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The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday identified New York City, Portland and Seattle as “local governments that are permitting anarchy, violence, and destruction in American cities,” a move that comes as the federal government continues to take a tough stance against localized rioting in some areas of the country.
President Trump earlier this month targeted those three cities in a memo to Attorney General William Barr and the Office of Management and Budget asking for a review of federal funding to “anarchist” jurisdictions. The DOJ memo Monday essentially serves as notice that New York City, Portland and Seattle meet the criteria Trump set out for potential defunding.
It’s unclear whether and how much funding may eventually be withdrawn from the cities and if such a move would be legal, as it would likely be challenged in the courts.
“When state and local leaders impede their own law enforcement officers and agencies from doing their jobs, it endangers innocent citizens who deserve to be protected, including those who are trying to peacefully assemble and protest,” Barr said in a statement. “We cannot allow federal tax dollars to be wasted when the safety of the citizenry hangs in the balance. It is my hope that the cities identified by the Department of Justice today will reverse course and become serious about performing the basic function of government and start protecting their own citizens.”
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has repeatedlycalledontheviolence in his city to end all the way back to May, but to little effect. He’s also limited the tactics Portland police officers can take to control violent crowds, including banning the use of tear gas. The DOJ noted that Portland has now surpassed 100 consecutive nights of unrest.
New York City has had some of the same politically motivated unrest as D.C. and Portland, but the attorney general’s memo largely cites shootings and other crime, while the New York Police Department’s budget has been cut, as the reason for its inclusion on the list.
Barr’s memo cited whether “a jurisdiction forbids the police force from intervening to restore order amid widespread or sustained violence or destruction,” whether ” jurisdiction has withdrawn law enforcement protection from a geographical area or structure,” whether police departments are being defunded and refusal of federal law enforcement help as the evaluating criteria for the list.
People all around the world have been recounting their experiences with “long COVID” — a state of illness that lasts weeks or months longer than doctors expect. In a recent BMJ webinar, specialists have discussed how best to support people in this situation.
Share on PinterestIn a recent BMJ webinar, specialists have discussed long COVID and suggested ways forward for healthcare practitioners.
As a recent Medical News Todayfeature has highlighted, an increasing number of people around the world have reported lasting illness following confirmed or suspected infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The symptoms involved — often extreme fatigue and fever — persist for many weeks or months after they are supposed to have disappeared.
This phenomenon is now often dubbed long COVID, and the people affected sometimes call themselves “long-haulers.”
Stay informed with live updates on the current COVID-19 outbreak and visit our coronavirus hub for more advice on prevention and treatment.
Besides explaining how the lingering symptoms have drastically reduced their quality of life, long-haulers also note that, more often than not, healthcare practitioners are at a loss as to how to provide support.
To begin to address this gap in primary care, some specialists have been drafting new guidelines for doctors.
In a BMJ webinar that took place at the start of September, six specialists from the United Kingdom and Germany came together to discuss the best approaches to the diagnosis, management, and prognosis of long COVID.
They were: Prof. Paul Garner, from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine; Prof. Nisreen Alwan, from the University of Southampton; Prof. Trish Greenhalgh, from the University of Oxford; Dr. Valentina Puntmann, from University Hospital Frankfurt; Prof. Nicholas Peters, from Imperial College London; and Prof. Tim Spector, from King’s College London.
As Dr. Fiona Godlee, the editor-in-chief of BMJ and chair of the session, noted: “While most people recover quickly and completely from COVID-19, growing numbers are finding that they haven’t simply snapped back into their pre-COVID lives. Instead, after what may have been only a mild initial illness, they are experiencing a range of troubling and sometimes disabling symptoms.”
“Breathlessness, cough, palpitations, exercise intolerance, mental and physical exhaustion, anxiety, depression, fatigue, inability to concentrate and brain fog are just some of the things being described,” she said.
Yet despite living with such life-altering symptoms for months, many people are unable to convince their doctors that they have long COVID, having never received a positive COVID-19 test result.
According to Prof. Greenhalgh — who specializes in primary care and also works as a general practitioner — the requirement for proof of an infection with SARS-CoV-2 is the first thing that has to change if patients with long COVID are to receive any support.
In a BMJarticle she co-authored in August, Prof. Greenhalgh and colleagues had already emphasized this point: “Since many people were not tested, and false-negative tests are common, we suggest that a positive test for [COVID-19] is not a prerequisite for diagnosis.”
