Michigan Gov. Whitmer defends abortions during pandemic as part of 'life-sustaining' health care

Michigan won't ban abortions during the coronavirus outbreak as other states have done, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Thursday, insisting the procedures were part of maintaining "life-sustaining" health care.
“We stopped elective surgeries here in Michigan, and some people have tried to say that that type of a procedure is considered the same, and that’s ridiculous,” Whitmer, a Democrat, told former Barack Obama political strategist David Alexrod on his podcast when he asked about other states that have sought bans amid the outbreak.

 “You know, a woman’s health care, her whole future, her ability to decide if and when she starts a family is not an election, it is a fundamental to her life," she added. “It is life-sustaining, and it’s something that government should not be getting in the middle of.”

"A woman’s health care ... her ability to decide if and when she starts a family is not an election, it is a fundamental to her life. It is life-sustaining, and it’s something that government should not be getting in the middle of.”
— Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer

Axelrod asked if she thought the pandemic created a “backdoor” way for some states to permanently ban abortion or if the temporary bans elsewhere were a legitimate policy decision to slow the spread of the virus.
“My gut is it’s the former," she said. "I’m not in Texas, I don’t know all the individuals involved but I do think there is a concerted effort to use every opportunity to take away women’s ability to make our own health care decisions."
Whitmer has been hit with protests and some lawsuits over her stay-at-home order, which some have said is too restrictive. Protesters swarmed Michigan's capital city, Lansing, on Wednesday to protest the policy.
States that have moved to restrict abortion during the crisis include Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. The bans are being challenged in court, according to Time magazine.
Texas barred medical abortions – which involves taking pills -- because of the shortage of personal protective equipment and to keep hospital beds open during the outbreak.
The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals this week ruled to allow medical abortions to continue in the state.
Abortion bans during the crisis could make getting one after the outbreak more difficult if providers are financially destabilized, Time reported.

Lindsey Graham meets Joy Behar's challenge to name three things Trump 'did right' on coronavirus

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., defended President Trump on Thursday as "The View" co-host Joy Behar challenged him to name three things the president "did right" during the coronavirus pandemic.
"The first thing he did," Graham said, "was -- [on], I think January 31st -- stop travel from China. The Chinese are the bad guy here if you're looking for a bad guy."
Graham added that the China travel restriction "probably saved us a lot of heartache," saying that move, along with subsequent restrictions on European travel and declaring a national emergency, "flattened the curve."
Graham admitted that the U.S. was "struggling" with testing, but said that he "can't really blame the president" for that.
LINDSEY GRAHAM: EFFORTS TO DESTROY TRUMP AT ANY COST IS 'GETTING A BIT OLD'
Behar also asked Graham about Trump's decision to halt funding to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Graham, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said he wanted to see a change in leadership as he had lost confidence in the global health agency.
"I think they conspired with China to downplay the nature of the virus, that they reported all through January there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission," he said. "... The money that's being suspended will go to other people throughout the world to deal with health issues."

FBI says state hackers have broken into US coronavirus research: report

Foreign government hackers have broken into companies conducting research into COVID-19 treatment and the U.S. healthcare sector, an FBI official reportedly said.
Tonya Ugoretz, the FBI Deputy Assistant Director, told participants in an online panel discussion on Thursday that the bureau has seen state-backed hackers looking at a series of healthcare and research institutions.
She didn't specify what countries backed the hackers or what organizations were targeted.

Laboratory scientist Andrea Luquette cultures coronavirus back in March to prepare for testing at U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., where scientists are working to help develop solutions to prevent, detect and treat the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

“We certainly have seen reconnaissance activity, and some intrusions, into some of those institutions, especially those that have publicly identified themselves as working on COVID-related research,” Ugoretz said, according to Reuters.
She said that hackers routinely have their sights set on the biopharmaceutical industry but their activity is usually increased during a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic.
Ugoretz said as institutions publicize certain treatments or vaccines they're working on, it leaves them vulnerable to attacks.
“The sad flipside is that it kind of makes them a mark for other nation-states that are interested in gleaning details about what exactly they’re doing and maybe even stealing proprietary information that those institutions have," she added, according to the news organization.
Bill Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said, "now is the time" for institutions to be aware of attacks on their research that could be crucial in the battle against COVID-19.
“Medical research organizations and those who work for them should be vigilant against threat actors seeking to steal intellectual property or other sensitive data related to America’s response to the COVID19 pandemic,” he added, according to Reuters.

