Innovation never stops – Aerospace Manufacturing

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Iscars new products have already proved their effectiveness in turning aero engine parts from super alloys [Fig1]

The aerospace industry is not only one of the largest consumers of cutting tools, but also one of the most important driving factors for cutting tool development. Whatever the material or application, Iscar Tools keeps on innovating.

The aerospace industry features continuous efforts aimed at improving aircraft component manufacturing efficiency, increasing flight safety, and reducing potential environmental damage.

To achieve these goals, the industry must constantly improve the design of aircraft engines and airframe structural elements, to increase the protection of the aircraft from the damaging action of such dangerous factors as lightning and icing. This in turn has resulted in a series of industry demands, including the introduction of engineering materials that require new production technologies, developing appropriate machinery and cutting tools. The aircraft manufacturer has to deal with complex parts, which are produced from various materials with the use of different machining strategies. This is why the aerospace industry is considered as a powerful and leading force for progress in cutting tool development.

Many materials used for manufacturing aircraft components have poor machinability. Titanium, high temperature superalloys (HTSA) and composites are difficult-to-cut materials. In order to increase output rate and improve productivity, aerospace component manufacturers must use machine tools capable of implementing advanced machining operations. In such conditions, the role of cutting tools are significantly increased; however, they can represent the weakest link in the whole manufacturing system due to their low durability as a system element, which can decrease productivity. Aerospace customers expect higher levels of performance and reliability from cutting tools and manufacturers have been both challenged and inspired, in terms of developing and integrating sometimes unconventional solutions into their products, to meet these expectations.

Basic materials

Most cutting tools continue to be manufactured from cemented carbide. Over recent years, Iscar has introduced several carbide grades designed specifically for aerospace materials, including IC 5820. The grade combines the advantages of a new submicron substrate, a progressive hard CVD coating, and a post-coating treatment to substantially increase impact strength and heat resistance. The inserts from this grade are intended mostly for milling titanium. Pinpointed wet cooling and especially high-pressure coolant (HPC) significantly improve grade performance.

Ceramics, another tool material, possess considerably higher hot hardness and chemical inertness than cemented carbides. This means that ceramics ensure much greater cutting speeds and eliminate diffusion wear. One of the last Iscars developments, a family of solid ceramic endmills, is intended for machining HTSA. These endmills are made from SiAlON a type of silicon-nitride-based ceramic comprising silicon, aluminium, oxygen and nitrogen. When compared with solid carbide tools, the endmills enable an increase in cutting speed of up to 50 times, which can drastically save machining hours.

For turning applications, the company expanded its line of indexable SiAlON inserts for machining HTSA materials. The new products (Fig. 1) have already proved their effectiveness in turning aero engine parts from super alloys such as Waspaloy and different Inconel and Rene grades. In contrast to other silicon nitride ceramics, SiAlON possesses higher oxidation resistance but less toughness. Therefore, a key of a SiAlON insert reliability is additional edge preparation. Iscars new TE edge geometry has been developed to increase tool life in heavy load conditions during rough operations and interrupted cuts.

Advanced geometry

Improving a cutting geometry is an important direction in the development of cutting tools. Cutting geometry is a subject of theoretical and experimental researches, and advances in science and technology have brought a new powerful instrument to aid in tool design: 3D modelling of chip formation. Iscars R&D team actively uses modelling to find optimal cutting geometries and form the rake face of indexable inserts and exchangeable heads.

The F3S chipformer has been designed for finish turning high temperature nickel-based alloys and exotic materials [Fig2]

In hole making, applying modelling to the design process significantly contributed to creating a chip splitting geometry of SUMOCHAM exchangeable carbide heads for drilling holes with depth up to 12-hole diameters in hard-to-cut austenitic and duplex stainless steel.

Flexible customisation

Aerospace products can vary immensely in material, dimensions, shape, complexity, and more. To make such a diverse range of products, the product manufacturer needs dozens of machine tools and technological processes. Not every standard cutting tool is optimal for performing certain machining operations with maximum productivity and, consequently, the aerospace industry is a leading consumer of customised tools.

A customer producing titanium parts might be interested in solutions comprising indexable shell mills and arbors from the standard line; while another customer producing similar parts might prefer special milling cutters with an integral body, for direct mounting in a machine spindle.

Iscar developed the MULTI-MASTER and SUMOCHAM families of rotating tools with exchangeable heads and different body configurations to ensure various tool assembly options that simplify customisation and decrease the need for costly tailormade products.

Iscars modular drills for multi-spindle and Swiss-type machines combine the SUMOCHAM design with a FLEXFIT threaded connection [Fig3]

Responding to demands from the aerospace sector, the company also expanded the MULTI-MASTER family by introducing a new thread connection to increase the diameter range for the exchangeable endmill heads to 32mm.

Aluminium machining

Although machining aluminium might appear to be an extremely simple process, effective cutting of aluminium actually represents a whole field of technology with its own laws and challenges.

The need to increase productivity and boost metal removal rates for milling aluminium workpieces, especially large parts of aerospace structural components, has led machine tool builders to develop milling machines with a powerful main drive up to 150kW with high spindle speeds of up to 33,000rpm. To meet this demand, Iscar has expanded its family of 90 indexable milling cutters by introducing new tools carrying large-size inserts that enable up to 22mm depth of cut (Fig. 4). The tools have been designed to eliminate insert radial displacement, which might occur due to high centrifugal forces during very high rotational speed. This concept facilitates reliable milling in a rotational speed range of up to 31,000rpm.

Iscar has expanded its family of 90 indexable milling cutters by introducing new tools carrying large-size inserts [Fig4]

Iscars cutting tool program for the aerospace sector is based on several principles: the complex needs of this industry, taking into consideration trends in metalworking, and the drive to strengthen partnerships with tool consumers. Iscar believes that such a tri-pronged approach ensures the successful realisation of innovative ideas for efficient machining of the difficult-to-cut materials that characterise this challenging and dynamic field.

http://www.iscar.co.uk

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Innovation never stops - Aerospace Manufacturing

From The Bahamas to Turks and Caicos, 7 Private Islands You Can Visit – Caribbean Journal

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There may be no better way to find escape from the pandemic than the glorious seclusion of a Caribbean private island resort.

Social distancing is a given when youre sharing an exclusive dot of land in the middle of the ocean with a relative handful of other guests and resort staff.

At some, like the legendary Petit St. Vincent (opening Nov. 1), you can literally limit your human contact to a few minutes at check-in and check-out, simply raising a flag at your private villa when you need food, drink, or other essentials discreetly dropped at your door.

At others, its possible to rent out the entire island especially useful if you want to limit your vacation interactions to a group of responsible, mask-wearing friends and family.

Not every Caribbean private island resort has reopened in the wake of COVID-19; the British Virgin Islands, home to several of the top resorts in the Caribbean, remains closed to international visitors, for example. But here are some great private islands where you can relax in luxury and safety this summer: (Note: due to recent changes, you can fly to The Bahamas only through private airlines or charter flights and airlines like Tropic Ocean Airways.)

Ambergris Cay, Turks & Caicos

Just a short hop by air from Providenciales, Ambergris Cay has a collection of beautiful whitewashed villas lined up before a shimmering swath of white sand, customized dining, attentive staff, and a wide range of activities from exploring the island on electric golf carts to romantic dining on a middle-of-nowhere sandbar. Daily spa treatments are included in room costs. It reopens with the Turks and Caicos Islands relaunch July 22.

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From The Bahamas to Turks and Caicos, 7 Private Islands You Can Visit - Caribbean Journal

Looking to unwind outside the city? Abu Dhabis stunning resorts, islands and parks are ideal for some quiet time – Happytrips

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From serene and ultra-luxurious resorts, many of which are located along the emirates sprawling shoreline and some on exclusive private islands, to expansive parks showcasing adventure and a range of camping options, the laid-back side of this extraordinary emirate is sure to impress you, with stunning vistas, old-fashioned charm and unique culture.

Sir Bani Yas Island

Jebel Hafit Desert Park

Zaya Nurai Island

Saadiyat Rotana Resort and Villas

When in Abu Dhabi, seclusion is just a short drive away and always comes with the ultimate comfort and luxury. The emirates stunning resorts, islands and parks offer the best service and unparalleled vistas that provide you with a distinct escape from the touristy throngs. They also pack in several activities and adventures that are distinct to this region, ensuring that it is a unique and authentic trip that you and your loved ones will always cherish.

Cannot wait to be in Abu Dhabi? Well, we have some good news. Now, you can virtually explore this magnificent city while sitting right at home. Check out the immersive #StayCurious campaign that lets you escape to this stunning destination without setting foot in it!

Disclaimer: This article has been produced on behalf of the Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi by Times Internets Spotlight team.

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Looking to unwind outside the city? Abu Dhabis stunning resorts, islands and parks are ideal for some quiet time - Happytrips

Day Cruisers to Tivua Island to Get Involved in Reef Sustainability – FTNnews.com

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Captain Cook Cruises have reopened Tivua Island for day cruise experiences and also launchedbuy a coral - build a reef coral rejuvenation program.

Thebuy a coral - build a reef coral rejuvenation programallows guests to get involved in reef sustainability when they are visiting Tivua island. Guests can buy a coral frag and plant it like they would a seedling on land. All funds go towards funding Captain Cook Cruises Coral Rejuvenation Program and making Fijis reefs even more glorious.

Tivua Island is surrounded by 500 acres of coral reef. The area has benefited greatly from the extensive work by Captain Cooks team of Marine Biologists through the lockdown period. Coral planting, and monitoring and rejuvenation of on land plant life, have been priorities.

Captain Cook Cruises is a leader in sustainable tourism and reef education with their team of Marine Biologists providing ongoing education to guests both on Tivua Island as well as when cruising on the Reef Endeavour. Through their Ocean Ambassador program many tons of rubbish have been collected from beaches around Fiji during the Reef Endeavour itineraries that stretch as far as Sawa-i-lau & Kia island in the north and the outer reaches of the Lau group visiting more than 90 of Fijis 330 islands. Rubbish is collected by crew member Ocean Ambassadors, sorted, weighed, recorded and recycled. Passengers enjoy getting involved with the program as well.

Captain Cook Cruises are relaunching their updated and refreshed Tivua Private Island adventure experiences post COVID for Fiji residents for only $99 per adult and $49 per child 3-15yrs. The fabulous Tivua Island Day Cruise will be available at this special rate from 28 June 2020 on Saturdays and Sundays and progressively more often as the Nadi International Airport opens. They are also offering additional discounts for first responders in Fiji, Police, Navy, Army and Hospital employees at F$89 for adults and F$49 for children.

Sail out aboard one of Captain Cooks magnificent tall ships to exclusive Tivua Island with morning tea, enjoy snorkeling over the spectacular 500 acres of coral gardens, kayaking, volleyball and standup paddle boards before a delicious tropical buffet lunch is served. 5 star PADI Diving from introductory to experts is also available and experienced divers can even explore a deep wreck dive. The return sail to Denarau, afternoon tea and Fijian entertainment round off a beautiful day in paradise.

Guests can rest assured that Captain Cook Cruises have implemented a company wide policy of strict cleaning, hygiene and health protocols to ensure the safety of its passengers.

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Day Cruisers to Tivua Island to Get Involved in Reef Sustainability - FTNnews.com

Coronavirus daily news updates, July 24: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the world – Seattle Times

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The U.S. now has more than 4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19. The grim milestone is a reminder of how much more rapidly the virus is spreading this summer, having gone from 3 million cases to 4 million in just 15 days.

Washington state is reacting to its own recent uptick in infections by imposing expanded mask requirements and stricter limitations on bars, restaurants, gyms and other places people congregate. Plus, more schools are announcing theyll teach mostly or completely online this fall.

Throughout Friday, on this page, well be posting updates on the pandemic and its effects on the Seattle area, the Pacific Northwest and the world. Updates from Thursday can be foundhere, and all our coronavirus coverage can be foundhere.

Jack Forst and Don Garcy have been close friends longer than most elderly couples have been married.

For years they were neighbors in Longwood, Fla., where Forst was a marketing and sales executive for a beverage company and Garcy ran an insurance office. For the last decade theyve lived near one another in The Villages, a sprawling retirement community not far from their old homes.

But when they met at a Starbucks on a recent weekday morning, their greeting was infused with the fear thathas gripped many across this state.

My wifes in quarantine, Forst called across the lobby.

Garcy, 84, nodded but didnt speak, as if a bemusedcharacter in a John Updike novel. He had recently finished two months in quarantine himself, and has become so accustomed to the blue cotton face mask he wears that he sometimes tries to eat with it on.

Word of a new COVID-19 case isn't so much news as it is a conversation starter in the Villages, a master-planned community that has over 132,000 residents, three ZIP codes and 55 golf courses. News of rising infections arrive with unnerving frequency.

Forst and Garcy didnt expect their lives to spool out this way, worrying about a pandemic in a nation on edge. But this America they had endured Vietnam, civil rights marches, Kennedy assassinations, recessions, terrorist attacks and the scandal of Watergate is somehow different, less certain when it takes stock of itself in an age of fresh graves and hoped-for vaccines.

