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US to Stockpile Millions of COVID-19 Vaccines Ahead of FDA Approval, Fauci Says - ScienceAlert

Moderna is beginning the final phase of its coronavirus vaccine trials in July. Fauci says the US will manufacture doses while waiting for results.

Pharmaceutical companies are preparing to test their coronavirus vaccines on tens of thousands of people this summer. The fast-moving process has garnered an optimistic outlook from Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who said on Tuesday that the US could have hundreds of millions of approved vaccines by 2021. Moderna will begin giving its COVID-19 vaccine to 30,000 people in the first week of July, Fauci told JAMA editor Howard Bauchner in a livestreamed conversation. That's phase three of the clinical-development process — the final trial stage before a vaccine can gain approval from the US Food and Drug Administration. In the meantime, Fauci said, the US will begin mass-producing the vaccines so it can distribute them once they gain FDA approval. The first patient enrolled in Pfizer's COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine clinical trial receives an injection at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, May 4, 2020. Associated Press "We're going to start manufacturing doses of the vaccines way before we even know that the vaccine works," Fauci said. "We may know whether it's efficacious or not by maybe November, December. Which means that by that time, we hopefully would have close to 100 million doses. And by the beginning of 2021, we hope to have a couple of hundred million doses." Fauci added that he was involved in at least four other vaccine trials that will start throughout the summer. Among all these efforts, he's "cautiously optimistic" that one will produce an effective vaccine that can be distributed to the public. Vials of an mRNA type vaccine candidate being developed for the coronavirus at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, May 25, 2020. Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters "If the body is capable of making an immune response to clear the virus in natural infection, that's a pretty good proof of concept to say that you're going to make an immune response in response to a vaccine," Fauci said. But he added: "There's never a guarantee, ever, that you're going to get an effective vaccine." Researchers are still missing two key pieces of information about immunity to the coronavirus: whether everybody who gets infected develops immunity, and how long that protection lasts. A health worker takes a blood sample for a COVID-19 antibody test in Los Angeles, California, May 20, 2020. Damian Dovarganes/AP "I have examples of people who were clearly infected, who are antibody-negative," Fauci said, adding that those people likely have antibody counts too low for the test to detect. It's unclear if such low antibody levels are enough to protect someone from reinfection. Other recovered patients, meanwhile, show high antibody counts. "It isn't a uniformly robust antibody response," Fauci added. That could mean that a vaccine might not produce high levels of antibodies in some people. For those who do gain immunity from a vaccine, it's also unclear how long that protection would last. Other coronaviruses — the kind that cause common cold — produce immunity that lasts less than a year, and in some cases just a few months. "It may be completely different with this coronavirus," Fauci said. "We don't know." Loading Something is loading.

How to reduce police violence in the US: research-based methods - Business Insider - Business Insider

Body cams and bias trainings don't work well. Strict policies around use of force, as well as federal oversight and police union contracts, do.

