In Mexico, here’s what a day without women looks like


Kevin Sieff, Gabriela Martínez WASHINGTON POST







MEXICO CITY —What does a country look like without women?

On Monday, in one of the world’s largest, busiest cities, it was a thought experiment that came to life, as women removed themselves from public view.

They didn’t go to offices, or restaurants or government buildings. They didn’t go to school. They didn’t ride in cars or buses or subways. For a day, they were gone.

Mexico has been shaken by an increase in femicides — women and girls killed for their gender — several of them particularly gruesome. In February, the body of 25-year-old Ingrid Escamilla was found skinned and disfigured. Then the body of 7-year-old Fátima Cecilia Aldrighett Antón, abducted outside her elementary school, was found naked in a plastic bag.

Those deaths invigorated this country’s long-standing women’s movement, which has clashed with successive governments that they say have done little to protect women. In recent weeks, protesters have marched outside the national palace; they scrawled the words “Femicide State” on its ornate doors. On Sunday, International Women’s Day, authorities estimate that at least 80,000 people marched through the center of the city.

But on Monday morning, after weeks of planning, women across Mexico protested by attempting to disappear completely. “On the 9th, No Woman Moves,” was one protest mantra. Organizers called it “A Day Without Us.”

Offices in both foreign and Mexican-owned businesses were half-empty. Many, in cities across Mexico, declined to open. Large employers such as Walmart and the baked goods giant Bimbo gave female employees the day off. Women at Google, WeWork and Hooters stayed home.

The Mexico City branch of Coparmex, an influential employers’ association, said the economic losses in the capital alone could hit $300 million.

The movement grew so big that even the government — a target of the protest — agreed to participate. Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo said female employees who stayed away would not be penalized. Women at the Foreign Ministry left pieces of paper with statements on their empty seats.

“By the end of the day, ten women will have been murdered. Stop killing us,” read one.

Public school teachers left signs in their classrooms explaining their absence.

“I didn’t come because I don’t want my female students or my daughter to be abused, humiliated or beaten,” a sign at a Mexico City school read.

At Bosque de Niebla, a small cafe in the Coyoacan neighborhood of the capital, Cecilia Lynn Sueños told her all-female staff days in advance that the shop would shut down Monday.

“The protest is an attempt to make visible the work of women and to unite behind the feminist demands of today,” Sueños said. She said it was partly aimed at the government — “because they should be the ones to ensure that laws really do protect the human rights of women.”

She and her employees would devote the day to reading about and discussing feminism, she said. She would pay them for a normal day of work.

Other women said they supported the protest, but couldn’t participate themselves — they weren’t offered the option of staying home with pay.

“I work because I need to pay rent,” said Nadia Iglesias, who plays a barrel organ near the city center. “I need to pay for my kids’ school.”

Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Monday that he supported the protest. But he also suggested that the women’s movement harbored elements hostile to his presidency.

“This movement has various aspects,” he said during his morning news conference. “It’s a movement of women who legitimately fight for their rights and against violence, against femicides. But there is another part that is against us, and what they want is for the government to fail.”

He has said rising gender-based violence does not reflect the failings of his government, but rather a deepening “social decomposition” produced by previous Mexican leaders. He has blamed femicides on neoliberal values, and has expressed fatigue at addressing the issue publicly.

On Monday, he called some of the women “conservatives disguised as feminists,” and said they were hijacking the issue to destroy his government.

That response has left many women in Mexico unsatisfied. Some have been outspoken in their anger toward López Obrador.

“The president has been provoking us with his indifference, with his comments,” said Guadalupe Loaeza, a well-known Mexican writer and journalist. “He does not grasp that this is about feminism.” He misrepresents it, distorts it by saying that it is conservatism.”

Loaeza, too, stayed home.

“My husband already made me breakfast,” she said. “I am not going out. He already went out to buy food. He is going to take care of everything today.”

kevin.sieff@washpost.com

‘We’re going to have more deaths’: Influenza kills more people than the coronavirus so everyone is overreacting, right? Wrong — and here’s why

President Trump tweeted Monday that thousands die of the flu every year, and suggested that life should go on as usual — not so fast, experts say


Some cite influenza as a reason not to be worried about COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, but health professionals say that comparison misses some very important points. MarketWatch photo illustration/iStockphoto

Coronavirus. It’s just like the flu, isn’t it?

Hundreds of thousands of people die of the flu every year, and people need to calm down, some say. Everyone should wash their hands for 20 seconds, elbow bump, stop buying face masks because they don’t protect against the virus, note that airplane air is filtered 20 to 30 times an hour, avoid cruise ships, and just relax — right?

That appears to be the accumulated advice of exasperated Americans on Twitter and Facebook FB, -6.40% in recent days who despair at the long lines at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods AMZN, -5.28% (where people apparently have been stocking up on oat milk) and the panic buying and empty shelves at Costco COST, -3.00%. “Toilet paper is golden in an apocalypse,” one customer told MYNorthwest.com.

‘This is additive, not in place of. Yes, the flu kills thousands of people every year, but we’re going to have more deaths.’— Amesh Adalja, Infectious Diseases Society of America

Studies, however, suggest the differences between the flu and coronavirus are more nuanced than some people suggest. In fact, health professionals point out important distinctions between the COVID-19 illness and other viral sicknesses like the flu. For a start, there is no vaccine for COVID-19 and it could take many months or years to get one to market. What’s worse, doctors fear the virus will mutate.