Global stocks rally Friday on Gilead’s coronavirus treatment and Boeing’s production restart

U.S. stock futures are signaling a strong start to Friday's session adding to the momentum seen on Thursday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average are up more than 700 points or 3 percent while the S&P 500 was higher by nearly 3 percent and the Nasdaq Composite 2 percent as of 6:00 a.m. ET.
Earlier in the evening, President Trump outlined the early-stage, phase approach as part of the  “Opening Up America Again" coronavirus come back plan and there was also positive news on Gilead Sciences.
Its drug Remdesivir, according to Statnews.com, showed effectiveness for treating COVID-19 patients. Shares of Gilead rose over 10 percent in the extended session.
A recent clinical trial of Remdesivir, an antiviral medicine used as a potential treatment for Ebola, found rapid recoveries in coronavirus patients' fever and respiratory symptoms.
The trial, conducted by the University of Chicago Medicine, found nearly all patients who were given daily infusions of Remdesivir were discharged from the hospital in less than a week.
And Dow member Boeing was rising nearly 8 percent in the extended session after announcing plans to resume commercial airplane production in Washington State.
The late-day gains Thursday build on what was a positive day for stocks in the regular session despite more grim unemployment numbers.
In Asian Markets on Friday, Japan's Nikkei rose 3.2 percent,  Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 1.6 percent and China's Shanghai Composite added 0.7 percent.
In Europe, London's FTSE added 3.3 percent, Germany's DAX gained 3.4 percent and France's CAC rose 3.9 percent.
Oil on the other hand, is moving in the other direction. U.S. crude is trading down 7 percent to $18.49.
The Labor Department reported initial jobless claims totaling 5.25 million for the week through April 11, worse than the 5.1 million that economists surveyed by Refinitiv were anticipating. The data raises the number of first-time filings due to disruptions from COVID-19, including stores closing and factories idling, to about 22 million.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
I:DJI	DOW JONES AVERAGES	23537.68	+33.33	+0.14%
SP500	S&P 500	2799.55	+16.19	+0.58%
I:COMP	NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX	8532.362524	+139.19	+1.66%

Despite those figures, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average rose nearly 33 points, or 0.12 percent, while the broader S&P 500 gained 0.57 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 1.66 percent led by big-cap tech names including Amazon, Netflix and Microsoft.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
AMZN	AMAZON.COM INC.	2,408.19	+100.51	+4.36%
NFLX	NETFLIX INC.	439.17	+12.42	+2.91%
MSFT	MICROSOFT CORP.	177.04	+5.16	+3.00%

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Thousands protest Michigan governor’s social distance order

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Thousands of flag-waving, honking protesters drove past the Michigan Capitol on Wednesday to show their displeasure with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s orders to keep people at home and businesses locked during the coronavirus outbreak.

As snow fell, others got out of their vehicles and raised signs, one of which read, “Gov. Whitmer We Are Not Prisoners.” Another said, “Michigander Against Gretchens Abuses.”

Hours later, Whitmer shot back, telling reporters that the rally put health at risk.

The “Operation Gridlock” protest was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition. The ripples were widely felt: Traffic was barely moving for miles in some areas of Lansing.

“This arbitrary blanket spread of shutting down businesses, about putting all of these workers out of business, is just a disaster. It’s an economic disaster for Michigan,” coalition member Meshawn Maddock said. “And people are sick and tired of it.”

Whitmer, a Democrat, extended a stay-home order through April 30 and has shut down schools and businesses deemed non-essential. The governor acknowledged the pain but said the restrictions were necessary to stop the spread of the coronavirus, which causes a respiratory illness that has killed more than 1,900 Michigan residents and overwhelmed hospitals in the Detroit area.

Whitmer said she was “really disappointed” to see protesters close together without masks.

“I saw someone handing out candy to little kids barehanded,” the governor told reporters. “People are flying the Confederate flag, and untold numbers who gassed up on the way here or grabbed a bite on the way home. We know that this rally endangered people. This kind of activity will put more people at risk and, sadly, it could prolong the amount of time we have to be in this posture.”

During the rally, Republican House Speaker Lee Chatfield, who has urged Whitmer to amend her orders, waved an American flag from a window at his Capitol office.

