https://twitter.com/Seeker/status/1265750877069094918

Source: Boston Globe

Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh said Thursday that the Boston Marathon will not go forward this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Walsh said during a briefing outside City Hall that race organizers have determined that the race, initially pushed back from April to September 2020, was “not feasible” this year.

“The Boston Athletic Association, with our input and support, has determined that traditional one-day running of the 124th Boston Marathon is not feasible this year for public health reasons,” Walsh said

“There’s no way to hold this usual race format without bringing large numbers of people into close proximity. And while our goal and hope was to make progress in containing the virus and recovering our economy, this kind of event would not be responsible or realistic on Sept. 14 or anytime this year,” the mayor stated.

Read more: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/05/28/nation/coronavirus-boston-massachusetts-may-28/?s_campaign=breakingnews:newsletter

Source: Seattle Times

BELLINGHAM — Fired whistleblower emergency physician Dr. Ming Lin, backed by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, filed suit Thursday against former employer PeaceHealth, one of its top administrators and a national medical staffing firm, seeking damages and reinstatement after his March dismissal from a Bellingham hospital.

Lin, 58, was fired from PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center after publicly protesting what he called inadequate workplace measures to protect hospital personnel and patients from the COVID-19 disease. He became a global cause célèbre among health care workers who said they were threatened or intimidated by employers when they spoke out about safety issues during the early days of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The suit, filed in Whatcom County Superior Court, claims wrongful termination, breach of contract, discrimination, defamation and infliction of emotional stress. It also seeks unspecified damages and reinstatement of Lin to his post of more than 17 years.

The complaint names as defendants the hospital’s owner, Vancouver, Washington-based, not-for-profit PeaceHealth; Richard DeCarlo, a PeaceHealth executive who publicly accused Lin of lying about hospital procedures; and TeamHealth, the national medical firm which technically employed Lin under an emergency-department staffing contract.

Read more: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/aclu-joins-ousted-doctor-ming-lin-in-lawsuit-against-bellingham-hospital/

Source: The Independent

A Minneapolis police force has released bodycam footage showing the scene at George Floyd’s arrest amid a second night of protests over the black man’s death.

The Minneapolis Park Police (MPP) video, which was made public on Wednesday night, shows an officer monitoring a vehicle opposite to where Mr Floyd was arrested and pinned to the ground before his death on Monday.

The MPP officer wearing the bodycam also appeared to reassure two passengers from Mr Floyd’s car that an ambulance would arrive at the scene, and told them to “stay put”.

Minneapolis Park Police maintain that despite having one patrol car at the scene, the officer with the bodycam was not involved with the actions that led to Mr Floyd’s death.

Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/george-floyd-police-bodycam-footage-arrest-dead-video-a9536376.html

Source: Washington Post

Police chiefs across the United States, many of whom have been pushing their officers to de-escalate tense situations and decrease their use of force, responded with disgust Wednesday to the death of George Floyd after an encounter with Minneapolis officers and moved to reassure their communities that they would not tolerate such brutality.

In years past, police officials probably would have called for full, time-consuming investigations and patience from angry citizens until all the facts were in. Not this time.

Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo fired four officers within 24 hours, and the heads of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Major Cities Chiefs Association promptly issued statements of support for that move and denounced the prolonged suffocation of Floyd captured on cellphone video and soon streamed around the world.
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“The death of Mr. Floyd is deeply disturbing and should be of concern to all Americans,” said the Major Cities Chiefs, headed by Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo. “The officers’ actions are inconsistent with the training and protocols of our profession and MCCA commends Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo for his swift and decisive action to terminate the employment of the officers involved.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2020/05/27/police-chiefs-react-with-disgust-minneapolis-killing-try-reassure-their-own-cities/

CNN

Republican strategists are increasingly worried that Trump is headed for defeat in November and that he may drag other Republicans down with him.

Seven GOP operatives not directly associated with the President's reelection campaign told CNN that Trump's response to the pandemic and the subsequent economic fallout have significantly damaged his bid for a second term — and that the effects are starting to hurt Republicans more broadly. Some of these operatives asked not to be identified in order to speak more candidly.

Several say that public polls showing Trump trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden mirror what they are finding in their own private polls, and that the trend is bleeding into key Senate races. The GOP already had a difficult task of defending 23 Senate seats in 2020. The job of protecting its slim 3-seat majority has only gotten harder as the pandemic has unfolded. States like Arizona and North Carolina, once thought to be home to winnable Senate races now appear in jeopardy.

Trump himself is being alerted to the problems. Politico reported this week that two of Trump's own outside political advisers, Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, warned the President last week that his support was falling in some swing states.

Source: The Hill

The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Wednesday approved a plan to send absentee ballot applications to more than 2.7 million registered voters, in a move that comes as President Trump continues to attack the ballot method as one that leads to fraud.

The move comes as states grapple with how to deal with elections amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The decision from the commission follows an April primary in which the state saw a dramatic increase in applications to vote by mail and states

After meeting in a public video conference to address the proposal, the six-member commission unanimously approved a plan to send an application form and a pre-paid envelope to about 2.7 million registered state voters, Reuters reported.

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/499873-wisconsin-sending-mail-in-ballot-applications-to-27-million-registered

The Hill

Source: The Hill

Roughly 2.1 million Americans filed new claims for jobless benefits in the week between May 17 and 23 as President Trump and governors push some states to loosen coronavirus-related restrictions, according to data released by the Labor Department on Thursday.

In the week ending May 23, a seasonally-adjusted 2,123,000 Americans filed initial claims from unemployment benefits, falling from a revised total of 2,446,000 applications filed the week before.

The non-seasonally adjusted number of new jobless claims, which some economists deem a better gauge of the economic downturn caused by COVID-19, totaled 1,914,958 in the week ending May 23.


Since the week ending March 22, more than 40 million Americans have filed initial claims for unemployment benefits as the spread of COVID-19 and the restrictions imposed to slow it forced thousands of businesses to close up shop. The national unemployment rate rose to 14.7 percent in April and 14.5 percent of the U.S. workforce had received jobless benefits as of the week ending May 16, according to the Labor Department.

Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/finance/499876-more-than-2-million-americans-file-new-jobless-claims