GRIFTER IN CHIEF

'It's a two-way street': Trump suggests that federal coronavirus aid will be given to governors that 'treat us well'

President Donald Trump suggested that the federal government would give aid to state governors battling the coronavirus outbreak if they "treat us well also." 

"It's a two-way street," Trump said about discussions he has had with governors about providing them with federal aid. 

State and local officials have called out Trump and the federal government for the delay in providing them with critical supplies, like masks and ventilators, as hospitals struggle to treat patients with the virus. 

Ventilators are key in treating a respiratory illness like COVID-19, but experts have warned that America faces a shortage of critical supplies in the months ahead.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday appeared to condition giving federal aid to states battling the coronavirus outbreak if they "treat us well."

Trump spoke about providing critical support, like building new hospitals and supplying ventilators, to states hit hard by the spread of the virus during a Fox News town hall on Tuesday.

"It's a two-way street," Trump said about discussions he has had with governors about providing them with federal aid.

"They have to treat us well also, they can't say 'Oh gee, we should get this, we should get that,'" he said. "We're doing a great job."

Trump said New York was an example of how the federal government has put forward resources to support states in their coronavirus efforts.


"We're literally building hospitals and medical centers," he said. "And then I hear that there's a problem with ventilators — well, we sent them ventilators, and they could have had 15 or 16,000, all they had to do was order them two years ago. But they decided not to do it."

"They can't blame us for that," he added.

Several state and local leaders have criticized Trump's slow response to dispersing national resources to state governments. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that he has repeatedly asked Trump to provide federal aid as the city's coronavirus cases continue to spike.

"The President of the United States is from New York City, and he will not lift a finger to help his hometown," de Blasio said. "And I do not get it. I do not get it."

"I can't be blunt enough. If the president does not act, people will die who could have lived otherwise," he added.


Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker called out the federal government for the state's shortage of masks and ventilators.

"This should've been a coordinated effort by the federal government," Pritzker told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.

Trump responded to Pritzker's comments on Twitter, saying that governors shouldn't blame the federal government "for their own shortcomings."

"We are there to back you up should you fail, and always will be!" he wrote.

Trump on Tuesday told Fox News that state governments needed to get the necessary medical supplies on their own.


"We're there to help them. They need to get the gear themselves," Trump said.

More than 54,000 coronavirus cases have been reported across all 50 states and Washington, DC, as of March 24. Over 720 people have died in the US.

Ventilators are key in treating a respiratory illness like COVID-19. But experts have warned that America faces a shortage of critical supplies in the months ahead as the number of coronavirus cases continues to grow.

A February report from the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins found that the US had about 170,000 ventilators, with 160,000 ventilators ready for use in hospitals along with about 8,900 held in a national reserve.

One expert estimated that about 1 million Americans may need ventilator treatment during the coronavirus outbreak, straining the country's resources even if all those cases do not overlap. Shortages of other medical gear like masks have already started to affect US hospitals.


Some states have called on private companies and individuals to help provide medical supplies where possible. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a press conference on Monday that Tesla CEO Elon Musk delivered 1,000 ventilators to help California hospitals treat patients.

P3
Fed taps BlackRock to run emergency programs

Published: March 25, 2020 By Dawn Lim

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink AFP/Getty Images

The Federal Reserve on Tuesday asked BlackRock Inc. to steer tens of billions of dollars in bond purchases, a reflection of the influence of the world’s largest money manager.

BlackRock BLK, +13.52% will purchase agency commercial mortgage-backed securities secured by multifamily-home mortgages on behalf of the New York Federal Reserve. The Fed will determine which securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae are suitable for purchase. BlackRock will execute the trades.

BlackRock also will manage two large bond-buying programs. It will be in charge of a Fed-backed facility to buy new investment-grade bonds from U.S. companies.

The firm also will oversee another vehicle for buying already-issued investment-grade bonds. Bond purchases will be the focus of that effort. But the firm has latitude to buy U.S. investment grade bond ETFs—including exchange-traded funds of its own. BlackRock is the largest provider of bond ETFs.


