U.S. regulators Wednesday approved the first drug for the treatment of Ebola.The Food and Drug Administration OK’d the drug developed by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals for treating adults and children with the Zaire Ebola virus strain, the most deadly of six known types. It typically kills 60% to 90% of patients.The drug was one of four tested during an outbreak in Congo that killed nearly 2,300 people before it ended in June. Survival was significantly better in study participants given Regeneron’s Inmazeb or a second experimental drug.The study was ended ahead of schedule last year so all patients could get access to those drugs.Regeneron’s treatment is a combination of three antibodies that work by killing the virus. It’s given once by IV.”When you have three drugs that bind to the (virus), there’s a low probability that the virus can evade all of them,” said Leah Lipsich, who heads Regeneron’s global program for infectious diseases.She said that should help prevent the virus from becoming resistant to the drug.Seeking U.S. approval first is a common strategy for drugmakers developing treatments for diseases mainly found in the tropics and in developing countries. The FDA’s action will make it easier for Regeneron to get approval or allow emergency use during outbreaks in African countries, where the approval process is not straightforward, Lipsich said.The study in Congo involved 681 people, who were give one of four treatments. After four weeks, about a third of those who got Regeneron’s drug had died. Results were about the same for a second drug. But about half had died among the groups given one of the other two drugs, ZMapp or remdesivir.Gilead Science’s remdesivir is now being used as a treatment for coronavirus.Ebola is very contagious and is spread mainly through contact with body fluids from infected people. Symptoms include fever, muscle pain, vomiting, kidney and liver damage, and sometimes internal and external bleeding.The FDA approved the first vaccine for Ebola in December.The U.S. government, which helped fund the approved drug’s development, will buy thousands of doses over the next six years to go into the Strategic National Stockpile. Ebola cases are rare in the U.S. but occasionally are diagnosed in travelers returning from areas with an outbreak.
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Billie Eilish’s debut album continued its winning streak, picking up the top Billboard 200 album honor at the 2020 Billboard Music Awards. Eilish was at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Wednesday night to accept the honor for “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” It won the top prize at the Grammy Awards in January. She thanked her fans for “believing in me and caring about me,” adding that when it comes to winning awards, “never ever take these for granted.” Eilish wore a mask as she spoke in front of an empty venue — because of the coronavirus pandemic — and she’s up for more honors throughout the night. Kelly Clarkson, who is hosting, kicked off the show singing Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love,” which became a dance hit last year after Whitney Houston’s cover of the song was remixed by Norwegian DJ-producer Kygo and became an international hit. Clarkson was joined by drummer Sheila E. and a cappella group Pentatonix for the performance of the song, which earned Houston, who died in 2012, a posthumous nomination for top dance/electronic song. Post Malone, who will perform later in the show, is the top nominee with 16, including bids for top artist, top male artist, top rap artist and top streaming songs artist. His competition for the show’s biggest prize, top artist, includes Taylor Swift, Eilish, Khalid and Jonas Brothers.Post Malone appears on stage with his nine awards to include top male artist and top artist at the Billboard Music Awards on Oct. 14, 2020, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.K-pop all-stars BTS — who currently own the top two positions on the Billboard Hot 100 chart this week with “Dynamite” and the “Savage Love” remix, with Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo — will also perform. Others set to perform Wednesday include Alicia Keys, Bad Bunny, Sia, Kane Brown, Luke Combs, Doja Cat, En Vogue, Khalid, Brandy, Ty Dolla $ign, Swae Lee, Demi Lovato and SAINt JHN. Country music icon Garth Brooks will be presented the Icon Award from Cher, and rapper-activist Killer Mike will earn the Change Maker Award. Some of the performances will be live, while others were pre-taped due to the coronavirus pandemic. This year’s ceremony was originally supposed to take place in April but was postponed because of the pandemic.  Other nominees include Kanye West, who released two gospel albums last year. He is up for nine prizes, including bids for top gospel artist and top Christian artist, while four of the five songs nominated for top gospel song are from West. Outside of Houston, other deceased nominees include rapper Juice WRLD, who died in December and is currently dominating the charts and streaming services with his first posthumous album “Legends Never Die.” He picked up nominations for top rap artist and top rap album for his 2019 release “Death Race for Love.” And EDM superstar Avicii is nominated for top dance/electronic artist and top dance/electronic album for “Tim,” the album he started working on before he died in 2018 and was later completed by his producers and family. 