Highlighting that there is an “absence of agreed definitions,” she and her team suggested that a helpful approach might be to think of “post-acute COVID-19 as extending beyond 3 weeks from the onset of first symptoms, and chronic COVID-19 as extending beyond 12 weeks,” regardless of any test results.
Dr. Puntmann, a specialist in cardiology, spoke of the links between COVID-19 and inflammation of the heart muscle, called myocarditis, which seems to be a long-term effect of infection with SARS-CoV-2.
Prof. Garner, a specialist in infectious diseases, says that he himself is living with long COVID, an experience that he had already described in BMJ.
In the webinar, he emphasized that “Navigating help is really difficult,” and even that “Dealing with [long COVID] is a full-time job,” adding that “We need to be realistic about the time that is needed for convalescence.”
Both Prof. Garner and Prof. Alwan, who specializes in public health and previously had long COVID, noted that fatigue is a very common and often debilitating symptom of the prolonged disease.
For many, Prof. Garner included, trying to get back to work and return to the regular rhythm of activity has impeded their recovery. This is why the experts advised that careful self-pacing is more helpful than trying to force recovery.
Prof. Garner says that he began to understand this when a friend told him to “Stop trying to dominate this virus, [and] try and accommodate it [instead].”
“You have to drop by 90% from what you were doing before. You are a different person, and you have to be very careful about overdoing it, because as soon as you overdo it, you throw yourself back into bed and [feeling] unwell.”
– Prof. Paul Garner
Prof. Spector, a genetic epidemiologist and the lead researcher of the COVID Symptom Study, estimated that around 60,000 people in the United Kingdom have symptoms of COVID-19 that have lasted for more than 3 months.
He also said that the data available to him and his team suggest that long COVID is “twice as common in females as in males” and that it may manifest differently depending on a person’s age.
However, Prof. Spector claimed that based on the information that he and his team have compiled, they might be able to predict with about 75% accuracy who will develop long COVID, which may help efforts to prevent it.
Speaking of managing this long illness, Prof. Greenhalgh went on to say that while people living with long COVID primarily manage their symptoms on their own, there is much more scope for family doctors to offer support.
“[General practitioners] can actually manage most of these patients in general practice,” she explained, “using the clinical skills that [they] already have, and those clinical skills are things like: listening to the patient, documenting when the illness started, documenting what the symptoms are and how they’ve changed and how they fluctuate […], being alert to symptoms that might suggest that the patient needs referring [to various specialists].”
Prof. Greenhalgh noted that its is important for family doctors to keep on “maintaining […] relationship-based care,” which requires “hearing the patient’s story” and following its development to see if the person’s health improves.
If it does not, then general practitioners ought to direct their patients to respiratory clinics or cardiology clinics, depending on the most prominent symptoms, Prof. Greenhalgh explained.
For live updates on the latest developments regarding the novel coronavirus and COVID-19, click here.
Latest Wolf says he’ll veto Pa. bill on school sports
Gov. Tom Wolf on Monday said he will veto a bill that would have given Pennsylvania schools the sole authority to determine whether to play sports, allow spectators at games, and hold in-person extracurricular activities for students.
“School districts are going to do what they do, but there’s a virus out there,” the governor said. “You ignore that at your peril. You could ignore reality, but that reality is the virus is out to get us.”
“I don’t think Pennsylvanians can afford to ignore that reality,” he added, “so I’m going to veto it.”
The bill, introduced by Republican state Rep. Mike Reese from southwestern Pennsylvania, passed the House with a vote of 155-47, passed the Senate with a vote of 39-11, and landed on Wolf’s desk on Sept. 11. The assembly could override Wolf’s veto with a two-thirds majority in each body.
11:10 AM – 09/21/20
11:10 AM – September 21, 2020
Here’s why coins have been hard to come by, and what Philly’s Mint is doing about it
JOSE F. MORENO / Staff Photographer
U.S. Mint building located on 51 N Independence Mall E, is shown Monday, September 14, 2020., in Philadelphia, Pa.
At the Philadelphia Mint — the nation’s largest producer of coin currency — 14 presses, each producing 750 coins a minute, are running seven days a week to compensate for the pandemic-caused coin supplyproblems that turned quarters, nickels, and dimes into rare commodities.