An expanded version of this story is available at WSJ.com

Also at WSJ.com

Bezos and other executives sold stock just in time

On This Day in Space: March 25, 1655: Christiaan Huygens discovers Saturn's moon Titan

By Hanneke Weitering

On March 25, 1655, Saturn's moon Titan was discovered by the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens (a name that you've probably heard mispronounced as "Hoy-gens").

Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and it was the first of 62 moons to be found orbiting Saturn. Huygens discovered Titan using a telescope he designed himself. While looking at Saturn's rings, he noticed a bright and tiny dot nearby.

Huygens suspected it was a moon, but just to be sure, he kept watching it for a few days. He confirmed that the tiny speck was orbiting Saturn and therefore must have been a moon. More than 300 years later, the European Space Agency sent a spacecraft to Titan and named it after him.
Titan Landing Pictures by Huygens Spacecraft
Amazing Photos: Titan, Saturn's Largest Moon
Titan, Saturn's Largest Moon, Explained (Infographic)

Finding Nature's Voice with an 'Internet of Animals'

Fitting transmitters onto thousands of creatures may help scientists predict natural disasters and offer a "lifecast" of hidden environmental information.


Image credits: reyesphoto/Shutterstock


CREATURE

Tuesday, March 3, 2020 - 10:30

Katharine Gammon, Contributor

(Inside Science) -- When you're trying to beat traffic in a busy city, you probably turn to an app like Google Maps, which uses data from thousands of drivers' phones to create a sensor network and predict the best way to reach a destination.

What if the same thing could be done with thousands of sensors attached to animals?

That's the idea behind the International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space (ICARUS), which seeks to attach tiny transmitters to creatures in unprecedented numbers and track them from space. In 2018, astronauts installed an antenna on the International Space Station to collate the data and beam it to scientists on the ground. Now, results are starting to roll in.

"The sensors allow animals to be our eyes and ears and noses in the world, and we are linking it all together," said Martin Wikelski, director of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell, Germany.

Researchers have tracked animals for decades, of course. But they haven't been able to attach transmitters to creatures smaller than 100 grams -- which has put 75% of the world's species out of reach. And the tags themselves are often so pricey that they can't be deployed in large numbers.

The ICARUS system has already created transmitters that are 5 grams -- about the size of a knuckle -- but they expect a significant drop in size over the coming years, said Walter Jetz, an ecologist at Yale University in New Haven and co-director (with Wikelski) of the Max Planck-Yale Center for Biodiversity Movement and Global Change. So far, the system has logged movement data for more than 800 species, beaming locations back to Earth every three minutes. In the next five years, the trackers will become small enough to attach to a locust.

The team is discovering information that wasn't otherwise obvious from traditional biology research -- like precisely how far birds travel in flight. Jetz said this allows researchers to develop new ways to study animal navigation and memory. In addition, the team can identify behavior of both single individuals and groups of animals, during daily activities and migrations, which offers a peek into a changing world. "Through onboard sensors, animals offer a novel lens on the environment and its change," said Jetz.

Sensors also offer humans a window into their own backyards. For generations, farmers living near Mount Etna have reported animals acting strangely before a volcanic eruption. Now, goats that beam back data every three minutes are confirming that their behavior changes in the minutes and hours before an eruption. He says that the animal warning system can give an alert signal two to 12 hours before an eruption, within 12 miles. "Collective behavior gives us a sense of the sixth sense of animals," said Wikelski. "That's vital information for humankind."

Diseases that jump from animals to humans can also be tracked using the data in the system. Bats are often suspected as culprits in disease outbreaks (including Ebola and coronavirus). That reputation isn't always warranted, but by tracking bats, scientists can figure out where the repositories of disease occur, and potentially understand how illness can leap from one species to another.

Another area where animals can tell the future is in pest outbreaks, like the ongoing locust swarm in Africa. Storks feed in areas where migratory locusts deposit their eggs. Since it's difficult to predict where these pests will pop up, storks' presence can be indicators of areas where people may want to plan ahead for a locust swarm. In addition, scientists can compare historical data on storks, which has been collected for a hundred years, with current tracking information to gain insight on how their patterns are changing.