Why? The first known person was reported to have contracted the virus on Dec. 1 in China. Today, it’s spread to nearly 100 countries. Experts advise changing your behavior to limit its spread. Public officials in New York have said people should avoid taking mass transit, if possible. Italy has effectively quarantined its entire population. Israel has closed its land borders with Egypt and Syria.

But some government representatives have urged people not to overreact, and compared COVID-19 to the flue. Ben Carson, a cabinet secretary and a former neurosurgeon, appearing on an ABC DIS, -9.47% morning new program on Sunday, said, “This virus is like other viruses. It should be treated the same way. ... We have flu seasons that come up frequently.”

President Trump echoed the sentiments of his secretary of housing and urban development on Twitter TWTR, -2.98% on Monday, noting that “last year 37,000 Americans died” from the flu: “Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on.”

“It’s a little simple to think the novel coronavirus is just like flu,” Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the John Hopkins Center for Health Security and a spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, told MarketWatch. “We don’t want another flu. This is additive, not in place of. Yes, the flu kills thousands of people every year, but we’re going to have more deaths.”

Recommended:Will coronavirus spread? What we can learn from the misinformation during those critical, early days in China

There are reported to be some 1 billion influenza infections worldwide each year, with up to 45 million cases in the U.S. per year, tens of thousands of U.S. deaths, and 291,000 to 646,000 deaths worldwide. Seasonal flu has a fatality rate of less than 1%; Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently said the figure is closer to 0.1%.

Influenza and COVID-19 come from different virus families. COVID-19, also called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 or SARS-CoV-2, is brand new. Influenza has likely been around for more than 2,000 years. Scientists say the “novel influenza A viruses” in humans lead to a pandemic approximately once every 40 years. But, again, flu vaccines exist.

Flu has likely been around for 2,000 years. This coronavirus is 3 months old.

“The flu has been with us since the birth of modern medicine,” said Adalja.

Hippocrates, the Greek physician who was born around 460 BC, mentioned what we now know as the modern influenza virus in his writings, some historians say. He called it the “fever of Perinthus” or the “cough of Perinthus.” Others have debated whether this is flu or some other illness, or a combination of illnesses.

“In the years 1173 and 1500, two other influenza outbreaks were described, though in scant detail. The name ‘influenza’ originated in the 15th century in Italy, from an epidemic attributed to the ‘influence of the stars,’” which, according to historical documents, “raged across Europe and perhaps in Asia and Africa,” a 2016 paper in the Journal of Preventive Medicine and Hygeine reported.

“It seems that influenza also reached the Americas. Scholars and historians debate whether influenza was already present in the New World or whether it was carried by contaminated pigs transported on ships,” it added. “Some Aztec texts speak of a ’pestilential catarrh’ outbreak in 1450-1456 in an area now corresponding to Mexico, but these manuscripts are difficult to interpret correctly and this hypothesis seems controversial.”

There is an advantage to coming down with a virus that has been around for hundreds, if not a couple of thousand, years. We typically have more natural defenses to fight it. “There is population immunity to many strains of the flu,” said Adalja. “There are four other strains of the coronavirus, but the attack rate of this virus is relatively high as there is no immunity to it.”

To put that in perspective: In 2017–18, the worst flu season on record in the U.S. outside of a pandemic, approximately 80,000 Americans died. The 4 other coronavirus strains that already exist are responsible for around 25% of our common colds, Adalja added. “But it doesn’t seem like there is cross-immunity with this coronavirus as there are with the other coronaviruses.”

“While both the flu and COVID-19 may be transmitted in similar ways, there is also a possible difference: COVID-19 might be spread through airborne transmission, meaning that tiny droplets remaining in the air could cause disease in others even after the ill person is no longer near,” Lisa Maragakis, senior director of infection prevention at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, wrote.

Of course, there are similarities between influenza and COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Both viruses are untreatable with antibiotics, and they have almost identical symptoms — fever, coughing, night sweats, aching bones, tiredness and, in more severe cases of both viruses, nausea and even diarrhea. They can be spread by touching your face, coughing and sneezing.

Also see:U.S. State Department warns passengers NOT to go on cruises — says there’s ‘increased risk of infection’ on cruise ships


Neither the flu nor COVID-19 viruses is treatable with antibiotics, and the two illnesses have roughly identical symptoms. MarketWatch photo illustration/iStockphoto

Worldwide, there were 113,605 COVID-19 cases and 4,012 deaths as of Monday evening, according to data published by the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering. In the U.S., 26 people have died, and there are approximately 605 confirmed cases. It has spread to nearly 100 countries in just over three months.

While estimates of coronavirus fatality rates vary, they remain far higher than those for the flu. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, recently said that COVID-19 has a fatality rate of 3.4%. That’s more than previous estimates of between 1.4% and 2%, although some observers say his estimates were skewed by a higher death rate in China.

Also see:Trump disputes WHO’s coronavirus fatality rate: ‘3.4% is really a false number — now, this is just my hunch’

‘Because there’s no proven therapy or vaccine, as coronavirus spreads it threatens to put a much greater burden on health systems than flu does.’— Antigone Barton, ScienceSpeaks

COVID-19 rates may fall closer to those of the flu, assuming many more people are infected. JAMA released this paper analyzing data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention on 72,314 COVID-19 cases in mainland China last month, the largest such sample of this kind. The sample’s overall case-fatality rate was 2.3%, in line with the earlier estimates.

