GERMANY
Scapegoats: Virologists face death threats during coronavirus crisis

Experts were drafted in to advise governments on how to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and have become targets for critics. In Germany the attacks on virologist Christian Drosten have been hotly debated on social media.


Every country has at least one high-profile COVID-19 expert, who has become as recognizable as the country's leader.

And Germany is no exception. Christian Drosten quickly became a household name when he took on the role of the government's go-to expert on COVID-19.

The top virologist of the renowned Charité hospital in Berlin, and was one of the scientists to discover the SARS virus in 2013. Drosten became known to a wide audience through a daily audio podcast from German regional broadcaster NDR "Das Coronavirus-Update," in which he answered questions about COVID-19. The podcast quickly became a huge success with more than 43 million downloads or plays.

But as more people began to deny the COVID-19 threat and began todemonstrate against the lockdown measures, Drosten and other virologists were accused of fearmongering and began to see the darker side to the newfound public attention.

Drosten vs. Bild

Earlier this week, Germany's biggest tabloid Bild accused Drosten of publishing fake figures in a study on COVID-19 in children with the aim of pushing an alleged political agenda.

Together with a research group, Drosten had examined the viral concentration of COVID-19 in the throats of children and adults, and came to the conclusion that contrary to prior estimates, children may be affected by the virus the same as adults. The findings were criticized by some fellow scientists.

But the Bild newspaper claimed that Drosten's study led to the closure of schools and kindergartens across Germany, which opponents to the restrictions saw as a mistake.

What followed was a week-long back and forth about scientific procedures and journalistic ethics. On Twitter, economist Jörg Stoye called the Bild’s coverage an "anti-Drosten campaign."

Drosten compared to Mengele

Doubts over Drosten's advice and the action taken to contain COVID-19 have become louder in recent weeks, both on social media and on the streets, where thousands were turning out to protest lockdown measures, among them far-right extremists and conspiracy theorists.

Earlier in May stickers began appearing on lampposts in Munich comparing Drosten with Joseph Mengele — the infamous Nazi physician who carried out monstrous medical experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz concentration camp. "Trust me, I'm a doctor," read the slogan under the photos.

Drosten and other virologists have been discredited by politicians even from moderate political quarters. Armin Laschet, state premier of Germany's most populous state North Rhine-Westphalia is an opponent of strict lockdown measures. He is seeking to capitalize on the crisis in his bid to become the new chairman of Angela Merkel's CDU. On prime time television he accused virologists of changing their minds every few days.

Read more: Opinion: Germany lacks a clear Coronavirus strategy

'Drink this'

Along with slurs and ridicule and the online trolls came death threats.

On May 26, Social Democrat (SPD) MP and epidemiologist Karl Lauterbach posted a photo on Twitter. It showed a brown parcel addressed to him at the German parliament. Inside, he found a small bottle of liquid labelled "positive." "Drink this - it will make you immune," read the accompanying anonymous note.

Within an hour, virologist Drosten tweeted that he, too, had been sent an identical package.

Then Lauterbach received a second threat: A postcard with a cross, his name and the instruction to take care of his family.

The perpetrators are still unknown.

Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) says it's "working intensively to better identify perpetrators and prevent violence."

"The task at hand, however, is for society as a whole," the BKA told DW in an email. "Education and prevention are important in order to prevent radical ideas from arising in the first place. We need cooperation in which everyone stands for fundamental rights and an open society."

Already in April,in an interview with the UK daily The Guardian, Drosten had spoken of the death threats which he had passed on to police.

"For many Germans, I'm the evil guy who is crippling the economy," he said.

(Don't) shoot the messenger

Drosten's story prompted Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust and a member of the UK's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), to tweet in "solidarity": "Many of us have received such threats.”

Drosten's American counterpart, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's leading infectious disease expert, now has personal protection after also receiving death threats.

While many US voters consider the 79-year-old a voice of reason in the Trump administration, it's Fauci's staunch advocacy of social distancing measures and comments, which are often at odds with those of President Donald Trump, that have made him an object of hate for others. Right-wing radicals claim that Fauci's goal is to stop Trump's re-election in this year's presidential election.

Criticism from Republican senators — eager to revive the flailing US economy — has also lent a hand in giving a voice to the US conservative base which claims Fauci doesn't have the country's best interests in mind.

Strategy: solidarity

Michael Lühmann from the Götting Institute for Democracy research says that it is important that the process logic of science is better understood.

"Debates, arguments, disputes are part of science, and are part of the search for knowledge," he told DW. "Science should always endeavor to translate knowledge in society."

"This doesn't mean that science should automatically provide political guidelines. The deductions are still reserved for social discourse and political translation. All the same, science should not be afraid to make recommendations that can be derived from scientific knowledge."

But if campaigns and attacks are carried out, as in the case of virologists, with the sole aim of discrediting scientists, then they should be rejected and scientists should fight together, Lühmann says.

"In this context, solidarity is not just a word, but also a strategy against such attacks."

VIDEO https://p.dw.com/p/3cxEv
Understanding conspiracy theories

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The Founder of Cosmic Inflation Theory on Cosmology's Next Big Ideas

Physicist Alan Guth, the father of cosmic inflation theory, describes emerging ideas about where our universe comes from, what else is out there, and what caused it to exist in the first place.

This article was produced for Kavli Prize by Scientific American Custom Media, a division separate from the magazine's board of editors.

