First Edition: June 18, 2020

Kaiser Health News: ‘Just Make It Home’: The Unwritten Rules Blacks Learn To Navigate Racism In America
Speak in short sentences. Be clear. Direct but not rude. Stay calm, even if you’re shaking inside. Never put your hands in your pockets. Make sure people can always see your hands. Try not to hunch your shoulders. Listen to their directions. Darnell Hill, a pastor and a mental health caseworker, offers black teenagers these emotional and physical coping strategies every time a black person is fatally shot by a police officer. That’s when parents’ worries about their sons and daughters intensify. “They’re hurting,” Hill said. “They’re looking for answers.” (Anthony, 6/18)

Kaiser Health News: The Costs Of Safely Reopening A High-End Restaurant
Like countless other restaurateurs across California and the nation, Alex and Charity Prestifilippo have been caught in a precarious health-and-safety limbo. Beginning in March, the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered their popular Gourmet Italia restaurant in Temecula, a wine-growing community of 115,000 southeast of Los Angeles. Dozens of employees were laid off; food stocks quickly became outdated. (Glionna, 6/18)

Kaiser Health News: Behind The Byline: ‘Contactless Reporting’
Although the coronavirus pandemic shut down many organizations and businesses across the nation, KHN has never been busier ― and health coverage has never been more vital. We’ve revamped our Behind The Byline YouTube series and brought it to Instagram TV. Journalists and producers from across KHN’s newsroom take you behind the scenes in these bite-size videos to show the ways they are following the story, connecting with sources and sorting through facts — all while staying safe. (Anthony, 6/18)

Kaiser Health News: Watch: Are Administration Medical Experts Muzzled?
During the initial phases of the coronavirus pandemic, federal health experts such as Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx were mainstays in press conferences called by the Trump administration to highlight efforts to battle the disease. But their media appearances are now much less frequent. Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, KHN’s editor-in-chief, joined Dr. James Hamblin of The Atlantic and Dan Diamond of Politico on CNN’s “Reliable Sources With Brian Stelter” on Sunday to talk about the effect of those absences. (6/18)

Kaiser Health News: Listen: Pandemic Shifts Health Care And It May Be Hard To Get Genie Back In Bottle
Julie Rovner, KHN’s chief Washington correspondent, on Wednesday joined Jeremy Hobson, the host of “Here & Now,” a show produced by NPR and WBUR. They discussed key changes in health care delivery triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, including the increased use of telemedicine; fears of increased consolidation, as small private medical practices face revenue shortfalls; financial strain among some hospitals; and the pressure to return drug manufacturing to the U.S. (6/17)

Kaiser Health News and Politifact HealthCheck: Trump’s Take On COVID Testing Misses Public Health Realities
President Donald Trump sought to downplay the numbers associated with COVID-19 in the United States — which have passed 2 million confirmed cases and are nearing 120,000 lives lost — by arguing that the soaring national count was simply the result of superior testing. “If you don’t test, you don’t have any cases,” Trump said at a June 15 roundtable discussion at the White House. “If we stopped testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any.” (Luthra, 6/17)

The New York Times: Tulsa Braces For Trump Rally’s Health Threat As Virus Cases Rise
The message from Tulsa’s top government officials on Wednesday was not comforting. Just days before President Trump was set to hold an enormous indoor rally expected to bring tens of thousands of people to the city, the officials announced 96 new cases of the coronavirus, the largest single-day increase in Tulsa since March. And they offered little in terms of reassurance to residents worried about holding a large, charged, political gathering in the midst of a pandemic and on a weekend when demonstrations are planned across the country to honor Juneteenth. (Karni, 6/17)

Reuters: COVID-19 Cases Surge In Oklahoma, Other States Ahead Of Trump's Tulsa Rally
Several U.S. states including Oklahoma reported a surge in new coronavirus infections on Wednesday, days before a planned campaign rally for President Donald Trump in Tulsa that would be the nation’s largest indoor social gathering in three months. An uptick in coronavirus cases in many states over the past two weeks, along with rising COVID-19 hospitalizations, reflected a troubling national trend that has seen daily U.S. infection numbers climbing after more than a month of declines. (Shumaker and Schwartz, 6/17)

