One of the highest-ranking Black women in the Trump administration resigns over Trump's response to racial injustice, saying it 'cut sharply against my core values and convictions'

Lauren Frias

Mary Elizabeth Taylor. US Department of State


Mary Elizabeth Taylor resigned from her post as assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs in light of President Donald Trump's response to the rising racial tensions in the US.

Taylor, one of the highest-ranking Black officials in the Trump administration, submitted her resignation letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, writing that her departure followed the "dictates of my conscience."

"Moments of upheaval can change you, shift the trajectory of your life, and mold your character," Taylor wrote in the letter, according to The Washington Post. "The President's comments and actions surrounding racial injustice and Black Americans cut sharply against my core values and convictions."

A lifelong Republican, Taylor had worked for the Trump administration since he took office in January 2017, and she previously worked with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Taylor's resignation appears to be the first high-profile departure prompted by Trump's response to demands to address police reform and racial inequality.

A senior State Department official resigned Thursday in light of President Donald Trump's response to racial injustice, The Washington Post reported.

Mary Elizabeth Taylor had served as assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs since Trump assumed office in January 2017. She was one of the highest-ranking Black officials in the Trump administration.

Taylor submitted her resignation letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, writing that her departure followed the "dictates of my conscience."

"Moments of upheaval can change you, shift the trajectory of your life, and mold your character," Taylor wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Post. "The President's comments and actions surrounding racial injustice and Black Americans cut sharply against my core values and convictions."

Taylor went on to say she was "deeply grateful" to Pompeo for "empowering me to lead this team and strategically advise you over these last two years."

"You have shown grace and respect in listening to my opinions, and your remarkable leadership has made me a better leader and team member," she wrote in the letter. "I appreciate that you understand my strong loyalty to my personal convictions and values, particularly in light of recent events."

Taylor's resignation appears to be the first high-profile departure prompted by Trump's response to demands to address police reform and racial inequality.

Black Lives Matter protests have erupted across the country since the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes.

While Trump called Floyd's death a "grave tragedy," the president has also name-dropped Floyd when touting the recovering economy and condemned protesters and their calls to defund police departments.

Earlier this month, Taylor wrote a message to her team at the State Department about Floyd's death, writing that her heart "is broken, in a way from which I've had to heal it countless times," The Post reported, which obtained the message as well.

"George Floyd's horrific murder and the recent deaths of other Black Americans have shaken our nation at its core," she wrote. "Every time we witness these heinous, murderous events, we are reminded that our country's wounds run deep and remain untreated."

"For our team members who are hurting right now, please know you are not alone," she said. "You are seen, recognized, heard, and supported. I am right here with you."

People who believe wild coronavirus conspiracy theories rely on YouTube for most of their information on the pandemic

Isobel Asher Hamilton
Reuters


Researchers at King's College London surveyed over 2,000 people in the UK to study how likely people are to believe conspiracy theories about the coronavirus.

People who got their news primarily from social media were more likely to believe conspiracy theories, and the researchers found consuming information on YouTube had the strongest correlation with believing them.

People who got their news from social media were also more likely to break quarantine and lockdown rules.
YouTube viewers are more likely to buy into weird conspiracy theories about the coronavirus than other people who get their news via social media.

That's according to a new report from researchers at King's College London delving into the public health risks posed by online conspiracy theories about the pandemic.

The peer-reviewed study was published in the journal Psychological Medicine and surveyed 2,254 people in the UK aged 16-70 in late May.

It asked respondents whether they believed a range of conspiracy theories to be true or false, including:

There is no hard evidence coronavirus exists.
Coronavirus is linked to 5G (a popular internet conspiracy).
The number of people dying from coronavirus has been deliberately hidden or exaggerated by authorities.

The study found that people who got their news primarily from social media were far more likely to believe conspiracy theories and to break lockdown rules.

"YouTube had the strongest association with conspiracy beliefs, followed by Facebook," the study's authors added.

Of the respondents who said they believe there is a link between COVID-19 and 5G, 60% said they get a lot of their information from YouTube.

People relying on social media for news also tended to break lockdown

France softens lockdown rules during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Reuters
The study also found that people breaking lockdown and quarantine measures are much more likely to be relying on social media for their news.

Respondents who said they'd gone to work or outside while showing coronavirus symptoms were three times more likely to get a "great deal" of their information from YouTube and Facebook.

Similarly people who said they don't follow the two-meter social distancing rules put in place by the government were twice as likely to get most of their information from YouTube and Facebook.

Although people who get their news from social media were more susceptible to conspiracy theories, the majority of respondents said they got most of their news from traditional outlets.

The physical danger posed by conspiracy theorists in the UK has already been in the press due to a series of arson attacks on cell phone towers, motivated by the belief that 5G mobile technology is spreading the coronavirus.

Some telecoms engineers reported finding razor blades and needles left as booby traps behind posters on telephone poles, and one engineer was reported to have been stabbed and hospitalized in April.