Business Insider Thousands of Americans are protesting in more than 350 cities across the US this week, following the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and thousands of other black people killed by police over the years. They're demanding justice for repeated incidences of police brutality against people of color: ex-Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin killed Floyd on May 25, and Louisville police officers shot Taylor in her home on March 13. According to the Mapping Police Violence database, police killed 1,099 Americans last year alone. About 25% of those people were black, though only 13% of the US population is. According to Samuel Sinyangwe, a data scientist and the co-founder of a police-reform initiative called Campaign Zero, there are research-backed ways to curb this violence. Most buck traditional thinking. "Everything you've probably heard is a lie. Specifically, the most discussed 'solutions' to police violence have no evidence of effectiveness," Sinyangwe tweeted in October. He added: "For example, body cams don't reduce police violence." Sinyangwe listed several solutions in a thread, and Campaign Zero is also circulating a document that outlines additional data-based methods to stop police violence. An immense crowd of protesters occupies Fulton Street as protesters flooded the streets of Crown Heights in Brooklyn to demand the defunding of the police force and to demonstrate against police brutality in the wake of George Floyd's death. Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images Here are six changes that could make a difference, and two approaches that don't seem to work. 1. Eliminating language in police union contracts that limits officer accountability Union contracts and police bills of rights have formalized policies that limit police accountability. According to the Police Union Contract Project, these contracts erect at least one barrier to proper oversight of law enforcement officers' misconduct in 72 of the US's 81 largest cities. Such provisions include the disqualification of certain complaints from being investigated or resulting in discipline, restrictions on officer interrogations, options for officers to appeal for reinstatement, and officer access to privileged information during investigations. Forty cities and three states give officers paid leave while they're under investigation. Forty-three cities and four states erase officers' misconduct records after a period of time, sometimes within as little as two years of an incident. A Washington Post investigation found that of the 1,881 US police officers who were fired for misconduct between 2006 and 2017, 451 of them won their jobs back after an appeal. In many of those cases, arbitrators overruled police chiefs on the terminations — not because there were doubts about whether the officers had engaged in misconduct, but because police departments made bureaucratic errors while disciplining officers, such as missing deadlines. Protesters gather in Minneapolis on June 1, 2020, at a memorial for George Floyd where he died after being restrained by police officers. AP Photo/John Minchillo Last month, for instance, the Broward County Sheriff's Office in Florida was forced to reinstate a deputy who was fired after he hid behind his car during the 2018 Parkland school shooting. Sgt. Brian Miller was fired two days after the 180-day window in which termination was supposed to occur. Because of that misstep, an arbitrator said Miller's due process rights had been violated. He was ordered reinstated with full back-pay. Experts have recommended that police departments reform their processes for disciplinary appeals to ensure that officers who engage in misconduct are held fully accountable. That might entail eliminating arbitrators from the process and instead leaving the decision to democratically elected officials such as city councils. 2. Track complaints about officers' use of force Most complaints against officers aren't public, making them hard to track. A 2019 study found that police officers who are are partnered with officers who garner complaints about excessive force are more likely to receive such complaints themselves in the future. Researchers examined more than 8,600 Chicago police officers named in multiple complaints between 2005 and 2017. The analysis found that the more officers with histories of excessive force were in a group, the higher the risk that other officers in that group would develop similar track records. According to Andrew Papachristos, one of the study's co-authors, this link could help predict potential bad behavior by officers and give departments better information about when and how to intervene before violent incidents occur. "If you are going to build an early intervention system that only looks for bad apples, that will only go so far," Papachristos told the Chicago Tribune. "How we pair and assign officers matters — a lot. Officers with a history of abuse have a pretty strong influence on subsequent behavior of other officers." Police prepare to disperse a group of protesters in Richmond, Virginia, on May 31, 2020. AP Photo/Steve Helber Instituting a means of tracking complaints against officers, and making that data public, could provide further oversight. Legislation that prohibits officers who are terminated for serious misconduct from being rehired could also make a difference. 