The Washington Post: Tulsa Mayor Calls Trump’s Visit An ‘Honor’ Despite Requests To Cancel Or Postpone Campaign Rally
The mayor of Tulsa said Wednesday that it was “an honor” to welcome President Trump for a campaign rally this weekend despite a recommendation from the city’s health director to postpone the event because of coronavirus concerns and calls by city leaders to cancel it. G.T. Bynum, a Republican, told a news conference that “I’m not positive that everything is safe” and urged residents who planned to attend Trump’s Saturday night gathering to wear masks and take other precautions. Bynum said he would not be attending the rally but would greet Trump at the airport. He added that the company managing the venue has “sole discretion” on whether to host the event and that “it’s not my decision to make.” (Partlow, Gowen and Brown, 6/17)

The Hill: Tulsa Officials Warn Vulnerable People To Stay Home From Trump Rally 
Officials in Tulsa, Okla., said coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are surging and advised people who are vulnerable to COVID-19 to stay home rather than attend President Trump's campaign rally on Saturday. Tulsa Health Department Director Bruce Dart and Mayor G.T. Bynum (R) said people who attend any large gathering, including the Trump rally and the city's Juneteenth celebration, will likely be at risk, especially if they don't wear masks. (Weixel, 6/17)

Politico: White House Says Trump Rally Attendees ‘Assume A Personal Risk’
Supporters attending President Donald Trump’s rallies “assume a personal risk” related to coronavirus, The White House said on Wednesday. “When you come to the rally, as with any event, you assume a personal risk. That is just what you do,” press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said at a news briefing, while noting there would be temperature checks at Trump’s rally on Saturday in Tulsa, Okla., as well as distribution of hand sanitizers and masks. (Cohen, 6/17)

The Associated Press: 'Literally Incomprehensible': Bernie Condemns Trump Rally
Former presidential contender Bernie Sanders on Wednesday blasted President Donald Trump’s decision to host a large rally in Oklahoma this weekend, accusing the Republican president of jeopardizing the health of thousands of people and defying science during a pandemic simply “to hear cheers from his supporters.” Sanders, who is also known for drawing large crowds and has promised to help presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, said he would not be willing to host any large indoor events of his own until medical professionals deem it safe. (Peoples, 6/17)

The New York Times: How The Trump Campaign Missed The Signals On Juneteenth 
Brad Parscale, the Trump campaign manager, needed to find a host city for the president’s triumphant return to the campaign trail, and he didn’t have much time. Reviewing a list of potential locations over the past few weeks, Mr. Parscale quickly settled on Tulsa, Okla., people familiar with the planning said in interviews, mostly because it seemed easy. A deep red state President Trump carried by 36 percentage points four years ago, Oklahoma wasn’t in play for the November election. But it was the furthest along of any state in the country in terms of reopening, and it had seen fewer than 400 Covid-19 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. (Karni, Haberman and Epstein, 6/18)

Reuters: Trump Says U.S. Will Not Lock Down Again Amid Rising Coronavirus Cases
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the United States would not close businesses again as several states reported rising numbers of new coronavirus infections. “We won’t be closing the country again. We won’t have to do that,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News Channel. Trump’s comments come after White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin both said the United States could not shut down the economy again. (6/17)

The Associated Press: Poll: Americans Not Buying White House Spin On Coronavirus
Vice President Mike Pence says the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic is “a cause for celebration,” but a new poll finds more than half of Americans calling it fair or poor. The Gallup and West Health survey out Thursday found that 57% of U.S. adults rated the national response to COVID-19 as fair or poor, particularly in light of the fact that America has the world’s most expensive health care system. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 6/18)

The Associated Press: Trump Plan To Stem Vet Suicides Focuses On Public Awareness
President Donald Trump released a long-awaited plan Wednesday to address the persistently high number of suicides by veterans, with initiatives including firearm safety, wellness programs at workplaces and new barriers near railroads and bridges. As part of the $53 million, two-year effort, a public messaging campaign starting in the coming weeks is intended to raise awareness about suicide at a time of increased social distancing and isolation during a pandemic. (Yen, 6/18)

