Coronavirus News (258)

Single Parents Finding Love: Over Zoom, of Course Because dating with kids wasn’t tricky enough before the pandemic. ........... There are nearly 19 million single-parent families in the U.S., and some of those parents, naturally, are looking for partners. They want the nervous butterflies you get on the first date and the inside jokes you share by the fifth. They want loyal companionship, deep conversation and someone else to load the dishwasher once in awhile. ..............  It’d be nice to find that person that I want to be quarantined with.” ............. “But the loneliness of single parenting three kids during a pandemic took over, and I was just happy to have another adult to spend time with.” .......... “It would be unreasonable to ask single parents to sit at home and wait for some unknown time when the pandemic is over and they can date again,” she said. “That’s basically solitary confinement.” .............. For parents who share custody, there’s a whole other set (or sometimes several sets) of germs to contend with. Mooradian’s kids go back and forth between her house and her ex-husband’s house, where his girlfriend lives. “Then her kids go back and forth between that house and her ex’s house, and the ex has a girlfriend too,” she said. “It’s a whole chain effect.” .......... On Father’s Day, her brother invited the whole family over — except her. “He said I was too high-risk because I was dating,” she said. ..................  ‘I’m a single parent juggling work and two amazing kiddos.’ Covid-19 has accelerated people self-identifying as single parents in a really big way.” ............. He and Carlson have been texting and plan to take an online workout class together from their respective homes. Afterward, they said, they’ll meet for a drink. Over Zoom, of course. 

Movie theaters are struggling to survive the pandemic. Many won't

The Bicoastal Entrepreneur: Running a Business in Multiple States​  corporations and LLCs are considered domestic only in the state that they are registered 

Bidencare Would Be a Big Deal Don’t dismiss it because it isn’t Medicare for All. .......... substantially expanding coverage and reducing premiums for middle-class families. ......... under Biden’s plan, 15 million to 20 million Americans would gain health insurance. And premiums would fall sharply, especially for middle-class families. Editors’ Picks A Columnist Makes Sense of Wall Street Like None Other (See Footnote) The Army Rolls Out a New Weapon: Strategic Napping Hold Me, Squeeze Me, Bite My Head Continue reading the main story .......... the plan would also provide significant aid for long-term care, rural health, and mental health. ............  True, America would still fall somewhat short of achieving what every other advanced country has — universal health care. But we’d get a lot closer 

Trump Is Killing the Economy Out of Spite So what will he do if he loses the election? ......... Nobody knows what chaos, possibly including violence, he may unleash if the election doesn’t go his way. ......... Trump hasn’t even lost yet, but he abruptly cut off talks on an economic relief package millions of Americans desperately need (although as of Thursday he seemed to be backtracking). And his motivation seems to have been sheer spite. ............. We’ve already lost around 900,000 jobs in state and local education. ........... Unless the federal government steps in, there will be huge unnecessary suffering. There’s also a macroeconomic case: If families are forced to slash consumption, if businesses are forced to close and if state and local governments are forced into extreme spending cuts, the economy’s growth will slow and we might even slide back into recession. ........... warnings about the dangers of failing to provide more relief aren’t just coming from progressive Democrats; they’re coming from Wall Street analysts and Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve. ......... The main stumbling block, I’d argue, has been the adamant refusal of Senate Republicans to consider aid to state and local governments ..........   Why would Trump choose this, of all moments, to torpedo economic policy? ........... What this looks like, instead, is vindictiveness. ..........  he’s already acting like a deeply embittered man, lashing out at people he feels have treated him unfairly, which is basically everyone. And as usual he reserves special rage for smart, tough women; on Thursday he called Kamala Harris a “monster.” ............  getting a relief deal would have required accepting a compromise with that “nasty” woman Nancy Pelosi. And it seems that he would rather let the economy burn. ........... Trump has always been vindictive; what will he do if and when he has nothing left but spite?

Some Republicans Seem to Think This Isn’t Going to Go Their Way Why else would Amy Coney Barrett need to be installed so quickly? .......  She apparently was closely connected to a conservative Christian group called People of Praise that has a history of stressing a husband’s role as head of the household. .............  And hey, have you noticed that Republican senators are starting to come down with the coronavirus? Two Judiciary Committee members, Mike Lee and Thom Tillis, are sick and now presumably infectious. (Earlier, Lee was at Trump’s Judge Amy party, where he seemed to be hugging about half the attendees.) So Mitch wants to let folks do their committee work from home if they prefer, in the basic Zoomish method we have all come to know and hate. ............ “A virtual hearing is virtually no hearing at all” .........  the Senate will have to actually get together in person and vote. McConnell will need almost all of his Republicans to show up, no matter what their viral condition.  ....... Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, one of the ailing, says he’ll “go in a moon suit if necessary.” 

Coronavirus News (257)

House Democrats say Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet, Apple enjoy ‘monopoly power’ and recommend big changes  After a 16-month investigation into competitive practices at Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google, the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust has released its findings and recommendations on how to reform laws to fit the digital age. The report concludes that the four Big Tech companies enjoy monopoly power and suggests Congress take up changes to antitrust laws that could result in parts of their businesses being separated. Republicans have voiced objections to some of the bolder proposals in the report, such as imposing structural separations. ...............  major changes for Big Tech companies, such as spinning off or separating parts of their businesses or making it harder to buy smaller companies. ...........  the 1.3 million documents they scoured throughout the investigation. ........ nearly 450-page report ........  imposing business structures that make different lines of business functionally separate from the parent company. For example, this could include a scenario such as forcing Google to divest and separate from YouTube, or Facebook doing the same with Instagram and WhatsApp ........... a type of “Glass-Steagall” law for the internet, referring to the 1930s law that separated commercial from investment banking. ............ Preventing dominant platforms from preferencing their own services, instead, making them offer “equal terms for equal products and services.” ......... Requiring dominant firms to make their services compatible with competitors and allow users to transfer their data. ...............  Strengthening private enforcement by eliminating forced-arbitration clauses and limits on class-action lawsuits. ............ The Democratic report found that the four tech companies enjoy monopoly power in their respective domains. ........... While there is no way to reverse engineer what would have happened to Instagram were it to remain independent, the question of whether Facebook bought Instagram to squander a growing competitor has been a recurring one for many antitrust observers. ..........  then-Instagram chief Kevin Systrom “wanted Instagram to grow naturally and as widely as possible. But Mark was clearly saying ‘do not compete with us.’ ... It was collusion, but within an internal monopoly.” ............. Amazon has monopoly power over most of its third-party sellers and many of its suppliers .............. “Amazon’s market power is at its height” when it comes to its relationship with third-party sellers on its platform. .......... “Publicly, Amazon describes third-party sellers as ‘partners.’ But internal documents show that, behind closed doors, the company refers to them as ‘internal competitors.’” .............. “Amazon’s dual role as an operator of its marketplace that hosts third-party sellers, and a seller in that same marketplace, creates an inherent conflict of interest. This conflict incentivizes Amazon to exploit its access to competing sellers’ data and information, among other anticompetitive conduct.” ..............  Amazon reached its dominance partly through acquiring competing sites such as Diapers.com and Zappos as well as adjacent businesses to add customer data and “shor[e] up its competitive moats.” ............ Apple’s monopoly power exists in the market for software app distribution on iOS devices ..............  Apple uses its control of its operating system and app store “to create and enforce barriers to competition and discriminate against and exclude rivals while preferencing its own offerings.” ..................  Apple uses its market power “to exploit app developers through misappropriation of competitively sensitive information and to charge app developers supra-competitive prices within the App Store.” ............ Last year in the United States alone, the App Store facilitated $138 billion in commerce with over 85% of that amount accruing solely to third-party developers. .......... Google’s dominance as operating “as an ecosystem of interlocking monopolies.” By linking together various services with extensive user data, Google is able to reinforce its dominance ................  “Google exploits information asymmetries and closely tracks real-time data across markets, which—given Google’s scale—provide it with near-perfect market intelligence. In certain instances, Google has covertly set up programs to more closely track its potential and actual competitors, including through projects like Android Lockbox.” ..........................  Google has been able to maintain its dominance with high barriers to entry, including the default position it’s secured in many browsers and devices ........... Google allegedly boosted its own vertical offerings by misappropriating content from third parties ...........  Google has been “blurring the distinction between paid ads and organic results” since capturing its monopoly in general search while stacking its results page with ads. ..............  “As a result of these tactics, Google appears to be siphoning off traffic from the rest of the web, while entities seeking to reach users must pay Google steadily increasing sums for ads,” according to the report. “Numerous market participants analogized Google to a gatekeeper that is extorting users for access to its critical distribution channel, even as its search page shows users less relevant results.” ..............  data portability and interoperability  

