Fun4U: June 2020

Tuesday, 30 June 2020

Systemic changes must go beyond just policing. Human and social services need reform, too.

Institutional racism is not found just in the police — it’s woven into schools, mental health clinics and housing providers.

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The A-12 Avenger Shows Why The Navy Needs A Long-Range Strike Aircraft

The Navy’s carrier air wings would have greatly benefited from an A-12-like capability had the program survived.

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Mississippi Becomes Last State to Remove Confederate Emblem from Flag

The Mississippi state legislature voted on Sunday to remove the emblem of the Confederacy from the state flag.State residents had previously been resistant to changing the flag, however polling from the state's Chamber of Commerce indicated that 55 percent of residents now supported removing the Confederate symbol."In the nearly 20 years we have held the position of changing the state flag, we have never seen voters so much in favor of change,” Scott Waller, president of the Mississippi Economic Council, said on Thursday. “These recent polling numbers show what people believe, and that the time has come for us to have a new flag that serves as a unifying symbol for our entire state."Governor Tate Reeves, a Republican, said he would sign legislation to change the flag after previously expressing ambivalence."The argument over the 1894 flag has become as divisive as the flag itself and it’s time to end it. If they send me a bill this weekend, I will sign it," Reeves wrote on Facebook on Saturday."I would guess a lot of you don't even see that flag in the corner right there," Mississippi state Representative Ed Blackmon, a Democrat and African American who has served in the legislature continuously since 1983, said on Saturday. "There are some of us who notice it every time we walk in here, and it's not a good feeling."The push to remove the Confederate emblem comes amid massive nationwide demonstrations over the death of George Floyd, an African American man killed during arrest by Minneapolis police officers. Activists have called to remove the symbol of the secessionist states, which broke away from the union to preserve the system of slavery, as well as monuments to Confederate leaders from prominent public spaces. NASCAR has announced that it will ban spectators from waving the Confederate flag at races.

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Facebook targets 'false news' amid growing pressure from advertisers

Facebook's boss in Northern Europe says a new media literacy campaign is not about "financial considerations".

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Israel annexation: What is the West Bank?

Concerns have been expressed around the world over plans by Israel’s prime minister to annex parts of the West Bank.

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Coronavirus: Stop childhood being disrupted - charities

The life chances of children and young people risk being derailed over Covid-19, warn 146 charities.

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Protest rights: 'We have a right to protest despite coronavirus'

Lawyer Christian Weaver posts videos online teaching the law in 60 seconds.

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Young skater goes viral performing at Black Lives Matter Plaza

A video of Kaitlyn Saunders skating on the square opposite the White House has amassed over 350,000 views.

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'My struggle with racism in the Metropolitan police'

Former senior police officer Shabnam Chaudhri says she was unfairly treated, because of her ethnicity.

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10 Great Weird Movies Available on Midnight Pulp

ComingSoon.net recently took advantage of the movie app Midnight Pulp, and found a whole slew of wonderfully strange genre fare for some of our more adventurous readers out there. Check out our list of 10 Great Weird Movies Available on Midnight Pulp below!

Midnight Pulp is free with ads, though there is also a premium version for $4.99 a month with more movies (a lot of R-rated stuff), a diverse cross-section of action, horror, exploitation, experimental, anime, foreign and generally offbeat programming. There’s a diverse cross section of quality programming, some of it familiar and some of it not. Click here to check out Midnight Pulp for yourself!

Bad Taste

Lord of the Rings‘ Peter Jackson’s first foray into features lives up to its name and then some, featuring crazy gross-out gags created through ingenious special effects that defy the low low budget. Jackson himself plays two roles, and you can see the first inklings of one of the most successful filmmakers of all-time.

The Baby

Released the same year he made Magnum Force, Ted Post’s 1973 oddity follows a social worker who discovers a grown man who has been pathologically infantilized by his mother. The man literally still thinks and acts like a baby, sleeps in a crib, etc. This is a wild flick with a whopper of a twist ending you definitely won’t see coming.

Messiah of Evil

Aroung the same time they co-wrote the classic American Graffiti (but long before they made the infamous Howard the Duck), husband/wife team Willard Huyck & Gloria Katz made this cheapie horror flick. Despite its low budget trappings, this creepy story about a woman who travels to a strange town to find her missing father only to encounter a strange death cult is full of surreal moments that are genuinely jarring at times. A very underrated film, that also features classic character actors Elisha Cook Jr. and Royal Dano.

