(Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History) Three 16th-century skeletons from a mass burial in Mexico City highlight the role of the transatlantic slave trade in introducing and disseminating new pathogens to the Americas. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico analyzed skeletal features, genetic data and isotopes to explore the life history of three enslaved Africans and explore the wide-ranging impacts of massive forced migration.

(Florida Museum of Natural History) More than a thousand years ago, people from across the Southeast regularly traveled to a small island on Florida's Gulf Coast to bond over oysters, likely as a means of coping with climate change and social upheaval.

(University of Maryland) Many historians have claimed the Justinianic Plague (c. 541-750 CE) killed half of the population of Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. New historical research and mathematical modeling challenge the death rate and severity of this first plague pandemic, named for Emperor Justinian I.

(Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Barcelona) Expansions by groups of humans were common during prehistoric times, after the adoption of agriculture. Among other factors, this is due to population growth of farmers which was greater than of that hunter-gatherers. We can find one example of this during the Neolithic period, when farming was introduced to Europe by migrations from the Middle East.

(Perot Museum of Nature and Science) Published in PLOS ONE today, a study by an international team from the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas and Hokkaido University in Japan further explores the proliferation of the most commonly occurring duck-billed dinosaur of the ancient Arctic as the genus Edmontosaurus. The findings reinforce that the hadrosaurs -- dubbed 'caribou of the Cretaceous' -- had a geographical distribution of approximately 60 degrees of latitude, spanning the North American West from Alaska to Colorado.

There is no special announcement (19:45 HKT on 03.05.2020)

(University of Plymouth) Researchers say a fossil found on the Jurassic coast of southern England in the 19th century demonstrates the world's oldest known example of a squid-like creature attacking its prey.

(King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST)) Optical fibers wrapped around date palm trunks could help detect this tree's most destructive pest early enough to save it.

(University of Warwick) A microbial community is a complex, dynamic system composed of hundreds of species and their interactions, they are found in oceans, soil, animal guts and plant roots. Each system feeds the Earth's ecosystem and their own growth, as they each have their own metabolism that underpin biogeochemical cycles. Researchers from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick have produced an extendable thermodynamic model for simulating the dynamics of microbial communities.

(Texas A&M University) Spoiling foods, souring wine and worsening wounds have a common culprit -- a process called oxidation. Although the ill effects of these chemical reactions can be curtailed by antioxidants, creating a sturdy platform capable of providing prolonged antioxidant activity is an ongoing challenge.

(Purdue University) Researchers at Purdue University have discovered that male treefrogs reduce their attractiveness to predators and parasites by overlapping their mating calls with their neighbors.

(University of Adelaide) An international team of scientists led by the University of Adelaide's Davies Research Centre has shown that it is possible to disentangle the DNA sequences of the chromosomes inherited from the mother and the father, to create true diploid genomes from a single individual.

(University of Southern Denmark) Investing in the future: Researchers show how cannibalism among the invasive comb jelly enables adults to survive severe conditions at the edge of their ecological range with implications for the use and evolutionary origins of cannibalism.

(American Society of Agronomy) Researchers develop soil-gas diffusivity model based on two agricultural soils.

(Bentham Science Publishers) This comprehensive review presented by researchers from K.S. Rangasamy College of Arts and Science, Tiruchengode, Tamil-Nadu, India, gives readers a brief overview of phytoconstituents, nutritional values and medicinal properties of the plant.

(University of Bonn) The extent to which Brazilian soy production and trade contribute to climate change depends largely on the location where soybeans are grown. This is shown by a recent study conducted by the University of Bonn together with partners from Spain, Belgium and Sweden. In some municipalities, CO2 emissions resulting from the export of soybean and derivatives are more than 200 times higher than in others.

(University of Tsukuba) Researchers from the University of Tsukuba have revealed that pectin, a carbohydrate found in plant cell walls, plays a vital part in the development of female reproductive tissues of rice plants. It was found that the presence of a gene involved in pectin modification increased plant fertility relative to a modified plant with the gene removed. These findings could have major implications in crop variety development and genetic modification.

(University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture) David Mercker, an Extension forestry specialist with the University of Tennessee Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries, has been named 2020 Extension Forester of the Year by the Forest Landowners Association (FLA). FLA is a national organization that promotes and protects the interests of private forest landowners and bestows this award annually as determined by its board of directors.

