Coronavirus News (268)

For Boris Johnson, and Maybe Trump, Covid as Metaphor Is Hard to Shake The British prime minister’s personal battle with the disease has come to symbolize his government’s fumbling efforts to halt the pathogen.  ......... the prime minister ended up in an intensive-care unit after he, like the president, tried to work through the illness. ........... Six months after Mr. Johnson was released from the hospital, he has yet to shake off questions about the effects of the disease on his energy, focus and spirit. .......... Both also initially played down the threat of the virus — Mr. Johnson, most notoriously, when he bragged about shaking the hands of coronavirus patients while visiting them in the hospital. ............... Mr. Trump about the miracle-cure qualities of the drugs he was treated with, which he promised to distribute free to all Americans; and Mr. Johnson about the miracle workers who treated him — the doctors and nurses of the National Health Service, perhaps Britain’s most revered institution. ........... has seemed occasionally lethargic during debates in Parliament. 

Like Trump, I was on monoclonal antibody drugs. This is what they do to you Trump fundamentally misunderstands what monoclonal antibodies are, and what they do ......... We all want a vaccine and we all want a cure. We want to send our kids to school and hug our old friends and go to the movies and, most of all, for people to stop getting sick and dying. The way forward is through smart science and practical, equitable distribution, not empty promises of "miracles." The monoclonal antibody cocktail that saved my life currently has a six figure price tag. As Vox put it two years ago, "The average cost of cancer drugs today is four times the median household income." (Because I was in a clinical trial, the pharmaceutical company paid the costs related to my treatment.) Who's going to pick up the check when and if these types of therapies are available for COVID-19? .............. right now, there is no cure for COVID-19. There is only recovery, hope and a lot more research to be done.

‘Everyone is fighting’ – how Downing Street lost its grip on a divided nation As public trust falls, No 10 insists on dictating a national response to coronavirus; local leaders believe that they can do better ......... The many changes in rules and regulations have left people confused and choosing to rely on their own instincts as much as on what politicians tell them. ............ “I would say that trust in authority has completely gone” ........... National targets on testing have not been met. False expectations have been set. Rules have changed at dizzying speed. .......... Tory MPs are split. The media is split. Public opinion is split. And council and public health leaders in some of the biggest cities of the north and Midlands are in revolt. .............  “They say they are listening to us but they are not. What they seem to want to do is punish the north. The extra financial support announced by the chancellor is welcome but it is two-thirds of people’s wages, not 80% which it was before. This is not enough for people and the businesses which will have to close.” Another official involved in talks with the government over the weekend said: “It is toxic and everyone is fighting.” ...............  Labour has said it will abstain in a vote expected early next week on extending the 10pm curfew for pubs across England.  

China’s Insistence That Taiwan Isn’t a Country Starts Backfiring  “Hats off to friends from around the world this year, #India in particular, for celebrating #TaiwanNationalDay,” Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu wrote in a Twitter post on Saturday. ........... more and more Taiwanese don’t want any unification with China. ........  “showing weakness and making concessions will not bring peace.” ............ “We don’t have a need to declare ourselves an independent state,” Tsai told the BBC shortly after she was re-elected by a landslide in January. “We are an independent country already, and we call ourselves the Republic of China, Taiwan.” ............ For many Taiwanese, the Republic of China was akin to a foreign occupation when the Kuomintang party arrived after Japan’s surrender in World War II. A violent uprising against the KMT prompted officials to massacre Japanese-trained civil servants, lawyers and doctors who could’ve administered an independent Taiwanese state. 

Pompeo Says China Has Deployed 60,000 Soldiers on Indian Border
COVID-19 cases in Arizona dropped 75% after mask mandates began, report says

Trump's COVID prognosis: 3 scenarios based on sparse facts from an opaque White House The president's health matters. But we can only speculate because his doctor has hidden behind confidentiality laws to withhold negative information. ............  many survivors of severe COVID-19 pneumonia (which the president had) have experienced setbacks, hospital readmissions and prolonged intensive care stays requiring months of rehabilitation. ............. Concerningly, Trump was reportedly hypoxemic (low oxygen saturations, less than 94%) for a period of time, had shortness of breath, and required supplemental oxygen. Those are all clear signals that the president might have experienced the most feared and harmful injury from COVID-19: pneumonia. To be clear, nearly all of the 213,000 Americans who have lost their lives to this virus died for this reason alone, often on ventilators ............. He is unique in receiving the Regeneron cocktail almost immediately after diagnosis in combination with Dexamethasone and Remdesivir. .............. Some initially improve, as in the case of the president, only to decline again 7-10 days after symptom onset, often with severe manifestations requiring ICU-level care. ........... the president continues to be symptomatic as evidenced by his coughing on the phone Thursday night with Fox’s Sean Hannity. 

