July 4, 2020

Trump tries to drag America backward on a very different July 4th

(CNN) On a very different Fourth of July holiday, when many Americans are wrestling with the racist misdeeds of the country's heroes and confronting an unrelenting pandemic with surging cases, their commander-in-chief is attempting to drag America backward -- stirring fear of cultural change while flouting the most basic scientific evidence about disease transmission.

In a jaw-dropping speech that amounted to a culture war bonfire, President Donald Trump used the backdrop of Mount Rushmore Friday night to frame protesters as a nefarious left-wing mob that intends to "end America." Those opponents, he argued, are engaged in a "merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children."

On Saturday in the nation's capital, the Trump administration has planned July 4 celebrations that ignore Washington, DC, Muriel Bowser's concerns about public health guidelines, although at least there'll be some of the social distancing measures at the White House that were ignored in South Dakota, where the President largely acted as if the coronavirus didn't exist. ..........(more)

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/04/politics/donald-trump-mount-rushmore-culture-wars-july-4th/index.html

July 4, 2020

Florida Man Blows Hand Off With Firework On July 3rd In Palm Bay

PALM BAY, Florida – A 42-year-old Florida man suffered a severe injury to his right hand from an exploding firework just before 9:30 p.m. on Friday, July 3, 2020, in Palm Bay, Florida.

Brevard County Fire Rescue crews responded to the 800 block of Serenade Street NW where the man was reported to have had his hand blown off by the Independence Day holiday blast.

The unidentified Florida man was transported by BCFR ambulance as a trauma alert to Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne, Florida. ...........(more)

http://www.brevardtimes.com/2020/07/florida-man-blows-hand-off-with-firework-on-july-3rd-in-palm-bay/

July 4, 2020

Love the Guardian UK for calling it as it is......

......check out the first paragraph of this story. US media outlets would have said "a team nickname that some consider to be racist". The Guardian doesn't tiptoe around it.


Washington’s NFL team said Friday it will begin a “thorough review” of the club’s racist nickname after years of resistance, one day after the title sponsor for their home stadium issued a statement calling for a change.

The team said in a statement the review “formalizes the initial discussions the team has been having with the league in recent weeks.”

It added: “This process allows the team to take into account not only the proud tradition and history of the franchise but also input from our alumni, the organization, sponsors, the National Football League and the local community it is proud to represent on and off the field.” ..................(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/jul/03/fedex-nike-washington-redskins-nickname

July 4, 2020

Florida man finds himself quarantined alone with 200 parrots: 'no way to get out'

Now he’s the one stuck in a cage.

Majid “Magic” Esmaeili lives in and operates a bird sanctuary near Tampa Bay, Florida, but due to a property dispute with his neighbor, it’s ‘technically illegal’ for him to leave.

Esmaeili owns and operates the Zaksee Parrot Sanctuary in Tampa, Florida, where he takes care of hundreds of rescued parrots, macaws, cockatoos, and other exotic birds. However, the sanctuary is surrounded on all sides by other properties, and the only path out winds through another tract whose owners recently placed locks on the gates — effectively trapping Esmaeili inside.

“I have absolutely no way to get out,” he told a local Fox affliliate. .............(more)

https://nypost.com/2020/07/01/florida-man-stuck-on-property-with-200-exotic-birds/

July 4, 2020

LA's Covid-19 'explosion': overwhelmed hospitals, struggling workers, shuttered restaurants

(Guardian UK) Los Angeles is facing an alarming rise in Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations as the region backtracks on reopening before a major holiday weekend.

LA county broke records in recent days with worrying coronavirus outbreaks and fatality rates – the county reported three straight days of more than 2,100 new cases.

Worried the Fourth of July weekend may exacerbate the crisis, local health leaders have responded with an indefinite ban on indoor dining in restaurants, the partial closure of beaches, the shutdown of museums, and a new mask mandate for gyms.

Los Angeles had halted to a close in March, seeing rare traffic-free freeways, deserted boardwalks and beaches and a shuttered film industry. Residents poured into the streets for massive police protests in May, and the region’s economy slowly started to pick up, with businesses opening and Hollywood discussing how to resume. But the rising numbers have sparked fear of a turning tide.

Coronavirus cases are up across the state, with hospitalizations due to Covid-19 increasing 56% in just two weeks and some counties nearing surge capacity. Experts in LA are also particularly worried about a spike in hospitalizations, warning the county could run out of intensive care unit hospital beds within weeks. Across the county, there have been increasing delays for testing appointments despite the increasing jump in cases. ..........(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/03/los-angeles-covid-19-surge-homeless-immigrants

July 3, 2020

Oppressive heat approaches U.S. in early July as wildfires burn through Arizona

A potentially historic heat wave is expected to hit the U.S. in the first several weeks of July, with temperatures forecast to be up to 15 degrees above normal over parts of the Great Lakes as well as the Central and Northern Plains to the East Coast.

The National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center has announced a moderate risk of excessive heat in many states by next week, raising concerns that the wildfires burning over the Southwest in states like Arizona will become even worse in heat and dry thunderstorms.

Thousands of people have been evacuated in Arizona from wildfires that could become more frequent and intense if temperatures there rise.

“High winds in addition to the expected dry, hot weather may exacerbate or prolong ongoing drought conditions and increase wildfire risk across the Four Corners region and western Texas,” the National Weather Service wrote in an outlook. .............(more)

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/01/oppressive-heat-approaches-us-in-early-july-as-wildfires-burn-through-arizona.html

July 3, 2020

Coronavirus is surging in Florida -- and so is anxiety over Trump's chances with senior voters

St. Petersburg, Florida (CNN)John Dudley, a retired banker, proudly cast his ballot for Donald Trump in 2016, excited at the prospect of sending an entrepreneur to the White House on a pledge to change Washington.