Fatality rates varied dramatically depending on the age of the individual. No deaths occurred in those 9 and younger, but cases in those aged 70 to 79 carried an 8% fatality rate, and those aged 80 years and older had a fatality rate of 14.8%. The rate was 49% among critical cases, and elevated among those with pre-existing conditions, to between 5.6% and 10.3%, depending on the condition.

Other differences between coronavirus and flu lie in what we don’t know. Adults with the flu, which has an average incubation period of two days, can infect others 24 hours before symptoms develop and 5 to 7 days after becoming sick. Novel coronavirus has a median incubation period of 5.1 days, longer than that other human coronaviruses (3 days) that cause the common cold.

Coronavirus appears to be transmitted with ease to around 2.3 people by each person infected in the community and those who are asymptomatic, said Antigone Barton, editor of ScienceSpeaks. “Because there’s no proven therapy or vaccine; as coronavirus spreads, it threatens to put a much greater burden on health systems than flu does, and greater than most or many are prepared for.”

How COVID-19 is transmitted

GOOD NEWS
Canada introduces bill to ban 'conversion therapy'
The Canadian government on Monday announced a bill to ban so-called "conversion therapy," which tries to change the sexual orientation of young LGBT people.

© Ian Willms Canada plans bill to ban gay "conversion therapy", including prohibiting subjecting a minor to the practice, either in Canada or abroad

The bill would create five new offenses in the Canadian criminal code, including prohibiting subjecting a minor to the practice, either in Canada or abroad.

An adult would also not be able to undergo conversion therapy against his or her will, and no one would be allowed to profit from or advertise it.

If the bill passes, Canada's laws on conversion therapy would become some of the "most progressive and comprehensive in the world," David Lametti, the minister of justice, told reporters while presenting the bill to parliament.

Two adults who had been forced to undergo conversion therapy in childhood testified on about their experiences.

"I'm a survivor of conversion therapy," said Erika, a trans woman.

"My body is a prison because of what my conversion therapist did to me, and I live with that every day," she said in a vehement denunciation of the practice.

The bill's adoption by parliament appears all but assured, even though Justin Trudeau's Liberal government is the minority in the House of Commons. The left-wing New Democratic Party has already announced it intends to back the bill.

The bill states that conversion therapy causes harm not only to the victims but also to society, particularly because the practice is founded on and helps spread myths and stereotypes about sexual orientation and gender identity, including the myth that sexual orientation and gender identity can and should be changed.

The law would define conversion therapy as "any service, practice or treatment designed to change a person's sexual orientation to heterosexual, gender identity to one that matches the sex assigned at birth, or to repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviors."

According to a recent official survey, 47,000 Canadian men who identify as part of a minority sexuality group had been subjected to conversion therapy.

The preventable death of an asylum seeker in a solitary cell

CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

By NOMAAN MERCHANT, Associated Press



In this Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020 photo, Yarelis Gutierrez Barrios holds up a cell phone photo at her home in Tampa, Fla., of herself with her partner Roylan Hernandez Diaz, a Cuban asylum seeker who hanged himself in a Louisiana prison. An Associated Press investigation into Hernandez’s death last October found neglect and apparent violations of government policies by jailers under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) 4 SLIDES © Provided by Associated Press


Roylan Hernandez Diaz’s long journey ended inside a white-walled cell in the solitary confinement wing of a Louisiana prison.

Nearby were the last of his belongings: a tube of toothpaste, a few foam cups, and a sheet of paper explaining how he could request his release from immigration detention. He had already been denied three times.

The Cuban man had been placed in solitary six days earlier because he told his jailers he would refuse all meals to protest his detention. The jailers put him there even after medical staff had referred him for mental health treatment three times and documented an intestinal disorder that caused him excruciating pain.

And for at least an hour before he was found to have hanged himself, no one had opened the door to check whether he was alive.

His death might have been prevented. An Associated Press investigation into Hernandez’s death last October found neglect and apparent violations of government policies by jailers under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, at a time when detention of migrants has reached record levels and new questions have arisen about the U.S. government’s treatment of people seeking refuge.

ICE requires migrants detained in solitary confinement to be visually observed every 30 minutes. Surveillance video shows a jail guard walking past Hernandez’s cell twice in the hour before he was found, writing in a binder stored on the wall next to his cell door. She doesn’t lift the flap over the cell door window or try to look inside. The last person to look in the window was an unidentified jail employee, 40 minutes before Hernandez was found.

A person who works at the jail and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity says the jail later discovered Hernandez couldn’t be seen from the window.

“I think they let him die,” said Yarelis Gutierrez Barrios, his partner.

Hernandez spent most of his 43 years rebelling against Cuba's Communist government and spent years traveling South and Central America with Gutierrez before arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border in May 2019.

After presenting himself legally at a border bridge in El Paso, Hernandez was taken into custody and eventually transferred to the Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe, Louisiana.

Looking to fill prisons emptied by criminal justice reform, rural Louisiana communities filled jail beds with asylum seekers and other migrants. At one point last year, Louisiana had about 8,000 migrants in detention, second only to Texas and up from about 2,000 migrants at the end of the Obama administration.

