Cut to the News
Cut through the clutter to today's top news
June 15, 2020
Good morning
Welcome to today's top news.
Leading the News . . .
Fired Atlanta cop who shot man who stole his taser could face murder charges . . . Paul Howard, the Fulton County district attorney, said Sunday that the 27-year-old black man who was fatally shot during an encounter with two white officers “did not seem to present any threat to anyone” and charges could come as soon as Wednesday. “The fact that it would escalate to his death seems unreasonable,” Howard told CNN. He was
referring to the death of Rayshard Brooks who suffered two gunshot wounds to the back late Friday, which prompted new unrest during nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd in police custody. A medical examiner said Sunday that the gunshot wounds to the back created organ failure because of blood loss. Fox News
Bongino: Officer took bad option over worse . . . Former NYPD officer and Fox News contributor Dan Bongino reacts to videos of the police altercation that led to the shooting death in Georgia. Former NYPD officer Dan Bongino told “Fox & Friends Weekend” on Sunday that “there was a bad and a worse option” regarding the police-involved shooting death of 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks outside a Wendy’s
in Atlanta. “The worse option is to let this subject continue to engage in use of force against them [the officers], without stopping the episode,” Bongino said. “Sadly, it resulted in his death, but make no mistake, the use of force was controlled by one person, the individual who resisted arrest, stole the weapon, ran away and then pointed it at the officers, which is clear on the video.” Fox News
White woman sought for burning down Wendy's . . . Video footage appears to show a masked white woman setting fire to a Wendy's restaurant near where a black man was shot dead by police, as authorities offer a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of arsonists. The fast-food outlet was torched late on Saturday during demonstrations that erupted over the killing of 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks by police officers on Friday. A video
clip filmed by a protester that appeared to show a woman fanning the flames. Police also posted photos on social media of the white woman 'attempting to hide her identity', wearing a black baseball cap and face mask. Daily Mail
The anti-police movement will of course result in the deaths of many black people who need cops to control crime in their neighborhoods. And BTW, where are the #MeToo leaders? Do we defund the police and allow rapists to run rampant?
Experts rank riskiest places for coronavirus . . .
These places post the greatest risks for contracting coronavirus, according to a survey of four public health experts. They ranked the locations on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the riskiest:
Bars and large music concerts = 9
Sports stadiums, gyms, amusement parks, churches and buffets = 8
Public pools = 7
Movie theaters, hair salons and barber shops = 6
Planes, beaches, bowling alleys and backyard BBQs = 5
Busy city sidewalks and dentist offices = 4
Libraries/museums, grocery stores, hotels and golf courses = 3
Pumping gas, walking/running and biking = 2
Restaurant takeout and tennis = 1
Fox News
Early Covid vaccines may prevent disease but not infection . . . Desperation for a way to keep economies from collapsing under the weight of Covid-19 could mean settling for a vaccine that prevents people from getting really sick or dying but doesn’t stop them from catching the coronavirus. Although a knock-out blow against the virus is the ultimate goal, early vaccines may come with limitations on what they can deliver, according to Robin
Shattock, an Imperial College London professor leading development of an experimental shot. Bloomberg
Rush to disinfect offices worries health experts . . . Businesses across the U.S. have begun intensive Covid-19 disinfection regimens, exposing returning workers and consumers to some chemicals that are largely untested for human health, a development that’s alarming health and environmental safety experts. The rush to disinfect is well-intentioned. Executives want to protect employees while abiding by U.S. Centers for Disease Control &
Prevention guidelines (and to avoid liability). “This is a hazardous proposition,” said Dr. Claudia Miller, an immunologist, allergist and co-author of Chemical Exposures: Low Levels and High Stakes. “Cleaners tend to go in with hugely toxic chemicals. We’re creating another problem for a whole group of people, and I’m not sure we’re actually controlling infections.” Bloomberg
Fired Florida scientist provides coronavirus info state would not allow . . . Florida’s former top coronavirus data scientist has launched a website showing far more COVID-19 information than she said the state allowed her to report as an employee, including statistics contradicting Florida’s official coronavirus numbers and the push to reopen the state. Former Health Department geographic data scientist Rebekah Jones has
created FloridaCOVIDAction.com, which asserts that the state’s widely read public-facing dashboard under reports how many people have tested positive for the pathogen. Florida also overcounts how many have been tested, Jones said, to the benefit of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ push to reopen the state after two months of quarantine. Palm Beach Post
Pandemic doc warns of danger at Trump rally . . . A top pandemic doctor warned President Trump’s supporters to think twice about attending his reelection campaign rally in Oklahoma next weekend as allies struggled to stay on the right page about whether to wear face masks to limit the spread of coronavirus.Dr. Michael T. Osterholm told “Fox News Sunday” that he would personally not recommend attending any mass gathering like the indoor arena rally
Trump will address on Saturday in Tulsa. “Would I want my loved ones in a setting like that? Absolutely not,” Osterholm said. “And it wouldn’t matter about politics, I wouldn’t want them there.” Daily News
