On Thursday, The Washington Postreported that officials at the Department of Homeland Security used a system designed to collect intelligence on terrorists, to surveil journalists covering the civil rights protests and subsequent clashes with federal law enforcement in Portland, Oregon.
"Over the past week, the department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis has disseminated three Open Source Intelligence Reports to federal law enforcement agencies and others, summarizing tweets written by two journalists — a reporter for The New York Times and the editor in chief of the blog Lawfare — and noting they had published leaked, unclassified documents about DHS operations in Portland," reported Shane Harris. "The intelligence reports, obtained by The Washington Post, include written descriptions and images of the tweets and the number of times they had been liked or retweeted by others."
"Some of the leaked DHS documents the journalists posted and wrote about revealed shortcomings in the department’s understanding of the nature of the protests in Portland, as well as techniques that intelligence analysts have used," continued the report. "A memo by the department’s top intelligence official, which was tweeted by the editor of Lawfare, says personnel relied on 'FINTEL,' an acronym for financial intelligence, as well as finished intelligence 'Baseball cards' of arrested protesters to try to understand their motivations and plans. Historically, military and intelligence officials have used such cards for biographical dossiers of suspected terrorists, including those targeted in lethal drone strikes."
The federal agents' arrival in Portland stirred nationwide controversy, as some protesters were arrested and put in unmarked vans. A recent report suggested DHS is working to train these officers to avoid violating protesters' First Amendment rights.
The Lincoln Project, the group of top former GOP strategists seeking to remove Donald Trump and his supporters from office, has released a new video for the 2020 presidential campaign.
The video is not a 30 or 60-second ad as is traditional in elections but is a short film that lasts over six minutes.
Directed by Jon Turteltaub, the video imagines a young Republican waking up from a three-year coma and being updated by his family about Trump illegally paying off a porn star, Mexico not paying for the wall, Trump praising white nationalists after the fatal Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally and his administration's failed response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“It would be funny if it wasn’t so true,” Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson said. “Republican Senators are doing the same mental gymnastics to justify their support of Trump. But no one is laughing.”
On Thursday, The New York Times editorial board tore into Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for his inaction on a new round of coronavirus stimulus, which has ensured the $600 a week supplemental unemployment benefits will lapse on Friday and millions of Americans will teeter on the brink of financial ruin.
"Congress needs to extend the emergency aid programs that were created in March to help Americans endure a broad suspension of economic activity. Instead, even as the pandemic rages on, Congress is allowing those aid programs to expire," wrote the board. "[The] payments end this week, even as unemployment remains at a level last experienced during the Great Depression. The federal government also is ending a moratorium on evictions, as well as a program that provides aid to small businesses."
"The abject failure to act is not the fault of Congress in a collective sense," wrote the board. "House Democrats passed a serviceable aid bill more than two months ago. Responsibility for the current debacle rests specifically and squarely on the shoulders of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, and the other 52 Senate Republicans."
"From the moment Congress passed the last big coronavirus aid bill, in March, it has been a matter of public record that the aid was going to end in August," continued the board. "For a time, there was reason to hope that the worst of the pandemic could be over by now, too. But it has been clear for weeks that the United States has failed to control the pandemic and that many Americans still would need economic aid beyond July. Yet Mr. McConnell and his caucus chose to spend the summer confirming federal judges rather than confronting the crisis."
And even now that the deadline is here, McConnell is holding his ground and demanding poison pills in the stimulus, like near-total lawsuit immunity for corporations that expose employees to coronavirus. Meanwhile, the board noted, "Mr. McConnell put forward a proposal on Monday that included billions of dollars for new F-35 jet fighters, but not a penny in aid for state and local governments."
"President Trump is not helping," concluded the board. "But Mr. Trump is not a member of the Senate. He does not have the power to prevent Senate Republicans from doing their jobs. That responsibility is theirs alone."
On Thursday, The Daily Beast reported that a guard at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Virginia kneeled on the neck of a man in custody who was bleeding from the head — and that the man has mysteriously disappeared.