Louisiana also has become notorious for the broad denial of parole to migrants, particularly large populations of Cubans, Venezuelans, and people from South Asia. A federal judge in September ruled that ICE’s New Orleans field office was violating the agency’s own guidelines by failing to give each migrant a case-by-case determination of whether they could be released

.

© Provided by Associated Press In this Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020 photo, Yarelis Gutierrez Barrios poses for a photo at her home in Tampa, Fla. Her partner Roylan Hernandez Diaz, a Cuban asylum seeker, hanged himself in a Louisiana prison last October. An Associated Press investigation into Hernandez’s death found neglect and apparent violations of government policies by jailers under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Hernandez had irritable bowel syndrome. People who knew him remember seeing him in constant pain. The syndrome also has been associated with anxiety and depression.

He was placed in solitary confinement for threatening a hunger strike after being denied parole and told by a judge that he would have to wait months longer to press his asylum case.

The interior of the cell where Hernandez was held when he died did not have video surveillance, according to the Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Office, the local law enforcement agency called to investigate soon after he was found dead.

But the sheriff’s office obtained video from the hallway outside his cell that captures the last hour before his body was found. This is what it shows:

--1:19 p.m.: A guard walks up to Hernandez’s door. She takes a binder from the wall next to the door, writes in it, then puts the binder back on the wall. She never looks into the window of Hernandez’s cell door.

--1:26: A man in street clothes walking by the cell stops to open the flap over the cell door window and looks inside. The sheriff’s office says the man was a jail employee but doesn’t have his name in its records.

--1:54: The female guard comes back. Again, she takes the binder, writes in it, and puts the binder back without looking into the cell.

--2:04: Three staff members and what appears to be a jail trusty walk past the cell, filling most of the hallway. Going around the small crowd, a jail captain walks closer to the wall and comes next to Hernandez’s cell door. The captain, identified by the sheriff’s office as Gerald Hardwell, later told investigators he had noticed a “strong odor” emanating from the cell.

He had discovered that Hernandez hanged himself with a bed sheet tied to the post of his bunk bed.

Photos taken of his body show that Hernandez may have been dead for several hours before he was found, based on how the blood had pooled in his hands, according to an analysis done at AP’s request by Dr. Nizam Peerwani, the medical examiner for Fort Worth, Texas, and a forensic expert with the advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights.

ICE declined to answer most questions for this story. Spokesman Bryan Cox said ICE “holds its personnel, including contractors, to the highest standards of professional and ethical behavior.”
Scott Sutterfield, a development executive for LaSalle Corrections, the prison company that runs Richwood, declined to answer any questions “due to pending litigation.” “I can say that LaSalle Corrections is firmly committed to the health and welfare of all those in our custody,” Sutterfield said.

Aside from Yarelis Gutierrez, Hernandez left behind two daughters and a son, as well as his mother and father.

When he left home for the last time, his family knew he hoped to get to America with the intention of making money to support them. Now, they have many questions about his death: How someone so strong in his convictions could have taken his own life? What happened to him in the jail, and why?

“He had struggled to get to this country, because he loved this country, he loved it with all his life,” Gutierrez said. “He gave his life for this country.”

22-year-old Guatemalan asylum-seeker dies in ICE custody

CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY


A 22-year-old asylum-seeker from Guatemala detained by U.S. immigration authorities died at a Texas hospital Sunday, becoming the eighth immigrant to die in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in fiscal year 2020. Maria Celéste Ochoa Yoc de Ramírez, whose death was first reported by BuzzFeed News, had been hospitalized since February 18.

According to officials, Ochoa Yoc de Ramírez died of "autoimmune hepatitis, complicated by septic shock and acute liver failure" at a hospital in Fort Worth.


Ochoa Yoc de Ramírez had family in the U.S. and passed her credible fear interview, the first step for migrants to request humanitarian protection in the U.S. Traditionally, these factors have allowed migrants with no criminal records to continue their immigration proceedings outside of a detention center, but the young Guatemalan woman was in U.S. immigration custody for more than six months.

Since fiscal year 2020, which began last October, seven other immigrants have died in ICE custody. With Ochoa Yoc de Ramírez's death, there have now been as many deaths in fiscal year 2020 as there were in the entirety of fiscal year 2019. Like Ochoa Yoc de Ramírez, some of them, including a Cuban asylum-seeker who died by apparent suicide in October, were seeking humanitarian protection at the time of their death.

"ICE is firmly committed to the health and welfare of all those in its custody and is undertaking a comprehensive agency-wide review of this incident, as it does in all such cases," the agency said in a statement Monday.

Conditions at detention facilities used by ICE, which oversees the main component of the largest immigration detention system in the world, have come under severe scrutiny by immigration advocates and Democrats. They've accused the agency of not having adequate medical standards in its facilities and have called on officials to allow asylum-seekers who do not pose threats to public safety to fight their deportation outside of detention centers.

ICE has repeatedly maintained that deaths in the agency's custody "are exceedingly rare and occur at a fraction" of the national average.

According to ICE, Ochoa Yoc de Ramírez was first apprehended by Border Patrol in early September after she crossed the southern border without documents near Hidalgo, Texas. Two days later, she was transferred to ICE custody, which initially detained her at the El Valle Detention Facility in Raymondville, Texas.