QAnon’s Creator Made the Ultimate Conspiracy Theory There’s no fact the sprawling movement can’t dismiss—and no madness it can’t imagine. ............ Most of those who believe in the convoluted QAnon conspiracy theory hold that the pandemic is fake, and so the move could only indicate that the president was going undercover, and that the final revelation was coming. ..................   It has been called everything from a virulent conspiracy theory to a mass delusion, a cult, and a complete scam, and yet it’s growing daily. It seems set to send some faithful followers to Congress, it has earned the tacit acknowledgement of the president, and it still maintains a core following of about 600,000 people on Facebook alone, despite efforts by the platform to ban QAnon outright. QAnon followers have attempted political violence, and links between apparent acts of domestic terrorism and the movement are increasingly apparent. ............ In February and March, just 3 percent of Americans surveyed by Pew Research said they had heard or read “a lot” about QAnon. By September, more than 30 percent told Civiqs the teachings of the elusive pseudonymous leader Q were partly or mostly true. QAnon is growing, and fast. .............  In many ways, QAnon is the culmination of Trump’s America: paranoid, deeply critical of journalists and experts, obsessive in its defense of the president. Zoom out, though, and QAnon is the amalgam of decades of doomsday cults and new religious movements. It is the ideological successor of the satanic panic of the 1980s, and of older, even darker ideas like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It has more in common with the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo than the Republican Party of Dwight D. Eisenhower. From its modest origins on a far-right message board, it is now a behemoth, absorbing a set of ideas that have long lurked below the surface. ............. It has vacuumed up every paranoid thought and half-baked idea about power, government, and society. While it hasn’t predicted the end of the world, Q warns its followers that a “storm is coming.” The ultimate battle between good and evil is around the corner. Apocalyptic vibes radiate through all of Q’s messages. ................... QAnon traces its lineage back to a single, disproven conspiracy: that, in 2016, a pedophile ring tied to the Democratic Party had been exposed. John Podesta, Anthony Weiner, and Hillary Clinton were all involved, satanism was at play, and Comet Ping Pong, a pizzeria in Washington, D.C., was the headquarters for the whole operation. ..................  Scroll through the thousands of posts from Q and its followers, and you’ll see that there’s no new conspiracy under the sun. Every theory, from John F. Kennedy’s assassination to mind control, can fit neatly into QAnon. In Q’s world, where the deep state knows no bounds and shows few scruples, it seems evident that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were an inside job. That the few dynasties that secretly run the world’s banking system are real and active. That even the British conspiracy theorist David Icke’s stories of lizard people could be true. ............... In the dark recesses of the 4chan and 8chan message boards, these theories have long been bandied about. The core tenets of QAnon are not so much novel as they are a reflection of what the users of these boards wanted to see. .................  But QAnon doesn’t just repeat 8chan drivel—it borrows from decades of conspiracies and remixes them into something modern and new. Its followers, meanwhile, crowdfund their own additions to the conspiracy, which Q regurgitates back to them. It gives adherents the distinct feeling that they are uncovering some secret, like detectives on a case. ...................... every newspaper headline or oblique tweet is, for QAnon followers, proof positive of their predictions. Every negative story about Q is evidence of the deep state pushing back. Every Trump tweet can be a coded message encouraging QAnon to work harder. ................ theory: that Q is, currently, 8chan owner Jim Watkins. ..............  “He knows Christianity is a way, in the United States, to get something to go big,” Brennan told me. He said that “the time I knew him best, between 2015 and 2018, I never saw him go to church, I never saw him read a hymn.” ............ a favorite expression of conspiracy theorists, borrowed from the Matrix movies, is “take the red pill.” ...........  At their least damaging, these movements are a home for disaffected and frustrated people looking for a comforting alternative to a society in tumult. At their worst, this detachment from reality inspires acts of terrorism. ..........   Those cults needed to build that world from scratch. QAnon, however, has picked up existing movements and communities, like a snowball rolling down a hill and collecting debris. By bringing in existing movements, enveloping them into its mass, QAnon absorbs a quasi-credibility and an existing fan base. ......... The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, one of the world’s most enduring conspiracy theories. Written around the turn of the 20th century, the text contends in its introduction that the “hidden hand” of some 300 Jewish elders control all of Europe. .............. The Protocols was useful propaganda for Adolf Hitler. ........... several modern conspiracy theorists, including Lyndon LaRouche, a perennial candidate for American high office and father of much monetary policy quackery. LaRouche died last year, but the political action committee bearing his name has gone all in on Trump, despite his movement once being notionally left-wing. ....................... Many familiar with David Icke know him for his theory that the ruling class is, in fact, a space-and-time-traveling reptilian super race. ........... it lists the three families: The House of Saud, George Soros himself, and the Rothschilds. .............. LaRouche, Icke, and the Khazar theory may be punchlines to the general public, if they’re recognized at all, but they have found a vehicle to the mainstream in QAnon. .....................  QAnon is different, and it shares a troubling similarity with The Protocols: It is a forgery and a conspiracy designed to protect power, not challenge it. It teaches its masses that the powerful are actually vulnerable and must be defended. .............. The movement has appeared in a perfect storm. It is joined at the hip to the man in the White House, but it is also preying on a generation steeped in moral panics. ................ It’s a story of fear, warning that pipelines of trafficked children run through the United States, and that no child is safe. ........ The 8chan owner’s son tweeted the debunked theory that COVID-19 was a lab-made bioweapon three times between January and February, while Q dropped the theory that the pandemic was preplanned in mid-March. Beyond that, there is something for the anti-vaccine crowd. Lots for the climate change deniers. Even conspiracy theories normally more identified with the left, like 9/11 truthers, have something in QAnon. ............... QAnon is the culmination of more than a century in magical thinking .........  a reality where everyone in power has a dark purpose, but where the final battle of good versus evil is fast approaching. This is the end of history.  We’ve never seen a movement that ties together a constellation of delusions and beliefs like this.