Reuters: New York Has Lowest U.S. Coronavirus Infection Rate, Cuomo Says
New York, once the U.S. epicenter of coronavirus infections, now has the country’s lowest rate of virus spread as the state’s death toll and number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 continue to decline, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday. “We once again have demonstrated that we’ve gone from the worst infection rate in the country to the best infection rate in the county,” Cuomo said at his daily briefing. Fewer than 1% of some 60,000 New York residents tested on Tuesday were positive for the virus, he said. (6/17)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Hospitalizations Rise In Orange, Ventura Counties
Officials across Southern California are grappling with whether to temper reopening efforts in the face of rising coronavirus hospitalizations, a move that seems likely to spark public outcry. Statewide, hospitalizations among COVID-19 patients have been relatively flat for the last six weeks, even as officials have allowed myriad businesses to open their doors and a number of residents have resumed daily routines. (Fry, Lin, Money and Lee, 6/17)

ABC News: More Than 1 Out Of 3 Tested Federal Inmates Were Positive For Coronavirus 
More than 35% of federal inmates who have tested for coronavirus were positive, according to data from The Bureau of Prisons. The agency says that of its 16,839 tested inmates, 6,060 have tested positive. In total, the BOP has tested more than 18,000 of its 163,441 federal inmates, with results pending in more than 2,300 cases. (Barr, 6/16)

The New York Times: Lack Of Transparency Could Hinder Virus Bailout, Oversight Board Warns
The new federal oversight board responsible for tracking how $2.4 trillion in bailout money is being spent warned on Wednesday that a lack of transparency and feeble reporting requirements could hamper its efforts to ensure that the funds are being deployed properly. In its inaugural report, the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a panel of inspectors general, laid out an array of obstacles facing the country’s largest-ever economic relief effort. The concerns come as the White House has taken steps to curb the power of inspectors general throughout the federal government and as Treasury refuses to disclose where small business loan money is going. (Rappeport, 6/17)

Politico: Democrats Accuse SBA Of Illegally Blocking Oversight Of Lending Program
The Small Business Administration is illegally stonewalling Congress' watchdog agency from reviewing its handling of a massive coronavirus relief program, House Democrats alleged Wednesday. In a letter to SBA administrator Jovita Carranza, five Democratic committee and subcommittee chairs said the Government Accountability Office — Congress' independent oversight arm — has been rebuffed in its attempts to interview top SBA officials and access key documents about the implementation of the small business program, known as the Paycheck Protection Program. (Cheney and Warmbrodt, 6/17)

Los Angeles Times: The $600 Unemployment Benefit Ends July 31. What's Next?
For many out-of-work Americans, an extra $600 a week in federal unemployment insurance is providing some stability during an otherwise shaky economic period. But how long might that benefit last? When the coronavirus pandemic first flared up in mid-March, causing a domino effect of immediate event cancellations and business closures, spending vanished almost overnight. In a swift move to flush cash through the economy, the federal government approved the $2-trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. (Pinho, 6/17)

Reuters: U.S. Weekly Jobless Claims Remain High, Second Wave Of Layoffs Blamed
A second wave of layoffs amid weak demand and fractured supply chains is likely keeping new U.S. applications for unemployment benefits elevated, supporting views that the economy faces a long and difficult recovery from the COVID-19 recession. (Mutikani, 6/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Unemployment Claims Are Still High But Have Eased Substantially
New jobless claims have eased as states allowed businesses to reopen and employers recalled workers. Others signs of economic growth have emerged, including a May rebound in retail spending. But with the economy having slipped into recession this year, many firms have remained cautious about rehiring, leaving millions of people out of work since the pandemic hit. Employers added to payrolls in May but only offset about one in 10 jobs lost in April and March. Recent data indicate a higher volume of workers are moving in and out of jobs, said Roiana Reid, an economist at Berenberg Capital Markets. (Morath, 6/18)

Reuters: Steroid Should Be Kept For Serious Coronavirus Cases, WHO Says
A cheap steroid that can help save the lives of patients with severe COVID-19 should be reserved for serious cases in which it has been shown to provide benefits, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said research was at last providing “green shoots of hope” in treating the virus, which has killed more than 400,000 people worldwide and infected more than 8 million. (Kelland and Farge, 6/17)

Reuters: WHO Halts Trial Of Hydroxychloroquine In COVID-19 Patients
The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that testing of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine in its large multi-country trial of treatments for COVID-19 patients had been halted after new data and studies showed no benefit. WHO expert Ana Maria Henao-Restrepo said investigators leading the so-called Solidarity Trial testing the drug - which had been promoted by U.S. President Donald Trump - had reviewed recent evidence and decided to stop recruiting new patients. (Kelland and Farge, 6/17)

