Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has chosen California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate, making her the first Black woman and the first person of Indian descent to be nominated for a major party’s ticket.“I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked @KamalaHarris — a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate,” Biden tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “Together, with you, we’re going to beat Trump.”Harris was one of nearly two dozen presidential candidates who challenged Biden for the 2020 Democratic nomination.After winning enough primaries to secure the nomination, Biden promised to pick a female vice presidential candidate. There was much speculation he would choose a Black woman to run with him.Former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris shake hands before the start of the second night of the second 2020 presidential Democratic candidates debate in Detroit, July 31, 2019.Harris, 55, was born in California to a Jamaican-born father and an Indian American mother. She gained prominence after she was elected California’s attorney general in 2010, winning the praise of civil rights activists for refusing to defend the state’s Proposition 8 ballot that banned same-sex marriage.Her presidential campaign faded quickly when many progressives and liberals questioned her staunch support for law enforcement while attorney general. She was accused of being out of touch over issues of police violence — questions that are bound to be raised again as Americans protest police brutality against Black people and other people of color.According to some polls, many Black voters hoped Biden would choose the more progressive Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren as his running mate.Harris is the third woman to run for vice president on a major party ticket.Democrat Geraldine Ferraro was Walter Mondale’s running mate in 1984 when they lost by a landslide to the Republican ticket of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin ran with Republican John McCain in 2008 but lost to Democrats Barack Obama and Biden.
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Fake news about the coronavirus can do real harm. Polygraph.info is spotlighting fact-checks from other reliable sources here​.Daily Debunk
Unless Americans use the dwindling weeks between now and the onset of “indoor weather” to tamp down transmission in the country, this winter could be Dickensianly bleak, public health experts warn.
— Stat, August 10
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A keffiyeh on her head and the Lebanese flag in her hand, Cerine Bader was out on the streets with a mission: to join a revolution against the political elite whom she saw as corrupt, inefficient, and self-serving. She was among thousands of others who had gathered at Martyrs Square in Beirut, the heart of the protests that started in October and took place a short walk from the city’s historic port, now reduced to ashes.  The cataclysmic explosion on August 4 blew plumes of grey and orange smoke into the sky and sent pressure waves rolling across the city from the port. It swallowed whole neighborhoods, shaking the city’s foundations and sending residents flying across their apartments as if with a magic wand.  The catastrophe triggered new protests, and although Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s government had resigned Monday, the protestors promised to continue. They said their battle was not against one government, but the whole system, a political substructure controlled and propagated by sectarian parties led by politicians, many of them civil war-era warlords, as well as armed actors like Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia acting as a state within a state. People try to break police barrier during a protest following last week’s explosion that killed many and devastated the city, in Beirut, Lebanon, August 11, 2020.Lebanon officials said fireworks had caught ablaze nearby and caused 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate in a warehouse to explode. The blast left more than 170 people dead and 6,000 injured, and displaced 300,000 people from damaged or destroyed homes.  Blaming the government  Cerine and many Lebanese believe the real reason for the explosion was not the fireworks that set off the nitrate, but what they say is incompetence and government indifference to repeated warnings from port officials of the dangers inherent to storing the material in the heart of the city. “We are here to protest against the mass massacre committed by our leaders,” she told VOA on Saturday, as she stood among a large crowd chanting anti-government slogans. “This government and previous governments and their sectarian masters are responsible for the blast. They knew ammonium nitrate should not be stored in such large amounts and certainly not near residential areas and yet they did nothing to dispose of it.”  Michel Aoun, Lebanon’s president, has led a governmental response that to many, appeared to lack empathy.  Aoun, in an initial broadcast, tried to blame hostile forces – possibly Israel – despite a lack of any evidence. “The cause has not been determined yet,” Aoun told the local press, saying there could have been a “rocket or bomb or other act.”  Firecrackers thrown by protesters explode in front of riot police amid clashes in the vicinity of the parliament in central Beirut on August 10, 2020.Since then, documents leaked to the media have shown a chain of events from the nitrate’s impounding from a ship in 2013 to its explosion on Tuesday, indicating at least some officials knew it was there all along.  Badri Daher, the director-general of Lebanese Customs now under detention, told Lebanese television broadcaster LBCI he had requested the ammonium nitrate be re-exported, “but it did not happen,” he said. “We leave it to the experts and those concerned to determine why.” Follow-up reports including a firsthand account by a port employee in The Guardian also claimed that some of the employees at the port had raised concerns but confronted with an unresponsive system felt helpless.  