Credit: Deanne Fitzmaurice/National Geographic Image Collection/Alamy

Our universe began with a bang—a big bang. The explosion stretched the very fabric of spacetime, sending superheated matter in all directions. As it expanded, the matter cooled and started to aggregate, forming atoms, then elements, then stars, galaxies and, ultimately, all we know and see today

For physicist and cosmologist Alan Guth, one big question about the big bang remains: “What was it that banged?”

The answer lies in his theory of cosmic inflation. “It sets up the conditions for the big bang—like a prequel,” says Guth, a professor of physics at MIT. For developing that theory, Guth and two of his colleagues, Andrei Linde at Stanford University and Alexei Starobinsky at the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences near Moscow, were awarded the 2014 Kavli Prize in astrophysics.

According to the theory, for less than a millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the universe's birth, an exotic form of matter exerted a counterintuitive force: gravitational repulsion. Although we normally think of gravity as being attractive (picture Isaac Newton and the falling apple), Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity allows for such a force.

Under the conditions present in the early universe, when temperatures were extraordinarily high, Guth says the existence of this material was reasonably likely. “It only has to be a speck,” he says. “But when that speck starts to inflate, the expansion is exponential.”

Contemplating those fateful events—and what happened next—Guth says, raises some of the most fascinating questions in science: How did our universe begin, where is it going, and what caused it to exist in the first place

“We don’t necessarily expect to answer those questions next year,” he adds. But “anything that makes small steps towards understanding the answers is thrilling.”

Here, Guth addresses some of those mysteries, including where our universe comes from, what else is out there, and how inflation may have spawned primordial black holes, a hypothetical entity that could represent the universe’s long sought-after dark matter.

What was there before inflation started?

That is something I have been thinking about in the context of a paper that I’m writing with Sean Carroll [at Caltech]. The idea is that the universe is actually eternal. It existed at all times, so there is no beginning to explain. The laws of physics themselves don’t seem to make any significant distinction between the future and the past. As the universe evolves, its entropy, or disorder, will grow. What we call the future is simply the direction of higher entropy; a state of lower entropy is what we call the past. But a curious thing happens if you take this initial low entropy state and follow it backwards in time, towards what we previously called the past: the entropy will also start to grow in that direction. I think that the people living [along that arrow of time] would not feel anything different from what we feel. Everybody will think that they’re living from the past towards the future, except what they call the future will be what we call the past.

Illustration by Falconieri Visuals

What can inflation tell us about the forces that hold our universe together?

If the only matter in the galaxies was the matter we see, there would not be nearly enough gravity to hold galaxies together. With them spinning as fast as they are, they would just fly apart—or they would never have formed in the first place. The assumption is that there must be other matter present to create a stronger gravitational field to hold the matter in, even at these high velocities. That’s dark matter.

In collaboration with other physicists and students, I’m calculating the production of primordial black holes in a version of inflation called hybrid inflation. Primordial black holes could conceivably be dark matter. They could also be the seeds that led to the supermassive black holes that we see in the centers of galaxies—black holes that have millions and even billions of solar masses. If we could find primordial black holes, it would be a huge thing.

Is our universe all there is?

The theory of eternal inflation says that once inflation starts, it never completely stops. Rather, it ends in places, and universes form there. We call them pocket universes because they’re not everything that exists. We are living in one of these pocket universes. And even though the pocket universes keep forming, there’s always a volume of exotic repulsive gravity material that can inflate forever, producing an infinite number of these pocket universes in a never-ending procession.

Each individual pocket universe will presumably ultimately die, in the sense that it will run out of energy and cool down. But in the big picture of all the pocket universes, life would not only go on eternally, but there’d be more and more of it every instant.

Are there any drawbacks to living in a multiverse?

The problem with having an infinite multiverse is that if you ask a simple question like, ”If you flip a coin, what’s the probability it will come up heads,“ normally you would say 50 percent. But in the context of the multiverse, the answer is that there’s an infinite number of heads and infinite number of tails. Since there’s no unambiguous way of comparing infinities, there’s no clear way of saying that some types of events are common, and other types of events are rare. That leads to fundamental questions about the meaning of probability. And probability is crucial to physicists because our basic theory is quantum theory, which is based on probabilities, so we had better know what they mean.

Fox News host: Trump’s order against social media is based on ‘an outright lie’

May 28, 2020 By Matthew Chapman



On Fox News Thursday, host Neil Cavuto laid into President Donald Trump for his executive order punishing social media companies for perceived “bias” against him.

“The president is saying that some of their liability protections should be waived when they do things that are not fair, in this case, to some things that he has said on Twitter,” said Cavuto. “What was shocking in those comments, he was open to shutting down Twitter — whatever your opinions, on the left or right, a huge social networking site, the largest on the planet — and that since it was fact-checking him, that’s good enough to crack down and maybe look at shutting down Twitter.”

Trump was only being fact-checked, Cavuto noted, “because he was wrong. He was being policed on that because he said that millions of ‘illegals’ were getting ballots, when that simply was not the case. So this isn’t a left/right issue, that was not the case. That was a wrong fact … some have said it was an outright lie.”

“You can check the fact checkers. They should be scrutinized,” said Cavuto. “But when you’re questioned on that, and they don’t pull your tweets down, that’s another matter.”

JINGOIST ANTI CHINESE, RACISM FROM THE DROOLING LIPS OF AGENT OF OPUS DEI POMPEO

Chinese students ‘shouldn’t be in our schools spying’, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says

‘We’re taking seriously the threat of students who come here who have connections deeply to the Chinese state,’ politician tells Fox News

US needs to act against the ‘tyrannical regime’ of the Chinese Communist Party, and President Trump is ready to take on that challenge, he says

Linda Lew Published: 29 May, 2020

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the US is ready to respond to the problem of Chinese students engaging in espionage in America. Photo: Reuters

US President Donald Trump is preparing to “take on” the problem of Chinese students engaging in espionage in America, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday.