AHA! THE TRUTH COMES OUT
Trump says he thinks some Americans are wearing masks to show they disapprove of him and not as a preventive measure during the pandemic

IT'S ALL ABOUT HIM

Sonam Sheth 22 hours ago

President Donald Trump told The Wall Street Journal that he believes that some Americans are wearing masks during the coronavirus pandemic to express their disapproval of him and not as a preventive measure.

The president also said his issue with masks was that people sometimes touch them, increasing the risk of infection.

He went on to say he thought that "testing is overrated," adding, "I created the greatest testing machine in history."

Trump also said, however, that more testing in the US had led to an increase in confirmed cases. "In many ways, it makes us look bad," he said.

President Donald Trump told The Wall Street Journal that he believes that some Americans are wearing masks during the coronavirus pandemic not to protect others but simply to show that they disapprove of him.

Trump's interview with The Journal's Michael C. Bender was published on Thursday, a day after troubling accounts — contained in a bombshell book by John Bolton, his former national security adviser — emerged of Trump's handling of foreign affairs and competence.

Trump also told The Journal that his issue with masks was that people sometimes touch them, increasing the risk of infection.

"They put their finger on the mask, and they take them off, and then they start touching their eyes and touching their nose and their mouth," the president said. "And then they don't know how they caught it?"

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends "wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission."

Trump has repeatedly been photographed going to public events without a mask on.

Last month, he was seen touring a Ford manufacturing plant in Michigan without a mask despite being told by the state's attorney general that he had a "legal responsibility" to wear one. The president told reporters that he wore one behind the scenes but "didn't want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it."

He was also criticized earlier in May for failing to wear a mask while visiting a Honeywell plant in Arizona. The Associated Press reported that the president didn't want to wear one because he was afraid that he'd look ridiculous and that it would harm his reelection chances.

The World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a pandemic in March. As of Thursday, nearly 8.4 million people around the world had been infected, and about 450,000 people had died.

The US had nearly 2.2 million confirmed cases and about 118,000 deaths.

Trump has repeatedly downplayed the severity of the US outbreak and blamed China, where the global outbreak originated late last year. He and his allies have also accused China and WHO of not acting quickly enough to contain the spread of the disease when it began to spread.

In April, the US intelligence community determined that China intentionally misrepresented statistics about the spread of the disease within its borders.

Bloomberg News, which first reported on the findings, described its sources as saying that the report's main conclusion was that China's public reporting of coronavirus cases was "intentionally incomplete."

Two officials told the outlet that it found that China's numbers were fake. China has denied that it concealed the extent of the initial outbreak.

"There's a chance it was intentional," Trump told The Journal.

The president later said he thought that "testing is overrated," adding, "I created the greatest testing machine in history."

He also said, however, that more testing in the US had led to an increase in confirmed cases. "In many ways, it makes us look bad," he said.

It isn't the first time Trump has made the claim. The president said last week during a roundtable event for seniors that "if we stop testing right now, we'd have very few cases, actually."

Several US states have reported spikes in confirmed cases as they've relaxed social-distancing guidelines and begun to reopen their economies.

New York, Washington, and California were initially hot spots in the US outbreak, but the states saw a gradual decline in new infections, hospitalizations, and deaths as their governors shut down their economies and imposed strict stay-at-home orders for nonessential employees.

Public-health experts have said that as states ease lockdown measures and reopen businesses, increases in confirmed cases will follow. They're also likely to be exacerbated because of nationwide protests against racism and police brutality in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in police custody on Memorial Day.

There have been significant increases in new infections in parts of the US over the past several weeks, particularly in the Sun Belt and the West.

According to NPR, Oklahoma has seen a more than 100% increase in new cases compared with two weeks ago; Trump is scheduled to hold his first rally since March in Tulsa on Saturday.

South Carolina, Arizona, Oregon, Florida, and Nevada have all seen increases of more than 100% compared with two weeks ago, while Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, North Carolina, and Utah had increases of 30% to 90%.

Fauci calls 'anti-science bias' in the US problematic

Sarah Al-Arshani Business Insider•June 18, 2020

Anthony Fauci, director of National Institutes of Health Infectious Disease, speaks to reporters about Trump administration efforts in regards to the coronavirus outbreak in China, at the White House in Washington, D.C., January 31, 2020

Leah Millis/Reuters


Dr. Anthony Fauci said that "anti-science bias" in the US is problematic.

He suggested that actions taken by President Donald Trump further pushed the bias.

Trump has gone against expert advice in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, from pushing for a swift reopening, to not wearing a mask, and even touting unproven treatments.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading infectious disease expert, said that "anti-science bias" in the US is problematic.

"One of the problems we face in the United States is that unfortunately, there is a combination of an anti-science bias that people are -- for reasons that sometimes are, you know, inconceivable and not understandable -- they just don't believe science and they don't believe authority," Fauci said on a US Department of Health and Human Services' podcast "Learning Curve."