Politico: WHO Ends Hydroxychloroquine Study
The decision to remove the drug from its Solidarity trial came following several events, Restrepo noted. A review of the evidence suggested there was “no apparent beneficial effect of hydroxychloroquine” to treat Covid-19. In addition, the results coming out of the U.K. last Friday indicated that there was no apparent effect on mortality or ventilation during a hospital stay. Finally, there was the Solidarity trial’s own evidence. (Furlong, 6/17)

The Washington Post: Trump Is Pushing Officials To Speed Up Coronavirus Vaccine Development
President Trump, faced with multiple crises and falling poll numbers less than five months before the presidential election, is prodding top health officials to move faster on a historically ambitious timeline to approve a coronavirus vaccine by year’s end. The goal is to instill confidence among voters that the virus can be tamed and the economy fully reopened under Trump’s stewardship. In a meeting last month with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar — who is overseeing the effort called Operation Warp Speed, along with Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper — Trump pushed Azar repeatedly to speed up the already unprecedented timeline, according to two senior White House officials familiar with the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. (Abutaleb, Dawsey, McGinley and Johnson, 6/17)

Reuters: EU Calls For Global Alliance To Buy COVID-19 Vaccines Up Front
The European Commission called on Wednesday for global leaders to cooperate to buy bulk quantities of potential COVID-19 vaccines, to avoid “harmful competition” in the race for a shot and ensure any future vaccine is available for poor countries. (6/17)

Politico: Next Testing Debacle: The Fall Virus Surge
The U.S is now conducting more than 3 million coronavirus tests a week, a big improvement over the shortages and failures that worsened the pandemic this spring. But the country risks another dangerous testing deficit this fall when schools and businesses try to reopen. Safely reopening schools and businesses could require up to 30 million tests per week, rather than the current three million, certain experts say. And if surging coronavirus cases collide with flu season, the demand could be even higher. “We could have a situation that would stretch us,” said Nate Smith, secretary of the Arkansas Department of Health. “We’re likely to see people who are infected with both at the same time. No one knows exactly how that’s going to look.” (Lim and Ollstein, 6/17)

The New York Times: Lessons On Coronavirus Testing From The Adult Film Industry
As more states open up and people return to work, companies are looking for guidance on how to keep workers safe from infection. Some experts suggest looking to what may seem an unlikely model: the adult film industry. It survived a different pandemic — an outbreak of H.I.V. infections in the late 1990s that almost shuttered the multibillion-dollar industry. “We can actually learn a lot about safety guidelines by listening to producers of porn,” said Perry N. Halkitis, dean of the School of Public Health at Rutgers University. “Thinking back to the H.I.V./AIDS crisis, the adult film industry had to learn how to keep their workers safe.” (Hollow, 6/18)

The Associated Press: US Warns 3 Companies Over Illegal At-Home COVID-19 Tests
U.S. health regulators are cracking down on three companies for selling at-home blood tests for coronavirus, warning that the products have not been shown to safely and accurately screen for COVID-19. The Food and Drug Administration sent warning letters to the companies Wednesday, saying their products are illegal because they have not been reviewed by the agency for home use. While the FDA has OK’d a handful of tests that allow patients to collect saliva samples at home, the agency has not cleared any tests for use completely at home. (Perrone, 6/17)

The Associated Press: Race For Virus Vaccine Could Leave Some Countries Behind
As the race for a vaccine against the new coronavirus intensifies, rich countries are rushing to place advance orders for the inevitably limited supply to guarantee their citizens get immunized first — leaving significant questions about whether developing countries will get any vaccine before the pandemic ends. Earlier this month, the United Nations, International Red Cross and Red Crescent, and others said it was a “moral imperative” that everyone have access to a “people’s vaccine.” But such grand declarations are unenforceable, and without a detailed strategy, the allocation of vaccines could be extremely messy. (Cheng and Larson, 6/18)

Reuters: WHO Sees 'Green Shoots' Of Hope In COVID-19 Pandemic
Signs of hope are starting to show in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, but it added that countries must continue to work on prevention measures to limit the spread of the new coronavirus. While cases are “still rapidly rising” in many regions of the world, there are “green shoots of hope”, the WHO’s Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an online media briefing. (6/17)

