Associated Press: States accused of fudging or bungling COVID-19 testing data

In Florida, the data scientist who developed the state’s coronavirus dashboard, Rebekah Jones, said this week that she was fired for refusing to manipulate data “to drum up support for the plan to reopen.” Calls to health officials for comment were not immediately returned Tuesday.

In Georgia, one of the earliest states to ease up on lockdowns and assure the public it was safe to go out again, the Department of Public Health published a graph around May 11 that showed new COVID-19 cases declining over time in the most severely affected counties. The daily entries, however, were not arranged in chronological order but in descending order. [...]

Guidelines from the Trump administration say that before states begin reopening, they should see a 14-day downward trend in infections. However, some states have reopened when infections were still climbing or had plateaued. States have also been instructed to expand testing and contact tracing.[...]

Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said a lot of these cases are not necessarily the result of any attempt to fool the public. For example, she said, states may not have updated information systems that allow them to tell the difference between an antibody test and a viral test.

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Associated Press: Pandemic shows contrasts between US, European safety nets

That is a pattern seen in earlier economic downturns, particularly the global financial crisis and the Great Recession. Europe depends on existing programs kicking in that pump money into people’s pockets. The U.S., on the other hand, relies on Congress taking action by passing emergency stimulus programs, as it did in 2009 under President Barack Obama, and the recent rescue package under President Donald Trump. [...]

In downturns, U.S. employees can lose their health insurance if they lose their job and there’s also a greater risk of losing one’s home through foreclosure. On the other hand, Europeans typically pay higher taxes, meaning they earn less in the good times. [...]

The U.S. tends to rank below average on measures of social support among the 37 countries of the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation, whose members are mostly developed democracies. The U.S. came last in people living in relative poverty, meaning living on half the median income or less, with 17.8%. Countries like Iceland, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Finland have less than 6%.

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Associated Press: Lawmakers pass bill allowing Confederate monument removals

The Democratic-led House and Senate passed measures that would undo an existing state law that protects the monuments and instead let local governments decide their fate. The passage marks the latest turn in Virginia’s long-running debate over how its history should be told in public spaces. [...]

After white supremacists descended on Charlottesville in 2017, in part to protest the city’s attempt to move a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee, many places across the country quickly started taking Confederate monuments down. But Virginia localities that wanted to remove monuments were hamstrung by the existing law. [...]

The compromise measure says a locality must hold a public hearing before voting to remove or otherwise alter a monument. If it decides to remove one, it must be offered to “any museum, historical society, government or military battlefield,” although the governing body ultimately gets the say on the “final disposition.” [...]

In addition to the monuments bill, lawmakers also have advanced bills removing old racist laws that were technically still on the books, substituting the state’s holiday honoring Lee and Jackson for one on Election Day and creating a commission to recommend a replacement for a Lee statue Virginia contributed to the U.S. Capitol. They have also passed legislation that provides protections and funding for historic African American cemeteries.

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Associated Press: Pope denounces 'rigidity' as he warns of Christian decline

Francis’ message appeared aimed at conservative and traditionalist Catholics, including within the Vatican Curia, who have voiced increasing opposition to his progressive-minded papacy. Their criticisms have accelerated over the past year, amid Vatican financial and sex abuse scandals that may have predated Francis’ papacy but are nevertheless coming to light now.[...]

He cited the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, a leader of the progressive wing of the Catholic Church, who in his final interview before dying in 2012 lamented that the church found itself “200 years behind” because of its inbred fear of change. [...]

In a tangible sign of change, Francis issued a new decree Saturday limiting the term of the dean of the College of Cardinals, an influential job that had previously been held for life. Francis accepted the resignation of the current dean, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, and decreed that going forward, the future top cardinal would only have a five-year renewable term.

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Associated Press: France and Germany propose EU overhaul after Brexit upheaval

Paris and Berlin, long seen as the axis of the continent’s post-World War Two unification process, said a “Conference on the Future of Europe” was necessary to make the EU “more united and sovereign” across a range of challenges.

These include Europe’s role in the world and its security, they said in a document that comes amid growing concern that Europe is ill-equipped to deal with new security and economic challenges, especially from a rising China. [...]

The two-page Franco-German paper said other areas where Europe needed to be more united included its near neighbors, digitalization, climate change, migration, the fight against inequality, the “social market economy” and the rule of law.

It said a reflection lasting more than two years should consider reforms that would, among other aims, promote democracy and the functioning of a bloc that will group 27 countries after Britain’s expected departure on Jan. 31.

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Associated Press: Facts Poll: Facts missing from American democracy

A meager 9% of Americans believe that campaign messages are usually based on facts, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Opinion Research and USAFacts. Only 14% think policy decisions are often or always fact-based, or that Americans’ voting decisions are rooted in facts. [...]

