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People in the New York neighbourhood where Donald Trump grew up know only too well that COVID-19 doesn't discriminate.

In six months more than 33,000 people have died with the virus in New York and more than 6,000 in the borough of Queens - the city's worst-hit area.

Elmhurst Hospital in Queens was at the epicentre of New York's outbreak. The scenes were described by staff as apocalyptic. It was so overwhelmed with patients that refrigerated lorries were brought in to store the dead.

Perhaps little surprise there was a sense of frustration from hospital staff to news the president has tested positive.

"He's acting like he's immune, like he's a superhero. He's a normal regular person," said healthcare worker Angel Candelario. "America's supposed to consider itself a superpower. Right now, it doesn't look like it."

This has all come at a deeply testing and tense time for America, and just a month from the presidential election. The country has lost more people than anywhere else in the world to COVID-19 - more than 207,000 lives, accounting for more than 20% of global deaths.

You don't need to go far in Queens to meet someone who has lost a loved one to COVID-19 - and many lost patience with the president's handling of the crisis months ago.

"It's very scary. He should have found a safer way and used his mask," said hospital worker Audrey Murphy. "If the president has COVID, it gives a bad outlook for everybody else.

"I lost a lot of people that I work with and friends and family. And I just think it should have been handled in a better way."

The president politicised face masks early on in the pandemic, only endorsing them four months into the crisis. Even then he has only personally been seen in public two or three time wearing a mask - instead, he opts for daily testing and has often referred to himself as the most tested person in America. But testing doesn't protect from the virus.

Now, Mr Trump's diagnosis undermines his positive spin on the pandemic and a core message of his election campaign that America is through the worst of the pandemic.

What will be telling is how his positive test is received by swathes of Americans who believe the threat of coronavirus is being exaggerated to hamper his re-election.

Len Swanson first met Sky News at an anti-masking rally in Texas. He calls himself the face of the resistance to coronavirus measures and is unconcerned by the president's illness.

"Yes your prime minister got sick but he's not Donald Trump," Mr Swanson told Sky News.

"Donald Trump has kept himself in better health conditions than your prime minister did. We're not concerned with our president. I know he's got the same attitude and resolve as I do.

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"He is right now conducting meetings. He's on Zoom meetings. He's on the telephone now. He's not sitting in bed. He's being the president... It's a hoax. It's a virus, yes, but it has been politicised as a weapon to strike fear in order to try to derail the Trump government."

The reality is we don't know what Mr Trump is doing right now. This is a narrative some of his supporters want to believe - that coronavirus is a hoax and that the commander in chief is still actively at the helm running the country from quarantine. In the coming weeks the reality could be very different if the president's health deteriorates.

This is a crucial moment in the election cycle - and one of the most testing years in American history. The president's health has now thrown the country into yet more uncertainty.

The rest is here:
Donald Trump's coronavirus diagnosis: Americans react with anger, frustration and lack of concern - Sky News

Sounding, at first, a little like Dante from Clerks, Stephen Colbert opened Friday nights monologue reminding us he wasnt even supposed to be there. (The show rarely tapes on Friday.) But the Late Show host rose to the challenge of remaining funny and maintaining opposition to Donald Trump without seeming indecent after news broke of the president testing positive for coronavirus.

His 12-minute monologue does get some zings in, but only after a while. He opened with a wink-free declaration that this is a serious moment for our nation, and we all wish the President and the First Lady of the United States a speedy and a full recovery. He then pivoted to soft targets, like Texas politician and former physician to the president Ronny Jackson for his weird tweet about comorbities and Trump being asymptotic.

Colbert slowly allowed himself to get a little angry over images of Trump in the presence of servicemen and operators of Marine One. With a lighter-than-usual touch, Colbert began outlining how Trumps negligence continues to put innocent people in harms way.