The hardship caused by the coin scarcity is being disproportionately borne by people who are “elderly and poor, because that’s where most coins are being used,” said Subodha Kumar, a professor of marketing and supply-chain management at Temple’s Fox School of Business. “A lot of these impacts are similar to the impact of the cashless economy.”
The problem isn’t a lack of coins, the Federal Reserve said, but a lack of circulation.
When the pandemic shut down businesses and financial institutions, the normal exchange of coins seized up. Even since reopening, concerns about cash as a COVID-19 spreader caused some businesses to insist on card-only transactions, despite Philadelphia’s banning such restrictions.
The pandemic has also accelerated trends toward online shopping, Kumar said, where no coins change hands. The result: too much of the nation’s $48 billion in circulating coins is sitting stagnant.
“The nation’s coin is pooling in change jars, in car cup holders and in shuttered businesses,” according to a July statement from the U.S. Coin Task Force formed by the Federal Reserve.
10:20 AM – 09/21/20
10:20 AM – September 21, 2020
Workers say they’re defenseless when customers don’t wear masks
YONG KIM / Staff Photographer
Shoppers enter the Walmart Supercenter store on Christopher Columbus Blvd in South Philadelphia on Sunday, April 5, 2020.
When she was working as a cashier this summer at a Walmart store in Northeast Philadelphia, a 20-year-old woman said she would see customers wearing their masks under their chins or not wearing one at all, but “it didn’t make sense to make a whole big scene,” especially if the line at her register was long. She worried that her manager would get mad at her if she slowed down the line while dealing with maskless customers.
At a Rittenhouse Square Starbucks, a 24-year-old barista said that sometimes customers get belligerent when she asks them to put on a mask. They ask for her name and say they’ll file a complaint with corporate, before storming out. Add that to the list of other inconsiderate things customers do, she said, like stick their heads around the acrylic glass barrier that’s meant to protect both workers and customers.
“People act like our safety doesn’t matter,” said the barista, who, like most of the workers interviewed for this story, asked that her name not be used out of fear of retaliation at work.
As shutdown orders lift and businesses slowly reopen, low-wage service workers are once again at high risk of exposure to COVID-19 — and they have to deal with a whole range of customers, including those who believe it’s their constitutional right not to wear a mask.
Corporations’ unwillingness to take a hard-line stance on masks is unacceptable, said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the New York City-based Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, which represents 100,000 workers around the country.
“The employer needs to make sure people are wearing masks just like they make sure people are wearing shoes and shirts,” Appelbaum said.
— Juliana Feliciano Reyes
9:20 AM – 09/21/20
9:20 AM – September 21, 2020
Anthony Fauci to join Gov. Murphy for Facebook Live chat
KEVIN DIETSCH / AP
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, adjusts his face mask during a House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus crisis hearing, Friday, July 31, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, will join New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy for a Facebook Live chat later this week.
“Notwithstanding that you’re a small state, but it should be the model of how you get to such a low test positivity, that you can actually start opening up the economy in a safe and prudent way,” Fauci said.
8:50 AM – 09/21/20
8:50 AM – September 21, 2020
CDC says coronavirus can spread through the air, warns of badly ventilated spaces
/ AP
This electron microscope image shows Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 virus particles, orange, isolated from a patient.
For months, scientists and public health experts have warned of mounting evidence that the novel coronavirus is airborne, transmitted through tiny droplets called aerosols that linger in the air much longer than the larger globs that come from coughing or sneezing.
Now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agrees. The CDC recently changed its official guidance to note that aerosols are “thought to be the main way the virus spreads” and to warn that badly ventilated indoor spaces are particularly dangerous.
“There is growing evidence that droplets and airborne particles can remain suspended in the air and be breathed in by others, and travel distances beyond 6 feet (for example, during choir practice, in restaurants, or in fitness classes),” the agency stated. “In general, indoor environments without good ventilation increase this risk.”
While the CDC has not called for any new action to address the airborne threat of a virus that has now killed nearly 200,000 Americans, experts said the change should help to shift policy and public behavior.
“It’s a major change,” Jose-Luis Jimenez, a chemistry professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder who studies how aerosols spread the virus, told The Washington Post. “This is a good thing, if we can reduce transmission because more people understand how it is spreading and know what to do to stop it.”