In early October, Ochoa Yoc de Ramírez was given a notice to appear before an immigration judge after she proved to an asylum officer that her fear of returning to Guatemala was credible. Sometime before February, Ochoa Yoc de Ramírez was transferred to a detention center in Oklahoma, according to Guatemala's Foreign Ministry.

Ochoa Yoc de Ramírez was hospitalized on February 7 and underwent gallbladder surgery two days later. She then returned to the detention center in Oklahoma. On February 13, she was transferred to the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, according to ICE.

On February 18, ICE took Ochoa Yoc de Ramírez to a hospital near the detention center. The Guatemalan Foreign Ministry said this occurred because she was suffering from abdominal pain. Ochoa Yoc de Ramírez remained there until February 28, when she was transported to the Forth Worth hospital, where she died on Sunday.

Ochoa Yoc de Ramírez's family in Guatemala has requested help from the government there to repatriate her remains.

CBS

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Jury hung in case of CIA coder accused of cyberweapon leak


AFP

A New York federal judge declared a mistrial Monday after a jury failed to convict a former CIA programmer accused of passing the agency's most valuable hacking tools to WikiLeaks, deeply hobbling its online spying operations.© SAUL LOEB The 2017 leak of the CIA's cyberwar tools was the most damaging leak ever for the US syp group

The government had said that Joshua Schulte gave the anti-secrecy group the "Vault 7" collection of hacking tools, malware, viruses, trojans, and "zero day" exploits which comprised the CIA's most valuable tools for tapping into adversaries' computers.


The March 2017 breach was the largest-ever leak of classified information at the US spy agency, allowing hackers in other countries, government and non-government alike, to use the tools for criminal activity, and helping the CIA's targets close vulnerabilities.

But in an embarrassing defeat for the Justice Department, after a four-week trial the jury remained divided on whether there was proof that Schulte had in fact provided the files to WikiLeaks, and failed to convict him on the eight most serious charges in the case.

They did find him guilty on lesser charges of lying to the FBI and contempt of court.

Schulte was arrested in August 2017 and charged initially with multiple counts of possessing child pornography on his computer, with no suggestion that there was any national security issue involved.

Ten months later the Justice Department filed additional charges accusing him of stealing and transmitting classified "national defense information" to give it to WikiLeaks.

Schulte had already left the CIA when WikiLeaks published the information in March 2017, but testimony indicated that investigators quickly focused on him as the prime suspect.

But defense lawyers appeared successful, based on questions submitted by the jurors, in raising doubt over whether the government had proof it was Schulte who stole and transmitted the materials to WikiLeaks.

The judge, Paul Crotty, set a new conference for both sides in the case for March 26, in which the government could demand a new trial.

Trump Jr denies profiting his from father's presidency as he challenges Hunter Biden to debate him 
ROFLMAO
With the presidential election looming ever closer the prospect of Donald Trump and Joe Biden locking horns is looking more and more likely, should the Democrat overcome Bernie Sanders in what remains of the race.

If Biden and Trump do end up going head-to-head then it is sure to be an interesting affair as both men have shown a tendency to fly loose with the facts and have a unique grasp on the English language.

While most eyes are likely to be on the men vying for the White House, the more interesting conflict might be between their sons and who has benefitted the most from having their very famous surname.

This isn’t a prediction but something that Donald Trump Jr actually wants to happen. While speaking to Jim VandeHei, the co-founder of Axios on HBO, Trump Jr laid out a challenge to Hunter Biden about his overseas dealings, which were a big part of Trump’s impeachment trial.

"Listen, I think it's got to be a big part. I was an international business person before my father got into politics 

That's what we did. I'm not going to say I haven't benefited from my father's last name, just like Hunter Biden did. I'd be foolish to say that. But I haven't benefited from my father's taxpayer-funded office, OK? 

We stopped doing any new international business deals when my father won the presidency. So you know what would be great? I'll let you host it 

You moderate a debate between Hunter Biden and myself. Come on. Let's do it. No, no, seriously. We can go full transparency.

We show everything, and we can talk about all of the places where I'm supposedly grifting but Hunter Biden isn't. 

I would love to do it. As it relates to the grifting, they're saying we're profiting off of the presidency. Let's talk about it."

VandeHei then attempted to switch the conversation by asking if Trump Jr had profited from the fact that his father is the current president of the United States of America, which he, of course, denied.

Trump Jr said:
I don't know that I've profited off of the presidency.

VandeHei then pointed out that Trump Jr, who oversees the Trump Organisation with his brother Eric, has in many ways benefitted from his Dad's ascension to the oval office.

You have a bestselling book. You do paid speeches. Don’t you co-own the Trump Hotel?

Trump Jr tried to argue that he had done speeches for more than a decade and doesn't make any more money from them than he had before.

[I've] done paid speeches for over a decade. I do a lot. I don't even do the international ones anymore.

And again, if you looked at my tax returns, which maybe we could talk about in this debate.

When pressed if he would release his tax returns, a subject which has been a constant thorn in this side of his father, by saying that he would be more than happy to talk to Biden about who had profited the most from their father's public service.

I'd 100 percent debate him. Let's talk about who profited off of whose public service. Happy to do it. Let's make it happen.

HT The Hill

Donald Trump Jr. swears he’s not a grifter — even after the RNC and conservative groups bought out his book in bulk

A grifter is generally defined as someone “engages in petty or small-scale swindling.”

