NHLPA chief Fehr on players speaking out: ‘I’m really proud’ – Sportsnet.ca

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NHLPA chief Fehr on players speaking out: ‘I’m really proud’ – Sportsnet.ca

Don Fehr didn’t attend to his college graduation.

The shootings at Kent State — where Ohio National Guard troops opened fire on students peacefully protesting the Vietnam War — happened about a week before he was scheduled to receive his degree from Indiana University in the spring of 1970.

“I’m a child of the ’60s,” said Fehr, the executive director of the NHL Players’ Association. “I am a child of the civil rights movement. I am a child of the Vietnam War protests.”

The current demonstrations across the United States and around the world against police brutality following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis officer put a knee on his throat for nearly nine minutes, echo those turbulent times.

“These are issues which have always been important and fundamental and around which you need to make progress,” Fehr continued in a recent interview with The Canadian Press. “The hope is that in one fashion or another, the current state of events will result in that kind of progress, and meaningful progress being made.”

Historically not ones to speak up on any issue — let alone racism or social justice — a number of NHL players have added their voices to the call for change.

More than 100 have posted to social media about the protests, including Evander Kane and P.K. Subban, who are black, and some of the game’s other big names, like Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin, who are white. Some, like Blake Wheeler and Braden Holtby, have conducted heart-felt interviews, while Zdeno Chara and Tyler Seguin joined peaceful marches.

Fehr, who turns 72 next month, said it’s up to individuals to decide what to post, share or contribute. But he’s encouraged by what he’s seen.

“I’m really proud of the guys,” he said. “They understand it’s an important moment. They understand what the issues are, at least in the grand scope. And they’re making their voice heard. Not everybody, but quite a lot.

“And that’s to their credit.”

With the crucial caveat that the NHL resuming its season ranks far down the list of issues in a world first brought to a halt by the devastating COVID-19 pandemic and now gripped by mass protests demanding change, Fehr remains cautiously optimistic the league will be able to complete the 2019-20 campaign.

The NHL is set to begin Phase 2 of its overarching return-to-play protocol Monday when team facilities will be allowed to open and players can skate and work out in small, voluntary groups — while observing a laundry list of strict health and safety guidelines.

The league and NHLPA, who also need to agree on a new collective bargaining agreement or an extension to the current deal before September 2022, hope to then open training camps sometime after July 10, which would be Phase 3, before resuming the season with Phase 4 later that month or in early August.

The NHL has unveiled a 24-team format that would likely see the Stanley Cup awarded in the fall, but everything from testing to safety to where the games will be played still has to be negotiated.

“There’s a lot of work to do,” Fehr said. “The Phase 3 and 4 protocols, like Phase 2, are detail-intensive, but they also involve more people in the same area more frequently, so you have to pay a lot more attention.

“We both have public health doctors and in our own doctors on staff, and they’re gonna tell us when we go astray.”

Fehr said his members, who remain mostly scattered across North America and Europe since the season was paused March 12, have plenty of questions.

“They want to make sure they understand what the plan is and why it is that way,” he said. “They want assurance that not only have the maximum efforts been made to keep them safe, but they don’t want to inadvertently take something back to their families.

“And they want to make sure they have enough time to get back, to train, to get ready so that when the game starts, leading to the eventual awarding of the Cup, that there’ll be real games that will be as intense as you would like.”

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has described the relationship between the league and players during the pandemic as “collaborative” on more than one occasion, but Fehr prefers not to use that adjective.

“What I can say is this: we’re faced with a common problem, which arose entirely outside the ordinary labour-management relationship, and we can’t resolve this by ourselves,” he said. “There are things we don’t know, and there are things we can’t know about the future.”

The main unknown being whether or not government and health officials will even allow hockey to resume this summer under the NHL’s plan to host teams in two as-yet-unnamed hub cities without fans.

“There is … a common recognition we’re dealing with something entirely out of the ordinary, and we’ve got to figure out a way to deal with it,” Fehr said. “It’s not something we caused. It’s not something that the NHL caused. It’s not something which began as a fight over economics or likely will end there, although the adverse economic consequences of the pandemic are clearly going to have to be addressed.”

And those could be massive.

“If we can’t complete this season, there’s going to be a big revenue hit,” Fehr said. “It would not be good at all, but the health and safety of everybody concerned … is priority one, two, and three, and everything else follows that.

“Whatever it turns out to be — a potential loss this year, a potential loss next year, if for some reason we can’t play before full arenas — we just have to deal with it.

“And it ain’t gonna be pretty.”



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Despite Big Promises, U.S. Has Delivered Limited Aid in Global Virus Response

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Despite Big Promises, U.S. Has Delivered Limited Aid in Global Virus Response

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has lauded itself as leading the world in confronting the coronavirus. But it has so far failed to spend more than 75 percent of the American humanitarian aid that Congress provided three months ago to help overseas victims of the virus.

In two spending bills in March, lawmakers approved $1.59 billion in pandemic assistance to be sent abroad through the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development.

