Bloomington we’ve had three public incidents involving overtly racists individuals who were then backed by the police within a month. Are we going to wait for a Black person to be lying dead in the gutter before we act? When is enough actually enough?

My enduring gratitude to those who stopped merely being bystanders and acted to aid me, who told the police what they’d seen and heard, and who shared my outrage at DNR’s and our Prosecutor’s office inaction. If you’d like to help do something, please ask that the Monroe County Prosecutor Erika Oliphant swiftly act to bring these individuals to justice.

eoliphant@co.monroe.in.us
18123492670

Yes, you may share, I’d appreciate it. I’m likely going to log off for the day in an attempt to maintain my peace and wellbeing.
Vauhxx

A Bloomington resident said he was assaulted, injured and threatened with a noose by a group of men on public property near the shore of Lake Monroe on Saturday the 4th of July.

Saturday just before 7:52 p.m. Vauhxx Booker, a prominent voice for civil rights in Bloomington, and member of the Monroe County Human Rights Commission, said he called 911 after being assaulted, and that the DNR came to the scene, but refused to arrest his attackers. Booker said he was pinned to a tree, and a group of men threatened to break his arms, and made the statement “get a noose,” while telling Booker’s companions to leave the area. Booker said the individuals, who had Confederate flags, and made statements about “white power” claimed he and his companions had trespassed on private property.

Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton and Bloomington City Clerk Nicole Bolden issue the following statement:

On behalf of the City of Bloomington, we would like to express outrage and grief relating to two apparent racially motivated incidents reported in our community over the July 4 weekend.

A group of individuals physically assaulted and denounced and threatened with racial epithets one Black resident of Bloomington on nearby Indiana state parkland at Lake Monroe.
+++
“I was diagnosed with a minor concussion, some abrasions, bruising, and some ripped out hair patches,” said Booker, who also told the Bloomingtonian he was suffering from pain while moving his head.

Marshaled against a virus that has sickened at least 2.6 million in the U.S., killed more than 126,000 people and cost tens of millions of jobs and $3 trillion in federal rescue money, state and local government health workers on the ground are sometimes paid so little, they qualify for public aid. They track the coronavirus on paper records shared via fax. Working seven-day weeks for months on end, they fear pay freezes, public backlash and even losing their jobs.

Since 2010, spending for state public health departments has dropped by 16% per capita and spending for local health departments has fallen by 18%, according to a KHN and Associated Press analysis of government spending on public health. At least 38,000 state and local public health jobs have disappeared since the 2008 recession, leaving a skeletal workforce for what was once viewed as one of the world's top public health systems.
----

So when this outbreak arrived — and when, according to public health experts, the federal government bungled its response — hollowed-out state and local health departments were ill-equipped to step into the breach. Over time, their work had received so little support that they found themselves without direction, disrespected, ignored, even vilified. The desperate struggle against COVID-19 became increasingly politicized and grew more difficult.

States, cities and counties in dire straits have begun laying off and furloughing their limited staff, and even more devastation looms, as states reopen and cases surge. Historically, even when money pours in following crises such as Zika and H1N1, it disappears after the emergency subsides. Officials fear the same thing is happening now.

Drunk people are unable to properly socially distance, the chairman of the Police Federation has said as pubs reopened in England for the first time since lockdown. John Apter said it was “crystal clear” revellers would not adhere to the one metre plus rule as restrictions were eased on Saturday.

Prof Chris Whitty said the pandemic “is a long way from gone” and urged the public to follow social-distancing rules as pubs and restaurants reopened.

But images from London’s Soho showed packed streets into the early hours of Sunday. Apter, who was on shift in Southampton where he dealt with “naked men, happy drunks, angry drunks, fights and more angry drunks”.....

The cards for sale state that "under the Americans with Disability Act (ADA), I am not required to disclose my condition to you".

One version includes a Justice Department seal and a link to the "Freedom to Breathe Agency". The cards warn that businesses could be reported to this so-called agency. But the cards are not genuine. An official government statement said: "These cards do not carry the force of law. The 'Freedom to Breathe Agency,' or FTBA,' is not a government agency."

According to fact-checkers Snopes, the Freedom to Breathe Agency is a Facebook group calling itself a "movement of proud American citizens who are dedicated to protecting their freedom and liberty".

No evidence masks harm the immune system. Meanwhile, medical misinformation about masks continues to circulate.

One graphic shared thousands of times includes several misleading claims. It's called, What happens when you wear a face mask, and has been marked as containing false information on Instagram.

