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Friday 31 July 2020
News Quiz: U.S. Troops, Baseball, Louie Gohmert
By Compiled by Will Dudding, Anna Schaverien and Jessica Anderson from NYT Briefing https://ift.tt/2XfTglY
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New top story from Time: President Trump Says He Will Act to Ban TikTok in the U.S. as Soon as Saturday
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump said he will take action as soon as Saturday to ban TikTok, a popular Chinese-owned video app that has been a source of national security and censorship concerns.
Trump’s comments came after published reports that the administration is planning to order China’s ByteDance to sell TikTok. There were also reports Friday that software giant Microsoft is in talks to buy the app.
“As far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States,” Trump told reporters Friday on Air Force One as he returned from Florida.
Trump said he could use emergency economic powers or an executive order to enforce the action, insisting, “I have that authority.” He added, “It’s going to be signed tomorrow.”
Reports by Bloomberg News and the Wall Street Journal citing anonymous sources said the administration could soon announce a decision ordering ByteDance to divest its ownership in TikTok.
There have been reports of U.S. tech giants and financial firms being interested in buying or investing in TikTok as the Trump administration sets its sights on the app. The New York Times and Fox Business, citing an unidentified source, reported Friday that Microsoft is in talks to buy TikTok. Microsoft declined to comment.
TikTok issued a statement Friday saying that, “While we do not comment on rumors or speculation, we are confident in the long-term success of TikTok.”
ByteDance launched TikTok in 2017, then bought Musical.ly, a video service popular with teens in the U.S. and Europe, and combined the two. A twin service, Douyin, is available for Chinese users.
TikTok’s fun, goofy videos and ease of use has made it immensely popular, and U.S. tech giants like Facebook and Snapchat see it as a competitive threat. It has said it has tens of millions of U.S. users and hundreds of millions globally.
But its Chinese ownership has raised concerns about the censorship of videos, including those critical of the Chinese government, and the potential for sharing user data with Chinese officials.
TikTok maintains it doesn’t censor videos based on topics sensitive to China and it would not give the Chinese government access to U.S. user data even if asked. The company has hired a U.S. CEO, a former top Disney executive, in an attempt to distance itself from its Chinese ownership.
U.S. national-security officials have been reviewing the Musical.ly acquisition in recent months, while U.S. armed forces have banned their employees from installing TikTok on government-issued phones. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier this month that the U.S. was considering banning TikTok.
These national-security worries parallel a broader U.S. security crackdown on Chinese companies, including telecom providers Huawei and ZTE. The Trump administration has ordered that the U.S. stop funding equipment from those providers in U.S. networks. It has also tried to steer allies away from Huawei because of worries about the Chinese government’s access to data, which the companies have denied it has.
The Trump administration has stepped in before to block or dissolve deals on national-security concerns, including stopping Singapore’s Broadcom from its $117 billion bid for U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm in 2018 in an effort to help retain U.S. leadership in the telecom space. It also told China’s Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. to sell off its 2016 purchase of gay dating app Grindr.
Other countries are also taking action against TikTok. India this month banned dozens of Chinese apps, including TikTok, citing privacy concerns, amid tensions between the countries.
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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking aboard Air Force One and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.
New top story from Time: Hong Kong Government Postpones Elections, Citing Coronavirus
(HONG KONG) — Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said Friday that the government will postpone highly anticipated legislative elections, citing a worsening coronavirus outbreak in the semi-autonomous Chinese city.
The Hong Kong government is invoking an emergency regulations ordinance in delaying the elections. Lam said the government has the support of the Chinese government in making the decision.
Hong Kong has seen a surge in coronavirus infections since the beginning of July.
The postponement is a setback for the opposition, which was hoping to capitalize on disenchantment with the current pro-Beijing majority to make gains.
Pro-democracy lawmakers have accused the government of using the outbreak as an excuse to delay the elections.
New top story from Time: Vietnam, Which Avoided Coronavirus for 99 Days, Records First COVID-19 Death
(HANOI, Vietnam) — Vietnamese state media reported on Friday the country’s first ever death of a person with the coronavirus as it struggles with a renewed outbreak after 99 days without any cases.
The Thanh Nien newspaper said a 70-year-old man died after contracting the disease while being treated for a kidney illness at a hospital in Da Nang where more than 90 cases have been reported over the past week.
The Health Ministry has not confirmed the death.
Dr. Luong Ngoc Khue, head of the country’s Administration of Medical Examination and Treatment, said there are at least six other elderly patients with COVID-19 currently in critical condition. All have other underlying illnesses, he said.
Vietnam had been seen as a global success story in combating the coronavirus with zero deaths and no cases of local transmission for 99 days. But a week ago an outbreak began at the Da Nang hospital. It has grown to 93 confirmed cases in six parts of the country, including three of the largest cities, and forced authorities to reimpose restrictions.
Vietnam reported a daily high of 45 new cases on Friday, all of them connected to the hospital.
Vietnam reacted quickly to try to contain the spread from Da Nang, a popular destination where thousands of tourists were vacationing on its golden beaches. Other cases this week were confirmed in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and other cities and provinces.
Da Nang was put under lockdown on Tuesday and testing and business restrictions increased in other areas. The city on Friday began setting up a makeshift hospital in a sport auditorium and doctors have been mobilized from other cities to help.
New top story from Time: Documents Unsealed in Lawsuit Against Jeffrey Epstein Associate Ghislaine Maxwell
(NEW YORK) — Newly unsealed court documents provide a fresh glimpse into a fierce civil court fight between Jeffrey Epstein’s ex-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, and one of the women who accused the couple of sexual abuse.
The documents released Thursday were from a now-settled defamation lawsuit filed by one of Epstein’s alleged victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
Giuffre claimed in the suit and other litigation that Maxwell recruited her in 2000 to be a sexual servant to Epstein. She said the couple subsequently pressured her into having sex with numerous rich or notable men, including Britain’s Prince Andrew, U.S. politicians, wealthy entrepreneurs, a famous scientist and fashion designer.