How Trump’s ‘enthusiasm factor’ could lead to another surprise win on Election Day As Ryan’s boat joined at least 2,000 other watercraft for the Trump Law and Order Boat Parade, the same scene was playing out in dozens of harbors, rivers and lakes from the Jersey Shore to San Diego that Labor Day weekend. One week later, on Sept. 12, more than 16,000 cars, pickups, motorcycles and semis festooned with banners and bunting jammed Cincinnati’s I-275 beltway in a convoy that looped through three states, one of several Trump car caravans being organized on Facebook. Meanwhile, an unknown fan in Norwell, Mass., stenciled “Trump 2020” in bright yellow letters across the travel lanes of busy Route 3 (Highway crews quickly painted over the message.) ................  Public displays of exuberant affection for Trump have been building for months now, but they reached a fervent new pitch when the president came down with COVID-19. .........  “The consensus from all was that COVID-19 didn’t stand a chance against him.” ............... Enthusiasm for Trump among his voters “is historically high,” said Richard Baris, the director of Big Data Poll. “We saw that very early in the cycle, in his primary vote totals,” when the president drew unusually large voter turnout in uncontested races. ..............  Four years ago, a Washington Post/ABC News poll found a 13-point enthusiasm gap in Trump’s favor, a result echoed by other surveys ............. 75 percent of Trump voters said their vote is mostly motivated by support for him, as opposed to 43 percent of Biden voters. .........  An overnight shift in public opinion fueled Ronald Reagan’s shocking 10-point landslide in 1980, for example, despite election-eve polls that pegged the race as too close to call. 

Trump's $1.8 trillion stimulus proposal faces opposition from Pelosi and Senate GOP  Senate Republicans blasted the $1.8 trillion offer the White House made to Speaker Pelosi ....... a number of GOP concerns, like state and local funding, as well as the overall price tag. ....... While the sentiment was that talks with Pelosi should continue, it was clear that the White House plan had virtually no chance of passing the GOP-controlled Senate ......... The President said Friday that he'd like to see a bigger stimulus than what's currently being floated by either Democrats or his administration ......... Pelosi has repeatedly argued that the actual legislative language -- and where that language directs the funds -- has become the most critical aspect of any deal, pushing particularly for funding for states and localities that have significant budget shortfalls .............. Pelosi dismissed Trump's proposal as wanting "more money at his discretion to grant or withhold, rather than agreeing on language prescribing how we honor our workers, crush the virus and put money in the pockets of workers." The Democratic leader said "despite these unaddressed concerns" she remains "hopeful" that Friday's developments will inch them closer to a deal on a relief package.

Coronavirus News (267)

Top Companies 2019: Where the U.S. wants to work now  

LinkedIn Top Startups 2020: The 10 Indian companies on the rise

चीनसँगको आपूर्ति खल्बलियो, व्यापार सिद्धान्तविपरीत आयातमा कोटा व्यापारमा चीनको सन्देश– कोरोना देखिए तुरुन्तै नाका सिल

फेरिएला त बाबुरामको वरीयता ?