The Associated Press: Cuomo: NYC Is On Track For Next Phase Of Virus Reopening
New York City is on track to open more businesses and could enter the second phase of reopening Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday. Cuomo, a Democrat, said the state Department of Health reported 17 coronavirus-related deaths in hospitals and nursing homes Tuesday. He also pointed to the gradual decline in rates of individuals testing positive: fewer than 1% of results for roughly 60,000 individuals tested Tuesday for COVID-19 were positive. (Villeneuve, 6/17)

The New York Times: The Pandemic Isn’t Over. New Yorkers Are Acting As If It Were.
Three sisters from three different boroughs shared the same bench on the Coney Island boardwalk and toasted with cups of beer — together again at last. Teenagers with baseball gloves and a bat sneaked through a hole in a fence at a closed-off diamond. A manager at a Brooklyn clothing store insisted to a reporter that no, they’re not open, since that’s not allowed, even as customers browsed inside. Officially, New York City is still in Phase 1 of the long reopening process, a land of curbside pickups and closed playgrounds and takeout cocktails that aren’t supposed to be consumed in public. (Wilson, 6/18)

The Washington Post: D.C. Looking To Enter Next Phase Of Coronavirus Recovery Monday, Mayor Says
The District will be the last holdout in the Washington region’s move to the next phase of coronavirus recovery, but the city expects to enter Phase 2 next week. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said the city could begin to lift more restrictions Monday — a step that will permit indoor dining and the reopening of retail, camps, swimming pools, worship services without singing and gatherings of up to 50 people. (Zauzmer, Davies and Hedgpeth, 6/17)

NPR: Amid Confusion About Reopening, An Expert Explains How To Assess COVID-19 Risk
Across the country, states are loosening the restrictions that had been put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19 — with varying results. New cases are decreasing in some states, including New York, Michigan and Colorado, while case numbers and hospitalizations have swelled recently in several states, including Texas, Arizona and Florida. "Since the very first day of this pandemic, I don't think [we've been] in a more confused position about what's happening," epidemiologist Michael Osterholm says. "We just aren't quite sure what [the coronavirus is] going to do next." (Gross, 6/17)

The New York Times: Why The Sickest Workers May Be Among The First Back On The Job
Last month, Patti Hanks faced a wrenching decision: go back to her job, or lose her health insurance.Ms. Hanks, 62, recently had ovarian cancer treatment. With her immunity low, she was nervous about returning to her workplace, a store where she would be drawing up financing plans and taking cash payments from customers buying furniture and large appliances. But she was even more worried about losing her health coverage if she didn’t go back. Finding a job with health benefits that allowed her to work from home felt like a pipe dream in the midst of an economic downturn. (Kliff, 6/18)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Is Hitting Black Business Owners Hardest
The coronavirus pandemic will shutter many small businesses. And early evidence shows it is disproportionately hurting black-owned small businesses. More than 40 percent of black business owners reported they weren’t working in April, when businesses were feeling the worst of the pandemic’s economic consequences. Only 17 percent of white small business owners said the same, according to an analysis of government data by Robert Fairlie of the University of California, Santa Cruz. (Leatherby, 6/18)

NPR: As States Reopen, Do They Have Enough Staff To Do Contact Tracing?
An NPR survey of state health departments shows that the national coronavirus contact tracing workforce has tripled in the last six weeks, from 11,142 to 37,110 workers. Yet, given their current case counts, only seven states and the District of Columbia are staffed to the level public health researchers say is needed to contain outbreaks. Contact tracers are public health workers who reach out to each new positive coronavirus case, track down their contacts, and connect both the sick person and those who were exposed with the services they need to be able to safely isolate themselves. This is an essential part of stamping out emerging outbreaks. (Simmons-Duffin, 6/18)

The New York Times: How Housekeepers And Domestic Helpers Can Safely Return To Work
Around the world, millions of domestic workers were abruptly sent away when coronavirus shutdowns and social distancing orders were imposed. Now as communities begin to reopen, many people are wondering when it will be safe to open their houses again to domestic helpers. If you are an employer worried about the health risks of letting house cleaners, nannies and health aides back into your quarantined home, remember that it’s the worker who faces the biggest risk of being exposed to your germs and those of the other households where they work. (Parker-Pope, 6/18)