Hezbollah Some of the protestors directed their wrath at Hezbollah, which is both a militia and a political party, accusing it of at best turning a blind eye and at worst leaving the nitrate there deliberately, for future purposes.  The wife of Rami Kaaki, one of ten firefighters who were killed during the last week’s explosion that hit the seaport of Beirut, Lebanon, mourns during her husband’s funeral at the firefighter headquarters, August 11, 2020.“Everyone controls the port and they are all corrupt, but Hezbollah controls all of them. How could they let this happen?” asked Amal, who came from the Bekaa Valley to protest. Sami Nader, a Lebanese political analyst, said the port explosion threatens to become a catalyst for disillusionment against Hezbollah, which many in Lebanon until recently – even outside its core Shia community – regarded as a part of the national fabric and a shield against Israel. “It is true that Hezbollah controls the port more than anyone else because they control all strategic assets,” he said. “But this is also a big geo-strategic blow to Hezbollah and its credibility as a force protecting Lebanon, which is what it claims it is.”  Nader notes that protesters are demanding it be a panel of international experts who investigate the explosion. “Those whom the people suspect to be complicit in the crime cannot be in charge of the investigation,” he said. Human Rights Watch (HRW) recommended the same. It said that local and international rights groups have documented a nexus between the judiciary and the politicians for years, and the group also criticizes what it says is a lack of judicial independence in Lebanon.   “Given the Lebanese authorities’ repeated failure to investigate serious government failings and the public’s distrust of government institutions, an independent investigation with international experts is the best guarantee that victims of the explosion will get the justice they deserve,” said Aya Majzoub, Lebanon researcher at HRW. 
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British and French ministers meet Tuesday in Paris for urgent talks on the growing migrant crisis in the English Channel. So far this year, more than 4,000 migrants, mostly from Africa and the Middle East, have attempted the crossing from France to Britain in overcrowded dinghies or makeshift boats, including around 700 in the past week.It is a voyage of some 35 kilometers across the busiest shipping lane in the world. Among the migrants are hundreds of unaccompanied children.  The surge in arrivals is creating political waves. Speaking to reporters in London Monday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised action, but with little detail.“We need to stop them, working with the French, we need to stop them from getting across the channel. But No. 2, we need to look at the legal framework that we have, all the panoply of laws that an illegal immigrant has at his or her disposal that allow them to stay here,” Johnson said.  Immigration Minister Chris Philp was traveling to Paris for talks Tuesday, alongside Britain’s new so-called “Clandestine Channel Threat Commander,” Dan O’Mahoney, for talks with French counterparts on how to reduce the number of migrant crossings. One plan under discussion could see Britain paying more for land patrols along the northern French coastline.Border Force officers escort a group of men thought to be migrants to a waiting bus in the port city of Dover, England, Aug. 8, 2020.Under international maritime law, all vessels are obliged to aid those in distress at sea. Deploying the navy could have unintended consequences, says Yeo.“There is a humanitarian argument for making sure that people are safe in that area and taking them back to shore. But if it were the British who were doing that, it would be back to a British shore and that is exactly what the British government is seeking to avoid.”Under European Union law known as the Dublin Regulation, the first EU country where a migrant arrives is meant to process any asylum request. Britain has deported hundreds of migrants to its European neighbors in recent years under the arrangement. When Britain exits the Brexit transition period at the end of the year, however, that law no longer applies.  “You cannot just send people back to a country that won’t take them back,” says Yeo. “I think what the U.K. government would ideally like is to have some sort of arrangement where if somebody is intercepted in the English Channel, the assumption would be that they’ve come from France and therefore they are landed in France. But we don’t have that agreement at the moment, and frankly it doesn’t seem that likely that we would enter into such an agreement with the French because it doesn’t necessarily appear to be in French interests.”Activists say the surge in arrivals shows the desperation of the migrants and Britain should be doing more to help the global refugee crisis.“Clearly, the numbers are higher this year, but I think as a country, as a government, every time we see incidents like this, you’ve got two kind of choices to make,” Stephen Hale, chief executive of charity group Refugee Action, told the Reuters news agency Tuesday.  “The first is to say this is serious for the people concerned, but it’s a modest movement by international standards, and it’s certainly something that Britain can cope with. You know, it’s something we can step up and find solutions to in the interests of our country and in the interests of these people. Or we can kind of go the other way and really send the message that these numbers are huge. It’s not something we can manage,” Hale said.The British government says the route must be shut down to prevent tragedy at sea.  Analysts say that politically, the images of migrant boats arriving at the foot of Britain’s iconic white cliffs of Dover are clearly potent for a government that pledged to take back control of its borders after Brexit.
