Trump Derails 1st Presidential Debate With Biden, And 5 Other Takeaways - NPR

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President Trump ran roughshod over debate moderator Chris Wallace and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden — and crossed many lines in the process. Patrick Semansky/AP hide caption

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Patrick Semansky/AP

President Trump ran roughshod over debate moderator Chris Wallace and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden — and crossed many lines in the process.

Patrick Semansky/AP

This was maybe the worst presidential debate in American history.

If this was supposed to be a boxing match, it instead turned into Trump jumping on the ropes, refusing to come down, the referee trying to coax him off and Biden standing in the middle of the ring with his gloves on and a confused look on his face.

Trump doesn't play by anyone's rules, even those he's agreed to beforehand. He's prided himself on that. But even by his standards, what Trump did Tuesday night crossed many lines.

He's president. More than 200,000 Americans are dead from the coronavirus pandemic. And instead of a serious debate about the direction of the country, Trump sent it off the rails.

Most charitably, both former Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who helped Trump prep for the debate, said he was "too hot."

"I think the president overplayed his hand tonight," Santorum said on CNN.

Here are six takeaways from the first Trump-Biden debate.

1. Even for Trump, he went too far

For part of the debate, Trump looked like he was controlling the stage. He interrupted constantly and tried to distract, deflect and interject. That's fairly typical Trump behavior, but a few things in particular were egregious.

When Biden, for example, was talking about his late son Beau's military service, Trump went in on Biden's other son, Hunter, and brought up his past cocaine use. It backfired.

Biden, looking directly to the camera, turned something he rarely talks about into a positive, sympathetic moment.

"My son, like a lot of people you know at home, he had a drug problem," Biden said. "He's overtaken it. He's fixed it. He's worked on it. And I'm proud of him."

Later, when Trump was asked to denounce white supremacists and militia groups — and specifically the far-right extremist group Proud Boys — he instead said this: "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by." And then he denounced left-wing groups. (Proud Boys is now using Trump's words as part of a new logo.)

What's more, Trump would not urge his followers to remain peaceful as votes are counted, including if there are delays in reporting the results.

"I'm urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully because that's what has to happen," Trump said, adding, "If it's a fair election, I am 100% on board. If I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, I can't go along with that."

2. Trump likely did nothing to expand beyond his base

Trump's base will probably love his performance. But coming into the debate, Trump was behind in the polls. That's no secret.

He needed to try to win back suburban and independent voters, both of whom he won in 2016 and who have largely abandoned him this cycle.

So who was this performance for exactly?

Trump repeated his "law and order" appeal to white, suburban voters and tried to force Biden to repeat the words. But Biden didn't take the bait and pivoted, calling for "law and order with justice where people are treated fairly."

And Biden said this about Trump and the nature of his appeal.

"He wouldn't know a suburb unless he took a wrong turn," Biden said. "I was raised in the suburbs. This is not 1950. All these dog whistles and racism don't work anymore. Suburbs are by and large integrated."

3. Biden missed opportunities

This was not Biden's cleanest debate. He was not crisp, was often flummoxed — as was moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News — by Trump's antics.

"Will you shut up, man?" said Biden while trying to make a point. He also called Trump a "clown" more than once.

Biden missed some opportunities. For example, when Trump was talking about the role of masks in preventing the spread of the coronavirus, Biden could have interjected more forcefully to talk about Trump's largely maskless rallies. When Trump claimed his rallies caused no harm, Biden could have pointed out the spike in coronavirus cases after Trump's Tulsa, Okla., rally.

The former vice president had some stumbles and some moments that weren't great for him, like not answering if he would add justices to the Supreme Court — "pack the court" — if Judge Amy Coney Barrett, Trump's nominee to succeed Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is confirmed.

That was likely overshadowed by Trump's demeanor, but for the next debate — if there is one — Biden's team will need to try to sharpen him up.

4. Trump tried to tie Biden to the far left, but it didn't work

Trump tried his darndest to paint Biden as a socialist, or at least beholden to the "radical left." But on issue after issue — "Medicare for All," defunding the police, the Green New Deal — Biden disavowed policies the Trump campaign has tried to lasso to him.

Biden just restated his positions, and they all line up with the middle of the electorate, far more than Trump's policy positions do.

That might have harmed Biden with the progressive left, particularly when it comes to the Green New Deal, if Trump hadn't gone quite so Trump.

5. Trump's response on his handling of COVID-19 was more of the same

More than 200,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, and coronavirus cases are spiking again in some parts of the country.

And yet Trump's tactic when defending himself on his management of the pandemic was to insult Biden's smarts.

"He panicked or just looked at the stock market, one of the two, because guess what?" Biden said. "A lot of people died and a lot more are going to die unless he gets a lot smarter a lot quicker."