The Associated Press: A Look At Dueling Policing Proposals Considered By Congress
As Americans protest racial inequality and the death of George Floyd and others at the hands of police, their pleas are being heard in the chambers of the U.S. Capitol. Both Democrats and Republicans have introduced legislation to reform policing in America, but they diverge on some issues. The far-reaching legislative proposal from Democrats, the Justice in Policing Act, would limit legal protections for police, create a national database of excessive-force encounters and ban police chokeholds, among other changes. (Balsamo, 6/18)

Reuters: Atlanta Police Officer Charged With Murder In Shooting Death Of Rayshard Brooks
The death of Brooks - the latest in a long line of unarmed African Americans whose fatal encounters with law enforcement have been documented on video - further heightened U.S. social tensions at a time of national soul-searching over police brutality and racism in the criminal justice system. An Atlanta police officer was charged on Wednesday with murder for the shooting death last week of Rayshard Brooks in a fast-food parking lot, while a fellow officer facing lesser charges has agreed to testify against his colleague. (McKay and Layne, 6/17)

The Washington Post: House Panel Approves Expansive Policing Bill To Ban Chokeholds And Make It Easier To Prosecute Officers For Misconduct
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have tentatively scheduled votes on their respective proposals late next week, at which point the two sides could begin the first substantive bipartisan talks on racial justice since George Floyd’s Memorial Day death at the hands of Minneapolis police. (Kane, Kim and Wagner, 6/17)

Politico: House Judiciary Panel Advances Police Reform Bill After Emotional Debate
After nearly 12 hours of tense debate, the committee approved the bill along party lines with all Republicans voting in opposition. The Democrats’ plan, which will go to the House floor next week, would ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants, limit officers’ immunity from prosecution and establish a national database of police misconduct. (Ferris, Cheney, Caygle and Bresnahan, 6/17)

Politico: Antifa, Big Tech, And Abortion: Republicans Bring Culture War To Police Brutality Debate
The House Judiciary Committee late Wednesday approved a major police reform bill on a party-line vote, the first step by Congress to address a crisis that has roiled the country since George Floyd died in police custody on May 25. Yet for much of the day, the panel was ensnared in acrimonious cultural and political quarrels that had little to do with the underlying issue of police brutality, which the legislation is supposed to address. (Bresnahan and Ferris, 6/17)

The New York Times: De Blasio, Pressured On Policing, Acts To Toughen Discipline
Under immense pressure to overhaul Police Department tactics and curb the department’s authority, Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday announced a series of significant changes in the way the nation’s largest police force will discipline its officers. The changes include the creation of a database next month that will track the roughly 1,100 pending cases involving allegations of police abuse and will include the officers’ names and the charges. The city will also publish all internal trial decisions and eventually make all disciplinary records, past and present, accessible online. (Rubinstein, 6/17)

The New York Times: N.Y. Protesters Say The Police Attacked Them: 'It Felt Like Warfare' 
One protester said a police officer used a baton to pin him by his neck against a squad car. Another said she was tackled by an officer who then drove his knee into her back so hard she could not breathe. A third — a registered nurse — was tending to a young man with a head wound, but claimed the police would not allow an ambulance to drive through a crowd to fetch him. A fourth described rushing through a line of police with batons to help a sobbing teenage girl, then escaping with her just before an officer tried to grab them. (Feuer, 6/17)

The Associated Press: AP-NORC Poll: Sweeping Change In US Views Of Police Violence
A dramatic shift has taken place in the nation’s opinions on policing and race, as a new poll finds that more Americans today than five years ago believe police brutality is a very serious problem that too often goes undisciplined and unequally targets black Americans. The new findings from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research suggest the death of George Floyd and the weeks of nationwide and global protests that followed have changed perceptions in ways that previous incidents of police brutality did not. (Stafford and Fingerhut, 6/18)

Reuters: Mothers As 'Trauma Surgeons:' The Anguish Of Raising Black Boys In America
The death of George Floyd, a 46-year old black man who died in May after a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes, has triggered widespread protests in the United States and around the world against police brutality and racism. It has also been a painful reminder to black mothers in the U.S. how vulnerable their children, and especially their sons, are to police brutality, at least five women Reuters interviewed said. (Moore, Caspani and Washington, 6/17)

The Associated Press: As Racism Protests Roil US, Florida Revisits Dark Past
On Election Day a century ago, a white mob swept through a tiny Florida citrus town after a black man showed up at the polls to vote. Over two days of terror, the mob set fire to homes and drove black residents from their community. It was one of the bloodiest days in American political history, with the number of deaths remaining in question — some estimates as high as 60. (Calvan, 6/18)