Horror Express

This Spanish-made cult classic is like Murder on the Orient Express mashed up with a Hammer Horror flick. Hammer vets Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing lead the charge as passengers aboard the Trans-Siberian Express from China to Moscow in 1906 as they deal with one of the weirdest monsters ever, an extraterrestrial that inhabits host bodies and leaves images of pre-historic earth in their eyes. Yeah. Telly Savalas is having a ball as a willful Cossack officer, and the movie is filled with a lot of fun miniature work of the train.

The Slayer

This film could almost be seen as a kind of precursor to the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise (right down to the burn victim dream monster), following an abstract artist named Kay plagued by nightmares of supernatural torment and death. Fearing her mental health, Kay’s friends take her on a vacation to an island which they discover upon landing is actually deserted. Trapped on the island by a hurricane, the group starts getting picked off one by one every time Kay falls asleep.

The Changeling

This classic shocker (which is poised for a big remake) stars George C. Scott in a bravura performance as a composer who moves into an eerie Victorian mansion after the tragic deaths of his wife and child. Once he moves in he begins experiencing supernatural phenomena. With chilling atmosphere, this is one of the most accomplished horror films of the 80’s.

Fist of the North Star

Essentially an animated Japanese Road Warrior riff with a lot of mysticism and martial arts thrown in, this film based on the manga “Hokuto no Ken tankōbon” is a violent hoot. The protagonist Ken (dressed in full Mad Max regalia) has mastered the art of Hokuto Shinken, wherein he basically rapid-fire punches bad guys on their pressure points until their heads and bodies literally explode! Available in both Japanese with subs and an English dub.

Satan’s School For Girls

This 1973 made-for-TV movie (produced by Aaron Spelling!) is not as salacious as its title suggests. It’s actually a cracking gothic terror tale set at an all-girls academy where a young woman played by Pamela Franklin goes to look into the death of her sister. Roy Thinnes is terrific, and it also features a pre-Charlie’s Angels Kate Jackson!

Tideland

Terry Gilliam’s wildly misunderstood and underseen masterpiece is something in between Alice in Wonderland and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Jodelle Ferland stars as an imaginative young girl whose parents (Jeff Bridges and Jennifer Tilly) both overdose and she is left stranded in a remote farm house with some very strange neighbors across the way. This is a movie designed to be divisive and test your limits as a viewer in almost every way, especially via the juxtaposition of the genuinely innocent and the severely disturbing.

Creature

A year before Aliens came out, that films effects artists Dennis Skotak and Robert Skotak actually did the impressive effects for this Alien ripoff. Directed by William Malone and featuring a fun cast including Klaus Kinski, it’s heavy on spooky atmosphere and a must-see for Xenomorph fans. The version available on the service is actually the director’s cut titled “The Titan Find.”

The post 10 Great Weird Movies Available on Midnight Pulp appeared first on ComingSoon.net.

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South Pole warming three times faster than rest of Earth: study

The South Pole has warmed three times faster than the rest of the planet in the last 30 years due to warmer tropical ocean temperatures, new research showed Monday. Antarctica's temperature varies widely according to season and region, and for years it had been thought that the South Pole had stayed cool even as the continent heated up. Researchers in New Zealand, Britain and the United States analysed 60 years of weather station data and used computer modelling to show what was causing the accelerated warming.

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New Yorkers who travel to Florida, Texas, and other states with high COVID-19 infection rates will lose paid sick leave benefits

Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah, and Texas all currently have positive test rates higher than 10%.

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One man killed and another wounded in Seattle's occupied protest zone

One man was killed and another wounded early Monday in Seattle's "occupied" protest zone - the second deadly shooting in the area. Police said the shooting happened before dawn in the city's Capitol Hill neighborhood, near downtown. The Seattle Times reports that Harborview Medical Center said one wounded man was brought to the hospital in a private vehicle at about 3:15 a.m. The second was brought by Seattle Fire Department medics about 15 minutes later. The hospital said one man died and the other was in critical condition, Seattle police did not immediately release more information about the shooting. Demonstrators have occupied several blocks around the Seattle Police Department's East Precinct and a park for about two weeks after police abandoned the precinct following standoffs and clashes with protesters calling for racial justice and an end to police brutality.

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China cuts Uighur births with IUDs, abortion, sterilization

The Chinese government is taking draconian measures to slash birth rates among Uighurs and other minorities as part of a sweeping campaign to curb its Muslim population, even as it encourages some of the country’s Han majority to have more children. While individual women have spoken out before about forced birth control, the practice is far more widespread and systematic than previously known, according to an AP investigation based on government statistics, state documents and interviews with 30 ex-detainees, family members and a former detention camp instructor. The campaign over the past four years in the far west region of Xinjiang is leading to what some experts are calling a form of “demographic genocide."

