Trump's Washington is failing badly with no end in sight to pandemic battle
Updated 1051 GMT (1851 HKT) May 21, 2020
Two months into the pandemic battle, national politics have hardened into an ugly, dispiriting limbo amid a sense that during a generational crisis, there is no one in charge.
Haunted by an invisible pathogen that has drained trademark energy and optimism from American life, the ordeal has clearly not drawn the country together -- it's tearing it further apart. And there is still no clear path out of the darkness.
The stasis is deepened because as every state moves toward some kind of opening, there is no convincing metric to show conclusively whether the battle is being won.
'All the psychoses of US history': how America is victim-blaming the coronavirus dead
As racism warps the US pandemic response, a health crisis has escalated into a culture war
Why do Americans represent less than 5% of the world’s population but nearly a third of the known coronavirus death toll? Not because of government incompetence, the Trump administration is arguing, but because Americans are very unhealthy.
The United States’ organized response to the pandemic had been “historic”, Trump’s health secretary, Alex Azar, told CNN on 17 May, but America “unfortunately” has a “very diverse” population, and black Americans and minorities “in particular” have “significant underlying disease”.
Jake Tapper, the CNN anchor interviewing Azar, paused and squinted. Surely, he asked, Azar was not arguing that “the reason that there were so many dead Americans is because we’re unhealthier than the rest of the world?”
HUGE ROTATING DISC SEEN DEEP IN THE UNIVERSE CHALLENGES OUR UNDERSTANDING OF GALAXIES
Discovery could help answer the puzzle of one of the most profound questions in cosmology: how the universe formed
A huge, rotating disc galaxy has been found deep in the universe – and challenges our understanding of galaxies.
The disc was formed 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, far earlier than predicted by our current understanding of galaxy formation. That such a galaxy could form so early in the history of the universe indicates that our traditional understanding – where galaxies build up in hierarchies, late in the history of the cosmos – could be wrong.
The discovery could help answer the puzzle over one of the most profound questions in cosmology: how the universe changed from its bland, formless state at its very beginning to the complex and structured web of stars and galaxies that surround us today.
Migrants accuse Greece of forced deportations
New findings suggest Greek authorities are illegally deporting refugees across the Turkish border. As part of an international research team, DW identified and met some of the victims who were forced back.
"Come with us and we will issue you new papers," a Greek police officer told Bakhtyar on a Wednesday morning in late April. The 22-year-old Afghan man believed the offer was the key to realizing his dream of starting a new life in Europe.
Two months earlier Bakhtyar had crossed the Evros River, a border between Turkey and Greece, and a key route for refugees seeking to reach the European Union. He continued onward to Diavata, the official refugee camp set up on the outskirts of Greece's second-largest city, Thessaloniki. Upon arrival he was careful to register with the Greek police, the precursor to seeking international protection — and a first step in the asylum process. A photograph of his document shows the date to be February 12, 2020.
Two men who allegedly helped Carlos Ghosn flee Japan arrested in U.S.
U.S. authorities on Wednesday arrested a former U.S. Army Special Forces soldier and another man in Massachusetts wanted by Japan on charges that they enabled the escape of former Nissan Motor Co boss Carlos Ghosn out of the country.
Former U.S. Green Beret Michael Taylor, 59, and his son, Peter Taylor, 27, are accused by Japanese authorities of helping Ghosn last year flee to Lebanon to avoid trial over alleged financial wrongdoing.
The U.S. Marshals Service arrested them in Harvard, Massachusetts, at the request of Japan, which in January issued arrest warrants for both men along with a third, George-Antoine Zayek, in connection with facilitating the Dec. 29, 2019 escape.
Amphan: Kolkata devastated as cyclone leaves scores dead
The eastern Indian city of Kolkata has been devastated by a powerful cyclone which has killed at least 84 people across India and Bangladesh.
Storm Amphan struck land on Wednesday, lashing coastal areas with ferocious wind and rain. It is now weakening as it moves north into Bhutan.
Thousands of trees were uprooted in the gales, electricity and telephone lines brought down and houses flattened.
Many of Kolkata's roads are flooded and its 14 million people without power.
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