Coronavirus: Three continents, four lives, one day

The stories of people who died on one day, from an exile who returned home to a disaster survivor.

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Coronavirus: 'Many said goodbye to loved ones in an ambulance'

Dr Nigel Kennea describes his role supporting bereaved families at one London hospital during the coronavirus pandemic.

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How The Assistant exposes Hollywood's abuse silence

The movie which has roots in the exposure of power and abuse in the film industry after #MeToo.

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The worldwide race to make solar power more efficient

Scientists are working on better solar cells that will turn more of the sun's rays into electricity.

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‘Justice not charity’ - the blind marchers who made history

Remembering the maverick blind campaigners who walked to London a century ago to demand equality.

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Lockdown homeschooling: The parents who have forgotten what they learned at school

Parents have been turning to Google to help them teach the things they’ve forgotten.

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Outsiders consider possibility of chaos in North Korea

North Korea’s collapse has been predicted — wrongly— for decades. Others thought it would be during a 1990s famine or when national founder Kim Il Sung died in 1994. It's no surprise then that recent rumors that leader Kim Jong Un is seriously ill have led to similar hand-wringing.

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One dead, five missing after Canadian helicopter goes missing during NATO exercise

Canadian prime Minister Jusin Trudeau has confirmed that one man has died and five others are missing after a Canadian military helicopter went missing during a NATO operation. Debris and the aircraft's black box have been found in the sea between Greece and Italy, a Greek military officer and public television said Thursday. Canada's armed forces said the helicopter had been involved in an accident after taking off from the Canadian frigate Fredericton on Wednesday. "Debris has been found in Italy's zone of control and intervention" in the Ionian Sea, the Greek military officer told AFP, specifying the wreckage belonged to the Canadian helicopter. Six crew were aboard the helicopter when it disappeared, the officer said on condition of anonymity. Greek public television reported that a body had been found amid the wreckage in international waters off the Greek island of Kefalonia. Greek public television ERT said Italian and NATO vessels were also taking part in the search while Turkey said one of its frigates was also involved. Canada said on Twitter that it contacted the family members of those who were on board the missing CH-148 Cyclone helicopter.

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The Next-Gen Air Force One Is Already Over Budget

The converted Boeing 747s, designed to carry the POTUS, will fly in 2024.

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An unprecedented coalition of Amazon, Walmart, FedEx, Target, Instacart, and Whole Foods workers is planning to strike over pandemic working conditions

A coalition of workers from some of the US's largest essential businesses are protesting what they say are insufficient and unsafe conditions.

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Pelosi Suggests Biden Does Not Need to ‘Directly’ Address Reade Allegation: ‘I’m Satisfied with How He Has Responded’

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) on Thursday dismissed the notion that vice president Joe Biden should “directly, publicly” respond to sexual-assault allegations made by his former Senate staffer, saying in an interview that she was "satisfied with how he has responded."Speaking to CNN, Pelosi defended Biden after she was asked if Biden should answer the allegation “head-on” and by “himself.”“I’m satisfied with how he has responded,” Pelosi said, adding she was “very proud to endorse him.”“It’s a matter that he has to deal with, but I am impressed with the people who worked for him at the time saying that they absolutely never heard one iota of information about this, nobody ever brought forth a claim or had anybody else tell them about such a claim,” she stated.> Nancy Pelosi was asked on @CNN about the Biden sexual assault allegation and she defended him.> > "He’s a person of great values, integrity, authenticity, imagination, and connection to the American people," Pelosi said, adding that she's "satisfied with how he has responded." pic.twitter.com/gaDt8Ki7oR> > -- Mike Brest (@MikeBrestDC) April 30, 2020While Biden’s campaign has strongly denied the allegations of Biden’s accuser, Tara Reade, the former vice president has not said anything publicly about the situation. The New York Times said Wednesday that talking points about the allegation that had been circulated by the campaign "inaccurately suggest" the paper concluded that Reade’s claims were false.Reade has said that she complained about the incident to Biden staffers at the time, who have denied that she ever approached them. But last week, a 1993 clip from CNN’s Larry King Live showed a woman calling in about “problems” her daughter had had with a U.S. senator. Reade, who had previously told The Intercept that such a tape existed, identified the woman as her mother. Earlier this week, one of Reade’s former neighbors came forward and said Reade told her about details of the allegation in the mid-1990s.Biden’s top female surrogates and prospective vice presidential candidates have also defended the former vice president. “I believe women deserve to be heard, and I believe that has happened here,” former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said on Tuesday, apparently referencing the campaign’s talking points about the Times article.Reade has said that she has been surprised by the dismissals of her claims in the “MeToo” era. News surfaced Wednesday that a letter asking Biden to address Reade's claims was drafted by national women’s advocacy groups, only for the letter to not be publicly released after the Biden campaign learned of it.“I was just hoping to get a fair and equal treatment,” Reade told National Review. “But because it’s Joe Biden I’ve been silenced or smeared.”