Coronavirus News (256)

China’s new economic ‘dual circulation’ strategy may not just be inward-looking, but also a pivot to Asia Amid a challenging geopolitical environment, it is unsurprising that China is looking to bolster its domestic market, but it is unlikely to completely turn inward While decoupling from the West, it is likely to expand regional cooperation 

Democrats outraged as Trump halts Covid stimulus talks until after election Pelosi: Trump ‘putting himself first at expense of the country’ President later offers to sign off fresh round of stimulus checks

Louise Glück wins the 2020 Nobel prize in literature The Swedish Academy has chosen the American poet, citing her ‘unmistakable poetic voice’  ..... One of America’s leading poets, the 77-year-old writer has won the Pulitzer prize and the National Book Award, tackling themes including childhood and family life, often reworking Greek and Roman myths. ........ comparing her to Emily Dickinson with her “severity and unwillingness to accept simple tenets of faith”. .........  She said the winnings – 10m Swedish kronor (£870,000) – would help her buy a home in Vermont. “But mostly, I am concerned for the preservation of daily life, with people I love … it is disruptive. The phone is ringing now, squeaking into my ear.” ........ “She is a very quotable poet – you can look her up on Instagram,” Clanchy said. “But it’s worth noting that her resonant aphorisms are always spoken by ironised voices – a wild iris, for example. Her poems are austere, difficult, very much alive. I’ve always admired her.” ........... Born in New York City in 1943, Glück grew up on Long Island and attended Columbia University. She has taught poetry in many universities, and is currently an adjunct professor of English at Yale. .......... “you have to live your life if you’re going to do original work”, because “your work will come out of an authentic life, and if you suppress all of your most passionate impulses in the service of an art that has not yet declared itself, you’re making a terrible mistake”. ........ had “no concern with widening audience”, and that she preferred her audience “small, intense, passionate”. ........ “astonished at the justice of the win”. .......... “She’s not a cheerleader. She’s in no way a voice for any cause – she is a human being engaged in the language and in the world. And I think there’s this wonderful sense that she is not polemical, and maybe this is what’s being celebrated. She’s not a person trying to persuade us of anything, but helping us to explore to explore the world we’re living in. She’s a clarifying poet. There doesn’t seem to be much political engagement in her poems. They’re really about the individual human being alive in the world, and in the language.” ......... the prize was moving away from a Eurocentric, male-oriented focus.

Louise Glück: where to start with an extraordinary Nobel winner Poet Fiona Sampson explains why she admires the 2020 Nobel laureate and picks her favourite poems from a long career ......... a quality of lucid, calm attention ......... She has the extraordinary writer’s gift of making clear what is, outside the world of her poem, complex. .......... 

There was 

a peach in a wicker basket. 

There was a bowl of fruit. 

Fifty years. Such a long walk 

from the door to the table.

........ classic Glück, distilling time, beauty, and emotional ambivalence in a single clarifying gesture. ......... Through decades of Anglo-American poetry alternating between over-intellection and misery-memoir confession, Glück has continued to write poetry that is accessible, despite its huge sophistication. ........ She’s neatly shown a path through the canon for everyone who feels themselves excluded by that white male norm we should be past questioning.  ........  

A child draws the outline of a body.
She draws what she can, but it is white all through,
she cannot fill in what she knows is there.
Within the unsupported line, she knows
that life is missing…
........... “Even now this landscape is assembling. /The hills darken. The oxen /sleep” .......... 

and the seeds
distinct, gold, calling
Come here
Come here, little one

.......... “The city rose in a kind of splendour /as all that is wild comes to the surface” .......... “The fundamental experience of the writer is helplessness,” she tells us in th essay Education of a Poet; their life “is dignified, I think, by yearning, not made serene by sensations of achievement. In the actual work, a discipline, a service.”

Essentials

The earth stands
In the middle of nowhere

Suspended in suspension

The fragile tango with the moon

Keeping alive the breath

That utters scripture

Bread.

The vast universe

Extending beyond where light goes

Something out of nothing.

The span of time

But who is measuring

Time that stands still

And time that moves

God's artwork.

The beauty of delight

Of simple gestures of kindness

And love

That capture

The essence. 

Coronavirus News (255)

Trevor Noah: Trump Is Immune to Factual Information “You would think that somewhere along that journey Trump would pick up a tiny, tiny bit of knowledge. But, hey, maybe he’s immune to that, too,” the “Daily Show” host said of the president’s infection with the coronavirus. ...........  ‘Sick man leaves hospital to continue to get round-the-clock medical attention at home’ is not exactly a flattering story, but ‘Sick man kicks virus’s ass and can never get sick again’? Now that’s a good story.” — TREVOR NOAH .........  “What the hell kind of a thing is that to say? ‘Maybe I’m immune, I don’t know’? It sounds like the last thing a frat bro says right before he drinks the toilet water for 20 bucks.” — TREVOR NOAH ............ “It feels like that part of the movie where Trump was bitten by a werewolf and plays it off like it’s no big deal. He’s like, ‘Totally fine, never better. Sure, I howl at the moon and have a taste for humans, but mostly A-OK.’” — JIMMY FALLON ............ “Typhoid Donny made a Trumpumphant return to the White House last night, with a dramatic balcony scene that only an egomaniac on massive amounts of drugs would ever even think to stage.” — JIMMY KIMMEL ........... An infectious president on powerful steroids and experimental drugs walking around with a potentially deadly virus, making a big show of leaving the hospital, flying back to the White House at sunset, and just before Joe Biden’s town hall, taking his mask off in front of the cameras and visibly gasping for air, like he’s been guarding LeBron James all night.” — SETH MEYERS ............. “I haven’t been this confused by a masked man on a balcony since Michael Jackson dangled that baby off one.” — JIMMY KIMMEL ............   “Seriously, I’m not sure it was safe for him to climb 22 steps before Covid .............   “That’s the craziest thing he’s ever done on that balcony — and that’s the same place where he looked straight into an eclipse.” — JIMMY FALLON ............. “Trump wanted this to be a show of strength, but moments after taking off his mask, he was clearly struggling to breathe. Still, it’s a strong look, because nothing bad ever happens to people who are famous for their balconies: Your Mussolini, your Saddam, your Juliets.” — STEPHEN COLBERT .................. Yo, this wasn’t a photo op; it was a biological attack on the White House.” — TREVOR NOAH .............. “Once on the balcony, Kim Jong Don removed his mask. [as Trump] ‘I’m back from the hospital, and just to put any lingering doubts to rest, I’ve learned nothing. Kneel before me, you weak and withered, and inhale my precious droplets!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT ..............  “By the way, the only reason we could even tell that he was gasping for air was that the highly infectious president who is actively symptomatic with a potential deadly virus took his mask off once he got back to the White House. Wow, so the villain is unmasked at the end of the episode. The only thing missing was Scooby and the gang.” — SETH MEYERS 

The 10 Bellwether Counties That Show How Trump Is in Serious Trouble Each one is in a battleground state. Votes from people there will matter a lot — and offer Joe Biden several paths to victory. .......  Polls now show Joe Biden with a surprising opportunity to capture Sun Belt suburbs that have voted reliably Republican for decades. .......... Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Texas and Iowa. .......... Trump is in serious trouble. ..........  Philadelphia and Pittsburgh hog the spotlight, but Pennsylvania’s electoral ground zero might be its far northwest corner. ............ A February Mercyhurst University poll showed Mr. Biden leading Mr. Trump 48 percent to 44 percent in Erie County, and that was before Covid-19 made headlines. ............ Everything is bigger in Texas — including the suburban backlash against Mr. Trump — and the political metamorphosis underway in Dallas’s white-collar northern suburbs is happening at a dizzying pace. ......... Despite Texas’s old Wild West stereotype, the state now has one of the most metropolitan and diverse electorates in the country — and Mr. Trump’s erosion in its sprawling suburbs explains Mr. Biden’s surprising opportunity. .......... Perhaps the most widely cited bellwether in the country, Vigo, which includes Terre Haute, is the only county in America that has voted for the winner of every presidential race since 1956. But it may lose that status in 2020: In 2016, it broke for Mr. Trump by a whopping 15 points, and it’s easy to see him carrying it again this fall, even if he loses the presidency.