"Since the incident on Monday, July 13, the detained men said that they have not seen the beaten man, identified as 31-year old Carlos Rivas Monsano," reported Spencer Ackerman. "'Right now, we don’t know where he is,' a second detainee, whom The Daily Beast will call Jerry, said on Monday. A third detainee gave a similar account."
Yet another detainee who wished to remain anonymous said, "It was like seeing George Floyd all over again," referring to the Black man who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on his neck for almost nine minutes.
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reviewing the incident," said a spokesperson. "ICE takes very seriously, allegations of misconduct in our detention facilities. We hold our personnel and contractors to the highest standards of professional and ethical behavior. When we receive a complaint, we investigate the matter thoroughly to determine its veracity and to ensure that the comprehensive standards, which ICE is required to follow under various national detention standards, are being strictly maintained.”
The former chair of the Republican National Committee had harsh words for followers of President Donald Trump after the passing of Herman Cain.
Cain attended Trump's controversial rally in Tulsa that was held in defiance of public health guidelines and subsequently died of COVID-19.
"Look, Herman Cain was a buddy of mine," Steele said. "I appreciated every moment I got to spend with him and my heart goes out to him and his family for this loss."
"The reality of it is for those who don't think this is serious, those who think this is some made-up China virus that was imported into the country, you know, live in that bubble and you will die in that bubble. That's all that can be said."
"Folks, we cannot -- we cannot stop you from being stupid," he continued. "We put the information out there. We've tried to educate and inform. We've got the best and brightest scientists in the country summarily dismissed by this administration and particularly the president. You know what the realities are, you've had family members and friends that have been sick and dying since it began. I can't help your stupidity at this point, that's your risk, it won't be mine."
On Thursday, The Daily Beast reported that sailors aboard the USS George H. W. Bush carrier are facing a new outbreak of COVID-19.
"A 'small number' of sailors on the USS George H.W. Bush have contracted COVID-19, according to a Naval Air Force Atlantic spokeswoman," reported Madeline Charbonneau. "The crew members who have the virus were sent home to isolate and will be receiving medical support, Commander Jennifer Cragg said. Those still on board the ship are taking precautionary measures including wearing personal protective equipment and social distancing."
So far, over 9,000 sailors have been diagnosed with coronavirus. One of the early outbreaks, on the USS Theodore Roosevelt, caused controversy after Capt. Brett Crozier was relieved of command for the leak of a letter warning that his sailors were in danger.
A blood test to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease moved closer to reality this week after new findings were announced at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on July 29, 2020. The test showed extremely high accuracy – around 90% – for detecting chemicals in the blood that are specific for Alzheimer’s.
Those who treat patients with Alzheimer’s say that the tests need only a bit higher level of accuracy before they can be used clinically, which could be in two to three years. This breakthrough could perhaps allow doctors to not only identify symptomatic patients with the disease, but also to identify people with no symptoms who are at risk of developing the disease, and thus begin interventions.
While blood tests have been slowly increasing their diagnostic accuracy, the new blood test – analyzing the amount of a brain protein, p-217, in the blood – appears to be accurate in over 90% of cases in a study looking at blood samples from people with definite Alzheimer’s disease. Accuracy rates of other tests will likely increase over time. But this result shows that a breakthrough test is indeed possible. Before the tests are available to the public through FDA approval, we’ll need another two to three years to complete the studies.
As researcherswho have spent our professional lives studying this disease and treating patients with it, we think this news is especially important. It represents a significant leap forward in our ability to use peripheral blood tests for detection of Alzheimer’s and possibly as a marker of effectiveness in developing medical treatments. Here is why.
Testing a suspected Alzheimer’s patient for biomarkers isn’t easy or cheap.