COVID-19 has ravaged Florida, with more than 237,000 people testing positive and 2,013 dying from the virus in July alone. A record 173 Floridians died from the virus Thursday, an average of more than one every eight minutes. And that has taken a heavy toll on residents older than 65, who account for just 13% of the states coronavirus cases but 82% of the fatalities.

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Los Angeles Times

The coronavirus transformed Floridas nursing homes into closely guarded fortresses beginning in March, with the state banning family visits, isolating infected residents in separate wings and now requiring staff be tested every two weeks. But the explosion of cases statewide is proving that is not enough.

The numbers are already showing the grim reality, underscoring how mask compliance and restrictions in the outside world impact the states most vulnerable. In the past three weeks, cases have gone from about 2,000 to some 4,800 at Florida nursing homes. Roughly 2,550 long-term care residents and staff have died overall, accounting for about 45% of all virus deaths in Florida.

Where you see COVID hot spots, our anxiety level in our centers automatically goes up. Our vigilance goes through the roof, said Luke Neumann, a vice president at Palm Garden, which has 14 facilities across Florida.

Thats how societies are judged in part by how you care for the weak and aged, Neumann said.

Florida recorded 173 new coronavirus deaths Thursday, a daily high that pushed its toll from the pandemic to more than 5,500. Deaths inside nursing homes have also been on the rise, averaging about 40 per day in the last week after those numbers had dropped in mid-June to lower than 20 deaths per day.

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The Associated Press

The top U.S. public health agency issued a full-throated call to reopen schools in a package of new resources posted on its website Thursday night that opened with a statement listing numerous benefits for children of being in school, while downplaying the potential health risks.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the new guidance two weeks after President Donald Trump criticized its earlier recommendations on school reopenings as very tough and expensive, ramping up an anguished national debate over the question of how soon children should return to classrooms. As the president was criticizing the initial CDC recommendations, a document from the agency surfaced that detailed the risks of reopening and the steps that districts were taking to minimize those risks.

Reopening schools creates opportunity to invest in the education, well-being and future of one of Americas greatest assets our children while taking every precaution to protect students, teachers, staff and all their families, the new opening statement said.

The package of materials began with the opening statement, titled The Importance of Reopening Americas Schools This Fall, anddescribed children as being at low risk for being infected by or transmitting the coronavirus, even though the science on both aspects is far from settled.

The best available evidence indicates if children become infected, they are far less likely to suffer severe symptoms, the statement said. At the same time, the harms attributed to closed schools on the social, emotional, and behavioral health, economic well-being, and academic achievement of children, in both the short- and long-term, are well-known and significant.

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The New York Times

New rules on wearing masks in England went into effect Friday, with people entering shops, banks and supermarkets now required to wear face coverings, while Romania reported a record for daily infections and new cases nearly doubled in France.

People in England can be fined as much as 100 pounds ($127) by police if they refuse. The British government had given mixed signals for weeks before deciding on the policy. Places like restaurants, pubs, gyms and hairdressers are exempt.

John Apter, the national chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said officers would be available as a last resort but added that he hopes the public will continue to do the right thing to protect other citizens.

In Belgium, health authorities said a 3-year-old girl has died after testing positive for COVID-19 as new infections surged 89% from the previous week.

Belgian authorities have bolstered up restrictions to slow the spread of coronavirus, including making masks mandatory in crowded outdoor public spaces. Belgium has been hard hit by the pandemic, with 64,847 cases and 9,812 deaths registered so far.

Overall, Europe has seen over 201,000 deaths in the pandemic, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say the true toll from the coronavirus worldwide is much higher, due to limited testing and other issues.

Read the story here.

The Associated Press

Nearly half of Americans whose families experienced a layoff during the coronavirus pandemic believe those jobs are lost forever, a new poll shows, a sign of increasing pessimism that would translate into about 10 million workers needing to find a new employer, if not a new occupation.

Its a sharp change after initial optimism the jobs would return, as temporary cutbacks give way to shuttered businesses, bankruptcies and lasting payroll cuts. In April, 78% of those in households with a job loss thought theyd be temporary. Now, 47% think that lost job is definitely or probably not coming back, according to the latest poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The poll is the latest sign the solid hiring of May and June, as some states lifted stay-at-home orders and the economy began to recover, may wane as the year goes on. Adding to the challenge: Many students will begin the school year online, making it harder for parents to take jobs outside their homes.

Honestly, at this point, theres not going to be a job to go back to, said Tonica Daley, 35, who lives in Riverside, California, and has four children ranging from 3 to 18 years old. The kids are going to do virtual school, and there is no day care.

Read the story here.

The Associated Press

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night nor COVID-19 stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Except for the pandemic mention, these words have long been the unofficial motto of U.S. Postal Service letter carriers. They were chiseled in granite on the monumental 1912 New York General Post Office. They are lived daily by hundreds of thousands of postal workers.

For their fellow citizens, the mail has assumed new importance, with millions shut in by the pandemic.

The Postal Service,the most popular of federal agencies, is essential, affordable and goes everywhere. As in the 1918 influenza pandemic, the agency has continued its logistical feat during COVID-19. Meanwhile, at least 12,000 of its workers have been infected and 67 have died.

Columnist Jon Talton writes that unfortunately, President Donald Trump has long been an enemy of the Postal Service, repeatingthe false assertionthat it loses money by delivering for Amazon, calling the agency a joke and threatening to strangle its funding.

Now, his new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, isimposing draconian cutbacks, including eliminating overtime.

Inan internal memoobtained by The Washington Post, DeJoy states that USPS must make immediate, lasting and impactful changes in our operations and in our culture.

Read Talton's column here.

Jon Talton

Kris Higginson

No matter how you feel about it, the humble mask is now the worlds most ubiquitous accessory, both a practical safeguard and a political symbol for many.

Fashion designer Luly Yang and other Seattleites are on the cutting edge, "so excited" about a chance to make things better with their creations which are quickly becoming a lifeline for the industry.

Not since humans invented shoes and undies has a single item of dress caught on so quickly, spanning borders, cultures and generations.

Chris Talbott / Special to The Seattle Times

A series of jaw-dropping new numberssuggests America isbadly losing the fightagainst the coronavirus.

Gov. Jay Inslee has announced sweeping new restrictions on bars, restaurants, fitness centers and more as coronavirus cases rise, and a stricter mask order takes effect tomorrow. Here's what you need to know, and where that leaves us on the activities you can (and can't) do in each Washington county.

A Renton doctor knew she had COVID-19 and kept working at a nursing home, telling nobody that she was infected while she spread the virus, a lawsuit alleges.

The virus killed one Floridian every eight minutes yesterday, on average, leaving residents of one retirement community fearing who will be next. And how did things get so dire in California, where coronavirus cases have rocketed past 400,000? "We got impatient," an epidemiologist explains. This is a health expert's "worst nightmare," and we might not even be halfway through it, Dr. Anthony Fauci said yesterday.

An Eastside tech executive took $5.5 million in fraudulent virus relief funds, federal officials say.

President Donald Trump has scrapped plans for a four-night Republican National Convention celebration in the pandemic hot spot of Florida.

The school year will begin remotely, the Lake Washington and Tacoma districts have announced, joining other major public-school systems around the region. WSU and Seattle U will teach almost all classes remotely this fall as well, and UW is working on sharply limiting its in-person classes. Meanwhile, as Trump calls for schools to fully reopen, his son's school will not.

Want major coronavirus stories sent to you via text message?Text the word COVID to 855-480-9667 or enter your phone number below.

Seattle Times staff & news services

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Coronavirus daily news updates, July 24: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the world - Seattle Times

Coronavirus update: Another round of $1,200 checks part of stimulus proposal – AL.com

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Another round of stimulus checks could soon be headed to Americans.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Thursday the Republican stimulus plan includes more direct payments to help Americans struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Our proposal is the exact same provision as last time, Mnuchin said, according to Bloomberg.

That would mean individuals earning up to $75,000 would receive a $1,200 payment for themselves with an additional $500 for dependent children. Couples earning up to $150,000 would qualify for the full amounts. After that, payments drop based on income, capped at $99,000 for singles and $198,000 for couples.

The last round of stimulus money went to 160 million Americans.

See all of AL.coms coronavirus coverage here.

Here are the latest coronavirus headlines:

Mayors urge people to wear masks at home

Two Florida mayors are asking residents to wear masks inside their homes to help lower the spread of coronavirus between families.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and Miami-Dade County MayorCarlos Gimenez said wearing masks inside would protect vulnerable members of multi-generational households.

Because we have such a high level of positivity rate here in Miami-Dade, you also need to start thinking about maintaining a distance also from your loved ones for a while, Gimenez said. Yes, I know Its a sacrifice, but do so because, again, just because its your son or your daughter or your cousin or your mother or your father, doesnt mean they dont have (COVID_19.)

Florida reported another 10,273 new COVID cases and 173 deaths on Thursday.

California reports record number of daily fatalities

California has reported a record number of daily fatalities.

On Thursday, the state reported 157 new deaths, bringing the its total to 8,027. California has now surpassed New York to have the nations highest number of COVID-19 cases.

As of Thursday, California has more than 421,000 cases compared to New York, which has more than 409,000.

County fair tied to 22 cases

At least 22 cases of coronavirus have been linked to an Ohio county fair held at the end of June, officials said.

Health officials said at least 19 attendees of a Pickaway, Ohio fair contracted the virus and three passed it on to another family member. One person who attended the fair died but an investigation is ongoing as to how they contracted the virus.

White House area cafeteria closes over coronavirus concerns

A White House area cafeteria is closed after a worker tested positive for coronavirus.

The cafeteria in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, part of the White House complex, was closed this week. It is unclear how long it will remain closed but its believed to be at least two weeks while contract tracing is conducted.

The EEOB cafeteria is located across West Executive Ave. from the West Wing.

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Coronavirus update: Another round of $1,200 checks part of stimulus proposal - AL.com

Boris Johnson says coronavirus could have been handled differently – The Guardian

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Boris Johnson has conceded there were things we could have done differently over Covid-19, and admitted the government did not understand the virus in the first few weeks and months.

In a sometimes combative interview with the BBC, the prime minister repeatedly refused to discuss any lessons that could be learned before a possible second wave of Covid-19 this winter, saying it was not the moment to run a kind of inquiry into what happened in the past.

But Johnson admitted there were very open questions about whether the lockdown had started too late. Recollecting that period, Johnson said the single thing that we didnt see at the beginning was the extent to which coronavirus could be transmitted asymptomatically between people, meaning it had spread further than believed in the UK before the lockdown was imposed.

Several of the governments own scientific advisers have said the lockdown came too late. Prof John Edmunds, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said in June the decision cost a lot of lives.

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But the PM rejected the idea that changes in policy over lockdown, mask use and mass testing meant the government response could, as Edmunds said, be portrayed as a story of delay that sadly cost lives. The UK went into lockdown at the end of March.

Johnson said the UK, in common with many other countries, had been taken by surprise at the extent to which coronavirus could be spread by people not showing any symptoms, and insisted the government had stuck to medical advice like glue.

But after repeated questioning about whether better decisions could have been made, given the UKs 45,000-plus confirmed deaths, the highest in Europe, and if some scientific advice could have been incorrect, Johnson eventually conceded errors were possible.

Maybe there were things we could have done differently, as Ive said, and of course there will be time to understand what exactly we could have done, or done differently, he said. But what I think the public wants us to do now is to focus on getting the preparations ready for what, as I say, could be a resurgence of the virus this winter.

Last week, Johnson committed for the first time to holding an independent inquiry into the UK response to the pandemic, telling MPs in the Commons only that this would be in the future.

In the BBC interview, held to mark his first year in office, Johnson stressed how hard it was to initially cope with a mass outbreak of a new virus: I think when you look back at this crisis, everybody can see that this was something that was new, that we didnt understand in the way that we would have liked in the first few weeks and months.

He added: If you look at the timing of every single piece of advice that we got from our advisers, from Sage, you will find that whenever they said that we needed to take a particular step, actually, we stuck to that advice like glue, Johnson said.

He repeatedly sought to avoid discussing mistakes that could have been made, saying there would be plenty of time by the way to look back at all the other things that we need to learn.

He added: I think what people really want to focus on now is what are we doing to prepare for the next phase, because if I may say so, youre talking about this as though its in the past and its not, its in the present.

Earlier this week the government announced the flu vaccine would be offered to everyone over 50 in England up to 30 million people this winter in an attempt to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed by a second wave of coronavirus.

On his own experiences with coronavirus, which involved a brief stay in intensive care, Johnson highlighted his weight, and a government campaign being launched next week on obesity, seen as a risk factor for Covid-19.

Thats why we need to tackle our national struggle with obesity, he said. Typically our great country tends to be a little bit fatter than many other countries in Europe. So you asked about my own personal circumstances, and one of the lessons I drew from that is the need for us all to be fitter and healthier.

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Boris Johnson says coronavirus could have been handled differently - The Guardian

Coronavirus has struck construction sites across Colorado, including a school and off-campus housing project – The Colorado Sun

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Coronavirus outbreaks have hit staff working in the close quarters of Colorado nursing homes, prisons and jails, food-manufacturing plants and restaurants. Add construction workers to that list, as the number of job sites with outbreaks continues to rise.