Fauci, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also stood by the measures he's continuously advised for limiting the spread of the coronavirus including stay-at-home orders, which he said helped save millions of lives.

As the country reopens, Fauci has warned of a reemergence of cases and the need for testing and contact tracing to prevent more infections and deaths. He's advised people to avoid crowded areas and wear masks in public to avoid further spreading the virus.

On the podcast, he said that reasoning for choosing to willfully ignore science despite obvious risks to health is "inconceivable."

"So when they see someone up in the White House, which has an air of authority to it, who's talking about science, that there are some people who just don't believe that — and that's unfortunate because, you know, science is truth," Fauci said.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly pushed to reopen the country despite experts warning that cases will go up. Trump will host a rally on June 20 in Tulsa, which is feared to become a super-spreading event for the virus. While attendees have to sign a waiver that they won't sue the campaign if they contract coronavirus, they will not be required to wear masks, and socially distancing is virtually impossible.

The president has refused to wear masks while in public and suggested they gave off an appearance of weakness, despite evidence that they can reduce the risk of transmission.

He's also pushed for the use of hydroxychloroquine and even said he personally began taking it even when there was little evidence to suggest it worked at preventing or treating coronavirus. Its temporary authorization to be used on COVID-19 patients in hospital settings was rescinded by the Federal Food and Drug Administration.

Trump has also suggested that people ingest disinfectant to cure themselves of the coronavirus, but later said he was joking.

Fauci said that science was the "attempt, in good faith, to get to the facts," and said it was a "self-correcting" process.

He drew parallels between people who refuse to abide by evidence-based health advice during this pandemic, to anti-vaxxer who deny the benefits of vaccines despite research that proves they're safe and effective.

"If you go by the evidence and by the data, you're speaking the truth and it's amazing sometimes, the denial there is," Fauci said. "It's the same thing that gets people who are anti-vaxxers—who don't want people to get vaccinated, even though the data clearly indicate the safety of vaccines. That's really a problem."

PENCE LIES 

Leaked CDC document contradicts Pence claim that U.S. coronavirus cases 'have stabilized'

Pence says Oklahoma has flattened the curve, but cases have been going up in June


Sharon Weinberger D.C. Bureau Chief, Yahoo News•June 17, 2020

WASHINGTON — Even as Vice President Mike Pence wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Tuesday that coronavirus cases in the U.S. “have stabilized,” a document produced that same day by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and circulated to the other government agencies warns that infections in the U.S. have increased more than 18 percent.

“Cases have stabilized over the past two weeks, with the daily average case rate across the U.S. dropping to 20,000 — down from 30,000 in April and 25,000 in May,” Pence wrote Tuesday in his op-ed, which defended President Trump’s response to the pandemic.

Yet the CDC’s June 16 COVID-19 Response Update appears to paint a darker portrait of the state of the pandemic, with maps showing many counties in the U.S. experiencing increasing rates of the coronavirus. Of the figures highlighted, a chart shows that the U.S. rate of increase for the coronavirus using a three-day average is 18.3 percent. By comparison, two of the hardest-hit countries have declining rates based on this same three-day average: Brazil’s cases came down 27 percent, and Russia’s have decreased by almost 7 percent.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Neither the CDC nor Pence’s office responded to a request for comment. Pence remains the head of the White House coronavirus task force, which has all but faded from view in recent weeks. The task force’s last public briefing was in late April, though its members still meet regularly.

In a press briefing Friday, CDC Director Robert Redfield indicated that some of the increasing case numbers result from more widespread testing at facilities that have had large outbreaks, such as nursing homes, prisons and meat-processing facilities, but even that is “not explaining everything.”

The CDC update is marked as an “internal” government document, meaning it is not intended to be released to the public. Yahoo News obtained a copy of the report, which was distributed within the government the same day Pence’s op-ed was published.

The explanatory text accompanying the CDC maps also appears to contradict Pence’s optimistic message about the coronavirus. “There remains a large number of counties whose burden continues to grow or are in an elevated incidence plateau, including in Wyoming, Iowa, Washington, California and in parts of the Southwest and Southeast,” the CDC document reads in a caption accompanying a map showing large swaths of the country as either in “elevated incidence” or “rebound” for coronavirus cases.

A separate map showing the number of new cases notes that “elevated incidence of disease during the past 2 weeks remains widespread, including in the Northeast (and the New York City area), the Southwest, the Southeast, DC, areas around Chicago, and parts of California, Minnesota, Iowa, Washington.”
 

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Pence’s op-ed also appeared on the same day the Wall Street Journal ran an article based on an interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, who sounded a far more pessimistic view about the country’s progress than the vice president.

“People keep talking about a second wave,” Fauci told the newspaper. “We’re still in a first wave.”

Fauci also disputed the idea that testing alone accounts for the recent rise in U.S. cases, a claim regularly made by President Trump.

