on—a real problem for a pandemic experts are still learning about every day—no model will be perfect, Ayer said. But a careful and meticulous one is a much better alternative for policy-makers to “having no models and relying on gut feeling.”The idea, Ayer added, is to look at the dozens of models currently available and see where the similarities lie, what the trends are, and what is likely to happen over time, as opposed to focusing on specific numbers.“A lot of experts have said that lifting restrictions too soon would lead to a second wave, and that’s what a lot of the research has shown,” said Ayer. “All of the modelers are using the best available evidence out there, but our understanding of the disease is evolving over time.”Or as Majumder put it, “A model is only as good as the assumptions we put into it, and when we have a novel pandemic, our knowledge is changing every second.”The models provided for this story were created by Jackson A. Killian, a Ph.D. student at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Marie Charpignon, a Ph.D. student at MIT's Institute for Data, Systems, and Society; Bryan Wilder, a Ph.D. student at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Andrew Perrault, a Postdoctoral researcher at Harvard’s Center for Research on Computation and Society; Milind Tambe, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science and Director of Harvard’s Center for Research on Computation and Society; and Maimuna S. Majumder, faculty at the Computational Health Informatics Program (CHIP) based out of Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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