Maxwell, and all of the accused men, have denied those allegations for years.
Among the newly released documents were emails Maxwell and Epstein exchanged in January 2015, when Giuffre’s allegations were getting a new round of media attention.
One email, sent from Epstein’s email address but written in Maxwell’s voice, appeared to be a draft a statement or set of talking points for Maxwell to use in defending herself. It said she had been the target of “false allegations of impropriety and offensive behavior that I abhor and have never ever been party to.”
Responding to a Maxwell email a few days later, Epstein wrote: “You have done nothing wrong and I (would) urge you to start acting like it.” He suggested she go outside and hold her head high, “not as an (escaping) convict.”
Epstein killed himself last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell was recently arrested on federal charges that she recruited at least three girls, including one as young as 14, for Epstein to sexually abuse in the 1990s. Prosecutors said she also joined in the abuse.
Maxwell is jailed awaiting trial in New York.
Many of the documents unsealed by the court Thursday had been available publicly before.
They included a deposition in which Giuffre described the alleged abuse, and also answered questions about errors she’d made previously in telling her story, including originally telling a court she was 15 when she met Epstein, when records showed she was at least a year older.
Giuffre over the years has told her story to the FBI, but no charges were brought based on her allegations and she is not one of the three alleged victims in the current criminal case against Maxwell.
Two documents that were not released as scheduled Thursday were depositions Maxwell gave in the civil lawsuit in 2016.
U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska had ordered them released, but Maxwell’s lawyers appealed her ruling to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Her lawyers said they should be blocked since she now faces criminal charges.
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Associated Press Writers Michael R. Sisak and Jim Mustian contributed to this report.
New top story from Time: China Says It Has Completed a Navigation Network That Could Rival the U.S. GPS
(BEIJING) — China is celebrating the completion of its BeiDou Navigation Satellite System that could rival the U.S. Global Positioning System and significantly boost China’s security and geopolitical clout.
President Xi Jinping, the leader of the ruling Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army, officially commissioned the system Friday at a ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
That followed a declaration that the 55th and final geostationary satellite in the constellation launched June 23 was operating after having completed all tests.
The satellite is part of the third iteration of the Beidou system known as BDS-3, which began providing navigation services in 2018 to countries taking part in China’s sprawling “Belt and Road” infrastructure initiative along with others.
As well as being a navigation aid with an extremely high degree of accuracy, the system offers short message communication of up to 1,200 Chinese characters and the ability to transmit images.
While China says it seeks cooperation with other satellite navigation systems, Beidou could ultimately compete against GPS, Russia’s GLONASS and the European Union’s Galileo networks. That’s similar to how Chinese mobile phone makers and other producers of technically sophisticated hardware have taken on their foreign rivals.
Among the chief advantages for China is the ability to replace GPS for guiding its missiles, especially important now amid rising tensions with Washington.
It also stands to raise China’s economic and political leverage over nations adopting the system, ensuring that they line up behind China’s position on Taiwan, Tibet the South China Sea and other sensitive matters or risk losing their access.
China’s space program has advanced rapidly since becoming only the third country to fly a crewed mission in 2003 and the country this month launched an orbiter, lander and rover to Mars. If successful, it would make China the only other country besides the U.S. to land on Mars.
China has also constructed an experimental space station and sent a pair of rovers to the surface of the moon. Future plans call for a fully functioning permanent space station and a possible crewed flight to the moon.
The program has suffered some setbacks, including launch failures, and has had limited cooperation with other countries’ space efforts, in part because of U.S. objections to its close connections to the Chinese military.
New top story from Time: Actor Bryan Cranston Says He Caught COVID-19 and Is Now Donating His Plasma
(LOS ANGELES) — Actor Bryan Cranston said he contracted and recovered from COVID-19 and has donated his plasma because it contains antibodies.
The actor best known for playing Walter White on AMC’s “Breaking Bad” made the announcement in a video posted to Instagram on Thursday.
Cranston, 64, did not say exactly when he got infected with the new coronavirus, but indicated that it was “quite early on” in the pandemic. He had mild symptoms including a slight headache, tightness in his chest and loss of taste and smell, according to the post.
“I was pretty strict in adhering to the protocols and still… I contracted the virus,” he wrote.
Cranston recorded himself inside UCLA Blood & Platelet Center in Los Angeles making the plasma donation. He said the process took about an hour, during which he watched “A Face in the Crowd” starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal.
Cranston urged his followers to wear a mask, wash their hands and practice social distancing.
Thursday 30 July 2020
New top story from Time: Meet the New Zealand Politician Nicknamed ‘Crusher Collins’ Trying to Unseat Jacinda Ardern
She’s trying to topple a political superstar, but Judith Collins says she isn’t daunted.
The new leader of New Zealand’s opposition National Party — nicknamed “Crusher Collins” after her spell as a hard-line police minister — will need all her resolve to beat Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in the Sept. 19 election.
“It’s an extremely difficult job, and that’s why I’ve got it,” Collins, 61, said in an interview in her parliamentary office in Wellington. “I don’t fear much at all.”
National goes into the election campaign as the underdog after Ardern’s deft handling of the pandemic eliminated local transmission of the coronavirus in New Zealand, helping her Labour Party soar in the polls. National’s chances haven’t been helped by a string of scandals and internal ructions that saw the party appoint Collins as its third leader in two months.
Labour had 53% support in a 1News/Colmar Brunton poll published yesterday, while National mustered 32%.
Collins, who’s been likened to the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, has just seven weeks to rebuild public faith in her party and gain support with her pledge of sound economic management. While popular among conservatives, the question is whether she can win the center ground dominated by 40-year-old Ardern, whose brand of empathetic leadership has won worldwide admiration.
Collins is “a true-blue, traditional National Party right-winger,” said political analyst Bryce Edwards. “In some ways that means she’s more attractive because she’s a conviction politician and someone who seems more authentic.”