Goldman Sachs: A Democratic sweep would mean faster economic recovery  polls "suggest a 'blue wave' in which Democrats gain unified control of Washington is becoming more likely" ............ Moody's Analytics found that Biden's economic proposals, if enacted, would create 7.4 million more jobs than would Trump's. The economy would return to full employment in the second half of 2022, nearly two years earlier than under Trump's plan, Moody's said. 

Cuomo Imposes Tight Virus Rules on Areas Hit by Spikes Across State The plan was intended to curb the outbreak in areas, many with large populations of Orthodox Jews, that have had sharp increases in cases.

Covid-19 could be the start of a better era for women who work The pandemic has been tough on female workers but it presents a chance to fix long-ignored problems ........ He wanted to persuade married women (and, crucially, their husbands) that they could go to work without threatening the natural order of things. ............  Take Japan. Although known for its patriarchal society of “salarymen” and housewives, Japan’s female employment rate had been rising before the pandemic. But like the “white glove girls”, many Japanese women were not admitted into the heart of corporate Japan. The majority had “non-regular” contracts with less security and fewer benefits. These jobs were the first to be shed when the pandemic hit. Many mothers, especially in Japan where regular jobs are characterised by long hours and presenteeism, have had to trade pay and security for flexibility. .......... Yet the pandemic has also brought hope. Forced to experiment with remote working, Japanese companies from Fujitsu to Hitachi have realised workers can be just as productive, probably more so, without long hours in the office. Japanese parents, in particular, are likely to become less tolerant of employers who cling to the past. ........ “Old habits die hard, but I hope Covid will mark a watershed moment for Japan’s work culture, which is a far more insidious killer” ......... a redesign of traditional jobs — more trust, less presenteeism — is likely to benefit parents everywhere. ..........    the fragile attachment of American women to the labour market is the consequence of the country’s woeful caregiving infrastructure. “Just like we need roads to drive down to get to work or deliver our goods to market, we need a childcare and caregiving infrastructure that allows people to . . . go to work.” The US does not provide statutory paid parental leave to all employees, unlike almost every other country, while affordable childcare is in short supply ........... a majority of both Democratic and Republican voters now support the idea of higher congressional funding for childcare. Whoever wins next month’s US presidential election, improving childcare should be a political and economic no-brainer. ...... Women aren’t just working for “second car” money these days — the fate of the economy depends on them.

Donald Trump is risking a Covid election blowout If the race stays focused on the pandemic, polls suggest Joe Biden will win .........  It follows that Mr Trump must change the subject or take radical steps to make Americans trust his pandemic-management skills. He has instead chosen to do something solipsistic — tell Americans the pathogen can be defeated by sheer force of will. This is a rash mix. It is further depressing his poll ratings on coronavirus while making it harder for him to change the subject. Mr Trump’s decision to pull out of next week’s presidential debate after organisers said it would be held remotely because of Covid concerns only reinforces that. ..........  Joe Biden’s poll lead over Mr Trump has hit double digits in Florida where a lot of retirees live ............. His averaged overall national lead is now near double digits. Even if those margins were halved, Mr Trump would be facing a heavy defeat. ..........  So why is he pushing on a failing strategy? Much has been made of the fact that Mr Trump is taking a steroid, dexamethasone, which can cause wild mood swings. Doubtless, the drug can induce euphoria. But there is little to differentiate Mr Trump’s post-hospital and pre-hospital behaviour. He did not suddenly chance on the notion of issuing torrents of capitalised tweets after checking out of Walter Reed. Nor did the idea of publicly stripping off his mask come in the wake of his drug treatment. He has been taunting social distancers all year. The only seeming effect of Mr Trump’s treatment is that he became even more like himself. ............   America’s much-promised V-shaped recovery floundered on the failure to flatten the coronavirus curve. Mr Trump did not help matters this week when he pulled out of talks for another coronavirus relief bill. That dealt a heavy blow to the prospect of more relief for ordinary Americans before the election. ......  Mr Trump has thus built himself a maze. He wants Americans to be afraid of something that does not seem particularly lethal — the radical left — yet be unafraid of a disease that has so far claimed more than 200,000 American lives. It does not feel like a winning strategy.

Coronavirus News (254)

Coronavirus could kill more than 2 million people by the end of the year, researchers say It’s accelerating because the virus is so infectious and control measures aren’t coordinated and systematic, according to health expert Northern hemisphere could see a spike in cases as it moves into winter and flu season

The World's Fastest Family

Single Parents Finding Love: Over Zoom, of Course Because dating with kids wasn’t tricky enough before the pandemic.  

Covid-19 could be the start of a better era for women who work, writes Sarah O'Connor. The pandemic presents a chance to fix long-ignored problems https://t.co/kZA8lI3tG8

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) October 6, 2020

Piketty’s “Capital,” in a Lot Less than 696 Pages Over the two-plus centuries for which good records exist, the only major decline in capital’s economic share and in economic inequality was the result of World Wars I and II, which destroyed lots of capital and brought much higher taxes in the U.S. and Europe. This period of capital destruction was followed by a spectacular run of economic growth. ........ Over the two-plus centuries for which good records exist, the only major decline in capital’s economic share and in economic inequality was the result of World Wars I and II, which destroyed lots of capital and brought much higher taxes in the U.S. and Europe. This period of capital destruction was followed by a spectacular run of economic growth. ........... Piketty’s main worry seems to be that growing wealth in Europe will bring a return to 19th century circumstances in which most affluent people get that way through inheritance. ........... That’s why he spends so much time describing characters from the novels of Honoré de Balzac and Jane Austen who see inheriting money or marrying into it as the only path to a comfortable life. .............  he does offer evidence for his contention that the bigger the fortune, the faster it will grow in the future: the performance of university endowments in the U.S., where the largest endowments have earned dramatically higher percentage returns than the rest. ........... Since the 1970s, though, the U.S. has seen a sharp and unparalleled increase in the percentage of income going to the top 1% and especially 0.1%. ............ managers and financial professionals making up 60% of the top 0.1% of the income distribution in the U.S., and proposes that their skyrocketing pay is mainly the product of sharp declines in top marginal tax rates that made it worth managers’ while to bargain harder for raises. ............  this huge rise in relative income inequality has brought no discernible economic benefit ......... Per-capita economic growth has been almost identical in the U.S. and Western Europe since 1980, and because of the skew towards the top here, U.S. median income has actually lost ground relative to other nations. ............ Piketty proposes a progressive global wealth tax — at one point he suggests that it could start at 0.1% a year for small nest eggs and rise to 2% for fortunes of above 5 billion euros ($6.9 billion) — as the best response to the current dynamics of inequality. .......  central banks are redistributing wealth all the time, just not in a transparent, democratic manner .......... No longer will one be able to simply assert that rising inequality is a necessary byproduct of prosperity, or that capital deserves protected status because it brings growth.

