The Daily Moth 2-17-2020
14 Americans infected with coronavirus from cruise ship; Fans of German soccer team stand up to racism; Michael Bloomberg apologizes for “stop and frisk” policy; Severe flooding in Mississippi and Tennessee; Deaf boy on ABC’s “The Good Doctor”
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Hello, welcome to The Daily Moth! It is Monday, February 17. Hope your weekend was good. Ready for news?
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14 Americans infected with coronavirus from cruise ship
There were more than 300 Americans who evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan that has been docked and quarantined since February 3 because of an outbreak of coronavirus on the ship.
The 300 Americans were placed on two charter flights and arrived at military bases in California and Texas.
Fourteen of them were confirmed to be infected with COVID-19. It was thought that infected people would not be allowed to board the flight, but officials said the fourteen were assigned to a special, secure area where they were monitored.
For all the other Americans who are healthy — they will have to be quarantined for 14 days at the air bases.
The 14 infected Americans will probably go to a separate area to be isolated and to get care.
The Diamond Princess ship is still docked in Yokohama. There are 454 people infected on board.
There is another cruise ship that is impacted by COVID-19 — a Holland America ship that finally docked in Cambodia after being denied by five Asian countries. It was thought that nobody on the ship was infected, but now it is reported that an 83-year-old American woman who had already left the ship and flew from Cambodia to Malaysia is infected. There are 143 other people from the ship that have already flown to other countries, so there is a lot of concern. The American woman is still in Malaysia with her 84-year-old husband because he has pneumonia and they are apparently at some kind of health center.
In Russia, there is a woman named Alla Ilyina who escaped from a hospital quarantine after a visit to China. She posted on Instagram that she tested negative for the virus but was told to stay at the hospital for two weeks, and did not want to comply. She disabled an electronic lock at a hospital and posted on Instagram about it. She defied attempts by police to bring her back, and now a Russian court has ordered her to go to the hospital. She is fighting the order in court.
The New York Times reported that Chinese politicians are considering introducing new laws regulating trade and consumption of wildlife, because the epidemic is believed to have come from consumption of wild animals in Wuhan such as bats or maybe pangolins. There are some suspicions from U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark) that the outbreak may have come from a government-run disease research lab near a Wuhan seafood market.
The COVID-19 has killed more than 1,775 people in the world and infected over 71,000. Most of the people impacted are in China. Almost 11,000 people have recovered.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
https://apnews.com/9b2c6764d9368cffc6cf3e4e94ff48d7
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/17/coronavirus-live-updates-us-citizens-japan-diamond-princess-cruise-ship-china-wuhan-hubei-cases-death-toll-latest-news
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51488861
https://nypost.com/2020/02/17/alla-ilyina-who-escaped-coronavirus-quarantine-in-russia-ordered-back-to-hospital/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/16/tom-cotton-coronavirus-conspiracy/
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Fans of German soccer team stand up to racism
During a professional soccer match in Germany, a black player named Leroy Kwadwo stopped playing to point at a man in the stands who he said was racist by making monkey noises at him.
CNN reported that others in the stands helped Kwadwo to single out the man, who was ejected from the stadium. Fans changed “Nazis out, Nazis out!” while the man was removed. Fans then applauded Kwadwo and the game went on.
The home club is Preussen Munster and they were playing against the Wurzburger Kickers, which is the team that Kwadwo plays for.
Kwadwo’s family is from Ghana. He was born in Germany. He issued a statement saying that the incident makes him sad and angry. He said “Racism doesn’t belong in OUR world” and “I am one of you.” He thanked his teammates for standing by his side.
Preussen Munster issued a statement apologizing to Kwadwo and said it is one of the club’s foundations to stand clearly against any form of discrimination.” They said the (racist) fan was arrested.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/17/football/germany-racism-leroy-kwadwo-wurzburger-kickers-preussen-munster-spt-intl/index.html
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Michael Bloomberg apologizes for “stop and frisk” policy
Michael Bloomberg apologized on Saturday for the “stop and frisk” policy that he supervised during his time as mayor of New York City.