Overall, 53% of the public thinks voters sometimes cast ballots based on facts, while 32% say they rarely or never do. Hamm-Oliver said voters in her home state of Idaho did so when they voted to approve a ballot measure last year that forced the state to accept the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, which had previously been rejected by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature. [...]

McKee’s view is widespread, with 55% of Americans saying policy decisions are sometimes based on fact while 3 in 10 think they rarely are. Republicans are more skeptical than Democrats that public policy is even sometimes fact-driven, with 33% saying it rarely or never is compared to 23% of Democrats.

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Associated Press: Dutch inventor unveils device to scoop plastic out of rivers

A young Dutch inventor is widening his effort to clean up floating plastic from the Pacific Ocean by moving into rivers, too, using a new floating device to catch garbage before it reaches the seas. [...]

Slat’s organization has in the past drawn criticism for focusing only on the plastic trash already floating in the world’s oceans. Experts say 9 million tons (8 million metric tons) of plastic waste, including plastic bottles, bags, toys and other items, flows annually into the ocean from beaches, rivers and creeks, endangering marine life in the oceans, including whales . [...]

The vessel is designed to be moored in rivers and has a shaped nose to deflect away larger floating debris like tree trunks. The interceptors work by guiding plastic waste into an opening in its bow, a conveyor belt then carries the trash into the guts of the machine where it is dropped into dumpsters. The interceptor sends a text message to local operators that can come and empty it when it’s full.

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Associated Press: Russian minister: West out of step, can’t accept its decline

He pointedly scorned much of the “West,” a term Russian officials typically use to refer to the United States and its traditional allies in Europe. He accused them of manipulating their citizens, disseminating false information, and preventing journalists from doing their work — all charges that the West has long lobbed at the Russian government and its predecessor, the Soviet Union.

“It is hard for the West to accept seeing its centuries-long dominance in world affairs diminishing,” Lavrov said. “Leading Western countries are trying to impede the development of the polycentric world, to recover their privileged positions, to impose standards of conduct based on the narrow Western interpretation of liberalism on others.” [...]

Lavrov accused the West of maintaining a double standard: promoting liberal values where they’re convenient but discarding them when they’re not. “When it is advantageous, the right of the peoples to self-determination has significance. And when it is not, it is declared ‘illegal’,” he said.

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Associated Press: Johnson and Salvini: 2 soaring stars lose big political bets

Instead, analysts and fellow politicians say, both men badly miscalculated the crucial role of democratic institutions like parliament in the age of populist politics and underestimated the time-tested tactic of bitter enemies ganging up together in countermoves.

“They confused their popularity with power, and they thought because of their popularity they would be able to ram through their plans,” said Wolfango Piccoli, an analyst and co-president of Teneo intelligence, based in London. [...]

One of the lawmakers who was suspended from the Conservative group in Parliament this week after voting against Johnson’s government blamed the prime minister’s mistake on hiring as key advisers those who ran the successful “leave” campaign in the 2016 referendum on EU membership. But those advisers have scant experience in working with Parliament. [...]

During his “wild, two-week vacation,” Salvini “lost touch with reality to some extent, political reality,” said John Harper, a history professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna.

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Associated Press: Germany honors resisters who tried to assassinate Hitler

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will speak Saturday at an annual swearing-in ceremony for some 400 troops before addressing a memorial event, paid tribute ahead of the anniversary to executed plot leader Col. Claus von Stauffenberg and his fellow conspirators and highlighted their importance to modern Germany. [...]

The resistance against the Nazis only came to be “laboriously accepted” over subsequent decades, said Johannes Tuchel, director of the German Resistance Memorial Center, and even in the 1980s many believed its memory would fade away. Only in 2004 did a survey show that a majority of Germans believe the resistance to the Nazis is “important for our political culture,” he added. [...]

Tuchel said von Stauffenberg is a “symbolic figure” of the resistance, an officer who evolved from supporting Nazi policies to becoming a ferocious opponent of the regime after Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. He acknowledged that the resistance within the German military was, in overall terms, tiny: 200 to 300 people were involved in the July 20 plot. The German military had some 8 million men under arms at the time, and only “a handful or two” of its more than 1,000 generals and admirals participated.

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Associated Press: Trump voters cringe and shrug at tweets while Democrats rage

Across the country, in states critical to Trump’s reelection, the reaction to Trump’s racist tweets exposed two vastly different views on race politics in America. In interviews with nearly 50 voters across seven states, many people — most of them Democrats — found Trump’s willingness to lodge racial attacks appalling and unforgiveable. For many others, particularly Trump voters, the tweets were a mere sideshow.