March 8, 2020 By Sarah K. Burris


In an interview with Axios, Donald Trump Jr. swore that he isn’t a grifter, a complaint often lodged at the president and his children for profiting off of President Donald Trump’s time in office.

“We can go full transparency, we show everything, and we can talk about all of the places where I am supposedly grifting, but Hunter Biden isn’t,” said the younger Trump.

Neither Don Jr. nor Hunter Biden is running for elected office. It’s unclear why the president’s son is trying to make the campaign an issue between the children of the politicians instead of the officials themselves. The last living Biden son has also never worked for his father’s company.

Don Jr.’s sister and brother-in-law are both loosely employed by the White House, which is generally seen as against nepotism laws. The president got around it by not paying them from the federal government.

It was revealed Thursday (March 5) that Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka would profit about $25 million to 50 million from the president’s tax bill, for a provision that benefited the Kushner development projects. After two years, Kushner said he would be happy to divest from the company. It comes only now that the profits are so high.

In the case of the president’s son, it was revealed that his recent book Triggered was purchased in bulk by the Republican Party and nine other conservative groups. As a result, it drove the pre-sales up, so it appeared on the New York Times Bestseller list. It’s unknown how many total copies of the book were bought out by conservative groups and how many individuals actually purchased the book.

A grifter is generally defined as someone “engages in petty or small-scale swindling.”

Axios reporter Jim VandeHei asked if the younger Trump meant he was willing to turn over his taxes.

“If we do it both, 100 percent,” Don Jr. said. “Let’s talk about who profited off of whose public service. Happy to do it. Let’s make it happen.”

It’s an odd pledge, given his father has refused to do the same and ultimately could make his father look bad because it appears that he’s hiding something when his own son is willing to publish his taxes.

See the clip below:

STD/STI FOUND AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

Dozens of kinds of chlamydiae discovered two miles below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean 

- the first time bacteria is found to be living without first infecting a host

Scientists exploring a hydrothermal vent in the Atlantic Ocean found chlamydia

They believe it's the first form of the bacteria capable of living outside a host 

The discovery was made halfway between Norway and Greenland

By MICHAEL THOMSEN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM 9 March 2020

In sediment two miles below the surface of the ocean, researchers have stumbled on a treasure trove of chlamydiae.

The discovery was made by a team of scientists from the Uppsala University and the University of Bergen, who had traveled to a region of the Mid-Atlantic Ocean to study the chemical composition of sediment on the ocean floor.

They made the discovery while analyzing samples near a hydrothermal vent named Loki’s Castle, halfway between Norway and Greenland on the edge of the Arctic Ocean.


A team of scientists discovered several new kinds of chlamydiae in the sediment around a hydrothermal vent in the Atlantic Ocean halfway between Norway and Greenland

‘The discovery of this expanded diversity in deep marine sediments was rather surprising, because we did not expect to find Chlamydiae in this type of environment,’ Thijs Ettema from Uppsala University, told Newsweek.

‘All previous studies have pointed out that Chlamydiae need a host organisms in order to survive, and these host organisms are absent in the marine sediments we sampled.’

‘Our work would represent the first indication that Chlamydiae are able to survive outside of a host organism.’


While chlamydia is most widely known as a sexually transmitted disease among humans, the bacteria also affects cows, chickens, sheep, pigs, and koalas.

The team still isn’t clear how to classify the new form of chlamydiae, but the samples collected so far point to the existence of dozens of new strains, and potentially even new species of the bacteria.

‘We found a wide diversity of new Chlamydiae, perhaps well over a hundred. It is a bit hard to pinpoint this number exactly, as the definition of 'a species' is rather difficult,’ Ettema said.

‘The discovered Chlamydia-related bacteria are only distantly related to the human pathogens.’

‘They share a common ancestry that dates back several hundred million years, and perhaps well over a billion years for some of the discovered lineages.’


Chlamydiae is a bacteria that infects humans, cows, sheep, koala, and chickens, but according to the team the new kinds discovered in the ocean are the first examples of the backteria capable of surviving independent of a host

While the newly discovered chlamydiae can live outside a host, unlike the kind that infects humans, the researchers have so far been unable to grow any of them in a laboratory setting.

This suggests they may still be dependent on the presence of other microbial life in the undersea sediment to thrive and survive the extreme pressure and lack of oxygen.

‘We have found that the group Chlamydiae is much more diverse that previously assumed, and they also have a more diverse lifestyle than previously thought—being able to live outside of a host organism,’ Ettema said.

‘Given their abundance in some of the samples we examined, these Chlamydiae might have a significant ecological impact on the environment they live in.’

WHAT IS CHLAMYDIA?

Chlamydia is a sexually-transmitted disease.

It stems from bacteria called chlamydia trachomatis. It is passed through contact, via vaginal, anal or oral sex.

If left untreated it can damage a woman's fallopian tubes and cause infertility. In very rare cases it can cause infertility in men too.

What are the symptoms?

The majority of people do not feel symptoms of chlamydia. Doctors recommend getting regular STD tests (urine test or swab) to detect it.

However, some do experience some side effects.

Symptoms in women:
Abnormal vaginal discharge
Burning feeling when you urinate
Pain in the eyes
Pain in the abdomen
Pain in the pelvis
Pain during sex
Vaginal bleeding

Symptoms in men:
Discharge from the penis
Burning feeling when you urinate
Pain and swelling in one or both testicles (rarely)

How is it treated?