As of last week, $386 million had been released to nations in need, according to a government official familiar with the spending totals that the State Department has reported to Congress for both agencies. That money was delivered through private relief groups and large multinational organizations, including United Nations agencies, that provide health and economic stability funding and humanitarian assistance around the globe.

Of that, only a meager $11.5 million in international disaster aid had been delivered to private relief groups, even though those funds are specifically meant to be rushed to distress zones.

The totals reflected spending on the global coronavirus response as of June 3 by the State Department and the American aid agency and were shared with The New York Times on the condition of anonymity because the figures were intended to be private.

Relief workers said they were alarmed and bewildered as to why the vast majority of the money was sitting unspent.

“Little to no humanitarian assistance has reached those on the front lines of this crisis in the world’s most fragile context,” executives at 27 relief organizations wrote to the aid agency’s acting administrator, John Barsa, in a letter dated Thursday.

“In spite of months of promising conversations with U.S.A.I.D. field staff, few organizations have received an executed award for Covid-19 humanitarian assistance,” the letter stated.

Most of the money is provided through the U.S. aid agency. A spokeswoman, Pooja Jhunjhunwala, said on Friday that the total amount made available so far to relief groups was $595 million, including $175 million in international disaster aid. But that included projected reimbursements for money that would be provided later — not funding that had already been delivered. The aid agency declined to disclose how much money had been delivered as opposed to promised.

Ms. Jhunjhunwala also described a rigorous review before releasing the funding to make sure it would be properly spent.

“We want to ensure that we are accountable for the effective use of Covid funds and are good stewards of U.S. taxpayers’ dollars,” she said in a statement.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has for months praised American generosity in helping the rest of the world respond to the coronavirus.

“America remains the world’s leading light of humanitarian goodness as well amidst this global pandemic,” he said in April. In May, Mr. Pompeo said, “The State Department is very focused on saving lives” in curbing the coronavirus. And on Thursday night, he said, “We have truly mobilized as a nation to combat the virus, both at home and abroad.”

Collectively, the aid agency and the State Department have committed more than $1 billion in pandemic assistance to more than 100 countries since April. But the vast majority of that has yet to go out the door, tied up in what people with knowledge of the funding described as a complex grant process that had been slowed by micromanagement and delayed decisions.

More than $500 million in additional funding — the balance of what Congress approved — has yet to even be committed to a humanitarian need, meaning it is likely to be months more before it is released.

“The funding pipeline is there — it’s ready to go,” said Bill O’Keefe, an executive vice president for Catholic Relief Services, one of the nongovernmental organizations that is delivering the humanitarian aid to needy nations. “But it is taking too long to turn on the tap.”

His organization has received about $10 million so far to help front-line coronavirus responders in the West Bank, Italy and Haiti. But he said the aid was being released “demonstrably slower” than in past global health crises, such as the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and 2015.

“We’re trying to get ahead of this situation; our goal is to get the prevention going early,” Mr. O’Keefe said. “Because the fewer cases there are, before things develop, the fewer people are going to suffer and die.”

The money provided by the State Department and the U.S. aid agency largely is to pay for messaging campaigns to educate people on how to protect themselves from the virus, to provide water and sanitation services like hand-washing stations, and to offer health services to refugees, migrants and other homeless people. Some of the funds have been spent on infection prevention and control.

  • Updated June 5, 2020

    • How many people have lost their jobs due to coronavirus in the U.S.?

      The unemployment rate fell to 13.3 percent in May, the Labor Department said on June 5, an unexpected improvement in the nation’s job market as hiring rebounded faster than economists expected. Economists had forecast the unemployment rate to increase to as much as 20 percent, after it hit 14.7 percent in April, which was the highest since the government began keeping official statistics after World War II. But the unemployment rate dipped instead, with employers adding 2.5 million jobs, after more than 20 million jobs were lost in April.

    • Will protests set off a second viral wave of coronavirus?

      Mass protests against police brutality that have brought thousands of people onto the streets in cities across America are raising the specter of new coronavirus outbreaks, prompting political leaders, physicians and public health experts to warn that the crowds could cause a surge in cases. While many political leaders affirmed the right of protesters to express themselves, they urged the demonstrators to wear face masks and maintain social distancing, both to protect themselves and to prevent further community spread of the virus. Some infectious disease experts were reassured by the fact that the protests were held outdoors, saying the open air settings could mitigate the risk of transmission.

    • How do we start exercising again without hurting ourselves after months of lockdown?

      Exercise researchers and physicians have some blunt advice for those of us aiming to return to regular exercise now: Start slowly and then rev up your workouts, also slowly. American adults tended to be about 12 percent less active after the stay-at-home mandates began in March than they were in January. But there are steps you can take to ease your way back into regular exercise safely. First, “start at no more than 50 percent of the exercise you were doing before Covid,” says Dr. Monica Rho, the chief of musculoskeletal medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago. Thread in some preparatory squats, too, she advises. “When you haven’t been exercising, you lose muscle mass.” Expect some muscle twinges after these preliminary, post-lockdown sessions, especially a day or two later. But sudden or increasing pain during exercise is a clarion call to stop and return home.

