The Overnight News Digest is a nightly series chronicling the eschaton and the fall of the Republic.
ProPublica
Senator Dumped Up to $1.7 Million of Stock After Reassuring Public About Coronavirus Preparedness
Soon after he offered public assurances that the government was ready to battle the coronavirus, the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $628,000 and $1.72 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 33 separate transactions.
As the head of the intelligence committee, Burr, a North Carolina Republican, has access to the government’s most highly classified information about threats to America’s security. His committee was receiving daily coronavirus briefings around this time, according to a Reuters story.
A week after Burr’s sales, the stock market began a sharp decline and has lost about 30% since.
The Daily Beast
Sen. Kelly Loeffler Dumped Millions in Stock After Coronavirus Briefing
The Senate’s newest member sold off seven figures worth of stock holdings in the days and weeks after a private, all-senators meeting on the novel coronavirus that subsequently hammered U.S. equities.
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) reported the first sale of stock jointly owned by her and her husband on Jan. 24, the very day that her committee, the Senate Health Committee, hosted a private, all-senators briefing from administration officials, including the CDC director and Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institutes of Health of the United States, on the coronavirus. […]
That first transaction was a sale of stock in the company Resideo Technologies worth between $50,001 and $100,000. The company’s stock price has fallen by more than half since then, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average overall has shed approximately 10,000 points, dropping about a third of its value.
Trump’s ‘Maximum Pressure’ Is Helping COVID-19 Ravage Iran
The Trump administration’s policy of crippling Iran economically through “Maximum Pressure” is exacerbating the novel coronavirus outbreak in one of the epicenters of the global pandemic, according to sanctions experts.
With Iran experiencing at least 1,284 deaths and over 18,000 reported cases as of Wednesday, Tehran’s public health infrastructure is under its own kind of maximum pressure. Iran has identified urgent needs for face masks, ventilators, test kits, x-ray machines, and other supplies.
While U.S. sanctions formally exempt humanitarian supplies, sanctions-watchers say the reality is more complex.
The New York Times
U.S. Virus Plan Anticipates 18-Month Pandemic and Widespread Shortages
A federal government plan to combat the coronavirus warned policymakers last week that a pandemic “will last 18 months or longer” and could include “multiple waves,” resulting in widespread shortages that would strain consumers and the nation’s health care system.
The 100-page plan, dated Friday, the same day President Trump declared a national emergency, laid out a grim prognosis for the spread of the virus and outlined a response that would activate agencies across the government and potentially employ special presidential powers to mobilize the private sector. […]
“Shortages of products may occur, impacting health care, emergency services, and other elements of critical infrastructure,” the plan warned. “This includes potentially critical shortages of diagnostics, medical supplies (including PPE and pharmaceuticals), and staffing in some locations.” P.P.E. refers to personal protective equipment.
Before Virus Outbreak, a Cascade of Warnings Went Unheeded
The outbreak of the respiratory virus began in China and was quickly spread around the world by air travelers, who ran high fevers. In the United States, it was first detected in Chicago, and 47 days later, the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. By then it was too late: 110 million Americans were expected to become ill, leading to 7.7 million hospitalized and 586,000 dead.
That scenario, code-named “Crimson Contagion” and imagining an influenza pandemic, was simulated by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services in a series of exercises that ran from last January to August.
The simulation’s sobering results — contained in a draft report dated October 2019 that has not previously been reported — drove home just how underfunded, underprepared and uncoordinated the federal government would be for a life-or-death battle with a virus for which no treatment existed.
The draft report, marked “not to be disclosed,” laid out in stark detail repeated cases of “confusion” in the exercise… Many of the potentially deadly consequences of a failure to address the shortcomings are now playing out in all-too-real fashion across the country.
The Washington Post
The deadly coronavirus has been met with a bit of a shrug among some in the under-50 set in the United States. Even as public health officials repeatedly urged social distancing, the young and hip spilled out of bars on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. They gleefully hopped on flights, tweeting about the rock-bottom airfares. And they gathered in packs on beaches.
Their attitudes were based in part on early data from China, which suggested covid-19 might seriously sicken or kill the elderly — but spare the young.