Despite the divergence regarding whether COVID-19 cases in the U.S. have “stabilized,” Pence and the CDC appear to be in sync when it comes to figures showing significantly declining death rates. Pence wrote that “in the past five days, deaths are down to fewer than 750 a day, a dramatic decline from 2,500 a day a few weeks ago — and a far cry from the 5,000 a day that some were predicting.”

According to the CDC documents, death rates have declined by about 22 percent, based on the prior three-day average. New deaths are down to 646, even lower than Pence noted, though the average number of new deaths, the CDC document says, is at 829.

Jana Winter contributed reporting to this story.


Cover thumbnail photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Mike Pence was celebrated as the Trump administration's coronavirus truth teller. Here's how the vice president has abruptly shifted course.

Tom LoBianco

Vice President Mike Pence speaks in the briefing room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, March, 10, 2020, about the coronavirus outbreak. Carolyn Kaster/AP


Vice President Mike Pence won plaudits for his early handling of the US response to the coronavirus. 

Behind the scenes, people close to Pence said he encouraged people in the White House Coronavirus Task Force meetings "to speak their mind."

"Pence's stock is way up," said Stephen Moore, a conservative economist who is close to the White House.

But Pence has made a dramatic shift in both style and substance by aligning himself with President Trump to downplay public health concerns about the deadly pandemic.

Back in late February, Vice President Mike Pence's closest aides recognized that his new role leading the federal government's COVID-19 response would be his biggest presidential assignment yet.

Pence had helped with top initiatives for Trump before. Some were successful, like his work to launch the Space Force and high-dollar campaign fundraising for the president's reelection. Other Pence-led efforts ended with anything but good results for his boss, including the failed bid to repeal Obamacare.

But managing the White House Coronavirus Task Force marked the first time President Donald Trump had delegated his No. 2 with any serious executive authority. Pence would be chairing meetings with the country's top national security and public health officials, corralling big personalities, and delivering grim updates to the public. He'd be the face of the United States as it handled what would become the worst public health crisis facing the planet in a century.

It was heady stuff, and it meant Pence would be back on some familiar terrain as a chief executive. The former Indiana governor had largely avoided that kind of portfolio since arriving in Washington in 2017, but the task force offered him the high-profile chance to show off his own crisis management skills ahead of what's expected to be a 2024 run for the White House.

Not long before the pandemic struck, one Pence confidant told Insider that the vice president didn't deserve the reputation he'd gotten as someone who was tired of carrying all of Trump's negative baggage. In fact, Pence actually enjoyed not having to make hard calls on the fly the way he used to when back in the state house in Indianapolis. The painful moments of the Trump presidency were Trump's alone, and the confidant said Pence welcomed the job he had of only having to explain them.

But with COVID-19, Pence was back to being the leader on a tough issue, and the three months that would follow provided the best picture yet of both his agility for surviving in the tumultuous Trump era and also how he'd run the country if he won the White House in another four years. 

Coronavirus changed the Trump-Pence relationship

Delegating Pence to the COVID task force job marked an important moment in his relationship with Trump. It also further cemented their own links both personally and for their long-term legacies.

Trump and Pence barely knew each other when they first teamed up in the summer of 2016. Their alliance, the byproduct of a slapdash courtship that was as much about political convenience as anything else, centered around Pence helping placate conservative and religious voters concerned that the thrice-married, foul-mouthed Trump didn't have the moral compass to lead the country.

Once in office, the two men struggled to find a rhythm. Pence ran into stiff headwinds on Capitol Hill trying to fulfill the president's campaign promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He also worked overtime to stay out of legal trouble as special counsel Robert Mueller probed whether the Trump campaign had conspired with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election.

By last fall, Trump was even entertaining the idea of replacing Pence on the ticket for 2020.

But Trump's own escape from impeachment in January helped the two US leaders turn a corner and cement a fairly strong relationship. And as the severity of the coronavirus slowly dawned on Trump and his team, the president turned to Pence to coordinate the federal government's response across more than a dozen agencies and with the states.

"The president knew immediately what an important position of trust, confidence and competence the head of the task force would be, and that is why he chose the vice president," Kellyanne Conway, a senior White House adviser who worked with Pence long before he joined the Trump administration, told Insider in an interview.

Pence brought "familiarity, empathy and perspective" to the job, Conway said. He also had a way of connecting with the nation's governors because of his own four-year stint running Indiana.

At the daily COVID-19 task force meetings, Pence provided a calm, measured style built on listening and processing information and ideas from various corners of the administration, Conway said. It's a skill that people who know the vice president say he's honed over a career path that went from failed congressional candidate to conservative radio host to a seat in the US House and also by studying management books like Stephen Covey's "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" and Jim Collins' "Good to Great."

"He is passionate but not excitable," Conway said. "This really mattered in coordinating a response that required urgent action from all different parts of the federal government."

