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AP Exclusive: Docs show top WH officials buried CDC report

The decision to shelve detailed advice from the nation’s top disease control experts for reopening communities during the coronavirus pandemic came from the highest levels of the White House, according to internal government emails obtained by The Associated Press. The files also show that after the AP reported Thursday that the guidance document had been buried, the Trump administration ordered key parts of it to be fast-tracked for approval. It included detailed “decision trees,” or flow charts aimed at helping local leaders navigate the difficult decision of whether to reopen or remain closed.





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No charges for family of boy who drove car onto highway

The family of a 5-year-old boy who drove the family car onto a Utah highway won't face criminal charges, authorities said Friday. Adrian Zamarripa was pulled over Monday by a Utah Highway Patrol trooper who spotted the SUV swerving on Interstate 15 in Ogden at 32 mph. He thought the driver might need medical attention.





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Germany sees increased risk of hard Brexit if Britain refuses to extend deadline




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Hard Brexit more likely because of coronavirus and lack of progress in talks, says German foreign minister

A hard Brexit is more likely due to the coronavirus crisis because Britain and the European Union have made so little progress in talks, Germany's foreign minister has said. Heiko Maas said that negotiations between Britain and the EU so far on the future trade relationship had yielded few gains with the UK disregarding the political declaration, which he said was "simply not on". Britain left the EU in January, and talks with the bloc are now focused on setting new trading terms from 2021, when London's status-quo transition period ends. However, the talks quickly hit an impasse when negotiations resumed last month, according to diplomats and officials. "It's worrying that Britain is moving further away from our jointly agreed political declaration on key issues in the negotiations," Mr Maas told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper. "It's simply not on, because the negotiations are a complete package as it's laid out in the political declaration." Mr Maas said there was currently neither common ground on how to shape a comprehensive trade deal or on whether to extend the negotiation period beyond the end of the year. "The British government is still refusing to extend the deadline," Mr Maas said. "If it stays that way, we will have to deal with Brexit in addition to the coronavirus at the turn of the year." Simon Coveney, Ireland's foreign minister, said on Friday that the coronavirus pandemic had made an already difficult timeline for a British-European Union trade deal "virtually impossible" and that it would make sense to seek more time.





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Feeling your pain? Virus reaches into the lives of Congress

The beat against Congress has always been that its members are out of touch with average Americans. The result is a wide and deep imprint on the same Congress charged with helping a traumatized nation. “Everyone by now knows someone that had it," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., whose husband, John Bessler, recovered from a frightening coronavirus infection that sent him to the hospital.





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Georgia man's death raises echoes of US racial terror legacy

Many people saw more than the last moments of Ahmaud Arbery's life when a video emerged this week of white men armed with guns confronting the black man, a struggle with punches thrown, three shots fired and Arbery collapsing dead. The Feb. 23 shooting in coastal Georgia is drawing comparisons to a much darker period of U.S. history — when extrajudicial killings of black people, almost exclusively at the hands of white male vigilantes, inflicted racial terror on African Americans. It frequently happened with law enforcement complicity or feigned ignorance.





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US governors aim to boost production of medical supplies

Frustrated by scarce supplies and a chaotic marketplace amid the coronavirus outbreak, some U.S. governors are seeking to bolster their home-state production of vital medical and protective equipment to ensure a reliable long-term source for state stockpiles. The efforts come as states have been competing against each other, the federal government, hospitals, emergency responders and even other countries to get items such as N95 masks, gloves, medical gowns and hand sanitizer — often paying higher-than-usual prices because of the high demand. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. got much of its medical supplies from China.





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Lawns are the new wedding venue in the age of coronavirus

Couples with dashed wedding plans due to lockdown restrictions have been tying the knot on those tidy green spreads instead, including at least one loaner. Danielle Cartaxo and Ryan Cignarella were supposed to get married in West Orange, New Jersey, on April 11 at a venue with sweeping views of the New York City skyline. The two live in Wayne, Pennsylvania, about 100 miles away, but they had a marriage license issued in West Orange, where Cartaxo lived until she was 5.