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Senior government officials in the Australian state of Victoria will Tuesday appear at a parliamentary inquiry into the response to the COVID-19 crisis.  Premier Daniel Andrews and other colleagues are expected to face questions about security breaches in the hotel quarantine system for travelers returning from overseas.  Australia has had 21,397 confirmed coronavirus infections.  313 people have died.Australia has equaled its deadliest day of the coronavirus pandemic so far.  19 people in the state of Victoria have died in the past 24-hours, and 331 new infections have been reported.The city of Melbourne is in lockdown until mid-September, and a night-time curfew is in place.  Its streets are almost deserted, as millions of people are forced to stay at home.  Only essential businesses can stay open.A lone tram on an empty Flinders Street is seen during lockdown in Melbourne, Australia, Aug. 5, 2020.19 deaths were recorded in Victoria in the past 24-hours, equalling Australia’s deadliest day, so far.But with daily new infections near a two-week low there is hope that the tide may be turning.Dr. Nick Coatsworth is Australia’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer.“This is about Victorians, particularly those under stage four restrictions, but also those under stage three restrictions, getting reward for their efforts and when we do see it, I think we will all be very happy to see that curve inflect downwards again,” he said.There are claims that infected passengers returning from overseas have been responsible for the second surge of infections in Victoria. Foreign nationals are banned from Australia, but citizens and permanent residents can return home. They face a mandatory 14-day period in hotel isolation.State premier Daniel Andrews is due to face a committee of lawmakers about security flaws that allowed passengers who had tested positive for COVID-19 to spread the virus into the community.  A separate judicial inquiry into the hotel quarantine system has heard that security flaws were responsible for Victoria’s recent wave of infections.Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews arrives for a news conference in Melbourne, Australia, Aug. 5, 2020.The psychological impact of the pandemic in Victoria is also emerging. The number of patients seeking mental health treatment in hospitals has increased sharply.The state’s health minister is Martin Foley.“For young people under 18 we have seen a 33 percent increase in presentations for people with self-harm in emergency departments,” he said.Dozens of people have been fined for ignoring the curfew in Melbourne and refusing to wear a mask.Victoria is at the center of Australia’s COVID-19 crisis.  Neighboring New South Wales has Tuesday recorded 22 new infections – its highest daily number in almost four months – as a cluster linked to a school in Sydney continues to rise.The disease appears to be under control in other Australian states and territories. 
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North Korea continues to see historic levels of rainfall, further threatening an economy already battered by a coronavirus-related lockdown.  Torrential rains have flooded hundreds of North Korean homes and wiped out vast swaths of rice fields in the country’s agricultural heartland, according to state media, intensifying worries about a poor harvest and food supply shortage. The Korean Peninsula has seen a much longer than usual monsoon seasons this year. The rains are expected to continue for much of the week.  South Korea has seen 49 consecutive days of rain — the longest streak on record. The downpours have caused landslides and floods in the South that have killed at least 42 people.  In the North, the extent of the damage is not precisely known. State media said Friday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited a flood-hit village in North Hwanghae province, where 600 hectares of rice fields and more than 900 homes were inundated or destroyed. Hwanghae is the North’s most important rice-producing province. North Korean officials appearing on state TV have warned that rivers in both Hwanghae and the nearby province of Gangwon could overflow, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. The rains are already more intense than in 2007, when North Korea saw some of its worst floods, according to a briefing by South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean relations.A part of a park near the Han River are flooded due to heavy rain in Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 9, 2020. The safety ministry said the Seoul area and the southern region are expected to receive more heavy rain on Sunday.“Their agricultural system is fragile, but they have had floods many times before,” says Peter Ward, a specialist in North Korea’s economy and PhD candidate at the University of Vienna. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it had a significant impact on the harvest.” North Korea is particularly vulnerable to flooding. It lacks adequate infrastructure and suffers from widespread deforestation, which resulted in part from people cutting down trees for fuel or firewood or to clear land for farming.  