The latest from the coronavirus outbreak in Colorado:

>> FULL COVERAGE

A construction crew building a school in Kit Carson fell ill with the virus, sickening 26 workers this summer. Thirteen workers were infected while building off-campus student housing for Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

In Rifle, a crew working on a hospital project ended up with 15 workers with COVID-19, forcing construction to halt. And in the Denver area, a landscaping company had 14 workers infected with COVID-19 including two deaths and an insulation company had 15 workers with the virus.

Several of the outbreaks, including the one at Alpha Insulation and Waterproofing, have been resolved, but there are at least eight active outbreaks involving construction crews in Colorado, according to the state health departments weekly outbreak list. Alpha Insulation, which has several offices throughout the United States, declined to talk about how the outbreak started, the efforts to contain its spread or where their staff was working when employees were infected.

In an effort to respect our staffs privacy, Alpha will not release any information about those affected, company spokeswoman Ericka Brause said.

The hospital project in Garfield County, where 15 workers were sick and forced to isolate, was put on hold last month after several workers came down with symptoms. Public health workers who investigated the outbreak and conducted dozens of phone interviews to determine who was exposed said the virus spread because workers grew lax about wearing their masks.

They were working in an enclosed space and we all get complacent, said Carrie Godes, a public health specialist at Garfield County Public Health. Its a good take-away lesson for all of us in our work environment. We feel a false sense of security.

Godes said workers at the Rifle construction site would wear their masks when new people were on the job, but when it was just their regular crew, they didnt always wear masks or didnt wear them correctly.

Put that mask on, inside especially, she said.

All 15 workers are recovering and no new cases have been reported in several days, but under state health department guidelines, the outbreak isnt considered resolved until 28 days from the last infection. The construction company working on the project, FCI Constructors, declined an interview request about the outbreak. Grand River Health said in a news release that the outbreak is not expected to delay the opening of its care center, planned for January.

Cheyenne County public health officials did not respond to numerous emails and phone messages from The Colorado Sun requesting information about the outbreak tied to the school building construction in Kit Carson. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said 26 workers tested positive for the virus, and that the outbreak began in mid-May.

Construction outbreaks that have been resolved include Schommer Construction in El Paso, the Origin Hotel in Westminster, the Del Rio Hotel construction site in La Plata County and the Bespoke Uptown project in Denver. An Arapahoe County landscaping company, Keesen Landscape, had 12 cases of the virus and two deaths, according to the state health department.

State public health officials are urging construction companies to limit the number of workers per crew to the minimum number of people possible to do the work safely, to keep workers 6 feet apart if possible and to limit contact with visitors to job sites. They have also asked that companies do temperature checks and monitor workers for symptoms.

The latest state outbreak list, released Wednesday, includes active outbreaks among workers at four grocery stores and 26 restaurants. Outbreaks are also ongoing at 13 correctional facilities, including the Pueblo Youth Services Center.

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Outbreaks at nursing homes and senior living centers have dominated the list for months, but the spread is slowing in those facilities. The list includes 932 deaths of residents of senior facilities, including 778 that have been confirmed by a lab and 154 that are suspected as COVID-19 deaths.

There have been 3,330 cases of the virus among residents and more than 2,600 among staff. Seven workers at the facilities have died.

Nearly 50 nursing homes and senior living centers are dealing with outbreaks still considered active, but the majority of outbreaks at those facilities 126 are now resolved.

State public health officials said outbreaks at nursing homes have been curbed through a combination of no-visitor policies, frequent virus testing and shipments of personal protective equipment for staff.

Visitation is now allowed, but is limited to outdoors.

The work in these facilities is not finished, the Colorado Joint Information Center, which handles media requests about the virus, said in an emailed statement.

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Coronavirus has struck construction sites across Colorado, including a school and off-campus housing project - The Colorado Sun

The Long Game of Coronavirus Research – The New Yorker

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NEIDL has been working with live samples of the coronavirus since March, when it received a sample that was derived from the U.S.s first diagnosed case: a thirty-five-year-old man in Washington State who had recently returned from Wuhan. But its staff had been making plans to investigate the virus since January, when early reports of its rapid spread convinced them that it would proliferate worldwide and lead to severe outbreaks in the U.S. They immediately began writing protocols for using the virus and submitting requests for approval from B.U. In March, institutions at B.U., including NEIDL, received 1.9 million dollars in funding from the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness, part of a hundred-and-fifteen-million-dollar grantcordinated by the Dean of Harvard Medical School and financed by a Chinese investment fundto support researchers working in the Boston area and Guangzhou.

In the U.S., most of the B.S.L.-4 labs are in government or military facilities, but NEIDL, despite its origin as part of a federal initiative, operates on an open academic model. We work with absolute transparency, its director, Ronald Corley, told me. We have to have the trust of the public, so everything we do is known and communicated freely. In the past two years, Corley, a lanky microbiologist in his seventies, has recruited fourteen scientists to join the center, looking for researchers with a wide range of expertise. The staff of NEIDL and its affiliates includes experts in the basic biology of the deadliest pathogens, in animal models that can be used to mimic the progress of human diseases, and in effective treatments and potential vaccines. Corley believes in giving them the freedom to pursue their hunches without being micromanaged. From the outset, he organized the centers COVID-19 research on the presumption that it would be, as recent evidence has borne out, an evolving targetand that progress would more likely come from a cluster of approaches than from a single breakthrough.

Since Donald Trump took office, his Administration has worked to systematically disassemble key elements of federal pandemic planning. In 2018, it largely disbanded the National Security Council unit responsible for pandemic preparedness, which was formed during the Obama Administration, after having ignored the councils playbook for fighting pandemics. It removed Rick Bright, from his job as a Health and Human Services official in charge of vaccine development, after he submitted a three-hundred-page complaint about the Administrations coronavirus response. Most recently, the White House directed the National Institutes of Health to cut off federal grant funding to the EcoHealth Alliance, an organization headquartered in New York that studies the global spread of viruses from animals to humans, and which collaborated on research about coronaviruses with researchers based in China.

But some aspects of the countrys pandemic planning have managed to survive, in large part because they were designed as enduring homes of scientific inquiry into the most dangerous biological threats. NEIDL was conceived to be at once independent of politics and ready to respond in a cohesive way to a national emergency. Its approach represents the polar opposite of the warp speed language popularized for the public.

Theres lots of good work going on across the globe, Corley said. Theres also a lot of junk, because people are rushing. The issue is not just sloppiness; laboratories are inherently artificial environments, and even the most careful work can yield apparent breakthroughs that turn out to be artifacts of the experimental process. When a virus infects human cells grown in a lab, it can mutate slightly. It is possible to spend years developing a therapy for an altered form of a pathogen only to find that that therapy brings no benefit to patients. Corley and his team have been sequencing the genes of their virus samples repeatedly as they work, in order to make sure that the pathogen is not morphing into a form that no longer corresponds with what was originally retrieved from the Seattle patienta time-consuming, but necessary, precaution.

As Corley led me on a tour of the facility and introduced me to its researchers, I got a sense of NEIDLs institutional preference for care over speed. Anthony Griffiths, a virologist and an Ebola expert whose focus is on animal modelling, stated the value of deliberate science plainly. I learned lessons from Ebola. I understand speed, he told me. But, if you do science in a rush, you are at risk of going down the garden path. Griffiths hopes to use observations of the progress of the disease in animal hostsgenetically manipulated mice, golden Syrian hamsters, and rhesus monkeysto learn about its mechanisms and to test possible treatments. This could help determine how much virus has to be present to cause infection, and what the routes to inoculation might be, with the aim of uncovering the dynamics of human immunity against the coronavirus. I would love to be first, but were not going to be, he told me. But we want to put ourselves in the best position to do the kind of work that can help understand the performance of the vaccine, and what its limitations may prove to be.

Griffiths works closely with Nahid Bhadelia, an infectious-diseases physician at Boston Medical Center who is an expert in emerging pathogens. In 2014, during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, she was part of a W.H.O. team that treated patients and training local caregivers. Part of her role is to draw the attention of NEIDL scientists to evolving and unexplained clinical findings of COVID-19, such as those that Fauci highlighted, so that they investigate them in the laboratory. For example, she has observed patients who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, then repeatedly tested negative, and then tested positive again. Have they become reinfected or has their immunity waned? she said. Or were they just shedding virus from the initial infection? With scientists at NEIDL, she is working to take a chronological sequence of virus samples from such patients. Genetic analysis can show whether a patient was carrying the same pathogen at different times, or whether the virus mutated in a way that outflanked the persons immune response. This work will ultimately make it easier to assess the likely potency of prospective vaccines. Bhadelia has also noted that some patients who were not terribly sick, meaning they werent in the I.C.U, nonetheless appear to have residual problems with cognition. Such persistent effects could potentially be modelled in animal studies at NEIDL.

Rob Davey, an Australian microbiologist with a wry sense of humor and hyperkinetic way of talking, is an expert on discovering novel treatments for pathogens. In 2018, while he was working with the biotech company Regeneron, Davey helped identify a kind of antibody that successfully treated Ebola in animal test subjects by latching onto viral proteins and blocking the microbe from entering cells. These antibodies ultimately became treatments for patients with the infection. Since he began working on COVID-19, he has been looking for agents with the potential to disrupt the progress of the disease. He is currently screening almost seven thousand chemicals that he obtained from the Broad Institute (the joint HarvardM.I.T. enterprise that specializes in assembling large libraries of chemical compounds), along with an additional thirty-two hundred provided by B.U. Some of these compounds are drugs already in use for illnesses including diabetes, hypertension, and migraine. If Daveys screening process indicates that one of them has potential as a COVID-19 treatment, testing on patients could follow quickly, since they already have F.D.A. approval.

See more here:

The Long Game of Coronavirus Research - The New Yorker

What you need to know about coronavirus Thursday, July 23 – KING5.com

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Find developments on the coronavirus pandemic and the plan for recovery in the U.S. and Washington state.

Where cases stand in Washington:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released resources for parents, teachers and schools Thursday as they consider whether to reopen this fall and whether children should go back amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The resources include a "Decision-Making Tool" for parents and caregivers to help them weigh the risks and benefits of going back. It's a checklist with 30 questions that weighs the risks of COVID-19, whether the child and their school are ready, the child's ability to learn from home and the child's academic and social well-being.

Gov. Jay Inslee has announced plans to implement more restrictions on businesses, wedding ceremonies, funerals and fitness centers in Washington to continue to limit the spread of COVID-19 as the state is seeing a resurgence of cases.

Indoor dining at restaurants will now be limited to members of the same household only. For counties in Phase 3, there may only be five people at a table and total occupancy cannot exceed 50%. Previously, counties in Phase 3 could have 10 people or less to a table at a restaurant and 75% occupancy.

Cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. reached a significant, concerning mark on Thursday, topping more than 4 million in total.

The milestone comes a day after the global total of coronavirus cases passed 15 million. And the nation got another dose of bad economic news Thursday as the number of laid-off workers seeking jobless benefits rose last week for the first time since late March, intensifying concerns the resurgent coronavirus is stalling or even reversing the economic recovery.

Washington State University updated its plans Thursday for students attending the school in the fall of 2020.

The university announced on its website it will only offer online learning in the fall. All undergraduate courses at WSU Pullman will be done remotely with extremely limited exceptions for in-person instruction. Other WSU campuses will announce their plans at a later date.

The number of laid-off Americans seeking unemployment benefits rose last week for the first time since the pandemic struck in March, evidence of the deepening economic pain the outbreak is causing to the economy.

The rise in weekly jobless claims to 1.4 million underscores the outsize role the unemployment insurance system is playing among the nations safety net programs just when a $600 weekly federal aid payment for the jobless is set to expire at the end of this week.

Senate Republicans and the White House reached tentative agreement for more testing funds in the next COVID-19 relief package, but deep disagreements over the scope of the $1 trillion in federal aid remain ahead of Thursday's expected roll out.

Facing a GOP revolt, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was preparing a handful of separate COVID-19 aid bills, according to a top lawmaker involved in the negotiations. McConnell is set to unveil the package on Thursday, according to a Republican unauthorized to discuss the private talks and granted anonymity.

As the 2020-21 school year gets closer in Washington state, many school districts are announcing plans for how education will continue in the fall amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Here is a list of the school districts in western Washington that have announced whether they will be conductingvvvv in-person learning, remote learning or a combination of both.

Original post:

What you need to know about coronavirus Thursday, July 23 - KING5.com

Nearly 75% of detainees at US immigration facility in Virginia have coronavirus – CNN

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Nearly a month ago, there were 49 cases at the ICE detention center in Farmville, Virginia, which holds adult males. Now, of the 360 immigrants in custody at the center, there are 268 confirmed cases of coronavirus currently under isolation or monitoring, according to agency statistics.

"We're just stuck in here. We can't do anything about it," said a 39-year-old detainee who agreed to share his experience on condition CNN not use his name.

"Some people are worried, sad, because they worry about their families, they worry about being deported," said the detainee, who tested positive for coronavirus in early July.

"A humanitarian crisis is rapidly unfolding at Farmville Detention Center," reads a complaint in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia filed Tuesday by the National Immigration Project, Legal Aid Justice Center and Gibson Dunn.

At Farmville, lawyers attribute the rise in cases to an agency effort to transfer detainees to provide for social distancing.

