Coronavirus News (183)

How Martin Luther King Jr. Recruited John Lewis The Georgia congressman on what it was like to know the iconic activist 

Brazil's coronavirus chaos provides a global laboratory for the vaccine race 

1 number that proves 2020 is *nothing* like 2016  "After Trump's unexpected victory in 2016, there's a temptation to avoid making political projections. But one election result shouldn't cause us to ignore the data. And right now the preponderance of data points to a great election for Democrats."  .......  At this point in the 2016 race. Clinton had a 1.1-point lead over Trump in the national polling average. Right now, Biden has a 9.1-point average lead over Trump in national polls. .......  Biden is also running close to Trump in longtime Republican strongholds like Texas, Arizona and Georgia.  

8 photo-editing apps for iPhone and Android that photography geeks will love Use your phone to get creative with images you've already shot, no matter which phone you have. .........  Google-owned Snapseed

Schools have low coronavirus infection rate, German study finds  the majority of schoolchildren did not go through an infection themselves despite an infection in the household. 

‘Zero percent’ chance of U.S.-China decoupling Now, Washington is reportedly considering a blanket ban on Communist Party members (and maybe their families) in the United States. It's one step short of a "nuclear option" in U.S.-China ties — consider it heavy ordnance that would personally affect Chinese leaders and their families in a way that sanctions and tariffs don't.  ..........  could render as many as 270 million ineligible for Stateside travel. Countermeasures could be massive. Beijing loves the appearance of symmetry; what if it banned all registered Republicans from China? .........  shows just how far Washington is willing to go, as Trump stakes his re-election on the China question. ......... Chance of full decoupling is “zero percent,” but the era of seamless globalization is over. .........   The rise of the digital Renminbi. Expect a rapid move toward the use of digital currencies, either privately organized or through central banks, Friedlander said, part of “a race to see who will control global payment systems.” ...........  "What the U.S. policy toward China needs is ‘social distancing.’” ....... “In a world where Covid-19 shows emerging threats don’t respect national borders, decoupling the two largest economies in the world is unrealistic.” .......... “The tech world is now starting a much broader China [versus] everyone else Great Schism, moving well beyond the Great Firewall, to encompass access to advanced CPUs, 5G telecom equipment, and access to consumer and business user bases.” ..........  Analysts seem to think that political repression and lifetime tenure for despots like Xi are good for Party longevity. Actually, history suggests that lifetime tenure leads to madness and dissolution.” .......... The CCP’s Leninist metal does not seem destined for American bending under Xi Jinping ..........  “Until recently, China had an ability to sense where the line was for international business interests — and stop just short of crossing it.” ............. “In January 2018 I observed that the foundation of U.S.-China engagement – the presumption of gradual if slow convergence – was deteriorating, due less to China’s intention than inability to take the next steps on its self-assigned reform and opening journey.” ...........  “the coming 120 days [leading up to] the presidential election will not just make U.S.-China relations unworthy of optimism, it will make them extremely dangerous.” ...........  Beijing thinks the real power in America lies with Wall Street, not Washington ...........  “overlook[ing] the vital fact that, when it comes to dealing with an external threat, fear always trumps greed … Washington has seldom capitulated to commercial interests when American security is at stake.” ............   Half of Hong Kongers are contemplating exit, but only four percent list the U.S. as their first choice, and 10 percent the U.K. .......   The top choice: Taiwan, followed by Canada and Australia. ...........  Average Chinese are not sympathetic to their sometimes wealthy, often liberal-minded compatriots abroad. ..........  What do authorities really mean in Article 38, which technically gives them jurisdiction over everyone in the world? ..............  “TikTok doesn’t appear to grab any more personal information than Facebook. That’s still an appalling amount of data to mine about the lives of Americans,” Fowler wrote. “But there’s scant evidence that TikTok is sharing our data with China.” ................   Is a U.S. WeChat ban in the cards? .. WeChat is an essential tool for Chinese living abroad to stay in touch with friends and family, and they’d need to use a VPN or other workarounds if there were a ban — in other words, they’d feel like Americans in China have for about a decade.  

Op-ed: Hyperwar is coming. America needs to bring AI into the fight to win — with caution  It is important officials in each nation understand how emerging technologies speed up decision-making but through crisis acceleration run the risk of dangerous miscalculation. ........  For not only is technology changing, the rate of that alteration is accelerating. .........  AI, once fully realized, has the potential to be one of the single greatest force multiplier for military and security forces in human history. .........  AI-enabled capabilities could be used to threaten our critical infrastructure, amplify disinformation, and wage war .......... The distinctions between hybrid warfare and hyperwar are important. ...........    “Hybrid threats combine military and non-military as well as covert and overt means, including disinformation, cyber attacks, economic pressure, deployment of irregular armed groups and use of regular forces. Hybrid methods are used to blur the lines between war and peace, and attempt to sow doubt in the minds of target populations.” .............  By contrast, hyperwar may be defined as a type of conflict where human decision-making is almost entirely absent from the observe-orient-decide-act (OODA) loop .............  the time associated with an OODA cycle will be reduced to near-instantaneous responses. ..........    While AI has the capacity to magnify military capabilities and accelerate the speed of conflict, it can also be inherently destabilizing. ........ Now is the time for the U.S. and China to have the hard conversations about norms of behavior in an AI enabled, hyperwar environment. With both sides moving rapidly to field arsenals of hypersonic weapons, action and reaction times will become shorter and shorter and the growing imbalance of the character and nature of war will create strong incentives, in moments of intense crisis, for conflict not peace. This is foreseeable now, and demands the engagement of both powers to understand, seek, and preserve the equilibrium that can prevent the sort of miscalculation and high-speed escalation to the catastrophe that none of us wants. 