    • My state is reopening. Is it safe to go out?

      States are reopening bit by bit. This means that more public spaces are available for use and more and more businesses are being allowed to open again. The federal government is largely leaving the decision up to states, and some state leaders are leaving the decision up to local authorities. Even if you aren’t being told to stay at home, it’s still a good idea to limit trips outside and your interaction with other people.

    • What’s the risk of catching coronavirus from a surface?

      Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus — whether it’s surface transmission or close human contact — is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.

    • What are the symptoms of coronavirus?

      Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.

    • How can I protect myself while flying?

      If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. (Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)

    • Should I wear a mask?

      The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks don’t replace hand washing and social distancing.

    • What should I do if I feel sick?

      If you’ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.

Part of the delay in delivering the funds has been blamed on what officials in the Trump administration and in Congress described as an unresolved debate over whether the money can also be used to buy masks, gowns and other personal protective equipment for health workers who are treating coronavirus patients abroad.

Since April, the White House has been weighing whether to ban funding for protective medical gear overseas while the equipment is needed by health providers in the United States. Last month, the U.S. aid agency told some relief groups it could not use the money for personal protective equipment until the White House issued its policy.

Mr. Barsa has for weeks told relief groups that a decision is expected imminently, but until then, the ban applies to new aid contracts on a limited basis.

Nazanin Ash, a former senior official at both the U.S. aid agency and the State Department, said it had generally taken 30 to 45 days for humanitarian assistance funding to be delivered to relief organizations during the Ebola outbreak across West Africa and parts of Europe.

“Now it’s stretching to three to four months for funds to reach front-line responders, for a pandemic orders of magnitude greater that Ebola and for which prevention is the essential approach,” said Ms. Ash, who is currently a vice president at the International Rescue Committee.

The delay also comes as government officials and relief groups are trying to predict how much more money will be needed to confront the virus in the months and years to come, especially in poor and unstable nations that depend on American support.

Officials are considering projections of $5 billion to $12 billion for future global coronavirus response efforts that the United States funds. Congressional officials and relief workers voiced concern that vast amounts of additional resources would not be approved if the money that had already been appropriated continued to sit unspent.

Ms. Ash worked as a top staff member for foreign assistance at the U.S. aid agency under President George W. Bush, and later as a deputy assistant secretary of state under President Barack Obama. She said the agency had long been recognized as among the world’s most effective disaster aid responders, no matter its political leadership.

“Their absence on Covid response is a gaping hole,” she said.

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‘It feels endless’: four women struggling to recover from Covid-19

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‘It feels endless’: four women struggling to recover from Covid-19

Last month, the Guardian published an interview with Paul Garner, a professor of infectious diseases, about his experience of Covid-19. The piece was shared widely and viewed nearly 1m times. Readers got in touch to say they too were suffering from lingering and often strange Covid-19 symptoms.

There is evidence that the official NHS description of the virus’s symptoms – cough, fever, loss of taste/smell – is too narrow. Those who do not need acute hospital treatment and who are isolating at home report a far broader range of problems. Often these go on for longer than 14 days. An online survey of 151 medical professionals who fell ill in March found 68 are still unable to work. A further 26 went back, only to stop again when symptoms returned.

It appears coronavirus may be a chronic condition. How long it persists for is unknown. The symptoms can be serious and wide-ranging, affecting the lungs, heart, brain, kidneys, stomach and nervous system. Headaches, shortness of breath, sore throat and feeling exhausted are common. So is recovery followed by frequent relapses. Here are the stories of four women who are struggling to return to normal life.

Iulia Hammond, 39, junior doctor in Manchester
“I went down with Covid on 19 March. I had a fever, chills and a very mild dry cough. I took to bed, feeling like I couldn’t do much of anything. After three or four days I had really severe respiratory symptoms. It felt as if there were shards of glass in my lungs. It was the most horrendous thing I have ever experienced. I was absolutely terrified.

“For the past 10 weeks I have been sleeping sitting upright in bed. It’s the only way I’m able to breathe. I developed pharyngitis and at one point I thought they were going to have to intubate me. I made two trips to A&E and had tests. I chatted to my GP who says patients look OK and yet feel the worse they have ever felt. It’s such a horrible virus. It seems quite different in each person. There’s not a standard progression.

“I’ve had a slew of symptoms. I got the worst headache I have ever had, like an electric cord over my temples and the back of my head. I get an odd crawling sensation on the left side of the face, including when I brush my hair. I’ve had abdominal issues and stomach pain and sensory things like pins and needles in my arms and legs. The illness comes around in two-week cycles. This has happened four times.

“Every day I am still short of breath. In week six I got a left-sided stabbing chest pain. I now have an abnormal heart rate. This is something you can get with viruses and I’m hoping it will go. You wonder why is this happening? As a physician I have been reading articles. We are learning about coronavirus in real time. The virus is completely novel, akin to HIV/Aids in the 1980s.