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Philippines rejects China's territorial label on island

The Philippines protested on Thursday China’s designation of a disputed South China Sea reef, which it has turned into a heavily fortified island base, as a Chinese “administrative center.” The Department of Foreign Affairs issued a statement objecting to what it called China’s “illegal designation” of Fiery Cross Reef as a regional administrative center in the hotly contested Spratly archipelago. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused China last week of taking advantage of widespread distraction over the pandemic to advance its territorial claims.

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California closes Orange County beaches where crowds defied coronavirus guidelines

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday ordered beaches in Orange County in the southern part of the state to close, after crowds defied public health guidelines to throng the popular shoreline last weekend. The move came after Newsom complained that beachgoers could hasten the spread of the coronavirus in California, delaying the state's ability to ease public health restrictions even as millions of people in the most-populous U.S. state obey the stay-at-home rules imposed in March. Newsom's decision to close the Orange County beaches, announced at his daily coronavirus briefing, stood in contrast to media reports, including by Reuters, that the Democratic governor planned to close all parks and beaches in the state.

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Roger Stone bought more than 200 fake Facebook accounts, which he used to run ads defending Roger Stone

Stone, a longtime friend to Donald Trump, ran a sprawling network of fake Facebook accounts starting in 2016, according to newly unsealed FBI records.

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Class action suit aims to free all transgender ICE detainees

As hundreds of coronavirus cases are reported at U.S. immigration facilities, the suit calls for the release of dozens of trans migrants from what it calls ICE “death traps.”

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80,000 cruise workers are still stuck aboard ships in US waters. Staff members say it's 'embarrassing' they're not allowed to disembark.

Up to 80,000 crew members are stuck on 120 cruise ships on US waters, and it's unclear when they'll touch land again.

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Everyone has to accept that Tesla is worth $150 billion precisely because Elon Musk doesn't behave like any other CEO in the business

Tesla CEO Elon Musk attacked coronavirus-pandemic shelter-in-place orders, demanding a restoration of "freedom."

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Trump argues 1 million coronavirus cases in the U.S. is a reflection of 'superior' testing

President Trump suggested Wednesday that the United State surpassing one million coronavirus cases is a statistic that sounds worse than it is, because it's really a reflection of the country's "superior" testing efforts, despite experts arguing testing needs to ramp up significantly.> On US reaching 1 million cases of COVID, Trump says the big number is "because of testing." > "So it's a number that, in one way, sounds bad, but in another way is really actually an indication that our testing is so superior."> > -- Jordyn Phelps (@JordynPhelps) April 29, 2020He also claims he received some outside validation about the U.S.'s performance from none other than South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Seoul has been heralded as the gold standard for handling the COVID-19 pandemic thanks to its intense and efficient testing program that helped the country keep infections and deaths relatively low, while also avoiding a full-scale economic shutdown as has been seen in many other parts of the world. > Trump says Moon Jae-in "called me to congratulate me on the testing." He claims Moon said, "Your testing is the greatest in the world...I want to just tell you, what you've done with testing is incredible." (The usual caveats about Trump phone call stories apply.)> > -- Daniel Dale (@ddale8) April 29, 2020More stories from theweek.com Trump's 'mission accomplished' moment Gun-toting protesters' dramatic stand inside Michigan's statehouse, in 5 photos and videos The Justice Department is apparently working with conservative Christian groups to fight COVID-19 policies