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Union Garment Workers Fear 'an Opportunity to Get Rid of Us'

Myan Mode, a garment factory on the outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar, produces men's jackets, women's blazers and coats for Western fashion companies like Mango and Zara. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, it has seen a decrease in orders from international retailers.That was why it let go almost half of its 1,274 workers in late March, the factory's managing director said in response to protesters who arrived at the factory's doors to denounce the dismissals.Three fired sewing operators, however, said the factory was taking an opportunity to punish workers engaged in union activity. In an interview, the operators -- Maung Moe, Ye Yint and Ohnmar Myint -- said that of the 571 who had been dismissed, 520 had belonged to the factory's union, one of 20 that make up the Federation of Garment Workers Myanmar. About 700 workers who did not belong to the union kept their jobs, they said.Myan Mode's South Korean-based owner did not respond to requests for comment, and did not provide details about the firings.Moe, 27, was the factory union's president and had organized several strikes. Yint, 30, was the union's secretary, while Myint, 34, had been a union member since its founding in June 2018."The bosses used COVID as an opportunity to get rid of us because they hated our union," Moe said. He said he and other union members had been in discussions with the factory managers before the firings, demanding personal protective equipment and that workers be farther apart on the factory floor. "They thought we caused them constant headaches by fighting for our rights and those of our fellow workers."Union-busting -- practices undertaken to prevent or disrupt the formation of trade unions or attempts to expand membership -- has been a serious problem across the fashion supply chain for decades. But with the global spread of COVID-19 placing fresh pressures on the industry, it is a particular issue in South Asia, where about 40 million garment workers have long grappled with poor working conditions and wages."Union-busting is not a COVID-specific issue for the garment industry -- it happens all the time," said Luke Smitham of the sustainability consultancy Kumi Consulting.Zara's parent company, Inditex, which is supplied by Myan Mode, said its code of conduct for manufacturers expressly prohibited any discrimination against worker representatives. The company said in an email that it was "actively following the situation" at Myan Mode, and would "try to achieve the best possible solution for workers."Mango, which has started to reopen its stores in Europe, said in an emailed statement that it "understood the need to ensure that the human rights of factory workers are respected." The company added that it was maintaining "a continuous" dialogue with suppliers.Roughly 2% of garment workers in Myanmar, where the minimum wage is roughly $3.50 a day, and 0.5% of garment workers in Bangladesh belong to a union, according to affiliate data estimates collected by the global trade union IndustriALL. While Cambodia's workforce is more unionized than others in the region -- around 80% -- the unions there are fragmented, meaning successful collective bargaining negotiations can be difficult.Tear gas, water cannons, police brutality and imprisonment were some of the tools used by the governments of Bangladesh, Cambodia, India and Myanmar to punish striking garment workers and union members last year, according to the International Trade Union Confederation, an umbrella group for unions around the world. It noted that many workers in those countries who tried to form a union were dismissed from jobs or blacklisted by factories. And the number of countries that exclude workers from the right to establish or join a trade union increased to 107 in 2019 from 92 in 2018.Andrew Tillett-Saks, a labor organizer in Yangon, said he had seen a surge in unionizing by garment workers in Myanmar over the last 18 months -- and a reaction from factory owners. Before the pandemic, he said, some garment factories with fledgling unions were abruptly closing and firing union members, then reopening weeks later to supply the same brands under a slightly different name with a new group of nonunionized workers.Tillett-Saks said that much of the focus had been on whether brands would pay wages for workers during the pandemic, or for orders that had already been produced. But factory owners "taking this as an opportunity to break down labor movements in the supply chain could be an even bigger issue."Some brands, like H&M, have tried to facilitate union activity in supplier factories by signing ACT, an agreement brokered by IndustriALL and designed to secure fair wages for workers through collective bargaining and building guarantees of labor rights into purchasing agreements. But there are still hurdles. Before the International Labor Organization, a U.N. agency, can take action, allegations of mistreatment must be sent in writing from a national or international trade union organization and then reviewed internally by the agency -- a complicated process even before the pandemic."We have heard allegations of anti-union discrimination in recent weeks," said John Ritchotte, a specialist in social dialogue and labor administration in Asia for the International Labor Organization. "However, it is currently more difficult than usual for us to verify those allegations through our usual procedures because of travel restrictions and local lockdowns."In the weeks since the Myan Mode layoffs, around 15,000 jobs in the textile industry have been lost and about 40 factories closed across Asia, said Khaing Zar Aung, president of Industrial Workers Federation of Myanmar.Moe said the fired Myan Mode workers had protested outside the factory for weeks, watching as daily wage workers entered and scores of exhausted former colleagues left at midnight after overtime shifts. Eventually, management offered severance but not re-employment to the 571 fired workers, plus 49 employees who had walked out in solidarity. All but 79 eventually took the severance pay.The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia said about 60% of its factories -- where union members have also been targeted -- had been severely affected by canceled orders of ready-made garment exports because of the pandemic.On March 31, several dozen union workers at the Superl leatherwear factory on the outskirts of Phnom Penh -- which produces handbags for brands like Michael Kors, Tory Burch and Kate Spade -- were told they were being let go. One was a woman who was six months pregnant.Soy Sros, a factory shop steward and the local president of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers, wrote about the company's actions on Facebook, stating it violated a March 6 appeal from the Cambodian government saying COVID should not be used as a chance to discriminate against union members.Twenty-four hours later, Sros was forced by factory management to take down her post and make a thumbprint on a warning letter accusing her of defamation. On April 2, she was removed from the factory floor by the police and charged with posting fake information on social media. She is now in jail.Superl, which is headquartered in Hong Kong, did not respond to requests for comment, nor did Michael Kors and Tory Burch, who regularly place orders at the factory. Another customer, Tapestry, the owner of Kate Spade, declined to comment.In Myanmar, Moe, Yint and Myint all said they did not regret joining the union despite the difficulties they had faced. They said the loss of jobs was proof that worker representation was needed."I worry for the future of garment workers here without representatives," Myint said, referring to both the firings at Myan Mode and other factories across Asia. "But for now, I worry about providing for my family and getting food on the table."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company