Trump's response?

"Did you use the word 'smart?' " Trump asked rhetorically, adding, "You graduated either the lowest or almost the lowest in your class. Don't ever use the word 'smart' with me."

Trump said he disagreed with his own experts on a vaccine timeline, insisting it would soon be widely available. But making rosy assertions to the public is exactly what got him in trouble after Bob Woodward's latest book, Rage, revealed that Trump privately knew the virus was worse than he let on publicly.

He tried to claim Biden would have made the pandemic worse. "Two million would be dead now," he said.

But Trump is president, and, on average, a majority of Americans say they disapprove of the job he's doing handling the coronavirus.

6. Good luck to the next moderator

Before the debate, Wallace said his goal was to be "invisible."

By the end, he might have wished he was. The role was no easy task, and the next presidential debate, Oct. 15, is set to be moderated by the far more mild-mannered Steve Scully of C-SPAN.

After the first presidential debate of the 2004 election, Internet conspiracies abounded about a mysterious bulge in the back of President George W. Bush's jacket. Some believed, unfoundedly, that there was a communications system rigged up by White House advisers to coach him.

Bush dismissed that, cracking wise.

"I guess the assumption was that if I were straying off course they would ... kind of like a hunting dog, they would punch a buzzer, and I would jerk back into place," Bush said afterward.

Maybe something to look into.

The Link Lonk


September 30, 2020 at 04:00PM
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Trump Derails 1st Presidential Debate With Biden, And 5 Other Takeaways - NPR

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Daily Crunch: Amazon lets you pay with your palm - TechCrunch

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Amazon unveils a new biometric ID technology, the Biden campaign takes aim at Facebook and iRobot’s co-founder joins a robotic gardening startup. This is your Daily Crunch for September 29, 2020.

The big story: Amazon lets you pay with your palm

The company announced a new biometric device for Amazon Go stores. Called Amazon One, the first time you use it, you insert your credit card and scan your palm; after that, you can just hold your palm over the device when entering the store and Amazon can automatically charge you for the items you purchase.

If you’re worried about privacy and security, Amazon said the images are encrypted and stored securely in the cloud, and it also argued that palms are more private than other forms of biometric identification, since you can’t determine someone’s identity just by looking at their palm.

The technology is being tested in two Seattle-area Amazon Go stores. The company suggested that the technology could eventually be used by third parties, for example at stadiums and office buildings.

The tech giants

Ringing alarm bells, Biden campaign calls Facebook ‘foremost propagator’ of voting disinformation — In a new letter to Mark Zuckerberg on the eve of the first presidential debate, the Biden campaign slammed Facebook for its failure to act on false claims about voting in the U.S. election.

Serious injuries at Amazon fulfillment centers topped 14,000, despite the company’s safety claims — More than 14,000 serious injuries (requiring days off or job restrictions) were reported in fulfillment centers in 2019, according to a story in Reveal.

Pivoting during a pandemic — Facebook’s vice president of Messenger discusses how his team has responded to the new normal.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Starlink puts towns devastated by wildfires online for disaster relief workers — A couple small towns in Washington have received Starlink connections to help locals and emergency workers.

iRobot cofounder Helen Greiner named CEO of robotic gardening startup, Tertill — Launched as a 2017 Kickstarter, the product is essentially a solar-powered robotic weed whacker designed to live in the user’s garden and do routine maintenance.

Online course platform Thinkific raises $22 million — Thinkific is different from businesses such as MasterClass and Skillshare because it doesn’t create, distribute or monetize online classes itself.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

Duolingo CEO explains language app’s surge in bookings — Luis von Ahn tells TechCrunch that Duolingo has hit 42 million monthly active users, up from 30 million in December 2019.

Healthcare entrepreneurs should prepare for an upcoming VC/PE bubble — Patientco CEO Bird Blitch has a warning for entrepreneurs.

9 VCs in Madrid and Barcelona discuss the COVID-19 era and look to the future — Part one of a two-part survey that polled 18 active investors in the region.

(Reminder: Extra Crunch is our subscription membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

Disney+ adds a co-watching feature called GroupWatch — Disney’s experience has some advantages (like the fact that it works on internet-connected TVs), but it lacks one of the hallmarks of co-watching, namely a chat that runs alongside the video.

Polaris and Zero Motorcycles reach deal to bring electric off-roaders to market — Polaris is a name synonymous with powersports.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.

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September 30, 2020 at 01:27PM
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Daily Crunch: Amazon lets you pay with your palm - TechCrunch

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With Friendly Visits to Republicans, Barrett Makes Her Capitol Debut - The New York Times

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WASHINGTON — Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, made a low-key debut on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, largely sidestepping a storm of Democratic anger as she met with friendly Republican senators eager to muscle through her nomination before Election Day.