3. Scale-up non-police organizations to respond to emergency calls According to the Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit, at least one in every four people killed by police has a serious mental illness. Not all officers who respond to an emergency call involving a person with mental illness are trained in crisis management, which may result in mismanaging the situation that ends in police violence. Programs like Eugene, Oregon's Cahoots, which stands for Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Street, can work to alleviate those situations by responding to those calls in lieu of or alongside police officers. Leveraging crisis workers and mental health providers to respond to incidents involving substance abuse, mental health crises, and homelessness, for example, could work to minimize violence. In this April 23, 2020, photo FDNY paramedic Alex Tull prepares to begin his shift outside EMS station 26, the "Tinhouse", in the Bronx borough of New York City. John Minchillo/AP 4. Encouraging federal oversight for police departments According to a Vice investigation, departments that went through federal investigations and subsequently adopted new policies saw police shootings fall by between 27% and 35%. The Department of Justice-backed interventions recommend stricter policies against use of force, improved officer trainings, and an independent process to review police killings. Shootings dropped in Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Baltimore. Campaign Zero suggests establishing automatic federal investigations of all police departments with the highest rates of police violence and the most severe racial disparities in America. New York Police Department officers. Justin Heiman/Getty Images 5. Demilitarization is imperative A common theme at protest scenes across the country has been police officers' use of military-grade equipment against unarmed civilians. That's largely thanks to a Pentagon program known as 1033, which allows the military to send surplus military equipment to police and sheriff's departments. The program has resulted in local law enforcement agencies being outfitted with equipment like armored vehicles, bayonets, and even grenade launchers. But research has shown that receiving more military equipment makes police departments more likely to use it. According to a 2017 study, researchers found that the act of receiving the equipment "leads to a culture of militarization" within police departments, causing them to "rely more on violence to solve problems." Though former President Barack Obama reined in the program in 2015 and barred certain types of equipment from being sent to police departments, President Donald Trump reversed the action in 2017. Reinstating limits around what type of gear can and should be sold to local law enforcement agencies could help reduce police-inflicted violence and death. Vehicles for the District of Columbia National Guard are seen outside the D.C. Armory, June 1, 2020, in Washington DC. Jacquelyn Martin/AP 6. More restrictive laws governing use of force "Use of force," according to the international association of chiefs of police, is the "amount of effort required by police to compel compliance by an unwilling subject." That could encompass everything from using a chokehold, mace, or Taser, to ex-officer Chauvin's knee on the back of Floyd's neck. Police departments that have more restrictive policies around what use-of-force methods are allowed are much less likely to kill people. After cities like Chicago and Los Angeles adopted more restrictive policies in 2017 and 2019, respectively, the number of police shootings dropped. Campaign Zero suggests departments ban chokeholds, and utilize deadly force as a last resort, after efforts at de-escalation — the strategic slowing down of an incident that allows officers more time, distance, and space to peacefully resolve conflict — have failed. These changes, plus requiring departments to report and publish online data on all uses of force, could reduce police violence. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in San Francisco, California, on May 31, 2020. Rob Price/Business Insider 2 methods that don't work: implicit bias trainings and body cameras Implicit bias trainings have become one of the most popular reforms that police and sheriff's departments have implemented in recent years. The idea is that training officers to be more aware of their subconscious biases about class, gender, and race will help reduce conflicts with marginalized communities. Yet experts have grown skeptical over whether this training actually works — for one, there are few consistent standards and assessments for the trainings, and therefore it's difficult to track exactly how effective they are, The Atlantic reported. Instead, policing reform advocates have pushed for departments to prioritize de-escalation training, rather than implicit bias training. According to Campaign Zero, police recruits on average spend 58 hours learning how to shoot, but just eight hours learning how to de-escalate potentially violent situations. Body cameras are another method that haven't been proven effective when it comes to excessive force instances. Though police departments across the country have adopted body cameras for officers — often in response to public pressure for transparency — studies have shown mixed results as to whether they actually reduce excessive-force incidents, and whether they lead to police being disciplined or prosecuted for misconduct. According to a review of 70 empirical studies on body cameras, eight studies found no significant decrease in use-of-force incidents from police wearing body cameras, while just six studies found that officers were less likely to use force. Two motor officers, pose with Digital Ally First Vu HD body worn cameras on their chests outside the police department in Colorado Springs April 21, 2015. Reuters Furthermore, the footage appears to more frequently be used against citizens, not police officers. Research has even shown that 93% of prosecutors' offices have used body cameras mostly in cases against citizens, not against police. Though it's unlikely that police departments will be giving up their use of body cameras anytime soon, organizations such as Campaign Zero have advocated for police departments to enforce stricter policies to prevent the cameras from being used to surveil marginalized communities.

