- HealthLA Times
Coronavirus kills some people and hardly affects others: How is that possible?
How can the new coronavirus affect people so differently — killing some while leaving others blissfully unaware that they have been infected at all?
695695 reactions - CelebrityRobb Report
Paris Hilton Once Owned One of the Coolest Supercars Ever. Now It’s Up for Sale.
With low miles and high street cred, the former reality star's rare Lexus LFA is now available through an Ohio dealership.
- CelebrityIn The Know
Kristen Bell says she was told she wasn’t ‘pretty enough’ at 'every single audition' in the past
Kristen Bell’s career is one many actresses would envy, but that hasn't always been the case.
- BusinessThe Week
Trump is meeting with oil company CEOs to raise gas prices he just celebrated as a 'massive tax cut'
President Trump is meeting at the White House on Friday with the top executives of some of the largest U.S. oil companies to discuss ways his administration might support the oil and gas industry amid an oil crash. On Thursday, Trump tweeted that he had spoken with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Russia — whose price war combined with a sharp drop in demand due to the coronavirus pandemic to tank oil prices — and expected them to cut production, which "will be GREAT for the oil and gas industry!" Indeed, oil prices shot up after Trump's tweet and continued rising early Friday.But higher oil prices mean higher gas prices for consumers, as CNN political analyst Joe Lockhart noted. 10 million newly unemployed Americans and the President is working hard to raise, yes I said raise, the price of gas for every American. — Joe Lockhart (@joelockhart) April 2, 2020Trump embraced that tension at Wednesday's coronavirus press briefing: "Now, gasoline's gonna be 99 cents a gallon and less, you know that. That's already starting, it's popping up — 99 cents. So that's like giving a massive tax cut to people of our country." He also mentioned, "I'm going to meet with the oil companies on Friday," and said, "We don't want to lose our great oil companies."On Tuesday, Trump told the White House press corps that he'll join Russia and the Saudis "at the appropriate time if need be" to work on helping end their price war, explaining, "it's hurtful to one of our biggest industries, the oil industry." In mid-March, meanwhile, Trump said he "would have dreamed about" oil prices this low, adding: "With gasoline prices coming down, that's like a tax cut. Frankly, that's like a big tax cut, not a little tax cut, for the consumer." Tax cuts, it appears, don't solve everything.More stories from theweek.com Social distancing is going to get darker 5 brutally funny cartoons about Trump's TV ratings boast Donald Trump is playing with revolutionary fire
- WorldNational Review
China Wants to Use the Coronavirus to Take Over the World
What started as a catastrophe for China is shaping up to be a moment of strategic opportunity, a rare turning point in the flow of history. Suddenly, the protests in Hong Kong, carrying a mortal threat to political stability in the mainland, became a physical impossibility. More important, the pandemic set in motion a global competition, to contain the virus, for which China and the Chinese Communist Party seem uniquely prepared.As the virus spread to the whole world, it became apparent that Western societies — Beijing’s true rivals — did not have the ability to quickly organize every citizen around a single goal. As opposed to China, which remains to a large extent a revolutionary society, their political systems were built for normal times. Chinese society is a mobilized army, which can quickly drop everything else and march in one direction.Mao once said, “Everything under heaven is in utter chaos, the situation is excellent.” And so it seems at present, as seen from Beijing. Chinese diplomats stationed all over the world spend their time raising the stakes to a dangerous level. Following instructions from the very top, they have taken to the media to issue a challenge to America, to point out its failure, and to compare the chaos in American cities and hospitals with what they see as a singular success in stopping the epidemic in China.Several commentators have suggested that China may be winning the coronavirus battle by stepping forward in providing medical help to affected countries, mostly in Europe, at a time when the United States is consumed with its own difficulties. This misses the point.The cases have been multiplying where the medical equipment provided by Chinese companies and even the Chinese state turned out to be faulty, provoking justified ire in, for example, Spain, the Netherlands, and Turkey. Moreover, medical help is a normal occurrence in a crisis. China has done nothing different, except perhaps in the clumsy way it publicizes those efforts.Forget about “mask diplomacy.” It is no more than a distraction. There are other ways for China to use the coronavirus pandemic to upturn the existing global order. I see three main levers.The first one is the direct comparison between the situation in China and elsewhere. The numbers of cases and fatalities provided by Chinese authorities almost certainly misrepresent the real figures by more than an order of magnitude, but the fact remains that a semblance of normalcy was achieved in a small period of time. If the United States fails to do the same, its prestige will suffer a severe blow. People all over the world will quickly change their perceptions about relative power and capacity.The second lever resides with industrial value chains. Last month General Motors, Ford, and Fiat Chrysler closed all their automotive production plants across the United States and Canada. Other sectors have followed. In the meantime, China contained the worst of the pandemic to one province, allowing economic activity to quickly resume elsewhere. The most recent data show renewed activity in the flow of goods across the country, as well as at ports worldwide that do business with China. If the freeze in Europe and America continues for much longer, Chinese companies will be able to dramatically expand market share and replace Western-led value chains. Just yesterday Chinese authorities announced that manufacturing activity expanded in March, defying expectations of a contraction. In February the official Purchasing Managers’ Index hit a record low of 35.7. It bounced back to 52.0 in March. Prepare for a worldwide wave of Chinese acquisitions at knockdown prices.Finally, in a more extreme scenario, important countries could experience the kind of economic shock that leads to widespread social and political collapse. At that point, China would have a unique opportunity to step in, provide aid, and refashion these countries in its image. It would look like a repeat of the Marshall Plan and the beginning of the American world order after the ravages of World War II. Indonesia, South Asia, and even Russia might be of special interest in such a scenario.We knew that a generalized race or competition between alternative geopolitical models had started, but it was never clear what the background for such a competition would be. If the clash took place within the existing global trade and financial system, which was of course built according to Western rules and principles, the United States was confident the battle could be decisively won. But what if it took place on neutral ground? What if it took place in a kind of neutral landscape, a state of nature with few or no rules, against a chaotic and quickly evolving background? The outcome would become considerably more uncertain.To put it more bluntly: There was always an argument that the existing world order cannot change because only a momentous war has done that in the past and world wars have become impossible. But in pandemics — and soon in climate change — we may have found two functional equivalents of war.
- StyleVogue
Bella Hadid Raises the Bar on At-Home Style Thanks to This Cool New York Designer
She wore one of the buzziest brands of the moment to do so.
- U.S.USA TODAY
Police cite woman for going on leisurely drive during Pennsylvania stay-at-home order
It's the first time a person has been cited under the state's disease control and prevention act of 1955, police say.