8:15 AM – 09/21/20
8:15 AM – September 21, 2020
Indoor dining expands in Pennsylvania, but not in Philly
JOSE F. MORENO / Staff Photographer
An unidentified man eats a the restaurant counter, during the first day of reopening indoor dinning at the Melrose Diner in Philadelphia, Pa. Tuesday, September, 8, 2020.
Indoor dining expands to 50% capacity on Monday across Pennsylvania, with the exemption of Philadelphia, where capacity will remain at 25%.
Restaurants must self-certify that they are complying with the state’s coronavirus restrictions and safety precautions. Those that don’t follow the proper steps must remain at 25% capacity.
The order, signed by Gov. Tom Wolf on Thursday, requires restaurants to cut off alcohol sales for on-site consumption by 11 p.m. Customers have until midnight to finish their drinks, which much be served with a meal “prepared on the premises.”
In Philadelphia, the current restrictions on indoor dining will remain in place. Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said earlier this month the city will look into easing capacity requirements for restaurants sometime in October if the number of new cases of COVID-19 continue to decrease.
8:00 AM – 09/21/20
8:00 AM – September 21, 2020
Centre and Synder counties see highest increase of new cases
7:45 AM – 09/21/20
7:45 AM – September 21, 2020
South Jersey high school delays reopening after ‘large gathering’ of maskless seniors
Melanie Burney / Staff
Washington Township High School in Gloucester County, New Jersey.
Bollendorf said the decision was due to recent coronavirus cases in the district and a large gathering of high school seniors over the weekend.
“Unfortunately, there is much evidence to show that neither social distancing nor face coverings were in place,” Bollendorf wrote in the letter. “We have multiple students that have been determined to be close contacts of the COVID-19 cases we are currently tracing, and now have a significant concern as to whether or not students were placed at risk during this function.”
In addition to the delay of in-person classes, Bollendorf said all athletics will be suspended until further notice.
7:30 AM – 09/21/20
7:30 AM – September 21, 2020
Bill Gates said Trump’s partial travel bans likely ‘accelerated’ the pandemic
President Donald Trump has repeatedly touted his partial ban on travel from China early this year as a defense of his administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
But Microsoft founder and health philanthropist Bill Gates said the ban may have done the opposite by causing tens of thousands of American citizens and residents to rush back into the country without the means to properly test or quarantine them. Instead of preventing the virus from entering the country, Gates said the travel restrictions likely “seeded the disease here” and “accelerated” its growth.
“We didn’t have any community testing, we didn’t have the scale of testing … So that meant that March saw this incredible ex[plosion — the West Coast coming from China and the East Coast coming out of Europe,” Gates said during an interview that aired on Sunday on Fox News.
Gates was also highly critical of the state of coronavirus testing in the U.S. more than six months into the pandemic.
“Even today, people don’t get their results in 24 hours. It’s outrageous that we still have that,” Gates said.
Media captionChief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance says measures must be taken to stop the spread of Covid-19
The UK could see 50,000 new coronavirus cases a day by mid-October without further action, the government’s chief scientific adviser has warned.
Sir Patrick Vallance said that would be expected to lead to about “200-plus deaths per day” a month after that.
It comes as the PM prepares to chair a Cobra emergency committee meeting on Tuesday morning, then make a statement in the House of Commons.
On Sunday, a further 3,899 daily cases and 18 deaths were reported in the UK.
Speaking at Downing Street alongside chief medical adviser, Prof Chris Whitty, Sir Patrick stressed the figures given were not a prediction, but added: “At the moment we think the epidemic is doubling roughly every seven days.
“If, and that’s quite a big if, but if that continues unabated, and this grows, doubling every seven days… if that continued you would end up with something like 50,000 cases in the middle of October per day.
“Fifty-thousand cases per day would be expected to lead a month later, so the middle of November say, to 200-plus deaths per day.
“The challenge, therefore, is to make sure the doubling time does not stay at seven days.
“That requires speed, it requires action and it requires enough in order to be able to bring that down.”
Prof Whitty added that if cases continued to double every seven days as Sir Patrick had set out, then the UK could “quickly move from really quite small numbers to really very large numbers because of that exponential process”.
“So we have, in a bad sense, literally turned a corner, although only relatively recently,” he said.