In early June, 74 detainees were transferred to the Farmville center from facilities in Arizona and Florida and quarantined. They were eventually tested after three detainees had confirmed cases.

Of the 74 detainees transferred, 51 eventually tested positive for coronavirus. Up until then, the center had few to no cases.

Prior to the transfer, the director of the Farmville facility, Jeffrey Crawford, relayed concerns from the center's medical director to ICE about new intakes into the facility, according to a court filing obtained by CNN.

ICE, according to the filing, proposed quarantining any new intakes at another Virginia location for 14 days before transferring them to Farmville. But that wasn't possible for the transfers coming from facilities in Arizona and Florida. Lawyers say that's where the problem began.

"In June, when this started to happen and reports started coming out that people were sick with Covid ... what they originally said is this is just the transfers," said Sirine Shebaya, executive director of the National Immigration Project. "And then eventually they started testing and realized 'oh, it's everywhere.'"

Crawford maintained that "none of the 74 detainees were exposed to the general population" and detailed precautionary measures put in place to stem the spread of the virus, according to the court filing.

But detainees said that despite measures to separate those with confirmed cases, there continued to be intermingling, particularly with the staff members attending those who are separated and then engaging with the general population.

In a statement to CNN, ICE said it's "ramped up its efforts to protect and care for detainees in its custody by providing face masks, procuring additional handwashing stations and most recently, administering comprehensive testing of all detainees."

"The majority of those who tested positive are asymptomatic, but are being closely monitored and receiving appropriate medical care," ICE said, adding that medical checks are done twice daily, including a temperature screening and medication disbursement. "Detainees who have tested negative will be retested and are being held separately from positive detainees"

But that's still done little to quell the concerns of detainees in the facility.

"People are still scared," said Brian Casson, an immigration attorney representing two detainees at the Farmville facility. "The people who don't have results back are worried they're going to get it or have it. I haven't had any clients test negative. I just had one client who tested inconclusive."

ICE said it doesn't deliberately move detainees who have tested positive for coronavirus between its detention facilities, but conceded there "have been some instances where positive cases have been transported by ICE."

The inspector general similarly found issues related to social distancing, stating in the report that "facilities reported concerns with their inability to practice social distancing among detainees, and to isolate or quarantine individuals who may be infected with COVID-19."

Concerns over conditions have prompted a litany of lawsuits nationwide to release detainees and put measures in place to protect those in custody.

Shebaya is involved in three lawsuits relating to Farmville, calling for release of some detainees and challenging conditions at the detention center.

"At this point we're trying to figure out what we can do to make this better for people in the inside," Shebaya said.

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Nearly 75% of detainees at US immigration facility in Virginia have coronavirus - CNN

Clement Virgo revisits ‘The Book of Negroes’ – The Flamborough Review

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Raised in Jamaica amid the political violence of the 1970s, Virgo's family immigrated to Canada when he was 11. He said he related to Aminata's emotional journey of being uprooted from home, and striving to find her place in a new world.

Virgo said he initially planned to adapt "The Book of Negroes" as a film, but despite the 2007 novel being an international hit, he struggled to find financing.

CBC was first to come on board, he said, and partnered with American channel Black Entertainment Television to develop the script into a miniseries.

Big-name actors such as Cuba Gooding Jr. and Louis Gossett Jr. signed on to star in the project. The shoot proved to be as sprawling as its source material, filming on locations from South Africa to Nova Scotia.

As a director, Virgo said he had to be mindful about how to depict the brutal violence of slavery in a way that honoured its painful history without veering into traumatization, particularly given that he was working with Canadian child actress Shailyn Pierre-Dixon for the first episode.

"I don't want to present a catalogue of horrors to the audience, but I want them to psychologically and emotionally feel and identify and recognize the injustice," he said.

"It's not so much about seeing the violence ... but feeling that pain."

While it was a long road to wrapping production, Virgo said when his mother saw the series, she reminded him why it was all worth it.

"She said, 'That's why I immigrated to Canada, so you could make this series,'" Virgo recalled.

"It was one of the most satisfying experiences of my life."

"The Book of Negroes" draws its title from a real historical record of 3,000 Black refugees, many of them former slaves, who were resettled in Nova Scotia after siding with the British during the American Revolutionary War.

Virgo said he'd like to see more of Canada's Black history shown onscreen.

Working across the border, Virgo said there's a stronger sense that stories of Black struggle and survival are part of U.S. identity. Here, he said, entertainment executives pay lip service to increasing diversity, but often treat projects led by people of colour as "charity work."

"(Black) history is not a separate history. It's integral and integrated into the fabric of Canada," he said.

"I'm hoping that in Canada, it becomes a part of our ecosystem. That it's not just an afterthought."

The first instalment of the "The Book of Negroes" airs on CBC on Sunday. It'll be preceded by a one-hour TV special, "Being Black in Canada," featuring interviews with Virgo, Hill and some of the show's stars.

The broadcast is part of CBC's special programming in honour of Emancipation Day on Aug. 1, the anniversary of the abolition of slavery across the British Empire.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 24, 2020.

By Adina Bresge, The Canadian Press

Excerpt from:

Clement Virgo revisits 'The Book of Negroes' - The Flamborough Review

Director Clement Virgo on the renewed resonance of ‘The Book of Negroes’ – The Chronicle Journal

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TORONTO - When Clement Virgo saw the video of a white police officer pressing his knee on a Black man's neck, he recognized the image immediately.

The visual horror of George Floyd's death is seared into our collective consciousness, the Canadian director says, because it's symbolic of a hateful, ongoing history.

"That's not the first time that image has occurred," said Virgo. "It's happened since slavery all the way through today, where voices of individuals were suppressed with a knee on the neck."

Virgo predicts that past and present racist violence will shape the way viewers see his 2015 miniseries, "The Book of Negroes," when it returns to CBC for a three-part encore broadcast from Sunday to Tuesday.

Based on Canadian author Lawrence Hill's acclaimed novel, the six-episode epic follows Aminata Diallo, played by Aunjanue Ellis, from her abduction from her West African village as a child, through her lifelong struggle to escape enslavement in the U.S. and return home.

Revisiting the show, Virgo said he was struck by the modern parallels to our current reckoning with systemic racism.

"We're in a climate now where the dominant conversation is around how do we reconcile our history, and how do we move forward in the future," said Virgo, 54.

"What is the most equitable way to recognize that history and to acknowledge that there has been suffering and that there has been pain?"

Before reading "The Book of Negroes," the Toronto-based filmmaker said he had to overcome his own resistance to the idea of telling a so-called "slave story."

But at the urging of jazz singer Molly Johnson, he decided to give the book a shot. In it, he found a female-led adventure, a love story and an unknown history that echoed his own.

Raised in Jamaica amid the political violence of the 1970s, Virgo's family immigrated to Canada when he was 11. He said he related to Aminata's emotional journey of being uprooted from home, and striving to find her place in a new world.

Virgo said he initially planned to adapt "The Book of Negroes" as a film, but despite the 2007 novel being an international hit, he struggled to find financing.

CBC was first to come on board, he said, and partnered with American channel Black Entertainment Television to develop the script into a miniseries.

Big-name actors such as Cuba Gooding Jr. and Louis Gossett Jr. signed on to star in the project. The shoot proved to be as sprawling as its source material, filming on locations from South Africa to Nova Scotia.

As a director, Virgo said he had to be mindful about how to depict the brutal violence of slavery in a way that honoured its painful history without veering into traumatization, particularly given that he was working with Canadian child actress Shailyn Pierre-Dixon for the first episode.

"I don't want to present a catalogue of horrors to the audience, but I want them to psychologically and emotionally feel and identify and recognize the injustice," he said.

"It's not so much about seeing the violence ... but feeling that pain."

While it was a long road to wrapping production, Virgo said when his mother saw the series, she reminded him why it was all worth it.

"She said, 'That's why I immigrated to Canada, so you could make this series,'" Virgo recalled.

"It was one of the most satisfying experiences of my life."

"The Book of Negroes" draws its title from a real historical record of 3,000 Black refugees, many of them former slaves, who were resettled in Nova Scotia after siding with the British during the American Revolutionary War.

Virgo said he'd like to see more of Canada's Black history shown onscreen.

Working across the border, Virgo said there's a stronger sense that stories of Black struggle and survival are part of U.S. identity. Here, he said, entertainment executives pay lip service to increasing diversity, but often treat projects led by people of colour as "charity work."

"(Black) history is not a separate history. It's integral and integrated into the fabric of Canada," he said.

"I'm hoping that in Canada, it becomes a part of our ecosystem. That it's not just an afterthought."

The first instalment of the "The Book of Negroes" airs on CBC on Sunday. It'll be preceded by a one-hour TV special, "Being Black in Canada," featuring interviews with Virgo, Hill and some of the show's stars.

The broadcast is part of CBC's special programming in honour of Emancipation Day on Aug. 1, the anniversary of the abolition of slavery across the British Empire.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 24, 2020.

Read more:

Director Clement Virgo on the renewed resonance of 'The Book of Negroes' - The Chronicle Journal

Radical roundup: 10 stories that got buried this week – Left Foot Forward

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Left Foot Forward's roundup of the progressive news you might have missed.

In no particular orderPS: Got a story tip? Email us:[emailprotected]

10. The UK Government must abandon plans to introduce an effective veto over the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Greens have said.

Hidden in its White Paper on the UK internal market, the UK Government proposes to impose sweeping new laws to reserve the right to veto any devolved decision which threatens their free market fundamentalism, or isnt in the interest of big business. This could be applied retrospectively.

Although Conservative politicians have previously claimed that various devolved policies are safe, the White Paper proposes that a uniform approach is key to our ability to remain a competitive economy, which presents a serious threat to devolved commitments on environmental protections, food standards and public ownership.

Scottish Green co-leader Patrick Harvie has written to Business Secretary Alok Sharma demanding that these plans go back to the drawing board, with a commitment to protect the Scottish Parliaments democratic authority. Commenting, Patrick Harvie said: Close cooperation between governments is essential, but these proposals arent merely a power grab, they call into question the very notion of devolution itself.

9. The Lib Dems responded to the news the Government has dropped plans for a Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission.

Liberal Democrat Spokesperson on Political Reform, Wendy Chamberlain, said:Given the widespread fears that this Commission was going to be used as a vehicle for Boris Johnson to attack the judiciary and slash checks and balances on his own powers, the fact it has been dropped is extremely welcome.

If this Government is serious about reviewing the workings of our democracy, then they should be committing to a fully transparent and independent process.

Ministers must be prepared to put the real issues on the table. Issues like whether the First Past the Post voting system is fit for purpose, and why we continue to unfairly disenfranchise 1.5million 16 and 17 year olds.

8. Firefighters have agreed to continue aiding the coronavirus response, warning that the virus threat remains serious and despite the governments easing of lockdown restrictions.

The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has assured the public that firefighters arent going to abandon their communities now, as preparations for a second wave of COVID-19 infections commence.

An agreement reached on 26 March has allowed firefighters to drive ambulances, deliver vital supplies to the elderly and vulnerable, and move the bodies of the deceased.

Since then, a number of further activities have been agreed, including assembling personal protective equipment (PPE) and training care home staff in infection, prevention and control.

The FBU, fire chiefs, and fire service employers have agreed to extend the work until 30 September, six months longer than planned, with the possibility for further renewal. The initial agreement was for two months, but was extended in early June.

7. Campaigners have warned that time is running out for a Brexit deal.

Best for Britain CEO Naomi Smith said:Despite the hunger shown by the EU for a wide-reaching deal in these negotiations, the UK government seem to have much smaller ambitions.

Time is now runningout. We need to see the UK government negotiating in good faith soon or citizens across Europe and in Britain will lose out.

It is certainly the case that some forms of Brexit are better than others. A comprehensive trade deal would minimise the impact on business and employment. No deal, or a bare bones deal, would be a disaster for Britain in our current position.

6. Over 200,000 people have signed a We Own It petition calling for the House of Lords to protect the NHS from trade deals by amending the Trade Bill.

The petition comes after the House of Commons voted against amendments to the Trade Bill on Monday that would have stopped the NHS from being included in trade deals. The House of Commons also voted against an amendment from Conservative MP Jonathan Djanogly which would have given MPs the power to accept or reject trade deals negotiated by the government.

According to campaigners, the Trade Bill as currently worded would pose a range of dangers for the health service, opening up the NHS to being charged more for drugs, enshrine the rights of American healthcare companies to access our NHS in international treaties and lock in privatisation that would be incredibly difficult for a future government to reverse.

5. Outsourced cleaners at Ark Globe Academy have won a stunning victory this week, after it was announced that they would receive the London Living Wage, full pay sick pay in parity with directly employed Ark staff. Workers also won the immediate implementation of an enhanced Risk Assessment process from the 1st of September.

The announcement, made by the cleaners trade union, United Voices of the World (UVW), comes after a campaign which also demanded the immediate abolition of gender disparity in pay, trade union recognition, and an end to outsourcing at the academy. The union threatened strike action if its demands were not met.

The dispute began after workers staged a spontaneous walkout on the 4th and 5th of June in response to what their union has described as months of unlawful wage deductions and fears over a lack of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) or a meaningful Risk Assessment having been carried out. The outsourced cleaning firm Ridge Crest came under fire after a regional manager was recorded telling a strike leader that she could: Pick you up some masks from the office and drop them into youand it means everybody goes back and gets rid of the union and that I just wanna shut the union down. LFF covered the leaked recordings here.