कुलमान र बिजुली

नेकपालाई सजिलो छैन चैतमा महाधिवेशन 

७८ बर्षमा अमिताभ बच्चन

The Swamp That Trump Built A businessman-president transplanted favor-seeking in Washington to his family’s hotels and resorts — and earned millions as a gatekeeper to his own administration. .......... But Mr. Trump did not merely fail to end Washington’s insider culture of lobbying and favor-seeking. He reinvented it, turning his own hotels and resorts into the Beltway’s new back rooms, where public and private business mix and special interests reign. ...................  As president-elect, he had pledged to step back from the Trump Organization and recuse himself from his private company’s operation. As president, he built a system of direct presidential influence-peddling unrivaled in modern American politics. ............ large swaths of his real estate holdings were under financial stress, racking up losses over the preceding decades. ........... But once Mr. Trump was in the White House, his family business discovered a lucrative new revenue stream: people who wanted something from the president. An investigation by The Times found over 200 companies, special-interest groups and foreign governments that patronized Mr. Trump’s properties while reaping benefits from him and his administration. ...............  avowed small-government activists and contractors seeking billions from ever-fattening federal budgets ......... Sometimes, he lined up his donors to ask what they needed from the government. ........ The president has visited his resorts and hotels on nearly 400 days since his inauguration .......... At Mar-a-Lago, he told longtime members that he ought to raise prices on the new crowd angling to join. Then he did — at least twice — bringing the initiation fee to a quarter-million dollars, according to a membership application. ...............  and put his eldest sons at the helm of the Trump Organization, promising they would not discuss business with him. Those promises were quickly broken. ............  “Are we full on the outside patio?” he would ask ...............  During meals, people would line up at his table. Guests, even paying members, had a habit of thanking Mr. Trump for having them over. ...................   “I give to everybody,” he explained at a Republican primary debate in 2015. “When they call, I give. And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them — they are there for me.”   

