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TODAY'S HEADLINES:

The Senate unanimously passed a $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill late last night after Bernie Sanders stood up to preserve unemployment benefits. And Joe Biden dodges new MeToo accusations by a former staffer.

Meanwhile, the pandemic exacerbates social divides within the United States and around the world. Ireland nationalizes its health sector so fast, you’d think it was easy.

And lastly, some news networks will stop running Donald Trump’s coronavirus briefings because they’re too full of lies. Naturally, Trump once again blames the media for his failures.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The United States Congress was not ready to vote last night on a $2.2 trillion so-called stimulus bill prepared in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Various factions of both parties had their reasons for delaying the measure – some valid, others less so.

A few Republican Senators, including Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, objected to provisions in the bill that would provide unemployment benefits to displaced workers. Others, like New York Governor Governor Andrew Cuomo, demanded more aid for certain of their constitutents. Vermont Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders placed a hold on the bill over those Republican objections, calling their opposition to benefits for workers morally objectionable. Sanders also said he was concerned by a part of the plan that would create a $500 billion slush fund to be doled out to corporations at the discretion of Donald Trump. Provided Republicans compromised, Sanders indicated he would favor the bill provided it put cash into the hands of working families, hospitals, and states and localities that desperately needed it.

Former Vice President and supposed Democratic Party presidential front-runner Joe Biden was accused of sexual assault by a former staffer, Tara Reade. Part of Reade’s story came out in The Intercept earlier this week, but more details emerged in an interview yesterday with Rolling Stone’s Katie Halper. Reade said in 1993 Biden put her against a wall, and without consent QUOTE penetrated me with his fingers. When I pulled away, he pointed at me and said, 'You're nothing to me' ENDQUOTE. The Biden campaign offered no response. The

candidate did however hold an online soiree targeting younger Americans, who have so far, by overwhelming margins, rejected his candidacy. It attracted fewer than three thousand viewers online -- and, judging by online commentary, many of those were waiting for him to say something they could make fun of on social media.

America is the new epicenter of the global coronavirus pandemic, with New York emerging as the nation’s own hotspot. Hospitals are overwhelmed and crucial medical supplies are still unavailable in the quantities they’re needed. The state’s morgues are full. By this weekend, officials expect they will be over capacity. (North Carolina and Hawaii also reported too many dead bodies to handle.)

Although Governor Cuomo has been receiving plaudits in some quarters for his handling of the crisis, many widely touted measures crumble under scrutiny. For instance, prisoners upstate who are supposedly making hand sanitizer on Cuomo’s orders told Vice News they were not manufacturing anything, but rather putting a commercial product in new bottles labeled N.Y.S. Clean.

Officials in San Francisco said yesterday they expect a crisis on par with New York’s. California Governor Gavin Newsom placed a moratorium on mortagage payments. It emerged that half the state’s infections are among people between 18 and 49 years of age. Colorado will be ordering residents to stay home. Idaho already has. In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, garbage collectors refused to pick up trash until they recieve hazard pay and protective gear. The Pentagon said it would halt all overseas travel for US service members and their families for sixty days, with a few exceptions, including troops leaving Afghanistan.

Mexico’s left-wing president promised to bail out the poor in his country, rather than banks and big companies. Brazil’s fascist ruler said coronavirus is not a problem – he called it the little flu. But drug gangs in the favelas are taking the pandemic more seriously, and have reportedly imposed strict curfews. A resident of the so-called City of God, a favela made famous by the movie of the same name, told The Guardian QUOTE The traffickers are doing this because the government is absent. The authorities are blind to us ENDQUOTE. I guess the drug gangs want to have some living, breathing customers when this is all over.

One in three canadians expects to miss mortgage or rent payments in coming months, and two-thirds either have lost work or expect to, according to a new survey reported by the

national broadcaster. But even conservative provinces are taking measures to aid workers and tenants. In Ireland, the government nationalized the entire healthcare sector for the first time. It was necessary, in the words of the country’s public health commissioner, because competition between the public and private sectors have created problems in delivering care.

The G-7 group of major industrialized nations was supposed to issue a joint statement yesterday. It did not. The reason? Trump’s Secretary of State -- the thoroughly unqualified fundamentalist Christian zealot Mike Pompeo – insisted that two specific words be included. Those words? In the following order: Wuhan virus.

That’s right, the White House prevented international action on the number one most urgent crisis facing humanity because representatives of six other countries – including three former Axis Powers – thought the language Trump’s henchman demanded was racist, unfair, and needlessly divisive.

The president himself seems to be losing it, though this hasn’t yet been reflected in his approval ratings. Yesterday he called reports that he was isolated in the White House fake news – and you know what that means. (They’re true.) He also said that the LameStream Media were trying to hurt his reelection prospects by keeping businesses closed and that who he called the Real People were just itching to get back to work. During a global pandemic. Right. Without me, Trump said, QUOTE you wouldn’t even have a country left ENDQUOTE. Also yesterday, his campaign sent out cease and desist letters to television stations that aired an ad criticizing his handling of the pandemic. CNN, NBC, and some NPR affiliates announced they would stop airing his live press briefings because they contained too many lies. And Americans around the country began receiving mailers from the federal Centers for Disease Control that promoted President Trump in big bold black type. One of the benefits of incumbency!

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The terrorist who killed fifty-one Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand last year, reversed himself yesterday and pleaded guilty to all charges. Brenton Tarrant, aged twenty-nine, from Australia, sent written instructions to his lawyers to change his plea. His reasons remain unclear. Victims families were relieved by the news. Sentencing hearings will follow.

Two years ago, a group of federal prosecutors were ready to charge Walmart over its role in the prescription opioid abuse crisis. But then Trump’s political appointees got wind of the charges and killed the indictments. The story finally came out yesterday thanks to ProPublica. Rod Rosenstein played a special role in derailing the case to save Walmart, saying, QUOTE We are all capitalists here ENDQUOTE.

A retired Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, Robert Levinson, held in Iran since 2007, is dead. This comes according to his family, which made the announcement yesterday. Reportedly working undercover for the Central Intelligence Agency, Levinson was the longest- held hostage in US history. Details remain vague. The CIA long denied his employment.

The Turkish government charged twenty Saudi citizens in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Two of the men charged reported directly to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. All were alleged to be directly involved in Khashoggi’s 2018 murder in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, reportedly on MBS’s orders. Arrest warrants were issued but the trials will be held in absentia. So it goes.

That’s all for the AM Quickie. Join us this afternoon on the Majority Report.

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