The latest coronavirus news updated every day including coronavirus cases, the latest news, features and interviews from New Scientist and essential information about the covid-19 pandemic

About 80 per cent of stars in the Milky Way’s central bulge have relatively close encounters with another star, which can fling off any planets orbiting them

I was scheduled to get a routine physical a while back, cancelled for obvious reasons, and last week Stevens County Medical Center called me to come in for it today, which feels odd. I guess our local clinic has not been overwhelmed — there have been zero reported cases of COVID-19 in Stevens County, perhaps […]

I’m back from my doctor’s visit! It was nothing but good news. The outside walls of the clinic are covered with swarms of chironomid midges! Everywhere I looked, there they were, clinging to the brickwork. This is one big buffet for spiders that I’ll have to check again later, but I didn’t see many today […]

Skatje is working hard on her thesis in computational linguistics, and might not appreciate a joke about how easy it is. It’s hard enough that I don’t even understand what she’s doing when she tries to explain it!

Milo Yawannapissoff and Michelle Malkin have been collaborating, and the results are even more awful than you can probably imagine. They decided to work together to create an “America First” reading list for their followers. Just from their choice of subject you can tell it’s going to be a collection of racists’ greatest hits. Milo […]

We sometimes speak of the American university, as if it is all one thing, where you’ll attend and be pampered for four years and pop out at graduation to a job and a well-paid career. Corey Robin exposes the inequities of the university system by comparing City University of New York, a massive public university, […]

“Venezuela!” is the reflexive argument of the right-wingers against socialism, so it’s not surprising that a cocky gang of American thugs would decide they could just swagger in and topple the Venezuelan government — 62 stupid mercenaries against a nation of 28 million people. They were so arrogant that the head of the mercenary organization […]

Currently making the rounds: I was suspicious, though. It’s too good to be true. So I snooped about, and found the original on the ADL website. OK, now, really — who thought they needed to edit the original sign to make it less evil and more obviously stupid? That was a waste of effort. Just […]

Yikes. My social media are squirming with the maggoty indignation of cranks lit up by this pseudo-documentary, Plandemic, which is actually nothing but an overlong trailer that was live on YouTube and Facebook briefly, before it got shot down and banned for spreading misinformation. I’m not going to encourage anyone to watch it — I […]

New York has released more details into who has tested positive for the coronavirus in the state, and Governor Andrew Cuomo said the per cent of healthcare workers with Covid-19 is not higher than the general public.“That is amazingly good news,” Mr Cuomo said during his press briefing on Thursday.

Gregory and Travis McMichael, who are accused of fatally shooting Ahmaud Arbery, a black man, will not face hate crime charges. Here's why.

Contrary to popular belief, people do order fish sandwiches at Arby's.Senate Democrats recently learned one of their own is among that rare crowd when Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) forgot to hit mute when driving through an Arby's drive-through last month. Manchin pulled up to the fast food spot in his home state, asked for a King’s Hawaiian Fish Deluxe sandwich, and later learned his mistake after staffers texted him, he tells The Wall Street Journal."It's a big piece of fish and it has a big slice of cheese," Manchin described to the Journal. "They were just jealous they weren't getting the good sandwich." Manchin himself may be jealous that unlike West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, he doesn't have a sandwich named after him at his local Arby's.Manchin is far from the only lawmaker who's been "busted," as he put it, for forgetting to hit mute. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) says his children have repeatedly walked by and told him to "tell [House] Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi to say now is the time to start forgiving student loans." Several described overhearing "colleagues exercising on ellipticals, doing sit-ups, dealing with children, or taking other phone calls," they tell the Journal. And many of them have admittedly skipped showers on days they know they don't have to be on camera. Read more about congressmembers' at-home habits at The Wall Street Journal.More stories from theweek.com The full-spectrum failure of the Trump revolution Unemployment is a catastrophe — but it could still be worse Trump reportedly got 'lava level mad' over potential exposure to coronavirus

South African Fredie Blom celebrated his 116th birthday on Friday unfazed by the coronavirus crisis, over 100 years since the Spanish flu pandemic killed his sister. "I have lived this long because of God's grace," said Blom, possibly one of the oldest men in the world. Lighting a cigarette, he recalled the 1918 pandemic that left tens of millions dead worldwide including his sister.