“I’m now on day 74 and not at work. Essentially I go bed, kitchen, sofa. There are weeks when I feel I have ridden the wave, and others where I’m back in the wave. I would like to get back to normal life sooner rather than later. It feels very endless.”

Dr Tracy Briggs, 42, clinical academic and geneticist at the University of Manchester
“I got symptoms on 13 March. We had been in London on holiday for half-term and rode the tube and went to museums. I felt short of breath. My chest was tight and my heart was racing. I have very mild asthma and I thought maybe it was an attack. It was strange. The inhaler didn’t work and after a few hours I went to A&E. I was told to go home and isolate.



Tracy Briggs, at home in Chorlton, south Manchester, still struggles with symptoms 84 days after first contracting Covid-19. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

“I wasn’t able to get out of bed or eat. I felt absolutely rough, sweaty, with a horrible sore throat and struggling to breathe. After 10 days I started to do a little bit more. I went for a walk with the family and pottered around the house. Then I seemed to step back and struggle again. Climbing one flight of stairs would send my heart racing. I would cough and be short of breath.

“It has been such a rollercoaster. You start to question yourself and your own sanity. You wonder what tomorrow is going to be. It’s quite tough. My 12-year-old son had no appetite for three weeks, a sore throat and vomiting. My husband had a sore throat for a week and a mild chicken pox-like rash. My stepson had covid symptoms and was coughing, but not as badly as me.”

“My tongue and the back of the throat are red, white and inflamed. I’ve lost quite a lot of weight. I find myself choking on food and short of breath when I eat. I’ve been taking Gaviscon and today started on a course of proton pump inhibitors. I’ve had a feeling of burning in my sternum and my throat.”

“I felt hot and sweaty but didn’t have a documented high temperature. I think there is a need to recognise that the clinical symptoms are much wider than cough and fever. This isn’t necessarily something which lasts seven or 14 days. Absolutely acute patients are the priority. But we need to be aware that for a number of people, even those who don’t need to go to hospital, it’s going on for a long period. We need support.”

Jo Platt, 46, former Labour MP for Leith
“I lost my seat in the December election. I wasn’t going to work or down to London. The only thing I can think of is I picked up the virus while shopping. The first symptoms began on 24 March. It was like flicking a light switch. I was at my computer and felt I was going to faint. I had nausea, dizziness and a burning temperature. Then the fatigue set in. I couldn’t move and went to bed for two days.

“I recovered and thought I had something really mild. For two more days I was shaky. The next day I really went down with it. I had shortness of breath, an unproductive cough. It felt like something was in my chest. I had a horrific headache. I could not get out of bed for a full week. By the Easter weekend I thought I was out of it. But that Monday the symptoms returned. I called my GP. They were very nice, but said you haven’t got the usual symptoms and should rest.

“The gastro thing is really worrying me. I lost a stone in weight and could not eat. My blood tests were normal apart from a vitamin D deficiency. I couldn’t get a test. It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster. The government says if you haven’t got a cough or temperature or loss of taste it’s not Covid. That’s not true. My GP now says they’ve had numerous cases similar to mine.





Former Labour MP Jo Platt, who lost her seat at the 2019 general election, is slowly recovering from Covid-19 but still experiencing various symptoms.



Former Labour MP Jo Platt, who lost her seat at the 2019 general election, is slowly recovering from Covid-19 but still experiencing various symptoms. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

“This is week 10. I get back pain, like an inflammation. It’s not as severe as it’s been. I have a really strange sensation in my legs, as if I’ve been hill walking. I wake up with sore joints in my fingers. I’ve had gastrointestinal issues and acid reflux. Seeing food on TV makes me feel nauseous. This is manageable. For me the scary thing is the shortness of breath. We still don’t know how long this goes on for and that’s the frightening bit.

“We need a bottom-up approach. There are a lot of voices out there and we are not being listened to. More and more people are joining [‘long haul’ covid] Facebook support groups. We have got a lot to say and want to get the message out to GPs and public health directors.”

Ginevra Read, 42, psychiatrist, Bristol

“It started on 16 March. I had a slight cough and a terrible headache. The next morning my temperature was 38.3C. A week later, I was feeling worse and developed shortness of breath but it passed after a day or so. After another week I felt completely well. I went out for a short jog and felt fine. Normally I run 25km a week, swim and do yoga. But then later that week, after another short run, I was hit by extreme fatigue lasting four days. This happened another three to four times, after much less exertion.


“Around week seven there was a big deterioration. It was my son’s birthday and I was busy, making him a cake, and we went on a short family bike ride too. A few days later, it all came back but much worse. I had lots of symptoms, including tingling on the right side of my body, and a sensation of heat on my left foot, as well as shortness of breath, chest pain and fevers. People talk about internal shaking. I had that and a feeling like my stomach was vibrating, deeply unpleasant and as if I was being poisoned.