Considering just how much news erupted on Friday, Colberts monologue was an important reminder of some key facts. One such item is that Trumps key aide Hope Hicks was feeling ill on Wednesday, and Trump knew of her diagnosis by Thursday morning, but no one thought to alert people who had been in her presence. Indeed, White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany, who had been in contact with Hicks, led her daily press conference, maskless, without any knowledge of her potential exposure.

Colbert also reminded that Trump attended his Bedminster, New Jersey fundraiser aware of his exposure to Hicks. Many people may become sick, but at least we got to hear the late night hosts Thurston Howell III impression.

He wrapped it up (after mentioning the 30,500 percent spike in searches for the word schadenfreude) by once again wishing the president well, mostly because it is important that the most powerful man on the planet be in his best possible condition, for all of our sakes.

Where to Watch The Late Show:

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Stephen Colbert Takes the High Road on Donald Trumps COVID Comeuppance - Vanity Fair

For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.

If your morning (or late night) was anything like mine, it was consumed with speculation about what it means that the president has tested positive for coronavirus. Thats a natural impulse, and cable hosts and social media pundits will continue obsessing over the tiniest clues from a White House that has consistently revealed too little, too late.

But what has stuck with me this morning is the point my colleague David Corns makes herethat were dealing with two diseases: Coronavirus, and disinformation.

One of the best weapons to deploy against a killer virus is accurate informationthat is, the truth, David writes. If the public is fully and well informed about the dangers and the best counter-measures, the better the chances this threat can be arrested. Instead, the president is one of the worlds leading disinformation agents. And given that Trump has demonstrated he will do practically anything to win reelectionbelittle a pandemic, appeal to racism, encourage confrontation and possible violence, make false charges of voting fraud, use Russian disinformation, debase the discourse, place his own supporters at risk, and crassly exploit the White House and US government agenciesthere is no reason to expect he will be honest with the voters about any aspect of the White House coronavirus crisis.

David is rightand one of the grimmest aspects of this moment is that the victims of Trumps denialism, already numbering in the millions, now include the president himself. In the coronavirus, Donald Trump has met his matcha reality that wont budge to alternative facts. The virus isnt susceptible to bullying, lying, or gaslighting, instead it thrives on all of these. You can call public health policy a hoax and masks oppressive, you can muzzle the scientists and rhapsodize about how it goes away. The virus doesnt care.

The president hasnt had a lot of experiences like that. His enablers and his own narcissism have always worked to create a bubble of self-serving fictions for him, a bubble rarely pierced by reality. In Trumps alternate universe, the pandemic is under control, and the biggest threat to Americans were antifa super-soldiers and low-income housing marring the lives of suburban housewives. In that world, only one thing is consistent: Whatever the problem, only Donald Trump can solve it.

But the virus doesnt care. And every once in a while, weve seen Trump catch a glimpse of that. Thats the voice you hear on the Bob Woodward tapes: The germaphobe president riffing about how you dont have to touch things, but the air? You just breathe the air, thats how its passed, and so thats a very tricky one.

Those words have a grim resonance now. Trump has not shown compassion for the hundreds of thousands of Americans killed by a pandemic he could have done much to thwart. But that doesnt mean compassion must be denied him. As he battles the illness, we can wish him a speedy recovery. But we can also not forget the lethal consequences of his actions for so many others who have not had access to the kind of care he will receive.

Theres one thing you can count on at this confusing moment: Mother Jones journalists like David will be on the job, unfazed by the chaos of the headlines, focused on cutting through the fog of disinformation. Well keep you posted as we can. Meanwhile, please, please, stay safe and well.

See the article here:
In the Coronavirus, Donald Trump Has Met His Matcha Reality That Won't Budge to Alternative Facts - Mother Jones

BRUSSELS (AP) A top European Union official dealing with the United Kingdom said Tuesday that a cliff-edge rupture between the two without even a basic trade deal by the end of the year is becoming more likely by the day.

European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic told the European Parliament that time is short to reach a deal before a Brexit divorce transition period ends by years end, effectively giving negotiators less than four weeks to broker a deal which must subsequently go through a lengthy approval process.