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Biden to give first interview responding to sexual assault accusation

Presumptive Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Joe Biden for the first time on Friday is set to personally address a former Senate aide's accusation that he sexually assaulted her in 1993 - a claim that his campaign has denied. Biden is scheduled to be interviewed about the matter on the MSNBC program "Morning Joe," the cable TV network said on Twitter on Thursday. Biden's campaign did not respond to a request for comment about the interview.

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"You Are the Champions": Queen, under lockdown, record health worker anthem

Rock band Queen and singer Adam Lambert are raising money for health workers fighting COVID-19 with new single "You Are The Champions", an updated version of classic hit "We Are The Champions" recorded on mobile phones under lockdown.

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Trump threatens new tariffs on China as U.S. mulls retaliatory action over virus

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday his hard-fought trade deal with China was now of secondary importance to the coronavirus pandemic and he threatened new tariffs on Beijing, as his administration crafted retaliatory measures over the outbreak.

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Amazon sees possible second-quarter loss as it forecasts $4 billion in COVID-19-related costs

Amazon.com Inc on Thursday said it could post its first quarterly loss in five years because it is spending at least $4 billion (3.2 billion pounds) in response to the coronavirus pandemic, including plans to test its workers for COVID-19, providing staff with protective gear and raising hourly wages.

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Most of U.S. House urges more diplomacy at U.N. to renew Iran arms embargo - sources

Nearly 90% of U.S. House of Representatives members have signed a letter urging the Trump administration to increase its diplomatic action at the United Nations to renew an arms embargo on Iran, congressional sources said on Thursday.

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Coronavirus: Searching for truth behind Spain's care home tragedy

Families want to know why so many of their elderly relatives have died.

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Coronavirus: Japan's low testing rate raises questions

Japan's relatively low rate of virus testing raises questions about how it has tackled the pandemic.

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How will airlines get flying again?

When passenger planes start flying again, the world of air travel will be very different.

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Coronavirus: Why the fashion industry faces an 'existential crisis'

"No-one wants to buy clothes to sit at home in," as Next's chief executive Simon Wolfson puts it.

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Kim Jong-un: Who might lead N Korea without Kim?

The enigmatic sister and a spymaster are contenders, as rumours swirl over Kim Jong-un's health.

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Living in a war zone: What it teaches about surviving a pandemic

As the coronavirus disrupts daily life in America, Afghans’ adaptation to constant war holds lessons for persevering amid uncertainty.

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Stop pinning your hopes on coronavirus antibodies: 3 major issues mean they're no silver bullet

Politicians hope to use antibody tests to help reopen countries. But the tests can be inaccurate, and some patients may not develop antibodies at all.

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How Tara Reade's allegations could bring down Joe Biden