Just one year ago, we wrote a piece for The Conversation on blood tests for Alzheimer’s disease, ending it with the hope that several promising blood tests would soon emerge as accurate and specific. Now, it appears they have. The tests have been centered on the ability to test for either beta amyloid or tau, the characteristic proteins that are deposited in the brain in Alzheimer’s disease, and the tau tests lagged behind the beta amyloid tests. Now tau testing has jumped into the lead.
Until the early 1990s, with the routine use of brain MRI scans, it was difficult to be certain whether a person with cognitive loss had Alzheimer’s. Even the best neurologists would get the diagnosis wrong about one in four times. MRIs increased accuracy; it could show vascular disease and atrophy characteristic of Alzheimer’s or other dementias, but could not confirm the diagnosis with certainty. Diagnosis was even harder in people over 80, where the changes in thinking and memory with aging were not always easy to separate from early Alzheimer’s symptoms, and normal age-related atrophy made differentiation from disease-based brain shrinkage more difficult.
And it was not unusual to find, following autopsy, that someone diagnosed clinically with Alzheimer’s disease had another neurodegenerative disease, disease related to blood vessels in the brain, or some combination of these.
Although the accuracy of an Alzheimer’s diagnosis has improved over the decades, it is still difficult.
Over the last two decades, however, the medical field has made progress in detecting the disease by identifying specific diagnostic biomarkers, or biological signs of disease. MRI scans helped by showing shrinkage of the areas of the brain that underlie memory. But they are not specific for Alzheimer’s.
Two key biomarkers, amyloid protein, found in plaques, and tau protein, found in tangles, became the targets outside of the brain tissue itself, since their presence in the brain defines the disease.
With the identification of these biomarkers, doctors could test patients to see if either amyloid or tau, or both, were abnormal in patients in whom they suspected Alzheimer’s. But the testing has not been easy or cheap.
One way was a spinal tap, whereby doctors could obtain cerebro-spinal fluid, the fluid around your brain and spine, and measure levels of tau and amyloid, which change if the disease is present. While doctors consider this procedure safe and routine, it is not a favorite among patients.
Another method involves imaging the brain using a positron emission tomography (PET) scan following administration of compounds (amyloid or tau “tracers”) that bind one of the proteins that accumulates in the Alzheimer brain. The amyloid scans came first, about 15 years ago, and revolutionized research in Alzheimer’s; tau scans have been developed over the past several years, and reveal neurofibrillary tangles on the PET scans. Although extremely safe, individual PET scans are expensive – typically from US$3,000 up – and Medicare does not pay for them.
The impact of these advances is huge, especially in research and clinical trials, where maximum likelihood of the right diagnosis is required. But the medical community badly needs a more convenient, less expensive, less “invasive” way to diagnose Alzheimer’s. Enter … a blood test.
A new target, and an exciting test emerges
For years, efforts to find such an easily obtainable Alzheimer’s diagnostic biomarker in the blood came up empty – they were not accurate enough.
A major reason for inconsistency of the prior reports was the extremely small amounts of these protein fragments in the blood. The tests have to be sensitive enough to detect either amyloid or tau, and be accurate enough that the blood level changes occurring in people with Alzheimer’s can be clearly different from those of non-affected people.
New blood test could aid in early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.
Now, several publications and presentations at the recent Alzheimer’s Association International Conference have demonstrated that blood tests measuring amyloid and tau proteins have become much more sensitive and accurate enough to allow their possible future use as routine aids in Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis.
These various tests are at different stages of validation – assuring they’re accurate across many different patient populations. And, for each protein, there are several different methods for making the blood measurements. However, the research community is excited about the possibilities.
And one new tau blood test appears to meet a number of criteria necessary.
To be useful, the tests have to be nearly perfect predictors. Many aren’t there yet; so far, they seem to get it right up to over 85% of the time. And the accuracy will be very important if they’re to be used to screen people for positive tests and enter those people into clinical trials.
The newest blood assay for the tau protein, developed to look for a different site on the tau molecule than other tau tests, has now emerged with the highest accuracy yet – with data from three different large populations of patients.