Stark new data from the United States and Europe suggests otherwise.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis of U.S. cases from Feb. 12 to March 16 released Wednesday shows 38 percent of those sick enough to be hospitalized were younger than 55.
Sean Hannity denied calling coronavirus a hoax nine days after he called coronavirus a hoax
When Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, he stressed the importance of Americans taking the coronavirus outbreak seriously.
“I think we should really be overly aggressive and get criticized for overreacting,” Fauci said.
Yet for weeks as the virus spread in the United States, many Fox News hosts and personalities did the opposite, examples of which you can watch in the video above. […]
On Wednesday, Fox host Sean Hannity pushed back on criticism of his early coronavirus coverage. “This program has always taken the coronavirus seriously and we’ve never called the virus a hoax,” Hannity said last night. But nine days earlier, Hannity did just that.
As dawn broke, the police officers turned down a dirt road swallowed by the Amazon rainforest. They passed wooden signs that said "earth love" and "preserve the forest" and came to a stop before a stairwell leading up into the trees. Far above was the man they'd come for.
João Romano, 27, emerged from his treehouse, a structure without walls powered by solar energy. Shirtless and bearded, he looked down at the officers, confused. The leader of a volunteer fire brigade allied with authorities and nongovernmental organizations, he couldn’t imagine why they’d come.
Now, the police were arresting Romano on a charge that stunned him: arson. They accused him of lighting the fires to raise money, as part of a web of international collusion that encompassed not only local organizations, but also the influential World Wildlife Fund and even actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
Los Angeles Times
Gov. Gavin Newsom orders all Californians to stay at home
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday ordered all Californians to stay at home, marking the first mandatory restrictions placed on the lives of all 40 million residents in the state’s fight against the novel coronavirus.
The governor’s order comes at a critical time in California, where 19 people have died and an additional 958 have tested positive for the disease. Newsom asked Californians to practice social distancing when leaving their homes to shop for groceries, pick up prescriptions, see their doctors or perform other “necessary activities.”
Job losses from coronavirus are already devastating Southern California
[…] Workers across vast swaths of the Golden State’s labor market are feeling the pain. Wealthy, poor and levels in between. Young, old and middle-age.
Some are in free fall. Others have safety nets. But for all, the losses are sudden and staggering.
“Honestly, none of us in this generation have ever been through anything like this,” said Santos, who doesn’t know how long she can pay for her half of the condo mortgage she shares with her mom. “We can’t process it.”
Nationalism rears its head as Europe battles coronavirus with border controls
[…] Already, the European Union had been tested by Brexit and internal discord. Now, as grand boulevards and great cathedrals stand empty and scarce hospital beds inexorably fill, those same leaders wonder whether the coronavirus will drive a sharp nationalist wedge between members of the 27-nation bloc.
As the infection spreads, more than a dozen European countries, together with the bloc as a whole, have imposed travel restrictions and border checks, acting like medieval city-states shutting their gates in the face of encroaching foes rather than a united force as they had fancied themselves.
Both scientific counsel and political imperatives are driving current national self-isolation. But once the medical necessity of isolation passes, some question whether European states will emerge from the pandemic transformed — more insular, more tribal, more narrowly self-interested.
MTV News
Schools all across America are closed. Workers are getting laid off. Businesses are struggling. More and more cases of coronavirus are being confirmed everywhere — and the Trump administration continues to badly mishandle the outbreak. The government’s priority right now must be to ensure that everyone who needs a test and treatment for coronavirus can get it for free and that there is robust paid leave so people can stay home without worrying about their next paycheck. We need to make sure that anyone who feels ill doesn't have to go into work. We also need to make sure anyone who needs to stay home to take care of a child or to take care of an elderly parent can do so. This will help us slow the spread of the virus.
But half a step behind this health crisis is a financial crisis. Our financial system is under more strain than at any point since the 2008 crisis — and economists and experts are projecting that a recession is likely. We need to immediately push for a stimulus package big enough to meet the moment and deliver quick relief directly and widely to millions of Americans. That is why Congress must include student debt cancellation in the next stimulus package it passes.
I’m working right now with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Patty Murray, and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley on a plan to cancel federal student loan payments for at least the duration of the public health emergency declaration for coronavirus.