“It was very frightening to feel so unwell. Going into week nine I was exhausted. Staying in bed really helped with fatigue but in week 11, I still have low grade fevers, chills, malaise and odd neurological symptoms. I am resting a lot but my improvements have plateaued.

“We don’t know what is causing prolonged Covid. Is it the ongoing initial illness, or is it an inflammatory reaction or is it a post-viral syndrome? We don’t know what the prognosis is or what the long-term consequences are. I wonder how many people are having prolonged illness and what the impact is on the workforce, for example. It’s scary to have an illness for which there isn’t any treatment and that doesn’t seem to be going away.”

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Protesters Topple Confederate Statue In Virginia Capital

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Protesters Topple Confederate Statue In Virginia Capital

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A small group of demonstrators toppled a statue of a Confederate general in the former capital of the Confederacy late Saturday, following a day of largely peaceful protests in the Virginia city.

The statue of Gen. Williams Carter Wickham was pulled from its pedestal in Monroe Park, a Richmond police spokeswoman said. She said she did not know if there were any arrests or damage done to the statue.

A rope had been tied around the Confederate statue, which has stood since 1891, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported, adding that someone urinated on the statue after it was pulled down. Photos and video from the newspaper showed what appeared to be red paint splashed or sprayed on the statue.

In 2017, some of Wickham’s descendants urged the city to remove the statue.



The statue of Confederate Gen. Williams Carter Wickham lies on the ground after protesters pulled it down Saturday in Richmond, Va. The statue had stood in the park since 1891.

Confederate monuments are a major flashpoint in Virginia and elsewhere in the South. Confederate memorials began coming down after a white supremacist killed nine black people at a Bible study in a church in South Carolina in 2015 and then again after the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

Last week, Gov. Ralph Northam announced that a state-owned statue of former Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee would be removed from its perch on the famed Monument Avenue “as soon as possible.”

The Lee statue is one of five Confederate monuments along Monument Avenue, a prestigious residential street and National Historic Landmark district. Monuments along the avenue have been rallying points during protests in recent days over Floyd’s death, and they have been tagged with graffiti, including messages that say “End police brutality” and “Stop white supremacy.”

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney last week announced plans to seek the removal of the other Confederate monuments along Monument Avenue, which include statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Confederate Gens. Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart. Those statues sit on city land, unlike the Lee statue, which is on state property.

Stoney said he would introduce an ordinance July 1 to have the statues removed. That’s when a new law goes into effect, which was signed earlier this year by Northam, that undoes an existing state law protecting Confederate monuments and instead lets local governments decide their fate.

Wickham’s statue stood in Monroe Park, about a mile away from the Lee statue and surrounded by the Virginia Commonwealth University campus.



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HomeBuilder stimulus pushed through without House vote

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HomeBuilder stimulus pushed through without House vote

“Parliament should be having a say in the way in which stimulus is rolled out,” Mr Marles said on the ABC’s Insiders program. “This provides help, and so that’s good.”

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Asked if Labor would oppose it, Mr Marles said: “It’s not a matter of opposing and supporting it. It’s a matter of improving.”

Government sources said there was no need to take the package to Parliament because it could be put in place through other means including the Council of Australian Governments Reform Fund Act 2008.

Assistant Treasurer and Housing Minister Michael Sukkar is talking to state counterparts about the wording of national partnership agreements to oversee the HomeBuilder scheme.

“The Commonwealth is working with state and territory governments on the implementation of HomeBuilder grants through national partnership agreements to make the delivery of the program as seamless as possible,” said a spokesman for the minister.

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“The agreements will be designed to complement existing state and territory First Home Owner Grant programs, stamp duty concessions and other grant schemes, with similar integrity measures.”

Master Builders Australia chief Denita Wawn called over the weekend for faster work by banks and governments to make sure people could raise money and gain approval for renovations and new homes.

The scheme offers a $25,000 grant to projects on the condition the renovation costs more than $150,000 or the new home costs less than $750,000 including land.

Critics say the conditions are too strict for widespread adoption, given the shortage of house and land packages worth less than $750,000 in the major cities.

The St Vincent de Paul Society called for more spending on social housing, while the Urban Taskforce said the scheme appeared to be aimed at winning votes in Queanbeyan before the Eden-Monaro byelection on July 4.

The Urban Development Institute of Australia called for the $750,000 cap to be lifted because average lot prices were $469,000 in metropolitan Sydney and the typical cost of building a home ranged from $350,000 to $400,000.

The scheme also has a means test that excludes individuals with incomes above $125,000 and couples with combined incomes over $200,000 last financial year.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann urged people to apply for the scheme as soon as possible and defended the rules that restricted its use.

“If the means test was not there, more people would be able to access the scheme and the scheme would be significantly more expensive,” he said on Sky News.

“We have made a judgment about what is appropriate in the circumstances. We believe that about 27,000 projects will be supported through this, over the next six months or so.

“We are not proposing to extend it beyond the initial six-month and a couple of weeks’ period. This is a program that is in place until the end of December.”