Judge Barrett arrived at the Capitol flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff — an unusually high-level escort that underscored what Republicans see as the high stakes of her confirmation for the court as well as their political fortunes. Republicans who met with her throughout the day were unanimous in their praise, leaving little doubt that she would be confirmed.

“We truly do believe that Judge Barrett represents the best of America personally, in terms of her great intellect, her great background, and we have every confidence that as the American people learn more about Judge Amy Coney Barrett, they will be as inspired as President Trump was when he made her nomination,” Mr. Pence said before a meeting with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader.

Judge Barrett, in a dark blue dress and a single strand of pearls, stood solemnly and silently next to Mr. McConnell, who did not answer whether the judge, if confirmed to the nation’s highest court, should recuse herself from any cases related to the election.

Hours later, the White House formally sent Judge Barrett’s nomination to the Senate, for the official start of what is expected to be an uncommonly fast sprint to confirmation.

Paperwork submitted on Tuesday to the Senate by Judge Barrett herself underscored that point. In 69 pages of responses to questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, she disclosed that the White House had contacted her about the vacancy the day after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, and that Mr. Trump offered her the nomination only two days later, on Sept. 21, after they had met at the White House.

“The president offered me the nomination on that day, and I accepted, subject to finalizing the vetting process,” Judge Barrett wrote.

She was always identified as the president’s probable pick, but she was not formally announced until five days after the offer was evidently made. In the meantime, Mr. Trump continued to say he was still considering other candidates. The lag allowed Judge Barrett and the White House to get a head start on a process that in recent decades has usually taken more than two months; Senate Republicans are aiming to complete it in about half that time.

The rest of the questionnaire was mostly dry. The responses largely consisted of biographical information and a catalog of public speeches, academic writings and opinions she had written as an appeals court judge.

The document did show that as a corporate lawyer, law professor and then judge, Judge Barrett amassed $2.75 million in assets and that she had continued to earn thousands of dollars a year teaching after she joined the appeals court. The records show that she has $157,000 in liabilities, mostly related to a mortgage on a personal residence.

If the more than half-dozen senators who met with her throughout the day — all at a careful distance because of the pandemic — tried to pin down her views on politically thorny legal issues like abortion rights or the Affordable Care Act, they gave little public indication.

“What I’m looking for, and I think what she stands for, is the rule of law,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, who was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee when Judge Barrett was confirmed to the appeals court in Chicago in 2017.

Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, said Judge Barrett had “described herself as somebody who’s in the tradition of Justice Scalia,” the conservative legal icon whose opinions were critical of abortion rights, and for whom Judge Barrett had clerked. But Mr. Thune said he did not press her on specific legal issues.

Outside the wood-paneled Mansfield Room, near the Senate chamber where Judge Barrett and Republican senators met, there was little good feeling to be found in a Capitol at war over her nomination.

A cohort of Democrats, led by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, pledged to boycott the usual “courtesy” meeting process with the nominee. They are fiercely opposed to filling the seat when voting is already underway in many states, accusing Republicans who refused to consider President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee in 2016 of rank hypocrisy.

“I will not lend legitimacy to Mitch McConnell’s efforts to steal another Supreme Court seat,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts. “We need to treat this nomination like the illegitimate power grab it is.”

With little power to block the nomination, Democrats have sought to frame the confirmation battle as a referendum on health care, given that the Supreme Court is set to hear a case that could overturn the Affordable Care Act in the days after the election. Without any Republicans present on the Senate floor, Mr. Schumer on Tuesday successfully set up votes on legislation that would prevent the Justice Department from moving to strike down the Affordable Care Act, ensuring that Senate Republicans would have to vote on health care legislation before the election.

On the Senate floor, Mr. McConnell and Mr. Schumer argued bitterly over the confirmation. Brushing past Judge Barrett’s writings casting doubt on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the Republican leader accused the Democrats of fabricating a threat to Americans’ health care to score political points.

“That’s the claim: This mother of seven, including multiple children who were born or adopted facing pre-existing medical challenges, is just itching to block families like hers from accessing medical care,” Mr. McConnell said. “What a joke.”

Mr. Schumer charged Republicans with “manufactured hysterics” for saying Democrats were attacking Judge Barrett’s Catholic faith.

“Not a single Democrat will make these attacks or make religious beliefs an issue,” Mr. Schumer said.

The fight is expected to escalate in the run-up to four days of hearings next month in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans were aiming to confirm Judge Barrett by the end of October.

Luke Broadwater contributed reporting.