Prof Whitty and Sir Patrick also said:
The rising case numbers can not be blamed on an increase in testing as there is also an “increase in positivity of the tests done”
Around 70,000 people in the UK are estimated to currently have the disease – and about 6,000 per day are catching it (based on an ONS study)
Less than 8% of the population has been infected, although the figure could be as high as 17% in London
The rising transmission is a “six-month problem that we have to deal with collectively”
The virus is not milder now than in April, despite claims to the contrary
It is possible “that some vaccine could be available before the end of the year in small amounts for certain groups” but “the first half of next year” is much more likely
The government’s most senior science and medical advisers are clearly concerned about the rise in cases that have been seen in recent weeks.
The warning about 50,000 cases a day by mid-October is stark. We don’t know for sure how many cases there were at the peak in spring (as there was very limited testing in place) although some estimates put it at 100,000.
However, they were also at pains to point out it was not a prediction – for one thing the ‘rule of six’ which came in just a week ago has not had time to have an impact.
Even among the government’s own advisers there is disagreement over whether what we are seeing is the start of an exponential rise or just a gradual increase in cases, which is what you would expect at this time of year as respiratory viruses tend to circulate more with the reopening of society.
Instead, what was quite telling was the clear social messaging. Even those who are not at a high risk of complications should, they say, play their part in curbing the spread of the virus – because if it spreads then difficult decisions will be needed that have profound societal consequences.
But the big unanswered question is what ministers will do next. There is talk of further restrictions being introduced, but that is far from certain.
A couple of things are in our favour that were not in the spring. Better treatments for those who get very sick are now available, while the government is in a better position to protect the vulnerable groups.
Should ministers wait and see what happens? Or should they crack down early, knowing that will have a negative impact in other ways?
Prof Whitty also said that even though different parts of the UK were seeing cases rising at different rates, and even though some age groups were affected more than others, the evolving situation was “all of our problem”.
He added that evidence from other countries showed infections were “not staying just in the younger age groups” but were “moving up the age bands”.
He said mortality rates from Covid-19 were “significantly greater” than seasonal flu, which killed around 7,000 annually or 20,000 in a bad year.
The briefing comes as areas in north-west England, West Yorkshire, the Midlands and four more counties in south Wales will face further local restrictions from Tuesday.
And additional lockdown restrictions will “almost certainly” be put in place in Scotland in the next couple of days, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is to speak with leaders of devolved administrations later.
“Hopefully this will be with four-nations alignment, but if necessary it will have to happen without that,” Ms Sturgeon said.
Welsh Health Minister Vaughan Gething added: “It may be the case that UK-wide measures will be taken but that will require all four governments to exercise our varying share of power and responsibility to do so.”
It is not a question of “if”.
Downing Street will have to introduce extra restrictions to try to slow down the dramatic resurgence of coronavirus.
You would only have to have dipped into a minute or two of the sober briefing from the government’s most senior doctor and scientist on Monday morning to see why.
What is not yet settled however, is exactly what, exactly when, and indeed, exactly where these restrictions will be.
Here’s what it is important to know:
The government is not considering a new lockdown across the country right now.
The prime minister is not about to tell everyone to stay at home as he did from the Downing Street desk in March.
Ministers have no intention at all to close schools again.
Nor, right now, are they planning to tell every business, other than the non-essential, to close again.
What is likely is some kind of extra limits on our huge hospitality sector.
On Sunday, the prime minister held a meeting in Downing Street with Prof Whitty, Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Matt Hancock to discuss possible further measures for England.
Asked about reports of disagreements among cabinet ministers about whether or not to impose a second lockdown, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told BBC Breakfast: “A conversation, a debate, is quite proper and that is exactly what you’d expect.
“Everyone recognises there is a tension between… the virus and the measures we need to take, and the economy and ensuring people’s livelihoods are protected.”
Prof Peter Horby, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said there was a risk the UK could face a repeat of the “catastrophic events” around the world early this year, with intensive care units “rammed full of very sick patients”.
“I really don’t buy that argument that we should slow down… The mistakes that were made in March were nearly all being too cautious and too slow,” he told BBC Radio 4’s World at One.
However, Prof Karol Sikora, from the University of Buckinghamshire and former director of the World Health Organization’s cancer programme, said blanket restrictions were “not the way forward”.
“The most important thing is to target the groups that we need to protect and to let everybody else get on with their business – schools, shops and so on,” he told the programme.
Labour, meanwhile, has also urged the government to avoid a second national lockdown.