In these studies, the sensitivity – or the ability to detect the disease when it is really there – and the specificity – negative test in people who do not have Alzheimer’s – were above 90% to 95%. It even detected elevated tau in the blood of people who had the disease in their brains but had not yet had any symptoms, identifying people at risk for the disease to enroll in trials to prevent the disease. It is the result of advances in the technology of the assays, or analysis techniques, and the collaboration of researchers to provide blood samples from proven Alzheimer’s cases.
These tests mark real progress. Cost-effective screening and diagnostic tests will help us reach our goal of finding novel treatments that can better treat the clinical symptoms of Alzheimer’s or delay its development, or both.
This article is updated from an original version, which was published Aug. 7, 2019.
Steven DeKosky, Deputy Director, McKnight Brain Institute, Aerts-Cosper Professor of Alzheimer’s Research, and Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience, University of Florida and Todd Golde, Director, Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute Director, 1Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Professor, Department of Neuroscience, College of Medicine University of Florida, University of Florida
At Thursday's coronavirus press briefing, President Donald Trump was asked if he stands by his tweet that he might have to delay the election over mail-in voting — which he has no power to do. Trump disavowed the tweet, saying "I don't want to delay, I want to have the election," but went on a long rant once again attacking mail-in voting and falsely claiming it will lead to widespread fraud.
He complained that there were problems with the voting system in New York, and "I don't want to wait months, really, if you potentially did it right, years ... these ballots go missing." He added that "you may never even know" who won the election if we proceed with mail-in ballots.
He added that "We talk about Russia, Russia, Russia," and investigators "found nothing" on him, but fraudulently voting is "much easier" — which is completely untrue on multiple levels. And he also claimed that his own use of mail-in ballots to vote in Florida is fine because, "absentee is different, you have to work for applications." (There is no legal distinction between mail-in and absentee ballots.)
A shocking Vanity Fair expose revealed that Jared Kushner's heartless coronavirus plan put politics ahead of the lives of Americans.
Those working with Kushner on a COVID-19 response plan "were given the strong impression that it would soon be shared with President [Donald] Trump and announced by the White House. The plan, though imperfect, was a starting point."
A participant in the group said that the idea was to work together as a nation, which “would have put us in a fundamentally different place."
As COVID-19 ravaged California, Washington, New York and other northeastern areas, however, things began to change in the White House.
"Trusting his vaunted political instincts, President Trump had been downplaying concerns about the virus and spreading misinformation about it—efforts that were soon amplified by Republican elected officials and right-wing media figures," said Vanity Fair. "Worried about the stock market and his reelection prospects, Trump also feared that more testing would only lead to higher case counts and more bad publicity. Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, was reportedly sharing models with senior staff that optimistically—and erroneously, it would turn out—predicted the virus would soon fade away."
The problem with Birx estimations was likely from the assumption that people would continue to stay inside, stay away from each other and wear masks. It's what managed to get numbers in the country down and keep them down until Memorial Day weekend. As things seemed like they were getting better, Trump's team was losing interest in a large-scale effort, a public health expert in contact with the White House told Vanity Fair.
"Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically," said the report.
“The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” the expert told Vanity Fair. “It was very clear that Jared was ultimately the decision-maker as to what [plan] was going to come out."
It seemed to be the way the administration went, because on April 27, Trump celebrated big commercial testing labs and shifted responsibility to the states.
But the virus didn't stay in the blue states. As predicted, it quickly spread to red states where governors claimed all was well and refused to pause reopening efforts.
Big Tech firms delivered robust results Thursday, highlighting the lifeline they have provided during the pandemic as well as their extraordinary economic power which was the subject of an intense congressional hearing a day earlier.
The results from Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google parent Alphabet -- ironically the same firms whose chief executives were in the spotlight at an antitrust hearing in Congress this week -- were largely better than expected.
The reports illustrated the importance of social networks, digital content and connected devices to pandemic-hit consumers while also delivering gains to shareholders of the Big Tech firms.