It's a vote he regrets, he said, and a mistake he hopes to correct in November.

"He blew it," Dudley said, not mincing words as he assessed Trump's first term. "We were so excited in the beginning. A businessman to run our country like a business and it hasn't happened."

The searing sentiment of Dudley, 77, illustrates one of the rising worries inside the Trump campaign: losing the senior vote, a reliably Republican constituency for two decades. ......(more)

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/03/politics/florida-senior-voters-trump/index.html

July 3, 2020

Never Before Have I Seen So Much Fake Unemployment & Jobs Data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Never Before Have I Seen So Much Fake Unemployment & Jobs Data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Labor Department Nails It
by Wolf Richter • Jul 2, 2020 •

Labor Department today: People on state & federal unemployment insurance jumped to 31.5 million, worst ever.
Bureau of Labor Statistics today: 4.8 million jobs created, unemployment dropped by 3.2 million.
BLS under-reported unemployment by 13.7 million, based on data from the Labor Department. What’s happening is infuriating. Read and cringe.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.


Normally, the jobs report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is released on the first Friday of the month. And the unemployment claims report is released Thursday every week. But this month, the monthly jobs report was also released today because of the 4th of July weekend. And now we have this delicious situation of both reports on the same day, with the Labor Department’s unemployment insurance data – people who are actually receiving unemployment benefits under state and federal programs – calling the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ survey-based report a liar. And we’ll go through them.

What the Labor Department reported today:

The total number of people who continued to receive unemployment compensation in the week ended June 27 under all state and federal unemployment insurance programs, including gig workers, surged by 937,810 people in the week, to 31.49 million (not seasonally adjusted), the highest and worst and most gut-wrenching ever:



The number of people receiving state unemployment insurance (blue columns in the chart above) has essentially been flat for three weeks (it ticked up this week), as many people got their jobs back while many other people were newly laid off. But the number of people on federal unemployment programs, including gig workers (red columns), has been soaring.

What the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today:

Incredibly, given the record number of unemployment insurance recipients, the Bureau of Labor Statistics dared to claim that the number of unemployed fell by 3.2 million in June, to 17.8 million, after having already, incredibly, fallen by 2.1 million in May, making it a 5.3 million decline over two months. The BLS claims to have obtained these numbers through its surveys of households. ..............(more)

https://wolfstreet.com/2020/07/02/never-before-have-i-seen-so-much-fake-unemployment-jobs-data-by-the-bureau-of-labor-statistics-while-labor-department-nails-it/

July 3, 2020

Climate Change Fuels U.S. Dust Storms With Dire Health Consequences

(Bloomberg) Dust storms—those billowing walls of sand and dirt often seen seen in the more arid regions of the world—doubled in the American Southwest between the 1990s to 2000s.

Data now suggest these weather systems in the U.S. may be associated with increased intensive care unit admissions.

The phenomenon, worsened by accelerating climate change, was the subject of the first national study on how they affect the U.S. Dust storms were associated with a 4.8% increase in local admissions to ICUs on the day of the event. Respiratory admissions increased by 9.2% on the day of the storm and again by 7.5% five days later. This second increase could be due to several causes, the authors write, including a slowly worsening respiratory condition, a lack of access to care, or conditions with a longer incubation period such as meningitis or influenza.

“There is a statistically significant increase in ICU admissions on the day of these dust storms,” said Caitlin Rublee, an emergency medical physician and co-author of the study. “We cannot say this is causal, but there is a strong association.” ...............(more)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-02/climate-change-is-fueling-u-s-dust-storms-with-dire-health-consequences

July 3, 2020

Never Before Have I Seen So Much Fake Unemployment & Jobs Data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Never Before Have I Seen So Much Fake Unemployment & Jobs Data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Labor Department Nails It
by Wolf Richter • Jul 2, 2020 •

Labor Department today: People on state & federal unemployment insurance jumped to 31.5 million, worst ever.
Bureau of Labor Statistics today: 4.8 million jobs created, unemployment dropped by 3.2 million.
BLS under-reported unemployment by 13.7 million, based on data from the Labor Department. What’s happening is infuriating. Read and cringe.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.


Normally, the jobs report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is released on the first Friday of the month. And the unemployment claims report is released Thursday every week. But this month, the monthly jobs report was also released today because of the 4th of July weekend. And now we have this delicious situation of both reports on the same day, with the Labor Department’s unemployment insurance data – people who are actually receiving unemployment benefits under state and federal programs – calling the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ survey-based report a liar. And we’ll go through them.

What the Labor Department reported today:

The total number of people who continued to receive unemployment compensation in the week ended June 27 under all state and federal unemployment insurance programs, including gig workers, surged by 937,810 people in the week, to 31.49 million (not seasonally adjusted), the highest and worst and most gut-wrenching ever:



The number of people receiving state unemployment insurance (blue columns in the chart above) has essentially been flat for three weeks (it ticked up this week), as many people got their jobs back while many other people were newly laid off. But the number of people on federal unemployment programs, including gig workers (red columns), has been soaring.

What the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today:

Incredibly, given the record number of unemployment insurance recipients, the Bureau of Labor Statistics dared to claim that the number of unemployed fell by 3.2 million in June, to 17.8 million, after having already, incredibly, fallen by 2.1 million in May, making it a 5.3 million decline over two months. The BLS claims to have obtained these numbers through its surveys of households. ..............(more)

https://wolfstreet.com/2020/07/02/never-before-have-i-seen-so-much-fake-unemployment-jobs-data-by-the-bureau-of-labor-statistics-while-labor-department-nails-it/