Coronavirus News (253)

Trump Returns to ‘The Infest Wing’ “When she heard he was coming home, Melania immediately checked herself into Walter Reed,” Jimmy Fallon joked on Monday. ...........  “And now at least 30 people in Trump’s circle have tested positive for Covid-19. You realize that means there’s been more infections at the White House over the last day than in New Zealand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand and Australia combined. The White House Rose Garden is like the wet market of America right now.” — TREVOR NOAH .........   “Everyone from Trump’s campaign manager to Trump’s press secretary to Trump’s friends have been infected with coronavirus now. It’s almost like the writers of 2020 didn’t know how to wrap the story up so they were just like, ‘Uh, then they all get coronavirus, the end.’” — TREVOR NOAH ............ “Now look, I know some people are saying this was karma catching up to Trump, but guys, a massive outbreak at the White House is not karma, it’s consequences, all right? It’s not karma to get hit by lightning when you’re standing on the roof of a skyscraper holding a metal rod while there’s lightning. The universe didn’t do that [expletive] to you — you did that [expletive] to yourself.” — TREVOR NOAH ............. “Now, while the doctors were presenting a rosy picture, they also revealed that Trump has been put on two drugs: remdesivir and dexamethasone. I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a good sign when you get prescribed the high score in a Scrabble game.” — STEPHEN COLBERT 

Fareed Zakaria Looks at Life After the Pandemic  Not only has science learned a few things. So have governments, which went for penny-pinching and deflation after the Crash of 1929, but now pour out trillions. ............. Zakaria rightly celebrates “our resilient world.” States actually “gain strength through chaos and crises.” ........... The United States has proved neither competent nor cohesive. It is an archipelago of some 2,600 federal, state and local authorities charged with health policy. ..............  America, Zakaria says, must learn “not big or small, but good government.” ......... Zakaria lays out the road from the pandemic to the transcendence of America the Dysfunctional. The to-do list is long. Upward mobility is down, inequality is up. The universities of the United States lead the global pack, but a B.A. at one of those top schools comes with a price tag upward of a quarter-million dollars. The country boasts the best medical establishment, but health care for the masses might just as well dwell on the moon. ............  Like Sweden long ago, Denmark is the new Promised Land, even when compared with the rest of Europe. Striking a wondrous balance between efficiency, market economics and equality, those great Danes embody an inspiring model; alas, it is hard to transfer. A small and homogeneous country on the edge of world politics, Denmark is the very opposite of the United States. Maybe its people should occupy America for a couple of generations to reform 330 million über-diverse citizens. ............   The world’s troubles ... are rooted in ultramodernity: globalization, automation, alienation, mass migration, the lure and decay of the world’s sprawling metropolises. These are the stuff of misery — and the fare of cultural critics since the dawn of the industrial age. ........  Nor does he spare his own liberal class, the “meritocracy” of the best educated and better off, which he fingers ever so gently as deepening the divide between urban and rural, elites and “deplorables.” ................ “This ugly pandemic has … opened up a path to a new world.” .........  “many rich societies” do not honor “a social contract that benefits everyone.” So, the neoliberalism of decades past must yield to “radical reforms.” Governments “will have to accept a more active role in the economy. They must see public services as investments. … Redistribution will again be on the agenda; the privileges of the … wealthy in question.” Now is the time for “basic income and wealth taxes.”  ....... Covid-19 is merely accelerating the mental turn engendered by the 2008 financial crisis. We are all social democrats now. ....... Government in the West is back with industrial policy and trillions in cash. It is not a radical, but a consensual project. ....... After half a lifetime of retraction from the economy, big government is back — and looks as if it will stay. ......... May we all be as smart as the Danes. They have marvelously combined welfarism and individual responsibility. But they have not invented the PC, MRT, iPhone or Tesla, not to speak of Post-its and the microwave popcorn bag. 

Vilified Early Over Lax Virus Strategy, Sweden Seems to Have Scourge Controlled After having weathered high death rates when it resisted a lockdown in the spring, Sweden now has one of Europe’s lowest rates of daily new cases. Whether that is an aberration remains to be seen. ......... “Our work lives should not be reduced to just the screen in front of us,” he said. “Ultimately, we are social animals.” ........... Almost alone in the Western world, the Swedes refused to impose a coronavirus lockdown last spring, as the country’s leading health officials argued that limited restrictions were sufficient and would better protect against economic collapse. ....................  The per capita rate is far lower than nearby Denmark or the Netherlands (if higher than the negligible rates in Norway and Finland). ........... Its borders stayed open, as did bars, restaurants and schools. Hairdressers, yoga studios, gyms and even some cinemas remained open, as did public transportation and parks. ...........  “The Swedes went into self-lockdown,” he said. “They trusted in their people to self-apply social distancing measures without punishing them.” .......... distancing provided overall better protection than masks ....... Sweden did not set out to achieve “herd immunity” ........... “We changed behavior. I don’t see anybody shaking hands, for example” 

Virus lays bare the frailty of the social contract Radical reforms are required to forge a society that will work for all ............ to demand collective sacrifice you must offer a social contract that benefits everyone. ....... Despite inspirational calls for national mobilisation, we are not really all in this together. .......... Overnight millions of jobs and livelihoods have been lost in hospitality, leisure and related sectors, while better paid knowledge workers often face only the nuisance of working from home. .......... vast monetary loosening by central banks will help the asset-rich. Behind it all, underfunded public services are creaking under the burden of applying crisis policies. ......... every society must demonstrate how it will offer restitution to those who bear the heaviest burden of national efforts. .............    Radical reforms — reversing the prevailing policy direction of the last four decades — will need to be put on the table. Governments will have to accept a more active role in the economy. They must see public services as investments rather than liabilities, and look for ways to make labour markets less insecure. Redistribution will again be on the agenda; the privileges of the elderly and wealthy in question. Policies until recently considered eccentric, such as basic income and wealth taxes, will have to be in the mix ..........  rightly compared to the sort of wartime economy western countries have not experienced for seven decades ....... Beyond the public health war, true leaders will mobilise now to win the peace.

Coronavirus Is Very Different From the Spanish Flu of 1918. Here’s How. The fear is similar, but the medical reality is not. ........... The 1918 flu pandemic, thought to be the deadliest in human history, killed at least 50 million people worldwide (the equivalent of 200 million today), with half a million of those in the United States. ............. a majority of those killed by the disease were in the prime of life — often in their 20s, 30s and 40s .......... “Nurses often walked into scenes resembling those of the plague years of the fourteenth century,” wrote the historian Alfred W. Crosby in “America’s Forgotten Pandemic.” “One nurse found a husband dead in the same room where his wife lay with newly born twins. It had been twenty-four hours since the death and the births, and the wife had had no food but an apple which happened to lie within reach.” ...............  With a case fatality rate of at least 2.5 percent, the 1918 flu was far more deadly than ordinary flu, and it was so infectious that it spread widely, which meant the number of deaths soared. ............ In Albuquerque, where schools and theaters were closed, a local newspaper wrote, “the ghost of fear walked everywhere.” 

A new stimulus deal is still possible.  