The floods come as North Korea steps up its anti-coronavirus efforts. Last month, North Korea locked down the southwestern city of Kaesong, after warning that a defector from the South may have brought the virus across the border.  North Korea has reported no confirmed coronavirus cases, even as it carries out strict measures to keep the disease from spreading. North Korea’s Red Cross has mobilized 43,000 volunteers who “have been working alongside health teams and authorities to prevent Covid-19 as well as helping communities to be prepared to evacuate and reduce disaster risks in their areas, including protecting homes from flooding and landslides,” according to a statement from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. “DPRK Red Cross volunteers are providing relief, including tarpaulins, kitchen sets, quilts, hygiene kits and water containers to support 2,800 of the most at risk families in North Hwanghae and (Gangwon) provinces, as well as Kaesong City, also while keeping people safe and preventing COVID-19,” the statement added. North Korea formally closed its borders due to coronavirus concerns in late January, shortly after the outbreak was first reported in neighboring China. The lockdown has resulted in plummeting economic activity with China, North Korea’s biggest trading partner. That has put even more strain on an economy already held back by international sanctions.  In a statement last week, research firm Fitch Solutions said it expected North Korea’s economy to contract by at least 8.5% in 2020, “not only due to a suspected domestic outbreak, but also due to the negative impact the disease will have on the external sector.”North Korea’s secretive government does not consistently release its own economic data. Instead, outside organizations try to estimate North Korea’s economic figures, in part based on numbers from South Korea’s central bank or Chinese customs data. 
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A surge of coronavirus cases across Cuba prompted authorities to re-impose some restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus, including closing beaches, restaurants, bars and restricting travel across the island and prohibiting international flights.  Cuba confirmed the majority of the 93 new cases are in the capital, Havana.The jump in COVID-19 cases represents the highest daily total since the pandemic was first detected on the island in March. Cuba’s newest restrictions come after the government had begun relaxing restrictions because the cases of the coronavirus had leveled off. Authorities say the latest restrictions will not impact grocery stores or government services. Cuba has confirmed more than 3,000 cases of COVID-19, and at least 88 deaths. 
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Hong Kong’s Apple Daily tabloid responded with defiance Tuesday to the arrest of owner Jimmy Lai under a new national security law imposed by Beijing, promising to “fight on” in a front-page headline above an image of Lai in handcuffs. Readers queued from the early hours to get a copy of the pro-democracy tabloid a day after police raided its offices and took Lai into detention, the highest-profile arrest so far under the national security law. The front-page headline read: “Apple Daily must fight on.” More than 500,000 copies were printed, up from the usual 100,000, the paper said on its website. Dozens of people lineup for the paper in the working-class neighborhood of Mong Kok as early as 2 a.m. (1800 GMT). Some vendors said they sold out during the morning rush-hour. “What the police did yesterday interfered with press freedom brutally,” said 45-year-old Kim Yau as she bought a copy. “All Hong Kongers with a conscience have to support Hong Kong today, support Apple Daily.” Lai was detained over suspected collusion with foreign forces as about 200 police searched the newspaper’s offices, collecting 25 boxes of evidence. Shares in Lai’s media company, Next Digital, which publishes Apple Daily, soared on Monday as online pro-democracy forums called on investors to buy shares to show support. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday he was “deeply troubled” by reports of Lai’s arrest. He called Lai a “patriot” and said his arrest showed that Beijing had “eviscerated” Hong Kong’s freedoms and eroded the rights of its people. Beijing has in the past labeled Lai a “traitor.”  Separately, White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien said the arrest of Lai and others was an effort to intimidate pro-democracy and opposition figures and suppress independent media. Mainland-born Lai, who was smuggled into Hong Kong on a fishing boat when he was a penniless 12-year-old, has been one of the most prominent democracy activists in the Chinese-ruled city and an ardent critic of Communist Party rule in Beijing. His arrest comes amid a crackdown against pro-democracy opposition in Hong Kong, which has drawn international condemnation and raised fears for the freedoms promised by Beijing when the former British colony returned to China in 1997. The sweeping new security law imposed on June 30 punishes anything Beijing considers secession, subversion, terrorism or collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison. 
