
By Evan Hill, Stella Cooper, Drew Jordan and Dmitriy Khavin from NYT Video https://ift.tt/2EJienR

The United States vetoed a U.N. resolution Monday calling for the prosecution, rehabilitation and reintegration of all those engaged in terrorism-related activities, saying it didn’t call for the repatriation from Syria and Iraq of foreign fighters for the Islamic State extremist group and their families which is “the crucial first step.” U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft said the resolution, ”supposedly designed to reinforce international action on counter-terrorism, was worse than no resolution at all.”
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Top White House officials rang the alarm bell during a call with the nation’s governors on Monday, pleading with them to advise college presidents in their states to keep COVID-infected students on campus or risk another major outbreak. “We know that what happened across the South [in June] was primarily driven by 18-to-25 year olds, across the South, with asymptomatic spread,” said Dr. Deborah Birx, the Coronavirus Response Coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force. “Sending these individuals back home in their asymptomatic state to spread the virus in their home town or among their vulnerable households could really recreate what we experienced over the June time frame in the South. So I think every university president should have a plan for not only testing but caring for their students that need to isolate.”The comments represent one of the most explicit acknowledgments to date that the White House’s aggressive push to bring students back to campus this fall has created serious risks for increased COVID transmission. It also underscores just how fragile the current situation is at college campuses across the country. Emails Show Chaos and Confusion at Ole Miss Over Coronavirus ExposureAccording to a New York Times tracker of COVID-19 at American colleges and universities, some 26,000 cases have emerged at over 750 institutions since the novel coronavirus hit the United States early this year. At the University of Alabama system alone, over 1,300 cases have been reported, according to the school’s own coronavirus case tracker.Those spikes in infections have put college and university officials in a difficult position over how to manage community spread on their campuses. On Monday, The Daily Beast reported that students and professors at the University of Mississippi—a state where GOP Gov. Tate Reeves explicitly cited saving college football to justify a mask mandate—felt the administration was pressuring exposed (if not infected) students to return home to their families. Transparency concerns about outbreaks, and the prospect of students bringing coronavirus back to their older, possibly immunocompromised relatives, have also followed outbreaks at other major southern colleges like Alabama. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, meanwhile, shut down in-person instruction for undergrads just one week into the semester last month, and at least some students were reportedly set to head home without being tested for COVID-19. The University of Notre Dame, in Indiana, and Michigan State University also quickly pivoted to online learning last month.Despite these cases, the White House has been adamant that schools not only open their doors to on-campus learning this fall but that fall sports—specifically football—proceed as usual. Justifying this stance, top administration officials have downplayed the severity of transmission and infection among younger populations. President Donald Trump himself has insisted—despite inconclusive evidence, at best, to support his claim—that healthy college athletes are "not going to have a problem” with the disease. In fact, powerhouse college football programs like Texas Tech and Oklahoma have reported recent outbreaks among their active players.University of Alabama to Profs: Don’t Tell Students About COVID-Infected ClassmatesSpeaking to governors on the call Monday, Vice President Mike Pence echoed Birx’s admonition that infected students remain isolated on campus for fear that asymptomatic transmission could impact wider populations. “In general, we want to encourage, even when you have test positivity on campuses, we want to encourage universities to have students remain on or near campus and minimize the potential exposure to the larger community,” said Pence. “We really believe—and I spoke to a university president just the other day—in suspending classes for a few weeks, have people study in their rooms, and... that kind of isolation.“We believe, let’s have the testing, let’s have the mitigation efforts, good practices in place,” Pence added. “But we really believe that remaining on or near campus is the best course possible for the overall health and well-being [of the community].”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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The attorney for a white St. Louis couple charged for waving guns during a racial injustice protest outside their home said Monday that they're anxious to prove “with absolute certainty” that they did not commit a crime. One week after Mark and Patricia McCloskey spoke on video to the Republican National Convention, they were in court briefly Monday morning and did not enter a plea. Mark McCloskey, 63, came out with AR-15 rifle, according to court records, which said Patricia McCloskey, 61, displayed a semiautomatic handgun.
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Giantess is one of the biggest geysers in the national park, and typically explodes between twice and six times a year In these troubled times there comes a point where we all need to let off steam.For this huge geyser in Yellowstone park, the moment was now and the eruption was spectacular, after a six-year wait.But, for the rest of us, watching this natural phenomenon is strangely meditative and beautifully distracting from much of the bad news around, despite the violent geothermal forces propelling it.Giantess Geyser spouted for the first time in more than six years in Yellowstone National Park, which straddles part of Wyoming and a little of Montana, on 25 August, according to the US National Park Service (NPS).“She” has more typically erupted between twice and six times a year in the past, according to the NPS website, and blasts a spout up to 200ft high.“The surrounding area may shake from underground steam explosions just before the initial water and/or steam eruptions,” the NPS website adds.Giantess is one of the biggest geysers in the park, alongside phenomena such as the super-tall Steamboat geyser, the largest active geyser in the world, and the park’s most famous, Old Faithful, renowned for its punctual regularity as it soars from the ground about 20 times a day.Colorful hot spring features in the park include the blue-hued Morning Glory Pool and the psychedelic Grand Prismatic spring, as well as whiffy, sulfurous bubblers and roiling natural pots of scalding hot water fizzing out of the rocks.The features are among more than 10,000 hot springs and geysers in the park, a Unesco world heritage site.
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"To those near the Kelly Building, this has been declared an unlawful assembly due to criminal activity," Portland police wrote on Twitter https://bit.ly/3gKwGsO. The overnight demonstration followed a fatal shooting amid weekend street clashes between supporters of President Donald Trump and counter-demonstrators in downtown Portland. Governor Kate Brown said on Sunday night that Oregon State Police would send personnel and resources to Portland to help keep the situation in the city under control.
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