“We’re taking seriously the threat of students who come here who have connections deeply to the Chinese state,” he said in an interview with Fox News.

“They shouldn’t be here in our schools spying.”

Pompeo was responding to questions about a report published by The New York Times on Thursday that the US was planning to revoke the visas of Chinese students and researchers who have direct links to Chinese universities affiliated to the country’s military.

While he declined to elaborate, Pompeo said Trump would hold a press conference on Friday at which it was likely he would make an announcement on the issue.

“We know we have this challenge,” he said. “President Trump, I am confident, is going to take that on.”

He dismissed suggestions that targeting Chinese students and academics might be seen as racist, but said the US needed to act against the “tyrannical regime” of the Chinese Communist Party, likening the situation to the tense relationship the US had with the former Soviet Union during the Cold War.

At a press conference on Friday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian also referred to a Cold War mentality, accusing the Trump administration of racism and the “political repression” of Chinese students.

Pompeo dismissed suggestions that targeting Chinese students and academics might be seen as racist. Photo: Xinhua

Pompeo’s comments came after a group of three US lawmakers on Wednesday proposed a bill that would effectively bar students from the Chinese mainland from receiving visas to study STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects in America. The restriction would not apply to students from Taiwan and Hong Kong.

“The Chinese Communist Party has long used American universities to conduct espionage on the United States,” said Republican Senator Tom Cotton, one of the sponsors of the bill and a known critic of Beijing.

“What’s worse is that their efforts exploit gaps in current law. It’s time for that to end,” he said. “The Secure Campus Act will protect our national security and maintain the integrity of the American research enterprise.”

The proposed restrictions on Chinese students come amid a spiralling political spat between Washington and Beijing.

Earlier this month, the US imposed 90-day visa limits on mainland Chinese journalists working in America for non-US outlets, while in March, China revoked the press credentials for American journalists from three major US newspapers and declared five US media outlets to be foreign government functionaries.

Both sides’ moves have been criticised for threatening press freedom at a time when objective and independent coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic is critical.

“Beijing has barred Chinese citizens from working for foreign news outlets in China for decades,” Mia Li, a former reporter with the Beijing bureau of The New York Times, said in an article published by Chinese Storytellers, an online newsletter by non-fiction writers.

It was a “deliberate effort to keep the Western press from gaining meaningful access”, she said.

It is astonishing to see the US helping Beijing achieve that very goal while undermining its own values and soft power,” said Li, who is now a research scholar at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Centre.

Additional reporting by Catherine Wong

Crash course in saving the Earth: Chinese simulation stops asteroid strike without using nukes

Computer model shows how potentially hazardous asteroids can be knocked off course and out of harm’s way using an ‘enhanced kinetic impactor’ spacecraft

Nasa advocates the use of nuclear weapons to neutralise such threats, but the option is not without controversy

Stephen Chen in Beijing Published: 29 May, 2020

In the computer simulation, EKI’s mission to save the Earth takes just under four years. Photo: Handout

Chinese scientists have come up with an ingenious alternative to nuclear obliteration for neutralising the threat of potentially Earth-shattering asteroids – staging a cosmic collision to knock the offending rocky mass off course.

Ever since discovering that a 10km-diameter asteroid was most likely to blame for the
extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, the world’s scientific community has been looking for ways to ensure the human race does not suffer the same fate.

While Nasa has long advocated the use of nuclear weapons to neutralise the threat of so-called potentially hazardous asteroids, detonating a warhead in space is not without its problems or controversy.

The alternative, according to a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is to send an unmanned spacecraft out to meet the incoming threat and deflect it out of harm’s way.

However, to have sufficient heft to do that, the spacecraft must first bulk up, which it does by collecting rocks from a near-Earth asteroid en route.

An artist’s impression shows how EKI gathers weight and makes a beeline for the incoming asteroid. Photo: Handout

The team successfully tested their theory using a computer simulation, the results of which were published in a recent edition of the peer-reviewed online journal Scientific Reports.

In the imagined mission, an eight-tonne spacecraft – known as an enhanced kinetic impactor (EKI) – is launched into space on October 7, 2021 aboard a
Long March 5 rocket. More than two years later, EKI rendezvouses with the near-Earth asteroid “2017 HF”, and using a robotic arm relieves it of about 200 tonnes of its rocky mass.

With the extra weight on board, EKI sets its sights on Apophis – a real asteroid with a diameter of about 370 metres that is considered one of the most potentially hazardous to human life – and on September 23, 2025 slams into it a relative speed of more than 42,000km/h (26,000mph).

The force of the collision is enough to push Apophis more than 1,800km off course – which in the simulation would have ended with a direct hit on Planet Earth – and the world is saved.

Li Mingtao, the paper’s lead author, said the team wanted to find an alternative to “controversial nuclear explosions” and came up with the EKI concept after being inspired by the Asteroid Redirect Mission launched by former US president Barack Obama in 2015, but cancelled two years later by Donald Trump.

A Beijing-based space scientist who was not involved in the simulation and asked not to be named praised the EKI project for its “smart strategy of turning one asteroid against another”.

Not even the world’s most powerful rocket could send a 200-tonne spacecraft into deep space, he said, adding that the EKI and nuclear options were as different as tai chi and boxing.

“It [EKI] is more about trapping, slipping and deflecting the attack than throwing punches,” he said.