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Melania Trump says her 14-year-old son, Barron Trump, had tested positive for the coronavirus but has since tested negative.The White House initially said he had tested negative, after both of his parents tested positive earlier this month.The first lady said Wednesday that subsequent testing showed Barron had also come down with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.He has since tested negative, she said, as have both she and President Donald Trump.After she and the president received their positive results Oct. 1, she wrote that “naturally, my mind went immediately to our son.”He tested negative and she was relieved but kept thinking about what would happen the next day and the day after that.“My fear came true when he was tested again and it came up positive,” she said in a lengthy note released online.She said Barron is a “strong teenager” who exhibited no symptoms. Sounding a bit like the president, she said she was “glad the three of us went through this at the same time so we could take care of one another and spend time together.”She said her son has since tested negative.The first lady has guarded the privacy of her teenage son. She did not explain why his positive diagnosis was not made public earlier. 
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Governments around the world have used the COVID-19 pandemic as their reason for expanding digital surveillance and collecting more data from their citizens, according to a report published Wednesday.The annual FILE – People wearing face masks to protect against the coronavirus use their smartphones to enter their personal data before being allowed to enter a pedestrian shopping street in Beijing, May 16, 2020.The report again singled out China for specific criticism as the world’s worst abuser of internet freedom, but Beijing also found new methods of digital surveillance in the pandemic.The report noted that Chinese authorities combined low- and high-tech tools not only to manage the outbreak of the coronavirus, but also to deter internet users from sharing information from independent sources and challenging the official narrative.The report concluded “the pandemic is normalizing the sort of digital authoritarianism that the Chinese Communist Party has long sought to mainstream.”“China’s government already was sitting on the most sophisticated and multilayered censorship and internet control apparatus around the world,” said Sarah Cook, a senior researcher at Freedom House.Technology spreadsShe added that what is unusual this year with COVID-19 is these tactics were being used regarding public health. Surveillance technology developed in the Xinjiang region — such as handheld devices for pulling data from citizens’ phones — is now proliferating in other parts of the country.There also are certain upgrades in these surveillance technologies, such as refining facial recognition technology to be able to identify people who are wearing masks or forcing people to use various color-coded health apps in China to track citizens’ infections.“These really don’t protect privacy and there are research initiatives that indicated that they even had a backdoor to the police,” Cook continued.FILE – A man holding a smartphone walks past the headquarters of Chinese state newspaper People’s Daily in Beijing, Oct. 6, 2018.In addition, Freedom House researchers say individuals around China also have reported pandemic-related intrusions, like being told to put webcams inside their houses and outside their doors for alleged quarantine enforcement.Apart from the heavy surveillance, Cook said the spread of COVID-19 is directly related to Chinese Communist Party speech controls on the internet.WeChat users
 
“The very thing we flagged last year as a problem in terms of monitoring of WeChat users and reprisals against WeChat users is exactly what happened to doctors like Li Wenliang, who initially tried to share information about this emerging SARS-like virus,” she said.“So, I think there’s really this very intimate connection between the outbreak overall and the fact that China is the worst abuser of internet freedom around the world.”Elsewhere in the world, Iceland is said to have the greatest internet freedom, followed by Estonia and Canada. The report listed U.S. in seventh place, with internet freedom worsening for the fourth year running. 
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Apple unveiled four new iPhones equipped with technology for use with faster new 5G wireless networks, hoping that demand for higher data speeds will spark demand for new phones.
That might not happen as quickly as Apple would like.
In a virtual presentation Tuesday, the company announced four 5G-enabled versions of the new iPhone 12 ranging in price from almost $700 to roughly $1,100. Apple also announced a new, less expensive version of its HomePod smart speaker.
Smartphone sales have been slowing for years as their technology has matured. That has meant far fewer gotta-have-it innovations that can drive demand and, at least until recently, increasingly pricey phones. Add to that pandemic-related economic crisis, and consumers have tended to eke as much life as possible out of their existing phones.
Apple, however, is clearly betting that 5G speeds could push many users off the fence. At its event, the company boasted about 5G capabilities and brought in Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg to champion the carrier’s network.