Earlier this month, I wrote a column asking what Democrats should do about sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden, the party's presumptive nominee for president. My answer? Not much. The accusation made by Tara Reade, a former Biden staffer from his days in the Senate during the early 1990s, didn't strike me as especially convincing, so Democrats, I suggested, could move forward without much concern. Though toward the end of the column I included two caveats: If Reade offered further corroboration of her claims or if evidence emerged of a larger pattern of abusive actions toward women on Biden's part, that could well change my views of the matter.Just two weeks later, both of my conditions have been met.Last week we learned that Reade's mother called into the Larry King Show in 1993 to talk about how her daughter had quit working for a "prominent senator" after unspecified "problems" as a staffer. Then earlier this week Business Insider reported that a former neighbor of Reade's (a self-described "strong Democrat") recalls a conversation with her in 1995 or 1996 in which Reade tearfully described being sexually assaulted by Biden. Together, those two stories help to corroborate Reade's specific claim about herself.Finally, on Tuesday, a 2008 essay by the late Alexander Cockburn surfaced in which the journalist reported that Biden had made "unwelcome and unwanted" sexual advances against a woman in 1972 or 1973. That establishes a possible longstanding pattern of Biden's behavior that further validates Reade's accusation (and potentially opens the door to others).In light of these revelations, the time has come for a two new questions: Can Biden survive the gathering storm around Tara Reade's allegations? And if so, will that fact be good or bad for the Democratic Party in November?The first question is the easier one to answer: Biden's presumptive nomination is quite likely to survive the corroboration of Reade's claims. That's because members of Biden's electoral base in the Democratic Party — older, culturally moderate white working-class voters in the Midwest and older, culturally moderate African Americans — are unlikely to be turned against him by one corroborated allegation of sexual assault from nearly three decades in the past. If anything, rank-and-file Democrats have expressed regret that some MeToo allegations have taken down popular members of the party (former Minnesota Sen. Al Franken is the example cited most frequently) — and they're also irritated that Democrats are expected to adhere to standards their opponents openly flout.The factions of the party most likely to turn on Biden because of a sexual-assault scandal are those who've been least wedded to his candidacy from the start — those firmly on the left, who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders; and white urban progressives, who tended to favor Sen. Elizabeth Warren's candidacy. Neither group possesses the numbers or influence in the party to get it to overrule the preferences of the other two electorally crucial factions — and obviously their opinions will also carry little weight with the candidate himself. This means that, so long as no additional corroborated accusations materialize, Biden will most likely get to hold onto the nomination if he wants to.That might turn out to be a very bad thing for the party come November.But how could this be? How could a sexual assault allegation place Biden at a disadvantage in the general election against President Trump, a man who has openly bragged on tape of sexual assault and has himself been accused of rape on multiple occasions?On substance, Trump will have zero moral ground to stand on. But he won't be taking a stand in the name of treating women with respect. Neither will he be accusing Biden of being a sexual predator. Instead, he and the entire Republican noise machine will constantly, relentlessly hammer Biden, leading Democrats, and the media for flagrant hypocrisy and double standards. The moral content of the issue won't matter one bit. What will matter is that Biden has set himself up as a moral arbiter on issues of sexual harassment and violence, insisting we must "believe all women," and that in the fall of 2018 he and many other members of his party sought to destroy the reputation of Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh for allegations of sexual assault that were less convincingly corroborated than those Reade has lodged against Biden.The Democratic nominee for president and his party are ruthless political operators who seek above all else to destroy their enemies and help themselves, all the while setting themselves up as impartial moral authorities. This will be the message, driven home over and over again: that claims of purity and impartiality are pretense, transparent fakes. Democrats might posture like they're better than Republicans, including the president, but they aren't. They're every bit as bad. They're just more dishonest about it.The Biden campaign's effort to portray itself as a moral reset from the debasement of the Trump years will run into this counter-message like a power sander. The Trump campaign will strip it away with a barrage of paid ads, prime-time cable news diatribes, and a hailstorm of tweets — all of it repeating the message (illustrated with clips from and about the Kavanaugh hearings) that Biden and his fellow Democrats are every bit the BS artists that Trump is, only they won't admit it. They'll lie about it, right to your face.To Democrats this prediction may sound implausible. There's no way that Trump, a man whose mendaciousness is well established and total, can possibly succeed in portraying Biden as more dishonest than he is. But he won't have to show that Biden is worse, just that he's no better.That's Trump's (perhaps only) winning move — to bring the playing field down to his level, to lower Biden's favorability rating, to make him seem less admirable, less likable, less morally upstanding, less … superior than Trump. He did the same thing against Hillary Clinton in 2016, using the FBI investigation of her email practices while secretary of state as a cudgel. Last summer, the strategy was to impugn Biden's son, making them both look like corrupt wheeler dealers in Ukraine. That didn't work out, but now Reade's allegations have made it possible for Trump and his party to do what they love most of all, which is to accuse Democrats and the media of smarmy double standards instead.Of course this won't work with most Democratic voters, but that won't be its aim. The aim will be to ensure maximal turnout and Trump loyalty among Republicans — and the destruction of Biden's reputation among independents in crucial swing states.Will it succeed? Trump will be facing re-election while presiding over a deadly pandemic and the early stages of an economic depression, so who knows. What I do know is that the behavior Tara Reade has plausibly alleged about the presumptive Democratic nominee is going to be a major liability for him as we head toward Election Day.Editor's note: A previous version of this article mischaracterized a quote by Alexander Cockburn. It has been corrected. We regret the error.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.More stories from theweek.com The perils of Hooverism Florida's health department reportedly told medical examiners to remove causes of death from mortality data Elon Musk, who predicted 'close to zero' new coronavirus cases by the end of April, demands we 'free America'