Pompeo asks ‘Quad’ allies to stand against China’s ‘corruption, coercion’ Speaking with his Japanese, Indian and Australian counterparts in Tokyo, Mike Pompeo said cooperation against Beijing now more critical than ever The US, Australia and India are all at loggerheads with Beijing, while Japan walks a tightrope trying to preserve ties

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GOP U.S. Senate candidate in Delaware thanks Proud Boys for providing free security at the rally

Why Silicon Valley CEOs are such raging psychopaths  The patron saint of Big Tech douches, the one who inspired an entire generation of start-up entrepreneurs to put their worst face forward, was late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs. He disliked wearing shoes (or showering), preferred parking in handicapped parking spots and once motivated employees by calling them “f–king d–kless assholes.” ......... “His legacy has cultivated an indelible association between being a jerk and a genius,” writes Gavet. “Which has ballooned to the point where many people believe that a founder-CEO, in particular, actually has to be a jerk to be a genius.” ........ She calls it the Steve Jobs Syndrome, and she’s witnessed both powerful and up-and-coming tech exes believing in the myth like it’s doctrine. ...........  Former WeWork CEO Neumann was celebrated in the media for his audacious leadership style — from barefoot strolls through Manhattan to offering his employees tequila shots and Run DMC concerts in the office. ............... Not only is Musk still Tesla’s CEO, but his net worth also jumped this summer to $103 billion, up from $22.4 billion last year, making him the third-richest person in the world. ............ companies need to take a more empathetic approach. “They need to hire differently, promote differently, reward differently,” she says. “I’m an optimist, but I’m also a capitalist. I believe there are ways to make a company more empathetic, more reasonable, a force of good in the world. And I believe in the long run, that would actually be beneficial for the businesses.” ........... “Some of the CEOs I’m close to — and I still think they are, to a large extent, psychopaths — they’re struggling,” says Gavet. “They tell me, ‘It feels like I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t.’ They get criticized for being too aggressive, but when they try to be empathetic, they’re criticized for being too soft.” The trend of psychopathy at the top of Big Tech won’t be “disrupted,” Gavet says, until we stop expecting the next Steve Jobs to be as abrasive and psychotic as, well … Steve Jobs.

बिपी, हर्क गुरुङ र गाउँमुखी विकासको मोडेल 

Crisis Group Turns Focus to Risk of Electoral Violence in the U.S. 

For the Secret Service, a New Question: Who Will Protect Them From Trump? Central to the job is a willingness to say yes to the president no matter what he asks. Now, that means subjecting an agent’s health to the whims of a contagious president.

As Trump Seeks to Project Strength, Doctors Disclose Alarming Episodes The president made a surprise outing from his hospital bed in an effort to show his improvement, but the murky and shifting narrative of his illness was rewritten again with grim new details. ............ his doctors once again rewrote the official narrative of his illness by acknowledging two alarming episodes they had previously not disclosed. ........ The doctors said that Mr. Trump’s blood oxygen level dropped twice in the two days after he was diagnosed with the coronavirus, requiring medical intervention, and that he had been put on steroids, suggesting his condition might be more serious than initially described. ........... officials acknowledged providing rosy assessments to satisfy their prickly patient. ........ his seeming energy may have reflected the fact that he was given the steroid dexamethasone ............ Others questioned the president’s statement in his video that he had met soldiers while at Walter Reed. ......... “Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days,” Dr. James P. Phillips, an attending physician at Walter Reed, wrote on Twitter. “They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity.” ............  the trip raised the alarming question of whether the president was directing his doctors. .......... it violated standards of care and would not be an option open to any other patient. “When I first saw this, I thought, maybe he was being transported to another hospital.” ...............  Mr. Trump was put on supplemental oxygen during the Friday spell over the president’s strenuous objections .......... During his briefing on Sunday, Dr. Conley acknowledged that he had provided a rosy version of events to please his notoriously sensitive patient. ............. In addition to the steroids, Mr. Trump has received an experimental antibody cocktail and is in the midst of a five-day course of remdesivir, an antiviral drug. The White House has a medical unit capable of responding to a president’s health troubles but not with the sophisticated equipment available at Walter Reed. .................   Mr. Trump, who historically hates hospitals and anything related to illness, has been hankering to get released ..........   some aides expressed fear that he would pressure Dr. Conley into releasing him by claiming to feel better than he actually does .......... a premature return could lead to a second trip to the hospital if his condition worsens. ........ The president has also been watching lots of television, even more than usual, and has been exasperated by coverage of Saturday’s calamitous handling of his medical information by Dr. Conley and Mr. Meadows, as well as speculation about whether he would transfer powers to Vice President Mike Pence. ......... He was also angry that no one was on television defending him, as he often is when he cannot inject his own views into news media coverage ............  In addition to Mr. Trump, a number of others who work or visit the building regularly have tested positive, including Melania Trump; Hope Hicks, a senior adviser to the president; Nicholas Luna, the director of Oval Office operations; Bill Stepien, the campaign manager; Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee; and Kellyanne Conway, the president’s former counselor. ................  a follow-up reception inside the White House on Sept. 26 for the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the event seen as a likely source of the outbreak. 

2020 Nobel Prize Winners: Full List

Coronavirus News (251)

Donald Trump’s narcissism betrays a fragile ego lashing out in rage The popular notion that narcissists are endowed with an extraordinary reservoir of confidence, self-importance and unconditional self-regard is mistaken Narcissists like Trump try to mask their shortcomings and constantly attack others to protect their own fragile egos from being exposed and collapsing ...........  The 90-plus-minute barrage of personal attacks, insults, interruptions and incoherence was often credited to Trump’s lack of integrity, intelligence and decorum. ............ many psychiatrists and mental health professionals in the United States are warning about the dangers of Trump’s narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). ........ What is a narcissist? A common understanding is someone who is grandiose, entitled and lacks empathy. ....... Those who work with NPD in a clinical setting are familiar with a psychological reality that is in stark contrast to the common myth. The psychological structure responsible for NPD is actually a very fragile ego. Because it is too painful to get in touch with such fragility, the narcissist goes to extreme lengths to banish any inkling of their own imperfections. ........... “Donald has always needed to perpetuate the fiction my grandfather started that he is strong, smart and otherwise extraordinary, because facing the truth – that he is none of those things – is too terrifying for him to contemplate.” ......... material we don’t want to deal with in waking life shows up in our dreams in disguised forms. ............ Donald Trump, who “began to believe his own hype, even as he paradoxically suspected on a very deep level that nobody else did”. ............. This is the plague of narcissism. Narcissists are persecuted by a fragile, impoverished ego; the only recourse to avoid the painful realisation of their fragility is to continuously inflate the ego as a countermeasure to keep their fragile ego from collapsing. When the mirror on the wall sends back a view that challenges the evil queen’s inflated sense of her prettiness, she responds with a murderous rage. This is not an uncommon response from a narcissist – any threat to their sense of superiority will be met with rage. .................  The president said so himself on Twitter: “When someone attacks me, I always attack back...except 100x more. This has nothing to do with a tirade but rather, a way of life!” ........... a psychological warfare that has no place for peace because one has to keep up the attacks on others to protect one’s fragile ego from being exposed and collapsing.