Reuters: Black Patients With COVID-19 In Atlanta More Likely To Be Hospitalized: CDC 
A study of coronovirus patients in Atlanta has found that black patients are more likely to be hospitalized than white patients, highlighting racial disparities in the U.S. healthcare system, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Wednesday. About 79% of black patients were hospitalized for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, against 13% of white patients, according to the study here across six metropolitan hospitals and outpatient clinics in Atlanta, Georgia, between March and April 2020. (6/17)

The New York Times: Race Is Used In Many Medical Decision-Making Tools
Unbeknown to most patients, their race is incorporated into numerous medical decision-making tools and formulas that doctors consult to decide treatment for a range of conditions and services, including heart disease, cancer and maternity care, according to a new paper published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The unintended result, the paper concludes, has been to direct medical resources away from black patients and to deny some black patients treatment options available to white patients. (Kolata, 6/17)

Reuters: Tiny Sponges May Soak Up Coronavirus; Old Steroid Dexamethasone Saves Lives In COVID-19 Study
Scientists have developed microscopic sponges - a thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair - they hope might be used inside the body to attract and neutralize the coronavirus. The "nanosponges" are coated with membranes from lung cells or from immune cells known as macrophages, study co-leader Liangfang Zhang of the University of California, San Diego told Reuters. These cell membranes have the same receptor proteins on their surfaces that the virus uses to break into cells in the body. In test tube experiments, the nanosponges successfully acted as decoys to attract and inactivate the virus, Zhang's team reported on Wednesday in the journal Nano Letters. (Lapid, 6/17)

The Associated Press: Study Ties Blood Type To COVID-19 Risk; O May Help, A Hurt
A genetic analysis of COVID-19 patients suggests that blood type might influence whether someone develops severe disease. Scientists who compared the genes of thousands of patients in Europe found that those who had Type A blood were more likely to have severe disease while those with Type O were less likely. Wednesday’s report in the New England Journal of Medicine does not prove a blood type connection, but it does confirm a previous report from China of such a link. (Marchione, 6/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Long Voting Lines Are Latest Hurdles For Officials Prepping For November Polls
State and local election officials already scrambling to handle an expected surge in mail-in ballots for November’s general election also face challenges dealing with in-person voting during the pandemic. Hourslong waits to vote in primary elections in Georgia and Nevada last week showed that many people will need or want to vote in person even if states offer the option of voting by mail, some elections experts said. In Las Vegas, one of the last to vote—around 3 a.m.—was Elvis impersonator Steve Connolly, who said he waited for eight hours at a voting center after not receiving an absentee ballot in the mail. (Corse, 6/18)

The Associated Press: Minnesota Waives Absentee Ballot Witness Signature Mandate
Minnesota will waive its witness requirements for absentee ballots for the statewide primary election in August under the settlement of two lawsuits sparked by the health threat from the coronavirus pandemic. The lawsuits were filed by political arms of the League of Women Voters of Minnesota and the Minnesota Alliance for Retired Americans. A Ramsey County judge signed off on the consent decree with the retirees Wednesday while a federal judge scheduled a hearing for Thursday on the league’s case. (Karnowski, 6/18)

Politico: L.A. County Has Found The Cause Of Its Hourslong Poll Lines. It Wasn’t The New Voting Machines.
The hourslong wait times that snarled the March 3 primary in Los Angeles County stemmed from malfunctions in the electronic tablets used to check in voters at the polls, according to an unpublicized county report that adds to questions about the nation’s readiness for November. The report concludes that these devices — known as electronic poll books — and not the county’s new $300 million voting machines were the source of those delays. Although the voting machines also had problems, the report faults inadequate planning, testing and programming of the poll books that workers used to check in voters and verify that they’re registered — technology that has also been implicated in this month’s meltdown at the polls in Georgia’s primary. (Zetter, 6/17)

NPR: Delaware Widely Offered A Controversial Online Voting Option. Now It's Backing Away
Delaware briefly deployed a controversial internet voting system this summer but scrapped it amid concerns about security and public confidence. Before the online option was shuttered, voters returned more than 2,700 ballots electronically — and those votes still will be counted, according to the state, along with conventional votes in the upcoming July primary. (Schmidt and Parks, 6/18)