Trump voters who spoke to The Associated Press were a mixture of indifferent, bemused and mildly irritated, saying it comes with the territory in the unconventional Trump presidency. They voiced appreciation for his candor and ability to speak plainly while rejecting that he is a racist. His views on race were not what mattered most to many of them. [...]

“He shouldn’t be doing it. He needs to be more presidential, stick to the things that matter,” said Scott Wood, a Republican who voted for Trump in 2016 and would need to see a “standout” alternative before he’d vote for someone different next year.

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Associated Press: Judge: New Orleans can't take down Trump quotes mural

New Orleans cannot make a landowner take down a mural of infamous quotes recorded when Donald Trump was on “Access Hollywood” in 2005 because the city’s mural regulations violate freedom of speech, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. [...]

In large capital letters with cartoons replacing four words, the mural painted on a fence transcribes part of the future president’s recorded conversation, including a comment about a woman’s breasts and his boast about grabbing women’s genitals. It starts with, “I moved on her like a bitch,” with a cartoon dog in place of the word.

The mural has been covered since the city served Morris with a notice about the regulations, first with a canvas sheet with the word “censored” repeated in bright colors, then with a plain canvas sheet.

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Associated Press: At Tehran symphony, music lovers seek escape from reality

This week, the Tehran Symphony Orchestra, including female musicians in burgundy headscarves on cello, horn and harp, played works by 19th-century Russian composers for an enraptured crowd in the capital’s main concert venue, Vahdat Hall. [...]

Classical music may not have mass appeal, but Rohani said in a backstage interview that there’s potential for growth, citing a large turnout during a stadium concert last year in Abadan, a provincial city in southwestern Iran.[...]

The Tehran Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1933, continued its work after 1979, he said. Live performances were initially rare, but have increased in number since the 1990s. [...]

This includes a ban on female singers performing for mixed audiences, considered “haram,” or religiously forbidden. In February, female guitarist Negin Parsa sang a solo during a concert by pop singer Hamid Askari. The authorities cut her microphone, and Askari’s permission to perform was briefly suspended. [...]

“There is a lot of interest in Western culture among the young urban middle class population,” said Mina, portraying it as pushback against the lifestyle and artistic expression promoted by the authorities.

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Associated Press: Racist, anti-gay student flyers challenge Wyoming district

In the capital of the state known for the 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard, school officials have worked to respond to the spring incident. They’re holding community meetings and plan to hire a “diversity and cultural awareness” counselor while providing additional employee training. [...]

Others aren’t so confident the Cheyenne school district is up to the challenge. The new approach to student bullying and harassment sounds good, but “only time will tell if it’s upheld,” said parent Abby Kercher. [...]

Parents and students report a long history of anti-gay and racist harassment at McCormick that continued through the rest of the school year. Some students kept violating a ban on Confederate flags by displaying the images on their computers, said Kercher’s daughter, 14-year-old Ashlynn Kercher.

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Associated Press: From loss to liberation: Germany's evolving postwar attitude

When Chancellor Angela Merkel thanked the Allies for the D-Day invasion and the “liberation” of Germany in World War II, she might have raised some eyebrows internationally. To those at home, the statement was unremarkable. [...]

While the leaders of France, Britain, the United States and Canada went to England to commemorate the troops’ sacrifice and duty on Wednesday, Merkel listened quietly. After the ceremony was over, she told reporters that she considered her invitation “a gift of history.” [...]

“After 1945, Germans first referred to the end of World War II as ‘collapse,’” said Johannes Tuchel, director of the German Resistance Memorial Center. [...]

In 1985, then-West German President Richard von Weizsaecker called the Nazi defeat Germany’s “day of liberation” in a speech marking the 40th anniversary of the war’s end. His words were supported by most Germans, and to this day it is often cited by politicians and taught in schools. [...]

Another key moment came in 2004, when then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder marked the 60th anniversary of Col. Claus von Stauffenberg’s failed attempt to kill Hitler with a briefcase bomb. Schroeder called von Stauffenberg a hero — erasing the Nazis’ “traitor” label that had lingered after the war.

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Associated Press: During Ramadan, late-night gyms boom in the Gaza Strip

The Ramadan routine, with high-calorie fast-breaking “iftar” buffets, sugary staples and hours of sedentary screen time, is a headache for fitness trainers. A growing group of middle-class men in Gaza are preoccupied with the prospect of gaining weight.

A main culprit is the Ramadan dessert known as “qatayef” — fried pancakes stuffed with sweet cheese or nuts, soaked in homemade sugar syrup. A sliver of cheese qatayef contains some 350 calories. Fitness trainers acknowledge that it’s hard to resist after a day of deprivation. [...]