(National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)) Researchers will soon have access to the full genomic sequences for 23 marine mammal species preserved by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), thanks to an ongoing collaboration between NIST and a scientific consortium called the DNA Zoo.

(Ohio State University) The land masses of Japan shifted from east to west to east again in the months before the strongest earthquake in the country's recorded history, a 2011 magnitude-9 earthquake that killed more than 15,500 people, new research shows.

(Rutgers University) Algae in the oceans often steal genes from bacteria to gain beneficial attributes, such as the ability to tolerate stressful environments or break down carbohydrates for food, according to a Rutgers co-authored study.

(Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute) Oil pollution is known to cause lethal and sublethal responses on coral communities in the short-term, but its long-term effects have not been widely studied. The Bahia Las Minas oil spill, which contaminated about 40 square kilometers (about 15 square miles) near the Smithsonian's Galeta Point Marine Laboratory in Colon and became the largest recorded near coastal habitats in Panama, served as an opportunity to understand how coral reefs in tropical ecosystems recover from acute contamination over time.

(American Chemical Society) When a dead body is found, one of the first things a forensic pathologist tries to do is estimate the time of death. There are several ways to do this, including measuring body temperature or observing insect activity, but these methods don't always work for corpses found in water. Now, researchers are reporting a mouse study in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research showing that certain proteins in bones could be used for this determination.

(University of Washington) By comparing new measurements from NASA's ICESat-2 mission with the original ICESat mission, which operated from 2003 to 2009, scientists were able to measure precisely how the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have changed over 16 years.

(American Association for the Advancement of Science) Microplastic particles entering the sea surface were thought to settle to the seafloor directly below them, but now, a new study reveals that slow-moving currents near the bottom of the ocean direct the flow of plastics, creating microplastic hotpots in sediments of the deep sea.

(American Association for the Advancement of Science) Ice sheet losses from Greenland and Antarctica have outpaced snow accumulation and contributed approximately 14 millimeters to sea level rise over 16 years (2003 to 2019), a new analysis of data from NASA's laser-shooting satellites has revealed.

(University of Manchester) An international research project has revealed the highest levels of microplastic ever recorded on the seafloor, with up to 1.9 million pieces in a thin layer covering just 1 square meter.

(Marine Biological Laboratory) Microbial life is bubbling up to the ocean floor along with fluids from deeply buried petroleum reservoirs, reports a team of scientists from the University of Calgary and the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole.

(Earth Institute at Columbia University) A uniquely resilient organism all but unheard of in the Arabian Sea 20 years ago has been proliferating and spreading at an alarming pace. New research describes how the continued loss of snow over the Himalayan-Tibetan Plateau region is fueling the expansion of this destructive algal bloom.

(Brown University) A new study shows that coastal sea ice used by Arctic residents for hunting and fishing will be reduced as the planet warms.

(NOAA Headquarters) While the global average number of tropical cyclones each year has not budged from 86 over the last four decades, climate change has been influencing the locations of where these deadly storms occur, according to new NOAA-led research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

(European Geosciences Union) A new declaration endorsed by EGU and other international geoscience societies affirms the commitment of the Earth, planetary and space science community to support and promote scientific knowledge and research for the benefit of humanity.

(University of Rhode Island) A team of experts, led by a University of Rhode Island researcher, examined how climate change is affecting the ocean environment and found that the changing conditions will likely result in increased fisheries-related conflicts and create new challenges in the management of global fisheries.

(University of Hawaii at Manoa) In a study published in Scientific Reports, researchers at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, found in the next few decades, sea level rise will likely cause large and increasing percentages of land area to be impacted simultaneously by the three flood mechanisms. Further, they found direct marine inundation represents the least extensive--only three percent of the predicted flooding, while groundwater inundation represents the most extensive flood source.

(Oregon State University) The world's oceans play a critical role in climate regulation, mitigation and adaptation and should be integrated into comprehensive 'green new deal' proposals being promoted by elected officials and agency policymakers.

(Florida State University) Florida State University and partner universities investigated current baseline conditions in the southern Gulf to create a series of maps and guides that detail the distribution of carbon, nitrogen and the carbon-14 isotope.