5G is supposed to mean much faster speeds, making it quicker to download movies or games, for instance. But finding those speeds can be a challenge. While telecom operators have been rolling out 5G networks, significant boosts in speed are still uncommon in much of the world, including the U.S. So far, there are no popular new consumer applications that require 5G.
Updates in the new phones mostly amount to “incremental improvements” over predecessor iPhones, technology analyst Patrick Moorhead said, referring to 5G capabilities and camera upgrades on higher-end phones. But he suggested that if carriers build out their 5G networks fast enough, it could launch a “supercycle” in which large numbers of people switch to 5G phones.
That might be a big if. Mobile expert Carolina Milanesi of the firm Creative Strategies said economic pain caused by the global pandemic and accompanying job losses could easily restrain that buying impulse.
Apple’s new models include the iPhone 12, which features a 6.1-inch display and starts at almost $800, and the iPhone 12 Mini, with a 5.4-inch display at almost $700. A higher-end iPhone 12 Pro with more powerful cameras will begin at roughly $1,000; the 12 Pro Max, with a 6.7-inch display, will set buyers back at least $1,100. Apple said the phones should be more durable.iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max feature a new, elevated flat-edge stainless steel design and Ceramic Shield front cover for increased durability.In a move that may annoy some consumers, Apple will no longer include charging adapters with new phones. It says that will mean smaller, lighter boxes that are more environmentally friendly to ship. Apple, however, separately sells power adapters that cost about $20 and $50, depending on how fast they charge phones.
The iPhone models unveiled Tuesday will launch at different times. The iPhone 12 and 12 Pro will be available starting Oct. 23; the Mini and the Pro Max will follow on Nov. 13.
That compresses Apple’s window for building up excitement heading into the key holiday season.
Although other parts of Apple’s business are now growing more rapidly, the iPhone remains the biggest business of a technology juggernaut currently worth about $2 trillion, nearly double its value when stay-at-home orders imposed in the U.S in mid-March plunged the economy into a deep recession.
The pandemic temporarily paralyzed Apple’s overseas factories and key suppliers, leading to a delay of the latest iPhones from their usual late September rollout. The company also closed many of its U.S. stores for months because of the pandemic, depriving Apple of a prime showcase for its products.
Apple on Tuesday also said it was shrinking the size and price of its HomePod speaker to catch up to Amazon and Google in the market for internet-connected speakers, where it has barely made a dent. Both Amazon and Google are trying to position their speakers, the Echo and the Nest, as low-cost command centers for helping people manage their homes and lives. They cost as little as $50, while the HomePod costs almost $300.
The new HomePod Mini will cost almost $100. It will integrate Apple’s own music service, of course, with Pandora and Amazon’s music service in “coming months.” Apple didn’t mention music-streaming giant Spotify. It will be available for sale Nov. 6 and start shipping the week of Nov. 16.
The research firm eMarketer estimates about 58 million people in the U.S. use an Amazon Echo while 26.5 million use a Google Nest speaker. Roughtly 15 million use a HomePod or speakers sold by other manufactures, including Sonos and Harman Kardon.