HOW REALITY-TV FAME HANDED TRUMP A $427 MILLION LIFELINE  Tax records show that “The Apprentice” rescued Donald J. Trump, bringing him new sources of cash and a myth that would propel him to the White House. ...............   “I used my brain, I used my negotiating skills and I worked it all out,” he told viewers. “Now, my company is bigger than it ever was and stronger than it ever was.” It was all a hoax. Months after that inaugural episode in January 2004, Mr. Trump filed his individual tax return reporting $89.9 million in net losses from his core businesses for the prior year. The red ink spilled from everywhere, even as American television audiences saw him as a savvy business mogul with the Midas touch. ....................  Mr. Trump’s genius, it turned out, wasn’t running a company. It was making himself famous — Trump-scale famous — and monetizing that fame. .............  he earned some $197 million directly from “The Apprentice” over 16 years — roughly in line with what he has claimed — they also reveal that an additional $230 million flowed from the fame associated with it. ............. And there were schemes that exploited misplaced trust in the TV version of Mr. Trump, who, off camera, peddled worthless get-rich-quick nostrums like “Donald Trump Way to Wealth” seminars that promised initiation into “the secrets and strategies that have made Donald Trump a billionaire.” ................  Just as, years before, the money Mr. Trump secretly received from his father allowed him to assemble a wobbly collection of Atlantic City casinos and other disparate enterprises that then collapsed around him, the new influx of cash helped finance a buying spree that saw him snap up golf resorts, a business not known for easy profits. Indeed, the tax records show that his golf properties have been hemorrhaging millions of dollars for years. ...............  Unlocking the mysteries of Mr. Trump’s wealth has been attempted many times with varying degrees of success — an exercise made difficult by the opaque nature of his businesses, his penchant for exaggerations and lies, and his willingness to threaten or sue those who question his rosy narratives. He has gone to extraordinary lengths to maintain secrecy, most notably his refusal to honor 40 years of presidential tradition and release his tax returns. ...............  and $15,286,244 from licensing his name to a line of mattresses. ...............  his personality-based and fact-bending presidency. ............. On his income tax returns, he reported annual net losses throughout the 1990s, some of it carried forward year to year, a tide that would swell to $352.8 million at the end of 2002. ..................  Some of Mr. Burnett’s staff members wondered how a wealthy businessman supposedly running a real estate empire could spare the time, but they soon discovered that not everything in Mr. Trump’s world was as it appeared. ............ “We walked through the offices and saw chipped furniture,” Bill Pruitt, one of the producers, told The New Yorker in 2018. “We saw a crumbling empire at every turn. Our job was to make it seem otherwise.” ............ But the ratings success of “The Apprentice,” and the advertising dollars it generated, quickly pushed him into the unfamiliar position of declaring positive adjusted gross income on his I.R.S. Form 1040. After netting $11.9 million from the show in its first year, he really hit the jackpot in 2005 with $47.8 million, the tax records show. He made so much that over three years he paid a total of $70.1 million in income taxes (later refunded, with interest, via an aggressive accounting maneuver now under audit). ...................... an unusual arrangement that entitled him, as the show’s star, to half its profits .......... money from product placements on each episode that sometimes numbered more than 100 a month, with household names like Pepsi paying millions of dollars ............... Mr. Trump was not terribly discriminating in his choice of endorsements. He slapped his name on everything from steaks and vodka to a board game and cologne. For the benefit of “consumers interested in experiencing the Trump lifestyle at an affordable price,” as a news release put it, he signed a licensing deal with the Serta mattress company that eventually netted him more than $15 million. Another $15 million would pour in from Trump neckties, shirts and underwear by clothiers like Phillips-Van Heusen. .............. With his penchant for using what he called “truthful hyperbole” to play on people’s desires, Mr. Trump had always skated close to the edge of fraud. Soon, he would be accused of crossing the line completely. ................   The first year of “The Apprentice” was barely over when Mr. Trump pocketed $300,000 to speak at an event in Dayton, Ohio, where attendees paid $2,995 to learn the secrets of instant wealth from a company that was later accused in a lawsuit of running a Ponzi scheme. ...............  In his monologues, he made a virtue of his first round of casino failures, portraying himself as a victim whose grit and intelligence saved the day. People ate it up. “His presence gives me reassurance,” Lillie Moss, who raided her retirement fund to buy an investment kit at the Dayton event, said of Mr. Trump. ............ By the time Mr. Trump featured ACN’s video phone on “The Apprentice” in 2011, the technology was close to obsolete, and yet he played it up, saying, “I think the ACN video phone is amazing.” ............. In 2016, he agreed to pay $25 million to settle litigation over Trump University, an unaccredited seminar that persuaded people to pay as much as $35,000 to learn the real estate trade. ............. the company, right from the start, went looking for financing from Russia to pay for its Trump-branded hotels. ............ he could find easy profits from licensing his name not only to neckties and bedding but to entire buildings — and use the TV show to market them. ............ between licensing and management fees, Trump companies involved in the project ultimately netted as much as $9 million, even though they did not build or finance it. ............ Because of how the licensing agreements were drafted, with sizable fees up front, Mr. Trump stood to gain even if a project failed. Of the 10 “future properties” initially listed on the hotel collection’s website, three never got off the ground, and five others either were not completed or later severed ties with Mr. Trump. Yet he still managed to collect a total of $46 million from them. ................   And buyers of units in a planned Trump condo-hotel in Mexico were burned after putting up some $32 million in deposits, only to see the project canceled with no refunds. In a lawsuit that was eventually settled, some of the buyers claimed they had been duped into believing Mr. Trump was an active participant in the project. .............. “We’re like a hotel company, Ritz-Carlton or Four Seasons or Waldorf Astoria,” Mr. Trump said. “We are a name.” .............  golf — a pastime that he “spent an inordinate amount of time on” ....... always seemed destined to become his next financial sand trap ............ “I have the best buildings in Manhattan. I have the best casinos in New Jersey. I build a great product,” Mr. Trump boasted to a reporter in 2002. “I actually have more fun building courses than I do playing.” ............. During a three-year period starting in 2014, he pumped $144.5 million into his Turnberry golf course in Scotland, his tax returns show, even as the property has continued booking losses year after year. He has put $213 million into his Doral resort in Florida, with similar results. ......... In 2012, he borrowed $100 million against his equity in Trump Tower in Manhattan, one of his more valuable properties. A year later, he withdrew $95.8 million from his share of a real estate partnership that owns buildings in New York and California. And in 2014, he sold $98 million in stocks and bonds. .............  he has huge balances on loans, soon to come due, from Deutsche Bank, including $160 million on his Washington hotel in the Old Post Office building and $148 million on the Doral golf resort. Neither of those businesses is turning a profit. ............ he is a man politically and financially challenged. ..........  After he announced his candidacy in 2015 with racist comments about Mexicans, NBC, which carried “The Apprentice,” cut ties with him and he sold his interest in the Miss Universe pageant, another reliable moneymaker. Hotel licensing deals have mostly dried up.