And he pointed his finger at British Prime Minister Boris Johnson for making things even more difficult when he decided last month to introduce a bill that breaches the legally binding Withdrawal Agreement it struck with the bloc to make sure it could leave on Jan. 31.

Sefcovic said it made Britain less trustworthy and called the plans a heavy blow to the British signature and reliability. Respecting agreements is first a matter of law, but also of trust and in good faith.

He said the plans left the EU with no choice but to launch legal action against Britain. If passed into law, the Internal Market Bill would undermine the EUs previously agreed oversight of trade to and from Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K and shares a border with EU member Ireland.

The bloc is furious that Britain plans to breach portions of the withdrawal treaty that were put in place to maintain an open Irish border, which has underpinned peace since Northern Irelands 1998 Good Friday accord.

Sefcovic said the EU would never change anything to the Brexit divorce deal.

The full and timely implementation of the withdrawal agreement is simply not debatable, he told the European Parliament.

Under such adversarial conditions, negotiators from both sides continue to look for common ground to broker a rudimentary trade deal to avoid a barrage of uncertainty, tariffs and red tape that would hurt economies on both sides when the transition window ends on Jan. 1.

But while negotiators have inched close to agreement in many areas during six months of talks, they remain deadlocked over European fishing boats access to U.K. waters, and over the level of support governments can give to industry. The EU is concerned that British plans to subsidize sectors such as technology will amount to unfair competition.

More here:
EU says that no-deal Brexit becoming ever more likely - Associated Press

Europol, the European Unions law enforcement agency, warnsthat cybercrime has spiked over the past year in large part due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Europols findings were detailed in its annual Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment, released Monday. The assessment highlighted ransomware attacks,such asthose targeting health care organizations, as one of the most persistent cyber threats during the pandemic, including attacks involving hackers threatening to auction off data if a ransom is not paid.

The distribution of child abuse material online has also increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, including livestreaming of sexual abuse. Other concerns have involved SIM swapping, in which the hackertakes over a SIM card on the individuals phone to intercept a two-factor authentication code, and the increased use of the dark web for criminal activities.

Ransomware in particular remains a priority threat encountered by cyber investigators across the EU, Europol Executive Director Catherine De Bolle wrote in an introduction to the report. The amount of online child sexual abuse material detected continues to increase, further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had serious consequences for the investigative capacity of law enforcement authorities.

Phishing emails and online scams have increased, with Europol noting that cyber criminals are increasingly targeting the vulnerable online during the pandemic and that disinformation has become easier to spread during the period of uncertainty.

Users become vulnerable and receptive to disinformation and fake news due to the paradoxical oversaturation with available information combined with a perceived lack of trustworthy sources of news that reinforce some of the users preconceived notions and beliefs, Europol wrote in the report. Disinformation can also be linked to cybercrime in efforts to make social engineering and phishing attacks more impactful.

Edvardas ileris, head of the European Cybercrime Centre, said in a statement that the report is an essential resource for EUs law enforcement and policy makers, emphasizing that cybercrime is an evolution, not a revolution.

Europols report was released the same day Interpol, an international law enforcement agency, launched a new campaign to warn individuals of ongoing online cyber crime, highlighting phishing emails, ransomware and online crimes against children as key threats.

Even the most Internet-savvy person can fall for a cybercriminals tricks, so its important that everyone keeps their guard up when navigating the virtual world, Craig Jones,Interpol's director of cyber crime, said in a statement.

Cyber threats have increased around the globe during the pandemic, with health care groups and other organizations involved in responding to COVID-19 particularly targeted.

Microsoftreported last week that COVID-themed attacks were targeting health care and vaccine research groups, with attacks observed by at least 16 nation states actors.

The Treasury Department also warned of the dangers of ransomware attacks, which have become increasingly widespread over the past two years and have brought the city governments of Atlanta, Baltimore and New Orleans temporarily to their knees.

Link:
European Union police agency warns of increase in cybercrime due to pandemic | TheHill - The Hill