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “This rapid spike in infections was not inevitable, but a consequence of the government’s incompetence and failure to put in place an adequate testing system.
“Labour’s priority is that there must be a national effort to prevent another national lockdown.
“The government must do what it takes to prevent another lockdown, which would cause unimaginable damage to our economy and people’s wellbeing.”
Protesters gathered outside the home of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Monday morning, in light of his apparent support for moving forward with nominating and confirming a new Supreme Court justice before November’s election following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Demonstrators shouted, blared horns and rang bells, as Capitol Police tried to keep them off the property.
Graham’s critics have pointed to his words after Senate Republicans refused to move forward on the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland during the last year of former President Obama’s second term. The South Carolina Republican said that if a vacancy arose during the last year of President Trump’s term and the primary process had already started, the seat should not be filled during that year.
The South Carolina Republican now says that he is “dead set on confirming” Trump’s pick, whoever it may be. He has explained his change of heart by pointing to Democrats’ behavior during Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process when multiple women came forth with allegations of sexual misconduct during his high school and college years. Kavanaugh had previously been investigated by the FBI for past judicial appointments without incident.
Graham, whose committee will have to vote on any nomination before it goes to the full Senate, has also pointed to how it was Democrats who first changed Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster for federal circuit court confirmations.
“Democrats chose to set in motion rules changes to stack the court at the circuit level and they chose to try to destroy Brett Kavanaugh’s life to keep the Supreme Court seat open,” Graham tweeted Sunday. “You reap what you sow.”
(CNN)The United States is closing in on the somber milestone of 200,000 deaths from Covid-19 as more than half of states are reporting a rise in cases.
The climb comes after many states had seen ca… Read More
President Trump on Monday said he has narrowed his list of potential Supreme Court nominees to fill the seat held by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to five people and vowed to announce his pick by Friday or Saturday.
During an exclusive interview on “Fox & Friends,” the president said that the final Senate vote for his potential nominee should be taken “before the election” and “should go very quickly.”
Ginsburg, 87, died on Friday, due to complications surrounding metastatic pancreatic cancer, igniting a new, major political battle before the elections.
“The bottom line is we won the election, we have an obligation to do what’s right and act as quickly as possible,” Trump said.
The president said that he will make his announcement at the end of the week, following services for the late Supreme Court justice.
“I think it will be on Friday or Saturday and we want to pay respect, it looks like we will have services on Thursday or Friday, as I understand it, and I think we should, with all due respect for Justice Ginsburg, wait for services to be over,” the president said.
The president’s shortlist is said to include Judge Amy Coney Barrett from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Judge Barbara Logoa of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, and Judge Allison Jones Rushing of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, among others.
The president touted the list of potential picks, calling them “excellent,” and “all very smart.”
“No matter how you would look at it, these are the finest people in the nation—young people, pretty young for the most part,” the president said.
Barrett is 48, Lagoa is 52, Rushing is 38, and it is unclear the age of the president’s other potential nominees.
“These are the smartest people, the smartest young people, you like to go young, because they’re there for a long time,” Trump said, adding that his nominee would “abide by the Constitution,” be a “good person” and have “very, very high moral values.”
The president said he thinks “the final vote should be taken, frankly, before the election.”
Just hours after Ginsburg’s death was announced on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., vowed that a Trump nominee to the Supreme Court to fill her vacancy “will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”
McConnell’s comments ignited a political firestorm, even prompting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to say she wouldn’t rule out employing impeachment to block a Trump nominee.
“I heard if I [nominate], they’re going to impeach me, so they’re impeaching me for what constitutionally I have to do,” Trump said. “If they do that, we win all elections.”
He added: “If they do it, I think my numbers will go up, I think we’ll win the entire election, I think we’re going to win back the House, I think we’re going to win the House anyway.”
The president went on to say that “losing an election has consequences.”
“That means the other side gets to pick Supreme Court justices, judges, it’s a big deal,” he said. “It sets the tone. I’m very lucky because rarely does a president have this opportunity.”
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is the underdog in her reelection race against Democrat Sara Gideon, according to the latest breakdown from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
The political forecasters there moved Ms. Collins’ race from “Toss-up” to “Leans Democrat.”
The veteran Republican could help decide whether the Senate confirms President Trump’s pick to fill late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s seat — putting an even bigger spotlight on the race and on the bipartisan image Ms. Collins has developed on Capitol Hill.
