TV News LIES

Diary entries released by a Republican senator in an attempt to damage Anthony Fauci also show the former top US government science adviser’s growing disillusionment with Donald Trump in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, branding the president “rambling”, “crazy”, “desperate”, “bumbling”, “incompetent”, “an idiot”, “a true embarrassment”, “totally nuts” and “truly an obnoxious adolescent”.

From the earliest days of the crisis six years ago, Fauci noted in his journal challenging interactions with the publicity-fixated Trump. On 27 February 2020, amid the first stirrings of public alarm, he wrote of a surprise late-night call, in which the US president “wanted to chat about the coronavirus situation in general”.

For “about 20-25 minutes”, Fauci wrote, he “encouraged [Trump] not to underplay the seriousness of the situation since if it turns out bad, it would look like he is covering up. I even spoke to him from a political standpoint that his chances for re-election might be more damaged if he downplayed the potential spread of virus in the USA than if he said we may face serious problems and even if the Stock Market goes down further, he was at least honest and the country would respect him for it.

“I thought that he heard what I said, but the next day, he again underplayed it.”

By 14 March, in the thick of the first Covid shutdowns, Fauci is bemoaning Trump’s fixation on “the fluff of ratings and publicity. And so he wants us to do 2 press conferences/day – one in AM and one in PM … We now will have no time to do work.”

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A Princess Cruises cruise ship docked in San Francisco has seen an outbreak of norovirus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC said that 102 out of the over 3,000 passengers onboard the Ruby Princess have been affected, along with 23 crewmembers.

Symptoms for those who have become ill include diarrhea and vomiting.

Passengers and crewmembers aboard the Ruby Princess were on a 20-day voyage that began on June 12 and was due to end on Thursday. The outbreak was reported on Saturday, the CDC said.

A representative from Princess Cruises confirmed the outbreak, telling Nexstar’s KRON4, “a limited number of guests reported mild gastrointestinal illness during the 20-day June 12 Ruby Princess voyage from San Francisco.”

“Our crew responded promptly by implementing enhanced sanitation protocols across the ship,” Princess Cruises added.

The CDC says that in response to the outbreak, Princess Cruises and the Ruby Princess crew have undertaken the following actions:

1. Increased cleaning and disinfection procedures

2. Collection of stool specimens from gastrointestinal illness cases for testing

About four million Americans have dropped out of Affordable Care Act insurance coverage this year as costs soared due to the loss of enhanced subsidies.

The figures released late Friday from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services offer the most complete look to date at what happened to enrollment after Republicans in Congress failed to extend enhanced ACA subsidies at the end of last year.

The loss of those subsidies spiked many people’s premiums by double digits; the new coverage numbers likely reflect the sticker shock Americans experienced.  

Unable to pay, they dropped their coverage.

The report from the health and human services assistant secretary for planning and evaluation said that an estimated 19.2 million people are enrolled in ACA plans as of February.

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Authorities in France have placed more than a third of the country under a red heat alert, cancelled some outdoor sports events and restricted alcohol consumption at the nationwide Fête de la Musique event amid a brutal heatwave forecast to push temperatures above 40C.

Level 1 or 2 heat alerts were issued on Sunday for about 53 million people, just over 75% of the population. A record 35 of the country’s 96 mainland departments were put on danger-to-life red alert, with another 45 under an orange warning.

France’s ecology minister, Mathieu Lefèvre, said on Sunday that 14 more departments would be on red alert on Monday. “We do not see temperatures falling before the end of the week,” he said, demanding “great prudence and a great many precautions”.

The national meteorological service Météo-France said: “Very high temperatures are setting in for the long term,” with a heatwave of “exceptional severity and duration” likely to break monthly and possibly all-time records.

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One morning early last July, Micha Bitsinnie arrived at work to an onslaught of messages from confused families.

New Mexico’s governor Michelle Lujan Grisham had just issued a directive mandating the state’s child welfare department seek custody of all newborns who had been exposed to drugs and alcohol in utero. Some parents wondered whether medications that they were taking for addiction recovery, such as methadone, would flag their cases. Healthcare providers wondered whether the fentanyl in an epidural counted as a drug exposure.

Bitsinnie supports families as a policy manager at the non-profit organization Bold Futures, which advocates for policies that keep families together. Research shows that children prenatally exposed to substances do best when they can remain in their families and receive supportive services to treat any withdrawal symptoms they experience.

Bitsinnie is also a member of the Navajo nation, and she immediately noticed that the new directive appeared to be in tension with laws protecting the sovereignty of New Mexico’s Native tribes. Those laws stipulate that tribes must be immediately notified about a child welfare case involving a Native child so that they can take jurisdiction of cases involving their citizens.

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Hikers along Southern California's Pacific Crest Trail have been smacked with fast-spreading cases of a "winter vomiting disease" – and they aren't the only ones.

east two dozen hikers have fallen ill along the trail near Wrightwood in the San Gabriel Mountains of San Bernardino County over the last two weeks, according to the Victorville Daily Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, resulting in at least one air rescue. All are believed to have norovirus, a gastrointestinal illness that causes unpleasant symptoms.

While the hikers may be in one of the less ideal situations to contend with an illness known for causing vomiting and diarrhea, California is not the only home to a current outbreak.

Data from WastewaterSCAN, a Stanford University-led tool that tracks disease presence by testing wastewater samples nationwide, categorized norovirus activity as "high" and on an upward trend nationwide in late May. Norovirus was in 100% of samples taken in May, and concentrations were especially high in the Northeast and Midwest.

The latest CDC data from the National Respiratory and Enteric Virus Surveillance System also showed a recent, multi-week increase in cases after a sharp seasonal decline beginning in March. About 11.2% of administered norovirus tests came back positive the week ending April 28, while 12% did so the week ending May 2.

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