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Libya: Mapping the areas of military control

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Libya: Mapping the areas of military control

Libya, a major oil producer in North Africa, has been mired in conflict since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

It is now split between two rival administrations: the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) based in Tripoli and the eastern-based House of Representatives allied with renegade commander Khalifa Haftar and his self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA).

Forces fighting for Libya’s internationally recognised government said they regained full control over Tripoli and areas around the capital after being besieged for more than a year by militias loyal to the LNA.

The UN-recognised government said it launched an offensive on Saturday to seize the strategic city of Sirte, as Haftar and his Egyptian allies proposed a ceasefire following a string of military setbacks.

In the past months, forces loyal to GNA have wrested control of most of western Libya and parts of southeastern areas near Tripoli. On Friday, it captured the city of Tarhuna west of Tripoli and a day later entered the key town of Bani Walid in the country’s northwest after Haftar forces retreated.

Sirte, the hometown of former leader Gaddafi and the last major settlement before the traditional boundary between Libya’s west and east, was taken by General Haftar’s forces virtually without a fight in January after one of Libya’s myriad local militias switched sides.

Beyond Sirte, located 450km (280 miles) east of Tripoli, lies the prize of Libya’s main oil export ports, Haftar’s most important strategic asset.

[Alia Chughtai/Al Jazeera]

 

Source: Al Jazeera

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Philadelphia Inquirer’s Top Editor Resigns After ‘Buildings Matter, Too’ Headline

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Philadelphia Inquirer’s Top Editor Resigns After ‘Buildings Matter, Too’ Headline

The top editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer has resigned amid backlash over the headline “Buildings Matter, Too” — a riff on “Black Lives Matter” — which was published in the paper last week during nationwide anti-racism protests.

In a statement Saturday, publisher Lisa Hughes said Stan Wischnowski, the paper’s executive editor and vice president, had decided to step down after working at the Inquirer for 20 years.

“We will use this moment to evaluate the organizational structure and processes of the newsroom, assess what we need, and look both internally and externally for a seasoned leader who embodies our values, embraces our shared strategy, and understands the diversity of the communities we serve,” Hughes said in her statement.

Wischnowski’s final day will be June 12, the Inquirer reported. No successor has been named. 

Wischnowski did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

The Inquirer published the headline, which suggested an equivalence between buildings and Black lives, in the paper’s Tuesday print edition, alongside a column arguing against the destruction and looting of buildings during anti-racism protests.

At least 40 journalists of color working at the Inquirer signed an open letter to the paper’s leadership about systemic racism in the journalism industry and the U.S. broadly.

“We’re tired of working for months and years to gain the trust of our communities — communities that have long had good reason to not trust our profession — only to see that trust eroded in an instant by careless, unempathetic decisions,” they wrote.

The letter continued: “It is an insult to our work, our communities, and our neighbors to see that trust destroyed—and makes us that much more likely to face threats and aggression. The carelessness of our leadership makes it harder to do our jobs, and at worst puts our lives at risk.”

The column’s writer, Inga Saffron, has also denounced the headline. The online version of her piece is headlined, “Damaging buildings disproportionately hurts the people protesters are trying to uplift.”

Wischnowski, along with Inquirer editor Gabriel Escobar and managing editor Patrick Kerkstra, apologized for the “deeply offensive” and “unacceptable” headline in a letter to readers and Inquirer staffers posted online Wednesday.

“We should not have printed it,” they wrote. “We’re sorry, and regret that we did. We also know that an apology on its own is not sufficient.”

Massive anti-racism demonstrations were staged across the world on Saturday, continuing a wave of protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month. Philadelphia had one of the largest protests, with thousands of attendees flooding the streets.



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China and India Move to Defuse Tensions After Clashes in the Himalayas

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China and India Move to Defuse Tensions After Clashes in the Himalayas

China and India have stepped back from a tense confrontation along their shared border high in the Himalayas, pledging to resolve disputes over territory through diplomatic and military channels, India’s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.

The announcement came a day after military commanders from the two sides met near Chushul, a border village at the disputed frontier near Pangong Tso, a lake where troops from the two countries clashed last month.

China did not immediately discuss the talks at the border, but officials and the state news media had sought to play down the confrontation in the days leading up to them.

The clashes at the lake, one of several across multiple points of the frontier, resulted in numerous injuries and led to the most serious tensions between the two Asian powers in years.

A statement from India’s Foreign Ministry did not describe the talks at Chushul in detail, but it struck a conciliatory tone, saying that the two countries would continue to negotiate through long-established military and political channels of communication.

“Both sides agreed to peacefully resolve the situation in the border areas in accordance with various bilateral agreements and keeping in view the agreements between the leaders that peace and tranquillity in the India-China border regions is essential for the overall development of bilateral relations,” the statement said.

The statement referred to recent summits between the two countries’ leaders, Narenda Modi of India and Xi Jinping of China, both of whom seemed intent on setting aside decades of animosity and conflict. They last met in India in October, promising to increase economic and security cooperation.