The “stop and frisk” policy is when NYPD police officers stopped and questioned people who they suspected to be in some kind of criminal activity. The majority of people who were stopped were young black and Hispanic men.
The New York Times reported that during Bloomberg’s three terms as mayor, from 2002 to 2013, over 5 million people were stopped. In 2009, black and Hispanic people were nine times more likely than white people to be stopped by police.
There were thousands of people who protested the “stop and frisk” policy, but Bloomberg defended the practice. In 2013, a federal judge said the policy violated the constitutional rights of minorities in the city.
Bloomberg has said as recently as January that the “stop and frisk” policy was effective and helped to reduce the city’s murder rate by taking away guns. But analysts say that the city’s murder rates continue to go down even after the policy ended.
Now that the Democratic presidential nomination race is getting hotter, and as Bloomberg spends hundreds of millions of dollars on ads, there is more and more criticism of “stop and frisk.”
Bloomberg said on Saturday that he defended the policy for too long and that he did not fully understand the unintentional pain it caused young black and brown kids and their families. He said he should have acted sooner and stopped it, and he didn’t, and he apologizes for that.
This issue is sure to come up on Wednesday’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is still not known if Bloomberg will appear as he needs one more state or national poll that puts him above 10%.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/17/nyregion/bloomberg-stop-and-frisk-new-york.html
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/22/politics/bloomberg-stop-and-frisk/index.html
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/483292-speculation-swirls-around-whether-bloomberg-will-make-las-vegas-debate
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Severe flooding in Mississippi and Tennessee
In Jackson, Mississippi, USA Today reported that hundreds of residents saw their homes flooded by the swollen Pearl River, which has crested at 36.8 feet, the third-highest level on record.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves has declared a state of emergency and said the flooding won’t end anytime soon. About 1,000 homes have been flooded and many more are threatened.
Emergency crews went door-to-door in some areas and helped people to evacuate from floodwaters.
The floods were caused by multiple rainstorms this month. There are rainstorms in the forecast.
In Tennessee, rains in February are 400% above normal. There is a video of two homes crumbling below landslides, with pieces of it rolling down a steep, exposed hillside by the Tennessee River. Fortunately, firefighters evacuated the occupants before they collapsed.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/tennessee-river-landslide-homes-rain
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/17/mississippi-flooding-swamps-southern-us/4784911002/
https://weather.com/news/weather/video/tennessee-landslide-sweeps-away-two-homes-amid-weeks-of-rain
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Deaf boy on ABC’s “The Good Doctor”
A deaf boy named Zade Garcia will be on ABC’s “The Good Doctor” tonight at 10 pm EST, after “The Bachelor.”
His role is a boy who is hearing but is unable to speak because of an underdeveloped trachea. It seems like there will be some kind of controversy on if he should undergo a special surgery that will enable him to speak.
The show “A Good Doctor” is about a young surgeon, Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) who has autism and savant syndrome.
Zade is from Georgetown, Texas and attends the Texas School for the Deaf.
There is plenty of good pictures and information of what happened behind the scenes if you follow “Zade’s World” on Facebook.
Zade’s first acting gig was on “This Close” on SundanceTV, which was created, written, and cast by deaf people Josh Feldman and Shoshannah Stern.
Stern was herself on ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” on Thursday as deaf doctor Dr. Lauren Riley, and she will be on TV again this Thursday.
Zade was featured with the Garcia family on A&E’s “Deaf Out Loud” special that aired in 2018.
So we can see how things can work to a success with #DeafTalent — how one opportunity or one connection leads to another.
Tonight at 10 pm EST, ABC, “The Good Doctor.”
https://www.facebook.com/zadesworld/
https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article240235881.html
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That is all for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light!