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Pope seeks to ''liberate" Virgin Mary from the Mafia

Pope Francis is giving his blessing to a new Vatican think tank that is seeking to prevent the Mafia and organized crime groups from exploiting the image of the Virgin Mary for their own illicit ends. The Vatican’s Pontifical Marian Academy launched the think tank Friday at a conference entitled “Liberating Mary from the Mafia.” It was a reference to the historic relationship between the Italian mob and the Catholic Church, and the popular displays of Marian devotion by mobsters in Italy and beyond. Fri, 18 Sep 2020 06:57:33 -0400

EU watchdog paves way for dexamethasone use in COVID-19 treatment

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) on Friday concluded in its review of results from a trial by British scientists that the drug could be an option to treat adults and adolescents needing oxygen therapy or mechanical ventilation. Gilead's antiviral drug, remdesivir, was the first to be approved for COVID-19 by Europe in July, a month after the EMA endorsed the drug. Fri, 18 Sep 2020 06:38:53 -0400

Justice Department explored possibility of charging Portland officials amid unrest

A department spokesperson declined to comment on the status or whether charges would be brought. Fri, 18 Sep 2020 06:19:28 -0400

Trump, Biden to campaign in Minnesota as early voting begins

Trump, who trails Biden in national polls, is playing offense in Minnesota in a bid to capture the state he narrowly lost to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 while winning neighboring Wisconsin. Biden's polling advantage underscores the extent to which the current electoral map favors the former vice president. Fri, 18 Sep 2020 06:08:39 -0400

Burps to burgers: food companies wrangle climate-warming cattle emissions

Looking to improve milk production, California farmer John Verwey turned to a Swiss-made feed additive designed to make a cow more efficient while reducing methane emissions from cattle burps. The more a cow belches, the more it spends energy that could be used instead for milk production, Verwey reasoned. Nestle SA and chocolate producer Barry Callebaut have partnered with startup Agolin, while in July, Restaurant Brands International started serving burgers made from less gassy cattle at several U.S. Burger King restaurants. Fri, 18 Sep 2020 06:03:46 -0400

What are the Fed's new hurdles for rate hikes? Only the Fed knows

It may be years before the economy reaches any of those hurdles, let alone all three, fresh forecasts released by the Fed on Wednesday suggest. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the economy was a "long way" from meeting this test and that he would "love" to get back to the pre-crisis unemployment rate of 3.5% or lower, from 8.4% now. Fri, 18 Sep 2020 06:03:33 -0400

Masks may offer better protection against COVID-19 than any potential vaccine: Experts

As America waits for a COVID-19 vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's director Robert Redfield said we all might be better protected by simply continuing to wear masks. It was not the first time Trump has cast doubt on the CDC's mask recommendations. Fri, 18 Sep 2020 06:02:00 -0400