4. A cross-party group of MPs have warned that there is a real risk that the worst effects of Covid-19 could fall on those who are least able to afford it in Wales, a nation whose economy was already vulnerable to economic shocks before the pandemic.

In their interim report on the Welsh economy and Covid-19 the Welsh Affairs Committee describes the impact that the virus has had to date on businesses and people throughout Wales. It also details support provided by both the UK and Welsh Governments, and focuses attention on some of the sectors at particular risk during the crisis.

Before the crisis Wales was ranked second to last in a list of 12 UK nations and regions for Gross Disposable Household Income and had a poverty rate of 23%. The nation also has the second highest levels of employment in sectors most exposed to the headwinds caused by virus countermeasures, namely retail, food and drink, and arts and leisure. There is a perfect storm for a post-Covid rise in poverty, the Welsh Affairs Committee said.

3. A major public consultation to get a wide range of views on the prospect of an Irish border poll has been launched by a working group established by UCLs Constitution Unit.

Citizens and civil society groups from across Northern Ireland are being invited to share their hopes, concerns and thoughts on the format and conduct of any future referendum on the question of Northern Irelands constitutional status.

A referendum on Irish unification is envisaged in certain circumstances by the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is obliged to call such a vote if a majority for a united Ireland appears likely.

Recent developments may have increased the chances that this condition could be met in the coming years. Yet no detailed public thinking has been done on what form the vote could take.

2. The SNP has said the Dominic Cummings scandal continues to erode public trust in the Tory government after Englands Chief Nursing Officer confirmed she was dropped from a coronavirus briefing after raising concerns about the senior Tory advisers rule-breaking.

Asked about lockdown rules and the actions of Dominic Cummings at the Public Accounts Committee, Ruth May confirmed she was dropped from the briefing and said I believe the rules were clear and they were there for everyones safety. They applied to us all.

Commenting, SNP Westminster Deputy Leader Kirsten Oswald MP said: The Dominic Cummings scandal continues to erode public trust in the Tory government after Boris Johnson refused to take any action against his rule-breaking senior adviser.

This latest revelation, that the Chief Nursing Officer was dropped from a public health briefing, after expressing legitimate concerns that the rules must apply to us all, shows just how far the Tories are willing to go to cover-up concerns and avoid taking any responsibility for their actions.

1. Housing campaigners Generation Rent have called on the Government to urgently explain how new rules replacing the eviction ban will protect renters affected by coronavirus.

The housing campaign group has written to Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick MP and Justice Secretary Robert Buckland QC MP with a list of questions the Government must answer to give clarity to renters under threat of eviction. The Government is allowing evictions to restart from 23 August with new civil procedure rules.

The new rules are inadequate, Generation Rent say. It is unclear how they will work in practice and will provide any protection for renters struggling to pay their rent due to covid-19.

The Government needs to urgently explain how the new rules will deliver on their pledge that no renter who has lost income due to coronavirus will be forced out of their home, the group said in a statement.

Josiah Mortimer is co-editor of Left Foot Forward. Follow him onTwitter.

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Were not bankrolled by billionaire donors, but rely on readers chipping in whatever they can afford to protect our independence. What we do isnt free, and we run on a shoestring. Can you help by chipping in as little as 1 a week to help us survive? Whatever you can donate, were so grateful - and we will ensure your money goes as far as possible to deliver hard-hitting news.

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Radical roundup: 10 stories that got buried this week - Left Foot Forward

Yascha Mounk and Osita Nwanevu Debate the State of Free Speech, and That Letter – Slate

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From left to right: Yascha Mounk, Mike Pesca, and Osita Nwanevu.Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Getty Images Plus, CBS, Slate.

A week ago, 153 public intellectuals signed an open letter to Harpers magazine that decried illiberalismor a censorship of free speech, dissenting opinions, and open debatewithin traditionally liberal discourse. A lot of people disagreed with this letter, and disagreed strongly. Sometimes disagreeing so strongly that a few of the letters signatories said, well, that makes my point. No, that misses the point, argued the objectors, some of whom signed their own letter.

We have seen so much back and forth about this, but one thing that I havent seen or heard is back and forth in the same place between different sides of the debate. Luckily I have a podcast. With that in mind, I wanted to host for a debateor a structured disagreementtwo intelligent and important people representing each side.

On my show the Gist, I invited Yascha Mounk, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins, a contributor to the Atlantic, the founder of Persuasion, a publication and community forlets say, people who felt the Harpers letter spoke to their concerns. He signed the letter. Also joining me was Osita Nwanevu, whos a staff writer at the New Republic, and whose recent article, The Willful Blindness of Reactionary Liberalism, is the most frequently cited critique of the Harpers letter. (Mounk and Nwanevu both previously wrote regularly for Slate.)

A portion of the discussion is transcribed below. It has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Mike Pesca: Yascha, do you think the problem is the size or the symbolism of this phenomenon? Or is it the slope, where it could be going?

Yascha Mounk: I think theres actually a lot of cases. You can go on Twitter and find dozens and dozens of these cases. I dont think its at all a negligible number of cases. And I always get a little bit nervous when we say, well this is just a few cases, lets tolerate those because of the sort of cause behind it. I think we can build a just society without giving up and sacrificing innocent individuals along the way.

But I think most importantly, it is absolutely about the chilling effect. I have an email in my inbox every day from somebody who says, I want to make this very reasonable point, and Im afraid of doing that. Or, Im being punished in various ways for doing that. If you talk to writers at every major newspaper and magazine in this country, they say, if I talk about topic X, I get to write whatever I want. As soon as I want to talk about topic Y, suddenly everybody is so scared that the article never sees the light of day, or its so mutilated that I dont recognize it a being in my own voice at all.

Ive talked to people at all of these institutions and they are telling me, I cannot say honestly, publicly what I believe. And thats something that should make readers incensed.

Osita Nwanevu: I think the actual number, measured in a rigorous way, is important. Because theres a way you can have this discourse where youre saying, lets take this or that case seriously and adjudicate, or try to figure out whether this was justified. And then theres a way you can frame this discourseand I think the way that it has been predominantly framedwhere you say, there is something sweeping American society that we need to all sit up and pay attention to. I think that second claim requires a burden of proof that hasnt really been met.

You can say that there have been dozens of cases where people have been fired for not having the right opinions. Dozens of cases within the scope of American society is nothing. One-tenth of 1 percent of the number of people who are fired in a given yearI think 20 million people lost their jobs in 2016is 20,000 people. If you can find 20,000 cases, one-tenth of 1 percent of people who are being fired in this country because their opinions were not sufficiently progressive, I think that then we could have a real conversation. I think that seems like a good starting point. But if youre relying on viral anecdotes that come to you via Twitter, I think that people have to be a little bit skeptical about the scope and reach of the analysis.

[]

I think we could talk about the merits and demerits of particular cases and their substance, but I think its an active misdirection to say, as many people have, that what were fundamentally talking about is free expression or free speech.

Mounk: The question is, what do we actually want discourse to look like in the United States? And [Osita], you said, oh well, you know some of these people, they just made the mistake of going into spheres of life where theyre now subject to those progressive pressures. So you know, just let them go over to the right. I mean, first of all, I think we shouldnt wish for people who are part of our coalition to go over to the right, because the most important thing in this year of 2020 is that we win an election against Donald Trump and make sure that people with views that we both find abhorrent dont continue to hold actual political power in this country. But its also a very strange view of what the purpose of a university is. And sure, you know, somebody getting fired from a position at a university is not an infringement of the United States Constitution. But it is a very serious abridgment of some norms and some freedoms that we want to defend for good reason.

Nwanevu: Its all well and good to talk broadly about free speech, but I think that people understand that there is something more complicated happening here. And I think theres a very good example of this outside of universities that we can talk about, that emerged last week.

If you were to ask anybody who engages in cancel culture discourse, do you think it is OK for somebody to make controversial remarks in a private forum, to have those remarks discovered by an anonymous tipster who goes to a major news outlet, to have those remarks published by that outlet, and to see that person lose their job for making statements [in the private forum] that most people would disagree with and find objectionable but that millions of people in this country dont actually have a problem with?I think most people would say, yeah, thats a pretty good example of cancel culture. Thats what happened to Blake Neff at Fox News, right? He made remarks in his private life that were racist and objectionable, and he lost his job for it.

Now, the response to people who bring this up has generally been, well look you shouldnt lump this in with other cases, because Blake Neff is a racist. And this is where it gets sticky. Once you say its OK for somebody to lose their job because theyre a racist, the question then becomes, OK what is racism? What is sexism; what is transphobia? It becomes not a question of speech and liberalism in the abstract, with one side supporting liberalism and free discourse and the other side not supporting liberalism and free discourse. Its a question of where the lines are. And people are functionally going to disagree about that.

What we have is people who say, you are overly concerned about sexism, or racism, or transphobia. And therefore, your criticism of me is equivalent to the Cultural Revolution that happened under Mao. Osita Nwanevu

I think that people in liberal society have the freedom to disagree about those decisions, and define their values and affiliations as narrowly and as openly and theyd like.

To Yaschas point about, wouldnt this lead to a society where everybody is on the left or on the right and theres no in betweenIm not prescribing that, and Im not saying that that is an ideal outcome. And I dont really think thats particularly likely. Yascha has just started up a project [Persuasion] where he is going to bring people on who are aligned with his values, and there are people who are not going to be aligned with those values who are not going to be brought on. And thats kind of the nature of discourse. There are these different discursive spheres in American society, in all societies, where people have loose or tight affiliations, and things are messy. But ultimately, I dont know that it makes sense to say that people utilizing freedom in a way that we find unproductiveor in a way that we think is worthy of criticismare then illiberal because we disagree with the way that they have chosen to define their organization. I think thats something that is aimed at shutting down discourse rather than allowing discourse to flourish. I think thats something, again, that is often hypocritically done against specific people with specific ideological priors.

Mounk: Obviously every newspaper has an editorial policy and has a set of ideas about whats within the realm of what can be debated, and a set of ideas of things that they wont allow to be debated. Theres nothing wrong with that. There can nevertheless be two concerns about the way in which that tends to play out at the moment, which I think are worth taking seriously.

The first is that when a writer or a journalist agrees with left-of-center opinion on 19 out of 20 issues, or agrees with progressive opinion on 19 out of 20 issues, but on one out of those 20 issues they have a principled disagreement that falls very far away from being a form of bigotry. They simply want to challenge some assumption within the discourse. If that means that those views are hidden from the audience, then I think thatll make for worse newspapers. Thats a small objection, but an important one if youre thinking about how places like the New York Times or Slate should be run.

The second, bigger problem is that people arent only criticized for that particular point of view. That particular point of view is not only debated, but then theres pressure to say, if they think that, then they should not have employment within these institutions. If they dont recant this view, then they are a bad human being and we should punish them. And that goes quite a lot further in creating an atmosphere of fear in which the people who create the public discourse can never quite say what they believe, because theyre always afraid of falling on the wrong side of a line of which we dont exactly know where it falls.

And you can see, as youve seen a few times in last months and years, a public discourse in progressive spaces jumping from one received wisdom to another within a couple of days. And everybody moves with it, because the first [position] wasnt really able to be challenged at one point, and then something changed in the conflagration and suddenly everybody believes the other thing. I dont think that is healthy for us, ourselves, in these spaces. We should be very concerned about that.

Nwanevu: Well, so I think its worth asking Yascha directly. You know, when it comes to people holding controversial opinions, and the extent to which progressives or maybe journalists, people in the media, are deluding themselves if they think its helpful to get rid of people who represent the views that exist out in the country: I just ask if you think that Blake Neffs firing, or I guess resignation, is an example of cancel culture?

I dont see how, in the abstract, what happened departs that much from the other cases people have brought up, except for the fact that the content of his views mark him out as different in some kind of subjective way.

Mounk: Look, I never said that there arent certain limits that we should draw. My point is that when the limits are drawn so narrowly, and when you have to agree on such a large number of propositions in order to be in good standing, then were stifling debate on our own side in a way that will make us deluded about the truth and incapable of convincing anybody to actually vote for progressive and important causes.

So Im not saying that there arent certain people [with] certain kinds of positionsit depends of what kind of positionwho express deeply bigoted views, who therefore should not be, you know, the chief writer for a huge television show. What Im seeing in our spaces, though, is that people who agree with their friends and their peers and their colleagues on 19 out of 20 issues, and have reasonable disagreements on the 20th issuewhere I might fall on the other side of them, I might disagree with them, but its not in any way a bigoted point of vieware then unpersonned and punished, and yes canceled, for the expression of those views. That has a chilling effect on our ability to talk honestly and energetically and truthfully about the world that I think we should all be worried about.

I think when that chilling effect takes over, we wind up in a society in which we cant actually talk honestly to each other. That is a very bigproblem. Yascha Mounk

And by the way, if you really care about our ability to have those open debates, if you really care about freedom of speech, if you really care about a robust public discourse, then why are you so concerned about some people being overly worried about that? If I really care about sexism, and I think some people are overascribing how much sexism there is in society, I dont think youre a terrible person for exaggerating how much sexism there is. I think, hey you know what, I disagree with you on this. Good news, perhaps theres a little bit less sexism than you think. But I agree with you that there is a lot of sexism, and we should fight against it.