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September 30, 2020 at 06:06AM
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With Friendly Visits to Republicans, Barrett Makes Her Capitol Debut - The New York Times

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GM extends talks on $2 billion deal with Nikola after fraud, sexual assault allegations surface against Trevor Milton - CNBC

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Nikola Motor Company Badger pickup truck

Source: Nikola Motor Company

General Motors and Nikola are not expected to finalize a $2 billion deal scheduled to close before Wednesday after allegations of fraud and sexual abuse surfaced against the embattled start-up's founder and former executive chairman, Trevor Milton, according to two people familiar with the negotiations.

Executives at both companies are expected to extend the talks, the people said, asking not to be identified because the negotiations aren't public. 

The deal was initially viewed as a no-lose situation for GM. The partnership would give the Detroit automaker an 11% stake in the company for supplying Nikola battery and fuel cell technologies as well as producing Nikola's Badger pickup.

Shares of Nikola closed Tuesday down 7.4% to $17.88 – the stock's lowest closing since the company went public on June 4. Nikola's shares rose by more than 5% in after-hours trading. GM shares closed down 2.4% to $28.74.

Spokespeople with both companies declined to comment on the talks, citing ongoing negotiations.

The deal was hailed by Wall Street and sent shares of Nikola up as much as 53% on the day of the announcement, which Milton called a "'partnership made in heaven." GM CEO Mary Barra described it as a "win-win." But the celebration quickly soured.

Two days after the announcement, short seller Hindenburg Research released a damning report accusing Milton of making false statements about the company's technology to attract investors and partnerships with other automakers. It characterized Nikola as an "intricate fraud built on dozens of lies" by Milton, who dismissed many of the claims before resigning on Sept. 21.

Milton's resignation combined with the fraud claims, which have reportedly sparked inquiries by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice, cratered Nikola shares. Since the deal was announced, shares are down more than 60% – making the company much less attractive to GM.

The most recent blow to the Nikola-GM deal is continuing to play out. Two women, as first reported by CNBC, have now filed sexual assault claims with Utah authorities against Milton. Both allegations were more than 15 years old but involve a cousin and an office assistant when both were 15 years old. Milton's cousin Aubrey Ferrin Smith said he assaulted her in 1999 when he was 17 while the other woman says her alleged assault took place in 2004 when he was 22. CNBC doesn't identify the victims of sexual assault unless the victim chooses to publicly release their name.

The deal may be terminated by either side if it's not closed by Dec. 3, according to a public filing by Nikola when the partnership was announced.

The fraud and sexual assault claims have raised major concerns about the due diligence GM and others involved performed on Nikola. 

GM declined to say whether the company was aware of any allegations of fraud or sexual abuse regarding Milton. GM CEO Mary Barra earlier this month defended the company's partnership with Nikola, saying it conducted "appropriate diligence" before announcing the agreement.

GM was introduced to Nikola through Steve Girsky, the former vice chairman of GM who succeeded Milton as executive chairman at Nikola earlier this month. Girsky is a managing partner at VectoIQ, the special purpose acquisition company that took Nikola public. He joined Nikola's board after the deal closed.

Regarding Nikola, Girsky previously said his company "showed up with an army of people to diligence this thing," according to a webcast with an industry show, Autoline, in early August.

"We really crawled all over these guys. It wasn't pleasant at times," he said, adding he didn't "doubt there are going to be twists and turns here, but I did put my reputation on the line for this thing."

Girsky did not return calls or texts for comment. VectoIQ did not return emails. Bosch, an auto supplier partner of Nikola since 2017, declined to comment on its due diligence process regarding Nikola.

The Link Lonk


September 30, 2020 at 04:57AM
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GM extends talks on $2 billion deal with Nikola after fraud, sexual assault allegations surface against Trevor Milton - CNBC

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Governor Cuomo to Meet with Orthodox Jewish Community Leaders to Address COVID-19 Clusters - ny.gov

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"I'm going to be meeting with religious leaders of the Orthodox community and local officials. If you look at those clusters and you look at those zip codes, you will see there's an overlap with large Orthodox Jewish communities. That is a fact. I will be meeting with them to talk about it. This is a public health concern for their community. It's also a public health concern for surrounding communities. I've said from day one, these public health rules apply to every religion, atheists - it just applies to every citizen of the State of New York, period," Governor Cuomo said. "We have seen hotspots before, but this is probably the largest cluster that we have addressed before, and the clusters are Brooklyn, Orange, Rockland. The activity in the cluster is very different than what's going on in the rest of the state. That's actually good news in some ways because you have effectively identified the genesis of the potential growth of the virus. Once you have the information, you aggressively target these clusters. These are embers that are starting to catch fire in dry grass. Send all the firefighting equipment and personnel to those embers and stamp out the embers right away. That's what this data does. Local governments are the first line of defense and they must respond. Competent government must do compliance and enforcement. A cluster today can be community spread tomorrow."