China threatens retaliation after UK offers Hong Kong citizens refuge - Business Insider - Business Insider

The move dramatically escalates the growing row between Beijing and London.

China has warned Britain to "step back from the brink" and "stop interfering" in China's affairs after Prime Minister Boris Johnson threatened to offer 3 million Hong Kong citizens the right to come and live in the UK Boris Johnson said on Wednesday that he will have "no choice" but to offer UK visas to millions of Hong Kong residents if China pushes ahead with its plans for new national security legislation which critics fear would remove existing freedoms in the semi-autonomous region. Writing in the Times of London newspaper on Wednesday, the prime minister warned that the new legislation would "dramatically erode" the island's autonomy, which currently enjoys judicial and political independence from mainland China. The prime minister suggested that in response he would offer a 12-month extendable visa to all citizens on the island who are eligible to apply for a British National Overseas passport, some 3 million. It goes significantly further than the UK government's suggestion last week that it would extend visa rights to 300,000 holders of BNO passports, rather than all those eligible. Johnson said: "Today about 350,000 people hold British Nationals (Overseas) passports and another 2.5 million people would be eligible to apply for them. At present these passports allow for visa-free access for up to six months." "If China imposes its national security law, the British government will change its immigration rules and allow any holder of these passports from Hong Kong to come to the UK for a renewable period of 12 months and be given further immigration rights including the right to work which would place them on the route to citizenship." He said the move would amount to "one of the biggest changes to our visa system in history. If it proves necessary Britain will take this step and take it willingly." However, China hit back on Wednesday, warning Johnson that his intervention would "backfire." "We advise the UK to step back from the brink, abandon their Cold War mentality and colonial mindset, and recognise and respect the fact that Hong Kong has returned [to China], Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular briefing, according to AFP. Zhao added that London must "immediately stop interfering in Hong Kong's affairs and China's internal affairs, or this will definitely backfire." Responding to the comments, Johnson's spokesman said on Wednesday: "As the PM said Britain wants nothing more than for Hong Kong to succeed under "one country, two systems." "If China proceeds with this security legislation, this would be in direct conflict with its obligations under the joint declaration, a legally binding treaty registered with the United Nations. "Britain would then have no choice but to uphold our profound ties of history and friendship with the people of Hong Kong." The UK has also asked other close allies to consider offering residency to Hong Kong citizens if they begin to flee the island in large numbers due to Chinese repression. Raab, the foreign secretary, said that he had invited the so-called "Five Eyes" intelligence-sharing nations —  the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada — to offer Hong Kong residents visas. "I raised it on the Five Eyes call yesterday, the possibility of ... burden-sharing if we see a mass exodus from Hong Kong," he told the House of Commons on Tuesday. "I don't actually think that is likely ... but he's right to raise it and we're on the case diplomatically," he said.

Google is being sued for tracking users even when they're browsing in incognito mode - Business Insider - Business Insider

Google asserts it's upfront with users about how their data is collected while browsing Incognito.

Google was hit by a class-action lawsuit in California on Tuesday which alleged the company continues to track the internet activity of Chrome browser users even when they're in "Incognito" mode. When you open a Google Chrome window in incognito mode, the program does not save your search history, but analytics data is still sent to the websites you visit via Google Analytics and Google Ad Manager. When you open an Incognito window, the browser tells you your data may still be visible to "websites you visit," "your employer or school," and "your Internet service provider." Here's what it looks like when you open up a tab: This page appears when you open a Chrome Incognito window. Google The lawsuit was filed by law firm Boies Schiller & Flexner, and seeks a minimum of $5 billion in damages on the grounds that Google's presentation of incognito mode on Chrome "intentionally deceive[s] consumers." Google asserts that it is upfront with its users that their data from browsing incognito might be sent to third parties.  "We strongly dispute these claims and we will defend ourselves vigorously against them," a Google spokesman told Business Insider. "Incognito mode in Chrome gives you the choice to browse the internet without your activity being saved to your browser or device. As we clearly state each time you open a new incognito tab, websites might be able to collect information about your browsing activity during your session," he added. The lawsuit currently has three plaintiffs attached to it, and is seeking a minimum of $5,000 per plaintiff.

HelloFresh drops Lea Michele after allegations of bullying - Business Insider - Business Insider

"HelloFresh does not condone racism nor discrimination of any kind," a HelloFresh spokesperson told Business Insider.

HelloFresh has dropped its partnership with Lea Michele after former co-stars alleged that the "Glee" actor engaged bullying behavior on set. Actor and singer Samantha Marie Ware, who appeared on "Glee" alongside Michele, took to Twitter to blast her former colleague for hypocrisy. Ware alleged that Michele engaged in "traumatic microaggressions."  —SAMEYAAAAAA (@Sammie_Ware) June 2, 2020 Other actors, including "Glee" star Amber Riley and "Daybreak" actress Jeanté Godlock also weighed in after Ware's initial post. Godlock alleged that Michele referred to background actors on-set as "cockroaches." "HelloFresh does not condone racism nor discrimination of any kind," a HelloFresh spokesperson told Business Insider. "We are disheartened and disappointed to learn of the recent claims concerning Lea Michele. We take this very seriously, and have ended our partnership with Lea Michele, effective immediately." The company also published its statement out on Twitter, in response to questions about Michele. Representatives of Michele did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment. According to a press release published on Business Wire, the grocery delivery business first announced its team-up with Michele in January 2020.  The singer last posted about HelloFresh on Instagram on May 20.

