South Australia's oyster growers are given the all-clear over a potentially devastating disease.

A 53-year-old man accused of lighting up to four bushfires in north Queensland will undergo a mental health assessment, after a dramatic arrest where he allegedly rammed a police car and officers fired shots at his vehicle.

As Victoria's road toll surges well above what it was this time a year ago, we look at some of the state's most misunderstood traffic rules.

In their ruling, the three Court of Appeals judges say a couple who were inside the home had not done anything to "revoke or negate" the implied right for police to walk up their footpath and approach the door.

A Federal Court judge finds the Registered Organisations Commission's investigation into donations made to the activist group in 2006 when former opposition leader Bill Shorten was leading the union was not politically motivated, but it was launched on a "flawed"basis.

Three people charged with female genital mutilation offences could face further punishment after the High Court ruled a NSW court erred in quashing their convictions.Warning: This story contains graphic details.

An estimated 75,000 backpackers working, or that have worked in Australia, could be back-paid hundreds of millions of dollars after the Federal Court ruled the so-called backpacker tax invalid.

The Gold Coast Titans announce they are parting ways with coach Garth Brennan, citing the team's poor performance on field this season, as Kevin Walters rules himself out as a replacement.

Whether it's poor merging or illegally remaining in the overtaking lane, drivers who break the law and behave badly are contributing to road congestion in Queensland, experts say.

Scott Morrison steps in after former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce suggested the family facing deportation to Sri Lanka should be allowed to remain in the central Queensland town of Biloela.

A Tamil family facing deportation is given until Friday to consider a "surprise" development in their case, after the Immigration Minister said he would not exercise his discretion to allow the youngest daughter to stay in Australia.

The festival had been scheduled to begin performances at its Ashland theaters in early September, but Gov. Kate Brown has banned large gatherings into at least October.  

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is making more changes to its film eligibility rules for the 2021 Golden Globes in light of the coronavirus pandemic. The organization implemented new rules last month that are in effect until April 30. However, the HFPA announced on Tuesday morning that the date has been extended indefinitely because of […]

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has tweaked its Oscar eligibility rules in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. During a meeting on Tuesday, the board of governors approved a temporary hold on the requirement that a film needs a seven-day theatrical run in a commercial theater in Los Angeles County to qualify […]

The Television Academy has ruled: No more double dipping. After several years of documentary projects walking the line between the Oscars and Emmys — and finding the loophole to submit for both — the org has ruled that programs won't be eligible for an Emmy if they've been nominated for an Oscar. The TV Academy […]

Airport temperature screenings mark latest discord between Trump administration and CDC over federal coronavirus response and science of public health

The world is nearing 4 million cases of the coronavirus. More COVID-19 news Saturday.

Former President Barack Obama on Friday stated the "rule of law is at risk" in response to the Department of Justice dropping its criminal charges against retired Army Lieutenant General, Michael Flynn, according to an audio call obtained by Yahoo News.

By Nicole Nixon

Update 6:25 p.m.

As California prepares to enter the first phase of its economic reopening, the state released new guidelines Thursday, both for businesses wanting to expand operations and for counties looking to loosen restrictions on residents.

Moving into phase two “does not mean a return to normal,” said California Health & Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly. “We know that COVID-19 is still spreading.” 

Beginning Friday, some businesses in the retail, manufacturing and logistics sectors will be allowed to reopen, though retail stores can only provide curbside services.

Businesses have to meet a checklist before reopening. It includes:  

• Performing a detailed risk assessment and implement a site-specific protection plan
• Training employees on how to limit the spread of COVID-19, including how to screen themselves for symptoms and stay home if they have them
• Implementing individual control measures and screenings
• Implementing disinfecting protocols
• Implementing physical distancing guidelines

Businesses will have to meet certain industry guidelines for COVID-19 safety as well. The guidelines instruct manufacturers to limit person-to-person contact during production by installing shelving or other “transfer-aiding materials,” for example.  

Retailers are encouraged to prioritize product delivery and pickup. They are also instructed to cut in-store maximum occupancy numbers by half.  

Still, some businesses are still being expressly prohibited from reopening during phase two, including bars, gyms, nail salons, movie theaters and theme parks.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said there’s a reason nail salons are not included in phase two: “This whole thing started in the state of California — the first community spread —  in a nail salon,” he said.

The infection happened despite sanitation measures normally seen in nail salons, including alcohol-based products and nail technicians wearing masks and gloves. 

“I’m very worried about that,” Newsom said. 