A senior Trump administration official familiar with the task force meetings said Pence played the role of referee during meetings that involved the government's top scientists, public health, immigration and national security officials. When someone offered an idea the vice president didn't like or disagreed with, he asked them to expand on their position instead of snapping at them or attacking them.

"You want diversity in opinion. There's always good robust discussion. I haven't seen acrimony," the official said. "I will give credit to the vice president, because I think he's very masterful at encouraging people to speak their mind. He's very encouraging. Makes everybody feel very good."

Pence's quiet, steady style also won increasing plaudits inside the DC beltway as his regular appearances created a stark contrast to the president's erratic briefings and tweets.

After Trump attacked reporters during one of his frequent press briefings on the pandemic, Pence pulled an NBC journalist aside to offer his condolences for one of their colleagues who died after testing positive for the coronavirus. When Trump caused a media firestorm by saying he had started taking hydroxychloroquine, a potentially harmful anti-malarial drug, Pence simply said he wouldn't be taking the medicine himself.

The vice president's relatively normal handling of the coronavirus briefings and his command of the facts even led POLITICO media columnist Jack Shafer to suggest Pence be named the new White House press secretary.

"I want to trust Pence, but doubt that anyone so devoted to the president's elephantine ego can be relied on to give the truth," Shafer wrote. "But Pence's best moments on the dais this month allow us to recall a time when expecting the government to give it to us straight about matters of life and death was not unreasonable."

Vice President Mike Pence stands among television soundmen, radio reporters and other media personnel all wearing protective masks because of the coronavirus disease pandemic as he listens to Donald Trump speak during an event in honor of National Nurses Day in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., May 6, 2020. Tom Brenner/REUTERS 

'Pence's stock is way up'

Pence allies maintain that the vice president's work on the COVID task force provided an ideal platform to showcase his governing skills.

Immediately after taking its reins, the vice president dropped all Trump campaign activities to focus on fighting the pandemic, said David McIntosh, the former Indiana GOP congressman and close friend of Pence's since the early 1990s who now runs the Club for Growth, a conservative nonprofit group.

"He views this as, 'I'm going to focus on whatever it takes to implement the president's decisions on how to battle the coronavirus,'" McIntosh said.

With a boss like Trump, there are the obvious messaging challenges. "That's always a delicate balance when you've got all these experts saying one thing and the president saying something else," McIntosh said.

People close to the vice president also say his role atop the task force forced him to remain a presence when he otherwise might have followed a different route of drifting in and out of an issue if it wasn't going well. "The biggest difference is he was given direct responsibility," McIntosh said.

Pence's handling of the COVID issue has also helped with his standing among right-leaning activists.

"Pence's stock is way up," said Stephen Moore, the conservative economist who is close to the Trump White House. "He's seen by conservatives as a strong leader. He's done really well in the press conferences and been universally praised."

Even among a furtive band of NeverTrump conservatives that often chided Pence for enabling Trump — George Will famously labeled the vice president "oleaginous," which is a clever term for ass-kissing — Pence has found some support.

"It's self-evident that Pence would have handled the pandemic better," opinion columnist Jonah Goldberg wrote earlier this week in the Los Angeles Times. "His stewardship of the White House coronavirus task force was marked by quiet, assured and reassuring, professionalism. If he hawked hydroxychloroquine or bleach as potential miracle cures, I missed it." 

A Fauci contradiction and a Biden slam

But Pence's public stance on the coronavirus has recently taken a more abrupt political turn that mimics the president's overall messaging that it's time to restart the economy — even if the public health crisis hasn't abated.

On a Monday call with the nation's governors, the vice president urged the state leaders to tell their residents that recent increases in cases were due to more testing, a position undercut by scientists and epidemiologists who say the spikes are not just because of better testing.

A day later, he published an op-ed in one of his favorite publications, The Wall Street Journal, arguing there would be no "second wave" of the coronavirus as epidemiologists had predicted for the fall. The vice president also accused the press of fabricating the continued danger of the pandemic.

"The media has tried to scare the American people every step of the way, and these grim predictions of a second wave are no different. The truth is, whatever the media says, our whole-of-America approach has been a success," Pence wrote.

Pence on Tuesday also defended Trump's decision to hold his first major campaign rally since the pandemic shut down large swaths of the country. Oklahoma, the host for Trump's upcoming event on Saturday, had "flattened the curve," Pence said, even though new coronavirus cases were actually spiking there.

And the vice president this week continued showing up in public without wearing a mask. Back in early May, Pence said he regretted not donning a protective face covering during a visit to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. While he later did wear a mask when traveling outside Washington, he's since dropped the routine during campaign stops out at restaurants with state GOP leaders in potential 2020 battlegrounds like Iowa, Georgia and Florida.

The same thing happened again Thursday. "Every single day, we're one day closer to putting the coronavirus in the past," Pence said during a mask-less visit to a steel plant in the Detroit suburbs.