However, despite the mission’s simulated success, the actual technology needed to grab and secure rocks of up to 10 metres across from a passing asteroid had yet to be tested in the real world, he said.

Professor Wu Yunzhao, a researcher in the laboratory of planetary sciences at the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing, said that while China was ready to play a key role in dealing with global threats like asteroid strikes, the issue demanded international cooperation.

“The threat of an asteroid impact is real and serious, and preventing it requires long-term planning and preparation,” he said.

“It also needs global cooperation because no country has the ability and resources to do it alone.”


Stephen Chen investigates major research projects in China, a new power house of scientific and technological innovation. He has worked for the Post since 2006. He is an alumnus of Shantou University, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Semester at Sea programme which he attended with a full scholarship from the Seawise Foundation.

Scientists increase their presence on social media to counter conspiracy theories and fake news, and make complexities simple

A Dutch microbiologist tweeted a one-sentence summary of an antiviral drugs study hours after its release. Her tweet sparked a wide-ranging debate online

A Swiss-based researcher gives daily explanations on scientific research and says ‘dismantling nonsense takes 10 times more energy than spreading it’

Agence France-Presse Published 29 May, 2020

Scientists, academics and institutes aren’t just fighting the coronavirus – they’re fighting misinformation, too. Photo: AFP




With cat photos and sometimes scathing irony, Mathieu Rebeaud – a Swiss-based researcher in biochemistry – has nearly tripled his Twitter following since the coronavirus pandemic began.

Rebeaud, who now has more than 14,000 followers, posts almost daily explanations of the latest scientific research on the virus. In particular, he aims to fight misinformation that spreads as fast as the virus itself.
He is among a growing number of doctors, academics and institutions who in recent weeks have adapted their scientific messaging in hopes of countering what has been termed
an infodemic – a deluge of information, including widespread false claims, which experts say can pose a serious threat to public health.


To cut through the noise, however, it is vital to work quickly and maximise social media engagement to get simple prevention messages across to the public, according to researchers and specialists.

Mathieu Rebeaud is a Swiss-based researcher in biochemistry on Twitter. Photo: Mathieu M.J.E. Rebeaud @Damkyan_Omega
“In the case of the Covid-19 pandemic, conspiracy theories provide complete, simple, seemingly rationalistic and watertight explanations,” Kinga Polynczuk-Alenius, a University of Helsinki researcher, said.

“This is in stark contrast to the available scientific knowledge – complex, fragmented, changeable and contested – and to the actions of political decision-makers and state authorities, which appear haphazard and self-contradictory,” she added.

In February, British medical journal The Lancet warned that “the rapid dissemination of trustworthy information” was needed most during a period of uncertainty. This includes transparent identification of cases, data sharing and unhampered communication, as well as peer-reviewed research, it said.

Rigorous and time-heavy scientific studies and publications, however, compete with the immediacy of social media and a public often demanding firm, definitive answers.

“How do we communicate in this context of radical uncertainty?” asked Mikael Chambru, a scientific communication specialist at France’s University of Grenoble Alpes.

Kinga Polynczuk-Alenius is a University of Helsinki researcher.

Jean-Francois Chambon, a doctor and director of communications at the Pasteur Institute in Paris in France, said he had no choice but to forcefully deny a widely shared video in March accusing the institution of having “created” the new coronavirus.

“We must go to any lengths” to debunk the lies, he said. The institute created a web page dedicated to educating the public about the virus, he said. “We realised that there was a lot of ‘fake news’ on the subject.”

The Pasteur Institute currently has a combined 16,000 new subscribers a month on its social media networks, he said, compared with 4,000 before the pandemic.

Jean-Francois Chambon is a doctor and director of communications at the Pasteur Institute in Paris in France.

Jean-Gabriel Ganascia, chairman of the ethics committee at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research, agreed that the scientific community must counter-attack in such situations. “We don’t have a choice.”

Earlier this month, humanitarian organisation the Red Cross launched what it said was the first global network of social media influencers to battle misinformation and spread life-saving content about the pandemic.

The World Health Organisation, meanwhile, has entered into an agreement with Facebook to send information directly to users through personal message services.

Jean-Gabriel Ganascia is chairman of the ethics committee at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research.

But it is often individual doctors and researchers who can have a strong influence online.
Dutch microbiologist Elisabeth Bik tweeted a one-sentence summary of
a vast study on the effects of antiviral drugs chloroquine and
hydroxychloroquine last week, just hours after its release.

Her tweet – “Each drug combination was associated with *lower* survival and more ventricular arrhythmias.” – sparked a lively and wide-ranging debate online.


Scientists involved in the debate want to forge a “culture of science” among the public to help them understand what they hear and read, Chambru said.

Rather than simply imposing the view of a leading authority without any explanation, they aim to help people understand how science works – including the need for studies to abide by rules and standards, he added.

“The position of authority would be extremely unpopular with the public,” Ganascia agreed.

Elisabeth Bik is a Dutch microbiologist.

Rebeaud, the biochemistry researcher popular on Twitter, said he was much less present on social media before the pandemic but had felt drawn to defend science.

The battle feels unbalanced, said the researcher, who works at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.

“Dismantling nonsense takes 10 times more energy than spreading it,” he said, agreeing with the findings of a 2018 study by the magazine Science which noted that “lies spread faster than the truth”.

Some scientists have called for a review of science education so that the public is less permeable to false information.

Information campaigns “cannot be perceived as an exclusive antidote to fight fake news”, Italian communications researcher Mafalda Sandrini said.