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Israel orders evangelical Christian media network God TV to take channel off air

“The channel does not appeal to the Christian population in Israel, but rather to the Jews,” Israel's broadcasting regulator said in a statement.

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Chinese coronavirus vaccine approved for use in country's military after clinical trials

China's military has approved a coronavirus vaccine developed by its own research staff and a Chinese biotech firm, it was announced on Monday. The vaccine was given the green light for use by troops after trials proved it was both safe and effective, said CanSino Biologics, the biotech firm involved. However, its use for the time being will be restricted to military personnel, who offer a tighter medical control group than the general public. The vaccine candidate, named Ad5-nCoV, was developed jointly by CanSino and the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology in the Academy of Military Medical Sciences. It has been in development since March. CanSino said the results showed the vaccine candidate has potential to prevent diseases caused by the coronavirus, which has killed half a million people globally. The company added that it was not yet possible to say if it could be a commercial success, which would depend on being able to produce the vaccine cheaply as well as safely.

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Supreme Court strikes down consumer agency's autonomy in win for Trump administration

The case was a major test of the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches.

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New York City mayor plans to cut $1bn from police budget

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio has proposed cutting $1bn (£814m) from the police force’s $6bn (£4.48bn) yearly budget, amid calls for reform.Mr de Blasio announced the plan during his daily City Hall press briefing on Monday, and said the proposed budget would help reform the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

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The A-12 Avenger Shows Why The Navy Needs A Long-Range Strike Aircraft

The Navy’s carrier air wings would have greatly benefited from an A-12-like capability had the program survived.

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Shipbuilding suppliers need more than market forces to stay afloat

Without deliberate action, the U.S. shipbuilding industry will become increasingly fragile.

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The coronavirus is devastating communities of color. The Trump administration's top doctor blames 'structural racism' and shares his plans to take action.

Dr. Jerome Adams is preparing two calls to action — one on high blood pressure, the other on maternal mortality — to address racial health inequality.

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France's Macron faces punishing local elections

Emmanuel Macron seemed cheery after voting in the delayed second round of France's municipal elections on Sunday (June 28) but behind the smile the harsh reality has likely dawned.

The French president, who last year hoped local elections would anchor his young party in urban centers across the country, could fail to win a single big city.

Macron's popularity had dipped over 2019 amid a series of protests but party insiders say he also made a series of political miscalculations such as picking Benjamin Grieveaux to stand for the election's biggest prize - Paris.

He quit over a sex tape scandal, leaving the president's former health minister Agnes Buzyn to jump in a month before the first round.

Before the scandal, the capital had seemed there for the taking - with one in three Parisians voting for Macron's LaRem in last year's European election.

Instead, incumbent Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo is on track for a comfortable win.

And Paris is unlikely to be Macron's only disappointment.

The Greens could to do well in cities such as Lyon, Marseille and Bordeaux and in Perpignan, Marine Le Pen's far-right party may take control of its first city with a population of more than 100,000.

The first round of municipal elections took place in mid-March, less than 48 hours before Macron imposed one of Europe's strictest lockdowns and turnout for the second round appears low.

France's 35,000 mayors set policy on issues from urban planning to education but the vote is also an opportunity for the electorate to support or punish a president mid-mandate.

Macron has said he will "reinvent" his presidency ahead of an anticipated 2022 re-election bid.

He says he will present a detailed plan next month for the final two years of his term, and a government reshuffle is widely expected.

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Detroit police SUV drives through crowd after protesters climb on hood

The driver activated the overhead lights, then gunned the accelerator, sending two protesters flying onto the pavement as the vehicle sped off.