Each side has blamed the other for disrupting the status quo along the frontier, which remains unmarked and fiercely disputed in places.

China appeared to have stepped up its activity in the area this spring after the recent expansion of a road network on the Indian side of the border. India has been trying to strengthen its defenses in the remote region, where altitudes exceed 14,000 feet.

Friction in the area is frequent, and a series of confrontations erupted last month along several points of a border that stretches more than 2,100 miles. That raised fears in India of a coordinated push by China to seize territory at a time when the world is distracted by the coronavirus pandemic.

In the Galwan Valley, not far from Pangong Tso, Chinese troops were reported to have crossed several miles beyond what India considers its side of the frontier, known as the Line of Actual Control, according to news reports that cited Indian officials. The two countries went to war in the region in 1962.

Both nations reportedly sent in reinforcements after the clashes, though information from the remote region is often spotty and tightly controlled by the military on both sides.

The United States, siding with India, has criticized China’s recent actions along the border.

“The Chinese Communist Party has been on this effort, on this march, for an awfully long time,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week. “They’ll certainly use a tactical situation on the ground to their advantage.”

Hari Kumar contributed reporting.

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George Floyd live updates: New York City lifts curfew; Marines ban Confederate flag; police investigations announced

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George Floyd live updates: New York City lifts curfew; Marines ban Confederate flag; police investigations announced

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Hundreds of people held a private memorial in honor of George Floyd in his North Carolina birth town.

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New York Mayor Bill de Blasio canceled the city’s curfew Sunday following a day when cities across the nation saw massive, peaceful demonstrations against systemic racism and police brutality. 

“We are lifting the curfew, effective immediately,” de Blasio tweeted Sunday. “Yesterday and last night we saw the very best of our city.”

In Washington, thousands of protesters marched downtown Saturday for the ninth – and by far the largest – day of demonstrations demanding justice for black victims of police misconduct. Half a dozen Secret Services agents engaged protesters outside the U.S. Treasury building. “Do you want an all-white police force?” asked one black officer. “When I take this uniform off, I’m still black.” In Minneapolis, a crowd of demonstrators booed Mayor Jacob Frey after he refused to say he was in favor of abolishing the city’s police department. 

The protests began after the Memorial Day death of George Floyd, the African American man succumbed after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. The latest in a series of memorial services for Floyd is Monday in Houston. His body will be buried there Tuesday.

Some recent developments:

NYC drops curfew, prepares to being reopening after COVID lockdown

New York City’s first curfew since in more than a half century was lifted a day early Sunday, hours after thousands of protesters across the city peacefully marched and chanted for an end to racial injustice. Mayor Bill de Blasio was under intense pressure to end the nightly curfew, imposed after looting broke out early last week. The 8 p.m. curfew had been scheduled to continue at until 5 a.m. Monday  – also the day the city begins Phase One of its reopening plan following a months-long coronavirus lockdown.

“Tomorrow we take the first big step to restart,” de Blasio tweeted. “Keep staying safe. Keep looking out for each other.”

Marines ban display of Confederate flag

The Marines have banned display of the Confederate Battle Flag, saying it is divisive and has “too often been co-opted by violent extremist and racist groups.” The directive orders commanders to the flag or its depiction within work places, common-access areas and public areas on their installations. Posters, bumper stickers, clothing and coffee mugs are specifically called out. The directive and a statement released by the Corps makes reference to “current events” and specifically mentions a 2017 demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the death of a protester.

“Our history as a nation, and events like the violence in Charlottesville in 2017, highlight the divisiveness the use of the Confederate battle flag has had on our society,” the directive says.

Police, protesters square off in Portland

A clash between Portland police and protesters at the Justice Center overnight resulted in more than 50 arrests. Chief Jami Resch said early Sunday that several thousand people marched peacefully, but that a smaller group of protesters attempted to cut through a security fence and threw balloons full of paint and full beverage cans. Two officers were injured by lit fireworks, she said. 

Protests have taken place daily in the city for more than a week, and police have come under scrutiny for their use of force against demonstrators. The advocacy group Don’t Shoot Portland has filed suit against the city, accusing police of “indiscriminate use” of tear gas. The city’s police oversight panel, the Citizen Review Committee, has issued a statement citing “a troubling pattern of police violence against protesters that interferes with public safety and freedom of speech.”

Survey: Americans’ perceptions of police drop significantly in one week

The perception of police among white Americans has dropped by double digits in just one week, as police have targeted peaceful protesters, bystanders and journalists amid nationwide demonstrations focusing on systemic racism facing black Americans. Perceptions also have declined across all racial groups following the death of George Floyd in police custody, according to a new survey from the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Project.

Among white Americans – a group where President Donald Trump saw broad support in the 2016 election – those who have a very favorable or somewhat favorable impression of police officers totaled 61% in the survey conducted May 28 to June 3. That’s down from 72% the previous week, according to an analysis from Nationscape Insights, Democracy Fund, UCLA and USA TODAY. Among black Americans, only 38% view the police very or somewhat favorably. That number dropped 9 percentage points from the previous week.