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Frontier, amid bankruptcy, is suspected of lying about broadband expansion

Small ISPs want investigation as Frontier tries to block FCC funding for rivals.





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Caddy offers TLS, HTTPS, and more in one dependency-free Go Web server

We put Caddy 2.0.0 head to head against a ranking heavyweight, Apache 2.4.41.




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The Status of Object Storage

Last week NVIDIA announced the acquisition of SwiftStack, an object storage startup that, in the last year, refocused most of its work…




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VDI in the Age of Covid-19: Remote Work and the Challenge of the Virtualized Client

These are trying times, not least because corporate life needs to go on, which for millions of businesses means delivering compute resources…







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At Canada’s End of the Road, a Visit with Anne Cameron (in Culture)

The noted author on Indigenous blockades, her most controversial book, life in Tahsis, and more.




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The World Is a Burning Ring of Liars with Pants on Fire (in Culture)

And I’m sick of it.




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Three Stories of Strong, Tough Mothers (in Culture)

We asked readers to send us memories and tributes to their moms. Here are three beauties.




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Coronavirus: Summer heat cannot be expected to slow spread of outbreak, report finds

Received wisdom doesn't hold up in pandemics, experts say




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Coronavirus: Researchers 'a few weeks away' from concluding clinical trials of treatment

Australian scientists also working to evaluate extent of immunity to virus among public




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'A bad time to be alive': Mass extinction 444 million years ago linked to loss of oxygen in Earth's oceans

'By expanding our thinking of how oceans behaved in the past, we could gain some insights into oceans today,' says scientist at Stanford University




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Major new breakthrough could help reveal origin of the universe, scientists say

Scientists have made a major breakthrough that could help us understand the origin of our universe, they say.




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Coronavirus: Oxford University to begin human trials of Covid-19 vaccine next week

More than 500 people enrol to test jab following trials in animals




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Coronavirus app could help stop spread of covid-19 – but many people will need to use it, Oxford experts say

Widespread and quick use would be key to battling spread of virus, study says




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New archaeological evidence from Nazareth reveals religious and political environment in era of Jesus

Nazareth, once thought to have been a small village, likely to have been a town of around 1,000 people, new evidence suggests




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Raw meat dog foods pose 'international public health risk' due to high levels of drug-resistant bacteria, scientists warn

Uncooked pet food could be source of pathogens dangerous to humans, research suggests




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First credible evidence emerges of person being killed by meteor

Researchers find official records documenting fatal strike in Iraq in 1888




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Climate change deniers now downplaying seriousness of coronavirus

Infowars founder Alex Jones among conspiracy theorists sowing doubts about pandemic




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Coronavirus: Timeline of pandemics and other viruses that humans caught by interacting with animals

Stop the Wildlife Trade: From 1918 to today, the deadly diseases that have become more frequent




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Glowing flowers created through insertion of DNA from luminous mushroom

Scientists have created glowing flowers after editing the DNA of a plant.




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Coronavirus: 'Intensive' contract-tracing and social distancing key to stopping spread of virus, study finds

Researchers say evidence from China 'may demonstrate the huge scale of testing and contact tracing that's needed to reduce the virus spreading'




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Comet Atlas: Nasa shares new images of 'doomed' space object as it breaks into pieces

Nasa and the European Space Agency have shared new images of Comet Atlas as it flies towards Earth.