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Inmate who gave birth on ventilator dies of Covid-19

The 30-year-old appears to be the the first US federal female prisoner to die from coronavirus.

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Israel marks its Independence Day under coronavirus lockdown

Israelis celebrated their Independence Day at home Wednesday amid a nationwide lockdown aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. The national holiday, which honors the creation of Israel after the end of the British Mandate in 1948, is usually a festive occasion, with people heading to the beach, hosting barbecues and watching fireworks. The Israeli air force devoted its annual fly-by to health workers, with four planes crisscrossing the nation and performing aerial acrobatics over hospitals and medical centers.

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Pakistan prepares to ease coronavirus curbs with infections below projections

Pakistan is preparing to loosen coronavirus lockdown restrictions as the number of infections and deaths are well below previous projections, officials said on Wednesday. The South Asian nation, which has registered more than 15,000 cases of COVID-19 including 335 deaths, has already granted exemptions to dozens of sectors to open up over the last few days. “The mortality numbers are nowhere near the same as we see in other countries,” Planning Minister Asad Umar, who oversees the response to the virus, told journalists.

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Costco to require face coverings for shoppers

Starting Monday, customers will be required to wear masks covering their nose and mouth at all times while inside the store.

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FDA reportedly plans to authorize emergency use of largely untested drug to treat coronavirus

The Food and Drug Administration will authorize the emergency use of the antiviral remdesivir on COVID-19 patients as soon as Wednesday, a senior administration official told The New York Times. Pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences revealed promising study results involving remdesivir on Wednesday, but the FDA's reported move would still sidestep the usual testing required to authorize a drug's usage.Gilead said Wednesday that its own trial, as well one overseen by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, met its goals. Of the study's 397 severe COVID-19 patients, at least 50 percent of patients treated with a 5-day dosage of remdesivir improved and more than half were discharged from the hospital within two weeks. The overall mortality rate of the study was 7 percent, and relatively few patients developed bad side effects. But the study wasn't evaluated against a control group, and it's unclear if those recoveries were natural or if remdesivir actually had something to do with them. Hard data from the study also hasn't been released yet.Anecdotal reports, including two published in The New England Journal of Medicine, provided more credibility for remdesivir in the coronavirus fight. But they also didn't compared the drug against a placebo. A study published in The Lancet concluded remdesivir was "safe and adequately tolerated" but "did not provide significant benefits over placebo."More stories from theweek.com How Tara Reade's allegations could bring down Joe Biden The perils of Hooverism Florida's health department reportedly told medical examiners to remove causes of death from mortality data

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Asian stocks set to track U.S. gains as virus treatment hopes lift confidence

Asian equity markets were poised to gain on Thursday, tracking Wall Street's rally after positive trial results of an experimental COVID-19 treatment, a U.S. Federal Reserve pledge to shore up the economy and a jump in oil prices.

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Flypast and promotion for UK fund-raising hero 'Colonel' Tom as he turns 100

British World War Two veteran Captain Tom Moore, who has become a national hero after raising almost 30 million pounds for the health service, celebrates his 100th birthday on Thursday with an honorary promotion and two military flypasts.

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Coronavirus slashes UK car output as industry warns of big hit

The British car industry faces losing output worth more than 8 billion pounds due to the coronavirus outbreak, which cut production in March by a third, falling to its lowest level since 2009, an industry body said on Thursday.

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