Pence's public shifts have prompted some pushback. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, rebutted Pence's "second wave" comment by saying the country was still very much in the grips of the first wave of the pandemic.

Fauci also contradicted Pence on the suggestion the country is ready for sizable public gatherings. "When I look at the TV and I see pictures of people congregating at bars when the location they are indicates they shouldn't be doing that, that's very risky," Fauci told The Wall Street Journal.

The vice president's move toward a decidedly political stance on COVID has also opened him up to new attacks from Trump's 2020 rival. While Joe Biden once took heat from his party's base for calling Pence a "decent guy," the presumptive Democratic president nominee on Wednesday singled out his successor as vice president for his optimistic take on the pandemic.

"Yesterday, the head of the White House task force on coronavirus, the vice president, claimed success because deaths are quote, 'down to fewer than 750 a day,'" Biden said during a campaign stop near Philadelphia. "More than 20,000 a month. That's greater than World War II-level casualties each month. That's more than five 9/11s each month. And this administration is engaging in self congratulations?"

Tom LoBianco is the author of "Piety & Power: Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House." It comes out in paperback June 30.

Finding fossils: An expedition deep into the heart of Chilean Pa

Felipe Trueba Friday 17 April 2020 23:00

Hunting for dinosaurs at the tip of South America
Show all 14




The valley is a rich source of ancient dinosaur, insect and plant fossils

The Las Chinas valley near the southern tip of Chile, dubbed the Rosetta Stone of palaeontology in the southern hemisphere, is proving to be a treasure trove of fossils.

Located in this valley, Estancia Cerro Guido is one of the largest estates in the country. While dedicated to cattle farming, its mountains are also home to important dinosaur fossils. Findings here include the well-preserved remains of vertebrates, invertebrates and plants from the Cretaceous period. They could be the key to unlocking significant tracts of the common past of South America and Antarctica.

Every year the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH) and the University of Chile organise a palaeontological expedition to shed light on the end of the Cretaceous period, when the dinosaurs became extinct. To mark the 10th anniversary of the expedition, a group of 20 researchers from various disciplines embarked on a two-week journey to this region deep in the heart of Chilean Patagonia.

This team, along with another group of palaeontologists, has discovered duck-billed dinosaurs (Hadrosauridae) as well as armoured dinosaurs (Ankylosauria) and even parts of large predators. These complement earlier findings and are allowing scientists to fill in the gaps of what we know about the period.

An underground dark-matter experiment may have stumbled on the 'holy grail': a new particle that could upend the laws of physics

ANOTHER GODDAMN PARTICLE 

Morgan McFall-Johnsen), Business Insider•June 18, 2020

Experts constructing the top array of photomultiplier tubes, which detect flashes of light from particle interactions.The XENON Experiment

A dark-matter experiment in an underground Italian lab may have discovered a new particle called the solar axion.

If that's indeed what was detected, it would be the first direct evidence of a particle that shouldn't exist according to the known laws of physics.

Alternatively, the data could also reveal new and surprising qualities of mysterious particles called neutrinos.

Larger, more sensitive experiments in the next year will help scientists figure out whether they have indeed discovered a new particle.

An underground vat of liquid xenon in Italy may have just detected a new particle, born in the heart of the sun.

If that's indeed what happened, it could upend laws of physics that have held fast for roughly 50 years.

Researchers created the underground vat to search for dark matter, the elusive stuff that makes up 85% of all matter in the universe. Scientists know dark matter exists because they can measure the way its gravity affects faraway galaxies, but they've never detected it directly before.

That's why an international group of researchers built the experiment at Italy's Gran Sasso National Laboratory. The vat is filled with 3.2 metric tons of liquid xenon, and those atoms interact with tiny particles when they collide. Each interaction, or "event," produces a flash of light and sheds electrons.

In theory, this experiment is sensitive enough to detect interactions with particles of dark matter.

The XENON Experiment underground. At left is the water tank with a poster showing what's inside; at right is the three-story service building. The Xenon Experiment

In the latest version of the experiment, researchers expected the machine to detect 232 events within a year, based on known particles. But instead, it detected 285 events — 53 more than predicted.

What's more, the amount of energy released in those extra events corresponded with the predicted energies of a yet-undiscovered particle called the solar axion: a type of particle that physicists have hypothesized exists but never observed.

"The hypothetical particle that could potentially explain the XENON data is one that is much too heavy to be dark matter, but could be created by the sun," Sean Carroll, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology who is not affiliated with XENON, told Business Insider. "If that were true, it would be hugely important — it would be a Nobel Prize-winning finding."

It's also possible, however, that the interactions were anomalies, which pop up all the time in highly sensitive physics experiments like XENON.
A new particle forged in the heart of the sun

A huge, handle-shaped prominence erupting from the sun on September 14, 1999.
ESA/NASA/SOHO

Particle physicists study the smallest, most fundamental components of the universe: elementary particles like quarks and gluons, along with forces like gravity and electromagnetism.