BEHAVIOR & SOCIETY
Why Trump’s Popularity Surge Faded So Quickly

The phenomenon demonstrates the rise and fall of dominant leaders in turbulent times

By Hemant Kakkar on May 27, 2020 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

President Donald Trump leaves after a news conference in the White House in Washington, D.C., on Friday, April 24, 2020. Trump has been determined to talk his way through the coronavirus crisis, but his frequent misstatements at his daily news conferences have caused a litany of public health and political headaches for the White House. Credit: Chris Kleponis Getty Images

Something peculiar has been happening with President Donald Trump’s popularity. In the early stages of his response to the coronavirus pandemic, Trump’s approval rating soared, reaching a pinnacle not too long after he declared a national emergency. He had never been more popular among Americans, not even when he won the presidential election of 2016. This comports with a phenomenon documented by political scientist John Mueller in a 1970 paper and colloquially described as the rally round the flag effect: during times of crises, leaders enjoy greater popularity and support even among constituencies that were ambivalent or unsupportive in the past. The theory helps explain the increased popularity of leaders around the world during this pandemic.

But since then, Trump has seen a consistent decline in his approval ratings, down to precoronavirus levels. Why did his popularity slump as swiftly as it surged?

A social psychological theory of status suggests an answer. According to this theory, a leader’s status can be based either on dominance or prestige. Leaders associated with dominance are assertive, controlling in getting their point across, and willing to be coercive and aggressive if necessary. Those identified with prestige are helpful and humble. They get their point across by sharing knowledge and letting others see the wisdom in their methods and expertise. The theory says a leader can win followers by dealing in the currency of either control or mutual respect.
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Research has shown that during crises or periods of uncertainty, dominant leaders—such as Trump, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi or Chinese president Xi Jinping—command greater support than those associated with prestige. This advantage is based on their perceived ability to take the kind of quick and aggressive action that crises often call for. In research with a sample of more than 140,000 participants across 69 countries, I and my colleagues found that the comparative appeal of dominant leaders is driven largely by a need for control that people feel in uncertain situations: dominant leaders offer followers a vicarious sense of control.

But dominance does not always serve a leader—even in a crisis. In follow-up work, we investigated the maxim “the higher you are, the harder you fall”—the popular idea that high-status leaders suffer greater ignominy and censure after alleged revelations of misconduct. Across a series of archival and laboratory studies, we showed this maxim to be only partially true. We found that the falls of high-status dominant leaders were “harder” than those of leaders associated with prestige. Dominant leaders’ misconduct was considered deliberate and intended to benefit themselves, while prestige-based leaders were much more likely to be given the benefit of the doubt. As a result, dominant leaders were condemned more harshly.

The gradual decline in the Trump’s approval rating started after a number of controversial statements, including but not limited to advocating for an unproved drug, suggesting the value of taking a disinfectant shot and neglecting experts opinions. All these incidents might have been fine and could have been attributed to the president not being a medical expert. His constant celebration of the stock market, tweeting of his increasing approval rating and statements inciting the public to disregard shelter-in-place orders in the midst of a pandemic in which tens of thousands of Americans have died, however, made it hard to deny that his actions seem to be driven more by self-interest—specifically, his desire to get reelected—than by a leader’s sense of responsibility for keeping citizens safe and informed. The blatant promotion of self-interest appears to be a key factor behind the decline in Trump’s popularity when other leaders in the world are continuing to enjoy healthy boosts in popularity.

In response to setbacks, a go-to strategy for dominant leaders is to blame an external party for the current troubles so that the people can rally around a common enemy. This has been a successful plan for many such dominant leaders, including Modi, Russian president Vladimir Putin—and Trump. He very effectively used the strategy in the 2016 election when, as an outsider to politics, he blamed the current establishment and immigrants to buffer his support among U.S. voters. It’s not a surprise, then, that Trump has increasingly targeted China as the cause of the current crisis. This strategy may not be adequate this time, however, not only because China can destabilize trade negotiations—worsening the U.S. economy even further—but also because the health and economic crises have been prolonged. And how well the president is believed to have dealt with them is likely to be a crucial factor in the election.

To that end, it is important for any dominant leader to demonstrate empathy, humility and, most importantly, that his or her actions have been governed by the need of the hour—to help others rather than to promote his or her own cause. Our findings show that people are willing to pardon the negative actions of even a dominant leader if she or he comes across as caring and empathetic—demonstrated attributes of a prestige-based leader. Modi and Xi, despite harboring classic authoritarian leader traits, have done exactly that. In their messages to their people, they have shown compassion and sympathy and thus have seen a stable rise in popularity since the crisis began. If Trump can look past his narcissistic tendencies, he might be able to win back some lost ground. But based on the evidence of his actions over the past four years, that reaction seems quite improbable.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Hemant Kakkar is an assistant professor of management at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. In his research, he draws on social psychological and evolutionary theories of status to examine judgments and behaviors of individuals and groups within social hierarchies.

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Car rampage through Colorado protesters compared to Charlottesville attack that killed Heather Heyer

Published May 28, 2020 By Matthew Chapman


On Thursday, at a protest in Denver, Colorado against the police killing of George Floyd, the driver of a black SUV tried to run down one of the demonstrators, in an incident captured on video.

Nobody appears to have been killed. However, horrified commenters on social media compared the incident to the vehicle-ramming attack in Charlottesville, where a neo-Nazi drove a car into a crowd and killed counterprotester Heather Heyer.