The full, updated travel advisory list is below:

• Alabama
• Alaska
• Arkansas
• Colorado
• Delaware
• Florida
• Georgia
• Guam
• Idaho
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Minnesota
• Mississippi
• Missouri
• Montana
• North Dakota
• North Carolina
• Nebraska
• Nevada
• Oklahoma
• Puerto Rico
• Rhode Island
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Utah
• Wisconsin
• West Virginia
• Wyoming

The Governor noted that 20 hotspot ZIP codes on Monday reported a 5% positivity rate. Areas that had high positivity rates will be subject of focused testing efforts including access to rapid testing machines. These ZIP codes include: 

REGION	COUNTY	ZIP	% POSITIVE	TESTS	POSITIVES
Mid-Hudson	Orange	10950	18%	211	39
Mid-Hudson	Rockland	10952	10%	154	15
Mid-Hudson	Rockland	10977	8%	330	27
NYC	Kings	11223	7%	347	24
NYC	Queens	11374	5%	151	8
NYC	Queens	11691	4%	608	27
Southern Tier	Broome	13760	4%	163	7
NYC	Kings	11229	4%	299	12
NYC	Kings	11235	4%	366	14
NYC	Kings	11219	4%	455	17
NYC	Kings	11211	4%	329	12
NYC	Kings	11230	4%	482	17
NYC	Kings	11204	3%	272	9
NYC	Kings	11218	3%	417	13
Mid-Hudson	Westchester	10801	3%	137	4
NYC	Richmond	10301	3%	208	6
NYC	Kings	11210	3%	248	7
NYC	Richmond	10306	3%	359	10
NYC	Queens	11432	3%	223	6
NYC	Queens	11370	3%	115	3

 

 

Yesterday, the State Liquor Authority and State Police Task Force visited 1,075 establishments in New York City and Long Island and observed 3 establishments that were not in compliance with state requirements. A county breakdown of yesterday's observed violations is below:

 

• Bronx - 1
• Nassau - 2

 

Today's data is summarized briefly below:

 

• Patient Hospitalization - 571 (+28)
• Patients Newly Admitted - 79
• Hospital Counties - 35
• Number ICU - 147 (+12)
• Number ICU with Intubation - 61 (+4)
• Total Discharges - 76,691 (+42)
• Deaths - 2
• Total Deaths - 25,470

 

88,231 test results were reported to New York State yesterday, with a total of 1,189 positive. The state's positivity in hot spot ZIP codes was 5%, and otherwise 1.1%. With the hotspot ZIPs included, 1.3 percent, were positive. Each region's percentage of positive test results reported over the last three days is as follows:

 

REGION	SATURDAY	SUNDAY	MONDAY
Capital Region	0.5%	0.9%	0.9%
Central New York	1.1%	0.8%	1.7%
Finger Lakes	0.7%	0.6%	0.9%
Long Island	1.0%	1.2%	1.2%
Mid-Hudson	1.6%	3.1%	2.0%
Mohawk Valley	0.2%	1.2%	0.8%
New York City	1.2%	1.6%	1.3%
North Country	0.2%	0.4%	0.2%
Southern Tier	1.4%	3.6%	1.9%
Western New York	0.7%	0.9%	1.3%

 

Each New York City borough's percentage of positive test results reported over the last three days is as follows:

 

BOROUGH	SATURDAY	SUNDAY	MONDAY
Bronx	1.0%	1.0%	1.0%
Brooklyn	2.0%	2.6%	1.7%
Manhattan	0.4%	0.8%	0.7%
Queens	1.2%	1.6%	1.5%
Staten Island	1.0%	1.3%	1.6%

 

The Governor also confirmed 1,189 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 457,649 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 457,649 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:

 

County	Total Positive	New Positive
Albany	3,116	12
Allegany	108	2
Broome	1,642	36
Cattaraugus	271	11
Cayuga	219	1
Chautauqua	585	7
Chemung	492	22
Chenango	251	0
Clinton	162	1
Columbia	592	1
Cortland	181	10
Delaware	136	1
Dutchess	5,130	6
Erie	11,445	86
Essex	168	0
Franklin	66	0
Fulton	339	2
Genesee	327	6
Greene	323	0
Hamilton	15	0
Herkimer	337	2
Jefferson	170	0
Lewis	50	0
Livingston	207	0
Madison	497	4
Monroe	6,074	29
Montgomery	234	2
Nassau	46,791	80
Niagara	1,783	3
NYC	243,595	523
Oneida	2,432	12
Onondaga	4,409	30
Ontario	475	1
Orange	12,122	60
Orleans	335	0
Oswego	499	6
Otsego	340	0
Putnam	1,612	8
Rensselaer	916	3
Rockland	15,342	65
Saratoga	1,060	8
Schenectady	1,405	2
Schoharie	85	0
Schuyler	43	2
Seneca	107	1
St. Lawrence	325	1
Steuben	450	30
Suffolk	46,464	36
Sullivan	1,600	6
Tioga	242	5
Tompkins	417	3
Ulster	2,272	8
Warren	386	3
Washington	301	2
Wayne	321	1
Westchester	38,182	49
Wyoming	137	0
Yates	64	0