Neil Young Archives @NeilYoungNYA

I stand in solidarity with the Lakota Sioux & this is NOT ok with me

Quote Tweet
Morgan Matzen @bymorganmatzen

Uh oh, @Neilyoung is playing. Wonder how that happened again.

Prosecutors, in a memo asking that Maxwell be held in jail without bail, argued that the heiress' wealth and international connections made her a flight risk. In the last three years alone, the daughter of British media baron Robert Maxwell has been on 15 international flights to countries like the United Kingdom, Japan, and Qatar, they said in a court filing.
+++
In a teleconferenced court hearing Thursday, a federal judge in New Hampshire, where the FBI arrested her, ordered that Maxwell be taking into the custody of US marshals and transferred to New York City, where she will have the right to a bail hearing.
+++
"In short, Maxwell has three passports, large sums of money, extensive international connections, and absolutely no reason to stay in the United States and face the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence," prosecutors wrote.
+++
Investigators for the US Attorney's office have been tracking Maxwell's whereabouts while she has stayed out of the public eye. "Most recently, the defendant appears to have been hiding on a 156-acre property acquired in an all-cash purchase in December 2019 (through a carefully anonymized LLC) in Bradford, New Hampshire, an area to which she has no other known connections," the detention document states. "The defendant appears to have no ties that would motivate her to remain in the United States."

The US national security adviser said a CIA official tasked with briefing the president decided not to tell him about reports that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban for killing American soldiers because it was “unverified intelligence”. The claim from Robert O’Brien came as top members of the administration gave differing accounts on the status of intelligence reports on Russian bounty payments, and why Trump had not taken action in response, but had repeatedly pressed to re-admit Russia to the G7 club of nations.

.....O’Brien told Fox News, adding: “She made that call and, you know what, I think she made the right call, so I’m not going to criticize her. And knowing the facts that I know now, I stand behind that call.”

He added: “We now know that the information was included in Trump’s written PDB, which is how the intelligence community regularly flags items that the President needs to know. Nothing in the PDB is discretionary; everything in that short document is in there because – in the estimation of the intelligence community – the president needs to know it to fulfill his charge.”

A former senior US official confirmed to the Guardian that reports of Russian bounties were circulating inside the White House before the summer of 2019, and raised concern, but at that point had not been fully corroborated.
......“He doesn’t like hearing bad news about all kinds of things, unless he’s forced to,” the former senior official said.

The recognition and description of new diseases often resemble the parable of the blind men and the elephant, with each declaring that the part of the beast they have touched fully defines it. As the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic has evolved, case reports have appeared describing children with unusual febrile illnesses that have features of Kawasaki’s disease, toxic shock syndrome, acute abdominal conditions, and encephalopathy, along with other reports of children with fever, elevated inflammatory markers, and multisystem involvement. It is now apparent that these reports were describing different clinical presentations of a new childhood inflammatory disorder.

A case definition for the emerging disorder was published in late April 2020, after U.K. pediatricians alerted the National Health Service to an unusual inflammatory illness, termed “pediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome temporally associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2),” or PIMS-TS. Similar cases were rapidly reported from many other countries.3,4 The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) subsequently published their own differing definitions of the disorder, which they named multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C).
+++
Overall, a consistent clinical picture is emerging. MIS-C occurs 2 to 4 weeks after infection with SARS-CoV-2. The disorder is uncommon (2 in 100,000 persons <21 years of age) as compared with SARS-CoV-2 infection diagnosed in persons younger than 21 years of age over the same period (322 in 100,000). Most patients with MIS-C have antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, and virus is detected in a smaller proportion. A relatively high proportion of cases have occurred among black, Hispanic, or South Asian persons.

Critical illness leading to intensive care develops in some patients, with prominent cardiac involvement and coronary-artery aneurysms in 10 to 20%. Elevated levels of troponin and B-type natriuretic peptide are common in severely affected patients, particularly those with cardiac dysfunction, and most have elevations in levels of C-reactive protein, ferritin, lactate dehydrogenase, and d-dimers, as well as in neutrophil counts. Anemia, lymphopenia, hypoalbuminemia, and abnormal coagulation indexes are also common. Most patients have recovered with intensive care support and after treatment with a range of immunomodulatory agents (including intravenous immune globulin, glucocorticoids, anti–tumor necrosis factor, and interleukin-1 or 6 inhibitors). A small percentage of patients have received extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support, and 2 to 4% have died.