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Local GOP officials see Trump landslide . . . Interviews with more than 50 state, district and county Republican Party chairs depict a version of the electoral landscape that is no worse for Trump than six months ago — and possibly even slightly better. According to this view, the coronavirus is on its way out and
the economy is coming back. Polls are unreliable, Joe Biden is too frail to last, and the media still doesn’t get it. “The more bad things happen in the country, it just solidifies support for Trump,” said Phillip Stephens, GOP chairman in Robeson County, N.C., one of several rural counties in that swing state that shifted from supporting Barack Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016. “We’re calling him ‘Teflon Trump.’ Nothing’s going to stick, because if anything, it’s getting more exciting than
it was in 2016.” This year, Stephens said, “We’re thinking landslide.” Politico
Today's Trump schedule
Trump rule defines gender as person's biological sex . . . The Trump administration on Friday finalized a regulation that defines gender as a person’s biological sex, reversing an Obama-era rule aimed at protecting transgender people against sex discrimination in health care. The Health and Human
Services Department regulation says essentially that “gender identity” is not protected under federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in health care. The policy shift was long sought by religious and social conservatives. The Obama administration’s regulation defined gender as a person’s internal sense of being male, female, neither or a combination. Washington Times
Also on the way: Rulings that Grant is buried in Grant's tomb and George Washington's white horse was white. Meantime, Ivy League professors still debating whether the Pope is Catholic.
Trump seeks to explain problem walking at West Point . . . President Trump took to Twitter to explain what looked like a slow, unsteady descent of a ramp at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Saturday. As video of the incident circulated widely on social media Saturday night, the president responded. The
ramp “was very long & steep, had no handrail, and most importantly, was very slippery,” Trump tweeted. Although the president said he “ran” the final stretch of the ramp, video showed a few hasty steps at the end. Trump on Saturday delivered an almost 30-minute address to graduating West Point cadets. In an incident during the speech also scrutinized on social media, the president appeared to struggle to bring a glass of water to his mouth with his right hand, before using his left
hand for support. Bloomberg
Trump's niece writes salacious book about the president . . . Donald Trump's niece has reportedly written a 'harrowing and salacious' book about her uncle in which she details how and why she leaked family tax information to the New York Times - and delves into family feuds. Mary Trump, 55, who has a Ph.D.
in clinical psychology, is due to publish Too Much And Never Enough in August, to coincide with the Republican National Convention. The book will reportedly lay bare how his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, an 83-year-old retired federal judge, disapproves of Trump's presidency. Trump Barry had conversations with Mary in which she expressed 'damning thoughts about her brother.' The book will also allege that Trump and his father, Fred Trump Sr, contributed to the death of Trump's
alcoholic elder brother Fred Trump Jr by failing to help him. Daily Mail
Trump dreaded facing Melania after Access Hollywood tape released . . . President Trump dreaded facing his wife after the release of the Access Hollywood tape in which he bragged about groping women without their consent, according to a new book about the first
lady. After watching the tape with members of his campaign at their offices in Trump Tower in October 2016, the soon-to-be president was urged to talk with his wife, according to The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump by Mary Jordan. "Everybody was saying, 'You should go upstairs and see Melania. Why don't you go upstairs now and see Melania?' And he was not rushing to go up there," former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris
Christie told Jordan. "I said to him, 'It ain't going to get any easier. The longer you wait, it's not going to get any easier.'" Washington Examiner
Melania used election to renegotiate her prenup
Bolton book: Trump cared only about reelection . . . Sure. That’s why President Trump slapped tariffs on China, which actually hurt the economy in the short term. John Bolton is obviously an angry little man. Trump let him work as his national security advisor for 17 months. Apparently, that wasn’t
enough. If Bolton thought everything was being run through a political meat grinder, surely he should have resigned sometime during that period. You know, as a matter of principle. Instead, he wrote a book. White House Dossier
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Russian court sentences American to 16 years for spying . . . A Russian court on Monday sentenced an American businessman to 16 years in prison on spying charges, a sentence that he and his brother rejected as being political. The Moscow City Court read out the conviction of Paul Whelan on charges of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in a maximum security prison colony. The trial was held behind closed doors. Whelan, who
was arrested in Moscow in December 2018, has insisted on his innocence, saying he was set up. Speaking after the verdict, U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan denounced the secret trial in which no evidence was produced as an egregious violation of human rights and international legal norms. Associated Press
F-15 crashes off English coast . . . A U.S. fighter plane crashed off the coast of northeast England on Monday, sparking a search and rescue operation for the pilot in the North Sea. The U.S. Air Force said the F-15C Eagle from the 48th Fighter Wing crashed at around 0940 local time. “At the time of the accident, the aircraft was on a routine training mission with one pilot on board,” it said. “The cause of the crash as well as the status of the
pilot are unknown at this time and UK Search and Rescue have been called to support.” Reuters
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Macron: France will not take down its statues . . .