Closed Border
The election comes as New Zealand faces its biggest economic challenge in generations, with unemployment set to surge after the loss of international tourism, a key foreign exchange earner. The next government will need to create new industries and jobs, and find a way to safely reopen the border, which has been closed since the pandemic struck.
While Ardern has won plaudits for her crisis management, her center-left government has failed to deliver on some key policies, such as a pledge to build 100,000 new homes to ease a housing crisis. National, which oversaw eight consecutive years of growth and returned the budget to surplus before losing to Labour in 2017, says it is more capable of navigating the recovery.
Collins was born on a dairy farm in the Waikato region of New Zealand’s North Island. She became a lawyer, later specializing in tax, and ran several businesses with her husband before entering parliament in 2002.
It was as police minister that she got her “Crusher” moniker by cracking down on illegal street car racing and saying the vehicles should be sent to the compacter.
‘Dirty Politics’
Her political career hasn’t been free of controversy. In 2014 she faced claims of endorsing milk products made by a company that her husband was a director of when in China on government business. Later that year she resigned her portfolios after allegations she engaged in “dirty politics” by trying to undermine a public servant. An inquiry cleared her, and she returned as a minister in late 2015.
She unsuccessfully sought the party leadership twice, in 2016 and 2018, before finally winning her colleagues’ backing this month as the best bet to lead them out of turmoil.
Collins is flattered by comparisons with Thatcher, who she credits with getting the U.K. out of its economic quagmire in the 1980s, and says National can revitalize New Zealand in the post-Covid world. The party has already released some flagship policies, such as a NZ$31 billion ($20 billion) spend on roads and other infrastructure, and Collins says it’s working on a plan for safely re-opening the border.
Collins is firmly on the side of farmers in the debate over New Zealand’s reliance on dairy exports and the impact cows are having on the environment, such as degrading waterways and making rivers unswimmable.
“The only people who think it’s contentious don’t understand where the money comes from,” she said. The industry is the backbone of the economy, yet dairy farmers are treated “as though they were enemies of the state.”
Scandals
National is on the back foot after one of its politicians leaked confidential Covid-19 patient details, while another resigned amid allegations he sent pornographic images to young women.
“It was a couple of backbenchers, most people wouldn’t know who they are,” said Collins. “It’s not like it’s a minister,” she added in a dig at Ardern, who last week dismissed her Workplace Relations minister over a yearlong affair with a former staffer.
Despite the recent tawdry headlines, Collins insists she’ll run a clean campaign. She has a penchant for one-liners and a confident, easy communication style, and says she’s looking forward to debating the prime minister when the election campaign begins next month.
Ardern’s popularity could be an Achilles Heel, she says.
“One of the things that I’ve learnt in my time in politics is not to get too carried away with everything,” she said. “This is a great danger for the current prime minister -– lots of adulation and people telling you how good you are can very quickly become, let’s say, unhelpful.”
National won the biggest share of the vote in the 2017 election and only lost to Ardern because she was able to win the support of smaller parties.
New Zealand’s German-style electoral system lends itself to coalitions, and National will need partners if it is to regain the government benches.
It can rely on the small, libertarian ACT Party but has ruled out working with the populist New Zealand First. There is also little chance of National teaming up with the Greens, who are staunchly allied to Labour.
Collins concedes her path to power won’t be easy but says she’s relishing the contest ahead.
“It’s always difficult to remove and replace a first-term government of any ilk,” she said. “I love a challenge.”
New top story from Time: Senate Republicans Move to Force Vote on Unemployment Benefits Stopgap
Senate Republicans moved forward with a plan to set up votes on extending lapsed supplemental unemployment insurance with President Donald Trump’s endorsement, as talks on a broader pandemic relief package made little progress.
The GOP gambit is almost certain to fail in the face of opposition from Democrats in the Senate and House, who say the jobless measure must be part of comprehensive stimulus legislation. But it will give Senate Republicans a chance to go on the record as saying they tried to act as supplemental jobless aid for millions of Americans expired.
Hours after the Senate action, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer met with Schumer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows for the fourth time this week.
“On certain issues we made progress, on certain issues we’re still very far apart,” Mnuchin said after the meeting, adding that talks would continue Friday and Saturday. “As long as it takes to get this done.”
The Democrats were more negative in their assessment of the meeting, with Pelosi describing the GOP goal of a short-term extension of unemployment assistance as “worthless” unless the parties were working on something bigger.
“We just don’t think they really understand the gravity of the problem,” Schumer said.
Trump said at a White House briefing Thursday afternoon that Congress should at least temporarily extend the supplemental benefit because it would be “great for our country and it’s great for our workers.” He also urged lawmakers to extend a moratorium on evictions.
Meadows said separately that the administration could back temporarily extending the payments at the current $600-a-week level.
Democratic Votes Needed
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday used a procedural move in the Republican-led Senate to open debate on a 47-42 vote. It isn’t clear which of several competing GOP proposals on unemployment insurance might ultimately get votes next week.
However, McConnell would need Democratic votes to pass any legislation, and right now that is unlikely to happen.
On the Senate floor on Thursday, McConnell faulted Democrats for their intransigence in talks with the Trump administration on a comprehensive bill that have brought the expanded unemployment benefits to the brink of lapsing.
”They want jobless aid to expire tomorrow, period,” McConnell said. “If that is their position, they will have to vote on for the entire country to see.”
In response to McConnell, Schumer accused the GOP of participating in a stunt instead of negotiations, saying the “disunity, dysfunction of this Republican caucus” created the situation of having no agreement before people start losing benefits.
Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney and others have presented versions of a so-called skinny bill designed to keep millions of unemployed Americans from going entirely without the additional support they’ve counted on since the stimulus package enacted in March.
Romney has proposed a three-month extension of unemployment benefits that would give states the option of an 80% wage replacement or $500 a week in August, $400 a week in September, and $300 a week in October.
The plan, endorsed by endangered Senate Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Martha McSally of Arizona, would also give states $2 billion to update their unemployment systems, which have been swamped during the Covid-19 pandemic and are often using outdated computers.
Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin earlier Thursday proposed a $200 a week benefits enhancement in a move that was rejected by Senate Democrats as insufficient. The Johnson plan, backed by Indiana GOP Senator Mike Braun, would give states the option of providing the supplemental benefit at two-thirds of a prior wage, up to a cap of $500.
Inter-Related Elements
Passage of any measure would require 60 votes under Senate rules and the Republicans have only 53.
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said Democrats continue to have concerns about pulling out a piece of the stimulus measure.
“We’ve made it clear that we think that the pieces are inter-related because we’re concerned about how working families are going to pay rent and buy groceries,” Wyden said.
The debate comes amid grim economic news. Gross domestic product shrank at an annualized pace of 32.9% in the second quarter, the steepest decline in records going back to 1947, the Commerce Department said. A separate report on Thursday showed the number of Americans filing initial claims for unemployment benefits increased for a second straight week.
The two sides have to bridge significant differences between the $1 trillion stimulus plan the GOP released Monday and the $3.5 trillion package House Democrats passed in May.
The biggest roadblocks remained McConnell’s plan to shield employers against lawsuits stemming from Covid-19 infections, and Democrats’ drive to maintain $600-a-week supplemental unemployment payments and provide $1 trillion in aid to state and local governments.
(Updates with Mnuchin, Pelosi and Schumer comments starting in fourth paragraph.)
–With assistance from Skylar Woodhouse, Erik Wasson and Jordan Fabian.
New top story from Time: Hurricane Isaias Bears Down on Bahamas and Florida After Battering Puerto Rico
(SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico) — New Hurricane Isaias kept on a path early Friday expected to take it to the U.S. East Coast by the weekend as it approached the Bahamas, parts of which are still recovering from the devastation of last year’s Hurricane Dorian.
Isaias had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph) late Thursday and was centered about 70 miles (110 kilometers) east-southeast of Great Inagua Island in the Bahamas, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It was moving northwest at 18 mph (30 kph).
It was forecast to pass over the southeastern Bahamas during the night, be near the central Bahamas late Friday and move near or over the northwestern Bahamas and near South Florida on Saturday.
On Thursday while still a tropical storm, Isaias knocked out power, toppled trees and caused widespread flooding and small landslides in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, where at least 35 people were rescued from floodwaters and one person remained missing. Hundreds of thousands of people in Puerto Rico were left without power and water.
A hurricane warning was in effect for the northwestern Bahamas, including Andros Island, New Providence, Eleuthera, Abaco Islands, Berry Islands, Grand Bahama and Bimini.
Two of those islands, Abaco and Grand Bahama, were battered by Dorian, a Category 5 storm that hovered over the area for two days and killed at least 70 people, with more than 280 reported missing. People are still living in tents on both islands, and officials said crews were trying to remove leftover debris ahead of Isaias.
Prime Minister Hubert Minnis announced late Thursday that he was relaxing a coronavirus lockdown as a result of the impending storm, but said a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew would be implemented starting Friday. He said supermarkets, pharmacies, gas stations and hardware stores would be allowed to be open as long as weather permitted.
“These are especially difficult days,” he said during an online news conference. “We need at this time the spirit of love and unity.”
Stephen Russell, director of the Bahamas’ emergency management agency, said there were no plans to evacuate people, but he urged those living in low-lying areas to seek shelter.
The Bahamas has reported more than 500 confirmed COVID-19 cases and at least 14 deaths. It recently barred travelers from the U.S. following a surge in cases as it reopened to international tourism.
Given the pandemic, the prime minister urged young people booking hotel rooms to stay safe from the approaching storm to respect social distancing measures.
“Please do not engage in hurricane or COVID(-19) parties,” he said. “It can be devastating.”
Isaias was expected to produce 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) of rain in the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
New top story from Time: Alaska Man Killed in Apparent Bear Attack Near His Remote Cabin
(JUNEAU, Alaska) — A man who was clearing a trail behind his property in south-central Alaska was found dead with wounds consistent with a bear attack, Alaska State Troopers said Thursday.
Troopers said they received a report late Wednesday that a Hope man who set out to clear a trail about a mile behind his property had not returned home and a dog that had gone with him came back alone.
The man’s body was found by family and friends in the area in which he had been working, troopers said.
Clay Adam, deputy chief with Cooper Landing Emergency Services, said local authorities received a call about 9:50 p.m. and when they arrived at the small, remote cabin learned the incident had occurred about a 45-minute to one-hour hike up the side of a mountain behind the residence. Given the darkness, there were safety concerns with trying to reach the area, Adam said.
People who had gone to the site earlier and returned were told not to go back or touch anything, and that troopers would be in charge of the scene, he said.
Cyndi Wardlow, a regional supervisor with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said based on preliminary information, officials believe the animal involved was a brown bear. She said efforts were underway to locate the bear and kill it.
New top story from Time: Ellen DeGeneres Apologizes to Staff of Her TV Show After Warner Bros. Launches Workplace Inquiry
(LOS ANGELES) — Ellen DeGeneres apologized to the staff of her daytime TV talk show amid an internal company investigation of complaints of a difficult and unfair workplace.
“On day one of our show, I told everyone in our first meeting that ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’ would be a place of happiness — no one would ever raise their voice, and everyone would be treated with respect,” DeGeneres wrote. Something changed, she said, “and for that, I am sorry.”
In a separate statement, the Warner Bros. studio said the investigation’s “primary findings” revealed what it called some flaws in the show’s daily management.
DeGeneres’ memo and the probe by the studio’s parent company followed a BuzzFeed News report in which one current and 10 former show employees complained about issues including being fired after taking medical or bereavement leave. One worker said she left because of comments about her race.
Most of the complaints were tied to executive producers and senior managers, BuzzFeed News said, but one ex-employee said DeGeneres need to take more responsibility for the work environment. The people making the allegations were not identified.