Some 120 gyms, two-thirds of which are professionally equipped, are scattered throughout the territory, according to Tareq Abu el-Jedyan of the Palestinian Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation. It’s a significant spike from Gaza’s pre-2000 gym count: a mere 10. [...]

The gym, which primarily caters to workers in banks, telecom companies and aid agencies who have the cash to spend, serves as a rare respite from the misery of life in the enclave, where unemployment surpasses 50%, tap water is undrinkable and electricity cuts are routine. The frequent cycles of bloody clashes with Israel have compounded daily struggles.

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Associated Press: U.S. Supreme Court blocks redrawing of Ohio, Michigan electoral maps

The Supreme Court on Friday blocked lower court rulings ordering Republican legislators in Michigan and Ohio to redraw U.S. congressional maps ahead of the 2020 elections, dealing a blow to Democrats who had argued that the electoral districts were intended to unlawfully diminish their political clout. [...]

The lower courts found that the electoral maps in the two states had been drawn to entrench Republicans in power by manipulating boundaries in a way that reduced the voting clout of Democrats - a practice known as partisan gerrymandering - in violation of the U.S. Constitution. [...]

But the action by the justices was not unexpected as they weigh two other gerrymandering cases - one from North Carolina and the other from Maryland - that could decide definitively whether federal judges have the power to intervene to curb partisan gerrymandering. The rulings in those cases, due by the end of June, are likely to dictate whether the legal challenges against the Ohio and Michigan electoral maps can move forward.

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Associated Press: Analysis: Iran supreme leader comments signal strategy shift

Since first publicly accepting the nuclear deal, under which Iran agreed to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions, Khamenei issued a warning not to trust the U.S. A letter he sent to Rouhani in October 2015 said the deal had “numerous ambiguities and structural weaknesses that could inflict big damage on the present and the future of the country.” [...]

Their immediate ouster, however, is unlikely. Khamenei had similarly worsening relations with hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and reformist President Mohammad Khatami in their second terms. Zarif himself publicly tendered his resignation in February after not attending a surprise meeting in Tehran between Syrian President Bashar Assad and Khamenei, only later to agree to stay on. [...]

Analysts believe Iran in part may be playing for time, waiting to see if Trump will be re-elected in 2020. Rouhani’s own term runs out in 2021, allowing Khamenei to swap out “discredited negotiators” like Zarif, said Mehdi Khalaji, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who is Shiite theologian by training, Khamenei also could send negotiators from the Guard, rather than from the presidency, to allow them to negotiate on Iran’s ballistic missile program, which the paramilitary force controls.

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Associated Press: Blurred lines: A pregnant man’s tragedy tests gender notions

The 32-year-old patient told the nurse he was transgender when he arrived at the emergency room and his electronic medical record listed him as male. He hadn’t had a period in several years and had been taking testosterone, a hormone that has masculinizing effects and can decrease ovulation and menstruation. But he quit taking the hormone and blood pressure medication after he lost insurance.

A home pregnancy test was positive and he said he had “peed himself” — a possible sign of ruptured membranes and labor. A nurse ordered a pregnancy test but considered him stable and his problems non-urgent. [...]

A woman showing up with similar symptoms “would almost surely have been triaged and evaluated more urgently for pregnancy-related problems,” the authors wrote.

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Associated Press: United Methodists edge toward breakup over LGBT policies

The differences have simmered for years, and came to a head in February at a conference in St. Louis where delegates voted 438-384 for a proposal called the Traditional Plan, which strengthens bans on LGBT-inclusive practices. A majority of U.S.-based delegates opposed that plan and favored LGBT-friendly options, but they were outvoted by U.S. conservatives teamed with most of the delegates from Methodist strongholds in Africa and the Philippines. [...]

Some churches have raised rainbow flags in a show of LGBT solidarity. Some pastors have vowed to defy the strict rules and continue to allow gay weddings in Methodist churches. Churches are withholding dues payments to the main office in protest, and the UMC’s receipts were down 20 percent in March, according to financial reports posted online. [...]

The UMC’s largest church — the 22,000-member Church of the Resurrection with four locations in the Kansas City area — is among those applying financial pressure. Its lead pastor, Adam Hamilton, says his church is temporarily withholding half of the $2.5 million that it normally would have paid to the UMC’s head office at this stage of the year. [...]

Traditional Plan supporter Mark Tooley, who heads a conservative Christian think tank, predicts that the UMC will split into three denominations — one for centrists, another oriented toward liberal activists and a third representing the global alliance of U.S. conservatives and their allies overseas.

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