They say the polling out of Maine and the state’s ranked-choice voting appear to give House Speaker Sara Gideon the edge over Ms. Collins, who is seeking a fifth term.
The court battle also could force Ms. Collins to pick sides — a decision that could sway GOP voters as well as those who see her as an independent voice.
“While the court vacancy introduces a significant wild card into this race, we think it’s likelier to hurt Collins than help her,” the analysis says.
The forecasters also say that Sen. Lindsey Graham’s reelection contest against Democrat Jaime Harrison has moved from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican.”
They cited Mr. Harrison’s strong fundraising and said that Mr. Graham could decide to harden his ties with President Trump, who is more popular in South Carolina.
“Graham still has work to do solidifying the Trump vote, and we’ll be watching if his standing with GOP partisans strengthens as the Supreme Court confirmation process unfolds,” they said.
A third of North Dakota’s total confirmed coronavirus cases have been recorded in the last three weeks, with almost 6,000 cases being reported since the start of September.
This month has also seen a a new monthly record for COVID-19 fatalities, with 45 deaths since September 1. This is two more than the previous highest monthly recorded in May.
In total, North Dakota has had 17,958confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. Of these, 5,959 have been identified in September, figures from the North Dakota Department of Health show.
On Saturday, North Dakota reported eight COVID-19-related deaths—all in Morton County—taking its overall total to 192.
On Sunday, the department of health reported 352 new cases across 34 counties, bringing the number of active cases to 3,208—a new record. There were 81 active hospitalizations on Saturday—another new pandemic record for the state—22 of which were in intensive care units.
Currently, North Dakota has the highest rate of infection out of state in the country—312 per 100,000 people, according to The New York Times coronavirus map. The state has a population of around 760,000 people.
But the state has also tested a greater percentage of its population than any other state, and has done so consistently throughout the pandemic, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
Since mid-August, the state has been conducting an average of around 5,000 tests per day, which means more cases are being uncovered compared to earlier in the pandemic. On Friday, the state reported more than 10,000 tests—a new daily record.
There has been a steady increase of both the number of new daily cases and the test positivity rate—the percentage of tests that come back positive out of the total number conducted—since June and July. This is a sign that prevalence of the disease has risen over this period, Jennifer Horney, an epidemiologist from the University of Delaware, previously told Newsweek.
The test positivity rate has remained relatively stable over the past two weeks, hovering above 5 percent. This is close to the threshold of five percent that the World Health Organization recommends a region should stay at or below for at least 14 days before restrictions can be relaxed.
In North Dakota, the largest proportion of new cases during the current phase of the pandemic have been people aged between 20 and 29, who have a lower mortality rate than higher-risk groups.
North Dakota is one of the few states without a mask mandate. Despite rising cases, Governor Doug Burgum rejected the idea of issuing such a mandate last Friday.
During the pandemic, Burgum has advocated the use of face masks, appealing to a sense of personal responsibility among North Dakotans, in the absence of a state mandate.
Governors and state health officials from across the country have said that the widespread use of masks helps to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey issued a mandatory statewide mask order on July 16, with the state subsequently seeing a notable fall in coronavirus cases. Currently, the seven-day average of new daily cases is hovering just over 880, compared to more than 1,700 on July 16, according to state health department figures.
“The mask absolutely played a very important role and we really have had no other significant limitations or interventions other than the mask,” Scott Harris, state health officer at the Alabama Department of Public Health, told NBC News.
Stock image: Artist’s illustration of coronavirus iStock
Joseph R. Biden and Democratic committees had $466 million on hand at the start of the month compared to $325 million for President Trump and the Republicans, flipping what had been a sizable cash-on-hand edge for Mr. Trump earlier this year.
Mr. Biden, the Democratic Party and associated committees raised $364.5 million in August compared to $210 million for Mr. Trump and the Republicans, thanks in part to an influx of cash around the time that the former vice president tapped Sen. Kamala D. Harris of California to be his running mate.
Democratic donations have also been pouring in after the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday.
Mr. Trump’s team has pulled back on some advertising in recent weeks to preserve money for the stretch run of the campaign.
Mr. Trump won the 2016 election despite losing the money game to Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, though he’s better-positioned to bring in campaign dollars this time around as the incumbent president.
Mr. Biden’s cash-on-hand total was first reported by The New York Times.