Nwanevu: All right, so I think that is functionally not what actually happens in this discourse. What we have in this discourse is people who say, you are overly concerned about sexism, or youre overly concerned about racism, or youre overly concerned about transphobia. And therefore, your criticism of me is equivalent to the Cultural Revolution that happened under Mao. That is the discourse that we have, right? So I think its important to actually recognize that, and not sort of create in this discussion an alternative universe that does not actually exist. So

Mounk: But I dont know, Osita, why is this an alternative universe? Im one of the most visible people in this discourse. Weve been talking for 40 minutes. Why are you ascribing views to me that are not mine?

Nwanevu: Im not ascribingIn fact, Im saying that because there are people who are not you, Yascha, who are defining this discourse also, we should recognize that and use that to actively, accurately develop a sense of where this discourse actually is.

I do think, and Ive written about this and Ive given chapter and verse of examples of this, of people who criticize progressive identity politics and then say, not just that I disagree with this person, or I dont like that view, but, this persons adoption of this view is going to lead to the gulags. It is equivalent to Stalinism. It is incompatible, as Jonathan Chait said, with liberal democratic society. I think that is wild.

We have, in the Harpers letter, the claim that liberal expression is becoming daily more constrained. I think that is an ahistorical claim that has absolutely nothing to do with the progression of speech in American society. But we have all these kinds of wild generalizations happening. On top of issues that I think are deeply complicated.

You say that there are people whose views are aligned 19 out of 20 with people at major institutions, but they have this one little view that shouldnt be a big deal and shouldnt be considered bigoted, that prevents them from speaking freely or whatever it is. But thats a matter of perspective, right? People are going to disagree, again, about what bigotry is, and what the implications of a particular opinion are going to be. I dont think it makes sense for people to say, well if you disagree with me on that 20th issue, that means that youre an illiberal who opposes open discourse. I think thats silly. I dont think thats a productive way to have a conversation.

Mounk: No, Im not saying that if you disagree with me on that 20th issue youre against liberal discourse. Im saying that if you think that for disagreeing on that 20th issue, you should be fired, or youre making my workspace unsafe

Nwanevu: It depends on what the 20th issue is, right?

Pesca: What Osita just said is what I was going to say. With so much of this, it depends. When Osita laid out the broad contours of the Blake Neff firing, my thought was, well, it depends what those things said in private channels were. I kept thinking about J.K. Rowling, who certainly agrees with most of liberalism on things, and then has this one carve-out for her opinions on trans rights.

Is the pushback on her canceling her? Or is it spirited, vocal, extremely impassioned pushback that she should be able to take?

Mounk: Well, so first of all, when were talking about Neff, its not the 20th out of 20 issues. I mean, he seems to have

No, no. Neff was an example of how it all depends on what the specifics are. When Osita laid out a scenario where a person said certain things in private channels, I was just thinking, it depends what those certain things are. Neff is not [an example of only disagreeing on] the 20th out of 20 views.

Nwanevu: But it illustrates how difficult it is. Thats my point. Its very easy to say, well a racist person shouldnt get to keep their job. People disagree about what racism is. And so you can have this broad, abstract conversation about speech. But functionally, what is actually in question is not speech or liberalism. I think the people who are derided as illiberal, or people who are derided as people who dont care about free speech, do. They just disagree and draw their lines on these particular questions, in these particular cases, in different places than Yascha might, or Jesse Singal might, or any of the other people in this discourse might. And when drawing that line in a different place, the charge against them is not just, well I disagree with you about where that line should be, but that the act of drawing the line signals that you are opposed to the fundamental principles undergirding our society, which I think is ridiculous.

Mounk: But there are

Nwanevu: One other thing I should say, just before you startbecause you made a point about narrowness that I think is critical. This idea that we should be as open as possible to as many perspectives as possible within a particular boundary. One of the guidelines that you seem to imply should govern this boundary is, well if there are people out in the country who we need to understand and reach out to, you cant exclude them from the discourse. You cant ignore those opinions and brush them away.

Forty percent of this country is doggedly supportive of the president of the United States. Im not aware of very many people who either signed that Harpers letter or are involved in Persuasion who would declare themselves outright supporters of Donald Trump. I dont really see this as a discourse that is aimed at elevating those people and saying that those people deserve 40 percent of the op-ed space at the New York Times or a much more substantial percent of the op-ed space at the New York Times.

Theres a range of views in this country today about basic political questions, that is absolutely blacklisted from major institutions. And that absolutely no one is interested in having more adequately represented. And I think that the proof in the pudding is the fact that these free discourse efforts dont seem very interested in including those people or those perspectives at all.

Mounk: So, were now getting into caricature. I mean, the idea that I in any way argued for, you know, if 48, or rather according to my latest information, about 40 percent of the U.S. population support Donald Trumpthankfully its less than 48 at this pointthen we should have 40 percent of column inches in the New York Times be given to Trump supporters or something like that, is a mechanistic view of what opinion should look like, when I dont believe it.

And by the way, one of the problems that we get if we hermetically seal our own progressive spaces off to a lot of the other opinions is where we insufficiently understand that 40, or what used to be 48 percent of a population, to actually know how to manage to persuade many of them to join us in the endeavor of building a more just society. Which is incredibly important if we actually want to remedy some of those injustices.

But I think the fundamental distinction, Osita, between you and me, is whether we are thinking about discourse and critiques of various members of a discourseyou used this term, discourse, I think about 10 times in this conversationor whether were talking about the kind of institutions and rules that we need in order to make a very diverse society work better.

The question, to me, is what would a healthy, robust, left-of-center set of publishing spaces, political spaces, look like where theyre able to debate the world truthfully, understand how we actually remedy injustices in this country, and set us up to persuade many of our fellow citizens to join us in the endeavor of actually doing that? And no matter how much you sort of cite different examples, theres ultimately, I think, a pretty stark difference between a world in which peopleas very many people now feelhave a sense that they have to very closely adhere to orthodoxy on 20 different issues, that when they fail to affirm the orthodoxy, that not only earns them a lot of criticism of that particular point of view, which is perfectly fine, but gets them expelled from those spaces altogether and makes other people tell them that they are bad human beings that shouldnt really be part of the discourse. And I think when that chilling effect takes over, we wind up in a society in which we cant actually talk honestly to each other, and for those of us who have platforms, to our readers and listeners, that is a very big problem.

Now, that doesnt mean that I think people who express extreme bigoted or racist views should be hired by the New York Times. It doesnt mean that within civil society there arent limits to whom I would have over for dinner or to whom I would publish in Persuasion, my new venture. All of those things are taken for granted. But I think anybody who looks at these publications at the moment, and who listens to how many writers and journalists who are most ensconced in those milieus express their fear about deviating from orthodoxy, should grow a little bit concerned about whether were having the most honest, the healthiest debates. And about whether theyre being told the truth in the publications they read and listen to. And you know, no point about Fox News or Neff is going to dispel that concern for me, and I dont think its going to dispel that concern for many other listeners of this podcast.

Nwanevu: I think that what all of that functionally amounts to is thatwhen Yascha or people who are engaged with this project, this idea that progressive identity politics is undermining liberal institutions when [those people] make decisions about who should or shouldnt be allowed in the discourse or published by a newspaper, or given a spot at a university, that you can rely on them to be judicious and keepers of the liberal faith.

[But] when progressives say that the person who disagrees with me on the 20th position is wrong in some morally important way, [its said] those people are being unreasonable. Theres a narcissism of small differences there. And any reasonable person can say that on the basis on that 20th view, progressives should be more than welcome to have that person participate in the discourse on the basis of the other views that they hold, right? Theres people who are allowed and should be trusted to make difficult decisions about what is or isnt right, and what is or isnt worth discussing. And [yet] that class of people does not include people who think, well that 20th issue is actually very, very important, and we should take it seriously. We havent been taking it seriously before.

Again, this isnt about a bad-faith particular set of actors. I think that the ideas themselves are suspect here. Because theres a difference in your willingness to apply them universally. I think its tremendously important for people who say to themselves, well we need to have an open discourse and to have all kinds of views represented so we can understand whats happening in the rest of the country. And then we can learn to rebut those arguments, instead of shunting them aside. I think its important for those people to take seriously that a large share of the country supports the president of the United States and to include them in their editorial projects and their projects on discourse. And if they dont, you should be suspicious about what their actual priorities are. Because theyre not walking the walk.

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Yascha Mounk and Osita Nwanevu Debate the State of Free Speech, and That Letter - Slate

"Who are you to say that?" On free speech and wokeness – TheArticle

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Until fairly recently, there was ambivalence on the issue of female circumcision, as it used to be called. Is it acceptable for westerners to criticise the practice? Its a tradition, one Arabist professor told me about 30 years ago, as if that were an incontrovertible answer. No one outside a tradition had the right to pronounce on that tradition, he meant. And the old English tradition of colonialism and racism, I asked, is that all right too? He didnt respond.

Since then, female circumcision has somehow been allocated to the category of things of which were allowed to disapprove; it is now called Female Genital Mutilation. But a view that remains pretty much statutory is the moral relativism of the Arabist professor the view that nothing can be considered right or wrong except within a particular culture at a particular point in time. Who are you to say that? Whose truth? It may be true for you, but Arent all cultures as good as one another? remain standard arguments, often fuelled by guilt or resentment towards colonialism. Yet can relativism be squared with the condemnation of what it condemns, or even with condemning at all? Only comparatively recently perhaps not fully till after the exposure of Americas interference in Latin America or the fall of the Soviet Empire did colonialism came to be seen as a major evil. It used to be taken for granted. There were still 16 empires in existence in 1914.

For the relativist, can views and practices strictly count as wrong if they are, or were once, considered right by enough people in a particular culture at a particular time? Certainly the holders and performers of those views and practices cannot justifiably be called bad so long as those views and practices are (or were) part of their engrained cultural background, and are (or were) held and performed in good faith. Even a non-relativist might agree. For why should members of a particular culture and era be expected to rise above it? Indeed how, according to relativism, can they?

The relativist might, however, feel compelled to abandon relativism in the case of slavery, even though it has been an immemorial practice that was only outlawed in the 19th century, and had, for at least the three previous centuries, been a worldwide phenomenon. Especially as practiced by Europeans and Arabs, slavery has a claim to being considered eternally wrong. Who cares that it was generally condoned? If anyones statue deserved to be toppled, Colstons surely did. And Rhodess good deeds may not be sufficient to redeem ones that were unsavoury, even for his time. But Hume? His statue in Edinburgh is now threatened. Of course he wrote racist things. So did Kant, statues of whom in Germany must surely be due for toppling. Locke had shares in the slave-trading Royal Africa Company, and helped draft the 1669 constitution of Carolina, clause 110 of which enjoined that Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves, of what opinion or religion soever.

As philosophers, Locke, Hume and Kant were committed to questioning accepted beliefs; which in most areas they did. They could, therefore, rightly be held to more timelessly absolute standards than the rest of us. Even if it can be called wrong only in an absolute, non-relative sense, some of what they said and did cannot simply be dismissed (which wrongdoing so often is) as a mistake, and should not be obscured or whitewashed.

Yet, given the rest of their work and legacies, it seems unfair to pronounce those men to be undeserving of elevation, let alone wicked. They were writing at a time when it was virtually unquestionable (as, of course, it still is for many people) that your own country, tribe, culture or religion uniquely possessed the truth, that it had the best (often the only real) rules and conventions, and altogether was the best. And, like other Enlightenment thinkers, they were devoted to challenging European ideas and customs, and celebrating the excellences of other cultures.

Leibniz said Europe needed missionaries from China, which had superior ethics and politics; Diderot lauded Tahitian freedom and logic over the crabbed irrationality of French Christianity; Montaigne questioned whether the vices of Brazilian cannibals were any worse than Europeans. Ideas that we find to be held in common and in high esteem around us, he wrote, seem to be universal and natural, which is why we think that it is reason that is unhinged whenever custom is. Enlightenment fiction supplemented Enlightenment philosophy. The virtue and integrity of Voltaires ingenu reared by Huron Indians highlighted his French hosts hypocrisy. Montesquieus Persians revealed Parisian flaws. You are more barbarous than we are, said Aphra Benns Prince Orinoko.

In practice the Enlightenment could be, and was, used as a mask for colonialism and racism the oddly un-excoriated Napoleon, for instance, promoted the Enlightenment on horseback (ie, sought world-dominion) and he reintroduced slavery only eight years after the French revolutionaries had abolished it. But, as we are constantly told, an ideology or creed cannot be disqualified from having the highest principles whatever the atrocities committed in its name.

Anyway, without the Enlightenment, cultural relativism and identity politics would probably never have existed.

A key Enlightenment legacy was freedom of speech, which, as John Stuart Mill would later articulate, is essential in combatting the tyranny of the majority, with their conventions, dogmas and disapproval; as are experiments in living. He conceded that an opinion may be expressed that is horribly rebarbative to our accepted views but after all, he pointed out, these may not be infallible. The uncomfortable opinion may contain some truth, in which case it will be useful; and it is useful anyway, even if wholly false, because truths need to be challenged to ensure their living vivacity and prevent them from becoming stagnant and dogmatic. According to Mill, the only occasions when free speech is not in order are when it is liable to cause harm or incite violence (and inevitably, for all his beneficial influence on our legal and moral customs, he has been taken to task for the open-endedness of his concept of harm).

