SEE NEW POSTS

More than 800 die in France in 24 hours PARIS — France’s health minister has reported the country’s highest 24-hour death toll recorded in the country since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Olivier Veran said Monday evening that 833 people died of coronavirus in hospitals and nursing homes since Sunday. Though some predicted that the infection rate might start to slow, Veran said that “we have not reached the end of the ascent of this epidemic.” France has only recently started counting nursing home deaths in their COVID-19-related death counts, and previously only reported deaths in hospitals. The total number that have died from the coronavirus stands at 8,911. Share this -







Texas teen faces terrorism charge after threatening to spread coronavirus, police say Police in Texas are searching for an 18-year-old girl who claimed in a series of Snapchat videos to have tested positive for and to be "willfully spreading" the coronavirus. 18-year-old Lorraine Maradiaga. Carrollton Texas Police Department / via Facebook The teenager, identified by police in Carrollton, near Dallas, as Lorraine Maradiaga, faces a charge of making a terroristic threat. "I'm here at Walmart about to infest every motherf------, because if I'm going down, all you motherf------ are going down," Maradiaga says in the video, according to police. Read the full story here. Share this -







Trump: White House, 3M have reached agreement on mask production President Donald Trump said Monday that after much discussion, the administration had reached an “amicable” agreement with manufacturing giant 3M to produce millions of high-quality face masks. The company will make roughly 55 million masks each month, which will result in over 166 million masks for frontline health care workers over the next three months, Trump said. “The 3M saga ends very happily,” the president told reporters at a White House briefing. Trump had previously clashed with the company, with the administration claiming 3M had not done enough to help fill the shortage of medical equipment such as masks, or to stop price-gouging. On Friday, Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to compel 3M to send masks made in foreign factories to the U.S. and to stop exporting masks made in America. Peter Navarro, Trump's trade adviser and Defense Production Act coordinator, also accused 3M of "acting like a sovereign nation." Mike Roman, the company's CEO, called claims 3M was not doing all it could do "absurd." On Monday, the company also announced it reached a deal with the administration to continue to export overseas. Share this -







New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern: Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy still working Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks during her post-Cabinet media update at Parliament on April 6, 2020 in Wellington, New Zealand. Mark Mitchell / Pool via Getty Images New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday declared the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy "essential workers" — while gently warning kids that Peter Cottontail might miss his annual visit. "You'll be pleased to know that we do consider both the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny to be essential workers," Ardern told reporters, updating her nation's struggle against COVID-19. The prime minister smiled as she asked children to be understanding if the egg-carrying rabbit can't get to everyone by Sunday: "And so I say to the children of New Zealand, if the Easter Bunny doesn't make it to your household, then we have to understand that it is a bit difficult at the moment for the bunny to perhaps get everywhere." Share this -







Fact check: Did the Obama administration ignore swine flu? “Take a look at the swine flu. It was a disaster, 17,000 people died, the other administration…it’s like they didn’t even know it was here,” President Donald Trump claimed during a Monday press briefing. Swine flu killed an estimated 12,469 people in the U.S. during the Obama administration. The first case was detected on April 15, 2009. Within two weeks, according to archived CDC records, the federal government had declared a public health emergency, begun work on a vaccine, started releasing PPE from the federal stockpile and purchasing antivirals, and had rolled out a test. Share this -







Fact check: Were the early coronavirus tests 'obsolete'? “We’re the federal government, we’re not supposed to stand on street corners doing testing,” President Trump said at Monday's coronavirus task force briefing. “Initially speaking, the tests were old, obsolete and not really prepared. We have a brand-new testing system that we developed very quickly, and that’s you’re result and you should say congratulations, great job, instead of being so horrid in the way you ask a question.” We've fact checked this before, and Trump's claims are false. There was no test for the novel coronavirus before it existed. The Trump administration chose to develop their own test — as the U.S. has done with previous infectious diseases, such as Ebola — and initially ran testing through just a handful of government labs. The U.S. only started allowing private labs to do testing after February 29. Share this -







U.S. coronavirus deaths now over 10,000 The death toll in America's ongoing struggle against the coronavirus pandemic surged past 10,700 on Monday night, according to an NBC tally. There have been at least 10,742 fatalities from COVID-19 and more than 363,434 positive tests of coronavirus in the 50 states, District of Columbia and U.S. territories. Share this -





The Wisconsin election is back on after courts rule in GOP favor A man leaves the Frank P. Zeidler Municipal Building after not being able to cast his ballot at the already closed drop-off site in Milwaukee on April 6, 2020. Kamil Krzaczynski / AFP via Getty Images WASHINGTON — Wisconsin's controversial election is back on for Tuesday and voters will get no extension on the deadline to return absentee ballots despite the coronavirus crisis, thanks to two top courts sided with Republicans Monday evening. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, issued an executive order Monday afternoon postponing the election to June 9, citing the public health risk. But the Wisconsin Supreme Court hours later overturned the governor, siding with the Republican-controlled legislature that had appealed his order. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Wisconsin Republicans on a separate issue, voting along ideological lines 5-4 to overturn a lower federal court's decision to extend the deadline for absentee balloting. Read the full story here. Share this -