How counties can get approval to reopen

While some counties have pressured the governor to allow them to reopen their local economies more broadly, others — including Yuba, Sutter and Modoc counties — didn’t wait for permission. 

Counties and their local health officers are now being given latitude to allow some other sectors to reopen, including malls, car washes, pet grooming, offices and dine-in restaurants — if they meet strict criteria. 

It includes additional surge capacity in local hospitals, the ability to conduct a minimum 15 tests per 100,000 residents daily and going 14 days without a COVID-19 death in the county, among other things.

It could be a long time before more populous counties get there. Dr Peter Beilenson, director of health services in Sacramento County, said the county meets all criteria except for that and having enough contact tracers (15 tracers per 100,000 county residents). 

“We expect to have the appropriate amount of contact tracing staff within the next two weeks,” Beilenson said in a statement to CapRadio. “In the meantime, we encourage everyone to continue following the safe social distancing and other guidelines provided in the Public Health Order.”

Counties that do meet the criteria must consult with the California Department of Public Health and submit their own local reopening plans to the state. Those plans must include what sectors and public spaces the county will allow to reopen, and a contingency plan for modifying local health orders if the disease begins to spread. 

Last month, Newsom unveiled six key indicators that will help him decide when to move the state into each new phase of reopening. They include the state’s testing capacity, hospitalization rates and ability for businesses and public spaces to implement health measures like sanitation and social distancing, among other things. 

The governor noted that he may tighten the statewide stay-at-home order again if the disease begins spreading as restrictions loosen. 

The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday overturned a lower court decision to put Senate candidate Michelle Ferrigno Warren's name on the June 30 Democratic primary ballot, siding with the Secretary of State's Office.

Now is the time for the governor to reign in unelected officials, take back his order, re-work it, and immediately begin to restore freedom and responsibility to Colorado businesses to save our state.

As RTD scatters the homeless, many are likely to crowd into the few areas where they are still allowed during the lockdown, possibly exacerbating this public health crisis.

Colorado lawmakers don't have to meet for 120 consecutive days during a declared public health emergency, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in a narrow decision Wednesday.

No more than 15 passengers will be permitted on a typical bus, and each rail car will be limited to 30 passengers.

The U.S. Justice Department can not withhold millions of dollars in federal funding to Colorado law enforcement agencies by attaching immigration-related terms and conditions to securing the grants according to a federal judge's ruling.

The Department of Education today issued the long-awaited rules governing the administration of Title IX in universities and K-12. According to the press release, the “key provisions” of the Department of Education’s new Title IX regulation are: Defines sexual harassment to include sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking, as unlawful discrimination on the … Continue reading Issuance of Title IX Rules Governing Educational Institutions →

As RTD scatters the homeless, many are likely to crowd into the few areas where they are still allowed during the lockdown, possibly exacerbating this public health crisis.

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh is pushing for a change that would allow football players to enter the NFL draft after one year in college.

"The big questions of the day for the workers is, 'I don’t feel safe. Do I have to go back to work?'" a Colorado Department of Labor and Employment official said Monday. "And, as with everything with unemployment, it depends."

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser on Wednesday forcefully pushed back on new federal campus sexual assault rules which would bolster the rights of the accused, promising to fight the U.S. Department of Education in court.

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh is pushing for a change that would allow football players to enter the NFL draft after one year in college.

Sorry, Nelly, no new friends.

Trump Administration not sticking to its own order.

Many accused him of not abiding by social distancing laws.

Trump Administration not sticking to its own order.

If Bernie Sanders wants to say that Fidel Castro occasionally did something good, while acknowledging that he often did things that were very bad, I think that’s a reasonable position. (It might also be reasonable to say that Adolf Hitler occasionally did something good, though offhand I can’t think of a good example.) But surely […]

A few weeks ago, the US telecom industry began pushing a bullshit narrative through its usual allies. In short, the claim revolves around the argument that the only reason the US internet still works during a pandemic was because the Trump FCC ignored the public, ignored most objective experts, and gutted itself at the behest of telecom industry lobbyists. The argument first popped up over at AEI, then the Trump FCC, then the pages of the Wall Street Journal, and has since been seen in numerous op-eds nationwide. I'd wager that's not a coincidence, and I'd also wager we'll be seeing a lot more of them.

All of the pieces try to argue that the only reason the US internet works during a pandemic is because the FCC gutted its authority over telecom as part of its "restoring internet freedom" net neutrality repeal. This repeal, the story goes, drove significant investment in US broadband networks (not remotely true), resulting in telecom Utopia (also not true). The argument also posits that in Europe, where regulators have generally taken a more active role in policing things like industry consolidation and telecom monopolies, the internet all but fell apart (guess what: not true).