The way animals' move sometimes signals that their safety may be in danger. When giraffes in Kruger National Park in South Africa start to act in an unusual but known way, park rangers could receive an alert that a poacher may be active in the area -- and they can send extra hands to prevent illegal hunting. As scientists add more animals, including insects, to their tracking efforts in the next decade, they hope to gain a clearer picture of what's happening around the globe. The project will help develop biologically driven alerts around environmental disasters, disease transmissions and more, said Jetz.

Just a few decades ago, people had little ability to predict natural phenomena, said Wikelski. Now, people can prepare -- and that ability will only increase with more animal data. "We think animals will offer something -- not the weather forecast, but a lifecast of what is happening," he said, adding that people will pay attention when they know something big is coming. "The problem was always how to read animals' signals. In the digital era this isn't a problem anymore: All you have to do is listen."

UPDATED
Arizona Man Dies After Mistaking Cleaning Chemical For Unproven Coronavirus Treatment

Dominique Mosbergen, HuffPost•March 24, 2020


An Arizona man has died and his wife was in critical condition after consuming chloroquine phosphate, a product used to clean fish tanks that shares an active ingredient with drugs touted by President Donald Trump as a possible treatment for the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.

The man’s wife, who has not been named publicly, told NBC News that she and her husband decided to ingest the aquarium product after hearing Trump on TV refer to two anti-malaria drugs — chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine — as a potential “game changer” in the fight against COVID-19.

“I saw it sitting on the back shelf and thought, ‘hey, isn’t that the stuff they’re talking about on TV?’” the woman told NBC.

NBC: Did you see the President's press conference? Where did you hear about--

Patient: Yeah. Yeah, we saw his press conference. It was on a lot, actually.

NBC: And then did you did you seek out Chloroquine?

Patient: I had it in the house because I used to have koi fish. https://t.co/C8EiTQQ3r1 pic.twitter.com/QgmElANCEG
— Vaughn Hillyard (@VaughnHillyard) March 24, 2020

The couple, both in their 60s, had not been diagnosed with COVID-19, but the woman said they were worried of contracting the disease and had taken the aquarium product as a preventative measure.

The product they consumed contained the same active ingredient as the two anti-malaria drugs Trump referred to — but unlike the medicine taken by humans, the product they ingested is used to get rid of algae and a parasite that causes a condition known as white spot disease in fish. According to The New York Times, prices for the aquarium product “have spiked during the coronavirus pandemic.”

Banner Health, a hospital system based in Phoenix, Arizona, said the couple experienced distressing side effects within 30 minutes of consuming the product and were admitted to one of their hospitals.

“I started vomiting,” the woman told NBC News. “My husband started developing respiratory problems and wanted to hold my hand.”

The man died shortly after arriving at the hospital from cardiac arrest. His wife was initially under critical care, but the Times said her condition has since stabilized and she’s expected to make a full recovery.

Banner Health issued a strong warning to the public to not ingest “inappropriate medications and household products,” including chloroquine, “to prevent or treat COVID-19.”

Federal officials have said they are looking into the safety and efficacy of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID-19. In the meantime, however, medical experts have warned of the drugs’ dangerous side effects and stress that only anecdotal evidence exists so far of their potential to treat the new coronavirus.

“Given the uncertainty around COVID-19, we understand that people are trying to find new ways to prevent or treat this virus, but self-medicating is not the way to do so,” Dr. Daniel Brooks, medical director of Banner Health’s Poison and Drug Information Center, said in a statement. “The last thing that we want right now is to inundate our emergency departments with patients who believe they found a vague and risky solution that could potentially jeopardize their health.”

Chloroquine, an old drug for the treatment of malaria, has shown some anecdotal efficacy against COVID-19; but medical experts have warned the public to not self-medicate with the drug, which is known to have serious side effects. Overdoses of the drug can be fatal. (Photo: Barcroft Media via Getty Images)More

It’s never a good idea for humans to consume aquarium products as medicine.

The Smithsonian magazine warned the public in 2017 against taking fish antibiotics to treat their own illnesses after noting the practice was a trend that stretched back at least the 1990s.

The Arizona widow urged people this week to learn from her and her husband’s mistake.