(University of Bath) Researchers at the University of Bath have developed an AI model that can automatically classify underwater environments directly from sonar measurements.

China reported one new coronavirus case for Friday, unchanged from the day before, data from the national health authority showed on Saturday. One new imported case was recorded on May 8, the National Health Commission said in a statement.

Palestinian officials said Friday that Israel is forcing banks in the occupied West Bank to close accounts held by the families of prisoners in Israeli jails to prevent the Palestinian Authority from providing stipends to them. Israel has long objected to the Palestinian Authority's payments to the families of prisoners and those killed in the conflict, including militants, saying it rewards terrorism. The Palestinians view the payments as a social safety net for those living under decades of military occupation.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden campaigns virtually in his Delaware home; Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy reports.

Chief Justice Patience Roggensack faced backlash for her comment, with some people calling it "elitist" to separate meatpackers from "regular folks."

Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia, vowed on Friday to help his new boss, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, clean out a political "swamp" of oligarchs' interests that he said were preventing Ukraine prospering. Twice president of Georgia, Saakashvili had a brief but stormy spell in Ukrainian politics five years ago under Zelenskiy's predecessor Petro Poroshenko in which he once clambered onto a roof to avoid law enforcement.

There aren’t a ton of synonyms for the word “hypocrisy.” I’ve become aware of this problem ever since I began writing about the Tara Reade–Joe Biden situation. I keep gravitating towards phrases such as “despicable hypocrisy,” or “partisan hypocrisy,” or “unconscionable hypocrisy,” but you can only go to the well so often. Really, though, I’m not sure how else to describe the actions of someone like Senator Dianne Feinstein.You might recall that it was Feinstein, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, who withheld Christine Blasey Ford's allegation of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh from the Senate so that it could not be properly vetted, in a last-ditch effort to sink the nomination.Feinstein knew that Ford's credibility was brittle -- the alleged victim could not tell us where or when the attack occurred, hadn’t mentioned Kavanugh’s name to anyone for over 30 years, and offered nothing approaching a contemporaneous witness.At first, Feinstein did not want to provide Ford’s name, or a place or time of the alleged attack, or allow the accused to see any evidence against him, denying him the ability to answer the charges.Henceforth this brand of justice could be referred to as “The Joe Biden Standard,” since it’s exactly the kind of show trial the presumptive Democratic nominee promises college kids via Title IX rules.When finally asked about Reade yesterday, Feinstein responded: “And I don’t know this person at all who has made the allegations. She came out of nowhere. Where has she been all these years? He was vice president.”To put this in perspective, when Ford came forward “out of nowhere,” Feinstein said: “Victims must be able to come forward only when they are ready.”What’s changed?During the Kavanaugh hearings Feinstein noted that “sharing an experience involving sexual assault — particularly when it involves a politically connected man with influence, authority and power — is extraordinarily difficult.”Is Biden not a politically connected man with influence, authority, and power? Feinstein is now arguing the opposite: She is saying we should dismiss Reade’s allegations because she failed to come forward against a powerful man earlier.But to answer Feinstein’s question about what Reade has been “up to” the past 27 years: Well, she’s been telling people that Biden had engaged in sexual misconduct. She relayed her story to her former neighbor, her brother, her former co-worker, and at least two other friends. It is also likely that her mother called Larry King Live asking for advice for her daughter the year of the alleged attack.Yesterday a document uncovered by local journalists