Offending and being offensive might not, for Mill, have counted as outweighing the value of free speech. Offensive then meant (still does according to its dictionary definition) causing someone to feel resentful, upset, or annoyed. Yet it has acquired a weightier meaning causing resentment, upset or annoyance that is felt justifiably because a lack of respect has been shown. It has become a moral term, with a claim to some sort of objectivity such that the person accused of being offensive rightly incurs reprimand.

Some transpeople claim that it is offensive to countenance debate on whether sex is biological, or whether a cis-girl or -boy should be considered too young to decide to transition before the age of 18. And they assume that whatever they call offensive not only offends them but ought to offend absolutely everyone, if not in all eras, then at least in the present one. Suppose it didnt and doesnt, that what they call offensive would not until recently even have qualified as controversial, and would still be endorsed by a high proportion of people? By the same token, so would capital punishment, and that is no reason not to condemn it. But it is only no reason if you invoke some sort of moral absolutism by which certain things qualify as right or wrong whatever societys verdict an appeal that ill accords with the wokes relativism, especially when it comes to judging customs in cultures they dont want to criticise.

It was free speech that broke the iron bonds of social censure and custom. Yet, now that it has helped us achieve so much that was once denied or forbidden, it tends to be derided as the perverse luxury of the reactionary (just as liberalism is vilified and equated with ruthless right-wing libertarianism). Who are you to judge? Whose truth? there is none have become, though not explicitly, Who are you to say anything that might question what I, as a member of a particular identity group, know to be true and morally right? For all their lip service to relativism, the current Righteous think, or seem to, that the nature of truth and goodness has now been ascertained once and for all.

Certain principles, apparently, are infallible. And not only infallible now; they always have been, even before being enunciated, so that anyone who does not espouse them, or did not in other periods of history, counts as reprehensible. Harm (or offence) is objective too; it is constituted by questioning these principles. Enlightenment thinkers are constantly sneered at for having sought to achieve progress, assuming that progress must be the same for everyone no matter their ethnicity or culture. Yet, equally, it seems that seeking progress must actually have been in order after all, for it has now, apparently, reached its culmination.

Enlightenment thinkers are also condemned for surreptitiously basing their notion of the ideal human on that of the white entitled male. Yet, perhaps in compensation, members of each identity group talk as if the default nature of a human being is the one they themselves inhabit or identify as. Thus the majority of human beings arent, it turns out, born with a fairly obvious sex (a new-borns genitals tend to be oddly enlarged) but need to be assigned one. The category woman is now divided into ciswoman and transwoman, as if it begs the question to assume that a woman is ordinarily cis, as, given the statistics, she surely is. This may help rectify smug certainties about what counts as the normal default category, and perhaps is only a temporary measure until the balance has shifted, but it is often disingenuous. The presuppositions and dogmas, the doctoring of scientific consensus that it demands seem to exceed those required for believing in God.

Tyranny was once the prerogative of the privileged and wealthy. Thanks to attempts at democracy, there then arose what Mill called the tyranny of the majority. Currently there is a tyranny of the minorities, the power of the righteous, the authority of specialised victimhoods. Specialisation, however, hampers activists attempts to sing from a unified hymn-sheet. Victimhoods clash, even in cases of intersectionality (when someone can boast of belonging to several simultaneously), so there has to be, if only tacitly, a pecking order. Feminism, for instance, is fairly low down on it, and is trumped by cultural relativism; which is why criticism for mens patronising and demeaning attitudes to women only seems to apply to men within the Western tradition. Men outside it do not apparently, qualify for the same critique, although in some communities mansplaining is the least of a womans worries she is explicitly (and legally) declared to be subject to male guardianship.

If you think through the thought of Hume, Kant and Locke, in each case racism is broadly untenable in it; indeed it has helped to expose and oppose racism. Hume argued that morality is based on humans natural attunement to one anothers feelings and a discomfort at sensing others discomfort that can be elevated into more impartial justice. Kant claimed that morality is founded on the equal value of everyone to which each of our actions should do justice. He and Locke were instrumental in articulating and furthering human rights.

If, on the other hand, you think through the activists purportedly unified agenda, you find that you cant think through it. It is too riddled with inconsistency and incoherence to stand up. Which is why its supporters cannot oppose its questioners with argument, and resort instead to accusations of phobia and hatred, and to issuing rape and death threats. They say, often with reason, that they feel unsafe then proceed deliberately to ensure the certifiable unsafety of those they disapprove of.

In the interests of everyone, whatever their identity, lets abjure the unthinking cowardice of those stumbling to distance themselves from J K Rowling and other misspeakers. Lets not be like medieval Christians piously asserting that there are three persons in one God without, in most cases, knowing what on earth that could mean. Lets not condemn heretics to eternal damnation.

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"Who are you to say that?" On free speech and wokeness - TheArticle

How the pandemic is being used by some as an excuse to clampdown on press freedom – Press Gazette

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The coronavirus crisis is a human rights crisis and an opportunity for governments to intensify their attacks on press freedom and freedom of speech

Death threats, prosecution, online smear campaigns instigated by the government: this is not something that UK-based journalists expect in response to their work reporting on coronavirus. Yet itsan increasing part of life in the media in many countries around the world.

In Serbia, for example, journalist AnaLalicwas charged with causing panic and unrest after writing an article on PPE shortages. The charges wereeventuallydropped, but since her releaseshesreceived death threats and persistent calls to prosecute her leaving her in fear for her safety.

Over inTurkey,NurcanBaysal, a journalist,writerand activist, was summoned by the police to testify for sharing articles aboutcoronavirus measures ina prison inDiyarbakr.

Meanwhile, in Bosnia, anRTVSlonjournalist and camera operator were briefly detained by policewhile reporting on a group of citizens which had arrived at a COVID-19 isolation centre. Despite having valid press cards and permits that allowed them to move around and work during the curfew, the police seized the journalists phones and deleted all the footage.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many more stories like theseof journalists being prevented from doing their jobs; and of peoplewhoshare their coronavirus experienceswith the media being punished for having spoken out.

Indeed, the 2020 edition of the World Press Freedom Index, published by RSF, reveals a correlation between the suppression of press freedom during the coronavirus epidemic and the place of countries in the ranking, claiming that the health crisis is an opportunity for the lowest ranked countries to intensify their repression and attacks on the press, even to impose measures that are impossible in normal times.

Over atthe human rights charity,Prisoners of Conscience, there are growing concerns about the impact of thepandemicon freedom of expression and freedom of speech.The charity provides financial and practical support to people who have been persecuted forpeacefully standing up for their rights and beliefs, including journalists,bloggersand social media activists, among others.

It has noted how many journalists around the world have been harassed, threatened and arrested while trying to cover the crisis, while aggressive cyber-policing and increased online surveillance has led to healthcare workers, medical professionals, activists, political opponents being arrested.

Even before the pandemic hit,the charitysexperiences show thatthe situation had been deteriorating. In the last five years, Prisoners of Conscience has seen a huge increase in the numbers of applications from people who have been persecuted for exercising their rights to free speech and expression 80 per cent of whom had to flee their home countries in search of safety.

The charity is now bracing itself for an influx of applications from people who have been persecuted for sharing stories of coronavirus and for asking difficult questions of their governments.

While judging the Press Gazette Excellence in CoronavirusReporting awards, I wasmovedby the hard workof the journalists in question in helpingthe world make sense of what was going on.

As I think about our peers around the world who face harassment, detainment and often physical and sexual violence at the hands of people who do not want them to speak truth to power, I am even more grateful for their dedication to our profession. These journalists are on the frontline of this crisis and they frequently put their own lives at risk to provide us with true and accurate information.

As the United Nations Secretary-General, Antnio Guterres, said recently: When journalists are attacked, societiesas a whole paya price. No democracy can function without press freedom, which is the cornerstone of trust between people and their institutions.

We need to work together to ensure our colleagues around the worldcancontinue to do their jobs without fear.

Becky Slack is a freelance journalist anda judge for the Press Gazette journalism awards. She is also the part-time fundraising manager at Prisoners of Conscience.www.prisonersofconscience.org

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How the pandemic is being used by some as an excuse to clampdown on press freedom - Press Gazette

Canada’s Attacks on Free Speech May Have Cost It a Seat on the Security Council – Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

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Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 2020, pp. 16-18

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, as well as the City of Toronto, have been working for three years to ban the citys annual Al-Quds Day demonstration. Both Torontos city council and Ontarios provincial parliament have taken steps to silence the demonstration.

Bill 84, the Prohibiting Hate Promoting Demonstrations at Queens Park Act, is currently before the Justice Policy Standing Committee in Ontarios legislature, and has gone to a second reading. Conservative member of parliament Roman Baber, who was born in Israel, proposed the bill. Meanwhile, last year, the Toronto city council held hearings into the annual rally.

People have been observing Al-Quds Day worldwide since 1979 to protest the occupation of East Jerusalem and treatment of Palestinians by Israel.

In Toronto, the event previously took place on the grounds of the provincial legislature, but that changed several years ago to make room for the Pan Am and Parapan Games (a sporting event for people with physical disabilities). Since then, the demonstration has been held at Queens Park West, which is municipal property.

Toronto city council member James Pasternak has been trying to restrict Al-Quds Day demonstrations since 2017, when he asked the city for advice on the feasibility of banning hate-infested rallies and hate speech on city property. He was proposing that Toronto police use some of their resources to prohibit the Al-Quds demonstration. The pro-Palestinian demonstration is the only event Pasternak mentions in his motion.

At the time, ten city council members supported Pasternaks administrative inquiry. Toronto Mayor John Tory also supports banning the event, though city legal staff does not feel comfortable with such an action.

Supporters and organizers of the Al-Quds Day event say the action is being unfairly targeted. Karen Rodman, voluntary director with Just Peace Advocates and member of the Canadian BDS Coalition, said Bill 84 is focused entirely on Al-Quds Day, with no mention of the almost 20 hate rallies that have been held by right wing, Islamophobic and nationalist hate groups in Toronto over the past two years.

The real problem is that under the guise of fighting hate, the motion aims to silence progressive society, said Robert Massoud, who has acted as a consultant and guide to the Al-Quds demonstration committee. Al-Quds Day is a legitimate protest against the injustices and actions of Israel toward the Palestinians, which have also been condemned internationally, he added. The opponents of Al-Quds Day conflate legitimate protest against Israel with anti-Semitism, Massoud said.

Bnai Brith, a pro-Israel organization, has referred to the annual Al-Quds Day demonstration as a hate fest, and after this years Al-Quds demonstration, which was held as an online event due to COVID-19, the organization filed a complaint with the Toronto police.

There is a strong element of Islamophobia inherent in the opposition to Al-Quds Day and banning the event would reinforce this, charged Sheryl Nestel from Independent Jewish Voices (IJV).

Nestel pointed out that Premier Doug Ford believes the demonstration to be incontrovertibly anti-Semitic. She explained that the fight around Al-Quds has been complicated by the provinces move to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, which, if invoked, could have the power to ban the event from city or provincial property.

Under the IHRA definition, some of the sentiments expressed by demonstrators, including that Israel is an apartheid or racist state, constitute anti-Semitism. IJV believes that such a statement [of Israeli apartheid] is, in fact, accurate, and in no way misrepresents the reality on the ground in Israel/Palestine, Nestel said. She added that any attempt to ban the demonstration would result in a challenge to Canadas Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects freedom of speech and assembly. She said many activists would welcome an opportunity to put the legality of the IHRA definition to the test.

Nestel said the bottom line is that those participating in the Al-Quds Day rally have a right to express their views, even if a minority of demonstrators express radical or even offensive views her organization does not support. While IJV may be hesitant to endorse the event, we support the right of the protesters to gather, she said. We encourage the organizers to continue to be vigilant against overt expressions of anti-Semitism.

For the past four years, members of Ontarios provincial parliament (MPPs) have been taking steps toward restricting the voices of Palestinian solidarity activists.

In February 2020, Bill 168, the Combating Anti-Semitism Act, was referred to the Standing Committee on Justice Policy after a second reading. The bill is guided by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, which equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

The bill was introduced by two Conservative MPPs, Will Bouma and Robin Martin. Bouma has cited the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as an example of anti-Semitism. If Bill 168 passes, Ontario will be the first province to adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.

Karen Rodman, voluntary director with Just Peace Advocates and member of the Canadian BDS Coalition, says Bill 168 is an unsound piece of legislation. It purports to create a legal definition of anti-Semitism, but the definition it adopts was not intended to serve as a legal definition. Its vagueness leaves it susceptible to being abused and manipulated by opponents of free expression, Rodman said.

Hundreds of academics have signed an open letter denouncing the IHRA definition. U.S. attorney Kenneth Stern, the creator of the definition, also opposes its use to police speech. In testimony to the U.S. Congress in 2017, he noted that it was solely intended as a working definition to help researchers track anti-Semitism. Stern warned that legislation like the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act in Congress is a hate speech code which, if enacted, will do much damage to the university and to the Jewish students proponents seek to protect.