“Be careful and call your doctor,” she said. “This is a heartache I’ll never get over.”

Clarification: The headline on this article has been updated to more accurately describe the chemical the couple ingested.

COLD WATER
Trump wants America 'open for business' soon, but Pentagon leaders warn coronavirus crisis could last 'months'

Business Insider•March 24, 2020

Secretary of Defense Dr. Mark T. Esper and Chairman of

 the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark A. Milley
DoD photo

Pentagon leaders said Tuesday morning that the coronavirus could last months.

"I think we need to plan for this to be a few months long at least," Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said, with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley saying that reports and models indicate this could last three months.

Their comments contrast with those of President Donald Trump, who said Monday that the country "will again, and soon, be open for business — very soon — a lot sooner than three or four months."

As the president expresses a strong interest in reopening the country in the near future, the Pentagon is bracing for a coronavirus crisis that will last at least a few months.

"We have to be prepared to address it as long as the country needs us," Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said during a town hall meeting on Tuesday.

"I think we need to plan for this to be a few months long at least, and we are taking all precautionary measures to do that, to be in it for the long haul."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley concurred, saying that all the reports indicate that "you are looking at eight to 10, maybe 12, weeks — call it three months."

Milley added that "some of that depends on what we do as a nation to mitigate it, to flatten the curve, so to speak."

The coronavirus that first appeared in China has spread to more than 395,000 people worldwide and claimed more than 17,000 lives. The US, the third-worst-hit country, has reported more than 46,000 cases and well over 500 deaths.

The Department of Defense reported 174 cases among US military personnel on Tuesday, more than double what it was Friday. The Pentagon also reported 59 cases among civilian personnel, 61 cases among dependents, and 27 cases among contractors.

As the numbers continue to grow, President Donald Trump has been pushing for the US to reopen.

"America will again, and soon, be open for business — very soon — a lot sooner than three or four months," Trump said during a Monday evening press briefing.

"Our country wasn't built to be shut down," he added.

The Department of Defense announced Monday that the Health Protection Condition (HPCON) for the Pentagon reservation has been increased to "Charlie," the second-highest level, and increased restrictions have been put in place for the building.

"We're going to telework as long as necessary to ensure we are beyond the coronavirus crisis," Esper said Tuesday. "It's going to be weeks for sure, maybe months."

"At the end of the day, in a period of months, we will get through this," he added in closing remarks.

Stuart Gordon, Cult Classic Horror Director, Dies at 72

Stuart Gordon, best known as the filmmaker behind such cult classics as “Re-Animator” and “From Beyond,” has died, his family confirmed to Variety Tuesday night. He was 72.

© Elizabeth Goodenough/Shutterstoc

Although best known for his seminal work in independent horror, Gordon had a varied career that included founding the Organic Theater Company with his wife, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon. The Organic premiered such prominent works as David Mamet’s “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” and “Bleacher Bums,” which starred Dennis Franz and Joe Mantegna. He was a co-creator of the “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” franchise, for which he shared a story credit, and produced the film’s sequel and directed an episode of the TV spin-off. In 2005, he directed a film adaptation of Mamet’s “Edmond,” starring William H. Macy. Other films include “Fortress,” “Castle Freak” and “King of the Ants.”

In recent years, Gordon was active in L.A. theater, finding success directing the solo show “Nevermore…An Evening with Edgar Allen Poe” starring his “Re-Animator” star Jeffrey Combs. He also directed and co-wrote the book for “Re-Animator: The Musical,” which won several awards and was praised by a Variety critic, who wrote, “not since ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ has a screamfest tuner so deftly balanced seriousness and camp.”

Gordon also won a Stage Raw Award for directing “Taste,” a two-person drama that premiered in 2014, based on a true story where one man agrees to be eaten by another.

He is survived by his wife, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, daughters Suzanna, Jillian and Margaret Gordon, four grandchildren and his brother, David George Gordon.

GOP celebrates biggest stock market gain since 1933, might want to dig deeper into history

THE WEEK March 24, 2020

The Dow Jones Industrial Average stock index posted its largest percentage gain since 1933 on Tuesday, rising 11.4 percent and erasing some of the sharp losses over the past few weeks. The Republican National Committee celebrated this gain.