The complaints contrast sharply with the show’s upbeat tenor and DeGeneres’ own public demeanor and exhortations for people to be kind and caring.
In its statement, Warner Bros. said it and DeGeneres take the allegations about the show’s “workplace culture very seriously” and that its parent company is seeking to determine the validity of the publicly reported allegations and understand the show’s daily workings.
“As a result, WarnerMedia interviewed dozens of current and former employees about the environment at ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’ … . And though not all of the allegations were corroborated, we are disappointed that the primary findings of the investigation indicated some deficiencies related to the show’s day-to-day management.”
Steps are being taken to make several staffing changes and implement other steps, the studio said, without citing specifics. The internal investigation was first reported by Variety.
DeGeneres wrote that she has “deep compassion” for people who are treated unfairly or disregarded. That comes from someone who has been judged for “who I am,” said DeGeneres, who has detailed the price she paid for being openly gay.
“As we’ve grown exponentially, I’ve not been able to stay on top of everything and relied on others to do their jobs as they knew I’d want them done. Clearly some didn’t. That will now change and I’m committed to ensuring this does not happen again,” she said in the memo.
“It’s been way too long, but we’re finally having conversations about fairness and justice,” DeGeneres said, adding that she would push herself and others to “learn and grow.”
She said the COVID-19 pandemic kept her from delivering her comments in person to staffers. She signed the message, “Stay safe and healthy” and “Love, Ellen.”
New top story from Time: NBA Players, Coaches and Referees Kneel in Solidarity as Unprecedented Bubble Season Begins
(LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla.) — Players and coaches from the New Orleans Pelicans and Utah Jazz knelt alongside one another before the first game of the NBA restart on Thursday night, an unprecedented image for the league in unprecedented times.
The coaches — New Orleans’ Alvin Gentry and Utah’s Quin Snyder — were next to one another, their arms locked together. Some players raised a fist as the final notes of “The Star-Spangled Banner” were played, the first of what is expected to be many silent statements calling for racial justice and equality following the deaths of, among others, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in recent months.
Even the game referees took a knee during the pregame scene, which occurred with the teams lined up along the sideline nearest where “Black Lives Matter” was painted onto the court. The Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers were expected to also take some sort of action before the second game of the re-opening night doubleheader later Thursday.
“It’s so important at this point for us to be unified and be able to peacefully protest many of the critical things that are going on in the country right now,” Snyder said.
The NBA has a rule going back to the early 1980s that players must stand for the national anthem. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, anticipating that players would kneel during these games at Walt Disney World, has made clear that he supports peaceful protests.
Many players warmed up wearing shirts that said “Black Lives Matter.” Thursday also marked the debut of new jerseys bearing messages that many players chose to have added, such as “Equality” and “Peace.”
The NBA season was suspended when Rudy Gobert of the Jazz tested positive for the coronavirus and became the first player in the league with such a diagnosis. Gobert was diagnosed on March 11; two days later, Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was fatally shot when police officers burst into her Louisville, Kentucky apartment using a no-knock warrant during a narcotics investigation. The warrant was in connection with a suspect who did not live there and no drugs were found.
Then on May 25, Floyd died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into the Black man’s neck for nearly eight minutes. That happened on a street, with the images — and sounds of the man saying he couldn’t breathe, then crying out for his mother — all captured on a cell phone video.
NBA players have used their platforms — both in the bubble and on social media — to demand equality, to demand justice for Taylor. Coaches have also said it is incumbent on them to demand change and educate themselves and others. And the pregame actions by the Jazz and the Pelicans were just the start of what is expected to be a constant during the remainder of this season.
“It’s taken a very long time to get this momentum going,” San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said in a video that aired pregame, a project organized by both the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association. “And it cannot be lost.”
Gentry said he appreciated the accidental symmetry that came from the first games of the restarted season coming only hours after the funeral for U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who died July 17 at the age of 80.
Lewis spent most of his life championing civil rights and equality and was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington — the one where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Gentry said he believes this movement, like the one Lewis helped spark six decades ago, will endure.
“If you talk to some of the younger generation, I think this is here to stay. I really do,” Gentry said. “I have a 20-year-old son and a 22-year-old son, and I know that they feel like this is the most opportune time for us to try to have change in this country.”
New top story from Time: ‘Green Needle’ or ‘Brainstorm’? A Puzzling Audio Clip Is Burning Up the Internet
First there was the dress that divided the internet as people around the world argued that viral photo was definitely blue and black or definitely white and gold. (It was blue and black.) Then came the Yanny vs. Laurel divide sparked by an audio clip of a computer-generated voice saying the word ‘Laurel’ in a deep male voice, or the word ‘Yanny’ in a higher pitch, or perhaps both words depending on what you wanted to hear. (It was Laurel, by the way.) Now, comes the next great debate to divide the internet.
A TikTok video making the rounds featuring a man’s voice saying either the word “brainstorm” or the words “green needle” and the word you hear seems to depend on which phrase you read on the screen or even which words you are thinking about as you hear them.
As Buzzfeed first reported, the video, which was uploaded by TikTok user, @emilysophie.m, has gone massively viral on the platform, racking up 5 million views in just a few days as people try and crack the audio mystery surrounding the clip.
As Dr. Kevin Franck, director of audiology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, told TIMEin reference to the great Yanny vs Laurel debate, what you hear “all comes down to the brain.” He said, “The fact that brains go in one way and some brains go in the other means that we’re all just wired a bit differently based on our experiences.”
“The brain is built to turn messy signals into meaning,” he says. “It just will not give you ambiguity.”
Interestingly, this is not the first time people have waded into a debate over “brainstorm” or “green needle”. The exact same issue was confounding people on Twitter back in 2018, according to BuzzFeed, thanks to a YouTube video of a Ben 10 toy, which was then shared on Twitter, where it went viral.
While that toy was supposed to be saying brainstorm as it relates to Ben 10 costume, it tore the internet apart for a few days. Now it’s back to finish what it started.
