Nation & World Glance
Zuckerberg-funded scientists: Rein in hate on
BOSTON — Dozens of scientists doing research funded by Mark Zuckerberg say Facebook should not be letting President Donald Trump use the social media platform to “spread both misinformation and incendiary statements.”
The researchers, including 60 professors at leading U.S. research institutions, wrote the Facebook CEO on Saturday asking Zuckerberg to “consider stricter policies on misinformation and incendiary language that harms people,” especially during the current turmoil over racial injustice.
The letter calls the spread of “deliberate misinformation and divisive language” contrary to the researchers’ goals of using technology to prevent and eradicate disease, improve childhood education and reform the criminal justice system.
Their mission “is antithetical to some of the stances that Facebook has been taking, so we’re encouraging them to be more on the side of truth and on the right side of history as we’ve said in the letter,” said Debora Marks of Harvard Medical School, one of three professors who organized it.
The others are Martin Kampmann of the University of California-San Francisco and Jason Shepherd of the University of Utah. All have grants from a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative program working to prevent, cure and treat neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Two Buffalo police officers were charged with assault Saturday, prosecutors said, after a video showed them shoving a 75-year-old protester in recent demonstrations over the death of George Floyd.
Robert McCabe and Aaron Torgalski, who surrendered Saturday morning, pleaded not guilty to seconddegree assault. They were released without bail.
McCabe, 32, and Torgalski, 39, “crossed a line” when they shoved the man down hard enough for him to fall backward and hit his head on the sidewalk, Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said at a news conference, calling the victim “a harmless 75-year-old man.”
The officers had been suspended without pay Friday after a TV crew captured the confrontation the night before. If convicted of the felony assault charge, they face up to seven years in prison. McCabe’s lawyer, Tom Burton, said after the arraignment that prosecutors didn’t have any grounds to bring felony charges. He said his client is a decorated military veteran with a clean record as a police officer.
Jobs report diminishes GOP appetite for more virus aid WASHINGTON — A stronger than expected jobs report could further scramble an already uncertain picture for passing a fifth and possibly final coronavirus aid bill. The positive statistics are feeding the wait-and-see approach of the White House and its GOP allies in Congress.
Republicans say the numbers vindicate their decision to take a pause and assess the almost $3 trillion in assistance they already have approved. The White House was already showing little urgency about pursing another trillion-dollar response bill, much less the $3.5 trillion measure passed by the House last month, and prefers to concentrate on reopening the economy.
The coming weeks are expected to bring difficult negotiations over what the package should contain, just months before an election where the White House and control of Congress are at stake.
For lawmakers, tough decisions loom about how much money to allocate to states, how to extend unemployment benefits for millions of people and whether to create lawsuit protections for businesses and schools as they reopen during the pandemic.
Friday’s jobs report showed a 2.5 million gain instead of an expected loss of millions more, complicating prospects for the aid talks. Trump is difficult to gauge, but talks often of pursing public works spending and a payroll tax cut, which is a nonstarter on Capitol Hill.
“They are less than urgent, less than inclined for another package,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., a GOP leader when his party was in the majority. “There is less urgency to go strike a hard deal — and this one would be a hard deal. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen, I just think the urgency is far lessened.”
Brazil govt yanks virus death toll as data befuddles experts
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s government has stopped publishing a running total of coronavirus deaths and infections in an extraordinary move that critics call an attempt to hide the true toll of the disease in Latin America’s largest nation.
The Saturday move came after months of criticism from experts saying Brazil’s statistics are woefully deficient, and in some cases manipulated, so it may never be possible to gain a real understanding of the depth of the pandemic in the country.
Brazil’s last official numbers showed it had recorded over 34,000 deaths related to the coronavirus, the third-highest number in the world, just ahead of Italy. It reported nearly 615,000 infections, putting it at the second-highest, behind the United States. Brazil, with about 210 million people, is the globe’s seventh most populous nation.
On Friday, the federal Health Ministry took down a website that had showed daily, weekly and monthly figures on infections and deaths in Brazilian states. On Saturday, the site returned but the total numbers of infections for states and the nation were no longer there. The site now shows only the numbers for the previous 24 hours.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tweeted Saturday that disease totals are “not representative” of the country’s current situation.