A North Carolina college student apparently died of rare neurological complications from the virus, his family says. A 19-year-old student at Appalachian State University — a basketball player “in tremendous shape,” according to his family — died Monday night, apparently of neurological complications related to Covid-19, his family and the university said............  New cases in Sweden, which became a lightning rod over its lax pandemic response early on, remain surprisingly low. ............. Almost alone in the Western world, Sweden refused to impose a coronavirus lockdown last spring, as the country’s leading health officials argued that limited restrictions were sufficient and would better protect against economic collapse. ........ The per capita rate is far lower than nearby Denmark or the Netherlands (if higher than the negligible rates in Norway and Finland). Sweden is also doing far better, for the moment, than Spain, with 10,000 cases a day, and France, with 12,000. ....... “Today, all of the European countries are more or less following the Swedish model, combined with the testing, tracing and quarantine procedures the Germans have introduced, but none will admit it”

‘The Social Dilemma’ Will Freak You Out—But There’s More to the Story    Dramatic political polarization. Rising anxiety and depression. An uptick in teen suicide rates. Misinformation that spreads like wildfire. The common denominator of all these phenomena is that they’re fueled in part by our seemingly innocuous participation in digital social networking. But how can simple acts like sharing photos and articles, reading the news, and connecting with friends have such destructive consequences? ............... the way social media gets people “hooked” by exploiting the brain’s dopamine response and using machine learning algorithms to serve up the customized content most likely to keep each person scrolling/watching/clicking. ........  “Every single action you take is carefully monitored and recorded,” says Jeff Siebert, a former exec at Twitter. The intelligence gleaned from those actions is then used in conjunction with our own psychological weaknesses to get us to watch more videos, share more content, see more ads, and continue driving Big Tech’s money-making engine. .............  For the first few years of social media’s existence, we thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Now it’s on a nosedive to the other end of the spectrum—we’re condemning it and focusing on its ills and unintended consequences. The next phase is to find some kind of balance, most likely through adjustments in design and, possibly, regulation. .......... The issue with social media is that it’s going to be a lot trickier to fix than, say, adding seatbelts and air bags to cars. The sheer size and reach of these tools, and the way in which they overlap with issues of freedom of speech and privacy—not to mention how they’ve changed the way humans interact—means it will likely take a lot of trial and error to come out with tools that feel good for us to use without being addicting, give us only true, unbiased information in a way that’s engaging without preying on our emotions, and allow us to share content and experiences while preventing misinformation and hate speech. ................ “While we’ve all been looking out for the moment when AI would overwhelm human strengths—when would we get the Singularity, when would AI take our jobs, when would it be smarter than humans—we missed this much much earlier point when technology didn’t overwhelm human strengths, but it undermined human weaknesses.”

How the Pandemic Is Affecting Working Mothers 

From ‘brain fog’ to heart damage, COVID-19’s lingering problems alarm scientists Life for the 38-year-old is a pale shadow of what it was before 17 March, the day she first experienced symptoms of the novel coronavirus. ............ she struggles to think clearly and battles joint and muscle pain. “I used to go to the gym three times a week,” Akrami says. Now, “My physical activity is bed to couch, maybe couch to kitchen.” ...........  “Everybody talks about a binary situation, you either get it mild and recover quickly, or you get really sick and wind up in the ICU,” says Akrami, who falls into neither category. Thousands echo her story in online COVID-19 support groups. ............  The list of lingering maladies from COVID-19 is longer and more varied than most doctors could have imagined. Ongoing problems include fatigue, a racing heartbeat, shortness of breath, achy joints, foggy thinking, a persistent loss of sense of smell, and damage to the heart, lungs, kidneys, and brain. ..........  One group in Italy found that 87% of a patient cohort hospitalized for acute COVID-19 was still struggling 2 months later. ........... 10% to 15% of people—including some “mild” cases—don’t quickly recover. .............  Distinct features of the virus, including its propensity to cause widespread inflammation and blood clotting, could play a role in the assortment of concerns now surfacing. “We’re seeing a really complex group of ongoing symptoms” ................ Three months later, the man with the mild case “falls asleep all day long and cannot work” ................ Like a key fitting neatly into a lock, SARS-CoV-2 uses a spike protein on its surface to latch onto cells’ ACE2 receptors. The lungs, heart, gut, kidneys, blood vessels, and nervous system, among other tissues, carry ACE2 on their cells’ surfaces—and thus, are vulnerable to COVID-19. The virus can also induce a dramatic inflammatory reaction, including in the brain. Often, “The danger comes when the body responds out of proportion to the infection” ............. “What we’re experiencing is an epidemic of severe illness,” he says. “So therefore, there is an epidemic” of chronic illness that follows it. .............   One study of health care workers with SARS in 2003 found that those with lung lesions 1 year after infection still had them after 15 years. ............... The virus ravages the heart, for example, in multiple ways. Direct invasion of heart cells can damage or destroy them. Massive inflammation can affect cardiac function. The virus can blunt the function of ACE2 receptors, which normally help protect heart cells and degrade angiotensin II, a hormone that increases blood pressure. Stress on the body from fighting the virus can prompt release of adrenaline and epinephrine, which can also “have a deleterious effect on the heart” .............  78 of 100 people diagnosed with COVID-19 had cardiac abnormalities when their heart was imaged on average 10 weeks later, most often inflammation in heart muscle. Many of the participants in that study were previously healthy, and some even caught the virus while on ski trips ............ previously healthy people are not exempt from the virus’ long-term effects on the lungs ..............  After some severe viral infections, there are “those people who still don’t feel quite right afterward, but have normal brain scans” ............ Collectively, these “long-haulers” describe dozens of symptoms, including many that could have multiple causes, such as fatigue, joint pain, and fever. “It’s time to give some voice to this huge population of patients” .............. “You might have fibrosis in the lungs, and that will make you feel fatigued; you might have impaired heart function, and that will make you feel fatigued.” ........ The message many researchers want to impart: Don’t underestimate the force of this virus. 

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Jacindarella A fairy-tale election result beckons for New Zealand’s prime minister But the more popular she gets, the less transforming Jacinda Ardern becomes  ...........  She closed their borders to foreigners and rallied a “team of 5m” (ie, everyone in the country) to support one of the toughest lockdowns in the world. As a result, New Zealand has seen only 25 deaths from covid-19. ........... All this puts the prime minister on track for a big victory in an election on October 17th. The latest polls suggest that Labour may win 47% of the vote, which would give it 59 seats in the unicameral parliament. It needs 61 seats in the 120-seat chamber for an outright majority—a feat never achieved since New Zealand adopted a proportional voting system in 1996. ............ before the pandemic, Ms Ardern was on track to lose the election. She came into office with lofty plans to “build a fairer, better New Zealand” by reducing child poverty, ending homelessness and erecting 100,000 cheap houses—none of which she has managed to do. .......... Ms Ardern positioned herself as a transforming leader. But to win enough seats to bring about sweeping change, she must secure votes from centrists who are wary of grandiose ideas. The more successful she becomes, the less radical she is likely to be. 

ELON MUSK: I REFUSE TO GET A COVID VACCINE  But it’s undeniably been a weird turn for the scientifically-minded entrepreneur, who’s spread misleading information about the virus and infamously tweeted in early March that he predicted there to be “close to zero new cases” by the “end of April.” He also opined that “the coronavirus panic is dumb.” ......... To Musk, it seems as though the pandemic is essentially just nature taking its course. When Swisher pushed him, telling him that “this storm is coming again,” Musk retorted with a blunt “everybody dies.”  