New top story from Time: Trump Suggests Delaying 2020 Election, Claiming It Will Be Fraudulent Without Evidence
President Donald Trump suggested delaying the 2020 presidential election on Thursday, claiming without evidence that the vote will be “fraudulent.”
“With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” Trump tweeted on July 30. “It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”
Trump does not have the power to unilaterally change the date of the election, and there is no evidence that mail-in voting leads to widespread voter fraud, or that it benefits one political party over the other.
Trump has begun to cast doubt on the results of the November election as he trails presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in most national and swing state polls. He suggested in an interview with Fox News in mid-July that mail-in voting would “rig” the election and that he might not accept the results.
Nevertheless, while Trump promotes the myth of widespread voter fraud, he lacks the power to move the date of the election. That is up to Congress, and it would need to change a federal law from 1845 to do so. Even if the date were to be changed — which is highly unlikely, given the fact that Democrats control the House — the Constitution specifies the end of a presidential term is on January 20th. Unless there is a constitutional amendment, Trump’s first term will expire on January 20, 2021.
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Before the pandemic, five states conducted all-mail elections, and three gave counties the ability to determine their rules, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Now amid COVID-19 safety concerns, other states are making vote-by-mail more accessible. California has gone the furthest, and plans to distribute ballots to all of its registered voters.
“There has to be a sea change in our thinking there,” former Attorney General Eric Holder told TIME about voting during a pandemic. “Allow people to access their primary American right by voting at home. It’s not as if this is an untried concept. Oregon has been doing this for years.”
New top story from Time: Former President Lee Teng-hui Who Brought Direct Elections to Taiwan Dies at 97
(TAIPEI, Taiwan) — Former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui, who brought direct elections and other democratic changes to the self-governed island despite missile launches and other fierce saber-rattling by China, has died. He was 97.
Taipei Veterans General Hospital said Lee died Thursday evening after suffering from infections, cardiac problems and organ failure since being hospitalized in February.
Lee strove to create a separate, non-Chinese identity for Taiwan, angering not only China, which considers the island part of its territory, but also members of his Nationalist Party who hoped to return victorious to the mainland.
Lee later openly endorsed formal independence for the island but illness in his later years prompted him to largely withdraw from public life.
Physically imposing and charismatic, Lee spanned Taiwan’s modern history and was native to the island, unlike many who arrived with Chiang Kai-shek in 1949, at the end of the Chinese civil war.
At times gruff, at times personable, he left little doubt he was the man in charge in almost any setting.
“A leader must be tough and strong enough so he can put an end to disputes and chaotic situations,” he wrote in his autobiography.
He was born in a farming community near Taipei on Jan 15, 1923, near the midpoint of Japan’s half-century colonial rule. The son of a Japanese police aide, he volunteered in the Imperial Japanese Army and returned to Taiwan as a newly commissioned second lieutenant to help man an anti-aircraft battery.
He earned degrees in Japan and Taiwan, as well as at Iowa State University and Cornell University in New York. He worked for the U.S.-sponsored Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction, which sought to encourage land reform and modernize Taiwanese agriculture.
In 1971, Lee joined the governing Nationalist Party. As a descendant of the people who migrated to the island from China in the 17th and 18th centuries, he was part of the party’s effort to broaden its base beyond the 1949 arrivals from the mainland. He was Taipei mayor, Taiwan province governor and vice president before succeeding to the presidency in 1988.
In his early years as president, Lee met significant resistance from Nationalist hard-liners who favored the party’s tradition of mainlander domination and resented Lee’s native status. He beat back the resistance, largely by giving his detractors important political positions.
In 1990, Lee signaled his support for student demands for direct elections of Taiwan’s president and vice president and the end of reserving legislative seats to represent districts on the Chinese mainland. The following year he oversaw the dismantling of emergency laws put into effect by Chiang Kai-shek’s government, effectively reversing the Nationalists’ long-standing goal of returning to the mainland and removing the Communists from power.
Communist China saw the democratic steps as a direct threat to its claim to Taiwan, and its anger was exacerbated when Lee visited the United States in 1995. To Beijing, Lee’s visit to Cornell signaled the United States was willing to accord special recognition to the ruler of a “renegade” Chinese province.
The U.S. made sure Lee did not meet with high-ranking American officials, including then-President Bill Clinton, but its attempts to dampen Chinese anger were unsuccessful.
China soon began a series of threatening military maneuvers off the coast of mainland Fujian province that included the firing of missiles just off Taiwan’s coast. More missiles were fired immediately before the March 1996 presidential elections, and the U.S. response was to send aircraft carrier battle groups to Taiwan’s east coast in a show of support. Taiwanese were uncowed and the elections went ahead, with Lee victorious.
In a celebrated interview in late 1996, Lee declared that relations between Taiwan and China had the character of relations between two separate states. This was heresy, not only in the eyes of Beijing, but also for many Nationalists, who continued to see Taiwan as part of China, and looked forward to eventual union between the sides, though not necessarily under Communist control.
In 2000, Taiwan elected Chen Shui-bian of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party as president, ending a half-century of Nationalist monopoly. His election was virtually guaranteed by a split in the Nationalist Party, which had two representatives in the race. The retiring Lee had supported one of them but was still blamed for the split, and the party moved to expel him.
In 2001, supporters of Lee formed a new pro-independence party. The Taiwan Solidarity Union also wanted to break the cultural and political connection between the island and the mainland.
Lee himself backed away from wanting a formal declaration of independence for Taiwan, insisting it already was, given the island was not Chinese Communist-controlled.
In 2012, he backed independence-minded candidate Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP, who lost to the Nationalists’ Ma Ying-jeou, an avatar of closer ties between China and Taiwan.
Tsai ran again and was elected in 2016, upping tensions again with China. Lee was ailing by that time and played little role in the election. Tsai won re-election this year by a healthy margin over her Nationalist challenger.