Best photos from SpaceX's first launch of NASA astronauts - Business Insider - Business Insider

SpaceX sent two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station on Saturday — the first crewed commercial spaceflight ever.

NASA astronauts give the new SpaceX spacesuits a 5-star review - Business Insider - Business Insider

SpaceX launched the two NASA astronauts into space on Saturday. They wore new spacesuits that Elon Musk helped to design.

SpaceX launched its first human passengers, NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, into orbit on Saturday. They were wearing new spacesuits — the first time the company's suits were tested by humans in space. The astronauts wore the spacesuits for the entire 19-hour-long flight to the International Space Station (ISS), where they'll stay for the next one to four months. During a press briefing on Monday from the ISS, Hurley said the suits are "very comfortable." Behnken added: "Both Doug and I, we'd have to give the suits a five-star rating."  SpaceX's Demo-2 mission lifts off with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley inside the Crew Dragon spaceship. Tony Gray and Tim Powers/NASA A new design for a historic mission The spacesuits were custom-fitted for each astronaut and designed to connect to the seats in SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship. Spacesuits are essentially complex, personalized, human-shaped spacecraft: They must be flexible for astronauts to wear during long flights inside small spacecraft, but thick and heavy enough to protect them from changes in oxygen levels and pressure. "This one is point-designed for us to sit in our seats and protect us if there's a fire or any sort of a problem with the atmosphere onboard Dragon — if it's leaking out or has smoke in it or anything like that," Behnken said. "These suits that didn't have to do that job for us, which was nice, but it was clear that they were ready." Astronaut Doug Hurley rehearses putting on his SpaceX spacesuit in the Astronaut Crew Quarters at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 23, 2020, during a full dress rehearsal ahead of the Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station. Kim Shiflett/NASA The spacesuits were made in Hawthorne, California, in the same building as SpaceX's rockets. They're designed to be a single piece, with specialized parts. "A single connection point on the suit's thigh attaches life support systems, including air and power connections," NASA said in a press release. "The helmet is custom manufactured using 3D printing technology and includes integrated valves, mechanisms for visor retraction and locking, and microphones within the helmet's structure." The suits have touchscreen-compatible gloves that enable the astronauts to pilot the Crew Dragon, whose control panel is touchscreen-only. SpaceX's crewed launch marked the first time NASA astronauts have launched in an American spacecraft since 2011, and the first time people have ever flown a commercially developed spaceship. The mission was the product of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, a partnership between the space agency and private companies to build spaceships that can ferry astronauts to and from the space station. The suits had been in space before — but not on people  The SpaceX spacesuits had been put to the test twice before this launch: Once on the dummy at the wheel of the Tesla that SpaceX launched into space on its Falcon Heavy rocket in 2018, and then on the dummy called Ripley that flew on the Crew Dragon during its uncrewed Demo-1 test flight last year. SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket launched a Tesla Roadster with a mannequin wearing a SpaceX spacesuit in 2018. SpaceX Behnken and Hurley had practiced wearing the suits in flight simulations on the ground as well. "Bob and I have had a ton of time in those suits. I bet you we've donned and doffed those suits a couple hundred times," Hurley said, adding that the suits worked better in space than on the ground. "They were actually much easier to get in and out of in zero g, as we figured out over the course of the two days," he said. Most recently, the NASA astronauts who have gone to the space station wore Russian Sokol suits, since the US had been buying seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft since 2011. NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch in Sokol suits. NASA Musk's design vision During NASA's coverage of the first launch attempt on Wednesday, which was scrubbed due to poor weather, Musk said he'd focused on the appearance of SpaceX's suits since the company began designing them. "I personally spent a lot of time — it took us three, almost four years to design these suits that both look good and work well," he said. The New York Times reported that Musk tapped Jose Fernandez, a costume designer for superhero movies such as "Batman v Superman," "The Fantastic Four," "The Avengers," "X-Men II," among others, to create a prototype. Fernandez told Bleep magazine in 2016 that Musk wanted the suits to stand out. "When people put this spacesuit on, he wants them to look better than they did without it, like a tux," Fernandez said. "You look heroic in it." SpaceX CEO Elon Musk celebrates the launch of astronauts on the Demo-2 mission, from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, May 30, 2020. Steve Nesius/Reuters Musk elaborated on that idea on Wednesday. "You see the spacesuits in the movies — they look good, they don't work well," he said. "You can make a spacesuit that works, but it doesn't look good, because fundamentally it's a pressure suit that has to survive in a vacuum." But Musk said he wanted to design a spacesuit to inspire kids to become astronauts and don the uniform themselves — to "get them fired up," he said. "Everyone should be excited that this is a thing made by humans, for humans," Musk added.