 

Yesterday, there were 2 deaths due to COVID-19 in New York State, bringing the total to 25,470. A geographic breakdown is as follows, by county of residence:

 

Deaths by County of Residence
County	New Deaths
Delaware	1
Steuben	1

The Link Lonk


September 30, 2020 at 03:01AM
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Governor Cuomo to Meet with Orthodox Jewish Community Leaders to Address COVID-19 Clusters - ny.gov

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On the road with Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. COVID-19 vaccine effort - Science Magazine

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Operation Warp Speed leaders Moncef Slaoui (second from right) and Gen. Gustave Perna (second from left) speak with Cincinnati physicians Carl Fichtenbaum (far right) and O’dell Moreno Owens (far left) during a visit to one of the sites for the efficacy trial of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

University of Cincinnati Health

By Jon CohenSep. 29, 2020 , 3:45 PM

Science’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.

CINCINNATI—A hospital at the University of Cincinnati (UC) sits on a street named after Albert Sabin, who famously developed a vaccine against polio that has helped rid most of the world of this once widely feared disease. A unit at the hospital now has a similarly ambitious goal as it participates in the U.S. effort to find a vaccine against COVID-19. Last week, on 25 September, the leaders of Operation Warp Speed—the Trump administration program that has committed $10 billion to this vision—flew in from Washington, D.C., for a tour. After learning that the hospital had in about 3 weeks enrolled 130 participants in the multisite phase III efficacy trial of one experimental vaccine, the first question Warp Speed’s scientific director, Moncef Slaoui, asked was, “Do you have a good representation of diverse populations?”

This was one several recent visits to trial sites and vaccine manufacturing plants by Slaoui and his Warp Speed co-leader, Gen. Gustave Perna. The four-star general had on his camouflaged Army uniform and combat boots, but Slaoui, who formerly headed the vaccine division of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), wore casual slacks, an open-collared shirt, and penny loafers without socks. He aimed to put people at ease on the tour, encouraging them to discuss uncomfortable, even taboo, topics—race, politics, regulations, and risks. Perna made small talk with the clinical staff, but largely kept to himself.

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The nationwide efficacy trial, which compares a COVID-19 vaccine made by Moderna with a placebo, struggled at first to enroll Black and Latino participants, in part because the contract research organizations that make up three-fourths of the nearly 100 trial sites had few contacts with those communities. But the UC site and others at academic centers, which are part of the COVID-19 Prevention Trials Network (CoVPN) organized by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), have a long history of working with minority communities to recruit participants for clinical trials. And the clinicians running this UC site explained to Slaoui that about half of their enrolled participants in the Moderna trial are either Black or Latino, a close match to the city’s breakdown. (According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Cincinnati’s 300,000 residents are 50% white, 43% African American/Black, and nearly 4% Hispanic/Latino.)

Moderna tracks—and makes public—the demographics of the enrolled participants week by week. During the week before UC started its enrollment for the 30,000-person trial, participants recruited by the other sites were 67% white and only 9% Black/African American and 17% Latino/Hispanic. Carl Fichtenbaum, a co–principal investigator at the UC site, at a 1 September conference call with fellow CoVPN investigators, NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams suggested sites put a cap on the number of white participants they could recruit. “I asked the question, ‘What is more important, getting to 30,000 as fast as we can or ensuring the trial is representative of our country and the pandemic?’” Fichtenbaum recalls. The cap was instituted, and for the week of 21 September, enrollees at all Moderna trial sites were 42% Latino/Hispanic, 30% African American/Black, and 7% white. Cumulatively, as of the day of the Warp Speed leaders visit to UC, 31% of 27,232 participants in the Moderna trial were from “diverse communities.”

The UC team says its recipe for successful minority participation includes relying on trial recruiters from diverse communities, ads that reach out to those groups specifically, and Spanish speakers who are on the clinical team. “We understand the history of Cincinnati—and the history of the problems of our city and the lack of inclusion,” Fichtenbaum says. The hospital, he stresses, not only has long treated the “underserved,” but has “embedded roots.”

Margaret Powers-Fletcher, co–principal investigator at the UC vaccine site, noted that many misunderstandings circle around the Moderna vaccine. On one extreme, Powers-Fletcher was asked whether the vaccine was bankrolled by Bill Gates as an attempt to microchip the population. But, more commonly, people want to know about Moderna’s unusual vaccine technology. The vaccine contains messenger RNA (mRNA), which codes for the surface protein of the virus that causes COVID-19. Explaining this “opens the door” for a deeper conversation, she says. “It gives us the opportunity to not only talk about what mRNA is, but to dispel other myths associated with vaccine.”