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Monday, 29 June 2020

Trump visits private golf course as US battles rapid surge in coronavirus cases

US president heads to Virginia a day after saying he’d stay in Washington DC to ‘make sure law and order is enforced’ amid ongoing anti-racism protests * Coronavirus in the US – follow live updatesDonald Trump visited one of his own private golf courses in Virginia on Saturday as America continued to see fallout from a rapid surge in coronavirus cases. The trip came a day after the US president said he would stay in Washington DC to “make sure law and order is enforced” amid ongoing anti-racism protests.The president has been frequently criticized for the scale of his golfing habit while in office. CNN – which tallies his golfing activities – said the visit to the Trump National course in Loudon county, just outside Washington DC, was the 271st of his presidency – putting him at an average of golfing once every 4.6 days since he’s been in office. His predecessor, Barack Obama, golfed 333 rounds over the two terms of his presidency, according to NBC.The visit comes as the number of confirmed new coronavirus cases per day in the US hit an all-time high of 40,000, according to figures released by Johns Hopkins on Friday. Many states are now seeing spikes in the virus with Texas, Florida and Arizona especially badly hit after they reopened their economies – a policy they are now pausing or reversing.Trump has been roundly criticized for a failure to lead during the coronavirus that has seen America become by far the worst hit country in the world. Critics in particular point to his failure to wear a mask, holding campaign rallies in coronavirus hot spots and touting baseless conspiracy theories about cures, such as using bleach.On Friday night Trump tweeted that he was cancelling a weekend trip to his Bedminster, New Jersey golf course because of the protests which have rocked the capital, including taking down statues of confederate figures.“I was going to go to Bedminster, New Jersey, this weekend, but wanted to stay in Washington, D.C. to make sure LAW & ORDER is enforced. The arsonists, anarchists, looters, and agitators have been largely stopped,” he tweeted.Trump’s latest visit to the golf course put him in the way of some opposition. According to a White House pool media report: “A small group of protesters at the entrance to the club held signs that included, ‘Trump Makes Me Sick’ and ‘Dump Trump’. A woman walking a small white dog nearby also gave the motorcade a middle finger salute.”It is not yet known if Trump actually played a round of golf. But a photographer captured the president wearing a white polo shirt and a red cap, which is among his common golfing attire.

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Sen. Ernst proposes bill to end lawless zones

Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst explains bill to combat autonomous zones.

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"India's George Floyds": Father-son death in police custody sparks outrage

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Coronavirus: Survivors 'at risk of PTSD'

Leading doctors call for regular check ups of those who have been treated in hospital.

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How teargas became the go-to weapon for US police

The riot control agent has been banned in war for 100 years but remains a vital tool for police.

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Coronavirus: 'Swift and dangerous turn' in Texas cases, says governor

The state governor says 5,000 people are being hospitalised daily as Texans are urged to wear masks.

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Extra £14bn needed a year for climate, report says

A report by the Green Alliance think tank argues that extra cash is required for clean transport.

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Newspaper headlines: Coronavirus 'knife edge' as Sedwill stands down

Many of Monday's papers look at what the departure of the UK's top civil servant could mean.

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Brexit: Where are we now?

It's been out of the headlines for the past few months, but Brexit is back on the political menu

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Coronavirus: Ghana 'quack doctors' selling 'cure'

Investigative reporter Anas Aremeyaw Anas exposes a Covid-19 scam said to be worth thousands of dollars.

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Want to start cycling to work? Here's how

The Bikeability Trust's Paul Robison breaks down how to start cycling with confidence.

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Who needs Wimbledon? Strawberry sales soar

The cancellation of events like weddings and Wimbledon has not stopped strawberry sales soaring.

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Trump news: President praises ‘great people’ shouting ‘white power’ as Pelosi brands his alleged inaction over Russia-Taliban reports ‘as bad as it gets’

Donald Trump has praised “great people” in footage he shared of furious protesters clashing over his presidency outside a Florida retirement home, in which one apparent supporter repeatedly shouts “white power” from a golf buggy.The only black Republican senator Tim Scott urged him to remove the “indefensible” footage, which he later did. The White House claimed he did not hear the racist chant.

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Fact check: CDC did not add flu and pneumonia cases to its COVID-19 death count

A Facebook post falsely claimed the CDC admitted adding influenza and pneumonia deaths to its COVID-19 death count.

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"India's George Floyds": Father-son death in police custody sparks outrage

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76 coronavirus cases have been linked to one Michigan bar

Health officials urged anyone who visited the establishment between June 12 and June 20 to self-quarantine for 14 days.

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Trump visits private golf course as US battles rapid surge in coronavirus cases

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Police officer injured during arrest in South Philadelphia

A Philadelphia police officer is recovering after police say he was punched in the face while trying to make an arrest.

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Pakistan army says Indian spy drone shot down in Kashmir

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Mississippi moves to strip Confederate emblem from state flag

The southern state of Mississippi is the last in the US to feature the emblem on its flag.

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After yearlong fight, Missouri's lone abortion clinic gets its license renewed

That means the state's lone clinic is set to continue operating through at least 2021.

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US must free migrant children from detention, court says

A court in Los Angeles has ordered the release of more than 100 children held in United States family immigration detention because of the risk they could catch coronavirus in the facilities. Two of the country's three family detention centers have confirmed cases of the infection, district judge Dolly Gee said in her Friday ruling. The facilities risked spilling into a massive health crisis despite efforts by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to lower the number of migrants in its custody, she added.