"Particle physics is an important part of modern physics, but it's also been stuck for a long while," Carroll said. "The last truly surprising discovery in particle physics was in the 1970s."

That's when what's known as the Standard Model was established — a set of all the rules known to particle physics, which describe all the particles scientists have detected and how they interact with one another.

"With it we can essentially explain every single thing we see in a particle-physics laboratory," Aaron Manalaysay, a dark-matter physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who is unaffiliated with XENON, told Business Insider. "It's probably the most accurate scientific model in history. But we also have good reason to think that it's not the most fundamental model of nature that exists."

Engineers assembling the XENON experiment's electric-field cage.
The XENON Experiment

Physicists have hints that the model doesn't fully capture the way our universe behaves — their indirect observations of dark matter are among those hints. But they have yet to directly detect a particle that lies beyond the Standard Model.

That's why it would be a big deal if XENON really has found a solar axion.

"That would be the first concrete discovery of something beyond the Standard Model," Manalaysay said. "That's kind of the holy grail right now of particle physics."

Carroll agreed — but he added that the unprecedented nature of the potential discovery "is one of the reasons we think it's probably not there."

In other words, without further evidence, nobody is celebrating yet.

For now, several other theories could also explain the extra events XENON researchers saw.

Misbehaving neutrinos could point to a 'new physics'

The top array of photomultiplier tubes on the XENON experiment, with the electric cables.
The XENON Experiment

Another possible explanation for XENON's 53 extra events is that neutrinos — a subatomic particle with no electrical charge — could have driven the interactions.

That would also defy the known laws of physics, though, since it would mean that neutrinos have a magnetic field much larger than what the Standard Model predicts.

"That could point potentially to new physics beyond the Standard Model," Manalaysay said.

A cryostat hanging from the support structure within the water tank of the XENON experiment. The XENON Experiment

It wouldn't be the first time neutrinos have broken the rules. According to the Standard Model, neutrinos shouldn't have mass — yet they do. The discovery that they have a sizable magnetic field would be yet another clue that something is missing from the model.

"Neutrinos are really strange beasts, and we don't really understand them," Manalaysay said.
Larger, more sensitive dark-matter experiments are coming
 

The XENON1T data-acquisition system room at the Gran Sasso lab in Italy.
The XENON Experiment

It's also possible that XENON's extra events didn't happen at all — though that's unlikely. The researchers calculated a chance of two in 10,000 that the detected events were due to random fluctuation.

The signals may have come from other mundane particle interactions, however, making their explanation far less interesting than axions or neutrinos. The extra events could have come from tiny amounts of tridium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, decaying inside the vat. Argon isotopes would produce a similar effect, according to Manalaysay.

"It wouldn't take much. It would just take a few atoms," he said, adding that a number of other things unknown to the researchers could also be responsible for the excess interactions.

"We've gone down this road before, where there's a little bit of an anomaly that you aren't expecting ... and then it goes away," Carroll said. "So this is clearly a place where you need to do a better experiment, and they're planning to do exactly that."

The XENON1T Time Projection Chamber after assembly.
The Xenon Experiment

A new generation of XENON-like experiments, currently in the works in the US and Europe, should help researchers study these extra events and determine which particles are causing them. That's because the new experiments will be larger and significantly more sensitive.

"If this is real, we will absolutely see it in our next generation of experiments," Manalaysay said. He has worked with one such effort, called the Large Underground Xenon dark-matter experiment. "It's like you're going into a quieter and quieter room ... You start hearing new things you couldn't hear in a louder room."

Whereas XENON picked up 53 unexplained events, the successor to LUX — called LUX-ZEPLIN — could detect 800, according to Manalaysay. Despite delays caused by the coronavirus, he added, new experiments will likely be running and returning results "within the next year."

"It's like a teaser," he said. "The season's finale ends on a cliff-hanger, and you've got to wait until the next season."

Read the original article on Business Insider

Trump says he's heard 'interesting' things about Roswell

AAMER MADHANI, Associated Press•June 18, 2020

President Donald Trump says he’s heard some interesting things about Roswell, but he’s not sharing even with his eldest child.

Trump made the comments Thursday in a Father’s Day-themed interview with his son Don Trump Jr., hosted by the president's reelection campaign. Don Jr. wound down his interview by jokingly asking his Dad/President if he would ever divulge more information about Roswell, the New Mexico city known for its proximity to arguably most famous UFO event — “and let us know what’s really going on.”

Trump responded, “I won’t talk to you about what I know about it, but it’s very interesting.”

In 1947, a rancher discovered unidentifiable debris in his sheep pasture outside Roswell. Air Force officials said it was a crashed weather balloon, but skeptics questioned whether it was in fact at extraterrestrial flying saucer. Decades later the U.S. military acknowledged the debris was related to a top-secret atomic project. Still, the UFO theory has flourished.