New top story from Time: U.S. Economy Shrank at Record-Breaking 33% Rate Late Quarter Due to Coronavirus Outbreak
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. economy shrank at a dizzying 33% annual rate in the April-June quarter — by far the worst quarterly plunge ever — when the viral outbreak shut down businesses, throwing tens of millions out of work and sending unemployment surging to 14.7%, the government said Thursday.
The Commerce Department’s estimate of the second-quarter decline in the gross domestic product, the total output of goods and services, marked the sharpest such drop on records dating to 1947. The previous worst quarterly contraction, a 10% drop, occurred in 1958 during the Eisenhower administration.
Last quarter’s drop followed a 5% fall in the January-March quarter, during which the economy officially entered a recession triggered by the virus, ending an 11-year economic expansion, the longest on record in the United States.
The contraction last quarter was driven by a deep pullback in consumer spending, which accounts for about 70% of economic activity. Spending by consumers collapsed at a 34% annual rate as travel all but froze and shutdown orders forced many restaurants, bars, entertainment venues and other retail establishments to close.
Business investment and residential housing also suffered sharp declines last quarter. Government spending, diminished by a loss of tax revenue that forced layoffs, also fell.
The job market, the most important pillar of the economy, has been severely damaged. Tens of millions of jobs vanished in the recession. More than 1 million laid-off people have applied for unemployment benefits for 18 straight weeks. So far, about one-third of the lost jobs have been recovered, but the resurgent virus will likely slow further gains in the job market.
President Donald Trump has pressured states to reopen businesses despite concerns that the virus remains a threat to workers and customers at many service industry jobs that require frequent face-to-face contact.
So dizzying was the contraction last quarter that most analysts expect the economy to produce a sharp bounce-back in the current July-September quarter, perhaps of as much as 17% or higher on an annual basis. Yet with the rate of confirmed coronavirus cases having surged in a majority of states, more businesses being forced to pull back on re-openings and the Republican Senate proposing to scale back government aid to the unemployed, the economy could worsen in the months ahead.
The Trump administration is betting against that outcome in asserting that the economy will undergo a V-shaped recovery in which last quarter’s plunge would be followed by an impressive rebound in the current quarter — a hoped-for dose of good news that would be reported in late October, not long before Election Day.
Yet many economists note that the economy can’t fully recover until the pandemic is defeated — a point stressed Wednesday at a news conference by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The Fed chairman warned that the viral epidemic has been endangering a modest economic recovery and that as a result, the Fed plans to keep interest rates pinned near zero well into the future.
New top story from Time: NASA Launches Mars Rover to Look For Signs of Ancient Life
(CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.) — The biggest, most sophisticated Mars rover ever built — a car-size vehicle bristling with cameras, microphones, drills and lasers — blasted off Thursday as part of an ambitious, long-range project to bring the first Martian rock samples back to Earth to be analyzed for evidence of ancient life.
NASA’s Perseverance rode a mighty Atlas V rocket into a clear morning sky in the world’s third and final Mars launch of the summer. China and the United Arab Emirates got a head start last week, but all three missions should reach the red planet in February after a journey of seven months and 300 million miles (480 million kilometers).
The plutonium-powered, six-wheeled rover will drill down and collect tiny geological specimens that will be brought home in about 2031 in a sort of interplanetary relay race involving multiple spacecraft and countries. The overall cost: more than $8 billion.
In addition to addressing the life-on-Mars question, the mission will yield lessons that could pave the way for the arrival of astronauts as early as the 2030s.
“There’s a reason we call the robot Perseverance. Because going to Mars is hard,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said just before liftoff. “It is always hard. It’s never been easy. In this case, it’s harder than ever before because we’re doing it in the midst of a pandemic.”
The U.S., the only country to safely put a spacecraft on Mars, is seeking its ninth successful landing on the planet, which has proved to be the Bermuda Triangle of space exploration, with more than half of the world’s missions there burning up, crashing or otherwise ending in failure.
China is sending both a rover an orbiter. The UAE, a newcomer to outer space, has an orbiter en route.
It’s the biggest stampede to Mars in spacefaring history. The opportunity to fly between Earth and Mars comes around only once every 26 months when the planets are on the same side of the sun and about as close as they can get.
Launch controllers wore masks and sat spaced apart at the Cape Canaveral control center because of the coronavirus outbreak, which kept hundreds of scientists and other team members away from Perseverance’s liftoff.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” said Alex Mather, the 13-year-old Virginia schoolboy who proposed the name Perseverance in a NASA competition and traveled to Cape Canaveral for the launch.
If all goes well, the rover will descend to the Martian surface on Feb. 18, 2021, in what NASA calls seven minutes of terror, in which the craft goes from 12,000 mph (19,300 kph) to a complete stop, with no human intervention whatsoever. It is carrying 25 cameras and a pair of microphones that will enable Earthlings to vicariously tag along.
Perseverance will aim for treacherous unexplored territory: Jezero Crater, a dusty expanse riddled with boulders, cliffs, dunes and possibly rocks bearing signs of microbes from what was once a lake more than 3 billion years ago. The rover will store half-ounce (15-gram) rock samples in dozens of super-sterilized titanium tubes.
It also will release a mini helicopter that will attempt the first powered flight on another planet, and test out other technology to prepare the way for future astronauts, including equipment for extracting oxygen from Mars’ thin carbon-dioxide atmosphere.
The plan is for NASA and the European Space Agency to launch a dune buggy in 2026 to fetch the rock samples, along with a rocket ship that will put the specimens into orbit around Mars. Then another spacecraft will capture the orbiting samples and bring them home.
Samples actually brought home from Mars, not drawn from meteorites discovered on Earth, have long been considered “the Holy Grail of Mars science,” according to NASA’s original and now-retired Mars czar, Scott Hubbard.
To definitively answer the profound question of whether life exists — or ever existed — beyond Earth, the samples must be analyzed by the best electron microscopes and other instruments, far too big to fit on a spacecraft, he said.
“I’ve wanted to know if there was life elsewhere in the universe since I was 9 years old. That was more than 60 years ago,” the 71-year-old Hubbard said from his Northern California cabin. “But just maybe, I’ll live to see the fingerprints of life come back from Mars in one of those rock samples.”