Full Coverage: Virus Outbreak

The protest drew an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 people, about 150 of whom demonstrated on the Capitol steps or main lawn, said Michigan State Police spokeswoman Shanon Banner, who said demonstrators were peaceful. There was an arrest when one protester assaulted another. Police did not ticket anyone for violations of the governor’s orders.

“The majority of demonstrators remained in their vehicles, and most of those who were on foot were practicing social distancing,” Banner said.

Four sheriffs in the northwestern Lower Peninsula called Whitmer’s orders a “vague framework of emergency laws” that are frustrating citizens. Leelanau County Sheriff Mike Borkovich said people don’t understand why they can’t take a child fishing in a motorboat but they can use a kayak.

“We’re trying to keep the peace with people. ... The economy is coming apart in northern Michigan. People are upset,” Borkovich told The Associated Press. “People are frantic to get back to work. They have been very edgy.”

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White reported from Detroit. Associated Press writer David Eggert in Lansing contributed to this report.

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This story has been corrected to show that police did not ticket anyone for violations of the governor’s orders.

New York to require face coverings in busy public places

NEW YORK (AP) — Even as politicians talk about “reopening” the country, New York is still intensifying restrictions intended to stop the coronavirus from spreading.

Face coverings will be now be required in any place where people can’t stay at least six feet away from other people. While other isolation measures seem to have worked in keeping new infections down, New Yorkers continue to die by the hundreds every day. Meanwhile, New York City officials said they would create an emergency food reserve and take other steps to fight hunger in a city where huge numbers of people have been thrown out of work.

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Here are the latest coronavirus developments in New York:

FACE COVERINGS

New York residents will be required to wear face coverings anytime they come into close contact with other people outside their homes, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday.

The mandate will require a mask or face covering, like a bandanna, on busy streets, public transit, or any situation where people cannot maintain 6 feet of social distancing, even if it is passing a person briefly on a wooded trail. The order takes effect Friday.

“Stopping the spread is everything. How can you not wear a mask when you’re going to come close to a person?” Cuomo said at his daily briefing. “On what theory would you not do that?”

The governor, who has himself eschewed masks during his daily news briefings, though he comes within six feet of his staff, said there will initially be no civil penalties for noncompliance, but he’s urging merchants to enforce it among customers.

Though hospitalizations from the outbreak have leveled off, New York officials are still trying to reduce the rising death toll. New York recorded 752 deaths Tuesday, for a total of nearly 11,600 since the outbreak began.

Those figures don’t include roughly 4,000 more deaths in New York City that city officials say were probably caused by the virus, but haven’t been confirmed by a lab test.

Cuomo’s announcement came hours after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called for stores to make customers wear face coverings in order to protect workers against exposure. De Blasio had previously recommended face coverings in public in the city.

The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death.

____

FOOD PLAN

In a city where 1.2 million residents — including one in five children — struggle at times to feed themselves, the number is expected to grow as an estimated half-million New Yorkers have lost or are likely to lose their jobs soon.

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“We will make sure everyone gets the food they need,” de Blasio said in unveiling a $170 million plan to help.

The city already is handing out 250,000 free meals a day at schools and delivering 25,000 a day to senior citizens. Officials expect to provide 10 million free meals in April and expect the need to grow to as much as 15 million in May.

Meanwhile, the city has contacted some 11,000 taxi and livery drivers — whose livelihoods have been shattered as people stay home — to hire them to deliver meals to those who can’t leave home.

While officials said the city food supply is stable, they also plan to create a $50 million reserve of as many as 18 million shelf-stable meals.

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NURSING HOMES

The virus has been unmerciful on nursing homes, killing 2,500 patients in just a few weeks, but so far New York state has refused to disclose the names of facilities where people have died.

State officials took one step toward transparency Wednesday, saying they will now require facilities to tell residents and their families within 24 hours if another patient at the home has contracted the virus or died. The upcoming executive order also will include adult homes, where more than 580 people have died.

But the state will continue to withhold the names of nursing homes that have experienced severe outbreaks from others, saying patients deserve privacy.

The change was intended to help people like Cindy Coughlin, who told The Associated Press she’s struggled to get information about whether there is a COVID-19 outbreak at the nursing home in Johnson City where her 83-year-old father in-law resides.

Coughlin said she’s at a loss to understand how the public release of information would endanger anyone’s privacy.