The president in the past has spoken skeptically about the possibility that there is something out there. Last year Trump said he received short briefing on UFO sighting, but also offered: “People are saying they’re seeing UFOs. Do I believe it? Not particularly.”

After his father offered that he heard some “interesting” things about Roswell, Trump Jr. asked the president might declassify that information someday.

“Well, I’ll have to think about that one,” the president responded.


ACTUAL US NAVY SCREEN CAPTURE 2014 INCIDENT WITH UFO

Trump also divulged that he watched “a couple” of episodes of Netflix’s “Tiger King.” Joseph Maldonado-Passage, known as Joe Exotic, the star of the popular docuseries, is serving a 22-year prison sentence after he was convicted for hiring a hit man to murder a rival, the animal-rights activist.

Trump said during a April press briefing he was unfamiliar with the “Tiger King” when asked about Don Jr. jokingly saying on a radio show that he was lobbying the president for a pardon for Maldonado-Passage.

The president on Thursday did not say when he was considering a pardon but sounded intrigued by Maldonado-Passage.

“That’s a whole strange deal going on,” Trump said. “I’ll tell you that’s a strange guy and a lot of strange people surrounding him.”

NAACP And 60 Other Groups Call On Congress To Cancel Student Debt

Adam S. Minsky, Esq.Senior Contributor
Personal Finance
I’m an attorney focused on helping student loan borrowers.


GETTY

A coalition of over 60 organizations including the NAACP, American Federation of Teachers, and the National Consumer Law Center are calling on Congress to cancel student loan debt as part of the next stimulus package.

In a letter addressed to congressional leaders of both parties in the House and the Senate, the coalition noted that the economy remains in grim shape, while student loan protections under the CARES Act are scheduled to expire in just a few months.

“Without a comprehensive long-term solution, the CARES Act suspension of federal student loans for eighty percent of borrowers merely kicks the problem down the road to this fall,” the organizations wrote. “Many [student loan borrowers] will face the daunting prospect starting in October of choosing between paying for necessities including food, medical care, and rent, or making their student loan payment. The next stimulus package must take the necessary steps to ensure economic recovery down the line: this means federal student debt cancellation.”
Most Popular In: Personal Finance

Second Stimulus Checks Vs. $4,000 Travel Tax Credit: Pros And Cons

SBA Finally Clarifies PPP Loan Forgiveness Rules: Full Forgiveness For Self-Employed Borrowers

Trump: ‘Dramatic’ Phase 4 Stimulus Package Being Considered

The coalition of organizations noted that 43 million Americans would benefit from student loan forgiveness. The letter endorsed various proposals already put forth by House and Senate Democrats to cancel student debt.

Citing academic and economic research, the groups noted that, “Canceling student debt would also boost the economy for everyone in the medium-to-long term. It would boost GDP by up to $108 billion a year, and add up to 1.5 million jobs per year. Research by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that federal student debt cancellation increases borrowers’ incomes by about $3,000 over a three-year period.”

Other organizations that signed on to the letter include the Center for Responsible Lending, the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, the National Center for Transgender Equality, and the National Women’s Law Center, along with various other consumer protection organizations.

In May, the House of Representatives passed the HEROES Act, a massive second stimulus bill that provided for targeted student loan forgiveness for both federal and private student loans, along with hundreds of billions of dollars in additional economic relief. The bill passed the House largely on a party-line vote. But Senate GOP leaders rejected the bill, declaring it to be “dead on arrival” before it even passed.

Republican leaders in the Senate, as well as Trump administration officials, have indicated an openness to another stimulus bill, although a second round of relief is unlikely to be passed until July at the soonest. Republican congressional leaders have not said much recently about student loan relief, but they have not supported the idea of student loan forgiveness to date.
Further Reading

Will There Be A Second Student Loan Stimulus Package?

The CARES Act Was Supposed To Help Student Loan Borrowers, But For Many, It Has Failed

Student Loan Borrowers In CARES Act Forbearance Can’t Buy Or Refi Homes

Veterans’ And Consumer Groups “Heartbroken” After Trump Vetoes Student Loan Relief Bill

House Passes HEROES Act With Limits On Student Loan Relief – What’s Next?

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Adam S. Minsky, Esq.
I’m an attorney with a unique practice devoted entirely to helping student loan borrowers. I provide counsel, legal assistance, and direct advocacy for borrowers on a variety of student loan-related matters including repayment management, default resolution, and servicing troubleshooting. I have been interviewed by major national media outlets including The New York Times, NPR, and The Washington Post, and I’ve been named a Massachusetts Super Lawyer “Rising Star” every year since 2015. I regularly present to companies, schools, and professional associations about the latest developments in higher education financing, and I’ve published three handbooks to help student loan borrowers manage their debt. I’m also a contributing author to the National Consumer Law Center’s manual, Student Loan Law, as well as various law review articles. I received my undergraduate degree, with honors, in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston University, and my law degree from Northeastern University School of Law.