Said Bridenstine: “There is nothing better than bringing samples back to Earth where we can put them in a lab and we can apply every element of technology against those samples to make determinations as to whether or not there was, at one time, life on the surface of Mars.”
Two other NASA landers are also operating on Mars: 2018′s InSight and 2012′s Curiosity rover. Six other spacecraft are exploring the planet from orbit: three from the U.S., two from Europe and one from India.
New top story from Time: Hong Kong Disqualifies 12 Pro-Democracy Activists From Election
Hong Kong’s government barred 12 pro-democracy activists including Joshua Wong from running in September elections and said more could be disqualified, confirming fears that officials would use a new security law to deny them the chance to achieve a legislative majority.
The government said the barred nominees didn’t comply with requirements that included support for the national security legislation imposed by China last month, but did not name the candidates expelled from the Legislative Council vote. Prominent activist Joshua Wong, the subject of a Netflix documentary, confirmed the government invalidated his nomination.
“There is no question of any political censorship, restriction of the freedom of speech or deprivation of the right to stand for elections as alleged by some members of the community,” the government said in a Thursday statement.
The move was announced hours after Hong Kong police arrested four student activists over online comments they said violated the sweeping new national security law imposed on the city by China late last month. It marked the first time authorities in the financial hub have used the measures to limit speech on the internet.
Hong Kong’s opposition has hoped to ride the momentum of its landslide victory in last November’s District Council vote to a majority in the Legislative Council election scheduled for September. But the enactment of the security law has fueled fears in recent weeks that the government will seek to bar candidates who have criticized local authorities and their backers in Beijing.
The government’s statement listed what it called behavior or actions that signified candidates did not “genuinely uphold” the city’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law.
Among those actions was “expressing an objection in principle to the enactment of the National Security Law,” as well as asking a foreign government to intervene in Hong Kong’s politics and expressing an intention to “indiscriminately” vote down government proposals — all of which are things many opposition candidates have done in recent months.
About 56% of Hong Kong residents oppose the legislation, compared with 34% who support it, according to a Reuters/Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute poll released before the law’s enactment.
Wednesday 29 July 2020
New top story from Time: U.S. Agents to Pull Back in Portland But Will Remain on Standby
(PORTLAND, Ore.) — The Trump administration and Oregon leaders declared victory after it was announced that U.S. agents guarding a federal courthouse during violent demonstrations in Portland will pull back, but it wasn’t clear the agreement will reduce tensions that have led to more than two months of protests.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said Wednesday agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement will begin leaving the city’s downtown area on Thursday, but Acting Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf wouldn’t specify where they would go. He insisted a federal presence would remain in Portland until the Trump administration was assured the agreement was working and the Oregon State Police was sufficiently protecting federal property.
Many demonstrators are peaceful, but smaller numbers have thrown fireworks, flares, rocks and ball bearings at federal agents, used green lasers to blind them and spread graffiti over the face of the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse.
President Donald Trump earlier this month sent federal authorities as protests against racial injustice increasingly targeted U.S. government property, including the stately courthouse in downtown Portland. The deployment appeared to have the opposite effect, reinvigorating demonstrations with a new focus: getting rid of the federal presence.
The deescalation plan calls for the U.S. Marshals Service and Federal Protective Service agents to remain inside a fence set up around the federal courthouse, along with some state police, to keep protesters out. State police will also be outside the fence to keep protesters back.
“I want to be clear about this, the entire DHS law enforcement presence in Portland will remain in Portland, whether they’re staying inside the courthouse, next door or a different location,” Wolf said on a call with reporters.
Oregon State Police Superintendent Travis Hampton said his agency would deploy a special operations team and some uniformed troopers to the courthouse for a two-week rotation. The agency hopes its efforts will allow the protective fence to be removed and “restore a semblance of normalcy, while meeting community expectations and our obligations to protect the federal property,” Hampton said, adding that the troopers were Oregonians.
Tyler Smith worked flipping burgers Wednesday afternoon at a stand that’s giving away free food to protesters in the park across from the courthouse. The stand was until recently known as Riot Ribs but is being run by new volunteers after a dispute over donated money.
“I think that’s a great idea,” he said of the agreement to pull back the U.S. agents.
“I’ve been thinking this needs to be handled by the state or by the city for some time,” Smith said, adding that because Oregon state police troopers are Oregonian and they might take a softer approach with protesters.
The agreement also calls for the U.S. government to clean the graffiti off of the courthouse, which is federal property. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has previously said the federal government refused to clean the courthouse, contributing to the impression that the entire city was under siege.
Trump declared victory shortly after the announcement, tweeting that federal agents prevented Portland from being “burned and beaten to the ground.” The conflicts between protesters and the federal agents have been limited to roughly two square blocks around the courthouse and have not affected the rest of the city, which has been much more subdued amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Wheeler, meanwhile, also claimed a win in a Twitter post.
“The federal occupation of our community has brought a new kind of fear to our streets. Federal agents nearly killed a demonstrator, and their presence has led to increased violence and vandalism in our downtown core,” he said.
Like many other protests nationwide touched off by the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, the Portland demonstrations sought to highlight and call for an end to racial injustice, but they had increasingly focused on federal property even before the U.S. agents arrived.
Brown cautioned Wednesday that the lower visibility of the federal agents — and their ultimate departure — won’t immediately resolve the conflict at the courthouse.
“The violence, the property destruction, which includes burning of trash cans and throwing of rocks, that must stop,” the governor told The Associated Press.
Many protesters want the Portland Police Bureau defunded and are angry that officers used tear gas on protesters multiple times before federal agents arrived. Brown said the departure of the federal agents was a chance to address that anger and begin to make improvements in community policing.
“This was a political theater for the Trump administration to bring federal troops into Portland streets. It was about winning political points with their base,” she said.
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Balsamo reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Colleen Long contributed from Washington.