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Removing John Calhoun’s Name Is Easier Than Erasing His Racist Legacy

By Christian K. Anderson, The ConversationWhen I toured the South Carolina Governor’s Mansion in 2019, I noticed the multi-volume papers of John C. Calhoun on display. It struck me as remarkable that Calhoun’s ideas would be featured so prominently given his vigorous defense of slavery and his role in laying the groundwork for the Civil War.But the reality is Calhoun’s legacy until now has been quite prominent in American society—and not just in the South.His statue stands between the two chambers of the House and Senate in the South Carolina Statehouse. However, a separate statue in Charleston has been removed from the town square following nationwide protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd during an encounter with police. The statue had stood for 124 years just a block from Mother Emanuel Church, site of the horrific shooting massacre in 2015 of nine Black worshipers by an avowed white supremacist. The church is also located on Calhoun Street.Despite his historic prominence, Calhoun’s days as a revered icon in the public sphere are gradually coming to an end. CALHOUN IS ALL AROUND USNumerous cities and counties, streets and roads, schools and other public places are named for Calhoun, a slaveholder who served as secretary of state, secretary of war, a U.S. senator, and two terms as vice president.For instance, the Calhoun State Office Building sits in the capitol complex in Columbia, South Carolina’s state capital city.There are counties named for him in his home state, as well as Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and elsewhere in the South. There is even a Calhoun County in Michigan named for him.Major streets in Columbia and Charleston, still bear his name.Despite his prominence elsewhere, Calhoun is about to become less prominent on the landscape of American higher education.The board of trustees at Clemson University, a public university, announced on June 12 that its Honors College would no longer be named after Calhoun.South Carolina’s “Heritage Act” prevents renaming of buildings without legislative approval, but the honors college is an organizational unit, not a building.This is a particularly significant development given that Clemson University sits on what was once Calhoun’s plantation, which his daughter and her husband, Thomas Clemson, inherited.While public memorials of Calhoun appear to be on the decline, what I find more significant—and more troublesome—is the way that Calhoun’s ideology has been ingrained in the American culture and psyche, thanks in large part to the way his ideas were embraced in U.S. institutions of higher learning long after his death.I make this observation as a historian and author of a chapter for the forthcoming book Persistence Through Peril: Episodes of College Life and Academic Endurance in the Civil War South.Calhoun, who was born in 1782 and died a decade before the Civil War began, in 1850, was not only a slaveholder and an ardent defender of slavery, but a chief architect of the political system that allowed slavery to persist.More enduring than the effects of his political career—which included the annexation of Texas to expand the number of slaveholding states—are the repercussions of his political ideology.As a political theorist, Calhoun is best known for two ideas: “concurrent majority” and “nullification.” A concurrent majority is the notion that a minority of the electorate—namely, one with money and property—can veto a political majority.This idea is related to his belief in nullification theory, which is the idea that a state can void federal laws. Nullification made the idea of South Carolina seceding from the nation—and the creation of the Confederacy—a political possibility and then a reality.Calhoun laid out his arguments for these ideas in his treatise “A Disquisition on Government.”While some Americans defended slavery as a “necessary evil” Calhoun viewed slavery as “a positive good.”He held paternalistic views of Black people as well as other non-whites, declaring: “We make a great mistake when we suppose that all people are capable of self-government.” THE CALHOUN CURRICULUMCalhoun’s political doctrines were taught explicitly in college classrooms for decades after his death. There are still remnants in the curriculum.His own views on nullification theory, states’ rights and secession were formed when he studied at Yale University where the college’s president, Timothy Dwight, introduced to him the idea that New England could leave the young nation and become a separate country. Yale named a residential college in his honor in 1931. It renamed it in 2017 after the intense pressure from students and alumni that followed the Charleston massacre at the Mother Emanuel Church.In the chapter that I am writing for Persistence through Peril, I am explaining how Calhoun’s ideologies permeated Southern institutions of higher education. His views were taught at the Military Academy of South Carolina, before, during and after the Civil War. When those cadets studied the U.S. Constitution, their professors and texts emphasized Calhoun’s interpretation of it.John Peyre Thomas, a Citadel graduate and Confederate Army colonel who served as professor, superintendent and later trustee at The Citadel, heaped praise upon Calhoun, having served as editor for The Carolina Tribute to Calhoun in 1857.In a speech given at Clemson University on June 22, 1897, Thomas declared, “It is conceded that Calhoun’s standard in the science of government is so lofty as in some respects to be unattainable in our day and generation.” THE ROAD AHEADDecades of teaching a particular doctrine do not fade easily or quickly. The United States is now witnessing another racial awakening with protests for social justice. Symbols of racism and white supremacy are being removed from higher education.On June 17, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees reversed its 16-year moratorium on renaming buildings, put in place after the statue known as “Silent Sam” was torn down in 2018.The University System of Georgia, which includes the University of Georgia, also moved in June 2020 to review the names of its buildings. This would include the University of Georgia’s Grady School of Journalism, which is named after Henry Grady, an avowed white supremacist.After Calhoun’s death in 1850, his colleague in the Senate, Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, remarked about him: “He is not dead. There may be no vitality in his body, but there is in his doctrines.” He was prophetic in his words.Calhoun’s ideologies fueled the Civil War, gave comfort to those who believed in the “Lost Cause” (that is, to show the Civil War in the best light possible from the Confederate point of view) and perpetuated the teaching of racist and white supremacist attitudes.Because the ideas he espoused have flourished, I believe that dismantling his legacy will take much more than just removing statues of his likeness or renaming buildings, streets and other public places named in his honor.Christian K. Anderson is an associate professor at the University of South CarolinaRead more at The Daily Beast.Get 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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Sunday, 28 June 2020