Rodman pointed out that a quiet approach to shut down BDS in Canadian universities started in 2016, when Bill 202, an anti-BDS bill, was proposed in Ontarios legislature. The bill would have imposed severe limits on the BDS movement, such as preventing the province from doing business with institutions that support BDS, and also stopping universities from endorsing BDS. It failed on its second reading.

At this point no anti-BDS legislation has been passed in Canada, unlike in the U.S., Rodman noted. The Canadian federal government accepted the IHRA definition as part of its anti-racism strategy in 2019. While the definition informs the governments approach to anti-Semitism, it is not legally binding.

Months of work by activists has paid off, as Canada lost its bid for the much-desired temporary seat at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

Canada lost in the first round of voting on June 17, with Ireland and Norway winning the two available seats. Norway received 130 votes, and Ireland 128, while Canada only received 108. In its last UNSC bid in 2010, Canada managed 114 votes. Canada has been elected to the Security Council six times, and last held a seat in 2000. There are ten temporary member countries that each serve two-year terms.

By rejecting Canadas bid, the international community also delivered a blow to the Israel lobby, said Karen Rodman, voluntary executive director at Just Peace Advocates, the organization that initiated Twitter and letter writing campaigns opposing Canadas UNSC run.

As part of the campaign, in the month leading up to the UNSC vote, over 1,300 individual letters from around the world were sent to 193 U.N. ambassadors asking them to vote for Ireland and Norway instead of Canada. More than 100 civil society organizations also wrote expressing their opposition.

Hundreds of artists, activists and academics joined the open letter, including Noam Chomsky, Roger Waters, Richard Falk, John Dugard, and English filmmaker Ken Loach. Roger Waters also posted a link to the No Seat on the United Nations Security Council for Canada petition on his Facebook page.

The letters focused on Canadas abysmal record on Palestinian rights. The messages highlighted Canadas many failings in regards to Palestine, among them adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, which targets critics of Israel. Canada has also added Palestinian organizations to its terrorism list and threatened to cut off funding to the International Criminal Court if it continues investigating Israeli crimes.

The reach of the campaign caught Canada off guard. On June 11, Marc-Andre Blanchard, Canadas permanent representative to the U.N., delivered his own letter to all U.N. ambassadors defending Canadian policy on Palestinian rights and claimed Just Peace Advocates letter contained significant inaccuracies.

Rodman, from Just Peace Advocates, said Canada was undeserving of the U.N. position for many reasons. Canada has consistently isolated itself against world opinion when it comes to Palestine, she said. Canada has voted 166 times against Palestine at the U.N. this century. She also noted that Norway and Ireland have much more respectable records on Palestine.

Yves Engler, a Montreal author and activist, said the Canadian governments policies are anti-Palestinian, militaristic and aggressive toward the Venezuelan government. Engler asserted that the likely result of Canada getting a seat at the Security Council would have been a de facto second vote for the United States, noting that they share a similar voting record, especially when it comes to the Middle East.

Long-time Winnipeg peace activist and videographer Paul Graham expressed similar concerns. He said Canadas aggression toward Venezuela, as well as supporting Israeli actions against Palestinians, waging war in Afghanistan, bombing Libya and selling arms to Saudi Arabia, all indicate that Canada is closely aligned with U.S. imperialism.

When Canada demonstrates consistent, active work for international peace, development and cooperation, it will have earned the right to aspire to Security Council membership, he said.

With regard to what he referred to as Canadas orphan vote at the U.N. in December 2019, when Ottawa voted in favor of Palestinian self-determination, Engler pointed out that Canada had previously voted against 67 different resolutions for Palestinian rights. Engler said the vote, which received a huge amount of media attention, was almost certainly designed to respond to the Just Peace Advocates letter writing campaign. He believes that single vote was a way for Canada to counter the opposition to its Security Council run.

Engler also noted that Canada played a direct role in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1947. Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson rejected a Palestinian call at the time for an end to the British Mandate and establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Most Canadians, if they understood any element of international politics, they would be very uncomfortable with Canadian policies, Engler said.

Michael Lynk, United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and a Canadian citizen, said that although Canada may be one of the great advanced liberal democracies in the world, it doesnt have a lot to be proud of in the international arena.

We lost the Security Council seat bid in 2012, in part, because of our record and embrace of Israeli policies around occupation, and while we have made some changes in policy since 2015 with the new liberal governmenttheir voting record, among other things, is really no different from the Harper years, Lynk said. Former conservative Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper was an emphatic supporter of Israel.

Lynk explained that both Ireland and Norway have very strong records with respect of voting in favor of U.N. resolutions on Palestine and both are widely thought of, either because of their peace keeping or because of their international mediation efforts.

Canadians apparently desire to see a new foreign policy from their government. A survey conducted from June 5 to 10 and sponsored by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), Independent Jewish Voices, and the United Network for Justice and Peace in Palestine, reported that 75 percent of Canadians polled want their government to oppose Israels annexation of large portions of the West Bank and, almost half of those who responded, support the use of sanctions against Israel.

Candice Bodnaruk has been involved in Palestinian issues for the past 14 years through organizations such as the Canadian BDS Coalition and Peace Alliance Winnipeg. Her political action started with feminism and continued with the peace movement, first with the No War on Iraq Coalition in 2003 in Winnipeg.

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Canada's Attacks on Free Speech May Have Cost It a Seat on the Security Council - Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Whirlpool, Twitter, Microsoft, Las Vegas Sands & more – CNBC

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Twitter signage at the New York Stock Exchange.

Scott Eells | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Here are the companies making headlines in midday trading.

Whirlpool Shares jumped nearly 8% after the company's second quarter results blew past Street estimates. The appliance maker earned $2.15 per share on an adjusted basis, which was more than double the $1 analysts were expecting, according to estimates from Refinitiv. Revenue also exceeded expectations, and the company raised its full-year revenue outlook.

Twitter Shares of Twitter rose 4.1% after the social media company reported strong user growth in the second quarter. Monetizable daily active users jumped to 186 million, a 34% increase year over year, marking the highest rate since the company began reporting the metric. Twitterdid, however, said its ad revenue tumbled 23% due to the pandemic.

Microsoft Shares of the software giant fell 4.4% after the company's forward guidance was weak relative to Wall Street's expectations. Microsoft beat estimates on the top and bottom lines for its fiscal fourth quarter, but its projection of $35.61 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter was $300 million below expectations, according to Refiniv. Oppenheimer also downgraded the stock to perform from outperform.

Las Vegas Sands, MGM Resorts Shares of Las Vegas Sands dropped 4.2% after the company reported just $98 million in revenue for the second quarter, more than $400 million below Wall Street expectations, according to Refinitiv. The loss per share was also wider than expected. Fellow casino stock MGM Resorts fell 2.7% following the news.

PulteGroup Shares of PulteGroup surged 4.7% after the home construction company reported better-than-expected quarterly result. Pulte posted an EPS of $1.29 in the second quarter, topping analyst estimates of 89 cents per share, according to FactSet. Meanwhile, its revenue also came in above expectations. The company said it's encouraged about the back half of 2020 given the strength of second quarter sales.

American Airlines Shares gained more than 3% despite the company reporting a $2.1 billion net loss for the second quarter as air travel remained depressed amid the pandemic. The airline has, however, restored more capacity than some of its competitors. "The current environment is more unpredictable and more volatile than anything we ever could have imagined," CEO Doug Parker said in a statement.

Travelers Shares of the insurance company fell nearly 3% following its weak earnings report. The company reported a loss of 20 cents per share, in line with estimates. Travelers missed on revenue, making $7.35 billion, compared to the $7.37 billion forecast by analysts.

Equifax Shares of Equifax jumped 5.1% after the company beat Wall Street expectations for its second quarter. The company reported adjusted earnings of $1.60 per share and $982.2 million of revenue. Analysts surveyed by FactSet were looking for $1.30 per share and revenue of $922.5 million. The company said that one of its Workforce Solutions segments had its best quarter in more than a decade.

Allegion Shares of the security company fell more than 8% after second-quarter revenue missed Wall Street expectations. Revenues in the U.S. were more than $15 million what analysts surveyed by FactSet were looking for. Adjusted earnings per share did come in eight cents higher than anticipated, according to FactSet.

CNBC's Yun Li, Pippa Stevens and Maggie Fitzgerald contributed to this story.

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Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Whirlpool, Twitter, Microsoft, Las Vegas Sands & more - CNBC

Thousands in Puerto Rico still without housing since Maria – Las Vegas Sun

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Carlos Giusti / AP

A hurricane-damaged home shows traces of a blue tarp installation in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Monday, July 13, 2020, nearly three years after Hurricane Maria tore through the island. The federally funded program R3 named for its efforts to repair, rebuild or relocate, which began in July 2019, hasnt yet finished a singlehome.

Associated Press

Friday, July 24, 2020 | 12:05 a.m.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico Nearly three years after Hurricane Maria tore through Puerto Rico, tens of thousands of homes remain badly damaged, many people face a hurricane season under fading blue tarp roofs and the island's first major program to repair and rebuild houses hasnt completed a single one.

Maria hit more than 786,000 homes on Sept. 20, 2017, causing minor damage to some homes and sweeping others from their foundations. A federally funded program administered by local officials carried out relatively small repairs to some 108,000 homes the next year, while churches and nonprofits patched up thousands with private funds.

A Puerto Rican government program known as R3 is the first major effort by the U.S. territory to carry out major repairs and rebuilding of damaged and destroyed housing. Nearly 27,000 homeowners have applied. But nearly 1 1/2 years after federal funding was released to local officials, not a single repair or rebuilding job has been completed.

Puerto Rican officials say work is almost finished on the first 45 homes to benefit from the program, but it is not yet complete.

For many Puerto Ricans, the program's slow progress has become a symbol of their governments inability to address the long-term effects of the disaster.

They talk about billions of dollars, but were not seeing it, said Sergio Torres, mayor of the northern mountain town of Corozal. His municipality still has 60 homes with blue tarps as roofs and two families still living in school shelters. ts a way of life here.

Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico with 155 mph (249 kph) winds, and its center spent eight hours over the U.S. territory, obliterating the electricity grid and causing more than an estimated $100 billion in damage. An estimated 2,975 people died in the storms aftermath.

A Puerto Rican government-run program known as Your Home Reborn, which operated from January-December 2018, repaired 108,487 residences with funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Some had to be repaired again due to shoddy work. Churches and nonprofits launched smaller-scale efforts around the island.

But tens of thousands of homes in Puerto Rico remain uninhabitable by modern standards, with damage ranging from total destruction to missing roofs. In the central mountain town of Villalba alone, 43 families still live under blue tarps as roofs. Mayor Luis Javier Hernndez said one family used theirs for so long that it wore out and he had to give them a new tarp.

R3, which stands for repair, rebuild or relocate, aimed to address the backlog by paying contractors to make repairs for households that earn less than 80% of the regions median income.

The territorys government submitted its plans for using federal block grant money for R3 in June 2018. The first $1.5 billion for the program became available in February 2019, with another $1.7 million approved in February this year.

Nearly 27,000 households applied for help between R3s start date, July 31, 2019 through early January, when Puerto Rico's government stopped taking applications. Of the applications accepted, several hundred have been rejected and thousands remain in the preliminary stages. More than 900 people remain on a wait list.

Its becoming apparent that Puerto Rico delays are a lot longer than weve seen anywhere else, said Carlos Martn, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute.

He said Puerto Ricos housing department is understaffed, and that the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development also has imposed an unusually large number of requirements on Puerto Ricos government to prevent fraud or misspending.

Puerto Ricos housing secretary, Luis Carlos Fernndez, who took over the position recently, said officials have been trying to simplify the process of verifying and approving requests.

Fernndez said he doesnt know if the federal funds received so far will even be enough to help everyone already accepted into the program. He said elderly applicants, disabled people and those who have significant property damage are first in line.

Were not going to be finished for years, Fernndez said.

Fernandez said that more than 2,600 of the applicants are still using blue tarps instead of roofs. Former Housing Secretary Fernando Gil said in September 2019 that an overall estimated 20,000 to 25,000 so-called blue roofs remained across the island.

Its a number that angers Ariadna Godreau, a human rights lawyer who runs a nonprofit legal organization.

We never expected this panorama, she said. Its horrible.

Among those still waiting is 38-year-old Marin Coln, a single mother of two sons. The hurricane tore off her roof and caused a nearby landslide that put her home in jeopardy, and nothing has been fixed or repaired for nearly three years. During that time, she has bounced from home to home thanks to the generosity of relatives, but she is anxious to settle down.

Coln said she knows of several people who applied for the program and gave up after numerous failed tries. She noted some of them dont have access to the internet or own a car, making the mission nearly impossible.

Its been a very exhausting and very overwhelming process, she said.

Gov. Wanda Vzquez, who ascended to that position in August after the previous governor resigned following protests over corruption and other issues, has said she puts a priority on speeding up the reconstruction of hurricane-damaged homes.

The excuses were plentiful, and they were unacceptable, she said. Our people have waited too long and cant take it anymore.

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Thousands in Puerto Rico still without housing since Maria - Las Vegas Sun