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In 2016, many analysts saw parallels between the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, casting both as victories for populist politics.    Four years on, Trump is up for re-election while Britain will leave the Brexit transition period at the end of the year. Those analysts now say Britain’s post-Brexit future could be closely tied with the outcome of the November 3 U.S. presidential election.   The British government is looking to the United States for a new trade deal to boost its economy. However, any hopes that such a deal would be quick and easy have faded rapidly, says Ian Bond of the Center for European Reform, in a recent interview.   FILE – Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump during a welcoming ceremony at the NATO leaders summit in Watford, Britain, Dec. 4, 2019.“Trump has been a supporter of Brexit but I think the British government has realised by now from its trade negotiations with the U.S. that there is no free lunch. The more that the U.K. wants in terms of access to the America market, the more it’s going to have to give in terms of concessions on standards and the like,” Bond told VOA.   Nevertheless a victory by President Trump would be the best result for Britain as it leaves the EU, argues Robert Oulds, director of the Bruges Group, whose members include dozens of pro-Brexit lawmakers.   “There is one candidate in the U.S. presidential election who is committed to having a good trade deal with the United Kingdom, and that’s President Donald Trump. So this is really important to the U.K., it’s not just a matter of political preference. Jobs and opportunities really do rely in the U.K. on having Donald Trump as president of the United States,” Oulds told VOA.   British media reported this week that Boris Johnson’s Conservative government is trying to build relations with Trump’s challenger Joe Biden, a past critic of Brexit who is leading in the polls. Biden recently warned Britain there would be no U.S. trade deal if Brexit put peace in Northern Ireland at risk.   Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at Amtrak’s Alliance Train Station, in Alliance, Ohio, Sept. 30, 2020.“The upside [to Biden] is more predictability in the relationship and a more favourable view to transatlantic institutions like NATO,” says analyst Ian Bond. “The downside with Biden is he has very strong links to Irish-American community, indeed he springs from the Irish-American community himself. Biden would probably take a much tougher line with the British on their obligations in the [EU] Withdrawal Agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol than Trump would.”   Some moderate Conservative lawmakers are hoping for a Biden victory — including Daniel Finkelstein, a member of Britain’s upper House of Lords and associate editor of The Times of London newspaper.   “The things that drive the Trump vote are not the same as drove people to vote for Brexit. There are some parallels between those things. But America and Britain are very different countries,” Finkelstein said in a recent interview with VOA.   “I think it’s very important for the sort of health of conservatives that a more mainstream post-[WW II] Republicanism was able to reassert itself against this sort of rather disturbing populist Republicanism of Donald Trump. And his defeat I think will be part of the [British] Conservative party’s rediscovery of those sorts of values,” Finkelstein added. Some allies fear Britain and the United States are have become more isolationist, according to Robert Gutsche Jr., a political analyst at Lancaster University. “You have Brexit, there’s great uncertainty there. But you also have the United States pulling out of accords, pulling out of the World Health Organization, pulling out of other forms of international collaboration,” Gutsche told VOA.  Britain faces an uncertain Brexit amid the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The result of the U.S. election could have a big role on the country’s future direction as it tries to forge a new role in the world outside the European Union.  
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A Russian attempt to broker a cease-fire to end the worst outbreak of hostilities over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in more than a quarter-century has failed to get any traction, with rivals Azerbaijan and Armenia trading blame for new attacks. The failure of the truce that was supposed to begin Saturday reflects the uncompromising positions of the two South Caucasus nations that have stymied decades of diplomatic efforts. The escalation of fighting raises the specter of a wider conflict that could draw in Russia and Turkey and threaten Caspian Sea energy exports.   A look at some military and geopolitical aspects of the conflict and its potential fallout: Roots of the conflict   Nagorno-Karabakh, populated mostly by Armenians, was an autonomous region inside Azerbaijan during the Soviet era. Historic tensions between Christian Armenians and mostly Muslim Azerbaijanis, fueled by memories of the 1915 massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks, exploded in the final years of the Soviet Union.   In 1988, the region sought to join Armenia, triggering hostilities that morphed into an all-out war as the USSR collapsed in 1991. By the time a 1994 cease-fire ended the fighting, an estimated 30,000 people had been killed and up to 1 million were displaced. Armenian forces not only held Nagorno-Karabakh itself but also seized substantial chunks of land outside the territory’s borders. Nagorno-Karabakh, a forested, mountainous territory that covers about 4,400 square kilometers (1,700 square miles), the size of the U.S. state of Delaware, has run its own affairs ever since, relying on Armenia’s support. Failed peace initiatives   Ever since Armenian forces routed Azerbaijani troops in the war, international mediators have sought a political settlement.  