in California -- somehow missed by Barack Obama’s crack vetting team -- shows Reade’s ex-husband bolstering her claim in 1996 divorce proceedings: “On several occasions [Reade] related a problem that she was having at work regarding sexual harassment, in U.S. Senator Joe Biden's office.”The reaction to the divorce papers has been extraordinary. Biden defenders argue that because Reade alleged “sexual harassment” -- a catch-all term used in the 1990s when men were getting away with despicable behavior far more often -- it proves her story has changed. Biden, through his deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield, alleges that “more and more inconsistencies” come up every day.Even if Reade didn't tell everyone everything that allegedly happened every time she mentioned the incident, that doesn’t definitively prove anything. If it did, none of us would have ever heard the name Christine Blasey Ford.Indeed, at time of Ford’s evolving story, there was a slew of journalists taking deep dives into the unreliability of memory and trauma and complexities of relaying assault allegations. I assume that science hasn’t changed in two years.Let’s also not forget that, despite Ford’s inconsistencies, Biden still argued that Kavanaugh should be presumed guilty. Why shouldn’t he?It is also quite amazing to see Biden’s defenders implicitly contending that Reade is only credibly claiming that she was sexually harassed for nearly 30 years, so her story must be politically motivated.Even if we concede that Reade is a wily Sanders operative or Putin stooge, what political motive could Reade possibly have had back in 1993 -- after working for Biden -- to smear the senator? What motive did she have to repeat that story to her family before Sanders was a candidate or Putin was running Russia?By the way, liberals have never argued that political motivations should be disqualifying. Ford came forward, by her own admission, because she did not believe the man who had allegedly assaulted her in high school should be given a seat on highest court in the land. Reade says she doesn’t want a man who allegedly assaulted her -- when he was in his 50s -- to hold the most powerful office in the world.Feinstein, of course, isn’t the only one to engage in this kind of transparent double standard. When asked about Reade, the idealist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said, “I’m not sure. Frankly, this is a messy moment, and I think we need to acknowledge that -- that it is not clear-cut.”Where was all this hand-wringing and caution over the messiness of sexual-assault claims when nearly every Democrat and all their allies in the press were spreading Julie Swetnick’s alleged “gang rape” piece? Nowhere.AOC, whose position on Biden has evolved, invited Ana Maria Archila, the women who had famously cornered a weak-kneed senator Jeff Flake in an elevator and yelled at him about Kavanaugh, to the 2019 State of the Union address. Archila now says, “I feel very trapped.”I bet.People point out that there are numerous sexual-misconduct allegations leveled at Donald Trump. Indeed. If they haven’t yet, news outlets should scrutinize and investigate the credibility of those allegations, as they did for Biden but not for Kavanaugh. But it’s important to remember that Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll was given immediate and widespread coverage on cable news, while Reade reportedly wasn’t asked to tell her story by any major network -- save Fox News -- until this week.Of course, most Biden defenders are being purposely obtuse about the debate -- Mona Charen’s recent column is an excellent example. The problem isn’t that Biden is being treated unjustly, or that he should be treated unjustly; it’s that he is being treated justly by the same people who treat others unjustly. Democrats have yet to explain why Biden is afforded every benefit of the doubt but not Kavanaugh, and not millions of college students.Public figures such as Biden have every right to demand fair hearings and due process. Voters have every right to judge the credibility of both accuser and accused. Many women are victims. Many women are victims who are powerless to prove it. And some women are frauds. You can’t keep demanding that our political system adjudicate similar incidents under two completely differ set of rules. It’s untenable.