Experts still aren't sure why some coronavirus cases are so much worse than others, but the answer may lie in patients' genetic differences.

Meghan McCain, The View’s resident conservative host, tore into Kayleigh McEnany for “spinning propaganda” on Thursday morning after the new White House press secretary dismissed the need for increased coronavirus testing as the economy reopens.During her press briefing on Wednesday, McEnany said it was “nonsensical” to think that every American should be able to get tested for coronavirus, even though President Donald Trump said two months earlier that “anybody that wants a test can get a test.” The hosts of The View took the press secretary to task over those remarks.Co-host Sunny Hostin said she found it “shocking” that the White House spokesperson would say that considering recent news that one of the president’s personal valets just tested positive for the virus.“So it’s obviously important enough for everyone in the White House and surrounding the president to be tested for the coronavirus, but it’s not important to the press secretary and to the administration for Americans to be tested for the coronavirus,” she declared. “And so that tells me that she is just spinning lies to the American people rather than being honest with the American people.”After first saying there has been “mixed messaging” coming not just from the White House but from medical experts since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, McCain went on to blast McEnany as a propagandist.“I think in regards to Kayleigh McEnany, she was hired for this job because she’s good at spinning propaganda, and she was good spinning propaganda before she got hired,” she exclaimed. “And you can make the argument that’s the role of any press secretaries but it’s probably a little more egregious with this particular president.”The conservative co-host then worried aloud that we were reaching a tipping point on saving the economy, criticizing the Trump administration for not taking the necessary steps to safely reopen the country.“If we don’t start getting a plan to get testing, to somehow pull ourselves out of this and get America back to work,” she proclaimed. “This is going to be far more egregious than any crisis any of us have seen in all of our lifetimes.” “If the tests aren’t important, why is the White House, and everybody else getting tested before they go before the president?” McCain concluded. “I would like to go back to work. I know you would, and I would be comfortable doing that if we all had the capacity to get tested.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Despite President Trump's statements that the coronavirus was released from a laboratory in Wuhan, scientist say the evidence points to a natural origin.

On Thursday, the country reported its largest one-day increase in new cases of 11,231 — yet President Putin already has his eyes on reopening.

More than 90% of the families, children and single adults that Border Patrol encountered in April were swiftly expelled under a public health order.