“These changes were striking,” said Robert Griffin, research director for the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. At a time when so much in American politics feels deadlocked, this is the kind of major event that can reshape how Americans think.” 

– Rebecca Morin

More on protests, George Floyd:

Police announce arrests, investigations of officers

Multiple police departments have announced investigations and arrests tied to allegations of officer misconduct. In a high-profile case, two suspended Buffalo, New York, police officers were charged with second-degree assault Saturday amid outcry over video showing police shoving a 75-year-old man to the ground as they cleared an area of demonstrators. Graphic video from the incident showed the man motionless and bleeding from his head. Officials later said he was in stable condition.

Amid the demonstrations Saturday, multiple other police departments announced actions against officers tied to misconduct allegations. In San Diego, police say they are investigating after a Thursday incident captured on video, which appears to show police forcing a protester into an unmarked vehicle. In the video an officer can be heard telling other protesters, “You follow us, you will get shot.”

Meanwhile, local media reports say a Missouri officer has been suspended after allegedly hitting a person with his vehicle, and a white Virginia officer is facing assault charges for his use of a stun gun on a black man in a recent domestic call.

Second Floyd memorial held in North Carolina

George Floyd’s death while in police custody sparked “a movement” nationwide, his eulogist said, as hundreds of mourners gathered Saturday in Raeford, North Carolina, to mourn his death while in police custody. The memorial was held inside a church just outside Fayetteville, North Carolina, where Floyd was born. Before the service, the 46-year-old’s body was placed in the center of the lobby, where mourners from the public were allowed in groups of 10.

Rev. Christopher D. Stackhouse delivered a stirring eulogy about Floyd, noting “there was something different about that day” he died under police custody in Minneapolis.

“A movement is happening today, and George Floyd sparked that fuel,” Stackhouse said. “He sparked the fuel that is going to change this nation.”

– Ken Alltucker, Melody Brown-Peyton, Michael Futch, Rachael Riley

Contributing: The Associated Press

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A majority of voters are uncomfortable attending large gatherings, dining out

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A majority of voters are uncomfortable attending large gatherings, dining out

WASHINGTON — Two-thirds of American voters say they would not feel comfortable flying on a plane or attending a large gathering due to continued worry about the spread of the coronavirus, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds. Half of all voters are also uneasy about dining at restaurants, and half of parents say they are uncomfortable sending their children back to school or daycare in August.

The vast majority of voters — more than eight in 10 — also say they wear a protective mask at least sometimes when they shop, go to work or interact with others outside their home. More than six in 10 say they always wear a mask in those situations.

The survey, which was conducted as many states eased some restrictions on businesses designed to blunt the virus’s spread, found that 66 percent of Americans say they are uncomfortable attending a public gathering or an event with a large group, with 43 percent saying they are “very” uncomfortable. Just 17 percent say they would be “very comfortable” at a large event.

That finding comes as most major American cities have seen mass outdoor demonstrations for racial justice, and also as GOP officials are scrambling to meet President Donald Trump’s desire for an in-person political convention with thousands of attendees.

The same share of voters, 66 percent, also say they would be uncomfortable flying on an airplane in light of the continued pandemic, with 44 percent saying they would be “very” uncomfortable.

As the hospitality and food service industry face some of the worst economic consequences of the outbreak, half of voters still express concern about dining out. Just 24 percent say they feel “very” comfortable eating at a restaurant, and a combined 54 percent are either somewhat uncomfortable (25 percent) or very uncomfortable (29 percent).

The data looks much the same when it comes to apprehension from parents about sending their children back to school or daycare in August. Just 25 percent of voters who have a child under 18 in the home say they are “very” comfortable sending their children back to school, while a combined 50 percent are either somewhat uncomfortable (20 percent) or very uncomfortable (30 percent).

While the president has resisted wearing a face mask in public — which CDC guidelines recommend in order to limit transmission of the coronavirus — voters overwhelmingly say they are wearing masks at least sometimes when they leave their homes.

A majority — 63 percent — say they always wear a mask when shopping, going to work or interacting with other people in public. Another 21 percent say they sometimes wear a mask. Seven percent say they wear a mask “rarely” and just eight percent say they never wear one.

But despite generally widespread mask-wearing, Republicans are more likely to follow Trump’s lead by expressing reluctance to donning protective masks.

Among the 15 percent of adults who say they rarely or never wear a mask, 83 percent plan to support Trump over Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential contest. Among those who say they always wear a mask in public, 66 percent choose Biden over Trump.

Worries about resuming regular public activities are also split along the same partisan lines. While 84 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of independents say they are somewhat or very uncomfortable attending a large gathering, just 44 percent of Republicans say the same.

The NBC News/Wall Street Journal live-caller phone poll was conducted May 28-June 2, 2020. The margin of error for 1000 interviews among registered voters is +/- 3.1 percentage points.

Carrie Dann

Carrie Dann is a political editor for NBC News. 



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