You can now add Fresno to the growing list of cities that are now requiring people to wear face masks in public places.

The budget carrier will begin conducting temperature checks via touchless thermometers on June 1. Passengers have to start wearing masks Friday.

The streets of Chicago may be largely empty as residents hunker down from coronavirus but some of the city's most deprived neighborhoods are still echoing to the sound of deadly gunfire and raucous partying. While significant falls in crime have been one of the few positive side effects of lockdowns in much of the United States and elsewhere, they have barely made a dent in the homicide rate in Chicago, a city that has long recorded the most murders in the country. Chicago police say 56 murders were committed in April despite statewide stay-at-home orders -- only a fraction lower than the 61 for the same month in 2019 -- while last weekend, the first of the new month, four people were killed and 46 others shot and wounded.

It may not be a pardon. But the Justice Department has dropped charges against Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.Retired Army Lt. Gen. Flynn, an important figure in the war on terror who gave Trump’s 2016 run military validation, will avoid prison time after the Justice Department provided a deliverance on Thursday that Flynn had long sought. It is also the second redemption that Trump has provided the general, who served as his first national security adviser for less than a month. “The Government has determined, pursuant to the Principles of Federal Prosecution and based on an extensive review and careful consideration of the circumstances, that continued prosecution of this case would not serve the interests of justice,” wrote Timothy Shea, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and a former senior aide to Attorney General William Barr. Shortly before the filing, lead prosecutor Brandon Von Grack abruptly withdrew from the case.The Justice Department filing, in essence, portrays Flynn as the victim of an FBI frame-up job, and his lies to the FBI as legally marginal. Shea wrote that Flynn’s lies needed to have been “not simply false, but ‘materially’ false with respect to a matter under investigation.” Later in the filing, Shea referred to those lies as “gaps in [Flynn’s] memory,” rather than deliberate falsehoods Flynn conceded. “Even if he told the truth, Mr. Flynn’s statements could not have conceivably ‘influenced’ an investigation that had neither a legitimate counterintelligence nor criminal purpose,” Shea wrote.It was an astonishing turnaround since 2018, when a federal judge said to Flynn in a sentencing hearing, “arguably, you sold your country out.” That judge, Emmet Sullivan, could still decide to reject Shea’s filing and continue with Flynn’ sentencing. Michael Bromwich, a former federal prosecutor and Justice Department inspector general, tweeted that the extraordinary move represented “a pardon by another name” and called it a “black day in DOJ history.”Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the decision to drop charges was “outrageous” and revealed “a politicized and thoroughly corrupt Department of Justice.” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) added, “If Barr’s Justice Department will drop charges against someone who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and who the White House publicly fired for lying to the vice president, there’s nothing it won’t do, no investigation it won’t taint.”Neither Flynn nor his attorney, Sidney Powell, responded immediately to requests for comment.Speaking to reports on Thursday afternoon, Trump said he had no prior knowledge of the Justice Department’s decision. “He was an innocent man,” Trump said, of Flynn. “Now in my book he’s an even greater warrior.”The dropped charges follow a years-long groundswell from Trump’s base, and particularly Fox News, to clear Flynn. His advocates claim that Flynn was set up by the same disreputable FBI figures who they believe persecuted Trump over phantom collusion with Russia.Flynn’s guilty plea, in December, 2017, has been no obstacle to the narrative, particularly since Flynn sought afterwards, unsuccessfully, to withdraw his plea. His sentencing, initially set for February, had also been delayed.Last month, agitation for a Flynn pardon intensified after documents emerged from two of Trump’s most hated ex-FBI figures, counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and attorney Lisa Page, discussing Flynn’s fateful January 2017 interview with the FBI. Page asked when and how to “slip it in” to Flynn that lying to an FBI agent is a crime, something that Flynn’s advocates believed showed the general being railroaded from the start. But veteran FBI agents and prosecutors have pointed out that the FBI is not legally obligated to inform an interview subject that lying to them is illegal. “Michael Flynn was very familiar with the FBI,” said Stephanie Douglas, a former executive assistant director of the FBI’s National Security Branch. “He would certainly have been aware of his obligation to provide candid and truthful information. His claim he was tricked and manipulated doesn’t sound valid to me.” Shea, in his Thursday court filing, suggested the FBI officials were “fishing for falsehoods merely to manufacture jurisdiction over any statement.” In Shea’s view, Flynn’s lies were less germane to the prosecution than the FBI “lack[ing] sufficient basis to sustain its initial counterintelligence investigation,” and its pre-interview position that it ought to close the investigation before speaking with the then national security adviser.Former FBI deputy head Andrew McCabe said on Thursday that the suggestion there was no reason to interview Flynn was “patently false, and ignores the considerable national security risk his contacts raised.” He said Flynn’s lies added to the FBI’s concerns about his relationship with Russia. “Today’s move... is pure politics designed to please the president,” he added.U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen, who