Arrest this driver. Attempted murder. This is how Heather Heyer died. https://t.co/pxGmEFDZkC
— Kristina Beverlin (@krisbeverlin) May 29, 2020

In response to Heather Heyer’s murder in Charlottesville, six states introduced bills to legalize running vehicles into protesters https://t.co/dAJslrCa0c
— elle hardy (@ellehardy) May 29, 2020

This was almost another Heather Heyer and people in the comments are defending the driver, something is really broken with these people
— ItsAlanzo (@ItsAlanzo) May 29, 2020

This isn't bumper cars. What happened in that vid has only slight difference from a right winger murdering Heather Heyer.
— enemy (@kennethkorri) May 29, 2020

everyone also seems to have forgotten about Charlottesville and Heather Heyer, also v cool
— christina (@rebelhoser) May 29, 2020

US police officer accused of killing George Floyd involved in three shootings, received 17 complaints

Derek Chauvin was fired after video showed him kneeling on neck of black man, who said he could not breathe, for almost eight minutes

Policeman was among group of officers who fatally shot stabbing suspect in 2006; 16 complaints against him were closed with no discipline


Associated Press  29 May, 2020


This image taken from a video shows one of the Minneapolis police officers arresting George Floyd before he died. Photo: AFP
A white Minneapolis police officer accused of killing a black suspect by kneeling on his neck is a 19-year veteran of the force with a service record that includes three shooting incidents, one of them fatal, and nearly 20 complaints.

Derek Chauvin, 44, became the focus of angry street protests and a federal investigation after he was seen in cellphone video kneeling on the neck of 46-year-old George Floyd for almost eight minutes Monday night during his arrest on a suspicion of passing a counterfeit bill charge.

Floyd, who was heard complaining that he could not breathe, was pronounced dead later that night.

Minneapolis City Council records show that Chauvin moonlighted as a bouncer at a downtown Latin nightclub. He was among a group of six officers who opened fire on a stabbing suspect in 2006 after a chase that ended when the suspect pointed a sawed-off shotgun at them.

The suspect, Wayne Reyes, was hit multiple times and died. A grand jury decided the use of force was justified.

Two years later, Chauvin shot Ira Latrell Toles as he was responding to a domestic dispute.

According to a St Paul Pioneer Press account of the incident, a 911 operator received a call from an apartment and heard a woman yelling for someone to stop hitting her. Chauvin and another officer arrived just as Toles locked himself in the bathroom.

Chauvin forced his way into the bathroom. Toles went for Chauvin’s gun and Chauvin shot him twice in the stomach. Toles survived and was charged with two counts of obstruction.

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Chauvin was also among a group of five officers in 2011 who chased down Leroy Martinez in a housing complex after they spotted him running with a pistol.

One of the officers, Terry Nutter, shot Martinez in the torso. Martinez survived. All the officers were placed on leave but absolved of any wrongdoing, with Police Chief Timothy Dolan saying they acted “appropriately and courageously”.

Online city records also show that 17 complaints have been filed against Chauvin, who was fired on Tuesday along with the three other officers who were involved in Floyd’s arrest. Sixteen complaints were closed with no discipline. The remaining complaint generated two letters of reprimand. The records do not include any details on the substance of the complaints.

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A much different side of the officer was portrayed in a 2018 newspaper profile of his wife, Kellie, a Laotian refugee who was seeking to become the first Hmong Mrs Minnesota. She told the Pioneer Press that they met when he dropped off a suspect at a Minneapolis hospital where she worked.

“Under that uniform, he’s just a softie,” she said. “He’s such a gentleman. He still opens the door for me, still puts my coat on for me. After my divorce, I had a list of must-haves if I were ever to be in a relationship, and he fit all of them.”

A demonstrator holds a sign in front of police officers outside the Oakdale home of fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on Wednesday. Photo: Star Tribune via AP

Less is known about the other three officers involved in Floyd’s arrest.

Online court records indicate that the officer who stood guard at the scene, Tou Thao, was sued in federal court in 2017 for alleged excessive force. According to the lawsuit, Lamar Ferguson claimed Thao and his partner stopped him as he was walking to his girlfriend’s house in 2014 for no reason and beat him up.

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The city ultimately settled the lawsuit for US$25,000.

City records show six complaints have been filed against Thao. Five were closed with no discipline. One remains open. The records did not include any further details.

Thomas Lane joined the force as a cadet in March 2019, according to online city records. No information about J. Alexander Kueng’s service history was immediately available. City records show no complaints against either of them.

Lawyers for Chauvin, Thao and Kueng did not return messages. Lane’s lawyer, Earl Gray, declined to comment.

ALL FOUR OFFICERS INVOLVED HAVE CLAIMED THE FIFTH











Officer accused in Floyd’s death opened fire on 2 people
By TODD RICHMOND




1 of 8  https://apnews.com/a69682cfc7dd6f99260315b5a68fe6ec
Protesters face off with police at the Minneapolis Police Third Precinctt, Thursday, May 28, 2020, after a night of rioting as protests continue over the arrest of George Floyd who died in police custody Monday night in Minneapolis after video shared online by a bystander showed a white officer kneeling on his neck during his arrest as he pleaded that he couldn't breathe. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

A white Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck opened fire on two people during his 19-year career and had nearly 20 complaints and two letters of reprimand filed against him.

Derek Chauvin, 44, became the focus of street protests and a federal investigation after he was seen in cellphone video kneeling on the neck of Floyd, a 46-year-old a black man, for almost eight minutes Monday night during his arrest on a suspicion of passing a counterfeit bill. Floyd, who was handcuffed and heard saying he couldn’t breathe, was pronounced dead later that night.