NBC News
Hospitals sound alarm on funding for supplies to treat patients, protect workers
U.S. hospitals and medical professionals are asking for $100 billion in direct financial assistance from Congress to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, with some hospitals already running short of supplies for both patients and health care workers in virus hot spots like Seattle.
In its initial legislative package, Congress appropriated funding to assist hospitals with more bed space and medical supplies, but it did not create a direct pipeline to address urgently needed supplies and equipment such as masks, ventilators and personal protective equipment for front-line health care workers.
U.S. restricts visas for farmworkers, raising concerns about food supply
To reduce coronavirus transmission, the federal government has stopped conducting visa interviews for temporary farmworkers from Mexico who want to work in the United States — a move that could disrupt America's supply of fresh fruit and vegetables, industry groups say.
The temporary visa program for farmworkers, known as H-2A, is not entirely halted. Guest workers from Mexico who previously came to the U.S. under the program can be granted interview waivers and allowed to return if their visas expired within the past 12 months. But federal officials told growers that they would stop processing H-2A visa applications from new workers, according to USA Farmers, a group representing H-2A employers, and the Western Growers Association, which represents growers in states including California and Arizona.
A growing number of U.S. farms are relying on H-2A workers as the rural workforce has aged and immigration enforcement has ramped up. In fiscal year 2019, the Labor Department certified over 250,000 positions for temporary foreign farmworkers through the H-2A program, according to federal data. The vast majority come from Mexico.
The Guardian
Israeli spies source up to 100,000 coronavirus tests in covert mission
Israel’s secretive Mossad intelligence agency launched a covert international operation this week to fly in up to 100,000 coronavirus testing kits, although the effort may have been in vain as critical parts were reportedly missing.
Domestic news outlets, citing government and health officials, reported that the secrecy of the operation was because the kits were acquired from at least two unnamed countries that do not have good diplomatic relations with Israel, meaning the government could not openly buy them.
Israel maintains low-level relations with several states in the Middle East, especially Gulf states, that do not officially recognise it in protest against its treatment of Palestinians. It is also likely that governments and manufacturers would not want to be seen to be sending vital test kits abroad while dealing with a domestic outbreak.
Study: global banks 'failing miserably' on climate crisis by funneling trillions into fossil fuels
The world’s largest investment banks have funnelled more than £2.2tn ($2.66tn) into fossil fuels since the Paris agreement, new figures show, prompting warnings they are failing to respond to the climate crisis.
The US bank JP Morgan Chase, whose economists warned that the climate crisis threatens the survival of humanity last month, has been the largest financier of fossil fuels in the four years since the agreement, providing over £220bn of financial services to extract oil, gas and coal.
Analysis of the 35 leading global investment banks, by an alliance of US-based environmental groups, said that financing for the companies most aggressively expanding in new fossil fuel extraction since the Paris agreement has surged by nearly 40% in the last year.
Cambodia scraps plans for Mekong hydropower dams
A Cambodian government decision to postpone building new hydropower dams on the Mekong river has been welcomed by campaigners, who say it will provide welcome relief to the tens of thousands of people whose livelihood depend upon its rich resources.
Cambodia announced on Wednesday that it would not build any new hydropower dams on the mainstream Mekong for the next decade, allaying fears that the river’s fragile biodiversity could be further devastated by development projects.
Mak Bunthoeurn, project coordinator of the NGO Forum in Cambodia, said many communities alongside the river feared they would be forced to abandon their homes and livelihoods if previous plans to develop a dam went ahead. “They have time to enjoy the river. For their livelihood they depend on the fish they receive from the Mekong river and the ecosystem,” he said. He hoped the 10-year suspension would give campaigners time to encourage officials to abandon dam projects entirely.
Reuters
'Is that it?': Chinese report into death of doctor who raised coronavirus alarm underwhelms
A Chinese report into the coronavirus death of a young doctor reprimanded by police for “spreading rumours” when he tried to raise the alarm about the disease drew quick criticism online after it merely suggested the reprimand be withdrawn.
The investigative team also denounced the “anti-establishment” labels of “hero” and “awakener” that some had given to Dr Li Wenliang, who became one of the crisis’s most visible figures in the early days of the outbreak when he tried to sound the alarm in the central city of Wuhan.