Slaoui adds that having diversity in the trials will build “engagement and trust” that translates into wider use of a COVID-19 vaccine that ultimately gets approved. “The vaccine that stays on the shelf, if people are not accepting it, is of no use,” he says.

O’dell Moreno Owens, a Black clinician who heads the Cincinnati-based nonprofit Interact for Health, joined the tour and raised several provocative concerns. One is that Warp Speed now supports efficacy trials of four different COVID-19 vaccines, and the public sometimes has difficulty separating them. A few weeks ago, an international trial of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate made by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford was put on hold after a serious side effect occurred in a recipient. (Regulators in the United Kingdom and Brazil determined this wasn’t connected to the vaccine and allowed the trials there to resume, but the United States has yet to follow suit.) “The ripple effect in the community was, ‘I told you so, I told you so,’” Owens says. “That’s going to be a big issue.”

“It is a real challenge to be able to communicate about these vaccines and their safety and engaging people to use them. It’s exacerbated by all the lights that are on this,” Slaoui replies. “Unfortunately, the world we live in, this period of time and all the politics around it exacerbates the anxiety that exists.”

Jaasiel Chapman, the trial’s community liaison for the Black community and a native of the city, says there’s no escaping the divisiveness. “People feel like this pandemic has become so politicized and that people want to win elections, rather than save our lives—that’s definitely one thing that we have gotten out in the community,” he says. “They feel the government has never cared about us before, so now they’re just trying to rush through a vaccine to kill us. So that’s been difficult. There are a lot of doubts in the community.”

Much as Slaoui would like to sidestep the politics, they have cast a shadow over him, too. On 25 September, the day of the UC tour, he issued a video that lambasted Senator Elizabeth Warren (D–MA) for suggesting at a Senate hearing that he had conflicts of interest because of his investments in companies making COVID-19 vaccines. “You don’t know me personally and you are publicly accusing me of being greedy, of being corrupt, and of doing this to enrich myself,” seethed Slaoui, who was unusually named to co-lead Warp Speed as a government contractor, not as a federal employee. Sitting at a desk with a Warp Speed logo behind him, Slaoui stressed that he had gone to great lengths to separate his finances from the vaccine effort, only holding on to GSK stock because they are his nest egg for retirement. “I cannot make any benefit from taking this role and my commitment is to helping the American people fight this epidemic. It is mathematically impossible for me to enrich myself,” he said. “I didn’t hesitate to join the role even though I’m a registered Democrat because this pandemic is bigger than any one of us. It’s bigger than me and it’s bigger than you. Please stop distracting me and Operation Warp Speed.”

Warp Speed’s main vaccine concern, as Slaoui repeatedly stressed during the UC visit, was safety. Cincinnati physician James Powell, who heads a project for the National Medical Association—which represents Black physicians and patients—to increase minority awareness about participating in clinical trials shared this worry. He told Slaoui he’s particularly concerned about safety when a vaccine moves from a 30,000-person trial to millions of people in the real world.

Slaoui says that to best balance potential benefits versus risks the vaccines will at first go into people at the highest risk of severe disease. He also endorsed a push by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—which the Trump administration is reportedly challenging—to add a safety measure to vaccine approvals that could slow down the process. Independent boards that monitor the vaccine trials take scheduled looks at the data, and if they see an efficacy signal or dangerous side effects, they can recommend stopping a trial early. An early sign of efficacy, in turn, could lead manufacturers to seek what’s known as an emergency use authorization (EUA).

There is widespread concern that politics might influence the issuance of a vaccine EUA, because critics says President Donald Trump and his allies pushed too aggressively for similar authorizations for two unproven COVID-19 treatments, hydroxychloroquine and convalescent plasma. Although Slaoui and other scientific advisers to the administration have said it’s highly unlikely a vaccine candidate will prove safe and effective in October, before the 3 November presidential election, Trump has repeatedly floated this idea. FDA officials have insisted that politics will not influence their decisions, and they recently proposed a regulation that would not consider an EUA until at least 2 months after the last participant in a trial is fully vaccinated.

Near the end of the visit, Powell asks how many Black investigators are taking part in the Warp Speed trials and how many sites are at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

“The answer is, ‘Not enough,’” Slaoui says. (Two HBCU presidents recently joined COVID-19 vaccine trails and called for their students and faculty to participate, too, but the request also produced some backlash.)

As he says his goodbyes, Slaoui praises the people who participate in the COVID-19 vaccine trials. “It’s a very generous act.” And he laments what he called the “unintended consequence of the communication that’s happening on the political side of things,” which he says was “making people afraid of vaccines.”