Chauvin, whose driveway was splattered with red paint and the graffiti “murderer,” has not spoken publicly since Floyd’s death and his attorney did not respond to calls seeking comment. He and the other three officers involved in Floyd’s arrest were fired Tuesday.

Minneapolis City Council records show that Chauvin moonlighted as a bouncer at a downtown Latin nightclub. A former owner of the club told KSTP-TV on Thursday that Floyd also worked security for the club up to the end of last year. But Maya Santamaria, who the station reported owned the El Nuevo Rodeo Club for nearly two decades before selling the venue this year, said she didn’t know if the men knew each other because the club often had a couple dozen security guards at a time.





In 2006, Chauvin was among a group of six officers who opened fire on a stabbing suspect after a chase that ended when the suspect pointed a sawed-off shotgun at them. The suspect, Wayne Reyes, was hit multiple times and died. A grand jury decided the use of force was justified.

Two years later, Chauvin shot Ira Latrell Toles as he was responding to a domestic dispute.

According to a Pioneer Press account of the incident, a 911 operator received a call from an apartment and heard a woman yelling for someone to stop hitting her. Chauvin and another officer arrived just as Toles locked himself in the bathroom. Chauvin forced his way into the bathroom. Toles went for Chauvin’s gun and Chauvin shot him twice in the stomach. Toles survived and was charged with two counts of felony obstruction.

Toles told the Daily Beast that the mother of his child called police that night and he fled into the bathroom after officers broke down the apartment door. Chauvin then broke down the bathroom door and started to hit him without warning. He said he fought back in self-defense and was too disoriented to go for Chauvin’s gun.

Toles said he ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and still feels pain from the shooting.

“He tried to kill me in that bathroom,” Toles said.

Online city records also show that 17 complaints have been filed against Chauvin. Sixteen complaints were closed with no discipline. The remaining complaint generated two letters of reprimand, with one apparently related to the use of a squad car dashboard camera. The records don’t include any details on the substance of the complaints.

Chauvin also was among a group of five officers in 2011 who chased down a man named Leroy Martinez in a housing complex after they spotted him running with a pistol. One of the officers, Terry Nutter, shot Martinez in the torso. Martinez survived. All the officers were placed on leave but absolved of any wrongdoing, with Police Chief Timothy Dolan saying they acted “appropriately and courageously.”


Less is known about the other three officers involved in Floyd’s arrest.

Online court records indicate that the officer who stood guard at the scene, Tou Thao, was sued in federal court in 2017 for alleged excessive force. According to the lawsuit, Lamar Ferguson claimed Thao and his partner stopped him as he was walking to his girlfriend’s house in 2014 for no reason and beat him up. The city ultimately settled the lawsuit for $25,000.

City records show six complaints have been filed against Thao. Five were closed with no discipline. One remains open. The records didn’t include any further details.

Thomas Lane joined the force as a cadet in March 2019, according to online city records. No information about J. Alexander Kueng’s service history was immediately available. City records show no complaints against either of them. Attorneys for Thao and Kueng didn’t return messages. Lane’s attorney, Earl Gray, declined comment.

___

Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report from New York.

George Floyd protesters set Minneapolis police station afire 
40 PHOTOS

By TIM SULLIVAN and AMY FORLITI

1 of 40
A protester gestures in front of the burning 3rd Precinct building of the Minneapolis Police Department on Thursday, May 28, 2020, in Minneapolis. Protests over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody Monday, broke out in Minneapolis for a third straight night. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)


MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Cheering protesters torched a Minneapolis police station Thursday that the department was forced to abandon as three days of violent protests spread to nearby St. Paul and angry demonstrations flared across the U.S over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who pleaded for air as a white police officer kneeled on his neck.

A police spokesman confirmed late Thursday that staff had evacuated the 3rd Precinct station, the focus of many of the protests, “in the interest of the safety of our personnel” shortly after 10 p.m. Livestream video showed the protesters entering the building, where fire alarms blared and sprinklers ran as blazes were set.

Protesters could be seen setting fire to a Minneapolis Police Department jacket and cheering.




Late Thursday, President Donald Trump blasted the “total lack of leadership” in Minneapolis. “Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” he said on Twitter.

Protests first erupted Tuesday, a day after Floyd’s death in a confrontation with police captured on widely seen citizen video. On the video, Floyd can be seen pleading as Officer Derek Chauvin presses his knee against him. As minutes pass, Floyd slowly stops talking and moving. The 3rd Precinct covers the portion of south Minneapolis where Floyd was arrested.




Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz earlier Thursday activated the National Guard at the Minneapolis mayor’s request, but it wasn’t immediately clear when and where the Guard was being deployed, and none could be seen during protests in Minneapolis or St. Paul. The Guard tweeted minutes after the precinct burned that it had activated more than 500 soldiers across the metro area.

The Guard said a “key objective” was to make sure fire departments could respond to calls, and said in a follow-up tweet it was “here with the Minneapolis Fire Department” to assist. But no move was made to put out the 3rd Precinct fire. Assistant Fire Chief Bryan Tyner said fire crews could not safely respond to fires at the precinct station and some surrounding buildings.

Earlier Thursday, dozens of businesses across the Twin Cities boarded up their windows and doors in an effort to prevent looting, with Minneapolis-based Target announcing it was temporarily closing two dozen area stores. Minneapolis shut down nearly its entire light-rail system and all bus service through Sunday out of safety concerns.