Coronavirus has robbed the Democrat of his typical back-slapping approach as he faces growing scrutiny and a third-party challengeThe Tampa, Florida, rally for Joe Biden on Thursday evening began as it normally might have, before a once-in-a-century pandemic transformed all aspects of American life, including the presidential campaign. A local high school student recited the pledge of allegiance, a campaign organizer pleaded with supporters to volunteer and a local DJ spun R&B music between speakers.But in a sign of how profoundly the coronavirus crisis has reshaped American politics, that was where the similarities ended.With much of the US still in lockdown, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has been forced to take his campaign to unseat Donald Trump online. It has not always been easy.His campaign’s first attempt to recreate a traditional rally – part of a virtual swing through the battleground state of Florida – was later described by his opponents as an “unmitigated technological failure”. The video stream was glitchy and pixelated. The audio was choppy, rendering some remarks nearly incomprehensible. And there were lengthy delays between speakers and at one point, the feed went dark for several minutes.“Am I on?” asked Biden, beaming into the telecast from his home in Wilmington, Delaware, where he has been isolated since the middle of March. An off-camera voice replied that he was. Biden removed a pair of aviator sunglasses as he walked toward the camera.“Good evening, Tampa. Thanks so much for tuning in,” he continued, a hint of irritation in his voice. “I wish we could have done this together – and it had gone a little more smoothly.”For nearly two months, Biden has been the test subject in a novel political experiment: running for president in the age of Covid-19.Social distancing restrictions imposed to stop the spread of the virus have already starved the campaign of a victory tour to mark his ascent to the Democratic nomination. It may well deny Democrats the chance to formally nominate him in person at the party’s national convention this summer. Endorsements from former rivals and party leaders occur online to varying degrees of fanfare. . The remote set-up, anathema to Biden’s back-slapping, glad-handing approach to politics, has left the candidate walled off from voters and competing for visibility.Yet, technical difficulties aside, his campaign of confinement seems to be working.In recent weeks, Biden has widened his lead over Trump as the president’s support slips amid growing disapproval of his response to the pandemic. Surveys from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina and Arizona – key battlegrounds that Trump won in 2016 – show Biden ahead. At a recent virtual fundraiser last week, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, his new campaign manager, expressed optimism about Biden’s prospects in Florida and Arizona.“The natural state of this race is to be a referendum on Donald Trump and every time Donald Trump steps to the microphone he hurts himself,” said Mark Mellman, a veteran Democratic pollster. “That’s a pretty good position for Joe Biden to be in.”Biden initially struggled to adapt to his cloistered reality. In March, the campaign turned a recreation room in the basement of his home into a studio, though not fast enough for his critics, who launched a “Where’s Joe” campaign to mark the candidate’s relative disappearance from the national stage.But since then, Biden has been busy. Nearly every day he makes appearances on local TV news channels or national talkshows. He launched a podcast, where he has hosted conversations with prominent Democratic governors and potential vice-presidential candidates. He spends time each day speaking with a voter – a frontline worker, campaign volunteers – and he participated in what the campaign billed as a “virtual rope line”.“So what’s up?” he said to Ashley Ruiz of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, one of several voters on the rope line. “Tell me about your situation, Ash.”•••Biden’s rise in the polls comes as he contends with an allegation from Tara Reade, a former aide in his Senate office who accused him of sexual assault in 1993. In an interview this week with Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News and NBC television host, Reade said he should withdraw from the presidential race.Biden has forcefully denied the allegation. “It’s not true, I am saying unequivocally. It never, never happened,” he said last week, in an interview addressing her claim for the first time publicly.Publicly, Democrats, including prominent MeToo advocates, have rallied around Biden, though privately some in the party have expressed concern about the continuous drip of reporting on the matter.So far the allegation appears to have marginally dented his reputation, but not his lead. Most voters – 86% – are aware of the allegation, according to a Monmouth poll, which found the electorate divided over whether they viewed the claim as credible. At the same time, the poll showed Biden nine points ahead of Trump.Despite Trump’s falling electoral fortunes, many Democrats remain anxious about Biden’s position – and his strategy.David Axelrod and David Plouffe, two of Barack Obama’s top campaign strategists, implored Biden’s campaign to expand its digital footprint in a joint New York Times op-ed that compared the atmospherics of the candidate’s home videos to “an astronaut beaming back to earth from the International Space Station”.“Online speeches from his basement won’t cut it,” they wrote.Lis Smith, the former top adviser to Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, followed with an op-ed on Thursday that offered a blueprint for turning Biden into the “hottest bad boy and disrupter in the media game”. She suggested his campaign use TV appearances and digital content to highlight Biden’s empathy, a trait even supporters say the president has lacked in response to the rising coronavirus death toll.Part of the campaign’s evolving digital strategy includes partnering with groups that already have an online presence, like JoeMamas2020, a national coalition of “moms, caregivers, moms to be, aunts & all the parental figures in between” with about 27,000 Facebook and 1,200 Twitter followers. The group has helped amplify Biden’s appearances and policy proposals while spreading the word about upcoming events.Julie Zebrak, the group’s co-founder, said the online army is growing with women energized to help elect a candidate who would end the Twitter presidency.“We are all extremely enthusiastic for Joe Biden to beat Donald Trump,” she said.Yet the same traits that endear Biden to a growing coalition of suburban women and Never Trump Republicans have largely failed to excite younger, progressive voters. It’s not that they prefer Trump – they don’t – but a lack of enthusiasm among those voters could spell trouble in November if they stay home or vote for a third-party candidate.The campaign has also ramped up its outreach to young people, who overwhelmingly supported Biden’s rival Bernie Sanders. On Friday, Biden presented his economic pitch in an appearance on NowThis, a social-media-heavy news outlet with a young, progressive audience.“This crisis hit harder and will last longer because Donald Trump spent the last three years undermining the core pillars of our economic strength,” Biden said in remarks that attacked Trump’s stimulus efforts a kind of “cronyism” and corporate welfare. Before he began speaking, Biden removed a face mask, a pointed rebuke of the president who had refused to wear one.Still, new research conducted on behalf of NextGen America found many young people weren’t convinced Biden’s policies meet the scale of the challenges bearing down on their generation.This makes the efforts of groups like Progressive Turnout Project, which endorsed him this week, all the more important. In the coming months, the group is investing more than $52m to turn out low-propensity Democratic voters – including young people and people of color – in 17 key battleground states.“The best thing we can do is go and knock on doors and have face-to-face conversations with voters,” said Alex Morgan, the group’s executive director. “We are still looking to do that. But it’ll be knocking on that door and then taking a few big steps back and having a more distant conversation.”•••Biden’s campaign also faces another looming threat. The Michigan congressman Justin Amash, who left the Republican party last year after voting to impeach Trump, recently announced that he would seek the Libertarian party nomination.His entrance has alarmed Democrats, who fear he could siphon off Never Trump voters who might otherwise back Biden, particularly in Amash’s home state of Michigan, where third-party candidates pulled away a combined 5% of the vote share in 2016. Hillary Clinton lost the state by just 10,704 votes, less than 0.25%.Many Democrats believe Biden’s fate may well rest on his ability to persuade their own side to vote.“Trump has shown no desire or ability to moderate for those swing voters in this election,” said Addisu Demissie, who served as Cory Booker’s presidential campaign manager. “So those voters are now likely going to end up either Biden voters or non-voters or third-party voters, and that’s the competition.”This week, Trump traveled to the battleground state of Arizona, where he toured a medical mask facility without wearing one himself. The visit was a symbolic show of his administration’s push to reopen the US economy but there were unmistakable elements of his signature campaign rallies, including the music that played when Trump finished his remarks (the Rolling Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want).Trump’s cross-country venture stood in striking contrast to Biden’s virtual swing through Florida – which included a rally, a roundtable in Jacksonville and an appearance on the local news in Tampa. The technical glitches only further highlighted the limitations of his confinement.But the coronavirus has also upended Trump’s strategy, erasing the booming economy he has made a centerpiece of his re-election campaign. In recent weeks, his campaign has all but abandoned championing the president’s leadership, instead focusing its efforts on diminishing Biden.Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, previewed the onslaught on Twitter this week, comparing the Trump re-election juggernaut to the Death Star from the Star Wars movies. “In a few days we start pressing FIRE for the first time,” he wrote.As Trump prepares to make even greater use of the advantages of incumbency, Biden faces his biggest test yet. Can he really lead a Rebel Alliance from his basement?