was appointed by Barr to review Flynn’s and other high-profile cases, said on Thursday that he concluded “the proper and just course” was to dismiss the case. “I briefed Attorney General Barr on my findings, advised him on these conclusions, and he agreed,” he said.The FBI Didn’t Frame Michael Flynn. That’s Just Trump’s Excuse for a Prospective Pardon.While serving as national security adviser, Flynn misled FBI interviewers about conversations he had with the then-Russian ambassador, Sergei Kislyak. In one of those late 2016 conversations, according to court filings, Flynn asked the Russians to avoid escalatory actions in response to sanctions and diplomatic expulsions then President Barack Obama enacted as reprisal for Russian electoral interference. Shea, in his filing, called Flynn’s Kislyak calls “entirely appropriate on their face.”The national security adviser’s lies prompted the holdover attorney general, Sally Yates, to warn the White House that Flynn had given the Russians leverage to blackmail him. But it would take weeks before Trump fired Flynn over “an eroding level of trust” concerning misleading Vice President Mike Pence on the Kislyak contacts. By May, Trump was said to have regretted dismissing the general.  Flynn in 2017 agreed to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. The general avoided charges for taking $530,000 in unregistered money from interests connected to the Turkish government—something he only declared with the Justice Department after his downfall as national security adviser. During a sentencing hearing in 2018, a federal judge castigated Flynn for disgracing the uniform Flynn wore for three decades. “Arguably, you sold your country out,” Judge Emmet Sullivan said. Two years earlier, on stage at the Republican national convention, Flynn had led a chant of “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton. Protesters outside Flynn’s courtroom did not let the general forget it. Trump’s enduring bond with Flynn is a testament to the importance of the role the general played in 2016.A host of national security officials, many aligned with the Republican Party, rejected Trump in 2016 as unfit to be president owing to his nativism, his penchant for brutality and his benign view of dictators like Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Flynn was the exception. And the general was an exceptional figure. As the intelligence chief for the Joint Special Operations Command during the mid-2000s, Flynn is one of a select few people who can be said to have personally prosecuted the most sensitive missions of the war on terror. Michael Flynn Putting Mueller Deal at Risk in ‘Dangerous’ New TrialIt was a pivotal credential in another way. Flynn emerged from the war on terror endorsing Trump’s view that the security apparatus, abetted by hidebound liberals and cowardly conservatives, had neutered the war on terror by refusing to see it was a civilizational conflict with Islam. “Islam is a political ideology” that “hides behind this notion of being a religion,” Flynn told the Islamophobic group ACT for America shortly after the 2016 convention. His hostility to Islam informed his sanguine view of Russia, which both Flynn and Trump saw as naturally aligned with the U.S. against what they called “Radical Islamic Terror.”It also meant that Trump and Flynn shared a common bureaucratic enemy. James Clapper, then the director of national intelligence, was a lead architect of an intelligence assessment finding Russia intervened in the election on Trump’s behalf. In 2014, Clapper fired Flynn as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. It was deeply embittering. Just four years earlier, Flynn had been hailed as an innovator after claiming U.S. military intelligence had misunderstood the Afghanistan war. While Flynn portrayed himself as a martyr, victimized by the ‘Deep State’ for daring to warn about radical Islam, Clapper and other intelligence leaders had fallen out with Flynn over what they considered an incompetent management style and an iffy relationship with the truth. Reportedly, Flynn believed Iran was involved in the 2012 assault on a CIA compound in Benghazi that killed four Americans, and claimed incorrectly that Iran was responsible for more American deaths than al-Qaeda. Aides referred to such untruths as “Flynn facts.” Flynn facts did not disturb Trump. They validated his instincts on national security. Trump rewarded Flynn by making him national security adviser, one of the most important positions in the U.S. security apparatus. It was the first time Trump redeemed Flynn. Thursday’s dropped charges represent the second. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get 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.

The U.S. Navy is in “rough waters” and suffering from leadership failures, the diplomat tapped to be the next Navy secretary told a Senate committee Thursday. Kenneth J. Braithwaite, the ambassador to Norway and a retired Navy rear admiral, faced repeated questions about recent crises that have rocked the service, including the firing of an aircraft carrier captain who urged faster action to fight a coronavirus outbreak on his ship and the subsequent resignation of the acting secretary who fired him. Braithwaite said that Navy culture has been tarnished and trust in the service's leaders has broken down.

Now Swain, 40, spends her evenings having dinner with her girls, age 5 and 8, and studying for her real-estate license, which she hopes will provide more long-term stability for her family after the coronavirus crisis upended her livelihood. "I can't be put in a position like this again," said Swain, a bartender for 20 years. American women are taking an outsized hit from the early wave of unemployment caused by the pandemic, due to the nature of the jobs that were lost in the business shutdowns to control the spread of the coronavirus.

Gregory McMichael and his son, Travis, were charged with murder and aggravated assault in relation to the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery in February.