AOC attacks NYPD for threatening Bill de Blasio's daughter after arrest - Business Insider - Business Insider

Ocasio-Cortez urged the NYPD to de-escalate with protesters and told the union to "apologize and own this egregious behavior."

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York progressive, on Monday slammed a New York City Police Department union, saying it "publicly threatened" Mayor Bill de Blasio's 25-year-old daughter, Chiara, after she was arrested on Saturday while protesting racism. Ocasio-Cortez was responding to the Sergeants Benevolent Association, which tweeted confidential information about Chiara de Blasio's arrest and attacked the mayor over his daughter's actions. "How can the NYPD protect the city of NY from rioting anarchist when the Mayors object throwing daughter is one of them," the union wrote. "Now we know why he is forbidding Mounted Units to be mobilized and keeping the NYPD from doing their jobs." A screenshot of the police record included in the tweet disclosed personal information, including Chiara de Blasio's height, weight, address, date of birth, and driver's license details. There is no evidence that she threw any objects during the protest, and the New York Post reported that she was arrested because she refused to move while blocking traffic. Twitter removed the tweet because it violated the platform's rules. It temporarily suspended the account. "Last night the NYPD Sergeants' union *publicly threatened the mayor's daughter* while they held her. Indefensible," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Monday. "If police budgets bought peace, the $6 *billion* NYPD budget would've bought the most sophisticated de-escalatory operation in the world. Clearly, it didn't." Ocasio-Cortez urged the NYPD to de-escalate with protesters rather than respond with violent force, and she told the union to "apologize and own this egregious behavior." In an interview with The New York Times, Edward Mullins, the president of the union, argued that the mayor was "tying our hands" in responding to the demonstrations. "The message was that cops are being pelted with rocks, cars are being set on fire and our police department is being held back," Mullins said. The mayor criticized the union — calling the disclosure of confidential information "unconscionable" but not an anomaly — and defended his daughter during a press briefing on Monday morning. "She was acting peacefully," the mayor said. "I admire that she was out there trying to change something she thought was unjust." Chiara de Blasio, who is biracial, was arrested at 10:30 p.m. on Saturday during demonstrations in response to George Floyd's death. NYPD sources told Business Insider that she was charged with unlawful assembly and was released on a desk appearance ticket, or DAT, which requires her to appear in court at a later date. —Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 1, 2020 —Mikael Thalen (@MikaelThalen) June 1, 2020 According to NBC New York, the NYPD confirmed that at least 345 people were arrested in protests on Saturday and that 33 police officers were injured. The mayor has faced widespread criticism from his own party for his handling of the protests. Critics say the mayor has empowered the NYPD to respond to protesters with excessive force. At a Sunday press conference, he said the NYPD was acting with "tremendous restraint" even as footage of police cruisers ramming into protesters was shared widely online. Speaking to NY1 on Saturday night, the mayor said a "small number" of people were "clearly trying to incite violence against the police and create property damage and vandalism." "The folks who are here to do violence and are purposeful about just trying to do violence, just trying to harm police officers, we're going to arrest them, and we're going to deal with them, and there's going to be consequences. That's the bottom line," he told the outlet. "And we have to be really clear about they do not represent this city." Rosie Perper contributed to this report.

Joe Biden visits a Black Lives Matter protest site in Delaware - Business Insider - Business Insider

Biden left his home for the second time in a week to visit the protest site and was photographed kneeling on the ground with a man and his son.