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Adult live-streaming site CAM4 exposes millions of models' personal information

First and last names, email addresses, gender and sexual orientation, and credit card information of models and users was left on an insecure server




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Tumblr deletes millions of white supremacist reblogs after new policy update

The social media site says it has removed over 4.5 million reblogs in an attempt to rid the site of hateful content on the platform.




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'Tug of war' effect could explain why North Magnetic Pole has moved from Canada towards Siberia, scientists say

Researchers suggest unusual rapid shift is due to competing patches of magnetic field




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Flower full moon 2020: How to watch the final supermoon of the year this week

May will be the the last chance to see the celestial event until 2021




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UK's largest bird of prey returns to England for first time in 240 years

White-tailed eagles last seen on Isle of Wight in 1780




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Coronavirus: Llamas offer hope in fight against the outbreak

Camelids produce antibodies that have been found to neutralise Covid-19




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Scientists get 'lucky' with new image of Jupiter that could help solve mystery of its powerful swirling storms

Pictures are some of the sharpest infrared images of Jupiter ever taken from the Earth




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Target Circle Deals March 29th - April 4th: 40% Off Turtle Beach Battle Buds

Lots of gaming headphone deals for those brave enough to go into stores.
These are the deals:

30% Off Turtle Beach Elite Atlas Aero Wireless headset for PC (Expires April 4th)

30% Off Turtle Beach Elite Atlas Pro Wired PC Gaming headset (Expires April 4th)

40% Off Turtle Beach Battle Buds In-ear Gaming headset (Expires April 4th)

15% Off Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Headset All Varieties (Expires April 4th)

30% Off ROCCAT Kone Aimo Owl-Eye Mouse Black & White (Expires April 4th)

30% Off ROCCAT Sense Aimo Mousepad for PC Gaming (Expires April 4th)




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Console Games, Merch Sale with Free Shipping and 50% Off 1 Month Uplay+ at Ubi Store

Uplay+ service, with access to + 100 games is is 50% off for the 1st month!  Members can get unlimited access to + 100 games for $6.99
https://store.ubi.com/us/uplayplus/
 
Free shipping and +50% off on all physical games until April 19th. There's merch on sale as well.
https://store.ubi.com/us/free-shipping-sale/





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Target Circle Deals April 12th - April 18th: 25% Off ROCCAT Vulcan Aimo Keyboard

25% Off ROCCAT Vulcan Aimo Keyboard Black & White/Silver (Expires April 18th)

 

10% Off My Arcade Gamestation Assorted Items (Expires April 22nd)





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Target Circle Deals April 19th - April 25th: 30% Off Turtle Beach Elite Atlas Pro

30% Off Turtle Beach Elite Atlas Pro Wired PC Gaming Headset (Expires April 25th)

30% Off Turtle Beach Elite Atlas Aero Wireless Headset for PC (Expires April 25th)

25% Off ROCCAT Vulcan Aimo Keyboard Black & White/Silver (Expires April 25th)

25% Off ROCCAT Kain Aimo Wireless Mouse Black & White (Expires April 25th)

25% Off ROCCAT Kain Aimo Mouse Black & White (Expires April 25th)

10% Off My Arcade Gamestation Assorted Items (Expires April 22nd)

25% Off ROCCAT Kain 102 Aimo Mouse PC Gaming, White (Expires April 25th)




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Iffy's Online Store 20% Off Everything, Golden Week Sale, Ends 5/6

"Happy Golden Week! Receive 20% off all items added to your cart until 5/6!!
Free shipping on all US orders over $57.99!"

 

https://www.iffysonlinestore.com/

 

Limited Editions included.

 

A couple Switch recommendations (prices before discount),

 

Moero Chronicle Hyper Standard Edition $29.99

 

Fairy Fencer F: Advent Dark Force Standard Edition $39.99

 

Enjoy.




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Best Buy Deal of the Day $7.99 Games and amiibo Figures

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/promo/save-select-collectibles

 

Xbox One

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Dragon Ball FighterZ

Vampyr

Battlefield 1 Revolution

Monster Energy Supercross 2

We Happy Few

NBA 2K19

WWE 2K19

Shaq Fu

LA Noire

Middle Earth Shadow of War

PUBG

 

PS4

Vampyr

Battlefield 1 Revolution

Monster Energy Supercross 2

Yakuza Kiwami

Banner Saga Trilogy Bonus Edition

Titanfall 2

Shaq Fu

Middle Earth Shadow of War

 

Switch

Banner Saga Trilogy

 

amiibo

Wii Fit Trainer

Zero Suit Samus

 

PC

Dishonored 2