“The only way to counter that is to be transparent and explain,” Slaoui says. “And we need everybody’s help. So thank you very much for being here.”

The Link Lonk


September 30, 2020 at 02:45AM
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On the road with Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. COVID-19 vaccine effort - Science Magazine

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New York City election officials to resend ballots after about 100,000 voters get misprints - The Washington Post

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Ryan said the vendor, Phoenix Graphics, will reprint the ballot packages, which will be mailed out to all the potentially affected voters “to make certain that absolutely no disenfranchisement occurs in the borough of Brooklyn.” He said the vendor will bear the cost of the reprint and redistribution.

Phoenix Graphics did not immediately respond to a request from The Post seeking comment.

Ryan did not disclose the number of affected voters. Melissa DeRosa, secretary to New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D), told reporters during a news conference that the error impacted about 100,000 people in Brooklyn.

“To say we’re troubled by this is the understatement of the year,” DeRosa said Tuesday.

Valerie Vazquez-Diaz, a spokesperson for the board of elections, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post, but told CNN the error affected 99,477 voters.

The new ballots will contain inserts explaining to voters why they’re getting another one, Ryan said. The board will also attempt to reach out to voters to explain the error, and will use social media to inform voters of the problem.

“It is essential that confidence be established in this process and that we make certain that all of the voters who potentially have a problem have a full and fair opportunity to remedy that problem,” Ryan said.

The board of elections called on New Yorkers who received the envelopes with the wrong name to contact them via Twitter, email or to call 1-866-868-3692. The board also posted the message on its Facebook page.

Numerous New Yorkers reported Monday that they had received mixed-up return envelopes, which could invalidate their votes if they tried to mail them in.

Brooklyn resident Kabeer Malhotra requested an absentee ballot for the first time, hoping to avoid the perils of a voting booth during the coronavirus pandemic. But tore open his ballot on Monday to find a return envelope with someone else’s name printed on the front.

In a tweet, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) called the incident “unacceptable.”

He urged voters to check to make sure the oath envelopes included with their ballot has the correct name and address. “If it is incorrect, DO NOT USE IT,” the mayor tweeted.

The mass error comes soon after the election board struggled to tally a flood of absentee ballots in June primaries, leaving some races undecided for weeks. As Republican critics relentlessly assail the security of mail-in voting, the latest mishap — which President Trump highlighted in retweets about the ballot mishap — will only add fuel to that argument, Malhotra worries.

“The rhetoric our president is using and all the fearmongering over mail-in voting makes me worry there’s going to be so much hysteria around errors like this, that people are going to panic,” Malhotra, a 36-year-old who works in the TV and film industry, told The Washington Post. “Some people won’t know what to do.”

Advocates said they were hearing from affected voters in Brooklyn. Many Brooklyn residents also took to Twitter on Monday evening to share their personal stories of mislabeled return envelopes.

“I have heard from dozens of voters individually today, all concentrated in Brooklyn, that they have received return ballot envelopes that are not in their name,” Ali Najmi, a New York elections lawyer, told The Post.

Crystal Hudson, a candidate for New York City Council, said that a neighbor sent her a message that she had received Hudson’s return envelope by mistake. Confused, Hudson then opened all three of her family’s absentee ballots and found that each had the wrong return envelope inside.

“So let’s recap — my neighbor’s wife has my absentee ballot; he has his wife’s ballot; and his is missing,” she tweeted. “These neighbors also shared that they are immigrants & are very excited to vote in their first presidential election as citizens.”

Terry Kinney, an actor and director best known for his role on HBO’s “Oz,” said he opened his absentee ballot Monday after reading about the problems.

“Lo and behold- I got someone else’s ballot,” he tweeted, adding, “Come on, this is a nightmare.”

Carlina Rivera, a city council member, noted that she penned an op-ed in July demanding a review of the city’s elections vendors after issues delivering absentee primary ballots to voters. Instead, she tweeted, the Board of Elections “ignored my warnings w/ disastrous results. There must be a reckoning, starting at the top.”

The mislabeled envelopes weren’t the only printing error spotted on Monday.

NYC Votes, a voter education organization, noted that some residents had gotten ballots labeled, “Official Absentee Military Ballot,” even though they’re not in the military. The organization blamed the issue on a missing slash between the words “absentee” and “military,” and it said those ballots are still valid.

The board of election also tweeted reiterating that such ballots are correct, "even if you are not a military voter."

Malhotra said than risk another mailing mishap, he said he’s going to cast his ballot in person at an early-voting site.

“I’m privileged because I can go in person and make absolutely sure my vote will be counted,” he said. “But I know there are so many essential workers who don’t have that privilege.”

The Link Lonk


September 30, 2020 at 07:17AM
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New York City election officials to resend ballots after about 100,000 voters get misprints - The Washington Post

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