“I wish they would do that,” Coughlin said. “I don’t’ know if it would make you feel worse or better, but I think I’d feel a lot better knowing there was only 5 cases there instead of 25. I guess that’s one thing I can’t understand.”

___

THE ECONOMIC EQUATION

Cuomo said getting people back to work safely before a vaccine is developed will require not only large-scale testing, but tracing the personal contacts of people who test positive and isolating infected people.

But testing and tracing people in a state of 19 million is not possible without federal help, he said.

“That is a massive undertaking,” he said. “It’s intelligent but it’s massive.”

In the meantime, New York will begin testing 2,000 people a day for virus antibodies this week via a newly developed finger-prick test. Priority will be given to nurses, New York City police and other first responders, so they can know if they’ve been infected.

Both Cuomo and de Blasio said leaders need to be deliberative about trying to rev up the economy without creating an opportunity for the coronavirus to come roaring back.

“I want to restart the economy desperately ... but the best way to do it is to be careful,” de Blasio said.

Cuomo said the state could consider lifting restrictions first for businesses that pose a lesser risk of infection and are considered more “essential.”

___

OUT OF PRISON

Former New York state Senate leader Dean Skelos was expected to be released soon from prison to home confinement after testing positive for the coronavirus.

Skelos has been serving a four-year and three-month prison term after he was convicted of extortion, wire fraud and bribery.

___

Villeneuve and Hill reported from Albany, N.Y.

LA mayor says large sporting events, concerts may not be possible until 2021

Large sporting events or concerts may not be possible in the Los Angeles area for the rest of the year due to the coronavirus outbreak, the mayor of the nation's second-largest city said Wednesday.
“It’s difficult to imagine us getting together in the thousands any time soon,” Mayor Eric Garcetti said during an interview on CNN. “I think we should be prepared for that this year. I think we all have never wanted science to work so quickly. But until there’s either a vaccine, some sort pharmaceutical intervention or herd immunity, the science is the science.”
Later, Garcetti clarified to FOX 11 of Los Angeles that he doesn’t yet have an official timeline for when large events will be possible, but stressed he wasn’t talking about all events.
California's Gov. Newsom outlines plan to loosen stay-at-home orders but warns, 'we are not out of the woods'
“All I know is while we don’t know the date those things will return, I know they will be sooner the more we take these actions,” he told FOX 11, referring to mitigation measures such as quarantining at home and social distancing.
“I certainly would love to see some sports games and concerts later this year," he continued, "and whether that means those are athletes playing by themselves [without live spectators] or whether that can be potentially in person. But I think we’re a long way off from huge gatherings. We are not as long away from medium-size gatherings. And we’re still today not at a place of even small gatherings.”
The restrictions could also delay the opening of SoFi Stadium, the new $5 billion Inglewood, Calif., home of the NFL's Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers, which is scheduled for this fall, ChargersWire reported. Construction on the stadium has continued despite the pandemic, FOX 11 reported.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom reiterated that gatherings of hundreds or thousands of people will likely be impossible very soon based on current guidelines, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Setting a precise date for a return to many normal activities is difficult to do, Dr. Paul Simon from the Los Angeles Department of Public Health told FOX 11.
“The important point is we can’t predict the future," Simon said. "I think we have to take it week by week. ... I think if we do scale back it will be in a very gradual and strategic way.”
President Trump said this week he would like to start opening up parts of the country on May 1.

Sources believe coronavirus originated in Wuhan lab as part of China's efforts to compete with US

There is increasing confidence that COVID-19 likely originated in a Wuhan laboratory not as a bioweapon, but as part of China's effort to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities of the United States, multiple sources who have been briefed on the details of early actions by China's government and seen relevant materials tell Fox News.
This may be the "costliest government coverup of all time," one of the sources said.
The sources believe the initial transmission of the virus was bat-to-human, and that "patient zero" worked at the laboratory, then went into the population in Wuhan.
The “increasing confidence” comes from classified and open-source documents and evidence, the sources said. Fox News has requested to see the evidence directly. Sources emphasized -- as is often the case with intelligence -- that it’s not definitive and should not be characterized as such. Some inside the administration and the intelligence and epidemiological communities are more skeptical, and the investigation is continuing.
What all of the sources agree about is the extensive cover-up of data and information about COVID-19 launched by the Chinese government.
Asked by Fox News' John Roberts about the reporting, President Trump remarked at Wednesday's coronavirus press briefing, "More and more we're hearing the story...we are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation."
Documents detail early efforts by doctors at the lab and early efforts at containment. The Wuhan wet market initially identified as a possible point of origin never sold bats, and the sources tell Fox News that blaming the wet market was an effort by China to deflect blame from the laboratory, along with the country's propaganda efforts targeting the U.S. and Italy.
U.S. Embassy officials warned in January 2018 about inadequate safety at the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab and passed on information about scientists conducting risky research on coronavirus from bats, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