News of his death at 34 in early February triggered an outpouring of outrage and sadness in China.
The report, issued by China’s top anti-corruption agency, the National Supervisory Commission, said a team sent to Wuhan looked into how he found out about the virus, how he had been summoned to a police station and how he was treated when ill.
Trump's national security advisor to attend Russia's May 9 Victory Day parade
U.S. National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien will travel to Moscow to attend Russia’s World War Two Victory Day celebrations in May, U.S. ambassador John Sullivan said on Thursday.
President Vladimir Putin presides over an annual parade on May 9 to commemorate the Soviet Union’s World War Two victory over Nazi Germany and uses the occasion to show off the country’s military hardware. […]
Russia invited U.S. President Donald Trump to attend the May 9 event, but he declined. U.S. officials said he had wanted to go, but faced pressure from his advisers not to.
AP News
Olympic flame lands in Japan as doubts grow over Tokyo Games
The Olympic flame arrived in Japan on Friday from Greece in a scaled-down ceremony at an air base in northern Japan.
The flame, carried in a special canister, touched down amid growing doubts if the Tokyo Games can open as scheduled on July 24 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Organizers and the International Olympic Committee say it will, but postponement or cancellation is viewed increasingly as a possible option.
US-led coalition troops pull out of base in western Iraq
Troops from the U.S.-led coalition pulled out from a base in western Iraq on Thursday as part of a planned drawdown, Iraqi and coalition officials said, while training activities by the coalition were suspended amid concerns about the coronavirus.
Coalition forces withdrew from al-Qaim on the Iraq-Syria border, with others planned across Iraq in the coming weeks. The plan was in the works since late last year, a senior coalition military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“The withdrawal was agreed between the Iraqi government and the coalition forces,” said Brig. Tahseen al-Khafaji, who was at a withdrawal ceremony. Another senior Iraqi military official said he expected the coalition to leave two bases in northern Iraq in the coming weeks, including Qayara south of Mosul and K1, in the province of Kirkuk.
The Atlantic
How will Americans react when restrictions on their movements are no longer voluntary? […]
Today, as COVID-19 tears across the globe, signs of authoritarian control are making the jump from fiction to reality. In China, which already operates a massive and very real security state, facial recognition, phone data, and helmet-mounted thermal cameras have helped authorities control the outbreak. These efforts are so widespread, they have already been propagandized, in promotional videos wherein drones disperse groups of people playing newly dangerous sidewalk games of mah-jongg. But even democratic states are taking extremely invasive measures to control the virus. All of Italy is on lockdown: no school, university, theater, cinema, nightlife, sports, funerals, or weddings. When Italian police see people on the streets, they send them home. French citizens, also under lockdown, now need to carry a signed travel pass when leaving home. “We are at war,” French President Emmanuel Macron said of the measure.
The United States is next in line.
Gizmodo
Spring Is Here, and It's Set to Bring a Whole Lot of Flooding
It’s the first day of spring, but that’s nothing to celebrate, unfortunately, as this season is forecast to come with dangerous flooding.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its annual spring forecast on Thursday. On the bright side, the federal government does not expect flooding this year to be as bad as it was last year. Remember that? After a bomb cyclone hit the Midwest, historic flooding followed once all that snow melted. Superfund sites went underwater. Farmers lost valuable soil. […]
NOAA is predicting above-average temperatures and above-average precipitation in the central and eastern U.S. All that plus soils that are unable to retain any more water is the recipe for flooding. To make matters worse, rivers across the Midwest are already experiencing minor flooding.
The Future May Bring Even More Extreme Storms and Heat Than We Thought
Turns out that global warming may worsen future extreme weather a lot more than researchers previously thought.
A study published in Science Advances on Wednesday found that current attribution methods predicting the influence climate change will have on hurricanes, storms, heatwaves, and other weather events are likely underestimating what’s to come. In fact, the warming already baked into our planet should make heat events 80 percent more likely around the globe and wet events 50 percent more likely, per the study. This is at least 50 percent higher than previous predictions. The study could not find any significant increased influence, however, on dry events such as droughts. All our greenhouse gas emissions have yet to clearly leave their mark on those.