Usually, like in this op-ed, there's ample insistence that the US broadband sector is largely wonderful while the EU has gone to hell:

"Unlike here, European networks are more heavily regulated. This has led to less investment and worse performance for consumers for years. American consumers are being generally well served by the private sector."

Anybody who has spent five minutes talking to Comcast customer support -- or tried to get scandal-plagued ISP like Frontier Communications to upgrade rotten DSL lines -- knows this is bullshit. Still, we penned a lengthy post exploring just how full of shit this argument is, and how there's absolutely zero supporting evidence for the claims. The entire house of cards is built on fluff and nonsense, and it's just ethically grotesque to use a disaster to help justify regulatory capture and market failure.

While it's true that the US internet, in general, has held up relatively well during a pandemic, the same can't be said of the so called "last mile," or the link from your ISP's network to your home. Yes, the core internet and most primary transit routes, designed to handle massive capacity spikes during events like the Superbowl, has handled the load relatively well. The problem, as Sascha Meinrath correctly notes here, is sluggish speeds on consumer and business lines that, for many, haven't been upgraded in years:

"Right now, an international consortium of network scientists is collecting 750,000 U.S. broadband speed tests from internet service provider (ISP) customers each day, and we’ve been tracking a stunning loss of connectivity speeds to people’s homes. According to most ISPs, the core network is handling the extra load. But our data show that the last-mile network infrastructure appears to be falling down on the job."

Again, your 5 Mbps DSL line might be ok during normal times, but it's not going to serve you well during a pandemic when your entire family is streaming 4K videos, gaming, and Zooming. And your DSL line isn't upgraded because there's (1) very little competition forcing your ISP to do so, and (2) the US government is filled to the brim with sycophants who prioritize campaign contributions and ISP revenues over the health of the market and consumer welfare. And while there's a contingency of industry-linked folks who try very hard to pretend otherwise, this is a policy failure that's directly tied to mindless deregulation, a lack of competition, and, more importantly, corruption. In short, the complete opposite of the industry's latest talking point.

For years we've been noting how US telcos have refused to repair or upgrade aging DSL lines because it's not profitable enough, quickly enough for Wall Street's liking. Facing no competition and no regulatory oversight, there's zero incentive for a giant US broadband provider to try very hard. Similarly, because our lawmakers and regulators are largely of the captured, revolving door variety, they rubber stamp shitty mergers, turn a blind eye to very obvious industry problems, routinely throwing billions in taxpayer money at monopolies in exchange for fiber networks that are usually only partially deployed -- if they're deployed at all.

Meanwhile, US telcos that have all but given up on upgrading aging DSL lines have helped cement an even bigger Comcast monopoly across vast swaths of America. It's a problem that the telecom sector, Trump FCC, and various industry apologists will ignore to almost comical effect. Also ignored is the fact that this results in US broadband subscribers paying some of the highest prices for broadband in the developed world:

"Numerous studies, including those conducted by the FCC itself, show that broadband pricing is the second-largest barrier to broadband adoption (availability is the first). It’s obvious that if people are being charged a lot for a service, they’re less likely to purchase it. And independent researchers have already documented that poor areas often pay more than rich communities for connectivity. Redlining of minority and rural areas appears to be widespread, and we need accurate pricing data from the FCC to meaningfully address these disparities."

Try to find any instance where Ajit Pai, or anybody in this chorus of telecom monopoly apologists, actually admits that the US broadband market isn't competitive and, as a result, is hugely expensive for businesses and consumers alike. You simply won't find it. What you will find are a lot of excuses and straw men arguments like this latest one, designed to distract the press, public, and policymakers from very obvious market failure. Market failure that was a major problem in normal times, and exponentially more so during a pandemic where broadband is an essential lifeline.

My first job out of college was teaching biology, chemistry, physics, and vocational agriculture at Triway High School in rural Wooster, Ohio. I lasted for six weeks. The school environment was such a downer, from the smoke-filled teachers’ lounge to my young co-workers who were teaching mainly, it seemed to me, to avoid service in Vietnam. So when a reporting job became available, I jumped on it, leaving Ohio forever. Years later I returned to teaching, this time at Stanford University, where I worked for six years. Now, 37 years after Stanford, I’m teaching my kids at home thanks to COVID-19. You may be teaching your kids, too. This column is my attempt to make your job easier. It’s not that I’m God’s gift to […]






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