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More than 20 million cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed worldwide as of Monday night, and Spain has overtaken Britain for the highest number of cases in Western Europe. Partly to blame, some Spanish health experts say, is that the government doesn’t have enough qualified contract tracers.  “Some regions have not understood that this was the key in the months after the lockdown and in the long term,” said Ildefonso Hernandez Aguado, a public health professor at Alicante’s Miguel Hernandez University.  He also blamed Spanish society for its eagerness to celebrate holidays and other events with large gatherings, saying, “This is a country that doesn’t understand holding a celebration or taking a holiday if you’re not going to share them.” The government defended its response.  “Appropriate measures are being taken to control the pandemic in coordination” with the regions, the government said in a statement, after experts questioned its policies. “The data shows that we are being very active in tracking and detecting the virus.” According to Johns Hopkins University, Spain has nearly 323,000 COVID-19 cases while Britain has recorded 313,000. More than 28,000 people have died from the disease in Spain and more than 46,000 have died in Britain.  Spain, one of the world’s hot spots early in the pandemic before imposing strict lockdowns and other measures, has seen a surge in the number of cases since lifting most measures instituted to contain the spread of the coronavirus, which causes COIVD-19. From an average daily infections tally of 132 cases in June, Spain has counted some 1,500 per day in the first 10 days of August.People wearing face masks wait their turn to be called for a PCR test for the COVID-19 at Vilafranca del Penedes in the Barcelona province, Spain, August 10, 2020.Both Spain and the Britain trail the United States in the number of COVID-19 cases — more than 5 million – and deaths – 163,000. Florida, one of the U.S.’s hardest hit states, broke its own record last week for the number of coronavirus hospitalizations, The Orlando Sentinel newspaper reports. Hospitals throughout Florida admitted 3,355 COVID-19 patients between August 2 and August 9. Florida has counted 536,961 cases and 8,408 deaths cases since the beginning of the pandemic, trailing only California, which has 568,000 confirmed cases and 10,378 deaths.  Medical officials in Florida blamed Gov. Ron DeSantis, saying he was more interested in gaining favor with President Donald Trump than taking measures such a statewide requirement for wearing face masks. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association have reported a large increase in the number of children sickened by the coronavirus last month. Nearly 100,000 youngsters became ill in the last two weeks of July. A woman with her children, wearing face masks amid the spread of the new coronavirus, wait at a health center in the Juan Diaz neighborhood, an area with high contagion levels of COVID-19, in Panama City, July 16, 2020.The coronavirus is relatively mild in children, but they can still pass the virus to older people, including the elderly who are much more susceptible, according to doctors. New Jersey police broke up a house party over the weekend where nearly 300 people were celebrating. The state has limited the number of people allowed to gather indoors to 25. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy lashed out at the crowds packing bars in the state’s beach towns. The governor has criticized what he calls “knucklehead behavior” by those who won’t wear masks or practice social distancing for a rise in COVID-19 cases in the state. Nearly 50 public health officials across the U.S. have either been fired or quit since April under pressure from politicians and others resisting their calls for coronavirus restrictions, according to the Associated Press news service. Some of those officials said had been threatened with violence for advocating for lockdowns and masks.  Others were simply burned out. The former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Tom Frieden, calls the number of experts quitting their jobs “stunning.”  “The overall tone toward public health in the U.S. is so hostile that it has kind of emboldened people to make these attacks,” Frieden said. The latest to give up their positions are senior government health experts in California and New York City.  President Trump threw his support behind playing the college football season despite COVID-19. “The student-athletes have been working too hard for their season to be cancelled,” he tweeted Monday. Some large schools have canceled their seasons while others have not yet decided what they will do. Nebraska’s Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, who is a former president of Midland University, says the season should go on.  “This is a moment for leadership. These young men need a season. Please don’t cancel college football,” the senator said. Spanish actor Antonio Banderas spent his 60th birthday Monday in quarantine after announcing he has the coronavirus.  “I would like to add that I am relatively well, just a little more tired than usual and hoping to recover as soon as possible following medical instructions that I hope will allow me to overcome the infection that I and so many people in the world are suffering from,” he wrote on Instagram.  He says he plans to spend his time in recovery reading and writing. 
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