“I want you to know he died in the hospital alone, isolated, and scared,” she wrote in an Instagram message to Smithfield Foods.

Women and children are experiencing unprecedented levels of abuse and violence at home as stress and anxiety continue to mount due to the pandemic.

Brazil could face "economic collapse" in a month's time due to stay-at-home measures to stem the coronavirus outbreak, with food shortages and "social disorder," Economy Minister Paulo Guedes warned Thursday. Brazil, Latin America's biggest economy, is also the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the region. But far-right President Jair Bolsonaro - who appeared alongside Guedes, his free-market economics guru - opposes stay-at-home measures to slow the virus, saying they are unnecessarily damaging the economy. "Within about 30 days, there may start to be shortages on (store) shelves and production may become disorganized, leading to a system of economic collapse, of social disorder," Guedes said. "This is a serious alert." Bolsonaro, who has compared the new coronavirus to a "little flu," said he understood "the virus problem" and believed that "we must save lives." "But there is a problem that's worrying us more and more... and that's the issue of jobs, of the stalled economy," Bolsonaro added. "Fighting the virus shouldn't do more damage than the virus itself."

Jordan Goudreau once pushed a plan to protect U.S. schools. Then he moved on to a more daring pursuit, which also didn't end well.

A New York town has launched a diet and exercise program to help residents lose weight to prevent reported risks of obesity and coronavirus outcomes.

The governor's order names the Dallas hairdresser who was jailed on Tuesday for staying open.