The police protection racket

For the last several months, there has been an ongoing debate about police reform in this country. Some people argue the police should be defunded or even abolished, while others argue they actually should get more money.However, there is a separate problem with police that has so far gotten less attention — the lawless, thuggish politics of police departments as they currently exist. For weeks it has been clear that police departments in many cities are conducting a deliberate work slowdown for political reasons. They are upset at being criticized for violent brutality, and they are deliberately trying to incite a crime wave — and in some cities, it appears to be working.No matter where one stands on the police reform debate, this kind of behavior should be absolutely intolerable. The police cannot be allowed to act as a protection racket.One major example seems to be Minneapolis, where the city council is currently debating proposals to drastically reform its police department, and the cops are apparently fighting back by trying to turn the city into The Purge. Brandt Williams of MPR News recently reported on a city council meeting where members grilled the police chief about why "their constituents are seeing and hearing street racing which sometimes results in crashes, brazen daylight carjackings, robberies, assaults and shootings." Both violence and property crime are up compared to 2019, and arson is up 55 percent. (The plague of arson is particularly suspicious, and some Minneapolis residents have been forced to organize de facto neighborhood protection squads on their own.) Council President Lisa Bender relayed constituent stories that "officers on the street have admitted that they're purposely not arresting people who are committing crimes," writes Williams.Now, it's not at all clear that police slowdowns always worsen crime. During a slowdown in New York last year, crime actually fell considerably. But it appears that under some circumstances crime will rise — in New York today, city officials have alleged that the NYPD is deliberately dragging its feet, and response times are indeed down while murders are up. (The NYPD sergeants union, in a display of the calm professionalism we have all come to expect from American law enforcement, called one critical New York councilman a "first class w****" on Twitter.) Baltimore has been in the grips of a major violent crime problem since the city's police basically quit even trying to solve serious crimes in 2015, in response to the Freddie Gray protests — indeed, some of them got in on the racket instead. In Atlanta in June, cops staged a "blue flu" sickout in response to an officer being charged with murder for the killing of Rayshard Brooks. (This sort of thing is tantamount to an illegal strike, and used to be routine in decades past.)We should be clear about what is happening here. There is a nationwide and entirely justified surge of outrage against police brutality and racism. Cops in these cities are responding by attempting collective punishment against the citizenry whose taxes pay their salaries and whose safety they are sworn to protect. In other words, it is a protection racket scheme. The message is: Say, anxious middle-class homeowners, nice neighborhood you have there. Sure would be a shame if violent hordes burned it to the ground. Better keep that in mind before you go about meddling in police business.Perhaps the most outrageous police challenge to democratic government is happening in Portsmouth, Virginia. There the police department has directly charged (which is possible to do in the state due to peculiar legal structures) the top Black member of the Virginia Senate, local NAACP officials, and other activists with felonies because they were present at a protest where a Confederate statue was pulled down after they left. The department has also attempted to keep the progressive local prosecutor out of the case by claiming she is a witness. (The police chief is currently on a leave of absence while the charges are being processed.) As Alex Pareene writes, it is a brazen attempt to topple elected representatives for criticizing the police and threatening their impunity.The implication of all these stories is clear. Any city with a case of protection-racket police should, at a minimum, start by abolishing the existing department entirely, and rebuilding from scratch. What replaces it can be a matter of debate, but whatever it is, the foundational organizing principle must be that the police are at all times subordinate to the elected government leadership.It's important to note that this is not so much about individuals as it is about organizational culture. There are many corrupt and lawless cops, and cops involved in straight-up organized crime, but these are the minority even in a pretty bad department. The real problem is that the police who aren't corrupt, or gangsters, or white supremacists, are unwilling or unable to rein in the ones who are. Probably the biggest reason for this is that almost every police department has established a powerful "blue wall of silence" social norm — the expectation that a cop should never, ever turn in or testify against another cop for any reason. This norm is reinforced through hazing, punishment, intimidation, and violence. Whistleblower cops can expect to be ostracized, placed on leave, fired, threatened, beaten, or shot.As the famous NYPD whistleblower Frank Serpico said about his efforts to expose stupendous police corruption way back in 1971:> I was made to feel that I had burdened [my supervisors] with an unwanted task. The problem is that the atmosphere does not yet exist in which an honest police officer can act without fear of ridicule or reprisal from fellow officers. We must create an atmosphere in which the dishonest officer fears the honest one and not the other way around. [New York Times]Now, as I have argued elsewhere, police reform cannot possibly be a complete solution to America's crime problem. We also have far too many guns, extreme inequality, and a threadbare welfare state that allows social problems to fester. But even in a country like this, we can at least demand the basics of democratic government from armed agents of the state.More stories from theweek.com How a productivity phenomenon explains the unraveling of America How the Trump-Russia story was buried The conservatives who want to undo the Enlightenment Fri, 18 Sep 2020 05:55:01 -0400

Danish prince "fine" for Paris post after blood clot surgery

Prince Joachim, the younger son of Queen Margrethe of Denmark who underwent an emergency surgery in France in July for a blood clot in his brain, said Friday he was “eager to get started” as he arrived for his first work day at the Danish Embassy in Paris. “I am fine,” Joachim told Danish broadcaster DR outside the Danish mission in the French capital where he will be defense attaché. The 51-year-old prince was to have started as defense attaché on Sept. 1 but it was postponed because of his condition. Fri, 18 Sep 2020 05:43:59 -0400

EU seals 2nd COVID-19 vaccine deal as deadline for WHO scheme looms

The European Union has agreed to buy a potential COVID-19 vaccine from Sanofi and GSK in its second such deal to secure supplies, as a deadline for joining the World Health Organization's (WHO) vaccine purchase programme looms. The deal will see the French and British drugmakers, which have teamed up to manufacture a recombinant protein-based vaccine they hope to get approved next year, provide the EU with up to 300 million doses, according to a tweet from European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides. In return for the right to the doses, the European Commission will finance part of the upfront costs faced by vaccine producers. Fri, 18 Sep 2020 05:36:53 -0400