Coronavirus food fear: Government launches investigation after meatpacking outbreaks

Government scientists have asked the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to investigate whether food could harbour coronavirus following major outbreaks in meatpacking plants. Four food processing factories in England and Wales have suffered clusters of disease, with 469 workers testing positive for the virus so far. Across the world, staff at meat packing plants have been disproportionately impacted by disease, with cold, crowded and noisy working conditions which force people to shout, thought to be to blame. Now it has emerged that government scientists have asked the FSA to check whether the virus could get into food. So far the risk has been assessed as low, but experts say they are continuing to monitor the situation. A government source said: “We have actually asked the Food Standards Agency to look at this a few times, about the risk in meat and other produce, and their assessment is that the risk is very low for transmission on meat. “But we’ll keep asking them to look as new evidence comes up.” In the US, as many as 25,000 meat and poultry workers have tested positive for Covid-19, and at least 93 have died. This week Kirklees council confirmed that 165 employees of a meat processing plant in West Yorkshire had contracted the virus and Public Health Wales reported 200 coronavirus cases at a meat processing plant on Anglesey. There have also been 34 cases linked to Merthyr Tydfil and 70 to Wrexham. Dr Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health at the University of Southampton, said: “Whilst refrigeration may be a contributory factor to the spread of the virus, the key factors are likely to be the number of people close together in indoor conditions. “Some of these factories have onsite or nearby accommodation where there are several people in each dormitory, they may be transported on a bus to the site of work, and they will be indoors together all day.”

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Newspaper headlines: PM pledges 'building blitz' amid unemployment fears

Some Sunday papers take a close look at the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

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To Italy with Love: Postcards from a Covid-America

An Italian student in Ohio watched her country reel from the coronavirus pandemic.

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Coronavirus: How to fly during a global pandemic

Jumping on a plane looks and feels different to how it did at the start of 2020.

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LGBT black people share their dating app experiences

Young gay black people from the West Midlands share their experience of racism on dating apps.

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How prosthetics transformed a circus performer's art

Circus performer Erin Ball thought her career was over when she lost her feet in an accident in 2014.

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Coronavirus: Your pictures on the theme of 'walking'

A selection of pictures from our readers on the theme of 'walking'.

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Coronavirus: How funerals under lockdown have 'felt incomplete'

Funeral directors, celebrants and mourners discuss how funerals under lockdown have "felt incomplete".

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'The love letter to my neighbourhood that helped me flee my country'

José Gregorio Márquez was ashamed of the place he grew up, but he came to love it before leaving it forever.

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Paul Weller: 'People weren't ready for my house record'

The returning rock star reflects on underground sounds, happy times, and "shocking" race issues.

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Coronavirus: Will pop-up bike lanes keep new cyclists on the road?

Campaigners say routes need to be made safer to keep new cyclists on the roads as lockdown is eased.

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Coronavirus: The foods we are all eating during lockdown

During the coronavirus lockdown our eating habits have changed, so who has been benefiting from it?

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Patient 91: How Vietnam saved a British pilot and kept a clean Covid-19 sheet

Stephen Cameron spent 68 days on a ventilator but beat the odds to survive coronavirus.

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Watch a Sneak Peek From Disney & Pixar’s Soul!

Watch a Sneak Peek From Disney & Pixar's Soul!

BEGIN SLIDESHOW

Watch a Sneak Peek From Disney & Pixar’s Soul!