In St. Paul, clouds of smoke hung in the air as police armed with batons and wearing gas masks and body armor kept a watchful eye on protesters along one of the city’s main commercial corridors, where firefighters also sprayed water onto a series of small fires. At one point, officers stood in line in front of a Target, trying to keep out looters, who were also smashing windows of other businesses.

Hundreds of demonstrators returned Thursday to the Minneapolis neighborhood at the center of the violence, where the nighttime scene veered between an angry protest and a street party. At one point, a band playing in a parking lot across from the 3rd Precinct broke into a punk version of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.” Nearby, demonstrators carried clothing mannequins from a looted Target and threw them onto a burning car. Later, a building fire erupted nearby.

But elsewhere in Minneapolis, thousands of peaceful demonstrators marched through the streets calling for justice.

Floyd’s death has deeply shaken Minneapolis and sparked protests in cities across the U.S. Local leaders have repeatedly urged demonstrators to avoid violence.

“Please stay home. Please do not come here to protest. Please keep the focus on George Floyd, on advancing our movement and on preventing this from ever happening again,” tweeted St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, who is black.



Erika Atson, 20, was among thousands of people who gathered outside government offices in downtown Minneapolis, where organizers had called a peaceful protest. Many protesters wore masks because of the coronavirus pandemic, but there were few attempts at social distancing.

Atson, who is black, described seeing her 14- and 11-year-old brothers tackled by Minneapolis police years ago because officers mistakenly presumed the boys had guns. She said she had been at “every single protest” since Floyd’s death and worried about raising children who could be vulnerable in police encounters.

“We don’t want to be here fighting against anyone. We don’t want anyone to be hurt. We don’t want to cause any damages,” she said. “We just want the police officer to be held accountable.”

The group marched peacefully for three hours before another confrontation with police broke out, though details were scarce.

After calling in the Guard, Walz urged widespread changes in the wake of Floyd’s death.

“It is time to rebuild. Rebuild the city, rebuild our justice system and rebuild the relationship between law enforcement and those they’re charged to protect,” Walz said.




Much of the Minneapolis violence occurred in the Longfellow neighborhood, where protesters converged on the precinct station of the police who arrested Floyd. In a strip mall across the street from the 3rd Precinct station, the windows in nearly every business had been smashed, from the large Target department store at one end to the Planet Fitness gym at the other. Only the 24-hour laundromat appeared to have escaped unscathed.

“WHY US?” demanded a large expanse of red graffiti scrawled on the wall of the Target. A Wendy’s restaurant across the street was charred almost beyond recognition.

Among the casualties of the overnight fires: a six-story building under construction that was to provide nearly 200 apartments of affordable housing.

“We’re burning our own neighborhood,” said a distraught Deona Brown, a 24-year-old woman standing with a friend outside the precinct station, where a small group of protesters were shouting at a dozen or so stone-faced police officers in riot gear. “This is where we live, where we shop, and they destroyed it.” No officers could be seen beyond the station.

“What that cop did was wrong, but I’m scared now,” Brown said.

Others in the crowd saw something different in the wreckage.

Protesters destroyed property “because the system is broken,” said a young man who identified himself only by his nickname, Cash, and who said he had been in the streets during the violence. He dismissed the idea that the destruction would hurt residents of the largely black neighborhood.

“They’re making money off of us,” he said angrily of the owners of the destroyed stores. He laughed when asked if he had joined in the looting or violence. “I didn’t break anything.”

The protests that began Wednesday night and extended into Thursday were more violent than Tuesday’s, which included skirmishes between offices and protesters but no widespread property damage.

Mayor Jacob Frey appealed for calm but the city’s response to the protests was quickly questioned as things started spiraling into violence. “If the strategy was to keep residents safe — it failed,” City Council Member Jeremiah Ellison, who is black, tweeted. “Prevent property damage — it failed.” On Thursday, he urged police to leave the scene of the overnight violence, saying their presence brings people into the streets.

Protests have also spread to other U.S. cities. In New York City, protesters defied New York’s coronavirus prohibition on public gatherings Thursday, clashing with police, while demonstrators blocked traffic in downtown Denver. A day earlier, demonstrators had taken to the streets in Los Angeles and Memphis.

In Louisville, Kentucky, police confirmed that at least seven people had been shot Thursday night as protesters demanded justice for Breonna Taylor, a black woman who was fatally shot by police in her home in March.

Amid the violence in Minneapolis, a man was found fatally shot Wednesday night near a pawn shop, possibly by the owner, authorities said.

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Fire crews responded to about 30 intentionally set blazes, and multiple fire trucks were damaged by rocks and other projectiles, the fire department said. No one was hurt by the blazes.

The city on Thursday released a transcript of the 911 call that brought police to the grocery store where Floyd was arrested. The caller described someone paying with a counterfeit bill, with workers rushing outside to find the man sitting on a van. The caller described the man as “awfully drunk and he’s not in control of himself.” Asked by the 911 operator whether the man was “under the influence of something,” the caller said: “Something like that, yes. He is not acting right.” Police said Floyd matched the caller’s description of the suspect.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI in Minneapolis said Thursday they were conducting “a robust criminal investigation” into the death. President Donald Trump has said he had asked an investigation to be expedited.

The FBI is also investigating whether Floyd’s civil rights were violated.

Chauvin, the officer who kneeled on Floyd’s neck, was fired Tuesday with three other officers involved in the arrest. The next day, the mayor called for Chauvin to be criminally charged. He also appealed for the activation of the National Guard.

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Associated Press writers Steve Karnowski, Jeff Baenen and Doug Glass in Minneapolis, and Gretchen Ehlke in Milwaukee contributed to this report.