In this Tuesday, March 10, 2020, photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping talks by video with patients and medical workers at the Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province. (Xie Huanchi/Xinhua via AP)

Responding to the report, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday afternoon: "It should be no surprise to you that we have taken a keen interest in that and we've had a lot of intelligence take a hard look at that. I would just say at this point, it's inconclusive, although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural, but we don't know for certain."
“Even today, I see them withholding information and I think we need to do more to continue to press them to share,” Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told “America’s Newsroom" on Wednesday, referring to China. Esper added that he wouldn't speak to "intelligence reporting," but that "most people believe it began naturally -- it was organic, if you will. I think in due course, once we get through the pandemic we're in right now, there'll be time to look back and really ascertain what happened and make sure we have a better understanding so we can prevent this in the future."
Speaking to "The Story" Wednesday evening, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo remarked: "What we do know is we know that this virus originated in Wuhan, China. We know there is the Wuhan Institute of Virology just a handful of miles away from where the wet market was. There is still lots to learn. You should know that the United States government is working diligently to figure it out."
Concerning the State Department cables warning about the Wuhan laboratory, Pompeo said the installation "contained highly contagious materials -- we knew that, we knew that they were working on this program, many countries have programs like this. In countries that are open and transparent, they have the ability to control them and keep them safe, and they allow outside observers in to make sure all the processes and procedures are right. I only wish that that had happened in this place."
Americans were originally helping train the Chinese in a program called PREVENT well before the Chinese started working on this virus. The French government helped the Chinese set up the Wuhan lab.
China "100 percent" suppressed data and changed data, the sources tell Fox News. Samples were destroyed,  contaminated areas scrubbed, some early reports erased, and academic articles stifled. 
There were doctors and journalists who were "disappeared" warning of the spread of the virus and its contagious nature and human to human transmission.  China moved quickly to shut down travel domestically from Wuhan to the rest of China, but did not stop international flights from Wuhan.
Additionally, the sources tell Fox News the World Health Organization (WHO) was complicit from the beginning in helping China cover its tracks.  
   

Commuters wear face masks to protect against the spread of new coronavirus as they walk through a subway station in Beijing, Thursday, April 9, 2020. China's National Health Commission on Thursday reported dozens of new COVID-19 cases, including most of which it says are imported infections in recent arrivals from abroad and two "native" cases in the southern province of Guangdong. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Trump announced at the White House coronavirus news briefing in the Rose Garden on Tuesday that the United States will immediately halt all funding for the WHO, saying it had put "political correctness over lifesaving measures." The United States is the WHO's largest single donor, and the State Department had previously planned to provide the agency $893 million in the current two-year funding period.
Senior administrations separately tell Fox News the rollout of the president’s “blueprint for re-opening the U.S. economy” will happen Thursday afternoon, first for governors and then briefed to the press.
Meanwhile, Trump's own handling of the crisis has come into focus. On January 24, for example, Trump tweeted in praise of China’s “transparency" on coronavirus.
Though they were not speaking for the president, the sources ventured an explanation, saying it was diplomatic talk to make the Chinese "feel good". while the investigation was ongoing, with trade and other talks happening simultaneously.
In the six days after top Chinese officials secretly determined they likely were facing a pandemic from a new coronavirus, the city of Wuhan at the epicenter of the disease hosted a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people; millions began traveling through for Lunar New Year celebrations.
TRUMP CUTS ALL WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION FUNDING
President Xi Jinping warned the public on the seventh day, Jan. 20. But by that time, more than 3,000 people had been infected during almost a week of public silence, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press and expert estimates based on retrospective infection data.
“This is tremendous,” said Zuo-Feng Zhang, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “If they took action six days earlier, there would have been much fewer patients and medical facilities would have been sufficient. We might have avoided the collapse of Wuhan’s medical system.”
Fox News' Barnini Chakraborty and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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