Russia, the United States and France, which co-sponsored the Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks under the aegis of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, have put forward numerous peace initiatives, but Armenia’s stiff resistance to surrendering any land has been a key stumbling block.   Azerbaijan, meanwhile, has relied on its oil wealth to modernize its military and now argues that it has the right to reclaim its land by force after nearly three decades of failed international mediation. Military disparity  While separatist forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian military continue to rely mostly on aging Soviet-built weapons, Azerbaijan has completely revamped its arsenal with state-of-the-art attack drones and powerful long-range multiple rocket systems supplied by its neighbor and ally, Turkey.   More than two weeks of fighting has shown that Azerbaijan has clearly outgunned the Nagorno-Karabakh forces and put them on the defensive. Azerbaijani troops have made significant advances in several areas around Nagorno-Karabakh and showered its towns with rockets and artillery shells. Armenian forces have countered with Soviet-built howitzers, antiquated BM-21 rocket launchers and obsolete Tochka-U missiles that lack the punch and precision of Azerbaijan’s more modern weapons.A woman stands inside her damaged house two days after shelling by Armenian’s artillery during fighting over the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, in Ganja, Azerbaijan, Oct. 13, 2020.Turkey’s new role   Unlike previous outbursts of hostilities over Nagorno-Karabakh, NATO-member Turkey, which has close ethnic, cultural and historic bonds with Azerbaijan, took a higher profile and vowed to help Azerbaijan reclaim its territory. Turkey’s newly assertive role reflects President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambitions to expand his nation’s clout.   Armenian officials say Turkey is directly involved in the conflict and is sending Syrian mercenaries to fight on Azerbaijan’s side. Turkey has denied deploying combatants to the region, but a Syrian war monitor and Syria-based opposition activists have confirmed that Turkey has sent hundreds of Syrian opposition fighters to fight in Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenian authorities also charge that Turkey provides Azerbaijan with intelligence and even air cover, claiming that a Turkish F-16 fighter jet shot down an Armenian warplane. Turkey and Azerbaijan have denied the claim, but Azerbaijan’s president admitted that Turkish F-16s have stayed on in Azerbaijan weeks after a joint military exercise. He insisted that they have remained grounded. Conflicting goals   While Armenia aims to preserve the 1994 status quo in the region and desperately needs a cease-fire to contain the damage and regroup, Azerbaijan, with Turkey’s blessing, clearly is bracing for a long fight, hoping to bleed Armenia and force it to make concessions.   The escalation of fighting is a major challenge for Russia, which has a military base in Armenia but also has sought to maintain good ties with Azerbaijan and avoid a showdown with Turkey. Russia and Turkey have learned to accommodate mutual interests in Syria and Libya and have developed strong economic ties, but the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh could now shatter their alliance.   Azerbaijan and Turkey have accepted Russia’s mediation and grudgingly agreed to a truce, but they have made it clear that see the cease-fire as temporary until Armenia agrees to pull back its forces from Nagorno-Karabakh. Looming escalation Landlocked Armenia, emaciated by three decades of Turkish and Azerbaijani blockades, lacks resources for a drawn-out conflict. But it can’t be expected to yield to pressure. Patriotic sentiments run high, and Armenians of all trades and ages have volunteered to go the front lines. If Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh start losing ground, Armenia could raise the stakes in the conflict by recognizing the separatist region’s independence — something it hasn’t done yet — and openly challenging Azerbaijan militarily. So far, Armenian officials have denied making any strikes on Azerbaijan from its territory, a claim contested by Azerbaijan.   Armenia has several high-precision Iskander surface-to-surface missile systems supplied by Russia. It hasn’t used the powerful weapon yet, but it could be tempted to if Armenian forces face the prospect of losing Nagorno-Karabakh.   Armenian authorities so far have vowed not to target Azerbaijan’s infrastructure, including an oil pipeline carrying its Caspian crude to Turkey and on to Western markets, but their calculus may change if Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh are cornered. If the Armenian forces target the strategic pipeline, Azerbaijan could also up the ante.   During the previous escalation of hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan in July, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry boasted of its state-of-the-art missile systems that are capable of striking Armenia’s Metsamor nuclear power plant — a threat the Armenian authorities at the time denounced as “genocidal.” If Azerbaijan openly strikes Armenian territory, Moscow would be obliged by its military pact with Yerevan to intervene militarily to protect its ally. Turkey could hardly be expected to stay idle too. 