Coronavirus News (182)

China Is Done Biding Its Time The End of Beijing’s Foreign Policy Restraint? ..........  as COVID-19 has ravaged the globe, Chinese President Xi Jinping has appeared to defy many of his country’s long-held foreign policy principles all at once. ...........  It has tightened its grip over Hong Kong, ratcheted up tensions in the South China Sea, unleashed a diplomatic pressure campaign against Australia, used fatal force in a border dispute with India, and grown more vocal in its criticism of Western liberal democracies. ...........  The world may be getting a first sense of what a truly assertive Chinese foreign policy looks like. ...........  “If someone claims that China’s exports are toxic, then stop wearing China-made masks and protective gowns, or using China-exported ventilators,” a foreign ministry spokesperson tweeted after China was found to have delivered substandard medical supplies to several European countries. ...........  Over the past few months, it has upped the ante in nearly all of its many territorial disputes and even provoked new ones, in another departure from past practice. ............  Since March, China has stepped up its patrols near the Diaoyu Islands (known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands) in the East China Sea and doubled down on its maritime claims in the South China Sea, sending vessels to linger off the coasts of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam. It has conducted aerial reconnaissance near Taiwan, effectively ended Hong Kong’s semiautonomous status, ginned up a new border dispute with Bhutan, and by all appearances, provoked a deadly border clash with India in what was the People’s Liberation Army’s first use of force abroad in 30 years. Any one of these moves by Beijing might have been unsurprising on its own. Put together, however, they amount to a highly unusual full-court press. ...............   In the western province of Xinjiang, a government crackdown on the Muslim Uighur minority, initiated before the pandemic hit, has since turned into a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, a controversial new national security law has all but stripped Hong Kong of its unique legal status. The law contains provisions that could potentially transcend national boundaries and extend Chinese jurisprudence globally, marking a shift from China’s traditionally defensive conception of sovereignty to a more offensive approach to extend Beijing’s authority. ................ in June, the National People’s Congress announced its sweeping new national security law for Hong Kong. But the global chorus of condemnation that followed the announcement did not keep the CCP from implementing the new law with zeal ............  In this new Chinese foreign policy, there are few U-turns and no posted speed limits. ...........   Xi is rumored to be making many of the most important decisions himself, without even a trusted cohort of advisers. This may help explain why China’s foreign policy has become less risk averse: with fewer voices pitching in, an undaunted Xi may have no one to dissuade him from pressing ahead. ........  Xi is taking advantage of the United States’ stunning abdication of global leadership in a moment of crisis to advance his interests on many fronts. His imperious coronavirus diplomacy is just the latest instance of China’s long-standing tradition of foreign policy opportunism and improvisation—only scaled up to fit the gaping hole left by the United States. ...............  his belief that China’s geopolitical moment has arrived. ...........  Familiar or not, Beijing’s bristling crisis diplomacy is costing it in novel and lasting ways. ..........  By leaving a power vacuum in the world’s darkest hour, the United States has bequeathed China ample room to overreach—and to demonstrate that it is unqualified for a position of sole global leadership. If Washington does not return soon, however, it may not much matter how the world views China’s bumptious diplomacy—left with no alternative, strident excess will fill the void.

The world loves the US dollar. Trump and the pandemic could change that  "We expect the US dollar to follow a path of reduced dominance and weaken over the long term" ..........  As US caseloads spiral out of control, many states are reimposing strict lockdown measures, threatening the fragile recovery that started in April. In California, which boasts the fifth largest economy in the world, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday shut indoor seating at restaurants, movie theaters, zoos, museums and bars. At least 27 states have now put a hold on reopening businesses or reimposed measures aimed at slowing the spread of the virus. "The US has reopened too early, as you can see" .............  The US government is ramping up borrowing to fund massive stimulus programs to prop up the economy. ........ Other developed economies are borrowing way more, too. But in the United States, the government is issuing debt faster than the Federal Reserve is buying it. That means there are more US Treasuries in the market, which hangs over the value of the dollar .............  There are reasons to be cautious. The decline of the US dollar has been predicted on many occasions, and it's always been premature. ........  the dollar could lose up to 20% of its value over the next five years. .......   China, where the desire to increase global use of the renminbi is strong.

New York State launches COVID-19 rent assistance program; find out if you qualify  

Is Moderna Close to Winning the Coronavirus Vaccine Race? Moderna’s phase 1 data looks positive, but the company’s investigational coronavirus vaccine has a lot more to prove in late-stage trials. 

I'm happy this little-known data scientist helped make a difference! 😊https://t.co/UHXEdtB8qg pic.twitter.com/b4PInQIhLr

— Jeremy Howard (@jeremyphoward) July 18, 2020

It was.

See: The last four years. https://t.co/haAQIYkBq6

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 17, 2020