CHINA PLANS TO LAUNCH AN ANTITRUST PROBE INTO GOOGLE  In an echo of the Trump administration’s crackdown on the Chinese app TikTok, the Chinese government just took aim at Google — preparing to launch an antitrust probe into the tech giant over alleged monopolistic behavior. ........... The probe itself was launched at the request of the Chinese tech corporation Huawei .......... Google could face a similar fate as it did in 2018, back when the European Union fined it over $5.1 billion for stifling Android’s competitors. 

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WARNS OF “ZOMBIE STORMS”  the rare weather phenomenon occurs when strong tropical climates cause storms to come back from the dead. .......... That’s essentially what happened to Hurricane Paulette. The storm landed in Bermuda weeks ago as a Category 1 storm, intensified to a Category 2, and then lost speed. Then last week, Paulette joined the living dead by strengthening into a tropical storm once more, according to the National Hurricane Center. She made yet another reappearance about 300 miles off the Azores islands.  

This Tiny Electric Car Is Selling Like Hot Cakes in China  The no-frills model of the Hong Guang goes for 28,800 yuan (about $4,200 at current exchange rates). That’s less than a tenth of the cost of a Tesla Model 3 (291,800 yuan). ......... GM markets the car as “small on the outside, big on the inside.” It’s 9.5 feet long by 4.9 feet wide, and 5.3 feet tall. ..........  Its max speed is 62 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour), which isn’t quite fast enough for long trips on highways, but works great for moving around a city and its environs. Drivers can go about 105 miles on a single charge, and can monitor and control the car’s battery functions on a smartphone app.  

COVID VACCINES CAN HAVE SOME NASTY SIDE EFFECTS — BUT ONLY FOR A DAY BEATS DYING, THOUGH.  ..........  The entire world is waiting with bated breath for an effective and safe COVID-19 vaccine. ........... take the day off after receiving a second dose. Plenty of other participants only experienced mild symptoms .............   Experts also worry that young people simply will take their chances with the virus rather than experience the side effects of a vaccine — which, of course, leaves them at risk of passing it along to more vulnerable populations.

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Trump sees approval rating increase, majority expect him to beat Biden: poll The poll was conducted in the two weeks before the first presidential debate  

'This was avoidable': Trump has been downplaying the virus from the start In recent weeks, Trump has put himself and others at risk by holding mass gatherings, some indoors, and shunning mask use while claiming the end of the virus was just around the corner.

Trump's tweet on positive coronavirus test is his most shared ever

Drudge Report, a Trump Ally in 2016, Stops Boosting Him for 2020 A rift between the president and the online news pioneer Matt Drudge is playing out in pithy headlines and needling tweets as the campaign heats up.

Bidenomics: the good the bad and the unknown Joe Biden should be more decisive and ambitious about America’s economy ..........  President Donald Trump set out to make it a brawl, even throwing a punch at the validity of the electoral process itself ......... When Mr Trump took power in 2017 he hoped to unleash the animal spirits of business by offering bosses a hotline to the Oval Office and slashing red tape and taxes. Before covid-19, bits of this plan were working, helped by loose policy at the Federal Reserve. Small-business confidence was near a 30-year high; stocks were on a tear and the wages of the poorest quartile of workers were growing by 4.7% a year, the fastest since 2008. Voters rank the economy as a priority and, were it not for the virus that record may have been enough to re-elect him. ............... The confrontation with China has yielded few concessions, while destabilising the global trading system. ........ As the 46th president, Mr Biden would alleviate some of these problems simply by being a competent administrator who believes in institutions, heeds advice and cares about outcomes. Those qualities will be needed in 2021, as perhaps 5m face long-term unemployment and many small firms confront bankruptcy. Mr Biden’s economic priority would be to pass a huge “recovery” bill, worth perhaps $2trn-3trn, depending on whether a stimulus plan passes Congress before the election. ............ He is keen on a giant, climate-friendly infrastructure boom to correct decades of underinvestment: the average American bridge is 43 years old. ....... Government research and development (r&d) has dropped from over 1.5% of gdp in 1960 to 0.7% today, just as China is mounting a serious challenge to American science. .......... He would scrap Mr Trump’s harsh restrictions on immigration, which are a threat to American competitiveness. ................. a $15 minimum wage, helping 17m workers who earn less than that today. .......... he has too little to say on boosting competition, including prising open tech monopolies. Incumbent firms and insiders often exploit complex regulations as a barrier to entry. .......... His plan to cut emissions involves targets, but shies away from a carbon tax which would harness the power of capital markets to reallocate resources. That is a missed opportunity. Just last month the Business Roundtable, representing corporate America, said it supported carbon pricing. ............... by 2050 public debt is on track to hit almost 200% of gdp 

Is Pakistan really handling the pandemic better than India? It appears to be, though the official data do not tell the whole story ........... According to both countries’ official tallies, every week of the past month has claimed more Indian lives than the entire nine months of the pandemic have in Pakistan—some 6,500. ....... Whereas India’s burden is still rising by 70,000 new cases a day, Pakistan’s caseload seems to have peaked three months ago. Its daily total of new cases has remained in the mere hundreds since early August. India’s economy has also fared far worse. The Asian Development Bank predicts that its gdp will shrink by fully 9% in the current fiscal year, compared with a contraction of 0.4% for Pakistan. ........... “We have not only managed to control the virus, stabilise our economy, but most importantly, we have been able to protect the poorest segment of our society from the worst fallouts of the lockdown,” crowed Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister, in a recent video address to the un General Assembly. ...............  Rather than shut down the whole country, Pakistan adopted a piecemeal approach that focused on isolating areas where there were outbreaks and on providing cash handouts to the poorest. ............  Mr Khan’s supporters say this policy’s success was aided by the creation of a national command centre to co-ordinate regional policies and by enlisting the army, including its tentacular security apparatus, for contact-tracing efforts. Others say efficient redeployment of a national polio-eradication campaign provided more vital boots on the ground to combat covid. ............. “Basically, it is undertesting on a massive scale,” contends Ramanan Laxminarayan of Princeton University. He notes that Pakistan tests for covid at less than a quarter of India’s rate, per person, adding that the relatively poor Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, with a population equal to Pakistan’s and a similar failure to test widely, has also registered similar numbers of cases and fatalities (see chart). “Test not, find not,” says Mr Laxminarayan. “It’s the same with authoritarian regimes the world over.” ........  Just 4% of Pakistanis are over 65, for example, compared with 23% of Italians. Yet the median age in Pakistan, 23, is four years lower than India’s, and its average life expectancy, 67, is two years shorter. This puts a far smaller proportion of Pakistanis in the age bracket most vulnerable to covid. ........ Some 160m Indians travel by air annually compared with fewer than 10m Pakistanis; passenger traffic on Indian railways is 130 times greater. Mr Modi’s lockdown, ironically, first bottled tens of millions of migrant workers inside cities that were often reservoirs of covid and then, as pressure mounted to let them return to their villages, distributed the epidemic more widely. ............. the adb foresees India’s more sensitive economy springing back next year with 8% growth, whereas Pakistan’s is expected to grow just 2%. ...............  “Our lockdown may have hurt India more than the disease itself ............ A study in Islamabad in June estimated that 14.5% of the 2m people in Pakistan’s capital had already been infected ........ Health professionals warn that Pakistan, like its other big neighbour Iran, could soon find itself experiencing a second wave. ........ “At this point in time nobody should be crowing, and nobody should be declaring game over.”