Apple profits rose eight percent to $11.2 billion and revenues were up 11 percent to $59.7 billion in the three months ending June 27.
The California tech giant saw a modest increase in iPhone sales, with more significant rise for accessories and services such as its apps and digital content.
"In uncertain times, this performance is a testament to the important role our products play in our customers' lives and to Apple's relentless innovation," chief executive Tim Cook said.
Amazon meanwhile said profits nearly doubled to $5.2 billion on sales that climbed 40 percent to $88.9 billion.
"This was another highly unusual quarter, and I couldn't be more proud of and grateful to our employees around the globe," said Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos.
Amid rising sales in its grocery, video and cloud computing operations, Amazon has told investors it expects to spend all its profits this year on costs related to keeping employees and customers safe during the pandemic.
- 'Challenging times' -
Facebook said its profits doubled as well compared with the same period last year, when it paid a hefty fine to US regulators, to $5.2 billion.
Revenue rose 11 percent to $18.7 billion, suggesting minimal impact from an ad boycott of the leading social network over its handling of hateful content and misinformation.
"We're glad to be able to provide small businesses the tools they need to grow and be successful online during these challenging times," said Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, as Facebook said its core social network grew to 2.7 billion while its total audience including its "family" of apps had more than 3.1 billion users.
Alphabet reported a rare drop in revenue and profit in a quarterly update that nonetheless topped market expectations.
Profit slumped some 30 percent to $6.96 billion from a year for the online giant that relies on digital advertising for most of its income.
Revenues dipped two percent to $38 billion, as chief financial officer Ruth Porat said: "We continue to navigate through a difficult global economic environment."
Alphabet shares edged up slightly in after-market trades following the release, while the other firms showed stronger share increases.
In Washington on Wednesday, the CEOs of the four tech firms faced an onslaught of criticism from US lawmakers at an antitrust hearing which could lay the groundwork for tougher regulation of the major internet platforms.
On Thursday, Politico reported that Democratic lawmakers became aware that Andrii Derkach, a Ukrainian lawmaker with pro-Kremlin sympathies, was trying to ship dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden to Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), because of a DHL shipping label.
"During a closed-door business meeting of the panel on Wednesday — a transcript of which was made publicly available Thursday — Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) pressed Nunes about news reports indicating that he was one of several GOP lawmakers who was delivered packets of information from Derkach containing allegations about Biden in December 2019," reported Kyle Cheney. "Derkach has confirmed that he sent the packages to Nunes, as well as Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)."
"That evidence, according to committee officials, is in the form of a DHL shipping receipt that was sent to the Intelligence Committee’s majority office shortly after the package was sent to Nunes," continued the report. "The officials say they sought to access the materials from Nunes at the time but that he never agreed to share them."
Nunes has declined to tell reporters whether he ever actually received the package, or what, if anything, he did with it.
According to the report, the package, which was discovered around the time the impeachment trial was underway, led to Democratic staff filing a report with the FBI.
On Thursday, The Daily Beast reported that South Carolina officials are hastily constructing tent hospitals to temporarily increase health care capacity for the COVID-19 surge in the state.
"In the parking lot of Regional Medical Center in Orangeburg, South Carolina, construction workers have been working around the clock to erect a series of inflatable white and blue medical tents as doctors inside scramble to contain the wave of coronavirus patients," reported Pilar Melendez. "The rural hospital, which serves a population twice the size of Rhode Island, is nearly full, forcing officials to ask the National Guard to erect the state’s first field hospital, comprising four tents to provide overflow capacity for at least a dozen virus patients at a time."
"Meanwhile, Gov. Henry McMaster this week announced a slew of businesses could reopen," continued the report. "Festivals, concerts, movie theaters, stadiums, gymnasiums, concert halls, performing arts centers, parks, and racetracks can reopen at 50 percent capacity."
So far, over 85,000 people have tested positive for coronavirus in South Carolina, and 1,551 people have died.