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A trio of space travelers has launched successfully to the International Space Station, for the first time using a fast-track maneuver to reach the orbiting outpost in just three hours. NASA’s Kate Rubins along with Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos lifted off as scheduled Wednesday morning from the Russia-leased Baikonur space launch facility in Kazakhstan for a six-month stint on the station.   For the first time, they are trying a two-orbit, three-hour approach to the orbiting space outpost. Previously it took twice as long for the crews to reach the station.   They will join the station’s NASA commander, Chris Cassidy, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner, who have been aboard the complex since April and are scheduled to return to Earth in a week. Speaking during Tuesday’s pre-launch news conference at Baikonur, Rubins emphasized that the crew spent weeks in quarantine at the Star City training facility outside Moscow and then on Baikonur to avoid any threat from the coronavirus.   “We spent two weeks at Star City and then 17 days at Baikonur in a very strict quarantine,” Rubins said. “During all communications with crew members, we were wearing masks. We made PCR tests twice and we also made three times antigen fast tests.” She said she was looking forward to scientific experiments planned for the mission.   “We’re planning to try some really interesting things like bio-printing tissues and growing cells in space and, of course, continuing our work on sequencing DNA,” Rubins said. Ryzhikov, who will be the station’s skipper, said the crew will try to pinpoint the exact location of a leak at a station’s Russian section that has slowly leaked oxygen. The small leak hasn’t posed any immediate danger to the crew.   “We will take with us additional equipment which will allow us to detect the place of this leak more precisely,” he told reporters. “We will also take with us additional improved hermetic material which will allow to fix the leak.” In November, Rubins, Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov are set to greet NASA’s SpaceX first operational Crew Dragon mission, bringing NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi to the space station aboard the Crew Dragon vehicle. It follows a successful Demo-2 mission earlier this year. The Crew Dragon mission was pushed back from Oct. 31 into November, and no new date has been set yet. The delay is intended to give SpaceX more time to conduct tests and review data from an aborted Falcon 9 launch earlier this month. 
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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 DebunkClaim: “I don’t know whether you noticed, he [U.S. President Donald Trump] recently said that, they asked him where he got the COVID, he said, ‘I probably got it from Blue Star parents.’ They’re people who lost a child in battle.” Former U.S. vice president Joe Biden, October 8.Verdict: FalseRead the full story at: FactCheck.orgSocial Media DisinfoScreenshotCirculating on social media: Claim that the indigenous peoples of the Americas “sacrificed” their leaders “as an offering to the gods” during epidemics.Verdict: MisleadingRead the full story at: Agence France-Presse Factual Reads on CoronavirusEight Persistent COVID-19 Myths and Why People Believe Them
From a human-made virus to vaccine conspiracy theories, we rounded up the most insidious false claims about the pandemic
— Scientific American, October 12
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Chinese nationalists erupted in anger at South Korean boy band BTS after its leader thanked Korean War veterans for their sacrifices. The singer, who goes by RM, made the remark in a recorded acceptance speech for an award from the Korea Society for promoting U.S.-Korean relations. “We will always remember the history of pain that our two nations shared together and the sacrifices of countless men and women,” RM said in the speech, which included no mention of China. “After 70 years, the world we are living in is much closer than before. Boundaries in many aspects are getting more blurred,” RM said. “As members of the global community, we should build a deeper understanding and solidarity to be happier together.” Chinese internet users and state media took RM’s comments as a slap at China, whose soldiers fought alongside North Korean forces during their failed attempt to annex South Korea in the 1950-53 war. They accused RM of ignoring the role played by China in the war, which Chinese Communist Party propaganda blames on the United States, instead of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung’s attack on South Korea. “Before, I thought some BTS songs were pretty good. Now, they seem to be covered in excrement,” said a commenter on the microblog service Sina Weibo. “Insulting China is absolutely not allowed.” An account titled “BTS Insults China” had been viewed more than 4.5 million times, according to Sina Weibo. “Many Chinese netizens pointed out that the speech plays up to U.S. netizens, but the country played the role of aggressor in the war,” said an article in the Global Times newspaper, controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. Asked about the controversy, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, said, “What I want to say is that it should be our common pursuit to take history as a mirror, face the future, cherish peace and promote friendship.” Last year, Chinese state TV suspended broadcasts of National Basketball Association games after the general manager of the Houston Rockets expressed support for anti-government protesters in Hong Kong. Broadcasts resumed this week. Since the Korean War, Beijing has helped prop up isolated North Korea with gifts of oil and other aid to maintain a buffer between China and U.S.-allied South Korea. Online Chinese fan groups demanded an apology from BTS and called for boycotts of an upcoming album and promotional events. BTS-related products were missing this week from the online stores of Samsung Electronics and sports brand FILA on Chinese e-commerce websites including Alibaba Group’s TMall and JD.com.  Global brands have tried to distance themselves from politically touchy issues, especially Taiwan, the self-ruled island claimed by Beijing as part of its territory, and Hong Kong, the scene of pro-democracy protests. In 2016, Taiwan-born Korean pop singer Chou Tzu-yu apologized for shaking a Taiwanese flag on South Korean TV after criticism by China. BTS has yet to respond, but South Korean fans reacted angrily. “BTS fans are from all over the world, so China’s bullying will be known to all countries that took part in the Korean War,” said Johnny Kim, a South Korean engineer. The row comes ahead of Thursday’s stock market debut of BTS’s management company, Big Hit Entertainment. Hong Kong’s most prominent dissident, Joshua Wong, weighed in, criticizing Beijing for “provoking groundless rage and division.” “There are still many Korean War veterans around the world, including those from the United States, so it’s not reasonable for China to pick a fight over this,” said Min-seong Lee, a student in Seoul. 