The filmmakers from Disney & Pixar’s animated movie Soul have partnered with American anthropologist/educator Dr. Johnnetta Cole and globally-renowned Jazz pianist Jon Batiste to offer a new sneak peek at the film as part of the Essence of Culture during a virtual panel titled Finding “Soul.” The sneak peek features the song “Parting Ways,” written, produced, and performed by Cody ChesnuTT. Both Dr. Cole and Jon Batiste, who lent his expertise to the jazz arrangements and compositions in Soul, serve as cultural consultants on the film. You can watch the new sneak peek now in the player below!

What is it that makes you…YOU? This November, Pixar Animation Studios’ all-new feature film Soul introduces Joe Gardner (voice of Jamie Foxx) – a middle-school band teacher who gets the chance of a lifetime to play at the best jazz club in town. But one small misstep takes him from the streets of New York City to The Great Before – a fantastical place where new souls get their personalities, quirks, and interests before they go to Earth.

Determined to return to his life, Joe teams up with a precocious soul, 22 (voice of Tina Fey), who has never understood the appeal of the human experience. As Joe desperately tries to show 22 what’s great about living, he may just discover the answers to some of life’s most important questions.

Directed by Academy Award winner Pete Docter (Inside Out, Up), co-directed and written by Kemp Powers (One Night in Miami) and produced by Academy Award nominee Dana Murray, p.g.a. (Pixar short Lou), Disney and Pixar’s Soul opens in U.S. theaters on November 20, 2020.

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The post Watch a Sneak Peek From Disney & Pixar’s Soul! appeared first on ComingSoon.net.

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Polls deliver more bad news for Trump

If the latest national and state polls are correct, President Trump’s bid for a second term faces serious headwinds in the four months until the election.

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St. Louis mayor faces calls to resign after she was accused of doxxing the names and addresses of constituents who wrote letters calling for police defunding

Mayor Lyda Krewson, a Democrat, faced calls to resign after she shared on Facebook names and addresses of protestors who called for police defunding.

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4 Rohingya men killed in gunfight with Bangladesh police

Four suspected members of a Rohingya group allegedly involved in kidnapping for ransom were killed in a gunfight with Bangladeshi police near the sprawling refugee camps where refugees from Myanmar live, officials said. The gunfight took place Friday when a team of security officials was searching for the gang leader in a forest near the Rohingya camps at Cox's Bazar, said police Inspector Pradeep Kumar Das. Another inspector, Morzina Akhter, said the suspects opened fire at police, sparking the gunfight that led to their deaths.

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After yearlong fight, Missouri's lone abortion clinic gets its license renewed

That means the state's lone clinic is set to continue operating through at least 2021.

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A Major GOP Nightmare Moves a Step Closer to Reality