Dow posts BIGGEST percent gain since 1933 https://t.co/ofzjcTu6lp
— GOP (@GOP) March 24, 2020

For those with a general knowledge of 20th century history, 1933 was in the heart of the Great Depression, and the market's 15.3 percent jump that year happened less than two weeks after Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn in after crushing Republican President Herbert Hoover, promising a big-government New Deal to rescue the economy. Also in 1933, the unemployment rate hit 25 percent. Historian Kevin Kruse has some more dour news for those hoping a sharp jump in the stock market signals sunny days close ahead.

The good news: The Dow went up by 11.37% today, which is the fifth biggest percentage gain in its entire history.

The bad news: The top four gains all came during the Dow plunge of 1929-1932 that carried us into the Depression, while the next two came during the 2008 meltdown. pic.twitter.com/Sn7BJhSpY4
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) March 24, 2020

"Many investors cited their own hope tied to the powerful government response coming from Congress, the White House, and the Federal Reserve," Politico reported Tuesday night. "But most acknowledged the day’s surge was likely just another bear-market rally, a momentary melt up after a meltdown that we will likely see again in an era of extreme volatility taking cues from the Great Depression. Traders and economists acknowledged the real market optimism will come from the health front — the coronavirus curve peaking and sliding enough for America’s businesses and workers to slowly return to normal." Peter Weber

JUST DO IT!
Glenn Beck offers to die to save America from a COVID-19 shutdown

"I want to have a frank conversation with you," commentator Glenn Beck, 56, said on his show Tuesday, the latest conservative to paint the coronavirus lockdowns in terms of life versus liberty. "I would rather have my children stay home and all of us who are over 50 go in and keep this economy going and working, even if we all get sick. I would rather die than kill the country, because it's not the economy that's dying, it's the country."

"When he says 'I' he means of course 'you,'" David Frum tweeted in response to Beck's death offer, issued from safe inside his Dallas-area home studio. But even if he was serious about dying to save America from sheltering in place to keep doctors and hospitals from collapsing under the weight of a spike in COVID-19 cases, Beck, like Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) on Monday night, is presenting "a false binary, and a distraction," Christopher Hooks writes at Texas Monthly. "The only way to get the economy going again is to contain the virus. The only way to contain the virus is to pause the economy, and in order to do that as briefly as possible, the economic timeout has to be thorough."

Hooks continued with "the practical aspects" of this kind of "offer of self-sacrifice":

[I]f Patrick gets sick and dies, that won’t be the end of the story. He may well infect other people, who will infect other people, and so on. Some of those people could die. He may give it to his wife or his grandkid before he shows symptoms, or to a nurse tending to him after he goes to the hospital. ... And it should also be said that even if America’s elderly were unanimously willing to undergo a culling so that their grandkids can go back to happy hour, they are not the only ones vulnerable to this. It kills perfectly healthy young people. [Christopher Hooks, Texas Monthly]

A 17-year-old died in California on Tuesday, likely from COVID-19. And New Yorker contributor Yascha Mounk posted this cautionary tale Tuesday night: "Three days ago, a 28-year old employee of the International Monetary Fund suggested that the cost social distancing is exacting 'on the economy' might be more important than 'the human aspect of the disease.' Today, he succumbed to COVID-19." These "deaths will not help the recovery proceed faster," Hooks notes. Peter Weber

COMRADE
Britney Spears calls for wealth redistribution, general strike on Instagram
March 24, 2020

VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images

Britney Spears seemingly called for the redistribution of wealth and a general strike on Monday, "regramming" a post written by Instagram user Mimi Zhu. "During this time of isolation, we need connection now more than ever," the text shared by Spears said, going on to describe how "we will learn to kiss and hold each other through the waves of the web. We will feed each other, redistribute wealth, strike. We will understand our own importance from the places we must stay."

The "Work B---h" singer captioned the post by quoting the text's penultimate line — "communion [moves] beyond walls" — and adding three emoji roses, a symbol commonly used by the Democratic Socialists of America.

"Queen of [the] proletariat," cheered on one fan in the comments. Jeva Lange