The infection is easily treated with antibiotics.

Doctors typically prescribe oral antibiotics, usually azithromycin (Zithromax) or doxycycline

RIP MAX VON SYDOW

Game Of Thrones and The Exorcist star Max Von Sydow dies at his home in France aged 90

'An iconic presence in cinema for seven decades': British director Edgar Wright leads tributes to Game Of Thrones and The Exorcist star Max Von Sydow after he died aged 90

Max von Sydow's family announced his death with 'infinite sadness' on Monday

Swedish-born actor made his film debut in 1949 and became a Hollywood star 

He had more recent roles in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Game of Thrones 




By AMIE GORDON FOR MAILONLINE 9 March 2020

Stars of the silver screen have today paid tribute to the actor  Von Sydow, who has died at the age of 90. Max

The Hollywood legend, known for roles in Star Wars, Game Of Thrones, Flash Gordon and The Exorcist, died at his home in France on Sunday.

His family announced the Swedish-born actor's death 'with a broken heart and infinite sadness' today.

Actress Mia Farrow, who appeared alongside Von Sydow in the 1979 movie Hurricane, was among those paying tribute, remembering him as a 'great artist and true gentleman.'

British director Edgar Wright called Von Sydow 'A God', tweeting: 'Max Von Sydow, such an iconic presence in cinema for seven decades, it seemed like he'd always be with us.

'He changed the face of international film with Bergman, played Christ, fought the devil, pressed the HOT HAIL button & was Oscar nominated for a silent performance.'

The Swedish- French actor Max Von Sydow and his wife, producer Catherine Brelet, at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016

Max Von Sydow (right) as the Three-Eyed Raven in HBO's Game of Thrones 2016, alongside Isaac Hempstead Wright who played Bran Stark

Sam Jones and Von Sydow, who has died aged 90, in the 1980s film Flash Gordon


A scene from the 1973 film The Exorcist, in which Von Sydow played Lankester Merrin

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Actress Mia Farrow and British director Edgar Wright are among those paying tribute today

The actor's agent Jean Diamond said: 'It is with a broken heart and with infinite sadness that we have the extreme pain of announcing the departure of Max Von Sydow, March 8, 2020.'

Born in 1929, Von Sydow made his film debut in 1949, going on to appear in several films by Ingmar Bergman including a role as a knight in The Seventh Seal.

The film's scenes of him playing chess with the figure of Death would become renowned in cinematic circles.

Before his big-screen career took off, Von Sydow studied at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm.

He went on to work with Bergman at the Malmo Municipal Theatre in the 1950s.

He also went on to star in other Bergman films including Wild Strawberries, The Virgin Spring and Hour Of The Wolf.

Subsequently, he enjoyed an illustrious Hollywood career with movies including The Exorcist and Minority Report.

He played Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told and Lassefar Karlsson in Pelle the Conqueror, which earned him an Oscar nomination for best actor. 

Max von Sydow appears in classic Flash Gordon 1980's movie


Catherine Brelet (left) and Max Von Sydow at the European Premiere of 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' in Leicester Square on December 16, 2015

Max Von Sydow and his wife Catherine at the Emmys in Los Angeles in September 2016

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Hollywood stars have taken to social media to share their tributes and fond memories of the late actor

He received a second Oscar nomination, for best supporting actor, in 2011 for his role in the post-9/11 film Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close.

He also played sinister James Bond super-villain Ernst Blofeld in 1983's Never Say Never Again.

During his extensive film career he worked with a number of heavyweight directors, such as Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Woody Allen and Steven Spielberg.

In 2015, von Sydow joined the cast of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, portraying Lor San Tekka who appeared at the very start of the film.

The following year, he portrayed the mysterious Three-Eyed Raven in HBO's Game Of Thrones, receiving a Primetime Emmy nomination.

Although originally from Sweden, Von Sydow lived in France for many years and eventually took French citizenship.

While his characters were often sinister, tormented or evil, the soft-spoken Von Sydow said he became an actor to overcome his own shyness.

'I was a very shy boy when I was a kid,' he once said in an Associated Press interview.

'When I started acting in an amateur group in high school, although I wasn't aware of it at the time, I suddenly got a tool in my hand that was wonderful.

'I was allowed to express all kinds of strange things that I never dared to express before. Now I could do it with the character as a shield, as a defense, and as an excuse.

'I think that for many years I used my profession as some kind of a mental therapy.'

Von Sydow married Swedish actress Christina Olin in 1951 and had two sons, Clas and Henrik.

The couple later divorced and he married French filmmaker Catherine Brelet in 1997, with whom he had two more sons, Yvan and Cedric. 

Watch the trailer for the iconic 1974 film The Exorcist

From Swedish arthouse to Hollywood: Max Von Sydow's 65 year career included starring roles in Ingar Bergman's The Seventh Seal and William Friedkin's The Exorcist

Max von Sydow was known for his many collaborations with Ingmar Bergman before he made the leap to Hollywood .

The actor, who has died aged 90, worked with the Swedish film-maker multiple times.

Their credits included The Seventh Seal, in which he famously played chess with the figure of Death, The Magician, The Virgin Spring, Through A Glass Darkly, Hour Of The Wolf and Shame.