Legislation to make the District of Columbia a state is poised to pass the House on Friday, a major advance from the last time the measure came before Congress 27 years ago and 40 percent of Democrats joined with all but one Republican to defeat D.C. statehood. After decades of benign neglect, the movement to make D.C. the 51st state has gained new life with Black Lives Matter and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s heightened profile. President Trump’s efforts to use federal force to dominate streets around the White House exposed the subservient status of a city that must answer to Congress for how it spends money while its 706,000 residents are without full voting representation in the House or Senate. Republicans appear unmoved by pleas for equality. Republican Sen. Tom Cotton took to the Senate floor to denounce the Democrats’ move in a racially tinged speech depicting D.C. as an elitist conclave of the “deep state” and Mayor Bowser as someone who could not be trusted to keep the city and its statues safe. “Yes, Wyoming is smaller than Washington by population,” he tweeted, “but it has three times as many workers in mining, logging, and construction, and 10 times as many workers in manufacturing. In other words, Wyoming is a well-rounded working-class state."Opinion: I Fixed Tom Cotton’s Op-EdThe bill to rename D.C. “Washington, Douglass Commonwealth” is going nowhere in Mitch McConnell’s Senate. But if the Democrats win the White House and flip the Senate, statehood becomes imaginable, since statehood requires only a vote of Congress. “Trump says Republicans would have to be stupid to support D.C. statehood and that’s what the battle is about these days, maybe that’s what it’s always been about,” says Michael Brown, D.C.’s non-voting “shadow senator.” Actually, Trump said Republicans would have to be “very, very stupid” to support statehood for D.C. because it would add two Democratic senators, which McConnell would never let happen. “But it’s about more than McConnell,” Brown told the Daily Beast. “We can’t get one Republican (in the Senate), and there are still six (Senate) Democrats who are not on the bill.” In the modern Senate, 60 votes are needed to overcome a filibuster and proceed to a vote on legislation of any significance. The exception is judges, where Republicans exercised what is known as the “nuclear option” to confirm two Supreme Court judges and 200 lower court lifetime judges with a simple majority. Democratic leader Harry Reid opened this dangerous door by striking the filibuster for Executive Branch confirmations that McConnell was blocking. Several Democrats who ran for president, including Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Pete Buttigieg, favor doing away with the filibuster if Democrats win the Senate. Otherwise, they argue, McConnell (or his successor, should he happen to lose his own race) will obstruct everything Democrats try to do. The District of Columbia has a population of 706,000, more than Wyoming and Vermont, and D.C. residents pay more in total federal income tax than 22 states. It has long been a sore point that fighting in every war and contributing blood and treasure is not enough to gain more than a symbolic vote in Congress. D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has served almost 30 years, has a vote in committee but not on the House floor, and if her committee vote breaks a tie, it doesn’t count. Even that small measure of democratic largesse was taken away by Republicans when they gained control of the House in 1994 and again in 2010. Democrats restored Norton’s limited right to vote when they won the House in 2006 and 2018, and since then Norton has been on a roll when it comes to statehood. She has 226 co-sponsors for the bill, including the No. 2 Democrat in the House, Steny Hoyer from Maryland, who opposed statehood until now. Speaking before the Rules committee Wednesday, Norton explained how the legislation before her colleagues was personal to her own history. “My great-grandfather, Richard Holmes, who escaped as a slave from a Virginia plantation, made it as far as D.C., a walk to freedom but not to equal citizenship,” she said. “For three generations my family has been denied the rights other Americans take for granted.” Opponents of statehood argue that the Founding Fathers didn’t want the District to be a state, but our vaunted forebears also didn’t want women to vote, or Black people to vote, so that argument seems lame. “Whether you’re a textualist or an originalist, I don’t believe the Founding Fathers had any more reason to deny representation to people who pay federal taxes, serve in war and do everything a citizen should—than they would have wanted my neighbor down the hall to have a closet full of AK-47s,” says Ellen Goldstein, who served until recently as a neighborhood advisory commissioner for the Sheridan-Kalorama neighborhood, home to the Obamas, the Kushners, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. “You can unearth the minds of the Founding Fathers to justify anything,” Goldstein told the Daily Beast. “As somebody who has lived here for 50 years, I believe the only reason we’re not a state is because of race.” Race has a lot to do with it, says Brown, a former political consultant whose unpaid position’s main perk is identifying as a senator. The Constitution grants Congress jurisdiction over the District in “all cases whatsoever,” which allowed some committee chairmen of the House and Senate Committees on the District of Columbia to run the city like a plantation. In his recent book Class of 1974, John Lawrence recounts how John McMillan, a South Carolina Democrat and a segregationist, sent a truckload of watermelons to the office of appointed Mayor Walter Washington to let him know how little he thought of the budget Washington submitted in 1967 for the committee’s review. The District couldn’t even elect its own mayor until after Home Rule passed Congress in 1973. For a long time, D.C. pridefully called itself “Chocolate City,” acknowledging its majority Black population. No state has ever come into the union with a majority minority population, says Brown. In 1993, the last time Congress voted on statehood, the city was 56 percent Black, a factor in the outcome despite President Bill Clinton’s advocacy for statehood. During his final weeks in office, Bill Clinton had the newly authorized D.C. license plate with the slogan “taxation without representation” affixed to the presidential limousine. His successor, President George W. Bush, had the plate removed. It wasn’t until after President Obama won re-election in 2012 that he ordered the controversial plate installed on all presidential vehicles. In 2011, the District’s Black population fell below 50 percent for the first time in over 50 years. According to 2017 Census Bureau data, the African-American population is 47.1 percent. Unlike the Clinton-era vote, when Democrats were divided on the political merits of D.C. statehood, a newly awakened Democratic leadership is rallying around the cry for equal rights. “It’s beyond statehood,” says Goldstein, citing congressional meddling in District policies on marijuana legalization, gun regulation, and funding for abortion. “If we decide to do it, they take it away. They take our money and tell us how to spend it.” Goldstein doubts the House vote will change anything, but in her thinking, modern America cannot continue to deny D.C. is a state any more than Macy’s Department store in the movie classic Miracle on 34th Street could deny Kris Kringle was Santa when bags of letters addressed to him were delivered by the Post Office. Using the same reasoning, Goldstein notes that when she shops online on Amazon and scrolls down, D.C. is a state: “If the Post Office thinks you’re Santa, you’re Santa. And if Amazon thinks we’re a state, then by golly, we’re a state.”Until a miracle happens on Capitol Hill, that will have to do. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get 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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