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday stopped the once-a-decade head count of every U.S. resident from continuing through the end of October. President Donald Trump’s administration had asked the nation’s high court to suspend a district court’s order permitting the 2020 census to continue through the end of the month. The Trump administration argued that the head count needed to end immediately so the U.S. Census Bureau had enough time to crunch the numbers before a congressionally mandated year-end deadline for turning in figures used for deciding how many congressional seats each state gets. A coalition of local governments and civil rights groups had sued the administration, arguing that minorities and others in hard-to-count communities would be missed if the count ended early. They said the census schedule was cut short to accommodate a July order from Trump that would exclude people in the country illegally.Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented.  FILE – Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor speaks during a panel discussion celebrating Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to be a Supreme Court Justice, Sept. 25, 2019, at the Library of Congress in Washington.”Moreover, meeting the deadline at the expense of the accuracy of the census is not a cost worth paying, especially when the Government has failed to show why it could not bear the lesser cost of expending more resources to meet the deadline or continuing its prior efforts to seek an extension from Congress,” Sotomayor wrote. Last month, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, sided with the plaintiffs and issued an injunction that suspended a Sept. 30 deadline for finishing the 2020 census and a Dec. 31 deadline for submitting numbers used to determine how many congressional seats each state gets — a process known as apportionment. That caused the deadlines to revert back to a previous Census Bureau plan that had field operations ending Oct. 31 and the reporting of apportionment figures at the end of April 2021. When the Census Bureau, and the Commerce Department, which oversees the statistical agency, picked an Oct. 5 end date, Koh struck that down too, accusing officials of “lurching from one hasty, unexplained plan to the next … and undermining the credibility of the Census Bureau and the 2020 Census.” An appellate court panel upheld Koh’s order allowing the census to continue through October but struck down the part that suspended the Dec. 31 deadline for turning in apportionment numbers. The panel of three appellate judges said that just because the year-end deadline is impossible to meet doesn’t mean the court should require the Census Bureau to miss it. With plans for the count hampered by the pandemic, the Census Bureau in April had proposed extending the deadline for finishing the count from the end of July to the end of October and pushing the apportionment deadline from Dec. 31 to next April. The proposal to extend the apportionment deadline passed the Democratic-controlled House, but the Republican-controlled Senate didn’t take up the request. Then, in late July and early August, bureau officials shortened the count schedule by a month so that it would finish at the end of September. The Republicans’ inaction coincided with a July order from Trump directing the Census Bureau to have the apportionment count exclude people who are in the country illegally. The order was later ruled unlawful by a panel of three district judges in New York, but the Trump administration is appealing that case to the Supreme Court. By sticking to the Dec. 31 deadline, control of the apportionment count would remain in the hands of the Trump administration no matter who wins the presidential election next month.  
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Last Saturday’s Russian-brokered cease-fire in Nagorno-Karabakh has been broken with fresh shelling in the last few days. However, in this report narrated by Jonathan Spier, Pablo Gonzalez in Stepanakert, the main city controlled by ethnic Armenian separatists in the enclave of Azerbaijan, the truce – albeit imperfect – has given at least some respite to residents.Camera: Pablo Gonzalez   Producer:  Jonathan Spier  
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