France will not be tearing down statues or rewriting its history in response to pressure from anti-racism activists, President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday.
"The republic will erase no trace or names of its history, it will forget none of its works, it will tear down none of its statues. We must instead lucidly look together at our history, and in particular our relationship with Africa," Macron said in a televised address. The French president has faced increasing demands over the past two weeks
to bring down statues and revisit other works of art that honor French historical figures involved in slavery and France's colonial history amid protests against police brutality and racism. Politico
Johnsson says Britain cannot "photoshop" its history . . . Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Britain cannot “photoshop” its cultural landscape and complex history as doing so would be a distortion of its past, amid an ongoing row over the removal of statues of historical figures. "If we start purging the record
and removing the images of all but those whose attitudes conform to our own, we are engaged in a great lie, a distortion of our history," Johnson wrote. Johnson also defended Winston Churchill and said it was “absurd and deplorable” that the former prime minister’s monument should have been in any danger. “He was a hero, and I expect I am not alone in saying that I will resist with every breath in my body any attempt to remove that statue from Parliament Square, and the sooner his
protective shielding comes off the better,” he said. Reuters
Chinese capital reinstates curbs as coronavirus surfaces . . . Several districts of the Chinese capital put up security checkpoints, closed schools and ordered people to be tested for the coronavirus on Monday after an unexpected spike of cases linked to the biggest wholesale food market in Asia. After
nearly two months with no new infections, Beijing officials have reported 79 cases over the past four days, the city’s biggest cluster of infections since February. The return of the coronavirus has shrouded Beijing, home to the headquarters of many big corporations, in uncertainty at a time when China is trying to shake off the economic torpor caused by the disease. Reuters
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Mnuchin: White House considering second round of stimulus checks . . . With Election Day coming up, I imagine that the White House is going to make completely sure that the economy does not fall back into recession once it starts growing again. There’s a lot of incentive to send out more money. I’d say your check is pretty much in the mail, though it will take a few months to get there. You know how the Post Office is. White House Dossier
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Chemical in apple peel may help reverse multiple sclerosis damage . . . A chemical in apple peel could transform the treatment of multiple sclerosis, research reveals. The compound that gives apple skin its waxy sheen could be turned into the first drug that reverses the devastating damage caused by the disease. In tests on mice, paralysed animals given ursolic acid – also found in pear peels – were able to walk again. The
US researchers said ‘it’s not a cure’ but if similar results are seen in humans, it would significantly improve their quality of life. Daily Mail
Don't go thinking "an apple a day." If they're extracting the stuff from the peel, it could mean you need ten apples a day, plus an apple pie.
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Couple holds up Pizza Hut, takes a bottle of soda . . . Police in Richland County, South Carolina, are asking for the public’s help Wednesday to identify a man and a woman who were caught on video stealing a 2-liter bottle of Pepsi from a local Pizza Hut at gunpoint. The alleged robbery unfolded May 29 at a Pizza Hut in Columbia, WIS News 10 reported.
The restaurant manager said the unidentified man and woman confronted him and claimed their delivery person did not include a bottle of soda with their pizza order. The man was accused of pulling a gun on the manager while the woman stole the 2-liter bottle from behind the counter, investigators said. The pair then took the
soda and left. Fox News
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Keith
Keith Koffler
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