In the 1960s, he made the move from European to US films.

More recently, he appeared in Game Of Thrones and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

A scene from the film Minority Report, with Max Von Sydow (left) portraying Lamar Burgess and Tom Cruise (right) as John Anderton

Von Sydow was born in Lund, Sweden, but later became a French citizen.

He was born Carl Adolf von Sydow, according to reports, but changed his name after deciding to act for a living.

"During my military service, I performed a sketch in which I played a flea called Max. So when critics kept misspelling my name, I decided to change it and thought, 'Ah! Max!'," he later told The Guardian.

He attended the acting academy at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm.

"I didn't dream of becoming a movie actor when I was a boy, I wanted to go to the theatre," he later told The Wall Street Journal.

"I was very impressed by the first theatre I was introduced to ... and it made an enormous impression on me."

The actor made his film debut in the Swedish film Only A Mother in 1949.

He was Oscar nominated twice - for best actor for his role in Pelle The Conqueror (1987) and for supporting actor for Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close (2011).

He was also acclaimed for his role in The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (2007) and played sinister James Bond super-villain Ernst Blofeld in 1983 movie Never Say Never Again.

Hollywood credits included The Exorcist, Minority Report, Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island and Ridley Scott's Robin Hood.

Other titles included Hawaii, The Kremlin Letter, Three Days Of The Condor and Woody Allen's Hannah And Her Sisters,

He appeared in Star Wars: The Force Awakens as Lor San Tekka and Game Of Thrones as the Three-eyed Raven, for which he was nominated for an Emmy.

Von Sydow was previously married to actress Christina Inga Britta Olin and tied the knot with second wife Catherine Brelet in 1997.

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Bears are coming out of hibernation more than a month early after one of the hottest winters in human history
Bears in Russia, Finland, and New England have come out of hibernation early
Researchers believe the record high winter temperatures have woken the bears
In some parts of Siberia, bears never started hibernation as temperatures hovered in the mid-50-degrees Farenheit

By MICHAEL THOMSEN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM 6 March 2020 
Bears all over the world are coming out of hibernation more than a month ahead of schedule after one of the hottest winters in human history.

Moscow Zoo CEO Svetlana Akulova announced the zoo was making preparations for two Himalayan bears held in captivity at the zoo to come out of hibernation more than a month earlier than the April window they had been expecting.

The zoo staff had begun around the clock monitoring of the bears in February and noticed they were much more actively astir than normal, indicating they were ready to come out of full hibernation.


In Vermont and New Hampshire there have been multiple sightings of bears coming out of hibernation more than a month earlier than is typical, something researchers attribute to warmer temperatures

‘Our zoologists were preparing for the bears to wake up earlier due to the abnormally warm winter, ’Akulova said, in a statement reported by The Moscow Times.

To avoid shocking the bears’ digestive systems, the zoo prepared a steady range of small meals.

The bears will indulge in frequent but low calorie meals of apples, pears, salad, vegetables, while staple ingredients like honey, fish, and nuts will be gradually added to the mix.

Similar reports of bears coming out of hibernation early have come from other regions in Russia, and from all over the world.

In Voronezh, the city zoo's resident brown bear Masha woke up a month ahead of schedule after zoo workers noticed her hibernation state was unusually light and she was more sensitive to sounds than normal.

Something similar happened with two brown bears at the Korkesaari Zoo in Helsinki, Finland, who woke in mid-February after just two months of hibernation.


The Moscow Zoo's two resident Himalayan bears showed signs they were ready to come out of hibernation as early as February, and they fully work in early March, more than a month ahead of the expected April window they would normally have come out in

Depending on the species, bears typically hibernate for around four or five months a year, though some can go for as long as eight months.

In New Hampshire, bear researchers said there had been multiple bear sightings as early as February.

‘We have a lot less snow this winter, and temperatures have been higher than normal, making it even more tempting for bears to wake up and seek a snack,’ Andy Timmins, a biologist with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, told the New Hampshire Union Leader.


To avoid shocking the bears systems, staff at the Moscow Zoo prepared a steady diet of small, low calorie meals for the bears, comprised of apples, pears, salad and more, while slowly adding in staple foods like fish and nuts

In some regions, this winter has been so warm, local bears never even started hibernation.

Several bears kept in captivity at Bolsherechensky Zoo in Omsk, Siberia were still awake in December, as local temperatures hovered in the mid-50 degrees Farenheit.

Typically, bears won’t begin hibernating until the temperature drops below at least 50 degrees Farenheit.

WHAT IS HIBERNATION?


Hibernation is a mechanism employed by many animals to help them survive cold weather.

Throughout winter months temperatures dip, food is scarce and survival can be difficult.

Hibernation is different depending on the species but all awaken in the spring when temperatures recover again.

A hibernating animal's metabolism slows and its temperature plunges, this helps conserve energy and resources.

Breathing slows as well and in some animals, so does the heart rate.

Some cold-blooded animals, such as wood frogs, produce natural antifreezes to survive being frozen solid.

Mammals entering hibernation must store up large amount of fat by eating considerably in the weeks approaching hibernation,

This layer of extra fat allows them to survive hibernation - insufficient fat reserves can result in starvation during hibernation.

Large black bear seen roaming around California neighborhood


Read more:
Warm Winter Wakes Moscow’s Bears Early - The Moscow Times