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday made an unannounced visit to a site in Wilmington, Delaware where protests against police brutality and racism took place the night before. Leaving his home for the second time in a week, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee recognized the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed in Minneapolis police custody last week. His campaign posted a photo of Biden kneeling on the ground facing a black man also kneeling with his young son.  Biden has attempted to strike a unifying tone in his public statements as demonstrations continued in at least 75 US cities over the weekend.  —Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 31, 2020 In a five-minute video released on Friday, Biden urged the country to come together and address the "national crisis" of police brutality against black people.  "The original sin of the country still stains our nation today," he said. "We need justice for George Floyd."  "We are a country with an open wound. None of us can turn away. None of us can be silent," Biden wrote in an accompanying tweet. "None of us any longer can hear those words — 'I can't breathe' — and do nothing. We must commit, as a nation, to pursue justice with every ounce of our being." The Biden campaign announced in a Sunday email to reporters that the candidate will meet with community leaders in Wilmington on Monday morning and will hold a virtual roundtable with mayors afterwards.  Biden's response to Floyd's death and the ensuing protests has been markedly different than the president's. Over the past few days, Trump tweeted out a slew of attacks on the protesters, including one message quoting a white police officer who sparked a race riot in the 1960s.  "When the looting starts, the shooting starts," Trump declared in a message that was later flagged by Twitter for violating the platform's policy against content that "glorifies violence."  In a series of tweets on Saturday, Trump warned that the Secret Service was "just waiting for action," and would use "vicious dogs" and "ominous weapons" against protesters who breached the White House security boundary outside his residence.

US, China relationship pushed to brink by Trump, Xi, coronavirus - Business Insider - Business Insider

Over the coronavirus, the US and China relationship has gone from skepticism and competition to insults and outright hostility.

Business Insider There comes a moment in all close relationships when both parties must decide whether they will work through their problems together, or if they will engage with those problems in a state of open hostility. The US and China — in the midst of a global health catastrophe and facing the worst economic crisis since World War II — have chosen the path of open hostility. This week The People's Republic of China irrevocably changed Hong Kong. It passed legislation to allow its security forces to operate there, a move condemned the world over as an encroachment on Hong Kong's freedom. On Friday the Trump administration responded to that by listing a slew of ways it would change the US's relationship with Hong Kong and announced plans to investigate Chinese companies on US stock exchanges and sanction individuals involved in enforcing the new Hong Kong security measures. After weeks of escalating tensions over the coronavirus, Chinese telecom company Huawei, Taiwan, national security and technological development — literally everything that matters between the two countries — these Hong Kong measures take the fight between the new countries to a new level. Taken all together this means that right now the China and the US are living out a dangerous paradox. Never since China reemerged on the world stage in the 1970s has there been more vitriol between the two countries. But never in their history have they needed each other more than they do now. China needs US money to get out of its coronavirus depression. The US needs Chinese-made medical supplies to specifically fight the coronavirus as well as China's products for its consumers and business in general. This necessity for cooperation is very real, but the capacity for it is almost nonexistent in both countries. In the US both Republicans and Democrats have turned against the Chinese government. An extreme group of politicians within the GOP — led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — is still claiming, without providing evidence, that the virus may have escaped from a Chinese research lab in Wuhan.  China has met the US's frustration with aggression and outright lies about the coronavirus' origin. The world won't stop asking questions about the country's initial response to the virus — which was horrendous — and President Xi Jinping is encouraging diplomats to respond to those questions with something called "wolf warrior diplomacy" — a heightened public aggression against any Chinese descent from anyone anywhere. Trump also on Friday announced that the US would no longer cooperate with the World Health Organization because, according to Trump, China "has total control over" the organization and the country pressured to WHO "mislead the world" about the virus. The rivalry between the US and China is eroding trust in the very institutions meant to bring us through this crisis. It's a contest in which we all lose. China's coronavirus lockdown absolutely savaged its economy. Analysts at Societe Generale estimate that the country's unemployment number sits between 70 million and 80 million people at the end of March. According to official figures, China's GDP contracted by 6.8% in the first quarter, a historic drop. It sounds horrible, but it may actually be too rosy a picture. China watchers like Charlene Chu, an analyst at Autonomous Research who is known for her deep knowledge of China's financial system, find it impossible to square that GDP number with the rest of the stats that came out of China in the first quarter. Here's a rundown:

• Retail sales -19.0% year-over-year in the first quarter
• Fixed-asset investment -16.1% year-over-year in the first quarter
• Exports -13.3% year-over-year in the first quarter
• Industrial production -8.4% year-over-year in the first quarter